Jack of Tears wrote:
Is your objection that he is trapped in a realm with very little outside contact, or that the realm is filled with faeries? It is a sad thing that people have been so inundated with the image of the cute Disney faerie that they have forgotten the far darker fae origins.
Faeries of the old world were not kind, or pleasantly playful ... they were terrible as any force of nature. These were creatures who could bring great bounty or suffering upon mortals with no more than a whim. Who punished peasants for breaking laws they had no foreknowledge of and took offense whenever it suited their purpose. Faeries were neither wicked nor kind, as such; but an alien and fickle breed that considered itself above mankind by right of "birth".
In my opinion (and the opinion of generations of Celts) the Fae have as much right in horror as any vampire or lycanthrope.
If your objection is, rather, that this powerful beast is trapped with nothing more to do than watch its spawn freely move about in a piece of the world they can call their own ... well, that is its curse ....
Though I tend to agree that Lhot is a far more deserving dark lord and play it that way in my games.
I know that mythics fae weren't the cute Disney type.
I don't like the idea of a RL domain for Fey, even the Shadow Fey. WHen I first read about the rift in DoD, I assumed the rift contained a big Lovecraftian horror (which Gwydion is) but that it is also a realm of dark fairies. Something about it irks me. I don't think it suits Ravenloft at all.
Ironically, the domain works better for Arak than it does for Gwydion. Gwydion shouldn't be the Dark Lord of the Shadow Fae realm, Lohlt should be the Dark Lord.
Though in my campaign, I altered the story of Gwydion just the slightest bit.
Gwydion isn't a huge Lovecraftian horror, Gwydion is actually the last of the Tuatha De Daanan who created the Shadow Fae. The Godlike Being isn't even evil per say. It's enslavement of the Shadow Fey and placing them in the Demiplane of Shadow was a punishment for Arak the Erlking who is the TRUE Dark Lord of the Shadow Rift.
Arak the Erlking was a betrayer of his people as he went to rob Gwydion the Sleeping God who created the Shadow Fey. He murdered Gwydion's servants and attempted to steal the man's crown when Gwydion woke up and Arak then promised Gwydion anything to spare his life. Including the slavery of his people forever and ever.
Gwydion isn't evil but he certainly wasn't going to turn down an offer for new servants and took them into the Shadow Realms where he gave them many gifts for their service...gifts that Arak perverted and lied about. Arak did his best to sew dissent and hate against Gwydion while plotting against the fey as he knew they'd kill their king if they ever suspected the truth.
Arak then lead the rebellion against Gwydion with the full intention of leaving his people to slaughter except for his children that he'd sneak out, but he became then the foulest of things in an oathbreaker and Gwydion proceeded to curse Arak. He was NOT in the obsidian gate when it shut but his curse held true.
Arak who lusted for fame, wealth, and power would forever be remembered as such but reap none of the benefits of such so long as he was not the hero they claimed to be. Arak has been forced to live as a Sith warrior, a minor one, of the Unseelie Court and has done hundreds of plots against his children even as they have proven far greater men than he.
He routinely subverts both to steal souls and seek some way of overthrowing them...unaware that the only time he ever gain power is when he acts courageously and with honor. Of course, he invariably loses it to his own cowardice.
Willowhugger wrote:My problem with Gwydion is he's so damned impotent.
Can he do ANYTHING?
He's worse than the Lord of the Four Islands.
He can control undead, whisper though dreams and I believe influence shadows. And he has a certian amount of other abilities as well.
I was unsure about the fey until VRGt Shadow Fey that did a pretty good job capturing a dark feel for them. They're not as classic gothic but have some great potential for horror and classic faere tales and really fit the mood of Tepest.
My biggest problem with the domaine of Shadow Rift is simply that its a Shadow Rift. Who needs that big thing in the middle of the Core? Its not like its even an access to the Fey Realm, everything that falls in simply dissapears without reaching the domain. It strikes me that there's nothing about the "dark faery" dimension that requires it to be at the unreachable bottom of a mist-filled chasm that stands in the way in the centre of the main continent. It just seems like they wanted a domain of dark fey AND to come up with something to fill the Rift, so they went and shot two birds with one stone.
I agree with Charney. The Shadow Rift would work a lot better with some sort of Lovecraftian horror at the bottom... Not a fantasy fey world.
The Rift itself was a collossal dumb mistake. They yanked out two domains, shook up the entire Core and couldn't think of anything else to put there or shift around the fill the void. So they went for gaping mysterious hole. Oops.
The ret-conning hasn't been smooth and has its share of HUGE bumps on the road.
But the Rift was there and something had to be done with it and Bluetspur already filled the Lovecraftian horror requirement. Better dark Fey than nothing and at least that feeds well of the conveniently located Tepest.
David of the Frat wrote:
I was unsure about the fey until VRGt Shadow Fey that did a pretty good job capturing a dark feel for them. They're not as classic gothic but have some great potential for horror and classic faere tales and really fit the mood of Tepest.
About that I agree! Shadow Fey as described in the VRG are really nice and I'm dying to use them in my campaign.
Igor wrote:
My biggest problem with the domaine of Shadow Rift is simply that its a Shadow Rift. Who needs that big thing in the middle of the Core? Its not like its even an access to the Fey Realm, everything that falls in simply dissapears without reaching the domain. It strikes me that there's nothing about the "dark faery" dimension that requires it to be at the unreachable bottom of a mist-filled chasm that stands in the way in the centre of the main continent. It just seems like they wanted a domain of dark fey AND to come up with something to fill the Rift, so they went and shot two birds with one stone.
I agree with Charney. The Shadow Rift would work a lot better with some sort of Lovecraftian horror at the bottom... Not a fantasy fey world.
Personally I think the rift would work a lot better as a huge mist ringed redwood style forest with the domain of Keening rising out of its center as a huge barren spire.
Description: Encircling the spire just above the tree line and covering the entire rift in perpetual shadow is a massive thunderstorm with Terssa's peak jutting out into the harsh sun, and through the storm never seems to strike, any who brave the spire are lit with an unearthly "farie fire". The Tepesian say some nights they can see off in the distance the spirits of the winged fae swirling around the spire as their grounded brethren march up its barren slopes. (picture the demon awakens scene from Fantasia)
In the shadows of the storm the two courts have staked their claims on the domains two extremes. The Seelie court holds the forest above with its prenuptial summer and lush growth with queen Mauve ruling from her crystal castle on the domains western edge. Loht and his kind have claimed the barren underworld as there own. The massive caverns and dank barrows offer the quiet and solitude the Shee require while the Prowie revel in the echoing screams of Mortals they lure into the endless mazes.
Underneath the accursed spire Loth rules his court from his cold stone castle, always with a watchful eye of the obsidian gate.
To those who watched the forest spring up and claim the sundered domains during the grand conjunction the forest has become a place of great fear. Massive clouds of mist at the boarder obscure all but to few yards and those who brave its gray mass come out years latter, aged decades and with no knowledge of what transpired within.
Even the trees themselves are seen with suspicion as they seem impervious to both fire and steel.
With this minor rewrite the domain just feels better placed in ravenloft as apposed to a huge sinkhole to no where.
"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings."
Anais Nin
I'd just remove the sinkhole and instead make it just a giant patch of Mist. Maybe keep the first few dozen feet of cliffs before the mists rise up. Not a chasm as much as just a large canyon.
If the mists clear everything below is clear and seen, just an extended hidden valley.
call it "The Haunted Woods" or anything and have it be an ongoing struggle that anyone who goes into the woods is doomed to death or insanity or whatnot.
Have most of the valley continually covered in clouds.
I had been thinking about inversing the situation in the Rift. Instead of Gwydion being curse to see the Shadow fey live happily ever after, it should be the shadow fey cursed with their realm serving as a prison for an godlike fiend.
For me, the problem with Shadow Feys is that they are treated like any of the other core inhabitants. They have normal lifes and a realm of their own where a darklord is cursed.
When I read the VRGttSF, the fey struck me more as boggeymen. So, maybe instead of having just one fey cursed as a darklord, I'd curse the whole race. In the few fairy myths I've read, fairies come from a realm where they don't really have to worry about anything. Well, their curse would be that a Cthulhu-like being now sleeps there.
Remember, the books are guidelines, if you don't like something, change it. Place Markovia and G'Henna back where they were and be done with it
Personally, I like the domain of Arak, I like the Arak themselves and Gwydion. Loht as a crippled prince is an excellent idea, but he wouldn't work as a darklord in my way of seeing things, the only possible darklord for me is Gwydion and I like his curse that forces him to work in secret over long decades, if not centuries to coerce others into doing his bidding.
To run the domain and its population properly though, you need to read up on the Seelie and Unseelie Courts in Pict folklore and mythology, read up and them and you will realise how easily the domain and the arak can be utilised in your games.
Personally I have mild feelings about The Shadow Rift. For a part I like the Idea iof Gwydion playing God with the Sahdow Fey. For another I don't quite understand how it can fit in the Ravenloft Campaign.
I like to think that, although some Shadow Fey can be good all of them have some part of Gwydion inside them, making them more Unnatural, and of course dangerous (in a weird kind of way) for people of the core.
I've read The Shadow Rift two times now, and find it a very complex setting, with this two factions (Seelie and Unseelie Court) playing quietly to hurt each other, or to protect the fey...or just to do their former Master's bidding.
I guess i feel likle any other Core Inhabitant, looking at The Shadow Rift and not knowing exactly what lies beyond.
"Beware of the night, for sleep provides another path to my Domain....."
Read up about the real world Seelie and Unseelie courts and you might see how it would fit the Ravenloft campaign, the legends are very dark, the mortal protagonists very tracic (at least in the end) and some of them are pretty horrific.
Take the one of a group of Baohdahn Sidhe taking on human form and entering the camp of a Pict warriors defending their lands against the Romans, they were celebrating a major victory when the Unseelie fey came along for some fun. They danced each of the men still awake to exhaustion before killing them and drinking their blood.
I like the Shadow Rift; it allows for a legitimate basis for superstition, fear, and anxiety in Tempest and the surrounding environs. I think the confusing status of Gwydion and the Shadow Rift and them being out of place adds to the setting because it confounds people's abilities to explain the nature of Ravenloft and the powers that rule there. The Core needs one alien, non-humanocentric domain in it.
I feel a little ambiguous about how hard it is to travel there, there's both good and bad points to this. It prevents people from just going there on a lark, but it requires a lot of DM fiat to send a party there. Only one thing bothers me about Gwydion: that it's portrayed as another would-be-god tyrant. I always saw this being as more of a alien threat, almost like a diabolical cross of some Lovecraftian Old One (perhaps Nyarlathotep since he's so interested with mortals) and the Abomidable Snowman from the old Looney Toons cartoons. It feels a sort of alien, controlling, patronising form of pseudo-love for its children the Arak, in a sort of twisted "I will pat him and love him and squeeze him..." sort of way. Its curse is to forever be able to observe its "children" but never interact with them they way it did before. The depths of its crime: unknown, perhaps breaking some kind of Old One code not to be associated with lesser beings.
