ravenloft-is there any escape???

[selim nahanahs]

i've been reading the ravenloft rules and the book about it, it says the mist controls just about everything in the realm, there must be a way to outsmart the mist, im thinking there must be someway to destroy the mist somehow

[Behold_the_Void]

I know Lord Soth from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting managed to get out, but he pissed the guys in charge off too much and they kicked him out or something.

[_Puppetmaster_]

I'm not very familiar with ravenloft.

Hmm...

Maybe if you dropped a locate city bomb?

[Chronos]

It's absolutely impossible to escape from Ravenloft by any means.

So naturally, half the modules out there for Ravenloft culminate with a means of escape.

I think there's some sort of fundamental rule of fantasy and science fiction that any absolute unbreakable law will be broken on a regular basis.

[Xuincherguixe]

What I've heard, is that sometimes you can be let out if you're "innocent".

I'm not terribly familiar with it.

To the best of my knowledge, getting out basically means the DM decides to let you out.

[Terraoblivion]

From what i can gather there is no way of destroying the mists, except possibly by destroying the entire demiplane. However, given that no gods have done anything despite being cut off from any worshippers they might have who end up there it seems like a rather epic feat to destroy Ravenloft. Escape on the other hand is possible, just really, really hard. Like Void said Lord Soth escaped and several other darklords managed to leave the demiplane for shorter periods. I also know that the entire focus of the earlier versions of the Demiplane of Dread was escaping the place so it is very definitely part of the setting that escape is possible. The means are of course left up to the GM.

In the Kargatane's version of the setting published for 3.0 and 3.5 escape is not the focus, however, nor is it about killing the local darklord. Instead it is about the demiplane as a self-contained world and about being heroes who try to make a difference in a hostile world, even if you can never end the flood of evil. I personally love the Kargatane version of the setting, but i know that some people feel it is betraying the roots of what Ravenloft is.

[Rutee]

I think there's some sort of fundamental rule of fantasy and science fiction that any absolute unbreakable law will be broken on a regular basis.

The odds of success are roughly 100 jillion.. to one.

[Terraoblivion]

You mean exactly one million to one and as we all know those crop up nine times out of ten.

[EagleWiz]

There is one simple way to survive (And only one) Remember kids: We dont go to ravenloft

[Azerian Kelimon]

Except if you try to invoke them for a million to one shot.

[dyslexicfaser]

If by 'Lord Soth escapes' you mean 'Lord Soth becomes trapped in his own mist/Soth-created nightmare realm adjacent to Ravenloft after entering the mist', then yes. He totally escaped.

[Terraoblivion]

He escapes in Spectre of the Black Rose to return to Krynn where he finally manages to die in Dragon of the Vanished Moon. At least according to wikipedia as i haven't read either of these books.

[Ralfarius]

I remember a friend of mine back in 3rd had some sort of theory involving using a dreamscape to connect to the astral realm, or something to that effect. It potentially ended with spirits being supplanted in new bodies on some other prime material plane.

[ZeroNumerous]

There isn't a way to reliably escape Ravenloft except for one, which requires that you be a Domain Lord. As a Domain Lord, you must travel to the center of your Dark Power's created castle and just sit there. Do nothing, say nothing, and eat nothing. Interact with your domain in no way possible. Eventually, the Dark Powers will grow bored of you and eject you. You've defeated Ravenloft.

Yes, children, thats right. You defeat Ravenloft by doing nothing. Doing anything else invites the Dark Powers to play mind games with you all day.

[G-Man]

Zero, thats hardly possible..

I consider myself a Ravenloft nerd, so I can shed some light on these things..

Deities cannot enter the realm anymore, so they cannot destroy it.. one of the original and most powerful Dark Lords has tried numerous times to escape, failing miserably... and Soth escaped because he rejected everything the Dark Powers tried to coerce him with.

Now, there are a few permanent portals out of the Realm of Dread. But these are, of course, guarded by malicious foul beings of pure hate and darkness.

Even dead souls don't escape the realm. They are trapped in the "Near Ethereal" (what happens after that is anybody's guess) BUT Travelling to the Astral PLane is impossible.. since any Planar Transportational magic is nullified.

But Ravenloft is essentiall a Call of Cthulu game. You're not supposed to win, if the DM is good though, your loss will be very entertaining, and emotional. A new Dark Lord for the mists... Bwahaha!

[SilverClawShift]

i've been reading the ravenloft rules and the book about it, it says the mist controls just about everything in the realm, there must be a way to outsmart the mist, im thinking there must be someway to destroy the mist somehow

Destroy the mist? That's something deities couldn't accomplish if they worked together at it, primarily because no one's entirely sure what the mist actually is or how it operates. And they do indeed control everything in the realms.

But, outsmarting the mists?

Try this on for size: We did this in a campaign that took us through ravenloft.

The Vistani race are ravenloft natives, capable of navigating the mists to a degree no one else seems capable of. They can't get you out, but they can at least show you around for a little coin.

A Domain Lord is the BBEG of a particular area. They have an ability to "Close the Gates" so to speak, sealing off their little section of the realm from anything and everything else. Nothing gets into their domain, nothing leaves their domain, flat. Cold. Not even the vistani can get you through a domain that a lord has sealed.

There's a unique domain called the Carnival. It's a wandering freakshow of a domain, which temporarily superimposes itself over a tiny chunk of another domain, never staying in one place for long (hunting someone they'll never catch). Before the carnival shows up, the domain they'll be floating through suddenly seems littered with advertisements, plastered to the walls and drifting on the wind, for the immense carnival about to arrive.
The carnival springs up overnight, and leaves as quickly as it came, and cannot be stoppde or controlled by its own domain lord.

In our campaign, the domain we were in was sealed off in a fury. The Domain Lord was hell bent on destroying us utterly, and would not open his domain for ANYTHING until he had found, and executed us.
Our Vistani guide explained to us that this was no joke. He would hunt us, and kill us. If we somehow managed to stay a step ahead of him for our entire lives, we would die in hiding... by the whim of the domain lord, the five of us would never, ever leave his land. Ever.

Except, our party bard had tucked something into his pack as we'd been traveling. He'd noticed a flyer for the Carnival in another domain, and had been intrigued. We didn't have time to stay, but he'd held onto the flyer, because "Why not?".

So, our genius bard staples the flyer to the wall of the abandoned building across from the Inn we were laying low in. And we continued to lay low. And after 3 days? There were 5 flyers on the abandoned building across the street. By the end of the week, flyers were everywhere, littering the streets and plastered to every signpost and doorframe within view.
The carnival shows up, we get in, we stay in the entire time it's there (which has its own costs, mind you, the carnival warps long term visitors), and though we were being hunted all during the final night by the domain lords lackeys, we managed to hide out in the freakshow tent.

And when we woke up in the morning? Boom.

We'd hitched a ride out on the carnival.

********************

Our DM had intended it to be a showdown between us and the domain lord. We were supposed to fight, and he was toying with the idea of a TPK, or at least knocking off everyone but one and giving us something to be terrified of.

But he was so impressed with the cleverness of the escape plan that he considered it better than the showdown would have been.

So there might occasionally be a trick or two to use against the mist.

[EvilJames]

I haven't any confirmation of this as it is second hand info but friend of mine maintains that in one of the ravenloft supplements there is an artifact that can get you out. However it is incredibly evil to use as it requires the murder of 100 people to fuel it and an action that horrific would definitely invoke a powers check so even then you might not get out.

Also Vecna got out somehow but then he also somehow managed to bust into Sigil which the gods aren't even supposed to be able to do either

[Terraoblivion]

The Kargatane version of Ravenloft has changed that to some degree G-Man. It has easened up on the meat grinder and instead seems to be focusing on the kind of morality tales of 19th century Gothic literature. A lot of fans appear to dislike this change along with the change to focusing on Ravenloft as a setting in itself and not a place for outlanders to adventure. It might be because i first learned properly about the setting in this version, but i am quite in favor of this change. It makes the setting more about confronting the darkness and striving to be the light in the shadow and less about brutal meaningless deaths. It has also brought along a greater awareness of the cultures of the core, something that is always positive.

[G-Man]

Uhh.. that artifact was a hoax by the Dark Powers I think, can't remember though.

Vecna got ejected by the Dark Powers for literally starting to tear the Demiplane apart...

And I know how they changed the Ravenloft setting. I accept the cultural enhancements, I refute the new "fluff" on how they run things.
I'm just old fashioned. But then again, I do tend to make everything I mess with customized to my own insights and feelings.

So, culture is always good, and I believe the morality has always been there. But its been toned down to a pathetic degree, less failure, more redemption.. which is just less fun in my eyes.

[Terraoblivion]

On the other hand you could see the change towards more redemption as being increasing the emphasis on morality by toning down the inevitability of your fall. The more real the possibility of doing good is the worse falling to temptation will be. If you have no real choice nut slip down the slope of self-inflicted curses for lack of better term or at best die without achieving anything, there is much less incentive to try to be moral. Whereas if you have a real chance of doing good actually giving in to temptation is more profound and thus the question of morality is more central.

I guess it is about a difference in preference and style. I generally dislike inevitability of anything whether success or defeat as desensitizing the player to the struggle that goes ahead. And just as importantly i just get depressed whenever i think about things as being inevitable.

[Zincorium]

Vecna is what happens when a Batman Wizard becomes part of the canon setting. And gets divine rank. He's not really a good role model for players.


As for escaping Ravenloft: I've always felt that was, y'know, missing the point of playing in that setting in the first place. The first rule of ravenloft is you can never go home, the second rule of ravenloft is you can never go home, etc.


However, there's an important point to keep in mind if you want to leave. The dark powers are not actually evil. In fact, they're the ones who create paladins according to both the second and third edition books I've read, and in some versions they're the ones giving clerics spells.

The dark powers love conflict and angst. Effectively, what you've got to do is negate in some manner all the moping and moral quandries around you and they'll get so bored they will swap you out for someone else. I'm personally convinced they do this with a lot of people after they die, otherwise the near ethereal would be a lot more crowded (think about the mortality rates for commoners for a second and you'll see what I mean).

[G-Man]

That's where you need to be crafty as a DM.

I've let players defeat Dark Lords before.. I've had paladins crusade and save towns and do real good. Most of my players only fall because they act stupid, or they make a mistake. I try to balance it, but to me, the new version feels like there's no point even trying to take a player beyond stage two of the Dark Power Curse.

It makes redemption feel TOO easy, although I have modified the old rules for redemption to make it a little easier, it just feels too easy. I pride myself on never actually forcing unwinnable situations on my players, their choices affect almost everything in a significant way.. Like.. the imbecili rogue who waylaid Strahd's taxman got drained by a vampiress.. And the drow walking around in plain sight got lynched.. (yes my players do this to annoy me)

So, I can understand why it feels better, but it should NOT be easy to gain redemption, and only a little easier to fall.

[Mikeavelli]

Lord Soth escaped thanks to the only force more powerful than the Dark Powers themselves... Copyright law. The Ravenloft Intellectual Property was getting sold off, but the Dragonlance IP was staying with Wizards, so they let him escape.

Yes yes, I remember the artifact that'd let you get out of Ravenloft. You got a percentage chance to leave Ravenloft based on the number of hit dice you sacrificed to it in some kind of ritual. This was 2nd ed, by the way.

You could get up to something like a 70% chance of it working, with the failure resulting in either returning to where you started out from with the thing drained, or getting hurled off into the mists to appear somewhere at random. Ruleswise it really would work, but powering the thing up would force so many Dark Powers checks that you'd inevitably end up attracting the personal attention of the Powers. That was no fun.

[Terraoblivion]

Ok, i think i misunderstood you then G-Man. You sounded like the fall was the whole focus of your games which seems a bit too much for what i would find enjoyable. As for the redemption i agree that the whole dark powers checks in third edition are strange, including redemption. I mean statistically speaking if you steal an apple seven hundred times you will become a dark lord according to them and that is just anti-climatic. As for redemption it really depends on what you did how easy it is. Gaining redemption for stealing apples is easy for example, which is probably a good thing as it means that you won't have a situation where most people in the world are at least a single step down the ladder. For breaking sacred vows however it is pretty difficult to achieve redemption because of how many times you need to get into a situation where you are truly tempted to break the vows and really horrible acts in the form of acts of ultimate darkness are irredeemable. Still i see your point in redemption feeling too easy being a problem in a setting like Ravenloft.

[ZeroNumerous]

Zero, thats hardly possible..

Of course it's impossible for a hero or a normal individual. Hence why I said it requires you to be a Domain Lord. After all, ignoring Ravenloft was the only way Lord Soth escaped.

However, there's an important point to keep in mind if you want to leave. The dark powers are not actually evil. In fact, they're the ones who create paladins according to both the second and third edition books I've read, and in some versions they're the ones giving clerics spells.

In my Ravenloft Campaign Setting handbook (2nd Ed, mind you) the Dark Powers are the stand-ins for divine spellcasters since it's impossible for normal gods and deities to access Ravenloft.

[G-Man]

I meant its not possible in terms of realistic character progression.

If your character has fallen far enough to become a Dark Lord, they will have surrendered to at least ONE passion almost entirely and completely. So, ignoring everything is highly unlikely to happen unless copyright laws come into play..

A player who started ignoring everything that I used to torment their character would swiftly get hit with my dictionary. (yes, I -do- keep a dictionary by my side at the game table )

Strahd is doomed to always search for his lost love, the one he murdered his own brother for. His unabated desire for this being that pulled at his heart has kept him searching for centuries for each new incarnation of her.

Vlad Drakov (Dark Lord of Falkovnia) is cursed to never win a war he wages, despite his troops being some of the best in the Core. His short temper and awe-inspiring rage ensure he will keep fighting.

So, if a PC ignored something that was formerly a major emotional piece of history, they would be ignoring the very thing that caused them to become a Dark Lord.

That is why I don't think it's possible, or rather, if it is, it would be very cheesy roleplay. My fault for not clarifying.. its late and I'm on medication that does more harm than good.

[Indon]

Personally, I'd try for the Vecna route - reach epic levels and become progressively more dangerous to the plane, and ultimately the Powers themselves, and they'll get rid of you before that happens (provided you let them and don't just persist on destroying and/or cleansing the whole place out of principle).

Of course, D&D epic just starts to rewrite the rules in general, so what else would one expect?

[ZeroNumerous]

A player who started ignoring everything that I used to torment their character would swiftly get hit with my dictionary. (yes, I -do- keep a dictionary by my side at the game table )

"I surrender to my passion of hatred for this campaign. Armed with my boots of +10 to hating this campaign and my +1 sword of hating this campaign, I'm going to become a Monk."

To clarify: I agreed with you that it's impossible for a hero to do it. Since most PCs are organic characters. Though I'd think someone who has toppled a dark lord and been placed in his steed would be able to figure out that ignoring Ravenloft means you win against Ravenloft.

[Aquillion]

I meant its not possible in terms of realistic character progression.

If your character has fallen far enough to become a Dark Lord, they will have surrendered to at least ONE passion almost entirely and completely. So, ignoring everything is highly unlikely to happen unless copyright laws come into play..

Helm of opposite alignment FTW.

Alternatively, there are various abilities, spells, and powers that can change your personality. Programmed amnesia ("Lost love? What lost love?"), Mindrape, Mind Seed into a totally different person, etc.

...that's it. My new campaign concept is going to be an epic-level party who breaks into Ravenloft and starts forcibly reforming Dark Lords using various mind-affecting things, utilizing epic level versions to overcome immunities / resistances / mists as necessary, and eventually turning Ravenloft into a nightmarish suburban Zoloft-fueled Happytown where everyone's alignment is permanently fixed at lawful good and anyone with any sort of mental issues is instantly mindraped back into blissful happiness.

[Pronounceable]

There is no escape from Ravenloft. Unless DM invents one. The Mists are untouchable, ununderstandable and generally un-. Deus ex Machining at its finest.

And Soth was indeed freed by copyrights. And a whole lot of complaining from Weiss, Hickmann and general DL community I believe.