How to fix the Shroud

[tomokaicho]

I've been thinking about the Shroud, and how it basically kills the possibility of gameplay in the former city of Il Aluk, now called Necropolis. While searching around, I found a website by an old hand that talks about the Shroud and some suggestions about how to handle it. There are many good ideas therein, but I wonder if a better solution would simply be to decrease the lethality of the Shroud.

Instead of instant death to the living, how about the Shroud impose the fatigued condition and drain 2 Constitution points per day, with no way to magically heal it within the Shroud?

Fatigued
A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a –2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued.

The fatigued condition puts the living at a severe disadvantage against the undead locals while making it possible to have adventures there.

As for the Shroud itself, its likely that the remains of the Albemarl Device is the font of negative energy for the Shroud, and entering The Grim Fastness and destroying it would likely bring down the Shroud.

One other matter - its not clear how the undead with feeding requirements in Necropolis are even able to survive. They would have depleted the mortal population within easy reach, so they remain in existence by some other means. Most likely it is the Shroud that supplies the necessary "nutrition" needed for these undead to remain unalive. While the Shroud keeps them unalive, it does not keep the feeding undead from hunger, which they experience always because there is so little "food".

Infiltrating Necropolis, destroying the Albemarl Device, thus bringing down the Shroud would be a great adventure to culminate in a street by street battle of Darkon's forces vs Death's legions. It can be the Ravenloft version of the Red Hand of Doom, with victory points and so on.

[The Lesser Evil]

In Gaz II it was mentioned that for a time the undead were keeping the living as livestock on the Darkonian side of Despondia, though with Azalin's return Death forbids his undead from at least openly living on the Darkonian side (Gaz II p. 62). There may still be some places with captive humans, but they are done much more under the radar now.

The Shroud has a sustaining function for Death, in that he can't (at least since the Requiem) exist outside of it. If the Shroud went down, he'd soon go with it. So if you wanted to keep him aorund you'd need to change it or find some other way for him to sustain his existence.

It might be nice for the Shroud to have some lingering disease or curse-like effect on the living even after they withdraw from it, that worsens over time. Most importantly, this marks characters who have entered the Necropolis and makes them targets of suspicion and fear. Also, it allows the exterior symptoms to become confused with other ailments by the populace and vice versa. But in any case, perhaps the lingering effects of the Shroud could be thought to be contagious, providing a further barrier against passing into Necropolis that is social. The Darkonian authorities might have regular patrols to prevent people from going in or coming out.

You could put the Albernarl Device (or a piece, key, map to its location, or some such) with the paranoid halflings of Aluk Sepentrion as described in the Halflings Secret dread possibility (Gaz II p. 63),

[tomokaicho]

The Shroud has a sustaining function for Death, in that he can't (at least since the Requiem) exist outside of it. If the Shroud went down, he'd soon go with it. So if you wanted to keep him aorund you'd need to change it or find some other way for him to sustain his existence.

I always thought this was odd because Lowellyn Dachine had already been transformed by the test device well before Il Aluk got nuked by Azalin's failed attempt at ascension. Whether Death is reliant on the Shroud to exist is not known to any characters in the campaign, and is thus the easiest part to change or retcon. Death is already stuck in Necropolis because he is the darklord. It doesn't seem necessary to complicate it.

It might be nice for the Shroud to have some lingering disease or curse-like effect on the living even after they withdraw from it, that worsens over time. Most importantly, this marks characters who have entered the Necropolis and makes them targets of suspicion and fear. Also, it allows the exterior symptoms to become confused with other ailments by the populace and vice versa. But in any case, perhaps the lingering effects of the Shroud could be thought to be contagious, providing a further barrier against passing into Necropolis that is social. The Darkonian authorities might have regular patrols to prevent people from going in or coming out.

Undead parasites, maybe. You catch them from people that have been inside the Shroud. The undead parasites cause a minor debuff but have scary symptoms, like pissing blood. Something that would make anyone tremble in fear.

You could put the Albernarl Device (or a piece, key, map to its location, or some such) with the paranoid halflings of Aluk Sepentrion as described in the Halflings Secret dread possibility (Gaz II p. 63),

Good idea.

The War for Il Aluk would be a good chance for the PCs to make a difference in a setting where so much is static.

[Mistmaster]

I would advise to simply ignore Necropolis.

[SkiBird]

That was a really neat article. Thanks for linking to it, Tomokaicho.