D&D General Ravenloft: Monsters vs Darklords

[Shardstone]

The issue is for me it isn't a grim dark setting. I do think there is a place in horror and horror RPGs for this kind of horrific revelation (suddenly realizing all the people around you aren't what you thought, can be very effective horror). It just doesn't fit how I see and use Ravenloft

Easy to change! I see them showing both Soulless and Soul-having NPCs as telling you, as a DM, that you can pick either one.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Easy to change! I see them showing both Soulless and Soul-having NPCs as telling you, as a DM, that you can pick either one.

Again, the idea can work, and some people do like how it is done in CoC. But my feeling is this is something I would limit to a specific domain and do in a particular way, and not have that domain be Barovia or the rest of the core. I would also probably have the domain lord him or herself create the people in question (an artist or sculptor who has made them all, and they don't realize they lack a soul)

 

[Incenjucar]

Easy to change! I see them showing both Soulless and Soul-having NPCs as telling you, as a DM, that you can pick either one.

Could have some interesting outcomes, but really needs mechanics to keep it from being a headache in play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Again, the idea can work, and some people do like how it is done in CoC. But my feeling is this is something I would limit to a specific domain and do in a particular way, and not have that domain be Barovia or the rest of the core. I would also probably have the domain lord him or herself create the people in question (an artist or sculptor who has made them all, and they don't realize they lack a soul)

Now that's a legitimately clever way to use that idea! Kudos.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Now that's a legitimately clever way to use that idea! Kudos.

I used something like this in one of my own adventures (horror but not Ravenloft) where a scholar gets a magic ink stone made from starlight that makes everything he writes come into being (and it was inspired by a Dio song where he says don’t write in starlight because the words may come out real)

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Let's remember the players know that secret but the characters don't. Imagine the surprise if you discover your crush when you were a teenage, or some members in your family were souless.

And even if they lack a soul, the crimes against thems would cause a "bad karma", and that in Ravenloft means serious consequences.

Would you try to stop a mother with soul to risk her life to save her baby if this was a souless person when they were attacked by monsters?

And this is like chatting how you like to cook your pizza at home. We would rather different style.

I don't like the players asking details to the DM to know who could be a souless.

 

[Voadam]

The issue is for me it isn't a grim dark setting. I do think there is a place in horror and horror RPGs for this kind of horrific revelation (suddenly realizing all the people around you aren't what you thought, can be very effective horror). It just doesn't fit how I see and use Ravenloft

Ravenloft has had a little room for this since the first Monstrous Compendium appendix.

A lot of people though feel that a fantasy Invasion of the Body Snatchers does not quite fit the traditional gothic horror Ravenloft vibe and I never saw one in a Ravenloft product outside of the monster compendiums.

 

[Voadam]

I think it's dope that most things in the Demiplanes of Dread are soulless. These are basically empty flesh robots programmed by the Dark Powers, arcane AI that exists only to make you question yourself, your reality, everything. It's very grim and sometimes sad; I've always toyed with the idea of enlightening these people in a campaign just to see where that would lead.

The analogy that comes to mind for me for the 5e CoS soulless is finding out you are a human in the Matrix, there are a few other humans there as well but most people you see are just Matrix AI.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ravenloft has had a little room for this since the first Monstrous Compendium appendix.

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A lot of people though feel that a fantasy Invasion of the Body Snatchers does not quite fit the traditional gothic horror Ravenloft vibe and I never saw one in a Ravenloft product outside of the monster compendiums.

I had no problem with that. I think it fits enough into the classic Ravenloft. I am not a gothic horror purest when it comes to the setting (though I do think it should maintain a gothic and classic horror priority). But this is very different than all of Barovia been soulless or all of the demi-plane being inhabited by soulless people

 

[Alzrius]

Ravenloft has had a little room for this since the first Monstrous Compendium appendix.

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A lot of people though feel that a fantasy Invasion of the Body Snatchers does not quite fit the traditional gothic horror Ravenloft vibe and I never saw one in a Ravenloft product outside of the monster compendiums.

They were pretty central to the "Horror's Harvest" adventure in Dungeon #38, as I recall.