Populate a Ravenloft prison

[Tumbler]

So I was sending my pc's off to prison Count of Monte Cristo style. I had them awaken intermittently as they sailed across the sea of ravens and then had sailors beat them back into submission. They were manacled to planks across their backs and awakened at 1 hp, which should have made it fairly easy to keep them in line. A recalcitrant paladin and a few lucky attack roles later, the party had killed half the crew of the small vessel and managed to get themselves into the longboat, floating away from a ship with crew insufficient to chase them. I was impressed.

They later managed to board the ship and kill off the rest of the crew using oars and manacles as weapons. Now they are on the ship, crew dead. They have a few cutlasses, a few crossbows. They are anchored just off shore of the island where the prison is, with no way of piloting the ship back to the mainland. They will have to go ashore in order to find a way home. This situation doesn't really work with the population of the island I had planned, so I have to fix it.

The people on shore don't particularly know what is going on. This is a post you get assigned to because you have angered someone, so they don't get regular communication.

The party is 5th level, 4 players, a specialist, a cleric, a ranger, and a paladin variant. I would like a 6th level or so washed up fighter as a warden, with maybe 5 guards and a couple of cooks/general laborers.

What I really need is a cool idea for a darklord of the prison, making it a little island of terror. Could be a prisoner, could be anyone really.

I want about

 

[Wraith Form]

I don't know the accuracy of this statement, but I've heard that people in prison for long stretches of time, when released, tend to be more....err, not comfortable, but rather familiar...with prison life (as compared to life on the "outside"). They tend to do things that get them put back into the environment they're familiar with.

Assuming your Dark Lord is a prisoner, you can toy with this curse--the Dark Lord is often put into a position where he is freed, then commits horrible atrocities (oh, let's say murders a dozen children) and is thrown back into prison. He's eternal, so eventually he may appear to repent and actually convince his jailors (who are not eternal) that he's "all better". After years of appearing to have "reformed" he'll be set free. Curse kicks in, he murders a dozen children. Repeat cycle....forever.

(Echhhh, that wasn't a great start but it's a kernel of a neat idea. Season to taste.)

 

[Tumbler]

Or maybe he is cursed to have to try to escape forever, with each attempt doomed to failure (sort of a dark Giligan's Island). He seems very helpful to the PC's, but whatever he helps them with fails. They would probably blame him as a saboteur.

Now, what would someone have to do to get an actual prison as their domain "prison?" Maybe he was the warden and horribly mistreated prisoners? Something else?

I think if someone was a child murderer, I'd give them a domain where they had to run an orphanage.

 

[Zweischneid]

Or maybe he is cursed to have to try to escape forever, with each attempt doomed to failure (sort of a dark Giligan's Island). He seems very helpful to the PC's, but whatever he helps them with fails. They would probably blame him as a saboteur.

Yeah, and make that cursed darklord some cute & lovely Lady who always laments about "that terrible beast of a man" that keeps her (and everyone else) imprisoned on the isle.

Gives the players a different subject to chase first

 

[Krieg]

The prisoner in a cell that has no door or bars. He insists that he is confined & will not leave the open room under any circumstances....

The gibbering madman who hold the true secret for redemption...

The handsome high charisma priest of a LG diety. The epitome of holiness he is falsely imprisoned for his beliefs. However, once released he begins to commit unspeakable atrocities, without anyone the wiser...

 

[MDSnowman]

The Darklord could be one of the guards...who actually was a prisoner but killed a guard, and being unable to escape the island fell into the routine of doing his victim's job.

Ravenloft has fogged everyone's minds so they dont remember the real guard, but meanwhile our Darklord can't step foot off the island without falling deathly ill, sunlight blinds him instantly, and he still thinks that one day someone will discover his true identity... so his escape is always within reach but instead he's simply traded his cell for false hope and paranoia.

 

[LeifVignirsson]

It may seem a bit canned, but you can always go the route of the Dark Lord being the warden and the prison slowly sucks the life out of its prisoners. The Dark Lord is tied into the prison somehow... lets say s/he was the first to break the hold that the "living" prison has on everyone, but was twisted when s/he realized the power they could obtain by helping the prison get its meals. Have the warden be VERY helpful, have them comply with every whim of the PC, just as long as they can eventually do something wrong that will get them thrown into a cell and let the life draining process begin.

Heck, you can tie it in with the crew on the ship, them being extensions of the "prison" itself... Bodies without a soul that work on the whim of the prison to bring it more food.

Just a thought...

EDIT: Hey, even better, for flavor... Have the PC's sleep over a night in a non-celled area, say the hospital or the commesary and have them hears moans of hunger coming from the prison. Then, have the warden start to do some strange things like follow one of the PC's around constantly, even showing up at the weirdest places like... when they have to go to the bathroom or say... peering over the PC's shoulder while they are eating...

 

[Erratic K]

It may seem a bit canned, but you can always go the route of the Dark Lord being the warden and the prison slowly sucks the life out of its prisoners.

If you go with this, and I would. I would set up the following:

1) the warden is a red herring. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence for him being the dark lord (vicous nature, he won't let anyone leave the island, appears to wield lots of power).

2) the real dark lord is the janitor of the prison. He is a lonely cast off who was marrooned on this island thousands of years ago. He won't let any one leave (he doesn't want to be left alone again). He secretly powers the jail and can close the borders. He has imprisoned people on the island and had them build the jail and staff it and be prisoners.

I would consider some other NPC's that can help the PC's figure out what is happening. All of them can help indirectly but if anyone names the janitor or aids directly, they will never be able to leave the island (even if the dark lord is defeated). You may need some plot macguffin to back this up (anyone with a prison tattoo or prison mark that says the janitor's name is trapped or begins wasting away powering the domain).

The prison mark might be a good clue (especially if the jailor's also have prison tattoo or the mark of the prisoner).

-E

 

[Tumbler]

I like the idea of the warden being a red herring. I think the dark lord will be a prisoner/trusty who works as the cooks help. The cook is staff, not a prisoner. He can close the borders by having waves bring the party back to the island, sharks attack, winds blow, etc.

Because he wants companionship, he offers aid to anyone planning to escape from the island. Of course, this allows him to know their plans and see that they are sabotaged.

One prisoner on the island will definitely be a priest the players believe they have been assisting in the home city of the campaign. In fact, he has been replaced by a dread doppleganger. He will not have ever met the PC's, which I figure is worth a horror check when they realize this. I could use some other interesting prisoners with easy roleplaying hooks for distinction. I don't want to introduce so many it gets confusing, but a few interesting ones would be good. Note that this is the kind of place people are sent because someone wants them to suffer. Regular criminals are mostly executed.

 

[Wraith Form]

Ravenloft dark lords always have a unique way to block inhabitants' exit from their domains.

This one is kind of a no-brainer, but if a PC tries to cross the domain boundries, cage bars spring up out of no-where (or come crashing down, portcullis-style?) to hem the fleeing adventuerer in; the cage bars are magically reinforced, making it basically impossible to break them. They could end up in "solitary confinement"....

Or, as I recall, you mentioned this was essentially a penal colony, a prison on an island. You might make the water around the island stir up in a gradually-increasing storm to trap the PCs on the island.

(and don't reach down to pick up the soap....wink wink....)