Supplement II: Blackmoor is influenced by Dave Arneson's original campaign of Blackmoor according to the words Gary Gygax writes in his forward to the White Box supplement published in 1975. As such, the supplement has a slightly different "feel" to it (as evidenced by the illustration above) than previous material which was more focused on Mr. Gygax's Greyhawk campaign in the case of Supplement I, or the more "generic" fantasy swords& sorcery as may be the case with the original three LBBs. Tim Kask is listed as editor of Supplement II and according to gamer legend, it was Mr. Kask who took a stack of campaign material submitted by Mr. Arneson and edited it into the Supplement we see published.
Blackmoor seems a bit "darker" to me and that has influenced my own "homebrew" campaign I fondly refer to as Dreadmoor. Supplement I: Greyhawk presents the Thief class and Paladin subclass as options for player characters. Both influence the milieu of a campaign in which they are used by becoming part of the "cast of players" in the story that develops through gaming. Supplement II introduces two new subclasses, the Monk and the Assassin and doing so makes a dramatic impact on the cast. Taken together with Temple of the Frog - the first TSR published adventure location - we have our major insights into the Blackmoor milieu.
This discourse is focused on the Assassin because I believe its inclusion among the player character classes marks a seminal event in the game. White Box and its supplements have three alignments, Law, Chaos and Neutrality. Assassins must be of Neutral alignment (in the Advanced game they must be of Evil alignment). Like many rules in the original game, this is left open to interpretation. Neutral alignment seems to me to place the assassin firmly in between the two major warring camps, serving either for pay - there is an assassin fee in Volume 3 of the LBBs and additional fee information in Supplement II. Player character assassins receive experience for paid assassinations, so presumably this is an expected part of the campaign in which Assassins appear as PCs.
Supplement II indicates that Assassins have thief skills and "may also serve as thieves". The Assassin must be a member of the assassin's guild which is headed by a guildmaster which is the highest level attainable by the assassin character. The assassin's guild seem ripe with possibilities for adventure and its mere existence in a campaign is telling. The original game leaves the moral dichotomy of "Good" and "Evil" out of alignment, but certainly supports the idea that such exists through Detect Evil and Protection from Evil spells. What is good or evil is however left up to the players to explore and discover as part of campaign play. The neutral alignment of the Blackmoor Assassin leaves this moral question unanswered. It is certainly possible to create a James Bond style organization of "agents" with license to kill in one's fantasy adventure game milieu.
If Dave Arneson ever talked about how he envisioned the Assassin class being played in his Blackmoor I am not aware of it. For me the Assassin brings a dark element to the campaign. I think of nefarious characters hiding in dark alleys, of persons in disguise slipping poison into the king's cup, of Hamlet, not 007. How the assassin is used in the game is of course up to the players - providing they can ever qualify for one. The three LBBs do not list any minimum ability scores to qualify for playing one of the three original character classes. High scores in the prime requisite grants a bonus to earned experience (low scores, a penalty), but no minimum requirement. The Greyhawk Paladin introduces the concept and requires a Charisma score of at least 17 and Lawful alignment. The Blackmoor Assassin has three prime requisites, Dexterity, Strength and Intelligence - all must be at a minimum score of 12. Rolling three d6 in order suggests the Assassin will be a rare occurrence as a PC.
Giving some thought to the Assassin and how to incorporate the class into my own campaign, my first thought is as a more deadly version of the Lankhmar Thieves guild. Then I recall that Dave Arneson is rumored to have been a fan of the Hammer Horror films which may have inspired the Cleric Turn Dead ability. The White Box Cleric I interpret as a combination of this film inspiration and the warrior monks of the crusading era that probably inspired Gary Gygax (the cover of Chainmail features what looks like a Knight Templar). The same crusader-era history includes a religious group called "al-Hashashin" who under the leadership of The Old Man of the Mountain had agents throughout the area who served as spys and killers operating from their hidden mountain fortress and who inspire the modern term assassin.
I understand Blackmoor's classification of the Assassin as a subclass of Thief. I also like the idea of the Assassin having a fantasy religious connection (possibly demonic?). The figure in the illustration taken from the Blackmoor supplement is most likely a monk, but what about recasting him as an assassin? Housed in a temple as a member of a secret order of religious fanatics who have agents across the campaign, perhaps the assassin has access to divine magic in the form of items or even spells? I hope this isn't stretching the original concept too far.
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