Let's make the VHAGE AGENCY in 5e!
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2024
- It's the Domain of Dread, which is a detective office, and which can serve as a hub for a Domain-hopping Ravenloft campaign: the Vhage Agency! As usual, we'll explore just what this Shadowfell realm is, exactly, as well as list some inspirational media. Then finally, we'll sketch out an adventure--or meta-adventure, rather--which is set here!
When I first heard of this Domain of Dread, I had the funny idea that Detective Vhage's voice would be heard in the PC's heads, narrating like in a stereotypical Detective Noir style show.
NGL the idea of this being like The Hunter's Dream from Bloodborne is brilliant, a hub between missions in a domain hopping campaign is great and that feeling of comfort slowly shifts to unease and then hostility at the climax.
I can imagine if I or one of my player group would quote Home Alone after defeating Vhage with "Keep the change ya filthy animal"
Thanks so much for saying so, and for watching! Yes, The Hunter's Dream was one of the first things that came to mind, when I sat down to brainstorm media influences for this Domain. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the writers probably assumed the Vhage Agency would function that way!
Now, of course, it's natural to wonder if other parts of Bloodborne might serve as influences for other Domains of Dread... hmm...
Thanks again! Best wishes, and cheers!
Noir inspired narration could be a lot of fun for the DM in this domain.
Oh yes, absolutely!
Interesting idea, but it needs some more development on how the DM can get the PCs to actually explore/run through the maze of passages. If the dark lord attacks them, they are going to tend to stay put and fight, even if they are over matched.
But still a cool video as always!
My immediate thought is that she has a phasing ability through the walls a la the final confrontstion with Strahd in Castle Ravenloft. Then just find a suitable map and play it out thay way.
That is a good point! The two options, which immediately spring to mind, are to have Flimira flee through the walls like Strahd does in CoS (as Jason suggests below), or give Flimira an attack, which propels its targets out of her office. Good question, though! Thanks for catching it, and for the comment, as well as for watching once again! Best wishes, and cheers!
As always, awesome video and ideas! You know, I was thinking about Flimira, and what could be her ultimate goal. Being someone so smart and crafty, certainly she knows she's cursed and perhaps is planning an escape from the Domain of Dread.
Now, as you mentioned Chrono Trigger, I remembered Silent Hill 4, whose entire plot revolves around Room 302, and how the villain, Walter, sees the apartment as his "mother" and begins a ritual in order to be reunited with it.
One of the most interesting things about this game is that Room 302 begins as your "safe Hub", but gradually changes, and the familiar becomes unfamiliar, as you realize that people were murdered there. So, perhaps we could add some of those things to this hub. Small details, which can be investigated outside the hub, revealing people, artifacts, things so that in the endgame, we discover how she murdered her old party, or how she planned to use them in some sort of ritual to "get rid of monsters for the greater good".
But what do you think? I may have rambled a bit, because I really like this game, but I really liked the themes for this Domain!
Ah, excellent! I think you picked a really great bit of media, which I overlooked. Room 302 is a really excellent model for the Vhage Agency indeed! I especially like the idea that, as the adventure (or meta-adventure) progresses, the PCs uncover what happened to her old adventuring party. (I'm reminded of that part in 10 Cloverfield Lane, when the younger characters discover through a discrepancy in photographs that Goodman's character murdered someone.) Really great idea! Best wishes, and cheers!
I'm working on a homebrew Ravenloft game, and I've been wanting to experiment with "random dungeon generation" and the Vhage Agency and maybe even the building it's contained in would make a great place to imagine twisting hallways, Inception style, locked door mysteries, mc. echer courtyards, etc. Thanks for the food for thought.
Thank you so much for stopping by and for watching! Please feel free to check back and say how it all went at your table. Best wishes, and cheers!
I think it's safe to say that these sound track recommendations also work really well with any sort of Eberron game, as that setting thrives heavily on themes of noir and pulp action. I'm certainly adding them to my playlists.
Yeah, Bohren and Der Club of Gore works well with Eberron generally, it's true! As does Jill Tracy's work! Have you heard her Halloween seances or her instrumental version of "The Bittersweet Constrain"? Thanks for watching, and cheers!
As always, magnificent video, my guy! I myself made a noir, one room, one shot with only two players, using this Domain. Your video gave me a few new ideas to run it once again, with a different take!
That's lovely to hear! What was the one-shot about? I'm a big fan of short, one-room adventures. Thanks very much for watching, and cheers!
@@phdnd-drbowers The players were pretty much employees of the Vhage Agency, they were the receptionist and the hired help for the archives. Through the session they started to realize that there was something wrong with the cases of Flimira. It was awesome!
joined from hour of the raven channel. Cheers!! let´s Ravenloft Thrives out of dnd!!
Wonderful, and welcome! Gabriel's "Hour of the Raven" is a lovely channel, of which I am quite fond. Welcome, and cheers!
I feel like the Vhage Agency would work particularly well as an entrance to Ravenloft from Eberron. Could be some fun shennanigans there.
Yes, that's a good point, and I agree. The other natural Domain to use as a transition point, I think, is Cyre 1313. Or maybe do both? Regardless, you are absolutely right!
Thanks very much for watching, and cheers!
Now I wish I was using this! I'm using the Carnival as a sort of Hub. Since I'm running Curse of Strahd with threads to Azalin and a later adventure in Darkon I guess it'd be too long of a stay out of the Agency to truly make it shine so next Ravenloft campaign I'm doing this! Let's me cover other domains I didn't here and also could work as a series of small adventures for Halloween or a long spanning adventure.
As always, thanks for the great content!
I definitely appreciate how you pull this apart to be something a little more coherent than what WotC put out, thank you.
Also, solid music recommendations -- you should put links to the sources in your descriptions if at all possible. Easier to look back on afterward. (That goes for your recommended media, too. Perhaps affiliate links to buy things from Amazon or whatever?)
So this is a neat domain and one of the new ones from 5e. I really like the Noir thing of the Domain.
I would probably give her some reason as to why the color is monochromatic here, which itself could be a tie into another adventure. As this is something I suspect players would have their characters ask about. Perhaps it is the result of some magic from her times in Darkon or Hazlan, perhaps she tells them to go to Dominia or Lamordia and visit the doctor there to see if something is wrong with them.
I probably wouldn't use either of the Weathermay-Foxglove twins as her real identity. But that is more that I find that those two are much better as roaming NPCs. You could also just have her actually be a famous monster-hunter by talking about her before you meet her without ever mentioning you are going to the agency. Perhaps instead of Van Richten's monster hunter guides, its Vhage's guides on fighting the monsters of the night. Perhaps the players meet people who have been helped by her in the past.
Thanks for watching and for the suggestions! Yes, I think Flimira's identity is best left open, because different tables are likely to have different bits of lore about who the most famous monster hunters are, and which of them would be most intriguing to turn out to be Flimira.
Yeah, it would also be fun and interesting to add some lore about the Domain's monochrome appearance. I had just assumed that it was part of the Agency's theme as a "lost level" or "missing element" of a Domain, but that's more of a label for something mysterious than an explanation!
Thanks very much for these thoughtful comments, once again! Best wishes, and cheers!
Well done. Evocative and a little passive-aggressive.
Great video as always, have you ever thought about doing some of the other domains from the old 2e setting, the Domains of Dread is a free pdf and chalk full of awesome settings with no adventures published for them. Just a thought, keep up the good work Dr. Bowers 👍
Thank you so much! Sorry it took me a while to see this comment; I'm doing my best to catch up despite being buried in work!
Are there any other Domains of Dread or topics, which you'd like me to cover on this channel? Best wishes and cheers!
This is neat as a gathering hub, but there’s a few things that stand out to me: 1) What sort of momentum is there for working for her? Like what drives the characters to join her organization? What does she provide? And 2) Shouldnt a gathering hub be somewhere adventurers can stay in between campaign arcs and rest?
These are both good questions!
First, I don't think there's any requirement for the PCs to trust Flimira, or work with her. If they want, they can ignore her at first, or try to make an enemy of her. The important thing is that, regardless of the PCs' disposition, they'll find themselves showing up at the Vhage Agency, with Flimira there each time to talk to them. This, by itself, should hopefully generate some kind of dynamic that can follow the general structure described in the video. Of course, I'd be interested in hearing about tables, where it did not work out!
Second, I think that's *one* function of a gathering hub, especially a hub where PCs are supposed to feel safe. But that's the thing: the Vhage Agency is *not* supposed to feel safe; it's supposed to feel strange, eerie, and dangerous despite its minimalism. The hub's purpose is not to give the PCs a place to rest in between adventures; rather, it's to give the PCs a place to assemble clues and discuss their plight.
Or at least that's how I am thinking of the Vhage Agency. Does that make sense? There's nothing wrong with changing it to fit you suggestions, of course; let a thousand flowers bloom!
Thanks very much for your questions and for watching! Cheers!
Great works again.
Many thanks for watching! Be sure to let me know here in the comments if you run this at your table. I'd love to hear how it goes! Best wishes, and cheers!
Late to comment I immediately thought that Felmira and Flintlock are two presentations of the same character, inspired by Naota from the Persona series, but one where Felmira wants to be flintlock but is denying herself. Also I had the idea that the room changes each time the pcs enter like a set that changes but is always an interior and goes from feminine Flimira and masculine Flintlock
Thank you so much for this video! I was looking forward to it!
My pleasure! Glad you enjoy it, and I hope you find it useful! Best wishes, and cheers!
Oh, you can bet yout yas I'm making the Vhage Agency my central hub! Not only that, the PCs will eventually turn out to be figments of Flimira's imagination whom she uses to revisit her past cases as she searches for a way out of the agency that she refuses to believe is her domain.
I think I'll sprinkle hints for the PCs throughout: maybe Flimira and her party were the children you describe in the Tepest episode, abducted at birth by Mother Lorinda: one of them ends up being recaptured and turned into one of her monstrous children, through which the PCs can learn about Flimira's childhood; another might become the Headless Horseman, decapitated by Isolde and who takes the PCs to a domain that contains another secret of Flimira's; heck, to justify Flimira having a domain of her own, maybe she's the one who advised the Last Passenger to trigger the Mourning. And The Caller might be the only "real" entity that the PCs encounter.
In the final confrontation, Flimira will have AC, hit points, and stats, but these are only representations of the PCs' power to sway her and force her to confront her sins.
Ah, what an excellent idea for incorporating these Domain adventures into each other, using the Vhage Agency as the tying thread!
I'd love to hear how this goes at your table; it's always delightful to hear how different DMs adapt and play out these story ideas. Please let me know; don't be a stranger! Best wishes, and cheers!
@@phdnd-drbowers As you know, the greatest challenge is always actually getting to play a campaign, but I will! Thank you for your interest.
If you don't mind, I have one last question: when you say that the PCs level up in your adventures, do they also get the benefit of a long rest, or do they only gain a Hit Die and new class features?
Do you have a document that shares all these ideas quite hard to write them all down if you're just listening to them
I'm working on a book of these adventures and media sources, which will be up on DM's Guild. I'll announce it when it's finished! Best wishes, and cheers!
are you going to do scholomance and Borca?
Borca is just now up! Let me know your thoughts! Best wishes, and cheers!