ACKS Blackmarsh (1)

Did I mention I moved? My office is just now mostly back together, and I've turned on my computer for the first time since May. So I've ensconced myself in the warm glow of LCDs and I've done some fiddling with ACKS, which I haven't done for quite some time.


For various reasons I found myself looking back again at Rob Conley's Blackmarsh, a free and open little sandbox document.

Since I'm in a PbP game on Autarch's forums that's using it, I started to wonder what it would look like if the tenets of ACKS were applied to it.

I've had a Dwimmermount map project languishing unposted for quite some time - it may behoove me to jump back in with something a touch smaller to get myself restarted on that. Plus, Blackmarsh can merge with the Dwimmermount map on Blackmarsh's southern edge.

And, as the PbP game made me realize, DM's azoth and BM's viz may as well be the same thing, though I think you'd want to have DM's version be more 'pure' given the central themes of the place.


You know, before I get started, I should probably say something about the product itself.

Released in 2011, Blackmarsh is a small sandbox, 19 by 27 hexes, containing the titular swamp and a list of settlements, lairs, and ruins (about ~80). The town of "Castle Blackmarsh" is mapped and detailed. Ostensibly written for Delving Deeper, an excellent rework of the original game, it's compatible with anything marginally like D&D.

There's a wide variety of monster lairs, including must-have dragons, and the ever-present threat of an old evil 'probably' destroyed. The civilized races are presented from many different factions, 7 on the board in all.

Just enough detail is given for a Judge to springboard their own ideas - reading through this for the first time in several years, I'm finding myself wanting to grab a group and run it.

Actually - let me wind that back a bit. I came across Rob Conley's blog and Blackmarsh very early on when I was coming back to D&D, and I downloaded and read through it. At the time, I accepted it at essentially face value - a hexcrawl - and set it aside.

3 or so years later, having some hundreds of OSR and other blogs on my reading list, having read a wide range of thoughts, practices, and products, I come back to it today with a new appreciation for what Blackmarsh provides.

For what it's worth, this set of posts will be very much like a record of steps taken to reconcile a non-ACKS setting with ACKS rules.

So: let's list the settlements in Blackmarsh, their rulers, and likely allegiances:

Hex	Settlement	Population	Blackmarsh - Ruler	Blackmarsh, Alliance
217	Oldan Hold	342	DF6	Dwarf, Bolzak
407	Blackoak Castle	170	EF4M6	Blackmarsh Rangers
409	Strangeholms	292	H0	Halfling, Blackmarsh Rangers
608	Ashdown	121	F6	Blackmarsh Rangers
610	Greenton	642	H0	Newcombe Halflings
804	Stardell Falls	503	EF4M8	Elf, Seat
912	Blackmarsh Isle	100	-	Blackmarsh
913	Castle Blackmarsh	1294	EF4/M2	Blackmarsh, Seat
1002	Wedmor	255	F5	Ostrobard
1113	Inuacus Keep	50	F10	Blackmarsh
1302	Camden	214	F8	Ostrobard
1305	Muncaester	895	F4	Ostrobard, Seat
1307	Naomi, Sorceress	-	M9	-
1309	Wizard of the Isle	-	M18	-
1316	Jorvik	481	F11	Blackmarsh
1506	Ethanfeld	145	F6	Ostrobard
1518	Norbury Castle	120	F9	Grand Kingdom
1602	Wessex Keep	50	F6	Ostrobard/Muncaester
2411	Ysby	80	F5	Vasan
2505	Castle Taldene	200	F9	Vasan, Seat
2508	Gamla	405	F12	Vasan
2704	Daretop	415	F8	Vasan

A range of settlement sizes and alliances - by my reckoning, there's ~7 factions on the board - Dwarf, Blackmarsh Rangers, Halflings, Elves, Blackmarsh itself, Ostrobards, the Grand Kingdom, and the Vasan.

Hex 0912 is an unnamed island; settled by 100 men. I've deemed it Blackmarsh Isle, so I can use it as a settlement. I've listed the two named mages to keep track of them. I'm not yet sure how they're going to pan out - they obviously have some tower analogue, but no attached settlement or domain.

There's some argument to be made about the various relationships of Blackmarsh, the Rangers, and the Elves.  I expect the Rangers and Blackmarsh to be allied, if not quite vassaled. I also expect the Stardell elves aren't as nonplussed as they would seem with the whole Ranger/Blackmarsh idea.

Blackmarsh is extremely well set for 'overland' faction play, without it necessarily being lumbering empires clashing. That's great for ACKS - it's easy to see a group of players making their own mark on the map (or taking someone else's mark)

In converting this to ACKS, I'm making two assumptions for this first attempt:

1. The population numbers given convert straight to families
2. The hexes magically transmogrify to 6 mile hexes, rather than 5.

Let's see what that looks like, given the advice starting in ACKS pg229:

Realm	Settlement	Hex	Population (Families)	Type	Whole Realm Size	Subrealm Size	Remaining Population	Realm Hexes @300/hex
Blackmarsh	Castle Blackmarsh	913	1294	Small City	64700		33150	216
	Jorvik	1316	481	Small Town		24050
	Blackmarsh Isle	912	100	Village		5000
	Inuacus Keep	1113	50	Hamlet		2500
Muncaester	Muncaester	1305	895	Large Town	44750		11550	150
	Wedmor	1002	255	Large Village		12750
	Camden	1302	214	Village 2		10700
	Ethanfeld	1506	145	Village		7250
	Wessex Keep	1602	50	Hamlet		2500
Blackmarsh Rangers	Blackoak Castle	407	170	Village	8500		2450	29
	Ashdown	608	121	Village		6050
Vasan	Castle Taldene	2505	200	Village	10000		-35000	184
	Daretop	2704	415	Large Village		20750
	Gamla	2508	405	Large Village		20250
	Ysby	2411	80	Small Village		4000
Grand Kingdom	Norbury Castle	1518	120	Village	6000			20
Bolzak (D)	Oldan Hold	217	342	Large Village	17100			57
Greywood (E)	Stardell Falls	804	503	Small Town	25150			84
Newcombe (H)	Greenton	610	642	Large Town	32100			107
Strangeholms (H)	Strangeholms	409	292	Large Village	14600			49
							Total Hexes	896

So - first problem is we have used up 896 hexes...of 500 available. (Note Vasan looks weird - because it's 'seat' isn't the largest settlement in that realm - as supported by the text. We'll get to that later)

I've done a few conversions of materials over the past couple  years, (none of which I've bothered to finish up and post so far...) and this is a pretty common problem. There's never enough space on the map to support the realms attached to the urban populations listed, so it becomes a game of adjustments and refactoring to get into something that fits.

The "default world" of non-ACKS'd D&D, I've noticed, whether this Blackmarsh or Dwimmermount or any number of small publisher or WoTC products is one of folks packed up into urban settlements, who leave during the day to run the farms that apparently feed all those people. It feels like an odd reverse-suburbia sometimes when you're trying to backtrack from the settlement populations.

It's (hopefully) likely we'll be able to pop up the population density and do some adjustments to our urban demographics to shrink down the realms to a manageable size for the map.

Next post, probably, though don't hold your breath. Taking longer than I would have thought to fully get settled here, due in no small part to the fact the old house is still up for sale, and that puts a bite in the budget.