Ordinary things not found in Ravenloft

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I don't think triangulation would be lost just because the world is flat. Things still radiate. And as far as time zones, that'smore a function of distance (at least in RL) than circumference (although it does help). High sun at one end of the Core isn't going to be the same at the opposite end.

Well, according to the map in the Red Box, the whole core is about the size of the state of Nevada, which fits comfortably in a single time zone anyway. Unless RL was round, and on a way smaller planet than earth, it wouldn't be much of an issue.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

the whole core is about the size of the state of Nevada, which fits comfortably in a single time zone anyway.

This does make some things like weather and seasons really tricky without the DPs.

Also what about those islands/clusters which do have very specific geographic and climate features? With no "North" how could something like the Frozen Reaches work?

[Tykus]

This also brings up an interesting question since the FOS is working on the NS: Do ships viewed from shore shrink into the distance (and hence be continually visible with a powerful enough telescope) or do they sink into the horizon?

I can just hear the "Oh,$#!!!"s going right now.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Considering how hazy and dark the NS is, I doubt if you could make out a ship at sufficient distance to tell the difference, telescope or no telescope.

[Manofevil]

While working on the sea monster netbook, it occurred to me that, just as some things in Ravenloft don't exist outside it, there are also things from the real world that Ravenloft's natives have never encountered. In the new VRF book, for example, I'm trying to restrict use of the word "ocean" to OOC sidebars and titles. Why? Because there are no oceans in the Land of Mists, just seas. Weird, but true.

This got me wondering what other things Ravenloft's natives won't have heard of, except from outlanders whom they probably consider wacko. Aside from oceans, what things or concepts are missing from Ravenloft, which an IRL person from a comparable historical era would have heard of?

Some others that occured to me, besides "ocean":

Poles or polar regions
Equator or equatorial climate
Lattitude & longitude
Genuine hurricanes/cyclones (as opposed to hurricane-force storms)

I considered these issues myself, once upon a time, and presented an idea I feel the need to repeat:
When I first started reading Dragonlance, I couldn't stop thinking of Krynn as a planet just like ours- so how could there be exactly 108 stars in the sky, 5 planets and three moons. I figured that the pantheon of gods would be able to manipulate a large cloud of planetary gas thereby only letting certain stars shine through. Manipulating local planets and moons would be just as easy for them. Trying to think of RavenLoft as a planet was a bit more challenging. Ravenloft was clearly a construct made up of land masses from various other worlds that will, on occasion, move about. What kind of planet could be like that? I finally concluded that the base planet the DPs used to build RavenLoft was a gas giant (mist). I considered a water planet for it but then I read about the sea floors of the known seas. The land masses incorporated would be made to sit somehow on the surface of this planet and be moved, somehow, when the DPs felt like moving them or the laws of physics demanded it, say, during a Grand Conjunction. This model gives the DPs two very important things they need to sustain life: Sunlight and Gravity. I've notice that the water and photosynthetic cycles seem to be fundamentally the same. Also the atmosphere in every land seems to pretty much alike. No nitrogen breathing frog people living across a border from helium breathing beaver people. I think a lot of what's pointed out on this board is definitely a point toward my plantary model as opposed to the demiplane model.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

If Ravenloft is a flat world, lose the concept of the nautical mile, as it's the same as a regular mile.

Good catch on the nautical miles and time zones, BTW!

(***rushes off to do a word-search on "nautical mile" and remove it from all the sea-monster submissions***)

Note that I did say "If Ravenloft is a flat world,"... I have no idea and have never read anywhere whether the Core is flat or has the slight curvature of a planetary segment.

And the question of whether ships disappear in the distance, that is just another factor in the "flat world" vs "round world", as, on a round world, ships would sink below the horizon as they travel off at a distance (and so nautical miles exist as a concept on the round world) whereas that wouldn't be the case if on a flat world.

But, anyway, before you strike the term "nautical mile" from the document, you might want to decide whether Ravenloft is round or flat... Or perhaps your comment indicates that you've already decided on that. And, honestly, the concept of a flat world does make a nice contrast with our own.

Presumably the languages of Ravenloft do have their own words for such behavior, even if the etymology is a little different. ("Tergism"?)

Oh, no doubt. And I apologize for my poor wording, as it should just be the word "vandalism" that is missing, not the concept.

I agree about the lack of barbarian raiders seeming a bit bland. OTOH, if you really want them IYC for a particular scenario, the Mists could always plunk a few hundred down wherever you need them.

I was, personally, thinking of resurrecting some from False History, actually. I mean, the Tergs were horselord barbarians, as was the culture that would become the Gundarakites, and as were the Vaasan peoples... And all of them either are or have been threats to the Barovians. Personally, I want a return to that, carving out large pieces of territory from Barovia, Invidia and Borca to make a barbarian homeland that is NOT a seperate Ravenloftian domain but IS a seperate political entity. Or, perhaps, that is a wandering domain that contains the barbarian leader and his entire tribe as it crosses back and forth across the domains, much as the Carnival does. But it's still an offhand idea that I don't think I'll even be using in my next campaign.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

But, anyway, before you strike the term "nautical mile" from the document, you might want to decide whether Ravenloft is round or flat... Or perhaps your comment indicates that you've already decided on that. And, honestly, the concept of a flat world does make a nice contrast with our own.

Myself, I like the idea that each chunk of Ravenloft could be flat, or slightly round, or slightly concave for that matter, depending on the shape of the world its terrain was copied from. There are all sorts of worlds in the multiverse, after all; no reason the DPs can't replicate a piece of the Hollow World if they want, given that Ravenloft's all just hunks of artificial habitat built on ethereal smoke.

But mostly, removing the words "nautical mile" just leaves it up to DMs to decide about the topographical layout. If they prefer for the Land's various sections to be curved, they can just argue that the in-character narrators avoided using a navigational term the W-F Twins might be less familiar with than regular miles.

[Isabella]

I think at a certain point you just have to give up on Ravenloft ever making sense on a geographic level. The moment we start taking ordinary things out all willy-nilly opens up a huge can of worms of "Wait, Ravenloft doesn't have X? Then how the heck does it have all Y and Z?"

It just does. The Dark Powers did it.

[DocBeard]

Yeah-remember that Ravenloft is, in its weird way, alive. Whatever you wanna call it; the Mists, the Dark Powers, the Metatext busting out of Subtext, the plane has some sort of sentience. It's like a rain cloud with feelings.

Ironically, that makes the Lamordians less wrong than we usually assume: their model of the universe is some Dark Powers away from being dead on. Kooky.

[cure]

Should the word 'tropical' be used, as it was in the Nocturnal Sea netbook?

'Tropic' etymology: "c.1391, "either of the two circles in the celestial sphere which describe the northernmost and southernmost points of the ecliptic," from L.L. tropicus "of or pertaining to the solstice" (as a noun, "one of the tropics"), from L. tropicus "pertaining to a turn," from Gk. tropikos "of or pertaining to a turn or change, or to the solstice" (as a noun, "the solstice"), from trope "a turning" (see trope). The notion is of the point at which the sun "turns back" after reaching its northernmost or southernmost point in the sky. Extended 1527 to the corresponding latitudes on the earth's surface (23 degrees 28 minutes north and south); meaning "region between these parallels" is from 1837. Tropical "hot and lush like the climate of the tropics" is first attested 1834."

The point is that there is no band about Ravenloft that corresponds to the tropics and hence 'tropical' should perhaps give way to: "hot, lush, steamy, sticky, stifling, sultry, sweaty, sweltering, and/or torrid."

[ewancummins]

Should the word 'tropical' be used, as it was in the Nocturnal Sea netbook?

'Tropic' etymology: "c.1391, "either of the two circles in the celestial sphere which describe the northernmost and southernmost points of the ecliptic," from L.L. tropicus "of or pertaining to the solstice" (as a noun, "one of the tropics"), from L. tropicus "pertaining to a turn," from Gk. tropikos "of or pertaining to a turn or change, or to the solstice" (as a noun, "the solstice"), from trope "a turning" (see trope). The notion is of the point at which the sun "turns back" after reaching its northernmost or southernmost point in the sky. Extended 1527 to the corresponding latitudes on the earth's surface (23 degrees 28 minutes north and south); meaning "region between these parallels" is from 1837. Tropical "hot and lush like the climate of the tropics" is first attested 1834."

The point is that there is no band about Ravenloft that corresponds to the tropics and hence 'tropical' should perhaps give way to: "hot, lush, steamy, sticky, stifling, sultry, sweaty, sweltering, and/or torrid."

Hmmmm....they aren't really speaking English, of course, so we could just assume that this is merely translation.

If not, I vote for

Torrid vs Frigid [to replace tropical vs arctic]

[crazybantha]

Note that this somewhat links with my above idea of Barbarians: I propose that the Core might be like the Roman Empire, rather than Renaissance Europe. Since there has not yet been a fall of civilization in the Core, that might be something coming up in the future. Instead of going into the Dark Ages, might we be entering a Time of Unparalleled Darkness?

That is one of the coolest ideas for what will happen in the ToUD. I think i'll steal it, if you don't mind.

(as if RL wasn't dark enough )

As for biblical concepts, I don't think it's a stretch, since most biblical concepts are really drawn from "universal" religious concepts (religions around the world have a surprising amount of resemblance upon each other, from anthropological and historical POVs).

I mean, Jesus wasn't the first that came from a virgin and destined to morally free the world, nor would messianism be an alien concept, with so much religious factions from the same church all around some domains. I'd guess RL has its share of prophets and messiahs just like in real life (except people dont pay attention as much).

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Should the word 'tropical' be used, as it was in the Nocturnal Sea netbook?

Certainly, it'd be used in its climatological sense. Even IRL ecologists use "tropical" to describe hot, humid climates in general, regardless of their actual distance from the equator.

"Equatorial", OTOH, couldn't be used as a synonym for "tropical".

[cure]

Tropical = of the tropics

But there is/are no tropics in Ravenloft, as defined in relation to the equator, the angle of the sun, and such.

Symmantically 'tropical' makes sense, via its parasitic relationship with the real world, but etymologically it does not make sense in Ravenloft, and so a more fitting way of saying hot and suffocating within the Lands of the Mist would seem to be more atmospheric to me.

Indeed for that reason, I suspect, we were not given the "Tropical Lands" but rather the "Verdurous Lands."

[Mangrum]

Indeed for that reason, I suspect, we were not given the "Tropical Lands" but rather the "Verdurous Lands."

"Tropical Lands" as a cluster name? Seriously?