Café de Nuit

Just noted this issue in my own copy and I was wondering if anyone else had a problem with it; the "Education in Falkovnia" sidebar trails away into an incomplete sentence. Anyone else got this error?

Hazing practices are also viciously severe, and there are veteran Falkovnian soldiers who will face waves of undead without fear, yet wake from

Well, that should say:

Hazing practices are also viciously severe, and there are veteran Falkovnian soldiers who will face waves of undead without fear, yet wake from screaming nightmares from their school days. [/SIDEBAR]

Sorry about that guys, know that we blame NeoTiamat for sending us an incomplete version.

(really, a glitch from the PDF making gremishka )

Joël

I blame anti-Falkovnian terrorists.

Keep the errors coming. I'll see if I can make a revised version for the minor fixes. But I'd prefer to only do it once.

It is Venture Captain James Weylan or James Weyland? I see three occurrences of Weyland.
p.239 "Despite being almost 180-years-old, James Weyland keeps..."
p.240 "However, his formerly flaxen hair is now as much grey as blonde, and Weyland moves..."
p.241 "Without hesitation, Weyland stepped over the magical warding...."

The Lesser Evil wrote:It is Venture Captain James Weylan or James Weyland? I see three occurrences of Weyland.
p.239 "Despite being almost 180-years-old, James Weyland keeps..."
p.240 "However, his formerly flaxen hair is now as much grey as blonde, and Weyland moves..."
p.241 "Without hesitation, Weyland stepped over the magical warding...."

It's Weylan. But it kept autocorrecting. Thought I'd caught them all.

Thanks for Ustalav! It's like gaining chocolate pudding at the top of a chocolate cake. I'm very much ike it!

And I'm start to wondering about how can both the original Ustalav on Golarion and the Mists version can exist at the same time? Paralel universes? Shadowfell via 5e? I just fond of the thought that adventuring in Golarion's ustalav and find out that the borders are no longer connected to Belkzen, Lastwall and so on, but everything else is the same at least on the surface...

I like what was done with Falkovnia except for the change to Drakov. He got changed to being a bit of a wuss. I don't mind him being charming and intelligent but beneath that he should be a sociopathic , sadistic butcher. He is based on the evil, bloodthirsty aristocrat trope after all. There were more than a few of them in real life.

Lamordia as a kind of Switzerland makes sense. I would make it quite a bit richer (maybe the richest in the core) if I ran it both because Switzerland is rich and because Lamordia is high tech. You don't have to be an agricultural powerhouse if you can make things everyone else wants. They probably can charge very high tuitions to foreigners as their universities are first class and probably have one of the best reputations in the core. Some nobles would likely send their kids their just for "bragging rights". I just love the dread possibility of Adam having Monderheim's soul but not his intellect. For one thing Monderheim is the one who should be DL in my opinion and I have long thought that a Ravenloft golem should have a piece of its creator's soul inside it both to give it life and as a link to its creator. With Adam it goes farther because of Victor being a Dark Lord.

PMárk wrote:Thanks for Ustalav! It's like gaining chocolate pudding at the top of a chocolate cake. I'm very much ike it!

And I'm start to wondering about how can both the original Ustalav on Golarion and the Mists version can exist at the same time? Paralel universes? Shadowfell via 5e? I just fond of the thought that adventuring in Golarion's ustalav and find out that the borders are no longer connected to Belkzen, Lastwall and so on, but everything else is the same at least on the surface...

The Dark Powers aren't limited to drawing in lands from the Prime Material Planes. They can create them from nothing. Fer instance, the Grand Conjunction modules, we learned there was a Prime Material Barovia that seemed quite prosperous despite the existence of the Ravenloft Barovia.

Well, as ever, no article or revision, particularly such large ones as the ones I do, can please everyone in every particular. I mostly try to make something that is broadly useful for people, expanding Domains and trying to create a level of verisimilitude.

brilliantlight wrote:I like what was done with Falkovnia except for the change to Drakov. He got changed to being a bit of a wuss. I don't mind him being charming and intelligent but beneath that he should be a sociopathic , sadistic butcher. He is based on the evil, bloodthirsty aristocrat trope after all. There were more than a few of them in real life.

You know, of all the possible criticisms I thought I might get, being told that the guy I based mostly on Stalin (and a dash of Napoleon) is "a bit of a wuss" was not one of them.

With regards to sociopathy, I direct your attention to the last bit of the article: "he sincerely believes that death and violence is the best way to solve any and all problems, and that repression and war will get him what he wants (power, respect, prestige). If someone or something is causing trouble, then Drakov has them killed, and that is the end of the matter. If many people are causing trouble, then that just means that much more death is required. Drakov places no intrinsic value on human life whatsoever, only on what people can do for him."

He's not sadistic, no. But then I find that Drakov represents a different, more impersonal brand of horror (and it's not like Ravenloft is lacking in rampaging sadists). Matter of personal taste there.

brilliantlight wrote: Lamordia as a kind of Switzerland makes sense. I would make it quite a bit richer (maybe the richest in the core) if I ran it both because Switzerland is rich and because Lamordia is high tech. You don't have to be an agricultural powerhouse if you can make things everyone else wants. They probably can charge very high tuitions to foreigners as their universities are first class and probably have one of the best reputations in the core. Some nobles would likely send their kids their just for "bragging rights". I just love the dread possibility of Adam having Monderheim's soul but not his intellect. For one thing Monderheim is the one who should be DL in my opinion and I have long thought that a Ravenloft golem should have a piece of its creator's soul inside it both to give it life and as a link to its creator. With Adam it goes farther because of Victor being a Dark Lord.

I'd say that the "industrial powerhouse" role in Ravenloft is taken up by Paridon, which already has a FoS Gazeteer devoted to it, along with a giant report on its signature monster (which I helped write, so I know whereof I speak).

The Dread Possibility came from Nathan of the FoS, I note. I just brazenly stole it. (Rotipher of the FoS had an expansion on it that would need some digging up to find, but I regret I only spotted it after I submitted this. Alas!)

brilliantlight wrote:I like what was done with Falkovnia except for the change to Drakov.

As with much of neoTiamat's good work, if you want to keep canon as is but still use the material... you can change a couple of names and make it a different domain in the mists.

NeoTiamat wrote:Well, as ever, no article or revision, particularly such large ones as the ones I do, can please everyone in every particular. I mostly try to make something that is broadly useful for people, expanding Domains and trying to create a level of verisimilitude.

True enough, I just don't see it quite that way.

You know, of all the possible criticisms I thought I might get, being told that the guy I based mostly on Stalin (and a dash of Napoleon) is "a bit of a wuss" was not one of them.

With regards to sociopathy, I direct your attention to the last bit of the article: "he sincerely believes that death and violence is the best way to solve any and all problems, and that repression and war will get him what he wants (power, respect, prestige). If someone or something is causing trouble, then Drakov has them killed, and that is the end of the matter. If many people are causing trouble, then that just means that much more death is required. Drakov places no intrinsic value on human life whatsoever, only on what people can do for him."

He's not sadistic, no. But then I find that Drakov represents a different, more impersonal brand of horror (and it's not like Ravenloft is lacking in rampaging sadists). Matter of personal taste there.

I guess I meant "A bit of a wuss" compared to canon Drakov. I like someone who represents the power mad, blood thirsty despot that is sadly all too common in history. Even Strahd doesn't quite fill that niche. Like the Dukkar he is the kind of villain even the other dark lords mostly hate. At least that is the way I see him

I'd say that the "industrial powerhouse" role in Ravenloft is taken up by Paridon, which already has a FoS Gazeteer devoted to it, along with a giant report on its signature monster (which I helped write, so I know whereof I speak).

There can be more than one industrial powerhouse. I would say the US , Japan, Germany and China are all industrial powerhouses today. Three of them are already rich and the fourth is quickly becoming so. As a whole I really liked it. I would just make it rich instead of poor. I think there are a number of relatively wealthy domains, at least by medieval standards.

The Dread Possibility came from Nathan of the FoS, I note. I just brazenly stole it. (Rotipher of the FoS had an expansion on it that would need some digging up to find, but I regret I only spotted it after I submitted this. Alas!)

In that case he came up with a good idea. In any case I liked them far more than it might have sounded. I really did like them but these are just two things that I disagreed with. As a whole I think they were quite good.

alhoon wrote:

brilliantlight wrote:I like what was done with Falkovnia except for the change to Drakov.

As with much of neoTiamat's good work, if you want to keep canon as is but still use the material... you can change a couple of names and make it a different domain in the mists.

True, and you can always use what you do like and not use what you don't. I might use some of his ideas as the game I am running is in Falkovnia. I wouldn't use his Drakov, even if I liked it . I have already established that Drakov was overthrown in a revolution and is dead. I didn't kill him because I don't like the villain but because I was inspired by someone else's thread and came up with, after some discussion with other people here, with a sort of a female Robespierre who became dark lord because she was about to betray the revolution to her father and I wanted to try it out.

Another possible bug: First Mate Laszlo Durakes is listed as a darkling. Darklings are normally trapped in one domain, right?