Questions on Duke Gundar's History

[Ravensclaw]

Hi Everyone! Just signed up today, so forgive me if I didn't put this in a better place, but I have a question for any RL fans out there. My gaming group will be playing my new version on "Feast of Goblyns," and I'm going to be playing up Gundar and Gundarak to the hilt. (After all, the domain and lord will be gone afterwards...at least for a while). My question is, does anyone have a cool backstory or legends on Duke Gundar? We know he's a fierce military man, with a cruel streak. I'm assuming he was patterned after "Vlad the Impaler." However, besides the dates we get from the timelines and the few glimpses of him, such as in "Knight of the Black Rose," I want to know, why did Gundar become a vampire? Did he chose it? Was it accidental? We have a man who's already at around age 26 (according to the time frame provided in Gazetteer 1 -- Nharov Gundar settles his people from the lands "where the sun dies", i.e. the west). How was Gunarak created? What did he aspire to besides leadership? And what would make him turn into a vampire? Any cool suggestions or takes on this would be helpful, as I"m brainstorming at this point. So thanks in advance and happy gaming!

[Brandi]

There was a writeup of Gundar (using 2nd edition rules) back in the Kargatane netbook The Book of Shadows, still downloadable at www.kargatane.com.

[Also, Vlad Drakov is the Impaler analogue, with heavy infusions of attitude from Stalin, Hitler and Ivan Grozny.]

[Joël of the FoS]

There was a writeup of Gundar (using 2nd edition rules) back in the Kargatane netbook The Book of Shadows, still downloadable at www.kargatane.com.

[Also, Vlad Drakov is the Impaler analogue, with heavy infusions of attitude from Stalin, Hitler and Ivan Grozny.]

Book of Secrets, 1999.

But, if I may, this background is for Gundar after he came back to life after the traveling show.

Ravensclaw, do you have the Black Box? There is stuff in it about Gundar too.

Joël

[Jester of the FoS]

Gundar is -for all intended purposes- tablu rasa. He has had no official write-up, no background written and no detailed description of his land or curse.
He only appears in Knight of the Black Rose and is mentioned in the Black Box, Gazetteer IV, Children of the Night: Werebeasts and the adventure Feast of Goblyns. He dies immediately after Feast, but off-camera so the details are sketchy.

He is speculated to be a vampire of one age category higher that Strahd but the details of how or why he became a vampire are unknown.

[Joël of the FoS]

Quote from the Black Box:

Duke Gundar is older then Strahd, but weaker in spirit. He had the misfortune of finding a temporary gate into Ravenloft. Once inside, he could not leave.

Following this is a few info on his domain and how he rules it. But it got no stats in it. He never got officially statted, even in his comeback adventure in CotN-Werebeasts (Prof Arcanus's traveling show).

Unofficial stats of him include the ref Brandi provided, and the FoS hosted adventure Call of Verbrek (see the library room).

Joël

[Brandi]

Book of Secrets, 1999.

Whoops! You're right. I opened up several Books of S at once to look for the article and then picked the wrong title.

(Note to Ravensclaw: whether you like the Gundar article or not I recommend grabbing all the Kargatane netbooks. They're very readable and have lots of interesting material to mine.)

[Bloody Morgan]

Gaz IV also mentions a little about Gundar, in a "past darklords" section, but covers very little beyond what has been mentioned above. It's about 1 paragraph. It does give a description of Castle Hunadora as a Gundarakite Rebel stronghold though, if that helps.

Bloody Morgan

[Ravensclaw]

Thank you all. Yeah, I had most of the information that everyone brought up, but I forgot about the little bit of write-up in Gaz. 4, and it's given me some ideas. As I pretty much figured, Gundar is fair game, as there's not much written about him until later. I do like the fact that he's resurfaced again. I still have a few game sessions before we reach Gundarak, but I'm pretty much going to let the PC's attempt to kill him off "up-front". We'll see how that goes. Probably not well, (insert evil laugh here). Being that I've changed FoG around a bit requires Gundar and his domain to take a more active role this time around. But again, thanks to you all, this is the most info and the quickest help I've gotten in a long time, it's much appreciated.