Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 25 Jan 2005 to 27 Jan 2005 (#2005-22) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 28/01/2005, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 17 messages totalling 1069 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Official Timeline of Mystara (2) 2. Mini-Gazetteer: Baronía de Torreón (2) 3. Mini-Gazetteer: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Baron=EDa?= de =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Torre=F3n?= (2) 4. Rakasta PC ilustration (6) 5. =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_=5BMYSTARA=5D_Mini-Gazetteer:_Baron=EDa_de_Torre=F3n?= 6. Humanoid [Canine] 7. Greetings from an old friend 8. [MYSTARA] Mini-Gazetteer: Baronía de Torreón 9. Some real culture ******************************************************************** 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: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 17:22:21 +0900 From: Thorfinn Tait Subject: Official Timeline of Mystara It's not my secret project, but here's my other project... I spent a few hours finally making it semi-presentable to the public, and here it is. (I also posted this to the Mystara Message Board a few days ago.) http://www.thorf.co.uk/mystara/d&dtimeline.zip It's in Word 2000 format for now, and the formatting is far from finished, though I'm not entirely sure on what to do with it to proceed from here. Here's a copy of the introduction I just wrote for it. It's long, but it explains the whole history of this very long project: Quote: I first started this project more than fifteen years ago, when I was about 11 years old. At that time, only a handful of Gazetteers and Dawn of the Emperors had been released. My initial aim was simply to collect the timelines provided in each supplement into one cohesive whole. Gradually, as TSR re-leased more information on the Known World, my database began to grow. With the release of the Hollow World campaign set, suddenly there was a whole lot more history ? and a lot more depth was included in the Hollow World set's timeline, too. Eventually, my task was almost complete. However, reading through the timeline, it quickly became apparent that while some books abbreviated their history substantially, other sets went into much more detail. Add to that the fact that I had almost run out of new material to add to the timeline, and the project moved to the next level: the systematic scouring of each supplement for historical information. Starting with GAZ1, I went through each book and noted down any and all references to history, and any dates. In the interests of being thorough, I included not just the history section, but all sections, from geographical overview to NPCs to adventures. Even the smallest fact went into my notes, and eventually most of them also went into the timeline. At about this point I also decided to start noting sources for each section. This was primarily because every now and then I came across conflicting entries in the official timelines, and it helped a great deal to be able to evaluate the sources before making a decision on which source was probably correct. These inconsistencies are probably what the asterisks in the source tags refer to. Then something unexpected happened, and TSR decided to move Mystara to the AD&D game. This ultimately led to the death of the world, at least as far as printed works go. Not long thereafter, I drifted away from this project. At this stage I had been working on it on and off for possibly as long as 5 years, and the lack of new material to add in to the database meant there was little left to be done. Plus, I believe that I had somewhat lost track of what exactly was left to do. A few years later, I discovered the Mystara Mailing List, and came back to the project once more. I updated it with the Savage Coast setting's timeline, and possibly some other things which I had missed out. I designed a cover sheet, very similar to page 1 of this document, and extracted the database to text format. Unfortunately reformatting it proved tricky, and with many other projects to work on, not to mention the existence of Daniel Boese's excellent timeline, I slowly drifted away and forgot about it again. Eventually I became busy with other things in my life, and once again left Mystara behind. Now, as I write this, I have once again returned to the world of Mystara. Finally, I have found the time and motivation to at least partially complete this project. There are undoubtedly many errors in need of correction, and probably many more things that could be added; I never quite knew what to do with Wrath of the Immortals and the Poor Wizard's Almanac series, which both provide a lot more detailed information than the timeline previously contained. Also it still lacks the timelines of a few products I could never get my hands on, most notably PC4 Night Howlers. At some point, I will revise the timeline once again, checking old sources and adding the missing parts, but for now, I simply wish to release this into the world for Mystara's fans and supporters to use. It has been a long, long journey, and it's not over yet. But for now, here are the fruits of my long efforts. Enjoy. Thorfinn Tait Akita, Japan January 2005 ============================================ Thorfinn Tait --------- thorf @ chokai.ne.jp Land of the Rising Sun, 5 years and counting ============================================ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 00:39:31 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: Mini-Gazetteer: Baronía de Torreón I've got a couple questions about this, now that I've had some more time to go over things. First off- did you use Bruce Heard's Dominion Economics rules (either from Dragon or the Excel sheet) to calculate the population and armed forces stats? I was doing that earlier tonight, just to practice a bit with the Excel sheet, and got some stats that were different, but close enough that I figured maybe that's what you did... in any case, it's a good thing there are so many elves in Torreon, or else they'd probably all starve. Something else- not really a question, but a comment- spurred by your Casanegra character and his relation to the Glantri Casanegra, as well as a side project of my own, I decided to do some more digging into the possible ancestry of the Belcadiz elves. My conjectures led me to believe that the Belcadiz elves are actually transplants from the Savage Coast, remnants of the second migration that backtracked and joined the remnants of the first migration who stayed on the Savage Coast. They then developed their "spanish" culture due to contact with the Oltecs/Nithians. The Belcadiz then split off (for whatever reason- potlics, the arrival of humans) around 500 AC and traveled in search of the other migrations, landing in Glantri. How do you think that idea would work out? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:14:12 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Mini-Gazetteer: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Baron=EDa?= de =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Torre=F3n?= Andrew Theisen wrote: > I've got a couple questions about this, now that I've > had some more time to go over things. > > First off- did you use Bruce Heard's Dominion > Economics rules (either from Dragon or the Excel > sheet) to calculate the population and armed forces > stats? I was doing that earlier tonight, just to > practice a bit with the Excel sheet, and got some > stats that were different, but close enough that I > figured maybe that's what you did... in any case, it's > a good thing there are so many elves in Torreon, or > else they'd probably all starve. Yes, I used Bruce's spreadsheet. Actually, I did all of the civilized SC nations except Herath, in order to have consistent data. As for starving, consider that Torreon does have famine problems at times. > conjectures led me to believe that the Belcadiz elves > are actually transplants from the Savage Coast, > remnants of the second migration that backtracked and > joined the remnants of the first migration who stayed > on the Savage Coast. They then developed their > "spanish" culture due to contact with the > Oltecs/Nithians. The Belcadiz then split off (for > whatever reason- potlics, the arrival of humans) > around 500 AC and traveled in search of the other > migrations, landing in Glantri. How do you think that > idea would work out? It all depends on what you consider possibile as far as cultural changes go. Basically, there are two possible stances: 1) Elves are too long lived to be influenced by humans, therefore Belcadiz culture must be natively elven; 2) Ispan culture and language are specified to be descended from Thyatian culture and language, therefore the Ispan-like elves must have borrowed culture and language from the Ispans (or their ancestors). The two takes are, as far as I can see, directly opposed -- unless one accepts that there's no relation between Belcadiz and Ispan, of course. In the first hypothesis, your conjecture is likely, but then you have to modify the Savage Coast languages history (e.g., ``elven'' would be Ispan, Ispans must have got their language and culture from the Torreon/Montoya elves). In the second hypothesis, the Belcadiz (and possibly some other Ispan elves) probably lived with the Ispans before they migrated to SC (which is a recent event, ca. 900 AC). Of course, you have to accept that Belcadiz culture is of human origin. Bye, G. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 03:48:21 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: Mini-Gazetteer: Baronía de Torreón --- Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > Yes, I used Bruce's spreadsheet. Actually, I did all > of the civilized SC nations except Herath, in order > to have consistent data. Cool- Don't know if you've got plans to do any more "mini-gazetteers" of the Savage Coastal nations or not, but I'd love to see them if so! :) > As for starving, consider that Torreon does have > famine problems at times. True. My major thinking was that, as a largely elvish population, the woodland areas wouldn't be quite as unforgiving- subsistence wise- as they would for human nations. > In the first hypothesis, your conjecture is likely, > but then you have to modify the Savage Coast > languages history (e.g., ``elven'' would be > Ispan, Ispans must have got their language and > culture from the Torreon/Montoya elves). That's kind of the take I'm going with. After (finally) reading through the Red Steel stuff, I don't see anything that specifically and categorically states that the "spanish" culture is solely derived from the Ispans. The language is presumably Ispan (Espan- Ispan), but the other aspects of the culture could have already been in place- that would fit with the traditionally Thyatian means of "absorb the best elements of the cultures we conquer." The whole Ispan thing didn't really fit in with established history of the Savage Coast as originally presented anyway (Dragon #171-176). Of course, since a lot of the info in Red Steel was derived from Bruce Heard's notes- despite his not being the designer- presumably the Ispan thing was meant to be there originally. I don't know. In any case, as you suggest, I figure the native "Ispan" culture is actually elvish/oltec (with some slight nithian) and was there prior to the Thyatian Ispans' arrival. The elements of current "Ispan" culture they brought with them, IMO, are the conquest mentality that resulted in the formation of the Baronies and all the war that have taken place in the last century. As an example, this particular line in the history struck me funny: "906- Dwarves and elves in lands claimed by Narvaez declare themselves the Barony of Montoya." Now why would they name their Barony Montoya, if that wasn't the language they were speaking? I know, not the strongest argument, but I like to think that the "Common" tongue of the region was a strange, centuries old blend of elvish and oltec. The elves still spoke their language amongst themselves, and the humans might have had their own languages, but the "lingua franca" was the language we now know as Espa (named after the Thyatian conquerors of the region- they feel no remorse about claiming the language and culture as their own; after all, aren't they the superior race? :) > In the second hypothesis, the Belcadiz (and possibly > some other Ispan elves) probably lived with the > Ispans before they migrated to SC (which is a recent > event, ca. 900 AC). Of course, you have to accept > that Belcadiz culture is of human origin. Yeah- that all gets way too complicated for my tastes. Heck, even this way is a bit too complex, but to me it satisfies a couple of personal desires- 1) to explain the origins of the odd Belcadiz elves, and 2) to give the elves of the Savage Coast some character of their own... at least slightly. One thing that bugged me about Red Steel is that all the people in the Savage Coast lands are so homogenous. I mean, yes, you have several different cultures/ethnicities spread around, but all the actual races are the same within a particular region. A Narvaezan elf is just like a Narvaezan human. It pretty much negates any need to have separate races. This way helps alleviate that somewhat, by making the elves the progenitors (or largely so) of the culture, rather than simply doing it because everyone else is, too. It's a step in the right direction, even if it needs to (IMO) be taken a bit further. I'm thinking about ways of doing something similar with dwarves and possibly halflings. Speaking of which (to go off on a completely different tangent)- while looking at other elvish materials, it struck me funny that there aren't more Water Elves (of Minrothad fame) in the world. With all the traveling and migrating the wood elves have done over the millenia, you'd think the seafaring water elves would be spread around somewhat as well, if not moreso than their landlubber kin. I'm working on something that will take that into account, too. :) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:55:49 +0000 From: Ricardo Matheus Subject: Rakasta PC ilustration Hi all Although most of you won't, some may remember that a long time ago I posted some character sketches. These were made by my brother for a project of mine that intended to make a E-Comic book about my campaign in Mystara. As most good ideas that project died due to lack of time. Now I finally convinced my brother to make some ilustrations as a resource to beef up my mostly play-by-mail campaign, by ilustrating some of the characters in important campaign points. The upside of this is that, as he has to make a single ilustration instead of a whole page full of small drawings, they are a lot nicer. Enough talking, here is the first one of these ilustrations: http://www.geocities.com/darkblood18/pcs/kasaki.htm This is a Rakastan cleric, one of the oldest characters in the group. Feedback apreciated Ricardo Matheus a.k.a. Darkblood Owner of the Mystara Map Navigator www.geocities.com/darkblood18 _________________________________________________________________ MSN Messenger: instale grátis e converse com seus amigos. http://messenger.msn.com.br ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 14:57:07 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Mini-Gazetteer: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Baron=EDa?= de =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Torre=F3n?= Andrew Theisen wrote: > > Cool- Don't know if you've got plans to do any more > "mini-gazetteers" of the Savage Coastal nations or > not, but I'd love to see them if so! :) I do have plans for more Savage Coast stuff, including an article on pirates -- one of aspects of the coast that gets less coverage in the official material. Mini-gazetteers are also something I'd like to do, given time. > True. My major thinking was that, as a largely elvish > population, the woodland areas wouldn't be quite as > unforgiving- subsistence wise- as they would for human > nations. Yes, though it seems that SC demihumans have adopted human lifestyle. > That's kind of the take I'm going with. After > (finally) reading through the Red Steel stuff, I don't > see anything that specifically and categorically > states that the "spanish" culture is solely derived > from the Ispans. Well, the fact that Guardiano culture was originally limited to the Baronies, while elves and Oltecs have always been around in the SC -- the elves up to Bellayne, is a pointer in that direction. Language is another. > "906- Dwarves and elves in lands claimed by Narvaez > declare themselves the Barony of Montoya." > > Now why would they name their Barony Montoya, if that > wasn't the language they were speaking? I know, not > the strongest argument, but I like to think that the > "Common" tongue of the region was a strange, centuries > old blend of elvish and oltec. Of course, that's the weak point of option (2) -- how comes that Ispan becomes the mayor language of these communities after only a few years? My answer is, because many elves (and perhaps even some dwarves) came from Thyatis with the Ispan. That's because my main concern is language consistency -- see the ethnographic discussions (with Giulio and others). > One thing that bugged me > about Red Steel is that all the people in the Savage > Coast lands are so homogenous. I mean, yes, you have > several different cultures/ethnicities spread around, > but all the actual races are the same within a > particular region. A Narvaezan elf is just like a > Narvaezan human. It pretty much negates any need to > have separate races. Well, certainly there some need for diversity, and the official material doesn't go far enough. Still, there's room for some work, and that's what I tried to do with Torreoner elves. The main themes, IMO, are the Montoyan wars and the roles of native/non-native elves. As I see it, Dwarves in the Savage Baronies belong to two main groups (two ``clans''), the Montoya and the Smithy. The first are originally from Narvaez, but are now found in most enlightned baronies (and rarely in the northern baronies), as a consequence of their exile from Montoya. The Smithy dwarves are common only in Cimarron, and sometimes found in the enlightned baronies (BTW, Cimarron M-English language is one more oddity, see my Lawful Brotherhood writeup). Elves are divided into the native clans and (going by hypothesis (2)) Belcadiz-related invaders. Most native elves live in Torreon and still speak elven. Native elves in Narvaez tend to live in enclaves (like Bosque de los Ojos), though some younger one are joining the Ispan elves in the cities. Elves in other nations are much less common, so they have to merge in the human society, and tend to speak Verdan or Espa. > Speaking of which (to go off on a completely different > tangent)- while looking at other elvish materials, it > struck me funny that there aren't more Water Elves (of > Minrothad fame) in the world. With all the traveling > and migrating the wood elves have done over the > millenia, you'd think the seafaring water elves would > be spread around somewhat as well, if not moreso than > their landlubber kin. I think the Water Elves are not only culturally different, they're sort of mutants, likely due to some Taymoran experiment, like the albino humans of Ierendi. IMO, both subraces are results of Taymoran attempts to create nocturnal races (not necessarily successful attempts). -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 15:29:54 +0100 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: Rakasta PC ilustration Ricardo Matheus wrote: > Enough talking, here is the first one of these ilustrations: > http://www.geocities.com/darkblood18/pcs/kasaki.htm > This is a Rakastan cleric, one of the oldest characters in the group. > Feedback apreciated Very very nice, tie your brother to his chair and force him to draw more :-) No, don't do that, I'm joking :-) , but any rakasta or PCs illustration will always be greatly appreciate! bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 15:26:36 +0100 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_=5BMYSTARA=5D_Mini-Gazetteer:_Baron=EDa_de_Torre=F3n?= Andrew Theisen wrote: > In any case, as you suggest, I figure the native > "Ispan" culture is actually elvish/oltec (with some > slight nithian) and was there prior to the Thyatian > Ispans' arrival. The elements of current "Ispan" > culture they brought with them, IMO, are the conquest > mentality that resulted in the formation of the > Baronies and all the war that have taken place in the > last century. I'm writing a Savage Coast/Belcadiz timeline based exactly on this idea. I plan to post it here on the list in a few days. My idea to explain both the similarity between thyatian and espan (latin and spanish) and the belcadiz language is that Espan developed as a language native of the savage coast beginning in 100 ac, from mixing an elven/oltec original language and the thyatian brought by halfling and dwarven settler (who probably spoke thyatian as common) and thyatian settlers and traders. I suppose Espan took its modern form after 500 ac and the traldar immigration in the savage coast (traldars too probably spoke thyatian as common) and became even more similar to thyatian after the great thyatian immigration of 900 ac. Belcadizian espan of 700 ac was probably a lot less similar to thyatian common that it's nowadays, but became more and more thyatinized with the influence of thyatian settlers of Glantri and darokian merchants. bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 15:52:20 +0100 From: Havard Faanes Subject: Re: Official Timeline of Mystara Hi Thorf! Welcome back to Mystara :) I enjoyed reading through the timeline, and the layout was pretty cool too -simple, yet elegant :) Also, good to see that you have a website up and running again. Looking forward to more stuff appearing there. Håvard --- Thorfinn Tait skrev: > It's not my secret project, but here's my other > project... I spent a few > hours finally making it semi-presentable to the > public, and here it is. (I > also posted this to the Mystara Message Board a few > days ago.) > > http://www.thorf.co.uk/mystara/d&dtimeline.zip > > It's in Word 2000 format for now, and the formatting > is far from finished, > though I'm not entirely sure on what to do with it > to proceed from here. > > Here's a copy of the introduction I just wrote for > it. It's long, but it > explains the whole history of this very long > project: > > > Quote: > I first started this project more than fifteen years > ago, when I was about > 11 years old. At that time, only a handful of > Gazetteers and Dawn of the > Emperors had been released. My initial aim was > simply to collect the > timelines provided in each supplement into one > cohesive whole. > > Gradually, as TSR re-leased more information on the > Known World, my database > began to grow. With the release of the Hollow World > campaign set, suddenly > there was a whole lot more history ? and a lot more > depth was included in > the Hollow World set's timeline, too. > > Eventually, my task was almost complete. However, > reading through the > timeline, it quickly became apparent that while some > books abbreviated their > history substantially, other sets went into much > more detail. Add to that > the fact that I had almost run out of new material > to add to the timeline, > and the project moved to the next level: the > systematic scouring of each > supplement for historical information. > > Starting with GAZ1, I went through each book and > noted down any and all > references to history, and any dates. In the > interests of being thorough, I > included not just the history section, but all > sections, from geographical > overview to NPCs to adventures. Even the smallest > fact went into my notes, > and eventually most of them also went into the > timeline. > > At about this point I also decided to start noting > sources for each section. > This was primarily because every now and then I came > across conflicting > entries in the official timelines, and it helped a > great deal to be able to > evaluate the sources before making a decision on > which source was probably > correct. These inconsistencies are probably what the > asterisks in the source > tags refer to. > > Then something unexpected happened, and TSR decided > to move Mystara to the > AD&D game. This ultimately led to the death of the > world, at least as far as > printed works go. Not long thereafter, I drifted > away from this project. At > this stage I had been working on it on and off for > possibly as long as 5 > years, and the lack of new material to add in to the > database meant there > was little left to be done. Plus, I believe that I > had somewhat lost track > of what exactly was left to do. > > A few years later, I discovered the Mystara Mailing > List, and came back to > the project once more. I updated it with the Savage > Coast setting's > timeline, and possibly some other things which I had > missed out. I designed > a cover sheet, very similar to page 1 of this > document, and extracted the > database to text format. Unfortunately reformatting > it proved tricky, and > with many other projects to work on, not to mention > the existence of Daniel > Boese's excellent timeline, I slowly drifted away > and forgot about it again. > Eventually I became busy with other things in my > life, and once again left > Mystara behind. > > Now, as I write this, I have once again returned to > the world of Mystara. > Finally, I have found the time and motivation to at > least partially complete > this project. There are undoubtedly many errors in > need of correction, and > probably many more things that could be added; I > never quite knew what to do > with Wrath of the Immortals and the Poor Wizard's > Almanac series, which both > provide a lot more detailed information than the > timeline previously > contained. Also it still lacks the timelines of a > few products I could never > get my hands on, most notably PC4 Night Howlers. > > At some point, I will revise the timeline once > again, checking old sources > and adding the missing parts, but for now, I simply > wish to release this > into the world for Mystara's fans and supporters to > use. > > It has been a long, long journey, and it's not over > yet. But for now, here > are the fruits of my long efforts. > > Enjoy. > > Thorfinn Tait > Akita, Japan > January 2005 > > ============================================ > Thorfinn Tait --------- thorf @ chokai.ne.jp > Land of the Rising Sun, 5 years and counting > ============================================ > > ******************************************************************** > 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. > ===== *** Håvard R. Faanes www.stud.ntnu.no/~havardfa ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 15:58:17 +0100 From: Havard Faanes Subject: Re: Rakasta PC ilustration Hey, I remember that E-comic. I think I have all of the illustrations on my hard disc somewhere. This rakasta illustration is awesome. I'd love to see more Mystara illustrations if you can get your brother to make them. I could easily imagine this one to be on the cover of the Myoshima Gazeteer.... Håvard --- Ricardo Matheus skrev: > > > Hi all > > Although most of you won't, some may remember that a > long time ago I posted > some character sketches. These were made by my > brother for a project of mine > that intended to make a E-Comic book about my > campaign in Mystara. As most > good ideas that project died due to lack of time. > > Now I finally convinced my brother to make some > ilustrations as a resource > to beef up my mostly play-by-mail campaign, by > ilustrating some of the > characters in important campaign points. > > The upside of this is that, as he has to make a > single ilustration instead > of a whole page full of small drawings, they are a > lot nicer. > > Enough talking, here is the first one of these > ilustrations: > > http://www.geocities.com/darkblood18/pcs/kasaki.htm > > This is a Rakastan cleric, one of the oldest > characters in the group. > > Feedback apreciated > > Ricardo Matheus > a.k.a. Darkblood > Owner of the Mystara Map Navigator > www.geocities.com/darkblood18 > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Messenger: instale grátis e converse com seus > amigos. > http://messenger.msn.com.br > > ******************************************************************** > 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. > ===== *** Håvard R. Faanes www.stud.ntnu.no/~havardfa ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 16:17:07 +0100 From: Havard Faanes Subject: Re: Humanoid [Canine] --- Jon Cole skrev: > On a side track the bumpf inside the 3.5 Dragpnlance > Dm's Screen has some > interesting ideas about redesignating monsters > through the sub-types (no > Orcs, Giants are a sub class of Ogre, as are > Dopplegangers etc.) Interesting! It is obviously tied to the DL creation story where Ogre is one of the major races and minotaurs and others are simply offspring of the Ogres. Orcs dont exist on DL so that must be wrong, eh? Still, if DL can change these things to fit the setting, it might make sense for us to do the same for Mystara. Håvard ===== *** Håvard R. Faanes www.stud.ntnu.no/~havardfa ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:05:38 -0500 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Re: Greetings from an old friend Hello Thorf, and welcome back! Although some of the "Old Ones" have left, there are enough of us around yet, and many new faces besides. It's good to know you're doing well! I'll definitely have a look at that master timeline you've shared, and I liked the idea mentioned on the other boards, that of Tolkienesque appendices or side articles describing important characters or events in more detail. What I would love to see as well is a timeline integrating the added details provided by such people as Aaron, James, and Andrew for Blackmoor and KW nations - someday, maybe. As Andrew noted, I pop in from time to time, though I do read through the MML and Wizards boards regularly, as well as Dragonsfoot (where some of us congregate in the OD&D forum). Unfortunately, real life has cut down my available gaming time quite a bit, and so my output isn't nearly what it once was. :-( Nevertheless, I do have some projects on the go, and occasionally I find the time to post something here, or submit an article to OD&DITIES magazine (I heartily recommend you check that out, BTW - excellent work being done there as well). You can download the back issues at www.tongue.fsnet.co.uk. Anyhow, good to see you back, and I can't wait to see what your "secret project" is all about! :-) Geoff -- Geoff Gander, BA 97, MPA 02 Carnifex Loremaster/Mad Roleplayer Master of the Elemental Plane of Bureaucracy au998@freenet.carleton.ca : www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2091 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:41:34 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Rakasta PC ilustration Ricardo Matheus ha scritto: > > http://www.geocities.com/darkblood18/pcs/kasaki.htm > > This is a Rakastan cleric, one of the oldest characters in the group. Really nice work. We don't see Mystaran-themed artwork that much, so it is really welcome. I fully agree with Francesco on that ``tieing your brother to the chair'' idea :oD Bye, GP ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 13:55:02 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Mini-Gazetteer: Baronía de Torreón --- Francesco Defferrari wrote: > I'm writing a Savage Coast/Belcadiz timeline based > exactly on this idea. I plan to post it here on the > list in a few days. I did a very brief version several days ago and posted it on the MMB. Feel free to plunder it all you want. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=364465 It's not fleshed out much- basically just a pulling together of every migration reference (and source reference) I could find. > My idea to explain both... is that Espan developed as > a language native of the savage coast... from mixing > an elven/oltec original language and the > thyatian brought by halfling and dwarven settler > (who probably spoke thyatian as common) and thyatian > settlers and traders. This sounds really cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 02:43:35 -0300 From: "Vinicius R. de Moraes" Subject: Re: Rakasta PC ilustration At 08:55 27/1/2005, you wrote: > Hey, Ricardo "Lion Heart" ;-) you have NOT closed the tag at the end of the text... should I conclude that you are not lurking anymore? :-P > Hi all > > Although most of you won't, some may remember that a long time ago I posted > some character sketches. These were made by my brother for a project of mine > that intended to make a E-Comic book about my campaign in Mystara. As most > good ideas that project died due to lack of time. Maybe if we joined hands - all of us or maybe only the Brazilian* guys - we vuld make your dream come true... that's what friendship and RPG is all about. :-) * I think we would not be helped by the old "We can work together, as we're closer, blablabla", as we live in many different cities in Brazil, far enough from each other so I can say that it is almost the same as we if lived in different countries. Hence my vote is that we should we all the guys from both lists (this and the BRA one). > Now I finally convinced my brother to make some ilustrations as a resource > to beef up my mostly play-by-mail campaign, by ilustrating some of the > characters in important campaign points. What point is the one pictured in the link below? > The upside of this is that, as he has to make a single ilustration instead > of a whole page full of small drawings, they are a lot nicer. > > Enough talking, here is the first one of these ilustrations: > > http://www.geocities.com/darkblood18/pcs/kasaki.htm WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PIC!!! He could make some nice work for the RPG magazines. Why doesn't he? > This is a Rakastan cleric, one of the oldest characters in the group. Pls tell us more about it. > Feedback apreciated Here it goes... ;-) BTW I have hacked my way around the site: http://www.geocities.com/darkblood18/ has a lot of cool things to offer, people. ;-) Guess I should join the Mystara Web Ring as well. > Ricardo Matheus > a.k.a. Darkblood > Owner of the Mystara Map Navigator > www.geocities.com/darkblood18 Congrats! vini ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 02:50:32 -0300 From: "Vinicius R. de Moraes" Subject: Some real culture It seem s crazy, but why don't you guys come to BRA, ARG & URU in order to see real "gauchos"? All the SC maniacs would get HUGE flavour in their campaigns... and the place is beautiful! With a 1USD = 2,70BRL currency conversion, it should be a VERY cheap travel for you guys. Any arrangements to be made? Let me know, I'd like to help. vini ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 02:52:01 -0300 From: "Vinicius R. de Moraes" Subject: Re: Rakasta PC ilustration At 11:58 27/1/2005, you wrote: > Hey, > > I remember that E-comic. I think I have all of the > illustrations on my hard disc somewhere. Hey, H=E5vard, come on! Send us and URL or the ZIPPED sttuf. :) > This rakasta illustration is awesome. I'd love to see > more Mystara illustrations if you can get your brother > to make them. I could easily imagine this one to be on > the cover of the Myoshima Gazeteer.... > > H=E5vard When is it due? Cheers! vini > --- Ricardo Matheus skrev: > > > > > > Hi all > > > > Although most of you won't, some may remember that a > > long time ago I posted > > some character sketches. These were made by my > > brother for a project of mine > > that intended to make a E-Comic book about my > > campaign in Mystara. As most > > good ideas that project died due to lack of time. > > > > Now I finally convinced my brother to make some > > ilustrations as a resource > > to beef up my mostly play-by-mail campaign, by > > ilustrating some of the > > characters in important campaign points. > > > > The upside of this is that, as he has to make a > > single ilustration instead > > of a whole page full of small drawings, they are a > > lot nicer. > > > > Enough talking, here is the first one of these > > ilustrations: > > > > http://www.geocities.com/darkblood18/pcs/kasaki.htm > > > > This is a Rakastan cleric, one of the oldest > > characters in the group. > > > > Feedback apreciated > > > > Ricardo Matheus ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 25 Jan 2005 to 27 Jan 2005 (#2005-22) ***************************************************************