The canon material that doesn't really fit

[Agamemnon]

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

No problem. Modern is a tricky word that can mean all sorts of things, so I suppose I should have been more clear in my nomenclature.

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.

No, we do not need to that calcified, but unfortunately it's not a choice for me. I am calcified. Comes from being old, I guess.
It's true that the Ottoman Empire is not directly related to the Gothic movement (other than its love of all things "Oriental"), but it is not my intention to cut off everything not Gothic from the setting in my campaign.

Rather, I want to cut off the things that do not fit for me and my players personally. Other than Romanticism, I love heroic tales of knights, and of war, and of clashing civilizations, so therefore a conflict between a massive Eastern-flavoured empire and small Slavic-flavoured principalities desperately clinging to independence would not seem inappropriate in my campaign, whereas Dickensian naturalism would. Yeah, it's not completely logical, but that's how I feel. So there is no reason on Earth why one couldn't use something from Dickens to shape some domains. It just doesn't work for me. I am not saying that it couldn't work for many others.

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.

It's a fair cop; Ivana is more equivalent to a Renaissance merchant banker than a noble, I suppose, but I find her less scenery-chewing than Sceleri. I have yet to use Ivana and Borca for anything in my campaigns, though, other than the odd name-dropping.
"Ah, over yonder river you'll find the realm of Borca. It is said that the most powerful and beautiful woman there is dangerous to love, and she is called the Black Widow."
Things like that. I haven't actually placed any adventures there yet.

Take care.

[DocBeard]

That makes sense, man. When running a campaign I tend to have to force myself to focus on the area in question because there's this tiny sociologist in my head that wants to design a whole world that the PCs will likely never try and see.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

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.

I just realized I may have been unclear: it wasn't all an illusion, not all along. The monster they had chased into the theater had been incorporated into the story, but she was not subject to the mind-affecting powers of Juste, so he replaced her with an illusion. The real vampire was still in the theater, waiting for the borders to open. After the head-spinning confrontation with Juste, the pursuit continued.