Café de Nuit

G'Henna alternate closure:


Instead of a wall of jeering animal skulls, what about an attack of maddening hunger? The kind that makes you gnaw off your own fingers. Or your buddy's fingers.

I do like the skulls, though.

Five wrote:You know, now that you said that it got me thinking. Border closures are, in a sense, a built-in way to keep RL gothic at its core. If there were no border closures then hell yes, Falkovnia would up its ante and bring war again and again to its neighbours...and in a much more one-sided manner, IMO.

That's the reasoning at heart of MANY of the core design choices of Ravenloft, especially the ones that seem heavy-handed or unsubtle.

ewancummins wrote:G'Henna alternate closure:


Instead of a wall of jeering animal skulls, what about an attack of maddening hunger? The kind that makes you gnaw off your own fingers. Or your buddy's fingers.

I do like the skulls, though.

Nice. Then why not have both? The wall of skulls can act like a mirage that plays off the maddening hunger: it hones the hunger by making the poor sod think they can't escape, essentially making the hunger so much more intense that their mind can't break the illusion through sheer logic.

It's a manifestation of the conscious/subconscious (depends on the individual) realization that the entire realm is bones-based type of thing. And the hunger's the chain...

If all border closures were grounded, at least in part, such as that I'd certainly be more inclined to use them.

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:

Five wrote:You know, now that you said that it got me thinking. Border closures are, in a sense, a built-in way to keep RL gothic at its core. If there were no border closures then hell yes, Falkovnia would up its ante and bring war again and again to its neighbours...and in a much more one-sided manner, IMO.

That's the reasoning at heart of MANY of the core design choices of Ravenloft, especially the ones that seem heavy-handed or unsubtle.

Yeah, seems a little bullish, but it might be for the greater good (keeping the setting niche).

jamesfirecat:

I have lodged your counter argument in my head in regards to your last post, and I thank you for it. I am writing this in an effort to tell you that my silence is in no way a dismissal of your interpretations. It's just to keep the thread rolling...

FYI

Five wrote:

ewancummins wrote:G'Henna alternate closure:


Instead of a wall of jeering animal skulls, what about an attack of maddening hunger? The kind that makes you gnaw off your own fingers. Or your buddy's fingers.

I do like the skulls, though.

Nice. Then why not have both? The wall of skulls can act like a mirage that plays off the maddening hunger: it hones the hunger by making the poor sod think they can't escape, essentially making the hunger so much more intense that their mind can't break the illusion through sheer logic.

It's a manifestation of the conscious/subconscious (depends on the individual) realization that the entire realm is bones-based type of thing. And the hunger's the chain...

If all border closures were grounded, at least in part, such as that I'd certainly be more inclined to use them.

Summon gambado!

But, yeah, using both sounds good.

Did I tell you about my notion that the G'Hennan natives are actually all mongrelmen, transformed into humans and ignorant of their true nature? That explains why Yagno has never turned an outsider into a mongrelman. He cannot, because his 'curse' is actually just causing the G'Hennan mongrelmen to revert to their natural state.

And maybe if a G'Hennan leaves G'Henna and stays gone too long, he starts to transform back into a mongrelman. If word of that affliction got back, people at home might take it as the wrath of Zhakata.

You guys moved on a bit past this already but I thought Azalin had fought/commanded army's in wars before he came to ravenloft. At least i thought I remember reading that in his book, and he ended up taking over multiple kingdoms if i'm recalling that correctly as well?

jamesfirecat wrote:
If you need proof, just consider the fact that Vlad insists on invading Darkon every decade or so, can't close his own domain, but Azalin has never bothered to send a retaliatory strike of his own... or at least a retaliatory strike of such magnitude/nature that it would be obvious enough that people would notice. (Azalin may have slipped some agents of the Kargat into Falkovnia to help the rebels, but he never tried to unleash an undead army against them the way he did against Barovia...)

Considering that a big part of Azalin's power comes from the undead control he has over the undead only within his own domain, an undead army is an unfeasible tactic because once they leave, they'll no longer be under his control. (Aside from the undead that he has created through his own means.)

ewancummins wrote:

Right, I'm not suggesting anybody but Drakov is trying to invade Darkon.

Tepest not only looks like a good target for an ambitious neighbor, it might be invaded even with border closures as part or the setting.

The Three Sisters may not care who rules. Tasty foreign humans enter in force? So what. More meat for the pot.

As far as the Mindefisk Sisters go, I think how they would react to an invading force and/or close the borders seems a bit opaque. On the one hand, we know that one of the reasons they were trying to seduce the dandy is because they wanted him to take them to the city or something. They were bored in podunkville, nowhere. Presumably they feel the same way about Tepest. In my understanding, it's part of the reason why they're trolling people all the time. So they might let an invasion force in for funsies for a while.

OTOH, the Inquisition is a pawn they use from time to time to spread misery and woe, something they're probably able to do because the Inquisition is scattered and unorganized. If a more organized force came in, they might lose a valuable asset. Not to mention the goblins, another favorite puppet of theirs, being reduced or eliminated. So after a while, I think the Hags would tire of an invasion and then seal the borders while their agents cleaned up house.

That is not to say that Tepest might totally need the borders to protect them from Nova Vaasa. For the most part, the Nova Vaasans are a conventional military force that is used to fighting out in open, grassy terrain with relatively less supernatural creatures than the ones that haunt Tepest. Their horsemanship and normal tactics would be relatively less useful in the dingy swamps and dark forests of Tepest.

In addition, if Nova Vaasan troops went into Tepest, they would most likely face a (even if unintentional) united front against them as everything from the fey, the goblins, the humans, and assorted various monsters attacking the invading foreign entities. The Nova Vaasans would face a quagmire of a guerrilla war. Think of how Falkovnia tried to invade G'Henna during the Starving March. This isn't to say the Nova Vaasans couldn't take Tepest if they really wanted to. The question is if they'd really want enough to stick around in a mess that would probably go on longer and messier than they'd predicted.

The Lesser Evil wrote:
Considering that a big part of Azalin's power comes from the undead control he has over the undead only within his own domain, an undead army is an unfeasible tactic because once they leave, they'll no longer be under his control. (Aside from the undead that he has created through his own means.)

I Strhad the War Against Azalin argues that this might not necessarily be the case.

One of the first things that happens after Darkon comes into being is Azalin raises a bunch of their (Darkon's) dead as zombies and sends them over the border to invade Barovia/harass Strhad.

Now maybe Azalin was intentionally controlling all those zombies through normal magic... but...hmm... need to reread that passage and find out how many zombies it was (at least roughly) does anyone recall that book clearly at the moment?

Either way, Azalin was clearly willing to raise a more or less normal army to deal with Braovia because of how Strhad humiliated him, but he's never felt the need to try and do something like that to Vlad and Falkovnia.

For the most part, I don't change the border closures around, though I've never felt a need to hesitate to use them when it would be in-character for the domain's Darklord. On a few occasions I have tweaked how they work, however, but have left the general details in place.

I'm personally partial to the more 'normal' seeming ones, by which I mean those closures that don't appear entirely out of place to happen (like G'henna's walls of skulls do). So things like Azalin's army of undead, which would be entirely 'expected' to be found in Darkon, or Strahd's choking fog.

To me, a border closure serves three main purposes:

1. A border closure should turn back players, keeping them from leaving a domain, no matter what.

2. The border closure should be obvious, in that the player's should be fully aware that they are being trapped or herded or whatnot, in order to prevent them from leaving the domain. If they player's don't realize they are fully stuck or trapped (even if they are not aware of who is doing it, why they are doing it, or how it is being done), then the border closure isn't really serving a plot. Most closures do this, but I've edited Borca's, for example, so that approaching the border causes the poisons to affect people, requiring Constitution checks to get near to the border without being overwhelmed by cramps, vomiting, etc...mostly because, as originally written in the Black Box, you could leave the domain, then you became sick and had to return or die in a matter of minutes...but there is NOTHING to really indicate this to people and the quick deaths don't exactly leave a lot of time for trial and error.

3. The border closure should, no matter how obvious or simple it is, always maintain a sense of mystery and confusion. They should also serve as one of the biggest wedge issues between natives of the Plane and those who come from outside. To the natives, these kinds of weird happenings are just a fact of life: weird stuff happens in the world, its perfectly natural. Sure, those who study the weather are confused by the sudden snowstorms of Lamordia that can blow in off the Sea of Sorrows even in the height of summer...but this is a world that literally has 'ends' to it and they also see nothing weird about that either. To those not from the Plane, however, border closures should serve as a stark reminder that this world is wrong and broken, and should build up the tension, paranoia, fear, and frustration.

All that said, for pure creepiness factor, the best border closure is Harkon Lukas' closure of Kartakass: anyone who approaches the border hears a sweet song and falls into a deep sleep...upon waking, they find themselves a distance farther into the domain. Its seemingly innocuous methods, to me, really allows for a chance to play up the strangeness...after all, player's should be very, very worried about HOW they ended up farther away from the border.

jamesfirecat wrote:

I Strhad the War Against Azalin argues that this might not necessarily be the case.

One of the first things that happens after Darkon comes into being is Azalin raises a bunch of their (Darkon's) dead as zombies and sends them over the border to invade Barovia/harass Strhad.

Now maybe Azalin was intentionally controlling all those zombies through normal magic... but...hmm... need to reread that passage and find out how many zombies it was (at least roughly) does anyone recall that book clearly at the moment?

Either way, Azalin was clearly willing to raise a more or less normal army to deal with Braovia because of how Strhad humiliated him, but he's never felt the need to try and do something like that to Vlad and Falkovnia.

Isn't I Strahd: the War Against Azalin written from an in character perspective of Strahd?

Meaning anything in it is from an unreliable narrator, so prone to self-glorifying exaggeration or even lying?

The Lesser Evil wrote:

jamesfirecat wrote:

I Strhad the War Against Azalin argues that this might not necessarily be the case.

One of the first things that happens after Darkon comes into being is Azalin raises a bunch of their (Darkon's) dead as zombies and sends them over the border to invade Barovia/harass Strhad.

Now maybe Azalin was intentionally controlling all those zombies through normal magic... but...hmm... need to reread that passage and find out how many zombies it was (at least roughly) does anyone recall that book clearly at the moment?

Either way, Azalin was clearly willing to raise a more or less normal army to deal with Braovia because of how Strhad humiliated him, but he's never felt the need to try and do something like that to Vlad and Falkovnia.

Isn't I Strahd: the War Against Azalin written from an in character perspective of Strahd?

Meaning anything in it is from an unreliable narrator, so prone to self-glorifying exaggeration or even lying?

I see it that way myself. Strahd is obviously a self-glorifying, self-pitying individual whose views are distorted by being undead.

The way I see it is that the reason no invades Falkovnia is that it is easily capable of defending itself. It has the largest , most professional army in the core. If it weren't for the various darklord powers he could crush most of his enemies one by one. The reason he loses isn't that he has an inept army but that the various darklord powers are too strong, particularly border closures. They do not apply when invaded. Anyone who tries invading Falkovnia gets quickly crushed. The darklord powers that save them don't apply there.

The Lesser Evil wrote:

jamesfirecat wrote:
If you need proof, just consider the fact that Vlad insists on invading Darkon every decade or so, can't close his own domain, but Azalin has never bothered to send a retaliatory strike of his own... or at least a retaliatory strike of such magnitude/nature that it would be obvious enough that people would notice. (Azalin may have slipped some agents of the Kargat into Falkovnia to help the rebels, but he never tried to unleash an undead army against them the way he did against Barovia...)

Considering that a big part of Azalin's power comes from the undead control he has over the undead only within his own domain, an undead army is an unfeasible tactic because once they leave, they'll no longer be under his control. (Aside from the undead that he has created through his own means.)

To be fair, creating a swarm of undead, lesser or greater and releasing them in almost any domain will create quite a problem for the locals.

ewancummins wrote:I think I might have used a border closure only once, and that was an Island of Terror sealed by the Mists.
Try to leave and you just wander back in.

I think that no border closures would make for a much more dangerous Falkovnia. And Darkon.

And more wars in general, I think. Darklords who are rulers are likely to use border closures to stop invasions, but if that is not an option...

The whole point of Falkovnia is that it is not an external threat but an internal one. For all his talk of military glory Drakov gets kicked to the curb every time he starts a war. That is his curse.