Ryan Naylor wrote:A brief diversion: a lot of darklords seem to be offered a last chance before damning themselves.
On the "Codifying Darklords" beat of my 8/13-point plan, I was going to address this as well. If a character failed six powers checks, then rather than automatically becoming a darklord, the Dark Powers would present them with a final challenge, placing them in a tentative version of their domain (or an obliette) and presenting them with a scenario that essentially gave them a chance to "redo" the most significant acts of darkness of their descent into evil. Those who succumb to their evil natures, confirming their earlier sins, "pass" (or fail, as you will), becoming darklords. Those who fail through timidity (doing nothing to redeem themselves but not taking the bait either, or just proving uninteresting while doing so) are rejected; their formative domain dissolves around them, having never truly existed, and the damned soul is permanently banished into the Misty Border, eventually becoming a mist horror. That rare duck, the potential darklord who upon reaching the moment of truth actually repents, sacrificing himself not out of defiance or despair but specifically to put a stop to the cycle of evil, might actually be granted the Dark Powers' ultimate gift of resting in peace.
Basically, a format for a "capstone" adventure for evil PCs at the end of their descent into darkness.
That is interesting in that the domain of Daglan will appear in the general area also briely in 731. When I ran Feast of Goblyns I had the group appear there on trail which started from the mists and later this same trail lead to recently formed Daglan. With domain movement roads near the mists could end abruptly also or even be mistways to the formar domains which had been there. Sounds like musical chairs maybe the dark powers are an 8 year old being annoyed by his sister.
::bows head:: Wow. When making those Core Genesis project maps I was really focusing on the political borders, matching up the occasional river. This is far superior, and even though my Greater Mordent idea is central to my current campaign, i think these pics are perfect. I almost want to apologize! If I thought anyone had ever looked at them, maybe I would
Pieter van Riese makes a dark bargain to sacrifice anyone and anything to whatever power will let him force passage through a terrible storm. When the storm abates, he finds himself alone on the Relentless, doomed to wander the misty seas forever.
The Sea of Sorrows has always had very mutable boundaries. It's described as extremely prone to fogs and mists and Mists, so even ships hugging close to the shoreline could wander into a bank of fog and never emerge again. It can obviously extend into other domains as well, as van Riese takes on new crews. Quite how he manages to convince anyone to come aboard when the Relentless is well known (by name) as a dire omen is a bit of a mystery - perhaps when corporeal, the Relentless disguises itself as something innocuous. Perhaps it is named "Relentless" in van Riese's native language when corporeal, but seen as "Relentless" in whatever your native tongue happens to be when incorporeal?
In any case, van Riese and the Relentless get a couple of cameos in adventures as omens of dire warning, just before your PCs are swept up by the Mists or attacked by a soul kraken or something.
Because of it's mutable boundaries, it is hard to pin down exactly which domains it links to and which domains were reached through it via the Mists. Valachan, for example, has a coastline in the Red Box but doesn't in Domains of Dread or RL3e. Is Nebligtode originally found north of Lamordia (as Ship of Horror has it, until the Grand Conjunction at least) or is that just a Mistway (as the Nocturnal Sea gazetteer has it)? I quite like the idea of the Mists pulling back and flowing in again, like they do in the Mistlands of Darkon, so sometimes Valachan is bordered by sea, and sometimes by Mist. Needless to say, no one lives anywhere near places where the Mists could wash over them, so that part of the domain is probably doesn't have anyone living along the Schrodinger-coast (as the maps show).
We know Ghastria is around in this timezone (although on my map, it's still hypothetically nestled between Keening and Arak). If you don't like this, it could take its place in the Sea of Sorrows anytime from now onwards. In my supposition, it'll move there when Tepest displaces it in 691 BC. If you take the Red Box maps as "in game" maps, there's land in the right place for Ghastria by 740 BC, so it must be there by then.
Blaustein will be around in the next few years, but given how close it is to Dementlieu and Mordent, it should be on the Red Box map if it's there, and it's not, which may mean it exists as an Island of Terror (harvesting wives via conjunctions) until about 741 BC. Or maybe it's just not on the Red Box map for some other reason.
Obviously, Markovia and Dominia are yet to join the Sea. Markovia does it in 740 BC, and Dominia does it in about 748 BC ("recently" according to Bleak House, which is set in 750 BC). Demise will appear in 686 BC or so.
Ramsay Island (from the House at the Edge of Midnight) forms about a century ago (before 740 BC) or in 393 BC, depending on which part of the adventure you're reading. As 393 BC has to be a continuity error (no Mordent or Sea of Sorrows for them to come from, amongst other problems), we'll say it forms in the next few years.
Finally, a lot of the islands that end up in the Nocturnal Sea could be transiently located here (L'ile de la Tempete, for example, is specifically noted to appear in the Sea of Sorrows at times).
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Strahdsbuddy wrote:::bows head:: Wow. When making those Core Genesis project maps I was really focusing on the political borders, matching up the occasional river. This is far superior, and even though my Greater Mordent idea is central to my current campaign, i think these pics are perfect. I almost want to apologize! If I thought anyone had ever looked at them, maybe I would
Hamiclar wrote:
The novel Tapestry of Dark Souls which is about the dark relic portrayed mentioned earlier brings a good point. The tapestry of souls was held in land not named and the land where Ghastaria is mentioned was I believe is where it comes from. The land had no large settlement other than the structure holding the cloth with the people which supported the structure and undead and other beasts roaming the areas. The cloths destruction of keepers and residents which prompted the survivors to move somewhere else with little contact which would not temp others to deeds of leading to entrapment of the cloth.
The Gathering Cloth was made by Abber Nomads in the Nightmare Lands. It was then held by an Order of the Guardians in some unknown domain (although Nova Vaasa seems likely, and fits with the evidence from what I remember; eastern Darkon is another option). Following Morgoroth's attack/absorbtion, they fled to Markovia. Most of the novel takes place in either Markovia or Tepest, with flashbacks to Gundarak.
Ah, I see what you mean now. I misunderstood you before.
Neither Man Nor Beast does mention a few names that "may have been" lands of the Core (or of other worlds - it is deliberately very vague about whether these lands are even in Ravenloft or not) in the past. So perhaps it's one of those (Theka, Bileplate and I think Moridana)? Or perhaps it's Estrangia from Tales of Ravenloft (a story that I did not particularly enjoy).
My personal theory is that the NMNB places are outlander worlds rather than domains (particularly not Core domains). With the exception of Moridana, they just don't sound like Core places to me. Also, it never says they're domains - they could be towns, or even stranger places. The Bileplate could be a reef, for example, or a saltflat. Or a plane. Or they could just be false history.
The only problem I can see with your ToDS domain being where I've put Ghastria is the dates - Tepest replaces ToDS/Ghastria in 691 BC. Markovia doesn't come into being until 698 BC. So the Guardians have to flee the destruction of their first sanctuary sometime before 691, flee (into either Darkon or Barovia), then flee back to settle in Markovia, which sounds a bit complicated to me. Alternately, maybe your ToDS domain is supplanted (becoming an Island) rather than destroyed, in which case the monks still have to flee into the Mists to end up in Markovia. Plus, who is the darklord?
I think it's simpler if their original lair is an isolated town in Darkon or Nova Vaasa. There's less wandering about. Occam's razor works for me.
I thought that the Sea of Sorrows did not get a lord until after the Grand Conjunction.
The nameless lands are best for the cloths origin to me it was temporyarily out of the mists until it struck out at the guardians. It may have escaped from the mist to be stuck in a land that was drawn back in to tempt others until its recovery later after the Markovia had formed.
What have the Dark Powers been doing for the last 50 years? Obviously their attention has been elsewhere.
And so we come to the tangled continuity sprawl that is Nova Vaasa - unique because out of 5 canon descriptions in 2e, not one agreed with the others. How many moons are there? What class is Tristen, Enemy Within? What is Tristen's name, Monster Compendium II? So three cheers for Andrew Cermak for trying to make some sense out of that tangled mess for Gaz V (of which I was not one).
It's also one of the ones that tends to cause controversy because of Tristen not deserving it. Interesting, Lamordia (the other one), is the next domain to form. Perhaps it's a phase the Dark Powers are going through?
Personally, I prefer Rotipher's interpretation of events: before he was cursed, Tristen was LE, and it was the losing control he regretted, not the murder. His hypocrisy (particularly given how young he was when he became a darklord) leads to a literally 2 faced darklord, and an equally bifurcated domain, also full of hypocritical nobles in lovely country villas, squeezing the lifeblood out of their servants and urban poor. As regards Edmund Hiregaard, Malken is gaslighting the alchemist (Tristen's cousin) into thinking his dark side is Malken.
Another theory I devised years ago was that the domains that have been retconned (Arak and Nova Vaasa) also border the Nightmare Lands (although not yet). Perhaps the unreality of the dreamscape drifts in slow sheets across it's neighbouring domains, causing uncertain histories to follow?
Important to note: Malken is the darklord, and Tristen is his curse, not the other way around.
This is also the first time the Church of the Lawgiver appears in the Core.
Another interesting point about Nova Vaasa is that it significantly changes size during the Grand Conjunction. Continuing this theme, the Nova Vaasa on this map is slightly smaller than the Nova Vaasa that'll appear in 690 BC, which is smaller than the one that'll appear in 740 BC. I like to think it represents Malken's struggle with Tristen: as Tristen gets older and more tired, his is less able to constrain Malken's evil, and the domain swells to match (although unfortunately, neither 690 nor 740 really coincides with anything important in Malken's life).
A brief diversion into the world of trade: Barovia (the south Core) and Darkon (the north Core) are originally able to trade through the Krezk path, or the trade route through Arak and Marbh-Cathair. Mordent and Darkon can trade overland or through the Sea of Sorrows, which starts the long demographic shift in Darkon towards the west.
The formation of Keening closes this pass, so for the last 100 years or so, all trade between the north and south Cores has had to go through either Arak or the Mists (the Dark Powers decide that if Strahd and Azalin can’t play nicely, they don’t get to play together at all). Gundarak and Invidia can trade along the rivers, and then overland to Barovia. Marbh-Cathair’s gone, but the mountain passes they used to trade through remain—which just goes to show how traumatic the Scourge of Arak must have been for the Core as a whole. It annihilated a domain, destroyed a healthy slab of the mining industry, and made trade extremely difficult. Again, this probably reinforces Barovian xenophobia.
My placement of Nova Vaasa after 100 years of this means that the old route through Arak suddenly has Liara on it as a way station (in a very similar position to where Marbh-Cathair was, actually). Coincidentally, this is Tristen Hiregaard’s hometown. Trade between north and south Cores therefore continues through Arak, with only minor deviations into Nova Vaasa, which fits Nova Vaasa’s isolated, foreign, wilderness character. In 8 years, Falkovnia forms, and even though it’s Falkovnia, it’s easier to trade through it than Arak, so this trade route with very slowly dry up.
If you don't like the distance between Kantora and Bergovista changing slightly between 682 and 690 BC, you could always stick the domain at its 740 size and position, between Barovia and Darkon (multiple choice histories to go with Nova Vaasa again!). However, there are 2 reasons why I don’t think this is correct.
1. If you want to have Nova Vaasa directly between Barovia and Arak (so, without changing positions in 690 BC), trade goes through Arak, Egertus, Kantora, Bergovista and further south to the Old Svalich Road. I think that requires too central a position for Nova Vaasa, but you may disagree. It certainly would explain the bloated size of Nova Vaasan cities.
And 2. In Gaz V, contemporary sources from 682 (although it has to be 683) BC in Nova Vaasa (in Gaz V) describe “howling fear to the west, stone death to the north, shapeless nightmares to the east and nothing but ominous swirling to the south”. Which is to say, shortly after it forms, Nova Vaasa was bordered by Barovia, Arak, the Nightmare Lands (from 683 BC) and the Mists. If it was in its 740 BC position, it’s mostly got Mist to the west, not howling fear.
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Last edited by Ryan Naylor on Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Less to say about this one thankfully. Lamordia assumes it's current position with Darkon, shifting Mordent down a bit. The Sea of Sorrows gets a bit larger, and with more trading partners. Demise will appear in about 686 BC, so the Finger's a little bit shorter than this map shows. Given none of the roads or rivers join up in the northern Core now, all the trade must be done by Mist or sea, except between Ludendorf and Rivalis, so this is probably when Rivalis and Martira Bay really start to boom.
In terms of Adam being the darklord: I would like to point out that, while their descriptions say Adam was created evil, Adam and Mordenheim's descriptions (and the novel) say they're both unreliable narrators. I think we should go with the Red Box and say that, at first, Adam was childlike and innocent, and then, out of hatred for Mordenheim, deliberately chose evil. In the novel, you can even pin down the moment he does it, because both Mordenheim and Adam refer to the same scene. And then whatever he did to Elise and Eva was enough to earn his darklordship. I like to think he deliberately dropped Eva out of spite, and is therefore guilty of trying to kill the only 2 people he actually cared about in the world just out of rage and the desire to hurt Mordenheim.
Needless to say, I do not approve of Eva's descendants being playable as of Legacies of Blood. I think that may have been misguided.
I will happily come out of lurking status to make sure you know this is the most interesting thread I've followed in quite a while--And I love these forums, so that's saying something significant!
Please keep the updates coming. The commentary is every bit as interesting as the images themselves. Thanks for putting this out there for us all to use!
Still loving the thread, Ryan (and I'm inclined to agree with you about Adam), but I have to ask: how much of a difference does it make if we go with the 735 date the Black Box hints at for Lamordia?
Lamordia's conveniently up in the corner, so in terms of the map, it doesn't make that much difference at all. Instead of moving in 683 BC, Mordent stays appended to Darkon, bordered on one side by the Sea of Sorrows and on the other two by Mist (until Falkovnia forms, at least). When Richemulot forms in 694 BC, Mordent hops down to it, leaving a Mist-filled channel to the north (Falkovnia one side, the Sea the other) that will one day fill up with Dementlieu (707 BC) and then Lamordia (735 BC). It'd make shipping a bit more difficult between 707 and 735 BC (because your ship could wander into the Mists at any time), and Demise would look a bit odd floating by itself without the Finger, but the maps aren't really affected.
However, it does tamper a bit with continuity. I think the Brain/d'Honaire conflict is probably the most important thing delayed, but there are a few others (ships, Falkovnian wars, a few NPCs). It makes Strahd's diary in I,SII look completely deranged as well.
Who knows how long they've been hidden away in the Mists for?
I've decided not to show the Nightmare Lands on my maps only because it was too much hassle to keep changing the size of a completely featureless box. It is there, however. In this timeframe, it stretches from the edges of Darkon, along Arak and probably stops at the point of Nova Vaasa. When Hazlan forms in 714 BC, it grows to stretch alongside Hazlan down to Bluetspur as well.
Nothing much happens here for a long time. Quite understandably, half the population of Egertus flee when the Nightmare Lands appear. The Gathering Cloth is made and sold to some Nova Vaasans. Van Richten and Ilhousen will go there on a visit (which tells us that the Ring of Dreams and the poorly-named "Forest" of Everchange exist, and so therefore probably also the City of Nod - so it's in its modern form, just not the same shape). After the Grand Conjunction, the Illuminated Man will join the Carnival, and the Clinic for the Mentally Distressed will be drawn into the Nightmare Lands.
And that's about it.
I've always thought of the Nightmare Court as all being aspects of the Nightmare Man, by the way, rather than individual beings - his fears and regrets clothed in his memories or imagination. Also, there's a member of the Court described in the Guide to Transylvania but not in the Nightmare Lands Boxed set - the Red Haired Child, who deals in regret.
