Café de Nuit

Marendithas wrote:I've been wondering (still new to the Mists), I was asking myself : where in the world of Ravenloft, my campaign should be played, at least most of the time ?

I already thought about Barovia, it's the original domain (so gothic with vampires, mean looking gypsies and superstitious villagers ) but I'm wondering about what you guys think about that. I mean, does a campaign of Ravenloft is supposed to wander at least in the Core? (I saw lots of adventures in that setting and most of them are outside of Barovia... as if Castle Ravenloft was the only adventure in that domain...)

Give me your advice on that

I think Barovia is a great place to start. Castle Ravenloft is definitely not the only adventure site. There is a lot of room for other stuff, whether you make it up yourself or adapt it from published modules.


You might wish to set your campaign earlier in the Demiplane's history, before most of the other domains appear. That could be easier to manage. Imagine a game in which Barovia and Mordent are the only known countries, and everything else either doesn't exist or is lost in the Mists. You could then add other domains as you like, over the course of the campaign-- or keep the world small. Maybe all outside trade goods are brought in the the gypsies, and only in small loads.

Thanks Ron, indeed I wasn't the only one, or it would never have been released

The best place to center a campaign is where you, as the DM, feel comfortable. If you want the PCs to feel safe (relatively) put them some place that seems semi-normal. Several domains can come across this way but all of them have something deeply wrong beneath the surface. The more your PCs know, the less they should want to stay anywhere.
Personally I like setting games in places where the Darklord can come across less malevolent than s/he actually is, like Barovia or Darkon, or in places they seem more absent or confined, like Mordent or Lamordia. But I also like having my PCs travel for adventure so they do tend to wander the core or even out into the Mists, ideally I like them to have someplace that is "home" though.

I'm currently starting in Mordent, specifically the small town of Blackburn's Crossing (mentioned in Gaz3). I like the ghostly feel of Mordent and the ability to tell investigative ghost stories and play with haunts. Plus the Lord is more subdued so there's not an obvious Big Bad lurking over the campaign.

I've also heard a lot of positive feedback on Mordent. It's fairly close to the sleepy English town of Whitby from Dracula, so your PCs can have fun with the pseudo-Victorian setting. Additionally, it's a relatively "safe" area: your PCs can get started on low-level challenges, like investigations and clue hunting, before working their way up to more physically dangerous things. This lends itself very well to a Sherlock Holmes style campaign rather than a slasher type game, which is more forgiving on beginners.

In the current campaign I've been running, I had not only new players to Pathfinder/D&D, but also to Ravenloft. The 1st "chapters" if you will of our game were actually spent traveling across 3-5 Domains including Dementlieu, Invidia, Mordent, & of course Barovia. It allowed the players to get a taste for the various places within the whole world.

Darkon is a nice place to start

I started my campaign in Dementlieu and then Richemulot had them travel through Verbeck and then on to Invidia. All of these are good starting areas.