The Blood Moon - ideas for a revamped Bluetspur

[HuManBing]

Overview

I was working on my GURPS conversion of Ravenloft and I reached the Psionic Powers bit. That got me thinking about Bluetspur in DnD.

Bluetspur is a lot of fun - in a Gothic Ravenloft setting, it's the "aliens from the stars" Lovecraftian style horror. However, I'm trying to make it even more alien and otherworldly than it is. Instead, I want Bluetspur to be a hellscape satellite around Ravenloft - one of the moons of the Demiplane, populated by a truly bizarre form of malevolence that's "life, but not as we know it".

Note: This is a work in progress. I'm hashing this out largely on a whim, and I'd like to hear any ideas to improve it. Likewise, if these ideas strike you as irredeemably farfetched or just plain bad, feel free to give the entire thread a miss - I'd hate for you to squander your time posting a response.

[HuManBing]

Embrace the moon: Or at least the idea of the moon. Other writers here on the Fraternity have had the insanely fun idea that Bluetspur is a moon around Ravenloft. That would explain the barren regolith, the dull red glow around the horizon, and even the bizarre charged atmosphere of lightning strikes. It would also tie in nicely with the association of lunar phases and lunacy - when the moon comes close, the silicon-based psionic life forms are closer to the world and causes more madness.

Embrace the Lovecraftian: Changing the land to the moon, rather than an Island of Terror, frees the land up for truly alien-interloper style horror. Body snatchers, soul eaters, Things Man Was Not Meant To Know all are fair game now. I envision the inhabitants to have longterm plans for humanity that span millennia, if not aeons. The creatures themselves would be quite different from anything on Ravenloft, but no less malevolent.

No mind flayers: Mind flayers are an iconic creature trademarked and copyrighted by WOTC, and I'd prefer something with fewer legal constraints on their usage. I'm thinking of something truly alien - something not even carbon-based. In Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, the life forms on Mars are largely silicon-based crystalline life forms. Such life forms could be highly intelligent, yet immune and susceptible to different things entirely. Extremes of heat and cold would probably give them no problems. Sentient veins of crystalline nodes would transmit pure thoughtwaves, freed from the flesh. Heinlein's creatures resembled massive glaciers of crystals - perhaps our moon's creatures could liquefy at will and move around in a liquid form that is both invincible to most normal damage, and completely unrelenting in its slow, corrosive pursuit.

Psionics: The themes of extreme intelligence and psionic powers would carry over well from mind flayers to silicon crystals, and the idea of brain-eating could take on a different tinge. Perhaps the silicon creatures trap sentients from the normal world in quartz and feldspars, eventually breaking down their psyches and "digesting" their knowledge into the neural network. When the moon approaches perigee to the Demiplane, the malevolent mentalist powers of the quick-crystals are at their strongest.

Naming the moon?: There's no reason why the language of the crystallines should be even vaguely reproducible by humans. But the moon itself could well have been named by the first human civilization to observe it. It could be that ancient sand-smoothed ruins in the Amber Wastes cluster hold Arabic script that describes the "bloodstain of ultimate evil" in the sky, growing ever stronger until men went mad in the polished obsidian streets and the entire city crumbled into the sands. In Islamic religion, "Satan" is merely a title - the true name of the ultimate force of evil is the djinni Iblis. The modern name of the moon reflects this: Ravenloft residents call it some variation of Elidimeliblix, a derivation of aledm al-Iblis, or "blood of the adversary".

[HuManBing]

Approaches to the Demiplane: The moon does not need to approach every month or even every year. Like a comet or a saturnine asteroid, it could approach once every decade or few decades - and every arrival could presage mass lunacy, civil unrest, and other social disasters as the moon's psionics take hold. This could come in two forms: a) the quick-crystals themselves could project their psionic influence across the vastness of space and void, or b) the mood "sheds" beautiful gems and precious stones which fall to the Demiplane. Wherever they land, these gems influence and subvert humans into destructive behavior. Some could just be chaotic disruption, others could be specifically geared towards ancient rituals to pave the way for a connection between worlds - a mistway between the Core and the moon perhaps, or even bringing the moon down to the Demiplane itself (perhaps as an Island of Terror or even filling in the Shadow Rift) so the quick-crystals can flow out and subjugate the land. The gems give the bearer some form of psionic powers, but also opens them up to increasing levels of mental domination by the sentient crystals on the moon, until the bearer's psyche is eventually trapped in the gem itself and the gem returns to the moon for mental vivisection.

Adventures: The most straightforward adventure type could be tracing a villain who has possession of a gem. They would be able to use various powerful psionics, marking them out, but would be more difficult to catch or subdue. Much of what they do might not even be their own accord, if the crystals' domination has grown strong enough. This brings up a tricky ethical problem - do the PCs try to save the puppet while cutting his strings, or do they just try to shut down the entire show? More advanced adventures later in the conquest sequence could focus on villains who are now coordinated to perform various rituals or to collect various data for the crystals' dark purpose, and who must be stopped to prevent their plan from taking shape. A final apocalyptic stage could require the PCs to go to the crystals' world (via mistway, magic, or even by allowing themselves to be transported there in a gem) to stop the invasion at its source. The crystals are not particularly effective or fearsome combatants, but they are made entirely of silicon rock... stopping them or shutting down their high command structure would be a tough task indeed!

[ewancummins]

You mentioned legal constraints. Is this something that you intend to publish commerically? I'd think the IP conflict with WOTC holding ownership of the setting would be at least as big a deal as the IP conflict over mind flayers.

I like your ideas about a moon inhabited by psionic silicon horrors, though I probably would not use them in my version of Ravenloft.

[cure]

There is prcedent for the preservation of brain tissue and intelligence, after a fashion, in crytal, or at least glass. Hazlan has done. I believe it from the DM's section of Gaz I.

[Sareau]

I like the mindflayers far too much to abandon them, but I also admit your silicon life sounds fun. Maybe I'd keep them as a weapon of the illithids, a la The Monolith Monsters or something like Marvel's Technarcy, just an alien lifeform the illithids have brought in or been followed by-Bluetspur is Ravenloft's moon in my campaign, and the mindflayers use Spelljammer ships to intrude and raid the Earth Below.
Of course, the superstitions surrounding the full moon are all due to their presence being more keenly felt on those nights, and I am not above adapting a Call of Cthulhu adventure or two to suit. The remotest peaks of Ravenloft often hold their mining operations and occasionally the lair of an illithilich, or their psionic undead equivalent.
Still, I like anything that adds to the creepy touch of gothic horror and film that Ravenloft embodies...

[HuManBing]

You mentioned legal constraints. Is this something that you intend to publish commerically? I'd think the IP conflict with WOTC holding ownership of the setting would be at least as big a deal as the IP conflict over mind flayers.

The actual IP conflict itself is likely to be minimal, because as you rightly point out, I'm not publishing this commercially at all. However, I do have a personal aversion to WOTC trademarking mind flayers, given how closely they resemble Lovecraft's Cthulhu character. Lovecraft himself was extremely generous with his own IP, outright encouraging other writers to publish stories based in whole or in part on his Cthulhu mythos. The fact that WOTC's own strongly-defended IP is so similar to Lovecraft's generously-open one is what bothers me and I'd prefer not to rely on it. Thematically too, they're Just Another Weird Combination Of Earth Species, which doesn't strike me as being particularly otherworldy.

As for the campaign setting, specific to the moon itself - I'm changing so much of it that you'd really have to look hard for a copyright infringement. It's a moon, not an island; it's populated by silicon crystal entities, not squid-headed humanoids; and its name comes from translated Arabic rather than translated German. I think I'm safe here.

I like your ideas about a moon inhabited by psionic silicon horrors, though I probably would not use them in my version of Ravenloft.

Absolutely. Do whatever fits your campaign and your players. I'm just kicking a brain-ball around here - maybe it's just a mental exercise, or maybe I'll get lucky and score a goal.

There is prcedent for the preservation of brain tissue and intelligence, after a fashion, in crytal, or at least glass. Hazlan has done. I believe it from the DM's section of Gaz I.

That's excellent - I'll look into that. This could allow for a DM's Dread Possibility that Hazlik has been contacted (or contaminated?) by the psionic inhabitants of the satellite and may be researching their old tech unwittingly.

[Manofevil]

Hmm. Now you've got ME wondering about the Blood Star in my fan fiction. Now as to what you've come up with: I like the idea of this entity only showing up every decade or so. Who, for that matter, says that it has to be RavenLoft's ONLY moon? It can be a second moon that shows up every 10 or 12 twelve years and throws everything out of whack, while the other, regular moon regulate the usual tides and winds and lunacy and all the other things that our own moons gravity affects here. I know you've already decided to keep the mind flayers and God Brain out, but it might be an interesting twist to cultivate a feud between them and you silicon based creatures- a conflict that could be reawakened everytime the second moon comes around with the people of the 'loft caught in the middle somehow. Might also make for some interesting eclipses, too. God, there are a lot of possibilities here.

[Strahdsbuddy]

In a recent project of mine (wishfully soon to be completed) I attempted to rectify Bluetspur's existence as a Core domain with the very ideas you are building on--Bluetspur as the Moon. Or a moon at least. Because Bluetspur is always referred to as being "spawned" by the Illithids (as opposed to "formed" or "appeared" like other domains) it gave me the impression that its existence was not accidental, but part of some illithid plot to usurp the demiplane. the Dark Powers were intrigued by the ingenuity of the creatures, and enjoyed making them realize that even their plans were not immune to the will of the DP, deleting their "colony" during the Grand Conjunction.

Pre-GC Bluetspur could have transposed itself over an existing domain, replacing it completely or decimating it by its arrival. This could have been home to the Thaan; they seemed to be running across the Barovian border as the last vestiges of a human population, not a sort of prison break amongst Shattered Brethren.

We may be able to assume that "Bluetspur" itself exists in whole as the moon. It need not be planet-sized, we can play with the physics as we see fit, though it was probably larger than the domain that was attached to the Core for 2 centuries. The colony may be a whole piece of the moon hurtled to the surface, or maybe the "spacecraft" piloted by the illithid colonists hit the land like an atomic bomb and wiped out what had been there. Either way, the fact that the small Core (Barovia, Darkon, Mordent, Forlorn, and Arak) was not overrun with brain-eaters probably indicates that the illithid numbers were quite small and that outright domination was not feasible.

In regards to the brain eating, I think that aspect of the illithid is what makes them most useful. When I ran The Man Who Lost His Mind, the thing that stuck with the players was the evidence of the removal of the brain by the monster. It is one of those things that the brain symbolizes the thing that is supposed to separate us from the animals, and that it is just another foodsource for a creature seems to have affected them more than a vampire drinking blood, for instance.

[HuManBing]

the thing that stuck with the players was the evidence of the removal of the brain by the monster. It is one of those things that the brain symbolizes the thing that is supposed to separate us from the animals, and that it is just another foodsource for a creature seems to have affected them more than a vampire drinking blood, for instance.

The aspect of the complete physical removal of the brain reminds me of a Lovecraft story. Nothing to do with mind flayers, but quite a spooky tale about loss of brain matter.

(I went to get the Lovecraft anthology book from the shelf where I'd hastily unpacked it earlier this week, and I noticed it was sitting next to a copy of the Book of Mormon. I think I should separate those two books for their own good.)

The Space Eaters by Frank Belknap Long may be relevant here. It features an alien malevolent intelligence that blows in with a fog and settles a rural area. Over time, it begins to explore local brains - first excising livestock brains, and then doing the same with humans.

It's not clear exactly how it operates. Humans can't see it, except as a sort of slinking movement at the periphery of the vision. One human claims he saw a milky foggy white arm sliding down a tree trunk with a claw attached to the end of it.

Regardless of its visibility, the alien presence does require an opening to get at the brain, larger than the usual eye/nose/mouth orifices. It seems to remove the brain piecemeal by siphoning it off and then reconstructing it at the alien's resting place. The siphoning effect is mentally crippling and terrifying - it feels like a sensation of extreme cold and emptiness in the skull, along with a dizziness and a deep droning sound. The alien also appears to be imperfect with Earth's gravity and other forces: at one point it accidentally drops a brain it was examining, and it lands on the ground for a human to pick it up.

The alien itself manifests in a bright light and manipulates objects with shafts of light. It has some sort of visible shape that moves to and fro when it is siphoning off brain matter. Other than that, the story doesn't say.

[Sareau]

Frank Belknap Long also gave us the horrific Hounds of Tindalos for the Mythos-one of my favorite additions. In The Space Eaters, I got the distinct impression that the aliens appeared as something truly horrific, and the observer's coping mechanisms replaced that with something easier for the viewer to comprehend.
Of course, I tend to permit my shadowy mind flayers to play similar games with psionics, and often replace the Mi-Go with them for d20 games. However, different strokes for different folks. I do enjoy that Lovecraftian horror is finally getting the discussion it deserves in this thread, however.

[Strahdsbuddy]

Comments elsewhere that Lovecraftian horror has no place in a gothic setting always confused me. Just because the antagonist is too alien to be reasoned with is no reason to dismiss the concept. It is almost like fighting a blizzard or a hurricane; you may even get the feeling that the storm has some sort of malevolent intelligence that conspires agaisnt you but that is because your own preceptions are coloring your opinions; in fact faceless, moral-less phenomena are that much more terrifying because it removes the human inclination to control things. While I think it is helpful for the PCs to have a gothic flavor, I do not think every single villain, or even every darklord needs to adhere to the same guideline.

@HMB: I think I failed to make my point about the brain removal. I think something LIKE the illithid, or the stereotypical hairless almond eyed alien is that it is easier for someone to be afraid of something that is remotely familiar, remotely humanoid. I think the process of figuring out what a cyrstaline/silicon creature actually WAS would devolve more to a science experiment than actual terror at its existence. My campaign is very human heavy, no demihumans and very few blatantly different races; like Earth, if there was suddenly another intelligent race showing up, that itself would be enough to scare the crap out of us.

[ewancummins]

Comments elsewhere that Lovecraftian horror has no place in a gothic setting always confused me. Just because the antagonist is too alien to be reasoned with is no reason to dismiss the concept. It is almost like fighting a blizzard or a hurricane; you may even get the feeling that the storm has some sort of malevolent intelligence that conspires agaisnt you but that is because your own preceptions are coloring your opinions; in fact faceless, moral-less phenomena are that much more terrifying because it removes the human inclination to control things. While I think it is helpful for the PCs to have a gothic flavor, I do not think every single villain, or even every darklord needs to adhere to the same guideline.

@HMB: I think I failed to make my point about the brain removal. I think something LIKE the illithid, or the stereotypical hairless almond eyed alien is that it is easier for someone to be afraid of something that is remotely familiar, remotely humanoid. I think the process of figuring out what a cyrstaline/silicon creature actually WAS would devolve more to a science experiment than actual terror at its existence. My campaign is very human heavy, no demihumans and very few blatantly different races; like Earth, if there was suddenly another intelligent race showing up, that itself would be enough to scare the crap out of us.

I'm fine with the occasional 'freaky' monster like doppelganger plants. As you say- not everything has to be gothic. Mixing it up has its advantages.
I used a mind flayer as an antagonist (the party let him go, as it turned out) in my Ravenloft-FR crossover 'Realms of Dread. I probably wouldn't have used the flayer in RL, but it seemed fine in FR.


It's the wholesale inclusion of Lovecraft's Mythos and/or its core assumptions that I dislike. That is, the central concept of 'humans are just ants, the real cosmos is so alien and uncaring that we would go mad if we understood it' simply doesn't fit well into a Gothic setting, and is diamterically opposed to the moral and metaphysical nature of Ravenloft. Ravenloft is about human stories, good and evil, villains and heroes, passion, crime, and lost redemption. These things lie at the very heart of the setting.

YMMV, of course.

I think, to avoid derailing this thread, I'll start a new 'influences on your Ravenloft' thread.

[HuManBing]

Frank Belknap Long also gave us the horrific Hounds of Tindalos

I love the Hounds! The thing I like the most is how they enter through spatial vertices (corners usually). Applied to the moon, it could explain why the creatures live in the mountainous cavern regions, where there are plenty of dark corners to gate between. Out in the lightning storm where there's only sand, they'd be in trouble.

[cure]

To be exact, Hazlan has developed a magic device that increases his caster level. It consists of a still living brain removed from another spellcaseter preserved in a sealed glass containeer.