Baron Caidin

Baron Caidin is the major antagonist of the Ravenloft product line novel Tower of Doom. In universe, he was the brother of Wort and ruler of Nartok in Darkon. He lived in Nartok Keep and was the owner of the Soulstone.

Biography

Early Life

Wort's real name is Worren. He was born to the Old Baron and the Old Baroness of Nartok on the same night as his half-brother Caidin, whom the Old Baron sired with a mistress named Kylene. The Old Baron despised his legitimate son's deformed nature and switched notes of their mothers to make Caidin his proper heir. Furthermore, he poisoned the Old Baroness and Kylene to cover up this secret. On his death bed years later, the Old Baron told Caidin, but Wort never never grow up to know he was the legitimate son.

Caidin's antagonism, even abuse, towards Wort was apparent early on, but Wort seemed to return only love and good will to Caidin. Outright hatred did not manifest in Caidin's heart until later later in childhood. At Morrged's Leap, Caidin hoped to lure Wort into falling on the jagged rocks below,but instead Caidin went off balance and needed Wort's help. The public echoed Caidin's disdain and contempt, for they treated him just as much a monster, a freak, or other menace. Thus Wort became all but confined in the old bell tower of Nartok Keep upon Caidin's instructions. Beyond acting as the bell ringer for executions, the fact that Caidin even had a brother fell out of public memory, to the point that even Caidin's most trusted men didn't know about Wort's existence.

Events prior to the start of Tower of Doom

As baron, Caidin was assisted by Castellan Domeck as his castellan and Lord Inquisitor Sirraun as his lead inquisitor. Kraikus was the baron's treasurer.

Caidin stumbled upon a reference to the dread artifact known as the Soulstone in an ancient book he found within the depths of Nartok Keep. The power to drain life energy from the Living greatly appealed to Caidin both on an abstract level and as a source for power. He searched long and hard for more on the Soulstone, but his search was stymied prior to his encounter with the darkling known as Brynn. Following Brynn's capture, Caidin eventually learned from the interrogated darkling the location of the Soulstone: a cave beneath the Vuchar River. From there, Caidin began a plot to overthrow his liege, Azalin Rex.

Caidin sought to use the Soulstone to drain enough life energy from his subjects to animate a war tower, which he secretly constructed using the labor of the zombies of those he slew with the Soulstone. He disguised the harvesting of bodies behind a phony inquisition, with Sirraun falsely accusing many of Caidin's own subjects of conspiring against him.

Several years prior to the beginning of Tower of Doom, a gnome cutpurse named Pock attempted to pick Baron Caidin's pocket. Although this would normally be grounds for Pock to be executed, Caidin acted upon a hunch that Pock might be useful in the future as a spy and so installed the gnome as court jester. Pock proved Caidin right by uncovering several conspiracies put against the baron by his courtiers.

Highly handsome and debonair, Baron Caidin was a womanizer, fancying himself as irresistible to the opposite sex. At the time of Tower of Doom's beginning, his current favored mistress was Contessa Sabrinda. However, she was merely buttering him up to impress her real lover, Sir Beacham, upon Caidin, such that the baron may award him a fiefdom. Thereby, Sabrinda and her lover would leave to live there together peacefully.

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

		Tower of Doom
		Tower of Doom - pp 12-16,Throughout