http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/Periodicals/Imagine.html
Now, my question:
Anybody knows what the 6 D&D scenarios of the special issue of 1984 were about?
Most important of all: do they contain any valuable hint about Mystara setting (such as descriptions of towns, kingdoms, monsters, etc.)?
I think D&D Imagine Magazine stuff should be considered official. After all, Imagine Magazine was a TSR publication, describing the old D&D world when it was first shaped with Expert and Companion sets. And, if I remember correctly, the English section of TSR did a very good job about setting modules...
Thanks for any help ;)
I think D&D Imagine Magazine stuff should be considered official. After all, Imagine Magazine was a TSR publication, describing the old D&D world when it was first shaped with Expert and Companion sets. And, if I remember correctly, the English section of TSR did a very good job about setting modules...
Yes, but apparently (I gather this from the web page you linked) Imagine had its own campaign setting. So while the material would be official, it would not necessarily be related to Mystara.
Yes, but apparently (I gather this from the web page you linked) Imagine had its own campaign setting. So while the material would be official, it would not necessarily be related to Mystara.
Does anyone have any more detail on Pellinore? Would it exist somewhere within Mystara's cosmology?
Although the same issue of Imagine introduces Pellinore, the cover does not reveal whether the scenarios are set there or elsewhere.
Håvard
I think I've got some info on Pellinore at home, or at least a link to better info. If I remember correctly Pellinore is a flat world, so I don't think it would fit very well as part of the Prime Material plane that Mystara is in, but perhaps as a related plane/alternate Prime Material.
Not necessarily. IIRC, one of the planets that orbit around the same sun as Mystara was a flatword (a semisphere, inhabited on the flat surface).
Good setting, grittier than Mystara. I've played with the GM thingies that came out after TSR canned Imagine (early TSR politics responsible for that) and which were set in Pelinore.
Does anyone have any more detail on Pellinore? Would it exist somewhere within Mystara's cosmology?
Although the same issue of Imagine introduces Pellinore, the cover does not reveal whether the scenarios are set there or elsewhere.
Here is a list of info about official Pelinore products (with a brief description of this setting) I managed to collect on the web:
Hint 1): There is a general description of the setting from a guy who intend to run a mail-campaign in it (he still runs an active forum on it, you can find it here: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/pelinorecampaign/).
Here is an extract of what I found from a cache webpage he used for introducing Pelinore setting (unluckily, the original website is down):
The World of Pelinore was first invented by the staff of TSR UK in 1984, and was published in issues 16-30 of Imagine magazine, as well as in all five issues of Game Master Publications. It is, in my opinion, an extrodinarily rich and interesting campaign world, that manages to hold a distinctive fantasy feeling whilst supporting low-power campaigns - there are very few high-level NPC's.
The closest analogy to the campaign is Middle Ages Europe, but one where law and order are far more perilous. There are areas that are analogues of other regions, but the campaign will principally take place in two areas - the City League, and the County of Cerwyn. The City League is a massive city, over a League across (hence the name)... The County of Cerwyn is the land surrounding the city-state, a land facing numerous perils from within and without, surrounded by enemies who would do anything to conquer Cerwyn. After a recent dynastic crisis, a fifteen-year-old girl sits perilously on her throne - if ever a land needed heroes, Cerwyn does.
Naturally, the Pelinore campaign will use the OD&D rules.
Hint 2): Someone Mark Bertenshaw on Dragonsfoot made a list of known "official supplements" for Pelinore's world. Unluckily (again) the original thread on Dragonsfoot is not in place anymore: I got this list from a cache copy of a 2003 discussion on our forum (which, as you may guess, is down, too).
The original section of the WOTC forum containing the thread was this:
Wizards.COMmunity Boards > Other Roleplaying Worlds > Other Worlds Related Topics > D&D Out of Print > TSR's Pelinore Campaign
See if you manage to find it (I failed).
IMAGINE MAGAZINE:
#22 - Gibbet Street
#25 - The Gibbet and the Mask- Poles
#26 - Mask Workshop
#27 - Mandren the Lunatic
#28 - Weaponsmiths
#29 - The Friendly Neighbours
#30 - Citizens of Beggars Alley
There are another two pages: "Guilds in the City League" and "Monster Money" - the latter being rules for "bring them back alive".
IMAGINE SPECIAL EDITION #1:
This is an essential Pelinore issue. It contains reprints of adventures from previous issues:
The Beacon at Enon Tor
The Taking of Siandabhair
Jack of All Trades
The Guardian to the Key to Time
Black Roses
Round the Bend
What's really important about this issue is that the inner front cover has a colour map of the area immediately around the City League: the County of Cerwyn. "Beacon...", "Guardian...", and "Jack..." are all located on this map. The back inner cover has a smaller scale colour map of "The Domains", which are the countries around Cerwyn (with a nice blank space to the south east).
There is also a five page article which is essentially a gazetteer relating to the two maps included.
GAME MASTER PUBLICATIONS #1:
Masterion - the perenial enemy [#100]
It's A Living - Economics in Pelinore
The Ranger Batallion
Feature scenario: A Flight of Eagles
The Hive Brood (Brief Encounter) [The monsters later appeared in the Creature Catalog!!]
GAME MASTER PUBLICATIONS #5:
Pelinore
Questions & Answers [Sages]
The Midnight Monastery [#84]
Hint 3): More detailed info about Pelinore in Game Master Publications are here: http://asta-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/users/afterglo/rpg/nontsr/others_ak/
Here I copied the interesting part of the webpage:
GAME MASTER PUBLICATIONS:
This was a module magazine like Tortured Souls, published by ex-TSR UK employees after TSR USA closed down Imagine magazine, which was, at that time (1985) very popular in England. Only five issues were published, the people involved later worked as game designers for Games Workshop and brought us Blood Bowl. Perhaps not well known in the US, but these are very common items in England.
A typical 64-page issue of GMP looked like this: fourty pages with the main adventure, one or two short encounters no longer than five pages each, game reviews (mostly xD&D), a cartoon and a letter section.
GMP 1 - A Flight of Eagles, for levels 4-7, written by Simon Forrest.
GMP 2 - Find the Lady, an adventure by Graeme Davis (well-known writer of TSR UK back in those days). A low-level adventure in which the party is supposed to find some stolen jewels, and a missing lady.
GMP 3 - In Search of New Gods, authored by Paul Cockburn. A group of mid-level characters has to find out what made a priestly expedition return as missionaries of a wholly foreign religion.
GMP 4 - The Awakening, designed by Simon Forrest and intended for levels 7 upwards, it begins with the party supposed to guard a dwarven clan's delving and the young and infirm therein while the rest of the clan is off bashing in goblin's heads. Alas, they get more to do than they had hoped for...
GMP 5 - Rod of Seraillan, adventure for character levels 6-9 by Carl Sargent. The plots revolves about retrieving a holy staff from an evil temple that was supposed to have been deserted...but surely isn't. A handful of well- described NPCs may make this an enjoyable adventure.
All the adventures described above can be set in the Pelinore
Hint 4): Some info about marketing problems of Imagine Magazine and Pelinore may be found in this long interview with G. Gygax done by Alessandro Sacco in 2004. Here is the link:
http://www.atlasofadventure.com/Archive/gygaxinterview.asp
Conclusion:
Pelinore seems to be a OD&D world, described in a small extension of land, with a proper history.
It could be located on some planet in Mystara's universe, otherwise I think it would be possible to place it in some really uncharted area of Mystara (think about the region Southern Izonda/Pelatan/Ice Peaks which is utterly blank).
Anyway, this was not my original question :P
Well, actually I am searching for D&D info in Imagine Magazine, not related to Pelinore. I think (well, I hopre) that the 6 scenarios in the special issue has nothing to do with Pelinore settings, describing exclusively some OD&D adventures.
But then you found this:
IMAGINE SPECIAL EDITION #1:
This is an essential Pelinore issue. It contains reprints of adventures from previous issues:
So this answers your question. The six adventures are set in Pelinore.
Pelinore seems to be a OD&D world, described in a small extension of land, with a proper history.
It could be located on some planet in Mystara's universe, otherwise I think it would be possible to place it in some really uncharted area of Mystara (think about the region Southern Izonda/Pelatan/Ice Peaks which is utterly blank).
If Lord Aran remembers correctly, and Pelinore is a flatword, then the first possibility is more likely.
Anyway, there's no reason why all OD&D campaigns should fit in the same planet or even universe.
BTW, Southern Izonda, Pelatan, etc. are not so empty. If you look at the migration chart in Champions of Mystara, we know e.g. that Neathar tribes migrated there in 800 BC.
Of course there's plenty of space in Mystara -- southwestern Davania, but also several areas of western Brun and Skothar are not covered by "canonic" descriptions, but this doesn't mean that other settings should be pasted there (in general, of course individual DMs will mix and match settings).
I didn't read carefully the 6 adventure's titles in the special issue of Imagine Magazine: they were previously reported as D&D adventures, but lately they were set in Pelinore.
I'm not very interested in bringing Pelinore in Mystara's world, even if it would be surely possible (if Pelinore is flat, anyway, I think it should be located elsewhere...). Maybe it should be considered a place like Thunder Rift: a generical setting where to use OD&D rules.
Thanks for your help, really. ;)
Beacon is quite fun actually, it was in Imagine issue 1 and is designed as a simple introuctory adventure for new PCs and it is a Basic D&D adventure. Jack of all trades debuted the Thief-Acrobat and iirc was statted for both Basic and AD&D, the other 2 just being AD&D.
One nice thing about a lot of Imagine adventures was the way they had stats for bother Basic/Expert and AD&D (and sometimes other systems like Runequest).
But, I'm about 90% sure of the flat world bit. That seemed so strange to me that it wasn't just a belief, but a setting fact that it stuck with me. Sort of like I doubt I'll ever be able to forget that Oerth sits at the center of it's solar system (Oerth system?). It's just too strange.
If so, I think I found a perfect location on Mystara's setting.
I just noticed that in the CoM, Desinger's Manual, there is the description of the creation of a flat world on the fringes of Mystaran solar system.
This world is built by Terra: it has a disk shape (250 miles radius and 100 miles thickness), it possess its own skyshield and it is lit and warmed by a little sun (maybe much smaller than Hollow World sun) which is another Terra creation - possibly simply a permanent gate from the Elemental Plane of Fire.
The world edge is sourrounded by a mountian range with an average altitude of 10.000, while the center of the world is occupied by a large central lake.
We know also that Terra wants to populate it with specimens coming from Mystara. She hopes that her world would be far away enough not to be considered attractive by a large number of other Immortals.
I think that the little sun of this diskworld should be visible in Mystaran night sky as if it was a planet, with a similar orbit.
Do you think this world would be a good candidate for Pelinore?
If you run some Voidship/Spelljammer-like campaign, maybe this diskworld should be considered valuable by spacefarers, given the fact that it should be the last stop or safe harbour before the great, empty interstellar void...
;)
As has been mentioned, several Pelinore adventures were dual-statted for both D&D and AD&D. Also, a few were exclusively D&D, including one Companion level adventure complete with WarMachine rules for all the armies involved.
It's not 100% complete but I don't think there's much missing. I hope you find it useful.
If you are interested in getting hold of copies then I'm selling a complete set (although with some pages missing) on ebay. Click here for the auction.
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=54
Havard