Domain of the month - N Sea Report - Vechor

[Joël of the FoS]

Esteemed members of the Fraternity,

We are doing a blitz to finish the Nocturnal Sea Report, and complete Vechor. Please help us enrich this description, with ideas, suggestions, adventure hooks and DPs!


Third edition info: RL3E / RLPH, SotDR (for Easan)

Second edition: Black Box (Realm of Terror), Red Box (RL Campaign Setting), Domains of Dread

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Created in 600
Island located in the Nocturnal Sea.
Thought lost in the Grand Conjunction (year 740), but reappeared in 750 when the Nocturnal Sea was formed
Darklord: Easan the Mad

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From now on, in these monthly adventure hook requests, we will eventually cover all domains, but will also offer brainstorming opportunity about famous NPCs of dread (back soon).

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So post here your adventure hooks or stories.

Reminder: This thread is not just for adventure hooks, it can also be to host short verbatim of local sayings or fireside tavern conversations, à la Gaz 1 web enhancement... or your DM thoughts about this domain.

This thread is for posting adventure hooks or comments / suggestion / improvements on another poster's hook. Other comments will be deleted.

Joël

[cure]

Well, this is a bit radical, but let's toss out the demon possessed Easan the Mad in his entirety and create a domain where its changeability is at least thematic. In his place I propose Salvador Dali as the darklord and one can guess the consequent aspect of the land.

What would be his crime and his curse? It seems unlikely that blasphemy would greatly excite the curiosity of the Dark Powers. But perhaps a more general mocking of all that is sacred which is part and parcel of an unbound exploration of the taboo.

So let us imagine that he was carried off during a dinner party at which he and his guests undertook to sample human flesh. His curse is the equivalent of that visited upon the heroin addict, to get ever less satisfying rushes of artistic insight from ever greater doses of debauched transgression. So a little Marquis de Sade is also being stirred into the mix.

Oh, should I have included a restricted rating?

[Nathan of the FoS]

Well, this is a bit radical, but let's toss out the demon possessed Easan the Mad in his entirety and create a domain where its changeability is at least thematic. In his place I propose Salvador Dali as the darklord and one can guess the consequent aspect of the land.

What would be his crime and his curse? It seems unlikely that blasphemy would greatly excite the curiosity of the Dark Powers. But perhaps a more general mocking of all that is sacred which is part and parcel of an unbound exploration of the taboo.

So let us imagine that he was carried off during a dinner party at which he and his guests undertook to sample human flesh. His curse is the equivalent of that visited upon the heroin addict, to get ever less satisfying rushes of artistic insight from ever greater doses of debauched transgression. So a little Marquis de Sade is also being stirred into the mix.

Oh, should I have included a restricted rating?

Sounds like Ghastria, no?

For better or worse, a full-scale reworking of the domain is not feasible. We're looking for things that fit in canon Vechor, as described so far.

[Brandi]

Sounds like Ghastria, no?

Well, more like Ghastria than Vechor, but not quite.

(Sorry for the lack of ideas about Vechor. If I think of one I'll let you know.)

[Joël of the FoS]

Another subject for your thoughts: things often change in Vechor. We already got a big list of these changes, but I'd like to hear your ideas for these eerie alterations!

Joël

[Isabella]

I imagined Vechor being a crazy, chaotic landscape, racked by volcanos, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, landslides; it's pretty much natural disaster-ville. The monsters are bizzare chimerical creatures, beasts that thrive on deception (like displacer beasts), and animals that are out of their habitat. I read an article on a group of lions and water buffalo that got displaced into a water island habitat, which caused them to completely change their behavior and even appearance. The water buffalo formed a giant "super herd", and the lions took to swimming to bring down their prey, causing thgem to become HUGE muscle-bound creatures. I figured a lot of strange, displaced animals would be common in Vechor.

As for the cities, I imagine them to be the ultimate expression of the question of safety vs. freedom. The cities are under martial law; they have to be, to even try to survive, but they can't enforce order outside their walls, and even the order within is a thin facade that cracks when a natural disaster hits. If you're outside a city, you can do whatever you want, if you can survive all the random creatures tooling around.

[Isabella]

Here's some more thoughts:

Easan's been accused of being too much like Mordenheim and Meredoth with the "wacky experiments" niche, but I think there's room for all of them in the mists; Easan is more interested in the human mind and soul where Mordenheim ignores them. I think Vechor should be reminiscent of all those social experiments that people would love to perform... if it didn't mean doing horrible things to other people. Let's have Easan actually be the ruler of Vechor - not just a figurehead, but an active ruler.

For example, let's make that stupid "V" that every citizen has on their forehead into, say, a kind of magical "bar code." Maybe it's not even on the forehead anymore. It has your social security number, identification, and personal info all rolled up into one. Wouldn't that make census taking a breeze? And there are a million other social programs that can be put into place that seem like good ideas until you take a step back and realize that these are people and that you've just declared martial law.

And the real kicker, the one that will grate on every do-gooder's nerves, is the closer you get to the capital of Vechor, the more Utopian it gets. Every one is happy, society is well running, and they're the friendliest folk you'll ever find in the mists... at least, until a natural disaster happens.
Or you find the experiments the programs were based on up in Easan's lab.

And the people don't want to change. It comes down to the question of sacrificing one person so that everyone else will be happy. When you ask anyone academically if they'd do such a thing they'll usually answer "no", but when someone else is doing it and you never see the consequences I'm willing to bet most people would let it slide. Sure, you can tromp in there and destroy their perfect world, but it's going to involve a lot of dead people because you can best believe that the Vechorites (Vechorins?) aren't willing to let go of their illusions of order like that.

Easan's kind of like that too; even worse, Easan is an inherently disorderly person, so his attempts at science and experiments are pretty random at best. He's genuinely interested in people and how they act. He's the kind of person who really wants to know what will drive a man to kill his best friend, or if man's pride is so great he'd rather keep his darkest secret than save his loved one's life. It's the kind of thing roleplayers are interested in, only he tests real people instead of fictional constructs.

I really think Easan, when met, would be a pleasant, likable person, because he's so interested in people. Sure, he speaks in technobabble (and its close cousin, magicbabble) half the time, and he's charmingly scatterbrained, but most of his experiments are innocuous and he seems to genuinely be trying to help. It's only in his later experiments that it starts to seem morally fuzzy, but still justifiable; for example, he might perform the Milgram experiment again. It seems terrible, but he didn't force anyone to shock the test subject.
And then it gets into the worst experiments. Removing parts of people's brains. Mind altering drugs. The stuff of nightmares.

[cure]

Sounds like Ghastria, no?

In terms of the landscape not at all, I think. In terms of the Darklord, there is a resonance. But this seems far more flexible than murdering people on a more or less regular bases by way of a gallery viewing.

I imagine a land that would be something of a cross between Vechor as written, Blutspur, the Nightmare Lands and idylic nature, mainly that of Dali's landscapes. So drooping forms, ants, elephants, tigers, symbolism galore. And of course time and form would be fluid.

The Darklord wouldn't be out to kill adventurers. Rather he would want to draw them into his efforts to constantly breach and overthrow social, cultural, moral and natural law/limits. Not that such would be good for their physical and ethical health . . . .

[cure]

We already got a big list of these changes, but I'd like to hear your ideas for these eerie alterations!

Joël

There is a list of wild magic effects somewhere in the forum. It should have useful fodder.

[DocBeard]

Just a few DPs on my part. Also, I really dug the revision of Easan's personality and goals Isabella just did; one of the things I really liked about the Gazetters is making sure that most of the Darklords are at least in a position to activly scheme and do evil deeds, instead of being locked in the impenetrable towers of their backstory. The revision really captures the spirit of that, keeping the core of Easan's origional concept while expanding his interests and methods to allow for more styles of play and sorts of adventure in his Domain and beyond.

Plus we have a frillion 'evil artists' and not many well developed 'evil psychologists' in Ravenloft, Dr. Dominini aside.

Dread Possibility
The Gnome Who Would Be King: One of the more infamous of Easan's practices was his 'mechanical' phase, where he created alchemical and clockwork creations the likes of which the world has never seen. Most of these are thought destroyed, but in reality an order of Gnome monks and alchemists, the Order of the Universial Gear, have been working in secret to gather these items together, believing that they can find the key to enlightenment in the paradox of the king of chaos creating works of order.

Their leader, Darius Flavian (Male Gnome, Monk 5/Alchemical Philosopher 5, LE) has a darker goal, concieved during his apprenticeship when he read an ancient tome that new lands are revealed from the Mists when the right sort of sin has been committed; he believes that the gnomes of Ravenloft have suffered as jesters and jokes for too long, and need a domain of their own in order to gain the level of fear and respect that the elves and humans enjoy. What's eternal imprisonment when compared to the liberation of the Gnomish peoples?

Dread Possibility
The Children of Eternal Peace: Meredoth, not one to pass up a chance at necromatic experimentation, has created what appears to be a hospice of unexpectedly friendly, hospitable devotees of Hala, a godsend in the chaotic wilds of Velchor. The only problem is that every man, woman and child living in the hospice is an undead creature under the control of the grandfather of necromancers.

Meredoth's experiement is threefold; observing what the effects of such an unstable environment have on the static undead psyche, observing if the bond between obediant dead and master remains stable accross Domain borders over a long period of time and, unknown to any of the lieutenants he has monitoring the project, a quiet fient to judge just how powerful this 'Easan the Eternal' really is. It's been years since the old man's had a rival worth the effort, after all, and the master of the Nocturnal Sea hypothesises that the sort of creative energy generated by a good hate on could be just what he needs to revitalize his work.

Dread Possibility
Beyond The Horizon: Some rumors have spread that beyond Velchor's eastern border is a mistway of unprecidented size and stability, the Mists's natural reaction to the Domain itself being what it is. The rumors offer a plethora of ultimate destinations; a mysterious empire more advanced than Darkon hidden in the east, the homeland of the wild elves from where King Easan was banished, a hell of salt and boiling oil, or even the way to the legendary Mistmark, a stable, unchanging point in the mists that could be used in a similar fashion to using the stars to navigate the ocean.

As contact with Velchor increases, these tall tales spread throughout the Core, bringing a slow but steady trickle of adventurers to the island to see just what the changing kingdom's hiding. Easan is particularly proud of this ruse's effectiveness, as it has allowed him access to a broader spectrum of test subjects than he's had a chance to work with in ages...unless, of course, the 'ruse' is more true than Easan recalls it being. Would anyone dare try and find out?

Dread Possibility
The Name That Must Not Be Remembered: The fiendish portion of Easan's soul, during its more dominant moments, has managed to retain the idea that something has gone terribly wrong. This was not supposed to be a perminant thing, and it can only conclude that the elf has found some way to trap it inside of his fetid flesh until he can find some more perminant way of destroying it. In secret, the fiend has influenced the dreams of several Velchorites, bringing together a cult that it has dream-taught the ancient rituals nessicary to summon it. Mai Shinrai (Female Human, Wizard 7, CE), leader of the cult, requires one final component to complete the ritual and, she believes, free Velchor from the many curses etched into the land-the true name of the fiend.

Fortunately for Velchor, the fiend cannot directly give its name to the pawn because, after so long sharing a soul with the elf, it cannot remember. Instead, Mai searches for victims, believing that dark rituals of diviniation can discover the fiend's true name; all they need is to find the right sort of torment to inflict on the right person. (Note: The naming of the human was based entierly on the kukri being a suguested weapon feat in Velchor's description in the core book. If the authors have another common naming scheme in mind, they're welcome to change the NPC to fit the setting better.)

[Brandi]

And the people don't want to change. It comes down to the question of sacrificing one person so that everyone else will be happy.

Omelas as a domain, eh? Hm.

[Isabella]

Omelas as a domain, eh? Hm.

Well since it's less conceptual not quite, since Easan doesn't go around telling everyone about his horrific experiments. But if someone else starts telling everyone how awful Easan is, the Vechorites won't believe it, no matter what evidence is presented.

Some ideas for adventure in Vechor:

I see the outskirts of Vechor as kind of a "Wild West" atmosphere. Whoever is strongest can do whatever they feel like. It's a great refuge for people who need to hide; even the Kargat doesn't want to venture into the outskirts of Vechor, since freak accidents seem to keep occurring to their agents. So, for example:

-The Kargat could secretly try to manipulate the PCs to assassinate someone who slipped into Vechor.
-Someone runing from the Kargat could hire the PCs to get them safely to a settlement.
-A settlement could hire them as an informal posse, in the hopes that they can keep some order.
-A wronged person could plead their case to the PCs as their only hope of justice.
-A natural disaster could strike a settlement, leaving the PCs to help rebuild, dig out survivors, and defend the area from the incoming monsters.

Easan himself would also love to have the PCs working for him. The obvious hook would be to ask their aid in demon hunting, but he can also ask for captured creatures for his experiments, helping kill too dangerous monsters, or just running the PCs through test scenarios that he forgot to mention.

There's not much to do in the city utopias except destroy them (for extra fun, have the cities function perfectly well without Easan but employ lots of programs that make players uneasy, like bar code tatoos and arcane eye spies everywhere.)


If Easan is interested in the psychology of others, he might have taken an interest in his fellow Darklords - the most likely target would be Azalin Rex, who is the most interesting, the most active, and the closest darklord to Vechor aside from Baron Evensong. What might he do to indulge his curiosity?

[The Giamarga]

Should Easan be restatted with the wild mage prestige class from Complete Arcane? Is he fiendish or transpossessed?

[DocBeard]

Should Easan be restatted with the wild mage prestige class from Complete Arcane? Is he fiendish or transpossessed?

Ultimately, it's whoever's call, but I really think Sorcorer handles the whole "instinctual, crazy magic" schtick pretty well. Why throw in extra complications when there's a simple way to say what you're trying to say?

On the other hand, I think transpossession is way more interesting of a mechanic than just being Joe Fiendish. In fact, I'd even say that Easan's level of transpossession should vary between 1 and 4, depending on if the "elf" or "fiend" aspects of his psyche are dominant one way or the other, or activly struggling-melded; one evening, Easan's captured the PCs for relitivly civilized psychological study, the next evening, his fiendish side has decided that a good psychological study would be to see how they react to not being allowed to breathe every few hours, and the next day a Easan trapped in a struggle with himself is so enraged that he just spends the whole encounter screaming about the bugs that are invading his skin and how they've evolved past regular scarab bugs into creatures that burrow inwards, reproducing by laying their eggs in a man's soul and devouring his bone marrow.

And then have calm, reposed Easan tell the PCs the next evening that the strange itching sensation and chest pains they've been feeling are entierly psychosomatic, and in order to cure them the only rational solution is total sensory deprivation through a controled gateway to the Near Etherial.

...okay, so any group worth their salt would probably have escaped or flipped the table by then-for a real adventure, you'd want a more interactive sceneario, but it's a good visual for why Easan is scary; it's not because he's "laaaawwwlll crazy and gots a fiend in my brains!", it's because he's two spiritual opposites spot-weilded together. Both sides of Easan persue the same goal-to become entierly seperate beings again-but ultimately spend more time destroying their own work out of a combination of spite and an inability to understand eachother.

In a sense, Easan and Velchor can arguably be seen as a microcosm of Ravenloft itself, with Easan playing the role of the schitzophrenic Dark Powers trying to methodoically discover /something/ and having almost absolute control of the conditions of the study, if not for those accursed rebels, rival powers, disloyal aspects of his own mind, or those meddling adventurers and their stupid talking dog. In other words, he's not just a madman, he's a madman with a purpose, a goal he honestly believes he can achieve with juuuust enough work, or juuust the right idea.

But, I digress! Back to transposession; I think it's a nice way to mechanically represent Easan's instability being mental, physical, and spiritual, without having to throw a whole new mechanic into the mix.

[Isabella]

Ultimately, it's whoever's call, but I really think Sorcorer handles the whole "instinctual, crazy magic" schtick pretty well. Why throw in extra complications when there's a simple way to say what you're trying to say?

Well, Easan was a wild mage in 2nd Ed. I like it because of the random effects his spells sometimes exhibit - he can spend all day trying to figure out why the spell went wrong when they're really just random blips caused by his own chaotic psyche.