Gothic Orient

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Instead of literally having the sea a poisonous body of water, I took the meaning figuratively. The sea currents are treacherous and ships sail there at their extreme peril. Monsters infest the shallows and deeps. Furthermore, the only ships to have sailed across there were sent out by the princes with conquest and bloodlust on their minds, so the meaning is more literary than actual.

I've taken the name metaphorically, too. After all, if the seas are toxic -- meaning no marine life could live there -- how "Japanese" can the culture really be? Seafood is Japanese cuisine!

[Spiteful Crow]

They get all their seafood from non-poisonous water in the middle of the archipelago.

[HuManBing]

I think Spiteful Crow's responses illustrate a difference in DMing style. Depending on how fantasy-based you want your campaign setting, it could be reasonable to show supernatural forces at work. In this scenario, the Dark Powers are very much in evidence, and they can literally move mountains and poison oceans at a whim.

Another approach, which is somewhat more suited to the Masque series, is to adopt a less fantasy-based setting, where when something supernatural happens, the PCs are left wondering whether it's a mere coincidence, rather than the Dark Powers.

A real-life (possibly urban myth) story goes that three white explorers were travelling through an African savannah and refused to give water to a black villager. The African villager cursed them roundly. As they progressed on their way, their vehicle ran out of gas and developed a tire puncture. Bad luck? Or karma retribution?

As you can probably tell from my colorful responses above, I favor the latter type. But looking back through Ravenloft's 2nd ed. and 3rd ed. incarnations, there are plenty of examples to show the designers may have intended for a somewhat more fantasy-based setting. Both are perfectly legitimate, but I do state that I like my settings closer to a realist approach.

As a final note, I consider I'Cath to be a poorly designed domain. It is high fantasy, which is fine if you like that, but in terms of cultural portrayals, it's not even close to a believable Asian country. (It's probably closer to an archtype of a punishment tale, a la Brothers Grimm.)

Given that that seems to be the sole Ravenloft equivalent of China, I have cast about looking for other examples to substitute in my own campaigns. The Core has its share of domains that exist just for a punishment tale's sake (such as Scaena and arguably Tepest) but for something like a Chinese equivalent, I personally envision a realistic kingdom more on the scale of Darkon or Nova Vaasa.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Sorry, but the biologist in me won't accept that a teeny little bay like that can provide an adequate harvest for that many people. Besides, most fish are pretty stupid; how would they know better than to swim past the poison/non-poisonous boundary line? By the time they could smell any chemical difference, they'd be in the poison-zone.

[Spiteful Crow]

The dark powers supply the domain with a neverending supply of fish?

Anywho, I'Cath's ridiculousness is why I don't have too much trouble dropping it in the poison sea.

I was actually thinking of making the "poison sea" to just be a normal ocean that is regularly hit by red tide, causing anything caught during these periods to be poisonous.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

The dark powers supply the domain with a neverending supply of fish?

YMMV. I'd actually hit upon the "red tide" idea myself, although I've never set an adventure in Rokushima IMC and so haven't had the chance to actually demonstrate it for my players.

FWIW, I tend to come down on HMB's side of the fantastic/realistic style spectrum. I far prefer domains that needn't invoke continual damage-control interventions by the DPs, merely to remain viable; domains that last long enough to merit treatment in the 3E game-products ought to be more self-sustaining and stable than that. Purely inorganic oddities in the Land's fabric, like rivers that reversed direction so they wouldn't drain away into the Shadow Rift, I can live with ... it's when a domain starts to look like one of those ultra-cheesy 1E-era dungeons, in which monsters sit patiently in 30'x30' rooms with no food or water and no purpose beyond waiting for adventurers to break down the door, that it gets on my nerves.

[Spiteful Crow]

Or... you could make the poison sea be more like modern day Japan and give it high levels of mercury.

A cumulative DC1 Fortitude save every time something caught in the poison sea is eaten. The more fish you eat, the higher the DC will go until you fail and take 1d8 constitution damage.

[Gemathustra]

Or, why not have it so that whoever eats the fish caught in the Poison Sea, instead of the Mirror Lake, wither away and die?
Like the way this one song goes, "I want to eat fugu, but I don't want to die."

[Jennifer]

Hi guys,
I would also be really interested in a cluster concerned with an asian theme. Currently I am reading a book about the history of Jade and it is really stuff for ravenloft.

It centres mainly on china and the obsession of some chinese emperors and empresses with the precious stone jade. They repeatedly started wars and emptied the treasury to buy more jade.

The best Jade came from a very secluded area in what is now Burma and was guarded for a long time by the ferocious Kachin people, who killed all those who came near, using the magic of vicious forest spirits.

After the English-Chinese wars, the english were also fascinated with the green jade. they plundered the chinese palaces and mounted several expeditions into the interior of Burma, where many people died, even before they met the Kachin. The meetings with the Kachin did not go well either.

Even today the best jade still comes from Burma and greed still destroys many lives in the area.

So to wrap up, I think that a cluster of Asian themed lands definitely has merit, but it should represent more cultures than chinese and japanese. I also think that themes of human vices, like greed for pretty rocks (which is all jade is after all) can and should play a large part in shaping the behaviour of people and the politics of the area.

Oh, the book i am reading is: The Stone of Heaven by A. Levy and C. Scott-Clark ISBN 0316095583

jennifer

[Gemathustra]

Given as how jade had quite the religious impact on Chinese culture, and virtually all of the cultures affected by it, jade should play a role in this, yes.

[NykylaiHellray]

It might be a good idea to get hold of the oriental d&d book.

Lots of monsters in there we could use, we just have to dread them up a little.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

[Spiteful Crow]

Judging from the location of the post, am I to assume there's gonna be some Asian styled weapons in there?

[Waldi]

When the asian-like cluster shall be more centered on a 19th-century Asia (with opium-wars and similar calamitys) it would need also a infamous trading-port !!!
Something like Hong-Kong or Shanghai as it is viewed in old adventure-books or pulp-novells. You have got a frightening big asian city, that is filled with sailors and tradesmen from nearly every domain of Ravenloft.
The streets are narrow and overcrowed and at every corner you can find small "chinese" restaurants, bueraus of various trading-companys, brothels filled with exotic and enigmatic courtesans, infamous opium-dens, casinos and mysterious small, dark shops where you can buy exotic antiquities or strange herbs. Officially this city is ruled by an imperial gouverneur, but the crime-rates in this city are unimaginable high and the police and the officials are extremely corrupt.
There is a whole bunch of tongs, triads, yakuzas and mafiosi, that try to run the city and fight against each.
The darklord of the city could be a sinister criminal genius like Dr. Fu-Manchu....

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Thats not bad.
But how would one do a Fu-Man-Chu, as a tragic figure like a darklord?