Portraits

[Custom_Hobby]

Don't forget the other grey elf wizard. Nothing odd about this one so you can go with whatever would be standard.

[Fabian]

I always thought it was a woman (no adam's apple, softer facial features, hint of lippy :D ), but I haven't read the story.. so I could be wrong!

[Custom_Hobby]

Now that you mention it, it does does look like a woman. The only reason I know it isn't is that there are no female knights of the rose (since you can see the rose patterns on the armor).

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Now that you mention it, it does does look like a woman. The only reason I know it isn't is that there are no female knights of the rose (since you can see the rose patterns on the armor).

It's always looked very feminine but the Knights of Solamnia are a very old fashioned bunch and I doubt they'd let a woman join their ranks.

[Chrysalis]

Now that you mention it, it does does look like a woman. The only reason I know it isn't is that there are no female knights of the rose (since you can see the rose patterns on the armor).

It's always looked very feminine but the Knights of Solamnia are a very old fashioned bunch and I doubt they'd let a woman join their ranks.

Unless they can grow a mustache, of course...  :dragon:

[Fabian]

I just wonder if it's one of those "I inherited my father's armour" type stories.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

I just wonder if it's one of those "I inherited my father's armour" type stories.

It's not. It's the story of how Lord Soth was marching off to war at the head of a column of soldiers when he met a bunch of dark elves on the road who told him his wife was having an affair while he was away. He got angry and rode back home (abandoning his part in the war and betraying his country). He slew his wife without even asking for an explanation and then was cursed to become Lord Soth the death knight.

Although now that I know it's a book cover then the idea of him appearing twice in the same picture at differen times in his life doesn't seem as obvious as it did before.

[Fabian]

It is woman - I knew it! It illustrates this story from the book: SPOILERS!

True Knight
Nikol, a female knight and Michael, a male half-barbarian search for the reason for the Cataclysm. She befriends Soth before he becomes a death knight, believing him to be on a quest of good. After the Cataclysm, she finds out he's a death knight and foolishly believes him when he says he has been unjustly cursed. They travel to Palanthus to find the Disks of Mishakal to free the knight. Mobs attempt to destroy the library, but Nikol and a shining Lord Soth turn them away. Nikol and Michael return to the Plainsmen tribes where they continue their faith in the old gods and wind up being the ancestors to Riverwind.

http://www.dragonlanceunderground.com/library/shortDL.asp?SeriesID=10

[Chrysalis]

From what I remember, once in the Ravenloft, Lord Soth was given the chance to modify his past and "relive" his betrayal. Maybe it's what happens in the picture?

I just wonder if it's one of those "I inherited my father's armour" type stories.

It's not. It's the story of how Lord Soth was marching off to war at the head of a column of soldiers when he met a bunch of dark elves on the road who told him his wife was having an affair while he was away. He got angry and rode back home (abandoning his part in the war and betraying his country). He slew his wife without even asking for an explanation and then was cursed to become Lord Soth the death knight.

Although now that I know it's a book cover then the idea of him appearing twice in the same picture at differen times in his life doesn't seem as obvious as it did before.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Yeah, I never liked the way they took him out of Ravenloft in 3rd ed and didn't bother explaining his half arsed exuse for a replacement. I suspect it was a copywrite issue rather than a creative decision (since Ravenloft was licensed out to White Wolf, the powergamer punk people).

[Rod the Worm]

What's Ravenloft and how did Soth get there in the first place, let alone get removed?

[Balgin Stondraeg]

What's Ravenloft and how did Soth get there in the first place, let alone get removed?

Okay.

1: The original Dragonlance novels were written by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman (apparently Tracy is a man).
2: Lord Soth was a major villain in the original Dragonlance novels.
3: Ravenloft was a 1st edition adventure for Advanced D&D written by, you geussed it, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman.
4: Ravenloft was so popular that it spawned a sequel (I think they wrote that too).
5: The two adventures were so popular that a campaign setting was based on them (created around them).

As a Campaign setting Ravenloft is a rubbish bin. It's where all the gods put the rubbish they don't want to have to deal with, and it stays there. I'm not talking about soem Planescape style scrud*heap challenge/robot wars type thing here. I'm talking about a full blown hammer horror fantasy setting (but with less gore, shock and splat stuff and more of an emphasis on atmosphere).

So, Ravenloft the setting:

1: The domain of Ravenloft (as featured in the first two adventures) is but one domain of many. Each domain has it's lord and master. This lord is some fallen individual who has committed acts so vile that they have been sucked into the world of Ravenloft.

2: The "world" of Ravenloft exists in it's own "sub plane" of existance, somewhere between the prime material plane and the elemental plane of shadow.

3: The gods do not interfere with this "shadow plane of despair". It has it's own gods. They do not interfere with other worlds just as the deities of other world do not interfere with their own little world (similar to Krynn in that respect).

4: Bad people get sent to Ravenloft. It's like Royston Vasye in that "you'll never leave".

5: The mists lie beyond the border of every region. It is very difficult to navigate the mists (only the gypsies know how to travel through the mists from one domain to another). Entering the mists without a guide could lead you to anywhere, even back where you began. The mists defy geography, a single footstep can take you halfway across the world and a day's travel could elad you back to your first step. Whilst the regions are geographicaly connected the mists lie at every border. In addition to this each darklord has the ability to close the borders of his domain so that none may leave (this closing of the borders differs from region to region, in one place all the scenery around the edges turns into painted stage flats which, when pulled aside reveal more and more painted backdrops).

Each darklord is tied directly to the land over which they reign (the old "when the king dies, the land dies" thing) but very few of them know it directly.

6: When new "darklords" enter Ravenloft a new domain is created for them by the powers that control the land. Each darklord rules supreme in his domain but is unable to leave it and suffers some terrible curse (for instance, one darklord wants to control everybody so his curse is that nobody obeys him and he has no power, his temper tantrums and sulking directly affect the domain but he cannot actively control anything).

7: Lord Soth entered Ravenloft as the darklord of Sithicus (a region inhabited almost exclusively by elves from Krynn).

So Ravenloft is a kind of horror setting where stuff is different (like detect evil spells don't work). There are less monsters than in most other gameworlds and they aren't strong monsters, they're sneaky (although some are a little bit stronger because they've managed to survive so long).

When the 3rd editional Ravenloft stuff came out it was barely supported (a mere handful of proiducts) but they removed Lord Soth and replaced him with another darklord who was barely written in, didn't make any sense and there was no mention of how he'd taken over the land (whereas in the other region that recieved a change of darklord they did explain it).

So I suspect they weren't allowed to include him because Wizards of the Cost wanted to keep him solely for Krynn (despite the fact that he'd managed ot exist perfectly well in both before). It's like how they don't want to let anyone else write a sourcebook for beholders or mindflayers.

I think Vecna and Kas' domains might still exist in the 3rd ed stuff 'though (although they might've just left them out).

In addition to borrowing from the world of literary horror, Ravenloft incorporated characters and features from existing Dungeons & Dragons settings. Lord Soth, a villain from the Dragonlance setting, appeared as a darklord in Ravenloft, as did the Greyhawk lich-god Vecna and his traitorous former lieutenant, the vampire Kas. The Lost King Gondegal, from the Forgotten Realms setting, also appeared, though not as a darklord. These are examples of characters already well-established in their respective origin campaign settings. Some Ravenloft characters were given backstories saying they hailed from existing campaign settings, although in some cases the original settings have no record of them. The lich Azalin Rex was retroactively attached to Greyhawk, for example.

Link.

[Chrysalis]

Ravenloft is probably my favorite setting, but every time I tried running something there, I had a very delicate time. The rules of this (those?) place(s) are so strange, it's hard to keep a storyarc...

As for the portrait, if it's really a girl on the pic, I'll go for the Caramon picture, it'll be ok...

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Although I only got to play in it three or four times Ravenloft is one of my favourite settings (along with the Warhammer World and a few others). Yep, I found the link after typing all that out and I wasn't going to remove my "cosmic rubbish bin" explanation after all the trouble I'd gone to typing it out.

I'm happily running this game now but a Ravenloft game would be fun. Actualy the last time I played in RAvenloft I was the Gm and I blatantly pinched something from an old Lone Wolf book (a bunch of ghouls dressed up as monks in a graveyard standing around an open grave as if conducting a funeral service but actualy they're waiting for the witnesses to go away so they can begin to feast).

It worked really well (although one cowardly character hid under a bush and watched the pack of ghouls eat one of his friends alive in front of him - he developed a fear of fields, especialy fields with people who looked like peasants or monks in them).

[Chrysalis]

I'm happily running this game now but a Ravenloft game would be fun.

I've been thinking about something recently...I'll consider it more seriously....