Ravenloft's Santa?

[The Giamarga]

On WotC there was Nicholas the Gift-Giver
Cthulhu has A Lovecraft Christmas by Pete Sears

Is there a Santa pastiche anywhere for Ravenloft?

[Dion of the Fraternity]

ANYANKA: There is a Santa Claus. Been around since, like, the 1500s. He wasn’t always called Santa, but you know, Christmas night, flying reindeer, coming down the chimney—all true. Well, he doesn’t traditionally bring presents so much as, you know, disembowel children, but otherwise…

[lordsathien]

ANYANKA: There is a Santa Claus. Been around since, like, the 1500s. He wasn’t always called Santa, but you know, Christmas night, flying reindeer, coming down the chimney—all true. Well, he doesn’t traditionally bring presents so much as, you know, disembowel children, but otherwise…

"Well, he is Germanic in origin" -Dr. Orpheus

[HuManBing]

I thought I posted this here but the searches show that I didn't. It's all my own work, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to come up with the idea and thus it's probably not original. Help yourself!

Minor cursed NPC: The Sleighmaster

Starting about 5 years ago, an unsettling event began to occur every winter in the frozen wastes of Vorostokhov and occasionally spilling over into Sanguinia. One bright and cloudless morning, the residents of Saratomsk village went about their business and found somehow during the night a track of strange hoof marks had been laid down.

The trail of hoofmarks appeared to be U-shaped, and travelled in a straight line, never deviating. At first, the villagers thought this was a trick played by some mischievous soul in the middle of the night, but further investigation showed an uneasy side to the tracks: whenever they encountered a building, the tracks went straight up the wall, over the rooftops, and down the other side of the building.

Furthermore, the tracks went straight across the domain - unbroken - for hundreds of miles. When travellers made it to other villages to ask, the villagers there all agreed they had appeared during the same night - somehow covering a journey of several days by fastest mortal means... in just a single evening.

Nobody much wanted to follow the tracks to their destination, afraid of what they might find there. As the snow thawed, the U-shaped hoofmarks tightened and transformed into V-shaped hoofmarks, which garnered them the sobriquet "Old Nick's Footprints"...

Every year, they have reappeared on the same day - the day of longest night - and villagers have attempted to follow them to their source. Every year they draw slightly closer, not knowing what awaits them at the other end.

... The Sleighmaster, a.k.a. Saint Nick (perhaps related to Old Nick?) is a bearded, rotund man with a red face of wrathful choler, and who is never seen without his red military uniform with a belt buckle, and clomping the grounds in heavy black military boots. In his domain, he wields absolute despotic power over a small tribe of hapless elves (although some illustrated manuscripts show them to be closer to gnomes).

The Sleighmaster allegedly shares an empathic link with all the children in the realm, as he knows instantly when they're awake or asleep and also if they are Innocents or whether they've triggered one or more Powers Checks. He glides across the sky in his mystical vehicle, known only as the Slay, for its silent flight, and is said to alight on building rooftops. He gains entrance to the houses below and is said to leave little gifts and toys and knick knacks for good children.

For bad children, it is said that the toys and gifts are poisoned, and for really bad children he is said to throttle them with a jewelled garrotte and then devour them.

His vehicle is drawn by nine ghostly skeletons of an unidentifiable species of quadruped, and the one in front has a deep hellish red light that glows just in front of its fleshless skull. Whenever the Sleighmaster comes with the intent to kill a child, the jewelled garrotte sings with every shake of the vehicle - some onlookers have said it sounds like the tinkling of fairy bells. The very sound itself is enough to send parents and children running for the houses to board up the windows.

[Joël of the FoS]

Another bogeyman to the list!

[Nathan of the FoS]

Fanton Griswold is vaguely Santa-esque.

He comes down the chimney at midwinter, anyway. If not prevented.

[brothersale]

Well there is Fanton Griswald, first introduced in the Book of Secrets: A year in Ravenloft and again in Book of Sacrifices: Noises in the Night, who visits on the first full moon of January to rip the faces off any children, whose parents have not protected their house with salt

[Ryan Naylor]

I see Fanton Griswald as the equivalent. I imagine there are more benign versions as well.

[Tykus]

I had done up a bogeyman version of Santa using some of the older legends that make up our jolly fat man, using the legends and common traditions as part of the bogeyman version's folklore. Unfortunately, my computer was stolen a month ago, otherwise I was going to post it here as a Christmas gift.

[cure]

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Cthulhu has A Lovecraft Christmas by Pete Sears

Outstanding!

[ewancummins]

Of course...


Why an evil Santa? Why not a good one? He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Sounds like a good guy to me, unless you make him the ''twisted sense of justice'' type. Maybe he sometimes aids heroes, but never fights directly against the major villians. Think of Father Christmas bringing the children their presents in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Those were some pretty nice presents, too.

Which remainds, me, I really need to run a Narnia/Ravenloft crossover. Wildlands, perhaps.....

[cure]

Of course...


Why an evil Santa? Why not a good one? He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Sounds like a good guy to me, unless you make him the ''twisted sense of justice'' type. Maybe he sometimes aids heroes, but never fights directly against the major villians. Think of Father Christmas bringing the children their presents in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Those were some pretty nice presents, too.

Which remainds, me, I really need to run a Narnia/Ravenloft crossover. Wildlands, perhaps.....

Give Father Christmas the Isolde/Carnaval treatment?

[ewancummins]

Of course...


Why an evil Santa? Why not a good one? He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Sounds like a good guy to me, unless you make him the ''twisted sense of justice'' type. Maybe he sometimes aids heroes, but never fights directly against the major villians. Think of Father Christmas bringing the children their presents in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Those were some pretty nice presents, too.

Which remainds, me, I really need to run a Narnia/Ravenloft crossover. Wildlands, perhaps.....

Give Father Christmas the Isolde/Carnaval treatment?

Maybe so. A celestial? Maybe his reality wrinkle warps time in some fashion- allowing for those one night round the world trips [course the world is a lot smaller in this case].

[Charney]

I think the way to go is to make him a fey bogeyman like the ones we see in Dark Tales because it's mostly to children that he's supposed to appear.

I think he should be in a duo too. Most cultures don't have a single man coming for Chrismas like in America but actually two: St-Nicolas and his helper. This helper varies from country to country: Krampuss, Swart Pete, Père Fouettard... He's the one who punishes the bad children and he's clearly a bogeyman. Sometimes he merely gives them nasty gifts like peebles or coal but sometimes he beats them or even take them away in his sack.

So whenever the good child would see the good fey giving him presents (St-Something of Ezra in Ezrite domains), he could feel something menacing lurking around also. For bad children, he would be made to think it's the good fey coming but at the last moment, he sees this awful boogeyman appearing to punish him.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Or, to preserve the strangeness of boogeymen and increase the shock-value, perhaps "Santa" and the "evil helper" are two sides to the same entity, a la that brownie/boggart critter from the Spiderwick stories. He comes to your house bearing gifts, all jolly and happy, but if he finds any evidence you've been naughty -- or, worse yet, that you've stayed awake to catch a peek at him -- he changes into his monstous aspect and carries you away in his toy-sack....