Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 15 Mar 2004 to 16 Mar 2004 (#2004-67) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 17/03/2004, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 15 messages totalling 599 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. [Rules] Regional Feets (2) 2. About the immortal Nyx (4) 3. Merchant class in Darokin gaz (4) 4. Morphail as an immortal (2) 5. Help Needed (2) 6. please help me find my old post ******************************************************************** 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: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 04:03:00 -0500 From: David Knott Subject: Re: [Rules] Regional Feets From: "Havard Faanes" > > > 2) Recent WotC Web site updates suggest that the > > Forgotten > > Realms regional feats will undergo significant > > revisions to keep > > up with D&D 3.5. We may want to compare any > > revisions for > > Mystaran regional material with the Player's Guide > > to be published > > later this month. > > This is very interesting indeed. The WotC site is > still a pain in the you know what to navigate, but let > me know when you find something there! :) > > Btw: Welcome back :) The Player's Guide to Faerun should give the scoop on WotC's new take on regional feats. From the material given in Dragon 318, the new philosophy seems to be as follows: Any character who chooses to conform to a given culture of his setting should be rewarded for that choice. Thus, no character may take more than one regional feat, and any regional feat must be taken at 1st level. No character is required to take a regional feat, but for any character who qualifies, regional feats should be a bit more powerful than standard feats. As near as I can tell, this new philosophy blows any approach not based on this philosophy totally out of the water. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 04:08:30 -0500 From: David Knott Subject: Re: About the immortal Nyx From: "Giampaolo Agosta" > > I think that, canon-wise, she's Neutral. She's one of those Immortals > who are quite difficult to classify -- like Ixion, who has followers of > many different alignments. Keep in mind that this "Neutral" classification is based on the 3-alignment scheme of Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic, not the 3x3 alignment scheme of 1E/2E/3E (A)D&D. Furthermore, she is an Immortal of the Sphere of Entropy -- the one Sphere that can be considered thoroughly EVIL. Since Nyx is the least nasty Immortal of that Sphere, the question that arises is whether any Immortal of the Sphere of Entropy can possibly be non-Evil in alignment. If so, then she is the most likely candidate -- but if not, then she must be a relatively nice individual of one of the evil alignments. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 11:43:33 -0000 From: Colin Davidson Subject: Re: About the immortal Nyx ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Knott" To: Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 9:08 AM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] About the immortal Nyx > Keep in mind that this "Neutral" classification is based on the > 3-alignment scheme of Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic, not the 3x3 > alignment scheme of 1E/2E/3E (A)D&D. Furthermore, she > is an Immortal of the Sphere of Entropy -- the one Sphere > that can be considered thoroughly EVIL. Since Nyx is the > least nasty Immortal of that Sphere, the question that arises > is whether any Immortal of the Sphere of Entropy can possibly > be non-Evil in alignment. If so, then she is the most likely > candidate -- but if not, then she must be a relatively nice > individual of one of the evil alignments. Nyx is evil by default; she seeks to further the undead races, that is by definition evil. But by -her- standards she's quite a decent, moral, upstanding individual. She happens to think that undead can be civil, intelligent people and many of her friends and followers are undead; she believes that undeath is a higher state to which mortals might aspire, and while she's no doubt aware of the conflict that causes in the world she doesn't see that as being a conflict that needs to lead to the extinction of sentient, non-undead races. Remember, this for her is a philosophy and a way of life, out of the office (as it were) her friends include Terra and Ixion, both of whom would vehemently oppose her plots but also personally have a lot in common with her. I'd call her evil with a small 'e'. Nyx is just the kind of immortal a necromancer (such as, in my campaign, Morphail) might be interested in. A necromancer doesn't really need to bring about the end of the world or a civilisation (who would that benefit?) like Alphaks or Thanatos might, but -would- be interested in an immortal who rewards those who further the causes of the undead. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 13:06:36 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: About the immortal Nyx David Knott wrote: > > Keep in mind that this "Neutral" classification is based on the > 3-alignment scheme of Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic, not the 3x3 > alignment scheme of 1E/2E/3E (A)D&D. Of course. This means she can have basically any alignment bar CE/CN and LG/LN, in 2e terms. > is an Immortal of the Sphere of Entropy -- the one Sphere > that can be considered thoroughly EVIL. Since Nyx is the > least nasty Immortal of that Sphere, the question that arises > is whether any Immortal of the Sphere of Entropy can possibly > be non-Evil in alignment. IMO yes. No sphere has strict alignment rules for its adherents. In fact, spheres such as Energy have a large number of powerful members not aligned with the Sphere (most Empyreal, Eternals and Hierarchs of Energy are Lawful or Neutral, while the Sphere is Chaotic). Entropy is certainly the most aggressive in enforcing its alignment, probably as a result of the fact that no one really wants to deal with evil entropics except other evil entropics... Still, I maintain that in principle even an entropic could belong to any (AD&D) alignment -- only, any non-evil entropic would be immediatly destroyed or corrupted by his fellows. The only exceptions would be extremely powerful Immortals of the Neutral alignments -- like Nyx. I don't remember any other entropic Immortal listed as Neutral, except Hel, who anyway is definitely Evil (would fit as NE, IMO). Most of them would fall in the CE group, though a few individuals could be LE (Yagrai, for example, or perhaps Masauwu) or CN (Bagni Gullymaw, IMO). -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 13:13:57 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: [Rules] Regional Feets --- David Knott wrote: > Any character who chooses to conform to a given > culture of his setting should be rewarded for that > choice. > Thus, no character may take more than one regional > feat, > and any regional feat must be taken at 1st level. > No > character is required to take a regional feat, but > for any > character who qualifies, regional feats should be a > bit > more powerful than standard feats. Can you provide some examples of the power levels of feats from that book? I assume that Regional feats still generally provide bonuses to skill(s)? > As near as I can tell, this new philosophy blows any > approach not based on this philosophy totally out of > the water. Which means we should reconsider anything already exististing for Mystara. I suggest creating two versions of the Regional Feats system for Mystara. One, in which selecting a KW country is considered a region, and a second, more complex system where each country is broken into smaller areas/counties/clans. Comments? Havard ===== *** Håvard R. Faanes havardfaa@yahoo.no 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 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 04:30:12 -0800 From: "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" Subject: Merchant class in Darokin gaz Hello freinds! I am working on converting the Merchant class into a prestiege class for D&D3.5. Now that I am almost done I can see how it's much harder than it looks. But someone had to do it! So I am almost done. Before I send it to the list however, I would like to know if anybody have ever USED merchants in his/her OD&D campaign. If so, how was it like? How did the Merchant spells worked in your campaign? The plan is to introduce the Merchant Prince of Darokin as a prestiege class open to those of the apropriate ancestry even if they are not classic "adventurer types". So this prestiege class can be multiclassed into from NPC classes such as Noble and Expert. Thanks Morphail __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 04:55:37 -0800 From: "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" Subject: Morphail as an immortal There was talk here about what happens to Morphail when/if he is slain on the context of his dark bargain with Alphaks. As much as I would like to have the NPC after whom I named my net personna attain true immortality I would have to say no. In the unlikely event that some rude adventurer dares to vanquish the dark prince of Boldavia his spirit will go to whatever awful place vampires go when they "die" (the red death?). I wrote some of the GW family history in several locations and I think I am consistent with canon. The main thing to remember is this- Morphail was TRICKED by Alphaks. It was probably something foolish, like the exact wording of the agreement that allowed Alphaks to get away with a small "gift" of undeath in exchange for an eternety of servitude. As I see it in the early 700s AC, Morphail was a mid level necromancer (as was the mode for dark-age Taraldara). He sought new ways to gain power and went to Demonolgy as the answer. I say the only Demon he could find any record on was Alphaks who had cells of worship in nearby Thyatis. He wanted to become a demon himself (or some other form of immortality). But Alphaks being an anciant demon lord who devastated empires in the past was just too smart. He convinced Morphail that the ceremonies that he was performing are going to make him "immortal" and they were in a sense. In exchange Morphail vowed to serve Alphaks for as long as he remains on Mystara (a temporary situation he thought). Anyway since his vampirehood Morphail abselutely hates Alphaks and most of his motivation is focused on becoming stronger and eventually breaking the hold of Alphaks (and if possible breaking Alphaks himself...) I had Morphail travel the world (and the planes) trying to ally himself with other demons (and maybe someday other immortals) and gaininf power in general. The exscursions he takes into the Broken Lands (remember, king Thar is an underling...). were in some part attempts to find other demons. The move to Glantri was in part an attempt to discover the power of the radiance- a tried and true engine of immortality. The secret craft of Death Mastery is another failed way towards true/semi immortality (Morphail cannot become a Lich because he does not have a mortal soul to give). If being slayn was the way to gain the benefits of his pact with Alphaks, Morphail would have spend a lot of time in the sun... or take a vacation to Ethengar.. Morphail (Ohad Shaham) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 05:06:43 -0800 From: "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" Subject: Re: About the immortal Nyx > Still, I maintain that in principle even an entropic > could belong to any > (AD&D) alignment -- only, any non-evil entropic > would be immediatly > destroyed or corrupted by his fellows. > The only exceptions would be extremely powerful > Immortals of the Neutral > alignments -- like Nyx. > I don't remember any other entropic Immortal listed > as Neutral, except > Hel, who anyway is definitely Evil (would fit as NE, > IMO). I think this is were the Alignment system is going against the game world. When I DMed a new group of PCs I told the players to write a small paragraph about thier morals and general beliefs. I still used the 3x3 alignment system for NPCs because it saves time and has game mechanics importance. For immortals who ARE their morals and beliefs I suggest avoiding any alignment placing. In Mystara the spheres are ideals in their own right. Other game worlds have clear alignments for planes and gods and I think that is silly. alignments do not exist in the real world and should not exist in a a complex imaginary one. They are as relevent to the game as charachter class or hit points. They mearly simplefy things to make them easyer to play. Morphail (Ohad Shaham) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 14:16:38 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Merchant class in Darokin gaz --- "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" skrev: > Hello freinds! > > I am working on converting the Merchant class into a > prestiege class for D&D3.5. Now that I am almost > done > I can see how it's much harder than it looks. But > someone had to do it! So I am almost done. > Before I send it to the list however, I would like > to > know if anybody have ever USED merchants in his/her > OD&D campaign. If so, how was it like? > How did the Merchant spells worked in your campaign? I've used it, ages ago, but the spells almost never came into play. I'd be interested in seeing what you have made. Personally I would like to see the spells replaced by relevant class abilities for the PrC. > The plan is to introduce the Merchant Prince of > Darokin as a prestiege class open to those of the > apropriate ancestry even if they are not classic > "adventurer types". So this prestiege class can be > multiclassed into from NPC classes such as Noble and > Expert. Makes sense. I assume you mean Aristocrat and not Noble. Still, the character should be atleast of 6th level to take this PrC, regardless of class. Also, certain social requirements should be appropriate such as belonging to the Darokin Merchant's Guild.... Havard ===== *** Håvard R. Faanes havardfaa@yahoo.no 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 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 08:45:10 -0500 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Merchant class in Darokin gaz I love the Darokin Gaz. I even tried several times to run a pbem based on the merchant class (I just don't have the time needed, even after I made programs that rolled all the dice and gave me a huge expanded version of the procurement tables). Of course I also had about 60 players, and the transactions were not being done timely, some players were five or more months ahead of others. One of the things I did create was a 3e merchant class for Darokin and one for Thyatis (a general Merchant Class, created by other consortiums to compete with Darokin, generations behind). I still plan on finishing the programs to create on online game that monitors itself, imagine 600 merchants (no NPCs) from around the world wheeling and dealing with each other. Any takers on helping me out in that part would be greatly appreciated; could a group of us buy the rights from WOTC for just creating a merchant game in Mystara? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 06:01:22 -0800 From: "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" Subject: Re: Merchant class in Darokin gaz > I've used it, ages ago, but the spells almost never > came into play. I'd be interested in seeing what you > have made. Personally I would like to see the spells > replaced by relevant class abilities for the PrC. The spells are the part that gives me a bit of truble ( I had to make big changes) I will send what I have done to the list soon. > > Makes sense. I assume you mean Aristocrat and not > Noble. Still, the character should be atleast of 6th > level to take this PrC, regardless of class. > Also, certain social requirements should be > appropriate such as belonging to the Darokin > Merchant's Guild.... > > Havard Yes I meant noble, sorry. I guess it will work well with the Swashbuckler/Duellist charachter class as well. Why should a 6th level be a requierment? I agree about the belonging to a the Merchant guild, but from what I read in the gaz EVERYBODY is in the guild... So I said that you have to belong to one of the big old merchant houses, figuring theses are the ones that acumilated arcane knowledge during the years. Morphail __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 16:12:18 -0000 From: Colin Davidson Subject: Re: Morphail as an immortal ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" To: Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 12:55 PM Subject: [MYSTARA] Morphail as an immortal > > If being slayn was the way to gain the benefits of his > pact with Alphaks, Morphail would have spend a lot of > time in the sun... or take a vacation to Ethengar.. Of course, being slain can deprive those who really need to take revenge on you from being able to do so, it can sever the last hopes of those who need information from you, it can throw a kingdom into political turmoil, etc. Maybe death might be the last betrayal played by a truly entropic individual. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 11:23:39 -0500 From: "E.A.-N. Deneault" Subject: Re: Help Needed On Mon, 15 Mar 2004, Geoff Gander wrote: > I'll leave this one for Alex to answer - he being, of course, the creator > of the "furry-tailed devils", and the "P-gnomes". :-) Noo! The gnomes.. the information I have waited years for.. Can not develop Snartans further without input from Alex.. *twitches* Ethan - Who has, in fact, not done anything Davania related since 2001 or so :P -- Kinard 210 Linux Guru Webmaster www.steelangel.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 15:24:32 EST From: Alex Benson Subject: Re: Help Needed Sadly, my inactivity rivals Ethan's. Most of my old works went bye bye thanks to a crashed drive. I still have some paper copies of certain portions. I am looking at my maps of the Divergan lands at this moment...really. I still have diagrams of P-Gnome mechinery on disk. I think that there might still be some info on them over on Pandius. It's horribly out of date but gives an idea of their description. Alot of details were subject to be changed. Others were to be removed. An example is the Pasha who were completely removed and were replaced with the Aye'Taar. The Odanti orcs were to be left in. Divergans- genetically engineered warrior race, founded in Blackmoor. Survived the GRoF by chance and a revulsion that the Blackmoor had for a "created race". Culture is highly militeristic, focusing on preservation of the Divergan race over expansion. Venerate their creator (scientist) as an Immortal. Immortal duties filled by a Blackmoor/Ka pantheon. Most of their culture is based upon misconceptions about their origins as well as the Blackmoor. There's more to it than that. The DIvergans are probably the most complicated culture that I have worked on. That complication coming from the reasoning that the Divergans do thigns the way they do. The P-Gnomes- an offshoot of the Snartan Gnomes. These gnomes did not adopt the Snartan cloning. Some are mutants and offshoots of the cloning process. They are subjugated to the Snartans, being seen as rough and backwoodsy in the eyes of their overlords. The P-Gnomes secretly work towards their freedom, not by rebellion, but by flight. (I hope Ethan did not read that, the Snartans are his.) P-Gnome lore tells of a distant gnome homeland where ancient gnomes had ventured to...these being the gnomes of Serraine. The problem, besides the Snartans, are the Divergans, the two fiend derived cultures, the Meghdaharans (sp), the HKs, the humanoid warlords, and the central wastelands block their egress and that is just for starters. The Ps have worked up an odd Jules Vernesque type military. Big coal burning steam driven vehichles. I have pics somewhere around here. I know that the above is not alot to go on. I have said previously that I would restart work on any number of projects. However, something always seems to come up before I make any real headway. Time, as always, seems to hamper my Mystara works. I don't know if I even have any of the Snartan materials anymore. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 00:01:20 +0100 From: Thibault Sarlat Subject: please help me find my old post some months ago i posted something about a dwarven clan in Northern = Davania. I have so far been unable to find a copy of it on my hard drive. Maybe someone is saving those kind of things. please help me... Thibault Sarlat. ICQ 16622177. Personal homepage http://www.mystara.fr.st thibault-sarlat@wanadoo.fr clenariusfr@yahoo.fr ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 15 Mar 2004 to 16 Mar 2004 (#2004-67) ***************************************************************