Remnants of the Overlords Army left on Mystara
by RipvanwormerRegardless of how you feel about B3, the fanmade Adri Varma gazetteer has some races you could include as remnants of the Overlord's army: the Ungolwaith "sand folk" and the Stolari cactus people.
The original "Adri Varma" printing of B3 also has a few new monsters that were never used anywhere else, including in the later "Karameikos" version of B3, so I think it might make sense to include them as denizens of the Adri Varma plateau and possible remnants of the Overlord's army, including the hermaphroditic ubue and the otherworldly protectors.
The sand folk, Stolari, ubue, and protectors could all have been among the comparatively "friendly" races resettled in the Known World. You could just use those four, and that frees you from having to include 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition races in Mystara.
On the other hand, Dragonmage of Mystara was written in a deliberately vague way, making the following interpretations equally valid:
- 1. Nearly all of the races assembled for the Overlord's army were resettled in their original worlds, leaving only a small population of alien humans, who today are remembered in the form of odd family names like Bargle.
- 2. All of the races assembled for the Overlord's army were resettled in their original worlds except for a few dozen dragonborn, who (not having enough population to remain viable) went extinct a few generations later. A mercenary company tracing its descent from human war orphans adopted by the dragonborn calls itself the Sons of the Dragons in their honor.
- 3. Up to 20,000 dragonborn dwell in Darokin and Sind today, the descendants of those resettled in Mystara after they discovered their original homeland of Arkhosia had been reduced to the arid Desert of Desolation during their period of slavery to the Overlord. They work as mercenaries and merchants, honoring the humans who provided them with a new home.
- 4. Hundreds of alien races make their homes in small communities throughout Mystara, all of them completely nonhuman in appearance.
- 5. The few nonhuman races resettled in Mystara include alien minotaurs and thouls who discovered they were biologically compatible with their native Mystaran counterparts, who they quickly blended with.
- 6. The races resettled in Mystara have long since gone extinct, their populations either too small to remain viable or their methods of reproduction too alien to be successful on an unfamiliar world. For example, a race of plant-creatures who required a specific otherworldly insect to fertilize them, or required a hotter and denser atmosphere than Mystara's for their seed pods to burst open, or they could only spawn in a pools of water with a salinity and mineral content far greater than Mystara supplies. Or perhaps the experiments of the Overlord left them sterile.
Other possible immigrants from the Overlord War:
- Baldandar. Their illusion powers might have allowed them to pass as creatures friendly enough to be resettled.
- Bhut. As with the baldandar, they might have used their shapeshifting abilities to pass among humans.
- Mujina. As with bhuts and baldandars.
- Adaptor. Shapechangers, but legitimately non-evil and might have been resettled in good faith. The Immortal Set says their homeworld is a planet on the Astral Plane, though this is not their world of origin.
- Metamorph. Non-evil shapechangers. They might have originated on the world of Eloysia (M4 Five Coins for a Kingdom).
- Bargda. These are monsters, and likely wouldn't have passed as friendly immigrants.
- Choker. These are monsters.
- Decapus. These are monsters. Notable for appearing in B3 originally.
- Deep glaurant. Monsters.
- Diabolus. These could be friendlies, but there's not much evidence there are many on Mystara, at least not in the Multiverse Dimension.
- Hivebrood. Monsters.
- Cryion. Friendlies.
- Pachydermion. Friendlies.
- Stalwart. Friendlies.
- Rock man. Friendlies.