Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth

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Former servant of Duke Gundar, Daclaud Heinfroth (alias Dr. Dominiani) conspired with his master against Harkon Lukas, seducing Harkon's daughter Akriel to seek out the Crown of Souls. When that failed due to the intervention of heroes, he betrayed his master in 736 BC, becoming darklord of Gundarak. After the Grand Conjunction, he was granted his own domain, Dominia, where he currently resides in the his Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed.[1]


History

In life a gifted and highly respected (but secretly corrupt) alienist seeking a cure for his family's hereditary madness, Heinfroth accidentally became a Cerebral Vampire after transfusing himself with the cerebrospinal fluid of one of Gundar's would-be brides. Duke Gundar just about destroyed Heinfroth in retaliation. However, Gundar held back his ultimate wrath when he learned that Heinfroth's blunder left the doctor under Gundar's sway.[2]

While in the service of Gundar, Heinfroth worked in a fortress that also functioned more as an asylum.[3][4]

The Gundarakite Conspiracy

In 735 BC, Heinfroth conspired with his lover Akriel Lukas to overthrow Harkon Lukas[5] and Duke Gundar and usurp power in their respective domains. To accomplish this task, Heinfroth and Akriel planned to use the Crown of Souls to create an army of goblyns and provoke a war between Kartakass and Gundarak. According to this conspiracy, Akriel and Heinfroth would use the distraction caused by the war to sneak in and take out Duke Gundar and Harkon Lukas.[6]

Although Akriel truly loved Daclaud Heinfroth, his love for her was merely a deception for the true conspiracy with his master, Duke Gundar. After faking Gundar's death, Heinfroth would use Akriel's aid in destroying her father and then kill her in turn. Heinfroth planned to rule Kartakass alone as an ally to Duke Gundar.[6]

Heinfroth and Akriel hatched their scheme in 736 BC[7] However, their plans came to naught with the destruction of the Crown of Souls[8] In Gazetteer II, "S" would refer to this failed conspiracy as the Gundarakite Conspiracy several years later.[9]

Betrayal of Duke Gundar and Rule of Gundarak

In the wake of the failed Gundarakite Conspiracy, Heinfroth demonstrated he was loyal to no one. In 736 BC, Heinfroth abandoned his master at a critical moment of Gundar's conflict with some adventurers. So enabled, the adventurers dispatched Gundar, leaving Heinfroth as the darklord of Gundarak. Heinfroth ruled that land in a neglectful fashion. He focused more on operating his asylum fortress and securing victims for his experiments than providing any true rulership for the realm he inherited.[10]

Heinfroth's rule of Gundarak last for merely four years, ending in the the face of the Grand Conjunction. Heinforth's myopic focus motivated the Dark Powers to draw him into the Mists, where he was granted a speck of an island of terror called Dominia.[10] Back in the Core, Gundarak as a separate domain ceased to be, its former lands divided between Barovia and Invidia.[11] The authorities of Teufeldorf eventually changed his former keep into a military prison.[4]

In Dominia

Though Dominia was little more than Heinfroth's new Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed and the ground surrounding it, Heinfroth was largely satisfied with it. With the Mists bringing in more test subjects, Heinfroth's experiments grew ever more depraved in the years that followed. Some time before 750 BC[12], the Dark Powers rewarded Heinfroth's terrible acts by making Dominia a Core domain[10] in the Sea of Sorrows.

Heinfroth benefited greatly from the "upgrade" in his domain's status. He invited Dr. Piotr Rehner, an old associate from Gundarak, to join him on Dominia. There, Rehner proved his dedication by agreeing to transformation into a cerebral vampire Moreover, Heinfroth gained the service of an able ship captain, Captain Ridg Baykur after Heinfroth rescued the shipwrecked Baykur and made him into a cerebral vampire.[13]

Madame Radanavich and Baron Metus eventually came to Heinfroth with conspiracy on their minds against Dr. Rudolph van Richten. More specifically, to ruin van Richten's mind, body, and soul before finally ending his life.[14] Heinfroth cared little for Metus or Radanavich's plans, but he was pleased to have Dr. van Richten as a test subject. His sanity undermined by the nightmares brought by Metus, Dr. van Richten came to The Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed for treatment. He instead found torture as Heinfroth gaslighted him.[15] Adventurers freed van Richten, though he met his final in the battle against Madame Radanavich in Richten Haus in 750 BC.

Current Sketch

Thanks to the power of propaganda, Heinfroth is thought of not only as a respected healer of the mentally ill but a truly saintly benefactor of those in his care.[16] However, Heinfroth knows on some level he is a fraud, for the few he has actually healed with his cerebral spinal fluid transplants sooner or later decayed into states of utter madness followed quickly by death. Heinfroth lives in fear that his family's madness may one day claim him.[10]

As cerebral vampires cannot make more of their own kind like other vampires can, Heinfroth alone holds the secrets to creating more of them.[10]

Heinfroth plays up his werewolf-like visage to fool his opponents into thinking he is a lycanthrope instead of a vampire. His odd affinity for (and immunity to) garlic gives him another tool of deception in concealing his vampire nature.[1][2][6]

Sources and Discrepancies

Heinfroth was first introduced in Feast of Goblyns, where his schemes with Akriel and Duke Gundar play out as part of the plotline. Heinfroth receives an expanded bio Ravenloft Campaign Setting (Red Box) and the first write-up of his post Grand Conjunction domain, Dominia. Heinfroth is perhaps the most detailed in the module Bleak House: The Death of Rudolph van Richten, whereupon the PCs encounter and free van Richten from imprisonment in the Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed

Over his appearances in several Ravenloft products, there have been a few minor discrepancies in Heinfroth's profile.

Both Feast of Goblyns[17] and the Red Box list Heinfroth as a standard vampire with a simple proclivity for cerebral spinal fluid. However, the cerebral vampire is introduced as a new vampiric strain and places Heinfroth in that category.[18]

In the Red Box, Heinfroth's curse is listed as the ghostly laughter that haunts him over the small Island of Terror domain as a result of his meager rule.[1] 

According to Bleak House: The Death of Rudolph van Richten, Heinfroth did not suffer from his time in a tiny domain in the Mists. Rather, it was the haunting laughter that he may never remedy his family's madness and that one day he may succumb.[10]

Chronology


References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Ravenloft Campaign Setting: Domains and Denizens p. 62
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Bleak House: Heroes, Monsters, and Settings p. 9
  3. ↑ Feast of Goblyns p. 66-80, this module includes a map and area descriptions.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Gazetteer I p. 36
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Bleak House: Heroes, Monsters, and Settings p. 9-10
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Feast of Goblyns p. 13
  7. ↑ Domains of Dread p. 17, as described in Feast of Goblyns. The events of this module fulfilled the 1st Verse of Hyskosa's Hexad.
  8. ↑ Ravenloft Campaign Setting: Domains and Denizens (red box) p. 35, Feast of Goblyns p. 92
  9. ↑ Gazetteer I p. 94
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 Bleak House: Heroes, Monsters, and Settings p. 10
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Gazetteer IV p.39
  12. ↑ Bleak House: Homecoming p. 3 places the event of the events of Bleak House: The Death of Rudolph van Richten module in this year.
  13. ↑ Bleak House: Heroes, Monsters, and Settings p. 12
  14. ↑ Bleak House: Heroes, Monsters, and Settings p. 16
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Bleak House: Heroes, Monsters, and Settings p. 4
  16. ↑ Bleak House: Sea of Madness p. 67
  17. ↑ Feast of Goblyns p. 13-14
  18. ↑ Bleak House: Heroes, Monsters, and Settings p. 7-9
  19. ↑ Feast of Goblyns p. 13 gives the derivation of the date. Dr. D. has spent 180 years as a vampire at the time of Feast of Goblyns (736 BC according to Domains of Dread p. 17). Bleak House: Heroes, Monsters, and Settings p. 9-10 details how it happened. The date of his transition into undeath is highly questionable as it predates Gundarak's 593 BC date of formation as a domain. If the date is accurate, then this event is likely false history. Alternatively, Heinfroth may have undergone thee transformation on the Prime Material Plane or elsewhere prior to the formation of Gundarak.
  20. ↑ Ravenloft Third Edition p.17
  21. ↑ Ravenloft Player's Handbook p.19
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Ravenloft Campaign Setting: Domains and Denizens p. 62
  23. ↑ Gazetteer I p. 19
  24. ↑ Domains of Dread p. 17, as told in Bleak House, particularly Bleak House: Homecoming p. 58-63

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

Ravenloft Third Edition
Domains of Dread
Bleak House
Feast of Goblyns Download Now!

Bleak House - Sea of Madness - p54
Feast of Goblyns - front cover, poster, p68 Download Now!

Bleak House:Heroes, Monsters, and Settings - p9
Ravenloft Campaign Setting:Domains and Denizens - p62
Feast of Goblyns - p11 Download Now!

Ravenloft Third Edition - p138
Domains of Dread - p73
Bleak House:Heroes, Monsters, and Settings - pp9-10, p20
Bleak House:Sea of Madness - p22,p53-55
Ravenloft Campaign Setting:Domains and Denizens - pp35-36,62-63 Feast of Goblyns - pp11-12,67-69 Download Now!

Dr. Dominiani


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