Café de Nuit

So, with no concrete answers on the Dark Powers, or even concrete statement of their existence, I wonder of fellow DMs: where do you stand? Do you have a personal take on who the Dark Powers are, or what they are? Any ideas about what their goals are? How they operate? Do they even exist at all?

Do you even think these questions are relevant to a game? Are these answers something you come up with on your own, for your own satisfaction, or do they directly impact your campaigns?

I maintain a view that the DPs are powerful beings on par with deities but not quite. Their combined powers allow them to go about their own purposes without too much interference from other such beings.

The demiplane is a playground for them but they do not share the same values or desires and while they have a few basic rules of engagement, they are not above interfering in each others' "work" in subtle ways. Some find this frustrating, others play along. The heavy handed ways of some DP is contrasted by the relatively distant ones of others.

Each domain and darklord is the responsibility of one or many individual DP which brought both into the demiplane and oversee their pet "project".

The true goal/motivations of the DPs varies to some extent, but they share a common desire to cause powerful emotions in individuals and to watch their behaviour when confronted by various negative situations.

Mine is kind of weird (and not particularly gothic), and that's that there are no "Dark Powers" per se.

In my head, the Mists were formed when some kind of planar rupture caused the Ethereal and Plane of Shadow to hemorrhage into some unnamed Prime Material plane, and the mix of planar energies eroded the Material away until it was basically formless. Eventually a cyst of sorts formed where the two planes now touched, and the Mists were at the center of it. The Mists are made up of the unstable matter of the two transient planes, roiling with the emotional resonance of an entire destroyed Prime universe.

The cyst is mostly impenetrable, but every now and then, circumstances will align where strong emotions in another plane connected to the Ethereal will echo with that resonance strongly enough that it will open. Probably, the original bleed was the result of some sort of arcane pact, someone with motivations or personality or drive close enough to Strahd's that his passions woke it up, drew its attention, and it brought him in, and those connected to his actions, and the land he'd bound himself to along with him.

Now the Mists had something real at their center, and real people with real drives and emotions living in it once again. The stuff of the demiplane is remembering when it had real substance. And with every strong desire, the Mists react, unthinkingly because there's really no mind behind them to have a thought. Like the Plane of Shadow, it is capable of creating places and beings that are reflections of things that exist, but instead of copying from a Material plane directly, they draw on strongly emotional memories and from nightmare. This is why the world itself reflects the id of each of its most driven denizens. But the existence of these pockets of real being relies on these drives and passions, and so instead of fulfilling their desires, each domain undermines the desires of its darklord so that the conflict which holds it together never ends.

So, in a sense, the Mists and the demiplane itself are quasi-sentient. The Dark Powers aren't a collective of beings, but rather the formless mass of fears and desires of a dead world slowly beginning to resurrect itself by drawing in beings with passions strong enough to help it remember what it was like to exist.

(Not that I see this ever becoming relevant in-game.)

The DM is the dark powers.

Just a thought.

I had opened a similar Topic, months ago. In my opinion, the Dark Powers are a collective of embrional Supreme Deities, who are trying to create a full material plane, but are still too young and unexperienced to manage it. Theyr plurality justifies the diversity of the demiplane; theyr young age justifies the wicked sense of humor.

Something I've been thinking about is the demiplane as an engine. An engine that's converting emotion into power, and power into land, and the land get's filled with people, and the people are ruled/tormented by darklords, and each darklord stimulates a different range of emotion, which makes more power, which makes more land etc.

The demiplane is then a world making engine, or a world that is making itself, and it is trying to make itself make sense. So the GC and other "Upheavals" are attempts by the demiplane to become more like a "real" world, which is why domains that were "alien" to the Core (like Bluetspur) became islands of terror, while domains that "fit" better (like the Nocturnal Sea, Ghastria or Blaustein) joined the Core.

By thinking of the demiplane in this way, it makes the DPs make a bit more sense. They are deity-level, but are not acting like deities normally interact with mortals, because that is part of the point. One or more of the DPs is trying to "prove" the possibility of a world created and shaped, not by the hands of a god, but by the emotions and obsessions of it's inhabitants, remaining reasonably uninvolved is a requisite of the experiment. Those DPs not directly working towards that goal are still interested in the potential of this low investment method of world creation.

As an added snub to the notion of gods as necessary, the DPs grant priest spells to anyone with enough belief, regardless of the validity of their beliefs, thus while some gods worshipped in the demiplane do exist (Belenus, Lathander etc) and some do not (Zhakata, Hala, Ezra, Bane since he died) all priest spells are actually granted by the DPs.

IMC I have gone as far as deciding on "who" the DPs are, although I've decided on the generic portfolio rather than the specific (or indeed, setting specific) gods. For balance I've stuck with a trinity, representing Chaos, and the proposer of the experiment is the God of Madness, who has long been a proponent of emotion driven magic. Representing Neutrality is Death, and he seconded the proposal. Representing Law is Madame Fate (although to annoy the Mad God she usually refers to herself as Lady Luck).

These gods, you'll notice only represent the ethical alignments (Law, Neutral, Chaos), not the moral ones (Good, Neutral, Evil) because I thought that might explain (to some extent) the demiplane's refusal to acknowledge, through detect alignment, those aspects. It might also explain the moral greyness of Ravenloft generally, it's not something that the DPs are interested in. In fact, that might be a further aspect of their experiment, maybe they are trying to prove that Good/Evil basically boils down to rule followers/rule breakers, but maybe that's a reach.

Recent thread on the subject that Mistmaster mentioned:
http://fraternityofshadows.com/forum/vi ... f=1&t=9581

(includes my answer(s))

I haven't really gone so far as to define the Dark Powers or their goals. I think I have come to the understanding of the forces they manipulate, in that what they fabricate doesn't just come out of nowhere, but rather a realm of possibility that is "dark" to our eyes. So what they make "real" is actually already kind of real, like real perhaps in another place and time or what could've been real. So I guess maybe you could say I came to a sort of purpose/identity to them in a way, of unlocking possibilities that may not otherwise have a chance.

@zettaijin- Our views sound pretty close!

@hazgarn- That's really original! I like that a lot. If they made that the 'canon' explanation, I wouldn't cry too hard, I don't think.

@thekristhomas- We do have something in common: I also think that the Dark Powers are the only ones granting spells. (I tend to be a little draconian with deities restricting spells for clerics not living up to their deity's ethos, but in Ravenloft all bets are off--which tends to lead to huge excesses from outlander priests, who assume that as long as they keep getting spells, their deities must be okay with their rationales for their crimes.)


My personal opinion is that they are a group of beings with a power level on par with deities (not the same thing, but similar enough that the Dark Powers can oppose deities on occasion). They have created Ravenloft as a little cancerous cyst in the cosmos to do what they want with.

Their goals are to create a multiverse of their own. (They envision themselves as 'overdeities,' like the brief glimpse we get in the Forgotten Realms novels of Ao's kind, although they have nowhere near this level of power at this point.)

The Darklords are their chosen servants, each of whom is being groomed for a role in their plans for expansion (and possibly conquest). As time goes on, they increase their chosen minions' power levels, incrementally. The 'curses' each Darklord labors under are meant to keep them on their toes, always striving to increase their power or fight the inevitable.

Essentially, Ravenloft is a prison in the worst sort of sense: it isn't a place of rehabilitiation for criminals, it's a training ground to turn bad criminals into far, far worse ones.

My Ravenloft is essentially a big Truman Show built for entertainment.
The dark powers are now forgotten classical, amoral deities (most comparable to the Greek pantheon in character) who used to enjoy the ancient past-time of picking champions, throwing obstacles into their way and testing man’s morals with staged dilemmas Their main material plane of interest eventually progressed beyond the point of deity worship and grew too soft to provide quality champion material, and the old classics like giant rams and Nemedian lions and so on began to grow old after a few millennia anyway.

They scout the material planes for suitable villains to be made Darklords, snatch and if necessary transform them, build the stage in the form of the domain and then simply enjoy the show from beyond the fourth wall. Adventurers and other good people are snatched to shake things up, fuel drama and bring conflict in to increase the entertainment, as well as to add excitement by directly pitting them against border-closing darklords and then betting on the outcome.

Mine are LE deities of justice. They pick out various villains from the multiverse and harshly punish them. Being lawful they don't directly punish those who don't deserve any punishment Being LE they don't care who else gets hurt on the way. For example they punished Strahd by turning him into a vampire. All the sorrow caused by the vampire is not their problem. They don't care who else gets hurt as long as Strahd suffers. People get killed in large numbers because Drakov starts one hopeless war after another? Not their problem! They are basically evil deities who want to keep their own hands clean of innocent blood.

Dreamakuma wrote:The DM is the dark powers.

Just a thought.

This.

In general I'm against trying to define the DP's in anything but the vaguest terms, even to myself, when discussing the setting with friends if this topic comes up I simply say "The Dark Power are The Dark Powers" and leave it at that, i think they work better in those terms. I still haven't run a game where they were mentioned in character, but the revelations that there is some sort of undefinable puppeteer(s) behind the setting should be some Lovecraftian level sanity shattering stuff, and not something that can be really understood.

That said, one of my friends is strongly in the "mystery pantheon" camp, which i personally find a bit boring, but to each his own

They are a coalesced, focused sense of guilt or conscience made incarnate.

They are the Jiminy Cricket of the multiverse.

We create and empower them every time we knowingly do wrong to advance our own cause - whether it be for monetary gain, political clout, or to win the admiration of a lover. If, in that process, we have to step on another, we are feeding the Dark Powers with our own sense of shame. It's not so much a case of Dark Powers "sucking" a creature into Ravenloft as it is a Dark Lord of a domain "self-flagellating" by becoming a prisoner due to their own guilt.


NOTE: I don't really think this at all, it just struck me as a fun notion to ponder.

VikingLegion wrote:They are a coalesced, focused sense of guilt or conscience made incarnate.

They are the Jiminy Cricket of the multiverse.

We create and empower them every time we knowingly do wrong to advance our own cause - whether it be for monetary gain, political clout, or to win the admiration of a lover. If, in that process, we have to step on another, we are feeding the Dark Powers with our own sense of shame. It's not so much a case of Dark Powers "sucking" a creature into Ravenloft as it is a Dark Lord of a domain "self-flagellating" by becoming a prisoner due to their own guilt.


NOTE: I don't really think this at all, it just struck me as a fun notion to ponder.

Now that is an interesting theory. Clearly, quite a few darklords seem to have expressed some sort of remorse over a loss or moral dissonance, if not true repentance:
Adam
Elena Faith-Hold
Lord Soth
Urik von Kharkov
Yagno Petrovna
and of course maybe even Count Strahd

I wonder where others with no such sense of guilt would fit into this schema. Such entities like:
Dominic d'Honaire
Ebonbane
Gwydion the Sorcerer-Fiend
Maligno
Vlad Drakov