Mystara Newbie Summary. And OSE vs. Mystara

 The official fan website for Mystara, whatever that means. Ppl seem to like it though, and I like the "newbie" summary: https://pandius.com/guide/index.html

And I like what they say here: https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/i8xpnx/questions_regarding_mystara_and_ose/

• Second what’s been said already. The Newbie’s Guide to Mystara is a good place to start for an overview of all the countries. The GAZ series does have tons of detail relating to rules and mechanics OSE doesn’t use, such as skills, but you can ignore most of them if they don’t apply to your game. The Hollow World is not known to people on the surface, so you can basically ignore it if you like.
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• The default starting place Karameikos and it was the first gazetteer published, so you could pick up the PDF and see what you think.
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• Mystara has tons of detail, including extensive history and lore, and good maps. What’s good about it is that you can take or leave as much of it as you want. Or, if you prefer, just leave a lot of it vague as in the earliest days of the setting when it was just called the Known World.
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• The weirdest thing about Mystara, in my view, is the substitution of immortals for traditional gods. That be hacked, too, of course. You can just decide to make them regular gods or use different pantheons.

Their bit on Shadow Elves:

• It should be stressed that the shadow elves are not evil per se. True, they hate the surface elves, as well as dwarves and humanoids and almost any outsiders. They have traditions that may seem savage when viewed from the outside. Within their own society, however, the shadow elves are honourable and supportive of each other. Crime is practically unknown, and for one shadow elf to betray another would be a sin worthy of the worst surface dweller. 

I've heard of this, what is it again: https://lamentationsmystara.blogspot.com/

OSE (but Mystara related) stuff...

Not sure what this is yet: https://furtivegoblingaming.blogspot.com/2024/08/land-of-mist-is-what-mystaraint.html

• OK, it's a Mystara-light setting for OSE. 
• Well... other than calling them drow, the rest isn't too far from normal fantasy or normal D&D or Mystara I think. And since the drow didn't exist in Mystara, it was the ... what... shadow elves that weren't exactly always evil, even tho in the arcade game they were obviously evil:
• "There are aquatic elves, nonevil drow who venerate the moon while still remaining mostly subterranean"