Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 11 Sep 2004 to 12 Sep 2004 (#2004-192) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 13/09/2004, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 2 messages totalling 190 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Darokinian language 2. K:KOA (was: Darokinian language) ******************************************************************** 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: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 11:43:16 +0200 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: Darokinian language ----- Original Message ----- From: "adrian mattias" > You may be confusing the source of their wealth here. Thyatian wealth is > built on conquest not trade. In this respect Thyatis is like Rome, or the > Aztecs or the Assyrians. None of whom were good traders. In fact in all > cases, merchants were considered the lowest of the low in the social > classes. If you wanted to make it up the ladder in these societies you had > to be a warrior. That's not entirely true. In Rome, merchants were an important social group just after nobles/senators and equestrian (knights). Tipically, the romans sent their merchants first, as roman merchants were the first line of roman colonialism, and offences or violences to merchants in other nations were often the excuse to mount an invasion. For the Aztecs, was true the contrary: the Aztec empire mounted military campaign to force other nations to accept aztec merchants, who were also tax collectors for the government. The Aztec empire didn't leave any occupation force or colony in defeated nations, but those nations did have to treat well aztec merchants, or face the consequences. Merchants in the aztec empire were the most important social group just after the nobles/warriors. Both Rome and the Aztec empire kept slaves (the aztecs a lot less than Rome btw) but their wealth wasn't built entirely upon them. Remember that Rome didn't conquest anything for long periods, particullary in the Empire era, and AFAIK historians think that the aztecs' wealth came both from trade and tributes. Anyway in Mystara probably Thyatis never was a strong commercial power and depended heavily on Minrothad and Darokin for sea and land trade lanes respectively. Probably Thyatis is a strong commercial power only in the sea of dawn and in the north east but not in the west. And about the darokian language question, IMC settlers of Darokin were a mixed neathar/traladaran/alaysian/northern/thyatians people, but their language is a sort of thyathian (I'd like to use catalan) derived from thyatian and a native neathar language, because of the strong thyatian influences in the time of the thyatian colonization of Glantri. It's likely that if so many thyathians were settling Glantri, then a lot of them were settling in Darokin too. bye Francesco Defferrari ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 16:24:18 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: K:KOA (was: Darokinian language) --- The Stalker wrote: > Indeed Aleena Halaran already is married by then. > See PWA2 (p.187), which > precedes the K:KoA set. I need to check this, but AFAIK, KKOA does not mention her being married in spite of this. Instead, the module accopmpanying KKOA suggests that Aleena has a romance with the Druid Eltan. Ofcourse, one way of solving this is that Aleenas sister Anielle (mentioned in Gaz1) is the one with a romance to the Druid. > >Also, IMO, it would have made sense to promote the > >nobles, as Stefan promoted himself to King. > Perhaps, but then Karameikos is still a young > nation. True. Still, Gaz1 made a point out of saying that Stefan had not yet appointed any nobles to a rank higher than noble because he had chosen to remain a Duke out of respect to Thyatis. > >Overall, KKOA isn't bad. Its just not much new > there > >to someone who already owns Gaz1. > > > > I'd agree with that. There are several updates that > are interesting (like > the School of Magecraft or the remains of fallen > Black Eagle barony), but > otherwise new information is indeed scarce. I love > the illustrations, > though. We never saw Specularum/Mirros illustrated > before. Yeah, the illustrations in K:KoA are quite nice. there is something about the AD&D Mystara layout/art that is slightly unappealing to me though. Not sure what it is, but there is something there that suggests that this setting lacks teeth. Perhaps some blood, gore, or even just expressions of anger or grief in the artwork would have helped. I agree with you that the School of Magecraft and the Barony of Halag should have been included. IIRC they were both updated in Dragon Magazine, but as a courtesy to old fans (the AD&D Mystara line was mainly for old fans anyway) it would have been nice to have something new in it. > >In addition to the above fixes I would have liked > to > >see: > >1) Inclusion of stuff from B10, perhaps the entire > >module, but at least descriptions of Dymrak, the > >Hutaakan Valley etc. > >2)More detailed info on the Vyalia, based on DotE. > > I agree with you. The only exception might be the > Hutaakan Valley, if it > is presumed that it is still unknown to Karameikos > in general. Not saying > that is likely after the events of B10, though. Yup. Either they could have included B10, which would have been awsome, or they could have assumed that the events of B10 had occurred and given some details of what the Valley would be like after that (perhaps under Gnoll occupation). > >3)More information on the Alfheim elves, and their > >culture which may have been taken from Gaz5. > > > > The information should be there, yes, as long as > it's pointed out that the > elves are pretty reclusive. The Alfheim elves are > not going to be very > outgoing after losing their homeland, and the Vyalia > elves living in > Karameikos have always been described as rather > reclusive. That is true. Still, with so many elves within the country's borders, it would be hard for them to keep totally unnoticed. Plus, since Alfheim is gone, TSR would never have been able to reprint that Gaz anyway, so why not include the material about elf society, clans, monsters etc in the K:KoA box? The Callarii are closely related to the Alfheimers aswell, so most of the Gaz 5 stuff would apply to them aswell. > >> Glantri: Kingdom of Magic > Well, it's true that they haven't solved all the > problems, because the Day > of Dread takes place every year as a direct > consequence to the drain on > the Sphere of Energy that has already taken place - > that drain is still > unreplaced. Now, I don't recall who it was that > changed the NoS to drain > from the Sphere of Energy when the Radiance was > used, but IIRC it was an > old one, in which case it would indeed be beyond the > Immortals. The NoS was altered by a mysterious figure that the Immortals assumed was an Old One, though it was never specified. Still, I agree with you that leaving all of this out of the book was a terrible thing. The changes to the NoS deserved a whole page of discussion, not just a few lines about how everything is okay now. I mean that was what WotI was about in the first place! In spite of this, I think the main reason for the bad rep of the AD&D Mystara products was the CDs much more than the actual products. I wish they would have introduced those for FR instead of Mystara... Håvard, sulking in a corner. ;) ===== *** Håvard R. Faanes www.stud.ntnu.no/~havardfa ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 11 Sep 2004 to 12 Sep 2004 (#2004-192) ****************************************************************