OD&D What is Mystara?

[Beleriphon]

The thing they could really lead into with Mystara is the core conceit that heroes can become Immortals in the setting and use it to introduce Epic Tier/Immortal rules into 5E.

That's true, it leans towards starting characters being Doc Savage, Captain Nemo, or Professor Otto Lidenbrock (from Journey to the Centre of the Earth). By high levels they're Sun Wukong and have become immortal, but still go on crazy adventures.

 

[Bitbrain]

It’s almost like a prototype of Pathfinder’s Golarion setting.

Except more lighthearted pulp-action. None of the gross horror stuff that Paizo seems to enjoy so much.

Oh, and it’s also a Hollow World.

 

[commandercrud]

Immortals.

 

[Staffan]

By high levels they're Sun Wukong and have become immortal, but still go on crazy adventures.

But unfortunately not the kind with gunchucks.

 

[Doug McCrae]

One unusual feature of Mystara is the way it was published only in small sections - modules and gazetteers rather than a major boxed set detailing all the most important places like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and the 2e era settings such as Dark Sun and Planescape.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Dragonlance was the only other setting to be published in this way.

 

[gyor]

Mystara is a "kitchen-sink" world, with a number of nations described by the Gazetteer series (for example "The Gran Duchy of Karameikos" corresponding to medieval Bohemia). Most often than not, each kingdom has a good strong ruler, but also a number of villains. In the case of Karameikos, the good Duke Stephen is opposed by his evil cousin, Baron Ludwig von Hendricks the Black Eagle, with his court mage Bargle the Infamous. Many problems are entrenched in the politics of the kingdom. In fact, the BECMI edition of the game supported high level play, so that Basic PCs (Level 1-3) started their career in dungeons or on local quests; Expert PCs (4-14) explored the wilderness, facing regional threats, and met important political figures; Companion PCs (15-25) became rulers, carving and menaging their own domains, interacting with other political leaders and waging wars; Master PCs (26-36) were leaders of nations, but they were so powerful that they started their own quest to ascend to Immortality (godhood). So, in the Expert and Companion phases of the game, politics became very important. You could meet the personalities of your kingdom (or of other nations), help or oppose them, and change the destiny of nations. The political nature of the setting is evident in many modules, for example X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield (a sort of World War in which the PCs, as ambassadors, must travel to many nations and forge an alliance against the Master of the Desert Nomads) or CM1 Test of the Warlords.

Many BECMI adventures set in Mystara became unforgettable classics: Keep on the Borderlands, Rahasia, The Lost City, Night's Dark Terror, Isle of Dread, Castle Amber, Master of the Desert Nomads... Plus many, many hidden gems.
The Gazetteer series is an high point in the history of the game, with such masterpieces as The Grand Duchy of Karameikos, the Principalities of Glantri, and The Shadow Elves.
Besides, the world was hollow, and you could travel to the centre of earth where lost civilizations dwelled...
Plus, there were many different over-arching metaplots: the hidden magical source known as the Radiance; the recurring machinations of the evil Immortals Thanatos, Alphaks, and Atzanteotl; the eternal Quest for the Blue Knife of the orcish race... It was really a rich and detailed world, on the same scale as Greyhawk and almost as the Realms.

I hate the term Kitchen Sink setting. You know what is a Kitchen Sink Setting? Canada. And Earth in General. And the United States. And the EU. Basically it's code for Fantasy Diversity, which makes more sense then mono culture settings honestly.

The Wheel of Time is a Kitchen Sink Setting, Star Trek is a Kitchen Sink Setting, Star Wars really isn't interesting enough to be a Kitchen Sink Setting. But the term doesn't tell you anything about a setting except it has fantasy diversity.

In practice the Forgotten Realms is very different from Greyhawk and Mystara as they are from each other and even Dominara. Yes they have some things in common, but the idea that such deep and complex settings each with a history of it's own can be distilled into a simplistic "niche does them an injustice".

Greyhawk is supposed to be the gritty setting, but take a look at Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, all the grit you can handle, and that is BEFORE you even get to hell.

Eberron is often called either steampunk/Magitech setting (it's not, but it's a common label), yet Forgotten Realms has those robots and magic street cars in Waterdeep, Gondmen divine magic robots, literal steam based tech in Mulhorand, Blood Golems of the Utter East, and so on. And Greyhawk has an actual space ship.

I understand the urge to simplistically reduce a setting to a niche or trope like kitchen sink setting, but all these settings are soooooo much more.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Many of the elements mentioned upthread don't need to be world specific. Birthright's emphasis on rulership could fit in most D&D worlds, as could Mystara's immortals. The Hollow Earth and skyships could be be placed in any of the kitchen sink settings.

 

[Wiseblood]

It was in the basic setting.(Red box) Then the Expert (Blue Box) It has the map I like the most. Because it has scale and is all on one page. (Until the Isle of Dread)I also really, really like black and white art. IIRC most interior art was Clyde Ellis and Larry Elmore.

 

[The Glen]

I do a video series called Welcome to Mystara specifically detailing the game world. Let me see if I can sum it up in a blurb.

Mystara is the exploration setting, like Ravenloft is the horror setting or Birthright is the high politics setting. You've got multiple nations that are analogies of real-world nations like Byzantine Roman, Arabia or Polynesia. The difference between the Mystara nations and other fantasy nations is few of the Mystara nations are fully explored, it's up to the players to hack through the jungles and cross the deserts to find the mysteries of the setting. Then at higher levels, the party members are usually given domains as a reward for their service and then they can manage the domains or use them as a base of operations.

It's pretty different from other D&D settings because it evolved from the BECMI rules rather than the AD&D rules, meaning a lot of the monsters you see shared in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk never appeared in Mystara. There's no drow, instead, there are Shadow Elves, which share nothing in common with the drow except their choice of domiciles. The duergar were replaced by the insane and cursed modrigswerg which are much, much worse. Mystara loses half races and the like because in the fluff interbreeding was difficult and the offspring just resembled one race or the other. But where you lose things like dragonborn, tieflings or half-elves there's sidhe, lupin, rakasta and the like. For every race you lose another takes its place. It makes for a unique experience if you are just familiar with Forgotten Realms. You're not going to find the Mos Eisley style bars like in the Realms, the setting's nations are largely homogeneous with a few exceptions.

The setting expanded with new supplements. When Arneson was welcomed back to TSR and allowed to create his Blackmoor setting it was placed in Mystara's distant past, then they blew it up because TSR loved nuking its settings. Another boxed set created a world within a world as the Immortals preserved dying civilizations in the Hollow World beneath the Known World. When the setting was converted to 2nd edition in the dying days we were given Red Steel, which is a plot of territory known for being plagued with an invasive curse that infects everyone present and forces them to rely on a magical metal to stay alive. Another aspect was there were no gods, they had immortals which were ascended mortals that served as the patrons of the clerics. Players could strive to become one of the immortals, though it was quite difficult and usually lethal. Still, 'you get to be a god' was a major selling point to players looking at the campaign.

Mystara is known for it's gonzo magic, but that's just a part of it. Not all the nations obsessed over magic like the magiocracies of Glantri and Alphatia. Most of the settings were more based in historical expies with some fantasy elements thrown in for taste. Nonhuman races are usually found only in large numbers in their own nations. One major aspect of the setting is the cold war feel between the two major empires. Thyatis and Alphatia are equally matched in power, and if war breaks out they would devastate everybody around them without really harming each other. Not as pronounced as Greyhawk but it's always in the background. When Mystara got its setting nuke with Wrath of the Immortals it removed the cold war tension and was the base break for the setting for a lot of players, one of the reasons why a large number of Mystara players keep to the original timeline and work from there.

This is the first video in the series, though it's a bit of an old shame because I wasn't that good at the beginning. It does get a lot better however.

 

[aramis erak]

For me, Mystara is about the patchwork. Each regional sourcebook is a different one.

Plus, I like the demihuman classes as presented in the supplements.