Café de Nuit

Esteemed members of the Fraternity,

Summer at an end, back to work!

Let’s now embark the Sea of Sorrows to explore these forsaken places…

First stop: Dominia!

Dr Dominiani is very happy to see you...

---

Third edition info: RL3E / RLPH

Second edition: Red Box (RL Campaign Setting), Domains of Dread, Feast of Goblyns, Bleak House

---

Appeared during the Grand Conjunction (year 740).
Current status: Island located in the Sea of Sorrows.

Darklord: Dominiani, Dr. (Daclaud Heinfroth)

---

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).

---

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

Interesting domain, but I keep thinking HP Lovecraft whenever the whole cerebral/psychosis aspect of the domain and its darklord comes up. If I have my way, I would place this domain with Bluetspur in a madness-themed cluster, so that the labyrinthine tunnels that hold the cells underneath the asylum will eventually lead to the subterranean slave pits and brine pools of the illithids.

Just posting to say the above poster has a really awesome name. Welcome to the boards!

Thanks. It's autobiographical.

I joined so that I can harass the folks behind the Fraternity to hurry up with that Sea of Shadows netbook but I guess that would be too rude...

Haven't used Dominia myself yet, but I just wanted to mention an idea I read somewhere that I plan on using when I do. If your PCs have faced (and possibly slain) Dominiani in Feast of Goblyns and then meet him again on Dominia, whether during Bleak House or in your own adventure, there's a big problem of trust. You can't easily play the "good doctor" again once it's known that you feed on your patients' cerebrospinal fluid.

So I read a good solution once, I believe on the old RL mailing list. The key is that cerebral vampires are immune to sunlight. So you have Dr. D first meet the heroes in the full light of day, and if necessary, have him thank them for "slaying" him, because it allowed him to be "reborn" as a human again (a gift from Ezra or maybe the Morninglord, he claims), and continue the good work he did before undeath made him a monster. Hopefully, this "proof" will get the PCs to play along long enough to pull the rug out from them again and reveal that he's just a different kind of monster now.

Here's something of an adventure hook:

Dr. Dominiani's henchmen recently found and, accidentally, killed a very peculiar interloper. A strange creature looking not unlike a man with rubbery flesh and a squid-like head.

Since his discovery, the good doctor has found himself the object of assassination attempts which have so far failed seeing as the responsible party is unaware of his true nature. However, he feels as if the creature may have more of his kin somewhere in the asylum and may need the help of outsiders to deal with this hostile takeover.

In truth, the illithids are looking for a particularly potent psion whose mind snapped after unwillingly conjuring a fiendish larvae. By the time they found out about the man, he had already been sent away by family members to Heinfroth's asylum with hopes of waking him from his despondent state.

In the same vein, the Nightmare Court could be substituted for the illithid, with Dominiani losing his source of sustenance to the Court.

Alternatively, the Illithid could be courting Dominiani for some inscrutable purpose.

- they could be trading surgical knowledge between each other.

- Illithid could be sent to learn more on human psychology and ways to 'break down' mental resistances more easily from the Doctor. This could be in exchange for making sure that Domiani has a steady influx of mental patients.

- Perhaps the Godbrain has taken an interest in the Doctors work and how it might relate to it's struggle for a mobile existence.

Dr. Dominiani has two assistants in Bleak House, named Dr. White and Dr. Black. Who are these people? Where do they come from?

Dr. Black was once a member of the Fraternity of Shadows, assigned to stay close to Dominiani and report to his masters on the fledgeling Darklord's development. When the GC ripped Dominiani off and cast him into the Mists, Black was cut off from his associates and fell into the Darklord's clutches. Later, when the DP's granted the power to make cerebral vampires, Dr. Black was among the first. Now he languishes at his master's side, but what might happen if he were to recontact his superiors?

I'll leave Dr. White to someone else.

While most of his research into insanity is conducted at his asylum, Heinfroth also keeps up a correspondance with alienists throughout the Core, and sends agents to investigate cases that capture his interest. PCs might encounter his vampiric assistants outside Dominia, on errands such as:

- Retrieving the original research notes of Dr. Gregorian Illhousen from the ruins of the Clinic for the Mentally Distressed, or (if necessary) its dream-world duplicate.

- Collecting well-water samples from Chateaufaux, and using them to re-create the hallucinogen used by the devils in Chilling Tales.

- Documenting the eccentricities of Maykle's inhabitants, and discreetly exposing captives to "miasmal gases" to determine if fumes are really to blame for their behavior.

- Discreetly capturing a few Vechorites for transport to Dominia, so their capacity to tolerate a wildly-unpredictable environment can be tested to its limits.

I would presume that there is a small but lucrative market in designer gaslighting. For example, an undead pirate has some need of living men to complement his crew of undead grunts but finds that the the living can't handle the stressful situation very well, so he trades plundered supplies at Dominia for sailors gaslighted to be incapable of recognising undead for what they are.

Evidently, nobles, domain lords and such may have more esoteric needs . . . .

"Sena gazed upon the blasted place with wide-eyed confusion. Horace had the look of a hunted animal. Which in fact he was, as were we all. I was very much worse for wear, and more than a little concerned that our fate now rested upon the trustworthiness of the Vistani, and, for that matter, of our employer. Lying on the ground between us was a native of the sunless realm, one of the proprietors of the vast butcher shop. The thing, tentacles and all, was bound tight as a drum, or nearly so, and covered with two score of leeches supplied by the doctor. They, or at very least my swift kick to its head, were proving to be effective. Nonetheless, not two feet away from me, the thing's stomach noisily digested Victor's brain. A second kick to its head did my toe little good and less for poor Victor. Repeated kicks to its belly had failed to oblige it to part ways with its breakfast. Minutes seemed to pass as hours. Then a sudden and violent gust of wind threw up a wall of dust. When I could see clearly again, our rescuers and their vardos stood in waiting. We would live to reach the ile of Domina, to deliver the damn thing, to reap our reward."

-Brutus Nostrum retelling himself how he came to be confined in Doctor Daclaud Heinforth's Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed

nice job on that story Cure.

Somewhere within the Core.

'Come on it will be fun"
"I don't know Hans"
"Look, it only and old skeleton, the old guy was just trying to scare us. I mean ' Behold the curse skeleton of the Duke Gundar, bewared for only this simple shaft of wood holds him in check, and devouring the innocent once more!’ Please, some old fraud tell you some old skeleton he probably dug up himself and stuck a piece of wood in is a vampire’s and you believe him. Look I prove it” and pulls the stake free. “See nothing” Swiftly Hans starts to leave.
“…….Er Hans?”
“Yes what?”
“l-l-look”
“Oh for Ezra’s sake”


“ARRRRRRH”

…………………

The ragged and gaunt figure, stood up from the drained husks before him, how long had it been, five years, twenty, since his deceitful toad of a servant had betrayed him. Now he would make him pay, he would make them all pay starting with “DOMINIANI”

………………….

Dominina, Private Sanctum of Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth

A chill, passes up the back of a figure writing at a desk, pausing, a smile lingers on his face. “Welcome back master. After all these years, and so many patients I believe I will have to have something special prepared for you when you find me.”

cure wrote:-Brutus Nostrum retelling himself how he came to be confined in Doctor Daclaud Heinforth's Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed

So do I understand this to mean that they were commissioned by Heinfroth to hunt down an illithid for capture?

I'd like to hear more about this story.

Yes, hired by the good doctor to kidnap an illithid, in furtherence of his research into madness.

Beyond that, I envisioned the adventurers/mercenaries to be Darkonese (hence the Latin names) and, as suggested by the story itself, the good doctor, rather than paying them, locked them away in his asylum where they are beginning to doubt (among other things) the reality of their expedition to Blutspur.

The leeches were evidently psychic leeches, applied to cripple the illithid's psiconic abilities.