Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 25 Aug 2003 to 26 Aug 2003 (#2003-210) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 27/08/2003, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 13 messages totalling 490 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. test 2. Fantasy Elements (9) 3. [Rules] Regional Feets 4. Hackwurld of Mystaros? 5. Khoronus' Home Plane ******************************************************************** 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: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 10:37:00 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: test test, please ignore ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 13:14:35 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Fantasy Elements Reviewing gazetteers such as Athruagin and Ethengar, one of the things I feel that these Gazetteers lack is classical fantasy elements. Athruagin even states clearly that there "are no indian elves". Why not? True, its cool to get the feel of an authentic native american or mongolian campaign, but OTOH, these are countries in Known World. Why isn't there a Children of the Manticore? On this matter, I really liked Bruce Heards idea from his War in Flames campaign of the Ethengar Pegasus Riders. IMC the Ethengars are experts with training and breeding Pegasi, which helps explain how they dealt so efficiently with the Heldannic Knights during WotI. Havard ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 13:16:36 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: [Rules] Regional Feets I just made a list of Regional Feets for the Known World based on the Forgotten Realms book. While I think this is a wonderful idea, it doesnt seem balanced or even with enough feets to make it interesting. Has anyone had a look at this issue? Havard ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 15:24:53 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Fantasy Elements Havard Faanes wrote: > Reviewing gazetteers such as Athruagin and Ethengar, > one of the things I feel that these Gazetteers lack is > classical fantasy elements. Athruagin even states > clearly that there "are no indian elves". Why not? Well, one answer is: because this is not Forgotten Realms. Of course, this is not to say that you couldn't have, say, indian gyerans, just that we already have spanish elves and elvish elves and sea prince elves, and that should be enough ;) Bye, -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 15:39:13 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Fantasy Elements --- Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > Well, one answer is: because this is not Forgotten > Realms. > Of course, this is not to say that you couldn't > have, say, > indian gyerans, just that we already have spanish > elves > and elvish elves and sea prince elves, and that > should be > enough ;) The point wasn't really the elves though, but more something of an attitude in the gazetteer. Whereas I dont need elves in there (I agree that there are bunches of them already), Id like to see more Athruagin Griffon Riders, more on powerful Athruagin Spiritual Weapons and Spirit Storms and whatnotmore :) Id love to hear other ideas to sprite up those lands! Havard ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 16:21:34 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Fantasy Elements Havard Faanes wrote: > > The point wasn't really the elves though, but more > something of an attitude in the gazetteer. Indeed, my point was not specifically about elves, but rather the "classical fantasy" elements -- the standard races are just an example. Of course, more detail on the Spirit World and its inhabitants would only be welcome. Bye, -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 11:15:45 -0400 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Fantasy Elements > > From: Havard Faanes > > Id love to hear other ideas to sprite up those lands! > IMC, I had several retired Darokin Merchants come back to Darokin with a mission to dedicate their lives by creating a Youth division for the DDC. Modeled on the Tribal lives of the Children of the Horse, they sort of created a ranger group of American Boy Scouts for the DDC. One of those proud moments of real life meets fantasy. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 11:57:56 -0400 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Fantasy Elements > > From: Havard Faanes > > Id love to hear other ideas to sprite up those lands! > Both in Ethengar and on the plateau, we have some very strong spiritual world connections. I believe the one in the Black Sands is more twisted and corrupt, while on the plateau the immortals are now just getting around to recognize its importance. The Native American cultures have many folklore stories of fairy type creatures, shapeshifters, people that live in the sky, and people that live below the ground. So there can be some elvish indians, the race of Faerie from the Master DM's book could be influenced by the different clans of the plateau, being as they live in clouds that could brush up the sides and visit the Children of the Bear. They would be a very likley candidate for a spirit influence. Tribal legends of Native Americans in the Carolinas and Georgia, say that there is a race of people that live below ground to ward off giants that shake the ground in anger that they cannot escape to wreak havoc on the surface world. HP Lovecraft even wrote a story similar to this, and I believe there is an X-File episode about mole people too. Could the giants be those Entropic Tunnelers? Autrutzin could be one of those mole people that came from the underground! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 12:18:46 -0400 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Fantasy Elements Here are some very good links for Native American lore. I realy like the Apache Creation story, the first good explanation for a Hollow World Mystara! www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/tcpip/130/apache1.html www.earthbow.com/native/frames.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 19:44:33 -0400 From: Mischa Gelman Subject: Re: Fantasy Elements On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Chris Cherrington wrote: > The Native American cultures have many folklore stories of fairy type > creatures, shapeshifters, people that live in the sky, and people that > live below the ground. Charles de Lint has written quite a few fantasy novels and short stories centered around native American myth that could be utilized. - Mischa One begins to experience faith and conversion when one has the heart of the poor, when one knows that financial capital, political influence, and power are worthless, and that without G-d we are nothing. - Oscar Romero ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:20:11 -0400 From: Mischa Gelman Subject: Re: Fantasy Elements > Reviewing gazetteers such as Athruagin and Ethengar, > one of the things I feel that these Gazetteers lack is > classical fantasy elements. Classical in what sense? They fit rather well into most pre-1980 views of fantasy. What is so unusual about the human cultures in the worlds of Alexander, Tolkien, Donaldson and the other writers of fantasy in that period? The early backbones of D&D (including Blackmoor) do not emphasize strong high-fantasy elements in every culture and throughout the GAZ series the major distinctions are cultural and not fantastical - which is how it should be IMO. The gazzetteers with a stronger fantasy element like the Ierendi one tend to the silliness that results from going too far from a realistic basis. After all, fantasy works best IMO when it has a strong connection to the real world - and most fantasy writers voice similar opinions - I've seen quotes from Cooper, Alexander, De Lint and others that voice that notion. > True, its cool to get the feel of an authentic native > american or mongolian campaign, but OTOH, these are > countries in Known World. And what's so unusual about Ylaruam or the Jarldoms or other cultures in the Known World? Most present a fairly authentic RW culture with enough fantasy element to make it a fun RPG setting without making the RW element merely a shiny veneer on an outrageous high fantasy setting. Other settings (like the Forgotten Realms) show the problems of emphasizing the fantastical element over the cultural element. - Mischa One begins to experience faith and conversion when one has the heart of the poor, when one knows that financial capital, political influence, and power are worthless, and that without G-d we are nothing. - Oscar Romero ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 19:39:00 -0700 From: Joaquin Menchaca Subject: Re: Hackwurld of Mystaros? Hi, I sent an e-mail as well as I was interested in picking it up and also assembling a team. But I did not get a response. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:58:19 -0700 From: John Calvin Subject: Khoronus' Home Plane Ok, here is yet another home plane, this time for Khoronus. I'm not sure that I'm done with it yet, but thought I'd post it now anyway. Hope there are some ideas here that folks might grab onto. My previous 2 home planes can be found in the Vaults: http://dnd.starflung.com/reidyll.html http://dnd.starflung.com/lhond.html As always comments are welcome. The Eternal City It is a place where all times exist. It is where past and present meet. · Normal gravity · Objective time. Time seems to move normally for those who dwell in one of several defined “eras” of the city, however it is possible (and even quite easy) to move through time and reach different eras. · Finite size – The size of a large metropolitan city. · Divinely morphic. · No elemental or energy traits. · Strongly neutral aligned. · Restricted magic. Strangely enough all magic that deals with manipulating time does not work. All other magic works normally. The Eternal City is a plane comprised of a single population center. Some times that population center is little more than a sparsely populated village (or even less than that), while at other times it is a bustling city, full of tall buildings and packed streets. All time periods in the city are accessible from within the plane. Indeed most of the inhabitants of the plane are quite familiar with this anomaly and are able to move across the barriers, free to conduct business and trade across time. The time periods in the Eternal City were cultivated by Khoronus to mimic those periods that occurred on Mystara during the fall of the Thonian Empire and the subsequent rise of the Kingdom of Blackmoor. Although the cultures and their interactions are similar to what occurred on the world of Mystara, the Eternal City is its own distinct entity. Historical figures from the real Thonia and Blackmoor will not be found here (except as petitioners), although figures with similar backgrounds and mindsets may exist. Links: There is a portal in the city that connects to one of the branches of Lhondaras in Djaea’s realm. A few well guarded portals to the Astral also exist in what could be termed the “middle ages” of the Eternal City. Those ages that predate the medieval era, as well as those that surpass it contain no portals to any other planes. The only way to reach them is by traveling from within the Eternal City itself. Inhabitants: The immortal Khoronous is the undisputed master of this plane, or at least over a majority of the time. Most mortals on this plane worship of serve Khoronous in some fashion. It is also not uncommon to see servants of Djaea in portions of the city, though they tend to prefer the earlier time periods over the later ones. There are some few eras where Khoronous will not or cannot travel, and those eras may contain other life forms both mortal and immortal. Thonians: The Thonians living in the city range from primitive agrarians to more sophisticated imperialists. Blackmoorians: These Thonians distinguish themselves from their brethren solely in their political mindset. They are anti-imperialists, and highly individualistic people. Emmerondians: Strangely enough most Emmerondians in this plane are not to be found outside of the time referred to as The Swamp. At least they are not easily found. In fact the Cult of the Frog has agents located throughout many times in the Eternal City. These agents work diligently to insure that the City will crumble in preparation for the coming of the age of The Swamp. Petitioners: Any who worship Khoronous, or who revere the tenants of the Sphere of Time, may find themselves as petitioners here. Those that are neither Thonian nor Blackmoorian tend to congregate in the more cosmopolitan time periods. Movement and Combat: Movement and combat are resolved normally on this plane. Features: Although The Eternal City is composed of a single city, the time periods that can be found throughout the plane are very diverse. Some few are described briefly below, although others can certainly be found. Thonian Villages: The Eternal City is little more than a conglomeration of mud and thatch roofed huts. Farmers try to eek out a meager existence on what little they can coax from the soil. Outpost: The Thonians who live here are a little more sophisticated than those who dwell in the Villages before now. They have turned what was once a primitive village into a fortified outpost. A majority of the populace lives inside of the wooden palisades, although others take their chances outside of the walls. Blackmoor: This is probably the first time period at which the Eternal City can be properly called such. It is a bustling medieval metropolis. The Thonians living here consider themselves to be Blackmoorians. High Blackmoor: Blackmoor at its height, when technological and magical learning was at its peak, is represented here. The Swamp: One of the more difficult eras to locate and travel to, here the Emmerondians and their Cult of the Frog hold sway. The Eternal City is a crumbling morass steadily sinking into the swamplands that have oozed up around it. This may be an alternate timeline in the Eternal City’s history, or it may actually be a time after the city’s Blackmoorian population has declined. The Time When None Tread: The city itself no longer exists here, if it did at all. This time/place is utterly devoid of Blackmoorian life, but other things lurk here. Khoronous himself will not say what they are, although he almost certainly knows. It is rumored that the immortal lord of this plane traveled here once (or that he will at some point), though he is very secretive about how he got there and what he saw. Some speculate that this is a time when the Blackmoorian Hierarchy Lords have eradicated the immortals and dominated the universe. Others conjecture that this period is a second frozen from the Great Rain of Fire. Both are certainly viable possibilities. Campaign Ideas: Mortal Campaigns: The Eternal City is a plane with many sights to behold, and many wonders to discover. Knowledge of the ancient Mystarans lies within its boundaries. Secrets of mighty Blackmoor await those who are bold enough to seek them. Following are a few specific campaign ideas that might lead an adventuring party into the Eternal City. The elves of Canolbarth (or Aengmor) have discovered another ancient device that they believe to be of Blackmoorian origin. Having long memories they do not wish to temp fate by tampering with the device, for they might cause a catastrophe similar to the one that was unleashed in 1750 BC. Thus the PCs must journey to the Eternal City in the hopes of discovering clues about the artifacts operation. Only then can it be safely disposed of. Agents of the Frog have escaped from the Eternal City and found their way back to Mystara. These cultists invade many nations of the Known World (and beyond) and attempt to bring about a resurgence of the Frog. Not only must these villains be stopped on Mystara, the PCs must track down the source of this planar insurgence in order to prevent future outbreaks of the mean greenies. Immortal Campaigns: Immortal level campaigns can be run through the Eternal City from the perspective of those who support Khoronus as well as from those who oppose him. Some campaign ideas follow: Rafiel and his agents have finally infiltrated the Eternal City, and they are planning to create a Chamber Cult right in the midst of Khoronus’ own power base. If they succeed it will be a major coup against the Hierarch of Time, for Rafiel’s Chamber will allow him to siphon energy directly from Khoronus’ home plane to his own. The immortals can either be agents of Rafiel who are trying to subvert Blackmoorians to their cause, or they can be servants of Khoronus trying to stop the diabolical plot. Servants of Khoronus are tasked with the duty of piercing the veil of the Time When None Tread. What they find will surely impact immortal society, changing it forever. Awaiting them on the other side is a threat to all immortals. Long ago, when Blackmoor destroyed itself, the immortals tried to purge its surviving colonies from the Material Plane. For the most part they succeeded, although a few of the Blackmoorians survived the attempt. In the battles that ensued some of the Blackmoorians achieved immortality themselves through devices much like the Nucleus of the Spheres. They have harbored a deep seated hatred for those that drove them away long ago. Now they sit in their own portion of the Eternal City, patiently waiting for the day that they can confront and destroy the established order of immortals. Those who oppose Khoronus have finally had enough of his accursed Blackmoorians. A group of immortals has decided to destroy the Eternal City in order to prevent the Blackmoorian plague from escaping the plane and infesting the rest of the Multiverse. ===== Rule #85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button." from "A Guide to Becoming an Evil Overlord" by Peter Anspach __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 25 Aug 2003 to 26 Aug 2003 (#2003-210) ****************************************************************