Personal Canon

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HuManBing
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by HuManBing »

I'm sure I wrote this earlier, but cannot find it:

I don't have a really good renaming for Invidia, although the provisional name is Întradevăr (similar to "In truth" in Romanian).

Its backstory has been extensively rewritten to examine a specific political hypothesis. The idea is that the Core has always been fairly anti-Vistani, treating them as second-class citizens even if they fear to outright abuse them. Întradevăr asks the question of "what happens when you give a landless people a land of their own... and they end up just as miserable as before?"

Aderre's backstory focuses more on persecution by non-Vistani rather than framing her mother Isabella as expelled by Vistani.

Aderre fled to Întradevăr in order to escape persecution of her and other Vistani descendants by non-Vistani in neighboring domains. When she assassinated Bakholis, she was able to establish her own state, making it the first time a Vistani actually became part of the ruling class. (Although admittedly, Gabrielle is only part-Vistani.) The dusky forests and beautiful rolling riverways of Întradevăr initially held out hope of a free state for Vistani to travel and roam as actual right-holding free people in their own land.

Gabrielle's whole justification for her rule is that this is a land "by Vistani, for Vistani", and foreigners are not free to mix and mingle in Întradevăr. The Vistani families live simply, and rustically, as nomads. Întradevăr thus plays to a narrative of ethnic pride and solidarity, with a small roving Vistani population distrustful of outsiders and rejecting their "corrupting" influences of landowning, industry, taxes, and military levies.

Aderre's inner contradiction stems from the fact that she has to adopt some of these trappings of power, thus distancing herself from her desperately yearned-for Vistani roots. Ethnically, too, she is secretly separated by her half-blood parentage. She is also a landed national ruler of a nomadic classless tribe, further underscoring her own outsider status. She rules with a narrative of Vistani-first, but is herself only a tenuous claimant of that ethnic birthright. In her interpersonal dealings, she is dependent on foreign non-Vistani missions and traders for her status, because her own lack of a family group leaves her otherwise unsupported in a culture of family ties.

Somewhat in keeping with her canonical relationship torments, Aderre can only trust herself to form the briefest of dalliances with local Vistani. She knows that any protracted period of contact will expose her as a fraudulent claimant to the Vistani ways. Her only other avenue of longer-term companionship is with foreigners, like the Gundarakite leader Szerieza and the wolfman Matton, who are the very targets of scorn and suspicion for the Vistani-first nation she herself constructed.

And quite separately, Aderre has to get her hands dirty from time to time in balancing out the resident Vistani tasques, in case any of them grow too powerful and refuse to reck her rod.
"This land was meant to be safe haven for us. They overthrew the Prince and the Nevasta took power."
"All Tigan and Vistan rejoiced, for she said now our peoples have a land! But we went and soon there was feuding and rivalries and bloodshed. Only this time, the hands of our own brethren were the ones wielding the knives."
The guy closes his eyes and breathes out raggedly.
"Such is the lot of fools. Given a haven for themselves, free from the hatred of strangers, they rush to find new fiendish methods of torment, visited by themselves, on themselves, for themselves."
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by Deewun »

Necromancer, coming through.

But yeah, a big thing just happened, finishing a campaign with a big ole change, so I thought I'd share it with everybody.

Very short version, Richemulot is now ruled by a crazy sentient mass of vermins and has been altered into my version of the old Ricoba write-up, a Spanish Inquisition flavored land, where the Inquisition is against mages.

How? Long campaign story shorter, a Transmuter was searching for a series of powerful spellbooks from Oerth that were brought into Ravenloft. One of my PC's mentor was Tenser himself, and had spread the eight books (one for each school) out across the Core with different NPCs watching it or in different hidden places. The Transmuter's master was given the Necromancy book, but the master died, and the spellbook went to his other apprentice, as the Transmuter (his name is Arkas, that'll be easier to write) had failed many power checks by that point and was turning into some kind of vermin-chimera-man. Arkas tracked down and killed the first Apprentice, and went searching for the others. The PCs were searching for them at the same time through their own stories and adventures.

The two parties each end up with 4 books each. Arkas sends them a message in the form of a maimed pseudofamiliar that he will destroy Ste. Ronges with a plague. They arrive, plead with Renier for her help, but Arkas kills her and through the powerful spellbooks, takes over the wererats. The domain begins to fall apart, ala Daglan and Where Black Roses Bloom. Arkas reveals all he wants is to rip his master from wherever he is in death. Tenser's apprentice, defacto leader of the group (for better or worse, Wis 5), remembering what happened in Sithicus that they averted, gives Arkas the four books he wants.

Huge fight with a bunch of Wererats and ghosts, people running for their lives, and our PCs trying to save everyone they can, Arkas finishes the incantation he learned from a Fiend (earlier recurring campaign villain) to tie himself to the land, Cataclysm ... then ...

Arkas fell to pieces, like Oogy Boogy in Nightmare Before Christmas. Our PCs take the eight Spellbooks, and escape, seeing that the land has changed. They split the books between them, and go their separate ways, with the last shot of the campaign being that the only Richemulot among them had forgotten Richemulot had ever been anything but Ricoba, and the PCs agreeing.

I'm quite proud of the change and the campaign.
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by The Lesser Evil »

Deewun wrote:
Very short version, Richemulot is now ruled by a crazy sentient mass of vermins and has been altered into my version of the old Ricoba write-up, a Spanish Inquisition flavored land, where the Inquisition is against mages.
Cool. If you're looking for ideas or inspiration regarding this, you might look up the mythological creature the "rat king", which is basically a bunch of rats with their tails enmeshed into each other to form a greater sort of gestalt like being. In D&D, the cranium rat swarms might be a good creature to base this off of.

The two parties each end up with 4 books each. Arkas sends them a message in the form of a maimed pseudofamiliar that he will destroy Ste. Ronges with a plague. They arrive, plead with Renier for her help, but Arkas kills her and through the powerful spellbooks, takes over the wererats. The domain begins to fall apart, ala Daglan and Where Black Roses Bloom. Arkas reveals all he wants is to rip his master from wherever he is in death. Tenser's apprentice, defacto leader of the group (for better or worse, Wis 5), remembering what happened in Sithicus that they averted, gives Arkas the four books he wants.
Just so I can make sure I understand, by "the group" and "they", are you referring to the Player Characters? And is "what happened in Sithicus" referring to When Black Roses bloom?
Huge fight with a bunch of Wererats and ghosts, people running for their lives, and our PCs trying to save everyone they can, Arkas finishes the incantation he learned from a Fiend (earlier recurring campaign villain) to tie himself to the land, Cataclysm ... then ...
Sounds very epic!
Arkas fell to pieces, like Oogy Boogy in Nightmare Before Christmas. Our PCs take the eight Spellbooks, and escape, seeing that the land has changed. They split the books between them, and go their separate ways, with the last shot of the campaign being that the only Richemulot among them had forgotten Richemulot had ever been anything but Ricoba, and the PCs agreeing.

I'm quite proud of the change and the campaign.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean here. Are you saying that Richemulot transformed into your altered Ricoba (along with the player characters' memories of it) as a result of the players failing their "last shot" to prevent the transformation?
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by Deewun »

The Lesser Evil wrote:
Just so I can make sure I understand, by "the group" and "they", are you referring to the Player Characters? And is "what happened in Sithicus" referring to When Black Roses bloom?
Yes. Apologies for the ambiguities, was trying to be quick and simple, since I was summing up a whole campaign's worth of plot. The PCs, dealing with the events of When Black Roses Bloom.
The Lesser Evil wrote: I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean here. Are you saying that Richemulot transformed into your altered Ricoba (along with the player characters' memories of it) as a result of the players failing their "last shot" to prevent the transformation?
Victory for the PCs was saving the lives of all the citizens of former-Richemulot, not stopping the big bad. They were forced to decide whether to let the villain "win" and get what he wanted, allowing them to save the thousands of people in the domain ... or to kill the evil wizard that had been tormenting them, killing loved ones and former party members, but the domain dying and taking everyone inside with it. I made it clear that they could escape if they decided to kill Arkas and duck out of there, but they opted to save the civilians, like real heroes.

And Arkas learned the truest statement of all powerful beings in Ravenloft: be careful what you wish for. He became the vermin monster he always was, and the new Darklord of Ricoba, but he lost his ability to be a man at all, let alone cast magic, and even worse, never accomplished his true goal of finding his old master.
The Lesser Evil wrote: Cool. If you're looking for ideas or inspiration regarding this, you might look up the mythological creature the "rat king", which is basically a bunch of rats with their tails enmeshed into each other to form a greater sort of gestalt like being. In D&D, the cranium rat swarms might be a good creature to base this off of.
Yeah, Cranium Rats were absolutely the inspiration for Arkas' current state. A hive mind being of all vermin (bats, squids, bugs, rats, eels, snakes, etc.) in the country, forming together under his red robe to lead his Inquisition against magic.
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by The Lesser Evil »

Yes. Apologies for the ambiguities, was trying to be quick and simple, since I was summing up a whole campaign's worth of plot. The PCs, dealing with the events of When Black Roses Bloom.
Hey no worries, it's a hard thing to do. Thank you for sharing though, it sounds like a really epic and immersive campaign.
Victory for the PCs was saving the lives of all the citizens of former-Richemulot, not stopping the big bad. They were forced to decide whether to let the villain "win" and get what he wanted, allowing them to save the thousands of people in the domain ... or to kill the evil wizard that had been tormenting them, killing loved ones and former party members, but the domain dying and taking everyone inside with it. I made it clear that they could escape if they decided to kill Arkas and duck out of there, but they opted to save the civilians, like real heroes.

And Arkas learned the truest statement of all powerful beings in Ravenloft: be careful what you wish for. He became the vermin monster he always was, and the new Darklord of Ricoba, but he lost his ability to be a man at all, let alone cast magic, and even worse, never accomplished his true goal of finding his old master.
Thanks for clarifying the choice thing up. That makes sense. So although Richemulot changed to become Ricoba to match the shift in darklords, the actual people of the domain remained alive and relatively well.
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by Mistmaster »

Well, I have published my head-canon Mistworld on this forum; Biggest change is the fact that Ravenloft is now a fullfledged material plane.
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Re: Personal Canon

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The Lesser Evil wrote: Thanks for clarifying the choice thing up. That makes sense. So although Richemulot changed to become Ricoba to match the shift in darklords, the actual people of the domain remained alive and relatively well.
You got it. I loved the Spanish flare of the idea for Ricoba from the Lonesome Road, and never really cared for ANOTHER French-based domain, especially with the Reniers, who I also never cared for. So I spent a long time trying to get to the point that I could canonically in my personal campaigns change it to Ricoba, with my own darklord (sidenote, who is based on one of the original PCs from the first time I played 25ish years ago) to run it all.

I'm sure that the Ricoba write-up is saved somewhere here in the Fraternity. It is definitely worth a read.
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by Galeros »

Thread Necromancy!!

I have been getting back into Ravenloft again and have been thinking about my own version of it.


Like I said years ago, I would set the tech level to around the 1890's, like Masque of the Red Death, although more remote areas like Barovia would still be fairly backwards and a lot of domains in the core would still rely on old fashioned daggers, staves, maces, and bows for protection over guns, which are becoming increasingly common thanks to the domains of Paridon and Nosos. Nosos is the manufacturing powerhouse of the Demiplane and Malus is incredibly wealthy as a result, perhaps the most wealthy man in the Demiplane. Paridon and Lamordia focus more on handcrafting finer goods like watches and fine clothing and better guns over Nosos which mass produces cheap goods in its factories. Nosos mainly trades for food from other domains due to its polluted nature. Primitive electric lighting is around in Nosos, Paridon, and Lamordia, but again only the wealthiest have access to it. There are no trains due to the Mists making such a thing impractical.


Demihumans would be playable, although they are only native to Darkon and Sithicus.


People who die in the Demiplane are not allowed to move on and instead join either the Mists, the land itself, or even a building or other structure. They slumber until something stirs them from their rest, such as someone desecrating their grave, or perhaps they feel a calling to protect one of their descendants.


Fiends are the result of evil actions taken by people taking physical form, they are extremely rare and no one knows what exactly triggers them to form from some evil acts but not others.

Even in the more advanced domains some forms of armor are still popular. Lighter armor is still used in some more advanced domains because of the protection it offers against melee weapons such as daggers. You are still far more likely to be accosted by a mugger wielding a knife in Paridon than a gun. More primitive domains will still use heavier armor because guns are not as common AND it still offers great protection against monsters such as werewolves and zombies.

Magic is not as common as in other D&D worlds but it is still there and it is not TOO hard to find a Mage or Priest with a bit of asking around. Guns are less common in domains like Darkon where magic is much more common.

The Demiplane is still part of the wider D&D Cosmology, it resides in the Deep Ethereal as detailed in 2nd Edition Supplements. Of course 99.9% of natives have no clue about this. nor might they care even if they did know.
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Re: Personal Canon

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In the default rules, hags cannot become druids because hag magic is incompatible with druidic magic. Given that hags can't call on their supernatural abilities until they undergo the Change, I ruled that hags can become druids until they start undergoing the Change. At which point they become ex-druids but can become despoilers (CD) if they meet the level requirements. Thematically it fits with the idea of hags as beings who corrupt the natural world. Not all of the abilities make complete sense with Ravenloft hags (undead wild shape, for example) but those are easily reworked.
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by Wolfglide of the Fraternity »

High Priest Mikhal wrote:At which point they become ex-druids but can become despoilers (CD) if they meet the level requirements.
I think you mean blighters. Yes, that would be an excellent prestige class for hags.
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by High Priest Mikhal »

Wolfglide wrote:
High Priest Mikhal wrote:At which point they become ex-druids but can become despoilers (CD) if they meet the level requirements.
I think you mean blighters. Yes, that would be an excellent prestige class for hags.
Yeah, blighters. Thanks for the correction. :)
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Re: Personal Canon

Post by brilliantlight »

Campaign wise the Dukkar got his own domain while Gabriel regained her rulership over Invidia but is now much more willing to listen to popular opinion, Drakov was overthrown in a coup that was apparently (but not really) led by his own daughter, Drakov was given another domain which is a mid sized island in the Sea of Sorrows where he is more of a laughingstock than ever. The three hags are much tougher and much more individual and hags in general are much tougher.

Voretokov no longer has an eternal winter but has the typical 6 month summer and winter of the Artic. Hunting, fishing and fur trading are the basis of its economy and its Dark Lord is cursed with being a poor hunter losing a lot of respect. His real curse is that he never will be a hero and renown is his realm is in being able to bring in the most meat he will never be that.
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Re: Personal Canon

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High Priest Mikhal wrote:In the default rules, hags cannot become druids because hag magic is incompatible with druidic magic. Given that hags can't call on their supernatural abilities until they undergo the Change, I ruled that hags can become druids until they start undergoing the Change. At which point they become ex-druids but can become despoilers (CD) if they meet the level requirements. Thematically it fits with the idea of hags as beings who corrupt the natural world. Not all of the abilities make complete sense with Ravenloft hags (undead wild shape, for example) but those are easily reworked.
I changed hags as well they are now can cast spells as 6th lvl sorcerers + any class or prestige class levels they have that also cast as sorcerers.
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