#the vampire darklord himself

[mochizuke-creates]

I have to color him still but this lineart took me eleven hours. ; U;b

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Captain Alain Monette

Domain: L'ile de La Tempete Domain Formation: 677 BC Power Level:💀⚫⚫⚫⚫ Source: Darklords (2e)

Captain, or I should say former Captain, Alain Monette is yet another sea captain Darklord that enjoyed abusing his crew for the tiniest of transgressions. Very much like our would be navigator, Captain Pieter van Riese.

I’m not sure why so many Captains are like this as it leaves them with no allies when the inevitable mutiny occurs. So, it should come as no surprise that this 7 foot tall, rail-thin abusive Captain was overthrown by his crew. Without getting into the gory details, they strung him up and tortured him for hours before tossing his, somehow still living, body into the sea.

He was taken by the Mists then and found himself, nearly dead and unable to move, within a sea cave on the island L’ile de la Tempête. The sea cave was overpopulated by bats that feasted on Monette’s flesh and blood each night. In turn, Monette fed on the bats during the day in an attempt to regain his strength. You know, outside of Ravenloft, most bats feed on insects and fruit, which is why I will almost always insult vampires by calling them ticks or fleas over bats. I digress... This circular feeding transformed Monette into a werebat. Quite an unique way to obtain the curse of lycanthropy and something I must attempt to replicate in the future. Monette has attempted to leave his little island many times as he desires nothing more than to explore the seas and be within the company of others. If that was the case, you think he would have been a little kinder to others? Our tormentors, ever petty, keep him from ever making it very far before he grows tired and turns around. What a pathetic quitter this one is.

He has no control over his lycanthropy and his change is linked to the tides. Every day, at high tide, he becomes a werebat. He is driven by his hunger for human flesh and blood, so he built a lighthouse on his island to lure travelers there. He calls it the “Eye of Midnight” and placed a skull enchanted with a continual light spell atop the structure. Which is, I admit, rather ingenious if not simplistic. Though where he obtained the skull...I suppose since he lacks the intellect to cast spells himself, it was likely a “gift” from the Dark Powers.

His island is surrounded by jagged cliffs, so any sailors foolish enough to be drawn in by his light are more likely than not to have their vessel crash and sink. Monette sometimes appears to these ship wrecked individuals as a man, if the timing is right, to enjoy their company for a while...until his hunger overcomes him, anyway.

A werebat that became such through circular bat eating that has no control over his form. A captain forever trapped on an island without a ship. 0.5 skulls and I am being generous. 

[lordsothofsithicus]

Touch of Death Review

Hey all, I found a review I wrote of the 2nd edition Ravenloft adventure, Touch of Death. Warning, it's pretty long

First, the cover.  A Boris Karloff-looking mummy looms in front of a backdrop of cracked and aged hieroglyphics, superimposed in front is a swooning woman scantily-clad in a style evocative of the Rom, except she’s blond and blue-eyed.

This cover grabs the eye, but is really old-fashioned.  It also doesn’t really evoke the plot.  Not that I think that’s necessary.  A cover-artist’s job is to get your attention.  In this case, I think it succeeded… but also that this cover has really gone out of style.  Still, it’s a reminder that the story is the story, but it’s the cover that puts the butts in the proverbial seats.

The story begins with your PCs helping a group of Vistani (Rom-analogues, who have recently returned to D&D with much revision because the old depictions of them were spectacularly racist) whose wagon threw a wheel.  The group’s young matriarch, a Vistani girl named Dulcimae, asks the players for their help.  This is unusual for the older Ravenloft stuff in that the Vistani, while suspicious of the party, aren’t malevolent or sinister - they just need help sorting out their wagon.  The opening of the adventure is contingent on the PCs helping the Vistani and doesn’t offer alternative paths, but then again D&D isn’t the game of not helping people who are in a tight spot.  In exchange for the players’ help, Dulcimae offers to lead them out of the Domains of Dread.

Needless to say this adventure isn’t about leaving the Domains of Dread with a group of Vistani after you help them fix their wagon.  Though I think that there’d be a sort of poetry to that especially if players had been there for awhile.  There’d probably be some indignant sputtering.  Someone would say “That’s it?  That’s all we had to do?” 

After that your friends wouldn’t talk to you anymore, but you’d have won a moral victory.

The Mists of Ravenloft have other plans, and they divert your fly Vistani ride into the sandy hellhole of Har’Akir.  No, really, 2nd Edition Har’Akir sucked.  You’d be happier in one of the domains full of vampires.  You pass into Har’Akir bounded on one side by a sheer cliff with a searing wall of heat to your back and a crappy little mud-brick village up ahead.  The description of Har’Akir given by the module reads:  “The domain is a very simple place. There are two roads, a village with a spring, a canyon ridden cliff, and a lot of sun and sand.”

It specifically says that if you yell at Dulcimae about this, she’ll cry.

It goes on to describe how miserable life in Har’Akir is, and how there’s almost no food to be had and that the people of Mudar don’t die because the waters of the oasis sustain them.  Life must be awful if you have Water Plus and everything still sucks.  Presumably if they try to dig an irrigation ditch and grow a garden the Darklord loses his cookies and smashes it.

Also is the name of the village Mudar or Muhar?  Even the adventure can’t keep track - in the text it’s Mudar, on the map it’s Muhar.  

There’s more here, mostly to drive home the point of how hard-up the people of Mudar/Muhar are and how at the mercy they are of… well, everything.  The desert, monsters, you name it.  They even provide you with an NPC, an orphan boy named Abu who’s so desperate to leave the desert hellhole that he attaches himself to the party as a hireling… are they still a hireling if you don’t need to pay for them?  They also provide another hireling, one capable of reading the Akirran hieroglyphics, but honestly his prices are pretty ridiculous.  5 GP a day and a 100 GP rider to enter the final dungeon.  If your PCs are a bunch of min-maxing fools then they best pay up because the Wizard never bothered to pick up Comprehend Languages and Har’Akirrans use a Hieroglyphic alphabet.  “You can’t use that in a fight!  It’s stupid!”  Haha, guess you’re paying 5 gold a day so you’re not stuck in Hell’s Sandbox forever, shoulda thought of that, Fireballs McLightningbolt!  Better not let this guy die!

Actually, progressing through Touch of Death doesn’t require you to bring either hireling along.  The most they do is translate flavor text for the party.  Which is another thing wrong with this module.

After this misery breakdown, the module introduces the plot, which starts with people going missing from Mudar/Muhar every few nights, with the villagers occasionally finding a withered corpse.  It talks about the domain’s darklord and how the people view him (...not well, considering their circumstances).  The only light in this forsaken place is Muhar/Mudar’s temple and its benevolent high priestess.

A slight digression here, the plot of Touch of Death kicks off with an introduction that in part says “This module is partially event driven which means that certain events take place regardless of where the PCs are or what they are doing.”  This is a big red flag, because it means that the plot of the adventure is on rails, and isn’t reactive to what the player characters are doing.  This means that they’re not integrated into the arc of the story, which can lead to disenfranchisement if the DM doesn’t fix it.  A DM should have to make adjustments, but they shouldn’t have to fix anything in an adventure to make it work.

These fixed plot points occur night-by-night.  Each one is assumed to happen as written, and isn’t reactive to the actions of the players in any meaningful way.  As indicated, their presence isn’t even required for half of them.  Great.

After this, there are spoilers.  I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum, but you’ve been warned.

Day/Night 1:  The cool part of Night 1 is the introduction of the Desert Zombie, a Fast Zombie variant on the ol’ shambler with the ability to erupt out of the sand and ambush the unwary.  They also have the ability to rapidly burrow through sand as if swimming, but that’s stupid when they can just lie in wait.  It’s not like they have anywhere else to be.

On the first night, the party is supposed to get their first look at the Big Bad and fight a pitched battle with a small horde of Desert Zombies, who kill and drag off as many of the Vistani as they can catch (but explicitly not Dulcimae, who hides).  

Day/Night 2: This starts off with Dulcimae doing a Tarokka (that’s a fictional Tarot analogue used by the Vistani) reading for the party.  It’s kind of cool that this is meant to be interactive, though the adventure is written as if you’ll just use a deck of Bicycle cards instead of the deck that came with the Red Box… yes, I remember.  The downside of this is that there’s almost no flexibility to the reading, you just keep pulling cards until the ones indicated come up, all others are “false readings.”

Honestly you’re better off just narrating the fortune-telling, in my opinion.

The next night, the Big Bad comes back with more zombies, including any of the Vistani they managed to drag off on night one.  This is once again a fight on rails, since no matter what the PCs do the zombies drag off Dulcimae and kill the rest of the Vistani.

This is by far the most frustrating part of this adventure, and also the part where it most shows its age.  But I’ll elaborate on that in a little bit.

Day/Night Three: On day three, the Big Bad frames the PCs as being involved in the murders… even though they started before the party got to Mudar/Muhar and… this is just super frustrating.  What is the point of Day Three?  The party gets shut out by the village, which is annoying but to… what effect?  There’s nothing they need there, Mudar/Muhar is a toilet that doesn’t even have a place to resupply.  If you need water you have a whole oasis you can draw it from while glaring daggers at the Mudar/Muharites.  If the PCs weren’t present for what happened to the Vistani on Night 2 they don’t get framed, they don’t get shut out by the villagers… and this has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the plot.

On night three, a Force Ghost of Dulcimae shows up, frantically pointing the PCs at the temple.  Instead of slowly dropping hints to the party that all is not as it seems, sinister revelations and creeping fear, the party gets a ghost, frantically waving and pointing.  K.

Inside, the benevolent high priestess is caught red-handed.  Literally red-handed, since she just finished making a human sacrifice out of Dulcimae.  There’s a fight (naturally) which can end a couple of different ways (and the way the priestess tries to outfox the PCs is actually quite clever and very Egyptian), but however it ends Day/Night 4 is pretty well fixed.

Day/Night Four: The villagers are angry that the PCs killed the Benevolent Priestess (even if they didn’t pull it off) and try to lynch the party.  The text says they won’t disperse until the PCs kill at least three of them, and that the lynch mob will come after the party every day until the adventure concludes.  This is incredibly frustrating, as it leaves no room for player cleverness or persuasiveness, and is basically just railroading the players into a Dark Powers Check because they did Something Bad.  Bad PCs, bad!  Don’t *bap* kill *bap* peasants! *bap*  Even if the adventure makes you!  *bap*

On Night Four, the Big Bad decides the PCs have to go, and sends Mummy Dulcimae after them at the head of a troop of Teriyaki-flavored Desert Zombies.  Once again, the outcome of this encounter is largely on rails.  There are some minor variables but the overall outcome is fixed.

Day/Night Five: There isn’t even an entry for Day Five, so just assume the PCs have to beat down the angry mob I guess.

On Night Five, the Big Bad comes to mess with the PCs himself, along with Mumcimae and every other NPC that got Railroaded to death in the course of the adventure.  There isn’t really a point to this, and the encounter basically stipulates that the Big Bad beats the crap out of the party (knowing his 2E stats, it’s highly likely at the suggested PC level) until another NPC who has no further bearing on the adventure shows up, and the Big Bad runs off rather than confront them.  PCs aren’t given the slightest clue who this NPC is or why the antagonist would retreat rather than fight them.

Day/Night Six: The PCs murder a horde of 30-40 Mudar/Muharites during their daily confrontation with the angry mob.  Like you do.  Everyone remembers that fun D&D battle they had with a horde of 40 angry level 0 townsfolk.  So fun, right?  ...Right?

On Night Six, it’s assumed that the players head out to the module-concluding dungeon, ifi they haven’t already.  Despite the previous encounters offering no clue that the PCs should go there outside of the card reading.

So overall my review of these encounters is… not good.  If you run these as written without disguising that they’re on rails really well I could easily see players getting frustrated and losing their investment in the adventure.  Instead of slowly reeling them in with clues that all is not well in the land of Sand and Misery and Zombie Jerky, the adventure just drops a ‘GO HERE’ on the party… but there’s no payoff, because they can’t save the NPC in whom they’re presumably emotionally invested (even though all Dulcimae does in the adventure is cry if people are mean to her, give a card reading, hide, swoon, and faint).  

What happens to Dulcimae is a legitimately bad example of Fridging, and if you want to run Touch of Death I’d strongly advise you to fix it - you should probably dramatically change the way she behaves, and give your players an opportunity to rescue her if they can figure out where she’s been taken in time.

There are other examples of fridging in this adventure, since other NPCs the party is supposed to get attached to like Abu the Orphan Boy are also supposed to be killed and thrown back at the PCs as monsters.  I understand that character death generates horror for the PCs and your players, but I posit that there are better ways to do it than the options Touch of Death lays out for you.

If you don’t know what Fridging is (you probably do but I try not to assume), it’s when a character, almost always a woman (but I also extend it to children and animals. I do believe it’s possible to Fridge a male character, it’s just done to women in fiction much more often), exists as a character only to die horribly so that their death can give pathos and drama to someone else’s story.

After Six Days and Nights in sunny Har’Akir, the module goes into the layout of the dungeons the PCs will visit during the module, the Temple of Mudar/Muhar and Pharoah’s Rest.  A lot of the things contained in these dungeons are interesting and add weight and mystery to the adventure, but the encounters as given don’t sync up with them as well as they should.  The PCs are pointed toward the Temple by a proverbial blinking sign and toward Pharoah’s Rest by dint of having no place else to go.

The way the adventure ultimately resolves… to be frank, the module doesn’t do a good job of playing up the drama of it, but it’s the best part of the adventure IF you pad it out and dress it up right.  If you played the old SSI computer game The Stone Prophet, they used a version of Touch of Death’s ending to wrap up the game, but made you sweat for it.

Final Review: Touch of Death is one of the adventures that’s part of Hyskosa’s Hexad, AKA the Grand Conjunction adventure series, which is one of D&D’s classic adventure lines… except Touch of Death is quite frankly not very good.  If there’s one thing that’s absolutely true about running an RPG, it’s that you keep the sitting around waiting for something to happen to a minimum and even if you have a path the story should broadly follow, you create options for variability of outcome or unorthodox solutions to encounters.

Those don’t exist in this adventure.  There’s no dawning dread and very little mystery.  The villains’ motivations aren’t well-defined even in the narrative (they have a plan, but the method for achieving their goal is… highly dubious) and the Darklord of Har’Akir, the looming presence of whom should overshadow the whole adventure even for the villains, building up to when the PCs finally meet them… is barely touched on.  Even an important point of order between the two principal villains is there in their DM-facing write ups but isn’t made relevant in the adventure itself.  PCs aren’t given a way to find out about it, let alone capitalize on it.

If I had to summarize this adventure in one word, that word would be frustrating.  This is a frustrating adventure module not because it’s difficult, but because it’s completely on rails and the scenery facing the players isn’t even that compelling.  There’s a story here though - and that story is The Stone Prophet, which is built out from this adventure and is canonically a sequel to it.  It assumes that the adventurers from Touch of Death lose.

1995’s The Stone Prophet computer game took the basic premise of Touch of Death, expanded it out and built it into a real campaign, one with vibrant NPCs (by early-mid 90s D&D computer game standards), a fun plot, a lot of mystery and satisfying resolutions.  And with no fridging in it.

Edit to add: While it’s not explicitly detailed in Stone Prophet’s story, if you play or read this adventure and then play that game, the circumstances of some of the characters allude to it being set after Touch of Death.  But that doesn’t change the fact that the computer game realized the potential of the best things about this adventure better than Touch of Death itself did.

If you’ve read the new description of Har’Akir in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, they spruced this domain up a lot.  They made Mudar/Muhar (now officially called Muhar) ten times larger (it literally went from a sun-baked collection of hovels clinging to the edge of an oasis to a city of 3,000 on the edge of a lake) and just by filling out the map of the domain created a bunch of story seeds and adventuring hooks where before there were… not a lot.

But having said that, Touch of Death is not a good candidate to be reclaimed as an adventure for 5E, above and beyond compensating for the 5E rewrites to the Har’Akir domain.

I keep comparing Touch of Death to The Stone Prophet for a reason, and that reason is that Stone Prophet is the adventure Touch of Death should have been.  If you’re interested in Har’Akir for your 5E adventures and want to explore an older version of the setting for ideas, you’re better off reading a plot synopsis of Stone Prophet or just getting your retro on and playing it, you can buy it as part of a bundle with Strahd’s Possession at gog.com for ten bucks.  See what D&D computer games were like during the pre-Baldur’s Gate forgotten age!

The guy who wrote this adventure, Bruce Nesmith, wrote a lot of other stuff for TSR when he was their Creative Director, and a lot of his work is better than Touch of Death in concept and execution, though there are some common flaws in execution throughout his adventures that are really at their worst in this module.  An adventure I’ll be reviewing soon, The Created, is arguably Nesmith at both his best and his worst at the exact same time.  

Nesmith later moved on to work for Bethesda and was the lead designer for Skyrim, and honestly adventures like Touch of Death aren’t all that different from grubbing around for shit somebody dropped in the back of a cave full of monsters.  Why’d they drop it there?  Does my going after it have any effect on the outcome of events?  Shrug. Final Thought:

I decided not to do star ratings or thumbs-up/thumbs-down because I don’t usually find those ratings helpful, unless a Mark Millar or Zack Snyder joint pops up on Netflix and then you better believe I’m hammering that thumbs-down as hard as I can.  In this case, my final thought is that when this adventure was published in 1991 it cost $6.95.  That’d be $13.99 in 2021 dollars (when I wrote this review), rounding up to the nearest common US price point.  I don’t think this is a fourteen-dollar adventure.

[dinner-with-strahd]

(Volenta; Playfully antagonistic) Found a new hobby, have you? How long do you think it'll take before you realize talking freely to the peasantry is a bad idea?

“Ah, my dear, Volenta.” A low chuckle escaped his lips. “Have whispers already begun to spread of my… ‘dabbling,’ with the subjects?” The quill in his slender fingers softly relaxed, as his eyes gazed over her face.

“Good.”

He smirked as he took in her playful tone. If anyone else were to speak to him in such a way, he would have believed them to be brazen, ignorant, or both. His darling Volenta, however, was anything but.

He patiently lifted the wine glass to his lips, his eyes drinking in her daring boldness. It was amusing for them both, so why not indulge in such juvenile banter? He may have been seen as the bitter, old vampire lord, but she reminded him how young the two of them actually were - when compared to eternity.

And he could not resist playing along.

“A bad idea, my dear?”

“I am intrigued. I thought one with such… - unique ambitions, would have encouraged me to begin much sooner.”

He placed the wine glass on the polished table, crossing his arms in a mischievous posture. “Do you not have faith in your beloved Darklord’s plans? ... Ah, I am hurt.”

He let a moment pause, entertained by his own theatrics.

His clothes softly ruffled as he adjusted himself in the chair. He opened his arms, his palms facing upwards in a pleading manner. “Even livestock need to know that their master will feed them crumbs.” A smile. “Are you not curious, to find those that will willingly reach to my hands…?”

[syrips]

doing an ascension astarion route because i desire the l o r e and to connect/compare to ravenloft lore because its fun and anyways godd some of the lines astarion says is like prime darklord material

spoilering it below for both ravenloft and bg3 spoilers but also a ramble

also, it l o n g so be double warned!!

considering how many darklords we have, so many of them have done seemingly less depraved things than cazador/ascended astarion are doing.. and some darklords become darklords because they 'took over' a heinous act and committed it themselves.. the fact that of all people, raphael calls it a disgusting and terrible act, means that it is pretty low, even for a devil's view of the law. and obviously raphael couldve just said it to say it but, i kinda believe that raphael saw it as ridiculous because of how unbalanced the ritual is against a 'natural order'

and by 'natural order', i mean a process in which people commit morally-fitting actions with the use of nature, divinity, magic, energy, etc.; so, an evil person following an evil god is a natural and expected process; and if they fall, that power/balance would restabilize (aka fall back to the deity/power that caused it to rise to begin with). but a ritual involving an archdevil exploiting rules on a realm, race, souls, and deity level, is kind of a multi-leveled thing that can cause many huge layers of problems.

on a side tangent, because of (and in contrast to) this, i kinda believe the chosen three would not become darklords because they're following instruction, delusion, or motivation to a 'natural order' - their superior deity. they're doing it within a reasonably fitting method, even if that method is pretty evil. (the punishment/retaliation of the 'natural order' would then be expected towards the deity, which, i mean.. yea spoilers for endings here but its pretty fitting, isnt it?)

but back to the topic of the two darklord candidates.. cazador wasnt doing that - if he was, if, hypothetically, he went through a vampire or deity/power related to vampirism (which he COULD have, based on my other random syrips theory post), he wouldve been fine. but instead, he tried to loophole even that. instead, he went through an archdevil who (the candidate and the archdevil) are exploiting through a multi-'meta' level of even more loopholes. it's no longer about 'serving a god' or 'contracted to someone' (cuz cazador didnt contract himself to the archdevil, but rather created a ritual contract with the assistance of the archdevil; mild difference being, the ritual can be committed by anyone, as long as the components are all in place)

this means that, if anyone completes the ritual, they are committing the act of the entire process, as though they gathered, sacrificed, and performed all the rites for it to be complete. because, in a way, they did, they pressed the shiny button, pressed yes to continue, even if they do not think their hands are dirty to it

but anyways, i find it interesting because ascended astarion (or cazador) both qualify to be darklords, and it would be incredibly interesting for us to fight one of those or even end up having a domain of dread where they are trapped in for their actions

since we also have shar and the shadowfell (and other bits of ravenloft/vrgtr compatible source stuff in bg3 already), it seems like it can already be done through canonical means through just bg3's in-game lore alone

but yea thats just a ramble i wanted to do ok bye

[hikarinokusari]

I may have no PC interested romantically in Strahd or else, but I did obtained privy moments to discuss business matters with everyone of them in the same night for the game a few sessions ago.

It was business matters. It should have stayed business matters and personal quest suggestions from the Darklord.

But. They all went crazy during the privy session, and Strahd being the bitchy king he is, played along.

Note that it was the first time they, the PCs, get to really talk to him and to know him. Their first private moments with him ever as well just after a ball when they danced with his brides ... or himself for one lucky (?) player. Threats while dancing was sexy.

It's insane what the BBEG got from them in only one night after such a short time of knowing them:

A bromance sealed in blood and ink with the first one, who is now working for Strahd to get rid of monsters and retrieve things. He's supposedly a pupil of VR but he decided it was great to be a bro with Strahd. For science. They're scientific buddies. I can't believe it. VR will destroy the PC if they bump into each other and he learns that 'it's ok strahd is cool so far, i'm going to do science with him". Also the player gives a part of their body as a gift to strahd. The vampire didn't ask for anything. But sure. Now there's a part of the PC that Strahd has in his office.

Strahd taunting the second one like the bitch he is about various struggles the character was going through then having sex with him (yes it's our bard). Also he let him tasted his blood willingfully. Best experience ever for the bard. 10/10 recommand. He's kinda the BFF of Ireena yet he told her it was so cool ! Ireena still process the information and is very confused about how to react to this honesty and to the events.

After the BBEG and this PC bonded, the last player - a ranger - had a traumatizing but very strong homoerotic scene under the rain with Strahd then a talk about immortality, fealty and love. Also threats here and there. The player is now on a hunt for Van Richten bc Strahd made it personal ; VR is the mentor of the first player. The ranger PC is also the same and sole player who danced with Strahd during the ball. Homoerotic scenes were the tag for their relationship for the whole event or so it seems.

I shouldn't let the players near strahd when they're by themselves.

Also the bard taught Strahd a highfive was a common and polite salute to say bye to someone in their native country. So strahd highfived them to respect their customs. The old man doesn't know, and Rahadin is beyond pissed that a highfived happened.

[barovianchickenandwaffles]

The Pumpkin Spice Must Flow: another Barovian Tale

So, there I was one night, in my lab (er, kitchen) when I created 99.95% pure pumpkin spice. I knew I had hit upon something special.

Little did I know that it would lead to a war between the great houses and the Darklord himself.

Barovia, demiplane of dread… never one day of sunshine in Barovia.

But whereas the Devil Strahd has the infernal powers of night at his disposal, here in Barovia village, we had Goth power. That, and spite.

He came with his elite legions of Svalichdruid shock-troops, backed by hordes of wolves, Strahd zombies and the dreaded vampire spawn.

We called in the great houses of Vallaki, Krezk, and Barovia, plus other Demiplanes to defend us.

@jander-sunstar left in a rush, telling us, “on the dawn of the third day, look to the East!”

I replied, “it’s cloudy and rainy all the time here.”

“Well, just keep an eye out.”

A great battle was fought by ol’ Farmer Gustav’s pumpkin patch. A great clamor rose as the armies clashed, many screams rang out.

Our forces fell back slowly, as the horrid legions of Strahd ground us down hour after hour. All looked bleak.

We made our last stand at BCnW. Ismark Kolyan prepared for one last charge as the hoards crashed against the front door. “This is the hour we draw swords!” He declared.

“No,” I said, “we have no choice but to destroy the Spice first.”

Ismark nodded, doffing a helmet and facing the door. “Then I shall buy you time.”

At that moment, we heard a clarion call and from the East a great company of Jander Sunstar clones charged into battle. We were saved.

From the East, the Jander Sunstar clones, riding great purple worms, routed Strahd’s forces. But then Strahd rallied and charged into the fray at last on his nightmare steed. He slew the captain of the clones, and rallied his forces. This was it: the final showdown.

“It is time,” Gary the High Master Illithid / barista told me through telepathy, “to fulfill your destiny and become the Kwisatz Haderach, or in your primitive language the Night Manager Prime.”

I embibed the Water of Life: the venti espresso with extra pumpkin spice, and awakened my powers.

On my donkey cart, I crashed through the BCnW doors and made a beeline for @rave-nloft Strahd.

As we drew closer and prepared to clash, Strahd’s eyes narrowed and he said, “you put whole milk in this pumpkin spice latte. You know it makes me gassy, peon. Make it again but with oat milk!”

“Fine,” I grumbled.

Strahd got his fresh pumpkin spice espresso, the Jander Sunstar clones, ridiculously high from the Spice, charged off to some other demiplane to wage war, and Barovia rebuilt itself, which ain’t saying much.

As for me? I consumed the last of the Spice, merged with a purple worm, and become the God-Emperor of this (one-man) franchise.

The End.

[willel]

Vecna story Lore

Found some cool lore about Vecna and his opponents.

Firstly, nothing is 1 to 1. They use dnd for inspiration though so I found some stuff that maybe could come into play?

Firstly, wanna establish some things. I believe I've found two characters who vaguely resemble Will and El. Also, I am not an expert in anyway on this game, I know about most of it through osmosis and reading on my own time.

The one I'm almost 100% positive on is Will = Elminster.

Elminster Aumar, also known as the "Sage of Shadowdale" and the "Old Mage", was one of the most famous and powerful wizards in all of Faerûn.

For all I can perceive, Elminster is very powerful and like a celebrity or something. I researched him before and while I found he never had any direct encounters with Vecna, players/fans of DnD speculate who is stronger than who in a match and Elminster is a aware of Vecna's power.

When I did my research a few months ago, I was looking for a lady mage that would fit El's description, but didn't truly find one. I mean, I did find one but it was kinda a stretch (and I was uncomfortable and annoyed that it was a previous romance of Elminster which gives me icky vibes and questioning why everybody has to screw everybody but anyways)

Elminster and Will are almost 1 to 1. Elminster was also once lost to an alternate dimension and held prisoner and had to be rescued by his friends.

Elminster realized that the only way to close the portal before legions of devils spilled forth into Toril was to close it from the other side. In the early hours of Hammer 1, 1372 DR, Elminster entered the portal and narrowly managed to close it, but at the expense of much of his magical strength. Once in Hell, he was abducted and enslaved by an outcast archdevil known as Nergal, who wished to discover the secret of Mystra's silver fire. Elminster was subject to brutal tortures, surviving only because of his exceptional endurance and ability to heal himself with silver fire. While the arch-fiend plundered Elminster's thoughts and memories, … After much searching, the Simbul found him, and together they defeated Nergal and returned home.

But enough about Will. Today while digging through some Vecna v Elminster discussions, I saw the mention of a character named Mordenkainen.

Mordenkainen was a prolific archmage from the world of Oerth who was responsible for many powerful and useful spells.

Not a lady, but still relevant? I don't really know if this really holds up, but for the sake of this post, let's go with it. The important part is that Mord is a friend of Elminster and is part of a group called "the Circle of Eight" which was composed of other powerful mages. It does not appear that Elminster was part of this group.

Mordenkainen was a good friend of Elminster Aumar; the two met on numerous occasions at Ed Greenwood's house on Earth to exchange news from each other's worlds, as well as spells and lore.

Apparently, this Circle of Eight went against Vecna and while they were demolished, Vecna lost too.

Following the demise of the Circle of Eight at the hands of Vecna during the lich's first failed attempt at obtaining greater deity status, a grieving Mordenkainen was consoled by Elminster, as the wizards reflected on the fragility of their good deeds.

Mordenkainen later traveled to Barovia in an attempt to free the local population from its vampire darklord Strahd. However, he underestimated Strahd's power and, after barely surviving a confrontation with him, he lost his spellbook and his staff, eventually losing his memory and being driven to the brink of madness. He became known by the locals as the Mad Mage of Mount Baratok.

In the Year of the Scarlet Witch, 1491 DR, Mordenkainen, still suffering from bouts of madness, was in Waterdeep, where Storm Silverhand and Elminster were helping him to recover from them.

By the Year of Twelve Warnings, 1494 DR, Mordenkainen inhabited the Tower of Urm, a dwelling that he used as a vehicle to travel through the multiverse. He occasionally visited Avernus to study the effects of the Nine Hells over the schools of magic and to ensure the balance of the universe

Interesting huh? Again, don't look at this one to one. Just in general. If I were to speculate based on this information:

They're all going to go against Vecna and while he is defeated, they're going to suffer heavy loses. I'm not sure if it's gonna be death, but I think their team will get seriously injured this time.

I also believe El will be dealt a heavy blow. Maybe not lose her powers again, but maybe she starts having trouble with her mind? Memories? Amnesia again?

And this DEFINITELY won't happen because the Duffers hate writing family relationships, but I also take away from this that El would be helped by Will to keep her sanity/get her memories back/recover.

But yeah. that's all I got.

[palidoozy-art]

i love all your curse of strand stuff!! as someone whos playing and running it rn, did you make any changes to Strahd himself? I’ve reworked him quite a lot, but only because I think he was a lot of undeveloped potential in the RAW module

Ahh, thank you! :D I'm glad you do!

I did make some changes to him! Not as much as several of the other characters, because I honestly felt like he was fleshed out quite a bit compared to people like Rahadin, the Abbot, etc.

But changes I did make to him include (under cut)

- In the base game, Strahd is described as "more monster than man, with barely a hint of emotion left." But there's NUMEROUS segments in the book which suggest the dude absolutely feels shit, just in an unhealthy way (see: crying on Sergei's tomb, slaughtering all of his guards in rage, breaking the gazebo, getting really pissy if the party finds his diary). Honestly, the way Strahd is described in the base book sounds more like how he'd describe himself -- a cool unfeeling badass who was TOTALLY friendzoned by Tatyana amirite???

So I said fuck all that. The way I played Strahd was that he was an abuser that viewed himself as a perpetual victim. He would describe himself as logical and rational, and unfeeling -- when the reality is, no, he feels quite a bit. Just most of that is anger or self-pity. I played him as a guy that would tell someone (probably a woman) that they're "too emotional" and then three minutes later punch a hole in his wall because he's flown into a rage. He thought if Tatyana's incarnations would just give him a chance, they'd see how much he really loved them. And if they didn't? Well, it must be someone else's fault. Not his. How could it be his? He did everything right.

A key element of Strahd's character, to me, was that while he had sympathetic elements in his backstory the man was an abuser through-and-through. Both physically and emotionally.

- I changed the timeline of Patrina's death to happen before he even met Tatyana. Patrina and Strahd dated while he was still human, and he ordered all the dusk elf women killed prior to becoming a darklord. I made these changes to smooth out that story arc, and also to emphasize to my players that Strahd was a monster well before becoming a vampire.

- The Tome of Strahd was actually changed entirely. Rather than being a huge exposition dump, it served as a sort of living journal for my players. Basically they could travel to any location in Barovia, open it up, and they'd get a diary entry from Strahd detailing his personal thoughts as to any major events that happened there. It also meant Sergei's role was kept hidden from my players for longer, and one of the mysteries they had to solve was figuring out who Sergei was.

- Vasili von Holtz is usually Strahd's alter ego. I would up changing this last minute into his simulacrum (one of my players got thirsty and looked up spoilers literally at like, almost the start of the campaign). Vasili was part of one of Strahd's plans to woo Tatyana -- he'd command the simulacrum to act like Sergei, get it to court Tatyana, then kill it and take its place once it had succeeded. What he didn't count on was that it would act like his own interpretation of Sergei, who he felt never listened to him. This resulted in the simulacrum eventually rebelling against him (until Strahd killed him).

- I used this monster block (dndbeyond link) instead of his RAW one. I also ran the campaign to level 13 in general, though.

Those are the major things I changed! Honestly I actually feel like out of all the characters, he was probably changed the least. Rahadin, the Abbot, Kasimir, van Richten, Ireena/Tatyana and even Ezmerelda were all changed a lot more than him (really: their backstories were just fleshed out/incorporated more).

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Darklord Ramya Vasavadan

Domain: Kalakeri Domain Formation: Not specified Final Score: 💀💀💀💀⚫ (4/5 skulls) Sources: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (5e)

Ramya Vasvadan is the Darklord and ruler of Kalakeri. With the mention of Arijani’s Domain Sri Jai as well as the Wildlands and the Streaming Lands, Kalakeri appears to be a Domain that has absorbed a few of the rainforest/jungle Domains into one land. Was this just one of the uh, side effects of me escaping Darkon? Perhaps...

Ramya is of the Vasavadan dynasty and was destined to be the Maharana of Kalakeri and to rule her people from the power of the Sapphire Throne. Vasvadan became a Darklord after her siblings’ greed for power brought about her death and rebirth as a Death Knight.

Vasavadan was named, by her father, to become the new Maharana upon his death, but when that day came her brother, Arijani, allied with a small force to claim the title for himself and force Ramya to yield the throne to him. I believe this Arijani is not entirely based on the old Darklord from Sri Jai whom I reviewed last week, but at least a callout to him.

Ramya refused to yield and with allies of her own, captured her brother. She was going to execute Arijani as a traitor to the throne, but their sister, Reeva, convinced her to be merciful and instead she imprisoned Arijani and forgave the rebels. Foolish. What is the point of laws if you yourself will not follow them?

Ramya was said to be a just leader who focused on educating her people and society. On the other hand, Reeva worked with Ramya's foes in a plot to free Arijani. Eventually, they succeeded and once freed, Arijani lead a group of rebels against Ramya as Reeva worked in the shadows to continually manipulate her sister for Arijani.

Ramya, perhaps learning that mercy gained her nothing but weakness, brought bloody justice to the rebels. With her justified brutality, the people began to distrust Ramya causing further divisions among them. Reeva, ever plotting, convinced her sister to meet Arijani to negotiate some form of peace. This was, of course, a trap and the two siblings killed Ramya’s guards and sentenced Ramya to death by garrote. As these things go, Ramya cursed her siblings calling them “bloodthirsty beasts” as she died.

The siblings dumped Ramya’s corpse into the sea, thinking that was the end of her. The Dark Powers, however, had other plans. Ramya was brought back as a Death Knight. She raised an army of undead from those that once served her and obtained her revenge, killing her brother and sister by commanding undead elephants to step on them. I can only imagine the strange popping noise their bodies must have made as they were subjected to such a death.

Of course, the Dark Powers brought all these bickering siblings back and into the Mists, twisting Arijani into a rakshasa and Reeva into an arcanoloth. The three are forever doomed to be at one another’s throats, the Sapphire Throne forever changing hands between the two siblings and their betrayed sister. Ramya was...brutal in her justice after their betrayal, but I think perhaps the Dark Powers became a little confused here as Reeva and Arijani seem to have been far more evil in this story than the Darklord of the tale. Though, as a Death Knight, Ramya is just as brutal as any other Darklord, killing any subjects that do not side with her in the never ending battles of Kalakeri. She also has a tower that she fills with the skulls of her betrayers. I need to get one of those.

This particular Death Knight is cloaked in illusions that hide her skeletal features. A gift from our Tormentors? How kind...She still knows the truth and feels the never-ending chill of the grave and decaying of her flesh with every moment she carries on. Reflections show her reality, which is why, in a very vampire-like fashion, she does not permit mirrors.

I’m not entirely convinced Ramya or at least the Ramya that once was deserves an eternal prison for her decisions, but there have been Darklords created by far lesser acts. Death Knights, on their own, are quite powerful and seeing as her subjects think dying for her cause and automatically coming back as an undead servant is the best thing they could achieve in life, she must be quite charismatic. I’m going to give this one a four.

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Duke Gundar

Darklord: Duke Nharov Gundar Domain: Gundarak Domain Formation: 593 BC Power Level: 💀⚫⚫⚫⚫ (1/5 skulls) Sources: Realms of Terror (2e), Feast of Goblyns (2e), Bleak House (2e), Ravenloft Gazetteer Vol. 1 (3e), Children of the Night: Werebeasts (2e), Knight of the Black Rose (novel) Duke Nharov Gundar was the Darklord of the Domain with the highly imaginative name of Gundarak. Emphasis on “was” as both Gundar and Gundarak are now no more than forgotten shells gathering dust in some unnamed scholar’s mind. I had to do some rather deep digging into the Hall of Records for scraps of information on the Demiplane’s saddest vampire. Historical records (false or otherwise) gathered by my little scholar indicates that Gundar’s family have been bloodthirsty tyrants for generations as they ruled from Castle Hunadora. Gundar continued this blood thirsty tradition as a Darklord once he so very wisely stepped through a portal that carried him into the Mists and made him the Darklord of Gundarak. Well, at least for a short while. Gundar was known for his excessive taxation of his people (from having a girl to gathering firewood, he taxed every aspect of their lives) and overly cruel punishments...as is traditional for the lot of us. Those that dared defy him or just happened to look at him in the wrong way were hung from the walls of Castle Hunadora. Sharing a border with Barovia, Gundar and von Zarovich shared a mutual hatred of one another. Though it never boiled over to full out war, the two sent countless spies into one another’s realms. All of these spies were killed by the opposing side. Inferior rule often leads to inferior followers, so it is unsurprising that these two overgrown ticks failed to cultivate a network of spies as formidable as my Kargat. von Zarovich hated Gundar enough to trick Lord Soth into going after Gundar while the little Death Knight was swinging his sword around Barovia. Strahd informed him that Gundar's blood could be used to open a portal which would allow Soth to return to Krynn. This was an obvious lie, but Soth, being the dumb jock that he is, believed the Count without question. Soth managed to kill Gundar’s son, a rather powerful wizard who was trapped forever in the body of a child. Gundar, petrified of his own son, feigned anger at his loss but was, in actuality, relieved to be rid of him. Even though Gundar is said to be older than von Zarovich, he is much weaker. Stop believing von Zarovich whenever he says he’s the “first vampire” both Jander Sunstar and Gundar are proof that he is not. Eventually, the powers that be decided having yet another warrior vampire Darklord was as boring as it sounds, so they replace Gundar with...a different type of vampire - Daclaud Heinfroth. Daclaud Heinfroth was a man obsessed with his family’s history of madness and studied it in hopes of finding a cure. Heinfroth performed direct transfusions of the spinal and cerebral fluid from who those he deemed as “sane” to those he deemed “insane” and eventually did this to himself. Foolishly, the victim he did this to was going through Gundar’s ‘make a vampire bribe process’ and caused some side effects… Heinfroth became a “cerebral” vampire, because we needed more kinds of vampires, apparently. I won’t discuss Heinfroth in detail now as I’ll be reviewing him in the future. After a plot by Gundar and Heinforth to overthrow Harkon Lukas of Kartakass to transfer control of Harkon's Domain to Heinfroth failed, Heinfroth took out his former master by staking him in the heart and declaring himself the ruler of Gundarak. During the Grand Conjunction, Gundarak was absorbed into the Domains of Barovia and Invidia. Gundar's bones, stake still in his chest, are now traveling through the Mists in Professor Arcanus’s wagon of wonders. The majority of Arcanus’s “wonders” are obvious fakes, but the bones of Gundar are likely real. If anyone were to remove the wooden stake from his heart, he could rise again, but who would want that? No one. No one would want that. How does one rate a “weaker than Strahd” vampire warrior that was taken out by his own lackey and doesn’t have an official drawing? Oh and fears his own child. Does this sad excuse for a vampire even deserve a single skull? Probably not.

[darklordazalin]

Ravenloft Lore Tuesdays: Forlorn

Ravenloft Lore Tuesdays Domain Focus for June: Forlorn Domain Formation: 547 BC Darklord: Tristen ApBlanc

Lore: NPC – Herrd of Clan ApKie

Herrd is a goblyn, which are unique to the demiplanes of dread. They are humanoids that are transformed into goblyns. Similar to a skeleton or zombie under the dominion of the necromancer that created them, goblyns must obey their creator.

The Darklord of the Domain of Forlorn, Tristen ApBlanc, has telepathic control over every goblyn in his lands. Every goblyn that is, except for Herrd of the ApKie goblyn clan. To avoid his ruler’s commands, Herrd wears a ring of mind shielding at all times. Curious as it would simply be a matter of Tristen caring enough to have his swarm of goblyns remove the ring or remove Herrd entirely, but perhaps the pathetic Darklord finds Herrd’s antics amusing.

Herrd was once a human soldier who was transformed into a goblyn when Forlorn was claimed by the Mists. He does not remember his life as a human nor Forlorn’s original Kingdom of Forfar. Living amongst the goblyns in the forests and caves of Forlorn, Herrd’s ambition is to challenge Tristen’s control over the goblyn clans. Herrd longs for the ‘freedom’ of his people…that is, freedom from Tristen so that he would be free to lord over them himself.

If it wasn’t for Tristen’s absolute control over the others, Herrd would likely obtain his wish. He is larger, stronger, and far more intelligent than a typical goblyn and they naturally follow him already. He is a rather imposing figure, wearing nothing more than a black and red kilt decorated with fiery red human hair.

How to Use Herrd in Your Games

If the PCs are working against Tristen, then Herrd could be a valuable ally. Though unlikely to aid them directly in combat against the vampire/ghost Darklord, Herrd can provide valuable information about the land of Forlorn and its ruler.

Goblyns are mostly found in Forlorn, but they’re also quite common in the Domains of Kartakass, Darkon, and occasionally Barovia. Herrd could leave Forlorn and attempt to recruit or rule over goblyns in other Domains. This could result in more organized groups of goblyns causing chaos in townships.

The PCs may find Herrd’s goals sympathetic and wish to aid him in freeing his people from Tristen’s control. This could put the PCs in direct conflict with the Darklord of Forlorn or perhaps they can look for a creative way to sever the bound besides killing Tristen. Forlorn is also home to many druidic circles, perhaps one such circle knows of an ancient ritual that would restore the goblyns minds and perhaps even their former selves.

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Strahd von Zarovich of Barovia

Domain: Barovia Formation: 351 BC Power Level:   💀💀💀💀 ⚫ (4/5) Personality and sense of fashion: ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ (0/5) Sources: 37 years spent living with the smarmy bastard Note: I’m mostly on Twitter, but figured I’d start doing “throw back Thursdays” of the Darklord Reviews here on Tumblr to give the site a shot. Von Zarovich is the Darklord of Barovia. Strahd claims, “I am the ancient. I am the land,” and given that Barovia is a small mud slump of a domain full of fear and paranoia where the peasantry live out hollow lives, this is an accurate statement. Strahd is Barovia.

He is the first Darklord and claims to be the first vampire, even though in his private journals he states he is much younger than Jander Sunstar, an elven vampire that found himself pulled into Barovia. If you’re going to lie, you should at least destroy evidence to the contrary, but I always found Strahd to be a dumb genius.

It took him far too long to divulge the exact details of the night the Mists formed, which was infuriating. How was I to discover a way for us to get out of his tiny domain without the proper information? Thankfully, I had already discovered his “hidden” journal and read it so when he finally decided to tell me, I knew the details he left out.Strahd’s people considered him to be a war hero, though I’m sure the other side of the war saw him, more accurately, as a bloodthirsty tyrant. Strahd won at some point and once the war was over, he became restless and found his new role of ruling a realm tedious.

Strahd viewed himself as someone who couldn’t afford “friends”. But, I believe it is his paranoia and pride that blinded him to the fact that not only did his younger brother, Sergei, idolize him but his Commander, Alex Gwilym, would have done anything for him. Even his priest, Ilona Darovnya, was devoted to him.Strahd found meaning again when he met Tatyana Federovna, a young peasant woman he fell in love with, but she was already engaged to Sergei. I’m sure family diners were more awkward than normal as Strahd tried to court his brother’s betrothed. Ah to be a fly in the wall watching Strahd play Tatyana some love-sick song on his overly dramatic organ as his brother looked on.

He half-heartedly attempted to distract himself from Tatyana by devoting himself to studying magic. That should have been enough. Magical research can consume one’s mind for years upon years, but not everyone has my devotion and patience.

It was Alek that brought Strahd the book that led to his doom. The book contained rare magics but, and this made me laugh given how often he gloated about me being unable to learn new magics, he couldn’t read it. Which drove him a bit mad, especially after he found a spell regarding the heart’s desire. Of course, this was the Dark Powers meddling as they guided him down a path he could have turned away from many times.

After obsessively trying to learn the spell, an entity, which Strahd referred to as “Death” (not to be confused with my Lowellyn), offered to remove his rival for Tatyana’s love and for him to no longer age. Death did not specify what he must do, but he foolishly agreed to “anything”. Arrogance, your name be Strahd. He believed he actually had a chance with the woman who loved his much kinder, handsomer, and younger brother.

This resulted in Strahd killing Alek and drinking his blood for the crime of potentially witnessing him talk with “Death”. He then killed Sergei and drank his blood the night he was to wed Tatyana. Real nice. Could have done it any day, but he had to be all dramatic and kill him on what was supposed to be Sergei’s “happiest day”. At least, that’s what I hear some marriages are like.

Instead of giving Tatyana a moment to grieve for the loss of the man she loved, Strahd decided to make his move that same night. Dumb genius. As you can imagine, this did not go well and the Mists formed as he tried to seduce her and instead of accepting him, she ran and flung herself off the cliffs from the parapet of Castle Ravenloft. This is the only proper response to Strahd’s courtship.

So, there you have it, Strahd became a vampire and started this whole mess with the demiplanes because he could not accept a woman telling him “no”. Oh and even though he rules Barovia, he still calls himself “Count”. Why not King? His inability to let go of the past, I suppose.

As a vampire, I admit, he is one of the most powerful I have encountered. He is also one of the most talented pupils of the arcane I have ever taught, though lacks patience. With his talent in magic, the sword, and as a strategic genius, he is not one to be underestimated. Of course, he has countless weaknesses and vulnerabilities. For example, it is better to plan an attack while he sleeps in his coffin than when he is at his full strength.

His curse is to encounter reincarnations of Tatyana and witness her death again and again. Honestly, it seems Tatyana gets the bad end of this bargain. Though, I have always wondered if it is truly her coming back or something the Mists created to torture him.

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Urik von Kharkov

Domain: Valachan Domain Formation: 625 BC Power Level:  💀💀 ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ (3/5 skulls) Sources: 2e: Darklords, Realms of Terror, Domains of Dread, Felkovic’s Cat; 3e: Gazetteer IV, Secrets of the Dread Realms; Novel: Tales of Ravenloft; 5e: van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft “Baron” Urik von Khakov was the former Darklord of Valachan until Chakuna defeated and replaced him. I use the title “Baron” lightly as he is not and never has been a Baron and is not even really human though he desperately wishes to be.Valachan is a heavily forested domain dominated by evergreens and redwoods in a temperate ecosystem with a few small townships dotting the landscape. In 5e this has been changed into a rainforest with two newly named townships instead of three. All of these villages are barely populated, so it makes little difference.

Urik’s story is, well I’d say unique but there are stranger Darklords in the Demiplanes, so I’ll just say that his story is a fascinating experiment conducted by Morphayus, a Red Wizard of Thay. I have been called vindictive in the past by those who have little understanding of my intentions, but I do not even come close to Morphayus’s levels. This wizard had his eyes on a young woman named Selena who had no interest in him. This indifference plagued Morphayus and he plotted his revenge. Try being married to indifference and spite for 17 years, then get back to me Morphayus…

Morphayus found a unique and rare version of the polymorph spell and used it to transform a panther into a man. He gave that man a fake title and name (Baron Urik von Kharkov), then educated him at the finest universities Cormyr had to offer. He groomed the man cat to be the perfect match for Selena and the two eventually fell for one another. Morphayus then dispelled the polymorph upon Urik when he was intimate with Selena, which ended with Selena being mauled to death by a giant panther. Morphayus, being an incompetent wizard who stumbled upon a powerful spell, turned Urik back into a man, thinking he could use the same ploy again on another, but had not realized Urik would remember his life as a man. Urik, horrified and ashamed of what he had done, fled from Morphayus and into the mists, which deposited him into Darkon.

There Urik learned of the Kargat, my secret police and as any good citizen would, wished to join their ranks. Seeing how much he distrusts wizards, it is interesting that he agreed to work for me considering I go by the title “The Wizard King”, but the lure of immortality is a potent one. Urik willingly allowed a vampire to turn him, not realizing that he would now be under the whims of the vampire that changed him for all eternity. He worked under his maker for 2 decades until his maker was slain by another. Seeing a chance to escape, Urik fled into the mists once more and found himself the ruler of his own Domain, Valachan.

As Darklord, Urik copied my Kargat with a group of werepanthers to assist him in ruling his realm from Castle Pantara, a large stone structure designed to resemble a crouching tiger. Why not a panther? Maybe Urik decided he had too many panther things going on? Can’t be TOO obvious about these things. Urik demands little of his people, mainly taxes and servants now and then to attend to the castle. These servants and any who come close to Urik’s castle often suffer from “white fever”. This “white fever” is nothing more than a fabrication to hide Urik and his vampire thrall’s thirst for human blood. Urik’s paranoia has proven to be a boon and his massive mind control he has used upon his people have made it so few realize his true nature.

Every year, he also demands a bride from his people. These unfortunate women are typically drawn through lotteries, but occasionally Urik picks one out himself. Fickle like a cat. This led to the creation of the jade figurine known as Felkovic’s Cat and Urik’s greatest fear. Urik took an interest in Felkovic’s wife and made plans to have the wizard killed so he could then select his wife as a bride. His version of the Kargat are not as disciplined nor discreet as my own and ended up speaking of the plan while in the same room as Felkovic. Felkovic, in hopes of saving his wife, created the jade cat figurine which would transform and assassinate Urik when commanded.

Felkovic, being a lesser mage, was charmed and then killed by Urik’s panthers before he was given the opportunity. Felkovic cursed Urik with his dying breath and his spirit became tied to the cat figurine. Felkovic learned to possess the object, transforming it into a larger and larger cat over the course of seven days. On the seventh day, the cat figurine, now the size of a saber tooth tiger, attacked and nearly killed Urik, who was only saved by his servants.

Urik is a beast that dreams of being a man. He struggles between his animalistic nature as a panther, his lust for blood as a vampire, and his past love as a man. He takes the form of a panther instead of a wolf and can summon these large cats to fight beside him. Otherwise, he is a standard vampire who cannot change into a bat. In 5e, Urik has been defeated by a werepanther named Chakuna and only his severed head remains hidden in the new Darklords abode.

In summary, Urik is a giant cat whose biggest fear is a giant magical stone cat and who tried to copy his former boss’s government. Should I be flattered? No. 2 out of 5 skulls, but only because I like cats…

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Darklord Ladislav Mircea

OOC: A day later than my normal review schedule, but at least I still posted one this week. I was too busy celebration international asexuality day yesterday. 

Formation: 607 BC Power Level: 💀💀⚫⚫⚫ (2/5 Skulls) Sources: Realm of Terror (2e), Ravenloft Dungeon Master’s Guide (2e), Ravenloft 3.0, Denizens of Darkness (3e) CW: Plague

Ladislva, a highly original vampire name that is a variant of “Vladislav”, is a frozen waste of space, which makes his Domain very suitable for him. Sanguinia is a frozen, mountainous Domain where inhabitants struggle to survive. Once an Island of Terror, Sanguinia disappeared after the Grand Conjunction. You’re welcome. We did not need another frozen wasteland ruled by yet another vampire. Though, the Dark Powers disagreed with me, as they often do, and Sanguinia reappeared as part of the Frozen Reaches.

Ladislav grew up a vain man, caring more about his physical features than the people he ruled. He’s said to be handsome, but is not important enough to have any artwork associated with him so, I just picture him to look like every other vampire...That is, they think they’re incredibly attractive but haven’t seen their gaunt form in a mirror for centuries...

When a plague ravaged his land, instead of dealing with it like a responsible leader would, he chose to ignore it and invited all of his spoiled friends to Castle Guirgui where they would spend the plague lavished in luxury and splendor. I believe an author of Gothic Earth penned a similar tail entitled "Masque of the Red Death".

If you do nothing about a disease spreading through your land, it will infect the majority of the population, leaving you with a pile of corpses to rule over, which only desirable if one is a lich...

Unless you lock yourself completely off from society, the plague will eventually find its way to you, which is precisely what happened to Ladislav. First some of his friends were infected, so he decided to throw them over the castle wall to their death, but, upon doing so, Ladislav had been exposed and found himself infected.

You know the easiest way to deal with a plague? Quarantine and extremely strict measures to enforce it. That’s how I fought the Crimson Death that spread across Darkon. People rarely remember that though and focus more on the times I lost myself in my own experiments instead of governing...but that’s why I appointed Barons to look after the settlements. I digress...Ladislav caught the disease himself. When this happened, he turned to alchemical experimentation and studying bodily humours. Not the brightest of individuals, he decided it was a good idea to drink the blood of healthy people to rid himself of the disease. This is what happens when the ignorant layman experiments with 'natural' remedies.

Regardless of his foolish efforts, Ladislav was sort of successful, if his goal was to become a Vrykolaka. A Vrykolaka is a vampire that has been tainted by disease. Their bodies display the ravages of disease, but they do not suffer from it themselves. They can, however, spread disease to their victims through their long, filthy claws. They drain bile and emotions as well as blood from their victims and perhaps more disturbingly, they do so through a barbed tongue instead of the more traditional vampiric fangs.

Now, a Darklord, Ladislva rules with a casual malice and only for his own amusement. He will ignore his subjects, which they are glad for, to brood in his castle for months on end and spends most of his time attempting to find a way to cure himself of his undead condition. Let me know if you find something, not Vlad...I am interested in such things myself, though I highly doubt one of your remedial skill will succeed.

No picture, barely a story and yet another vampire. Ladislva gets 2 skulls simply because he is, at least, not your standard, run-of-the-mill bloody sucking overgrown tick like every other vampire in the Mists. 

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Darklord Wilfred Godefroy

Domain: Mordent Domain Formation: 579 BC Power Level:  💀💀 ⚫⚫⚫ Sources: Domains of Dread (2e), Realm of Terror Boxset (2e), I Strahd, The War Against Azalin (Novel) , Ravenloft Gazetteer Vol III (3e) Content Warning: Suicide, violence against women I’ve been to Lord Godefroy’s inconsequential Domain and did not find Mordent to be very memorable. Mordent is a coastal domain of thick, ancient forests, mist shrouded moors, unreliable maps, and uncared for roads. The state of disrepair in Mordent makes Barovia appear modern and civilized. Mordent is an old and haunted land; the perfect home for our ghostly Darklord, Lord Godefroy. The landscape itself is said to shift at the whims of the Mists, making any maps unreliable and travelers are forced to listen to nonsensical directions from the locals. Godefroy’s history is obscured and simple, much like Godefroy himself who’s personality is boiled down to the arrogant, conceited snob that dominates artrocrate society. He inherited the Gryphon Hill estate in Mordentshire and shortly after married Estelle Weathermay. The two had a child, Lilia. Godefroy, wanting a son did little to conceal his disappointment at obtaining a daughter. Little is known on what led to the events where he beat his own wife and daughter to death, but history indicates he was a violent man with a vile temper. Estelle and Lilia came back to haunt him. Each night they reminded him of his horrendous crime against them until he was driven into madness and sought escape by ending his own life. But he did not find the escape he sought and instead found himself brought back as a spirit still haunted by the ghosts of his wife and child. At this time, Mordent had not become an official Domain yet but Godefroy’s actions were noted by the Dark Powers, who just love sticking their nose in other people’s business…But I digress. It was, interestingly, the actions of a far powerful Darklord (myself, naturally) and his assistance (a vampire of no real consequence) who caused Mordent to become an official Demiplane. I had created a portal to Mordent, but when my assistant and I left, the Dark Powers clung to the “most powerful” thing left in the domain and went for Godefroy. In essence, he became a Darklord by default. As a Darklord, he can travel throughout his Domain, but tends to stick to the House of Gryphon Hill. The house is interesting, almost a sentient being with a mind of its own and an aura of evil that many can feel from miles away. Other than not being tied to one place and his immunity to “turn undead”, Godefroy is just like any other ghost except he’s still haunted by his wife and child. Every night they track him down and curse him for their murders. A ghost haunted by ghosts who became a Darklord by default and doesn’t even rule anything. How do I even rate this nonsense? The only interesting thing to come out of Mordent are the Weathermay-Foxgrove twins. van Richten’s latest guide changed some of Godefroy’s tale, which I will address next Thursday.