Non-Mystaran locales with official placement in Mystara? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Non-Mystaran locales with official placement in Mystara?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
traversetravis
Apr 19, 2008 2:30:03 I've enjoyed the Night Below thread. It looks like Harranshire ought to have a place in Mystara.

The Mystara Product Index lists additional non-Mystaran locales with official placements in Mystara:

I3, I4, and I5 - the Desert of Desolation series (mentioned in back of Ylaruam GAZ). Later compiled into a single book, reportedly with additional material, and explicitly set in the Forgotten Realms.
I9, Day of Al'Akbar (was this mentioned in Ylaruam GAZ too? If there's a map of the land of Arir, how will it fit into Ylaruam?)
I, Tyrant
College of Wizardry
Axe of the Dwarvish Lords
The Apocalypse Stone

Is anyone who has these products willing to post the placement/conversion sentence or paragraph?

It'd be neat to see how each of these fits into the map of Mystara.

I'm also interested in the various non-"explicit", but "compatible" and "suggested" DUNGEON adventures listed in the Mystara Product Index here. Is anyone willing to post the sentence or paragraph from these that makes them "compatible" or "suggested" Mystaran locales?

Travis

P.S. Though it's not TSR, there's also:
SV1: Unguarded Hoard (by James Mishler for KenzerCo, which has Mystara conversion notes by the author here. James wrote three other Kalamar Quests but apparently hasn't posted conversion notes for them yet.)
I suggest that if any Mystaraphile succeeds in having a book professionally published for another setting and then posts thorough conversion notes, that these ought to almost count as official Mystara products. Are there any others among us who've been published?
#2
wilhelm_
Apr 20, 2008 0:25:50 I guess this is another example
#3
agathokles
Apr 20, 2008 6:31:24 AFAIK, the Desert of Desolation series is mentioned in GAZ2, but neither the original modules nor the revised version mention a possible Mystaran setting. The original modules have an overland map of about 9 hex across (8 miles hexes, SW to NE). It would fit well at the southern border of Nithia or the northern border of Dythestenia.

GP
#4
traversetravis
Apr 21, 2008 7:29:32 Thanks for the link to Mount Dread. I like how that poster explained the Mystaran connections in detail. I've wondered how that boxed set fits into Mystara. It seems likely that all those places are somewhere in Karameikos.

Travis
#5
npc_dave
Apr 23, 2008 16:12:15
I've enjoyed the Night Below thread. It looks like Harranshire ought to have a place in Mystara.

The Mystara Product Index lists additional non-Mystaran locales with official placements in Mystara:

I3, I4, and I5 - the Desert of Desolation series (mentioned in back of Ylaruam GAZ). Later compiled into a single book, reportedly with additional material, and explicitly set in the Forgotten Realms.
I9, Day of Al'Akbar (was this mentioned in Ylaruam GAZ too? If there's a map of the land of Arir, how will it fit into Ylaruam?)
I, Tyrant
College of Wizardry
Axe of the Dwarvish Lords
The Apocalypse Stone

Is anyone who has these products willing to post the placement/conversion sentence or paragraph?

It'd be neat to see how each of these fits into the map of Mystara.

I'm also interested in the various non-"explicit", but "compatible" and "suggested" DUNGEON adventures listed in the Mystara Product Index here. Is anyone willing to post the sentence or paragraph from these that makes them "compatible" or "suggested" Mystaran locales?

Travis

P.S. Though it's not TSR, there's also:
SV1: Unguarded Hoard (by James Mishler for KenzerCo, which has Mystara conversion notes by the author here. James wrote three other Kalamar Quests but apparently hasn't posted conversion notes for them yet.)
I suggest that if any Mystaraphile succeeds in having a book professionally published for another setting and then posts thorough conversion notes, that these ought to almost count as official Mystara products. Are there any others among us who've been published?

I am the one who put that index together, many of those books literally have just a few sentences or a paragraph on Mystara.

For example, I, Tyrant is just a sourcebook for beholders, no adventure material. The three adventures published to support I, Tyrant use a generic setting. But in I, Tyrant, there is one paragraph on Mystara beholders, which mentions they can close their eyes and float to the ground and rest, thereby taking the appearance of a big boulder. That was the most memorable statement out of that paragraph about Mystaran beholders.

Axe of the Dwarvish Lords makes more of an effort. One page is devoted to how to take the generic adventure and fit it into the various campaign worlds at the time. It makes suggestions for both Known World and Red Steel. For example, the arch-nemesis wizard in this adventure would be from Glantri if set in the Known World(but I forget if it mentioned he belonged to one of the secret orders there), and it gave him a Red Steel power if you set it in a Red Steel campaign. It would also specify where to place it in each of those campaigns.

The Apocalypse Stone stands out because whoever made the suggestions had no clue what Mystara looked like, and couldn't even make the effort to add Mystara each time. Each major encounter has a suggestion for Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, but they forget to list Mystara for many of them. At least the other supplements gave us a few sentences of effort.

One of the suggestions in Apocalypse Stone is to place the tarrasque encounter in Ethengar where the players must stop it from destroying civilization. Ethengar is the one nation in Mystara where the tarrasque can't destroy anything, there are no buildings. The Ethengarians would just pack up their tents and run away.

The Dungeon Magazines mentioned in that list typically only gave one or two sentences to suggest where to put it in campaign worlds.
#6
traversetravis
Apr 23, 2008 20:25:01
I am the one who put that index together, many of those books literally have just a few sentences or a paragraph on Mystara.

Thanks for the additional hints. I've enjoyed your Mystara Product Index a lot over the years.

Travis
#7
johnbiles
Apr 25, 2008 0:14:40 I suppose Elder Evils would be the opposite of this--it gives ideas for where to put Zargon and Cyndicea in other campaign worlds.

(Demon Wastes for Eberron and near the Dust Desert in old Imaskar in the Forgotten Realms.)
#8
npc_dave
May 05, 2008 19:52:43
Thanks for the additional hints. I've enjoyed your Mystara Product Index a lot over the years.

Travis

Your welcome. I do need to update that further, including some 3E stuff, I almost have it finished...

I dug out Axe of the Dwarvish Lords to check the notes on conversion material...I picked this one because I consider it and Night Below to be the adventures where the most effort was made in the suggestions. College of Wizardry also isn't bad in this regard, but is a sourcebook more than an adventure.

The background of the adventure-

Moradin visited a dwarf king and smith and aided him in creating the Fierce Axe, making it an artifact(somewhat low-powered). The king and his descendants ruled for some time with the axe until a jealous nephew worshipping a dark dwarven deity and the derro deity acquired an amulet that let him summon an abomination that delights in killing dwarves. The bearer of the axe is slain, the nephew dies in the civil war, the abomination flees to its own plane and the dwarven stronghold is lost. Goblins later occupy it.

Present day a powerful wizard and his goblin henchwoman occupy that stronhold and recover the axe and amulet. The two realize they have the means to exterminate the dwarven race. They target a dwarven city(with some human population), destabilizing it from within while an army of 30,000 goblinoids marches on said city.

The players are in this dwarven city and must attempt to defuse the feuds that threaten to tear about the city, then discover the culprits are the wizard whose base is the abandoned stronghold. The majority of the adventure is attacking the stronghold occupied by sophisticated goblins with dwarven technology and excellent military tactics and clearing out its many levels. The final part of the adventure is traveling to the small plane where the abomination lives, and the only place where it can be permanantly slain. The army besieging the city isn't dealt with, but it is implied the army will fall apart if it realizes the wizard's deceptions(which I have not detailed).

Paraphrasing the conversion notes-

Red Steel - Merkovic in Zvornik becomes the dwarf city besieged, the goblin army coming from the Goblin Hills. The abandoned stronghold can be placed in the Black Mountains. Swap some crossbows for firearms. The wizard has the Armor legacy.

Mystara - Any small settlement on Rockhome's border for the dwarven city, such as the small town in the Stahl Lowlands south of Lake Stahl. The goblin army would advance along the Larovar River. The dwarf king and his heirs are a branch of the Denwarf clan and the Denwarfs still claim that branch as their line. The wizard is a citizen or former-citizen of Glantri, no mention of secret crafts but he is a specialized conjurer. The abandoned stronghold could be placed in the northern reaches of Rockhome, near Vestland.

The last paragraph in the Mystara entry details political ramifications, someone obviously read the Rockhome gazeteer- King Everast XVI will seek to secure the artifact Axe and the dwarf king tomb, the Denwarfs will contest Everast asserting they should be the custodians and possibly that the Axe means they should be the proper rulers of Rockhome. Neither side will let a nondwarf PC claim the axe and a dwarf PC will need to choose sides or get caught in the middle.

End of the suggestions in the text. I am amused by the Al-Qadim entry which suggests the adventure doesn't really fit there so you could place it at the end of a trade route at the edge of Zakhara and don't use Al-Qadim's rules!

I haven't checked how well these suggestions go on the Red Steel side, this book used in Rockhome provides the outline for a variant on the dwarf civil war in the Rockhome gazeteer, only with the Axe being the focus of the war instead of that dwarf stone golem created by Kagyar. Obviously Kagyar would replace Moradin. The dwarven stronghold and the axe itself leave the impression that it was an early golden age for the dwarves which can fit in Rockhome more than Red Steel(where dwarves emigrated), but it could be played in Red Steel as an attempt by Kagyar to establish dwarves there which failed.

The abomination itself plays well as a Nightmare Dimension creature, and it has a guardian on its mini home plane, an athach. The book also has Rockhome lizards in one area of the stronghold without any notation of where they came from(no Monster Manual references) and I think they are the same lizards from the Rockhome gaz.

On the Red Steel side the adventure has smokepowder which the wizard uses to create thunderpots(dynamite) for his goblins and the book makes use of winged owlbears which I would never use myself except in a Red Steel campaign...I still remember the flying bullette from the Savage Baronies accessory.
#9
traversetravis
May 05, 2008 20:29:48 Excellent overview. Is there an overland map included in the adventure? If so, how would it fit into Rockhome?

Travis
#10
npc_dave
May 06, 2008 14:32:31
Excellent overview. Is there an overland map included in the adventure? If so, how would it fit into Rockhome?

Travis

The closest thing to an overland map is a couple of maps of the mountain containing the abandoned dwarven stronghold, one is a cross section of the mountain showing where the levels are in relation to each other, and the other is a top down view of the mountain and the lake alongside it. That lake isn't fully shown, and it isn't as big as Lake Stahl but the overall size isn't important to the adventure and there is a lake monster there.

They kept things vague with the goblin army and the relative locations of the dwarven city and abandoned stronghold, so no compatibility problems with respect to maps. That part needs to be expanded by the DM, using War Machine or Battlesystem.

I believe this was the last of the mega 2E adventures as part of the Tomes series, which included Return to the Tomb of Horrors(Greyhawk setting) and The Rod of Seven Parts(generic in the box set, Dragon magazine made suggestions for other campaign worlds but not Mystara or Red Steel). By this time they had realized it cost them too much money to make box sets, so this was only a book with the color maps attached to the back, as if it was designed for a box but put into book form at the last minute. So they may have cut more details on the army.

Night Below and Dragon Mountain are the other two box sets I can think of that are of the same type, they technically aren't part of the Tomes series but I consider all five of these to be of one series, being the late 2E mega modules. Dragon Mountain was utterly generic, the mountain moving through different worlds with temporary stops.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 traversetravis Apr 19, 2008 2:30:03	I've enjoyed the Night Below thread. It looks like Harranshire ought to have a place in Mystara. The Mystara Product Index lists additional non-Mystaran locales with official placements in Mystara: I3, I4, and I5 - the Desert of Desolation series (mentioned in back of Ylaruam GAZ). Later compiled into a single book, reportedly with additional material, and explicitly set in the Forgotten Realms. I9, Day of Al'Akbar (was this mentioned in Ylaruam GAZ too? If there's a map of the land of Arir, how will it fit into Ylaruam?) I, Tyrant College of Wizardry Axe of the Dwarvish Lords The Apocalypse Stone Is anyone who has these products willing to post the placement/conversion sentence or paragraph? It'd be neat to see how each of these fits into the map of Mystara. I'm also interested in the various non-"explicit", but "compatible" and "suggested" DUNGEON adventures listed in the Mystara Product Index here. Is anyone willing to post the sentence or paragraph from these that makes them "compatible" or "suggested" Mystaran locales? Travis P.S. Though it's not TSR, there's also: SV1: Unguarded Hoard (by James Mishler for KenzerCo, which has Mystara conversion notes by the author here. James wrote three other Kalamar Quests but apparently hasn't posted conversion notes for them yet.) I suggest that if any Mystaraphile succeeds in having a book professionally published for another setting and then posts thorough conversion notes, that these ought to almost count as official Mystara products. Are there any others among us who've been published?
#2 wilhelm_ Apr 20, 2008 0:25:50	I guess this is another example
#3 agathokles Apr 20, 2008 6:31:24	AFAIK, the Desert of Desolation series is mentioned in GAZ2, but neither the original modules nor the revised version mention a possible Mystaran setting. The original modules have an overland map of about 9 hex across (8 miles hexes, SW to NE). It would fit well at the southern border of Nithia or the northern border of Dythestenia. GP
#4 traversetravis Apr 21, 2008 7:29:32	Thanks for the link to Mount Dread. I like how that poster explained the Mystaran connections in detail. I've wondered how that boxed set fits into Mystara. It seems likely that all those places are somewhere in Karameikos. Travis
#5 npc_dave Apr 23, 2008 16:12:15	I've enjoyed the Night Below thread. It looks like Harranshire ought to have a place in Mystara. The Mystara Product Index lists additional non-Mystaran locales with official placements in Mystara: I3, I4, and I5 - the Desert of Desolation series (mentioned in back of Ylaruam GAZ). Later compiled into a single book, reportedly with additional material, and explicitly set in the Forgotten Realms. I9, Day of Al'Akbar (was this mentioned in Ylaruam GAZ too? If there's a map of the land of Arir, how will it fit into Ylaruam?) I, Tyrant College of Wizardry Axe of the Dwarvish Lords The Apocalypse Stone Is anyone who has these products willing to post the placement/conversion sentence or paragraph? It'd be neat to see how each of these fits into the map of Mystara. I'm also interested in the various non-"explicit", but "compatible" and "suggested" DUNGEON adventures listed in the Mystara Product Index here. Is anyone willing to post the sentence or paragraph from these that makes them "compatible" or "suggested" Mystaran locales? Travis P.S. Though it's not TSR, there's also: SV1: Unguarded Hoard (by James Mishler for KenzerCo, which has Mystara conversion notes by the author here. James wrote three other Kalamar Quests but apparently hasn't posted conversion notes for them yet.) I suggest that if any Mystaraphile succeeds in having a book professionally published for another setting and then posts thorough conversion notes, that these ought to almost count as official Mystara products. Are there any others among us who've been published? I am the one who put that index together, many of those books literally have just a few sentences or a paragraph on Mystara. For example, I, Tyrant is just a sourcebook for beholders, no adventure material. The three adventures published to support I, Tyrant use a generic setting. But in I, Tyrant, there is one paragraph on Mystara beholders, which mentions they can close their eyes and float to the ground and rest, thereby taking the appearance of a big boulder. That was the most memorable statement out of that paragraph about Mystaran beholders. Axe of the Dwarvish Lords makes more of an effort. One page is devoted to how to take the generic adventure and fit it into the various campaign worlds at the time. It makes suggestions for both Known World and Red Steel. For example, the arch-nemesis wizard in this adventure would be from Glantri if set in the Known World(but I forget if it mentioned he belonged to one of the secret orders there), and it gave him a Red Steel power if you set it in a Red Steel campaign. It would also specify where to place it in each of those campaigns. The Apocalypse Stone stands out because whoever made the suggestions had no clue what Mystara looked like, and couldn't even make the effort to add Mystara each time. Each major encounter has a suggestion for Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, but they forget to list Mystara for many of them. At least the other supplements gave us a few sentences of effort. One of the suggestions in Apocalypse Stone is to place the tarrasque encounter in Ethengar where the players must stop it from destroying civilization. Ethengar is the one nation in Mystara where the tarrasque can't destroy anything, there are no buildings. The Ethengarians would just pack up their tents and run away. The Dungeon Magazines mentioned in that list typically only gave one or two sentences to suggest where to put it in campaign worlds.
#6 traversetravis Apr 23, 2008 20:25:01	I am the one who put that index together, many of those books literally have just a few sentences or a paragraph on Mystara. Thanks for the additional hints. I've enjoyed your Mystara Product Index a lot over the years. Travis
#7 johnbiles Apr 25, 2008 0:14:40	I suppose Elder Evils would be the opposite of this--it gives ideas for where to put Zargon and Cyndicea in other campaign worlds. (Demon Wastes for Eberron and near the Dust Desert in old Imaskar in the Forgotten Realms.)
#8 npc_dave May 05, 2008 19:52:43	Thanks for the additional hints. I've enjoyed your Mystara Product Index a lot over the years. Travis Your welcome. I do need to update that further, including some 3E stuff, I almost have it finished... I dug out Axe of the Dwarvish Lords to check the notes on conversion material...I picked this one because I consider it and Night Below to be the adventures where the most effort was made in the suggestions. College of Wizardry also isn't bad in this regard, but is a sourcebook more than an adventure. The background of the adventure- Moradin visited a dwarf king and smith and aided him in creating the Fierce Axe, making it an artifact(somewhat low-powered). The king and his descendants ruled for some time with the axe until a jealous nephew worshipping a dark dwarven deity and the derro deity acquired an amulet that let him summon an abomination that delights in killing dwarves. The bearer of the axe is slain, the nephew dies in the civil war, the abomination flees to its own plane and the dwarven stronghold is lost. Goblins later occupy it. Present day a powerful wizard and his goblin henchwoman occupy that stronhold and recover the axe and amulet. The two realize they have the means to exterminate the dwarven race. They target a dwarven city(with some human population), destabilizing it from within while an army of 30,000 goblinoids marches on said city. The players are in this dwarven city and must attempt to defuse the feuds that threaten to tear about the city, then discover the culprits are the wizard whose base is the abandoned stronghold. The majority of the adventure is attacking the stronghold occupied by sophisticated goblins with dwarven technology and excellent military tactics and clearing out its many levels. The final part of the adventure is traveling to the small plane where the abomination lives, and the only place where it can be permanantly slain. The army besieging the city isn't dealt with, but it is implied the army will fall apart if it realizes the wizard's deceptions(which I have not detailed). Paraphrasing the conversion notes- Red Steel - Merkovic in Zvornik becomes the dwarf city besieged, the goblin army coming from the Goblin Hills. The abandoned stronghold can be placed in the Black Mountains. Swap some crossbows for firearms. The wizard has the Armor legacy. Mystara - Any small settlement on Rockhome's border for the dwarven city, such as the small town in the Stahl Lowlands south of Lake Stahl. The goblin army would advance along the Larovar River. The dwarf king and his heirs are a branch of the Denwarf clan and the Denwarfs still claim that branch as their line. The wizard is a citizen or former-citizen of Glantri, no mention of secret crafts but he is a specialized conjurer. The abandoned stronghold could be placed in the northern reaches of Rockhome, near Vestland. The last paragraph in the Mystara entry details political ramifications, someone obviously read the Rockhome gazeteer- King Everast XVI will seek to secure the artifact Axe and the dwarf king tomb, the Denwarfs will contest Everast asserting they should be the custodians and possibly that the Axe means they should be the proper rulers of Rockhome. Neither side will let a nondwarf PC claim the axe and a dwarf PC will need to choose sides or get caught in the middle. End of the suggestions in the text. I am amused by the Al-Qadim entry which suggests the adventure doesn't really fit there so you could place it at the end of a trade route at the edge of Zakhara and don't use Al-Qadim's rules! I haven't checked how well these suggestions go on the Red Steel side, this book used in Rockhome provides the outline for a variant on the dwarf civil war in the Rockhome gazeteer, only with the Axe being the focus of the war instead of that dwarf stone golem created by Kagyar. Obviously Kagyar would replace Moradin. The dwarven stronghold and the axe itself leave the impression that it was an early golden age for the dwarves which can fit in Rockhome more than Red Steel(where dwarves emigrated), but it could be played in Red Steel as an attempt by Kagyar to establish dwarves there which failed. The abomination itself plays well as a Nightmare Dimension creature, and it has a guardian on its mini home plane, an athach. The book also has Rockhome lizards in one area of the stronghold without any notation of where they came from(no Monster Manual references) and I think they are the same lizards from the Rockhome gaz. On the Red Steel side the adventure has smokepowder which the wizard uses to create thunderpots(dynamite) for his goblins and the book makes use of winged owlbears which I would never use myself except in a Red Steel campaign...I still remember the flying bullette from the Savage Baronies accessory.
#9 traversetravis May 05, 2008 20:29:48	Excellent overview. Is there an overland map included in the adventure? If so, how would it fit into Rockhome? Travis
#10 npc_dave May 06, 2008 14:32:31	Excellent overview. Is there an overland map included in the adventure? If so, how would it fit into Rockhome? Travis The closest thing to an overland map is a couple of maps of the mountain containing the abandoned dwarven stronghold, one is a cross section of the mountain showing where the levels are in relation to each other, and the other is a top down view of the mountain and the lake alongside it. That lake isn't fully shown, and it isn't as big as Lake Stahl but the overall size isn't important to the adventure and there is a lake monster there. They kept things vague with the goblin army and the relative locations of the dwarven city and abandoned stronghold, so no compatibility problems with respect to maps. That part needs to be expanded by the DM, using War Machine or Battlesystem. I believe this was the last of the mega 2E adventures as part of the Tomes series, which included Return to the Tomb of Horrors(Greyhawk setting) and The Rod of Seven Parts(generic in the box set, Dragon magazine made suggestions for other campaign worlds but not Mystara or Red Steel). By this time they had realized it cost them too much money to make box sets, so this was only a book with the color maps attached to the back, as if it was designed for a box but put into book form at the last minute. So they may have cut more details on the army. Night Below and Dragon Mountain are the other two box sets I can think of that are of the same type, they technically aren't part of the Tomes series but I consider all five of these to be of one series, being the late 2E mega modules. Dragon Mountain was utterly generic, the mountain moving through different worlds with temporary stops.