Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 4 Mar 2004 to 5 Mar 2004 (#2004-57) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 06/03/2004, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 2 messages totalling 150 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. WotI campaign, at last! (WotI's and MoA's spoilers) (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: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 10:54:19 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Re: WotI campaign, at last! (WotI's and MoA's spoilers) Concerning Vini's post: WARNING! SPOILERS! . . . . . . Yes, X10 or "Red Arrow, Black Shield" is quite loosely linked to two older adventures, X4 "Master of the Desert Nomads" and X5 "Temple of Death". In X4 and X5 tha adventurers defend "The Republic" against the atack of the Desert Nomads from the Sind Desert. The Nomads are led by a Theocratic cult from the distant land of Hule. X4 describes the trek through Sind and X5 the events in Hule. If you scan the list's archives, you'll find a couple of threads on "The Republic". Usually is is thought to be Darokin, but some people have said that there are good reasons to presume that it would be some (not yet described?) smaller state near the edge of Sind, possibly in the area of Pramayana. Anyway, the object of the two earlier adventures is to travel to Hule and find the Master of the Desert Nomads, the mysterious Hosadus. In earlier list discussions you can find different views on who Hosadus might be, and what the religious background of his cult is (depending on the products you lean on, Thanatos and Loki are the best candidates). In the X10 adventure the adventurers are recruited to defend the Republic of Darokin against a new Nomad assault. Once again it is led by Hulean religious groups - and Hosadus is their leader! The X10 is very sketchy, so no clear explanation is given why Hosadus is still alive. But the adventure clearly states that in some way this is the SAME guy. There was no mention of the time difference between the two wars. (IMC I have solved the issue by relocating the First Nomad War in 500 AC. "Hosadus" is a central elemant in the Hulean religion, a reincarnated being like the Tibetan Lamas or the High Priestess in Le Guin's "Tombs of Atuan". Check The Vaults, section "Campaign ideas" and "Twin Campaigns" if you are interested.) Originally X10 was written before the Gazetteers, and would form a basis for many ideas in these products. Still the war is supposed to take place in 1000 AC, or the generic "now" of the first Known World products. Well, during the creation of the Gazetteer series, the events of X10 were relocated 200 years later. (This would of course have demanded that the GM rewrite a lot of the stuff in the adventure itself...) The idea was that the creators of the Gazetteers didn't want to write such events into their timeline. (Actually the message to the readers was that it was up to the GM to use X10 in 1000 AC.) As I understand it, during the creation of the later Mystaran products, the Poor Wizard's Almanacs and the follow-up in the Wrath of the Immortals, this idea of relocating X10 into far future was dumped. Now the Sindian assault takes place during the WotI - the meteor that created the Crater was sent by Hosadus when he was losing the war. I haven't read WotI thoroughly, as I only got my hands on it last year. But as I understand it, the Sind-Darokin war has been written into the WotI timeline, AND its ending and basic events have already been predetermined. (I might be wrong: those who are wiser correct me.) So playing out the X10 alongside WotI could demand a lot of rewriting of both products. Anyway, using X10 even in the Gazetteer period would demand a lot of work. X10 is, as I said, very very very sketchy and full of holes and weird stuff. Recently our group (the Twin Campaigns) finished playing out X10, and I'm almost finished with writing the adventure in semi-narrative form. If you are interested in adapting X10 to your uses, you might find something useful there. I'm going to send the file to Shawn in a few days, and he'll put it in the Twin Campaigns section. Yours, Ville ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 23:17:53 +1300 From: Chris Furneaux Subject: Re: WotI campaign, at last! (WotI's and MoA's spoilers) > Well, I finally got the players: Interesting mix. It looks like your short a thief more then a mad wizard. but there is a lot of room for role playing there. > Great! > I have already done that with a "exploding egg" that the Rakasta kept as > an > artifact. none of my players (playing in 1012AC) could understand it was > a > grenade. I described "You see, on the wall, standing on a tall support, > a > small 'pineapple' made of metal". well done. Technology can be hard to disguise and tacky if no done right, sounds like you nailed it. > >Get the PC's involved in world events as much as possible > > "world events" = things that ARE directly in WotI? I think I mean Politics. Politics get PC's in a lot of trouble. They make a promise to the wrong person or associate with the wrong crowd or sent on missions to help one country or another on some 'special' mission. It allows you to lead them places but also leaves a lot of room or roleplay. The biggest problems are you have to be good at improvising and you have to know the world and the personalities you are involving in your plots quite well so you can adapt the story/situations to fit the PC's actions. > >and keep them busy > >doing things that arn't directly in WotI. Also some people have had > success > >combining X10 into WotI's adventures. > Ah!!!!!!!! Red Arrow, Black Shield Thats the one. > But how? > > I heard this adventure is linked to other one (it's the second or first > part of a set of adventures or something). Is that correct? It is a follow on from X4 and X5 (which are really the same module just two parts). Bassically X4 is trying to get to Hule and X5 is trying to thwart the master in his own country. The climax is fighting a avatar of the master (he's not an immortal tho). You have to read it to understand (BTW I have 2 copies of X4&5, I got given second ones, but kept my originals which are in fairly poor condition). X10 is the invasion of Darokin by the master where the PC's have to try to stop him through politics, warfare, and finding an artifact that can kill him properly (all the while being pursued by the masters agents). It's a rare module tho and hard to get a original copy. You can see how this would tie in with WotI and it's invasion of Darokin and trying to fight that. Chris. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 4 Mar 2004 to 5 Mar 2004 (#2004-57) *************************************************************