Café de Nuit

My recent campaign, Awakenings, is set in a drastically altered version of RL. The DP's have left, and the forces of the universe have caused RL to become much more like a prime material plane. Among other changes:

Strahd and Inajira were both destroyed in the conflict that drove out the DP's.

Sergei von Zarovich was resurrected as part of the same conflict, and now rules Barovia

The Mists have receded to small pockets, although they can still be summoned by Anchorites and some of the Vistani (see below).

The Vistani have begun settling down, and their powers are changing. Mist travel, curses and fortunetelling are becoming rarer, replaced by strange powers such as the ability to learn any language in seconds.

The Eternal Order, the Overseer, the Lawgiver, Zhakata and many other gods have ceased granting spells.

Gods of many worlds are vying for positions in the new pantheons.

Many inhabitants are turning their worship to powerful beings within the plane itself. Ankhtepot, The Gentleman Caller, the Illithid God-Brain, Death, Malistroi, Styrix and many others are dangerously close to godhood. There are even rumors that Madame Eva has already achieved such status, becoming the first deity of the new Vistani pantheon.

While there are no more Dark Powers checks, transposition with fiends is skyrocketing, as the inhabitants of the lower planes seek a foothold in a world with few gods left to defend it.

Darklords are free to roam, and some may even be free of their curses, but even the greatest are ill-prepared to deal with the power vacuum caused when their tormentors left.

Nathan of the FoS wrote:Tentative groupings. When you see domains grouped like this:

Darkon
.Lamordia
.Sanguinia
.Romagna (BoS)
.(Necropolis)
.(Keening)

it means that Sanguinia, Lamordia, and Romagna are all part of Darkon politically (in this case, their political rulers are, at least nominally, vassals of Azalin Rex), and that Necropolis and Keening are located in Tir-na-Nogth and are most easily accessible from Darkon.

DeepShadow wrote:The notation is great, but I'm wondering about the political division. If you wanted Darkon to be an empire or hegemony, why not chop up Darkon proper into the divisions we've already seen--Mistlands, Boglands, Mountains of Misery, etc.?

Other than that, could we make the domain of Addar an umbral extension of the Forest of Shadows?

Nathan of the FoS wrote:Well, the idea is that Darkon exerts a strong centripetal force on relatively weak polities, and so Lamordia, Sanguinia and Romagna fell beneath Avernus' sway. (It also does away with the somewhat weird question of why these "independent" places are being ruled by barons and what not.)

Neither von Aubreker nor Mircea is all that hot on really ruling, Azalin is far enough away that he can pretty much be ignored when convenient, and they get the security of being protected against Falkovnian or Nova Vaasan aggression (for Lamordia and Romagna, respectively) and the perks of having the roads and other infrastructure maintained (in Sanguinia) without having to arrange for all that sort of thing themselves.

DeepShadow wrote:Sounds like we're talking about a hegemony rather than an empire, yes? Are we going to recraft the false history so that these lands were always next to each other, and have dates as to when X land was subsumed by Darkon?

DeepShadow wrote:I mean the borders of Darkon have not officially moved to encompass Lamordia--for example--either with troops or the threat of them. Imperialist powers tend to take over a nation-state by force and either install a puppet government or just totally redesign the land. Hegemonical powers tend to conquer by less ruthless means and leave the leader in place if he/she swears fealty. The latter is cheaper economically, but can lead to more rebellion. Of course most states are a mix of both.

So I guess the questions are, do the Lamordians swear loyalty to Von Aubrecker or to Azalin? Do the Kargat operate in Lamordia? If a Lamordian criminal is put on trial, does Darkonese law ever figure into it?