Rotipher of the FoS wrote:The Giamarga wrote:So about The Alchemist. Anybody got I10 handy? Iirc there was time travel involved.
Not time travel, but alternate realities. The idea was that PCs who were playing both I6 and I10 would fall asleep in Barovia and wake up in Mordent, then fall asleep in Mordent and wake up in Barovia, etc.
Well, time-travel actually
may play a part: "For Barovia and Mordentshire, while miles and perhaps centuries apart, are mystically linked to each other, creating a
bridge between the two worlds." (I10, p.41). Of course, I10 leaves up to the DM whether one or both setting is "real"--which may imply that, from a modern-Ravenloft perspective, that Strahd and Azalin escaped to the Prime Material Plane Mordent temporarily, but were linked back to Barovia...or to an alternate-reality, "false" Barovia born of the PCs delerium and the overlay Strahd's memories created...or that the Mordent of Strahd and Azalin was itself a false Mordent created entirely in Ravenloft.
Of course, using I6 in combination with I10 was entirely optional anyway.
(Incidentally, my own version is and always will be that the Alchemist, in the "real" Mordent, created the Creature Strahd, which was born in the "real" Barovia, that the Creature Strahd fell into Ravenloft as we all know and love, and that when he and Azalin tried to get out, it was the Creature's link to the Alchemist that brought them back to Mordent, where I10 ensued...Only when the Creature re-entered Mordent did his knowledge of the Alchemist and its own true nature return, resulting in the events of I10 and the *pause for Dark Powers snickering* return of S&A to Ravenloft).
Rotipher of the FoS wrote:
Also iirc The Alchemist bought/lived in The House on Gryphon Hill, before Mordentshire entered the Mists. (OR was it Heather House?) So when did Mordentshire enter the Domain of Dread?
It's unclear whether Mordent was dragged into Ravenloft by Azalin's experiments, or if the two villains actually
did manage to return to the Material Plane for a time. Basically, the setting's writers were reluctant to say one way or the other, as the precise course of I10 was determined by an essentially random process (the Mesmerism schtick), and declaring any one of its outcomes "canon" would alienate three-quarters of those who'd played out I10 in their campaigns.
Whichever the case might be, setting history establishes that by the end of the I10 scenario, Mordent had become a domain in its own right.
It's also a question whether there's a "real" Mordent still out there in the Prime Material Plane in the way there's a "real" Barovia or whether there's been some renovations to the real estate several miles to the southwest of Osterton...
Rotipher of the FoS wrote:
Could it be that The Alchemist stayed behind in the Prime? Or could it be that he died in Ravenloft and perhaps became a ghost and is now trapped in the House among all those others?
The conclusion to I10 strongly implies that the Alchemist-Strahd is killed by his vampire alter-ego. It's an ambiguous scene, however, so the Alchemist could well have been swept up by the Mists and deposited just about anywhere.
Specifically, if the DM follows the script,
all four plotlines end up with the Alchemist and the Creature, locked in each others arms, tumbling over the cliffs into Ardent Bay. Why this would be assumed to kill the vampire Strahd (who in one of the endings is actually a transpossessed Alchemist!) is an open question in and of itself. The instant they go over, the Apparatus detonates, curing all the transpossessed townspeople and insta-dusting all undead 6HD or less.
Quite frankly, where the Alchemist winds up and what condition he's in when he gets there is an utterly open question!
Rotipher of the FoS wrote:
The Ring of Reversion and the Apparatus are both still around (described in the Mordent Gazetteer, VRA or LotB).
Actually, it's the Alchemist's research notes that survived. Several others have built or conspired to build their own Apparatus since then. In fact (if it's not giving away too much) there's considerable interest in that specific artifact in the Nocturnal Sea region, at the moment....
Thoughts of Darkness states that there were several original Rods of Rastinon, speaking of places where people rebuilt the Apparatus...
And on a completely different note...
Rotipher of the FoS wrote:
Rafael wrote:
Where's Gundar now? - Was he killed or did he simply loose his powers?
Gundar was staked, but not permanently destroyed. His stake-pierced skeleton was sold to Arcanus's traveling curiosities show, later to be released (i.e. stake pulled out) under circumstances to be specified by the DM. Having left Gundarak while "dead" and had his domain divvied up in his absence, he's no longer a darklord, though he retains his powers as a vampire and fighter.
I know Gundar was always the cheap, second-rate imitation of the Creature Strahd, but nothing really says that like having him live out the Dracula part from Universal's
House of Frankenstein!
)
