Thought it might be fun to have a thread noting any Mystaran easter eggs folks find in the AP.
Let's note the item and not the location so others canlook for it.
I'll start us off with a fine elven perfume from Alfheim...
I really don't know anything about mystara . . . or really any of the older campaign settings . . but as an only slightly off topic note. your Alfhiemian perfume, there was also a bottle from sigil . . isn't that planescape territory?
Yep, Sigil is the iconic city of Planescape. The one from Mur I don't recognize right off hand (somewhere in Greyhawk I think), but Shendilavri was the 06/31/06 map-of-the-week.
EDIT: Ah, found Mur (thanks to the Dragon mag #296 index...)--Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, pages 84 and 137.
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Yep, Sigil is the iconic city of Planescape. The one from Mur I don't recognize right off hand (somewhere in Greyhawk I think), but Shendilavri was the 06/31/06 map-of-the-week.
EDIT: Ah, found Mur (thanks to the Dragon mag #296 index...)--Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, pages 84 and 137.
If I'm not mistaken, Shendilavri is Malconthet's layer of the abyss detailed in Fiendish Codex I, Hordes of the Abyss. I could of course be wrong, but that sounds right.
Creative Director
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Correct; Shendilavri is Malcanthet's realm on the Abyss.
And I'm getting a kick out of this thread, by the way. There's still a few more easter eggs hidden in "There Is No Honor" that haven't been noticed yet (and some that'll probably only be noticed by a few of my friends... I named about four characters in there after my own characters).
In any event, the number of easter eggs increases DRAMATICALLY in the next adventure... "The Bullywug Gambit" might actually have the most easter eggs I've ever seen crammed into a Dungeon adventure, to tell the truth. It's great!
I named about four characters in there after my own characters.
Great Googly Moogly . . . The Jade Ravens are really . . ::Runs over to them and pulls off their masks, to reveal:: James Jacobs!
"Yeah, and we would've gotten away with it too if it hadn't been foryou meddling forum posters!"
James, are the remaining ones Mystara-related or just general easter eggs? I probably won't notice any obscure GH references, and few if any from FR.
Mur appears in Greg Vaughan's "The Coming Storm" in Dungeon #136.
I saw a few references to "The Razing of Redshore," a Jacobs adventure from issue #92. The Lorchester noble family is mentioned in the Sasserine backdrop. Also, the leader of the Jade Ravens, Tolin Kientai, shares a last name with half-elf assassin Aaron Kientai.
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Creative Director
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I named about four characters in there after my own characters.Great Googly Moogly . . . The Jade Ravens are really . . ::Runs over to them and pulls off their masks, to reveal:: James Jacobs!
"Yeah, and we would've gotten away with it too if it hadn't been foryou meddling forum posters!"
HA! To be fair, only one of the Jade Ravens was named after a PC of mine. So far...
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Creative Director
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James, are the remaining ones Mystara-related or just general easter eggs? I probably won't notice any obscure GH references, and few if any from FR.
The BIG Mystara egg is the rhagodessa, of coruse (I suppose the Isle of Dread's an even bigger one...). I believe that the rest are mostly Greyhawk references or references to other Dungeon adventures.
Hey, just found another Mystara easter egg, and I'm betting it's purely by accident!
That bottle of perfume from Mur, it seems, is actually from the Hollow World...specifically the Gulf of Mur in the Northern Atlass Ocean. Oddly enough, one of my players is running an Azcan refugee that's made it to the Known World, and so his character will recognize the reference since the Gulf of Mur is just north of the Azcan lands!
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Creative Director
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Hey, just found another Mystara easter egg, and I'm betting it's purely by accident!
That bottle of perfume from Mur, it seems, is actually from the Hollow World...specifically the Gulf of Mur in the Northern Atlass Ocean. Oddly enough, one of my players is running an Azcan refugee that's made it to the Known World, and so his character will recognize the reference since the Gulf of Mur is just north of the Azcan lands!
That one is indeed an accident; the "Mur" mentioned in the adventure is actually referring to the region that features in Greg Vaughan's "The Coming Storm" adventure back in issue #136 of Dungeon.
Crap... looks like we cut one of the more obscure Known World easter eggs. At one point, I believe there was a stuffed giant shrew in the taxidermist's guildhall...
Well, the second adventure has phanatons (albeit horribly twisted and nasty) appearing, which is a cool nod to the world's greatest fantasy world. That's the only one I've seen so far (and it's pretty obvious), but a more detailed examination of the adventure might be more fruitful.
On my second reading now, and the phanaton so far is the only one I've seen...
the grey card used as a bookmark in Vanderbored Manor. Not a Mystara egg, but a general egg....from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.
Yes, the manor has all sorts of Greyhawk-related easter eggs in it, as well as many for other Dungeon adventures. They were discussed in another thread, though I don't recall which one now.
the grey card used as a bookmark in Vanderbored Manor. Not a Mystara egg, but a general egg....from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.
For Mystara that could be used as an easter egg from the Wrath of Immortals campaign module about the Beagle. You just have to change "deep under the Barrier Peaks" to "deep under Glantri City" and it would work.
--Ray.
the grey card used as a bookmark in Vanderbored Manor. Not a Mystara egg, but a general egg....from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.For Mystara that could be used as an easter egg from the Wrath of Immortals campaign module about the Beagle. You just have to change "deep under the Barrier Peaks" to "deep under Glantri City" and it would work.
--Ray.
I can't believe I forgot about the Beagle...good catch.
Crap... looks like we cut one of the more obscure Known World easter eggs. At one point, I believe there was a stuffed giant shrew in the taxidermist's guildhall...
The Giant Shrew is still there -- it's in Rowyn's Lounge.
Happy to report my first sighting of a Mystara easter egg in The Sea Wyvern's Wake. The mashers of Masher Reef are from the old Creature Catalogue, though the originals were 20 HD and were true worms rather than fish. I like the fish version better--makes it more than just an aquatic purple worm...
From what I understand, the Masher originally appeared in the 1st Edition Monster Manual, and was the fishlike one that appears in Savage Tide. The Masher from the Creature Catalog may be based on that Masher (in much the way the Yowlers were basically AD&D Yeth Hounds, the Mesmer was the Morkoth, the Polymar the Mimic, the Scamille the Protean, and- arguably- the Shark-kin the Sahuagin). I don't know what the 1st Edition Masher looked like, stats wise, so I'm not sure. The picture of it, by Erol Otus, looked kind of like an eel with a fish head, though.
True, true. The masher dates back to 1977, but I don't recall any other use of the creature as in Mystara. Therein, the kna (an aquatic race of merchants) domesticate the mashers to use as beasts of burden. They pull out the stingers and hook the creatures up to huge airbladders in order to transport dry goods if needed. The kna frequent the Sea of Dread, where the Isle of Dread is located in Mystara. And so, having a masher so close to the isle is just perfect for Mystara.
As with the earlier Mur reference, this may be an unintentional easter egg for Mystara, but I'll take it! Especially as one of my players is running an aquarendi (sea elf) that will be familiar with mashers.
Soooooooo........
Can we call the Gargoyles and T-Rex in "Here There Be Monsters" an easter egg? They are in the same position as in the original IoD module.
--Ray.
I feel so dumb not knowing any of these references, cause usually I take great pride in finding the little obscurities and allusions. Damnit.
Nice little tidbit on the origins of the tribe that lived on the Isle of the Ape in issue #143.
From the module...yep, Isle of the Ape.
Amusingly enough (to me at least), I run in a home-brewed world that I have been working on for more than 10 years (obviously multiple campaigns in the same world), and I recently incorporated the Isle of the Ape into my world's history and ran the module as a small part of a campaign from a little over a year ago.
This little bit should perk the player's ears up a little if nothing else.
Nice little tidbit on the origins of the tribe that lived on the Isle of the Ape in issue #143.
From the module...yep, Isle of the Ape.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Paizo rolled some IotA into IoD but I don't remember reading "Isle of the Ape" in Tides of Dread anywhere. Where did you see the reference?
--Ray.
I am so glad that ole Rory Barbarossa got his due in ToD! Having him be the one that discovered the IoD, just as he was in the original adventure, is very very cool. I think the first line of his journal, "When the gale finally ended..." is something I will remember when I am 80 years old and can't remember where my own house is.