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

[overgeeked]

Thank you for all the hard work. You run a fantastic channel and the book looks amazing. Can't wait to dive in.

 

[The Glen]

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]

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.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Yaarel]

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.

 

[Rogerd1]

Silly question if I may....but what is the difference between these and the other 5e Mystara Player's Guide?

 

[dave2008]

Silly question if I may....but what is the difference between these and the other 5e Mystara Player's Guide?

What other Mystara Player's Guide? Can you provide a link? Hard to answer such a question without a reference.

 

[Yaarel]

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.