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Community SupporterThe Truth Behind the Apparatus and the Origins of Ravenloft!
(or Recipe for the Destruction of the Domains of Dread!)
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All right here we go...the much anticipated solution to the Gryphon Hill Paradox. Pretty catchy title, eh? Okay, I know with a beginning like that everything that follows is bound to suck. But its too late now - I'm committed. So here it is:
From the beginning of my Ravenloft campaign I struggled with how to deal with the events that occur in Ravenloft II: House on Gryphon Hill and how they relate to the rest of the campaign setting hoping that one day TSR would publish something that would make sense of it all. They never did, and as far as I know no one else did either. So, several years ago, when I had a player who made a character that wanted to spend much of his time researching the Apparatus (even though the player knew very little about it himself), I decided to do as much research as I could on the device as possible and perhaps, at long last, come up with a possible solution to what I think is the greatest enigma in the Ravenloft setting. This is what I found:
According to the original boxed set (Realm of Terror pgs. 56, 77, 91, 97, 117), the Apparatus was believed to have been built by an alchemist (no name given) in Mordent, who experimented with it. When it splits a personality into good and evil, the dark side is so evil it could become a Darklord, possibly gaining great powers and physical change. It will also try to destroy the other half. Strahd and Azalin found passage to Mordent as the land became a part of Ravenloft. They became entwined in the alchemist's experiments. Then the Apparatus was believed to have been destroyed. Lord Godefroy became the Darklord when Strahd and Azalin left. Neither Strahd or Azalin can remember what happened there.
The second boxed set (Domains and Denizens pgs. 24, 99) adds that the devise, according to some, can take the soul away from any being and cast it into oblivion. It also says that it was Azalin who transported he and Strahd to Mordent.
Domains of Dread says almost nothing about the Apparatus.
The third edition Core Rulebook (pg. 15) adds only that, according to folklore, the alchemist was a human, and that Strahd and Azalin visited Mordent.
The novel, Kind of the Dead (pg. 250), skips over the whole event.
The novel, I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin (pgs. 223 - 226), talks only about the portal that Azalin creates, that, unkown to them, leads to Mordent, and which sucks he and Strahd into. Then it skips to the point where they find themselves back in Barovia, unable to remember anything about where they went, or what happened to them while they were gone.
Obviously, the best source of information comes from the module, Ravenloft II: House on Gryphon Hill. But it is very contradictory with the original Ravenloft module and even more so with other published material. There is too much material in this module to fully detail here. But in brief it gives an alternate background for what it refers to as The Creature (Strahd the Vampire) saying that it is the evil half of Strahd the Alchemist which was separated from him by the Apparatus. The module gives some suggestions on how it can be used in conjunction with the original module including the idea that one of these modules represents reality while the other one represents a sort-of dream world. Part of the problem is that the campaign setting assumes that both are reality and does not explain how this can be.
So, as stated before, the question then becomes: How can a human alchemist named Count Strahd von Zarovich (Rav II:HoGH), move to a land in the prime material version of Mordent, in the year 578 (Barovian Calendar) where he builds a machine, that one year later, in 579, splits his personality, thus creating The Creature (Count Strahd Von Zarovich the Vampire), who already has a history of being a vampire, and the Darklord of Barovia, for the previous 229 years, as well as a human warlord for the previous 51 years before that? All of these dates concur with all of the books listed above including the timeline in Domains of Dread and the timeline posted on the Fraternity of Shadows' website.
Clearly this is a rather puzzling enigma - one that I don't think the original creators of the campaign setting intended to have. I thought about this dilemma for a long, long time and I could find no way to just change a few dates here and there, or come up with some time alteration, or a dream-world, or anything that would, in my opinion, satisfactorily solve the problem. The thought occured to me, in fact, that perhaps this was the reason many of the authors said that Strahd and Azalin can't remember anything about their time in Mordent, or simply avoided the subject altogether. It appeared to me that none of these authors wanted to touch it with a ten-foot pole!
This was the point at which I was stuck when the third edition Gazetteer Vol. III was published. It goes into much more detail about Mordent and in it (pgs. 46 - 48) it basically repeats and agrees with everything ever written before about the alchemist and his machine - but still it doesn't really provide a logical explanation for any of it.
Here, however, was when that little light went on in my head. A thought occured to me that we (I include here my fellow fans as well as numerous personalities of Ravenloft) had been looking at that matter from the wrong perspective. I then came up with an idea that would rock the foundations of Ravenloft itself! And although it went contrary to my original tastes, I eventually realized, that for me at least, it was the only solution that made any sense. Now of course, there may be other solutions out there that I just haven't thought of. So keep an open mind and remember its just an idea:
A Possible Answer
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First of all - forget, for the time being, what you may know about the unversally accepted background of Count Strahd the liberator of Barovia. Ravenloft doesn't start with him. The true beginning of Ravenloft starts with Strahd the Alchemist, a normal and caring young man who moved to a land called Mordent, fell in love with a woman named Virginia Weathermay and moved into a mansion known as the House on Gryphon Hill. This young alchemst, wishing to divest himself of his darker half, built a device known as the Apparatus and did in fact split his personality. His dark half, as the alchemist believed, was cast into some other world unknown to him. This other world was a nether region in the Ethereal Plane; a demi-plane created by higher powers to imprison the so-called Dark Powers. But the dark half was now stripped of much of his psyche including most of his memories - these memories had been nearly fully retained by the alchemist whereas the dark half consisted only of rage and other negative aspects.
The Dark Powers of the nether region however, were curious about the being that suddenly appeared in the midst of their lonely prison, and decided to use the creature to amuse themselves. First they delved into what was left of the creature's mind to gain a better understanding of its nature and its homeworld. Then, using that information, they gave it life and made it human once more. Finally, they provided it with a lifetime of memories and created a kind of psuedo-world for it to live in based on a world familiar to the Dark Powers and the scant information gleaned from the creature itself. Then the Dark Powers waited and observed. Occasionally they made additions to the world they had already created, in order to see how the creature reacted.
The world of Strahd of Barovia then was nothing but an illusion and false memories. His true life, and therefore his true memories, did not actually begin until what he believed to be the year 320 of the Barovian Calendar, when he decided to take up arms against the Tergs, whom he was led to believe had invaded his ancient homeland. For this was the first test that the Dark Powers had put before him. Every decision he has made since then was his and his alone.
But, though the Dark Powers had made every effort to make their "game" a fair one, in the end, Strahd the warlord was doomed to fail, for deep down inside, his soul was pure evil. And eventually, one day, his true nature would again resurface.
And so it was that thirty years later, Strahd made his pact with "Death", which was just another aspect of the Dark Powers themselves. As a result, he was sentenced with his curse, and the Dark Powers forever changed him and the world they had created for him. Strahd had failed in the eyes of the Dark Powers, and so like the Dark Powers, he too would now become a prisoner.
In time, the Dark Powers became aware of beings whom they felt were just as deserving of imprisonment as Strahd. These other beings were then drawn into Ravenloft, followed by other lands. And Ravenloft began to expand.
Then finally one day, the Dark Powers, as they searched other worlds for beings both good and evil to draw to their realm and amuse them, they came across one that caught their attention: the original home of Strahd. They recognized it from the mental images that Strahd The Creature had retained, when they first discovered him. And from their vantage point, the Dark Powers could see across, not only planar boundaries, but vast distances of time as well. And there in that world, they could see both the Apparatus that had spawned their first Darklord, and it's creator, of whom he was once a part.
This, they decided was an opportunity they could not pass up . And so they arranged to let Strahd meet back up with his other half by drawing Mordent, across both time and space, into the realm of Ravenloft. Then they granted Strahd and his ally Azalin, access to the land. And to make things more interesting still, they also drew in a band of adventurers to mix things up. Then, as always, they waited and observed.
When Strahd the Creature saw his other half he too suddenly recognized him from mental images and vague memories that were long suppressed by false ones. Strahd was then filled with an overwhelming desire for revenge. And so he began his reign of terror upon the village of Mordentshire using the Apparatus as the key instrument of his grand schemes. Azalin however, saw it as an opportunity to acquire a new body to replace his withered and decayed one.
Of course, things did not go as Strahd and Azalin had hoped they would. Eventually, the Apparatus was destroyed. The Rod of Rastinon, which was needed to operate one of its functions disappeared. And Strahd and Azalin were sent back to Barovia having lost all memory of what had occurred there due to the explosion and the mental strain of being hurled back through the portal.
Here then is my "solution". Cool idea or just wacky nonsense?
But wait there's more! In my next installment I will discuss the intersting ramifications of all this including how this information could be the key to the destruction of the domains of dread. Stay tuned...
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