doveloft?

[jules]

What would the mirror universe version of ravenloft be like?
think the darklord of the domain inhabited mostly by elves be led by a holy version of a death knight.
good vampires?
people being risk being trapped forever by way of doing good deeds!

[Jester of the FoS]

A land where no good deed goes un-punished and the noblest souls are gifted with great powers but equally burdened with troubling curses.

[Strahdsbuddy]

in all honesty, it isn't such a bad idea for implementation in the Ravenloft universe, though away from the Core and the easily reached islands. I still wonder how the good and just would cope with the idea of being trapped, especially if they realize it was their goodness that has trapped them! Could this be some kind of divine test (Like in the Book of Job) to see how far a mortal can be pushed?

What if the DP did not trap the person per-se, but trapped their POTENTIAL for great evil if put into the right situation?

By golly, i think this could be developed!

[Manofevil]

Read this thread:
http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... sc&start=0

[jules]

any more thoughts?

[Manofevil]

I think I've figured out the Anti-Van Richten. He ENVYS the power that vampires have. His whole life, he has lived in the shadow of those more powerful than him, like the gypsey tribe who kidnapped his son and sold him to the vampire who turned him. Van Richten had never dreamed that vampires actually existed. Now that he had learned of them, he immediately saw them as his key to great power. Unfortunately, before Van Richten could get his son to change him into a vampire, his son, repelled by what he had become, walked into the sunrise to prevent vampirism from spreading like a disease from him. Since that day, Van Richten has obsessively hunted vampires hoping to convince or force one to turn him. He knows that vampires dominate those who they turn, so he always has an assassination plan in place for the one that turns him. His efforts, unfortunately, have always met with frustration. He has always been forced to kill the vampires he has caught before they could turn him. He has surrounded himself with people with ambitions similar to his own. He has learned of beings of similar power like werebeasts, liches, ghosts, and the created, but none, in his opinion, can so quickly gain him personal power as becoming a vampire.

[Zilfer]

Well if we took everything EXACTLY opposite, the good people would be "cursed" the more good they did....

I mean ravenloft we look and its something close to...

+2 Str (You gain a boon)
- You look ugly/something negative

So Doveloft might be

-2 Str (you gain a curse or hinderance)
+You look handsome or something positive

So while it may make you out to be more heroic.... you become weaker as you do more and more good. Now obviously Good usually prevails despite the evil it faces so i can see most of the "Light"Lords nearly failing to defeat evil but going against all odds they somehow succeed despite the stacked odds......

Furthermore does that mean LightLords have to commit an "Act of Ultimate Kindness?" or should we call it "Act of Epic Selflessness?"

ah this makes me smile even though I don't think I could DM such a game.

[Hazgarn]

I think that any reverse-Ravenloft should be based on the idea that the canon darklords managed to attain that sliver's chance at redemption, only with the resulting consequences catapulting the canon heroes into darkness.

If Godefroy is somehow broken of his passions and laid to rest, freeing Jules from his influence. Changes in his behavior are eventually felt by the twins, and the upheaval in their family soon leaves Gennifer vulnerable to her dorman lycanthropy. If Drakov manages to see the futility of his campaign, it lays him open to being overthrown by the rebels, and Gondegal finds himself riding a tiger as the institutionalized brutality that keeps the realm functioning forces him to make increasingly severe moral concessions just to ward off complete collapse. And so on.

[Chaot]

Probably a bit like an Ibsen play.

[Eddyspaghetti]

What is the opposite of Dread? Dictionary says; hope, welcome. Hmnn, I think it's more than that. Especially referring to Ravenloft.

That question could come up with several plot ideas just by itself.

[Dark Angel]

What is the opposite of Dread? Dictionary says; hope, welcome. Hmnn, I think it's more than that. Especially referring to Ravenloft.

That question could come up with several plot ideas just by itself.

Serenity? Comfort? Come to Doveloft! The most comfortable place in all the Planes!

[HuManBing]

But even in the most compassionate and caring of the lightlords, there exists a spark of corruption, a hint of malaise. Perhaps they don't put the seat back down when they're done, or they sometimes feel irritated when people bring crying babies to the opera house. Either way, there is some element of poetic fallibility in their otherwise-perfect existence that humanizes them and makes the reader think "There, but for the grace of the Adversary Destroyer of Worlds and Violator of Humanity as the Dregs in the Wineskin of Creation, go I".

Or, in the (censored) words of Jon Lajoie:

If there were a contest to see who doesn't give a –––– the most,
I wouldn't win because I don't give a –––– about winning, yo.
I don't even give a –––– about not giving a ––––
Which means I do give a ––––.

...

Wait, wut?

I give a ––––, I care about every one and care about everything, yo.
I give a ––––, I literally care about every ––––––––––ing thing...

[The Lesser Evil]

Ravenloft's never been a completely straight hell or place of imprisonment for merely the self-damned. Ravenloft isn't all about darkness and corruption; it also has a surprising amount of beauty and light layered beneath the veil of darkness. Neither does the Demiplane's corruption given the sinner merely for sin itself; it must be passionate and willful. A vampire won't become ultimately damned simply for drinking blood; he must go above and beyond that. Similarly, some largely indifferent psychopathic clod with no passion or pathos won't become a Darklord either. The Dark Powers like their playthings to suffer.

Because Ravenloft is not merely a straight hellish prison (where you become trapped if you are simply too evil), its inversion shouldn't be a straight heavenly prison (where you are trapped if you are simply too virtuous). Therefore, I propose a twist on the inversion of Ravenloft that is Doveloft. The defining feature of the Darklord is harm (both to self and others) they have caused through their vices and the horrible passion with which they pursued their vices. If we tip this trope on its head just enough for it to make sense, then we have a situation where the lightlords have caused great harm through their virtues and the passions with which they have pursued these virtues.

Now, a place where one could damn themselves with virtues seems counter-intuitive. But hear me out, virtues are only really good in the practical sense if they’re used with wisdom and balanced out by other traits. Given the wrong circumstances, virtues that become twisted or extended beyond the point of rationality can be terrible in and of themselves. Charity can become needless sacrifice or even a martyrdom complex; industriousness can become an unwillingness to compromise. Even excessive humility, the extreme downplaying of the self to where no sense of self is truly recognized, leaves one open to performing all sorts of horrible things in the name of the cause. (Much like how a cult works- breaking down the sense of self a potential applicant has).

Doveloft is therefore a crapsaccharine world of twisted virtues instead of a crapsack world twisted vices. Instead of vicious, paranoid, self-interested peasants that shun the stranger at every turn, Doveloft has peasants that are all too giving and welcoming of strangers, selflessly working for the well-being of others beyond what is rational. Even when it is deemed that your well-being might not be what you want. In Ravenloft, tragedy is born from actions done in bad faith. In Doveloft, tragedy is born from actions done in good faith. The witch is not burnt at the stake to punish her or for vindictiveness; it is done as an act of mercy to purify her soul. In Doveloft, the road to Hell can truly be paved with good intentions. Instead of a Glasgow Grin, every act of violence is delivered with a Stepford Smile.

And on the other side of the coin, there are the heroes. In Ravenloft, heroes are differentiated from villains because their virtues compensate for their vices. It’s not like anyone is without flaw; but it is the positive qualities, the virtues that make a difference in keeping the heroes from sinking into the muck that drowns their villainous equivalents. But in Doveloft, sinking into the mire is not the trouble, no the trouble is having one’s head too far up into the clouds. Therefore, paradoxically it is the hero’s “vices” that distinguish them from their villainous counterparts- the hero’s vices even out their virtues and drag them back down to earth. The hero is prideful enough to hold themselves to a higher standard, being resolved enough to rebel against a twisted doctrine that calls for the burning of a witch for the best of intentions.

In Doveloft, as in Ravenloft, there is imbalance. Not necessarily of evil or good, but something more complex, of virtue or vice, selflessness or selfishness.

[jules]

what would Doveloft carnival be like?