Ghastria

Ghastria is a dull, gray domain, ruled by a darklord who literally is gray, in a pastiche of The Picture of Dorian Gray with some inspiration by the Marquis De Sade. The domain is infested with undead ghasts and ghouls and with monstrous carrion crawlers. No food produced here has any flavour whatsoever. The domain is the core's leading producer of umbral gray, an element used in paintings to add a smoky, misty effect but which is also lethally poisonous; however, the darklord has discovered that by mixing carrion crawler venom with umbral gray, you eliminate the strong flavour, thus making it much more useful as a poison.

The darklord Marquis Stezen D'Polarno is also the political lord, his curse being that he cannot feel any form of emotion (this has the physical effect of leaving him a dull gray in colour) unless he first shows a living being his self-portrait, which sucks the life from them and leaves him with emotions until the effect wears off. He always plans great things to do when he regains his emotions, but he lacks the self-drive to do them; thus he never gets anything accomplished.

Ghastria was a domain in the second edition of Ravenloft, and hasn't been translated into the third edition. Ghastria first appeared in the 2-round RPGA tournament "Dance of the Dead" written by James Lowder and Bruce Nesmith.

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

		Ravenloft Third Edition Domains of Dread Darklords
		Ravenloft Third Edition - p138 Domains of Dread - p73 Darklords - pp77-78
		Ravenloft Third Edition - inside cover Domains of Dread - p72