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[wanderingjournalofshadows]

principium III

I go ahead and prepare the last bits and pieces for the adventure in the Domains of Dread.

For my Oracle, I've been eyeing for long the One Page Solo Engine which seems to be one of the best options for a lighter Oracle. The good thing is, that this does what it needs to do by itself.

From Inflatable Studios - They also have a handy app version.

There are a couple of questions to be answered still.

How does the character get experience points? Most likely per scene, through acquired gold, and via combat as well.

What if the character dies in the first encounter? In the Domains of Dread, nobody just escapes, the soul remains, darkness engulfs them, and there'll be a story for it.

Doesn't that defeat the feeling of danger and risk? Yes, and no. The idea is to journey through the Domains of Dread, and experience something horrific, while horror is fairly difficult to do in a solo game, but the writing that comes out of it might be a lot more interesting than usual dungeon delving. Also, in itself this is a past time entertainment for myself. I do whatever I want, innit? :)

But where is the challenge then? In the playing itself. Of course I don't want my character to die all the time, plus I really want to enjoy writing the story of the journey. Also learning to play in the older edition again is also quite challenging, with its own philosophy of design and goals.

Where is the backstory of the character? It will be a separate post, because I still need to get my equipment ready, and have some special items that'll let me do some interesting things narratively.

What will be the starting scene? I'll find that out just in a minute!

The Revised Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch is an excellent tool with myriad of tables. I'll start to generate a couple of facts about the place where I'll start. I'll first look into Borca for details that might lead me to more specific things to be generated.

Another good source for more Ravenloft content is Mistipedia (BE AWARE OF SPOILERS) that will help me find certain locations in Borca. One of them being a fairly good choice - Silverton - a small village in the mountains of Dorvinia, ruled by three cowardly adventurers. Perfect.

Let's generate the basics:

The first 'mission' is to Discover the Identity of a Bookseller. Curious, and not your usual monster hunting adventure. Or is it? I'll generate also the Enticements of the Peril - Permit Travel - This is actually amazing - giving me the reward to travel in-between Domains.

For mood I look into some literature:

"Overhead the thunder cracked and roared, and when it ceased and the deathly stillness succeeded, I heard the rustle of movement coming nearer me, and, more horrible yet, perceived an odour of corruption and decay. And then a hand was laid on the side of my neck, and close beside my ear I heard quick-taken, eager breathing."

The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson

Wonderful piece!

And now the location within the village - I'm thinking of the house of the Bookseller, who might be missing right now. The last important event that happened here was Singing or an Unusual Sound (maybe something that could've been heard from the neighbours), also the event involved secret knowledge or secret power – either an attempt to gain it, or an attempt to use it.

The plot thickens!

This is already quite a lot to start on - the character is looking for the Bookseller in Silverton, to figure out the actual identity of the person, in exchange getting the means of transportation out of Borca. Starting in the house of the Bookseller who went missing for a month now, only the neighbours telling about a strange sound and the Bookseller being particularly secretive about certain tomes which got acquired and brought back to the house. The weather is harsh, and has an eerie stillness between the roaring thunders, the house smells like corruption and decay.

A very good start, I'll be getting some equipment together and start a basic backstory for the character the next time!

Cheers!

[wanderingjournalofshadows]

principium II

I shall tread down on the path of creating a character.

But before that, allow me to correct my previous writ regarding the system I will use.

Most of the Ravenloft setting has been published in its full glory under the second edition of AD&D, thus I shall use that one. Luckily, I also possess a Player's Handbook of this edition, which will be quite handy with character generation and general rules. The spells are also straightforward, and there is the possibility to uitlize Gavin Norman's Theorems and Thaumaturgy but also Wonder & Wickedness from Lost Pages. I've been quite excited to include those in some games already, and so far haven't had the luck to do so.

Today's post will be about character creation, and establishing the starting area - one of the Domains of Dread.

I'm also thinking about creating a Wiki for myself, or something that functions as a Wiki - maybe Notion could be a good option, but I leave this decision for now behind. There is a character to be made.

I was thinking about using some inspirational practices, like using the Tarokka deck to determine certain things. I know for certain that if I would play a human, my option to have multiple classes is only to dual-class, meaning I have to level up one class to a certain point, where I stop and start the new class, retaining all the benefits of the previous one, but I can't move forward with the old one.

All the other playable races can Multiclass, meaning they always use the most favourable benefits of the classes but have certain restriction.

But again, maybe the cards tell me otherwise - so let's see! I will draw four cards of the Tarokka deck to determine my character's past as a child, how they flourished/survived through out adulthood so far, what is their ideal and their burden. I will also draw a fifth card that should give me a certain idea of the first Domain of Dread this character will venture into.

The cards are:

Seven of Swords - Hooded One - Bigotry, intolerance, and xenophobia; a mysterious presence or newcomer

Innocent - A being of great importance whose life is in danger (who might be helpless or simply unaware of the peril)

Four of Coins - Merchant - A rare commodity or business opportunity; deceitful or dangerous business transactions

Two of Glyphs - Missionary - Those who spread wisdom and faith to others; warnings of the spread of fear and ignorance

Nine of Glyphs - Traitor - Betrayal by someone close and trusted; a weakening or loss of faith

So what I can deduct from this - Through the Hooden One, the character had a family being executed for a sin they commited. As a child they had to grow up on the streets, fending for themselves, becoming streetwise.

The Innocent card suggests me an adulthood where they were seeking the truth about their family being executed. Something that might've drawn them to investigation and knowing the truth.

The ideal and the burden is fairly interesting, since the Merchant ideal would blatantly suggest that the character is mainly motivated by monetary gains, but the ideal behind it is risk taking, running a business, taking rare opportunities that come with interesting consequences. I think their ideal is being daring, or ambitious.

The Missionary says is the wisdom and faith, of caution and preaching of dangers. Maybe they might be overly cautious? Although that might be fairly against the ideal. Catastrophizing might be the actual burden. While they will take the risks ahead, the scenarios in their head could be the worst of the worst nightmares.

Now the Traitor is a very interesting choice for the Domain of Dread. I reach back for the Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft - to see which Domain might be the best fitting for this. I specifically don't want Barovia, even though there are some aspects of it that might work well with this.

I found Borca to be the most fitting one with its hallmarks of political intrigue, poison, and revenge. Noble families, conspiracies and corruption is definitely fitting to the Traitor card.

I'm thinking of a Half-Elf, specifically a Half-Elf Thief/Mage multiclass. But now I realize that OSE with the Advanced books might be a good option for the rules. It seems to be closer to 1E than 2E, but has some elements well massaged within the rules, that make it certainly more appealing, like Humans can also multiclass.

Nevertheless, I'll roll first my Ability scores - in the 2E book six methods are presented, for the joy and randomness, I shall roll 1d6 to determine which method I'll be using.

Number 3 - Method III - Rolling 3d6 six times and then assigning them to the abilities. Fair and harsh. Good start.

16, 12, 12, 11, 11, 9 - I rolled fairly well for this.

Following OSE character creation, now I choose my class(es). I'm still thinking of Thief and Mage (or in OSE's case, Magic User). The wonderful thing about the OSE multiclass, that it allows you to have the best armour, weapon, spell casting, and stealth skills of your classes, as long you have the appropriate equipment.

And the Advanced books hold some goodness when it comes to the races, but I will stick to the half-elf. And thusly, I record most of the abilities and saves, and additional things. I'll take the advice from Theorems and Thaumaturgy, and start with Read Magic as a first spell, and generate two random from my list, Magic Missile and Sleep, then I choose two freely - which I'll do so from the T&T (ain't gonna write that title again) - Reptilian Metabolism from the Vivimancy list, and Crystal Resonance from the Elementalist list

And due to the nature of OSE, I'll start with a wonderful amount of hit points: 3. Main priority - don't die.

At this point I slowly get the idea of the character on a mechanical level as well. Use spells wisely, sneak often, fight only when needed.

Gotta get some friends during adventuring.

Backstory will come around for the next post - most likely in the company of the Oracle I'll be using.

Cheers,

Mythwriter

[wanderingjournalofshadows]

principium

This journal is a remnant of a wanderer, an adventurer of sorts.

More precisely a solo RPG journal for me, traveling through the mists, and exploring the wonderful and horrifying place that is the home setting of Ravenloft.

The Hickman couple created something in 1983 that captured the fans of gothic horror and at the time emerging Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts - it became a cult setting for many alike.

My personal experience with the world of Ravenloft runs back to 2017 when I first started to run Curse of Strahd, the 5th edition variant of the classic module I6 - Ravenloft. I was just starting college and gathered a new group of friends to guide them into the mists of Barovia.

Since then I ran the campaign two more times, with more or less success, but I knew that it is the perfect setting for me if I ever wanted to play D&D.

So what is the premise of this blog?

I intend to delve deep into the lore of the setting and explore it through the lenses of a character who travels through the mists and gets to know the colorful (albeit desaturated) Domains of Dread.

I'll write about my adventures, as I slowly slip into the role of this character, and hopefully enjoy my time over the weekly sessions of a couple of hours, and leave behind something that is enjoyable to read as well, since I do have my aspirations of creative writing.

It is also a practice of writing and my (non-existent) English skills, since I'm not a native speaker of the language, but if I'm to write, I need to hone the skill well enough to create something that captivates the readers' curiosity.

So expect grammatical issues, or sometimes errors in semantics, as I power through descriptions and ways to express my experiences during play.

Aesthetics? Format?

I also try to leave behind sketches, and make it pleasing to read this journal. I'm already thinking about the formatting of the text so one can separate the narrative from the game mechanics, and only read the fiction emerging from my dice rolling and decisions. Solo Roleplaying is a very interesting concept in itself, that deserves a dedicated post later on.

I think my time with Play-By-Post (pbp) games gave me a certain standard when it comes to "written play" and how certain things should be presented.

Writing in first person or third person will be always one of the difficult decisions when it comes to the tone of fiction. For the setting the first person perspective offers a certain kind of intimacy, especially to convey the character's emotions, that might be a better option to convey a personal experience. Bram Stoker's Dracula (Read it if you have the time) was also an inspiration for this choice, since the plot is told through letters, written from the perspective of the characters.

And while reading I will listen to music that inspires me, I'll most likely leave a Spotify/Youtube link at the beginning of each post to have an audio ambience for the entry.

In the coming weeks I'll figure out the blog aesthetics as well, refreshing my CSS skills and/or looking for a suitable template.

So who will be the Wanderer?

I don't know at the moment, but I need to find first where I should start. There are many wonderful resources online that can help me choose the first Domain of Dread to venture to. What I also need to choose is the rules themselves. Since the first Ravenloft was written for AD&D 1E - I might opt for using an older version of the traditional formula. There are some pros for it:

It's OSR compatible. I have a truckload of OSR resources, that can be fairly easily adapted to it, thus giving me more creative and gameplay freedom.

Lots of compatible Ravenloft materials. Lots of resources exist for AD&D 2E which also has an easy conversion backwards, if I would ever need to have that, but again the difference between 1E and 2E are minor.

It's simpler. While it's obscure in nature, it is less complicated, and less restrictive with certain aspects of the game, compared to 3E/3.5.

It's crunchy enough. 5E is nice, but lacks a certain kind of crunch that I liked about the older editions. AD&D 1E might have just enough that will be still simple enough for solo play, that I don't have to spend too much time figuring out the system while playing.

In the next post I'll be exploring my options for the character and the first Domain of Dread.

But I think it's good to write down the foundation of the thought process, and I hope it gave perspective for you as a reader on what the hell I'm doing here.

Cheers,

Mythwriter