Two darklords for the price of one?
Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 3:50 pm
I was looking through some darklord backgrounds today, and I noticed something that might link the creation of two different darklords, tying their origins to a single event. Only a tiny ret-con would be needed, to make it work, and it'd add yet another stain of enmity to the infighting and feuding between lords which besets the southwestern Core. It'd even mean that the Dark Powers chose two darklords in quick succession, who had something in common -- a youthful resentment for the single parents who'd raised them, then denied them the freedom to live as their passions dictated -- which suggests that the DPs had a particular interest in that particular "flavor" of evil, at the time:
According to Gabrielle Aderre's personal history, she and her mother had been attacked by a werewolf in 729. Embittered by how Isabella had long refused to reveal her father's identity, and by how her mother (gifted with the Sight) fortold doom should her daughter ever bear children, Gabrielle exorted the truth from her badly-wounded parent, then (dissatisfied with her answers) abandoned her mother to the werewolf's fury. The Mists immediately swept in and deposited Gabrielle in Bakholis's clutches, where she promptly assassinated the former lord of Invidia, "inheriting" his power over that domain.
Now take a look at Alfred Timothy's background. He forsook his father's domain of Arkendale at some time in the 720s, and spent several years harassing human peasants and trying to become a cleric of the Wolf God. Eventually, his failure to attain divine patronage drove him to massacre one too many villages, and he was captured and sentenced to be burned alive. However, two Vistani -- a mother and daughter -- purchased the caged werewolf from the avenging villagers, acting upon the mother's Sight-bestowed predictions. Alfred betrayed his rescuers, killing the older woman, while the younger one fled. He was soon after picked up by the Mists and deposited in his own new-made domain of Verbrek, in 730 BC.
Coincidence...?
Since when are there "coincidences", when the Dark Powers are involved?
If you ask me, these stories are just too much alike to be an accident. It was Alfred Timothy, IMO, who slaughtered Isabella Aderre, leaving Gabrielle as the daughter who escaped. It's unlikely that Alfred would have spared the younger of his 'rescuers', after all -- not knowing that the surviving Vistana could curse him for his treacherous actions; he couldn't count on the daughter's scorn for her mother's unsatisfactory response lasting too long, especially when the fleeing girl (a "weakling human", in his eyes) surrendered to the human "weakness" of guilt! -- so it's unlikely she could have escaped a pursuing werewolf ... unless the Mists took her away. Conversely, it's hard to explain why a werewolf would suddenly up and attack a couple of (half-)Vistani, when everything we know about the Ravenloft gypsies suggests that they're the one group of people whom the dark beasts of the wilds tend to leave alone. But if the two Vistani had actually set the werewolf free, then such an encounter makes more sense, especially when we consider Alfred's exceptional contempt for all humans, Vistani included.
The only points of contention between these two stories are the difference in dates -- 729 for Gabrielle's usurpation of Invidia; 730 for the formation of Verbrek -- and the description of the two women who'd freed Alfred as full-blooded Vistani (one a raunie) rather than mixed-bloods. The former is easily resolved, if we assume that the death of Isabella took place in late December: Gabby got her domain at the end of 729, while Alfred was given a few days more to wander (searching for the escaped daughter, perhaps?) before the Mists picked him up in early 730. As for the identity of the "raunie", that's also easily accounted for: resentful of the full-blood gypsies who'd treated her as an outcast, Isabella may have made a habit of pretending to be a true Vistana and leader of caravans, both as a way to intimidate the hostile, yet curse-wary giorgios, and as a means of spreading a little more dirt on the true Vistani's reputations, every time she cheated a giorgio in her "raunie" guise.
This connection not only gives we DMs a chance to write Alfred Timothy (a rather neglected character) into the blood-feuding and resentments of the Core -- especially if Matton, a werewolf-hating wolfwere who loves Gabrielle, hears about all this; slaughtering Alfred for having once put Gabby in danger might seem, to him, like a way of winning her exclusive affections back, for all that it probably wouldn't work and he'd most likely get killed trying -- but it also provides an intriguing example of the Dark Powers' showing interest in a specific type of Evil (filial betrayal and resentment for parental authority), and selecting the first two villains who happen to exemplify that Evil for near-simultaneous ascension to darklord status! Several weeks ago, I'd proposed on this board that the DPs are collecting a wide variety of types of evil-doers, based more upon their illustrative value than on the mere magnitude of their crimes. In this case, if indeed these two darklords arose from a single event, we may have an example of the Dark Powers' selecting two separate villains whose misdeeds just happened to best demonstrate the "flavor" of Evil that most happened to interest them, right around New Years' of 730: festering teen-aged hatred toward one's parent, in both its daughter-vs-mother and its son-vs-father incarnations.
According to Gabrielle Aderre's personal history, she and her mother had been attacked by a werewolf in 729. Embittered by how Isabella had long refused to reveal her father's identity, and by how her mother (gifted with the Sight) fortold doom should her daughter ever bear children, Gabrielle exorted the truth from her badly-wounded parent, then (dissatisfied with her answers) abandoned her mother to the werewolf's fury. The Mists immediately swept in and deposited Gabrielle in Bakholis's clutches, where she promptly assassinated the former lord of Invidia, "inheriting" his power over that domain.
Now take a look at Alfred Timothy's background. He forsook his father's domain of Arkendale at some time in the 720s, and spent several years harassing human peasants and trying to become a cleric of the Wolf God. Eventually, his failure to attain divine patronage drove him to massacre one too many villages, and he was captured and sentenced to be burned alive. However, two Vistani -- a mother and daughter -- purchased the caged werewolf from the avenging villagers, acting upon the mother's Sight-bestowed predictions. Alfred betrayed his rescuers, killing the older woman, while the younger one fled. He was soon after picked up by the Mists and deposited in his own new-made domain of Verbrek, in 730 BC.
Coincidence...?
Since when are there "coincidences", when the Dark Powers are involved?
If you ask me, these stories are just too much alike to be an accident. It was Alfred Timothy, IMO, who slaughtered Isabella Aderre, leaving Gabrielle as the daughter who escaped. It's unlikely that Alfred would have spared the younger of his 'rescuers', after all -- not knowing that the surviving Vistana could curse him for his treacherous actions; he couldn't count on the daughter's scorn for her mother's unsatisfactory response lasting too long, especially when the fleeing girl (a "weakling human", in his eyes) surrendered to the human "weakness" of guilt! -- so it's unlikely she could have escaped a pursuing werewolf ... unless the Mists took her away. Conversely, it's hard to explain why a werewolf would suddenly up and attack a couple of (half-)Vistani, when everything we know about the Ravenloft gypsies suggests that they're the one group of people whom the dark beasts of the wilds tend to leave alone. But if the two Vistani had actually set the werewolf free, then such an encounter makes more sense, especially when we consider Alfred's exceptional contempt for all humans, Vistani included.
The only points of contention between these two stories are the difference in dates -- 729 for Gabrielle's usurpation of Invidia; 730 for the formation of Verbrek -- and the description of the two women who'd freed Alfred as full-blooded Vistani (one a raunie) rather than mixed-bloods. The former is easily resolved, if we assume that the death of Isabella took place in late December: Gabby got her domain at the end of 729, while Alfred was given a few days more to wander (searching for the escaped daughter, perhaps?) before the Mists picked him up in early 730. As for the identity of the "raunie", that's also easily accounted for: resentful of the full-blood gypsies who'd treated her as an outcast, Isabella may have made a habit of pretending to be a true Vistana and leader of caravans, both as a way to intimidate the hostile, yet curse-wary giorgios, and as a means of spreading a little more dirt on the true Vistani's reputations, every time she cheated a giorgio in her "raunie" guise.
This connection not only gives we DMs a chance to write Alfred Timothy (a rather neglected character) into the blood-feuding and resentments of the Core -- especially if Matton, a werewolf-hating wolfwere who loves Gabrielle, hears about all this; slaughtering Alfred for having once put Gabby in danger might seem, to him, like a way of winning her exclusive affections back, for all that it probably wouldn't work and he'd most likely get killed trying -- but it also provides an intriguing example of the Dark Powers' showing interest in a specific type of Evil (filial betrayal and resentment for parental authority), and selecting the first two villains who happen to exemplify that Evil for near-simultaneous ascension to darklord status! Several weeks ago, I'd proposed on this board that the DPs are collecting a wide variety of types of evil-doers, based more upon their illustrative value than on the mere magnitude of their crimes. In this case, if indeed these two darklords arose from a single event, we may have an example of the Dark Powers' selecting two separate villains whose misdeeds just happened to best demonstrate the "flavor" of Evil that most happened to interest them, right around New Years' of 730: festering teen-aged hatred toward one's parent, in both its daughter-vs-mother and its son-vs-father incarnations.
