The Dark Powers

[The Giamarga]

Actually, my assumption that the DPs perhaps should be closer to mortals than to deities (or to innately-evil fiends or incomprehensible Cthuloid monstrosities, for that matter) has more to do with the setting's basic themes than with any deep thoughts about human psychology, TwiceBorn. If there's one prevailing rule about Ravenloft's darkness, it's that human emotions and motivations should always be what drives villainy, not the "inscrutable" (read: DM not bothering to role-play) aims of aliens or the arbitrary misdeeds of one-dimensional "bad guy" cliches. Which darklords are invariably accounted the ideal archetypes for the setting? The ones whose goals, drives and intentions reflect the dark side of human nature, even if the darklords in question may not happen to be human, themselves.

So why should the Dark Powers -- who, whatever their motives, are the ultimate instigators of everything that makes the Land of Mists a realm of horror and darkness -- be any exception to the rule? Gods or other transcendent beings aren't people. Villains in Ravenloft should be ... or at least close enough to people for people (i.e. gamers) to fully understand them. Anything less, and you're losing the "There But For The Grace Of The Gods Go I..." factor.

Villains yes, but the DPs ? Why should they be the exception? Because they are the experimenter's. They study human nature trying to proove a point they want to make but not succeeding due to their own failure to deeply understand human nature. Outsiders are human ideals given form. Mammon is the incarnation of greed. They are human thoughts and emotions and belief given form, but at the same time they are alien in that they see creation only in light of their own skewed perspective and can't encompass or understand the whole range of human nature.

The point they want to prove appears to be that there is no hope and no point in heroics. That there is no good in human nature and that evil and despair is the natural state of things. Which describes the bleak nature of the arch-yugoloths to a t. (I wish we could have Shemeshka pop in here and add some ideas.)

[The Giamarga]

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.

Very interesting detail. I think this could be incorporated into most of the other theories and add to them quite nicely. Even if the people are only copies/echoes of people in the world, their souls have to come from somewhere and it would not be easy to get them.

It is very similar to the following suggestion put forth by Kain Darkwind on dicefreaks: Basically, I suggested that the average people of Ravenloft have sort of a limited soul pool, and are eternally reincarnated and live out their lives. The cycle is probably just large enough to encompass three generations, so that no one (or barely) remembers that John the Blacksmith at 20 years old was also John the former blacksmith that died 21 years ago.

Essentially, the common folk of Ravenloft are trapped in a never ending cycle of death, rebirth and miserable life.

Adds quite nicely to the gloom of Ravenloft and possibly explains why the land itself is aspected towards evil and despair so much.

[The Giamarga]

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 guards ( the dark power). They were good but over time the influence of this one evil have caused most to go insane (now they are neutral). One the Dark Powers devised a plan that adding souls to the prison would make the jail stronger. That is all I have currently.

This is abit too similar to Tharizdun tale imho but then again it could be connected to it as another poster wrote above. But it fails to take into account why they do things how they do them, which is nicely explained by Rotiphers experimenters seeking to prove a point theory. Maybe the key to their own release is proving this point. A motivation which was missing from Roti's theory.

-- The Giamarga, in search of a Unified Theory of the Dark Powers.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I'm glad you like the "phantom shifts" idea. (Also amazed you went back to this old thread and dug it out! ) In a way, having the Land build from phantom shifts also accounts for how very evokative Ravenloft's landscapes tend to be: they might be scary, or breathtakingly beautiful, or heartbreakingly lonely and desolate, but they're never just bland and boring. Only a landscape that evokes an emotional response has sufficient resonance to provide the necessary "building blocks" to work with.


I've even linked the mystery of Tatyana's "reincarnations" to this idea, IMC. It's not really her spirit that keeps returning, in my games, but rather, phantoms of her original, living presence, rendered tangible and lifelike by the Dark Powers. During her brief lifetime in Material Plane Barovia, Tatyana (being a passionate person) left several psychic impressions of herself on the fabric of the Barovian Near Ethereal. When the Dark Powers created Ravenloft's copy of Barovia, they gathered up these pseudo-Tatyana images, and have been sending them into Strahd's domain to torment him every few decades.

As they each manifest only a fraction of her original personality, each such duplicate develops rather different traits: Ireena from I6 was her in a spirited mood and is a fighter; Tara Kolyana was based on an image of her engaged in pious prayer, so is a cleric; etc. In truth, none of them is a complete person (though Tara comes close, having lived far longer than the rest), and none is the real thing ... but of course, since Strahd never really bothered to get to know Tatyana, but was merely infatuated with her superficial beauty and youthfulness, he's never noticed the difference.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Maybe the key to their own release is proving this point. A motivation which was missing from Roti's theory.

Not "missing", just confidential. My players read these boards at times, so I didn't want to post the Secrets Of The Dark Powers (well, my Dark Powers anyway ) in public.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Now where do the souls come from?

Where do they come from, in any other world? Maybe souls just happen. Maybe the first generation of residents of a new domain have no souls, but their descendents acquire them in the same mysterious manner as do people on other worlds.

Alternately, maybe the residents of new-made domains are all victims of Mist-napping. They've had their memories wiped and replaced, so they don't ever realize they're not really from the domains they occupy. If so, they and their descendents would have souls because they're real people and always have been, not Mist-and-resonance creations.

[The Giamarga]

Not "missing", just confidential. My players read these boards at times, so I didn't want to post the Secrets Of The Dark Powers (well, my Dark Powers anyway ) in public.

Now don't tell me you have all the points missing in your theory on page 1 covered but don't want to tell them here.

Whatever the exact point is that they're trying to prove (or who/what they're out to prove it to, for that matter).

[...]

(This brings up the intriguing, and disturbing, notion that if the DPs' efforts in Ravenloft are thus exempted from divine interference, IMC, that would imply that the Dark Powers themselves must qualify as mortals, not gods or equivalently-transcendent beings! But what manner of mortals could ever conceivably attain such power, to re-shape the very fabric of the ethereal plane to craft an entire realm or the Mists that surround it?)

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Villains yes, but the DPs ? Why should they be the exception? Because they are the experimenter's. They study human nature trying to proove a point they want to make but not succeeding due to their own failure to deeply understand human nature.

And Mordenheim created Adam as an experimenter, trying to understand the boundary between life and death. Does that exempt him from being held responsible for his handiwork, in a truly Gothic setting? No, because you can't cry "scientific detachment" as an excuse. The Dark Powers are still acting as villains, even if they're off-stage: they have been, ever since they chose to include innocent Barovians among those they snatched up to populate Strahd's domain.

As for their failure to understand, it's more in keeping with the nature of villainy in Ravenloft if they won't understand -- if they refuse to admit they're wrong about good and evil, just as Azalin won't admit he was wrong about Irik -- than if they're simply not capable of comprehension. Willful villainy is Gothic, and vastly more reprehensible; ignorant villainy is just short-sighted and clumsy.

Outsiders are human ideals given form. Mammon is the incarnation of greed. They are human thoughts and emotions and belief given form, but at the same time they are alien in that they see creation only in light of their own skewed perspective and can't encompass or understand the whole range of human nature.

Which is why they make lousy darklords. Shouldn't the Dark Powers' own natures recapitulate that of their captives? The setting's themes about the nature of evil shouldn't abruptly peter out, merely because we're looking a bit higher up the food chain. What's valid for a two-bit thug is valid for a darklord, is valid for a Dark Power: ultimately, they should all be three-dimensional characters who are firmly to blame for their own misdeeds, not caricaturized inheritors of others' secondhand malice.

The point they want to prove appears to be that there is no hope and no point in heroics. That there is no good in human nature and that evil and despair is the natural state of things. Which describes the bleak nature of the arch-yugoloths to a t.

Only because that's the single most depressing, ugly, repellant view of reality that the game designers -- human game designers -- could come up with, for such outsiders to advocate. But that doesn't mean they're the only ones who could hold to such a view ... indeed, if they're the manifestations of humans' darkest emotions, then there must be a lot of very unhappy humans in the multiverse, who feel the same. So the field's still open for other suspects besides the arch-yugoloths.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Now don't tell me you have all the points missing in your theory on page 1 covered but don't want to tell them here.

I have ideas that work for my campaign. That doesn't mean they'd be any good for yours, or anyone else's, so that's another reason I didn't want to say too much. (Heck, they might turn out to sound real stupid to anyone but me, and that would be embarassing! )

[The Giamarga]

But isn't this what this thread is about? What is your take on the DPs? Put it in spoiler tags and brief your players if you have to, but why not share? Considering your other posts I'm sure it is nothing but brilliant.

[Galeros]

Thread Necromancy!

One of my ideas for the Dark Powers is that they are a mass of countless Ghosts of mortals who died with various regrets and sins. These Ghosts all gathered on the Ethereal Plane as Ghosts are wont to do and eventually began joining together to form a horrendous entity that could said to be the embodiment of mortal sin. This is the "Death" that Strahd made a pact with that led to the formation of the Demiplane. After they made the deal with Strahd they usually do not interfere and let any prospective Darklord's damn themselves to Darklordom. They do not have any real goal other than letting people be terrorized in the Demiplane by the Darklords and other monsters, and endlessly poking the Darklords of course.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

I am not sure if I will ever define the nature of the Dark Powers to myself, but I like to play around with the idea that they are far less limited than some situations would imply. I consider that perhaps they chose not to be able to keep Malocchio from moving darklords between domains, that they chose to let Vecna go even though it might have been possible to keep him in check, that they would choose to allow Lussimar to slip out of the Demiplane if he attained his normal form. I posit that the Dark Powers are capable of practically anything, but pull back, either to appear less threatening to other beings of similar power, to obey some incomprehensible behavioral code, or simply because their game is more fun if they choose to operate within limits.

[brilliantlight]

To me they are LE Greater Gods with an obsession with a warped sense of justice. When someone comes to their attention by doing unjust acts they may punish them with various "dark gifts" including Dark Lordship. They do not care about any innocent bystanders, whoever earns their wrath gets whatever curse they feel like handing out. If others get hurt in the process, so be it. They never go after innocent people. Innocents are hurt as a side effect of their punishment and they don't care because they are massive hypocrites.

For example Strahd will stalk some good, innocent woman who resembles the woman he greatly lusted after (From reading I, Strahd I think he never truly loved her. He just lusted after her and confused it with love) hurting her in the end with a number of other innocent people who accidentally get caught up in it. They don't care about that as long as Strahd is punished.

Vecna was allowed to escape. They made a deal with other gods to test Vecna's "fitness" for godhood in this manner. He never would have escaped on his own.

The gods were upset about the "Grand Conjunction" because they lost a bet with the Dark Powers who set the whole thing in motion. The reason it happened is it was allowed to happen because of the terms of the bet. The reason it came to an end is that the Dark Powers had their fun and it was time to end it. So they set things up so things would reverse and three of the biggest evil beings in Ravenloft would all blame each other.

[High Priest Mikhal]

I know I've posted to threads like this before, but I'll post again.

To me, the Dark Powers are inscrutable beings akin to overgods (gods to the gods themselves). Why they do what they do is something no one--not even the mightiest of the greater gods--can understand. What they even are is equally unknowable. That's what makes them so horrific: they can't be figured out or understood. Their motives will forever be a mystery and even the best theories will remain unproven.

[Mischief]

Apologies for the necro, but I think the Dark Powers are using Ravenloft to sift souls. Why is it that, in the histories of the different worlds (Faerun/Toril, Oerth, Krynn), some mortals achieve astounding power in a short amount of time and come from nowhere to shake the balance? The Dark Powers are stumbling into a certain degree of meta-awareness. They don't understand it in these terms, but they want to know why some individuals become Player Characters and what makes Player Characters special. There is no godly ability that allows them to divine the "player" quality of a soul, so all they can do is lay out what they perceive to be an environment that would culture these souls and watch and wait. The Dark Powers don't really know what they doing, so they are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the wall to see what sticks. They take from every different land they can, they give some individuals power, curse others, deliberately leave weaknesses in the planar fabric to see who exploits it and how, etc.

The Darklords are themselves being tested: each is a very unique individual that has unusual qualities or defied its usual traits in some fashion. Maybe one will somehow manage to change themselves and throw off their yoke. The Darklords are also bait that the Dark Powers think will attract or create unique souls of unusual power. The DP don't want their mice escaping, so Ravenloft is walled in as best as they are able, and each Darklord is boxed up separately to reduce cross-contamination between "testing sites". The Dark Powers agreed amongst themselves not to directly interact with their experimental subjects, because that introduces experimenter's bias into the equation. Anyone who attracts the Dark Powers interests is more likely to meet with Power's checks, which explains why the average PC (who is usually by default weird enough and hangs with unusual company to get the Dark Powers somewhat interested.) makes Powers checks and gets cursed more often than, say, a career Talon who routinely harasses the populace for decades yet doesn't stand out from his peers in any regard.

So far, the Dark Powers have figured out that possible candidates can be strong or weak, and that the state of being "different" probably isn't a sure or fixed thing. Creatures the Dark Powers thought had the potential sometimes just die or stay dead, or stop growing, and the Powers have no clue why that is. In short, the DPs haven't made much progress, but they hope that by adding more lands and more people, they will find more candidates to study.

(Just to be clear, I'm not proposing a 'real world' crossover meta-plot. All the major Dnd (and pathfinder) worlds, and a lot of home settings too, had their lore forged from previous games or novels. The historical trope of ascendant heroes and villains is thus way too frequent to be a coincidence, and any being of godly intelligence would wonder if there is some sort of hidden law of souls that causes some to shine brighter than others.)