Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 28 Jan 2005 to 29 Jan 2005 (#2005-24) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 30/01/2005, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 12 messages totalling 615 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) (4) 2. Vincienzo di Randazzi (4) 3. The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) 4. Calling all Chronomancers! 5. The Belcadiz Issue 6. The Belcadiz Issue and other "eastern" elves ******************************************************************** 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: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:11:05 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) Francesco Defferrari ha scritto: > > but I find that the thyatian-elves origin is a lot bigger drift > from canon that to simply assume that espan is a language some century older > that we thought... Uhm, depends on what you consider a ``drift''. Canon never mentions Ispan people before Savage Coast, yet there must have been some place in Thyatis where an Ispan culture was found -- now, adding to a never described location some elves (there are already some elves in Thyatis anyway), is a much smaller drift than changing history (and a few details on languages) in my book. BTW, Ispan *is* Thyatian (or at least 50% compatible, according to the SC book), and SC (mostly Torreoner) elves speak Elven (at least in Torreon, but then most guardiano elves live there) plus local language (i.e., nowhere except in the Baronies do elves speak Espa). Now, if the Belcadiz leave the Coast before the Ispan arrive, you are left with a couple issues to solve: 1) Why do the Belcadiz (who leave) speak Espa while the Torreoners (who stay) speak Elven? 2) How comes that Espa is basically Thyatian when most humans on the coast before the Espa where Traladarans (see the City-States) and Oltecs? Even if you assume that Espa was a trade tongue (thereby replacing Slag, which is supposed to be the trade tongue of the Coast) created by human-elven interaction, the two issues are still not solved. Of course, you can simply have the Torreoner elves speak Espa, and assume a much earlier immigration of Thyatians -- but then the Ispan colonization is not really a colonization, since the baronies where already inhabited by Thyatians... That's just to say that *any* solution must deviate from canon since here canon is quite inconsistent. Then of course everyone will have a favorite version -- I know quite a few people whose preferred solutions is that Belcadiz elves speak Elven, go figure... Bye, GP ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:16:17 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Vincienzo di Randazzi Andrew Theisen ha scritto: > My post about Ezechiel Naramis got me to remembering > some other Glantri stuff I'd had sitting around, > uncompleted. So, while I finish up the rest, here's a > little known-about character in Glantri politics (sort > of the Ash Ketchum of Mystara): Nice to see some more Glantrians after quite a long time! > Familiar: Youri’s familiar is a fox named Scacco. > Scacco uses the better of its own or Youri’s base save > bonuses. Its abilities and characteristics are > summarized below: Here Youri should read Vincienzo ;) Bye, GP ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 02:56:29 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: Vincienzo di Randazzi --- Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > Nice to see some more Glantrians after quite a long > time! I've got the basics of the rest of Vinny's family worked out, too. They're one of the more "normal" families of Glantri- no lycanthropy, insanity, witchcraft, or cthulhianic mischief in their background. Some minor dysfunction (of the mundane variety), but generally an agreeable family. A little drama, but nothing over the top- which I wanted to go for, as I think it's a bit refreshing a change. :) > Here Youri should read Vincienzo ;) It should indeed. The funny thing is, it's not as if I actually cut and pasted anything from Youri's entry- Youri doesn't have a familiar. I just mixed the two up for some reason. Had Youri on the brain, I guess. Thanks for pointing that out, though! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 03:06:52 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) --- Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > 1) Why do the Belcadiz (who leave) speak Espa while > the Torreoners (who stay) speak Elven? I'd say the Belcadiz speak both tongues. Since Espa is 50% compatible with Thyatian, it makes sense that they use Espa when communicating with humans in Glantri (where many of the immigrants speak Thyatian). They probably speak Espa with humans, and elvish amongst themselves. > 2) How comes that Espa is basically Thyatian when > most humans on the coast before the Espa where > Traladarans (see the City-States) and Oltecs? This is kind of a stretch, but... Thyatians originally came from Davania, right? As did the elves. Maybe the elvish language and the Thyatian tongues have some common origin. Again, it's a stretch, but then again not entirely without precedent. For example, the elvish runic alphabet from module CM7: Tree of Life is identical to the Northman runic alphabet from Gaz7. (This is probably because, I assume, Bruce Heard used the RW nordic runes for CM7 rather than create his own, and when Gaz7 came out, the author used the RW runes as well, not realizing they'd appeared as elvish runes previously.) As you say, though, I don't think there is going to be any definitive solution that covers all bases, probably because the designers at the time didn't care as much about the inconsistencies as we Mystara-fanatics do now. :) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 12:15:10 +0100 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > Uhm, depends on what you consider a ``drift''. Canon never mentions > Ispan people before Savage Coast, yet there must have been some place > in Thyatis where an Ispan culture was found -- now, adding to a never > described location some elves (there are already some elves in Thyatis > anyway), is a much smaller drift than changing history (and a few > details on languages) in my book. I'm not changing history, you are changing history :-) The espan and elves in Isle of Dawn or Kerendas or Alaysia (as James Mishler, you and maybe some other wrote) are completely new stories! (and quite fascinating too, but too much uncanon for me). Mine is just a quick note saying "espan began its development around 100 ac in the Savage Coast to permit comunication between easterners settlers and traders and natives". > 2) How comes that Espa is basically Thyatian when most humans on the > coast before the Espa where Traladarans (see the City-States) and > Oltecs? We already said that the issue has not nor will ever have a satisfactory explanation. The real answer is simply "designers didn't check or didn't care". But there isn't any canon problem saying that espan developed as a mix of thyatian and native language as a common language between people who had each a different language (thyatians traders, dwarves and human settlers, oltecs, elves, tortles and so on). It's common in RW history that people use a trade language as a common language. It happened in medieval mediterranean sea (lingua franca), in the middle east after the crusades (levantian), in latin america (spanish), in eastern africa (swahili) and so on. BTW I don't think that elves of Torreon speak only elvish, they speak espan and elvish, and I believe it's obvious that the same it's true for Belcadiz (even if probably elvish for them is a secondary and cultural language), or they will never have welcomed Erewan among them in the past! (And do you see Erewans unite with elves that didn't even speak elvish? It's unbeliavable IMO) > Even if you assume that Espa was a trade tongue (thereby replacing > Slag, which is supposed to be the trade tongue of the Coast) created > by human-elven interaction, the two issues are still not solved. Slag (a mix of traldar and thyatian IIRC) developed in areas where there were traldars and thyatian only, espan (a mix of thyatian, oltec, elven and much more, IMO) developed from other people and languages, so I don't see any problem. RW spanish is a mix of latin and iberian (and goth, and arab and gaelic and something more) so surely It's not Pure Thyatian. And Verdan in Mystara is supposed to be a mix of thyatian and tanagoro, while in RW we know that portoguese is a mix of latin, gaelic, iberian and something more, and surely has not much to do with african languages. I completely disagree with the idea of searching an exact coincidence between RW languages and Mystara languages, because this way the only effect is to mess with canon a lot more than it's needed (but obviously anyone do what he likes more). > Of course, you can simply have the Torreoner elves speak Espa, and > assume a much earlier immigration of Thyatians -- but then the Ispan > colonization is not really a colonization, since the baronies where > already inhabited by Thyatians... Not inhabited, I simply suppose that thyatians knew well SC from 100 ac at least, and came and went with traders and a little number of settlers, following dwarves and later traldars. bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 03:31:50 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Calling all Chronomancers! Just found this site while browsing the ENWorld message boards: http://www.dcrouzet.net/nbotime/ It's a d20 Netbook of Time, with all sorts of interesting chronomantic goodness, for anyone who might be interested. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 13:57:53 +0100 From: la Volpe Subject: The Belcadiz Issue We all know that the true answer is "the designers didn't know - didn't care", but that's not fun. 8-) Anyway, seriously (seriosuly? you're writing about a dead campaign of a role-playing game? come on! grow up!)(shut up!)(I'll shut up when you'll be a Doctor in Physics)(doh! stupid brain!): My take is, like Agathokles', to keep language consistency and language correspondance (eg: Thyatian is almost 100% Latin, Alasiyan is almost 100% Arab and so on). Starting on this premise, I look at the history of spanish language. Spanish is mostly derived from Latin, with heavy Arab influences, and very very very slight Celtiberic influence. Now, let's take this into Mystara. Let's look at 800 BC in Davania. The ancestors of Thyatians live in the northern part of Davania. They are the equivalent of ancient Italic populations. Their neighbours are the ancestors of the Thratians. They are equivalent to some celtic populations. Let's assume that a part of these Thratians are the equivalent of celtibers. Another population that lives in the area is that of the southern elves. These elves left Glantri in 1700 BC after the explosion like several other clans (Truedyl, Schattenalfen, etc.), and emerged after long years of travel in Davania. At this point, their culture is nearly destroyed, the radiations have caused them to be short-lived (thirty or fourty years instead of six hundred - the Radiance damages magical creatures heavily), all the keepers of the traditions have died, their culture is almost completely erased and they start anew in the forests. Later, they meet with the proto-Thratians, while they slowly recover. It's not important to know whether they still speak Elvish or not, at least not for this theory. The important thing is to notice that they begin to trade with the Thratian humans. The Thratians don't know that they are "elves". But after a while they begin to have problems with the Elves, that seem long lived. The Elves develop the first spells that will become the glantrian Witchcraft (ok, I have only the GAZ in Italian, so I don't know what exactly the name in English is), to hide their long lives against the Thratians. (This can be worked upon, I'm just giving an idea) Some Thratian tribes war with the Elves. These Elves ally themselves with the Thyatians. They pass themselves as humans. When the Thyatians leave northwards, the Elves follow them. They still hide among them. During the years of the early Empire, the Elves settle mostly in Kerendas. When the Thyatians conquer Ylaruam, a certain number of Kerendans move there to settle and colonize. Among them are many Elves, guided by the Belcadice family. These Kerendans + Elves are influenced by the Thyatian culture. Thus they become the Ispans. The Belcadice family becomes the Belcadiz family. Many Elves still hide themselves in Kerendas and are influencial in the Thyatian politics. When Glantri is settled by the Flaem, the Alhambra-Belcadiz elves are obviously interested and they begin to send emissaries. In 750 AC they begin to settle there, also because the climate in Ylaruam is becoming hostile to Thyatians. Another possibility could be to have the Ispans begin to suspect something of the Elves, a sort of "Bruja" theme; this could be an additional reason for their leaving. Later, 828 AC, when the Ispans must return altogether to Thyatis, most are soon (900 AC) embarked to colonize a far distant land - the Savage Coast. Plenty of reasons for this: there is no place for these leftovers from Ylaruam, most people don't want them, they are strange because they have a different culture and a strange dialect... Among these Ispans that leave are other Alhambra-Belcadiz Elves... In this hypothesis, Elves would be the main motor behind the Ispan culture, and they would follow them to control them politically. They may preserve the Elvish language to some extent, but a different dialect. There is a good reason for the Ispans to leave for the Savage Coast. The relatives of the Alhambra-Belcadiz Elves may be hidden among the Thyatians and influence the Thyatian politics, especially in Kerendas, making them very very strong players in the Known World. The Savage Coast Elves would belong to two different groups, the city dwellers of Ispan culture, and the wilderness dwellers of original Savage Coast culture. What do you think about this idea? Giulio ___________________________________ Nuovo Yahoo! Messenger: E' molto più divertente: Audibles, Avatar, Webcam, Giochi, Rubrica… Scaricalo ora! http://it.messenger.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 16:22:53 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) Francesco Defferrari ha scritto: > > I'm not changing history, you are changing history :-) The espan and elves > in Isle of Dawn or Kerendas or Alaysia (as James Mishler, you and maybe some > other wrote) are completely new stories! (and quite fascinating too, but too > much uncanon for me). Mine is just a quick note saying "espan began its > development around 100 ac in the Savage Coast to permit comunication between > easterners settlers and traders and natives". Not exactly: I'm adding (actually, as you noted, I'm slightly modifying James' version, which in itself is an addition to the existing canon): nowhere canon does say that there were never Ispan Elves in Thyatis, while it does say that Espa arrived in the Coast in 900. IMO (and for what it matters), saying that Espa arrived in 100 AC changes known history, while adding Ispan Elves to the already existing Ispan Thyatians only adds to known history. >> 2) How comes that Espa is basically Thyatian when most humans on the >> coast before the Espa where Traladarans (see the City-States) and >> Oltecs? > > We already said that the issue has not nor will ever have a satisfactory > explanation. The real answer is simply "designers didn't check or didn't > care". Exactly. There's no way one can come out with a completely consistent solution, so there's no point in claiming that one solution is ``better'' or more canon-compliant than another. > BTW I don't think that elves of Torreon speak only elvish, they speak > espan and elvish, But their native language must still be Elvish, not Espa. And since there was no great number of colonists in Torreon before 900 (the Traladaran occupied for a brief time Saragon and Almarron, but not Torreon, AFAIK), there's no reason why Torreoner elves should speak a human language (except Oltec, perhaps). > and I believe it's obvious that the same it's true > for Belcadiz (even if probably elvish for them is a secondary and > cultural language), or they will never have welcomed Erewan among them > in the past! Why then should they have Espa as their primary language? They never have elvish names. > (And do you see Erewans unite with elves that didn't even speak > elvish? It's unbeliavable IMO) Not so. They're still both elves, while everyone else around is human. > Slag (a mix of traldar and thyatian IIRC) According to the SC book, it's supposed to be Thyatian, as spoken by merchants in Slagovich. Bye, GP ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 17:18:32 +0100 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue and other "eastern" elves la Volpe wrote: The Savage Coast Elves > would belong to two different groups, the city > dwellers of Ispan culture, and the wilderness dwellers > of original Savage Coast culture. > What do you think about this idea? I'd like your ideas about Espan humans and I will use them in my history, but I still prefer all the SC elves and Glantrian belcadiz to be of the same group, for two reason, the first being that I like some of the History of Clan Alhambra of Jennifer Guerra, even if I plan to use it just a little, and the second being that I believe there is not, according to canon thyatian and elven history, the possibility that another great elven clan ever lived in Thyatis with the Vyalia. Your idea about the elves living hidden among humans is cool, but still I find much simpler to leave the elves in the Savage Coast. Anyway mine (or Andrew Theisen's) idea and yours (and others) are easily integrated if we suppose that Savage Coast elves, Vyalia, Sheyallia, Meditor and Verdier elves (all of them left Ilsundal and went east around 2300 ac) never lost contact with one another (BTW why should they? they aren't short lived humans, they have nothing to fear from long sea voyages :-). So we could have a lot of elves who came and went from Thyatis/Minrothad, Yavdlom and the Savage Coast a lot of centuries before the espan migration, and It's perfectly logical that espan developed around 100 ac and that there were many elves among the espan who settled the savage coast... bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 20:16:13 +0100 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > Not exactly: I'm adding (actually, as you noted, I'm slightly > modifying James' version, which in itself is an addition to the > existing canon): nowhere canon does say that there were never Ispan > Elves in Thyatis, while it does say that Espa arrived in the Coast in > 900. My problem is that canon tell us about the migrations of every clan of elves who ever existed and so I think it's quite illogical to assume that canon forget to mention a very big clan (we should assume 30-50.000 people to the least!) in the most important empire of the Known World :-) Sorry but canon doesn't say a lot of things, but that doesn't means that all of them would fit well in it, IMVHO :-) Anyway, you do what you like more for your Mystara, you can put what you like wherever you like and as we know there were even green aliens, anything is possible according to canon itself :-) BTW as I just wrote to LaVolpe my idea (and Andrew Theisen's) and yours could be easily integrated, at least partially.... > IMO (and for what it matters), saying that Espa arrived in 100 AC > changes known history, while adding Ispan Elves to the already > existing Ispan Thyatians only adds to known history. I didn't say that espans the people arrived in 100 ac! I just supposed that espan the language developed from 100 ac mixing thyatian and the elves/oltec native language to allow comunication between natives and traders and settlers from the east! In 900 ac the most of the thyatians came, and we can suppose they were the same kerendan people who had commercial contact with the savage coast for centuries... > Exactly. There's no way one can come out with a completely consistent > solution, so there's no point in claiming that one solution is > ``better'' or more canon-compliant than another. I don't claim mine is better or more canon compliant than the others, I just said why I didn't like yours (and others), because I don't like the idea of putting a new elven clan in Thyatis, and that's all. To me, It's too much Uncanon, yes, but that's just my opinion, and I clearly say that many times. > But their native language must still be Elvish, not Espa. And since > there was no great number of colonists in Torreon before 900 (the > Traladaran occupied for a brief time Saragon and Almarron, but not > Torreon, AFAIK), there's no reason why Torreoner elves should speak a > human language (except Oltec, perhaps). In my idea the reason is that espan existed in 100 ac yet, and they adopted it as a common language like every other people of the coast. BTW IMO no elven clan should ever adopt an human language, but as we know that Belcadiz did it, I prefer to explain that incongruence saying that espan was a common elven/human creation and not just an human one. > Why then should they have Espa as their primary language? They never > have elvish names. ? They don't have elvish name now, but maybe a thousand years ago they had. I believe that who wrote the Glantri Gaz thought that M-spanish could be a mix of elven and thyatian, and as we have M-spanish in the SC too, it's easy to think that the language was born there and the belcadiz too came from there. >> Slag (a mix of traldar and thyatian IIRC) > According to the SC book, it's supposed to be Thyatian, as spoken by > merchants in Slagovich. Thanks, well anyway Espan is not thyatian and so could easily be the mixing of thyatians and native languages... bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 21:37:57 +0100 From: Federico Kaftal Subject: Re: Vincienzo di Randazzi Just a couple of notes about his name: 1. Vincenzo (and not Vincienzo), although you possibly wrote it like that to suggest its correct spelling 2. Choose: either "Vincenzo Randazzi" or "Vincenzo di Randazzo", otherwise you're doubling the genitive (as per saying: "Vincenzo, son of Randazzo's", which would sound more or less like "Ian van Gustavsson") Ciao, Federico ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 15:30:44 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: Vincienzo di Randazzi --- Federico Kaftal wrote: > Just a couple of notes about his name: > 1. Vincenzo (and not Vincienzo), although you > possibly wrote it like that to suggest its correct > spelling > > 2. Choose: either "Vincenzo Randazzi" or "Vincenzo > di Randazzo", otherwise > you're doubling the genitive (as per saying: > "Vincenzo, son of Randazzo's", > which would sound more or less like "Ian van > Gustavsson") Interesting. My version of Glantri: Kingdom of Magic has it spelled Vincienzo di Randazzi. Maybe it's a misspelling in the English edition of the product, then? Still, good to know. Since you (pretty obviously) have a better knowledge of italian nomenclature, I think I shall take your version of things. Thanks! ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 28 Jan 2005 to 29 Jan 2005 (#2005-24) ***************************************************************