Naming

[Scede]

Forgive me if this has been asked before but I have a question that I have either overlooked or not found yet:

I was just wondering if the world of Ravenloft was actually called that by the people that live there? It seems a bit ridiculous to call the whole known world the same as a remote castle in Barovia. "The Core" works okay but not great because it does not extend to the islands. What do other people call the world?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Most folks just call it "the world". Scholars or clergymen who want to distinguish it from the afterlife, the "Other Side" (= Near Ethereal), or all those fantastical-sounding places that crazy outlanders keep babbling about (Oerth, Krynn, etc) have been known to call it "the Land of Mists".

"Ravenloft" is, indeed, just some big lump of a castle in Barovia.

[LouisVendredi]

Most people (NPCs mostly) in my game call it "the land". Often capitalized when it is seen as semi-sentient kind of like when people talk about "the Universe" acting in this or that way.

[HuManBing]

Piggybacking off this question, I was wondering how many NPCs would know enough about it to call it "The Demiplane".

For a shortlist, I determined these ones:
Azalin
Strahd
Hazlik
Gwydion (possibly)
Vecna, while he was here
Yagno Petrovna might have glimpsed this in the end of Circle of Darkness
Obviously, most fiends (Drigor, Inajira, Gentleman Caller, Phantom Lover)
Soth
Jander Sunstar

Any others?

[ewancummins]

IMC , it's always ''the Land'' or ''the World''. The Core is strictly an out-of-game term, as far as I am concerned. 99.9%+ of NPCs have never even heard of a ''demiplane''. A lot of natives don't really believe in other worlds beyond the Mists- they think of such fabulous countries as part of the Land, but very far away.

Outlanders whose stories are too contradictory or bizarre might be thought madmen. ''You say your world is a ball floating in a great void, within a humongous crystal sphere, and people sail around in magical ships between the stars? Okay, then.... You feelin' lightheaded, maybe you oughta lay of the mead?''

[Scede]

Thanks guys!

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Piggybacking off this question, I was wondering how many NPCs would know enough about it to call it "The Demiplane".

FWIW, the whole "Demiplane of Dread" title seems to have been avoided by the 3E-era products, possibly for copyright reasons. I happen to like this change, as "Demiplane" seems like more of a game-jargon term than an in-character one to me ... plus, how would even the likes of Azalin be able to tell that it's a "demiplane", and not a full plane in its own right? AFAIK, the only real difference between 3E planes and demiplanes is that the latter are finite, and because the Mists are impossible to map, there's no way for scholars to determine if they go on forever or not. So, really, only the DM has any business knowing if it's a true demiplane; any use of that term in-character is either speculation or metagaming.

[Joël of the FoS]

And since Strahd named the castle "Ravenloft" in honnor of his mother, Ravenia, well ... How would Freud interpret this whole "my mother is my world"?



Joël

[Mangrum]

Piggybacking off this question, I was wondering how many NPCs would know enough about it to call it "The Demiplane".

FWIW, the whole "Demiplane of Dread" title seems to have been avoided by the 3E-era products, possibly for copyright reasons.

It was an edict from the original developer, who wanted to downplay some of the more fantasical elements, in a sense. I think. We never quite understood his vision of the setting. In this specific case, I think he found the term corny.

Anyway, N&J never told us otherwise, so we continued to "obey the last order received" until very near the end, when we slipped it in to see what would happen. Nothing did, so had things gone differently we probably would have started using it more frequently again. "Domain of dread" was always a paltry, muddled substitute.

[Chris]

Another funny thing comes into my mind. The Vistana in Ship of Horror names the "World" Ravenloft.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Shhhhh! If the Vistani are so psychically-powerful that they've been spying on what TSR named its product-lines, we don't want the news to be spread around!

[Garudos Celestar]

For a shortlist, I determined these ones:
Azalin
Strahd
Hazlik
Gwydion (possibly)
Vecna, while he was here
Yagno Petrovna might have glimpsed this in the end of Circle of Darkness
Obviously, most fiends (Drigor, Inajira, Gentleman Caller, Phantom Lover)
Soth
Jander Sunstar

Any others?

Isolde of the Carnival, of course.

While Van Richten admits that he cannot prove the planar theories, he does openly subscribe to them. However, he'd be more likely to use something along the lines of "our plane" as opposed to the term "demiplane."

Having lived among powerful Faerunian wizards, Von Kharkov is probably at least familiar with the concept of demiplanes, even if he doesn't necessarily realize that he's currently in one.

At least a few members of the Fraternity of Shadows have probably incorporated the demiplane concept into their theories. Of course, many of the Vistani may have a fairly shrewd idea of their place in the multiverse.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Even if some arcane scholars have made the connection between the Land of Mists and "demiplanes", they might find it tough to determine if Ravenloft as a whole is one such plane, or if each individual domain is one. (The Demiplanes of Dread?) Certainly, domains often function like separate planar pockets, particularly if you look at the likes of Vechor, the Nightmare Lands, or Aggarath.


The Phantom Lover isn't a fiend, BTW. I don't think his nature was ever officially nailed down, although Van Richten suspected him of being a ghost; in 3E terms, he might best be classified as one of the Fugued.

[DocBeard]

You could always do several options.

Rationalists use the Lamordian model of a 'Demiplane', a flat, mist shaped world that is not so crass as to be alive and aware, like superstitionists believe, but simply posesses unique natural phenomina we do not understand yet.

The average person, worrying more about getting through the week with food in their gut and not turned into something horrible for the fun of the local monster, local ruler, or both, probably just call it 'Here'. If they interact with the ocean or other clusters, they probably use 'The Core', and the various Cluster names, for ease of navigation.

The religious, with so many faiths centering on the strange connundrum of the Mists, probably prefer to call it, when forced to converse with eachother outside of the proper eucaminical context of behind a heavy mace, might use 'The Land of the Mists", which sounds both sufficently mysterious and possible to pronounce without a second tounge.

Finally, sailors, travelers, adventurers, scholars, Vistani and other undesirables probably use the unspoken landmark of the world, Castle Ravenloft, as a way to refer to their world in comparison to "other" worlds that may or may not exist: Ravenloft. It was the first major hunk of history to really manifest on the plane, and seems Important to the sort of people who actually need to worry about what the world is called when compared to the Etherial Plane, the Shadow Plane, the Astral Plane, or New Jersey, so it's as good a name as any.

And, naturally, it's probably not worth worrying about unless you're basing your campaign out of one of the place's universities, in which case a minor academic disagreement is probably the cause of several sinister, Domain shaking conspiracies, or at least some nasty looks at faculty dinner.

[Jack of Tears]

To the average person in Ravenloft, the next country over might as well be a fabled other world, as often as they get away from their homes.

If asked, most people would give the name of their village or sharehold first, then the region, duchy, etc. Eventually naming their country ...

To most it is simply, "The World" ... if their particular religion has a name for it, then they give that, but your typical citizen doesn't give it much thought.