Lord Willem Ducas

Lord Willem Ducas is the darklord and temporal leader of Virisa. He has changed much since becoming lord of Virisa. He created the Disciples and mandated that his citizens turn their first-born child over to the state as (to-be) conscripts for the Disciples. Lord Ducas has also banned all priests from Virisa except for ones that worship and serve him as a deity. Perhaps the most worrying thing of his rule is that any Virisan (with a few notable exceptions) could be selected as Lord Ducas' next meal, for the man is a cannibal.

Willem Ducas started the path to darkness at an early age. He went from bullying to murder and cannibalism by his teenage years. By the age of 29, he had eaten his own parents. This year, 719 BC, was also the year when his land was claimed by the Mists. The Dark Powers have cursed him to feel the dying pain of his victims and have robbed him of the rush of power he gets from eating them, save perhaps (or so he thinks) a person who is adept enough to escape his clutches. As such, he has established the Great Hunt, an event in which the fittest of his prisoners is released and then hunted down as an animal. No one thus far as managed to flee the island.

Despite the great pain his feats cause him, Lord Ducas' cannibalism has grown into too much of an obsession for him to quit. He has learned that he holds off the aging process so long as he continues to eat human flesh, and he cannot let that go. Over the years experiencing the torment of death has begun to unhinge his mind. (He believes finding and eating someone who has escaped his Great Hunt will return things to the way they were supposed to be.) Yet he is unable to find such a worthy person. The people of Virisa have begun to worry what other erratic behavior their lord's madness might cause.

stats

male human fighter 10, Lawful Evil

Chronology

• 690 BC Lord Willem Ducas is born.
• 694 BC Young Willem is using threats of violence to bully his victims into keeping quiet. He eventually goes overboard and murders a person. He hides the body and escapes without getting punished. This sets a deadly precedent for future murders down the road. His descent into corruption eventually centers around cannibalism.
• 719 BC Virisa is taken by the Mists after Lord Willem Ducas murders and eats his parents.
• 721 BC Lord Willem Ducas establishes the Great Hunt.