Two Dukkar?

[BigBadQDaddy]

I had an idea of using a second Dukkar in my campaign as an NPC directly liked with the party. I am not trying to take away the importance of Mellochio, but I had this neat idea.
Basically, This NPC is a vistana who has been exiled by his camp(I havnt decided which one yet) due to the fact that he was born completley albino. and due to the ignorance of the times, his people believed him to be a fiend or a devil and left him behind.
Where he grew up is still open game, but he definatley has the second sight. Basically he serves as a guide for the pc's. Kind of like a very convienient way to move the PC's from adventure to adventure(due to the vistani's mysterious ways). He basically seeks them out due to a vision he had of a group of outsiders(the PCs) whom carry great importance in the outcome of events in ravenloft(hence a campaign).
Does any one think this is a good/bad idea?

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Perhaps instead of being a Dukkar, he has the Haunted feat and his guide (perhaps his mother) has the Sight that they use to guide him. That way he can still be thought of as a Dukkar, but isn't one in reality. It leads to a moral dilemma for the players when the Vistani mistake him for a Dukkar.

[BigBadQDaddy]

Hey Now...
That is a nice twist. That could lead to some really interesting confrontations.
How cool would it be to have the PCs confront the NPC about his nature and all of a sudden the protective spirit of his mother defends him. That could be really interesting towards the end of the campaign.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Drinnik's idea is really cool. (I've got a Half-Vistani PC with Ghostsight and the Haunted feat, and am setting him up to be mistaken for a Dukkar. But being Haunted by a true vistani with the Sight is an excellent twist).

But I just wanted to point out that Mallocchio isn't the only Dukkar. There's also Hyskosa, who foresaw the Grand Conjunction. So you're in the clear for adding as many Dukkars as you wish. Just find a way to avoid them being killed at birth by the vistani. (they have some way of checking male babies for the sight apparently.)

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

We have been told before that Hyskossa has not said his last, so who's to say he isn't still about? If you use him you have your second Dukkar straight away

[brothersale]

i agree with not making him a Dukkar, i mean their is Mallocchio, Hyskosa and the Vistani boy in the Requiem series. it gets over used for something that was and is a BIG vistani boogieman

[Brandi]

We have been told before that Hyskossa has not said his last, so who's to say he isn't still about?

If Hykosa's Zarovan it's even likelier he's around...

[BigBadQDaddy]

I am really starting to think the idea of having my vistani haunted by his mother, whom is the seer is a great idea, for one reason.
When brainstorming for this character I had envisioned his mother dying in birth.
It would make absolute sense that the character be haunted due to the tragedy of his coming into the world. And it would also make sense that after being abandoned by his camp, he somehow was able to survive.
Man I love this game.

[Catman Jim]

But I just wanted to point out that Mallocchio isn't the only Dukkar. There's also Hyskosa, who foresaw the Grand Conjunction. So you're in the clear for adding as many Dukkars as you wish. Just find a way to avoid them being killed at birth by the vistani. (they have some way of checking male babies for the sight apparently.)

There was also Karali Jenai, a former Vistani dukkar, then darkling. From the 1993 TSR card set "Karali is a Vistana recently cast out from his tribe for the evils he brought upon it. One of the few male Vistani to have the Sight, he abused it for his own gain at the expense of his tribe. Now he wanders the lands of Ravenloft slowly decomposing into the form of the darkling". I realize that's 12 years old and doesn't fit with current canon, but there might be something usable in 'Sighted' male Vistani that manage to survive their childhood.

[Bloody Morgan]

But I just wanted to point out that Mallocchio isn't the only Dukkar. There's also Hyskosa, who foresaw the Grand Conjunction. So you're in the clear for adding as many Dukkars as you wish. Just find a way to avoid them being killed at birth by the vistani. (they have some way of checking male babies for the sight apparently.)

I imagine that the checking method probably runs along the line of the Zarovan tasque turning up at the relevant camp before the child is even born, and no-one daring to argue with Madam Eva.

Bloody Morgan

[The Arcanist]

But I just wanted to point out that Mallocchio isn't the only Dukkar. There's also Hyskosa, who foresaw the Grand Conjunction. So you're in the clear for adding as many Dukkars as you wish. Just find a way to avoid them being killed at birth by the vistani. (they have some way of checking male babies for the sight apparently.)

I imagine that the checking method probably runs along the line of the Zarovan tasque turning up at the relevant camp before the child is even born, and no-one daring to argue with Madam Eva.

Bloody Morgan

Theres only one problem with that, the Vistani can never see the future of the Dukkar, their second sight is blind to the dukkar, most fortune tellings concerning a dukkar are actually harmful to the reader ( i.e. gaby at the beginning of the evil eye), but it is also mentioned that the readings can only be wrong/misleading/false...

So thats your method of finding dukkars, male baby is born and taken to the raunie that will try to glimpse his future, if the raunie screams, falls unconcious and remains twitching on the floor... the baby will be dead before she wakes up.

but what if it was only a false vision?

"Oh im sorry dear, your son will die at the tender age of 7, better make the best of the time while you still have him" the mother gets real attached to the kid until he is 7 and she accidentally discovers he has the second sight...

She can not kill him! she loves him too much, the tribe has just found out, he cannot be a dukkar for the raunie knew he would die at this age, thats a correct reading, they'll kill him...

She cant allow that, she flees with him, the tribe hunts them down but she already hid the kid before being captured by her own tribe and cursed/killed/both, the raunie can not "see" the child anymore, the dukkar is lost. Of course the child has already seen all this and much more; he is wise beyond his years he'll find a way of reaching adulthood keeping a low profile...

well at least thats the origins for the dukkar i made... him also being a zarovan, he could have been born many years after the death of mallochio and still show up at the current timeline.


edit: typo

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Good one, Arcanist.

The neat thing about that cycle is that it can keep happening again and again and again - which would allow for hundreds of dukkars in the extremly ancient history of the vistani.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Ohmygosh, this just gave me an AMAZING idea!

We know that the Sight of the Vistani is "blind" to the future of a Dukkar, such that a newborn male whose future cannot be read is automatically branded as such a threat and killed. But that's not the only thing which a Vistani seer is unable to foretell: Vistani also cannot see their own future, perhaps because of a supernatural limitation on their power, or perhaps due to their own subconscious denial.

But what if these two effects are, in fact, related? What if the souls of the Vistani are reborn as new members of their own Vistani tribes, complete with their Sight (if any) intact ... and they aren't always born the same sex? Worse, what if their rebirths -- like the lives of the Zarovan -- don't take place in linear chronological time, but are scattered back and forth throughout Ravenloft's history? What if a raunie was brought to the crib of a newborn boy of her tribe, and tried to read his future, and couldn't ... because that baby is herself in another body?

There's ample precedent for multiple reincarnations of the same soul, in the Ravenloft setting -- even, if Tatyana's example is considered valid, for multiple incarnations existing at the same time -- and reincarnation fits well with the Indian roots of IRL gypsy culture, which inspired the culture of the Vistani. Maybe the prophecy of the Dukkar is really referring to just one individual -- Malocchio, almost certainly -- and all those other cases of infanticide have been a horrible mistake: raunies ordering the deaths of babies they don't realize are their own reincarnations, then being reborn again as females and growing up to continue the practice! Perhaps that's what Valana and Hyskosa figured out, that made them want to complete the Hexad and break this cycle of folly ... and the other Vistani rejected their plans, not out of horror at what the destruction of the demiplane would do, but in sheer denial that they've been needlessly murdering themselves, all along?

Weird idea, I'll allow ... but, darn it, isn't bizarre consequences of misread prophecies part of what the Vistani are all about?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

That is a really cool idea, but as far as I know, it's not that Vistani can't read the future of themselves and can't read the future of Dukkars. I always though that no vistani can read the future of ANY vistani. I thought "can't read their own future" uses THEIR in the sense of all vistani, not "he or she". It's not that it's a special ability of Dukkars to be immune to the sight, it's that they are vistani, and THEREFORE immune to the Sight.

I imagine the test for dukkar-hood is more like the old tests for psychic-ness with the cards with different shapes and whatnot.

[The Arcanist]

I dont think its really that no Vistani can read the future of any other Vistani, IIRC there are many references where a Vistani knows whats going to happen to another or even to herself Rotipher, the first that comes to mind is Rozaleen's self predictions in the curse of ashington mannor (DTDL).

I always assumed thats was something that made the dukkar so dangerous, if the Vistani are blind to him, but he is not blind to them, the Vistani cannot find him any better than a human trying to find a vistani who doesnt want to be found.