Café de Nuit

I am wondering how many DMs run groups with safe houses of any sort. Castles, temples, hotels, private homes, or holes in walls, where do your players hang their hats? Conversely, who out there have roving bands of players who travel from place to place, domain to domain, remaining long enough only to draw the attention of bad things in the area? Nothing too detailed, just a short description will suffice. If not running a game, where did your players reside? If a player, feel free to discuss your group's own places.

Thanks in advance for sating my curious side, DA.

Currently my players are just going from place to place as they don't currently know what the hell is going on(Grand Conjunction series of adventures), but I will be introducing a PC "Stronghold" where they can go in times of need.

IMC, they do not have a safe house per se, but they know many friendly persons where they crash and heal/rest (Ezra chapels, or church, the WF twins, a familly where they saved the yougest girl from brigands, etc.).

Otherwise, they look for inns, which is always a fun place to add new NPCs.

Joël

I've always made establishing a "base" an important part of campaigning, and in my current campaign my players have taken it to new heights.

To start with they all came from a Darkonian village called Steeplesbend, on the Vuchar river between Rivalis and Nartok (It's on my map of Darkon), where they had family homes, as soon as they got the cash they bought the local tavern and installed a manager, this was now their base.

Then they got a lot of cash (Ankhtepot's treasure rooms, miraculously avoiding a curse) and set about buying 10 taverns, scattered throughout the core, in each they installed a low level bard as manager, instructed to gather information that might prove useful, who are the important people in the area, local legends, gossip etc.

Then they decided they needed to keep these taverns supplied with booze, their first stop? The Falkovnian Ministry of Trade! With some horsetrading, a side deal involving Falkovnian mercenaries assisting rebels against Duke Gundar, and a small Falkovnian enclave being established back in Steeplesbend, they emerged with a contract with the Ministry to supply as much top notch lager as the taverns could sell. Also the Ministry wished for nothing to threaten this important trade deal, and so the tavern which the PCs had purchased in Lekar, became a popular hangout for "only the finest", meaning almost all customers were Talons or high up in the Ministries.

As a result, the group not only have bases in various locales, but also a proto-intelligence network, a pool of mercenaries, a thriving mercantile enterprise, and a load of adventure hooks (eg. they haven't heard from the bard in Inmol for months, has he been hanged as a Kargat spy?)

I provide my players a suitable base to work out of early on in their first adventure and let them wing it from there. They want to use it long-term and I'll make sure they have more control over it. If they want to find/make/steal/borrow/buy a different place, ok. If they pack up and hit the road like the pack of vagrants they are, then that's their choice.

It's called "The Mystery Shack," which is located somewhere in the woods.

The party has currently taken over an abandoned asylum in the ass end of nowhere as their base of operations. They keep running into the expected...problems that come with a place like that, but for most of the campaign, they've either been crashing at various Ezra-ite outposts or fleeing the enemies they've made from their own head-scratching decisions. They're safe enough where they are as the local darklord has less than zero interest in the place and they've made themselves useful in the past, anyway, but they've also done little to disguise their presence from their aforementioned enemies. Their insistence on isolating themselves for protection has also led to isolating themselves from their allies, which may come back to bite them before long.

As this is my first game, I hadn't given this a ton of thought really. My players are starting part 3 of my GC series and have been bouncing around quite a bit so far and are all outlanders.

This would be an interesting thing to consider though, maybe something in Kartakass as its pseudo-neutral in the overall scheme of things and closely located to other relevant domains (closer than Darkon anyway...)

I've tried to offer a few home-bases, but it never stuck. My PCs like to be free-range, for the most part.

In my first Ravenloft game, the heroes based themselves out of the party wizard's alchemy supplies store in Mordent, which she had inherited from her missing mentor. Eventually, the party's white necromancer decided he needed a castle to call his own and offered everyone permanent rooms there.

My second Ravenloft game had the characters as a discretionary force serving the Ezran Church as basically special forces monster hunters. My third Ravenloft game involved the player characters being members of a secret cabal called the Dawnguard (yes, this was years before Skyrim) who maintained safehouses in various cities throughout the Core, and which had been founded by the PCs from the second game.

The last game I ran had the PCs as students at a Dementlieuese private boarding school, sent there to finish their educations before returning to their privileged families or going on to higher education. The first arc ended with the school's destruction, and the second picked up two years later with the heroes reuniting after finishing school elsewhere. The game culminated with one of the heroes claiming the empty throne of Darkon and his sister ending the reign of the Dementlieuese oligarchy and reinstating the monarchy, with herself as queen. It was pretty crazy.

I'm pretty sure my players want Castle Ravenloft after they kill Strahd... which will probably cause a succession crisis/civil war in Barovia.

Lost Heretic wrote:I'm pretty sure my players want Castle Ravenloft after they kill Strahd... which will probably cause a succession crisis/civil war in Barovia.

I don't think that's possible as the castle was created for Strahd when he was pulled into Ravenloft. I wouldn't want to take over a castle that is trying to kill me!!

jimjams wrote:I don't think that's possible as the castle was created for Strahd when he was pulled into Ravenloft. I wouldn't want to take over a castle that is trying to kill me!!

You sure about that?

I Strahd which I'll admit is not the most unbiased of sources suggests pretty clearly that Castle Ravenloft (he renamed it after his mother) was there and was part of a nation called Barovia back before he turned into a vampire/went to the Domain Ravenloft. It was where his brother and their shared love interest were supposed to get married after all...

Also, the mission where you go back in time (sort of) also has the PC's visiting Castle Ravenloft before Strahd becomes a darklord since they go back to the period of the actual wedding slaughter.

In short, I'm really uncertain that Castle Ravenloft was made by the Mists just for Strahd, what has lead you to that conclusion?

I think he's referring to the idea that the Castle Ravenloft in the demiplane is a copy of the one back in the Prime Material Plane (which we see still exists in Prime Material Barovia, in Roots of Evil).

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:I think he's referring to the idea that the Castle Ravenloft in the demiplane is a copy of the one back in the Prime Material Plane (which we see still exists in Prime Material Barovia, in Roots of Evil).

Ah, thank you for clarification!