Glossary

The following is a best effort glossary for terms specific to either Ravenloft or The Domains of Dread.

Story Terms

1. The Domains of Dread: When italicized, referring to the server from which the game is hosted; speaking to the unit as a whole. When not italicized, it is an alias for Ravenloft.
2. The Realms of Terror: An alias for Ravenloft. The preferred alias when referring to Ravenloft fictionally, as to not be confused with the above.
3. The Misty Plane: The plane which Ravenloft rests; an alias for Ravenloft. See also the Misty Border.
4. fictionally: In-universe, in-character, or of the roleplay. Used to delineate how certain mechanics and other functions of the game present in terms of the story.
5. Ravenloft: The overall setting where The Domains of Dread takes place. An enigmatic plane that in many ways perfectly mirrors the Prime Material as a world of its own, save for its peculiar and often horrible exceptions.
6. Prime Material: The plane from which any other setting primarily exists. For example, the Material Plane on the Forgotten Realms is, to Ravenloft, the Prime Material. It has no natural connective organs to The Misty Plane.
7. The Core: The contiguous continent where The Domains of Dread takes place. It is, loosely, a microcosm of Gothic elements inspired from European sources.
8. Cluster: Previously, other continents connected to the Core by the Misty Border. In wake of the Grand Upheaval these connections have been severed, leaving these Clusters to an unknown fate as knowledge of them or their peoples "slide out from history".
9. The Misty Border: In the Realms of Terror, edges of the known world are expressed by great, endless fonts of the Mists. Their borders, then, are as thus.
10. The Mists: Also known as the Mists of Death, these banks of cloyingly supernatural fog may appear at any time and in any place within Ravenloft. No force is greater or more mysterious, with no mortal hopeful to ever understand them at full perspicacity - even but a glimpse would be the conclusion of a lifetime spent both dead and undying.
11. Mistway: Previously, a travel route between locations connected through the Mists. None are known to have survived the Grand Upheaval, forcing greater reliance on overland borders.
12. The Grand Upheaval: A cataclysm which occurred in 740 and nearly destroyed the fabric of the Misty Plane. Entire Domains were shifted, altered, absorbed or seemingly destroyed. It is because of this event that The Core has been either isolated from other Clusters or is the sole surviving inheritor of the Misty Plane.
13. Domain: In Ravenloft, a domain is a section of the Misty Plane meant to imprison and torment an evil creature known as its Darklord. They are individual regions where many of the stories in The Domains of Dread take place.
14. Outlander: Anyone who is non-native to the Misty Plane are themselves an Outlander. May also be used descriptively to describe foreign ideas.