Mazrikoth

[NykylaiHellray]

Human have you ever read The Sandman World's end, it has a psycopomp (love that word) charecter in one of the tales. Who would be a good insperation to pull ideas from for your charecter.

[HuManBing]

I don't understand the UrPriest bit. Wouldn't loosing all spellcasting to to his alignment slipping to evil suffice?

As for Evangelist requirements the Emissary of Barachiel PrC from Book of Exalted Deeds apparently has the required class skills.

There's something wrong here. To many class levels or not enough HD?

Yep, sorry it should read Cleric 12 not Cleric 15.

I don't have the Book of Exalted Deeds. I did pick up the Book of Vile Darkness and found it to be largely crap, so I was turned off getting its "good twin". Is the Emissary of Barachiel a decent PrC?

I don't want Mazrikoth to lose all his spellcasting levels of 12 Cleric levels' worth. The entire point of my exercise was to give Azalin a high-level divine spellcaster to help him, and the Ur-Priest PrC, though interesting, essentially wastes whatever divine spellcasting powers you had before.

[HuManBing]

The Fluff:

(subject to change - this supersedes the fluff that I wrote above for Mazrikoth)

The outworld religion of the Wardkeeper

On a homeworld far from Ravenloft, religion was in its last throes. Shortly after this world mastered industrial applications of arcane magic, it lost the need for the power of divine magic. In an age of ever-increasing materialism and secularism, the truly faithful were a dying breed, as flocks turned away from the path of spiritual absolution to find solace in earthly relativism instead.

The Church of the Wardkeeper was one such faith. Watching its former glories dissipate in a wave of general indifference, the dwindling priesthood looked to ways of bringing its message of protection, safety, succor, and deliverance to the populace. The clergy, once hidebound to tenets and rituals (lawful neutral) slowly drifted away from the literalist reading and began several social experiments to draw people back to their faith. Some were undoubtedly good methods: Charity to the poor was one; education for the illiterate was another. However, some were less clearcut and raised eyebrows, such as colluding with the local lords to arrest criminals found out through confessions. The church had a policy of keeping such collusion secret, with the rationalization that the betrayal of a criminal's trust was still in the service of a greater law. Moreover, it brought in valuable coin from the lords so mollified.

One such man - typical for the criminals so prosecuted - was a young husband to a penniless wife, and the father of a suckling baby. His crime was the theft of books from the lord's library, and the church turned away from his entreaties to argue on his behalf for leniency. It was not convenient to go against the interest of the lord, especially when it was the church itself who turned him in. Standing on the windswept scaffold, waiting for the trap to fall beneath him, he sang a piercing, haunting melody of the child becoming teacher to the man, and the sins of the father coming back in the form of the son.

One aspect which proved popular was the church's choir. Little children love to sing, and the church discovered that literacy education was made easier by teaching them through the medium of music and the arts. One such chorister was a young boy named Reykoth, an orphan since his father - one of many - was secretly betrayed by the church to the lords and executed. Reykoth learned to sing and read and write with the church, and became a devout follower. After his voice broke, he travelled around restaurants and pubs and sang the word of the Church to revellers and carousers. They rarely heeded his message of redemption, but his voice and singing were uncommonly good. He had good looks, too, and many a dainty hand would slip coin into his hat following a sigh of regret that he was a churchman.

Meanwhile, the church had splintered into two factions and the strain was growing daily. The ageing High Priest, Moren, was fading fast, and his appointed successor was the staunch literalist, Archimandrite Corfin. He favored a withdrawal from public performances and showy displays of charity and pledges. He sneered at the contracts drawn up by the Church with industrialists to supply paintings and stained glass artworks to the rich patrons.

Both factions saw Corfin's purity of vision as a serious drawback. One faction urged greater engagement with the impoverished and needy, gathering strength in numbers and forcing the upper class to heed their station. The other faction - one that rarely let true morality dictate its goals - favored strengthening ties with the nobility and royalty, to win political influence.

Reykoth joined the order and wore the robes of a Wardkeep just as Corfin left the church on a hermitage forever. In the ensuing power vacuum, both sides vied for prime position inwardly. Outwardly, the Church now had two heads - the almsgiver Father Lantas, and the powerbroker Master Polane. Reykoth himself may have been instrumental in securing the powerbrokers' victory. He visited with a local lord and gave a vocal performance at a soiree with a song he had written to praise that noble house. The wealthier powerbroker side placed its own leader, Master Polane, as the new church leader, but did not name him High Priest nor another priest as Archimandrite. That position would never be filled again, as neither side was confident enough of its tenuous victory to presume to outright dominance.

Through the years, Reykoth wooed and wassailed with lords. He developed courtly manners and displayed an unfailingly sharp and witty tongue. At the same time, he understood the importance of balance of power - being a shrewd politician, he flattered his superiors at turns and plotted against them. Likewise, he was careful to keep up the appearances of charity and service in the poorhouse, thus making amends to the almsgiver faction of the church.

During this time, his hypocrisy had not yet extended into outright sinning, although he clearly had gone against the original intent of the church: to ward and to keep safe the poor and underprivileged as well as the rich. About a decade into his service with the church, political considerations forced a lord to ally with the poor in order to expand his power base. The shrewd dealings of the almsgiver faction secured the support of this lord, and they displaced Master Polane with Father Lantas. Most of the powerbrokers were purged from the church, leaving Reykoth as one of the few whose association with the almshouse was strong enough to protect him politically.

Reykoth worked hard but resented his lowly station. He took care of youths, boys and girls both, and saw that times had changed. They no longer held the same sense of duty and gratitude to the church that he had. They got better, they grew up, and then they left the church to go out into the world. To work. To earn. To consume. To fall in love. To marry.

Reykoth sometimes looked out from the doors of the Church and saw the sights and heard the sighs of the city, and he began to know disquietude and dismay. He began to think that his life had been wasted with a dying faith.

Reykoth nurtured one such girl as his own daughter, teaching her to read and write and to sing hymns of purest praise, as he himself had done as a child. Like the others, however, she grew up, became a woman, and bade him farewell. Though she held him as a father and kissed him goodbye, she never came back to the church. When she married, she sent word but not an invitation.

Some of the wards of the church were women and girls who had come from husbands and fathers who beat them or worse. One night, drowning his sudden tears in a flagon of sacramental wine, Reykoth looked up and saw one of the girl-children at the tableside. She spoke to him and brought him words of comfort, like one might bring a treasured pet to an adult. They spoke for hours in the midnight quiet, and then, like many youths who have known violations of trust at a tender age, she offered him her body as her only means of solace.

Reykoth was a changed man after that. He rationalized what had happened between them as a sign of gentleness, of mutual understanding and trust. He persuaded himself to believe that to turn her away would have been a greater betrayal of her trust. He told nobody about this and did not pray for guidance nor confide in the confessionals (perhaps a sensible precaution, given the church's prior record of confidentiality).

The girl grew older and her visits became more frequent as she entered womanhood. When she became pregnant, she came to Reykoth for aid. He comforted her, and told her to remain quiet and he would arrange for her to be taken to a safehouse. He saw her off one night at the Temple gate, promising her in a low voice that he would follow her in a matter of days. The carriage took her to the local lord's mining pits, where she likely died of exposure long before the child was even born.

Reykoth took on the mantle of a preacher, leaving the everyday running of the almshouse to a loyal subordinate. He castigated the poor for their sins, and flattered the wealthy for their virtues. The journeys into the city both slaked his curiosity to see the sights, and also whetted his desire to experience them himself. On the occasions that he spoke with the ladies and dames of the noble houses, he found them appreciative of his fawning flattery and honeyed words, even as they seemed less interested in his ageing features. He remembered with a pang of regret the ready smiles of barmaids and noblewomen alike when he sang as an innocent chorister around the city.

Desire, and a sense of expiring time, led Reykoth fully into secret depravities. At the poorhouse, he visited with the women often, praying with them, then lecturing them on their sins, and then bending them to his will with his knowledge of their missteps. Outside, no fewer than three women servants in the noble houses fell beneath his spell and yielded to him, providing him also with informants in those houses.

His ingratiation with the noble houses, and his diplomatic tact, led to speedy promotion once Father Lantas died and Master Polane returned as the church's de facto leader. Polane removed Reykoth from the poorhouse and placed him in a prestigious position as an attache with the lords in the church's central office. Reykoth likewise made sure to keep his own poorhouse protege cleric satisfied with gifts of wealth and power. And he continued to exploit the poorhouse women to satisfy his own lusts.

Polane finally removed the poorhouse from the almsgiver faction's power base, leaving them with practically nothing. With the powerbroker faction's ascendancy complete, Polane began a relentless drive of politicking among the lords, finally bringing the church back to rude health and as the sole remaining church, in the sole remaining city where faith had not quite died.

Polane, for all his ruthlessness and contempt for the poor, was at least an honest man insofar as he had no other vices. His rule united the church, though a dissident faction still attended to the poor outside of Reykoth's influence. When Polane died, the church was as powerful as a noble house and as well funded. Reykoth, having wormed his way into the top ranks of the church, heard Polane's bedside confession that gave him startling news: Polane was the priest who had turned Reykoth's father away from the church gates, and in so doing, condemned him to death by hanging.

Reykoth took this revelation poorly. The church, which had become his foster parent, had been responsible for the death of his own father. He went from Polane's bedside and marshalled his allies. When Polane died, the election for Master was a foregone conclusion - Master Reykoth became the church's head... still foregoing the High Priest title out of respect for the dwindling numbers of the true almsgivers still around.

However, something broke in his spirit after that. Reykoth seemed to abandon the church in some small way. He continued to throw himself into making and breaking alliances and contracts with the noble houses, but the goals he pursued no longer seemed to be for the church itself. Rather, he seemed to be primarily interested in monuments and projects to his own glory. He commissioned a massive sculpture showing a man providing food for children at his side, simply named "The Wardkeep Father". Within the church, most thought of this as a cynical political move to regain the support of those who had followed Father Lantas. Few could have guessed that Master Reykoth was shriving his conscience of a criminal, hanged almost fifty years before, at the church's own order.

Furthermore, his own depravities increased. Beforehand, his inequities with the women had at least the appearance of consensual behavior. Now he discovered his voice had a power to compel terrified obedience, even as the servant's eyes gave away their dismay at him. Past a certain point, Master Reykoth ceased caring.

His underlings in the faith may have been shocked to learn of their superior's weakness, but Reykoth's knowledge of the canon was deep, and his excuses and rationalizations and half-justifications were persuasive. Soon he had those corruptible clergymen indulging themselves alongside him. Those who could not be corrupted found themselves nonetheless unable to find fault with his reasonings.

Reykoth's excesses became so great that the temple itself began to suffer, slowly turning into a byword for depravity and lewdness. Other priests tried to redirect him, but found his following too great to counteract. Many lower priests had committed similar sins under his tutelage, and feared for their dark master to be exposed, knowing that they too would stand to be cast away. His underlings used scandal and counter-accusations to keep themselves safe.

After a relatively short burst of regained virility, Reykoth's physical decline resumed in earnest. Toward the last decade of his life, he turned mostly to voyeuristic pursuits, slipping in and out of senescence and paranoia. He began to truly fear his own death, knowing that his god (if the Wardkeep still existed at all) would punish his soul terribly in the afterlife. He began drinking milk from nursing mothers and demanding blood transfusions from virgin girls in an attempt to ward off the inevitable. None of this could stop the venereal contagion surging through his blood and into his brain - the byproduct of his not-so-youthful indiscretions with harlots and prostitutes. Even as he lay dying, his corrupt clergy extolled his name in praise to the flock and they joined prayer that their god might favor him.

Reykoth spent the last months of his life alternately ranting unintelligibly and praying for a way out of his predicament. Surprisingly, the escape came to him, but far from the form he had hoped for. One night, a ragged female street thief with a terrible mission slipped past the guards and watchmen in the clerical apartments and gained entrance to his bedroom. Revealing herself to him as one of the countless young girls whom he had abused in the past, she produced jar of blind, burrowing grubs and tipped them into his sickbed robes. Crippled by age and illness, he could barely even scream as they squirmed into his abdominal cavity, chewing through his innards.

The guards cut down his assassin before she even left his apartment, but the priests began jostling for power immediately. Unable to remove the vermin from him, they chose to embalm his body instead, then displayed it in public amidst a show of great mourning. The ceremony was grand beyond anything the order had seen - although they stopped short of deifying Reykoth, they hailed him as a saint and visionary leader who sits at the table with the Wardkeeper, holding the keys to heaven. This blasphemous canonization of a deeply unworthy man finally drew the attention of the Dark Powers.

As each clergyman came forward to give their silent blessing, not a single one spoke the name of their true god. Each one, thinking himself to be acting alone, muttered a virulent curse upon the body of their former leader as they stood before him in private prayer. Heaped with the combined load of their imprecations, Reykoth's soul lay trapped in his body, screaming with pain at the corrosive acids that still tormented and tortured his flesh, as the husks of the grubs in his gut stirred gently and fastened small but sharp teeth around his spine.

Reykoth was buried with full honors amidst the collected scripts and bulls of his leadership, as the powerbroker priests maneuvered against each other and even struck physically against each other with assassins. The order collapsed into chaos, and the Mists arose, drawing the temple grounds, all of the priesthood, and a considerable number of the flock into Ravenloft.

Wardkeeper church in Ravenloft

The church physically appeared in Eastern Darkon, and within a few short years the powerbrokers had attempted to contact several barons. Likewise, the almsgivers faction had attempted (with greater success) to convert the poor and the rural dwellers of eastern Darkon to the Wardkeeper's faith.

This attracted Azalin's personal attention, at a time when he had been coincidentally musing on founding a false religion to control society. After assessing the faith and its power struggles, Azalin saw that the powerbrokers had self-destructed to the point where the almsgivers were once again potentially ascendant. If they prevailed and somehow reversed the church's decline, the church could once again bring the Wardkeeper's word to humanity once again. The Wardkeeper god's slow death would be halted.

Azalin took a dim view of this and ordered his Kargat to strike at each almsgiver sect simultaneously, in a massive undercover operation that focused the resources of the entire Royal Treasury. In the course of one single evening, every last almsgiver priest was slaughtered or captured, leaving the flock utterly lost and without guidance.

And in some forgotten Outer Plane, the Wardkeeper breathed His dying breath, in a command to His final servant to kill Azalin. The servant duly came to Ravenloft and successfully killed Azalin, though the lich came back very angry and wreaked an unpleasant revenge. (See the Phirazaldea post in the Black Vault thread for more information on this.)

Meanwhile, Reykoth lay for decades, his mind turning and cursing and screaming silently, until one moonless night, grave robbers led by the youngest clergyman under his command dug up his grave in search of his high priest's ring and the treasures buried with him for use in their power struggles.

Killing them all with a flurry of darkest oaths, Reykoth looted their bodies at his leisure and escaped. Over the course of the next few years, he hunted down and slaughtered every last powerbroker clergy and layman of the old church, cursing the void that now filled his god. His body still pulses and seethes with the undead shells of the loathsome parasites that the assassin delivered, and also with the teeming contagion of the most sordid diseases of the flesh.

Azalin, eager to put the entire traumatic Wardkeeper affair behind him, was drawn out of his seclusion at Avernus once again when he heard reports of a powerful priest roaming the countryside. Villagers misheard its name "Master Reykoth" as "Mazrikoth", and tales abounded of its unearthly singing and its articulate nature.

Azalin found that the interloper had gone on a brief rampage of the old temple and destroyed the last few powerbroker priests left. Then, displaying an admirable grasp of strategy, the interloper had then hidden out in a village and conversed unseen with the children, slowly learning the Darkonian tongue that way. In an echo of his own meeting with Strahd von Zarovich, Azalin met the newcomer at a rustic mansion which Mazrikoth was using as a base of sorts, and Azalin managed to penetrate the illusions and spells Mazrikoth used to hide his true nature.

Being undead, Azalin was immune to most of the supernatural charm that Mazrikoth's practiced tongue could issue. However, he saw that Mazrikoth was naturally charismatic and still tolerated daily contact with living people - something that Azalin himself did not. He offered Mazrikoth a post as his minister, and gave him an ambitious project, backed by the coffers of Darkon: start up a false religion and keep tabs on the Darkonian populace to allow Azalin to police them more effectively.

Mazrikoth and The Eternal Order

Mazrikoth took to this new patron lord well, and proved extremely efficient at setting up a new religion. He proved so useful that Azalin even kept his existence a secret from the Kargat, and elevated him to a rank higher than most of his own secret police. Mazrikoth primarily influences the Eternal Order's priesthood by liaising with their living priests, who are not immune to his various charming effects. He cannot make contact with the Kargat in his role as Wardkeeper priest, owing to the importance of keeping his existence a secret from them. On occasion, Mazrikoth was even to act as a body double for Azalin, who disliked dealing with the general citizenry even more than he disliked having to meet with his Kargat police, and generally disliked both when he'd rather be conducting magical experiments. Mazrikoth occasionally oversteps his bounds by taunting the Kargat - especially living ones - sexually, as occurred with the werepanther Jadis, whose breast he infected with a vile rotting disease before sending her on a mission to kill an upstart lord. (See Tower of Doom.)

Current sketch: Mazrikoth carries some signs of what might be mistaken for decay. However, the embalming process immediately after his death made him resistant to decay. The symptoms are almost entirely the result of his lustful pursuits during life, especially the syphilitic deterioration of his nasal cavity, and the weeping chancres on his hands. He always keeps his vestments wrapped tightly around his torso, because his abdominal cavity is a horrifying mess of writhing death-vermin and contorted guts.

Mazrikoth believes himself to be the final cleric of the Wardkeeper, and is unaware that the god has been dead for quite some time. Azalin has not seen any reason to inform him of his new development, as he believes Mazrikoth can still be put to good use elsewhere. Mazrikoth travels about the domain on his own, dictating Eternal Order policy to the various clerics about the nation without ever revealing his true nature. His mastery of illusions is almost as great as Azalin's - he keeps his middle-aged living face as his own, still handsome enough, before the syphilis set in.

There are two aspects of his living self that did not disappear with his own death, however. The first is his eloquent tongue. Though a little mentally unstable, dismissed by most as religious fervor, Mazrikoth is a persuasive speaker, alternately cajoling and threatening, and charming and flattering. This ability to influence others and even persuade them of the truth of outright lies was the main reason why Azalin views him as indispensable. Where Azalin himself and the Kargat must hide themselves generally from the public, Mazrikoth is the one servant with both the magical aptitude and the charismatic moxy to parade himself as a mortal among men.

His voice has no direct combat application, but he can easily defuse a difficult situation with mere words, even while remaining obscure or unseen, as from a pulpit or a confession booth. His feats selection make him a practically unbeatable Diplomat, and a stiff challenge for any Bluffer. He can use his Diplomacy skill to a variety of different new powers, and can do so even as a full round action, rather than taking 1 minute. Oftentimes, he uses his Godless Ceremony to bind allies to him and share his purpose.

In combat, he is not as fearsome as others of his kind. Being an old man before his transformation has robbed him of the dexterity and strength that many Ancient Dead enjoy. However, his immunities and rejuvenation ability make him extremely hard to kill in combat. And even those who successfully discorporate his mortal shell (such as Van Richten, Shauten, and their allies) cannot prevent him from coming back without a monumental effort.

If combat seems imminent, Mazrikoth usually speaks in a torrent of declamation first, lowering enemy Will saves by -4. Once combat begins, he drops all illusions and magics, which is an immediate cause for a standard Horror check and a very stiff Fear check (noted as part of his mummy powers) at DC 29 (further hampered by the Will penalty above). He usually charms enemies to corral and pursue their allies, and disposes of any bystanders and witnesses with his loathsome mummy rot touch.

This leads us to the other aspect that survived his transformation, for which we have the testimony of the deceased Kargat agent Jadis, and many, many others.

Evidently Mazrikoth's ability to spread venereal diseases did not die with him.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Very creepy and interesting! I do have a couple of questions, though:

1) Did Mazrikoth become a demilord during the Shrouded Years? He's certainly powerful and evil enough to outclass most of the canon ones, and his occasional role as Azalin's stand-in could have allowed him to stage a covert coup. If he didn't become a near-lord, why not?

2) What's Mazrikoth's relationship with the other Eternal Order priests like, given that they do have faith in its miscellaneous death-gods, and he doesn't?* At least if we take the NPCs from the Death modules as typical, many EO clergy do have a patron deity, and ones which are far more morbid and (usually) evil than the Wardkeeper. So how does Mazrikoth feel about his underlings' lending their faith to gods other than his own?

[*- Yes, I know you're using the Atropal Scion as the source of the EO's power IYC, but I think Mazrikoth might have a use in campaigns where the Order's power really does come from death-gods, too.]

[HuManBing]

Very creepy and interesting! I do have a couple of questions, though:

1) Did Mazrikoth become a demilord during the Shrouded Years? He's certainly powerful and evil enough to outclass most of the canon ones, and his occasional role as Azalin's stand-in could have allowed him to stage a covert coup. If he didn't become a near-lord, why not?

A good question, and one that could be applied to most of the Kargat or, indeed, Ebb. I don't have a good explanation for this except the Dark Powers work in mysterious ways, which is a bit of a weasel response. For what it's worth, if you play it that Van Richten and his friends destroyed Mazrikoth in the Guide to the Ancient Dead, that chronologically happened before the Drowning Dreams, so Mazrikoth would never have the chance.

A possible counterargument could be that Mazrikoth never ever wielded total power himself and may in fact not desire to do so truly. Even when he was the Master Reykoth of the Wardkeeper's church on the homeworld, he still had to pingpong between rival lords and dance attendance on them. He may have grown to rely on an authority figure to sidle up to and to flatter for protection. Heaven forbid he would actually have to do any work himself...

2) What's Mazrikoth's relationship with the other Eternal Order priests like, given that they do have faith in its miscellaneous death-gods, and he doesn't?* At least if we take the NPCs from the Death modules as typical, many EO clergy do have a patron deity, and ones which are far more morbid and (usually) evil than the Wardkeeper. So how does Mazrikoth feel about his underlings' lending their faith to gods other than his own?

Mazrikoth in his later years had no particular interest in serving the Wardkeeper's interests. In fact, even as the church itself blossomed, it could be argued that the deity himself declined - his word was not being served in any sizeable way on the homeworld. Thus, the DnD card's exact text could well be borne out in truth - that even though Mazrikoth serves dark and evil gods, his ultimate allegiance is to Azalin himself.

Alternatively, Rotipher hits on an intriguing possibility. So far I've envisioned a collaborative relationship between Azalin and Mazrikoth. It's possible however that Mazrikoth has an antagonistic relationship with Azalin. Azalin could have made it clear that Mazrikoth's mind-affecting spells simply don't work on him, and he could have shown to Mazrikoth that he could strong-arm him into doing whatever he wanted by his undead control ability. (Azalin could not yet use his modify memory power as he only got that after the Death Undaunted adventure and his restoration to power.) Mazrikoth may be a somewhat unwilling partner in this collaboration, with Azalin pressuring him into accepting clerics of essentially a different faith and then working with them to promote their other faith instead of his own.

Mazrikoth may indeed despise this work, if you hold him to be religiously interested enough in his own Wardkeeper religion (I personally do not). This may feed into interesting PC possibilities to drive a wedge between him and Azalin. Provided that the PCs don't realize he himself is undead, Mazrikoth may have reason to be a minor ally in From the Shadows or Roots of Evil, perhaps even providing them with subtle magicks that will help sabotage Azalin's power.

If Azalin hears about this, it's possible that Mazrikoth's disappearance from canon will essentially take care of itself.

[HuManBing]

One final note.

Azalin is said to throw depraved parties as a means of societal control. This does not at all comport with how he is portrayed in the novels and the game setting. He has shown very little interest in sex and indulgence as a human, and as a lich I can't imagine his interest would do anything except decrease to the point of non-existence.

But...

If he handed off the duty of depravity to Mazrikoth to perform, then that could make sense. Mazrikoth is an accomplished wassailer and debaucher, and would be much more at home prying secrets out of nobles. He also would be less busy with magical research. As long as he can cloak himself in illusions to resemble Azalin, the lich-king has no need to sully his hands in things he finds distasteful.

[Archedius]

364 days of being in complete power over their respective fiefdoms. 1 day of fear, shame and loss of control. Who said Azalin partakes in this debauchery directly? He need only be there while his barons make fools of and disgrace themselves for 1 evening to cement his power for another year.

While I begrudge the possibility of Mazikroth being used for this purpose- I feel it's not Azalins style. To me it makes more sense for our favorite lich to feel duty-bound to audience his barons at least minimally. I feel as though Azalin would keep this Mazikroth distant from him, if not crush him outright- he seems to be to much of a threat.
(the argument could be made for Ebb, but it almost seemed a father-daughter relation between her and Azalin, (and she now seems to feel abandoned by Azalin and resents him for it despite his return)


Part of me also feels he might actually enjoy seeing the dereliction of dignity of others as a self-righteous affirmation of his own value as a ruler. He may be undead but he still is at least in part the same man he was before lichdom and like all humans still needs some form of personal validation.

[HuManBing]

Who said Azalin partakes in this debauchery directly?

"Tower of Doom" has an infamous barons' orgy scene where Azalin gropes a female Kargat while crowing about the pleasures of the flesh. This seems to me to be far less in character for a manipulative lich than getting a body double.

The body double motif has been used before in canonical Ravenloft materials, too. Balipur the vassalich dresses like Azalin in Roots of Evil, which is definitely canonical. Azalin himself dresses like Strahd in House on Gryphon Hill, which I am reliably told is still canon, too.

Mazrikoth works well for my campaign. Your mileage may vary, of course.

[Archedius]

I always thought Tower of Doom was a poor book (no idea why it's canon if it is) but the reference to it is a moot point as I highly doubt lichdom allows the continuation of the lust which is itself driven by hormones.
Isn't that part of the appeal of lichdom? -freedom from the needs of the body so that the needs of the mind and personality might be better satisfied? The plot hole and break in lore by 1 author isn't good enough evidence to put Azalin as an active participant in debauchery. The ball S attended was Azalin-free until the meetings with the barons individually.
The body-double point is moot- of course Azalin will imitate someone or have someone imitate him if he has a degree of security or excessive need of it. I doubt he'd trust anyone else to imitate Strahd and his vassalich is very trustworthy as HE created it. Now I could see one of his vassaliches being used as a body double for the ball, but Mazikroth's behavior wouldn't be completely under his control, and image is something Azalin does care about.
Azalin would probably want a vassalich to imitate him because by its nature it is dependant on him and thus inclined to be loyal and follow orders thoroughly. This goes without saying that to become a vassalich or even study magic under Azalin, one must have a compatable personality. Mazikroth might not be as proven or pliable to Azalin- and why waste effort directly controlling him during the ball when he could be there himself?
How could Azalin even be assured that all the details being passed to him by Mazikroth (if he even used him) were true?
Idk, I don't see Azalin wanting to put himself forth as a base debaucherer, especially in front of his barons as that would bring him down to their level. It seems more fitting for him to be the island of reason and contempt in the sea of fornication and degeneracy, drinking in the words of loosened tongues, later shaming those he witnessed with realization of their misdeeds before sending them on their way with their tails between their legs. If he doesn't find their administration skills wanting of course.

[HuManBing]

I wholeheartedly agree with these points:

• I always thought Tower of Doom was a poor book
• I highly doubt lichdom allows the continuation of the lust which is itself driven by hormones.
• The plot hole and break in lore by 1 author isn't good enough evidence to put Azalin as an active participant in debauchery.

The rest of your points I have no opinion about either way. It doesn't matter what I say or do in my campaign, you should do whatever works for your campaign.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I'd always been under the impression that Azalin didn't actually attend the parties, as well. A big part of his authority rests on maintaining an image of cool professionalism and mystery -- after all, the vast majority of his subjects and vassals don't have a clue that he's a lich or a darklord, just a powerful wizard and capable ruler -- so taking part in such events would only cost him credibility and respect from his underlings. Granted, he could edit the memories of (or just squash) anyone who openly gave signs of that lost respect, but it would be a nuisance and a distraction from his real interests, to have to perform such damage-control. Besides which, Firan Zal'Honan has had nothing but contempt for self-indulgent behavior, ever since he was a boy watching his gluttonous elder brother stuff his face: he would get more satisfaction at parties by not joining in, thus stoking his own feelings of superiority.

As for using Mazrikoth as a body-double, it'd be reasonably safe to do so, provided the cleric is dependent on a spirit item/elixer/ritual which only Azalin can provide for him. The lich might also demonstrate his own power to control all undead to Mazrikoth, from time to time, thus scaring him into obedience. ("Running late with your reports, are you? Well, if I have you chew off another of your fingers, you won't write them any faster, but there are other body parts you can function without....")

[HuManBing]

One thought about keeping Mazrikoth loyal with some leverage...

If you accept that the Eternal Order is a false religion and that it actually draws its clerical spells from the "Xenoregnus source" (an Atropal Scion that is in the Black Vault) then Azalin may actually have some power over the "divine" contact that EO priests receive.

Azalin's Wish spell keeps Xenoregnus catatonic. If he relaxes that slightly, the dead godling can then commune in its inchoate babblings to its faithful, which may be taken as Delphic utterances. Azalin may hold this out to be part of his mystique and unfathomable powers, that each time Mazrikoth fulfills a task, Azalin asks him to put in a good word with the Wardkeeper... and this divine voice does indeed contact Mazrikoth afterwards!

Mazrikoth may be operating under the belief that Azalin has some dark god's blessing, or that Azalin is a fledgling god himself. Whatever he is, he's clearly powerful. Best to keep the man satisfied...

[Lord Cyclohexane]

I also find the "Mazrikoth standing in for Azalin at the seasonal orgies" idea to not really work for me. At any other event, I could definitely see this. However, the seasonal parties at Castle Avernus are a duty that a liege lord has to his barons (he has to listen to their concerns occassionally, show direct attention to them, remind them that he still values them or perhaps warn them that they are slowly losing their value in his eyes, etc), and I can't see Azalin shirking that duty.

That said, I agree that Tower of Doom is completely out of character for Azalin, and I am more than willing to have someone else have been Azalin during that particular party. After all, if mid-level lycanthropic Kargat agents are invited, then someone of Mazrikoth's status would definitely be invited. And, as per Maz's personality above, I could definitely see Maz standing in for Azalin without Azalin's permission as Maz seems like a bit of a dick. So I could definitely go with this idea of Mazrikoth having been the one who felt up the Kargat leopardess.

And, with how much somnos wine and snuff are present there, I can see the participants not giving a second glance at "Azalin's" odd behavior, or even questioning how they could have a personal conversation with him behind closed doors while he was also out in the main room.

----------

Oh, an odd idea about the orgies and Azalin as the center of calm during them:

Charles Manson used this same technique to control his "Family", of getting everyone to drop LSD, wherein Manson would then impress everyone else with how cool and collected he was during the trip, and then he'd direct everyone else's trip and slowly program them towards certain lines of thinking. Of course, it was easy for Manson: he was faking taking the LSD and was actually completely sober during the event.

I could see Azalin (and Mazrikoth, come to think of it) doing a similar thing, using his undead nature to avoid the debilitating effect of the somnos wine but then taking advantage of the other peoples' particularly lowered defenses.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Oh, I also meant to say:

This is totally cool, HMB! I really like what you've created with Mazrikoth, and I'll definitely make use of him!

Also, though, considering how much time you had to use for creating the stats, I'm definitely more interested in using something like Savage Worlds from now on, or at least something with a simpler rules system than d20.

[HuManBing]

Azalin could use the parties as a means for gathering intel on people, especially in campaigns set before he gains the memory manipulation magic after the restoration adventures. I can imagine him staying hidden and taking private visitors and holding private audiences with his intended targets once they're really and truly beer soaked.

I see him more as an intimidating figure who intrudes at the moment of shame and self recrimination, to devastating effect. In the Godfather film trilogy there was a Senator who woke up in a brothel next to a dead prostitute. Michael Corleone made sure his men were there to extend a helping hand to the senator at that crucial juncture. He probably had nothing to do with the death of the woman, but the threat of scandal and shame was so great that he became the Corleone family's puppet.

Something similar could occur with Azalin, who only reveals his presence to a select few he wants to terrify and intimidate, and otherwise leaves the carousing and depravity to Mazrikoth, who's much better at it anyway.

Meanwhile, his servitors can go about in illusions filling glasses, flattering fancies, and cheering on depraved behavior. This would also likely be more in character for a vampire or a werecreature, which are still sensuous and physical beings, than for a dry and dusty lich.

The very fact that Mazrikoth, an undead, still chases pleasures of the flesh should be a matter of extreme distaste for those who know. If you run a campaign where he and Azalin are not necessarily 100% cooperative, then this could be a point of contention between them.