r/ravenloft

Hello, my 2nd campaign will be coming up in the next couple months, and I have begun my pre-planning. It will be set in Kartakass. My question is, especially as the players will have been born in Kartakass, if one poses the question "How does a Cleric work?" what's the answer?

I recognize with those pulled into Barovia, you lose your connection to your diety, but retain the powers. You just simply cannot feel their presence. But what if you never came from a world that understood or heard of deities? What could their deity or in spot of, be?

This is a very gamey discussion, but I think it’s interesting to consider. The example I’m using here is the “endgame” scenario for Falkovnia, specifically the one from “the Horrors Within”. For those who have not read it, it says that if you defeat General Drakov, the Domain is rid of the zombie threat, and has its borders opened for “several moons”, during which time people rebuild or leave Falkovnia. After this time, General Drakov returns and retakes the domain.

But what exactly would happen if you stayed in Falkovnia and helped them rebuild? What would happen if, the moment she returns, you put her and her mercenary army down again? Would the domain become a somewhat normal realm until the party dies, or something? This could easily be applied to other domains, as well.

Is there any lore on this? Would the Dark Powers just smite the party and allow the Darklord to return?

Hmmm I wonder if we are going to get these with the Arcana Unleashed?

I've been fussing about with Richemulot because it is an old Domain, and I haven't explored it very much. However, I am running into an issue trying to reconcile the Gazetteer version and the modern VRGTR version.

I really like the idea that Richemulot has a sort of quarantine vibe going on. I especially like the notion that there are more houses than people, and much of the city is abandoned or uninhabited.

I don't like the wererats. As intensely social creatures, I don't think they really "fit" Jacqueline's monophobia. I also think this risks making Richemulot "the Skaven domain," which I don't think serves the setting.

I don't really understand Louise's role or purpose.

Ultimately, I've been trying to winnow down the key elements and I keep re-writing rather than refining.

Has anyone had any success defining this Domain in a way that's ready for play?

Long story short, I had a player I. a Curse of Strahd who wanted their brother to be killed by Strahd, giving them a vendetta against the vampire who killed her brother. I had to say no but explained I couldn’t tell them why without spoiling aspects of the campaign (the inescapable fog, tools Strahd uses to lure people to Barovia, etc). I also didn’t want her to be stuck with such a simple arc as “I don’t like Strahd.” So I said this instead.

I said it was okay for her brother to have come back from some kind of violent encounter (I figured maybe Strahd commanded a Vistani to use her brother as bait to get more adventurers to Barovia). However, the brother was cursed in some way so that he couldn’t speak and couldn’t warn his sister about any of the danger that lies ahead in Barovia, just to keep all of the campaign mysterious and fun. However, because I like to be the fun DM who tries to say yes to as much as possible, I said the brother could have one artifact/hint about his adventure: a dinner invitation covered with blood from Vasili Von Holtz.

I planted this seed, and started running the Death House. And now, that same player had the great idea for us to write competing session recaps, hers through the tone of her character and mine through the tone of Vasili. And while I immediately loved the idea, I’m also curious about how I can best use it to flesh out the Vasili character.

RAW, it’s just a cover name for Strahd, but I feel like that’s pretty weak and I know we can do better. Right now, I have two plans of what I can do with Vasili, both of which include creating a new NPC.

First, I think it would be interesting to separate the name from the character. I want to leave all of Strahd’s notes to the characters using Vasili’s name (including a taunt outside the Death House welcoming the characters to Barovia and warning them to be more careful). Separate from this, I want Strahd to be accompanied by a small dusk elf child every time they encounter him in public (at the burgomaster’s funeral, at dinner, etc) but to never give away the child’s name. The kid is just a fledgling vampire that Strahd is training to replace him and rule over Barovia once he is able to leave. This could be good to have the kid be a disposable minion that Strahd only thinks about tactically and is willing to throw under the bus (very emotional, good potential to have the player forgive Vasili who was just used as a puppet, etc).

The second idea is to make Vasili very openly aligned with Strahd. Except instead of being physically powerful, he just like keeps Strahd’s calendar and uses Strahd’s domination of Barovia to his economic advantage (a more influential and active version of Lief from Ravenloft). Maybe he owns the shop in Barovia, talks with the Watchers to influence politics in Valaki to make money there, and meddled with the Wizard of Wines to control the supply of alcohol across Barovia. This could be good to have a different kind of villain in Barovia who is motivated by greed more than power.

If anyone has done anything similar with Vasili Von Holtz, I would love to hear your thoughts! And if you have any notes about my two potential approaches (I’m currently leaning more towards the first) I would love to workshop ideas!

XO

If you were considering splurging on the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Silver Edition by Beadle and Grimm, I encourage you to think twice. It doesn't really offer good bang for your buck. Contrary to the VRGTR one, which IMO had a good amount of extra material (several new adventures and useful game props), this one mainly just throws in a few extra prints of the darklord portraits and domain maps and calls it a day. It also includes an extra tarokka deck, but no case to keep it in. The only new content is some player handouts and a short Barovia adventure that frankly feels a bit undercooked. To make things worse, the printing quality is noticeably worse than in the regular book, which means that several darklord and creature illustrations just don't pop as good. In short, wouldn't recommend it at half the price.

Sometimes when one is hitting multiple Domains in a single campaign, it’s nice to have a thread to move you between them and to return to again and again with new perspectives. With that in mind, I’m curious if anyone has made a list of “transportive” (“portative?”) Domains that could convey PCs through the Mists to other Domains?

The Carnival, or Cyre 1313 (The Mourning Rail) as Wandering Domains, would be excellent literal examples of moving PCs through/around/twixt the Mists, but surely there are more.

I’Cath, or The Nightmare Lands, could be examples of more psychological ways to convey our victims, er, heroes, from one horrorscape to the next.

Does anyone else in the community have answers or ideas, even if they’re a reach? (“The Darklord Gwydion is a demoted Dark Power so he can allow movement via the Shadow Rift?”)

Hi everyone!

I'm preparing to run a Domain-hopping campaign for my players. My players are a mix of first time newbies and veterans who have played CoS many times. I want to start of in Barovia to introduce the setting, but I do not see any clear throughline when looking at the the mini encounters provided in the domains section.

I have done a domain hopping campaign before using VRGR, where the party traveled to different domains to find various reincarnations for Tatyana. They joined Ez & Dr VR & Co. in using the Apparatus to combine their souls, summon and defeat the goddess of the Mists Ezra, and allow themselves to be freed from Ravenloft, with two staying behind as Darklords.

My players loved this campaign, and although this party is all full of new people, I want it to feel fresh. I would love to hear your ideas for over-arcing stories for campaigns, recommendations for what to include straight from the book, or creative new ways to blend the best parts of each domain into an unforgettable story.

Thank you all so much in advance! =D

Hello everyone! So as folks on this Reddit may have heard, I’ve been working on a Nightmare Lands project. Well: the first adventure is available for purchase on DMsGuild!

A DREAM COME TRUE

(Act 1 in A Nightmare Adventure)

This adventure, “A Dream Come True” can be played as stand-alone but is also best played with this others; it is the entrance into the Nightmare Lands. (The other two are about getting out!) It’s written for Adventurers League format but really it can work in any Ravenloft context.

It also includes:

• A mini-gazetteer of the Nightmare Lands and its major regions
• Profiles of the darklords the Nightmare Court and Caroline Dinwiddy and the relationship between them
• Basic Dream Rules designed to plug easily into 5E/5.5E play without a major sub-system
• 6 Dream Encounters that run the gamut of horror genres each with their own Special Dream Rules to make the experience unique
• Maps for all these things, including a map of the Nightmare Lands I made

A couple notes:

• I played Ravenloft since its inception and have a fondness for the original Nightmare Lands box. The story and lore I built reflect 5e, but tie a bit back to prior editions. You’ll see that more in Acts 2 and 3.
• Adventurers League rules don’t allow for homebrew stats or adventures longer than 4 hours. But almost all of the bullets above will be supplemented by a non-AL resource, after I get this trilogy done. Things like “Dreamweaving”, stat blocks, regional encounters, etc.
• The trilogy (collectively called “A Nightmare Adventure”) also fills a hole in the Mist Hunters story line — specifically >!what is the Urn of Dreams and what does it do?!< — and fits right in among the later adventures.

So take a gander! I started writing this after VRG came out. 5 years later now RHW came out and suddenly my slow pace looks like prescient planning! 

Thanks to this community again for your support and brainstorming. AMA about the writing process, the content, publishing on DMG, etc.

Here's the rough concept I'd go with.

The PCs already know about spelljammers and Wildspace. While traveling, they enter what seems to be an isolated pocket of Wildspace—a Ravenloft domain adrift among the stars. At its center hangs the shattered flagship of a once-mighty fleet. The vessel appears abandoned, silent, and lifeless.

It isn't.

The Darklord is the only surviving human aboard. He wasn't the captain, but the fleet's arcane engineer: an ambitious, amoral spellcaster whose experiments with extraplanar forces went catastrophically wrong. He reached beyond the stars for power... and the Mists answered. He fucked around and found out

His curse is particularly horrific. The ship has become infested with slaadi, who continually use him as a living incubator for their tadpoles. They erupt from his body over and over again, but he never dies. He heals, only to endure the process again. Eternal agony is his punishment.

The domain itself would lean heavily into Alien and Event Horizon. Vast, echoing corridors. Flickering magical systems barely holding together. Strange planar phenomena. Organic infestations growing through the hull. Constant paranoia that something is moving in the darkness.

When the party first boards the flagship, the Darklord doesn't appear to be the villain. Quite the opposite—he seems to be the lone survivor desperately trying to stay alive while the characters are hunted by slaadi. He becomes an uneasy ally, guiding them through the ship and helping them survive.

Only gradually do the characters discover the truth: the infestation exists because of him, the ship's fate is his doing, and escaping the domain may require confronting the very man who first seemed like their only hope.

Ask your doctor about insects from Shaggai!

I am working on a cursed hotel type of domain. This would be my first attempt at this and I don't want to just handwave the mechanic I am trying to figure out so I am asking all of you creative people.

I am taking inspiration from The Shining and want the Darklord to be the proprietor of the hotel who for some reason (haven't figured that out yet) kills a bunch of guests and that's why the mists take the hotel.

The part that I am trying to figure out is I want to have the staff (and perhaps some guests) transform into various monsters that could be related (or maybe not) to the role they played in the hotel but I don't want it to be immediately obvious to the PC's (think the crew of the Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean). I want the PC's to not realize they are even in a domain of dread right away and have something that triggers a reveal, either all at once or maybe slowly if the party should choose to explore the hotel on their own.

I appreciate any creative input/criticisms you all might have. Thanks!

I am designing a Ravenloft campaign for my players and would love to join some discord spaces to talk to people about it and such!