Dark Powers

[Mistmaster]

Hello, everybody; I would like to inquire if in your own campaigns you have decided and revealed the nature of the Darh Powers;
Personally, I'm planning a campaign in which Ravenloft features as one of the settings, among others, and I have decided the Dark Powers are a cluster of embrional supreme deities; You know Lord Ao and the Hightgod? well, they are younger and clueless; They haven't been properly trained and supervised, so they made a long series of mistakes, which made Ravenloft what it is now.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

Chiquita Banana is one of the Dark Powers in my Ravenloft campaigns.

So is Grant Gustin.

[alhoon]

I've decided to not decide.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I'm fond of the "shadows of the gods" theory: That the subconscious of all the various gods of the multiverse have conspired together without their conscious knowledge and gone off and indulged all their whims of punishment and "justice" that they usually restrain themselves from. It nicely explains why the gods don't interfere in Ravenloft, and why the place has so many odd quirks.

[ewancummins]

I am firmly in the mystery camp. The Dark Powers might very well not exist, IMC. Or maybe they do exist. It will never be revealed.

[Five]

Currently I am playing with the idea of the Dark Powers from a sort of "Jungian Shadow" angle. It's a "physical" manifestation of both negative and positive aspects of people's unconscious personalities. Ravenloft heroes such as Doctor Rudolph van Richten would be stereotypical bullied bookworms/ meek scholars on a world like Faerun, and Strahd the vampire is Strahd the warlord's bloodlust personified. Nastiest people are Dark Lords (or in line for), mild manner reporters are superheroes (of the PC variety), and the rest of the crowd are stockart. haha Nah. They're sliders...people who have yet to "decide" in what direction their shadows will go. Best way to describe my POV would be to call them True Neutrals. Thing is, each individual's memories are wiped of their past lives and so it's spiritual-emotional gauntlet of sorts. To "get out" is to tune in to one's true nature. Sounds simple, but it's not.

I'm planning on writing a series of (short) adventures based around this idea, yet when they're finished I will more than likely move on like I tend to do and redefine the Dark Powers through a different perspective, if at all. At the table I never did define.

Edit: I just realised that I have yet to define the actual Dark Powers/drawing force in that particular take. I've only toyed with the inhabitants to date. Huh. Gotta think some more. Obviously.

Edit 2: I got it. The Dark Powers in this instance are that which the gods granted sentient life and are thus unable to control: Free Will. Ravenloft, the Realm (of Terror) is a zone/dimension where the gods cannot reach. The collective unconsciousness of sentient beings.

The Evil shadows are meant to hone the Good, and vice versa. They exist and battle for no reason other than emergence.

The inner conflict, the inability to accept ones shadow is what keeps people/individuals trapped in this divine dead zone. And not everybody has an extreme crisis of self identity (which vaguely explains why the realm doesnt house a billion billion personas).

And that's all I got for now. I'm at work. Haha

[thekristhomas]

I thought about a triumvirate of gods, each representing one of the ethical alignments, the Mad God represented Chaos, Madame Fate representing Law (the Mad God was not happy when he thought law was being represented by Lady Luck), and Death representing Neutrality. I thought that the moral alignments wouldn't be represented because so much of RL mechanics refuses to acknowledge Good and Evil.

As a trio they compete with each other, but also have quite high levels of cooperation, fate, madness and death often sharing the same favorite toy. But they delight in virtue as much as wickedness, the Mad God sees his influence as much in the devotion of a paladin to their code as in the repeating patterns of a serial killer, Death knows the champion sends as many to his bosom as the villain and Madame Fate pushes Van Richten to greatness even as she pushes Strahd to his doom.

[Cromstar]

I know and have decided on what the 'Dark Powers' are for my campaign, but it would be nearly impossible for any PC to ever find out.

Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 possible situations where the information would be tangential and within reach if one knew where to search...but technically, neither of those situations take place *in* Ravenloft itself.

[Terminusvitae]

Normally, I just have the Dark Powers as the nebulous puppet masters of a tiny slice of the multiverse in which they have absolute dominion and are in control enough to keep out anything and anyone whom they don't want sullying their playground. In my current campaign, I decided relatively late that the Dark Powers are actually some of the last primordial "urges" of creation, embodying and in complete control of abstract concepts and emotions such as malevolence, intransigence, and so forth. In this particular campaign, the rest of the multiverse is basically ruled by deific beings, and the Realm of Dread is one of about three places left in all of existence in which the gods and goddesses (and monsters of their own creation, such as the demons and devils) do not rule; instead, the sentient manifestation of things more ancient than holy writs and religious pantheons hold sway.

In light of that, there are actually a number of external forces who want a piece of Ravenloft, and all but one have pretty much failed to gain a foothold in the Land of Mists. This campaign's been going on for a couple of years now, but the players finally seem to be putting together the picture of what's going on and their own role in it.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I will note that, as others have said, in the vast majority of RL games, it doesn't matter what they are. We know them by their actions, and that's enough. In fact, in my campaign, one PC actually met some of them, and it still didn't matter what they were philosophically, just what they wanted and how they acted to get it..

[Joël of the FoS]

I know and have decided on what the 'Dark Powers' are for my campaign, but it would be nearly impossible for any PC to ever find out.

Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 possible situations where the information would be tangential and within reach if one knew where to search...but technically, neither of those situations take place *in* Ravenloft itself.

I clearly see what you mean. Can you be more obscure?

[Cromstar]

I know and have decided on what the 'Dark Powers' are for my campaign, but it would be nearly impossible for any PC to ever find out.

Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 possible situations where the information would be tangential and within reach if one knew where to search...but technically, neither of those situations take place *in* Ravenloft itself.

I clearly see what you mean. Can you be more obscure?

I didn't actually post that with the intention of being obscure...well, let me rephrase that: I deliberately didn't list details because I didn't really see them as being necessary unless someone cared to know, not because I was trying to be coy about it.

But Gonzoron's post above about one of his PCs meeting some Dark Powers has made me reconsider that point, because it highlights a difference I had not really considered.

I'll spoiler the details below, but the main thing I'm looking at with this point is that in my campaign, the DPs aren't actually conscious entities. Or even 'entities' at all, really. You couldn't meet or converse with them, as they don't really think...they're more akin to mindless, super-powerful, disembodied ids than anything else. To my mind, this is why only Strahd (and 'Death') ever claim to actually have contact with them...Strahd has rewritten his own history to the point even he has trouble remembering the real facts, and Death wasn't sane before his transformation into...whatever...and certainly didn't get more sane coming out the other side.

Its why, while there's a lot of info to be found I've enjoyed, I crop out or explain away any details that imply any kind of foresight or foreknowledge (or any other direct intelligence) on the part of the DPs (for example, that Malosia formed prior to the arrival of a Darklord in the Black Crusade novel, among many, many other things in that novel, which I did enjoy despite these). Its normally not that hard, especially given the already incongruous nature of Ravenloft.

VIEW CONTENT:

To put it simply, sometime between the beginning to existence and the final step of the creation of the multiverse, the ultimate embodiment of evil managed try and fail to position himself as the only supreme being, and got himself jailed. Seeing as nobody wanted to stick him in one of the newly created planes for fear someone would work out how to free him, his peers created a plane specifically to serve as a jail: a one-way trip. So Ravenloft in my cosmology is literally Tharizdun's prison, a plane built solely to keep evil from leaving.

The Dark Powers are the small tidbits of him that aren't completely bound, hence why they aren't conscious or intelligent. However, they are highly reactive...seeking out evil and pulling it to them. Of course, misery loves company, so the evil creatures they suck in don't get a free ride and end up despising their own situation inside the jail as well. Everyone loses. This is also why gods and outer planar creatures avoid the place like it was plagued...even the rulers of deific pantheons aren't a match for the powers involved.

The only two situations I can foresee where this kind of information comes to light are:

-The events of the Die Vecna Die adventure, where they can come to light because these events literally involve using the power of two (relatively) minor deities to punch holes in the fabric of all the multiverse. And even then, the only way for PCs to dig that info up is by somehow convincing the Lady of Pain to share the details (not in and of itself an easy task) after Vecna is sent packing back to Ravenloft.
-Any series of events that leads to freeing the ultimate evil from his prison...as doing so, in addition to the many, many other things it would involve, would wink Ravenloft out of existence almost instantly...and may dump all its real inhabitants into some unholy corner of the multiverse, if they are lucky. If. In this situation, there's a few possible sources the PCs might be able to glean facts from if they were savvy enough. But personally, I wouldn't bet too strongly on it, since even Asmodeus and Demogorgon don't know all the details, and they'd be among the more approachable fonts of knowledge.

[Joël of the FoS]

Interesting (if deadly) option

[thekristhomas]

I know and have decided on what the 'Dark Powers' are for my campaign, but it would be nearly impossible for any PC to ever find out.

Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 possible situations where the information would be tangential and within reach if one knew where to search...but technically, neither of those situations take place *in* Ravenloft itself.

I clearly see what you mean. Can you be more obscure?

I didn't actually post that with the intention of being obscure...well, let me rephrase that: I deliberately didn't list details because I didn't really see them as being necessary unless someone cared to know, not because I was trying to be coy about it.

But Gonzoron's post above about one of his PCs meeting some Dark Powers has made me reconsider that point, because it highlights a difference I had not really considered.

I'll spoiler the details below, but the main thing I'm looking at with this point is that in my campaign, the DPs aren't actually conscious entities. Or even 'entities' at all, really. You couldn't meet or converse with them, as they don't really think...they're more akin to mindless, super-powerful, disembodied ids than anything else. To my mind, this is why only Strahd (and 'Death') ever claim to actually have contact with them...Strahd has rewritten his own history to the point even he has trouble remembering the real facts, and Death wasn't sane before his transformation into...whatever...and certainly didn't get more sane coming out the other side.

Its why, while there's a lot of info to be found I've enjoyed, I crop out or explain away any details that imply any kind of foresight or foreknowledge (or any other direct intelligence) on the part of the DPs (for example, that Malosia formed prior to the arrival of a Darklord in the Black Crusade novel, among many, many other things in that novel, which I did enjoy despite these). Its normally not that hard, especially given the already incongruous nature of Ravenloft.

VIEW CONTENT:

To put it simply, sometime between the beginning to existence and the final step of the creation of the multiverse, the ultimate embodiment of evil managed try and fail to position himself as the only supreme being, and got himself jailed. Seeing as nobody wanted to stick him in one of the newly created planes for fear someone would work out how to free him, his peers created a plane specifically to serve as a jail: a one-way trip. So Ravenloft in my cosmology is literally Tharizdun's prison, a plane built solely to keep evil from leaving.

The Dark Powers are the small tidbits of him that aren't completely bound, hence why they aren't conscious or intelligent. However, they are highly reactive...seeking out evil and pulling it to them. Of course, misery loves company, so the evil creatures they suck in don't get a free ride and end up despising their own situation inside the jail as well. Everyone loses. This is also why gods and outer planar creatures avoid the place like it was plagued...even the rulers of deific pantheons aren't a match for the powers involved.

The only two situations I can foresee where this kind of information comes to light are:

-The events of the Die Vecna Die adventure, where they can come to light because these events literally involve using the power of two (relatively) minor deities to punch holes in the fabric of all the multiverse. And even then, the only way for PCs to dig that info up is by somehow convincing the Lady of Pain to share the details (not in and of itself an easy task) after Vecna is sent packing back to Ravenloft.
-Any series of events that leads to freeing the ultimate evil from his prison...as doing so, in addition to the many, many other things it would involve, would wink Ravenloft out of existence almost instantly...and may dump all its real inhabitants into some unholy corner of the multiverse, if they are lucky. If. In this situation, there's a few possible sources the PCs might be able to glean facts from if they were savvy enough. But personally, I wouldn't bet too strongly on it, since even Asmodeus and Demogorgon don't know all the details, and they'd be among the more approachable fonts of knowledge.

This is very close to my original envisioning of the demiplane , based on the reference to the demiplane of imprisonment in the 1st ed Manual of the Planes . If you read Gary's denial of this (it's here somewhere on the FAQ,I think)you'll see that he makes mention of multiple dream scapes surrounding Tharizdun's prison , now I know of a place in the demiplane that has multiple dream scapes, don't you?

One thing I thought was that the Vistani, through their visions of the future , are kinda like a diagnostic system for the prison , the events which they foresee relate to the continued smooth running of the place ,whether they know that or not (Madame Radanavich didn't expect capturing Erasmus to lead to the death of her clan , but to great things)

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

A bit off topic, but canonically, isn't Vecna the only being in the multiverse who knows their secret?