OSR Commenary- DA3 City of the Gods By Dave Arneson & David J. Ritchie & ACK rpg Greyhawk

 "New Magic?

That's what the flying egg has. New magic unlike any ever encountered in Blackmoor. New magic of a type that could give the fledgling kingdom an important edge in the wars that are brewing on its borders.

There are only a few minor problems. Like the fact that the magician who piloted the metal egg to one of Blackmoor's sworn enemies, the monks of evil and eccentric Order of the Frog, are also interested in the magic represented by the egg. And, most important, the fact that the egg came from the distant and dangerous City of the Gods.

Set amist the blistered salt flats of the Valley or the Ancients, the City of the Gods is a strange and deadly metal metropolis whose powerful guardians do not welcome intruders. Yet it is to this place of deadly menace that Blackmoor's leaders now send a daring expedition? to bargain for aid in the coming wars? or to steal the magic of the gods."


There are times when starting to look into the past means that the future holds its own! Such is the case with DA3 City of The Gods by Guy J Ritchie &  David Lance Arneson. My big problem with the OSR is how fickle it is. City of the Gods is an old favorite module of mine & last night DM Steve pinned my ears back about it. My comments here go all of the way back to 2018 & my comments still stand;
"DA3 City of The Gods has been available as a pdf from Wizards of The Coast going all the way back to 2016. 'DA3: "City of the Gods" (1987), by Dave Arneson & David J. Ritchie, is the third of the four Blackmoor adventure. It was published in March 1987.' , this one the best science fantasy resources available to bridge gap Greyhawk & Blackmoor together."
The discussion came down like this in last night's post game, 'You've got all this f@#^ ing chaos roaming through your campaigns especially your Adventurer,Conqueror, King rpg campaign but none of the goodness or order?!'.  Never let it be said that there isn't consistency & coherence in my campaigns. Going back over my campaign notes I remember that there was a notes about using several knightly orders of the City of the Gods. What if those knights were actually Star Knights ala White Star's Galaxy edition or Between Star & Void by DYS Games. 



This puts this faction squarely in the time before the Twin Cataclysms We can see further evidence of this right in the Mechanics of Destruction: Origins of the Twin Cataclysms. There's a lot more to the land of black ice there there first appears in Greyhawk. 


All of this ties neatly back into Adventurer,Conqeuror, King's Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu so its easy to translate & transport the whole cloth of inhabitants of the City of the Gods as having ties to these OSR resources. Go here to read one of this blog's original City of the Gods entries with Greyhawk ties. 



Is the head of the Froggies looking for not only nests of machines but also a copy of  the Codex of the Infinite Planes?!  This is the same artifact that more then a few of the Jedi erm Star Knights have been looking for! 

And what of the Egg of Coot?! Has the egg suddenly vanished from its higher dimensional prison plane?! The egg was recently seen in my Cha'alt/Godbound campaign but its impact was only briefly felt. Was its attention diverted to something far more grand? The answer goes into Greyhawk's Land of Black Ice. 

"The only humans living near the area are the Baklunish Guryik folk on the Drawmidj coast, and the Suloise Zeai, or Sea Barbarians, who dwell on a section of Icy Sea coastline known as the Tusking Strand. Within the Land of Black Ice proper are said to dwell all manner of horrid arctic monsters, so few humans enter the region. Tales are told of wights, frost men, evil spirits, black-skinned trolls, and blue-furred bugbears inhabiting the wasteland" this ties directly into the fact that the Egg has been for centuries trying to escape its fate on Greyhawk. The 'Land of Black Ice' is a testament to its future but perhaps there's an escape through the city of the gods. 
All of this science fantasy  ties back into ACK's version of Dwimmermount. The grand megadungeon has some very definitive science fantasy  Greyhawk ties coming up.