Stepford Wives in Ravenloft

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Suvie
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Re:

Post by Suvie »

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:Actually, if you replace "Stepford wives" with "Stepford everyone", you've got Meredoth's lebendtod in a nutshell. :twisted:


Frankly, I'm not sure the original idea is as plausible in Ravenloft as in the real-life movie's era. Why? Because "respectability" and "fitting in" just aren't your average Ravenloft sexist pig's chief motivation for getting married. If you look at the descriptions of Core marriage practices, those cultures where the "replacement" idea would otherwise seem most plausible -- Dementlieu, Borca, Darkon, Richemulot -- are also the ones where people marry for economic and political convenience, not attraction or "keeping up appearances". Replacing one's wife with an obedient robot might work if you only need her to smile and dress nicely, but if she has to bear you heirs and keep her wealthy parents from cutting you out of their will, then replacing the real woman with a robot/golem/clone isn't going to cut it.

Come to think of it, it might work better if women arranged to replace their husbands, in a society where women legally have no economic power. If a woman in Falkovnia is powerless to spend money, hire employees, or sign contracts without her husband's say-so, there'd be a strong motivation for wealthy heiresses to marry some guillible dolt, then have him replaced before he starts getting ideas that it's his money.
Regarding bearing children, the Arsenal says they are lifelike and bleed--would that include menstruation? If so, I can imagine a version that could bring a child to term. If not, I can imagine a sinister sideline in "reproductive assistance" that would be equally twisted.

What about a Dread Dopp? They can impregnate women that are otherwise barren--could they impregnate a lifelike golem? Could the dopp-embryo gather enough information from its lifelike surrogate to use it as a template?
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The Lesser Evil
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Re: Stepford Wives in Ravenloft

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My thoughts on the best domain for Stepford Wives: Nosos. No, really, here me out. Since it's an industrialized domain about the excesses of men in power, I figure this would be the best place for Stepford Wives on account of the desire for beauty in a domain so grisly and polluted. And having nice, clean, obedient trophy wives would work here as status symbols and evidence of "good breeding" that the Nouveau riche might cling to. (the Shining Bay Cluster from QTR could make for good home domain for this.)

Another domain that might work is Kislova, considering the presence of alchemy and murder/reanimation with alchemical vampires has already been established there.

Oh, and Ship of Horrors seem to imply that lebentod could have children, as it mentions caretakers of the Graben children and subsequent generations populating the Graben Estate. (Though the netbook Nocturnal Seas Gaz explained this by leaving the youngest Grabens alive and in the dark about the family's real nature in order to have them create each new Graben generation- one might be able to play that up of the young being raised like chattel just long enough to have children before they are converted to the undead. Imagine if you had them trying to build up a population of Grabens (when you consider their supernaturally long lives) or whomever. If one were inclined, one could take inspiration from the grim childbirth initiatives in Romania.
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Re: Re:

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Suvie wrote:
DeepShadow of FoS wrote:*reanimates thread*

Okay, we're going to see Blackburn-Bruce family members in Season 2 of Kara's Daughters, so I thought I'd dig up this thread and continue discussion where we left off.

Step 1: Godefroy fosters ideas of Mordent-resorts for the aging.
Step 2: He uses a BB-ghost to step up the collection process by killing and duplicating people.
Step 3: BB-ghost implants other BB ghosts in some bodies, to help them escape.
Step 4: The BB family rescues the creator-ghost, putting him in a body, and they all flee Mordentshire.
Step 5: The Core gets a resurgence of alchemy. :twisted:
*re-reanimates thread*

Just call me Herbert West

I would like to know how this worked out for you. I saw this discussion years back, and it was one of the things that convinced my GF and I to try a Ravenloft game. We may include some of your Stepford-bots in our adventures.
Okay, Herbert! :D Unfortunately, I can't give you much to work on, because Kara's Daughters ended before any of this was introduced. This was one of many such plotlines that were planned but not introduced, such as Marcus McFehr, the disappearance/assassination of Drakov, and Vladamir Ludzig's attempted takeover of Lamordia.

Regarding this plotline in particular, Kara's Daughters was already treading close to the lines on very adult concepts, and I had a hard time plotting this timeline in more detail without crossing some of those lines. After all, we're basically talking about the systematic kidnapping, mutilation, impersonation, psychic vivisection, and finally murder of dozens of women, all at the behest of their husbands. Add to that the (sexual) slavery of the fragments of them that are left behind in the duplicates, and you have the makings of a game that many people would never sign up to play in, and many others would quit at the first revelation of what was going on.
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The Orphan Queen must take the throne
The Queen of Orphans calls them home
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Suvie
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Re: Re:

Post by Suvie »

DeepShadow of FoS wrote:
Suvie wrote:
DeepShadow of FoS wrote:*reanimates thread*

Okay, we're going to see Blackburn-Bruce family members in Season 2 of Kara's Daughters, so I thought I'd dig up this thread and continue discussion where we left off.

Step 1: Godefroy fosters ideas of Mordent-resorts for the aging.
Step 2: He uses a BB-ghost to step up the collection process by killing and duplicating people.
Step 3: BB-ghost implants other BB ghosts in some bodies, to help them escape.
Step 4: The BB family rescues the creator-ghost, putting him in a body, and they all flee Mordentshire.
Step 5: The Core gets a resurgence of alchemy. :twisted:
*re-reanimates thread*

Just call me Herbert West

I would like to know how this worked out for you. I saw this discussion years back, and it was one of the things that convinced my GF and I to try a Ravenloft game. We may include some of your Stepford-bots in our adventures.
Okay, Herbert! :D Unfortunately, I can't give you much to work on, because Kara's Daughters ended before any of this was introduced. This was one of many such plotlines that were planned but not introduced, such as Marcus McFehr, the disappearance/assassination of Drakov, and Vladamir Ludzig's attempted takeover of Lamordia.

Regarding this plotline in particular, Kara's Daughters was already treading close to the lines on very adult concepts, and I had a hard time plotting this timeline in more detail without crossing some of those lines. After all, we're basically talking about the systematic kidnapping, mutilation, impersonation, psychic vivisection, and finally murder of dozens of women, all at the behest of their husbands. Add to that the (sexual) slavery of the fragments of them that are left behind in the duplicates, and you have the makings of a game that many people would never sign up to play in, and many others would quit at the first revelation of what was going on.
That's too bad about the game, but as for the rest, that's exactly why we wanted to play. I guess we like our games a little darker than even the average RL fan. But I think that's for another thread.

As far as the Blackburn Bruce connection, I see a whole family that get reincarnated into alchemical bodies before Godefroy finds out. Mother, father, three boys and two girls, all adults, all powerful alchemists. Maybe even a cousin or two. And then they spread out, by twos and threes, to different domains, and use alchemy to brew up terrible things. Your Stepford Wives part would only be the beginning.

Does anyone have an opinion on whether a dread dopp can impregnate an alchemical child? I think that's the most diabolical solution I can think of to the pregnancy problem: the dopp plasm uses the child as a template, and you get a baby dopp that looks just like the mother's race, until they change at puberty.

I've got a different solution, but if the Stepford Wives methodology is too much for you, then maybe I'll keep it to myself for my campaign. But I'd like to hear about the dopp idea.
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Re: Stepford Wives in Ravenloft

Post by DeepShadow of FoS »

Suvie wrote:Does anyone have an opinion on whether a dread dopp can impregnate an alchemical child? I think that's the most diabolical solution I can think of to the pregnancy problem: the dopp plasm uses the child as a template, and you get a baby dopp that looks just like the mother's race, until they change at puberty.
Hmmm...that actually sounds plausible, maybe. It's certainly the best solution I've heard for the infertility problem with the Stepford Wives. Dopps can impregnate infertile women, after all.

That being said, I'm not sure the dopp would have enough of a template to work off of, nor would it have the right materials to mimic the alchemical portion of the template. What happens if it has a good environment to nurture in, but no template to work off of? Would you get a gaunt? :shock:

I think a case could be made here for a gaunt, or a changeling (starts as caliban), or a normal dopp. Or nothing, if the plasm can't germinate in that environment.

Your point about bleeding is an excellent one: if alchemical constructs have a functioning womb and circulatory system, then I'd say they can act as a surrogate for a dopp. OTOH, the embryonic dopp is actually being nurtured by something akin to quintessence, rather than blood. That's gotta do something odd.
The Avariel has borrowed wings,
The Puppeteer must cut the strings
The Orphan Queen must take the throne
The Queen of Orphans calls them home
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Re: Stepford Wives in Ravenloft

Post by tomokaicho »

I like the idea of the Stepford Wives in RL, and I think that it can fit.

A small town with a 'Gentleman's Lodge' (the men's association in movie), and a 'Humane Clinic for the Mentally Troubled' (lunatic asylum).

In this setting the town has one or more alchemists that are members of the Gentlemen's Lodge and are capable of creating Alchemical Children. The Alchemical Children are based on the wives of the men in town, but are younger and more attractive (but clearly the same person). The wives are not killed, but are housed in the Humane Clinic for the Mentally Troubled, where they are gaslighted into thinking that they are insane. They are kept alive so that they can give birth the babies that the alchemical children are incapable of conceiving.
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