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If we accept for this discussion that the Red Death originated from some sort of halfway place between Gothic Earth and the Demiplane of Dread... Just what is it?

An evil entity originally drawn to the Demiplane for its crimes, but powerful enough to halt its transition, lost halfway between home and imprisonment until Imhotep's ritual gave it a way out?

A Dark Power banished from the Mists for crimes committed against its own kind? (Not impossible; if we look at all the damage the Red Death has done and its heavy-handed tactics in corrupting 99.9% of all magic, it is not inconceivable that the other Dark Powers kicked it out for being too rough with their 'game board'.)

A Dark Power that decided to strike out on its own, just because it wanted to and could?

Something else? What are your opinions on the subject?

But regardless... what do you think the RD's plans are in the really long term? Corrupt and defile all of Gothic Earth, making it a mortal Hell, sure, but what comes next?
Would it be carrying a grudge against the DP? Would it have a desire for vengeance?

Rock wrote:If we accept for this discussion that the Red Death originated from some sort of halfway place between Gothic Earth and the Demiplane of Dread... Just what is it?

An evil entity originally drawn to the Demiplane for its crimes, but powerful enough to halt its transition, lost halfway between home and imprisonment until Imhotep's ritual gave it a way out?

A Dark Power banished from the Mists for crimes committed against its own kind? (Not impossible; if we look at all the damage the Red Death has done and its heavy-handed tactics in corrupting 99.9% of all magic, it is not inconceivable that the other Dark Powers kicked it out for being too rough with their 'game board'.)

A Dark Power that decided to strike out on its own, just because it wanted to and could?

Something else? What are your opinions on the subject?

But regardless... what do you think the RD's plans are in the really long term? Corrupt and defile all of Gothic Earth, making it a mortal Hell, sure, but what comes next?
Would it be carrying a grudge against the DP? Would it have a desire for vengeance?

1. The Red Death is the multiversal "parent" of the Dark Powers. It's corruption of all magic denotes a power greater than the Dark Powers'.

2. The Red Death is the Dark Powers matured, that have been heroically (foolishly) banished (released) from the Demiplane of Dread, free to roam (now trapped) in Gothic Earth reality.

3. The Red Death is the Dark Powers before they are banished to the Demiplane of Dread. Thus weakened, it becomes more subtle than ever while it "regenerates", slowly clawing at the multiverse in its incessant hunger. The Demiplane of Dread is its nursery, its most vulnerable state, hence the domains and dark lord-only rulers and relatively small size.

4. The Red Death is the Dark Powers and Gothic Earth is Future Ravenloft. Or, it's long-forgotten ancestor.

As to its plans? It has no plans. It just feeds. The gods only know why, or not even they can contemplate the raw elemental force that it is, or, has become. Eater of worlds, devourer of magic (threads of reality), Anti-life given "form", the Shadow of the collective known as gods (or, Big Bang, if you prefer)...

And as such it does not target living beings so much as corrupts them (those who exhibit "echoes" of its own existence) into a more palatable form as a symbiotic by-product of its hunger (for ultimate absorption).

Or some such thing.

This really depends in large part on how you interpret/view the Dark Powers themselves. Based on my own personal view of what the DPs are, I don't really see the Red Death being related to them, at least in any kind of direct form.

I do, however, see some similarities.

Personally, I don't view the Red Death as being truly sentient and sapient. It is *alive* in a sense, and has an agenda (per se), but I view it more as an unconscious, unthinking force of pure evil. Thus, those who are evil (or use magic) are able to tap into it (intentionally or not) and draw power from it directly, which in turn helps spread its influence and power.

Thus, the Red Death benefits from and grows in power as evil spreads further and becomes more prevalent, but the Red Death itself doesn't necessarily talk to or deliberately empower or favor some above others. Those who are better at evil are able to draw more power directly from the Red Death, and thus are higher 'ranked' among the forces of evil due to their own efforts.

For what it is directly...right now, I'm leaning towards the idea that the Red Death is the left over essence of some entity that was destroyed, but Imhotep's spells accidentally captured that essence at the instant of its death and pulled it into the universe of Gothic Earth. I do not, currently, have a firm idea of what entity or kind of entity it would have previously been.

In no way should this stop you from brewing your own theories, but according to William W. Connors, co-creator of MotRD, he viewed the Red Death as an exiled Dark Power:
http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/TheP ... Death.html

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:In no way should this stop you from brewing your own theories, but according to William W. Connors, co-creator of MotRD, he viewed the Red Death as an exiled Dark Power:
http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/TheP ... Death.html

That would have meant a lot more if the Dark Powers had ever been defined

I definitely get why that would be his thought, since Masque basically boils down to: 'the dark powers, but its earth!' But I also find it amusing that occasionally these undefined ideas would be built on top of other, also undefined ideas, like the weirdest house of intangible cards.

What's known about the Red Death is that it was exiled from a far removed "land of Mists" but conjured to Earth by Imhotep in the service of Djoser in 2700 BC (see the 3e book Masque of the Red Death p. 5, 11-12, 224). The connections between the two are messy from a purely linear timeline perspective because the Demiplane of Dread is only about 500 years old, whereas the Red Death has been on Earth for thousands. (Of course time doesn't really strictly flow the way in the Demiplane it does elsewhere)

Regarding other connections between the main Ravenloft setting and Gothic Earth, we have little else to go by. The Vistani seemed to travel to Gothic Earth from elsewhere sometime after the arrival of the Red Death, their exact purposes unknown. In canon, it's been shown in one instance that the Dark Powers aren't afraid of "stealing" things away from the Red Death, in the Italian Renaissance village of Odiare (making Maligno into a darklord) or the Pied Piper of Hamelyn.

Well, all things considered, I buy that it is a Dark power, but one that is playing a slightly different game than the others, thus it had to leave to find its own board and Gothic Earth got its attention. Rather than let evil develop, it creates evil and lets heroes try to deal with it. It torments heroes rather than the villains like the other Dark Powers do.