I didn't forget; I discussed it earlier when I was talking about Falkovnia.
But you're right: Drakov's invasion is the thing that nucleates his long struggle back to consciousness, and warns Death that he's still there to shake his delusions.
As to knowing my stuff, it's easy when you wrote some of it and spent your entire adult life obsessing about the rest.
CotN: D introduction (I also edited the book)
The Black Duke
Mictlan
The Jackal Who Would Not Be A Coward
Felauragoth
The Lady of the Lake
Noises in the Night
Shadow of the Knife
The magic chapter of Van Richten's Arsenal
The design and half the writing of Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead
The Necropolis gazetteer
The Valachan gazetteer
The Shadow Rift gazetteer
Noises in the Night from Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends
...and I'm sure there's something else but I can't think what it is.
And I've had my editorial/feedback fingers in a lot of other Ravenloft pies, like the netbooks I edited as one of the Kargatane, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey, and some of the gazetteers.
But this thread's not about me. It's about the Core. Back to the Core.
After teasing with its presence for a couple of years, the Mists finally fully reveal the Nocturnal Sea. The east coat of the Core, particularly the Nova Vaasan cities, begin to boom with new trade opportunities. Their main partners obviously are Liffe and Graben, and a bit further out, Vechor.
It's always annoyed me that on nearly all the maps, there's a border around Todstein that shouldn't be there. Todstein and Graben are both part of the same domain. Please attend, maps.
The FoS Gaz has one of my favourite lines to appear in a Ravenloft expansion: "Flotsam collects along these shores (Liffe seems to attract the cast offs of other lands)." I just love it.
Also this year (as well as the Requiem, remember), the Burning Peaks cluster forms (which I don't hate nearly as much as everyone else seems to) and Van Richten vanishes. The Burning Peaks aren't going to be there for long though.
thats way cool you wrote the black box I remember playing the original when I was 10. A great deal of destruction happens also the whistling fiend goes away which I rather liked that sadistic whistling being. The Burning Peaks were interesting a great deal of material on this short lived realm which is cool.
Zilfer wrote:Ah the ToUD.... Still unsure what that's all about except a doomsday....
It was never defined and was basically left to individual DMs to create, though there were several "almost" definitions done. Steve Miller has said that the adventure "Die Vecna Die!" was originally planned to be a ToUD adventure to "end" Ravenloft, and I believe Mangrum has said that if you took all of the Dread Possibilities from the Gazetteers and made them true you'd have a ToUD. Then there's the Gazetteer metaplot that was finally revealed to us...
Bluebomber4evr: The Justice, not you, since 2002.
Ravenloft: Prisoners of the Mist Persistent World for Neverwinter Nights: www.nwnravenloft.com
Our Hero – highly educated, aristocratic, arrogant and a wizard - turned her back on Darkon to study the Slain City in 750 BC, presumably just after Azalin vanished. She studies the city for 5 years, and learns more about it than any other living being, although this study also costs the life of her daughter (in a bid to gain more information from a captured ghoul, and an effort to gain a spy that could go into Necropolis – even by Ravenloft standards, she’s a bad mother).
There is a bit of apparent discontinuity in the dates here, but they actually do make sense if you follow them through carefully and remember each chapter is researched and written over about 6 weeks.
Azalin had made his escape from the Grey Realm/the minds of the people of Darkon 7 months ago when Our Hero begins work on Gaz I. From Gaz II, we know Azalin is restored in late summer 755, which means he commissions the gazetteers in the winter of 755, plus time to gather S’s things, plus time to travel to Barovia via carriage (which takes more than a week and is very uncomfortable), and then starts work in early 756 (in mid-spring, in fact). She then spends the first part of summer in Hazlan, then goes to Forlorn, and then Kartakass in late summer and into early autumn. Vistani take her back to Nevuchar Springs, where she begins Gaz II. She spends weeks surveying Darkon (where she actually meets Azalin, more or less, and gets her magical bracer), and crosses into Lamordia just after New Year’s Day in 757 (which is not as pleasant experience), and sees out her first year of surveying in Falkovnia.
Gaz III starts in spring in Dementlieu. Our Hero then travels down to Mordent, where she completely mucks up the tale of the Alchemist by losing track of which Strahd is the real one, and crosses into Richemulot in late summer 757. She reaches Borca as autumn is setting in, and Invidia when the last of the leaves have fallen. She then travels to Verbrek, where Alfred Timothy kills her at the Circle, and wakes up 2 weeks later in Valachan “just after the turn of the year” to 758 BC. She sees out the rest of the winter in Sithicus, where she falls afoul of the Tribe of Hyskosa, who give her a message for Azalin that they’re going to oppose his plans.
As Gaz V begins, she spends weeks trudging through Borca and Barovia on foot (to find the Keeper of Secrets to learn about the Shadow Rift on the way) before entering Nova Vaasa, where she begins her survey in early summer. She is still haunted the guilt of Sithicus, and can’t quite get over the long-buried memories of her daughter. She buys a baby in Liara, and crosses into Tepest in early autumn (which comes early in Tepest, as she says). She briefly passes Castle Island, learns some more about the Shadow Rift, and then after spying on the Hags, falls into a pit trap, where she is rescued by the Gentleman Caller, who has noticed Our Hero cataloguing his children and sends another threat back to Azalin. Our Hero sees out the autumn in Keening, where she sacrifices the baby to Tristessa, and then flees. Although she doesn’t say so, she almost certainly flees north to Darkon, which is a much shorter distance than it would be to go back to Tepest. Also, it’s her home. From there, she writes up her notes on Keening and the Shadow Rift, and then hires a carriage to take her to the coast to survey the Nocturnal Sea. It’s now mid-late autumn 758 BC.
And that, sadly, is where we leave the canon history.
The plan now (if the gazetteer series had continued across the planned 13 volumes), was that Our Hero would spend a year (2 books, probably, although we hadn’t really sorted that out) surveying the Nocturnal Sea and then the Sea of Sorrows. She’d probably spend the New Year (759 BC) in either Liffe or Vechor, and then finish up on Blaustein, where she decides she’s had enough as Azalin’s slave and ends it all. Unfortunately, she revives several weeks later again, and goes to where she committed suicide and comes face to face with an extremely nasty surprise... her own bloated corpse!
In late 759 BC, she sails down a mistway again to Souragne, then (in early 760 BC) the Verdurous Lands (where she abandons both ship and crew to rot in Saragoss), goes to Sri Raji and the Wildlands. From there, we have a desert gazetteer (G’Henna and the Amber Wastes). From Pharazia, she goes to the Shadowlands (so it’s now 761 BC) and then (probably) Odaire. Then (over the summer of 761 BC) she goes to the Zherisia Cluster and the Frozen Wastes cluster.
To see out 761 BC and usher in 762 BC, Our Hero rounds out the clusters and starts on the Islands. We hadn’t thought/confirmed this far ahead, but Farelle, Rokushima Taiyoo, I’Cath and one other would have gone here – perhaps Chris’ long-lost Scatter Lotus cluster? Then, she uses the Carnival to get from there to Staunton Bluffs, 2 new domains (if I had my way, one of which would have been Mictlan) and finally, the series ends in the dying days of 762 BC in Bluetspur. Which means Azalin’s metaplot – the multi-stringed showdown between Azalin, the Gentleman Caller, his children, the Tribe of Hyskosa, Madame Eva, and Isolde and the Carnival – would have, if Azalin’s plans had worked out correctly, occurred at the very end of 762 BC.
This tees off the beginning of the Time of Unparalleled Darkness, which would be a long, slow progression of events that culminate 13 years later.
