Café de Nuit

Good news boils and ghouls, Quoth the Raven issue 13 is out!

We're dying to know what you thought about our latest issue, so please partake of out poll and post your comments here.

Allow me to add my vote. I've been in a gazetteer mood lately, and liked the taste of the Isle of Ravens article. Very well done.

While I'm at it, let me add my congratulations to all. Here's to another 13 issues of the Raven!

5 votes so far and no real feedback? Is everyone waiting for the weekend?

I just noticed it is out!

I'll give you feedback... when I read it.

I suppose I could start out the feedback:

I really liked Races of the Mist: the Fey. I think it was great to see another of the highly detailed articles abotu the fantasy races in Ravenloft.
I also enjoyed the Umbra a lot. It was neat to see some of the dark minds behind the fraternity. Creating charactes of such importance is always difficult, but I think nathan created good villians in the Umbra.

Well, let's see:

"When Nightmares Wake"--I confess, I don't get it. Does this have anything to do with horse-nightmares?

"Starlit Signs"--I like this one a lot. It's about time we got some astrology goin' on in Ravenloft.

"The Omen Watchers"--Another good idea, but perhaps just a little bit static. They don't seem to have any aggressive aims, which makes them excellent background players and NPC experts, but not as good as PC or villain types. Do they have any professional relationship with the Midway Haven observatory?

Isle of Ravens: Well, I wrote it, so I won't comment. I've also got a finished version of the framing fiction and a brief description of the Tower of Flint, if anyone's interested.

Murillia: This is rather like "If Galadriel had taken the One Ring and been drawn into Ravenloft, it would have turned out like this!" An intriguing concept; it's very high-fantasy and very high powered. Of all the canon domains I think I'Cath would be closest in tone.

Ermintrude: This is a really good three-quarters of an adventure. Everything up to the PCs find and dispatch the unfortunate tool of the hags hangs together well, and Ermintrude is definitely an interesting character--but it seems to me that the culmination of the adventure should be confronting the shattered covey, or Ermintrude, or both, and to say "Now the PCs are on their own to figure it out" was a disappointment. C'mon Jester, you were on a roll!

The Umbra: I wrote this one, too. It might said, with some justice, that the Umbra as here portrayed are too powerful--but that might be useful to a DM looking for high-level Ravenloft adventure. In addition, as the article implies at several points, the Umbra seem to work against each other almost as much as they work with each other, greatly reducing the impact they would have as a truly unified force.

Sorcery and Shadow: I always dig conversion articles; they may have less of a "Wow!" factor than a "new idea" article, but they're almost gauranteed to be useful to a wide range of Ravenloft DMs and players. This is a good one from that mold.

Further commentary after I've actually read the remaining articles...

Nathan of the FoS wrote:Well, let's see:

"When Nightmares Wake"--I confess, I don't get it. Does this have anything to do with horse-nightmares?

On the night of the winter solstice, when the planar borders are weakest in the Demiplane of Dread, a Dreamspawn Ennui crosses over the Veil of Sleep and enters the waking world where it slowly and methodically plays upon the fears and the regrets of its victim to terrorise and horrify him and others too as it becomes the bane of horse stealers plying the old Slavich Road.

There are a handful of clues as to the stalker being an Ennui that has escaped the Land of Nightmares. But perhaps they were too subtle: sleep induced by murmuring; the captain having more than two hands (one for each razor plus one or more maintaining a grapple); the saddle strap being cleanly cut by a sharp instrument; no tracks indicating that a pursuing militiaman did this; the invisible manipulation of the skull of the strung up man and knowledge of the emotional attachment to this man culminating in a failed horror check; the flyby blow delivered to the side of the head; knowledge that a further horror check connected to castration might push the victim over the edge; and the desire to wage a campaign of horror and of terror.

cure wrote: On the night of the winter solstice, when the planar borders are weakest in the Demiplane of Dread, a Dreamspawn Ennui crosses over the Veil of Sleep and enters the waking world where it slowly and methodically plays upon the fears and the regrets of its victim to terrorise and horrify him and others too as it becomes the bane of horse stealers plying the old Slavich Road.

There are a handful of clues as to the stalker being an Ennui that has escaped the Land of Nightmares. But perhaps they were too subtle: sleep induced by murmuring; the captain having more than two hands (one for each razor plus one or more maintaining a grapple); the saddle strap being cleanly cut by a sharp instrument; no tracks indicating that a pursuing militiaman did this; the invisible manipulation of the skull of the strung up man and knowledge of the emotional attachment to this man culminating in a failed horror check; the flyby blow delivered to the side of the head; knowledge that a further horror check connected to castration might push the victim over the edge; and the desire to wage a campaign of horror and of terror.

Aha! Well, I'm not very well acquainted with Nightmare Lands stuff, and I wouldn't know an ennui from a bastellus if they took turns tormenting me. It looks like you gave the right clues--I just didn't have the background to add them up. Sorry for spoiling the story for those who were just about to get it.

"The Omen Watchers"--Another good idea, but perhaps just a little bit static. They don't seem to have any aggressive aims, which makes them excellent background players and NPC experts, but not as good as PC or villain types. Do they have any professional relationship with the Midway Haven observatory?

It WAS intended to be static. We are talking about an ELVEN society, after all.
Not all of the societies in the Demiplane are pursuing "aggressive aims". Some can just be a support to the PCs, and I was specifically aiming to this.

The society is in no way connected to the MHO: they're just humans, after all...

Jakob wrote:

"The Omen Watchers"--Another good idea, but perhaps just a little bit static. They don't seem to have any aggressive aims, which makes them excellent background players and NPC experts, but not as good as PC or villain types. Do they have any professional relationship with the Midway Haven observatory?

It WAS intended to be static. We are talking about an ELVEN society, after all.
Not all of the societies in the Demiplane are pursuing "aggressive aims". Some can just be a support to the PCs, and I was specifically aiming to this.

The society is in no way connected to the MHO: they're just humans, after all...

Indeed...the elves are rather that way on both counts, aren't they (static, dismissive of other races)?

Nathan of the FoS wrote:

Jakob wrote:

"The Omen Watchers"--Another good idea, but perhaps just a little bit static. They don't seem to have any aggressive aims, which makes them excellent background players and NPC experts, but not as good as PC or villain types. Do they have any professional relationship with the Midway Haven observatory?

It WAS intended to be static. We are talking about an ELVEN society, after all.
Not all of the societies in the Demiplane are pursuing "aggressive aims". Some can just be a support to the PCs, and I was specifically aiming to this.

The society is in no way connected to the MHO: they're just humans, after all...

Indeed...the elves are rather that way on both counts, aren't they (static, dismissive of other races)?

They surely are in most fantasy settings, and more so in Ravenloft.
Glad you agree with me.

By the way, I just noticed that Stephen posted a v2 of the netbook, with "With 25% more Islands of Ravens, and 100% less Bert Larson"

Joël

My fav article was *Bleakstone*... GE rocks, after all...

isle of the raven did it for me. currently reading all the gazeteers and happy with any more material as sharp and clear as this. Very crisp, very clear, will be used within this month,
thanks

I also liked the Gaz idea. Being a small domain, with no real inhabitants, Isle of Ravens wouldn't have made a very good read in a book of its own. It was much better to give it a send-off in article format.

I just hope this doesn't lead to an I'Cath article.