Hyskosa´s prophecy

[Vannax]

I want to translate the Hyskosa´s scroll to my language. Can you help me to understand better the verses of the prophecy? May you rewrite each verse in common words as faithfully as possible?
Thx for your help.

“The night of evil shall descend on the land
When this hexad of signs is near at hand.”

“In the house of Daegon the sorcerer born,
Though life, unlife, unliving shall scorn.”

“The lifeless child of stern mother found
Heralds a time, night of evil unbound.”

“Seventh time the son of suns doth rise
To send the knave to an eternity of cries.”

“The light of the sky shining over the dead
shall gutter and fail, turning all to red.”

“The bodiless shall journey to the time before
Where happiness to hate creates land and lore.”

“Inajira will make his fortunes reverse
Dooming all to live with the dreaded curse.”

“Know thee now that the circle is complete,
What lust hath made, history shall repeat.”

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I want to translate the Hyskosa´s scroll to my language. Can you help me to understand better the verses of the prophecy? May you rewrite each verse in common words as faithfully as possible?

well, I can try, but the hexad isn't that clear, even in English, to a native speaker. Prophecies are often like that, but this one is one of the worst offenders.

“The night of evil shall descend on the land
When this hexad of signs is near at hand.”

The easiest part: when these six signs come to pass, bad things will happen. that is: the Grand Conjunction.

“In the house of Daegon the sorcerer born,
Though life, unlife, unliving shall scorn.”

this one's not even grammatically correct. It refers to the events of Feast of Goblyns, which include the unearthing of Daglan Daegon's Crown of Souls, previously hidden by his descendent Radaga. Then the domain of Daglan forms around Radaga, and is briefly taken over by Daglan himself after being freed from the crown, before the domain dissolves.

In the house of Daegon can refer to the family of Daegon, as one would refer to a "noble house". The sorceror born is Daglan himself (or possibly Radaga, but she's a priestess, not a sorcerer) The best guess I can give at the last part is: Radaga is alive at first, then unliving. Daglan is trapped in "unlife" in the crown. All together in all these forms, they scorn (hate) everything. My least favorite of the verse.

“The lifeless child of stern mother found
Heralds a time, night of evil unbound.”

This refers to the child ghost in ship of Horror. It is sort of a pun, and poorly done one. The word stern means forceful, rigid, strict. But it's also the surname of one of the ghosts in the adventure. (Madeline Stern). She is a mother, but her child is niether lifeless nor found. There is a lifeless child named Charlotte, whose body is found, but her surname isn't Stern. I think several DM's have switched the surnames of these ghosts to make the prophecy fit. IF Charlotte was named Charlotte Stern, the verse would mean:

The dead body of the child Charlotte Stern is recovered, which is another sign of this great evil that's coming (the Grand Conjunction)

“Seventh time the son of suns doth rise
To send the knave to an eternity of cries.”

This one is more straightforward. Anhktepot, the mummy is the son of suns and arises from his grave for the seventh time in the adventure Touch of Death, in order to deal the usurper Senmet ("the knave") who wants to rule Har'Akir instead of Anhktepot. The end of the adventure implies that Anhktepot fights Senmet and either kills him, or tortures him (an eternity of cries) To translate best into easy words:

For the seventh time, the son of suns rises,
to make his rival be in pain forever

“The light of the sky shining over the dead
shall gutter and fail, turning all to red.”

This one is talking about the eclipse at the end of Night of the Walking Dead, when the moon turns red during a fight with undead. In simple words:

The moonlight shining on the dead
will go away, leaving only red light.

“The bodiless shall journey to the time before
Where happiness to hate creates land and lore.”

This refers to From the Shadows where Azalin sends the headless PC's back in time to the wedding of Sergei Von Zarovich and Tatyana.

The spirits of those who lost their heads will travel back in time
to a happy event (the wedding) that turned hateful (Strahd's rampage) which created the land of ravenloft, and the magic surrounding it.

“Inajira will make his fortunes reverse
Dooming all to live with the dreaded curse.”

This refers to Inajira the daemon in Roots of Evil trying to get his revenge on strahd and reclaim his book of keeping.

Inajira will make his bad luck turn around,
which brings about that great evil I've been talking about: The Grand Conjunction.

“Know thee now that the circle is complete,
What lust hath made, history shall repeat.”

This is just a closing line...

Now you should understand that the prophecy will come true
Ravenloft will be destroyed in the place and time that it was originally created.

[Malus Black]

“Inajira will make his fortunes reverse
Dooming all to live with the dreaded curse.”

This refers to Inajira the daemon in Roots of Evil trying to get his revenge on strahd and reclaim his book of keeping.

Inajira will make his bad luck turn around,
which brings about that great evil I've been talking about: The Grand Conjunction.

Wouldn't "dooming all to live with the dreaded curse" refer to the darklords being yet again confined to their domains, or just the continued existence of Ravenloft in general, as it was through Inajira's intervention that the conjunction could be undone?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Wouldn't "dooming all to live with the dreaded curse" refer to the darklords being yet again confined to their domains, or just the continued existence of Ravenloft in general, as it was through Inajira's intervention that the conjunction could be undone?

Could be... but the prophecy as Hyskosa wrote it was originally meant to foretell a successful Grand Conjunction. You could make the case that in order to be a true prophecy, it would have to predict that the GC didn't last, because ultimately, it didn't. But it's supposedly only due to Azalin's meddling that the GC was weakened enough for the PC's to collapse it. If Azalin didn't meddle, it's anyone's guess how Inajira would have entered the picture to fulfil his verse before Azalin got to fulfil the final verse, but the prophecy as written seems to imply that he would have. (Unless the correct version of the prophecy did in fact involve Arijani, as the authors' original plan did).

[Lord Cyclohexane]

I want to translate the Hyskosa´s scroll to my language. Can you help me to understand better the verses of the prophecy? May you rewrite each verse in common words as faithfully as possible? Thx for your help.

I'll give this a try as well. Hopefully it helps. If this does not help, please tell me and I will try again.

“The night of evil shall descend on the land
When this hexad of signs is near at hand.”

An evil event will happen in this land
Just after these six events happen.

“In the house of Daegon the sorcerer born,
Though life, unlife, unliving shall scorn.”

A sorcerer, with the family name of Daegon, will appear.
He is powerful but everyone hates him, living and undead alike.

“The lifeless child of stern mother found
Heralds a time, night of evil unbound.”

(This event never actually occurs, so I'm not sure how to write it; the second line doesn't even tell us anything)

A lifeless child, who had a stern mother, is found.
This is another sign of the bad things that will happen in the future.

“Seventh time the son of suns doth rise
To send the knave to an eternity of cries.”

The "Son of Suns" awakens from sleep for the seventh time.
He then defeats his enemy and is very mean to the enemy.

“The light of the sky shining over the dead
shall gutter and fail, turning all to red.”

The sky will turn dark when the dead awaken.
The red light from the sky will make everything look red, like blood.

“The bodiless shall journey to the time before
Where happiness to hate creates land and lore.”

People without bodies (severed heads?) will go back in time,
Back to the event where happiness turned to hate and Ravenloft was made.

“Inajira will make his fortunes reverse
Dooming all to live with the dreaded curse.”

Inajira lost when the bad event happened in the past, but this time he will succeed
And that will be bad for everyone

“Know thee now that the circle is complete,
What lust hath made, history shall repeat.”

Although Ravenloft will be destroyed by these events,
Another Ravenloft will be created in the future because history repeats itself.

[Vannax]

Great, thank you very much for your help.
Anyway there is one word - DOTH - that I still don´t understand to.

It is in verse: "Seventh time the son of suns doth rise"

What doest it mean?

[Lord Cyclohexane]

"Doth" means the same thing as "does." "Doth" was used in medieval times and isn't used today except to imitate medieval writings. (For example, the King James Bible was written in Middle English, which uses "doth", so if I want something to sound Biblical, I may use the word "doth" instead of "does")


Ravenloft: Fraternity of Shadows

[Stygian Inquirer]

Linguistically, in this case it is for emphasis so the line could read 'Seventh time the son of suns rises' and have the same meaning. Using 'doth' is just stylistic in this instance.

[CorvusCornix]

Thanks a lot everyone! Same as Vannax, I'm also trying to translate the prophecy, although in my case the target language is german. Furthermore, I'll skip two of the verses and replace them with my own creations, as I don't want to run Ship of Horror (I haven't looked into it yet, but some people here mentioned the adventure isn't very good. Different opinions?) or Feast of Goblins (although I'll use some ideas from it, like the old kartakan inn of course )

One question, one advice to Vannax. Advice first: keep in mind that the level-structure of the adventures is a bit strange. If you follow the printed order of verses, you'd have to run the adventures in the following order, which means the characters of your players would have to start with level 7, and after Ship of Horrors go back to Level 3.

Feast of Goblins (Lvl 4-7)
Ship of Horrors (Lvl 8-10)
Touch of Death (Lvl 3-5)
Night of the Walking Dead (Lvl 1-3)
From the Shadows (Lvl 9-12)
Roots of Evil (Lvl 9-12)

However, as far as I know changing the order of the verses works fine, only FtS and RoE are directly related.

The question: I'm still not sure what I'll do with the Grand Conjunction itself. RoE seemed pretty confusing to me and FtS is simply a better dungeon crawl (apart from the wedding scene). Has anybody here actually played these adventures? Any good advice on how to make them better?

[Garudos Celestar]

I don't want to run Ship of Horror (I haven't looked into it yet, but some people here mentioned the adventure isn't very good. Different opinions?)

I'll say that Ship of Horrors is a fairly average adventure. The big problem is that there's a mistake in the completion of the hexad sign: the name of the child found is Charlotte Reisland, while Madeleine Stern is an adult. I haven't run or played the adventure myself, but most people I know who have seem to solve that by switching the names.

Even more than that, however, is that the adventure does not feel like the sort of awe-inspiring event leading up to a great prophecy. Look at the way the signs are fulfilled...

1) a powerful artifact releasing a dead sorcerer results in the creation (and destruction) of a new domain
2) some random adventurers dredge up a kid's body and rebury her
3) an ancient king, ostensibly descended from the sun god, rises from his tomb
4) a lunar eclipse with the supernatural twist of being blood red in color
5-6) the various events that actually trigger the Grand Conjunction

Ship of Horrors ends up being something that's technically a sign, but it's not really something that anyone should really notice as being an epic historical event.

One question, one advice to Vannax. Advice first: keep in mind that the level-structure of the adventures is a bit strange. If you follow the printed order of verses, you'd have to run the adventures in the following order, which means the characters of your players would have to start with level 7, and after Ship of Horrors go back to Level 3.

Basically, it's because of the canon timing vs. game mechanics. The verses are ordered by when they occurred in Ravenloft's canon history, and technically the same group of adventurers is under no obligation to complete each one (speaking of which, has anyone with two different play groups ever tried to split them up between the two groups or between two DMs/adventuring parties? If so, how did it work?)

Also, Feast of Goblyns and Ship of Horrors came out before the concept of the Grand Conjunction was introduced, so events from those adventures were retroactively added in as verses. As I mentioned above, I think this is one of the reasons Ship of Horrors seems to fit so poorly (although I think that Feast of Goblyns is a wonderful addition to the hexad.)