The Train master - Idea

[NykylaiHellray]

I was wondering, what about introducing victorian esque train system into ravenloft.


A new Dark Lord has been put into ravenloft and he brings trains.

Connecting the various places in the Demiplane of dread.


The train transports many things, living and dead.


.....Meh thats an idea I had =P......anyone willing to expand?

[Waldi]

Perhaps, the main "Train-Domain" would be a Land like the american Great-Planes and the Darklord is the ruthless major of a small boomtown.
The original indian-like Inhabitants of the domain where nearly wiped out and enslaved by him. The land is incredible large (more than twice the size of the core), but mostly a barren, red Wasteland and only sparsly settled.
Trains are the only safe way to transport people and wares.
When the "Plains of lost innosence" fell into the mists, engineers from the railway-company went to other civilized domains in Ravenloft.
The mistway, that leads to the "Plains of lost innosence" is the Mist-Express 666. There is a small, deserted train-station somewhere in the Amber-Wastes. Every day exactly at 16.30 the Mist-Express arrives and takes travellers to the Plains. When the Mistway is "jammed", the ending-trainstation materializes randomly somewhere in the demiplane of dread, but not in the "Planes of lost innosence" The train itself seems to be completely empty...

[NykylaiHellray]

Oooooo I like those ideas.


There is also a huge montrosity station known as grand central.

A monolithic construction, with endless platforms.

It is said grand central is a living breathing entity, a huge demonic construct, built by the dark powers for the dark lord which governs this domain.


It is said the trains from this station go to many planes within the greet wheel, even to Sigil. But these trains only go one way, there are no return tickets for sale.

A person who has attracted the dark masters, maybe waiting at a station when a myseterious train of arcane design trails past, they would see lighted windows, and people laughing and drinking onboard. When they get on, they relsie there is no one else. The doors then close, and they are lost forver and taken first class to the plain of dread.


Though this is not the only function of these trains, there is also the Necroplis railway service (search in google, old funeral train system for london).

It is a special railway designed to take the bodies of the dead to the elemental plane of graves, or to anay other graveyard.



The Station Master

Story: Once a grand engineer and researcher into planewalking, he was one of the first to make a train system that alloweed inter planer travel. it was an amazing feet of modern magical enginering.
Though the darker side of this, was the lives he built it upon. The first of these was his partner, who was the true inventor of the inter planer engine. So obsessed from being famous, he took credit for the mans research. He treated him like a slave, making him work as he got the glory. When the man tried to speak against his captor, he killed him. His usefullness was ended anyway, he had what he needed.

Though this was not the last life to be lost. Many lives where hurt in the building, and these where manly the slaves which built it.

The place was a barren land, which was nessercary due to the experiments ripping space and time if they failed.

There where natives however, though they where not able to stop progress. They became enslaved, and forced to build the tracks.

(going to incorperate more of this american/slash victorian atmospehere)


Personality: Unlike many he has embraced his mantle of a dark lord. Though he is still tormented like the rest he uses it to his advantage, and using it for his own dark pleasures of pulling everyone else down.

(....mmmmm work in progress)



Employees
Not just the dark lord of trains is in charge of this operation. He has many a slaves, all as dammned as he is.

Ticket office guy: His body no longer seems human, melded to the office he is eternally dammed to. Office and body are one.
Some say he was a selfish man, a scrouge (chirstmas carol esque story) who got rich while his workers got poor and died. So he is foever dammed to take money from people, though never have any for himself, and do the work that he damned others to while he got rich in times long ago.

[Joël of the FoS]

There was a discussion on this matter a few years ago here. People were looking to develop a train between the most educated domains Lamordia and Mordent IIRC.

A similar idea was dealing with hot air baloons.

Both concepts can be cool adventure hooks IMHO.

Joël

[Corrupted_Loremaster]

I still like the idea of a Phantom Train carting the players around for a Sliders-style, problem-of-the-week campaign, but the Plains of Innocence and Grand Central both sound interesting as well. A thought though; perhaps they could both be linked. I know the concept of two darklords who hate each other being neighbors has been done already, but perhaps the Station is located in the remains of a small city in the center of the Plains. The Plains are ruled over by one of the last remaining shaman of the Indian-like people, who directs his followers in a futile attempt to destroy the sanctuary of "evil" technology.

[nowonmai]

There was a discussion on this matter a few years ago here. People were looking to develop a train between the most educated domains Lamordia and Mordent IIRC.

It would seem to me like it would be too difficult to build through the other lands. Unless the Darklords and other governing bodies of the lands in between could agree on such alien technology (as most arent nearly as advanced), building would be almost impossible. Plus I dont see the Darklords getting along so well.

[Waldi]

A thought though; perhaps they could both be linked. I know the concept of two darklords who hate each other being neighbors has been done already, but perhaps the Station is located in the remains of a small city in the center of the Plains. The Plains are ruled over by one of the last remaining shaman of the Indian-like people, who directs his followers in a futile attempt to destroy the sanctuary of "evil" technology.

Hmm...quite a good idea !! What about the "Plains of lost innocence" beeing a cluster in the old-west-style ? There even could be a few more domains in it (linked by the railway !). Hmm...lets see, what ideas could be used ?

-Of course the two "main domains", the large town with the central railway-station, ruled by the trainmaster AND the "Wasted Hunting-Grounds", where the beaten and supressed indianlike People live.

-"Serenity Gulch": a ghost-town in old-west-style where the (un)dead inhabitants are still terrorised by the eternal battle between the ghost of the brutal and despotic sherrif and a hideous band of undead outlaws

-"Redwood-County": a large oregon-like wood north of the plains, where amish-like people live a peacefull live as farmers an lumberjacks - unfortunately the land ist plagued by a horrible creature - the bigfoot

-"Prosper": a mining-town where everybody fell under the curse of the gold ( I have no idea for the darklord)

-"the O´Leary-Gang": a moving pocketdomain similar to the carnival but consisting of a bunch of outlaws an gunslingers. Darklord is the infamous outlaw Ahab O´Leary - "the man that can´t be shot by a colt"

[NykylaiHellray]

Hmmmmm we could be on to somthing. A domain with ghost cowboys. Nightmares .....we got to have nightmares....


Lol a whole great chunk of landmass pulled in by the dark powers because of the greed in that area by a few very evil indviduals.


The indians act as the good fighting the evil. They knoe there land is surrounded by darkness now. They believe if they can kill the darklords then there land will be free.

We could make the natives of this plain a PrC.



The central trainstation exists within the centre of the plain of lost inncocence.


The tracks go to all ares within the domain, and to certain domains with the rest of the demiplane of dread.



It would make for a much more varied yet still overly gothic ravenloft adventure.


Hmmm any names for this campaign project?

[Waldi]

Hmmm any names for this campaign project?

I would keep "Plains of lost Innocence", but alternative Names for the cluster could be "Plains of greed"; "Shattered Union"; "Weird West" ;"Western Wastelands"....

Nightmares .....we got to have nightmares....

Another domain of the cluster :
"The Battleside at Squirrel-Peak"
Hmm...there once was (not long ago) a civil war in the Plains of lost innocence between a rebel-army and the so called administration-forces (just like the civil-war in the US)
Deep in the plains there ist a field, where two armies clashed together with rifles and primitive gatling-guns. Both sides wiped out each other completely in a battle that lastet for seven days.
Now, the soil is drowned with blood and the negative feelings of all the dead soldiers. Who ever dares to sleep on this field will find himself trapped in a nightmare of a ever-repeating battle between the rebels and the administration-forces (inside the dream, they find themself as ordenary soldiers of one or the other side. If there are more people trapped in the dream, those you like will be soldiers of the enemy-side)

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Hate to break it to you guys, but the "Deadlands" RPG ran this idea about as far as it could conceivably be taken more than ten years ago....

[Corrupted_Loremaster]

As a big fan of Deadlands, I'm quite aware of that. Doesn't mean we can't have a touch of something with a similar feel in the Demiplane.

Now, a couple of thoughts from myself;

While I don't mind having smaller Western-themed domains, I would still like to keep a touch of a Victorian feel somewhere in the area. Grand Central perhaps, with those living there thinking of themselves as the last bastion of real "civilization" around, with the other settlements being considered little better than the savages.

For my part, I find the natives being portrayed as out and out "good guys" is a touch...the word that comes to mind is "cliche", but it's more complicated than that. You might have a small faction of them acting as you describe, but for the most part, I'd have them acting as ruthless and intolerant as anyone else. The majority might be aware something is wrong with the land, but blame all outsiders, not just the select few who are actually responsible.

Technology...here we have one of the biggest problems when you have a domain thats going to be farther ahead on the tech-scale than any existing domain. How do you deal with PCs that decide to get their hands on a gatling gun? Not sure, but it is something to consider. Also, I like the idea of having Grand Central being a haven for steampunk-style Madtech, devices that simply shouldn't exist, yet function just fine. They help explain how the station survives, and aren't as much of a danger of messing up the world, since you could simply rule that they quickly break down when taken outside the cluster.

[Spiteful Crow]

If a PC tries to take a gatling gun out of the setting, the Infernal Revenue Service flies down and audits them!

[Waldi]

Hate to break it to you guys, but the "Deadlands" RPG ran this idea about as far as it could conceivably be taken more than ten years ago....

Oh, I know Deadlands very well and don´t see a problem by using the same basic ideas. (There are also "Sixguns and Socery" from Castle Falkenstein and D20 Spellslinger working with a magical Wild-West, so: why not ?)
And I think, the mood of Ravenloft differs much from that in Deadlands. In Ravenloft you have got a "serious" gothic horror like that in a Vincent-Price-movie, Deadlands is far more centered on black humor and a (cool) comicbookstile. (Anyone else here who thougth of the Bravestarr-animated-series while looking at "Lost Colony" for example ?)

Grand Central could also be a port at the rim of the plains and have a bit of a ravenloftian New-York. Than you would have masses of poor, betrayed immigrants (but since the plains fell into the mists, fewer immigrants come to Grand Central of course) and the false hope things will be better in cities that lie farer west.
In this case, Grand Central had also a kind of "Stature of Liberty" standing on a small island in front of the port. When the domain entered Ravenloft, this island started to sink and the stature partly shattered...
Another idea to connect the Plains of lost Innocence to the rest of Ravenloft would then be a special mistway usable by sea.
The "Path of the Hopeless" is a two-way Mistway of poor reliability and goes from Mordentshires or Paridons port to the port at Grand Central.
New immigrants from the core would be mainly falknovians, gundarakites ore the poorest of the pore from Paridon...

If a PC tries to take a gatling gun out of the setting, the Infernal Revenue Service flies down and audits them!

Well, I would handle that different . Perhaps technologie, that is too high developed, starts aging very quickly outside the Plains ? After a few days, the warrior with the gatling-gun would just have only a rusty piece of junk...

[ScS of the Fraternity]

I'm getting a kind of Stephen King's the Dark Tower feel off of all of this.

I really sounds as though this topic is spawning its own little world, rather than one domain.

[Waldi]

I'm getting a kind of Stephen King's the Dark Tower feel off of all of this.

Great Idea !!
The "Plains of lost Innocence" as they are thougt now will be more than one domain, that´s right - it´s more "design your own cluster" than "design your own domain"
It is menshioned in the GRW, that the mists of Ravenloft reach to all possible worlds and mirrors all possible worlds. We already have (officialy) a Mock-Germany/Switzerland, a Mock-France, a mock-Russia, a Mock-England and so on....So, why not a ravenloftian Mock-US ?

By the way;
possible ways to the Plains could be:
"The Path of the Hopeless" - a travelroute by sea from Mordent
"Loa-Lines Inc." a mistway of excellent reliability from Souragne to the south of the Plains (There is regular steamship-traffic)
"The Wendigo Trail" a oneway-mistway of poor reliability from Arkendale to Redwood-County
"Mistway Express 666" the strange, mysterious trainstation that can apear randomly all over Ravenloft and takes you to Grand Central

Religion in the Plaines:
-The indianlike Natives (we have to find a better name for them !) follow the shamanistic ways of their ancestors (and spawn a lot of druids - äh, medicine-men)
-The settlers pray to the nameless God of a striktly monotheistic religion.
There is also a very important Holy Scripture, that every godfearing settler knows (at least partly). The settlers insist, that their church is a reformed one and they hate the unreformed mother-church (also no sign of this mysterious mother-church can be found within the Plains)
-The citydwellers of Grand Central share the same religious beliefs than the settlers, but are far less pious.

The people (settlers) :
Most settlers are quite friendly, pious people who try to live a peacefull live. However, deep inside, a lot of settlers habour strong rassistic feelings.
The native "Redskins" are treated as better animals, other non-white-people as second-class-citizens. Non-humans are even more suspect to the settlers, because there is virtually no non-human-population in the Plains. Most settlers will treat non-humans as a curious kind of freak, and in some remote and more fanatic communities, a non-human has good chances to find himself hanging from a rope....

The currency in all domains of the Plains is the Grand-Central-Dollar, or just Dollar for short.