#dorvinia

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Darklord Ivan Dilisnya

Domain: Dorvinia then Borca Domain Formation: 715 BC Power Level: 💀💀💀⚫⚫ Sources: Secrets of the Dread Realms (3e), Domains of Dread (2e), Realm of Terror (2e), Domains and Denizens (2e), Ravenloft 3e, Ravenloft Gazetteer IV (3e)

Ivan Dilisnya is the Darklord of the former Domain of Dorvinia and now the co-Darklord of Borca with his cousin and aptly named “Dark Twin”, Ivana Boritsi.

Dorvinia was a small region of mountains, evergreen forests, and valleys without any form of formal rule. How it managed to survive for 25 years based largely on the decisions made at the whims of a small, petty man with a love for overacting and toxins is beyond me.

Dorvinia functioned much like how a child would rule a courtroom – bribe the child with the right “toy” and you would find whatever justice they felt like dealing out. Of course, said justice changed from day to day much like a child who enjoys broccoli one day then decides its the absolute worst thing you could put before them the next.

The Dilisnyas’ history in Ravenloft is as old as the first Darklord (but decidedly NOT the first vampire), Strahd. The family was present at the von Zarovich wedding where Strahd thought it was a wonderful idea to murder his brother, then attempt to woo his would-be sister-in-law. We all know how that worked out, but perhaps some of the Dilsinyas had a bit of foresight into these matters, for some claimed illness and left before Strahd’s transformation and murdering of the majority of the wedding guests.

Ivan was born on the same moonless night in December as Ivana. This day is known as the Night of Dead Man’s Get in Borca and every year these cousins celebrate their birthday by inviting everyone to their birthday celebration. Their separate birthday celebrations. It is a way for these jealous, bickering cousins to determine where their subjects loyalties lie. I wonder if anyone has attempted to attend both parties in one evening?

Ivan was cruel at a young age. He enjoyed torturing animals as early as 6 and committed his first murder by 10 by poisoning a young serving girl for the crime of taking a pastry from the kitchen. At 12, with no real motive, he committed matricide by poisoning his own mother in such a way to make it appear that she died of an unknown disease. I, personally, would have named this disease “Ivan”.

Ivan seemed to only show affection towards his elder sister, Kristina. This affection was more akin to obsession than actual love and drove Ivan to acts of violent jealousy. Kristina truly loved her brother and was blind to obvious evil little poisoners ways. Something she would come to regret once she married Edgar Leskovich.

Ivan was the sort that would destroy anyone or anything that stole attention and affection away from him, so Edgar was an obvious threat. The jealousy seethed inside him over the course of their courtship and marriage. Once they had a child, Ivan finally snapped, poisoned them both, adding sororicide to his ledger. The child was saved by their midwife before Ivan could get to them.

Ivan, unable to conceal his crimes from his family, fled into the Mists to avoid their wraith and Dorvinia was formed. A year later he married Lucretia Marzeya. Somehow he managed to go four years without committing uxoricide and Lucretia had three children with Ivan. All of which, he was told, were stillborn. Though, far more likely his wife spirited the children away before Ivan could add filicide to his murder bingo card.

Dorvinia was a short lived Domain, surviving a mere 25 years before it was absorbed by Borca during the Grand Conjunction. Ivan loves to wave his fingers and pout while throwing an overdone and far too dramatically acted temper tantrum and say this is my fault, but he was the one who decided to leave Dorvinia to visit his dear cousin because he was scared of a few tremors.

Ivan now co-rules Borca with Ivana. Ivan never learned how to share, so instead of working with his cousin, Ivan despises her and does all he can to gain favor from the many poisonous peacocks that make up the Borcan nobility.

Ivan surrounds himself with lavish plays, ballrooms, and feasting halls in the Degravo estate, which is well guarded. I suggest never asking Ivan about his “Playroom” unless you want a first hand demonstration of some of his favorite torturing devices.

As a Darklord Ivan is known for his subtle manipulation hidden behind his foppish demeanor, over the top temper tantrums, and, naturally, the ability to poison any object he touches. He is cursed to no longer have a sense of taste. Not to be confused with his love of “acting” and dressing in costumes, this sense of taste is quite literal. Food and drink hold no actual taste to him and turn to ash upon his tongue. This drives him to hold lavish parties where he enjoys serving both delicacies and rotten, maggot covered food. He takes great offense if someone appears to enjoy the food too much or not enough.

One may wonder how such a person manages to maintain loyalty. As Ivan has solved all things in life with poison, it should come as no surprise that he uses poison for this purpose as well. Most of his servants have been poisoned with “Borrowed Time”. These servants will die unless they are administered an elixir, Mercy, each day before sunset.

Ivan continues to age whereas Ivana does not. This leads our jealous, overgrown child to believe Ivana is hiding the secret of mortality and eternal youth from him. Perhaps she is. Who am I to give away such secrets?

Despite his child-like and foppish mannerisms, Ivan should not be underestimated. He holds a powerful position in Borca and can make or break anyone with the wave of his hand. His ability to poison any object has been the downfall to invading armies. Though it was Vlad’s army, so we can’t give him TOO much credit for defeating that failure mercenary. Though, if anyone ever gets a hold of the recipe for Mercy, I feel Ivan would quickly have a rather large uprising to deal with.

Domain: Dorvinia then Borca Domain Formation: 715 BC Power Level: 💀💀⚫⚫⚫ Sources: van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (5e)

Ivan’s ties to Dorvinia are not mentioned within Dr. Ricky’s new guide, nor is he named Ivana’s Dark Twin, but is referred to as her elder cousin. I’m sure Ivan is very pleased by that development and isn’t throwing a temper tantrum right now as he reads this.

His beginnings are similar to previous accounts, though we a few less “cides” checked off on his frequent murderer club card during his childhood. Instead, it was the Dilisnya’s pets and servants that fell to his murderous ways as his parents covered them up.

Ivan had no desire to grow up. Honestly, I can’t really blame him there. Growing up is very overrated. I can’t remember the last time I felt that naïveté of youth that we so often take for granted. Anyway, I digress…Ivan surrounded himself in fantasy to escape responsibility. He indulged in child-like behaviors and crafted toys and games he forced his sister, Kristina, to play with him. His parents, ever the enablers, allowed this behavior to continue and even set up whimsical rooms and diversions for him throughout their estate.

Being a very stable individual, when he discovered that Kristina was being sent away to a boarding school, Ivan snapped and murdered his entire family in a single evening with his toy creations. Perhaps he wanted to fill up his murder club card before it expired.

As the co-Darklord of Borca, Ivan is a feeble, ancient man who uses a large spider pram to get around. The spider pram carries him throughout his estate, which now mostly resembles a demented child’s playroom full of murderous clockwork toys, animals that would be better off in Markovia, and toy-enacted operas. Well, at least he still retained his curse of having “no taste”.

Ivan is afraid to leave his home, so our Tormentors gifted him with the ability to deliver letters to anyone anywhere he pleases. Ghosting him doesn’t work, so try not to get the attention of this childish stalker or after sending you hundreds of letters he may set forth in his trusty spider pram and greet you in person.

He’s also very good at convincing other’s that he’s a helpless child. Well, they say that the best lies are closest to the truth…

Lastly, he can make any toy he desires. Mostly this amounts to servants and fake versions of the family he killed because he’s a sad and lonely man with only a spider pram to keep him company.

He still retains his hatred of Ivana, though it’s more because she now holds the position he was supposed to inherit. Ivan…you did inherit it. Perhaps spend a little less time writing fan letters to everyone and a little more time investigating this little tidbit.

A childish toy maker in a spider pram makes the creepiest of stalkers, but not an overly powerful one. Although Ivan’s toys are immune to Ivana’s poison, his overall presence and influence over the realm of Borca no longer holds the same force that Ivana holds. Despite the lovely spider pram, this new Ivan does not appear to be as powerful as his predecessor. 2/5 Skulls, mostly for the spider pram.

[demiplanardemagogue]

BORCA- Leaked photos allegedly show Ivan Dilisnya is a real manchild- riding around in horrible spider pram. Insider sources- anonymous to avoid death- say that that his infantile behavior in private is quite literal- he calls his torture chambers the Playroom for a reason. His behavior allegedly goes as far as demanding to be addressed in baby-talk.

DISCLAIMER: We use the world “allegedly” for a reason. Also know we at this fine newspaper routinely make use of the detect poison spell, for reasons.

[ivandilisnya]

Yoo-hoo! I'm here!

All right. Who expelled all the darklords from the Core, drew them back in again, and didn't give me a domain? AGAIN?

GODS DAMMIT, AZALIN.

[wanderingjournalofshadows]

principium III

I go ahead and prepare the last bits and pieces for the adventure in the Domains of Dread.

For my Oracle, I've been eyeing for long the One Page Solo Engine which seems to be one of the best options for a lighter Oracle. The good thing is, that this does what it needs to do by itself.

From Inflatable Studios - They also have a handy app version.

There are a couple of questions to be answered still.

How does the character get experience points? Most likely per scene, through acquired gold, and via combat as well.

What if the character dies in the first encounter? In the Domains of Dread, nobody just escapes, the soul remains, darkness engulfs them, and there'll be a story for it.

Doesn't that defeat the feeling of danger and risk? Yes, and no. The idea is to journey through the Domains of Dread, and experience something horrific, while horror is fairly difficult to do in a solo game, but the writing that comes out of it might be a lot more interesting than usual dungeon delving. Also, in itself this is a past time entertainment for myself. I do whatever I want, innit? :)

But where is the challenge then? In the playing itself. Of course I don't want my character to die all the time, plus I really want to enjoy writing the story of the journey. Also learning to play in the older edition again is also quite challenging, with its own philosophy of design and goals.

Where is the backstory of the character? It will be a separate post, because I still need to get my equipment ready, and have some special items that'll let me do some interesting things narratively.

What will be the starting scene? I'll find that out just in a minute!

The Revised Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch is an excellent tool with myriad of tables. I'll start to generate a couple of facts about the place where I'll start. I'll first look into Borca for details that might lead me to more specific things to be generated.

Another good source for more Ravenloft content is Mistipedia (BE AWARE OF SPOILERS) that will help me find certain locations in Borca. One of them being a fairly good choice - Silverton - a small village in the mountains of Dorvinia, ruled by three cowardly adventurers. Perfect.

Let's generate the basics:

The first 'mission' is to Discover the Identity of a Bookseller. Curious, and not your usual monster hunting adventure. Or is it? I'll generate also the Enticements of the Peril - Permit Travel - This is actually amazing - giving me the reward to travel in-between Domains.

For mood I look into some literature:

"Overhead the thunder cracked and roared, and when it ceased and the deathly stillness succeeded, I heard the rustle of movement coming nearer me, and, more horrible yet, perceived an odour of corruption and decay. And then a hand was laid on the side of my neck, and close beside my ear I heard quick-taken, eager breathing."

The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson

Wonderful piece!

And now the location within the village - I'm thinking of the house of the Bookseller, who might be missing right now. The last important event that happened here was Singing or an Unusual Sound (maybe something that could've been heard from the neighbours), also the event involved secret knowledge or secret power – either an attempt to gain it, or an attempt to use it.

The plot thickens!

This is already quite a lot to start on - the character is looking for the Bookseller in Silverton, to figure out the actual identity of the person, in exchange getting the means of transportation out of Borca. Starting in the house of the Bookseller who went missing for a month now, only the neighbours telling about a strange sound and the Bookseller being particularly secretive about certain tomes which got acquired and brought back to the house. The weather is harsh, and has an eerie stillness between the roaring thunders, the house smells like corruption and decay.

A very good start, I'll be getting some equipment together and start a basic backstory for the character the next time!

Cheers!

[simul16]

Somebody's Guide to Whatever This Place Is

Back in September of 2020, on the final day of the D&D Celebration online event, Ray Winninger, the then-newly-installed Executive Producer of D&D announced that three new campaign settings would be introduced into Fifth Edition D&D in 2021. Speculation over which 'classic' settings would be chosen was rampant, and nearly every old setting had folks who were willing to either predict that setting or at least express a desire for that setting to be one of the settings updated for 2021. (The article linked above suggested that Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and Greyhawk would be good choices, but again, this was more 'these are the settings I'd like to see' then 'these are the settings that are most likely to occur'.)

In the six months that have passed since then, we've gotten confirmation on two of those three settings. The first is Dragonlance, in the aftermath of the lawsuit brought by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman related to a new Dragonlance trilogy that was, in theory, going to be pocket veto-ed by WotC, but is now back on schedule to be published later this year.

The second was revealed in a recent product announcement: in May of 2021, a new setting book, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, will be released. Few predicted Ravenloft would be one of the two settings Winninger referred to, as WotC had already released Curse of Strahd, a hard-cover re-imagining of the classic I6 Ravenloft module from AD&D days updated for Fifth Edition, and had at the same time allowed folks to update other parts of the Ravenloft setting to Fifth Edition via the DMs Guild. Now that the announcement is official, I'm filled with trepidation as to what WotC is going to do with the full campaign setting.

There are a number of things WotC could do with the setting that would make me at least appreciate if not love the new version of the setting, but I'm not holding out a great deal of hope that these things will actually happen. Nevertheless, I thought I'd note some of those things here as a preliminary 'wish list' of things that would make me happy about the re-imagined 5E Ravenloft, and more importantly, why.

Break up 'the Core' into Islands of Terror

Curiously, this is something we already know will actually happen in the 5E Ravenloft setting, thanks to information included as part of the announcement. Nevertheless, it's a change that has a number of more traditional Ravenloft fans upset.

"The Core" is a group of domains physically connected into a single giant land mass which can be navigated as any other continent on a campaign world might be, either via road, river, or what-have-you. Those who argue that the Core should remain do so under the presumption that, if you plan to use Ravenloft as a campaign setting, you need a way to migrate from one domain to another. There are some domains that aren't part of the Core, either in 'clusters' (smaller groups of related domains 'clustered' together into geographic units like the Amber Wastes or the Verdurous Lands, or as isolated 'islands of terror'. Since these other domains are separated from the Core by the Mists, they are at least in theory harder to get to; there are a few 'Mistways' which can be used to travel from one domain to a cluster or island or vice versa, but those Mistways are by their nature unreliable, resulting in anything from a small to an almost certain chance of not actually ending up where you intend to go. Meanwhile, simply marching down the Old Svalich Road from Barovia will ultimately and unerringly get you to the next domain along the road, unless Strahd chooses to close the borders of his domain, preventing your escape.

So why am I in favor of this change? Because it makes sense given the existing campaign canon. The last books to be published that actually defined and/or expanded the Ravenloft setting were published under license by Swords and Sorcery Studios back during Third Edition, specifically a series of Gazetteers with the conceit that they were written by a mysterious chronicler called 'S' at the behest of the lord of Darkon, Azalin Rex. Included in that chronicle was evidence that the lord of Falkovnia, one Vlad Drakov, had tired of being continually defeated in his attempts to conquer his domain neighbors (this is, in fact, part of Drakov's punishment as a darklord, that his military, supreme within his own domain, is powerless to project his authority outside it) and allied himself with the new Dukkar and de facto ruler of Invidia, Malocchio Aderre, to invade their mutual neighbor Borca. Whether this is simply accidental genius on Drakov's part, or whether he had puzzled out some aspect of his punishment and decided that an alliance with a power that wasn't subject to his personal curse might serve as a way around that curse wasn't made clear, but the underlying assumption was that given the relative military power of the domains in question, unless Borca's allies in the 'Treaty of Four Towers' came to its defense, Borca would not be able to survive the combined forces of both Falkovnia and Invidia and would fall. More to the point, nothing would prevent Malocchio, who is not a darklord, from entering Borca and removing that domain's darklord (or more accurately, twin darklords). The simplest way for the Dark Powers to enforce Drakov's curse and ensure that his mutual invasion with the Dukkar doesn't succeed, or at least results in such a huge cost that the victory likely won't be worth the price, is for the Dark Powers to close the borders around both Falkovnia and Borca; doing so would turn every passage from Falkovnia or Invidia into Borca into a Mistway, and even such a Mistway with 'excellent reliability' would cause the invading forces to be decimated -- 10% of all the creatures passing through the Misty Border would be re-directed to other locations and would thus be extremely unlikely to be able to contribute to the war effort. For an adventuring party, this is irritating, but for an army, where each different member of a unit is part of a larger structure, randomly removing 1 in 10 members of that army results in organizational chaos and disaster. Add in that communications between the army in Borca and its headquarters in Falkovnia also are now subject to the potential for Mist-led misdirection, and that Drakov, as a darklord himself, is unable to pass over the Misty Border at all, and Drakov's curse seems fairly easily enforced as a result.

But if the Dark Powers are going to isolate Falkovnia and Invidia, why not take the obvious next step and simply isolate every domain in the Core from every other domain? It only makes sense.

There is another reason why such a change makes sense, but it's more properly discussed as part of a larger idea:

Tie the changes to the Time of Unparalleled Darkness

Changes in D&D editions have often resulted in changes to D&D's associated campaign settings. The best example of this is actually the Forgotten Realms. When D&D moved from 1st to 2nd edition, the changes in the rules necessitated by this change were propagated to the Realms as part of a Realms-wide event, known as the Time of Troubles (or the Avatar Crisis), where the deities of the Realms were kicked out of their divine realms by the Overgod Ao and forced to dwell on Faerun in mortal forms. Some deities survived, while others didn't, which helped explain the changes in the world resulting from the changes in the D&D rules (the removal of assassins as a class option was justified by the death of the god of assassins during this time, for example). Similarly, when Third Edition was replaced by Fourth Edition D&D, the Realms was subjected to the Sundering, a worldwide disaster that unravelled the Weave, significantly modified the world's geography, and even posited a land swap between Toril and its twin sister world Abeir to explain the sudden appearance of dragonborn, which went from being an optional splatbook race in Third Edition to a core racial option in Fourth. (Nearly all of these changes were undone as part of the move from Fourth Edition to Fifth, but the Sundering still canonically happened in the Realms, continuing to support the changes in the setting that still needed to be justified by rules changes).

A similar thing occurred in Ravenloft, referred to alternately as the Grand Conjunction or the Great Upheaval (and referred to in even different ways in specific domains, such as in Sri Rajj, where it is called the "Rebirth of Kali"), and resulted in a reshuffling of the Core's domains, with some Islands of Terror becoming parts of the Core (Dominia), some parts of the Core becoming Islands of Terror (Bluetspur, G'Henna), some parts of the core being relocated (such as Markovia moving from a landlocked Core domain to an island in the Nocturnal Sea), and some domains being absorbed into other domains (Arak being absorbed into Darkon, Arkandale being absorbed into Verbrek, Dorvinia being merged into Borca, and Gundarak being split between Invidia and Barovia). PCs had the opportunity to participate in the lead-up to this event through a series of six adventures that represented the six parts of Hyskosa's Hexad, a prophecy from a past Dukkar that presaged massive change and destruction in Ravenloft. So in a sense, simply turning all of the Core's domains into Islands of Terror wouldn't necessarily be the most drastic change that's ever been made to the campaign's setting, but the past changes were at least tied to an in-game event that is both known and is significant to the domain's residents.

The Time of Unparalleled Darkness, another prophecy, though this one not from a Vistani seer but from a priest of the goddess of the Mists, already exists in Ravenloft as a future peril (at least it was in the future as of the current date of the setting while it was in the hands of Swords & Sorcery Studios); tying the 5E campaign changes to the Time of Unparalleled Darkness, and simultaneously advancing the campaign timeline past 775 BC (Barovian Calendar), the predicted year of the Time of Unparalleled Darkness, would further cement the event as part of existing Ravenloft lore, rather than making the changes seem arbitrary. This isn't to say that part 1 above (the breakup of the Core into Islands of Terror) has to be contemporaneous with the Time of Unparalleled Darkness -- in fact, a pretty good series of adventures, not unlike the Hyskosa's Hexad adventures, could likely be written as a prelude to the Time of Unparalleled Darkness, with the rising of the Mists occurring in an early adventure as part of the PCs' investigation into the joint Falkovnian/Invidian invasion of Borca and culminating in the event that results in more signficant changes to the domain.

De-emphasize the role of darklords in the setting

In reading about other folks' opinions on the upcoming Ravenloft book, it's a bit surprising to me how many of them are convinced that the 'point' of Ravenloft as a setting is to throw your PCs against the machinations and the will of the setting's various darklords, and I'll admit that Curse of Strahd, looked at simplistically, doesn't seem to go against this premise. Though much of what the PCs do in Curse of Strahd is only peripherally related to Strahd himself, the PCs can't actually leave Barovia without venturing into Castle Ravenloft and 'defeating' Strahd, which opens the way for them to escape. Because of this, a lot of folks who seem to be opposed to the idea of breaking up the Core seem to be basing their opposition on the idea that it would thus be harder for PCs to 'piss off' a darklord and then escape into a neighboring domain, where that darklord holds no sway. (This seems to ignore that most darklords of the Core have the power to close the borders of their domains, thus forcing irritating PCs to 'stay put' and receive their punishment for defying the darklord's wishes, but whatever.)

I happen to think that this is a fundamental misrepresentation of the role of the darklords in the Ravenloft setting, akin to someone believing that a Call of Cthulhu adventure isn't complete until and unless the characters have come face-to-face with one of the Great Old Ones, from which the adventure takes its flavor and inspiration.

To continue the comparison with Call of Cthulhu, the main conceit of that game is that the Great Old Ones are above humanity; so far so that not only can humanity not deal with the very existence of the Great Old Ones (any human who directly encounters one has their sanity shattered as a result), but that humanity is but a tiny speck against the long-term plans and goals of the Great Old Ones. The Great Old Ones don't hunt down and destroy those who defy them; at best, a Great Old One might wave away such irritations as we would wave at a gnat, but the real 'hunting', if it occurs at all, occurs by the cult (or cults) devoted to the Great Old One who take umbrage at their own part of the grand design being thwarted (even though, again, from the perspective of the Great Old One, it doesn't matter which of their irrelevant minions brings about their will, because they know their designs will ultimately come to fruition regardless). The role of PCs in Call of Cthulhu is not to destroy or even defeat a Great Old One, but to defeat a plan set in motion by the more mundane servants of a Great Old One, thus pushing doomsday off for another time, and for a later group of investigators to discover and (hopefully) thwart again.

This isn't to say that Ravenloft has to become the same game as Call of Cthulhu; most of the darklords in pre-5e Ravenloft were once mortal, so their motivations are not nearly as odd and inscrutable as the alien thought processes of the entities in the worlds of HP Lovecraft: the evils in a Gothic horror story are much more understandable and comprehensible than the evils of a cosmic horror story. I'd even argue that the classics of Gothic horror, on which a number of Ravenloft domains are based, are more akin to classical tragedies -- for example, the hubris of Victor Frankenstein in striving to create life causes him to build a monster and almost create a race of such monsters, and it costs him his own family. Victor Mordenheim's hubris is similar, and creates a similar, though slightly different tragedy. In this sense, one could create a Ravenloft domain based on the story of Oedipus and it would fit right in with the other tragic darklords of the setting. This kind of tragedy has a very different feel than the cosmic horror of Call of Cthulhu, and should feel different, though neither strictly fits within the existing structure of how stories are told in D&D.

The other thing that de-emphasizing darklords allows is for the focus of adventures to be put back onto those who fight the monsters rather than the monsters themselves. It's not coincidental or a surprise that the height of the setting's popularity was coupled with the most popular and well-known character unique to the setting (rather than either of the D&D adventures that preceded it): Dr. Rudolph Van Richten. Van Richten is rightly known for being a monster-hunter, yet never once does Van Richten defeat or even directly oppose a darklord; the only two times Van Richten (in pre-5e material) interacts with a darklord are once very early in his career, when the lich-king Azalin Rex helps Van Richten take his revenge on the Radanovich clan of Vistani for kidnapping his son Erasmus, who is turned into a vampire by Baron Metis, and later when Van Richten's stealthy intrusion into Castle Ravenloft while Strahd "sleeps" serves as the framing device for the self-serving version of Strahd's history related in "I, Strahd" to leak out into the Realms of Dread. Van Richten doesn't even defeat every enemy he comes across: for example, the fiend Drigor, whose serial possession of the Mandrigore family is responsible for the series of books known as The Mandrigorian, notably destroys all of Van Richten's adventuring companions, but leaves the Great Doctor himself alive to pass along the tale (as well as live with the error -- assuming that Drigor, the author of a centuries-long series of texts related to fiends and their relationship with the Lands of Mists, was lawful rather than chaotic -- that directly led to their deaths). Gothic heroes, after all, are frequently just as tragic if not more so than the villains they do battle with, and if they fail, as they sometimes do in such stories, it's that tragic flaw that is frequently the cause of their failure.

And as long as we're discussing Van Richten's tragic flaw...

Bring the setting's treatment of the Vistani more closely in line with their portrayal in Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani

When Chris Perkins set down to write his 'blood-soaked love letter to the Hickmans' that was Curse of Strahd, he largely left the Vistani as depicted by Tracy Hickman in that classic D&D module. This, understandably, was not considered a good move, as Hickman didn't even refer to the Vistani as the Vistani in that classic module -- they were 'gypsies' and served Strahd in an odd and inimical way which left them as representing many long-time stereotypes and prejudices of the actual Romani people. The reaction against that portrayal was one of a number of factors leading to last year's WotC announcement on Diversity and Dungeons & Dragons, and that WotC would be "working with a Romani consultant" to refocus their depiction of the Vistani to avoid these harmful and stereotypical assumptions. While the mention of the Romani consultant certainly helps them make their case that they are taking this task seriously when it comes to the Vistani, WotC already owns a much more nuanced view of the Vistani, if only they choose to make use of it.

To go back a moment to our previous item, Van Richten's tragic flaw is his sense of the rightness of his own actions, a tragic flaw that nevertheless doesn't expose itself until very late in the Great Doctor's career, when he finally comes to understand that his very first act as a monster-hunter, destroying the Radanoviches who were involved in kidnapping his son, caused him to be the target of a deadly Vistani curse. The twist is that the curse is not deadly to Van Richten himself, but to those who stand with him and whom he comes to care about, and it contributes to their destruction while leaving Van Richten himself alive to continue to spread woe just as he also brings hope. (See above for the tale of Van Richten versus Drigor both for another example of Van Richten's flaw as well as the operation of the curse.)

The story of how Van Richten comes to realize he is laboring under a Vistani curse, how he unwittingly cast a curse upon the Radanoviches as well, and how he and a Vistani whom he comes to know and befriend work to overcome their mutual curses forms the framing device for "Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani", written by David Wise, published by TSR in 1995, and inherited by WotC when they purchased TSR in 1998. Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani is one of my favorite game supplements of all time, for any game, and deserves to be remembered as more than just the supplement that provided rules to allow players to make full Vistani characters. The main reason why this supplement works so well (at least for me) is that the supplement humanizes the Vistani by having Van Richten travel with his new Vistani friend and living with different groups of Vistani, learning about them and the strange and wonderful (and terrible) things they can do.

No one doubts that there can be evil Vistani, just as there can be evil orcs, drow, and humans. The issue that some inelegantly fear will happen, though, is that rather than being portrayed as a complex culture of different views and perspectives, the Vistani will be 'Tolkienized' in much the same way as elves were within AD&D, made into a race that is strictly better than human in nearly every way. I don't believe that this is what is going to happen to the Vistani, however; if only because the old-school 'elves are awesome' perspective has already been unwound by the current design team in many ways (for example, by removing the racial-specific requirement to be a bladesinger). My concern is that the Vistani will become just another 'hat' that a PC can put on to look different than the default without actually having to be different from the default.

My biggest piece of evidence in favor of this approach is not the removal of culturally-specific items from each D&D 'race' (like bladesingers, which traditionally were elves, now coming from any race), but an argument made by a former administrator in the D&D Adventurer's League during the season in which Curse of Strahd was the feature hardcover, and in which all the associated AL adventures took place in the domain of Barovia. The first adventure in the series took place in the Forgotten Realms (the default setting for AL at the time), and described a family of wanderers from Barovia who physically resembled Faerun's version of a Romani-type culture: the Gur. It would make sense that typical residents of the Realms, unfamiliar with Ravenloft and their Vistani, would refer to this family as a curious tribe of Gur, since that's the thing they know. But this admin took the comparison a very large step farther, positing that every Romani-like or Traveler-like culture in any D&D campaign world was actually that world's version of the Vistani; in effect, positing the Vistani as a planar culture that simply goes by different names on different worlds. While this might be an interesting idea to posit with a new race of beings in D&D, my problem with this theory is that the Vistani are so closely tied to Ravenloft and iconic to that setting, that simply declaring that the Gur are 'Faerun's Vistani' is just as reductive and stereotypical as saying that the Gur are 'Faerun's Romani'. You're not solving the problem of problematic representation by claiming that every iteration of a real-world culture in fantasy is actually a copy-paste of a single view of that culture; if anything you're reinforcing the idea that any negative view of that culture in any setting is justified in all settings, simply due to the equating of that culture in one D&D world with the same culture on any other D&D world.

So the Vistani should remain unique to Ravenloft, in my view, and while a Romani consultant can certainly help with tweaking the portrayal of Vistani characters and the Vistani culture to be less overtly problematic, I don't see how it helps the Vistani retain their unique character that has helped them become such a well-known part of the Ravenloft campaign setting. More than just about every other work in D&D history, "Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani" actually does this, presenting the Vistani as a unique culture with its own drives, values, and heroes, while showing that the Vistani culture does not always agree with the 'default' cultures presented in other parts of the setting.

Perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised on this topic, and the same designers who ultimately figured out that the alignment rules as presented in the Fifth Edition Players Handbook suggested that sexism was bad, but racism was surprisingly OK and decided to do something about it will take a similarly nuanced approach toward the Vistani in their new Ravenloft setting book. Unfortunately, I think a much more likely approach will be to do exactly what that AL admin thought was such a great idea; since they'll have gone to all the trouble to finally make 'good gypsies' for Ravenloft, they'll save themselves a lot of potential work by simply declaring that every Vistani-like culture in any other D&D setting is just the Vistani by another name, thus making every Romani-like or Traveler-like culture in D&D into the 'good gypsies' by default, erasing any question of cultural complexity or questionable flavor in the hope of being more palatable to a mainstream audience that wants to believe that their new Vistani character is just as good as the default, but doesn't want to be bothered to learn why.

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Darklord Ivana Boritsi

Domain: Borca Domain Formation: 684 BC Power Level: 3/5 skulls Sources: Ravenloft (3e), Domains of Dread (2e), Secrets of the Dread Realms (3e), Domains and Denizens (2e), Realm of Terror (2e), Gazetteer 4 (3e), van Ricthen’s Guide to Ravenloft

Ivana Boritsi is the second Darklord of Borca, usurping her mother, Camille Boritsi when she committed matricide via the traditional Borcan means – poison.  In 740 BC the Grand Conjunction caused Borca to absorb Dorvinia, her cousin Ivan’s Domain. Currently, Borca is ruled by these poisonous noble cousins, but today I am only going to address Ivana’s descent into Darklordom.

Camille wanted nothing more for her daughter to mirror her in every possible way. An admirable goal. What parent would not want to see their legacies carried forward in their heirs? Installing hatred in one of the Bortisi bloodline should not be a difficult task, yet Camille failed to mold Ivana into the man hating daughter she desired.

The young, influential Ivana desired the experience of ‘true love’. Bah. Overrated dribble best left in fairytales. In her search, she found Pieter – a poetic and musician. He, however, showed no interest in Ivana, so naturally she took to pursuing him like a relentless zealot.  He, like the gloriously vain artist he was, only took interest in Ivana when she expressed interest in his art. And so, Ivana became one of the first groupies in Ravenloft…

Camille, seeing her daughter find ‘true love’ in this musical hack, decided to demonstrate to Ivana just how horrible all men truly were. She pretended to be Ivana and came into Pieter’s bed under the cloak of darkness. When Ivana discovered them together, she was devastated. Camille quickly convinced Ivana that Pieter had seduced her and Ivana should kill him for it in the Boritsi fashion.

Ivana saturated her body in a powerful poison that did no harm to her, but allowed her to kill Pieter with a single kiss. Camille had finally obtained the man-hating, poisonous daughter she always dreamed of. Ivana, however, did not see her revenge complete until she mother suffered the same fate as her lover and with Camille’s last breath, Ivana became the Darklord of Borca.

Now, her body is permanently seeped in poison. Ivana is in her 60s, yet appears no older than 18. A gift bestowed upon her by our tormentors, allowing her to stay young and beautiful without the curse of undeath. There is, naturally, always a price for their gifts and though Ivana may give all appearances of the innocent and beautiful young woman, part of her true nature is revealed by the unnaturally and sickly shade of blue that stains her lips and fingernails. Though Ivana hides these blemishes beneath lairs of makeup, I would not be surprised if she was able to convince the Borcans that blue lips and nails are the latest fashion craze.

When she succumbs to mortal slumber, Ivana’s horror is revealed – she appears as if she died from poison – swelled face, protruding and blackened tongue, and the pallor of a blotted corpse. Perhaps this is why she ensures the death of any lover she takes for fear they may see her as she truly is.

As a ruler, Ivana is more interested in funding her lavish lifestyle and manipulating countless courtiers for her to seduce and destroy. When Borca absorbed Dorvinia, Ivana was more than happy to let Ivan take over the political concerns of their realm.

5e Version

In van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, Ivana’s story has changed in some ways and remained the same in others. In this version, both of her parents earned her scorn. Her father for favoring male heirs over herself and her mother for successfully seducing Pieter from her. After Camille’s betrayal, Ivana created aromatic toxins and killed all of her brothers for the crime of being favored by her father and her mother for seducing Pieter.

When her father lay on his death bed, he named Ivan Dilisnya as his heir. Now, of course, Ivana assumed this was because he was a petty man…but perhaps killing everyone with poison in a rather unsubtle means clued your father into your true nature, Ivana. Though, Ivan is a rather poor choice as an heir as well. With his final word, Ivana released another toxic gas and killed her already dying father and their countless servants. A rather pointless act, but it earned her a Domain and the taint of poison beneath her skin.