D&D General Where to start with Mystara?

[Dire Bare]

Im noticing a recurring theme of Karameiko's.


And thats 100% understandable so I would suggest that as well.

Screw Bargle, poor Aleena.

When your parents name you Bargle, you are probably going to grow up to be a villain.

 

[Tonguez]

Im noticing a recurring theme of Karameiko's.


And thats 100% understandable so I would suggest that as well.

Screw Bargle, poor Aleena.

The Vaults of Pandius has an adventure where you get to Save Aleena (you get her resurrected) and Castle Mistamere allows you to track Bargle down for revenge or justice.

The modules are mostly set in Gaz1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos which is the most medieval European fantasy area of the Known World. The Gazetteer series of sourcebooks then expands outwards with different fantasy ethnic regions (Vikings, Arabs, Mongols, Venitian merchant princedoms, magocracy, Native Americans) or demihuman/humanoid kingdoms (Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, humanoids, Shadow Elves). Those are considered the core of the known world and fill in the main continent from the east heading west to the continent interior.

I have a bunch of these and enjoy them. I particularly like Gaz3 The Principalities of Glantri with its magic expansions and gothic horror subsetting in part of the area, and the merchant princes of Gaz11 The Republic of Darokin. The low points though are the offensive Gaz10 Orcs of Thar and the silly tourist Carribean themepark themed Gaz4 Kingdoms of Ierendi. A bunch did not like the Gaz14 American Indian themed one either.

Later there were some expansions including the Dragon articles on the Voyages of the Princess Ark exploring more lands which were later included in the Champions of Mystara boxed set, the Empires Boxed Set which sets up the global power fantasy Roman Thyatian military empire of which Karameikos is a part, and the Alphatian floating cities air mage super archmage magocracy empire different from the magocracy kingdom in the gazetteer setting. There was also the Red Steel expansion of lands to the southwest of the gazetteer series with mutation causing magical red steel ore as a Spanish gold rush kind of thing with more expansion lands, and the Hollow World boxed set opening up a whole world of multiple pulpy lost civilizations (fantasy Aztecs, Greeks, Egyptians, Cavemen, Shadow Elves, etc.) and there are hollow world individual area sourcebooks similar to the gazetteer series and some modules.

The poor wizards alamanacs are a series of whole known world yearly plot updates and event advancements, if you want a whole world overview like you would get in a setting book these are the closest that TSR/wizards came out with.

I think the best way is to just pick what appeals the most as far as flavor and dive into the sourcebook for there and not worry about the rest. There are neighbor area relations, but those will be discussed as part of the area sourcebook. Most things are not a big world issue until you get to the late metaplot of the Wrath of the Immortals boxed set.

The thing I always loved about Karameikos was that it had a strong Eastern European (Slavic/Balkan) feel to its culture instead of the typical Western Romance of most fantasy. I really liked to play up Traladaran cultural aspects and their tension with Duchal and Church law.

Specularum tended to remind me of Dubrovnik, with the Thyatian being Roman/Byzantium analogue - which makes the Ylaruam Turko-Persian Rum/Ottomans.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The thing I always loved about Karameikos was that it had a strong Eastern European (Slavic/Balkan) feel to its culture instead of the typical Western Romance of most fantasy. I really liked to play up Traladaran cultural aspects and their tension with Duchal and Church law.

Specularum tended to remind me of Dubrovnik, with the Thyatian being Roman/Byzantium analogue - which makes the Ylaruam Turko-Persian Rum/Ottomans.

This is probably heresy, but I'd love for a historian (if that's the right specialty) to do a light high-level rewrite of the overall setting to make the different cultures' proximity to each other make a little more sense. Yes, I know that some of them are where they are because of the immortals, but even in that case, once they're there, there would be more cultural exchange and the edges of each culture would blur into one another more than they do.

Mystara is never going to be gritty realism, but I wouldn't mind if the kitchen sink aspect was turned down 5%.

 

[Zardnaar]

The Vaults of Pandius has an adventure where you get to Save Aleena (you get her resurrected) and Castle Mistamere allows you to track Bargle down for revenge or justice.



The thing I always loved about Karameikos was that it had a strong Eastern European (Slavic/Balkan) feel to its culture instead of the typical Western Romance of most fantasy. I really liked to play up Traladaran cultural aspects and their tension with Duchal and Church law.

Specularum tended to remind me of Dubrovnik, with the Thyatian being Roman/Byzantium analogue - which makes the Ylaruam Turko-Persian Rum/Ottomans.

Ylaruam was Arabic.

The Turks/Persians were The Master.

Karameikos was Slavic with Rome/Byzantine ruling class.

 

[Tonguez]

Ylaruam was Arabic.

The Turks/Persians were The Master.

Karameikos was Slavic with Rome/Byzantine ruling class.

Croatians are Slavic living in the Balkan Peninsula and indeed had a Byzantine ruling class = so Dubrovnik fits well

But yeah Ylaruam was mostly Arabic, but Turko-Persian makes a better geographic fit

 

[Zardnaar]

Croatians are Slavic living in the Balkan Peninsula and indeed had a Byzantine ruling class = so Dubrovnik fits well

But yeah Ylaruam was mostly Arabic, but Turko-Persian makes a better geographic fit

Dubrovnik is fairly obscure though lol.

I may have played Ragusa in EUIV.

 

[Sossij]

When your parents name you Bargle, you are probably going to grow up to be a villain.

"You may have defeated me, but I will be avenged by my brother, Argle!"

 

[Velderan]

I ran a campaign set in the 2e Karameikos material back in the 90s. It's worth noting the products released were all during TSR's fixation with releasing a CD in the boxed set tied to a prompt for which track to play for each encounter. If you buy the PDF on DriveThruRPG they don't include the files for them, though the books do include a summary of what the track narrates so they're still usable and it's probably for the best since the tracks make some assumptions about how an encounter begins that might not align with how your game plays out anyhow.

Here's the 2 adventures I've played:

• Night of the Vampire - 1st level adventure shockingly revolving around a vampire set in Karameikos, though the location could easily be wherever you want. Good adventure if your players enjoy social interactions and combat being completely unwinnable if it were to happen.
• Hail the Heroes - Also a 1st level adventure and IMO the much better option to start a campaign in Mystara with. It puts the party in a race to recover an ancient religious artifact and leans into some faction play, which does a good job of setting the tone for a campaign that explores the tension between the Thyatian and Traladaran people of the region.

Neither of the adventures above would be significantly altered if you decided to use the setting in the earlier timelines presented in the Gazetteer series, so if you want to play 2e and use the older setting lore it isn't too hard to make those adjustments.

 

[Dire Bare]

"You may have defeated me, but I will be avenged by my brother, Argle!"

Actually, that is Bargle's first name, Bargle is his last name. The dark wizard Argle Bargle.

 

[Sossij]

B1-9: In Search of Adventure is the 'best' parts of the first 9 Basic adventures and framed as 3 adventure paths in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos (it even has a helpful Adventure Flowchart)

I've been a little curious as to how B1-9 compares to the original separate adventures. Big difference there?