The canon material that doesn't really fit

[Strahdsbuddy]

Some use of the 'Tergs' from Barovian history might work as well, I suppose- but that might be too close for my taste.

You don't really think that was accidental, do you? I always imagined the appearance of Nova Vaasa causeing a great deal of worry among the Barovians, as though their old enemies had emerged from the Mists to attack them again.

[cure]

I have to confess to quite arbitrarily associating horse riding peoples with the Mongols who made it to Europes eastern doorstep and then some.

The image offered up in Gaz V of Othmar, reminds me of a self-made Soviet colonel from the outback, again making the reference to the east.

Additionally, considering Strahds 'condition', does he really want high level clerics with an expansionist stripe, and a mandate of, among other things, laying the dead to rest, as neighbours?

Still, for my money, Hazlan is the first target and regime change there is the goal.

[ewancummins]

Some use of the 'Tergs' from Barovian history might work as well, I suppose- but that might be too close for my taste.

You don't really think that was accidental, do you? I always imagined the appearance of Nova Vaasa causeing a great deal of worry among the Barovians, as though their old enemies had emerged from the Mists to attack them again.

Hah, no, definitely not accidental!

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Captain Monette
Other than for attacking lone sailors stranded on his beach, I just don't see much use for him. His background is also moderately boring.

That's where we all come in! We're all apologists for the setting here, fixing stuff like that. Have you seen the FoS writeup on Monette? I think you may like it.

Malken
He just seems so... pointless, and Nova Vaasa isn't a very interesting realm.

Yes, several of us have tried to remedy that one, too.

Harkon Lukas
Yeah, I know, he's popular, but I never really did get the idea behind wolfweres ("hey, ain't it cool? We reversed the order of the words in werewolf, so now we've got a brand new monster!"), and Kartakass the Land of Singers makes no sense.

...I agree, but that's hardly a reason to throw out an entire domain because the DL's species name rubs you wrong. Make him a werewolf since birth. Problem solved.

Hazlik
I can't really put my finger on it, I just don't like him. Maybe it's because he isn't very scary.

I'm starting to see a trend here...

Jaqueline Renier
Not a big fan of wererats.

and here again...

Arijani
A tigerman? With illusionary powers? C'mon... I'm not too crazy about an Indian-flavoured domain, either. Indian-flavoured food on the other hand... yum!

and again...

Malus Sceleri
I guess this is again one of those "doesn't really fit with the setting"-type of things. A polluting, capitalist fat cat is a really subtle political message... or not.

Okay, you lost me. Pollution yes, but where do you get capitalist from? I think the message is a lot more subtle than you think. Matter of fact, I think it's mostly in your head.

Elena Faith-hold
She's a fallen paladin in a domain called Nidala, which is almost Paladin spelled backwards. ARGHHH!

Okay, so this basically the same problem as Harkon: you got hung up on the name. Take a few more steps in. Have you tried reading the framing fiction for the BoShadows?

Lemot Sediam Juste
My main problem with him is that adventures in Scaena are just too weird and without cause and effect, which always sounds better than it really is.

Okay, this one is not part of your trend, at least. If you've had trouble with Juste in the past, no problem. As for me, the first real-life horror checks I ever gave my players happened in Scaena. You spend two years hunting down a vampire, you get sooo close...and then the director calls cut and tell you you need to reread the script. Vampiress pops out her fangs and pulls out a sack lunch to wait for you to get your lines right.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Sure, any creative DM/GM can get ideas out of anything given enough time and energy, but that being said I would rather spend time working with good background material to create a fantastic story or scenario than spend a lot of time working with bad material to create something semi-decent or slightly above average.

Ahah! There's the root of your trend! You believe that a reworked domain is not worth the effort, because it can't ever measure up to a good one from scratch.

Well, are entitled to your belief, but you may not find a lot of support for that view around here. You see, almost all of us here are apologists for the setting. That's what we do, we enjoy doing it, and I daresay many of us do it quite well. We find ways to take those broken pieces and remake them into something great. I for one believe that the things we come up with are better than anything constructed from scratch, because the preexistent material challenges us to work within a structural framework. Psychologists have known for years that the best creativity comes from ambiguous provocation, and that's what we use to rework these broken settings.

I do remember that I was less than impressed with the new write-up for Hazlan, and I wasn't all that happy with Falkovnia moving away from emulating late medieval/Renaissance Wallachia over to the Third Reich. Unfortunately, it seems to have stuck. Whenever I read posts from people discussing Vlad Drakov, they always write things like: "He's like the Hitler of Ravenloft!"

Drakov/Falkovnia has several inspirational factors, Hitler and Vlad Tepes being only two of them. Of course, when I want to evoke horror and dread in my players, I play to the things they know. I'm running a game right now set in Falkovnia, and I can guarantee you that my players catch on faster when I relate things to the Nazis than to Wallachia.

I even saw somewhere that he was referred to as King-Führer. I think that is a great disservice to one of the better villains of the setting, and not really appropriate for a medieval/Renaissance world, but de gustibus non est disputandum. I guess it works for some people. I usually stick with his Vlad Tepes image from the Black Box in my adventures.

He's still got that image, even as the Kingfuhrer. The problem is, many players couldn't relate to it. It's been combined with things they can relate to.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

A little off-topic here, but I thought Falkovnia was Ravenloft's analogue of Wallachia, and that Barovia was an analogue of Bram Stoker's fanciful version of Transylvania?
Vlad Dracula --> Vlad Drakov? They also share a penchant for making concentric circles of people impaled on stakes.

Nobody's denying that Vlad Drakov is derived from Vlad Tepes/Dracula. However, this does not equate to Falkovnia being derived from Wallachia. In fact, if you read Drakov's original Black Box backstory, it hardly resembles Vlad Tepes at all. Vlad Drakov was a mercenary captain from Taladas in Krynn, with no claim to any right to rule by blood. This is very different from Vlad Tepes. Falkovnia has as much or more to take from Taladas/Krynn as it does from Wallachia.

In any case, now that I am off-topic, your comment about Turks on the doorstep got me thinking that Ravenloft should have, nay, must have something analogous to the Ottoman Empire on the Core; all those Slavic-inspired domains in Ravenloft need an expansionist Eastern neighbour against which to defend their holy motherlands.

And there it is again: you're making an argument based on a false assumption, that domains partly inspired or derived from one part Europe should resemble that part in other ways, too. It doesn't follow. Apart from "Vlad the Impaler" ruling it, Falkovnia NEVER resembled Wallachia, ever. It's more like a gestalt of having a Krynn-esque land converted to a fascist, racist government and then getting Vlad the Impaler to run it all for you.

If you prefer unified dedication to a single inspirational source, rather than a gestalt of many, I would recommend you play MotRD: Medieval. There was an awesome Dragon article on the different ages of Masque. Outside of Masque, gestalts are what most people are looking for.

[Agamemnon]

That's where we all come in! We're all apologists for the setting here, fixing stuff like that. Have you seen the FoS writeup on Monette? I think you may like it

I may, and I am not saying that things can't be fixed in any setting, where there might be problems, but my point with the thread was rather discussing (in a humorous tone, I might add; I have no intention of making this an infantile discussion of "why Ravenloft sucks." I love Ravenloft, warts and all. I generally just choose to excise the warts and concentrate on the things I like) what doesn't work for individual DMs in the setting as written.

Malken...

Yes, several of us have tried to remedy that one, too.

Again, I'm sure you have, and if I see anything I like, I may even co-opt your fine work into my campaigns, but again my remarks were aimed at the setting as officially represented, not as fixed by this fine community. I should have been more clear on that in my opening post.

Harkon Lukas..

...I agree, but that's hardly a reason to throw out an entire domain because the DL's species name rubs you wrong. Make him a werewolf since birth. Problem solved.

No, the problem for me isn't solved, because as you probably noted my list of darklords that didn't do it for me was not followed by long dissertations on why they didn't work, just one line that may have rubbed you and others the wrong way. That was just me being facetious.

Yes, I have a problem with wolfweres, which could be solved by replacing them all with werewolves, but that isn't the sole reason for me to dislike Kartakass. Kartakass for me is domain that doesn't really add up as a realm. I feel that it got short shrift from the creators, and that it was defined along the lines of "The Land Where People Sing A Lot And Drink Meekulbrau." I must admit that I am also biased against Kartakass because of its presentation in Feast of Goblyns.

Hazlik...

I'm starting to see a trend here...

Which is what? That these are my personal, idiosyncratic, maybe even slightly irrational reasons for not favouring something? If so, you are absolutely correct. I never claimed that these were anything but my own personal feelings about the setting. This isn't some universal truth I am trying to proselytize.

Jaqueline Renier
Not a big fan of wererats.

and here again...

Yeah, well, what can I say? I don't consider wererats very scary. If others can make them work, more power to them. Again, these are my personal views in relation to my own campaigns, not something people should have rammed down their throats.

Malus Sceleri...

Okay, you lost me. Pollution yes, but where do you get capitalist from? I think the message is a lot more subtle than you think. Matter of fact, I think it's mostly in your head.

Where do I get capitalist? Let's start with Sceleris himself:

"The lord of Nosos is Malus Sceleri, a lumber and mining baron. Actually he was a lumber baron only he killed all the trees by deforesting the region and polluting it with the smoke from his refineries. Now he focuses on trade and his profitable coal mines...
... His only skill lies in his genius, his shrewdness, and his bargaining power."
That sounds to me not like a wealthy landed noble, but like an entrepreneur of the wild excesses of laissez-faire capitalism in the mid-to-late 19th century.

Moving on to the land itself...

"The law in Nosos is only that dictated by the whims of the wealthy. The general state of the land is nearly anarchy... The only real law in Nosos is the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules."
Again, this sounds like a classic set-up of a anarcho-capitalist society.

This may indeed be all in my head, as you say, but I don't find this particularly subtle or "not at all related to capitalism." As I read it, Nosos is an unsubtle indictement of the rampant excesses of big business run amok. While I can agree that this is a bad thing, I found a bit too preachy in my game. But as you say, maybe it wasn't the intent to make Nosos capitalist and anarchistic, and I am just imagining it.

Elena Faith-hold...

Okay, so this basically the same problem as Harkon: you got hung up on the name. Take a few more steps in. Have you tried reading the framing fiction for the BoShadows?

Yeah, okay, so I am hung up on a name, but as with Harkon Lukas, I just spat out a not-so-serious one-liner about a domain I didn't care for. If I have to go into more detail, Elena just didn't tickle my creative bone, regardless of the inane name of her domain. I don't find Elena's background all that interesting, though I would be hard pressed to say why, other than I find the concept of the fallen paladin overused and trite. It's one of those taste things again, which I have also said earlier in the thread. I believe I am entitled not to like certain aspects of Ravenloft.

Lemot Sediam Juste

Okay, this one is not part of your trend, at least. If you've had trouble with Juste in the past, no problem. As for me, the first real-life horror checks I ever gave my players happened in Scaena. You spend two years hunting down a vampire, you get sooo close...and then the director calls cut and tell you you need to reread the script. Vampiress pops out her fangs and pulls out a sack lunch to wait for you to get your lines right.

See, that would have made me disappointed as a player. It's fine that you could make it work with your group, but far too many times have I played with DMs, who've pulled the "it's just a dream/illusion"-routine, and it gets old really fast.
In roleplaying, we are already playing in an unreal world. I don't want add yet another layer of unreality to that. I don't want to play a roleplaying game where I am pretending to be a character who is also pretending. I know that you could argue that the character thought it was all real, so he wasn't pretending, but it doesn't make a difference to me as the player. Another problem I have with the "it's just a dream," is that nothing the players do is of any consequence. Everything is up to DM whim, which I personally find makes for bad gaming.
Again, de gustibus non est disputandum. It's a matter of taste. If it works for others, great, but it doesn't work for me.

Ahah! There's the root of your trend! You believe that a reworked domain is not worth the effort, because it can't ever measure up to a good one from scratch.

Well, are entitled to your belief, but you may not find a lot of support for that view around here. You see, almost all of us here are apologists for the setting. That's what we do, we enjoy doing it, and I daresay many of us do it quite well. We find ways to take those broken pieces and remake them into something great. I for one believe that the things we come up with are better than anything constructed from scratch, because the preexistent material challenges us to work within a structural framework.

I did not come here to find support for any agenda, or to make trouble. I merely pulled over a thread from Wizards discussing which darklords didn't work for individual players. As always with such things, answers will vary according to taste, and I am interested in hearing what others have to say, not just blare out what I don't like.
In case you should have missed it from my posts, I'll reiterate that I really like Ravenloft. I just like it better, when I've tweaked it completely to my own taste, and that includes ignoring domains, darklords and concepts that don't work for my campaigns.

Drakov/Falkovnia has several inspirational factors, Hitler and Vlad Tepes being only two of them. Of course, when I want to evoke horror and dread in my players, I play to the things they know. I'm running a game right now set in Falkovnia, and I can guarantee you that my players catch on faster when I relate things to the Nazis than to Wallachia.

You use what works for yourself and your group, and I can understand that. In my group, however, a reference to a Führer and disguised National Socialism in our Gothic Horror/Fantasy campaigns would be seen as jarring and intrusive, especially since all other trappings of Drakov's domain refer to a medieval, pseudo-Slavic/Balkan realm: the names Vlad Drakov, Stangengrad, etc., and the impalements and so forth.

He's still got that image, even as the Kingfuhrer. The problem is, many players couldn't relate to it. It's been combined with things they can relate to.

Yes, yes, sure, he's still an impaler. I just prefer that he is not referred to as a Führer in my own campaigns, as it would be jarring for me and my players.

Nobody's denying that Vlad Drakov is derived from Vlad Tepes/Dracula. However, this does not equate to Falkovnia being derived from Wallachia. In fact, if you read Drakov's original Black Box backstory, it hardly resembles Vlad Tepes at all. Vlad Drakov was a mercenary captain from Taladas in Krynn, with no claim to any right to rule by blood. This is very different from Vlad Tepes. Falkovnia has as much or more to take from Taladas/Krynn as it does from Wallachia.

Sure, sure, Vlad Drakov isn't a calque of Vlad III, that's not what I'm saying. All I asked was if Vlad Drakov wasn't closer to the historical Dracula, whereas Strahd was more the fictional Dracula.

And there it is again: you're making an argument based on a false assumption, that domains partly inspired or derived from one part Europe should resemble that part in other ways, too. It doesn't follow. Apart from "Vlad the Impaler" ruling it, Falkovnia NEVER resembled Wallachia, ever. It's more like a gestalt of having a Krynn-esque land converted to a fascist, racist government and then getting Vlad the Impaler to run it all for you.

I'm not making an argument for anything. It was only a semi-serious remark with a Simpsons quote thrown in ("should, nay, must"). It wasn't an indictement of Ravenloft not having an Ottoman Empire; why should they? It was merely me thinking out loud that it would be cool to have an Central Asian-flavoured empire knocking on the gates of the Slavic-flavoured domains in Ravenloft. You know, for my own campaign. It wasn't a call for "this must be changed in canon Ravenloft!" And I even added a little "or not" to my idea, as I wasn't even sure if it would fly.

If you prefer unified dedication to a single inspirational source, rather than a gestalt of many, I would recommend you play MotRD: Medieval. There was an awesome Dragon article on the different ages of Masque. Outside of Masque, gestalts are what most people are looking for.

Yes, and as you'll see in my reply to your esteemed colleague Gonzoron I said as much myself: that if I really wanted to create a campaign about Slavic principalities resisting the might of the Ottoman Empire, it would be easier for me to do just that: create a campaign taking place in late medieval Eastern Europe. So I am well aware of that option.

I guess that's it. I hope I've explained what I'm about. I'm not here to trash anything. This thread was merely intended as random musings from people about what concepts in Ravenloft they didn't use.

Cheers.

[DocBeard]

This may indeed be all in my head, as you say, but I don't find this particularly subtle or "not at all related to capitalism." As I read it, Nosos is an unsubtle indictement of the rampant excesses of big business run amok. While I can agree that this is a bad thing, I found a bit too preachy in my game. But as you say, maybe it wasn't the intent to make Nosos capitalist and anarchistic, and I am just imagining it.

I think you're being a bit hard on the developers here. "Anarchic society run by the decadent rich where everyone else suffers and struggles to rise to wealth." is a classic fantasy kingdom trope. Conan beat these people up all the time. I'll agree that Nosos is a little bit of a Captain Planet villain, but ultimately I found it no less preachy than Dementielu.

And no one's saying you have to do it "our way" either. (And there's no "our way", we can barely agree on what the word "gothic" is.) Sorry if some of the posts came off as a little harsh, I'm sure that wasn't anyone's intention.

[Agamemnon]

I think you're being a bit hard on the developers here. "Anarchic society run by the decadent rich where everyone else suffers and struggles to rise to wealth." is a classic fantasy kingdom trope. Conan beat these people up all the time.

True, but the anarchic society was in combination with a villain who is also an industrialist, a land developer and a entrepreneur, who is violently stripping and bleeding the land of resources, a very modern trope. There aren't any industrialists in a modern sense in Howard's Conan tales, as far as I recall. But hey, I'm not an oracle. It's not like I have a golden key to understanding everything Ravenloft and the literary and folkloric sources on which the setting is based, so take everything I write on these boards for what it is: personal opinion.

And no one's saying you have to do it "our way" either. (And there's no "our way", we can barely agree on what the word "gothic" is.) Sorry if some of the posts came off as a little harsh, I'm sure that wasn't anyone's intention.

I am sure of that too. I didn't read any of them as harsh, and certainly no offence has been taken on my part. I am used to lively debate, and this one hasn't registered with me as anything other than polite and social discourse about a subject I am sure we all could talk a lot about.

Cheers.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I love Ravenloft, warts and all. I generally just choose to excise the warts and concentrate on the things I like

And there's the crux of things, I think. It's a matter of two different ways of dealing with the bits we don't like. DeepShadow advocates reimagining them to work. Agamemnon is perfectly happy just dropping them. The great thing about Ravenloft is that both approaches work. The patchwork nature of Ravenloft gives you a great excuse for dropping a whole country from your version of the setting.

For example, I doubt any player in any of my present or future campaigns will ever stumble upon I'Cath. Maybe it just doesn't exist in my Ravenloft. In my world Tsien Chang was never noticed by the DPs and she's just not there. If you want to do the same for Nidala or even a core domain Richmulot, so be it. (Of course this can be done with some work in any setting, but the Dark Powers give us such a great excuse to use!)


Personally, though, I've seen a lot of stuff that I didn't like a bit and then it gets expanded either canonically or by fans into something awesome. And that's happened enough times that I'm no longer willing to completely write anything off as unusable (yes, note that I even hedged on I'Cath above with a "maybe")

I hated the Shadow Rift at first. Now I love it. Like the floating mountains of Pandora in Avatar, or the Islands in waterfalls of M:tG's Kamigawa, it's a bizarre and unique natural wonder that makes Ravenloft different than anywhere else.

I hated the Requiem and Necropolis with a passion. Now I begrudgingly accept it after reading Dunkel Kralle from The Forgotten Children, and the Gazetteer II treatment of the place.

Hazlan bored me until Gaz I. Richmulot bored me until Scholar of Decay. I didn't get Pharazia until Eye of Anubis. I didn't like Bluetspur until "The Man who Lost His Mind"

I still don't like Malus Scleris, or I'Cath, or to Inherit Eternity, or Sheriff von Zarovich, and a few other things, but I'm willing to be swayed.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I love Ravenloft, warts and all. I generally just choose to excise the warts and concentrate on the things I like

And there's the crux of things, I think. It's a matter of two different ways of dealing with the bits we don't like. DeepShadow advocates reimagining them to work. Agamemnon is perfectly happy just dropping them.

Exactly! I'm glad Agamemnon didn't see anything offensive in my posts, because I really wasn't advocating one over the other. Rather, I was warning him that this particular community leaned more toward the reimaginers than the droppers.

The great thing about Ravenloft is that both approaches work. The patchwork nature of Ravenloft gives you a great excuse for dropping a whole country from your version of the setting.

Again, I agree. My point was that while the setting will let you drop something easily, the FoS community is probably going to encourage you to take another look. That's the way this group leans.

Then again, perhaps I presume too much. Based on the netbooks and the nature of conversations around here, I worry that Agamemnon might feel very alone. But perhaps not? I may start a new poll on this topic!

For example, I doubt any player in any of my present or future campaigns will ever stumble upon I'Cath. Maybe it just doesn't exist in my Ravenloft.

Same here. And yet, prompted by the board discussions, I revisit I'Cath about once a year to see if something can be made of it. *checks calendar* Yep, it's about that time again. Hmmmm...y'know, NeoTiamat got me thinking about folkloric elements, I wonder if Tsien Chiang could be reimagined as a diabolic fey rather than a DL....

Personally, though, I've seen a lot of stuff that I didn't like a bit and then it gets expanded either canonically or by fans into something awesome.

Absolutely, and hence my concern with Agamemnon's comments about reworking leading to mediocrity at best. While he may not have much success at apologetics, this community is full of people who excel at it.

[Agamemnon]

Then again, perhaps I presume too much. Based on the netbooks and the nature of conversations around here, I worry that Agamemnon might feel very alone. But perhaps not? I may start a new poll on this topic!

Hey, no worries there. It's not like anyone going to bust down my door and shout: "How dare you drop Nosos from your campaign, you heretic!"

(are there...?)

I am just glad there's a community where you can exchange ideas and talk about Ravenloft. It's not all that important if people run campaigns like I do. We each have our own ways of running Ravenloft, and people shouldn't feel alone or left out, if a majority doesn't play like they do. I won't feel alone, never fear.

Absolutely, and hence my concern with Agamemnon's comments about reworking leading to mediocrity at best. While he may not have much success at apologetics, this community is full of people who excel at it.

Hey, I never said that all reworking of content would lead to mediocrity. I said that I would prefer to work with the material I like in Ravenloft, and implied that if I were to work with sub-par material, it would be mediocre, not that it would be the case for everybody else. If you can make it work, great!

I get what you're saying, though, about the intellectual challenge in expanding and fixing the less than sterling content in the Ravenloft setting. It is immensely satisfying to create.

If I have to create myself, though, I generally prefer to create things totally from scratch. My best campaigns, be they science fiction or fantasy, have always been in completely homebrew settings.

That said, I have mulled a bit over your words, and I could consider trying it out. So who knows, job and family permitting, I may take one of the loathed domains and rework it into something awesome, just so I can say I did it... Wish me luck.

Cheers.

[DocBeard]

True, but the anarchic society was in combination with a villain who is also an industrialist, a land developer and a entrepreneur, who is violently stripping and bleeding the land of resources, a very modern trope.

If by modern you mean "post-industrial". I got the feeling of a Dickens villain more than anything, spreading misery and exploiting the workers out of greed for profit and a love of cruelty.

Yep, it's about that time again. Hmmmm...y'know, NeoTiamat got me thinking about folkloric elements, I wonder if Tsien Chiang could be reimagined as a diabolic fey rather than a DL....

She's got that wicked stepmother thing going on. My problem with I'Cath has always been the domain, which is more like a dungeon than a domain, than Chiang herself, though she's missing a real conclusive sin to propel her into Ravenloft. Maybe attacking the Emperor physically would do it, and you could make I'Cath, like, a Chinese amazon domain where the women are dominant and Chiang's curse is to see that, no, women being in charge does not magically make the world better.

[Agamemnon]

If by modern you mean "post-industrial". I got the feeling of a Dickens villain more than anything, spreading misery and exploiting the workers out of greed for profit and a love of cruelty.

By "modern," I meant modernity, meaning the time period starting with the following shifts in thinking and development, leading up to our present day:

Increasing role of science and technology
Mass literacy and proliferation of mass media
Spread of social movements
Institution of representative democracy
Individualism
Industrialization
Urbanization

Which is to say starting around 1850, so your characterization of Sceleri as a Dickensian antagonist is not far off. That does not invalidate him as a capitalist, however, as the Industrial Age was marked by rampant capitalism, which I think I also covered up-thread, when I remarked that:

That sounds to me not like a wealthy landed noble, but like an entrepreneur of the wild excesses of laissez-faire capitalism in the mid-to-late 19th century.

(Emphasis added)

So it seems that we actually agree, except perhaps for the appropriateness of Nosos in Ravenloft. I will note that Dickens was a Naturalist writer, and that Naturalism was a counter-movement to the Romantic movement, which Ravenloft draws its source material from (among other genres). The Naturalists absolutely detested Gothic tales with their twisted forests, overhead thunder, and ghosts and goblins, and argued for an emphasis on the social-realistic and naturalistic. So for me, a capitalist, Dickensian villain does not really fit in the very Romantic and Gothic Ravenloft setting.

Before anyone call me on it, I am well aware that Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, but first of all it is one of his early tales, written while the Romantic movement still had steam, and secondly it is a moral fable: the presence of the ghosts have a more symbolic than actual presence, and represent Scrooge's past and future sins.

Anyway, I'll stop my British Lit. Pre-20th Century lecture now. Despite all my arguments, what it really boils down to is that I really don't feel that Malus Sceleri and his grotesquely polluted domain is appropriate for a Fantasy-Horror setting, but YMMV and all that.

Cheers.

[DocBeard]

I missed the 19th century line. The way you were speaking about modern themes made me think of post-20th century literature, my bad.

But, regardless as to which movement he was shoehorned into, Dickens's London has left an undeniable impression on people's vision of the era. Why can't you take some pointers from the Naturalists in shaping a few domains? Do we really need to be that calcified? I mean, I felt your political insights into the Ottoman empire make for a great foundation for injecting some pep into Nova Vaasa, for example, despite not being directly related to the formal Gothic movement.

So for me, a capitalist, Dickensian villain does not really fit in the very Romantic and Gothic Ravenloft setting.

Well, what about the Boristis? Ivana and her brood are pretty shameless capitalists, if more Medici than Rockefeller. Their whole country was formed because of a merchant class's desire to get out of a restricting feudal structure and win the freedom to make lots of money by being horrible to each other. Heck, Ivana and Malus are both trying to get even with a parent who's already dead, too, now that I think about it.