My Darklord

[LouisVendredi]

I've created a new Darklord (kind of). He actually was created back when I was gaming in college, but he's been resurrected 10 years later now that I've returned to the game.

He's inspired in part by Louis Vendredi from the Friday the 13th series (for which he, and I, are named). In part, he's inspired by the travelling salesman from the "What You Need" episode of the original Twilight Zone (if anyone remembers that).

He is half-Vistani (Zarovan tribe) and half Mejati (an odd type of Elf). He's the off-spring of a young, but powerful, Vistana and one of my PCs from college who, foolishly, took the Vistana's virginity and then abandoned her.

He has the Manusa's time ability and is the Darklord of "Curious Goods" which is his vardo/shop. He travels through the Mists in time and space and sells cursed magic items.

Just recently, I finished a campaign with my new gaming group where he used them in a time-twisting adventure to prevent his assassination.

I don't know if he'd be of interest to anyone here, but if you'd like more info or have any feedback on the concept, I'm all ears.

[mistshadow2k4]

I say, go ahead and write him up. Sounds interesting. As to feedback, I'd have to see a more detailed background and such to mull over.

[LouisVendredi]

I had 2nd Ed stats for him 10 years ago. Since bringing him back, I've basically been playing him by ear.

As far as background, his father was an outlander named Kell-Ar who was travelling with an adventuring party. He was impaled in combat and was severly wounded when the party came across a Vistani camp. Alana, a young daughter of the tribe who had developed quite a talent for healing took him to her vardo and tended his wounds. Through the intimacy of the healing, Alana fell for Kell-Ar and believed him when he told her he loved her, so she gave in to his advances and they made love.

The next day, the party was ready to move on and the tribe, hearing how she had despoiled herself with a giorgio, expelled her. She went to Kell-Ar and expected to accompany the party on their journey. He did not want to have her tagging along and tried to convince her to stay with her people.

Alana, tearfully, explained that she could not and would have nowhere else to go if she couldn't go with him. In a tense confrontation, Kell-Ar eventually admitted that he did not love her. Crushed, and furious, Alana cursed Kell-Ar saying, "You are an ugly man and from this day on, you will appear as ugly on the outside as you are inside." (Basically, she inflicted him with magical leprosy).

One of Kell-Ar's companions attempted to intervene and Alana used her Evil Eye on her and made all the straps on her armor give way. She then fled from Kell-Ar and was taken up by the Mists that had risen in response to the scene.

What the party didn't know was that Alana was pregnant when she fled into the Mists and remained in them for the duration of her pregnancy. Louis' birth was midwifed by the Mists.

Soon after his birth, Alana and Louis emerged from the Mists in the land of another Darklord I've created (based on Magik, Ruler of Limbo from Marvel Comics). Ilyanna took in the mother and her child and acted as a second mother to Louis.

Growing up in Limbo, where time and space is fluid, combined with his unique relationship with time that he came into through his Vistani heritage, and being almost literally a Child of the Mists, Louis has the ability to move back and forth in time and space as he pleases as well as the ability to see almost anything past or future that he chooses to see.

Upon maturity, Louis was given his vardo (which is basically an extrradimensional space). His motives are impossible to determine considering the perspective his temporal abilities give him.

There's more, but it's not organized in any way. I'll see about fleshing the rest out.

Sometimes I think of him less as a Darklord, per se, and more as an extension of the Demi-Plane itself as he's not particularly cursed.

[The Giamarga]

He is half-Vistani (Zarovan tribe) and half Mejati (an odd type of Elf).

So another Giamarga! What's a Mejati?

The concept sounds real nice. Let us know more details please. The name initially conjurs a Souragnean Voudan to mind though...

[LouisVendredi]

Mejati is some strange, kind of elfish, race that I allowed a player to use about 10 years ago. I've forgotten just about everything about the race in the intervening time since Kell-Ar was played and nothing of the Mejati heritage really comes through in Louis anyway, so I basically see it as irrelevant.

The name does kind of sound Souraignian, but it could just as easily be Dementlieuse or Richemulotan.

So far, the cursed items he's sold have mostly been embarrassing or annoying rather than outright lethal.

He sold a pair of spiked boots to one player who was a spellcaster that occasionally liked to melee. The boots were bloodthirsty and pulled him into melee whether or not he wanted it.

Another player was sold a brooch that was promised to remove all wounds. It did, and the player suffered massive amounts of damage over the course of several combats that were absorbed by the brooch, only to have all the damage inflicted at once when the brooch was removed. He had to be healed immediately or die (which was me being nice).

Louis will very rarely lie outright. He specializes in half-truths and I even had one player defend Louis' truthfullness when the player who removed the brooch complained that he had been decieved.

Louis is also invisible to the Vistani's sight. They cannot predict any event that he's involved in and any Vistani who meet him physically forget him almost immediately.

IMC, when the party was on their way to save Louis from assassination (actually to undo the assassination), they went to a Vistani seer to have their Tarokka read. The cards all came up blank.

In 3E, I see Louis as an outsider with the Mist and Chaos descriptors.

He cannot be more than a few feet from his Vardo (his domain). Thus, he generaly encounters people on roads.

He carries a bag with him (kind of like Shaman's medicine pouch from Marvel's Alpha Flight) which allows him to reach through time and space to grab or deposit objects from different wheres and whens.