Recent content by The Glen

And my college lab partner

Bargle

They did kind of miss an obvious layup on that one

An old interview had them explaining that the fewer monsters they put in their setting the less they would have to explain in the novels. Some of it was personal taste, they wanted a restricted game world instead of the kitchen sinks that had been produced at that point.

For me the traitor was the wife, as she was made up specifically for this adventure, Silverhand in lore is married to an Elf named the Tall Lord, and they've got 7 sons. She's an agent of Vecna, has the crown and is going to betray the wizards when the rod is assembled. The party has a change...

Which is a bit ironic because Red Steel was a retcon of Savage Coast. The whole boxed set didn't make sense; good luck making any sense out of the map of the curse in the player's guide to the write-ups of the nations in the DM's guide

The inside joke for Mystara players is that the Red Steel setting includes multiple versions of Spain throughout various parts of history, as well as another Spain in the nation of Glantri. The problem with all the Spains is they are all right next to each other except for the last one. So...

Yeah don't get me started on people from the same culture having diametrically opposed views on their own culture. It's pretty much every culture I tried to include, and you'll never make everybody happy. There is absolutely no room for nuance in that situation. You include a tradition common...

His only demand was don't make the Toa a subclass of barbarian. Keep them light fighters, make use of the haka as an ability, even if it was a fantasy element but make them fighters. This was a common request for the fighter types. The brave was also made a light fighter because the guy that...

When I asked my Pacific Islander friends for help on the Ierendi section, they sent me 30 books that they wanted me to consider for representing them. I tried explaining to them I wasn't going to be able to fit 1000+ pages of information into what was about 8 pages, but I did my best. A few...

From working on the Mystara Player's Guide, the one thing that was hammered into me by the playtesters was people want their legends told. I would focus on that. Not everything has to have a counterpart, but keep the themes. Beowulf, Maui, Aladdin, King Arthur, keep those in mind when...

This was mostly done in jest. Reaching isn't the right word, this is stretching like Reed Richards. I have no faith that Mystara gets any attention from WOTC outside of brief mentions. They are avoiding real-world allegories which was Mystara's focus. They have 5 Spains, 4 Romes, 3 Indias...

We noticed. They noticed he was a shadow elf and made him shadar kai, when Mystaran shadow elves are more like cave fish, naive, badly led and highly religious TN cave fish.

They put it in our gazetteer. We'll take it. It's about all we'll probably get. Was joking about the kobold. In Mystara they resemble a cross between a dog and an armadillo.

Ierendi is the fourth nation in the Gazetteer line, an island chain south of the mainland. That makes this Mystara art, though not sure who the tiny lizardmen are supposed to be. Maybe evil Caymas?