Theka, Bileplate, Moridana - Lost Core Domains

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Has anyone seen any fan information on the above domains, Theka, Bileplate, and Moridana?

I ran across these while skimming Neither Man Nor Beast, p47. It's when describing the Monastery of the Lost's library. It is "There are also volumes which describe lands which are not known in Ravenloft (such as Theka, Bileplate, and Moridana) which may have been part of the Ravenloft Core eons ago."

I realize these aren't common domains and so likely haven't been in a canon book (I haven't read all of them, so can't confirm), but was wondering if there was anything created fan-wise on this.

Thanks for any help in easing my curiousity!

[The Wannabe]

As fas as I know, noone has yet dealt with this. Probably because they aren't supposed to be in Ravenloft anymore.....although it would be interesting to stumble upon a remote Island of Terror somewhere populated by folks who think there are only five domains in total. Kind of a provincial thing, mayhaps.

Mapwannabe

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I recall coming across someone's homebrew write-ups for these "lost" domains during a web-search at one point, but I don't remember whose site it was. Luckily, google is everybody's friend: try it and see!

Of course, given the vagueness of the reference, it's possible that the texts in question were referring to outlander-worlds, not domains. Even Bileplate could, hypothetically, be the name of a layer of the Abyss or whatever -- though the name is certainly evocative of Ravenloft's naming conventions also -- so if you'd rather not extend the Land of Mists' origins back prior to Strahd's fall IYC, there's no need to assume that such lands really were "prehistoric" domains.

[Joël of the FoS]

Might be false history?

[Lord Cyclohexane]

I recall coming across someone's homebrew write-ups for these "lost" domains during a web-search at one point, but I don't remember whose site it was. Luckily, google is everybody's friend: try it and see!

Actually, I already did, but I'm being disingenuous. I found a similar website on two of those domains, Bileplate and Moridana, made by a small group. However, it looks like the group broke up before finishing, that or they don't update their website. As LUCIFERABBADON was part of it, I was hoping he or someone else familiar with it would reply on what the current status is.

That website is:
Ravenloft: The Lost Domains Project

Of course, given the vagueness of the reference, it's possible that the texts in question were referring to outlander-worlds, not domains.

Actually, my line of thinking was that they'd originally been Core domains that had been removed from the Core quite a long while ago (much like Markovia and G'Henna). But yeah, the "eons ago" makes it rather weird, as it's only been about 400 years since Barovia entered the Land of Mists...

But perhaps Barovia was not the actual first domain, but is rather the "linchpin" for creating a better, more stable Ravenloft after the first fell apart... Not that I'd want to create this pre-Barovia Core, and so it's just an idle idea, but whatever.

Anyway, I'd consider purposefully misreading "eons ago" to make it "centuries ago" and maybe even mention one in the 711 BC Catalogue of the World Entire (after all, the Black Box set can't be any earlier than 730 BC, as Verbrek doesn't appear until then, so a Core domain or two might have disappeared between 711 and 730). After all, we have a precedent of domains leaving the Core (Bluetspur, Nightmare Lands, Markovia and G'Henna) but they needn't be the first domains to disappear, just the first to disappear all at once, a "Great" Upheaval, if you would.

Might be false history?

Eh, not personally satisfying. But I'm not actually looking to use this idea any time soon, so I'm not looking for any particular answers either. It's just that I was curious if other people had *already* made something. I'm not trying to get people to *currently* make something or throw out any particular ideas.

After all, I could always create my own stuff. Of course, I still want to get that "Books, Poems, and Plays" list done, want to follow-up on my idea of Azalin's pre-Requiem familiar, wanted to create a Gundarakite ex-patriate community in Ste. Ronges (and only recently found out about Li'l Valachan, so need to take that into account), and would like to one day create an idea around a "Northwest Passage" through the Mists (sail west in the Sea of Sorrows from Dementlieu, through numerous Mistways, and find yourself in the Nocturnal Sea not far from Nova Vaasa). So this "lost domains" thing is just idle curiousity.

[Lucius]

Hail!

The owner of the site was Matt White, here known as "Daisu".

As I remember he had some ideas to develop those domains, nothing official. It was about 2 years ago. He was developing Bileplate with some inspiration from the "Hellraiser" series, the intentions were to make the domain a nightmarish and bizarre place.

Unfortunatelly he disappeared (both from this messageboard abd from the MSN were we kept most contact) and I never received another info concerning the project.

Daisu has sent me some ideas at that time, some of them I must have in one of my old CDs with beckuped RL Mesageboards topics.

I will see if I can found something this week.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Cool, thank you for the offer, LUCIFERABADDON! And feel free to take your time on it; if you don't find the time this week, just keep it in the back of your mind and try to get it whenever.

[Daisu]

That was my website.


Well besides these three, there are more lost domians, one mentioned in Forge in Darkness and two refered in spellfire (ie UnderRavenloft, and there was another as well from a newer set). And there are many more, that even the hardcore ravenloft fans do not know of that been cut from print or limited semi-canon islands of terror. I was gathering what canon info that there was then piecing it together to be useable. Was even putting their placement by the first ravenloft maps, where the borders did not exceed to the landmass boundries. Also tieing NPCs from ravenloft spellfire cards. Also had a few of the RPGA ravenloft adventures and was trying to have talks with the RPGA to let authours like James Lowder to buy rights back or allowing a third party to purchase rights. They forwarded me to a lawyer that wouldn't reply :p

I remember that one of the authors of neither Man nor beast when was doing it for the ravenloft catalog, and was telling me they just added those domains as their own personal touch, but they are not flushed out beyond that point. Sorry for my vague memory, its been a long while.

Moridana I tied to the endless quest book.
Bileplate, from its location near nightmarelands and bluetspur back then, I made it revolve into madness aspect, I have a more revised edition but never finished and put it up.
Theka was going to be tied to the spelljammer Vampire I think, which I was working on.

Well did talk to authors,I know my Jeff Grubb interview should be on luccier site still. I also certainly remember speaking with one concerning the spellfire cards.


The reason for my disappearance was wizards of the coast buying up Ravenloft and my the wall the RPGA put up blocking my attempts to move forward in the project. I still check the boards once a month, usually when my name get mentioned.


Maybe I pick up the torch again, if there is intrest and dust off my notes and search my old e-mails.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Ah, I see. So everything that's done is already on the website, but currently you guys are in a more-or-less permanent hiatus. That's cool, though, as I was just looking to ease my curiousity, not looking for any hard and fast answers.

But thanks for the ideas already! I do like the idea of linking the name "Moridana" with the story of Velkaarn and his Bloodknife. Last I recall, canon only mentioned the city that Velkaarn controlled but never mentioned a domain name. As such, I found that to be quite good.

Perhaps I'll think about jumping into that, later on. I've got enough of my own ideas to go through first, though. But one day, if I get ambitious enough to start my "Historical Maps" project (maps of the change-in-domains as the Core grew, so one map of 350-47? of just Barovia, then 47?-51? of the "Barovian Cluster" of Barovia, Darkon, Mordent, and Forlorn, then etc etc etc), I'll probably add a few of the Lost Domains into the Core for small periods of time before they disappear again.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Very cool ideas there! Thank you for the link, my Lord!

Joel, am I right in guessing that you are already after the authors to persuade them to lend the material to the FoS?

[Dion of the Fraternity]

UnderRavenloft

Watch the Midway Haven site for details.

[Daisu]

Ah, I see. So everything that's done is already on the website, but currently you guys are in a more-or-less permanent hiatus. That's cool, though, as I was just looking to ease my curiousity, not looking for any hard and fast answers

Oh Underdread was going to be tied to dark delvers.
There alot more done, just not linked or transfered to the site. The group broken up, but I am still around and have alot of the info, just need more intrest. I had begun this project while working for the kargatane, who were going to cover these lost domians in the catalog once it was caught up, plus answer the quest if rpga material could become cannon.

But one day, if I get ambitious enough to start my "Historical Maps" project (maps of the change-in-domains as the Core grew, so one map of 350-47? of just Barovia, then 47?-51? of the "Barovian Cluster" of Barovia, Darkon, Mordent, and Forlorn, then etc etc etc), I'll probably add a few of the Lost Domains into the Core for small periods of time before they disappear again.

If you look at the blackbox maps, one can see the three domians were landmass goes beyond the domian borders of other domains.

[Joël of the FoS]

Joel, am I right in guessing that you are already after the authors to persuade them to lend the material to the FoS?

Sure if an article is made, the QtR is opened to it

Or if it's very big, a separate netbook release for this stuff.

Joël

[Lord Cyclohexane]

But one day, if I get ambitious enough to start my "Historical Maps" project (maps of the change-in-domains as the Core grew, so one map of 350-47? of just Barovia, then 47?-51? of the "Barovian Cluster" of Barovia, Darkon, Mordent, and Forlorn, then etc etc etc), I'll probably add a few of the Lost Domains into the Core for small periods of time before they disappear again.

If you look at the blackbox maps, one can see the three domians were landmass goes beyond the domian borders of other domains.

I'm sorry, but I didn't follow that... Could you reword it?

And my original thought was to have those three domains fill in the gaps of the Core's development. For example, Dorvinia appears, IIRC, around 715. However, all of the domains *bordering* Dorvinia were already present, meaning that there was a random patch of Mists *in*the*middle* of the Core. This doesn't sit well with me. But what if, previous to Dorvinia's appearance, another domain altogether had been sitting in that spot? The domain would have to disappear before Dorvinia could appear (as Ivan Dilisnya walked into the Mists to create Dorvinia, so that spot has to be empty) but the previous domain could have disappeared only a year before or whatnot.

Note that Dorvinia isn't the only example of this, but the only one I can think of off-hand. So I was planning to plug some of those gaps with temporary domains that later disappear in lesser upheavals (as opposed to the Great Upheaval).

The above is the main reason why the "Historical Maps" project is the *last* on my list, as doing it requires me to make up a theory (or, better, multiple theories) on demiplane development. I have to deal with random gaps in the middle of the Core (Dorvinia, et al). I have to deal the "pushing" of domains inbetween other domains; e.g. canon now has the "Barovian cluster" of just Barovia, Mordent, Forlorn, Darkon, and Arak. But somehow Darkon and Barovia have to no longer border, as both Frantisek Markov and Yagno Petrovna travel north, into the Mists, from Barovia, to create their buffer domains which come inbetween Barovia and Darkon. Similarly, Barovia and Mordent have to no longer border, so that way Gundarak, Invidia, Arkandale, etc can appear between them.

Basically, the easiest is to introduce a planar mechanic for the disintegration of clusters back into their individual domains. Then, once the domains are broken apart again, they can reintegrate into a different cluster. One idea is to have the old "Barovian Cluster" disintegrate and create a "new Barovian Cluster" (Barovia keeps Forlorn, adds Borca and Gundarak and eventually Markovia and G'Henna) along with a "Mordentish Cluster" (Mordent is on its own for a while, eventually adding Dementlieu, Arkandale, Sithicus, Invidia) and "Darkonese Cluster" (Darkon keeps Arak and Keening, eventually adds Lamordia, Falkovnia, Richemulot, etc).

The above is not a real plan, mind you, just a general idea. I haven't memorized the order of domain appearance and am not sure of the exact reason for each appearance. I'd have to improve that later, but the above is the general idea. (Dominic D'Honaire comes from Mordent and goes north into the Mists; so Dementlieu is definitely part of the Mordentish cluster. Same way, the Timothy family is from Mordent, so Arkandale is part of the Mordentish cluster. But more difficult is Vlad Drakov leaving from Darkon, so Falkovnia is part of Darkonese Cluster, and then Claude Renier comes from Falkovnia so Richemulot is then *also* part of the Darkonese cluster). So I'll have to do a lot of research to make sure everything is in its proper order and that everything grows relatively sanely.

Anyway, you see a bit of the scope of the problem, and thus why this is the last entry on my "To Do" list. But this is still in the back of my mind, and I plan on eventually giving this a try.

[norms29]

(Dominic D'Honaire comes from Mordent and goes north into the Mists; so Dementlieu is definitely part of the Mordentish cluster. Same way, the Timothy family is from Mordent, so Arkandale is part of the Mordentish cluster. But more difficult is Vlad Drakov leaving from Darkon, so Falkovnia is part of Darkonese Cluster, and then Claude Renier comes from Falkovnia so Richemulot is then *also* part of the Darkonese cluster).

as a minor aside, the formation of Richemulot is probably the best time to reattach the Darkonese and Mordentish clusters, what with the "Reniers" apperance in pre-ravenloft Mordent.

I can't help with the actual maps but if you need anything else (referances from the books, help with possible connections, etc.) feel free to contact me. I seem to have one of the larger libraries on the boards have been looking for a project that doesn't need much from my weakpoints (plot writing and charactor design).