(this will be here for another day or so, then moved to the Netbook thread to free up space on the main board)
Liffe Project - submissions – style and flavour
As you all know, The Fraternity of Shadows is currently accepting submissions for our ongoing Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer-type project. There are five domains in this area and I’m doing Liffe.
As we did when we started the Souragne project, here are a few thoughts about Eversong’s domain so as to help keep a unified style Articles that differ from this will still be accepted –there are always exceptions in every land - but I encourage people to work with it to create a uniform feel.
I also strongly encourage everyone to read the writing guidelines
here, at the end of the first post.
There are rough descriptions of the town and lord in the
Book of Crypts. Please read it carefully! Also read the entry in the various campaign settings (
Domains of Dread and the
Ravenloft Player’s Handbook). Considering uncommon exceptions, your material should not contradict what is found in this description.
Liffe
* Topological Survey: There are a few fertile stretches through the land and Liffe is seeing an influx of farmers from Darkon and other lands. The local forests probably have decent wood; the trees are small but strong.
* Cities: Moondale, Goldendale, Claveria, Armeikos and Aferdale Most are from the
Book of Crypts, but one is from Children of the Night: Demons (the Straw God and a likely Dread Possibility/Adventure Hook).
* Locales of Interest: Neverwhere manor. Possibly some ruins from the Krynn Cataclysm.
* Indigenous Plants and Animals: A small note should be made of the local plants and animals, although this should be kept small to not repeat information in the main Nocturnal Sea section.
* Indigenous People: They’re from Krynn IIRC, so a Dragonlance and medieval feel is to be expected, perhaps there might even be some elves, dwarves or Halflings/kender in the hills.
* Daily Life: The Taiwan of the Core. Busy little beavers hard at work
* Language: Krynnish? I’ll try to find Eversong’s specific region.
* Outlook and worldview: There is an overall ‘cluster’ outlook. The Nocturnal Sea is more a land of ethereal, spiritual and intangible than one of the physical and material. Lords tend to be obsess over ideas and philosophies more than carnal or financial wants. Liffe is almost an exception as the locals are obsessed with trade and goods, but this is more for an end goal than the material wealth itself.
* Art and Trade: Liffe is filled with craftsmen and artisans who are desperate to improve their skill. However, being new to trading they are more adept at copying the style of other lands and have not developed one of their own.
* Local History: This is tabula rasa at the moment. I’ll work on it later, after my research.
* Governments: Local barons of which Eversong is one. Although, there might possibly be other barons ruling over other cities.
Indigenous Religions: There is apparently a mismatch of religions in Liffe, including Lendor, a GREYHAWK deity, possibly DRAGONLACE deities and one known only as the “Crop-watcher”.
From the adventure hook bank:
Well, since the best adventures need not revolve around the Lord I see no problems with Liffe. Heck, the land is pretty much a Tabula Rasa, anything is possible.
The main things with Liffe are the struggle between the commoners, nobility and rising middle-class as well as the Baron's struggle to keep the island independent despite the increasing ties between the nobles and the mainland. That almost justifies the large island on the Core, the fact that you have this Lord that would appreciate being an Island of Terror due to the total solitude.
I'd play up that aspect. The tourists from the Core come to this land, there’s influx of settlers hoping for a better life and there’s also people who now spend their lives in trade profiting from the position. Farmers work harder to produce more crops to sell across sea, which they then use to hire more hands and produce even more crops. Meanwhile there are the newly starting craftsmen anxiously producing their wares for sell overseas and the traders and explorers hoping for new exotics to bring back.
Heck, you could run a whole campaign of explorers from Liffe doing reconnaissance for a wealthy noble looking for the next 'new' thing.
Given that many craftsmen are so new to their skill and may lack the years of experience they might be better are mimicking the crafts from Darkon and Nova Vassa than designing their own goods. The island might gain renown producing copies and knock-off goods. I can see waves of cheap supposedly masterwork Darkon pottery being sold in ports across the Nocturnal Sea.
This adds an irony to the situation: one class of people is desperate to trade yet so much needs to be imported that there is little to offer. The wealthy nobles risk spending more than they are making and everyone scrambles to produce wealth, players might be needed to seek out new ore veins, guard what little valuables are there, procure something of tradable value and the like.
There might also be heavily xenophobic elements, the language barriers and the like being mixed with the lord's wish for isolation. I can see problems such as crime, a rise in depravity and social unrest being blamed on outside influence and sedition. There might be strong groups working against the foreign devils and trying to keep the land pure. This is especially hard on the influx of colonists and settlers as well as the traders.
As for the lord himself… Okay, this is harder without changing any elements as presented but lets see if I can fan-wank some explanation or offer some improvements.
Baron Eversong strikes me as a sociopath; he simply cannot express empathy for any other living thing. True emotion escapes him. It would be easy to play him as a tortured failure of a bard then, unable to capture emotion, but that darklord role has been filled (too Juste as Igor might say). Instead, he became a bard strictly to manipulate the emotions of these inferior people and abuse the empathy they felt; manipulate them through song or his spells and where that failed a little physical persuasion. This led him to enchant his harpsichord that I would rework as a phylactery. That makes that Baron a manipulative control freak which adds that much more emphasis to his ruling an island filled with people he can't control. A tad too much like d'Honaire but it's a start.
I'd also make Baron Eversong impatient; he has the raw talent to convince people through song and music, sow them to his cause and philosophies but -quite frankly- he just does not have the patience to slowly work away at them. He makes token efforts to impart his 'wisdom' before he gives up and resorts to magic or force. He's a thinker and a dreamer, a philosopher with a twisted outlook who believes he must convince others to follow his beliefs. Ravenloft's version of Descartes but with a musical edge. This adds a twist to his curse, how every night lasts a hundred years for him. He has all the time in the world –he’s practically an immortal- with naught to do but theorize and think and debate, but during the day he must act quickly. He has centuries to plan for the weekend but he always feels rushed when the time comes. Of course, if he slowed down he could easily plan out his actions and prepare the perfect plans that could sway the masses to his will, but he always fails. He always botches his plans.
According to the Book of Crypts the Baron cannot leave his manor. I would adjust that so he cannot step too far away from his harpsichord and thus effectively the manor. But at the end of the adventure it was presumably destroyed along with the rest of the study. So that changes things. Instead the Baron managed to survive as it was merely smashed not totally destroyed. After repairing it he had the intelligence (after 200 years of thought of course) to keep a sliver or two separate and on his person and thus he can freely roam the countryside. Of course every night, wherever he is, he is transported back to the study. I can't decide if after the night he is returned to where he was or always returns to the manor. It might just be easier to say he has three harpsichords in three identical studies and he returns to the nearest each night to give him more free reign of the domain opposed to being trapped in a 60 mile radius.
Manofevil: Your descriptions remind me of Bill the Butcher from the movie 'Gangs of New York'. If you're looking for a model for this darklord, perhaps that's it.
[original thread contents:
Possibly in the Community projects thread, but I'm fine with it here.
I'm going with much of my ideas from the domain of the month. I'm about to read and re-read the Book of Crypts for a recapturing of the land's feel but imagine an emphasis on time and patience as well as isolation and company will remain.
Lendor will likely not be included. That was added assuming Greyhawk deities were common while the Baron himself was from Krynn/Dragonlance IIRC. When they moved all the adventures in the Book of Crypts into a single land that becomes a minor contradiction.
Perhaps Lendor's church was established from Darkonian settlers (the first of many newcomers)...]
