Café de Nuit

I'm watching the movie Vinyan, and there is buch of people in Burma called Sea Gypsies.

Has this concept been exploited with vistanis? How do you see it? Mistway experts?

Joël

I've wanted to do a Vistani tribe that concentrated on the waterways of Ravenloft for some time now. I had thought that a completely separate tribe might be better suited, possibly of Kaldresh tasque, than using one already known. VR counted 7 in his guide, but in the beginning of the description of Vistani, (players guide) it says there are an unknown number of tribes.

A few possibilities come to mind:
Slightly larger ships that sail the coasts, mist-led lakes, and inland sometimes, maybe as big as a modern sailboat, but not too much larger I think. That way you could have 2 or 3 travelling together, and seen as traders, not invaders. This would allow Vistani travel to sea locales much more likely.
Riverboat-like ships that remain inland, along rivers, streams, mist-led lakes again, similar to the boat owned by Larissa Snowmane. Again, 2 or 3 travelling together gives the group a feeling of many hands on deck. If the tribe is too small, problems become harder to overcome. Also many possiblilites of goods and services to be bought or traded can be on each boat.

There's also no reason that both types wouldn't exist. One perhaps a close ally, offshoot, or relative of the other.

Oh, and I saw Vinyan at TIFF a few years ago. Disliked it.

There was an article in QtR 20 where Dread Selkies were used as sort of an aquatic equivalent to the Vistani.

If you have any of the Greyhawk settings sources, the Rhenee were a collection of river-traversing gypsies in the world of Oerth. They appeared in the following references (I'm not sure how thoroughly, as I don't personally own any of these accessories):

Gygax, Gary. World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (TSR, 1983).
Holian, Gary, Erik Mona, Sean K Reynolds, and Frederick Weining. Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (Wizards of the Coast, 2000).
Moore, Roger E. Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins (TSR, 1998).
Niles, Douglas, and Carl Sargent. The City of Greyhawk (TSR, 1989).
Sargent, Carl. From the Ashes (TSR, 1992).

I've used non-Vistani sea borne gypsies in games. My homespun gameworld has them (called shypsies), and I have on one occasion imported them into Ravenloft.