Warlock
Old name: Magic-User
Description: Warlocks are men
and women who seek occult knowledge in a never-ending quest for
personal power. Some attempt to use white magic to beat back the
darkness, while others have no qualms over battering their souls away
for arcane secrets.
Inspirations: Dion Fortune's The
Demon Lover, H. P. Lovecraft's “The Dunwich Horror”
Changes: 1d6 Hit Points per
level. Many spells with receive a heavy re-flavoring to be more
in-line with the genre. Expect many of those flashier staples
(Fireball, Magic Missile, etc.) to become more subtle and more darkly
hued. For example, while the usual
Fly spell is pretty lame as-is, if it becomes a spell that can
only be used to fly if that character rides a broom Walpurgis
Nacht-style, then we might be in business.
Also, it's a very
flavorful thing to give your warlock a “theme” that colors his or
her use of magic. For example, if your warlock uses “shadow
magic,” then we can give all of her spells subtle (or
not-so-subtle) trappings and effects that reflect her style of magic.
Some possible themes: diabolic pacts, spectral magic, blood magic,
astrological magic, fey enchantment, Lovecraftian magic of madness,
voodoo, etc.
MeSmerist
Old name: Illusionist
Description: Mesmerists are
cunning men and women who have mastered the arts of mind, control,
suggestion, and illusion.
Inspirations: Charles Brockden
Brown's Wieland, George du Maurier's Trilby
Changes: 1d6 Hit Points per
level. See Warlock for changes in the way spells are flavored.
Bandit
Old name: Thief
Description: Bandits are outlaws
and wolf's heads who skirt the laws of enlightened civilization; they
may be ruffians and highwaymen who care little for else besides their
own gain, or they might be rebels who strike back against an
oppressive regime.
Inspirations:
Ann
Radcliffe's The
Mysteries of Udolfo,
Percy Shelley's Zastrozzi
Changes:
1d6 Hit Points per level. A bandit gets a +10% bonus to the Pick
Locks, Find and Remove Traps, Pick Pockets, Move Silently, and Hide
in Shadows special abilities.
Assassin
Old Name: Assassin
Description: Assassins are
experts in the art of dealing death; some assassins are merely
cold-blooded killers-for-hire, others are principled murderers
seeking to avenge a great wrong.
Inspirations: Ann
Radcliffe's The Italian,
Edgar
Allan Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado”
Changes: 1d6 Hit Points per
level. Assassin's get all thief abilities as if they were a thief of
the same level; they do not get bonuses to these abilities as a
bandit does.
One thing you'll note: no monks.
Wouldn't 'Executioner' be a bit more gothic than the exotic assassin with its arabian origin?
ReplyDeleteNot really, no! Check out the intro to Ann Radcliffe's The Italian, for example. The assassin living out his life in the refuge of the Black Penitents is a pretty nice model of how the assassin fits into Gothic literature in general. It's a literary more that's pretty filthy with assassins, actually.
DeleteNot to mention that the Gothic was obsessed with "exoticism." The arabian influence on the assassin class works well when you think about William Beckford's Vathek, Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya, or Poe's "arabesque."
I like these, though they do seem to span a quite of bit of history in terms of their prime era. Of course, that's a complaint that could be leveled at the traditional classes, as well!
ReplyDeleteIt's a valid complaint, but I think the patchwork nature of Ravenloft will help a bit here. After all the domains themselves have a pretty uneven historical/technological/cultural distribution, so some hand-waving is practically required.
DeleteAlso, if you take the long-view on the Gothic source material (which I do!) then you're stuck with a historical span going from the medieval (such as Castle of Otranto) up to the beginnings of the 20th century (Stoker's Lair of the White Worm).