D&D General Reading Ravenloft the setting

[Paul Farquhar]

I think even today the Nazi= Evil trope is still socially acceptable and that if Falkovia was explicitly set up with the idea that PCs would be fighting the Regime then audience would be fine with it.

I like Falkovia as the Humans are Monsters too set peice and really don’t want to see it devolve into Zombie apocalypse

It's not that evil nazis is controversial.

The problem is, it too REAL.

Doctor Who did Nazis for children, but it made them fantastical and alien.

The horror in Ravenloft if nice safe fantasy horror. Evil humans are all too real.

 

[Remathilis]

If you are going to get rid of something, get rid of Darkon, change it to a mercantile empire rules by a vampire queen. That is better than the lich who drives all the worst meta plots (sorry I get passionate about this one )

It is absolutely ironic that you would hone in on my favorite Domain for exactly the reasons why it's my favorite. There are a dozen domains I'd chuck to the ash pit before Darkon, with Keening (whose finding should be an adventure site in another real domain) being one of them. (The first to go would be the "evil campaign setting" ones like Sithicus, Hazlin and Kaliday).

But we haven't agreed on a single thing yet (save the GC) which I think is testament to the fact the setting can still be our favorite despite not agreeing on what we like about it. The rest is agreeing to disagree from now on.

 

[Voadam]

Azalin lost his son and wants to get him back. Tristessa lost her child and wants to get them back. Azalin also runs the largest political region in the core, heads a secret police, founded a false religion, does magical experiments and mundane research, spies on his enemies like Strahd, repels Drakov's forces, and deals with interlopers trying to use his magic book to get their memories back all while looking for a way to get it of Ravenloft. Tristessa has what other aspects to her character? What else defines her?

Madness is what comes to mind.

She was staked out to be dissolved in the sun with her child next to her for not sacrificing her child herself. She was driven mad with grief and that has defined her. "One should not imagine that Keening's banshee is simple-minded. She is more like a mother gone mad with grief. In lucid moments, she remembers what happened in Arak. Revenge upon the drow, then, becomes her main objective."

She sometimes does not realize her wail will kill people and she just does. She sometimes is in delusional denial and rocks her bloody baby shroud as if she has her child, killing any who point out the reality.

Her madness is very strongly tied to her wanting her child, but it is a strong aspect on its own.

Azalin's child thing is a big add on motivation to his existing character. The son is not mentioned at all until you get to the novel line during mid 2e Ravenloft and Azalin got his own full length novel. It became a big deal, but it was still an add on to flesh out an existing more central character.

First he was just a powerful lich who doesn't want to keep working for Strahd in 1e's Ravenloft II. In 2e Realms of Terror he is the lich who rules Darkon as a wizard king. "More than anything else, Azalin desires power." This is where you get the rulership, the secret police, the spies in other lands and his realm rewriting people to believe they are his subjects. His magic and intelligence are a big part of his power and his self image of his power, so you get his personal curse of no new magical knowledge or power. That's all pretty thematically unified and covers a lot for a very central Ravenloft personality who predates the 2e setting. But it is also not particularly gothic or much of a personality to go on so adding on something about his son when developing his personal backstory later works and gets incorporated from its introduction on through the S story framing of the Gazetteers.

 

[Remathilis]

It's not that evil nazis is controversial.

The problem is, it too REAL.

Doctor Who did Nazis for children, but it made them fantastical and alien.

The horror in Ravenloft if nice safe fantasy horror. Evil humans are all too real.

This. An evil human commanding his evil human nation of soldiers to round up everything "nonhuman" and put them in work camps to die is a little too on the nose for Fantasy Escapism. It's not exactly the same horror as Dracula or the Wolfman...

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The RPGs from previous decades are a reflection of the tropes by the past speculative fiction. Today the things are done by other way, but we can't forget our past.

If my suspects about a new of satanic panic in 2021 are true, then some threads in the horror speculative fiction will become taboo. Now they are only urban legends from internet, but if there are news about organs traffick and forced extractions, then we can't talk about vampires and "blood haverstings" like the one from "Blade III" movie.

Azalin is a key character in the metaplot, like the responsible who causes the events of the grand conjuction, and maybe the main archnemesis of Strand van Zarovich.

 

[Alzrius]

Azalin's child thing is a big add on motivation to his existing character. The son is not mentioned at all until you get to the novel line during mid 2e Ravenloft and Azalin got his own full length novel.

Nitpicking here: Azalin's son Irik was first mentioned in RQ3 From the Shadows (affiliate link), which predates Gene DeWeese's novel King of the Dead by several years (though the novel does add a large amount of background and detail).

 

[Tonguez]

This. An evil human commanding his evil human nation of soldiers to round up everything "nonhuman" and put them in work camps to die is a little too on the nose for Fantasy Escapism. It's not exactly the same horror as Dracula or the Wolfman...

Really? Against the Slave Lords is a classic adventure series that covers the themes and in referring to Marvel Agents of Shield did two seasons that featured either the Nazi--esque Hydra World, or the dystopian future where Humanity is enslaved by Kree who auction off Inhuman slaves.

Falkovia does need more subtlety, but I do think Zombie Apocalypse is a terrible change

 

[Bedrockgames]

It is absolutely ironic that you would hone in on my favorite Domain for exactly the reasons why it's my favorite. There are a dozen domains I'd chuck to the ash pit before Darkon, with Keening (whose finding should be an adventure site in another real domain) being one of them. (The first to go would be the "evil campaign setting" ones like Sithicus, Hazlin and Kaliday).

But we haven't agreed on a single thing yet (save the GC) which I think is testament to the fact the setting can still be our favorite despite not agreeing on what we like about it. The rest is agreeing to disagree from now on.

lol. Definitely our tastes are opposite. There was long a divide among fans over how much it should lean gothic versus how much it should lean fantasy. I was always very much in the camp of gothic, atmospheric, steering away from traditional fantasy and more towards monster hunts (an adventure to me that feels like Horror of Dracula is much more what I am after)

 

[Bedrockgames]

This. An evil human commanding his evil human nation of soldiers to round up everything "nonhuman" and put them in work camps to die is a little too on the nose for Fantasy Escapism. It's not exactly the same horror as Dracula or the Wolfman...

It isn't fantasy escapism though, it is gothic horror. that said, this is definitely outside the genre a bit. but I think it works in its way as a fit in Ravenloft. And I think it fits well because there is a general fear of demi humans in the setting, obviously that is easy to connect to something like antisemitism in late medieval and early modern europe, and you can see it culminating in Falkovnia. Again though it wasn't so on the nose as originally presented. I do tend to agree, at least with how it came to be dealt with later in the line, it was a bit too on the nose. personal preference though.

Edit: Also, from a purely logistical standpoint, I found that always made Falkovnia serve an interesting function in terms of travel. Parties would often avoid it, but if they were in a rush they may risk a venture through Falkovnia to get somewhere else and accept the risk.

 

[Remathilis]

lol. Definitely our tastes are opposite. There was long a divide among fans over how much it should lean gothic versus how much it should lean fantasy. I was always very much in the camp of gothic, atmospheric, steering away from traditional fantasy and more towards monster hunts (an adventure to me that feels like Horror of Dracula is much more what I am after)

Yeah, I came into it from a Castlevania mindset: the land is overrun with horrors and you are the only ones who can stop them. It's Fantasy with a coat of black paint and some gothic tropes rather than a emulation of a real horror genre (something D&D is a poor match for due to it's emphasis on heroic fantasy).