Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 19 Feb 2003 to 20 Feb 2003 (#2003-52) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 21/02/2003, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 10 messages totalling 315 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Gif of the Kopru (3) 2. Nature of the Old Ones in your campaign? (4) 3. Hacklopedia Mystarica: The Guide to the HackWurld of Mystaros (2) 4. Hacklopedia Mystarica: The Guide to the HackWurld of Mystaros ******************************************************************** 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, 20 Feb 2003 09:52:01 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Gif of the Kopru --- Darth Darknerd : > Crimson Death (Savage Coast novel, forget name): > http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_23.jpg The Black Vessel? > I wasn't sure if this was a race (scorpian > folk?)mentioned in one of the Princess Ark articles, > but if it is, it might look like this: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_111.jpg Scorpionmen is the correct name I guess. It goes back to the classic D&D rules, but the VotPA makes special mention of the Nimmur Scorpionmen as you mention. Håvard ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 10:29:14 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Gif of the Kopru Havard Faanes wrote: > > http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_111.jpg > > Scorpionmen is the correct name I guess. It goes back > to the classic D&D rules, but the VotPA makes special > mention of the Nimmur Scorpionmen as you mention. Very near: it's Manscorpion, AFAIK, from the Companion set, and later in Known World Grimoire, Sting and Sun article. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 14:53:13 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Gif of the Kopru Darth Darknerd wrote: > > I wasn't sure if this was a race (scorpian > folk?)mentioned in one of the Princess Ark articles, > but if it is, it might look like this: > > http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_111.jpg BTW, Manscorpions do exist on Mystara, but the don't have pincers as the one in the linked picture--perhaps a 3e change or an artist's variant. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 09:07:44 -0800 From: Ramses Ramirez Subject: Re: Nature of the Old Ones in your campaign? Jonathan Nolan wrote: > Hello everyone! Hi Ramses! Old Ones IMC are "beyonders", sometimes called the Gods of the Gods. I base them on the strange powers of the works of Jack Kirby -- the Source and Anti-Life. Between those two poles is the full pantheon of monstrous and beautiful Old Ones. Beneath the Old Ones, in conscious or unwitting imitation of them are the Immortals. "Downward to the earth" are the mortal races. Hello Jonathan. I am not too familiar with the works of Jack Kirby. Could you explain a little bit more on this? Thanks. Old One adventures I have run range from the HP Lovecraft no-brainers to more emotionally complex issues for high level play, such as the whole "are the gamers at the game table the Old Ones" and "is the gameworld part of an infinite regression". I stress that Old Ones don't think about mortals or immortals or if they do the thought processes and motivations of the Old Ones are unguessable. How did the Old Ones come to be in your campaign? Ramses --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 14:28:03 -0500 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Nature of the Old Ones in your campaign? Pre-Star Trek the Next Generation, I used the Old Ones as a sort of "Q" type character. I also expressed one of the Old Ones as a child living in the motherboard of a C64 computer. I had one NPC that was "touched" by an Old One, he was an Orc that lived in Zyxl. He was a famous oracle, but only when he consumed mass quantities of beer, and then nobody understood what he said. I believe, at the time, the players needed to question him on how to destroy Hosadas in X10, as the players had somehow bundled their other atempts to find the correct information. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 15:03:46 -0500 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Nature of the Old Ones in your campaign? I also once tried to create a mythology of the Mystaran Universe and included the Old Ones at several points (mostly to quell the immortals for ripping worlds appart, creating numerous entities, delving into unknown parts of the planes, et) I tried to even put a limitation to their powers and included "beyonders" that were even before the Old Ones. I thought I read somewhere that Thanatos used to be an Old One, he did some horrible crime and was erased as an Old One and needed to start all over as a mortal to become an immortal again. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 11:09:15 +1100 From: Jonathan Nolan Subject: Re: Nature of the Old Ones in your campaign? > Hello Jonathan. I am not too familiar with the works of Jack Kirby. Could you explain a little bit more on this? Thanks. Kirby was a gawd of the golden, silver and modern age of comicbooks... He recreated the fringe theory concepts of ancients astronauts, space gods and the separation of a single race of gods into good and evil pantheons, led respectively by the High-Father (Moses crossed with Odin) and Darkseid (stone-faced monster-demon-god). The Source is what Lucas ripped the Force off of. Anti-Life is the total abnegation of all that exists, expressed as an alchemical formula known as the Anti-Life Equations. > How did the Old Ones come to be in your campaign? The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, the Old Ones ever shall be -HP Lovecraft ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 19:40:15 -0600 From: Magister Mystaros Subject: Hacklopedia Mystarica: The Guide to the HackWurld of Mystaros I have been wanting to tell you all for a while now, veritably bursting at the seams. They finally announced it earlier today. This is going to ROCK! And I say that with all humility... (^_^) ***Begin Press Release** MUNDELEIN, IL Kenzer & Company is pleased to announce the impending release of the first HackMasterT campaign setting book, the HacklopediaT MystaricaT: The Guide to the HackWurldT of MystarosT, based on the classic Dungeons & Dragons® setting, the Known World of Mystara®. "We have always wanted to rewrite the classic fantasy game settings of our youth for our own HackMaster setting, Garweeze WurldT," said Kenzer & Company Project Manager, Brian Jelke. "The classic Known World of Mystara was the perfect choice for our first release. Mystara has everything you could want in an adventure setting, from hordes of screaming humanoids and wuss-slapping knights, to mysterious vivisectionist wizards and butt-kicking halfling bounders. Besides, we knew we had the right author for the project when he asked us how much he had to pay us to do it!" "Are you kidding? Pass up an opportunity to redesign Mystara for HackMaster?" said Hacklopedia Mystarica designer, James 'Mystaros' Mishler. "I would have sold my dice collection for the opportunity! Well, half of it, maybe. The revamp of the classic Mystara setting for the HackMaster milieu was a given since day one of HackMaster. The Known World Gazetteers and the later Mystara releases helped define the look and feel of fantasy worlds for thousands of players. The new HackWurld of Mystaros, in which we take the original Mystara material and crank up the HackFactor, will do the same for a new generation of gamers." The "Hacklopedia Mystarica: The Guide to the HackWurld of Mystaros" is being written by crazed Mystara fan James Mishler and goes on sale in late summer of 2003. The book is expected to be a 256-page soft cover sourcebook that will include a 2'x3' full-color wall map of the HackWurld of Mystaros. Estimated retail price is $34.99. About Kenzer & Company For more information on Kenzer & Company, check out http://www.kenzerco.com. HackMaster, Garweeze Wurld, Hacklopedia Mystarica, and HackWurld of Mystaros are trademarks of Kenzer & Company. Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, and Mystara are registered trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. and used by Kenzer & Company under license. ***End Press Release*** To answer some questions I'm sure to get before they are asked... 1) Taymorans and Carnifex -- Yes. More than this, man was not meant to know. Mwahahahaha! 2) Blackmoor -- Unfortunately, no, due to copyright and licensing issues. What did Mystaros come up with to take its place? Mwahahahaha! 3) Hollow World -- No, not as such, due to certain continuity issues. But there will be some materials from it incorporated into the HackWurld. 4) Heldann and Wendar -- More details on each nation, as much as will be found for each of the classic gazetteer kingdoms. 5) Ierendi -- Hee hee. Let's just say "the fix is in." Mine! Mine! Mwahahahahaha! 6) The rest of Mystara (the "HackWurld of Mystaros" region being synonymous with the "Known World of Mystara" region) -- The rest of the world will be changed, some parts little, some parts a lot. I don't know how much I can tell you all at this point, as I didn't know the PR was going out this soon, and hadn't asked how much I could tell. 7) Fan-written materials from the Vaults of Pandius -- Probably not, due to copyright issues, but I am still delving into that. Other than my own stuff that has been seen in drips and drabs, here and there, that is, as I sold my soul to get this gig, and my Mystara material goes with it... (^_^) 8) Previews -- I am hoping that we will be able to preview parts of the setting in Knights of the Dinner Table, maybe elsewhere, before release. That is still under consideration. 9) Mystaros -- Yes, you will finally get to meet the real Mystaros. All these years he has been my Mystaran counterpart, as Elminster is Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms ID, and Mordy and Bigby in Greyhawk to Gary Gygax. More than that I cannot say at this time. I'll spill as much as I can here, when I know what I can say... Gah! It's finally out in the open. Hooray! ::Cartwheels:: This is so going to ROCK! Now you all know why I've been quieter than normal, even after being back... (^_^) James ****************************** James "Mystaros" Mishler Freelance Writer and Troubleshooter mystaros@earthlink.net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 01:39:24 -0500 From: SteelAngel Subject: Re: Hacklopedia Mystarica: The Guide to the HackWurld of Mystaros Congrats! Just.. err.. don't suck :) Ethan -- Kinard 210 Linux Guru Webmaster www.steelangel.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 08:24:53 +0100 From: Thibault Sarlat Subject: Hacklopedia Mystarica: The Guide to the HackWurld of Mystaros Congratulations James What about Skothar? and Davania? Thibault Sarlat. Techniques de l'Ingénieur Port: 06 84 92 32 55 Fax: 05 56 96 85 24 www.techniques-ingenieur.fr ICQ 16622177. Personal homepage http://www.mystara.fr.st thibault.sarlat@wanadoo.fr ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 19 Feb 2003 to 20 Feb 2003 (#2003-52) ***************************************************************