Mr. Ravenloft Pageant, 2008!

[The Widowed]

Ahhh, Count Strahd von Zarovich. Master of Ravenloft, the Demiplane of Dread. Dark Lord of Barovia. Terror of the night. Snappy dresser.

Okay, short but sweet version here:

Whose appearance is more favorable, in your humble, insignificant, ill-informed yet nonetheless solicited opinion? And how did you come to your choice? Not that the mighty Count Strahd cares for your poor judgement or your arguments which can readily be dismissed as the inconstant ramblings of a fevered lunatic, but you are to indulge our curiosity all the same. :shinner:


http://mypetdungeon.tritonius.com/StrahdOld1.jpghttp://mypetdungeon.tritonius.com/StrahdOld2.jpg

Old Strahd


http://mypetdungeon.tritonius.com/StrahdNew1.jpghttp://mypetdungeon.tritonius.com/StrahdNew2.jpg

New Strahd

[Akamaz]

the new one is dumb looking... like anne rice had sex with the creator of elfquest, and the new strahd is their mentally deficient love child

[bpphantom]

Old Strahd. He just looks much more classic. Less... I dunno... ghey.

[The Widowed]

True. I always thought that Old Strahd tried a little too hard to rip off Dracula, though...but I suppose that Strahd was supposed to be the Dracula of Ravenloft. On the other hand, New Strahd's waistcoat is to die for. :)

Decisions, decisions. I'm leaning towards New Strahd, but Old Strahd clearly had the better hair (and the classic high collar for his cape, a collar which New Strahd lacks). Maybe if New Strahd kept the waistcoat and leggings but wore his hair in a ponytail and got a cape with a high collar on it. That would be cool. :think:

[The Widowed]

I really need to find my old Ravenloft boxed set. Without it, I don't have the map to Ravenloft and I can't quite remember all the domains (including Azalin's domain, the domain in the module "Touch of Death"--which I also can't find, the domain with Frankenstein's Monster (or, rather, his Ravenloft equivalent) as its Dark Lord...). :think:

I did find this among all my stuff, though. :)

http://mypetdungeon.tritonius.com/Ravenloft.jpg

Published in 1983, this is the module which would eventually birth a new demiplane and a new expansion set for AD&D...and a very successful expansion at that, succeeding where classmates such as Spelljammer and Dark Sun failed and surviving the evolution into D&D's Third Edition. And I have the module from which all of the Ravenloft epic originated. :D

Now if only I could find the rest of my Ravenloft goodies....

[Scarf_Girl]

New Strahd is dead sexxxy , young and trim with long hair and piercing eyes also after our undead romp in the hay I can prance around the crypt in his lush overcoat while he is off getting us a virgin for breakfest :)

[bpphantom]

Which boxed set? I have most of the core Ravenloft stuff as well as all the Planescape stuff.

[The Widowed]

New Strahd is dead sexxxy , young and trim with long hair and piercing eyes also after our undead romp in the hay I can prance around the crypt in his lush overcoat while he is off getting us a virgin for breakfest :)
I like the way you think, Scarf. Anne Rice would do well to take notes from you. :D

Which boxed set? I have most of the core Ravenloft stuff as well as all the Planescape stuff.
This one (http://www.amazon.com/Ravenloft-Terror-Fantasy-Roleplaying-Setting/dp/0880388536). I have it...somewhere. :think:

[bpphantom]

Ah yes. I indeed have it. Also this (http://www.amazon.com/Requiem-Grim-Harvest-Ravenloft-BOX/dp/0786904313/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206636534&sr=8-1) one.

My players just wanted to have a picnic... but it got all misty and they heard horses coming down the cobbled streets... but they were out in the woods at the time.

[Gaia]

I like the old classic Strahd. He's eliquent, sophisticated. The other looks like a vampiric elf. Actually come to think of it Strahd does have a vampire elf as a major enemy, Jandar Sunstar. There's a whole book on how they torment the hell out of each other. Always liked the book series too with PN Elrod as one of his authors along with Laurel K. Hammilton and Christie Golden :)

As for the modules, Ravenloft was my "assigned" RP realm for my old gaming club. Each of the founders took a section and I got the hardest one to run. I have both the original classic module and all the box sets plus source books. Nothing beats a night in an inn being chased by werewolves assigned to assess if an adventuring group is going to be a threat to a dark lord's power. ;)

I set the Headless Horseman loose on them one night too. Chased them through the woods and across the old covered bridge to the town.

[The Widowed]

Everyone loves Ravenloft, huh? :)

I remember back when I was stationed in Biloxi, I DM'ed a D&D/AD&D hybrid campaign for three other airmen. One of them played an aquatic elf--courtesy of the Creature Crucible books--and they ended up in...damn, was it Azalin's domain or some other swampy one? I think Azalin's domain was hella swampland; might've been another, though. So Tom's aquatic elf got separated from the party when they were in an old fort that had been slowly sinking into the swamp...and suddenly they breached the fort's treasury (where there was a ton of loot as well as the remains of all the men who got butchered by their captain when he went insane) and the fort started sinking into the swamp very quickly. So the aquatic elf swam out of the fort with no problems (but didn't bother checking on his two friends, but he was Chaotic Neutral IIRC, so I didn't sweat it any). A kindly old hermit in the swamp gave the elf food and shelter while he recovered from the ordeal in the fort...and Tom's elf repaid the hermit by slitting his throat and helping himself to the hermit's stuff.

Not only did I impose an instant Alignment shift (from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Evil), I rolled up a curse on Ravenloft's handy dandy table of curses. The curse which came up was that Tom's aquatic elf's hands would be stained black with his crime--which I thought was very appropriate for the little homicidal bastard--and no amount of scrubbing, dyeing, curse removal or antimagic could remove the stain; the only thing which would work would be for him to save the lives of two innocents when he himself had nothing to gain from such kindness, I secretly decided. That would be the only way to atone for murdering the old man.

That damn blue-skinned aquatic elf still had black hands when I got my PCS to Malmstrom a few months later. Maybe Tom's elf was just born to be a cursed evil elf from the get-go, huh? :p

(The silver lining: That elf was one more rung in the ladder I climbed from "Evil player-characters are forbidden" to "Evil player-characters are actually pretty cool if they're handled right, and my campaigns have been disrupted by more Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral types than by any Evil types--especially Lawful Evil types, whom I'll pretty much roll out the red carpet for--so...". Not that I ever had a huge stigma against Evil PCs (except back in the beginning with my Basic Set, when all Evil alignments were simplified to "Chaotic" and the Red Box wouldn't let you play one), but Tom and Ravenloft helped me go all the way towards embracing campaigns centered on wicked, naughty or tragically villainous protagonists. I am hosting one in these very forums, right? ;) )

[bpphantom]

Everyone loves Ravenloft, huh? :)

I remember back when I was stationed in Biloxi, I DM'ed a D&D/AD&D hybrid campaign for three other airmen. One of them played an aquatic elf--courtesy of the Creature Crucible books--and they ended up in...damn, was it Azalin's domain or some other swampy one? I think Azalin's domain was hella swampland; might've been another, though. So Tom's aquatic elf got separated from the party when they were in an old fort that had been slowly sinking into the swamp...and suddenly they breached the fort's treasury (where there was a ton of loot as well as the remains of all the men who got butchered by their captain when he went insane) and the fort started sinking into the swamp very quickly. So the aquatic elf swam out of the fort with no problems (but didn't bother checking on his two friends, but he was Chaotic Neutral IIRC, so I didn't sweat it any). A kindly old hermit in the swamp gave the elf food and shelter while he recovered from the ordeal in the fort...and Tom's elf repaid the hermit by slitting his throat and helping himself to the hermit's stuff.

Not only did I impose an instant Alignment shift (from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Evil), I rolled up a curse on Ravenloft's handy dandy table of curses. The curse which came up was that Tom's aquatic elf's hands would be stained black with his crime--which I thought was very appropriate for the little homicidal bastard--and no amount of scrubbing, dyeing, curse removal or antimagic could remove the stain; the only thing which would work would be for him to save the lives of two innocents when he himself had nothing to gain from such kindness, I secretly decided. That would be the only way to atone for murdering the old man.

That damn blue-skinned aquatic elf still had black hands when I got my PCS to Malmstrom a few months later. Maybe Tom's elf was just born to be a cursed evil elf from the get-go, huh? :p

(The silver lining: That elf was one more rung in the ladder I climbed from "Evil player-characters are forbidden" to "Evil player-characters are actually pretty cool if they're handled right, and my campaigns have been disrupted by more Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral types than by any Evil types--especially Lawful Evil types, whom I'll pretty much roll out the red carpet for--so...". Not that I ever had a huge stigma against Evil PCs (except back in the beginning with my Basic Set, when all Evil alignments were simplified to "Chaotic" and the Red Box wouldn't let you play one), but Tom and Ravenloft helped me go all the way towards embracing campaigns centered on wicked, naughty or tragically villainous protagonists. I am hosting one in these very forums, right? ;) )

4th Ed should make it easy on you then. Good, Evil, Non-aligned. That's it. :/

[Quakester]

I like Old Strahd. New Strahd seems just like any generic medieval vampire these days. He's the New Coke of vampires. :P

Oh and to answer some of your burning questions, Azalin's domain is called Darkon. it is the most powerful domain in the core and it does have a bit of swampland but is by no means swampy. The domain in Touch of Death is Har'akir which is like ancient Egypt. The domain with Frankenstein's monster is Lamordia. The creature is called Adam and his creator is Dr. Mordenheim, who is linked to Adam and can't die (part of Adam's curse). The land you probably sent your characters to that was swampy was likely Souragne. Half the island is completely swamp.

[The Widowed]

4th Ed should make it easy on you then. Good, Evil, Non-aligned. That's it. :/
But I like my Lawful and Chaotic alignment bits. :(

That does it. I need to scoop up every 3rd Ed book I can get my hands on before they're gone forever. The more I hear about 4th Ed, the harder I want to cling to 3rd and 3.5.

I like Old Strahd. New Strahd seems just like any generic medieval vampire these days. He's the New Coke of vampires. :P
New Coke wouldn't have been half as bad if each 24-pack had come with a snazzy blue waistcoat. :P

Oh and to answer some of your burning questions, Azalin's domain is called Darkon. it is the most powerful domain in the core and it does have a bit of swampland but is by no means swampy. The domain in Touch of Death is Har'akir which is like ancient Egypt. The domain with Frankenstein's monster is Lamordia. The creature is called Adam and his creator is Dr. Mordenheim, who is linked to Adam and can't die (part of Adam's curse). The land you probably sent your characters to that was swampy was likely Souragne. Half the island is completely swamp.
I remember that the creature's name was Adam, but I couldn't recall the surname. Gracias. :)

Hmmm. I don't believe I had set the swampy fort in Souragne; I'm pretty sure now that it was in Darkon (with extra swampiness added to the Boglands by DM's Fiat). I don't think I ever explained to my troupe why that guard captain went mad and butchered his own men, but it was probably some bad voodoo between Strahd and Azalin or something. The fort was full of undead, of course. :think:

And yes, it was Har'Akir where Touch of Death took place. Remember how the room description with the godlike pharaoh said that the player-characters had no chance of taking him--nope, none, they're dead--yet the evil high-priest-mummy guy could, and the adventure pretty much ended with the mummy storming into the pharaoh's tomb as the tomb exploded with light and the party pretty much got kicked outside at that point?

What a friggin' cop-out, huh? :p

So I take it you're a huge Ravenlofthead too. :D

[Quakester]

Yes, yes I am. I ran it for a while and read pretty much every scrap of material they had on it. At one point I owned very 2nd edition book and boxed set they had and the first 2 ravenloft modules from first ed. I still have the first ed modules but had to sell the rest. I do still have most of the material on my HD though. :D

Oh yeah, I also read all the novels. Lord Soth escapes and Antoine Misroui, Darklord of Souragne, becomes the most powerful darklord of them all.

[bpphantom]

...Antoine Misroui, Darklord of Souragne, becomes the most powerful darklord of them all.

Even more powerful than Death (ruled Necropolis after the Grim Harvest "freed" Azalin)?

[The Widowed]

Yes, yes I am. I ran it for a while and read pretty much every scrap of material they had on it. At one point I owned very 2nd edition book and boxed set they had and the first 2 ravenloft modules from first ed. I still have the first ed modules but had to sell the rest. I do still have most of the material on my HD though. :D

Oh yeah, I also read all the novels. Lord Soth escapes and Antoine Misroui, Darklord of Souragne, becomes the most powerful darklord of them all.
Well, I think you just eclipsed every other Ravenloft lover in here. You're obsessed, I dare say. :P

I still remember when Lord Soth made his transition from Dragonlance to Ravenloft and thought "How cool is that?". But now I forget which Domain Soth had. And I can't remember what curse or longing bound him to Ravenloft (you know, the self-defeating desire which could never be fulfilled, like Strahd's longing for Tatyana), but I remember Lord Soth basically flipping the Dark Powers the bird...damn, excuse me while I Wiki him up for a bit....

[Quakester]

Even more powerful than Death (ruled Necropolis after the Grim Harvest "freed" Azalin)?

Yep! Due to a mix up in identity a creature in the swamp (whose name I forget) thought Anton was the spirit of death and taught him things he shouldn't know. Those things bound him to the fabric of Ravenloft. The only problem is that he can now never leave the swamp. The bonus is that he is now completely in appearance yet maintains his abilities as a zombie lord and can even manipulate the island itself. Souragne should have been abosrobed into the core by now but he refuses to let it happen. He can also control the mists on the island to a degree.

[Quakester]

Well, I think you just eclipsed every other Ravenloft lover in here. You're obsessed, I dare say. :P

Quite possible :D

[bpphantom]

Well, I think you just eclipsed every other Ravenloft lover in here. You're obsessed, I dare say. :P

I still remember when Lord Soth made his transition from Dragonlance to Ravenloft and thought "How cool is that?". But now I forget which Domain Soth had. And I can't remember what curse or longing bound him to Ravenloft (you know, the self-defeating desire which could never be fulfilled, like Strahd's longing for Tatyana), but I remember Lord Soth basically flipping the Dark Powers the bird...damn, excuse me while I Wiki him up for a bit....

Sithicus.

He eventually turned on Takhisis as well based on what I hear from my Dragonlance nutters.

[The Widowed]

And Soth pretty much got booted out of Ravenloft by going reclusive and ignoring his own domain.

Damn, that's kind of weak. After all that bad-ass business with Soth making a run at Strahd and tearing up Barovia in his pursuit of Caradoc, I was kind of expecting something more...actiony. Like Soth splitting Ravenloft in twain with a giant sword towed by a squadron of black dragons and the Dark Powers evicting him before he could finish trashing the entire demiplane. Or something. :think:

[bpphantom]

Well, I was disappointed in the Ravenloft Soth. It didn't match the pre-published Dragonlance cannon about his fall or his retainers - Caradoc was his most loyal KNIGHT by the way, not his namby pamby seneschal.

Soth was outwitted and lazy and someone else took over his domain, yeah. Still, it got him out. They couldn't keep him in, the other writers needed him. Same reason Vecna had to get out.

[The Widowed]

I still want to see somebody to try destroying the world (Ravenloft or otherwise) with a humungous sword towed by five squadrons of black dragons. It's in my head now. :singdance

Also, Boogs, change your avatar. It's still hideous. :p

[Quakester]

Well, according to the novel, Soth's torture in Raveloft was mostly ineffective. It took away the worst part about being Soth so the realms just let him go. The curse that Raveloft gave him made him start to forget who he was and how he became who he was. The longer he was in Ravenloft, the less he cared and the less "Soth" he was. He was worse off back in Dragonlance where he was reminded daily of exactly how far he fell.

[Knightward]

I never followed the Ravenloft setting but I have to say I'm really not impressed with either incarnation of Strahd. *shrug*

[The Widowed]

I never followed the Ravenloft setting but I have to say I'm really not impressed with either incarnation of Strahd. *shrug*
So which one isn't the worst of the two? That's the one you vote for. :)

Otherwise, I guess you could always join Grae in the cheap seats. :p

[Knightward]

Since I can't decide between Count Cliche and Mr. Metrosexual-and-probably-inspired-by-anime..... I'm gonna have to go with Grae on the cheap seats.

[The Widowed]

You dare call the great Count Strahd a metrosexual? Your entire family shall be reduced to zombies for such an insult! :angry:

Also, Grae has popcorn. Be sure to mooch some. :p

[The Widowed]

My players just wanted to have a picnic... but it got all misty and they heard horses coming down the cobbled streets... but they were out in the woods at the time.
That reminds me...I really need to find my copy of "Nightmares of Mine"--a Chaosium how-to book which covers oodles of material on how to run a horror game--and work it into the GM's Workshop thread.

Here, Boogie invokes one device which is handy for conveying a sense of dread: sensory mirages, phantasmagoria or other stimuli which should not be there. Like smelling lilacs inside an old charnel house. It's a really potent device, especially in a theme where supernatural forces are involved. Naturally, the inquisitive players will want some sort of a resolution for the out-of-place sensory input, at which point you can work it into the theme and contribute to the horror story. For the horses and cobbled streets, it could be that a road nearby was covered over and abandoned after a local noblewoman lost a loved one after he was thrown from his horse and killed on that road (or rode into the nearby woods where he drowned in a pond or the Forest Thing got him, or he rode away from her home forever and left her to waste away and eventually perish from a broken heart...). And, as it would later turn out, one of the dead people strewn about in the charnel house really loved lilacs.... :think:

[Nerfed]

I miss Ravenloft. My players hate the nature of the demiplane and make a point of telling me how they don't enjoy themselves or the game when I force it on them. Mind you, it isn't the setting (or settings of the individual domains), they hate that whole Dark Powers watching over everything, being trapped, and not being able to rely on common D&D elements such as Detect Evil, extraplanar summoning, and so on.

I've been toying around with one final romp in which the players high-level characters are drawn in and manipulateed through a series of tasks in an effort to escape... which ultimately has the effect of destroying the demi-plane. Of course, this is all part of the grand plan (masterminded by Azalin, most likely), but an uncalculated side effect has Ravenloft's domains scattered across the player's home plane (the Forgotten Realms) rather than return where they should in the multiverse.

End result, the dread domains of Ravenloft permanently take up residence in previously unpopulated areas (both remote and neighboring well-known regions) seemingly at random --no longer connected to each other or even landing in a pattern similar to their demiplane configuration. They'll now blend seamlessly (mostly) into the Realms, but the domains' borders still exist... and each domain has held some of the demiplane's dark power which the lord of a domain still controls. Now, however, the lords are no longer imprisoned. They can leave their domains (and abandon their power if they choose). Doing so will leave control of that power up for grabs (which they could always come back and attempt to reclaim if they choose.

New twists, new power struggles, and other new things... wheeee!

Of course, I'll give players a new goal, too... to cleanse the lands of this evil taint. One or two of the minor domains that I can do without can be purged through the actions of local heroes. News of it reaches players, then they can take it upon themselves to try and fix what they broke. I keep meaning to get around to it. Maybe one of these days.

[The Widowed]

That Domain-transplanting idea sounds like the exact reverse of one of my ideas for the forum campaign I'm hosting here. But I'll say no more on that. >:]

And I still wonder why your players simply won't cozy up to the idea of playing Ravenloft. It's a pretty nifty campaign setting with plenty of potential for drama and atmosphere. What would they rather be playing? Spelljammer? :P

[Akamaz]

. What would they rather be playing? Spelljammer? :P


shudder......

[The Widowed]

Shudder indeed. But hey...at least I didn't say "Dark Sun". And at least Spelljammer was good enough to have its own (abruptly cancelled) comic book series way back when. :D

[Nerfed]

Spelljammer wasn't bad... it just had lots of potential to suck.

[The Widowed]

I just never could get over the whole "D&D in space" aspect of it, let alone the mechanics. I already had sci-fi RPG's. Including GURPS Space. Which made for a pretty cool campaign until a munchkin tore my campaign apart and basically ended up buying the entire galaxy. Damned munchkin-friendly GURPS.... :think: