A Twist in the Mist: an M Night Shayamalan spin on Ravenloft
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 9:53 pm
Hi! I haven't been back to FoS in quite awhile since I've not been gaming much, and not in the Land of Mists when I do. But today I had an idea about Ravenloft that I'd like to explore, perhaps even turn into a campaign down the line. I haven't run RL in many years, and haven't kept up with any developments in the setting since the 3rd edition line ended.
The idea I had today revolves around Lemot Sediam Juste. He's a fairly obscure character but I'm sure most people here know who he is. For anyone who might not: he's a playwright who is cursed because he burned a theater to the ground when an audience laughed at one of his plays that was supposed to be a tragedy. He now controls a theater called Scaena that can appear inside other lands. Within that theater, his powers of illusion are unmatched, and he can put people through whatever stories he can dream up. He can meld into any wooden surface in the theater and emerge elsewhere, or he can burn the entire place down (remaining untouched by the flames) and then reform it. In other words, within his theater he's extremely dangerous.
What I want to do is use Mr. Juste to tell stories of other places and characters from this setting, with an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist. For example, he might put a party of adventurers through the scenario of 3e's Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, only for the party to discover at the end that Strahd is not evil, in fact not a vampire at all, and that the Vistani fortune teller who sends them on the quest is actually the real vampire.
And now I come to the true purpose of this topic: I want to ask you guys, how else could you pull a Shyamalan-style "what a tweest!" plot reveal by twisting around the canon characters, settings, or other features of this setting? I realize that this has potential for humor and I'm okay with that, but I'm also looking for ideas that I might actually be able to turn into a somewhat serious adventure too.
The idea I had today revolves around Lemot Sediam Juste. He's a fairly obscure character but I'm sure most people here know who he is. For anyone who might not: he's a playwright who is cursed because he burned a theater to the ground when an audience laughed at one of his plays that was supposed to be a tragedy. He now controls a theater called Scaena that can appear inside other lands. Within that theater, his powers of illusion are unmatched, and he can put people through whatever stories he can dream up. He can meld into any wooden surface in the theater and emerge elsewhere, or he can burn the entire place down (remaining untouched by the flames) and then reform it. In other words, within his theater he's extremely dangerous.
What I want to do is use Mr. Juste to tell stories of other places and characters from this setting, with an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist. For example, he might put a party of adventurers through the scenario of 3e's Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, only for the party to discover at the end that Strahd is not evil, in fact not a vampire at all, and that the Vistani fortune teller who sends them on the quest is actually the real vampire.
And now I come to the true purpose of this topic: I want to ask you guys, how else could you pull a Shyamalan-style "what a tweest!" plot reveal by twisting around the canon characters, settings, or other features of this setting? I realize that this has potential for humor and I'm okay with that, but I'm also looking for ideas that I might actually be able to turn into a somewhat serious adventure too.