Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 14 Dec 2005 to 15 Dec 2005 (#2005-233) From: MYSTARA-L automatic digest system Date: 16/12/2005, 19:00 To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 2 messages totalling 189 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Alphatia: The bad guys ? (2) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 10:50:44 -0400 From: Steven Carter Subject: Re: Alphatia: The bad guys ? It's important to differentiate Alphatia's history of conquest, destruction and oppression from the Alphatian people. I think everyone on the list has a different opinion of what the relationship between the wizard-kings and the people and foreign policy is. And in your campaign that's very important. It gives you lots of wiggle room to make things either very cosmopolitan and flexible for your players or making it an oppressive police state. There is also the fact that each kingdom is pretty much sovereign. One thing you could play with is how to interpret what a "wizard" is in Alphatia. If you want to make it a little less onerous then say a wizard is only a wizard once they achieve name level or acquire a title. If you have a wizard in the party then said wizard may take the responsibility for handling the other party members as vassals, servants or hirelings. If a wizard is killed by the party it might not be so bad if the authorities see that a wizard, not mundanes, were responsible. On 12/14/05, John Hofmann wrote: > No, you've got it right. They're pretty much jerks. > > However, you are free to reinterpret the country as more benevolant where > magic-users run the country with the best interests of everyone in mind. > That's actually how we played for decades before the trash that is Dawn o= f > the Empires came out. That set is nice for the maps, but I know for a fa= ct > that you can have great Thyatis-Alphatia campaigns while leaving some of > that stuff behind. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Gilles Leblanc" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:40 PM > Subject: [MYSTARA] Alphatia: The bad guys ? > > > I have had 2 Mystara groups in the past both running for a number of year= s. > After these groups my players wanted something different so we left Mysta= ra > for a couple of years. > > Now that we are coming back, I wanted to do a campaign in Alphatia since = we > had largely ignored this part of Mystara, keeping to the known world, sav= age > coast, sind, hule, thanegioth archipelago and some forrays in the hollow > world. > > In fact we had largely ignored the Thyatian vs. Alphatian conflit > altogether. Now the players have rolled their characters, I told them wit= h I > remembered about Mystara. I dug up an old quest I had written for level 1 > characters. > > When I started reading the Alphatia material from the Dawn of the Emperor= s > boxed set I started getting a different picture of Alphatia than what I > remembered. I remembered that a lot of conflicts were nations against > nation, not the clear cut good vs. evil of other campaigns. > > While Alphatia isn't evil, I'm having a hard time sympathising with them = and > wonder if my players will too. They want to fight for the good of the > empire, but basicly everyone except one of them ( the mage ) will be seco= nd > rate citizens who can be killed by a magic-user under threat of a 100 gp. > fine. They will bear full force of the injust justice system where a > commener can be raped by a mage for a 10gp. fine and where insulting a ma= ge > merits almost a worse punishment than a mage killing someone. The player'= s > book present Alphatians as treating their slaves as convicts, commoners a= s > slave. > > Even the history of Alphatia casts a bad light on them. It is stated that > after the Followers of Fire realized the errors of their way they cast ou= t > Alphaks who had insurged the violence and then offered peace to the Air > Wizards, which refused and destroyed the Alphatian homeworld, their > homeworld, out of what seems like spite and then left. > > Considering this is the player's guide, maybe a more biased history shoul= d > have been presented which shows the Air Wizards ( the now alphatians ) in= a > better light vs. the Flame Wizards ( the now Glantrians ). > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 13:27:34 EST From: Alex Benson Subject: Re: Alphatia: The bad guys ? Alphatia got a pretty bad representation. I blame alot of that upon Aaron Allston being so focal upon the Alphatian based resources. In short, Allston was responsible for the scribing of the majority of the Alphatian materials. Allston favored Karameikos and basically destroyed the Gaz Era Mystara to elevate Karameikos. Prior to Wrath, I was not really a big fan of Alphatia. I had a PC that hailed from there, though he spent most of his time on Brun. The resource materials and adventures for Brun based nations were more abundant. Allstrick's Alphatian heritage made for an exotic backstory, including much of his motivation for being an adventurer. Then, DotE was used primarily to help further fill out his origins. We did run several campaigns through Alphatia, mostly to introduce aspects of Allstrick's past as well as his heritage. For me, the appeal in ALphatia was in its magical focus. Variety was easy to achieve. Alphatia is "organized chaos" and that made for good adventures. Problems are the lifeblood of adventurers. A strong centrlaized government would minimize the need for adventurers; secure borders, police type units, diplomatic agencies, etc. The social disparity between spellcaster and nonspellcaster is often used by critics of the Alphatians. Spellcasting ability is the right of aristocracy within Alphatia. Not a mage, go into the clergy to become a spellcasting cleric. Other lands use who your father was. Being a nonspellcaster was a choice. There was an added challenge in surviving in a spellcastign dominated society, but it was not a death's sentence. Likewise, there is more to adventuring in Alphatia than havign a party of nonspellcasters with a token sympathetic aristcrat to take on the neighborhood bully aristocrat. Most of the disparity between the classes is a generalization and stereotype. Spellcasters are the aristocracy and are therefore given certain added benefits. That is no different from aristocrats in other Mystaran nations or for aristocrats in the real world. The same could be said for the aristocrats' vices and indulgences as well. Wrath of the Immortals made me more interested in Alphatia. Not to go into detail but I am no fan of that work, feeling that it was too heavily scripted. That isn't just in regards to Alphatia. I'd include Thyatis, Glantri, and Alfheim's in that. When the Mystara line ceased, all these loose ends were left unaddressed. There was no closure to what Wrath had brought to the setting. I was drawn into the pro-Alphatian to try to tie up some of those loose ends in the Net Almanac. Alphatia was under represented there, with only a few contributors. I volunteered for the Alphatian Teams and was accepted. With my own game group dispersed, the Almanac was a way to keep me involved within the setting. I eventually left the almanac for private reasons. The more that I look back upon it, the more I miss the days when Allstrick and his buddies walked a path between the two empires. No debates on which empire was better, no flamefests scrutinizing the grammer and context of a sentence or two on either of the empires. I guess that I am saying to just have fun. If Alphatian, then Alphatians are the good guys. If from another nation, then Alphatia is a distant land with limited contact with most of Brun. You can keep the two empires seperate. ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 14 Dec 2005 to 15 Dec 2005 (#2005-233) ****************************************************************