Kalidnay - still living domain

[Vannax]

I read through some other background materials for Kalidnay, that you recommended me.

It seems to me, that Kalidnay was designed only to be a harbor domain for characters that are drawn to RL from Athas. Possibly this was the reason why in fact no futher gaming materials were published. In order to run some vaster adventure or even campaign in this domain, Kalidnay would have to change a little bit and needs to be supplemented with much more details. Futhermore there are some contradictions that must be cleared away.
Anyway, I decided to adjust this domain and make Kalidnay a fully-fledgled part of RL.

Well then, there are some basic details that I need to clear first:
* Despite it is an Island of terror, Kalidnay is surrounded with silt sea instead of Mists. Of course, it is illogical that there are mists around a desert domain. However, how can Vistani and any other creatures travel to and out of this domain? Is there some simple solution of this in other desert domains - Phrarzia, Sebua? (I have no gaming experience with any other of desert lands in Ravenloft).
* Thakok-An vs. Kalid Ma: One book refers Thakok-An as himself and Kalid-Ma as herself, another book reversaly, I even see some notes that Kalid-Ma is not a sorcerer-king, but Thakok An is…… this is a great mess. Can anyone tell what is the real state of things according to history of Athas? (I prefer the version in Domains of Dread: Kalid Ma as a sorcerer-king and Thakok-An as his top-ranking priestess.)
* Kalidnay has very limited natural sources, it can hardly support its civilized inhabitants and nearly all bigger animals were hunted. How about monsters in Kalidnay and their ecology? Most likely there couldn´t survive practically no monster that feed on meat (unless it hunts people or humanoids - even in this case such monsters would be very very rare and would have a big problem with reproduction).
* The domain itself and a number of inhabitants is not likely. If - as it is written in official articles - the gladiator combats take place in the arena nearly every day, then the population would either quickly drop to zero or will consist only of old men and children.
* Provided that Thakok-An is real domain lord, than he/she unlike other domain lords has in fact no unearthly power granted by dark powers. His/her only extraordinary power is to close borders with a wall of heat.

Do you know about any other disputable matters regarding Kalidnay? Please, note them.

From time to time I can inform you on how I go on with developing this domain, if you are interested in it.

[Brandi]

Well then, there are some basic details that I need to clear first:
* Despite it is an Island of terror, Kalidnay is surrounded with silt sea instead of Mists. Of course, it is illogical that there are mists around a desert domain.

The Mists don't *always* manifest as mist (though they usually do); I'd use sandstorms, myself (probably would for the Burning Wastes cluster as well).

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Where food supply, ecology, and population size are concerned, you'll definitely need to go with some kind of deus ex machina to account for that. One possibility is that Kalidnay could be a "time loop" domain, like Kislova became in Baroness of Blood: each dawn, the realm re-sets to the same condition it was in, when it was swept into the Mists. You could rationalize this as a side-effect of the sorcerer-king's own suspended animation, and the darklord's desire to "turn back time" so the disaster never happened. It can't run out of food or gladiators, because the ones used up one day will be back again on the next.

Monsters in Kalidnay might simply walk out of the Mists from the real Athas, from time to time. The Dark Powers do try to make the domains an accurate re-creation of "real" lands, and Athas without icky ravening whatchamacallits wouldn't be a particularly accurate simulation.

As for who's a he and who's a she, IIRC it's been cited on these boards that the Dark Sun products call (Material Plane) Kalidnay's sorcerer-king a male, and its high priest, a female. The first mention of Kalidnay, from the Forbidden Lore boxed set, had gotten things backward, but the designers corrected their error in Domains of Dread to placate annoyed Athas-fans.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

Kalidnay will appear in RLPHB format in the "Player's Guide to Ravenloft," Summer 2007.

[Vannax]

Dion: Interesting information. I didn´t know about that. Maybe you save me a lot of unnecessary work.