communicating with other worlds from RL?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

There's no reason for Hazlik not to scry on his Thayan enemies if they don't, after all, but Gaz I seems to imply that it was only during the Grand Conjunction that he saw their prosperity.

This is actually an excellent argument against scrying outside of the plane. If I were to put forward a plot as in the OP, I'd probably declare that Hazlik's prior scrying failed because his enemies were Red Wizards who put up powerful countermeasures. Either that or I'd attribute it to his curse.

Incidentally, was there a similar spell in earlier editions that was mentioned as being blocked in any of the boxed sets?

Another excellent point. I'll check what books I have.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

To my knowledge, the only being capable of contacting someone outside of the demiplane was Vecna, and I think he should be the only exception to that rule.

Correct me if I'm wrong but IIRC, Vecna didn't actually contact Iuz. The latter found a greater dweomer forged by Vecna, dating from before the Whispered One's imprisonment, and sought out Vecna in the Burning Peaks.

If you're referring to some other contact with Vecna, please specify. I'm dealing with this IMC as well, and I think the issue bears scrutiny.

[Bluebomber4evr]

Of course he didn't contact Iuz! That would have ruined his entire plan--he was trying to trick Iuz into coming of his own free will.

Vecna was able to stay in contact with his worshippers on Oerth. He granted them spells and told them to open a portal in Tovag Baragu so Iuz could enter it.

[Jester of the FoS]

Okay, here's the thing, there's precious little in the 3E Ravenloft books, let alone striking up conversations. Much of it made the assumption most PCs would live and die in the demiplane and never know other life. Heck, even use of the term "demiplane" was cut back on.
Part of this was the inability to directly reference the other worlds. Part of it was the desire to emphasise native and the world as a cohesive whole. Other planes were just places monsters could be summoned from; elemental planes, heaven or hell.

See, if you can easily contact people on other planes and worlds without difficulty (a 5% failure rate doesn't count) then the world becomes less cut-off. And while magic prevents people from leaving Ravenloft there's nothing in the rules that say someone can't be pulled out.
A quick sending spell could make escape a breeze.
"Help, I'm caught in a demiplane in the deep etherial. Please teleport me out as soon as possible. My name is <first name> <last name>. Thank you."

Now a smart DM would simply rule that you can't be teleported or gated out by someone, but the rules don't explicitly forbid it anymore than contacting someone else.

Personally, I think that unless the character is an outlander they wouldn't assume there'd be anyone out there that wasn't a demon or other inhuman creature.

[cure]

What do we have in Van Ritchen's guides about life beyond the Mists? Clearly he acknowledges and even studies the Ethereal. And some idea of Hell, the Pit and so forth is almost certainly suggested in his guide to fiends. But what of 'normal' outsiders?

Wasn't Hazik's renewed contact with the Thayvians exclusive to the Great Conjunction, when, moreover, Bane/Lord Law giver/the Dark Powers fell silent?

Haven't there been in the Gazetteers at some individuals attracting the attention and falling under the sway of devils not in the demiplane? Transposition would be a subset of this group.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

And while magic prevents people from leaving Ravenloft there's nothing in the rules that say someone can't be pulled out.

Nothing except the lack of a spell that would do so. All the "teleport" spells I know of require the caster to be in contact with any person being teleported. Is there a spell that allows you to fish into other planes without going there?

The closest I can see would be gate, a 9th level spell that would allow a prime-plane caster to open a gateway into a plane he specifies. The key here is the word "specifies." Getting the actual name of the demiplane would be a near-impossible thing. Inferring from the alterations to the discern location spell, the demiplane doesn't have a name, and therefore can't be specified.

Other possibilities for escape with outside help may exist. I can't find a 3.5 version of the old succor spell, but using it from outside the plane would probably require the caster opening a gate into RL (see above) or--slightly easier--finding one...and throwing the token through it for someone on the other side to use. Since gates into RL could lead to lots of places, the token could land anywhere, and the party requesting help would have to find it, possibly with the help of the spellcaster scrying into RL. Finally, the DM would be free to rule that while the token was created outside RL, it was really more like a magical device, and therefore bound by the laws of RL. Back to square one.

A quick sending spell could make escape a breeze.
"Help, I'm caught in a demiplane in the deep etherial. Please teleport me out as soon as possible. My name is <first name> <last name>. Thank you."

"No problem, I'll just teleport to your location, and then teleport you back out!"

Er...wait...

Now a smart DM would simply rule that you can't be teleported or gated out by someone, but the rules don't explicitly forbid it anymore than contacting someone else.

I'd say the rules don't need to say anything about teleportation out by an outsider, at least until someone writes the "kidnap teleportation" spell. I think it goes without saying that DM-created spells would require the DM to come up with his own ruling.

Personally, I think that unless the character is an outlander they wouldn't assume there'd be anyone out there that wasn't a demon or other inhuman creature.

I totally agree. They'd have to have contact with outlanders or be outlanders themselves in order to even think of it. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to using sending in this manner is that the target must be clearly specified. I can see the traveler from Forgotten Realms who tries to contact Drizz't Do'urden, but doesn't know his real last name!

So it sounds to me like contacting someone outside RL may make things interesting, but not necessarily easy with regards to escape. If I were designing a situation like in the OP, I might start with a simple sending and then complicate things at other points. OTOH, if I didn't want it to be so easy, there are plenty of other options. IMC some of Azalin's agents made it out during the GC, but getting them more instructions was a real pain. Some of this did eventually lead to the PC's getting pulled into RL.

[Joël of the FoS]

Not Ravenloftish, but it reminds me of a game I DMed where this PC had been kidnapped by Babau demon and brought to the 222th layer of abyss as a punishment. Of course, we presumed the PC forever lost. The PCs were 5-6th levels.

Years later, the PCs gained levels (9-10) and were more powerful. I had this crazy idea: the PCs getting magic messages from the 222th layer of abyss from the PC lost there. So they went there (in Zuggtmoy's mushroom castle) and brought him back. That was cool.

---

I like the idea of outsiders communicating with the outside. The outside could tell them things like we haven't been able to locate you, we can't get to you, and similar things. Then it stops.

Joël

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I might consider letting communication-only contact work, given sufficient effort and high-level magics. Of course, who's to say if the messages which the Ravenloft-side communicators receive are really coming from outside the Mists...? The DPs work in mysterious ways, and they soooo love their little 'games'.....

[mindcrime]

Hmm... this has turned into quite an interesting discussion.

In my case, since I need extra-RL communication as a plot device, I'll probably just do it and leave the exact mechanism unspecified, unless the PCs start digging into it, which I don't really expect.

I also like the idea of incorporating the "nightmare lands" stuff and might
consider using that as a hook to get my PCs involved in this adventure in the first place. I'm not terribly concerned if it's allowed by the canon rules or not.

As far as allowing PCs to communicate outside of RL, I agree that it should clearly: A. be *very* difficult and and unreliable at best and B. should be
of questionable integrity (eg, are the messages coming back real or tricks of the DPs).

Also, just as an FYI, my PCs will almost certainly be outsiders. I won't say I'm intending to run something that is just a "weekend in hell" but the PCs probably will not be from RL and will probably get out eventually. Unless they decide they like it so much in RL that they don't *want* to leave...

[cure]

To my knowledge, the only being capable of contacting someone outside of the demiplane was Vecna, and I think he should be the only exception to that rule.

Vecna the Demiplane according to Domains of Dread (2ed):

"As a demigod, Vecna can speak to his followers wherever they might be. This power extends even beyond the Misty confines of Ravenloft, enabling Vecna to converse with his minions even on the Quasielemental Plane of Ash and on the world of Oerth."

Remote communication seems to be a divine ability, not unique to Vecna, that pierces the Mists, at least from the inside.

"Vecna is the demigod of secrets and magic. As such, nothing can be kept from him. He knows instantly of everything that transpires within the walls of his citadel. This ability also extends to his followers, even those outside the Demiplane of Dread. Beyond the confines of Citadel Cavitius, however, his perception fades. He must use divinational magic to learn the secrets of those beyond the confines of the Mist. Of course, Vecna's magical power is so great that this is seldom a great handicap."

Remote sensing seems to a divine ability, not unique to Venca, that might (or might not) pierce the Mists, at least from the inside, when wielded by an another god. I discuss the ambiguous meaning of this paragraph in terms of divine remote sensing and arcane divination in the 4th post of the second page of this thread: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... 1&start=15

[cure]

And while magic prevents people from leaving Ravenloft there's nothing in the rules that say someone can't be pulled out.

Nothing except the lack of a spell that would do so. All the "teleport" spells I know of require the caster to be in contact with any person being teleported. Is there a spell that allows you to fish into other planes without going there?

There is such a spell, in a very special circumstance, on a highly temporary basis: the planar ally spell, cast by a cleric outside of the Land of Mists, by a worshiper of Vecna, while Vecna is imprisoned by the Dark Powers in the domain of Cavitius.

In response to the casting of this spell, would Vecna be able to send one of his servants from Cavitius out of the domain and out of the Land of Mists for the duration of the spell, whereupon the servant would be returned?

In addition to the information on Vecna that I put in the above post, I would add the following again from the Domains of Dread (2ed):

""Vecna, like any demigod, is able to grant his priests spells of up to 5th level. He does this as a reward for faithful prayer and devotion to his unholy cause. This ability is not limited by the confines of the Demiplane, so Vecna's priests on Oerth receive their spells just as if their god were not a prisoner of the Mists."

I have actually opened a new thread discussing the viability of this strategy here: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... =1&t=10446

[cure]

There's no reason for Hazlik not to scry on his Thayan enemies if they don't, after all, but Gaz I seems to imply that it was only during the Grand Conjunction that he saw their prosperity.

This is actually an excellent argument against scrying outside of the plane. If I were to put forward a plot as in the OP, I'd probably declare that Hazlik's prior scrying failed because his enemies were Red Wizards who put up powerful countermeasures. Either that or I'd attribute it to his curse.

Incidentally, was there a similar spell in earlier editions that was mentioned as being blocked in any of the boxed sets?

Another excellent point. I'll check what books I have.

The 3.5 Ravenloft Dungeon Master's Guide includes altered psionic powers. Among these appears Sending (p. 123) and Remote Viewing (p. 122). Both powers fail to work across closed domain borders. Is the border of the Land of Mists itself the equivalent of a closed border for this purposes? Both powers also refer the reader to the general information on Teleportation in the 3.5 Ravenloft Player's Handbook (p. 109) where teleportation is said to fail across closed borders or out of the Land of Mists. In Mangrum's notes about the RDMG, he mentions that the info of altered psionic power actually concerns 3.0 ed rather the 3.5 ed, but I don't think that is of consequence to this matter.

[cure]

In the 6th post on page 1 of this thread http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... =1&t=10441 a data-point from the Red Box 2nd edition concerning the Horn of Valhalla indicates that only a pre-existing deal, one struck before becoming stuck in the Land of Mists, could be made with a divinity to extract some one from the Land of Mists. And even then, it would have to be a greater divinity. Effectively, the Unspoken Pact is being invoked. A divinity does not respond to a request to be rescued, or even to discuss being rescued, on the part of one of its followers who has found himself or herself stuck in the Land of Mists. Presumably, Isolde, had a greater god been involved, could have arranged in advance for her extraction from the Land of Mists upon the completion of her hunt the Gentleman Caller.

[cure]

I might consider letting communication-only contact work, given sufficient effort and high-level magics.

That is what I, Strahd: the War Against Azalin suggests in respect to scrying. That is what The Domains of Dread indicates explicitly, albeit somewhat confusedly, about Vecna communicating with his followers. See this thread for details: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... =1&t=10441

[tomokaicho]

I think the intention of the hindrance of the commune spell is prevent casters from getting definitive answers about the Ravenloft setting from higher order beings, like deities. I don't see why sending could not work. It could have the result of drawing more people into the mists as people come to the rescue, only to be trapped themselves. Also, who is to say that a sending spell won't be subject to a man-in-the-middle attack? The Dark Powers send their own insidious instructions along with your own.