Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 17 Apr 2002 to 18 Apr 2002 (#2002-106) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 19/04/2002, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 23 messages totalling 1399 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Week without Magic & Day of Dread (6) 2. Light vs. Dark (9) 3. Republishing Mystara (6) 4. Why Drow cant fit in Mystara? (2) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 11:59:52 +0100 From: Paul George Dooley Subject: Re: Week without Magic & Day of Dread ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alfred O'Meagher" To: Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 2:37 AM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Week without Magic & Day of Dread > > According to the 'canon' It's you who've got it wromg as it is the use > > of the radiance that drains magic. It's pretty explicit due to the fact > that > > the more use of the radiance the less magic there is, hence the Week > Without > > Magic Day of Dread etc. > > However if in your campaign it's the other way then that's fine by all > > of us, UNLESS you try to force your version to be the "One and Only TRUE > > version of Mystara T.M. etc" of course. In which case we'll just laugh at > > you and keep playing our own version of Mystara. :^) > > Er... the use of Radiance drains magic? Yes, because RADIANCE IS MAGIC. > THat's why Radiance drain = magic drain. > hehehehehehehe etc. Paul ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:58:00 +0200 From: Jacob Skytte Subject: Re: Week without Magic & Day of Dread Alfred O'Meagher wrote: > Er... the use of Radiance drains magic? Yes, because RADIANCE IS = MAGIC. > THat's why Radiance drain =3D magic drain. Would you care to put a source to your postulation? I am thinking that = you're probably basing it on a paragraph in Glantri: Kingdom of Magic, a = paragraph written IC by Vanserie Vlaardoen. First of all that paragraph = is pure speculation on his part. Second, it doesn't cover the entire = story at all. (If it was a joke, then never mind, I'm still going = through with this) I have been looking through my Radiance sources (GAZ3: Principalities of = Glantri, Glantri: Kingdom of Magic, GAZ13: The Shadow Elves, and Wrath = of the Immortals) and these are my observations. I'm not just doing this = to prove you wrong, but because it might be of use to people who have = limited knowledge of the subject. Before there was the Radiance, there were plenty of spellcasters and = they didn't drain anything at all, as can be gathered from the DA series = and the Hollow World boxed set. Besides, there were Immortals of the = Sphere of Energy long before there was the Radiance. The Radiance is a product of the artifact known as the Nucleus of the = Spheres. The NotS is in fact the nuclear engine of the FSS Beagle, a = starship that crashed on Mystara 5,000 years ago. When an Old One came = upon the NotS, he or she altered it to be able to produce Immortals in = the Sphere of Energy and placed it deep beneath the ground in what would = become Glantri. [WotI] When the Immortals learned of the artifact, they decided that left = unchecked the NotS would create imbalance between the five Spheres and = placed a "curse" on it: That it would drain power from the Sphere of = Energy when used, so that magic would slowly become scarce on Mystara as = long as there were creatures that drew on the specific powers of the = Radiance granted by the NotS. [GAZ3, GAZ13, WotI] Mortals were lured to Glantri and eventually created a society dominated = by wizards [GAZ3]. Most of these wizards had no knowledge of the = Radiance, but eventually some discovered it and Etienne d'Ambreville = founded the Brotherhood of the Radiance, a secret cabal that draws upon = the specific powers granted by the NotS, powers fueled by the Radiance. = Etienne became the first Immortal using these powers, the Immortal known = as Rad. [GAZ3, WotI] Using the Radiance, the specific powers granted by the NotS, activated = the curse laid on the artifact and slowly started draining magic from = Mystara. This drain depends on the number of active members of the = Brotherhood of the Radiance, that is the number of people casting spells = powered by the NotS. If there were no members of the Brotherhood, there = would be no drain of magic on Mystara, regardless of how many = spellcasters and magical creatures there are on Mystara. Further, users = of the Radiance risked physical deformities, "the wasting disease," by = channeling those powers. Each use of the Radiance carries a risk that a = body part will wither and become deformed. [GAZ3, GKoM] There are even users of the Radiance that don't cause magic to drain = away from Mystara, these are the Shadow Elves. Under the guidance of the = Immortal Rafiel, the Shadow Elf shamans channel the powers of the = Radiance using soul crystals. While the Radiance has debilitating = effects (which are displaced forward and leads to disformed babies in = this case), there is no drain on magic, because there is no curse placed = on the soul crystals. [GAZ13] Eventually Immortals of the Sphere of Energy, notably Ixion, Hierarch of = the Sphere of Energy, realized that the drain on Mystara's magic would = lead to a magic-less world and Ixion confronted Rad, trying to force him = to give up studying and using the NotS. Rad refused and the result was = the Wrath of the Immortals, the war between Glantri and Alphatia (with = everyone inbetween becoming involved). At the end of that war, Rad has = tampered with the NotS, creating the Doomsday Weapon, which he unleashes = on Sundsvall, the Alphatian capitol. The Doomsday Weapon drains all = magical energy from Sundsvall, but then unexpectedly unleashes it in a = violent lightning and hail storm. At the same time the NotS goes out of = control draining a massive amount of magic from Mystara, causing a Week = Without Magic. When the Week Without Magic ends, the Alphatians = retaliate, teleporting above Glantri City and bombards it with spells. = The Doomsday Weapon reactivates (for whatever reason, depending on PC = actions) and destroys Alphatia utterly. [WotI] There are alternative endings for this adventure, but canonically I = think the NotS is altered to drain Entropy instead of Energy, the = effects of this has been the subject of some debate. GKoM for some = reason isn't updated to reflect this change. My conclusion: The Radiance does not equal magic. The Radiance is a = source of some specific magics, and the curse laid upon the NotS means = that users of the Radiance in Glantri casue a drain on magic. For this = reason Radiance is certainly linked with all magic (as Vanserie muses), = but it is not the source of all magic, nor does Radiance equal magic. Jacob Skytte scythe@wanadoo.dk ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 22:41:09 +1000 From: Alfred O'Meagher Subject: Re: Week without Magic & Day of Dread From: "Jacob Skytte" I'm not just doing this to prove you wrong,There are alternative endings for this adventure, but canonically I think the NotS is altered to drain Entropy instead of Energy, For this reason Radiance is certainly linked with all magic (as Vanserie muses), but it is not the source of all magic, nor does Radiance equal magic. If the "canon" as some on the list call it was at all internally consistent some of this would make sense. As it is not internally consistent, none of this means much. I think your retroactive continuity research is very impressive nonetheless. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 19:04:25 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark --- Thibault SARLAT > I i remember correctly, elves, trolls, and gnomes in > the Norse religion and folklore were kind of > related? Trolls(Giants) and Gods are the spawn of the Primal Giant, called Ymir. Dwarves evolved from maggots feeding on Ymirs corpse after the Gods killed him. Where the elves come from is not explained (unless they have indeed evolved from the dwarves). Neither is the origin of the Vanir(Other Gods) explained, and their existance comes as a surprise to Odin, who afterall created this world... Havard ______________________________________________________ Sjekk snørapporter... fra 500 ski-destinasjoner i Europa på http://no.snow.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 19:10:08 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark --- Jacob Skytte skrev: > The Norse pantheon isn't all made up of benevolent > good guys, Odin is a good example, and he's their > king! Loki was also part of the Norse pantheon > residing in Valhalla and spent a lot of time hanging > out with Thor (though he often caused trouble). So > no, it's not all light vs. dark, there was a little > more nuance than that. ;) Note that the concepts of Good and Evil are Christian ideas. In the good old viking days, people did not understand such ideas. More important was family, loyality, friends and enemies. But enemies were not neccesarily seen as evil. Indeed it would be considered a great honor to fight a glorious and honorable enemy. Much more so than to hunt down and slay a miserable cowardly swine. (even though that too had to be done from time to time). Another thing to keep in mind is that everything that is written down about norse myths is written by christians (Most of it by Snorri Sturlason), and he tried to fit alot of things into his own Christian-ish world view. However, Giants, wolves and ravens were definately things to be feared and to stay away from, and if unavoidable, just go out and kill. Havard ______________________________________________________ Sjekk snørapporter... fra 500 ski-destinasjoner i Europa på http://no.snow.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 19:17:07 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark --- macnerd > I don't know about gnomes.... > There were faeries as well. Though these I think are > more icelandic... I > forgot... Gnomes and faeries are newer invensions from christian times. However, they have roots, probably from the pre-christian mythologies. > Giants, like Fire Giants and others, are apart of > Norse mythology. Though > because of physics and biology, they cannot truly > exist. :-) Physics and biology? You belive in that stuff? ;) > Trolls are apart of Norse mythology, though not the > ones presented in D&D. > Trolls are really smart and are also sorcerers, i.e. > magic practitioners. > But they were hideous. Trolls(usually referred to as Giants back then) could be smart, stupid, magical, large, small, ugly or beautiful. Basically anything. The only thing they had in common was that they were magical creatures who opposed the gods (although not always directly), and were somehow seen as related to eachother. Since they all were decendants from Ymir, that makes sense I guess. > There's also a half-troll (trollborn), which are > similar in statistics to > half-orcs. I think this is more of a D&D invension, but I like it nevertheless. At least there were many cases of Gods and Trolls mixing... Havard ______________________________________________________ Sjekk snørapporter... fra 500 ski-destinasjoner i Europa på http://no.snow.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:55:12 -0300 From: Just Another Grue Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark Please don't go blaming Christianity for "good" and "evil" as concepts. The idea that Christianity is responsible for this seeming dualism is a populist misconception propogated for the last four decades by people who haven't done their research. So the Vikings didn't know about good and evil before Christian contact? According to most critics of Christianity at the dawn of the religion 2000 years ago the concepts were an amalgam of Greek, Egyptian and other mystery cult relgions. Besides, today the populist western culture is clearly non-Christian (despite the loud presence of televangelists and political idiots) and has co-opted and mangled several major religio-social belief structures to the extent that modern people only THINK something is Christian. havardfaa@YAHOO.NO wrote: > --- Jacob Skytte skrev: > > > Note that the concepts of Good and Evil are Christian > ideas. In the good old viking days, people did not > understand such ideas. More important was family, > loyality, friends and enemies. But enemies were not > neccesarily seen as evil. Indeed it would be > considered a great honor to fight a glorious and > honorable enemy. Much more so than to hunt down and > slay a miserable cowardly swine. (even though that too > had to be done from time to time). > > Another thing to keep in mind is that everything that > is written down about norse myths is written by > christians (Most of it by Snorri Sturlason), and he > tried to fit alot of things into his own Christian-ish > world view. > > However, Giants, wolves and ravens were definately > things to be feared and to stay away from, and if > unavoidable, just go out and kill. > > Havard > > ______________________________________________________ > Sjekk snørapporter... > fra 500 ski-destinasjoner i Europa > på http://no.snow.yahoo.com/ > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:40:28 -0700 From: macnerd Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark Hey! I have a serious point that I hope people can consider and respond. I don't want to argue that about good/evil and Christianity, but I can say that good/evil concept is not universal and is not cross-cultural. As Mystara is obviously cross-cultural, why plague Mystara with concepts of good/evil across the board, especially in regards to alignment. In the D&D3e yahoo group, I mentioned keeping the alignment to be just only Chaos/Order, and eliminate Good/Evil from Alignment as this is IMHO more in line with Mystara. >> From my personal beliefs, which is in part from Buddhism, I think in higher order conscious concepts of Entropy-Creation, it that there is a destructive force in nature and thoughts, and a creative force in nature and thoughts. This is why I like the idea of Immortals being aligned to Entropy, Matter, Time, Thought, Energy, etc., as I felt (despite being raised in Western society and Christian) good vs. evil was too simplistic. Any thoughts/comments... - Joaquin Menchaca PS - As a humble suggestion, please try to avoid generalization and derogative words, as this may incite people, and delude the point you may wish to originally communicate. > -----Original Message----- > From: Mystara RPG Discussion [mailto:MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM]On > Behalf Of Just Another Grue > Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 11:55 AM > To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Light vs. Dark > > > Please don't go blaming Christianity for "good" and "evil" as > concepts. > The idea that Christianity is responsible for this seeming > dualism is a > populist misconception propogated for the last four decades by people > who haven't done their research. So the Vikings didn't know about good > and evil before Christian contact? According to most critics of > Christianity at the dawn of the religion 2000 years ago the concepts > were an amalgam of Greek, Egyptian and other mystery cult relgions. > > Besides, today the populist western culture is clearly non-Christian > (despite the loud presence of televangelists and political idiots) and > has co-opted and mangled several major religio-social belief > structures > to the extent that modern people only THINK something is Christian. > > havardfaa@YAHOO.NO wrote: > > > --- Jacob Skytte skrev: > > > > > >Note that the concepts of Good and Evil are Christian > >ideas. In the good old viking days, people did not > >understand such ideas. More important was family, > >loyality, friends and enemies. But enemies were not > >neccesarily seen as evil. Indeed it would be > >considered a great honor to fight a glorious and > >honorable enemy. Much more so than to hunt down and > >slay a miserable cowardly swine. (even though that too > >had to be done from time to time). > > > >Another thing to keep in mind is that everything that > >is written down about norse myths is written by > >christians (Most of it by Snorri Sturlason), and he > >tried to fit alot of things into his own Christian-ish > >world view. > > > >However, Giants, wolves and ravens were definately > >things to be feared and to stay away from, and if > >unavoidable, just go out and kill. > > > >Havard > > > >______________________________________________________ > >Sjekk snørapporter... > >fra 500 ski-destinasjoner i Europa > >på http://no.snow.yahoo.com/ > > > >******************************************************************** > >The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > >The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > >To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > >with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > > > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:56:58 -0700 From: macnerd Subject: Republishing Mystara Who exactly owns the rights to Mystara? Can we republish the Gazetteers? I notice people publishing modules with D&D3e statistics around the net, and there doesn't seem to be any action from WotC. I thought of republishing some Gazetteers as they are so expensive to get on Ebay or elsewhere. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 17:58:21 -0300 From: Just Another Grue Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark Well, I've been considering the chaos/order issue for a while and have to agree with you that good/evil is generally oversimplified and, IMNSHO, far too subjective for effective, enjoyable roleplay. I wouldn't rule it out entirely as an alignment option but I think stressing the chaos/order contrast is a lot more fun and provides more unique play opportunities. No, good and evil are not cross-cultural although all cultures I've studied have concepts which deal with what supports their society and what destroys society. It's a simple group-promoting mechanism. And this is why chaos (group destroying) versus order (group promoting) works so well in a non-Earth like Mystara. And it's especially interesting when you try to look at Hule and Bozdogan(sp?). A whole society devoted to Chaos as a higher concept and yet it remains somewhat cohesive. In fact it creates some order to spread greater Chaos. Or, as I like to think, it's Order IS Chaos. Very fun. macnerd@REALMSPACE.COM wrote: > Hey! I have a serious point that I hope people can consider > and respond. I don't want to argue that about good/evil > and Christianity, but I can say that good/evil concept is > not universal and is not cross-cultural. > > As Mystara is obviously cross-cultural, why plague Mystara > with concepts of good/evil across the board, especially > in regards to alignment. In the D&D3e yahoo group, I > mentioned keeping the alignment to be just only Chaos/Order, > and eliminate Good/Evil from Alignment as this is IMHO > more in line with Mystara. > >> From my personal beliefs, which is in part from Buddhism, > I think in higher order conscious concepts of Entropy-Creation, > it that there is a destructive force in nature and thoughts, > and a creative force in nature and thoughts. > > This is why I like the idea of Immortals being aligned to > Entropy, Matter, Time, Thought, Energy, etc., as I felt > (despite being raised in Western society and Christian) > good vs. evil was too simplistic. > > Any thoughts/comments... > > - Joaquin Menchaca > > PS - As a humble suggestion, please try to avoid generalization > and derogative words, as this may incite people, and delude the > point you may wish to originally communicate. > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Mystara RPG Discussion [mailto:MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM]On >> Behalf Of Just Another Grue >> Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 11:55 AM >> To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM >> Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Light vs. Dark >> >> >> Please don't go blaming Christianity for "good" and "evil" as >> concepts. >> The idea that Christianity is responsible for this seeming >> dualism is a >> populist misconception propogated for the last four decades by people >> who haven't done their research. So the Vikings didn't know about good >> and evil before Christian contact? According to most critics of >> Christianity at the dawn of the religion 2000 years ago the concepts >> were an amalgam of Greek, Egyptian and other mystery cult relgions. >> >> Besides, today the populist western culture is clearly non-Christian >> (despite the loud presence of televangelists and political idiots) and >> has co-opted and mangled several major religio-social belief >> structures >> to the extent that modern people only THINK something is Christian. >> >> havardfaa@YAHOO.NO wrote: >> >>> --- Jacob Skytte skrev: >>> >>> >>> Note that the concepts of Good and Evil are Christian >>> ideas. In the good old viking days, people did not >>> understand such ideas. More important was family, >>> loyality, friends and enemies. But enemies were not >>> neccesarily seen as evil. Indeed it would be >>> considered a great honor to fight a glorious and >>> honorable enemy. Much more so than to hunt down and >>> slay a miserable cowardly swine. (even though that too >>> had to be done from time to time). >>> >>> Another thing to keep in mind is that everything that >>> is written down about norse myths is written by >>> christians (Most of it by Snorri Sturlason), and he >>> tried to fit alot of things into his own Christian-ish >>> world view. >>> >>> However, Giants, wolves and ravens were definately >>> things to be feared and to stay away from, and if >>> unavoidable, just go out and kill. >>> >>> Havard >>> >>> ______________________________________________________ >>> Sjekk snørapporter... >>> fra 500 ski-destinasjoner i Europa >>> på http://no.snow.yahoo.com/ >>> >>> ******************************************************************** >>> The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp >>> The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ >>> To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM >>> with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. >>> >> ******************************************************************** >> The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp >> The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ >> To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM >> with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. >> > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:20:31 +0000 From: Agathokles Subject: Re: Republishing Mystara macnerd wrote: > > Who exactly owns the rights to Mystara? IIRC, the whole OD&D and AD&D1e rights were sold to Kenzer Co. for their Hackmaster stuff (there was a thread on this topic some times ago, perhaps you could find it in the archives). > Can we republish the Gazetteers? My understanding is that we can't, since we don't hold the rights. > notice people publishing modules with D&D3e statistics around the net, and > there doesn't seem to be any action from WotC. Are you referring to d20 conversions of old modules? If so, WotC has taken action less than a month ago, releasing an official set of guidelines (AFAIK, the idea is that one can convert only stat blocks). See ENWorld for details. > I thought of republishing some Gazetteers as they are so expensive to get on > Ebay or elsewhere. WotC is republishing them as ESDs (these are not available to non-USA residents, though). -- Giampaolo Agosta agathokles@libero.it agosta@elet.polimi.it http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 00:12:02 +0200 From: =?US-ASCII?Q?Andres_Piquer_Otero?= Subject: Re: Republishing Mystara > Are you referring to d20 conversions of old modules? If so, WotC has > taken action less than a month ago, releasing an official set of > guidelines (AFAIK, the idea is that one can convert only stat blocks). > See ENWorld for details. IIRC, WotC put out guidelines about conversion files from old xD&D to 3e almost as soon as ESDs begun (and 3e came out). They were in the ESD FAQ in wizards.com (that FAQ came out quite before the ESD was comissioned to Bastionpress, with Jim Butler moving outta wizards). It stated that they were ok as long as they only included the minimum material from the original text needed to make the conversion (stat blocks, sure, and page references, like "on p.22, dungeon key #22, the Disarm trap for the explosive chest has a DR of 25"). I've seen a few files like that, they're quite useful if you want to run the module in 3e, though, if you're experienced, you can make things up really fast, like doors, DRs, saving throw equivalents, etc... (excepting NPC conversion, which should be done very carefully to avoid big unbalances,and things like new spells and monsters not featured in 3e books). so, i think it's quite allright to make conversions of old mystara stuff, no matter who gets the rights to relaunch new setting material (kenzer jokes, ugh!), wizards has still the rights over oop / now ESD materials, and they're accepting fan conversion files (anything which encourages people buying 3e stuff and their esd downloads will be welcome to them!) Andres ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 00:15:39 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9s_Piquer_Otero?= Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark > Please don't go blaming Christianity for "good" and "evil" as concepts. > The idea that Christianity is responsible for this seeming dualism is a > populist misconception propogated for the last four decades by people > who haven't done their research. So the Vikings didn't know about good > and evil before Christian contact? According to most critics of > Christianity at the dawn of the religion 2000 years ago the concepts > were an amalgam of Greek, Egyptian and other mystery cult relgions. IMO (and academic knowledge), Good/Evil dualism is not Christian-made, it's quite older and, in fact, dualism is quite away from modern (Middle Ages onwards) official non-heterodox Christianism, in which even Evil exists because of divine providence . On the other hand, certain concepts we associate with good-evil strife, like sin, guilt, expiation, atonement, meekness as a form of Good virtue... are quite Judaic/Christian in origin or at least in the development which is familiar now to us Westerns. I'd venture that the Law-Chaos opposition is quite older, and if such a thing exists, is quite closer to being a "universal" motif, if only because it integrates Cosmical considerations (world-order and sense) with personal and social ones (the meaning of self and one's place in the universe). That makes a Law vs. Chaos only, like Mystara's, quite a happier idea for an alignment system: personal considerations are connected to cosmical ones, and cosmical stuff plays a big role in a FRPG (Outer Plane monsters, aligned magicks, nature powers, etc, etc.). Introducing the Evil/Good axis is a good way or murking up things, as many of those concepts, as handled in AD&D are in fact inspired by concrete philosophical concepts (especially Christian ones), which makes it hard to integrate in a diverse-belief and fantastic setting as Mystara... Not to start alignment old flame war... i use the good/evil axis in my campaigns, but only as a role-playing guideline. Detect Evil , for instance, detects evil intent in a particular moment, but not alignment (even of Outsiders): the big cosmic things, like demons, churches or aligned spells, are worked upon Law and Chaos and the Spheres. Andrés ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 18:52:33 -0500 From: Roger Girtman Subject: Re: Republishing Mystara

As far as I know, WotC still has the RIGHTS to Mystara and material; Kenzer & Co. have an exclusive LICENSE to MODIFY and RE-PUBLISH existing oD&D and Mystara material.

Also, the message board from Kenzer which prompted the earlier conversation/debate/scare/hype essentially consisted of one line, something to the effect of: "Yeah, since we own the rights to Mystara we can do almost anything we want with it if we do anything at all."

I don't have the link to the message board where this appeared, so I don't know the exact wording--but it must be understood that the post mentioned above was made by a member to the board, not an official from Kenzer--(if anyone has verifiable proof to the contrary, please correct me)--that is also why it says "own the rights" instead of "license to publish", because much like any other BBS or message board, the poster didn't know all of the details. (I admit that I don't either.)

I doubt that WotC would sell the RIGHTS of anything they own to anybody--licenses are another matter, however. Case in point: Ravenloft, now published as a d20 game by White Wolf (no longer "officially" D&D, although it is essentially Ravenloft3e) but if you look on the back of the title page, it will have the Ravenloft copyright information attributed to WotC NOT White Wolf, it does say "Used under license." of course.

Remember, rumors and speculation is what lead to the assasination of Julius Caesar--before you post, do a bit more research than "a little" or "I think"... Ignorance or misleading information has never been a justifiable excuse in a court of law, and when dealing with a copyrighted product, such as we are, such misinformation, however honest a mistake, can have dreadful reprecussions to many involved. I for one don't want to end up in a law suit.

 

Anyway, check things out and stay in touch *wink*

Dasvedania, Roger

"Chivalry doesn't mean that a woman CAN'T open a door for herself, only that a lady SHOULDN'T HAVE TO."
ICQ: 77185585

http://www.geocities.com/gawain_viii/mystara


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------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 02:16:41 +0200 From: =?us-ascii?Q?Andres_Piquer_Otero?= Subject: Re: Republishing Mystara > Who exactly owns the rights to Mystara? Can we republish the Gazetteers? I > notice people publishing modules with D&D3e statistics around the net, and > there doesn't seem to be any action from WotC. Mind you, if they don't take actions is either because they've not found out (yet) or because it's quite a pain... or a mix of both, if you go around initiating lawsuits against individual webpage owners, that's gonna be time- and money- consuming for any average company. Normally corporate lawyers will launch those processes in "batches", and prepare to fry some few score "pirate websites" at once. I've seen some of those "3e reprints": they rip off all the text, illustrations and maps from the original ones (just the stats are 3e, and at times the conversion itself is kinda bad, it looks like some kind of excuse to offer a pirated edition). That's clearly illegal and violates Wizards specifications about ESD circulation on the WWW By the way, they don't even allow you to offer the FREE downloads on your website, ftp, whatever... if you want to offer them, the "legal" way is to make a link to the download at wizards.com. They enforced this measure as a kind of monitoring of how much success the ESD thing was having. Of course, there are dark spots I've not conversant about, like what happens with those countries (and therefore hosted websites) which don't have clearly specified copyright laws?? Anyway, no OOP stuff can be circulated using 3e as an excuse... Andres ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 17:46:48 -0700 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: Republishing Mystara At 09:20 PM 4/18/02 +0000, you wrote: > > IIRC, the whole OD&D and AD&D1e rights were sold to Kenzer Co. for their > Hackmaster stuff (there was a thread on this topic some times ago, > perhaps you could find it in the archives). They have a license to publish items based on the OD&D stuff (which doesn't necessarily include Mystara, as I understand it- just the B-series of modules and things). This simply allows them to publish (or re-publish) such things within a very limited context (in this case, as supplements for their Hackmaster product). The rights are still held by Wizards of the Coast, however. This is how I understand things, anyway. I may be wrong. >> Can we republish the Gazetteers? > > My understanding is that we can't, since we don't hold the rights. This much is true. As far as my understanding of copyrights goes though (admittedly very limited), it is theoretically possible that we could apply to get the rights to license a republishing of them through WotC. Doubtful that such a thing will happen for a variety of reasons, chief among them being a limited interest and limited financial reasons for WotC to want to do so (particularly as they are already making them electronically available via their website, and thus can "republish" them for a lot cheaper and with more return on their dollar than outsiders can probably make. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 18:23:31 -0700 From: The Stalker Subject: Re: Week without Magic & Day of Dread On Thu, 18 Apr 2002 22:41:09 +1000, Alfred O'Meagher wrote: > From: "Jacob Skytte" > I'm not just doing this to prove you wrong,There are alternative endings for > this adventure, but canonically I think the NotS is altered to drain Entropy > instead of Energy, For this reason Radiance is certainly linked with all > magic (as Vanserie muses), but it is not the source of all magic, nor does > Radiance equal magic. > > If the "canon" as some on the list call it was at all internally consistent > some of this would make sense. As it is not internally consistent, none of > this means much. > I think your retroactive continuity research is very impressive nonetheless. > So do I. Thanks Jacob - I don't actually have Gaz3 (although I have the GKoM box), and I know there are a few important references (apart from the missing update you mention) lacking in the "Grimoire" of the box. This will be most useful to me, I think. Sadly canon is rarely consistent on these matters... I could mention a few more examples, but it's probably not a good idea. One thing does puzzle me in all this, though - if the drain on magic was placed on the Radiance by other Immortals (and we know it's so because several sources tell us) and so is not a natural side-effect of the usage of the Radiance, then why is Ixion mad only at Rad in WOTI? I mean, he sort of should be since it's Rad's assumed abuse of the Radiance that has caused other Immortals to impose the curse on the Sphere of Energy, but shouldn't he be just as angry with those Immortals? One minor point - I think someone (though I don't remember who) mentioned that Alphatia knew nothing of the Radiance. Well, they did and they didn't... They had heard enough rumors to realize that there was some strange magic in Glantri that drained magic from Mystara (the murdered elf, Troikithus, was their primary spy). Their intent to stop this "abuse" was why the war started, so they did know of it, although they didn't know what it was exactly. Then again, I always thought this knowledge was in no small part due to the information Ixion (as I'm sure it was) brought to Haldemar's attention in the final "episode" of the VotPA... - The Stalker ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 18:37:40 -0700 From: The Stalker Subject: Re: Why Drow cant fit in Mystara? On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 13:11:25 -0700, Jordi Castille wrote: > macnerd wrote: > Hello all. > > I will open up with my opinion, and people can add theirs, and so forth... > > fine by me. > > > Joaquin: I think that Drow as presented in FR and GH to a lesser extent, > would > not fit into the Mystara campaign. (snip) > > Jordi: Material presented in the GDQ and the Drow of the Underdark is very good > (snip) > > This is one of those threads that come up now again and doesn't have a clear answer. The way I see it, we're all divided into two camps of questions like this. I'm not just talking about the drow/shadowelf thread here, but similar ones like whether there are mind flayers, sahuagin (sp?) or so on Mystara... To me, we all probably belong in one of these camps: 1. Why isn't there place on Mystara for whatever we want? A group of [insert preferred monster not typically found on Mystara here] isn't going to make any difference on Mystara as there will be few of them, so what is the problem with that? 2. The fact (whether it is or not) that Mystara doesn't have [insert monster type here] is one of the things that make Mystara unique and different. If those monsters were on Mystara, it would lose some of its "uniqueness". The same goes for having gods instead of Immortals on Mystara or having Mystara be just another world in a Planescape/Spelljammer reality. It's the differences that make Mystara distinct. Some of us belong in different camps depending on whether we simply like the ideas involved. I like both Planescape and Spelljammer, so I belong in camp 1 on those issues, but I do prefer to keep monsters like mind flayers (as they are in the general rules at least - I like them as servants of Outer Beings) or drow away from Mystara, so I'd be in camp 2 where those are involved. - The Stalker ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 03:46:39 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9s_Piquer_Otero?= Subject: Re: Week without Magic & Day of Dread > then why is Ixion mad only at Rad in WOTI? I mean, he sort of should be since it's Rad's assumed abuse of the Radiance that has caused other Immortals to impose the curse on the Sphere of Energy, but shouldn't he be just as angry with those Immortals? I think that the big focus of ixion's anger on Rad came from Rad's active experimentation with Radiance (through the Order and so on) which would deplete Energy at a great rate, as well as from Rad's dealing with mortals in an almost direct way (through the Order of Radiance and the overall power structure in Glantri), topped by his giving a chance to simple mortals of meddling and affecting Immortal affairs (the equilibrium of the Spheres, as well as Immortal ascension without sponsors -which is a good way of keeping a conservative power statu quo-; that's why an immortal interested in experimentation, like Rathanos, and a sponsorless one, like Rafile, side themselves promptly with Rad). Andrés ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 23:50:05 -0400 From: Dan Eustace Subject: Re: Week without Magic & Day of Dread > I'm not just doing this to prove you wrong,There are alternative endings for > this adventure, but canonically I think the NotS is altered to drain Entropy > instead of Energy, For this reason Radiance is certainly linked with all > magic (as Vanserie muses), but it is not the source of all magic, nor does > Radiance equal magic. > > If the "canon" as some on the list call it was at all internally consistent > some of this would make sense. As it is not internally consistent, none of > this means much. > I think your retroactive continuity research is very impressive nonetheless. Huh? I'm not sure where you're going with this. "The Radiance IS Magic"? Could you explain this a little more thoroughly? My understanding is as Jacob described it. Of course, everyone is free to do as they like in their own games, but overall, despite inconsistencies, I don't ever recall seeing anything similar to what you're talking about. Are you saying that the "Radiance" was meant to be some sort of mystical "force" that all magic draws it power from? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:29:11 -0400 From: Dan Eustace Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark I would argue that good and evil are real, and are ingrained in human consciousness. Although people's perceptions of exactly what and who are evil or good tend to depend on point of view (enemies are typically demonized as evil), there are certain things across nearly all cultures and all times which are recognized as wrong acts. Stories and tales across many cultures tend to have moral lessons which cross cultural boundaries. Human nature, being what it is, the concepts do tend to become blurred and scewed toward one's own point of view. This ends up leading to the "shades of gray" which occur in this world, and are typically used to describe Mystara. Are either Thyatis or Alphatia evil or good? It depends on where someone is from. There are elements of both in each, but to each other, the other empire would usually (esp. during wartime) be seen as the one that is evil. Now, this typical human judgement does not prove or disprove the existance of good and evil as moral absolutes. The idea that good and evil are merely "concepts" from some archaic and outdated system, stems from post-modern relativism, which is a fairly recent trend. As described above, to some extent, people's *perceptions* of good and evil do depend on their point of view. However, to explain away good and evil as being purely relative for each individual, as this theory suggests, goes against the fact that certain things are nearly universally viewed as crimes. So, in my gaming, contrary to what many Mystara-philes delight in, I run a world of high fantsasy with well-defined evil and good. Of course there are many shades of gray in between that keeps things interesting, but I prefer a clear cut enemy that the heroes can strive to defeat, as in LotR. I understand that many people have differing opinions on this, and you are certainly entitled to them. Hopefully no one takes this the wrong way - I'm simply trying to provide a defense for my own viewpoint. Further discussion is more than welcome, but this seems like the type of thing that could easily digress into a serious flame-war if we're not careful. Cheers ----- Original Message ----- From: "Just Another Grue" To: Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 2:55 PM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Light vs. Dark > Please don't go blaming Christianity for "good" and "evil" as concepts. > The idea that Christianity is responsible for this seeming dualism is a > populist misconception propogated for the last four decades by people > who haven't done their research. So the Vikings didn't know about good > and evil before Christian contact? According to most critics of > Christianity at the dawn of the religion 2000 years ago the concepts > were an amalgam of Greek, Egyptian and other mystery cult relgions. > > Besides, today the populist western culture is clearly non-Christian > (despite the loud presence of televangelists and political idiots) and > has co-opted and mangled several major religio-social belief structures > to the extent that modern people only THINK something is Christian. > > havardfaa@YAHOO.NO wrote: > > > --- Jacob Skytte skrev: > > > > > >Note that the concepts of Good and Evil are Christian > >ideas. In the good old viking days, people did not > >understand such ideas. More important was family, > >loyality, friends and enemies. But enemies were not > >neccesarily seen as evil. Indeed it would be > >considered a great honor to fight a glorious and > >honorable enemy. Much more so than to hunt down and > >slay a miserable cowardly swine. (even though that too > >had to be done from time to time). > > > >Another thing to keep in mind is that everything that > >is written down about norse myths is written by > >christians (Most of it by Snorri Sturlason), and he > >tried to fit alot of things into his own Christian-ish > >world view. > > > >However, Giants, wolves and ravens were definately > >things to be feared and to stay away from, and if > >unavoidable, just go out and kill. > > > >Havard > > > >______________________________________________________ > >Sjekk snørapporter... > >fra 500 ski-destinasjoner i Europa > >på http://no.snow.yahoo.com/ > > > >******************************************************************** > >The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > >The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > >To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > >with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > > > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 22:24:54 -0700 From: macnerd Subject: Re: Why Drow cant fit in Mystara? I guess it depends. I guess for little isolated bits, people are more flexible, but for campaign toppling races/monsters, people are a little aversive. I can understand it. Though, I really feel a little bad when people just thrash on others for bringing up an idea, instead of taking a stance and supporting that stance. Nevertheless, it is useful for me to see people's reaction, because when/if I create material, I hope to have the broadest audience. When people like my stuff, I feel good and I want to be more creative. I understand sometimes, I cannot get people to see my way, and then sometimes I do (rare though :). Though, sometimes, when I suggested stuff, people rip it to shreds. Sometimes, I argued, and go them to accept some of my points, but then its such a uphill battle, and I get drained of energy, and my creativity dwindles like a candle being snuff'd. I'm going to try to be more open. Something that I don't like, or won't accept IMC, I'll state it and put why. However, even if I disagree, I'll try to contribute to that person's idea. For example, I oppose FR/GH Drow generally, but I have some ideas I can contribute as to how it would get done. I personally am a big fan of GDQ module, despite that I generally think it doesn't fit well into Mystara. However, I wouldn't mind sticking it in a campaign at some point, and I might document it on a non-canon section of my Mystara site (once I pay my net bill and get some time:) My idea was to use a Dark Elf variant (Mystara original custom composed of my and other's ideas), and have an optional (totally non-canon) guide to documenting a splinter group that worships a Mystara-ized version of Lloth, and using GDQ. In GDQ, there are a some viking-ish adventures and under-Earth adventures that can be intertwined with Rockhome, Broken Lands, and Shadow Elves gazetteers. Lastly, there is this artifact, which is a mechanized spider. Perhaps this could be some hidden Blackmoor-era device. Perhaps even Lloth could have been this infamous Witch mentioned in Blackmoor, and she happened to like spiders too. :-) Then with the technological era of Blackmoor, she organized the construction of this gargantuan mechanized spider doomsday device, but her plans were put to ruins due to Great Rain of Fire, which she survived by going into the under-earth, and later discovers the Dark Elves, and assumes an identity in their culture. She achieves immortality, and continues to act as a God for an Dark Elf faction. From there, she plots revenge upon the surface dwellers, and especially elves, for whom she blames brought forth the Great Rain of Fire. Note, there was some reference to how elves were blamed for the Great Rain of Fire. Though no one knows for sure. I can even tie this in to my Dinarii clan creation. The Dinarii is a clan that believes elves have been corrupted by humans, and seeks to purge elven kind of human impurities. They have a secret patron that grants their priests powers. (Though they may not know their patron's real plan. Heh, Heh, Heh.) - Joaquin > This is one of those threads that come up now again and doesn't have a > clear answer. The way I see it, we're all divided into two camps of > questions like this. I'm not just talking about the > drow/shadowelf thread > here, but similar ones like whether there are mind flayers, > sahuagin (sp?) > or so on Mystara... > > To me, we all probably belong in one of these camps: > > 1. Why isn't there place on Mystara for whatever we want? A group of > [insert preferred monster not typically found on Mystara > here] isn't going > to make any difference on Mystara as there will be few of > them, so what is > the problem with that? > > 2. The fact (whether it is or not) that Mystara doesn't have [insert > monster type here] is one of the things that make Mystara unique and > different. If those monsters were on Mystara, it would lose some of > its "uniqueness". The same goes for having gods instead of > Immortals on > Mystara or having Mystara be just another world in a > Planescape/Spelljammer > reality. It's the differences that make Mystara distinct. > > Some of us belong in different camps depending on whether we > simply like > the ideas involved. I like both Planescape and Spelljammer, > so I belong in > camp 1 on those issues, but I do prefer to keep monsters like > mind flayers > (as they are in the general rules at least - I like them as > servants of > Outer Beings) or drow away from Mystara, so I'd be in camp 2 > where those > are involved. > > > - The Stalker > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 23:15:51 -0700 From: macnerd Subject: Re: Light vs. Dark I agree with you that good and evil have many shades of gray, and depending on your viewpoint, either side and be evil or good. That is why I oppose using good and evil for alignment for that very reason. I think I would rather have the freedom for the PC to role-play his character and he/she sees fit, and let the society (fantasy society that is) judge that character accordingly. In the world's history (and even in Mystara's fantasy history) there have been civilizations that have conquered other civilizations. Some have been assimilated to the "superior" civilization. (Highlighted superior, as that's obviously just the winner's viewpoint), or eliminated by the "mightier" civilization. The victim society are "ignorant" souls that need to be taught the right way/religion (at their expense, but we won't mention that) for their own good. The dominant society feels they are doing justice and doing good for the victim society, but the victim society knows they are being exploited, and sees the others as evil. Some resort to stealing as they need food, and are punished. The punisher sees the thief as evil, and the thief sees the punisher as evil. How does evil/good alignment attributes define this, when both can be evil or good. There's no clear way, and I'm sure if any one takes a stance on what is truly good or evil and applies it to historical or modern events, they'll start a flame (or at least very heated war). I remember something taught in history. When the Spaniards ask some indigenous Cubans if they wanted to go to heaven, they asked "Are Spaniards in heaven". Naturally the Spaniards responded yes, and so the native replied, "Then I don't want to go". So for this matter, I stick with only Chaos and Order attributes, i.e. Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic Alignments, and ignore Good and Evil and let the players feel out their PCs without being limited to such a blurry and often highly disputed concept. Just something to think about. - Joaquin > -----Original Message----- > From: Mystara RPG Discussion [mailto:MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM]On > Behalf Of Dan Eustace > > (snip) > Although people's perceptions of exactly what > and who are > evil or good tend to depend on point of view (enemies are typically > demonized as evil), there are certain things across nearly > all cultures and > all times which are recognized as wrong acts. Stories and > tales across many > cultures tend to have moral lessons which cross cultural > boundaries. Human I have to say yes and no. Some moral lessons, perhaps. However, more often than not different cultures emphasize different moralities. For instance, one society values natures and respects women. While another society demonizes (are at least has in the past to a greater extent) women and values above all else conformity and order. > nature, being what it is, the concepts do tend to become > blurred and scewed > toward one's own point of view. This ends up leading to the > "shades of > gray" which occur in this world, and are typically used to > describe Mystara. Exactly!! > Are either Thyatis or Alphatia evil or good? It depends on > where someone is > from. There are elements of both in each, but to each other, > the other > empire would usually (esp. during wartime) be seen as the one > that is evil. Exactly!!! Maybe even a person can be evil and one point and good at another point. Maybe one can be kind and gentle to one group and evil, vindictive, and sadistic to another group. Is that person evil or good? The same person's acts of compassion and generosity could show no bounds, but yet to the demonized group, his cruelity could strike fear in anybody apart of that group. Perhaps that demonized group are truly innocent scapegoated victems. Whose evil? Whose good? How can such a NPC or PC be so cleanly mapped to such an alignment. (snip) > However, to explain away good and evil as being purely > relative for each individual, as this theory > suggests, goes against the fact that certain things are > nearly universally viewed as crimes. Unless of course you are of the conquered or villainized group. Look historically at the: Aborigines in Australia, Native Americans in USA, Meso-Americans during Spanish occupation, Gypsies throughout Europe, Jewish during holocaust, Indians under Imperial Great Britain, various Asian people under Japanese, Tibetans under China, or Africans in South Africa or Brazil. There's documents describing torture of Meso-American indigenous by Spaniards whom deemed them as witches/warlocks. There's American indigenous that surrendered peacefully, but were gifted by having howitzers shelled at them while they stood peacefully in a massive ditch. The soldiers in that incident were rewarded with medals of honor. Where's the moralities from this? I apologize for mentioning such horrors of the past, but just consider for a moment, that when one is one the dominant or winning side, good/evil may appear universal. Though I doubt if the victims see it that way. (snip) > I'm simply trying to provide a defense for my own viewpoint. > Further discussion is more than welcome, but this seems like > the type of thing that could > easily digress into a serious flame-war if we're not careful. I like your sincerity. Your discussion is welcome... (snip) ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 17 Apr 2002 to 18 Apr 2002 (#2002-106) ****************************************************************