15th Anniversary of the Book of Souls Netbook!

[alhoon]

15 years! No! I find that very hard to believe, because that would mean that I have been playing this game for about ...15...years...as well...I am not that old! I am not, I am not!
Jennifer

Do you suddenly realize years are catching up to you, although you have sooo much more to do?
Do you find old looming always closer and that concerns you?
Do you look back and you see that you lack the energy of your youth?

Worry not!
Alhoon's become-a-lich recipies are here to help! Recipies for phylacteries and power rituals tailored to your specific needs by a friendly undead mindflayer, who is ready to give his support!
Prices reasonable.

And of course, since we realize it's a tough economy you get a 10% discount one the recipies.

PS. For the first 3 persons to show interest, you also get 3 jars of Alhoon's moisture bath oils. For those of us that don't want our undead skin to grow dry and fall off.

[Garudos Celestar]

Writing this list is so frustrating, because I want to put so much more in - but gotta draw the line somewhere (and go to bed). But it reminds me how much find I had running that campaign.

A few years later, I also ran Bleak House in a sort of "Return to Ravenloft" coda to the campaign, which was fun. Except for Chris, who had to make a new character to replace Heinrich.

Thanks so much, Stu!

I do have one more specific info request about the campaign, if I may be so bold...

What in the world was Gaston's plotline supposed to be? From the published journals, Caine, Isaiah, Heinrich, and Ilyich all got their "day in the sun," and Max's backstory with the Dachine family was tantalizing... but I have no clue what Gaston was supposed to do. All I can figure out is that he has green eyes and colon cancer (possibly sentient diabolical colon cancer, but I'm still not sure what to make of that...)

[A G Thing]

15 years! No! I find that very hard to believe, because that would mean that I have been playing this game for about ...15...years...as well...I am not that old! I am not, I am not!
Jennifer

Do you suddenly realize years are catching up to you, although you have sooo much more to do?
Do you find old looming always closer and that concerns you?
Do you look back and you see that you lack the energy of your youth?

Worry not!
Alhoon's become-a-lich recipies are here to help! Recipies for phylacteries and power rituals tailored to your specific needs by a friendly undead mindflayer, who is ready to give his support!
Prices reasonable.

And of course, since we realize it's a tough economy you get a 10% discount one the recipies.

PS. For the first 3 persons to show interest, you also get 3 jars of Alhoon's moisture bath oils. For those of us that don't want our undead skin to grow dry and fall off.

You say its reasonable but it is kind of hard to offer payment if I don't have an unholy price point!
Money? Souls? Blood Sacrifice? Credit?
What is the low low price?

[Mangrum]

I don't think this is in any way reflected in rules changes; he means narratively, PCs are somehow aware of the horrors that lurk in the dark and nasty places of the world, when most others are willfully ignorant, which is fundamentally how almost all RPGs and horror fiction works anyway. An NPC fighter and a PC fighter may have the same stats, but a PC recognises something the NPC doesn't.

Right; it's a bit meta since, simply by merit of being PCs, the PCs tend to carry an enhanced awareness of the oddities in the setting around them. There's no mechanical effect to being "enlightened." You just happen to be one of the minority of rats in the maze that the observers are specifically testing.

Also, with effort--more likely, come to think of it, with a strong emotional connection--I imagine it would be possible to "awaken the sleepers."

Think of it more like freeing vat-grown people from the Matrix than showing magic to muggles.

[alhoon]

Personally I'm not a fan of the "all is right" kind of mentality for the majority of NPCs. I prefer the Barovians be aware that vampires exist but not that Strahd is one for example, or someone from Richemulot knowing wererats exist and that ghosts exist etc.
The inquisition doesn't make much sense if Tepestani consider fey to be mostly fairy tales.

I also love the clearly magical and supernatural aspects of Ravenloft, like the Shadow Rift and Necropolis.

[stu]

I don't think this is in any way reflected in rules changes; he means narratively, PCs are somehow aware of the horrors that lurk in the dark and nasty places of the world, when most others are willfully ignorant, which is fundamentally how almost all RPGs and horror fiction works anyway. An NPC fighter and a PC fighter may have the same stats, but a PC recognises something the NPC doesn't.

Right; it's a bit meta since, simply by merit of being PCs, the PCs tend to carry an enhanced awareness of the oddities in the setting around them. There's no mechanical effect to being "enlightened." You just happen to be one of the minority of rats in the maze that the observers are specifically testing.

100% agree with this. I always start thinking of RL PCs as "normal people" in the first instance - i.e. what was their mundane existence that they've lived for most of their life. Then, what was the pivotal event that makes them aware that things in their world are just not quite right - and it's this understanding that makes them "an adventurer" in the traditional D&D parlance (even if I would never describe them as such in-game).

Re: alhoon's observation around NPC awareness of vampires/wererats.... I don't think we're saying that all of the NPCs think everything is hunky-dory with the world, and are unaware of scary things. Think of it this way - a Barovian local may think their life is difficult because of the hard rule of the Von Zarovich, and is has heard rumours that he's lived a preternaturally long life (magic? something worse?), and is probably very scared of the idea of Strahd visiting, because they've heard stories about sickness and even death afterwards. But that's very different from a PC, who may eventually learn that Strahd is undead because he killed his brother, drinks blood, and can be killed by the Sunsword. They both know something is wrong with Strahd... but their outlook and knowledge is very different.

Stu

[stu]

What in the world was Gaston's plotline supposed to be? From the published journals, Caine, Isaiah, Heinrich, and Ilyich all got their "day in the sun," and Max's backstory with the Dachine family was tantalizing... but I have no clue what Gaston was supposed to do. All I can figure out is that he has green eyes and colon cancer (possibly sentient diabolical colon cancer, but I'm still not sure what to make of that...)

Good question, and you're right - Gaston did get (relatively) shortchanged on the backstory and plot threads.

When I started the game, the players were all friends from university. Gaston's player is a friend I've known since we were 8, and he lived a couple of hours away at the time.... but then moved to Sydney and joined our game just after it started. So Gaston was originally a quickly thrown-together character for a one-off session, and so didn't get the backstory focus the others got.

Eventually, it was noticed that Gaston was always very "nice" - non-violent (in fact I don't think he every killed anything in the campaign), polite, civilised. SO the idea was that Gaston's personality had been split at some point, and he had an angry, violent personality just starting to emerge. A lot of the imagery and hints I used were taken from the Stephen King novel "The Dark Half", which included the idea of him originally being twins, and one twin being absorbed in-utero by the other.

It all culminated in one of the sessions in Dementlieu, but to be honest I can't remember the detail (it was 13 years ago!), but the theme was that Gaston had to get back to being a "whole" person. Forgetting that stuff is one of the reasons I'd really like to get the journal written at some point, if only to remember some of this.

Stu

[Jennifer]

Jennifer wrote:
15 years! No! I find that very hard to believe, because that would mean that I have been playing this game for about ...15...years...as well...I am not that old! I am not, I am not!
Jennifer

Do you suddenly realize years are catching up to you, although you have sooo much more to do?
Do you find old looming always closer and that concerns you?
Do you look back and you see that you lack the energy of your youth?

Worry not!
Alhoon's become-a-lich recipies are here to help! Recipies for phylacteries and power rituals tailored to your specific needs by a friendly undead mindflayer, who is ready to give his support!
Prices reasonable.

And of course, since we realize it's a tough economy you get a 10% discount one the recipies.

PS. For the first 3 persons to show interest, you also get 3 jars of Alhoon's moisture bath oils. For those of us that don't want our undead skin to grow dry and fall off.

Yes yes yes! The years are catching up and I only managed to get my party to the start of the grand conjunction! There is so much still to do...so much to torture my players with...so many adventures to play out!
I lack the energy of my youth indeed and I know who is to blame for that too! I will take the recipes for reasonable prices. I will need to wreak more havoc on the innocent minds of my players!

Jennifer

[Zilfer]

One thing I want to ask; if you where to end Ravenloft in a big end-of-setting blow out a la the Old World of Darkness, what, personally, would you have happen? Would you have plucked for a happy ending, or an everyone dies ending? Or something in between?

I never gave much thought to this. I see Ravenloft as being more or less eternal. Each individual darklord will eventually die one way or another, but more will come after. I don't see the Dark Powers as having any real purpose for Ravenloft other than their own amusement; they aren't building to anything or waiting for anything. It's just a malicious sandbox, and the only reason they torment the darklords is because they've found that the passionately evil are a lot more amusing when provoked than the devoutly good.

So...if my Ravenloft was going to end, it would have to be because the Dark Powers were tired of it. I imagine, before throwing their toy away, they'd try to breathe new life into it by shaking things up. So perhaps the rules start changing in small ways. Azalin suddenly finds he can learn new magic, but starts forgetting what he used to know. Malken gets a separate body from Tristen, but discovers that he gets progressively weaker as he and Tristen get closer to each other...and Tristen is trying to hunt him down. Each darklord gets more or less what they wanted, and ends up worse off than before. Naturally, many of them start to go a little berserk.

Eventually, things start changing in larger ways. Borders between domains start collapsing a little at a time, forcing two (or more) lords to share one domain. Clusters get grafted to the Core, while former parts of the Core get torn away to form new Clusters. The Vistani all manage to depart by this time.

Eventually, the whole thing collapses in chaos. All borders gone, shifting alliances of lords at each others throats, a terrified, scattered populace of innocents suffering the worst of the carnage. Strahd and Azalin are, fittingly, the last lords left standing, but Azalin has been forgetting things faster than he can learn them, and Strahd is now the stronger. He finally kills his rival, shortly before the demiplane seemingly evaporates, leaving him alone in an endless sea of Mist. Thinking he might finally be free, he tries to use magic to plane shift away, but nothing happens; his prison isn't gone, just changed. Maybe he briefly hears the mocking laughter of the Dark Powers as they abandon him to look for a new toy.

That's just a bit of brainstorming, and not at all designed as a gameable scenario.

>.> seems pretty gameable to me....!!!! I actually kinda like that ending

I'd allow the players to get away in such a senario or at least some of them. Would be kinda fun I thinks to run this campaign based on this premise. (goes back to reading the rest of the topic)

[Mangrum]

Personally I'm not a fan of the "all is right" kind of mentality for the majority of NPCs. I prefer the Barovians be aware that vampires exist but not that Strahd is one for example

Actually, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about: Presenting an actual reason why the peasantry of Barovia can simultaneously A) be terrified of vampires and fairly knowledgeable about their lore, AND B) spend centuries oblivious to the fact that they're ruled by an ancient vampire who absolutely no one ever sees by day and who hides his immortality simply by bumping up the roman numeral following his name about once every 20 years.

[alhoon]

Think of it this way - a Barovian local may think their life is difficult because of the hard rule of the Von Zarovich, and is has heard rumours that he's lived a preternaturally long life (magic? something worse?), and is probably very scared of the idea of Strahd visiting, because they've heard stories about sickness and even death afterwards. But that's very different from a PC, who may eventually learn that Strahd is undead because he killed his brother, drinks blood, and can be killed by the Sunsword. They both know something is wrong with Strahd... but their outlook and knowledge is very different.

Stu

Strahd is indeed easy to explain. And for Richemulot the wererats could be known to exist, people accuse wererats for everything wrong etc, but I agree that very few would suspect the Reniers are wererats.
Yet, while in some cases I like this facade of normalancy, the serene surface of the lake that hides the terrors underneath, in other cases it doesn't work for me. Reminds me too much of WoD and I would certainly not go out of my way trying to explain why this remote village hasn't realised that the murderer that terrorizes them every full moon is actually a werewolf and they insist it's just a guy dressed in wolf's pelts. I would have them know it's a werewolf.
The same with Verbek and the werewolves, with Tepest and the Fey etc.

What I mean to say is that I don't like the outlook that "normal people" try hard to convince themselves that everything is normal in their woes, refusing to accept the supernatural nature of it. Strahd goes through some effort to mantain the image that he's human IMC, it doesn't happen because the normal mind refuses to accept the terrible reality. It would prefer to accept it, yes, but not refuse to see anything else.

[Zilfer]

But so many people will try to rationalize what happens to make it appear normal because they just can't except something they can't explain.

Kinda like some people's views of Ghosts in real life. I don't know if you believe so I'll try and remain neutral. I know plenty of people if they hear an odd sound (regardless of whether ghost truly exist) will try to rationalize it as, "oh this probably happened, or maybe this" they'll try to explain it out to be something normal to the ends of the earth before admitting it's something supernatural or beyond their control.

I kinda think a lot of people are this way compared to the one's who will accept it was a ghost. Other's having no idea what it could have been would rather just not talk about it.

In your example Alhoon, not saying your oppinion isn't valid but I would in that situation if I were a NPC think it's a large beast. Not sure I'd think it was a man who turned wolf. I probably would think it's a particularly nasty animal out in the woods or an animal from a distant land that made it here that we hadn't heard of yet. I don't think I'd instantly associate it with a werewolf.

[herkles]

I prefer to have superstions play a part. People will believe in monsters, but these monsters may not be anywhere near factual. This way they are not idoits and they are aware of the dangers, after all they live there so they have to be aware of the dangers but they are not familiar with the details. a good example is that they might believe in werewolves but they know little of how and why they change. They might ascribe it to an evil person, thus a good man can't become a werewolf in this superstion or doing some crime.


The realms in the west, mainly dementlieu and Lamordia. Tend to believe less in the supernatural and superstions IMO so a scholar in dementlieu may try to rationally explain things away. But the difference between the two advanced realms is that in the back of the dementlieuse minds they will accept the supernatural, as they do follow Ezra who preaches of their being a Legion of the Night to oppose and defend others against. they might rationalize it in every day conversation as the evils of men; but dementlieuse are more willing to accept the supernatural IMO.

[Zilfer]

Indeed, there would be folklore the some would draw upon. If it's a domain full of lycanthropes sure. Not every village will be that way, and some may attribute different things to the legend. Such as a werewolf only killing young maiden's who haven't married past the age of 15 or some other odd absurdities like that.

[alhoon]

In your ghost example Zilfer (I don't believe in ghosts but I'll try to remain neutral too):
In this age, the age of reason and science and all, where supernatural entities like vampires don't actually exist... there are people that believe in them. Some of them quite educated too.
Without saying that ghosts don't exist, I think we can agree that a random sound that you can't explain is usually not a ghost. And yet, there are people that believe it is.
There was an old woman I knew, 10 years ago, that claimed she was attacked by "a large man with the head of a bear or wolf" at night, in the forests near her village. Many didn't believe her. Some of the people from her village pretended to me, an engineer and outsider to the village, that this is rubbish. A few actually believed her. One that says "it could be, it could be not" is actually an electronics engineer in my technical university and he's the one that told me that some of those that said to me they don't believe it actually do but were ashamed to admit it.
Those that don't believe her, say that it was after the winter so she must have seen a bear out of the winter sleep where they are lean and they look quite like men.

Now, remove centuries of education and scientific advances and add werewolves and vampires (And ghosts if you don't believe in them) in the mix.
If there are engineers and villagers in 2012 that believe an old woman in her late 70s when she says she was attacked by a werebear, I bet the majority would believe her it was a monster in 1300 if werebears actually existed.