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

Would like your wisdom on the Murderous Command spell:

if save is failed, the target has a mental urge to kill its nearest ally. If necessary, it moves to or charges to the nearest ally in order to make this attack.

But if there is a hazard between him an the nearest ally - like a blade barrier? Would the target pass through to get to attack the nearest ally?

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.

For those interested, we are in the middle of HoH and here's my campaign journal so far: link here!.

It is all happening in Martira Bay, Darkon (Ravenloft). In it, there is:

- a prequel to Haunt of Harrowstone (pathfinder). I needed my player to know well Petros Lorrimor before he died, so that was the main use of that (fun) prequel, DM-machina wise.

- the destruction of an afflicted PC, who gets tricked into turning into a werewolf. This player wasn't having fun with this PC, so I made him on his way out, but the other players threw him out faster then I thought. Extremely fun role playing here.

- a cool (I think) "Bloody Mary" side treck, so Petros has time to exit the place back to the village where Harrowstone prison is. I needed him him to resume his investigations, where he gets killed so HoF can start.

- Crooked Kin/University theft of a statue/Vorkstag and Grine sidetrecks, from the second Carrion Crown adventure, which I do not plan to DM. Again, I needed time before HoH can realistically start.

- then HoH starts. You'll see it was changed in many ways, and beefed up a bit (the PCs are 7th level). At the end of this session, they have explored the second floor and the main floor. They also have about half of the deadly underground level still to explore...

Next game Dec 2nd!

Joël

I’m currently DMing Haunting of Harrowstone, and here’s FYI a few changes I made to the backstory.

Gibs Hephenus gets a bigger role in the adventure (he knows a lot, since he WAS a guard at the prison 50 years ago). He is about 80 now. That made it a fun and unpleasant NPC to deal with, in order to know more about what happened the day the prison burned.

But his memory is sketchy and he doesn’t say everything…

Vesorianna’s story was changed. I removed the hysterics and made her more heroic. She pleaded with the guards on the ground level to stage a rescue. “They refused, these cowards!”

Later, at one time she saw the prisoners were attracted to another area of the underground level, clearing the lift area. She saw a few guards who were hidden and who took this opportunity to show themselves to the guards up there. She said they could lower the lift shaft to free these three guards stuck down there in the riot.

But the cowards again refused. She managed to dodge the guards, run to the lift’s winch, and throw the release, causing the heavy wooden platform to plummet into the dungeon below in the hope that the guards could leap onto it and be pulled to safety.

She could have saved these three guards but her effort was spoiled by coward guards (Gibs, I’m looking at you). Gibs and another guard managed to apprehend her and swiftly bustled her off to the prison workshop at the other end of Harrowstone, locking her inside for her own safety.

Then the fire. When exiting the building, the guards said they should rescue Vesorianna and sent Gibs to do it (he had the key). But he didn’t, the coward, he was too afraid. He later came to the others and said “she left the building from another door”, but he didn’t save her from the smoke, and she died.

In the village, people assumed she tried to go back inside the burning prison to save her husband and died.

Having Vesorianna rest in peace after the end of the adventure will also need an heartfelt excuse from Gibs.

The keys are to be found inside the Warden's pelvis, on his skeleton in the torture room?

Not sure I want official explanation :)

Joël

Hello boys and ghouls,

I've just read the full HoH sticky DM thread, very good ideas there!

My question is to find out if any DM has played this low level adventure with higher levels than suggested? My 6 PCs are level 7 so of course I need to boost a few of the encounters, especially in the prison. I want them to fear the place!

Anyone done that? Or any ideas for the main 5 encounters (new classes, new abilities, etc.)?

Joël

Esteemed members of the Fraternity,

The old Celtic traditions say the ghosts of the dead are returning to earth tonight. To commemorate the event, for the Samhain festival, we urge you to built bonfires to summon warmth for the winter and make offerings to appease these spirits.

The Fraternity isn’t of course concerned by these petty folk superstitions, but still a few offerings to the spirits will be made. You see, our last discussion with Lord Godefroy showed us what kind of torment one might have when angry spirits come back.

But before we tire of your lovely trepidation and serve the offerings, we have staff news from the Fraternity of Shadows.

Jason has recently decided to leave the Fraternity to focus more time on his "real life family" and “real life career” whatsoever that might represent. On a more serious note, Jason’s contributions here over the last years have been invaluable, as writer and editor, and his cheerfulness in the Green House (our secret FoS meeting room) will be sorely missed.

We raise our glasses to you, Jason! Please stop by whenever you want!

In addition, you may have also noticed Wiccy too has left the Fraternity to reach the Emeritus status. Wiccy is now focusing more time to his illustrator career, and we sincerely wish him all the best. Wiccy is a fellow contributor since the early days of the Undead Sea Scrolls netbook, and we look forward to keeping in regular contact with him via Drusilla.

We raise our glasses to you too, Wiccy! To your success! Thank you for all these years!

Now as a result of these bodies running off our terror labs, we had to recruit new ... associates. This was hard by the way since the choice of valiant replacements was plenty.

What better to replace two men than one woman, would S from the Doomsday Gazetteer say?

A woman?

We had a hard time discussing the matter with our superiors of the Fraternity to make it work, and we are pleased to say we were finally able to make them change their mind.

Or as S would say, they finally got rid of their infamous “antiquated modes of thought”.

So yes, we are thrilled to announce the first woman to become a Fraternity of Shadows member!

Please welcome Sharon, known here as Rotipher!

We all have been very impressed by her contribution on these boards: her knowledge of the Ravenloft setting is near encyclopaedic and we really appreciate her often stunning creativity and point of views.

Sharon already has a first project for the Fraternity, which she will announce soon...

Please make sure to take the time to provide your well wishes to Jason and Wiccy, and your congratulations to Sharon.

In the meantime, join in the Samhain festivities!

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Ah yes… now for the promised frightful offerings…

- We had the pleasure to host a Barovia contest that started on Friday the 13th. While some were very good, there was one entry that clearly set its dread tentacles higher than the others.
We are pleased to announce the winner of the contest is … Raphael!

Congratulation for your superb entry based on EtCR! In short, Raphael took two fairly bland EtCR NPCs and made them good adventure hooks, adding a new dimension to the adventure. Raphael, please contact Jason to tell him your choice for your prize!

Thank you everybody for submitting! We will contact all the authors soon to rework their text (without a page limit!) and we will make a short Barovia netbook with the entries.

- Rucht Lilavivat is still working on the zombie invasion scenario and unfortunately it isn’t ready yet… You’ll surely understand Rucht is working on many RPG projects at this time, and this should be a good news for us horror fans.

However, in order to make you dead prone in your anticipation, he is releasing for your wicked pleasure “Child of the House”, a brand new adventure set in Darkon! Do you really want to play with these delightfully horrible dolls? The link to it is http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/library/ChildOfTheHouse_RuchtLilavivat.p df Thank you Rucht!

- In September, John W Mangrum revealed a fairly detailed draft of the grand Death Undaunted project on these boards.

We are pleased to host a formatted PDF file collecting all this material. Definitively a great addition to your Ravenloft shelves! The link to it is http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/library/DeathUndaunted_JWM.pdf Thank you John!

- And last but not least, the awaited FoS Zherisia Report is going through formatting and final editing. There is no date of release yet, but mid-November – December seems for the moment a good possibility…

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Our projects, you say? A lot! You will be asked for contribution for the next year… Let’s see what the next year holds for the Fraternity of Shadows:

- By popular demand, and a few bribes too, the Quoth the Raven serie of netbook is returning, now as an annual netbook. You will soon see a thread about this project, but in short: submissions should be sent at submission@fraternityofshadows.com, you need to send them before September 2007, and the QtR#14 netbook should be out around Oct 31st 2007.

- Yes! At least one Gazetteer-like project! The Fraternity will now embark on a boat and will travel first to the infamous Nocturnal Sea waters to cover the domains of that villainous place. Again, an announcement providing details on this project will also be made very soon. We expect your participation to make this another great Gazetteer-type netbook!

- but this is not all. There are other projects we are still discussing in the Green House, among which the short Ravenloft introductory guide to DMs of other settings!

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In these shadowy times for the setting, be assured the Fraternity of Shadows web site will continue to beam its light in the mists. This community will remain energetic as long as fans will want to explore the mists.

Have a delightfully dreadful All-hallows’s Eve!

Sincerely,

Joël Paquin
For the Souragne Fraternity of Shadows
www.FraternityOfShadows.com

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

So I'm the only one having trouble reading the text on page 43 of issue 335?

OK, I'll get new glasses then ...

;)

Joël

And a question to the Mighty Dragon editors: With the Ravenloft setting rights back in the WotC family, can we expect more Ravenloft stuff in Dragon and Dungeon?

I remember some of you are Ravenloft fans :)

Joël

Hey,

More than 25 millions people signed the live 8 petition. Did you sign ?

They do not want you to send money, they want you to sign an online petition so that G8 countries will do much more then now to help Africa.

Sign now : http://www.live8live.com/list/

If you already signed, thank you!

Keep on rockin’ in the free world,

Joël

Esteemed members of the Fraternity,

I am happy to tell you that drivethrurpg.com is having a freebie for the next 2 weeks: the *excellent* Gazetteer 5 book can be downloaded for free.

I usually do not advertise other people's sales, but this is different as it is free and a good occasion for Ravenloft curious to make the jump and read about the Plane of Dread.

This book covers great domains - Nova Vaasa, Tepest, Keening and the infamous Shadow Rift. It should hook you to Ravenloft.

Enjoy!

Joël

Hey, that announcement on page 17 of Dragon (Feb 05) was quite cool. Thanks for the chance.

However, it was more then three years after the release of the first 3e Ravenloft book! Now, there are nearly 20 books exploring the Ravenloft setting! The mists are rising anyplace now, beware...

Those wishing to know more about the Plane of Dread can join other Ravenloft fans on the Fraternity Of Shadows board (www.FraternityOfShadows.com).

Thanks you for the opportunity,

Joël