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Glantri: Kingdom of Magic (2e)

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New ways of wizardry - yours to command!

There's something unique about a land where wizards rule. Marvels abound. Glamour tantalizes. Dangers await, cloaked in illusion. Whether a hero chooses to wield magic or steel, conjuring up adventure becomes as easy as a walk through the rolling hills of Nouvelle Averoigne - or one of the other dozen principalities that make up this remarkable land. And when the world's most powerful wizards are also its craftiest princes, nothing is ever quite as it seems.

Cast the magic of Glantri over your games! Inside you'll find:

  • The Test of Darkness, a 32-page adventure that takes heroes from the fabulous Great School of Magic to unknown perils. The adventure is compatible with the AD&D game rules in the First Quest audio CD game and in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master Guide.
  • The 128-page Grimoire, your visitor's guide to this sorcerous land, featuring beautiful color art plus all-new wizard kits and spells.
  • Full-color, poster-sized maps of the realm and its capital, Glantri City.
  • 10 player handouts, including adventure maps, illustrations and props.
  • 6 sheets of additonal mini-adventures for the Dungeon Master
  • 8 full-color hero cards

A trip to Glantri opens doors to works of wonder like the enchanting canals of the capital city, the Seven Secret Crafts of Magic, a mysterious force known as the Radiance, and lands where werewolves cen be one's neighbors - and rulers!

Suitable for all levels of play.

Note: Audio not included.

Product History

Glantri: Kingdom of Magic (1995), by Monte Cook, is AD&D's second major Mystaran supplement. It was Published in March 1995.

About the Covers. The box cover for Glantri: Kingdom of Magic (1995), which shows magic-users fighting on a canal, is quite evocative of the setting. The cover to Book Two, "The Test of Darkness", is a bit less appropriate: the winged helm worn by the fighter clearly marks him as Caramon Majere of Dragonlance fame, That's because it's a reuse of the cover from The Magic of Krynn (1987), the first of the Dragonlance Tales (1987) short story anthologies.

Origins (I): A New Kingdom. The AD&D Mystaran line kicked off with Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure (1994), which focused on an individual kingdom. It was supplemented by a few adventures. Glantri: Kingdom of Magic continued that pattern. It was a major new setting for adventure, and there was to be at least one adventure in that new locale.

Origins (II): A History of Glantri. The "Princes of Glantri" showed up in the first map of the Known World, found in X1: "The Isle of Dread" (1981).

Three classic adventures were set in the country, but they all offered weak connections. It was (sort of) the setting for X2: "Castle Amber (Chateau d'Amberville)" (1981); very little of the adventure takes place in Glantri, but the link to the Ambrevilles would prove crucial to the future of the kingdom. CM8: "The Endless Stair" (1987) was a later adventure theoretically set in the country, but the connection was name deep. HWA1: "Nightwail" (1990) felt more tightly connected to the canonical Glantri … but quickly moved away from it.

The important modules for Glantri are a pair of Gazetteers. The first is obviously GAZ3: "The Principalities of Glantri" (1987), the original depiction of this country, and the major source material for this new release. The second is PC4: "Night Howlers" (1992), which details the Valley of the Wolves in Glantri.

Origins (III): The Impending End. Obviously, the AD&D Mystaran line was intended to contain a long-line of boxed supplements, returning to the locales originally detailed in the Basic D&D Gazetteers (1987-1991). However, Glantri would be the last of them. A long list of possible boxes can be found in Karameikos. Based on that listing, and the fact that some Darokin material found its way into Glantri, it seems likely that the next box would have been "Darokin: The Kingdom of Gold".

About the Box. Glantri is laid out very similarly to Karameikos, with a 128-page sourcebook, a 32-page adventure book, a few maps, some cardstock sheets, and of course one of the omnipresent Audio CDs.

Adventure Styles: A Bit of Everything! The adventure in Glantri, "The Test of Darkness" is a real mismhmash of styles, running from those common in AD&D 1e through D&D 4e (1977-2012). The core of it an episodic adventure, where characters are shunted from one event to the next. There are also some extensive dungeon crawls, though they're pretty simple; in fact the scenario, doesn't even bother numbering the rooms, but instead asks GMs to look up each locale's name. Many of the individual rooms are laid out as encounters; though they're not regularized to the level of 4e adventures, they feature detailed maps for the individual locations.

Adventure Tropes: Getting Schooled. "The Test of Darkness" is a rare D&D adventure that uses the classic fantasy trope of students joining a magic school.

Adventure Tropes: (Framed for) Murder! Not only is the adventure's inciting event a murder, but the characters are suspected of the deed! It's a variant of the classic To Win Your Must Lose Trope, where an adventure kicks off with a big problem for the players.

Audio Tropes: Valkyrie, Your Life Force is Running Out. The use of the Audio CD in the adventure is structured much like Night of the Vampire (1994). That means lots of audio cues that puts words in the mouth of the PCs, and lots of them calling each other by their class names.

Expanding D&D. As usual, there are rules for making Mystaran PCs, this time including a new race (the progeny) and new character kits (Glantrian wizard and Glantrian military wizard). Beyond that, there's the crunch you'd expect for AD&D 2e, including magic items, artifacts, spells, and non-weapon proficiencies. There are also rules for the seven secret crafts (alchemy, cryptomancy, dracology, dream magic, elementalism, necromancy, and wokanism) and a section on using the Radiance, bringing those science-fantasy rules to AD&D for the first time.

Eras of Mystara: AC 1013. Glantri advances into the year of Joshuan's Almanac & Book of Facts (1995), the final year of Mystaran metaplot.

Exploring Mystara: Glantri. As expected, Glantri: Kingdom of Magic offers a detailed gazetteer on the principalities of Glantri, largely reflecting what was in GAZ3: "The Principalities of Glantri". With that said, there have been changes, most of them based on material from PC4: "Night Howlers" and metaplot from the Poor Wizard's Almanacs (1992-1994). Some families and organizations are gone, while quite a few characters have passed beyond; meanwhile, clerics are now accepted everywhere in Glantri except the principality of Boldavia.

The biggest changes come from a massive meteor strike in AC 1006, which created the Great Crater and destroyed the principalities of Blackhill and Caurenze; the principality of Erewan wasn't destroyed, but is in a bad way due to an invasion from the Broken Lands. Meanwhile, new principalities have arisen such as Bramyra, Fenswick, and New Kolland.

Blowing Up the Canon. Wrath of the Immortals (1992) resulted in some big changes to the Radiance, causing it to drain entropy instead of magic. However Glantri: Kingdom of Magic reverts to the original rules from GAZ3: "The Principalities of Glantri" (1987). This is widely presumed to be an accidental reversion rather an intentional change in how the Radiance works. Unfortunately it leaves the AD&D 2e version of the radiance rules somewhat up in the air, as there's no correct source for them.

NPCs of Note. Glantri: Kingdom of Magic revisits many characters from the original "Glantri" gazetteer, including the infamous d'Ambreville family and introduces some new ones as well. Its most notable new character is Gerrid Rientha, a newcomer who was brought in to become the Archduchess of Westheath. She is much hated by fandom because her sudden elevation violates all the rules of how Glantrian nobility is awarded. (It's been suggested that Rientha may have come out of left field so that Cook didn't have to play musical chairs with the entire domain.)

Organizations of Note. Some of the sillier Glantrian organizations like ELF, FAERY, and the Canine Protection Society are gone, making this new version of GLantri a little less tongue in cheek than its predecessor.

Future History. Just one adventure would appear for Glantri: Kingdom of Magic, Mark of Amber (1995). Perhaps a second one was planned, to match the Karameikos adventures, but Mark of Amber would also be the last published AD&D supplement for the Mystaran line.

About the Creators. Former Rolemaster writer Monte Cook made his debut at TSR in 1994, but 1995 was the first year that saw multiple products from him, across four different lines.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

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Reviews (4)
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Reviews
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January 12th, 2009
Quite good scanning and product, overall. Occasionally you almost see the coloring of other page through paper, which is slight problem. Cd is missing, of course, but that is understandable. 3,5/5 points. [...]
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November 29th, 2006
One of the best books for one of TSR's most creative settings. Glantri is a functional magocracy, ruled by a noble class of powerful wizards and the secret crafts into which they have been initiated. It is something akin to Renaissance Italy, full of [...]
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October 31st, 2005
It's a nicely done product, well put togeather with good details for the setting. I just prefer the original version to this one. It lacks heart.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Sat [...]
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February 17th, 2004
Glantri is a wonderful place to adventure. If you are enjoy magic users you'll love the setting. Try other Mystara accessories. [...]
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Product Information
Gold seller
Author(s)
Rules Edition(s)
Pages
160
Edition
1.0
Publisher Stock #
TSR 2511
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File Last Updated:
February 12, 2020
This title was added to our catalog on August 22, 2017.