D&D 5E [5e] Introducing Friends and Strangers to Mystara...

[not-so-newguy]

...by someone with spotty knowledge of Mystara.


Most of our group has played / DMed exclusively in Forgotten Realms and I'd like to entice them with a little knowledge. This is all part of my diabolical scheme to get them to let me DM a campaign in Mystara. Karameikos to be exact.


I'm trying to get an overview of the world in a way that's easy for me to communicate. I decided to use 5e's Core Assumptions (DMG page 9) as a common starting point between me and the rest of the group. These Core Assumptions in the DMG match well with Mystara. The only major difference I can see are Immortals vs. Gods.


Side note: I'll be using material / PDFs found at Pandius.com to expand upon these ideas, such as "The Newbie's Guide to Mystara." I haven't gotten to that point yet.


If I missed anything, if you have a different idea that would work here, hell, if you just want to say "looks fine to me." I'd like to hear it.


Thanks!


Boilerplate Mystara (Karameikos)


1. Gods Oversee the World


Hoo boy, here goes...


(A) The world's creator is unknown:


From the second post in this old thread...
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5937&view=next

Officially, noone knows who/when/how Mystara or the multiverse was created. The Multi-verse has been in existance since before the oldest living immortal (and presumably, though now specifically stated, even before the current Old Ones).


Each race/culture/region has their own creation myth... naturally tending towards the Immortal patron(s) they most revere creating the world, or the race/culture/people or both.

(B) Immortals


Immortals are the closest things to gods, but they are creations of Mystara. They did not create the World. Immortals are an appendage that has grown from Mystara.


(C) The Divine: Domains and Immortals


Divine classes are not necessarily bound to Immortals for their powers but are dependent on the clerical domains (PHB 59). An Immortal may epitomize a domain, e.g. Halav for the War Domain, and thus be worshipped as one of its embodiments.


There are probably more domains than what's mentioned in the PHB and DMG, but I'm not concerned with that right now.


2. Much of the World is Untamed


Yep, that sums up Karameikos.


Other areas will not have this "points of light" motif, but I'm not too concerned with that right now.


3. The World is Ancient


Yep.


Karameikos, a temperate region, was once near the North Pole. Advanced technology and magic don't mix too well.


4. Conflict Shapes the World History


Yep


5. The World is Magical


Yep


IIRC, There's no Fey Realm in Mystara as written. ETA If you've DMed / played in 5e Mystara before, how was this handled?

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm running a campaign set in Threshold right now, will be running it tonight actually. As with any other campaign world, published or home brewed, don't worry too much about the whole wide world. Mystara is HUGE! You could run a whole campaign in just Karameikos. To save your sanity I would focus most information on Karameikos and the surrounding areas. There isn't much use to info dumping a ton of material on areas of the world that play will never see.

For my own campaign I just focused on a few themes in Karameikos:

1) The uneasy racial tension between the native Traladarans and the Thyatian immigrants.

2) The friction between the church of Traladara and the church of Karameikos. ( bleedin C of E !)

3) The history of the beast man wars and the truths about the development of ancient Traladara

Just focusing and building adventures on that stuff has provided plenty of material for a whole campaign. If the players get motivated to explore other parts of the world then I will develop more detail as required just as if I were starting a home brew world.

 

[not-so-newguy]

I'm running a campaign set in Threshold right now, will be running it tonight actually.

Great! Please share if you can!

As with any other campaign world, published or home brewed, don't worry too much about the whole wide world. Mystara is HUGE! You could run a whole campaign in just Karameikos. To save your sanity I would focus most information on Karameikos and the surrounding areas.

B10 Night's Dark Terror would be the centerpiece of the early campaign. I'd like to start the group in Theshold, but the module explicitly recommends against that idea. Just as a reference, I mentioned this little dilemma at the end of this thread:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?755712-Night-s-Dark-Terror-PDF-v-Paper/page4

Despite the warning, I'll still probably start in Threshold.

Also, I'd like to keep the population low for Threshold and other towns. In B10, the population is 500. Other resources have the population in the thousands.

I plan to follow BECMI's scope. Start small with a dungeon crawl or two, then move onto Kelven to start the module.

There isn't much use to info dumping a ton of material on areas of the world that play will never see. 

I constantly have to fight distraction with the amount of readily available info.

For my own campaign I just focused on a few themes in Karameikos:

1) The uneasy racial tension between the native Traladarans and the Thyatian immigrants. 

2) The friction between the church of Traladara and the church of Karameikos. ( bleedin C of E !)

3) The history of the beast man wars and the truths about the development of ancient Traladara

Just focusing and building adventures on that stuff has provided plenty of material for a whole campaign. If the players get motivated to explore other parts of the world then I will develop more detail as required just as if I were starting a home brew world.

I haven't read GAZ 1 yet, so I can't really comment on the themes. Although, B10 provides some great history. Just wanted to say, I like the political / social tension with the Traladarans and Thyations.

 

[guachi]

How much you emphasize any of your points depends on your campaign, of course. I've run one Mystara 20 years ago and I'm running my second currently. It's much more immortal focused than before, for example.

That being said:
1A, 1B, 1C - Yes, yes, and yes. These facts, even if only dropped in the background, are a good touchstone for players used to other D&D settings. I flat out told one player who was deciding what skills he wanted that if he took religion I had a ton of information I could just print and hand him.

See http://www.pandius.com/immortal.html for a composite of fan and official information on various immortals.

2. Yes. I cut (from the stats in GAZ1) the size of all the large cities in half as I felt they were too large. The first issue of Threshold magazine available for free at pandius.com is all about Karameikos and you may find it useful.

3. The poor Traladarans still pine for a golden age that occurred 2000 years ago!

4. And Karameikos is set up nicely for an escalation of conflict with, possibly, a showdown with Baron von Hendriks as the culmination.

5. I handled no Fey realm by stating... no Fey realm.

 

[guachi]

For my own campaign I just focused on a few themes in Karameikos:

1) The uneasy racial tension between the native Traladarans and the Thyatian immigrants.

2) The friction between the church of Traladara and the church of Karameikos. ( bleedin C of E !)

3) The history of the beast man wars and the truths about the development of ancient Traladara

OP, you should really get GAZ 1. It's only $5 for the pdf from D&D classics. The three above points are fleshed out in enough detail with a few campaign ideas tossed in on how to handle them. And much of GAZ1 is based on B10, anyway, so it won't all be new to you.

All three points above are really good things to focus on and the first two points can really permeate a campaign to the point the players can/should pick up on things fairly easily. Voices, mannerisms, dress, names, etc. should be easy clues as to an NPC's background.

Names - Traladarans have Eastern European names and Thyatians have Greek or Roman names. The Hattians, like Baron von Hendriks, have German or Austrian names.
Dress - There is distinctive dress for both. Traladarans are colorful and Thyatians are muted. But Thyatians are wealthier so you can always highlight the poverty of the natives.
Voices - Trot out your best/worst Russian or Polish accent for a Traladaran. Eventhough Thyatians are Greek/Roman I like to give them an English accent of somekind and an RP for the upper crust. Bigoted Hattians get obvious German accents.

As to point 3, if you introduce it in levels 1-3 somewhere it gives a nice contrast to the sad reality that B10 introduces.

 

[not-so-newguy]

1

Good, I'm glad this works. I think it gives a player new to The Known World a chance to play a Divine class who might otherwise be discouraged because they're unfamiliar with the pantheon.

2

The lower population levels emphasizes the "points of light" feel.

3

Interesting historical footnote: Vlad the Impaler is from midieval eastern Europe.

4

Yeah, I need to read GAZ 1

5

No fey realm for me (until further notice)

 

[pming]

Hiya!

With regards to #5... One of the most excellent of excellent things about The Known World (a.k.a., Mystara), is that new things can pop up at any time and "fit" into the back story of the world without problem. For example, take the Hollow World. It didn't exist for almost a decade...then it did (e.g., the Expert D&D Set 2 [Erol Otis cover] and then the Hollow World boxed set came out).

What I'm doing is simply "adding in" the Feywild and the Shadowfell as is, and then simply just saying that the general populace of the world (re: 99.9%) don't even know for a fact that it exists. The commoners have their own regional beliefs on how the world/multiverse is; they have their Hell, Hades, Abyss, Gehenna, Paradise, Heaven, Elysium, Valhalla, etc.... who's to say that what they think is "the afterlife" isn't actually part of the Feywile or Shadowfell? Maybe they have their own myths about it...Don't go into a toad-stool ring when their is a full moon! Else you be trapped in the wee-folk's realm for all eternity!. Adventure's use this kind of "commoner superstition" all the time for flavour background. Who's to say it isn't superstition...?

Also, just FYI, travelling to another plane of existence isn't nearly as easy or commonly known as even being possible...as far as I read Mystara (and I've been playing in it since before it was even known as Mystara). And, as others have said, Mystara *IS FREAKING HUGE*... so it's not at all hard to believe that there are faaaar more secrets to be reveled than is shown in the Gazatteer series.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[TerraDave]

I think the Isle of Dread intro remains one of the best. All 2 pages of it.

 

[bgbarcus]

The difference between Immortals and gods will take some time for your players That is the single most unique thing about Mystara compared to other campaign worlds. It is also one the things that appeals to me as a DM since the Immortals feel closer to the world than gods ever did. It makes sense that Immortals would care about national politics since most of them still feel ties to the old homes.

The lack of Feywild isn't really a problem. The published Mystaran material include "Tall Tales of the Wee Folk" which describes a faerie realm modeled after "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It is easy to blend the Fey realm into that concept.

If you haven't already settled on campaign plans, I usually start new groups in Penhaligon rather than Threshold. Not that I have anything against Threshold but Penhaligon seems to have a little more to work with in the surrounding area. As for populations, the gazetteer series has extremely high numbers for Karameikan towns but older material has numbers so low that some towns could barely support themselves as they are described. Halving the gazetteer populations seems like a good balance.

If you haven't found it yet, search for MGaz1 on Pandius. The author fleshed out the region around Castellan Keep and made it a place where you run a campaign all the way from 1st to 20th level without much trouble. You could start the party off with a classic by putting the Caves of Chaos near Castellan Keep. After picking up a few levels the party could take the High Reach river southwest toward Kelvin as their entry into B10.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Great! Please share if you can!

In my own campaign, set in 1025 AC, the Thyatians are the evil empire. They want to completely own Karameikos and the current ruler does not agree with his predecessor's decision to let it be an independent Duchy. The Thyatians have also been involved in an ongoing war with Alphatia and cannot spare the resources to move in and take all of Karameikos by force.

In other developments, the Isle of Dread, which was explored by adventurers over 20 years ago, has considerable mineral deposits; silver, gold, and gemstones. The Thyatians have sent ships and set up mining camps to extract these resources. Due to a lack of manpower, the Tyatians have been using Traladaran slaves from Karameikos to work the sites.

The Iron Ring is wholly owned and operated by the Thyatian empire. They have their hands in everything and launch various schemes for kidnapping Traladarans and shipping them off to the mines. The rumors in Threshold of zombie workers at the logging camp is true. The Iron Ring is diverting prisoners sentenced to work at the camp off to the mines and replacing them with zombies.

I have expanded the dungeons beneath the castle from module B9 and turned it into an Iron Ring slave way station and clearing house. The slaves are housed here and smuggled a few at a time to the Black Eagle Barony to be put on ships bound for the mines. The Iron Ring is currently working on setting up things in Specularum so that slaves can be shipped directly from there.

When the PCs have finished with a few introductory adventures and are powerful enough to take on the Iron Ring, they have many things to investigate and puzzle pieces to put together.