Category:Fracture

This section contains Potential-canon info, revealed by the creators from never-published sources

The Shadow Rift is an imperfection in the planar fabric of the Demiplane of Dread that was caused by Gwydion’s attempt to escape the Obsidian Gate during the Grand Conjunction. In trying to pull himself free, the sorcerer-fiend uprooted the entire domain and dragged it with him, shattering the Dark Power’s carefully organized handiwork. Like a piece of glass smashed with a hammer, the Rift is a gaping hole in the Core, and Fractures radiate like cracks into the more complete domains around it. All these pathways exist outside, or perhaps between, time and space, and allow the fey to enter other domains. Most lead to the Rift’s neighbors, but they can potentially open into any domain. Traversing any of the Fractures is a disturbing experience of bizarre, half-remembered impossibilities. The Fracture leading from Mordent to the Darkenheights, for example, is lined with invisible people who demand that passersby surrender their equipment, their clothes and finally their bodies before they can ‘go down’. Those who do emerge as incorporeal spirits; those who don’t never emerge.^[1]

Permanent Fractures

The safest and most used fracture is the Fracture in southwestern Tepest. It has the appearance of a cave.

Transient Fractures

Several Fractures only exist on particular occasions, such as a solstice or an equinox. Because of the temporal fugue, these Fractures only open once every 26 years for those inside the Shadow Rift. Others vary in their destination depending on arcane but clearly defined conditions. The Fracture at the bottom of Loch Lenore, for example, opens into Saragoss when the Seelie Court is in power but into Lake Amenta in Nidala when it is the turn of the Unseelie Court. Another only opens when its exit on the surface is in shadow.^[1]

Keyed Fractures

Keyed Fractures only open if a particular action is performed or condition fulfilled by the person trying to pass through. Examples include walking 13 times anticlockwise around a particular barrow mound, or an Innocent touching the inside of a cleft tree.^[1]

Guarded Fractures

Many are protected by strange and fearsome guardians. This can be a good excuse to use creatures that may not otherwise fit into a Ravenloft campaign. As a rule, they should have a CR of at least 12. For example, one Fracture is watched by the Hound, an immensely strong half-dog, half-giant, who must be fought for the journey to be completed. Another leads from a goblin lair in the Mountains of Misery and is guarded by a balor (with no reality wrinkle).^[1]

References