Mike Mearls tweet: Is the Known World of Mystara coming to 5e? (What's Cool About Mystara?)

[Dungeonosophy]

1. I'll run a game based on old Endless Quest books!

2. I'll set it in Mystara

It'd be cool to officially place all of the generic D&D Endless Quest (and HeartQuest!) gamebooks on Mystara. Theoretically, this is (perhaps) the world they were located on, since they were D&D (rather than AD&D) branded.

Over in the Mystara community, we have considered this, and we have a list of all the gamebooks and their supposed settings here: http://pandius.com/endlessq.html

The thing is, the locales in the gamebooks were super-generic, and were written with no world in mind. Yet, they could be placed *somewhere* on the map of the Known World (and/or elsewhere in Mystara).

Beyond the gamebooks, Mystara is humble enough to accept all of the generic D&D bits and bobbles, such as the Kingdom of Ghyr of the LJN action figures, Thunder Rift, and the land of Karawenn (from the D&D First Quest novels).

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

What about Blackmoor, Savage Coast/Red Steel and Hollow Earth? Is possible to old setting the new classes, races and mosters from 3.5 edition?

 

[Winterthorn]

Cleric subclasses:
* Threefold alignment domains: Law Domain, Chaos Domain, and Neutrality Domain. (Alignment-worshipping Clerics were called "Philosophers" in 2E Mystara).
* Five Spheres domains: Matter Domain, Energy Domain, Time Domain, Thought Domain, Entropy Domain (distinct from the Chaos Domain)
* Demihuman Relic domains: Tree of Life Domain, Forge of Power Domain, Blackflame Domain

Druid subclasses:
* Circle of Balance. Neutrality-worshiping druids. (Called "Balancers" in 2E Mystara).
* Circle of the Hin Masters. Halfling exemplars with unique spells.

Paladin subclasses:
* Oath of the Lawful Defender (Based on the BECMI Paladin "Name-level" class, and the 2E Defender "Specialty Paladin" kit from Red Steel)
* Oath of the Chaotic Avenger (Based on the BECMI "Name-level" class)
* Oath of the Neutral Stalwart (a DRAGON mag article named the Neutral Paladins "Stalwarts")

Ranger subclass to model the Elven Fighter/Magic-User and Thyatian Forester class:
*Arcane Forester. Basically a Fighter/Wizard Gish with nature/elven-themed abilities. Human Foresters eventually gain Elven racial traits through this class.

Rogue subclass to model the Nuari (Afro-Caribbean-themed) Rake class, which, along with the Forester was counted as one of the basic classes in later products:
* Rake. A swashbuckler with charisma-based abilities.

Also, Monk subclasses to model the BECMI Mystic.

Wow! Having run BECMI games a long time ago I'm impressed! Did you find this at the Vaults of Pandius website? If it's not posted there, I bet it would be a welcome contribution!

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Cleric subclasses:
* Threefold alignment domains: Law Domain, Chaos Domain, and Neutrality Domain. (Alignment-worshipping Clerics were called "Philosophers" in 2E Mystara).
* Five Spheres domains: Matter Domain, Energy Domain, Time Domain, Thought Domain, Entropy Domain (distinct from the Chaos Domain)
* Demihuman Relic domains: Tree of Life Domain, Forge of Power Domain, Blackflame Domain

Druid subclasses:
* Circle of Balance. Neutrality-worshiping druids. (Called "Balancers" in 2E Mystara).
* Circle of the Hin Masters. Halfling exemplars with unique spells.

Paladin subclasses:
* Oath of the Lawful Defender (Based on the BECMI Paladin "Name-level" class, and the 2E Defender "Specialty Paladin" kit from Red Steel)
* Oath of the Chaotic Avenger (Based on the BECMI "Name-level" class)
* Oath of the Neutral Stalwart (a DRAGON mag article named the Neutral Paladins "Stalwarts")

Ranger subclass to model the Elven Fighter/Magic-User and Thyatian Forester class:
*Arcane Forester. Basically a Fighter/Wizard Gish with nature/elven-themed abilities. Non-elven Foresters eventually gain Elven racial traits through this class.

Rogue subclass to model the Nuari (Afro-Caribbean-themed) Rake class, which, along with the Forester was counted as one of the basic classes in later products:
* Rake. A swashbuckler with charisma-based abilities.

Edit: Added a Monk subclass:
* Order of the Mystic Law. (The "Mystic" from the Masters D&D boxed set was basically just the BECMI name for the AD&D Monk, but the name can be repurposed as a Law-themed Mystara-specific class. All the other monastic Orders would be present in Mystara too, of course.)

 

[Morrus]

I think WotC is trolling us. Somebody on mentions a different campaign setting each week and they bet each other on how many news articles they can get out of it.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Wow! Having run BECMI games a long time ago I'm impressed! Did you find this at the Vaults of Pandius website? If it's not posted there, I bet it would be a welcome contribution!

That's just a rough sketch I tossed together for this thread. They subclass names would still need some rules attached to them!

Of course in a full-blown Mystara campaign setting which covered the entire Known World, Savage Coast, and Hollow World, there'd be dozens of other nation-specific classes (Ylari Dervish, Northlands Runecaster, Ethengar Shaman, Darokin Merchant, Sindhi Thugee, Red Curse Inheritor, etc.). But these are the most basic.

If Mike is looking for a "Basic" flavored Fighter subclass and "Basic" Rogue subclass, I don't know how the Fighter and Rogue could be more "basic" than the builds that are in the 5E Basic D&D document.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I think WotC is trolling us. Somebody on mentions a different campaign setting each week and they bet each other on how many news articles they can get out of it.

Maybe it's a way for them to gauge relative interest (as well as some fun trolling)?

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I think WotC is trolling us. Somebody on mentions a different campaign setting each week and they bet each other on how many news articles they can get out of it.

Yeah, I thought of that. Well, it's fun. Here, I'll predict the next few weeks of news leaks and tweets:

Mike Mearls:
First week of April: "We can't reveal the 5E Warlord till Birthright is released."
Second week... "We can't reveal the 5E Knight of Solamnia quite yet..."
Third week... "We can't reveal the stats of Pluffet Smedger until the Grehawk Adventurer's Guide is released..."
Fourth week...: "We can't reveal the 5E dragon PC race until Council of Wyrms comes out..."
First week of May: "Here at the WotC office, I'm running a campaign set in the Dream Land of Symslych, the campaign setting of the D&D Hebrew Companion Module series. The party had a helluva time with the Goldsh*tter. I sh*t you not!"

 

[DammitVictor]

All I want is one hardback supplement and one hardback adventure path for each of the AD&D settings, including each of the Forgotten Realms subsettings, plus separate bestiarites for Planescape and Dark Sun because they need them.

No fragmenting the market, no splat bloat. Just show us some love.

 

[Dausuul]

Okay, Mearls is just trolling us now.