herkles wrote:curious if Hazlik went to Toril during the grand conjunction does that mean that he escaped the mists for a time, thus doing what not even Azalin who been trying to do just that was able to do? or do you think the mists toyed with him and showed him dreams and what not to torment him further?
Azalin escaped the Mists as well during the Grand Conjunction (as Drinnik mentioned, ending up in Prime Material Barovia). It's strongly implied that many of the Darklords (at least those who were Mist-napped from other worlds - thus presumably including Adam, Godefroy, Tristan ApBlanc, Malken, Lukas, von Kharkov, Soth, Jackie R., Drakov, the Three Hags, and perhaps a bunch of non-Darklord notables like Mordenheim and Jander) ended up back on their home planes, although only the details of what Strahd, Azalin, and Hazlik did while they were back on the Prime Material plane have ever been revealed.
It does seem as though enough of the Demiplane remained in stable existance that a few Darklords (most likely the native Darklords, given that Ivan and Ivana are the only 2 whose experiences during the Grand Conjunction have been elucidated) have reasonably coherent memories of what was happening in the world at the time.
[i]"I too have begun to wonder about the legendary wisdom of our guardian angel and his pet rock."
~ Evee Beiderbecke[/i]
Check the last module of the GC it has randoms encounters with possible dark lords which had been released along with creatures from the related realms. When the group is travelling in Material Realm of Barovia. You could work these temperary breaks into the Campaign.
After killing Medraut Gundar (to the relief of his father, who is terrified of him) and discovering the portal in Castle Hunadora leads to Vallaki rather than Krynn, Lord Soth beseiges Castle Ravenloft. He gives this up in order to chase the ghost of his seneschal Caradoc (who betrayed him by concealing Kitiara's soul from him) from Castle Ravenloft to Vallaki to Castle Hunadora to the Misty Border south of Gundarak, where he kills him but gains a domain. For the first night, everyone in the Core can hear his banshees singing his tale.
Soth's actions in trying to gain Kitiara's soul are what earns the domain, although you'd think allowing the Cataclysm to happen and murdering his first wife would be cause for a failed Powers Check or two.
At first, the differences between his memories and the realities of Nedragaard Keep annoy him, but Soth quickly becomes immune to the pain, so that the only things that let him feel human lose their effect. In 725 BC, he draws in a village of kender and creates kender vampires (bitterkinder, according to Gaz IV) to serve him.
In 737, he begins to withdraw into his memories. He only stirs to commission the Memory Mirrors from Tindafulus, which takes 6 years to complete and just make things worse. In the meantime, one of the short stories suggests he is returned to a mortal body on Krynn during the Grand Conjunction, but he's so lost in his thoughts by then that he probably discounts it as a dream.
By 744 BC, he has become so lost in the memory mirrors that Sithicus starts to collapse around him. When Black Roses Bloom is a pretty good adventure, but it does suggest an alarmingly close link between the people of Ravenloft and the domains in which they live: as the domain starts to fade, so do their memories and sanity. Now, this doesn’t seem to affect the Wanderers, so it might just be the close ties between elves and the natural world that causes it. Or it might be that all but a handful of people in Ravenloft are constructs of the Mists who can normally pass the Turning test but sometimes don’t.
Anyway, Soth is fully awake briefly, but quickly returns to his slumbers (interspersed with a few episodes of hunting Kitiara, keeping the Vistani trapped and hoping Malocchio will go to war). The fact that he makes Magda swear never to reveal his true history does suggest he’s doing everything he can to disengage from his past and present for his own fantasies. He wakes up fully when he hears his history in full, which is how he knows Magda (well, Inza) has broken her word. And Spectre of the Black Rose ensues from there.
I must say, while I really love all of James Lowder’s work, the Sithicus in SotBR annoyed me for being different to all the previous versions with its near complete lack of elves and so on. Apart from that though...
So Soth is returned to Krynn, perhaps just moments after he left, perhaps 27 years later, because Tracy Hickman doesn’t understand how shared worlds and work for hire work. About 40 years later, he is returned to life and then killed for refusing to serve Takhisis and having decided to let go of his anger and fear and pride and seek forgiveness and redemption. To quote from Dragons of a Vanished Moon, “You left me alone too long. You left me to the darkness [both quite telling statements from our point of view] which became my light, for I could once more see my wife’s beloved face. I could see myself.”
So depending on how you look at it, Soth may have been released from Ravenloft because the Dark Powers couldn’t get him to bite at their lure, or because he’d actually learnt something from his time in Ravenloft. You decide.
Alfred Timothy is sickly and frail in human form, and despises his weakness. Inspired by the humans of Arkandale leaving little devotions to the Wolf God to protect them from werewolves, he decides to become a cleric of the god. Unfortunately, either the god doesn't exist or he doesn't want to talk to Alfred, because he doesn't grant prayers, so Alfred goes on a long rampage trying to attract his attention. This results in him crossing paths with Gabrielle Aderre and her mother. Isabella tries to extort free passage for the Vistani from Timothy (obviously seeing greatness in his future) in return for helping him, but he attacks her, she curses him, and he flees. Gabrielle refuses to help Isabella until she reveals the truth about her father, then leaves her to die, kills Bakholis and becomes darklord of Invidia. Timothy is lost in the Mists for a while, then emerges to find himself a cleric of the Wolf God and darklord of Verbrek.
At the moment, Verbrek is an absolutely tiny realm, but it's going to get a lot bigger after the Grand Conjunction when it absorbs Arkandale and all of Timothy's werewolves charge northwards to slaughter humans...
According to Gaz IV, there's something funny going on with people's memories of Arkandale after the Grand Conjunction: people seem to be forgetting Arkandale was ever there. At the very least, they know the new name of the realm is Verbrek (and possibly always was).
Interesting note: until 3e, Timothy didn't have a curse, unless for some reason not having a shadow counts as a curse for him. Now, it's transforming back into human form whenever he is overcome with emotion, which is pretty unpleasant for someone who hate humans and wants to lose himself in the savagery of the wolf.
A note on alignments: In 2e, Alfred Timothy was LE, and had sphere access very like a druid. In 3e, he became the NE cleric of a CE god. I'm now in two minds about what alignment he should actually be. On one hand, he is forced by his curse to be completely disciplined and dispassionate. On the other, he also longs to run wild and free and doesn't seem to go in for a lot of forward planning. Back on the first hand again, wolves have a big committment to pack society. So which fits better - LE or NE? For that matter, I'm sure the Wolf God should be NE as well, for similar reasons, so either is within game rules for him.
strictly from a biologic view of a wolf I would have been tempted to make the wolf god Neutral (wolves are not evil just good hunters), but having re-read the RGIV pg.75 I would stick with the Chaotic Evil for the god, which means that Timothy can't be lawful Evil due to the one step rule
All great movements require a few martyrs... -Moebius (soulreaver 2)
My point really is that Alfred Timothy came first, and was LE. So if you want to conserve that due to historical precedence, the Wolf God should have been NE from the start.
Also, this is an (in-game) fictional religion made real by Timothy's faith and evil, just like Yagno Petrovna and Zhakata. So even in-game, it's built from Timothy's character as a starting point.
This also means it has nothing to do with actual wolves, and everything to do with how werewolves/Timothy see themselves and humans.
In fairness, then, the Wolf God should probably be CE, because that's the alignment of most werewolves. But there are too many CE gods, and it annoys me.
Last edited by Ryan Naylor on Thu Nov 22, 2012 1:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
Or not. Really, it depends on whether you ran Feast of Goblyns in your game or not, and what ending you gave it. From Gaz I, Radaga existed, was killed, rose from the dead and became darklord of Daglan, which "soon dissolved back into the Mists." So that could be when the PCs hunt her down and kill her, mere days after its creation, or years later in the Grand Conjunction. Also, whether Radaga is the sole darklord or gets replaced by Daegon depends on which ending you choose, although (as discussed briefly earlier), I think Feast of Goblyns is pretty clear that third ending, where the PCs kill Radaga and Daegon is released from the Crown of Souls to be darklord, is the "real" one.
In any case, Daglan is completely isolated, bordered as it is by domains of no real consequence, with an insignificantly small population who don't like human contact and spend their time harvesting wheat/ghee to eat. 5% are undead who spy for the darklord, so it really doesn't pay to draw attention to yourself or pry into other's business. So however long it's there for, it has no real impact on anything.
Radaga herself is an evil priestess, who is potentially alive but probably (and canonically) a wight priestess when she becomes darklord. Daglan Daegon is an undead goblyn spellcaster who has been trapped in the Crown of Souls for 500 years, waiting for his bloodline to die out so he can be reborn again. In the adventure, Daegon is a necromancer with slightly enhanced spellcasting ability, but I personally feel that necromancers have been done (Strahd, Meredoth, Tsien Chang,...). If I were converting him, I'd make him a sorcerer with a necromancy bent (which explains why he had to wait until his bloodline had died out, since sorcery is carried in the blood). It also fits Hyskosa's prophecy (In the house of Daegon, a sorcerer born..., although that refers to Radaga, not Daegon). Alternately, I might make him a witch or even a magus instead.
In the same year, the same PCs return to Castle Gundar and kill the Duke, so the Dark Powers make Heinfroth darklord of Gundarak instead. The Duke'll be back in 16 years though.
And obviously, the prophecy leading in to the Grand Conjunction is beginning.
Any more?, I'd love to see your thoughts on the effect of the Grand Conjuction (2 domains gone [3 kind of], 3 domains merged [4 kind of], and a slew of new ones added to the sea of Sorrows and a general restructure of the Core) and the Requiem/Nocturnal Sea reveal
All great movements require a few martyrs... -Moebius (soulreaver 2)
By my count, there have been 2 Upheavals (events that had a major effect on the positioning and/or borders and/or relations between several domains) to this point: the Scourge of Arak (588 BC) and the appearance of Falkovnia (690 BC). Note they’re about a century apart. If you want to engage in numerology, what’s going to happen in the late 700s? The Time of Ultimate Darkness, which is due to start in 775 BC. The gaps are getting smaller obviously, so if you use these three dates to construct a geometric series and then project backwards, what are our other numerologically significant dates? The arrival of the Vistani in 470 BC, and the birth of Tatyana in 333 BC. Coincidence? Yes, probably. But I’m sure the Church of Ezra is very interested.
Anyway, there is a reason that the Grand Conjunction is called the Great Upheaval. Just about every domain is affected in some way. In this version of the map, I’ve drawn the post-Grand Conjunction borders in blue over the top of the original borders so you can see just how much they’ve moved.
So, what actually happens in the Grand Conjunction?
The Dark Powers are obviously intimately involved in this, for whatever reason, since it is extremely unlikely otherwise that the rulers of Prime Material Barovia would exactly resemble Strahd and Tatyana. So there’s some sort of trap here, but it’s not clear what. Also, the forward planning allows Hyskosa to pen his prophecy.
The first step is that a single darklord breaks the bonds of their imprisonment. This is Azalin at the end of From the Shadows. The PCs steal the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind from Castle Ravenloft on the night of Tatyana and Sergei’s wedding. This somehow weakens the planar boundaries (perhaps it causes a temporal paradox, because the Icon should be in Castle Ravenloft on Sergei’s body when Jander Sunstar tries to destroy Strahd), allowing Azalin to pull himself free.
The borders dissolve, so the darklords are free to wander from place to place.
The domains themselves all return to the Prime Material plane, superimposing themselves over areas in various worlds. We know some darklords are returned to their original homes (Soth and Hazlik, for example), and it’s perhaps safe to assume that their domains go with them (so Hazlan forms a conjunction with Toril) – but we don’t know that for sure; Hazlik and Hazlan could separate. Other darklords are returned to different parts of the Prime Material plane (Harkon Lukas, Ankhtepot et al could end up in Barovia, despite coming from other worlds). It seems to happen quite piecemeal, with minor conjunctions happening at different times, so perhaps some of the darklords (and others) are actually whisked from place to place over the course of several weeks.
One of the previous three steps weakens the forces trapping Gwydion in the Obsidian Gate, so he tries to break free, which seriously damages the planar integrity of Ravenloft and is responsible for a lot of the damage around the central Core; the Shadow Rift itself is a bleeding planar wound out of sync with the rest of the Core, its borders permanently closed like a scab, the major features of the Greenlands constantly moving to try to find the right configuration to heal the wound, the Stonedowns appearing as an accidental reflection. Fracture appear.
The PCs get the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind onto the altar in Prime Material Barovia, which re-powers the planar boundaries and the Grand Conjunction collapses. Inajira, Azalin and Strahd all fail to kill each other and are all trapped again; the whole thing is a bit of a failure really.
In the immediate aftermath, the Core reforms, but completely shaken up:
Forlorn is unaffected.
The Sea of Sorrows is largely unaffected, although it’s impossible to really be sure. Shoals and currents and things could easily have been rearranged to make life difficult for ships. By the Red Box maps, Markovia is there (although explorers won’t actually discover it for another few years), Ghastria probably is, and Blaustein isn’t (since it should be visible on the map but isn’t there).
Falkovnia (surprisingly) is least affected physically, although obviously the disappearance of G’Henna next door has serious implications both socially and in terms of trade.
Lamordia and Dementlieu, and Mordent and Richemulot are largely unaffected, except their borders very slightly change to work out some of the kinks.
Keening grabs a (relatively) big slice of Tepest, which must have been extremely unpleasant for anything living there.
Borca and Dorvinia merge (after Ivan “seeks out” Ivana “for comfort.” They also grab a small slice of Barovia. All goes swimmingly for a little while for the new co-darklords, until they realise they can’t actually stand each other.
Kartakass loses a slice to what will be Hazlan.
Sithicus loses a bit to the south, but grabs a bit of unclaimed land to the west.
Hazlan loses most of its north to Nova Vaasa, but grabs a big chunk of Bluetspur and a bit of Kartakass. Oddly enough, that piece of Bluetspur also remains attached to Bluetspur, so it’s been copied rather than ripped off.
Darkon loses part of its northern frontier (although, given the ebb and flow of Mist across the Mistlands, it may just be that the Black Box maps and the RL3e maps arbitrarily draw the lines in different places. It also snaps up all of Arak, a big chunk of what used to be the Nightmare Lands, and a big chunk of new land out into the Mists as well.
G’Henna and Markovia are obviously affected greatly; Markovia is moved to the Sea of Sorrows, which causes a bit of panic, and G’Henna is lost in the Mists. People in both domains think the rest of the world has crumbled away into nothing. The Church of Belenus in Tepest really doesn’t take this well.
Daglan also vanishes into the Mists, if it hasn’t already.
Bluetspur goes as well. If you believe Bluetspur is on the dark side of the Core’s moon, or becomes a comet, then I suppose technically it’s still a Core domain, just moved. I personally like to treat it as a blood-red comet that appears in the sky sometimes (Bluetspur has a conjunction with the Core when the stars are right), but otherwise it’s an Island.
Arak becomes the Shadow Rift. Gwydion gains new powers and begins gaslighting Loht.
Invidia does quite well out of it, grabbing a huge piece of Arkandale and half of Gundarak. Fortunately, Invidia’s always had a lot of werewolves in it anyway.
Barovia also does well, grabbing the rest of Gundarak, part of Nova Vaasa and a bit of Hazlan. In return, it loses a tiny piece in the south to Hazlan.
Obviously, Dominia forms around the newly displaced Daclaud Heinfroth.
Verbrek goes from being one of the smallest domains to one of the largest, grabbing two thirds of Arkandale (and butchering most of the humans who live there). It also grabs a bit of unclaimed land from the Mists. People immediately begin forgetting Arkandale was ever there; everyone around knows it’s Verbrek now. This is probably the case for more border changes.
Most (physically) affected are Valachan and Nova Vaasa. Until I started to look at this closely, I just assumed Valachan was rotated and displaced, and Nova Vaasa got bigger. What actually happens is that the human landscape (towns and roads and things) are lifted up and resettled over the existing physical landscape, like a drop cloth falling over different pieces of furniture. Nova Vaasa claims most of the Nightmare Lands and part of Hazlan, and the human landscape spreads out over this whole area. God knows what the first merchant who tried to ride from Arbora to Bergovista thought when it suddenly took 3 times as long to get anywhere. I hope they packed enough food and water. Or perhaps their memories are altered.
Valachan definitely suffers the most. It shrinks to about a third of its original size (obviously the Dark Powers didn’t think von Kharkov was interesting enough either), and the human landscape is rotated and dropped over the unclaimed Mistlands in the west. This is clumsily done, and all of their houses are left facing into the weather rather than perpendicular to it. In Valachan, the blame for the Upheaval is placed on an attempted assassination attempt and divine disfavour because of it.
In the immediate aftermath, the Wildlands also forms.
I can’t think what other effects the Grand Conjunction has, but the effects ripple out for a long time.
You've done your homework man. Lots of useful information, makes me wanna run a campaigns in Ravenloft's past for my group.
In my campaign the present day Core is torn up a bit. I've had a lot of fun changing the geography of The Core in fact. For starters, Vlad Drakov was slain on a hunting trip by a powerful ghoul, becoming one himself, but somehow maintaining his free will. The ghoul lord who had dined on his corpse was named Lazarus, a worshiper of Yeenoghu hailing from Verbrek. Lazarus ended up absorbing half of Drakov's domain as his own. Seemingly overnight ancient corpses and sarcophagi started rising up from the ground and with them came hordes of hungry dead. Eventually as the campaign unfolded a ghoul hunter named Boden The Grave slew Drakov. The darklord had lost control of much of his realm since becoming even less personable as a ravenous ghoul. Unfortunately Drakov's second death caused Lazarus to gain total rulership of the Domain which would come to be known as Sepulchral as more and more unburied corpses turned up, along with strange carrion eating beasts (namely hyenas and gnolls), and undead. The name Sepulchral was started by the Eternal Order of course as Falkovnia's fate fit in perfectly with their canonical predictions.
