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    Canonfire :: View topic - Black Moon Chronicles Map Q
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    Black Moon Chronicles Map Q
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    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Mar 02, 2016
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    Fri Oct 22, 2021 8:31 pm  
    Black Moon Chronicles Map Q

    Anybody know if there is an actual map for the landI(s) from the Black Moon Chronicles comic? Not the "adapted" version in that giant "Oerik" map but the actual BMC comic landmass(es). ??

    Thanks.
    GreySage

    Joined: Jul 26, 2010
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    From: LG Dyvers

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    Sat Oct 23, 2021 7:05 am  

    Icarus is probably the most knowledgeable person on Canonfire! when it comes to the Blackmoon Chronicles and their association with Greyhawk.

    If you can't reach him here, you might try at the Oerth Journal webpage.

    SirXaris
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    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Sat Oct 23, 2021 7:19 am  

    There was an earlier thread that included a map from the MMO.



    The comics themselves (which I read for the first time a month or so ago) don't have any continental maps as such, though there are some local maps. Honestly, the Oerik map seems to be more or less accurate to the story (I suspect Froideval must have been the one who created it). I used the Oerik map as a guide as I read the comics, and I didn't notice anything blatantly contradictory, though of course the local maps in the comics included more detail.

    (The contradictions are more at the cosmic level: only one moon, a monotheistic religion, etc.)
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Sat Oct 23, 2021 1:11 pm  

    Thanks much, SirXaris and Rasgon.

    Rasgon, since you have read the chronicles, i have a couple more q's. Unfortunately, your brain (as usual) just has too much info to neglect...

    Did you enjoy the Black Moon Chronicles (BMC)?

    Did the BMC characters/land/story feel like Oerik?

    Was there any mention of Oerth, Oerik, Oeridians, the Suel, the Flanaess, or any other data that would tie it directly into Oerik (or Oerth for that matter)?

    Was there a name given to the BMC planet/world?

    And the BMC world had a single moon, and it was black?

    Was that moon somehow stationary in the sky, or was it orbiting the planet?

    Did the small regional maps provided in the comics match the regions in the Dragon Annual map?

    If that Dragon Annual map hadn't incorporated the BMC lands, would you have thought that those lands "belonged" or were a natural fit in the west of Oerik? That is, just from reading the comics, would you have said "this stuff should fit right into the west coast of Oerik!"?


    I'm essentially making my own version of "oerth" after so many years. (Ties in to my recent Q about the nature of the Oerth gods which you answered quite well.) Had hoped there would be some way for the community to piece together a more workable version than that overstuffed mega-Oerik from the Dragon Annual. Doesn't seem like it's going to happen, so i'm off to the task for my own purposes.

    If you answer any of the above, i'll be tickled.

    Thanks very, very much.
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Sat Oct 23, 2021 7:13 pm  

    Syzygyst wrote:

    Did you enjoy the Black Moon Chronicles (BMC)?


    It's interesting. I've been meaning to post about it here. I did enjoy it. It's... a weird, sometimes frustrating story. The protagonist, Wismerhill, makes all of the wrong choices—he starts out as a thief and a brigand, then joins a bandit army, then joins the blatantly evil Black Moon cult, and only very late in the story does he realize he's been manipulated by evil forces.

    He's also very, very powerful as D&D-inspired characters go, starting out as a fighter with some sort of psionic wild talent, then becoming a psionicist, then a high level wizard and cleric, plus he undergoes a dark ritual that sacrifices some of his humanity in exchange for power. And he has the inborn ability to talk to the winds for some reason.

    We're supposed to believe he's incredibly smart and competent but also he's completely hoodwinked by the antagonist for almost the entire series so it's hard to believe he's as clever as the comics want you to believe he is. Also he sides with obvious evil so it's impossible to root for him.

    How he gets his name is kind of unintentionally hilarious. At the beginning of the story he's an adult who's lived among other people but somehow nobody ever thought to call him anything. Not so much as a nickname, apparently. The first person he meets names him Wismerhill and he just goes along with it for the entire series.

    His adventuring party reminds me of a 1990s Rob Liefeld comic. There's a big guy, a bigger guy, a sword guy, a samurai, a woman, and a girl. The woman is killed off and replaced with a succubus, who's a little more interesting because instead of her character just being "woman who likes to be naked sometimes" she's also evil. Later on he adds a mage to the group, whose characterization is "fat."

    Quote:
    Did the BMC characters/land/story feel like Oerik?

    Was there any mention of Oerth, Oerik, Oeridians, the Suel, the Flanaess, or any other data that would tie it directly into Oerik (or Oerth for that matter)?


    No, and also no. It's very much a D&D-inspired world with elves, dwarves, orcs, ogres, demons, fighters, clerics, thieves, paladins, angels, liches, dungeons, dragons, and so on, and it's one of the few D&D adaptations I've seen that makes extensive use of psionics (borrowing the word "mentat" from Frank Herbert's Dune universe to describe psionicists).

    But it doesn't particularly feel like Oerth, and I'd say it definitely is not Oerth (there's only one moon in the sky, for example).

    Quote:
    Was there a name given to the BMC planet/world?


    It's just called "Earth" in the English translation I read. Presumably it was planète Terre in the original French.

    Quote:
    And the BMC world had a single moon, and it was black?


    No, it's a normal silver-white moon much like our own. The Order of the Black Moon is an evil religious cult with a base there, sustained by magic and accessible through a portal. The Order is called that, but the moon itself is normal.

    Quote:
    Was that moon somehow stationary in the sky, or was it orbiting the planet?


    No, it's a normal moon, like our moon, but with a secret evil base there.

    Quote:
    Did the small regional maps provided in the comics match the regions in the Dragon Annual map?


    More mountains, I think. Nothing too contradictory.

    Quote:
    If that Dragon Annual map hadn't incorporated the BMC lands, would you have thought that those lands "belonged" or were a natural fit in the west of Oerik? That is, just from reading the comics, would you have said "this stuff should fit right into the west coast of Oerik!"?


    Not particularly, but it's very much a D&D-inspired world, so it's not too out of place for Oerth, except for things like the single moon and the monotheistic, essentially Christian faith.

    The primary antagonist, Haazel Thorn, is very much like Iuz—a demigod with a demon lord for a father, clerical powers, and a wizened form that can transform into a hulking demonic brute at times. Except for the fact that his headquarters are on the moon and that his kingdom is definitely not in the Flanaess, he's very similar.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:24 pm  

    Tres, tres bonne, good sir!

    Had a similar review from someone else (Zarathon) who read the comics.

    You have just solidified my direction. I don't know who had the initial idea to place the BMC in Oerik, (very much doubt it was Gygax), but it just doesn't really fit. I'll be leaving it out.

    Very happy 'cuz i now don't have to read the material. Nothing i've heard about the story has engaged me. A few of the world-ideas are interesting, but the tale itself seems a bit off.

    Probably be nixing the Chainmail stuff as well.

    Merci beaucoup!
    Adept Greytalker

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    Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:18 pm  
    Gary Gygax Quote

    Gary said, "Francois had a map of a continent and some islands to the east, and they were going to be added. The "Orient" wes actually to be past them, closer to the West Coast of Oerik... Len Lakofka had an eastern continental addition as well as the Lendore Isles, so what I planned to so[clarification needed] was incorporate Francois' and Len's maps with Oerik, complete the lower continent below it, and have a real globe."

    Sorry, I didn't also collect my source and time Gary posted that message.

    This quoted text implies that if Gary added the BMC continent, that it wouldn't be connected as the BMC artwork implies it is. Have you seen the BMC artwork which appears to have a map connecting the France-shaped BMC continent and Oerik?

    https://www.greyhawkgrognard.com/2018/04/11/more-black-moon-chronicles-maps/


    Last edited by Raymond on Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
    Adept Greytalker

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    Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:41 pm  
    Four Continents?

    So if we ignore Aquaria, we have four continents. There are four defined in 1976's "The Dragon" Vol. 1, No. 1. There are four "great" continents defined in the folio from 1980.

    My own take is to think of the Dragon Magazine Annual #1 map as a player's map. But the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer inset map of Oerth doesn't look like it's supposed to be a player's map. It looks more like a DM's map. That is a TSR publication but after Gary left. So I'm inclined to think while it is official, it doesn't represent Gary's concept for Oerth. I'm interested in Gary's concept. But if you like detail, Anna Meyer has presented her take on Oerth.

    https://annabmeyer.notion.site/Oerth-Planetary-Model-2e766e509fb74fd8a244863c3d56f8ae
    Adept Greytalker

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    Tue Oct 26, 2021 7:20 am  

    As far as in-world maps, aside from the MMO map cited above, there were a few maps that were shown in the comics themselves. As Raymond mentioned above, I look at some of them compared to the Dragon Annual 1 map here:

    https://www.greyhawkgrognard.com/2018/04/11/more-black-moon-chronicles-maps/

    I also covered the region when I did my "Beyond the Flanaess" maps a few years ago, and the Black Moon stuff meshes pretty well with the Sundered Empire stuff from the revised Chainmail game. Here's the Empire of Lynn specifically:

    https://www.greyhawkgrognard.com/2012/04/30/mapping-beyond-flanaess-sundered-empire/

    Hope that helps.

    Joe / GG
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    Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:25 am  
    Continents

    You also have the Living Greyhawk inset map of Oerth.

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JPmS7Tnp7MA/T3DAdFXCNdI/AAAAAAAAA6w/Pag_7xuoIaU/s1600/living_greyhawk_gazetteer_inset_map.png

    The inset map makes Hyperboria look like a landmass. There's no Polaria on the map. I tend to think that Hyperboria and Polaria are ice caps without land over the H2O.

    So if you look at the inset map, you can argue there are four continents: Hyperboria, Polaria, Oerik and that southern continent.

    But you can also argue that the magazine article which references for other Earth analog continents would make Hyperboria and Polaria ice caps and make room for two other continents. Is Aquaria hidden from the 4-count? Is the southern continent named in the Yarth-set books? If yes for both of those questions, then the name for the southern continent is Gonduria. That would take us to 4.

    I suspect that the Gary vision of Oerth, had a southern continent that looked like a version of Africa instead of Australia. The Aesheba product released by Gygax is similar to the Aerth version of Africa.

    But back to the original poster's post, there isn't a TSR or WotC map which has a license to use the BMC material. There are those bits from the BMC comics that look like world maps but don't show features. There are the BMC game maps which do show features. There is Joe's map that shows features. There's no map based on Gary's description of a BMC continent separate from Oerik. Joe has a map which shows Oerik not connected to a BMC continent.

    https://www.greyhawkgrognard.com/2019/08/24/lands-beyond-the-flanaess/
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:19 am  

    rasgon wrote:
    ...It's interesting. I've been meaning to post about it here. I did enjoy it. It's... a weird, sometimes frustrating story. The protagonist, Wismerhill, makes all of the wrong choices—he starts out as a thief and a brigand, then joins a bandit army, then joins the blatantly evil Black Moon cult, and only very late in the story does he realize he's been manipulated by evil forces...

    We're supposed to believe he's incredibly smart and competent but also he's completely hoodwinked by the antagonist for almost the entire series so it's hard to believe he's as clever as the comics want you to believe he is...


    -Sounds like an evil guy who has a classic case of his Intelligence score greatly outpacing his Wisdom score.
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