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 Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:41 am
Nodding eagerly, Liánlí flipped where he’d been told to flip, and right on the first page of the chapter—“Yeah, okay, this Death’s Chosen guy isn’t allowed to be good-aligned?” He pouted pensively, taking a moment to skim the description of the class at hand. “I guess they seem to be assuming that pledging yourself to an undead being must inherently mean like, an evil vampire lord or something? But the part I was just looking at their description of one of the undead deities, Evening Glory? And I don’t know, sure, it said she’s Neutral instead of Good-aligned, but she sounds like a cool auntie to me? Goddess of undying love and love so unhinged you’d rather become undead than be separated by death—I can get behind that.”
Maybe not in real life? Like, as much as having Huan-ge in his life motivated Liánlí to take better care of himself (building from a baseline of already trying to take pretty good care of himself) and fight to stay alive, having the reassurance of starseeds reincarnating meant that Liánlí didn’t think undeath sounded terribly appealing. He didn’t want to die on Huan-ge, nor did he want fate to take Huan-ge from him so soon after they’d found each other. But Xingyi-ge’s starseed had already reincarnated into Liánlí, so there wasn’t really an argument here about how the end of one life wasn’t the end of everything, period. Even if the next Sailor Helene of Inhibition and Kaifeng of Saturn would be different from Huan-ge and Liánlí, that sounded less like a terrible prospect to be avoided at all costs. Instead, it sounded like an amazing adventure that their souls could have, but only when they were done with the adventure of this life that they had together, right here and now.
But in fictional contexts, though, Liánlí could definitely get behind Auntie Evening Glory’s entire thing.
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:41 am
Yuki chuckled a bit. “Good to know someone else at this table likes Evening Glory,” he said. “Kiyoshi adores her. And not to spoil anything, not least since we haven’t rolled anything yet? But the idea he has for his character means she might very well make at least some appearance in our campaign.”
……He hadn’t quite expected Liánlí to go so starry-eyed about that concept, but……again, it was good to know that some of the ideas he had in mind would hold interest for people other than Kiyoshi.
“Anyway,” Yuki picked up, once more gesturing to the Eberron doodle on his sheet with his pen, “the reason we’re not playing Eberron has nothing to do with the setting and everything to do with my own experiences playing it. As both a player and a DM, I’ve had Eberron campaigns go from totally cool, and fun, and relaxed to super-intense and explosive in half-a-minute over people disagreeing about personal headcanons. Obviously, our current prospective group won’t have an issue with that, since ******** the only one here who’s read up on Eberron and it’s not his favorite, so he isn’t super-invested in making up headcanons about it.”
Smirking, ******** shrugged as if to say “Guilty as charged.”
“But those experiences have taken the joy out of running Eberron for me,” Yuki concluded with another sigh.
Fortunately, Liánlí stayed nodding and looking somewhere between “eager to hear more (hopefully only about the D&D settings discussion)” and “sympathetic about what Yuki had gone through with previous groups.”
“Getting somewhat closer to our actual main setting, we have Planescape and Ravenloft.” Illustrating Planescape sounded like a ******** nightmare, so rather than try, Yuki grabbed up his fifth-edition Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide, then nudged them toward Liánlí. “Appendix C in the PHB, and chapter two in the DMG. Appendix C has a map of the Planes of Existence, and the DMG has a more intricately illustrated map of the inner elemental planes. But long story short, the main activity of the campaign will happen on what we call the Material Plane. It’s the normie plane where normal stuff happens. But there are other planes within the multiverse. The Feywild and the Shadowfell are closest to the Material Plane, and the ones we’ll be dealing with the most. And Planescape, as a setting, also has a really cool, avant garde fantasy city called Sigil and a bunch of classes that are very specific to Planescape adventures. Most of what we’ll be integrating from Planescape is lore about the planes. A lot of it probably won’t come up very often, but it does exist in the background.
“Now, Ravenloft, on the other hand—” Just as Yuki put his pen back to the paper, a loud, ridiculous swooning noise cut him off. Rolling his eyes, he looked over to Kiyoshi, who had slouched all over his chair as if his body was trying to turn to liquid. “Yes, dear? You done? Or do you need to say something?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:41 am
“Oh, I’m good; thank you, Gorgeous!” Bright and eager to get to some of The Really Good s**t, Kiyoshi corrected his posture and scooted closer to the table. “You just know how I feel about Ravenloft.”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:41 am
For a moment, Yuki considered whether or not it was entirely fair to answer that with the first response that wandered into his head. It was technically at ******** expense, but only meant out of love and affection. Largely for the sake of fun. Could’ve gone either way on sticking the landing but ******** probably wouldn’t take it badly.…
“How he feels about Ravenloft, generally speaking, is horny,” Yuki told Liánlí. “I mean, he feels a lot of other things, too? But without spoiling anything: I have run four separate rounds of Curse of Strahd that he played in. Every single time, he has wanted to seduce Strahd von Zarovich, professional Sexy Dracula and canonically an irredeemable b*****d. There is one very specific thing that one needs to be in order to seduce Strahd von Zarovich, and ******** has created four different characters who were all that one specific thing, just so he could try to get dicked down by a vampire so ******** up, he damned himself and every sapient being in his realm to an eternity trapped in the Shadowfell, denied even the sweet release of death.”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:42 am
“I can fix him, though,” Kiyoshi insisted, whining more than was entirely necessary to help emphasize how this was all in good fun and not reflective of his actual ideas about relationships. Or about what he actually wanted in a boy, despite what some people might have thought based on one specific boy he’d ever caught Feelings about. “Fifth time’s the charm, okay? Whenever you next want to run Curse of Strahd, I can totally fix him.”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:42 am
“Uh huh, yeah, I am sure,” Yuki deadpanned. “How has that worked out for you literally every other time you’ve tried it?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:42 am
“Badly!” Kiyoshi answered his best guy with a broad grin and a chipper optimism that steadfastly refused to acknowledge the reality of the Situations into which he’d shoved all of his Cute Twink Reincarnations of Tatyana Fedorovna. “Actually, three out of four times, he succeeded in making me worse, but that’s okay, though. In this specific matter, I refuse to admit that a central part of the entire Darklord concept is that Strahd is completely beyond all hope of ******** him until he makes better life-choices.”
Huffing softly, he shook out his ponytail. “Anyway, I’m just grateful, Gorgeous, that I didn’t need to try very hard to sell you on letting me play the very specific concept in question as a cute twink instead of as a girl.”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:42 am
“Eh, it was long past time to hit Strahd von Zarovich with the yaoi beam. Look at those hands. Are they not the closest thing that Western media has to yaoi hands.”
Deadpan back-and-forthing with Kiyoshi like this was easy. They had a rapport; this was just how they talked to each other. But they did have someone else with them today, and while Liánlí seemed content to listen to them banter about whatever? That wasn’t doing anything to help him learn what he wanted to get into here.
“The only reason I can’t say Ravenloft was specifically created to cater to ********,” Yuki explained for Liánlí, “is that it’s thirteen years older than he is. In 1983, TSR—the original publishers of DND stuff—put out an adventure module called Ravenloft, which……uh? ********, please find him The Book.”
Fortunately, ******** implicitly understood which one Yuki meant, and in seconds, Liánlí had the hardback copy of Curse of Strahd in his hot little hands.
“The Book contains an adventure module—all the notes you’d need to run a campaign for people, basically. For the story, it reimagines Tracy and Laura Hickman’s original Ravenloft adventure,” Yuki went on, pulling another book out of a different stack. While Curse of Strahd worked fine on its own as an introduction, Liánlí might also want to consult Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft at some point, so best to slide that across the table for him. “Curse of Strahd also incorporates lore that came from later additions to the Ravenloft setting, plus some stuff from novels set in Ravenloft, and anyway, the point of Ravenloft is ‘Would you like a little horror in your fantasy roleplaying game? Because we’ve got lots of it.’
“The big man right here,” Yuki reached over to tap on the illustrated vampire’s smug, technically good-looking face, “is Count Strahd von Zarovich, and he’s a real piece of work. I won’t spoil what he did exactly, but in-universe? Once upon a time, he was a great hero and an icon to his people. Then, he fell from grace in some pretty terrible ways. Very Vlad ‘the Impaler’ Tepes sort of vibes in that way, except that Strahd is unquestionably worse than even the worst myths about Vlad the Impaler. Also, there are two other characters in the setting who are much more directly inspired by Vlad the Impaler, rather than being more inspired by Dracula with some of the historical reality mixed in. Though……?”
Making a throaty, non-committal sound, Yuki wobbled one of his hands back and forth. “Nyehhh, it’s complicated?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:42 am
While they hadn’t quite gotten to the actual underpinnings of the world in which they’d be playing, Liánlí remained eager and attentive through the entire journey through different worlds and lore. It was all kinds of fascinating, especially for someone who’d previously only really known Dungeons and Dragons as something that his da-jie had enjoyed at one point. As far as Liánlí had known prior to today, Dungeons and Dragons games all could have taken place in the same world and it wouldn’t have changed at all from how it had originally been written in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Wide-eyed and eager to hear more, he nudged, “Complicated like how?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:43 am
“Complicated like they created one region named Falkovnia back in the days of second edition,” Yuki explained, “then completely revised it for fifth edition with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.” He reached over to tap the cover in case Liánlí hadn’t noticed or needed to be reminded that it was there. “And despite all the work that went into revising Falkovnia, it arguably didn’t accomplish much more than making people fight each other on the Internet.”
Trying to banish thoughts of those arguments from his mind, Yuki nudged his glasses up and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “See, the central conceit of Ravenloft as a setting is that you have this territory, the Lands of the Mists, which are ruled over by the Dark Powers. Within the Lands of the Mists, you have the Domains of Dread. Strahd’s Barovia is one of them. Falkovnia is another. Back in the day, there was a Domain of Dread called Kalidnay, which crossed over with Dark Sun; it had been pulled into the Lands of the Mists from the world of Athas. There’s one where a medusa who murdered her abusive husband and then her young child constantly wanders in a labyrinth, trying to find someone who will love her. Possibilities are literally endless for the Domains of Dread.
“And ******** yet,” Yuki sighed. “The central premise of the Domains of Dread in fifth edition is that they are functionally prisons where the central figure, the Darklord, is the one nominally being imprisoned. Because the Dark Powers are inscrutable assholes in a lot of ways, they don’t really care that they suck countless innocent people into this. They only care that the Darklord did something wildly ******** up enough to get their attention and make them go ‘Oh, damn. Jail for Count von Zarovich. Jail for Count von Zarovich for eternity, actually.’
“Some of the Darklords have backstories that don’t make a lot of sense as written, or where a DM usually has to do a lot of legwork to make them function. That’s what you have going on with 2E’s Vlad Drakov and his 5E successor, Vladeska Drakov. Vlad’s backstory actually made perfect sense, given the world-building of Ravenloft back in the AD&D days, but the devs and the writers tried to keep a pretty big part of it that directly conflicts with the world-building about how the Lands of the Mists work in fifth edition. They tried to paste something over it, but it mostly just makes her backstory feel confused and messy. Everyone I know who’s ever had her feature in a fifth edition campaign? They’ve done some serious rewrites about where she came from, how and why she wound up imprisoned in a Domain of Dread, and what the happ is ******** in her entire story.”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:43 am
……Okay, yeah, Liánlí could admit: that all did sound incredibly complicated. Moreover, it sounded as though Yuki was still holding information back, despite having given up quite a lot of it. But he’d also said something else, a bit earlier in the conversation, that merited further probing: “So, Ravenloft isn’t the main setting we’d be playing in,” Liánlí nudged, “but it’s in the Shadowfell, right? And the Shadowfell is, like, really close to the main setting that we’d be playing in?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:44 am
“Exactly,” Yuki said, then turned back to one of his book piles. The one that he pulled out was another from back in third edition, its cover weather-worn and its spine bandaged back together with clear packing tape. But nevertheless, it was a more comprehensive intro to the setting than all the exclusively Sword Coast-focused s**t from 5E. “Our campaign’s main story will be set in what are called the Forgotten Realms. It might venture into Ravenloft and the Lands of the Mists if the party is interested in that, but it doesn’t need to do that. None of the stuff about Darklords might come up at all, depending on how things play out.
“The Forgotten Realms are more conventional sword and sorcery fantasy than Ravenloft. That said, they’re also a fairly adaptable setting that has a lot of fun lore to play with but also enough room for characters and DMs to build up new things within the setting.” A moment’s pause for consideration, then Yuki added, “Look up Ed Greenwood on Youtube when you get home tonight. He’s the original creator of the setting and his videos do not have every single piece of lore ever? But there’s a pretty good variety of stuff on his channel, and he’s just a pretty cool old guy who’s constantly grateful for how much people still love this fantasy setting he made up over forty years ago.”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:44 am
“Awww, that sounds really nice,” Liánlí agreed, reaching out to take the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Handbook from Yuki. Checking it out, he noticed—“So, this is a third edition book? Which means the setting we play in will probably be different from how it’s written here? At least a little bit?” Glancing up, he watched Yuki nod. Good enough for Liánlí, and sufficient permission for him to start scanning the table of contents.…… All the stuff about character creation and magic, that was fine. He still needed more grounding to touch it, but—aha, yes, the geography chapter.
“Anauroch. Chult. Tashalar. Cormyr. The Dalelands,” Liánlí read off some of the names of the places listed, wondering what sorts of places they were. “Calimshan. The Moonsea. The Sword Coast. Waterdeep—oh, I have heard that name! The wizard boyfriend from Baldur’s Gate 3 is from there, right? Gale of Waterdeep?” Thankfully, Liánlí got the fictional boy’s name right and could breathe easy, having sufficiently not embarrassed himself. “I feel like I’ve heard about Thay, too? Something or other about Red Wizards? The Chris Pine Dungeons and Dragons movie was supposed to have them, right?”
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