Café de Nuit

Greetings ladies and gents,

Despite our best intentions, issue twelve of Quoth the Raven ended up being cancelled. Depending on what the future holds, we'll see this issue resurrected much like a flesh golem on a stormy night. However, until then, we do have a minibook of the submitted articles to read and enjoy.

We would like to see feedback for the authors who spent so much time and energy creating these works. Since this is a poll, everyone can only vote for one article. However, you can always write in additional responses in a post.

Enjoy reading and we hope to see a lot of feedback for all of our contributors!

Jason

Oke-doke, I guess I'll start things up:

Diesache the devourer was easily my Fav - the take on the Thing was just so original, right from the innitial concept. As well, the idea of a formless thing from beyond - inside of an animal just screams sci-fi horror. Wonderful blend.

Ice Queen I wasn't so crazy about - the author and I didn't see eye to eye on Jerza's character. The loss of innocence took away her appeal. Still, I love the stat write up for Jerza, and the introduction of the devil in the mountain shed some light on the Ice Queen's origin.

Dark Decent was a good concept. The idea of % rolls doesn't fit with the essance of D20 gaming - so powers checks could use some upgrading.

Northern Frights was another great article. I really liked the gothic earth monsters - a lot of thought and research must have been placed into the Black Dog section.

Finally, the Monoliths was a very original article. The idea of UFOs in Gothic Earth could have been a tricky issue, but the approach in that article was subtle and indirect. I liked the dialogue in the begining, as well.

Odd, you forgot my short story in your reviews, S. I feel unloved.
Mistook your coments on the Jerza article for mine at first, interesting layout choice placing those back-2-back.

Diesache the Devourer
A very nice idea, combining a Thing from Beyond with a (comparatively) harmless shape - I'd love to see the players' reactions when the thing starts sprouting tentacles. Its Infectious Bite ability is wonderful (though players may disagree), and the second suggested adventure hook makes great use of it. The one thing I didn't like so much was the dungeon-crawling aspect of it, but it doesn't harm the overall impression much.

The Snow Queen
I love H.C. Andersen's stories, so seeing one of my favourites in Ravenloft was a pleasant surprise. I liked how the ending wasn't happy after all, and how there are still pieces of the mirror in the world, giving plenty of adventure hooks as well as making the story even darker than it originally is.

The Ice Queen
Jezra Wagner remains one of my favourite NPCs from RLMCII, so seeing third edition stats for her was nice. However, I agree with ScS that the loss of innocence seemed uneccessary. Rimmon, however, is very nice - Ravenloft needs more Unspeakable Evils buried in the dark places of the world.

Dark Descent
I'm not much of a judge when it comes to game mechanics, so I can't say how it measures up to the percentile system, but it seems a good job, and using a d20 seems far more intuitive. I'm not so sure on evil acts moving you several steps down the path of corruption at once, however - it seems a bit too fast.

Northern Frights
There are too few Masque monsters out there. Yes, you can use monsters from other books, but there's too few monsters who are not only based on but the actual creatures of myth. So this article was sorely needed. I liked all the creatures, especially the Brocken Spectres and Black Dogs.

The Monoliths
Odd, to say the least. But very nicely done, and with that familiar Masque mystique everything needs on Gothic Earth. I particularly like how they modify memories ("Monolith? What monolith?").

I liked the Devourer most too. I specially liked the ability to increase it's intelligence and that its spawns were intelligent too.

Just finished reading.

Diesache the Devourer: Despite a rather cheesy name and somewhat unremarkable history, this monster has great potential. Good to see a trapped-in-a-desolate-place-with-monster-at-heels scenario finally done well. I especially like the creature's original means of gaining intelligence, which can make it go from a mindless predator at the beginning of the adventure to a cunning schemer by its end.

Snow Queen: I really like how Jester re-told one of my childhood's favorite faery tales. I could really feel the cold, there.

Jezra: here, we see Jezra change slightly from the quasi-mythical folktale creature into a horror movie stereotype. Can argue with the concept, but not with the quality of the execution. I really like how Jezra's innocence gets to resurface from time to time. The article set me trying to imagine what living eternally alone as a ghost may feel like. The idea of a demon trapped within Mount Baratak has the problem of mirroring the concept of the Sleeping Beast. Still, the Neureni invasion does deserve to get some of its left-overs detailed.

Dark Descent didn't enchant me much, frankly. These variant rules may work, but to me they felt unnecessarily detailed and over-explained. Jester does a good job presenting his take on Powers Checks, but it doesn't always match mine. What's more, there's the question of mathematics: whenever you're elegible to make a Powers Check, you can never get a lesser than 5% chance of failing - the natural limitation of a d20.

Northern Frights offers three great winter monsters that can easily be used in standard Ravenloft in addition to Gothic Earth. Hungry Jack would be my favorite of the three, most likely because he's the most detailed.

The Monoliths article offers a surprising concept, but I like it! Coan did a very smart move in leaving the identity of the 'Masters' a malleable mystery. Though 'flying saucers' come instantly to mind, there are limitless possibilites for the monoliths' real origin. The enigma of the monolyths is vague enough that it can be easily inserted even in modern horror scenarios. Nice job.

The Monoliths were my favorite. I've even developed them a little further for use in my next campaign.

It's not what you expect though, as it's not RL/MotRD. It's Planescape .

Igor the Henchman wrote:Dark Descent didn't enchant me much, frankly. These variant rules may work, but to me they felt unnecessarily detailed and over-explained. Jester does a good job presenting his take on Powers Checks, but it doesn't always match mine. What's more, there's the question of mathematics: whenever you're elegible to make a Powers Check, you can never get a lesser than 5% chance of failing - the natural limitation of a d20.

I've had it in my mind to do an update of the power check rules for a while, do something to factor in alignment and other modifiers while also possibly changing away from the % dice system that is so seldom used. But, as you say, the lowest percentage is 5%, hence the use of possible redemption and Period of Grace, which can effectively half the percentage of a failed roll.
It's probably been my most ambitious article to date, especially when crunchy parts are not my forte.

I have to agree with the comments regarding Northern Frights...as a fan of the MotRD setting I find that a few Gothic Earth specific creatures is a refreshing change. I hope that more authors following this example.

Also, concerning the Monolith article, I was pleasantly surprised to see the subject matter since I recently ran a campaign where the monoliths played an important role. I used a slightly different take on this in my game (based more on the obolisk's history), but I found the different perspective to be very enlightening and stimulating to consider...very well done!

I really liked the book. - Would have deserved to be a whole QtR.

Desdichado wrote:I really liked the book.

Thanks! I'm sure that the contributors would like to hear more about what you specifically found useful and compelling, though.

Desdichado wrote:Would have deserved to be a whole QtR.

Overall, it was a judgment call whether we put out an issue or not. Due to the general lack of submissions, we figured that it would have been better to not create an issue of Quoth the Raven. However, we did receive enough articles that we didn't want to hold onto them until another time.

In retrospect, we probably could have still made the netbook into an issue (despite the extremely small size of it). Live and learn...

Maybe you can extend CE later with other submissions for that theme and make it *official* at last.

The decision to cancel issue 12 and replace it with a minibook was mostly an issue of surrender. It was pretty discouraging to see so few entries, coupled with a complete lack of energy on my part. The project just lacked sex appeal - we wanted to be rid of it as quickly as possible. Turning it into a full issue would have required more work; a full table of contents, a credits section, an editorial, ect... Granted it would have only taken an hour more, but at that point another hours work was the last thing I wanted to put in.
This wasn't the happiest descion, but I stand by it.

ScS of the Fraternity wrote:The decision to cancel issue 12 and replace it with a minibook was mostly an issue of surrender. It was pretty discouraging to see so few entries, coupled with a complete lack of energy on my part. The project just lacked sex appeal - we wanted to be rid of it as quickly as possible. Turning it into a full issue would have required more work; a full table of contents, a credits section, an editorial, ect... Granted it would have only taken an hour more, but at that point another hours work was the last thing I wanted to put in.
This wasn't the happiest descion, but I stand by it.

After all, you're only human, too.

QtR 11 was IMHO the best issue of the entire series, so a weak issue 12 would maybe have alienated many fans. Your decision is quite understandable.

In any case, I am looking forward to the new CotN!

...And now, what's next?