Duskblade in Ravenloft ?

[Kuffs]

A new player is being added to my RL campaign and it looks like he wants to play a Duskblade. The class doesn't seem too hard to work in but a magic warrior in a low magic setting isn't the easiest fit either.

The standard fluff for the class is pretty much out unless he's a Sithican or possibly Darkonese so I'd like some ideas on explaining the abilities without the elven order behind it.


As a side, I'm thinking of working into his background an encounter with Toben the Many as a child. To explain his survival and make the character pretty unique, I was thinking of giving the character a mystical ( voodan ritual ) immunity to all diseases, mundane or magical. I know this is pretty powerful but I'm not planning on advertising it, just kind of letting it be a background thing that will eventually be discovered. I want to balance this out but not gimp the character or let him in on something going on. I'm thinking of having the ritual have been performed at his parent's request due to a serious illness as an infant. The voodan assured them that illness would never touch the child again but that the price would be high. The parents blindly accept and the pact is sealed. A few years later his entire village falls victim to Toben's twisted playtime but he escapes relatively unscathed. So kind of a trade off, his life for all theirs. But I'd like a lingering "something" for the character even just a feel thing.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

If you want to keep your character's immunity to disease from becoming an unfair advantage -- especially if you ever plan on using, say, mummies as foes -- then you might want to center it on an item rather than an inherent trait. Perhaps the character has a "lucky charm" he's been carrying for as long as he can remember, which was given to his parents by the voodan. It doesn't seem to have any obvious magical properties, but if he catches an illness, it draws invisible loa-spirits to his presence and they secretly cure him. That way, if his immunity proves to be too powerful for game balance after all, you can always have the lucky charm stolen or lost.

[A G Thing]

I like the item idea since it plays off of the Voodan theme of the character but I think since you framed it like a curse that perhaps you should write a scenario that allows the character to sacrifice the ability by doing something that could save someone. If you want to make it dramatic then shortly after it is revealed have them meet someone who knows about the details of the curse perhaps when they are searching for answers. Then when they are facing some sort of disease based challenge later "maybe Toben" the fact that they have the ability is not going to help them save someone they care for. Make it a choice of sacrifice to save others by putting themselves at risk to defeat the evil and you effectively reward the player for giving up the power. Evil is defeated, they are honored and morality is upheld. And if they don't then it is a perfect way to expand that the price is too high when the selfishly cling to it causing countless deaths they could have prevented, which would be Horrors Check and Madness Check fodder and perhaps if intense enough a powers check.

As for the class, well you can always look at it from the perspective that it is like a Fighter/Mage but one who is a hedgemage variety that has formed their own style of Sword and Sorcery! No pun intended... Just explain the spells as a mass of rituals and superstitions that he uses to cast with small hints of recognizable methods blended in. His combat style should seem simplistic but effective while it is when he is combining the two that they are truly spectacular. Since other mages need components as well it is quite possible that he could pick them up elsewhere just as they do.

As for domains well, I would say that any domain with magic present such as Hazlan, Darkon, Sithicus or Tepest may be more or less favorable for easy study, but if he is more of an underground character that learned from esoteric sources then he may know secret cabals or the like that could have taught him seeing the talent. In Hazlan he could have been sold into slavery and trained secretly by his master as an enforcer or the like. If he is from Darkon then perhaps he was a pet project of Azalin who may have been interested in what he saw in the character head about Toben and or his seeming immunity he is not aware of. In Sithicus perhaps he has been sheltered by the elves and was subject to discrimination by his adoptive race but proved himself worthy of carrying a tradition by trial of fire and has strong bonds there now. In Tepest perhaps his training began at the hands of a rogue inquisitor who is trying to use fire against fire and may in fact be corrupt, or on the other side of it perhaps he was favored by some fey or outsider or demon that has been trying to raise and influence him for some purpose of good, evil or just for the heck of it, or even a sort of adoptive or even true affection if perhaps they prove to be related in some way!