High Level Games
High Level Games
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures

Welcome to the High Level Games Blog, News, and other stuff to take your games to the next level!

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

6 Ways To Use A Lost Family In Ravenloft

13/7/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture
Azalin wasn’t the only one complaining about the focus on extinct noble bloodlines in the third Gazetteer. Many reviewers were dismayed about the amount of ink spilled on in-game stories with few  spent on adventure hooks. What’s the point of having rich deep history if it doesn’t affect the present?  What follows is a series of suggested adventure hooks around the lost noble family of de Boistribue. The entire extended family of hunters and woodsmen vanished from their massive manor one December night in 493 BC, the only surviving servant unable to give any explanation. Each can be played as an independent adventure, or they can be strung together into a campaign arc where the PC’s piece together the unspeakable fate of the doomed family.

1) The Fell Omen
A PC traveling through the Forest of the Ancients glimpses a huge sprawling manor house in the distance. The sight of the manor house is a terrible omen--all who have seen it disappear within three turnings of the moon. Once word gets out, locals shun the PC as cursed, but a local soothsayer declares the curse may be lifted if the PC goes hunting in the forest overnight wearing the de Boistribue colors. If they dismiss it as overreaction of some superstitious locals, the manor inexplicably shows up again and again on the edge of their vision, even miles away from where they saw it last, bringing bad luck each time until they spend that night in the woods.

2) Winter Chill
Not all the servants died in the manor itself. The winter snows were deep that December, and several of them fled the madness only to freeze to death. Their fear, pain and desperation made them into snow wraiths or possibly frost vampires that return with the snowfall. PC’s may be called on to fight the creatures when local logging companies want to extend their season a little more into the winter, only to find their lumberjacks frozen to the bone. The lairs of these creatures surround the manor’s original location; the phantasmal version that stalks through the woods is actually a kind of ghost in itself, but the original holds much bigger secrets.

3) Braving The Manor  
Forced to take refuge from storm or foe, the party enters the infamous manor itself to find the ghosts of dozens of servants haunting the many hunting trophies, clawed woodworks and bloodstained walls. These ghosts don’t remember much, except how the entire family turned into animals before their eyes and tore them apart. A few benign ghosts protect the PC’s from the more ferocious spirits, and ask the PC’s to remove their half-eaten remains and give them a proper burial. This may prevent the manor from dogging their steps, but PC’s seeking more answers should have no trouble finding it later.

4) The Sole Survivor
While visiting Saulbridge Sanitarium, a PC is possessed by the ghost of the only earthly witness to the massacre, who lived out his final days in Saulbridge as a Lost One. He was only a teenage boy locked in an animal pen, who heard the other servants being slaughtered. Finally a monstrous bear came for him, but could not do much damage through the bars. If the party escorts the possessed PC to the manor, the ghost confesses that his incarceration may have prompted a few of the servants to do something terrible to the family, for which all these others suffered the consequences. He doesn’t know what his friends did or how they did it, but he’s terribly sorry. With that, he and several of the more vengeful spirits of the house can finally rest.

5) Return Of The Lost
PC’s in the forest on the anniversary of the event discover a spring surrounded by the remaining de Boistribue family, now in the form of talking deer, boars, bears, raccoons and rabbits. Few recall much of what happened that fateful night, but they claim their treacherous servants served a cursed meal that transformed them. They recall their old lives every anniversary by drinking from this spring, but are barely more than ignorant beasts the rest of the year. Strung out over centuries this way, only about a year has passed for them since 493, but their numbers are dwindling, and they demand help. By a solemn promise and a sip from the spring, a PC can establish a bond with one of the animals that will prevent them from fully regressing until they can figure out the solution. This is one interesting way for a PC to gain an animal companion or familiar!

6) The Most Dangerous Game
While hunting a werewolf of the Timothy clan, the PC’s find that the clan dates back to early Mordentshire, but they kept a relatively low profile for centuries...as if none of their victims were the kind that went on two legs and could talk. But what kind of werewolf finds sport in hunting dumb beasts?  Records of a more arcane sort indicate that the Timothy werewolves are also known for incredible longevity, and that some of them attribute it to rare game in the Forest of the Ancients. If confronted about it, the Timothys claim the de Boistribues hunted their own servants down like beasts for sport, so some of the servants turned the tables and hunted them right back. Records from 489-491 include accounts of Lord de Boistribue hunting captured bandits under the full moon, but nothing about hunting his own servants. Nor is there any record of the surname Timothy among those servants. But the werewolves believe the PC’s are close to a deadly secret, and will stop at nothing to silence them forever.

Of course, to string these hooks into an arc with a conclusion, there are many questions left to answer:  What offense had that teenage boy committed to be penned up in an animal cage?  Who were these friends who did a terrible deed, and why are they not among the ghosts?  Did Lord de Boistribue continue hunting human sport after wiping out the bandits?  Did he really start hunting his own servants?  Whence comes the magic of the spring, and by what force did something change the whole family into immortal animals?  Was the werewolf clan somehow related to the servants, or the bandits?  Or did they just stumble across the accursed animals and cobble their own myth together about the irony of hunting a family of hunters?  

There’s room for the lord, a servant or some third party to be a truly monstrous villain, or for a terrible misunderstanding at the heart of it all. And especially you’ll have to decide if breaking the curse means setting the remaining de Boistribue family free into the afterlife, or if they can actually return to the world of mortals and rebuild their legacy. What do you think? Would your PC from this family be a ranger, paladin or barbarian?

Matthew Barrett has been playing and writing for Ravenloft for over twenty years, starting with the Kargatane's Book of S series (as Leyshon Campbell).  He married his wife on Friday the 13th after proposing to her on Halloween.  By tradition, the first story read at birth to each of their three children was The Barker’s Tour, from Ravenloft’s “Carnival” supplement.  He is currently working on a Ravenloft-based experiment in crowdsourced fiction using his “Inkubator” system at inkubator.miraheze.org.


Savage Worlds: Fast, Furious, and Fun! - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
2 Comments
Alex Kurowski link
13/7/2017 11:12:05 am

I love these! I am currently running Curse of Strahd and have been paging through the old Domains of Dread book for ideas such as this to sprinkle in. So far my favorite character arc is the druid who is just now learning that she is actually an animated doll originally manufactured by Blinsky.

I like the idea of The Sole Survivor and think this might be something I incorporate with my paladin player. The discovery of a bloodline that ties the character to the realm and has them feel some buy-in to helping the realm rather than simply escaping it is a fun idea as well.

Reply
Matthew Barrett link
18/7/2017 08:03:26 am

Glad you liked it! I'd love to hear what you come up with.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    All blog materials created and developed by the staff here at High Level Games 

    ​

    Picture
    Click here to support our community for as a little as $1.00 for exclusive content, free downloadable stuff, and even discounts on role-playing game items.

    Archives

    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All
    13th Age
    2d20
    2nd Edition
    3.5 Edition
    3Deep
    4th Edition
    5th Edition
    7th Sea
    Acquisitions Inc
    Actual Play
    AD&D
    AdventureLookUp.com
    Adventurers!
    Aether Sea
    A+ Fantasy
    After Collapse
    Alignment
    Amazing Tales
    Amazon
    Anima: Beyond Fantasy
    Anime
    Apocalypse World
    Atomic Robo
    Australian
    Award Winning
    Basic Fantasy
    Belly Of The Beast
    Big Eyes Small Mouth
    Black Lives Matter
    Black Void
    Blades In The Dark
    Blood Pangea
    Board Games
    Book Of Exalted Darkness
    BrigadeCon
    Burning Wheel RPG
    Call Of Cthulhu
    Capers RPG
    Casual Roleplaying
    Changeling: The Dreaming
    Chaosium
    Character Arcs
    Character Creation
    Chris Spivey
    Cinematic RP
    Classics
    Comic-books
    Conventions
    Corvus Belli: Infinity
    Crawl
    Creators
    Critical Role
    Cthulhutech
    D100 Dungeon
    D20
    D&D
    D&D Beyond
    Deadlands
    Defenders Of Tokyo
    Degenesis
    Detako Saga
    Discord
    DMsGuild.com
    Dnd
    Dndbeyond
    Doctor-who
    Double-cross
    Dread
    Dresden-files
    DriveThruRPG.com
    Dr. Who
    Dungeon Crawl Classics
    Dungeons
    Dungeons And Dragons
    Dungeon Slayers
    Dungeon World
    Dystopia Rising
    Encounters
    Era: The Consortium
    Era: The Empowered
    Esper Genesis
    Evil Hat
    Exalted
    Faith RPG
    Fandom
    Fantasy-age
    Fantasy-flight
    Fantasy Grounds
    FATE
    Fate Accelerated Edition
    Fate Core
    Fate Rpg
    Fate-rpg
    Final Fantasy
    Forgotten Realms
    Fragged Empire
    Free League Publishing
    Furries
    Game Design
    Game Lore
    Gencon
    Ghosts Of NPCs Past
    GMTips
    Golden-sky-stories
    GoodmanGames.com
    Grognards
    GUMSHOE
    GURPS
    GURPS Lite
    Halloween
    Harlem Unbound
    Harry-potter
    Hero Builder
    Heroes Against Darkness
    Heroes-unlimited
    HERO System
    High Level Games
    Historical Fantasy
    HLG Con 2018
    HLG Reviews
    Homebrew
    Humble Bundle
    Indie
    Interface Zero 2.0
    Interview
    Invisible Suns
    Japanese RPGs
    JRR Tolkien
    Kickstarter
    KoboldPress.com
    KULT
    L5R
    Lankhmar
    LARP
    Lasers And Feelings
    Legendlore
    Legend Of The Five Rings
    LexOccultum
    LOTR
    Low Magic
    Mage
    Mage: The Awakening
    Magic And Steel
    MAID
    Mayhem
    Mazes And Minotaurs
    Meikyuu Kingdom
    Mekton Zero
    Mental Health
    Middle Earth
    Mighty Narwhal
    Mini Six
    Modern Adventures RPG
    Modiphius
    Monarchies Of Mau
    Monsterhearts
    Monte Cook Games
    Morra
    Mummy: The Curse
    Mutants And Masterminds
    Mythender
    Narrative Games
    Nechronica
    Night's Black Agents
    Novel
    NPC
    Numenara
    Odyssey Of The Dragonlords
    One Shot
    Online Gaming
    Orun
    OSCRIC
    Osr
    OVA
    Palladium
    Pathfinder
    Pathfinder 2.0
    PbtA
    PDQ
    Pire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
    Play By Post
    Player Tips
    Podcast
    Powered By Apocalypse
    Power Outage RPG
    Preview
    Promethean: The Created
    Pugmire
    Pulp
    Puzzles
    Questlings
    Ravenloft
    Ravnica
    Red Markets: A Game Of Economic Horror
    Research
    Review
    Review Article
    Rifts
    Risus
    Role Play
    Roll20
    Romance Of The Perilous Land
    Ryuutama
    Satanic Panic
    Savage Rifts
    Savage Tokusatsu
    Savage Worlds
    Seeds Of Wars
    Setting
    Settings
    Settlement Building
    Shadowrun
    SIGMATA
    Snowhaven
    Social Combat
    Social Systems
    Solo Play
    Standard Roleplay System
    Star Trek Adventures
    Star Wars
    Storytellers Vault
    Suited RPG
    Summerland
    Supplements
    System Design
    Table Top
    Tabletop Simulator
    Tales From The Loop
    Tales Of Equestria
    Talislanta
    Tariffs
    Teenagers From Outerspace
    Ten Candles
    Tenra Bansho Zero
    The Dark Eye
    The End Of The World RPG
    The Great Long Dark
    The One Ring
    The Very Important Task
    Titan Effect
    To The Temple Of Doom
    Trial Of Cthulhu
    Trinity Continuum
    TSR Marvel Super Heroes
    Ttrpg
    Twitch
    USTR
    Va
    Valiant Rpg
    Vampire: The Masquerade
    Video Games
    Villian
    Volo
    Vs Ghosts
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Werewolf: The Apocalypse
    Westbound RPG
    Wild West
    World Building
    World Of Darkness
    Writing Tips
    Year Zero
    Zweihander

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly