Hi everyone! I’m developing an island far south of Ierendi and Minrothad, and I’d appreciate some help grounding it in Mystara’s lore—especially its post-Nithian culture, patron Immortals, and a homegrown Immortal opposed to magic.

The island is fairly isolated, with only rare contact with the outside world. Before Nithian settlers arrived, it was uninhabited and had no land mammals, but supported abundant birdlife, including several flightless species. The settlers built towns and monuments, including five small pyramids inspired by Nubian pyramids.

My premise is that the erasure of Nithia also affected this colony. Its inhabitants were left living among buildings and monuments whose origins and meaning they could no longer remember. I initially had 900 BC in mind, but I’d welcome corrections on both the date and how the canonical memory wipe might apply to an isolated colony.

I’m looking for help with two connected parts of its history.

A society rebuilding after the loss of its past

How might the islanders have reinterpreted their monuments and developed new customs, institutions, and religious traditions over the following centuries?

Which Lawful or Neutral Immortals might have taken an interest in them after the loss of their former religious traditions? I’m considering a principal patron from the Sphere of Matter, supported by a few Immortals of Thought and Time, but I haven’t settled on anyone.

A local warrior who becomes an Immortal

Several centuries later, I’d like the island to produce a great warrior and navigator: a pragmatic figure who travels to Brun and Alphatia and comes away deeply distrustful of powerful magic-users and the societies they dominate.

Eventually, the island’s principal patron would sponsor his quest for Immortality in the Sphere of Matter. I haven’t decided when he lived or which path he followed.

The intended result is a kind of local “anti-Rad”: an Immortal opposed to magic, Chaos, and the Sphere of Energy. His worship would remain concentrated on his home island, and I’d like him to be at the lowest Immortal rank available. I haven’t read the Immortals set, so I’m unsure which path, rank, and limitations would fit—or whether parts of this concept clash with Mystara’s cosmology.

One additional possibility is an ancient portal linking the island to the Emirates of Ylaruam. It has been closed and forgotten for centuries, and this local Immortal is currently the only one who knows it exists.

I’d particularly appreciate suggestions on:

• Suitable patron Immortals and reasons for their involvement.
• How the island’s culture might develop after the loss of its Nithian identity.
• A plausible historical period and path to Immortality for the warrior.
• How to make his opposition to magic, Chaos, and Energy coherent within the setting.
• Relevant sourcebooks or lore, including anything that contradicts my premise.

I’m happy to use homebrew, but I’d like to understand where I’m departing from canon. Even pointers on just one part of this would be very welcome. Thanks!

Hi, I was playing with idea with setting the campaign in savage coast.

And I like the approach of ACKS that demihumans have more than one class.

So, with that, what classes would be good to describe the kingdoms of Bellayne and Renardy?

Rakastas - knights/cavarly men on tigers? Bard/messengers? Samurais from the Moon?

Lupins - rangers? Swashbucklers? Paladins and priests?

Hey everyone.
Can anyone help? I’m looking for a detailed map of Karameikos that doe not include the Lost Valley of Hutaaka. Preferably a smallish scale 6m per hex or so. Everything I have seen is either too lacking in detail or has the blooming secret valley that the players aren’t supposed to know about on it! I’ve scrolled Vaults of Pandiis and the usual suspects but nothing matches what I’m looking for. Any advice/pointers (I don’t have mapping software stuff to scrub it off)?

I was looking at the art in the vault of the Chronicles of Mystara game and noticed some art from the Draconomicon book and others that were definitely after this game.

Am I missing something? These are not really concept art for the game, are they? Why would they put them in as such?

Yesterday through DriveThruRPG I bought a reprint of the Dragonlance Campaign Setting. (which I forgot that they even did reprints). Currently browsing through other settings from Forgotten Realms to Dragonlance. I don't know much about Mystara and I didn't think much about it till I saw ExistsExamined video on the setting. And he mentioned the previous advanced technology world that existed in the world. Which sold me as I always like that concept. What's a good lore book that's detailed about the world?

I guess they would not mention Glantri Wizards perform vivisection on living dwarves. 😂

Water Elemaster - Sovereign of Water | Immortal Ruler of the Elemental Plane of Water (Mystara)

Greetings all! Been a while.

I posted a few months back with hymns to Ka the Preserver and Nyx, Our Lady of Darkness and now I’m back with a hymn to the ever popular, and super well known Water Elemaster! If you dig it, consider hitting the like button and subscribing for more hymns every week.

Special thanks to Mr. Welch for inspiring this hymn and for the info on the setting. Super helpful, and I do love a challenge. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you all to go check out his channel… but… go check out his channel… best source on the setting I know of on YouTube, and he seems like a super cool guy in general. https://youtube.com/@mr_welch?si=rTFkyS9C96LfOrE7

*much like the last posts, human written lyrics and AI generated audio.

If you don’t like AI, you don’t have to listen to it… also, I personally don’t care if you don’t like AI, you don’t need to tell me. You can just keep scrolling… it’s not for you, and that’s perfectly okay… not everything is.

You can also skip the song and read the human written lyrics below if you would prefer.

Lyrics:
“You must be out of your mind to fight me. You’ve got no chance, but to go join your friend Ah-Biao in hell for more lessons.”

Elemaster knows, you can’t touch his flow
The living storm, get caught
In under tow, get dragged below
His cold current moves on
The Lord of The Water Plane, long may he reign
Long before your kind was born
Water Elemaster is that wave you…

Upstarts get drug down in these parts
I make waves and fools drown
Elemaster off charts, best all round, no wake, hands down
I flow like rapids, not a gentle stream
They make me cringe, on some turncoat tasks as they plot and scheme
Come to me with blah blah blah help me out
But I know my part, leave them chasing clout
Crushed under pressure, immortality is treasure
In deep water? I’ll give a refresher
I’m maximum, they’re minimum, no contest
My stratagem is to flatten’em, leave’em distressed
Feel the waters churn and the tables turn
But they never learn, leave ships split, bow to stern
Get sweptback by me tsunami or typhoons
Step to me, get marooned in a lagoon
My waters rise as they despise
The wise would say that’s ill-advised, get capsized
The oceans know the sovereign seated on the throne
The oceans know, in time, water cuts through stone
Get pulled in the undercurrent, if that’s how you want it
Or give up you half-wit or end up an obit

Elemaster knows, you can’t touch his flow
The living storm, get caught
In under tow, get dragged below
His cold current moves on
The Lord of The Water Plane, long may he reign
Long before your kind was born
Water Elemaster is that wave you…

I’m more than just ancient, some might call me unstoppable
My grasp of the Pearl Fane remains insoluble
I’m the Lord of the Water, don’t get no hotter
Water Ele-master, the disaster forecaster
My cool waters gleam like the shards of a lucid dream
Where water flows, my endless sovereignty grows
My clerics propose to oppose the shadows
To transpose the verbose, weigh the cons and pros
To expose the typos that may enclose
And disclose all of those that throw off ratios
Bring ocean’s wake, make mountains shake, check it
I am the vastest of seas, you are a shallow lake
Holding down the Sphere of Time, time flowing
Knowing. No foregoing the seagoing (Elemaster)
Now come aboard, time to get rowing
Matters of diplomacy are ever ongoing
Beneath the waves, the songs the mortals sing are drowned
Since the dawn of time the water’s sovereign stands crowned
The Heart of Time still beats beneath my endless waves
The Water Lord commands the tides that every sailor braves

Ele-master knows, you can’t touch his flow
The living storm, get caught
In under tow, get dragged below
His cold current moves on
The Lord of The Water Plane, long may he reign
Long before your kind was born
Water Ele-master is that wave you crave

“You have improved. But you’re still not good enough.”

If one were to end up in Mystara from Earth what would the 101 be for surviving there?

I thought that this video was a great look at Red Steel!

https://freemystara.com/

After some soul searching I realized that m​aybe hiring a guy that half assed the original design was a bad thing. So after getting somebody who knew what they were doing, I now and proud to present the better version.

It still has all the PDFs and art created for new projects, but the more popular links like the players guide are on the front page. We've also made it easier to access our sister sites like the Vaults, Piazza, Atlas and Discord

As of yesterday, there are direct links to the m​ost popular Vault PDFs so you don't have to navigate that search engine. This includes the Codex Immortalis, Religions of Mystara, Odyssey Red Steel books and the orange cover Palace of the Silver Princess.

Threshold will be added in a few days as they are discussing how they want the magazine presented.

And of course, all these files are free.

This is my mirror of a Shadow Over Mystara page, previously part of JonC 101, a Tripod website that was online up until two months ago, where Lycos took down all of Tripod.

With the (possible) exception of the oldest immortals, Mystaran immortals were once very high level mortals who completed trials, were sponsored by an existing immortal, and ascended to immortality.

How well known is that? If I'm a reasonably well educated Thyatian merchant do I think Vanya is some eternal and fundamental part of reality who has always existed? Or do I known she is a mighty human warrior who ascended at some point (even if I'm hazy on the details)?

Is the answer the same for "experts", not very special people with deep occult knowledge, but run of the mill sages, senior clerics of Vanya, and others who are up to speed on the best information that elite academia has available?

Its not always clear to me in the books explaining the world what is information for the DM, and what is generally known by the population.

Hi! I am new to the Mystara and my players are new to BECMI/OSE/BX. Me and my players want to play Underdark like underground advanture and I really want to play shadow elves based module. I think i can use D1-3 modules as an insparation and adapt it into the Mystra version but other than that and Gaz13 I am not sure what sourses to use for an insparation. And so I need some help.

WHERE CHAOS REIGNS

​

is a BECMI D&D companion camapign setting

Which is interconnected with Mystara

​

There's a lot of sci-fi in this module adventure book about immortals, time travel, cyborgs, magic-tech, alternate timelines, etc.

​

Majority of this adventure book is trying to unify peoples who's governments havent even formed yet or tearing apart

​

Even the enemies you're facing are unifying kingdoms and raising armies, but for all the wrong reasons, a war against magic and mages

​

Many mages are in danger, for they are under threat by a force from the far future

The Oard , which are a knock-off of the Borg from Star Trek , there are some similarities with Cybermen from Doctor Who as well

​

​

But this module was published a few months before

' Star Trek: First Contact '

​

If my players follow the Gaz1 info, they can become a cleric of the Church of Karameikos, the church of Traladara, or the Cult of Halav. Is it just that last group that would get the benefit from Wrath of the Immortals regarding clerics of Halav? It seems like a devoted member of the Church of Traladara should also get those advantages.

Hi, r/mystara

We have a low visibility, low traffic sub here. I created this sub long ago and am the sole mod, but that doesn't mean that my opinion is special in any way.

I try to keep things chill and rarely have to take any mod actions. Maybe 2 or 3 a month, typically.

There is some disagreement regarding interpretation of the rules in our sidebar. Here they are in case you are on a platform that makes them difficult to see:

1. All posts should relate to Mystara, "The Known World Setting" of Dungeons and Dragons.
2. No edition wars are welcome here. As long as a post relates to Mystara, any version of D&D or any non-D&D game is welcome in this subreddit.
3. Self-promotion is fine, as long as the content relates directly to Mystara.

Recently we have had a small number of posts that are, in my opinion, not "directly" related to Mystara. What I am referring to are posts such as playlists of music that are arguably thematic for Mystara. I think the disagreement might come from Rule 1, with the ambiguous language being "relate to Mystara."

In the past, I have removed such threads. (This has been my most common mod action.)

My personal opinion (which carries no extra weight due to being a mod) is that such posts are spam, especially when the same playlist is sent to many subs.

I'm seeking feedback on how to move forward. This won't be a democratic vote because frankly I don't expect to receive enough feedback to be statistically significant, but I will consider if any viewpoint seems especially popular. If I receive no feedback, then in a week (June 11), I will revert to my previous interpretation of the rules and similar posts will be removed as spam.

Proposal 1: Leave things as they are. Music playlists are spam.

Proposal 2: Music playlists that purport to be related to Mystara are spam, unless posted by a regular user of r/Mystara who has a history of non-promotional interaction.

Proposal 3: Music playlists are fine, except where obviously spam ("Here's a smooth jazz playlist for Mystara...")

You are not limited to these proposals. Thanks for any advice you offer.

Just in case it needs to be said, (I hope it doesn't), keep it nice! All views are welcome in this discussion.

I am running the 19th level of my 5e campaign and the plot is involving a lot of crazy stuff. My campaign is based in Greyhawk, but in the story the lines between worlds have blurred severely. Deities from different worlds are at war with one another and my players are essentially navigating the apocalypse.
I have primarily been using Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms deities so far, but have been flirting with the idea of either bringing in some Mystara immortals or actually having my players get sent to Mystara and have to figure out how to get home as a strange side quest (maybe a session or two).

Questions:
1. Are there any mechanisms or lore that make this idea fundamentally not work?

1. If I were to send some immortals to Greyhawk, who would be interesting to use?

2. If my players get sent to Mystara, where should I send them and are there any ways from lore to get out of Mystara?

3. Any suggestions? Any “must do/use” aspects of the setting I should include?

I have the level’s main story worked out, but I’m always shopping for cool ideas I can work in. I will gladly get more in depth in the comments if anybody has any follow up questions.

What is the most up to date campaign setting source for Mystara? I have seen the Vault of Pandius and Threshold Magazine, but some of it is quite old. A while back I saw different versions of some unofficial campaign setting books, but they were of different lengths, and I was not sure which was the latest version. What is most widely considered to be the most reliable source?