OD&D What is Mystara?

[aramis erak]

One unusual feature of Mystara is the way it was published only in small sections - modules and gazetteers rather than a major boxed set detailing all the most important places like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and the 2e era settings such as Dark Sun and Planescape.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Dragonlance was the only other setting to be published in this way.

You're wrong about Dragonlance. DL had an AD&D 1E Hardcover Setting, similar in size and depth to the Greyhawk one. With an overview of Ansalon.

 

[aramis erak]

One of the biggest differences between Grayhawk is that Mystara doesn't have the obviously evil Nations at least in the known world. Glantri is a glorious mess that tends towards lawful evil but some of the principalities would be considered good or neutral. Thyatis is largely based on Imperial Rome so everybody's backstabbing everybody.

But as far as the rest of them they do make a point of because everybody's so interconnected with everyone else they have to behave themselves. It does have a massive focus on international trade, two of the nations are economic powerhouses and they are more interested in a trade War than a hot War.

Three or four have major trade flows... Darrokin is overland, Alphatia and Minrothrad are at sea, and Thyatis is no slouch, either.

I disagree with the characterization of Glantri. Glantri is presented in a fairly clear universally Lawful evil mode. Slavery, racism, ban on clerical magics under pain of death...

 

[The Glen]

Glantri is also quite isolated and xenophobic, they aren't a nice place to visit but they tend to leave their neighbors alone as a whole. Granted individual mages tend to hop across the borders to grab future experiments, but most Glantrians are too busy backstabbing each other to worry about their neighbors. The only the thing Glantrians hate more than everyone else is each other.

 

[JeffB]

As the original Known World of the early Moldvay/Cook/Marsh era, it's a fantastic setting based on the literature that inspired the original game, while loosening up so as to not be as dark/grim as a typical S&S setting and thus better able to accommodate D&D gameplay tropes while retaining verisimilitude.
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Unfortunately It spiraled out of control like every other D&D setting in the mid to late 1980s with a gazillion people adding to/morphing it, which made it homogenized and bland- It eventually became Mystara.

This webpage can tell you what it really was intended to be, before the creators of the setting left TSR and all the (non Zeb) Cooks got into the kitchen.

The “Known World” D&D Setting: A Secret History – Black Gate