Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 9 Nov 2004 to 10 Nov 2004 (#2004-244) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 11/11/2004, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 10 messages totalling 400 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Glantri circa 493 (3) 2. Vanya (6) 3. Blackmoor d20 ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.mystaranet.jamm.com/vaults/default.aspx To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 01:38:51 -0800 From: DM Subject: Re: Glantri circa 493 On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 09:35:55 -0500, Chris Cherrington wrote: > I found this reference for the Dragon Lord > Trilogy... > > 491 AC Thelvyn Foxeyes find the armour of Dragonlord > from Blackmoorian fortress of Dragonwatch. He > becomes the second Dragonlord of Mystara. > 496 AC Thelvyn Foxeyes realises, that he is a gold > dragon conjured to a form of eldar-elf. Magic is > broken after the trip to the homeplane of Great One. > Time of Dragonlord is over. Thelvyn becomes a > Dragonking. > Leader of the Flaemish firewizards Byean Kaalstran > finds an "efficient" way to use Radiance. > 497 AC Gemstone dragons return to Mystara. They > threaten the dragons of Mystara with war, but > Thelvyn defeats them. He becomes Immortal Diamond. Holy cow, I didn't know about this origin for Diamond and about the gemstone-metallic dragons war!! :o Can you please make a summary of the events in the Dragonlord chronicles for me and all of the people who haven't read the trilogy, Chris (or whoever has gotten around reading the books)? That would help a lot ;) Thanks in advance! DM __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:21:30 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Vanya My group is in the process of creating PCs for my new Mystran (in HARP) campaign. One of the players, who has never played in Mystara, as haven't most of them, expressed the wish to create a warrior-cleric of a warlike god. The Immortal Vanya is the obvious selection, and I think it would be interesting too. We are going to play in 1000 AC. I gather that the cult of Vanya during that time is still very strong in Thyatis, especially strong of course in Hattias. And I think it isn't adopted in other major pantheons, such as the Church of Darokin due to it's belligerent attitudes (the campaign is based in Darokin). (I would think that even the Church of Karameikos wouldn't perhaps have adopted her, judging by the character of Olliver Jowett who founded that sect. Perhaps the rift between Jowett and Oderbry could be partly base on the fact that Oderfbry is a militant Vanyaite?) Even in Thyatis the attitudes towards Vanya would be ambivalet: revered especially among the legions, but slightly suspicious due to the cult's links to Hattian secessionism. Still, there would be many sects and wandering missionaries around the mainland countries, trying to spread the word. This would fit the PC cleric in a caravan-based campaign. But what about the Heldannic Knights? That is a topic I have never found the time to read extensively on. I have glanced through the articles in the Vaults, but I have read absolutely nothing from canon sources. Do they shed much light on the Immortal and her cult? Am I right in thinking that the main source for this would be Princess Ark series? I just recently got my hands on that stuff, but haven't even glanced at it. Were the HK a major force in WotI? It seems like that on the basis of a lot of stuff in the Vaults. Many texts mention that the influence of Vanya's cult waned during the early years of the second millenium. What were the main reasons? Yours, Ville ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:02:53 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Re: Glantri circa 493 This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. ---559023410-126398554-1100084508=:12459 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=ISO-8859-1; FORMAT=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-ID: Regarding DM's question: Check the archives of the list, October 2002. I asked the same question and got very extensive answers. ******************************************************* Ville Lähde University of Tampere Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Philosophy 33014 Tampere, Finland phone: (work) 03 215 7573 (home) 040 7776772 email: Ville.V.Lahde@uta.fi http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/mattiet/filosofia/lahde.htm ******************************************************* ---559023410-126398554-1100084508=:12459-- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 08:52:07 -0500 From: Dustin Clingman Subject: Re: Blackmoor d20 Hey guys the thanks go all to you, if for nothing else, you patience! Dustin -----Original Message----- From: Mystara RPG Discussion [mailto:MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM] On Behalf Of Greg Pratt Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 11:24 AM To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Blackmoor d20 In a message dated 11/2/2004 12:35:04 PM Pacific Standard Time, dustin@ZEITGEISTGAMES.COM writes: > >>Just out of curiosity, apart from the obvious creation > >>of the Blackmoor web page on Haavard's part, what did > >>you contribute to this product? I'm probably not as well known (as I tend to lurk on the list), but I too was listed in the thanks (Gregory Pratt). I had almost forgotten sending the information off. When the request went out to the list awhile back, I sat down and spent some time going through my Mystara products for any reference to Blackmoor and compiling it into a list. It was a pleasant surprise to see my name in print (and showing it to my daughter who is just learning to play was fun). Thanks Dustin! ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.mystaranet.jamm.com/vaults/default.aspx To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 15:46:31 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Vanya Ville V Lähde wrote: > > We are going to play in 1000 AC. I gather that the cult of Vanya during > that time is still very strong in Thyatis, especially strong of course in > Hattias. Of course, but the worship of Vanya is still very strong in Thyatis after WotI. > And I think it isn't adopted in other major pantheons, such as > the Church of Darokin due to it's belligerent attitudes (the campaign is > based in Darokin). The Church of Thyatis has a branch in Alfheim (the town), I would consider it most likely that one or more branches existed in Darokin (perhaps in Darokin and Selenica). > (I would think that even the Church of Karameikos > wouldn't perhaps have adopted her, judging by the character of Olliver He wasn't alone: Desmond Kelvin and Sherlane Halaran, not to mention Oderbry, are more warlike than the Patriarch. > Jowett who founded that sect. Perhaps the rift between Jowett and Oderbry > could be partly base on the fact that Oderfbry is a militant Vanyaite?) Yes, that could certainly be. Actually, Desmond Kelvin and other Knights of the Griffon could well be followers of Vanya, though not necessarily as fanatical as Oderbry. > Even in Thyatis the attitudes towards Vanya would be ambivalet: revered > especially among the legions, but slightly suspicious due to the cult's > links to Hattian secessionism. Vanya is the single most popular Thyatian Immortal, IIRC! Only her Hattian followers are suspicious -- and likely considered heretics by the rest of the cult. > But what about the Heldannic Knights? That is a topic I have never found > the time to read extensively on. I have glanced through the articles in > the Vaults, but I have read absolutely nothing from canon sources. Do they > shed much light on the Immortal and her cult? There is little, except that the HK are an order of Chaotic Knights, devoted to Vanya. Anyway, they are mysterious -- consider that the articles are written from an Alphatian POV. > Am I right in thinking that the main source for this would be Princess Ark > series? I just recently got my hands on that stuff, but haven't even > glanced at it. Yes, that's the source. > Were the HK a major force in WotI? IIRC, yes, they take part to the war on Thyatis' and Glantri's side. > It seems like that on the basis of a > lot of stuff in the Vaults. Many texts mention that the influence of > Vanya's cult waned during the early years of the second millenium. What > were the main reasons? Possibly the effects of the Star of Vanya, but I'm just guessing, since I don't remember this decreased influence right now. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:12:56 -0500 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Vanya I thought that the chaotic elements to Vanya's worship was Thanatos' doing? Subverting their worship to the racial hatred of the SS? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:28:15 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Vanya Chris Cherrington wrote: > I thought that the chaotic elements to Vanya's worship was Thanatos' doing? Subverting their worship to the racial hatred of the SS? Well, that's mostly a revision. Originally (i.e., in VotPA), the HK were Chaotic per se (IMO, this was due to the usual misunderstanding of OD&D, where ``evil'' was often portrayed as ``Chaotic''). Nowadays, they're mostly Lawful (effect of the Star of Vanya), and the only Chaotic ``followers'' of Vanya are the Storm Soldiers. Bye, GP -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:21:47 -0500 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Vanya That is not how I remember it. I know "Into the Maelstrom" introduced Vanya as a neatral immortal, one that likes whatever side that is winning. In DoTE, I thought there was a blurb on Thanatos influencing the bad elements of Vanya by inspiring the Hattians into rebel rousing Skin Heads and talking of purity of race, real scary stuff to allude to RW SS. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:48:26 -0000 From: Jon Cole Subject: Re: Glantri circa 493 Cool Thanks everyone I'm trying to piece together some sort of reason (hopefully logical) for the origin of Haven (originally NW of Glantri) and a reason for its transplantation to E karameikos. The 493 date was fairly arbitary (and at varience with the "300 years ago" of In Search of Adventure but there you go) but I was looking for a style to pitch the architecture etc of Haven's relics. Not that my players will get close to finding out whats going on there but it will keep me happy :-) Jon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ville V Lähde" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 7:44 AM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Glantri circa 493 > > You can find Andrew Thiesen's "Fairly Complete Glantri Timeline" in > the Vaults under Resources --> History. It's fairly sketchy on the period, > although it suggests that the events in the dragonlord novels could be > placed there (I've never even seen them, so cannot comments). There is > also a suggestion that at least remnants of some Sheayllia elven colonies > might be there. > > I glanced through Daniel's Complete timeline, and came up with these > ideas: > > In the canon sources the first skirmishes between the Flaems and the > Ethengarians are placed around 595. So maybe it would be a good idea to > have the relationship around 493 be more diverse, with trading etc. also > taking place. The relations might deteriorate slowly due to many reasons. > In the Glantrian Gazetteer, there are some indications of the early Flaem > culture in the story of the history lesson in the School of Magic. Human > sacrifices and such things... > > The humanoids of the Broken lands were stronger during that peroid, having > just been thrown out of the Darokin territory. So I'd presume that 1) the > Flaems would have to battle them periodically and 2) diplomats of the > Darokinian kings would be opening up the diplomatic relations that would > lead to the Darokinian-Flaem joint operations of early 500's (525 for > example). But around 493 I' think that the Flaems would be farily isolated > from their southern neighbours - except the Orcs of Sitting Drool, of > course. > > It might be that the first lycantropic groups that were dispersed around > arrived in the "Highlands" during these years? > > Also, one should remember that Thyatis and Alphatia both have a strong > presence on the mainland, beginning to struggle over Alasiya. Their > diplomats and traders would be present much more than around 1000 AC. > > I wouldn't rule out dwarven mining explorations, since it is implicit in > the later historical events, that dwarves played a major part in the birth > of the gold rush. Around 493 the emnity of dwarves towards mages hadn't > yet grown. > > Incidentally, some time in the future I'll be playing a few sessions > during that period in my pre-500AC sub-campaign. I've been wondering about > the same things. So if you come up with something good, drop me a few > lines, would you? > > ******************************************************* > Ville Lähde > University of Tampere > Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Philosophy > 33014 Tampere, Finland > phone: (work) 03 215 7573 (home) 040 7776772 > email: Ville.V.Lahde@uta.fi > http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/mattiet/filosofia/lahde.htm > ******************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:43:19 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Vanya Chris Cherrington wrote: > That is not how I remember it. I know "Into the Maelstrom" introduced Vanya as a neatral immortal, one that likes whatever side that is winning. In DoTE, I thought there was a blurb on Thanatos influencing the bad elements of Vanya by inspiring the Hattians into rebel rousing Skin Heads and talking of purity of race, real scary stuff to allude to RW SS. Yes, that was the original setting, but it had nothing to do with Heldannic Knights, which at the time were not yet created. Later, Bruce Heard introduced the HK in VotPA on Dragon Magazine as a different cult of Vanya. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 9 Nov 2004 to 10 Nov 2004 (#2004-244) ***************************************************************