Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 28 Feb 2003 to 1 Mar 2003 (#2003-61) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 02/03/2003, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 7 messages totalling 317 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Copyright? 2. Savage Coast (3) 3. Different Mystaras 4. Cultures (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: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 00:00:54 -0800 From: SUBSCRIBE MYSTARA-L hammer_of_ulric Subject: Re: Copyright? I found this on a US site (It's the country where a work originates which defines copyright) SO all TSR stuff is probably still covered, and will be for many years. Hammer of Ulric How long does copyright last? The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, signed into law on October 27, 1998, amends the provisions concerning duration of copyright protection. Effective immediately, the terms of copyright are generally extended for an additional 20 years. Specific provisions are as follows: * For works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection will endure for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. In the case of a joint work, the term lasts for 70 years after the last surviving author=92s death. For anonymous and pseudonymous works and works made for hire, the term will be 95 years from the year of first publication or 120 years from the year of creation, whichever expires first; * For works created but not published or registered before January 1, 1978, the term endures for life of the author plus 70 years, but in no case will expire earlier than December 31, 2002. If the work is published before December 31, 2002, the term will not expire before December 31, 2047; * For pre-1978 works still in their original or renewal term of copyright, the total term is extended to 95 years from the date that copyright was originally secured. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 10:15:07 -0300 From: Asgor Ironfist Subject: Savage Coast Hi again, everyone ^^ Well, the people os the city-states are just traladarans in another place, or they're based in something more specific? like the boldavian traladarans... that would be Transilvania, right? and like all the savage baronies, that are versions of the same spanish/portuguese in different eras and places (by the way, it's so strange that mystaran Gauchos speaks espas instead of verdan... some of my brazilian "real gaúchos" friends sometimes complains about that, hehehehe) By the way, you said that the Knights of Halav is an religious order, and i think that it probably is, indeed (well, it carries the name of Halav, by the way, hehe), but i was thinking in this order like the french musketeers (yes, the three musketeers), and lawful guard that protects the king (in this case, the Margrave) form everything, and that's why i ask if this could be an honorbound company too. By the way, do anyone knows the real reason that made this traladarans migrate? They were simply agaist the Church of Traladara, or something like this? And they reverend Petra and Zirchev too? Thanks for this link, this text about the ispans will be very useful ^^ By the way, why there's almost anything at the Vaunts of Pandius about the Verdans? do you guys mind if i post here some of my ideas about this places? Bye Guilherme de Texeiras _________________________________________________________________ MSN Messenger: converse com os seus amigos online. http://messenger.msn.com.br ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 20:46:57 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Savage Coast Asgor Ironfist wrote: > Hi again, everyone ^^ > Well, the people os the city-states are just traladarans in another > place, > or they're based in something more specific? like the boldavian > traladarans... that would be Transilvania, right? Indeed. Quoting Bruce Heard (Goatmen of Kavaja article, from the Vaults): " If I remember, I had picked some Slavic cultures for each of the city states. For example, the folks in Hojah were more like RW Albanians, Slagovich was more like RW Croats, while Zvornik came closer to RW Hungarians. Nova Svoga was inspired from RW Bulgaria but I chose Slovenian for their language for the sake of typographical simplicity. I had Zagora more like RW Romanians." > and like all the savage > baronies, that are versions of the same spanish/portuguese in > different eras > and places (by the way, it's so strange that mystaran Gauchos speaks > espas > instead of verdan... some of my brazilian "real gaúchos" friends > sometimes > complains about that, hehehehe) Well, write this up to the fact that in our (European, but probably North American as well) mind, gauchos come from Argentina--myself, I'd think to J. L. Borges short stories, when thinking of gauchos. > By the way, you said that the Knights of Halav is an religious order, > and i > think that it probably is, indeed (well, it carries the name of Halav, by > the way, hehe), but i was thinking in this order like the french > musketeers > (yes, the three musketeers), and lawful guard that protects the king (in > this case, the Margrave) form everything, and that's why i ask if this > could > be an honorbound company too. Of course, they could be portrayed as such, if the City-States are globally portrayed as more advanced, on par with the Savage Baronies, and with a lighter tone. > By the way, do anyone knows the real reason > that made this traladarans migrate? They were simply agaist the Church of > Traladara, or something like this? And they reverend Petra and Zirchev > too? A possibility is that they were an "heretic" faction, revering Halav more than Petra and Zirchev. However, the "Dark Ages" of Traladara give plenty of motives for moving--vampires and werecreatures rampaging, infighting among the noble families, lack of resources, and so on. I'd go for a mixture of these: something like politcal factions using religion to further their cause, and losing factions calling for a religion-driven migration in order to keep control over their people, perhaps with ambitious adventurers stirring the people in the hope of carving feuds for themselves in the new lands. > Thanks for this link, this text about the ispans will be very useful > ^^ By > the way, why there's almost anything at the Vaunts of Pandius about the > Verdans? Fewer people know/use the Savage Coast in general--you'll find much more information on the Known World. > do you guys mind if i post here some of my ideas about this places? I, for one, would certainly love to see more info and ideas about the peoples of the Savage Coast! GP ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 11:38:16 -0800 From: "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" Subject: Different Mystaras All this talk about hackmastar brought me to think about the way "my Mystara" is different from the canon one (did I just say the C word?). I would want to hear about how all of you people altered the face of your gameworld. Although I almost never actively play anymore I have lots of thoughts about the game world that I sometimes put into writing. Some are about classes, races, rules, magic and so on. I use my own version of simplified 3e (with a bit of OD&D) and my general rule is "less is more", meaning I like simplefying stuff, and trashing rules and details that seem to make the game bulky. This is also seen in my Mystara which looks like this: Alphatia- in my campaign (played in the early 90's) I have sunk Alphatia under the waves. That is quite surprising because I only heard about WotI via the net in 1996... My focus is on the KW and that is the only major (human) cultural hub. Ierendi- Gone. I hated the Gaz, and so made Minrothad swallow Ierendi. Minrothad IMC rivals Darokin and Thyatis in terms of influence over the KW and it is home to humans, halflingsm dwarves and elves (in order of importance). Darokin- not so goody goody as in the gaz. The merchant houses are very violent and the only thing that unites the Darokinians is a cold war against Thyatis and Minrothad (a three way cold war) and the threat of Orcs to the north, desert nomads to the west. Ylaruam- Moved. There is no Ylaruam between Thyatis and Sordfjord. The Jarldoms are stretched to the south and mainland Thyatis is spread a bit to the north. The Alaysian people are part of the desert nomad tribes who thrive west to and around Sind. They are the most advanced tribe and have a few cities. The other tribes travel over the Great Waste and bring goods from Yavdlom (unchanged) and from southwestern Brun. The place were the Emirates are supposed to be IS the ancient seat of the Nithian empire. Atroughin Tribes- gone. Darokin and Sind divide the land between them. Alfheim- There never was an Elvish homeland in the KW. The elves wandered around but didn't manage to find a place to found a great nation. Instead the Canolbarth in the middle of Darokin is teeming with fair folk and other forest beings. Darokin hasn't succeeded in concouring the forest because of its not so freindly fay denizens. I played with the thought of eliminating the elves as a race from Mystara and using the more (IMO) interesting Sidhe as the super-human mysterious forest humanoids. Savage Coast- X on the baronies. The orc's head peninsula has many SAVAGE races. Nimmur (with its Endukes) still stands, but losing ground to the vicious Manscrorpions and Minotaurs. Herath is also there. Lots of orcs, lots of Lizard kin, Wallaras, Phanatons etc'. No rakasta, lupin or human nations. Humanoids and the Broken Lands- I have changed the concept of "the Beastmen Races". In general, humanoids are split into three groups- 1. Goblinoids- these three races are the re-incarnated evil souls, brought back from the dead by Hel. They are touched by entropy (protection from evil spells work on them, for example) and have some super-human qualities. 2. Orcs, Ogres and Kobolds- These guys are races of humanoids just like dwarves, lupins and humans. They have cultures that might seem evil to humans, but this is generally because they compete with humans and raid on them. 3. Trolls- thes creatures are basic entities of nature. Kinda like Dryads and Fauns, although not as nice... Basically, there are orc hordes throughout Mystara and on the KW they have lands in the "orclands" and the Broken Lands. Goblinoids are found in mountain ranges and deep forests in the less populated patches of the KW. Gnolls are the only race that live solely on raiding others and they are the biggest threat to human and dwarven lands. Davania- I use some but not all of the web material. Humans there are either barbarian tribes, or residents of the milenien cities. Skothar- I like the M-Orient ideas. Hollow World- Mystara is a full, round planet. The museum of extinct races and cultures exists in Ka's home plane. In general, you can see that I use a litlle more homogenic KW surrounded by savage lands dominated mainly by non-human cultures. I use lower magic levels than most (no schools of magic part from Glantri, no island of wizards on Ierendi or Thyatis). So now, how is your Mystara different? Morphail --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 11:58:01 -0800 From: Darth Darknerd Subject: Re: Cultures > > What about Hule? Which culture they would be? I > think that something > > between > > the sindhi and ylari, but i didn't find any source > that makes this clear... > > Hule's culture is based on RW Turkey (the language, > at least). There aren't many official sources, but a > very good fan write-up is this: > http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Cauldron/5014/ > I thought that Hule was based on Persia. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 23:33:24 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Cultures > > >> Hule's culture is based on RW Turkey (the language, >> at least). There aren't many official sources, but a >> very good fan write-up is this: >> http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Cauldron/5014/ >> > I thought that Hule was based on Persia. > Uhm, the language at least seems quite more like Turkish than Persian--lots of "u" sounds, for example. Also, the relation between Hule and the City States mimics closely that of the RW Balkans before the Great War. GP ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 00:20:02 -0300 From: Asgor Ironfist Subject: Re: Savage Coast Hi again Well, i know that the Pampas is an region that is placed in the southern part of Brazil, in Uruguay and north of Argentina, but i'm not sure if the uruguaios or argentinos calls their's "cowboys" as gaúchos. But the region that now is Rio Grande do Sul (the land of the brazilian gaúchos) was in the XVIII century an spanish colony, but in the XIX century it became a part of the portuguese colony (and Uruguay as well, but when Brazil became independent, Uruguay, with the support of Argentina, becabe independent as well). Because of that, i can certainly understand this gauchos that speaks espa (but not my gaúchos friends, hehehehe) Verdan in Esterhold have any connection with the verdan people? And Slag would be english, right? Does Slag an Daro dialect (that is already an Thyatian dialect, right?) I have just 2 comments abou the verdans: their Coinage and holydays. Surely the don't use the same worlds for they money, but translate the name to verdan (at leats, that's what i think!). Since i didn't find this name on Vaunts, i made it myself: Real (pp), Ouro (gp), Médio (ep), Dez (sp) and Centavo (cp). The plural would be: Réis, Ouros, Médios, Dez (the same as singular) and Centavos. The plural of Real could be Reais as well (like the current brazilian money), but Real/Réis is the money that was used in the time of the Empire of Brazil (after it's independence), so it would fit better. Ah, and 1000 Réis is called Conto de Réis. (or pehaps Mirréis too, an contraction of Mil [Thousand] and Réis). About the holydays, there's just a few nedded ajustments, i think. I'll put the names written on Vaunts ath the corrections that i've made: O Primeiro Dia (no mistake here), Dia de O Primeiro Mar (Primeiro dia de Mar would be better), Dia de Primavera (no mistake), O Solsticio de Verao (only spelling mistake: O Solstício de Verão), Dia de os Duelos (the contraction of "de" e "os" would be better: Dia dos Duelos), Feria de os Toros (Dia dos Touros. In portuguese, the word Touro have this U), Dia de os Flores (Dia das Flores. In portuguese, Flor(es) is an feminine word), Dia de O Descansar (Dia do Descansar, or Dia do Descanso), Dia de a Inquisidora (spelling miskate: Dia da Inquisitora), Dia de os Mortos (Dia dos Mortos), Dia de O Fim de Mar (Último dia de Mar is better), Dia de Ixion: Adeus a O Sol (no mistake, but "aO" is more common then "a O"), O Fim de O Ano: O Dia de O Receio (O Fim do Ano: O Dia do Receio [or Dia do Temor, according to the Karameikos:KoA translation to portuguese) That's all ^^ Bye _________________________________________________________________ MSN Hotmail, o maior webmail do Brasil. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 28 Feb 2003 to 1 Mar 2003 (#2003-61) **************************************************************