Possible Changes

[Aslan]

Soon I am going to be introducing a new NPC into my campaign and would like all of your opinions on this before I make some drastic changes.

My current campaign I am running is a monster hunter style campaign with a party that hails from a small town in Mordent. While they were away on one of their hunts they ran into a Toben zombie and made a nice new enemy. Since then he has been taunting them and giving them a basic hard time without too much grief (well as little as a psycho hive undead can really. That said with this last encouter they really made him angry and now he has decided to take revenge. While away on another quest he is going to kill all the people in the village and wait for the party to come home only to discover a whole town of Toben. I believe this will prove sufficient reason for the party to try and discover all the information they can on Toben in an attempt to take him down.

That said, the NPC I hope to bring will be Alanik Ray, the great Detective. I feel like he should also be a little more Holmes-like and so I plan to put a few more quirks to him such as bad violin playing and the big one, an addiction. I feel like adding this to his character would be an interesting twist and make him feel a little more real. I considered using the rules from the Book of Vile Darkness for sheer simplicity, but I don't know that I would necessarily be using any of the narcotics from said book for this purpose. What does everyone think about this?

[Jack of Tears]

My opinion would be mixed, while I love Holmes and never really cared for Alanik Ray the way he is, (never actually liked him as an elf) I don't know that I'd want to make him too close a duplicate of the character who inspired him.

Adding quirks to his personality is certainly worth while - such as a hobby or appreciation for bizarre artwork or (in my opinion better yet) poetry.

Likewise an addiction might not go amiss, but neither would some terrible secret or obsession. (perhaps he has an spooky sort of attraction to children, or red haired women - perhaps he suffers from the effects of a previously failed powers check and must engage in an activity - eating spoilt meat or dead skin for example - others would find disturbing)

A somewhat darker holmes-esque character with a pediphilic desire he has never acted on might be interesting. Perhaps combine that with his hobby, wherein he likes to surround himself with child artists, appreciating their playing, poetry, artwork, etc. The character need never, nor should ever, give in to temptation, but it adds an undercurrent to his nature which will make him seem more realistic. (and further seperate him from Holmes himself)

[lostboy]

For a Holmesian character have you read the Hector Vail short stories? Ravenlofts very own detective in a deerstalker, complete with bad violin playing, and the obligatory sidekick.....

check the link here
http://members.tripod.com/~Madmartigen/Sebastian.html

Its also under the boathouse links as well.

Lostboy

[WolfKook]

Have you seen "From Hell" (Either the movie or the graphic novel)? The portrayal of Aberline with a high addiction to opium made him a very interesting character, and gave him an interesting flaw that added a lot to the story.

As for the rest, I can offer no help whatsoever. Killing entire towns is just a lack of subtlety for my taste.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I agree with Jack. If you give Alanik a fiddle and an addiction, you might as well just call him Holmes. If you want Holmes, go ahead and use him. He's in Gothic Earth, and people have come to RL from GE before. (Odiare)

But I wouldn't make him a pedophile. It's been mentioned by the Kargatane that there were plans for Alanik and Arthur to come out as gay that were nixed by WW. Considering that the only two "confirmed" gay characters in RL are evil (Metus and Hazlik), and there are too many people in the world that think gay and pedophile mean the same thing, I wouldn't go down that road with Alanik.

[Jack of Tears]

Well, it really only depends upon what he and his players believe in that regard - but I agree that Pedophilia can be a touchy subject to introduce into a game, particularly in a hero. (though, not all pedophiles are child molestors, which is the difference that would allow such a character to remain "heroic")

Again, any secret works, this one simply struck me as immediately interesting because it is one of those things which turns an easily defined "hero" into a more uncertain form of personality.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Note that some sexual attraction we'd consider to be pedophilia today (i.e. preference for young teens) would not be considered abnormal, in most Ravenloft societies. Marrying off kids at 13 was entirely accepted in the historical periods most of the game-setting recapitulates. For Ray to truly believe there was something wrong with his feelings, and resist them accordingly, he would have to be drawn to prepubescent children specifically. That may not be compatible with his retaining a 'heroic' image for your players, even if he's never acted out such impulses.

Metus was bisexual in his pedophilia, not gay, BTW. He'd originally sent the Radanaviches to abduct a nobleman's daughter; they only kidnapped Erasmus as a substitute when the original plan fell through.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Yup, I know Metus was bi, but lumped him in as gay for simplicity's sake. I'm surprised that you consider his attraction to Erasmus pedophilic, though. Erasmus was 14 when Metus made him a groom, and as you said earlier in the post, that's not really that abnormal in the time period.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

Aslan, you do whatever you want to do, the rules are only guidelines especially within the Ravenloft setting. If you want o change it, you do so, it's what I always did

Changes things always keep things fresh, so you stay at it

[Jack of Tears]

Not to take this onto a tangent about Pedophilia, but prepubescence is what I had in mind when I made the suggestion. No, an attraction to very young children (9-11 say) would not be particularly heroic, but it isn't wretched so long as he doesn't act upon it and it adds a darker edge to the character. (and I'm of the opinion that RL "heroes" should all have some kind of darker side to them - after all, more often than not these are people living in a corrupt world, forced to play the roles they do by circumstance and because no one else will do it.)

[Sylaire]

I'd just like to mention that Mordent might be the second-worst place in all of Ravenloft for a villain to commit the mass murder of an entire village. That is a potential for a whole lot of ghosts in a hurry...to say nothing of what the Gaz-version, more-active Godefroy might do in reaction to something as powerful and unique as Toben going into major-violence mode on his home turf.

(On the other hand...with a village full of Toben and numerous tormented souls with a variety of powers and abilities, added to the usual Mordentish weather, it almost sounds like a Silent Hill scenario come to life...)

[cure]

For a Holmesian character have you read the Hector Vail short stories? Ravenlofts very own detective in a deerstalker, complete with bad violin playing, and the obligatory sidekick.....

check the link here
http://members.tripod.com/~Madmartigen/Sebastian.html

Its also under the boathouse links as well.

Lostboy

Highly recommendable.

Does anyone know whatever became of Sebastian? I twice tried sending emails. And it was ultimately myself who conspired to get the link put in the boat house.

Was there not a film with an opium addicted Holmes? Uncanon I would susepect? Two decades ago at least.

[Sylaire]

For a Holmesian character have you read the Hector Vail short stories? Ravenlofts very own detective in a deerstalker, complete with bad violin playing, and the obligatory sidekick.....

check the link here
http://members.tripod.com/~Madmartigen/Sebastian.html

Its also under the boathouse links as well.

Lostboy

Highly recommendable.

Does anyone know whatever became of Sebastian? I twice tried sending emails. And it was ultimately myself who conspired to get the link put in the boat house.

Was there not a film with an opium addicted Holmes? Uncanon I would susepect? Two decades ago at least.

The Seven-Percent Solution, based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Meyer. Holmes's cocaine addiction gets out of hand and he, essentially, goes into rehab in Vienna under the care of Sigmund Freud, only to get caught up in a mystery while there and has to confront it while coping with the stress of fighting off his addiction. While I'm not a big fan of either its canon-twisting or its own succumbing to the addiction of many historical fiction writers of dropping Historical Personages into the text solely for name value, it's worth a watch.

(And it's you I have to thank for getting that Hector Vail link added to the FoS website? I feel like I should throw a party or something, because those stories are excellent!)