Thoughts about the Known World
I've been a fan of Mystara as a game setting for a long time, but I haven't had an active campaign in the world for a number of years. I've been running 13th Age for my regular gaming group, and using the Dragon Empire for that campaign has just been convenient. Recently I've been running some games for my son and his friends and so I decided to set them in Mystara - Karameikos in fact. As I've been immersing myself back in the world, I've been realizing that the world of the Gazetteers doesn't really fit the style of game that I want to run for these kids. But I recently re-read B10 - Night's Dark Terror - and it fits exactly the style of game that I want to run. It's hard to think about this world being the same world that is portrayed in the later Almanacs - the world in the Almanacs is a world of nation-states and diplomatic politics playing out in almost a modern form. The world of B10 is darker and less secure than the world of the Alman...