Baron Mordenheim

[DocBeard]

Well part of that is because what Ravenloft calls science is actually Shellian mad science, complete with ominous switches, sinister storm wracked nights, and atomic super men breaking free of their restraints to wreak havoc on the world around them.

Don't forget that Mordenhiem has to be, above all else, a useful villain. I feel like the slant on his curse some of you guys are pushing unnecessarily restricts the bad doctor.

[cure]

The rules for Mordenheim's mad science in Gaz II in the DM state that he can be as unholy a terror as you think reasonable given time to prepare the means - and he has had a century to prepare them - those means being the equipment of his lab - where logically he would wish to stand his ground.

But the idea that he would be nearly as dangerous while shopping at the Christmas Market in Ludendorf strikes me as wishful thinking. Which is not to say that he would be a push over, being a respectable fencer, perhaps a good shot too (I don't remember on this one), logically being armed with a few potent alchemical concoctions, and conceivably having brought along in the coach some reanimated horror.

In other terms, I dont' think Mordenheim gets out to Christmas markets much and that is perfectly fine from his perspective, as he wants to be locked away, working feverishly in his lab, for that is what mad scientist do. They are natural recluses.

It is a little like Strahd. Yes, there is a spell that might let him greet new visitors to Barovia at the border during the day. But he would have to have a damn good reason for doing so because he would be taking an extraordinary risk. Much better then to lure them to the seat of his power, where he is the presumed master of all things.

In other terms again, science is different from magic. Science is incarnated in machines, magic is incarnated in hand waving. Or if you prefer, science has rigourous material causes, wheras magic has fluffy sympathetic caues. Even today machines tend to be heavy and fragile. And with each additional year back in time towards the cultural age of Lamordia, they get heavier, not to mention more difficult to power, steam engines, for example, being colossally heavy and fabulously hungry. Science and technology are not very mobile, or at least the cost of making them mobile is extraordinarily high, and the more so for anything that is not being massed produced on a global scale. Imagine the cost in money and time, given the knowledge, of building your own netbook computer from scratch, which is to say by making, rather than ordering, the parts. It is probably a task beyond what could be achieved in a life time, regardless of one's brilliance. Perhaps a frankensteinian room sized thing of tubes, but no, rather something comparable the latest Dell. It is not going to happen, short of receiving as a boon from the Dark Powers.

[Mangrum]

But as Mangrum writes, one "must decide, though, how far [such achievements] can reach before they shatter the limits of believability and possibility."

Did I write that sidebar? I honestly have no idea at this point. (Not that I disagree with anything in it.)

[Matthew L. Martin]

To us, brain transplants are beyond present medical science, but this isn't necessarily as difficult for surgeons in Ravenloft as in our own world. The laws of nature seem to be a lot more amenable to the viable transplantation of organs there than here. Remember, Markov and Bollenbach both do the same kind of work, cross-species in some cases, and neither one is as brilliant as Mordenheim.

I'd call it a genre thing, if only because brain transplants play a key role in some of the later Universal monster movies that inspired the setting.

[Matthew L. Martin]

Did I write that sidebar? I honestly have no idea at this point. (Not that I disagree with anything in it.)

Lamordia was Andrew Wyatt's project, and I can't find any extensive revision notes in the K-list archives.

[cure]

But as Mangrum writes, one "must decide, though, how far [such achievements] can reach before they shatter the limits of believability and possibility."

Did I write that sidebar? I honestly have no idea at this point. (Not that I disagree with anything in it.)

Well, it is Gaz II, p. 154. But, no, logically it would have been Andrew Wyatt. Posting simultaneously to the forum and the Mistipedia is not good for one's sanity.

[Manofevil]

Another ineresting aspect of RavenLoft science is that the very nature of RavenLoft prevents the developement of communication technology. Where's the point of morse code or radio if nothing gets through misty border. Most of the realms are actually so small as to be easily served by a loosely run mail system, for example. Also, each realm is made up of very insular communities. There's not a lot of interaction between them. I might expect that person saying 'Hey did you hear what happened on the other side of the country?', they may well be talking about something that happened last month or even last year. There's a topic for a thread there: How does news spread across the lands of RavenLoft and how fast?

[ewancummins]

Another ineresting aspect of RavenLoft science is that the very nature of RavenLoft prevents the developement of communication technology. Where's the point of morse code or radio if nothing gets through misty border. Most of the realms are actually so small as to be easily served by a loosely run mail system, for example. Also, each realm is made up of very insular communities. There's not a lot of interaction between them. I might expect that person saying 'Hey did you hear what happened on the other side of the country?', they may well be talking about something that happened last month or even last year. There's a topic for a thread there: How does news spread across the lands of RavenLoft and how fast?

All of these might fit, in various countries/regions:

• carrier pigeons
  
  heliograph (in sunnier/clear weather climes)
  
  pony express/post relay
  
  stagecoaches carrying not only passengers but mail
  
  riverboats

I think slow communication and insular communities makes a lot more sense with a bigger Core. The older canon sources make the Core tiny, so I'd expect travel times and mail lag to be correspomdingly shorter, even if we assume both primitive roads and low (canon) populations.

I run with a 3x mapscale Core. This leaves me with lots and lots room for areas of wilderness/frontier, more small towns and farms, spooky ruins, and bigger clusters of people where I need them for story reasons. I adjust population figures to fit what I want from each domain, without applying a rigid formula across the whole setting. With this arrangement, wilderness and on-the-road adventures are easier to run, and I don't have to rationalize where all the monsters and wild beasts live- plenty of habitat for man and man-eater alike.

[cure]

So does the "baron" appellation, which seems to please no one and seems to appear only in LoB, rise to the level of an errata? Or, if not exactly an extra, something that at least should be mentioned in the Ravenloft errata as questionable/optional?