Brendan Corliss over at the Piazza has just begun a project of creating 3D images of all of the Immortals of Mystara. First one up is Valerias.



Find out more about this here.




-Havard

I was just reading Dennis Laffey's blog the other day where he adresses the subject of questing for Immortality. The backround for this is Grognardia's review of the new B/X Companion, where Maliszewski expresses his dislike for the concept of questing for Immortality. Immortality in D&D was conceived by Frank Mentzer in the excellent BECMI line. Questing for Immortality was an option for heroes using the Master Rules, while the final set, the Immortal Rules took the game to a whole new level once that quest was completed. AD&D also had similar conceps of becoming a Demi-God, but only in Frank Mentzer's BECMI could you go all the way.



Dennis Laffey presents various examples of how such adventures have a presedence in mythology. Critics who claim that this should not be handled as part of the standard level progression should take another look at the Master Rules. Reaching Immortality is in no way a direct result of having reached 36th level, but rather a unique undertaking separate from the general level progression and reserved for unique heroes whose adventures will become legends retold for centuries to come.

I think a common pit fall in Internet discussions about D&D is that we end up talking about what a D&D game should be about and what it should not. One things I love about D&D is that it can be anything you want. This is one of the reasons why I prefer RPGs to Boardgames. One of the great things about the BECMI expansions was that it introduced new possibilities to what D&D could be about.

Similarly, we know that Dave Arneson would be open to pretty much any idea that came up in his games, giving rise to the description of his gaming style as "Gonzo". While the subject of ascending to Godhood was not a common theme in Arneson's campaign, Bob Meyer who played the powerful wizard Robert the Bald shared this story:

Personally, I not only survived these adventures, but I acquired enough interesting things to study that I ended up locked away in my tower studying them. This all proved to be my undoing, as I was the first of the original players (and one of only two I am aware of) to reach the highest possible level in David's rules. When I asked David what happened now, he told me that"The Gods welcome me". I lost Robert the Bald to David's control and had to start a new character.

-Havard

One of the things I liked with the Mystara setting was how different Immortals (as the deities there are known) will have one name that they are called by one culture, but will go by another name in another culture. Comparing Real World mythologies we find that many concepts occur in multiple mythologies. Many cultures have a Trickster, a King of Gods, a God of War, Fertility etc etc.This has led some to speculate whether there could be some truth behind these mythologies or whether they could hide some secrets of the deeper nature of humanity. I'm not so concerned with such speculations however.

From a gaming perspective, stating that the Elven God of War and the Human God of War is the same guy does have its advantages. KenzerCo's wonderful Kingdoms of Kalamar setting used this model extensively. It allowed them to have a shorter list of Deities which could then be applied to all cultures, with modifications. In a world where gods are real, doesn't it make sense that a god will have tried to gain followers among more than one culture?

Looking at the D20 Campaign Guide for Blackmoor, I found that many of the deities there were quite similar to one another. I asked myself what I would loose if I assumed that these were simply multiple identities of the same deity? For instance, Elgath, Faunus, Ordana, Terra and Sylvain are all Gods of nature. I can see the reason for having more than one God of nature, but five seems high. I decided for my campaign that Elgath, Faunus and Sylvain are the same guy, known to different followers by different names.The most controversial decision I made was probably to make Odir, Hak, Aeros, Charis and Dhummon the same entity. These five arent exactly identical, but do have many shared traits. The campaign sourcebook seems to suggest that Odir is actually followed by that name in multiple cultures, but I preferred to have different names for him depending on which culture you ask.

For the complete condensed list of  deities, click here.








-Havard