#the vampire darklord himself

[mochizuke-creates]

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

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Darklord Friar Whelm

Darklord: Friar Whelm Domain: Estrangia Domain Formation: Unknown (760 BC according to fan created lore) Source: Undefiled by James Ward – short story from Tales of Ravenloft Power Level: 💀💀💀 ⚫⚫ (3/5 skulls)

Friar Whelm leads a congregation of worshipers in the city of Estrangia. Many of which flocked to his temple devoted to hope after losing loved-ones to a vampire with one of the most ridiculous names I’ve encountered in the overgrown ticks – Crave.

Each week the ‘good’ Friar hand-picks chosen members of his flock and allows them to sit in specially reserved seats at the front of the church just for them. These individuals are often those who, through various acts of kindness, aided the community and for their efforts they are given a front row seat…I would think being closer to a long-winded sermon would be a punishment not a reward, but sheep ardently follow those that lead them.

I find most that blindly worship without question dull-minded, but these particular sheep surpass them all. For none of them find it odd that during his sermons, a spark of light often emerges from the Friar’s eyes or hands, then floats to one of the chosen do-gooders until it merges with them. After which, they fall unconscious for a short period of time and, when they awaken, they appear ‘older and wiser’ than they were before. Those that experience Whelm’s miracle often report having a light-hearted and happy week.

If I had witnessed such an act, I’d see it for what it is – necromancy utilized to drain the life from one creature and transfer it into another. In this case, Whelm was transferring the energy into himself to feed. Friar Whelm is an undead creature known as a coraltan who feeds off the life force of others. Beneath his unnaturally pure white robes is a desiccated, worm-infested corpse. He established his church of hope to gather the desperate folk of Estrangia for the purposes of satisfying his own hunger.

He also has a bargain with Crave. Crave can feed as he wills as long as he informs Whelm of his victims so Whelm can then offer his wisdom as a Friar and thereby collect more sheep for him to prey upon. Crave provides the chaos and fear the Friar needs to maintain his church of false hope and thereby the hunger of both undead is satisfied.

There is little more to be said about Whelm. He is a creature that feeds off of youth and hope in a false chapel of hope within a city that has little hope left as its citizens, one by one, fall to Crave’s bloodlust.

[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

[mocha-writes]

A, M, O and R for the fandom asks? (I picked a, m, o because of the questions and r because it spells amor 😂)

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Ship that’s always spinning in the back of my mind: Strahd/Patrina (a Dusk Elf NPC) from Curse of Strahd but my own homebrew instead of the canon version. In canon they both see each other as playthings and any mutual fascination is outshined by desire to maintain or obtain power, and villains trying to outmaneuver each other like that can be a fun dynamic (it’s what piqued my interest to begin with), but I’ve ended up with “they actually care about each other but story events combined with both of them being So Bad at expressing feelings means neither of them acknowledge it.” Patrina’s ultimate goal has also changed to seeking godhood for herself instead of becoming a vampire as powerful as Strahd. I’m Trying to hold onto the canon of “desire for his brother’s fiancée leads Strahd to vampirism” with the homebrew addition of Patrina as an unexpected love that might have lasted had she not abruptly died (bringing her back to life is a potential “quest” that can spring from interacting with her brother, Kasimir), but every I day I grow closer to the “Strahd and Patrina become co-Darklords” AU… I’ve considered many times just using them as templates for OCs, especially since they’ve diverged heavily from canon, but I’d have to figure out A Lot without CoS and Ravenloft canon to back me up… I’ve not tried original stuff for so long)

Ship I’ve been thinking about recently: Cassia Orsellio/Rogue Trader, because my toxic trait is planning characters ahead before I ever try a new video game… I’m still in the “throwing character concepts at the wall and seeing what sticks” stage. Cassia is a Navigator, a type of human with a third eye that sees into Warhammer 40K’s equivalent of the Fade (or roughly so, as a realm shaped by emotions) called the Warp. This eye lets Navigators see a beam called the Astronomican, projected by the comatose (it’s complicated) Emperor of Mankind on Earth (or “Terra”) to provide safe routes for spaceships traveling through the Warp. Because of this power, indispensable in maintaining the empire’s hold on its many worlds, her family and other Navigator houses lead very privileged lives as nobility. Navigators still tend to be feared or seen as abnormal because of their unique appearances; inevitably, aging brings out genetic mutations that make them seem further and further from human. Cassia seems weirdly tall and pale, with claws, white hair, and solid red eyes; she even has gills. She’s apparently quite unusual to have several obvious mutations while a young adult (IIRC she’s around 20-21). Her family has kept her in isolation almost all of her life, even forcibly rendering the servants around her mute, due to powers she struggles to control. Her journey involves gaining confidence in herself, learning not to fear herself and control her powers, and becoming the kind of leader she wants to be, not a puppet of her elders. (Perhaps obviously, this varies with player choice but that’s been the impression I’ve got via YouTube and character-related posts here)

I’m still in the “throwing character concepts at the wall and seeing what sticks” stage, but currently I’m considering an OC who’s an ex-military officer that went through Religious Boarding School for Orphan Boys Hell to be chosen for his position and after a long career of fighting for the empire and watching people die for it, even being visibly disfigured in battle himself, he’s reached a breaking point and either has to admit he’s deeply traumatized and actually cares about the individuals under his command or double-down on maintaining the system because he’s been through so much in its name, has seen so many sacrificed to maintain it, and it’s all that currently stands between humanity and “the grim dark reality of the far future.” (In my head he’s middle-aged, like 50-something, and would be really surprised by a romance with Cassia, which is slow and involves “courtly gestures” like symbolic gift-giving… I’ve considered him being a dad with a grown son by a past lover, but I don’t know how feasible that would be because the past lover in question would be a colonel or other officer in the regiment he was in when severely injured; I’m still learning the lore and don’t know how that would have worked out for the hypothetical kid, but I like the idea of a parent Rogue Trader because it solves the question of where the next heir for the dynasty the player character ends up leading because of several murders in the game’s prologue would come from)

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Merrill from Dragon Age immediately came to mind… She just seems fun to hang out with.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

“The World Is Not Enough” by Garbage is my go-to Strahd/Patrina (the homebrewed version) song.

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

Honestly, my first thought is of Daeran Arendae and Ember from the video game Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous; they’re Blorbos-in-law. The gist of it is that Daeran, an Aasimar nobleman known for hedonism and masking his true feelings, treats Ember, an elven street urchin with who regularly sees through his crafted persona while expressing concern for him, with genuine kindness. It’s a big deal that Daeran is nice to her because he’s rarely nice to people who are idealistic and optimistic like she is, doing things like “confessing” to the party Cleric in banter that ends with him expressing how hot he found a group of muscly, oiled-up men and the Cleric going “you’re not the first to turn confession into a joke.” (Daeran gets mistaken for Zevran a lot by DA fans thanks to having long blonde hair, brown skin and pointed ears, though his glowing green eyes are the polar opposite of Zev’s brown ones)

Fandom Asks

[mollyrosaria]

YESYESYWEYSEYSYESYESYEYSEYSYESYEYSYESYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

First off I LOVE MANTIS AND MORO BEAUTIFUL NAMES MWAH

Also yes GB absoLUTELY has to be the protagonist. Nobody else can fill the role

I think Mytey fits the role of Monokuma’s “little guy” role

I like to think Moro just really likes being cold/around cold things so maybe somebody could bludgeon somebody with like a bag of solid ice and frame him for the crime!!

Vamp would proabably end up being the Ultimate Vampire, I mean we’ve seen “ultimate Robot” so why not? More like ultimate gayass

I think atleast for the first two trials Vamp would be the prime suspect purely because he’s a vampire and “oooooo vampires scary vampires murder people and drink their blood” and Vamp’s like “Yeah obviously but none of you have the blood type I like besides Merryweather.” Cause they’re gay as hell for eachother

I think the person who would be suspected the most out of the entire thing would be Fuse obviously. I think he should absolutely kill someone but it’d be really funny if he stayed alive the entire time. He’s the only “doctor” they have around anyways and they kind of need him if anything medical happens. But that’s just add even more if someone gets deadly sick after he’s gone. GB would probably be like “Great. We don’t even have the one medical professional to help either. I don’t know whether I should be happy about the fact Fuse is gone or not. One one hand, he was a goddamn creep, on the other, he atleast helped us when we got sick or injured. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he wasn’t even licensed to do this stuff and just liked playing doctor.”

I WANT TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT DARKLORD SO BAD BUT I NEED TO WRAP MY BRAIN AROUND HIM MORE FIRST

I think it’d be fucking devastating for mostly everyone if Mellan died. Like he was the main person keeping everyone pepped up and keeping their moods high and hopeful and now he’s gone. It’s be equally as sad to see his high-energy high-pep nature slowly be eroded and whittled away. I think in his worst moment he’d probably say something that sound pretty damn suspicious/suicidal but then brush it off like it was nothing and he didn’t say anything at all.

I think Fuse would like Moro a lot. He’s a people pleaser, he can manipulate him to get what he wants. Maybe… he gets him to kill someone for him? So if Fuse survives he still has blood on his hands. ACTUALLY I REALLY LIKE THIS IDEA THIS IS- YES YES YES. If this is kept then I think Moro’s execution would be something to do with heatstroke. Something like Kirumi, yknow? Chasing something so hard you nearly kill youself for it that only turns out to be a fluke in the end

I think one of the Mikey’s has to die. They can’t both live. It’d be interesting to see something like Mikey having to kill Nikey in a fit of protecting himself but that’s out of character I think for both of them so completely scratch that. I think if Mikey died then Nikey is absolutely the first suspect because he’s expressed FURIOUS disdain for being even in the same building as him. Very verbally abusive towards him. BUT I think it’d be fun for Nikey to realise over time how shifty he’s being and have an entire identity crisis over it. I think just as they’re starting to sort of patch things up, one of them dies, preferably for narrative reasons Mikey. I think maybe in the class trial people would accuse Nikey of the whole changing for the better thing being a ruse, but GB would jump in like “No dude he literally had an entire breakdown in front of my own eyes. Tears and everything.” And Nikey’s like “WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID YOU SAY THAT.” And GB’s just like “I had to clear your name my guy, I don’t want you dead.” And Nikey’s just like “… >:(“

I think Moss and Mantis would either get along nice or have a bit of a rivalry-ish relationship. I don’t think Moss would think Mantis needs to keep his bugs away from his plants because they have a mutualistic nature. The bugs help the plants, the plants give them shelter. So naturally one of them has to die :) I’m not sure who…

I think killing Moss off would have some nice angst potential, and give some more characterisation to Mantis (who to me is just like a nothing sandwich right now.) Also it’d obviously devastate the other two in the Axis trio. I think Moro would kill him, but at the same time, why would Fuse want Moss dead? Hm….

Also I think Merryweather should die :) I love him but die

Vamp literally can’t die as he’s immortal WHICH I THINK WOULD MAKE THE TYPICAL “trial 3 two murders” WAYYYYYYYYY MORE INTERESTING. Vamp didn’t see who tried to kill him but he got clues, he doesn’t want to think about when he was almost “killed” but he ends up being coaxed into talking about it. I think Merryweather would also die this chapter. I think either Merryweather and him would just be having a normal time walking through the building at night when they seperate, and then Merryweather is picked off, Vamp finds his dead body and is promptly attacked from behind. Everyone finds the bodies and is like HOLY SHIT and then Vamp’s like barely conscious but manages to move his body in a way that lets everyone else know he’s alive. And everyone’s like HOLY SHIT X2.

Now that just leaves the question… WHO THE HELL IS THE MASTERMIND 😭😭😭 Maybe OG Mikey??? But then how would he be incorporated into the story. HMMMMMMMMM…….

One day there will be enough Mikeys to make a Danganronpa AU and that day might be soon

[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).

[stavarosthearcane]

Last Halloween, before Dracula Daily made its way into our tumblr Orbit, our Ravenloft D&D campaign ran a one-shot non-canon speed run of Curse of Strahd. It predictably ended with most of our party dead or enthralled at the hands of Strahd. Followed by a cut away to the real us back at our Vistani Caravan with the head of the caravan going "And that's why you aren't going to fight Stahd when we get to Barovia".

Of course then we actually got to Barovia and got to see Strahd as a totally different kind of asshole as in exchange for releasing our friend we had to do a job for him (We end up having to do jobs/favors for Darklords a lot in this campaign, and most of them are terrible to work for) which involved dragging a cursed coffin across Barovia while a rogue vampire faction tries to steal both it and my fighter's Sun blade.

And then when we reach our destination we find at some point the coffin got switched and we've been dragging Strahd himself around and he just sat there while we deal with his vampire political bullshit for him. But at least we got out of there with our lost Cleric and a buttload of gold for a job well done.

So yes, there are layers to the kind of asshole Strahd can be in the hands of a good DM.

… ok, I want to run D&D Curse of Strahd (or play in such) for Dracula Daily Tumblr fans. because in many cases where I’ve played or run in the past, I play Ireena Kolyana as the Mina! Because… she… IS the Mina? She’s an interesting blend of the Cinema!Mina in that yes, she’s the reincarnation of Strahd’s lost love… but also Book!Mina, because by “lost love” we mean “Strahd stalked this woman and later killed her and his own brother because she didn’t want to marry Strahd, she was in love with his brother, and every time she gets reincarnated she rejects him again, because, I mean, he’s an asshole”

And god I have been in WAY too many Ravenloft games where Ireena is ignored or fridged, and where the DM decides to “humanize” Strahd and make him ~romantic~ or some shit – no!!!

Hells bells, give me straight up The Polycule, Fresh Off Surviving Dracula the Novel, Invades the Demiplane of Dread to Continue their Crusade Against All Vampires

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews: Darklord Daclaud Heinfroth

Domain: Dominia Formation: 740 BC Power Level: 💀💀💀💀 ⚫ Sources: 2e: Bleak House, Domains of Dread, Feast of Goblyns, Ravenloft Campaign Setting: Domains and Denizens; 3e: Ravenloft 3e (brief description of the Domain in the Sea of Sorrows write up)

“Doctor” Daclaud Heinfroth is the Darklord of Dominia and debatably ruled over Gundarak for a brief period of time. Heinfroth is a rather hairy individual with a heavy bread and eyebrows that could use a fair amount of sculpting. In fact, his overall appearance is much like a stereotypically werewolf in their human form…Except this particular wolf like man eventually became a vampire.

Heinfroth grew up in Gundarak and became obsessed with mental illness after witnessing the mental decline and eventual death of his mother when he was a child. Heinfroth researched the cause of his mother’s mortality and soon discovered that psychiatric illness and mental disability ran in his family.

Convinced that one day he would meet the same fate as his mother, Heinfroth obsessively studied mental illness with the goal of curing the condition before it had the chance to take hold of him. However, as the years passed by in diligent study, he was no closer to a cure.

Eventually he became haunted by a voice that filled his head and visions of horrors just in the corners of his eyes. Believing this to be the first signs of his declining mental health, Heinfroth panicked and began to conduct experiments that certainly would not pass any ethical boards of health.

Heinfroth performed direct transfusions of the spinal and cerebral fluid from who those he deemed as “sane” to those he deemed “insane”. This process left many of his ‘patients’ incoherent and in a debilitated mental state. This mattered little to the ‘doctor’ and Heinfroth saw his experimentations as great successes. In fact, he decided to perform the procedure on himself before he had definitive results as all good ‘mad’ scientists do...

He kidnaped a young woman to fulfill the role of ‘cerebral fluid donator’ and after draining her fluid, injected it into himself. As chance would have it, this young woman was in the process of becoming one of Duke Gundar’s vampire brides. Perhaps Gundar should have watched over her more closely? The amount of vampires that lose their would be ‘brides’ to random kidnappings and supposed do-gooders is staggering. They certainly do not know how to take care of their investments.

Regardless, injecting the cerebral fluid of a half-turned vampire resulted in a rather unique transformation in our hairy doctor. He became a cerebral vampire, a vampire that feeds on the cerebral fluid of the brain instead of blood. Cerebral vampires slowly drain their victim’s mental capacities, eventually leaving them with nothing but the haunting echoes of their former mind. They are, in some ways, stronger than your typical vampire – they are unharmed by the sun (though some sources indicate that they eventually begin to burn), cannot be harmed by non-magical weapons, their gaze is akin to the hypnotic pattern spell, and their touch acts as the confusion spell. Heinfroth has been known to flaunt his love for garlic to confuse any potential hunters.

They, naturally, have their own weaknesses. Cerebral vampires must sleep in a coffin for 8 hours over the course of a 24 hour period, though this does not need to be during the day. They are repelled by the scent of pure alcohol and holy symbols, though neither can destroy them. There’s something to be said about  a doctor that’s unable to use pure alcohol to sterilize their equipment…

The only proven way to destroy a cerebral vampire completely is to bind them in a straitjacket, cut off their head, and stuff their mouth with holy wafers.

Now that I’ve discussed what a cerebral vampire is, let us return to Heinfroth’s origins. When Gundar discovered what Heinfroth had done to his future bride, he was enraged and planned on killing him in a most violent fashion. That is, until Gundar realized that because Heinfroth took his future bride’s cerebral fluid, Gundar could use his mental domination on the ‘doctor’.

Gundar forced Heinfroth to serve him for decades. In 735 BC, Gundar and Heinfroth plotted to overthrow Harkon Lukas and enlist Heinfroth as Kartakass’s new lord. Now, just because one looks like a werewolf doesn’t mean they are suited to rule over a Domain of wolves. Do you have any musical talent, Heinfroth? I think not and Harkon, rightfully so, foiled their plot with a bit of trickery of his own…that and the assistance of a party of adventurers.

Heinfroth never wanted Kartakass, however, and planned on overthrowing Gundar himself. Gundar is an idiot. He trusted Heinfroth explicitly and lured the adventurer who foiled his plans into a trap – a trap in which Gundar himself was rather helpless within. Now, he was only to appear helpless and Heinfroth was supposed to dominate the group of ‘heroes’ once they were properly lured in, but instead Heinfroth did nothing and watched as the ‘heroes’ destroyed his master.

Heinfroth claimed lordship of Gundarak, but shirked his duties in favor of feeding upon more victims at his asylum.  When the Grand Conjunction of 740 BC occurred, through no fault of my own, Gundarak was absorbed by Barovia and Invidia and Heinfroth was gifted his own domain – a small island known as Dominia. Dominia only contains Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth’s Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed and wolf-infested woods. In another event that many scholars are still trying to understand, Dominia was dragged into the Core and is now an island within the Sea of Sorrows.

Heinfroth is still obsessed with curing his own future bout of insanity and continues to take in ‘patients’ that have the misfortune of washing up on the shores of Dominia. Some patients come willingly as well…I hear the good Doctor van Richten voluntarily sought out treatment there and was in Heinfroth’s tender care for some time before the little hunter went missing. 

[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. 

[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.

[the-ancient-the-land]

Strahd sat up from where he had leaned in, “Cyrus is always looking for new recipes so I think he would find that interesting.” His eyes glanced over her, she was stunning. “I know,” Strahd spoke softly loud enough for her to hear but in a warm manner reserved for well, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t trying to court her or at least give her a reason to consider it. “I’m just enjoying the company, I so rarely get visitors, let alone ones that resemble starlight in the flesh.” Strahd’s dark eyes had become warm as they looked at her. “And I am considering my next question carefully.” He admitted to her as he thought and mulled over what he wanted to know more of her, or what she could tell him. “What do you do when not adventuring? Hobbies? Social gatherings that sort of thing if you needed clarification.” He was feeling himself become rather besotted at how the glow of the lanterns illuminated her. As a vampire he wasn’t one for the light yet here he never wanted to leave hers. It took everything to keep in that dreamy sigh that wanted to betray him and leave from his lips. He was the Darklord he forced himself to become a bit sterner faced though not so much as to seem distant from her or like he was losing interest. Strahd just didn’t want to come across as a lecherous man drooling over his “captive” audience. She was free to leave but he didn’t want to unnerve her or make her feel uncomfortable. He had stared at her too long he glanced down at his goblet for a moment but that felt like an eternity. You have only just met her, calm yourself. She is lovely though… His eyes glanced up. If all went well perhaps… well perhaps…

Ravenloft Adventure AU || OPEN

Elicia bounded over to Ehlain, “I can’t believe we are actually doing this, that you are actually doing this!” She placed a hand on either side of Ehlain’s face, “your Father would be so proud of you. Going off on an adventure! Away from Myrania and all of this.” She pulled away as a soft pawing at her leg revealed the small fire spirit at her feet. “Aww Ember you’re coming with me.” She scooped up her mischievous little furball. “To think that strange old lady at the market convinced you with that card reading?” She shook her head. “But I will take what I can get.”

[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.