Integrating Ravenloft in an ongoing campaign.

[wolfgang_fener]

Hi,

It is a pleasure to find such a nice forum full of wise posts from what looks like many good DM. For this reason I think I'll join the fray and write a bit about my ongoing campaign, curious to hear your comments (I'm pretty sure my players don't read this board and if they do, they should stop reading NOW and contact me about it).

My main question will be how to integrate Ravenloft to an ongoing campaign but first, here's some background on my experiences so far.

I've been playing D&D since the first basic boxset in the 80's and since the first edition of AD&D, I've been mostly the DM for various groups of players. Being the old Lich of a DM that I am, I'm still stuck in 2nd edition (and my many house rules) and have no intention of following the buying frenzy up to the current edition (and the next, and the next, and the next oneS that will surely follow ). Actually I'm still buying 2nd edition books on ebay. I understand that most of you play with the current edition but it doesn't matter since I focus mainly on storytelling and role-play and don't really care about the rules.

After retiring from a huge multi-years campaign located in my own version of the 4th age in the Lord of the Ring world a few years ago, my AD&D books have been gattering dust. Other than that I've been playing a cool ranger (named Wolfgang Fener) in the Forgotten realms in another game.

Recently I found out that my girlfriend was willing to give a try to ad&d since 2 friends of ours where also willing to play. Here I am, DMing for 3 players, two of those having no previous experience of roleplaying game at all ! That is quite a challenge since I used to DM for a large group of highly experienced players.

Because I was willing to retire my Ranger character and wanted to play him as an NPC "mentor", I started the campaign in Forgotten realm. I began with an old classic that always works for beginners : The horribly bad "castle on the bordrland" module from the basic box set . I always like this module because there's so little story in it you can do whatever you want with it. Of course to make it interesting you need a DM who likes to write the whole story. Anyway, my goal is to let them gain some experience of the game before sending them to the Sword of the Dales trilogy.

The thing is I'm so much used to design my own modules that I can't keep things as they are and I plan to transform the Dales trilogy into a whole campaign. The main problem with the Sword of the Dales trilogy is that the Sword itself is basically useless to held Daggerdale, it just plays a really background role.

My idea is to have the Mist drag Daggerdale into Ravenloft ! Later on the famous Sword of the Dale will be the key to release Daggerdale from the grasp of Ravenloft and return it to the Forgotten realms. At least that is the basic Idea.

Currently they are almost done with the introduction module and are about to really begin the trilogy. This is when I'll need to gradually introduce hints about the comming of the Mist.

Why am I planning to do it that way ?

Because I know from experience (played with my ranger character) how frustrating RL can be when a DM just dump you there and your focus just change to "lets get out of there asap and we don't care about the rest". Then when the DM suddetly dump you AGAIN in another RL module, you once again feel helpless and almost want to quit the game...

The situation is even worse if your PC have other business going on in their own world. This situation can waste a good RL module simply because the pc just focus on getting out instead of getting IN the plots and ambiance of the RL game.

For this reason, instead of dumping my pc in Ravenloft, I make Ravenloft come to them. What was a serie of relatively plain modules in F.Realms will become a long standing Ravenloft Campaign.

I will give more details about the PCs and NPCs present and introduce a nice Necromancer NPC + a cool gate between RL and FRealms in my next post.

I would appreciate any comments, inputs or suggestions.

[wolfgang_fener]

Here's my PCs:

Lehan Lev3
An half-elven N.G. priest of Mystra (godess of magic) who can also cast Evocation magic as part of his priest of Mystra kit. Note that under my house rules, priests who can cast wizardly magic must find, learn, study and carry those wizardly spells in a spellbook (those are not aquired through prayers).

The player is the only one with good AD&D and role-play experience Which is a good thing since he plays the character with 16 Intelligence and wisdom. He's the non official team boss. Officially he is more like "the wise advisor".

Eleonore Lev1 (been drained by a wight)
She is a human N.G. noble warrior from Daggerdale. Her family have been thrown in the mud by 50 years of Zentil occupation so she never had the chance to live like a real noble. If she succeed in her long term quest, she will be granted back with her familly estate and title. She have been raised by her warior father like the son he never had the chance to raise (the rest of her imediate familly, mother and brothers have been killed in the war). She is exceptionally strong (18.01). She have a decent charisma (lots of leadership but not much good apparence due to her peculiar muscles).

She his played my my friend's girlfriend. Unfortunately so far she have some trouble roleplaying the supposed charisma of her character. This create funny situation when the priest is always whispering to her what to say. She also have a bad temper and is easily upsetted by my girlfriend's character who question her supposed autority.

Charline Almost lev5
She is a human N.G. (but more and more turning chaotic) rogue with a scout kit. She's been mostly trained by Wolfgang_Fener (my own retired character). She's an agile, wise and manipulative beauty (appearance 16, probably the best looking girl in town). She's also a greedy bitch who manage to fast-talk the other characters into letting her keep the best treasures (she really do it in role-play, fast talking the other players and making good use of her various skills like appraising).

She also had the chance to play for a while in solo before our friends joined so she had the chance to grab a ring of magic detection (which act like a wand of the same name, including charges). She keep it secret for her own adventage.

She's followed by a big, slightly dumb, shy, strong but not cute at all henchmen who his secretly in love with her, which bring me to the next part...


NPCs :

Donald Lapatte, "Don" for friends, as in "Don Lapatte" (In french is sounds like someone asking his dog to give paw).

He's a generic LG strong but dumb warrior. He's extermely shy and not too bright.
It could sound like a boring NPC but actually he's quite a comic relief. He was a caravan guard been made prisoner by the monsters of the caves of chaos in the castle on the borderland module. He's not only shy, he's cursed with a phobia vs undead ! It is so comic to have this big guy afraid of the squeletons or waking up at night by his bad dreams about gosts !

He will always be too shy to open up to charline. Even if she ever make the first move (which I highly doubt) he won't believe it. She treated him so well he became her first henchmen. His unstable mind could one day cause lots of trouble, especially in a Ravenloft setting. So far she treat him like a little brother, mostly because they come from the same town (Tilverton) and because she value the fanatic protection he offer. Charline takes care to hide from him (and others)
her little unlawful moves so he see her as a perfect angel.

All my players really like this NPC, mostly because he's far from perfect. They would probably all risk their lives for this dumb moron. but he's such a nice guy you know ? (can you feel my evil dm grin ? No, seriously, he's the most likely to get out of this alive, mad but alive...)

Another one: Zinfandel, an Elven bladesigner (elven warrior-mage kit). His goal was to retreive an elven chain mail and an elven blade from the crypt in the caves of chaos. During the last session they succeeded. He previously made a deal with the PC to help them until Daggerdale is free is they helped him retrieve those elven artifacts. Being a noble elven champion, he will honor their deal. He better do because the PC had to forget about owning an elven chain mail +2 and an elven long sword +2 (it may sounds cheap to some but in my campaign, it is extremely rare to find weapons above +1 and elven chain mail are the objects of legends).

There was also a cool dagger of throwing in the same loot but Charline managed to hide it in her bag without telling the others (they where busy fighting 2 wight while she was already looking for a secret cache at the bottom of a coffin to find the elven treasure). So far she doesn't know anything about that dagger except that the blade is made of platinum and the hilt is decorated with tiny emerauld. When she will discover about the power of that dagger, she will collect the associated XP, which will be enough to bring her to level 5. I will then raise her to level 5 gradually (session 1 : the HP and half the thief points, session 2 the thaco and character points, session 3 the saves and the other thief points, session 4 the better backstab ). I'll do it that way because I think it's too early for her to raise level and the other characters are lagging behind. It will bring a better balance of play and she will enjoy the improvement in her skills gradually for 4 game sessions.

Other NPCs, the little brothers Guss and Theo Those little human orphan boys have one dream : to become adventurers of legend ! The PC where looking to hire some hirelings but where in a hurry. That's all they could find. 0 level warriors who at least have short bow proficiency and who are used to live the hard way. They began at -500xp. Now they just passed above 0 and reached level 1. I'm still plotting their innevitable, horrible and painful death. I'll just wait until the PC gets attatch to them and it will serve me well in introducing the horror of Ravenloft. I want to manage to kill them in a way that will permit me to bring them back later as mosters against the pc. Maybe turning them in some kind of hybrid bicephal flesh golem could be cool. That would had a touch or horror to the "inseparable little brothers" picture.

AS you can see, I've got my hands full of expendable NPCs. It's difficult to role-play them all at the same time... and there's also the Weird Dr.Scola...which I'm not sure if I should put him in the good guys NPCs or not...

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Hi, Wolfgang! Welcome to the Mists of Ravenloft.

While I don't know anything about the trilogy you mention, it might help you to know that one of Ravenloft's more popular NPCs, the reluctant elf vampire Jander Sunstar, was originally from the Forgotten Realms. Not only that, but the vampire who'd made Jander undead was actually on a rampage in Daggerdale (then "Merrydale") at the time; it was due to the paranoia and dread that set in there, following these vampire attacks, that the once-cheerful dale's name was changed.

Jander (a good person despite his condition) appears in the first Ravenloft novel, "Vampire of the Mists", in which he is carried to Barovia and meets (and eventually battles) Strahd von Zarovich, the game-setting's iconic villain. While the novel appeared to end with the elf's death, Jander was later (controversially) ruled to have survived, and to have continued his quest to destroy his fellow vampires and other evil monsters. If you're bringing Daggerdale to Ravenloft IYC, it wouldn't be a bad move to have Jander appear there, too: the undead elf would be forced to confront the scenes of many long-ago horrors from his past, and the PCs would get to meet someone from their world, who means them no harm and knows a bit about Ravenloft, yet who also has his own inner darkness to hide.


Incidentally, Ravenloft isn't really a "weekend in hell" game-setting any longer. While the early products for the setting assumed it was a place PCs from other worlds would try to get away from, all the 3E products are written with native Ravenlofter PCs in mind -- your PCs grew up in Ravenloft; it's home to them; things like Misty borders, or magic not telling Good from Evil, are just how the world works as far as they know -- so there's no player/DM antagonism about wanting to "escape" from the Land of Mists. If you really want to run a long-term Ravenloft game, you really ought to consider this approach, as it gives players much more of an emotional investment in their characters' surroundings, in NPCs' welfare, etc.

[wolfgang_fener]

Now the interesting NPC...

Dr. Nicephor Scola Officially, he's a physician, a serious scientific doing researches on various humanoids. Actually he was a Lev8 (now 6 because of level drain) necromancer. He's not very evil, just a little bit . My pc keep guessing but he managed to manipulate them into capturing a live medusa for him |(not a small feat for low level pcs, I'm pretty proud of them bcause I didn't made it easy for them) ..he needed the eyes and the poison in her hair in perfect condition and while at it, he went for a full discection (a 3 hours task while the PCs had to keep the a door closed against a hoard of invading zombies... But it is all for the sake of science and his various magical skill where helpfull in getting the pcs inside the temple of chaos where teh crypt with the elven treasure was and where the medusa was held captive by other bad guys... They should be wondering why so many people wanted a damn medusa at the same time right ?

Anyway, back to Scola... He looks like a cross between an undertaker and a 18 century doctor (dressed in black with a long hat, a medicine bag in one hand and a sword cane in the other). They already figured out that the medicine bag is a bag of holding and the cane is a magical sword cane. They don't know yet about the weird hat, which is protection +3 (which is the opnly reason why he wear such a ridiculous hat !). His skin is blemish, his eyes are dark and set in deep tired sockets. He's a bleak gentleman, very secretive who never show any emotion. At first when he came to their camp at night asking for shelter, they where sure he was a vampire (and I made sure to make them affraid of him). SLowly but surely he gained their trust (I'm skipping long details of many game sessions here...).

I like the idea of having a bad guy who share some common interest with the good PCs. Aligment are not written in your face after all. The only NPC who is reluctant is Don. His undead phobia make him sense the necromancer (even if he's not fully aware of the details, he's affraid of that weird dude).

The history of Dr.Scola is an horror in itself and bring us back to room #13 in the Zentil Keep Sanitarium. His father, Dr Hypolite Scola had an adventure with a cute but mentaly disturbed patient under his care at the ZentilKeep sanitorium. When she began to talk too much, he sent her to the isolation room #13 and she was never seen again.

This room have a strange effect. Sometimes, patients who sleep there are magically replaced by someone else. The replacement his always extremely mad and talks nonsense about being in the wrong hospital with the wrong doctor... Actually, Room #13 in the sanitorium of Zentilkeep is a gate leading to room #13 in a sanitorium in Dementlieu near chateaufaux !

Dr. Vilhelm Mikki who run the Chateaufaux sanitarium uses his room #13 in a similar fashion. When he wants to get rid of someone, he send him in that room. When there's a patient sleeping in both rooms at the same time, they swith place. Both doctors have no idea about that gate and it is part of the gate`s property that the doctors and staff in both places can never know and understand about the details of the gate. Actually only the chief doctors (Dr Hypolite and Mikki knows that the room can replace a patient by another one but the magic of the gate makes sure they can`t understand the true meaning of it).

Anyway, Nicephor`s mother was preignant when she was sent through the room #13 gate. Dr. Mikki raised the child and to avoid problems and questions from official, he gave him the name suggested by the mad mother (so he was always called Nicephor Scola, the family name of his real father). His mother died misteriously when he was too young to try to understand her rambling. Scola was very intelligent so his adoptive father made him learn medicine. Later on, he was sent to become the personal doctor of an "associate" of Dr Mikki. This associate who had a deal to dispose of the corpses of the unclaimed dead patients was a very sick necromancer. Nicephor was then much more interested in magic so he also became his apprentice.

Under the tutelage of his horrible master, he eventually became quite mad himself. When a vistanii seer told him he was "born in this world but conceived on the other side of madness" that pushed him over the edge and he was eventually jailed in that same terrible room #13.

When he raised in the ZentilKeep sanitorium, and found out he was about to be taken care by the Dr.Scola, he understood it was his real father. He killed his father and escaped from the mad house.

He then went to Mulhorand to pursue his studies about sacred "egyptian" death rituals and joined a secret necromancer's society named the mystic embaulmers.

He's now on a mission for this secret society to recover a set of medusa eye. He had a deal with an half orc shaman (high priest of the evil temple in my current module) to buy the eyes. After tyraveling miles to get there, ths damn shaman refused to sell him the medusa. Extremely frustrated, he hired the PCs to help him get the Medusa by force asap.

He need those in perfect condition and he own a magical jar of preserving to preserve it. He have now succeded in his mission but very happy with the help of the PCs, he will want to keep in touch with them to hire them again later.


Honestly I have not figured out myself why the secret necromancer society is looking for medusa eyes and why the Evil half-orc shaman
prefered to keep the medusa for himself.

I'm thinking of something involving the comming of the mist. I want Daggerdale to end up part of Ravenloft and the PCs to follow a modified Sword of the Dales Quest to save Daggerdale from the grasp of the Mist.

I could certainly manage it by myself but I think it would be cool to see what suggestions you may have.

So far I have a good band of low level PCs, tons of expendable NPCs and a pretty cool sub-vilain I need to keep at least until they learn about his past. Actually, one day, keeping this vilain alive could be their only way out of Dementlieu. They would then need to play mad (or really be mad) to end up in the room #13 one by one. Of course I'll have to find a way to make sure they don't just kill everybody in the sanitarium to put themselves in room #13... and then again, they would end up in a ZentilKeep sanitarium, not a pleasurable thing for sure!
Interesting role play in sight...

Sinc Daggerdale will become part of Ravenloft, if their only known way out is Dementlieu, I'll have to make sure they can travel from Daggerdale to Dementlieu. Maybe Daggerdale will become an Island and they will have to escape by boat up to Port-A Lucine ( I so much like this name !).

Then this band of medieval buffons would end up in a late renaissance cultural area ? Ho boy, what a joke. Not sure yet how to sew it all together .


There's also the fact my players and I personally like opera so I can't miss a chance to introduce the wherefox character and little adventure depicted in the Children of the night : Wherebeast source book !

Who knows, if I transform Daggerdale in such a bleak and horrible place, maybe they will giveup and prefer to live in Dementlieu...only then would I terrorise them to madness

I don't know, so many possibilities !

[wolfgang_fener]

While I don't know anything about the trilogy you mention, it might help you to know that one of Ravenloft's more popular NPCs, the reluctant elf vampire Jander Sunstar, was originally from the Forgotten Realms. Not only that, but the vampire who'd made Jander undead was actually on a rampage in Daggerdale (then "Merrydale") at the time; it was due to the paranoia and dread that set in there, following these vampire attacks, that the once-cheerful dale's name was changed.

Excellent ! I will look into that. Thanks.


I want to keep the same PCs . Anyway as long as Daggerdale will be part of Ravenloft, My Pc will probably stick to it. If they die in RL, then they will have a chance to make a new pc born in RL. Even the 2nd edition material introduces many ideas to create RL native PCs. It shouldn't be a problem.
Eleonore is from Daggerdale so there's no problem there. Lehan the priest is on a mission to gain new followers and establilsh a temple in daggerdale so no problem there. The only PC who could make trouble is Charline the rogue because she's not from Daggerdale and his only on a scouting/spying long term mission for Wolfgang (my retired ranger started a little band of adventurers similar and allied to the Harpers on a smaler scale).

I will have to keep a close eye on the psychological development of my PCs to make sure the game doesn't fall pray to the "Ravenloft Prisoner syndrome".

[wolfgang_fener]

I also had another gate Idea.

Farther in the Evil temple, there will be some kind of satanic ritual where some bloody corpse will come falling from a hole in the ceiling. This cospse, still hot and shaking will show signs of empalement.

This hole in the ceiling is the output of a gate out of Falkovnia.

Vlad Drakov lord of Falkovnia demands at least one execution each night, at the dinner hour. He takes his meal while observing the prisoner's slow
death. On special evenings, as many as forty people are impaled on tall, thick stakes for his enjoyment. One of those stakes is floating in the center of a bottomless pit. The victim slowly slip dying along the stake down the "bottomless pit" but eventually fall down in the Temple of Chaos in the mouintains near Daggerdale (where my PC are right now). Only a body who died on this stake can pass the gate. People falling or climbing down the shaft won't ever find a bottom.

Technically, a pc could get executed by Drakov (hoping to end up on that particular stake), die and slide down to the Forgotten realms and be resurected on the other side Of course that's assuming a priest is waiting on the other side... And anyway, who would willingly be empalled ?

Still, here's another gate, which shows that many times, the only way out of Ravenloft it death.

That is, as long as Daggerdale and the surrounding area doesn't become a permanent part of Ravenloft...

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Nicely spooky! Both these gates are cool ideas, although (of course) you should probably rule that the Dark Powers could cut them off at any time if they saw fit.

With this many gates arising between Ravenloft and Toril, and all of Daggerdale being drawn into the Mists -- do you have an FR villain in mind who'll become its new darklord, BTW? or will it become an island in the Sea of Sorrows (hence part of the resident ghostly sea captain's domain), or a lordless oubliette adrift in the Mists? -- this makes me think those Dark Powers are playing silly buggers again, and this time have made Toril a key part of whatever dark events lie in store. If that's the case, then you might consider getting the other major Faerunian NPCs -- Hazlik, Von Kharkov, Harkon Lukas and Gondegal are all options; though the first three can't leave their domains, each could send agents to investigate rumors about this oddly-familiar new land -- and perhaps setting up a Vistani fortune-telling scene that predicts campaign-events to come ... but with a spooky "Ravenloft" twist, of course.

[Kel-nage]

Could this not be a Conjunction? (RL DMG (footnote 1), pg. 24) Daggerdale being sucked into the mists for an amount of time, with the end target being related to the aforementioned sword? Or, possibly more disturbingly, Daggerdale "changing" slowly, a piece of Ravenloft superimposed over Daggerdale, the players slowly realising that Daggerdale is no longer what it seems... The Conjuction should avoid all the messy Darklord problems, as well as making the return to FR plausible (well, from a rules point of view anyhow, I can't speak for the players).

Footnote 1: The Ravenloft DMG is a 3rd edition book, however, it's more ideas than rules and is certainly a "must-have" for almost any Ravenloft DM.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

with the disclaimer that I know very little about Forgotten Realms, there is a pair of modules designed to bridge FR to RL. The FR side is called Castle Spulzeer and the RL side is The Forgotten Terror. I don't know how easy/hard it would be to work that into your story.

[Joël of the FoS]

Welcome Wolfgang Fener, et pi fait pas trop attention à Socko...

Cool Falkovnian idea

with the disclaimer that I know very little about Forgotten Realms, there is a pair of modules designed to bridge FR to RL. The FR side is called Castle Spulzeer and the RL side is The Forgotten Terror. I don't know how easy/hard it would be to work that into your story.

These adventures are good starting ideas, but they need a lot of work to make them work, and to remove the silly parts or the railroading...

Joël

[Garudos Celestar]

with the disclaimer that I know very little about Forgotten Realms, there is a pair of modules designed to bridge FR to RL. The FR side is called Castle Spulzeer and the RL side is The Forgotten Terror.

Incidentally, WotC has made Castle Spulzeer available for free download on their website under the Forgotten Realms classic modules, if you're interested.

Castle Spulzeer actually is a decent adventure, and the Spulzeer family's backstory is superb and fits perfectly into Ravenloft. There's even a side quest in Moonhearth that could be inserted into Ravenloft on its own without any problems (well, other than the update to 3.5 and possibly placing a layer of mystery over the events in the village.) The biggest problem is that the first half of the adventure involves quite the trek across Amn, and it certainly assumes that the PCs will not be overly suspicious.

Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot...
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads

[wolfgang_fener]

For reference, here's the name of the 3 SOTD trilogy modules:
The Sword of the Dale, Secret of spiderhaunt and Return of Randal Morn. It is easy to grab with LimeWire in pdf format.

Note that it is usually less expensive to buy a slightly used copy on ebay than to print a tsr pdf on a small personal printer, especially if you can buy it within your country and avoid custom fees and taxes (which is a shame since taxes have already been paid when the book was firs sold brand new).
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Back to my campaign...

I will most likely drag the Daggerdale area into the mist as an island in the sea of sorrow. And I have an idea as to who would become the darklord...

There's an evil spirit named Gothyl using the sword of the dale as a phylactery. All the way through the modules she poses as "the good spirit of the sword" but actually she's a sorceress who made a mistake trying to attein lichdoom. The best she can get is the status of Demi-shade, which she reaches at the end of the third module. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me), this fact is not really part of the whole plot in the original modules, it is more like an aside.

From the 3rd module :

Gothylís Plans
Despite Gothyl's successful ascension to demi-shade,
she still has plans for the PCs. Her true desire is to
break the bonds of undeath and return to the Realms as a
living, breathing sorceress. In order to accomplish this,
however, she needs suitable minions-and the PCs are
perfect for her plans.
Gothylís actions depend on the direction in which the
DM wants to take the campaign. If the DM believes that
the PCs should keep a weapon as powerful as the Sword of
the Dales with no strings attached, then so be it.
Gothyl can take the PCs in any direction the DM
wants. Eventually, however, the PCs are likely to tire of
Gothyl. When this happens, they are forced to destroy
the Sword of the Dales.

Since the sword have been rediscovered (in module 1), the Dark Powers are about to grant her her wish to return to her land a an active being....except she will be traped in her ravenloft domain. I`m not sure yet if she should remain an undead or if she will return " as a
living, breathing sorceress".

If my players prefer to cut it short and return to a standard FR campaign, I'll limit this situation to a temporary event akin to a conjunction. Otherwise if they are willing to enter a long term RL campaign (and I hope they will because I already bought a load of RL books on ebay), This will be an almost permanent event and they will need to travel accross the many domains to complete a long term quest involving the sword of the dales that should culminate with the return of Daggerdale to the FR (after years of playing, that is, if I can manage to keep my players interested for another of my multi years campaign and at that point, I would probably end up DMing for my eventual childs ).

I will have to figure out what happen in the FR with what was Daggerdale. Will it be surrounded by some mist ? Will the land simply diseappear and eventually fill up with water to be replaced by an inner sea ? I don't know yet but I have to find out and Wolfgang (their ranger mentor) should be stuck outside (I don't want to play him as an active NPC, at least not now. He's too high level for that campaign). If it is replaced by a great rift that will eventually fill up with water flowing from the mountains, it also means the river Ashaba won't flow anymore to Cormantor (forest of the elves in FR!). I think I'll do that only if my player really want a long term RL campaign. The consequences in FR will be of epic proportion that would imply a serious Elminster implication for sure. That would also give me a good reason to eventualy send Wolfgang as an helping NPC in RL later one once the PC will be of similar level.

[wolfgang_fener]

Last game session went perfectly well. My PCs and the whole Daggerdale area including Spiderhaunt wood and down to shadow gap are now an island in the sea of sorrow. Currently the borders are closed by a thick mist full of silently screaming faces (assumed to be the faces fo the damned by the PCs). I’m still busy modifying the Sword of the Dales trilogy into a Ravenloft adventure.


I didn't had to force fear/horror checks on the PCs, they where already scared senseless just by my descriptions and by the NPCs reaction ! So scared they where that a PC even forgot to get back its magical etheral throwing dagger +2 she had thrown earlier in combat ! She just tought about it much later after their long escape from the temple and down to Shadow Gap. I’ll be kind and will let her get it back if they run back there asap full speed… Otherwise it will be found by the few priests who escaped the temple but remained in the area. Anyway I want them to go back to finish the investigation.

The few magical weapons and armors they found so far come from the prime material plane, which means according to the planescape rules I follow, they lose 1 plus in the etheral plane (which includes Ravenloft). The only exception is this dagger which was made in a weapon shop drifting in the etheral plane (see the planescape etheral plane sourcebook for details, I forgot the exact names). For this reason the dagger was +1 on the prime material plane but now in Ravenloft, it benefits from its full +2, which will be their most powerful magical weapon until they find the sword of the dale. Until then, only Zinfandel owns a sword +2 (now +1) and they still have 4 or 5 +2 arrows (now +1).

I added some more background to the Sword of the Dales and also modified some of its powers. The original modules doesn’t provide much background other than it was made to save the Dale and the powers looks like it was just rolled at random. In my game it was created a few hundreds years ago for the specific purpose of killing Salazar the Usurper and restore a rightfull king to the throne. Salazard was an evil priest of Bane who took control of Daggerdale in this dark age. He was known for his hability to also cast evocation magic and to create golems with the help of his sorceress friend and for his bad habit of sequestring peasants (to be used in his experiments) .

The Sword is +3 when used by a Daggerdale native of good aligment or +2 for others of good aligment. If the user is of evil aligment, the sword is +0 but the special powers still works. Since it is tied to the Daggerdale land, it will keep its full "plus" even in Ravenloft, as long as they remain on the Daggerdale domain. Otherwise it will be reduced as usual. The sword inflict double damage on magically created creatures like golems. It unlocks chains and manacles within 30 feet if the wielder speaks the word merrydale. It reflect lightning based spells back at the caster.

Arthur De Rive-fontaine, the ancestor of Eleonore (the PC noble warrior) was a squire to the best knight of Randal the first who was to become the first king of the Morn dinasty. This knight was killed while batteling Salazar’s Iron golem body guard. Arthur then took the sword and rushed to hit Salazard who was standing away from the battle ready to cast spells. The priest then casted a powerful lightning bold but it bounced back from the sword and killed the evil caster. This is how Arthur the squire became a baron and how Randal the first became king of Daggerdale. The powerfull sword was then given back to its creator as requested by the weapon mage and was never seen again. Randal the 1st is of course the ancestor of Randal Morn in the Sword of the dales trilogy.

Salazar was allied with Gothyl, the sorceress would be lich depicted in the original modules who is now using the same sword as a powerful philactery and who will manipulate the PCs in the trilogy (see the modules for details). Of course there is a reason why the artifact have let himself found once again.

I modified my Falkovnian gate. IT only operate when the full moon is full in Falkovnia and in FR at the same time. I put the moon cycle of FR to 28 days and the moon cycle in Falkovnia to 30 days, which produces a conjuction of the moons every 420 days. During the last game session, it was also the 48th conjunction. They found a huge tapestry depicting the conjunction predictions made by the founder cleric of the Evil temple. It was actually a calendar of the conjunctions predicting when corpses would fall from the gate. Unfortunately, they where already scared when they found it + none have astrology or astronomy knowledges so I could only tell them the general topic without all the details. I hope they wil go back and take notes of the dates and learn more about this background story, it would be such a waste otherwise !
They will have to investigate again later about this to find out this conjunction was the last predicted by the founder priest Salazar.

Salazard devoted his whole evil life to the study of the strange empaled corpses-spitting gate he found in the mountains. Actually he founded the evil temple around it. He was preaching the coming of the evil god would happen during the 48th conjunction. Of course he was unaware of all the details and he was mistaken in his belief. What he really predicted was the fall of Daggerdale into Ravenloft. In his evil unholy texts, he asked his followers to bring his corpse to the temple near the gate for a great ceremony happening on the night of his predicted 48th conjunction. He expected his god to inhabit his body on this unholy day. What actually happened during the last game session is his fanatic and mad spirit came back as a ghost for the event.

The ghost of Salazar will now be the Daggerdale island domain lord (soon to be chalenged by Gothyl after the trilogy). I still have to design this ghost but it will most likely be a 4th magnitude ghost. Of course, had the PC investigated the Temple right away instead of escaping, the details of the story would have been different because they are far from ready to face such a dangerous monster. Now if the PCs returns to the temple to continue their investigation, Salazar will be away visiting his new domain. It will give them a chance to learn a few more hints about what happened. In the crypt, the momified corpse of Salazar will be back in its tomb (the ghost put it back there before leaving the temple). They may find some old texts explaining what was to be done on this day (which will surely puzzle my Cleric PC who knows about the times of trouble, Bane and Cyric and all that). Maybe they will believe Bane is actually back as a domain lord which should be enough to make them afraid like shit about the domain lord. Who knows, maybe Salazar’s ghost believe himself to be the incarnation of Bane even if this is false ! That would make for an amazing mad domain lord.

Of course that will not trick Gothyl the undead sorceress/ false spirit of the sword but It will make it easier for her to trick the PC into believing in her false identity as a good spirit of the sword willing to kill Salazar once again (her goal will of course be to take Salazars place). Then again, maybe the fact that Gothyl managed to inhabit the Sword is really a flaw in the creation of the Sword caused by a wish gone wrong. Maybe the creator of the Sword wished the sword to kill Salazar for eternity, which was interpreted as “ in life and unlife and all future incarnations”. Gothyl who have had hundreds of years of life and un-life probably had the chance to learn about that and she’s profitting from the situation. After all, she’s supposed to be a supra-genius… For this reason I should really play her as an incredible master mind.

[wolfgang_fener]

OK, enough background, let’s go back to the events of the last session.

They where already investigating my version of the "Cave of Chaos" from the Keep on the borderland module located in the mountains north of Shadow gap and West of the Spiderhaunt woods when the first tendrils of the mist came through the gate linking Falkovnia to the Evil temple located in those (in Forgotten Realms).



While playing I also had a real time timer telling me the exact time of the conjuction. If the players had reached the main temple room where the gate is located and where the priests and folowers where chanting and beating a large drum, they would have got a chance to witness the freshly empalled corpse falling from the hole in the ceiling and the following dense mist following it. Unfortunately they where afraid of getting attacked from the back so they where making sure to visit all the other rooms before.They where hiding in a small room near the main temple while the drum and chanting where relpaced by screams of terror and the noise of all the attendants running for their lives out of the temple. Then the first tendrils from the mist reached their hiding spot. Following my description of the invading mist forming tendrils and shapes of many screaming faces, they where sure it was an unbeatable creature in itself so they ran away. Holy water thrown at the mist was also turning to vapor instently.

Dr. Scola my NPC necromancer was failing an horror check at this point. For him it was an horror check because he began to understand that Ravenloft was trying to get him once again. The usually calm and non-emotional Scola suddently turning to panic mode had a sheep effect on the whole group, including the PCs. Following Scola's mad fear, they rushed for their lives to the exit without investigating the main temple room. They never saw what was happening there ! The detail observed by Charline about the missing corpse of the human founder of the temple ( that was replaced by a wraight from an elven adventurer) added to the fear.

Ravenloft DMing lesson to learn from all this: PCs were more affraid of what they didn't see. It is sometime better to suggest how horrible it may be than to describe an horrible scene. The unexpected fear from a normaly calm npc is extremely contagious. Of course I really acted Scola's horror, almost popping my own eyes out of their sockets and losing a few hairs in the process The fact they don’t know much yet about him somehow increased the fear factor and their curiosity.



Outside the temple, they saw the mist was also comming down from the mountains under a huge full moons. They had a 3 hours run from there to the campment where they left their horses . It was the first time they left the horses unguarded and the horses where not supposed to be there anymore but since their new goal was to run all night to at least reach a small inn in shadow gap , I didnt remove the horses because it was giving me a chance to make them see the new domain border and end the session on that perfect closing final. They also planed to sleep a few hours and then send 3 NPCs (Theo and Guss + another one I didn't talk about) with messages to Tilverton so I let the 3 NPCs escape that way. It gave me a chance to get rid of a few cumbersome NPCs and to instill right a way a sense of loss and abandonment in the PCs. It also made Eleonore somehow feel better, knowing the two “kids” managed to get out to safety. Much later on in the campaign It may also be usefull for me to have Wolfgang (my retired PC who was their guide and mentor) aware of what happened (or at least what the PCs tought was happening).

I now have 3 PCs and 3 NPcs left in the game : Lehan the PC priest, Charline the PC rogue, Eleonore the PC noble warrior, Zinfandel the NPC elven bladesigner, Don the dumb, kind and phobic about undead warrior and Scola, the not so kind but very intriguing and quite mad Necromancer.


I expect Scola to eventually turn to the black side (he is already far from pure on the corruption table). Don will probably end mad with all the expected undeads unless all PCs offers him constant psychological support. I don’t know yet about Zinfandel, he’s too flawless to be “real”, I’ll have to work on this.


I also told my player about my plan to turn this into a long term Ravenloft Campaign that will most likely include at least a good dozen of modules and not to expect to get back to Forgotten Realms before the end of the Campaign. I explained the difference between a long term campaign goal and a short term module goal. I think they are really thrilled by the events and positively surprised so see how much of a big thing this turns out to be. It is also possible that Daggerdale will never go back to F.R. , especially if a pc die and the player have to create a new Ravenloft native PC and if we don’t get bored with the opressive Ravenloft setting.

After the trilogy, My goal will be to send them on the sea of sorrow. Maybe they will be willing to do it by themselves if I give them a hint there’s other lands to be found (maybe a shipwreck on the shore of “Daggerdale-Island” or maybe they will see a ship sailing on the horizon (actually a gost ship). Anyway, I’ll have to bring them to the Core. For sure Scola will be looking for a way to go back to the sanitarium in Dementlieu to try to use the room #13 gate to Zentil keep in FR again. If they manage to remain friendly with Scola, he will be usefull in teaching willing PCs the language of Dementlieu. Given a choice, he will most likely keep his knowledge of the sanitarium gate to himself. He will care for the PC only as long as they are useful to him (he is actually slightly neutral evil and the PC may guess but don’t really know about it and in Ravenloft, they won’t be able to confirm this with spells. He is exceptionally wise and intelligent so he should be able to keep his cover and avoid excessive evil acts in their presence or to at least justify everything and maybe corrupt them as well.

I already know I’ll eventually have to DM The Evil Eye, I also want to make some adventures in Dementlieu, Richemulot, Forlorn, and since Wolfgang is already known by Adam and Dr Mordenheim, I may be tempted to send them in Lamordia. Actually a Grand tour of the Core is in order

[The Giamarga]

I will have to figure out what happen in the FR with what was Daggerdale. Will it be surrounded by some mist ? Will the land simply diseappear and eventually fill up with water to be replaced by an inner sea ? I don't know yet but I have to find out and Wolfgang (their ranger mentor) should be stuck outside (I don't want to play him as an active NPC, at least not now. He's too high level for that campaign). If it is replaced by a great rift that will eventually fill up with water flowing from the mountains, it also means the river Ashaba won't flow anymore to Cormantor (forest of the elves in FR!). I think I'll do that only if my player really want a long term RL campaign. The consequences in FR will be of epic proportion that would imply a serious Elminster implication for sure. That would also give me a good reason to eventualy send Wolfgang as an helping NPC in RL later one once the PC will be of similar level.

Normally the lands that are "drawn" in to the mists are cloned into the ethereal. The original lands don't dissappear.


BTW since you mentioned Jander Sunstar and Falkovnia: There's an adventure featuring him in Children of the Night: Vampires which takes place in Falkovnia. Jander is trying to smoke out a society of Vampyres (a race of monsters similar to Vampires but not undead) in Lekar. This society was founded by Vladimir Ludzig, the Vampyre-Prince of Vladantilan an outlander vampyre from a world where his race rules supreme over the human cattle.

The adventure could also lead to a few hard decisions from the elven NPC, when it is revealed that Jander is a Vampire.