I have been talking about the AD&D 2nd Edition campaign setting Ravenloft. Every domain in the Land of Mists / Domain of Dread is a copy of some land from one of the other campaign worlds. Darkon and Tovag are copies of old Oerth. Hazlan and I'Cath are from the Forgotten Realms; Thay and Kara-Tur specifically. Sithicus and Falkovnia are from Dragonlance. Lamordia seems to be from an Earth-like world given it has the same months we do. Even Eberron creator Keith Baker has a Domain in Ravenloft from his world.
But there are two notable exceptions.
- First, there are no core domains from Mystara.
- Secondly, the black heart of the Core Domains, Barovia, does not have a "home world."
Why? Because Barovia is from Mystara!
Now, please keep this in mind. None of this is supported by real-world evidence at all. There was no secret cabal of ur-Developers at TSR deciding this was true and leaving breadcrumbs for me to find. This is less than circumstantial evidence. This is full-on Conspiracy Theory, tin foil hat territory. No, this makes conspiracy theories look like rational arguments. This is conclusion shopping at its lowest.
But at least it makes more sense than some conspiracy theories. So adjust your tin foil hat, make sure your webcams are turned off, and your phone is nowhere near because we are going down a rabbit hole.
Evidence From the Novels
The Ravenloft novels...were a wild bunch. But we can at least assume they were canon. In the first one, "Vampire of the Mists," Strahd does not know about Faerûn when he meets Jander Sunstar. Jander also does not know about Barovia. Likewise, in "Knight of the Black Rose," Strahd has never heard of Krynn or Lord Soth, not something that would been true for someone of Strahd's age and position. Everyone knew about Lord Soth. The best evidence comes from "I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire," where Strahd describes his lands and also mentions he has never heard of Azalin (Azalin Rex) or Oerth.
These are all strikes against Oerth, Krynn, and Abeir-Toril.
Most of the novels in the Ravenloft line are self-contained, so no mention either way of what worlds they might be from originally.
Evidence from the Campaign Worlds
Going the other direction, we know that the Gods of Krynn keep a pretty tight hold on their world. So much so that Spelljamming and Outer Plane travel to and from Krynn is very difficult. One more strike against Krynn.
The Forgotten Realms have nearly ever square inch of their world map accounted for. If it had been the Realms, we would have heard about it by now. One more strike against Abeir-Toril. OR at least the Toril part, "Forgotten Abeir" might be a different story.
Dark Sun's Athas is a desert wasteland filled with Psionic-enhanced creatures. So there is no way it is from there.
The World of Greyhawk's Oerth has a LOT of land that is unaccounted for. So, we need to find a way to rule it out based on the campaign setting.
Eberon was not created yet, so that one is out as well.
None of this tells us where Barovia and Strahd are from. It just tells us where they are not from.
So, what does Mystara have to offer us? Well, a lot really.
Mystara
While Tracy Hickman is best known for Dragonlance, that is also one-half Margaret Weiss. So, I am not ready to say Ravenloft is from Krynn based on the Hickman connection alone. But there is another Hickman publication, and it is from Tracy AND Laura Hickman, just like Ravenloft. That is Rahasia.
Rahasia was written by the Hickmans and features body-snatching undead witches, a strong horror trope. Even in the 5e era, The Curse of Strahd adventure, lists Rahasia as an influence. Plus, there are some other solid connections, like finding the same wines in Rahasia's Wizard Tower and in Ravenloft Curse of Strahd. Rahasia is a solid Mystara, or at least a BECMI adventure.
There is also Castle Amber. This Expert Set adventure is explicitly Mystara with the inclusion of Glantri. It also reads like a "Proto-Ravenloft." I have discussed the Castle Amber/Ravenloft connections before.
- Ravenloft / Glantri connection
- Averoigne via Ravenloft
- On the Road to Averoigne
- Castle Amber by Candle Light
- Castle Amber, Butterbeer and the Order of the Platinum Dragon
Averoigne was later added to Glantri and the Amber family is said to have come from Old Earth. In many ways the Earth of the Ambers is very, very similar to the Earth of Ravenloft's Gothic Earth.
So, another set of near-evidence is connecting Ravenloft to Mystara. What else do we have?
The vampires of Mystara are more diverse than vampires of other game worlds. This collection of Vampiric Bloodlines at the Vaults of Pandius attests to that.
Immortals vs. The Dark Powers
Mystara and Ravenloft are both settings largely devoid of gods. There are the Immortals of Mystara that cover the same role as gods, but are explicitly not gods. Ravenloft has its Dark Powers which are also not gods. In fact, there is even some evidence that gods worshiped in Ravenloft might only be reflections of the Dark Powers. This all runs pretty counter to most D&D worlds, especially Krynn and Abeir-Toril where the gods are important and very active in the affairs of mortals.
Could the Dark Powers be Chaotic Immortals? I think that is a question best left un-answered, but it has, to quote Stephen Colbert, a bit of Truthiness to it.
Another factor. Both the Immortals and the Dark Powers have a history of scooping up land, countries, even entire civilizations and hiding them away. The Immortals do this with the Hollow World, and the Dark Powers do it with the lands of Ravenloft.
Barovia could have been scoped up and planted elsewhere, and both the Dark Powers and Immortals could have covered it up. Which does lead into my next point.
Lands
Mystara is a strange patchwork of cultures and lands. Vikings live right next to a Khanate, and on the other side of these steppes is fantasy Wales with bits of Renaissance Italy. These lands only make sense when you realize the Immortals have a hand in moving people around.
Same is true for Ravenloft. Only here, there is less movement.
Barovia is also small, only 24 miles East-West and about 10 miles North-South. This makes it smaller that an average hex on many Mystara maps. A place like could come from anywhere. More to the point it could go missing from anywhere.
Like Mystara, Ravenloft is a hodge-podge of lands and cultures.
Time Lines
Additionally, I can use some dates from the novels to narrow some ideas down. Now, a note about time. Time seems to run differently in Ravenloft, so I can't put an exact formula for it. There isn't one. I just have to try to deal with it. The only hard and fast rule I will adhere to is that there is no travel to the past.
WORKING: Timeline
This timeline is a work in progress with changes being made all the time.
I will add and move details around as I discover them. I am using the Forgotten Realms DR calendar here since many worlds have had interactions with the Realms so it helps with the dating. Any date in Red is a fixed date, one I have confirmation of. I have squared all the dates yet. Part of the issue is that Mystara's year is different from the other worlds. Some of the dates do not line up right yet, I am working on those.
This shorter timeline is based on these works:
- John W. Mangrum's epic Ravenloft timeline.
- Timeline of Ravenloft adventures, found on Reddit.
- The Unofficial Timeline of Mystara
- TIMELINE for Mystara, "Twin Campaigns" version
I still have a lot of work to do on these and some funky math to make them work. This is, of course, assuming that time passes the same way in all the realms, and I am not making that assumption. I could hand wave and say "it fits" but I at least would like to find a large enough whole for Barovia in Mystara to fit.
The Art
This one is a little more interesting in my mind.
Both the early Mystara Gazetteer line and the Ravenloft line share the same artists. Now this is not a huge surprise. There were a lot of books being pumped out by TSR in the AD&D 2nd Ed days and only a few artists. But they typically were used on various projects in various combinations.
Both Mystara and Ravenloft shared the same cover artist, Clyde Caldwell, and the same interior artist, Stephen Fabian. And some of the parallels are striking.
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| Count Strahd (Ravenloft) and Prince Voszlany (Glantri) |
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| Victor Mordenheim (Ravenloft) and Rafiel (Mystara - Shadow Elves) |
Count Strahd and Prince Voszlany look like they are related, and Victor Mordenheim and Rafiel look like they went to University together.
The Caldwell covers are fairly part-and-parcel with the look of Ravenloft from the start. So seeing all the books side by side they do "feel" right together.
Likewise the Stephen Fabian interior art has a dark spookiness to it and his style is so unique that when I picked up a 1990 copy of Anita and saw his art I knew it right away.
Maybe I need to make a witch, named Anita, (or Anita Tina, I always wanted a character with a palindrome name) from Mystara, Glantri in particular, who gets stuck in Ravenloft. I like this.
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Of course, none of this is true. But it feels true, and isn't that better than the truth? At least that is what Leonard Nimoy, the Patron Saint of "In Search Of," has to say.
Links
- Ravenloft / Glantri connection
- Vaults of Pandius Mystara/Ravenloft timeline
- The Unofficial Timeline of Mystara
- Nu-Ravenloft and Mystara: Cosmic Parallels
- Ravenloft / Karameikos map alignment (huge file)
- The Piazza Board
- Strahd von Zarovich was from Mystara?
- Strahd's Home Plane?
- Mystara Connections in Curse of Strahd and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft?
- Reddit: What world was Barovia originally a part of?
- Barovia
- Dragonsfoot with my original posting from the 90s.
- Fraternity of Shadows with a possible DragonQuest connection
Must be something in the air, as I am working on the timeline for my next Mystara campaign, the first in quite some time. It is 5E, so I am revamping (heheh) the map and timeline to include dragonborn and tieflings, and decided to give the whole Karameikos timeline a good once-over... and definitively include Barovia, which I always felt was from Traladara.
ReplyDeleteTaymoran Period
3000 to 2000 BC
Taymor the Unclean, aka Bael Turath the Elder. City-States ca. 3000 to 2500, Empire 2500 to 2000. Undead, Necromancer-Kings, Lycanthrope Legions, Demonolater Corps. Babylonian-Sumerian culture. Empire ends in apocalyptic civil war that shatters the southern lands, creates the Isle of the Serpent (Ierendi) and Southern Isles (Minrothad, Thyatis). Ancestors of the Meditor and Verdier elves settle in forests during the civil war (the Truedyl and Vyalia were always there, hidden in the forests). Taymoran survivors in the northeast form Nithia; those to the northwest form Bael Turath the Younger.
Age of Chaos
2000 to 1500 BC
Age of Savagery. Truedyl command the forests of the west, though their civilization starts to fade; the Vyalia command the forests in the east. Surviving Taymorans in between are reduced to savage hill-clans. Lots of stuff going on in Nithia and Bael Turath the Younger; Neathar tribes move into Nithia, pushed south by the Antalians moving into the modern Northern Reaches. Pflarr creates the Hutaaka at the end of this period; most of them leave him and settle in the Lost Valley in the Black Peaks (a minor dimension along the lines of the Feywild/Shadowfell). The Isle of the Serpent shatters, forming the Isles of Ierendi at the end of this period.
Traldar Period
1500 to 1000 BC
Rise of the Traldar and Nithians. Nithian-Neathar clans, the Ptahr-al-Dar, migrate south into the shattered lands of Taymor. Their civilization collapses and falls into barbarism within a century due to incessant Taymoran hill-clan attacks. Around this time the Hobbits arrive in the west, settling among the Truedyl and form the realm of Suza (predecessor to the Five Shires). The Hutaakans take advantage of the Traldar’s still semi-civilized nature to make their towns client-states to use against the Taymorans. The Traldar form a warrior-dominated culture, push the Taymoran hill clans back into the mountains, and begin their Royal Palace era and expand to the isles of the northern Sea of Dread. Elsewhere, the Nithian Empire rises, and avoids interfering with the Traldar-held territories, though they also settle the isles of the northern Sea of Dread and found more colonies elsewhere. Alphatians arrive at the end of this era.
Early Dark Age
1000 to 600 BC
Beastman Wars. Gnolls from Nithia rampage into the Traldar Lands and destroy their civilization (accidentally or purposefully sent by the Nithians?) Though the beastmen are eventually defeated by the forces of Halav, Petra, and Zirchev, most Traldar die or flee (following King Milen to Davania), though some small towns survive on the coasts, rivers, and on the Isles of Dread. The Traldar Lands become a patchwork of beastfolk, Traldar, and Taymoran hill clan territories. Taymoran hill clans grow in size and power even as the Traldar fade, and move into the vacuum, absorb the Traldar survivors, and culturally evolve into Voldavians.
Middle Dark Age
ReplyDelete600 to 400 BC
Migration Era. Migrations/invasions of Vaarana-Ethengar, Thyatians, Kerendans, Hattians, and others into the region. Elsewhere, fall of the Nithian Empire, ascendancy of the Alphatian Empire, and founding of the Kingdom of Thyatis.
Late Dark Age
400 BC to 1 AC
Rise of the Volagan (Voldavian + Traldar + Thyatian) along the coasts and rivers and the Volszegy (Voldavian + Vaarana/Ethengar + Kerendan + Hattian) in the plains and meadows between the Voldavians and Volagans. Villages slowly grew into towns and towns slowly grew into cities. The Voldavian hill clans recovered first, as the beastfolk and other invaders had concentrated their efforts on the Traldar lowlands and later settlement in the southern forested regions.
City-States Period
1 to 300 AC
Voldavian Golden Age. Early merger of Voldavian and Volszegy clans result in noble families in the Northern Hill Counties of Borjia (Achelos), Chernograd (first Lavv, then Chernograd, then Halavos, now Kelvin), and Barovia (Voldavia, later Rymskigrad, now Penhaligon). “Time of Darkness” with the resurgence of vampirism and lycanthropy. Invasions of the Neureni in 230 (aka Beni Hassock, Alasiyans pushed out of Alasiya by Thyatian colonies) and Tergs (Ethengars) in 320 bring an end to Voldavian dominance… the final nail in the coffin was the utter collapse of Barovia with the disappearance of most of the noble families of Voldavia in 351 AC. The growth of the Volagans in the south push many of the beastfolk tribes north into Voldavian territory, with the resulting chaos ending the Voldavian Golden Age.
Principalities Period
300 to 600 AC
Volagan Golden Age. Regional dominance moves to the Volagan coastal and riverine settlements as they cast off Minrothian and Thyatian influence, even as the star of Voldavia fades after numerous invasions. Rise of the Principality of Marilenev. The shine fades from Volagan power, first after the Great Schism upon the formation of the Church of Traladara ca. 500 AC, then when the Kingdom of Ierendi forms ca. 600 AC and quickly takes over the Volagan trade routes in the Sea of Dread and elsewhere. Just in time for the Volszegy to rise…
Kingdoms Period
600 to 900 AC
Volszegy Golden Age. The Volszegy Kingdom of Volszegorszag unites most of Traladara under the Koriszegy banner. Resurgence of vampirism, lycanthropy, and back magic in the mid-700s from Rymskigrad (previously Barovia, now Penhaligon) weakened the realm, with nativist rebellions following in the early 800s, widening into full-scale civil war by the mid-800s, leaving it wide open for the Tepeshy Orcs to invade late in the 8th Century.
Thyatian Period
900 to 970 AC
Protectorate of Traldara. The collapse of Volszegorszag and the following Tepeshy Invasion gave the new, militant Emperor of Thyatis a casus belli to move in and conquer Traladara, in order to hold off the orc hordes, as they feared another recurrence of the Beastmen Wars.
Karameikan Period
970+
Grand Duchy of Karameikos.
Note: The modern Kingdom of Bael Turath (aka the Turathian Remnant, aka the Demon Pit) is found in the Demongate Mountains (aka the Dwarfgate Mountains), that odd bit of Darokin between the Sea of Grass, Rockhome, Alfheim, and the Broken Lands that was not really ever part of Darokin. It is the fourth Bael Turath, after Bael Turath the Elder (Taymor the Unclean, 3000-2000 BC), Bael Turath the Younger (Darokin/Alfheim 2000 to ~800 BC), and Bael Turath of the Highlands (~800 BC to 300 AC). It was Bael Turath of the Highlands that fought the long Pyrrhic War against the Dragonborn Realm of Arkhosia, which was on the Adri Varma Plateau.
That is great stuff. I'll have to put some more work into this!
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