It’s a deadly world when you are a band of adventurers entering frozen caves in search of the Tree of Life. Traps, tunnels, caves, frozen snow, monsters, chambers and violent terror. Learn how one group handles these dangers as we discuss the February 2026 Campaign of the Month, Mystara, with Game Master Tandamar.
First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet?
Not much to tell, I live in Idaho but have lived many places over the years, I play bass guitar aside from gaming.
Tell us a bit about Mystara, the world where your player characters live out their lives, carving out their story. It seems quite large, and also seems to incorporate many regions. Do the party travel much, or do they stick to certain regions.
We use the original Gazetteers for Mystara, mostly by the book but I have some of my own lore added.
Your campaign is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. What version are you using and what guided your choice in this?
As it says on the homepage we use BECMI with a few house rules, been playing it since 83 but started playing D&D in 81.
Tell us about your players and your typical gaming sessions. How often do you play? Online? Tabletop? Who does what in any typical session?
I am a forever DM, we play every Sunday and have for around 10 years, players come and go but we have a few who have been there from the beginning. We use Discord for voice and Tabletop Simulator for visual.
There seem to be quite a few Non Player Characters set up in the campaign, and many of these seem to be dead. Is your campaign particularly dangerous, or are there any other reasons?
BECMI is deadly as written, some are players who had to leave the game. Others are just dead PCs. I keep them on there as a record of our past.
Your campaign has many maps in the Maps section – more than can be found on most Obsidian Portal sites. How important are these to your campaign?
Maps are important to any campaign.
Who writes the adventure logs for your campaign, and how important are they to the flow of the campaign? The more recent ones have a nice image detailing treasure gained? Whose idea was this? Do you aim to continue the trend?
I started writing the logs but one of our players has taken that role. Yes, we intend to keep the logs going as they are.
You have chosen to use the Items section in your campaign and yet only have a few items listed so far. Do you intend to expand on this. How useful do you feel it is for your players.
Yes, we will add more items as we see fit. The player writing the current logs does these as well. We have only just started using it so its usefulness has yet to be determined.
Have you or your players had any favourite moments in the campaign so far? What have been the most exciting encounters, discoveries, etc.?
“Leading Imperial Legions in battle” Matt
“Yeah, when we were in Castle Mistimere and got stuck with no way out, until we ran into Bargle where we thought we had him.” Bryan
One of my players PC was bitten in half by a young black dragon, we still talk about it.
How far in advance do you plan your campaign? Is it a basic outline or are events all well defined? Without giving the game away to your players, are there any future events you are particularly looking forward to? You can be as cryptic as you need to be.
I have things outlined but I didn’t go too detailed. The current game is on the brink of a war with the players playing a role in how it will end.
Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?
I don’t give advice usually, but everyone has their own idea on how to run a game, but the best I can give is what I have learned from the 45+ years of playing, don’t plant too far ahead, player will always find ways to screw up your plans, not intentionally, but you will find they will have ideas you as a DM never thought of. Learn to improvise ana always have a plan B and C.
Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure March 1st, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!
