Café de Nuit

I reda through teh domain descriptions and can't get a clear real world reference idea from this country. the Gaz mixes american natives with Swedish names and black panthers set in Norway/Canada-ish country. And the Darklord is just plain weird. Can someone give me some background insight on how I should see this country or what it is based on.
I'm tempted to drop all panthers and let the Wendigo play a major role in Valachan. What do you think about this idea?

I don't think Valachan has any real world references directly as far as I know. Bits and pieces are likely from the world somewhere. I found a lot of similarities between Bulgaria and Barovia that most people may miss so there may be direct comparisons somewhere.

Now Myself and Jinn Tolsler have used Valachan in our games and its been quite successful. The one slight problem with Valachan is its sort of just Blah boring. Half the people or more are dominated by the darklord, and the darklord himself is often seen as stale due to unconscious comparisons to Strahd; who is considered THE Vampire of Ravenloft. Now what I did in my game is have uneasy alliances between Valachan and another domain(s) that added spicing to things. Or you can have some of the darklord's dominated people regain their senses somehow and cause a rukus so to speak.

Getting rid of the panther for a wendigo is a good idea, but personally I like the panther theme of the domain.

Yes, the domain is pretty disjointed. The forests seemed to call to mind redwoods so the people and the land seem to fit together, but the panthers, elves, gnomes, and nosferatu vampires stick out a little. Part of me worries that we just can't handle a Ravenloft domain without a clear cultural anchor, but Darkon works alright and Valachan never seemed interesting on its own so oh well.

Suggestions to fix Valachan by adding a culture have included Spain and Spanish South America (which, would at very least, would make the natives and forests and Panthers - now Jaguars - fit, although the forests would have to be changes to rainforest rather than redwood).

The wendigo brings to mind Vorostikov, but no one goes there either... so it can't really hurt the place.

I suppose one could justify the disjointed feel to the domain, if you consider how Von Kharkov doesn't really know what he is or what sort of environment he wants. His panther side wants pristine wilderness, his nosferatu side wants an ignorant, submissive population to feed on, and his wanna-be-a-man side wants a reasonably-civilized culture where he can fit in. As there is no such place, and deep down he knows that's true, what he winds up with is a realm that partakes of his own hodge-podge nature.

Granted, that's an after-the-fact rationale for what's really just an experimental blending of IRL cultures, that didn't work out the way the writers hoped it might. But unless we want to trash the Gaz IV version and start from scratch, it may have to do.

The panthers don't seem all that odd to me. We have big cats in the Pacific Northwest, along with redwoods and Haida Indians [although the Haida live further north than the redwoods].

Note on mountain lions: people call them all sorts of things, but mostly we call 'em cougars or mountain lions. I've also heard people in other parts of the country call them catamounts, panthers, and pumas.


Oh, and jaguars used to live as far north as Arkansas. I'm not talking about little ocelet cats, I mean real jaguars.

Well, the Core's mixture of wildlife -- or the typical D&D setting's, for that matter -- has never matched what you'd find in any one part of the IRL world. The "small animals" table in the Black Box listed opossums and raccoons on the same table as hedgehogs, for cryin' out loud!

Very true!

Personally, I like the mixture of Old World and North American critters.