D&D General UPDATE: this isn't greenlit : Jeff Grubb's Lost Mystara Sourcebook To Be Released

Ex-TSR designer Jeff Grubb wrote a Known World of Mystara sourcebook for AD&D 2E that was sadly never published. But now WotC has given permission for it's release to Shawn Stanley of the Vaults of Pandius website, the Official Mystara Homepage!

Grubb posted on Facebook:

"A long time ago I wrote a project for TSR converting the Known World of Mystara from D&D to AD&D 2nd Edition. Through a tale of woe and intrigue, (link below) that product was never completed, and instead became Karameikos, Kingdom of Adventure.

However, I kept a copy of the unfinished manuscript (well, print-out), and a short while ago, gave it to Shawn Stanley, who runs the Pandius Website. He in turn has cleaned it up a bit, and plans to release it, free, with WotC's blessing, to fans on the website's anniversary.

It is really nice to see this surface after so many years - it is a "Lost Tome" of D&D history, and I hope fans of the setting enjoy it."

He speaks more about the story, and why he left TSR, on his blog.

Mystara is a D&D campaign setting first published in the early 1980s, and was the 'default' setting for D&D for a long time.

Why I left TSR

A couple years back I talked about Stormfront , the TSR world that I never ended up creating. And in the initial entry I said: " Stormfro...

grubbstreet.blogspot.com

Updates from @Dungeonosophy

Jeff Grubb gives an overview of the book on his blog

As for the release date: Shawn Stanley, Webmaster of the Vaults of Pandius, announced (here) that June 27th is the planned release date.

Some people were wondering if Jeff is involved in the release.

I reached out to Shawn Stanley on April 10th:
"Yes I was going to reach out to him with respect to providing some sort of foreword for the release. I had been intending to do so once I had finished the graphic design - but with the release of new news yesterday, I reached out to him yesterday. I also wanted to get his okay for the editing that I had done. But yes, I would think that anything that Jeff wants to write to accompany the document would be a great idea. I do kind of agree that something a little bit less-depressing than the blog posts might be preferable - something to celebrate the release than recall the negative things that had happened during that time."
"I do hope that he will agree."

Jeff also responded to me on April 10th:
"Shawn has been in touch with me, and I will be glad to write a brief foreword for the project."

Which will be a fulfillment of Jeff's offer back in 2019:
"If you succeed [with the petition], I will be glad to provide an intro with a less-depressing history of the project."

Note Vaults of Pandius is the Official Mystara Homepage! Given that designation by WotC, back in the 2000s, when Jim Butler was managing fan policy for "other worlds." There's an official agreement and everything. That's why the site is the natural host for this.

UPDATE:
WotC's approval of this sourcebook's release have been premature, i.e. it isn't greenlit.

 

[The Glen]

I'm not overly familiar, why not?

Shadow elves are underground voluntarily and they aren't cursed. Mystara's World Below isn't magical like the Underdark, instead it's largely unstable and very dangerous to live in. Shadow elves have slightly better dark vision but other than that aren't much different than other elves except cosmetically.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

WotC doesn't do metaplot, though.

All the folks who are upset about the barely explained changes in Ravenloft would likely disagree with you.

Each edition of the Forgotten Realms has also advanced the setting (for certain values of "advanced").

 

[The Glen]

Or you could give them the lore of the Shadar-Kai from 4E, and steer clear of any "this entire race of people always looks and acts like this" ickiness.

For all its faults, 4E had some excellent lore.

The thing with the shadow elves is that the population isn't large or spread out. Just one city and some nearby outposts.

The race is quite naive as their king has been hiding the truth about the surface. Shadow elves that make it to the surface are free to think for themselves. They still keep their identity secret though for safety reasons.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

All the folks who are upset about the barely explained changes in Ravenloft would likely disagree with you.

Each edition of the Forgotten Realms has also advanced the setting (for certain values of "advanced").

That's not metaplot; it's the opposite of metaplot, it retconned a bunch of material, like Viktor into Viktra Modenheim.

That's not a complaint by the way, I find most of the changes positive.

 

[Parmandur]

They're underground refugees living near a nuclear reactor. They're not a magical race analogous to drow, other than they live underground.

They're essentially the 1960s/1970s science fiction trope of people living underground after an apocalypse. They're science fiction characters more than magical.

Naturally, the reactor they're living next to also has magical effects, because D&D, but it's not at all comparable to the drow's powers.

They are a distinct subrace.

Still doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me. If I ran a Mystara game (the Goodman Games Isle of Dread is tempting, thinking about setting Saltmarsh along the coast to start off), I'd just use the Drow stats if someone wanted to be a Shadow Elf.

 

[Parmandur]

All the folks who are upset about the barely explained changes in Ravenloft would likely disagree with you.

Each edition of the Forgotten Realms has also advanced the setting (for certain values of "advanced").

That's almost the opposite of a metaplot, setting everything back to a new starting point with no particular reference to what came before or expectation of future development. The book also sets up that what was done before in old books could show up in the Mists at any time, because Timey-Wimey shennanigans/multiverse/it's all an illusion anyways.

 

[Staffan]

WotC doesn't do metaplot, though. A reset to the start is more likely (thin chance though it seems) to bring in 80's nostalgia than to continue with the 90's developments.

They don't? They certainly aren't doing as much of it as they used to, but I definitely remember an NPC showing up in multiple adventures in different stages, and there are elements of some adventures that refer to things going on in others.

Spoiler: Spoilers for Princes of the Apocalypse, Storm King's Thunder, and Dragon heist

In Storm King's Thunder, the PCs take a ride in a cloud giant's tower. During this ride, the tower gets accosted by a group of Howling Hatred cultists seeking the giant's assistance in their plans, which is what the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure is about. In addition, one of the possible personal plot hooks in Princes of the Apocalypse is that you've been asked by the Belabranta noble family in Waterdeep to investigate one of their wayward scions, Savra, who has joined up with some ne'erdowells called the Feathergale Society who, to the surprise of no-one, are involved with the Cult of the Howling Hatred. You're supposed to return Savra to her family. Savra shows up later in Dragon Heist, as a questgiver associated with the Order of the Gauntlet, and the adventure mentions that she's atoning for evil deeds she performed as part of the Cult of the Howling Hatred.

 

[Parmandur]

They don't? They certainly aren't doing as much of it as they used to, but I definitely remember an NPC showing up in multiple adventures in different stages, and there are elements of some adventures that refer to things going on in others.

Spoiler: Spoilers for Princes of the Apocalypse, Storm King's Thunder, and Dragon heist

In Storm King's Thunder, the PCs take a ride in a cloud giant's tower. During this ride, the tower gets accosted by a group of Howling Hatred cultists seeking the giant's assistance in their plans, which is what the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure is about. In addition, one of the possible personal plot hooks in Princes of the Apocalypse is that you've been asked by the Belabranta noble family in Waterdeep to investigate one of their wayward scions, Savra, who has joined up with some ne'erdowells called the Feathergale Society who, to the surprise of no-one, are involved with the Cult of the Howling Hatred. You're supposed to return Savra to her family. Savra shows up later in Dragon Heist, as a questgiver associated with the Order of the Gauntlet, and the adventure mentions that she's atoning for evil deeds she performed as part of the Cult of the Howling Hatred.

There are hooks and hints of possibilities, but not like 90's metaplot.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's not metaplot; it's the opposite of metaplot, it retconned a bunch of material, like Viktor into Viktra Modenheim.

I think it's actually poorly explained metaplot: Something cataclysmic happened in Darkon involving Azalin. A bunch of changes happened to Ravenloft, entirely possibly due to whatever that scamp Azalin was wrapped up in.

I think some of the folks involved in the development of the book clearly believe we had a Grand Conjunction II or something, but the actual explicit mention doesn't show up in the book. My guess is that there was a communication breakdown somewhere along the way.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Still doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me. If I ran a Mystara game (the Goodman Games Isle of Dread is tempting, thinking about setting Saltmarsh along the coast to start off), I'd just use the Drow stats if someone wanted to be a Shadow Elf.

You could do that, but it makes about as much sense as giving them lizardfolk stats.

The better baseline would be to just use high or wood elf stats for them.