Poor domains.

[Scarycount]

I heard on this other thread, that someone wished there were more "rich" domains, like Darkon and Mordent, as opposed to "poor" domains, like Forlorn and Blutespur. What other domains are poor in this way?

[Jasper]

I take 'Poor' to mean lacking in the raw material that makes good and varied adventures. In that vien I toss in:

Keening- With the death kneel and the lack of anything living the only real adventures you can do in it are a mad dash into the city of the dead for some forgtten artifact or the typical save the baby run.

Verbrek- The werewolves make this a one trick pony type of domain. You can do a thousand and one adventures involving werecreatures in this domain but you have no big cities to do urban adventures, no massive ruins to explore and the exploration of some dark cave or shadowy forrest is a sure way to get killed by the wolves.

Valchan- This is a domain that dosn't seem to know what it wants to be. Is it a vampire domain? Barovia does it better. Is it a jungle domain? The wildlands do it better. Is it a inner beast type of domain? Verbrek does it better. You can completely remove it from the core without it causing much of a ripple.

Tepest- A witch hunt domain domain is good in therory and the idea of being neighbors with the shadow fey is very good but it offers nothing else to the rest of the core. There are no universities for a PC to go to, no great churches to join and no large cities to play politics with.

[Gwenfloor]

I heard that I'Cath is poor. I do not know much about it, though.
I heard about Odiare revolving around evil toys and Maligno, but little else.

[Jester of the FoS]

Never had to do anything with Valachan but I'm sure I could figure out something for meaningful adventures.
I used to think Karatakass was kinda lame until I had a campaign set there (player's picked the place). Currently doing stuff in Nova Vassa which I never had much cause to go into before.

I have to agree that I'Cath, Bluetspur, Forlorn, Verbrek and Keening are very one or two note lands. A couple tales, albeit lengthy ones, but hardly places to set an entire campaign from 1st to 20th.

[NeoTiamat]

Most of the clusters are quite fascinating (I especially like the Amber Wastes), but the Frozen Reaches is sadly neglected. There is, I believe, one old 2E adventure set there, and thats about the extent of information on it.

Most Islands of Terror are relatively one-dimensional.

I'Cath is extremely poor, and Odiare is as well. I find G'Henna rather pointless as well.

Souragne used to be fairly poor, until the Gazetteer that is, and while Rokushima Taiyoo (or however you say it) is poor in terms of little setting info, it does have an entire mythology to draw upon.

For Core lands, I actually kind of like Verbrek, but I do wish it was expanded more. Valachan is meh.

I somehow always found Richumelot a bit extraneous, since anything it can do, Dementlieu and Borca do better. It has Wererats, I suppose.

The Shadow Rift is sort of useful as a plot device, but horrible as a domain. Keening and Necropolis are also fairly pointless, but they might make nice sidetreks once in a while.

Tepest. I also like Tepest, but it really needs a good Gazetteer on it (as Azalin said in the actual Gaz, "S" did not do an extremely good job on detailing its possibilities). It has a lot of potential plot threads and details that could evolve into a fascinating setting, but it was never done.

Sithicus. It has elves. That and Soth was about the extent of its charm, and I never even liked Soth.

Thats about the extent of it, I think. To Recap:

Frozen Reaches (Sanguinia and Vorostokov)
Odiare
I'Cath
G'Henna

Richumelot (My personal view)

Tepest
Sithicus
Verbrek
Valachan

Shadow Rift
Keening
Necropolis (Last Three are more adventure generators then proper domains).

[Charney]

Valchan- This is a domain that dosn't seem to know what it wants to be. Is it a vampire domain? Barovia does it better. Is it a jungle domain? The wildlands do it better. Is it a inner beast type of domain? Verbrek does it better. You can completely remove it from the core without it causing much of a ripple.

YOu couldn't have put it better!!!


But about poor domains in general, I use them as places to fill. You need a evil-dead type shack in the woods, put it in Tepest. You need an haunted noble house, there's lots of empty spaces in Richemulot. A domain doesn't always need to be played for it's "theme". Except maybe Forlorn, Keening and Verbrek, for the Core domains you can pretty much fill them up with anything you can imagine. You can do the same with Barovia or Darkon, but these domains have less "empty spots".

[Little Ole Me]

This may be an un-PC comment, but I always suspect that Valachan is a domain set after horror movies from the Blaxploitation era of the 1950s/1960s. The kind where a scary Black vampire is always chasing after our human heroines in a quest for true love.

On to the topic, is "poor" a reference to natural resources? I always find it hard to determine whether a domain has natural resources or not because apart from Nosos where there is active mining and deforestation going on, agriculture and some mining seems to be the predominant economic activity among the more populated domains.

Anyway, who's to say there isn't a rich source of oil or gold hidden under the ground? Especially in those cavernous places like Timor and Bluetspur?

As for domains with "poor adventure value", I agree that Necropolis is unusable unless the players want to play as undead types, thanks to its barrier that prevents living creatures from entering the place. I also find it hard to come up with campaign ideas for the canon version of Tepest, G'henna, Markovia, and Lamordia.

But I do see some potential in Keening though since Tristessa has been retconned into having a connection with the Unseelie court in the Shadow Rift. A feud between her and Loht could be interesting.

Valachan, Vebrek, and Kartakass are neighboring domains. I can easily see an interdomain conflict of power taking place between the three Darklords a la the Molocchio-Andarre-Drakov conflict involving Invidia and Falkovia with poor Borca stuck in the middle.

I also wonder why Bluetspur isn't a more prominent domain. We have the Illithid God-brain who is supposed to know all kinds of things, after all. If this God-brain is fashioned after Ilsensine, does this mean the God-brain is as powerful as, say, Vecna? Why then isn't he trying to escape Ravenloft or scheming for greater things like Azalin and Strahd? With so much knowledge at his disposal, I find it hard to believe that the God-brain is content to bathe in brine all day long and order the Illithids around to create better slave stock.

[Brandi]

This may be an un-PC comment, but I always suspect that Valachan is a domain set after horror movies from the Blaxploitation era of the 1950s/1960s.

Teeny nitpick: the first film considered Blaxploitation, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, came out in 1971. The genre petered out in the mid-late 70s.

There were "race pictures" in early cinema up until roughly the 50s, where all-black crews and all-black casts made films.

[Igor the Henchman]

I heard on this other thread, that someone wished there were more "rich" domains, like Darkon and Mordent, as opposed to "poor" domains, like Forlorn and Blutespur. What other domains are poor in this way?

I think you're referring to my old If YOU designed Ravenloft thread. That's where I started describing some domains as being "Richer" than others. I actually avoided using the word "poor" to describe the opposite quality, preferring the term "Clunky" instead. "Poor" might easily be interpreted as "poorly-designed", and that's not necessarily what Clunky domains are. In fact, some of the Clunkiest domains out there are very much liked by most fans, like the House of Lament or Scaena.

To clarify my point of view, allow me to quote myself:

To make my explanations less tedious, I'll use these home-made terms as a time-saver.

Rich: this term applies to domains. It describes those domains that seem to offer especially diverse adventure possibilities and are especially attractive for DMs to plan adventures in. Rich domains tend to see more play in most campaigns. Darkon is an example of a really Rich domain. The term can be used comparatively, as in Souragne is Richer than l'Ile de la Tempete. Most often, domains that are hospitable to PCs tend to be Richer than those that don't, but there are exceptions: The Nightmare Lands are Richer than Staunton Bluffs.

Clunky: the opposite of Rich. Clunky domains are inflexible, and tend to resist the DM's attempts to customize adventures set inside them, or to run scenarios that don't involve one or more key elements of a domain. I'Cath is one of the Clunkiest domains in Ravenloft. The term can also be used as a comparative, as in the Winding Road is Clunkier than Odiare, which is Clunkier than Zherisia.

Several factors might contribute to make a domain Clanky. One of them is the size of the land: smaller domains tend to be Clankier than bigger ones, but not always: Tepest is rather small, but is one of the Richest domains. The Wildlands are really big, but are among the Clunkiest.

Another factor is inhospitality: Keening may be right in the middle of the Core, its still Clunky, because whatever you do, you'll meet a bunch of ghosts who will keep attacking you, unless you leave, enter the City of the Dead, or sacrifice a baby.

Another factor is darklord involvement: if the darklord is likely to personally involve himself with any unusual trouble in the domain, the domain becomes Clunky, as is the case with Markovia, for example.

Lastly, I'd like to specify that Clunkiness isn't necessarily a bad trait for a domain to have - but if a domain is Clunky, it better justify this by being really interesting and making for an exciting adventure. A perfect example of this is the House of Lament: Clunky, but really, really cool.

There's a little extra explanation on Clunkiness in the above quote. Its stuff from my original draft, that I edited out before posting.

To be clear, I don't believe Richness and Clunkiness is so much a matter of domain appeal so much as of domain flexibility. Rich domains are those you might see yourself running adventure after adventure after adventure in, without ever feeling restrained in your creativity. Think Mordent: you have lost families, haunted mansions, mist creatures, evil fey, scheming landlords, evil plant monsters, Van Richten's legacy, a headquarters for a Church of Ezra branch, political intrigues with other members of the Treaty of the Four Towers, a scheming darklord building up an army of ghosts... lots to choose from for adventure and campaign building.

On the other hand, Clunky domains tend to put limits on the DM's creativity, usually by putting up one or several "unavoidable" elements that you don't have a choice but to include in your plot. Think L'Ile de La Tempete. Try and run an adventure there that doesn't involve a shipwreck, a rogue lighthouse and a ravenous werebat. I friggin' dare you.

Oh, and lastly, while in the original thread I did state I consider Rich domains to be generally more valuable to the setting than Clunky ones, I don't believe the latter can't be great adventure material. They just don't have as much "re-play value". Consider Darkon and then the Winding Road. Both are very well thought out domains. But Darkon gives you enough material to last several campaigns. The Winding Road gives you one encounter.

[Gwenfloor]

Can someone say why I'Cath is poor? I tried to find all the information about it, but I cannot find anything about the domain.

[Jester of the FoS]

Can someone say why I'Cath is poor? I tried to find all the information about it, but I cannot find anything about the domain.

Read my review on Islands of Terror here for more on I'Cath.

The darklord is a motive-less sociopath who kills frequently with equally malign daughters. No goals beyons the stereotypical "kill everyone who even so-much as looks at me and rule the world!!! Bwa ha ha HA!!!" The land is teeny-tiny with no people, settlements or monsters.

[NeoTiamat]

Its a throwback to the bad old days when the sole purpose of an Island of Terror was to get the PCs to kill the lord. Even when others moved out of that, I'Cath stay true to its roots, which is why no one ever uses it.

[Little Ole Me]

Brandi, thanks for the correction - I can't say I am too familiar with Blaxploitation horror films and I should have checked before typing. This is as embarrassing as that mistake I once made in a movie forum when I mistyped "1970" as the time period when all those Cary Grant movies were made. I could never really show my face there again.

Its a throwback to the bad old days when the sole purpose of an Island of Terror was to get the PCs to kill the lord.

This probably explains why a Darklord with a curse like that inflicted on Baron Lyron Eversong from Liffe was ever created. A Darklord cursed to spend a night that is as long as a hundred years in our normal timespan? That makes him a very static Darklord and the domain of Liffe of very little repeat adventure value.

I wonder why, therefore, would the Baron's domain ends up being this big island in the 3.5 edition map of Ravenloft! [/code]

[Gwenfloor]

Someone should find a replacement domain for I'Cath. Chinese folklore is full of ideas, enough to base an entire campaign off of. In my campaign, I put several settlers in I'Cath after the PCs killed the Darklord, and thus evolved into a powerful empire.

[Nathan of the FoS]

I think I would sum up the "poor domain" as a domain where you really can't do anything except try not to be killed, and/or kill things. If there's very little "ordinary people doing ordinary things" going on, the domain is essentially two-dimensional from a real-world standpoint, and the amount you can do there is correspondingly limited.