Intrigue and secrecy in a venice

[samsonwilliams]

I was thinking of the horror of masks, storys they show up in. I was thinking a domain that has masks as a prominent cultural aspect.
a Venice/Greece sort of culture, the nobles ware masks to almost all social events, commoners have festivals in masks, a lot of politics and spying, art and secrets.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Did you mean Venice? ^^;

[LeMaxul]

The masquerade theme was emphasized in Dementlieu with 5e VRGtR. You may want to check that out.

[Speedwagon]

Masks, and the general themes of intrigue and secrecy, might also find themselves in another place that most might not have thought of: Nosos. Not just the masks that the nobles of that toxic place wear for social events, but the regular masks to avoid infection (think of the Pandemic times) or gas masks for those in the mines and so on. In fact, I think one could put a really cool character like Saidra and the themes of 5e Dementlieu in Nosos, if you don't feel like using 5e Dementlieu as written in your canon (though I do like the thematics of that domain, I'm just offering alternatives).

[alhoon]

You can't beat 5e Dementlieu when it comes to Masks and intrigue IMO. I would suggest making it larger, though with farmland and a few villages outside the city as well as using ... someone's idea (I don't remember whom) that Mirror Dementlieu (5e island of terror) and Core Dementlieu (gaz) are so close that pantries connect in a way, with Core Dem unwittingly feeding the large city that exists in mirror to theirs.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Pont-a-Museau is Ravenloft's Venice by the way.

[Five]

Sanguinia could work, what with the Masque of the Red Death analog, though the realm may be a bit smallish for a thick layer of intrigue. To bridge that you could merge Nosos, as Speedwagon kinda but not really suggested, though you'd probably have to knock its CL down so it better meshes, and then just puff up the result a bit by injecting some new flavours of culture, etc.

Just backstory a bit: Malus Sceleris was a business prodigy with revolutionary ideas when it comes to all things mining, though his results-based ideology was but a bridge over a gaping black hole of destruction. Workers suffered horrible accidents, landowners would disappear (with deeds conspicuously signed over to him just before said absence), and some parcels of land were polluted beyond Nature's ability to recover. Medically-baffling diseases would follow his mining operations with epidemics that would often require pitch and fire to settle. Yet nothing or no-one could tear Sceleris from his throne. That is, until one particular encounter with none other than Prince Ladislav Mircea, during one of his notorious, taboo-breaking masques.

Malus Sceleris hasn't been seen nor heard of since, though very, very quiet whispers suggest he resides somewhere deep within the bowels of Castle Guirgiu, where he continues to undergo a particularly gruesome form of behavioural therapy.

He's now Mircea's favorite pet, though a vrykolaka. On occasions he is let out (though still chained) by his handler, a skull-masked giant of a brute, and together they hunt down those unfortunate souls that find themselves on the Prince's most wanted list...