Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 2 Jul 2003 to 3 Jul 2003 (#2003-168) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 04/07/2003, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 4 messages totalling 192 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Misc Magical Items (2) 2. Hollow Moon! 3. logging some D&D items with Mystara content ******************************************************************** 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, 3 Jul 2003 12:34:35 -0400 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Misc Magical Items It has been slow for awhile, so I thought I would drop off a couple of magical items from my campaign. Suggestions or comments are quite welcome. Bendrix’s Bouncing Coins This Merchant Mage from Glantri had several tricks up his sleeve when he first started as a merchant. After being swindled from a merchant that claimed to be from Darokin, Bendrix created several items to cheat these nefarious scoundrels. The first of which was several coins. These simple coins do not radiate magic, but are highly magical indeed. How many coins he has of date, and from how many countries is unknown; but each coin is enchanted to reappear in Bendrix’s possession a set time later. Bendrix has a special chest as a receptacle for the bouncing coins, and this chest full of coins would be a highly prized target for any thieves daring enough to try to attain such an object. Platinum coins return 2 months after leaving the chest, gold coins return in 1 month, electrum returns in 1 week, silver takes 1 day, and copper will return in an hour. The chest can hold 900cn and weighs 1500cn when empty. DM’s can place the chest in a player’s possession and chuckle in glee when local merchants begin to suspect the characters of thievery for their disappearing copper and silver. Characters may guess that the chest “creates” new coins, and not actually collecting spent coins. Elfish Enchanted Tattoos Mostly associated with the Long Runner Clan of Alfhiem, these highly ornate tattoos of ivies, roses, and/or other fauna come in several varieties. Most are usable once per day, but some varieties have been known to grow with the user’s experience level and making them more useful by working up to 3 times per day. The tattoos are made from mixing the sap of the Tree of Life with other plant saps creating different colored inks and dyes. The placements of the tattoos are around the wrist, and/or ankles. When the magic is enabled, the tattoos come to life and grow from the user to help them with their particular challenge. Other types of tattoos may be found, and even some great heroes are known to have more than one enchantment placed upon them. Climbing These tattoos will usually have thorns along the vines. The wearer can use these tattoos to either create a rope of climbing, but always connected to the user; or decrease the DC of a particular climbing attempt by increasing the user’s grip and squeezing into cracks smaller than a knife blade. Grabbing These tattoos activate themselves automatically when the opportunity arises. When placed around the wrist, they will activate when the user attempts to catch something and misses, or when a disarm attempt has been made they will regrab the item held. When placed around the ankles, they activate when the user begins to fall, slip or thrown off their feet. Note: This could be even more dangerous than expected, falling off a horse and being dangled by the ankles could be a very hazardous experience. Hiding These tattoos will help the user hide in surrounding vegetation. This creates a living camouflage that can blend more naturally with the user’s environment. Lashing These tattoos will grow out to 10 feet and entangle or tie themselves to an object. Note: The user will still be connected to whatever target the vines are connected to, and the vines can only entangle as much as 10 feet of rope could. Vampiric Healing These rare tattoos are made with the sap from the Vampire Rose. There are two forms of this tattoo, one that will strike out at a victim in order to heal the wearer (activated when the wearer has been injured by the victim) and the other version will engulf the wearer in a cocoon of vampire rose vines and wait for a victim to come near (activated when the wearer is reduced to 0 HP or unconscious). Rooting This powerful tattoo enchantment is made of oak or other tree leaves within the design. The user may once a day meld into a tree of the same enchantment of the tattoo. Once a month, or if the user is reduced to 0 HP between full moons, the wearer may root into the ground and become a tree of their associated tattoo. In this form the user gains up to 200 HP’s while in tree form, and will double their natural healing rate while a tree. The enchantment is finished once the user is completely healed. Note: turning into a tree in a hostile environment can mean permanent death of the user. ie: Plane of Fire, dungeon with no sunlight or access to water, et… Elyndale’s Enchantment This special tattoo enchantment is only known to be given to one hero, Elyndale. It appears to be and acts like a lashing tattoo, but Elyndale has shown another extraordinary ability of his tattoo. It actually doubles the speed upon firing his bow by not only helping him draw the string, but growing a long thorn as an arrow to coincide his real arrow from his quiver. Marriage Tattoo This unique tattoo has appeared on its own when one or both wearers have an enchanted tattoo of their own. This enchantment seems to match the other’s enchantment(s), and each user loses a permanent HP. So long as the other is alive, he/she can be resurrected at the Tree of Life where the original sap was drawn for a tattoo. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 13:55:59 -0400 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Hollow Moon! Hello all, Many of you remember the project Sharon Dornhoff undertook to create an entirely new Mystaran campaign setting, set in the interior of the (seemingly) lifeless, visible moon of Matera. This note is to inform you that she has resumed her work, and the latest installment, documenting the troglodytes of the Marsh of Putrescence, is now available on the Vaults! I invite you all to check it out, and let her know what you think! You can view it at: dnd.starflung.com/troggies.html The other portions of the project can be viewed at hllwmoon.html, on the Vaults. 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: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 20:09:03 +0200 From: Bertrand Lhoyez Subject: Re: Misc Magical Items hi ! Very interesting object indeed. It makes me think to Leomund chest spell in Ad&d (an enchanted chest who, on a command word, disappear in a pocket plane waiting to be recalled). ------- Bendrix’s Bouncing Coins This Merchant Mage from Glantri had several tricks up his sleeve when he first started as a merchant. After being swindled from a merchant that claimed to be from Darokin, Bendrix created several items to cheat these nefarious scoundrels. The first of which was several coins. These simple coins do not radiate magic, but are highly magical indeed. How many coins he has of date, and from how many countries is unknown; but each coin is enchanted to reappear in Bendrix’s possession a set time later. Bendrix has a special chest as a receptacle for the bouncing coins, and this chest full of coins would be a highly prized target for any thieves daring enough to try to attain such an object. Platinum coins return 2 months after leaving the chest, gold coins return in 1 month, electrum returns in 1 week, silver takes 1 day, and copper will return in an hour. The chest can hold 900cn and weighs 1500cn when empty. DM’s can place the chest in a player’s possession and chuckle in glee when local merchants begin to suspect the characters of thievery for their disappearing copper and silver. Characters may guess that the chest “creates” new coins, and not actually collecting spent coins. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 18:10:53 -0700 From: David Keyser Subject: logging some D&D items with Mystara content With Mystaros and Blackmoor soon to be released for 4th Edition and 3rd Edition D&D respectively, I eagerly anticipate holding freshly printed "Mystara" product for the first time since what, 1997? Before that happens, I figured I would share with the list a few more published products that have some interest for Mystaraphiles. Some of these are probably already known to at least some of you, but I had not put them in my index before(because I had not known about it). As has been mentioned previously on the list, two Greyhawk products, the old Greyhawk folio box set and the 3rd Edition D&D Living Greyhawk Gazeteer, include one or two page entries on Blackmoor. Not much detail is provided in either case, but it appears on Greyhawk the Egg of Coot has successfully conquered Blackmoor and his troops occupy the area. The RPGA Living Greyhawk campaign did not, however, assign Blackmoor to any of its regions in the world for adventures and campaigns. The First Quest box set, which has been brought up on the list before, was released before the Kingdom of Karameikos box set. I picked up a copy and it turns out that the adventures included in the box set were explicitly set in Karameikos after all. It doesn't add much new information, it sets the adventurers' home base in a town previously unmentioned anywhere else, and one of the adventures does link Spelljammer into the setting. Some of you know about the arcade games Tower of Doom and Shadows over Mystara that were released in the mid '90's. The games can be downloaded and played off the web now, but I also learned that Capcom released both games as part of one set of CDs for the Sega Saturn system, but only in Japan. To play it you would need a Japanese Sega Saturn or an ST key adapter with your American Sega Saturn. I also found that book 15 of the Super Endless Quest/Adventure Gamebook series, The Vanishing City, was an adaptation of M4 Five Coins for a Kingdom. The adventure uses some of the same encounters, with the reader playing the role of the ruler of the city of Lighthall. It uses two of the pre-generated characters from the module as the characters you control in this solo adventure. Hackmaster has already released the B1 and B2 modules for their system. I was surprised how little of B1 was changed, except that it had a few extra rooms and was stocked with monsters. But the mystery of the main characters in the module wasn't as well done as Jenni did with here Darokin adaptation. In November of 2001, WoTC released a novel of The Keep on the Borderlands. I managed to finish it, nothing spectacular, but the author's source material(the original B2), didn't give her much to work with. The novel assumes the later Greyhawk placing used in the Return to module, and it does seem to ensure that events are set up so that they occur as Return to the Keep on the Borderlands reports the past. One personal peeve, the author just drops some plot threads, apparently assuming people will be familiar with B2 and won't notice. For example, the adventurers in the story meet up with the hermit's mountain lion north of the Keep. They sense but never see the hermit, and later speculate that the controller of the mountan lion may be the same one who is behind the evil gathering in the caves. The author never explains any futher, leaving a reader wondering at the end of the book if there was a connection. Sure, if you have B2, you know there isn't, but the novel should stand on its own. Lastly, there were some 16 page RPGA adventure booklets that were released only to participating stores as part of the Adventurers Guild program between 1998 and 2000. These adventures were designed to sell/advertise RPG products that TSR/WOTC was selling concurrently. None of these were designed for Mystara since the campaign setting had been cancelled at the time. But one of those RPGA adventures, The Displaced, was released as a companion to Return to the Keep on the Borderlands. While RttKotB was not set in the D&D Known World, there were three NPCs in the module that were. As it turns out, each of the RPGA modules used pre-generated characters, and although the adventure for Displaced is no more Mystara specific than RttKotB, one of the pregenerated characters is Dubricus d'Amberville. All the information about him comes from RttKotB. Dave ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 2 Jul 2003 to 3 Jul 2003 (#2003-168) **************************************************************