* Part 1 *

So, tonight our regular AD&D DM is gone, giving me the opportunity to run a one-shot.  I'm going with a [stripped down version of] D&D 4e game.  This will be my first chance to actually run an adventure.

I'm trying to drum up support for a new Ravenloft campaign I want to run once the current AD&D campaign winds down (and since most people are unhappy with it, hopefully that will be soon).

Background: The PCs are all from Barovia.  They are occasional hired by the secret society called The Circle to investigate and help with injustices around the region.  This time, they are being sent to the town of Kadon, in the Southern Gundarkite area of Barovia, where local Gundarkite peasants are being terrorized by a creature known as the "Beast of Kadon".  Werewolf activity is suspected. The PCs will be given some silver arrows and a couple of silver daggers, just in case the rumors are true.  I'll give the players a Major Quest card at this point - to discover the source of the attacks and stop them.

The adventure is loosely based on the film, Les Pact de Loupes.  But instead of pre-Revolutionary France, I've moved it to Barovia, and used the real world Czech Republic city of Kadan (using the local places, such as the Town Hall tower, the Monastery, and the ruins of Castle Hasistjen).

It will start off with the PCs headed into Kadan, where they see a local barley farmer and his daughter being harassed/assaulted by some militia goons.  The story here is that they have mistaken her epilepsy for witchcraft.  I have it set up so the PCs can either make it a skill challenge (by negotiating with Cpl. Slezak to leave the farmer alone), or as a small combat (Cpl. Slezak counts as a Human Bandit, his men as Human Rabble minions).

If they save the man, he can provide them some information about the attacks and mention the mysterious proclamation scrolls that have been showing up around town, where a secret group calling itself the "Brostovo Vlk" (my best attempt at a Czech translation of "Les Pact de Loupes") blames the attacks as a divine punishment against the Gundarkites for their worship of the Morning Lord instead of following the Barovian religion (as written in the Ravenloft books, the Barovians are more agnostic, but I'm taking some creative liberty here and changing them to simply have a different religion).

This will set up the first Minor Quest card - discover who is behind the Brostovo Vlk.

Sounds like a great setup.  I like the Cpl Slezak encounter; how will you convey the epilepsy-mistaken-for-witchcraft idea?

This sounds like it might take more time than a single session to complete, though.  Are you planning on having it run between sessions of your normal game (more like a series of one-shots)?

Overall, great stuff, though.  I'd certainly enjoy being a player in this.

* Part 2 *

Once in town, the PCs can either wander around town or head to Lusinik Manor to meet up with a contact that the Circle has manipulated into hiring them, the son of a local Barovian lord named Tomas.  If they wander around town, a perception check should spot one of the proclamations, or they can use streetwise to get the lowdown from some of the locals (with a bonus if they speak Gundarkite).

The locals will mostly talk about the Beast's killings - all women and children, and how the local militia captain, Doubek, has failed to track/kill the beast (despite his attempts at trapping, poisoned bait, and even dressing up his soldiers as women).  The beast is definately larger than a wolf, based on bite marks and paw prints.  And the howl is described as containing a shrill, evil sounding laugh.  They will also find out that many Gundarkites are converting to the Barovian religion out of fear.

They can get some of the same information by meeting up with Tomas.  He can also take them to the site of one of the victims, where the partially devoured victim can be found.  A closer inspection (Perception check) can spot strange burns on the bite wounds (nature check to detect injury from acid) and possibly a discovery of a piece of metal inside the wound (higher perception check).

Eventually, they will be invited to a dinner hosted by Tomas' father, Lord Lusinik, and get a chance to meet some of the local Barovian lords, including the town ruler (Lord Matousek), his prim and proper wife, his strong-headed daughter, and his misanthropic son, Jan Frantiska.  Jan is missing the lower part of one arm from an ill-advised hunting trip in the Valachan domain years ago and is a disagreeable drunkard.  Also at the party are Bishop Jindrich Sarka (head of the local monastery), Lord Borek (who is unconvinced about the beast), Lord Milosevic (a lover of art), and Milosevic's fop of a son, a terrible poet named Maxmillian, who makes clumsy attempts to woo Matousek's daughter.

Hanging around with Tomas for the night after dinner could lead them out drinking to the brothel (where they will discover that Tomas' manipulator is his favorite prostitute, a secret agent of The Circle).

* Part 3 *

For a while, the PCs will be left to their own devices.  They can check out the local monastery (where they might discover a set of scrolls being written by the monks that look awfully similar to the proclamations in town).  They might also discover a letter written by the bishop about a purchase of a nearby cottage out in the wilderness.

Or they can join a mass hunt for the beast in the woods, where they will invariably stumble across the ruins of Castle Hasistjen.  A perception check here will notice recent digging in the grave area (setting up another Minor Quest - who dug up the graves and why).  Asking around will reveal that the castle was once a stronghold for an order of knights revered by the Gundarkite people, at least until Duke Gundar had them all killed when he took over.

The next event will happen at night.  A local goat herder will announce that he has found his son and goats dead, and his daughter missing.  The PCs can join the search for the girl as a skill challenge.  Once they find her, they have a couple of options - they could either attempt to help her out of her shock and question her (skill challenge) or try and track the beast (skill challenge).

The girl will be able to tell them that she saw the beast accompanied by a demon.  Tracking the beast should lead them out to an old cottage out in the wilderness (they may also get here using the knowledge from the monastery).

Inside the cottage, they may find the secret door leading to the basement (perception check).  Hopefully, they'll also discover the door has a secret trap (poisoned darts shooting out from the wall) and disable it before heading down.

* Part 4 *

The basement of the cottage leads to a combat encounter with several skeletons (decrepit minions and regular ones), the remains of the dead knights from Castle Hasistjen who have been animated by evil magic.

After the skeletons are taken care of, the PCs can search the area to find a chest of proclamation scrolls, materials for dark magic rituals, and a large cage where the beast is apparently kept.  An old man on the premises can be captured, and able to reveal information (that he takes care of the beast, which is some kind of monster that Jan Matousek brought back from his trip to Valachan).  Most of the Barovian lords in town are part of a cult headed by the Bishop, and are using the beast to recruit more members and terrorize the Gundarkites.  There is a tunnel in the basement that will lead out to near the castle ruins, where the cult is having a dark mass.

That sets up the last combat encounter.  The cultists will flee, but Jan (effectively a human berserker) and Sarka (a human cleric) will defend themselves.  Also, the beast is here, and will emerge from the shadows of the ruins.  It is a Cracklefiend Hyena, reinforced with hide armor and a mechanical metal jaw to supplement its natural one.

Quote from: KenHR;273205Sounds like a great setup.  I like the Cpl Slezak encounter; how will you convey the epilepsy-mistaken-for-witchcraft idea?

This sounds like it might take more time than a single session to complete, though.  Are you planning on having it run between sessions of your normal game (more like a series of one-shots)?

Overall, great stuff, though.  I'd certainly enjoy being a player in this.

The girl will fall to the ground, eyes rolled back, and frothing at the mouth and the soldiers begin calling for her death.  I figure various skill checks should clue the PCs in (history checks to remember other cases, nature checks to recall a sickness like this, arcane or religion checks to be able to discount witchcraft, etc).

I most likely have planned for more than can be accomplished in a single session, especially if they encounter everything.  Plus, some time will be spent just getting people to select a pre-gen character and getting used to the rules.  But I'd rather be over-prepared than under-prepared.  And as I said, I hope this is the first step in a new campaign (though, obviously, any future campaign would use new PCs made by the players).

Didn't realize this was a multi-part post.  I really like the whole thing; you've got the essence of the movie down in a gameable format.

This looks like a great kickoff for the campaign.  I can't really comment on game system stuff, but I like the outline and the fact that you've left a few places with a couple options for the PCs as far as what to do next.

Being as prepared as possible is a good thing...looks like you've got enough to improv should the players start going off in an unexpected direction.

Pact day loo (why does frenchish have to be spelled so radically different than it's pronounced?) was an awesome movie, but complications emerge when the PCs potentially have divination magic/rituals at their disposal.

How will you handle it if a PC ritualist whips up a "speak with dead" ritual for one of the victims or asks to question some of the Barovian officials with truth-detecting magic?

Also, if this were set in Darkon, you could add a part where there is a Kargat agent who gets sent to "rectify" the problem of the beast by making the PCs testify that a mocked-up monstrous statue is the beast that was defeated easily by Azalin's will.

Also, if any of the PCs are an arcane spellcaster (most notably a Warlock) would that twig the goons with cries of "witchcraft!"

Quote from: KenHR;273211Didn't realize this was a multi-part post.  I really like the whole thing; you've got the essence of the movie down in a gameable format.

This looks like a great kickoff for the campaign.  I can't really comment on game system stuff, but I like the outline and the fact that you've left a few places with a couple options for the PCs as far as what to do next.

Being as prepared as possible is a good thing...looks like you've got enough to improv should the players start going off in an unexpected direction.

LOL, Yeah I broke up the posts to make it a little more readable (I hope).  I probably should have typed them all up ahead of time, though, so you would have known it was a multi-parter right away.

I always like to leave options for the PCs, and have multiple paths to get to the same place.  Railroading gets frightfully dull (the problem with our current AD&D campaign), but I also found in the past that these players do prefer a fair amount of direction.  So, I try to make it a bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure style - give them a few options, but with some set pieces.

And as a lover of the sandbox concept, I like to build out the whole area ahead of time and try to guess what directions they might head in.  In my previous Rifts campaign, no matter what wacky off-the-cuff direction they headed, the players were always amazed I had a set of notes pre-written to handle it.

Quote from: Rubio;273212Pact day loo (why does frenchish have to be spelled so radically different than it's pronounced?) was an awesome movie, but complications emerge when the PCs potentially have divination magic/rituals at their disposal.

How will you handle it if a PC ritualist whips up a "speak with dead" ritual for one of the victims or asks to question some of the Barovian officials with truth-detecting magic?

Actually, that would be pretty cool.  They could detect the Barovians are lying, but then have to investigate about what.  Or, they find out about the man controlling the beast from the dead spirits, and now have to investigate who it is and where they are from.  It just gives more avenues to explore.

Quote from: Rubio;273212Also, if this were set in Darkon, you could add a part where there is a Kargat agent who gets sent to "rectify" the problem of the beast by making the PCs testify that a mocked-up monstrous statue is the beast that was defeated easily by Azalin's will.

I originally thought about going more in that direction, with setting the motivations closer to those in the film, but the problem there was that it betrayed my basic campaign conceit - that the PCs are agents of the forces of good, therefore they wouldn't want to advance the power of the ruling dark lords.  In fact, they are trying to subvert them.  So I switched it around a little.  I have a whole other set of adventures for an arc in the campaign about assisting Gundarkite activists against their Barovian overlords.

As for Azalin, my idea is to eventually turn the campaign into a search for Azalin (I'm setting my timeline to the period in Ravenloft after Azalin disappears).

Quote from: Rubio;273213Also, if any of the PCs are an arcane spellcaster (most notably a Warlock) would that twig the goons with cries of "witchcraft!"

That's part of the fun of adventuring in Ravenloft - magic should be a lot less common, so they'll have to be a little careful about using it.  

Not that the fighter types don't have to be careful, too; for example, if they decide to kill the militia men in the first encounter, instead of talking their way out of it or just knocking the men unconscious, it could go in a whole different direction where the Circle agent ends up having to free them from the local jail and they have to investigate much more covertly.

Ahh, magic vs superstition in Ravenloft. My PCs did have fun with the Ravenloft 3.5 I put them through. One of the best lines I ever gave was to a PC that was resisting a Cause Fear spell cast by a Kargat Hexblade.
Me: "Okay, you made your will save, but it was actually a reflex save."
Him: "Huh?"
Me: "Y'see, it actually opened up a crack in the ground right between your feet and down below is a burning pit of hell... and you recognize a few people down there screaming for you. But you made it. This time."
Him: "...holy shit."


Back on track. Just how WOULD the ravenloft setting affect a Warlock's pact? I suppose that Fey pact could be something with the shadow fey, but aren't fiends that show up in RL trapped there? If so, how would a warlock reach out to make said pact? And what about Star pact? I have difficulty thinking that the Mists themselves would have any interest in making a pact with a piddling little spellcaster...