What is officially said
My two main sources for the Great Waste of Sind are X4: Master of the Desert Nomads and Champions of Mystara: Explorer’s Manual. X6: Quagmire includes a bit of the Great Waste but does not really deal with it. .
Sind in the real world is a province of India that borders on Pakistan and includes part of the Thar Desert (not to be confused with the Orcs of Thar). This may have inspired Mystaran Sind. I am also looking at Arabian desert and Gobi Desert for ideas and inspiration.
X4 is set in the Great Waste and is less of a guide to the area and more of an encounter-based adventure where the encounters are not tied to particular hexes but happen at the DM’s discretion. Nonetheless features and encounters are indicative of the rest of the Great Waste. It also has a small section set in the Salt Swamp which includes a very tricky encounter with an evil spirit called The Malakaz.
Inhabitants of the Great Waste and Nearby
New monsters:
- Leucrotta (borrowed from AD&D),
- Lamara from Creature Catalogue or else replace with Lamia from AD&D.
- Desert Hobgoblins? New subrace with greyish-black skin and black hair. They are nomadic and often partake in banditry and raiding settlements. The Master of Hule and his chaotic forces have tenuous agreements with the various desert hobgoblin tribes but these are often broken. They sometimes have hyenas as hunting animals and guards, and their strongest leaders will ride hyaenodons (dire hyenas) into battle.
- Desert Worms (subrace of purple worms)
Established B/X D&D monsters:
- Bhuts (X4 & Creature Catalogue),
- Nagpas (X4 & Creature Catalogue)
- Scorpionmen (Rules Cyclopedia)
- Blue Dragons (Basic Rules)
- Sis’thik (desert lizardmen from Creature Catalogue)
- Desert Leviathans (borrowed from Dune and statted in Creature Catalogue).
- Elves & gnolls are found under the surface of the Plain of Fire (the northern part of the desert). Graakhalia has 7 pages in Champions of Mystara and is home to the Gruugrakh gnolls & Sheyallia Elves. I prefer the idea of rather than a truly mixed society, they are two separate cultures that have come to an uneasy truce. Most of the gnolls have become neutral with a druidic slant, but a few remain dangerously chaotic. The underground realm beneath the Great Waste (including Graakalia and also less civilised cavern networks) could really be a post in itself.
- There are also gnoll tribes, some of which wander the Great Waste itself but other gnolls stay on the more hospitable borders including the Barren Plain and Konumtali Savannah, venturing into the harsher waste when a suitable target (such as a passing caravan) presents itself. They are far more closer to normal gnolls than the Gruugrakh gnolls of Graakhalia and are nearly always chaotic. They, like desert hobgoblins, sometimes strike deals with the Master of Hule and his minions.
There is also a salt marsh, savannah, hills, oases and a river running through Sind. All of these will have their own ecologies and inhabitants.
The Great Waste in General
Natural living things are fairly sparse - the vast majority of the Great Waste is rocky desert with outcrops, canyons and occasional hills. There are some hardy desert plants but even these are not in abundance but are found in slightly cooler shady places where sunlight is moderate not scorching, such as cliff overhangs and between boulders.
Oases are few and far between. The Twin Oases in the southwest and Kesret Oases in the middle are the two marked on the map.
It is tempting to try to shoehorn excuses for lots of encounters into here but maybe this is not sensible. Perhaps this is better left mostly empty. Few monsters, settlements and other encounters. This really is quite barren. The environment becomes the real challenge: Dehydration, sunburn and disorientation become the predominant threats to adventurers.
Although such geographic areas are not given level ranges for characters in the same way that modules are, I would consider it too dangerous for low-level PCs - it is not just the monstrous encounters that mean X4 is recommended for PCs of mid level (6th-9th). Having access to the 4th level cleric spell Create Water is a game-changer and could make the caster popular with NPCs.
Besides, Graakhalia is part of, or at least connects to, the Shadowdeep, Mystara's underdark, so there are plenty of caves to explore there. And there may be a few desert ruins - proto-Hulean outposts and settlements abandoned as the desertification of the land intensified. These ruins are much sought after by various creatures, few of them pleasant. Bhuts, Nagpas, undead such as wights & mummies and monstrous forces of Hule can all be found in these ruins. The Evil Abbey and the Buried Temple from X4 are typical ruins.
It’s a big area. 39 hexes x 24 miles/hex = 936 miles across in the middle. There is a caravan track across, and this will have more encounters. X4 explores this, with the option of PCs joining a caravan for part of the journey. Assuming land travel at 24 miles per day, this means crossing the desert will take 39 days. The caravan trail does pass through the two oases mentioned, but even so that’s over a week without natural water between oases. Clerics who can create water will be appreciated. Failing that, camels (who need less frequent water) are preferable to horses for this journey.
This is between Hule and Sind, so there will be patrols and merchants from both realms. During X4 & X5 there will also be armies marching across. What about Glantri and Darokin? There could well be travellers from these and other nations further east if they have reason to travel to Hule. The Serpent Peninsula is large enough that to sail around its southern tip would take as much time as to travel the Great Waste on camel.
 |
| Cartography by Thorfinn Tait, source |
https://mystara.thorfmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/champions-great-waste-24.png
All in all I think this could be a great place for mid and high level adventures and I may come back to it and its bordering regions in future posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment