D&D General UPDATE: this isn't greenlit : Jeff Grubb's Lost Mystara Sourcebook To Be Released

Ex-TSR designer Jeff Grubb wrote a Known World of Mystara sourcebook for AD&D 2E that was sadly never published. But now WotC has given permission for it's release to Shawn Stanley of the Vaults of Pandius website, the Official Mystara Homepage!

Grubb posted on Facebook:

"A long time ago I wrote a project for TSR converting the Known World of Mystara from D&D to AD&D 2nd Edition. Through a tale of woe and intrigue, (link below) that product was never completed, and instead became Karameikos, Kingdom of Adventure.

However, I kept a copy of the unfinished manuscript (well, print-out), and a short while ago, gave it to Shawn Stanley, who runs the Pandius Website. He in turn has cleaned it up a bit, and plans to release it, free, with WotC's blessing, to fans on the website's anniversary.

It is really nice to see this surface after so many years - it is a "Lost Tome" of D&D history, and I hope fans of the setting enjoy it."

He speaks more about the story, and why he left TSR, on his blog.

Mystara is a D&D campaign setting first published in the early 1980s, and was the 'default' setting for D&D for a long time.

Why I left TSR

A couple years back I talked about Stormfront , the TSR world that I never ended up creating. And in the initial entry I said: " Stormfro...

grubbstreet.blogspot.com

Updates from @Dungeonosophy

Jeff Grubb gives an overview of the book on his blog

As for the release date: Shawn Stanley, Webmaster of the Vaults of Pandius, announced (here) that June 27th is the planned release date.

Some people were wondering if Jeff is involved in the release.

I reached out to Shawn Stanley on April 10th:
"Yes I was going to reach out to him with respect to providing some sort of foreword for the release. I had been intending to do so once I had finished the graphic design - but with the release of new news yesterday, I reached out to him yesterday. I also wanted to get his okay for the editing that I had done. But yes, I would think that anything that Jeff wants to write to accompany the document would be a great idea. I do kind of agree that something a little bit less-depressing than the blog posts might be preferable - something to celebrate the release than recall the negative things that had happened during that time."
"I do hope that he will agree."

Jeff also responded to me on April 10th:
"Shawn has been in touch with me, and I will be glad to write a brief foreword for the project."

Which will be a fulfillment of Jeff's offer back in 2019:
"If you succeed [with the petition], I will be glad to provide an intro with a less-depressing history of the project."

Note Vaults of Pandius is the Official Mystara Homepage! Given that designation by WotC, back in the 2000s, when Jim Butler was managing fan policy for "other worlds." There's an official agreement and everything. That's why the site is the natural host for this.

UPDATE:
WotC's approval of this sourcebook's release have been premature, i.e. it isn't greenlit.

 

[CleverNickName]

Oh great. It looks like the word "political" is getting co-opted by A Certain Group^TM in order to cloud the waters on topics of human rights and representation. It's the watchword of 2021, apparently. So when you find yourself discussing, say, trans rights or BIPOC representation online, take a careful look at the first person who drops that word.

Despite what you might have read online, the respectful representation of other real-world cultures, histories, and mythologies in fiction isn't difficult. And it isn't optional.

 

[monsmord]

Oh great. It looks like the word "political" is getting co-opted by A Certain Group^TM in order to cloud the waters on topics of human rights and representation. It's the watchword of 2021, apparently. So when you find yourself discussing, say, trans rights or BIPOC representation online, take a careful look at the first person who drops that word.

Yep. Same hypocritical regressive crap every time. If you hear a boast of "gaming without politics," watch your dog's ears perk up.

I look forward to a refreshed Mystara.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What was done poorly, three Gazetteers are less kindly looked at. Orcs of Thar, Kingdom of Ierendi, and Atruaghin Clans. Thar was novel in that it was one of the earliest offerings of playable non-humanoids; orcs, goblins, kobolds. But it leaned into over-the-top mocking humor at low intelligence. Ierendi leaned into tropical island resort motifs, and Atruaghin Clans was a very poorly received presentation of Native American peoples that needs extreme sensitivity re-writing.

Ierendi is divisive -- some people like Fantasy Island and Magnum PI showing up in their D&D games, others don't -- but it's not problematic in the way Thar and Atruaghin are. (And the Savage Coast is.) But yeah, I would expect all of those to be redone to some degree if a new official Mystara product ever appeared.

Thar, ironically, would be easiest. Just play it straight by today's standards, with the idea that the gazetteer was written by an outsider who let their own biases interfere with their accuracy.

The core idea of Atruaghin, that it's sanctuary for the five tribes against the outside world, isn't terrible. There's actually a lot of pretty interesting stuff that can be done there, once the cowboys and Indians cosplay is addressed.

Mystara has no drow, half-orcs, or half-elves, so it would be interesting how the conversion would go.

I think this is one of the bigger challenges with BD&D material. The current thinking appears to be that that everything in the PHB needs to be present in every published world. It wouldn't be hard to say that half-elves and half-orcs have always been there. (There will be some cries of outrage, but it's honestly not a terribly important change.)

But if you decide that shadow elves are actually drow with a different origin story, culture, appearance, etc., you still have the issues of drow player character magical abilities not at all matching the post-apocalyptic hiding-under-the-surface very late Cold War sci-fi aesthetic. Maybe you just introduce a whole new shadow elf subrace for Mystara and tell DMs to hold firm and insist this is the drow replacement for Mystara, but WotC, to my knowledge, hasn't told DMs to do anything like that in 5E. Saying no to players is increasingly seen as being a bad DM in some quarters (including among some folks here at ENWorld), so I have a hard time picturing removing drow, dragonborn and tieflings from play for a 5E Mystara.

Mystara’s immortals are … different. Many (most?) were once mortals. Once immortality is achieved, they (supposedly) are no longer permitted to directly influence affairs of the world. While each nation/region will have distinct pantheons that are revered, there are 5 factions of immortals that compete. Energy, Time, Matter, Entropy, Thought. The factions cross through all pantheons such that a pantheon might be made up of an immortal from each faction. And characters can get along perfectly fine ignoring immortals all together, some immortals are worshipped, others do not care to be and instead simply want to achieve their goals. It’s different and similar, but I think more flexible than as typically presented in D&D’s gods.

I think, for a 5E Mystara, you could just lean into cleric domains not necessarily coming from the gods at all, but simply representing different approaches to serving the flocks. The drama between the spheres is mostly irrelevant. While I think "no one much knows or cares about the immortals" would be hard for some players to get their heads around, I think it would be fairly refreshing for others. (I know, in my Ptolus campaign, religion is a big part of things, and if I ever ran a separate "main" campaign, my players would probably be ready to get away from church politics altogether.)

Mystara would also be a great world to introduce the quest for immortality and epic rules, as it got its own boxed set and adventures set in that tier, which I think makes it almost unique, other than the few Bloodstone Pass adventures the Forgotten Realms got during the 2E era.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Am I understanding correctly, that the reallife cultural parallels are all humans in Mystara? This helps.

Nearly completely true with a few exceptions over the years. If you look close at it each region, the non-humanoids (orcs, goblins, gnoll, ogres, etc.) will be dangerous, less-civilized, raiders and culturally imitative of nearby humans. Mystara has done historical population migration maps, and one nation, the nomadic Ethengar Khanate, most recently arrived to the Known World region. The region of the continent they migrated from was where nomadic tribes of humans and non-humanoids seem to share the analog of M-Central Asia. Because in addition to the horde of humans that settled Ethengar, a separate horde of non-humanoids arrived to settle the Brokenlands. In my recollection, who had the original steppeland culture first is vague.

Graakhalia is a subterranean nation of gnolls and elves under a large desert where in order to survive a cataclysm both realized they needed to team up and cooperate.

The Savage Coast region of Mystara throws the idea that elves and dwarves do not share human cultures. The Savage Coast has other sensitive issues as the region leaned into the Age of Exploration and colonialism. The Savage Baronies are a take on M-Portugal, M-Spain, Spanish colonies (M-Mexico, M-Argentina) at different eras (with bonus M-Texas thrown in) The entire region’s human nations, however, share cultures with dwarves, elves, halflings, rakasta (think tabaxi), lupin (dog-people), tortles (who seem to end up as the peasant class in every nation they appear). Orcs, goblins, and gnolls here still end up as dangerous raiders from the wilderness, often nomadic.

Since the Savage Coast was already produced in 2e rules, I doubt any of its material would show up in this work. But maybe it would take inspiration from its design and include 2e kits that any class could take.

It seems the biggest difficulty is how Mystara represents shamans and animism. This seems to require an informed revision. Otherwise, having sensitivity checkers go thru it to look out for unexpected problems seems standard for the rest.

Savage Coast’s material is mostly published under AD&D 2e (and free downloads now!) and shaman and wokani were both turned into kits.

 

[AnotherGuy]

You spelled "respectful" wrong

You and the rest jumped to conclusions.
I have no issue with a fresh paint on Mystara but Yaarel's post upthread highlighted the difficulty in pleasing everyone.

There are several cultures that I am sensitive to in reallife, and I might personally feel uncomfortable. For example, if the "viking" culture looked more like Conan polytheism and less like the reallife or mythologically accurate Norse animistic peoples, that barbarification can become objectionable. (Berserkar did exist as a kind of shamanic warrior, but they were specific and often feared by other Norse.) Likewise, I want positive and reasonably accurate portrayals of Jewish Israel and the Mideast generally.

Mystara has always been culture-lite with fan appreciation building it up on Pandius.
I disagree with @CleverNickName that this exercise isn't difficult.

 

[Yaarel]

If you look close at it each region, the non-humanoids (orcs, goblins, gnoll, ogres, etc.) will be dangerous, less-civilized, raiders and culturally imitative of nearby humans.

It is problematic if the nonhumans that are "dangerous, less-civilized, raiders" dip into the problematic Asian (Mongol) and African (Subsaharan) stereotypes that are rife in early fantasy literature, like in Tolkien and others.

Likewise, if the "less civilized" nonhumans have "shamans", it can be problematic to reallife animistic cultures.

Since the Savage Coast was already produced in 2e rules, I doubt any of its material would show up in this work. But maybe it would take inspiration from its design and include 2e kits that any class could take.

Animistic/shamanic cultures include Australian Aborigines, Native American tribes, African tribes, Nordic peoples, Asian Tungusic peoples, Southeast Asian peoples, and others. Of course, there are different kinds of animistic cultures. They tend to share characteristics in common, including shamanic trances, the immediacy of the physical world, relating to each natural feature as a person, and often nomadic or semi-nomadic. Animism is considered the spirituality of paleolithic humans, but survives in various forms today.

Strict animism primarily relates to the extended family and a sense of a community that includes prominent natural features as members of the community. Note, the human too is a feature of nature among other features of nature. The job of a shaman is to help resolve any conflicts among the members of the community, whether human or nonhuman. There is no "worship", but there can be a reverence such as toward a grandparent or a love toward a friend. Often, a family of humans believe they partly descend from a nonhuman feature of nature.

Animism can blend into other kinds of religion, such as monotheistic animism (where an infinite God created all of the visible beings of nature) and polytheistic animism (where certain natural features gained sovereignty over the community and demand servitude).

For gaming purposes, animism is interesting because it isnt polytheism, and is more egalitarian, and less authoritarian. It is also attuned to being in harmony with nature, and eco-friendly. Also, animism tends to be "psionic" where each natural feature, even a stone or a tree, is a nonhuman mind (often a nonanthropomorphic mind), and these minds exert influence over each other, including dreams and manifestations. Compare Aborigine Dreamtime and Norse Mindforces.

Mystara has done historical population migration maps, and one nation, the nomadic Ethengar Khanate, most recently arrived to the Known World region. The region of the continent they migrated from was where nomadic tribes of humans and non-humanoids seem to share the analog of M-Central Asia. Because in addition to the horde of humans that settled Ethengar, a separate horde of non-humanoids arrived to settle the Brokenlands. In my recollection, who had the original steppeland culture first is vague.

Graakhalia is a subterranean nation of gnolls and elves under a large desert where in order to survive a cataclysm both realized they needed to team up and cooperate.

The Savage Coast region of Mystara throws the idea that elves and dwarves do not share human cultures. The Savage Coast has other sensitive issues as the region leaned into the Age of Exploration and colonialism. The Savage Baronies are a take on M-Portugal, M-Spain, Spanish colonies (M-Mexico, M-Argentina) at different eras (with bonus M-Texas thrown in) The entire region’s human nations, however, share cultures with dwarves, elves, halflings, rakasta (think tabaxi), lupin (dog-people), tortles (who seem to end up as the peasant class in every nation they appear). Orcs, goblins, and gnolls here still end up as dangerous raiders from the wilderness, often nomadic.

The theme of "colonialism" is politically charged in reallife, but I suspect a game can handle it in a way that is neutral and accurate. It is the way things were, and there are reasons it evolved the way it did. It is possible to avoid demonizing the colonialists while still paying attention to the injustices and violence that comes with colonialism.

 

[Yaarel]

Yaarel's post upthread highlighted the difficulty in pleasing everyone.

Heh, it is more about not insulting people.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Heh, it is more about not insulting people.

Well, not insulting people I will agree is easier than trying to portray a culture accurately.

Your comment upthread about 10 couples one being gay, one being lesbian and that women and trans in positions of power reminded me of the 10 Princes of Glantri and how they could be refreshed to portray additional diversity.

Before the WotI, we had a rather interesting group of characters already:
2 Undead (Lich & Vampire) - McGreggor & Gorevitch-Woszlany
1 Immortal - d'Ambreville
2 Elven Females - Belcadiz & Erewan
1 Foreigner - Virayana
2 "Aliens" - Vlaardoen & Aendyr
1 Sicko - di Malapietra (due to the pic, I always thought of this Prince of having dark fetishes and vices)
1 Warmonger - Drachenfels

 

[Sithlord]

It is problematic if the nonhumans that are "dangerous, less-civilized, raiders" dip into the problematic Asian (Mongol) and African (Subsaharan) stereotypes that are rife in early fantasy literature, like in Tolkien and others.

Likewise, if the "less civilized" nonhumans have "shamans", it can be problematic to reallife animistic cultures.




Animistic/shamanic cultures include Australian Aborigines, Native American tribes, African tribes, Nordic peoples, Asian Tungusic peoples, Southeast Asian peoples, and others. Of course, there are different kinds of animistic cultures. They tend to share characteristics in common, including shamanic trances, the immediacy of the physical world, relating to each natural feature as a person, and often nomadic or semi-nomadic. Animism is considered the spirituality of paleolithic humans, but survives in various forms today.

Strict animism primarily relates to the extended family and a sense of a community that includes prominent natural features as members of the community. Note, the human too is a feature of nature among other features of nature. The job of a shaman is to help resolve any conflicts among the members of the community, whether human or nonhuman. There is no "worship", but there can be a reverence such as toward a grandparent or a love toward a friend. Often, a family of humans believe they partly descend from a nonhuman feature of nature.

Animism can blend into other kinds of religion, such as monotheistic animism (where an infinite God created all of the visible beings of nature) and polytheistic animism (where certain natural features gained sovereignty over the community and demand servitude).

For gaming purposes, animism is interesting because it isnt polytheism, and is more egalitarian, and less authoritarian. It is also attuned to being in harmony with nature, and eco-friendly. Also, animism tends to be "psionic" where each natural feature, even a stone or a tree, is a nonhuman mind (often a nonanthropomorphic mind), and these minds exert influence over each other, including dreams and manifestations. Compare Aborigine Dreamtime and Norse Mindforces.




The theme of "colonialism" is politically charged in reallife, but I suspect a game can handle it in a way that is neutral and accurate. It is the way things were, and there are reasons it evolved the way it did. It is possible to avoid demonizing the colonialists while still paying attention to the injustices and violence that comes with colonialism.

So we shall make sure all villainy societies resemble American/euro societies. Got it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So we shall make sure all villainy societies resemble American/euro societies. Got it.

Worth a read/listen: Punching Up vs. Punching Down.