Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 18 Jul 2002 to 19 Jul 2002 (#2002-186) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 20/07/2002, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 11 messages totalling 653 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) (3) 2. Delayed Dimension Door (3) 3. Svartalfar 4. Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review).. [a short flamthrowing attack I should say] 5. Modrigswerg 3 :some ideas -refrences 6. Modrigswerg 4 (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: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 01:14:17 -0700 From: Herve Musseau Subject: Re: Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) > Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 22:38:05 +1000 > From: Alfred O'Meagher > Subject: Re: Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) > > The fanbase of most profitable d20 publishers produce more stuff than the MA Uh, you lost me there. To me, the two words "fanbase" and "profitable" are incompatible. If they make profit from it, they are not the fanbase but pro writers. If they are the fanbase like we are, they are not making a cent out of it but only get the satisfaction of having contributed to the world they love, for their and all other fans' sake. > team, and there are usually fewer people doing it. I agree totally with the Well, good for them. If they are as prolific as you say they are, more power to them. I am not sure if you realize the scope of the almanacs, though. Put together, they represent a volume that I think is larger than what TSR published for Mystara in twenty years (ie the canon). And the almanacs are only a portion (a large one, admittedly, but far from the only one) of what the fanbase of this list and the other Mystaran forums have produced, and that you can find at the Vaults. > other poster who commented that the almanack just reads like notes from > someone's campaign. Campaign notes are all well and good, but we all do that It may read that way, yet it actually isn't from any one person's campaign. Such a comment, BTW, may be said about pretty much anything. It certainly can be said of any and all PWAs, of WotI, but also of any adventure module even published, and yes even of any gazetteer (gaz4? yikes! it reads like somebody else's campaign notes (or an 80's TV script ;) ), I'm not using that in mine...). > anyway. The campaign I play in produces about double the almanack output > each quarter, mainly because most of the contributors are just happy players > producing Bard journalism pieces and writeups of new classes, kits and > variants they have encountered. Good for you. We (not just the almanac team, the Mystara fans) would certainly love to see them, and maybe shamelessly pillage them for ideas. You and your players must be spending all your time writing it, though, for double the (yearly?) almanac output each quarter means eight time our output, or roughly double TSR's twenty years Mystara output each year. > And I am correcting the defects that I perceive - cf previous post on the > Netbook of Days. I am going to collate the information for the years 1000 to > 1200 AC inclusive, from originally published TSR stuff, then from the notes > and comments of the game designers, then from the online contributions from > the designers then from fan sources. All fan material will be italicised so > it is clear that it is an addendum and not in any way official. Good to see you may finally stop bashing people on this list and actually start contributing something. If your talent is half as big as your mouth, then we soon will be blessed with vast quantities of high-quality material. ===== ___________________________________________________________ Herve Musseau http://www.geocities.com/hmusseau/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 02:04:41 -0600 From: Angelo Bertolli Subject: Re: Delayed Dimension Door All very good ideas from people... I think I'll hammer out the details before I give it to players. There IS that little issue about where the person goes when they're gone. Maybe that should be left up to the DM's discretion because I think it would be interesting any way you do it. I was thinking perhaps the Astral Plane. Anyway, I also had another thought that escaped me before... casting this spell on another creature. Could take them out of the picture for a certain amount of time, but then again... they could be preparing for when they come back. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 02:06:06 -0600 From: Angelo Bertolli Subject: Re: Delayed Dimension Door > I think that your "delayed dimension door" could be quite useful; > for example you could "dimension away" yourself to save your life: while you > are "elsewhere" your friends could manage to defeat the threat, or enemies > could be bewildered by your disappearance, and, thinking that you teleported > away, they could be easily surprised at your return. > Or you could use delayed dimension door during a duel with another > magic-user: while you "stay elsewhere" the duration of his spells elapses > (of course, this applies only to short duration spells, such as sword). > The spell can be used also against an enemy: if he fails the saving throw > you can state the very precise position of his return and you can take > advantage of his absence preparing him a surprise, such as a cage, a web > spell, an area of confusion, a cloudkill or, well, a couple of delayed blast > fireballs well clocked! In this case, better be sure the spell is at an appropriate level.... maybe 6th? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 12:47:58 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Svartalfar --- The Stalker skrev: > > I'm still very confused about what these > svartenalfen really are, so I > guess I should go look as well. This is on Haavard's > site? I did a write up which is on dnd.starflung.com where they are listed as Black Elves. (for OD&D). However I got some criticism for the name, also I have improved on the idea since then. Basically they are a variant of High Elves, which are Celestial Level creatures related to Elves. The Svartalfar have been corrupted by Loki and serve as his agents in the Known World. Håvard PS: Sorry, that I havent been able to participate much on this list lately, I have been having trouble getting internet access.. ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nå med webkamera, stemmechat, interaktiv bakgrunn og mye mer! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 08:44:52 -0400 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Re: Delayed Dimension Door Angelo wrote: > I was thinking of a new spell that works like dimension door, where the > caster disappears and appears elsewhere. Only the cast can delay the > reappearance up to a certain amount of time later. But, I can't really see > how this would be useful. The use I can see for is strategic. Say you're leading someone into a trap, or mounting an assault, and you want a guaranteed way out, but not right away. The regular spell will work at once, possibly taking you out of action before you can capitalise on a move made by the opponent (for example, the enemy lets down his/her guard, allowing you to cast a quick magic missle or two to, hopefully, finish him off). A delayed version with a time frame of a couple of rounds would let you plan a bit more, along the lines of : "I've got 30 seconds to get in a few more hits/grab a little more loot/search for that document before I'm out of here". It would be perfect for mages with roguish or spying proclivities. Hope this helps, Geoff -- Geoff Gander, BA 97, MPA 02 Carnifex Loremaster/Mad Roleplayer Master of the Elemental Plane of Bureaucracy au998@freenet.carleton.ca : www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2091 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 08:50:17 -0400 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Re: Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) Herve wrote: > Good to see you may finally stop bashing people on this list and actually start > contributing something. If your talent is half as big as your mouth, then we > soon will be blessed with vast quantities of high-quality material. As I said earlier, we don't need this sort of thing on the List. Herve, I know you were simply trying to make a few counterpoints, but the last bit went a bit over the top. Geoff -- Geoff Gander, BA 97, MPA 02 Carnifex Loremaster/Mad Roleplayer Master of the Elemental Plane of Bureaucracy au998@freenet.carleton.ca : www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2091 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:57:01 +0200 From: DM Subject: Re: Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review).. [a short flamthrowing attack I should say] Ok, sorry i tried to resist replying this, but alas.. I failed my Will save ;) At 00.00 16/07/02 -0700, Alfred O'Meagher inanely commented: > Acronyms really don't fit fantasy game worlds. And where do u derive this philosophical assumption, if I may ask? As somebody already pointed out GAZ 3 has elven F.A.E.R.Y. vs E.L.F. (a not so hidden reference to RW organizations like I.R.A. and P.L.F.) and it never gritted on anyone's teeth. Did it escape you, maybe? > They are just another isolationist symptom of clique thinking. Damn! We have been discovered pals! Let's run into hiding in South America and let's come back in some 50 years... or maybe we simply need to change IDs over the internet! Modern technology can do miracles for personality problems ;) > Why wouldn't it just still be Alphatia? The politics have changed, not the > people. Because Alphatia as we knew it pre 1009 AC (but did we really know it?) is NO MORE. It sank during Week Without Magic and is long gone in the outer world. Immortals recreated the Alphatian continent in the HW and set it there, floating inside the HW, but the rulers realized what happened and have now some problems they didn't have before (no trading lines with the outside world anymore, less army conscripts, no more navy, many rulers dead or stranded in the outer world and above all magic working differently, VERY differently.. see the difference?) > Mystara has all these other realms with normal enough names, fantasy setting > nomenclature and so on, and then a late-1990s ugly American style acronym. What the heck??? Yavdlom?? Does it sound like an easy fantasy name for a kingdom?? It's Moldvay (one of TSR first module writers) spelled backwards, damn it! You've even got Sundsvall (a Swedish city) and Uppsala college (another Swedish city), and I can remember at least a couple others! It's obvious the authors took inspiration from RW, it shows even in the culture of the kingdoms and races around Mystara. But that's precisely what Mystara is all about: the link with the RW is well established and nice to find here and there, only fused with fantasy elements. As for acronyms, Americans use them as much as Europeans do (OSCE, OCSE, NATO, EEC, ECSC...): it's just a convention to speed up writing! > Yuck. It won't attract new fans who have recently purchased the original > works. Now, this must be one of the best lines. Can u name one person you know who purchased one of the Gaz or D&D original stuff in the last month? Coz it seems to me that people around here are buying only 3E labeled material nowadays, but correct me if I'm wrong... and besides, original D&D material is EXTREMELY hard to find and not supported anymore, so I don't see ANY NEW FAN buying a dated product which prolly he never heard of and which doesn't use the same rules system he is using now (3E namely). I won't buy this (metaphorically speaking), sorry... ;) > In fact the users of the original stuff are going to pretty much > outnumber the online almanack users 10 to 1 based on sales and the way their > own websites are going What kind of numbers are you giving? BASED ON WHICH SALES?? The Almanac is FREE of charge pal! You cannot really calculate how many people download it or even read it or skim through it! Quoting seemingly official figures u just made up won't reinforce your argument, believe me. I've seen enough of this strategy here in my country in the last years to be warned of it: coz u know, figures and polls are made only to influence those who read their results into thinking what the poll suggests ;) > (I found 200+ Mystara websites through using the AD&D > web rings and website links pages. The OD&D and AD&D Mystara home campaigns > of these pages number at least 4-5 players each, the one I play in numbers > 12 plus many more online who play in the DM's PBeM.) I have 3 campaigns running in Mystara with 6 players each. I can mix up the groups and start another 2 campaigns if I want whenever I want. I won! :p So, What kind of game is yours? Who cares how many people play in your or in my campaign? I don't see the point of your argument here (as in the rest of the letter, anyway) really... > This list is very cool, but I am already sick of the clique-ish almanack. > It's twaddle. Me too. The list is cool, and I'm really sick of one-man shows aimed randomly without any real substance behind them that seem to appear now and then. Straw bonfires I'd say.. But maybe, they're useful: we need flames for our BRBQs after all... ;) (whoops, another clique-ish acronym! sorry!).. > Any DM worth the name has a cartload of their own stuff, they > don't need an almanack unless it is inspirational and full of useful details > and maps. Otherwise it's just an attempt at being elitist and forcing one > person's view of a fantasy world on to everybody else. I don't remember who was the person we sent to Alfred's house to stuff its mailbox with the almanac and force him to read from cover to cover... who's the culprit, guys? C'mon! I promise we won't be too harsh: we'll just make him read through over the 200+ sites with very interesting crunchy material Alfred has discovered over the Net! :) > Also, it's odd how canon is "canon" but nevertheless is changed on a whim > when it suits the online almanack creators. It's odd that you mention the word "canon": I just felt it was the only common argument usually brought up on the list (on every list for that matter) that you hadn't touched yet. Nice move introducing it at the end ;) Almanac uses many of the canon NPCs, Nations and monsters because, essentially, this is what makes Mystara Mystara. It refrains from copying from old threads or rewriting history which stands well on its own. > This isn't really true any more -- the original Blackmoor stuff is all > available and all the D&D stuff is available for pay-for-use download. Yet, BLACKMOOR is BLACKMOOR, else they wouldn't have called it BLACKMOOR but Mystara! And another thing: a world is defined "dead" or "discontinued" when its publisher decides to stop publishing supplements or modules set in it. According to this definition, Mystara (R) has been DEAD ever since 1994. Yet for us (or me at least) it never ceased to live and has never been so alive :) But nevertheless, we won't see any more WotC rulebook for Mystara: that's the hard truth. That's why we keep writing the Almanac: to give inspiration to those who need it. U don't need it? Fair enough, and go on with your own campaign, but don't tell us we forced anything on you. We ain't TSR or WotC: they can enforce anything, not us. > quite a lot of d20 stuff has a Known World flavour. I think that this is > attributable to the influences on the current crop of game designers out > there. What? What are u talking about? Please be clearer and less cryptic and don't make me do assumptions I cannot see.. I'm a lazy boy, u see.. ;) > Plus there are the Mystara items that have turned up in 3e, > including, really, the whole approach to the fighting men and women of 3e > with their streamed skills and abilities. Isolating yourself from this is > guaranteeing obsolescence. Really, but what the Pyts are you referring to??? fighting men and women of 3E are related to Mystara and Mystaran items??? Can anybody translate here? > I guess some online fans of things - comics, > games, whatever - sort of like the obsolescence angle, as it allows them to > sort of be all misty and nostalgic, but it is never necessary. I was looking > at Shannara sites the other day and I noticed the same thing with some of > those fans. They didn't really want to genuinely expand on anything, just > endlessly replay the dead issues of the books. On the other hand there were > loads of sites where people HAVE genuinely expanded on material and also > found out what the underlying themes and components of the genre were. Is the Almanac not expanding on existing material? R u saying the Almanac keeps redoing the same stuff all over again?? Coz just in case u didn't notice, every issue details a new region previously uncharted or described by TSR guys and new plots and characters... but did u read them or r u basing your rants on tall tales? > Terming a setting for a RPG "dead" means but little. > The rules and fiction don't wear out and they don't have irreplaceable > batteries to go flat... ;-) Sure thing. That's why we keep writing the Almanac AND OTHER STUFF, despite the fact Mystara hasn't seen any relevant product in 8 years... where's your point then? Btw, congrats for your post: it has the merit of having revived this cliqued list of old cronies ;p Expect my second rant anytime soon... :p DM Senior Editor of the Mystaran Almanac Lt. Cmdr. of U.S.S. Unicorn "You don't stop playing because you grow old: you grow old because you stop playing!" Visit Marco's Mystara Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/2967 And Mystara Italian Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/9940 Join the Mystara Webring at: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/2967/mystring.html Join the Starfleet Academy at: http://gioco.net/startrek (Italian RPG PBEM) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:58:02 -0700 From: Chris Furneaux Subject: Re: Modrigswerg 3 :some ideas -refrences --- la Volpe wrote: > > 3060 BC > > -Garal Glitterlode, envious of Kagyar's creative > > ability creates a new artisan race he calls > Gnomes, > > and places them in the outer fringes of Evergrun, > > near the south pole. > > These > > are the ancestors of the Ice Gnomes. > > Is this canon on the origin of gnomes or what? No idea. I raided the vaults and compiled the info I thought would be of use on gnomes, dwarves, and the Modrigswerg (because of the falun caverns and the relationships between gnomes and dwarves). That one was from the timeline of the gnomes I think. Things that had references were referenced at the vaults, I did not check them as I don't have Gaz5 or HW. I then added some events for the Modrigswerg consistant with the impression I had got from Gaz7. I can't get the vaults to load ATM otherwise I would tell you where to look. Chris. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:42:49 -0700 From: Chris Furneaux Subject: Re: Modrigswerg 4 > I'm still very confused about what these > svartenalfen really are, so I > guess I should go look as well. This is on Haavard's > site? svartenalfen is the name for dark elves given in Gaz7. Beyond that there is no canon info AFAIK. > So what does that mean for the Immortals? Does it > mean that Kagyar was involved with or indeed the > creator of all the dwarves (Kogolors, Modrigswerg, > and Rockhomers alike) but abandoned all but the > Rockhomers at this time? It would explain why the > Kogolors don't worship him in HW or why he seems to > have no association with the Modrigswerg. Thats how I took it. > So the Modrigswerg are essentially Kogolors and not > Rockhomers at all? That is, they are dwarves but are > less resilient or magic resistant than the > Rockhomers, and the latter are the 'classic' dwarf > in D&D? Well although I don't have Gaz5 or HW the impression I have is that all the dwarves on the surface were changed/re-forged so that there were none of the original race on the surface. But I do think that the Modrigswerg are closer to the kogolor then the Rockhomers. > > that at this point fight a bloody civil > >war, some leave for Graabjerge I thought that was in the NR. I took it just as a particular stronghold of the Modrigswerg. One of their few large sattlements. > > some remain in Northern Reaches and become > >paranoid atheists with a taste for double edged > >magical items, retaining the ability to make them > >maybe thanks to the intervention of some trickster > god > >(Eiryndul and or Loki), very few may become an > >underworld race or some weird sects of entropic > >worshipping guys. Loki is the way to go IMO as if he sees an opitunity at theis time and becomes involved it gives very good reason for his continued involvement in the NR. > >I will also read carefully Modrigswerg 3 to take > ideas glad to hear u liked it and it was useful. I do have a couple of concerns though. I was of the impression that the re-location to the HW was because they were a dying race, not because they were corupted. Perhaps the Modrigswerg were a clan of the Kogolors that used magic, and the side effect was the rot. Perhaps it was then outlawed in other clans. When the move happened the Modrigswerg were left as they could not be cured of their rot, and were re-made so that at least they would survive. They however were not corupted to evil till after this, and if they were before it was kept secret. I like the idea that the main corruption happened after the re-forging as it leaves more open. Their use of magic before the reforging however gives extra incentive for Kagyar to abandon them. Chris. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 18:30:41 -0700 From: The Stalker Subject: Re: Modrigswerg 4 On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:42:49 -0700, Chris Furneaux wrote: (snip) > > Loki is the way to go IMO as if he sees an opitunity > at theis time and becomes involved it gives very good > reason for his continued involvement in the NR. > That's my take too. (snip) > > I do have a couple of concerns though. I was of the > impression that the re-location to the HW was because > they were a dying race, not because they were > corupted. Yes, it's what canon says. Perhaps it's best not to change that... > Perhaps the Modrigswerg were a clan of the > Kogolors that used magic, and the side effect was the > rot. Perhaps it was then outlawed in other clans. When > the move happened the Modrigswerg were left as they > could not be cured of their rot, and were re-made so > that at least they would survive. They however were > not corupted to evil till after this, and if they were > before it was kept secret. I like the idea that the > main corruption happened after the re-forging as it > leaves more open. Their use of magic before the > reforging however gives extra incentive for Kagyar to > abandon them. > We disagree a little there. I find it more interesting to at least have let the corruption, or what Kagyar might see as corruption, have begun by then, since it would explain why he puts some dwarves in the HW (to preserve his original creation, though he won't have anything else to do with them - he leaves that to Garal, Frey, and Freya) and leaves others in the Northern Reaches, but abandons them completely. That way, he might not be interested in what he thinks the Modrigswerg are becoming, yet allows them to evolve on their own without his interference. If the dwarves really are dying out, then he might let them be to find out whether they can save themselves in spite of what he expects from them. He is disappointed by what they're becoming, but will allow them to try to find their own way without him. If they succeed he learns something, if not he no longer cares and was confirmed in his suspicions. And while he lets the Modrigswerg be, he then creates his own 'new and improved' dwarven race, the Rockhomers. - The Stalker ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:59:43 -0700 From: Beau Yarbrough Subject: Re: Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) At 15:27 7/11/02 +0200, DM wrote: > Well, I finished reading the almanac events yesterday, and let me give u > my first impressions. > Thyatian Southern Expedition Tsk. I feel a bit bad about this. It didn't occur to me that there would be two expeditions from the Known World south in one year. Of course, it happened quite a bit in our world, but it still seems odd to see two such expeditions written about in the Almanac. > Five Shires and Karameikos > Nice ideas for the hins and I expect much more for the next year, to bring > the hins out of their seemingly obscure corner in the Mystaran Almanac. > and > definitely funny the use of the Highforge gnomes. This stuff would be mine. Thank you for the kind words. I had several things I wanted to accomplish: 1) Create adventure opportunities in and around the Five Shires that were distinctly OF the Five Shires -- i.e. no changing the setting because it's "boring." Some of this stuff was campaign notes (since that was also the mandate of my Fire Shires campaign) and other bits were ones that I'd been working on or simply intrigued by. I will pay closer attention to what's happening with the Thyatian expedition during the writing of the next Almanac to avoid too many overt similarities. For one thing, don't look for the poor old hin to have an easy time of it, or get as far as fast as the Thyatians do. And I've always had a soft spot for the Highforge Gnomes, whom I think really have gotten unfairly overlooked. And Olivia being such a stuffed shirt seemed only natural to use as a foil. ;) Anyway, this was my first MA experience, and by and large, it was a very pleasant one. I'm not part of any "cliques" that I'm aware of -- even when I was a regular contributor to the MML, I had my own interests and disagreed with many of the prevailing opinions about the Shires -- but that was never a question or an issue in any way that I was ever aware of. I look forward to penning more for 1019. BEAU http://www.LBY3.com/ ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 18 Jul 2002 to 19 Jul 2002 (#2002-186) ****************************************************************