What's the Deal with Mystara?
MystaraFan@Home
which later came to be known officially as Mystara. After a break
from that game world for a while (after the last of th Gazzeteers was
produced), I just recently bough the Kingdom of Karameikos boxed set.
Not only was I suprised to learn that Karameikos is not a Kingdom, but
that Thayatis is in ruins, Alphatia has dissapeared, and Alfheim has
been overrun by the Shadow elves?!
Whats happened in my absence? It mentioned that there was some
sort of war between the immortals. If someone could fill me in on the
happenings, It would be very appreciated.
Staffan Johansson
You're right, there was a war between the Immortals, mostly using the
mortals as pawns. The war is described in the EXCELLENT "Wrath of the
Immortals" boxed set, which also updates the rules for Immortals. Here's
a synopsis from memory:
The reason for the War was that Ixion demanded that Rad stop studying
the Nucleus of the Spheres (see Principalities of Glantri) because the
use of it drew power from the Sphere of Energy which, in the long run,
threatened to leave Mystara devoid of magical power. Rad, on the other
hand, wanted to continue studying it in order to learn more about it,
hoping that the process could somehow be reversed.
The conflict came down to a vote between the Reigning Hierarchs (one
representative for each Sphere), which ended in a tie - Hel abstained
from voting. Ixion, as chairman, then cast a deciding vote and told Rad
to stop his research as ordered by the reigning Hierarchs. Rad told him,
in no uncertain terms, that he would not do so because (a) the vote had
been tied, and (b) he wasn't subject to the Hierarchs anyway since he
had become an Immortal completely through his own resourcefulness, not
being sponsored by any other Immortal.
Ixion's reply to this was basically "OK, if you won't take reason, I'll
have to destroy you.", but was prevented from doing so by Ka. Ka's
reasoning was that Rad and Rafiel were the only Immortals who hadn't
been sponsored by other Immortals, and they were thus an "endangered
species", and Ka protects those :) . All in all, this lead to two
factions of Immortals being formed who duked it out via their mortal
minons, with a third faction of Entropics who decided to fan the flames
of the conflict by committing atrocities and make sure one side thought
the others were responsible. Some of the more important effects of the
Wrath of the Immortals were:
* Glantri and Alphatia becoming involved in a war against each other. In
this conflict, Thyatis supports Glantri.
* The Empire of Thyatis is attacked by both Alphatia and the Heldannic
Knights, as well as being weakened from the inside. When the Emperor
asks Archduke Stefan of Karameikos to aid him, Stefan realizes that even
with his help the Empire is crumbling, so he decides to declare
Karameikos an independent kingdom instead.
* A meteor strikes south of the Glantri border, creating the Broken
Lands and destroying two of the principalities. The Broken Lands join
Glantri under the leadership of Prince Kol, a kobold wizard.
* At the very end of the war, due to Rad's messing with the Nucleus,
most of Alphatia is sunk. However, this draws so much energy from the
Nucleus that the world is left without magic for a week that year, and
one day per year afterwards. Rad also disappears.
--
Staffan Johansson (bal...@crosswinds.net)
"There was always something that needed transferring from A to B or, of
course, to the bottom of the C."
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather.
James J. Zecca
Almanacs (1010 and 1011) cover the vast number of changes
that occurred in the known world (aka Mystara) after the events
described in the Gazetteer series (set in AC 1000).
Basically, there is a war amongst the immortals which leads to
Thyatis and Alphatia going to war and the eventual destruction
of Alphatia on the surface and its reconstruction in the Hollow
World.
Jim
MystaraFan@Home
<bal...@crosswinds.net> wrote:
>"MystaraFan@Home" wrote:
>> Whats happened in my absence? It mentioned that there was some
>> sort of war between the immortals. If someone could fill me in on the
>> happenings, It would be very appreciated.
>
>You're right, there was a war between the Immortals, mostly using the
>mortals as pawns. The war is described in the EXCELLENT "Wrath of the
>Immortals" boxed set, which also updates the rules for Immortals. Here's
>a synopsis from memory:
>
<snip>
Thanks for the info. If I were to ever run a Mystara campaign,
it would probably be radically different from what is 'official'. As
the Gazzeteers game out, I was constantly modifying them to fit my
plans, no matter how illogical they seemed (I replaced the Irenedi
Islands with the Minotaur Islands from Dragonlance, for example, and
in the Hollow World I placed the continent of Taladas, with
modifications, in the ocean where I am sure they have now placed
Alphatia). The official happenings do sound very interesting however,
espically the part with Ka protecting the independant Immortals.
Staffan Johansson
>
> Thanks for the info. If I were to ever run a Mystara campaign,
> it would probably be radically different from what is 'official'. As
> the Gazzeteers game out, I was constantly modifying them to fit my
> plans, no matter how illogical they seemed (I replaced the Irenedi
It's not like Mystara was particularly logical to begin with. I mean,
vikings living next door to the arabic desert?
Håvard Rønne Faanes
> Thanks for the info. If I were to ever run a Mystara campaign,
>it would probably be radically different from what is 'official'. As
>the Gazzeteers game out, I was constantly modifying them to fit my
>plans, no matter how illogical they seemed (I replaced the Irenedi
>Islands with the Minotaur Islands from Dragonlance, for example, and
>in the Hollow World I placed the continent of Taladas, with
>modifications, in the ocean where I am sure they have now placed
>Alphatia). The official happenings do sound very interesting however,
>espically the part with Ka protecting the independant Immortals.
Some cool ideas :)
You should join the Mystara mailinglist!
Find out more on the Official Mystara Website at http://dnd.starflung.com/
Håvard
--
Haavard R. Faanes (h...@nvg.ntnu.no)
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~havardfa
http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/~hoc
Håvard Rønne Faanes
>It's not like Mystara was particularly logical to begin with. I mean,
>vikings living next door to the arabic desert?
There is logic and there is logic ;)