Building Avremier - Part One: Genesis

In the past few years, I've had people ask about the origins and evolution of the Avremier setting - much to my surprise and delight. I've been developing the easy answer, but - much like the initial five published supplements, that just doesn't really even begin to cover it. So, I will attempt to fully answer those questions here. Warning: there will be lots to read.

Sometime during 1982, I found and purchased the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set. This, and the followup Expert Set, launched the initial creation of Avremier. Of course, it wasn't called Avremier at the time - but that's not important to this narrative.

I've always loved maps - especially fantasy maps. I was drawing my own fantasy worlds long before discovering D&D. Greek and Norse mythology probably started it all. Then, there was the book that changed me forever - The Hobbit. 

 Especially THIS map:

Oh, I sat and stared at this map for hours. I loved that every tree had been drawn. That map of Wilderland generated imaginary adventures for me that could have covered an average RPG campaign. It's possible that this was the time where I decided working on a smaller scale was better for me. More on that later. I was stumbling my way through the creation of an entire fantasy world of my very own.


Then, there was the map of Lonely Mountain. Essentially, a treasure map. Sure, I had read Treasure Island, and delighted in the map therein. But, this was a fantasy treasure map. With runes - and a dragon.

My grandfather worked in the Mapping Department at the Pentagon. He took my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring to work one day and copied the map of Middle Earth for me. Not only that, but he enlarged it and printed it out on a big piece of paper. At the time, this was a big deal to me. This was before everyone had access to commercial scanners and printers. In the early 80s, I just about lost my little mind. But, the experience also led me to start taking fantasy novels to my parents' places of work to use their copiers. For a brief time, the map of my D&D campaign world was an amalgam of hand-drawn original mapping - and piecemeal copies of maps from my favorite fantasy novels. I'll explain where this led in the next installment.