Sir Diederic de Wyndt

Diederic de Wyndt is the main protagonist from Black Crusade, having entered the Mists chasing after the heretic Catholic priest Father Lambrecht Raes. Sir Diederic achieved his goal, but in the process he committed many foul deeds and became darklord of Malosia.

Background

Before Ravenloft

Sir Diederic de Wyndt was a knight of France and one of the invading Crusaders that took Jerusalem in 1099 A.D. Like many of his fellow crusaders, he participated in the butchery that followed the breach of the walls. Though it deadened his soul and sickened his heart, de Wydnt saw the ensuing bloodshed as a necessary evil. However, de Wydnt became disturbed by the murder of his fellow Frenchman Baron Joris van den Felle, literally stabbed in the back by somebody he trusted. As he searched for the baron's murderer, Sir Diederic found that a madness- one different from the violent carnage of the Crusaders cutting down Jerusalem's people in droves - infected the denizens of the city - invader, defender, or noncombatant alike, and turned them into giggling, savagely and insanely violent killers that would turn on friend or foe and even hurt themselves.

At one point in the violence, Diederic saved a priest of the Roman Catholic Church named Father Lambrecht Raes from some of the gibbering lunatics. Father Lambrecht enlisted Diederic's aid in rooting out the source of the madness, only to abandon Diederic to die from the murderous madmen or succumb to the madness plague itself. The knight confronted Lambrecht, who revealed he had found half of the Laginate Grimoire, a tome of dread lore that was the source of the madness plague that hit Jerusalem. Lambrecht had manipulated Diederic to gain the power of the tome for himself. Lambrecht would fight fire with fire: root out and destroy witches by using their own weapons against them. He would use the grimoire's power to save the Roman Catholic Church, even if it meant murdering his own men and even the baron to get what he wanted. However, Sir Diederic foiled Lambrecht's attempt to gain control of the grimoire and delivered both the tome and the corrupt priest to church and temporal authorities for trial of witchcraft and murder.

The trial did not go well, for there was no direct evidence of Lambrecht's responsibility in the baron's murder, and Lambrecht successfully argued that he pursued knowledge of the enemy in order to fight the enemy. Moreover, he called into doubt Diederic's credibility as a witness as a victim of the madness plague. However, Diederic turned things around by bribing the errant deserter Eliseo into providing false witness against Lambrecht. With such a witness, Lambrecht was convicted, to be hanged and the grimoire to be burnt. Yet the Laginate Grimoire did not burn and instead erupted in an explosion of mist, taking with it Lambrecht. Although injured by the explosion, Diederic followed into the Mists.

Escape from Perdition Hill

Diederic literally popped out of nowhere in a new land: Malosia. He was almost immediately arrested for witchcraft and send to Perdition Hill, an almost impenetrable prison. Months later, he staged an escape with two other prisoners, Violca and Leonera Talliers by escaping into the ancient and forgotten tunnels beneath the prison. After they escaped, Violca left them as they were sleeping in order to find her kindred, the rest of Clan Hanza. Diederic was thus denied using Violca's gift of the Sight in order to track down Lambrecht. Regardless, Diederic had more urgent issues to worry about: escaping the pursuing Redbreast soldiers.

To escape their pursuers, Diederic and Leonera fled into the Cineris Forest, a huge set of woods infested by the Fair Folk. Bloodshed between the pursued and their pursuers offended the fey that dominated the wood, for there was killing without tribute. The fey thus became hunters of both the fugitives and the Redbreasts. In order to appease the fey, Diederic lured two redbreasts into a false parlay and then struck them down, offering them as sacrifice to the Fair Folk. The Fair Folk were pleased. And so Diederic and Leonera traveled through the forest, eventually coming to Leonera's hometown of Birne.

Investigations in Birne

In Birne, Leonera found the reception to her return surprisingly quite hostile. For one, it was thought that her escape from Perdition Hill impossible. For two, her sister Marta Talliers was accused of witchcraft that blighted the village and was awaiting being burnt at the stake for it. At Leonera's behest, Diederic went about proving Marta's innocence. Diederic asked questioned and sometimes pushed hard. His investigation provoked the wrath of a trio of young toughs, whom came to rough up, and perhaps even murder, him and Leonera in the dead of night. After one of the toughs, Rolan Reveaux came at Diederic with lethal arms, Diederic struck a fatal blow against the boy. After Rolan's funeral, Diederic found that he had alienated most of the town.

Diederic soon found himself under attack by wispy and elusive attackers, evil spirits of the woods. Diederic sought to question Silma Reveaux, for she had conspicuously disappeared after expressing her desire for vengeance. Diederic came upon an ancient site of occultist activity and defeated Silma, revealing to be a witch responsible for the attacks against him. He also freed Leonera from possession by a hag spirit. However, it turned out that the reason for Birne's problems was not the casting of a malignant witchcraft but rather the failure of it. Birne's founding families had long ago made pacts with the Fair Folk to offer regular sacrifices. Over time the cost of these sacrifices grew in demand, such that the regular benign sacrifices failed to appease the Fair Folk and regular human sacrifice was needed. The founding families failed to keep up with the demand of the Fair Folk, thus causing the town's prosperity to fail. Meanwhile, the townsfolk not of the founding families believed this to be the work of witchcraft put upon the town, and thus Marta became a scapegoat. Upon realizing much of the town had witch or occultist ties and this fact's concealment, Diederic bitterly left the town and abandoned Marta to her fate.

Confronting the Laginate Cabal

In discovering Birne's secrets, Diederic also discovered the existence of the Laginate Cabal, the oldest of Malosian witch traditions that allegedly gathered not too far from Caercaelum. That they shared the same name with the Laginate Grimoire was no coincidence. In finding them, Diederic hoped to find a lead to Lambrecht. After leaving Birne, Diederic kept his ear low to the ground for an unknown but significant time before finding a likely location from a ruffed up Redbreast soldier and two hapless folk of wealth. Parsimol was the witchy capital of Malosia, and so Diederic set out with supplies taken from a Redbreast soldier he had casually murdered.

Along the way, he ran into Violca once again, who expressed an interest in going with him for the sake of discovering more about Malosia and thereby the Land of Mists. Violca revealed that Malosia was a unique domain in that it had no darklord at its core, that the land was simply devoid of soul that reflected a darklord's true nature. She also offered, once things were said and done, to ask her people to take him home.

In Parsimol, Diederic and Violca were captured by a cult of witches led by Bellustaire, whom intended to offer the pair as sacrifice. However, Diederic and Violca defeated the cult and killed Bellustaire, ultimately claiming the Laginate Grimoire. A crow possessed by Lambrecht took over Bellustaire's body and revealed he had pushed them into finding the Grimoire. While Diederic had been busy, Lambrecht had achieved great power within the Empyrean Church as a witch hunter and advisor to the Pontiff. Lambrecht challenged Diederic to come and get him.

It was a challenge Diederic could not, or would not, refuse. He heeded not Violca's warnings that the magic of the Laginate Grimoire wanted to liberate itself from the tome's bindings. Diederic refused to take responsibility for any lives lost in the ensuing chaos, for they would be Lambrecht's fault. Rather than take Violca's offer of returning home and keeping his homeworld from ever suffering the threat of a unified Laginate Grimoire ever again, Sir Diederic chose to pursue his vendetta. And so Sir Diederic de Wyndt went to Caercaelum, Malosia's so-called heavenly city

Pursuit in the Heavenly City

Although the pair escaped detection at gates of Caercaelum thanks to Violca's ingenuity, chaos soon followed hot on their heels. Like in Jerusalem, the magic of Diederic's half of the Grimoire leaked out and afflicted people with madness, leaving a trail of discord and destruction in their wake. The undead minions of Lambrecht complicated things even more. Although Diederic was thankful he kept the chaos localized rather than all-out bloodbath throughout the city, Diederic dismissed any loss of lives as necessary casualties of war.

The pair was seemingly given shelter and led away from danger by a Vistani named Tobar, but be betrayed them to First Confessor Oste van Brekke, leader of the Empyrean Inquisition. Despite animosity from both sides, a truce was arranged: delivery to the Empyrean Basilica and pardon for their sins for Diederic and Violca in return for the defeat of Lambrecht, a figure the First Confessor to be a stain upon the church.

Diederic and Violca entered the church through donning armor stolen from the Redbreasts. However, they were barred entry from Pontiff Cornelis by his guards, and the imposters' charade was revealed. The intruders cut their way through the guards and confronted the Pontiff, calling for Lambrecht's location. Yet Lambrecht intervened, using dark and foul magic, with the pontiff's permission, to animate the dead remains of the fallen guards and create webs to immobilize the intruders. All manner of disgusting and unnatural vermin scurried forth to devour Diederic and Violca alive. However, First Confessor and his men interceded, calling out Lambrecht's witchcraft and the Pontiff's willful allegiance with such a damned wretch. In the ensuing battle, Lambrecht was badly injured and disarmed from the Grimoire, but he escaped through the underground passages beneath the Basilica. Violca and Diederic gave chase and discovered dark truths behind the Empyrean Church, but Lambrecht eluded them again.

Malosia Gains its Lord

After learning from the Pontiff that he had bestowed upon the heathen priest Lambrecht a church of his own, Diederic, Violca, and a contingent of Redbreasts marched upon the place of worship, battling and cutting down helplessly maddened lunatics and undead minions. Although nearly overwhelmed by enemy numbers and horrible magic, Diederic, Viocla, and the remaining Redbreasts persevered. The confrontation ended with a partial collapse of the church and it setting ablaze. Lambrecht was struck dead once, but the necromantic spell that animated his minions caused him to rise up and seize the Grimoire. Yet before his full faculties could return, Diederic knocked him into the burning conflagration, and both the fallen priest and his foul grimoire were consumed by the fire.

With the consumption of the Laginate Grimoire, the undead returned to death. Though confused and injured, the maddened were freed of their delirium. The fire soon sputtered out. The horror was over, but not so much for Diederic. Viocla's mission of information gathering was complete, Viocla took her leave. Diederic implored for her to help him find another way of escape, but she told him that Malosia would never let him escape. The people came and acknowledged Diederic as the savior from strife and terror that afflicted their city, ignorant of the responsibility he had for it. Yet this was but ash in his mouth because he could never go home. For Malosia had found its new darklord.