Café de Nuit

How fast does news spread through the core? If a (seemingly) natural disaster strikes Darkon, how long before the people of Dementlieu or Nova Vaasa hear about it? Is there anything even resembling a newspaper or almanac published anywhere in the core? What do you guys think?

Both are still constrained by the same absolute upper limit on speed, which is probably the speed of a fast horse. In pre-printing press eras, only the most crucial pieces of news, with a specific target in mind, would make it that fast and the rest would probably filter through at a more leisurely pace. If you're talking about messenger birds (and somebody on these boards had an excellent idea that Drakov's hawks were messenger-bird-interceptors, giving his nation a massive advantage in espionage) then the printing press itself won't help much - the birds usually only carry one or two short messages each, and printing copies doesn't give much more of an efficiency advantage than handwriting a missive does.

Printing presses probably help a lot more in the consistent dissemination of information - the story will still be the same after the newspaper or pamphlet has passed through the hands of twenty people. Relying on word of mouth does not guarantee that, as messages get garbled and confused with retelling. The main benefit of print is not so much speedy dissemination as the fact that it will be the same time and time again. For academic books, political pamphlets, and lordly decrees posted in public areas, this is an important factor. If you're just focused on speed, however, like getting an essential order to a distant general, then handwriting and carrier-dispatch is still the best idea.

Realms with magical means of communication will probably still want to use them. Given the relatively low-tech nature of these realms and the authoritarian method of rule, these will likely be the sole province of the political elite.

Realms with a significant printing industry will probably also experience a greater social trend towards literacy. It may be too late for the current adult generation of laborers to take enough time to become fully literate, but the savvy ones will try to make sure their children do get the chance to learn.

I think HuManBing has the right of it, at least with the general populace. Certain information that is priority to certain people and organizations will travel much faster and much more accurately - after all, it is a magical, fantastic environment, and spells or auguries or portents and so on can be used. But Johnny Butcher at the corner chopping block doesn't have access to that sort of knowledge about current events. Also, a lot of Ravenloft is built with the "scared and superstitious peasant" in mind - maybe not in Dementlieu and Richmelout, but I think it is reasonable to expect ignorance of and even embellishment on certain tales - factual or fictional.

However, I think in the domains with higher cultural levels, there will be a greater level of literacy and interest in current events. A commoner from Dementlieu is probably going to know more about what's happening in Darkonese politics than... well, a Darkonese commoner.... At least, that's my take on it.

I am curious in real life in the middle ages, writing was done by hands, often by those trained by the church. Would the various poorer domains have any tradition of writing, even if it was for a tiny group?

Though I disagree with you Pale, that a dementlieuse commoner would know about Darkon then a darkonese commoner. The Printing presses in Dementlieu are afaik are a recent invention I believe so I would Imagine it is similar to the movable type printing press that Gutenberg invented.

Herkles, I may have been indulging in a bit of hyperbole.

In essence, I think that someone in Dementlieu is going to have a larger grasp on, say, "interdomain politics" than someone in Darkon or Falkovnia. But that's me believing that Dementlieu folk are going to be more literate and more involved in discussion, whereas people from Darkon and Falkovnia are more likely to be disenfranchised serfs and peasants, rarely seeing beyond the next township. I could very well be wrong about that.

As for the middle ages, I think you're correct - church scribes/monks hand-copied texts (and added the illuminations) and bibles. I'm not sure if that same practice is going to be repeated in every domain, but I also seem to remember that "scribe" was a pretty distinguished job in ancient Egypt - and it was a way that the priesthood retained some of its power and mystery. But that's also fuzzy memory on my part speaking. Still, that might give a few souls in Har'akir some tradition of writing.

Pale wrote:Herkles, I may have been indulging in a bit of hyperbole.

In essence, I think that someone in Dementlieu is going to have a larger grasp on, say, "interdomain politics" than someone in Darkon or Falkovnia. But that's me believing that Dementlieu folk are going to be more literate and more involved in discussion, whereas people from Darkon and Falkovnia are more likely to be disenfranchised serfs and peasants, rarely seeing beyond the next township. I could very well be wrong about that.

If you are a DM, you cannot be wrong about it. Whatever's true in your campaign is the truth, 'canon' be damned.

I am curious in a land like say Barovia where most are illiterate and not religious, who would be the ones to make the books?

Well, in the example I gave about the Egyptian scribes, I think that the foundations were in accounting. So, for Barovia, maybe the burgomeisters? Keeping records of births, deaths, crop collections, taxes?

Pale wrote:A commoner from Dementlieu is probably going to know more about what's happening in Darkonese politics than... well, a Darkonese commoner....

Although this portion of your post has been queried, I would like to point out that it's sometimes feasible for this to be the case. One realworld example was when the Chinese leadership was due to change around 2001-02. Common Chinese citizens knew nothing about this, and they occasionally discussed this topic with me. When I said that I believed Jiang Zemin would step down and Hu Jintao would be promoted to president, they marveled at my theory. In late 2002, when this actually came to pass, they were amazed and asked how I could possibly have known this would happen.

I don't have any connections to the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party (as far as I'm aware, anyway) but I do have access to outside news sources, and there was plenty of speculation about the imminent power shift in foreign newspapers and magazines. Even though China is not too far behind the West technologically speaking, it is under an authoritarian government that restricts the public discourse of politics. The West comprises mostly open societies, that are either indifferent to public political discourse or in some cases encourages it.

I bring up this analogy because the specific nations Pale mentioned strike me as falling perfectly into this societal distinction. Darkon is the sort of place where the ruling class takes a great interest in making sure the common man has absolutely no interest in commenting on the workings of politics, and certainly not King Azalin himself. Dementlieu is the sort of place where it's nominally fine to talk politics with friends and discussion partners.

HuManBing, that is exactly the sort of parallel that I was thinking of, but you stated it far more eloquently than I did. And that is exactly why I used the example countries I did.

I think printing presses specifically would be prominent in domains you would expect: Mordent, Dementlieu, Lamordia and maybe Ricehmulot. It might come down to the way you explain Cultural Level in your campaign. For instance, Mordent and Dementlieu have the same cultural level, but they appeared 128 year apart. Did Mordent always have this cultural level, or did they develop it over time; And if they developed it over time, why didn't the domains they had contact with develop it also?

Gutenberg's printing press was invented in 1439 and probably in wide use within 20 years. This actually places the technological ability to possess such a device within the reach of most CLs in the Core. Still, individual lords would be in a position so suppress such a device, and its use, depending on their schemes.

Dominc, for instance, would most likely love the quick dissemination of information in his domain, and would possibly sponsor more than one newsbill, perhaps playing them off one another. Within Dementlieu, information wold most likely travel quickly.

Between domains, probably slower, and on a more personal level. The destruction of Il Aluk would be noticed rather quickly by neighboring domains whose economies dealt heavily with the large population center. But as was said above, the tale would likely be embellished beyond any stretch of truth by the time it got a few towns away.

On a smaller scale, perhaps a merchant that made the long trek across the Balinoks to trade in Nova Vaasa had not heard that Prince Othmar had not turned over his crown like everyone expected him to. He would be surprised on his arrival to be dealing with the Bolshniks.

It's also important to remember that basic printing presses have been around for far longer than Gutenberg. His primary innovation was to invent moveable type, as Herkles points out. Moveable type means you can arrange a new layout much faster.

But woodblock printing had been used for textiles in China since the late 200s and for widespread paper printing from the late 500s. Woodblock printing has the disadvantage that it's cumbersome to set up (you have to carve a block of wood with the entire script, in negative, and mirrored). Essentially you're chiselling out a first copy of the book much more slowly than it would take to just hand write the thing... but then once you're set, you can use that one woodblock to make as many copies as you have paper and ink.

Gutenberg's innovation meant that you could reuse the same press over and over again for different layouts, meaning that one publisher could put out many more books in the time it would take a Chinese woodblock carver to do the same with a few. The number of different books increased because of this, even if the technology to make copies of any given book had been around for a millennium before.

(For Sinophiles out there, there remains some debate over whether Gutenberg actually invented moveable type or whether the Chinese beat him to that, too. Certainly the economics of using moveable print for Chinese characters is somewhat less favorable because there are 26 Latin alphabets but hundreds of Chinese characters.)

Wasn't trying to undercut the significance of Chinese contributions to science, HMB. I figured Gutenberg's individual contributiion was a good milestone to line up with a Cultural Level as it translates to purposes of Ravenloft. Just wanted to show you don't need to be early Rennaisance to have access to the technology.

Pale wrote:Well, in the example I gave about the Egyptian scribes, I think that the foundations were in accounting. So, for Barovia, maybe the burgomeisters? Keeping records of births, deaths, crop collections, taxes?

I very much like the idea of the burgomeisters and their clerks being the literate class in Barovia. Merchants will also find literacy useful for record-keeping. It makes sense to me that, with no great church libraries and no universities, Barovia just doesn't produce many books or writers. Makes sense with the way I conceive of the country.


There are some churchmen, of course: cultists of the Morninglord. Do they have an extensive written tradition?

I seem to remember, in the original I6 adventure for Ravenloft, that Strahd had a living (albeit crazy) bookkeeper chained to his desk on the second level of mapped floors. I don't have the book on me, of course, but I think he was named, etc.

Strahd also strikes me as someone who would be very keen on records. Not necessarily the history of records, but the fact that he would have accountings coming in to his castle on a consistent basis. I think that as part of the "I am the Land" schtick, Strahd would be very keen to make certain that he is getting what is due him, would be very keen to be able to tally everyone up into graphs and sheets.

I don't mean to say that there beats the heart of an accountant in Strahd, but perhaps a miser. He wants what he owns, he likes to see what he owns.


As for the bit of Egyptian history, I'm drawing this from memory, so you'll have to forgive any oversights or errors. I believe that the Egyptian priesthood kept a lot of records for the court, so you had scribe and priest in close quarters. The first writing, I think, was for records - keeping track of harvests and stored grains. I would guess that, like the illuminated manuscripts we glossed over in the European tradition of publishing, that the priests and scribes built up obfuscating ritual around their records so as to preserve their power and make it impenetrable to Joe-Illiterate. So you've got writing in the economy, in religion, and you've got the rise of a privileged class? With those broad strokes, I'm sure writing - literacy - could appear in near any domain, and I suppose it's a matter then of figuring out whether the public would be moving toward publishing and printing to support or circumvent that power?

Not that those are the only choices, of course, but I sort of have the background of the Brotherhood of Wolves running in my head - where there were these seditious pamphlets published in those red-bound books, and the "monster" was a security device for the printing operation and symbol of the inefficacy of the monarchy. It's not always the government or even the prevailing faction that is interested in or controlling publishing.

What if Yagno Petrova started producing religious texts about his fabled god in G'henna, and started exporting them? Or, how would he react if Ezra or Halaa started shipping prayerbooks in?