Ravenloft: Discussion Thread

Hey Comrades,

Here is the discussion thread for the Ravenloft/Manifest game again. I figured here we could talk about the plans for the new characters for starters.

Evil,

I wanted to have Heian and Laviticus still have a connection at this point. All the other characters will be new to these characters.

I wasn't following the Dragonlance campaign. What are Evil's 2 characters?

Evil is running with a Barbarian and a Cleric. They are human. The Cleric is nearly completed/upgraded.

Also, I have a new way to give magical items to new characters. Evil and I just tried this evening. It works pretty well. When you have classes and such figured out, I'll make a list of items, their functions, and their prices. You'll be able to choose what item you want in each category.

Actually, did you take the Magical Item Compendium from my new library of supplements? That's where I'll be rolling the items from.

I did not get the Magical Item Compendium from you, but I have downloaded it since your post. I haven't looked through it much yet, though.

I'm wondering what style cleric Evil's playing. If it's more mid to back-line protector/healer like Nydent or Forlin, then we probably need a fighter. If it's more armored & aggressive like Bear, that should take care of our front line & we can add anything.

To fill out our seven spots, we need that and a rogue and something. Sadly, I don't have the paperwork for Jun Tsu. The party could use the ghost of the great monk so we could all be like leaves in the wind!

Leaves in the wind. Oh, god, how I remember that.

Evil's cleric is a worshiper of Tephaneron, The Iron General. A god of battle, warriors, success, and athletes. Evil also picked Luck and War as his domains. He'll be decent in a fight and he can also work as a healer.

We will definitely need a rogue. We have a sorcerer, but we do not have the flexibility of a wizard or psion. Of course, we have many of the other classes from the books I did give you that could be fun to play with.

Al,

Laviticus can be Heain's first person/ghost he met in the city of Manfest as a city guide or something like that or if you had a better idea

Yeah, not a problem, Evil. I figured Laviticus would be the guide to Manifest, depending on how curious the characters are.

Hey Condie,
I just wanted clarification, you are planning to make two characters and I'll just fill in the last one for a total of seven, correct?

You are free to do three if you want, I was just wondering what the current plan was.

Hey Condie,

Any idea on what characters you were looking to play?

I'm thinking a rogue & a thingy. How many appendages does a level 8 thingy have again?

The amount of tentacles a thingy has is based on a complicated equation that involves size, the amount of mucus they produce, and the magnitude of weirdness they exude. It's all very technical.



The rogue we need, desperately.

I still think a druid would be a good touch. How such a character reconciles Manifest and the Spirit Wood where the dead walk in the natural world is an intriguing concept. Also the Spirit Wood is full of the Spirit Trees, the final fate of elven souls. The spirits are not undead, so they are not classified as the typical aberrations druids typically find distasteful, but do they belong in the natural world?

On the other hand there will also be plenty of opportunities to battle undead, aberrations, and outsiders that can be seen as detrimental to the natural world. Ravenloft would also test such a character as the character would see a strange world where the natural world is twisted and aberrant creatures abound.

I could play a rogue & druid. I just have to be careful I don't start playing them like Arlie & Fawn.

I've read enough on psionics to be comfortable creating characters. The problem now is we're starting at level 8. I can create prestige class characters to start & I have too many choices! Right now, I'm leaning towards making another monk as a Fist of Zuoken.

A Psion Uncarnate would be cool. You know the Golden Mind would end up having a place around Manifest - just from envying the ghosts!

Hey Condie,

Well, since I'm always for something new. Here are my thoughts about the psionic choices.

If you want to go with the Fist of Zuoken, there is some Greyhawk canon that may or may not have you alter your plans.

Zuoken is actually a demigod from the Greyhawk setting, so there is a certain canon I need to follow with such deities. The gods of the Flaness and other demi-human deities are absent from Hikirian Island and Manifest. The Suel and Baklunish explorers who first found the island and built Manifest left the other gods behind for the ones involved in the Veil of Souls. The move also helped the settlers leave their racial roots behind that caused such strife when the Baklunish and Suel empires annihilated each other. However, explorers and settlers who did not want to forget the old ways left Hikirian Island for the western sea. They founded nations on a sizable continent to the southwest of the Hikirian Island, the Tahlaenian Continent. Half of the continent is tropical with rugged mountains and flora and fauna that we would consider as prehistoric (yes, that is where my dinosaurs are). The deities worshipped there are strictly Suel, Baklunish, and those connected to the demi-human explorers that went with them.

However, looking in my handbook, I discovered the Zuoken is a Baklunish deity, and can easily be connected with those explorers. I have long thought about making the Baklunish the strongest, historically, in the arts of psionics. Makes the Suel-Baklunish war also similar to a magic-psionic war.

So, the trick is that the character would have to be from the Tahlaenian continent, which I have not completely outlined, but I know most of the human settlements and such. Also, this means that this character, since he does not revere the deities of Manifest, does not return as a ghost if he dies in Manifest or the surrounding lands. The monk would go to his rightful place in the Outer Planes. Although the clerics in Manifest would still raise him for the same low, low prices.

The Psion Uncarnate is indeed cool, and would fit just fine in Manifest. There's no telling if a few intrepid explorers from the Golden Mind made it to Manifest from some other plane. Hell, the Baklunish people probably had the tradition thousand of years ago, and carried on the tradition in Manifest with a possible religious bent and wanting to mimic the spirits of the city.

Condie, here is the information for how you can budget your characters gear for the Ravenloft/Manifest game.

Starting cash for each of your characters is 27,000gp

So you can purchase two items from each of these gp ranges:

3,001-4000gp (8th)

2301-3000gp (7th)

1801-2300gp (6th)

1301-1800gp (5th)

801-1300gp (4th)

401-800gp (3rd)

151-400gp (2nd)

51-150gp (1st)

This includes items that fit this price range that are not magical. Also, any item mundane or magical (psionic) that 50gp or less can be purchased at will, as long as your funds can support it. The Magical Item Compendium has the best collection of magic items in these price ranges, although the psionic handbooks are best for psionic items I think.

Hey Condie,

How's the character creation going for the Manifest/Ravenloft game? I am hoping to get this up and running on New Year's.

Hey Condie,

I remember at one time we talked about me helping you out with building the psion. I wasn't certain how we should go about the discussion. I figured we could do it here and then we can get the campaign running at some point.

So fire away with the questions.