Editorial

The thirty-fifth issue of Mystara’s premier magazine focuses on the most magical nation of the Known World.

The Principalities of Glantri, has been one of the most favorite Mystaran locations after Karameikos since the publication of the namesake Gazetteer 3^¹ by Bruce Heard back in 1987. And what’s not to love in the nation of wizards? There is magic, intrigues, secret societies, monster hunting and plenty of villains, often including the Princes themselves.

The Wrath of the Immortals and the Glantri: Kingdom of Magic boxed sets and the Poor Wizard’s Almanacs continued to expand and explore the country, introducing new elements and a new, terrible archenemy, Dolores of Hillsbury a.k.a. Synn the Night Dragon, introduced by Bruce Heard himself in the Chronicles of the Princess Ark published in Dragon Magazine.

Building from all this fantastic canon material, Mystara fans have created a lot more as we’ll showcase in this issue of THRESHOLD. We’ll start with Robin’s Plans of the Great School of Glantri City to illustrate the detailed description she has made of the most famous wizardry school in Mystara. Then Wing of Coot will introduce us to the Basics of the Radiance and Cab to Golems of Glantri. Demos will lead us to explore The Forgotten Reign of Baron Elktazar in the past of Glantri, then we’ll take a good look at the fantastic Fan Production made for Glantri by Robin, Micky, Aoz, Kit Navarro and many others.

We continue with my article on the Future of Mystara part 2 examining the events of the canon and fan Almanacs, this time focusing on Aengmor and elves, Broken Lands and humanoids, Darokin, Ethengar and Glantri. The editor of the planned AC 1020 Almanac, Hausman, then describes in A Crown to Synn the incoming battle for the future of Glantri.

The next set of articles, The Memory Gap by Trevor Holman, Vancian Magic by Lance Duncan and Weapon Mastery for Magical Items by Cab focus instead on variant rules and expansions for Magic, the other theme of this issue.

Meg’s Mystaran Cookbook by Cab, The Mystaran Tarot by Fearghus and The Mystery of Oisar part 2 by Jim RGF are instead articles on different themes, as is usual in each issue, three interesting gems which give even more life to our beloved world of Mystara that, as we can see from the continuing quality and quantity of fan production, is still very much alive.

This issue, like many others previously, sports many beautiful illustrations by Jeffrey Kosh, who has drawn so many great pictures that we had to hold back several for the next issue. Special thanks also to Senarch and many of the authors who helped us greatly by providing some nice AI or searching for suitable Commons images!

Soon we’ll begin working on issue #36, which will be dedicated to Adventures and Modules, a theme chosen by Mystara fans with a poll on The Piazza forum. The theme for issue #37 has been chosen as well, Villages and Towns, but we’ll soon run another poll to choose issue #38’s theme.

To join the next issues as authors or illustrators please send your proposal to the THRESHOLD mail (check Submission guidelines and mail on the last page of the issue) or write in the Call for Contributors thread for issue #36 which will soon appear in The Piazza forum.
Even though we usually have no shortage of articles, we always need help for proofreading and editing the submissions. So anyone willing to help the THRESHOLD Editorial Team please come forward and let us know through the mail or in the Call for Contributors for issue #36 thread at The Piazza. Helping THRESHOLD Magazine certainly needs some time commitment, but is creative and rewarding work.

The THRESHOLD Editorial Team and the authors hope you will enjoy reading this new issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together, and stay tuned for the next issue!

Francesco Defferrari (Sturm)

THRESHOLD Editorial Team

Editors Emeriti

Editing, Issue #35

Layout

Art

Allan Palmer – AI and Commons
Cab Davidson – AI and Original photographs
Fearghus O’Rourke – AI (modified) and Commons

Francesco Defferrari (Sturm) – AI and Commons
Jeffrey Kosh – Original
Jim RGF – AI
LadyofHats – Original from Commons
Sebastien (Senarch) – AI (modified)
Trevor Holman – AI
V Shane – Stock, Original
William McAusland – Stock, Original

Cartography

Additional Reviewing & Proofreading

Allan Palmer (a.k.a. AllanP) was first introduced to D&D a long time ago (but not quite in a galaxy far away) by a work colleague who set up a gaming group using the last version of the “blue book” rules. While dabbling with RuneQuest and Traveller along the way, he developed a liking for what would become the world of Mystara as the BECMI box sets were released. He has always been fascinated by maps. He is an IT professional and when not indulging in hobbies of panelology, retro tv watching and family history research, uses his various PC skills to consolidate the writings of others into the issues of THRESHOLD.

Aoz (Mark Crosby) is an avid role-playing game enthusiast and active contributor to The Piazza. His love for Dungeons & Dragons began with B/X and has only deepened over time, despite occasionally mixing up edition rules. Aoz is particularly drawn to the rich lore of Mystara and has actively engaged in various Glantrian projects. He has dozens of articles in the Vaults: https://pandius.com/aoz.html from Old Wizards, Economics of Spellcraft, New Baronies, Foods of the Broken Lands, The Adventure Guild, a New Immortal, Seashell Ambassador, The Bone Bandit, spells, some magic items and much more. Along with a few side projects he is currently working on.

Cab Davidson lives and works in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and as well as running his regular D&D campaign (from which his material published here derives) he also enjoys adapting historical recipes to modern tastes.

Demos Sachlas is a past contributor to THRESHOLD Magazine. He ran a nine-year campaign based in the Principalities of Glantri, from 1987 to 1996, for which a lengthy campaign journal exists. Sachlas is active on many of the online forums and social media groups dedicated to the Old School Renaissance and Mystara, in particular. He delves into the historical roots of the hobby on his blog, the OSR Grimoire (https://osrgrimoire.blogspot.com).

Fearghus O’Rourke has been playing and running RPGs since the late 80’s and Mystara has always been his first love. To this day he considers the Rules Cyclopedia the most complete game system ever written. Currently running a 5e campaign in Mystara online for some old college buddies that actually manages to meet most weeks.

Hausman Santos has been an enthusiast in Mystara since 1995 when he met in Brazil the D&D Easy-Way Black Box and in 96 the AD&D boxed set of Karameikos. He has narrated game groups in Thyatis, Alphatia, Rockhome and Glantri since then (since 2002). In addition to producing articles for the Vaults of Pandius (since 2008) and THRESHOLD Magazine (since 2015), he manages a page for Mystara Brazilian fans on the internet.

Lately he has been working as an editor on the continuation of the Mystaran Almanac fanon project along with well-known former Almanac Team and former TSR writers on the old and unfinished plotlines in order to resume them.

Hervé Musseau, a former editor of the Mystaran Almanac, is now helping shape THRESHOLD Magazine.

Jeffrey Kosh is the pen name of a writer and graphic artist specialized in book covers and movie posters. He collaborates with various publishing companies and authors. His covers range from dark horror to space opera, from thrillers to fantasy. Inspired by great fantasy artists, such as Clyde Caldwell, Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson, and more, Kosh likes vibrant colors and heavy use of light and a dark contrast. His graphic tends to be moody and evocative. He also likes to work on ‘era-specific’ movie posters and book covers, trying to recreate the style used in those years, from the 1920s to the 1990s. As a writer he has been published various times.

Jim RGF has been playing and dungeon mastering D&D games on Mystara since 1982. He fell in love with the setting at a young age and particularly loves Alphatia, Shadow Elves and Nithian magic-users. He is beginning to write stories set in this wonderful world and loves to teach others about it. He has created a YouTube channel called Raise Game Fully where he showcases parts of D&D that aren’t as well known. His ongoing video series on Mystara is aimed at helping newer players realize how amazing the setting truly is. He lives in New England with his wife and sons.

Lance Duncan (aka Wangalade) started playing D&D with his father using the BECMI boxed sets. With his sisters and brother, he explored the caverns of Quasqeton and the Caves of Chaos and the Isle of the Hideous One, eventually discovering the lost valley and journeying to the faraway land of Hule to defeat the Master. Though he has explored many different games (Alternity being a favorite), he has always come back to Mystara and D&D. His current D&D campaign is set some 30-odd years after the events of that original campaign; the known world of Dracopolis reflects how Mystara was presented by his father with the limited resources of the box sets and a few adventure modules.

Robin (at The Piazza, Robin D elsewhere) Female from 1962, she began playing D&D since its earliest days as far back as 1978, soon after becoming “addicted”. Ultimately, she was intimately bound to the world of Mystara, because of its complex diversity. A current compiler of massive materials available on the Vaults of Pandius & her “Breath of Mystara” blog; and former Teacher of Biology, Ecology, Chemistry, Physics, once travelling all over Europe as a stage dancer including house parties. Once called “The Fletcher” at UK GenCon by Bruce Heard for her extensive compilation in “Revenge of the Little Ones”.

Sebastien Martineau (Senarch) started playing D&D again in early 2022, and dusted off his prized GAZ1, promptly falling in love with Mystara again. He combines Daz, Ai and digital painting in his artworks, and has started drawing again. Some of his work can be found here: https://www.deviantart.com/senarch/gallery and he can be contacted here: senarchpublishing@gmail.com

Even though Sturm (a.k.a. Francesco Defferrari) loves any alternate world, he believes Mystara is incomparably the best for its vibrant community endlessly delving into ethnography, linguistics and history just to make a little sense of it. Something like the real world, but with dragons.

Trevor Holman has been a designer and web developer for nearly 30 years, playing RPG and War games since he was a kid. He currently creates artwork for other game companies.

Wings of Coot: found the old red box Basic set at about 8, and that classic solo adventure was my introduction to D&D and the entire concept of RPGs. A few years after graduating from college I got back into D&D, and soon after that I found the Piazza and discovered the modern online Mystara community and THRESHOLD magazine. I have always had an interest in the exotic aspects of Mystara (Immortals and the multiverse, Hollow World, unusual PC types, etc.) so the Radiance has always been fascinating.

The THRESHOLD editorial team invites all fans of the Mystara setting to submit contributions to the magazine’s next issue.

Issue #36—Adventures and Modules

The first issue of 2025 will gather interesting experiences to throw at your party!

Issue #37—Villages and Towns

The second issue of 2025 will focus on the small and not-so-small communities of Mystara.

Articles about other topics are still welcome and the editorial team will evaluate their publication for any upcoming issue, taking into account available space and the issue’s theme.

THRESHOLD accepts and invites submissions of extended or revised versions of works having appeared on The Piazza or Vaults of Pandius.

Contributions may include, but are not limited to: Articles—short stories, short adventure modules, NPCs, historical treatises and timelines, geographical entries, new monsters and monster ecologies, etc.; and Illustrations—portraits, maps, heraldry, illustrations, etc.

The THRESHOLD editorial team strives for edition neutrality, but edition-specific articles (e.g., conversions) are also accepted. Statistics for new monsters and NPCs may be included in articles (e.g., adventure modules, new monsters or NPCs) in any version of Dungeons & Dragons. The editorial team also offers help in providing conversions to some specific rules set, including BECMI/RC, 2nd Edition, 3rd edition/Pathfinder. However, they should be limited to a minimum—for most NPCs, it is sufficient to mention class, level, and alignment. For important NPCs, a one- or two-line stats block may be included.

Issue #36—Adventures and Modules

The first issue of 2025 will gather interesting experiences to throw at your party!

Anticipated contents include:

In this new issue of THRESHOLD Magazine we travel to the land of the wizard Princes, home of the Radiance, the Great School, playground for adventurers, scheming nobles and terrible villains! With the authors of this issue we’ll walk in the halls of the Great School of Magic, meet golems, wizards, and explore the characters, the past and the future of Glantri. We’ll also have some extra time for a Mystaran cookbook and a Mystaran Tarot.

1Most of the material in this issue is indeed based on the great work done by Bruce Heard. The original Gazetteer can be bought at the DriveThruRPG site here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/16975/gaz3-the-principalities-of-glantri-basic. Glantri was the focus of another official product in the AD&D Mystara line, the Glantri: Kingdom of Magic boxed set, which is also available here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17553/glantri-kingdom-of-magic-2e