Sunday, April 23, 2023

Red Steel

The AD&D 2e "Red Steel" boxed set (1994) by Tim Beach detailed a unique campaign setting, based in part on the "Princess Ark" articles by Bruce Heard.


"Red Steel" (1994) by Tim Beach.


The boxed set included a 128 pg campaign book, a 32 pg gazetteer, three poster-sized, full color maps, and a 15-track audio CD.


Savage Coast - Red Steel prolog


The "Red Steel: Savage Baronies" accessory (1995) by Tim Beach covered the Savage Baronies region, along the western Gulf of Hule.


"Red Steel: Savage Baronies" (1995) by Tim Beach.  Cover illustration by Alan Pollack.


The boxed set included a 64 pg campaign book, a 32 pg adventure "Divided We Fall", a poster-sized, full color map, a 14-track audio CD, and 8 parchment paper handouts.


"The Black Vessel" (1996) by Morris Simon


The Mystara novel "The Black Vessel" (1996) by Morris Simon is set in the Savage Baronies.*

*see this thread over at the Piazza for an extensive review and commentary


Savage Coast Campaign Book (1996) by Tim Beach and Bruce Heard.  Cover illustration by Jennell Jaquays.


"Red Steel" and "Red Steel: Savage Baronies" were revised and re-released in 1996 under the AD&D: Odyssey line as a free download (available on the Vaults of Pandius, here).

Part 1: An Atlas of the Savage Coast
Part 2: Characters of the Savage Coast 
Part 3: Adventures on the Savage Coast

Additional free downloads included The Orc's Head Peninsula Campaign Book and the Savage Coast Monstrous Compendium.

Fan-made PDFs were created using the files, laid out by Axel Boucher:

Savage Coast Campaign Book:
The Orc's Head Peninsula Campaign Book:
Book 2: Savage Steel

In 2021, WotC unwittingly released the fan-made PDFs for sale on DriveThruRPG (which have reached Copper status).  This caused a minor uproar in Mystara circles, given that WoTC is thereby obtaining revenue from a fan-made edit of a free download.


Additional Resources:

Savage Coast and Orc's Head Peninsula on the Vaults of Pandius
The "Savage Coast / Red Steel" forum on The Piazza
"Q&A with Tim Beach" (February 7, 2009)

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