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Tuesday, May 5, 2020

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day One Hundred and Twenty-Six

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!

Today is Part 69 of my series on OD&D, with The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Vol. 3.

**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**

So about building that Castle or Stronghold:


Now here I want to clear up a misconception that most have about building castles and strongholds. In Men & Magic it says "Top-level fighters (Lords and above) who build castles are considered “Barons,”" and "Clerics with castles of their own will have control of a territory similar to the “Barony” of fighters," and most people assume that you must be at the "Top-Levels" to build a Castle or Stronghold. But look what it says above, "At any time a player/character wishes he may select a portion of land (or a city lot) upon which to build his castle, tower, or whatever."

So the so-called domain game can start at the moment that a player/character amasses enough funds to build. It is only at the higher levels that the perks start rolling in. A 3rd level fighter does not collect taxes nor is he considered a "Baron". In Men & Magic it does not mention Magic-Users in terms of a stronghold, but here it notes "towers" and traditionally Magic-Users have towers. But Fighting-Men and Clerics get a few perks that Magic-Users do not and IMO this was intentional 


This above was what the drawing looked like for the 1st through the 4th printing of OD&D.


Then in the 5th printing the drawing was redone as the above and is used all the way through to and including the 2013 edition which was released in a wooden box partly as a nod to the original wood grain cover for the pasteboard box. As you can see the readability was greatly increased. If you will look at the Curtain Wall, it gives two views the side view and the view from above (also called a plan view). It costs 3500 GP for a section 90' long and 10' thick. The height is not noted, but I used 20'. If you wanted a taller wall, it also had to be thicker and the cost was treated accordingly. I did the same with the rest of it, made assumptions and then scaled up size and price.


The above section titled "Other Construction and Equipment Costs" appears in the 1st through the 4th printing, but disappears starting with the 5th and later printings. It is theorized that it got dropped as an editing mistake when the text layout was changed between the 4th and 5th printing. It is a shame that this did not get corrected in the 2013 printing. I keep telling myself that I will create a short document to list the missing info to bring the 2013 printing, which is the pdf version on DriveThru, back in line with the original version, but I have not done it yet. Perhaps later this year, if someone does not beat me to it.

Tomorrow we will look at:
SPECIALISTS:
There are a number of specialists available to those in positions of power, i.e. with
their own strongholds. The list is merely typical, and the referee can modify it as he
desires:

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