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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bran Blackbyrd" data-source="post: 377352" data-attributes="member: 1710">If the person doing the killing, was the person trying to escape Ravenloft it could work like this. He's using the spirits of the victims to add to his power. Some kind of occult ceremony or whatever, that will bring him more enlightenment, open his eyes to divine secrets, that will eventually bring him the knowledge to defeat the mists, to escape Ravenloft.Each victim either bears an image of the card (burnt in, tattooed, etc.), or they are posed in the very image of the card, they represent the ideal expressed in the card. It's that energy, that ideal essence of the card that the villain needs for his "dark enlightenment" to take place.The irony is that, in the end, he becomes the essence of the final Major Arcana, The World, which makes sense because he'll actually be the final victim (of the PCs). He has overcome the limitations of the lower cards, attained synthesis with the dark plane, and can thus escape. Unless the PCs stop him. Interestingly, the PCs are the "x factor", the very essence of the blank card.Just a thought: Another irony is that if the PCs haven't figured out who the killer is by the time the Devil card is reached, the bad guy might hire them to help him defeat a local demon or something. He requests that he strike the killing blow, and the manner in which he does this makes it clear that the defeated demon has become the villain's "Devil Card".One of two things could happen here; The PCs immediately attack, the villain has no desire to risk defeat so close to victory and escapes (if you want the cycle to complete, otherwise he could be stopped at any time). Or the PCs don't let on that they know he's the killer. Why? Because as tragic as it is, they may have already consulted someone about the cards and have been counsled that the villain cannot be defeated until the cycle is completed and he has become "The World" and has thus put himself in the position of the final victim.NOTE: Back when I was in high school I thought of doing a tarot based campaign, I thought up quite a few ideas for it, but I never ran it. Maybe I'll incorporate it into the first D20 Modern campaign I run.</blockquote>

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