An Illustrated History of the Core An Illustrated History of the Core Ryan Naylor 0 An Illustrated History of the Core An Illustrated History of the Core Release Date: August 31, 2013. RAVENLOFT® is a registered trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. This book does not represent a challenge to any Wizards of the Coast-held trademarks. Wizards of the Coast is not officially affiliated with this book in any way. This work is copyright Ryan Naylor and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. 1 An Illustrated History of the Core Table of Contents The History ................................................................................................................................ 4 351 BC: Barovia forms. ......................................................................................................... 5 547 BC: Forlorn forms ........................................................................................................... 6 575 BC: Arak forms ............................................................................................................... 7 579 BC: Mordent forms ......................................................................................................... 8 579 BC: Darkon forms ........................................................................................................... 9 581 BC: Bluetspur forms ..................................................................................................... 11 588 BC: Keening forms ....................................................................................................... 13 593 BC: Gundarak forms ..................................................................................................... 15 603 BC: Invidia forms ......................................................................................................... 16 613 BC: Kartakass forms ..................................................................................................... 18 625 BC: Valachan forms ...................................................................................................... 20 630 BC: The Sea of Sorrows forms ..................................................................................... 22 682 BC: Nova Vaasa forms ................................................................................................. 26 683 BC: Lamordia forms ..................................................................................................... 29 683 BC: The Nightmare Lands form ................................................................................... 31 684 BC: Borca forms ........................................................................................................... 32 690 BC: Falkovnia forms ..................................................................................................... 34 A brief history of Drakov's military campaigns ............................................................... 36 691 BC: Tepest forms .......................................................................................................... 38 694 BC: Richemulot forms .................................................................................................. 40 698 BC: Markovia forms ..................................................................................................... 42 702 BC: G'Henna forms ....................................................................................................... 44 707 BC: Dementlieu forms .................................................................................................. 46 708 BC: Arkandale forms .................................................................................................... 48 714 BC: Hazlan forms. ........................................................................................................ 50 715 BC: Dorvinia forms....................................................................................................... 52 720 BC: Sithicus forms ........................................................................................................ 54 730 BC: Verbrek forms ........................................................................................................ 57 736 BC: Daglan forms ......................................................................................................... 59 740 BC: The Grand Conjunction occurs .............................................................................. 61 744 BC: Castle Island forms ................................................................................................ 67 748 BC: Dominia joins the Core .......................................................................................... 68 749 BC: The Grim Harvest begins....................................................................................... 69 750 BC: The Nocturnal Sea forms ....................................................................................... 71 2 An Illustrated History of the Core 755 BC: Necropolis forms ................................................................................................... 73 The Future? .............................................................................................................................. 74 756 – 762 BC: The Gazetteer years ..................................................................................... 75 763 – 775 BC: The Dying Days ........................................................................................... 78 The Weathermays ............................................................................................................ 79 The Dark Twins ............................................................................................................... 81 The Core at War ............................................................................................................... 81 Revolution! ...................................................................................................................... 81 The Becoming Plague ...................................................................................................... 82 Hazlik and the Spellplague .............................................................................................. 82 Elsewhere ......................................................................................................................... 82 Attached Notes ......................................................................................................................... 86 A Discussion of Trade and Urbanisation ............................................................................. 87 A Note on Religions............................................................................................................. 90 A History of the Fiends of Ravenloft ................................................................................... 91 A Timeline of the Major Events of the Core ....................................................................... 94 3 An Illustrated History of the Core The History 4 An Illustrated History of the Core 351 BC: Barovia forms. We all know what leads up to this. It remains isolated in the Mists for nearly 200 years, which (along with centuries of being isolated in the Balinoks before, plus 30 years of war leading up to 351) probably goes a long away to explaining the xenophobic character of the Barovians. Some things may exist in the Mists prior to this point: refugees from the remains of previous Demiplanes of Dread (see RL3e, perhaps including the paka), the Crown of Souls—isolated people, items and Mist horrors with no real solid land to cling to. However, the strong bond Strahd forges between himself and Barovia with his “I am the Land” ritual and the Ba’al Verzi knife (I,SI and I,SII for the discussion between Azalin and Strahd about it) links him strongly enough that when the Mists claim him, they can drag in all of Barovia as well. The 200 years before they drag in the next domain (whose darklord is equally strongly bound to the land, you will notice) may be due to them recovering their energies, or just observing what’s going in Barovia. 5 An Illustrated History of the Core 547 BC: Forlorn forms Most of the few remaining humans (those not turned into goblyns - all druids (Gaz I, Castles Forlorn, but not I, Strahd II)) flee into Barovia, and most settle around Immol (Gaz I). Over the next few years, Strahd orders the counstruction of the Bogie Towers along the border to fight goblyn incursions (Gaz I). I, Strahd II has a couple of interesting things to say about this (if we can believe Strahd). First, is that the druid Strahd meets is quite unconcerned about the conjunction, and that something is therefore affecting the minds of everyone involved except him (all the NPCs, if you will). Also, the joins are seamless. So neither the people nor the land show major signs of being joined. Also, Castles Forlorn implies (although doesn't state, so this is supposition) that Forlorn hasn't been copied so much as ripped straight out of the ground (evidence being the earthquake damage and so on). Perhaps that's why it's so small? Also, it's interesting to note that both the original darklords