Castles Forlorn

[Teravala]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castles_Forlorn
Was reading about this adventure last night and was wondering if anyone has experience running it? I'm a sucker for a good castle, and have always been fascinated by Forlorn and Tristen ApBlanc. The temporal shifts the adventure describes remind me heavily of an adventure I posted about on here called "Ashington Manor" from dark tales and disturbing legends, and to be honest were I a gambling man, I'd bet my money that this served as the inspiration for that adventure. If you have run it what were some of the pros and cons you noted while playing the adventure? Do you think it would be worth spending time converting this to other editions?

[Mephisto of the FoS]

This was the first Ravenloft product I bought and I found it fascinating. Tristen's story is absolutely horrific and gothic with inspiration from various Scottish elements like the Loch Ness Monster, the moving forest from Macbeth among others. I have run it twice, first with a party of 8 ,a merge of my own party and another of a friend which was terrible because of a player's need to be over-powerful and controlling of the rest as well as my own inexperience. The second time a run it was amazing. They had been sent there as investigators for a chronomancer. I run all of the adventures around the domain before entering the castle. The players were totally terrified and confused which was great. I hope to run it again with a full constructed diorama of Castle Tristenoira, changing the battlefield as they go around. They managed to escape the Castle with heavy losses (especially after fighting Tristen in warg wolf form after attacking the oak tree)and escaped through he Maw of Arawn by discovering a portal there. They didn't stay to long to discover Tristen's weaknesses but they managed to help his daughter escape. Gazetteer I has some extra stuff I would like to use as well Azenwrath's story.

[Joël of the FoS]

If I remember Stu of the Kargatane's game sessions, he offered that advice that it is best if the players have another reason to get there, and then find out about Forlorn. In his campaign, the PCs were chasing the Patchwork Bride, a recuring villain in his campaign.

[Teravala]

Ooh, lots of good suggestions and info here. I have a copy of the gaz 1, I'll have to give it a reread as it's been years since I poked around in the lore in there. I really like temporal based adventures, I even once made a prestige class for zarovan vistani all about chronomancy, though it never saw any play.

[Teravala]

If I remember Stu of the Kargatane's game sessions, he offered that advice that it is best if the players have another reason to get there, and then find out about Forlorn. In his campaign, the PCs were chasing the Patchwork Bride, a recuring villain in his campaign.

I've read about the Patchwork Bride a bit on mistipedia, and in one of the Book of S~~ can't remember which one though. She's supposed to be like a golem version of Elise Mordenheim right? really cool idea for a recurring antagonist. I usually have my players answer a couple questions about their character's goals and reason for adventuring, so it would be pretty easy to write out a "you need to go to Forlorn" kind of intro session or something. One of my players in particular has a whole thing about playing half Vistani witchy characters, usually with a desire for something like eternal life, the ability to manipulate time, information on how to better tap into her vistani heritage and curse people better, etc. so this seems like the kind of adventure she would be salivating over.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

If I remember Stu of the Kargatane's game sessions, he offered that advice that it is best if the players have another reason to get there, and then find out about Forlorn. In his campaign, the PCs were chasing the Patchwork Bride, a recuring villain in his campaign.

Well they were sent there by the chronomancer with no knowledge of what they would find. He could have accompanied them but he knew better than risk going there himself..

I had the impression that a specific card from a deck of many things lay somewhere within the castle but I made a quick check and it and it was a pair of joker cards from a deck of illusion its under Optional Treasures in the Eve of Sorrows booklet. But there is a Book of Ultimate Darkness potentially there and this seems like a good reason to go into the castle, either being sent there to destroy it or retrieve it. Knowledge for that could be based on a card reading.

[Vlad]

Does anyone have the DM's guild 'Standing Forlorn'? I do, but found it a bit disappointing. I loved Castles Forlorn and it's gothic tale. The good point of SF is that the domain is more fleshed out. Bad thing is that it's more hack-n-slash than horror. And the maps of Tristenoira were thrown out of the window and replaced by Castle Ravenloft....
Artwork is splendid though, as well as the extra things to do in Forlorn. However, the backstory of both Forfarmax (of which a beautiful picture is included) and Tristen himself is thrown away.. Some parts are kept, like his children and wife, but his history was ditched..

Did anyone play that one and which version do you prefer?

[RavensCall]

I DM'd this adventure back in my 2e days and the group had a blast. Honestly, it's a mini campaign setting too. I'm about a month away (depending on how the party resolves "Feast of Goblyns" before we tackle this adventure again. The time jumping is a great aspect of the game, but can be a nightmare to run at times. I went with the suggestion that the group always jumps together, I didn't want the headache of running multiple time periods at once. And secondly, even though I rolled dice behind the screen, I chose when and where the time leaps would happen based on what was currently going on in the game. By making the choices fit the story, it worked out really well and was easier to manage. I know you can't force the players not to go straight to the castle, but I would do everything possible to guide them to do everything around the domain first, only because it will fill in a lot of the gaps of the darklords history. More importantly, give them a reason to go to the castle.

I have a PC who's a time mage, who's family has become lost in time when stray magic caught them in a loop between reality. In Lamordia, they encoutered a mysterious clocktower that turned out to belong to the clockmaker Klorr. He was also trapped in time in his tower and they accidently freed him. He's become yet another villian in the campaign, but as a token of freeing him before he escaped, he told the PC he'd need 3 things to use as a ritual to free his family: a sword lost in time in the castle's three: (the sword Morholt was slain with), the missing card from Rosylnn's tarokka deck in "Ashington Manor" and one of Azalin's magic hour glasses locked in the Black Vault. (As you can see I was keeping with the whole time theme). In Harmonia, the PC learned from a local witch's vision that the castle's three means the castle in Forlorn. They've defeated Radaga in the caverns and are headed to Gundarak to the good doctor's keep. The PC is thinking about visiting Forlorn after they drop off something to the doctor. Little do they know it won't be that easy.

So definately give the players a reason to enter the castle, not just to kill the dark lord.