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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 4664598" data-attributes="member: 7635">You just described my dream Ravenloft. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />There are only a few more elements I'd touch to make it perfect. (My concerns are for the Core, since its the closest to a real setting. Islands of Terror should be were anything goes...)1.) Either accept demi-humans across the core or remove them utterly. Being feared in one domain and accepted in another gets tedious, and at this stage in the game I can't believe anyone living in a "fantasy" world (even a gothic fantasy) would really fear elves, dwarves and halflings. If natives can accept the Shadow Rift or the Mists, they can accept a halfling.2.) Standardize technology. Either you have fire-arms or you don't. Either armor is ok (Falkovia) or its not (Mordent). If you want to make weird out-of-time places (like the Burning Cluster) make them islands, but make the core relatively equal. 3.) Create a common or trade tongue. Barovians can't talk with their neighboring lands, making trade impossible. Every other world accepts a common tongue for game ease, Ravenloft should to.4.) Similarly, there should be a bit more variety for "deities". Ravenloft doesn't have many good faiths (Ezra is neutral, Morninglord is Barovian, any others?)and faith is one thing in Gothic adventurers that could be played up greater, but Ravenloft has been afraid to touch. Here, Ravenloft could learn a lot from Eberron; make the gods remote (and thus priests are un-tied to deity alignment) and make a central "Church" (Ezra) and perhaps a small collection of pantheon deities (god of sun, war, death, etc) and then numerous small "cults" that fill the need for specific religions that domains need.5.) Lastly, (and this is something Arthaus started by necessity) remove as many other-world references as possible. Dump Sithicus, the Red Wizard, the Island that speaks real-world Italian, and any other "Clearly we came from another world" references as possible. Some are needlessly tacked on anyway (does it matter Grongediel comes from Faerun or Drakov from Ansalon?)In short, it should appear in always that, if there was no dark powers or dark lords, Ravenloft would exist as a normal D&D world. Its the presence of the Dark Powers that twist the world, not create it.</blockquote>

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