D&D: Five New Ravenloft Bastion Options – Including The Backrooms?
Did you know that among the spooky new Ravenloft Bastion facilities, you can find the Backrooms? And other cool stuff too.
One of the selling points of Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, is that it tackles a wide variety of horror genres. Including the creepypasta genre, it seems. Of all the things I expected to find in a Ravenloft book, I can safely say a not-so-oblique reference to the Backrooms was not one of them. But it’s not just the Backrooms; a few other horror icons get referenced in the Bastion facility entries.
It’s just part of what makes them so much fun. So with that in mind, here are five of our favorites of the new horror-themed Bastion facilities.
Rookery
Add an actual raven loft to your games of Ravenloft with the Rookery. Rookeries are where people keep ravens, which feels especially apropos for the Ravenloft book. Starting at level 5, you can pick up this special facility. When you do, you gain a number of ravens equal to your character level.
In addition to adding to the ambience whenever they fly in out of the night’s plutonian shore, these ravens can be used to send a message of 25 words or fewer to a creature you have met, or had described to you. Or, you can send the ravens out to the various Domains of Dread to create a special Mist talisman to get you into the Domain of Dread of your choice.
Seance Parlor
You gotta have a Seance Parlor if you’re playing with horror. It’s a place right in your very sanctum where the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead grows thin, and you can find ways to attune to and commune with those beyond the pale.
Specifically, this facility lets you speak with the dead, even if you don’t have a corpse to cast the spell on. All you need is an object that was significant to whoever it is you want to speak to. Also, you can use this once per Bastion turn to gain Heroic Inspiration by seeing what omens fate has in store for you.
Spirit Vault
The Spirit Vault is basically just the Containment Unit from Ghostbusters, except because it’s D&D it’s a whole room. It is a room that has been “magically warded to imprison and exorcise malevolent spirits and other supernatural forces.” Meaning it is a haunted place. But you can use the Spirit Vault to gain a Charm of Exorcism (letting you cast Dispel Evil or Good or Remove Curse) or a Charm of Malediction (which gives you a level 3 Hex or Bestow Curse) making it kind of a little bit like a Ghostbuster’s trap if you stretch the metaphor.
Also you can have the lone hireling that dares to work this facility attempt to research the occult within it, giving you the benefits of a Contact Other Plane spell. Though they might die in the attempt. You can try in their stead, though you run the risk of 6d6 Psychic damage when contacting the other plane gets a little too risky (rolling a 1 on 1d6).
Lightning Generator
The Lightning Generator is a perfect Bastion Facility for any mad scientist, adventurous Artificer, or someone hoping to just wield the power of lightning to show those fools at the university once and for all. It’s basically the lab from Frankenstein, and it lets you create a Large or Huge Animated Object that can accompany you for up to 7 days with no Concentration.
Then of course it has the power to bring the dead back to life the way only Evanescence can dream of. You can use the facility to cast Raise Dead or Resurrection at a significant discount. Or, if you spend a Long Rest in the Lightning Generator, which seems exceptionally dangerous, you take 8d6 lightning damage but also gain a magical charm from being hit by lightning, allowing you to cast Telekinesis up to 3 times before you lose the power of lightning.
Liminal Space
Finally, the Liminal Space. Your Bastion becomes connected to the Backrooms. Er. To “an unfathomable demiplane filled with vast, empty spaces and strange beings.” And true to form, this facility doesn’t take up space in your Bastion, you can just find its entrance in closets, crawlspaces, and other related places in the Bastion.
Those strange entities in the Liminal Space are unknowable, but they can be convinced to work to defend your Bastion. You have to conduct a ritual to summon the weird Backrooms creature, and it might kill the hireling who tries to summon it, but if you succeed, you get a super Bastion Defender in the form of an Unspeakable Horror. Also, you can use the Liminal Space to gain a Dark Gift or swap one for another.
I’m just surprised there isn’t a Gremlins facility in there somewhere…
