Henadic Theologian
Legend
FR already has its "stargates" built by the Imaskari and others to other worlds.
D&D 5E What 3 Settings did you pick in the Survey
- Thread starter Henadic Theologian
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FR already has its "stargates" built by the Imaskari and others to other worlds.
humble minion
Legend
deleted, a bit more mean-spririted than i prefer to be
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Ath'kethin
Elder Thing
Al-Qadim had an issue or six for sure. But it was such a revolutionary take on worldbuilding, especially in terms of faith, religions, and gods, that we can still see its echoes today.
Plus I just love the aesthetic of turbans and scimitars. I blame Ray Harryhausen for that!
We tried to accentuate the setting's awesome stuff and account for its issues as much as possible in our [shameless self-promotion alert] 5th Edition sourcebook, and it seems to have made a lot of people happy:
Campaign Guide Zakhara: Adventures in the Land of Fate at DMSGuild.com
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
From a Greyhawk (i.e. Gygax) perspective, this is true.
From the perspective of Blackmoor/Known World being its own freestanding setting, not so much.
Oh, and my votes both in the survey and here are Homebrew (from scratch), Mystara and Birthright.
I voted:
1. Homebrew (created from scratch)
2. Greyhawk
3. Dragonlance
The weird thing about Dragonlance/Krynn is there are conflicting canon sources.
The original modules were fairly standard 1E fare. There were some differences - no Orcs, Kender instead of ½lings, etc. but was otherwise fairly standard. What set it apart was the time period of Krynn; the gods were assumed to be gone and Dragons had long been viewed as being nothing more than mythical. The problem came with the novels. The first novel did an okay job covering the first 2 modules but then they crammed the next 10 modules into 2 novels. Almost half the PC's are left out of the books and entire modules are either handwaved as having happened offscreen or were just ignored completely. Even the end of Book 3 is just a heavily paraphrased of Ending #6 in the modules - in some of the endings, Fizban isn't even Paladine. It was all extremely watered down; so what are you supposed to consider official? Then, to make it even worse, the AD&D Dragonlance sourcebook came out. Now, suddenly, the White, Red, and Black wizards half access to different spell schools and different advancement rates. The modules didn't have that and neither did any of the books. Even the 2E re-release of the modules didn't use that, but the SSI Gold Box video games did. So, is that official or not?
I like the world, but there's too much disconnect in the various forms of presentation. The novels had a tendency to harp on what I considered banalities. In the modules, the behavior of the Kender was little more than a quirk. The novels take it to such heights that it almost feels like self parody. So for me, I've largely just ignored the novels (for gaming purposes anyway), but for a lot of people, that's their biggest connection to the setting.
1. Homebrew (created from scratch)
2. Greyhawk
3. Dragonlance
The weird thing about Dragonlance/Krynn is there are conflicting canon sources.
The original modules were fairly standard 1E fare. There were some differences - no Orcs, Kender instead of ½lings, etc. but was otherwise fairly standard. What set it apart was the time period of Krynn; the gods were assumed to be gone and Dragons had long been viewed as being nothing more than mythical. The problem came with the novels. The first novel did an okay job covering the first 2 modules but then they crammed the next 10 modules into 2 novels. Almost half the PC's are left out of the books and entire modules are either handwaved as having happened offscreen or were just ignored completely. Even the end of Book 3 is just a heavily paraphrased of Ending #6 in the modules - in some of the endings, Fizban isn't even Paladine. It was all extremely watered down; so what are you supposed to consider official? Then, to make it even worse, the AD&D Dragonlance sourcebook came out. Now, suddenly, the White, Red, and Black wizards half access to different spell schools and different advancement rates. The modules didn't have that and neither did any of the books. Even the 2E re-release of the modules didn't use that, but the SSI Gold Box video games did. So, is that official or not?
I like the world, but there's too much disconnect in the various forms of presentation. The novels had a tendency to harp on what I considered banalities. In the modules, the behavior of the Kender was little more than a quirk. The novels take it to such heights that it almost feels like self parody. So for me, I've largely just ignored the novels (for gaming purposes anyway), but for a lot of people, that's their biggest connection to the setting.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
Both Blackmoor (Mystara) and Greyhawk (Oerth) evolve from the same original map that both Arneson and Gygax used in the 1970s for Proto and Original D&D.
Each world, Mystara and Oerth, evolve differently as they each fill out the unknown space beyond.
The protomap is extensive, including Blackmoor, the great lake Nyr Dyv, and other places in the periphery. The map represents something like a continent.
Iterations from the earlier protomap often preserve recognizable features, but there can be spacial distortions for far away features − to a degree that reminds one of reallife medieval maps! A small region on the edge in the southeast can become a vast empire far away. A regional forest might become local.
For fun, I compare the locale of Blackmoor in the maps of Mystara and Oerth.
My methodology is to locate corresponding locales. Note, the Oerth map is more vague and the Mystara map more specific. Even so, the "Archdutchy of Blackmoor" in Oerth correlates with places near the City of Blackmoor in Mystara.
Oerth location: associates Mystara location
• Egg of Coot: Egg of Coot
• Mosshold: Maus
• Ramshorn (Castle): Ramshead (City)
Where the Oerth map vaguely describes as wetlands, the Mystara map details a patchwork of drylands, rivers, lakes, and wetlands. For example, where Oerth has the Egg of Coot at the edge of a wetland, Mystara has it on the coast of a brackish estuary. Presumably the water is shallow and the coastline shifting in places.
When we look at the triangle of these three locations, Egg of Coot, Mosshold, and Ramshorn, both the names and the distances correspond between Oerth and Mystara. Near this triangle, locations and distances correlate serviceably.
The location of the original "Old City" of Blackmoor is at the center of this triangle.
Interestingly, the "ruins" of Blackmoor according to Oerth appear to actually be the ruins of the City of Ringlo according to Mystara. It situates between the Redwoods and the Elven Forest. With regard to the Oerth map, it should probably be understood as "the ruins of the Archdutchy of Blackmoor", and specifically Ringlo, rather than the ruins of the City of Blackmoor itself that is elsewhere.
I edit the Oerth map below to show the location of the "Old City" of Blackmoor. Blackmoor, Egg of Coot, Mosshold, and Ramshorn appear as red dots. I add some terrain details from Mystara that cover an entire hex space in the Oerth map. There are areas of wetlands that are mostly underwater and boatable. Presumably where Oerth has wetlands and Mystara has mountains, these are high-altitude wetlands. The desert within the Cold Marshes is the legendary Valley of the Ancients. I represent the Firefrost Channel flowing from under the Black Ice. Much of what is the Burneal Forest in Oerth is the Plains of Hak in Mystara, possibly a flatland patchworking grasslands and woodlands. Plus, there are a few Mystara cities to get a sense of whats-where.
The Archbarony of Blackmoor
(edit. Yaarel 2021)
Each world, Mystara and Oerth, evolve differently as they each fill out the unknown space beyond.
The protomap is extensive, including Blackmoor, the great lake Nyr Dyv, and other places in the periphery. The map represents something like a continent.
Iterations from the earlier protomap often preserve recognizable features, but there can be spacial distortions for far away features − to a degree that reminds one of reallife medieval maps! A small region on the edge in the southeast can become a vast empire far away. A regional forest might become local.
For fun, I compare the locale of Blackmoor in the maps of Mystara and Oerth.
My methodology is to locate corresponding locales. Note, the Oerth map is more vague and the Mystara map more specific. Even so, the "Archdutchy of Blackmoor" in Oerth correlates with places near the City of Blackmoor in Mystara.
Oerth location: associates Mystara location
• Egg of Coot: Egg of Coot
• Mosshold: Maus
• Ramshorn (Castle): Ramshead (City)
Where the Oerth map vaguely describes as wetlands, the Mystara map details a patchwork of drylands, rivers, lakes, and wetlands. For example, where Oerth has the Egg of Coot at the edge of a wetland, Mystara has it on the coast of a brackish estuary. Presumably the water is shallow and the coastline shifting in places.
When we look at the triangle of these three locations, Egg of Coot, Mosshold, and Ramshorn, both the names and the distances correspond between Oerth and Mystara. Near this triangle, locations and distances correlate serviceably.
The location of the original "Old City" of Blackmoor is at the center of this triangle.
Interestingly, the "ruins" of Blackmoor according to Oerth appear to actually be the ruins of the City of Ringlo according to Mystara. It situates between the Redwoods and the Elven Forest. With regard to the Oerth map, it should probably be understood as "the ruins of the Archdutchy of Blackmoor", and specifically Ringlo, rather than the ruins of the City of Blackmoor itself that is elsewhere.
I edit the Oerth map below to show the location of the "Old City" of Blackmoor. Blackmoor, Egg of Coot, Mosshold, and Ramshorn appear as red dots. I add some terrain details from Mystara that cover an entire hex space in the Oerth map. There are areas of wetlands that are mostly underwater and boatable. Presumably where Oerth has wetlands and Mystara has mountains, these are high-altitude wetlands. The desert within the Cold Marshes is the legendary Valley of the Ancients. I represent the Firefrost Channel flowing from under the Black Ice. Much of what is the Burneal Forest in Oerth is the Plains of Hak in Mystara, possibly a flatland patchworking grasslands and woodlands. Plus, there are a few Mystara cities to get a sense of whats-where.
The Archbarony of Blackmoor
(edit. Yaarel 2021)
Last edited:
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