4) IIRC the idea of the Beagle may have come from the fact that Dave Arneson was playing a Star Frontier game and for some reason they placed his setting in one of the sectors, but I'd say the connection ends at the idea level. Ofcourse, if we wanted to develop the Federation further, we could steal stuff from that game...
Are you sure that the connection ends at the idea level?
I don't know anything about the Star Frontier game, but some time ago I got these pieces of information in DA3 module (page 3):
Beagle was stuck on a Class 9 pretechnological world inhabited by a number of sentient species, of which the dominant species seemed to be genetically related to the principal species on the Federation Board of Governors.
Budget cuts in 2946-2958 had delayed the rescue mission that was to search for FSS Foxglove, and the ship ended up being forgotten for almost 50 years until a minor bureaucrat noted that the vessel was still reported overdue.
and the last captain to flout the nonintervention regulation had been cashiered and shipped to the ice mines of Freya as an involuntary colonist.
To your knowledge, do these terms/data/names refer to the Star Frontier setting?
(Among others)
Havard
I don't know, but the Book of Marvellous Magic has a few(one?) items that allow you to summon things from the Star Frontier Universe....
True! (cool!)
They are the "Alternate World Gate" objects, in the "Book of Marvellous Magic" (page 7). Each object is related to a definite TSR world/setting and enables the summoning of a single charcter from its world.
The gates connect the D&D game world with these settings:
Top Secret
Gamma World
AD&D
Dawn Patrol
Star Frontiers
Boot Hill
Gangbusters
This is the entry for teh object that connects the D&D world to the Star Frontier setting:
Pocket Tool: This odd device is 3 inches long and may be unfolded to reveal a knife, corkscrew, and various other utensils of fine metal manufacture. The tool summons a Yazirian from the STAR FRONTIERS game - a man-sized monkeylike being with membranes between its arms and body. The creature may bare its teeth and snarl at the characters but will not otherwise converse.
By the way, the Book of Marvelous Magic was made by Mentzer and Gygax (Anderson is not mentioned).
Apparently the Galaxy is ruled by a Federation, so that is another link I suppose...
And here is a map of the galaxy:
More stuff at this site:
http://www.geocities.com/starfrontiers/
Havard
Here Greg Svenson talks about their cross-over with the Star Empires Game:
My recollection is that it was a crossover from our parallel "Star Empires" campaign that John Snider was running (from early 1973 to late 1974 or so, when John went into the Army). There was an RPG component to "Star Empires" which we were also playing, but TSR never published it.
We had several encounters with scout ships from the neighboring galactic empires before the world Blackmoor is on was quarantined by the local galactic government, I can't remember which empire controlled it. We had encounters in Blackmoor with both human and avian scouts (Scott Belfry ran the avian empire). I remember someone getting a 'magic cape' that allowed the wearer to fly (the avians wings were no longer functional, so they created alternate ways to fly). The Blue Rider's armor was a suit of powered Battledress. I was running a galactic empire controlled by a race of ursoids (think of the Hoka's if you know the story - I can't remember the name of the book we based them on any more, though).
Also:
"Star Empires" and "Star Probe" were a set of rules written by John Snider, which were published by TSR in the mid-70s. I don't know if there is any relation to the web based game you referenced. The concept is a natural for a epbm game as I tried running "Star Empires" campaigns by s-mail a couple of times back in the days before the internet...
There were eight major empires. Three were humanoid empires with one each of ursoid (bears), feline (cats), avian(birds), amoboid (amobas) and icthioid (fish). There were also a variety of minor empires with just a couple of worlds inhabited by exotic races (along with the normal ones above).
And finally Greg clarifies:
No, nothing to do with "Star Frontiers".
Ofcourse, that was the Dave Arneson version. Dave Ritchie could easily have replaced Star Empires with Star Frontiers when he wrote DA3...
Havard
Beagle was stuck on a Class 9 pretechnological world inhabited by a number of sentient species, of which the dominant species seemed to be genetically related to the principal species on the Federation Board of Governors.
As Havard points out, there is a Federation in Star Frontiers, predominantly run by humans. Star Frontiers didn't really classify planets on their own terms. Rather, it classified the stars they orbit, and used a combination of alphabetic and numeric classification.
Seems to me there probably should have been a planetary classification system in place as well, but I don't recall one offhand.
Also, the starship classification they used in Star Frontiers for the Federation was UFPS not FSS. Not a big deal, as the FSS classification could represent either an earlier or later time in the history of the UFP perhaps.
and the last captain to flout the nonintervention regulation had been cashiered and shipped to the ice mines of Freya as an involuntary colonist.
No Freyas that I know of, but Star Frontiers only represented the names of a limited number of planets, and none (or few) of their moons from what I recall, so Freya could easily be one of those.
Doesn't DA3 make mention of the Rim or something along those lines? I may be thinking of the Gold Box set's description of the layout of the galaxy.
In any event, I think using the Star Frontiers information as the basis of the Federation in Mystara is a pretty good one.
Another divergent point is the info about the slightly greenish skin of the Beagle's crew (even if it might be due solely to the Mystara's sun rays).
I got also some negative answers from the guys at the starfrontiers.com website (go to the "forums" section of the website and open the message board called "Star Fronties: theory of origins" to read the whole discussion). They do not recognize the names and the other info of DA3 as being part of the Star Frontiers setting.
They also sent me this weblink about a D20 product that speaks about a Beagle starship (but I don't think it is related: has somebody else mentioned it already?)
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/oa/20040921a
By now, the only certain (and faint) link between the two settings is the magical item described in the "Book of Marvellous Magic".
They also sent me this weblink about a D20 product that speaks about a Beagle starship (but I don't think it is related: has somebody else mentioned it already?)
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/oa/20040921a
This has come up before. The author is Paizo's Mike McArtor who sometimes posts here. He is a Known World fan, but admitted that the name Beagle must have been the work of his subconciousness at best, or he would have called it the FSS Beagle rather than the SS Beagle.
Still, I like to think that this is the same space ship, and that the story told in Foul Weather relates the events before the space ship is salvaged and taken over by the heroic captain Bork Riesling...
Havard
Havard
Interestingly, the D20 Modern/Future universe also have some things in common with Star Frontiers. IIRC some of the races are found in the Menace Manual (or possibly in the D20 Future supplement).
They're in the D20 Future manual- they've got a web enhancement with the Sathar available online which is pretty cool, too.
AFAIK, d20 Future (like d20 Modern) isn't a campaign setting so much as just the tools to create one- much like the PHB/DMG/MM aren't campaign settings in and of themselves. Thus, the inclusion of Dralasites, Yazirians and Sathar would enable one with the d20 books to recreate the Star Frontiers setting. Not sure if they included the Vrusk or not, though.
I've been looking over the Star Frontiers timeline to see if it would be compatible with the Beagle/Mystara history, and so far it doesn't seem quite likely. Given that the Beagle crashed 4000 years in Mystara's past, and the history of the UPF in Star Frontiers only encompasses a period of about 200 years since its founding, that would mean the current Star Frontiers timeline would have to be advanced several thousand years, at which point it would look much different from the standard SF campaign introduced in the SF and Knighthawks campaigns.
Alternatively, the Federation that the Beagle belongs to would have to be an organization that preceded the UPF, but that would mean that it would also have greatly preceded the appearance of humans in the Frontier and Rim Coalition. IE, they would have to have originated somewhere else.
The Rim reference I thought I remembered from the Gold Box was actually a reference to the central hub of the galaxy, and I don't believe there have been any direct references to the Beagle's original home and the Hub being one and the same (though I like to think they are, and others have made that connection as well).
I still like the thought of using the SF campaign setting for the Hub/Federation, though. Perhaps whatever it was that caused the Beagle to crash was temporally related? Maybe they came into indirect contact with one of the Oard Entropy Bubbles and it simultaneously caused a disruption in their engines and sent them back in time to Mystara's past?
Chtulhudrew got two points: no references about the Rim and the doubts about psionic abilities in DA3 make the description of the crashing of the Beagle quite different from the Star Frontiers setting.
I actually got the psionics bit wrong- while psionics wasn't a core part of the SF setting, Zebulon's Guide actually did introduce an optional Mentalist profession, much in the way psionics was an optional part of AD&D and current D&D- so we do have a precedent for the Beagle's crew to be familiar with it!
Also, the Hadozee from Spelljammer were essentially the Yazirians under a different name (for some reason- even odder, they seem to have been renamed Hazaru in Stormwrack. Sources conflict on that, though. I see references to Hazaru online, and the artwork for it shows it as Hazaru, but on the consolidated lists here at wotc and in other references it is called a hadozee. I seem to recall it is listed as Hadozee in the book itself, but I can't check that until I get home.)
Something else I just discovered- apparently the Dralasites were introduced into the Spelljammer setting in the product Monsters of the Void. Not really sure if that's relevant, but it ties them to a fantasy as well as a sci-fi setting.
Also, the Hadozee from Spelljammer were essentially the Yazirians under a different name (for some reason- even odder, they seem to have been renamed Hazaru in Stormwrack. Sources conflict on that, though. I see references to Hazaru online, and the artwork for it shows it as Hazaru, but on the consolidated lists here at wotc and in other references it is called a hadozee. I seem to recall it is listed as Hadozee in the book itself, but I can't check that until I get home.)
Ah, yes I remember there being some overlap between Star Frontiers and Spelljammer. Wasn't there some connection between these and the Alternity Sci Fi setting as well?
Would this be of any use for Mystara?
I am actually warming up to the using of Spelljammer with Mystara, as long as a few modifications are included (Chiefly of which is removing FR, GH and DL)...
Havard
I am actually warming up to the using of Spelljammer with Mystara, as long as a few modifications are included (Chiefly of which is removing FR, GH and DL)...
You could leave them in, but make Mystara unique among them (I probably got these ideas from the vaults): it could be the exact center of the Prime Material, with the most elemental wormholes, and an infinite crystal sphere interior(thus no exit without using a gate for the whole spelljamming ship), but an infinitesimal crystal sphere exterior, that a spelljammer must gate into, and would normally miss. It might be an interesting path for HW Alphatia to take, and they'd have the magical prowess to gate spelljamming ships...
I also like thinking of Mystara as an Anti-Sigil in Planescape settings. The center of the Prime, no Dieties allowed, and gates to everywhere/everywhen all over the planet/megalith. It also throws the laugh at the Cagers who think their city is the center of the Multiverse.
Both setups attempt to explain why Mystara is very rarely discussed in the SJ or PS settings, and Mystarans know next to nothing about SJ or PS.
You could leave them in, but make Mystara unique among them (I probably got these ideas from the vaults): it could be the exact center of the Prime Material, with the most elemental wormholes, and an infinite crystal sphere interior(thus no exit without using a gate for the whole spelljamming ship), but an infinitesimal crystal sphere exterior, that a spelljammer must gate into, and would normally miss. It might be an interesting path for HW Alphatia to take, and they'd have the magical prowess to gate spelljamming ships...
I also like thinking of Mystara as an Anti-Sigil in Planescape settings. The center of the Prime, no Dieties allowed, and gates to everywhere/everywhen all over the planet/megalith. It also throws the laugh at the Cagers who think their city is the center of the Multiverse.
Both setups attempt to explain why Mystara is very rarely discussed in the SJ or PS settings, and Mystarans know next to nothing about SJ or PS.
Could work I suppose.
But I'd rather prefer leaving the other settings out, but still using parts of the Spelljammer setting/rules to handle space travel in Mystara Space....
Havard