Inspiration Article: Domains

The first of a series taken from the books.

David Foxfire

Mar 09, 2022

Trigger Warning

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With this article, I introduce a series of Worldbuilding articles that coincide with the Wizards of the Coast sourcebooks and campaigns as they are published. Of course, that would require a whole lot of backtracking because there are over thirty publications already published.

This series will come in two tracks, the pay tier track will take things all the way to the Starter Set and work their way to Candlekeep Mysteries. The free tier track will start from VanRichten’s Guide to Ravenloft and move forward from there. This series will omit the three main sourcebooks (Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide) and their expansions (Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Tasha’s Caldron of Everything.)

You’d might hear a new term in this article when it comes to campaign creation: Springboarding. That’s when you take parts of pre-existing campaigns, such as a dungeon or village or even NPC, and you build an original campaign with that material. You’ll be seeing a lot of that here. Of course, just because they start off with the name, map, scenario, characterization, whatever taken off the book with them, they do not by any means have to remain that way. As I work with each of the items, maps will be revised, names and even characters would be created, whole new campaigns will spring up in such proverbially fertile land, and eventually, I’ll find out that the material I springboarded from has only a residual image of its original form if at all, and that’s the ultimate goal in springboarding: Turning something you borrowed into something that’s yours.

If you are wondering about its legality, that’s understandable. The United States Fair Use Laws in their Copyright Code do allow for transformative works if certain conditions are met, and this Substack is not meant to be commercial in nature. (That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t subscribe to the Paid Tier, though. Your support keeps me going, and it’s not like I’m going to churn any profits.) Sometimes the biggest hurdle I have when it comes to getting my creativity going is the blank page and I have no idea what to put in there. Taking something like Barovia and go about tweaking and changing the existing material jump starts my creative synapses and as I continue my brain chugs on until I start making add-ons that go into uncharted waters. Well, uncharted by Wizards of the Coast, that is.

But as I started looking at the Domains of Ravenloft (Chapter 3 of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft) I thought that some of these domains might not remain ‘Domains of Dread,’ but will in one way or another take a physical place in Penumaria, without a Dread Lord or Dark Powers.

I was also wondering whether or not there is a Light version of these ‘Domains of Dread.’ And if so, can I combine the two? Have a place that has parts of both, but combine into something all its own.

Apparently, Wizards of the Coast thought the same way, because they published a supplement to The Wild Beyond the Witchlight to answer that question.

The Domains of Delight publication began with the most telling description of what a Domain of Delight is: “[They] are to the Feywild what Domains of Dread are to the Shadowfell: sequestered realms governed by powerful beings. Whereas a Domain of Dread is ruled by a Darklord, a Domain of Delight is ruled by an Archfey.” (Page 3.) That provided ample material for me to go ahead and find a hybrid domain, and then incorporate that into what I have so far with Penumaria. I ended up with a style of Domains that I believe are pretty unique.

After all, every Celestial would have their own Domain in Penumaria, right?

Domains of Penumaria

As mentioned before, Celestials would have their powers nerfed and they are constrained into a physical body—Think of Jesus Christ during the Gospels—and they are forbidden to form an organized religion. (But there are ways around that.) They would also be given a place in the Material Plane—although they can be in a Mirror Plane like the Feywild or the Shadowfell—where the Celestial can call their home. The celestial can enjoy greater power when they’re inside a domain.

Like a classic Domain of Dread, the Celestial in their Domain would have near omniscience throughout their Domain. Either their awareness would be expanded that far or they would be able to see through various animals or willing subjects. Instead of being omnipresent, they can instead appear anywhere inside the Domain (the effect would be like the Teleport spell.) They might be able to have some level of omnipotence, but this is only within the range of their sight and hearing, they must abide by empirical laws of science—They cannot create or destroy matter or energy, but they can transform them from one state to another—and they must concentrate on whatever effect they are creating (as if they were concentrating on a spell) unless the effect can naturally become permanent.

Also, while inside their domain, the Celestial is neigh immortal, immune from any condition, resistant to most damage and immune from some elements and non-magical weapons and will regenerate up to their Bloodied Value on each of their turns (which will have a minimum of three per turn, instead of the two outside of the Domain, plus any added turns depending on the party. See Footnote 1.) Let’s just say that, even to a high-tier party, engaging a Celestial while they’re in their domain is pretty much suicide by celestial.

Unlike a classic Domain of Dread, the Celestial can leave the Domain of his own free will, and so can anybody else. There is no Mist keeping anyone, Celestial or mortal human, inside a domain. Anyone can come and go as they please. Of course, when the Celestial leaves their domain, they leave behind the added powers and influence in the domain. Also, the Celestial’s influence cannot stretch beyond the borders of the Domain.

Like a Domain of Delight, the Celestial’s Domain will reflect the mood, temperament, mindset, and even outlook of its Celestial, especially when the Celestial is inside. When the Celestial is in high spirits birds will chirp merrily and the sun shines, when gloomy the sky is overcast and might even rain, when angry it might storm with lightning strikes, and so on. In some cases, the Celestial might prompt a tree to pick up someone and cradle them in their branches, or a critter to listen to a conversation and replay it to the Celestial. The ambiance and construction would fit the nature and personality of the Celestial, and even if a place in question is taken from someone else, while it’s in the Domain, the Celestial’s influence will affect the existing architecture.

Unlike a Domain of Delight, time and distance and geography are fixed and immutable. Since it’s usually placed in the Material Plane, time moves on at the same speed as the world beyond its borders. That makes a Domain…well, there may be some dangers in a Domain, but you won’t leave a domain to find out that 80 years have passed, and all of your family have either passed away or moved on without you. That simply does not happen. Unless you pissed off the Celestial, of course.

I said earlier that Chronicla will have its own Worldbuilding Document, and it is available here. In this document, I expand on Chronicla, show the parts I take from Curse of Strahd and show where I changed things. Especially with the Overworld Map. A recent development caused me to remake the Map of the Village of Barovia. It will retain most of the original layout, but with additional buildings and modifications involved.

There will be some parts that will change over the course of a thousand years since Chronicla will have a place in two stories at different times. Between those time points, whole blocks have been torn down and rebuilt, a working water and sewer system has been set up, new businesses are added, and so on.

Castle Chronicla would be getting a major overhaul from its Curse of Strahd origins. There will be an extensive floor-by-floor setup of the castle later, but this document will have a summary, as well as additional lore and stories from both Eisenhower Bronzehammer and his subordinate, former Maid of Chronicla Tanya Rounske, and that’s not listing everything that’s in it. So it’s in the OneDrive at this link: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AjNYReLtj6OInmfTcpZP6O0TX26X

Stackable Maps

You’ll also see my tendency to have stackable maps; that is, a series of maps with a progressive zoom level. The highest level is the Planetary Scale, followed by the Continent Scale (you’ve seen it earlier, that would be the map for Refugina from the previous article,) and in the case of larger kingdoms, the Kingdom Scale. There’s a hex grid for the Regional Scale map where Chronicla is located in relation to other locations, such as Oakroot and Vallaki. (The name and the general location in relation to Chronicla are springboarded but Vallaki would be a completely different city. It might even get its own name before I even touch it.) Regional Maps will involve the six-mile Hex more often than not. The next level down is the Overland Scale map, in this case, which consists of a portion of the overland Barovia map in Curse of Strahd (Page 35.) Only the most eastern third between the two gates (both of which are marked with a B in the CoS map) is used here. The next level down is the City Scale map; that would be the Village of Barovia (Page 42 of CoS) for a layout. I’ll be keeping the layout, even though I might expand on it. I’m sure that Ama would have a funicular or something to provide quick travel from Village to Castle. What I didn’t touch yet is the Castle Chronicla map which is at the Dungeon Scale, which is also used for towers, outdoor areas, neighborhoods, and of course, Dungeons. I’m only summarizing some changes in the castle itself and will mess around with the Castle Ravenloft maps later. (The lowest scale would be the Battle Map Scale, where 1 square is 5 feet.)

Bonus Material: Domains of Ravenloft

I initially wanted this article to give out a list of all the domains in Van Richton’s Guide to Ravenloft, but that list became way too long for me to include here, and it didn’t mesh well with describing what a Domain in Penumaria would be like. I should have made this a separate article here, but I didn’t think of that at the time. So this list is bonus material in the Chronicla Worldbuilding Document linked above.

Footnotes

Footnote 1: In Swifttail D&D, Legendary characters would have Legendary Initiative in their stat block, where they would have multiple places in the Initiative Order. This is a replacement option to standard D&D's Legendary Actions.

Footnote 2: The line I often say, “I can guess that such a place exists in Penumaria…I just haven’t found it yet,” may be considered as a cop-out, a lame-ass excuse. But it’s also the truth. I only have a sliver of a fraction of this setting known at this time, and I won’t be aware of everything about my setting even when I die.

If anything, consider this more of an invitation than anything else. An invitation for you to fill in the blank spot. Penumaria is supposed to be a collaborative effort after all. If you could think up a continent of your own with the cultures you desire, feel free to make that missing piece and snap it in place. I might just canonize it and give you the rights.

I’m already planning on the next article on the WotC Inspiration Series, this time focusing on Minsc and Boo’s Journal of Villainy. This might take multiple articles, the first one being on hometowns, while another would be for Group Patrons and another on Villains.

But the next article after this one will be the start of Amber of the Woods. First, we’ll have an introduction to the series, and then Episode 1 soon after.