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| Welcome to Donskoy's Keep. |
And now, for the last Haunted House of Ravenloft for the season, we're leaving the places I've actually run and venturing somewhere a little different: Donskoy's Keep.
Donskoy's Keep isn't an adventure module waiting to be run. It's a location from Andria Cardarelle's To Sleep with Evil, a Ravenloft novel full of Gothic horror, murder, secrets, and ghosts who aren't quite finished with the people who wronged them.
I haven't run Donskoy's Keep. But I've been thinking about how I would run it. What follows is my attempt to take the novel's ingredients—Lord Donskoy, Jacqueline Montarri, the Vistani dead, the decaying Keep, and the Mists—and turn them into a playable Halloween one-shot.
Donskoy can be a Noble. Jacqueline can be a Dullahan. The Vistani dead provide the supernatural horror. The Keep provides the stage.
Let's see what happens when the Mists bring the players there.
The Donskoy Keep One-Shot in ? Pages
Pick your system; LotFP or Shadowdark. Grab the corresponding pre-gens or make your
own 4th level PC in your favored system. I'll probably use a mix of Shadowdark and
5e monster stat blocks when I eventually playtest it myself. For now, I'm giving you a
starting point for running it in your own game.
The adventure doesn't require the players to solve everything.
They can fight.
They can flee.
They can investigate.
They can bargain.
They can pursue the mystery.
The location provides the pressure and the NPCs provide their agendas; the players
determine what happens.
Scene Outline:
0:00–0:30 — The Hunt
The PCs are traveling when the Mists descend. They eventually emerge onto a road
through the Donskoy Forest. Visibility is poor. The forest is unnaturally quiet. The PCs
encounter Donskoy and Jacqueline hunting travelers. Then they see another group of
travelers. Except these aren't travelers. Donskoy (Noble) and Jacqueline (Dullahan)
are hunting. Donskoy is looking for supplies. Jacqueline is looking for heads of women,
preferably young and pretty ones. I'd have the PCs initially see them as two mysterious
figures rather than immediately announcing who they are. Then the situation turns violent.
Donskoy should have a reason to leave. He's not there to stand in an arena and fight the
adventurers until somebody dies. He's hunting. If the situation becomes inconvenient, he
withdraws into the forest. Jacqueline, meanwhile, may be considerably more interested in
the PCs. She wants a head. That gives her a wonderfully simple motivation for the entire
adventure.
0:30–1:30 — The Wagon
They discover the abandoned Vistani Wagon and learn about Donskoy's murdered wife
and the massacre of her family. Ramus the Vistani Ghost knows Donskoy's history and
can tell the PCs:
Donskoy has done this before.
He repeatedly married women, blamed them for his inability to father a
child, and murdered them.
Donskoy married a Vistani woman.
He blamed her when she failed to produce a child.
He murdered her.
He then murdered her family/clan.
Their deaths cursed him.
The curse stained Donskoy's hands black.
The curse spread to his Keep.
1:30–3:00 — The Keep
They investigate Donskoy's home and discover the pattern of murdered wives and
the supernatural nature of his curse. If they skipped the Vistani Wagon, they can find
Zosia, an old cook in the kitchen, to relay some of the same information.
Donskoy can die without the curse being resolved. The curse exists because the
dead have been denied justice. The players need to acknowledge the crime and
confront Donskoy with it. These aren't three separate quests or required skill
checks; they're the principles behind breaking the curse. Let the players decide how
they satisfy them. I'd make the curse revolve around three things:
1. The truth must be revealed.
The PCs must discover what happened to the Vistani clan.
2. The dead must be acknowledged.
The names or remains of the murdered family need to be recovered—or their story
publicly spoken/recognized.
3. Donskoy must face judgment.
He must either:
confess,
be confronted by the dead,
or be killed while the curse is invoked against him.
This gives the players several possible solutions.
3:00–4:00 — The Reckoning
Donskoy confronts them. The dead appear. Jacqueline complicates matters. The PCs
decide whether to kill Donskoy, expose him to the dead, or simply escape.
Three Possible Endings
I'd actually give the DM multiple endings rather than one canonical solution.
Ending A — Donskoy Dies
The PCs kill Donskoy. The curse consumes him. The blackness spreads over his body.
The Keep begins to collapse or decay. The Mists open.
The PCs escape.
Ending B — The Dead Claim Him
The PCs don't necessarily kill Donskoy. They expose the truth and invoke the curse.
The ghosts drag him away. Jacqueline may even stand aside and watch. The PCs survive.
The Mists release them.
Ending C — They Fail
The PCs don't solve the mystery. Donskoy survives. Jacqueline survives. The Mists
remain. The PCs are either forced back onto the road—or become the next people
being hunted. That gives you a wonderfully bleak Ravenloft ending:
They escaped Donskoy Keep. They didn't escape the domain.
4:00–4:30 — The Mists
The survivors leave—or discover that the Mists have other plans. If you run this as a
One-Shot, you can have the PCs fade away into the Mists at the end. If you spin it into
a larger campaign, the PCs can transit the Mists, much more easily if they claim
Jacqueline’s Locket (Mist Token). Reading Ravenloft lore, Donskoy’s Keep is a
Pocket Domain placed somewhere in larger Darkon, so they could be exiting
Donskoy’s Domain into a Darkon campaign!
Secrets and Clues in Donskoy’s Domain
Lord Milos Donskoy is the Darklord of Donskoy’s Keep and Forest.
He can open and close the borders of the Domain.
Jacqueline Montarri is a Dullahan and Lord Donskoy’s part-time lover.
Jacqueline will kill attractive young women to steal their heads.
Lord Donskoy steals supplies from travelers that come through the
Mists.
Lord Donskoy’s last wife was a Vistani woman named Valeska.
He killed her and her family.
He is cursed by the restless ghosts of those he has massacred.
Jacqueline possesses a Mist Token and can travel in and out of
Donskoy’s Domain when he has the borders open.
Befriending Griezellbub, the Toad Familiar of Zosia the “cook”, with
food or praise will pay off. Griezellbub knows all the paths, ways, doors,
corridors, tunnels, etc in the Domain.
Zosia has enough herbal preparations to heal each PC 1d6 HP one time.
Locations in Donskoy’s Domain
Donskoy Forest
Abandoned Vistani Wagon
Donskoy Keep
Pit Trap/Great Hall: Where Donskoy receives guests;
the pit trap is an old reminder that guests were not
always welcome.
Red Salon: Donskoy’s favored room; evidence of his
debauchery including his Hookah.
Valeska’s Crypt: Haunted and central to the curse.
Blackened Chapel: Physical manifestation of the
corruption.
Locked Bedrooms (dead wives' clothes, etc.): Evidence
of Donskoy's repeated marriages.
Kitchen: Zosia, Griezellbub, and the practical evidence
of the Keep's inhabitants.
NPCs and Monsters
Lord Milos Donskoy (Noble Stat)
Jacqueline Montarri (Dullahan Stat)
Zosia (Cultist Stat)
Ghost of Ramus (Ghost Stat)
Ghost of Valeska (Ghost Stat)
Griezellbub (Toad Familiar)
Treasure/Magic Items/Rewards
Ramus’ Violin: Once per day, when played within Donskoy's domain, the
violin can cause the spirits of the murdered Vistani to briefly manifest.
They cannot speak, but they can point, gesture, or lead the bearer toward
something connected to the massacre.
Valeska’s Brooch: The bearer gains a +1 bonus to saving throws against
curses, possession, and effects caused by undead.
Jacqueline’s Locket: A Mist token that can ease travel between Domains
of Dread.
Lord Donskoy’s Hookah: If filled with an appropriate herb and smoked,
its smoke forms vague images of people or places connected to a question
asked by the smoker. Once per day, it can provide a cryptic vision concerning
a person, location, or danger.
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