Dungeon: Lands of Mystery Campaign

My final issue of Dungeon arrived today ( Great magazine; great job Paizo! It will be missed ...).

I spent a long time looking at the Lands of Mystery poster map, which caused me to think two things:

1. Are all the Maps of Mystery available compiled somewhere, perhaps as pdfs? While I have many of the issues, there are many that I am missing, particularly prior to issue #87, and even back issues of some of those are out of print. This is because:

2. I'm inspired by the death of Dungeon to create a campaign based in the Lands of Mystery, using the Maps of Mystery, adventures published in Dungeon, and other classic adventures as set-pieces for the campaign.

Things to discuss:

- Given that map, for those that have it -- what Dungeon adventures would you place where, and why?
- What looks like the most interesting place to start a campaign, using what base town?
- If you were to build an adventure path, what would it look like there?
- If you were to set a Paizo Adventure Path in the Lands of Mystery ... how would you fit it?

So, to start with, I think many of the resources need to be generic to allow for easy insertion of Dungeon adventures. So I plan to use all of the core rules elements as the baseline.

1. Pantheon: the core pantheon from the PHB.

2. Races: Core races initially, each with a "home region":

a. Humans: Found everywhere, though most human lands lie between the Sundering Channel and the Atraesian Depths. Barbaric tribes are also found in the jungles of the Rainlands, the northern Foresworn Wastes, and in the Blacksand Desert. The Broken Straits are travelled by pirate bands (Tidewash = Scuttlecove?) which makes trade between east and west treacherous.

b. Dwarves: Found north of the sea of Isprea, but the primary home of the dwarves is the Looming Peaks. Kernbridge serves as the primary port trading for dwarven ores and finished worked goods; the dwarven fortress of Tor'Algar guards their lands from the giants and orcs that have overrun most of the northeastern portion of the continent.

c. Elves: There are elven settlements in most of the major temperate forests, but the Elven capital lies in the Feywood. Subricon is a mostly human, elven, and half-elven city founded to initiate magic trade with the elves. Most elves are high elves; grey elves are only seen in the feywood; wild elves are only found deep in the Rainlands.

d. Half-elves: Found everywhere humans and elves mingle; most common in human cities and Subricon. Half elves are quite commonly ship captains or merchants, which explains their common appearance across the realm.

e. Halflings: Most halflings hail from farming communities in the plains south of the Blacksteel Peaks on the Inner Sea, where they live a bucolic life in a land that provides an ideal farming climate. Most halflings encountered in other parts of the world are adventurers, though occasional halfling communities form where communities of other races benefiot from their advanced farming and animal husbandry techniques (such as the small halfling commmunity found in the mixed race town of Haleford).

f. Gnomes: Gnomes lead insular lives -- the entire known Gnome kingdom is confined to the Windswept Isle, which is seldom visited by other races except for half-elven trading galleys. Gnomes are well known to all races, however, as they along with half-elves seem to be most of the wandering minstrels and storytellers in the realms. Oral histories of the various kingdoms are knit together by the loose community of gnomes who wander from thorp to thorp spreading and collecting news of various events.

g. Half-orcs. The rarest of the races, they are treated with fear and suspicion in most civilized realms. The pirate community of Wavewatcher's bay is mostly half-orcs, as it was once a human trading community conquered by the orcs of the north. Half-orc brigands are among the most feared pirate captains in the realms, and the tales of legendary captains Gnargh One-Ear or Kurrugh the Black are used as cautionary tales even in land-locked communities.

Next time: Monstrous races.

Olgar Shiverstone said:

1. Are all the Maps of Mystery available compiled somewhere, perhaps as pdfs? While I have many of the issues, there are many that I am missing, particularly prior to issue #87, and even back issues of some of those are out of print.

Click to expand...

When did the Maps of Mystery begin? I thought this was a 3E Christopher West project?

2. I'm inspired by the death of Dungeon to create a campaign based in the Lands of Mystery, using the Maps of Mystery, adventures published in Dungeon, and other classic adventures as set-pieces for the campaign.

Click to expand...

Maybe you could use all of the 3E adventures ever published in Dungeon Magazine? That would require a good bit of setting customization though. All three adventure paths, mini-campaign arcs, Maure Castle, and multiple Eberron and FR adventures are included. Plus, not ievery adventure published is worth running (though most are).

According to the Lands of Mystery map, it started in #85, though it may predate that. I'd still like them collected in a single pdf.

Continuing:

Many monstrous humanoid tribes can be found scattered throughout the Lands of Mystery, the result of wars or migrations, but the homelands include:

Orcs: Primaily found on the Outworld Plateau and regions northeat, where they and the giants have combined forces to expel human settlers.

Goblinoids: Home in the Goblinwood, the hills to the south, and the Blightwood. Hobgoblins have conquered the lands south of the Blistering Height, with the exception of the last human bastions of Last Stand and The Warspire -- war constantly ravages the sub-continent.

Kobolds are common to the Blacksteel Peaks and the Barricades.

Sahuagin maintain their captail city of Deep Aquilon, from which they emerge to "trade" with surface dewellers.

Yuan-ti have a great sunken city forgotten in the Ruinns of Atraesia.

Lizardfolk call the shores of Dragonfen lake and the Greymarsh home.

Giants roam the Snowcrown Mountains, and also much of the Howlspine.

A great island, the Isle of Dread, is rumored to lie southeast of the Raptor Coast.

Next time: Politics.