Falk-fury rages on!

[ewancummins]

James, shall we relocate some posts?

[jamesfirecat]

James, shall we relocate some posts?

You can, I'm going to bed for tonight (not sure your time zone I am east coast so way past my bed time already.

[ewancummins]

I rather like the original 2E version of Vlad Drakov, where he is clearly inspired by Vlad Dracula-- only he's a mercenary who wants to conquer other lands instead of a prince defending his homeland against its would-be conquerors.
You could say Drakov resembles the negative images of Vlad Dracula that the Wallachian ruler's enemies/victims spread around Europe.
Not that the historical figure, even in a charitable reading, was exactly a nice guy!

But sometimes you have to fail a few powers checks to beat the Turks.

EDIT- This post probably belongs in the Falk-fury thread, so I'll move it there.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[ewancummins]

Other Falk-stuff

Stakes and vampyres:

Vlad has fought were-rats, purging them from his land. Maybe he also fights vampyres, impaling the blood-sucking humanoids whenever he catches any of them. Vlad Drakov, vampyre (note the Y: I mean the living humanoid types) killer. Because vampyres look like humans, these purges may be reported in neighboring realms as Vlad simply murdering more of his people, or maybe as him suppressing some kind of rebel faction or cult.

"I hear the rebels hold meetings at night where they spill their blood into a cup of wine, pass that around, and all drink from it to seal their oath. The magic binds them together so they can't betray the cause, even under torture."

----------------------------

Fertility

Maybe this has already been done, but perhaps Falkovnian women are especially fertile. Lots of kids. Low infant mortality. The king has encouraged a common folk belief that this blessing is in some way connected with his own virility and longevity ( it actually is, although Vlad only suspects this).

[jamesfirecat]

I love the advice and feedback, keep it coming.
Although maybe we should create a Falkovnia thread spin-off, to avoid clogging Alhoons' aging Darklords thread?

RE: Military dictatorship and NSDAP:
The thing is, the the Third Reich wasn't a military dictatorship. A military gov't would arguably have much better for Germany. Most of the Wehrmacht generals were basically sane and healthy men. Ditto the naval leadership.
Hitler had to make certain concessions to the traditional German military to get its support, even down to killing off a good part of the left wing of the NSDAP (not that the only reason he offed Rohm and those guys was to cozy up to the generals).

How to apply this to Falkovnia? Maybe the new king isn't really all that evil, only ambitious and expansionist.

You are correct I'm using the wrong term, Nazi Germany was not a military dictatorship. What it was, was a militaristic dictatorship, but on the other hand aren't they all?

Basically what I was trying to highlight is that Falkovnia is probably spending 75% and upwards of whatever money/taxes they have on their military, their entire economy is more or less geared towards it.

The problem is that it's hard to be ambitious and expansionist without becoming evil before too long especially when your plans for expansion are "lets declare war on some people and take their land" unprovoked aggression on a domain sized scale, is why everyone hates/dislikes/fears/thinks Falkovnia as "evil" in the first place.

RE: North Korea

North Korea...now that's a disturbing thought. It certainly offers a good model for a Ravenloft domain! I'm guessing propaganda in your Falkovnia has been quite effective in brain-washing a large part of the population? That's cool. Do soldiers and peasants in Falkovnia attribute amazing feats and powers to their king, beyond even his impressive actual (game-stat) abilities?


But I get what you are suggesting, Falkovnia IYC (and, it seems, in some 3E GAZ stuff, too) is a sort of totalitarian state. So what's the ideology? Nationalism?
How does the stuff about part-human children being property of the state, while the local people dislike such interspecies unions, fit in?
I always figured Drakov wanted some soldiers with demihuman abilities like infravision.

Is it maybe a human supremacist thing in your version? That could fit with Darkon being the big enemy.

I'm not saying it's super effective, but it is very present. I don't want to have Falkovnian citzens/peasants be happy about their lot in life, though the army should have surprisingly good moral considering that pretty much their greatest victory is that given three years they managed to retake one of their own cities.

I hate to go back to the Nazi well again, but it would be entirely correct/reasonable to have a Falkovnian expat in Richemulot (and going by Gaz 3 they make up 7% or so of the population) say "People forget that the first country that Vald Drakov invaded was Falkovnia." Because even if the Dark Powers made up Falkovnia from whole cloth, the people who are living there don't think that, they have a history that goes back beyond Vlad Drakov before they were subjected to what is probably the cruelest tyrant in all of Ravenloft, which is not an easy title to earn.

I'm not sure that Vlad Drakov really has an ethos behind his brand of rule or if he does it's less about nationalism and more about militarism for militarism's sake. Remember there are effectively no nobles in Falkovnia, only high ranking members of the military.

For the half humans being wards of the state, well here is my take on it.

First you have to keep in mind that elves and dwarfs and similar races (calibans too probably) are considered to be wards of the state/prisoners/slaves from the moment they are born in Falkovnia.

Vlad Drakov seems to want to completely destroy these races but has decided that he wants to do this by breeding them into non-existence rather than directly killing them off in any way beyond working them to death as slave labor. The Breeding them into non-existence plan is that if you have every elf marry a human rather than an elf, then there are no pureblood elves being born, and if you have those half elves marry a human then the result is a quarter elf, next generation an eight elf and so on and so forth until there's no real traces of elf left in the bloodline.

But the fact that the half-X's who need to be carefully controlled in how they breed could be why such unions are looked down/not desired by human Falkovnians, because no one wants to marry below their class/marry someone who is an even bigger worse off slave than they are. It could be that they don't want to marry someone and then have their half-X children become slaves rather than being able to actually raise them.

So it is a human supremacist thing in my campaign. I sort of wish Gaz 2 went into (or maybe I need to reread it again) why Vlad Drakov is so bigoted on that issue, but if I had to guess if he was from Krynn and being evil all the good non-human races (elves, dwarves) were his enemies, and all the evil ones (goblins, ogres he might have come before Draconians came along since I don't think it's ever been made clear when he first came to Ravenloft compared to what year it was in Krynn) were backstabbing monsters/brutes/cowards who could not be trusted.

Falkovnia is probably right on up there with Nova Vassa and Tepest (though Tepest at least has some excuse given their situation) as being among the most "speciesist" domains in the core, because to paraphrase Terry Prachett in Ravenloft white and black will happily work together, so long as they have green to gang up on.

You are right on the nose about the Vlad trying to build a cult of personality around himself, like claiming he once killed a foe by tossing an entire impaling stake at them like a javelin.

[jamesfirecat]

Other Falk-stuff

Stakes and vampyres:

Vlad has fought were-rats, purging them from his land. Maybe he also fights vampyres, impaling the blood-sucking humanoids whenever he catches any of them. Vlad Drakov, vampyre (note the Y: I mean the living humanoid types) killer. Because vampyres look like humans, these purges may be reported in neighboring realms as Vlad simply murdering more of his people, or maybe as him suppressing some kind of rebel faction or cult.

"I hear the rebels hold meetings at night where they spill their blood into a cup of wine, pass that around, and all drink from it to seal their oath. The magic binds them together so they can't betray the cause, even under torture."

Read Children of the Night : Vampires (if you can find a copy/pdf) and the bit on Jandar Sunstar which deals with an outbreak of Vampyres in Falkovnia and how the Falkovnians react to it, which is mostly by impaling everyone they find suspicious through the heart. You pretty much have it right, probably part of what Vlad does to keep himself in power is be seen as using his huge army to try and deal with all the various nasty monsters that are running around Falkovnia from vampyres to the rebels and what not.


----------------------------

Fertility

Maybe this has already been done, but perhaps Falkovnian women are especially fertile. Lots of kids. Low infant mortality. The king has encouraged a common folk belief that this blessing is in some way connected with his own virility and longevity ( it actually is, although Vlad only suspects this).

Kinder, Küche, Kirche, well maybe not that last one.

Still, you have a fair point that Falkovnia must be doing SOMETHING to explain how they can throw away huge chunks of their population invading Darkon every few decades (or sometimes more frequently) and yet not have a "lost generation" problem, since they certainly aren't replacing those numbers through immigration.

[ewancummins]

Right!

This also suggests that many Falkovnian soldiers might be in their teens.

Not the Talons, of course. They are the killer elite, selected from the ranks of the common soldiery. They've had time to mature, to "level up", in game terms.

The canon stuff about women being kept back from fighting and adventuring is simply common sense. Lose too many women and you can't replace your losses.
This logic behind that bit has nothing to do with 20th Century feminism and everything to do with pragmatism and cultural survival.
Now crank that up in a system geared towards war and a state with frequent executions.


RE immigration and emigration

I imagine people leaving without permission provide one source of stake victims.

On the flipside, maybe Vlad offers land grants to any useful male foreigner willing to accept the hawk brand?
He redistributes the property of condemned men, even selling off their widows?
This won't draw in nice guys. It could bring in a steady trickle of violent criminals, outlaws, and such. The scum of the Core.
(It won't be enough to offset major population losses, of course).

That's assuming the other darklords who are also political rulers haven't snatched up all available bully boys and misfits as minions.


Vlad may also have authorized polygamy and/or concubinage. He seems to practice it, yes? One man can impregnate multiple women. More soldiers and workers.

That might be another reason for his rule about part-humans being wards of the state. He wants his followers to make as many babies as possible, even if it means lying down with vile elves and such creatures. But he wants the half-breeds as servants and soldiers, not running about making trouble for him.
Soldiers with night-vision.


Make more.

[jamesfirecat]

Right!

This also suggests that many Falkovnian soldiers might be in their teens.

Not the Talons, of course. They are the killer elite, selected from the ranks of the common soldiery. They've had time to mature, to "level up", in game terms.

The canon stuff about women being kept back from fighting and adventuring is simply common sense. Lose too many women and you can't replace your losses.
This logic behind that bit has nothing to do with 20th Century feminism and everything to do with pragmatism and cultural survival.
Now crank that up in a system geared towards war and a state with frequent executions.


RE immigration and emigration

I imagine people leaving without permission provide one source of stake victims.

On the flipside, maybe Vlad offers land grants to any useful male foreigner willing to accept the hawk brand?
He redistributes the property of condemned men, even selling off their widows?
This won't draw in nice guys. It could bring in a steady trickle of violent criminals, outlaws, and such. The scum of the Core.
(It won't be enough to offset major population losses, of course).

That's assuming the other darklords who are also political rulers haven't snatched up all available bully boys and misfits as minions.


Vlad may also have authorized polygamy and/or concubinage. He seems to practice it, yes? One man can impregnate multiple women. More soldiers and workers.

That might be another reason for his rule about part-humans being wards of the state. He wants his followers to make as many babies as possible, even if it means lying down with vile elves and such creatures. But he wants the half-breeds as servants and soldiers, not running about making trouble for him.
Soldiers with night-vision.


Make more.

I can without a doubt seen teenage Falkovnian soldiers setting off from their families trying to make a better life for them the only way they possibly can, by joining up with the army which is remember the only upwardly mobile part of Falkovnian society. Now I'd need to look/reread Gaz 2, but I think the army is relatively merit, or at least in the sense of "staying alive" based when it comes to promotions with a few extra positions made near the top for Vlad to hand out to his various sons be they legitimate or not, so its not like those kids are wrong that if they're incredibly lucky they might survive and make a lot of money for themselves and their families.

I think that Vlad doesn't plan far enough ahead to figure out the population fluctuation issue (though his son might) it's just a happy concidence and he's a misogynist, or at the very least extremely hidebound in his views. He thinks that war is still about huge formations of soldiers with pike and bow, and he thinks that women should clean the house and bring him a sandwich.

He probably seizes most of the the property of those he executes and then uses it to buy more weapons/armor and may give the land to whatever General has most pleased him at the moment. I'll need to reread Gaz 2 to be completely sure on what his recruitment policy is like for people who aren't from Falkovnia.

I'd be surprised if it isn't a "a man can have as many women as he can properly care for" sort of thing, where ordinary peasants have normal family units with one husband to one wife, and the more higher up you get the more the ratio shifts towards one man to many wives on average.

The "soldiers with night vision" is in MY campaign giving Vlad too much credit. Maybe personal assassins with night vision, but a man who hasn't yet figured out that gunpowder is a thing that is useful to an army after trying and failing to invade nations with that technology several times is probably too wedded to the concept of armies pausing the fighting at night because that's the way it's always been done and that's the way that he wants to keep doing it, to think of the idea of having an entire army of people who can see in the dark leaves you with other options.

Basically few Darklords are doing more to make their domain a bad place to live than Vlad Drakov, not only does he impose a horrible dictatorial rule that transforms his nation into a totalitarian nightmare, but his thinking about how to run a war are so backwards and out of date that even pouring all these resources into creating the largest army in the Core, he still winds up getting pathetic results without the Dark Powers ever needing to obviously intervene and enforce his curse about not being able to successfully invade another land.

For another example of that in Gaz 2 it talks about how every so often Vlad gets the help of Lamordians to make warmachines that are very impressive looking but never quite as effective on the field. I imagine these to be the midevil equivalent of the Maus Tank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus or deciding that when you have the world's first operational jet powered fighter aircraft, you should put it to use as a ground attack craft, rather than a dog fighter.

That's another reason that I tend make comparisons between Falkovnia and Germany or Vlad Drakov and Hitler, they both seem to have an absolute genius for making exactly the wrong military decisions every chance they get, though I suppose with Hitler it was about always wanting the next new thing rather than what they had at the moment that was good enough while Vlad Drakov is all "Pike and bow formations were good enough for my father and his father and so they're plenty good enough for me!"

[ewancummins]

Given the population differences, Falkovnia probably could conquer some of the smaller , higher CL realms with pike and bow. Too bad for him the neighboring lords can use their border closure powers.

One of the main advantages of guns is that they are relatively easy for soldiers to learn to use.

AH, but that's not true in 3E Ravenloft rules. Quite the opposite. Guns require an exotic weapon feat to use.

Anotehr question: is the gunpowder in Ravenloft real gunpowder, or 'smokepowder'? Because if it's the latter, with the unusually high prices most D&D/AD&D stuff gives out to powder, it's not economical to use to equip large forces.
How much do muskets cost in the rules you use?
What about cannon?

This is a case in which the game rules really do matter.

If guns are expensive and not much better than crossbows, then how is Vlad stupid for not using them?

If guns are relatively cheap, it's easy to train soldiers, and anybody with the right ingredients and equipment can make powder--no spell casters needed-- then he is overlooking a major resource.

I note that none of the militia/soldiers listed in the Black Box use guns.

Guns seem to have become more common in Ravenloft publications over time.
Which isn't surprising, as TSR was introducing various guns and gunpowder-like technologies in Mystara, Krynn, Realms, and so on throughout the 1990s.
And of course, Ravenloft featured some advanced technologies from early on.
So we go from a blunderbuss being an unusual otherworldly artifact in one early module to guns being standard issue for some domain's soldiers by the very late 1990s.

What's interesting is the way Medieval gunpowder weapons tend to get short shrift in D&D.
But if the same setting has flintlock muskets and hand match fired culverins, I would wonder why the culverin makers hadn't switched over to making proper muskets.


That gets into some questions about the CL system introduced in Domains of Dread, and why some domains seem so far behind nearby domains, when it comes to technology.

[ewancummins]

Vlad comes from a realm that hires big lizard-man (Bakali, actually) mercenaries and fights against minotaurs and elves.
I'm pretty sure he's familiar with things like demihumans attacking at night.

If only he could get some lizard-men for amphibious assaults...

He also comes from the continent on Krynn in which so many 'mad' gnomes live that they actually form the majority in some gnome societies.
Gnome-tech that actually works!
Now, Thenol isn't close to the gnomish lands, but Vlad may have at least heard vague stories of gnomish tech, growing up and later travelling around as a merc.


I'm not so sure I buy that he's anti-innovation, especially not if he contracts Lamordians to build him war machines.
That doesn't seem like the choice of a man who fears or mistrusts new technologies.

(Interesting how a domain of trappers, herders, and small craftsmen seems to have developed into the land of science and technology by 3E-loft--not that I'm against the mad science action. It fits).

[ewancummins]

It occurs to me James is leaning more on the 3E version of Vlad, which I imagine doesn't use the Krynnish origin. The publishers could not, right? Product identity issues?

I'd base my version of Vlad more closely on his description in the Black Box, and use Time of the Dragon for background inspirational material.

Human Bing has done a pretty cool write-up of Vlad's origin story that meshes this Black Box stuff with some elements of the later 3E-loft materials.

[ewancummins]

If one is using the higher magic/more guns/more demihumans version of the setting presented in 3E...

Falkovnian witches
Clerics of Hala dragooned into service as healers.

Falkovnian storm-mages
Wizards who specialize in elemental magics. They developed the shower cantrip and cloudburst 1st level spell. Great for damping gunpowder!

Gonne-rats

A monsters borrowed from Iron Kingdoms, renamed and reworked. These aren't my original creation.
Basically rodents that gobble gunpowder like candy.
Hitting them or setting them on fire can cause a small explosion!

In Ravenloft, these might have been bred by Drakov's Ministry of Science as a way of screwing up powder supply for enemy nations.

[jamesfirecat]

Given the population differences, Falkovnia probably could conquer some of the smaller , higher CL realms with pike and bow. Too bad for him the neighboring lords can use their border closure powers.

One of the main advantages of guns is that they are relatively easy for soldiers to learn to use.

AH, but that's not true in 3E Ravenloft rules. Quite the opposite. Guns require an exotic weapon feat to use.

Anotehr question: is the gunpowder in Ravenloft real gunpowder, or 'smokepowder'? Because if it's the latter, with the unusually high prices most D&D/AD&D stuff gives out to powder, it's not economical to use to equip large forces.
How much do muskets cost in the rules you use?
What about cannon?

This is a case in which the game rules really do matter.

If guns are expensive and not much better than crossbows, then how is Vlad stupid for not using them?

If guns are relatively cheap, it's easy to train soldiers, and anybody with the right ingredients and equipment can make powder--no spell casters needed-- then he is overlooking a major resource.

I note that none of the militia/soldiers listed in the Black Box use guns.

Guns seem to have become more common in Ravenloft publications over time.
Which isn't surprising, as TSR was introducing various guns and gunpowder-like technologies in Mystara, Krynn, Realms, and so on throughout the 1990s.
And of course, Ravenloft featured some advanced technologies from early on.
So we go from a blunderbuss being an unusual otherworldly artifact in one early module to guns being standard issue for some domain's soldiers by the very late 1990s.

What's interesting is the way Medieval gunpowder weapons tend to get short shrift in D&D.
But if the same setting has flintlock muskets and hand match fired culverins, I would wonder why the culverin makers hadn't switched over to making proper muskets.


That gets into some questions about the CL system introduced in Domains of Dread, and why some domains seem so far behind nearby domains, when it comes to technology.

To me it's not just about the domain closure powers, but the other powers various darklords have. If you read Gaz 3, it seems like a lot of what went wrong with the invasion of Dementlieu was that somehow, some way or other Dominic started mind controlling the people who were invading. Which isn't impossible, I mean he could have dressed himself up as a commoner and been "taken prisoner" by them and before any of them could do anything nasty to him, he started working his mind control magic, and it worked its way up the chain of command until he had the army ready to turn on itself.

Granted this might not work again because Vlad has made his Talons wear bracelets which prevent others from mind controlling them... by mind controlling them to be completely loyal to him first, oh mind control is there any problem you can't solve?

Likewise leaving aside the border of Richemulot, it'd be the next best thing to impossible to properly conquer in the long term because it's full of wererats and terrain that they've had the several centuries to make even more favorable to them, especially if the Falkovnians go in without silver weapons being standard issue, though of course wererats are weird because what metal they are vulnerable to tends to change from one to another according to some sources.

I can only think that really they need to have a "sliding scale of weapon familiarity" to go with their technology domain levels. IE someone from a high tech domain would consider gun proficiency part normal but bow/crossbow proficiency an exotic weapon. That would be the best way I can think of to represent the fact that in some domains where guns should be fairly common place people have an easy time using them, and they can pick up and wield them without needing a feat to do it properly.

I have to think that it should be real gunpowder, or at the very least Lamordia is on the verge of/has already figured out real gunpowder. Granted I'm saying that for MY campaign, and it could be different in yours.

Also it's always hard to find a way to effectively balance firearms in D&D.

I think that it's pretty clearly supposed to be the later of the two options you mentioned though, I'll dig out some examples but a lot of people talk about Vlad's inability to adapt to using firearms as one of the things holding him back, and I have to figure that they wouldn't do it unless it was one of those things that was actually holding him back.

[ewancummins]

Right, if using the Smothering of Reason dread possibility, then Lamordia's powder supply could become an issue if powder is flat out magical.
Unless, as you suggest, the Lamordians have discovered a shortcut. Or powder making just works differently in that country.


I've never quite made up my mind about Lamordia.
On the one hand: ghost carriage, demon under mountain, sea-wolves.
One the other: Science! gone horribly wrong

[ewancummins]

I think that it's pretty clearly supposed to be the later of the two options you mentioned though, I'll dig out some examples but a lot of people talk about Vlad's inability to adapt to using firearms as one of the things holding him back, and I have to figure that they wouldn't do it unless it was one of those things that was actually holding him back.

Oh, I don't disagree that people say this.

I'm just saying that I don't know that his 'inability to adapt' really fits what 3E did with him and his realm.
I mean, he outfits his Talons with mind-control gauntlets, has a Ministry of Science, A Ministry of the Arcane, builds cool new war machines-- but he balks at employing harquebuses and cannon?
I don't quite buy that portrayal.

I think the designers did their best with the sometimes conflicting canon sources on Drakov.
I'm not knocking the Gaz version.