Café de Nuit

wolfgang_fener wrote:If you explain too much, you lose the horror factor.

I'm not so sure. Explaining that the DPs are alien entities as powerful as gods and RL is just a grand experiment on mortal concepts of evil, with everyone being easily replaceable lab rats, wouldn't lose much of the horror factor, I'd think. (Not that I'd ever be such a cruel DM. No, no, not me.)

It would be especially good after a long build-up of mystery. It would make the game afterward slip deeper into an atmosphere of hopelessness -- but that might not necessarily be a bad thing. When it seems that doing good ultimately doesn't matter, then simple kindness is an even more noble thing.

But yeah, it's a good idea to keep players in the dark about the DPs. I think part of the reason the game designers never explained it was because they knew if they did, some players would read whatever book it was in and ruin the mystery.

mistshadow2k4 wrote:

wolfgang_fener wrote:If you explain too much, you lose the horror factor.

I'm not so sure. Explaining that the DPs are alien entities as powerful as gods and RL is just a grand experiment on mortal concepts of evil, with everyone being easily replaceable lab rats, wouldn't lose much of the horror factor, I'd think. (Not that I'd ever be such a cruel DM. No, no, not me.)

I think there's also the needs of individual campaigns to consider, here. Different game styles call for different takes on the Dark Powers. Some like to involve them in their plots, others not. Some prefer them to be mighty as gods, others less so. If, for example I wanted to make a grand adventure where Azalin pulls off an awesome scheme to wrest the control of the Demiplane from the Dark Powers, I'll need the DP to be weak (or at least, not completely omnipotent).

If I had to cook up an "official" explanation of the Dark Powers in my games, I'd say they are beings similar to Vestiges (from Tome of Magic): nigh-impotent beings trapped beyond the limits of reality itself. Like Vestiges, they crave physical sensations and feelings of mortal beings. Unlike ordinary Vestiges, however, these beings cannot (will not?) make pacts with characters of the Binder class. Instead, their only recourse is to mystically "possess" exceptional beings of evil alignment and draw them into a demiplane of mutable Mists. Each of the Darklords is in fact a window through which the Dark Powers sate their hunger of sensations. In return for this meagre boon, the DPs give the darklords power to subconsciously reshape the fabric of the Mists, resulting in prison-lands that reflect the darklords personalities. The Darklord's subconscious fancies and guilts are also given real substance, resulting in darklord powers and curses.

In this version of the setting, the Dark Powers can do little aside from watching, thinking, and occasionally manipulating the Mists in a minor way. Able to grasp reality only through the eyes and ears of beings consumed by evil and guilt, the Dark Powers have trouble understanding the nature of Good and selflessness. Though greatly intrigued by the existence of heroic individuals, the Dark Powers can only ever catch a glimpse of such beings through the eyes and ears of the Darklords. Their curiosity (and frustration) on this topic is rapidly growing.

Igor, that's similar to how I visualize the DP's. I sorta see RL as an 'engine' the DP's use to sustain themselves. They illicite emotions from the souls they've trapped there to fuel themselves and their grand illusion. In my version of RL souls are recycled with about a third of them being used at any time. Makes ressurection interesting because the soul might already have been reused making for failure or possesion by something. I dunno.

Ok, been thinking about this a bit... there was something in Ravenloft before it was the Ravenloft we know now, right? Aren't there artifacts that are being found or have been found in some of the books? (Been too long, may have this confused with someplace else. If so, forgive me.)

Assuming this is the case, do you think that the Dark Powers are the same ones now that had it before, or is this a new set of Powers?

If this sounds mangled, please forgive me. Egg nog overload lately.

I think the idea of Vestiges holds significant merit. However, were I to run a RL campaign (maybe soon), I wouldn't want the DP's to seem at all weak or powerless. Perhaps the Vestige or Vestiges in question discovered or developed some secret to pushing beyond the usual helplessness of Vestige existance. This could replace the group of demiliches discussed earlier, perhaps experimenting or simply enjoying the influx of human emotion. Hence Vecna, who has knowledge of all secrets, may have known of a loophole or bargaining chip able to be used in his esape from the Demiplane of Dread. Who else would know what the DP's desired? Most Vestiges were once mortal men or women, but their perception of good and evil, law and chaos have been perverted.

As a player, I imagine the DP's and the Mists simply as they apply to me. A force not to be trifled with.

Nathan of the FoS wrote:They were weird creatures from another kind of reality who were stranded in the D&D cosmos and started causing trouble. The gods of the D&D cosmos eventually succeeded in trapping them in a demiplane; after many futile attempts to escape, the Dark Powers discovered that they could draw other beings into their prison <snip>. They are hoping that someone they entrap will find the way to break free of this prison and that they (the Dark Powers) will then be able to ride to freedom on that person's coattails.

Nice. According to your theory, the Time of Unparelleled Darkness may be not so much the end of the demiplane but the time in which the DPs escape and begin to spread all their evil and darkness into the rest of the D&D Universe.

Guardian of Twilight wrote:I was just wondering if anyone here has actually in their campaigns revealed what the Dark Powers are. Or, at least what you have made them to be.

They are mostly mysterious, but I have the Dark Powers manifest as a rise in the fog and mist level, with increased humidity in traditional regions, like Barovia. Shortly thereafter, a figure in a gray cloak with a ruby red oval-shaped talisman appears. The figure can appear as anyone, anything, from an old Vistani woman to a burly young human male.

Gwenfloor wrote:They are mostly mysterious, but I have the Dark Powers manifest as a rise in the fog and mist level, with increased humidity in traditional regions, like Barovia. Shortly thereafter, a figure in a gray cloak with a ruby red oval-shaped talisman appears. The figure can appear as anyone, anything, from an old Vistani woman to a burly young human male.

Huh, that's rather interesting. Thank you for sharing!

I have never revealed the "Dark Powers", But I know who they are in my game. Many eons ago thier was one god that was so evil that all the other gods put this god in a prison in the ethreal Border. Well to look after this god, the other gods put in the ethreal border his gaurds ( the dark power). They were good but over time the influence of this one evil have caused most to go insane (now they are nuetruel). One the Dark Powers devised a plan that adding souls to the prison would make the jail stronger. That is all I have currently.

I have never really wanted to explain what the Dark Powers are...I think every and any theory is usally valid as any other

I do like the idea that the Dark Powers are a force of punishment...the "jailor" theory...and that they are neither malign or benign and not out to corrupt (i.e. temptation) the good and innocent...they just test the moral strength of people when someone voluntarily commits an immoral act...tempting the "evil doer" to more and more power while physically warping him/her into the monster their soul is evolving into until ultimately they are granted their own domain as punishment for their wicked deeds

I'm not going to say what the Dark Powers are in my game, because my players read this forum. XD But I will reveal the nature of the DPs from the game of a friend of mine.

In his game, the Dark Powers were the ultimate spiritual evolution of the sins of mankind. Whenever we hate, hurt, or exploit one another, a psychic resonance is created that transcends time and space, reverberating through existence. Eventually, these vibrations all meet one another, and there they coalesced into discrete beings whose very essence was composed of the dark side of mortal nature. Since this energy transcends time itself, they have always existed and will always exist.

As they gained sentience and awareness, these dark embodiments began to question their own nature. They were aware of the means of their creation, but not of their own ultimate meaning. To discover this, they combined their power to create a world beyond the sight of good where they could make a "spiritual pressure cooker" to determine the final meaning of evil. This makes them sort of philosopher-kings of darkness.

Their exact number is unknown, but rumor claims that there are thirteen Dark Powers, each one representing a basic darkness of the human soul. The seven deadly sins name some of them, but the most terrible of their number hides its evil nature behind a mask of virtue: Hope. Where the other Dark Powers focus on creating manifestations of their evil through the darklords and their minions, Hope works its dire will against the common man as the still-small voice that says "things can get better tomorrow" - even though they can't. The world was forged from evil, and while good might thrive for a time, it is only as a weed might thrive in a garden full of beautiful roses, soon to be removed by the garden's watchful owners. Thus, all hope is false hope.

Someday, the Time of Unparallelled Darkness will come, and the Dark Powers will make themselves manifest in the bloody garden of their creation. During this time, they will decide among themselves which of them is the purest, truest evil, and that one will become the embodiment of all that is darkness, everywhere. What will become of the garden when the gardeners finish their experiment? No one knows, but they are unlikely to simply leave it behind when they go, nor are they likely to dismantle it gently.

I thought his explanation was pretty good. The one thing I can say about how it lines up with mine is that I see the DPs as philosopher-scientists myself.

Jeremy Puckett (Hida Jiremi)

For my game back in the day, I used to be infatuated with the nightmare court, so my DP theory was that Ravenloft was their creation out of the fabric of the dreams of Tharizdun (the dark god trapped in the demi-plane of imprisonment).

Another interesting take on it is from the Oathbound campaign setting, in part developed by one of the Ravenloft designers, it has Dark Powers, etc., and gives a concrete explanation as to the hows/whys. Although I don't remember exactly, I think it's a "big evil trapped in the realm, guarded," with the guards being the guards because they are being punished. The guards figured out they could pull people into the realm, and do so in order to try and forge creatures/heroes more powerful than themselves who will then replace them as guards. That's more or less how I remember it, anyway.

In regard to human-centric gaming--again I have to point at Unknown Armies. That game is all about power and consequences--in a way, most of the Darklords are UA characters of a sort. Each character has a noble stimulus, a fear stimulus, and a rage stimulus, which the player can use to in-game effect. The sanity system is based on an axis of five things, supernatural, helplessness, violence, etc. Whenever the character is put in a situation that causes a check on one of these axes, the player makes a roll and the character can either fail it, or succeed and become hardened to it. (I.e. You work in a slaughterhouse, you might throw up or cry a few times the first day, but after that...not so much. etc.).

Anyway, the Lords themselves resemble that to me. As for the Dark Powers... now, if I *had* to define them, I would show a scene from the old western, The Wild Bunch (I think it was called). In the beginning, there is a group of children who have built a stick box around an anthill and put scorpions in it. They are poking the the anthill/ants/and scorpions with sticks, and the ants are swarming all over, and the scorpions are stinging the ants, and the children just sit there blank-faced, poking the whole mess with that stick.

If asked now, I'd show that brief little part of the movie, and I would say, "you see those children? *They* are the Dark Powers."

Slerm

Slerm wrote:As for the Dark Powers... now, if I *had* to define them, I would show a scene from the old western, The Wild Bunch (I think it was called). In the beginning, there is a group of children who have built a stick box around an anthill and put scorpions in it. They are poking the the anthill/ants/and scorpions with sticks, and the ants are swarming all over, and the scorpions are stinging the ants, and the children just sit there blank-faced, poking the whole mess with that stick.

If asked now, I'd show that brief little part of the movie, and I would say, "you see those children? *They* are the Dark Powers."

Geez. As twisted as that sounds, I might be inclined to agree with you. Never saw the movie, but man, those kids sound creepy... and evil.

Guardian of Twilight wrote:Never saw the movie, but man, those kids sound creepy... and evil.

Nah, just "gay and innocent and heartless," like all children. Ask JM Barrie.

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:I've theorized that the demiplane is actually built out of "phantom shifts" (i.e. chunks of the Ethereal which replicate regions of the Material Plane impregnated by powerful emotions) that the DPs have gathered together and rendered tangible. This would explain why there's a Barovia in Ravenloft, and another on the Material Plane: the DPs stole an Ethereal copy of Strahd's realm, not the real thing.

Excellent idea. Indeed one of the things that are hard to explain is how they create whole realms including vegetation and buildings and people out of seemingly nothing. This explains it nicely. It is a sort of manipulation of the Ethereal that extends the powers of the genesis spell. It mirrors some divine powers (to shape their divine realm) but does not really intrude on the divine level creation of life, as they just take copies/echoes of things real. Now where do the souls come from?