Nocturnal Sea Report – in depth (non pun) analysis: Liffe

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Granted, "modernity creep" is an issue ... but then, Ravenloft hasn't been historically consistent since I6 put a gigantic pipe organ in a medieval castle

I've seen that criticism before but I just looked it up, according to wikipedia,

The Greek engineer Ctesibius of Alexandria is credited with inventing the organ in the third century BC.
...
The pumps and water regulators of the hydraulis were replaced by an inflated leather bag in the second century AD, and true bellows began to appear in the sixth or seventh century AD....
Portable organs (the portative and the positive organ) were invented in the Middle Ages....
...the one installed in 1361 in Halberstadt, Germany,[47] the first documented permanent organ installation

So what's wrong with Strahd's pipe organ?

(Note, I'm nitpicking that one example, your main point remains solid: Ravenloft plays fast and loose with technological advancement.)

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Okay, I hadn't know about the 14th-century pipe organs. Still, if the pictures from the Wikipedia article are typical of the era's instruments, they seem awfully puny compared to Strahd's, which was depicted in the Ravenloft artwork and described in VotM and I6 as filling up the whole end of a room. Perhaps he'd had it imported from the more-civilized lowlands of Old Borjia (= Borca = Chivalric)?

It's all a compromise, really. Ravenloft was designed to emulate novels like Frankenstein and Dracula, both of which are decidedly post-medieval. On the one hand, the Kargat designers had to reign in technology enough so that sword-wielding PCs wouldn't be completely useless there, but OTOH they wanted to capture the feel of Gothic fiction. Hence, we wind up with a world where paddlewheelers and lightning-rod-powered Apparati exist side by side with haunted castles and demon-possessed longswords.

[Jester of the FoS]

The university article was a fan submission that I edited beyond recognition already without hacking out large sections because they were mildly anachronistic.
As a fantasy land who's to say when something can or cannot appear?

Returning to the darklord issue, the insert (p 11) that describes the characteristics of the land says, "Darklord: Baron Evensong (demilord)", while the later insert on the Demilords of Liffe (p 42) says, "If a single demilord were to gain enough power, that figure would become Liffe's sole darklord, and the land would subtly reshape itself around them." This seems rather contradictory. If there is, as discussed and as implied in the second citation, several darklords, even with Eversong being chief among them, it is misleading to invite us to think that there is one darklord in the first citation, even if the "(demilord)" bit is perhaps intended as a warning that the situation is abnormal. An errata for the first insert on p 11 seems in order.

Dominant is not the same as being significantly more powerful in terms of personality, force of will, and acts of cruelty.
Think of it like a mayor versus a town council. You can be head of the town council but you're not the mayor, you're just a regular councilman. Evensong leads the council and has the small related perks (closing the borders IIRC).

[doctor-evil]

If one uses the historical timelines in the Ravenloft timelines then most of the domains are anachronistic. Whilst Borca really is in the Renaissance period, Mordent is depicted as post Restoration, more early Georgian. Dementlieu is definitely early to mid-Georgian London/pre-revolutionary Paris. Whereas Paridon is late Georgian/early to mid-Victorian. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1816-1817, so Lamordia would be presumably mid-late Georgian.

Ben Mowray tries to fix the timeline at Ravenloft Renaissance.

www.ultramyth.com/renaissance/

A nice netbook might be a review of science and technology in various domains - what is and is not readily available...

[cure]

The university article was a fan submission that I edited beyond recognition already without hacking out large sections because they were mildly anachronistic.
As a fantasy land who's to say when something can or cannot appear?

Returning to the darklord issue, the insert (p 11) that describes the characteristics of the land says, "Darklord: Baron Evensong (demilord)", while the later insert on the Demilords of Liffe (p 42) says, "If a single demilord were to gain enough power, that figure would become Liffe's sole darklord, and the land would subtly reshape itself around them." This seems rather contradictory. If there is, as discussed and as implied in the second citation, several darklords, even with Eversong being chief among them, it is misleading to invite us to think that there is one darklord in the first citation, even if the "(demilord)" bit is perhaps intended as a warning that the situation is abnormal. An errata for the first insert on p 11 seems in order.

Dominant is not the same as being significantly more powerful in terms of personality, force of will, and acts of cruelty.
Think of it like a mayor versus a town council. You can be head of the town council but you're not the mayor, you're just a regular councilman. Evensong leads the council and has the small related perks (closing the borders IIRC).

I have grasped the concept and am currently neither arguing against it nor complaining about it. I am just noting that it seems a needless contradiction to say in one breath there is a/one darklord (Eversong) and in a subsequent breath that there are multiple darklords (Eversong and the others). Perhaps the contradiction serves the purpose of explicitly remaining canonical even as a different and worthy path is tred. If not, the matter is confusing and the concept would be clarified rather than damaged with, for example, the errata for p. 11 "Darklord: Baron Eversong and competing lesser figures."

Incidently, by describing Evensong as a demilord on p. 11 he is then expressly denied the perk of closing the border on p. 42 where demilords are said to "have no direct influence over the land: they cannot open or close borders. " So what perks whether fluff or non fluff does he enjoy that distinguishes him from the other demilord ramble? His historical and previously uncontested lordship of Liffe pre death at the hands of adventurers would be my best guess.

[The Giamarga]

I must say I see cure's point. I understood the test in the way that they are all demilords. Why does there even have to be a true darklord among them?

[Bluebomber4evr]

One problem I noticed is that it says that Davion's domain is in Liffe, when Domains of Dread listed it as being one of the dreamspheres in the Nightmare Lands

Also, the description of Shay-Lot is contradictory to that of CotN: Werebeasts where it is described as a sealed-up city.

[cure]

One problem I noticed is that it says that Davion's domain is in Liffe, when Domains of Dread listed it as being one of the dreamspheres in the Nightmare Lands

Also, the description of Shay-Lot is contradictory to that of CotN: Werebeasts where it is described as a sealed-up city.

Sealed up in the sense that it is drowned underwater? Probably a stretch.

A decision was made to stick a bunch of 'wayward' domains together under the premise that the destruction of their darklords was averted by them being pushed together and propping each other up in an aggregate domain of Liffe.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

We're straying away from Liffe again -- sorry, David -- but even so, I'll answer these:

One problem I noticed is that it says that Davion's domain is in Liffe, when Domains of Dread listed it as being one of the dreamspheres in the Nightmare Lands

Vechor, not Liffe. That's the one Book of Crypts leftover that wound up being my baby (with a little psych-major advice from Leyshon), instead of Jester's.

The chief problem with the Domains of Dread view on Davion's location is that Davion's supposed "crime" -- killing the heroes who tried to cure him -- isn't even close to being worthy of a domain: if that were the case, then every villain who ever won at the end of a Ravenloft game would be a darklord! Indeed, in his original appearance from BoCrypts, Davion wasn't actually a darklord, just a weird bad guy. He has no curse or special powers derived from darklordship; all of the unusual traits he possesses came from his botched wish spell, not the Dark Powers.

Rather than leaving the DoD version as it stood -- which, essentially, said he'd become a darklord because of a freak accident and an act of lunacy, not any crime he could fairly be blamed for -- I opted to revise his status and split the difference between BoC and DoD. The real Davion is a multiple-personalitied maniac in Vechor, whose powers stem from his "unreality wrinkle" and unique, self-inflicted condition, not the Dark Powers. As his physical self is still present in the tangible world of the Core, that means DMs can run the original "Man With Three Faces" adventure if they want, without applying dream-combat rules, etc.

The dreamscape "domain" mentioned in DoD is nothing more than a wish-fulfilling dream which Davion calls into being, each time his original personality "falls asleep" and is supplanted by one of the other three. Because he envies Easan, he pictures himself as a darklord when he dreams; he can trap people within his dream, because he knows that Easan can trap people in Vechor. However, Davion doesn't know about darklord curses and other limitations, so he doesn't picture himself as having one ... hence, his lack of a DP-imposed curse in the Domains of Dread description.

DMs who prefer the dreamsphere "domain" can use it, too, under the assumption that dreamwalking PCs have stumbled into Davion's fantasy-domain. They can't kill him there, however; if they win, he'll just "wake up" -- i.e. revert to his real body in Vechor, where this guy could potentially be killed -- rather than permanently perish.

Also, the description of Shay-Lot is contradictory to that of CotN: Werebeasts where it is described as a sealed-up city.

The "city" that the CotN:WB wereray found wasn't truly the city of Shay-Lot, just an old abandoned outpost of the real city. Hilde Borganov is many things, but she's no trained archeologist: her belief that she'd found the heart of a lost civilization, where the former inhabitants lay slumbering beneath their sealed-up temple, was simply wrong.

There were plenty of old settlements from before the submerging of Xalot (river ports, agricultural communities, etc) that no longer had a purpose after it sank, so had to be abandoned. The transformed population migrated to areas where underwater resources were now available to sustain them. Ironically, if Hilde hadn't been so obsessed with digging out the vacated ruins, she might've explored the Nocturnal Sea's depths more widely and discovered where the Xalot had actually gone!

Granted, I suppose there could be something else down there in Hilde's ruins, that even the Xalot were afraid of, and tried to seal away. Gotta wonder what it is she'll really dig up....

{runs off to write a new Dread Possibility for the sea-monster book}

[Bluebomber4evr]

Ah, I must have missed the explanation of the dreamsphere. That actually works.

I suppose that explanation of what Hilda found in CotN:WB works as well, though I always preferred Shay-Lot to be more mysterious than the version presented in the Gaz.

Oh, if you're going to write a Dread Possibility, I suggest going with Mangrum's idea of the sealed city being a Kopru city (from his Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror post on the letter "K")

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Well, the dreamsphere was hinted at in the sidebar's closing line. (I didn't want to get too explicit until I'd seen Jester's update of the dream rules, which were still IP at the time.) Expect Davion's fantasy-domain to be mentioned more plainly, if and when we do a Nightmare Lands netbook.

Virundus actually has some kopru working for him -- unique Xalot whom he's "blessed" with their forms and powers -- so I'm not sure they'd seem alien enough to spook the Drowning Deep's residents. But I'll check the TTToT; thanks for the suggestion.

[cure]

Oh, if you're going to write a Dread Possibility, I suggest going with Mangrum's idea of the sealed city being a Kopru city (from his Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror post on the letter "K")

My work, actually. And the text made it into the Nocturnal Sea guide. (Page number to follow.)

[Joël of the FoS]

Oh, if you're going to write a Dread Possibility, I suggest going with Mangrum's idea of the sealed city being a Kopru city (from his Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror post on the letter "K")

My work, actually. And the text made it into the Nocturnal Sea guide. (Page number to follow.)

page 235!

It was a good idea you submitted it to the contest, since you won with it

Joël

[Jeremy16]

I'm a little late to the party, but I just finished the netbook and wanted to throw my two cents in. I figure its the least I could do after all the hard work the Frat put into the project!

Here's my breakdown so far...

Overall, I like what you did here, making Liffe a patchwork country and filling it in with characters and villains from the adventures in Book of Crypts. It was both an obvious and brilliant solution to the blank-slate status it held after the end of 3rd edition.

Aferdale

Would have liked to learn more about Aferdale, how the Beast Cult’s depredations affected the ecology and how the residents adapted to it. Perhaps the area was even returning to a state of natural balance once again, and entering a new, more prosperous era. That would make Malisha’s return even more heinous.

I liked the retrofitting of Malisha’s background (including the schemes of the God-Brain and tying the cult into the Church of a Thousand Gods).

Armeikos

I sure wish the neighborhood names were a little less wonky than “poor district” and “wealthy district”, but I checked and saw that was how they were really listed in the BoC.

I think the atmosphere/personality of the city should have been expanded upon, besides it just being a busy port city. With a body-possessing odem running loose, the idea of not knowing who is your friend or enemy should have been played up more. The “Blake the Baker” sidebar fits very well when put into that context.

Claveria

This is a nice write-up and I have relatively few complaints. The ALTO Dread Possibility was really good. I particularly like the inclusion of Andres Duval.

The only thing missing was information about the false history pertaining to Lyron Evensong. Is he a hereditary ruler or an upstart? Who ruled before him? That type of stuff.

Also, this would be a good spot to highlight the difference between the land barons and the town mayors. This is something that is glossed over in almost all the entries and I would have liked to learn more about their relationships (do they get along, are they working at cross purposes, etc.).

Goldendale

While small, this entry has a great Children of the Corn vibe. Or you can throw in a little human sacrifice and you have the perfect set up for running a Wicker Man scenario (the original, not the awful Nicolas Cage remake).

That's as far as I've gotten right now. I'll post more once I reread the rest of the chapter.

[Jeremy16]

Here's more on my take of Liffe...

Risiblos

Again, I would have liked a little more context when it came to the baron’s succession and probable false history (something along the lines of “first came XXXX, then King Doerdon, then XXXX”).

Sites of Interest

I liked the addition of Maiden Point and the Kelpie to the domain. It’s a simple idea, but it fits the feel of the place very well.

I’m on the fence about the Standing Monoliths. Perhaps it’s because I don’t like the idea of giants and trolls in Ravenloft. Maybe if it were revealed to be a Mistway that led to Ravenloft from other worlds it would be more useful as a campaign starter (and further highlight its “collector of dregs” nature as a domain).

It’s not a really bad idea, though, just if I had to choose between this and Maiden Point, I would favor the latter.

I really liked the write-up for the University of Liffe, however, and plan to use it as a framework for how other universities in the Core operate. I’m in the camp that thinks having a Business School is anachronistic, but it’s not a really big deal. It could easily be remedied by just changing the name to the School of Commerce or the Mercantile College.