The City of Ravenloft

[Five]

I have played with size over the years many times, however, and even shrank it down once so all of Ravenloft was one city the size of London.

I just read this in the "Population and Size Variants" thread, and it (taken out of context?) really got me thinking. A one city Ravenloft. Each Darklord is still a Dark Lord, but a downsized lord ruling a particular faction within the city. Or, holding a seat of power as city councillors, noblepersons, or what have you. Azalin the king. Strahd the "Prime Minister". Drakov the general. Malken the crime lord/kingpin. Et cetera, et cetera.

Obviously, to squat all of RL's domians into one city will have certain repercussions. Import/Export what and from where? Another game system? Should some of the major domains remain the same, while the smaller ones are symbiotically fused? I was thinking Urban Ravenloft (all 'metropolitan' domains of the Core crammed into one), Rural Ravenloft (forest domains, such as Sithicus, Verbrek, and Kartakass remain the same and are the new countryside), and Ruined Ravenloft (Forlorn, Keening etc. are the ruins peppering the new wilds, with Tepest as an frontier town). Clusters remain the same, for now.

That's my stick in the cauldron...thoughts?

[MichaelTumey]

Perhaps like an Italian Renaissance city, with multiple merchant princes that run the city as a city council of individuals. I can't see Strahd being in a subserviant position to Azalin, which domain lord would voluntarily be an underling to another - probably none of them, so king, prime minister, etc wouldn't work for Ravenloft domain lords. However if all of them have an equal vote on a city council, and though some might have more influence than others, there shouldn't be one city master. That could work and be an interesting alternative to standard Ravenloft.

I think it would be better to create completely new domain rulers within each 'quarter'/precinct of a city, each as a separate domain - and not dither with the existing domain rulers and domains, and include that as part of Ravenloft, not instead of.

[Jack of Tears]

I think it would be better to create completely new domain rulers within each 'quarter'/precinct of a city, each as a separate domain - and not dither with the existing domain rulers and domains, and include that as part of Ravenloft, not instead of.

Actually, making all of Ravenloft into one city, with the established lords, was the experiment - if I'd just wanted a city domain I'd have made one.

A one city Ravenloft. Each Darklord is still a Dark Lord, but a downsized lord ruling a particular faction within the city.

What I did was have each lord possess influence over different aspects of the city, be it the functional or social elements. Lords with rural domains had city parks, the sewers, slums, etc. to use; the Vistani were back street gypsies, who performed as buskers, prostitutes, con artists, and so forth, using the alleys to navigate the city better than anyone else. The Mists were represented by fog, (the city was often foggy) and confusion in twisted streets.

Some of the lords ran businesses, owned tenement blocks, owned and operated theatres, nightclubs, or even just little shops depending on the lord. (Mordenheim ran a hospital; Guiseppe had a puppetshop and his domain included it, the theatre attached to it and about a block of the surrounding area. [yes, in my version of Odaire, Guiseppe is the lord and Maligno is part of his curse])

I actually liked the dynamic of having all the lords in such close proximity, hating yet needing one another to keep the city running. (if a lord was killed or injured it reflected on the city - so if you kill a lord whose influence is the sewage systems, suddenly you'd have mass backups, flooded streets, breeding grounds for disease and rats ... until the city found a new lord to take on the role. Thus the lords had to protect one another even as they worked against each other ... social and political maneuvering were common themes.)

[MichaelTumey]

Actually, making all of Ravenloft into one city, with the established lords, was the experiment - if I'd just wanted a city domain I'd have made one.

Yes, I recognized that's what you meant, and it seems like an interesting prospect. I was just saying the way I'd do it... not meaning to say that your way wasn't just as interesting.

What I did was have each lord possess influence over different aspects of the city, be it the functional or social elements. Lords with rural domains had city parks, the sewers, slums, etc. to use; the Vistani were back street gypsies, who performed as buskers, prostitutes, con artists, and so forth, using the alleys to navigate the city better than anyone else. The Mists were represented by fog, (the city was often foggy) and confusion in twisted streets.

Some of the lords ran businesses, owned tenement blocks, owned and operated theatres, nightclubs, or even just little shops depending on the lord. (Mordenheim ran a hospital; Guiseppe had a puppetshop and his domain included it, the theatre attached to it and about a block of the surrounding area. [yes, in my version of Odaire, Guiseppe is the lord and Maligno is part of his curse])

I actually liked the dynamic of having all the lords in such close proximity, hating yet needing one another to keep the city running. (if a lord was killed or injured it reflected on the city - so if you kill a lord whose influence is the sewage systems, suddenly you'd have mass backups, flooded streets, breeding grounds for disease and rats ... until the city found a new lord to take on the role. Thus the lords had to protect one another even as they worked against each other ... social and political maneuvering were common themes.)

Yeah, that's pretty much what I had in mind as well, though with my creations for domain lords. This does sound intriguing though!

[Five]

I can't see Strahd being in a subserviant position to Azalin, which domain lord would voluntarily be an underling to another - probably none of them, so king, prime minister, etc wouldn't work for Ravenloft domain lords. However if all of them have an equal vote on a city council, and though some might have more influence than others, there shouldn't be one city master.

Position(s) of authority doesn't necessarily equate to percentages of distributed power. That, and the purpose of this thread is to essentially 'What If..?" Ravenloft. Changes are being made, and with the downscaling of the dark lords comes tweaks here and there to their 'official' personalities.

Azalin is king, but Strahd doesn't have the power to run the city (night shift only DNA, much to his infernal rage!). Thus he is constantly kept in check by Azalin's cronies, the you-know-who, which he plots and counterplots against and eliminates when his plans dictate. But, as always, Strahd works around Azalin's weaknesses (and/or complete absence). Thus the chess game continues. Some of the other dark lords pick up snippets of this power struggle here and there, but can't really (initially) do anything about it. Thanks to the nature of their peers they are constantly struggling to keep ahead of their own agendas.

General Drakov is busying trying to keep a rather ruthless army intact and prepared to put down the Wolf God's children that mock and howl from out in the Wilds. Tepest and it's unique brand of bigotry-based burnings (pragmatic heroism for the most part) is slowly purging the way forward, but are in desperate need of proper military backup. It's a bloody shame that Vlad is too distracted by his own shortcomings to be of any effectual use...

Malken is a pawn, placed within the city to tax those (via the black market) who refuse to pay taxes. Economic adjuster, so to speak. He's of use to all, at times, but he's a sketch bag at best. He plays so many games that it's almost madness to tally the scores.

I won't list the others, because hopefully somebody else will. And feel free to bang around my thoughts. I'll admit they're crude, but purposely vague.

Anyone?

Jack of Tears: this is obviously old ground for you. Good ideas you got there, must say. What was the end result of this "experiment" of yours, do you think? Good, bad, ugly? That, and are there any other developments that you want to let us in on?

While I like Ravenloft the way it is, with pieces slowly being added on over time (like the 3E authors fleshing out the 2's), but I would like to see an alternate Ravenloft, modular if you will. Maybe not 'officially', but certainly out of cover jam respect. Take it, stitch it into the setting of your choice. Could be fun, with the right amount hands..

[Nathan of the FoS]

I say let Strahd be king, and Azalin the court wizard, as was more or less the case when Azalin first entered Ravenloft. Ooooh, how Azalin would hate taking orders.

[Manofevil]

This reminds me strongly of the comic book series/novel/storyline in the Batman series called 'No Man's Land' in which an earthquake cuts Gotham City off from the rest of the nation and the government declares it off limits and a disaster area. Arkham Asylum is destroyed and its inmates become a large part of the ensuing chaos. Officially the city is evacuated, but unofficially, many refuse to leave. The city is cut off by the military which guards all the bridges, tunnels, and other official entrances to the city, so even relief and charity supplies can't get in. The city eventually gels into a patchwork of territories, each a protectorate of what are functionally street gangs. The Joker, Two-face, The Penguin, Killer Croc, Black Mask, all head one of these territories, as do the largest actual street gang, The Street Demonz. The Gotham City Police Dept., led by James Gordon, is reduced to one of these groups. Officilly the Batman sides with them but they want no part of him. The territorys' borders are all marked by spray painted tags.

Perhaps your city of Ravenloft would look more like this, with each Darklord being a gang boss of his/her territory similar to Bill the Butcher in the movie 'Gangs of New York.'

[ewancummins]

Oh...Just wow!


This one is fun.

Can the darklords physically leave their district/domains? Do they have to interect through agents?

My suggestions:
All the urban darklords are trapped in the city, with each tied to/imprisoned his own mini-domain (neighborhood, building, or zone).

The City Hall is neutral ground. Any of the urban darklords can enter it at any time, and none of them can be permanently killed there.

Urban darklords can cross into other urban domains during frequent, semi-regular conjunctions. These conjunctions are announced by the tolling of bells in an immense, cursed clock tower.

[Jack of Tears]

Jack of Tears: this is obviously old ground for you. Good ideas you got there, must say. What was the end result of this "experiment" of yours, do you think? Good, bad, ugly?

It has been 7 years or thereabouts since I ran this campaign, so there is a lot I don't remember. While the game lasted I thought it was a great success, unfortunately my entire RL campaign fell apart a couple months into this do to real life obstacles and we haven't been back to Ravenloft since. (I was all geared up to go back this summer, but that didn't work out)

I liked having the lords much more present in the world of the PCs, with the characters caught in the midst of curses, power struggles, and the various atrocities created by these personas; having to deal with the other bogeys and horrors of living in a Ravenloft city at the same time. The lords became a much more menacing presence, even when working behind the scenes, and the players couldn't help but feel the ripples created by their actions.

This also gave me the opportunity to make the pcs a part of the setting in a very real way - they had jobs, homes, family and responsibilities to juggle in addition to the adventures they were sucked into. The things they did had repercussions on many levels - murder was an actual crime, rather than just something adventurers do; they had to balance their behavior with their need to fit in and not be ostracized by neighbors or their social cliques. They actually had friends and rivals as reoccurring characters without the need of shoehorning them in or making them part of the adventure. The characters had Lives, and that made their adventures all the more personal and important.

Not to mention, with the lords living so close to one another I got to explore their relationships a lot more, see how they would fit in one another's plans, how they worked with, around and through each other. Typically the minor lords were far more limited in their movements than major lords; though people like Lamont Sedium Juste might find themselves in a different theatre, in different parts of the city, after each production, he was still limited to the theatre grounds - whereas Strahd could move much more freely around the city during his active hours, though he was still limited from entering the center of another lord's power, (their home, estate, park, whathaveyou) and this went for most everyone.

It was also a lot of fun turning certain domains into districts ... the Chinese style lord ruled over a small oriental style district, the Aligator lord lived in the sewers near one of the parks, and so forth. (yeah, can't remember either of their names off the top of my head)

[MichaelTumey]

Depending on the size of the city, and I imagine the City of Ravenloft to be fairly large, multiple keeps and castles within a single city is not unheard of. I think you could place Castle Ravenloft within the district controlled by Strahd, just as easily as placing Harkon Lucas's inn, thus you can place various domain ruler's current habitation wholesale into the city without the need to create a lesser structure. This would be odd for some domains, like Bluetspur which would require some kind of underground manse, section of the sewers, etc, but lots of existing domain ruler strongholds could fit unchanged into an urban environment.

[Jack of Tears]

I'll have to give some thought to Bleutspur, the sewers are certainly an option, but if I can think of something else I'd go there - so as not to crowd the sewers too much.

The Nightmare Lands are easy enough, as they exist in a dream world; the Shadow Rift might exist in a similar other place accessed by closets and under beds ... the places proper bogies prefer to hide.

[ewancummins]

Here's another idea:

The cities of Richemulot are collapsed into the River Quarter of the city. The Reniers are a powerful merchant family, with interests in smuggling and information-trafficking as well as legitimate business.

Malken has been horning in on Renier territory...

[Five]

The cities of Richemulot are collapsed into the River Quarter of the city. The Reniers are a powerful merchant family, with interests in smuggling and information-trafficking as well as legitimate business.

Malken has been horning in on Renier territory...

Malken, through his right hand named Sodo, on behalf of...

All the urban darklords are trapped in the city, with each tied to/imprisoned his own mini-domain (neighborhood, building, or zone).

The City Hall is neutral ground. Any of the urban darklords can enter it at any time, and none of them can be permanently killed there.

Urban darklords can cross into other urban domains during frequent, semi-regular conjunctions. These conjunctions are announced by the tolling of bells in an immense, cursed clock tower.

Sounds good to me. The semi-regular conjunctions is a great way for the dark lords to act out those plans that involve themselves in person. Slake thirst, feed, kill, whore, whatever their thing. And the bells adds a nice creepy atmosphere as well. The lower classes won't really knowing what the hell they signify, and those few who are unfortunate enough to know know it's time to head for cover. Deep cover.

Depending on the size of the city, and I imagine the City of Ravenloft to be fairly large, multiple keeps and castles within a single city is not unheard of.

Yeah, agreed. I wanted to keep Castle Ravenloft intact, for no reason other than it is the flagship of the setting. I just was wondering a bit as to how to fit it in if Azalin is the king.

Put em all in, and have Azalin the court wizard as Nathan of the FOS mentioned (who operates out of Castle Ravenloft). Or a puppet king, running the daytime affairs of the city, who due to his own inflated ego, starts to believe he really is king and thus the battle of wills with Strahd. Maybe both know each others' monstrous secrets and both are playing to perceived strengths and weaknesses. Everybody else is a game below, at best.

I really don't like the idea of a ruler who can only rule by night. That's just too much for even a half intelligent peasant to believe in. And seeing how I'm not a true believer in an open vampire rule (Rifts: Vampire Kingdoms aside), you can no doubt see my dilemma in having Strahd an open ruler. His curse is that he is the land, but he only has a certain number of hours to physically rule it, ever since Azalin came along. That is, if he wants to keep his vampiric nature to himself. Which I like to believe he would. Azalin is a necessary evil...for now.

[Manofevil]

What might look like life in the city of Ravenloft:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADmX9eMEV9U

[Five]

Bluetspur. Maybe that would be best left out in some surrounding mountain range. Stretched out so it isn't a neo-Underdark. A nice reminder to fleeing folks that sometimes home, as bad as it might seem, ain't really the worst it can be...

It's our shoutout to Lovecraft. Heavy on the Fear, Horror, and Madness checks out that way.