Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 14 Jan 2003 to 15 Jan 2003 (#2003-16) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 16/01/2003, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 11 messages totalling 370 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Wrath of the Immortal (5) 2. Almanac & Great Migration 3. Church Karameikos - Thyatis (2) 4. Vyalia Elves 5. Real Estate (or Location, Location, Location) (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: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 09:10:42 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Wrath of the Immortal Steven Carter wrote: > LOL Yeah, actually it helps a lot. Thanks. You're welcome! > It raises a lot more questions > but I'll poke around for a few months and grab some more ESDs (hate using > credit card on net, hates it I does) before asking (stupid) questions again. Feel free to ask. Questions about Mystara are seldom stupid ;) > Until WotI become available though, what stuff would you suggest in order to > best understand the pre/post-Wrath personalities, events and political > situation assuming one already has the gazeteer series. I assume that a look at the last sections of the timeline at the Vaults of Pandius would help. There are also a few more articles about WotI somewhere in the Vaults. Also, one of the early PWA might help (not sure right now, though). Bye, GP -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:56:16 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Re: Almanac & Great Migration On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Jacob Skytte wrote: > Do you have the map and the counters for the game? Otherwise the rules > won't do you much good... > Yes, I have them. The world according to orcs map was so nice, and it's "our potatoes"-"their potatoes" lingo prompted me to hunt for the rules booklet. Ville ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:58:35 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Re: Church Karameikos - Thyatis On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Havard Faanes wrote: > The Church of Traladara includes > Halav (Leader) > Petra > Zirchev > Chardastes (minor) > I always thought that Chardastes (wasn't he/she/it introduced in some Basic adventure?) was a Karameikan/Thyatian deity. How did you arrive to this conclusion? Ville ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 12:12:24 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Church Karameikos - Thyatis --- Ville_V_Lähde : > > The Church of Traladara includes > > Halav (Leader) > > Petra > > Zirchev > > Chardastes (minor) > > > I always thought that Chardastes (wasn't he/she/it > introduced in some > Basic adventure?) was a Karameikan/Thyatian deity. > How did you arrive to > this conclusion? Chardastes is introduced in one of the B-adventures. Castle Caldwell IIRC. In the text it says that he is part of the Church of Karameikos, as you say. However, the scenario was written prior to Gaz1, and Chardastes seems to fit more into the CoT based on the information given about him. Also the WotI Codex places him among the Traladaran Three (as number four interestingly....) Håvard ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:52:18 +0100 From: Kid H Subject: Vyalia Elves Somebody can describe me the main charatteristics of the Vyalia elves ( = South-East of Karameikos ) please? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 12:05:55 -0200 From: JJJ Subject: Re: Wrath of the Immortal > That's all which comes to my mind, barring the GAZs and the Hollow World info (not too involved in War, but a lot in post-War, see the PWAs) About the Hollow World politics in pos-WotI, Alphatian Neatharum is better detailed in the PWAs, and the New Alphatian Empire, as it becames an flying continent became too a heavy guy on the politics there, BUT two questions come to my mind.... The new Alphatia under HW cultural rules, would be a lot stuck in the way of magic and its evolution, no? (An interesting campaign hook is the evolution of spells in the KW Alphatian Empire vs. Old Stuck Alphatia) The PWA state New Alphatia as a sort of Old Spain Conquerors, but this goes against the Immortals decisions for the land. Will they intervene? Do the Day of Dread kills the cultural restraints??? Its important to stress this, as much of the cultures in Mystara may seem to be stopped in time. (Imagine someone truly believing in playing X10 in the year 1200... "What? The borders have never changed? Is this King Stefan VI? Emperor Thincol XIII?" (you know, backstabs make for a lot of Emperors :) Just to spice up! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:37:21 -0400 From: Steve Carter Subject: Real Estate (or Location, Location, Location) I have been crafting a new campaign for players who previously were huge MERP, RM, Greyhawk, Realms fans but never once stood in Mystara. Part of this is to drop early hints and foreshadow events that might come along later. And in order to do this I want to know stuff... hence my earlier question regarding WotI. However this time I'm wondering about the physical location for events in modules that are not otherwise given specific locations. This might be either by deduction from the modules' settings or just simple usefullness of putting a module in such a location. For instance I've thought about locating the dwarven hold of Thunderdelve in the mountains between the Five Shires and Darokin. What are your thoughts on the locations for and (where applicable) the convertability of the following into group adventures. Thunderdelve Mountain The Gem and the Staff Ghost of Lion Castle Quest for the Heartstone Mystery of the Snow Pearls Barleycorn Monastery in HWA1 Nightwail I've wanted to get the adventure tied into the fate of Alfheim and the Dwarves of Rockhome during WotI and having the Snow Pearls, Blade of Vengeance, Tree of Life as a trilogy has always been part of my plan to get non-elves ingratiated to the elven peoples. Thunderdelve was going to be part of my way of doing the same with PCs regarding the dwarves. My own campaign was going to begin in AC 996 and run up to and through WotI. Assuming of course I acquire a copy but given the historically slow progression of my campaign storylines and the amount of time available for it I figure it's a good bet I'll acquire said document well before I reach that time period. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:37:45 EST From: Alex Benson Subject: Re: Wrath of the Immortal <> Alot of the heaviness came from what Alphatia was and has become in HW. Compared to its neighbors, it is far advanced beyond anything that the other HW cultures can muster. Alphatia's influence was set to expand. Just what that influence was to be, was the question in the net almanac teams. There were two choices; conqueror or overseer. Overseer was chosen to maintain the HW setting as much as possible. <> Alphatian culture under the restraints of the the Spell of Preservation has multiple problems. In many ways, the SoP and Alphatian culture would find themselves at a paradox and ripe with inconsistencies. Geographical examples include empty beaches of Arogansa and Eadrin. Social examples include 1000 years of recorded history, magical study (literacy), and the glaring gaps "explained" by a few lines of text. These might work with the Neathar or even the Azca, but it should not be long until the Alphers would figure that somehting was afoot. <> Yes. It is odd that such a culture would be slapped in a world of "primitives". Personally I have the opinion that the Spell of Preservation was never intended to cover cultures such as Alphatia (or even the Milenians). Immortal intervention is another area that has its paradoxes and even hypocracies. Wrath is full of them. And the SoP restraints remain intact during the Day of Dread. Which is strange since the HW "sun" will black out. <> I agree.I once proposed that the surface world was under the influence of an Immortal spell similar to the SoP. It basically maintained a certain level of technology (they cap out), preventing cultures from progressing normally along real world timeframes. Substances such as gunpodwer are fairly easy to make. If an alchemist can formulate a potion from assorted monster parts, surely gunpowder can be made. Likewise, the firing mechanism for a gun is not too different from the trigger mechanism for a crossbow. Myself, I take the easy road with the above. My campagn never surpassed AC 1000 so I never had to deal with Wrath in an actual game campaign. At the same time, I do not desire for Mystara to evolve into Earth. The solution is that there is no solution. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 16:02:13 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: Real Estate (or Location, Location, Location) Steve Carter wrote: Thunderdelve Mountain Should fit anywhere with no real trouble. The Gem and the Staff I'd originally planned IMC to locate this in Ghyr, but upon further reflection and a discussion we had here on the list some time ago, I think it fits better in Alphatia. Probably the Kingdom of Foresthome or somewhere like that. (It mentions an empire, and has powerful wizards, and a forest- the Fazzlewood). Ghost of Lion Castle The module itself places this in Ethengar, which is where I put it. The Castle itself seems almost sphinxlike, so perhaps it is an ancient Nithian ruin? Quest for the Heartstone I put this one in the kingdom of Ghyr (from the module itself), which I located just north of the Denagoth plateau. I've written a bit about it, and you can see what I've written on Shawn's site (http://dnd.starflung.com) or my own (http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/cthulhudrew/mystara.html), but this is going to undergo some changes due to the ongoing work I'm doing on Ghyr. Mystery of the Snow Pearls I always put this one near the Sylvan Realm, though it could conceivably go anywhere. The area depicted is actually pretty small. Barleycorn Monastery in HWA1 Nightwail The module places this in the Broken Lands. If you go strictly by dates given (notably the age of the ruler of Shahajapur listed in the PWAs and in HWA3: Nightstorm) then this module takes place prior to WotI (between 1000 and 1004 AC- don't recall the exact dates offhand, though). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:50:05 -0500 From: David Knott Subject: Re: Wrath of the Immortal From: "JJJ" > > About the Hollow World politics in pos-WotI, > Alphatian Neatharum is better detailed in the PWAs, and the New Alphatian > Empire, as it becames an flying continent became too a heavy guy on the > politics there, BUT two questions come to my mind.... > > The new Alphatia under HW cultural rules, would be a lot stuck in the way of > magic and its evolution, no? (An interesting campaign hook is the evolution > of spells in the KW Alphatian Empire vs. Old Stuck Alphatia) >> From the PWAs, it seems that the introduction of Alphatia to the Hollow World is associated with a weakening of the Spell of Preservation. What the Spell of Preservation ensures is that, while existing cultural elements can rise and fall in importance, no alien cultural elements will ever be accepted by members of a preserved culture. However, Alphatia has a rather rich and chaotic culture, so there is very little that an Alphatian can do that would be contrary to his culture. > The PWA state New Alphatia as a sort of Old Spain Conquerors, but this goes > against the Immortals decisions for the land. Will they intervene? Do the > Day of Dread kills the cultural restraints??? As I recall, Immortal magic is not affected by the Day of Dread, so the Spell of Preservation remains in full effect that day. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:53:12 -0500 From: David Knott Subject: Re: Wrath of the Immortal From: "Giampaolo Agosta" > > > 4) What events lead to the creation of the Great Crater? > > A meteor was sent by the Master of Hule to hit Darokin, but his aim was > bad (joke, I don't remeber what happened exactly) and Glantri was hit > instead. It was actually the Immortal Alphaks who either had a bad aim or couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to hit Darokin or Glantri. It was a mere coincidence that the Master of Hule was seen praying for some sort of nasty destruction to smite Darokin shortly before the Meteor hit. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 14 Jan 2003 to 15 Jan 2003 (#2003-16) ***************************************************************