It details the Realm, the setting of the Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon. Several of the Ghyr characters also appear in the series. Has anyone considered using the Realm with Mystara? IMO the feel of the realm is not unlike that of the F gazetteers of the Indrisian Sphere. I could see the lands of the Realm being located north of the lands of the Western Alliance. Not sure how well the maps would fit though.
There is an excellent map of the Realm here:
http://www.geocities.com/tokyo/flats/1419/REALM.gif
Obviously it would have to be tweaked quite a bit to fit with the region I am suggesting.
Havard
There is an excellent map of the Realm here:
I did notice, on the map, directly east of Merlin's Flying Castle a town with a rather familiar name... Threshold
Regards
Gary
GHYR: the Realm of Dungeons & Dragons
(Also the World of the Fantasy Forest boardgame would be located in Ghyr too since the D&D Cartoon characters are used as playing pieces.)
That would explain why there's so much overlap between The Quest for the Heartstone, the Cartoon, and the World of the Action Figures, such as the presence of Strongheart, Kelek, and Warduke.
Also, that would explain the location of the events of the Viewmaster slides where Strongheart leads an expedition to Castle Venger, to free the "kingdom": http://www.geocities.com/zakiyah_99/toys.html#other. This would simply be referring to the Kingdom of Ghyr.
Though that map of the Realm posted above is skillfully made, it's not official - the fellow simply compiled the locations from the Cartoon and placed them on a map.
Likewise, neither is the traditional Mystara-fans' placement of Ghyr near Denagoth official.
If the Realm and Ghyr were really the same, then it would be a matter of placing the Cartoon's locales on the official map of Ghyr (along with any locales mentioned in any Action Figure support products or in the Fantasy Forest game), and then placing Ghyr in Mystara in the most fitting spot. As Mystaraphiles know, the evidence for placing Ghyr in Mystara is based on the fact that Quest for the Heartstone is an OD&D module (and Mystara is the default setting for OD&D products), and how Strongheart and others appear in the Ierendi Gazetteer.
There would be several "cons" to this conception, such as the presence of AD&D character classes and creatures in the Cartoon (Ranger, Acrobat, Barbarian, Tiamat), and the difficulty in fitting such a wide variety of locales and terrains onto the official map of Ghyr. But then again, Ghyr doesn't fit that well into Mystara either.
I wonder what Gary Gygax on the Dragonsfoot Forums would have to say about this.
Travis
-from review of Prison Without Walls (Steve Gerber) (http://boards1.wizards.com/leaving.php?destination=http://www.geocities.com/tokyo/flats/1419/dandd.html).
The Realm always struck me as being on a plane other than the Prime. The Realm has too much geographic diversity to be limited to a single kingdom or region, and I don't think it can be identified with Ghyr (or at least GazF Ghyr. Other fan variants are a different matter and I can't speak to that).
The appearance of Warduke, Kelek and Strongheart in the cartoon is insufficient in and of themselves to link the two. By that standard, Mystara and Oerth are the same because of Warduke.
From a strictly game-system point of view, the Realm was intentionally designed around the original Unearthed Arcana not OD&D. You had a cavalier, a barbarian, and an acrobat, alongside a ranger (AD&D class), magician, and thief.
If you really want to connect the two, I'd still go with the Realm as on another plane (or another part of the Prime) with magic ports within the Cave of Serpents dumping characters into the Realm. Similar to the Realm of the Crimson Ettin in the Western Alliance, this world would be made over in the image of its most powerful resident (previously Dungeonmaster, now Venger).
-OldDawg
The appearance of Warduke, Kelek and Strongheart in the cartoon is insufficient in and of themselves to link the two. By that standard, Mystara and Oerth are the same because of Warduke.
And Blackmoor ;)
Regards
Gary
-from review of Prison Without Walls (Steve Gerber) (http://boards1.wizards.com/leaving.php?destination=http://www.geocities.com/tokyo/flats/1419/dandd.html).
Cool- I didn't know Steve Gerber had written any of the D&D cartoons! He's one of my favorite comics writers.
The Realm always struck me as being on a plane other than the Prime. The Realm has too much geographic diversity to be limited to a single kingdom or region, and I don't think it can be identified with Ghyr (or at least GazF Ghyr. Other fan variants are a different matter and I can't speak to that).
At least as presented in the coloring books (or the two I have, anyway), the land of the LJN characters actually fits more in line with the hodgepodge of the Realm as opposed to any of the various locales that we Mystarans have given to Ghyr. (Ghyr, FWIW, isn't mentioned in either of the coloring books I have, either. Barring revelations from the other two coloring books- if I ever get my grubby paws on them- I'm going to assume Ghyr was made up for the module.)
The appearance of Warduke, Kelek and Strongheart in the cartoon is insufficient in and of themselves to link the two. By that standard, Mystara and Oerth are the same because of Warduke.
True. (BTW, is it blasphemy that I've actually started to think of Greyhawk as a better place for the LJN guys? Got some back stories for a couple of them in GH that I came up with that really work out well.
)From a strictly game-system point of view, the Realm was intentionally designed around the original Unearthed Arcana not OD&D. You had a cavalier, a barbarian, and an acrobat, alongside a ranger (AD&D class), magician, and thief.
By that rationale, though, the LJN characters were also designed around AD&D, and not OD&D. The LJN guys are rangers, crusaders, assassins, etc. themselves.
If you really want to connect the two, I'd still go with the Realm as on another plane (or another part of the Prime) with magic ports within the Cave of Serpents dumping characters into the Realm.
That would even be just a generally good solution for the LJN/D&D cartoon situation in its entirety, with the subsequent possible relocation of module XL-1 to the same plane.
The Realm isnt a campaign world at all, but several. In fact it is possible that the kids from the cartoons visited all of TSRs game worlds through their adventures without even realizing it.
As for being designed around AD&D, my interest in the line comes from the fact that it uses the Classic D&D logo, which is what I have by default assumed to mean usable with Mystara.
Several entities and locations are shared between Mystara and Greyhawk; Keep of the Borderlands, The Isle of Dread, Orcus, Demogorgon, the LJN characters, Blackmoor etc. The fact that some of the elements from the Cartoon work with Greyhawk doesnt mean they cant have a parallell on Mystara.
Im not so much interested in having the kids, the Dungeon Master or Tiamat on Mystara, but some of the locations and creatures could be useful...
Oh and yeah, Im particularly interested in that Threshold place...
Havard
Oh and yeah, Im particularly interested in that Threshold place...
I'm curious about it myself. I don't have the cartoons (planning on getting them on DVD one of these days, if only for the Kelek, Warduke, and Strongheart episodes), but does anyone know offhand if there actually was a place named Threshold visited by the kids? Or if the guy who designed that map just made the name up?
I did notice, on the map, directly east of Merlin's Flying Castle a town with a rather familiar name... Threshold
Regards
Gary
According to his site, it's the city in the episode "Hall of Bones" which is above the spider woman's lair. Threshold is a common seeming enough name that it's probably used for many fantasy settings.
It would be interesting to find out straight from the designers, what was the relationship between XL1/Ghyr, The Realm of the D&D Cartoon, and the LJN Action Figures (and associated merchandise).
Travis