Café de Nuit

Is there any Domain that may be use as an equivalent of Spain (mor or less accurate) in Ravenloft..? I search few books i have, Mistpedia and lot of web sources but cannot find anything similar:/

There are none in canon that I can think of, but there have been some fan-made adaptations. One of my favorite ones is the conversion of Valachan into Valacán.

There's also the conversion of Richemulot into ricoba that's rather popular.

For my part, I envision Invidia as an hybrid between spain and southern italy. The pastoral background of the land mesh well in my opinion. On the others hand, the lack of religiosity of the country can go against your vision of spain.

Thank you for the support everyone - I think Ricoba looks pretty interesting, but must read more about it before say something for sure;)

Definately Invidia! Take a look at Duende as a spanish art movement, and you can see the similarities.

If you get the chance as well, read Federico Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding. It's very Invidia...

Well, Invidia sounds good too - hot blooded nation wearing high boots, using daggers and so on... But what with the famous "spanish inquisition"..? Is it okay to introduce a "inquisitors" that hunts for the potentially giomorgo or vistani that may secretly living there..? I remember something similar from true spanish history...

EDIT:
The second change that have to be done to create "true" Spain - the sea. Without the sea it cannot be an Armada. I start to thing about reforming Core a little bit - but maby it's too much for the beginning... I must think about it bit more...

"The Inquisition" has mean transplanted to "Ireland" (Tepest) and pseudo-Arthurian-era-England (Nidala)

<movie trailer voice>In a world</movie trailer voice> where the largest navy in the land has like 3 or 4 ships (Darkon), the Armada would be kind of tough to squeeze in without a big restructuring.

I think it is in Spectre of the Black Rose that we saw Malocchio's inquisition prey upon an unsuspecting Invidian village. I would be curious to learn about those inquisitors, I never saw them in any other canon source.

As for the sea, if you go toward the Invidian route, you could do a big bay that came from the Sea of Sorrows and separate Valachan from Mordent and Verbrek from Richemulot. Verbrek and Valachan aren't big players in the Core, so "separating" them like this should not impact the world a lot.

By the way, I'm curious of what you envision for your Ravenloft version of the Reconquista.

If I were to add a 'Spanish' domain, I'd probably make up a new country. An island on teh far side of the Sea of Sorrows would be easy to add.That would allow for ships, if you wish to emphasize navigation.

I have kept Richemulot somewhat Gallic.

My version of Invidia is loosely based on Italy seen through a Gothic lens (Castle of Otranto, Mysteries of Udolpho).


Valachan isn't Spanish IMC. If I had to describe it in real world terms, I might say that it is like a fantasy version of Western Oregon. The indigenous people were similiar to NW Indians, but also to Black Americans. It was settled/invaded by Central or Eastern Europeans (like the Russian settlers and fur traders of real Pacific NW history, only in greater numbers relative to the native people).

Skavenloft wrote:Well, Invidia sounds good too - hot blooded nation wearing high boots, using daggers and so on... But what with the famous "spanish inquisition"..? Is it okay to introduce a "inquisitors" that hunts for the potentially giomorgo or vistani that may secretly living there..? I remember something similar from true spanish history...

I've made my case elsewhere that Invidia seems more Spanish to me than the native Balok would indicate. IMC Invidia is home to several families of gunpowder mercenaries who have a Spanish/Mexican air to them.

<movie trailer voice>In a world</movie trailer voice> where the largest navy in the land has like 3 or 4 ships (Darkon), the Armada would be kind of tough to squeeze in without a big restructuring.

It's just the matter of scaling - it may be "small" Armada, that will be "big" within a world... Wiki says the original Armada has a strange of 22 Spanish and Portuguese galleons and 108 armed merchant vessels - way too great, but 5 -6 galleons should be right enought to be fearsome, but no overpower...

By the way, I'm curious of what you envision for your Ravenloft version of the Reconquista.

Ummm... Mictlan, Yatehcaa... And theres a few more Domains from Midway Haven that may fit well, I think.
And of course:

-Valachan, now Valacán, is based off Spanish Mexico. It's not a perfect analogue, since it's not really a colonial state, but the old order was overthrown by Don Uriel Carrascón (known as Von Kharkov to Vassi speaking peoples). The Don has a burning drive to stamp out every remnant of the old culture, as well as keen obsession with industrializing his domain, shipping mechanical parts all the way from Lamordia. He has converted the domain over to worship of the Lawgiver. He is also not some kind of bizarre nosferatu panther and is just a plain old man-jaguar.

If there's a will, someone, someday probably will found a way

EDIT:
And about geography - who now, maby the Great Upheval was a bit more dramatical that the "canonical" one...

DeepShadow of FoS wrote:

Skavenloft wrote:Well, Invidia sounds good too - hot blooded nation wearing high boots, using daggers and so on... But what with the famous "spanish inquisition"..? Is it okay to introduce a "inquisitors" that hunts for the potentially giomorgo or vistani that may secretly living there..? I remember something similar from true spanish history...

I've made my case elsewhere that Invidia seems more Spanish to me than the native Balok would indicate. IMC Invidia is home to several families of gunpowder mercenaries who have a Spanish/Mexican air to them.

Balok seems to be a very mutable language with a variety of dialects. Take Borca, for instance. It's based off of Italy during the time the Borgia family was in power. Domains of Dread states Borca has its own dialect of Balok to explain this Italian influence, and Gaz IV takes it one step further by introducing the concept of trying to adapt Dementlieuse culture and language. Invidia probably has its own "dialect" as well, and probably influenced by the languages of its neighbors. The Barovian "dialect" of Balok is probably closest to the original due to the Barovians' traditional dislike of anything foreign.

Don't forget that Romanian, on which Balok's canon vocabulary is based, is technically a Romance language. It's not that big of a linguistic stretch to re-cast a Balok-speaking nation as Spanish in flavor, given some false history of other ethnic influences to change the accent and terminology.

If you wanted to create your own spanish domain for the core, You might try that. Does anyone here know a good spanish ghost story or vampire, werewolf, or something else besides the inquisition, not that that would be bad.