What licenses are left?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I love Mystara for D&D, but it very much is a setting built for "I have the gazetteers forenjoy these 5 things out of the total output, so we're running those areas, the rest is interstitial space between them." Even moreso than the other D&D settings, it is not a well-oiled machine that both holds together but also falls apart if a piece is removed. If you personally don't like Glantri, they can easily just be 'oh, there's a nation of wizards over there, they, uh, keep to themselves. I guess fear of them keeps everyone else from committing to full-scale war on their other borders (something something).'

"On second thought, let's not go to Ierendi. Tis a silly place."

 

[Celebrim]

"On second thought, let's not go to Ierendi. Tis a silly place."

My own homebrew world evolved organically out of the map in the Expert boxed set. So Ierendi actually exists as a name on my map. But even by age 14 or so I was changing the climate and culture of the map to make it less silly and stand-alone and moving countries around (which if the players haven't visited them yet, you can do), because Mystara was already feeling too cartoonish.

Ierendi in my world is a matriarchy - inheritance passes to the eldest daughter - very loosely based on Elizabethan England and Ireland, with sort of a background like "What if Boudica had won?". It's land of fairies, pirates, and hurricanes, where strange sea monsters wash ashore, and dashing captains via for the attention of their queen. I have never actually set adventures there, but I anticipated the PC's would go there after leaving the Isle of Dread, in my most recent (now too long halted campaign) that covid interrupted. It's roughly speaking where Theyatis is on the regular map, but entirely archipelagic, with the adjacent continental power being the Grossican Kritarchy.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I recall that, pre-gazetteer, Ierendi was just described as a group of culturally related islands, which should have been a good jumping off point. And in a Mystara where we got sometimes-cringeworthy, sometimes-earnest attempts to give us fantasy versions of real world cultures, it could have been a place to put Fantasy Polynesia, a category that's still woefully absent in RPGs.

"Ha ha, this is where we're putting Fantasy Island and Magnum, PI" was a real disappointment, even if TSR in that era really enjoyed their wacky stuff. Top Ballista at least had cool new races, rules for flying machines and a flying city setting.

 

[Celebrim]

I recall that, pre-gazetteer, Ierendi was just described as a group of culturally related islands, which should have been a good jumping off point. And in a Mystara where we got sometimes-cringeworthy, sometimes-earnest attempts to give us fantasy versions of real world cultures, it could have been a place to put Fantasy Polynesia, a category that's still woefully absent in RPGs.

The Isle of Dread is part of my "Fantasy Polynesia" - the Mokoheen cultural group. There is some cultural/genetic exchange between the Concheeri (the redheaded ethnic group) pirates of Ierendi and the bronze skinned Mokoheens, 'cause well, mutual attraction and they are both seafaring peoples. Of course, this is also my fantasy Caribbean, because there big seafaring powers are starting colonies down there, with resulting local tensions and more opportunities for piracy.

There are also like fantasy Azores and Canaries and Cape Verdes on the map further west, collectively called "the Pearl Islands".

"Ha ha, this is where we're putting Fantasy Island and Magnum, PI" was a real disappointment, even if TSR in that era really enjoyed their wacky stuff. Top Ballista at least had cool new races, rules for flying machines and a flying city setting.

The flying cities are north of Glantri on my map, in a ruined civilization that is now some of the worst most high CR areas on the map - tons and tons of trolls on the ground and cloud giants and dragons in the air. Again, at the time I only had the name "Wind Dukes of Aaqa", and no lore, so I invented my own with this lost civilization with its own air magic had collapsed in a civil war, leaving ruins decaying about. The Talernga Diarchy further up the coast from Grossica is the edge of their former empire, with Talernga being originally founded as one of their trading outposts.

 

[Belen]

Babylon 5
Stargate
Wheel of Time
Dragonriders of Pern
Riftwar Cycle
Mass Effect
Deverry (this would rock!)
Shannara
Space: Above & Beyond
Vampire Earth
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn

 

[dbolack]

I think the world of the Paksenarrion books might work well.

 

[Belen]

I think the world of the Paksenarrion books might work well.

I cannot believe I forgot that one. I adapted parts from it for my own D&D setting.

 

[Celebrim]

I think the world of the Paksenarrion books might work well.

I think it's already been done.

 

[haakon1]

Babylon 5
Stargate

I ought the RPGs for both of those long ago, in the 1990s & 2000s - independent rule set (not good) and d20 rules (pretty good), respectively.

Have the licenses lapsed? Probably, but OGL presumably is forever for Stargate SG1 the RPG.

 

[haakon1]

How about some less D&D-like RPG concepts off TV?

Downton Abbey
Bridgerton
All Creatures Great and Small
Survivor
Real Housewives
The Office

“Yes, my character is an Assistant to the Manager multiclassed beet farm owner”.