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.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Anyone know how comprehensive an overview of the setting this is? I've always wanted to check Mystara out (it's one of the few settings I never really investigated back in the '80s and '90s), so this looks like it might be a good ground floor to get in on, and then check out some of the old Mystara Gazetteer stuff on the DMs Guild.

EDIT: Please stop recommending other products/info. I was asking solely about this product.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Ooooo now that is interesting! Who's the guy?

Guess I'm probably wrong then, and WotC could be putting it under a bridge and stampeding forward with "legacy stuff makes us moar $$$"

That would be a welcome change. Honestly, all they would really need to do is to put out overall campaign settings in the format they've already successfully developed for 5e, and just point out anyone needing any further fluff/detail to the DMs Guild for older products. That would save us from the '90s-type product glut. Although if they did want to put out periodic legacy products beyond that, I would be fine with that!

I'm now wondering if the May Ravenloft book is something of a trial balloon for this (Eberron is a bit different as its inherent popularity made an update fairly inevitable).

 

[cbwjm]

The Set, it was fine. The novels were...um... controversial. Pandered a bit to the interests of certain large authoritarian governments, in addition to just being. So. Badly. Written. Badly written by the standards of game tie in novels. Tolarian Community College did a pretty through critique of the novels as novels, I'd recommend those reviews, though I didn't bother reading the second one which was the controversial rather than merely mediocre book.

Internet chatter aside, WotC actually cancelled a Theros novel because of the reception of the War of the Spark books, so... not bolstering the brand.

Oh right, I haven't read a MtG novel in a long time. I do enjoy reading the short stories they release with the sets as small bite size stories of the worlds they create for each set.

 

[guachi]

I'd pay money for this and I get it for free?

Yes, please.

 

[CleverNickName]

This is the best RPG news I've read in months.

 

[darjr]

Who's going to start the work of statting the monsters for 5e? I imagine that could even go up on the DMSGuild.

 

[cbwjm]

Anyone know how comprehensive an overview of the setting this is? I've always wanted to check Mystara out (it's one of the few settings I never really investigated back in the '80s and '90s), so this looks like it might be a good ground floor to get in on, and then check out some of the old Mystara Gazetteer stuff on the DMs Guild.

Check the first post, there is a link to Jeff's blog which gives an overview of what's in the book. Looks like it would be a good overview of the setting.

 

[cbwjm]

Who's going to start the work of statting the monsters for 5e? I imagine that could even go up on the DMSGuild.

I swear I've already seen someone doing this, but it might have been an update to 3e rather than 5e. I'm already planning on throwing an Actaeon at the party, though maybe not as an adversary but as a fey protector of the woodlands. Not sure why, perhaps because it is the first monster in the RC, but the Actaeon always stuck with me as an iconic known world monster.

It was a 5e update, found it on The Piazza: Converting Rules Cyclopedia Monsters to 5E - The Piazza

 

[guachi]

Anyone know how comprehensive an overview of the setting this is? I've always wanted to check Mystara out (it's one of the few settings I never really investigated back in the '80s and '90s), so this looks like it might be a good ground floor to get in on, and then check out some of the old Mystara Gazetteer stuff on the DMs Guild.

Occasionally old stuff like the Gazetteers go on a big sale and you can pick the lot up cheap. Though I don't know how you'd passively be able to track when a sale was happening. I don't think you can put a product on your wishlist like you can at, say, Steam and get an email when it goes on sale.

I love the setting and think, in general, that DMs Guild is a great way to sample old stuff from D&D's history.

 

[Parmandur]

Anyone know how comprehensive an overview of the setting this is? I've always wanted to check Mystara out (it's one of the few settings I never really investigated back in the '80s and '90s), so this looks like it might be a good ground floor to get in on, and then check out some of the old Mystara Gazetteer stuff on the DMs Guild.

Based on Grubb's discussion of the product on his blog, which initiated people saying "wait, you have the manuscript? Do you mind if we ask WotC for permission to print this??" it's a pretty substantial, largely complete overview of the Setting in the style of a 2E three book box set.