Ravenloft: The Perfect Horror Setting? (Domains of Dread Campaign Setting Review)

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Let’s look back at “Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft” and see what we think of this campaign setting!
Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 40% off any annual membership!
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CW: One image of a Frankenstein's monster missing a head, with a bunch of heads in jars in the background
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:27 - Does Ravenloft Have a Clear Premise?
05:15 - Does Ravenloft Have a Distinct Tone?
06:06 - Does Ravenloft Have Iconic Imagery?
10:55 - A Word From Our Sponsor
13:07 - Does Ravenloft Provide Character Creation Inspiration?
16:19 - Does Ravenloft Offer Plot Hooks?
18:26 - Does Ravenloft Have Daunting Lore?
19:32 - Does Ravenloft Have Blank Spaces on the Map?
21:43 - Final Thoughts
24:39 - Outro
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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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1 июн 2024

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Комментарии : 76

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

Do you have a favorite Domain of Dread in the Ravenloft campaign setting? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 40% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike

@cydude5856 Месяц назад

I made a Cyre 1313 one shot and ran it like a b list horror movie. I also played crazy train for the finale.

@FattyMcFox 6 месяцев назад

I have ruled that the "soulless" denizens of Barovia are actually vessels for fragmented souls who have to redevelop into full souls again. It got my players to care about the so called soulless characters. They adopted on NPC and helped him develop into a true hero who, while he never talked was the heart of the group.

@bdunten 6 месяцев назад

Cool idea! How did you communicate this to your players?

@CitanulsPumpkin 6 месяцев назад

My favorite thing about the Domains of Dread is that they ao easily set up a framework where I can take any bad guy from any old episode of the Twilight Zone and make them a minor villain trapped in an endless loop of their episode.

@mattball8622 6 месяцев назад

There's a podcast called The Wonderful World of Darklords where the hosts come up with domains based on Disney villains, which I thought was a really fun way of exploring the concept! It's well worth checking out.

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

Oh man, I've wanted to do a Disney/Ravenloft game for so long! And that podcast has actually been on my to-listen list for a while; maybe I'll try to catch up over the holidays... :)

@Neophoia 6 месяцев назад

Ngl, I thought they named the book that because it was easier to trademark. "domains of dread" might be a bit tricky or too general to trademark, while "ravenloft" is very distinct.

@AnonZeMouse 6 месяцев назад

I've always been kind of tempted to turn the Vestani into an almost jailor or caretaker role of sorts. The reason that they are able to freely travel between the domains is that they are there to maintain a balance of sorts, and it's also why they have a particular gift for magic. They are agents of whatever creates and maintains the Domains, or judges the Dread Lords. They blend in to the domain to be more comfortable for the people of the domain, and so the Dread Lord doesn't grow too deeply suspicious. They are as they are in Barovia as Strahd finds their mannerisms oddly calming to what remains of his humanity. They may appear as nobles in Dementlieu, or perhaps tailors or dressmakers. They can help those that are inadvertantly pulled into the Mist, and make sure that the Dread Lord never manages to escape their domain. They maintain the status quo, one way or another. Maybe tying into the soulless angle, maybe they are a different kind of life that doesn't have a "Soul" like a regular mortal would, because they are an entirely different kind of being. Maybe that's what allows them to freely travel the domains. The Mist traps souls, they don't have one in a conventional sense, so they can freely move through it.

@kelpiekit4002 6 месяцев назад

I think soulless NPCs can be very meaningful if they are aware. They are people that know, or at least suspect, they have no afterlife. Their existence is dependent on the continuation of a limited world that itself exists for suffering and specifically for someone else's experience. It adds to the horror that these people know that the world and their lives do revolve around someone else and that all that they struggle through only really matters for what it means to that dark lord. Additional thought is that the horror player character options creates a really fun contrast if you use them for The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. With the Domains of Dread and Domains of Delight they are companion books. Plus there is hag connections for the hexbloods and you can set up the inevitable collision between the carnivals.

@BrandonVout 6 месяцев назад

Inter-setting inspiration bleed is always interesting. In the original Cicago by Night, there's a character nicknamed "the Sheriff" because of his deep south background and enforcerer role for the Prince. The original book said this was an unusual setup but since most Vampire: the Masquerade settings are based off CbN, pretty much every Camarilla territory has an official sheriff now.

@RottenRogerDM 6 месяцев назад

it been decades. But 1 DM had a %chance of the soulless stealing your soul. I think it involved level draining or slowly losing your abilities.

@pedrogarcia8706 6 месяцев назад

I think the souls idea at least in ravenloft is so cool. Like, you really can't enter or leave ravenloft without Strahd's permission. You can't even enter by being born. since no one can enter, all new children are born without souls. and not even dying can free you. Your soul stays behind and eventually just inhabits one of the already soulless bodies. It just means there are a finite number of souls in Barovia.

@dylanstacey6782 6 месяцев назад

Amazing Kratos cosplay! I wasn't expecting that to appear on my screen lmao

@Keovar 6 месяцев назад

You could do something like the "Friday the 13th" TV series (not related to the Jason Vorhees movies) or Warehouse 13. In both, there are basically powerful but cursed magic items that get out into the public and need to be recaptured. There are also the Denarians from the Dresden Files novels: Holders of one of 30 tarnished silver coins from ancient Rome, each of which has a Fallen angel inside. When a human (or humanoid) touches one of the coins, the Fallen within begins offering them power, and the more the individual accepts, the more the Fallen corrupts and transforms them. Of course, the One Ring is another example. In any of these stories, the object is the real villain, and anyone using it is just another mortal host ensnared by the curse.

@Wipomatic 6 месяцев назад

I love the cosplay, and the callback to that incredibly wholesome calendar you made! Thanks for continuing to be awesome. :D

@Duhad8 6 месяцев назад

Oh my, that is a very VERY nice calendar you got there... Goodness! 😍

@emblem3272 6 месяцев назад

I have a campaign where the party is wandering through different domains under the urging and coersion of the Caller, replacing their darklords. It's been a blast so far, and that setup has both led to great boss fights, while also forcing them to engage with the citizens of the domain to find a worthy replacement. And of course there's been some wonderfully creepy moments.

@Malkuth-Gaming 6 месяцев назад

I havent run anything in the Domains of Dread. But I did use a bit of Harakir for my big campaign, a Dwarven Necromancer had basically plucked a bit of that domain and made his own extra-dimensional domain. So inside the mists the PCs found remains of Ankthepot culture. and even people who had no idea they were in another domain suddenly.. it was fun. Also the ability to change the flow of time.. their 2 day of adventuring was more like 1.5 months on the material plane

@Sir_Lorekeep 6 месяцев назад

My current campaign is a Domain hopping campaign. The players have the endgame goal of defeating Strahd and finding a way to save the domains from the dark powers. I’ll freely admit I have changed the lore so winning is possible, but I feel it works.

@Cassapphic 6 месяцев назад

Although this does bleed over more into the van richtens guide to villains video, but any domain of dread can also easily be toned down slightly and give a bit more external resistance to the status quo and the dark lord and you can basically take a domain of dread and put it literally anywhere else in your games, really great guidelines for your evil empire (star wars empire, garlemald, adrestia, shinra, rigel, something that isnt from either final fantasy or fire emblem they're just all the names coming to mind at the moment)

@TwilitbeingReboot 6 месяцев назад

Now I want to build a Crystal Sphere-sized Domain where a Spelljammer crew gets to play the _Dead Space_ series.

@mkang8782 6 месяцев назад

I vaguely recall having a party of PCs dip into Ravenloft for a plot arc, but, I don't recall any details. Years ago (1990 or '91), I played in a Ravenloft campaign that was a blast, because the DM really knew how to play up the atmosphere of the setting. In my opinion, more than anything else, that's what can make or break a horror themed adventure/campaign: whether or not the feel and atmosphere is made "real" for the players.

@BigBrain05 6 месяцев назад

Perfect opening

@thisdood6190 6 месяцев назад

pooh bear voice acting was on point.

@johnnnysaint01 6 месяцев назад

What if the people that don’t have souls want souls? Super easy plot to play with

@RottenRogerDM 6 месяцев назад

Van Ritchten is one of the few WOTC books I gave five stars. Players should not even crack this book. If your DM allows the PC specific stuff, ask for a photocopy. New DMS and any old DMs who have not bought any Ravenloft lore materials; this is a must buy. Old Ravenloft DMs and collectors should buy at half price unless they want to help out the local friendly game store.

@orionspero560 6 месяцев назад

I usually introduce the solace aspect only with relatively high level characters who are interested in what's behind the domains as opposed to the story of the specific domain in question. As such, both they and the mists are the proxies for the deep powers of the setting. This also means that it is the treatment of these people that becomes the measure by which the deep powers judge people, especially characters, in their application of influence. This means that characters that treat them well earn duse ex mackinga help from the mists and related phenomenon. Whereas characters who treat them badly drift towards becoming dark lords themselves.

@cydude5856 Месяц назад

I've only made one domain of dread, but it was entirely based on how some people have souls and some don't. The BBEG has found that if he is truly worshiped by others he gains a level of divine power. But soulless minds don't count. So the plot revolves around the BBEG despereately trying to get the nonbelievers to worship him (not knowing he'll just hit a ceiling) and also dragging in new people to worship him.

@ger_hynes 6 месяцев назад

Amazing calendar work, Mike.

@themicahnism 6 месяцев назад

I’m running a domain-hopping Ravenloft campaign currently and the biggest tip I have is to giving them an external reason/force to do said domain hopping. In my DoD, Van Richten has created an organization (which the party are the inaugural members of) called the Last Hunt which he hopes will carry on in his stead (he’s preparing to take on Strahd, which he hopes will be his last hunt). It functions as a mercenary group which gives them leads to go chase down across domains.

@themicahnism 6 месяцев назад

Also I love how much Mike loves VRG, it’s such an underrated book in my opinion. I know most people want straight up dungeons and adventures to run right out of the box with their published books, but the fact that this one just gives you hooks and lets you fill in the answers just gets my creative juices flowing so much more than any other book WotC has published.

@yanverb7673 6 месяцев назад

I've DMed a really cool campaign set in Richemulot. I took inspiration from Dishonored and changed setting a bit, but it still was a lot of fun.

@epigreviews5405 6 месяцев назад

Grim hollow by ghost fire gaming is also a really cool “horror” themed campaign setting. It draws inspiration from dark fantasy so it’s more gritty sword and sorcery than horror but it has horror elements everywhere in the setting. I recommend checking the setting out it’s really cool IMO

@AdThe1st 6 месяцев назад

The only RU-vidr who's upload schedule is hardcoded into my brain

@manueltorresart2345 6 месяцев назад

I totally dig you suited as Grog for this vid (wink, wink). I'm no good at horror, I don't think I can maintain the suspense for the players, my way of telling stories is wired differently, I may include horror scenes but not an entire adventure. I would love to play as a character in one again (I played Call of Cthulhu and had a fun time).

@dawaterrat4460 6 месяцев назад

Ravenloft has long been one of my favorite D&D settings. The publication of Curse of Strahd was one of the first things that made me think about going back. I think it was the lack of PDF that stopped me. A very long time agon - 2nd ed era - I ran one of my best convention games set in Ravenloft. As a con game, it was a one shot where all the characters were some flavor of evil with some dark marks from the Dread powers. They were trying an Enemy Mine against the dark lord, but the intent was that one of them would end up replacing them, and in a rare thing for me, PVP was acceptable. As I said, it was a con game. I'll change things up for those vs. what I'll do for a long term home game. Everyone had a blast, and there were actually two survivors - the eventual victor, who I think was an Anti-Paladin, and the cat burglar who was arguably the lightest of the dark characters (Neutral Evil, I believe.) Unfortunately, it's lost to time, unless I find the floppy disk it's on and a computer that can read it.

@Tim_Beitel 6 месяцев назад

I don’t know if you ever saw the Black Dice Society on the Dungeons & Dragons channel but it was hosted by B. Dave Walters and my introduction to Ravenloft. I would absolutely recommend it if you’re into that sort of game

@gatb4387 6 месяцев назад

Thank you for really good caption s. You talk very fast and they help. 👍

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

I'm very glad to hear that!

@greatconfabulator 6 месяцев назад

Hey, I actually did run a campaign that was Dark Souls 2! The unease of knowing your enemies will come back to undeath within a few hours was great.

@TheAwsomeKing77 6 месяцев назад

my current campaing had a very brief interlude to fairly small homebrew domain of dread it was too brief for me to have any real good ideas for advice but I can see their offer so much potential to use

@ladyfoxytales 6 месяцев назад

One of the campaigns i run has recently finished CoS and I'm now easing them into other domains of dread. I have so many ideas for my own domains of Dread and fit some of the established ones into their character concepts

@zxm2501w 6 месяцев назад

Can we acknowledge that our boy here painted himself for a 45 second joke. Proud of this man. o7

@f.a.santiago1053 6 месяцев назад

Thank you for the spoiler warning for CoS. I'm going to play it at the beginning of the year and want to go in blind. I'll come back to this video later. ^___^

@Feetareleghands 6 месяцев назад

When you said it's November, I had to take your word for it. I got distracted.

@zefiewings 6 месяцев назад

Woooo sexy calander easter egg Love tis video because I am SUCH a horror buff and I am running a horror arc for my very first self-written adventure in between a string of premade modules. I feel like it's going pretty well (and to anyone writing their own stuff; I used Mikes's very helpful and friendly discord to review my concepts and ideas before I started!) Curse of Strad is one adventure I've always wanted to play in and ditto almost any of these Ravenloft ideas. But if I cant find a way to play in them, I may just run one myself. I had no idea that there was a whole world around it since I want to play Strad and therefore intentionally avoid spoilers about it, and I love how it sounds! Its like everything I love about horror stories mixed with the way me/my regular group tend to use/interpret the Feywilds. Even though I have never played 5E and don't own a single thing of it...this book is the first one that I just might really need to get. Thank you as always! (P.S loved the Winnie the Pooh bit)

@mxsnowdrop 6 месяцев назад

Coming back to this video to say that my group just started CoS and my mate who's DMing it has accidentally sidestepped a lot of the issues with the Vistani by making them southern (USA) bc it's the only accent he can do reliably lol

@OtakuSapien 6 месяцев назад

Omg, the way the setting is described sounds a LOT like season 5 of The Magnus Archives (different domains with different types of horror in each, hard to pass between them, most npcs being stuck in their domain, a singular dark lord in the center who can't leave his own domain but still rules things). It makes me want to run a re-skinned version based on it (I'd even get to keep the carnival setting).

@CluelessPigeon 6 месяцев назад

Actually seems like a cool setting, never thought to look into it until now

@pippastrelle 6 месяцев назад

Awesome costume!

@lucid1934 6 месяцев назад

You make good videos, Mike.

@TheOprative9 6 месяцев назад

Treehouse of Horror rules lol

@mentalrebllion1270 6 месяцев назад

Good cosplay! Honestly I love the irony of this video coming out the morning after my horror campaign session. It’s not entirely like it was intentionally made to be horror. I mean, there was a false hydra (yay! Crossed off my bucket list!) so there was a bit of horror. And sure, there was a flesh-eating forest. Which my character fed some blood in exchange for information. But to be fair, my party is pretty horror themed themselves. This is because it is an all fey party and we lean into that….which means the party is full of jokes and puns but also is nightmare fuel for any npc that is remotely “normal” in comparison. Sure though, we are nice…but my fey is currently sewing themself an army of animated plush dolls, another is an amnesiac kleptomaniac trickster sorcerer with untamed magic, and the last is a mad scientist inventor which obviously looks like he may have experimented on himself a bit too. Mine may seem the most normal but is also the most unsettlingly fey courtier style of fey. The rest are exactly as they seem. Mine is the one that will trick you into a deal and switches up their impression and so on. To be fair, in theme to this particular video, this character is a hexblood, so I’m leaning into the possibility of my character succumbing to turning into a hag by being sus like one. And this is despite my character being the healer of the group. It’s quite fun honestly. A non evil campaign that’s still meant to be nightmare fuel and horror in that genre of it.

@Little-Hill-Comics 6 месяцев назад

You tell them Pooh Bear

@christianquenan1358 6 месяцев назад

Well, the capital city of Mexico and Luxembourg are respectively Mexico city and Luxembourg 😅

@JackLockwood-fi2jg 6 месяцев назад

Dear lord you look amazing as Kratos! :D

@violetnightmare9216 6 месяцев назад

If you watch the movie "The Mist" it will seriously mess you up, it is a great movie. It is a case where the people making the movie made it better (and so much more horrifying) than the book it was based on.

@pyra4eva 6 месяцев назад

The main drew I have for the inhabitants of Barovia to not have souls is because if you fail to save your beloved NPC (or character if you're ballsy), they are DONE. 100% DONE! Since they don't have a soul, there are a bunch of spells that won't work to bring them back. It adds to the hopelessness and dread that the people feel. Can't stop a vampire attack and a small child dies. Can't undo it. Consequences are more permanent. I think it will also open the door to examining why the citizens act the way they do or how they see people that might have been proven to have a soul. Maybe you find a citizen that decides to do everything and anything they can because they know there is no life at this one for them. Maybe you have people who don't want to connect with anyone because 'what is the point'. Maybe people with souls only interact with people with souls because it is seen as more valuable especially when going to the next life. I personally would have it where the souls exist but can't get to the body. Since there is a bubble, all the souls within the bubble stay in the bubble, hence why there is a bunch of reincarnation. I would have it where the main issue with the mists is that it is infested with the souls that could never get to their body within the bubble. It also gives the players motivation to stop Strahd so that maybe, just maybe, they can actually undo the damage done.

@BigKlingy 6 месяцев назад

I haven't run a Domains of Dread game (well, I haven't run any games period, but I'd like to try one day), but one thing that concerns me is the villain always coming back and their domain being essentially an endless loop. Is there any way to ensure the players' actions actually matter outside of just surviving? If there's no way they can defeat the villain permanently or bring any kind of change to the setting, I'm just trying to figure out what the actual point of adventuring there is. And if the NPCs are all soulless extensions of the villain, it's not like they can save anyone either. Like, what is the GOAL of the PCs in one of these domains. Is there any possibility besides just "survive and get back to our original world?" (So just while typing this I came up with something. Maybe there's an artefact or magical resource that the PCs need in their world and it can only be found in one of the Domains. So it's a desperate race to get what you came for and leave before the Darklord finds you. Maybe.)

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

Yeah, usually the goal is just "survive and make it home," but in my Strahd games, I tend to make sure there's a way for the players to finally be the ones to break the cycle. Sly Flourish also runs Ravenloft for his group every year, and so one thing he does is shift the roles in the adventure to different NPCs - he's written about that here: slyflourish.com/running_ravenloft.html

@ghqebvful 6 месяцев назад

(At 21:17ish) Hold up, did you just say the Joker can't fight? I mean maybe you meant more of he is more tricks then a straight up fight, but the joker can throw some hands (usually). And then bane as just a bruiser is kinda putting down his character too. (also, I'm just picking a bit this isn't a serious critique, though it holds a bit of truth I think)

@lukerabon7925 6 месяцев назад

I've wanted to do a Ravenloft campaign about freeing the Domains of Dread. Basically end up removing the ruler of each domain permanently and killing whatever entities trapped not just the lords but the innocent people with them Also I think the "soulless" thing is new lore so players won't feel bad about the fact they can't actually do anything meaningful for anyone in Ravenloft.

@petesalzl1 6 месяцев назад

If there wasn't soulless, the birth and death rate would have to be exactly the same. Cause no one leaves. I'm fine with this as a solution to that problem. Also... that calendar. 😅

@momqabt 6 месяцев назад

Well...its a bit late for the review, but have at my favorite setting and DM world style🤣👍🏻❤️

@momqabt 6 месяцев назад

Romani Romani Romani...call them what they are. That's like saying Americans who have different hues of Black skin aren't Black. They are Gypsies and yes I'm "Eastern European", we have them here, and it's these "sensitivity" speech thing that's ruining DnD at the moment. I'm Hungarian and I don't have a problem with you calling me that. Why should I adhere to a nonsensical "high horse line of ethics" about a group of people that live in and around my country and in other parts of the world as well? That's just stupid. Drink some vodka (or Pálinka), have a good barroom brawl, then sit and smoke with the guy you just fought. Simple as. Sensitivity psh weak ass soft westerner stuff.

@momqabt 6 месяцев назад

Playing Ravenloft with empathy? What?! You also have safe words and/or safe cards? You play a horror game be ready for horror. I tell my players up front what type of DM I am. If they don't like it they can leave. Do I have less players? Yes. Do I have players that want to play horror and experience fear, knowing death for their characters might be around the next corner and are loving it and the suspense of disbelief isn't shattered because of a fragile snowflake lilie? Also yes. Damn don't ever come East or to the Balkans with that attitude😂 Edit: good vid though, you went into the basic details of the setting. Love the costume as well❤️🤗

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

At first, I thought you were kidding, but now I'm truly baffled. Yes, I do, in fact, have safe words and the equivalent of safe cards. Like... why wouldn't you have empathy for your friends? You cannot make that sound like a bad thing to me. I ALSO have players who want to play horror and experience fear. I ALSO have players who know death is on the table for their characters. Some of the darkest story beats I've ever experienced in fiction of any kind have occurred in these games. But I've also spoken to my players about their own personal preferences, and I know to avoid a few specific topics to make sure I can tailor the game to my friends. That way, everybody is having fun and they don't have to worry about treading into territory that will take the game from "a fun scary experience we all consented to participate in" to "literal trauma." Because the fun of my friends is more important than anything else when we're talking about a LITERAL GAME.

@TakeWalker 6 месяцев назад

as everybody knows, November is the spookiest month because no one expects it to be spooky!

@laioszafeiriou4388 6 месяцев назад

So, uh... Prolly a weird question but why do your patrons keep fluctuating from ~500 to ~600 xD? Is it a bug on my end?

@Stephen-Fox 6 месяцев назад

Some (most?) NPCs not having souls... Does that make it better that they're trapped in with the vile villain the domain was made to punish? Because without that detail that was an issue I had with the setting's premise. It's like punishing Hannibal Lecter by giving him a world of his own which, while he finds absolutely punishing, also gives him an essentially unlimited supply of people to prepare into delectable cuisine. And... What did they do to deserve being stuck in there with him? ...So, was Pooh being naked a deliberate reference to the fact Disney own a trademark on him wearing a red shirt, or is that a coincidence? (Naturist Pooh is public domain. Red shirt Pooh is owned by Disney. Because Disney - any company, really - owning about 40% of the entertainment industry is the true horror.)

@friendlyG771 3 месяца назад

My opinion is that we need to keep the Vastani. I understand the instinct to just drop them out of the broader narrative, but I worry that to people from a Romani background, that could read as being denied even the ham-fisted scraps of representation they've been given. Being told that they "don't belong". I prefer to do a better job at pulling on threads from real Romani cultural threads and portray them as full characters, rather than a stereotype. So often, I find that fantasy media neglects other cultural influences and the diversity of the time periods it draws on. For example, I've talked to a Jewish friend of mine who never sees elements of Jewish culture or history reflected in fantasy media, even though Jewish people were very much present in the areas and periods of history our conception of fantasy draws from. I think very often our "default" approach to fantasy (focusing mainly on our perception of a archetypal European medieval period) cuts a lot of people out. I think everyone deserves to see themselves represented in fantasy, and I think there are respectful ways of doing that. I think it's harder, and takes a lot of work and reflection, but I think it's worth the effort. That's why I think the Vastani deserve better. 100% okay if people disagree with me here, just giving my 2 cents. Lots of love!

@SomethingWellesian 6 месяцев назад

“Them lot that lives down by the lake, they en’t Vistani. Not true Vistani anyhow. They left the right to that name behind when they swore fealty to the man in the castle, far as I’m concerned. We’re a proud people, with ways and laws and language of our own. Where d’ye think your word vista comes from? It’s the land we walk while settled folk look on. No, they en’t Vistani, and they make a mockery of our proud name, playin’ into stereotypes tellin’ fortunes, and walkin’ only so’s they can bring folk back for their master to toy with. The Vistani owes no fealty ’cept to the Vistani, and a life o’ servitude such as they’ve chosen for themselves is no way for a Vistana to live.” -Ez D’Avenir, per my canon.

@Primordial_Soup 6 месяцев назад

I like the inclusion of “soulless” characters, but for a specific reason. I don’t like the idea that a person without a soul is empty, or apathetic, or amoral. Instead I feel it provides an interesting opportunity to explore the horror intrinsic to the setting. A soulless character is just like any other, except for them death is an absolute; no resurrections, no afterlife. Once they’re gone they’re gone and aren’t coming back. The “soulful” characters won’t find them on the otherside at their ends. In a setting (like many in the D&D multiverse) where the afterlife is a known quantity, the fact that some cosmic roll of the dice can deny you what others get for free just by existing can be an interesting starting point to discuss moral philosophy and emphasize the cruelty of the setting.