D&D General Reading Ravenloft the setting

[Voadam]

If I'd have been designing Sithicus I'd have fought hard for the new darklord to be a shadow or reflection of Soth from one of his magic mirrors, adding an extra layer of unreliability to his own memories as he fought against the suspicion that he wasn't real and the recollections he was cursed with weren't even his. And maybe one night a month under Nuitari, Sithicus could be whole again, the forests verdant and sun-dappled, the elven cities bustling and elegant, as Lord Soth, Knight of the Rose, rode forth with his companions ... but it's all a collective hallucination or memory, spawned from Soth's broken mirrors, as he runs through his resentments again in his mind, trying to ensure that This Time everyone else (who were responsible for what went wrong, of course...), get it right and things work out as he'd planned.

That is a fantastic idea. A ghost of a death knight. Alternatively even if he is not the Darklord, he could be in the castle.

 

[Remathilis]

There's no way to get around it, Sithicus needs Soth.

I never could wrap my head around Sithicus continued existence without Soth. Its the poster-child of a campaign specific domain tied tightly to the darklord, and removing him negates the point. If there had been a WotC-based update rather than WW's slavish insistence to keep things as they were, I wager Sithicus would have dissolved into the Mists and a new domain take its place in the Core. Without Soth, I don't see a need for this domain.

 

[Voadam]

The Gazetteer talks about the 'Black Rose' as the ex-darklord rather that referring to Soth by name, even though it's happy to talk about Nuitari and Paladine, so I don't think there's a copyright issue there, or if there is, it's limited to Soth specifically rather than broader Dragonlance concepts.

That is interesting. The line had been pretty assiduous in not mentioning outside other world specific stuff like the Red Wizards. They even removed Kender vampires from the 3.0 and 3.5 bestiary vampire variants.

Do the kender vampires show up here as a monster entry?

 

[humble minion]

If there had been a WotC-based update rather than WW's slavish insistence to keep things as they were, I wager Sithicus would have dissolved into the Mists and a new domain take its place in the Core. Without Soth, I don't see a need for this domain.

I've never been quite sure whether the WW Ravenloft team went to such enormous pains to adhere to previous canon because they wanted to, or because they were contractually obliged to. It'd have been a brave game designer who decided to write Sithicus out of existence though, especially as Spectre of the Black Rose was only a couple of years old at the point this book was published.

But I believe Sithicus is making an appearance in the 5e book. I wonder if Soth will be around? WotC certainly own the rights to him, but given they only just settled a lawsuit brought by Weis and Hickman about an unrelated matter it'd be a hell of a provocation to bring Soth back to Ravenloft again when W&H hated it first time round. But I do agree with you, Sithicus needs Soth.

Of course, they could just be writing a completely new domain and calling it 'Sithicus', like they're doing with Dementlieu.

 

[humble minion]

Do the kender vampires show up here as a monster entry?

Nope. They're just referred to as halfling vampires (which I think are in Denizens of Dread?)

 

[Voadam]

Nope. They're just referred to as halfling vampires (which I think are in Denizens of Dread?)

That's disappointing. Kender vampires were their own thing with bitter insanity cackles and being vulnerable to staking on their own hoopaks. Halfling vampires are vulnerable to rainwater and repelled by tobacco smoke. Kender vamps can only be created by Soth, Halfling ones can create their own spawn. Kender ones had a poltergeist form, etc.

Halfling vampires were in both Denizens of Darkness and Denizens of Dread.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In certain way, lord Sorth is even worse than Strand von Zarovich. That was called to save the world, but he didn't and he was the responsible of the Cataclysm in Krynn, killing more people than Strand could in a century of blood-thirsting. And do you think he can find peace and redemption easily? Not only the damage caused in Krynn, but also in the own Sithicus, for example the creation of the vampire kenders.

My own version of Sithicus is a demiplane or pocket universe within Krynn-Shadowfell. It is the nexus between different alternate timelines, one of them where the king-priest of Isthat is the supreme deity, and other invader faction is from the Far Realm. It is the new lord Sorth's prison. The good new is here he really met with his wives and son, but these aren't very happy to see him. Sometimes these accept a new gathering but this is the "price" to pay lord Soth, the new guardian of the nexus against the planar invaders. This demiplane has got two special visitors, one is Raitslin from the alternate future where he become the supreme deity, and the other is the half-irda Raistlin's daughter, or at least her soul. She wants to save him, help him to reach the redemption, but sadly he doesn't come back to the "right path". When a sentient being dies in this Sithicus is reincarnted into a shadow-demiplane, a dark fey version of petitioners, and they can hunted by others, usually goblyns. There are kender settlers, and hidden in the forests, strange halflings tribes with tatoos and psionic powers, hunting and being hunted by other halfling tribe, the jerren.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In certain way, lord Sorth is even worse than Strand von Zarovich. That was called to save the world, but he didn't and he was the responsible of the Cataclysm in Krynn, killing more people than Strand could in a century of blood-thirsting. And do you think he can find peace and redemption easily? Not only the damage caused in Krynn, but also in the own Sithicus, for example the creation of the vampire kenders.

Lord Soth's backstory is great. It taps into a lot. I think of it as the Anakin we could have had in the prequels

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's disappointing. Kender vampires were their own thing with bitter insanity cackles and being vulnerable to staking on their own hoopaks. Halfling vampires are vulnerable to rainwater and repelled by tobacco smoke. Kender vamps can only be created by Soth, Halfling ones can create their own spawn. Kender ones had a poltergeist form, etc.

Halfling vampires were in both Denizens of Darkness and Denizens of Dread.

Kender Vampires were surprisingly creepy

 

[JEB]

I think you can look at it too through the lens of adaptation or reboot. I mean, many superheroes (for example) have their origin story routinely updated or have thier costumes modernized because what made sense in the 30s', 50's or 70's is quaint to modern tastes. They don't make new superheroes and ditch the old ones, the update them and change them to the new zeitgeist.

Sure, but most reboots retain core elements of the original, so you can recognize that despite the changes it's still the same core concept. They're not like this, where if I stripped the names off, you'd assume they're completely, utterly different ideas.

The closest (positive) analogy I can think of is DC's Tangent Comics, where they took the names of various superheroes and spun completely different characters out them. So Superman had psychic powers, the Flash was a teen pop star with light powers, etc. Cool ideas overall... but if you'd made them replacements for the classic heroes, and never used the classic characters again, I don't think it would have been received well.