D&D 5E Rime of the Frostmaiden with a twist of Ravenloft

[MarkB]

I've previously run Rime of the Frostmaiden and had a good time with it, but there are some justified criticisms regarding its premise (please let's not get bogged down in them, though).

So I was thinking of taking a different approach to Auril's curse on the land. Rather than her holding back the sun and plunging the land into two years of darkness, she has conspired with dark powers to draw the entire region into a Domain of Dread, where it can be preserved in eternal winter.

Advantages of this approach:

• It doesn't have to be dark all the time, the Domain can enforce its eternal winteriness.
• The timeframe since it's happened can be shorter, even if it only just occurred it's going to be an urgent problem that the region is cut off from the rest of Faerun.
• This can help with the disconnect of the final part of the adventure - the city of Ythryn could become a connection to the dark powers and the key to releasing the region from the Domain.

I'm just wondering about some of the potential issues with this approach.

1. I don't actually own Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Given that I wouldn't be trying to incorporate any of the existing Domains, and the adventure already covers cold-themed horror elements pretty well, is there anything major mechanically or flavourwise that would make it worth me buying the book?
2. How feasible is this lore-wise? I'm no great Forgotten Realms afficionado, but I know the gods in the setting are both active and powerful, but also that there have been incidents of regions going missing or becoming inaccessible before. What are the chances that a minor deity and some mysterious otherworldly dark powers can make off with a major region without the rest of the pantheon just immediately saying "Nope!" and either preventing or reversing it?
3. The adventure is self-contained within the region, and I can't think of any of the parts of it that I ran last time which would be broken by the region being in a different dimension, but is there anything I'm missing?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1. No, you don't need VGR to do that. But VGR is good, well worth having anyway.

2. It's fine. The only issue is that true gods are not usually found in Ravenloft. But maybe this Auril is an imposter/delusional druid?

3. Can't think of anything. Nautaloids can travel between dimensions just fine.

 

[Mad_Jack]

2. It's fine. The only issue is that true gods are not usually found in Ravenloft. But maybe this Auril is an imposter/delusional druid?

Might be the reason why she's getting away with it - nobody suspects her...

Since the overgod AO tends to frown on that sort of thing (i.e., trying to mess with the world on that scale) and has canonically smacked at least one or two of the regular gods clear out of the pantheon for it in the past, if I remember right, the fact that nobody would even consider that she might try something like that could be the exact reason she's getting away with it. (Especially if the method by which she and the Dark Powers pulled the area into a Ravenloft demiplane is really obscure/difficult/never-been-done-before.)
And AO, not being the type to step in directly if not absolutely necessary, has probably decided that someone else like the PCs will eventually step in and handle it, which is why he's not interfering.

 

[BookTenTiger]

This sounds like a really cool idea!

 

[MarkB]

Thanks for the feedback so far. Another question:

Deals with dark powers tend to come at a high price, so what are they getting out of this, aside from a new land added to their domains along with a little godling?

What might Auril have agreed to give up in return for this deal? Or what has she lost that she wasn't expecting to? Tying it in to her somewhat diminished and vulnerable state in the campaign would be helpful.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Thanks for the feedback so far. Another question:

Deals with dark powers tend to come at a high price, so what are they getting out of this, aside from a new land added to their domains along with a little godling?

What might Auril have agreed to give up in return for this deal? Or what has she lost that she wasn't expecting to? Tying it in to her somewhat diminished and vulnerable state in the campaign would be helpful.

Whilst there are several "definitive" explanations of Ravenloft, a couple of things seem apparent:

1) The domains exist as prisons for their dark lord. The dark powers torment the dark lord. It's unlikely that a true god would agree to live in such a prison, the dark powers do not seem to be strong enough to imprison a true god in any case, and would not want a true god playing in their sandbox.

2) The domains cannot exist without their dark lord. VGR has a couple of examples of domains in the process of dissolving into the mists without their dark lords. It's unlikely a god would let anyone else be the lord of their domain.


What the dark powers can do is give a dark lord godlike powers within their own domain. And so a false Auril would be pretty much indistinguishable from the real deal.

 

[delericho]

1) The domains exist as prisons for their dark lord. The dark powers torment the dark lord. It's unlikely that a true god would agree to live in such a prison, the dark powers do not seem to be strong enough to imprison a true god in any case, and would not want a true god playing in their sandbox.

What the dark powers can do is give a dark lord godlike powers within their own domain. And so a false Auril would be pretty much indistinguishable from the real deal.

That would make sense. Perhaps it's not actually Auril but rather a leftover avatar/aspect/whatever that doesn't realise its status?

 

[MarkB]

Whilst there are several "definitive" explanations of Ravenloft, a couple of things seem apparent:

1) The domains exist as prisons for their dark lord. The dark powers torment the dark lord. It's unlikely that a true god would agree to live in such a prison, the dark powers do not seem to be strong enough to imprison a true god in any case, and would not want a true god playing in their sandbox.

2) The domains cannot exist without their dark lord. VGR has a couple of examples of domains in the process of dissolving into the mists without their dark lords. It's unlikely a god would let anyone else be the lord of their domain.


What the dark powers can do is give a dark lord godlike powers within their own domain. And so a false Auril would be pretty much indistinguishable from the real deal.

That would make sense. Perhaps it's not actually Auril but rather a leftover avatar/aspect/whatever that doesn't realise its status?

Thanks, that ties in with one of the options I was considering - that Auril herself is tied to Faerun, so the 'Auril' who came into the domain with Icewind Dale was only her avatar. And either she's struggling to regain a connection to her parent divinity, or she doesn't realise what she's become and is still acting as though she were a deity.

Given enough time, and a lack of interference from heroes, that might actually backfire - if enough people start worshipping her as a deity, the avatar might actually start gaining some true divine powers.

 

[Shardstone]

You can argue aurils scheme is evil enough she geys sucked in and the area is now a domain of dread where she will never win

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That would make sense. Perhaps it's not actually Auril but rather a leftover avatar/aspect/whatever that doesn't realise its status?

I was thinking more of a delusional druid. It's got to me someone who the dark powers are able to torment.

Why are those towns conducting those sacrifices? Maybe there is a prophet telling them too. If that prophet is the Dark Lord, then maybe the avatar of Auril the PCs meet is created by the dark powers from the prophet's imagination.

You can argue aurils scheme is evil enough she geys sucked in and the area is now a domain of dread where she will never win

Trapping a god would be a very major power upgrade for the Dark Powers.

the 'Auril' who came into the domain with Icewind Dale was only her avatar.

Then if the players killed Auril in Chapter 5 the domain would start to dissolve.