Showing posts with label Mystoerth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mystoerth. Show all posts

Thursday, December 21, 2023

The Empty Chair: R. Michael Grenda

R. Michael "Evil" Grenda
 Well. I didn't expect to be doing this today. I just got word that my old High School and College DM, R. Michael Grenda, died yesterday.  The cause of death is unknown, but it is suspected it was a heart attack.

I have mentioned him here many times, usually not by name, I don't name people unless they have explicitly said it was fine. But we began playing in my early high school days. We met via our school's theatre group. Yeah, we were both theatre kids. We bonded over our shared love of D&D and the fact that we both owned TRS-80 Color Computers

He had his world, based mainly on the World of Greyhawk and I had mine, based on the Known World, or what would later be known as Mystara. And we would go back and forth between these worlds. Eventually, we would merge them and he made a map for it that I would eventually lose and then much, much later find the Mystoerth map I still use today. We played chess together often, had similar tastes in fiction, and discovered computer games together.

When I left town to go to University, he eventually followed me there. He was a computer science major and would eventually end up working with databases for the State of Illinois (which is as much archaeology as it is computer science) and met his future wife while we were all at school together. His wife (then his girlfriend) introduced me to Gopher sites and even this new thing called the World Wide Web.

Much of what happened in our games lives on in my work here.  The "Big Bad" of my Buffy campaign "The Dragon and the Phoenix" was Yoln Shadowreaper, one of his NPCs. The entire background of TDaTP was my big War of the Dragons, which was our world-ending battle before college.

Our "D&D on the Computer" game BARDD was largely written by him. When I6 Ravenloft came out I bought it and then made him run it. Back in college, we even did the "Dreams of Barovia" campaign where the characters shifted from one reality to the next, with him running House on Gryphon Hill and me running the original I6. I ran my first test of my witch class with him and we tried out his Riddle Master, Beastmaster, and Shadowmaster classes.

We had met up recently, back in July, and that was great. We had not seen each other in a long time. Family, jobs, kids. You know the story.  I hate to say it, but when his wife called me last night, I was not 100% surprised. I thought he looked a little unwell. But hell, we are all in our 50s now. None of us look "great."  

I have not quite processed it all yet, to be honest.  I owe a lot of my my current writing to him and the games we played. Thought we might roll some dice one more time, but I guess not.

Grenda

I'll end with him flipping me off at a party a bunch of us were at in college. He would have found it funny.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 21 - Setting Sunday: Share an intriguing detail from a game setting you enjoy

Setting Sunday!

It is said that AD&D Second Edition was the king of settings and campaign worlds.

One I always found interesting was the AD&D 2e setting Red Steel

Essentially "Fantasy Australia where even the rocks can kill you." Credit to TSR for trying something so new so late in the game development.

I always liked the idea and wanted to explore it a lot more, just never got around to it.  Though with my Mystoerth setting I could likely find a place for it.

Another great 2nd Edition setting was Masque of the Red Death, an attempt to bring AD&D to the Victorian Horror genre. For a while, this was my absolute favorite setting even if the system (AD&D 2nd Ed.) never really worked well with the setting (Victorian Era earth). 

In both settings there are things in the world that can corrupt the PCs.  And as it turns out both are red.

In Red Steel it is the dust and rocks, but there is also the red steel to protect you.

In MotRD it is the eponymous Red Death, the evil force that haunts Gothic Earth.

Both came out at similar times and I have to admit I wanted to explore more connections between the two other than the superficial. 

See what I mean when I said I could just play D&D and never run out of ideas!

RPGaDAY2022


Friday, August 12, 2022

Follow Friday: Greycast

I am working on adding more podcasts to listen to. 

Greycast is a new one to me, introduced to me by Matt Fenn, a fellow Mystoerth fan.

Greycast

They do deep dives into Greyhawk and early D&D topics.

Among my favorites are the ones on the Keep on the Borderlands, the Beginning in Greyhawk, and Greyhawk for Kids.

I am going to be on the Podcast on Monday talking about Mystoerth. Check it out!

Links

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

What *IS* Blackmoor in my World?

I have been reading more of the late Jason Zavoda's posts about his "Blackmoor Land of a Thousand Witches" and I have wanted to do something with that.  This got me thinking about some ideas I had had for 4e Blackmoor.  Which then got me thinking about my world in a larger sense and how Blackmoor really is the keystone of my Mystorerth world.  

Even before I adopted James Mischler's name for it I was playing in a combined Msytara/Oerth world (and I kinda regret not calling Oestara now).   My world was Mystara/The Know World, my DM's was Oerth Greyhawk.  The central common feature was Blackmoor.

Blackmoor, Dave's version

But what even *IS* Blackmoor in my world now?

It has always been some sort of Shangri-La like place of High Magic and High Tech in the Mystara books and place of post-apocalyptic destruction in Greyhawk. 

So I am going back to the sources, the original Blackmoor.

I read on good ole Wikipedia (the unofficial Splat Book for every RPG) that the original Blackmoor campaign setting "include(ed) ideas from The Lord of the Rings and Dark Shadows and applied the Fantasy Supplement rules from the Chainmail game." That sounds like my games!

Blackmoor CY576

I also went the best Blackmoor sources on the net, Havard's Blackmoor Blog and the Blackmoor Archives.

To be blunt there is an absolute ton of material in both of those sites to keep me busy for weeks.  But there are a few key points there AND I have Harvard and fellow Mystoerth enthusiast Mathew Fenn to thank.

So I don't need to connect Mystara Blackmoor to Greyhawk Blackmoor physically because they are the same place separated by time.   Harvard tells us that MBlackmoor is set "4000 years in Mystara's past."  For me that means there are two Blackmoors indeed.  Same location, but somehow when their magic-tech devices exploded it trapped a bubble of Blackmoor in time (-3426 CY to be exact) so the PCs can still get to it if they know how.    In this respect Blackmoor become my Atlantis, or at least the Atlantis like the one depicted in the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) story The Time Monster.

I have always wanted an Atlantis.  A mythical land/realm destroyed by a cataclysm, maybe one wrought by hubris, BUT there also be enough survivors so we know what the tale is/was.  My version of Mystara's "Known World" has so many different sorts of people living in it because they are the descendants of refugees of the Blackmoor explosion. 

I'd also like to learn more about what sort of "Gothic Horror" and "Dark Shadows" elements were part of the original Blackmoor.  I am not sure that Dark Shadows fits in well with "magic-tech superpower" but it would with the post-apoc Greyhawk-era Blackmoor.  

Blackmoor in the World of Greyhawk

Map by Daniel Hasenbos, Courtesy of DHBoggs

Blackmoor today is more like what the Greyhawk Gazeteers say it is.  But I also want to add bits of Hyperborea to my version of Blackmoor for that full post-apocalyptic feel and justify high powered magic tech still existing.  Hyperborea's Atlanteans might be what I need to complete this picture.

In any case I do have a lot of reading to do and figuring out what it all means for my world.

Matthew "Matteus" Fenn's map

Map of Mathew Fenn

So. What DO I know? Well in no particular order.

  • Blackmoor is north.  For the Flanaess it is about as far north as you can go before reaching the Black Ice.  
  • The Black Ice is black because Blackmoor blew up. 
  • Prior to the explosion Blackmoor was a cosmopolitan utopia. All the races lived and visited here in seeming harmony (there was still tensions here so not all wine and roses) and art, science, and magic were celebrated.  I want it's past to be "far too good to be true" but in fact true.  That is the tragedy of Blackmoor. 
  • The differences between the Mystara map of Blackmoor and the Greyhawk version is due to this explosion.
  • I am reversing the names of the sea near Blackmoor.  In the past is was known as the "Icy Sea" now it is called the "Black Sea" and it actually black and full of weird mutated sea creatures.
  • If there was ever an "Innsmouth" for my world it is here.
  • There WILL be ways to travel back in time (or outside of time) to Old Blackmoor.  This will be my chance to pull out some time travel ideas and break my "no time travel in D&D" rule.  In fact it should be the focus of an adventure at some point. 
  • Blackmoor of today is considered to be a haunted and desolate land.  The tales of Blackmoor's rise and then destruction are akin to our tales of Atlantis.
  • "Not since Blackmoor" is a saying meaning a very, very long time ago. 
  • The land is filled with random magic effects and other strangeness.  The barrier between realms is the weakest here.  So this is also where eldritch horrors are most likely to appear. 
  • I might try to use the "Temple of the Frog" in some manner, obviously I am going to use this as a cult center of Tsathoggua.  I would change many elements of the adventure, but certainly go with the maps and some of the science fantasy elements.
  • I still have to reckon my "Monks come from Blackmoor" notion.  Like I said then these might be psychic ascetics cut from the 70's occult revival cloth.  That would fit with the idea that monks were introduced in the Blackmoor supplement and the Mystics from the D&D Basic/BECMI/RC line. I need a good psychic mystic class to cover them. I have written a bit on Mystics[1][2][3] in the past, so I am sure there is something more I can do with that. 

Obviously I have a lot to consider here. And a lot more to read about before I could come up with any sort of good idea.  My ultimate goal here was to myself to a point where I could talk about Jason Zavoda's "Blackmoor Land of a Thousand Witches" but I am not even close to that yet.  But I can at least see the road map from here.

Links

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

More Mystoerth

While I was driving on vacation, I get a message from Matthew Fenn, AKA "Matteus," on Facebook. It was his new version of the Mystoerth map.   Now I likely saw it right as I was getting ready to leave and responded back with a "wow, that is cool!" and then I sadly promptly forgot about it.  In my defense, it was 900 miles later when I actually sat down to look at social media again.

The map he sent to me is fantastic.  Click for a larger version.

Mystoerth

It is based on the James Mishler and Chatdemon map I love so much.

This would have been reason enough for me to talk about it today, but there is more! 

There is a discussion about this map on Facebook,

And at the Piazza Message Boards.  I even dusted off my old Piazza account to join in on the posts.

I am going to add some of these links to my Mystoerth page.   I also went to Map to Globe to get a globe of the world rendered.

Mystoerth globe in space

I also uploaded the huge TimeLine my co-DM from the 1980s and early 90s compiled to cover the combined Mystara-Greyhawk world.

While writing this I was chatting with Matthew and he is getting the map printed on cloth.  This made me think of my own Victorian London map I had printed by Banners on the Cheap.  I am going to check that out in a bit.  Though, maybe not as big as the one I have now.

London Map from Banners on the Cheap

So. Where does that leave me?

Well, it was not that long ago when I was talking about using the Orignal Known World for War of the Witch Queens.  

My problem is I love maps.  Every map is a new world to explore.  I have been using Old-School Essentials for my system of choice for WotWQ and I just got my OSE-Advanced Fantasy books and will be using those going forward.  Since OSE-AF is a nice mix of Basic and Advanced versions of the D&D game, why not use a world that is a nix mix of the Basic and Advanced worlds?

Ugh. I hate having to choose! Why can't I use both?  Right. Time. 

Maybe I can cheat. Make my Mystoerth hollow (I do love a Hollow Earth!) and use the Moldvay/Schick Known World map as the interior of my Mystoerth.  Hmm. I do like that idea.  It would help explain some similar names on the maps.  Though it gives me some problems with the Underdark.  The Moldvay/Schick map is much smaller, implying a smaller surface area.  It's been decades since I took calculus to figure out the interior surface area of a sphere. I could compare the outer surface vs. the inner surface and then work out the "depth" between the two worlds.  The crazy Hollow Earth book I have here assumes a "thickness" of 8 miles. I forget what the Rules Cyclopedia assumes. 

Sounds like time to do some math!

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Everything Old is New Again: The Original Known World

 The original Known World by Tom Moldvay and Lawrence Schick. 

The Known World
The Known World Replica Map by James Mishler

It's no lie. I love maps. As a kid, I would read over maps, follow roads to see where they lead. I had a map of the city of Chicago hanging up in my room that I would just stare at and imagine what those streets were like from hundreds of miles away. I still have a map of Victorian-era London in my office that I still stare at.  Just the other night I spent hours pouring over a map of Westeros which has put me into the mood to reread A Song of Ice and Fire. 

So while back there was some new discussion about the Orginal Known World from Tom Moldvay and Lawrence Schick, the one that was the precursor to the World of Mystara of later BECMI use.  James Mishler, who also knows a thing or two about Mystara, put together a hex map of this world and I just can't stop reading it.  Such tantalizing treasures here.  Demi-orcs? So many Orc clans! A city called Keraptis? Tharks!  So many familiar names all in different places.

I know I talked about this one before but it still fascinates me.  The map covers an area about 2,400 miles east to west and 850 miles north to south. OR, about the same size as the continental United States (2,800 miles from furthest points east and west, 1,500 north to south).  

While I enjoy all of this it was largely academic interest. I mean after all I have plenty of worlds. Come Endless Darkness takes place in Oerth/World of Greyhawk, the Second Campaign is primarily a Mystara one, and Into the Nentir Vale is a solid Toril/Forgotten Realms campaign.  So my players are used to the idea of multiple universes and worlds. The characters of War of the Witch Queens are now beginning to learn about this.   So adding a new world only makes things difficult for me and really, it's not all that difficult.

Since "War of the Witch Queens" is my ode to both Basic-era D&D (currently using B/X as the rules base) AND to the many wonderful products in the Old-School scene I always felt I needed an old school world to fit the bill.  I had thought about using the BECMI "Urt" which gives me the same Mystara maps but make it a little different. Mystara we would later find out is hollow. Urt is a living planet akin to Mogo.  I do have a living planet I use in my Sci-fi games, Gaia, so I don't necessarily need another one.  Though Gaia is living in the sense there is a planetary wide consciousness as opposed to a living being.

While Urt, or even Urth, is fine, it isn't really what I want.  I want something old, or at least has a proper pedigree?  Why?  Because this campaign is not really about what I can make up. I have dozens of worlds, places, maps, you name it, but I want something different than what I can do.  

It was while reading a series of posts (links below) from Jonathan Becker on B/X Blackrazor that gave me an idea. 

Why not use this Moldvay/Schick Known World as the PC's world in War of the Witch Queens?

Sure. I should really use Mystara or Mystoerth for a proper B/X feel, but yet this map calls to me. It begs me to explore it.  It isn't the whole world, of course, it is just the known world.  Sure it's not my world.  But I also had no say in being born in Illinois and as a longing for a magical place called Chicago.  BTW Chicago did in fact live up to (and down to) my dreams of it.

Glantri and it's surroundings, 500 miles

I get some familiar names, remixed in new ways.  I already established my East Haven and West Haven towns and how East Haven in my "world" is in the same spot as Haven on Krynn. West Haven of course is West Haven in every world; it is a Nexus Point.  

There is a lot going on this map and it really works for me.  It comes from a time period I really want my Witch Queens campaign to be all about.   Plus it makes Glantri (and Darokin) into a Welsh-like kingdom (and BEGS me to make the ruler King Llywelyn the Great).  Gorllewin even means "West" in Welsh.  This really appeals to me. Glantrin as a Welsh city instead of a faux-Italian one?  Yeah! That sounds fun. I get to use Glantri again, but this is a very different one that the Glantri of Mystara run by xenophobic mage-Princes.  

Then there are all these other details in a map that is just 200 by 200 miles. Deep Ones living nearby? Hell yeah! Again I could spend hours on this map. I mean what the hell is Nanq-Rubbob?? I must know! Looks like some sort of Russian/Slavic Empire to the northeast. Fallen Thyatis to the west. Welsh halflings? Sounds like hobbits to me! Malpheggi Clans? Sounds like swamp hags live here next to the Deep Ones. There are those demi-orcs again. What are they? I don't know but I can't wait to find out!

And really that is it isn't it?  What is out there? I don't know, but I can't wait to find out!

Links

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Mystara, The Known World of BECMI

Spend any time here and you will know that the Known World of the Basic/Expert Sets (B/X) was the first world I played in.  While I would move on the AD&D and Oerth the Known World would also move to Mystara.  It would be the world introduced to us in the Companion Set and expanded on the Gazeteer Series, the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, and even into the 2nd Edition age and beyond.

But it was in the Companion and Master Sets that Mystara got its start.

The Known World of  B/X was based on the world of Tom Moldvay and Lawrence Schick.  He detailed it a bit over at the Black Gate blog. This was expanded on by James Mishler in a post on his blog Adventures in Gaming, The Original Known World. But that only leads us to the B/X known world, not the one in the BECMI Companion and Master sets.


The B/X Known World only occupies the East-most lower gray box.   The BECMI World, Mystara, is going to be bigger.  Even this is just the continent of Brun.

I am not sure who came up with the idea for Mystara to look the way it does but there are some obvious parallels.

From the Master DM's Book,



Here is Mystara, courtesy of http://pandius.com/





If it looks familiar there is a good reason.


That is the Late Jurassic, early Cretaceous period of the Earth, 150+ Million Years Ago.

Long time reader here already know of the Paleomap Map project of Earth History.  It has many maps of the different stages of Earth history and potential future maps.  I will admit when I first saw maps of the really old Earth it was disquieting to me.  I love maps and throughout all of human history, the Earth has been the same. Not so throughout ALL history and prehistory.

It's also kind of cool to see where the places of Mystara will line up to our world.

Mystara and the Lands beneath the Waves by Grimklok
The Known World of Mystara was later expanded and given more detail in the wonderful Gazetteer Series, the Hollow Earth series and finally the Challenger series.

While delving into everything Mystara would take me another month, or another year really, there is still vibrant and active community on the web to support this world.  In fact I would say it is far more active than most other worlds. Starting in the early days of the MPGN listserve lists run by TSR, the MYSTARA-L listserve was active back in the days when my access to the Internet was via a mainframe.  Many of the same people on those lists then are still active in the various Facebook groups and websites today.

For me, I always had a soft spot in my heart for Mystara. It was the world of my Basic era days and when I moved on AD&D I still kept the world as "my own."  It was understood that when I was a player it was in Greyhawk/Oerth but when I was a DM it was in the Known World/Mystara.  Eventually, right before college, we merged our worlds into one. I got the western half and my DM got the eastern half.  So you know I was thrilled when I found the James Mischler/Chatdemon Mystoerth map.  The worlds share a lot of details in common so that a merge was inevitable really.

Click for larger
This appears to be the original map.  While researching this I found an old post by Rich/Chatdemon that offers up an alternate name, Oerstara.  I kinda like that. A lot.  It sounds like Ostara, the pagan holiday that Easter comes from.  Oestara could have been an alternate name for the planet. Like Earth and Terra.

What I love about Mystara (Mystoerth) is that while so much of the world is "known" there are still many, many parts to discover anew. The communities are also very active in detailing new places, moving the timeline forward and adapting material from other sources.  I have already seen plans in place to adapt a new 5th Edition book to Mystara months before the book even hits the shelves.  That's dedication.

Would I like to see WotC produce new Mystara material?  Sure, but if they don't I know the world is in fine hands.

Links

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Review: CAL2 Calidar On Wings of Darkness

I have been meaning to spend some quality time in Calidar lately. If you have been reading this blog for a while you know that I am a fan of the work of former TSR writer and editor, Bruce Heard.  A few years back he began producing some system-neutral books for his World of Calidar.  A world situated around the Great Caldera and the planets in the same solar system.  If you recall Bruce's work on Mystara and in particular his "Voyages of the Princess Ark", then you can see how this is a logical progression of similar ideas.

I have reviewed other Calidar books in the past, in particular Calidar, In Stranger Skies and Calidar, Beyond the Skies.  I figure this is a good week to cover some of the other books. 
Bruce himself has been discussing his books and how they all work together on his own blog, so you can read that there.

Today I want to start with one of my favorites Calidar projects.  Calidar On Wings of Darkness.


CAL2 Calidar On Wings of Darkness
134 pages, Hardcover, Softcover, and PDF. Full-color covers. Color and black & white art interior.
For this review, I am considering the PDF and softcover versions I received via the Kickstarter.

The book is broken up into the following chapters/sections.

A Mage's Conundrum: This is the fiction piece that sets the stage for what readers (and players) can encounter in Caldwen, this country of Mages and Demons.

History of Caldwen:  This chapter covers the time-line of Caldwen and the moon of Munaan where magic comes from.  We learn of early dealing with demons and the start of the mages. Presented in timeline format we are given over 7000 years of history to the present day of the campaign.

Lay of the Land: In this chapter, we are treated to some full-color maps which are always a strong feature of all the Calidar books. Here, of course, we are focused on the Magiocracy of Caldwen.  Now it is natural to make comparisons between Caldwen and Bruce's other magiocracy, the Principalities of Glantri. Yes there are some similarities, but there are plenty of differences too.  The main difference comes from the geography of the land, and the sea.  Caldwen is a coastal country with over two-thirds of its borders coasts.  In some ways I get a solids 7th Sea vibe here and this feels more Age of Sail than it does the dark ages. I have to admit that while D&D is firmly on my mind as the system of choice for this, I can help read it over and think that Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade would also be a REALLY good fit for this.


We get a two-page, detailed map with legend. Again, great cartography from Thorfin Tait.
The nine Provinces (with one Dominion) follow after this in "Gazeteer-like" formats.  We get details on each province and local maps.   The area of the whole country is huge and boasts over 10 million inhabitants.  Just looking at the maps gives me plenty of ideas!

Intrigues of the Magi: This chapter covers the politics of a country that is a magiocracy, a meritocracy, and a dascalocracy. Or one that is ruled by meritorious teaching mages.
This chapter also covers the social structure for these wizards and how the various Provinces interact as part of the central government. Though the central government might be overstating it since much power lies in the rulers of the Provinces.  We see some of the few stat blocks here and they are given in the Calidar shorthand stats. They can be translated into your game of choice using the Game Mechanics for the World of Calidar book (which is PWYW).

Behind the Curtains: Deals with the various non-mage guilds that also keep Caldwen moving. They are a mixed lot and would work well in any game.  I would tend to use them more as background or NPCs, not so much as guilds for PCs to join.

A Cast of Many: The NPCs of note in Caldwen. Again stats are presented in the Calidar stats but easily converted to any game.  Mentally I found myself inserting Pathfinder and D&D5 stats where needed and with a little more thought could see Mage: TSC stats as well.
This section is also heavily hypertexted.  So if someone else's name appears in an NPC entry you can click it to go to their entry. The same is true for titles, colleges and other items.
Some stand out like Kryovata the Icy, a gnome sorceress and leader of the Protectors.

Master & Servant: Caldwen has a fair number of demons running around. These are bound demons and under the control (in theory) of a mage. This chapter covers demons, their ownership and the pacts created. Also, the demonic Black Market is discussed.  Like the previous chapter, this has notable demons detailed.

Beasties in the Dark: The monster section of some of Caldwen's more interesting creatures. Detailed in the same stat system as the rest of the book.

At the Heart of Magic:  Ah. Now here is the meat of the book.  This covers Caldwen's schools of magic and how their benefits, tuition, philosophies, diplomas, and campus rivalries influence the fabric of the entire magiocracy.  The magic schools are treated as colleges and have a similar feel to the American and British collegiate system.    We also learn of two of the sports played, Dracoderby which is like a dragon polo and Pugminton.  Magic use in game is expected.
Each college is detailed and which town and Province their seat is in.  The colleges are Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Invocation, Necromancy, and Grand Wizardry.
Circles of Wizardy are given, roughly levels of academic attainment.  First (Undergrad) to Fourth (Doctorate).  Like all good colleges, there is also outplacement and career counseling.  Sure you want to be a Ruler?  Maybe the Path of Adventurers is a better choice for someone with your grades?

Secrets of the Cabals: What's a wizard's life without Secret Cabals?  Not a life at all!  Here we learn of the various cabals that cover the "Wizard's Guild" of most other settings.  The cabals cover Alchemy, Demonology, Dracology, Elementalism, Necromancy, and Skymastery, with their attendant tests, abilities and philosophies.

Blood of the World Soul: This covers the raw magical force, Mana, that makes Caldwen so special. If you are familiar with ley lines or the Radiance from Glantri then you have an idea here. It also details the order assigned to protect this mana.

Sky City of Arcanial: Now this is the stuff I love.  Floating cities are something I just never get enough of, to be honest.  Arcanial is the home of the High Wizard Chancellor's palace, the ministries, embassies, the Great Library, and the College of Grand Wizardry. Plus all the private dwellings of the Caldwen's Rich and Famous.  And you need flying gondolas to get up to it! How cool is that?
There are wonderful, full-color maps of the city and plenty of details.  This is the sort of thing I keep coming back to Calidar for.  I mean really. If your fantasy game does not have a floating city in it are you even playing fantasy?

The entire book is bookmarked and hyperlinked (PDF version only obviously) and a treat to flip through.  There are so many ideas packed into this book I am unsure where I would start.

There is a lot packed into these 134 pages and there is a lot more that could have been said, but Heard wisely leaves that for you to do.

Adapting to any game is easy, though there is a strong AD&D 2nd Ed or BECMI D&D vibe here.  Maybe that is just me though since I have been liberally mixing my Mystara with Calidar for a while now.  Long, long time readers might recall that in my games there was a revolution in my Glantri and now it is a Theocracy.  Caldwen allows me to have my cake and eat it too.  I can keep "my" Glantri as is complete with the it's French Revolution-style revolt, AND still have a cool country of mages, wizards and a magic school.

I am serious. A Caldwen + Mage The Sorcerers Crusade game would be a lot of fun.

I'll look in to this more when I cover the next Caldwen (Bruce's "Series Two") book, CA2 How to Train Your Wizard.


Monday, September 17, 2018

Dragonborn in Oerth

A few questions on the various Greyhwak and Oerth related groups on Facebook have prompted me to think a little more about Dragonborn and their place on Oerth.

This is something I began thinking about during the end run of my 3.x campaign, The DragonSlayers.  The be reveal was going to happen when I ran the old BECMI adventure M3 Twilight Calling.  Here the Carnifex were roughly analogous to orcs and to the Dragonborn's elves.
I am also going to use the Tom Moldvay article on the Seven Planets from The Dragon #38.  Which also includes Len Lakofka's updated AD&D 1st Ed stats for Tiamat and maybe the first Yellow Dragon.

But I still need to run that.

I did all the background work for that adventure and came up with some ideas of where to place the Red Mesa, which is a feature of the Dragonborn's homeland.

In Krynn it is pretty easy. Dragonborn are either replaced by or used instead of Draconians.  Though there are still many differences between the two races.
In the Forgotten Realms Dragonborn are godless warriors that have been enslaved by the Dragon Tyrants of Abeir, the lost "twin" world of Toril.  During the Spellplauge (cough*4thedition*cough) bit of Abeir and Toril combined and then split again during the Sundering (clearsthroat*5thedition) leaving some behind.
Other worlds do other things.

Mystara/the Known Wolrd has a thousand places for Dragonborn and any can work into the history.  But Oerth is different.  Let's check out some potential sites.
Again this falls into another debate...what is and what isn't a canon map of Oerth. I am going to stick with the more recent one since it serves my purposes best.

The Oerth
I am going to focus on the mostly undefined West since there a lot of good places to place the Dragonborn Empire (yes I am calling it an Empire, more on that in a bit).

Candidate #1: Fireland
Like many lands on this side of the world, there is very, very little known and even less that have been published.  Fireland, by its name, seems to be an area of volcanic activity or at least much hotter than expected.  Also given its name and its location I am also inclined to draw parallels to Iceland.
I like the idea of an island because it keeps the dragonborn remote and isolated. They could have been there for thousands of years and no one would have known.
Besides, who else would live on a volcanic island? Ok, lots of people do.

Candidate #2: Draconis Island
Another island and this time that really has a good "name claim".
Draconis Island is smaller and less remote but still has a good claim.  It is just about smack in the middle of the Celestial Sea, so maybe this is the home to dragons and/or dragonborn.   It is also closer to the Eastern and more well-known areas of Oerth, so having dragonborn suddenly show up can be readily explained.
Like Fireland there is a lot of appeal to me because it is an island.  I am planning on molding MY Dragonborn Empire on the Dragon Empire of Melniboné of the Elric Saga.  Instead of humans it will dragonborn and maybe not a cruel or decadent.

Candidate #3: The Draconic Imperium of Lynn
This is a big one. Not just in size (it is the largest of the three) but also the name.  The Draconic Imperium implies a Dragon Empire. Whether ruled by dragons or dragonborn or humans that worship dragons, well it's hard to say.
The only thing we know for sure about this area is there is a great city of Lynn and it is full of sea-farers and merchants.
This also seems to be a favorite of some places online as well.

For me though I am going with my Candidate #1, Fireland.
It seems like a better fit for what I want with Dragonborn and still have them in my world.
Speaking of which.  "My world" isn't even Oerth.  I am still happily using the merged Mystara/Oerth world of Mystoerth.

In my world, Fireland is very, very far west. So far in fact it wraps back around to the East.



I get a good sized island that is far enough away to be rumor and close enough that people have heard the rumors and believed them to be true.

Rise and Fall of the Draconic Empire
By human reckoning, there were no powerful civilizations more than 6000 years ago.  This is human arrogance.  When humans were still living hand to mouth as hunter-gather tribes and elves leaving their crystal cities of azure in the Feywild for the forests and wild places of the world the Dragonborn reigned supreme and unconquered.
In their history when the gods and primordials fought in the Dawn War; Tiamat and Bahamut fought their titanic battle in the skies.  As their blood fell to the ground the Dragonborn sprang into life.  Since none knew whose blood they came from they honored both gods as their own.
It is said that Tiamat fell from the skies and crashed into the Oceans.  Her blood and fire and body rose up to become the volcanic island known to humans as "Fireland"; though in the Draconic language it is known as Arkhosia or "Cradle".  Scholars are quick to point out the exact same word in old draconic means "Tomb".  It was here that they built their empire.  The great city of Aurix'ir (the "Golden City") was built. It featured the grand palace of the Emperor whose unbroken line can still be seen today and the even grander twin temples honoring Bahamut and Tiamat. Priest of both sects interacted here and were under strict oaths never to harm the other while in Aurix'ir.

Within the center of the island, surrounded by icy peaks and volcanos lay the legendary Red Mesa and within the Red Mesa was the even more legendary Dragons' Graveyard.

For the next 6000 years, the Dragonborn expanded their empire. Both Tiamat and Bahamut decreed that the riches in the Dragons' Graveyard would belong to the Draconic Empire and thus Emporer.

The wars of the Dragonborn were in the prehistory of Humankind, but would have been glorious for a human historian.

The First Great War was against the evil Carnifex. These lizard-men were the progenitors of Lizardfolk and Trogldytes and maybe scores others creatures.  They were old, even predating the Dragonborn, and they had a prior claim to the Dragonborn Island (though it did not exist till the dragonborn did).  The enemity between the two races was great; much like that between the elves and the orcs.  Indeed the similarity does not end there.  The Carnifex were the offspring of the great lizards known as dinosaurs and they represented a much different Oerth than what it was now.  A hotter place, filled with life from beyond the stars or from deep time.

The Second Great War, sadly was inventible as it was regretable.  The Dragonborn came up against the expanding elves time and time again.  Elves, with their ability to adapt nearly perfectly to their environment, were grabbing lands faster than the dragonborn could get their own people out into these new realms.   The conflict was brief, but global.  While both sides still hold long cultural memories of this war they have decided to work more towards peace, if not just a break from the hostilities.

The Third Great War was between the Dragonborn and the formerly human, now tiefling Empire of Bael Turath.  This was the war that would last 5 generations and destroy both empires.  In the case of Bael Turath it would wipe them from the face of the world and the dragonborn would return to their island and never interact with the outside world again until recently.
Some say the war began with a distarous first meeting between the two races, others say that war was always going to happen. In truth the war began in the Nine Hells when Asmodeus, always vying for more power, created the tieflings and cast Tiamat from Hell into the Abyss.  Offended beyond measure Tiamats clerics screamed for blood and in a rare case of ancestry overriding other concerns even the clerics of Bahamut, who still consider Tiamat their "grand mother", joined them in their cries for vengence.
Soon the lands, skies and seas were filled with battle.  Dragonborn sorcerers battled tiefling warlocks.  Paladins of Bahamut and Tiamat traded blows with hellknights of tieflings. Dragons attacked with mighty breath weapons while Olitiau, monstrous war-bats returned attacks with hypersonic shrieks. When the world could not contain their battles they spread to other realms and planes.  They spilled each other's blood in the sands of Athas. They fought in airships over Khorvaire.  On Krynn both sides were so bloody that all traces of both races were gone by the time of the Lance.  Emperors on both sides had been assassinated and capitals had fallen.  The war finally ended when the dragonborn finally broke the tiefling hold on Arkhosia and sent the tieflings fleeing.  It is said that remnants of this war still remain and great and terrible magics are to be had.  It is rumored that a tiefling spellbook from Bael Turath ended up in the have a wizard in the then young Suel empire.  It is believed that the spell that caused the Invoked Devastation that came upon the Baklunish was just a fragment of a spell found.  It would also seem the Baklunish had their own source of Turathi spells with the rain of colorless fire.
When the war ended no one was a live to have remembered it's beginning.  The animosty between the races today is one more of lazy hate.  They know each other's history but also the long history of what the recovery from that war entailed.


Given the dragon's proclivity to amass things I would say that Fireland/Arkhosia has the world's largest library on magic.  Spells of every description, level, and type.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

The Temples of Elemental Evil in the Multiverse

I have been thinking a lot about my interconnected D&D 5 campaigns.
  • There is the Mystara/Oerth combination on my wold of Mystoerth I have been running for The Order of the Platinum Dragon. Which cover all the classic "Greyhawk" modules.  Big bad is Lolth.
  • There is the one I have been calling The Second Campaign which I have started in the Forgotten Realms (2017 is my year to be introduced to the Realms).  I am running other classic 1st modules here too.  Big Bad here is Asmodeus.  I am including some elements of Dark Sun here too. 
  • There is a third campaign I have not started completely just yet. It is a resurrection of my old 4e game and deals with the rise of Orcus.  Originally I wanted this one to be the Realms but I am likely to set it in the Nentir Vale.  Have not decided yet. If I do then I need a better home for the Second Campaign.  I'd love to play a little with Krynn, to be honest. 
I still have some details to work out. But all of these fall under the larger umbrella of Come Endless Darkness. Tharizdûn is returning to the multiverse and the PCs of the three campaigns need to stop him.

But I need to know my end game. I know all three are coming together at the very end.  In the "main" Order of the Platinum Dragon game, the PCs have already been to Hommlett. They know about the Temple of Elemental Evil, so they have a pretty good idea that they are headed back there.

I know that I am planning that have the big bads, or at least their proxies, in the final battle too. But how do I get the characters of three universes together?

Then it dawned on me. There is a Temple of Elemental Evil in every game world.


Let's look at it from this point of view.  Nearly every game world (notable exception Mystara) got its genesis from First Edition AD&D.  The first level First Edition adventure was T1 The Village of Hommlett.   So if you played regularly in any game world there is a good chance that that world had a Hommlett and accordingly a Temple of Elemental Evil.

I thought at first I wanted a Tanelorn-style temple that flitted from world to world.  But that is unsatisfactory to me and I already had something like that in Halfway. I thought about having it as a place that exists on all worlds at the same time,  but I also have that in West Haven.
So instead I am thinking of something more along the lines of the Altgeld Castles here in Illinois.

On five different campuses here in Illinois there are five gothic-style castles all (except one) called Altgeld Hall. Named after Gov. Altgeld.   The rumor was that all these buildings can be combined, Voltron-style, to make one complete castle.  There is no facts to back this up, but it is much more fun than the rumors that usually surround campuses in Illinois.

So I propose the following:

Every game world has a Temple of Elemental Evil.  Some are decrepit and decayed, others are active and strong, and others still are only just starting.  The main feature of these is that all are connected.  They can be combined together across time and space to form a giant Temple and Cathedral of Elemental Evil.

For locations, I went to the experts online.
They have given me some good ideas. I didn't go to Eberron or Dark Sun since I know very little about either world other than the most basic basics.  I figure they have them as well.

For maps, it will be easy.  I can grab one from the T1-4 Supermodule for each world. I can also grab an absolute ton of material from the Princes of the Apocalypse.  Appendix C of PotA gives me plenty of ideas of different loacations and backgrounds for the Temple in various game worlds too.



Heroes of the Three Worlds will have to come together to defeat evil and face the ultimate evil in Tharizdûn.

It's gonna be epic!

Thursday, February 23, 2017

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Enjoy the Forgotten Realms

This is an update of sorts to a post I made all the way back in 2012, which itself was an update to a post I made in 2010.

Since then my 4e game died and I moved on to 5e and sticking with more of a Greyhawk-based world.  During all this time I have also been picking up Forgotten Realms books from various places; half-price books, the local library sale for novels, and of course +Games Plus auctions.  I have built up a small, but I think nice collection.


I have always been a Greyhawk fan. Some of my very first games were looking for ancient Suel mysteries or exploring the dirty streets of the Free City of Greyhawk.   While I ran my adventures in the Known World of Mystara, I played in Oerth and Greyhawk.

For years I even combined the two into one world, and that worked out pretty well.

I remember reading about the Realms in Dragon Mag and I was never impressed.  The increased fetishization of the Drow and Drizzt worship turned me off as well. I can't tell you how much I despised "Lloth", it's LOLTH goddamn it. Any way. I was never a fan of the Realms.  I considered it to be a pretender to Greyhawk and not a very worthy one at that.  To me, Realms fans were snotty little kids with delusions of adequacy.

My opinions have softened since then. I picked up the 3.0 Realms Guide when it came out and I liked it.  I felt it was a good book and all it really was missing was monsters.   I enjoyed the 4th edition books and thought for a while that the Realms would be my 4e world.

I bought the recent Sword Coast Adventure's Guide for 5e. I rather like it.


I have also been reading some of the Forgotten Realms novels.  They are not great literature by any stretch, but they are fun bits of gamer fiction and they give me some insight to the world.



So what's my plan then?  I don't think I am going to run any games yet in the Forgotten Realms.  I don't know the world well enough to do that.  So there are no plans to move my "Second Campaign" or "War of the Witch Queens" over to the Realms.  I am planning to move some ideas and characters certainly from the Realms to my War of the Witch Queens games.

There is a thought lurking in the back of my head about taking the Sword Coast and trying to find some place for it in my current Mystoerth world.  THAT has appeal to me.  I know that the World of the Forgotten Realms is different, with it's own history, but I would not be taking all of it. I would not need too. Just the bits that fit.

Anyone else merge the Realms with other worlds? How did that work out?

Also, there is something I have wanted to explore more; the Mystra and Mystara connection.  "Mystara" is the name of the game world I have been using since Basic.  "Mystra" is the name of the Goddess of Magic in the Forgotten Realms world.  Is there a connection? Should there be one? I don't know.  Maybe this is something the characters could discover and me along with them!

Chances are good I am going to go through these books I have and post about them here.  I'll go in publication order.  If I run into something from "This Old Dragon" I'll add those as well. I know already there is an adventure called "Into the Forgotten Realms" that I will check out.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Map Your World

This is the sort of thing I love the most.  Mapping tools I never knew I needed.

+Thomas Denmark over at Original Edition Rules shared this great mapping tool to turn a 2d map into a 3d globe.

http://maptoglobe.bitbucket.org/

I quickly turned the Mystoerth map into a globe.  I added some oceans first and then converted.





http://maptoglobe.bitbucket.org/?map=hjZMZKv


I have not played with all the features yet. I kind of want a better map first then play with all the neat options.

Obviously I need to add some polar regions.  I'd also like to add Blackmoor and Ansalon to this as well.

But in the meantime this is a lot of fun.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

A to Z of Adventure! K is for the Known World

K is for the Known World.

Long before the game world of the D&D BECMI sets was called "Mystara", it was simply "The Known World" of the D&D B/X sets.

I posted some history here, but for me the best and first Known World module was X1 Isle of Dread.  I am going to wait though and detail that one on X day.

Back in the early days of the 80s we didn't have a developed campaign world like Greyhawk if you played B/X D&D.  That is until the Expert set came out and teased us with the maps of the Known World.  We took these little tidbits of the world and we built our own.  That is one of the reasons why my Glantri is a Theological Oligarchy but the official one is a Magecracy of Principalities.

This was my home for much of the early 80s. Building worlds, trying to fit square pegs into round holes.  Buffing out the rough spots.

The world that grew out my experiments in the Known World was later something that the Internet had already named; Mystoerth.  Now my kids are exploring this world and there are still new things to be found.  In some ways I would have liked to have created a world whole cloth then I'd have something to publish today. But in truth I rather like my hodge-podge mix of various pieces of other worlds. I can relate to the Mystara folk and the Greyhawk folk. If need a new area figure out, I grab something from my shelf.

That is the best thing about these adventures. There are always more and more places to have them.