Café de Nuit

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.

Did you mean Venice? ^^;

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

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).

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.

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

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...

Or you could carve out a whole new domain, stamp your stamp on it, and sit back with a grin when/if you post the specs here for others to ponder and play with.

Nudge nudge.

Just to be clear: I don't think Pont-a-Museau is Ravenloft's Venice. Yes, it has the canals but the names are French-sounding and it is not a maritime Empire, which was a very important part of Venice. It is also much smaller than Venice was.

alhoon wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 11:43 pm Just to be clear: I don't think Pont-a-Museau is Ravenloft's Venice. Yes, it has the canals but the names are French-sounding and it is not a maritime Empire, which was a very important part of Venice. It is also much smaller than Venice was.

We don't know Richemulot's false history, as no one does but since it has canals it may be referred to as the Venice of Ravenloft such as Bruges in Belgium along with a few other canal-based northern cities, such as Amsterdam and Saint Petersburg, are sometimes referred to as the Venice of the North.

The term Venice of the North refers to various cities in Northern Europe that contain canals, comparing them to Venice, Italy, which is renowned for its canals,

The name of Bruges probably derives from the Old Dutch for 'bridge': brugga, Pont in French means bridge does that mean that Pont-a-Museau is more similar to Flanders? I doubt that, it is from where the authors of the Black Box took inspiration from and I guess it is more probable that inspiration came from Venice.

Saint Ronges catacombs are reminiscent to Roman catacombs in my opinion. Although Paris also has catacombs these were made in the late 18th century when a series of basement wall collapses around the Holy Innocents' Cemetery made it urgent to find a place to bury the dead. They used the old depleted limestone mines that where scattered around the city before its expansion.

On the other hand Borca is reminiscent of the House of Bogias (also known as Borjas), in name (and to the Dilisnyas in practices), a noble family originally from Valencia which rose to prominence during the Italian Renaissance (with a dose of Countess Bathory).