The Map: My personal domain

[jack]

This might sound a little...picky, so please bear with me.

I love maps. I can study them for hours and the Ravenloft map is driving me crazy. Where are the Amber Wastes, the Frozen Reaches, etc.? I know I'm gonna get the answer, "anywhere you want them to be," but I was hoping for a little more than that.

Has anybody done a map that has these places located compared to The Core?

If not, has there been a general consensus as to where on the map they should be? I can guess that the Frozen Reaches are in the north (I just associate north with being cold), but the Amber Wastes just don't seem to fit anywhere with any sense.

Lastly, I do have a map that shows places that have not been mentioned such as the island, Blaustein. Is there any information anywhere on these places?

I know this sounds petty, hence why it is a pet peeve, but any answer would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jack

[Jester of the FoS]

There is a map floating about that has all the major domains placed as if the world were a cohesive shape and not "islands" floating in a sea of Mist.

A map would be rather useless as there's no reason to thing they're staying still, all on the same plane for height, facing the same direction (one could be upside-down above the Core). It would be like mapping bubbles in a pool.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Even IRL climate-bands aren't going to be too applicable in Ravenloft, I'm afraid. Consider post-Conjunction Markovia: it's now a tropical island, yet its border is butted up against that of chilly Lamordia.

Think of the back room of a pet shop, where all the critters like tarantulas and reptiles are kept. You can have a hot, sandy terrarium sitting on the same shelf as a cool, wet one; it just depends where the shop owner finds it handy to put them.

Of course, in Ravenloft, the cages can get bigger or smaller or jump to new locations any time the Dark Powers feel like it, so it's even more erratic. You might as well try to draw a map of the Twilight Zone.

[HuManBing]

Markovia puts me in mind of the west coast of England. There's a warm current of water that flows up that way all the way from the Bahamas and Caribbean. So even though the rest of the island is cold, wet, grey, and miserable, the west coast has a latent sea temperature warm enough to support even palm trees. (I kid you not.)

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

Markovia puts me in mind of the west coast of England. There's a warm current of water that flows up that way all the way from the Bahamas and Caribbean. So even though the rest of the island is cold, wet, grey, and miserable, the west coast has a latent sea temperature warm enough to support even palm trees. (I kid you not.)

You counting Wales and Scotland as parts of England also? lol. They take up most of the west coast Wales has some palm trees also.

As for the locations of all the domains in correlation to one another, I would say it's DM's perogative, the plane is constantly shifting so the locations of the cores, islands of terror, clusters and floating pockets all vary. So I hate to say this to Jack but... wait for it... wherever you want them to be, heh. As said before, there have been a few maps online showing them all as a set of static world locations, but it just doesn't really work in Ravenloft where the landscape changes when a Dark Power sneezes or breaks wind

[HuManBing]

Heh, unlike most Americans I recognize the difference between England and Britain. (In boarding school I lost my house the General Knowledge cup because I answered "English flag" instead of "Union Jack". The rest of the lads were not amused.)

And yes, I think mapping Ravenloft together is a metaphysical exercise but you're not going to really end up with anything that makes hard and fast sense against all inquiries. The Islands float in the Mists and that's how it has to be, sadly.

[jack]

So I hate to say this to Jack but... wait for it... wherever you want them to be, heh

.
NOOO! I'm telling ya, this must be how a Dark Lord feels.

Actually, reading these posts made me think about how I'm approaching Ravenloft. (I'm somewhat new to the setting.) I'm thinking of this as a planet, but it's not.

So, by the reasoning I'm getting from these replies, one could start off in Mordent, head east for Barovia on Monday, enter the Mist and actually end up in Nova Vassa or the Amber Wastes. Next Monday they could try again and actually end up coming into Barovia but from the south.

The same could also be said for even leaving Mordent at all. The characters enter the Mist for Barovia but could wind up re-entering Mordent from another direction.

The map, for all it's worth, is just everybody's best guess. So, I could take a copy of the map, cut it up, and re-arrange it and it would still be correct. Even to the point of a new domain squeezing in between Mordent and Barovia. The Dark Powers could, in turn, alter the minds of everybody as to believe that new domain has always been there.

Is any of this correct?

There is a map floating about that has all the major domains placed as if the world were a cohesive shape and not "islands" floating in a sea of Mist.

If anybody knows where to find this please let me know and free me from my Domain of the Map.

Thanks ya'll,
Jack

P.S. Palm trees in the U.K.? Something sinister is afoot, indeed!

[alhoon]

So, by the reasoning I'm getting from these replies, one could start off in Mordent, head east for Barovia on Monday, enter the Mist and actually end up in Nova Vassa or the Amber Wastes. Next Monday they could try again and actually end up coming into Barovia but from the south.

Or even from above so you better behave! You don't want to end up a red splatter somewhere in mount Ghakis, do you?

OK, lethal transportation by the mists is very rare so it is unlikely you leave Barovia and you end 1500 feet over the ground but everything else is true to a certain degree.
I mean the Core's shape is stable more or less. Yes, a certain Monday your way home from the local inn could send you to Darkon; A domain may fit between Barovia and Invidia. Markovia may disappear and become a tropic island (oh, wait, that has happened already) but such occurences are rare.

Speaking of Markovia: What happens with the icebergs from Lamordia?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

The map, for all it's worth, is just everybody's best guess. So, I could take a copy of the map, cut it up, and re-arrange it and it would still be correct. Even to the point of a new domain squeezing in between Mordent and Barovia. The Dark Powers could, in turn, alter the minds of everybody as to believe that new domain has always been there.

Is any of this correct?

Any of these is certainly possible. OTOH, they're not daily occurances; the last time the Core was significantly rearranged, for example, was at the climax of a six-module metaplot mega-scenario (the Grand Conjunction) some two decades before the year when the Arthaus products left off. It's still remembered by the natives, although very, very few know its cause.

It'll be less disorienting if you keep in mind that, metagame-wise, the Dark Powers and the Mists are just tools for the DM: an excuse to set up the scenario you're planning to run, and customize the game setting as you see fit. Your PCs start out in the wrong domain for the adventure you've written? The Mists can take them where they need to go. You'd like to create conflict in a corner of the setting you think is boring? Plop a new domain on the map where it'll stir up trouble. You don't like the backstory of a particular NPC? Make up a new one, and rule that in your Ravenloft setting, the "canon" version is just "false history" that the Dark Powers implanted in people's minds.

DMs do this sort of thing all the time, with every game-setting. Ravenloft just has the advantage that mechanisms for such meddling are actually written into the environment: it's not you that's making these weird things happen, it's those inscrutable Dark Powers at work.

[BigBadQDaddy]

So, by the reasoning I'm getting from these replies, one could start off in Mordent, head east for Barovia on Monday, enter the Mist and actually end up in Nova Vassa or the Amber Wastes. Next Monday they could try again and actually end up coming into Barovia but from the south.

And just to be a pain, You could even leave Barovia on a Monday in 720 BC, enter the mists and end up in Nova Vassa on Sunday ...in 712 BC.
I love the mists...They make my lack of continuity fun!
This basic RL principle is actually the basis of my Yahoo Groups play by post. I figured it was the only way to run a single party of adventurers through a GC game since the six signs occur at different times.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

Following with what others had said since I last replied, it is your Ravenloft and you can play with it however you like. Just have fun and keep it fun

The Dark Powers and the Mists are tools, use them to your hearts content, just don't over do it, it might annoy the players after a while when they're constantly being whiskered here, there and everywhere whenever you feel like. The most successful games I've run in the setting have been largely kept a small area of the plane as a whole (like 4 or 5 neighbouring domains or a cluster), but what you do and what your players like are different to what I'd do and what my players would've liked

The Mists transporting people willie-nillie is somewhat rare, it happens to the odd person every year or so. Like, "where' old Bob go? It's taking him forever to bring the lambs in from the storm", that sort of thing. There are also Mistways that are somewhat fixed points that will transport a person from one place to another with the right criteria is filld (like having a certain rare constellation in the sky, or the forbidden wedding never meant to take place finally does, etc.).

You are correct though in your thinking, these things can and do happen, just not all the time. Though Outlanders (people imported into Ravenloft from other planes and/or worlds) often appear from time to time, many then vanish a short time later, often returned to their own places of origin, or, if you're evil like me, to other worlds entirely, lol.

Just keep having fun and you learn as you go along. Ravenloft can seem daunting at first, but you never even have to worry about many of the mechanics like Power, Fear, Horror, or Madness checks need never cme into effect if the players play well enough to avoid them.

Time travel is also fun, send them back a week to the place they started from and things get really confusing since there are now 2 of each player character around. Betetr yet, shift them and their future selves into another domain like Paridon and see what happens, heheheh