Masque of the Red Death

Masque of the Red Death was originally (in RPG terms) a campaign setting by TSR and Wizards of the Coast for the Dungeons and Dragons system. Named after Edgar Allan Poe's story of the same name, it was an add-on to the Ravenloft campaign setting. Masque of the Red Death had several facets in common with Ravenloft—it was a gothic horror setting, with mysterious powers, and it had restrictions on magic and planar travel similar to Ravenloft‍'‍s. On the other hand, it was set in a more modern era, an 1890s version of Earth called Gothic Earth.

In this setting, character classes were re-tooled to more modern ones like "Athlete", "Criminal", and "Cowboy", and characters received salaries depending on their career. There were magic-using classes (the Adept) and priest-like ones (the Dilettante), along with some others that were rough parallels of the traditional D&D classes.

The Red Death in this setting was, as were the mists in Ravenloft, a mysterious force that was not strictly defined in the campaign materials. Several theories were floated in the materials to give DMs something to play with. The Red Death was known to raise undead, make people insane or change them into monsters, and move locations around. The Red Death is the source of all magic in the realm. An early preview and Word of God confirm that the Red Death is actually one of Ravenloft's Dark Powers, exiled by the others for some unknown crime.

There are three official incarnations of the setting: The original, 2E based, one, an RPGA exclusive 3.0 based one (which was later partially updated to 3.5) for the Living Death campaign and a 3.5 based one published by White Wolf in 2004, under the Swords and Sorcery imprint, when they held the Ravenloft license. In addition, some of the qabals, and even the Red Death itself, got Cameo mentions in D20 Modern's Urban Fantasy settings. There's also third party version for 5th edition under the DM's Guild license that exploits the fact that the setting was, officially, a Ravenloft supplement instead of a separate setting to get around DM's Guild content being restricted to a handful of settings (Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Eberron or generic fantasy).

Tropes used in Masque of the Red Death include:
  • Bittersweet Ending: The RPGA Campaign's final module actually lets you win and banish the Red Death, but it comes at the cost of all PCs making a Heroic Sacrifice. The epilogue does, however, confirm the heroes go to a positive afterlife.
  • Black Magic: Thanks to corruption by the Red Death, all magic is tainted and casting draws the attention of the Red Death and its corruption. Some spells and uses are worse than others, but all ultimately carry a risk.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: While a horror setting with low power level, victory is possible and even small victories make the world a better place. That the defiance had to be stopped shows even true victory over the Red Death is possible which happens in the finale of Living Death.
  • Game-Favored Gender: While the 2e and 3.5 incarnations use Purely Aesthetic Gender (at least from a game mechanics standpoint), the 3.0 version has a firearms recoil system based on the character's weight. This system forces a strength check if a firearm's user is under 100, 150 or 200 pounds (depending on power of the firearm). Since players get to choose their character's height and weight (which have no other defined effect outside of a mount's load during equestrian), the first two categories (which contain all but two listed firearms) are unlikely to matter for anyone planning to use firearms, but a female elephant rifle user with low strength is unlikely. For all versions, since they're still set in the 1890s, society is expected to react differently to men and women.
  • Historical Domain Character: Show up aplenty in the RPGA scenarios. Most are allies, targets that need saving, or simple window dressing with only the ghost of serial killer H. H. Holmes being evil.
  • Jack of All Stats: Officer in the 3.0 incarnation has good hit points, perfect base attack bonus, good skills (both points and options), Fortitude as a good save, high wealth, good weapon options (only being non-proficient in some melee ones, and the melee options they get are generally enough to cover all bases) and relevant bonus feats with no penalties to anything. Other classes will beat it at one or two areas, but always at the cost of being much worse at the others.
  • Joke Character: Servant and Laborer in the 3.0 incarnation. Servant has low wealth, mediocre hit points, middle of the road BAB, only reflex as a good saving throw [1], merely good (but not great) skill points and a penalty on horror checks, which is a really bad in this setting. Laborer has good hit points, but low skill points (and limited to a poor list), mediocre saves, only slightly better weapon options, and the lowest cash possible.
  • Lighter and Softer: The 5e incarnation tones down how horribly outmatched the PCs are. Casting cantrips and rituals is possible without a dark powers check and while heroic classes are still less powerful than normal D&D heroes (though with firearms in play that is debatable), no longer are they glorified NPCs.
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: One RPGA module has the players fight the ghost of serial killer H. H. Holmes. Since the real acts attributed to him might be dismissed as cartoon villainy made up by the module's author (like use of a booby trapped death maze), the GM is directed to an article on him. Some of the details might be totally fiction, but they would have been created by contemporary yellow journalism rather than for the game.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: The 5e incarnation adds a new skill of "Science" to the standard 5e set. Medicine and Nature ("terrain, plants and animals, the weather, and natural cycles") remain their own separate skills however. Also the Sleuth has several talents based on scientific disciplines and while taking all of them is impossible, taking several unrelated ones is entirely possible.
  • Public Domain Character: Sherlock Holmes, and supporting cast, are real on Gothic Earth and feature in one of the original adventures for the setting. Frankenstein's Monster also appears.
  • Urban Fantasy/Gaslamp Fantasy/Gothic Horror: Fits all of these genres.
  1. ↑ considered the least important of the three saves since while failed fortitude saves will kill you/make you useless, and failed will saves make you useless or force you to kill your friends, failed reflex saves generally only cause damage or restrict mobility
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