Falk-fury rages on!

[Five]

If Vlad is a big loser, then his curse isn't really a curse. There wouldn't even need to be a curse of always losing wars if he was going to lose them anyway. It would be redundant.

That's a good point.

[Mistmaster]

I agree.

[tomokaicho]

This is the way I see it. Drakov's curse is multifaceted. He can't win a long term war (any victories he has are ultimately phyrric). He also cannot get proper respect from those he wants it from (Strahd, Azalin, and the other 'strong' rulers) , or he gets obsequious praise from women and fops (the Boritsis, D'Honiaire), which humiliates him in its disingenuousness.


So what does Drakov do? His country gets criticized, so he tries to deal with the problem as he sees it. No opera like in Port-a-Lucine and mocked for the lack of high culture? Drakov has his subordinates make grand opera in Silbervas, but he gets no credit for it. Forward thinkers at the University of Il-Aluk have a Department of Arcane Studies? Vlad has the Falkovnian Ministry of Arcane founded at great expense, which technically makes him one of the most open minded and progressive rulers (technically only because some sinister stuff is happening at the ministry). Vlad still doesn't get respect. Poor roads? Vlad builds the best, widest road system in the domains, and is accused of building the roads for rapid troop movements.

Not only is Drakov unable to win permanent victories, his various actions are doomed to be seen in the worst possible light. If there are various ways to interpret Dravok's words and actions, the worst interpretation is always taken (only outside of Falkovnia). This is why Drakov has the reputation of a buffoon, a thug, an incompetent, and an efficient killer all at the same time.

Lastly, as far as I know Falkovnia does not have an official state church. This seems one of the bases that Drakov would be unlikely to overlook, especially since he came from Thenol in Krynn, which was more or less a theocracy under the clerics of Hith (Hiddukel). Drakov surely has a state church.

[Mistmaster]

As I have often said my Falkovnia is NeoTiamat's Falkovnia from QtR 22. That Domain is a percieved threath for all of his neightbours, and Drakov is seen as what in my hopinion he should be seen: a competent, skillfull and very dangerous ruler; a Napoleon with a touch of Stalin and only a flavour of Nazist germany.

[brilliantlight]

I am not down with the canon, incompetent buffoon that is Vlad Drakov. Drakov has skin in the game. As a mercenary commander on Krynn, failure means death. That means that the incompetent are filtered out. Drakov isn't a no skin in the game armchair strategist like Bill Kristol who has been wrong about everything for the last two decades and never faced any negative consequences. See Nicholas Taleb's 'Skin in the Game'.

You can also see him as the "John Bell Hood" of Ravenloft. If you don't know who I am talking about as he isn't that famous he is a Confederate General who was a pretty decent division commander, an OK corps commander and an absolute disaster as army commander. At the "Battle of Franklin" he showed everyone "How to destroy your own army in one easy lesson".

That is Drakov, the limits of his ability is a company or regimental commander and he did quite well at that. That didn't matter when he was a merc. He pretty much only had to worry about tactics. Yes, he had skin in the game but at a lower level. He was a merc not a king.

[brilliantlight]

Falkovnia works best as a background comic relief kind of domain. A domain everyone laughs at. I used it in more than one occasion where the NPCs really rip on it and mention its use in plays, songs and stories where he is depicted as a strutting buffoon. With the right sense of humor it can be fun. Like I said he is Dark Age Benito Mussolini .

That's your opinion, yeah. Right on. Was it you that re-wrote Falkovnia or somebody else? Either way I have yet to read it, but it's on my to-do list..

My horror doesn't require background comic relief so that's not an option. Guess I'm just an old school rated R kinda fella that found like-minded buddies to sandbox it in.

Drakov is a ruthless mercenary/warlord who wanted his own kingdom because he got sick of playing monkey for monkies. Now towards the end of his life he's realising that he ain't really cut out for it. Never was. He's best at spilling blood. Frontline massacre. What a waste. What he would do to have his time back, mount up, and ride to where the wind takes him. Muck everybody who crosses his path. If I want it, I take it...

Intro slaughter-sacrifice/razing of Falkovnia and his new pact/cell.

Or a one shot fluke dose of the Primal Serum that has him open up his senses to the world (even more delusional but savagely coherent at the same time. He can't sit on the throne without losing his mind. In battle he restores his sanity..?).

Or a combination of both, with a very loyal doktor at his side and a vicious inbred army foaming at the mouth.

He can never rule or earn the respect of his neighbours, but the DPs never told him he couldn''t fight, feast, or..

The use was mainly a few minutes here and there to lighten things up for a moment and then move on. My rewrite of Falkovnia (One in which he was overthrown) was mainly an intellectual exercise. I did try it out and it worked.

I then moved Drakov to an island where he conquered a few domains before being able to build a few ships. His curse is now not only can he not conquer anything any more (being stuck on an island) but no one believes that he conquered anything except for the people on the island. The reaction of the various Dark Lords to this claim is "Yeah, yeah, sure, sure you couldn't conquer anything when we could see it now that you disappeared for a while you claim you conquered all this territory when you were missing. " He is considered more of a joke than ever.

What I like about canon Drakov is that he is one of the realistic depictions of a Dark Ages noble I have ever read. There are far too many "Knights in shining armor" and not enough "Drakovs" written. The fact is that the Dark Ages were teeming with Drakovs, outside the impaling.

[brilliantlight]

If Vlad is a big loser, then his curse isn't really a curse. There wouldn't even need to be a curse of always losing wars if he was going to lose them anyway. It would be redundant.

That's a good point.

Sometimes the curse is little more than giving someone what they think they want. I am thinking of writing an article in the next Quoth where Strahd finally catches Tatyana and finds he is more cursed than ever.

If you ever read I, Strahd you will find out that Strahd was not really in love with Tatyana. He was a man going through a mid-life crisis in lust with a young woman and confusing it with love. They are completely incompatible. Tatyana is of good alignment and Strahd is far from that. Her generosity drives Strahd bonkers but that is what make her her.

The only thing that makes me hesitate is that I am about as good at dialogue as George Lucas. The scenes might well come off as well as Anakin wooing Padme.

[Manofevil]

(all resources are finite btw; Drakov's army outnumbers some of those forces combined a few times over I believe - I'll check later),

First, some fun numbers (from a non-numbers guy), taken from the RL Gaz series and the MM (all 3E because that has the most info available):

Kartakass has 200 wolfweres

Richemulot has 4,390 wererats

Verbrek has 1,140 werewolves

Falkovnia has an unknown/unlisted standing army as far as I can tell so I'm going to make one up. Google tells me that World War II Nazi Germany had 31% of its population enlisted during that war. For various reasons I'll use that as a model. Falkovnia now has a standing army of 19,933 soldiers. That's 99 soldiers per wolfwere, 4 soldiers (and a raw recruit) per wererat, and 17 soldiers (and a fresh out of boot camp recruit) per werewolf. I know not all of the wolfweres, wererats and werewolves would actually be involved in the fighting, but I'm going to ignore that for now just cos.

Now obviously Vlad can't send all of this soldiers out on campaign (unless he doesn't give one spit about leaving Falkovnia to the wolves so to speak, or, he has an updated curse/drive like the one mentioned above), so let's half those numbers:

49 CR 2 soldiers/CR 4 officers per 1 CR 4 wolfwere and CR 7 greater wolfwere....victory for Falkovnia (from a strictly numbers angle). Kartakass is annexed. Talons not included.

2 CR 2 soldiers/CR 4 officers per 1 CR 2 wererat/CR 3 aberrant wererat...a much tougher fight and probably a pyrrhic victory for Falkovnia at best, given the odds of lycanthropic infection spreading in such a bitter battle. Richemulot and the Falkovnian army are both devastated. Both need a generation to rebuild. Richemulot in that regard wins, if it follows a similar pre-war "infrastructure". Throw the Talons into the bloodbath orgy and it's good odds that Falkovnia puts Richemulot to the back of camp...

8 CR 2 soldiers/CR 4 officers per 1 CR 3 werewolf (the not-included CR 7 Talons and the assumed to be around somewhere CR 14 werewolf lords cancel each other out I figure)...victory Falkovnia. Verbrek is engulfed in flames that will cause breathing issues for the very young and very old all throughout the Core.

That's just a very basic (almost cartoon) Falkovnia versus the Monstrous. Half force to full force yeah, but stripped down all the same. Throw the human combatants of those domains into the mix, closure of borders, allies/diplomacy, etc and things get more complicated of course. Even the hypothetically free-ravaging and full force Vlad could at best hold a large city and maybe its environs from retaliation...

OK, I feel the need to add and subtract from this.

To begin with, Verbrek and Kartakass do not border on Falkovnia, so before they get attacked, Drakov has to get through other lands first, and if he can succeed in that, refugees fleeing his army will come from those lands and warn them that Drakov's army is coming, giving them time to prepare defenses, (or at least to sell tickets.) So let us fall back to Richemulot. The first day of the war, assuming Falkovnia has the element of surprise and also assuming that this is the first time they've invaded, They should have a basic map of the land gathered from traders and scouts, so, at the crack of dawn, they send out horseback scouts to gauge resistance while moving the bulk for army across the border and the Arbket River. as there is no resistance to stop them. The river is probably the most problematic obstacle for the kind of army Falkovnia is fielding but they know it's there so we must assume they're prepared for it and don't take an entire day to cross it. It also depends on whether the river is in Falkovnia or Richemulot as different maps show it differently, allowing DMs the ability to choose. Regardless, once the bulk of the army is across, at least some of the scouts should have returned from their missions and reported no significant military resistance. What happens next depends on the commander and how much trouble the army may be having crossing the river. Let us assume, for our purposes, that the river is on the Falkovnian side of the border and that the army crossed the river the night before and at the crack of dawn, the army crosses the border after sending out it's scouts and begins to march or perhaps charge over the terrain toward the nearest major settlement, presumably Pont-a-Museau, pillaging, raping, burning, enslaving, and perhaps impaling, all the way. Now Pont-a-Museau is a town on a river bank and spread over several islands so there are no walls to defend it. Assuming Jacqui R doesn't know they're coming until a few refugees fleeing for their lives before the army arrive in town with warnings of what's coming and the word has to get passed up the chain to her, she's not likely to have any resources she has in place before the army arrives. As such, the riverside communities are likely a total loss. There's nothing to stop them from pillaging, raping, burning, enslaving, and impaling to their hearts content. Hell that's probably what most of them signed up for. Jacqui R might flood them with rats but these are armored soldiers. I don't see the rats biting through their plate. They might panic the horses, but that's about it. The Dire rats might give them a fiercer fight but unless they show up in far greater numbers, they are unlikely to do more than slow the army. Some wererats might give an even greater fight than the dire rats, but I still don't see them biting through plate. The smarter move for them would be to flee across the Musarde river with the rest of those lucky enough to escape. So now the army controls the riverside and has a river to cross the next day, or so it seems to them.

It's what happens AFTER DARK that's important. As the only resistance the army is facing are some large rats- no soldiers, no siege engines, no fortifications of any kind- they are unlikely to build fortifications of their own. They will simply pitch their camps and set guards. It's then that Jacqui will make her move. Her best move is to wait for the carousing to die down and let the army go to sleep, then send in her wererats and dire rats. Those on guard duty can't be everywhere. Their function is to spot trouble coming and raise the alarm. The wererats and dire rats can sneak into the camp and into the tents, grab the soldiers by the throats, and either tear out said throats or drag the owners by them off into the darkness to do as they please to them. For a visual of this, I suggest viewing the move 'The Ghost and The Darkness' for an idea of how bold these one creature raids would be. These raids would happen as swiftly and quietly as possible. They might even ambush the guards on duty but that's risking they raise the alarm before going down. When the alarm finally is raised, (some soldiers sleep in their armor after all) that's when Jacqui sends in her regular rats to over run the camp and add to the general chaos. There some running around like chickens with their heads cut off on the part of the soldiers but eventually, training kicks in, and they organize and form a defense. Jacqui then withdraws her forces and the army spends the rest of the night staring out at the darkness waiting for the next attack. When the sun finally rises, the soldiers are unrested and frazzled. They begin taking account of their losses dealing with the horror of what's left of the dead that the rats left behind. They find out that the equipment they were going to use to cross the river was destroyed by the attack and they have to start all over again. Meanwhile, there's another night coming. Anyway. That's how an outnumbered population of werebeasts overcome a much larger group of armored soldiers. Even the mightiest army must sleep.

[tomokaicho]

The monstrous forces that Richemulot can deploy against Falkovnian soldiers are undisciplined irregular forces. Its also begging the question. That the wererats would throw away their live in support of Richemulot or Jacqueline Renier. I don't think so. I can see such hostility from the werewolves of Verbrek, but even then they won't be an organized force. Lets not forget that the Talons have institutional experience in rooting out wererats as they already did in Falkovnia. Even harassing the Falkovnian forces with dire rats and rats is a one-note strategy that is good for the handful of attempts, and then completely useless as the Falkovnians adjust to the situation.

[DustBunny]

Even harassing the Falkovnian forces with dire rats and rats is a one-note strategy that is good for the handful of attempts, and then completely useless as the Falkovnians adjust to the situation.

What would be interesting if Herr Doktor Horstman was ordered to develop an anti-rat formula to counter rat attacks/agents. He has developed the primal serums, and from there it would be a tiny step to formulate a passable anti-rat bioweapon. Combine with some primative artillery and you could end up with the typical imagery of gas attacks in WW1. And every dead ratman is another tissue sample for his serum vats.

While the Ministry of the Arcane can manage some impressive one off anti-monster tricks, the Ministry of Science could industrialize it.

And if Jackie decided to release the Becoming plague in response who knows how the anti-rat gas and plague will interact.

[KingCorn]

My take with Falkovnia's effectiveness has always been that it has great potential and is capable of great acts of subterfuge...when the guys in charge ignore Drakov's behind the times, near insane, standards. While Drakov is head of Falkovnia, his curse just means that HE can't win in games of war, not Falkovnia itself. Take there being the breadbasket of the core: Drakov hates this. He thinks its cowardly and weak, only doing it cause he sees no other way to fund his "glorious armies". In this, Falkovnia wins, and Drakov loses. Same with spies and whatnot, that could be because Drakov is forced into a position where he must take "the cowards way" or it could be happening cause someone else higher up has gone over his head and established spies in secret. Once again, Falkovnia can win, it just requires Drakov to lose

[ewancummins]

Wererats seem organized and hierarchy-oriented enough to serve well as spies and saboteurs, but they don't strike me as brave or self-sacrificing.

Military rat-killers? Falks with slings, poison, traps, plague masks, alchemist's fire siphons.
Hmmm....

[KingCorn]

Hey, I'm tossing around some Falkovnian Superscience/Magic programs and want you opinion on them.

First and my favorite is Project Vedrfolnir: While the many Bloodhawks and Raptors of Falkovnia are fierce and lethal, none are of large enough size to be truely useful beyond messanger birds and pets. So Vjorn Horstman was tasked with making them bigger. While the first few results where disappointing, a sudden breakthrough has resulted in a new bread of birds of prey, large enough to bear and mans weight and take flight! While only a few flights have been bred/mutated so far, the cream of the crop has been given to Drakov as a gift. The Falkfurher is very fond of his new pet, and during his recent dinners has forgone having prisoners impaled, instead feading them to his beloved pet.
---Kinda want to name either the new bird race or Drakov's pet Sargonnas after the condor god of Kyrnn, but since he's the condor (vulture) god it feels less right for the race, and for the pet bird that would imply its male, and I want Drakov's new pet to be female (cause when an evil sadist has a pet he feds people too, they're always female. Its tradition!)

Next is Project Flamme der Soldaten (flame of soldiers), an attempt to fight the problem of replacing Talons when they tend to die. Talons are not easily replaceable, taking years to train, and so to combat the death rate, the ministries of Science and Arcane respectively were tasked wiht combating this issue. The ministry of arcane came up with a novel solution, though very controversial: Pyre Undead. By enacting specific rituals upon dead Talons, all fueled by a captured Pyre Elemental, they would return from the grave as spirits of blue fire, loyal to Drakov even after death. While many in the know see it as using the ways of the Darkon enemy, many in the ministry are confidant that this will be the first step in finally combating the problem of both replenishing losses, and ensuring there own dead do not turn on them.
--Admitidly I got the image for this idea from this guy: https://daemonsanddeathrays.wordpress.com/
--Basically its based on a Darklord idea he had with knights templar who turned into pyre undead. Just wanted to give him credit where its due

Another contender for combating Talon deaths is Project Zehn in Eins (Ten in One), a project the ministry of science has been toying with for some time between Horstmen's lycanthropy research. Taking the choicest parts from dead Talons, as well as extra parts kindly donated by the Central Prison, the project has to build super soldiers out of the remains of the dead, keeping with them all the experience they once had. Using experts from Lamordia, as well as equipment and research notes purchased from Dr. Mordenheim himself (at considerable price), they had stitched together these giants and modified them with all sorts of alchemical substances and metal reinforcements.
--I know it would be OP to give Falkovnia just a bunch of Dread Golems, so there are only a few and very likely to go berserk against there own handlers.
--Really want them to be kinda mindless. Both them and the Pyre Undead are kinda based around the Mountain from GoT after he was brought back from the dead.

[The Lesser Evil]

The first sounds pretty good: in character for Falkovnia and not breaking from what reasonably could be expected.

The second and third ones are a bit harder for me to picture. They're not unworkable, as we know Drakov approves of and somehow has the resources for artificial animation, as in the gargoyle golems.

Animating undead creatures for use in Darkon is extremely foolish, as Azalin can just take control of them (unless your Darkon he's lost or never had that ability.) You could probably get around this by having them be Deathless/ancient dead, powered by positive energy to be the perfect weapon against the negative energy creatures employed by Azalin.

Another concern would be Drakov's temperament and attitudes towards necromancy. Any sort of Falkovnian military researcher into necromancy/reanimation would have to be very careful not to cleave too closely to the evil priests of Hith he worked for back on Krynn or the wizard he hates now. Perhaps couching their work in the form of "vivamancy" the magic of life, the opposite of necromancy, and enhancing the life force of the military so the fighting man might conquer death itself, might appeal to Drakov.

In any case, a case could be made that the latter two projects might require a joint project between the Ministries of Science and the Arcane. The latter one just by its very nature seems to go beyond Ravenloft's superscience, whereas the second project would involve a lot of resources the Ministry of the Arcane might not have (as Drakov gives more resources to the Ministry of Science.) As the setting is written, the Ministries of Science and the Arcane compete with each other, so getting them to cooperate would take a little explanation. It could be an insightful and influential person mastering both has shaken up the Ministries and got them working together somehow. Or perhaps the Ministries of Science and the Arcane have been in cahoots the whole time and they just appeared to be at each other’s throats to fool spies such as "S". The joining forces of the Ministries of Science and the Arcane (or the revelation they have already joined forces) could make for some epic campaign fodder.

Of course, any cooperation between the Ministries of Science and the Arcane would have to tread carefully around Drakov, as his paranoia could easily set in and cause him to view the Ministries as conspirators against him.

[DustBunny]

Thinking back to the thread on Philosophical Alchemy earlier - would Drakov take an interest in Alchemical Children - especially the enlightened ones?

Mixing things up with super serum and a careful selection of base templates he could crank out a squad of super soldier clones in fairly quick order (40-50 days). The problem is the clones would have no mental faculties, a solution which could be corrected by the Arcane ministry. They are vastly cheaper than golems and if 'programmed' right, much more reliable.

He even may go on an ego trip and try and create an army of himself - after all, in his mind he is the best soldier in the world.