Hi Ken, I was researching TSR designers who were involved with Basic D&D, and on your fb page I happened to notice you're a member of Village Harmony. Well I was a member Village Harmony too -- Larry's Village Harmony Mettabee Chorus (short-lived due to covid). Maybe I met you if you ever visited Mettabee in Hillsdale, N.Y. (?) I attended a lot of VH workshops there.
On the D&D side of things, I do interviews with D&D designers which are hosted here (under my pen-name "Travis Henry")
We're talking about your 1992 Dragon's Den boxed set over on the Piazza message board
We have a few questions for you, which we'd love to archive at the Official Mystara website, the Vaults of Pandius:
* Any word on why the Karameikos setting apparently got changed to "Independent Nation of Greetland" for your Dragon's Den product? It seems the map is a slightly altered version of Karameikos, but with renamed place-names.
* "Greetland" is apparently the name of a real-world village in West Yorkshire. And the name "Wortley" is also from Yorkshire -- do you have a connection with Yorkshire?
* Any other insights about the origin of the placenames and personal names in the Greetland setting? (There's a list of names in the message board link above.)
* You have some impressive "Mystara credentials": GAZ2: The Emirates of Ylaruam (1987), IM3: The Best of Intentions (1987), GAZ 4: Kingdom of Ierendi (developer, 1988), GAZ7: The Northern Reaches (1988) -- any reflections on the experience overall?
* Any suggestions for what the re-named versions of Ylaruam, Ierendi, and the Northern Reaches might be in the World of Dragon's Den?
Thanks for your time!
In gratitude,
Sionainn T. Mac Innéirghe (Travis Henry)
P.S. Georgian music has been a favorite of mine—I’ve attended several workshops with Carl Linich, I supported his family album kickstarter, and I’ve (re)taught numerous Georgian songs (and the Georgian alphabet) to my own local choirs, such as at Bard College Simon’s Rock.
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Hello, Sionainn.
I don't believe we've met. But I have belonged to Village Harmony for a long time. And, among others, I love Georgian polyphony. though Corsican and South African are my favorite harmony traditions.
Concerning the 1992 Dragon's Den boxed set, I'm sorry I can't help you with your questions.
- I don't have archives of my original drafts. Or any paper prototypes.
- I dug out my archive copy of the boxed package, on the chance that I saved hardcopy of original drafts there. No luck.
- In those days I was working on the Mac platform, and none of my files from that era survive in digital OR hardcopy form.
I can't see any reason at all for location names that are not consistent with existing Karameikos setting products. That may well have happened in the TSR editorial process. I did a search for 'Greetland' on my hard drives... with no hits. None of that sounds familiar.
My only persistent reflections on my Mystara projects focus on The Northern Reaches. Which I think was pretty good, and reflective of the direction where the rest of my RPG setting projects would evolve. I love the player-facing materials in GAZ7, and the kobolds and Falun Caverns.
Thanks for giving me an occasion to dig through those old Mystara pieces. I must admit... Best of Intentions seems more like a PARANOIA experience than a D&D project.
And I was surprised and amused to learn that Lawrence Schick was the source of 'Ylaruam'. I always thought that was a Totally Made-Up Word... which never became comfortable in speech, no matter how often I tried to say it.
Concerning 'Vaults of Pandius'?
- I am gob-smacked. Impressed. And touched deeply.
- Only occasionally do I get the tiniest hint of how RPGs changed the imaginative shape of the world.
- I am enchanted beyond my conception. I am grateful, and respectful, beyond expression.
- I have set aside references to that material for future exploration.
Thanks for sharing.
Ken
Updates from Ken:
Feb. 7, 2025:
Sorry, Sionainn. I don't remember any writer's bible from Bruce Heard. And it would certainly be in digital form. And I have nothing digital from that period.
I do have a carton of miscellaneous RQ [RuneQuest] hardcopy documents from that period in the basement. I'll dig through that, in case there's anything there from my TSR work of that era.
It is also possible that I have my original GAZ7 box set. Which COULD have draft hard copies. I have no idea where that could be.
A project for my idle hours. ;^)
I'll scout the basement tomorrow.
Ken
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Feb. 8, 2025:
Okay.
I definitely have no drafts or other material from the Gazetteer development era.
I was definitely confused about a GAZ7 boxed set. Perhaps I stored my early hardcopy drafts in a re-purposed Chaosium box. ????
In any case, in 1992 I was working a lot on the Mac, using MS Word for text drafts, and doing prototype desktop publishing layouts in QuarkXpress. I got rid of my legacy Macs years ago, and all the digital documents on floppy discs.
Sorry. I wish I had more to contribute.
BTW... this?
This is AMAZING!
"Rollstone Keep = Rollstone! This is only building/settlement whose name remains unchanged between the two worlds!!!"
This is world-class investigative reporting.
Thanks and kudos to all involved!
Ken
A few reflections:
1) It seems likely(?) that Ed Greenwood coined the name "Rollstone Keep" (within the Five Shires) to be based on Ken Rolston's name.
2) Since Ken said that his recollection is that he wrote Dragon's Den to be set in Karameikos, but that it was only changed to Greetland by the editor, we can assume that the events of Dragon Den, and the iconic Rules Cyclopedia characters therein, exist parallel in both the World of Mystara and in the World of Dragon's Den. The Mystaran version just needs the placenames restored, and the slighty skewed Greetland map bent back into true Karameikan shape.
3) Ken complimented our Piazza research articles on the World of Dragon's Den (here), which includes, among other things, a proposed world map (the Time-Life Cretaceous map), and a mixed Mystaran-Krynnish cosmology. A designer's blessing!
Another version of the world map is viewable here: http://www.scotese.com/cretaceo.htm