How do you pronounce Strahd

[Charney]

I think it really was only for the coolness.

Still, the "von" can easily be explained by a take over by foreign invaders who were german speaking. But with time, they slowly assimilated into the country they took over (a little like the Plantagenêts in England). The Von could be a remain of this foreign origin. The other ruling families could be natives.

Also, does it bother someone else that Strahd is always referred to as a Count while his father and mother were King and Queen? He should at least pretend to prince! Barovia can't be a simple county cause that would imply an higher hierarchy, which there isn't, in the Core.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Huh, interesting point on the presence/lack of the "Von" in the nobles' names.

I wonder if that's why EtCR changed Strahd's backstory? (Changed from the traditional "von Zarovich family retaking their land from the Terg occupiers" to a newer "von Zarovich family came in from afar and conquered the land" so no longer the good guys reclaiming the land)

[NeoTiamat]

Not necessarily...

Especially in more feudal societies, it was completely possible to be a Duke or a Count and not actually be subordinate to anyone. At some point in the past Barovia was probably part of some massive Roman-like empire that instituted a system of noble titles subordinate to some far off liege. Later the empire collapsed or retreated or simply disappeared, but the land would forever afterwards be called the County of Barovia.

[Charney]

Not necessarily...

Especially in more feudal societies, it was completely possible to be a Duke or a Count and not actually be subordinate to anyone.

Actually no. Not in medieval France or Germany at least. Even if the king barely had any real power, he still was at the top of the hierarchy in theory. Even the mighty duchy of Burgondia (Bourgogne in French) was technically vassal to the king of France.

But the problem with Barovia was that they referred to Barov and Ravenovia (Strahd's parents) as royal. But it seems to have been fixed cause in both Gaz I and EtCR I don't see royal titles any longer.

And don't worry about it, it's just the feodality historian in me nitpicking

[Charney]

Huh, interesting point on the presence/lack of the "Von" in the nobles' names.

I wonder if that's why EtCR changed Strahd's backstory? (Changed from the traditional "von Zarovich family retaking their land from the Terg occupiers" to a newer "von Zarovich family came in from afar and conquered the land" so no longer the good guys reclaiming the land)

They didn't change it: "I called for my family, long unseated from their ancient thrones."

But reading EtCR, they do claim Strahd killed his parents

[Rotipher of the FoS]

My own theory about the royalty issue, FWIW, is that following their exile, the Von Zaroviches' status was very much in doubt: yes, technically they were the rightful rulers of Borjia, but in practical terms the other noble clans -- most of whom, Barov had seriously ticked off with his post-Silver Knives crackdown -- were having seditious thoughts about elbowing them out of power. So long as Strahd needed the other nobles' military and financial support for his anti-Terg campaigns, he couldn't up and declare himself King, even after Barov died, because it would have encited more than just the Dilisnyas to turn against him when he needed them most. Had he had the time to consolidate his family's power, Strahd surely would have been declared King, but he never got the chance.

Beyond that, on a more personal level, "I, Strahd" makes it clear that the old veteran never really had the opportunity to mourn his parents -- his duties as general kept him from squandering time on grief -- such that it didn't really hit him that they were gone until Sergei arrived as living proof of the fact. Most likely, Strahd had assumed throughout most of his life that he'd be restoring his father to the throne, not claiming it for himself; "Count" might well be the title he'd expected to receive, once Barov reigned in the Balinoks once more. Even after he learned of his parents' deaths, he may not have felt comfortable with the idea of taking the title of "King" for himself ... at least, not until he'd had the chance to mourn them properly and pay his respects at their graves. Thanks to his fall, that chance never came -- he knows his parents were buried back in the lowlands of Old Borjia, so their crypts under Castle Ravenloft are a DP-created sham and don't count -- so he never upgraded his title.

[Ail]

Hi there,

first questions first: I never worried too much about how I pronounce Strahd. I pronounce it as if it were a Portuguese name, that is, exactly as written
- sibiliant 's' (like st in story)
- and 'ah' as in ... well, 'ah' (as of amazement)

Regarding the title: at least in the mythological Logres, which is nevertheless modeled after the XI and XII century feudalism known to the Normans, the King is anyone who holds land and is not vassal to anyone else.

But as nobility titles goes, Count is near the bottom of the scale, just above Baron (and you could also include Banneret and Viscount here, of course). Above count there is the Marquee (? spelling ?) and of course the Dukes. Dukes really are the really big landholders, and in many cases treated the same as kings. So, a ruler of Strahd's magnitude (holding a whole country) could well feel he deserved to be a Duke.

Finally, the Von. I think it must be exactly the same as 'de', 'di' and 'of' in the western european languages, prefixing the name of the land (the 'title') that gives the holder his rank ('Baron, Count, Duke, etc...). That is, his main feud. By this reasoning, Zarovich could actually be Strahd's county of origin.

Of course, these are only theories. I never read anything about German feudalism, actually, so I can't be sure.

Alex

[Charney]

Hi there,

Regarding the title: at least in the mythological Logres, which is nevertheless modeled after the XI and XII century feudalism known to the Normans, the King is anyone who holds land and is not vassal to anyone else.

But as nobility titles goes, Count is near the bottom of the scale, just above Baron (and you could also include Banneret and Viscount here, of course). Above count there is the Marquee (? spelling ?) and of course the Dukes. Dukes really are the really big landholders, and in many cases treated the same as kings. So, a ruler of Strahd's magnitude (holding a whole country) could well feel he deserved to be a Duke.


Of course, these are only theories. I never read anything about German feudalism, actually, so I can't be sure.

Alex

I know it sidetracks from the main subject, but I do study feudalism so I'll try to put my studies in use here.

Actually, the feudal hierarchy didn't work quite like this here: Baron-Count-Marquess-Duke-King-Emperor. It was rather a 4 layer hierarchy with general titles and it was all based upon the king and/or emperor loosing his royal prerogatives to his subordonnants who then lost it to the one below... etc until each one began reclaiming the powers from the bottow all the way back to the king (culminating with Absolutism in several kingdom, like Louis XIV's France). So from top to bottom:
1-Independant sovereign: King, emperor (in Germany), Pope
2-Princes: Dukes, counts, barons
3-Landlords and castle masters
4-Knights

The royal prerogative were taken from the knights pretty soon aroung the middle XIe century.

German feudalism, upon which we can guess Barovia is based, truly in started in the XIIIe century after there was 40 years with no emperor (thanks to the Pope). Only at that time did the emperor really start to loose his royal prerogatives (like making money or raising armies) to his vassals who thus became more and more independant. Before that, the emperor really had a more or less firm autority (compared to the king of France at the same time). That's the little I know. And I really don't know about more Eastern kingdoms like Poland or Hungary.

[tec-goblin]

Strahd as Ail says, with a rolling "r" - sounds pretty Rumanian. And Zarovich
as ZAH-roh-vitch. Nobody pronounces it in a different way (except from the rolling r which is less pronounced when we talk off game than in game) in Greece - we are very used of slavic names etc (while Rumanian is a latin language, names like Zarovich are clearly slavic).

(For some strange reasons IMC we used to pronounce Azalin instead in the german way - a player insisted on calling him "Her a-tsa-LIN" (it could be also a-TSA-lin, which makes a strange parallelism with the greek word for steel: a-TSA-li)

Indeed the whole von thing is typical of a setting created by a lot of different people, most of them didn't really know about the country of inspiration of a domain and were making it up. It's fantasy, so it doesn't really matter.

(In 7thSea, though, it's another issue. German and French names are ridiculous there - I prefer the french translations where they have everything corrected)

[Luke Fleeman]

Note on "Marquis" as a title from an earlier post:

This titles comes from being the ruler of "marches" or borderlands, hence the name.

Now, someone said Barovia must have German titular stylings- why is that the case, you believe? Count, Dukes, etc. are all present in England and France, and even in the early Byzantine Empire.

[Charney]

Note on "Marquis" as a title from an earlier post:

This titles comes from being the ruler of "marches" or borderlands, hence the name.

Now, someone said Barovia must have German titular stylings- why is that the case, you believe? Count, Dukes, etc. are all present in England and France, and even in the early Byzantine Empire.

I think that's what they met, that it shouldn't be count which is a French title (Latin: Comes, comitis). That Strahd should have a German title which in this case would Graf.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Or maybe it's a translation-issue. Who really knows what the Balok hierarchy of noble titles actually is?

And the old Bloodlines family trees for the Von Zaroviches, Dilisnyas and Boritsis make it pretty clear that the Old Borjian culture shows parallels to both Slavic (either Russian or otherwise) and German cultures IRL. When you have one brother named "Sturm" and another named "Sergei" in the same family, it's pretty obvious that the boundary-lines between these two ethnicities have long since faded into obscurity.

[Charney]

When you have one brother named "Sturm" and another named "Sergei" in the same family, it's pretty obvious that the boundary-lines between these two ethnicities have long since faded into obscurity.

I agree completely. In real life history, that's what happened when two cultures meet. For instance, the kings of France had three main names: Philippe (Greco-roman), Louis (Germanic) and Charles (also germanic). It's not too far from Strahd(romanian or slavic), Sergei (definitively slavic) and Sturm (Dragonlance???:shock:)

I think in the case of Ravenloft, it's just a matter of making it sound good. Does the name: Count Strahd von Zarovich sounds like a good name for a vampire? I think that's what mattered to the Hickmans when they chose his name. I doubt they wondered: Is it too slavic and not enough romanian?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

"Sturm" is German for "storm". Not a name that crops up IRL so far as I'm aware, but for a medieval family with a long military tradition like the Old Borjian Von Zaroviches, it's the sort of name they'd plausibly tag one of their sons.

FWIW, the Dilisnya family tree's Old Borjian entries are even more of a grab-bag: there's a Gunther, a Leo, a Reinhold, an Ivan, a Gertrude, and a Nadia ... not to mention a bunch of things (Pidlwik?! ) I doubt would qualify as real names, in any IRL culture. Granted, the Dilisnyas were a lot more wide-ranging than the Von Zaroviches, in their capacity as merchants/assassins, so they'd probably intermarried with (or stole the identities of) a lot more ethnic groups from their homeworld than the royals had.

[Ail]

There's also the curious case of England IRL where both Count and Earl exist for the same title. One is of French origin and the other is clearly Anglo-Saxon (or plainly Saxon, I guess).

After the Norman invasion, there was a difficulty of communication in the country, with the high classes speaking one language and the common people speaking something entirely different. This even gave birth to compound words like 'manorhouse' and 'courtyard' composed by two words with the same meaning in two different languages, so that in a speech both kinds of people (the Saxon-speaking and the Norman-speaking) could understand.

So, if IRL we have this mix up, why not in Barovia? Frankly I believe 'Count' was chosen because Dracula was a Count and anyway it was far more perceptible to everyone than Earl, Graf or anything else more true to ethnic roots. And let's not forget that there is another very famous and influential Count in literature who may well have impressed on the minds of people the sonority of this 'title': the Count of Monte Cristo.

Alex