Question for Mouseferatu: Listonshire in Ravenloft

[Le Noir Faineant]

Hi!

This will be my autumn/Halloween campaign,
starting in around two weeks.

What would you recommend me to change/set up differently, Mr Marmell?

I've alway held this adventure in high regards,
but somehow never came to run it.

I am pondering on a few ideas on my own, but I am curious
what the author himself, or my siblings in darkness here think about the matter.

Thanks a lot,

Rafe

[Mouseferatu]

Hmmm...

That's a bit tricky, since I wrote the adventure to mesh into the "medieval fantasy" feel of old editions of D&D. (It's also been a long time since I've thought about it, to be honest.) But let me think...

First, you might consider having the curse on the ducal line come from some source other than worshipers of the Oinodaemon. Powerful fiends are frightening, sure enough, but it's the wrong kind of frightening for a gothic horror setting like Ravenloft. The curse might instead come from an ancient covey of hags or witches, an evil cult, or directly from one of the viler ancestors of the family itself.

You'll want to change out some of the creatures. Either make more of them undead, or go the opposite route and make more of them into evil humans who were drawn by the curse. (If you do that, it'll increase the impact of the few genuine undead, such as the ghost in the forge.)

The skulks could certainly be changed. Perhaps they're undead or evil fey, as opposed to just a stealthy breed of humanoid. Consider having the maid who fled with the ring rise as a restless spirit, rather than having the PCs use Speak With Dead.

Of course, what none of them takes into account is the fact that the Doom of Listonshire has some dark scenes, but it was never intended to be a horror module. You can make individual scenes and encounters creepier, but I'm not sure you could make the entire adventure into a horror without doing some substantial rewriting.

But those are just my first thoughts, off the top of my head. If anything else occurs to me, I'll certainly mention it.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Wow, thanks a lot for the quick answer, Mr Marmell!

The campaign will start next week, and your ideas are helping em greatly!

It's my greatest fun as RL DM, to take an "uncreepy" adventure,
like "The Doom of Listonshire", and enhance it to become some sort of phantasmagoria.

So far, the first measure I have taken has been to change the ogres for some calibans,
and I am thinking of maybe connecting Father Barclay to them. (Him raising them as children, or something alike.)

Apart from that, no real idea how I will set things up;
as to where to set the module, I think I'll try Sithicus.

[Mouseferatu]

Wow, thanks a lot for the quick answer, Mr Marmell!

No problem. And please, call me "Ari." I already feel old enough as it is.

I was just thinking, something else you could do would be to replace some of the monsters with creatures like lycanthropes. (Not too many, but a handful here and there.) Make them normal, innocent people in their human form, who don't even remember what they do in their animal or halfbreed form--but in their animal/halfbreed form, are enthrall to the magics of the curse. In fact, it's the curse--rather than the moon--that controls their transformations, so they can be active at any time. Once the PCs figure out that some of the monsters they're encountering on their quest are just innocent citizens, they'll have to decide if they can keep just fighting/killing them at will, or if they need to find some other means of defeating them.

It should add an element of horror, while still remaining in-theme for the story and the province itself.