Talk:Ravenloft

Arthaus

Arthaus is not a sub-imprint of White Wolf, they are an independent company with close family ties to White Wolf. Avador 17:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• There was a PC game released around 1995 or so called "The Stone Prophet" which was based on this (or at least, the packaging was plastered with the Ravenloft logo). I think it may have been a sequel to another game called "Strahd's Possession". Neither of these seem remarkable enough to earn their own writeups, but they may be worth a mention in the Ravenloft writeup if anyone actually knows anything about them. --202.63.63.149 05:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Gothic and Goth

Please, do not confuse Gothic (especially Gothic novels) with Goth. Goth is a modern subculture, which Ravenloft is not based on. Ravenloft is based on Gothic novels. Kel-nage 22:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

• The terms "Goth" and "Gothic" both mean at least several different things in different contexts. However, I'm not sure there is always a clear cut line between these different things. These terms can refer to an East Germanic people, culture, language, etc.. In this context, I've seen the term "Goth" used as a noun and the term "Gothic" used as a noun in the context of the language and as an adjective otherwise. The term "Gothic" can refer to the modern subculture. However, I've also heard the term "Goth" used as an adjective in the context of the modern subculture. Gringo300 (talk) 02:36, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Dark Powers speculation section?

I'm wondering if this section of the article should be included at all, or at least trimmed down. For an encyclopedic entry, there is more space devoted to speculative info than there is on actual facts.Bluebomber4evr 19:38, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

• I concur, and unless opposition is presented forthwith, I'll start pruning the section down. --Agamemnon2 10:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Toss it ASAP. Blatant original research. Cheers --Pak21 10:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The article says that the Dark Powers are explained in more detail in the novels. Could someone elaborate? I'm curious.--24.255.171.220 (talk) 12:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• The only one I'm aware of is Lord of the Necropolis, which was declared non-canon by the editors of the line at TSR at the time. Bluebomber4evr (talk) 20:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What does it say about them?--24.255.171.220 (talk) 14:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Reviews of products?

Are reviews of Ravenloft products from websites such as RPGnet suitable as third-party sources?--Bluebomber4evr 00:08, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

What editorial control is exercised? If anyone can post, no. --Pak21 08:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Rudolph van Richten link

The See Also section has a link to a nonexistent Van Ricten page. Did there used to be a page for this? It's strange that it's in a link section but it doesn't exist. Is the link broken or something? Valacan (talk) 19:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

D&D insider

should the latest D&D insider article "Domains of Dread", which resurrects aspects ravenloft in the shadowfell, be mentioned here? Domains of Dread looks to be the start of a recurring column (not necessarily monthly) that will detail different domains and their "dark lord", a clearly Ravenloft concept. Serphet (talk) 17:22, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge

Should this be merged with Ravenloft (Dungeons and Dragons Module) Tanderson11 (talk) 20:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to go with... no. ;) The original module and the setting are clearly related, but fairly independent. BOZ (talk) 21:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with BOZ; they are distinct parts of D&D and should, at least at this time, have their own articles. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Inspirations

This section was removed from the article for being unreferenced. I think we really do need something on the development of the setting and its characters, but I agree that we need sourced information. Perhaps some of this could be reintroduced if it can be linked to a reliable source.

Ravenloft (RL) is noted for its use of analogues of fictional characters from Gothic and horror literature and, rarely, historical figures. Examples include Count Strahd von Zarovich and Vlad Drakov, who is analogous to Bram Stoker's character Count Dracula and his historical inspiration, Vlad Ţepeş, respectively; Doctor Victor Mordenheim and his creation, Adam, analogous to Mary Shelley's characters Doctor Frankenstein and his Creature; heroic Dr. Rudolph van Richten is analogous to Abraham Van Helsing; and Frantisek Markov, an analogue of H.G. Wells' character Doctor Moreau. The Vistani are a horror-film-inspired stereotypical representation of Gypsies. The Vistani often have fortune-telling powers, often using the Tarokka, a fantasy version of the divinatory tarot.

Other notable mirror images in Ravenloft included Sir Tristen Hiregaard and his alter ego Malken, who are also directly inspired from the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story (written by Robert Louis Stevenson); a lesser known Darklord by the name of Maligno (a puppet that comes to life) who is an obvious darkly twisted version of the Carlo Collodi's "Pinocchio" story; an antagonist character named the Midnight Slasher, who is based on Jack The Ripper; and the three hags who are closely related to the three witches in William Shakespeare's Macbeth and to other mythological female trios that predate the play.

In addition to borrowing from the world of literary horror, Ravenloft incorporated characters and features from existing Dungeons & Dragons settings. Lord Soth, a villain from the Dragonlance setting, appeared as a darklord in Ravenloft, as did the Greyhawk lich-god Vecna and his traitorous former lieutenant, the vampire Kas. The Lost King Gondegal, from the Forgotten Realms setting, also appeared, though not as a darklord. These are examples of characters already well-established in their respective origin campaign settings. Some Ravenloft characters were given backstories saying they hailed from existing campaign settings, although in some cases the original settings have no record of them. The lich Azalin Rex was retroactively attached to Greyhawk, for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.153.84.10 (talk) 19:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The Original Realm of Terror boxed set, explains pretty explicitly the sources of inspiration. Both providing a reading list and describing the Gothic Tradition the designers believed Ravenloft to be a part of. In terms of Victor Mordenheim being an analogue of Dr. Frankenstein or Strahd being a Dracula analogue, it seems pretty obvious on the face of it. And surely its been mentioned in an interview somewhere with one of the Ravenloft design team members. BlennGeck (talk) 21:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the game materials themselves ideally explicitly identify what existing material served as inspiration. However, I think it's a bit too much original research to take a list of sources of inspiration and start mapping the list onto the characters without clearly defined statements. For me, "it's obvious" is a poor argument for why more clear sourcing isn't needed. In other words, if they say "Mordenheim is based on Frankenstein," all well and good, but I think simply using Frankenstein being listed as a source to claim that Mordenheim is based upon him would not really be appropriate. Not sure I'm expressing myself well, but hope I'm getting my meaning across. Doniago (talk) 21:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I think I get what you're saying, but it's all pretty simple really - we need to go by what the sources say, and not try to guess (even if the answer seems obvious). 129.33.19.254 (talk) 21:24, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Thanks! Doniago (talk) 21:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Then I suggest we include the official list of inspiration from the black boxed set (and any relevant passages that shed light on Ravenloft's connection to Gothic literature. I would also suggest people keep their eyes open for interviews from designers that may shed light on this. It may be tricky because it is such a small industry and doesn't get a lot of mainstream coverage. But I would be suprised if there aren't some reliable interviews out there that address some of this. Will start looking myself. BlennGeck (talk) 21:33, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good - anything solid from Ravenloft: Realm of Terror should be nice. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 22:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• From what I can tell, the domains of Ravenloft are predominantly based on Earth countries/cultures and Earth historical periods. Gringo300 (talk) 02:40, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, if we get a source to confirm that, we will be all good. 24.12.74.21 (talk) 03:31, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

External links

The external links have been removed for reasons of WP:ELNO. For most of them I agree, as they are 11. - Fansites, and the link to White Wolf is dead.
But can anyone point me to why Secrets of the Kargatane and TSR Archive should be excluded? The former was the offical website sanctioned by Wizards of the Coast, after all - and if it is no longer, all the usefull stuff expanding Ravenloft is still there. The latter provides a list of published material by TSR, which the article does not (yet). Daranios (talk) 19:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

The TSRInfo.net link was down when I initially checked it, but now seems to be up again. Please don't take this as "what I say goes", this is just my interpretation, but I believe that the TSRInfo.net link fails WP:ELNO #1 (and from my personal experience, #16). For the Kargatane link, I couldn't find anything outside of the website itself that showed that it was considered official, is there a link that can be provided to verify this? - SudoGhost 10:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, about the Kargatane: the Ravenloft entry of DROSI and RPGGeek say it is official, while Websters says is was the largest online source for Ravenloft once. The question here is, do these just quote the Kargaten page or not, and are these sites "respectable" enough? I guess there has to have been some kind of announcement from Wizards somewhere (maybe in Dragon magazine?), but I do not have it available.

About TSR Archive: I conviced it's stable again, having changed domain (?) once over its history. It seems, alas, to fall under #1. (One more guideline I do not find helpful - why exclude this helpful link now, just because it might no longer be necessary at some point in the future? - Sigh.) Daranios (talk) 20:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I had removed them along with the others because the first was not working (for whatever reason) and the second link, upon cursory inspection, did not give the appearance of an "official" website. However, I tried to recreate the issue I initially had with the TSRInfo.net site, but could not. Perhaps it was a one time thing that just happened to have occurred when I was checking the link, or perhaps it was an issue on my end. With that in mind, and the links you provided above, I don't have any objection to those two sites being reintroduced into the article. - SudoGhost 04:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Great! In that case I would re-introduce those links again for the time being. We can get rid of the TSR Archive links, when someone found the time to integrate a list of publications in the article. Daranios (talk) 17:25, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified

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Worth mentioning?

Would it be worth mentioning that Fraternity of Shadows with its occasional dark red, dark blue, and brown text on a black ground is effectively unreadable?--216.218.97.10 (talk) 04:23, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion such a mention would only have a place here if it was supported by a secondary source, not as an observation by us as editors only. I see that we have used Fraternity of Shadows as a source only once. That page with its (normal?) red on black personally seems ok to read to me. Daranios (talk) 07:23, 2 July 2021 (UTC)