Red Steel/Savage Coast setting -- thoughts?

[Estlor]

As far as I can tell, despite TerraDave's enigmatic remarks to the contrary, the big difference between the OD&D and 2e versions of Red Steel is that in the latter version the 'Red Curse' is not an addictive drug, but a general 'pseudo-radioactive' cloud.

Is this incorrect?

Eh... yes and no. The Bruce Heard articles have very OD&D-centric themes and occurences. They did very little to tinker with the basic rules of OD&D. No guns. The Red Curse weakened you with no real gain in power as an offset, but it also didn't make you freakishly deformed in the least. IIRC, cinnabryl still warded off all its effects. They added in the lupin, rakasta, and half-elf as playable races (with the half-elf found only in Eusdria, a sort of pseudo-viking nation if you brought the vikings forward to a more modern mindset).

When they moved the Savage Coast to 2e, they worked in more 2e related things. There were kits (which included the first instance of how to become an inheritor, a concept largely left out of Bruce Heard's treatment), psionics as an option (at least optional enough that they told you the level-limits of the various races if they became a psionicist), and wheel lock pitols (that only worked in the area of the Red Curse because they used vermiel, a side-effect of the Curse, as an ingredient in smokepowder). The Curse stopped being debilitating and started being a trade-off. Now you lost points in an ability score, but gained some sort of minor magical power in return. If you failed to wear cinnabryl, you would eventually mutated into a freakish deformity that related to the minor magical power you gained. Likewise, more detail was placed into explaining the "why" of the Red Curse. Its origin and the explaination of its effects was spelled out explicitly to the DM.

Later, when they made Red Steel into the Savage Coast Odyssey line, they worked up the Orc's Head Penninsula and Nimmur, two regions previously untouched. Lots of monsters (some OD&D updates, some completely new) were made for the region.

And what exactly makes the earlier version of the Savage Coasts so much better than the Red Steel (2e) version?

If I can be blunt and somewhat snide in response to this, the earlier version came first and wasn't part of 2e. In other words, there's no reason the earlier version is better.

Yes, the Red Curse was (for all purposes) drug use when presented in Dragon Magazine. However, it was a stupid penalty with no trade-off. All it did was encourage people NOT to stay in the Savage Coast for more than a one-off adventure. Stay too long and your ability scores begin to wither away with nothing to show for it. The only saving grace it had was the area the Curse touched was very small and very contained. The leap to 2e kept the damage the Curse did to your ability scores but instead gave you a return for the investment. Okay, maybe there was the implication in Bruce Heard's work that ingesting the vermeil was the reason you suffered from the Curse (something that was later dropped in favor of the Curse being an ambient magical effect centered on the region), but aside from an origin rethinking, it has very similar mechanical effects on a character. I'll gladly take that adjustment as the jump to 2e also greatly expanded the flavor of the region, making it less of a comical parody of a Western movie (Sir John of the Wayne, "the Duke" of Cimmaron County not withstanding) and more of a swashbuckling realm of intrigue. The introduction of Inheritor orders and the politics between them, the "new world" aspect of unexplained Oltec ruins and artifacts turning up, and the strong Spanish/Portugueese flavor (including a nation that mirrors Spain during the Inquisition) adds a lot to the setting. The threat of war is imminent in the Savage Baronies, Renardy and Bellayne bicker like cats and dogs (pun intended), the scheming aranea, the Creole/Aboriginal lizardkin, the manscorpions that disintegrate in the sun, and the orcs that fight for a red dragon they think is a god... there's a lot of gold in the AD&D version that was only touched on in the OD&D version.

ASIDE: There was a meta-plot reason for the transition from OD&D mechanics to AD&D mechanics for the Red Curse. The aranea, a constant thorn in the side of the dragon-kin that once dominated the region (before even the Oltecs arrived), kept the Red Curse in line with powerful arcane wards, wards that collapsed during the Week Without Magic (at the end of the Great War). When magic returned, the wards did not, expanding the area and strength of the Curse from the Barionies to much of the southern Savage Coast. The aranea have been too busy fighting prejudice (and xenophobic fear that people will learn their secret) to raise the wards once more.

 

[rogueattorney]

To add a bit to what Estlor said:

It's important to remember that in the Dragon version of the Savage Coast, the Red Curse effected area was much, much smaller. Generally just the "savage baronies". The other kingdoms west of there were not effected by the Red Curse. So, yes, the Red Curse, was just that - a CURSE - that pc's would want to avoid effecting a small area of the setting. The 2e version turned the Red Curse into THE main feature of the area, largely changing the setting from an extension of the Known World setting to its own thing. This, of course, meant that the Red Curse had to allow for functional pc's.

If you want to use the 2e version of the Savage Coast as a setting on its own, it might be fine. That wasn't where I was coming from when I got the products. I was a fan of the Known World setting who was familiar with the Dragon articles. The Dragon articles do a much better job of presenting the area as part of the same world as the Known World.

And for all those who think I'm just spouting because "the first version was better", I certainly didn't mind the changes made from the X9 version of the setting. I'm actually saying that the second version of the setting was better. So there.

R.A.

 

[Akrasia]

Thanks for all the info, Estlor! I think I will check it out...

 

[Akrasia]

...
If you want to use the 2e version of the Savage Coast as a setting on its own, it might be fine. That wasn't where I was coming from when I got the products. I was a fan of the Known World setting who was familiar with the Dragon articles...

Yeah, if I ever use the Red Steel/Savage Coast stuff, it would be as an autonomous setting. I like the 'swashbuckling' feel of it. My plan would be to adapt it for C&C, and approach it as a complete change of pace from my standard medieval setting.

I love the OD&D Known World setting, but don't much care for what happened to it from Wrath of the Immortals onward. (If I use the KW in the future, I am not sure whether I would even include Alphatia...) So I would probably not view the Savage Coast as part of the Known World...

 

[Kesh]

When 3e first came out, I really wanted to run a 3e version of the Savage Coast. I'd still like to, one day when I get another group.

One thing I'm wondering... originally, Wizards had a policy that 3e conversions either had to be just annotation documents (if a product were printed) or you could essentially convert & make the entire product available online if it were an electronic document in the first place.

Given that the Savage Coast files were on the site (and still are), I'm wondering if this policy still applies. If so, I'm sorely tempted to do so with those files... otherwise, I may just finally write up that fan-site I've been thinking about to do a loose conversion of the setting (rather than a formal conversion document).

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Yes, the Red Curse was (for all purposes) drug use when presented in Dragon Magazine. However, it was a stupid penalty with no trade-off. All it did was encourage people NOT to stay in the Savage Coast for more than a one-off adventure. Stay too long and your ability scores begin to wither away with nothing to show for it. The only saving grace it had was the area the Curse touched was very small and very contained.

To expand upon Estlor's commentary here- the "Red Curse" (it hadn't been named as such yet) was primarily a "flavor" creation. It provided, in terms of game mechanics, an explanation for several cultural elements of the Savage Baronies region. The existence of the cinnabarl poison in the soil was responsible for the coloration of the skin of the natives (a coppery, reddish tone), as well as a rationale for the "savage" nature of the area- it diminished the Intelligence and Wisdom scores of those subject to the native peoples/creatures, and spurred them on to fight over the most valuable materials in the region (cinnabryl), which could counter the effects of the poison. IE, the region was "savage" because its people were less intelligent and more brutish, and warred over the native ore in the soil.

The "drug use" aspect only came into play when the cinnabar was used in a non-natural way- to endow the user with supernatural powers (at the cost of Constitution). The "curse" itself was not presented as drug use at all. To me, that was the attraction of the original presentation of the Savage Coast materials- the lure of power, but with a high cost.

The leap to 2e kept the damage the Curse did to your ability scores but instead gave you a return for the investment. Okay, maybe there was the implication in Bruce Heard's work that ingesting the vermeil was the reason you suffered from the Curse (something that was later dropped in favor of the Curse being an ambient magical effect centered on the region), but aside from an origin rethinking, it has very similar mechanical effects on a character.

The thing about the change that makes the least amount of sense to me was the apparent rationale behind it. TSR, by many reports, wanted to do away with the perception of drug use, so instead of having supernatural abilities granted by purposeful ingestion of essence of cinnabar, now everyone is still contaminated by the poison in the soil, but has to use cinnabryl in order to stave off its disfiguring effects. In essence, they got rid of the small number of drug users, and instead made everyone methadone addicts. Huh?

I'll gladly take that adjustment as the jump to 2e also greatly expanded the flavor of the region, making it less of a comical parody of a Western movie (Sir John of the Wayne, "the Duke" of Cimmaron County not withstanding) and more of a swashbuckling realm of intrigue.

Bruce Heard's work often (and to some, sadly) has a "tongue in cheek" edge to it, but the only parts of the original Princess Ark series that seemed to me to be less than serious were the aforementioned Cimmaron, with Duke John, and the "teenage ninja tortles" of a later episode. Most of the rest of it was serious, and compelling, even before the transition to Red Steel, IMO. The parts that weren't could easily be dispensed with.

The introduction of Inheritor orders and the politics between them, the "new world" aspect of unexplained Oltec ruins and artifacts turning up, and the strong Spanish/Portugueese flavor (including a nation that mirrors Spain during the Inquisition) adds a lot to the setting. The threat of war is imminent in the Savage Baronies, Renardy and Bellayne bicker like cats and dogs (pun intended), the scheming aranea, the Creole/Aboriginal lizardkin, the manscorpions that disintegrate in the sun, and the orcs that fight for a red dragon they think is a god... there's a lot of gold in the AD&D version that was only touched on in the OD&D version.

To be fair, everything you mention above (with the exception of the Inheritor orders) was present in the OD&D version, and in fact, came from same. The Inquisition nation of Navarre (I think that was it...) was one of the first of the Savage Baronies to be described, and an Oltec artifact was revealed to be the source of defense of one of the Guardianos nations in (IIRC) the second "Savage Baronies" article. The intrigue and wars were mentioned and even formed the backdrop of that same article (where Haldemar and crew are drawn into conspiracies of attempted murder).

In any case, as Estlor points out, there isn't anything inherently worse or better than either version, it really just depends on what you want in your own campaigns. There are some differences- even some timeline glitches between the two versions that slipped past- but whichever of the two "Red Curse" types you go with in your campaign, I think having the entirety of the original articles and the Red Steel materials will provide you with an invaluable resource to running campaigns in the region that will serve much better than only owning one set of resources.

 

[reanjr]

I really liked Red Steel, but never got into Mystara. Known World was before my time.

 

[Nisarg]

Yeah, if I ever use the Red Steel/Savage Coast stuff, it would be as an autonomous setting. I like the 'swashbuckling' feel of it. My plan would be to adapt it for C&C, and approach it as a complete change of pace from my standard medieval setting.

I love the OD&D Known World setting, but don't much care for what happened to it from Wrath of the Immortals onward. (If I use the KW in the future, I am not sure whether I would even include Alphatia...) So I would probably not view the Savage Coast as part of the Known World...

Just a note, but the Savage Coast, in the dragon magazine articles, actually predates both Wrath of the Immortals and (I believe) the RC. Definitely predates Wrath, though, and the chronicles of Haldemar (captain of the Princess Ark) are set in 1000 AC.

Nisarg

 

[Estlor]

To be fair, everything you mention above (with the exception of the Inheritor orders) was present in the OD&D version, and in fact, came from same. The Inquisition nation of Navarre (I think that was it...) was one of the first of the Savage Baronies to be described, and an Oltec artifact was revealed to be the source of defense of one of the Guardianos nations in (IIRC) the second "Savage Baronies" article. The intrigue and wars were mentioned and even formed the backdrop of that same article (where Haldemar and crew are drawn into conspiracies of attempted murder).

I will admit my recollection of the Princess Ark series has grown a bit fuzzy - it's been about two years since the last time I read it in full. I think my articles are beginning to blur together; I'm mixing the vivid image of Haldemar dealing with all those dead bodies with the less vivid six-shot crossbow sequence and the Master side-trek. On the whole, I enjoy the Known World's somewhat campy take on fantasy, but turning John Wayne into a character in a blantant western film rip-off nation was a bit too over the top next to the rest of the Savage Coast. Of course, not much worse than putting dogs and cats in nations next to each other and making them French and British to boot!

But, yeah, whichever version of the Red Curse you use, you should pick it for a specific plot reason. If you want to make the Savage Barionies dangerous places that your PCs will avoid except when absolutely necessary, the OD&D version of the Red Curse will work the best. If you want to make the Savage Coast as a whole a land of intrigue where great power is available to anyone... at a price... then use the AD&D version of the Red Curse (or the 3e adaptation of it in Dragon Magazine, though I prefer my own straight conversion of it that keeps the same names and abilities as present in AD&D where still applicable). Aside from that, the rest of the setting is basically the same from one source to the next. The only decisions you need to make are whether to allow guns (as in AD&D) or prohibit them (as in Bruce's original vision) and whether to allow half-elves anywhere (as in AD&D) or restrict them to a Eusdrian background (as in OD&D).