Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Shane 08-12-06, 05:15 PM	Dear MMBers, over on the Dragonsfoot forums I pestered Gary Gygax with some questions about Mystara, which I've posted below. Do you think there's any other useful question to ask him in regards to Mystara, or do you think this pretty much covers it? Q: I'm interested in the scheme of alternate Earths you laid out in Polyhedron #21, where Oerth, Aerth, Yarth, Uerth, and Earth are parallel worlds, listed in decreasing order of magicality. Okay here's my questions: (snipped questions irrelevant to Mystara) 3) Did you or Frank Mentzer consider the world of Urt (the original name of the Known World of Mystara in the "gold box" oD&D Immortals Set) as fitting into this scheme? A: *Eek* Only Frank can answer question 3. Q: What part did you play in the development of the Basic-Expert-Companion-Master-Immortal OD&D product line? A:*Laughing* A very big part, as all of those works were derived from my own. I also reviewed and approved the final drafts. In the holmes Basic Set I inserted all of the new character information found there that was not in OD&D. Q: Have you ever DMed or played in the Known World of Mystara setting? A: Not to the best of my recollection. Q: Have you run any of the OD&D adventures (besides presumably B1, In Search of the Unknown and B2, The Keep on the Borderlands) as part of your home Greyhawk campaign? A: Lots of them that I make up on the spot. I still run OD&D adventures now and then, albeit they are mainly dungeon crawls. Q: Gary, would it be too much to ask if you remember which of these adventures you ran in your campaign, and where on your Oerth they are located? B1: In Search of the Unknown B2: The Keep on the Borderlands B3: Palace of the Silver Princess B4: The Lost City B5: Horror on the Hill B6: The Veiled Society B7: Rahasia B8: Journey to the Rock B9: Castle Caldwell and Beyond B10: Night's Dark Terror B11: King's Harvest B12: Queens' Festival BSOLO: Ghost of Lion Castle Here's a link to a page showing all the above-listed covers to jog your memory. *Smile* http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/modpages/b.html A: Heh, As if I would recall that sort of trivia. I would put in an module's location wherever it suited the campaign at the time...mainly near where the PC party was. *Laughing* Q: Aww nuts *Smile*. Though I know it's a venerable tradition in RPGs (especially Greyhawk) for DMs to make the setting their own, I was hoping to find out where these places are located in "Gygaxian Greyhawk". I think it's weird and neat to imagine Mystaran locales such as the inverted pyramid of the drug-crazed denizens of the Lost City of Cynidicea in "Gygaxian Oerth". I'll get over it though *Smile*, and I'm grateful for your (Gary's) sharing. A: To be blunt, most of those places never existed in my campaign world *Wink* There was no need for them as I had no problem creating new adventure material for those that played in my campaign.
havard 08-17-06, 12:41 PM	Another interesting Q&A session Shane, from the Master himself this time! I think by the time Mystara grew into being Gygax was already on his way out of TSR, thus there arent too many connections between him and the setting. Håvard