I always regarded there to be 2 types of canon. Source canon, the foundation on which a campaign, server or session is built on. The second is personal canon or, in the case of NWN, server canon. This is the events and history of an ongoing campaign that reflect the DM's direction and the resultant actions of the characters within. In Ravenloft, the PC's power is only as strong as his/her group.
If you tried taking on the adventures solo you'd die horribly and very quickly. High end characters were roughly level 12 which was on par with many of the dark lords although naturally they had the advantage of their powers within their domain over the player. If all NPC's were as their P&P counterparts then a great many current PC's on PotM could just breeze through them without a hint of a challenge. Canon is something to build on, not a crutch to keep hobbling on every time something new is created or altered.
The main point of this thread was to detail the world's protagonistic/antagonistic/indifferent groupings, places of learning both secret and open (because the world of Ravenloft is not all ignorance and fear as many might think) and flesh out a bit more detail to people's knowledge of the sorts of things out there in the setting.
I only added referable material and not groups created on the server. There is plenty of information on those in the player and supported factions threads, Wayfarer and Society of the Erudites being two such in-house creations. I mostly referred to the Gazeteers and some of the adventure modules and support supplements.
