Lancer

Wow... I like that defiler/preserver explanation. Pretty cool, it explains why Ylaruam is the desert that it is in the current gameworld. Any explanations from your campaign on how the ancient KW Nithians discovered how to drain life forces in order to use magic?

Myself, of course. Who else?

That's basically it.

I actually wasn't aware of these MMB boards.. Interesting and Thanks! Have they been around long? I bet they have And I don't actually have X4 and X5 though I have heard of their importance.. I should probably try to to get them as well to complete the trio.

Speaking of which, If Troika would have made their D&D CRPG based on B10 or X10 rather than on TOEE, it would have been a much better game. " But, of course, it all comes down to $$$$.. FR is much more popular than Mystara so it would be more profitable by basing a game off of a FR module over a Mystara one.. Even if the Mystara one is of better quality. Heck, what I would give to play a modern CRPG based on one of those OD&D classics.. Even if it used 3E rules...A modern Order of the Griffon.. *dreams*

Oh.. you mean the FR Goddess of Magic.. Mystra? I don't care much for her either, but I do love MystAra. :D

Wow.. we have run the gamut here.. We have gone to D&D sucks to D&D rules to Mystara rules and now Planescape rules.. lol

Neither ToEE nor Tomb of Horrors(nor I6:Ravenloft for that matter) can touch B10 or X10. Speaking of which, have you ever tried X10:Red Arrow, Black Shield? I have never actually run it but it is another Mystara favorite that incorporates real roleplaying elements (like any truly good module " ) as well as introduces the War Machine combat system as you battle the Master of Hule. From what I read, it looked pretty damn impressive. But, in general, I have never been big on running modules. I always prefer to run my own adventures. Heck, they are better than anything WotC has been putting out! Jediphile, are you a member of the MML? As for me, I become a member on and off.. Sometimes I post and have contributed to the MML in the past (a partially complete weather generator coded in MATLAB, and OD&D Immortal portfolios converted to 2ndEd...etc), but lately I have been lurking around the boards.

Don't worry.. I may have sounded like a Warriors of Heaven fanboy, but I am not actually:). I also only use it as a guideline in assigning homeplanes for the Immortals. And as far as some people thinking that the Immortals live on Pandius and nowhere else..Really? I must say I find this surprising! I also saw Pandius as nothing more than a meeting spot for Immortals. Perhaps, the main meeting spot for Immortals discussing Mystaran business. In fact even Book One: Codex of the Immortals for WotI (p.128) implies this pretty strongly: "Pandius is not the only city of the Immortals, but it is one of the few where Immortals of every Sphere of Power have estates and meet in peaceful interaction..." (a few lines down) "Other planes also feature Cities of the Immortals. For instance, the Plane of Brynn.... etc" They also messed up his alignment in G:KoM with respect to GAZ3, IMHO. But still, (unless you are an extreme purist.. as you can tell, I am not! ), the DM has the right of changing the alignment and/or stats to how he sees fit. And thanks for the suggestions for the Outer Planes. I do like the idea of having Old Alphatia inside of Draesten..Time to get out my Planescape materials with my WotI and Gold Box boxed sets...I got some thinking to do!

Sadly... it is all about profit, my friend. And getting the consumer to clean out his pockets even though he was perfectly fine with his previous edition. I mean, seriously, do we really need the x to-the-nth power edition? In many cases the rules of previous editions were just fine to many fans but for the all-mighy dollar...The sad thing is people actually fall for this and RPG developers have recognized this as a ploy they can continue using that will always work. Business.. Business.

I have yet to come across a system that is "truly" 100% balanced. There are systems that people claim are balanced theoretically... But in actual practice, total bologna. Really, I have always been able to find things I don't like and/or unbalanced in every ruleset I have ever read or played... This goes for the so-called "more modern, advanced" systems too. Unless the ruleset totally sucks, I'd say setting is a far more important criteria for determining whether or not to stick to a particular game than the actual ruleset... Particularly, for a crafty DM.

Yes, :)I am fully aware of the Mystaran community's invention of the (Outer Beings) OBs (IIRC, it is Geoff Gander's bad boy). As much as I like the whole concept of the OBs, I don't want to confuse non-Mystaran players into thinking that it is canon, because it isn't. The OB concept is a great idea since it does cull concepts from the Cthulhu mythos but the truth is that it is not official OD&D/AD&D Mystara material. It is well done and a lot of people have used this info for their campaigns, however. Even I have used considerable chunks of it myself for my campaign but I just wanted to let everyone know the distinction. As for M3... I have read it and aside from that module there isn't much information on the Carnifex but much fan-made material is available via the Vaults of Pandius site. Yeah, I have brought up "Warriors of Heaven" a WHILE back on the Mystara forums and it didn't receive a warm reception but, who cares, I like it. I am glad we are on the same boat here . It has been at least a couple of years since I devised this Mystara/Planescape conversion, so the original motive for changing the Nightmare Dimension to the Demiplane of Nightmares was probably through reading the MC (in addition to reading Ravenloft: Domains of Dread). That does sound vaguely familiar.... Thanks for spurring my memory! You *really* like putting everything in the outer planes don't you.. Definitely a purist! :D I do agree with your points actually and I thought exactly along those same lines. In OD&D these are outer planes but there is something of a tradeoff. I think my logic was (when I did this years ago) that placing OD&D's outer planes as outer planes in Planescape would disrupt Planescape's "Unity-Of-Rings" concept. In other words, you will have planes alongside others that shouldn't be. This would be problematic for planar travel and the Great Wheel, in general. My logic was that either I live with the above inconsistencies, ignore the OD&D outer planes altogether, or try stuffing them into the Ethereal Plane. I even toyed with the idea of having Old Alphatia as a distinct multiverse independent of the main Mystara multiverse...I thought the third was the best course of action though it ain't perfect either, admittedly. But if I can get a satisfactory solution for the placement of Old Alphatia among the outer planes, I am open to suggestion. Point taken... Now this is getting a bit outside of canon, but the spheres are not physical locations in a sense but I've taken them to be tied to certain planes pre-disposed (if you will) to them. And as you mention the red sun being a gate to the sphere of energy... P.7 of the HW DM's sourcebook- "... This was a massive outpouring of magical energy which was continuously fueled by the energies of the central sun(which itself is a pinhole-sized gate to the Plane of Energy).." So yes, this implies that the spheres are in fact connected in some fashion to the physical planes (I don't think the "why" is important.. just that they are and it lends the concept some mystique). This fits relatively well with my proposition that Energy is indeed connected to the Positive Energy Plane. Entrem has ties to time occording to OD&D and upon making this realization I was strangely able to find parallels between the spheres and the inner planes. I think it worked out pretty well. Admittedly, I was never 100% happy with what I had done with Old Alphatia (or even Draesten) but I should try one more time and see if I can put them in the outer planes somewhere.

It does turn out that "Wastelands" is a Swedish RPG.. Too bad I don't know Swedish. But I will check out GammaWorld at Sci-Fi City tomorrow.

Yeah, I quickly skimmed his.. Sawyer's are based off of "Simple."

In all my years of gaming and reading and trying out different rulesets I always come back to AD&D. To me, none of the other systems can really compare (except for maybe, SLA). It is shortsighted to say that any system is inherently better than any other because just like food, people have different tastes. Anyways, Mystara just rocks my world.

I am glad that you do find it interesting(And I am glad Jediphile and I weren't wasting our time! ). The primary motive was to talk about a setting we both love and raise awareness about Mystara in general... But if it also sparks ideas for your other campaign settings then we definitely fulfilled our purpose!

Oh...my players loved it. When they got to Name-level all they wanted to do was to run dominions. Interesting you bring up this point because the Mystaran community, in general, likes to believe that the Mystara multiverse and the Planescape multiverse *are* mutually exclusive. I think Bruce Heard even wrote an article once (can be found on Vaults of Pandius) talking about how Mystara is its own multiverse independent of AD&D Planescape. In my campaign, that is total bull as I have been able to blend Planescape and Mystara succesfully. In fact, the 2ndEd supplement "Warriors of Heaven" had appendices that detailed where most Gods realms were located (including Mystaran Immortals)throughout the planes for all of TSR's settings. This product used the Planescape cosmology.I do agree with you that the OD&D and Planescape cosmologies are similar enough that linking Mystara and Planescape in this fashion works just fine. So what did I end up doing with the extra OD&D planes that Planescape doesn't have? -Well, Planescape and Ravenloft products state that Ethereal Plane contain many demiplanes including a "Demiplane of Nightmares. So I reasoned that OD&D's "Nightmare Dimension" was actually the "Demiplane of Nightmares." -Old Alphatia, Brynn, Mirage, and Draesten also became demiplanes within the Ethereal. -Pyts corresponds to the 333rd layer of the Abyss which is Thanatos' realm. - Finally, Entrem , representing the Sphere of Time became an Inner Plane along with the other inner planes representing the Sphere of Energy(Fire; Positive Energy Plane), Matter(Earth; Ethereal Plane), Thought(Air, Astral Plane), and Entropy (no element; Negative Energy Plane)

Alright! I am not sure if there is anyone else reading this thread who DMs/plays in Mystara aside from Jediphile and myself.. anyone else?

This is true, that the HW, by nature, is somewhat more static than the KW though I believe it is a bit more dynamic than you imply here. Remember that nothing in the Spell of Preservation prevents new cultures forming out of the original ones. So new races and cultures can develop in the HW as long as the original cultures aren't wiped out. Also, I think nothing in the SOP prevents cultures from learning combat strategies from one another through warfare. To my understanding, this is all good inasmuch as neither civilization utterly wipes out the other. The HW is interesting because of its "weirdness" factor. As great as the KW is politically, the HW is just as great in another sense-- It is awe-inspiring. It is weird. The HW is weird because it represents extinct civilizations that *shouldn't* ,no, *couldn't* exist. Yet, they do. It defies logic and that is what is so gripping about it. The HW truly is a museum and visiting it is like going to the past. It is like taking our real world, stepping into a time machine and being able to explore Egypt during the times of Tutankhammen or seeing if there truly is a missing link and if evolution holds. That is way too cool. So, unlike other settings, Mystara allows you to go back in time (in a sense) and experience *first hand* the history of the gameworld. Along the way the PCs can make some exciting scientific, historical, or magical discoveries that might support or not support conventional wisdom. Heck, savvy HW explorers (PC archaeologists) might be able to correct incorrect notions about the HW as they bring in updated information during their travels. And who says that in your campaign, Hel or Thanatos (or some other Immortal of the Sphere of Entropy)won't attempt to destroy the Spell of Preservation, somehow? And what if they succeed? Entropy has been trying to destroy the HW for some time.. It would be another great plot hook. Not to mention that Thanatos' burrowers are perfect for Lovecraftian-type horror plot hooks. Since you play CoC, the burrowers would make a great excuse to utilize a bit of horror for a HW adventure. IIRC, on the Vaults of Pandius site there was at least one article detailing horror rules for Mystara. Pretty interesting. Well, the Kingdom of Ierendi, I have always seen not so much as an adventuring spot for PCs but as a vacation resort.. really. It is Mystara's version of Hawaii. Granted, it is not the most exciting spot on Mystara to adventure but if any of your PCs have a family (wife, kids) and the wife or kids have been complaining that your character has been neglecting the family chasing baddies for far too long, Ierendi would be a great place to enjoy some quality family time. Heck, I am not against neglected PC wives requesting annullment! I just find it interesting that the option for your PC to literally take a vacation exists for when conditions call for it. Not to say that Ierendi is totally devoid of adventure opportunities... My sentiments exactly. I seriously would have loved a Shattenalfen Gaz.. Or a Beastman Gaz. Oh well.. Haha! I liked this! I haven't used the Heldannic Knights much in my campaign but I enjoyed their utilization in VotPA.

In addition, to the "grey" nature of Mystara that most NPCs are not the typical cookie cutter black and white villains and heroes, it is the various extra touches that makes this setting stand out from any other TSR/WotC fantasy setting: 1)The aforementioned Immortality rules,stats and ways to apply them 2) Full army statistics of every world in the Known and Hollow Worlds and therefore the built-in capability via the War Machine (or even Battlesystem) to simulate entire battles. 3)Complete rules on how to become a knight or a lord, obtain vassals, construct strongholds, run a dominion (town, city), determine population growth and dominion economics..etc.. Heck, the built-in capability to create an entire empire and wage war if you like that sort of thing. 4) And long before Planescape, Mystara already had its own complete cosmology as well. Haha... All this makes me yearn to run another campaign in it!

I never heard of GammaWorld or Wastelands.. I'll check them out.

I do see Alphatia doing that. Looking down upon the Ethengar Khanates as potential allies. I mean, they are nothing but savage barbarians . I completely loved the idea of roleplaying through the high points of the war to then have the rest of the timeline to do as I see fit. If anything, I thought that was a major strength of the product. At any rate, people complain nowadays of DMs too strictly adhering to (and in some cases reading) the module step by step without imparting a bit of their own originality. I think that is a valid complaint. Mortal PCs are much more interesting that Immortal ones... yes.. But that is not why you would use those rules (at least not why I would use them). I love the capability of being able to make my own Immortals as I see fit. How about new NPCs that achieve Immortality, for instance? Aren't there are quite a few high level candidates in Mystara for it? When (if)one of those NPCs finally ascends, the rules allow a framework for developing their stats and their niche per se; where they fit alongside the rest of the Immortals. Then it is fun developing their portfolio, their followers, churches and how this all fits within your Mystara which culminates in new plot hooks.. etc..you get the picture. Or for some reason you're a DM planning the next adventure and need to simulate the results of a battle between Immortals and determine the results accurately without guesswork. You can use the results of that conflict as a seed in the planning of the next adventure..The rules allow that. Or heck... Say your PCs are candidates of Immortality themselves (Level 36 OD&D;Level 20 AD&D) and to culminate a campaign the PCs achieve Immortality. Even though it is not recommended to have them continue as Immortal PCs, I think it would be rewarding as the "campaign's ending" for the players and DM alike to get into the details about the creation of their Immortals down to manifestation forms, stats, motives, portfolios, followers, churches so that he becomes the newest fully detailed Immortal NPC for the next campaign. If the player is lucky, in the next campaign he will feel the actions of his former character (the newest NPC Immortal) he created in the last campaign. Haha! I can imagine the inner conflict players might face if their favorite former PC has goals which directly conflict with those of their current PC!

Don't get me started on the Rules Cyclopedia. In one word.. It is AWESOME! The memories.. 'Tis what got me hooked into Mystara to begin with. True.. True. You can count the DotE boxed set as a Gaz And the Creature Crucible series though not technically Gazs were clearly inspired by them. So you could say 19. And that was the problem with the HW. I really liked the Azcan, Milenian, and Nithian Gazs but 3 Gazs only scratched the surface of the cultural complexity that is the HW. I seriously think that the HW had the potential to be every bit as interesting as the KW but sadly just never got the needed support. Lord knows why. .. I do think the HW deserved the entire Gaz treatment given to the KW. Yes, you are right, the HW had its own boxed set but the boxed set descriptions were still pretty bareboned, IMHO. Imagine if the KW had its own introductory boxed set, though like HW, only 3 Gazs were made for it. I don't think that the political landscape would have been as interesting as it now with the 15 (19 with CC) Gazs. And you just mentioned yourself how Gaz2 was only partially complete and how the Ylaruam setting feels incomplete for it. Well-written, complete Gazs (not short overview descriptions) *really* were that pivotal in fleshing out Mystara.... I thought it helped that The HW got its own boxed set but it still got the short end of the stick for not having been fleshed out via Gazs like its KW counterpart was . I think Ludwig von Hendriks is a cool villain. Him and Bargle are a couple of the few Mystara NPCs that are your protypical evil villains. Though my favorite is probably Synn the Night Dragon as introduced from the VotPA series and updated in G:KoM. I love Glantri.. the political intrigue, maneuvering, backstabbing is unmatched. I loved the PWAs. They illustrate more than anything else published for Mystara just how politically active and dynamic the setting is. I don't believe anything like the PWAs were made for any of TSR's other settings though I could be mistaken.

I read the entire Voyage of the Princess Ark series both the Dragon magazine column and the CoM boxed set. I definitely thought the Red Steel setting as depicted in these products made that setting more interesting than in practice. Yep, definitely. I loved WotI. One of the main reasons it seems that people disliked it is that they claim that the Gods arbitrarily involved themselves without much rhyme or reason. And in some cases, it was disadvantageous to themselves and their followers partake in the war. I can see some of their points but like you said the overwhelming potential for adventure hooks post-WotI far outweighed WotI's plot inconsistencies. And the module is fun to play! And I must be in the minority, but I confess to rather liking the Immortal character creation rules as well. :"> I loved those rules not for creating PCs but for devising my own home-brewed Immortal portfolios and I especially loved how it made possible to simulate Immortal combat results rather than just fabricating them.

Warriors of the Eternal Sun, IMHO, did a pretty bad job of depicting the Hollow World but as a standalone game it was average. Order of the Griffon did a much better job depicting Karameikos. Yep, exactly. It is just a business strategy to get money out of unwitting folks. I never fell into *that* trap of buying all this new stuff when 3e came out.