Top 5 worthless domains

[Le Noir Faineant]

Why a list belittling what other people might find interesting?

As Ron said, what you make of it is the key.

Darkon, for example, has a wonderful setup, but fairly crappy adventures made for it.

Staunton Bluffs, for example, has a crappy setup, but a DM in the know can make the earth tremble for his players.

[Le Noir Faineant]

2. The House of Lamant The house itself is the darklord? A house is a THING how does it rank being a darklord?
1. Shadowborne Manor The Darklord is a SWORD? How lame can you get? Why not make it a potholder and be done with it?

I have no problems with inanimate objects as darklords, especially since there are so many great object curses, phylacteries and intelligent haunts associated with sites and not 'persons'. Look at The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, in the book and the movies (both called The Haunting) the house itself is the real main character of the story. The ghosts within it are more it's condemned prisoners than true antagonists in the story. The house is 'alive' and wants to control it's inhabitants - it's a great concept.

THAT!

And of course, the DL being a sword, Elric, Elric, Elric, Elric. ELRIC!

Both of those domains are a wonderful player-kill. Because horror is OTHERNESS, not just zombies.

[ewancummins]

Staunton Bluffs for life, yo!

[brilliantlight]

2. The House of Lamant The house itself is the darklord? A house is a THING how does it rank being a darklord?
1. Shadowborne Manor The Darklord is a SWORD? How lame can you get? Why not make it a potholder and be done with it?

I have no problems with inanimate objects as darklords, especially since there are so many great object curses, phylacteries and intelligent haunts associated with sites and not 'persons'. Look at The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, in the book and the movies (both called The Haunting) the house itself is the real main character of the story. The ghosts within it are more it's condemned prisoners than true antagonists in the story. The house is 'alive' and wants to control it's inhabitants - it's a great concept.

THAT!

And of course, the DL being a sword, Elric, Elric, Elric, Elric. ELRIC!

Both of those domains are a wonderful player-kill. Because horror is OTHERNESS, not just zombies.

I know horror is more than just zombies and werewolves and the like. One of the places my players got the most on edge was Nadalia which is run as a religious police-state. Done right this can be really creepy. No howling werewolves, no blood-sucking vampires just eerie silence and a oppressive atmosphere. I made sure they realized if they said one wrong thing they could wind up being arrested. Spies were everywhere and the people were dour. The feeling of paranoia pervaded the party and made them more nervous than domains with were-rats and ghouls.

[Garudos Celestar]

My Top 5... and I think it's a credit to the setting that I actually like #3 and #4 (I'm just skeptical as to how useful they really are), and I can see the utility in #2 and #5.

5. Liffe: Confession time... I was very close to putting Darkon in this spot, as my complaints about the 2 domains are similar. "Worthless" isn't the right word for either of them, as they are both very convenient... but in some ways, that's the problem. They both are grab-bags to throw stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere (be it random demi-humans, a high fantasy adventure that one wants to add to the campaign, a PC backstory that doesn't mesh well into one the more precisely defined domain's themes), and the resulting hodgepodge just comes off as... meh. Darkon is able to redeem itself w/ little details like Azalin, van Richten, the 4th sect of Ezra, and all sorts of other good stuff. Liffe was created as a tossed salad of "just okay" stuff.

4. The Sea of Sorrows: The name is evocative, and as a geographical feature I love having it around... but how do you actually use it as anything other than a conduit between other domains (granting that I'm sure the FoS will release many good ideas in the near future)? Pieter van Riese is incredibly difficult to justify with any significant encounter. The biggest hit against it is to compare it to Saragoss and the Nocturnal Sea/Nebligtode, both of which made sure that there was something to do in the domain itself (rather than solely in the neighboring island domains) without resorting to random encounter.

3. The Wildlands: I actually like the idea, but to actually adventure in the land of random talking animals... meh. Sure, it could theoretically be more interesting now that the Sri Raji folks are exploring, and Carnival does imply that at least 1 group of "talking animals" actually consists of natural wereleopards, but it's really hard to justify sending the PCs to this domain for any length of time. I think the Ryan "Hans Gleam" Naylor's story about "The Jackal Who Would Not Be A Coward" is probably the best way to use it (i.e. as a "once upon a time in a land far far away" realm in which backstories can take place), but that's more satisfying as flavor text than as a game setting.

2. Timor: It's stock greatly rose when it became attached to Paridon (as evidenced by the domain's role in Shadow of the Knife), as it could then function as a source for new monsters to terrorize the Zherisians, but Bluetspur (or the FoS's Virundus) does the alien horror thing so much better. Basically, Timor has merely risen from "Why would I ever use that domain?" to a begrudging status of "Fine, as long as it's there I guess we don't have to completely ignore it..."

1. I'Cath: I don't seem to be quite as offended by this domain as many other people, but I'm still willing to put it as #1 on the list. I actually don't mind the existance of isolated 1-person prison domains that are built around the defeat-the-lord-and-escape theme, but (say) Monette, Tristessa, and the Lady of the Lake are all more evocative and manage to pull it off. Tsien Chiang just doesn't come off well in comparison. The one thing that could possibly add potential would be gluing it to Rokushima Taiyoo as a cluster, thus justifying the possibility of serving a similar role as Castle Island and Keening did in Servants of Darkness.

[MichaelTumey]

I know horror is more than just zombies and werewolves and the like. One of the places my players got the most on edge was Nadalia which is run as a religious police-state. Done right this can be really creepy. No howling werewolves, no blood-sucking vampires just eerie silence and a oppressive atmosphere. I made sure they realized if they said one wrong thing they could wind up being arrested. Spies were everywhere and the people were dour. The feeling of paranoia pervaded the party and made them more nervous than domains with were-rats and ghouls.

While Kaidan (for example) does feature ghosts, ghouls, undead rulers and other things that go bump in the night, it fits your thoughts on Nadalia as well. Most people run a fantasy Japan as an oriental version of a standard kingdom. What they don't realize is that feudal Japan was very much a religious and secular police state with a highly efficient secret police (the Metsuki) identifying heresies and traitorous acts (real or not) and bringing the shogun's army to bare onto the supposed interlopers. Kaidan as a police state is very much a part of the setting.

So there's more than just long haired ghost girls bringing the horror - there's a lot more to it. Nadalia needn't be the only domain of zealots in Ravenloft.

[brilliantlight]

I know horror is more than just zombies and werewolves and the like. One of the places my players got the most on edge was Nadalia which is run as a religious police-state. Done right this can be really creepy. No howling werewolves, no blood-sucking vampires just eerie silence and a oppressive atmosphere. I made sure they realized if they said one wrong thing they could wind up being arrested. Spies were everywhere and the people were dour. The feeling of paranoia pervaded the party and made them more nervous than domains with were-rats and ghouls.

While Kaidan (for example) does feature ghosts, ghouls, undead rulers and other things that go bump in the night, it fits your thoughts on Nadalia as well. Most people run a fantasy Japan as an oriental version of a standard kingdom. What they don't realize is that feudal Japan was very much a religious and secular police state with a highly efficient secret police (the Metsuki) identifying heresies and traitorous acts (real or not) and bringing the shogun's army to bare onto the supposed interlopers. Kaidan as a police state is very much a part of the setting.

So there's more than just long haired ghost girls bringing the horror - there's a lot more to it. Nadalia needn't be the only domain of zealots in Ravenloft.

Well, there is also G'henna, Ha 'Akur, Pharazia and Sri Raji which would also probably qualify as domains of zealots with G'henna and Pharazia definitely qualifying.

[woodsdarkman]

I agree that Liffe was not a good domain and would have made the list the Nocturnal Sea gaz really bumped it up and made it alot better. I am also betting the Sea of Sorrows Gaz does the same thing so I did not put them on my list. Obviously I agree with the I'Cath opinion. I like the Wildlands. Ravenloft needed a good primal domain and I love King Croc. Timor is middle of the road. I would actually after the events of Shadow of the Knife return Pardion to Zereshia and place Nosos and Timor there. Timor would go back to the write up presented in Islands of Terror as an abandoned town with the monsters underneath. This way I would have three large cities in the domain of Zereshia with their respective darklords. The only new thing would be that the sewers of Timor connected with Pardion and Nosos.

[eldritch]

I'Cath and Rokushima Tayioo do not fit my idea of gothic horror and seem like they and the Ravenloft world would need to be very large and/or overpopulated to fit in as their real world counterparts. I think these are better Gothic Earth Ravenloft ideas. I am glad no adventures were published for them.

Kalidnay for sure because I hate the psionics stuff, it just seems to conflict with Ravenloft madness, fear, horror checks. A totally different flavor than the working of the mind established in Ravenloft. They did not need a token Dark Sun campaign based domain. I feel this is the lamest Domain for sure.

For awhile I hated the Nightmare Lands before the Nightmare lands boxed set came out we had Abber Nomads in the Monstrous Compendium (with incongruous art that looked like Plains Indians, really?) and a weak description in the Black Box and red box of Charlie and the Chocolate factory/Candyland swirly colors are scary type of strange Domain. Worthless, completely unusable domain as written. Boy was I pleased to see that Nightmare Lands boxed set which actually made that domain scary, more realistic and and relevant.

The Grand Conjunction cleared up much of the deadwood domains so I wont retread those as the designers realized their mistakes.

The Amber wastes cluster: Sebua seemed like a unnecessary copy of Har'Akir and I didn't think Pharazia was that interesting.

[Bluebomber4evr]

I'Cath and Rokushima Tayioo do not fit my idea of gothic horror and seem like they and the Ravenloft world would need to be very large and/or overpopulated to fit in as their real world counterparts. I think these are better Gothic Earth Ravenloft ideas. I am glad no adventures were published for them.

...

For awhile I hated the Nightmare Lands before the Nightmare lands boxed set came out we had Abber Nomads in the Monstrous Compendium (with incongruous art that looked like Plains Indians, really?)

You seem to be implying that Gothic Horror only applies to European-type cultures, which I find to be borderline offensive. I hope that I'm wrong and just misunderstanding you, though. Gothic horror tropes can be applied to any culture, including Asian-type and Native American-type cultures.

I will grant you that I'Cath is a little over-the-top and Rokushima Taiyoo has a dull darklord, but that could be said of a lot of the underdeveloped domains. They aren't useless because they're Oriental Adventures, though, and Ravenloft doesn't have to be "big" or "overpopulated" to have domains based on other cultures, that's why there are Islands of Terror in the first place.

Likewise, the Abber are very clearly based on the Ojibwe/Chippewa Native Americans (with some other cultures such as Australian Aborigines and Pacific Island cultures thrown in to make them unique), who used to be called "Plains Indians" in less enlightened days, so I fail to see how the art is incongruous.

[MichaelTumey]

If you were trying to fit all of China into Ravenloft, yeah, that would be too big. But both Rokushima Taiyoo and I'Cath emulates Japan more than China. Real world Japan in total is the size of California. If you drop out the northern isles, like Hokaido, to what was imperial Japan through much of it's history, it's about 2/3rds of the islands. Add to that, only about 10% of Japan was considered arable - places to put all the civilized parts, Darkon is bigger than the arable remains of RL Japan. Oriental domains don't require the huge land masses of the real world. So I don't see the over-population or need for huge land masses to accomodate the orient in Ravenloft.

Also, as Bluebomber4evr mentioned, Gothic Horror is about the kind of tropes used. It's got nothing to do with Europe, per se. I'Cath doesn't feel any less gothic than Barovia, if you understand what gothic horror means at all.

[eldritch]

You seem to be implying that Gothic Horror only applies to European-type cultures, which I find to be borderline offensive. I hope that I'm wrong and just misunderstanding you, though. Gothic horror tropes can be applied to any culture, including Asian-type and Native American-type cultures.

I will grant you that I'Cath is a little over-the-top and Rokushima Taiyoo has a dull darklord, but that could be said of a lot of the underdeveloped domains. They aren't useless because they're Oriental Adventures, though, and Ravenloft doesn't have to be "big" or "overpopulated" to
have domains based on other cultures, that's why there are Islands of Terror in the first place.

Likewise, the Abber are very clearly based on the Ojibwe/Chippewa Native Americans (with some other cultures such as Australian Aborigines and Pacific Island cultures thrown in to make them unique), who used to be called "Plains Indians" in less enlightened days, so I fail to see how the art is incongruous.

As illustrated the Abber Nomads looked like the stereotypical "generic plains indians" they do not look distinctive enough to be recognized as Sioux, Cheyenne, Arikara or Crow real plains tribes and certainly do not look like Eastern Woodland tribes or Great Lakes region tribes as you suggest. I thought the abber nomads as described and illustrated reminded me a lot of Never Ending Story movie with Atreyu and the Plains people, hunting the purple buffalo. Far from scary and seemingly out of place in horror genre. Sure Gothic horror tropes can be applied to Native American cultures for example skin walkers of the Navajo and Wendigo for Northeastern tribes. Witches are also prevalent. Cannibalism and human sacrifice could also be a theme. Aboriginal touches with their dreamwalk portion of their real world culture seemed to fit better with the nightmare nature of the domain but there is little influence in that direction of the terrifying for either North American Indian or Australian Aborigine culture in how they were written. Why try to tie them to real world counterparts at all? it would have been enough to describe their nomadic lifestyle and primitive culture and make them unique from there and not shackle them with preconceptions that go with Native Americans or Australian Aborigines. That is what I meant by incongruous.

Same thing with the oriental domains they just did it for sake of completeness it seems (oh hey we need a Chinese and Japanese domain) rather than developing them well or defining what makes them scary or unique. I think they realized that back in the day the Oriental Adventures book was a best seller in old school D&D and it was a successful part of the Forgotten Realms in AD&D 2nd edition and they wanted to include Asians for drawing in potential fans, kinda like Kalidinay was a lame attempt to draw Dark Sun fans (or create some I don't know if there are any actual Dark Sun fans.)

Japanese cinema and folklore shows that the do indeed have a rich tradition of horror but the weak Ravenloft versions of these cultures didn't even scratch the surface. the domains just plain sucked.

In contrast Sri Raji with its rakshasa lord based on India, Har' Akir with its mummies and Egyptian influence and Souragne with its Southern Bayous and zombies all had regional uniqueness and flavor and clearly show that decidedly non European Gothic horror settings can work really well.

If you wanted to get technical Gothic Horror is a very European concept and although the tropes and memes can be used elsewhere it is primarily that region that invokes the nature of Gothic Horror. All most all major literary examples I can think of in the Genre are European. It wasn't until Edgar Allen Poe came along that we had any non=European Gothic horror literature at all.

[Five]

Gothic horror does apply to European cultures. Traditionally anyway ("gothic" root). Not much (read: no) gothic can be found in Asia or in Native's lands. But that's not to say that the core of its themes, "tropes", cannot be applied to other cultures.

Like it or not, there's Saint Nicolas, then there's Santa Claus...

[MichaelTumey]

Gothic horror does apply to European cultures. Traditionally anyway ("gothic" root). Not much (read: no) gothic can be found in Asia or in Native's lands. But that's not to say that the core of its themes, "tropes", cannot be applied to other cultures.

Like it or not, there's Saint Nicolas, then there's Santa Claus...

The tropes apply to any culture, real and fantasy, Europe, Asia and otherwise. The tropes aren't geographically assigned rather having to do with the topics involved and perceptions used. It's true that the first gothic horror writers were European, and the geography they used in their stories involved European locations - but that isn't a requirement for gothic horror.

Gothic horror is about the atmosphere, symbolism used, and stories told.

While there are certainly tropes used in Japanese horror that are outside of gothic horror, much of Japanese horror is gothic horror.

@Five - you say, that 'no' gothic horror exists in Asia, whereas, I'd say almost all the horror (with many, many examples) are all gothic horror, with some uniquely non-gothic elements included. The fact that most ghosts, demons and afflicted individuals of Japanese lore are usually women, is a very gothic horror trope. Castle ruined locations, evil churches, evil wizards, creepy cemeteries are all gothic horror elements, and none have to do with any specific geographic location - such things can be found in any setting.

And it's not that Asian gothic horror didn't appear until the last century, it's that much of the horror written in Asia weren't translated until recently. It's not that they didn't exist, it's only that we didn't know much about it. Lafcadio Hearn was the first European to translate Japanese ghost stories and that was in 1899. Many of the stories he translated were already hundreds of years old - and they were 'gothic' then. Just because our exposure to Japanese horror fiction only appeared in the last century, doesn't mean that they weren't 'gothic horror' to the Japanese for a much longer period.

[Bluebomber4evr]

As illustrated the Abber Nomads looked like the stereotypical "generic plains indians" they do not look distinctive enough to be recognized as Sioux, Cheyenne, Arikara or Crow real plains tribes and certainly do not look like Eastern Woodland tribes or Great Lakes region tribes as you suggest.

No, I said Ojibwe, which are considered "Plains" tribes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe_people Ojibwe also make dreamcatchers, so it works.

Same thing with the oriental domains they just did it for sake of completeness it seems (oh hey we need a Chinese and Japanese domain) rather than developing them well or defining what makes them scary or unique. I think they realized that back in the day the Oriental Adventures book was a best seller in old school D&D and it was a successful part of the Forgotten Realms in AD&D 2nd edition and they wanted to include Asians for drawing in potential fans, kinda like Kalidinay was a lame attempt to draw Dark Sun fans (or create some I don't know if there are any actual Dark Sun fans.)

Japanese cinema and folklore shows that the do indeed have a rich tradition of horror but the weak Ravenloft versions of these cultures didn't even scratch the surface. the domains just plain sucked.

Alright, that's fair and I agree, they don't work very well.

All most all major literary examples I can think of in the Genre are European. It wasn't until Edgar Allen Poe came along that we had any non=European Gothic horror literature at all.

Wrong. William Beckford's Vathek: An Arabian Tale is a classic Gothic novel set in Arabia, written in 1782. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vathek