Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 24 Apr 2003 to 25 Apr 2003 (#2003-110) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 26/04/2003, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 6 messages totalling 298 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. X10 Finished 2. Minrothad ideas 3. Post X10 was X10 Finished 4. info about Divergans 5. Back to the Fold 6. High or Low magic ? ******************************************************************** 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, 25 Apr 2003 10:39:07 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Re: X10 Finished Thanks for your thoughts, Chris! Here are some boomerang thoughts. Wow, I'm really envious if you have had the chance to play X10 several times... Our D&D group is still going through the same old campaign that was started 14 years ago. It would be nice to get to play a bit more often. On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Chris Cherrington wrote: > The Dwarves have a secret alliance with > Ethengar (helping them build roads, providing siege weapons, et (from > the Gaz on Ethengar)). Yes, this is the Brotherhood of the Bolt. I included it into my campaign, although I didn't have the Golden Khan. But I always interpreted them as an unofficial and "not-sanctioned" mercenary force - meaning that the Rockhome government approves of their actions but retains plausible deniability. > The Dwarves southern portal to the world is through Ylari. They good relations between Rockhome and Ylari proved to be a problem in "our war" too. The dwarves weren't too keen on fighting the Ylari, but eventually decided to join Darokin for realpolitical reasons. Still, they excercised "gentlemanly" behaviour in every combat situation: they always warned the Ylari first, were merciful towards the prisoners etc. Also the dwarves were the main motivator behind the deal that allowed the Ylari in Selenica to retreat back home to fight the Thyatian invaders. The only other portals to the outside are through > hostile territories; Alfheim, Broken Lands, and Northern Reaches. I wouldn't say that NR is a hostile neighbour. Duke Stephen of Rhoona has employed a lot of dwarves, there is a large dwarven population in Soderjord and Vestland, and there are no recorded conflicts on the border. IMC the NR are very important trading partners of the dwarves, channeling their produce to Heldann, Norwold and Alphatia. > The > Dwarves and the Ylari have similar dislikes, mages for one, foreigners > another, basicly the same to the Ethengarians (foreign mages). Now with > all these type of aliances, would not the Dwarves prefer to side with > Ethengar and Ylari with any wars? Offering roads and seige weaponry, > and several troops to get a chance to bash at a couple of them elves, > and maybe a couple of them Glantrian Mages? This really would be interesting since it would change the power structure of the war totally. I actually considered it, but since I wish to engage the PCs in the Rockhome civil war in the future, I wanted them to remain in good terms with the dwarven nation. But you are right, initially the dwarves are much closer to Ylaruam and Ethengar. IMC the fact that Glantri and Alfheim were close allies of Darokin made it ver very hard to get the dwarves to join the war (and the Shires also). The PCs had to do a lot of work. > but what would the fate be if Dengar was not > in a civil war and sided with Ylari, and help the Ethengarians launch an > invasion on Glantri? I'd say that Darokin would be totally screwed. Ville ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 13:46:21 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Minrothad ideas Hello, I'm looking for inspirational ideas on Minrothad politics. One of my PCs, a resident wizard of Minrothad (he got an island of his own after the group completed the War Rafts of Kron adventure), is considering to get involved in politics. I have the Gaz, and have kept my Minrothad pretty close to the one described there. The main change is that Oran Meditor has been assassinated 1 1/2 years ago, and there isn't still a new Guild Master. Astra Meditor holds the "palace", but her job is mainly seremonial. The intelligence network of Oran Meditor has been shattered. Now the Guilds are struggling over the position of the Master - the PC wishes to grab some power for himself during those struggles. So, if anyone has written anything extensive on Minrothad politics, or has some good ideas, I'd be very grateful. Currently I'm also rewriting the political scene of Darokin, preparing for a war in Soderfjord (Thyatian expansionism) and also two other PCs are planning on making trouble in Karameikan politics. My hands are so full that any help would be appreciated. Ville ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 08:34:07 -0400 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Post X10 was X10 Finished There are many campaign shattering possibilities with X10. Most notable of all is if Darokin falls and never shakes off its Hulean invaders. Even so, the Master would have stretched his supply line extremly thin; but the spoils of Darokin could supply the Masters troops for months. Thar's inability to attack on Glantri or any of its allies would weaken his leadership, and many Red Orcs would soon look to the Master as the better "master". A strong powerbase of humanoids and others would be a magnate of many other tribes that would be refreshing the Masters position. Allies of the Master would not be in the best of positions, Ylari (if so alligned) would be the first point of a major invasion from Thyatis, even if Ylari was not an ally or styed neutral durring the event; Thyatis may abuse its power to get into the battle (and claim a few governerships in the process). Karameikos would look pretty good at this point for Thyatis to reclaim its innaffective rulership, and ! "liberate the Traladaran popultation from a cruel dictatorship" (never Stefan, but his cousin would be a good scapegoat). If we added in the confusion of Dwarves allying with Ethengar and Ylari, we end with a very different campaign world, and we don't have to destroy the NOS or Alphatia for the reslults. This type of campaign would lead to liberation adventurers or heros. Merchants may have burried their wealth in the final days, now they need brave adventurers to cross into hostile Darokin and bring back their loot and claim their reward. Imagine orcs and Ethengarians bringing back the spoils of Glantri (look out Heldann), or a Dwarven Clan going back to reclaim the Silver Sierras (hope those dwarves don't discover the Dragonfly and its mysterious power source). The new merchants on the scene would be the powerhouse of Ylari (already a prime contender on the open seas, now they have Selenica). What Alphatia does is another prime question, do they let Thyatis take over more of Brun in a possibility of weakening their troops down, or do they stop their expansion by lending support in materials to keep the Master going? Do Dwarven merchants push the Northern Reaches into a boil to fight back on Thyatis at the Isle of Dawn? (remember the line about the dwarven made, saddl ! e ridden, peddle powered cannoes of the Golden Kahn?) Elves may have to make some strange bed fellows with their closest neighbors, the Shadow Elves. Taken that the dwarves did not get to them first! Glantri would be wittled down to few mages making new career choices if they want to stay near the Radiance. Eventually the Master will succomb to the full powers of Entropy and destroy himself, but that could take hundreds of years. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 12:51:40 EDT From: Alex Benson Subject: Re: info about Divergans <> I have the basics of the Divergan Havens drawn up...based upon the overall and individual domain maps i sent to you and Geoff. I had planned upon revising them and getting them out, pending a request. Recent problems have hampered this greatly. Work schedule has limited my time. Also, a recent computer crash has really put a hurt on alot of my materials. The twisted irony is that I had transferred all of my Mystara based materials to this particular machine to keep everything centralized. Added irony comes from the crash occuring during a hard disk back up session. The CDRWs I use for backups were erased and reformatted pending the back up session. So anything I had from the previous back up is gone. A backup session for me uses six CDRWs. I use CDRWs so that I can reuse the backup disks. That saves me around 300 disks a year. I don't know what I have left. Besides Mystara, I have alot of materials possibly gone. At this moment, I am trying to recover as much data as possible from the affected machine. This is going to take some time. What sort of timeframe are we talking about for needing these items? If need be, I'll rewrite the whole thing or something. I may need either you or Geoff to send me copies of those maps that I had previously sent to both of you. Sorry about this. This has been a big inconvenience for me. This is what I do for a living (systems technician). This would have been already addressed if I had the backup disks. Had it happened a mere ten minutes earlier and there would have been no real problem. Alex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 19:55:25 -0700 From: Dave Raehal Subject: Re: Back to the Fold Perusing my 115 emails from the list, I came across this one and it sparked my old (and almost forgotten) question: "Are Demihumans allergic to lycanthropy in 3E as they were in 2nd?" I cannot find any supporting documentation. I can only assume from your comment below, that I am not the only one who hasn't seen a definite answer to this. Thanks, Dave Raehal --- Gary Davies wrote: > Hi All, > > I've started role playing again about a year ago > after a 5/6 year break. A > few months back (once I'd got used to 3E) I decided > to run a Mystara > campaign, the only setting I really know. > > Even though I was running for a very experienced > group I first ran the 3 > adventures from the Goblins Lair (now ruined with > skill DC's etc scrawled > all over). We all had a lot of fun, being so > experienced the group had > forgot a lot about basic dungeon bashes! > > The main point of all this though is that I mis-read > the lycanthropy bit in > MM and subjected a character to the effects of > taking belladonna as a cure > as part of the 'normal' effects of the disease (ie > the loss of STR etc). I > managed to come up with a plausible reason though - > the charcter in > question was a shadow-elf and under OD&D it would > have been fatal. There is > now a house rule that all demihumans are 'allergic' > to lycanthropy and > suffer this effect, but if they survive the STR loss > they will become > lycanthropes. What do you think? > > Gary > > ******************************************************************** > 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. > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 20:05:59 -0700 From: Dave Raehal Subject: Re: High or Low magic ? hmmmm..... I've been playing since 92 or so. I've been running since 94 or 95. It pains me but I can't seem to get away from the high magic campaigns. My pre-Stefan 1st level Traldar natives seem to end up with that +5 intelligent vorpal sword in their second adventure as much as I tell myself I'm going to stay away from it... I think I fit into the overtly-disgusting-high magic campaign. With Appologies, Dave Raehal --- Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > Francesco Defferrari wrote: > > > > Well so far you and me are the only ones who > declare to have a high magic > > campaign :-) > > No one else ? It's strange because the low magic > mood was of the first > > mystaran products, but the high magic mood was > more of the later products, > > so I thought that the most of the mystaran Dms and > players played a high > > magic campaign.. > > Not so, IMO. Most of us still play in or around the > original, lower > magic, areas. > Also, all product are quite old, so criteria of > personal taste are more > likely to be used rather than "the most recent > reference". > Last, many of us are true oldtimers, so we're not > any more likely to > have "recent" products than "old" ones. > > > Anyway thanks to everyone who replied and will > reply to this little poll ! > > You're welcome ;) > > GP > -- > > di nuovo come un tempo sopra l'Italia intera > urla il vento e soffia la bufera > > ******************************************************************** > 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. > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 24 Apr 2003 to 25 Apr 2003 (#2003-110) ****************************************************************