Mistipedia:Levels of Canon
Wikipedia defines canon as: "A canon, in terms of a fictional universe, is a body of material that is considered to be "genuine" or "official", that can be directly referenced as, or as if it were, material produced by the original author or creator of a series."[1]
Mistipedia defines the following levels of Canon for Ravenloft materials:
Canon
This refers to completed (non-draft) information published by TSR, WotC, or their official licencees such as ArtHaus, in book form or online. Unless declared as Declared non-canon by the publishers, or contradicted by later releases, all such information is Canon.
This information may be marked with
This section contains canon info from officially published sources |
or if needed, but unless otherwise indicated, all material in Mistipedia should be assumed to be canon.
(Use the code {{Canon}} or {{Canon-small}} to get the above labels)
Potential-canon
This category is for official information that was only published in draft form (such as Van Richten's Guide to the Mists) and for information directly from the creators regarding what they intended to include in the products but never did, (such as the Kargatane's hints as to the fate of S).
This information should be marked with
This section contains Potential-canon info, revealed by the creators from never-published sources |
(Use the code {{Potential-canon}} or {{Potential-canon-small}} to get the above labels)
Declared non-canon
This category is for Canon information that is officially declared non-canon by the publishers. To date, this only includes:
- Lord of the Necropolis (for revealing too much about the Dark Powers)
- The Enemy Within (for a contradictory version of Tristen Hiregaard)
- Desmond LaRouche from RLMC2 (for a contradictory version of Tristen Hiregaard)
This information should be marked with
This section contains Declared non-canon info, officially retracted by the publishers |
(Use the code {{Declared non-canon}} or {{Declared non-canon-small}} to get the above labels)
Netbook-canon
This refers to material published in Kargatane or Fraternity of Shadows netbooks, or in other select netbooks. (Maps from the MCS are considered Netbook-canon, even though they were not published in a full Netbook format). This differs from Homebrew non-canon only in that many Ravenloft fans can easily refer to such netbooks and decide if the material is suited for their campaign, and it can be assumed that some effort was taken to make the material fit into the Canon. (Though sometimes later additions to Canon have invalidated Netbook-canon).
This information should be marked with
This section contains netbook-canon info from netbooks |
(Use the code {{Netbook-canon}} or {{Netbook-canon-small}} to get the above labels)
Homebrew non-canon
This refers to non-canon information from the home campaigns of the general public, or from random musings online.
This information should be marked with
This section contains Homebrew non-canon info, created by fans |
(Use the code {{Homebrew non-canon}} or {{Homebrew non-canon-small}} to get the above labels)
Speculation
This can be considered as a subset of Homebrew non-canon. It refers to any sort of Speculation (inference, observation, extrapolation, questions, musings, etc) that are the personal thoughts of the editor, not directly mentioned in the source material. It is encouraged to separate this sort of thing into a different section, but when it makes more sense to be inline with other information, use Template:Spec to label it, as follows: I think the God-Brain is a child of the Gentleman Caller.
(Use the code {{Spec|I think the [[God-Brain]] is a child of the [[Gentleman Caller]].}} to get the above label)
Questionably-canon
This refers to any information whose officialness cannot be agreed upon. Generally speaking, this is for officially released information that is later contradicted, or for information released in unusual channels, such as the backs of D&D Miniatures information cards. Also included here is information where the general facts are canon, but the details are extrapolated, such as the non-canon exact location of certain canon features on the MCS maps.
This information should be marked with
This section contains Questionably-canon info, from sources whose officialness is in question |
(Use the code {{Questionably-canon}} or {{Questionably-canon-small}} to get the above labels)