Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 22 Jan 2008 to 23 Jan 2008 (#2008-11) From: MYSTARA-L automatic digest system Date: 24/01/2008, 19:00 To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 7 messages totalling 470 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds (3) 2. Mystaran Numismatics (2) 3. Ethereal creatures (2) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:05:06 -0500 From: Greg Weatherup Subject: coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds Ok, I don't know what to do about the formatting. At least now the paragra= phs aren't running together, I've just got equal signs at each line break, = sometimes even mid-word! Plus quotation marks get changed to 93 & 94, what= 's that about? reply to Giampaolo Agosto: > However, the eurocents are basically copper coins, while an aureus was a p= ure gold coin, thus the same weight means a thinner and possibly smaller co= in. I'm sorry, I was thinking in terms of size, but discussing in terms of weig= ht. The only euro coins I have seen are the ones in my collection- various= 1c (France 2000, Netherlands 2000, & Spain 2003), a 2c (Ireland 2002), & a= 10c (Germany 2002F), so I was gauging the size from a depiction in Krause. > That's true. BTW, did you post the full document somewhere? no, the Karameikos entry is the only one I feel is far enough along for pos= ting at this time. Thus far I've got a long, slightly incoherent introduct= ion section, then almost ready entries on Darokin, Alfheim, Thyatis, Karame= ikos, Five Shires, & Ylaruam. Then after that all other entries are collec= tions of notes or half formed ideals at this time, some more developed than= others, others just references to a source. Next closest to being complet= e enough for posting is probably either the Darokin entry or the Alfheim on= e. I've got a barebones html file all ready (which has just the info on the mo= st common denominations in each country and some minimal notes), but I am h= aving some technical difficulties. The last several times I have tried to = upload html files to my webpage it didn't work and I can't figure out why (= i.e. http://members.fortunecity.com/gecko_g/coins.html, http://members.fort= unecity.com/gecko_g/gen/saadid.html, http://members.fortunecity.com/gecko_g= /gen/vanhaarlem.html). The local copies on my harddrive all work fine, as d= oes any copy I pull down using FTP, but any attempt to use a webbrowser to = pull it off the net and it comes out as a string of kanji. I have emailed = zipped copies to people and they look over the source code and say the html= and the encoding is fine, so I don't know what the deal is, I might need t= o get a new webpage. >> Adventure hook idea- perhaps after defeating some goblins who=20 >> fight alongside/with trained dogs, the adventurers are perplexed=20 >> because the goblins have no identifying symbol nor battle=20 >> standard, but they do find a bagfull of these "testones" on the=20 >> bodies with the big portraits of baron von Hendricks on the=20 >> coins, this being the adventurers first suggestion of a link=20 >> between the black eagle and humanoids [it was a Nightseeker party=20 >> looking for escaped slaves]. > Good idea here. Thought you might like that one. :) > IIRC, Glantri specifically has a coin with a real metal content that is mu= ch lower than the coin value - a standard platinum coin that is worth 50 gp= when the magic aura is in place. yup, see my earlier message for my take on that particular coin and its bac= kstory. Reply to Pires dos Santos: >> > IIRC, the city-state Korun is also a gold coin. It's possible that the >> > karameikan Crona was changed to a silver coin in order to have a gold >> Royal >> > (and thus put the new karameikan order above the old traladaran ways; >> the >> > same probably is true for the platinum city-state Halavs and karameikan >> > electrum Halavs). >> >> Or, maybe, the Crona had lost so much value that it contained already >> more silver than gold and/or was under the standard weight. > > Yes, that's indeed likely for the Cronas =3D3D) > I'd use the other idea for the Halavs, OTOH, since they're something of a = "special" coin, too valuable to be find easily and rarely minted; when the = karameikan duke decided to mint a new electrum coin, he just used the trala= daran tradition. That's just my opinion about it, but it could be something= different as well ;) If you look in K:KoA at the sidebar on page 103, both the golden Royal and = the electrum Halav are similar looking, hexagonal shaped coins. So I tried= to incorporate a reason for that into the backstory of the crona as well. = However, I didn't mention any reasoning for why the future electrum coin i= s hexagonal, and I had meant for the future gold Royal to be hexagonal beca= use it was based on the old gold Krona (only larger) but I see now I did no= t explicitly mention that, so I'll add this reasoning to both entries, than= ks. >> ooh... whats the source for this? > > > Savage Coast Campaign Book ( http://pandius.com/svge_cst.html ) ;) > The table is here: http://pandius.com/sc_equip.html so there ARE differences between the SCCB and the Red Steel Campaign book. = I see the korun and halav under Eusdria, does Eusdria have some traladaran= connection? I thought Eusdria was somesort of M-Gaul/M-Celt/M-Brittonic m= ix? There is also a "Crown" coin for Herath, but I think that is likely to= have an unconnected history (preliminary though - maybe bellaynish influen= ce?). >> Beyond Slagovich I didn't have any info on City State coinage. > > VotPA and SCCB presents each one a different coinage for Slagovich. SCCB a= lso extends this to all city-states. which one is the one repeated in the almanacs? The only one I know of is t= he one using cinnabryl alloys. Thanks all, Greg Weatherup GWxup@excite.com Gecko_G@email.cmo http://members.fortunecity.com/gecko_g/ --=20 Want an e-mail address like mine? Get a free e-mail account today at www.mail.com! ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:18:02 -0500 From: Greg Weatherup Subject: Mystaran Numismatics Greetings, Reply to Pires des Santos: > Actually I wish I could really help here, but I'll be able to read every d= etail only next week, when I get home. This subject is very interesting for= me, since I'm planning to DM a pbem about the traladaran migration to the = SC at AC 450 , so which currency was used at traladara, darokin and the min= rothians is quite significant. well, maybe I can have the Darokin entry ready by next week.=20=20 For both the Darokin and Alfheim I still need to figure out the following: -some denomination name ideals, specifically: --a small, thin, unifacial, alfheim tin coin valued at 1/10th of a Ten'er --an alfheim small change "token" (not really a coin, you'll see....) --Darokinian historical coins, most of them will likely be based on histori= cal italian coinage systems, ie for Selenica I'm thinking of basing it on N= aples/Sicily/Two Sicilies coins to get the Arabic --Ylaruam-- influence, bu= t then I wonder if Venice or Trieste or such would be better for the Balkan= /Illyrian --Traladaran, not really equivalent I know, but close enough I su= spect-- influence, if any.) Also for the Darokin entry I still need: - physical descriptions (ie what is depicted on the coins, shape, etc.). D= oes any one know of any cannon info on this? ie maybe in the Gaz? Failing= that there isn't any fan-works out there that describe it already is there? Then all of the entries need some-proof reading and rewording, and then som= e formating adjustments. > What about if old Halag region use instead the Koruna, which is closer to = the SC Korun, since they mainly came from west traladara? =3D) easily enough switched. > BTW, one way to use both VotPA and SCCB currencies for Slagovich is to use= VotPA coins as the LB coins, while all city-states use those of the SCCB. = Slagovich is one of the main trade centers of the SC and probably its coin= s will be easy to find, including at the neighbour city-states. Also, VotPA= coins have english names, which fits GP's idea for having english as the L= B common language. It's also possible that Slagovich once was a LB outpost = before the traladarans got there (I'm using this idea for the pbem and the = material I'm writing with GP based on these ideas). despite not knowing yet differences between the two, this already sounds go= od. :) Reply to Chris Cherrington: >> I should mention that Karameikos has now become the largest entry in my = document, by a good margin. I should also mention again, if I didn't alread= y, that this builds upon the previous works of Christopher Cherrington & Je= sper Andersen (are either of you two here?) and is for the AC 1000-1004 tim= e frame. It is intended as a source of fluff and guideline for DMs to flesh= out the coins. > > Yep, I am still here. Although I can't take much credit, I based my numism= atics on a Dragon article I read once. My main ideas were to implement a co= mplicated trading system (purposely) and to increase the value of gold by m= aking it rare (most coins were made of silver, I changed all prices to stan= dard silver and not gold). I also wanted to make carrying money more realis= tic, under the old rules 10 coins weighed 1 pound. To buy a suit of armor y= ou would have to carry 45 pounds of gold, highly unrealistic to me. Another= article from Dragon "What's he got in his pockets..." also pointed out ano= ther problem, can a thief pickpocket more than 2 pounds of gold? By making = coins differing sizes, like 60 to a pound, thieves can pickpocket more. Can I ask how you chose 60/pound? Was this a researched number with a reas= on behind it or just chosen at random? Or did it also come from the Dragon= article? I never looked into if it is realistic or not but as we've been = discussing here it preliminarily seems so. > Great work by the way, Thank you, glad you approve and I hope you like the future entries. Greg Weatherup GWxup@excite.com Gecko_G@email.com http://members.fortunecity.com/gecko_g/ --=20 Want an e-mail address like mine? Get a free e-mail account today at www.mail.com! ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:31:50 -0500 From: Greg Weatherup Subject: Ethereal creatures Aloha, I'm afraid I can't really comment from a rules, cannon, nor experience aspect, since none of my games ever went planar. However, I would probably try to really play up the eeriness and spookiness of everything. Everything is half seen and indestinct. The conflict between their senses would likely make for a queasy stomach till they get used to it. Something they go to lean against (or climb or something) is not actually ethereally real just an etheral shadow of something, and things like that just to keep reminding them how unnatural and out-of-place they feel. Would distances and perceptions of distance and speed be skewered? Bugs! What would (non-dangerous) etheral bugs and vermin look like? perhaps ferret sized, multicolored, disgusting, catepillar like things with feelers that crawl around so that the party things they are about to be attacked but really the bug is just trying to run away from the wierd, disgusting, scarry, odd thing that it is encountering. I think I remember something from a Stargate SG-1 episode on these lines. I remember reading something somewhere about etheral curtains, but I don't remember where. Again, I don't know if any of this contradicts cannon or rules or anything, I'm just throwing out ideals, Greg WeatherupGWxup@excite.comGecko_G@email.comhttp://members.fortunecity.c= om/gecko_g/ --=20 Want an e-mail address like mine? Get a free e-mail account today at www.mail.com! ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:57:08 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds On 23/01/2008, Greg Weatherup wrote: > > I'm sorry, I was thinking in terms of size, but discussing in terms of weight. The only euro coins I have seen are the ones in my collection- various 1c (France 2000, Netherlands 2000, & Spain 2003), a 2c (Ireland 2002), & a 10c (Germany 2002F), so I was gauging the size from a depiction in Krause. Ok. Let's use the 10c for a comparison. According to wikipedia, it should be at 4.10 grams and made of an alloy (nordic gold, a type of bronze) with a density of 8.54 grams/cm3 (if I've done the computations right). In that case, a similarly sized silver coin would weigh some 5 grams, a gold one about 9.25 grams, and a platinum one 10.3 grams (all assuming very pure metals). > If you look in K:KoA at the sidebar on page 103, both the golden Royal and the electrum Halav are similar looking, hexagonal shaped coins. OTOH, the GAZ Royal is round, IIRC. > so there ARE differences between the SCCB and the Red Steel Campaign book. > I see the korun and halav under Eusdria, does Eusdria have some traladaran Not at all. There is a formatting error in SCCB -- all entries in the first row are misplaced by one table slot. Thus, the Korun should be under "Slagovich", and the Crown under "Bellayne". Eusdria has no connection at all with Traladara, being an M-Frank/Saxon nation. GP ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:52:58 -0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=C1tila_Pires_dos_Santos?= Subject: Re: Mystaran Numismatics On 1/23/08, Greg Weatherup wrote: > > Greetings, > > Reply to Pires des Santos: > > >Actually I wish I could really help here, but I'll be able to read every > detail only next week, when I get home. This subject is very interesting for > me, since I'm planning to DM a pbem about the traladaran migration to the SC > at AC 450 , so which currency was used at traladara, darokin and the > minrothians is quite significant. > > well, maybe I can have the Darokin entry ready by next week. > For both the Darokin and Alfheim I still need to figure out the following: > -some denomination name ideals, specifically: > --a small, thin, unifacial, alfheim tin coin valued at 1/10th of a Ten'er I'm not sure but I thought that Alfheim don't use any currency at all except for foreign coins, but Alfheim is surely not my especiality anyway and I may be wrong/confusing with other elven nation of Mystara or even other setting. --an alfheim small change "token" (not really a coin, you'll see....) > --Darokinian historical coins, most of them will likely be based on > historical italian coinage systems, ie for Selenica I'm thinking of basing > it on Naples/Sicily/Two Sicilies coins to get the Arabic --Ylaruam-- > influence, but then I wonder if Venice or Trieste or such would be better > for the Balkan/Illyrian --Traladaran, not really equivalent I know, but > close enough I suspect-- influence, if any.) Indeed, we have a problem when we want to find a direct correspondent of the italian states in Mystara, since we have many candidates but no exact equivalent. I think that pehaps the best equivalent for a powerful but small/naval state may be Harbourtown (especially because they're pro-thyatians until the Silver Purge anyway), while the traladaran city-states are quite like the balkans under Venice influence (and the modern SC city-states perpetuates this). But, of course, Darokin may also use much of RW italia, especially the southern states since Darokin by this time is much more like a regular medieval kingdom than a mercantile nation =) Also for the Darokin entry I still need: > - physical descriptions (ie what is depicted on the coins, shape, > etc.). Does any one know of any cannon info on this? ie maybe in the > Gaz? Failing that there isn't any fan-works out there that describe it > already is there? > Then all of the entries need some-proof reading and rewording, and then > some formating adjustments. Darokin GAZ indeed have drawings of the modern currency, but this may have changed (and likely did changed) after 500 years =) > What about if old Halag region use instead the Koruna, which is closer to > the SC Korun, since they mainly came from west traladara? =) > > easily enough switched. =) But did you made it the other way around for some reason or just picked names for each region? Because if there's a reason for that, we can try to work another way out as well. =) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:00:38 -0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=C1tila_Pires_dos_Santos?= Subject: Re: coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds On 1/23/08, Greg Weatherup wrote: > > > Reply to Pires dos Santos: > > > which one is the one repeated in the almanacs? The only one I know of is > the one using cinnabryl alloys. AFAIK, SCCB coinage (Halavs, Koruns, etc) uses regular valuable metals and VotPA uses the alloys. I can see why the almanac team chosen VotPA coinage, but there's still another one that's also canon =) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:12:23 -0800 From: "Richard B." Subject: Re: Ethereal creatures What you're talking about makes me think of the HP Lovecraft story "From Beyond". If you're not familiar with it (or the movie it inspired), it talks about a world overlaying, but normally invisible to, our own inhabited by malevolent creatures. When the two worlds are made visible to each other by a "mad scientist", mayhem ensues. As far as creatures go, I'd have a look at the original Fiend Folio if you can. It's full of some really weird monsters, some of which would probably be right at home on the Ethereal Plane. The Xill, inspired by the story that inspired the movie "Alien" would be perfect, since it already inhabits the E-Plane. The Terithran is another E-Plane creature that might work. Robert Hartley wrote: Hi all, I've been subscribed to the list for awhile now, but this is my first post. I'm running a campaign for 5 players averaging about 4th level (Odnd). Soon they will have access to the Ethereal plane. I'd like any suggestions anybody might have on creatures to populate the plane with. the players have no experiance with other planes and I'd like my version of the Ethereal to spook the party. I'd like the pc's to be cautious about "going Ethereal" because they're never quite sure what might be waiting for them when they get there. Thanks! -- ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 22 Jan 2008 to 23 Jan 2008 (#2008-11) ***************************************************************