To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not sure if I would ever use this approach to Ravenloft. I'm just as, if not more than, likely to strip all the Ravenloft flesh from this thing and go indie with a personal anthology. I'm a tinkerer when it comes to RPGs, but if/when I go overboard and put too much personal in it then why not go :
haha
Kinda committed myself now though, so I'll continue for a bit.
Last edited by Five on Sun Feb 28, 2016 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."
- Jean Pierre Sarrasin, "The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville"
That was a couple of admittedly quick thoughts on entry into Ravenloft. Psychic manipulations (mind raped by a psionic nemesis), artifact portals (perhaps a cursed mirror - good for multiple PC entry), a result from successful tie-breaker death saving throw,..lots of other ways you as a DM can flush your PCs down into themselves. I'm sure there's some real cool ones out there.
Ideas on Domains and their relation to their Dark Lords (or is it the other way around? ) are brewing.
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."
- Jean Pierre Sarrasin, "The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville"
In this fearscape realm, where individuals are cast in the crucible of their very identities, there are regions that thrive on (and are constructed from) specific fears. And in these dark places there are beings who both embody and champion those fears: the Dark Lords.
The Dark Lords and their relation to the Dark Powers remains mostly the same as found in print, yet with some tweaks. The concentrated regions of fear have selected a specific individual to represent it best, and in turn "allows" the landscape to be tailored to this individual so that it can a) help promote the pureness of its substance, from which it b) feeds ons. Yeah, the collective subconsciousness of sentient beings actually wants to separate and concentrate its deepest and darkest fears, or combination of fears. It makes Emergence that much more rewarding for the individual.
When one of these Dark Lords ceases to feed the region (again, specific fear or equation of fears), through either neglect or through its own demise, the weakened region selects a new champion. The region (thus perception of specific fear) changes to a new " visual format". The amount of change will vary (in accordance to the new Fear Lord), and none will be the wiser. This weakened region will have some repercussions that I'll get into later, such as a momentary increase in self-awareness, a few memories from their real lives slipping through, etc.
I'll touch on more of these bastardized ideas later. I'm distracted by ideas I'm putting together for a Vorostokovian Castle Ravenloft (that's not a castle) and real life in general. This is side burner for now.
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."
- Jean Pierre Sarrasin, "The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville"
) are brewing.