The Dark Powers | Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft | D&D

[@O4C209]

This just gave me an idea for a campaign. Domain of Dread where it's on a daily repeat like Groundhogs Day.

[@thatguy3968]

They already have that: Falkovnia

[@kellenswain2049]

Watch the movie: The Endless

[@JenniferWolffJennyWeb]

The Dark Powers simultaneously enable wickedness and punish it. They're effectively horror movie fans: they want to watch monsters being monstrous, but they also want to at least pretend they don't think it'd be cool in real life.

[@alexinfinite7142]

Meta

[@charlesallen]

The Great & Secret Show

[@mr.battle20]

They're basically entities obsessed with a good story. The horror isn't enough; they know that the chance for hope, redemption, and goodness is needed. Otherwise what's the point?

[@jiujitsuguy74]

Reminds me of the federal government lol

[@quepro520]

yes i always thought that

[@seanwoodard7958]

The Dark Powers remind me of the Ideal Masters in Skyrim’s Soul Cairn

[@DarkAutumnScribe]

Agreed! I NEVER want the Dark Powers defined. I think you could have a lot of fun with a mage / scholar character who discovered the existence of the dark powers and then becomes obsessed with discovering who or what they are! And of course, goes mad when they realize that they can never succeed!

[@cameronpearce5943]

My biggest fear when it comes to Ravenloft and when my wizard ends up on a domain of dread. She's a lore mage and uncovering the secrets of the cosmos is her driving desire. She would be doomed.

[@liamerolduffy7738]

That’s boring. Here’s how it should go. Someone discovers what they are, but the dark powers don’t want to be discovered so they drive him or her crazy. But if they have a strong mind and escape and survive, the dark powers will put a hit in them and hunt them down so they don’t tell their names or weaknesses and implant the first steps to the downfall of the dark gods.

[@jiujitsuguy74]

Annnnd they went on to name a couple of them. 5e is trash.

[@liamerolduffy7738]

@@jiujitsuguy74 What are their names?

[@jiujitsuguy74]

@@liamerolduffy7738 I think there were two named I don’t have it on hand. One started with an “O” if I recall. I mean, just read it, they talk about it at length.

[@purplenova7690]

In my setting the Dark Powers are a singular entity. One who *is* the fog. And kinda makes Shadowfell pacts with evil mortals to give them a world of their desire. And without their knowledge, the cost is the suffering and pain that causes, which it feeds on and grows from. The Domains and fog are it's body. A sentient spiritual force.

[@zerotwo6814]

I like to believe that the Dark Powers are a collective of semi-divine beings (like demon lords, archdevils, celestial paragons, etc.) of evil-alignment who were all cast out from their original realms for whatever reason, and all joined together in the Shadowfell to create a new realm (or a series of mini-realms, I suppose) all for themselves. I find the idea of a bunch of exiled demon lords and whatever else there might be among them teaming up to form a new path of evil, disregarding the concepts of order or anarchy that may be fundamental parts of their beings, for themselves, hidden in the shadows and away from the prying eyes of most, eventually being all but forgotten by history as individuals. It adds another layer to this hierarchy of evil. The Darklords are the puppets and prisoners of the Dark Powers, while the Dark Powers, even with all their power, are still hidden in the shadows from the even more powerful evil entities who cast them out of their original homes in the first place.

[@kieran10202]

I think of them as spirits native to the shadowfell that find enjoyment in the wasted effort of beings, seeing it like food, or a drug, or theatre. While Strahd tries in vane to have tatiana and fails eternally, they are satisfied. It's difficult to percieve them as they do not give much, only take.

[@tonilafountain636]

I love Ravenloft since 2e, and I usualy base the dark powers off lovecraftyan horror! One of my players once tryed to get one to "just talk", and I made the whole thing run like the story "The color out of space". They loved it!

[@an_oracle]

The Dark Powers have come up in a custom campaign im running, and i needed a framework to think of their actions/intent, and i think i got an interesting one Essentially, they are the equivalent of nature for the plane of shadows, a connected hivemind of network like trees and plants connected by roots. However, theyve absorbed and inherited all the emotions and intentions that have found their way into the shadow plane. This is why their actions seem so contradictory, because the thoughts come from beings that disagree on many things. The mystery still stands in how much theyve evolved, how self aware they are, and how much power they can wield.

[@shanesutton336]

I am entering into the middle of a CoS campaign with my friends. I made a Warlock Hexblade who’s patron is the Dark Powers. And his roll is to do what the powers need of him to give those subtle pushes where it is needed to help punish a Dark lord, or to travel the world to scout possible new Dark lords (and set them up to end up in the Dark Powers clutch’s). The idea though is I don’t know what they have in mind. They just tell me to do something, and my player is ok with following the order. Kind of like a secret service member for the Dark Powers.

[@mjnior]

I make the dark powers a amalgamation of several long forgotten gods who are now embodied in the mist itself. Course players don't know that....

[@mr.battle20]

I make the dark powers a dog sitting in a control room pulling levers. It's a nod to the "secret" ending to Silent Hill, and it makes me giggle every time I think of it. As the players will never discover the pup, it's a fun little joke I keep to myself.

[@imjustwolf]

As a player, I 100% DO want to know who and what the dark powers are. I want to know the lore as intended by the designers. I want to know the secrets of the world, for better or worse, no matter how it affects my thoughts on the setting. For me, knowing the deepest secrets of a setting can help me create a good character that doesn't seem out of place and that has a better reason to exist than the stereotypes of adventures in the game.

[@liamerolduffy7738]

Exactly!

[@shaunoday3646]

Dark powers remind me of Beyonders in Marvel universe in a way, both throw villains and heroes together just to see what happens

[@mr.battle20]

3rd edition DMG for Ravenloft revealed what the Dark Powers are: a storytelling device. In other words, as the video says, they're unknowable to the players. It's up to the DM to decide what they are, or to just leave a mystery even to himself. Personally, I make the dark powers a dog sitting in a control room pulling levers. It's a nod to the "secret" ending to Silent Hill, and it makes me giggle every time I think of it. As the players will never discover the pup, it's a fun little joke I keep to myself.

[@maltiokshiroshi7654]

I think im gonna go with a Brainiac reasoning for the dark powers. The Dark Powers view these creatures as the "finest" examples of their realms within the DnD Multiverse. So much so, that they wish them preserved in their own tiny bottle within Ravenloft. Doesn't matter that for the denizens of that multiverse that this is their worst evil, that Lord Soth or Strahd is the worst kind of evil, the Dark Powers preserve it as their best.

[@mactireliath2356]

It would be enjoyable to create a Dread Realm in real time, with your players; making them competing Dark Lords, building their domains through various horror-themed adventures

[@alderaancrumbs6260]

The Dark Powers are the nightmares of an orphaned child-god coming to grips with a solitary deific existence.

[@Zai-kyu]

I really appreciate your insight on this book in these videos! I feel like we have very similar outlooks on this content. I for one, cannot wait to start my next campaign using this book combined with Curse of Strahd.

[@Buddy74656]

I am not normally a big horror fan but I am looking forward to this book. Thank you Todd.

[@panflutehero1]

If you're going to make a video about Chris Perkins you might as well invite him on here to talk about it himself.

[@furwerkstudio2057]

I like the idea of the dark powers beings of not good, not evil but jerks.

[@dumbbass8867]

The dark powers are a bunch of deranged godlike children who like to collect villans like trading cards, then fight over who's is coolest before going to get more

[@bryanabbott6169]

A twist of what Angel in the Angel TV Show would often say, "The Dark Powers That Be".

[@Danimally]

The sarcophagus and amber are remains of old gods. Strahd made a deal with one of those before his bloody weeding. Them, at the weeding, the old god got his part of the deal, and strahd got his. And after that, the dark powers took Strahd. So, the dark powers are not old gods. The stuff inside amber and sarcophagus are remains or even old gods, but those are not dark powers.

[@zachcarpenter3903]

I like the idea of the Core, where all the domains were essentially a continent. I also like the idea that Ravenloft is the actual world, and the rest of the D&D multiverse is just fictional (in universe.) So all the other gods and places are essentially just the doomed populations' idea of what the world might be like, or was like in a time before. But none now live, who remember it.

[@pocketheart1450]

I have defined to the dark powers in my setting in terms of what they are and what they do, but that said their motivations are still very mysterious.

[@autisticallyaccurate]

Enjoying all these new videos of you. Thanks! Any chance you can review the new Hellboy RPG? It is actually part of D&D and Wizards of the Coast.

[@TheHengeProphet]

I have always felt that horror stops becoming horror when you know, or worse... understand what it is that is to be feared. The essence of horror is the unknown. I felt that movies like Oculus and The Woman in Black both succeeded here in telling you just enough, but never really showing what the real threat was, or how it was a threat; and I felt Crimson Peak failed here, as it took the recipe for some unknown horror and showed it to you... it became a monster movie.

[@Youmama187]

I think it's funny how people don't think they have stated what the dark powers are. Even back in TSR the reality of what the Dark powers are was spelled oit, just very very infrequently, and with the caviot that the DM can choose to make the powers be what ever tje campaign needs them to be

[@mikeymcchoas3511]

The products themselves across editions and the companies that produced them have been pretty inconsistent, and even the novel Lord of the Necropolis by Gene DeWeese has been declared non-canon for defining the Dark Powers. I suppose we will never know what they are, but I did like this little blurb in Van Richten's Guide to the Mists where the Weathermay twins opine "We must pause then, at the designs of the Mists. Why would the Mists grant certain creatures the power to wreak havok while granting others the power to exact vengeance? It is as if the Mists are trying to perpetuate a cycle of sorrow and retaliation." (page 43). This is likely what the Mists/Dark Powers feed on and why their motives seem to be both good and evil or otherwise at odds with itself.

[@LordofDragns]

I'm of an opposing opinion. A big part of a mystery, to me, is the payoff of discovery. Whenever a story tells me "you could never find out or understand" I feel a bit frustrated and let down. I never got the whole "knowing too much will make you go crazy" thing. I am a firm believer that knowing more is always good. Knowledge and understanding are essential to growing as a person. It's never been scary to me. I'm more concerned with *what* the Dark Powers are doing to people. If I can find out who they are and why they are doing this, it brings me one step closer to stopping them.

[@mr.battle20]

Why stop them, though? As much as they seem malevolent, they also seem to mete out justice and punish the wicked for their iniquity. As any good gothic horror story goes, there is ALWAYS a moral lesson to be learned. A good DM will keep you focused on that instead of worrying about what is essentially just a storytelling device. They do address the folly of trying to discover the true nature of the dark powers, and trying to thwart them. Azalin Rex himself keeps trying that very thing, and almost succeeded once (causing the Grand Conjunction). He wreaked havoc on the Realm of Dread, and almost caused his own annihilation. Basically his pride and hubris could've killed everyone, not to mention unleash Gwydion the Sorcerer Fiend from his prison (darklord of the Shadow Rift. Pretty much the most terrifying thing ever). Had the dark powers been defeated, literally nothing could have stopped it (Gwydion had a CR of 40 in 3.5, and that is for when it's imprisoned and not at full strength. Yeah.)

[@kendannon4435]

The more we wont the reveal is the reason why you can't do it officially.

[@edwardbond7035]

I heard once that the Mists were created as a prison of a god of evil, that then died inside this prison. The god or gods ID are what’s left? Or who knows?

[@rokkkrinn2793]

I prefer them being inscrutable. Keep the mystery going.

[@somerton4383]

I was thinking when it was mentioned that these dark lords are forced to relive the moments that made them evil over and over again, that maybe, just maybe, that they're being kept until some brave individuals manage to redeem them. But of course no individual can change from the actions of another. They must find the willpower and the drive within themselves to change their ways and undo their wrongs. Perhaps it is a cruel method, so many innocent souls tortured, slain and terrorized by these imprisoned dark lords, but it is a test, and the dark lords need food and opportunities to change their ways or perform more until they consciously change everything and say no. I will not drink their blood. I will not experiment on their flesh or raise them as golems. I will not put their heads on spikes or feed them to my pet monsters. Their victims are the solution, even if they cruelly must die by the tens of thousands for all eternity until they come to their senses. TL/DR: The Dark Lords are in purgatory.

[@ParanormalEncyclopedia]

Two possible takes: The Dark Powers are jailers set up eons ago to hold the worst sinners in the multiverse. Maybe it even goes back before Strahd we just don't know because those dark lords are long since gone or perhaps they even became absorbed into the Dark Powers or the plain itself. Think about it being locked up in a private Hell for the very worst of the worst having to see their worst deeds carried out over and over again on a loop. Maybe the Dark Powers were good once but the horror of their jobs and having to punish them drove them to darkness in a very "stare to long into the abyss" sense. The Dark Powers are a force for good. take the worst offenders across the multiverse and lock them away. Create constructs that look and act like living beings (remember how in Curse of Strahd many of the NPCs were soulless husks not real people, or how in older editions it was implied killing a dark lord would make the entire domain, people included, cease to exist?) to further the torture. Add more people that aren't evil enough to deserve dark lord status but get their own little slice of Hell away from the rest of the multi verse. Add some threat: maybe an apocalyptic event they forsee coming, maybe a time when the dark lords escape Ravenloft and unleash their evil on the rest of the multi verse. And the dark powers see a need for heroes so they start bringing in people they think might be up to the challenge making the demi plane part private Hell and part test of character. Children of heroes who stayed around instead of going home and children of the lesser evil doers would also provide a population to account for the part of Barovia with souls.

[@cameronpearce5943]

Has a Darklord ever been redeemed... what happens if they ever stopped playing the role they were chosen for?

[@krispalermo8133]

Lord Soth from the Dargonlance campaign setting, since he was truly dead with no need to feed off the living, he just sat in his keep walking through his own mind and refuse to play any games, so the Darklords sent him back to his home world. Also there was some form of copyright license issue going on at that time for up coming novels.

[@seppa193]

No

[@aspektx]

Perhaps they are amoral, abandoned jail wardens. Forgotten by the ancient gods who placed them there.

[@joaoguilhermeassim]

Now i really want to be in a campain where we explain the suspicious abilities of the mist to Strad,and he teams up with us to solve the secret of the mist to finally free hinself and get a new route in his life as we fight the fisical manifestation of the mist (maybe a really evil genie,or a retired demon lord,or spitefull celestial) and free everyone in Berovia and make a very lit story.

[@jiujitsuguy74]

Naming/personifying the Dark Powers was the absolutely worst thing that has ever happened to Ravenloft. Ruined the setting as much as making Strahd just a vampire. I gave my 5e collection away after that. Gave it a fair shot.

[@AM-uk3vm]

Neat

[@semajcw3]

So then... Ravenloft, the Demiplanes of Dread, exist within the Shadow Fell that is ruled by the Raven Queen & her Shadar-Kai that roam here? How does she, or they manage the Dark Powers, or do the Dark Powers trump her, who was said to be known & on par with the Lady of Pain in Sigil?

[@seppa193]

No, 5e uses the Great Wheel Cosmology. That means Ravenloft is not part of the plane of Shadow/Shadowfell but part of the Ethereal plane.

[@semajcw3]

@@seppa193 Have you not read the Dungeon's Masters Guide on page 51? I suggest you do so... because that totally dismisses what you just typed, as in Entirely. The entry is Domains of Dread & It literally reads, "In romate corners of the Shadowfell, it is easy to reach horrific demiplanes ruled over by accursed beings of terrible evil. The best known of these is the valley of Barovia, overlooked by the towering spires of Castle Ravenloft & ruled by Count Strahd Von Zarovich, the first vampire." It mentions "beings of the Shadowfell created these domains as prisons for these datklords & through carelessness or cruelty trapped innocent mortals in these domains as well." So what was it you were trying to write? Also Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes has an entire entry about The Ravenqueen & her Shadar-Kai being rulers in the Shadowfell.... so my question stands unanswered. & I actually wanted to know what the links were to these Dark Powers or to the Raven Queen that exist here?

[@seppa193]

@@semajcw3 "In remote corners of the Shadowfell, it is easy to REACH horrific demiplanes ruled...". That still doesnt mean Ravenloft is on the plane of Shadow/Shadowfell, just that in remote corners Ravenloft(and other horrific domains) can be easily REACHED.

[@semajcw3]

@@seppa193 i mean, it seems you read what I wrote. That IS exactly what it means. You might want to reread all that again though. It clearly states the Dark Powers are beings of the Shadowfell. It also says the Demiplane of Dread exists within remote corners of the Shadowfell. Example. Remote corners of your home dust bunnies exist. They are still in your home & exist there, in remote corners, but there dust bunnies thrive. You the caretaker of your home, are a being that also exists there & rules over your home.... even the remote corners of your home where those dust bunnies exist. The entry of the Demiplanes of Dread are sub point under the main entry of the Shadowfell on page 51 of the Dungeon's Masters Guide. You can say it exists wherever YOU want in your game with your friends. But as far as rules that are written you are wrong about Ravenloft & where it is. According to 5E as it is now.

[@seppa193]

@@semajcw3 You are reading things that are not written there, and use that misread as a fact. If you dont like the answer, do whatever you want in the game.

[@jacobhope6164]

What if The Dark Powers are the Ancient Spirits of Evil Mumm Ra calls upon, and Mumm Ra the Everliving is a Dark Lord. Just saying...

[@rtmoose1738]

I know who the dark powers are because I rolled nat 20 on investigation

[@tannermoen8675]

Neat