Joël of the FoS's page

We had a blast with The Haunting of Harrowstone, which I DMed in my Ravenloft campaign. 9/10!

Those are the things I changed:

- No trust mechanics (didn’t see it as working well, I roleplayed it instead).

- Thugs in the cemetery event: made them throw mud at Kendra, to have Kendra a more sympathetic and “person you want to protect” NPC.

- Old Gibs Hephenus gets a bigger role in the adventure (he knows a lot, since he was a guard at the prison 50 years ago!), as well as in the background of the prison fire story.

- Vesorianna’s story was changed a bit. Removed the hysterics and made her more heroic (she wanted to save some of the guards down below, but the guards at the lift were cowards and her effort was spoiled by these coward guards (Gibs, I’m again looking at you!).

- When the fire started, people remembered Vesorianna locked in a room. Gibs was supposed to get her out, but the coward fled instead. Later, when she was in the list of people missing, town people assumed that after being freed by Gibs (as he said he did), Vesorianna probably came back inside the burning prison, where she died.

- I didn’t use the items that were belongings of the 5 BBGs. HoH is low level, and the PCs are 8th so I removed the items.

- Vesorianna’s name is spelled one letter per day (and not once every d4 days). I planned the possibility that her family name (Hawkran) would have to be spelled too if PCs really needed time.

- Added a few creepy effects in the village, that were caused by the 5 BBGs - zombies at night, rambling writing with blood in a caster's spellbook that fades away, premonitions, priest forgetting the name of their god, all the animals start howling at the same time at night, etc.

- Since the PCs are 8th level, boosted the 5 BBGs hps and the DCs to resist their effects.

- Changed the 5 BBGs background to make them fit into Ravenloft’s domains.

If you want to read my campaign journals, it starts at session 51, ends at sesion 56: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/TheVeranda.html (under Joel's Campaign).

Joël

I'm DMing in Ravenloft and often use ideas from PF in my game. One of them is Carrion Crown, of course, of which I took many parts to insert in my game, the chase after the Whispering Way to prevent their ritual being one.

But I loved the idea of RMD, and that is now in my campaign's planning.

In my RL game, Tar-Baphon's spirit was banished from the land of the mists centuries ago. The heroes that killed him banished his spirit out of the mists, instead of destroying it fully. So this evil lich spirit that was too strong to be destroyed wandered strange planes of the multiverse until it saw a planet it decided to check: Earth. Tar-Baphon thus arrived in Russia, 1912, and used the body of a wandering spiritual monk to spread evil, and he got very close to the Russian royal family. Guess who? Rasputin of course! Rasputin (the mad monk) is Tar-Baphon's current vessel.

He got enemies and he was killed in a grotesque manner: poisoned, gunned and drowned... There were at the time rumors he was unkillable, and that his corpse was still moving when they retrieved it from the river.

What differs from our own Earth story is that Tar-Baphon's spirit was too strong, and the monk indeed came back from death ...

In Siberia, Rasputin lead a faction of supporters in a bloody war against soldiers of the people (the "Reds") and gained control of a secret prison camp.

So mean and ruthless were his orders that soon Rasputin/Tar-Baphon was snatched back in the mists (in Ravenloft), in the form of an island in the mists made to look like Russia...

That is the domain where the players are now: Siberia, in February 1918 (local time)!

What's next? Rasputin must die! I'm having fun so far!

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For the foreign language discussion, I had made a quick sheet of French(my mother tongue)-Russian phrases, that I thought the local people were going to be using when meeting the PCs *, and having Google translate as a quick on-the-spot complement.

So I was able to speak this foreign language through the mouth of local people, until they learned a few words / cast tongues.

* ex: Help! (pomogite!), assassin (ubiytsa), do not kill me (ne ubivay menya!), (and the best one I think when 1918 Russian face D&D characters) are you from a circus?( Vy iz tsirka ?), etc.

Fun :)

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We've done the intro so far and the troop mechanics works very well.

The only thing I've said to my players: "this is a new PF mechanic, called a Troop. It works like a swarm, but it is large, and is composed of about 20 soldiers that uses one save, etc. When you "kill" it, you assume most are dead, the rest fleeing." and the rest, they discovered when facing them.

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Later, when RMD will be finished, I'll post the link to my campaign journal, for those interested.

IMC, in Ravenloft, Lorrimor is a friend of Van Richten, an iconic NPC most players met in game. This helps a lot in making the professor even more friendly in the PCs' eyes.

Joël

I use music a lot in my games. I mean A LOT.

Something I once wrote for the FoS:

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Not everything in a movie soundtracks is good. Great tracks for a gothic game are mixed with other moods. To skip these useless tracks, or to avoid sudden changes from the ‘mood’ needed in game, I put all my music on the computer and sort it by ‘theme’ folders. Those are the ‘themes’ I use in my Ravenloft game:

• Exploration music– investigations and explorations. Hints of stress or anxiety in them.

• Heroic and action – for battles, pursuits, and other heroic feats.

• Mystery – similar to exploration. Calm music with hints of supernatural or something menacing

• Sounds - fun sounds I found here and there. My collection includes screams, dogs, wolves, thunderstorm, wind, church bells, etc. Some Halloween-type soundtrack have spooky atmosphere too (when they are not too cheesey/silly).

• Stress - self explanatory too, but very stressful parts of the game.

• Supernatural and unknown – eerie music

• Sad – self explanatory again

• Miscellaneous - vistani music, tavern music, circus music, religious temple (whether good or evil), etc.

I have a list for each folder, providing for each track the length and my thoughts for each track. I note switch of mood or pace within a track. It’s not that long to make, I upgrade the list once in a while with new tracks I first listen to when doing something else (planning D&D!).

Example of use of rhythm: from The Ravenous soundtrack, a piece called “the cave”. It is eight minutes long and starts with a mysterious repetitive music (mystery and stress combined, slowly changing to stressful mood at about 3:20 minutes). I had timed my description with an increase in stress from a description with at 4:13 minutes of “the cave”, it was perfectly timed with the stressful mood taking over completely: it was revealed to them that a woman was lowered in a dog fight pit while the music changed to a bass sound, more and more frantic, with jungle-like drums a few moments later. And dread-like acid guitar sound at 5:43 with the werewolf revelation. Highly recommended! The anxiety of the players was near palpable (scene from Ravenloft’s Evil Eye)

Before a game, I review my game plan and choose music for each part of the adventure. Sometimes players do not notice the efforts but it works, it works 200% and is worth the effort.

For each scene: I usually select 3-5 pieces of the same mood, with possibly added sounds (ex: howling wolf), that I play in random mode during a scene. Because if you chose only one mp3 for play, it will become repetitive and boring.

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I also like Bauhaus and other creepy music artists, but I tend to avoid known pop (or rock) mp3, as they distract the game if there are another fan around the table. During a game, I keep to soundtracks and things creepy.

But I also have LotR mp3, and similar heroic inspired music, for times where the situation needs it. If you use creepy music all the time, it won’t last long before it’s boring! Iusually start a game with heroic music, then turn the mood to creepy when needed.

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People have great suggestions here, but there are a few gems that were not mentioned:

- The Ravenloft “A Light in the Belfry” had an audio CD of great spooky sounds (creaking door, wind through trees, barking dog, monsters, …) because sounds can be as interesting for mood as music.
At one point in a game, the players were pursuing something at night. Then I tell them they heard a wolf howl in the distance. After a moment, they put their attention back to the pursuit, until my computer adds a wolf howling sound in the mix … Then the players knew the wolves threat was for real.

- Two tracks from the (great) movie Eyes Wide Shut:
(I see evil rituals on this music).

And this creepy piano piece . (but get the CD soundtrack, it is without car noise, voice, and other distractions)
(EXTREMELY creepy if you also lower the light)

- “American McGee's Alice” (twisted)

- “The Village” (had great soundtrack for suspense)

I do not have my list with me as I write this, will add more later!

Joël

Dear brothers and sisters in the Fraternity (and potential RPG writers head hunters :) ),

We hope you recovered from the evil April 1st jokes that plagued the Core. For those who have been away, it’s a great pleasure to announce the release of the FoS Souragne Gazetteer. You can download this here: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Library/SouragneGazetteer.pdf (you might need to copy-paste this link in your net browser)

This netbook can be used for Ravenloft, but it contains many info that could be useable for any DM looking for a gothic or horror oriented swamp. If you are into Heroes of Horror, this is for you

Many people wrote in it, so please give them feedback!

Sincerely,

The Fraternity of Shadows