Contest: Most Popular Domain.

Drinnik Shoehorn · Post by **Drinnik Shoehorn** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:52 am

I'm going to go with Forlorn, if only because when I first read Castles Forlorn, it blew me away. Still does every time I read it.

Sylaire · Post by **Sylaire** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:46 am

Put me down in the "Mordent" category. I10: The House on Gryphon Hill was always the defining Ravenloft product for me and the whole reason I even picked up the Black Box. Yes, as a playable adventure it wasn't much, but the story completely rocked. Unlike the original I6, which dressed up a dungeon crawl in Gothic garb, I10 had a genuinely tragic villain/protagonist combination, an excellent cast of characters, and some exceptionally atmospheric flavor text. The Mesmerist's Pendulum was deliciously atmospheric and a wonderful variation on Vistani card readings before Vistani card readings had even become passe. "Strahd von Zarovich" has always meant The Alchemist to me and the bloodsucking master of Castle Ravenlost just his Mr. Hyde.

(Indeed, my first attempt at Ravenloft fanfiction, written about seventeen years ago, was "The Dreams of Mordentshire," in which I transplanted the whole story to Regency England as a Dark Shadows-ish Gothic soap opera. I'd just gotten to the part where Strahd saves Virginia from Eowin Timothy and becomes horrified by his desire to kill another human being in the heat of battle when I gave it up...)

Gazetteer III did nothing but improve Mordent. I love the history and background, the people and customs, the fleshing out of settlements and classes (I still want to do a Lamplighters story...). And the nearly full-page Dread Possibility on the Alchemist Strahd...well, you already know my feelings there!

(Dementlieu, Souragne, Zherisia, Forlorn and Lamordia get my Honorable Mentions. Bluetspur gets my WTF?!)

steveflam · Post by **steveflam** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:50 am

Bluetspur:
Well what can ya do, it is WTF but hey imagine all those drow, not counting the illithids and even more nasty stuff. That was one module I just put aside and said to myself no way!!!!!

Vannax · Post by **Vannax** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:28 pm

Most popular domain....hm.....Kalidnay. But I´m not sure it is included in 3E domains. If not, then my vote for Tepest.

Drinnik Shoehorn · Post by **Drinnik Shoehorn** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:44 am

tarlyn st-denfer wrote:Bluetspur:
Well what can ya do, it is WTF but hey imagine all those drow, not counting the illithids and even more nasty stuff. That was one module I just put aside and said to myself no way!!!!!

Bluetspur's great if you want to run Lovecraftian horror games. Replace the mythos with illithidspawn and instead of the "horror from beyond the stars", you've got "the horror from beyond the Mists", which is much worse...

Sylaire · Post by **Sylaire** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:22 pm

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:
tarlyn st-denfer wrote:Bluetspur:
Well what can ya do, it is WTF but hey imagine all those drow, not counting the illithids and even more nasty stuff. That was one module I just put aside and said to myself no way!!!!!
Bluetspur's great if you want to run Lovecraftian horror games. Replace the mythos with illithidspawn and instead of the "horror from beyond the stars", you've got "the horror from beyond the Mists", which is much worse...

No frame of reference, though. Lovecraftian fiction (and Call of Cthulhu games) involve a relatively normal setting, then rips away the veneer to reveal the true horror under the mask. Bluetspur doesn't have a veneer, it's more like landing on an alien planet out of some 1930s pulp-fiction sci-fi/horror crossover.

Mangrum · Post by **Mangrum** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:36 am

Sylaire wrote:
Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:
tarlyn st-denfer wrote:No frame of reference, though. Lovecraftian fiction (and Call of Cthulhu games) involve a relatively normal setting, then rips away the veneer to reveal the true horror under the mask. Bluetspur doesn't have a veneer, it's more like landing on an alien planet out of some 1930s pulp-fiction sci-fi/horror crossover.

The "frame of reference/veneer" is the rest of the setting. Cthulhu has his R'lyeh, after all.

WolfKook · Post by **WolfKook** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:55 am

Perhaps because I love the whole voodoo concept (Though I'm not fond of the "hordes of zombies" type of story), perhaps because I really like the DL, or perhaps because my first adventure ever in the Realm of Dread was Night of the Walking Dead, my vote goes to SOURAGNE.

(With special mentions to Borca, Barovia and Dementlieu).

Sylaire · Post by **Sylaire** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:58 pm

Mangrum wrote:
Sylaire wrote:
Drinnik Shoehorn wrote: The "frame of reference/veneer" is the rest of the setting. Cthulhu has his R'lyeh, after all.

I'd have to debate that, though. The problem with that analogy is that the Mythos permeates the entire world; that is, the existence of Ye Awfullest Horrors is the hidden truth behind reality (indeed, a better Ravenloft analogue for the Cthulhu Mythos is the existence of Ravenloft itself--"My word, Van Richten, do you realize that this entire plane of existence is nothing more than a prison where innocent human souls are created solely to be tortured and abused for the amusement of the Dark Powers?"). Bluetspur's alienness stops at its borders; if the PCs botch a Bluetspur adventure they themselves, their loved ones, etc., etc. may be subjected to a horrible fate, but the world itself is never going to be at stake. There's none of that "The stars are right, and the God-Brain shall rise!"

Part of the problem, I think, lies in the difference between classic Gothic horror and Lovecraftian horror. Gothic horror always centers on the personal, the individual. It's not about saving the world, it's about saving individual lives, loved ones, or people's souls. It's what can make the taking of a single life (*cough* Sergei von Zarovich *hack*) an act of ultimate darkness. Lovecraftian horror can center on the individual if the story writer wants to write it that way, but the true horror is always alien, external, something that comes from outside us, while in Gothic horror evil tends to be something that comes from within human nature (one reason why Call of Cthulhu villains and cultists tend to have SAN 0; they've transcended mere human evil. The Illithid God-Brain is definitely a Cthulhuoid villain, but it's one that's been set into a universe that exists according to Gothic meta-rules, and so the effectiveness of its horror is limited.

cure · Post by **cure** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 10:41 pm

And yet that very personal horror is eminently on dispaly in John's story The Man Who Lost His Mind . . . wherein the Godbrain does reach out and touch someone . . . .

Ail · Post by **Ail** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:12 am

Well, I haven't voted yet, so I vote now.

Barovia. Does that mean Strahd reaches the top?

(Souragne is my second domain, by the way)

Alex

Isabella · Post by **Isabella** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 11:09 am

Dementlieu.

Rotipher of the FoS · Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:26 pm

Ail wrote:Barovia. Does that mean Strahd reaches the top?

Nope, he and Godefroy are still duking it out for the lead.

(FWIW, I haven't voted yet myself. Can't make up my mind whether I should go with my favorites to read about, to play in, to DM in, to just make stuff up about....

)

MillicanDarque · Post by **MillicanDarque** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:08 pm

Kartakass

It's where i started my latest and greatest campaign....EVER.

steveflam · Post by **steveflam** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:29 pm

OK so what are the totals now, guys?

Café de Nuit

Welcome, friends, to our establishment.

Contest: Most Popular Domain.