Souragne Project - submissions – style and flavor

[Joël of the FoS]

The Souragnian theme

The Fraternity of Shadows is currently accepting submissions for our ongoing Souragne project. We are looking for material covering a wide range of subjects, relating to the Land of Swamps and Superstition. To help keep a unified style, we at the Fraternity would like to share our current vision of Souragne and its denizens. Articles that differ from this will still be accepted –there are always exceptions in every land- but we encourage people to work with it to create a uniform feel to the land.

There is a good basic description of Souragne in the d20 Ravenloft Campaign Setting. Please read it carefully! Considering uncommon exceptions, your material should not contradict what is found in this description. Along with other d20 material, especially in Dark Tales & Disturbing Legends, you have a full description of the loas and voodan class.

As an example, should you need/want to describe a hamlet not mentioned in the d20 Ravenloft Campaign setting or Domains of Dread, please do so! Interesting additions will be well thought of.

Souragne (as seen by the Fraternity) is a land of false images and denial.

The Lord, as always, epitomizes this with the land being a reflection.

The culture is filled with small examples of inhumanity, casual and systematic cruelty, that is overlooked and ignored while the people pat themselves on the back about how advanced and dignified they are. They consider their city to be the rival of those of Richemulot and Dementlieu, despite how much of a rural backwater they are. They consider themselves enlightened and educated but few know how to read and books are scarce. They consider themselves patrons of the arts but most are more at home at a cockfight than in some art house or theatre. It is a culture of hypocrisy.

Of course, deep down, they realize all their deceptions and hidden truths, and this forever nags at them.

For an extended example of this, we turn back to slavery. In the false history of Souragne, there was slavery, where landowners owned slaves, but now both ethnicities are equal. The colonial owners freed the natives because they thought it was uncivil to keep and trade men like animals; instead, they decided to do the civilized and respectable by paying their workers. However, freeing the slaves and paying them a pittance really does little; deductions for food and accommodations eats away at much of the pay. Few workers ever manage to save enough to change professions or buy their way out of servitude and most work just as hard as if they were slaves. Instead of being valued property who must be bought for a large sum, the workers became expendable and replaceable. And since they can be of either race this doubled potential employees as whites who fell on hard times can be exploited equally.

They simply moved from slaving to economic oppression. It’s considered more ‘civilized’.

Landowners, merchants and boat owners are known as the closest thing to nobility, since they give work to the lower classes. Many are wealthy, but most would barely be considered middle class on the Core. The color of these owners isn’t based on skin color but those who were wealthy tend to retain wealth. They still tell themselves they’ve earned it.

In the years that have passed since the end of slavery, more and more descendents of slaves have moved into the upper levels of society (where they become just as abusive as their ancestors' masters were, more often than not).

Meanwhile, the majority is still very poor and often mistreated by their bosses.

Other directions:

1) The loas, the religion of the masses, while the upper classes worship Ezra
(but some of the owners also secretly know the voodun power and fear them)

2) Size of the domain

"The swamplands, or some say the spirits of the swamp, have a way of clouding men's minds, in effect no one has really come up with a definite measurement of the realm's size. What may seem a short distance between two points to one person may seem longer or more distant to another..."

This said, we are of the opinion that size doesn't matter and lands should be as big as they're needed and as small as they're wished to be.

The last canon measures for Souragne are nearly 8 miles wide, by 5 miles (Domains of Dread, page 96). That is close to 40 square miles (and not 4 square miles as it was often said).

About a third is solid ground, about a tenth is the sea in front of Port d’Elhour, and the rest is swamp.

This is the suggested size. This size gives plenty of room for DMs to play with the domain while maintaining a claustrophobic feel and not minimizing the lord’s limits.

(More to come as needed)

Please refer to this post for more information on guidelines.

What we have written so far:

- Anton Misroi full description
- a Misroi expansion on the way of Legacy of the Blood
- An adaptation of the cult of Ezra in Souragne
- Souragnian zombies
- danger of the swamps (movement, hazards and diseases, etc.)

Do not forget, you can add adventure hooks and dread possibilities sidebars! There is a difference in these additions and we would like to have both!

Joël

[Samael Hands of Stone]

I really like where you guys are going with this. The meticulous planning and thorough consideration is apparent in your guidelines. I applaud you gents thus far.



PS You may find the follwong link helpful:

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/126.html

[alhoon]

Where are the loas and voodan class detailed? I haven't the Dark tales& legends. Is it where the descriptions are?

[Mortavius]

Yes, the only place the Voodan class and the Loas are detailed is Dark Tales & Disturbing Legends.

[alhoon]

Until when we can send suggestions?

[Joël of the FoS]

December 19th!

Joël

[Joël of the FoS]

Updated list, as of today:

What we have written so far:

- Anton Misroi full description
- a Misroi expansion on the way of Legacy of the Blood
- An adaptation of the cult of Ezra in Souragne
- Souragnian zombies (a template)
- danger of the swamps (movement, hazards and diseases, etc.)
- geography (land and town description)

plus:

- Dread possibilities on adapting both the CotN:V and CotN:W Souragne entries for the Gaz
- art (we got many great artist's work, we need more!)

And other Dread Possibilities (original ideas we keep for surprise)

About ten days to get your ideas in it!

Joël

[Charney]

Although I don't have time to contribute anything, I'd just like to say that this project sounds great. And what you have so far sounds promising. Keep up the good work and keep at thought for those who's real life is keeping them away from the Mists.

Come to think about it, that's how Azalin could exit Ravenloft: he should get a job, rent an appartment and go to university. That should do it!

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

Although I don't have time to contribute anything, I'd just like to say that this project sounds great. And what you have so far sounds promising. Keep up the good work and keep at thought for those who's real life is keeping them away from the Mists.

Come to think about it, that's how Azalin could exit Ravenloft: he should get a job, rent an appartment and go to university. That should do it!

How true...

[Joël of the FoS]

We keep receiving new entries, and that's cool. These do not need to be very long (think of a sidebar entry).

There is an area where we need your help. Please read the following (draft):

There are about twenty plantations in Souragne, half of them located around or near Port d’Elhour. Most of them are very successful, making their owner wealthy, but it should be known that a few owners are not that wealthy anymore and are close to loosing everything. These “indigent seigneurs” are still treated amongst the elite by their workers and the other seigneurs. I have to note that some seigneurs are among the richest persons of the plane, while other seigneurs would barely hold an average wealth rank in other domains.

We'd like to get your ideas on describing some of these individual plantations, such as (draft):

Dessalines: the Dessalines family is one of the wealthiest of Port d’Elhour. Their plantation is the largest of Souragne and the grandfather of the current owner took quickly the lead in trade with other domains. Most important members are: Jean Dessalines (Ari3/War3), his wife Paula (Ari2), and their only children (Laura, Ari1)

Mont Mirebalais: another wealthy family. They also have interest in steamboat construction. Most of the family members are well traveled. The heir of the family is secretely an evil voodan (4th level).

We also covered those that are canon (Tarascon, Durand).

Other interesting ideas to describe a plantation, and / or adventure hooks or dread possibilities? Email me!

Joël

[Joël of the FoS]

While the delay to get major stuff is passed, we can always add new ideas here and there, so if you write:

- dread possibilities or adventure hooks. We crave these and we will keep adding good ones until the book is out;

- description of individual plantations (see one post up)

- Souragne interviews (à la Gaz 1 web enhancement) - experience of the culture of Souragne, interviews with the inhabitants, tavern tales, etc. with “local color.”

- other cool short additions you might think of.

Please send them my way!

The date of release isn't set yet, but it should be somewhere in February, if everything works well.

Joël

[TwiceBorn]

- Souragne interviews (à la Gaz 1 web enhancement) - experience of the culture of Souragne, interviews with the inhabitants, tavern tales, etc. with “local color.”

I was not aware that such a web enhancement existed. I looked on the White Wolf website, but could not find it. Could someone point me in the right direction (or Joel or David, if you could e-mail me a copy, that would be great)? Thanks in advance!

I hope to be able to contribute a plantation or two and other tidbits by January 8th (I wish I could churn things out sooner, but my holiday schedule is fairly busy).

Cheers,

[Joël of the FoS]

Update: this netbook is close to 100 pages, and other stuff keep arriving. There are a lot of adventure hooks in it.

Just curious, for the record (and to build expectations) - what do you expect from this project?

[Vannax]

Update: this netbook is close to 100 pages, and other stuff keep arriving. There are a lot of adventure hooks in it.

Just curious, for the record (and to build expectations) - what do you expect from this project?

The number of pages is astonishing, (unless you wrote them with 20pt. or higher size font ).
As for my expectations - I´m looking forward especially for never before presented ideas and adventure hooks. Furthermore I´m interested in how the relationships between darklord, city-inhabitants and other creatures and monsters could develop.
Last but not least - if the project will content new mosters and so on - I´m very curious of how so many different kinds of inhabitants could live ("in symbiosis" ) in such a small place.

[Jester of the FoS]

It's 10-12pt font, currently one column so doubling it should shrink it abit. And Joël has added quite a few illustrations/pictures. It's also unedited and I imagine we'll brutally knock the word-count down for a tight, concise book.