Karameikos - Vaults of Pandius

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The Demography of Karameikos21% (29.6% counting all settlements with1,000 inhabitants or more), which would callfor a stable supply of food from overseasand/or the employment of clerical magic tofeed part of the population.Second solution: Lower the urban populationto about half the official figures. This way,you will have Specularum at about 30,000people, Kelvin at 10,000, Fort Doom at 5,000,Threshold and Luln at 2,500, and so on.Specularum will still be a problem (the citywould have more people than those of thewhole area in which it is found): you couldlower by 50% the humanoid anddemihuman population (in the proportionyou deem fit), and add the numbersobtained to the population of very highpopulation density areas (in whichSpecularum is found). This way, the totalpopulation of the Grand Duchy would be313,900 people, with an urban populationwhich will sit at a quite high, but tolerable,rate of about 20% (and to even 12.7% if youconsider only cities with 10,000 inhabitantsof more, which in this version would be onlySpecularum and Kelvin).CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONSProposal Deadline: September 30th, 2013Manuscript Deadline: October 31st, 2013The Threshold editorial team invites all fansof the Mystara setting to submit contributionsto the second issue of the magazine.We are looking especially for contributionfitting the theme of the second issue, Vaultsof Pandius Spotlight.Threshold accepts (and invites) thesubmission of extended or revised versions ofworks having appeared on The Piazza or theVaults of Pandius.Contributions may include, but are notlimited to, articles (short stories, shortadventure modules, NPCs, historical treatisesand timelines, geographical entries, newmonsters and monster ecologies, etc.) andillustrations (portraits, maps, heraldry,illustrations, etc.)The Threshold editorial team strives foredition neutrality, but edition specificarticles (e.g., conversions) are also accepted.Statistics for new monsters and NPCs may beincluded in articles (e.g., adventuremodules, new monsters or NPCs) in anyversion of Dungeons & Dragons. Theeditorial team also offers help in providingconversions to some specific rules set(including BECMI/RC, 2nd Edition, 3rdedition/Pathfinder). However, they shouldbe limited to the minimum -- for most NPCs,it is sufficient to mention class, level, andalignment. For important NPCs, a one ortwo line stat block could be included.See inside back cover for submissionguidelines.36THRESHOLD: The Mystara Magazine Issue #1
The History of KarameikosTHE TIME BEFORE THECATACLYSMIn the millennia before the Great Rain ofFire, the land today known as Karameikos satnear the pre-cataclysmic North Pole, in a coldand inhospitable land 1 . Some sparseremnants of the Brutemen race still dwelledin this northern land, where the expansionof human civilization had pushed them inthe course of the last thousands years 2 ; theircountry was only travelled, from time totime, by the occasional Oltec or Azcanpioneer, or by Blackmoorian explorers. Thetrue masters of this region were the frostgiants, who lived here in great number, anda few dragons – of which the redYealeletherveri (active around BC 5000) isremembered as one of the most powerfuland fearsome wyrms of history 3 .1TheHISTORYofThis article uses the version of Mystara’s history according towhich the Known World (Ethengar, in particular) was the NorthPole before the Great Rain of Fire (BC 3000); after the cataclysm,Blackmoor becomes the North Pole and the elven homeland ofEvergrun the South Pole. This version is found in mostsupplements of the Gazetteer series, as well as in the “Timeline ofHistory” featured in the Dungeon Master’s Sourcebook part of theHollow World campaign set; the latter’s poster Outer-World,Precataclysmic Map features instead a differently-rotated globe(with the Known World at about 30°N latitude), and is not used asa source for this article.2Brutemen, also called Neanderthals or Cavemen in the D&DBasic Set and Rules Cyclopedia, go extinct in the outer worldaround BC 10,000 (see Hollow World campaign set) and arepreserved by the Immortals in the Hollow World; however, someremnants of their race may well survive to these days, as they arefeatured in some of the adventure modules (like B5: Horror on theHill).3The tale of Yealeletherveri is told in the Son of Dawn novel (setaround AC 1010), where it is narrated by an ancient female bluedragon living in the Altan Tepes mountains, Blethinferelth;according to the story, Yealeletherveri had his lair in the AltanTepes mountains when the Blackmoor civilization was still young.I’ve further expanded the setting of Yealeletherveri’s andby Simone Neri (Zendrolion)The Great Rain of Fire changed all this,pushing the Known World from the arcticlatitude into the temperate one. Glaciersbegan to melt, frost giants started a retreattoward the highest mountains of the newarctic lands, and the country was slowlycarpeted with forests, springs, and rivers. Inthis age, the land known today asKarameikos did not border the Sea ofDread; now-submerged lands extendedmany miles to the south, well beyond thepresent day archipelagos of Ierendi andMinrothad.RISE AND FALL OF THETAYMORAN CIVILIZATIONThe first people to set foot in postcataclysmicKarameikos were humans fromcentral Brun; they crossed modern Darokinand arrived in BC 2500 from the north intothe southern Known World. They were theTaymora, who rapidly built an agriculturalcivilization of bronze-age city-states, mostlylocated along the southern coast of theKnown World (many miles south of modernKarameikos), and of which little is knowntoday 4 .Blethinferelth’s stories in my MGAZ1: The Central Altan Tepes atThe Vaults of Pandius.4The Taymora were first introduced in PC3: The Sea People,according to which they “moved south” and arrived in the “fertileplains surrounding the southern sea”, where they “establishedsettlements along the cliffs and on the plains”. From sparseelements found in the adventure “Voyage to the Bottom of theSea” (included within PC3), we may argue that - at least at thebeginning - the Taymora were a bronze-age civilization with a lovefor pastoral life. Likely they had not an empire, as canon sources37THRESHOLD: The Mystara Magazine Issue #1
Page 1 and 2: #1The Mystara MagazineKarameikosThe
Page 3 and 4: EditorialWelcome to Threshold: The
Page 5 and 6: This Issue s AuthorsRobert Nuttman
Page 7 and 8: 30 years Anniversary of red Box D&D
Page 9 and 10: The Demography of Karameikoswith re
Page 11 and 12: The Demography of Karameikos9THRESH
Page 13 and 14: The Demography of Karameikosunder t
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Page 17 and 18: The Demography of KarameikosTable 3
Page 19 and 20: The Demography of KarameikosKaramei
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Page 23 and 24: The Demography of KarameikosBesides
Page 25 and 26: The Demography of KarameikosThe Fir
Page 27 and 28: The Demography of KarameikosGiants
Page 29 and 30: The Demography of Karameikosattract
Page 31 and 32: The Demography of Karameikosdevour
Page 33 and 34: The Demography of KarameikosUndeadG
Page 35 and 36: The Demography of KarameikosAPPENDI
Page 37: The Demography of Karameikospopulat
Page 41 and 42: The History of KarameikosElf travel
Page 43 and 44: The History of Karameikos41THRESHOL
Page 45 and 46: The History of Karameikossages. Eve
Page 47 and 48: The History of KarameikosTHE ANCIEN
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Page 53 and 54: The History of KarameikosHeroes had
Page 55 and 56: The History of KarameikosThe end of
Page 59 and 60: The History of KarameikosFirst of a
Page 65 and 66: The History of KarameikosTHE TALE O
Page 67 and 68: The History of KarameikosIn the fol
Page 69 and 70: The History of KarameikosTHE EYES O
Page 71 and 72: The History of KarameikosContinued
Page 73 and 74: Karameikos - The Hidden Yearsinheri
Page 75 and 76: Karameikos - The Hidden Yearslands
Page 77 and 78: CHERRY PICKING:Ideas too good to pa
Page 79 and 80: When the Great Rain of Fire struck,
Page 81 and 82: there was but one Eye, the Fire Opa
Page 83 and 84: the Black Eagle’s Barony of Halag
Page 85 and 86: Bruce Heard Interviewthe credit was
Page 87 and 88: Bruce Heard InterviewYannivey Islan
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Unveiling the Radu ClanThe origins
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Unveiling the Radu Clanever learn t
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Unveiling the Radu Clandirecting th
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Strolojca and Draconiustradition th
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Strolojca and Draconiusthe cadet Bo
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Strolojca and DraconiusShe now live
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Strolojca and DraconiusDraconius Fa
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Strolojca and Draconiusdying in AC
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Strolojca and DraconiusSeeing that
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Strolojca and Draconiusembarrassmen
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Strolojca and DraconiusDiomedes, no
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Strolojca and DraconiusDiomedes was
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Strolojca and Draconiushandle thems
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Strolojca and DraconiusWithin dream
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Yuri Molotov - Death Knight115THRES
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Yuri Molotov - Death Knightelite. T
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The Rise of Dhrom DhumFROM THE VAUL
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The Rise of Dhrom DhumA PLEA FOR AI
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The Rise of Dhrom DhumIf the goblin
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The Rise of Dhrom DhumThe Sound of
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The Dangers of the Dymrak WildsEnem
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The Dangers of the Dymrak WildsCent
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Fort Doomby Niels Just RasmussenBef
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Fort DoomThe Northern and Southern
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Fort Doomtowards people when he wan
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Fort Doomunaffected non-combatants
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Fort Doomharbour. The real Bargle i
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Fort Doomevery month. Equipment con
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Fort Doomrelatives who cannot defen
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Mirror of the Eternal NightAt last
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Mirror of the Eternal NightTIMELINE
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Mirror of the Eternal NightLEVELS O
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Mirror of the Eternal NightAfter th
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Mirror of the Eternal NightOne has
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Mirror of the Eternal Nightand spel
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Mirror of the Eternal Nightthen hid
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Return to the Ice WallHISTORYOver t
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Return to the Ice Wallfollows the s
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Return to the Ice WallTHE LEGACY OF
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Return to the Ice Wallexpected to b
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Guild Warsby Giampaolo Agosta (Agat
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Guild Warsthe distance was consider
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Guild WarsIf the PCs are members of
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Guild WarsDaniel Dodrescu (male Tra
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175THRESHOLD: The Mystara Magazine
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Artwork Sources and CreditsPage 52:
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Artwork Sources and CreditsPage 130
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Submission GuidelinesProposalsAll p
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Karameikos - Vaults of Pandius

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