The why of Ravenloft

[Jasper]

Ever since the red box the reason for the creation of ravenloft by the Dark powers has been left vauge.

So in your campaigns what reason did/do the DPs have for taking the most evil villians in the multiverse and trapping them in a floating mass of land and mist.

[Igor the Henchman]

I see Darklords being pieces of a collection, with the DPs as collectors. That's why every darklord is so original and different from others.

[Dominique]

I see it as being sort of the classical description of why Satan always collects souls for hell. IMC--although the players will never discover it, this is just for my reference--the DPs are actually a single extraordinarily powerful evil god who is also in some sort of imprisonment or torment. He can never escape this torment himself--the only pleasure he can possibly get is seeing others suffer as much as he does. But there has to be a certain level of contractual obligation involved in this. He can't suddenly turn on an innocent person and throw them into the private hell of being a DL. They have to knowingly and willingly invite this imprisonment upon themselves through their own evil acts. Yeah, I know, it's a much more Christian than D&D-like take on RL, but that's me.

[tec-goblin]

IMC the Dark Powers/Mists are a mysterious hidden entity with powers in the scope of AO - but different. It's a force who likes tragic stories, something like an insane author who adds domains as he/she adds chapters and enjoys seeing the good winning over evil, but also enjoys seeing them succumb to tempation. It's a kind of test, but also it's a playground where the Mists can play and exert their power without being bothered by the gods who hate them - they don't recognize them as a great power and strive to keep them contained. Because the world of Mists is a world where the gods have no place, at least as the place they're used to have in worlds like FR.

[Shadowking]

IMC I decided to leave the Dark Powers vague for awhile, though I have a few dread possibilities for them. One is that they are actually the Primals- elder fiends of incredible power, something like a cross between HP Lovecraft's Great Old Ones and Satan. Imprisoned by the gods in ages past, they slumber in countless hidden vaults dreaming of the day they break free and destroy existance. They exist in a dream-like state between sleep and awareness, barely able to influence the world around them. Their lynchpin and master- It of Many and No Names- is the sentient concept of evil itself. In the meanwhile, they torture and toy with darklords and innocents alike to pass time, as well to recruit souls for their growing army of the damned.

[Maximillian]

IMC the Dark Powers are the demiplane itself. A sentient entity that came to awareness some time ago. It traps ppl from around the multiverse in order to conduct its strange experiment to understand sentience, thus learning more about itself. Thats why it traps almost any form of "sentient" life, be it humans, humanoids, demihumans, monsters, fiends or celestials, undead, gods (Vecna) etc etc etc. It is not necessarilly evil incarnate, but it is not good either. It could also be insane or get insane sometime in the future due to its inability to fully comprehend life and sentience despite its own godlike powers. Anyway it all comes down to the basic urge of any sentient life, to learn more. And it konws now that it can learn more only by subjecting its inhabitants to a multitude of situations, tempting, rewarding, punishing, creating a "real" life for the subjects of its grand experiment. I believe that this approach holds some potential for further development. Apart form the possibility of it being insane, perhaps the Gods themselves or another more powerful entity have cursed and trapped the sentient plane in the Ethereal. Perhaps other creatures are aware of the truth and are considering of taking advantage of the strange and unique situation. Perhaps the demiplane becomes too powerful one day, powerful enough to challenge the order of the multiverse. Who knows?

[Matthias Stormcrow]

It's never really mattered in my campaign, but I've always looked at it this way:

Virtually everyone in the Demiplane is scared of something; not just in the abstract sense where if I'm scared of spiders, it doesn't matter if there aren't any spiders around, but actively scared that a werewolf, madman, vampire, etc., will kill them _that night_. Even the darklords, for all their power, have something that terrifies them (I'm sure there are exceptions; the God Brain springs to mind. But in general....). Lots of people have pointed out in various discussions how the demiplane seems to be stacked in favor of evil, but if you ask me, it's even more clearly stacked in favor of causing fear in as many people as possible. The DLs are the most challenging people to instill fear in, since they're the main instruments for causing fear - which is why the DPs occasionally encourage heroes like Van Richten, and occasionally even import such heroes. As to why the Dark Powers would create an entire demiplane for the purposes of breeding as much fear as inhumanly possible....well, that's the sort of thing that Times of Unparalleled Darkness are all about...

[Charlatan]

I've never run a RL campaign, so I don't have a definative (if merely personal) answer, but IMO Ravenloft/The Mists/The Dark Powers is/are that seeks, primarily, for the moment, just to grow, and it ffeds on evil to do so. However, there are rules and restrictions on what kind of evil it can use. Whether these rules are self-imposed or imposed from above is also unknown. Powers Checks and the rules governing them are probably the closest thing to demonstrating and understanding the DPs needs and limitations.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Never run a Ravenloft campaign? Blasphemy!
I'm not much better, having never DMed a whole campaign, but just a few adventures.

I've always seen the Dark Powers as things beyond Gods and demons and anything else. I don't see them as motivated by things like feeding, or conquest, or power. I perfer to think of them as entities kind of like the Watcher from Marvel Comics.
The Dark Powers exist to learn and to know, they are limitless in power but have no desires beyond understanding the universe. They do not interfere with the course of the Universe, except to experiment.
Ravenloft would be the laboratory where these things conduct their latest experiment (since they experience time differently, this experiment could go on forever).
I perfer this version, because it explains some of what is happening.

Of course, another very good theory came from someone who's name I can't recall. Their idea was that Ravenloft is a living, amorphous entity. This entity feeds off of emotions such as fear, horror, guilt and suffering. The demiplane has gathered Darklords and the denizens of Ravenloft to be their symbiots.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

I just think that Ravenloft is a huge freak show put on by the most twisted minds in existence

[Jasper]

My Ravenloft is a combination pergitory and massive experiment. IMC the good DP offered the opinon that ant motral creature, no matter how far they have sucume to evil, still has the spark of good in them and if a path of redemtion is offered they will take it.
The evil DP however responded that all mortal creatures if offered great power will sucume to the lure of evil and will stay evil as long as power is offered.

The Nutral DP then created the formless mists as a proving ground.

The good DP was able to pull in lost souls from the multiverse and offer them a chance of a new life and redemtion. These became the faceless population of Ravenloft. If they life there lives in the path of good dispite the temptations of the relm they can go on to the higher planes.

The Evil DP was allowed to tempt those allready on the path to evil with promices of greater power. Those who fall the farthest become the Darklords.

The nutral DP finished by locking the exits to the world, sparing the multiverse from being flooded by the concintrated evil of the realm. It also proclumed these rules-.

I. No creature will be born in Sin and will contain the spark of free will.
II. All power must be tempered with a curse lest the evil taint others.
III. Every mortal creature must be offered a path ending in the obsoltion of sins but no creature may be forced to walk it.

So far the score is decidedly on the side of evil but several shining paths of light have arisen from the deepest darkness (Van Richten, Jander, Ray, the Carnival, etc;)

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I always liked one of the explanations from the SotK survey. I think it was John Mangrum's, but I could be wrong. The DP's are the shadows of the gods, the dark parts of their psyches that they don't admit to. The gods push them away into their subconsious, and they act out an exagerrated version of the gods' wills. They think they ARE the gods, so they created a world, and reward and punish its inhabitants, which is what gods do. But they push it to the extreme and it becomes a twisted shadow of the real world. The unspoken pact is simply the gods' denial over what their subconsious has done.

[Nihilio]

According to me, it's some kind of purgatory. The souls of the pure pass away, into a better life. The twisted ones though remain eternaly imprisoned in there, living their personal hells.

Nihilio

[Ivana_Boritsi]

For me, the Dark Powers are kind of like the powers that inhabit the planet in the movie: The Forbidden Planet.

The Demiplane of Ravenloft has no concious thought, or collective mind. The Demiplane is simply an amplifier for the "id" and subconcious mind. Any dark desire or want someone has is manifested by the demiplane. Further, the demiplane encourages your "id," tempting it further with other tantalizations. But in the end, you make the choices that cause your own downfall.

Thus, if anyone found out the truth about Ravenloft, they would find out that the enemy...is them. Their own hubris and foilbles are what caused their own downfall. Very Gothic, that.

[Trebor Minntt]

I see the Dark Powers as evil Gods and other powerfull Beings who as a whole use Ravenloft as a plaything.

It as, as Wiccy says, a twisted freakshow. Put on by, and for the amuesment of the those who are truely genius and truely evil.