Basics 101

[Scot Storm]

Hello Darkwalkers of Ravenloft, Iam Storm and I am in need of a guide through this land. I just purchased Ravenloft Boxed Set and Domains of Dread. I wanted to open a basic 101 topic in the chat room. Today I wanted to talk about how Count Strahd and Barovia was the only land in Ravenloft, then when Azalin went to escape the mist he encountered his own domain. "The land creates new land for whos masters are evil enough". My question is who were the next to travel to Ravenloft and acquire new land?
Storm

[Joël of the FoS]

If you have Domains of dread (2nd ed harbook), you have a timeline in it.

For your info, the second domain created wasn't Darkon, it was Forlorn.

Joël

[Tobias Blackburn]

If you have Domains of dread (2nd ed harbook), you have a timeline in it.

For your info, the second domain created wasn't Darkon, it was Forlorn.

Joël

And I believe that Mordent came after Forlorn.

[Scot Storm]

Ok got the timeline and after Forlorn was Har'Akir and Zherisa in 547.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

If you have Domains of dread (2nd ed harbook), you have a timeline in it.

For your info, the second domain created wasn't Darkon, it was Forlorn.

Joël

And I believe that Mordent came after Forlorn.

Mordent was later, Arak came before it, I think.

[Stygian Inquirer]

From the 3rd Edition Campaign Setting, the order of domain formation is:

351 BC - Barovia
547 BC - Forlorn
551 BC - Har'Akir, Paridon
564 BC - Sebua
575 BC - Arak
579 BC - Mordent, Darkon
581 BC - Bluetspur
588 BC - Keening
590 BC - Pharazia
593 BC - Gundarak
600 BC - Vechor
603 BC - Invidia
607 BC - Sanguinia
611 BC - Shadowborn Manor
613 BC - Kartakass
615 BC - Nidala
620 BC - Timor
625 BC - Valachan
630 BC - Sea of Sorrows
635 BC - Souragne, Graben
646 BC - Avonleigh
658 BC - Wildlands
670 BC - Sri Raji
682 BC - Nova Vaasa
683 BC - Lamordia
684 BC - Borca
690 BC - Falkovnia
691 BC - Tepest
694 BC - Richemulot
698 BC - Markovia
702 BC - G'Henna
707 BC - Dementlieu
708 BC - Arkandale
714 BC - Hazlan
715 BC - Dorvinia
720 BC - Sithicus
728 BC - Saragoss
730 BC - Verbrek
731 BC - Vorostokov
738 BC - Odiare
740 BC - Rokushima Taiyoo, Shadow Rift
750 BC - Nocturnal Sea

[Scot Storm]

In the timeline, it says that Azalin enters in 542 and five years later forlorn appears and Anhkepot Lord of Har'Kir and Lord of
Zhherisia is the Ravenloft Doppleganger Sodo.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Has anyone tried doing a set of maps of this, by the by? I've considered, in the past, taking a scanned copy of the Black Box map of the Core and cropping out domains to show the formation of the Core (so the first map would just be Barovia, listed as 351-547; second map would be Barovia and Forlorn, listed as 547-575; third map being Barovia, Forlorn, and Arak, listed 575-579; and so on).

However, this idea was a bit blown out of the water by the Gazetteers, which makes it seem like the domains of the Core didn't just appear in the locations where they'd forever sit, like pieces of a puzzle just thrown down on the board waiting for the next piece to be put between them. I'd always thought of Mordent appearing and being a far cry across the Mists to the west (at least to those who could look at Ravenloft from above; those leaving Barovia going west might find that the Mists takes them where it will). However, Gazetteer 2 changed that, with page 20 saying, <i>"Darkon was surrounded by the Mists of Death to three sides, sharing its southern border with three immediate neighbors: Mordent, which appeared a mere month before Darkon; Arak, then still an independent and inhabited realm; and Barovia, which lay directly to the south."</i>

Because of that, I'm a bit thrown off by how the Core came into existence... Especially since I seem to recall that, even in the earlier material, that Azalin, pissed off after the events that brought Mordent into Ravenloft, supposedly walked from Barovia to Arak and then, north of Arak, stepped into the Mists to see Darkon open wide before him. Only just now did I look at the Black Box map and notice that Barovia and Arak don't share a border... (I looked through Azalin's sections and the Ravenloft History sections of the Black Box, Red Box and Domains of Dread but can't find that reference, and I don't recall ever reading <u>King of the Dead</u>...)

Perhaps this might be a good issue to consider here in the Basics 101, as it definitely applies to those who are considering running a Ravenloft campaign in a different era than the present.

[Stygian Inquirer]

Remember the formation of the domains. There were not many domains in the Core around the time when Darkon was formed so Barovia and Arak could have very well shared a border.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Remember the formation of the domains. There were not many domains in the Core around the time when Darkon was formed so Barovia and Arak could have very well shared a border.

That's exactly what I mean and what I'm curious about. On the Black Box map, Barovia and Arak don't share a border. But, we don't know anything about the time previous to that. Could Barovia and Arak shared a border and then, when Nova Vaasa came into existence, it kinda shoved the two apart to fit itself in the middle? Like numerous mini-GC's (Grand Conjunction, not Gentleman Caller), reconfiguring the Barovian cluster numerous times over until it fit the final Core configuration?

And if this is the case, where one day your country borders another and then, all of the sudden, there's another country inbetween, wouldn't the Great Upheaval have seemed a little less weird as people are already familiar with countries moving around? Or...

I guess I shouldn't be asking the question this way, though, as it's ultimately unimportant and there's no "right" way of covering this. I guess I should be asking: has this topic been covered before? What have the arguments been for and against the myriad explanations created to cover this phenomena?

And, I guess to add the question, who wants to get into huge discussions and potential flamewars and thus create the in-game philosophies and metaphysics discussed by scholars and professors of competing theories of the University of Il Aluk vs the University of Dementlieu vs ... ? After all, our discussions will never actually come up with a "one, true answer" but it can make the game more interesting by providing the "many, potentially correct theories that are fiercely debated between intellectuals" to kind of round-out the game a bit.

[Jakob]

I'm currently reading the second book in the I, Strahd saga, the one with Azalin appearing (published NOW in Italian...).

P.N. Elrod must have got something wrong, though: Strahd senses the formation of LAMORDIA in 575 BC... Right before Arak.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

And if this is the case, where one day your country borders another and then, all of the sudden, there's another country inbetween, wouldn't the Great Upheaval have seemed a little less weird as people are already familiar with countries moving around? Or...

As it's portrayed in "I, Strahd" and a few other tidbits of in-character text, the memories of Ravenloft natives typically seem to be altered along with the landscape, when a brand-new domain pops up in the Core. Only outlanders and darklords appear to be innately exempted from this revisionist-history effect; the Great Upheaval wasn't unusual in that geography changed, but rather in that ordinary people remembered that it had been altered so drastically.

Evidence that memories have been altered are still around, if you know where to look. There are folks in Nova Vaasa who don't even remember the Nightmare Lands used to abut their nation, and the residents of Ivan's former domain disagree with their fellow Borcans as to when Dorvinia had appeared. Old maps of previous geography still exist within the game-setting. It's telltale hints like this that helped clue S in to the fact that so much of the Core's history is entirely false (as opposed to just mistaken), and that inspired the founder of the in-game Fraternity of Shadows with the notion their world is a construct.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

P.N. Elrod must have got something wrong, though: Strahd senses the formation of LAMORDIA in 575 BC... Right before Arak.

That wasn't her fault. The timeline from "Domains of Dread" made that mistake too, IIRC.

[eldritch]

The situation is very sticky indeed in that in the first two Ravenloft products I6 Ravenloft and I10 Ravenloft: the House on gryphon hill,
the domain concept wasn't there it only came later with the black box. as "house" was set in Mordent (the first appearance of the weathermays, Azalin, and many other major characters) it appeared that somehow Azalin while working for Strahd to determine the nature of the mists etc. managed to open for a brief time a chunk of the prime material and both darklords thought they had escaped but it must have only been temporary. This possibly was a small conjunction. I still find it strange that Forlorn is the second domain formed when the Mordent information proceeds it.

Also I am interested in which domains were ripped from the Prime Material Plane like Barovia and Mordent and which were created wholecloth from the mists. As obviously the false memories only would apply to new domains not ones that were annexed by the mists.

[Scot Storm]

Yeah Eldritch after his attempt with Strahd had failed it seems that he tried turning himself into a demilich they call the Grim Harvest 740 to 750. It took him ten years to do this however a great band of adventures had foiled his plan. The city of Aluk became Necropolis named after all the dead.
Storm