Café de Nuit

My thread about Inza and Sithicus got me to thinking. I know that quite a bit has been written on the the shape of Ravenloft itself and some stuff about domains (especially in the Personal Canon thread--very useful stuff in that!). And since we have an old thread about canon DLs, how about domains?

Here's my blurb on my version of Nosos, which I put in a cluster with Immerabt (Undead Sea Scrolls 2002, pg. 244) and Mortenhafen called it the Polluted Isles:

Analogue: Culturally none in particular, but comparable to many industrialized societies.
Language: Darassan (Nosos, native), Immeran (Immerabt), Domar (Mortenhafen)
Religion: In the past, the reverence of nature spirits and ancestors was the faith in this land, but few practice it now.
Ruler: The elected council are the official rulers, but everyone knows they are Soreda’s puppets.
Darklord: Mavir Soreda
Major Settlements: Bevingol (pop. 7,000), Ivinor (pop. 3,700), Moregaxx (pop. 50,000), Wulavir (pop. 49,800)
Location: Isolated (Polluted Isles)
Within living memory, the Darassan were an advanced people who strove to balance progress and nature, but those days are over. Now they live in a land marred by toxic waste, where the water is not safe to drink and nearly everyone has a cough.
Child labor is also a particular problem in Nosos; practically every child not of a family wealthy enough (or willing) to pay the mandatory tax (there is a tax for unemployed people under age 60) works around 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. Virtually none of these children receive any education and the earnings they bring their families are only about 1/2 what would be paid to an adult doing similar work. This has put many families in poverty as the adults can’t find jobs anymore; the factories only want to hire children because they get away with paying them so little. The working conditions are also dangerous and too many children are injured or killed every year. It has already become a tradition that most factories are haunted by the ghosts of children who died in accidents.

In addition to this, mercury pollution is becoming problematic as well. The waters in the rivers and lakes are contaminated. The seawater around Nosos is also tainted. This means that seafood and river fish, staples in the diet of the Darassan, are often unsafe to eat. The mercury is taking its toll in another, more mysterious fashion as well—mutations are appearing in the wildlife. Officially, the government denies that any such “weird” creatures exist and treat all such reports with scorn, even going so far as to threaten people who report sightings or encounters with misshapen animals, but the knowledge is growing in the rural areas of the island that these things are real.

Notes: I'm one of those people who habitually multiplies RL's population figures by 10. Even then, many of what are supposed to be major cities are under-populated by comparison to the real world (of a similar level of cultural development).

Immurabt, combining that with Nosos, GREAT idea! Would be interesting to see how those two DLS interact.

I've put Paridon/Timor and Nosos together with a dash of Sharn from Eberron, shaken well and put into a post-apocalyptic Victorian age quasi-Ravenloft setting.

Another domain I decided to revamp is Verbrek. It just didn't seem to have any real background culture, though it seems like the idea for it came from The Howling (but with less obvious sexuality). One thing I learned from history is that France had the most werewolf trials during the witchcraft craze. How does a trial for werewolfism work? Well, lycanthropy wasn't contagious before The Wolf-Man. That movie was so popular that the particulars of the film's werewolf mythology entered the general modern folklore. In the old lore, the ability to shapechange was acquired through a pact with the Devil (cursed werewolves were those transformed into wolves against their will--they changed to back to human only if and when the curse was lifted). So essentially, these guys are shapechangers, not people afflicted with a supernatural disease beyond their control.

In addition, France also has a history with Satanic cults from that era, which evidently went right to the top (an investigation was abruptly dropped when a mistress of the King was implicated). Verbrek's werewolf circle is basically a cult, isn't it? Hmmm.

In the silly RL names thread I was going to rename Dementlieu Belleterre ("beautiful land") and have Dementlieu be a sardonic nickname. I ultimately chose the name Gallaire. I just made that up, going for something that had that "Gallic" sound to it. So I dropped the name Belleterre. You can see where I'm going with this. So I revamped Verbrek as Belleterre, basing it on medieval France. Also, I decided to make it live up to its name, so Belleterre is a land with a lush landscape. Since the Core of my RL is bigger than in canon, I had more room to stock it with more supernatural menaces.'

And with that, I suddenly realized that I had something like Averoigne in Ravenloft. Just with more werewolves.

In the past I have used a Southern Gothic theme for Arkandale and Verbrek, inspired in large part by Andrew Wyatt's reworking of the domain.


I think Belleterre sounds way cool!

You might look into the loup du noir werewolf variant. It's closer to folkloric/diabolical werewolves.

The Lesser Evil wrote:Immurabt, combining that with Nosos, GREAT idea! Would be interesting to see how those two DLS interact.

I've put Paridon/Timor and Nosos together with a dash of Sharn from Eberron, shaken well and put into a post-apocalyptic Victorian age quasi-Ravenloft setting.

I'm guessing would hate Nosos is so full of disease and filth that she probably hates the domain, at least.

Or am I not recalling her personality and history correctly?

ewancummins wrote: Nosos is so full of disease and filth that she probably hates the domain, at least.

Or am I not recalling her personality and history correctly?

You are indeed correct sir, though Unfortunately at the time I had made the setting I had forgotten about Immeraubt, so it hasn't gotten put in yet.

My take on the DL of Nosos is that he's much more about greed than sheer spite. There's still plenty of the latter what with

SpiritCaller wrote:Another domain I decided to revamp is Verbrek. It just didn't seem to have any real background culture, though it seems like the idea for it came from The Howling (but with less obvious sexuality). One thing I learned from history is that France had the most werewolf trials during the witchcraft craze. How does a trial for werewolfism work? Well, lycanthropy wasn't contagious before The Wolf-Man. That movie was so popular that the particulars of the film's werewolf mythology entered the general modern folklore. In the old lore, the ability to shapechange was acquired through a pact with the Devil (cursed werewolves were those transformed into wolves against their will--they changed to back to human only if and when the curse was lifted). So essentially, these guys are shapechangers, not people afflicted with a supernatural disease beyond their control.

In addition, France also has a history with Satanic cults from that era, which evidently went right to the top (an investigation was abruptly dropped when a mistress of the King was implicated). Verbrek's werewolf circle is basically a cult, isn't it? Hmmm.

In the silly RL names thread I was going to rename Dementlieu Belleterre ("beautiful land") and have Dementlieu be a sardonic nickname. I ultimately chose the name Gallaire. I just made that up, going for something that had that "Gallic" sound to it. So I dropped the name Belleterre. You can see where I'm going with this. So I revamped Verbrek as Belleterre, basing it on medieval France. Also, I decided to make it live up to its name, so Belleterre is a land with a lush landscape. Since the Core of my RL is bigger than in canon, I had more room to stock it with more supernatural menaces.'

And with that, I suddenly realized that I had something like Averoigne in Ravenloft. Just with more werewolves.

I really like this, it gels quite nicely with my take on Arkandale/Verbrek having a Canadian feel.

Also have you seen "Brotherhood of the Wolf"? it's a "werewolf" hunt film set in France, goes quite well.

BTW I come from Wales which has the second highest rate of werewolf trials after France

Ah, I learned something new.

I have read about the werewolf trials in France, but I really knew little about such trials in Wales.

The feel I got from Verbrek was a bit Pacific Northwest, but also with a dash of riverboat gambling type stuff from the Southern US. I would also crib liberally from Golarion's Darkmoon Vale, as the Guide to Darkmoon Vale does a very good job of painting a wolf-phobic and generally dark and backwoods terrains vibe while still having the threat of encroaching corruption from certain elements of civilization. I have the Lumber Consortium working as an subsidiary company/agent of Sceleris Industries (a company from Nosos).

ewancummins wrote:Ah, I learned something new.

I have read about the werewolf trials in France, but I really knew little about such trials in Wales.

Same here! I didn't know that about Wales.

And yeah, you can bet that the DLs of Nosos and Immerabt don't get along at all. (I renamed Malus because his name just means something like "Wicked bad" or whatever.)

ewancummins wrote:Ah, I learned something new.

I have read about the werewolf trials in France, but I really knew little about such trials in Wales.

I can't back that up with personal research, but John Landis talked about it when he was filming "American Werewolf in London" here

The Lesser Evil wrote:The feel I got from Verbrek was a bit Pacific Northwest, but also with a dash of riverboat gambling type stuff from the Southern US. I would also crib liberally from Golarion's Darkmoon Vale, as the Guide to Darkmoon Vale does a very good job of painting a wolf-phobic and generally dark and backwoods terrains vibe while still having the threat of encroaching corruption from certain elements of civilization. I have the Lumber Consortium working as an subsidiary company/agent of Sceleris Industries (a company from Nosos).

When the Black Box talked about Nathan Timothy being a riverboat captain, it was very much the paddle steamer variety I was imagining, rather than the small river yacht that was revealed in "the Evil Eye" and I imagined Alfred's domain akin to the "hillbilly" settlements beloved of horror.

After the "Evil Eye" I thought a bit more about the origins of Verbrek and Arkandale, the Timothys are, after all, an old Mordentish family, dating back to before that domain entered the demi-plane. The Mordentish culture has two RW analogues, English and French, with the Timothys firmly in the English camp. Also given how long the Timothys have been in RL it took them quite a while to gain a domain then another quite quickly. The domains are relatively uninhabited, with some settlements on the river, and something about Nathan's quest to escape Ravenloft via it's rivers reminded me of the search for the North West Passage.

I have trouble keeping the pre-GC Verbrek and Arkendale straight in my head, but if I remember rightly Nathan's domain had some small settlements, while Alfred's had none (except werewolves). So Alfred's werewolf followers were probably nomadic, I thought maybe they had created a faux-First Nation style culture, hunting/herding deer/moose through the forest, which would fit with Alfred's belief in "purity"