Official In-World Justifications for the Appearance of AD&D Features in Mystara
by Travis HenryHi, in this thread, I'd like to gather in-world Official justifications or facets related to the lens shift from Mystara-B4 (RC Mystara) to Mystara-A2 (AD&D Mystara).
I'm inspired by this passage from K:KoA p.123:
"The druids of Mystara have come to the Dread Coast only recently, arriving from the west and south. Previously, there have been high-level priests of neutrality and various nature-based Immortals who have pursued a druidic course. These are now known as the Balancers and sometimes serve as high-level druids with identical powers. Druids preach the faith of nature as opposed to any nature-based Immortal. They may also venerate a particular Immortal (such as Terra) but gain no special abilities from it. Druids of Mystara may be true neutral, lawful neutral, or chaotic neutral (this is different form traditional AD&D fantasy worlds)."
Since K:KoA is set in A.C. 1012 (the year when TSR switched to AD&D), this is an Official in-world justification for one small feature of the 2E game system; namely, the fact that 2E druids don't have to be Name-level.
AFAIK, the Druid/Balancer bit is the only in-world justification given for AD&D changes. That's pretty paltry...on the order of how Greyhawk's Fate of Istus gives an in-world justification for 1E-to-2E changes in the Assassin and Monk...but not for any other facet!
***
In my Paraverse conception, I suggest that all Timelines (continuities) hypothetically have a counterpart in each Reality (rules-lens). And that all the official mainline events (depicted in any edition of Mystara: Basic, 2E, 3E, or 5E) took place in each of the mainline Realities, except where they must be modified to fit with the rules lens; and even there, the modification is to the least feasible degree.
So, what this means is that even in the mainline Mystara-B4 (the Rules Cyclopedia timeline that continues on past AC 1011, but off-screen), that:
1) Druids officially did arrive from "west and south" in AC 1012, even in mainline Mystara-B4.
2) And that in western Brun and in Davania, even in the mainline Mystara-B4, there was always a base Druid class. IIRC, there was a BECMI Druid base class in the Robrenn VotPA article.
3) And that in AC 1012, these basic Druids arrived in the Dread Coast, which evoked a distinction whereby the Rules Cyclopedia Druids were now known as "Balancers." Just like happened in 2E Reality.
4) And so, from AC 1012 onward, even in the RC Reality, there are base-level Druids, and Name-level Balancers in Mystara-B4.
5) And...that even in the RC Reality, Druids can be Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. Because the Official 2E-to-RC conversion appendix (in RC) says: "Alignment - To D&D: Keep the Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic alignment and use the Good-Evil axis as a guide to
role-playing." [Edit: Actually, based on further research, as seen below, that wouldn't be true, since LN/TN/CN was just the "system" for converting Neutral Druids/Balancers in the mainline A2 Reality.]
6) However, #5 is in discontinuity with the Robrenn druid class, which must be Neutral. Thus, at face value, there's a split into two paraverses there.
How does this relate to my Paraverse concept? Since no "Mystara-shattering event" was offered for the shift from RC to AD&D2E, and since sources said that the Basic D&D Multiverse exists in a completely different Reality than AD&D, I'd say in the main Legacy Multiverse (1E>2E>3E>4E>5E), Mystara never used a Basic rules lens.
Still, the Druid/Balancer event is a (slight) implication that, at least in one paraverse, the Basic lens shifted to the 2E lens in AC 1012, within the same paraverse. I'd call this Mystara-B4>A2. In this paraverse, the past really was portrayed by the RC lens, while the 1012 onward was portrayed by 2E.
This would be a distinct from the Legacy Multiverse where the past rules lens of Mystara are synchronized with the Time of Troubles, Vecna's Removal, the Spellplague, etc. Because Mystara-L was *AD&D 1E* before the Time of Troubles (glimpsed in a few places, such as the 1E stats on Bugs Bunny in Darokin, and Mystaran products which were advertised as being compatible with 1E)...and never had a Basic D&D lens.
"Mystara-B4>A2"'s two phases would be exact parallels of Mystara-B4 and Mystara-A2, except that the Mystara-B4 paraverse (proper) was always Rules Cyclopedia lens (in past and future) and Mystara-A2 paraverse (proper) was always AD&D 2E (in past and future).
Also relevant:
-K:KoA p.116: "A Note About Half-Elves: Half-elves are rare on Mystara, but they do exist."
-And how "Mystaran wizards", Mystaran "alignment philosophers", and other classes are portrayed with K:KoA kits. In some cases, these appear to be (slight) attempts to model BD&D class features.
Unlike the statement on druids, these are not time-dependent features though, or applicable only to a certain continent. They're general statements, hypothetically applying to Mystaran half-elves, wizards, etc., in the past and present, throughout the whole setting.
A few other relevant bits for further research, not necessarily related to the transition to 2E, but which do give Official glimpses of how Mystara could be expressed in the 2E Reality:
-I vaguely recall a Known World Grimoire article on dragons that offered an in-world explanation for introducing all the other colors and metallics.
-The BECMI stats for drow in the Pelinore setting.
-The various official Basic to Advanced conversion systems (in the back of the GAZes, in the RC appendix, and the implied conversion method of NPCs in PWA and the Karameikos and Glantri boxed sets)
-The "Squid's Eye View" implications on mind flayers.
-Appearances of "incongruous" AD&D features in Mystaran products. (E.g. "dark elf" portrayed on the GAZ cover, The Mind Slayer, metallic dragons)
-Bruce Heard's comments on Reality Shift in "Up, Away, and Beyond"
-Those 2E crossovers with Planescape and Spelljammer. Also, Bruce's later post-TSR story about Mystara-space later being filled with air is relevant to Mystara-space.
-The statements in the Red Steel materials which basically says the VotPA writings are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. According to TSR policy, later trumps former, even when the earlier stuff was better than later stuff. So in the mainline of even Mystara-B4, the VotPA writings are wrong.
Still researching.