Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ichneumon" data-source="post: 6299181" data-attributes="member: 98772">Just how do divination spells obtain the information required? Casters on more conventional worlds get the luxury of treating the process like a black box, though it's often assumed that benevolent or neutral beings convey what's required. In Ravenloft, being so blasé isn't an option. Ghosts and other malevolent spirits are believed to deliver the information, and attracting the attention of such beings is a major risk.The very process of being informed is unnerving enough. Sepulchral voices whisper into PCs' ears. Eerie auras appear around people. Ghostly figures materialise and intone the information sought. There's been tales of bloody, severed heads flying into view and howling cryptic missives. Stories persist of a random PC in a group suddenly adopting a haunted, blank expression and speaking in an alien tone. So far, the PC has always returned to normal afterwards.However, seasoned PCs can quickly get used to how divinations work here. Apart from the odd fright, there isn't anything that can actually hurt them. Uh-oh. Think again. On other worlds, whatever delivers divination info does its job and goes away. On Ravenloft, the messengers have their own agenda, and are liable to amuse themselves by informing the PCs' targets or sending packs of undead after the PCs. More powerful beings may torment a PC with nightmares or even inflict a geas (required quest). Contact Other Plane, despite its name, puts the PC in direct contact with the greatest power in that part of Ravenloft, such as a dread lord. The more cunning beings enjoy mimicking the deity that the PC thinks they're talking to.Fundamentally, the most powerful Ravenloft entities permit divinations to help fuel their own amusement. A good degree of reliability is permitted, as without it PC casters would just stop using them. But the PCs should assume by default that if their detect evil has revealed the innkeeper as a vampire, he knows that they know and is already making preparations. Divinations that could put a high-ranking figure at real risk tend to be delivered cryptically, and it's not unknown for two answers to be given: one true, the other dangerously false.</blockquote>

Verification