Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 29 Jan 2005 to 30 Jan 2005 (#2005-25) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 31/01/2005, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 9 messages totalling 546 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) (4) 2. Vincienzo di Randazzi 3. Humanoid [Canine] 4. [RW] A strange meeting (2) 5. The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) ******************************************************************** 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: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 11:16:50 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) Francesco Defferrari ha scritto: > > 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!) But canon tells us about the Belcadiz, indeed, so what's the problem? And since I'm going by James Mishler's version, there's no Ispan Elf in Thyatis itself, only in Thanegioth. > BTW as I just wrote to LaVolpe my idea (and Andrew Theisen's) and yours > could be easily integrated, at least partially.... I don't see it so easy. The Minrothad elves have no known contacts with other elves, and the Water Elves (who are supposed to move around more) are even physically much different from other elves (something that, BTW, could not happen naturally in 3000 years). Elves of the SC suffered much during the goblinoid invasion, and where certainly not able to keep contact with eastern elves. Other elves, such as the Vyalia, are quite insular. In spite of their massive migrations, elves do not seem to have an interest (or even to be able) to keep in touch across such large distances, especially when there were several catastrophic events to deal with (from the goblinoid invasions to the lycanthropic purges, the sunk of Taymora, and the fall of Nithia). >> 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 meant the language (Espa) here, indeed, not the people. Anyway, by assuming that a language had developed in 100 AC that is akin to Thyatian, you assume that some Thyatians were in the SC at least in 100 AC, which doesn't seem likely to me. > To me, It's too much > Uncanon, yes, but that's just my opinion, and I clearly say that many times. That's the point I don't really understand... I suppose it is matter of tastes, as I can't see how an elven clan in Thyatis (it wouldn't be the first, and nowhere it is said there shouldn't be one) or in the conquered lands (the Hinterlands or Thanegioth or the Isle of Dawn) would be more disruptive to canon than a set of modification to history and language. > did it, I prefer to explain that incongruence saying that espan was a common > elven/human creation and not just an human one. Then you have to modify as well Eusdrian, Ranax, and Bellaynese, since there are elves speaking all those human (and/or Rakastan) languages on the Coast. Ah, and the City-States elves are supposed to speak Slagich (Traladaran)... in the end the only elves on the Savage Coast who don't speak a human language as their primary language are those in Torreon! GP ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 11:38:21 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Vincienzo di Randazzi Andrew Theisen ha scritto: > >> 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? Yes, it is misspelled in the original (that's why I kept the misspelling in my answers), but consider that ``Vincienzo'' is a spelling that can be found in southern Italian dialects (including those represented in literature). So, it is a misspelling in Italian, but may be correct in (say) Neapolitan. Therefore one should see whether Vinc(i)enzo is supposed to represent a central-northern Italian culture (as is Caurenze) or a southern one. The surname, on the other hand, refers to a place name, so it is a double genitive as Federico said. ``Randazzo'' is a town in the Etna region, so it could be nice to put it in the Two Volcanoes Free Province (see Giovanni Porpora's work on the Free Provinces). Vinc(i)enzo family could have originally founded a village near Mt. Naetius (one of the two volcanoes). Bye, GP ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:50:44 -0000 From: Jon Cole Subject: Re: Humanoid [Canine] :-) No Orcs - formatting was just a bit screwed IMHO Ogres and Trolls could be Monsterous Humanoids - which leaves the Giant Sub-set for just Giants (and seeing as AC10 deals with Giants as a particularly interesting set of creatures might well be appropriate.) Also, while playing some Eberon yesterday I noticed there wasnt a Shapechanger favoured enemy slot, so I'm thinking of introducing a specific Lycanthrope one for my game (once a gain an important group in KW culture.) Jon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Havard Faanes" To: Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 3:17 PM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] 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 > > ******************************************************************** > 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: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:14:48 +0100 From: la Volpe Subject: [RW] A strange meeting Yesterday evening I went with two girl-friends of mine to Bologna, a city 40 km east of Modena, where I currently live. We were to meet with the boyfriend of one of my friends, a boy named Gabriele. I had met him a couple of times before, and he had invited us to join him yesterday to drink and eat something in a tavern in the city (Bologna is full of taverns, the famous "osterie"). I knew he played RPGs, because a common friend had told me he did; and yesterday we casually came to speak about that, because he said "tomorrow (this evening) I'm going to role-play with my friends" and I said "oh, really? I'm going too!". Then I asked him: "what campaign setting?" and he said "Mystara!". And I told him: "oh...I am currently playing in two campaigns, one is Ravenloft and the other is Mystara! cool! Mystara is the best...do you know about the Mystara Mailing List?" "yes, I have been a member some years ago!" "sorry, but...what's your surname?" "Ferri!" So I discovered I was speaking with the same Gabriele Ferri that maaany years ago was writing on the MML about the M-Orient Project. You can still find an article on humanoid barbarians of the east in the Vaults...he remembered Marco Dalmonte and Fabrizio Paoli and some other members of the list too...and he promised to me he'll get back to the list. And given the fact that I am a good friend of his girlfriend, I'll keep in touch with him and remind him if he doesn't!!! Giulio ___________________________________ Nuovo Yahoo! Messenger: E' molto più divertente: Audibles, Avatar, Webcam, Giochi, Rubrica… Scaricalo ora! http://it.messenger.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 19:16:35 +0100 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > That's the point I don't really understand... I suppose it is matter > of tastes, as I can't see how an elven clan in Thyatis (it wouldn't > be the first, and nowhere it is said there shouldn't be one) or in the > conquered lands (the Hinterlands or Thanegioth or the Isle of Dawn) > would be more disruptive to canon than a set of modification to > history and language. I don't think there is an exact corrispondence between RW languages and Mystara languages, and I think that trying to create one now will only mess too much with canon. BTW as I already said any idea of the Belcadiz coming from the KW area change canon history a lot more than my and Andrew Theisen's idea, and It's clearly so, and sorry but even if you like some hypothesis more than others you should be able to see that. There is a BIG difference between assuming that some ships with traders and settlers came and went in a 1500 years period and assuming that there were 50.000 elves in the HUMAN espan migration of 900 ac! The first thing could have slipped to canon chronology, but the second no! RW history books could forget to mention that italian traders came and went to the black sea area for centuries, but someone would have noticed if there were 50.000 africans among the Normans invading england in 1066 AC! Anyway if you don't mind or see the difference I'll not get upset :-) we'll keep each his own mystaran history :-) > Then you have to modify as well Eusdrian, Ranax, and Bellaynese, since > there are elves speaking all those human (and/or Rakastan) languages > on the Coast. Ah, and the City-States elves are supposed to speak > Slagich (Traladaran)... in the end the only elves on the Savage Coast > who don't speak a human language as their primary language are those > in Torreon! I never said that espan is an elven language, my and Andrew Theisen's idea is simply that espan is a mix of various languages, particullary thyatian and elves, probably, with a bit of oltec, traldar, dwarven, tortles and the Immortal only knows what more. A mixed language who developed from 100 ac to the present, becoming more and more thyatian-like with the influx of the humans, mostly traldars, coming from 400-450 ac and the later influx of others humans, mostly thyatians, coming in 900 ac. BTW when dwarves settled in the SC around 500 bc they surely came by ship (I find quite impossible to think that they travelled by land crossing ice covered and humanoid infested Glantri, the Black Mountains and Hule...) and that would be thyatians and halfling ships not dwarven ships. Likewise when traldars came around 450 bc they probably needed trade and passagge and so used thyatians, minrothaddans and ierendians ships. Contacts between KW and SC were so many in the last 1500 years to justify a continual flow of trade and settlers and so the need of a common language, like happened in the KW. Simply the people of the savage coast forged their version of common thyatian: espan, a sort of thyatian with a lot of local languages influences... Probably they took the easterners as models of the utility of a common language, being the SC so fragmented in populations, cultures and languages, and so used a lot of thyatian developing espan. Obviously that was useful to communicate with foreign traders too. So Torreon elves speak simply their nation's language as do the Eusdrian, Bellaynese and so on... bye Francesco ______________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: 6MB di spazio gratuito, 30MB per i tuoi allegati, l'antivirus, il filtro Anti-spam http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/?http://it.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 20:13:00 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) Francesco Defferrari ha scritto: > > I don't think there is an exact corrispondence between RW languages and > Mystara languages, and I think that trying to create one now will only mess > too much with canon. Maybe, but that's not the point: Espa is closely related to Thyatian not because they're Spanish and Latin, but because the SC book (i.e., canon) says so. > BTW as I already said any idea of the Belcadiz coming > from the KW area change canon history a lot more than my and Andrew > Theisen's idea, and It's clearly so, and sorry but even if you like some > hypothesis more than others you should be able to see that. I did not say that the Belcadiz came from the KW. They came from beyond the Sea of Dread (which is what canon says -- the Hinterlands, Thanegioth and the IoD all fulfill the requirement). Note that Glantri GAZ does mention the Belcadiz migration (note that at the time there were several migrations of the size of the Belcadiz from Thyatis and Traladara to Glantri, so who would care about some elves?), even though it does not specify where exactly they came from. And it would not specify that the Belcadiz came from beyond the sea if it meant First or Second Migration, since *all* elves, by that count, come from beyond the sea. It seems to me that it must refer to the return of the Belcadiz to Glantri, which they left at the time of the glantrian catastrophe. > Anyway if you don't mind or see the difference I'll not get upset :-) > we'll keep each his own mystaran history :-) Of course. Still, I'll point out that canon does not exhaust Mystaran history, since it is not conceived as an history book. > I never said that espan is an elven language, But you (or, more generally, people who give Espa some Elven origin) do subscribe to the idea that elves should not be speaking some language which is not at least in part of Elven origin. My point is that Elves do speak human languages as native tongue, so one more language (Espa) does not change much. Bye, GP ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 23:56:53 +0100 From: Havard Faanes Subject: Re: [RW] A strange meeting That is funny Giulio, It is a small world isnt it? You gotta make sure he keeps to his promise about rejoining the list :) Håvard --- la Volpe skrev: > Yesterday evening I went with two girl-friends of > mine > to Bologna, a city 40 km east of Modena, where I > currently live. We were to meet with the boyfriend > of > one of my friends, a boy named Gabriele. I had met > him > a couple of times before, and he had invited us to > join him yesterday to drink and eat something in a > tavern in the city (Bologna is full of taverns, the > famous "osterie"). > > I knew he played RPGs, because a common friend had > told me he did; and yesterday we casually came to > speak about that, because he said "tomorrow (this > evening) I'm going to role-play with my friends" and > I > said "oh, really? I'm going too!". Then I asked him: > "what campaign setting?" and he said "Mystara!". And > I > told him: "oh...I am currently playing in two > campaigns, one is Ravenloft and the other is > Mystara! > cool! Mystara is the best...do you know about the > Mystara Mailing List?" "yes, I have been a member > some > years ago!" "sorry, but...what's your surname?" > "Ferri!" > > So I discovered I was speaking with the same > Gabriele > Ferri that maaany years ago was writing on the MML > about the M-Orient Project. You can still find an > article on humanoid barbarians of the east in the > Vaults...he remembered Marco Dalmonte and Fabrizio > Paoli and some other members of the list too...and > he > promised to me he'll get back to the list. And given > the fact that I am a good friend of his girlfriend, > I'll keep in touch with him and remind him if he > doesn't!!! > > Giulio > > > > ___________________________________ > Nuovo Yahoo! Messenger: E' molto più divertente: > Audibles, Avatar, Webcam, Giochi, Rubrica… Scaricalo > ora! > http://it.messenger.yahoo.it > > ******************************************************************** > 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: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 00:05:09 +0100 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > Maybe, but that's not the point: Espa is closely related to Thyatian not > because they're Spanish and Latin, but because the SC book (i.e., canon) > says so. I agree that Espan and Thyatian are related, It's just that I disagree with the idea that Belcadiz didn't came from the SC. They are spanish-like, SC has spanish-like elves, so it's simply 2+2 :-) Yeah I know: they left before the espan came to the SC, then that means that espan existed before 900 ac. It's that simply for me, I always like the simpler solution :-) > I did not say that the Belcadiz came from the KW. They came from > beyond the Sea of Dread (which is what canon says -- the Hinterlands, > Thanegioth and the IoD all fulfill the requirement). Note that Glantri > GAZ does mention the Belcadiz migration (note that at the time there > were several migrations of the size of the Belcadiz from Thyatis and > Traladara to Glantri, so who would care about some elves?), even > though it does not specify where exactly they came from. And it would > not specify that the Belcadiz came from beyond the sea if it meant > First or Second Migration, since *all* elves, by that count, come > from beyond the sea. It seems to me that it must refer to the return > of the Belcadiz to Glantri, which they left at the time of the > glantrian catastrophe. IIRC Bruce Heard devised both Belcadiz elves and the SC: probably he thought that Belcadiz came from Davania when he first wrote Gaz3, but didn't bother to write a detailed history for them. Later developing the SC he created another M-spanish culture, and I believe he devised the Espan lands as a Belcadiz homeland, but unfortunately he never wrote it, maybe because he wasn't able to come up with a good solution. Anyway using other lands beyond Davania and the SC itself means to complicate things a lot, IMHO, and I don't think that a thyatian-thanegioth origin for the Belcadiz was ever in the intentions of the original author, nor any other origin from the KW; because if he thought that Belcadiz came from somewhere in the KW (and Thanegioth it's KW as appeared in the expert set) he would have simply say so. Why not to tell from where the belcadiz came from? because they were not from the KW. Maybe he just thought that the Belcadiz came from Davania, left some of them in the Savage Coast and both groups developed a sort of M-spanish with different thyatian influences. Obviously I could be wrong, but I don't think that any mystaran developer ever bothered to create cultures and languages that were consistent with RW languages affinity, (and Bruce Heard to the least) and I don't think that doing now a similar things could work well for Mystara... > Of course. Still, I'll point out that canon does not exhaust Mystaran > history, since it is not conceived as an history book. Sure, but I don't like to add too big pieces of history to it :-) And for me adding one noble family here and there isn't something big, nor it's adding some traders and settlers going to and from, but would be big adding a new kingdom in the last centuries of the Kw or a big clan of elves in a place where it was never mentioned... bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 17:57:40 -0800 From: Andrew Theisen Subject: Re: The Belcadiz Issue (was: Mini-Gaz - Baronia de Torreon) --- Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > I did not say that the Belcadiz came from the KW. > They came from beyond the Sea of Dread (which is what > canon says... Note that Glantri GAZ does mention the > Belcadiz migration... even though it does not specify > where exactly they came from. This is actually covered in Gaz5, in the history section, pg. 6- "the Belcadiz elves of Glantri claim to be descendants of a similar group who left the southern continent some 300 years after Ilsundal." So they are from that second migration that meets up with the Ilsundal migration around the Serpent Peninsula c. 2300 BC. > > I never said that espan is an elven language, > > But you (or, more generally, people who give Espa > some Elven origin) do subscribe to the idea that > elves should not be speaking some language > which is not at least in part of Elven origin. > My point is that Elves do speak human languages as > native tongue, so one more language (Espa) does not > change much. Not to speak for Francesco, but for my part, I don't subscribe to the idea of elves needing to speak a language that has to be part elven. I figure they speak elven *and* Espa (as their "common" tongue). I just figured Espa was part elvish, not because otherwise elves wouldn't speak it, but to explain its linguistic origins- the native culture of the Savage Baronies is described in various sources as a mix of Oltec, Nithian, and elvish, so I figured the native language probably was a blend of same. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 29 Jan 2005 to 30 Jan 2005 (#2005-25) ***************************************************************