Café de Nuit

Hello,

One of the things I have disliked about Ravenloft is that many of the regions of the world beyond Europe only have 1 domain, and more often then not they tend to be well stupid. Such is the case with Africa and the wildlands that I thought to make a mini-core, or a large cluster of a handful domains. So I thought I would put my ideas here.

So to start with I will start with the first Domain, Wolyata, which I am having difficult in figuring out who should be the darklord and what his/her curse should be.

Wolyata is a medieval style kingdom inspired by medieval Ethiopia, that is changing now that they ousted the former darklord of Sefanit, a century or so ago., a vicious tyrannical were-Hyena whom was infamously brutal and cruel and ruled capricously. She did unite Wolyata, but it was through terror and bloodshed.

Then came Araya, who destroyed her and took the title Araya the 1st of the Ezradine Dynasty, for he converted to Ezra. Duing his life he brought the kingdom out of this dark age and into a modern age. He made the church of Ezra the state religion, and due to the ousting and state support, it exploded in popularity. He created a new nobility to help run the kingdom, opened diplomacy with his neighbors and in short improved life dramatically from the reign of Sefanit.

Now Araya has recently passed away, and by law his title goes to his eldest son, Addisu, whom is a boy of 8 years old. Since he is just a boy, a regency council is ruling the kingdom, till the child becomes of age.

I should mention the faith of Wolyata, which is Ezra, but they have their own distinct church completely separate from the Core's church of Ezra. For the mists managed to take one of the missionaries during the early days of the church, before the schism, and drop her into the kingdom of Wolyata. Since she never experienced the schism, she could not bring that information with her, and thus the Church of Ezra in Wolyata developed on its own path.

Now I am not sure whom should be the darklord of the new kingdom and what his or her curse should be. The darkness should be hidden, since I want the idea to be a kingdom where people might feel safe, at least at first.

So I thought I would ask the people on the fraternity of shadows for any ideas and feedback.

Hmm, let's look at your timeline. How long ago was Sefanit defeated? If there has been a single darklord since Sefanit's destruction, the new darklord would've had to have been long-lived enough to still be lord of the domain to this day AND already have accrued a long list of sins back at the time Sefanit was destroyed.

As far as potential darklords that work in subtle ways, somebody on the regency council (or a hidden power pulling their strings) is the first thing that jumps out at me. Alternatively, perhaps one of Sefanit's subordinates survived and learned from her mistakes, lurking in the shadows and bringing a werejackal comeback from the shadows rather than using overt tyranny.

So is the darklord for this domain different than the ruler of said domain? You seem to be stating that the domain ruler has changed 3 times. Secular rulership can be passed down father to son, but Ravenloft domain rulership doesn't transfer at ruler's death - its not something you can inherit (nor would ever want to). So I'm a little perplexed by your premise - it doesn't sound very Ravenlofty to me.

A hyena skin-changer (or werehyena) seems appropriate for an African based domain. I could also see something based on Yoruba culture, the predecessor for Voodoo or Santeria based religion as something that could exist in a Ravenloft Africa setting.

The Lesser Evil wrote:Hmm, let's look at your timeline. How long ago was Sefanit defeated? If there has been a single darklord since Sefanit's destruction, the new darklord would've had to have been long-lived enough to still be lord of the domain to this day AND already have accrued a long list of sins back at the time Sefanit was destroyed.

When is actually something I am wondering about. The Mordentish Missionary who founded the Wolyata church of Ezra came from before the schism that split the Church of Ezra into different sects, thus allowing the church to take a different shape then it did in the core.

My question is this, what year is regarded as the current year typically, and how long ago was this? I assumed it was long enough that the secular ruler, would have to change at least once. However I am picturing that the darklord who took over after Sefanit was destroyed, would be the same.

Of course if it was well within the time frame that it would make sense for Araya to still be king, then he can easily become the darklord, and I can scrap the regency idea.

As the idea for the darklord whom replaced Sefanit changed his/her darkness from overt, blood thirsty Tyrany that characterized Sefanit's reign to horror hidden under a facade of goodness and piety. Which would repersent the type of horror that modern Wolyata would have as well.

If you're looking for statistics to use and an idea for an Africa like continent, the Kingdoms of Kalamar book Svimohzia: the Ancient Isle would be a good source. This was a great setting where they did a lot of research for most of their projects (like their awesome atlas).

There have been some cases of "You break it, you bought it" sort of thing where the person who killed the previous darklord became the new darklord. And this often happened with a transfer of political power too
examples:

Invidia: Bakholis -> Gabby Adderre
Borca: Camille Dilisnya -> Ivana Boristi
Richemulot: Claude Renier -> Jacqueline Renier
Gundarak (briefly): Duke Gundar -> Dr. Dominani

However, in 3 out of those 4 cases, those were arranged assassinations enabled by the close positions the upstarts had with the former darklords. Just because a creature beats a former darklord doesn't mean he/she becomes the new darklord. (Many of the modules where a darklord is destroyed has the domain just piff away, dumping the characters wherever the DM wanted them to go. OTOH, other modules (most notably, Castles Forlorn IIRC) speculated that the domain might be handed over to the next most evil/suitable creature for the darklord.
Inza, for example, inherited the domain of Sithicus from Lord Soth upon his departure from Ravenloft. However, she did not become the secular ruler of the land. So temporal rule and being the darklord don't necessarily have much to do with each other either.

As for the current "year" in Ravenloft, I find that somewhat confusing as for a while Ravenloft had a incremental change of years that followed real time. However, in the last published Ravenloft supplement for 3.X, the year was somewhere in the higher 750s BC (barovian calendar). In Ryan Naylor's conversion of Ravenloft for Pathfinder, he puts the current year at 760 BC

There is also the case of Dominic D'Honaire, being the darklord and not the temporal ruler.

Which now gives me the idea that it could be the grand Chancellor, or a similar position. Since, not everyone who would have joined Araya's war against queen Sefanit would have been the most moral person. Of course the question is what sort of curse should he have?



BTW Sefanit is inspired by the legends of theYodit/Gurdit

Hey vyshan!

I created an African domain in the past, which was supposed to be in the first "Worlds of Ravenloft" netbook. It's named "MUBONYETE", and its darklord is a primal lich (I used 4E). I based the culture on the Samburu people of Kenya and the Dogon people of Mali.

You can download the write-up PDF of Mubonyete here:

http://mhobservatory.blogspot.com/2010/ ... ds-of.html

Resonant Curse wrote:If you're looking for statistics to use and an idea for an Africa like continent, the Kingdoms of Kalamar book Svimohzia: the Ancient Isle would be a good source. This was a great setting where they did a lot of research for most of their projects (like their awesome atlas).

Even better: the Nyambe campaign setting

Bluebomber4evr wrote:

Resonant Curse wrote:If you're looking for statistics to use and an idea for an Africa like continent, the Kingdoms of Kalamar book Svimohzia: the Ancient Isle would be a good source. This was a great setting where they did a lot of research for most of their projects (like their awesome atlas).

Even better: the Nyambe campaign setting

That seems useful for a number of ideas, and I do like Atlas games. That said, it seems to play up the tribal aspects, which while fine is something I do not wish to include too much of; as that tends to be the main image that africa has.

I have ideas for domains based off of the Swahili city states, the kingdom of Zulu, the kingdom of Great Zimbawa, the empires of Mali and Songhai and other African realms.

I do have a few questions that perhaps others can help with.

1.) For the Darklord of Wolyata, I have settled on the idea that the current darklord will be the grand Chancellor, who is currently also the cheif regent of the young prince. He hides his darkness behind a mask of piety and noble. The question is what should his curse be?

2.) for my Swahili counter-part: the darklord I know more about, he is going to be one of the princes of one of the city states. This will be a land where everything is available, yet despite having everything he could ever want from gold, to ivory, to spices and slaves, he is denied the one thing he desires most of all. My question is what should that thing be.

3.) When it comes to religion, a large number the various states where islamic states, from the swahilli city states to pretty much most of the west-african empires. The question is what sort of religion should replace it?

4.) when I am done with all of this, I had thought of doing some gazeteer style documents describing the various lands in depths. I wonder how much others would be interested in reading them?

vyshan wrote:

Bluebomber4evr wrote:

Resonant Curse wrote:If you're looking for statistics to use and an idea for an Africa like continent, the Kingdoms of Kalamar book Svimohzia: the Ancient Isle would be a good source. This was a great setting where they did a lot of research for most of their projects (like their awesome atlas).

Even better: the Nyambe campaign setting

That seems useful for a number of ideas, and I do like Atlas games. That said, it seems to play up the tribal aspects, which while fine is something I do not wish to include too much of; as that tends to be the main image that africa has.

I have ideas for domains based off of the Swahili city states, the kingdom of Zulu, the kingdom of Great Zimbawa, the empires of Mali and Songhai and other African realms.

Nyambe is much more than that. It's got many different cultures beyond "tribal" and many based on the cultures you've mentioned. It's the only campaign setting I've ever seen which comes close to the richness and vastness of Africa and its people.

Either way, it has lots of stuff that would be of use to making an African-inspired Ravenloft domain: monsters, magic items, new spells, new feats, new classes and prestige classes, etc. I highly recommend it.

ah, thanks bluebomber, I will check it out then. As at first from the cover and what I glimpsed it seemed to focus more on tribes, but if it focuses on the various cultures and kingdoms that like everywhere else on earth are interesting, then I will check it out.

I would love to see a well-researched African Cluster in the next QtR, that's for sure.
I would also like a "colonial" domain with 1500-2000 Renaissance guys, many of them soldiers, vandalizing the lands and holy places of the 15000 - 20000 or so iron age inhabitants.
Perhaps an invasion force that the leader rebelled against the authority that sent him, committed crimes on his own people and the locals and "earned a part" of the domain?

Please, please, please, keep in mind the population density estimates. North Africa was dense in the middle ages, while jungles were mostly empty.

PS. Ethiopians were Monophysite IIRC, a Christian sub-religion. I don't know if their religion being non-Catholic and non-Orthodox created problems for them in the middle ages with the Crusades and all.

alhoon wrote:I would love to see a well-researched African Cluster in the next QtR, that's for sure.
I would also like a "colonial" domain with 1500-2000 Renaissance guys, many of them soldiers, vandalizing the lands and holy places of the 15000 - 20000 or so iron age inhabitants.
Perhaps an invasion force that the leader rebelled against the authority that sent him, committed crimes on his own people and the locals and "earned a part" of the domain?

Please, please, please, keep in mind the population density estimates. North Africa was dense in the middle ages, while jungles were mostly empty.

PS. Ethiopians were Monophysite IIRC, a Christian sub-religion. I don't know if their religion being non-Catholic and non-Orthodox created problems for them in the middle ages with the Crusades and all.

Oh a colonial domain would be good, a heart of darkness style domain; the question is whom should be the colonizers. The Portuguese had a strong colonial presence throughout africa especially during the Renaissance era; but there is no domain like Portugal IIRC.

As for the Ethiopian church it is a coptic branch IIRC, ethiopia during the middle ages had relations with both the muslim world and the europeans. I can't recall the name of the treaty between Egypt and Ethopia but they had some sort of non-agression pact with one another. They even had chapels in Jerusalem, and Saladin had expressly invited ethiopian monks and exempted ethiopian pilgrims of taxes to go to the city. They had a number of times sent ambassadors to the Papacy and other european kingdoms.

Speaking of the church, they created some really cool rock cut churches in the country which I want to use.

vyshan wrote: Oh a colonial domain would be good, a heart of darkness style domain; the question is whom should be the colonizers. The Portuguese had a strong colonial presence throughout africa especially during the Renaissance era; but there is no domain like Portugal IIRC.

Since this is a unique cluster, add a Portugal analog to fill that role. Maybe a land across the sea with a few cities forming the trade nexus between the African lands and the 'old world'. Now they are pulled into the Mists and have to deal with the new situation of being cut off from their own people and allies. Portugal came in shooting and swinging and playing as if they were big shots from a large country (versus the Dutch who came in far more subtly and set up trade alliances making them far more dominant in the long run), so the nation does not need to be that large. I like the idea of a colonial point at the heart of the 'dark jungles' as they too are kind of screwed for further support and resources, maybe even relying on other native lands for their needs in exchange of technology or knowledge. Or an added twist, the colony is from a competing nation/empire and is now fully cut off and must work with locals or their former competitor (the 'Portugal') as they are the closest thing their tech/cultural level.