The past and the future....

[Zoria]

It is my intention now to speculate about some interesting features concerning the creation of the Core. In order to better explain my considerations, i have set on an image at this address:

http://mystlands.altervista.org/arriving.zip

In 352 BC, Barovia is drawn to the Mists, and for now all right.

In 547 BC, Barovia and Forlorn merged, and the Core was born. Assuming that the current year is 758 BC, the Core is only 211 years old. But i would to focus your attentions on another question: who can say that Forlorn joined Barovia and not the opposite? We know that Barovia was first created because we read so on the handbook; but who assures the scholars of the Core that Forlorn is not more ancient of Barovia? Basing on what the Core's inhabitant known, in 547 two Islands of Terror united themselves, but they couldn't know which of them was joining to and wich of them was joined by...

In 575 BC, Arak appears. In the Core Book is said that Barovian begin to dealing with arakan; now, if Arak joined the Core in the same position that it currently have (southern Darkon), between them there was a sea of fog, as displayed in the "575 bc frame" of my image, and they could not approach each others; if Arak joined the Core beside Barovia, we would wonder what event set it so distant, and why the books don't tell of it.

In 579 BC, Mordent and Darkon entered the Core; with each of these, Barovia had contacts, of commercial nature with the first, and military nature with the second; but Mordent and Darkon too are distant by Barovia, so it goes the same of Arak.

In 588 BC, the Scourge of Arak put the Mount of Lament ovest, and domain of Keening was formed. Then, Azalin will annected Arak, deleting it from tha map, and expanding his own kingdom.

In 593 BC, Gundarak joined the Core, but it will later annected by Barovia; it's curious that the form assumed by Barovia annecting Gundrak is far similar to that of a flying bat seen upside down...
After Gundarak, other domains, such as Bluetspur, Arkandale, Dorvinia and the Nightmare Lands will join and vanish, but they are not useful for the purpose of my treatment, so i will not mention them.

In 682 BC, Nova Vaasa appears. If we have considered Darkon attached to Barovia, the appearance of Nova Vaasa must be reckoned as a violent watershed between two melted nations. Otherwise, if Nova Vaasa was the bridge between two distant lands, the problem remains of how Azalin intented to combat Strahd with their kingdom separated.

The 690 and 691 years are really interesting. If you observe the image at the "691 bc frame", you will find that the the frame-like disposition of the domains appeared up to there had already created the Shadow Rift, years before the Great Upheaval, and that bring me to some conclusions. One: the domains of Markovia and G'henna didn't create the Shadow Rift, as traditionally said: they plugged it. Then, it would be interesting to discuss about the differences between the Shadow Rift in 691 BC and the Shadow Rift of the 740 BC (Great Upheaval), and wonder why the Tepestani fears the latter, while never mentions the first, orginal, Shadow Rift.
Again: how is possible that the lands of Markovia and G'henna be exactly corresponding in form to the border of a void casually created by the gathering of many other land not even related to them, and be so extraordinarily fitting to it, as the cliff has been rationally prepared to receive them?
This problem may be only solved assuming that the succession of the entering lands of the Core is not that exposed in the timeline of events reported in the Corebook, but that Markovia and G'henna merged to Tepestani, Nova Vaasan and Keening western border first of the appearance of Falkovnia, Richemulot and Mordent, so that the gathering process was "side by side", with the realms that approach each others in raws, without generating void amidst them, like a sort of "Dread Tetris", in which the player is particularly able...

Finally, from 720 BC to 730 BC, the absence of Verbrek created a further gorge lasting ten years, a sort of "mini-Shadow Rift" of which no one ever tell.

At the heading "It May Be So", instead, i played with imaging a possible evolution of the Core....

[Jakob]

Error! Error!
When the domains of the Core appeared, they were in different position.
Darkon and Barovia, for example, shared a border. They were "pushed apart" by Markovia and G'henna. Arak, Darkon and Barovia were linked. Mordent and Lamordia shared border with Darkon and Barovia (see The War against Azalin ).
After the GC, the lands were "mixed up", the Shadow Rift (previously the underground of Arak) appeared.

So, though your "plug" theory is quite interesting... It has a fatal flaw: the tectonic shifting of the domains.

[HuManBing]

Well, the major source for suggesting that Darkon and Barovia shared a border was in "I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin". And that book has so many subjectivity issues with a fallible narrator (e.g. Strahd believing that Azalin can't cast teleport spells, which is nonsense) that I'd be leery of basing unalterable canon on that.

To the original poster, I could download your .zip, but I couldn't get it to open. My computer thinks it's corrupt or invalid

[Jakob]

Go here: http://mystlands.altervista.org and you shoud download it without any problem.

BTW, it might be interesting, in the "future" to imagine that Azalin's plan (in Gazetteers, I mean) would "free" the land from the necessity of having a Darklord... Maybe the Mists could part to reveal the "New land" Zoria imagined, free to be conquered and explored.

[Joël of the FoS]

If not canon, it's been generally accepted that the domains had a different position, moving like bubbles when another domain popped nearby, until we got the core as it is now.

Joël

[Zoria]

Error! Error!
When the domains of the Core appeared, they were in different position.
Darkon and Barovia, for example, shared a border. They were "pushed apart" by Markovia and G'henna. Arak, Darkon and Barovia were linked. Mordent and Lamordia shared border with Darkon and Barovia (see The War against Azalin ).
After the GC, the lands were "mixed up", the Shadow Rift (previously the underground of Arak) appeared.

So, though your "plug" theory is quite interesting... It has a fatal flaw: the tectonic shifting of the domains.

No fatal flaws, good Jakob ).
In my article, i've considered both theories, the tectonic one, and the "side by side" one. Only, i intended to delineate a matter not specifically treated in any handbook as far as i know.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

In 547 BC, Barovia and Forlorn merged, and the Core was born. Assuming that the current year is 758 BC, the Core is only 211 years old. But i would to focus your attentions on another question: who can say that Forlorn joined Barovia and not the opposite? We know that Barovia was first created because we read so on the handbook; but who assures the scholars of the Core that Forlorn is not more ancient of Barovia? Basing on what the Core's inhabitant known, in 547 two Islands of Terror united themselves, but they couldn't know which of them was joining to and wich of them was joined by....

Barovia is acknowledged as older because its history records the Mists as having existed all the way back to 351 BC. The Forfarians' history has their land surrounded by other countries, not by Mists, earlier than 547 BC. Nor would the Vistani have any accounts of Forlorn that predate its emergence as a part of the Core.

If anything, it's Borca (formerly Borca and Dorvinia) which would claim to be as old as Barovia, on the grounds that its Mist-bound "Vacancy" began in 351. By the time Borca joined the Core, however, Barovia had already been accepted as the lynchpin for the superCluster for centuries. Thus, Borcan historians' claim to equal antiquity wouldn't have won very much support outside that domain ... especially given that nobody (not even the Vistani) remembers actually visiting Borca as a Island, the Vacancy being false history.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

And that book has so many subjectivity issues with a fallible narrator (e.g. Strahd believing that Azalin can't cast teleport spells, which is nonsense) that I'd be leery of basing unalterable canon on that.

FWIW, I thought of a simpler explanation for that: Azalin might've known how to teleport on Oerth, but adapting his existing knowledge to the way magic works in Ravenloft could have taken him a few decades' re-training. Teleportation is one of those branches of magic which are altered in the Land of Mists, as it operates through the Mists themselves rather than the Astral Plane (RLPHB p. 109). That's just an issue of flavor-text to we gamers, but to a wizard who actually understands the metaphysics of teleportation, it could be a huge distinction.

Granted, most outlander wizards can adjust easily to how such magic is altered, but Azalin would have been fighting his mental block for every scrap of insight into how his existing powers had changed. (I'm assuming his mental block precedes becoming a darklord, as there's no way he wouldn't have successfully broken out if something weren't already limiting his abilities, even in Barovia.) To teleport without a complete understanding of what he was doing would've been extremely dangerous, and blind recklessness isn't a trait one generally associates with Firan Zal'honan, Ravenloft's 'planner supreme'.

If Azalin had to accumulate a bunch of points in Knowledge (Ravenloft) before he could achieve reliable Mist-based teleportation -- dedicated research he couldn't do back then, when Strahd was watching his work and seeking signs of weakness in his "guest" -- it'd reconcile how Azalin might lack that power during his sojourn in Barovia (the era when I,S:WA is set), yet possess teleport-magic in his contemporary module-appearances and stat-blocs. The lich simply hadn't gotten around to re-learning how to use such magic -- magic which, had his experiments in breaching Ravenloft's boundaries worked, he'd no longer need to cast using the local methods, anyway -- not yet knowing how completely his escape-attempts would fail.

True, it's a rather weak explanation, but (perhaps) better than nothing.

[kourkenko]

i like your idea for the future of the core ^^

[alhoon]

How about naming the new Land "Zoria" Instead of "New Land"? It is a nice name for a land.

Edit: Man! The Core map is a beauty! ! !
That's a very, very nice map! I have a couple of cartographer programs but I never managed to make such a pretty map.
Although I know that it takes work to make one so big. Thank you. I downloaded them from you.

It seems too large however. That's the x4,6km you write there? I also use a larger Core. I just wanted to know.

[Zoria]

How about naming the new Land "Zoria" Instead of "New Land"? It is a nice name for a land.

Edit: Man! The Core map is a beauty! ! !
That's a very, very nice map! I have a couple of cartographer programs but I never managed to make such a pretty map.
Although I know that it takes work to make one so big. Thank you. I downloaded them from you.

It seems too large however. That's the x4,6km you write there? I also use a larger Core. I just wanted to know.

I like you have found it worthy.
Zoria the Black was the name i gave to a necromancer of a world i created six years ago. There's so much to say about this world and the events which occured on it, that i don't ever dare to narrate them....

The x4,6 multiplier concern the scale: originally, the way from Silbervas to Aerie was 16 km long; in my map, it's about 74 km long.
However, every one is free to modify it at pleasure ).

[Dhampire]

FWIW, I thought of a simpler explanation for that:

One does not simply teleport out of Mordor....
Sorry, ahem.

One does not simply teleport out of the Dread Demiplane.

Until Forlorn arrived, where else was Azalin going to go?
He could simply bop about in Barovia to avoid Strahd but, that is neither productive or useful.

Perhaps it is not that he could not teleport but, rather, he could not teleport where he wanted (out) and simply presumed the spell did not work at all when, in truth, it just did not accept his target destination and he had nowhere else to go that would serve as useful as mining Strahd's mind for what he knew about the demiplane.

While I, Strahd: The War against Azalin depicts Azalin through Strahd's (admittedly less than flattering) eyes, I am sure Azalin's journal of events paints a different (and just as skewed) view of Strahd's abilities.

"Stupid Vampire! I would have but to utter just the simplest incantation and have him utterly useless at my feet, a thrall to command for my whimsey. I am the King of the Dead and as soon as this sot's usefulness is at and end I will take his precious love, teleport to Forlorn, and show him true pain before I break him!"

[Scarycount]

just a small tidbit, there actually are excerpts fron azalin's journal in that book.

[kourkenko]

if my memory is exact, in the ravenloft 2: house of the griffon hill, the land has no darklord, azalin ca use his teleport spell at this time. but after that, when azalin and strahd leave the land, Godefroy take it. the land become a domain with a border. Azalin can't teleport... no ?

[Dhampire]

just a small tidbit, there actually are excerpts fron azalin's journal in that book.

Yeah, there is two or three. Not really enough to get a true take on events from Azalin's perspective.

if my memory is exact, in the ravenloft 2: house of the griffon hill, the land has no darklord, azalin ca use his teleport spell at this time. but after that, when azalin and strahd leave the land, Godefroy take it. the land become a domain with a border. Azalin can't teleport... no ?

Ravenloft 2 happens on the prime (Strahd and Azalin's "escape") and the concept of Sarklords has no meaning on the prime.

When Mordent gets pulled into the Mists, Mordent becomes a Domain with Godefroy as Darklord, Strahd Returns to Barovia (I cannot help but wonder what happened in Barovia while he was gone), and Darkon forms with Azalin as Darklord and limiting teleportational abilities to within his own domain.