Alt- Gundarak

[ewancummins]

GUNDARAK:
I imagine real world Siedenburg, in Silesia, was the source for the name of the fictional town, Ziedenburg. Teufeldorf is another clearly German type name.
Saxons and other German settlers, merchants, missionaries, and soldiers pushing east? Yep, quite important in the development of Eastern and Central Europe.
Gundar sounds and looks like a real Germanic name, Gunder.

If we draw on Knight of the Black Rose, then Gundar’s son is named Medraut. That name could be Fofarian, since those people seem partly Welsh as well as Scottish-Gaelic.

So perhaps we have something a bit like Continental Saxons of a later period invading a land inhabited by Celtic peoples and then amalgamating with them? Maybe the Neureni were indeed the part of the ancestral stock of the Gundarakites. But instead of faux-Magyars, they were more like some sort of Romano-British people?

That all could give Gundarak a rather different feel than the canonical domain/country as it was developed from Domains of Dread onward.

The odd element here is the name Hunadora. That’s obviously a Transylvania reference, (which could jive well with German settlers, of course)I imagine the name is part of what inspired the Hungarian elements in the GAZ version of Gundarak (or does that come from DoD, first? I don’t recall).

Humorously enough, there’s a ‘raven’ connection in there if you sift through the etymology of Hunedoara, including historical connections to the real Dracula’s famous contemporary, Janos Hunyadi. I could come up with a roundabout origin involving Tergs, Luktar-speaking peoples, or something else. Or I could just say that Hunadora is the Barovian/Borcan name for the place and the Gundarakites call the castle Corvinus. That fits the Roman part of my Romano-British Neuerni (it also works if one wants the Hungarian stuff, natch.)

[ewancummins]

Gundarak looks a lot like Gunderic, the name of an old Vandal king.
More Germanic barbarian action, yay!

[alhoon]

Considering that according to Gaz, Gundar's soldiers were carrying axes and reading between the lines we could guess they occasionally sacked villages randomly, I would say Germanic barbarian is correct.

On the other hand, I believe Gundarak is better broken up between Barovia and Invidia.

[ewancummins]

Considering that according to Gaz, Gundar's soldiers were carrying axes and reading between the lines we could guess they occasionally sacked villages randomly, I would say Germanic barbarian is correct.

On the other hand, I believe Gundarak is better broken up between Barovia and Invidia.

Right, I saw that in another thread.

I'm working to make it different from Barovia so that I can keep it around without repeating certain elements too often.

So, the Gundar-men derive from Germanic type barbarians with axes who worshipped 'The Erlking.'

Gundar's son may have had a Forfarian (Welsh as well as Scots, and with some Romance influences or so the ap in apBlanc and the castle name of Tristenoira suggest) mother.

[ewancummins]

Quick etymology searches online suggests lot of fun ideas about the Erlking, some of which connect with Odin, the Wild Hunt, and even Erlik Khan (the last which connects with Erlin/Nreull and Old Barovia's Neuerni).


Gundar hanged rebels from trees in an orchard? Just a show of brutality or was it also a kind of sacrifice to the tree-god, the Erlking?

[alhoon]

No idea, but the Gaz says he was brutal and that IIRC his soldiers had a habbit to "Decorate" roads with bodyparts of dissidents.

[ewancummins]

No idea, but the Gaz says he was brutal and that IIRC his soldiers had a habbit to "Decorate" roads with bodyparts of dissidents.

Good times.


I think I may just go for the Fofarian connection with Medraut.

Forarians seems to have some Brythonic , possibly Romance (Tristenoira) , and Arthurian inspired elements.

Morholt and Tristen (Tristan) ap Blanc--that may not be an accident.

[thekristhomas]

I get that you're changing things, but isn't Medraut an outlander? or are you saying that gundar comes from the same prime as Tristen? sorry if i'm not understanding.

IMC we played out the death of gundar suggested in Feast of Goblyns, with some adjustments. My version of Gundarak, was based on the "daughter tax" from the Black Box and the fact that Gundar had a son, IMC vampires don't usually breed, and dhampires were rare. Joining those two facts together I deduced that the daughters taken were part food supply part breeding stock, as I decided that would be the only way that gundar could create progeny, first as dhampir who could turn against him with their vampire hunting abilities, then if they die without taking the proper precautions, rising as vampire servants.

I also thought that the proportion of gundarakites who could pay the tax and keep their daughters must be tiny, so sons would have no wives, no children and therefore for the population to remain anywhere near stable, the vampire lord would have to be fathering a large proportion of the populous, here I made an adjustment, female children could result from the union, they would not be dhampir, but would carry the dhampir gene, thus the curse of gunadrs bloodline could resurface generations after his death.

The children would have to be reintroduced to the population, I imagined state sponsored orphanages, where peasant farmers hungry for labour would bid to adopt children to work their land. I considered making girls adopted immune to the daughter tax, it would probably make more sense demographically, but I wanted to big up Gundar's evil, as a side effect it also made my PCs contemptuous of peasant who would adopt a girl knowing they could not afford to keep her but needed the work done.

With Gundar feeding and possibly breeding on his own offspring, I decided that the inbreeding would effect the vampires that were ultimately created, not the dhampir stage, therefore older vampires were created when there was less inbreeding and are more normal, Gundars "first brood" are normal vampires, with more recent spawn looking more like the tertiary aspect of a werebat, unable to interact with the population.

Gundar has an ample supply of blood however, thanks to the daughter tax, and the black box said he was weaker willed than strahd, I interpreted this as insecure, and only feeling safe with large numbers of minions, so the creation of more spawn is a major preoccupation of his. Unfortunately for him the funerary customs of his land mean that only a small proportion of the dhampir ever become vampires. This requires that he produces a high volume of dhampir, who by their nature, are skilled vampire hunters, thus does Gundar feed the theme which will continue after his death and into the annexation of his lands, rebellion.

[ewancummins]

Wow, that all sounds boss!

RE Outlander; Good point. I wasn't sure about when or where Medraut was born.

Was there a sister who had died before the events of the novel?

It's been a long time since I read Knight of the Black Rose.

[thekristhomas]

I'm pretty sure there was a sister, it's been a long time for me too

[ewancummins]

I think that Gundarak can work well as its own domain, separate from Barovia.
But to really make that work best, I suggest:


Develop Duke Gundar as a villain, and in ways that make him different from Strahd

Distinguish the land and people from Barovia and Barovians. Of course, some overlap makes sense given the two domains border one another.


--------


I note that Strahd doesn't seem to care much about administration or policy. He doesn't even collect regular taxes.
Barovia is his. But he doesn't seem to feel the need to prove that often, and his goals tend to involve quite different things. Tayana, for one.


But Duke Gundar seems to take a more active role as a ruler.

[ewancummins]

I'm pretty sure there was a sister, it's been a long time for me too

I'll have to look into he name, if she exists.

RE Forlorn, I just received my Castles Forlorn boxed set in the mail.

Now I'm learning loads of Forlorn lore.

[alhoon]

I liked Kargatane's Gundar, that was slowly aging and was a creature ruled by vices. While Strahd appeared ... sane more or less to Soth, I remember Gundar as a wretched, chaotic butcher, covered in blood with a mane of hair and beard.

[ewancummins]

I liked Kargatane's Gundar, that was slowly aging and was a creature ruled by vices. While Strahd appeared ... sane more or less to Soth, I remember Gundar as a wretched, chaotic butcher, covered in blood with a mane of hair and beard.

That's pretty cool.

It also seems closer to some vampire lore I have read.

Vampires fathering children also fits that sort of vamp.

Old school Gundar!

[alhoon]

Yeah, he seemed the kind of vampire before Dracula, from the 18th century "boo!" stories but instead of being a wretch, he was also insanely powerful.
Would help get Barovians laugh their faces off to stupid foreigners that suggested Strahd was vampire. They would point to their neighbors and say "That's a vampire! A guy that steals girls, suck their blood and throw the corpses to his mad son. And when people rise against him, he has them nailed on trees outside his abode of evil."


All in all though, I didn't like KotBRose Gundar; he was a caricature 2D character from what I remember. A clear-cut villain. More like a force of evil than a true villain with goals and purpose. He seemed to be there to make people miserable. Like a chaotic Drakov more or less, not a chaotic Strahd.