Personal Canon

[HuManBing]

I changed Azalin's curse slightly. He can learn more arcane magic spells just fine, but he can never learn other forms of magic like druidic, clerical, and psionic powers.

This leaves him unchallenged as one of the Demiplane's most powerful arcane spellcasters, but it still frustrates his ultimate goal of escaping the Demiplane. One of the ways of escape requires a lengthy ceremony featuring several high-level spells cast from all different forms of magic. Azalin alone cannot complete this, forcing him to collaborate with other spellcasters - much to his distaste.

Another completely separate curse is his inability to maintain a convincing living facade around humans. After a number of hours his illusions start to wane, with disquieting details coming through. This makes collaboration even harder, and is to me a more poetic means of thwarting his plans than merely saying "you cannot learn any more spells... but wait! You're still a scary powerful spellcaster".

[HuManBing]

I also added in a separate rationale for Drakov's repeated invasions of Darkon. We already know he first appeared in southern Darkon, where he massacred a few villages and then was driven out by Azalin's undead. He attacked Darkon again four more times before stopping. We also know (from 2nd ed.) that Drakov comes from Thenol, a continent on the Dragonlance world of Krynn.

Dragonlance canon states that back on Thenol, where Drakov grew up, one of the leaders is the evil Bishop Trandamere, who seized power in a midnight coup by mobilizing armies of undead. This was a stunning betrayal from a harmless-seeming clergyman, and Drakov almost certainly knew about it.

My changes provided a different rational for Drakov's invasions than stubborn unyielding pride. My take on this is that Drakov worked for the Bishop before he realized the Bishop was actually a hidden evil agent. When the Bishop revealed his true colors, Drakov quickly opposed him. Rather like Lord Soth, he had a big chance to topple the Bishop and restore peace and order, but he blew it because of his own emotional and relationship distractions. When he realized his error, Drakov took his anger out on the relatives and dependents who tripped him up in the first place. Having his own (birth) family tortured and staked was the final act of darkness that drew him into Ravenloft.

If you take this into account, then it's entirely plausible that Drakov believes Azalin is the same person as Trandamere. Both are magic users (though one is arcane and the other is divine), and both command large numbers of undead. In his own mind, Drakov's doomed invasions of Darkon might seem more like a genuine effort to unseat an undead tyrant. If you add in his frustration that the other neighboring live human leaders don't seem to care much about this undead threat, you now get a much deeper character than one who merely wants to kill-kill-kill.

So in my campaigns Drakov's goals are: a) regime change in the neighboring human nations to unify them and oppose Azalin, and b) mount a crushing attack on Avernus and overthrow Azalin forever.

Drakov believes that his failure to overthrow Trandamere on Krynn led to his imprisonment in Ravenloft. In some way, he sees Azalin as Trandamere's alter-ego or symbolic twin - maybe if he destroys Azalin, he will finally redeem himself and people will acknowledge him as the hero he tries to be, rather than the tyrant he's been forced to become...

[d'Ysmaul]

That... is very cool, HuManBing.

Consider it stolen.

[HuManBing]

Glad you like it!

Drakov and Azalin are by far my two favorite darklords.

Edit: If you liked that interpretation of Drakov's past, you may be interested to know about The Bladeforge, a fan fic I'm working on about his life on Krynn. Be warned: it's very long and may never be finished.

[HuManBing]

I hesitate to call this next stuff "personal canon". It started off life more as a thought exercise in playing around with 3rd edition rules. I wanted to stat up a high level undead cleric in Azalin's employ, and I wanted to populate the Black Vault with high-level magical artifacts and epic-level challenges.

One thing led to another, and I ended up with two very powerful undead creatures in the Black Vault. It's so powerful it would be suited for epic play, but Ravenloft isn't really about epic level heroism. Some of it might be useful though because it also has some "fluff" that ties it in to Darkon's background social fabric.

Mazrikoth is a one-off NPC from the AD&D trading cards - a clerical undead in Azalin's employ.

Xenoregnus and Phirazaldea are entirely my creations.


Brief outline:

- The Eternal Order draws its divine spells from a stillborn godling (an Atropal Scion named Xenoregnus) trapped in the Black Vault. The godling is the single most powerful thing in the Black Vault and Azalin has it under many different layers of powerful magic to keep it comatose.

- The Eternal Order has several senior administrators. One of its highest officers is Mazrikoth, a high-level cleric gifted with a silver tongue. Mazrikoth is very charismatic and has been known to stand in for Azalin in certain social situations (most notably the depraved soirees held for the nobles). Mazrikoth is also an undead outworlder who, when he was alive, witnessed the decline of a faith. When the dying faith was drawn into Darkon, Azalin coordinated a series of assassinations to kill it off for good. Mazrikoth survived because he's very useful in birthing a new faith and Azalin needs a good administrator.

- When Azalin killed the old faith, the dying god sent a Deva named Phirazaldea after Azalin. The Deva killed him once in combat, but Azalin came back very angry and captured her, sealing her in the Black Vault. Untold decades of torture later, the Deva had become a twisted Angel of Decay, and her skull was birthing a stillborn godling (Athena subversion) as the Eternal Order's prayers filled her head. This stillborn godling would eventually become Xenoregnus.

- The Black Vault is not all in one contiguous place. Several trinkets and baubles are in the topmost, traditional dungeon layout. (Van Richten looted some of these in "Forged of Darkness".) The real prizes are tucked away in pockets hollowed out deep below the surface, linked with magical portals. Many are trapped to deliver false travellers to the Mists or Ebb's lair or worse. The biggest prizes are Phirazaldea and Xenoregnus, both sealed away in a crypt suspended beside the Shadow Rift. Azalin has given up trying to study them for now, and all his failsafes are intended to ensure they don't escape into Darkon - at the first hint of a containment failure, the vault's defenses will flush the two powerful beings into the Shadow Rift. Azalin would rather lose them both to the Mists of the Rift, than have such powerful epic-level creatures run rampant through his realm.

Stats for Phirazaldea.

Stats for Xenoregnus.

Stats for Mazrikoth.

Also, the difficulties in statting up these characters was one of the major reasons I left the d20 system.

[NeoTiamat]

There are some rather nice ideas here...

Most of the changes in my campaign tend to be more social/cultural than specific bits of geography or politics. Otherwise... my version of Ravenloft is closer to early-19th-century in terms of style and tone. Thus, a few specific implications:

-There is a great deal more interconnectivity of the Core and the main Clusters and Islands. Mistways are upwards of 95% reliable, so if you wish to get on a ship for Paridon, this is perfectly possible. There's generally a great deal of trade and a fair amount of immigration. My version of Port-a-Lucine has notably large Hazlani and Verbreker neighborhoods.

-The world is in the very early stages of an Industrial Revolution, although in addition to steam engines, you also have elemental binding. At the moment, the 'science' of elementalism is still largely restricted to University research departments, but the general knowledge of how to summon and bind powerful elementals has been expanding by leaps and bounds over the last fifty years, with one of the more recent discoveries being that of paraelementals (smoke, lightning, etc).

-The metaphysical corrolary to the above is that Ravenloft has it's own set of elemental planes. Dread Elementals are still corrupted versions of the elements, but finding a regular Fire Elemental is not that difficult if you know what you're doing.

-I ignore False History as much as physically possible, though I haven't made any specific changes, since that would be a job and a half. In general, I assume that all of the Domains, and many other things such as religions, have been around a lot longer than they are in 'canon'. Kind of... the Ezran religion does not feel like a religion that's been around for a hundred and fifty years at most. It feels like the millennia-old Christianity it is based on. So... I tend to ignore the false history in so much as possible. Thankfully, it has not come up.

[RShini]

- At the moment, the 'science' of elementalism is still largely restricted to University research departments, but the general knowledge of how to summon and bind powerful elementals has been expanding by leaps and bounds over the last fifty years, with one of the more recent discoveries being that of paraelementals (smoke, lightning, etc).
[/quote]

I'm reminded of Harry Turtledove's Toxic Spell Dump (instead of cars, flying carpets fueled by slyphs, Salamanders heating showers etc.)

[Hogan Van Monsterband]

The darklord of Bluetspur isn't the Illithid God-Brain. Instead, it's a solitary Illithid, the last of its' kind. Scholars across the Core know about the Bluetspur Entity, but not what it is or what it does.
...
Sourange is a colony of Dementlieu.
...
Vlad Drakov justifies his expansionism by saying that the Core can either be united under him or under Azalin, and he's just trying to bring the non-Darkonese together so they can resist Azalin's influence.

[NeoTiamat]

- At the moment, the 'science' of elementalism is still largely restricted to University research departments, but the general knowledge of how to summon and bind powerful elementals has been expanding by leaps and bounds over the last fifty years, with one of the more recent discoveries being that of paraelementals (smoke, lightning, etc).

I'm reminded of Harry Turtledove's Toxic Spell Dump (instead of cars, flying carpets fueled by slyphs, Salamanders heating showers etc.)

Hah, yes. I love that book. Different style (more horror, fewer puns), and it's early Industrial rather than Modern, but the idea is similar. The Law of Contagion and the Law of Similarity are major thaumaturgical laws in the game.

[HuManBing]

Not so much canon as just a quirky use of the Black Box bloodlines...

According to GazII, the Falkovnian Intelligence Minister is Calons Weir. According to Black Box, one of Drakov's very distant relatives is Yuri Mitrovic. Mitrovic is the husband of an illegitimate daughter of Vlad Drakov (Ireena Imlach, born of Nadia Rudzich).

In my campaign, I wrote in an early (725 or so) adventure arc where Mitrovic was the Intelligence Minister of Falkovnia. He is unusually efficient precisely because he is not a depraved monster - he's actually a somewhat bland and boring administrator. But as far as spymaster craft goes, he has few peers in the entire Core.

Mitrovic has a daughter, Sonia, who has a learning disability. For unknown reasons - possibly love, possibly shame - he has hidden her in a sanitarium in Lamordia. He has "borrowed" the cover story of a Darkonian woman and her daughter, which is safe because they lost their true memories after entering Darkon decades ago.

Mitrovic is a relatively decent man, by the standards of Falkovnians. He is unassuming, and not particularly strong in battle. He is a master manipulator, using complex tactics to ensure loyalty (e.g. enrolling the children of his underlings in military schools and turning them subtly against their parents). He is also the single most dangerous part of the Falkovnian espionage apparatus, successfully infiltrating neighboring kingdoms and providing Falkovnian central command with invaluable information about the diplomatic and military status quo.

Agents in Darkon, Dementlieu, and many other neighboring governments suspect he exists but do not know his identity for sure. Eliminating him would be a windfall and would set back the Falkovnian preparations for the next war quite a few years.

In my campaign, the PCs reconnected with the Darkonian noblewoman and helped rediscover her past. (Her daughter was dead.) They discovered Sonia Imlach in the sanitarium, and eventually linked her back to Yuri Mitrovic. They successfully blackmailed Mitrovic into a meeting, and arranged a deal: he hands over Vigo Drakov, and they will allow him safe passage into Lamordia to be with his daughter. In the end, the PCs were able to lead a Darkonian assassination squad against a border fort where Vigo was resting, and they spirited Mitrovic out of Falkovnia. In one fell swoop, Drakov's war machine lost two of its most important Falkfuhrers.

This storyline is explored in greater detail here. It was heavily inspired by the novel "Smiley's People" by John Le Carré.

[Isabella]

-Valachan, now Valacán, is based off Spanish Mexico. It's not a perfect analogue, since it's not really a colonial state, but the old order was overthrown by Don Uriel Carrascón (known as Von Kharkov to Vassi speaking peoples). The Don has a burning drive to stamp out every remnant of the old culture, as well as keen obsession with industrializing his domain, shipping mechanical parts all the way from Lamordia. He has converted the domain over to worship of the Lawgiver. He is also not some kind of bizarre nosferatu panther and is just a plain old man-jaguar.

-There is a train line running through the Four Towers, up into Lamordia and to the very tip of Darkon. It was majorly funded by Ivan Dilisnya, who when presented with the blueprints for the train responded... much like any young boy would at the thought of a train.

-Har Akir has more than one dinky little village. In fact, Har Akir is a decently well off country, with more modernity than might be expected. It boarders the Sebuan wastes, which is the place where all tombs and mummies got stuffed.

-Kartakass and Verbrek have been merged into one domain, under the darklordship of Alfred Timothy. His father, Nathan, willingly gave up the rulership to go cruise the Musarde in his boat. The north is overgrown and full of werewolves, the south is civilized and full of sneakier werewolves. Harkon Lukas is still there, but not the Darklord - he is a shapechanging giant wolf spirit that some werewolves think is the Wolf God. He keeps mum on that, but it's suspected he's the one who gave the Timothy line their powers.

-G'henna is somewhere in the deserts around Phirazia.

-Godefroy is still around, but he's not the Darklord of Mordent. The House on Griffon Hill is.

-Easan the Mad does not have an imp in his head. He only thinks he does, which he's used to justify his behavior for the past hundred years.

-Anton Misroi is black. :misori:

[ewancummins]

I present some sketchy world notes on 'personal canon' from my Mists over the Musarde casmapign, here on the Frat boards:

http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... sc&start=0

There are some typos, odd bits of formatting, etc. I'm cleaning it up, expanding, and re-organizing on the go.

[hidajiremi]

A bit of personal canon that just got introduced in my current campaign: One of the PCs is a super-genius (on the order of Newton or Einstein for his time period), who is currently working on ways to unite the western Core against a massive Falkovnian invasion (which has a decent chance of actually succeeding, since it's not being lead by Drakov himself). So he hypothesized the idea of river-craft built for war and has essentially put the technology to build ironclads in the hands of the Mordentish. Also, with Azalin missing since the Requiem and Death holding sway over Il Aluk, one of my PCs has gotten himself named King of Darkon by decision of the council of barons. =3

So, for future campaigns: Mordent has ironclads. XD


Jeremy Puckett

[Sareau]

Nice-in my campaign, we are currently finding someone is collecting up Eberron outlanders in Lamordia to form some sort of Magewright Guild-talk is a University or Apprentice program, all aimed at something called a "Soulforge".

My players are very bnervous as to exactly what a Soulforge is...

[Sathien]

-Anton Misroi is black. :misori:

Why <b>wouldn't</b> he be?