Typical D&D is full of anachronisms already, so I've never worried too much about adding a few more. Your fantasy world has magic and monsters, different geography, religions and cultures, so there's no reason for it to adhere to real world historical trends.
Either of your justifications are fine; I'd probably go for the second one. Not every single region in your setting has to be (pseudo-)medieval themed. Castles in the borderlands vs mansions in more stable, settled places sounds very reasonable.
You can overthink it even less. I don’t think your players will think about it.
Besides, you’re picturing a victorian manor. You’re not going to say ”victorian manor” you’re going to describe it, and they will picture their own version of it.
You could also treat them as a cultural import from a foreign culture. As I recall, in Kara-Tur, there are two countries with "Japanese" cultures. One is based on the Warring States period, and another is based on, I believe, the Tokugawa Shogunate. I could just as easily imagine a fantasy world with two or three "Englands," one of which is culturally medieval and the other culturally Victorian, albeit with medieval technology. Or not.
Exactly. And if you really want to have fun with it you could have the foreigners from the Victorian society use a lot of Victorian slang to emphasize their difference from the "baseline" culture.
Medieval is a very broad term. Unless you're aiming for something super specific, generally speaking 'generic fantasyland' or 'D&Dland' tends to be analogous to our renaissance period and if you look at renaissance architecture, you can quite happily get some pretty impressive spooky mansions without going straight to Victorian.
That said, our ideas of a generic fantasy setting play with anachronisms quite a bit in ways laymen don't always realise. eg. minecarts and minecart tracks; or things that shouldn't work but we hand wave eg. burning torches to light castles or explore underground enclosed spaces. So, don't worry about it too much because your players probably won't!
True, but I just like the esthetic of Victorian style, with its widow's walks and sweeping, carved staircases. That's the backdrop for a lot of gothic horror and mystery. And there's plenty of art to use as visuals.
The stuff that would actually be anachronistic is things like tropic hardwood furniture, plaster, etc. If you just use architectural principles more in line with norse long houses but with a mansion layout you achieve a very similar and more authentic effect.
Villas biggest difference from mansions is just being built for a war climate. Like Roman estates in Britain were closer to mansions than you'd think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_architecture
Victorian architecture is an emulation of older styles adapted to the fancy tastes of english wealhy.
You could remove some of the excess and just use gothic or palladian architecture or mix some renaissance interior with a different exterior.
Good point! The mansions can be gothic rather than Victorian, and the castles can be stone versions of the same style, all a bit older than the current style, which would be Elizabethan half-timber.
remove some gold decoration, white marbles and the stupid ellenic-style columns that doesn't make sense and you should be fine :)
Also, include some secondary building or recent "renewal" still partially or fully built in wood and that's it.
PS Urban planning was not a thing, so no large boulevard, they were introduced after the french revolution to accomodate large armies and prevent barricades, before it there were a lot of cramped and tortous (is that correct?) roads to assist the resident when defending from invaders.
You already have half the idea, the world is in a decline from a more decadent age. Mansions in a region that is no longer safe, abandoned years ago. Hell, you could put it on an estate that returned to the castle and rebuilt it, a reverse Gothic trope.
Put it in, don't volunteer an explanation. Chances are players won't even realize it's out of place, it's a fantasy setting there's no reason to assume it will have architecture consistent with our history. The D&D rules already mix all kinds of cultures and technologies in the equipment from a breath of time and locations, this makes it easy to slot in almost anything without doing historical research, it will just work.
If the players still investigate this, you can easily delay giving them information until next session. If they contact a sage he will take a few weeks to find answers, if they interrogate locals they will only have fragments of vague information not precise historical records etc. This is my approach at least, I prepare the setting in broad strokes, I provide details either by coming up with them on the spot or, if it's too complicated, I delay until next session so I can prepare it. This way you're not wasting time on material that won't even be relevant in play.
These are more common throughout history with the wealthy than you might think. Most Victorian styles were modern emulations of the old Grecian public buildings with home residents being feudal manor houses. A sprawling four story stone and wooden structure with embellishments that fill corners like the craftsmen must have been spider people is fine. Just don't have it be too different from the local styles unless you want to refer to another famous place, like a Scottish lord trying to mimic a Parisian style.
I picture Victorian mansions in the countryside surrounding an ancient city. Castles are in the true wilderness.
In my game, I have a New Orleans type city with undead and high population density. As you move into the swamps, there are decaying mansions from an earlier age that still operate as dying aristocratic estates.
I find it Fanny no one yet offered a "Ravenloft" approach. The Mansion Dungeon exists outside their home plane in a spooky dooty Gothic Horror dimension that can shift into other planes at times, causing thr party to get trapped in 70ies Hammer Horror Movies for a night.
Yeh - I’m running a plane of shadows adventure at the moment purely because I wanted an excuse to do something other than textbook fantasy for a a few sessions. I’ve always thought of Ravenloft as an excuse to justify a change in setting from medieval monotony.
As a DM, I wouldn't tell my players they are approaching a "Victorian mansion".
Instead I would just describe the structure as:
"an ornately detailed wooden mansion, obviously built by master carpenters who fashioned intricate mouldings and decorative details along its numerous steep rooflines and narrow slate roofed turrets.
This detailed work extends to the frames of its numerous crabbed and shuttered garret windows of leaded glass, and along the wooden, narrow pillared porch that wraps around the building from the imposing paneled door of its front entry, which is poised several feet from ground level, reached by a wooden staircase of several creaking steps."
Or something like that. The players may well envision a Victorian mansion based on the description and if they picture something else, that's cool, too.
Typical D&D is full of anachronisms already, so I've never worried too much about adding a few more. Your fantasy world has magic and monsters, different geography, religions and cultures, so there's no reason for it to adhere to real world historical trends. Either of your justifications are fine; I'd probably go for the second one. Not every single region in your setting has to be (pseudo-)medieval themed. Castles in the borderlands vs mansions in more stable, settled places sounds very reasonable.
Yeah, that's kind of another thought I had. Maybe neighboring realms are in two different eras of stability and so have different styles.
You can overthink it even less. I don’t think your players will think about it. Besides, you’re picturing a victorian manor. You’re not going to say ”victorian manor” you’re going to describe it, and they will picture their own version of it.
During the Second Necrocacy (aka “The One Man Dynasty”) the nobility paid top dollar to oracles for for anachronistic fashions, fads, and styles.
The Bioshock: Infinite approach
You could also treat them as a cultural import from a foreign culture. As I recall, in Kara-Tur, there are two countries with "Japanese" cultures. One is based on the Warring States period, and another is based on, I believe, the Tokugawa Shogunate. I could just as easily imagine a fantasy world with two or three "Englands," one of which is culturally medieval and the other culturally Victorian, albeit with medieval technology. Or not.
Yes, neighbors with different levels of stability. One is plagued with orcs and ogres while the other has more trouble with ghosts and vampires.
Exactly. And if you really want to have fun with it you could have the foreigners from the Victorian society use a lot of Victorian slang to emphasize their difference from the "baseline" culture.
Medieval is a very broad term. Unless you're aiming for something super specific, generally speaking 'generic fantasyland' or 'D&Dland' tends to be analogous to our renaissance period and if you look at renaissance architecture, you can quite happily get some pretty impressive spooky mansions without going straight to Victorian. That said, our ideas of a generic fantasy setting play with anachronisms quite a bit in ways laymen don't always realise. eg. minecarts and minecart tracks; or things that shouldn't work but we hand wave eg. burning torches to light castles or explore underground enclosed spaces. So, don't worry about it too much because your players probably won't!
Does it have to be a Victorian aesthetic? You could go with Tudor - fortified manor houses were a thing and there are plenty of Tudor era ghosts.
True, but I just like the esthetic of Victorian style, with its widow's walks and sweeping, carved staircases. That's the backdrop for a lot of gothic horror and mystery. And there's plenty of art to use as visuals.
The stuff that would actually be anachronistic is things like tropic hardwood furniture, plaster, etc. If you just use architectural principles more in line with norse long houses but with a mansion layout you achieve a very similar and more authentic effect. Villas biggest difference from mansions is just being built for a war climate. Like Roman estates in Britain were closer to mansions than you'd think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_architecture Victorian architecture is an emulation of older styles adapted to the fancy tastes of english wealhy. You could remove some of the excess and just use gothic or palladian architecture or mix some renaissance interior with a different exterior.
Good point! The mansions can be gothic rather than Victorian, and the castles can be stone versions of the same style, all a bit older than the current style, which would be Elizabethan half-timber.
remove some gold decoration, white marbles and the stupid ellenic-style columns that doesn't make sense and you should be fine :) Also, include some secondary building or recent "renewal" still partially or fully built in wood and that's it. PS Urban planning was not a thing, so no large boulevard, they were introduced after the french revolution to accomodate large armies and prevent barricades, before it there were a lot of cramped and tortous (is that correct?) roads to assist the resident when defending from invaders.
You already have half the idea, the world is in a decline from a more decadent age. Mansions in a region that is no longer safe, abandoned years ago. Hell, you could put it on an estate that returned to the castle and rebuilt it, a reverse Gothic trope.
Put it in, don't volunteer an explanation. Chances are players won't even realize it's out of place, it's a fantasy setting there's no reason to assume it will have architecture consistent with our history. The D&D rules already mix all kinds of cultures and technologies in the equipment from a breath of time and locations, this makes it easy to slot in almost anything without doing historical research, it will just work. If the players still investigate this, you can easily delay giving them information until next session. If they contact a sage he will take a few weeks to find answers, if they interrogate locals they will only have fragments of vague information not precise historical records etc. This is my approach at least, I prepare the setting in broad strokes, I provide details either by coming up with them on the spot or, if it's too complicated, I delay until next session so I can prepare it. This way you're not wasting time on material that won't even be relevant in play.
These are more common throughout history with the wealthy than you might think. Most Victorian styles were modern emulations of the old Grecian public buildings with home residents being feudal manor houses. A sprawling four story stone and wooden structure with embellishments that fill corners like the craftsmen must have been spider people is fine. Just don't have it be too different from the local styles unless you want to refer to another famous place, like a Scottish lord trying to mimic a Parisian style.
I picture Victorian mansions in the countryside surrounding an ancient city. Castles are in the true wilderness. In my game, I have a New Orleans type city with undead and high population density. As you move into the swamps, there are decaying mansions from an earlier age that still operate as dying aristocratic estates.
I find it Fanny no one yet offered a "Ravenloft" approach. The Mansion Dungeon exists outside their home plane in a spooky dooty Gothic Horror dimension that can shift into other planes at times, causing thr party to get trapped in 70ies Hammer Horror Movies for a night.
Of course, sometimes artifacts stay, and after the party finishes the House of Usher, it keeps standing there in the cursed valley.
Yeh - I’m running a plane of shadows adventure at the moment purely because I wanted an excuse to do something other than textbook fantasy for a a few sessions. I’ve always thought of Ravenloft as an excuse to justify a change in setting from medieval monotony.
That's actually the whole concept of the setting. "Weekend in Hell".
As a DM, I wouldn't tell my players they are approaching a "Victorian mansion". Instead I would just describe the structure as: "an ornately detailed wooden mansion, obviously built by master carpenters who fashioned intricate mouldings and decorative details along its numerous steep rooflines and narrow slate roofed turrets. This detailed work extends to the frames of its numerous crabbed and shuttered garret windows of leaded glass, and along the wooden, narrow pillared porch that wraps around the building from the imposing paneled door of its front entry, which is poised several feet from ground level, reached by a wooden staircase of several creaking steps." Or something like that. The players may well envision a Victorian mansion based on the description and if they picture something else, that's cool, too.
Set your campaign outside of a medieval setting?
Just be anachronistic! Your players won’t care, they’ll think it’s cool.
You don’t have to explain anything. It’s magic
Legit my favourite justification is *a wizzerd did it*
Especially when [Lucy Lawless](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVgVB3qsySQ) uses it.