Café de Nuit

As you probably know, there is a contest going on to choose the ten all-new domains that will join the domains already chosen for the Ravenloft Reanimated project. The contest began some three months ago with an open call for a domain proposal, and round after round the chosen domains have grown in width, in depth and in interest, as the judges have given their feedback and the authors have polished them more and more over the subsequent rounds.

And now it's the time for a full Darklord description, but the decision is not up to the judges, but to the community at large this time. So we want you to check up the different Darklord descriptions and in the end, pick the five you consider the best (They may be a couple or a group of darklords). Also, if you want to make comments or suggestions about them, feel free and welcome to do so.

Due to a problem of time on my part, and to give you time to read and assimilate each one, I'll be posting the one or two darklord descriptions each day. Once I've finished posting, I'll let you know, so we may start voting.

Aischos, Darklord of Cratia

In a land of beautiful and powerful people, Aischos is an aberration: A hunchbacked man with a disfigured face and weak limbs who always wears the finest tunics and jewelry, so as to emphasize the royalty his figure does not portray.

Background: In Cratia, it’s customary for the king to consult the Oracle when his first child is to be born. King Aniketos was no exception to the rule: When consulted, the Oracle said “Your wife will give you two heirs: One who will give triumph and glory to your house and one who will only bring you death and disgrace”. When his wife gave birth to twins, he was horrified.

But he noticed that one of them was healthy and beautiful, while the other was weak and misshaped, and he decided that this should be the one who would bring him disgrace. As the law of Cratia enforced that people with handicaps or disfigurements would be thrown to their deaths at the sea, he set out to kill him, but his wife stopped him: The oracle had not said which one of them would bring him disgrace.

The twins were named Aischos (Bringer of shame) and Diodorus (Gift of god).

They grew up brothers in every sense: Diodorus protected his brother from bullies and perils, even to the point of carrying him in his shoulders, while Aischos –who developed a sharp, bright mind –helped him in their studies. Eventually, Aischos became a master architect, while Diodorus became a powerful warrior.

But then, something happened that brought a shadow over their friendship: Synthyche, a noble girl both were in love with, and who treated both of them equally. At first, it was just jealousy. Then, the arguments began… For a time, Diodorus stopped to help his brother as he had always done, but after a conversation, both agreed that they would consult the Oracle on the matter.

Its answer was clear and simple: “The bringer of shame will be the one who marries the girl, after he kills his brother and murders his father”. Both were so shocked by the revelation that they decided to leave the matter at that, but Diodorus started looking over his shoulder, and suspecting from his brother.

And then came a great battle against the invading centaurs, and both men had to go up front. The war was won by the men of Cratia, both because of Diodorus’s leadership and the superior technology developed by Aischos, but King Aniketos refused to see this: He decided that Aischos was his “dark” son, and ordered one of his men to kill him. Luckily for Aischos, the assassin tripped on one of his machines, waking him up and letting him cry for help. Diodorus came and caught up the traitor, who gave up his father’s name.

Diodorus went to confront his father, leaving Aischos alone. Afraid of the prophecy, the young man decided to run away from the castle and disappear forever.

He was found half-dead by the amazons, whose queen, Pelagia, took him in and healed him. She told him about the injustices of his father, horrible things he didn’t know about and which now appeared clear to his eyes. He agreed to help her, but refused to be involved in any other way.

The assassin was declared a liar by Aniketos, and put to death, and the blame for his attempted murder –and his kidnapping –was put on the amazons. When they came better equipped to the battlefield, Diodorus was convinced. He led a sudden strike against the amazons to rescue his brother and kill Queen Pelagia for daring to take him. He was in for a surprise when his own brother got in the path of the sword to prevent her death. In his agony, Aischos showed him the evidence of his father’s crimes.

Knowing what he had done, Diodorus went back to confront his father. He received him with arms wide open: “Diodorus”, he said. “I’m not Diodorus –replied the son, drawing his sword while embracing the destiny the oracle had shown -: I am Aischos, the bringer of shame”.

Current Sketch: After murdering his father, Diodorus took the name Aischos as his own, and became as misshapen as his brother had been. He took Synthyche as his wife, almost by force, and set out to rule the country, becoming a tyrant even worse than his father, forcing amazons, centaurs and other creatures far into the woods. Knowing for sure how unavoidable fate can be, Diodorus consults the Oracle constantly, and sets out to destroy anything he sees as a threat, based on its loose predictions.

But one of those omens weighs more heavily upon his shoulders. It says that he will be murdered by an heir to the throne. For fear of this, he’s had no children of his own. He clearly remembers, however, that queen Pelagia was pregnant the night he tried to kill her, but he is not aware that his own wife –Synthyche –is trying to contact the centaurs and the amazons to help her overthrow him.

Guendalina Paganelli and Amedeo Gentileschi, Darklords of Oriebo

Physical Description*: Guendalina is a slim woman in her late twenties with long red hair, green eyes, little above-average height, and with a melodic and captivating voice. She loves wealthy dresses which must show-off around she’s the Podestà, not some average woman, something her manners often remind to her interlocutors.

Amedeo, once the most powerful man in town, died in his early thirties, reborn in humble citizen garments; he’s tall and slim, not muscular, his short blond hair messy, his blue eyes and deep voice now unable to persuade anyone of anything.

Background*: Amedeo and Guendalina fell in love at their first glance when they were respectively 22 and 17, at their first official meeting as the heirs of their families, during a ball. Each of them saw in the other his/her counterpart, both being skilled in the arts of diplomacy, politics, administration as well as appreciating entertainments like dancing and poetry.

They shared a genuine desire to marry and build together a brighter future for them and their city, stopping the struggles, though the relationship between their families was bad, and their union was forbidden, something that only strengthened their love, if history serves.

It took them years to improve their status inside their families, to be able to marry with little or no opposition, until Amedeo finally managed to become Podestà and started to force better relations between the Gentileschi and the Paganelli family.

Unfortunately, they both felt the Call, though Amedeo rejected its seduction for the love of Guendalina, thinking that accepting it would have ruined their future, while she embraced it, beginning to drink blood and torture people inside her Estate’s dungeons, much to Amedeo’s dismay, telling him happily than she was ‘discovering her true self’.

He studied the Call and the past of the city, thanks to his freshly acquired power, and discovered that the spirits of the Red Death nosferatus have the power to influence the mind of their grand-grandchildren, and that if the Call is followed to the end, the ancestor will be able to reincarnate in the body of his descendant, destroying the receptacle’s soul in the process.

Amedeo covered Guendalina’s crimes, hoping to be able to redeem her before it was too late, while resisting his own Call became gradually harder.

In fact, his ancestor influencing him wanted Guendalina not to accept the Call, as the first of them to actually reincarnate would probably destroy every other would-be receptacle, to prevent his old clanmates to return, to rule the city without opposition.

Saving Guendalina from her fate seemed to be only harder as she fell more and more towards evil and corruption, starting to change habits, tastes, to the point Amedeo admitted to himself she almost wasn’t the woman he knew anymore.

The day of their marriage, a Carnival day, he discovered her bride, long since devoid of love for him, was going to simulate her suicide asking him to ‘join her in death’, to get rid of him and become Podestà herself.

Enraged, he tried to explain the situation to Guendalina’s family and other nobles, but they thought it was a joke he was playing for the Carnival.

He was the most powerful man in the city, yet no one listened to him…not Guendalina, nor his trusted friend and peers…slowly, willingly, he gave in the Call, thinking his long-lost love, his whole city, only deserved his bloody vengeance.

With a vicious grin that was not his, he felt finally free to follow his nature, and plotted to throw the city into chaos, forged documents to prove the Paganelli family wanted to kill him, spread them and jumped from the highest tower, his last thoughts of joy about the bloodshed which would have followed.

The alliance between the two major families hopelessly crumbled, though Guendalina became Podestà the following day, and prevented civil war; Amedeo found himself alive, but completely different from before…now, cursed and stripped of his power, nobody would even recognize him.

Current Sketch*: Guendalina is cursed for having forsaken her love and satiated her lust for power, her punishment to keep being influenced by her ancestress, obsessed to become a Nosferatu, while she will have to either lose her soul or utterly fail her aim.

Guendalina frequently drinks blood mixed to wine, trains bats, and lately tried to create nosferatu spawns, though the results were mockeries of a vampire, brainless creatures with little undead powers and only the instinct to kill and drink blood until killed.

Despite following her ‘nature’, her powers ceased to increase, her frustration about that leading her to worse crimes.

Disguised, she managed to contact and seduce one of the prominent members of the ‘Bloodhounds’, pretending to be the Fiammetta, a prostitute carrying the vampiric disease but willingly to exterminate all the vampires in Oriebo; she gives him ‘hints’, to use his organization to weaken her enemies.

The only thing worrying her enough to suspend satisfying her ‘urges’ is the fact she must at all costs show the Red Lion statue during each Carnival or lose the title of Podestà, so she keeps it hidden as best as she can, the other families frequently hiring professional thieves to steal it.

Amedeo’s fault is to have thought that since his wishes were ‘rejected’ by Guendalina and his fellow citizens, he had the right to erase them all. He’s condemned to spend his existence as a powerless being, laughed upon or ignored by everyone he thought he had power over.

Amedeo seeks desperately in the city someone believing what he says (or at least recognizing him for who he is), but the population thinks to him as part of the city’s folklore, a harmless geist wanting to joke, probably the soul of a buffoon died during a Carnival.

He is nicknamed ‘The Jesting Spirit’, so known that everyone in the city saw him at least once, many children eager to meet him for the first time.

The rare times he does not want to flee such a humiliating role, some incompetent exorcist is hired to force him to flee, despite his harmlessness.

He continues to wander the city, determined to find someone able to believe him (or at least put him out of his misery!).

Combat: Guendalina avoids physical combat whenever possible, using the city guards as Podestà, the Bloodhounds when she can manipulate them, and her supernatural powers to flee if everything else fails.

Amedeo is literally powerless, his curse prevents him to be able to inflict any kind of harm, and not even a child would be frightened by him, though he cannot never be truly killed. If his spectral body is destroyed he will reappear somewhere in Oriebo the following night, and there is no way to trap him or his soul.

Lair: Whenever she’s free from her city duties Guendalina stays in the Paganelli Estate, which is defended by several bodyguards, and fortified by mechanical and magical traps (especially the dungeons, where she makes most of her experiments), the best she could afford to prevent her ‘activities’ to become public knowledge.

Amedeo is not tied to any place, instead he constantly wanders.

Astylos, Darklord of Felsinea

“I was, as I thought, completely and utterly right. What little there was in the minds of those fools was nothing compared to mine. Now I can finally solve the ultimate Riddle!”

Physical Description*: Astylos is an old androsphinx, his fur grayish and his head completely hairless except for a short white beard; his face is slightly wrinkled, and his black eyes are always staring into apparently nothing. His stony facial expression becomes grim, annoyed or mildly angered every time he loses his utter detachment for everything the world can offer.

Background*: Centuries ago, Astylos was the most skilled historian of his race, a population of sphinxes who had reached the pinnacle of cultural development while the humanoid races were few more than critters.

After centuries of studies in Riddle Magic, the sphinxes had found the answer to all riddles but the most powerful one, the Riddle of Life, which would have bestowed godlike powers to the one providing the correct answer; the knowledge and use of all the other ones allowed their entire race to prosper, developing fields like philosophy, art, architecture, drama, sorcery, and many others.

The Riddle of Life can only be attempted once to gain its powers, so the wisest sphinxes ignited a debate about the correct answer, which raged for centuries without the sages reaching any agreement.

Astylos's anger against his peers was boundless; he had studied Riddle Magic since when he was a child, mastering it with a speed and competence never seen before, yet the others recognized his ability but still refused to accept his theory about the Riddle of Life!

He reached the point where he thought he was the only one who could actually find the correct answer, and eager to gain the godlike power he deserved, used his huge magical powers to kill the other sages, and the Riddle of Knowledge to absorb all they knew.

His brethren accused him of murder and tried to stop him, but the combined powers he seized made Astylos unstoppable; free from any further moral doubt, he killed all the other fools who wanted to deny him what was his, and absorbed the knowledge of his whole race.

He then spent more than a century in meditation, sustained from the Riddle of Sustenance, to be sure of his answer, while nature claimed the sphinxes’ former home.

After his meditation ended, he realized with anger that the whole knowledge of his race was insufficient to reach the correct answer.

He became aware of the fact that a race of insects known as ‘Humans’ had settled in his old city, scavenging part of the ancient sphinxes’ knowledge and pretending to build a glorious civilization.

Astylos thought that maybe allowing them to create a mockery of what was once the pinnacle of mortal society could give him clues about the Riddle of Life, and decided to ‘gift’ shards of sphinxes’ knowledge to the most talented; unfortunately, a human mind contacted by a sphinx’s and receiving its thoughts brings irrevocabily to madness, but it’s not a problem, is it?

Astylos will not stop at anything to have the answers he seeks; every lesser race exists just to be sacrificed for his glory. Should madmen create havoc or kill lesser beings, as long as there is a chance they can provide useful clues, it’s unimportant, and Astylos has patience and time.

In fact, he has forever.

Current Sketch*: Astylos was cursed because he put the research of knowledge above any other thing, especially other beings, and he will never solve the Riddle of Life with this mindset, no matter what he does.

Currently Astylos uses the Riddle of Mind to ‘gift’ knowledge and unique powers on the university’s most talented students, spending the rest of his time to study their actions (he can see, hear and feel everything a Gifted experiences).

Once somebody is Gifted nothing short of the most powerful magic can revert him to his previous mind setting (unless someone uses the Riddle of Mind again to remove the changes, something Astylos never does). The madness worsens with time, and it can manifest itself even years after the target left the university.

The mind of a Gifted, perverted by Astylos' intervention, frequently behaves like the hero of that particular individual’s favourite tragedy; a woman with husband and children could become extremely jealous and, emulating Medea, kill her children to get revenge on her supposedly unfaithful husband.

A middle aged man whose father already died could, emulating Oedipus, try to kill all his ‘fatherlike’ figures like old mentors, and rape their wives.

Felsinea’s sanitarium is full of examples like these, much to the puzzling of the psychiatrists and criminologists.

Combat: Astylos never fights anyone, preferring to meditate and study his guinea pigs.

He’d destroy immediately anyone meeting him, to ensure no one will reveal his existence, and do anything to keep Felsinea free from everything which would compromise his research of clues.

Anyone determined to kill Astylos should have solved as many Riddles as possible, since knowing a solution grants immunity to its Riddle’s effects.

Lair: Astylos hasn’t a place he’d call ‘his lair’, though he spends all his time hidden in the old catacombs beneath Felsinea, a natural labyrinth, with no defense save the fact the place never had anything of worth for anyone, so it’s unlikely someone will encounter him.

Baccio di Albanera and Chiara di Albanera, Darklords of Casteldebole

Physical Description*: Baccio is an old man in his early 60s, short, beardless and almost completely bald. His white hair and many wrinkles make him seem at least 10 years older, the result of having taxed his body too much.

His brown eyes have often a distant gaze, unless the subject is the war, and he usually looks like he’s about to die of old age.

Chiara appears as a tall, voluptuous young woman in her middle twenties, with long black hair and hazel eyes, her white skin flawless. She speaks rarely and with a soft voice, appearing shy and vulnerable, often showing embarrassment for no reasons.

Baccio provides her the most expensive dresses, and she loves to catch the attention her well-shaped body and garments draw.

Background*: During one of the skirmishes of the generations-old conflict between the Duchies of Saliceto and Roverino, a band of mercenaries killed Baccio’s wife, Magda, when pillaging the wealthy district of Edera.

Baccio, the most renown sculptor of the city, returned home only to find it ransacked, his beloved lying in a pool of blood.

Shocked, he lied for long hours near the corpse, shedding his last tears, then he swore on his life he would have avenged his wife and freed his city from a war which hadn’t touched him personally until now, but he nevertheless despised.

Without even gathering information about which army was responsible for the murder, he thought both Saliceto and Roverino had to disappear, possibly by destroying each other.

Following an almost-forgotten legend, he spent years gathering raw materials to build the perfect alabaster statue of the most beautiful woman, inspired by the goddess of Love, many times starving himself to almost death not to interrupt his work.

Once he finished, he feasted and prayed for days the goddess of Strife, Discordia, to give life to his creation and to bring death to his enemies; at the midnight of the seventh day the statue turned into a woman, which he named after the goddess.

He claimed she was his long-lost daughter Chiara to the citizens, and soon the golem gained the fame of ‘the most beautiful woman of Edera’ and easily seduced both dukes; Baccio promised her hand to the duke that would have defeated the other, drooling about his soon-to-be-fulfilled vengeance.

Current Sketch*: Baccio lost years ago the battle for his mental sanity, and is now a wreck, consumed by his thirst of vengeance, his body paying the toll of years of fanatic work, his mind knowing only hate.

Now that the dukes moved the battlefield to more subtle warfare, he fears he’ll die before he sees them destroyed, and tries to push both of them to take more drastic action to get rid of the rival, often saying that ‘Chiara cannot remain unmarried for too much time’, using her to gain the favor of all the influential noblemen which could help his purpose.

He treats her very rudely when no one is around, doesn’t even feel lust for her, and considers her more or less a tool, or a piece of furniture; often he tells her something like: ‘The day after tomorrow you’ll meet the Duke of Saliceto, now just go to your room, sit still and do not move until that time’, knowing she cannot disobey any order he gives her, due to the powers the goddess Discordia bestowed on him upon her creation.

He does not care, however, that Chiara hates him more than any other person; he’s even thinking about building another statue if Chiara proves to be ineffective. She wants to rip him apart for this thought, after he mockingly told her during one of their arguments.

Despite the conditions of his old body, he thinks he’d be able to craft another statue, with Discordia’s favour giving him all the power he’d need.

To avoid possible misunderstandings, he clearly ordered his ‘daughter’ not to harm him, though he was more worried about her effectiveness in the conflict than the chance of her retaliation.

Baccio’s fault is to have answered to the war with more war, no matter the fact many others would have suffered his own tragedy for his egoistic choice, and his curse is to never have his vengeance.

Chiara immediately learned her purpose the day she was born: she exists to spread hate, strife, war and suffering.

She realized that she is literally sustained by hate, which she can feel from the people around her, and should the lack of conflict lower these negative feelings, she’d start to feel heavy, move slowly and revert to an alabaster statue, something she learned during some times of relative peace. For now she kept this knowledge to herself.

That’s why she tries to keep the status quo of the war with every option at her disposal, circumventing the orders of her creator whenever she can. She loathes him for treating her like an object, like she does for every man who consider her a trophy, a prize to conquer or a sex tool. No matter what happens to others, she cares nothing about Discordia’s will, Baccio, or anyone else.

Her skills to hide her true feelings are magically honed to the point it’s almost impossible to tell what she really thinks, let alone what she wants.

As a creation of the goddess of Strife, the only thing she can feel is hate, though she longs for the day she can find someone, hopefully a man, able to love her, which she’s sure she would be able to requite.

Making the people who love her suffer is what damned her, and her curse is to never be able to fell the love he craves for; she will be never treated differently from a tool, just as she consider everyone else.

Ironically, despite being a creature born to spill blood, she cannot bear its sight, fleeing from it with screams that magically compel those hearing them to kill the nearest being.

She’s entirely human, though she lacks blood and her heart turned to raw stone.

The powers of seduction she uses on her targets do not control their minds but her ‘knights’, of which she can have a handful at the same time, are utterly devoted to her, though the way they use to show their devotion depends from their personal view.

The citizens of Edera consider Chiara a jewel, and Baccio an important man, and they can count upon their help should the need arise, not to mention both dukes desire their safety.

Combat: Baccio is weak and unable to defend himself from most aggressors, relying completely on bodyguards for that.

Chiara, despite being a golem, has the physical body of a frail young woman, and if attacked would resort to her seduction abilities and her power to sow discord among others, to stop the assailants.

Lair: Both Baccio and Chiara live in the House of Albanera, in the noble quarter of Edera. Unless Baccio has to show Chiara to the population and her would-be knights during mundane events, he prefers to keep her in his House, defended by both Dukes as ‘neutral ground’.

The Black Dragon, darklord of Annaes

The Black Dragon is a spelljamming ship resembling a stylized black dragon skull, roughly 60 feet in length, constructed principally of pyre iron and mithril, with adamantium reinforcement on stress points and the surfaces most likely to be struck in combat. Because of its all-metal construction it is much heavier than most spelljamming ships of equivalent size. Although the Black Dragon considers the whole ship its “body”, its sentience is entirely contained in the spelljamming helm in the ship’s control room; if the helm were removed and taken into another ship the Black Dragon would suffer no loss of consciousness or memory.

The Black Dragon’s “representative”, which it always gives the name Michael Carcaros, is always a human or half-elf male of ordinary height, olive complexion, straight black hair, and dark eyes.

Background: The Black Dragon was once the flagship of Michael Carcaros, a famed pirate of wildspace. Carcaros was obsessed with making his ship as powerful and self-sustaining as possible, and finding or creating a spelljamming helm which would need no outside source of power was one of his main goals. At length he succeeded in making a helm capable of functioning from virtually any power source—whether by standard spelljamming, lifejamming, or even the furnace/antifurnace technologies of the dwarves. Whether because of the continual flux of arcane energies through it, or because of the souls it gradually stripped from those bound to it when it functioned as a lifejamming helm, the helm at last became sentient; not only aware of itself, but aware of its wearers and capable of reading their thoughts. And, as it became aware of its own being, it became aware of the possibility of not being; of “dying”, as those who wore the helm often did, their thoughts decaying, disappearing, and falling silent…forever, as best the helm could tell. It became acquainted with emotions and enjoyed producing them in its subjects; fear and pain (so dramatic, so easily produced, and so unlike anything the helm itself had ever experienced) quickly became two favorites, while emotions like love--more difficult to stimulate and harder to understand—soon fell out of favor.

After some deliberation, the helm identified itself to its “master” Carcaros, calling itself by the name of the ship it helmed—Black Dragon. At first Michael Carcaros was delighted by this development, but soon he began to worry about what his new creation might be capable of doing; even as a hardened pirate he found the Black Dragon’s enthusiasm for pain rather worrisome. Not realizing the degree to which the helm could read his thoughts, he began making plans to ensure the Black Dragon would remain obedient to him and unable to satisfy its less savory appetites.

The Black Dragon, however, struck first. Under the pretext of “malfunction” it induced Carcaros to don it, and immediately dominated him. Using Carcaros as its mouthpiece it began a program of “self-improvement”—all efforts were to be made to outfit the ship as strongly and permanently as possible. The crew was not enthused about this change in priorities and eventually mutinied; the Black Dragon was eventually forced to use its Carcaros-puppet to vent its atmosphere and kill everyone aboard except its puppet. Realizing that it might have gone too far for its own safety—its ability to control the ship without a crew was minimal—it placed its puppet in suspended animation and used the last of its power to give itself momentum, trusting either it would fall into the gravity well of an inhabited planet or that it would be found and boarded by a spacefarers which it could then dominate and use to manage the ship. Oddly, it soon found itself passing through a dense cloud of space-dust; after a time long enough to be worrisome, it emerged over a planet on a collision course. The ship’s structure was badly damaged by the impact, but the helm itself and its human puppet were unharmed. The Black Dragon caused its puppet to emerge and take stock of the situation; soon realizing that there was a great deal of magotechnology available, but little awareness of how to use it, it was soon able to achieve rulership of the city—all to the end of preparing the Black Dragon to take to the stars once more.

Current Sketch: The Black Dragon has spent the three hundred years since its arrival in Ravenloft attempting to return to the stars. It rules the city-nation of Annaes through its puppet, “Michael Carcaros”; as each puppet begins to age visibly it is killed and replaced, to foster the idea that Michael Carcaros is eternally young. The Black Dragon has had itself rebuilt from the hull up, retaining the original structure of the ship, but now built in pyre iron, mithril, and even adamantium scavenged from the ruins of the city. It has attempted to address the fact that this makes the ship extremely cumbersome and hard to move by attempting to build and attach ever-more elaborate non-spelljamming means of moving the ship, with mixed success. This is frustrating, but even worse is the fact that the Black Dragon has made little progress in its primary goal—perfect mind control over a group large enough to manage the ship. Reaching the stars again has been put off (with intense regret and dissatisfaction) until these two difficulties have been resolved.

More than anything the Black Dragon fears non-existence, but as its existence continues its self-imposed solitude wears at it more and more intensely. It has seen, from the memories of those whose minds it has taken, that independent creatures associate with each other, work together, and even sacrifice for each other for reasons the Black Dragon can almost grasp. It desires “companionship”, but its fear of exposing itself to danger if the secret of its existence becomes known is so intense that it feels it must have companionship only on its own terms—complete and utter control of all its “companions” do, say, and are. Because it chooses not to trust, it remains alone, forced to live vicariously through its puppet and dream of the stars which it can no longer reach.

Comte Charles Emmanuel de Marbeau and Marquise Alessandra de Saches, Darklords of Roeschap

Both Charles and Alessandra are renowned as the most beautiful people of Roeschap: Charles, a man in his late twenties with white skin and blonde hair to the shoulders, usually worn in a tail, with striking blue eyes which seem at the same time wise and threatening; tall and regal, with long but strong limbs, and always dressed in the finest clothes, bathed in the finest colognes, and addressing people with the finest manners, even when insulting them face to face. He has a soothing voice and an air of superiority and mystery about him, coupled with a magnetic personality which makes it difficult for people not to like him.

Alessandra, on the other hand, is a foreign beauty of raven black hair and dark green, seductive eyes, with tanned skin and a perfect, voluptuous body whose tight corsets and long skirts do nothing but to suggest; she always seem to move slowly and properly, almost as if she was refrained by the moral customs of Roeschap, and is always surrounded in a strong, provocative aroma. She is cynic and callous, and looks like a caged tiger; something that makes her even more attractive.

Background: Charles and Alessandra were first introduced in a meeting in the chateau of a common friend: Both were famous for their ability to toy with people and for their tastes, too perverted even for the decadent, free-thinking, high-class society they lived in. He was a careless young man, third in the row for inheritance of his families holdings, but wealthy enough to have no worries for money. She was a young widower, rumored to have led her late husband to suicide. Since they met, they started trying to outplay each other, and while neither of them could bend the other to his will, they had a lot of fun trying, and daring each other to do things: Seducing people, exposing them, bringing shame to some, and such.

But the game went too far after Alessandra met Lisanne Van Bueren, a local girl from one of Roeschap’s puritan villages, who was rumored to be a living saint who could hear the voice of their puritan god. Insisting on meeting her in person, Alessandra approached her, hoping to embarrass her in public. The embarrassment went on her, though, as the girl refused to kneel before her: “The Codex says: You only have to kneel before the One God”, was her answer.

Enraged and with her authority questioned, Alessandra went to her friend Charles and asked him to help her expose Lisanne as nothing more than an ordinary woman. It was the first time Charles would have to deal with a member of the Soassir villages, but he stood up to the challenge, and started sewing his webs around the innocent girl.

Lisanne heard the warnings from her guiding voice, but she was too good, too innocent, and slowly Charles managed to approach her, to entangle her, to make her love him, to seduce her… But in the process he was also seduced, as he had never met a woman who was as beautiful in the inside as she was on the outside. He began to have his doubts about what he was about to do, but Alessandra pushed him, convincing him that, deep inside, he also wanted to see how far would she go, while promising him that she would do anything he wished her to do, if only he would let her get her revenge.

So, one night, he invited her for dinner, and tightened his web so much, that they ended up doing things that she would’ve otherwise been ashamed of. And she soon realized she had reason to be ashamed, as Alessandra came out of the shadows, along with a select group of people from her village, who had seen everything. As she was publicly cast out from the community, and fled the chateau in shame, the mists rose to claim the domain as one of their own.

Current Sketch: When Roeschap became a domain of dread, the rest of the Marbeau family vanished, leaving Charles as the head of the house. He soon learned that his ill reputation had also gone, as had his ability to feel: For all the pleasures he usually pursued, he felt no thrill, no passion, and no joy at all. He discovered, though, that he could “steal” those feelings from someone else, but the threshold that would allow him to feel anything would get higher and higher, till his target got totally depraved and couldn’t make him feel anything else. He constantly seeks for more, constantly repeating the cycle. Sadly, as he can’t feel any pleasure, he usually can’t provide it, either.

Meanwhile, the gossip about Alessandra also vanished, as did her youth and her beauty, at an accelerated rate; soon, she discovered that she could regain them by “stealing” them from someone else, provided she had intimate contact with them. She has tried to keep that a secret, but the fact that people coming close to her start looking tired and aged, and some become like living corpses, is beginning to be difficult to conceal.

In the end, both have continued doing what they had always done, but they are doing it out of habit and necessity, instead of for the joy of it, as they once did. They know about each other’s condition, and have started to blame each other. As a result, their friendship has been torn apart, and they have started to undermine each other through gossip and bad publicity. For some reason, however, their good image has continued unstained so far.

Both have also discovered Lisanne working in a brothel in Zondestad. She doesn’t remember who she was, she has lost the ability to speak to her god, and for some reason neither of them are able to approach the place, neither for rescuing her from her current life, nor for finishing her off with a final strike, and anyone they send to the place forgets about their mission once they cross the door. Their inability to approach her frustrates them both.

Combat: Even though Charles is a mildly accomplished swordsman, and Alessandra is known for her talent with music, neither of them are eager to have a face-to-face confrontation with anyone. Instead, they usually rely on their natural charm and innocent face to convince people to look the other way, or to let their indiscretions pass. They would also eagerly use their talents to spin a web around their targets, to corrupt them.

If any of them makes an enemy, however, both would use their social standing and their skill with gossip and publicity to undermine him and leave him in an awkward position. They will also use their influence to send the authorities, the soassir justiciars, the mobsters or any other group against them. If at all able to get an opportunity for an untraceable attack, they will send their minions: Depraved sadists –mostly female –, in the case of Charles, and special zombies –mostly male –, in the case of Alessandra.

The Glass Countess, darklord of Lornyth

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
“The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”

Truly a disturbing sight, the Glass Countess wanders the forests of Lornyth followed by a swarm of glistening black maggots. Her body has the proportions of a comely elven woman. Her hair flows about her in long, silvery trails. Her eyes are pools of fine glittering dust. Her skin is a patchwork of crawling dead flesh that covers an interior of broken glass shards. At times, pieces of dark glass peer through to the surface, causing part of her skin to tear away. She has no choice but to continuously graft new flesh over her form, lest she crystallizes and withers away completely. A contrast to her decayed appearance, her voice is a crystalline, caressing thing.

Background

The Countess has only dim recollections of her past, for her memory is as much ravaged by decay as her body.

She was the daughter-heir to a noble family in the former elven kingdom of Lornyth. At the time of her birth, Lornyth was at the last of its decline, all but consumed by outsider incursions and internal strife. The Countess’ parents feared that their race and its legacy would perish within the human-dominant world. In desperation, they bargained with a powerful evil outsider (some say Inajira, or Chernovog) to grant their daughter immortality. Their wish was granted.

The Countess was raised inside a veritable cocoon of luxury and indulgence. She didn’t grasp the concept of death or mortality, no matter how well it would be explained to her. When one day a pet kitten of hers drowned in a pond, she had the court magician reanimate its body and kept playing with the creature even as its undead flesh decayed. When her mother died to a mysterious new illness, she had her reanimated in the same way.

As decades went by, the strange illness spread through her family, then through the whole realm. The cause was eventually discovered: the Countess’ unnatural youth depended on draining her subjects of their life. The surviving elves prepared to flee the realm, but the Countess pre-empted their move. By that time, the number of her undead “companions” had grown into a small army. She ordered them to prevent anyone from leaving her family estate grounds. The undead obeyed by slaying every living thing they could find. This didn’t matter to the Countess, who was still oblivious to the concept of true death. In her eyes, the murdered elves were sleeping. As she kissed them on the forehead, they arose to keep her company again.

As years went by, the Countess grew increasingly lonely. She began to dimly grasp the difference between the true living and the mindless undead around her. Unlike traditional zombies, her servants would not decay, but slowly crystallize and eventually crumble. To her horror, she discovered the same process acted on her.

Current Sketch

More than anything else, the Glass Countess wishes to save other people from death. In her mind, even the mindless existence of a common zombie is preferable to that great unknown. The Dark Powers have granted the Countess part of her wish. She rules over a land where the dead are given a second chance. Her domain siphons deceased souls from all over Ravenloft to give them new life as one of her elven, gnomish or goblyn subjects.

In recent years, the Countess has turned her gaze to outer domains and was appalled at the suffering and death she has seen. Her fondest wish now is to expand Lornyth’s supernatural forest across the world, hoping to “save” the mortals who live there. She secretly funds a number of hospices and medical clinics all across the Core. She also acts as patron to a number of evil-aligned sects of Hala, teaching them to unearth and reanimate those whom their healing art has failed to save.

On several occasions the Countess has welcomed human attempts to colonize her lands. But invariably, the humans would try to clear the forest or despoil the elven ruins. Just as invariably, she would strike them down to a man. The latest settlement attempt, however, is proving to be different. Dr Rudyard Farrow has built a recluse medical clinic on the outskirts of her apolitical territory, along with a small settlement attached for support. He is quickly becoming known as a miracle worker, and his clinic is now attracting patients from far away. Intrigued by the mortal who seems to share her obsession, the Countess has made overtures to assist the good doctor. Little does Farrow suspect that his “benefactor” counts on him to develop a cure to mortality itself.

Lair

Though she spends most hours wandering her woods, the Glass Countess has a dwelling called the Gloaming Hall. It is a luxurious palace of dark glass. Many crystallized undead are embedded into its walls or acting as semi-mobile statuary. Here the Countess often “entertains” orphaned children whom her gnomish minions kidnap for her in offering. She is especially delighted when a particular specimen reminds her of one of her childhood companions. Those she loves most fondly – sometimes to death.

John Diamante, darklord of Scarabraech:

Appearance: John Diamante is a small, elegant man, dressed in a style that would have been fashionable at court in Darkon forty years ago—black and white domino, in a harlequin stype. He has blond hair, falling to his shoulders, a mustache and goatee, and pale blue eyes, with dark bags beneath them. He is very pale and appears generally to tire and in poor health.

Background: John Diamante was born into the Darkonese nobility in 656; as a second son he did not stand to inherit, and was therefore obligated to find his own way in the world, to some degree. He became fascinated while still a youth with Utopian notions of a country ruled by mages, then much in vogue, and began to develop a personal and political philosophy centered around the use of magic for the general good of mankind. He entered the University of Il Aluk eager to find like-minded individuals, and soon found himself associated with the Fraternity of Shadows—then still a small and little-known philosophical society, hardly known beyond the borders of Darkon. He recognized in their beliefs an even more impressive idea—that the world itself might be unmade, and then re-made to order, if only one could understand enough of the rules governing it. Devoting himself with fanatic intensity to the cause of the Fraternity, he rose steadily through its ranks and was rather more pleased than displeased when Azalin’s purge of the Fraternity caught up three of the Umbra—thereby creating a place for him among their number.

Dissatisfied with their slow progress toward the vision of a new world he yearned toward, he began seeking out ever more obscure sources of magical power, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake; after all, when one works for the good of all of humanity, any individual’s life counts for very little. Eventually he found reference to a great civilization known as “Scarabraech”, where wizards used their powers to alter the world according to their will; now with a goal in mind, Diamante turned every effort to reaching this strange land.

After years of constant effort, punctuated by murders, betrayals, and consultation with fiendish powers, John Diamante found the path to Scarabraech at last, arriving to find the civilization he had hoped to find newly overthrown and the mages who had ruled it destroyed either by their own magics, which had grown beyond their ability to control, or by those whom they had enslaved with the magical powers they could no longer trust. Rather than giving up, Diamante set to recovering the knowledge of that fallen nation, so that he might build up a successor even greater in its place.

Current Sketch: John Diamante now lives to preserve the knowledge of Scarabraech, collecting it and storing it as best he can. He spends his days seeking out books, artifacts, and arcana, while avoiding the horrifying guardians set to guard them; he also does his best to prevent the destruction of knowledge by the native population of the domain, who fear and hate the wizardry that has deformed the very land—and they themselves. Diamante would prefer to work by persuasion, but generally the savages he finds himself confronted with are too stupid to understand what they are destroying, or too stubborn to listen to why it should be preserved. Accordingly, he has to kill a lot of people to prevent them from destroying books or arcana. He has trained a few to obey him, by overawing them with his abilities, but most remain inimical, and nation-building is too dull and political for him to really contemplate seriously; with powerful enough magic he will be able to do all at a stroke and eliminate the tedious intermediate steps which would be necessary to achieve good government and a stable society by more conventional methods. It is a shame so many must die, but, as a wise man once said, one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. It is, however, unbearably frustrating to know that so much is being destroyed around him; if only the Scarabreans would realize how much good magic can do for them…

Professor Humbert Greimas, darklord of Archiginnasio di Felsinea


“My guilt is just a breeze in a storm, a drop in the whole ocean, a spark in a volcano's caldera, a grain of sand in the whole desert. What I was able to do, what I'm doing now... is the future of the human mind!”
- Professor Humbert Greimas

Physical Description: Professor Humbert Greimas is a man almost in his seventies, portly and with chubby hands. His few hair, dark and thin, are styled in a comb over and he has quite a thick beard, with red lips sprouting from under it. Behind his glasses with big lenses his eyes are slightly closed, burdened by the eyelids. He usually dresses with good quality clothes worn out by time.

Background: Humbert Greimas was a brilliant student from a middle-class family. His success in his studies and his great thirst for knowledge opened the doors of the university for him, until he conquered a chair in Literature and Philosophy.

During the years his study of humanistic sciences in general shifted his attention also on not so scientific subjects like alchemy and esoterics.

Thanks to some precious texts he retrieved with effort, Greimas experimented with alchemy over the limits of common sense. During a test with the transformation of natural energies, a sphere of water turned into an explosive fireball that burned in few moments his secret laboratory and the building he was hidden into, the Archiginnasio's library.
Greimas barely survived, and the fell into a deep depression. His thirst for knowledge had brought to the destruction og a huge quantity of knowledge: books, manuscripts, items and works of art.

Shattered, he looked in his precious alchemical texts for a solution: he destroyed a huge amount of effort, so that effort he could recreate.
With years of studies and experiments on animals, Humbert Greimas managed to transfer some of the knowledge of a living being taking them directly from its mind.

Sasha Bolker, a history professor, was the first subject to secretly accept Greimas proposal, but it was a failure: the simple minds of animals were easy to transfer, but the humans', enveloped in knowledge, were much harder.

The problem was that the mind was living, active. Frustrated, Greimas surrendered to anger, and during a fiery discussion in which Bolker commanded him to stop the experiments he struck and killed his colleague. It could be the occasion for a second experiment.

Greimas immersed the whole naked body in an alchemical amniotic liquid and applied the formula for the transfer. After a week of work Bolker's body became an unsettling tome of skin and bones, in which everything he knew was written in his blood on the thin skin and organ tissue pages. Just a week for a tome impossible to write in a whole life, since it wasn't only about history, but it was also full of life experiences impossible to describe with words. Bolker's book, though, wasn't only an item, but a true sentient being, capable not of speaking but of transmitting sensations to whoever skimmed his pages.

Greimas understood the great power and great danger of these tomes. And he decided to accept the challenge.

Current Sketch: In the last 7 years Humbert Greimas created almost 200 “living books, absolutely impossible to control by anybody else. The books tend to move, well camouflaged in the great library, rebuilt but not as big as it was previously.

Greimas is now free from morals and willing to create a collection of tomes even bigger than the one he destroyed, unable to understand how these books of absolute knowledge increased madness and crimes within the walls of the Archiginnasio and of the university.

Lately a young man from a wealthy Felsinese family, Federico Zanardi, noticed the presence of these strange books inside the library. He studies medicine and uses a scientific approach for everything. It just happened that he browsed one of them by chance, and he was both attracted and repulsed by it; it was the tome of Ennher, a medic disappeared 4 years ago and turned into a living book by Greimas. Zanardi assimilated from the book the knowledge of 60 years of life and medicine experience. He is unsettled and shocked but not stupid; he's afraid to reveal what he saw and continues to see in the library, but he knows he would be considered crazy if he told anyone. Often he is eager to read the many creepy tomes that appear and disappear on the shelves, but fear prevents him from doing so. Reading Ennher's tome made him the most talented and brilliant student, but also brought many unexplainable nightmares of him operating horrible medical experiments. He wants to do something about the books' mystery, but he doesn't yet know what to do

Combat: Humbert Greimas doesn't love fighting. He became an expert thanks to the Tome of Valker, a book made from an expert sharpshooter, from which he learnt some important techniques.
To defend himself and avoid getting discovered he uses some alchemical admixtures and lower-level experiments.

Lair: Humbert Greimas lives and works within the university; his office and apartment are on the second floor, where he asked to be moved 7 years ago. It's not a real lair, more like a place where he can move easily and with control, since he knows it very well.

Kravo Sardelli, darklord of Zumbera

We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show

- Edward FitzGerald,
“The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”

Kravo Sardelli appears much like he did in life – a dapper pale-faced young man with carefully-combed dark hair. His cold, penetrating eyes are like sparkling marbles. He dresses in a regal evening ensemble and sports a slim silvery cane. Initially, he might appear to be solid flesh, and indeed, can choose to briefly become so by painful effort of will. In truth, he has no more substance than a trick of light. It actually takes much of his concentration to merely hold his mortal appearance together. Whenever he is distracted, his face appears to partly dissolve and his clothing undergoes subtle changes of form and color. When he is enraged, his whole form distorts to become a shapeless, shadowy nightmare.

Background

The only son of a minor despotic baron, Kravo was a shy, sensible youth. Other people found him overly fanciful and odd. He would often insist the family manor was alive with the coming and going of shadowy beings that he alone saw. When at seventeen he was caught trying to elope with a low-class circus girl, his father was enraged. Knowing that Kravo was deathly afraid of being alone in the dark, he had him locked for three consecutive days in a disused cellar. After a night of pleading screams and two nights of silence, the cellar was found empty. A strange inscription was scratched on one wall: “The Shadows have claimed me. But I will return”. Unbeknownst to all, Kravo had been whisked away to the Plane of Shadow.

Strange events occurred during the following year. A local magic-dabbling hermit reported first the loss of his entire library, then the disappearance of components useful for magic obfuscation and necromancy. Not long after, people and animals took to disappearing in and around the baron’s manor. One night, the entire baronial family wound up dead in their beds without the least trace of physical harm. Then just as unexpectedly, the untoward events ceased completely, as if the enigmatic killer had chosen to move on.

The killer was Kravo Sardelli, rich from the secrets he had gleaned from the denizens of the Shadow Plane. By now a true master of shadow magic, he traveled the world for many years under the façade of a harmless stage magician. At times, people he would make “vanish” on the stage would return with cloudy memories of lengthy imprisonment in dark torture chambers. Above all, Kravo used his representations to gather Resonance, the invisible residue of strong mortal emotion. With enough Resonance, he would be able to produce the greatest, most glorious illusion spell ever devised.

Kravo envisioned his masterpiece as a permanent cloak of illusion that would make every creature within miles adore him. The casting would take place in the town of Zumbera at the peak of a great festival. But when he finally commenced his arcane opus, something went wrong. Kravo’s casting ended up disturbing the barriers between the mortal plane and the Plane of Shadow. Hordes of hungering Umbral Chimerae descended upon the city in search of Resonance to consume. As the city’s ambient emotions turned from felicity to abject terror, the spell escaped Kravo’s control. His last physical sensation was the painful unravelling of his mortal frame.

To this day, Kravo doesn’t know whether he has really survived, or indeed, whether he can be said to truly exist. He has become a living magical illusion.

Current Sketch

In some ways, Kravo has been granted part of his wish. He is universally revered by the Umbral Chimerae who dwell in Zumbera. If he wanted to, he could use their collective might to completely overtake the domain’s surface and perhaps even realms beyond. But Kravo cares nothing for power. He thinks nothing of his near-immortality. He wants to be human again. His every living moment is spent in concentration to keep his human shape together and in repeating to himself that he is real.

Kravo rules supreme over Shadow Zumbera, a gloaming reflection of the city in the Plane of Shadow. Unscrupulous humans and Umbral Chimerae alike seek entrance to the secret dominion, for here any kind of imaginable pleasure (or, indeed, pain) can be experienced for a reasonable price. Kravo rules the place like an artful businessman, patiently gathering Resonance for his arcane experiments. Overindulging clients often become utterly addicted to his illusory sensations. Those unfortunates whose purse runs dry are eventually dragged to the darklord’s inner “workrooms”, never to be seen again.

Lair

Kravo spends most of his time within the Black Curtain, a decrepit theatre building near the centre of the city. Its labyrinthian interior contains countless rooms devoted to the darklord’s arcane research into the field of shadow magic. Kravo Sardelli’s “work” often involves murder and much worse. He is currently experimenting on a process to create customized Umbral Chimerae through the extraction of a living victim’s shadow self. The process often ends with the victim’s death at the hands of her own shadowy double. These cruel operations keep the Black Curtain a steady rank 3 sinkhole of evil.

Mother-Veaer, darklord of Veaer (The Living)

Forests may fall, but not the dusk they shield;
So on the spot where that proud city stood,
The shuddering dawn no single stone revealed,
But fled the blackness of a primal wood.

- Howard Phillips Lovecraft,
“The Wood”

Veaer’s wild nomads say that their very land is alive. Many visitors take the information to be colourful folklore. They are wrong. Veaer’s darklord lives in every tree, brook and holt – permeating the land itself.

Sometimes, Mother-Veaer manifests a physical avatar to approach mortals. Depending on her mood, she might appear as a beautiful verdant maiden, or a gargantuan mass of green feelers dominated by a single great maw.

Background
Veaer is as an ancient, primeval being of nature. In the happy times before history, she ruled a vast stretch of ancestral woods and mountains. Other spirits of earth and water and life shared her domain. The greatest and wisest among them was Yutow the Provider. Throughout uncounted years, Veaer and Yutow were lovers. Yutow was most unusual in his love of humans. More and more, Veaer noticed, he grew to resemble them in speech and form.

One day, the human tribes under Yutow’s patronage were invaded by a strange people from far-away civilized lands. With great sorrow, Yutow sacrificed his own life to protect his followers. It is said that in dying, he exiled his essence to the moon, where he remains even today.

Veaer found herself alone and devastated. In her grief, she sunk down into the earth, merging deeper with the land to sleep away eternity. While she slumbered, an advanced human realm grew and flourished in her domain, slowly driving away the local fey. This “enlightened” civilization was ruled by a powerful guild of wizard-alienists obsessed with studying other planes, particularly the Far Realm. Their revolting experiments greatly despoiled the land.

Eventually, the remaining local fey decided the humans had to be stopped. Calling upon ancient words of power, they awoke Mother-Veaer from her sleep. By that time, Veaer had thoroughly merged with the domain. Every tree, mountain and spring grew alive to become part of her conscience.

Unfortunately, the human rulers had already been successful in opening a one-way portal to the Far Realm. Uncounted horrors beyond mortal reason poured through, claiming all living things in their path. The alien essence seeped into the land itself. The awakening Veaer went mad from the shock.

A mindless, ravening wretch, Veaer unleashed her fury on the human settlements. In a few days, the proud realm was no more. When Veaer finally regained some of her conscience, the domain’s two cities were lifeless ruins. Only a scattering of survivors had escaped into the wild. The rest were all dead. Lost, confused and revolted, Veaer howled in powerless despair. She cried for Yutow the Provider to break the laws of Death and return to comfort her. As no reprieve came, she turned her rage towards those who had called her, stalking and eliminating her erstwhile children in cold blood. By the end of that second rampage, the Mists had arisen to claim her.

Current Sketch
Mother-Veaer’s mind is comprised of everything that lives within the domain: the trees, the animals, even the angry ghosts who haunt the ruins. Even visitors from other lands unwittingly become a part of Veaer’s mind the moment they enter the land.

Veaer is continuously at war with her own emotions. She sometimes becomes kind and gentle, at peace with humanity. Accordingly, the domain becomes hospitable and verdant, a breathtaking sight. When she becomes bitter and sorrowful, plants lose their color and winds carry torrential rain. When an impotent rage at humanity comes over her, trees twist into malefic shapes and the wild animals become pseudonatural spawn.

Though the darklord and her domain are one, Veaer doesn’t have omniscient knowledge of all that happens inside it. She can get a vague picture of what is going on in a given area through the impressions of local animals. For detailed information and communication, she uses a cadre of sentient servants called the Verdant Spawn. Only in exceptional times does she risk using an Elder Node (see below) to produce a physical avatar.

In spite of her clouded conscience, Veaer still longs for her erstwhile companion Yutow. The god’s green-skinned corpse lies preserved in a cave deep underground. More than anything, she seeks to find a way to make him move and talk to her again. She considers no action too forbidden in pursuit of that all-important wish.

Lair
Though technically omnipresent within her realm, Veaer finds her power and awareness strengthening near a number of hidden Elder Nodes. There she can talk to mortals directly and occasionally even listen to reason. The Nodes also allow her to manifest a physical avatar when she feels that her direct intervention is required.

One such Node is a deep cavern under mount Guar, where Yutow’s remains are kept. Here, Veaer speaks and acts similarly to her original persona, but is deeply distrustful towards intruders. Another is located in the center of the dead city of Ayaran. In that location, Veaer’s thoughts are hopelessly mingled with that of the hundreds of spectres lurking about the place. Evil-aligned tribes sometimes visit the Elder Nodes to conduct bloody sacrifices in Veaer’s name. On these occasions, a given Node becomes a rank 2 sinkhole of evil.

Sir Isaac Burney, Darklord of Endemia

Isaac is a frail man in his late thirties, with graying, balding blonde hair, wide eyebrows, bulging blue eyes covered by thick, narrow glasses, and a thin, prominent nose. His mouth is wide with narrow lips and teeth, with a prominent chin covered in sparse facial hair.

Sir Isaac’s head is big compared to the rest of his body, which is thin and frail and is usually crouched in a strange wheelchair with spiderlike legs instead of wheels and artificial pincers which pose as hands, all of which he controls through a series of pulls and levers installed on its arms.

Background: Isaac was born with severe health problems, which kept him in bed or on his wheelchair for most of his childhood, with an overprotective aunt as his babysitter, as his mother died at childbirth and his father was always away on business. Isaac received tutoring from the best, and soon became fascinated with mechanics and engines: Before he reached teen age, he was making theories of his own, some of which went well beyond his time. He was afraid of going out, though, for each time he tried his neighbors would bully him, calling him crippled and weakling. He came to despise them, and avoided going out as much as he could.

His manners weren’t the best, though: Years of pampering by his aunt spoiled him, and several of his father's employees ended up quitting because of his mistreatment. His aunt eventually died, and Isaac came to realize that to survive he would have to fend for himself.

By the time, his technical expertise had grown to impressive heights. He had been making plans for impressive machines for a while, but to make those plans come to fruition, he needed help. He asked his father for it, telling him that he needed someone to help him with the wheelchair. His father sent one of his best employees. Once he came, Isaac forced him into building a strange machine, under his supervision, threatening him with making his father fire him if he didn't, and before long he had the job done. It was some kind of vehicle, similar to a wheelchair with a steam engine, which allowed it to move on its own and spider-like legs instead of wheels, to go up and down stairs. Suddenly, Isaac was able to move around. People were impressed, and the word about the technical genius of the Burney kid spread quickly.

Then, the Great War came: Isaac's country entered a big conflict with one of its neighbors, and suddenly there was a need for superior technology, so Isaac was requested to help the royal army. With an impressive budget and a lot of workers at his disposal, he became able to take his talents to the fullest.

He still was an abusive boss, though, keeping his employees working around the clock in impossible schedules, harassing them to work harder, and punishing them at the slightest mistake. They barely tolerated his treatment because the pay was good, but there was always a certain amount of tension.

Things got even worse when the war ended and the coffers stopped being filled. Oblivious of his inability to pay them, Isaac kept harassing his men to the point of desperation, and they quickly rose against him. Terrified, Isaac closed the hatch that separated his office from the rest of the building, and when they came knocking at his windows, he pulled the lever that released the acidic fumes of the pipes into the rest of the facility. Beyond the crystal walls, he saw his former employees burn to death, their eyes and skin melting before his eyes. Consumed by fear, he waited for as long as he could before opening the doors and going outside, just to discover that the rest of the world had disappeared.

Current Sketch: Isaac spent years floating alone in the mists, being prisoner in his labyrinthine factory, haunted by the geists of his former employees, and the shadowy creatures which stalked him from the corners of the realm –or, at least, of his imagination, but fascinated by the ever-present mists, in which he saw a power even beyond that of the steam he had used to employ in his engines.

He had started designing mist-powered engines and, without a new source of labor, he saw no problem in taking the remains of his men, and attaching steam mist-powered engines to them, turning them into mist-powered zombies, to work for him forever, with no opinion of their own.
But the strange creatures were still there, and one of them –a blind, scarred creature –scared him to death, convincing him of the necessity of some kind of protection. He started working again on a bunch of hulking mist-powered iron bodyguards, but came to realize that, as automatons, his protectors could not react properly to danger. Luckily for him, there were visitors to his factory, brought to him by the mists. He learnt what he could from them, but in the end betrayed and murdered them, giving their –properly washed –brains to his iron hulks.

With this event, his domain expanded to include all Endemia, and that gave him the opportunity to start distributing his mist-powered machines, to start looking for new employees, and to look for ways to increase his finances, restarting the war all over again.

Professor Niccolo Torma, darklord of Phragma

One later day I brought the masons there
To find what view my dim forbears had shunned,
But as they pierced the stone, a rush of air
Burst from the alien voids that yawned beyond.
They fled – but I peered through and found unrolled
All the wild worlds of which my dreams had told.
-Howard Phillips Lovecraft,
“The Window”

Professor Niccolo Torma is a frail sixty-ish old man. His hair is a disordered white halo about his head. His gaze is lively and piercing. Beneath his plain conservative clothing, his body is covered in tattoos in the shape of zodiacal symbols. In times where he doesn’t have to play the “kindly old scholar”, his speech devolves into a mess of mutually-interrupting sentences, and he sometimes slips into saying “We” in reference to himself.

Background: Long ago, the El-Koth race came to the mortal realm from beyond stellar and planar space. These insect-like multi-brained horrors understood nothing of the concept of individual thought. Whenever they colonized a new world, they hastened to save local life from horrid “one-mindedness” by turning all living matter into more of their own kind. With millennial patience, they established several hidden cities under the surface of modern-day Phragma.

When the El-Koth first learned of the mind-flayers of Bluetspur, they were shocked at encountering an alien species that was every bit their equal. With cold practicality, the race planned to crush the mind-flayers by disabling their God-Brain ruler. This could only be done with a combined psychic attack from every El-Koth mind all at once. Unfortunately, their enemy pre-empted this. As soon as all El-Koth minds finished merging together for the assault, the God-Brain launched its own attack. In the aftermath, the El-Koth lost the ability to pool their minds together. Unable to bear the horror of independent thought, the race turned on itself in a demented orgy of self-destruction. The empty underground cities are all that remains of them today.

Niccolo Torma was a brilliant young mathematician, astrologer and historian in the Second Constellate Academy of Phragma. His colleagues openly marvelled at Torma’s ability to excel at several fields at once. None suspected that Torma actually had several distinct minds acting in unison inside his head.

Aware that his brain wasn’t normal by human standards, Torma investigated his family history. His findings led him to discover a hidden cave below an Academy building. Taking along a class of aspirant archaeology students, Torma set to explore the deep catacombs. As the group came upon the remains of a strange insectoid horror, Torma’s conglomerate mind went awhirl with emerging recollections. Afraid that his students would give away “his” discovery, the professor led them deeper into the twisting tunnels. When the students eventually grew lost and separated, he murdered them one by one.

Current Sketch: Niccolo Torma surmises that the gargantuan fossil he discovered was once the terrible multi-brained ruler of the El-Koth race. He believes himself to be its reincarnation, albeit trapped in a pitiful human frame. He sees it as his destiny to re-awaken or recreate the elder race. In addition, he burns with hatred toward the mind flayers of Bluetspur. He plots to one day see them razed from the face of Ravenloft.

To the casual eye, Torma is a kindly retired professor. He obligingly shares his vast knowledge with whomever requires it, including wandering adventurers. Secretly, he is the head of the Invisible Constellate, a phantom academy that researches blasphemous secrets of the domain’s past. Using kidnapped humans and animals as guinea pigs, they are hoping to recreate the many life-forms the El-Koth used to employ as slaves.

Though Torma’s multiple minds grant him unparalleled mental capacity, they often have trouble working together. Inside his head, he is in constant conference with himself over the best path to take to achieve his goal. His disciples of the Invisible Constellate defer to his various personalities separately. Each one is referred to by a cryptic byname: “The Astrologist”, “The Chronicler”, “The Arithmetician”, “The Shaper”, “The Alienist”. There may be more.

Very deep down, Torma is revolted at the alien being he is slowly becoming. But as control over his El-Koth abilities is improving, the part of his mind still calling itself human is being slowly erased – much to the professor’s secret despair.

Patricia Wilding & the Heir, darklords of Principato delle Grazie

“I didn't decide what I have become, my love... and I don't want to be like this...”
“Me neither...”
-Patricia Wilding & the Heir

Physical Description: Patricia Wilding still has an human appearance. Only some things look out of place getting closer to her. Her back is bent much over human possibilities, her breast and basin pointing outside. Her hair is a dull blond, almost white, thin and frail. Her eyes are still big and green, covered by a film as if she had a slight cataract. Her hands are long and she is usually dresses tastefully with long dressing gowns with laces covering her arms and neck. She looks very frail but moves with a speed that denies such weakness.
The Heir looks like a deformed baby sticking out of Patricia's womb. A thin umbilical cord connects and keeps alive both of them: cutting it would condemn them both. He's bald and his skin is sloppy and dark, as if dead. His eyes look like his mother's and his voice is shrieking and smug. His countenance is always grim and spiteful, even having no eyelashes and eyebrows. To hide he often clings to his mother's left side, becoming invisible under her dress.

Background: Patricia Wilding was a good actress, as talented as charming and sensual. The heir to the throne, prince Etienne Bramante, quickly fell in love with her and, with a decision unexpected by the whole royal family, asked Patricia to marry him. Patricia wasn't naive, and knew how much she could have changed her life with such a marriage, and accepted gladly, even if she didn't return Etienne's feelings.
She got an opulent wedding, a huge popularity but also the perfidious envy of Ada Bramante, the widow princess and Etienne's mother, who saw in Patricia a mere calculating wench bent on ruining her son's future. The people knew of Princess Ada's hate, suffocated by the necessity to keep a quiet façade for the principality's well being.
Ada used her cunning. She studied the maps of the old mines around the principality, but it took her months; in the meantime Patricia got pregnant. She had to act quickly.
One afternoon Patricia went out with her coach to join her husband on a trip and on that day Ada with some faithful servants used some ancient tunnels to pass her and prepare an ambush. Her servants killed Patricia's entourage and chased her to a gorge near the path. There Ada revealed herself and with a precise gunshot hit Patricia's shoulder; the princess staggered and fell down on the rocks, hundred of feet below.
Satisfied, Ada set the couch on fire and went back to the palace to feign the pain for the loss of her daughter-in-law. Prince Etienne collapse in a state of depression.
But Patricia Wilding wasn't dead yet. She was wounded and exhausted, but her fall was slowed but some branches that threw her through an opening into an old mine. That night she regained consciousness and felt destroyed inside. She hated Ada, hated the whole principality, hated herself and hated the baby that was pushing to exit. Patricia couldn't take it anymore: with her last breath drowned in blood she died collapsed on a rock, while her womb trembled and bloodied her dress. As if exploding her belly ripped apart and the Heir dragged himself out. The rain began to hit him while his squeaky toddler screams marked every centimeter he managed to cover to exit her mother's womb.
While this macabre birth was occurring, Patricia quivered and opened her eyes again shrieking. The heir screamed his pain and frustration and Patricia screamed all her hate for the child lacerating her womb.
They deeply hated each other and everything that went wrong in their lives: Patricia lost her dream to be a princess and live happily, and more important to be a mother and give an heir to the realm. The Heir lost his chance to live even before being born. Frustration gave both the energy to stand and walk in the galleries under the mountains.
It took them a week to find the way to La Cittadella and the Royal Palace where princess Patricia was already mourned as disappeared, probably dead. Etienne was crushed by the loss and couldn't get over it; Ada was ecstatic, she knew her son would forget her sooner or later and that night she went to bed happy.
The shrieking voice of the Heir woke her up and made her scream when she felt the thin fingers of her grandson grab her and drag her down to the ground. Crying of horror and despair Ada dared to ask for mercy. That was when Patricia and the Heir agreed. The corpse princess held her with her supernatural strength while the Heir tortured and ripped Ada Bramante's innards for the whole night.
Covered of blood and rancor Patricia went to Etienne who burst into tears, frightened but too enamored to renounce her. Etienne decided to cover her wife, he almost didn't see the cancer linked to her womb, and that was fine for the Heir.
The two undead slaughtered the servants and nobles who were part of the conspiracy to kill them and after five days of bloody vengeance peace returned in the principality. Etienne and Patricia inherited the throne and he began to indulge all of her wishes.

Current Sketch: The Heir, the true mind of this horrible gestalt, had and has the intention to find a way to detach himself from his mother, and to do his tests he needs pregnant women, children and mothers to use in his experiments in the galleries under the principality.
Patricia and the Heir created many undead servants, also within the palace's servants, tying ti hide their status as corpses.
The Heir is very talented in magic and his studies are getting deeper. Patricia lives only to give Etienne an heir, and he decided to live and protect her despite everything. She's cruel and does horrible things but in the name of the final result: to give Etienne a son and detach from the Heir.
The prince blames the disappearances on some creatures, maybe fairies and witches, hidden in the forests and mountains around the realm, to avoid any suspect.

Combat: Patricia has a superhuman strength and apparently no weapon can seriously harm her. She doesn't feel pain and her wound close immediately, except for the gunshot at her shoulder that remains open and bloody to this day, even if she usually covers it.
The Heir doesn't have much strength, but he possesses a brilliant mind he used to learn spells and formulas useful for his studies. Among the magics he studied there are many useful during combat. Usually the Heir uses spells to defend their body and buff Patricia, and eventually casts spells that drain energy and life force.

Lair: Patricia and the Heir life in the palace when they want to represent their normal role, but their true lair is the labyrinth of tunnels under the principality. They have many laboratories there, in which the Heir performed his failed experiments. The galleries are full of the undead they created purposefully or by mistake.