D&D 5E Mystara Player's Guide free for download

The Glen

Legend
I worked on this for five years, converting the Known World to 5th edition. 224 pages, dozens of new subclasses, new races, spells, feats and types of magic. All original art and introduces one of the all time best settings to new players. After discussing it with friends and gamers, decided to put it up as a fanwork as the odds of WOTC opening up the guild is doubtful at this point. Enjoy adventuring in Mystara once more.

 

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The Glen

Legend
I have not downloaded it yet, but thank you for the dedication and effort to put something like this together.
When you get a chance to look at it let me know what you think. If you find any problems I can try and fix them. I need to release some supplemental stuff because at least one of the subclasses deals with some stuff that was going to be at the monster manual
 


Yaarel

Mind Mage
If you find any problems I can try and fix them.
This is a difficulty that I found. I assume, the description comes from the classic Mystara setting, from some decades ago.

The setting mentions the reallife beliefs of Norse cultures by name, but then portrays them inaccurately.

The "æsir" are described as "gods" who have "clerics", yet none of this is true. The misrepresentation is problematic.

The Norse are shamanic animists.



More accurately:

The Norse lack organized religions. There are no temples, nor priests who "worship". There are no sagas about heroes praying for help.

The Norse word "goð" and the English cognate "god" dont mean the same thing. When translating the foreign concept of a "god" into Norse, the Norse use an obscure word "guð". The Norse word goð is roughly equivalent to a "helpful nature being".

The only formalized religious figure is a shaman, the vǫlur, who is more like a "psychic". These shamans seem to never mention the æsir, and instead mention alfar and jǫtnar.

With regard to all nature "beings", vættir, including the æsir, a human can become a mutual "friend", vinar, with one. It is common for a family to dedicate a "shrine", hof, in their home, to call to mind the friend, share celebratory meals there, and so on. This is an aspect of hospitality.

A shrine can be for any nature being including jǫtnar, alfar, æsir, vanir, and others. Different families and different individuals feel an affinity for certain nature beings, and not others. The jǫtnar are mainly land beings, the alfar and æsir sky beings, and alfar and vanir mainly success beings.

Besides a personal shrine, sacred spaces are outdoors, to commune with nature.

When using a term that belongs to a reallife cultural heritage, it is important to use the term reasonably accurately and respectfully. Otherwise, invent a new term to avoid the effort to deal with other peoples cultures.



Translating into D&D, the Norse shaman resembles a Bard: "sight" (divination), "mind play" (enchantment and illusion), "form travel" (shapechange), healing, and so on.

Like the jǫtnar and alfar, the æsir are more like fey. These fey start at low levels but can become Immortal at high levels.

All nature beings are physical objects in the Material Plane: mountains, rock formations, rivers, thunderstorms, sunbeams, etcetera. The minds of these objects can project thru the Feywild, but Shallow, moving thru and observing places and people in the Material Plane. These disembodied minds are like normal Fey creatures, often in the forms of humanoids or beasts, but maintain their connection to the material object that they manifest from.

The Cleric class seems possible in a Norse-esque setting, but play it like the Paladin class, who is an "honorable warrior" that knows warrior magic (relating to the Songs) involving protection and healing. This warrior mage never uses magic to directly attack an opponent, but does use magic indirectly to empower oneself, ones allies, and to protect and heal. The honor seeks "fair" melee combat, but can self-buff without limit. In this case, the "cosmic force" is the code of honorable combat, again much like a Paladin oath.

Bards are common, the Paladin-like Clerics are uncommon, the Druids are rare among humans, but via elemental magic are common among the other nature beings.

Bards are common in a Norse setting, but these dont use a musical instrument. Instead their Verbal spell component (song or command) counts as their spell casting focus, replacing the instrument.
 
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Chryssis

Explorer
I worked on this for five years, converting the Known World to 5th edition. 224 pages, dozens of new subclasses, new races, spells, feats and types of magic. All original art and introduces one of the all time best settings to new players. After discussing it with friends and gamers, decided to put it up as a fanwork as the odds of WOTC opening up the guild is doubtful at this point. Enjoy adventuring in Mystara once more.

So i skimmed through it first comments:
1. looks like it was a tonne of work, great job
2. the maps at the beginning remind me of 80's computer game maps (probably because of the pixelation)
3. i don't like the layout of the archetypes\domains\colleges etc. - they are organized alphabetically (and in two different sections) so unless you know exactly the name of what you are looking for you will spend a long time flipping through trying to find. (due to page layouts I understand this isn't something that you could readily change)
4. i downloaded the uncensored version didn't see anything censorable...closest being the races and hero's picture, however the banner already does the censoring. --hah actually i accidently downloaded the censored since the "un" was in different colour so i only read censored.

cheers,
 


dave2008

Legend
I haven't downloaded yet, but I have followed this project a bit. Congratulations on getting it "finished," and thank you for sharing your hard work.
 


The Glen

Legend
So i skimmed through it first comments:
1. looks like it was a tonne of work, great job
2. the maps at the beginning remind me of 80's computer game maps (probably because of the pixelation)
3. i don't like the layout of the archetypes\domains\colleges etc. - they are organized alphabetically (and in two different sections) so unless you know exactly the name of what you are looking for you will spend a long time flipping through trying to find. (due to page layouts I understand this isn't something that you could readily change)
4. i downloaded the uncensored version didn't see anything censorable...closest being the races and hero's picture, however the banner already does the censoring. --hah actually i accidently downloaded the censored since the "un" was in different colour so i only read censored.

cheers,
1. Thanks, appreciate it.
2. I had to include the maps as provided by Thorfinn. One of the stipulations was I had to use the maps unskewed, and he updated them frequently. Most of the maps you see were provided about a month ago.
3. This was because of the uneven amount of subclasses. There's no monk, the version we came up with didn't survive playtest. There's only one barbarian while there are ten clerics, of which five of them classic BECMI subclasses. The sphere domains were put in the religion section because it was running short and it synced well with the description of the spheres of power, so I wasn't talking about concepts that didn't appear until much later in the book.
4. There's two different pieces of art in the uncensored. Oddly enough, the Toa Makai drew no criticism because of her lack of clothes, however her tattoos were incorrect. Maori women don't get the full facial tattoos. My awesomeness editor that helped me with that subclass told me not to bother, his people were delighted they were represented in the game.
 

OakenHart

Adventurer
Very cool of you to put this up after all the work put into it. Sorry to hear your thoughts on the likelihood of Mystara becoming available as a setting for creators on DM's Guild, but you are more than likely correct.
 

This is a difficulty that I found. I assume, the description comes from the classic Mystara setting, from some decades ago.

The setting mentions the reallife beliefs of Norse cultures by name, but then portrays them inaccurately.

The "æsir" are described as "gods" who have "clerics", yet none of this is true. The misrepresentation is problematic.
The Norse Gods are the same type of gods as the Greek god. Not all powerful things, but figures that represent aspects of the world. You disliking pantheons does not change that.
 

Yaarel

Mind Mage
The Norse Gods are the same type of gods as the Greek god. Not all powerful things, but figures that represent aspects of the world. You disliking pantheons does not change that.
Know what you are talking about, before making declarations about an other peoples cultural heritage.
 

Yaarel

Mind Mage
The Norse Gods are the same type of gods as the Greek god. Not all powerful things, but figures that represent aspects of the world. You disliking pantheons does not change that.
Presumably, the ancestors of the Greeks were also animists once, during prehistoric times. But by the time of the written records of the Classical Period, the Greek cultures became solidly theistic, "worshiping", becoming "slaves of", "bowing down", "praying to" these features of nature, and instituting "priests" to service "temples" for these "masters".

None of that happened in the Nordic cultures.

In Nordic cultures, an individual can develop a mutual friendship with an other individual. There is no difference between one human becoming "friends", vinar, with an other human, and one being become a friend of an other being. It is about hospitality and personal friendship.

Specifically in the Norse cultures, the "figures that represent aspects of the world" are called "beings", vættir. These beings include: jǫtnar, dvergar, alfar, æsir, vanir, corpses, and living humans. Each being is a physical object of some kind, including the body of a living human, and also a mountain and a thunderstorm. In the sagas, the narratives make it clear that these beings are roughly equal to each other in power, albeit some human individuals are more powerful than other individuals, and the same is true within each family of beings. There is a story of a human punching out Óðinn, and throwing him overboard. And so on. There are many examples of a being of one family overpowering a being of an other family. These beings are equivalent.

There are personal shrines in homes for various jǫtnar, alfar, æsir, and so on. These families of beings are equally sacred aspects of nature. The Norse can form a friendship with anyone.
 
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Yaarel

Mind Mage
With regard to "Germania", the tribes there mainly lack written texts and the evidence is mainly indirect. It appears that there, these Celtic, Germanic, and other tribal identities became members of the Roman army, adopted the Roman way of life, and began worshiping "gods" the way that the Romans did. Thus, for example, temples in today Germany to "Hercules" are probably for Donar (≈ Thórr), "Mercurius" probably for Wotan (≈ Óðinn), and "Mars" probably for Ziu (Týr). Probably, the Saxon tribes in Germany "worshiped" "gods".

However, this cultural transformation of tribal cultures in Germany under Roman imperialism never happened in the Nordic cultures.
 
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Yaarel

Mind Mage
In the Mystara setting, where "there are no gods", it feels incoherent to then say there are "pantheons" of "gods".

It seems to me, Mystara benefits from the 5e concept of a "cosmic force". In the list of Immortals (page 139), each of these domains is a cosmic force. There might be other cosmic forces too, depending on character concept and regional setting.

Immortals are beings who are powerful. Some Immortals champion a cosmic force and seek allies who also champion this same cosmic force, to join together in common cause.

The champions of a cosmic force are like shareholders of a corporation that promotes the cosmic force. These shareholders vote for the board of directors. The ones elected can be low level characters, but power and influence being what it is, tend to be high level characters.



Like any low-level mentor, a high-level Immortal can teach others how to do magic, how to cast a spell. However, an Immortal cant "grant spells", and certainly cant teach a spell that one oneself doesnt know. Perhaps, among the allies, an Immortal might know someone else who happens to know the spell, and get that person to be a mentor. Normally, an Immortal would only do things like this for a good friend. Most of the time, mages have lower level friends to teach them, or can figure it out for themselves.
 

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