Café de Nuit

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:

If you just can't think of an in-character author, that's all right; we can put a little memo at the start ("Laurie, are you sure there's nothing in Uncle's reference-list on where he found this? We really should verify its contents! - Genny") that accounts for the omission.

Are you joking? I've a load of characters in my head just waiting to tell their stories.

Ok, I'll get the caller and the malasyniep. Malsinyep. Malsin... Malasniy... IT.

For the record, if Stormwrack had been published when I started working on Gazetteer II, I wouldn't have created the sea stalker.

Mangrum wrote:For the record, if Stormwrack had been published when I started working on Gazetteer II, I wouldn't have created the sea stalker.

You mean for the seawolf-sea stalker issue?

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:So, if you'd like to contribute, but are more into "crunch" than "fluff", look over these options and see if there's anything that appeals to you!

I'll try to give it a shot. Probably statting an monster/NPC or two. I'm still for collecting a list of sea related NPC's/monsters (and their sources) that are already in canon. So far we got:

-Aggie (Forlorn boxed set and Gazetteer I),
-the vampire-ixitxachitl Myxitizajal (CotN:V),
-the Arden Bay serpent (source? page?)

...and who else ? Who's Rudolf of Baytown ?


Also will material from the QtR9 be included or further expanded upon? The Old Salt article was excellent afair.

Mangrum wrote:For the record, if Stormwrack had been published when I started working on Gazetteer II, I wouldn't have created the sea stalker.

Hmmmm. So if Mikhail opts to take a "This-Never-Happened" approach to the sea stalker, and just adapt the Stormwrack version of the seawolf to be more Ravenlofty, would you be okay with that?

The Giamarga wrote:I'm still for collecting a list of sea related NPC's/monsters (and their sources) that are already in canon.

A very good idea. I had two exams to write over the weekend, but this coming weekend I'll have more time to go reference-hunting.

So far we got:

-Aggie (Forlorn boxed set and Gazetteer I),
-the vampire-ixitxachitl Myxitizajal (CotN:V),
-the Arden Bay serpent (source? page?)

...and who else ? Who's Rudolf of Baytown ?

Rudolf is the leader of the sea stalker (seawolf?) colony on the Isle of Agony.

IIRC, there's an ex-Kargat seawolf in the Carnival, among Pacali's crew. Also, one of Tristen Hiregaard's granddaughters is a ship's officer (LotB), and we could toss in a report from a human (?) merchant-seaman for the Carlyle Trading Company as a tie-in to the previous VRF book.

If an NPC you're considering as a source is associated with the Nocturnal Sea, BTW, you should check with me first to see if they're already filling a role in that netbook, that may prevent them from appearing here.

Also will material from the QtR9 be included or further expanded upon? The Old Salt article was excellent afair.

Well, we should probably ask permission of the original authors before we use any actual NPCs, just as a courtesy. Likewise, we don't want to get redundant, so anything we spin off of QtR9 should (of course) be rich in new material. But drawing on ideas from the QtRs is definitely allowable: that's what netbooks are for, after all.

I have basically one question: Are Sea Wolves/Sea Stalkers/Were-Seals lycanthropes, or are they a unique shapechanger more like the Aranea? Everything else flows from that.

Regarding NPCs, there's also a working Kargat sea-stalker presented as a sample in Gaz II, a fellow named Morwyck.

The old products definitely called them lycanthropes. Making them an offshoot of werewolves might make for interesting flavor-text, if there's a story behind how this "mutant" phenotype arose. (Maybe a werewolf bit and infected a selkie?)

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:The old products definitely called them lycanthropes. Making them an offshoot of werewolves might make for interesting flavor-text, if there's a story behind how this "mutant" phenotype arose. (Maybe a werewolf bit and infected a selkie?)

Carnival has an infected seawolf/sea stalker, FWIW

DeepShadow wrote:

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:The old products definitely called them lycanthropes. Making them an offshoot of werewolves might make for interesting flavor-text, if there's a story behind how this "mutant" phenotype arose. (Maybe a werewolf bit and infected a selkie?)

Carnival has an infected seawolf/sea stalker, FWIW

Who is/was also a Kargat agent btw. Both of that secretly.

Am I correct that no Jolly Roger has ever been mentioned in a Ravenloft product, including VR Guide to the Walking Dead, aside from the monster manuals?

They're mentioned very briefly on page 87 of the VRGttWalking Dead.

Any thoughts on how prevelant home grown pirates are on the Sea of Sorrows and Nocturnal Sea? References too them? I recall, off the top of my head, only that Trisan's daughter was outfitting a ship to fight them (from Legacies of Blood).

Pirates should be all over the place. This is a by-no-means exhaustive list, but I can think of Urdogen the Red, Draga Salt-Biter, Andre du Sang and Auden Beck as supernatural variations of pirates from official canon.

Likewise, I believe both Blaustein and Graben are known to be pirate homes.

More fan-based, QtR 9 has an entire article on pirates, though you'd need to ask ScS if you could base anything off of it.

Likewise, the Carlyle Trading Company of VRS:Dopp fame is based in the Sea of Sorrows and spends a fair amount of effort hunting down pirates. It's merchant fleet's flagship, the Golden Opportunity, is actually a large and well-equipped pirate hunter. I wrote them up, so ask anything you need regarding them.

cure wrote:Am I correct that no Jolly Roger has ever been mentioned in a Ravenloft product, including VR Guide to the Walking Dead, aside from the monster manuals?

Auden Beck, the Viking-like sea vampire from CotN:V, has a couple of jolly rogers as his ship's officers.


BTW, if you're writing about the Nocturnal Sea, it's best to write "Graben Island", rather than just "Graben". As of the upcoming Gaz, "Graben" will be used to indicate the family, "Graben Island" for the land-mass/nation, and "Graben-town" for the settlement.