Carrion Crown

[Joël of the FoS]

Yep, that's the one.

Highly suspected!

Joël

[DasSoviet]

THAT is excellent news! I'd be very excited to add Ustalav in whole to my personal Demiplane of Dread. I wonder if anyone had come up with a creation hook that would explain its existence, in whole or in part, in Ravenloft. Either way, with what has been written about Carrion Crown and now this, I am a firm believer that there are kindred spirits and ex-RL players writing over at Paizo, and that makes me happy.

Well, Ustalav became the "fog-shrouded land of Gothic Horror" after Tar-Baphon, a powerful wizard-tyrant, raised himself to lichdom 2300 years after he was killed by Aroden, god of humanity, and went on a conquering spree, gathering up an army of orcs and marching down on the Principality of Ustalav. So... thematically kinda like Azalan mixed with Sauron.

However, 600 years of tyranny later, Tar-Baphon was defeated again by the Shining Crusade, which united the human Empire of Taldor (think Byzantium at its height), the dwarven kingdom of Kraggodem, and the Knights of Ozem - lead by the goddess Arazni, herald of Aroden. Tar-Baphon ended up killing Arazni, however, and then centuries later her corpse was stolen by the arch-necromancer Geb and transformed into his Harlot Queen - I only mention this to show how the Pathfinder crew like their darkness.

So, after 26 years of war, the Shining Crusade reached Gallowspire, Tar-Baphon's fortress, and in a Lord of the Rings-ish moment, Tar-Baphon fought the Taldan General Arnisat - who was protected by a holy artifact called the Shield of Aroden - and ended up shattering the General's shield. A shard from the artifact of the god who killed him the first time embedded itself into the Whispering Tyrant's chest, and weakened him to the point where the living crusaders could entomb Tar-Baphon in the central tower of Gallowspire.

After this, Ustalav was restored - though the noble line had died out and there was much infighting over the crown. There has been some recovery, but an equal amount of decadence... 872 years later, and the country is still is shambles.

Also, the leader of the Taldan forces and the commander of the Knights of Ozem, Iomedae, became the goddess of Justice and Honour and Aroden's new herald, and Ustalav's province of Lastwall was taken over by the crusade's remnants and turned into a sovereign military state with the sole purpose of watching over the Whispering Tyrant's prison and ensuring that when he escapes, there is an army there to stop him.

Now, of course, transitioning this to Ravenloft is a bit difficult - it's very high fantasy. The most logical Darklord is, of course, Tar-Baphon, whose torment is being sealed in his fortress, unable to leave. Of course, this could explain why he hasn't escaped - if he was spirited away to a copy of Ustalav in the Demiplane of Dread, then Golarion's Gallowspire is empty (of a big bad overlord) and the tower Tar-Baphon is stuck in now has the Dark Powers serving as jailers - and if there's one thing those fellows do well, it's build a prison. However, the problem is that Tar-Baphon is a completely non-Gothic villain. He's an evil overlord who was part of a cult which worshipped the undead, got killed by one god, came back to life, killed another, and then got locked away. I'm not sensing much tragedy there unless you also consider Sauron a tragic figure.

This leaves us two options - create a new character and make them the Darklord, or reweave Tar-Baphon to be more fitting of the position. I favour reweaving the existing big bad, just because it likely requires the least amount of work. Then, move the timeframe for his sealing up to about 500 years ago, so it fits with Ravenloft's timeline, have him only be able to influence his domain through through dark magic, curses, and the like - explaining some of the decay and decadence of the citizens - and there ya go. I don't know what one would do for the other option, though I'm certain once Rule of Fear comes out, there will be at least three people on this forum who could write up a dang good one. However, that's what I've got with the available information I've got on hand right now.

Evil tyrant darklord locked away in his tower by a splinter of the shield of the god which slew his mortal form, cursing the inhabitants of his land through his much-weakened dark magic as he seeks to remove the splinter, regain his power, and once again TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD (OF COURSE!)

Certain there will be other folks here with their own takes though!

[The Giamarga]

Tar-Baphon ended up killing Arazni, however, and then centuries later her corpse was stolen by the arch-necromancer Geb and transformed into his Harlot Queen - I only mention this to show how the Pathfinder crew like their darkness.

And boy do they like it!

Check out this thread about the nation of Geb, a necropolis undead state still ruled by ghost of the arch-necromancer Geb and formerly part of Osirion, Golarion's Egypt analog.

[Joël of the FoS]

Indeed, the Ustalav land backstory isn't of much use in RL, if it isn't set on an island of terror (or a complete remodel of the core).

But the first CC adventure can be used as is, without much changes.

And I already added it to my campaign, last Sunday.

Joël

[Strahdsbuddy]

I've read the quick blurb on Ustalav in the sourcebook and I am thankful to DasSoviet for expanding on it. There was a thread here a year or two ago about arcane horror, and Sauron was the example. WHile it does not mesh completely with everyone's accepted version of gothic, the lurking elemental horror that must be kept in slumber is a pretty good backdrop to a realm that may be 800 years removed from a time when sorcery may have been common. Consider the technological and cultural changes of our own planet in 800 years. This sort of speaks to that Cthulu or Gothic Earth atmosphere that our modern world is still being affected by ancient terrors. We have examples in canon of inactive darklords (Gwydion before The Shadow Rift Campaign) so a slumbering necromancer isn't the worst choice for darklord. Ustalav itself is broken up into many duchies like the Core, so Tar-Baphon may only be the DL of the area around Gallowspire.

When I first read Ustalav, my initial thought was a sort of epic horror like in World of Warcraft, particularly the character of Arthas and the area of the Plaguelands, near the former kingdom of Lordaeron. I thought this idea had merit, and that the Forsaken would make a suitable replacement to the piles of undead running around Il Aluk after the Requiem. All this said, it seems like some of that exists in Ustalav. I would not be opposed to placing the whole nation in my campaign, or repopulating the Core with its characters. Perhaps Tar-Baphon is resting someplace unassuming, like beneath The Circle in Verbrek or some other heavily fortified outpost of the Guardians.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Point of order: Sauron does have some tragic aspects. He did not start out as a pawn of evil, but as a spirit one tier below the gods of Middle Earth, and the assistant of that pantheon's equivalent of Vulcan. Alas, he let himself be seduced by Melkor/Morgoth, the god of evil, and from there on it all went downhill. He served as right hand-man to Morgoth for a long time, and tried to take over when his boss was kicked out of creation and into the void. He lost again and again, losing the bodies he knitted together to serve as his vessel, and finally ended up as the Eye. His biggest solo scheme, the creation of the rings, was his undoing; he put so much power into his One Ring that without it, he was a shadow of his former self.
I can easily see ways of spinning that into Darklord-dom.

Consider Sauron a crippled king, incapable of moving from his throne. He has to send his lackeys out to do everything he needs done, and he still inspires great terror among them -- but he will never be whole again unless someone finds his prized Ring, which is eternally beyond his reach. He must live in constant fear that his slaves will discover he does not have the power he once boasted of and rise up to kill him. He can not even find rest in sleep, because his old Master taunts and mocks him in his dreams, reminding him that he has not achieved anything as great as his former lord, and yet dares to try and take his place.
And if it is not the voice of his Master that sours his sleep, it is what he remembers in them; a time when he was free and beautiful, and could move and make things. Waking up is an agony, because it returns him to the broken husk he is trapped in, which is itself trapped in the hideous building his slaves have raised to protect him from the light of the sun.

[DasSoviet]

Okay, folks... just got my hands on Shadows of Gallowspire, completing my ownership of all things Carrion Crown related from Paizo - sans map folio, of course. I haven't really had a chance to look at these in-depth due to work load and other related junk, but I'm planning on going through everything over the coming weeks in preparation for launching a Carrion Crown campaign in September. I'll throw my perceptions of the various adventures, articles, supplements, and monsters here for you all as I go through it, and hopefully it'll be useful to those curious about the adventure and its contents here!

I'd like to hear the opinions and takes of other folks who have read through this and how they would Ravenloftize it as well... let's see what our community can do with the tools Paizo has provided us here!

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I don't have any of the other Carrion Crown stuff yet, so I'm not sure how directly it fits in, but I just finished Prince of Wolves, the Ustalav novel, and it was quite good. I'll give a full review eventually, but in brief: pick it up if you haven't already.

[DasSoviet]

Well, I can give a bit of an overview of the path/adventures for those curious, plus the additional articles (for those not in the know, each Pathfinder adventure path book comes with 2 short articles - usually 6 or so pages, plus a beastiary and a fiction piece about the same length, all tied into the theme of the adventure of the day)

Haunting of Harrowstone - The ghost one
- Ravengro: An overview of the town of Ravengro, providing additional information and background for central town of the first adventure, as well as trust rules for the town.
- Haunts: Expanded rules for haunts - Pathfinder's supernatural cousins of traps, caused by the lingering of certain spirits
- Bestiary: Alchemical ooze swarms (four humours), expanded animated objects, beheaded (floating undead heads), changelings (children of hags and men), ectoplasmic creatures (template), spring-heeled jack (fey)

Trial of the Beast - the Lamordi... er, flesh golum and mad scientist one
- Pharasma: Overviews the faith of the main goddess of Ustalav, Pharasma - the Pathfinder goddess of death - and her clergy.
- Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye: Overviews the order, a secret league of gentlemen scholars that seeks to defend Ustalav from foreign and supernatural threats through arcane and political means.
- Bestiary: Bortuas (zombie-shaped plants related to shambling mounds), expanded rules on skeletons, skinstealer (fey that... steals the skin of others), Steward of the Skein (herald of Pharazma)

Broken Moon - the Werewolf one
- The Whispering Way: Evil cult that seeks true undeath as the ultimate purpose for living things, creating a unified world of peace, consistency, and order. The big bads of the campaign.
- Lycanthropes: An 'ecology of' article from the old Dragon days, except pathfinder style; does an overview of lycanthope mentality and breed differences.
- Bestiary: Vilkacis (spectral undead werewolves), weaverworm (abominations created by Urgathoa, goddess of disease), werebat, expanded zombies, and Anton Misouri... I mean the zombie lord template.

Wake of the Watcher - the eldritch abomination one
- Cults of the Dark Tapestry: Worship the Lovecraft Mythos - in Pathfinder! Including new domains and all the elder gods you'd want.
- Expanded Bestiary: Color out of space, dark young of Shub-Niggurath, dimensional shambler (alien plainshifting outsider), elder thing (old ones), gnoph-keh (evil ageless polar bears), mi-go, moit of Shub-Niggurath, star-spawn of Cthulhu

Ashes at Dawn - the vampire one
- Caliphas: Gazetteer of the capital city of Ustalav
- Urgathoa: Overview of the faith of Pathfinder's goddess of disease and gluttony.
- Bestiary: Living topiary (template), Mother’s Maw (herald of Urgathoa), phantom armor (undead soldiers reanimating their armour), psychopomp (two separate outsiders that are servants of Pharasma and serve in her bureaucracy of the dead: nosois, messengers of death; and vanths, guardians of the dead), wax golem

Shadows of Gallowspire
- Continuing the Campaign: Gallowspire ends at about level 15, so this gives ways to extend beyond the adventure path, including side plots and several minions of Tar-Baphon who are definately darklord material.
- Foul Immortals: History and background of a dozen of Golarion's most powerful and influential liches.
- Bestiary: Forsaken lich (what happens when one fails at becoming a lich), expanded gargoyles, grim reapers (undead), and two more psychopomps (morrignas, who hunt those who traffic in souls; and yamarajes, judges of the dead)

There are also additional books that supplement the path: Rule of Fear, which is a gazetteer of Ustalav, the setting for the path; Classic Horrors Revisited, which expands the lore on mummies, vampires, werewolves, zombies, flesh golems, gargoyles (given the weeping angels treatment), ghosts, ghouls, hags, and derro; and Undead Revisted, which does the same thing for liches, devourers, raveners (because dracolich is copyrighted), banshees, allips, spectres, wraiths, shadows, bodaks, graveknights, nightshades, mohrgs, and wights.

I'm taking a look at these all through a 'how can they be used in Ravenloft' lens... some might not work as well (as much as I like the Lovecraft mythos, might be a bit hard to shove all the elder gods and their cults into the core; likewise I like the idea behind the psychopomps but outsiders that serve the dead... ehh. Maybe if they were made into Ezra's servants, as they are neutral. Still, a bit too fantastical), while others should fit in no problem (haunts - yes. Variants on the classic monsters? We're fans of the setting that brought you Van Richten's Guides - the more, the merrier!), and finally, some are entirely campaign development - how much of Golarion you want to use when running it (gods and goddesses involved), or how much you want to Ravenoftize it.

All in all, I can't wait to set down to read these through!

[Morte Rouge]

I had been thinking about where to place these in Ravenloft.

"The Haunting of Harrowstone," it seems, is a rather natural fit for Mordent although, really, all that's really required is a hilltop asylum or prison and so it can really fit anywhere. The presence of a church of Pharasma (deity of repose of the dead) makes the story work in somewhere like Martira Bay in Darkon, what with the Eternal Order and all.

Since Martira Bay has its own university, Adventure #2 fits there well, too. At first I thought Verbrek for "Broken Moon," but as that's really rather cliche I wonder whether a forested area in Dementlieu may work as well (since the province of Lozeri owes its name to Lozere, the province of France where Gevaudan is now located and werewolf lore is pretty much synonymous with France, anyway.

"Wake of the Watcher" could fit anywhere there's a coastal village. Once again, Mordent seems fine although somewhere in Lamordia would work as well.

I thought about placing "Ashes at Dawn" and "Shadows of Gallowspire" somewhere in the lower Balinok region (Borca or Barovia).

[DasSoviet]

I thought about placing "Ashes at Dawn" and "Shadows of Gallowspire" somewhere in the lower Balinok region (Borca or Barovia).

Ashes at Dawn probably works best in Borca, as it requires a large city to stand in for Caliphas, with a large, noble vampire population. Caliphas is a bit too 'renaissance' for Barovia, so tossing it into Borca - with its focus on politicking and decadence - should work fairly well...

And if you're not going to run Ustalav as its own domain or cluster, than I think you should at least make Gallowspire its own pocket... prolly in Darkon. Great fortress of an ancient evil lich? Fits

[Joël of the FoS]

I added the first CC adventure to my campaign, and I did set it in Darkon (and FYI, the name of the town, Ravengro, was changed IMC to Harrowstone, the name of the prison AND the town).

I figured that Harrowstone should be located in a place where police state or strong population control was found - Darkon. And I could see well a local Darkon baron setting this prison as a way to inspire fear in his people, as well as make money with foreign criminals being sent to the prison.

And you could also add plenty of local adventure hooks with Azalin, or other darkonese criminals or political prisoners that were there...

For this reason, somehow, I do not see this in quiet Mordent (other than the obvious ghost=Mordent link).

Joël

[Ryan Naylor]

I think they all fit quite naturally into Darkon. Most is around the Jagged Coast and Martira Bay (standing in for Caliphas) and up into the Mistlands for the Gallowspire.

[Jester of the FoS]

Something that has not been mentioned in this thread, is the alternate Hero Point (read: Action Point) rules for the campaign.

Hero Points are in the Advanced Player's Guide and the revised system is in the Carrion Crown Player's Guide.
Basically, it uses the Harrow Deck, the Pathfinder/Golarion version of Tarot cards. Instead of gaining a point that can be used for multiple things, they draw from the deck and can spend the card for a bonus related to either suit of alignment. Now, the Harrow deck has six suits, but other than that it would port over nicely to Ravenloft with the Tarokka deck.

I'm totally stealing it for my forthcoming Ravenloft campaign.

[Le Noir Faineant]

I was just thinking... Is a game of that length really doable in Ravenloft?

Has anybody so far run an adventure path in Ravenloft from start to end? - If so, what were your experiences?