About Blackmoor

     The Kingdom of Blackmoor begins and ends with the great City of Blackmoor;  it is a vast metropolis of more than 200,000 citizens, and the economic and political heart of the kingdom.  The city is the home of Blackmoor’s government, the center of her trade and shipping industry, the heart of her manufacturing sector, her most important port, and the site of her greatest temples.  There are other cities in Blackmoor, yet residents of The City tend to think of everything else as rural.  It is ungenerous but probably true.  Blackmoor City is, without question, the heart of the kingdom of Blackmoor.

      The City of Blackmoor is as cosmopolitan and sophisticated as any capital of any nation, perhaps more than most.  Blackmoor’s influential trading fleet has for centuries imported more than just the products of other cultures, they have brought art, culture, ideas and innovations, the best the world has to offer.  These have all been readily assimilated, as Blackmoor has traditionally held to a standard of social tolerance and cultural respect for others.  The government of Blackmoor stresses civil lawfulness, but not cultural conformity.  Those willing to live within the established norms and rules of Blackmoor society are welcome to express their cultural and philosophical uniqueness as they wish.  It makes Blackmoor City a place of surprising diversity.

      The best example is probably Temple Street.  Along it you will find represented (most more than once) the Egyptian, Norse, Finnish, Sumerian, Babylonian, Indian and Chinese Pantheons, none of whom are native to Blackmoor’s founding people.  Elsewhere, you can find a Roman bathhouse next to an Egyptian coffeeshop next to a Chinese noodle house.  Both architecturally and culturally, the city clearly shows its Phoenician heritage, but if you look for a while you might find just about anything.

      This should not imply the Blackmoor City is a disorganized chaos;  it is quite clear the city is laid out in well-planned design.  It is also obvious that design has been outgrown, several times, but there is a clear sense of organization throughout the metropolis, from the “Old City” (as natives refer to the area within the original city walls) to the newest developments.  The City is divided into a number of different areas (locally called “Quarters” even though there are actually nine) where related businesses, residences, or functions are generally clustered.  Wide roadways connect these Quarters and form the city’s arteries, along which the daily business traffic flows. In some areas, particularly the Old City, the urban overcrowding becomes rather noticeable; in newer areas there is enough open space to make the city’s atmosphere feel almost light.

      Blackmoor’s King maintains a magnificent palace within the city, it is the center of a city section dedicated to governmental functions.  Blackmoor’s lawful traditions have led to a high level of bureaucracy and administration; the Royal Quarter (as this area is called) is the home of that administration. The government might well be the largest employer in the city, natives like to joke their government proves that bureaucracy never dies.  Since almost everything in Blackmoor is regulated, the number of inspectors, observers, record-keepers, and supervisors needed to keep track of it all is quite impressive.  The Imperial Registers are all located here, as are the Imperial Judiciary buildings.  It means a lot of buildings and a lot of people.  A side result is the Royal Quarter also has a large proportion of taverns and eating halls, also quite a number of hotel taverns (providing for foreign visitors with governmental business).

       Blackmoor City’s Port Quarter occupies the entire waterfront area.  Since Blackmoor Port is, with rare exceptions, the only legal port facility for international trade and travel, it has to be able to handle anything.  While the kingdom’s primary shipbuilding facilities are actually located elsewhere, the city’s Royal Dockyards are among the most respected in the Phoenician Sea.  The commercial docks are large, efficient, and carefully regulated; the merchant houses have their own dedicated locations, public and private facilities are separated but equally well provided for.  A large artificial breakwater extends along most of the harbor about a thousand yards out, helping to provide peaceful harbor waters in the face of all but the severest storm.  The many businesses necessary for supporting the shipping industry are found in this quarter as well.  As one would expect, Blackmoor’s Port Quarter contains some of the best ship’s chandlers in the business, and there’s no shortage of bars for freshly-paid seamen to drink in either.

     Other businesses, artisans, and residences of Blackmoor City are organized in Quarters of their own, with the residential areas tending to occupy the central parts of the city and the businesses to the periphery.  This pattern is becoming harder to discern, as the City’s relentless growth (particularly in residential needs) now seems to regularly make a mockery of the efforts of City planners.  The oldest parts of the City suffer a bit from age, though over time many buildings have been torn down and rebuilt.  Yet there are few other cities in the world that can boast over a thousand years of safe and healthy history.  Visitors to Blackmoor City cannot help but be impressed with the vibrant and active city life, stable and well-ordered in its daily affairs. 

      Though city residents might tell otherwise, there is, in fact, more to Blackmoor than just the City.  Rural residents often take great pains to point out that two-thirds of the kingdom’s population in fact does not live in Blackmoor City, and the City itself represents just a tiny fraction of the vast lands of the kingdom. 

         Blackmoor’s rural lands are divided into seven separate dukedoms which have developed over the kingdom’s history.  The City and its immediate surroundings are one, the other six are Rockaway, Warwick, Thorndale, Chilton, Oakhill, and Arundel.  Here the majority of Blackmoor's population generally lives in small villages and towns, working the surrounding land in various agricultural pursuits.   

      Only the best and most productive land is used, large areas are left in their natural (usually wooded) state to provide both resources and recreation.  The areas closest to Blackmoor City and the other cities are the most developed, of course, and as one travels towards any border more and more of the land is in this natural state, reflecting the lower population density.  In the country’s heartland, towns have long since overgrown their original fortifications; virtually every town is busy and prosperous.  Most still have small garrisons, inevitably local militia with a core of regular troops, but they are more like a police force than a military unit.  Provincial capitals have strong castles and elaborate fortifications, as each serves as an emergency refuge point for the people of its province.  Travel in the country is easy and safe;  the roads are well-maintained, well-patrolled, and are well-provided with inns and traveler's rests along the way.

       Blackmoor’s rural lands are highly prosperous, because the land produces wealth twice over.  The wood of the natural forests is a tremendous resource.  The timber types are mixed, from the tall oak so valued by shipwrights to ubiquitous fir tree, easily burnt for fuel and energy.  There are trees for every building and consumption need, and Blackmoor’s forests are an economic dream.  When cleared, most land further proves to be immensely fertile, whether allowed to re-grow forest or used for agriculture.  Working in combination with an ideal climate, the land consistently yields bountiful harvests, feeding the people of Blackmoor and providing a rich surplus for international sale.  Grains have gradually evolved to become the “cash” crop from the export standpoint.  But many other crops, including many types of fruit trees and various cotton and fibrous plants help maintain the self-sufficiency of the local economy.  Few kingdoms anywhere in the world have found land so advantageous to human life.

       The farmers, foresters, and ranchers of Blackmoor are freemen who voluntarily bind themselves to a collective approach which ensures the greatest productivity for the state rather than the greatest profit for the individual.  Each family owns the land it works, but plant/grow/harvest according to a central planning system.  The full harvest purchase is guaranteed by the state, with extra profit returned for exceeding quotas.  The intense regulation of the economy by the government ensures prices are kept high enough to make the farmer’s life attractive, yet not out of control for the poor (particularly in staple foods), central planning also ensures adequate resources for domestic and export markets.  Blackmoor’s rural community is, as a result, exceptionally stable;  there are many farms that today can still trace their origins back to the days of the original colony. 

      While this idyllic rural picture accurately describes a view of the heartland, the scene does become distinctly different in the frontier provinces of the south and west.  Though expansion into these areas has been ongoing for multiple decades now, the assimilation process is slow, and much of the area is still essentially wild and unexplored.  Here, towns and villages are walled, fortified, and garrisoned;  those who use the roads either travel armed or with the regular caravans which maintain trade and communication on the frontier.  Most days are as peaceful as anywhere in Blackmoor, but history teaches only a fool treads blindly where danger lurks.  

     And there is no question that danger lurks, for beyond these village borders lies nothing but the endless wilderness that human existence has battled against since the founding of the colony.  Life on the frontier is dangerous, but it has always been so, and throughout Blackmoor's history those dangers have been overcome.  The frontiersman is regarded with great stature in Blackmoor society, and a symbol of the kingdom's strength and character.  Many members of Blackmoor's nobility can trace their origin to frontier stock, and service time in the borderlands is considered an honorable calling rather than social damnation. 

      The kingdom of Blackmoor is best imagined as a roughly rectangular shape.  Her northern border is, of course, the Phoenician Sea.  To the east lie the Barrier Peaks, to the west the Razorback Mountains;  the distance between them averages 180 - 200 miles.  The lands of the kingdom stretch from the Barrier Peaks to within 50 or so miles of the Razorbacks, and on average between 70 -100 miles south from the seacoast.  Further south lies only wilderness.   

      Most of the land between the mountain ranges is either flat or gently rolling hill country, slowly gaining elevation as one travels inland.  Originally covered with light to moderate-density forests, much of the heartland has been cleared to create open farmland.  Yet throughout, perhaps as much as a third of the land lies undeveloped; only the best areas are used for cultivation and a surprising amount has been left in a relatively natural state.  

     Two large rivers flow from south to north through Blackmoor to the sea, and both serve as important routes of trade and commerce.  The aptly named Broad River meanders through the western side of the "valley" from dual sources in the Razorback Mountains and the Misty Marsh.  On the east side, the Coldwater runs roughly parallel to the Barrier Peaks.  Steadily fed by runoff streams out of the mountains as it travels northward, it forms a wide and powerful river in the flatlands with magnificent harbor sites as it approaches the Phoenician Sea.  It is along this river, a few miles inland, where Blackmoor City was founded.  

     The kingdom's eastern border has always been strictly marked by the Barrier Peaks.  This mountain range is truly well named, as it forms as distinct a barrier as a massive wall built by the gods themselves.  It extends uninterrupted from the Phoenician Sea coastline almost directly south a distance beyond Blackmoor’s knowledge, with massifs rising abruptly from the valley to towering summits of 15,000 to 20,000 in height, even more.  The mountains extend nearly twenty-five miles along the coastline, and there appears no reason to suspect this depth changes as they stretch away south;  there are no known natural passes or crossing-points (there are paths into the mountains, just not through them).  Nor would there be a reason to cross, for beyond the mountains lies only the Great Desert, which is a lot like saying beyond them lies nothing at all.  As a result, from landsman's point of view, the Peaks might as well be the eastern edge of the world.

      The Razorback Mountains, and their foothills, form the western boundary of the valley area and of the human population.  While nothing like the Barrier Peaks to the east, the Razorbacks are nonetheless a formidable range in themselves.  Consisting of a long series of sharp and severe rocky peaks and ridges, the mountains properly begin some distance inland from the sea, and run initially south, then south-west as they approach the Dead Lands.  These mountains, and their rugged foothills, are nicknamed the Orc-lands.  Beyond the Razorbacks, the land extends westward to the Endless Sea, and is completely dominated by a vast stretch of old-growth forest traditionally called the Great Western Wood.

     For a good hundred-plus miles southward from the seacoast, the land is dominated by gently rising flatlands and light hill country, as described above.  But then change begins, and five distinct geographic areas gradually emerge.  Along most of the southern border, the land becomes more notably dominated by rocky hill country, some wooded but overall more open.  Named for their dominant denizen, they are called the Goblin Hills, and they form a belt perhaps up to 50 or more miles deep stretching between the mountain ranges.  

     At varying distances, the Goblin Hills give way to three other distinct areas.  On the east, stretching out from the Barrier Peaks into the valley, is Frostcrag Forest, a well-defined area of heavy forest broken by lakes, streams, and small meadows.  A suitable adventuring site of its own, it is also the gateway to the world-famous dungeon site Frostcrag Peak.  The Forest begins only a few days travel into the Goblin Hills, extends perhaps forty or so miles into the valley at its widest, and is known to run more than twice that distance until it meets the Dead Lands.  

     In the south and middle-western part of the Goblin Hills, the land quite suddenly and oddly flattens out into a vast swampy wetland.  It is a highly magical area, but difficult enough to be largely unexplored.  Known as the Misty Marsh, it is estimated to be a good forty-plus miles wide.  Exactly how far south it extends is unknown, but like Frostcrag Forest, the only thing beyond it is the Dead Lands.  

     To the west, along the Razorback mountain foothills, the zone of orc habitation continues through the Goblin Hills area, but as the range begins to fall off to the west, another distinct and heavily-wooded area begins.  This is the Dreadwood, a forest fully consumed by evil magic, where not just the creatures but even the plant life itself is possessed of a dark and malign intent.  Deep within it, perhaps the source of this corruption, is an ancient Drow fortress known in Blackmoor as "The Spider's Web" linking the Upper World with the realms beneath.  The extent of this forest is uncertain;  like the other features it extends to the Dead Lands, but to what extent remains unexplored.  

    Ultimately, no matter how one proceeds south between the mountain ranges, everything ends in the Dead Lands.  Utterly devoid of life, the land is literally without animals or plants, no birds in the air, no fish in its rivers, no bugs in the dirt.  How or why the Dead Lands exist is unknown, but it is clear enough that something once existed here, for there are both ancient ruins and burial sites from some mysterious culture, as well as an undead presence specific to many of them.  Believed to stretch from the Barrier Peaks to the Razorbacks, this area encompasses the entire valley zone, and extends an unknown distance to the south.  It has never been successfully crossed, and if anything lies beyond, it remains a mystery.