Gothic Earth: Souragne

[Le Noir Faineant]

Hello,

My gaming group will return to misty shores this fall, to the small, backward pacific island of Souragne...

As special agents of the Spanish government, the heroes aresuppoed to convice a certain landlord Antoine Misroi to succumb himself to the Spanish Crown...

So, the plot is set, but I still have one problem: I want the first chapter of the campaign evolve around Port d' Elhour, while the second one will just be *NotWD* set on GE... Now, the third chapter is supposed to tread with Misroi, but since NotWD and Misroi's story are relatively similar, how can I do that without repeating the zombie theme again and again?

Any ideas would be welcome!

Yours,

Rafael

[Le Noir Faineant]

Really no ideas on this?

[Le Noir Faineant]

100 views and no replies?! Woo-haa!

[Spiteful Crow]

Your bold gaming plan has left everyone speechless!

[Le Noir Faineant]

Yeah, so it seems...

Well, Mr Misroi's zombies will just eat my party, then...

:misori:

[Dion of the Fraternity]

Kinda late, but here's my related two cents

Anton Misroi in Gothic Earth is a bokor[/b] who travels back and forth Haiti and Louisiana tending to the vodoun business. He has plantations in both these places, and is even rumored to have a large cotton plant in the Mississippi region. Though his business savvy is impeccable, he is rumored to have a large number of zombie servants operating his various underworld businesses.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Thank you, Dion.

I was thinking of something more centered on Souragne itself.

Prologue: San Francisco

1st Adventure: Port d'Elhour

2. Adventure: NotWD

3. Adventure: Misroi

My problem is that I still have no idea of how to DM the showdown with Misroi without repeating the themes from NotWD...

[Malus Black]

My problem is that I still have no idea of how to DM the showdown with Misroi without repeating the themes from NotWD...

Making it more decadent and refined? Marcel from NotWD is very much a brutish, filthy creature, living in a moist crypt, surrounded by moulding corpses, ruling from a throne of bones. His minions are mindless, slavering monstrosities, driven only to destroy and ruin. When the PCs face him, he lunges at them without question. Misroi, on the other hand, is surrounded by an atmosphere of elegance and decadence, a more "vampiric" style of undeath. Use this for all it's worth, decorating his mansion with all the excess gilt and gold you can think of. Make his zombies more controlled, more rigid. He'll chat with the PCs, be a gentleman, offer them refreshments and so on. In short, try to play up the differences between the two, and you should succeed in making them both stand out.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Thank you! Of course, the differences of the characters are one of the main points that I will play out...

Still, I think there is something missing... Fighting Marcel and Misroi will feel pretty similar, won't it? - Of course, I'll let Chickenbone play a major role in the showdown - but in the end, there will be two pretty similar *fights within manour houses or graveyards*... I'd have my players confront Misroi on a boat, but since my current campaign already borrows a lot from the *Meredoth* theme, I fear that they might find it too similar...

How, oh how can I make a good demise for Misroi...

[Malus Black]

It's true that there are only so many ways you can have a grand finale when the adversary is a zombie lord (I mean, you could make the final battle completely original, setting it on a brightly lit street in Port d'Elhour with swordplay and swashbuckling, but a lot of the fun of Ravenloft is playing to the clichés; most players want a zombie lord to be, well, zombie-ish, with decaying tapestries of long-dead plantation owners, black voodoo magic, eerie swamps, natives muttering dire warnings, and so on).

So how about looking into his thematic connection with the swamp? During the final conflict, have the swamp around him come alive: trees shiver, extending gnarly, mud-soaked fingerlike branches to snap at the PCs; once-solid ground turns into lethal quicksand; water turns oily and reeks of decay, weighing the PCs down, dragging them into its murky depths, forcing its way down their throats; the drowned of the swamp rise to the call of their master, lurching out of the trees, covered in fungus and moss; alligators, serpents, shambling mounds and all other sorts of beasts cluster around the hapless PCs while Misroi only smiles knowingly and engages them in pleasant banter. And when they strike the final blow, the swamp opens up like a great maw, devouring him and his vast mansion, leaving nothing behind but bubbling mud (and PCs running vey fast in the opposite direction, if they have any sense).

[Le Noir Faineant]

That sounds great! - Or to give it a more GE-like plot, what about having the swamp extending, and finally devouring Port d'Elhour? - First, the city is attacked by zombies and then by the swamps...

Yeah, this sounds just amazing... Thank you, Malus!

*Hops around in his room!*

Man, seriously, thank you so much! This is the inspiration I had waited for for MONTHS!