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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9486864" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/UicEz90.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Gaol is a domain that has gone by many different names, with its true name used in hushed whispers by those who see the world as it truly stands. Currently, the domain appears as the small town of Chinswyk. There’s enough buildings to support over 2,000 people, but you’d be lucky to see a hundred people outside at any given time. Keeping to themselves, nobody is acting as their true selves, for the domain is a Truman Show style farce where everyone has an act to play. Martimus Jack, the star of the show, isn’t its unwitting prisoner, but its darklord who forces everyone else into predefined roles thought up by him.Martimus Jack was born to a life of privilege, not having much direction or drive to get what he wanted in life. Reality hit him hard when he enrolled in a magic school, dropping out due to failing grades. He took to many other professions over the course of his life, encountering the same problem due to his own impossible standards of wanting to be an expert in no time at all. Resentful of a world he believed didn’t recognize his innate genius and noticing that his siblings were more respected and beloved even by his parents, Martimus started to create a fantasy world where he was the most powerful and beloved person in reality. One day, after an angry argument with his father, he used illusion magic and a knife to torture and murder his family members, enjoying their suffering as the Mists claimed him.Martimus has the power to create his own stories, and he’s spent lifetimes performing literal world-building. Whenever he lost interest or satisfaction with an existing tale, he would create a new realm that would literally crush the old one. The latter became part of the Underset, dark monster-ridden places of broken, claustrophobic layers of realities where the survivors are forced to eke out a subsistence-level living. Martimus’ talents haven’t improved over the years: his plots are ridden with cliches and stereotypes, he always creates worlds where he’s a Marty Stu where anyone who isn’t a resentful villain is made to love and adore, and he loses track of his own plots and subplots over time. The “actors,” however, are real people, either having been born and raised in the domain or trapped from elsewhere. Martimus has no care or concern for the lives he destroys and ruins, as long as it makes for “a good story.” Those who refuse to play along are kidnapped by one of ten monsters known as the Producers at a convenient time. Their fates are to be either outright murdered, banished to the Underset, or replaced with golems made of wax that look like them but closer inspection reveals that something is “off.”Deep down, Martimus knows that the worlds he creates are false. That the people living within only pretend to love him and in fact fear and hate him. Without a strong editor or self-awareness, his own plots and drama get more and more holes in them as time goes on, revealing his stories to be increasingly obviously flawed. While the Producers do a good job at enforcing order behind the scenes, Martimus fears that they will usurp his creative vision one day or otherwise lose his absolute authority to them.The current world is the town of Chinswyk, a soap opera style facsimile of what Martimus Jack imagines medieval life is like for the commoners. When Martimus is gone and writing the next script for the season, the people can rest for a bit and act as their true selves. Yet there’s still a sense of fear for the upcoming months, when eventually the opening theme song is played to herald Martimus’ return and people suppress their fears to avoid breaking down as the source of their misery returns.All monsters found in Goal at this point are relegated to the Underset save for the Producers or Wax Golems. Most creatures there are either undead or sorrowsworn fiends. For new monsters, we have Wax Golems (CR ⅛, basically noncombatants who look like the clone of another creature until they take fire damage and start to melt), Dead Studio Audience (CR ¼, undead forced to be literal laugh tracks, using a deafening laugh attack that deals psychic damage), Dread Chorus (CR 5, swarm of incorporeal undead who are forced to be narrators and commentators whose proclamations are AoE attacks dealing psychic and thunder damage), and the Producers (CR 10 aberrations who can sense intelligent life up to 1,000 feet away and has a variety of attacks such as an intelligence-draining melee spell and the ability to create areas of silence). As for Martimus Jack himself, he’s a CR 12 wizard specializing in illusion and enchantment magic, can create duplicates of himself similar to Mirror Image, and has legendary actions that create more such duplicates or debuff a target via beguiling magic.We also get sample prior worlds that can be found in the Underset, and tables for determining the genre and setting of a Reboot when Martimus Jack gets bored of the current world and wants to start anew.Thoughts: I really like this domain. A lot of the suffering Martimus creates is implied rather than outright stated save for one specific example,* but anyone who’s read a self-indulgent novel can easily conjure the kinds of harm the darklord can cause. The Underset is a fun means of inserting dungeon-crawling elements into Gaol while exposing the true extent of the darklord’s evil.*Have the Producers kill one woman’s husband and frame her for the crime, because the story needs her to be a murderer.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ozCUIeh.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Isrige is a domain locked in a harsh, eternal winter. While listed as Early Medieval in the book, it won’t remain that way for long as the darklord’s ban on fire forces people to warm themselves underground or in a way that the smoke cannot be seen on the horizon. Most people are too busy hunting and foraging for their next meal to maintain complex divisions of labor, much less grow crops. Isrige’s darklord and ruler is Queen Hekolda, hated and feared by all save for some small outliers that worship her as a goddess of sin and punishment. Much like Barovia, its people worship the sun as a harbinger of hope and warmth. There’s a prophecy proclaiming that the sun will bless a newborn daughter with the power to destroy the Queen once and for all. Brother Daggry and Sister Skumringa, a pair of good-aligned monsters known as dawn crows, fly between settlements in search of such a gifted child.There is only one settlement capable of resisting Queen Hekolda’s forces: Fortress Eldenbjorn, home to bandits led by Arrin Eldatter who is known to domesticate a wide variety of beasts. Sadly, the Eldenbjorn bandits are no freedom fighters, raiding other population centers and merely seeking to live a better life of open fires and cooked meals.Most monsters in Isrige are themed around the cold and live in cold environments, from remorhaz to yeti to frost salamanders. Several monsters are actually reprinted from Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, such as Coldlight Walkers and Ice Trolls. Outright new monsters include Dawn Crows (CR 4, have light and fire magic along with being able to make AoE cylinders of light dealing radiant damage), Frostbitten (CR 3, melee focused undead that can “thaw out” upon death to become a zombie, Knights are stronger CR 6 versions), Ice Elemental (CR 5, Myrmidons are CR 7, have AoE attacks deal cold damage and exhaustion, or restrained condition for myrmidons), and Snow Maidens (basically specters but immune to cold damage and life drain deals cold instead of necrotic). This last one seems to be mislabeled, as the Isrige section makes mention of a Snow Geist, but the bestiary chapter makes mention of a Snow Maiden. Queen Hekolda herself is a CR 16 wizard and has a variety attacks and legendary actions themed around winter such as petrifying a target in a block of ice. She suffers disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks when taking fire damage, which also impedes her Regeneration ability.Queen Hekolda used to be the reigning noble of a coastal realm, and her inability to bear children caused her dynasty’s furtherance to be in doubt. Meeting with a witch in hopes of becoming fertile, she was granted a magic mirror that could grant her wish. But should the mirror break, she would lose “everything, forever.” The wish worked, and Hekolda gave birth to two daughters, Vensolda and Fryden. Vensola was the happier one, but Fryden grew up to be a bitter girl. The Queen favored Vensolda, causing Fryden to become more sadistic and anti-social in finding ways to hurt her sister. This strained her relationship with the rest of the family, causing Queen Hekolda to believe that Fryden’s existence was a “parasitic price.” Eventually Fryden discovered the hidden magic mirror and learned of its purpose, wishing to gain her mother’s attention.Content Warning: Child Death[spoiler]It worked, and Fryden began to emit an uncontrollable aura of utter cold. Vensolda froze to death in trying to find her, along with several guards. Fryden was horrified, and when Hekolda discovered what transpired she believed Fryden to be a murderer and told the remaining guards to kill the girl. Believing the mirror to be a curse, Hekolda shattered it into a thousand pieces, shards flying into the night by magic, and used one shard to stab Fryden to death.[/spoiler]The Queen awoke in a new, cold realm of Mists. Although capable of commanding great magic, she is harmed by even the tiniest flame, leading to the ban on fire. Believing that she can regain her former life and family, Hekolda creates Frostbitten undead to scour the lands for the mirror shards in the belief that rebuilding it can make things right again. She has no care or concern for Isrige’s inhabitants, viewing them as unworthy beings who merely stand in the way of her heart’s desire.Isrige ends with a variety of unique rules and adventure hooks. For example, various mirror shards can function akin to magical blades based on size when found, although they bear a curse that the wearer becomes unable to view anyone or anything in a positive light, as well as various suggestions for what should happen if the mirror is reformed.* Or Queen Hekolda’s weather-shaping capabilities manifesting as a table of cold-based hazards. We even get suggestions for subclasses for a PC who fulfills the Dawn Crows’ prophecy.*Being a Darklord, Hekolda won’t get her wish in the way that she expects, if at all.Thoughts: This is another domain that I like. While Lamordia currently occupies the role of a domain of deadly winter in 5th Edition Ravenloft, it’s more industrial-minded and science-driven vs dark ages fantasy. Isrige is a bit limited in terms of adventure types, given the strong focus on wilderness survival and a central villain, but that’s more of a subjective taste given that a tightly-focused domain can still be well-designed.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/rOWr1Um.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Malbor is a most unusual domain, being a gigantic tree ten miles high. A persistent rot makes its foundations continuously creak, and all manner of fungi, moss, and parasites grow on it. Mists as far as the eye can see surround the trunk and cover the sky, with the occasional root cresting above the former’s surface in writhing movements. Its darklord is the vampire Gulthias, who inhabits a shrine dedicated to the dragon Ashardalon at the highest branches, The tree is the largest known one of his namesake, which exists in a symbiotic relationship with the darklord. The recent arrival of billions of termites eating away at the tree’s foundation are an existential threat; they cause Gulthias endless pain as he feels them gnawing away at the tree like it’s his own flesh, and the domain’s residents fear of the tree collapsing into the Mists when the termites consume enough of its foundations.Malbor’s non-monstrous inhabitants are humans, half-elves, and various subraces of elves, with wood elves the most common. They hold no delusions that they live in a realm full of danger, from the termites and blights to the unstable foundations of their home. Fire is an important yet feared element, and some regard it as sacred. A specialized job known as Flameholder exists in every culture, of someone who knows how to safely handle and control fires. With the lack of traditional farmland, most people grow and eat moss, lichen, fungi, and water is collected from rainwater and snow. The closest thing to cattle are domesticated maggots the size of an adult humanoid’s fist in the settlement of Virnem.Religion is a very important element in Malboran society, with three faiths holding equivalent numbers. Worshipers of Gulthias believe that offering themselves up via blood and sacrifices will lead to a better life, although the darklord hardly acknowledges them. They used to have a decent-sized town known as Morlig that fell to ruin once the termites ate away at its foundations. The people of Virnem worship Mother Oak, a prior community leader who they believe to have been a goddess of life, protection, and motherhood. The Twin Flames of Ramus refer to the deities known as Morningfire and Evenginflame, who were in fact mortals of a village known as Ramus who tried and failed to defeat Gulthias. A few worshipers of the last one interpret their faith in an apocalyptic way, believing they will be freed from this harsh life when their gods return and burn the tree.Beyond Gulthias, there are two other threats of note in Malbor. The Corvid is a human warlock who is accompanied by crows, ravens, and magpies, and is capable of extending his senses into corpses and birds which he’s using to build an intelligence network for unknown purposes. Xirolla is the leader of a community of harpies who live in the ruins of Ramus, wrongly believing that she can defeat Gulthias and thus gain control of the tree. And there are the termites of course, spread throughout endless tunnels around the base.The monsters of Malbor are strongly plant-themed, but we also have a few flying and climbing monsters such as harpies, perytons, and phase spiders. For new monsters we have a Gulthias Tree (CR 14, immobile boss-monster that can multiattack with branches and grappling roots, “summon” blights by spawning them, and ranged and AoE attacks dealing necrotic damage) and two types of blight: Pollen (CR 4, sprays pollen that deals poison damage and the poisoned condition), Root (CR 2, specializes in grappling with damaging roots). We also have a CR 7 Tree Blight which is a reprint from Curse of Strahd, basically being a big hulking plant monster with some nasty melee attacks.As for the Darklord himself, he was once a noble* who was the sole survivor of his family after a political coup. Alone and on the run, he found community in the Cult of the Eternal Dragon, who worshiped the red dragon Ashardalon famous for supposedly becoming immortal via demonic and astral magic. Gulthias slowly became disillusioned in the cult’s teachings, finding contradictions in their beliefs. He soon believed that the dragon was never immortal at all, and realized that he could eclipse even that false god by becoming a vampire. Via a ritual he became one without the need of another vampire to drain him, and he forcibly turned the rest of the cult into his spawn. Gulthias reinvented the cult’s purpose, growing in power. And yet like so many other evil overlords, he was defeated by a band of plucky heroes.*starting to see a pattern among the darklords now.With an appreciation for dramatic irony, the Mists claimed Gulthias after he was staked to a tree, making him the literal and figurative heart of the new domain of Malbor. Even with this setback Gulthias sought to rebuild his cult, and ended up returning to praying to Ashardalon and building a shrine to him. But the new inhabitants weren’t like the indoctrinated former followers: they worshiped Gulthias and not Ashardalon, not out of devotion but fear and otherwise wanted to attend to their own lives. Eventually Gulthias grew aware of the tree being a prison he could not escape from, and the arrival of the termites rendered him insane from pain. Gulthias is a CR 20 monster who is a plant with the blight subtype, specializing in plant-based magic, battlefield control vine and spike attacks, a vampiric tether melee attack that deals necrotic damage, and Legendary Resistance and Actions to go along with it.Thoughts: Of the four domains covered in this post, Malbor’s my favorite. I love the callbacks to the unnamed 3rd Edition adventure path, and the domain itself has quite the number of sites for dungeon crawls. While more bit-players in comparison to the darklord, the Corvid and harpy raiders make for good secondary foes beyond just Gulthias, although we don’t have stats for any giant or monstrous termites which is a shame. Plant monsters are few and far between in 5th Edition, so having a domain focusing on them as a giant tree powered by evil is quite cool and more original than yet another “dark forest/jungle/underdark” locale.Requiem (no heading picture) is the first of our truly new domains not covered in the prior Pocketbooks to Ravenloft products. It is a giant necropolis, consisting of tunnels and rooms filled with graves and similar holdings for all manner of corpses. The only way in and out of the domain is via the Gates of Requiem, which can appear anywhere in the Multiverse. They are one-way, letting people in and not out, but only the darklord Gravedigger Garo knows the secret in how to open the doors from inside the domain. An alternative can be found in the Sepulchre of Things Unremembered, a metaphorical tomb that holds things forgotten by others and kept secret by the Dark Powers.Requiem’s various regions touch upon different themes of death. For instance, Dreadgrave is home to wicked individuals who are unable to pass on and either roam its halls or fruitlessly slam and struggle against the coffins and doors entombing them. Then there’s the Grotto of Forgotten Dreams, a mossy cavern where soulless beings meet their end.Needless to say, pretty much every monster here is some variety of undead, with some plant based monsters being exceptions found in the Grotto of Forgotten Dreams. We have two new monsters here, the Gravekeepers who serve as the darklord’s personal army who put their fellow undead to rest. This is a task they hate due to their contradictory nature; they are CR 8, with attacks and aura center around necrotic damage and reducing maximum hit points and deal bonus force damage to undead. Then there’s the Unspoken, CR 3 living humanoids who learn forbidden knowledge that shatters their mind, gaining the ability to utter cursed insight as special attacks that impose various curses and debuffs. We have three entries for notable NPCs: a pair of death tyrant beholder brothers who were forced into being custodians by Garo, and whose own attempts at seizing power in the domain fail due to their endless bickering; a mummy lord who shared unique magical knowledge with Garo in order to have freer reign in the Lord’s Mausoleum, a tomb where the rich and famous are interred; and a skull lord who is an amalgamation of various evil beings and commands an army of skeletons.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/j3khu8a.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />As for the Darklord, Garo Fossor appears as a depressed human male bearing a lantern and shovel. He was raised by Vistani, having seen more of the Domains of Dread than most living souls. He met and married a woman by the name of Frida during his travels, and would’ve lived as a happy family were it not for a terrible Mist-spawned creature slaughtering her, her village, as well as most of the Vistani. There were only a few survivors, Garo among them. Unable to think of why the Mists would take everything from him, Garo wandered by himself on a soul-searching quest for 10 years, conducting research into the nature of the world. He soon learned of the Dark Powers, finally able to put a name behind the cause of his sorrows.What’s more, Garo also learned the true nature of the Dark Powers, which he used to make contact with them. Filled with righteous rage, he demanded them to not only return Frida to life, but to stop playing with people’s lives. And should they refuse, he would do everything in his power to make the inhabitants of the Domains of Dread know of their existence. The Dark Powers answered by creating the domain of Requiem and making him its darklord. Garo was to be its “gravekeeper,” a guardian over the secrets of the Dark Powers and to endlessly put down the undead that would not rest. Garo hoped to find a way out, but over time he let the Dark Powers warp and corrupt him, becoming an unfeeling slayer of not just the undead, but any living prisoners who found their way into the domain. Garo holds the deluded belief that service to the Dark Powers would grant him freedom.Statwise Gravedigger Garo is a CR 15 undead, with poor Armor Class of 14 but otherwise strong defenses such as Magic Resistance, Regeneration, proficiency in every save except Dexterity and Intelligence, and immunity to effects that turn undead. His main attack is a shovel that can stun on a critical hit, and can upend earth and stone as an AoE dealing bludgeoning and thunder damage as part of a multiattack with his shovel. He also has a small yet potent selection of earth and necromancy themed magic such as Passwall and Circle of Death. His lantern can be used to summon 1d4+1 specters as a rechargeable ability, and he has Legendary Resistance and Legendary Actions which can be used to control undead or generate a damaging aura of blinding haze.Thoughts: I’m not very fond of this domain. It’s rather one-note in effectively being a dungeon crawl with different grave/tomb themes. Furthermore, I don’t like the backstory of Garo: an important rule of Ravenloft’s darklords is that they are evil people who willingly committed a terrible act and/or series of acts that damned them into a domain to serve as their prison. Garo didn’t do anything in line with this, and while motivated by anger he didn’t direct it at the innocent. While the book acknowledges that Garo is perhaps the only darklord undeserving of the title and punishment, it doesn’t line up with the setting constraints. And even should one earn the Dark Powers’ ire, the setting is still home to many non-darklord souls whose lives are made miserable by cosmic evil, like Rudolph Van Richten’s curse.Thoughts So Far: With three domains I like and one I dislike, the Guide’s middle section has some very strong entries. They all feel appropriately dark fantasy and unique so as not to feel too interchangeable with existing domains. Requiem is a weak entry for me, but it’s not enough to bring the rest down.Join us next time as we finish up this book with the last four domains!</blockquote>

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