Voyage of the Princess Ark - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Voyage of the Princess Ark

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
zombiegleemax
Feb 23, 2005 9:27:28 I bought Champions of the Mystara: Heroes of the Princess Ark a while ago from rpgnow.com, and I was disappointed to find out that about half of the original Dragon magazine serial was only summarized in a page. (And apparently the rest is missing some of the original background material.) This includes the first introduction of the Heldannic Knights, and the only descriptions of Cestia and the southern continent.

I know the complete Dragon (up to issue 200 or something) was released on CD-ROM a while ago, but never rereleased due to royalty issues. I can find copies of it on ebay for ungodly sums, but I don't want to pay that much just for the one series of articles! Does anyone know a way to get the original Voyage of the Princess Ark serial (and the few other Mystara-related Dragon articles) in electronic format?

Does Bruce Heard retain electronic publication rights to these? Do you think he'd be interested in releasing them to the Vaults?
#2
gazza555
Feb 23, 2005 9:42:36 I too would be interested in this.

I bought VotPA when it originally came out. I had the copies of the later Dragons that weren't summarised but only a few of the earlier ones. :hoppingma

Gary
#3
thorf
Feb 23, 2005 9:47:17 Speaking as someone who paid US$150 for the set of 5 CDs with Dragon 1-250 in January, I sympathise with you. ;)

I also agree with you about Champions of Mystara. Reading some of the earliest entries was one of the things I was looking forward to back when it was released, so I was rather disappointed to find out that I couldn't.

Anyway, I'm afraid that it seems there is no easy (legal) way to get hold of the relevant files without buying the CDs...
#4
gazza555
Feb 24, 2005 7:41:05 Just looked on ebay.co.uk and there are some Dragon magazines between 150 and 190 going for reasonable prices. There's also the Dragon CD boxed set going for about £25 (still over 3 days to go though)

Not sure if link is against CoC so just search for Dragon magazine.

Gary
#5
thorf
Feb 24, 2005 8:20:52 Nice price. Definitely worth a bid, but you might well find that the current bidder actually has a much higher bid limit set. That's what happened to me. :D
#6
zombiegleemax
Feb 24, 2005 10:39:30 I was one of the fortunates who got in on the CD-ROM before the prices exploded. Got it for $24 on Half.com about a year and a half ago. The prices those things are going for are just astronomical compared to what they were about a year ago.

If you can get the Archive without breaking the bank, that's definitely the best way to go. The only other (legal) means of getting the old VotPA articles is to get each individual Dragon mag.

R.A.
#7
Monteblanco
Feb 26, 2005 12:59:38 I read the Voyage at the CD and now you got me confused. What is included in the Champion of Mystara? I thought it was a reprint of the series.
#8
stanles
Feb 26, 2005 13:15:49
I read the Voyage at the CD and now you got me confused. What is included in the Champion of Mystara? I thought it was a reprint of the series.

in Champions of Mystara the first 15 parts of the story are all summarised in two pages.
#9
Monteblanco
Feb 26, 2005 14:29:04
in Champions of Mystara the first 15 parts of the story are all summarised in two pages.

Ok, I got this, but what else was included in the box?
#10
zombiegleemax
Feb 26, 2005 18:26:54 The box set contains 3 books and a set of cards showing skyships and their deck plans (similar to the Spelljammer boxed set).

Book One is "Heroes of the Princess Ark", which reprints the last part of the Voyage of the Princess Ark and summarizes the first part in two pages, and has a detailed deck plan of the ship, crew and NPC stats, and details on life aboard a skyship. I understand the original columns each included a chapter of the VotPA story and a sidebar giving game info (creature stats, maps, etc) for the area they visited in that chapter. The box set only reprints the story segment, not any of the sidebar info - I imagine a lot of the info ended up in the NPC stats section and the other two books, in a different format, but I don't know how much wasn't reprinted at all.

Book Two is "Designer's Manual", which has rules for building and crewing skyships and designing planets and worlds.

Book Three is "Explorer's Manual", which has Gazeteer-style writeups of Sind, Graakhalia (an elven and gnollish cavern system under the Plain of Fire), Yavdlom (which covers most of the Serpent Peninsula) and Ulimwengu (a lost area within the peninsula).
#11
zombiegleemax
Mar 17, 2005 14:18:18 I am not sure of the legality of it, but maybe we could post the articles here? It would be time consuming, sure, but worth the effort. There wouldnt be any maps or pictures but the gist of the actual voyage details would probably still be welcomed. I have the CDs and would be willing to help. Just might have to overlook a few typing errors as my skill in typing is low.
#12
zombiegleemax
Mar 17, 2005 14:57:47 I think posting copyrighted stuff on Wizards' own board is going a little far. They're being pretty cool about hosting these boards and even endorsing a semi-official Mystara site - way cooler than TSR ever was - so repaying them by warezing their stuff is just rude.

However, isn't the reason the CD's aren't being reissued a concern over electronic publication rights? If so, Bruce Heard personally has the rights to republish those columns electronically, not Wizards. So to to a legal ESD of them we only need to get his ok with it. Does anyone have contact info for him?
#13
zombiegleemax
Mar 17, 2005 15:49:54 I DID say at the beginning of my post that i didnt know the legality of it. As for being rude....... I have already paid my dues ( over $2000 in rpg products and magic cards). Im still waiting for a thank you!
#14
thorf
Mar 17, 2005 22:06:09 I know the policy has changed since the release of the ESDs, but I do have an interesting little precedent for posting canon stuff.

Check out the list of Mystara stuff in the Archives of this site, and you will find various things, including GAZ13, the Savage Coast sets, and a document about the Schattenalfen. Now, if you know Mystaran products well, you should know that there is no one product about the Schattenalfen. So how come there's a download for them?

Simple - I typed in all the info I could find on them in preparation for expanding their culture into a proper HWR. At the time, we were able to type official things in and submit them to Wizards if the Coast's online representative, who posted them on the official site.

Unfortunately, it seems I was the only person ever to do this, and only with that small fragment. And of course now 7 years later the situation has changed dramatically with the sales of ESDs and so on.
#15
zombiegleemax
Mar 18, 2005 8:43:27 My question then is can we post just the articles in question? We aren't asking to reproduce all of dragon magazine just the VotPA articles.....It's not like they will ever put out an esd with just that in it.

I got to thinking, don't we violate copyright laws with every map thats posted?
#16
chatdemon
Apr 27, 2005 8:48:31 Paizo has just announced a Dragon magazine "best of" compilation. Perhaps they'd be interested in a similar product for the Princess Ark and KWG articles? Even as a PDF only product, it would be cool and probably sell well.

Even though I have the Dragon Archive cd set, I'd buy it just to have the articles all in one place, and perhaps indexed.

Go clamor for such a compilation on Paizo's forum and see what comes of it.
#17
havard
Apr 27, 2005 9:45:36
Paizo has just announced a Dragon magazine "best of" compilation. Perhaps they'd be interested in a similar product for the Princess Ark and KWG articles? Even as a PDF only product, it would be cool and probably sell well.

Even though I have the Dragon Archive cd set, I'd buy it just to have the articles all in one place, and perhaps indexed.

Go clamor for such a compilation on Paizo's forum and see what comes of it.

I second this! Mike seemed positive to a VotPA collection, so perhaps he could convince Erik Mona to investigate the possibility, especially if we put some pressure on them.

I also own the Dragon Archive CDs and I even have most of the Dragon issues, but I would still love to see the entire story collected in one volume. I'd prefer it as a hard copy, but I would buy it even if it was only released in pdf format. The KWG series were fairly closely related to the VotPA series so if possible I'd like to see them included aswell.

Imagine, the possibility of a new Mystara product, new Mystara art in the quality Dragon is known for these days, woohoo!

Håvard
#18
zombiegleemax
Apr 27, 2005 9:55:01 I had no idea the Dragon Archive would become a rare item... I got mine for $30 when it first released.

I also have all the Dragon magazines that cover the "Voyage of the Princess Ark". I got the Dragon Archive more for the older issues of Dragon I don't have, my earliest consecutive issue starts one issue before VotPA.

For the record, I think the reason the box set did not publish the full set was two-fold. One, they didn't have the space to do all of them. And two... I suspect Bruce Heard himself decided his earlier work was not as good quality. I think he was exploring not only Mystara but where he wanted to go with the article. After he decided to develop the Savage Coast, the plot is more focused and less experimental.

Adamantyr
#19
havard
Apr 27, 2005 10:46:47
For the record, I think the reason the box set did not publish the full set was two-fold. One, they didn't have the space to do all of them. And two... I suspect Bruce Heard himself decided his earlier work was not as good quality. I think he was exploring not only Mystara but where he wanted to go with the article. After he decided to develop the Savage Coast, the plot is more focused and less experimental.

Interesting. I had never thought of that. Still, I would have liked to see more of the rules/setting info/maps from the actual VotPA included rather than all that other stuff that was found in CoM. Not that I didn't want to see that stuff too, but can't I guy have it all? ;)

I just registered over at Paizo and started a thread about VotPA over at
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dragon/generalDiscussion/collectingTheVoyageOfThePrincessArk

I'm already getting response. Join me and maybe this will become reality!

Håvard
#20
culture20
Apr 28, 2005 19:38:05 I would join you, but their website keeps telling me that my email address isn't recognized as a valid address. I guess they never heard of a "+" in a username before. Or maybe they did and know that I use it to filter out spam.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Feb 23, 2005 9:27:28	I bought Champions of the Mystara: Heroes of the Princess Ark a while ago from rpgnow.com, and I was disappointed to find out that about half of the original Dragon magazine serial was only summarized in a page. (And apparently the rest is missing some of the original background material.) This includes the first introduction of the Heldannic Knights, and the only descriptions of Cestia and the southern continent. I know the complete Dragon (up to issue 200 or something) was released on CD-ROM a while ago, but never rereleased due to royalty issues. I can find copies of it on ebay for ungodly sums, but I don't want to pay that much just for the one series of articles! Does anyone know a way to get the original Voyage of the Princess Ark serial (and the few other Mystara-related Dragon articles) in electronic format? Does Bruce Heard retain electronic publication rights to these? Do you think he'd be interested in releasing them to the Vaults?
#2 gazza555 Feb 23, 2005 9:42:36	I too would be interested in this. I bought VotPA when it originally came out. I had the copies of the later Dragons that weren't summarised but only a few of the earlier ones. :hoppingma Gary
#3 thorf Feb 23, 2005 9:47:17	Speaking as someone who paid US$150 for the set of 5 CDs with Dragon 1-250 in January, I sympathise with you. ;) I also agree with you about Champions of Mystara. Reading some of the earliest entries was one of the things I was looking forward to back when it was released, so I was rather disappointed to find out that I couldn't. Anyway, I'm afraid that it seems there is no easy (legal) way to get hold of the relevant files without buying the CDs...
#4 gazza555 Feb 24, 2005 7:41:05	Just looked on ebay.co.uk and there are some Dragon magazines between 150 and 190 going for reasonable prices. There's also the Dragon CD boxed set going for about £25 (still over 3 days to go though) Not sure if link is against CoC so just search for Dragon magazine. Gary
#5 thorf Feb 24, 2005 8:20:52	Nice price. Definitely worth a bid, but you might well find that the current bidder actually has a much higher bid limit set. That's what happened to me. :D
#6 zombiegleemax Feb 24, 2005 10:39:30	I was one of the fortunates who got in on the CD-ROM before the prices exploded. Got it for $24 on Half.com about a year and a half ago. The prices those things are going for are just astronomical compared to what they were about a year ago. If you can get the Archive without breaking the bank, that's definitely the best way to go. The only other (legal) means of getting the old VotPA articles is to get each individual Dragon mag. R.A.
#7 Monteblanco Feb 26, 2005 12:59:38	I read the Voyage at the CD and now you got me confused. What is included in the Champion of Mystara? I thought it was a reprint of the series.
#8 stanles Feb 26, 2005 13:15:49	I read the Voyage at the CD and now you got me confused. What is included in the Champion of Mystara? I thought it was a reprint of the series. in Champions of Mystara the first 15 parts of the story are all summarised in two pages.
#9 Monteblanco Feb 26, 2005 14:29:04	in Champions of Mystara the first 15 parts of the story are all summarised in two pages. Ok, I got this, but what else was included in the box?
#10 zombiegleemax Feb 26, 2005 18:26:54	The box set contains 3 books and a set of cards showing skyships and their deck plans (similar to the Spelljammer boxed set). Book One is "Heroes of the Princess Ark", which reprints the last part of the Voyage of the Princess Ark and summarizes the first part in two pages, and has a detailed deck plan of the ship, crew and NPC stats, and details on life aboard a skyship. I understand the original columns each included a chapter of the VotPA story and a sidebar giving game info (creature stats, maps, etc) for the area they visited in that chapter. The box set only reprints the story segment, not any of the sidebar info - I imagine a lot of the info ended up in the NPC stats section and the other two books, in a different format, but I don't know how much wasn't reprinted at all. Book Two is "Designer's Manual", which has rules for building and crewing skyships and designing planets and worlds. Book Three is "Explorer's Manual", which has Gazeteer-style writeups of Sind, Graakhalia (an elven and gnollish cavern system under the Plain of Fire), Yavdlom (which covers most of the Serpent Peninsula) and Ulimwengu (a lost area within the peninsula).
#11 zombiegleemax Mar 17, 2005 14:18:18	I am not sure of the legality of it, but maybe we could post the articles here? It would be time consuming, sure, but worth the effort. There wouldnt be any maps or pictures but the gist of the actual voyage details would probably still be welcomed. I have the CDs and would be willing to help. Just might have to overlook a few typing errors as my skill in typing is low.
#12 zombiegleemax Mar 17, 2005 14:57:47	I think posting copyrighted stuff on Wizards' own board is going a little far. They're being pretty cool about hosting these boards and even endorsing a semi-official Mystara site - way cooler than TSR ever was - so repaying them by warezing their stuff is just rude. However, isn't the reason the CD's aren't being reissued a concern over electronic publication rights? If so, Bruce Heard personally has the rights to republish those columns electronically, not Wizards. So to to a legal ESD of them we only need to get his ok with it. Does anyone have contact info for him?
#13 zombiegleemax Mar 17, 2005 15:49:54	I DID say at the beginning of my post that i didnt know the legality of it. As for being rude....... I have already paid my dues ( over $2000 in rpg products and magic cards). Im still waiting for a thank you!
#14 thorf Mar 17, 2005 22:06:09	I know the policy has changed since the release of the ESDs, but I do have an interesting little precedent for posting canon stuff. Check out the list of Mystara stuff in the Archives of this site, and you will find various things, including GAZ13, the Savage Coast sets, and a document about the Schattenalfen. Now, if you know Mystaran products well, you should know that there is no one product about the Schattenalfen. So how come there's a download for them? Simple - I typed in all the info I could find on them in preparation for expanding their culture into a proper HWR. At the time, we were able to type official things in and submit them to Wizards if the Coast's online representative, who posted them on the official site. Unfortunately, it seems I was the only person ever to do this, and only with that small fragment. And of course now 7 years later the situation has changed dramatically with the sales of ESDs and so on.
#15 zombiegleemax Mar 18, 2005 8:43:27	My question then is can we post just the articles in question? We aren't asking to reproduce all of dragon magazine just the VotPA articles.....It's not like they will ever put out an esd with just that in it. I got to thinking, don't we violate copyright laws with every map thats posted?
#16 chatdemon Apr 27, 2005 8:48:31	Paizo has just announced a Dragon magazine "best of" compilation. Perhaps they'd be interested in a similar product for the Princess Ark and KWG articles? Even as a PDF only product, it would be cool and probably sell well. Even though I have the Dragon Archive cd set, I'd buy it just to have the articles all in one place, and perhaps indexed. Go clamor for such a compilation on Paizo's forum and see what comes of it.
#17 havard Apr 27, 2005 9:45:36	Paizo has just announced a Dragon magazine "best of" compilation. Perhaps they'd be interested in a similar product for the Princess Ark and KWG articles? Even as a PDF only product, it would be cool and probably sell well. Even though I have the Dragon Archive cd set, I'd buy it just to have the articles all in one place, and perhaps indexed. Go clamor for such a compilation on Paizo's forum and see what comes of it. I second this! Mike seemed positive to a VotPA collection, so perhaps he could convince Erik Mona to investigate the possibility, especially if we put some pressure on them. I also own the Dragon Archive CDs and I even have most of the Dragon issues, but I would still love to see the entire story collected in one volume. I'd prefer it as a hard copy, but I would buy it even if it was only released in pdf format. The KWG series were fairly closely related to the VotPA series so if possible I'd like to see them included aswell. Imagine, the possibility of a new Mystara product, new Mystara art in the quality Dragon is known for these days, woohoo! Håvard
#18 zombiegleemax Apr 27, 2005 9:55:01	I had no idea the Dragon Archive would become a rare item... I got mine for $30 when it first released. I also have all the Dragon magazines that cover the "Voyage of the Princess Ark". I got the Dragon Archive more for the older issues of Dragon I don't have, my earliest consecutive issue starts one issue before VotPA. For the record, I think the reason the box set did not publish the full set was two-fold. One, they didn't have the space to do all of them. And two... I suspect Bruce Heard himself decided his earlier work was not as good quality. I think he was exploring not only Mystara but where he wanted to go with the article. After he decided to develop the Savage Coast, the plot is more focused and less experimental. Adamantyr
#19 havard Apr 27, 2005 10:46:47	For the record, I think the reason the box set did not publish the full set was two-fold. One, they didn't have the space to do all of them. And two... I suspect Bruce Heard himself decided his earlier work was not as good quality. I think he was exploring not only Mystara but where he wanted to go with the article. After he decided to develop the Savage Coast, the plot is more focused and less experimental. Interesting. I had never thought of that. Still, I would have liked to see more of the rules/setting info/maps from the actual VotPA included rather than all that other stuff that was found in CoM. Not that I didn't want to see that stuff too, but can't I guy have it all? ;) I just registered over at Paizo and started a thread about VotPA over at http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dragon/generalDiscussion/collectingTheVoyageOfThePrincessArk I'm already getting response. Join me and maybe this will become reality! Håvard
#20 culture20 Apr 28, 2005 19:38:05	I would join you, but their website keeps telling me that my email address isn't recognized as a valid address. I guess they never heard of a "+" in a username before. Or maybe they did and know that I use it to filter out spam.