Ordinary things not found in Ravenloft

[Amicus]

Hmmm... perhaps native scholars might postulate that there's a gigantic, undiscovered IoT made out of iron, somewhere far to the north of the known domains? (Real-world scientists once speculated that the North Pole was an iron-rich island, before the idea that the Earth itself is magnetic was proposed.) Early biogeographers once came up with the alleged "lost continent of Lemuria", for a lot less reason.

Imagine someone trying to launch an expedition to go there.

Yeah, just imagine the look on their faces when the lemurs attack.

[Joël of the FoS]

Here's one for you: No noontime shadow pointing north. .

Ane when you empty a bath, which sense does the water swirl goes ?

[Tykus]

Here's one for you: No noontime shadow pointing north. .

Ane when you empty a bath, which sense does the water swirl goes ?

And I thought I was getting esoteric.

[Tykus]

Here's one for you: No noontime shadow pointing north. .

Ane when you empty a bath, which sense does the water swirl goes ?

And I thought I was getting esoteric.

[ewancummins]

Hmmm... perhaps native scholars might postulate that there's a gigantic, undiscovered IoT made out of iron, somewhere far to the north of the known domains? (Real-world scientists once speculated that the North Pole was an iron-rich island, before the idea that the Earth itself is magnetic was proposed.) Early biogeographers once came up with the alleged "lost continent of Lemuria", for a lot less reason.

Imagine someone trying to launch an expedition to go there.

Yeah, just imagine the look on their faces when the lemurs attack.

Now, what would be cool would be if there actually were a huge Island Domain made of iron heavy rock.

[Tykus]

Hmmm... perhaps native scholars might postulate that there's a gigantic, undiscovered IoT made out of iron, somewhere far to the north of the known domains? (Real-world scientists once speculated that the North Pole was an iron-rich island, before the idea that the Earth itself is magnetic was proposed.) Early biogeographers once came up with the alleged "lost continent of Lemuria", for a lot less reason.

Imagine someone trying to launch an expedition to go there.

Yeah, just imagine the look on their faces when the lemurs attack.

Now, what would be cool would be if there actually were a hoge Island Domain made of iron heavy rock.

Ruled by an earth genasi? half-earth elemental? A dread earth necromental?

[ewancummins]

Hmmm....well, I rather like the idea of an earth genasi as a DL.
What about a miner obsessed with uncovering secrets of the earth? He delved too deeply....Perhaps this could be connected with the Hated Mother, and all that jazz? He ought to be a little crazy, I'd say. Think of the dude from Motherlode. ''It's a hard hollow land, laddie!''

[ewancummins]

The iron island ought to be chilly, but not frozen, I think. Maybe cool and wet, like the western coast of Canada. People can and do live there. They'd make there living from the sea or from the mines [plenty of iron ore to be had]. Trade with other domains via a mistway would be nice.




Lemurs will come later...I think Ravenloft could use a couple more tropical/subtropical domains.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

I wish there were Barbarians in Ravenloft. And I don't mean the class, I mean actual tribes of uncultured people of low technological level who raid across domain borders to kill and steal from people of higher technological levels.

Considering that, I also think Ravenloft would lack "vandalism" as the Vandals had no presence in the Land of Mists. Maybe no "Gothic" architecture and the like, as no Goths.

Etc etc et al.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

With the lack of a world-scale religion, there's also the lack of Science destroyed by Dogma. Example being that the Greeks and Romans both knew that the Earth was round, but the Catholic Church managed to obliterate that notion during the Dark Ages and it had to be re-discovered.

Additionally, the notion of a Renaissance might be completely foreign. The Renaissance came about as Europe learned about a *previous* civilization that had had advanced notions of science, politics, etc, as Europe came out of the Dark Ages and was rediscovering the works of the Greeks and Romans.

Additionally, myths like Atlantis and Mu worked out really well in the 18th Century as archaeology started discovering previously mythical places. After all, if Plato's Troy could be found to be a real place, might not Plato's Atlantis?

Anyway, with Ravenloft's scattered lands that all derive from different cultures, there isn't enough any kind of shared sense of the past like all of the European and Eastern European cultures found with refinding the notions of the Roman Empire, which they'd all been a part of.

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Note that this somewhat links with my above idea of Barbarians: I propose that the Core might be like the Roman Empire, rather than Renaissance Europe. Since there has not yet been a fall of civilization in the Core, that might be something coming up in the future. Instead of going into the Dark Ages, might we be entering a Time of Unparalleled Darkness?

[Lord Cyclohexane]

If Ravenloft is a flat world, lose the concept of the nautical mile, as it's the same as a regular mile.

Also, lose the majority of Trigonometry, as circles aren't as important. Keep all of Trigonometry that relates to triangles, to calculate position in relation to two fixed points in the sky.

However, if the Seas are Misted-over as often as they say, and so the stars are regularly obscured, throw out Trigonometry altogether; it was purely developed for ships to calculate their position when blown off course, but if you can't see the stars to calculate your position by, then it's completely useless. Ravenloft natives must have found some other solution.

Also, if the Core is on a flat world, throw out the idea of Time Zones. The sun rises and sets at the same time everywhere in the Core.

Also, if the Core is a flat world, then Gravity might take a lot longer to discover. In a flat world, "down" is a consistent direction regardless of position (whereas "down" for in the US and "down" for someone in New Zealand are quite different directions) and as "the world" is not an object, the idea of objects being drawn to each other doesn't exactly seem reasonable. The world, not having boundaries, cannot be seperated from other celestial bodies to see if any of them have pulls on each other.

Not to mention, since flying upwards in a Spelljammer will take you into the Mists rather than into Space, it's pretty much assured that there is no Sun or other celestial bodies out there. As such, there is no gravitational effect from any of those celestial bodies on Ravenloft. Hopefully the Dark Powers would see fit to make the fake sky show a heliocentric panorama which includes odd wobbles between the orbits of the celestial bodies, but if the Dark Powers didn't see fit to do so, Newton's Laws of Motions might be forever beyond the grasp of Ravenloftian natives to develop.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I also think Ravenloft would lack "vandalism" as the Vandals had no presence in the Land of Mists.

Presumably the languages of Ravenloft do have their own words for such behavior, even if the etymology is a little different. ("Tergism"?) I'm not sure that purely-linguistic distinctions constitute a true "absence", and it's hard to believe that Ravenloft's own youths and brigands wouldn't bust up property for the hell of it, once in a while.


I agree about the lack of barbarian raiders seeming a bit bland. OTOH, if you really want them IYC for a particular scenario, the Mists could always plunk a few hundred down wherever you need them.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Also, lose the majority of Trigonometry, as circles aren't as important. Keep all of Trigonometry that relates to triangles, to calculate position in relation to two fixed points in the sky.

However, if the Seas are Misted-over as often as they say, and so the stars are regularly obscured, throw out Trigonometry altogether; it was purely developed for ships to calculate their position when blown off course, but if you can't see the stars to calculate your position by, then it's completely useless. Ravenloft natives must have found some other solution.

The Nocturnal Sea is cloudy all the time, but I don't recall that being true of the Sea of Sorrows, or Souragne's Murky Sea. There are probably enough clear nights for stellar navigation to remain useful.

Also, Mordentshire was already a high-CL seaport when it was carried into the Mists, so it may have "inherited" some trigonometric knowledge from its world of origin. Mordentish navigators' charts would have re-drawn themselves in 579, to erase lands beyond the domain's boundaries (and changed again a few months later, to add the Darkonian coast ), but the principles of triangulation could've survived the transition.

Good catch on the nautical miles and time zones, BTW!



(***rushes off to do a word-search on "nautical mile" and remove it from all the sea-monster submissions***)

[Tykus]

Good catch on the nautical miles and time zones, BTW!

(***rushes off to do a word-search on "nautical mile" and remove it from all the sea-monster submissions***)

I don't think triangulation would be lost just because the world is flat. Things still radiate. And as far as time zones, that'smore a function of distance (at least in RL) than circumference (although it does help). High sun at one end of the Core isn't going to be the same at the opposite end.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

That brings up an interesting question: how does the day/night cycle of various clusters and IoTs match up? Souragne and the Verduous Lands are tropical, so does that mean they receive a fairly constant number of daylight hours throughout the year, while day-length in the Core varies from summer to winter? And are the "daytimes" of the various land-masses in synch with one another, or can it be nighttime in the Core when it's daytime in others?