Domain of the Month
Souragne
Adventure Hooks
Hi Everyone! Another week, another domain. This week, let's look at an often overlooked domain, Souragne. This land is a lush, swampy island filled with bayou and dotted with plantations. This domain embodies voodoo themes, as well as Carribean as well as an Amercian Antebellum South / Louisiana flavour. Its lord is the dreaded Anton Misroi, zombie lord and embodiement of Death within the swamps. Ruler of the dead, Misroi is bound within the swamps and served by legions of zombie slaves. The only creature able to resist his Dance of the Dead is the Maiden of the Swamp, embodiment of life. The enigmatic Chicken Bone watches the struggle from the sidelines, granting favours to those who will pay his horrible price.
More information on Souragne can be found in the Realm of Terror Boxed Set, the adventure Night of the Walking Dead, the novel Dance of the Dead and the core rule book Domains of Dread, the 3rd edition books Ravenloft 3rd edition and Ravenloft Dunegon Master's Guide, and the FoS Souragne Survey and its web enhancement.
Joël of the Fraternity
And by the way, a cool story for Souragne is Fishhead by Irvin S. Cobb. You can find at http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/fishhead.htm
Trolie
I'm not sure if this is appropriate but my campaign is going to settle in Souragne for a while and I've constructed my own Port D'lhour...or however you spell it. The Port is a nobleman's paradise. It is run by the merchant's guild, which is run by the 9 most wealthy landowners. 3 of which have been infected by a pack of wererats that have discovered the Island. The wererats are led by a brother and sister, one a master rogue the other a sorceress. They pass themselves off as noblemen but are in control of the theive's guild. With the merchant's guild and thieve's guild working together the theives rob merchants who happen to come across the island but also fence their items through the merchant's guild, and those merchants find that they can buy items at a very cheap cost. Merchants travelling back to their hometowns speak of a wealthy Island that has great trading possibilities...and others aren't so fortunate but must be assumed lost at sea.
The wererats have changed all of the 'silver' coinage to fake silver and are amassing a large treasure trove of it in their sewer lair. They have managed to rid almost all of the silver from the town. The pcs can get silver in a few ways. The noblemen still have their silver jewelry, and one has an antique silver sword that he displays in his chambers. The merchants have silver of course when they arrive, mostly in coinage, if the pcs can get to them first then they can get silver that way. Also there are moneychangers at the gates and ports that demand free of charge to change your money...b/c you don't need that weird currency, and you wouldn't want to have any counterfeiters...hopefully the pcs will be smacking themselves in the head later when they find out their silver coins are fake.
And then there is the toy. The wizard/toy maker wanted to create a magnificant device since he retired, he still wants to create. However he could not get his toy working until he gave up 1 permanent con to the device. It still works on jems that power it, but a person has to sacrifice a temporary con to "commune" with the device and get it to give them what they want, this also comes into play with craft checks. The device has grown its own intelligence through this communion and now is hungry for blood. (There are 5 natural wererats in all).
When one of the lesser capable wererats was sneaking around in the wizard's shop he happened upon the device and now guards it secretly. He kidnaps people and feeds them to it to create the most wondrous items. Souragne is a perfect place for wererats, without a strong clergy. The people worship the lord of the dead of course but their clerics aren't very powerful. There is one 5th level cleric that could cast remove curse but he has stopped casting spells b/c his faith has faltered (the sorceress did a number on him and he is ashamed of it). He has left town to in disgrace and the pcs will have to find him and restore his confidence to get a remove curse. Also the wizard has the remove curse spell as well.
The citizens view the 3 days of the full moon as a sign from the lord of the dead, they all stay indoors now but they don't know that its really the wererats and their 20 infected people that make it unsafe to venture out. This is about what I've come up with so far as a plot...It ended up being longer than I thought it would but oh well. (I haven't really finished it, I've got 2 more weeks before the pcs get to the town)
Dion of the Fraternity
My adventure hooks:
- A powerful loa known only as the Slinking Man is fed up and finally has plans to break free from Misroi and from Souragne altogether. Unfortunately, his goal can only be realized if he harvests a hundred living souls at the night of the new moon. The heroes must find the Slinking Man and thwart his desire before lifes could be uselessly sacrificed.
- One of the characters awakens one night (at 3:33 AM) to hear bloodcurdling screams from different parts of Port d'Elhour. When morning breaks, thirteen people are dead, and their bodies are smothered not just in blood but also a mysterious black substance.
- A hallucinogenic drug that could cure a mental plague ravishing the Core could only be found within the confines of Maison d'Sablet. The players might also be wroth to discover that the concoction can only be created by Misroi himself. Can the players get on Misroi's good side, or do they have to rip it apart from him?
hida_jiremi
The enemies of a young noblewoman have been dropping mysteriously dead across Port d'Elhour, with no murder witnesses. Most of them appear to have died with a single neat hole between their eyes, though some have similar punctures across parts of their bodies. The young woman seems as terrified as anyone else, and as the rumors of witchcraft mount, the PCs are requested to investigate.
In fact, the murderer is a young nobleman infatuated with the suspected witch. He has obtained a voudoun doll with which to maim and kill people from afar, and has decided to prove his devotion to his "beloved" by killing anyone she dislikes. His social connections give him ample opportunity to collect the materials he needs for his dark ritual: hair, fingernails, or personal possessions.
Even if the PCs can figure out his plot and stop him, the question remains: who gave him the doll? And for what sinister purpose?
Every year, the swamp folk around Port d'Elhour have open season on swamp 'gators, and in recent years the nobility has begun to participate in these brutal hunts as well. The PCs are hired as bodyguards for a foppish noble on his first hunt. As the trek into the swamps progresses, it becomes more obvious with each death that the noble and his entourage are the hunted instead of the hunter. The PCs must keep their charge and themselves alive until they can get back to civilization or kill the great alligator that hunts them with an almost human intellect.
Alhoon
The problem with Sournage is that it is too small! I would suggest that people make it larger. I would suggest that people make it 25 miles from side to side and add a few settlements, just small thorps around a manor. In Sournage there are powerful fey living in the swamps. Treat them as 5HD fey but ones that can cast spells as druids but can also prepare necromantic spells.
A Son of a noble family from the enlighted domains learning that Sournage has some empty space and a "law system" that suits him, desides to move in and settle some land in the swamps in order to sell herbs and swamp commodities to the core. He buys some slaves, hires a few guards and experts and gets to work. In a few months he has set up a small hamlet with 60 - 70 people and starts exploiting the swamp.
At first he has to face the moor men but with a party of adventurers (perhaps the PCs, perhaps not) he forces them away.
Becoming bolder he sends his men deeper in the swamp disturbing the Fey who start taking notice of him and harassing him and his village. The noble hires the PCs to take care of this problem.
Notice that neither the Fey nor the noble are evil in this scenario. Both sides want the same land for different reasons. You may make one of the sides evil, or just let the adventurers take sides or make a compromise. Perhaps the settlement will be found overcome by nature, devoid of people with just a strange sign in the middle of what once was a hamlet. Perhaps the noble is a violent, ambitious man that cares nothing for his people.
Perhaps both of the above scenarios, perhaps none.
Reginald de Curry
The party is hired by an aristocrat ("Marsha") to find her newlywed husband ("John"), who went missing two weeks ago. She believes that Chicken Bone is involved in her husband's disappearance, but won't say why.
Complications
- Marsha hired Chicken Bone to make a love charm, which she used to make John fall in love with her.
- John was already married, and he divorced his wife ("Sue") to marry Marsha.
- Sue learned about the charm, and had John kidnapped so she could dispel it.
- Sue, in a jealous rage, either killed John or had him killed.
- Chicken Bone kidnapped John when Marsha refused to pay for the charm (the price was her firstborn).
- Chicken Bone turned John into a zombie and will send him to kill Marsha (VRGttWD will come in handy here).
- John was infected by a werecrocodile and is hiding in the swamp, possibly trapped in hybrid or beastial form.
- John just ran off with an old girlfriend, but tracking him down will be difficult, as he booked passage on the River Dancer.
Malus Black
In a small, isolated settlement the slaves have finally rebelled against their abusive leader. After a short and swift battle, the noble was captured and executed in a most terrible way. He was buried alive far from the village, where no one could hear his screams.
But death in such a manner is rarely final, and the villagers had little time to celebrate their newfound freedom before the noble returned as a Dread Revenant, unable to rest until the leaders of the rebellion were punished. Soon, the deaths began, and the leaders were killed one by one, each month, in the light of the full moon.
Now, only two remain, and both have locked themselves up in their houses. Panic has the village in its grip as the next full moon approaches slowly but surely.
Enter the PCs.
As the final hope of the rebellion's leaders, it is up to the PCs to find the source of the deaths and stop them. Easier said than done, of course, since the undead noble is unlikely to let strangers interrupt what he sees as his duty. While he cannot alter his pattern when it comes to killing the rebels, the PCs will have no such delays, and they are certain to be in a great deal of trouble if they agree to aid the village. In time, and with research, myths and superstitious shamans, the PCs will hopefully discover the true culprit. When they do, there are several ways to end the noble's undead existence:
- Destroying the noble. The most conventional way of dealing with the walking dead, but certainly not easy in this case as the noble is not only smart, knowledgeable about the terrain and very powerful, but he has no problem with waiting until the right moment. Being undead often helps your patience.
- The deaths of the two remaining rebel leaders. Whether done by the noble or the PCs, the noble will return to his rest the instant they are dead. The leaders, of course, will not be very pleased if the PCs attempt to kill them.
- The trial of the two remaining rebel leaders. If the noble believes that they are punished justly for their rebellion, he will be satisfied and return to the grave. The leaders are unlikely to be willing to travel to Port d'Elhour for their trial, as they may likely face a death sentence, but the PCs should be able to convince them that it is preferable to being violently murdered by an undead creature.
ScS of the Fraternity
Maison Douleur looms above the village of Aboise in the sourthen edge of the island. Long ago the Douleur family ruled over Aboise with an iron fist, crushing all who disobeyed them. For many years the villagers lived in fear of the Douleurs, but fifty years ago their rule was ended when their Patriarch, Henri Douleur, creamated his wife (whom he murdered). For violating the law of the Lord of the Dead, the family and their servants were smote with a horrid, maddening disease. Their Plantation was quarentiened and none have entered it, until now.
A group of teenagers chanced upon the vine-strangled manor and, ignoring the warnings of their elders, explored the overgrown estate. The next day only one of the youngsters has been found, wandering in a haze through the fields. Though in a feverish dementia, she blurts out where she has been.
The spirits of the corrupt family still lurk in the rotting manor house. Bodiless, they yearn for the life that was stolen from them. Anyone they possess will succumb to the same wasting disease with which Misoroi cursed the Douleurs. Running amok in the shadows are the children, possessed by the ghosts of:
- an old aristocratic governess who insists on good manners
- a nasty little boy with a penchant for murdering his playmates
- the vampy mistriss of Henri (she convinced him to slay his wife)
- the violent, lecherous son
- a butler
- Maris, the murdered wife
- Henri, the domineering patriarch
Unlike the rest of the spirits, Henri Douleur knows of a cure for the disease. He wants to find a healthy adult body to possess, and through it assume his mastery over Aboise.
The players have an unlikely ally in Maris Douleurs, the murdered wife of Henir. If they can collect her ashes she may lead the players to the children, the cure for their disease, or even help them destroy Henri.
Shadowking
Everybody knows to steer clear off the deep swamps, as they are the domain of the Lord of the Dead. But a proud aristocrat did not heed the warnings, and built his mansion at Anton Misroi's very doorstep. After a few months, any contact with the mansion stopped. Several dozen years have passed since then. The PC's are hired by a relative of the aristocrat to retrive an old family heirloom from the mansion. They enter the deep swamp, and find horror....
- The most obvious choice is that everyone became zombies, but that's way too cliche.
- The family have survived- in some way. As the mansion fell into ruin and they were besieged by beasts, zombies and the swamp itself from all sides the family resorted to inbreeding and cannibalism to survive.
- The new generation have grown as monsters, hideous, insane and unnaturally powerful cannibals who lust for human flesh and use the mansion as their hunting grounds. At their disposal they have several dirty tricks like nasty traps, dark lore of the swamps (many of them owe their supernatural powers to pacts with various Loa) and a couple trained alligators. The PCs must survive long enough to archieve their goal, and possibly rid the world of the vile beings.
- The family survived and everything's seemingly normal. The truth is that they're under the protection of a being strong enough to oppose the Lord of the Dead (like a Black Dragon) and by night are revering it in vile rituals, with the guests serving as the sacrifices with which they buy their protection.
Joël of the Fraternity
Story told while back from the sugarcanes:
Mon ami! That hard to heal bruise again ? I heard a few days ago of a voodan, Mama Crécré, that has the ear of the Maiden of the Swamp. Or perhaps she isn't a voodan but something else ? Oui, she is great for caring and curing ordinary people. She is really good at healing wounds and some say she can even bring people back from ... oui, from death's cold embrace and oblivion! Mind you, no, not like zombies! Like the people they were before dying! She is said to be living in the Maison d'Sablet swamp, on a small dry island south of the Lac Noir ...
Once she went to Port d'Elhour to get new nets and fishing lines. She met a young woman horrified that her husband was back from the grave as a stinkin' zombie. The dark Loas struck again ... Mama Crécré was sad for her and through a ritual in the early morning light, took her white magic on the man and saved him from this unlife. Soon the widow was again hugging her living husband in her arms.
Rightly afraid of the Master of Zombies, I was told the couple left Port d'Elhour by the first merchandise boat leaving Souragne ...
DM note: the existence and exact nature of Mama Crécré is left to you ...
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Great quotes by Anton Misroi in Dance of the Dead:
"Tell me, do you really expect to leave here alive?" p 226
"Death is not necessarily an option" p 226
"Everyone is trapped - in one way or another. Some have prettier cages, that's all." p 228
"Who knows better then a zombie lord what pitiful stuff mere flesh is?" p 229
"We all are (monsters), pretty dancer. Deep down inside all of us, there's a monster. Some spend their lives trying to fight it. They fail. Some coexist unhappily with their beast. They are miserable (...) you and I celebrate it" p 238
Igor the Henchman
A new village is being colonised on an island among the swampland. Unfortunately, it seems that the Souragnian settlers have triggered some eldrich curse on themselves, and have been gradually turned into snakemen. If the PCs reach the village's location, they might find the curse is also affecting them. Only by exploring the half-sunken ruins of an ancient temple nearby can they hope to find the cause of (and the cure against) this strange affliction.
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Send your adventure hooks to Joel@fraternityofshadows.com