Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 10 Feb 2006 to 11 Feb 2006 (#2006-24) From: MYSTARA-L automatic digest system Date: 12/02/2006, 19:00 To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There is 1 message totalling 110 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Alphaks (was: Flaems...) ******************************************************************** 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: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 10:41:45 +0100 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: Alphaks (was: Flaems...) Joaquin Menchaca wrote: > Very cool stuff. > What I was wondering some things: > (1) What of Earth and Water elemental factions? In OAY 1803 of my Old Alphatia history, I wrote that " Pelasgia was now a province of the Atlantian empire. Most of the water magic prohibited, their nation conquered and destroyed, the Pelasgian culture began to fade in a bitter fatalism." " The greatest earth wizards of Gaia fled in the plane of earth, refusing to swear loyalty to the Atlantian emperor. " So I supposed that earth and water magic lost importance in the ancient empire, and part of them was nearly forgotten. Later I wrote too " Earth and Water magic survived in Alphatia, but much fewer than in the old empire". Anyway IMC the knowledge of earth and water magic in New Alphatia were enough to build wondrous things like Citadel and Aquas, but I believe that in Old Alphatia "mountain cities" and "underwater cities" were everywhere in the territories of Gaians and Pelasgians. I believe anyway that the Atlantean emperors didn't want to allow the formation of earth and water elemental factions, because earth and water wizards had fought the air wizards of the empire to the last man and to bitter ends in the past. > (2) Weren't the fire and air sects sort of equals in > the presented canon material. There was a dispute, > and war irrupted once fire was declared superior, as I > recalled. > In your presentation, it seems fire is the underdog, > contrasting into canon presentation of them being > equal. I don't think that fire was the underdog in the dispute, but I think that air magic was predominant until the last centuries of the empire. The simple fact that a fire faction was born and survived was the proof that the government of the Atlantean (air) emperors has become less strict and tyrannical. This happened mostly because the cypric culture, once conquered, has become in the years as important as the atlantean culture. But I believe that the fire faction still had a great desire of revenge for all the centuries when the air faction was the dominant one. The collision between the air faction arrogance and the fire faction rage provoked the war and the end of the planet. > (3) How were the factions organized and how did the > war happen or take place? Were there various nations > united that dissolved into war? House aligned to > political ideals? or just philosophical groups? > > Was the war like terrorism, random acts of violence by > billigerent factions, or random chaos in the streets, > something like Ireland setting? Was there rebel > forces, gorilla warfare, resistance movements? Or > major nations with demarkated regions that would move > into civilized (or uncivilized) combat? > > Was there magical conquest, like taking over nodes of > fire and using magics to convert them to nodes of air > to fuel their mana base? (like that old Civ-like game > Masters of Magic) I believe it's quite clear reading DotE that the destruction of Alphatia happened after a real full-scale war, that probably lasted some years and provoked thousands or millions of deaths. I believe too that it was an exclusively magical war, because all ancient alphatians were wizards, and so we should not imagine a war of armies deployed in the plains but something more like a modern war of helicopters, hit and run tactics and similar things, with the use of magical weapons of mass destruction too (remember that old alphatian magic was very very powerful, and able to create earthquakes, volcanoes and worst things). I like your idea of magical nodes, maybe the alphatian cities and town were builded upon this nodes, so to take them you had to take (or destroy) the city too. > Just some thoughts. I would have been nice to see > some presentation of culture (in the original > material), ideas for more complex magic, or a way to > understand how a world would exist (be like high-tech > world) through magic, including commerce, convience, > entertainment, etc. Also, I so so wish they had maps > of the world. :) I think Old Alphatia was a sort of high-tech world where everything were done with magic and magical servants, and the wizards had more or less nothing to do, so the zzonga and the pointless philosophical debates. Maybe they had a sort of elemental class of servants, that could have survived somewhere in the universe. I plan to draw a map of Old Alphatia since many years, I'll try to summon the will (and the time) to do it now :-) bye Francesco ___________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it ******************************************************************** 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 - 10 Feb 2006 to 11 Feb 2006 (#2006-24) ***************************************************************