Introduction                      

Converting this adventure path to any campaign setting is going to require a good deal of work.  At the very least, it is going to require a considerable amount of taking notes.  I have found in beginning this conversion, including reading ahead in the adventures, that certain sacrifices have to be made and that not everything will fit neatly.  It also helps to step back and consider the bigger picture and allow that to influence your conversion, rather than your notes from earlier.  An example of this would be where, say, Brindol in the first adventure would become Penhaligon in Mystara, but later references to Brindol might refer to somewhere else in Mystara, because it is a better fit.  You will see what I mean in the notes below.

The notes included here cover most of my thinking in converting the adventures to Mystara.

What is Mystara?

For those of you who do not already know, the campaign setting known as Mystara began life way back in 1980 or so, back in the BECMI era.  It was first mentioned in the X1: Isle of Dread adventure and then developed from there in various publications, including several adventures (such B2: The Keep on the Borderlands) and the famous Gazetteer series of sourcebooks with their now-iconic Clyde Caldwell collage cover art.

Mystara is the planet on which we find several continents.  One of these is the continent of Brun, much of the eastern extent of which is also called the Known World.  This is home to several nations with various culture types: the peaceful and progressive Karameikos, the martial "Roman" Thyatis, the trading nation of Darokin, the magocracy of Glantri, the Emirates of Ylaruam, the Five Shires and their halflings, the viking-like Heldannic Territories, the mercantile Minrothad Guilds, and maritime Ierendi.  There are many more, both on Brun and beyond.

Truth be told, Mystara is high fantasy, where two nations sharing a common frontier can still be very different in outlook, philosophy, culture and even climate.  It is a world where stereotypes get their own nation, but it is still a wonderful world to play in.

Where to begin?

This is no decision that should be taken lightly.  With a whole campaign setting at your fingertips, where you actually begin play is key.  It sets the tone, defines your players' characters to a certain extent (especially if you have any house rules) and quite possibly limits your options for future adventures.

For my own conversion, I opted to begin in the Kingdom of Karameikos.  The reason for this is very simple: we know it.  I have been running D&D games using Mystara for some years now and we have always played in Karameikos.  I know the place fairly well, as do my players, and we have developed something of an emotional attachment to it.  An emotional attachment is going to be key in motivating the players.

So, our starting location, the geopolitical keystone of the game, is to be the Kingdom of Karameikos in the year 1010 AC.

A note on 'Rescue at Rivenroar'

As I was preparing to being a 4e campaign at the end of 2008, I was reading the various reports that the Scales of War AP was just not very good, being plagued by poor editing, an apparent lack of direction and, of course, that lack of a campaign overview for the DMs.  All this together sent me elsewhere for our first adventures in 4e.  Later on, I started seeing the posts and comments that, actually, this thing isn't that bad, not some of the later ones certainly, and not if you do a little work on it (such as suggested on these pages). 

I therefore made the decision to run the AP, starting at Chapter 2: Siege of Bordrin's Watch.  This means that I have few notes on Rescue at Rivenroar, having skipped it and worked its key elements into what we were playing from 1st level.

Conversions

A list of the conversions themselves, grouped by category - location (settlement), individual, deity, and so on - can be found here.

Chapter by Chapter

Each chapter of the AP brings new challenges and a fresh outlook.  I have already found that certain assumptions made earlier prove to be misleading later on, so the conversion process is fraught with peril.  It would be better to work with a finished product, but I don't have that luxury at the time of writing.  The pages referenced here set out some of the conversions and detail of the individual chapters of the AP.

1. Rescue at Rivenroar (Mystara)
2. Siege of Bordrin's Watch (Mystara)
3. The Shadowrift of Umbraforge (Mystara)
4. The Lost Mines of Karak (Mystara)
5. Den of the Destroyer (Mystara)
6. The Temple Between (Mystara)