TSR's Roger E. Moore Writes for Blackmoor Themed issue of Threshold Magazine!

 

I almost cannot believe it, but the fan magazine for the D&D World of Mystara has just released its 38th issue. As always, the magazine, produced by the Mystara fan community in association with the Vaults of Pandius and The Piazza, is released as another massive Free PDF. While it remains a fan magazine, Threshold has consistently put out high quality content, professionally laid out, with a wide range of articles supporting both older and new editions of D&D. #38 includes an article by former editor of Dragon Magazine, Roger E. Moore, detailing a new solar system filled with worlds that can be explored by characters from Mystara. Although I don't want to blow my own horn too much, it has been a great pleasure to talk to Roger about this article and provide minor assistance in bringing the article into Threshold. Furthermore, I am excited to report that Roger E. Moore promises to bring more material to Threshold Magazine in the future. 

Threshold #38's theme  is Science Fantasy & Blackmoor and also includes a number of other great articles by recurring and new authors. Go and checkout your free PDF copy right now!

-Havard

Threshold #34 The Mystara Magazine is out

 

Threshold Magazine, the Mystara fan magazine that I helped start has another issues out! 

 Issue 34 is called Future and Alternate Mystaras. Download this free 256 page PDF and use it's thirteen articles it in your Mystara games!

It is produced for fans by fans in association with the Vaults of Pandius and The Piazza. 

Download for free!

-Havard

Tribality.com Fails to Notice Mystara's Incredible Fan Base

Could Mystara be set to return as a published setting by Wizards of the Coast in the near future? Over the last few weeks, the rumor that WotC are planning to bring back three classic settings has lead to speculation all over the web about which three settings WotC are looking at. 

This incredible painting by Clyde Cladwell would have been a much better illustration for an article discussing the D&D World of Mystara.

Recently Tim Baker at The Piazza brought to my attention that an article at Tribality.com had a run down about what settings they thought were the most likely candidates. While the article was interesting, I found the description of Mystara very disappointing. Not only was the choice of image illustrating the setting disappointing, but it was especially this line that drew my attention:

"While fan love for this setting exists, it’s far quieter than other classic settings."

Mystara first appeared in 1981's classic adventure X1 Isle of Dread. While the setting was very popular and during the TSR era had more sourcebooks published for it than any other D&D or AD&D setting, the setting and its fans have a long history of being ignored by TSR and later WotC. While various teasers appeared for the setting during the D&D 3E and 4E eras, D&D 5th Edition was recieved especially positively for its explicit mention of the setting in the Players Handbook and with the adventure hardback Ghosts of Saltmarsh making extensive suggestions for how to adapt each chapter to the setting and even including a rewamped version of the Mystara adventure Isle of the Abbey. 

So how about this claim that the fans of Mystara are more quiet than fans of other settings? Mystara has had an incredibly active and dedicated online fan base that I have been a member of since the 1990s. Today these fans can be found on various Facebook groups including the 2,5000+ member Mystara Reborn group and on the D&D webforum The Piazza. The fan works of this highly productive and extremely friendly fan base is collected at the Vaults of Pandius website and also releases a quarterly 300+ page PDF professional looking free fanzine Threshold Magazine which is soon to release its 26th issue, not counting earlier iterations under other titles like the Mystara NetMag, Tome of Mystara etc.

So why is it that this community remains invisble to the world at large? Is it that we mostly prefer to stick to our own parts of the Internet? Or just that others don't know where to look for us? In any case it is a shame, because there are gamers out there who are missing out on something they might really enjoy!

-Havard