Creation Myths and Legends about the Dark Powers

[WolfKook]

I was reading through HumanBing's post about the Dark Powers and why would they be weaker than deities, and I guessed that the inhabitants of Ravenloft should have a lot of theories to explain the strange things happening in their domains. Perhaps they even have several creation myths (Besides those of Darkon and Tepest, which are found on the Gaz) to explain the presence of the Dark Powers and the eerie nature of their realms.

So this thread could be an opportunity to create those kind of legends, myths and bits of false history that had come to be true in the minds of the people of the Realm of Dread.

[cure]

I am not certain if Larmorida has a creation myth, but it certainly has a cosmology, out lined in Gaz 2.

[NeoTiamat]

well, a lot of domains don't actually have much interest in history, or take the current state of affairs for granted (particularly the civilized realms, such as Dementlieu or Nova Vaasa).

That said, the only other domain I know of that has a particularly rich mythological life is Kartakass, though they lend more towards fables and folk stories then actual myths about the start of the world.

[Archedius]

I've always found it interesting that their is a cloak of ignorance about the Core. Technology isn't spreading as it should be doing and few seem that much inclined towards scholarly pursuits except for the West. Even then I figure the typical college education would be more along the lines of literature, culture and perhaps some actual science. Still, your right in that their is something stifling the desire for history.

[Sylaire]

Not just history. Even the Gaz-era Core is a far more organic and "living" world-setting than the Black Box-era Core (which presented essentially static and unchanging "stages" on which to set adventures), there's virtually no cross-cultural pollination, no natural flow of technology, as if some (ahem) dark external power is preserving the unique sociocultural identity of the various domains. Indeed, it's almost as if the very people themselves of the Core, while appearing to react like genuine people, are limited by a certain pre-programming with the exception of certain unique individuals.

(Actually, if you really think about it, there's a school of thought that would suggest Ravenloft is the equivalent of a giant MMORPG, with the souls of the outlanders and the darklords as players...come to think of it, perhaps the reason that certain RL "natives" show exceptional traits to transcend their roles for good and evil is that they possess the resurrected soul of an outlander...killed in their previous life but even in death unable to escape the Mists...)

[Archedius]

that's an interesting thought Sylaire. It does make you wonder how disconcerting it must be to see any foreign cultural influences for natives.

Going further with this thought- what if Falknovia's failed invasions are not just a function of Drakov's curse but also an enforced social/cultural reaction by the demiplane itself to preserve its precious patchwork.

It might be that part of what imprisons a DL is that close resemblance of their domain to their lives pre-DL status and that massive disruption of that reminder could help weaken the curse.

k

[Rotipher of the FoS]

There's actually a TSR game-setting that works like what Sylaire describes, in having peoples' cultural proclivities hard-wired: the Hollow World, inside the planet Mystara. It's a phenomenon established by the Immortals (~ deities) that established it, as a means of preserving favorite cultures that had gone extinct on the surface. Like Ravenloft, the Hollow World is a construct of sorts, so it's not surprising that they might have some things in common.


OTOH, in regards to whether Ravenloft also deliberately keeps cultures frozen, I'm afraid I just don't see it. Not every domain recapitulates the original homeland of its darklord, after all. Markov grew up in Barovia, yet his domain's been a tropical island ever since the Upheaval. The Timothy clan originated in Mordent, yet Nathan's Arkendale was far more primitive than it is, and Alfred's is downright primeval.

It's not just the native-born darklords that are affected, either. Harkon Lukas came in from Cormyr, a very large nation with a powerful king, yet Kartakass is a land of flyspeck towns. Meredoth is from a nation on par with Eberron's Khorvaire for magic and power, but is stuck with a couple of rocks and a whole lot of sea.

My guess is that the narrowness of the timeframe is more to blame for the lack of technological spread than the DPs' deliberate intervention. It's been barely a decade since printing became common in the Core, for example, and the whole game-setting's only advanced 25 years in-character from the time the Black Box debuted (735 to 760). Expecting technology to have spread rapidly may just be our own Information Age preconceptions talking, IMHO: not every culture wants to change how things are done, or assumes those changes will be improvements.

[Sylaire]

that's an interesting thought Sylaire. It does make you wonder how disconcerting it must be to see any foreign cultural influences for natives.

Going further with this thought- what if Falknovia's failed invasions are not just a function of Drakov's curse but also an enforced social/cultural reaction by the demiplane itself to preserve its precious patchwork.

It might be that part of what imprisons a DL is that close resemblance of their domain to their lives pre-DL status and that massive disruption of that reminder could help weaken the curse.

Those are some very interesting thoughts. The first one I generally agree with, and for most it's expressed largely as a function of culture; with the exception of certain cosmopolitan domains like Darkon (which is the ultimate in "open and accepting of foreigners," heh) or Richemulot, the populations of Ravenloft tend to be very insular and distrustful of outsiders.

Part of this, I suspect, is the natural reaction of people to those that are different--after all, culture shock will be more extreme in Ravenloft because the next-door domain may come from an entirely different sociocultural background, without any kind of common ground (particularly if that next-door domain just appeared twenty years ago...). Another natural human reaction at play is that the background danger level of Ravenloft is higher than most worlds at whatever the tech/culture level of a domain is, and a natural reaction of people to danger is to become close to one's own "in-group" (family, extended family, town, etc.) as a source of protection against the external hazards.

I do think, though, that there's some kind of "extra" influence at play, instead, and some of it ties in with your third idea, though I tend to look at it from the opposite side. The "prison" of a DL is always based on that DL's past history, and allowing their domain to grow and change would lessen the focus on that history and hence on the DL's torment (and, of course, there's the Drakovs and Harkon Lukases, who by their very curse can't have something significant happen to expand their domains...).

Though you have a point, too--one of the ground rules of Ravenloft is that all curses have an escape clause, and if a darklord started to grow and change as a person, to really become someone different than the person they were, then they might acheive escape via personal growth (can you see, for example, a Strahd who woke up eventually to the fact that Tatyana didn't ever love him and that growing old and dying is a natural part of human existence rather than a fundamental tragedy to be fought at all costs? He wouldn't be cursed anymore. So in that respect, the sociocultural background of a domain is inherently part of most darklords' imprisonment. Probably the more open and cosmopolitan domains exist because the nature of the darklord's evil isn't particularly tied to any kind of cultural detail.

Lastly, getting to your second point, that may well be so, though I think it's more a factor of the curse. If one domain manages to completely engulf another, then I think the sociocultural "set" for the resulting domain's population simply is altered to a new norm (i.e. Borca post-Conjunction, not that Borca and Dorvinia were all that different to begin with). Indeed, I think that's one reason why there are many different possible results to the destruction of a DL--if, say, Har'Akir were to invade and conquer Souragne, Souragne would probably cease to exist rather than being absorbed, because the fundamental domain concepts are too distinct from one another, while Richemulot could absorb Dementlieu with little difficulty (except an expanded sewer system in Port-a-Lucine and Chateaufaux) or vice versa.

[cure]

Also Ravenloft is not The Thirteen Colonies of America destined to become the United States of America. It is far closer in inspiration and style to the disunited states of Europe destined even with the European Union to remain linguistically and culturally apart.

Now that is not to deny that high-fashion sloshes about from state to state in Europe or domain to domain in Ravenloft. We know well that Il-Aluk and Dementlieu, and now presumably just the latter, set the fashion agenda for those in the carriage set across much of the core. But the local fashion amid the teeming masses remains more local than not, in no small part because it is affordable.

Technology, fashion, universal culture are luxuries of the rich and/or have to pay their own way. And even if there is the promise that they might, it still takes time, of which there has not been so much in many of the domains.

And from my point of view, I don't want Ravenloft any more modern than it is and still wonder about the wisdom of introducing gun powder.

Further, domains are to reflect their Darklords to a significant degree, in one way or another, so harmonisation presupposes conquest and that the Dark Powers don't allow. Recall it took the conquests of Napoleon to ptu an end to feudalism in certain corners of Europe.

[NeoTiamat]

I can add another factor to the relatively slow rate of technological expansion.

Darklords.

Very often in history, if a country falls behind technologically, it requires a massive effort to catch up, which requires either a leader (like Peter the Great) or another powerful entity (like all those development groups, World Bank & co.) to get things going.

In Ravenloft however, most Darklords are quite happy with the status quo because even if they're cursed, they're also usually the rulers of their domain. Take the printing press. Does Ivana Boritsi or Azalin Rex really want revolutionary literature being printed in their own backyards? Of course not.

And most of the Ravenloft rulers have power that would make mortal monarchs weep with envy. Azalin and Hazlik are wizards, Drakov has a massive army, Ivana has her Ermordenung and Renier her wererats. They can crush new technology quickly and easily.

Simply put, they're usually pretty happy with the way things are, and see expanding technology as more of a threat then a benefit.

[The Whistler]

Y'know, even the fact that each domain is locked into a reflection of a DL's past history doesn't mean that each domain has to stay culturally static. Presumably, DLs' are accumulating more personal history during their time in Ravenloft; they may not necessarily be repenting their evil deeds and escaping from the demiplane, but they're probably still having new, personality-affecting experiences.

Given that, I could see the Core starting to culturally homogenize over the course of a few centuries, if only as a result of DLs getting used to each other and borrowing aspects of each others' "styles of evil." If they all started to crib off of their neighbors' philosophies--and, given enough time, they'd probably start to do so unconsciously--wouldn't their domains' cultures change to reflect that?

[Archedius]

well, we also have the movements of merchants to facilitate the steps towards a homogenious Core; although this still stems from the Darklords tolerances. Trade across the core seems stymied by few darklords as many of them directly benefit from either the goods brought in or the money from taxation- this trade can do much to indirectly spread technology and more importantly, ideas. It might become a situation of internal native inspiration towards advancement rather than importation of the technology itself- as we've seen the hesitation on the part of many Darklords.
In other words trade may facilitate and speed up the native progression of technology but not much more than that.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Trade's effects on cultural development would be reduced even further by Outcast Ratings and the native xenophobia they represent. On the one hand, "foreign" ways and ideas are innately suspect in most regions, due to superstition in the more backward areas and nationalism at the higher CLs. On the other, traders who hope to circumvent such suspicion -- i.e. the ones who hope to make a profit -- aren't going to be bringing new ideas along with them if they travel to a new realm; on the contrary, they'll want to blend in with the locals as much as possible, downplaying their "strange ways".

Sure, a foreign merchant could visit Barovia and start boasting about guns and pocket-watches and so on, but all he's going to do is get himself a reputation as an 'uppity city snob' and see the prices for his own wares haggled down to a fraction of what he'd hoped, due to locals' lack of friendliness. His competitor who checks all overt signs of being an 'uppity city snob' at the Barovian border, and dresses, speaks and acts like a proper Barovian while she's there, will turn a much higher profit for the same goods.