Café de Nuit

What real world regions have similar geography to domains. Ex: Is Barovia Geographically similar to Romania. Please note: I mean purely in terms of landscape.

I've been in southeastern France lately and although I wasn't in the Pyrénées per se, the landscape did strike me as Barovia. In particular, I went to castle Puilaurens and for me, it was like seeing Castle Ravenloft. The castle was about 300 meters towering the village, you need to follow a circling trail going around the castle's peak.
Look at this picture: http://aubergelapetiteourse-axat.com/puilaurens.jpg

Val Vigezzo, here in Italy, was looking awfully alike Barovia, this November.*

I think the geography of Ravenloft is not a matter of places, but of atmosphere.

*Damn, if I only brought a camera! It was just like Barovia...

The thing about Romania is that it has a very varied landscape. There are gentle hills and fields, massive mountains covered in vast forests, barren plateaus with only tufts of grass and the occasional small tree, hills with grazing fields so steep that if you trip you won't stop rolling until you get to the bottom, and deep gorges and valleys. Of course, Barovia isn't so much Romania as it's Transylvania, and the geographical likeness is very obvious, although Transylvania's mountains don't rival Barovia's. The settlements are also very Barovian; small villages with thatched-roof buildings, huge haystacks set out to dry, and farmers who still use wooden implements and use horses and wagons for transport.

This is true. I spent the better part of 18 months living in the Transylvania/Wallachia and talk about your breathtaking landscapes!

I have plenty of pictures, so if anyone is interested I will scan them in. Email me: frostfyre7@gmail.com

Funny, but Dracula is rather a national hero there...folks admit that Vlad Tepes was an extremely brutal ruler, but by golly did he keep people in line! :p (Among the photos I have are several of Castelul Bran, which is billed as "Castle Dracula")

Jakob wrote:Val Vigezzo, here in Italy, was looking awfully alike Barovia, this November.

Alot of Italy reminds me of game worlds. Especially the small towns.

If you want a good feeling of a palace, without the crowds, o to a city called Viterbo, and go to the Pope's Palace. A great place to dream up games.

Well, I'm living in Ferrara in Italy and with the high humidity there is very mucg fog, so I guess, it looks like Paridon. But Paridon is like London as well!

Ronia Sun wrote:Funny, but Dracula is rather a national hero there...folks admit that Vlad Tepes was an extremely brutal ruler, but by golly did he keep people in line! :p (Among the photos I have are several of Castelul Bran, which is billed as "Castle Dracula")

Very true. And he did actually do quite a lot of good for his people, even though he had a remarkably brutal and cruel way of doing so.

And Bran is one of the coolest castles I have visited, with a very unique construction; it sits on a relatively small area, so it's built up instead of out, with several narrow staircases in the walls and many floors looking down on the tiny courtyard.

Dracula's real castle is also impressive (ol' Vlad never had more to do with Bran than a short siege), even though there's only ruins left of it. It's perched on a massive cliff at the end of a canyon, hundreds of meters above the river and road below, with an amazing view of the valley. It's very Castle Ravenloft.

Point is, historically, Vlad wasn't that bad. Most historians see him as one of the most possitivie figures of the age... Which says a lot...

I spent two weeks in Romania as part of a student exchange... Impressive, just impressive if one has a romantic heart...

As to Barovia, in terms of people, it's BA-VA-RIA...

In the face of the greatest enemy of Europe at the time, the Turks, Vlad did indeed fight valiantly. The Europeans would of course look up to him, as did those under him who benefitted from his defense.

Mordentshire presumably is southwest England, with the moors of Dartmoor (location of the Hound of the Baskervilles), Exmoor and Bodmin (which also has it's own spectral beast). I alway imagine the coast and Mordent to be like the coast of Cornwall (rugged coast, tin mines, coastal villages falling into the sea) with Mordent like one of the small coastal villages nestled along the Lizard Penninsula. Also, parts of Galway in Ireland perhaps.


Forlorn - no duh - Loch Ness, Rannock Moor and Glencoe in Scotland. Although the Eilean Donan area also would be a good model.

Pont-a-Museau - architecturally Venice (perhaps parts of Siena). I always imagine Port-au-Lucine to be a cross between old Vienna and Versailles and Karina to be Prague.

Kartakass - Bavaria, the Black Forest.

Nova Vassa - the Russian steppes?

I'd think of Nova Vaasa more as the American Midwest, especially the Ohio River valley (well, before industrialization came along). Nova Vaasa is pretty heavy on rivers, which the steppes don't have quite as many of.

doctor-evil wrote: Kartakass - Bavaria, the Black Forest.

More like Ungary or indeed Romania, I would say. Fits better regarding the names as well...

Rafael wrote:

doctor-evil wrote: Kartakass - Bavaria, the Black Forest.

More like Ungary or indeed Romania, I would say. Fits better regarding the names as well...

Hmmm,

But doesn't culture in Kartakass lean heavily on Wagner's 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg', with a liberal dose of the Brother's Grimm? Certainly, culturally, Kartakass is very 'olde worlde' Barvarian.
But Kartakass is relatively flat, so I don't see it being like the Carpathians.

Thinking about it Kartakass is probably, geographically, more like Finland (forest, flat, dotted with lakes and rivers).
(see at www.borealforest.org/world/world_finland.htm)

NeoTiamat wrote:I'd think of Nova Vaasa more as the American Midwest, especially the Ohio River valley (well, before industrialization came along). Nova Vaasa is pretty heavy on rivers, which the steppes don't have quite as many of.

Have a look at some of these pictures from Mongolia for rivers...

[http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... en%26lr%3D][/url]