Dungeons & Dragons Supplement II: Blackmoor (1975, 1st Print): Where the Dungeon Was Born

Before Dungeons & Dragons was published in 1974, Dave Arneson was running a campaign in Minneapolis. He called the setting Blackmoor. It was in this campaign, several years before the game existed as a published product, that Arneson invented the dungeon, the underground labyrinthine environment populated with monsters and treasure that became the defining spatial concept of the roleplaying hobby.

Supplement II: Blackmoor, published by TSR in 1975, brought Arneson's original setting to the published D&D system. It is a historically remarkable document: a window into the original conception of the game, from the man who arguably created the dungeon crawl as a game form, published when Arneson and Gary Gygax were still collaborating and the identity of D&D was still being defined.

First prints of Blackmoor are among the most collectible items in the entire early TSR library.

Dave Arneson and the Blackmoor Campaign

Dave Arneson (1947-2009) ran the Blackmoor campaign starting in 1971 in the Minneapolis area, within the Midwest wargaming community. He used Dave Wesely's Braunstein rules as a starting point and developed them into something new: a game where individual characters had statistics and could grow more powerful through play.

Arneson brought Blackmoor to Gary Gygax at GenCon in 1972. Gygax was impressed enough that they collaborated on what would become Dungeons & Dragons, published by TSR in 1974. The three original D&D booklets (Men and Magic, Monsters and Treasure, Underworld and Wilderness Adventures) incorporated material from both Arneson's Blackmoor campaign and Gygax's Greyhawk campaign.

The relationship between Arneson and Gygax is one of the complicated creative partnerships in gaming history. By the time Supplement II was published, tensions had begun. Arneson's contribution to D&D has been debated, litigated, and revisited by historians for fifty years.

What Blackmoor Contains

Supplement II: Blackmoor is a 60-page booklet adding rules and setting material to original D&D:

The Monk class: Blackmoor introduced the Monk as a playable character class, a martial arts specialist drawing on Eastern fighting traditions. The Monk became a staple of subsequent D&D editions.

The Assassin class: The Assassin class, introduced in Supplement I (Greyhawk), is further developed here.

Underwater Adventures: A substantial section on conducting adventures underwater, with rules for movement, combat, and creatures in aquatic environments. This section contains some of the earliest published rules for a D&D sub-genre that would see many future iterations.

The Temple of the Frog: One of the first published D&D adventures, introducing a mega-dungeon in the Blackmoor setting populated with a frog-worshipping cult. The Temple of the Frog is sometimes cited as the first published adventure module, predating the later convention modules.

Setting material: Background on the Blackmoor setting itself, the campaign world where Arneson ran his original game.

Identifying the 1st Print

First prints of TSR material from 1974-1976 are identifiable by specific characteristics:

Print quality: Early TSR printing was done on relatively low-budget equipment with inconsistent ink and paper quality. First prints often show different saturation and paper weight than later printings.

Cover art: The Blackmoor cover shows the Blackmoor castle/setting illustration. First print covers have a specific look that differs from later reprints.

Interior pages: Page layout and the specific typography of first prints are documented by collectors. Reference photographs are available in collector communities and reference databases.

No ISBN: Very early TSR products did not include ISBNs. The presence or absence, and the format of any catalog number, helps date printings.

Spine text and back cover: The spine printing and back cover of first prints differ from later reprintings.

Condition Grades and Values

| Condition | Description | Market Range | |---|---| | Near Mint | Tight spine, minimal page yellowing, clean cover | $400 - $900 | | Very Good | Light cover wear, small spine stress, minimal yellowing | $200 - $450 | | Good | Cover wear, spine crease, moderate yellowing | $100 - $220 | | Fair | Heavy wear, spine damage, significant yellowing | $50 - $120 | | Poor | Severe damage, missing pages, binding issues | $20 - $60 |

Authentication Challenges

Distinguishing first prints from later TSR reprints requires knowledge of specific printing characteristics. The collector community has documented these differences extensively, and resources like Jon Peterson's work on early D&D history provide reference material.

Be cautious with:

• Covers removed from other copies and attached to later interiors (check for consistent paper aging between cover and interior)

• Later reprints with artificially aged pages (smoke damage or tea-staining)

• Descriptions that don't match known first print characteristics

Why Blackmoor Specifically

Of the original D&D supplements (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, Gods Demi-gods and Heroes), Blackmoor holds a specific historical position. It is Arneson's work, published while the original creators were still collaborating, and it contains the Temple of the Frog, one of the earliest adventure modules in the hobby's history.

Collectors who focus on proto-D&D and the founding documents of the roleplaying hobby treat Blackmoor as an essential piece. It is a primary source from the moment the game was being invented.

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