D&D 5E Ravenloft: How would you do the new "Grand Conjunction"?

[Faolyn]

I'm running Curse of Strahd--currently on hiatus, as we rotate our DMs every few months to help prevent uneven wear and tear--and by the time it's my turn to run again, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft will be out. I... am not really enjoying CoS and I've had to add or change a lot of things to make it more interesting to me, but I have such a bad habit of stopping games midway that I'm determined to see this one through to the end, or until a TPK, whichever comes first. The players are enjoying it, anyway, even if not one of them actually wants to enter Castle Ravenloft itself and confront Strahd.

While we obviously don't know a lot about how they're doing the new RL, we have heard that the domains are going to be more like Islands and less like the Core, that there's going to be a bunch of new Darklords, and some domains are going to be quite different than the way they used to be.

At the moment, I really want to embrace this change actually in-game, not just wait until the next time I start up a new RL game. This feeling may change once I actually read the book, but right now, I'm getting interesting visuals of the new Domains of Dread being heralded by bizarre reality quakes, strange cracks appearing in the sky and disgorging disturbing monsters, and people and objects literally appearing or disappearing right in front of the PC's eyes.

So, bearing in mind we have incomplete information, if you guys were going to bring in these changes mid-game, how would you do it?

 

[TheSword]

If you’re not enjoying Curse of Strahd and the PCs don’t seem interested in that thread then definitely shake it up. Have them spread out into a different domain or two. Mine 2e for adventure ideas or have a crack at writing your own.

How you do it depends on the Players if they are familiar with Ravenloft then you might want to allude to a grand conjunction... if you plan on sending the PCs off to different Islands.

If you don’t plan on using the other stuff, and it isn’t going to contribute to curse of Strahd then I wouldn’t bother. Adding unrelated stuff is going to make your TPk come any faster.

For the record, always worth remembering the axiom... No gaming is better than bad gaming. If you don’t enjoy running the campaign it will never be a great one.

 

[Faolyn]

If you’re not enjoying Curse of Strahd and the PCs don’t seem interested in that thread then definitely shake it up. Have them spread out into a different domain or two. Mine 2e for adventure ideas or have a crack at writing your own.

How you do it depends on the Players if they are familiar with Ravenloft then you might want to allude to a grand conjunction... if you plan on sending the PCs off to different Islands.

If you don’t plan on using the other stuff, and it isn’t going to contribute to curse of Strahd then I wouldn’t bother. Adding unrelated stuff is going to make your TPk come any faster.

For the record, always worth remembering the axiom... No gaming is better than bad gaming. If you don’t enjoy running the campaign it will never be a great one.

Well, I'm not planning on causing a TPK, but these things happen. It's a fairly squishy party, with two warlocks, a bard, a rogue, and a paladin.

Fortunately, I'm adding enough of my own stuff to the game that I'm still enjoying running it. It's just the actual CoS plot I'm not fond of.

 

[TheSword]

Well, I'm not planning on causing a TPK, but these things happen. It's a fairly squishy party, with two warlocks, a bard, a rogue, and a paladin.

Fortunately, I'm adding enough of my own stuff to the game that I'm still enjoying running it. It's just the actual CoS plot I'm not fond of.

If people enjoy the feel but not the plot, it’s worth considering some other domains. You can maybe have some more enjoyable plots there. It will probably mean writing them yourself.

The plot of Curse of Strahd, is really just that Strahd is the route of all evil in the domain. If the Party aren’t interested in seeing that end, then there really isn’t any plot.

 

[Voadam]

I can see Curse of Strahd setting up a Conjunction event. Ravenloft as a 2e/3e demiplane is constructed around Barovia centered on him. Successfully take him out and the archstone of the setting is knocked out sending all the other structural pieces colliding in destructive chaos until a new structure asserts itself.

This was my actual first 2e Grand Conjunction plan with Azalin teaming up with Baba Yaga to get the powerful evil Greyhawk PCs to assassinate Strahd. I was going to run House of Strahd instead of the last two conjunction modules which I did not care for. Azalin's plan was to explode Ravenloft and have the pieces end up in Greyhawk.

The plan I eventually ended up going with stuck more to the prophecy and I ran Web of Illusion to tie in the Inajira's fortune reversed with Arijani and to tie in a PC having become a champion and then Avatar of Shiva to destroy and remake the world through the sacrifice of a Demigod Darklord and transition it from 2e to 3e rules.

Unfortunately for your puposes using CoS and Strahd as the lynchpin of Ravenloft would mean still going through the whole CoS module. Maybe allowing them to cross the border into other connected domains, but still coming back to finish Strahd at some point.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Fortunately, I'm adding enough of my own stuff to the game that I'm still enjoying running it. It's just the actual CoS plot I'm not fond of.

This seems to be a reasonably common theme. I know the DM who ran it for us invented his own entire "B-plot" to make it more entertaining (I mean, I've never played it without it so I dunno how much of which is which, but the stuff which was definitely his was pretty great).

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My hypotehsis is the gods of Barovia(material plane) with their precognitive powers or omen gifts knew what was going to happen, and then get ready to spoil possible plots caused by the dark lords. Azalin has tried something and he failed miserably (and maybe it was fault by the planeswalker vampire Sorin Markov. Now a "spark" is within Hazlik, the reboot version, and other is a tool of Vecna, who has got his own revenge plans against the dark powers. This is worse when the dark powers have abducted the soul of Vecna's mother and sent into her own dread domain, like a mixture of hostage and mockery. But Vecna can play his cards very well and knows that chess pieces to be moved.

There is also other new player in the game, the cult of Tharizdum. This is not wellcome by the Dark Powers, and their elemental magic can cause a lot of damage and suffering against undeads. Sometimes a dark lord may enjoy a temporal lifting of the curse if the followers of the elemental eye are terminated. If the leaders of this secret cults weren't enough crazy, their memories are altered by the dark powers with the intention to cause religious conflicts, heresies and schisms.

 

[Remathilis]

I had briefly toyed with the idea of the idea of an alternative timeline where Ravenloft formed differently. CoS already seems to point to this with things like Van Richten being in Barovia far earlier than he should. You could do something that would force the players to return to a very different Ravenloft from which they left.

My first thought might be an Avengers Endgame scenario where they change something in history causing the new timeline. Maybe alter Strahd's final damnable act? Perhaps defeat him and save Tatiana? Alternatively, you could use House on Gryphon Hill to change the dynamics of Strahd/the Alchemist and Azalin.

Any way, good luck. It's hard to determine how to change things when we don't know the final extent of the changes, but it's fun to speculate.

 

[Faolyn]

Unfortunately for your puposes using CoS and Strahd as the lynchpin of Ravenloft would mean still going through the whole CoS module. Maybe allowing them to cross the border into other connected domains, but still coming back to finish Strahd at some point.

One of my problems is that my players are either too sensible or too genre-savvy to actually enter into Castle Ravenloft... but they've also been a bit reticent to think about leaving Barovia as well.

 

[TheSword]

One of my problems is that my players are either too sensible or too genre-savvy to actually enter into Castle Ravenloft... but they've also been a bit reticent to think about leaving Barovia as well.

You could always turn up the heat and have the escape from Barovia inside the castle? A token that will let them pass through the mists.