D&D 5E Give Me Three Reasons to Play Mystara/Known World

[aramis erak]

I almost forgot!

0: All magic is the results of a hidden nuclear reactor.

(OK, that's not 100% true.)

Yeah, it's only 75% true.

SS Beagle, Ahoy! Engineer Benekander, the offworld immortal - who doesn't even realize it...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

anyone want to give more info on a hidden nuclear reactor?

 

[Staffan]

is this the red steel setting? I know that one had turtle and wolf men in it as PCs...

Red Steel/Savage Coast is to Mystara much like Al-Qadim is to the Forgotten Realms. They're on the same planet, but mostly their own thing.

If Mystara proper is a hodge-podge of all sorts of historical pastiches, Red Steel is mostly the same with an American focus.

 

[Staffan]

anyone want to give more info on a hidden nuclear reactor?

Deep beneath Glantri lies the remains of the S/S Beagle, an ancient spaceship (5,000 years or so). Its reactor was altered, long ago, by the Immortals of Energy in order to enhance magic and provide a pathway to Immortality. Immortals of other spheres (Time, Matter, Space, and Entropy) thought that was cheating and modified it some more, so that drawing on its power leads to magic being permanently drained out of the world.

So the nuclear reactor is not the source of magic in the world, but more like a lens through which that magic can be focused in different ways, but at a very, very steep cost.

 

[Iosue]

Deep beneath Glantri lies the remains of the S/S Beagle, an ancient spaceship (5,000 years or so). Its reactor was altered, long ago, by the Immortals of Energy in order to enhance magic and provide a pathway to Immortality. Immortals of other spheres (Time, Matter, Space, and Entropy) thought that was cheating and modified it some more, so that drawing on its power leads to magic being permanently drained out of the world.

So the nuclear reactor is not the source of magic in the world, but more like a lens through which that magic can be focused in different ways, but at a very, very steep cost.

Just when I think the Known World can't get any more awesome...

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

The secret origins of the Known World!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Deep beneath Glantri lies the remains of the S/S Beagle, an ancient spaceship (5,000 years or so). Its reactor was altered, long ago, by the Immortals of Energy in order to enhance magic and provide a pathway to Immortality. Immortals of other spheres (Time, Matter, Space, and Entropy) thought that was cheating and modified it some more, so that drawing on its power leads to magic being permanently drained out of the world.

So the nuclear reactor is not the source of magic in the world, but more like a lens through which that magic can be focused in different ways, but at a very, very steep cost.

thank you... that sounds way more awesome then I knew about... you may have just sold me on this setting

 

[ranger69]

My three reasons

1) The Rules cyclopdeia. A complete players handbook, dungeonmasters guide setting, and bestiary in one.
2) The Gazetteers. In depth of each country, very useable and adaptable.
3) The Hollow World. The barely explored other continents. Wrath of the Immortals boxed set. Red Steel. (sorry I cheated on 3)

 

[Staffan]

I believe was the entropic immortals who altered it after the immortals of energy.

No, it was a coalition of Immortals from all the other spheres. There's a quote by Khoronus in either the Glantri gazetteer or Wrath of the Immortals to that effect - something along the lines of "We screwed with it to provide the Immortals of Energy incentive to keep it secret and rare, now it's their problem."

Bargle the infamous. The typical evil wizard in the typical DnD campaign location of Karameikos.

One of my favorite quotes from any D&D book is from the AD&D version of Karameikos, where Bargle is described as "So twisted he needs a corkscrew to put on his robes in the morning."

 

[Staffan]

Ah ok. Did the old ones change the nucleus so that it messed with Entropy at the end of Wrath? I wonder if that is where I'm getting mixed up. Thing is, I can't recall if that was in Wrath or if it was some fan stuff from Vaults of Pandius.

Yeah, that's from the end of Wrath. It didn't seem to have any particular effect though - AD&D Glantri still listed more or less the same effects for using the Radiance.