Blaustein!

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I agree that a turban would be a little silly, particularly since his picture is shown in Darklords, and he's wearing European dress there, IIRC. Plus, it'd be in poor taste to play up to that sort of stereotype: political correctness aside, we can surely come up with something better.


One intriguing question hit me just now, BTW ... namely, who says that the bloody key Bluebeard uses to trap his wives is his only cursed key? What if he has several, and uses them to test everyone whom he associates closely with? A key to his treasury-vault, to trap thieving officials; a key to the town armory, to trap potential traitors; a key to the shackles at the human-traffickers' camp, to trap slavers who neglect to pay him his due share of the profits. How better to keep that gibbet of his occupied year-round, than to subject his own underlings to constant, exacting, and fatal tests of loyalty?

[The Giamarga]

Ooops. Thanks for catching this, Robert.

My pleasure, Jim.

[ewancummins]

I like the idea of Blasutein's main population center being a city-castle complex.

I don't think BB should be a pirate himself. He's definitely an aristocrat, and actually rather refined and courteous. His people are more brutish, but that just refeclcts his own brutal side, something he can keep bottled up with charm- for a while at least. i like Joel's ideas about the local society.

[Joël of the FoS]

Ooops. Thanks for catching this, Robert.

My pleasure, Jim.

*lol* Frank, sorry, I was sure it was cure who corrected me.

*Needs new glasses*

[cure]

Looking over the canon Blaustein material, two things stick out for me. One, Bluebeard is a tyrant (even if a naturally or supernaturally loved one). Two, he can detect lies and uses this to his advantage when he wishes to see to someone's ruin within the parametres of his already existing laws. Even in Sound and Sight from Dark Tales, which I highly recommend as perhaps the best story of the lot, Bluebeard rather than simply taking the tongue of the hero, offers to take it in return for the release of the girl, IF she can be persuaded to leave. He is not just one for the verneer of law but rather he actually revels in the tyranny of law.

As to the port then, Bluebeard is not going to tolerate foreigners disrupting the state of affairs existing on Blaustein, but he could care less what the foreigners do once at sea. So he is not going to be one to ferret out irregularities in ship's papers and root out pirates. And indeed for it to be a pirate haven that must be true. But he is going to take whatever he wants and deal brutally with whatever deigns to annoy him. Practically, wise pirates should be able to reliably avoid both while any less wise bretheren risks provoking him on both points.

Flying the flag of Blaustein, which is to say registering the ship in Blaustein for a yearly (high) fee and perhaps swearing loyalty to Bluebeard, might well be (as suggested) one of the ways of assuring oneself of favourable legal standing. Otherwise perhaps a tax is levied on cargo and any captain found to be cheating on said tax (a lie that Bluebeard can readily detect by confronting the captain) will be seized along with the cargo and perhaps the ship too.

Equally, the locals can perhaps be counted on to provoke fights with sailors and the sailors take the blame to be seized as slaves for resale by the lord's men.

[EO]

Just a random thought, but would the whole Blaustein/Pirate association have happened had the darklord been named anything else? If he had been named Lord Blaustein?

Aside from that, I like cure's ideas. It's a good way to balance it. I think that any sailor or anyone wishing to live on Blaustein would need to swear loyalty to Bluebeard, he is a tyran and he wants blind loyalty from his subjects.

A question though, does Bluebeard's power extend to foreigners? His ability to make them forget? I also figure that there would be very few non-native women on Blaustein, because outlander ones would likely catch Bluebeard's eye.

[cure]

Just a random thought, but would the whole Blaustein/Pirate association have happened had the darklord been named anything else? If he had been named Lord Blaustein?

Aside from that, I like cure's ideas. It's a good way to balance it. I think that any sailor or anyone wishing to live on Blaustein would need to swear loyalty to Bluebeard, he is a tyran and he wants blind loyalty from his subjects.

A question though, does Bluebeard's power extend to foreigners? His ability to make them forget? I also figure that there would be very few non-native women on Blaustein, because outlander ones would likely catch Bluebeard's eye.

Perhaps it is limited to anyone born on the island or swearing loyalty to him.

I believe that Mangrum first floated the Blaustein-pirate associate, although it might have been another of the old Kargatane. At least I don't recall a canon reference. But it is a pretty logical association once one looks at the Sea of Sorrows, stipulates that there are pirates, and then ask "where do they dock?"

[ewancummins]

Just a random thought, but would the whole Blaustein/Pirate association have happened had the darklord been named anything else? If he had been named Lord Blaustein?

Aside from that, I like cure's ideas. It's a good way to balance it. I think that any sailor or anyone wishing to live on Blaustein would need to swear loyalty to Bluebeard, he is a tyran and he wants blind loyalty from his subjects.

A question though, does Bluebeard's power extend to foreigners? His ability to make them forget? I also figure that there would be very few non-native women on Blaustein, because outlander ones would likely catch Bluebeard's eye.

Bluebeard has never, to my knowledge ,been associated with piracy. That's Blackbeard, who was a real person. These men are two entirely different characters. I am definitely against making BB into any sort of a pirate himself. No he's just a nobleman who rules a little island.

That being said, I like the notion of Blaustein as an open port, where various unsavory types are welcome to do business- provided they pay BB his cut and obey his laws while within his domain.

[Joël of the FoS]

A question though, does Bluebeard's power extend to foreigners? His ability to make them forget? I also figure that there would be very few non-native women on Blaustein, because outlander ones would likely catch Bluebeard's eye.

Perhaps it is limited to anyone born on the island or swearing loyalty to him.

Well the way I see it is that it applies to anybody born in Blaustein, and those now considering this land as their home (that is, most pirates, slavers and raiders).

---

More questions:

1) When BB wants to test his new wife, he says he is away “for business”, for six weeks. Eventually, the woman is curious and opens the forbidden room. Now that BB is a DL, and physically limited to Blaustein (or is he?), what does he say? Does he hide somewhere on the island?

2) Can BB close his border, and how?

3) religion. If any, definitively not Ezra or similar. Ideas? Or voodoo similar to Souragne?

4) Why is BB’s castle so heavily defended (20’ feet stone walls, murder holes, arrow slits, tilt mechanism to throw invaders in a pit, etc.) ?

5) The castle has la large pit in the middle of it. Other than skeletons of thrown peoples, what are the secrets associated to it? Dread possibilities & adventure hooks ?

6) his power to invade dreams in order to lure women in his island. How does it work? Dread possibilities & adventure hooks ?

7) time of creation: year 697 (a nod to the creation of the tale by Perrault in 1697)

What I need – do not post here, but PM me or email me (let’s keep some surprises for the netbook!)

1) personality for each of the ten + ghosts of the former wife (see Darklords map for their name)

2) Blausteiners NPC description

3) features of the castle - rooms, decoration ideas, special objects, etc.

Send me your ideas, I’ll add as much as I can in to the text.

Adventure hooks and dread possibilities on Blaustein welcomed!

Joël

[Joël of the FoS]

That being said, I like the notion of Blaustein as an open port, where various unsavory types are welcome to do business- provided they pay BB his cut and obey his laws while within his domain.

That's how I see it too.

Joël

[cure]

3) religion. If any, definitively not Ezra or similar. Ideas? Or voodoo similar to Souragne?

4) Why is BB’s castle so heavily defended (20’ feet stone walls, murder holes, arrow slits, tilt mechanism to throw invaders in a pit, etc.) ?

We know that BB as a darklord and Blaustein as his prison are nigh inseperable. But most if not all of the pirates, the navies and the would be new lords of Blaustein do not know that. So perhaps the Dark Powers, to better help BB concentrate on his curse, afforded him more than adequate means of deterring any ultimately pointless attempts that might be mounted to take over Blaustein. Equally, might not the castle have been his all along, at least since he presumably seized it from the previous owner in whatever world that might have been. So it just came that way. Alternatively, perhaps he does very well for himself by taxing the cargos going through the port and reinvests it in a good defence, having brought the castle up to its present standards, perhaps after a close brush with death or two.

Some how, BB doesn't seem to be the religious type to me, which is not to say that he is necessarily a flaming atheist either. The Lawgiver or devil worship are hardly inconceivable, but I would think that he is sufficiently full of himself not to look up to anyone or anything and he is perfectly content being loved without rival by his own people. This is not to say that he has Ezrighties frayed alive. But one making progress among the populous might not be long for liberty. A handful of low power and rival priests administering to, and competing for, the souls of foreigner sailors and pirates should not bother him however.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Sounds to me like the Lawgiver's missionaries would love Blaustein. An iron-fisted, uncompromising ruler who can't be lied to, and who coldly butchers those who defy his commands? A populace that adores him, no matter how harshly he sees fit to exert his authority? Slavers who round up sailors and other lawless riffraff, grinding them down so they'll unquestioningly obey their new masters? Hell, the Himmelsk Naeve would want to retire to this place!

[Irving the Meek]

Oh, heck yes. Hell's bells, if the domain wasn't so tiny I'd suggest it as a seat of the Lawgiver as the a church. May well be room for a major shrine there.

Hmm. Bluebeard as a blackguard of the Lawgiver? (Or, in 4e, a paladin thereof?)

Hmm. Where does Bluebeard go? Dispensing justice as a roaming court, maybe - visiting the cities, townes, and pirate enclaves, dispensing his own justice?

[ewancummins]

What about this:

BB allows the Lawgiver church to operate freely- but with a catch. All ranking priests must be natives of Blaustein. This means, of course, they are as crazy-loyal to old BB as any other Blausteiners.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

If Bluebeard takes the time to interview new Lawgiver-missionaries upon their arrival, such a restriction shouldn't actually be necessary. If they declare their adherence to the Iron Faith's dogma, and he senses they're being truthful about it, he can rest assured that such priests will consider it blasphemy to work against him: he is, after all, the lawful ruler.

That way, Bluebeard can have a visible foreign presence in residence on his isle, that'll lull visitors and brides into believing the place is far more tolerant of outsiders than it really is. He could even use the local Pave as a confidante of sorts: people whose memories you know you can muck with probably aren't much use for that, but a cleric whose staunch faith and honest pledge of silence guarantee his trustworthiness would be ideal.