[Ravenloft] Homebrew Domains

Kafkonia · Apr 16, 2007

So I have the Ravenloft 3.5 Player's Handbook winging its way to me care of eBay (I caved and picked up Masque of the Red Death, and needed the Ravenloft PHB to take full use of it) and so I'm reading up on it, but I'm always more interested in making my own setting than using preexisting ones.

To that end, has anyone created domains in Ravenloft for their campaigns?

Angel Tarragon · Apr 16, 2007

I infact have created an entirely new continent of domains collectively know as The Dreull Lands, effectively a second core. It is made up of close to 25 domains and 1 Island of Terror.

Kafkonia · Apr 16, 2007

Frukathka said:
I infact have created an entirely new continent of domains collectively know as The Dreull Lands, effectively a second core. It is made up of close to 25 domains and 1 Island of Terror.

Oooh. Care to share some details? Did you draw on traditional horror motifs, as most of the existing domains do?

Angel Tarragon · Apr 16, 2007

I did use horror motifs but I shook it up a little; the Masters of the domains dawn from some third party source. In fact my favorite out of all of them would have to be the Haze Demilich Shadowcaster 10/Truenamer 7 that I statted out back in December.

One of the domains is stetches along the whole east coast and the master has a penchant for breeding aquatic aberrations, specficially half-illithid aboleths.

Most of the domains have a standard gothic feel, one is set in a vast wildernesswith no civiliazation and has onlty Stone Age tech. The island is completely made of ice and the master is an entomber tomb tapper.

Wraith Form · Apr 17, 2007

This may only be tangentally related, so I apologize if this seems to threadjack.

I started a 1st level game several months ago with my players in the Greyhawk setting. The Big Bad Evil Guy (behind the scenes) was looking for a component to complete an artifact that opened a rift between Greyhawk & Ravenloft, and basically allowed Ravenloft to 'merge' with GH. The players found the artifact in the first adventure, and (insert long story here) ended up being captured & killed by the Bad Guy.

So I had them create new PCs. I started the new adventurers in a new land, with a higher level of technology and a heavy French influence (Dementlieu). I never told the players that they were in the same world, 300 years into the future, after the corruptive influence of Ravenloft had warped the land of Greyhawk, merged and re-formed it into an abominable combination of the two settings.

Some of the names of 'good' gods of the setting are variations or corruptions of the names of bad guys they faced originally, and likewise the 'evil' gods are corruptions of original player characters' names. There are legends of the evil 'party of adventurers that ruined it all' (i.e. the players' original characters). I've also been dropping hints as to what happened here and there, such as journals explaining that "the world ended 300 years ago" and things of that nature.

So now the City of Greyhawk is Dementlieu, Dyvers is Mordent, etc etc (I wasn't trying to make an exact recreation, I just slapped names on places as I liked.)

One of the last adventures we were doing in Greyhawk was Goodman Games' Idylls of the Rat King. I can't wait for the players to stumble across the one dusty little ghost town that didn't get renamed....and they'll see a crumbling manor house with the name Gannou on the rusting wrought-iron fence. The players will flip out, even if the characters have no clue....

Voadam · Apr 17, 2007

In my game I had the Lands of Doom Boxed set from the Marvel Superheroes game as a set of islands of dread, so the PCs could have gone to Barovia etc. A politically active darklord known for his artifact armor, mastery of magic and construct creation; Doombots = doom guards; etc.

I also used GURPS Fantasy II as a sourcebook for the Nightmare Lands as described in the original Ravenloft Boxed Set with the Abber Nomads and Chaos land features. Nothing like having Cthulhu Pooh gods above with Extreme people corruption into monsters below.

Voadam · Apr 17, 2007

Wraith Form said:
This may only be tangentally related, so I apologize if this seems to threadjack.

I started a 1st level game several months ago with my players in the Greyhawk setting. The Big Bad Evil Guy (behind the scenes) was looking for a component to complete an artifact that opened a rift between Greyhawk & Ravenloft, and basically allowed Ravenloft to 'merge' with GH. The players found the artifact in the first adventure, and (insert long story here) ended up being captured & killed by the Bad Guy.

In Mine it was the reverse. PCs started in Greyhawk got sucked into Ravenloft and worked to complete the grand Conjunction to get home. The Grand Conjunction prophecy was being manipulated by Azalin, culminating in sending the PCs to kill Strahd and disrupt the focus linchpin of Ravenloft, which temporarily released all of Ravenloft as Azalin used a wish to direct it all into his homeworld, Greyhawk. Ravenloft would then coalesce around the whole world and Greyhawk would have darklords and ravenloft rules in effect. Azalin then works to take over the Great Kingdom, etc.

shadow · Apr 17, 2007

I use a lot of the alternate domains from the various fan-made netbooks. (You can find them at www.fraternityofshadows.com). I have also toyed with the idea of creating an island of terror drawn from present day earth, having modern technology.

To tell the truth, I like a lot of the fan created domains better than the official ones. Too many official domains seem to much based on horror clichés, complete with all the Universal Pictures movie monsters (let's see we have a Frankenstein ripoff, a Dracula ripoff, a wolf man, a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde ripoff. Need I name more?) There are a few official domains that are interesting IMHO (The Nightmare Lands for example), but many of the fan created domains seem more original.

Mouseferatu · Apr 17, 2007

Just a couple of months before I got my first "real" job writing in the RPG industry, I had an original Ravenloft domain published in the Book of Shadows, one of the Kargatane's netbooks. While the bulk of the site is now dead (alas, it was a fine site), all their netbooks are still available at www.kargatane.com.

Wraith Form · Apr 17, 2007

Mouseferatu said:
While the bulk of the site is now dead (alas, it was a fine site).

Yeah, the Fraternity of Shadows is a lovely site, but honestly, I miss the Kargatane. I lurked there every bloody day, was inspired by the story times they posted, and enjoyed the message boards. :: cry ::