Café de Nuit

The thread about golem psychology rekindled a long-dormant ember of an idea. What if an alchemist struck a deal with men who wanted perfect trophy wives, and arranged to create alchemical duplicates of their current wives or sweethearts? The men could provide the...raw materials...and the alchemist would disguise the whole thing as some kind of special vacation for couples to go on.

The latest movie chickened out on the real horror of the original, but I think there's still a lot of mileage to be gained out of this kind of horror. What do you think?

I remember the original. Something refreshingly twisted and vile for Ravenloft.

You could probably do something similar with Enchantment spells, but I'm not sure if that'd carry the same sting as alchemical children.

That said, it is an unusual angle for Ravenloft, since it focuses more on materialism and the shallowness of life than on the usual profound emotions of gothic horror. It's an idea, yes, but I'm not quite sure how thematically 'fitting' it is.

Well, what domain'd this be? I would imagine Paridon or Dementlieu.

Well, I have been toying with the idea of making the "Pleasure Golem" from the Book of Exalted Fantasy a dread golem. One which would go to extremes to satisfy the needs (or perceived needs) of its master.

And the idea of a twisted kind of "love" sounds gothic enough for me.

Dementlieu certainly, but not Port-a-Lucine. Someplace more remote, where something like this would be isolated. Plus the interest of Dominc and his nemesis would make Enchantment tricker, so Biomancy/fiddling will do much better.

On the other hand, a place like RIchemulot is just as suitable; or even Lamordia, where the Prussian rigidity may see girlish coyness as a weekness or a distraction from good , stoic labor. A local scientist looks at the women of town and says "I can fix them"....

WolfKook wrote:the "Pleasure Golem" from the Book of Exalted Fantasy

That's "Erotic"--ah, what the hey? Close enough. Actually that's the basic idea that inspired the dread golem that inspired the psychology thread. Instead of using wax and stitches, magic is used to mend the flesh into a seamless whole.

The original Stepford Wives was horrific more because of how inhuman the wives were after "treatment." To be stripped of your consciousness and free will like that...what kind of a waking nightmare is that like?

Actually, the original Stepford Wives weren't stripped of their free will. They were murdered and replaced with robots.

It seems we have some options here for the kind of story we're telling, and the kind of horror it inspires:

1) Enchanted slavery. For this, I'd recommend "To Honor and Obey" from DTDL. There the women are trapped in a living nightmare of magically enforced obedience. Raises questions about free will and slavery.

2) Pleasure golems. To give it a gothic twist, it's been suggested that one could "go bad." This has been done before--Season 5 of Buffy had a robot episode like this--but in having one go bad, you lose the horror that already exists when it's working just fine--objectification, simulated perfection, and the dehumanization of the opposite sex. In the Buffy episode, the horror is not the the robot goes berserk and hurts Warren's new girlfriend, but that Warren built himself a girlfriend in the first place.

3) Replacement golems. This was my original concept, and I'd like to stick with it. It's a family-next-door kind of horror, and sticks to the basic concepts of love, devotion, and people's desires to "fix" others. For my purposes, this is the kind of horror that I want, and I think it fits in Ravenloft quite well.

As for whether it would fit in Port-a-Lucine, I'm not sure I'm going to actually make it a village like in the original version. Perhaps it's a service that is spread out over many domains, with only one or two replacements in any area.

DeepShadow of FoS wrote: 1) Enchanted slavery. For this, I'd recommend "To Honor and Obey" from DTDL. There the women are trapped in a living nightmare of magically enforced obedience. Raises questions about free will and slavery.

For that matter, there's Hazlan - there's a good number of enchanters there that might decide things are much easier if everyone is enslaved to their will.

They probably wouldn't limit themselves to wives though, although 'Evil Wizard controlling prominent people' is a seperate story line.

Actually, if you replace "Stepford wives" with "Stepford everyone", you've got Meredoth's lebendtod in a nutshell.


Frankly, I'm not sure the original idea is as plausible in Ravenloft as in the real-life movie's era. Why? Because "respectability" and "fitting in" just aren't your average Ravenloft sexist pig's chief motivation for getting married. If you look at the descriptions of Core marriage practices, those cultures where the "replacement" idea would otherwise seem most plausible -- Dementlieu, Borca, Darkon, Richemulot -- are also the ones where people marry for economic and political convenience, not attraction or "keeping up appearances". Replacing one's wife with an obedient robot might work if you only need her to smile and dress nicely, but if she has to bear you heirs and keep her wealthy parents from cutting you out of their will, then replacing the real woman with a robot/golem/clone isn't going to cut it.

Come to think of it, it might work better if women arranged to replace their husbands, in a society where women legally have no economic power. If a woman in Falkovnia is powerless to spend money, hire employees, or sign contracts without her husband's say-so, there'd be a strong motivation for wealthy heiresses to marry some guillible dolt, then have him replaced before he starts getting ideas that it's his money.

DeepShadow of FoS wrote:Actually, the original Stepford Wives weren't stripped of their free will. They were murdered and replaced with robots.

Oh. Wrong movie, then. Damn, I know I saw one like the Stepford Wives that was from the mid-Sixties. Same idea, different methods.

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:Come to think of it, it might work better if women arranged to replace their husbands, in a society where women legally have no economic power. If a woman in Falkovnia is powerless to spend money, hire employees, or sign contracts without her husband's say-so, there'd be a strong motivation for wealthy heiresses to marry some guillible dolt, then have him replaced before he starts getting ideas that it's his money.

I like the way you think, Rotipher.

High Priest Mikhal wrote:Damn, I know I saw one like the Stepford Wives that was from the mid-Sixties. Same idea, different methods.

That would be the TV-movie sequal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of ... ford_Wives

Note that none of the movies were actually set in the Sixties; the women just dressed that way, to emphasize the idea that they acted like brain-dead "happy homemakers" from out of the past.

Deepshadow of the FoS wrote:1) Enchanted slavery. For this, I'd recommend "To Honor and Obey" from DTDL. There the women are trapped in a living nightmare of magically enforced obedience. Raises questions about free will and slavery.

I like the idea of being "trapped in a living nightmare of magically enforced obedience". Kind of an "Ella Enchanted", RL style.

Deepshadow of the FoS wrote:2) Pleasure golems. To give it a gothic twist, it's been suggested that one could "go bad." This has been done before (...) but in having one go bad, you lose the horror that already exists when it's working just fine (...)

It should not lessen the horror if you keep most people unaware of the golem "gone bad". Perhaps the golem gone wrong is the one behind the strings of it all, having started mass production in the first place (Not unlike Stepford), either to validate the need of its own existance. Perhaps "she" is the only "living" golem, or to create the perfect environment for its "beloved" to live in... (Talking about that... Has there been discussion about "The Truman Show" in this forum?)

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:Frankly, I'm not sure the original idea is as plausible in Ravenloft as in the real-life movie's era. Why? Because "respectability" and "fitting in" just aren't your average Ravenloft sexist pig's chief motivation for getting married. If you look at the descriptions of Core marriage practices, those cultures where the "replacement" idea would otherwise seem most plausible -- Dementlieu, Borca, Darkon, Richemulot -- are also the ones where people marry for economic and political convenience, not attraction or "keeping up appearances". Replacing one's wife with an obedient robot might work if you only need her to smile and dress nicely, but if she has to bear you heirs and keep her wealthy parents from cutting you out of their will, then replacing the real woman with a robot/golem/clone isn't going to cut it.

What about "love" -or, better yet, the longing for love -? Say you're just an outcast -maybe a caliban, or someone who doesn't really "fit in" as you say, and you long for company and someone who can be at your side, but all women you meet abhor you, or are creeped by you. Then, someday, you hear that there is "this guy" who can give you a perfect, beautiful, loving "wife"... Won't you jump to the chance?

I know some Dominic who would like the idea...

Deepshadow of the FoS wrote:3) Replacement golems. This was my original concept, and I'd like to stick with it. It's a family-next-door kind of horror, and sticks to the basic concepts of love, devotion, and people's desires to "fix" others. For my purposes, this is the kind of horror that I want, and I think it fits in Ravenloft quite well.

Also like the idea, but as Roti points out (And yes, I've learn since I last quoted him), that would create the need of a reason behind the replacement. Perhaps it could be a strictly religious village where all those who don't stick to the status quo are replaced... And newcomers are not aware of the fact.

WolfKook wrote:Say you're just an outcast -maybe a caliban, or someone who doesn't really "fit in" as you say, and you long for company and someone who can be at your side, but all women you meet abhor you, or are creeped by you. Then, someday, you hear that there is "this guy" who can give you a perfect, beautiful, loving "wife"... Won't you jump to the chance?

Not a bad idea on the small scale, if we're talking about one "wife" rather than a townfull. Perhaps even the basis for a dread golem's creation by the caliban, itself? But for mass-production replacement, social outcasts probably wouldn't cut it, as they wouldn't, by definition, have sufficient "pull" to back such a large-scale operation as Stepford.

As for Dominic, I'm not sure if he'd actually find a golem very satisfying as companionship. Remember, being in the company of anyone he can't mentally influence -- his own descendents included -- tends to creep him out. Wouldn't he inevitably come to suspect the golem's maker of having wired some hidden agenda into it?

I wasn't thinking of making it an actual entire village. Perhaps it would work better as a discrete marriage counselor/matchmaker for nobles in many domains, or even as a mail-order bride service. Perhaps throw in a little bit of Boys from Brazil, with men from wildly different parts of the Core finding out their wives are identical.

It's a good point, though, about what kinds of wives men are looking for in different areas. In the different remakes and sequels, there have been changes regarding the motives of the men. Though the latest remake was awful, one thing I liked was how the women had all been more successful than their husbands, and the men had felt shoved aside. This is but one way to adapt this to the culture of the times.

If we do this for RL, we might look to areas where women are getting more powerful, or where the society is getting more patriarchal. Borca has arranged marriages, which are notorious for dissatisfaction, so that's a possibility, too. The nobles of Nova Vaasa are probably known for arranged marriages. Then again, maybe these are individual cases scattered through many domains.

Even supposing that the two main priorities of men are money and an heir, this doesn't eliminate all our options. Perhaps these replacements would take place later, after the ink is dry on the inheritance and the kids have all been born. For an older man, this would allow him to have his wife back at a younger age, even! I'm envisioning an exotic resort where women come back young and vigorous....and not inclined to nag anymore. Who could refuse?