1. Giant animal/monsters like King Kong or Moby Dick.
2. Killer "normal" animals that may or may not have something supernatural going on like the lions in The Ghost and the Darkness.
3. An NPC like Blade from the movies.
For option 3, I would use a Dhampir but RL is generally too "dark" for that kind of plot.. although there is always Jander Sunstar
As for Blade, though, I'm not such a big fan. I played World of Darkness for four or five years, and it was fun. I'm not sure I'd want to bring that sort of protagonist over into the Mists...
This would be a role-playing challenge for athe DM, and if he was teamed up with a party, then a challenge for players alike. They would be constant on the move always looking over their shoulders.
2) There are all sorts of animals-gone wrong, and animals are a staple of the gothic genre...and near-animals that aren't quite right work well (especially good if you have rangers and druids in the party)
3) Why?
1) (especially good if you have rangers and druids in the party)
3) Why?
Well, I try to run a campaign based on role playing, not roll playing. So why a character like blade.
The character itself, as i said vampire would be coming after him to acheive his abilities. And the mist would not allow him to kill someone like Stradh. He would be just stuck in the domain never to leave and never accomplishing his good but would have fun none the less.
Well, I try to run a campaign based on role playing, not roll playing. So why a character like blade.
The character itself, as i said vampire would be coming after him to acheive his abilities. And the mist would not allow him to kill someone like Stradh. He would be just stuck in the domain never to leave and never accomplishing his good but would have fun none the less.
Yeah, it was role playing I was concerned with. I mean, a dhampire PC may be cool, but Wesley Snipes throwing weird boomerang things and weilding a barbed-hilted high-tech katana...that was the "why?" comment.
Remember though too, I character can not leave gamma with alaser rifle, and enter the AD&D realm, the state it will not function.
So his technology may not work, he would have to make an equivalent.
Whatever you do with a Blade-inspired NPC, don't let such a character steal the show from the PCs. That's a big problem with any NPC ally who's stronger, more durable, or just plain more aggressive than the player characters: remember, the D&D game is supposed to be for *them*, not for some ubercool NPC you've created.
I know, I never have a NPC in the party playing the role of leader. I let the party members make all the decision.
I was just trying to imagine all the problems the party would have with a NPC like blade tagging along. Forgot all about the showstealer aspect. Blade though I still think would be a beacon in Ravenloft for the powers that be.
1) Easy. "Moby Dick" itself can be seen as a unconventional Gothic story. Obsession, revenge at all cost, tragic fall of Ahab killed by the very beast he hunts. It's a good tale with some easily adapted concepts. Move it tot he storm-wracked, fog shrouded seas of the Core and you've got a real jumper.
2) Also easy. "Ghost and the Darkness" is a highly fictinalized retelling of a true event and they were just two normal lions acting abnormal. Point though, the body count mentioned is real enough :OMG! ! "Normal" animals are very underpowered in D&D as is (I've tangled with more than one wild boar, and barely survived once. And I was well armed!) and with some tweaking can be quite deadly. they normally avoid humans and thus many underestimate their power and visciousness. Lions, as a evening of watching Animal Planet will show, often bring down prey twice their size and often start to eat it while it's still very much alive and screaming! Yeesh. BTW, the cape buffalo, a prey item, kills more men every year than all the lions combined. Hippos are even worse. Leopards out rank lions in deaths: they actively stalk humans! Here in Florida black bears, panthers, and all but the biggest alligators avoid tangling with wild boar. Only us humans are stupid enough to try!
Example, "The Edge," where crash survivors are stalked by a Alaskan brown bear exaggerates very little is a good example. The bear kills the band one by one as it stalks them across a hundred miles of Alaska (yeah they will do that). Only one man survives in the end and they kill it by as much luck as skill and courage. BTW it's also a excellent plot line for a game (A older husband is to be killed by his wife's younger lover, now both are being stalked by the bear!).
Point is a brown bear, lion or full-sized wild boar should be a near fatal encounter for a human with a sword or spear, or even a gun. It often is.
3) I personally have avoided uber-races and stick to the standards. I like the players knowing they are severely outgunned in every major encounter and it often comes down to courage, persistance, character, faith, will, and cunning of their characters. That's my opinion only, some here have suggested good ideas for using such. I would avoid a Blade clone and rather use the concept of a Dhampir hunting vampires as suggested by some here to start from.
Just wondering.
1. Giant animal/monsters like King Kong or Moby Dick.
2. Killer "normal" animals that may or may not have something supernatural going on like the lions in The Ghost and the Darkness.
3. An NPC like Blade from the movies.
Kind of a late entry in the convo, but a little input to echo and elaborate on what others have said here:
1. Giant animals are represented in Ravenloft, as was mentioned with the Sea Monsters reference before. Think about what it is that makes the telling of those tales truly frightening, though: In King Kong, is Kong the villain, the hero, or just another unwitting victim? Is there a way to emulate that status and superimpose it on the PCs, or even on just one of them?
Imagine what would happen if a PC got infected with lycanthropy? Pretty standard RL fare there. Imagine, then, that the PC is subjected to some strange effect that results in their being enlarged to 10 or 20 times their normal size, what then? How are the unaffected PCs going to manage keeping this friend of theirs alive, search for a reversal both of the lycanthropic infection and of the enlargement, prevent the wholesale devastation this creature is capable of wreaking, keep the torches-and-pitchforks crew away from him (and vice-versa), and keep all their own heads attached when their protection of the beast is found out by the terrified populace?
2. The following "encounter" defines Ravenloft for me, and it always has.
The party, injured and disheartened after their last costly victory - or was it a stalemate? - against the forces of the night, trudges homeward through the stifling mugginess of a Souragne summer night. Even in the dark, the air is sweltering; even in the heat, the fog is blinding. The encroaching cypress and pampas and moss-covered oaks give total cover to anything that might be slogging along through the marshy muck surrounding the party. (Notice the subtle game terms? Hinting at penalties the PCs will suffer scares the players themselves, as they see the odds of surviving an encounter numerically decline.)
Behind the party and to the left, a sound rings out. With the echoes of the trees and the squelching effect of the fog, it's hard to tell how far away the origin of the sound is, but it is remarkably, terrifyingly similar to the sound of a small child being choked. (Should a ranger, druid, or barbarian make a Wilderness Lore check greater than 15, they recognize the sound as that of a rabbit being killed.) The sound rings out suddenly once, then is immediately silenced. (Whatever it was, it's too late now. Allow the players to beat themselves up morally for as long as they want: once they're done addressing the question at hand, resume telling the story. Let them search if they want, but no amount of searching will turn up any sign of a child, dead rabbit or predator.)
(Roll Listen checks for your PCs. Pull the one player that scores the highest aside from the table, talk to him or her for about a minute, explaining that their character is starting to hear very well-concealed rustling in the treeline. The main objective here is to get the other players looking askance at both you and the pulled player.)
As you resume your uncomfortable trudging toward what passes for civilization, the stillness of the environment becomes more and more oppressive. The chirping of crickets dies off, and the nocturnal birds seem to rustle their wings in anticipation of taking wing. (Re-roll Listen checks. Pull the player aside again, maybe including another high roller, this time notifying him that the ground noises are getting closer, and seem to be coming from all around, including in front of the party.)
(Any PC with an ability that resembles a danger sense, such as an Evasion ability, should be notified that an attack seems imminent.)
At this point, the sound of a number of creatures approaching the party's position from all around should be audible to all. Something is coming. (Roll any sensory checks the PCs want: Spot or Listen with a DC of 30 will reveal a floppy-eared brown rabbit snuffling his way out from under the underbrush. A Search check - a more active skill - will scare the rabbits away from the party, keeping them at a distance of 10 feet into the treeline.)
WHOOSH! The air around you is suddenly disturbed, and a flurry of motion - sudden, but silent - passes directly overhead, crashes through the brush, then retreats back into the trees. (Anyone who detected the rabbit can make a Wilderness Lore check again, DC 15: The wooshing air is the result of an owl diving after a rabbit {owls are silent on descent, and only make noise flying as they attempt to regain altitude}. If that Wilderness Lore check is greater than 20, the PC also notices that the rabbit didn't scream, and therefore was probably not caught.)
(The PCs should be firmly gripped in either terror at the impending attack or laughing at themselves for being freaked out at perfectly natural stuff. This won't change until the entire party is fully and completely aware that the sounds are coming from rabbits - play this up as long as necessary.)
With your newly-acquired escort of curious, hiding bunnies, you resume your walk. Relief seems to lighten your loads of gear, and the road becomes less muddy as you begin to see the first lights of Marais d'Terascon. You notice in the outer edge of your torchlight before you a shifting, squirming mass in the middle of the road.
(Allow the PCs to again brandish weapons, ready spells, and {if necessary} roll initiative.) As you approach the mass, you begin to realize that there are small forms crawling over a larger one, about the size of a fair-sized dog lying broad.
(Paranoia, more brandishing, preparing for attack, etc.) The smaller forms, as you approach, don't seem to react to your presence, and as you reach 10 feet from the mass, it becomes apparent that the small forms are yet more bunnies. The mass upon which they are crawling is yet unrecognizable, but appears to be a recently-killed furry creature. Perhaps it was bigger than a dog.
(Ready to get the cat out of the bag? The bunnies are spontaneously-animated zombie rabbits, and the form upon which they are currently scavenging used to be a werewolf, overtaken by their incredibly high numbers and reduced to a greasy pile of fur and bones. Upon realizing this, the PCs get to make horror checks, and the swarm of 1/4 HD zombie rabbits descends upon them.)
3. A Blade-like NPC can be introduced as a potential villain for the PCs to stalk, then after their levels reach his, they can finally manage to contact him, he can possibly team up with them for a session or two, then move on as a valuable contact for the PCs in the future. I wouldn't keep him around for long, though; as the PCs outstrip his power level, perhaps they wind up having to preserve him against a particularly curious and grabby Darklord.
Enjoy...
Just wondering.
1. Giant animal/monsters like King Kong or Moby Dick.
2. Killer "normal" animals that may or may not have something supernatural going on like the lions in The Ghost and the Darkness.
3. An NPC like Blade from the movies.
Actually, there is a Ahab/Moby Dick domain called Whal in one of the Kargatane netbooks created by yours truly (plug, plug). The focus was on Ahab and being cursed as a wereorca (a little harder to accomplish with the 3.5 rules but I'm working on it).
It just occured to me, with a mental smack to the back of the skull, that Moby Dick was just a normal, if albino, sperm whale! The novel itself was inspired by a true incident of a sperm whale attacking the ship that was after it and sinking it. Of the crew, fewer than a dozen survived, due to being set adrift over 2000 miles from the nearest land (Chile). Apparently such incedents were not common, but counter attacks by sperm whales were common enough that no professional whaler ever criticized the novel as far fetched. Often quite the opposite!
Imagine..
- a giant animal with fiendish intelligence which is offered live victims by the natives
- an island with a dangerous (not to mention prehistoric) fauna
- ruins of an ancient civilization
- an island that appears on no map
- an island hidden in a dense "fog"
Sounds like an island of terror that could appear anywhere on a dozen worlds (including Gothic Earth)
Actually, the more I think about it, the more King Kong seems like an obvious candidate for RL.
Imagine..
- a giant animal with fiendish intelligence which is offered live victims by the natives
- an island with a dangerous (not to mention prehistoric) fauna
- ruins of an ancient civilization
- an island that appears on no map
- an island hidden in a dense "fog"
Sounds like an island of terror that could appear anywhere on a dozen worlds (including Gothic Earth)
The only problem is getting the Big Guy DL off his island and into NYC.
Seriously, I don't see any problem with that if you handle it in a MotRD game. There, DL aren't as "static" as in RL.
In Port-a-Lucine you mean? :D.
:P
Seriously, I don't see any problem with that if you handle it in a MotRD game. There, DL aren't as "static" as in RL.
IIRC, in MOTRD, the status of "DL" within context of said campaign setting is to be permanently stuck within your lair. Even expanding on the concept to include an island (effectively turning it into an Island of Terror), you're still stuck with the problem of getting a DL outside the borders of his domain. To my knowledge, only Vecna and Malocchio Aderre has or has had the power to break domain borders for DLs.
:lightbulb :evillaugh Of course, there is nothing saying there isn't an artifact that could do that, but I would recommend against it, or for only very high-level campaigns.
To my knowledge, only Vecna and Malocchio Aderre has or has had the power to break domain borders for DLs.
Given the timeline in the Player's guide, as well as the 1st Edition I10: House on Griffon Hill, Strahd also got to leave sometime around 542-579, as he goes to Mordent to mess with his lighter half. I'd chalk it up to Azalin's research, unless someone knows a more cannon answer than that.
They're not even really lords, just villains and monsters given powers by the mysterious Red Death.
Kong as a giant dire ape or something similar would fit right in on that world.
In regular Ravenloft... it depends on the adventure. If you can pull it off without breaking the sense of realism and fear too much then I say go for it!