Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 25 Oct 2002 to 26 Oct 2002 (#2002-278) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 27/10/2002, 18:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 3 messages totalling 188 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Ghost Bombs 2. Vampires of Mystara: The Lost Bloodline 3. The Nightwing in Glantri City ******************************************************************** 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: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 04:18:48 -0700 From: "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" Subject: Re: Ghost Bombs > How about sending your nosferatu to Tothia to get "the scarab of mummyfication" which allows fast creation of an army of mummies. Where is this from? Is it from a TSR product? Mortus. No, it's from the top of my head... If I were you, I would make my player's life (unlife?) more difficult than finding him new uses for old spells. I would give him some hints about the power the Nithians held over the undead. Than the player has to find out that the Tothians on the Isle of Dawn are descended from the Nithians. He must travel to Tothia (or to Nithia in the Hollow World) go through dangerous ruins and pyramids and retrieve hints of new spells, magical items or even an artifact. Than he must return to his home and do some magical research, planning and experiments. But don't let him rest for a minute. A band (or an army) of do-goodies have heard of his plans and plan to destroy him. These could be a group of high level paladins, a tribe of endukes, Les Centinelas (from Jennifer Guerra's Belcadiz gazetteer), the Heldannic Knights (even if they are not all that good) and so on. It will be a lot more satisfying for you and you player when his undead army destroyes all that is pure on Davania after such hardships. I don't see much potential in "I will pay 15 wizards to cast spells on this containers, and pay the evil clerics the same amount to put ghosts in them. Voila- a powerful army with undead capabilities." When you player (and you) made the choice to play an evil undead overlord, nobody said it would be easy... This is of course only my opinion. Other list members might disagree. Morphail (Ohad Shaham) --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 15:55:06 +0000 From: Agathokles Subject: Vampires of Mystara: The Lost Bloodline Nearly one year ago, I posted an article entitled "Vampires of Mystara", which detailed several bloodlines gathered from various sources, both canon and non-canon, along the lines of the Van Richten's Guide to the Vampires. While I was scanning the Vaults for information on the Taymoran Vampires and Nosferatu, I discovered a reference to a kind of Vampire I had not taken into account (well, actually two of them, but the other was an alien form living on a distant planet, which made it less suitable for inclusion in this article). It appears in Captain Scaevola's "Situations for Dreamworld": "You are a young virgin, and you are running barefoot in a graveyard. You know that a vampire is after you, and you know that if he reaches you, you will be killed. Roll a Constitution check: if it is succesful, you flee and immediately wake up. If it is failed, you are bitten by the vampire: if it is failed by more than five points, you are dead, and your body will transform in that of a vampire. [..]" So, what kind of Vampire would emerge from this process? Well, here is my answer... The Lost Bloodline: Dream Vampires ---------------------------------- The Vampires of Mystara are usually (i.e., by me in my Vampire article) categorized in twelve major bloodlines (plus a handful of "naturally" occurring types of vampires). These bloodlines usually derive from some Immortal's manipulation of mortals or vampires of other bloodlines--for example, Thanatos created the progenitor of the Pojaaran Vampires, Luvarshalla, from one of his Taymoran Vampire follower. The twelve bloodlines are no secret for most scholars of the undead, though the details are often obscure. However, there is a thirteenth bloodline which has defied classification, due to the unusual circumstances of its creation, the limited number and the weird nature of its members. These are the Dreamworld Vampires, or Dream Vampires. Necrology --------- When someone becomes a vampire as a result of the exposure to the Dreamworld (that is, a the outcome of a Situation is that the character awakes as a vampire), the victim returns as a Dream Vampire. Since they died during a nightmare, the Dream Vampires are often quite mad (-2 Wis). On the other hand, they have absorbed much from the dreamscape in terms of creativity and knowledge (+2 Int). Dream Vampires do not drink blood, rather they feed on cerebrospinal fluids. The Vampire punches holes through the victim's spine or skull, and drains the fluids. This is quite damaging, and causes a permanent loss of 1d4 INT points per feeding. Victims who fall down to 0 INT become catatonic and will starve to death in the following days. Most, however, fall into madness after a single feeding (on a failed ST vs Spells, or other kind of Madness Check, depending on the rules adopted). Most Dream Vampires have salient powers dealing with dreams and sleep, mostly dream-related spell-like abilities. Powers ------ As for the other bloodlines I described, these powers are stated in AD&D 2e format, when a format is needed. They should work for OD&D as well. A Dream Vampire has the same statistics as a standard Vampire, except for the following: *It has a +2 bonus to INT, and a -2 penalty to WIS. *A Dream Vampire cannot shapechange. However, it can enter the Dreamworld physically, as per Art of Dreams rules. The Dream Vampire needs to remain in the Dreamworld during daytime, and has a coffin and lair there. In the Dreamworld, the Dream Vampire appears to be a standard Vampire, and behaves as such (that is, in the Dreamworld a Dream Vampire drinks blood, though this doesn't count as feeding, and can shapechnage, etc.). *A Dream Vampire can turn to gaseous form. *The monster can conjure a Nightmare once per day, but has no other summoning powers. *A Dream Vampire can cast the Sleep spell thrice per day. *The Dream Vampire's touch doesn't drain life energy. The Vampire, as said, feeds on INT instead of Life Energy. *It can be turned as a standard Vampire, but priests of any power of Dreams or Sleep turn it as if it was one class lower on the table. *The Dream Vampires are not affected by garlic, but they react to various lotus plants, like Amber Lotus and Black Lotus, as the more common varieties do to garlic. *A victim killed by a Dream Vampire in the living world never comes back as a Vampire. A victim killed by the Vampire in the Dreamworld becomes a Dream Vampire. The Dream Vampire does not get any susteinance from this latter type of killing. References ---------- G. Caroletti, "Situations for Dreamworld" Agathokles, "Vampires of Mystara" -- Giampaolo Agosta agathokles@libero.it agosta@elet.polimi.it http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2002 19:30:06 +0200 From: DM Subject: Re: The Nightwing in Glantri City "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" <morphail_o@YAHOO.COM> asked:
> A quick question.
> Accourding to the Mystaran Net Almanac, the war with the Golden Khan ends
the life of Jherek Virayana.
> What happens to the Nightwing under his control at the tower of sighs?
> Does Dolores control it? Is it free?  Is it bound to haunt the tower no
matter what happens to it's summoner?

Hi Ohad and welcome back, ye olde bat! ;)
From what I understood by reading that sentence in GAZ3, I think it's not Jherek personally who bound it and controls it, but rather anybody in charge of the TOwer of Sighs, and that's to say the Supreme Judge of the Council. So whoever is the Supreme Judge knows about the Nightwing existence and supposedly has the power to free or control it.

Cheers!

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)

------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 25 Oct 2002 to 26 Oct 2002 (#2002-278) ****************************************************************