Café de Nuit

Unless I'm mistaken, I've never seen DMs use these two in their games. Why, do you think?

For the House of Lament, I remember Stu's comment about Castle Forlorn - it's fun but PCs need a hook to get in its walls. What kind of hook would you use to get PCs in it?

Idem for the Phantom Lover, how can we use it without being cheesy?

Joël

I used the House of Lament in my game on Monday. The game didn't go very well and I had to use a Deux es Machina to get them out.

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:I used the House of Lament in my game on Monday. The game didn't go very well and I had to use a Deux es Machina to get them out.

Ooops, those things happens.

In short what hook did you use to get them in there (and what happened?)

Jo

Their carriage toppled over outside the manor during a storm and it was the only place they could find shelter. On their way from Dementlieu to Barovia they had picked up two hitchhikers, a man and his daughter. When they went into the house, the girl disappeared, then the man, then the severely injured coach driver.

The main problem was that no matter what I did in the manor, taps on shoulders when no one was there, whispers in ears, writing appearing and disappearing from walls, footsteps coming from upstairs when they knew no one was therer, the players didn't act scared. When the girl reappeared later on as a ghast, they still went "Oh," so I forced horror saves, most failed and one CR3 ghast nearly dropped a five man party, four of which are level 3, one level 2.

In the morning, they found flyers in their pockets, attached to the walls, tucked under pictures, etc, proclaiming a Carnival was near. Isolde herself walked up to the manor, opened the door and let them out.

Next week, they're playing the Munter/Wood'n Head adventure from Carnival and starting "Nine of Hearts" (with some minor changes).

For the House of Lament, remember that its backstory is pretty superficial, which means it's not going to alter the setting drastically if you want to write in additional events or characters from its long-lost past. If you do that, you can tie in pretty much any storyline hook you see fit; for example, one of the last people who tried to live in the House, before it was abandoned for good, might have been an expert on the obscure type of monster the PCs have been hunting elsewhere. As they seek to track down this deceased expert's missing journals, they drop in at the creepy old house the scholar used to live in....

The Phantom Lover, frankly, was probably more effective as a threat in the very early days of the Ravenloft setting's development, when players still expected opponents to come straight out of the Monster Manual. The addition of the VRG monster-variations for Ravenloft, and 3E's even more drastic infusion of uniqueness into monsters (since most of them can now take classes) means that the "shock value" of a being that's somewhere in between a ghost and a vampire isn't there anymore. :-/

As for how to incorporate Leederik into a campaign, I'd suggest that DMs either come up with a proper backstory for him as a darklord, complete with story hooks, or else (if you just don't want to work that hard and/or you prefer him as a folkloric archetype steeped in mystery) that you save the Phantom Lover for when a female NPC whose presence is already established in your game campaign could reasonably become his target. For example, if one of the PCs' long-term male NPC associates gets killed during one of their missions, a frantic letter from the parents of the slain NPC's widow/girlfriend could arrive, begging the PCs' help in figuring out what's threatening their bereft daughter. At first, before they catch on to the pattern of the Lover's attacks, you could easily convinve your players that it's the dead NPC's ghost that's been visiting her.....

Joël of the Fraternity wrote:Unless I'm mistaken, I've never seen DMs use these two in their games. Why, do you think?

For the House of Lament, I remember Stu's comment about Castle Forlorn - it's fun but PCs need a hook to get in its walls. What kind of hook would you use to get PCs in it?

Idem for the Phantom Lover, how can we use it without being cheesy?

Joël

Might just be my impression, but couldn't that be because the House of Lament is extremely rare these days? - I own an extensive lot of RL material, but books with info on the house have escaped me so far. Really, I couldn't even name the resource it was introduced with...

Desdichado wrote:

Joël of the Fraternity wrote:Unless I'm mistaken, I've never seen DMs use these two in their games. Why, do you think?

For the House of Lament, I remember Stu's comment about Castle Forlorn - it's fun but PCs need a hook to get in its walls. What kind of hook would you use to get PCs in it?

Idem for the Phantom Lover, how can we use it without being cheesy?

Joël

Might just be my impression, but couldn't that be because the House of Lament is extremely rare these days? - I own an extensive lot of RL material, but books with info on the house have escaped me so far. Really, I couldn't even name the resource it was introduced with...

The House was first detailed in Darklords, it was moved to Southern Borca in Domains of Dread and has a passing reference in the Gaz IV.

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:

Desdichado wrote:

Joël of the Fraternity wrote:Unless I'm mistaken, I've never seen DMs use these two in their games. Why, do you think?

For the House of Lament, I remember Stu's comment about Castle Forlorn - it's fun but PCs need a hook to get in its walls. What kind of hook would you use to get PCs in it?

Idem for the Phantom Lover, how can we use it without being cheesy?

Joël

Might just be my impression, but couldn't that be because the House of Lament is extremely rare these days? - I own an extensive lot of RL material, but books with info on the house have escaped me so far. Really, I couldn't even name the resource it was introduced with...

The House was first detailed in Darklords, it was moved to Southern Borca in Domains of Dread and has a passing reference in the Gaz IV.

Thank you, Drinnik! I don't own neither Darklords nor DoD (what I find very annoying, since it's reputedly the best RL resource out there), and I can't remember possible references in Gaz IV... *Interest sparkled* Gotta look that up later that night.

I am thinking about using the Phantom Lover as a Mist creature who's lair is an Oubliette.

Tobias Blackburn wrote:I am thinking about using the Phantom Lover as a Mist creature who's lair is an Oubliette.

Yes, when I was reading about the oubliettes I was thinking of the Phantom Lover too.

A mist creature, Mmmm. What kind of caracteristic would you give him?

Joël

Joël of the Fraternity wrote:

Tobias Blackburn wrote:I am thinking about using the Phantom Lover as a Mist creature who's lair is an Oubliette.

Yes, when I was reading about the oubliettes I was thinking of the Phantom Lover too.

A mist creature, Mmmm. What kind of caracteristic would you give him?

Joël

I haven't quite gotten that far in my planning...

I don't think I'd make him a ghost. Give him Mist Form (to get in), the Many Forms ability, and the ability to lock the doors (a modified temporal wall?) of the places he's visiting. Hm... really could have fun with this guy.

I haven’t used the House of Lament myself, although I’d really like to do so, as its one of my favourite (pocket) domains. I do remember reading someone’s campaign that did use it though.

Their players actually started in the house. They woke up in separate rooms with just the clothes they were wearing and they had no memory as to who they were, where they were and why they had been brought there. As they started to explore the players discovered each other and eventually other people who had ended up in the house. The players in this campaign reacted warily to each other and their surroundings, not the least because one of them found deep claw marks on the door outside the room they woke up in.

--edit--
May be if we haven’t done it already we should make The House of Lament the next Domain of The Month?

I think both have great potential if the opportunity arises. But it's tough to plan for the opportunity. If the PC's are lost in the woods at night, looking for shelter, the House works well. If there's an appropriate PC or NPC for Leederick to go after, go ahead and use him. But it's not going to fit in every campaign.


I did have a cameo of the House in my first adventure of my current campaign. They happened to pass by the current location of the house, but I didn't want to deal with them going in, so I made it sound real creepy and forebodeing, and they passed it by.

Since the House of Lament is based on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, I'd recommend reading that book if you haven't already done so (it's a very quick read). It was made into a film twice, in 1963 and 1999. The '63 film is good and could help with inspiration, but avoid the '99 remake.

I don't know - the first half of the 1999 remake was actually pretty good. Of course, they switch styles of horror several times in the movie, which is usually a no-no.