Vaughn Dnar River
The Vaughn Dnar River and the Dnar River merge to form the Sydligdnar ("South Dnar River"), the broadest and deepest river in Nova Vaasa. For its part, the Vaughn Dnar begins with the waters of Lake Kronov in Tepest. It then skirts Kellee, crosses into Nova Vassa, and passes through Liara, before being joined by the Trished River just east of Liara and bending to the southeast. It is joined by the Borchava River halfway between Liara and Kantora, and continues east by southeast, passing just north of Kantora, where it is joined by the Dnar River, becoming at that very point the Sydligdnar ("South Dnar River"). The Sydligdnar drains into the Nocturnal Sea just north of Egertus beside the port of Guldstrand Beach via the Katsmund Canyon. Stonegard, the fortified seat of the Bolshnik family and of its patriarch Prince Othmar, sits opposite Kantora on the north bank of the Vaughn Dnar and west bank of the Dnar.
The Sydligdnar ("South Dnar River") is navigable, although not without difficulty in both directions owing to its current, with small ships between the Nocturnal Sea and the docks at Kantora. With the right winds, the Sydligdnar can be sailed. Otherwise it must be rowed. The Vaughn Dnar and the Dnar are too deep to be forded as they merge to form the Sydligdnar. Bridges consistent with small ships pose a manifest engineering problem, but none are mentioned, so ferry service for river crossings would make sense. A ferry service is known to exist between Kantora and Guldstrand Beach.
The Vaughn Dnar River is navigable, although surely with progressively smaller craft as one climbs past the Borchava River and the Trished River on the way to Liara. The Vaughn Dnar is not navigable in Tepest as its waters plunge through sinuous and boulder strewn gorges.
The East Timori Road remains on the south shore of the Vaughn Dnar from Kantora until just after the Trished River, inviting the hypothesis that at that point either the Vaughn Dnar becomes fordable or has a bridge thrown across it that doesn't greatly harm river traffic, although a ferry crossing is also possible. A draw bridge is also possible. To reach that point, the East Timori Road crosses the Borchava River, suggesting that the Borchava is either more fordable than the Vaughn Dnar or that a bridge thrown across the Borchava would do less harm to river traffic than one thrown over the Vaughn Dnar, although a ferry crossing is even more probable at this point. In Liara there is at least one bridge over the Vaughn Dnar. There are four ancient stone bridges built over the Vaughn Dnar between the Tepestani frontier and Lake Kronov.
The Vaughn Dnar is a critical source of water for crops, humans, and domestic animals in Nova Vaasa. Farmland stretches back from its banks from the Tepestani frontier to Kantora in a nearly unbroken band. From the Tepestani frontier to the point where the Borchava joins the Vaughn Dnar, the farms are lightly taxed by the Hiregaards. The river up to that point belongs to the Borchava Duchy of the Hiregaard family. From that point and onward to Kantora, the farms are heavily taxed by the Bolshniks. The lower half of the river belongs to the Heartland Duchy of the Bolshnik family.
Note: On the map from Servants of Darkness, which the descriptions in the Tepest chapter of Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume V seem to be following, the Vaughn River turns south in Tepest and the South Dnar River of Tepest runs east from Lake Kronov. To my eye then, the two have been transposed. In support of this conclusion it would make sense if the South Dnar of Tepest ran south. More importantly, Lake Kronov is described as being the source of the Vaughn Dnar ("The Vaughn Dnar flows from Lake Kronov[.]") in the Nova Vaasa chapter of Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume V. So someone is wrong. Finally, I suspect that there is some geographic nameing convention to the effect that to be a tributary a tributary must not contribute a greater volume of water to a river than the river itself carried up to that point. That is a complex way of saying that Lake Kronov appears to be the largest source of the Vaughn Dnar River so having the Vaughn Dnar fork off into the hills and connecting it to Lake Kronov via a tributary strikes me as an error. Granted, it is asking overmuch for the Tepestani to follow naming conventions (even if they exist).
Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue
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Servants of Darkness - p17 | |
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Servants of Darkness - poster map | |
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Vauhgn Dnar |
