Thoughts on Ravenloft

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Okay, so my mind's been wandering a bit recently and the mists have oft brought me to Ravenloft of late. Now I know I' be stupid to start a new game before at least one of my current ones is finished (I really need to pick up Deathtrap Dungeon again since you guys are way past the halfway point).

I do know that, when there's room for it, I'd like to start a new game of either Ravenloft or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. For WFRP I think I'd like to run it as a one off adventure. When the adventure is finished, I'd take a break and then sometime in the future run a follow up adventure. So rather than a continuous campaign of adventures it would be a series of adventures that just happen to be a campaign (with bits of downtime inbetween). I could run it as a continuous campaign but I think that keeping it as separate (yet linked) adventures would make it stand out from the other games here (and it would be something I haven't personaly done in years now).

Now for Ravenloft I'm getting a more vague feeling (which is appropriate given the mists). Here's a potential problem 'though: Ravenloft works best if you play native characters rather than outsiders. However, Ravenloft is a small world and travel is unsafe and thus the world is even smaller as far as player character origins are concerned. It wouldn't be easy to justify a character from the opposite side of the map being somewhere but it would be reasonable to expect one from a neighbouring region (yes, travel really is that dangerous).

This means that I (as a GM) would need to pick a region. Now I could be harsh and pick somewhere like Sithicus (where Lord Soth hunts down and opresses elves), Falkovnia (people are state property and treated as such by a violent Vlad "the Impaler" Drakov) or Forlorn (a small celtic region where Goblyns and zombie wolves tear down the forests attempting to eradicate the last druids, those few surviving humans, from the domain). Or I could pick somewhere realtively nice like Darkon (where the Lich King rules by secret police but otherwise does little to control everyday life), Nova Vaasa (where people really like horses) or Mordentshire (where people wear suits, don't believe in religion and study science and machinery).

Picking an area would effectively limit the players' choices a bit because each region has it's own themes (and since travel is very limited, the player characters would be expected to comply with those themes at least a little bit and I don't want to hamper anyone's creativity and imagination too much).

The main thing about Ravenloft is that it's quite similar in tone to The Old World (dark, moody, atmospheric) but less violent and less quirky than The Old World is. Ravenloft also uses lots of in setting "house rules" that are markedly different from normal d20 and native characters would be aware of many of these changes, not because they know it's different, but because it's perfectly normal everyday stuff to them (and only outsiders would see anything different or strange about the fact that divination spells are unreliable unless cast by gypsies, that necromancy is more powerful or that the land itself seems to react and reflect the mood of a scene). To natives of the land of mists such things are normal (and the folk of Ravenloft are very superstitious).

So I would need to impart a reasonable ammount of information to the players before play even began. I think the best thing to do might be to have the mists transport an existing party into the shadowy world. That way I wouldn't need to explain anything. Unfortunately Ravenloft is like Royston Vasey (in that the sign outside Royston Vasey in The League Of Gentlemen says "Welcome to Royston Vasey you'll never leave"). I'm not sure I'd want to subject people's loved characters to that. One of the main things about Ravenloft is that the players need to be willing to go that extra bit further and the GM has to be careful not to go too far. It's not a happy shiney setting like Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms. It's more like small isolated regions in eastern europe with lots of folklore and superstitions. That being said there are egyptian, oriental and celtic regions (not to mention one tregion that's mainly full of slave plantations, Hazlik, ruled by the red wizards of Thay, and even bizarre places like BLuetspur (ruled by mindflayers) and The Nightmare Lands where dreams take on substance and only the Abber Nomads (think american indians) can safely traverse the walking dreams without coming to harm).

What are people's thoughts on having most (if not all) of the party come from the same place? The advantage would be that you'd all know the local area quite well, know each other a bit and the local folks too. The disadvantage is a potential loss of diversity.

[Keeper]

Personally, I think I'd prefer WHFRP adventures  :shrug:

But if you wanted a Ravenloft game, you could either ask players to create characters that they didn't particularly like or make sure people know they are likely to die.

It sounds like a similar problem to the time we played Call of Cthulu - you know your character is going to die, so you either create one you don't mind dying, or you do the best you can with them before they go.

YMMV :icon_wink:

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Personally, I think I'd prefer WHFRP adventures  :shrug:

I'm fairly certain I would too but I'm feeling a bit of a yearning for Ravenloft at the moment (it comes round every few years or so). Chances are it might've passed when I've got room for another game but we'll wait and see :).

I had a great WFRP session tonight. After some minimal (and mostly ineffectual) first aid both player characters stumbled into a big final encounter on 2 wounds each (healed up from 0). 1 fate point was spent, a helpful npc (who'd hired them to do a job after this adventure was over) turned out to be really helpful. The evil monster burst from it's shackles and promptly slaughtered it's dark master in true horror movie style, the skaven ran like the cowards that they are, the building caught fire and through it all the evil henchman stood 'till last missing with every attack but failing to go down ('till a combined effort from him and the friendly npc put the monster down then the henchman turned on the npc who promptly slaughtered him with fluke dice rolls).

Oh it was great fun :).

[Hawkins]

im ok with it, id suggest a short simple adventure to start, and if it goes well we could continue, if not, well its a short simple adventure and sometimes those for me have been quite enjoyable.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Because travel is limited, it makes most sense for a group to all come from an area (and maybe surrounding lands within a small radius). It is entirely possible for the group to come from all over the place but it just makes more sense to be more of a closed huddle (due to the nature of the setting making travel unreliable, and hence long distance journeys would be undertaken a lot less than shorter ones).

Here's some thoughts on ways of determining a starting domain.

1: The GM picks a domain and tells the players to create characters from there. This is my least favourite option.

2: The GM asks players what kind of characters they'd like to play and then picks a region that mirrors those aspects.

3: The GM asks the players what kind of adventure they'd like to play (since most regions are sort of themed to an extent) and picks an area that mirrors many of those themes - and then tells the players to create characters that come from there.

4: The players play outsiders (by far the easiest option, since I wouldn't have to explain all the house rules* that native players would assume to be normal having lived their entire lives there).

5: Since it's play by forum, published/pre-prepared adventures are probably better to run : While I might have the time to run a completely free form game my players might not have time to play it. So running pre-made adventures (or variants thereon) is probably a good idea.

6: There's no hurry as it won't be happening any time soon.

7: 2 & 3 are my two favourite ideas so far.

* Ravenloft has lots of "house rules" that are official, but very different to most other settings.

It's kind of bizarre when cross genre roleplaying works (I've seen some really awkward cross genre stuff like a second world war spy game where all the characters are cultists who use magic and go on missions to take out enemy sorcerors who are doing things like making supply lines move too quickly and stuff like that). Ravenloft is a fantasy/horror cross genre setting and it actualy works. It's not splatter horror, it's mod horror. So it's not Night of the Living Dead (or whatever that zombie film set in the shopping centre's called where they drive round on buggies shooting zombies "for fun"). It's Sleepy Hollow (or something equaly moody like Silence of the Lambs).

[Balgin Stondraeg]

A few more thoughts: Things I've been considering posting for a while now.

1: The world of Ravenloft is not the world of Ravenloft. Now the bold emphasis might've helped there but I'll ellaborate: The world of Greyhawk is Oerth, Greyhawk is a city in one of the regions in the world of Oerth. The world of the Forgotten Realms is not the Forgotten Realms, it's Abeir Torril. Also according to all the FR source material, the Forgotten Realms also includes all the worlds TSR didn't publish as campaign settings "by default because it's so big with so many unconnected places that it's all here and that's a really good idea" (hint : it's not, arrogantly laying claim to everything else yet to be created or written down is not a good thing to do - it just makes you look like a twit*).

The world of Ravenloft is not the world of Ravenloft. The castle of Ravenloft is located in the domain of Barovia (adjacent to the domains of Borca, Invidia, Sithicus, Kartakass, Forlorn, Hazlan and Nova Vaasa). The world of Ravenloft does not have a name. It's sort of stand in name is The Dread Realms. Hopwever, since it's inhabitants have no other worlds to compare it to they are not aware of this fact and don't call their world that. They simply don't have a name for it and don't use one (probably referring to it as "the world" or maybe even "the earth" but they'd probably use earth in a different sence and "world" would probably see more use).

2: The "world" of Ravenloft consists of multiple Domains. The word Domain is used for rules based purposes only. The inhabitants of the world will refer to places as areas, regions, counties, nations and stuff like that. All of the points in this post are out of character ideas that natives to the land of mists are unaware of.

3: Domains are actualy broken down by category. The four categories are Domain, Island, Cluster and Pocket. All domains are a domain. Every domain is a domain. So that's a fairly simple category. However, many domains do not fall into the other three categories (all the lands of the core for instance) so it's a good catch all term.

An Island is a domain that lies adrift in the mist, sharing no border with any other domains. It is isolated, a stand alone area. It hasn't joined the core map of stable domains yet.

A Cluster is a small number (say, two or three) of islands that have joined together but have not yet joined the core. In fact some scholars suspect that these clusters may actualy be forming new cores (a vastly confusing idea).

Finaly a Pocket is a rather small domain that actualy exists inside another domain itself! A perfect example of this is the Pocket domain of Davion. Within the Island domain known as The Nightmare Lands a ring of living dreams float about the dreaming city of Nod. Unwary travellers may be drawn into these living dreams. One of these dreams is the pocket domain of Davion and, while it exists within the borders of The Nightmare Lands, the Sleeping Council of Nightmare Lords have no jurisdiction over it. It is thus a domain within a domain (and hence a pocket). Other examples of pocket domains would be The House of Lament or Shadowborn Manor. There is even a "floating" pocket domain which constantly travels throughout the realms of the core. It is a cursed theatre that always replaces an existing theatre when it arrives (and leaves the original theatre where it was when it departs).

4: I think my overall favourite version of Ravenloft might be the 2nd edition one (apart from the Necropolis/Darkon situation in which case I definitle prefer the 1st/3rd ed version). The 3rd ed version's good but they kept changing minor details purely because it had been outsourced to another company who weren't allowed to mention things like the fact that one domain had come from Krynn, another from Athas and quite a few, from Torril. Similarly they weren't allowed to call the Rasheman barbarians and Red Wizards of Thay who live in Hazlan by their obvious names, but rather referred to them as Rashemi or Mulan (clearly deriving from Mulhorandi). They were called Rashemi and Mulan in 2nd ed (and probably 1st, but I'd have to dig it out and look it up). It's just that in previous editions they were allowed to mention that the domain came from the forgotten realms and that notable npc's had come from certain cultures and were members of various classes or social groups.

Whilst 2nd ed might not be my absolute favourite version, I like bits from all versions, 2nd was certainly the most "complete". The 2nd ed version of area writeups included lists of prominent npc's and even a "further reading" section which would refer to relevent Ravenloft novels, adventure modules or even boxed sets. The !1st ed" version didn't include such sections (because such works had not been written yet). It's not really 1st ed 'though, it's 2nd. It's just easier to call it the 1st ed version (since it either came in during very late 1st ed, when a lot of 2nd ed rules were practicaly core, or it's very early 2nd ed). The "2nd ed" version (so called because it has "second edition" written on the cover) came out quite late in second edition's lifetime. The 3rd ed version came out around the same time as the 3rd ed core books but didn't seem to be very well supported. There was a small 3.5 update (and it was definitely worth it).

So anyway, my point is that I'd probably want to use the 1st/2nd ed "honesty" approach as opposed to the 3rd ed "neccessary dishonesty" approach. As such Lord Soth (of Dragonlance fame) would still by lord of Sithicus, Lord Vlad Drakov would have memories of his younger days in the Forgotten Realms and the smalll village of Odiare would indeed have come from 19th century Italy (rather than simply having no obvious reason why it's pronounced O-De-air-ay rather than the more obvious O-dee-air). I don't think I'd use the small 2nd ed cluster where the two domains of Kas the Destroyer and Vecna the lich/god are locked in constant war.

5: Pronuciation. I don't like some of the official 3rd ed pronunciations of domain names (for instence, Dementlieue has always been Demen-tlee-oo, Day-mon-leeoo just sounds rubbish). Most of the 3rd ed pronunciations are the way I (and everyone I know) have always been saying but a few (such as Odiare) really stand out as being quite awkward (for instance, Avonleigh is clearly Ahv-on-lee, not Av-on-LAY as the 3ed ed writers believe). It might be Ay-von-lee (after the river Avon that flows through southern england) but there is no river Avon in the swampy forest of Avonleigh (and every english person knows that leigh is pronounced lee, not lay). So Avvon makes more sense (given the other names within the area).

Now, I know that on the forums names would be written and not spoke, but a character might make a pun on a place name, or misspronounce it, or speak it phoneticaly to a death person "eh, what's that you say?" or scribe "slowly, Fal kov nee ah!" So I'd like to formalise the pronunciations of the names of area we use. It is important to bear in mind that few of these regions would be english, or even use english as their native language. A great many of the core domains are notably eastern european in flavour with some french and one english (yeah, just one, Mordentshire :p). The T in Richemulot is obviously silent (and it's got strong french influences).

I shall always endeavour to bear in mind any strong cultural/linguistic influences upon a domain when deciding on the pronunciation of it's name. Clearly I'll default to my native english a bit, especialy if the influences are unclear. But I'll generaly go for a combination of the actual meaning of any words hidden (or contained) within a domain name and the cultural groups within the area.

Another thing I'll always bear in mind is that your characters will not always be native to the regions you find yourselves in. Consequently (since you might have never heard a place's name spoken, but seen it on an old map or something), I might intentionaly give you an incorrect pronunciation based on your own homeland culture, and then you can be all surprised when the locals fail to understand you for a few seconds, realise your foreigners and go "oh you mean ....". :)

It's normaly really easy to tell how to say things. I just wanted to make it clear that I'm taking a broad minded approach to pronunciation (Odiare makes perfect sense as Oh-dee-air-ay when you realise it's Italian and then the second and third "dee-air" syllables sort of run together as a quick leap to the "ay" exclamation on the end). But Daymonleeoo just sounds silly (I'll need to examine the notes on local culture as I think that could almost be the area where everyone wears white perriwhigs and french revolution style clothes (although more synonimous in my mind with an era when all those Tom Jones School Days, Gulliver's Travels and Flashman books were written or set).

6: Fear, Horror and Madness. Classic Ravenloft ahs always used Fear, Horror and Madness saves as an aid to roleplaying, not a device to cripple players with. Adventures within the mists can be very unsettling and if a player is being too brave and simply ignoring the fact (treating their character like some mindless robot because the player is absent and not actualy involved in, or witnessing, events that take place) then the GM may call for a Fear, Horror or Madness check. If a player is roleplaying their reaction to a situation well enough, the GM ignore the need for such a check (at his discretion). This does not mean that every player character should be a nervous cowardly simpering wreck. It simply means aknowledging the situation in an understandable and believable way.

Fear is scary stuff. When the group splits up fleeing from the seemingly invulnerable werewolf and it could be chasing any one of them in that darkened wood then would be a good time to make each fleeing/hiding member roll for  afear check).

Horror is freaky stuff. When a player notices that there are rather a lot of scarecrows out in the fields today, and that each of them seems to be facing the party, as if watching their journey, that might be a good time to roll a (relatively easy) horror check. Horror covers disgusting stuff and weird stuff (disgusting stuff doesn't need to be described in too much detail, normaly the player's imaginations will fill in the gaps and this is a family friendly board - or at least I think it is :p).

Madness is for when stuff's so freaky the mind can't cope with it any more and gives way to madness (think Call of the Cthulhu where everyone freaks out and goes insane over how freaky stuff is).

There are feats that characters can take (Courage, Jaded and Open Minded) that make fear, horror and madness saves a little bit easier (+4 to the relevant save, similar to the other "save booster" feats but a lot more situational and probbaly used less often, hence the larger bonus ).

7: Since this takes a lot of explaining it's probably better if people play outsiders, or if I copy this post to a suitable House Rules thread if a Ravenloft game starts.

[Custom_Hobby]

So outsiders are in...hmmmm

[Balgin Stondraeg]

So outsiders are in...hmmmm

Okay, I can see that some more explanation is required.

The world of "Ravenloft" is not situated on the prime material plane. It is situated in the border ethereal. That is to say, the border where the ethereal plane and the prime material plane meet. Things (both places and people) from the prime material plane (or any other plane, for that matter) can be drawn into Ravenloft. Such things are outsiders (since they originate from beyond the land of mists). Natives are not outsiders, they were born there (although they are invariably descended from outsiders, some of the oldest domains are around 750 years old give or take). Reality is different in the shadowed realms. Domains may arrive, depart or move. A good example of this is that the domain of Gundarak was conquered and invaded by Strahd von Zarovich (lord of Barovia). The land of Gundarak became absorbed into Barovia and now the Barovian population is made up of two different ethnic groups, the Barovians and the Gundarakites. A better example would be the cataclysmic events that formed The Shadow Rift. The Shadow Rift is a large gap in the middle of the map, a vast chasm where the realms of Markovia and G'Henna once lay. During some bizarre event (the details of which are unknown) these lands were wrenched from the core, forming a great void in the landscape. They have since been discovered as floating islands (Markovia in a fixed geographical location within one of the oceans but G'Henna has become an island, isolated within the mists with no lands at it's borders other than those the mist makes to transport travellers to other realms).

So within the domains of dread domains can form and dissolve (or even be moved and reclassified). The lands of the core are often referred to as the core because they are stable and relatively unchanging (they do not move 'though sometimes minor details may change).

I hope that sort of helps explain my reference to "outsiders" as opposed to natives. :)

Of course, natives are aware of the differences in reality but it's perfectly normal to them. They don't know it's different to what outsiders may be used to so they wouldn't know what to explain. Because of that, it might be better to let people play outsiders to get used to the land and then replace dead characters with natives if they so desire later (or even retire characters and create native replacements). Either that or it'd help if a native party were created from a relatively small geographical area so I'd only need to explain some stuff to them and could work outwards as we played, expanding on knowledge (and stuff like that).

This could almost be the theme tune of Ravenloft (League of Gentlemen theme tune - a series that was very hit and miss, sometimes I liked it but sometimes it was just too vulgar and disgusting).





The small print on the signpost says it all really. That's a very strong element of Ravenloft.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Another idea is that, since it's fairly similar in tone to Dark Awakenings, I'd almost consider having the mists transfer that particular party over into the dread realms once their adventure is over (and if any of them survive). Due to this translocation, new players could join and some could ditch characters they didn't like and replace them with natives of the land of mists.

I'm not too keen on this idea yet (because the tone is similar so it wouldn't be that much of a shock to the characters for everything to suddenly be different).

[Balgin Stondraeg]

I think I'm sort of leaning towards Richemulot. I don't like it as an area but it shares borders with Dementlieu, Mordent, Verbrek, Borca, Falkovnia and vaguely touches the corner of Valachan. It has a diverse population and a very pc diversity friendly imigration policy. While I don't like it much as an area I could see it serving as a good starting area (and I have some adventures set in nearby lands that would be easily accessible).

Richemulot is very "french". I put that word in speach brackets because it isn't really but that's what it seems closest to. It's colourful, exiting and full of intrigue. In Richemulot, it's not what you know, it's who you know and what you know about them. So sort of think the three musketeers type stuff but a little less high tech. There's ots of scheming and suspicion (nothing too unusual for many player characters :p), everyone's poor and nobles trade promises and information rather than pay their debts. At night the rats rise up from the sewers and run loose in the streets. SO whiel the countryside is lovely and well kept, the actualy settlements are pretty overrun and run down.

In Richemulot muskets are occassionaly seen but gunsmithing is not advanced enough for smaller devices like the pistol or revolver. The cannons and muskets of Richemulot are most likely to be matchlocks (with possibly some flintlock muskets). They're also fairly rare and prohibitively excpensive. They have, however, resulted in armour going out of fashion a bit.

It is also unique, as a country, in that it has no standing army or even much of a militia. Each member of the population is, however, required to own at least one weapon and to use it in the country's defence should Falkovnia attack again (as it is known to do). Richemulot has lovely countryside and the practicaly open borders (due to the lack of security) mean that many immigrants have entered the land. The government deny harbouring immigrants from surrounding lands (but they're just maintaining good diplomatic relations with those neighbouring lands, all natives inhabitants of Richemulot know the truth, and the people are growing restless). Men from drab, austere Mordent come seeking a bit of colour, or maybe some freedom from their more structured lives, refuggees fleeing the Falkovnian regime likewise enter (although in smaller numbers since the lord of their land does not like letting his property go and guards his borders against both people coming in and people desparately trying to get out). Even some folks from the horse plains of Nova Vaasa have come to Richemulot and some immigrants hail from Darkon (fleeing their undead infested land).

The sheer number of immigrants (and the open borders policy & number of shared borders) would grant the players a lot of freedom in character creation.

[PaulH]

Hi

Warlock or warmage for me!

[Hawkins]

im a gluton for punishment, when ever this gets off the ground i'll go preist.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

im a gluton for punishment, when ever this gets off the ground i'll go preist.

In Richemulot?