Mist Usage

[Korsahrath]

What are some good uses for the mists? Bullet them if you could. Also I have a scene in my adventure where the mists make it to where the players are almost in a different dimension. With that being said, the town and players can no longer see or interact with each other. Is this a correct usage?

[Tadelin]

One game I was in, I was playing a character who's memory was missing for a large chunk of his life. He knew he did something to get himself killed, but he didn't remember anything. The party even decided to go to the village he was from, and that didn't help. Though he did learn his last name.

After some playing around, the party got washed over by the mists, and shifted back to a couple days before he left the village. And that's when everything started to fall into place. In this case, the character was partially responsible for his own death, by unsuccessfully talking himself out of foolishly (and incorrectly) marching against Azalin.

[Strahdsbuddy]

Tadelin, that's a great idea, I had never thought of the Mists as a sort of "Window to the past" to help fill in the blanks of a story. THis would be a cool idea to develop as an ability, someone that is able to see what the Mists DON'T want to reveal, although I suppose this is the role of the Vistani. Still a dynamite usage.

As I looked into the history of the demiplane, I wondered where trade goods and food would come from. Subsistence farming could only support a very small population, even smaller than the canon pops from the black box. I imagined wagons or ships full of Mist-grown grain or iron for trade int he market. That way the DP could sustain their little ant farms in order to torture the subjects further.

[Tadelin]

It helped to fill in the blanks of the character's memory, that's for certain. It also served to show how a group's actions can be disastrous, even when appearing minor.

[Korsahrath]

Well these are great responses but they don't really answer my question. Through the ways I listed above, are those correct ways of using them? Or is there no wrong way? I recall reading in the RLPHB that the mists are a force that is capable of doing many things, leaving the DM to make whatever use he can; correct?

[Tadelin]

Yes, you do have a valid use with your idea, but unless you're planning to allow player actions to affect what the townsfolk see and vice versa, I'm lost on how that's any different than the players walking into an abandoned village.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

The RLDMG confirms explicitly what we all knew: The Dark Powers and the Mists are plot devices, and you can use them however they best suit you. The sort of thing your describing doesn't sound out of bounds at all, even if there's no canon example exactly like it. The Mists do all kinds of weird things.

[HuManBing]

One thing I added to the Mists' powers (which is sort of implied but not expressly stated) is that Azalin cannot see into them, even if they're in Darkon.

This doesn't usually have much of an effect, but there was one campaign where the PCs were doing things that they would much rather that Azalin didn't find out about (meeting with Hyskosa's family) and they kept the Vistani family in the Mists moving from point to point, and then the PCs would go into the Mists periodically to meet with them and hand over supplies like food and equipment - and then they would also exchange sensitive information.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Basically, the only way you can use the Mists "wrong" is to use them in a way that spoils their mystique. If you want to stick to the essence of Ravenloft as a setting, they should remain an enigmatic force of supernature, not something that even the villains can rightly claim to master or understand.

[Korsahrath]

Basically, the only way you can use the Mists "wrong" is to use them in a way that spoils their mystique. If you want to stick to the essence of Ravenloft as a setting, they should remain an enigmatic force of supernature, not something that even the villains can rightly claim to master or understand.

Perfect answer for me.

[philipsteele]

Mr.Tadelin thats a wonderful idea...keep it up....