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Mubonyete
A Misconception of Power in a Parched Land
T
he power of the land rests in its ability
to create and destroy, to give back to
itself what it itself has taken away.
Man in many ways knows this lesson
so well: take from the land what you need, and
the land will give you more than you deserve.
We know too much of the consequences of
abusing the land's bounty; nature can be a loving
as well as a wrathful entity. In the parched,
colored regions of the Brambled Karoo, what
little left to be given back to the land is taken
away to become fodder for an ambitious
intention, destroying the land and its inhabitants
even more.
The Land
Of all the domains hidden in the
swirling Mists of Ravenloft, perhaps none is
more exotic and wild as Mubonyete, the land of
the Brambled Karoo. It extends 225 miles from
north to south, east to west, and harbors a
climate that supports life and at the same time
destroys it. At daytime the sun beats mercilessly
down with its heat, while the nights could be
unusually cold.
Mubonyete is mostly grassland, where a
wide array of animals such as zebras,
wildebeests, giraffes and great cats roam, survive
and devour each other. Rainfall is sparse: at most
the domain only gets about 10 centimeters of
rainfall each year. This however, has not deterred
the appearance of waterholes throughout the
Karoo, where different species of wildlife find
nourishment to their thirst. Even then, animals
can always find a permanent source of water to
the southeast of the realm, called the Feathered
Marshes, named after the multitude of birds
which flock almost daily to the area.
There are three main humanoid
settlements in Mubonyete. To the north lies
Dhabo, The Clustered Kingdoms, a collection of
seven walled cities with a total population of
6000. A single walled kingdom named
Gombasha, with a population of 2500, lies in the
Feathered Marshes. A third settlement named
Kifiru, with a population of 700, lies to the west.
Scattered throughout the Karoo are
small nomadic settlements, each capable of
holding ten to seventy people. A wide, circular
bramble fence called a boma, which serves as
protection from fierce predators, surrounds these
temporary settlements, made of thatched grass
and/or mud-bricks.
Another place of interest lies further
west, named the Bone Citadel. Once, it could
have been a beautiful place with an aura of
magic; now, however, it lies barren and is
considered forbidden.
The Folk
The inhabitants of this exotic land are
dark-skinned, with varying heights. They have
curly black hair and live in temporary homes,
with the exception of the folk living in the
permanent settlements mentioned. The
occasional few who have long hair wear them in
intricate braids. To distinguish rank, tribe and
even faith, the people dress in thin yet richlywoven
robes patched with abstract colored
designs. Women and even men pierce and tattoo
many parts of their bodies (ears, arms and lips)
as a sign of beauty.
Families and friends are close-knit
systems. Within each walled city as many as
3000 can live without fear of poor sanitation.
Visitors to the land, however, may feel uneasy at
the sight of twenty family members sharing the
same hut.
Mubonyete folk have an animistic
world-view: everything has an orisha, or spirit,