A concept for the Shadowlands Gazetteer

[The Giamarga]

I haven't yet read my copy of Castle of the Undead, but I wouldn't mind adding that land in, IF it fits the theme, (which IMHO is the hypocrisy of evil in the guise of good), and the setting (which IMHO is less gothic, more traditional fantasy than the core).

IMO it doesn't. The land described therein can only has evil in the guise of evil. The darklord is not very deep thought out and inclusion in RL as a whole is rather problematic due to that. (But the book certainly has some salvageable and interesting material.)

[Le Noir Faineant]

I don't have the Shadowborn book in front of me ATM, but I'm pretty sure Alexi Shadowborn is male. I don't know how he is now in a crystal sarcophagus, but he's definately not Darklord material.

Alexi is MALE?! - OKAY... I should refresh my knowledge of the domain immediately...

If you're planning to change things that much, Rafael, IMO it might be a good idea to produce not one netbook, but a pair of them. For the traditionalists, a Gaz could be compiled describing the Shadowlands, circa 761 -- the time of the Arthaus and FoS books -- that sticks with "canon" information to date. This book would use the 3.5 version of the rules, so people who enjoy the setting as Arthaus described it will have a place to turn.

While am pretty sure that right now that I will only be able to contricute few other things to this project other than getting it rollin', my point to change something about the Shadowlands was mainly that, at least IIRC, since the initial presentation, the information on the current events in the Shadowlands has been scarce. (This assumption being based on The Great Mangrum's timeline.)

I would not insist that we change things "my way" there, but maybe we can fill the space there with whatever others of you have changed/played out.

At the same time, you and others who'd like to make Ravenloft more 4E-compatible could create a companion-volume on the Shadowlands of 771 (or even later? post-ToUD, maybe?) BC. In that one, you can deviate from "canon" more freely, by saying that in the intervening years Elena has forfeited her darklordship to the statue, the Castle of the Undead domain has joined the Cluster, Morgoroth is out of the picture (dead, supplanted, maybe even redeemed as he'd once hoped), etc.

DMs who like the "Future Shadowlands", but currently set their campaigns in the 760s or earlier, can arrange for history to unfold in that direction ITC, with the players' characters as witnesses. Others who don't agree with the course you've set can call it an "alternate future", or perhaps a grim prophecy which their PCs must work to avert.

The more we talk about this, the more evidetn it seems to me that the majority of you would like to keep things near to published canon. So, let's best forget about the timeline advance, at least for the moment.

Oh, and I'd be flattered to have a narrator named for me, Raf. Just don't beat her up as badly as I'd trashed Viktor (with Joel's permission, I swear!) in the NS Gaz, okay?

Beat up a girl?! - No way! - Though I think I'd have some dark plans for her, no doubt....

Agreed. The primary purpose of the Gazetteers is to collect all canon into a single souce, expand on the material, and reconcile contradictions. I'd rather not make any more changes than necassary (or if they're really cool like adding an extra domain to the Nocturnal Sea and changing its true darklord).

Will make things harder, especially since I love to spin tales, but agreed.

Me neither. I really want to incorporate the info from the Endless Quest book and the background of the Bloodknife somehow into Ravenloft. But i think that having it an active domain and joined to more popular cluster or even the core would be very hard to accomplish believably. If it shoul join I would prefer to join it to some other islands/clusters/domains which also are (supposed to be) originally from Greyhawk. The Shadowlands cluster doesn't quite fit imo.

Threadjack: So you think it would fit to the Burning Peaks? - The concept isn't that far away from Cavitius...

Oh and don't be too optimistic about , I probably won't be able to write anything for the netbook, all i can offer is some contributions to the discussion and maybe perhaps some statblocks. I'm nto good at writing fluff and writing crunch takes me considerable time.

No problem, but be sure that I greatly appreciate your input - you always pull me back down on earth when I am going to exaggerate!

Wow!!! That sounds pretty WoW (Lich King) to me!!!

That's fabulous , but Warcraft's stolen ideas from so many other settings I wouldn't be suprised if they had read Shadowborn. Read the novel hard to explain how good it is. So uh yeah, thanks for comparing my favorite RL character to Blizzard's blundering attempts at background stories.

FTR, WoW's lich king concept seems almost an exact copy of a concept taken from the Japanese novel series made anime "Legend of Crytania". - Sure, there will be other sources also, but this one is the one that bears most similarities. The anime in its day received very mixed reviews, but I think it has influenced my conception of fantasy like few others.

Sometimes I sign on to (non-gaming) web forums as "Sharlee", since my middle name is Lee. Feel free to use that if you prefer, guys.

*Recorded for sinister use.*

Nidala - my favorite domain after Darkon. I have a plenty information about it from my campaigns. If someone decides to write Shadowlands Gazetteer - write me a message...

*Instinctively touches skull pendant.*

It will be an honour, my lord of the eternity.

I haven't yet read my copy of Castle of the Undead, but I wouldn't mind adding that land in, IF it fits the theme, (which IMHO is the hypocrisy of evil in the guise of good), and the setting (which IMHO is less gothic, more traditional fantasy than the core). But if you did, I'd like to see some retcon of the lord history to somehow link him to the Shadowborn saga.

From that point, it surely doesn't. - But it would give an interesting contrast to Ellena, who in the end, can be portrayed as a wicked sort of benevolent tyrant. - Like: Nidala is a realm threatened from two sides. From the east, the undead from the swamp, from the east, the blood-drinkers. - Something like that.

My initial point was that I felt that Nidala lost to Avonleigh in terms of detail and plot, and needed to be spiced up, so to say...

However, you make a very good point here: The interconnection through the common backstory is one of the best parts, but also a problem for the realm: It is difficult to play in Nidala without being already concentrating on details that touch the neighbouring domains.

Maybe it would be easier to change the status of the different DLs - like, making Ebonbane the DL of the Shadowlands, and presenting Morgoroth and Ellena as demilords? - Just an idea...?

[Le Noir Faineant]

On another note, and taking this a small step ahead,
Has anyone a list of the locales in Shadowlands, and, of course,
of all canon - and Frat - things written for the cluster?

I would also say, if there are some particularly well-done campaign journals for adventures in Shadowlands, why not include them as well?

*Thinks of Gonzoron's and Azalin's campaigns.*

[Jester of the FoS]

If it's to remain a cluster there needs to be multiple darklords (and multiple domains). And Elena and Ebonbane are both too popular to demote. Morgoroth has to fun of a name not to make interesting. Having been included in only a single adventure, there's probably more wiggle room around him and it'll be easier to make him interesting.
Maybe he's the Merlin to Elena's Aurthur....

[Pamela]

Gentle suggestion - before everyone gets any further in discussing what should be done, you need someone who's willing to head this thing, and nobody's offered to do so as of yet.

[Desertrising]

Pamela does bring up a good point.

Is anyone willing to actually head this thing up? I might be willing too, but as I said previously I have a pet project I am working on. However I could put less effort into that and focus on this one if no one better qualified steps up.

I do have some experience working as part of a team with a non profit I am on the board of here in my home town. While my main focus was on grants and mission statement type of work, I think I can probably help out with keeping things organized.

So unless there is someone else who would want to do it. I am willing to head up this project.

eep

[Jester of the FoS]

I can help as an editor and arbitrator (someone needs to have veto authority to put down intractable arguments).

I'd like a chance to do Morogoth and play with his land, but I don't think I'll have the time, with the second Sea Gaz and the first of the edition transition adventures (which I'm stuck on...)

[Desertrising]

Thanks Jester!

I think really the first step on any project is to decide exactly what it is going to be about. We know he Shadowlands cluster is the subject. We know we want to make a Gaz such as the ones created by Arthaus and FoS. We have a general consensus that we want to maintain it fairly close to canon and expand in areas where we can.

So I guess what we do now is make a list of The major darklords, the major locales, and other major things that are already canon. Once this is done we can play with those for a bit and come up with more information as far as new darklords and the like.

Does that work?

[Le Noir Faineant]

Yeah. Count me in as the one who'd like to write the framing story, and, well, a little bit of everything.

Any way to create such a list conveniently, without too much research? - Like with the help of the Kargatane catalogue?

I am especially interested in the *Great Kingdom* (IIRC, the land of the Shadowborn).
There have been only two nations except t one in D&D cosmology who bore that name:

One was Greyhawk's Great Kingdom, and the other one one of the first D&D settings ever, Dave Arneson's Great Kingdom, a place often mentioned, but never detailed in the Blackmoor gaming books.

- Maybe, without going too far, one could tailor some details into the Gaz that link the Shadowlands to one of those bigger settings.



BTW, the horror, the horror, Dave Arneson's Great Kingdom GOT detailed in a special way: It was supposed to be the setting of the first D&D movie!

[Rotipher of the FoS]

FWIW, I'm not convinced that the "Great Kingdom" of the Shadowborns needs to have any link to any published D&D setting, or even that it ought to. It's not as if the title "Great Kingdom" is unique enough for copyright purposes , any more than Anhktepot's "Black Land" is. It's just a generic title that the writers could use to avoid making up a bunch of tedious place-names, really.

Having the Mists draw the Shadowborns in from a world that TSR never wrote about will reinforce the notion that the Mists go everywhere, not just the dozen-odd worlds that have gotten their own (non-Ravenloft!) game products. And it'd let whomever writes the History sections for the Shadowlands domains and NPCs make up whatever they like, rather than shoehorning things into what another setting's writers might've said.

[Desertrising]

I really think the only way to make the list is to do research. One of the things in our favor is that while there is some information about the Shadowlands, its not so immense that getting the bones of it up should prevent much of a problem.

Anyone really eager to write this list out? If no one is I can find sometime to get it done.

As far as the great kingdom question: I can see it both ways, if we use a place such as the great kingdom in Greyhawk that is something familiar to most players, but I also like the idea of limiting any chance of getting pegged for copywrite infringement. In the end I think I fall on the side of keeping it vague for now.

[Jester of the FoS]

The Great Kingdom in Greyhawk, IIRC, is very Roman/Greek while the Shadowlands is straight medieval.
We should likely just assume it's from a generic world (perhaps even the same generic, unnamed world as Barovia).

[Desertrising]

The Great Kingdom in Greyhawk, IIRC, is very Roman/Greek while the Shadowlands is straight medieval.
We should likely just assume it's from a generic world (perhaps even the same generic, unnamed world as Barovia).

Our editor has spoken and so it is LOL

Actually he makes a great point.

[Jonathan Winters]

I can't really help out... Sorry!

BUT I just want to say that it would be better to stick to canon and not extrapolate the thing in the future to 4E-ize it.
JUST MY OPINION!

If the whole edition thing turns into some nightmare. I would prefer getting the fluff with Dread Possibilities with minor crunch.

I am staying 3.5 (with maybe some PathfinderRPG thrown in) so I really don't care about 4E.

Did we ever poll this on the site??? Probably, I forget...

Thanks to all involved!!!
Patrick

[Rotipher of the FoS]

If you're doing a word-search through the netbooks for relevant info, don't forget that Elena's domain has been spelled two different ways over the years. It'd be a good idea to search for both spellings, so you don't miss anything relevant.

Heh. Maybe we should run a poll to decide, once and for all, if it's "Nidala" or "Nidalia"?