Café de Nuit

I want to see if anyone has any time-tested ways for taking a group of PCs into the Demiplane of Dread. They've been in Faerun for almost a year and I'm keen to make the switch. I don't want it to be random mist. I want it to feel more personal... perhaps a result of some choice they make so it feels less on rails...? I've done this before, but I'd like to see others ideas on effective/interesting ways to herd/lure PCs into Ravenloft. What say you all?

The best way to bait a party is to appeal to the players' sensibilities. What are the characters and the players like?

Pursuing a villain through a portal into Ravenloft?

ewancummins wrote:Pursuing a villain through a portal into Ravenloft?

This. The villain goes through the portal, after which he finds himself in the mists, is 'tested' by the Dark Powers (like Lord Soth was tested), and then is granted a domain of which he is ruler. Months pass the villain's perspective of time, when the PC heroes emerge in his domain through a portal (just moments of time from the perspective of the PCs). Now they face the villain who is the ruler of the domain.

My article on the subject covers a number of options. I've used the World Serpent Inn, the cursed Van Richten's Guide, pulled in with the new DL, stable portals, and more.

One option that I've used that was never mentioned in that article: I claimed that leading up to the Grand Conjunction, the (NPC) adventurers who confronted Azalin in Roots of Evil also looted the Black Vault and stole a number of powerful magic items. At first Azalin didn't care, but after he was sucked back in, he was furious, and found a way to scry on those items to track the adventurers. He cursed these items with all his envy at their having escaped when he did not, and wove powerful arcane traps that would pull the wielders back into the demiplane when activated. Of course, by that point many of them had been lost or stolen, and a few more were deliberately discarded when the traps were discovered.

Of course, that list of magic items was a deliberately open-ended list in my campaign world. I've only made use of two such cursed items, not even in the same campaign continuity, but I reserve the right to name any appropriate item as a relic of the Black Vault, cursed to eventually pull the wielder (and any companions) into RL at the wrong time.

The first time I entered Ravenloft, the lich villain informed us he was responsible for stealing an important angel from the upper planes, and he told us we could either go after it ourselves, or he would tell less scrupulous beings where it went. We agreed, were cast into Ravenloft by the lich's magic, and much later found the petrified angel among the statuary of a cathedral in Viaki.

As an aside, I went through three characters there, all murdered by the other party members. I almost deserved it the first time, but the latter two were uncalled for.

I would go with the "chase the villian into the Mists" myself. To be honest when I started my game it started off in Ravenloft. The characters' background might have started off elsewhere but the game started in Dementlie.

What about a literal railroad into the Mists?

Trains have disappeared along a certain section of tracks. No derailment, no signs of brigand attack. Just gone.

The railway owners suspect magic at work and hire the party to ride along and investigate.

The players went into it knowing some agency was doing something that caused entire trains to vanish into thin air. Entering Ravenloft may be a surprise, but the vanishing itself was something set up from the adventure hook.

ewancummins wrote:What about a literal railroad into the Mists?

Trains have disappeared along a certain section of tracks. No derailment, no signs of brigand attack. Just gone.

The railway owners suspect magic at work and hire the party to ride along and investigate.

The players went into it knowing some agency was doing something that caused entire trains to vanish into thin air. Entering Ravenloft may be a surprise, but the vanishing itself was something set up from the adventure hook.

I don't think there are any trains in Faerun.

Not that I have seen in published TSR/Wizards stuff. no.

My game here has run the other way; PCs started in Ravenloft and ended up ripping a portal into Faerun. They have been trying to get back to Ravenloft.
Most of them, anyway.


Mulhorand has/had steam engines.

I looked it up in my copy of Old Empires.
The Mulhorandis developed 'pressure engines' and steam tech, harnessing river power and steam power to do all sorts of impressive stuff in irrigation, mining, construction. These seem stationary. No mention of vehicles.
One of the pharaohs decided this was disruptive tech and ordered all research into it halted.
Most of the engines fell into disrepair and were forgotten.
But some steam engines remain operative as of the 1300s DR, powered by stones of everburning.
Some Thoth priests, called Technologists, have resumed (forbidden) research into steam engines and water power (the 'pressure engines' sound to me like more advanced hydraulics of some kind and not just water wheels).

source

FR 10 Old Empires page 34

ewancummins wrote:My game here has run the other way; PCs started in Ravenloft and ended up ripping a portal into Faerun. They have been trying to get back to Ravenloft.
Most of them, anyway.


Mulhorand has/had steam engines.

I looked it up in my copy of Old Empires.
The Mulhorandis developed 'pressure engines' and steam tech, harnessing river power and steam power to do all sorts of impressive stuff in irrigation, mining, construction. These seem stationary. No mention of vehicles.
One of the pharaohs decided this was disruptive tech and ordered all research into it halted.
Most of the engines fell into disrepair and were forgotten.
But some steam engines remain operative as of the 1300s DR, powered by stones of everburning.
Some Thoth priests, called Technologists, have resumed (forbidden) research into steam engines and water power (the 'pressure engines' sound to me like more advanced hydraulics of some kind and not just water wheels).

source

FR 10 Old Empires page 34

I stand corrected, it works then.

It works, but I'd say the train would be a very recent invention of the Thoth clergy.
The idea is a stretch for a 'canonical' FR game. It's really pushing the envelope for technology.
Could be fun, though.


The railway concept works much more readily in Eberron, which already has (magic) trains.

It would be good for a Boot Hill/Ravenloft crossover.

Vanishing oxcart caravans or lake-barges would do as well.
It doesn't need to be a train.

Just some sort of large vehicle carrying people that disappears in a heretofore safe area between settlements with no sign of burning, sinking, brigand attack, etc.

ewancummins wrote:It works, but I'd say the train would be a very recent invention of the Thoth clergy.
The idea is a stretch for a 'canonical' FR game. It's really pushing the envelope for technology.
Could be fun, though.


The railway concept works much more readily in Eberron, which already has (magic) trains.

It would be good for a Boot Hill/Ravenloft crossover.

Or GE/Ravenloft. Of course they are closer from the getgo.