MYSTARAN ALMANAC

& BOOK of FACTS

Volume VII, AC 1016
version 1.1

Published by Joshuan Gallidox
Halfling Adventurer and Entrepreneur
within the City of Mirros
in the Kingdom of Karameikos
in the Year After Crowning 1017

A Word or Two About this Material

First, and most important, are the copyright laws regarding this project. This material is NOT endorsed or approved by TSR, Inc. Although the setting (places, characters, features, calendar...), as well as the rules of D&D and AD&D are the creation and property of TSR, the events, attitudes, beliefs, descriptions, and all the rest in this material are those of the writers and are in no way supported by TSR.

TSR, Inc. is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast. Should TSR or Wizards of the Coast demand that we remove this material from the web, we will be happy to comply with their decision.

The intent behind the Mystaran Almanac is to continue to keep alive the wonderful world of Mystara. It is therefore the compilation of ideas and suggestions from all members of the Mystara Mailing List, and not those of the staff and/or management of TSR.

This manual has very little in terms of game stats, as it does not want to infringe on TSR's copyright (meaning: you want the stats of NPCs and such, buy the appropriate book/references by TSR). We hope that TSR sees this merely as the work put in by those who love Mystara and wish to see it grow rather than any attempt at stealing their setting and infringing on their copyrights.

Our second topic regards permission to place this almanac up on your own personal web page. GO RIGHT AHEAD! We, the authors, give complete and free access to this material to everyone. You are free to do what you will with it, with one ABSOLUTE restriction: should TSR/Wizards of the Coast demand that you remove this from your web page, you must comply! As mentioned above, Mystara and all that is related to it belongs to TSR, so TSR has the final say on everything concerning Mystara and this non-endorsed material. If they want it removed, then it is gone.

Also, you are free to modify the contents of this almanac as you see fit as well (after all, everyone has their own future for Mystara). We simply ask that, if you do so, please:

1. Change the title: we would like to keep the title Mystaran Almanac so people can find the rest of the series and know which material is the continuation of this particular group of authors' project. In other words, we are simply asking for the rights to the name Mystaran Almanac.

2. Mention that you have modified it from the Mystaran Almanac: in this case, say where it came from, and keep the original authors' names. Feel free to add a "modified by:" section at the top of that list. The writers have put a few hundreds hours each on this project, so please, give credit where credit is due.

For example, call it Bob's Almanac of Mystara with the subtitle "Modified by Bob from the Mystaran Almanac."

Of course, we won't police you or harass anyone who doesn't comply with this. We just ask that you do, please.

Now comes the debate on "canon" or "net-canon" material. We do not in any way claim that the Mystaran Almanac is the "online official future of Mystara!" We, the authors, write this product because we enjoy writing it. It is not our attempt to make our own personal home campaign the official version! It doesn't even always match OUR own campaigns as we are several authors who each put in their own ideas (often conflicting until a consensus is agreed upon). We also steal/accept ideas left and right from posts made by the members of the Mystara Mailing List or other sites. So the names on the author list is by no mean the only people who have shaped this "future" Mystara; many people on the Mystara Mailing List have participated, whether they know it or not (unfortunately, we often forget who the source of a given idea was, so the Special Thanks list is far from complete. If we missed you, sorry!).

This product is nothing more than a possible future for Mystara which we call the "Mystaran Almanac future" (hence the above expressed desire to keep the title should you change a part of this product). Use its contents or disregard them as you see fit. You are each the DM of YOUR own campaign, so decide what YOU like, keep what interests YOU, or throw out what YOU don't like-and that's the end of it. Do not take these events in your own campaign simply because we say so! There is no such thing as an "official" or "canon" Mystara. Use them because YOU want to.

And, more importantly, should TSR ever return to making Mystara products, odds are everything we've done here (as well as whatever has been happening in your own campaign) will probably disagree with what they say and become obsolete (as far as "canon" is concerned, that is). All this to say: DON'T WORRY ABOUT CANON OR NON-CANON; JUST HAVE FUN!

Next is the big decision between D&D and AD&D. This subject is always a strong debate on the mailing list. The Mystaran Almanac supports both games as it is very stats free. It deals mostly with the world of Mystara, NOT gaming systems.

The few times that stats are present, describing NPCs, the AD&D 2^nd Edition game stats were used. The main reason for this is the fact that potential new players will be used to the AD&D system, and the more of them that join Mystara, the better! Also, Mystara was completely converted to AD&D with their final projects, including Joshuan's Almanac as well as the Karameikos, Glantri, and Savage Coast box sets (all copyright property of TSR). Should TSR revive Mystara, it will probably be in AD&D format as well.

Lastly, by now, all old D&D players should know how to convert back and forth between systems blindfolded. This is something the new AD&D players don't know how to do.

All in all, this book is about Mystara, not the game system, so please don't discard it because of that, but instead read it because it's about Mystara!

Finally, the list of authors and contributors to this project:

So, if you have any ideas or comments concerning this almanac or events for AC 1017, please, feel free to contact me. For AC 1017, expect more regions to be covered in the almanac, as well as whole new sections.

Read on, and enjoy your year-long visit to the grand world of Mystara.

The Mystaran Almanac Team

AVAILABLE VERSIONS

• PDF version (zipped) - compiled by Hervé Musseau
• Word 96/Win95 version (zipped) - compiled by Hervé Musseau
• HTML version (you're reading it) - compiled by Shawn Stanley

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