Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume IV

From Mistipedia
Revision as of 00:09, 19 September 2017 by The Lesser Evil (talk | contribs) (→‎Corporeal Collateral)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigationJump to search

Game Rules

3.0 Edition, although falsely marketed as 3.5 Edition

Dates

  • Published 2003
  • Ravenloft 756 BC in theory, but according to the opening letter research in Borca began in the fall of 757 BC. [Gaz IV p. 4]

Domains & Authors

DM's Appendix Contents

  • Poison politics – creating poison, new poisons

Authors' Notes

James Lowder

After I was approached to write the Sithicus section, I asked Voronica Whitney-Robinson to work on the chapter with me. We split the section in half. I covered:

  • Opening quote and intro/overview of domain
  • Realm at a glance
  • History
  • Guilt of Sithicus sidebar
  • The Realm (government, economy, law enforcement, diplomacy, and Blessed Knight sidebar)
  • Final Thoughts
  • Darklord write-up for Inza Magdova Kulchevich

The best part of working on the Sithicus section was setting the tone for the domain post-Spectre and, as with the material I wrote on the Wanderers for Heroes of Light, moving the plot of the domain forward, toward the conflict that would form the heart of the third Sithicus novel, should I write it. I worked with Jackie Cassada and Nicky Rea on developing Inza as a unique darklord, and they helped enhance her powers quite a bit (see JWM's comment after*). Some of the cooler shadow-linked powers are ones they prompted.

I understand from the RL message board that Soth is not called "the Cursed Knight" in the history section of the Gaz—he should have been called that, as he was in the previously published Heroes of Light. (The earlier term "blackguard" that was applied to him in some of the 3e material is not appropriate at all—that's far too mild a term for the monster Soth was.) Since I have not seen the published book, I don't know what else was changed in editing or development.

On the WotC board, Mr Lowder summarized Inza's curse : it is founded upon the notion that evil people do not do evil for its own sake. If they are not just mad, evil people act in ways that harm or destroy others out of a belief that can be summed up as: "You would do the same to me, given the chance." Inza pimped over her mom and her tribe based upon that notion. The trouble is, even a single selfless person, a single act not founded somehow upon self-interest, casts doubt--shadows, as it were--upon her basic belief that everyone is really selfish. Her curse is to be hyper-aware of good and kind acts in her realm.

The domain as a whole was designed to be sort of a reverse image of what Sithicus was under Soth. The Dark Powers taunted Soth with imperfect memories; he had to fight to be true to himself and his past. The last thing anyone can do in Sithicus now is escape themselves or forget their guilt.

John W. Mangrum

Who wrote each section ? I wrote Borca, Anthony Pryor wrote Invidia (is it Anthony? I really hope I'm not getting his name wrong, because I was quite impressed by his work), Andrew Wyatt wrote Verbrek, Ryan Naylor wrote Valachan, and Sithicus was co-written by James Lowder and Voronica Whitney-Robinson. Andrew Wyatt wrote the Foreword.

Vor Ziyden and Ilvin were left out for space reasons.

As a note, it was actually me who made those suggestions for Inza. Nicky & Jackie just passed along my work after I requested that her creator approve them.

Borca moved here (see JWM's comments in Gaz III), and I did my usual shadow developer work on the whole book.

Most of the adventure hook sidebars were cut from Borca in Gaz IV. In some cases, the "setup" for these hooks remains subtly hidden in the text, but the "punchlines" have all been excised. The developers said they might release this material as a web extra around the time the book was published. They were as follows:

...as long as I have my files open, the first half of the Borca opening quote in Gaz IV was cut too. Here's that complete quote:

"But the scanty wisdom of man, on entering into an affair which looks well at first, cannot discern the poison that is hidden in it ... Therefore, if he who rules a principality cannot recognize evils until they are upon him, he is not truly wise; and this insight is given to few."
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Ryan Naylor

Before I begin this, I would just like to point out that I know how the bracer saved Our Hero and you don’t. So there. And, given the Great Falling Out between the Kargatane and ArtHaus, and the fact the gazetteers seem to have slipped off the production schedule for the moment, that state may persist for some time. I will say we were going to tell you in the Blaustein Gazetteer though. If enough people start calling the narrator (who is a pleasure to write for. I particularly like how she hates everything about the countries she travels through, except the indigenous alcohols) Our Hero, I may tell you anyway.

Originally, Our Hero came too lying in a puddle in the forest somewhere. It involved a fairly cool meeting with a fey. Then someone pointed out that that wasn’t how things would happen—she’d have to wake up somewhere safe, not just dumped beside the road—so I had to change it. I wrote both introductions with no idea how the Verbrek gazetteer was going to finish by the way, which is one of the problems of co-authoring things. The benefit is that other people always have better ideas than you do.

To get back to the point, the Valachan gaz was the thing I originally, desperately wanted to do. There were two reasons. As I said for VRA, nothing interesting had ever happened there, so it was virgin territory for me to make unique (although it may have moved from being too like Barovia to being too like Tepest). The second is that, in the summer of 2001, I went to Peru and Ecuador on holiday (which are both great countries). In the monastery of San Francisco (I think), I saw the most haunting Christ-figure I have ever seen. He looked rather like my description of the Dead God, and I found the image so compelling I decided to write the gazetteer just so I could use that image. I also wanted to use Australian Aboriginal legends somewhere, but most of those never eventuated. The Gasttre in Helbenik is based on a succubus-type legend from Darwin though, and the descriptions of Vaasi colonialism are Australian (but standard for any colonial nation).

Once again, my linguistic skills went unused. I had dog-Norwegian names for all of the forests, roads and rivers in Valachan, but for some reason the text converted them all back to English but left them in Valachani on the map. Weird. The lilies of eternal slumber were also originally roses (like Necropolitan amaranth), but this time I changed them to lillies. Roses are overused anyway.

The fact that ruler never change has always bothered me, so I made Urik fake his own death and gave him an explanation for his inability to age (fey blood). I also made him smarter, so now he’s got a bigger network of charmed slaves than Dominic d’Honaire, has created funeral rites specifically to heal nosferatu and ensured the Valachani can never rebel against him again. It was while writing his description that I noticed my predilection for tyrants and sadists; both he and Lady Adeline are both, and the text implies most of the Black Leopards are too. I was a little upset when Adeline’s description didn’t make it into the book. She’s a good NPC and a much more useful villain than von Kharkov in my opinion. I do disagree with all those people who think von Kharkov should be erased from history though; the reason Adeline works well is because she’s not a darklord. I just noticed we didn’t get stats for the leader of the Black Leopards either in the wereleopard description. He was a fighter who had become smitten with von Kharkov due to a magical curse and slept curled up on his coffin in panther form. So [Hazlik]] is still it I’m afraid.

Cities Salvaged from Oblivion

Borca

Cut text on cities in Borca: Ilvin and Vor Ziyden were both excised from the original. In the original order of presentation, S's route of travel goes Sturben -> Ilvin -> Lechberg -> Degravo -> Vor Ziyden -> Levkarest -> Misericordia.

Secret Societies salvaged from Oblivion

Borca

The League of Nine

This sidebar was to accompany Sturben.

Dread Possibilities Salvaged from Oblivion

John W Mangrum: Here’s some of the cut material from the Borca chapter of Gazetteer IV. Some of it was immediately contradicted by Legacies of the Blood anyway (sigh).

Borca

Night Swarm

This first dread possibility accompanies the Landscape section, and expands on the text about Mt. Gries. Poor Night Swarm -- I cooked it up for an obscure 2nd edition adventure, then tried to fit it in -- and ended up having to cut it from -- three Gazetteers in a row.

The Prodigal’s Web

This dread possibility accompanied Ilvin.

Heirs and Pretenders

This sidebar was to accompany the opening section of The Realm section, expanding on some notes about Borca's leaders.

Dread possibilities: Heirs and Pretenders

Corporeal Collateral

This next dread possibility was to accompany the Economy subsection, and explains the presence of the Sympathetic Spell feat in the DM's Appendix.

Dread Possibility: Corporeal Collateral

All the World’s a Stage

Here's the dread possibility for Lechberg.

This next one was to accompany Vor Ziyden.

Anything for the Muse

And finally, the dread possibility for Levkarest.

Sithicus

Remembrance of the Wyrm

JWM: On the dragon topic, I wrote this dread possibility for Hroth (Sithicus, Gaz IV). It was cut (for space, I assume).

Errata

Pg. 36 Praesidius Levin Postoya’s abbreviated statistics are missing. Levin Postoya is a LN male human Clr6 of Ezra/AoM5. (Anchorite of the Mists prestige class, found in Van Richten's Arsenal.) (Errata)
Retrieved from "http://fraternityofshadows.com/w/index.php?title=Ravenloft_Gazetteer_Volume_IV&oldid=140492"