Earlier (Here) we looked at the oldest dungeon dive preserved in Arneson's write up as found in Blackmoor Foundations. Turning now to the second dungeon foray found in the Blackmoor Foundations, book titled Into the Dungeons of Blackmoor Castle and Back (pages 69-75), we find it conveniently comes with the date "May 25" - but no year.
Theoretically, this could be 1971, 1972, or 1973. The adventure is clearly advanced a bit from the earlier write up - some characters, such as "Swenson", have been in the dungeon enough times to know their way around, but aren't yet great heroes nor is the dungeon "old hat" to the other players.
In May of 1971 we are only just beginning to see mentions of Blackmoor - the infamous announcement for the poker game under the Troll Bridge was set for April 17th 1971 as found in COTT Vol 3 #4. So while we shouldn't rule out 1971 entirely, the adventure seems very developed for such an early date, but, then again, not developed enough for 1973.
Internal evidence points to Tuesday, May 25, 1972 being the more likely date of Into the Dungeons of Blackmoor Castle and Back, and this is apparently a few months after the earlier The Dungeons of Black Moore Castle (reprinted on pages 63-67 of the Blackmoor Foundations book).
Be that as it may, our concern at the moment isn't the year. Its clearly old, pre D&D material predating even the D&D draft. So its a treasure and one that answers many questions including whether the layout of the dungeon at this stage was any different. Does Into the Dungeons of Blackmoor Castle and Back fit the maps we have of Blackmoor Dungeon today and can we actually retrace these ur adventures? Lets look at the text:
The information in the write up is presented the way a Dungeon Master might give it during a game session. Yes, we can map this if the maps we have are the same ones Arneson was using in 1972 - and indeed they are as we will see.
Now before I jump straight to the map images, let me dither about the quality. Ideally, mapping the dungeon adventure would be done through an animation showing the path unfold as they progress. My friends, I don't have time for that. Instead you are about to be treated to static maps, marked rather messily with all the paths they took, but I will explain as we go. Its messy because Into the Dungeons of Blackmoor Castle and Back tells the story of two expeditions and I put both on the map together for comparison.
The path of first expedition, as you can see I marked with red stars. The second expedition is marked blue on the way in and green on the way out. For now lets look at the red stars and ignore the blue and green, we will get to those. As you can see in the paragraph above, the party enters the main basement area, takes the NW passage and goes straight to the northern "Grand" stairway leading down.
This route has been described by Blackmoor players before as being the tried and true route, the path usually taken. Greg Svenson has called it the "Northwest Passage", but for most of the players, this appears to be their first time traveling the route.
At the bottom of the stair, the party finds themselves in a circular room with doors, so lets look at Level 2.
The party starts in the upper right corner (round room) and makes their way southward to room six. Passing through the infamous Torture Chamber (room 4) they appear to panic, being chased by what we now would know as a Black Pudding (or Grey if you prefer).
So, like Brave Sir Robyn, they boldly run away. Note that the stairs they take leads up to a secret door in one of the pillars. You can see where they came out in the map of level 1 above.
Next post I'll cover the second expedition, which is longer and more complex, but we've already established that the familiar maps we have of Blackmoor dungeon were indeed experienced by the original players on some of their very first adventures and we can follow them to see exactly where they went and what they found. This get particularly interesting with expedition 2. Its also very interesting to note, and maybe worth a post of its own, familiar dungeon tropes, like stuck doors and the danger of torches going out already at play.
