The Black Duke
The Black Duke was a cult leader who terrorised the Ehrendton in northeastern Nova Vaasa during the years of 684 and 685, razing the village of Drataan in particular. He is also popularly known as "The Beast of Ehrendton", thanks to the The Beast of Ehrendton penned by Sir Armand Ironhand. In 685 Armand Ironhand and five other young, valorous knights were sent by Prince Rivtoff to stop the Black Duke. They failed. Ironhand alone survive to tell the tale. Dr Rudolph van Richten identified the Black Duke as a fiend in Van Richten's Guide to Demons. Cultists spouting heresy to the effect that the Black Duke is an avatar of the Lawgiver are arrested, tortured, and executed from time to time.
[VRGtD, Author's Notes to VRGttM]
Chronology
684 The misguided Brother Micah, of the Order of Tramalaine, summons the fiendish Black Duke into Ravenloft. Micah fails to control the fiend; he and his laboratory are destroyed, and the fiend disappears, unseen by living eyes. [VRGtF pg. 25]
684 The Black Duke starts organizing a militant cult, the Brothers of the Whip, in the extreme north-eastern corner of the new domain of Nova Vaasa, a region known as Ehrendton. The Black Duke’s actual headquarters may have been located in Arak. The Black Duke’s goal is nothing less than the conquest of Nova Vaasa! [VRGtF: 62 indicates a date of roughly 541. Sadly, this places the event some 140 years before the creation of the domain it takes place in, and I don’t like using false history when it comes to fiends. Thus, this date is simply a compromise, placed near the creation of Nova Vaasa.]
685 After the Nova Vaasan village of Drataan is razed, Prince Rivtoff sends six young, valorous knights to stop the Black Duke. Their leader is Sir Armand Ironhand. The knights reach the Black Duke’s lair and confront him; the Duke reveals himself to be an inhuman fiend, which immediately sets about destroying the naïve do-gooders. Only Sir Armand and a companion, Jess d’Lurien (a name which does not sound Nova Vaasan to my ear) survive; the Duke spares them so that they can spread the tale of his terrible deeds. Interestingly, the Duke abandons his campaign to invade Nova Vaasa, and the Brothers of the Whip are all eventually rounded up and executed. To date, the Black Duke has not been encountered again; it was last seen walking away in the darkness, laughing to itself. [VRGtF: See “684: The Black Duke.”]
695 Sir Armand Ironhand authors The Beast of Ehrendton, a tragic saga. Although the account is based on his encounter with the Black Duke, the outlandish (and nightmarish) story is taken by most as fiction—and becomes fairly popular! [Speculation based on VRGtF pg. 36: The book was written “years after the fact,” and Sir Armand’s grandson is an adult contemporary of Van Richten in 741.]
