D&D 4E Ravenloft:4e

[SValimont]

Hello, I have been following 4e for some time now and would love to utilize 2e Ravenloft with 4e Mechanics. In my ongoing attempts to put together a awesome campaign for my tabletop group. I would like to ask my peers here at En-World to help in assisting me with creating a storyline and possibly helping in conversions. For example curses, disease, monster stat blocks for a Anti-Paladin, New Monsters of Ravenloft and so forth. I want to start the heroes in the Heroic Tier. Just around the level where I can utilize the 4e MM. I have looked through the 4e MM and it really starts to get good around 4th level. While there are Undead Minions at level 1 and 2 the skeleton and Zombie( I forget the actual name.) Ghouls, Wights, Stronger Zombies, Stronger Skeletons appear to happen.

The adventurers are chasing a mad man. THe mad man escaped from a insane asylum. The action takes the pc's right into hot pursuit of the escaped convict into a Misty Field. The Misty field is in fact the Mist which transports the pc's to the Demiplane of Dread.

What I was thinking...was that the mad man has some connection to the material and demiplane. Somehow knowing where to be and at what time. The pc's are oblivious to the Mist as the mad man serves a much higher Villian. What I was also thinking was using the gypsy, The Vistani. Giving the pc's riddles and skill challenges and insight to where they are, whats going on and whats happening in the land and who is who.
Anybody willing to help?

 

[Quickleaf]

Sounds like a great game! While I've never DMed Ravenloft (and don't have the books), I did play in a great game which involved the vistani. Here are some of my thoughts...take em or leave em...

Ravenloft might actually be the Shadowfell, but once a living being journeys there they become trapped. While this changes canon (there are no "demi-planes" in 4e), it does create some interesting possibilities where an NPC dies in the Known World and the PCs get to interact with them briefly in Ravenloft before their spirit is drawn to the hereafter, reincarnated, revived, or raised as an undead.

Perhaps the living world isn't much better, like in the Midnight setting? What if necromancers wage a war of conquest in the Known World, perhaps trying to open the gates of the Shadowfell so it can consume everything? Alternately, what if Ravenloft is just a cursed portion of the Known Wolrd which is spreading like a cancer?

The madman might be...
* A mad necromancer who committed the sin of raising his dead brother (outlawed by the necromantic council) and is fleeing assassins (thinking the PCs are hired killers?), hoping to hide in the Shadowfell.
* A tormented soul cursed to spend half his time in the Shadowfell with his wife (corrupted lady of a domain) and should he fail to visit her, then he is doomed to never see her again.
* An original inhabitant of the lands which became Ravenloft before the Curse, the last living original inhabitant (he betrayed his town) who was cursed with immortality by his nemesis, a domain lord.
* An oracle serving the mists of Ravenloft (mist pact warlock?) by delivering new souls to the realm, she hopes to win the release of her children (now corrupted death knights and antipaladins).

P.S. Remember you can have the PCs face foes higher-level than them so long as the XP balances out - it'll be a hard fight, but as long as you don't throw too many monsters, the monsters are in the same tier as the PCs, and the monsters don't have impossible resistances you should be fine.