Campaign handout

[John Hofmann]

This is what I was planning to email out to my players early next week
(Mon or Tues) to get them ramped up on Mystara. None of them have
ever played in the setting so I'm going for a very traditional
introduction via Karameikos and Threshold. You'll see a judicious use
of near-plagiarism from the Piazza and here on this board, so thanks
to everyone who contributed good ideas.

The first encounter is going to be a goblin raid on the town during a
speech by Patriarch Halaran.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Improvements?


Town of Threshold

The cool winter air blows down off the mountains and hits your face as
you walk up the Duke's Road, the crunch of the snow under your feet
and the everpresent gibbering of the Windrush River your only
companions. At the end of the road, nestled in the shadow of the
forbidding Black Peak Mountains, a small plume of smoke rises lazily
against the morning sky. Pulling your cloak and hood more tightly
around you, you draw closer to the walled rivertown that marks the end
of the frontier and the beginning of the unchartable Black Peaks
range.

Threshold. A logging and fishing town that huddles behind two walls
against the encroaching wilderness. Where humanity defies
unpredictable tribes of goblinoids, frost giants that will tear a man
limb-from-limb before cooking him, and rumors of devils that feast
upon souls. Today marks the 1000th anniversary of the Empire of
Thyatis, and people pour into Threshold from the surrounding villages
to partake in the feasting and celebration. Even early in the
morning, taverns are setting up tables in the main square with heaping
piles of their best dishes, and the main square is a mixture of
competing smells of meat, vegetables, and many kinds of breads and
desserts.

The entire square is bathed in the soft blue glow of the enchanted
double doors of the Church of Karameikos, by far the tallest building
in town. Brushing the dirt and snow off of your travelling clothes,
you take in the multicolored display of the local population's finery
as people anxiously scurry about, preparing for an occassion that will
never occur again.

Grand Duchy of Karameikos

A hundred years ago, the land was called Traladara. While the
Traladaran people struggled to survive and govern themselves, they
were taken over by the Empire of Thyatis with little resistance. Life
didn't change much for the Traladarans until thirty years ago and the
arrival of Duke Stephan Karameikos and an influx of Thyatian
followers. While initial tensions between the native Traladaran and
the recent Thyatian immigrants still smolder in places, the people of
the nation are just starting to think of themselves as Karameikan, the
country has undergone tremendous growth, and many Karameikans have
seen unprecedented prosperity over the past three decades.

Specularum is the capital city and sits proudly over a deepwater bay,
facing the Sea of Dread. Herein sits the Duke as well as some of the
nobles, both the new Thyatian nobility and the recently
disenfranchised Traladaran former nobles. An uneasy peace reigns,
largely kept by the Elvenguard, and elite police force of Callarii
elves recruited by the Duke. The Duke's Road stretches to the north,
past the ruins of Krakatos, through the city of Kelvin, and finally
ending in the town of Threshold.

But Karameikos is not all happiness and properity. Towns and villages
huddle against the untamed wilderness. Werewolves, vampires, goblins,
and horrors that have not yet been named lurk in the dark forests,
while the hills and mountains are home to gnomes, giants, and worse.
Ruined keeps dot the land, serving as a constant reminder of what
happens when civilization overreaches its grasp.

But the most seething pit of evil was invited in by the Duke himself.
Baron Ludwig von Hendricks, the Black Eagle Baron, rules over Fort
Doom in western Karameikos. The stories out of Fort Doom of slavery,
bugbear armies, and lycanthrope police forces are so horrible it is
difficult to separate fact from fiction.


Races

Human - There are two types of human in the Duchy, the olive-skinned
Traladaran people and the Thyatian newcomers who followed Duke Stephan
Karameikos here after the Thyatian invasion thirty years ago. On the
frontier the two groups of humans get along well but the same cannot
always be said in the larger cities.

Dwarf - Dwarves in Karameikos are usually wandering professionals from
the dwarven kingdom of Rockhome hundreds of miles to the north. It's
not an easy trip through the Black Peak Mountains, so any dwarves in
the Duchy are hardy folk, indeed.

Elf - Most elves in Karameikos are of the Callari clan who live in the
rich Dymrak forest. They are a hardworking clan of elves proficient
in riverboating, horse trading, and forestry, but they are friendly
and welcoming. The elven merrymaking belies a constant struggle
against the fecund goblins that infest the forest.

Halflings - Oftentimes wanderers from the nearby Five Shires, there
are no native halfling clans in Karameikos. However, the halflings
that live here often form their own subcultures, with business,
taverns, and other facilities that cater only to halflings.

Eladrin - One out of every hundred elven births produces a child with
an unusually strong connection to the magic of the world, and these
are the eladrin. Culturally, they are identical to elves but they
have the ability to step in and out of the natural world.

Alphatians (Tieflings) - Far to the east, on the other side of the
Isle of Dawn, lies the continent and empire of Alphatia. It's ruled
by a council of 1000 wizards who advise the Empress. Their strange
architecture and alien ways suggest that they are not of this world.
Alphatians, both fair and foul, make occasional forays into the Known
World for their own purposes but it's a fair bet that whenever an
Alphatian crosses your path, trouble is sure to follow.

Dragonborn - The longest lived and most powerful creatures in the
world are undoubtably the dragons. The earliest histories of the
Empire of Thyatis contain references to dragons that are still alive
today. This unearthly power and millenia-long lifespans give dragons
unique perspectives on the shorter lived races and many dragons
captured human slaves and bred them to better serve draconic needs.
These are the dragonborn.

[Boonedale]

I like the intro. Especialy the way your introdusing the dragonborn and tieflings. Is there a official 4th edition project forum/web site set up yet?

[John Hofmann]

There's nothing official outside of this group.  We've kicked around some ideas on The Piazza and denoted them by putting [4e] in the subject, but that's about the extent of it.  We don't really have a "project charter" at this point.  We've had some discussions about what the purpose of the project would be ... whether it would be to fit 4e into Mystara as we know it or to fit Mystara into 4e.  I took the latter route because I'm lazy and I want WotC to do the hard work for me. 

This list has been slow lately so I'm just trying to throw out ideas and vet them against the group.  At this point, my campaign will start in five days so I have to have things together for that.  I plan to push some of them here onto this list for some feedback.

My intention is to take whatever 4e core rules WotC publishes and "translate" them into Mystara.  With this idea in mind, I see the wisdom that WotC had in not publishing a lot of fluff in their books.  The 4e books are boring-ass reads, but they seem to be a fiendishly effective system.

[David Knott]

I like most of what you wrote, but I a few minor comments:

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Hofmann" <Gengh...@gmail.com>

> Today marks the 1000th anniversary of the Empire of
> Thyatis, and people pour into Threshold from the surrounding villages
> to partake in the feasting and celebration.

I don't recall this anniversary being a major holiday
in Karameikos. Traladarans certainly would not feel
very inclined to celebrate that occasion, unless it is
regarded as a calendar event (start of the year 1000!)
rather than a political one.

> while the hills and mountains are home to gnomes, giants, and worse.

So gnomes are among the races regarded as threats?

> Human - There are two types of human in the Duchy, the olive-skinned
> Traladaran people and the Thyatian newcomers who followed Duke Stephan
> Karameikos here after the Thyatian invasion thirty years ago.

Nitpick: Traladarans are pale (Slavic), Thyatians are
olive-skinned (Mediterranean).

> Dwarf - Dwarves in Karameikos are usually wandering professionals from
> the dwarven kingdom of Rockhome hundreds of miles to the north. It's
> not an easy trip through the Black Peak Mountains, so any dwarves in
> the Duchy are hardy folk, indeed.

I thought most Karameikan dwarves lived among the
gnomes?

> Eladrin - One out of every hundred elven births produces a child with
> an unusually strong connection to the magic of the world, and these
> are the eladrin. Culturally, they are identical to elves but they
> have the ability to step in and out of the natural world.

This theory poses major problems for the elven nobility
in magocracies such as Glantri and Alphatia. While
eladrin mix magic and swordplay by default with just
their racial traits, 4e elves are poor wizards and even
worse fighter/wizards. Elven dynasties that breed true
or mostly true and elven armies of fighter/wizards
would not be possible by this theory. In the Known
World region, at least, eladrin should be common
and elves (in the 4e sense) relatively rare.

> Alphatians (Tieflings) - Far to the east, on the other side of the
> Isle of Dawn, lies the continent and empire of Alphatia. It's ruled
> by a council of 1000 wizards who advise the Empress. Their strange
> architecture and alien ways suggest that they are not of this world.
> Alphatians, both fair and foul, make occasional forays into the Known
> World for their own purposes but it's a fair bet that whenever an
> Alphatian crosses your path, trouble is sure to follow.

At this point I am thinking that Common Alphatians (the
most common racial type of Alphatian origin) would
be the best match for the tiefling race. With a racial
origin among the Followers of Fire but an ideological
commitment to Air, Alphaks cursed them as traitors
to his cause, changing them from the equivalent of
fire genasi to having tiefling traits. Pure Alphatians,
Flaems, and Ochaleans would all have slightly
different racial traits.

> Dragonborn - The longest lived and most powerful creatures in the
> world are undoubtably the dragons. The earliest histories of the
> Empire of Thyatis contain references to dragons that are still alive
> today. This unearthly power and millenia-long lifespans give dragons
> unique perspectives on the shorter lived races and many dragons
> captured human slaves and bred them to better serve draconic needs.
> These are the dragonborn.

As a story told among other races, I have no problem
with this origin -- but I think there is evidence for a
much older origin for this race. For example, does
anybody recall any relevant details from the
Dragonlord novels? Even if we disregard those
references, there is ample evidence that the reptilian
humanoid races are at least as old as humanity, and
dragonborn are as good a candidate as any for the
first such race to arise.

[John Hofmann]

I appreciate your feedback.  The coloring of the Traladaran/Thyatian skin is something I'll change, and I'll probably change the inclusion of gnomes in any description.  To be honest, I've never used a gnome for anything as either a DM or a player.  They definitely never had a distinct place in the game rules, which is why they're not a player race any more.

Regarding the elves/eladrin/tiefling, I'm going with what's going to be most fun to play in a setting that my group doesn't know and does not yet care about.  Keep in mind that I'm not playing a Mystara campaign.  I'm playing a Mystara 4e campaign.  The fact that elves have to be fighter/wizards is a weakness of the original setting and I feel justified in changing that.  Adventure gaming has evolved since then, and adventuring in Mystara shouldn't suffer for it. 

What I want to avoid is restricting the 4e rules to fit the setting.  That's why I thought the Mystara 3e project was misguided almost ten years ago.  The rules make a really fun game and the project took a fun game and restricted it (at least at first, they may have turned out a fun game since then).  I'm not going to do that to my group, otherwise Mystara is going to be the world in which "you can't play tieflings" or "you can't be an eladrin ranger".  Half-elves, likewise, are in and they're half-elves as gamers understand them.

[Boonedale]

--- On Sat, 9/20/08, David Knott <kav...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> From: David Knott <kav...@earthlink.net>
> Subject: {mystara4E} Re: Campaign handout
> To: myst...@googlegroups.com
> Date: Saturday, September 20, 2008, 9:39 PM
> I like most of what you wrote, but I a few minor comments:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Hofmann"
> <Gengh...@gmail.com>

> > while the hills and mountains are home to gnomes,
> giants, and worse.
>
> So gnomes are among the races regarded as threats?

Gnomes in 4th ed are not a core playable race. I personaly think thats crazy but thats the rules, but there are rules to alow them to be played in the 4th ed MM.

> > Dwarf - Dwarves in Karameikos are usually wandering
> professionals from
> > the dwarven kingdom of Rockhome hundreds of miles to
> the north. It's
> > not an easy trip through the Black Peak Mountains, so
> any dwarves in
> > the Duchy are hardy folk, indeed.
>
> I thought most Karameikan dwarves lived among the
> gnomes?

One clan of dwarves lives with the gnome of Highforge. IIR its the "Stronghollow" clan?

> > Eladrin - One out of every hundred elven births
> produces a child with
> > an unusually strong connection to the magic of the
> world, and these
> > are the eladrin. Culturally, they are identical to
> elves but they
> > have the ability to step in and out of the natural
> world.
>
> This theory poses major problems for the elven nobility
> in magocracies such as Glantri and Alphatia. While
> eladrin mix magic and swordplay by default with just
> their racial traits, 4e elves are poor wizards and even
> worse fighter/wizards. Elven dynasties that breed true
> or mostly true and elven armies of fighter/wizards
> would not be possible by this theory. In the Known
> World region, at least, eladrin should be common
> and elves (in the 4e sense) relatively rare.

I would treat the Eladrin as the new "High Elf" that was introduced in earler editions of the game.

> > Alphatians (Tieflings) - Far to the east, on the other
> side of the
> > Isle of Dawn, lies the continent and empire of
> Alphatia. It's ruled
> > by a council of 1000 wizards who advise the Empress.
> Their strange
> > architecture and alien ways suggest that they are not
> of this world.
> > Alphatians, both fair and foul, make occasional forays
> into the Known
> > World for their own purposes but it's a fair bet
> that whenever an
> > Alphatian crosses your path, trouble is sure to
> follow.
>
> At this point I am thinking that Common Alphatians (the
> most common racial type of Alphatian origin) would
> be the best match for the tiefling race. With a racial
> origin among the Followers of Fire but an ideological
> commitment to Air, Alphaks cursed them as traitors
> to his cause, changing them from the equivalent of
> fire genasi to having tiefling traits. Pure Alphatians,
> Flaems, and Ochaleans would all have slightly
> different racial traits.

Why dos this remind me of the drani of WoW? Goat people from space? Demons from Space?

> > Dragonborn - The longest lived and most powerful
> creatures in the
> > world are undoubtably the dragons. The earliest
> histories of the
> > Empire of Thyatis contain references to dragons that
> are still alive
> > today. This unearthly power and millenia-long
> lifespans give dragons
> > unique perspectives on the shorter lived races and
> many dragons
> > captured human slaves and bred them to better serve
> draconic needs.
> > These are the dragonborn.
>
> As a story told among other races, I have no problem
> with this origin -- but I think there is evidence for a
> much older origin for this race. For example, does
> anybody recall any relevant details from the
> Dragonlord novels? Even if we disregard those
> references, there is ample evidence that the reptilian
> humanoid races are at least as old as humanity, and
> dragonborn are as good a candidate as any for the
> first such race to arise.

I dont know anything about the Dragonlord books, but if there is a landmass on Mystara thats like the old 2end edition "Councel of Wyrms" boxed set then I would use that as the original home of the dragonborn in Mystara. As a mater of fact I placed that area on Mystara back in the day, turned out ok.

[John Hofmann]

Now that I revised and sent that little handout to my players, I took a look back through some of David's suggestions and they're really good and wanted to explore them a little more.  One that caught my eye:

"This theory poses major problems for the elven nobility
in magocracies such as Glantri and Alphatia.  While
eladrin mix magic and swordplay by default with just
their racial traits, 4e elves are poor wizards and even
worse fighter/wizards.  Elven dynasties that breed true
or mostly true and elven armies of fighter/wizards
would not be possible by this theory.  In the Known
World region, at least, eladrin should be common
and elves (in the 4e sense) relatively rare."

You're right.  Elves are good at a lot of things but they're not natural wizards like the eladrin.  That could be a way to make some conflict between the groups.  If eladrin and elves are culturally of the same group, but eladrin are better wizards and live in a country like Glantri where magical ability is prized, it could lead to a scenario where the eladrin make an "upper class" of elves while the regular elves are less politically powerful.  It would almost be like the very beginnings of a caste system.  In a place like Glantri with all the back-alley intrigue, this could be an ugly little affair.

Another point he makes:

"At this point I am thinking that Common Alphatians (the
most common racial type of Alphatian origin) would
be the best match for the tiefling race.  With a racial
origin among the Followers of Fire but an ideological
commitment to Air, Alphaks cursed them as traitors
to his cause, changing them from the equivalent of
fire genasi to having tiefling traits.  Pure Alphatians,
Flaems, and Ochaleans would all have slightly
different racial traits."

I see this idea and I like it a lot.  What we're basically saying is that we're going to take the 4e tiefling mechanic, which we like, and assign that mechanic to Mystara Common Alphatians fluff.  It does seem to fit them nicely with the tiefling fire abilities.  When Players Handbook 2 and 3 come out (since WotC wants to release one PHB, one MM, and one DMG per year), they're going to have other races in them that are a lot of fun to play, but don't fit into the Mystara motif.  We can take them and assign them to other Mystara races, like the Flaems, the Ochaleans, and so forth.  This way, WotC is doing the hard work (spending person-years of effort to come up with these mechanics) and we just assign those racial mechanics to Mystaran elements.

This kind of has a gazetteer-like feel, where playing a game in Karameikos could feel different than playing in Darokin (if you wanted it to) because each gazetteer introduced some interesting new rules.  I think that's what I liked about the Known World ... games in different countries were really different. 

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 12:39 AM, David Knott <kav...@earthlink.net> wrote:

[David Knott]

From: "Boonedale" <boon...@yahoo.com>

> >
> > So gnomes are among the races regarded as threats?
>
> Gnomes in 4th ed are not a core playable race. I personaly think thats
crazy but thats the rules, but there are rules to alow them to be played in
the 4th ed MM.
>

Actually, that would be the same as in the BECMI
rules -- they also had gnomes as "monsters" rather
than a playable race in the earliest rules. Still,
they were never depicted as a race hostile to
humans and demi-humans -- that is the point that
I was trying to make.

[John Hofmann]

Yeah, you're right.  The way I phrased that made gnomes sound like a monster.  That was a really good catch and it was the first thing I changed.  I think there are enough low level monsters that we don't need to break out the evil gnomes.

[Joe Mason]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 9:27 PM, John Hofmann <gengh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You're right. Elves are good at a lot of things but they're not natural
> wizards like the eladrin. That could be a way to make some conflict between
> the groups. If eladrin and elves are culturally of the same group, but
> eladrin are better wizards and live in a country like Glantri where magical
> ability is prized, it could lead to a scenario where the eladrin make an
> "upper class" of elves while the regular elves are less politically
> powerful. It would almost be like the very beginnings of a caste system.
> In a place like Glantri with all the back-alley intrigue, this could be an
> ugly little affair.

I think the easiest fix would be to make the number of Eladrin in an
clan more than 1 in 100. (I think you copied that from my post in the
Piazza - the only reason I set it so low is that it's a plot point for
the story I have in mind. If you're wanting to make the world more
like the Known World, something closer to a 50-50 ratio would be
better.

Joe