Who would you sentence to the Mists v. 2

[Nathan of the FoS]

Sorry for the confusion--I did intend "contemporary politics", since I would lump the Borgias, Hitler and Stalin under the heading "history", and discussion of darklords under the heading "Ravenloft".

Come to that, I don't particularly care about nominating present world leaders for Darklord-hood, except insofar as enumerating their various sins is a standing incitement to flame-wars of the "Did not! Did too!" variety, which spoils the topic for almost everyone.

[HuManBing]

...does not!



But seriously, and back on track, I'd sentence Napoleon Bonaparte. He came to power promising a new order of egalitarianism and deposed the old leadership... but then went about installing an equally nepotistic and unequal rulership. What began as a social cause devolved into slogans and self serving aggrandizement.

[Tykus]

Let us refrain from the politics, please.

Sorry, Nathan. I'll take the hit for that; I did state that there weren't any rules beyond justification of a said being's inclusion. I humble myself before you and beg your forgiveness.

[Tykus]

Sure, that is probably what Nathan meant.

Oh, and be careful with religion too Historical debate is fun, and encouraged, as long as the merits or perceived strenght/weaknesses of current/living faith are not debated.

Just be careful to to hurt anybody belonging to a specific faith. It can be tricky, as a friend recently found: his girlfriend liked buddhas and and them all over a place in the yard (personal taste is another subject of tricky debate). Well, a thaï friend was slightly offended that Buddha was used as a simple yard decoration...

My point is think twice and reread your post when discussing religion

Joël

At the risk of killing this thread, which, unfortunately, is why certain desert DL rarely gets mentioned. I've actually killed a thread that way by mentioning his similiarity. No one posted on that thread after that. It was like I hit too close to home and no one wanted to acknowledge it. I may be blunt and occasionally insightful, but I have feelings too.

Sorry for the off-topic rant, mods. I will do better.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

Niccolo Machiavelli, trapped in a Borca-esque world.

His punishment? A hierarchy of nobility and aristocracy forever threatening to end his reign as "Prince", coupled with an unruly and uncooperative populace that only obey him through fear.

He tries to follow the teachings he laid down in his work, but is foiled at every turn by the Dark Powers.

[Tykus]

...does not!



But seriously, and back on track, I'd sentence Napoleon Bonaparte. He came to power promising a new order of egalitarianism and deposed the old leadership... but then went about installing an equally nepotistic and unequal rulership. What began as a social cause devolved into slogans and self serving aggrandizement.

[Hoping that I didn't just kill this thread with my previous post (or get myself banned, for that matter)]

And for the record, he was NOT 5'2", he WAS 5'6". He was taller than most of his troops. The discrepancy has to do with conflicting measurement systems (English standard vs. French royal feet and inches).

While Lord Soth certainly fit the bill, I nominate Darth Vader and Darth Sidious. While he did eventually redeem himself in the end (much like Lord Soth), Anakin/Vader betrayed his order in the quest for power to "protect" his love and bring order to the Galaxy. Sidious qualifies for managing to accelerate the inherent corruption of an established government, instigated a war behind the scenes, installing himself as emperor, corrupting a promising acolyte of a holy order, and turning the galaxy against and destroying said order.

[Tykus]

Granted, the Lady of the Lake DL is based on Arthurian legend, I would still sentence Morgan le Fay and Mordred to the Mists. Mordred for betraying his father at his mother's behest (among other things) and Morgan for having an incestuous relationship with her own half-brother and manipulating the Round Table to its eventual ruin.

[Tykus]

Sure, that is probably what Nathan meant.

Oh, and be careful with religion too Historical debate is fun, and encouraged, as long as the merits or perceived strenght/weaknesses of current/living faith are not debated.

Just be careful to to hurt anybody belonging to a specific faith. It can be tricky, as a friend recently found: his girlfriend liked buddhas and and them all over a place in the yard (personal taste is another subject of tricky debate). Well, a thaï friend was slightly offended that Buddha was used as a simple yard decoration...

My point is think twice and reread your post when discussing religion

Joël

At the risk of killing this thread, which, unfortunately, is why certain desert DL rarely gets mentioned. His personal ethics/morals are too close to real-world extremists. I've actually killed a thread that way by mentioning his similiarity. No one posted on that thread after that. It was like I hit too close to home and no one wanted to acknowledge it. I may be blunt and occasionally insightful, but I have feelings too.

Sorry for the off-topic rant, mods. I will do better.

[cure]

Niccolo Machiavelli, trapped in a Borca-esque world.

His punishment? A hierarchy of nobility and aristocracy forever threatening to end his reign as "Prince", coupled with an unruly and uncooperative populace that only obey him through fear.

He tries to follow the teachings he laid down in his work, but is foiled at every turn by the Dark Powers.

I warmly invite you to read The Prince and The Republic. I would be hard pressed to recommend a more responsible treatment of the political. It is a pity that our 'leaders' don't borrow some of the virtu that Machiavelli champions. But no, they are off having their chats with 'god' who curiously enough fights on all sides. And no, I am not citing a particular 'god' incidently . . . .

[Nikolas of the Mists]

I warmly invite you to read The Prince and The Republic. I would be hard pressed to recommend a more responsible treatment of the political.

I am both a classics and political science student. I have read and studied them both and they play a key part of my undergraduate study, thesis and research specifically related to the responsibility and accountability of leaders.

My suggestion of Machiavelli was more a conceptual embellishment with interesting possibilities rather than a serious condemnation. A darker, more sinister version of him, not so unlike Azalin in many of his characteristics and ruling decisions.

(Incidentally I enjoyed Discourses on Livy much more than The Prince because of the focus more on the characteristics of republicanism rather than exclusively that of the lone individual.)

[DocBeard]

I'd think the Buddah would argue that your friend needs to be less attached to something as unimportant as the way a material statue of his likeness was used before his zeal for the Buddah's honor eclipses his understanding of the Buddah's teachings, but I'm only an amature scholar of his works.

I can understand what you mean, man, but I don't think it's a good idea to just not talk about a subject at all because a few people might speak poorly about it. Ignorance will always exist, and how will pretending the item in question doesn't exist help combat it?

That said, I never got the whole Diambiel=Mohammad thing. Mohammad's history can be debated until the sun winks out, but the guy's motivation seemed to be that he was interested in his people revering Allah instead of killing eachother over tribal-familial grudges. This could be twisted into a horrific thing: the Church of the Lawgiver gives us our most coherant view of an organized religion valueing a strong, family-oriented community "gone wrong", but that's not Diambiel's motivation. Big D doesn't hear the voices of angels, he claims to be an angel-his desire is adoration, and escaping his previous, material identity into a fantasy of perfect purity and spiritual power. The Darklord that's the real twisted, horrific profit is none other than the sadly underrated Yango Petrovina.

If anything, I'd say Diambiel could be seen as a criticism of the Gnostic beliefs than Islam. He's ashamed of his body, and has turned this into a whole belief system that sees the physical as evil, the spiritual as superior, and the best path to the spiritual being causing the physical to suffer.

It's sort of like being offended by Tseng Chaing of I'Cath: yeah, she's an evil wizard who's Chinese. If you want to see "Yellow Peril", well, okay, but the offensive part of that is, "All Asians/Chinese are sinister, scheming masterminds or the pawns of such.", which Tseng, frankly, isn't. She's too...direct to be a mastermind style villain, more likely to peel your skin off than set up a complicated plan to destroy you. She's a storybook witch, complete with the whole 'three good/wicked daughters and one kind/disobediant daughter' schtick and the very fairy tale-esque ways of defeating them.

If they had German or Russian names and lived in a cottage instead of a tower, would anyone blink an eye? I'm all for calling 'em as one sees 'em, but in both cases of the 'racist Darklords', I think people are just looking a little too hard for racism, instead of seeing that the writers intended to use villains drawing from a different culture. Ravenloft draws a lot of its inspiration from classic fairy tales and ghost stories, a tradition that continues in almost every culture in the world to this day. Some of these stories might seem a little racist by today's standards, but it's all in the presentation, I believe-you can use Asian, African, Mesoamerican, and Middle Eastern elements without it immediately turning into some ugly, terrible, unfun thing, it just takes a positive attitude and some rescearch.


Anyway, back on topic: I think it's more productive to focus on the type of villain archtypes we don't have a Darklord for. One thing I thought was interesting, both with the Gates/Jobs and Lex Luthor suguestion, was the fact that Ravenloft lacks a major economic villain. Malkim's a self proclaimed criminal mastermind who really hasn't shown why he's earned a place among the major Darklords, his principle achievement being making his better half suffer. Dominic and Jacquelin both cover a lot of political villainy duties, with the more midevil Darklords picking up the rest of the slack...maybe Ivan and Ivana could graduate from decadent, spoiled nobles into banker-crime lords?

[cure]

Hear, hear!

Apparently it got cut, but to go with the Sympathetic Spell feat that Mangrum wrote up for Borca was the practice of usury where the borrower's person served as the pound of flesh. Don't pay back your loan? Well, we have your finger nail and that is sufficient for us to wrack you with pain or whatever, wherever you may be cowering (so long as you don't leave the domain). A starting point for bank villanry.

Along these lines, I would nominate both the former CEO and President of Enron. One escape prison by dying, so the Mists could bring him back. Perhaps a domain consisting of starving, cannabelistic ghouls who in life had been cheated out of their pensions, with him being a slower ghoul and fated to forever rise from his nightly destruction. Evidently, not a domain to visit if you can help it.

[Zettaijin]

Doc, I'm working (or is that reworking) Malus Sceleris in a way that might fit the profile you're looking for. I just couldn't stand that Nosos gazateer I wrote ten years ago.

Now I seem to have hit a bit of a snag in his story and I'm constantly rewriting, but I'll eventually be able to show my results.

[HuManBing]

It's sort of like being offended by Tseng Chaing of I'Cath: yeah, she's an evil wizard who's Chinese. If you want to see "Yellow Peril", well, okay, but the offensive part of that is, "All Asians/Chinese are sinister, scheming masterminds or the pawns of such.", which Tseng, frankly, isn't. [...]
If they had German or Russian names and lived in a cottage instead of a tower, would anyone blink an eye? I'm all for calling 'em as one sees 'em, but in both cases of the 'racist Darklords', I think people are just looking a little too hard for racism

Tsien Chiang as an isolated example of a larger cultural background is okay. The problem in my mind arises when she stands as the only example of a culture (here the Chinese).

The German example is apt because it is NOT unique in the Demiplane. The setting has many examples of Germanic culture that is different. If you converted I'Cath to a domain populated entirely by German Hausfrauen or French Madames people wouldn't blink an eye; there are aleady other domains that show other aspects of those cultures.

I am irritated by I'Cath in a way that may be unique to Chinese players. If you don't agree with it then fair enough, but don't go about accusing us of looking too hard for racism. I find it offensive primarily because of its exclusivity - and one of the things I tried to do was to write up a broader Asian themed continent. You don't have to use this, but it was formed as a response to a narrow material set of Chinese culture and I like to think we did some good through it.

If you have nothing to lose from an incorrect stereotype, it's easy to label those who are offended by it as "oversensitive" and to dismiss their concerns. Hopefully the FoS and its posters are above that.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Niccolo Machiavelli, trapped in a Borca-esque world. His punishment? A hierarchy of nobility and aristocracy forever threatening to end his reign as "Prince", coupled with an unruly and uncooperative populace that only obey him through fear.

The trouble with that is, if the darker elements of IRL history are taken into consideration, a Machiavelli-inspired villain wouldn't need to go to Ravenloft to find himself in such circumstances. Virtually any real-world city would suffice, in most historical eras, without the DPs' having to lift a finger.