Café de Nuit

There are so many juicy tidbits tossed around in Ravenloft, I wanted to make a thread where we all discuss our favorites. Here's how the game works: one person posts one of their favorite underdeveloped details from the RL canon, and the next person fleshes it out with a few details and posts a new "empty hook." Try to go for little things from the books that don't get a lot of attention.

I'll start: Gaz 2, p. 46 talks about the famous clockworks of Mayvin, and says that they have started acting strangely of late. Several of the dancing figures have disappeared. In the sidebar, the "Toller of Twelve" is listed as a dread mechanical golem.

What are the details of this golem? Was it always a dread golem, only recently activated, or did it become so after some dreadful event? Is it bringing others of its kind to life, or vandalizing them, or are they being hurt accidentally?

Whoever answers this can then find a similar nugget of intrigue to offer up, and we'll go from there.

Are you game?

80 people have read this thread, and no one has an idea for the toller of twelve?

Sadly, I don't. I think I've exhausted my store of mechanical golem/clockwork ideas!

Great idea!

DeepShadow wrote:I'll start: Gaz 2, p. 46 talks about the famous clockworks of Mayvin, and says that they have started acting strangely of late. Several of the dancing figures have disappeared. In the sidebar, the "Toller of Twelve" is listed as a dread mechanical golem.

What are the details of this golem? Was it always a dread golem, only recently activated, or did it become so after some dreadful event? Is it bringing others of its kind to life, or vandalizing them, or are they being hurt accidentally?

All haven’t been always quiet at the Patent Hall of Mayvin. While she was young, and before her rise to local power, Baroness Roodyl Narglin (gnome Ari5/Exp4) once killed a human inventor with her gnomish inventor friends. This human inventor from Nartok, whose name is now only remembered by a few, came to town with a genius invention he wanted to register in the Hall of Mayvin. His selfworking spring powered shovel was a surprisingly well powered tool, and made a hole for a signpost with an hour. But this inventor had a character flaw: he ridiculed the other gnome inventors, and made racist comments on their small brain size. He ridiculed Roodlyl in particular since she had registered a similar self working shovel the year before, but his invention was much more efficient.

One night, after a long stay in a local inn, the drunk gnomes fell on the human inventor late at night on a deserted part of town. His racist slur fell once last time. Enraged, the gnomes killed him and buried him on the ground where the Patent Hall was later built. The gnomes who killed the human haven’t said a word about it since then, even between them.

Baroness Narglin is now worried as some gnomish inventions in her home have recently starting to write threat messages in the dust (or similar way). She guessed what is going on (the spirit of the man they killed thirty years ago is back) but she doesn't know what suddenly made him to come back, and how to stop him.

Dread mechanical Golem, with ability to create controled animators out of wronged spirits. If the golem is not defeated, all the machines and clockwork could eventually animate and kill the gnomes they find in their way…

(thanks to Supernatural for inspiration! (Texas killer truck episode))

Comments and suggestions / modifications to my proposition are welcomed.

Haven't time now to post another hook now, so if anybody can supply the next one, be my guest!

Joël

Joël of the FoS wrote: Dread mechanical Golem, with ability to create controled animators out of wronged spirits. If the golem is not defeated, all the machines and clockwork could eventually animated and kill the gnomes they finding their way…

(thanks to Supernatural for inspiration! (Texas killer truck episode))

Joël

...psst...Joel, you're supposed to add a hook of your own to continue...

Joël of the FoS wrote:Haven't time now to post another hook now, so if anybody can supply the next one, be my guest!

Joël

I do not have a particulat mystery in mind right now. So anybody can use my right to post the next bait!

Joël

Okay, here's another, also from Gaz2:

p 106, Lekar sidebar, important figures: The Last Mistress, (head of the Buried Hands, an undead thieves guild), female Rank 4 Ancient Dead Rog16

Okay, I've never heard of this guild before; was it mentioned in the Grim Harvest Trilogy? I don't have those books. How did this guild get started? How was The Last Mistress brought to unlife? Is the guild accepting new members (geez, talk about your initiation rituals!)?

Thats a good one DS. Further questions, how are the relations of the guild to the vampyres who rule the slums?

DeepShadow wrote:Okay, here's another, also from Gaz2:

p 106, Lekar sidebar, important figures: The Last Mistress, (head of the Buried Hands, an undead thieves guild), female Rank 4 Ancient Dead Rog16

Okay, I've never heard of this guild before; was it mentioned in the Grim Harvest Trilogy? I don't have those books. How did this guild get started? How was The Last Mistress brought to unlife? Is the guild accepting new members (geez, talk about your initiation rituals!)?

I think this is a pretty direct rip-off of the Thieves' Guild of Lankhmar, actually. Of course, the Guild in Lankhmar is staffed largely by living thieves, but the guild masters stick around after their decease to keep an eye on things (so to speak).

Nathan of the FoS wrote:I think this is a pretty direct rip-off of the Thieves' Guild of Lankhmar, actually. Of course, the Guild in Lankhmar is staffed largely by living thieves, but the guild masters stick around after their decease to keep an eye on things (so to speak).

Okay, then it sounds like we need to break away from that. Let's pick a tenet of that archetype and go against it.

Maybe the Last Mistress wasn't a guildmemember in life? Maybe she was an individual rogue who defied Drakov and thereby became an icon for the dashing rogue wanna-be's of Falkovnia? They formed a cult of sorts to keep her memory alive...and discovered one day that she was more alive than they would have liked?

Okay, I think I just handled that one...here's the next one:

In the Book of Crypts adventure Bride of Mordenheim, Elise Mordenheim's neice comes looking for her. She's a wizard, of all things, and the spitting image of her aunt. What happened to this young woman?

DeepShadow wrote:Maybe the Last Mistress wasn't a guildmemember in life? Maybe she was an individual rogue who defied Drakov and thereby became an icon for the dashing rogue wanna-be's of Falkovnia? They formed a cult of sorts to keep her memory alive...and discovered one day that she was more alive than they would have liked?

Why necessarily mix Drakov into it? Mixing two notions:
- Bog Monster of Hroth
- Concrete shoes

I think it'd be neat to have a rogue who betrayed the "family", slapped in concrete shoes, sunk down beneath the muck at the river's bottom (Lekar is on the Vuchar River) where the body was perfectly preserved... Only to rise again to take control of the local syndicate.

Lord Cyclohexane wrote:Why necessarily mix Drakov into it? Mixing two notions:
- Bog Monster of Hroth
- Concrete shoes

I think it'd be neat to have a rogue who betrayed the "family", slapped in concrete shoes, sunk down beneath the muck at the river's bottom (Lekar is on the Vuchar River) where the body was perfectly preserved... Only to rise again to take control of the local syndicate.

Problem is, a 4th rank AD demands some kind of cult and a potent burial place. Very unlikely to happen accidentally like this.

I think this deserves its own thread, so we can move on to the next hook. I have the BoC out now, so here are some more details:

Katrina Von Brandhofen is the daughter of Elise Mordenheim's twin sister. Her family escaped Ravenloft (which I personally take to mean they were outside of Lamordia when it was sucked in) but Katrina was pulled in later and has been searching for her aunt ever since. She was statted in 2E as a 4th level Diviner. She despises Victor Mordenheim even before she learns the truth about her aunt's condition. PC's are assumed to rescue her in Bride of Mordenheim, so that she becomes an ally.

Katrina is also on card #424 of the 1992 TSR Trading cards. She´s a 4th level Diviner, alignment LN and owns a necklace of adaption.

The background on the card reads:
Katrina is Victor Mordenheim´s niece by marriage. She is a hauntingly beautiful woman who wears clothing that accents her athletic figue. She has been looking for her aunt -her mother´s twin sister - for years, hoping to find information regarding her past. She has failed to enlist the elusive Mordenheim´s aid.

The Book of Crypts also notes :

Though her family escaped Ravenloft when she was young, a few years ago Katrina was drawn in again, arriving in Valachan. [...] Katrina believes she is always right. This ferocious tenacity and independance has been with her ever since her father failed to return from war when she was a young child. Her mother alone raised Katrina and her younger brother. Katrina´s brother contracted yellow fever when he was six and died a few painful weeks later. This destroyed Katrina´s mother. She soon broke down into a catatonic state unable to eat. She died three weeks later. When her mother died Katrina was taken to an uncle´s ahouse; he took time and patience to raise his niece. This helped Katrina readjust to life without her parents. However she yearned for the company of her aunt, the twin of her deceased mother.

[...]
Katrina has found during her short lifetime that she can trust very few peopl in Ravenloft. She is wary of those she meets on the road. She rarely trusts anyone enough to tell of her life and of her travels.


In the adventure the PCs wake at night and find Mordenheim strapping Katrina to a horrible device and mind-switching Elise´s soul into Katrina´s body. (And conversely Katrina´s soul into Elise´s tortured body)

And this is the proposed ending:
If the characters save Katrina´s life, the PCs [...] have gained an ally in Ravenloft. Katrina will not join them in their tavels to escape Ravenloft. She instead chooses to return to her home, where she plans to rejoin the family she has not seen in years.


My take is that she used to be LG but some dark acts in the past drew her back into Ravenloft. Now that all her suspicions about Mordenheim have been confirmed (Mordenheim strapped her to some kind of apparatus in the adventure) she vows to take vengeance on the Doctor and to rescue her aunt. To this end she has hired adventurers in the past, carefully screening them but she always fails in this somehow. Often because she misread one of her companions as her powers of divination don´t work right in Ravenloft. Against the godless Doctor´s they always fail (Metaphysical Resistance class feature from the Scientist PrC). Her singlemindedness and distrust combined with her haughty attitude about being always right has lead her down a path of corruption where she denies any blame for the deaths of the adventurers she led to their doom. Though she symbolized much of what is contrary to the Mordenheim blood (by using magic and believing in it) she can´t escape her legacy.

Now if someone could elaborate on the dark acts that drew her here and/or tie Adam into this somehow...

Did perhaps Katrina somehow cause of her younger brother´s death? Did her mother die because she didn´t feed her? How did she come to study Divination? What happened to her uncle? What last act drew her into Ravenloft ? What did she experience in Valachan and her travels from there to Lamordia? Also in BoC the PCs meet her at the beach. Does this have any sigificance? Did being strapped to some horrible device and mindswitched with Victor´s wife shatter her sanity? Does Mordenheim perhaps hunt for her to use her agian as a receptable for his wife´s soul? Is part of her aunt´s soul perhaps still in Katrina? Where did Katrina get a necklace of adaption from? Did she alread have to use it sometime? (perhaps she travelled per ship and it sunk? Or it somehow interacted with Mordenheims strange device...)

Great bait! What's the next hook, Giamarga?

Thanks. Though i did raise more question than i provided answers.

Here´s a new hook: Van Richten´s Arsenal and the pick-a-path book Castle of the Undead give the history of the Bloodknife which stems from a domain where vampires rule and a vistani was king. The half-vistani Randar, son of the vistani king, discovers the bloodknife and the diamond of the sun and in the end destroys the Vampire-darklord Velkaarn in the end of Castle of the Undead.

What happened to that domain, and the young half vistana hero who found the bloodknife and his wolf brother? How did knowledge of the Bloodknife find it´s way into the University of Dementlieu´s Guignol Museum?