D&D General Reading Ravenloft the setting

[tetrasodium]

...I said that TSR likely didn't want to go so far as to have an NPC punished for being raped and you decided to link me a whole article saying it still happens in the real world.

This isn't "alternate interpretations." This is you trying to overexplain something that had nothing to do with the topic at hand (which is: a game written during 90s) as if I wasn't aware of things that occurred and continue to occur in the real world.

Knock it off. I don't need you mansplaining sexism to me.

Your ignoring the banishment because it's inconvenient to your tempest. Go back & reread my post about it & knock it off with the insinuations.

 

[tetrasodium]

It's not at all boring, because the Darklords who want power or control or knowledge are also engaged in activities that the PCs can also engage in. The PCs can try to stop the DL, can try to help the DL, can try to gain the power/control/knowledge first, can try to negotiate with the DL about it, and more.

The Darklords who want to ruin other people's relationships because they can't have one themselves are the boring ones, because that's all background stuff. It's not something that can be used as a plot, unless you want to screw over any PCs that are in a relationship.


Wow, did you deliberately misread everything I've ever written or what?

Give the female villains something other than only a desire for a man or baby. If Ivana, Jacqueline, and Gabrielle still desperately want a man, fine. But they can also be actively engaging in other pursuits at the same time.

Are you seriously against the idea of these women having something to do with their lives other than pine?


Women with non-domestic goals does not equal non-Gothic horror. Especially since the romance associated with Gothic Horror doesn't even actually mean love; it comes from novel, meaning "book written in a romance (Latin-derived) language." A book for the masses to read (i.e., not a scholarly or religious text), and as a genre, Gothic literature influenced even pulp novels and comics in the 20th century. It's a very broad category of fiction.

Gothic Horror is about the dark, primal emotions, the morbid aesthetics, and the people involved having unwanted destinies and karmic fates. You can get that with a female darklord with a non-romantic background!

And none of that prevents you from running plots that don't involve the Darklords, which for me at least is something like 99% of all of my RL adventures.

Really? The fact that the person pretty much ruling an area is distracted by some seemingly irrelevant bit of nonsense whenever the players try to lean on the person with power most likely to have a desire to help them with the things they need (funds, political support, not harassing someone, et)to accomplish that "help" leaving the PCs to solve that problem on their own somehow can't be used as part of a plot? I've done it quite a few times in past raveloft campaigns & suspect my players would giggle at the idea

 

[Faolyn]

Your ignoring the banishment because it's inconvenient to your tempest. Go back & reread my post about it & knock it off with the insinuations.

Here's what I said:

I just reread her background in the Black Box, Domains of Dread and Gazetteer IV. In none of them does it even hint that she or her mother ever tried to join back up with the Vistani. Her mother was only "outcast" because she had been captured and sold as a sex slave, not because she had personally done something terrible--unless the Vistani were evil enough to throw someone out for the crime of being raped. I doubt TSR thought to do that.

Here's what you replied:

It's extremely common throughout history & still happens in some parts of the world today.
If you're shocked by a woman being arrested after reporting gang-rape in Dubai, you should know how common these cases are

Spoiler

Google search

Hiding these kinds of things, pretending they don't happen, & suggesting that the victims don't have enough cause for anger would be whitewashing the dark side of humanity. What happened is horrible, it's supposed to be horrible. Gabrille Aderre was able to obtain the power of an enchantress with enchantment magic that makes her scary to those who would say that sort of exile/jailing is for the best of society.

So while I was incorrect about the reasons for her being outcast--it was because she was only half-Vistani--you decided to go off on a complete tangent about actual, real-world issues instead of dealing with what I said: that I didn't think TSR would have someone thrown out of their home for being raped. I wasn't referring to the real world here. I was referring to the way it was written in a mainstream gaming book from the 90s.

And I will also say now that it is highly unlikely that TSR ever thought about giving Gabrielle enchantment magic would make her scary to the sort who think exile/jailing is best. They almost certainly gave her enchantment magic because they wanted a "sultry exotic g-word enchantress" as a Darklord, since that's a common horror trope, and then came up with her born-of-rape backstory afterwards to "justify" her evil.

You wrote as if I was completely unaware of the way actual women have been treated, rather than even stopping to wonder if I had already known about such things.

To which I repeat: I am well aware of sexism in its myriad forms. You do not need to explain it to me.

 

[Faolyn]

Like if Gabrielle were motivated by hate for Vistani say? Charming people to send or act against them?

Her primary motivation is her desire for a man and children. She is also obsessed with her looks; although she's attractive, mirrors show her true aging face, so she's banned them from her castle.

Or if the hags were motivated by sabotaging anything nice others have or might get (including their sisters)?

Being hateful towards those who are prettier than they are is another sexist and boring trope. The hags want to be beautiful and are cursed to always find themselves ugly.

The bolded parts seem to be non pining for a man aspects though.

Her primary motivation is finding love, and her curse is turning into a rat when she's in the presence of someone she loves. When she tried to infect someone she loved with lycanthropy, he ran away and vanished, because she can never find love.

Ivana does not have an individual darklord entry so there is even less on her, but from the Borca entry on page 66:

Her primary motivation is to find true love, and her curse is two-fold: partly, she will never find anyone like her first true love, Pieter (and that's only partly because over her poisonous touch) and partly she has blue fingernails and looks like a corpse when she sleeps. She's described as a lazy and ineffectual leader at best who spends all her time at parties.

 

[Faolyn]

Really? The fact that the person pretty much ruling an area is distracted by some seemingly irrelevant bit of nonsense whenever the players try to lean on the person with power most likely to have a desire to help them with the things they need (funds, political support, not harassing someone, et)to accomplish that "help" leaving the PCs to solve that problem on their own somehow can't be used as part of a plot? I've done it quite a few times in past raveloft campaigns & suspect my players would giggle at the idea

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Please rewrite.

 

[Remathilis]

I can't believe there is defense of this line:

Her curse in Ravenloft is to automatically revert to a ratman form when confronting anyone she loves. Normally, this would not affect her; wererats usually do not form bonds of love and marriage. But it also has been Jacqueline's curse to fall in love.

Jacqueline's species doesn't form emotional attachments to others, but her unique curse is to basically want that female domestic role. They literally cursed her with wanting a man. This is like saying a mind-flayer doesn't have genitals, but Xuth the mind-flayer was cursed not only with a impressive set of nards, but to be kicked in them daily. Couldn't they think of a better curse for a female ratlord than "I have a crush on every boy!"?

 

[Voadam]

But it also has been Jacqueline's curse to fall in love.

Couldn't they think of a better curse for a female ratlord than "I have a crush on EVERY boy!"?

Every?

 

[Remathilis]

Every?

 

[Voadam]

Give the female villains something other than only a desire for a man or baby. If Ivana, Jacqueline, and Gabrielle still desperately want a man, fine. But they can also be actively engaging in other pursuits at the same time.

Just a reminder that I was responding to your desire for a female villain with something other than only a desire for a man or a baby. So primary versus secondary ranking of other motivations seems a different point.

Her primary motivation is her desire for a man and children. She is also obsessed with her looks; although she's attractive, mirrors show her true aging face, so she's banned them from her castle.

The original Realms of Terror write up I quoted earlier seems to place Aderre's Vistani hate higher and does not mention the age stuff. The Red box description seems the same as well, what source are you going off of?

Being hateful towards those who are prettier than they are is another sexist and boring trope. The hags want to be beautiful and are cursed to always find themselves ugly.

Darklords where the hags are first described in any detail does not have it as limited to women who are prettier. "The hags hate folk who are good, despise folk who are beautiful or handsome, and are jealous of anyone who is happy and loved."

In addition to being cursed with ugliness they also seem to be cursed with hunger reflecting the cannibal stews they made as girls and their murders to attempt to leave a poor farm for imagined better lives in a city. "The girls became hags, and found themselves hungry and ugly in the mist-shrouded mountains of Tepest."

Her primary motivation is finding love, and her curse is turning into a rat when she's in the presence of someone she loves. When she tried to infect someone she loved with lycanthropy, he ran away and vanished, because she can never find love.

Renier's write up has her cursed with love. I don't think it says she is actively looking to find it, just that she was cursed with it. Her primary motivation from the Realms of Terror write up is fairly open ended because of the lack of detail. Finding love would be consistent with the write up, but so would other primary motivations.

Red Box is consistent with the Black Box Realms of Terror.

Domains of Dread adds in monophobia to her and specifies she is devoted to Richemulot and maintaining her family in power.

Her primary motivation is to find true love, and her curse is two-fold: partly, she will never find anyone like her first true love, Pieter (and that's only partly because over her poisonous touch) and partly she has blue fingernails and looks like a corpse when she sleeps. She's described as a lazy and ineffectual leader at best who spends all her time at parties.

Realms of Terror mentions none of that. Boritsi is a black widow poisoner who is fond of excess, taxes her subjects into abject poverty, and has had lovers she has accidentally poisoned to death in the past.

Red Box mentions the Pieter stuff but not the corpse details or the ineffectualness of her leadership.

Domains of Dread adds the sleeping curse.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I see some supernatural power torturing those wicked souls, but there is not justice here, the goal is not to protect the innocents and people with good heart, but it is more like to push them more toward the "Dark Side of the Force". The tragicomic part is they may find help if they ask it, but they are too proud, toxic and selfish to pray. They are doomed because the do the least effort to save their souls. In the old horror movies the sinner is punished and the monster is destroyed by the brave men with a just heart who thank God for the victory against the darkness.

The fiction from past decades and centuries have got some tropes today aren't wellcome, even the titles written by and for women, but we can't blame them because their societies are different. How many female antagonists from previous XX-century literature aren't linked with males (husbands, lovers or family)?