Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 5 Mar 2003 to 6 Mar 2003 (#2003-66) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 07/03/2003, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 13 messages totalling 651 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Savage Coast 2. Cultures (2) 3. Origin of Mystara's races (3) 4. AD&D - OD&D Conversion 5. Languages (4) 6. Half-Elf Debate (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: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 08:59:25 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Savage Coast Greg Weatherup wrote: > >> I have just 2 comments abou the verdans: their Coinage and holydays. Surely > > But that then raises the question, is that just a local name for the same thing or is a completely different mint design? Is a Centavo in a Verdan state the exact same as a cp in Cimarron (in other words, are the baronies still in a monetary union?) Probably each state mints its own coins, but they're all based on Thyatian imperial standards, so they're more or less equal in value. Of course, poor or turbulent baronies might be forced to dilute their currency (i.e., reducing the quantity of gold per coin), causing inflation, etc. Bye, -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 09:12:42 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Cultures Greg Weatherup wrote: > >>> If it helps, When I was getting ready to play King Louis of Renardy >>> in Rob Fry's BR-Mystara game I remember reading > >> Uhm, perhaps it was this passage from the Immortal Project, Saimpt >> Clébard entry: > > that is exactly th one thank you Giampaolo! Ah, it wasn't that difficult, since I was the one who wrote it ;) >> Indeed. The "upper class" language ("Renardois") is based on French, > while the lower class language, "Lupin" is the ancestral language of the > Lupins, composed of barks and howls :) > > Ys, o (great now 's' ar not working ethr!, hopfully I can finish thi bfore th rest goes! Argh!@!) it' lik th Norman conqust of nglnd only pacful (or is it???) and no battl of Hasting Yes. > with Saimpt Clébard rprsnting th incoming cultur, Sampt Ralon rprsntnig th pacful mrging of th two groups, and th third most powrful (I forgt th name) rprsnting th original group. But isn't that third on also sort of a war patron? Prhaps it's not soo pacfull aftr all! Saimpt Loup, Matin and Malinois (plus of course Korotiku as Saimpt Renard) are the remaining Lupin Immortals. Of them, Malinois is another Glantrian in my writeup, while Matin is Renardois and Saimpt Loup is the oldest of the lot, dating back to the times when the Lupins were nomadic. Both Saimpt Loup and Saimpt Matin have warlike attitude, Matin as a defender of Renardy, and Loup as a hunter and death god. Bye, -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 10:57:03 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Origin of Mystara's races Ramses Ramirez wrote: > Hello everyone. I am aware that the following Immortals were responsible for creating (or bringing) their respective races: > > Hel: created beastmen. Brought in Chromatic dragons > > Ka: Carnifex > > Kagyar: dwarves Kagyar did not _create_ the dwarves, he merely modified the original Blackmoorian dwarves--those still surviving in the Hollow World. > Ordana: elves > > and so forth... My questions are: > > a) With the exception of the Flaems and Alphatians (which both came from another dimension) , who created the human race? > b) On a similar vein... Where did the residents of Blackmoor come from? Or who created them? Either they were created by very ancient, pre-Carnifex Immortals, or they naturally evolved or arrived from somewhere else. The humans, and a few other races, are so old that they predate most Immortals, with the exception of the very old, the likes of Ixion, Valerias, Terra, Thanatos and Verthandi. Probably, even most Immortals don't know where these races come from.0 > c) I read on a couple of websites that Hel brought the chromatic dragons and created the beastmen.. Where is this said in canon? Also, where did Hel "bring" the chromatic dragons from? No idea--is this canon? -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 12:22:56 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Origin of Mystara's races --- Giampaolo Agosta skrev: > Ramses Ramirez wrote: > > > Hello everyone. I am aware that the following > Immortals were responsible for creating (or > bringing) their respective races: > > > > Hel: created beastmen. Brought in Chromatic > dragons > > > > Ka: Carnifex > > > > Kagyar: dwarves > > Kagyar did not _create_ the dwarves, he merely > modified the original Blackmoorian dwarves--those > still surviving in the Hollow World. The Kogolor dwarves may also have been modified before they were dumped into the HW. > > Ordana: elves > > > > and so forth... My questions are: > > > > a) With the exception of the Flaems and Alphatians > (which both came from another dimension) , who > created the human race? > > b) On a similar vein... Where did the residents of > Blackmoor come from? Or who created them? > > Either they were created by very ancient, > pre-Carnifex Immortals, or they naturally evolved or > arrived from somewhere else. > The humans, and a few other races, are so old that > they predate most Immortals, with the exception of > the very old, the likes of Ixion, Valerias, Terra, > Thanatos and Verthandi. Probably, even most > Immortals don't know where these races come from.0 Probably developed "naturally" from primates, although they may have had help. I suspect the Old Ones could be in on this one, or possibly Odin and Ixion... > > c) I read on a couple of websites that Hel brought > the chromatic dragons and created the beastmen.. > Where is this said in canon? Also, where did Hel > "bring" the chromatic dragons from? > > No idea--is this canon? Hel created the Beastmen. Thats canon. The Chromatic Dragons part is from the Mystaros Blackmoor timeline and other fan-based works derived from that. The Dragons both metallic and chromatic came from a distant planet. Chromatics were summoned by Hel and the Metallics were summoned by Odin. All Mystaros timeline... 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, 6 Mar 2003 13:06:05 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Origin of Mystara's races Havard Faanes wrote: > >> Kagyar did not _create_ the dwarves, he merely >> modified the original Blackmoorian dwarves--those >> still surviving in the Hollow World. > > The Kogolor dwarves may also have been modified before > they were dumped into the HW. Yes, though this is unlikely, since the HW is explicitly built to preserve pre-existent species/cultures, rather than to house something new. Anyway, the Blackmoorian dwarves were not created by Kagyar. >>> a) With the exception of the Flaems and Alphatians >> (which both came from another dimension) , who >> created the human race? > > Probably developed "naturally" from primates, although > they may have had help. I suspect the Old Ones could > be in on this one, or possibly Odin and Ixion... This really depends on the identities and motivations of the earlier Immortals--i.e, the cosmogony you adopt for Mystara. Humans, Brutemen, Dwarves and Halflings could certainly have evolved from primates, yet natural evolution would be quite uncommon in a world where entire species can be molded by the Immortals, filling those ecological niches that new naturally evolved species would come to occupy in a much longer time. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 14:18:09 -0300 From: Asgor Ironfist Subject: Re: Cultures Hi again Well, despite Slag being the SC english or not, i think that there would be an Sc english, used both in Cimarron and Bellayne, probably an traladaran/antalian language. But, is this language native to the SC, or an Daro dalect? Darokin might not be exatly an version of the RW England, but surely Darokin have much in common with England, and Daro problably is the mystaran English. So,Daro arrived at teh SC via the City-States (like Slag), or appeared at the SC, and coincidently is very close to Daro? That's why i think that Slag would be the SC english (and because this would be more canonical too), even English not being so close to the latinian (er... is this word right?) languages, like Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French (and Romenian too, i think). Yes, Italian would easly fit the Slag description and works very well with that description of being 50% simmilar to Verdan and Espa, but for me, is hard to think in the far-west with cowboys speaking italian, hehehehehehe About Terra Leãoça, i don't think that this name is just a name, because is sounds like Leão (Lion) and Onça (Jaguar, i think... at least Onça Pintada is Jaguar), and because it's very close to Bellayne. So, the verdans calls this land with this name because of the rakastas. Like Protectorado da Presa (protectorate of the Fang, i think) have this name because of the lupins. About the coinage, i agree with Giampaolo, i think that there's no monetary unification. Instead, the coins have the same names (transated in Vilaverde, Texeiras and Cimarron to their languages) and they are equivalent, being freely (or at least, more than other places) accepted in the other baronies. About Ochalea... i neved developed this ideia, that player have the terrible habit to change his PC weekly (now he's a swashbuckler, last week, an thyatian mercenary, and the week before, a mage), so i didn't have any urgent reason to make this. By the way, i know very little to do this, anyway, so i simply mencioned an idea that i had. And now, some fresh questions: =) 1- The Yezchamenid Empire would be an mystaran Persia? 2- The Empire of Zuyevo would be an mystara Russia? 3- Herath and Nimmur have any real world equivalents? In My d&d3a Red Steel, i'm planning make both like american cinilizations, like the Mayans, since there isn't neither oltecs nor ascans in the SC, and i want to make an more "conquest of the America" campaing. Tchau para todos =) _________________________________________________________________ MSN Messenger: converse com os seus amigos online. http://messenger.msn.com.br ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 09:49:18 -0800 From: Joaquin Menchaca Subject: Re: AD&D - OD&D Conversion For D&D3e, there is quite a bit of conversion documention on the myatara3E group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mystara3E __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 10:08:39 -0800 From: Joaquin Menchaca Subject: Re: Languages > From: DM > Subject: Languages > > Hi there! > > Just my 2 shiny electrum (ouch!) pieces to add to > the "cultures" thread. > About the Thyatian-Hattian linguistic differences > yet being the same > civilization, that's an old thing I wrote back in > 1999 on this list IIRC: > > > The Thyatian language seems to be either Latin > (Anaxibius) or Italian (di > Malapietra), which are obviously closely related as > both are derived from > the same base Latin language. Now, given that the > Hattians are part of the > same group of peoples the Thyatians are from, it > would seem that their > languages would be similar. > > Yet the Hattians seem to have a distinctly German > language, much different > from that of the Thyatians. So, how did the > Hattians, who aren't separated > (geographically speaking) that far from the other > Thyatians, develop this > language on their own? > > > Indeed, this mystery is much simpler than it seems. > Thyatians, Kerendans > and Hattians were in their origins Antalian tribes > that Nithians moved from > the Heldann-Northern Reaches area to Davania in > order to establish there > new colonies. Unfortunately for them, they revolted > and drove off their > masters, and then thrived in the forests and plains > of Davania, becoming > the ancestors of the Hinterlanders. > > Then, around 1.000 BC, the gnolls invaded Traldar > and King Milen fled south > to Davania, where after his death a great warleader > founded the Empire of > Milenia. The Milenians developed a new way of > writing and a new tongue, > resulted from the influence of the other Neathar and > Oltec tribes with > which they mingled, and thus the Milenian (Greek) > was born. The Milenians > then conquered and enslaved the surrounding > populations, influencing > heavily their culture and language. At this time > (600 BC ca.), the > Kerendans, Thyatians and Hattians migrated northward > to avoid the complete > submission to Milenians, and arrived in modern day > Thyatis. > > Thyatians and Kerendans had been strongly influenced > by Milenian-Greek > culture, and so they developed a new language and > culture based 10% on > their old Antalian ancestry and 80% on the Milenian > culture, resulting in > the Thyatian-Latin language and culture. Then, as > the centuries passed, > Kerendans developed their own language based on 2 > distinct ethnic groups, > the Kerendans (Italians, as Italian is the result of > the mixture of Latin > and Italic dialects) and the Ispans (Spanish, very > much similar to Italian > and Latin). > > What about the Hattians, then? Simply, they remained > very attached to the > old ways of the Antalians and their dialect and > culture is a close > reflection of this: it is not Antalian since it was > influenced by Thyatian > and Milenian, but it is very much similar (the same > difference between High > German and Low German, or maybe between German and > Danish). > I like the idea of how Hattians developed in isolation, while somehow the two other main tribes linguistically changed. However, many of the languages were dervived from Greek, which were dervived from Semetic langauges, and then derived from Indian langauges. There is linguistic studies that show the roots and linguistic evolution over the centuries. Thus, it mechanically doesn't fit. However, here's an idea. Perhaps the Thyatians/Kerendans spoke some root language, like Greek, which was derived/influenced by an earlier semetic language that once Nithians spoke. There was an ancient language even before that, which is similar to Sindhi. The Hattians always kept the original tongue from long ago as a sort of secret language, while the Thyatians/Kerendans evolved into completely different languages that became Greek-like, and then Roman-like. The Traladarans could have spoken this language, which is what the Milenians speak today. However, the Traladaran language became influenced by Thyatian and took its own unique spin. Anways, here's a proposal. It also shows cultural/ethnical migrations as well. Ancient Sindhi ------ Nithian ------ Ylari \ / | \ / | \ / | Old Hattian Pre-Milenian | / | \ | / | \ | / Old Thyatian \ | / / | \ | | / | Milenian | Traladaran |\ | / \ | / \ | / Darokin | / Hattian Thyatian __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 10:13:55 -0800 From: Joaquin Menchaca Subject: Half-Elf Debate Should there be half-elves in Mystara, or not? Darokin and Alfheim GAZs have conflicting passages about this, and the Savage Coast gets absurd in having "demi-elves" and "half-elves" and discussing the mating between all possibilities. The Mystara3e has decided to include half-elf into Mystara, but this doesn't sit well with me, because I feel it's too much munchkinism, and also I remember early literature about this, but I don't recall exactly from where. I note that the DragonLord trilogy points out that this is not possible. If he have half-elfs, we might as well have 1/2 dryads, 1/2 satyrs, 1/2 goblins, 1/2 dwarves, 1/2 giants, 1/2 hin, 1/2 kolbolds, 1/2 ogres, 1/2... - Joaquin __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 13:03:30 -0600 From: Eric Anondson Subject: Re: Half-Elf Debate > Should there be half-elves in Mystara, or not? > > Darokin and Alfheim GAZs have conflicting passages about this, Welcome to the joys of reconciling canon. > and the Savage Coast gets absurd in having "demi-elves" and > "half-elves" and discussing the mating between all possibilities. Are there rules for it, otherwise, how does that matter? > The Mystara3e has decided to include half-elf into Mystara, but this > doesn't sit well with me, because I feel it's too much munchkinism... What exactly is "munckinism" about the 3e PHB half-elf? > If he have half-elfs, we might as well have 1/2 dryads, 1/2 satyrs, > 1/2 goblins, 1/2 dwarves, 1/2 giants, 1/2 hin, 1/2 kolbolds, 1/2 > ogres, 1/2... Are any of those in the core 3e rules? Eric Anondson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 17:13:20 -0600 From: Magister Mystaros Subject: Re: Languages Joaquin Posited: <> Hmmm... being a trained socio-cultral anthropologist, and having completed major studies in linguistics and classical history, I must say that this statement comes as a surprise! The Greek language, whether early Mycenaean or any of the dialects through later Byzantine and Modern Greek, is an Indo-European language, unrelated to any of the Semitic (Akkadian/Arabic/Aramaean/Hebrew) or Hamitic (Eqyptian/Tamazight) tongues. However, Greek is distantly related to the various Indian languages (Bengali and Hindi/Urdi), as those are also descended from the Indo-European language family. Not to say that ther hadn't been any borrowing, mind you, which happens in all languages. Perhaps you are thinking of the written forms, which are all evolved from the original ancient Phoenician script? James ****************************** James "Mystaros" Mishler Freelance Writer and Troubleshooter mystaros@earthlink.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 17:14:57 -0600 From: Magister Mystaros Subject: Re: Languages Here's my (non-Canonical) Tale of the Classical Hattian Peoples, which fits the history... http://www.dnd.starflung.com/hattians.html James ****************************** James "Mystaros" Mishler Freelance Writer and Troubleshooter mystaros@earthlink.net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 00:48:46 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9s_Piquer_Otero?= Subject: Re: Languages Joaquin Posited: <> Wow, hi, the Semitist of my cannot refrain: