I was supposed to watch this one last night for a night of devils, but honestly I am run down with a cold and couldn't stay awake.
Equinox (1970)
This one starts with David Fielding (Edward Connell) running away from something. He is then hit by a car with no driver. A year later he is still in a psychiatric ward. In flashback David tells us about his trip to visit his old professor along with his friends Jim (Frank Bonner, Herb from WKRP), Susan and Vicki.
The movie is essentially the same plot as "Evil Dead." Group of young people go into the woods, encounters an evil tome, and all hell breaks loose. Literally. Soon they encounter a park ranger named Asmodeus, as in THE Asmodeus.
The find Dr. Waterman's cabin in the woods, but it is destroyed. Then of all things they find a medieval castle in the distance.
Much like "The Sentinel," this film deals with a gateway to Hell. This time, the portal is opened when Dr. Watermann's book is read, and the demons are summoned. So yeah, like Evil Dead done by Ray Harryhausen instead of Sam Rami.
The plot is thin, and the special effects look more like those of the 1960s than those of the 1970s (no surprise), but they are pretty much on par with what I'd expect for early 1970s pre-Exorcist.
Featured Monster: Devil
This one is obviously a devil in both form and deed and quite possibly even a good Asmodeus. This film was very popular in the midnight Drive-Inn circuit, so it is possible this flick was a possible influence on the Monster Manual, but it is more likely that both Gygax and the film's writers were drawing on the same sources popular at the time.
October Horror Movie Challenge 2024 Viewed: 13 First Time Views: 6
I have been talking about the AD&D 2nd Edition campaign setting Ravenloft. Every domain in the Land of Mists / Domain of Dread is a copy of some land from one of the other campaign worlds. Darkon and Tovag are copies of old Oerth. Hazlan and I'Cath are from the Forgotten Realms; Thay and Kara-Tur specifically. Sithicus and Falkovnia are from Dragonlance. Lamordia seems to be from an Earth-like world given it has the same months we do. Even Eberron creator Keith Baker has a Domain in Ravenloft from his world.
But there are two notable exceptions.
First, there are no core domains from Mystara.
Secondly, the black heart of the Core Domains, Barovia, does not have a "home world."
Why? Because Barovia is from Mystara!
Now, please keep this in mind. None of this is supported by real-world evidence at all. There was no secret cabal of ur-Developers at TSR deciding this was true and leaving breadcrumbs for me to find. This is less than circumstantial evidence. This is full-on Conspiracy Theory, tin foil hat territory. No, this makes conspiracy theories look like rational arguments. This is conclusion shopping at its lowest.
But at least it makes more sense than some conspiracy theories. So adjust your tin foil hat, make sure your webcams are turned off, and your phone is nowhere near because we are going down a rabbit hole.
Evidence From the Novels
The Ravenloft novels...were a wild bunch. But we can at least assume they were canon. In the first one, "Vampire of the Mists," Strahd does not know about Faerûn when he meets Jander Sunstar. Jander also does not know about Barovia. Likewise, in "Knight of the Black Rose," Strahd has never heard of Krynn or Lord Soth, not something that would been true for someone of Strahd's age and position. Everyone knew about Lord Soth. The best evidence comes from "I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire," where Strahd describes his lands and also mentions he has never heard of Azalin (Azalin Rex) or Oerth.
These are all strikes against Oerth, Krynn, and Abeir-Toril.
Most of the novels in the Ravenloft line are self-contained, so no mention either way of what worlds they might be from originally.
Evidence from the Campaign Worlds
Going the other direction, we know that the Gods of Krynn keep a pretty tight hold on their world. So much so that Spelljamming and Outer Plane travel to and from Krynn is very difficult. One more strike against Krynn.
The Forgotten Realms have nearly ever square inch of their world map accounted for. If it had been the Realms, we would have heard about it by now. One more strike against Abeir-Toril. OR at least the Toril part, "Forgotten Abeir" might be a different story.
Dark Sun's Athas is a desert wasteland filled with Psionic-enhanced creatures. So there is no way it is from there.
The World of Greyhawk's Oerth has a LOT of land that is unaccounted for. So, we need to find a way to rule it out based on the campaign setting.
Eberon was not created yet, so that one is out as well.
None of this tells us where Barovia and Strahd are from. It just tells us where they are not from.
So, what does Mystara have to offer us? Well, a lot really.
Mystara
While Tracy Hickman is best known for Dragonlance, that is also one-half Margaret Weiss. So, I am not ready to say Ravenloft is from Krynn based on the Hickman connection alone. But there is another Hickman publication, and it is from Tracy AND Laura Hickman, just like Ravenloft. That is Rahasia.
Rahasia was written by the Hickmans and features body-snatching undead witches, a strong horror trope. Even in the 5e era, The Curse of Strahd adventure, lists Rahasia as an influence. Plus, there are some other solid connections, like finding the same wines in Rahasia's Wizard Tower and in Ravenloft Curse of Strahd. Rahasia is a solid Mystara, or at least a BECMI adventure.
There is also Castle Amber. This Expert Set adventure is explicitly Mystara with the inclusion of Glantri. It also reads like a "Proto-Ravenloft." I have discussed the Castle Amber/Ravenloft connections before.
Averoigne was later added to Glantri and the Amber family is said to have come from Old Earth. In many ways the Earth of the Ambers is very, very similar to the Earth of Ravenloft's Gothic Earth.
So, another set of near-evidence is connecting Ravenloft to Mystara. What else do we have?
The vampires of Mystara are more diverse than vampires of other game worlds. This collection of Vampiric Bloodlines at the Vaults of Pandius attests to that.
Immortals vs. The Dark Powers
Mystara and Ravenloft are both settings largely devoid of gods. There are the Immortals of Mystara that cover the same role as gods, but are explicitly not gods. Ravenloft has its Dark Powers which are also not gods. In fact, there is even some evidence that gods worshiped in Ravenloft might only be reflections of the Dark Powers. This all runs pretty counter to most D&D worlds, especially Krynn and Abeir-Toril where the gods are important and very active in the affairs of mortals.
Could the Dark Powers be Chaotic Immortals? I think that is a question best left un-answered, but it has, to quote Stephen Colbert, a bit of Truthiness to it.
Another factor. Both the Immortals and the Dark Powers have a history of scooping up land, countries, even entire civilizations and hiding them away. The Immortals do this with the Hollow World, and the Dark Powers do it with the lands of Ravenloft.
Barovia could have been scoped up and planted elsewhere, and both the Dark Powers and Immortals could have covered it up. Which does lead into my next point.
Lands
Mystara is a strange patchwork of cultures and lands. Vikings live right next to a Khanate, and on the other side of these steppes is fantasy Wales with bits of Renaissance Italy. These lands only make sense when you realize the Immortals have a hand in moving people around.
Same is true for Ravenloft. Only here, there is less movement.
Barovia is also small, only 24 miles East-West and about 10 miles North-South. This makes it smaller that an average hex on many Mystara maps. A place like could come from anywhere. More to the point it could go missing from anywhere.
Like Mystara, Ravenloft is a hodge-podge of lands and cultures.
Time Lines
Additionally, I can use some dates from the novels to narrow some ideas down. Now, a note about time. Time seems to run differently in Ravenloft, so I can't put an exact formula for it. There isn't one. I just have to try to deal with it. The only hard and fast rule I will adhere to is that there is no travel to the past.
This timeline is a work in progress with changes being made all the time.
I will add and move details around as I discover them. I am using the Forgotten Realms DR calendar here since many worlds have had interactions with the Realms so it helps with the dating. Any date in Red is a fixed date, one I have confirmation of. I have squared all the dates yet. Part of the issue is that Mystara's year is different from the other worlds. Some of the dates do not line up right yet, I am working on those.
I still have a lot of work to do on these and some funky math to make them work. This is, of course, assuming that time passes the same way in all the realms, and I am not making that assumption. I could hand wave and say "it fits" but I at least would like to find a large enough whole for Barovia in Mystara to fit.
The Art
This one is a little more interesting in my mind.
Both the early Mystara Gazetteer line and the Ravenloft line share the same artists. Now this is not a huge surprise. There were a lot of books being pumped out by TSR in the AD&D 2nd Ed days and only a few artists. But they typically were used on various projects in various combinations.
Both Mystara and Ravenloft shared the same cover artist, Clyde Caldwell, and the same interior artist, Stephen Fabian. And some of the parallels are striking.
Count Strahd (Ravenloft) and Prince Voszlany (Glantri)
Victor Mordenheim (Ravenloft) and Rafiel (Mystara - Shadow Elves)
Count Strahd and Prince Voszlany look like they are related, and Victor Mordenheim and Rafiel look like they went to University together.
The Caldwell covers are fairly part-and-parcel with the look of Ravenloft from the start. So seeing all the books side by side they do "feel" right together.
Likewise the Stephen Fabian interior art has a dark spookiness to it and his style is so unique that when I picked up a 1990 copy of Anita and saw his art I knew it right away.
Maybe I need to make a witch, named Anita, (or Anita Tina, I always wanted a character with a palindrome name) from Mystara, Glantri in particular, who gets stuck in Ravenloft. I like this.
--
Of course, none of this is true. But it feels true, and isn't that better than the truth? At least that is what Leonard Nimoy, the Patron Saint of "In Search Of," has to say.
By 1992, Ravenloft was going full speed, though we would later learn that all of the settings were contributing to the eventual demise of TSR. I am not even sure if Ravenloft was ever profitable. I made my best efforts to make it profitable, even on a Graduate student budget. I bought a lot Ravenloft material. The Forbidden Lore boxed set was one I purchased back then. I loved the idea of my own Tarokka Cards and Dikesha dice sets. The material included was a mixed bag of course.
I sold off my boxed set many years ago, likely in my big move in 1997 or maybe in 2001-2002. Do I regret it? Hard to say. The material is not not needed to play in Ravenloft, and while having those cards would be nice, I have since acquired other Tarokka decks and even other tarot decks that work great.
1992. Design by Bruce Nesmith and William W. Connors. Box cover art by Clyde Caldwell, Booklet cover art by Stephen Fabian, interior art by Stephen Fabian and Bob Klanish.
The boxed set originally came with five booklets, each covering a different aspect of the game. Reading these you can see that it is a collection of errata, material that didn't quite make it to the Ravenloft boxed set, and updates to cover the evolution of the AD&D 2nd Ed game and other game worlds; for example psionics.
While the books could be used in any order. I am going with the order used in my Print on Demand copy.
Dark Recesses. Psionics.
Much like magic, this section deals with how psionics are changed. The psionics used here are the same as featured in the The Complete Psionics Handbook. If you are not using that book, or don't have it, then you can ignore this book. Well...sort of. Even if you are not using "AD&D Psionics" this is a good resource on any sort of psychic powers or visions when used in Ravenloft. Psychic ability has been a horror staple forever, even if the psychic ability is "magic" there is still great advice here.
This includes an appendix for Dark Sun characters coming to Ravenloft.
Nova Aracanum. Magic.
This covers new magic spells and items. The conceit here is that some of this new knowledge comes from Strahd himself. I liked the idea that Strahd, the former warrior, was turning to necromancy and wizardry to find ways out of his prison. It certainly helped separate him from his origins as a "Dracula-clone." Had there been rules for it I would have given him Alchemy instead, but hey, it works.
This book covers more altered spells and gifts from the Realms, Wild Magic, Elemental Magic and Meta Magic.
There are 14 new wizard spells, 7 new priest spells, and 5 new magic items.
Oaths of Evil. Curses.
This book is based on feedback from Ravenloft players it seems. This covers curses and dark powers checks. Giving clarifications and some edits on material presented in the Ravenloft core boxed set.
Of note, the Apparatus of the Alchemist from module I10 makes an appearance here, though only in art, not in text.
We also get three very cursed and very evil objects that have found their way to the Demiplane of Dread.
Cryptic Allegiances. Secret Societies.
What is horror without some secret societies? Here, Ravenloft takes a page from the Forgotten Realms. We get guidance on how to create and use secret societies in Ravenloft. We are given the examples of six secret societies. Of these, the Kargatane would spin off into a real-world group I was active in to develop new Ravenloft material.
The Waking Dream. Fortune Telling.
This final book covers fortune telling and Vistani. This gives us the description of the Tarokka deck and how to use it. There are 54 cards in a Tarokka deck, so a standard deck with two jokers works in a pinch.
The next section covers the Dikesha dice. A bit on how to use and read the portents of the dice. They are standard d6s, so they can also be replicated. You need five d6s, one each of red, yellow, orange, green and black. The PDF of the dice can be used and numbers added. OR if you feel particularly crafty you can get get some d6s of the correct colors and print out the PDF and glue these faces on the dice.
Of the two, I, and I assume most people now, used the Tarokka decks over the dice. The fact that you can still find and buy Tarokka decks from various editions of Ravenloft lends some weight to my claim.
There was also a large poster map included in the Boxed set. It was not printed with the Print on Demand version, but it is available as a PDF along with a PDF of the Tarokka deck and the Dikesha dice.
The Print on Demand version of this set is nice. It is clear to read and is a better scan than most.
Do I miss my boxed set? Well, I have to say no. The boxed set was great yes, but this makes for a good substitute. It is also only $5 more than the list price, so not bad after 32 years of inflation.
This movie very likely did not influence anything in the AD&D Monster Manual, but it certainly has the right vibe of the movies I would have been watching at the time and altering the printed monsters to fit my needs. Plus, this one has a solid cast. More to the point, I can't believe I have never seen this one despite my desire to watch it back then.
The Sentinel (1977)
Alison Parker (Cristina Raines, who was a model in real life) is a model in love with her lawyer boyfriend, Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon). He wants to get married, but she wants to live on her own for a bit. She finds a new apartment and moves in. She meets her neighbors, Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith), Gerde (Sylvia Miles) and Sandra (Beverly D'Angelo who barely speaks in this), and encounters the blind priest Father Francis Matthew Halliran (John Carradine). Alison has serious migraines and a history of suicide attempts, once after she caught her father in bed with two other women.
The movie is slow to start, building up by showing us the collection of odd inhabitants living in the building. Alison has all sorts of weird visions and nightmares. We also learn from the landlady that aside from the Priest and Alison, no one else actually lives in the building. When the landlady takes her to each apartment, she learns that none of them has been lived in for years. We later learn that all of the people in the apartment are, or were, all murderers who were killed years ago.
We learn that Michael's previous wife killed herself. We also learn that Michael hired private detective Brenner to kill his first wife and now scare Alison, only he ends up dead in the exact same way Alison hallucinates that she killed her dead father. The film has a real "Gaslighting" feel to it, both the movie and the term, with actual supernatural overtones.
Michael breaks into the priest's office and learns about all these priests and nuns who, in life, attempted suicide and then were given a new name. There is a list going back hundreds of years and Alison's name is next on the list, to become Sister Theresa. These names are all Sentinels, the guardians of Gates of Hell tasked by the Archangel Uriel. The only time a Sentinel can be stopped is if they kill themselves before taking over their post. So Micheal (now dead), Charles and the other lost soulstry to drive Alison to suicide.
Father Halliran shows up at the end to help Alison and gives us a great demonstration of cleric turning.
The building is demolished and new one is put up. In Apartment 5a we see a now blind and older Alison, now Sister Theresa, standing her vigil.
Additionally, this movie features Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, Jerry Orbach, with Tom Berenger, and a young Nana Visitor as the couple at the end.
David Caradine is barely in this, but he still shows us why he was one of the big names in horror.
The 1970s were a great time for demonic and satanic themed horror and this one is still good example. Not the best example, but a very good one all the same.
Featured Monster: Devil
While there are no overt devils per se in this film, I would argue that Burgess Meredith's Charles Chazen was not so much a damned soul as a devil. Not an Archduke, but certainly a higher-ranking one. I ran his name through an anagram program and created Charnazel Sech or Sharcazel Chen as possible diabolic names.
Game Content: Sentinel
A Sentinel is a Theosophist (in NIGHT SHIFT) that has somehow lost their way. Their holy task is to keep demons and devils from escaping hell. They no longer advance as a Theosophist and now advance as either a Survivor or as a Veteran. Their task, much like the Paladins of old, is to guard one of the many gates of hell. They position themselves near the gate to fight the demons, devils, and other lost and evil souls who might escape.
A Sentinel works best as an NPC or PC, if they don't mind not traveling too far from the Gate of Hell they are supposed to guard.
Does this sound like Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Yeah, it does, but this movie predates that movie by 15 years, and the book even more than that (1974). It is also similar to the idea of the Wynonna Earp.
This shows that there are not any new ideas.
October Horror Movie Challenge 2024 Viewed: 12 First Time Views: 5
The great thing about the AD&D 2nd Edition version of Ravenloft's demi-plane was that the borders were completely malleable. Lands came in and out, even darklords would come and go. So the first two accessories for the Ravenloft setting capitalized on this. The first was RR1 Darklords and the next was RR2 Book of Crypts and both gave us more expansions to the Demiplane of Dread.
1991. By Andria Hayday (with some additional design by William W. Connors, Bruce Nesmith, and James Lowder). 96-pages, color covers (Tim Hildebrandt), black & white interior art (Stephen Fabian).
This soft-cover tome gave 16 new darklords and their domains for use with Ravenloft. There is a mixed bag here, but I tried I to use all of them at one point or another. These new lords felt less "gothic" in their presentation and more "AD&D" in their origins. For example, Tristessa, the Banshee Darklord, is a Drow mourning over the loss of her son, who turned into a Drider. The Hags of Tempest certainly have a William Shakespeare veneer over them, but they are pure AD&D hags.
There are some very interesting ones here too. Merilee, the Child Vampire, brings "Interview with a Vampire's" Claudia to mind. Von Kharkou is twice cursed. He was panther transformed into a man killing machine, then cursed again to vampirism. Zolnik is a different sort of ice-age Werewolf. Anhktepot and Tyet give us two very different takes on the Mummy.
Among all of these, The House of Lament (a haunted house as a darklord) would go on to see new life in future editions of the game, and the intelligent sword, Ebonbane, would get a full adventure in the pages of Dungeon magazine.
1991. by Dale "Slade" Henson with J. Robert King. 96-pages, color covers (David Dorman), black & white interior art (Laura and Kelly Freas, Stephen Fabian).
This book has nine short and loosely connected mini-adventures taking place in the core realms of Ravenloft. Of these, the "Bride of Mordenheim" was my favorite.
This was (is) actually a fun book. Horror lends itself well to the short story format and by extension horror RPG also does these smaller adventures well. They help remind us that not every adventure is going to part of some Grand Conjunction or even dealing directly with a Darklord.
Re-reading them now there are many that I would like re-run for newer versions of the game.
And to round off the pages nicely we get three new monsters in AD&D Monstrous Compendium format.
The PDF is a scanned document and it is a little washed out compared to my original from the 1990s. But still perfectly readable. At present, there is no Print on Demand option for either titles.
