Café de Nuit

The Core as written is less than half million people and is a small place. Vistani are not a unique sight. As such, I would say that people in most domains know fairly well what vistani are and would not bundle them up with other nomads.

Sure, but the Core keeps shrinking and growing. Which Core? Which canon?

Many DMs make it a much larger place, or more densely populated.

ewancummins wrote:It's probably worth noting that, in English, 'gypsy' or 'gipsy' can refer to any of several nomadic or semi-nomadic European subcultures, itinerant workers in general, peddlers and tinkers, etc, and so does not always mean the Roma people.

My beef with the use of the word in Ravenloft is that 1) it's derived from a real-world nation (Egypt) and 2) it is a real-world ethonym. I mean, the notAztecs of Maztica never get called "Indians," so why should the notRoma of Ravenloft get called "Gypsies"? I say either go full fantasy and drop the words strongly tied to the real world places/peoples/religions or go crazy with it and turn Barovians into Romanians, Tergs into Turks, and Vistani into Romani.

alhoon wrote:The Core as written is less than half million people and is a small place. Vistani are not a unique sight. As such, I would say that people in most domains know fairly well what vistani are and would not bundle them up with other nomads.

I could easily see people saying "those guys are really just vistani pretending to not be vistani so they can pull a fast one on us."

Terg isn't already very close to Turk?

There's not a single right answer for all this.

I prefer my Ravenloft with a good deal of Old World stuff, by way of older horror movies and Gothic literature. That's how the setting was created and developed.
The obvious gypsies being sometimes called 'gypsies' fits this just fine.

But if somebody else wants to distance it further from those sources, add more elements from other sources, rename some things to make it feel more distant from Earth, whatever-- that is his call. It makes a lot fo sense if the DM wants to create a different feel for his take on the setting. I am adding this post because sometimes a reminder that I'm only presenting my view and not trying to argue another DM into adopting it is a helpful thing.

Game on.

Buzzclaw - then change the word gypsie to "Rhennae". The Rhennae are the traveler people from the Greyhawk setting. Vistani can be an offshoot of that, and all traveler people can be called Rhennae as a catch all term.

tomokaicho wrote:Buzzclaw - then change the word gypsie to "Rhennae". The Rhennae are the traveler people from the Greyhawk setting. Vistani can be an offshoot of that, and all traveler people can be called Rhennae as a catch all term.

That works.

It fits with #5 on the list, upthread.

tomokaicho wrote:Buzzclaw - then change the word gypsie to "Rhennae". The Rhennae are the traveler people from the Greyhawk setting. Vistani can be an offshoot of that, and all traveler people can be called Rhennae as a catch all term.

I think I've read that somewhere... can't remember where. Perhaps it was a theory here but I think it was semi-canon.

alhoon wrote:

tomokaicho wrote:Buzzclaw - then change the word gypsie to "Rhennae". The Rhennae are the traveler people from the Greyhawk setting. Vistani can be an offshoot of that, and all traveler people can be called Rhennae as a catch all term.

I think I've read that somewhere... can't remember where. Perhaps it was a theory here but I think it was semi-canon.

Well, I mentioned a possible Rhennee connection just a few posts back.


But I'm sure several other forumites have had the same notion and shared it in past threads. Fantasy-gypsies exist in several D&D settings, but the first published ones, so far as I know, appeared in Greyhawk.

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Fair enough. I was thinking of its use as a PC race, and didn't think we were talking NPCs. But yeah, those are good examples of what Hell_Born was talking about I suppose. But unlike half-orc, problematic origins are far from the only option for half-vistani.

Apologies for the thread necromancy, but I have to say... I really don't see where they have any other choices. All of the sourcebooks on Ravenloft I've ever read have really played up the mutual racial antipathy giorgio and vistani have towards each other - it comes pretty close, in my eyes, to implying that the two races would only be more disgusted by the suggestion of committing bestiality.

Hells, the 3rd ed Ravenloft Campaign setting outright includes the line "Broken homes are the giomorgo's birthright" when talking about the race. That doesn't exactly convey a sense that there's a lot of happy family options for half-vistani.

Hell_Born wrote:Hells, the 3rd ed Ravenloft Campaign setting outright includes the line "Broken homes are the giomorgo's birthright" when talking about the race. That doesn't exactly convey a sense that there's a lot of happy family options for half-vistani.

A "broken home" isn't always an unhappy one, though. Being raised by a single parent happens all the time in the real world. The setting book may have laid it on a bit thick, and yes, the genre's racism toward the vistani does let you play up the "outcast from both sides" angle. But it's not the only angle you can play. It's incredibly easy to imagine scenarios where the giomorgo could be raised by a loving parent or even two, even if the cultures at large don't accept them. There are plenty of parallel situations with mixed race people throughout history. I'd say the DM has a lot of leeway as to how hard they want to hit the "outcast" trope.

I think treating Vistani as a 'race' is silly. They are a culture of people with traditions and they're not special outside of whatever knowledge they have. If you can throw an evil eye or read the tarroka then it is because you learned it from someone else who can do it. Vistani are just another human culture. Con you have cultures that dislike each other on a general level? Of course. Can you say every single member in the culture does x, y, and z? No, because that's ridiculous.

Chaot wrote:I think treating Vistani as a 'race' is silly. They are a culture of people with traditions and they're not special outside of whatever knowledge they have. If you can throw an evil eye or read the tarroka then it is because you learned it from someone else who can do it. Vistani are just another human culture. Con you have cultures that dislike each other on a general level? Of course. Can you say every single member in the culture does x, y, and z? No, because that's ridiculous.

I dunno.

Vistani talents appear to be inborn, though one may need to learn how to make use of them. VRG to the Vistani goes on at some length about things like static burn for Vistani who remain in one locale too long.
That's not just something one learns.
They really are different than other humans. It's more of a metaphysical difference, though, than a physical one.

In my view, what the Visanti are is both a culture and a race. A race set apart by inborn mystical qualities, not simply by some minor physical variations.


YMMV

But I'm looking at published materials, above.

In your house rules/home game, the Vistani are whatever you want them to be, and that's that. Rule Zero.
The thread is about alternate takes, after all.

Children of the Mist

Nibelungs

These mysterious dwarf-folk travel the Land in rothe-drawn carts.

Their corpses don't rot after death, but sublimate in layers, leaking away as tainted fog.
No nibelung has ever been successfully animated as a corporeal undead.
The spot where one has been slain is forever marked by evil happenings, and attracts monsters.

Nibelungs resemble the duergar of other worlds, but possess a different set of psionic abilities--powers related to ethereal vision, precognition, and curses rather than to combat and survival in the Underdark.
They cannot remain too long in one place, else the psychic resonances of the Land will drive them mad.
(Darklings are mad outcast Nibelungs)

I'm new to these boards, and I just found this topic, so I figured I'd quit lurking for once!

I disliked the Romani stereotype too, and so I changed the "nomadic plot device race" to astrologically-oriented centaurs instead, I think that my players found that much more interesting than they would have the standard Vistani.