Ivana Boritsi, "experimental"? (calling Dr Freud or Naylor)

[Mischief]

I saw it as infantilizing, treating Gennifer as a child. In my view, she could have dome the same gesture with a man.

But it's funny how people react differently to details.

Yes and yes, I agree, but if you don't see where I am coming from, re-imagine that scene with two young men instead.

It's interesting that, as "S" notes, the Jongleur is Ivana's other primary long-lasting companion/associate. He is thought to be "too hideously burned ever catch Ivana's eye" (Gaz IV, p. 28). So put together with Nostalia, it seems the only people Ivana keeps around her on a long-term basis are the ones she will have no romantic involvement or similar relationships with.

Definitely Ivana's salient character trait is her crabs-in-a-bucket attitude towards romance. If she can't be happy, no one should be. I think Ivana might have liked S as an acquaintance because S wouldn't have threatened to eclipse her, was smart enough to be useful, and S wasn't particularly interested in romance (despite being married [and maybe even widowed for all we know- her husband might have been in the Requiem. S doesn't seem to miss him, wherever he is.].).

[ewancummins]

Men aren't women, so I'd expect a guy to use a different gesture. Maybe a patronizing shoulder pat or a power grip on arm.

[Cromstar]

Men aren't women, so I'd expect a guy to use a different gesture. Maybe a patronizing shoulder pat or a power grip on arm.

I was thinking a pat on the head, which is the kind of thing you'd do to a child.

[ewancummins]

Men aren't women, so I'd expect a guy to use a different gesture. Maybe a patronizing shoulder pat or a power grip on arm.

I was thinking a pat on the head, which is the kind of thing you'd do to a child.

That, too, if the villain's specific intent was to show dominance by treating the other person as a little kid and not just to show power.

With two young men, though, I think rather less condescension and a bit more aggression would be likely. It does depend on culture and individual personality as well as the psychological differences in the sexes.

There's more than one way to write a scene like this. I like the way it as done in Legacy of Blood.

But then,I like Ivana Boritsi.

[Mischief]

Men aren't women, so I'd expect a guy to use a different gesture. Maybe a patronizing shoulder pat or a power grip on arm.

I know I am not in the majority on this topic, especially on this forum, so you are going to have to take my word for it that a woman would also use the matronizing(?) shoulder pat or power grip on the upper arm. A woman touching another woman's mouth as a dominance move carries a little color. By itself, without context, this one action would be mostly innocent - standard seductress-type villain stuff. In a pile with the rest of Ivana's character though, I believe there is room for reasonable suspicion that she may have experimented with venting her pent up frustration at men on other outlets.
I haven't read the novels, but I can only contrast Ivana with Jacqueline who is a bit clingy and whose curse, in reading G3, does not specify the gender of whom she might love unconditionally (because it might encompass non-romantic love, such as true friendship). Even so, Jacqueline gives off the impression of only being interested in men - her tensions with other women have a distinctly matriarchal color: power, dominance, manipulation, and maybe rivalry for a mutual love interest.

[ewancummins]

I agree that your interpretation of the vignette seems plausible . It's simply not how I read the scene.

And between Ivana Boritsi and Jacqueline Renier, I'd certainly pick Ivana for the one with a nontraditional romantic history/lifestyle.

I do think, as I mentioned above, that Nostalia Romaine was/is romantically interested in other women. Thus her inability to tolerate their touch becomes a real curse for her. Her close friendship with Ivana could be interpreted in a couple of different ways.

[Joël of the FoS]

Very interesting discussion, guys and girl

When it is finished, we'll write a novel happening in Borca!

I'm thinking may be too hard on this but can we also interpret the gloved finger on the mouth as just a mark of "I am way above you and surely do not respect you as an equal" for Ivana to Gennifer? This interpretation also goes OK with the powerful menaces Ivana tells Gennifer just after she does this :

“I care nothing for your excuses. I don’t even want to hear pleas for mercy. I just want you to know that Borca is my domain, and when I say something is so it will be so. You will never lay eyes upon the Deathstone. Nor will you ever lay eyes upon Bevel again. You will never set foot upon Borcan soil again. If you do, I will not be so merciful next time.”

[Ryan Naylor]

That might be a reference to the bits about in Ravenloft MC I and II (p. 77) and Gaz IV (p. 21)

Correct. Both Nostalia specifically, and the ermordenung generally, and her interaction with Gennifer (which IIRC was intended to be read ambiguously). And of course Lucretia Borgia, upon whom she is loosely based (in fiction at least) has long been associated with various types of "wantonness" and "perversity."

To my mind, the horror Nostalia feels at the touch of another woman puts her in at least the "deeply closeted" category. My interpretation is that she was manipulated into killing Camille by her love for Ivana, and that has haunted her ever since. It ties in nicely to Ivana's hatred of and desire to destroy anyone else's love.

When Hazlik was outed in the 3e line, there was still a backlash from that by a small number of fans who were absolutely against that sort of thing in the roleplaying game, which I think made us... not more cautious, but aware that things hadn't moved on from the 80s for everyone. And there's always been a more voyeuristic element to lesbianism, especially in a male dominated hobby like RPGs, so the Kargatane at least were considered in how they alluded to things. You didn't want to make the perennially 18 femme fatale more exploitative than she already was.

Unrelated, but I believe there's at least two other characters with same gender attractions in Ravenloft, both coming from the Tapestry of Dark Souls novel. Leith and Maeve (neither the faery queen nor the Forfarian druid Maeve, but instead a third character named Maeve) had a same sex romance, though Leith was previously married to a man prior to him being taken by the Tapestry of Dark Souls so she would likely be bisexual. I can't remember if Maeve ever expressed any attraction or romantic feelings to a male character. She too had a husband, but this was an arranged marriage she was forced into.

Really? I'd completely forgotten that!

[ewancummins]

If I were doing work on a game marketed towards kids , I would avoid any overt sexuality and any controversial social and moral issues.

But Ravenloft has never been aimed at kids. It's a horror/dark fantasy game setting and has always included 'mature' elements. The intended audience has always been high school age and up. AD&D 2E was aimed at 14 and over.


It's probably a bit difficult to make an RPG that won't include a few elements or themes that rub somebody out there the wrong way. Either it is not inclusive/diverse enough or it is too much so. It's too violent. Doesn't use my preferred gender pronouns. Offends me by mentioning transsexuals or homosexuals. Sexist. Racist. Too political. The art exploits women's bodies. The art is unsexy due to an excess of SJW prudery. 'Cultural appropriation'...


I remember gaming in the 90s, after the Satanic Panic and before many people were online screaming about politics. Sure, I occasionally saw some things in games that I found distasteful or maybe a bit preachy or pretentious. If I didn't like the product...I didn't buy it. Imagine that.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I think in today's climate, the problem with making Ivana gay or bi is not "ew, homosexuality!" I think it's more a case of hitting the "depraved bisexual trope." Ravenloft has always focused more on the bad guys than the heroes, but if you make one of the ONLY canon gays be also a bad guy, it send the implication that only bad guys are gay. (This is also kind of the problem with Hazlik nowadays, not to mention CoS's take on Strahd.) If there was more representation of queer good guys, it wouldn't be as much of an issue.

In other words, the potential offense in the early days of the setting was from parents thinking their children were being exposed to the "evils" of sexuality. Nowadays, the potential for offense is more that actual players may see analogs of themselves or people they care about painted as "evil". It's one thing to laugh off overprotective parents, but quite another to brush off people trying to play a game and feeling personally hurt. Personally, I'm comfortable with the former, but not the latter.

Then there's also the time period(s) that Ravenloft tries to mimic, in which homosexuality was repressed, if not outright outlawed. It would be no stretch in those days to equate gay with evil outright, let alone imply it. So the tricky bit is how revisionist you want to be about it. Does your campaign feature any other gay characters? any sympathetic ones? Is your Ravenloft a fantasy world, perfectly accepting of that in a way that even modern societies aren't? Or is it an echo of Victorian/Renaissance Europe where that's scandalous or worse? Is the point to making Ivana "experimental" to shock? to make her more sympathetic? or to make her more "depraved"? This is probably stuff best left to individual DMs to decide how to handle it, based on their players' sensitivities.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

As a gay man, I have no problem with Strahd in CoS. I'm sure his infatuations with men and women was mentioned long before CoS anyway. It's more a sexless obsession, like Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham in the Hannibal series. Strahd becomes obsessed with an individual, not because of their gender, but because of their personality or skill. He was certainly obsessed with Jander and there was no sexual attraction there.

And I like Hazlik as a bad guy too. One of my biggest bugbears is that there's a trend in fiction now to make LGBT people so saintly and untouchable, they're boring. And Hazlik is such a multifaceted character, being gay isn't the cornerstone of his character. He's capable of truly loving and caring for someone, as seen with his relationship with Eleni. He dotes on her and cares for her as a granddaughter, but his evil nature won't stop him possessing her when the time comes.

[Manofevil]

Homosexuality has had various levels of acceptability throughout history. It was openly accepted and practiced in ancient Rome and Greece so long as it was practiced within certain parameters (We don't have realms based on Rome or Greece so there's no point in outlining them). With the mix of cultural levels we have in Ravenloft, it's likely that each realm has it's own homosexual underground of one sort or another, at least, if the population is large enough. We don't have a gay-bashing Darklord....yet, though I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to create one. Ravenloft has no bible or other holy text which openly condemns homosexuality so I don't think universal societal condemnation would necessarily be present except perhaps in Falkovnia where the government gets into everything eventually. As each curse is very personal for each Darklord, so would each Draklord's sexuality and corresponding feelings on homosexuality would be very personal. They would react according to their backstories. Some might not even know about the possibility of homosexuality. 'The sexuality of Darklords' might make a good article for QTR one of these days.

[Mischief]

To my mind, the horror Nostalia feels at the touch of another woman puts her in at least the "deeply closeted" category. My interpretation is that she was manipulated into killing Camille by her love for Ivana, and that has haunted her ever since. It ties in nicely to Ivana's hatred of and desire to destroy anyone else's love.
When Hazlik was outed in the 3e line, there was still a backlash from that by a small number of fans who were absolutely against that sort of thing in the roleplaying game, which I think made us... not more cautious, but aware that things hadn't moved on from the 80s for everyone. And there's always been a more voyeuristic element to lesbianism, especially in a male dominated hobby like RPGs, so the Kargatane at least were considered in how they alluded to things. You didn't want to make the perennially 18 femme fatale more exploitative than she already was.

It sounds like you made a well-balanced decision for the time. Whether it is with comics, cards, or science fiction/fantasy books, the long-term survival answer has been to just blitz through the resistance. It kicks up controversy in the expected sectors, but pandering to the narrow alternative will get you stuck in a hole like Warhammer.
5e across the board has aggressively improved its inclusivity in all official modules. That, the more accessible design, and a few other boosts brought in a massive new and younger cohort who pretty much salvaged the system from the 4e dip. The high tide even raised the boats for Pathfinder and others - 5e players migrate out when they want more crunch and customization. It also brought in people like me who would have liked to play the older systems, but succumbed to social expectations against. I remember wanting to spectate a DnD convention back in 2004-5 in DC that was going on at the same time as another multi-day school thing. Cleared my evening, peeked in. It was all men playing, out of ~100 people. So that was a hard no. Now, you aren't stuck in an all women's group and the shift in demographics decreases the likelihood you might be singled out for... weirdness. I'm no DnD veteran because ttRPGS were boys and men's games, but in this era I can drop in on the public library game and not stick out.
I give a lot of credit to the later Ravenloft writers for a huge number of things, but especially bringing on the Weathermay Twins and S-. From CoS I worked way backwards through those two first. This is the first forum in twenty years of online life where I have admitted my gender, and not lied or left it blank. Times have changed, in part because the writers had the wisdom to make space for those on the outside looking in over the protests of those who want to wall in the garden.

I think in today's climate, the problem with making Ivana gay or bi is not "ew, homosexuality!" I think it's more a case of hitting the "depraved bisexual trope." Ravenloft has always focused more on the bad guys than the heroes, but if you make one of the ONLY canon gays be also a bad guy, it send the implication that only bad guys are gay. (This is also kind of the problem with Hazlik nowadays, not to mention CoS's take on Strahd.) If there was more representation of queer good guys, it wouldn't be as much of an issue.

DnD and most ttRPGS in general are going to be more about bad guys than good because the modules and manuals make the monsters, while the players make the heroes and the DM the story. I think Ravenloft is one of the few semi-exceptions where you see a lot of good guy participation in the form of VR guides. Outside of the lit, there is not a lot of heroic representation.
I pointed out the gay ghosts from CoS on the other page (and they aren't explicitly bad guys although one of them is addlebrained from undead-type obsessions.) CoS changed Strahd so player genders and race are no longer a cheesy safe zone as far as Strahd's attentions are concerned. 5e spent a lot of page time explaining how he is an equal opportunity offender who wants to corrupt, undermine, and break because he is bitter about his own life. Strahd targets those lights in the dark who try to defy the despair of Barovia no matter who they are.

And I like Hazlik as a bad guy too. ... And Hazlik is such a multifaceted character, being gay isn't the cornerstone of his character. He's capable of truly loving and caring for someone, as seen with his relationship with Eleni. He dotes on her and cares for her as a granddaughter, but his evil nature won't stop him possessing her when the time comes.

Removing Hazlik's shame over his orientation is the easiest change. His fall and sins are still pride and wrath and virtually nothing changes about his revenge-centered story. Hazlik is offended the Red Wizards humiliated him in front of his peers and tossed him out when he is clearly the better wizard. Maybe he still has to hide his private life because the Church of the Lawgiver is puritanical, depending on the DM wants to run that org. I have a hard time believing our historical social issues would be the same in a fantasy world with some races that live 700 years vs 70, real love potions and magical charms, undead crawling out of graveyards, bards seducing dragons and making bipedal man-dragon offspring, shapechangers, and people being born with out of control magical powers.

[ewancummins]

I missed that Hazlik was ashamed of that.

I thought he was enraged about being defeated and humiliated by his enemies.

[Ryan Naylor]

I missed that Hazlik was ashamed of that.

I thought he was enraged about being defeated and humiliated by his enemies.

I thought so too, actually. Gaz I doesn't mention any shame for his sexuality - just shame regarding his public humiliation. I think there's a difference between a (gay) man being ashamed of being tattooed with feminine tattoos by his enemies, and being ashamed of being gay.

Any specific references? [To Mischief, to be clear]