Café de Nuit

So, I ended up asking for a lot of hints and help for the "Night of the Walking Dead" module that I was running for my 3.5 group, and the help that you guys provided was so fantastic I decided that I would do it again.

So I am going to play "Touch of Death" next with the same group of players. I have a copy and have read through the whole things, and it seems pretty straight forward and easy to run, but one can never really tell until they have been through it.

Well, what is your experience, what are you suggestions?

And further to that, what did you do to bring Ancient Egypt alive?

Quinntonia wrote:So, I ended up asking for a lot of hints and help for the "Night of the Walking Dead" module that I was running for my 3.5 group, and the help that you guys provided was so fantastic I decided that I would do it again.

So I am going to play "Touch of Death" next with the same group of players. I have a copy and have read through the whole things, and it seems pretty straight forward and easy to run, but one can never really tell until they have been through it.

Well, what is your experience, what are you suggestions?

And further to that, what did you do to bring Ancient Egypt alive?

Are you planning on running this group through The Awakening any time soon? Because if you do not plan to ever do it, crack it open and start stealing from it like there is no tomorrow because it is a treasure trove of Egyptian Themed cat worshiping related ideas.... Like the magical trap that kills invaders by making their hearts beat at the same rat as a cats (120 to 160 a min) until, well you can guess...

The main problem is that as written there's very little opportunity for the PCs to learn any of the backstory. Since it's such a good backstory, that's a pity, and you should find ways to communicate it.

It's also a mystery with only one suspect. It also benefits from adding in encounters that have nothing to do with Senmet. I had a couple of mysterious appearances of the (non-hostile, watching from nearby hills) mummy wife of Ankhtepot so it wasn't all Senmet, all the time.

It is a lot of fun though.

jamesfirecat wrote: Are you planning on running this group through The Awakening any time soon? Because if you do not plan to ever do it, crack it open and start stealing from it like there is no tomorrow because it is a treasure trove of Egyptian Themed cat worshiping related ideas.... Like the magical trap that kills invaders by making their hearts beat at the same rat as a cats (120 to 160 a min) until, well you can guess...

I'm not sure what "The Awakening" is???

Ryan Naylor wrote:The main problem is that as written there's very little opportunity for the PCs to learn any of the backstory. Since it's such a good backstory, that's a pity, and you should find ways to communicate it.

It's also a mystery with only one suspect. It also benefits from adding in encounters that have nothing to do with Senmet. I had a couple of mysterious appearances of the (non-hostile, watching from nearby hills) mummy wife of Ankhtepot so it wasn't all Senmet, all the time.

It is a lot of fun though.

That is a great point. I was thinking of having the near super-genius gnome mage and the resident cleric, who just happens to worship a deity closely related to the stars and has ranks in astronomy put some of it together. Maybe I can have the mage find some writings that allow him to start to translate hieroglyphs and get some back-story, and the cleric could start to deduce things from the placement of, well, damn near everything.

As far as bringing alive the culture goes, I am wondering if I should have special reverence paid to the druid who happens to have a cougar as his animal companion...but I am not sure about what else.

Maybe they aren't all that interested in gold, as it is plentiful and water is not, so everything is priced around 10 times more in order to make it ridiculous, but water is tres valuable?

Also, the average sword there will be a Khopesh, for shiz.

Quinntonia wrote: I'm not sure what "The Awakening" is???

"The Awakening" is another Ravenloft module. It's set in Nova Vassa but features a prime material world transplanted Priestess of Bastet turned evil who is coming back as a mummy due to the entire "Nine Lives" thing.

So basically between it being Nova Vassa where cat's are shorthand for amorality (or at least Plains Cats are) and priestess of Bastet of course having the ability to control cats both alive and undead, and her entire tomb being shaped like a gigantic cat.... there's sort of a theme of cat worship running through the adventure as you might guess.

Bastet is very much part of the Egyptian Pantheon in real life, although I'm not sure if she's part of the Ravenloft version of it the way that Ra, Slifer The Executive Producer (Osiris), and Set are, though there's no reason she couldn't be.

Basically if you want to have part of the tomb/burial chamber at the end be devoted to cat worship in a suitably creepy way, this is the adventure that should give you some ideas for how to do it (including some some stats for monsters based on mummified cats).

Also it's worth mentioning that Bastet is the nice cat goddess in that pantheon (really she is CG and is basically for the most part a domestic goddess (has the head of a housecat)) more than anything else. Her "sister" Sekhmet on the other hand is CN, has a lioness' head and is also known as "(One) Before Whom Evil Trembles", "Mistress of Dread", "Lady of Slaughter" and "She Who Mauls" so you can probably guess what her personality is like.

The "Sehkmaa" in Claws of Sehkmaa (the name of Malken's most famous gang/front) is in my opinion a ravenloftizing of Sekhmet for example.... (not that Bastet and Sekhmet's names don't fluctuate a lot when translated into English on their own already, the Ravenloft version of Bastet in Nova Vassa history goes by Bubahkaa for what it's worth, don't ask me how it's pronounced)

That's a rough starting point for the two famous female deities involved in catworship in the Egyptian Pantheon if you want to have Cat Worship be a big part of Har'Akir.


If you do a google search for "'The Awakening' Ravenloft" you should find how to pick it up if you want/might be able to find a pdf somewhere here is the onsite link to it...

http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Draw ... ening.html

The tomb in "Touch of Death" is very much about worshiping the dead Pharaoh, but has fallen into disuse and now the Egyptian Cult are worshiped at a temple in the town. I would want to take some emphasis on the cat being a holy animal,. but not enough to make that the point of the module, that's for sure.

Quinntonia wrote:The tomb in "Touch of Death" is very much about worshiping the dead Pharaoh, but has fallen into disuse and now the Egyptian Cult are worshiped at a temple in the town. I would want to take some emphasis on the cat being a holy animal,. but not enough to make that the point of the module, that's for sure.

Like I said you probably wouldn't want to copy whole cloth but you might find some interesting stuff in there if you looked, I figured since it was the only other "big" (full book) Ravenloft adventure with an Egyptian theme there might wind up being some useful stuff in there one way or another.

Other than that as was previously mentioned the book is rather desperately missing a "now I will explain to you the details of my intricate evil plan" scene of some form or another (could also be heroes finding a journal or whatever works best) to give them a clear idea what is going on /happened.

Also though it's been a while since I read it, I recall at least one fight about halfway in that the players actually don't make any difference in /just goes on for however long it takes for the PCs to be defeated/NPC be abducted, and if there are more, well frankly one of those may be too many and you should have them right as the first thing that happens in an adventure like in From the Shadows or Adam's Wrath, not midway through, since if the PCs manage to peal back the curtain it robs them of a sense of agency.

Finally, the cardinal sin of the adventure is that as far as I recall Ankhtepot's individual personality/history/curse plays like no part all in the adventure, maybe something like an encounter with him during one of his 24 hours "my life as a level zero commoner" days.... possibly even an unintentional one since after all that other mummy is trying to steal all his powers/take his place...

I like the idea of them getting the background, it is pretty amazing stuff. Hmmmm.

Now, where do I find some extra reading about Har'Akir, as the stuff in the sourcebook is pretty sparse.

I am going to have the group begin in the library where Isu found the scroll to awaken Senmet. The other addition was Trolls. The adventure does have random days before the night of Thoth which can lead to some new encounters. To throw off the Senmet's scent I am going to have the group run into trolls killing some villagers. I'm going to emphasize the NPC hopefully with some following them to Kartakass. Are you using the Vistani at all? I am going to have them recognize the blade my thief is using. He had taken it from the Darkling in Sourougne that had the Viola. This will come into play later on.

Hamiclar wrote:I am going to have the group begin in the library where Isu found the scroll to awaken Senmet. The other addition was Trolls. The adventure does have random days before the night of Thoth which can lead to some new encounters. To throw off the Senmet's scent I am going to have the group run into trolls killing some villagers. I'm going to emphasize the NPC hopefully with some following them to Kartakass. Are you using the Vistani at all? I am going to have them recognize the blade my thief is using. He had taken it from the Darkling in Sourougne that had the Viola. This will come into play later on.

I haven't thought of adding much in the way of random encounters, there is already a theme-appropriate random encounter table that I am going to fall back on for some stuff. My PCs are more powerful than what this is written for, so for some of this stuff I will be juicing the power level to make it harder, but for some pieces, like the dungeon crawl at the end, I don't think I have to.

But yes, I am using the Vistani, my plan is that as they are walking away from Marios d'Tarascon to Port d'Elhour in Souragne I will have them meet the Vistani on the road. I have been having some agents of the Kargat sniff around with some characters that either have ties to Darkon or that they believe might be susceptible to their offers, with the Fraternity of Shadows contacting others. I have one guy, a Druid with ties to Forlorn that grew up in southern Barovia, who is going to contacted by the Vistani every time we come in contact with them and I am going to make it evident that they are meant to be the "eyes of Strahd." I feel like Strahd is a little too chaotic to have a fully formed spy network outside his realm, where he mostly relies on bats and rats and other creatures of the night to watch everything, but beyond them, he just relies on the Vistani to keep him informed.

Also, I like the tarot-style reading thing in the module and want to play that out.

Interesting, I never really picture Strahd as that chaotic actually. He knows what he wants and how to get it. Sometimes uses his own hand to make sure the matter happens other times manipulates events. I don't think donning another identity to subtly influence events is really a CE action but hey! Doesn't matter it's your game!

Furthermore, I like the idea of Vistani being Strahd's eyes outside. I think they say the Zarovan doesn't move around very much but the Evil Eye had them elsewhere so heck with them just having an establishment in the shadow of Castle Ravenloft only and not moving.

Interesting thread, probably going to archive these for if I ever go through these adventure's with my group. (Probably never) xD

Zilfer wrote:Interesting, I never really picture Strahd as that chaotic actually. He knows what he wants and how to get it. Sometimes uses his own hand to make sure the matter happens other times manipulates events. I don't think donning another identity to subtly influence events is really a CE action but hey! Doesn't matter it's your game!

He is listed as CE and I think that mostly comes form his bestial, primal, elemental nature. That is, he is long lived and brilliant enough to be a master strategist and have ridiculously well planned out manipulations, but for the most part he is seemingly at the mercy of his volatile emotions, with decades spent brooding in isolation as he communicates little with the realm he rules, followed by a period of frenetic activity running around collecting piled up taxes from his burgomeisters, ordering public work projects and executing everyone he has deemed to have broken "his law." But even during this productive period he is just as likely to turn into a wolf and go tearing through the countryside looking for prey as he is to lock himself in his study catching up on paperwork.

But as for my understanding of his powers, in Barovia the very creatures of the night serve him and report what they see mystically to him. Rats, bats, wolves, etc. He has no real need of a spy network. The Zoravan chat up the locals and outlanders and keep him informed of the more complex things animals can't understand, and through them, they talk to and arrange for favours to be done by, the other Vistani tribes.

My Strahd is a little more like Bram Stoker's Dracula than the oftentimes quite "in control" one PN Elrod wrote of in his fantastic books.

Quinntonia wrote:

Zilfer wrote:Interesting, I never really picture Strahd as that chaotic actually. He knows what he wants and how to get it. Sometimes uses his own hand to make sure the matter happens other times manipulates events. I don't think donning another identity to subtly influence events is really a CE action but hey! Doesn't matter it's your game!

He is listed as CE and I think that mostly comes form his bestial, primal, elemental nature.

Well I think that CE comes from Vampires "Usually CE" from 2.0 kinda like the "Almost Always Evil" that used to be used as well.

Zilfer wrote:Well I think that CE comes from Vampires "Usually CE" from 2.0 kinda like the "Almost Always Evil" that used to be used as well.

I guess it all comes down to an issue of if you get the person to say "On my honor, if you do X for me, I will do Y for you..." and you do X, will they live up to their end of the bargain though of course being evil they are likely to stick to the letter rather than the spirit of the agreement or vice versa, whichever benefits them more.

Azalin is probably the most obvious poster boy for LE alignment in Ravenloft because he clearly intends to hold himself to the law/standards as everyone else (give or take the fact that he writes the laws) hence why he would have to kill his own son if he committed a capital crime. With Strahd... I need to read more of the books that feature him, but given his rampant double dealing in Knight of the Black Rose, I don't think Strahd would live up to any deal that he actually thinks is going to be a problem for him in the long term. He most assuredly would not execute Tatyana for committing a crime that he would order someone else killed for, so there is in my opinion a fairly strong argument to be made that he is not LE.

On the other hand this opens the door to the difference between NE and CE and I think Strahd probably falls in the NE category in that he is evil and out for himself, and doesn't respect the law (even his own laws) but at the same time doesn't object to the concept of their being laws, just that he's above them. For someone to be CE I'd imagine they should have something of a burning passion to pull/burn the system down around them, not just ignore it personally. Malken is a good example of someone who is unquestionably CE for example.

And I'm sorry to have turned this thread into yet another D&D alignment debate.