Café de Nuit

Trick or treat! WotC threw us a Halloween bone, gang!

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/20071031a


Kudos to Ari Marmell for the first official Ravenloft fiction in quite a while, not to mention a harbinger of novelized horrors to come.

Thanks Roti!
I knew Bluetspur would be the domain of choice!

OK, Places from Ravenloft are indeed mentioned but not the name of the setting.

Nice, I think I spot a tad homage to Lovecraft in there!

Still new RL fiction

It is fun to read, and indeed Lovecraftian (but hey, with Bluetspur, what did you expect ? )

*spoilers*









I thought we were to see the fun crew of the Nightmare Lands, but the story took another twist.

Joël

Thanks for the heads up!

lostboy wrote:Nice, I think I spot a tad homage to Lovecraft in there!

Bingo.

"Before I Wake" was very much my attempt at a Lovecraftian tale. Not that I wanted to imitate him exactly--and even if I'd wanted to, I doubt I could --but I wanted to write and plot a story as much like his as I could, while still keeping "me" in the writing. And of course, once you start thinking "Lovecraft" and "Ravenloft," the domain of Bluetspur seems to be the way to go (though obviously I've put a slightly different spin on my interpretation of that as well).

And I'm really glad people seem to be enjoying it. I've been waiting for the story to go live for a few months now.

Creepy indeed. Thanks for the info!
One thing though that kept me thinking. Was the man an illithid? or did he try to mimic one??

Great to have new RL stuff!

Very nice. Thanks for pointing this out; I probably would've missed it otherwise.

BTW, folks, if you liked the story, by all means, please let WotC know.

There's a very loud, very vocal component of the market that's opposed to seeing fiction in Dragon Online in any way, shape, or form. If you want to see more of it--not just mine, but anyone's--WotC needs to know that there's a market.

Make comments on their messageboards. Send them an e-mail. But make sure they hear you.

Couldn't find the proper place, since the "Discuss this Article" link goes nowhere in particular, and the D&D Fiction forum only had a couple 2 year old threads in it. But I posted my 2 cents here:

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... st14227372

Thanks, Ari!

Tasty little treat!

Precise directions as to where to express support would be helpful.

Basically I enjoyed the story. If you wouldn't mind showing your cards, what precisely occurred, and how was a silencing of dreaming a catalyst for letting the monster out? My only complaint was the reference to Heaven or the heavens that with perhaps another reference or two lent the perfume of Christianity to the protagonist which I found inapt to a character in Ravenloft.

Yup Ari, you the man!

I actually organised a Gleemax account just to say how much I love the story!

But seriously who are the people against fiction? At the end of the day thats what may have brought D&D its most consumers! Hell I got on the bandwagon when I read the DL chronicles back in about '89 (or thereabouts!)....

I, too, just wanted to drop by and say I really enjoyed the fiction. I'm a big Call of Cthulhu/Ravenloft fan and seeing both of them blended so well gives me a great deal of hope for the future of Ravenloft fiction.

BBG