Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 livingwill Aug 17, 2009 13:43:58	Assuming they will shake up Ravenloft for 4th when they finally get to it how would you do it? I would have the Dukkar break free of his chains and leave Ravenloft taking severel dark lords with him. A few hours later he kills a passing band of wandering gypsies and burns down a temple dedicated to a good aligned god. This is enough to pull him back to Ravenloft and getting his own domain and he can no longer teleport at all. The other dark lords are pulled back with him. After he is pulled back Drakov invades Borca again and fails miserably as his troops are poisoned to death. One of the rebels of Falkovnia finally overthrows Drakov and executes him. However, he was interested mainly in power not the plight of the people and has cut many moral corners before he killed Drakov. He aligned himself with what he knew were wererats from Richemelot, minions of the Brain and some vampires from Bavoria and used them to backstab his own people on the way to the top of his rebel grop along with using them against Drakov. However, he gained a lot of popularity by overthrowing Drakov. His curse is simple, he is highly paranoid about being overthrown and he sees spies everywhere. The Dark Powers make sure he keeps his paranoia by giving him the abality to read minds. However, about once a week one of the mind he reads will be plotting against him even if the person isn't doing any plotting. Because of his desire for popularity he is unwilling to use Drakov's methods and plots against them from afar. He has made two popular decrees 1) All talons are under the sentence of death. All known talons are to be killed on sight. This gets possible rivals out of the way along with an increase in popularity. 2) No more pointless wars. He doesn't want to appear as a power mad fool like Drakov anyways. Arazel Dak is overthrown by the elves. Inza is not interested in political power and plays her mind games of setting people against each other. In the new background for Inza it turns out she has been pocessed almost from birth by an evil shadow fey of some sort, sith or powerie seem the most likely. All this takes place over a few decades. Any other ideas?
#2 riddling-reaver Aug 28, 2009 9:53:23	If you want to shake up Ravenloft for 4e, you have to think about the end result - bringing it in line with the new rules and new cosmology.   For this, I think Gwydion the Sorcerer-Fiend, Darklord of the Shadow-Rift, is the key.   Gwydion escapes, and his power and evil hauls the entire Land of Mists into the Shadowfell, his native plane. Loht and Maeve join forces and, together with Isolde of the Carnival, use their combined power to call for reinforcments, by bringing the Feywild into conjunction. The planar breaches shatter the ties that bind the domains together, scattering them throughout the Shadowfell and isolating them into independent Domains of Dread (though perhaps with Mistways continuing to link them). The Faerie Court fight a war of shadow and magic against Gwydion, a war in which the mortals of Ravenloft are caught in the middle - helpless only to stand and watch as the land is torn apart, reality becomes a malleable plaything, and monsters are formed from nowhere. Even the Darklords themselves are forced to take shelter in their strongholds. Eventually, the Faerie Court manages to drive Gwydion back into the Abyss, but not without cost. Isolde dies, murdered by the Gentleman Caller in a bid to engineer his own escape. Maeve sacrifices her life in the war. But Loht finally finds redemption, and collapses the entire Rift around Gwydion in order to save the Domains, the Shadowfell, and the entire mortal World. In the aftermath, the Land of Mists finds itself now a scattered set of Domains of Dread within the Shadowfell, loosely bound together with Mistways. The newly discovered Feywild provides a temporary escape from the Mists, and both planes generate new sources of magic for mortals to call upon. However, the chaos of the Faerie War has left the mortal inhabitants of the Domains of Dread even more distrustful and paranoid of magic, strangers, and the unexplained, than ever before.   That's how I'd do it.
#3 livingwill Aug 29, 2009 20:45:10	If you want to shake up Ravenloft for 4e, you have to think about the end result - bringing it in line with the new rules and new cosmology.   For this, I think Gwydion the Sorcerer-Fiend, Darklord of the Shadow-Rift, is the key.   Gwydion escapes, and his power and evil hauls the entire Land of Mists into the Shadowfell, his native plane. Loht and Maeve join forces and, together with Isolde of the Carnival, use their combined power to call for reinforcments, by bringing the Feywild into conjunction. The planar breaches shatter the ties that bind the domains together, scattering them throughout the Shadowfell and isolating them into independent Domains of Dread (though perhaps with Mistways continuing to link them). The Faerie Court fight a war of shadow and magic against Gwydion, a war in which the mortals of Ravenloft are caught in the middle - helpless only to stand and watch as the land is torn apart, reality becomes a malleable plaything, and monsters are formed from nowhere. Even the Darklords themselves are forced to take shelter in their strongholds. Eventually, the Faerie Court manages to drive Gwydion back into the Abyss, but not without cost. Isolde dies, murdered by the Gentleman Caller in a bid to engineer his own escape. Maeve sacrifices her life in the war. But Loht finally finds redemption, and collapses the entire Rift around Gwydion in order to save the Domains, the Shadowfell, and the entire mortal World. In the aftermath, the Land of Mists finds itself now a scattered set of Domains of Dread within the Shadowfell, loosely bound together with Mistways. The newly discovered Feywild provides a temporary escape from the Mists, and both planes generate new sources of magic for mortals to call upon. However, the chaos of the Faerie War has left the mortal inhabitants of the Domains of Dread even more distrustful and paranoid of magic, strangers, and the unexplained, than ever before.   That's how I'd do it.        I wouldn't kill off Isolde, she is too important. Gwydion the Sorcerer-Fiend is expendable so that is fine. For all his power he is never seen.  I also wouldn't isolate the domains unless you plan offing Drakov. Besides I like the political power plays between dark lords.    I would also involve the Dukkar and Azalin somehow as there are too many clues in the gazetteers that Azalin is trying to use the Dukkar on his next escape attempt.       How about this scenario?  The Dark Powers are so powerful that Azalin thinks it will take a real combined effort to escape. He contacts the Dukkar and Gwydion about how to do so. The Gentleman Caller finds out and he joins the group. The combined effort breaks the bonds of Ravenloft. Unfortunately for them Isolde and the shadow fey find out about only a little too late to stop it. They go after them. The Gentleman Caller is killed by Isolde. This casts both the Dukkar and Azalin back into a renewed Ravenloft with the Dukkar being granted the domain I created for him earlier. The shadow fey confront Gwydlion again and because his effort to break out of Ravenloft cost him so much they manage to kill him. Unfortunately for the shadow fey his connection with him causes them to snap back into Ravenloft with the Shadowfey Realm divided into two areas one connected to the Feywild that is ruled by Maeve and the other connected to the Shadowfell under Loht. There is no barrier that stops a member of either court to walk into the others area. Loht is the sole dark lord of the domain who has envy of Maeve's composure in crisis enflamed. His curse is that he can't effect half the area and population of fey in the domain. Maeve has total control of her area and people, none of his powers work on them.  He can use his domain powers on visitors in Mauve's area though, he can't effect her fey but he can effect people who are not fey under her command. What powers he gets I am not sure of.  Any Ideas?
#4 The_Jester Sep 10, 2009 9:59:42	Ravenloft, as a whole, probably won't see print in 4e. They'll probably content themselves releasing new domains and, should those be popular enough, release best-of domains in Dragon. I'm unsure of the ownership of the Ravenloft 3e content created by Swords & Sorcery/ ArtHaus, and if WotC can refer to that. Or, if they can, if they would ask their staff to consult those products prior to writing. So any Ravenloft product would likely be set in an earlier period, like the Dark Sun books which will be set in the time of the original boxed set. I doubt they'd reverse it before the Grand Conjunction but if we see an official 'Loft book I would not be surprised if it was prior to the Requiem.
#5 ravenharm Oct 03, 2009 0:54:04	the inclusion of the demiplane of dread into the shadowfell is a big shake up all in itself. from a mechanical point of view in my opinion, an achivement. the way i have done it in my game is the dark powers have finally presented themselves, though it did about as much good as it would to any professor from call of ctthululthuluthulcctulllulu. 3 mega powers are fighting for control of the shadow realm including the demiplanes of dread. vecna, ravenqueen, and orcus.  this explains why the dark powers at times seem at odds with eachother, favoring evil or galvinizing good, with the raven queen favoring good in a similar fashion as st cuthbert favored good over evil but was not good himself. so i made lemonade of lemons and embraced the fluff of 4th edition. we still play both 3.0-3.5- modern & pathfinder and when we play our 4th edition game i hope to pull everyone into the shadowfell for a weekend in hell. (2 different gaming groups.only a dm in one.)