Café de Nuit

I think someone should just sticky this thread. It's been ressurrected what, 4, 5 times? The thing was first posted in 2003 for god's sake.

That said, who are my favorites? Well, top three:

1. Strahd - My introduction to Ravenloft, by way of P.N. Elrod, and still hands down the coolest villain in the game. He's a vampire, but he manages to avoid the Lestat type of vampirism to go back to the old Dracula roots.

2. Lord Wilfred Godefroy - Considering he's the premier avatar of one of the most classic kinds of monsters, he really doesn't get much respect. Still, I find the idea of a non-tragic, self-aware, plotting and planning ghost to be fascinating, and you have to hand it to him, he has one of the best lairs in the game. (Only Castle Ravenloft can really compare).

3. Hazlik - He's a Thayan, a powerful wizard, and rules one of the few essentially non-european domains. (I like Turkey). Beyond that, he's a human spellcaster, not a vampire, not a lich, not some other bizarrity, but still manages to be evil to the core. And his brief appearance in Tales of Ravenloft (dictating notes on an experiment to turn a thief ethereal) is incredibly cool.

I'm as surprised as anyone (if not more so) to see this thread remains in existence!

As always, I love Gabby.

Harkon Lukas, hands down. He has to be in every one of my campaigns.

Shortly after the old bard are Azalin (MUHAHAHA!) and Jacqueline Renier (same evil laugh, but more feminine).

Jeremy Puckett

I vote for Rafael!

Ah, only canon darklords?

Then, Jacqueline Renier all the way. She has style.

For me it's got to be Godefroy! The fact alone that he can draw his enemies into his lair and imprison them there after their death forever, with no hope of any rescue EVER makes him pretty scary for me! Plus, as Scarycount already said, he lives in a haunted mansion! "The House on Gryphon Hill", the name alone is enough to send a shiver down my spine

Second and Third Choice would be Jacqueline Renier and Harkon Lukas...

Mortepierre wrote:I vote for Rafael!

Thank you!



Rafael, darklord of Nintendo and Pizza?

What a wonderful existence that would be...

Bah, since you are visiting many forums I' d say Rafael DL of the boards!

VAN wrote:Bah, since you are visiting many forums I' d say Rafael DL of the boards!

Hey, I am not in that many... *counts* ...errh, well, okay...

Well, I was bored... So I read through the whole thread, and assigned 5 points to the DLs who were mentioned as the favorites of everyone; 3 points to those mentioned second, and 1 point to the third (Others were not included). If there was a tie at 1st place, I would give both DLs 4 points, and if there was at 2nd, I would give them both 2 points.

So, interested in the results?

At 10th place, with 8 points, an uneven match between the mighty demon Gwydion and the tragic paladin turned obsessive, Elena Faithhold!

At 9th place, with 9 points (Which may turn into 10 with a little help from his daddy), good ol' Alfred Timothy, who just couldn't resist the emotion!

At 8th place, just 1 point above Alfred, comes Malken. However, he hasn't decided if he loves or hates the idea...

With 12 points, Ivana Boritsi gets position number 7. She tried to kiss us when we told her... (Well, undeath has its advantages, after all...)

At number 6, with 15 points, Sir Wilfred Godefroy!

At 5th place, a new tie: With 18 points, Victor Mordenheim and Adam, who refused to share their prize, and Anton Misroi, who started to dance like crazy when we told him!

At 4th place, with 24 points each, another tie. This time between Jackeline Renier (Who loved us for telling her... And then disappeared) and Hazlik (Who told us that he couldn't sleep over the results).

Another tie comes at 3rd place, with Harkon Lukas (It HAS to be the monocle), and that-mysterious-guy-who-refused-to-give-his-name-and-asked-us-to-refer-to-him-only-as-the-Black-Rose, both with 37 points.

And then, at 2nd place with 56 points total: The dark, the classic, the guy who started it all, the (in)famous Strahd Von Zarovich!

Finally, in the 1st place as the favorite darklord of all time, with a total of 90 points, the alpha-male, the megalomaniac, the mighty troublemaker who has been keeping the wheels spinning for these last couple of centuries, the unmatched AZALIN REX!

---

Well, as of myself, I prefer Adam/Mordenheim, closely followed by Elena and Azalin. I already added my points to the total, though.

...And it keeps running...

My vote is for Harkan Lucas (to go with my favorite domain vote)

Hm...not all of my favorite domains match up with up with my favorite darklords. Mainly because an ubercool darklord exerts his/her/its/their will over their domain so strongly that the domain itself becomes little more than a reflection of its lord, a stage to play on (*cough* "Barovia" *cough*), and many other darklords are great Gothic character concepts but unsuited for the fringe qualities of darklord status (Mordenheim). Souragne/Anton would be the exception there. I actually find that making a great character into a darklord inhibits that character more than it adds to them (give me Jacqueline Montarri, the Midnight Slasher, the Scissorman, Davion, Ejrik Spellbender, the Graben family, Clarisse Harrowing, or the Phantom Lover), but that's a different debate.

That said, my favorite darklords tend to be those who are explored extensively in novels and adventures to flesh out their characters:

1. Anton Misroi (as seen in Dance of the Dead). A deliciously evil and decadent portrayal by Christie Golden, and IMHO the perfect way to employ a darklord when they step on stage, neither as directly supported or directly opposed but out for their own interests, and scary besides.

2. Sir Tristen Hiregaard (note: The Enemy Within version). I'm a sucker for good Jekyll/Hyde stories, and like the portrayal here. I'm not fond at all of his current version, though; he's just a victim of two other people's train wreck.

3. ... Urik von Kharkov I guess, by a nose over a clump of Mordenheim, Strahd, Dominic d'Honaire, Tristen ApBlanc, and Nathan Timothy.

My vote for Thakok-An as a most favourite dark lord. Second would be Gabby.

What I do not understand is such a huge popularity of Harkon Lukas. For me he is one of least interesting dark lords.

Vannax wrote:My vote for Thakok-An as a most favourite dark lord. Second would be Gabby.

What I do not understand is such a huge popularity of Harkon Lukas. For me he is one of least interesting dark lords.

Er....Who is Thakok-An?

tarlyn st-denfer wrote: Er....Who is Thakok-An?

She is a DL of Kalidnay. Don´t tell me you have never met her....