Darkonian Curse

[Aslan]

I'm looking to start a new campaign and I've been considering an option I would like opinions on. I'm going to have them make 4th lvl characters and then when we start playing have them be zero level villagers with no true memories. From there as things progress they will "discover" abilities. They will also have their old equipment which has been stored away as their parents or grandparents stuff that is no longer of use. Any thoughts or suggestions on running something like this?

[tomokaicho]

I'm looking to start a new campaign and I've been considering an option I would like opinions on. I'm going to have them make 4th lvl characters and then when we start playing have them be zero level villagers with no true memories. From there as things progress they will "discover" abilities. They will also have their old equipment which has been stored away as their parents or grandparents stuff that is no longer of use. Any thoughts or suggestions on running something like this?

If they weren't born in Darkon then they will have fake memories, but they won't forget what abilities they had. Rather these abilities will be explained in a probably non-falsifiable way. For example, and outlander wizard that has had his memories taken from him by the land of Darkon will probably 'remember' that he had studied wizardry at the University of Il Aluk. Il Aluk was basically destroyed of course, so there is nothing to challenge these false memories.

You could flavor what the land does to people's memories as amnesia if you like.

[Garudos Celestar]

One idea could be to use the "Amnesia" result from the Madness checks: they've all failed the checks in the past (but don't realize it), and now that their ability scores have recovered, they can start regaining those false memories (and the rest of their abilities along with it). Perhaps they could realize that they were all treated at the same asylum (like the one inhabited by the Gibbering Golem from VRG to the Created, or perhaps Saulbridge Sanitarium to tie them into the mysteries of I10: The House on Gryphon Hill).

Of course, when each of them realizes and re-encounters whatever drove them mad in the first play, new checks may be in order...

[Skyrock]

While this isn't how the Darkonian Curse works normally, the false memories are physically written down and could be manipulated. It could happen that Azalin sees fit to overwrite the default memories under special circumstances.
Or you could go with the Madness effekt mentioned aboved, or change the Darkonian Curse in your RL as you see fit.

Either way it sounds like an interesting idea for a low-level campaign and an interesting twist of the classic zero-to-hero tale.

[thekristhomas]

What I did in my Darkonian campaign was have each character roll 1d6 minus 1d10, positive results meant the number of close living relatives the character had, negative results meant the number of dead relatives the character visited in the graveyard, with a result of zero (unlikely but it did happen) meaning no surviving relatives or graves to visit. Of course this was just code, those with families were Darkonian born, their memories were true, those visiting graves were Non-Darkonian, their memories were false, and the guy who threw a zero was an Outlander, a really simple mechanism that the players enjoyed as the reveal at the end of the early stage of the campaign when the characters first step over the boundary.

A nice side effect of having a mixed group is the sudden paranoia that a character feels when he realises that the native Darkonian characters were well aware that his mind had been effected by the curse but hadn't spoken of it because of social taboos, what else haven't they mentioned?

[Dark Angel]

I just began a Darkonian campaign where the players all had to be from Darkon. Or so they thought. I am going with the memories are regained upon leaving the domain (after several adventures in their small town) when they got to Souragne (for NotWD). Only one player was from Darkon (he's a new player to the Land of the Mists). The others had their backstories modified to fit both their false memories and their true origins. As I am working with the premise that the memories do not 'go back' upon arrival in Darkon but are altered in Castle Avernus, they came back and still know who they are.

The others took it in stride for the most part, but the best was my cleric of Ezra. She was an only child living with her father who fell away from the cloth (mom died during her birth). She is very maternal and nurturing towards her father and many kids in the town and they care for her as well. When she got her memories back (I sent each player emails so the others would not be privy to the information), she got upset (in game and not in real life) and kept saying, "No, awww, no, no, no...." as she found out she was really from Borca and was the oldest of many, many siblings and her folks were alive and well. Her 'father'? He was a troubled priest that she was going to assist and support in Invidia (some of you may already know him, http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/wiki ... lune_(NPC)). To say the least, she is my stronger roleplayers and really did well with her own false background (she wanted Keith as her dad). Good times.

[Cam]

I like all the ideas previously mentioned. Here are a few more:

-- Do you have any players who are already familiar with the Darkon curse, from past campaigns or reading sourcebooks? If so it might be cool to make them think (out of character) that that is what's behind their present condition. But then you could make it be something entirely different. You could even have the PCs learn a little bit about the canon curse over the first few adventures of the game, and start pursuing a plan to get over the border to find out their true identities, only to encounter something at the last minute that tells them what really happened. Now, that could be a little frustrating for your players, so if you do it I would make sure that the knowledge they glean about the true nature of normal Darkonian memory failure helps them achieve some other success early in the campaign, so it doesn't seem like you were stringing them along for no reason.

-- I like the idea that memory loss was because of horror or madness effects. But memory loss could also be a special attack form of some crazy supernatural creature. They fought it to a stalemate before, and after recovering their memories and abilities, will have to track it down again.

-- Because of horror or madness (or just because of sadness or depression -- one of their beloved companions was killed or something), the memory loss could be self-inflicted. They hired a wizard to obliviate them or something. But, in Ravenloft escape from bad memories is not so easy. And maybe in their new peasant lives they'll have developed some coping mechanisms to help them continue on even after they regain bad memories. If one or more have found religion, that might help.

-- Maybe they wiped their own memories because they acquired some piece of eldritch knowledge that they didn't think it was safe for any mortal men to possess.

-- The normal way memories lapse in Darkon could be changing for some reason. It doesn't only target foreigners anymore! For some reason it's starting to impact natives too. Your PCs could be natives, and when they somehow regain their memories, they need to go on some sort of epic adventure to prevent the curse from changing permanently and decimating the whole Darkonian population. Azalin could either be their ally or their foe in that effort. (Why could it be changing? Azalin could be changing so the Dark Powers are reacting to him; the Dark Powers could be changing for some reason; one of Azalin's plans to mess with his imprisonment could be underway; etc.)

-- This is not so much an idea for how the players got cursed, but a plot hook for what to do with the campaign after they start regaining their memories. As they regain their memories they could realize that they were evil-doers beforehand. (Or if evil-doers is too harsh, maybe petty thieves or greedy neutral characters or something.) Do they repent now that they have the opportunity of a clean slate? Do they undertake some quests to help the little people they may have harmed before?