Café de Nuit

Hi, I was wondering how many people use the ring of fog in Barovia in their campaign. To me it's just a remnant of the old I6 module, ensuring the players won't leave until their quest is finished (Strahd destroyed). In my campaign however, it doesn't make sense. It's just an annoying obstacle for travellers and it is hard to explain to the PCs how the villagers still can make a living without leaving their village for a few hundred yards.
My second question about this subject is: where is the ring of fog exactly? Is it only around the village, or does it also incorporate the castle, the Tser encampment,etc? According to Vampire of the Mists I would believe the former, but I never read anywhere where the ring is exactly.

The ring of fog surrounds the complete realm of Barovia (that is a much larger area containing a whole barony complete with several villages, mountains and forrests)- but only when Count Stradh wishes it. The darklord of a domain mostly have the abbility to "close the domain-borders". When this happens, the darklord uses his powers to ensure, that nobody can escape his sphere of influence.
But the domainborders are not always closed. Under normal circumstances, you can travell from one core-domain to another without any problems.
So, in short: If you need the ring of fog as GM, it appears - when you don´t need it, is dissappears

The choking fog can surround Barovia, closing the borders but a continual ring is said to surround the village of the same name. I believe the fog only really comes into play a few miles out of town leaving plenty of room for small farms, foraging and the like.

A careful Google search can recover half of the original thread, now lost in the Mists, that addressed this matter.

Here's my post saved from this discussion:

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No you're not the only person having a problem with it (i.e. the ring of fog around the village of Barovia)

We know:

With the GC, the Shadow Rift appeared and one of the only East-West road south of it became the one going through Barovia village. From Gaz 1, we know merchant traffic is high on this route (Old Svalich Road), at least during the summer season (Svalich Pass is impassable in winter).

However the village is circled by the Choking Fog (and the mountains make it nearly impossible for a merchant caravan to pass elsewhere then through the village of Barovia). Canon says that you have to deal with the vistani to get the antidote.

My opinion on it:

The fog around the village of Barovia (which is quite larger then just the village by the way) is an anachronism from I-6. It was designed for the village / castle adventure, but should have been forgotten when Ravenloft became an expanded setting.

In my campaign, I removed it. I think that road would never be a major trade route with this threat and it's inconvenience (poison ring rumours, being forced to deal with the strange and untrusted vistani - you have to be quite brave for a simple merchant to go through it, no?).

Anyway, Strahd doesn't really need the poison fog around the village of Barovia. Perhaps it could be a feature he can activate with his will, as a border closure, but I don’t see it activated at all time.

Joël

Yep, I remember you bringing that up at the time, Cure, so went hunting for that old thread. Thanks for finding that originally, by the way!

That previous thread was this: "The Village of Barovia" thread is lost in the mis.

The Google link from that thread went here.

Basically, in it, Mangrum (one of the writers, who was also both a Kargatane and later a Kargat member) explained that the ring of fog around the village of Barovia *also* includes Castle Ravenloft as, after all, how would the PCs be forced to fight Strahd if the fog forces them to stay in town, *away* from Castle Ravenloft?

I have left the fog as is, with one change. IF you walk through it, it does not take effect unless Strahd tries to close the borders. So in effect it is most often a creepy side effect of the village, but harmless unless the man is pissed off at someone.

I like the Vistani, but forcing people to deal with them on a constant basis just to get through this fog removes a lot of mystery and dulls the players opinions. I leave the fog as a latent poison, kind of Borcaish

Yeah, I agree with Joel. How can the Old Svalich Road be a major thoroughfare through the mountains if there is a permanent ring of poisonous fog that everyone must pass through. So I made it similar to closing the border, something Strahd can control at will. So he can close the entire border of the domain or just in a ring around the village of Barovia and his castle.

However I still have the vistani there near the village selling the antidote. I would think that over the years the village fog has appeared often enough for people to recognize it. Many people have different explanations for what it is, (a curse of the vistani, an natural phenomenon, a magical attack from Borca) but they all recognize that it is some what common in the area around the village of Barovia. They also know that when it does appear they have to stay in the village or go visit the vistani to purchase the antidote to leave the village.

I decided IMC that the ring isn't usually present, but that Strahd calls it up as a "hibernation defense", on those rare occasions when he's planning a decades-long recouperatory snooze. Normally, passage through the village of Barovia is free and clear, apart from the usual road-tolls and so on. The only other times he'll call it up is when a Tatyana-duplicate or some other important fugitive is known to be in the area, whose capture he rates as far more vital than keeping the Svalich road open (as was the case in I6).

Note that Strahd hibernated not that long ago, by vampire standards (in "I, Strahd"), so he hasn't actually blocked off the road for years at a stretch since the Great Upheaval. Next time he feels the need to "go into the ground", that's when his choking fog will become a major obstacle to commerce; heck, he may wake up twenty years later and find that the Core's merchants have chipped in to carve a new road through his domain, complete with tunnels blasted through the mountainside!

This quote from Mangrum convinced me to keep the ring of fog as is:

Mangrum wrote:Strahd's many things, but stupid isn't one of them. As it is, the ring of fog encasing the Svalich Pass creates a natural chokepoint for trade and information. For now, the Svalich Pass is the only route through the Balinoks; the mountains to the north and south are exceptionally trecherous, without a single reliable secondary route to fall back on (at least since the severing of the Timori Road). As it is, going through the Village of Barovia is onerous but not outrageous. Everyone who wants to go through Barovia has to pass through the fog, be they trader carvan or adventuring party. To get out, they have to deal with the Vistani -- and the Vistani report all their dealings to Strahd, as part of their pact. End result: Strahd knows exactly who's snooping around.