Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

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Re: Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

How about deliberately triggering a Conjunction event that fuses the domains into a single landmass?
It'd be one epic campaign...
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Re: Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

Post by alhoon »

Honestly, I would put the domains back in the core and change some of the too alien ones back.
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Re: Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

Post by The Lesser Evil »

JohnnyBurns wrote:Hey all!

Since more than a few of us are dismayed by the idea of independent domains in the forthcoming new and fractured 5E Core, I thought I'd just ask and see if anyone had thought of any creative ways to move from one domain to another if they're all separated now.

I don't mean just "walk into the Mists and hope you end up in XYZ domain." I'm looking for potential lore-based ideas.

Like, in "Fair Barovia" (4E) , one of the houses in Vallaki is the one that Frantisek Markov lived in before becoming a darklord. I wouldn't be surprised if some Dark Powers nonsense might allow someone who ventured into that house a means of transporting to Markovia. I plan on using a method like this to involve Markov with the exploits of the Abbot in Curse of Strahd, since they both make "broken ones," and the Abbot happens to be at the Abbey of St. Markovia. (I'm planning a ruse where the Abbot has a giant statue of Markov instead of the real St. Markovia and it's just a big lie to the people of Krezk.)

So yeah, any other cool ways of getting from place to place if you can't just walk? Obviously the Vistani can probably do it, but I'm kinda looking for more than just that.
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft provides us with Mist Talismans (p. 62), mundane objects that could allow navigation from one domain to the other, with each destination domain having its own mist Talisman.

Ravenloft third edition had the concept of mistways (first described in the third edition campaign setting but which were further expounded upon in the unpublished Van Richten's Guide to the Mists http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/arth ... eMists.pdf), that could transport a person from a specific point in one domain to a specific point in another domain. Some mistways were only one way, and a few required specific conditions (people, actions, times, etc.). Most mistways only had a certain percentage chance of working depending upon their reliability. It sounds like what you're going for with the Abbey of St. Markovia here is to have a mistway from Barovia to Markova via a Mistway, perhaps a situation specific Mistway from your Markov statue to somewhere in Markovia?

Alternatively, the Sea of Sorrows in 5e can potentially transpose itself upon any body of water in Ravenloft or beyond, so it might be possible to sail from say Lake Zarovich to the waters around Markovia, but that would be another example of blindly wandering through the Mists.
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Re: Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

Post by Pizza »

Everything I think of keeps sounding like stargates. Maybe some riff on the propylyon gates in Morrowind which are still rather stargatey, but each one can only take you to the next one to the sequence.

Would it be completely unbelievable for one or more of the religions in Ravenloft to have some sort of secret travel method that can’t be easily used? The Dark Powers allow it for reasons maybe to help the poor and downtrodden in Ravenloft or something?
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Re: Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

The church of Ezra might be able to Mistwalk like the Vistani, but it would take a priestly procession with lots of prayers and swinging of thuribles full of incense.

The other faiths might have their own ways, indeed, but it would all depend on performing the correct ceremonies and the presence of bona fide Clerics of sufficient rank, I'd guess.
If the unordained or sufficiently ranked clergy tried to copy the method, the Dark Powers could hit them with Powers Checks for blasphemy and play hob with both the journey and the destination.

The following of keystones into the Mists could be portal-like, or you could take a leaf from the book of Roger Zelazny. Specifically, the Amber-series.
People capable of walking from world to world could use some objects to zero in on a person or location. They would 'walk in Shadow', shifting from one reality to another, while letting the object they held guide their course.
If you use that method, you could get people walking into the Mists while holding the keystone, doing their best to interpret and follow its pull to the location it's linked to.
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Re: Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

Post by Mephisto of the FoS »

Mist Ferrymen can be summoned by ritual bloodletting of innocents, and bid to do the wish of the summoner. Mist Ferrymen may also be coerced to guiding travelers if they were subdued in combat. They have the unique ability to unfailingly travel to any domain they wish, as well as beyond the Demiplane of Dread if they so choose -- but they are always surrounded by the mists that brings Ravenloft along with it. So far, no Mist Ferryman has been known to provide this escape.
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Re: Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

Post by alhoon »

There are always mad people and weird cultists. Perhaps some cult makes central focus the ways to travel through the mists and make mist talismans as religious instruments.
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Re: Traveling in WotC's New Divided Core...?

Post by Muggs »

This is a big part of the game I'm running and thankfully VRGTR gives a couple of fun new options. There are a couple of moving domains and in my homebrew these can be used to hitchhike from one domain to another as they are known to cross all domains eventually. My homebrew version of them is as follows:

1: Carnival of Dread: a moving domain that always to show up at a time where the PCs are at their most hopeless point. - if a PC has utterly given up on hope and given into despair that they cannot go on this causes a flier inviting them to the Carnival to appear nearby which can be used to find it. The PC's can then walk into the mists using the flier as a keystone to The Carnival, a place that promises a little light in the dark. Here you can buy other keystones to domains and it basically acts like Sigil as a 'center point'.

2: Cyre 1313 The Morning Rail
The most easy to find and also the most dangerous! One of the 5e changes in my game is that each domain somewhere has a train station that doesn't belong. There is no timetable and the clock is stuck at 3 minutes to 9. Stories abound that if you were to catch the train that you can escape and as train stations are everywhere the assumption is that it must stop in every domain - though while some have known people to get on the train there is no such tales of anyone leaving.
The Train is always late, if you pay attention to the clock or watch for it's arrival it will never come but the moment your attention wavers you hear the screams and hiss as it approaches.

Then there are the Mist Walkers. You can hire a guide or join a Caravan to travel either by land or water or well... just take your chances in walking into the mist and HOPE you end up somewhere you want to be and are not killed outright, if you have a item belonging to another Domain of Dread this will work as a keystone but like a teleport you only have a % of getting to your intended destination.

Finally there's high level magic, In my homebrew Planeshift, Gate and Wish can be used to teleport from one domain to another. PC's may even think they have teleported OUT of Ravenloft only in time to realize they've either ended up in a Domain that matches their description or a new Domain is created as a dark reflection of their destination and only in time do they learn that they're still in Ravenloft. :twisted:
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