Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 22 Mar 2004 to 23 Mar 2004 (#2004-73) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 24/03/2004, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 6 messages totalling 283 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Vaults of Pandius Down? 2. 4 more Kroc comics available!! 3. More thoughts on the Radiance 4. Mystara without High Technology 5. starflung problems (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: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 08:55:31 -0000 From: Colin Davidson Subject: Vaults of Pandius Down? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thibault Sarlat" To: Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 3:51 PM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Want to know more about Kroc youth? > > Geoff > > > > PS - Is it just me, or are the Vaults inaccessible? No, it isn't just you. This has been mentioned over at Dragonsfoot too, and I can't get to VofP. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 10:14:48 +0100 From: Thibault Sarlat Subject: 4 more Kroc comics available!! Hope you'll enjoy them www.mystara.addr.com/kroc/kroc_index.htm Thibault Sarlat. ICQ 16622177. Personal homepage http://www.mystara.fr.st thibault-sarlat@wanadoo.fr clenariusfr@yahoo.fr ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 11:02:47 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: More thoughts on the Radiance More thought on the Radiance and the Nature of Magic How can the Radiance be the Source of All Magic on Mystara? And what exactly does that mean? Here is one theory: The Source of Magic in Mystaras Prime Universe is The Stars. Each star projects magical energy along with other forms of energy fueling the worlds surrounding it with magic. The Radiance is able to harness the energy from Mystara’s Sun and channel it through itself. Thus anyone using magic on Mystara must tap it from the Nucleus. This also enables some Radiance Mages to sever the tie between individual mages and magic itself, thus preventing them from casting spells while on Mystara. This effect only applies to mages inside Mystaras Skyshield. Magic outside the Skyshield can be tapped directly from the sun or from the worlds or moons in question. This may mean that the Skyshield is somehow linked with the Radiance. Before the creation of the Radiance, magic on Mystara must have been different. Not necessary in appearance, but its very nature was different. Perhaps the Destruction of Blackmoor lead the Old Ones to make this alteration. If the reason for the GRoF was to was in fact the Blackmoorians failure to combine magic and technology, perhaps magic channeled through the Nucleus has removed that problem. This means either that magic can now function perfectly with technology, or perhaps magic can no longer function as combined with technology at all. Though Gnomes and Dwarves seem to have found some way around this problem. If the Nucleus now creates a separation between magic and technology, it may mean that magic cannot effect devises of higher tech level than the current one. Even already existing devises of the latest technology may suffer from this limitation such as canons, firearms etc. These items are still so rare that the reason why magic won’t work on them hasn’t been figured out yet. The FSS Beage crashed on Mystara because its technology no longer worked properly. Perhaps this was due to an Outer World version of the Spell of Preservation (Called the Spell of Alteration SoA) that had already been cast on the Outer World to limit technology being developed on Mystara? Was it in fact Blackmoorian Technomacy’s interaction with the SoA that lead to the instability of Blackmoorian technology? Perhaps this is also what caused the FSS Beagle to Crash on Mystara, which again was the driving power behind Blackmoorian Technomancy. The Old Ones sought to fix this problem by creating the Nucleus of the Spheres. Whether it worked, or whether Gnomish Technomancy in the current age of Mystara will once again produce a new GRoF is unknown. Only Time will tell, as it were. The Tampering with the Nucleus by Noumenna the Immortal of Time was what caused the depletion of magic on Mystara. The Riddle-loving Time Immortal had figured out enough from the NoS so that he could damage it a little, causing it to gradually destroy Mystara’s own ability to harness magic from the sun. This he felt would limit the power of mortals and perhaps teach them that magic should be used responsibly. Also, this would limit the number of newly created immortals without sponsors. Whether Noumenna was acting on his own in this, or whether he was at the time an instrument of the Old One’s is unknown. However, the latest alteration to the NoS removed this depletion. Whether this was just to undo what Noumenna had done, or whether to punish the Immortals by giving mortals more power, well, that is also left up to speculation. Still, one can only suspect that if the current taint of the NoS is removed so that the NoS can produce non-Entropic Immortals again, the Immortals will monitor new candidates closely, making a sponsor necessary for that path aswell. The Tainted Radiance The Current Radiance is tainted by Entropy. One side effect of this is that it can only produce Entropic Immortals. However, there may also be other more subtle corrupting effects. What if the taint is slowly turning Mystaran Magic itself into a dark force? For normal wizards this currently has little effect. However, for Radiance Users, they will find that they are slowly becoming corrupted in mind aswell as body. The Madness Rules from Wheel of Time may be used to detail the Dark Taint that affects the minds of wizards using the Radiance too often… If Brannard McGregor uses the Radiance to become an Entropic Immortal he may want to intensify this effect. I see Brannard becoming the Patron of Dark Magic on Mystara. Etienne (now mortal) working with Rafiel and Benekander will seek a way to purify the Radiance again so that he may regain his immortality. Perhaps these immortals must ally themselves with Ixion to manage this. That would mean a recounciliation between Rad and Ixion, something the stubborn Hierarch may realize to be necessary once he sees what is happening to his precious magic. This makes for quite a poetic story. But will they make it before it is too late? ===== *** 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, 23 Mar 2004 11:02:56 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Mystara without High Technology Mystara Without High Technology Many have pointed out the kitchyness of having Star Trek like elements in Mystara’s past and present. If you like these elements, fine. If you don’t, getting rid of them in fact isn’t that much of a problem. Imagine the Radiance as a Monolith, not unlike the one from that movie whose name escapes me. The Radiance Monolith is discovered by Blackmoorian adventurers exploring the mysterious Valley of the Ancients (ZGG has indicated that they intend to have something other than a spaceship there also). The discovery of the Monolith leads the Blackmoorian wizards to develop their magic and build powerful arcane devises. In this development, something eventually goes wrong resulting in a magical disaster known as the Great Rain of Fire. Several thousand years later, The Radiance Monolith is rediscovered below Glantri. This eliminates quite a few problems, though we are left with at least one. What now with Benekander? Well, Benekander doesn’t necessarily have to be an alien.. He may well have been one of the wizards of Blackmoor studiying the Monolith. Benny was sucked into the Monolith for unknown reasons and was only released as an immortal during the GRoF. That should solve most of the tech problems with Mystara. If you want Benny to be from a different world he may still be. The Monolith most likely came from Space, and may have visited other worlds before it arrived on Mystara. Perhaps Benekander discovered the Monolith and was sucked into it while it was visiting a world populated by Grens, traveling along with it until his release on Mystara, either during WotI, or he may temporarily have been released in the age of Blackmoor, although this isn’t really necessary. ===== *** 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, 23 Mar 2004 04:27:35 -0800 From: Herve Musseau Subject: starflung problems > PS - Is it just me, or are the Vaults inaccessible? The almanac site was down on the 13th. Then it came back but I couldn't ftp to it (yes, there's a new almanac book awaiting publication...). I contacted Gordon and he reinitialized the ftp account but to no avail. And the other day I noticed that the VoP site was now down as well (fortunately, google keeps a cached copy of the pages it iindexes...). Let's hope that Gordon can fix it soon. ===== ___________________________________________________________ Herve Musseau http://www.geocities.com/hmusseau/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 06:30:51 +1100 From: shawn stanley Subject: Re: starflung problems At 04:27 AM 23/03/2004 -0800, you wrote: >> PS - Is it just me, or are the Vaults inaccessible? > > The almanac site was down on the 13th. Then it came back but I couldn't ftp to > it (yes, there's a new almanac book awaiting publication...). I contacted > Gordon and he reinitialized the ftp account but to no avail. > And the other day I noticed that the VoP site was now down as well > (fortunately, google keeps a cached copy of the pages it iindexes...). > Let's hope that Gordon can fix it soon. The Vaults are back now, hooray. Somone had apparently deleted all the web directories fronm the server. the version that's back is the 01 February update, not the more recent 06 March update. Since I'm in the middle of doing the update at the moment (and adding a new feature too gosh) then I won't update till this weekend. shawn stanley what have you done for me lately ... more to the point what have i done for me - mightyfew, "i can't wait" ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 22 Mar 2004 to 23 Mar 2004 (#2004-73) ***************************************************************