One of our first problems with Mystara was that the map felt too small. The desert of Ylaruam was 200 miles tall by 400 miles long, which felt remarkably small to us, considering it was home to such diverse cultures and peoples. We need to start here first because this scale problem affected our entire game.
We tripled the per-hex scale to 24 miles per hex (on the 8-mile per hex map).
This expanded the desert empire from an area half the size of New Mexico to one that spanned from El Paso all the way up to the top of Colorado, encompassing everything to the Pacific Ocean. Now THAT was a desert. This was certainly one that could exist in a fantasy world, yet still be large enough for the people and cultures to live there without feeling the need to expand and constantly fight with their Viking neighbors to the north and the Greeks to the south.
This made everything huge and put a lot of empty space between cities. This is how we envisioned the world: a more realistic and expansive one, akin to an Epic Mystara campaign. A 24-mile hex means that at a normal travel pace, only one hex per day is moved. To get across the desert from north to south, following the trade route, took 20 days on our scale, and 6 on the official scale. Twenty days felt right, and it gave the map room to breathe and for us to dot little towns here and there.
It seemed strange to us as kids that you could get in a plane and look across the desert to the mountains on the other side. At this scale, the entire map felt right, and you could have cultures and peoples in this area; they could develop in isolation, and there would not be too much "fast travel" bringing everyone in constant contact.
This means every other kingdom on the world map triples in geographical size. This sort of change affected the entire setting, transforming it into a smaller continent, the size of the Upper East US Coast, on a map the size of America or larger.
https://mystara.thorfmaps.com/known-world-8/
Using the above maps from the very nice Atlas of Mystara site, we figured the map, as-is, at 8 miles per hex, was about half the size of the US. Looking back, that is plenty fine of a size, and we probably overdid it. It is roughly 1,300 miles on a side. Ours was about 4,000 miles on each side, or the distance from Miami to Anchorage. The map still worked at that scale.
I will probably cop out at this point and say the scale doesn't really matter. Set it to something that can be easily divided into the 24-mile movement rate, and you're all set. You can keep it 8, but 12 and 24 work well, too.
We adjusted the map scale because we loved this part of the setting and wanted more of it.
The People and Places
This is a sort of "Arabian Knights" setting, with some Mongol-type influences to the north, and an ancient Egyptian culture that once existed here and is now represented by the ruins of the lost empire. There used to be a Nile-like river running through this land, so that serves as our basis for the "Aegyptian Empire" (as we called it) before this one, and it is sort of a cool setting that feels better than the similar one in Golarion.
This is a pre-Islamic Middle East, where the cultures and peoples are rich in history and culture. This is a folklore-style setting, familiar to us kids in the 1980s who watched movies like Sinbad and Indiana Jones on Saturday afternoons. It is not meant to be an accurate reflection of history, but rather a myth and legend-style portrayal of a place where cultures are presented with respect. However, it opened the door for us as kids to learn more about this place and its people and cultures.
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| The Emirates of Ylaruam, page 38 |
The art was fantastic and gave us a window into another world and culture. People today forget, "This is how you could play D&D" back in the day, and we had a campaign that took place here, delved into the culture and traditions, and explored this world. The Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk were considerably more Western European for decades (and still are with all those British accents), while Mystara was sitting out here 40 years ahead of its time and culturally diverse.
Right. Sorry to break the narrative. TSR and Wizards forgot for 40 years, chased money, and forgot all the great culture the original setting once had. I can still look at the above picture and say "this was D&D" without needing to dress Orcs up in cosplay costumes. This is how we grew up. This was respectful. This was cool. This was steeped in culture and different people. This opened the door for us to learn about the world.
Remember, the Mystara setting was targeted at younger children, so the world was going to be more based on fairy tales, myths, legends, books we read as kids, and movies we saw at the cinema. We did not have access to the plethora of fantasy movies, video games, and books we do today. We can't judge this by today's access to information and the history of video games and fantasy media. Go back to the 1980s and use that perspective, if you can, and play this to honor and respect the people of that era.
It's a fun time if you're familiar with the source material and can play this more as a pulp adventure, featuring ancient empires and deadly intrigue. Mix in the lore of the djinns, some of the evil Egyptian gods looking to arise from the desert, snake-like naga cults, scorpion-people, other classic pulp elements, and you have a fun time. Use balance and respect, and avoid leaning into stereotypes; you can play this just as we did, as something for us to take part in, meet the people, and enrich our small world with a broader picture of the world through folklore and myth.
Two of our long-standing PCs came from this area and had excellent and rich ethnic backgrounds. These were wonderful characters whom I will never forget.
Where Does ToV Fit In?
Well, to start, let's flip to pages 291-297 in the Tales of the Valiant Game Master's guide and start finding a few inspirational sources.
Ah, Dune is in here, and that is also mentioned in GAZ2. The Thief of Bagdad is mentioned in the film section, which is a classic 1940 film with an amazingly diverse cast for that era, with many groundbreaking special effects. Aladdin, The Pirates of Dark Water. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. The Prince of Persia video games. I know I'm missing even more. Tales of the Valiant is packed full of inspirations from this era, and they are a massive part of the Fantasy Inspiration appendix. The image on page 31 of the Worldbuilding Chapter of the GM's Guide could have come from this land.
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| Tales of the Valiant Game Master's Guide, page 31 |
Tales of the Valiant is precisely this sort of pulp high adventure.
Being a step away from D&D helps, since that game feels too entwined with the source material and the official settings of the Realms, the Planes, and Greyhawk. D&D lost its spirit of adventure and became more about optimization, product identity, and combat mechanics.
Tales of the Valiant is a step more generic than D&D, since the "generic fantasy" genre and D&D have diverged paths. D&D is more about the D&D experience, such as Baldur's Gate and all of the product identity. Tales of the Valiant does generic fantasy far better without any D&D-isms slipping in and reminding us we are not playing in the Forgotten Realms again.
And Tales of the Valiant has the goofiness and spirit of adventure to pull off a campaign like this and do it well, feeling fresh without feeling like "D&D played in a not-D&D setting." A "not D&D game" does the job better, without distractions, and lets me focus on the people, places, plots, and story.
I look at those two sample pieces of art and can say, "ToV would do this better."
My game would not feel like a transplanted set of rules in a niche, boutique setting. D&D has that "setting elitism" with its published worlds, where nothing else feels like it measures up.
The guy on the cover of GAZ2? A barbarian dervish. It works. The lineage, heritage, and background system work well. The dancing woman? Perhaps a bard, perhaps a sorcerer. The veiled woman? A mage, possibly. They don't feel like D&D characters to me.
They feel like Tales of the Valiant characters.
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