D&D 5E Ravenloft: In search of The Core

[Professor Murder]

To those who actually attempted to give useful resources to accomplish what I asked, thank you. To those who felt the need to state they would not run their campaigns this way or don't grasp why I want to, well, you do you.

 

[Charlaquin]

But the same thing could be true either way. It could be that the only way to get to Domain X is to travel through Domain Y whether their borders a physical or separate demiplanes. Demiplanes can be connected anyway you want. If the mist is a trans-dimensional border or it is physical border makes little (no) difference. The same can be said for penetrability at the mist borders. If that step across the border is physical or trans-dimensional makes little difference.

Right, I agree that having to pass through one domain to get to another is a thing you could do with disconnected demiplanes. But going from one domain straight to another that doesn’t directly border it is something you could not do with a core.

I don’t know why anyone would consider that limitation preferable, but it is a practical difference.

 

[Charlaquin]

Change the way the borders work back to the old system of the core domains were not default surrounded by mists but were areas whose borders could be actively closed but were otherwise bordered by neighbors.

this allows more cross domain regular interaction with politics and trade and travel.

Does it though? With mist talismans, there’s no reason interaction, politics, trade, and travel between domains can’t be common. In fact, since you can go from any domain to any domain without having to pass through any others, trade and travel could be even easier and more common if you want it to be. Access to mist talismans is the only restriction on inter-domain travel, so if you want that to be common, just make mist talismans common.

 

[dave2008]

Right, I agree that having to pass through one domain to get to another is a thing you could do with disconnected demiplanes. But going from one domain straight to another that doesn’t directly border it is something you could not do with a core.

I don’t know why anyone would consider that limitation preferable, but it is a practical difference.

Got it - I miss understood the direction you were coming from. That can happen in the Mists!

 

[Shardstone]

Does it though? With mist talismans, there’s no reason interaction, politics, trade, and travel between domains can’t be common. In fact, since you can go from any domain to any domain without having to pass through any others, trade and travel could be even easier and more common if you want it to be. Access to mist talismans is the only restriction on inter-domain travel, so if you want that to be common, just make mist talismans common.

This makes Ravenloft a LOT more interesting to me.

Imagine the weird syncretic religions that creatures with actual souls who keep getting killed and reincarnated would build as they, during their lives, travel from domain to domain, doing whatever it is they can to find whatever there is to help keep them alive just a little longer in the hyper-evil Domains of Dread that they are locked into.

You could have a fun campaign around this. Steal some powerful poisons from Borca, smuggle something from some vampire secret police from one domain to another. See how these people build up these belief systems based off of the patterns that they notice in the Domains of Dread; a series of cultures beyond just the Vistani who collect or interact with the collective domains in different ways and, in a fashion, master traveling and surviving in them, almost like a secret civilization of multi-dimensional prisoners that the Dark Powers allow to live (since it makes their little prison games all the more effective).

Some really fertile ideas springing to mind...

 

[Stormonu]

@Shardstone, that presents an interesting idea with Ravenloft being like Hell's circles. Souls trapped in a domain keep getting reborn into that domain based on their karma in life. Those who live lives of exceptional good or evil may get bumped to another domain to restart their life cycle there until they do something exceptional to move on to the next. Their could be a hidden hiearchy to the domains. Say, perhaps newcomers tend to arrive in Falkovia, to become zombies upon death - and the zombies aren't quite as mindless as one might believe. In death, if they willingly kill one of the living they are pushed on to the next realm - perhaps Tepest, as a villager. If they get themselves sacrificed, they move on to Valachan. Survive the hunt, and you get moved on ... Perhaps the last domain in the chain is Ha'Akir and the final test is to die - and remain so. Something not even Anketepot has achieved, and that is the only escape from Ravenloft.

 

[Remathilis]

I basically co-opted a version of Mistways (semi-stable paths between certain domains that, while not without risk, allow some travel between domains without talismans or Vistani guides) as my compromise between a stable if nonsensical Core and the isolation of the islands.

I also expanded the role of the Anchorites of Ezra to travel the Mists safely in order to do missionary work. The goddess of Mists protects the faithful from the horror of the Mists, usually.

It creates a little more movement between domains without breaking the isolation I like in the current model.

 

[Shardstone]

@Shardstone, that presents an interesting idea with Ravenloft being like Hell's circles. Souls trapped in a domain keep getting reborn into that domain based on their karma in life. Those who live lives of exceptional good or evil may get bumped to another domain to restart their life cycle there until they do something exceptional to move on to the next. Their could be a hidden hiearchy to the domains. Say, perhaps newcomers tend to arrive in Falkovia, to become zombies upon death - and the zombies aren't quite as mindless as one might believe. In death, if they willingly kill one of the living they are pushed on to the next realm - perhaps Tepest, as a villager. If they get themselves sacrificed, they move on to Valachan. Survive the hunt, and you get moved on ... Perhaps the last domain in the chain is Ha'Akir and the final test is to die - and remain so. Something not even Anketepot has achieved, and that is the only escape from Ravenloft.

There is some FUN to that idea. Love it!

 

[Casimir Liber]

I basically co-opted a version of Mistways (semi-stable paths between certain domains that, while not without risk, allow some travel between domains without talismans or Vistani guides) as my compromise between a stable if nonsensical Core and the isolation of the islands.

I also expanded the role of the Anchorites of Ezra to travel the Mists safely in order to do missionary work. The goddess of Mists protects the faithful from the horror of the Mists, usually.

It creates a little more movement between domains without breaking the isolation I like in the current model.

This is exactly what I am thinking. (late to the party as always) - loved Ravenloft in 2E and DMed it a bit - loved DMing Souragne module and some other stuff. Reading Van Richtens and found myself loving most of it...but feeling a bit "meh" about alot of the domains. Initially I found myself missing the big Core map but on thinking about it, prefer the idea of shifting semi-stable pathways through the mists that connect some relams with others...when the stars are right

 

[humble minion]

So I like the new takes on the Domains for 5th ed, but I really miss The Core. Any thoughts or resources for using The Core with the 5th ed materials?

I assume what you mean is that you want to keep the character and the darklords of the 5e iterations of the domains, but the broader 'lived-in-world' feel of the earlier material, which makes some pretence to having a functional society beyond a whole bunch of oubliette dimensional pockets populated by shadowpeople?

If so, it depends from domain to domain. You can't just take every domain from VRGtR and dump it in the pre-5e core, some have changed too wildly for that. Falkovnia, for instance. If it's a wilderness of undead, then it's hard to see it fit in the Core. You might have trouble with Richemulot as well, the cycle of plague that happens there would be problematic if Richemulot had neighbouring countries.

Assuming you want the sort of old-style Ravenloft without mist tokens etc where people can just walk from domain to domain unless the borders are closed, and assuming you want to keep the map of the Core mostly as-is (I'm messing with a homebrewed total reconfiguration of the Core that turns all this stuff upside down, but that might not be your thing), here's some really rough ideas...

Swap the positions of Mordent and Dementlieu in the Core. Mordent and Lamordia can work together ok. Make them one political unit with Ludendorf the capital - Lamordia is the bustling industrial big city, Mordent the more isolated rural regions with their local gentry and villages. Mordent always needed a big city to contrast the foggy country moors against. Godefroi can stay the Darklord of Mordent, he was never interested in politics anyway.

East of Lamordentia (or whatever you want to call our new gestalt nation) there's a lot of haunted wasteland that slowly becomes Falkovnia. Everyone knows Falkovnia is bad news and most are smart enough to keep clear. While undead sometimes trickle across the border and cause problems, they're mostly wanting to kill Vladeska so mostly people in neighbouring domains can stay safe by just staying away. Darkon stays in its original place in the Core. Vlad and Azalin are both gone, there's no more overarching geopolitical tension between the two. But the awfulness of Falkovnia is now blocking any access to Lamordentia from Darkon, so there's very little communication and no real trade. Darkon remains mired in its own concerns. The Shadow Rift can stay if you were in love with it, but personally I'd get rid of it and replace it with the southern bits of Darkon, slowly crumbling into the mists.

New version of Valachan isn't really a good fit for the Core, it becomes an Island of Terror on its own in the mists.

Richemulot becomes significantly bigger, expanding north taking some of what used to be Falkovnia (there was lots of good stuff in the 3e Gazetteers about what Richemulot looked like outside the cities) and west taking over most of Dementlieu. It's now the breadbasket of the Core, replacing the role Falkovnia used to play. Wages are always high there (because so much labor died in the last plague) so it attracts loads of immigrants from all over. When the plague strikes though, hunger and unrest spread across the Core. Dementlieu shrinks to just the size of the city itself (reflecting the limited horizons of its darklord) and sits on the coast as a sort of decadent glittering Monte Carlo (stick Ghastria just offshore here too).

Kartakass moves to occupy the place where Verbrek was previously. The art- and performance-obsessed culture fits well with neighbouring Dementlieu. Kartakass remains as it's written, something of a backwater, except in years where the plague hits Richemulot and Richemulolish farms become uninhabitable plague pits, and Lamordentia and Dementlieu have to rely on grain shipments from Borca and beyond that make the long trip down the Musarde through Kartakass on riverboat. In those years, Kartakass cashes in from the trade, and the wolves eat well of the traders.

Borca takes over Invidia's territory, and is another major power. (Invidia still exists, but is really just Gabrielle's estate and the local region.) Borca returns to its Medici roots by being the banking and moneylending centre as well as the poison capital. They're VERY rich from making Dementlieu and Lamordentia pay extortionate prices for food during plague years, and everyone owes them something. Also, bring back the schism between the branches of the church of Ezra. The Borca branch (centred at the cathedral where the faith originated) is rich, ritualistic, closely intertwined with Borcan politics and the Borcan aristocracy. The Mordent branch is a small, stubborn localised church - the atheistic tendencies of Lamordia mean that it isn't taken too seriously in the big cities, but every small town in the Mordent countryside has its local vicar. Mordentish see the Borcan branch of the church as overly gaudy and probably pagan, but on the other hand they keep quiet about their beliefs for feat of being deemed hopelessly provincial and superstitious should they ever go to the capital.

Further upstream from Borca to the east and south we get into wilder and wilder territory - Sithicus and Verbrek (which occupies the land that Kartakass used to). I'm not entirely satisfied with this as it puts wild domains right next to heavly-populated Borca, but short of massive changes to the map there's not much i can do, Bring Soth back to Sithicus and make him a bit more proactive and territorial about Borcan colonists or soldiers entering uninvited, and that should do the trick. Add a dragon that occasionally ravages the lands of southern Borca (with a blue-armoured woman riding it, just to mess with Soth) and that should keep most Borcans out.

Daring and lucky travellers can sometimes find a path through the haunted forests of Sithicus and Verbrek to see the towers of Castle Ravenloft against the darkening sky. Barovia is an isolated backwater far away from the populated core of the ... um ... Core, which fits well with how the domain is portrayed in CoS.

East and north of this, it gets really messy. Hazlan had nothing in common with any of its neighbours and never really made sense where it was, the only thing interesting about Forlorn was the castle, Nova Vaasa was a huge grassland domain with a very urban darklord stuffed in one faraway corner, and then there's the whole Shadow Rift business. I know roughly how I'd do it, but it's not even remotely going to resemble the pre-5e Core so it's probably beyond the scope of this thread.

What this version of the Core DOES lack is a military threat, the sort that Falkovnia used to be. But really, how much need is there for war and international intrigue in most Ravenloft stories anyway? Lamordentia is probably the best option as aggressor, should it come to that. They've got a pretty high opinion of themselves and a low opinion of everyone else. But there isn't really anyone obvious for them to fight.