Café de Nuit

Following on from my query regarding Tristessa and what warranted her Darklordship, I have given much thought to this Domain and present my revised version.

Please note that as far as I am concerned, Tristessa was from the Drow Kingdom of Arak, as Shadow Fey as presented in the Shadow Rift accessory and Servants of Darkness do not exist in my version of the Core.

To all outsiders, Keening is a land of the dead, haunted by the spirit of a Drow priestess, who roams the Domain at night, searching for her lost child. The Vistani have dubbed her "Tristessa", as no-one knows her actual name.

However, this is not strictly true, as there IS one individual who does know her true name... the true Darklord of Keening, whose curse is to be continually reminded of his crime and for no-one to remember who he is.

Drow society is usually matriarchal, but for some reason Arak was a kingdom, ruled by a king. No-one will ever know what vile deed this king committed to bring him to the attention of the Dark Powers and have his realm spirited away to the Demiplane, as the deed committed by his son resulted in what has become known as "The Scourge of Arak."

The Drow rankled under the rule of the King of Arak, seeking to return to the matriarchal society that they were used to, and sought to empower the king's daughter, a priestess of Lloth, as their new leader. The king's son, realising that this shift in power would result in what he believed his birthright being taken from him, decided to act.

Drugging his sister, he carried her to the darkest caverns below the inhabited levels of the kingdom, where those cursed by Lloth had been banished - the Driders - and abandoned her to their tender mercies. What they visited upon her body was never entirely known, but when she staggered back into the realms above, her mind was shattered and she was with child.

When the child was born, it was an aberration, although she could not see this. The king's son, realising what further opportunity this presented, declared that Lloth had turned from her chosen priestess and this proved that, as the king was ailing (due to regular doses of poison from his son), he was the only real choice as leader of Arak.

Gathering his guards, he marched his sister and her Caliban child to the surface, staking her out to burn as the sun rose. This appeared to restore some of his sister's reason, and she began to realise what had been done to her. As the first rays of the rising sun began to burn her flesh, she called upon the Dark Powers to curse her brother for all eternity. The winds rose and when the tempest had ceased, Arak was no more and Keening had formed. The Scourge of Arak did more than scour the surface of Arak of all life, it also cleansed caverns beneath the surface. Where once was a bustling underground Drow city, there were empty echoing caverns. It was at this point that Arak was lost, becoming part of Darkon and known forever more as the Mountains of Misery.

The prince awoke in what he believed was his kingdom, not realising at first that not only had this been transplanted beneath Mount Lament in the new Domain of Keening, but he was the only living thing beneath the mountain. Not only that, to ensure his continual suffering, the prince had been transformed into a Shade, still living, but never dying.

The prince wanted to rule and now he does, but it is an empty city, bereft of all life. He wanted to be remembered, but his curse is that once any living thing leaves his presence, they slowly begin to forget he even existed. The only reminder of his past is the spirit of his sister, transformed into a banshee, her voice echoing about the empty halls as she searches for the child torn from her arms.

So, that's my version of Keening. From the outside, it appears just as it was, but Tristessa is no longer the Darklord, she is part of the new Darklord's curse. As the Forgotten Prince wants recognition, he now tries to tempt people beneath the mountain with tales of the lost treasure of the Drow concealed in the caverns. However, his curse is that no-one will ever remember his name or his story - or even that exists once they have left his presence. This now gives adventurers a reason to visit Keening (almost a proper dungeon-crawl), but should they survive this experience, any encounter with the Forgotten Prince will fade as a shadow beneath the rising sun.

Carrion Crow wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 10:37 am The prince awoke in what he believed was his kingdom, not realising at first that not only had this been transplanted beneath Mount Lament in the new Domain of Keening, but he was the only living thing beneath the mountain. Not only that, to ensure his continual suffering, the prince had been transformed into a Shade, still living, but never dying.

Sounds a bit like 3rd edition Sithicus, but some parts could be useful as what the rest of the Demiplane's inhabitants believe about Keening and Arak. Since in the Black Box era they believed that both domains were inhabited by drow elves this story can be adapted also as what the people believe it to be even if they don't follow your story, at least that is what I plan to do.

I do not own any 3rd edition RL products, so I'm unfamiliar with 3rd edition Sithicus, so if I've duplicated something from there it was unintentional.

The Shade stats I'm using are from 2E, so mainly utilising the Dragon article from #213, which I think is quite different from Inza's stats? I could be wrong, however.

My main reasoning behind this was that I don't think Tristessa deserves Darklordship from her 2e background, as she appears to be more of a victim. The person who staked her out to die however does deserve a tailored prison, so I extrapolated form the info I had to see what made sense.

I also thought that Keening as it stands is not really a Domain that players would have a reason to visit, but if thee were tales of an abandoned underground city with potential treasures to be had, this may encourage the more greedy to visit. Think of it like a heist scenario, where the players think the only thing they have to avoid is the banshee, not knowing what lurks beneath the mountain.

Carrion Crow wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 3:14 am The Shade stats I'm using are from 2E, so mainly utilising the Dragon article from #213, which I think is quite different from Inza's stats? I could be wrong, however.

I don't mean rule-wise (stats etc) but as a concept of a shadowy darklord who is also an actual darklord.

Carrion Crow wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 3:14 am My main reasoning behind this was that I don't think Tristessa deserves Darklordship from her 2e background, as she appears to be more of a victim. The person who staked her out to die however does deserve a tailored prison, so I extrapolated form the info I had to see what made sense.

Maybe she wants to believe she is a victim but the thing is she created the Scourge of Arak (appearing at the time of her death, possibly the result of a very powerful curse or spell) thus she is a mass murderer.

Carrion Crow wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 3:14 am I also thought that Keening as it stands is not really a Domain that players would have a reason to visit

I disagree the short story from Tales of Ravenloft novel The Wailing shows good reason to visit Keening, unfortunately as written someplace else in this forum the most horrifying place of Tristessa's cave complex is missing from Servants of Darkness 2e adventure, if you read that story I believe your view of Tristessa's victimisation might change.

Mephisto of the FoS wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 11:14 am
Maybe she wants to believe she is a victim but the thing is she created the Scourge of Arak (appearing at the time of her death, possibly the result of a very powerful curse or spell) thus she is a mass murderer.

She created it in a moment of extreme distress, she was not really sound of mind when she did it and I believe that the act of ultimate darkness must respect deadly sin prerequisites: free and deliberate intent, full knowledge and grave matter; I can't see the second requisite fullfilled in a mother on the verge of dieing horribly who just saw her baby dieing horribly.

I don't think her distress can justify the mass murder of innocents.

Mistmaster wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 11:43 am
She created it in a moment of extreme distress, she was not really sound of mind when she did it and I believe that the act of ultimate darkness must respect deadly sin prerequisites: free and deliberate intent, full knowledge and grave matter; I can't see the second requisite fullfilled in a mother on the verge of dieing horribly who just saw her baby dieing horribly.

In Gothic Horror, no, such things do not really apply. A drunken man that kills his father does not have any excuse in Gothic Horror genre. Same for a man that drives a sword in a curtain thinking it hides an assassin only to realize he killed his child hidden to play a prank.
Good and Evil are absolute and the grays come from our imperfect understanding of the rules. But the rules are there and biting.

alhoon wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 7:55 pm

In Gothic Horror, no, such things do not really apply. A drunken man that kills his father does not have any excuse in Gothic Horror genre. Same for a man that drives a sword in a curtain thinking it hides an assassin only to realize he killed his child hidden to play a prank.
Good and Evil are absolute and the grays come from our imperfect understanding of the rules. But the rules are there and biting.

Neither are darklord material, or get a DP check in my gothic horror.

Certainly not darklord material. But your next point is the one that really applies:
It is your game, your table. What is an act worthy of a power's check is for you to decide. Not some definition of a 19th century literary genre. If it works, it works. If not, use something else.

alhoon wrote: Fri Jun 10, 2022 1:49 pm Certainly not darklord material. But your next point is the one that really applies:
It is your game, your table. What is an act worthy of a power's check is for you to decide. Not some definition of a 19th century literary genre. If it works, it works. If not, use something else.

Genre which did differenziate beetwen the tragic characters and the evil ones, however; A tragic character might become evil, but that is not automathic; So the father killing his child by honest mistake not necessary is evil or villanous but could became one if he choose to blame someone other for this, or if he frees a demon from a seal to resurrect his son, in spite of knowing how many people will die. So to me even applyng Gothic Horror definitions Tristessa is a tragic character but not Dark Lord material.

Tristessa is exactly the second kind in your description though, IMO. In the end, it was her own actions and treason that brought the death of her kid and in return she killed everyone in the domain.

No, her kid died because Loth (Or Tristessa's brother) decided to kill her. No foul actions justify the killing of an innocent babe in front of their mother. Tristessa was evil, but her killer is eviler.

It does depend on whether you consider the Scourge of Arak to be the slaying of all life on the surface or just the 'removal' of all life. Whilst Darklords does suggest that the City of the Dead was a result of the Scourge, my head-canon for this is that it just scoured the surface, so all life was removed - possibly returned to where the Arakians came from in the first place.

I always considered the Ravenloft setting to be sandbox in which to run the adventures that suited my players and my own gaming style, so where official canon does not match what I think it should be, I change it, as do most DM's. Each Mistworld is built on the same basic foundations, but each one will be subtly different, so there is no right or wrong answer, just infinite variations on a theme.