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Baleful Polymorph was renamed per TRS
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* BalefulPolymorph: In effect what happens to any human or large enough animal he gets his hands on, as they all get turned into Broken Ones - unfortunately for them, he accomplishes this through hours of torturous BodyHorror supernaturally-empowered amateur surgery.
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* ForcedTransformation: In effect what happens to any human or large enough animal he gets his hands on, as they all get turned into Broken Ones - unfortunately for them, he accomplishes this through hours of torturous BodyHorror supernaturally-empowered amateur surgery.
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dewicking You Gotta Have Blue Hair per trs
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* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: His beard, of course.
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* MagicMusic: In her netbook version, she has a magically empowered song that lets her act as an EnthrallingSiren. She doesn't consciously know that she has this power, though, as it's a gift from the Dark Powers.
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* MagicMusic: In her netbook version, she has a magically empowered song that lets her act as an EnthrallingSiren.a siren. She doesn't consciously know that she has this power, though, as it's a gift from the Dark Powers.
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Darklords on other pages:
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheSouthernCore Darklords of the Southern Core]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheNorthernCore Darklords of the Northern Core]]
* '''Darklords of the Western Sea'''
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheEasternSea Darklords of the Eastern Sea]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsBeyondTheCore Darklords of domains beyond the Core]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftOtherDarklords Other Darklords]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftFormerDarklords Former Darklords]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheSouthernCore Darklords of the Southern Core]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheNorthernCore Darklords of the Northern Core]]
* '''Darklords of the Western Sea'''
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheEasternSea Darklords of the Eastern Sea]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsBeyondTheCore Darklords of domains beyond the Core]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftOtherDarklords Other Darklords]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftFormerDarklords Former Darklords]]
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[[Characters/{{Ravenloft}} Main page]]\\
[[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheSouthernCore Darklords of the Southern
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Darklords on other pages:
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheSouthernCore Darklords of the Southern Core]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheNorthernCore Darklords of the Northern Core]]
* '''Darklords of the Western Sea'''
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheEasternSea Darklords of the Eastern Sea]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsBeyondTheCore Darklords of domains beyond the Core]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftOtherDarklords Other Darklords]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftFormerDarklords Former Darklords]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheSouthernCore Darklords of the Southern Core]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheNorthernCore Darklords of the Northern Core]]
* '''Darklords of the Western Sea'''
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsOfTheEasternSea Darklords of the Eastern Sea]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftDarklordsBeyondTheCore Darklords of domains beyond the Core]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftOtherDarklords Other Darklords]]
* [[Characters/RavenloftFormerDarklords Former Darklords]]
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[[folder:Captain Pieter/Pietra van Riese, Darklord of the Sea of Sorrows]]
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[[folder:Captain Pieter/Pietra Pieter van Riese, Darklord of the Sea of Sorrows]]
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[[folder:Captain Pieter van Riese, Darklord of the Sea of Sorrows]]
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[[folder:Captain Pieter Pieter/Pietra van Riese, Darklord of the Sea of Sorrows]]
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* GenderFlip: To Pietra van Riese in 5th edition.
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!Darklords of the Western Sea
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!Darklords of the Western Sea
[[folder:Althea, Darklord of Demise]]
!!Althea, Darklord of Demise
Demise, a small island dominated by a massive caldera, is home to perhaps the only medusa in Ravenloft, a desperate madwoman trapped in a strange labyrinth. Received a drastic revamp in the 21st ''Quoth the Raven'' netbook, which makes her more deserving of her nature as a darklord.
----
* {{Butterface}}: Her body is perfect, her voice is beautiful, but, well...
* CollectorOfTheStrange: The netbook version at least treats the myriad petrified victims on her island as a personal collection of artworks, and is very angry at people "messing" with it.
* DeathByWomanScorned: In her netbook revamp, the first part of her Act of Ultimate Darkness was murdering her Maedar husband for the years of emotional abuse he'd given her. This drew the mountain they lived on into the Mists, where Stelios used his powers as a glyptar to reshape it into its present form, but it wasn't until the second act that she truly became a cursed Darklord.
* DomesticAbuse: The netbook version of her suffered from the emotional abuse variant; her husband Stelios refused to use his powers to undo her petrifying gaze on their many, many human children, even though Althea was heartbroken by each death. Eventually, the strain of this broke her down to the point she murdered him, incapable of standing by as he used her as a broodmare to produce a maedar son whilst letting their other children die at the sight of her.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: The whole story of her damnation in the netbook version; she wanted a child to love and to love her back, to the extent that she didn't ''care'' whether they were a medusa, a maedar or even a human. She just wanted one child to call her own. Naturally, her curse is to subvert this; childless she is, and childless she will remain. Something ''always'' happens to prevent her from having a baby. A bird snatches away her mate's blindfold at the worst possible time. She finds a blind man who seems acceptable, but he's a eunuch. On one tragic occurrence, she got pregnant, but the egg was cracked open (possibly by Stelios) before it was ready to hatch and the father tried to escape, only to break his neck in a pit.
* FantasticRacism: Netbook version only. She '''hates''' maedars, regarding them as nothing more than parasites that medusas would be better off without. This began as just a skepticism about the exulted role and reverence that maedars were held in by medusa society, but was nurtured to its final form by her maedar spouse's emotional abuse of her. It eventually reached the point where she was willing to murder ''her own son'', the child she'd been trying to have for years, maybe decades, because her hatred of maedars had been stoked to the point it outweighed her desperate longing for a child.
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Trapped in a labyrinth she can't escape, in a caldera with fifty-foot walls, on a tiny island. She doesn't get a lot of visitors.
* GorgeousGorgon: [[http://www.lomion.de/cmm/medusarv.php Her portrait]] is considerably more attractive than her description.
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Desperately seeking a mate, and will pick one member of any group who enters her labyrinth to spare toward that end. Elaborated upon to tragic extents in her netbook version.
* {{Irony}}: The netbook version has a very cruel variant. She finally has enough of losing her children to her husband's callousness and murders him... only to find he's left her SomeoneToRememberHimBy. And it's a maedar son, so she finally has a child. But by this point she's so traumatised by Stelios and post-partum depression that she ''hates'' having another maedar in her life... and so she tries to kill him.
* MagicMusic: In her netbook version, she has a magically empowered song that lets her act as an EnthrallingSiren. She doesn't consciously know that she has this power, though, as it's a gift from the Dark Powers.
* TheMaze: Her labyrinth has white walls, some of which are illusory, with strange writing on them.
* {{Medusa}}: A TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons one.
* OffingTheOffspring: The culmination of her Act of Ultimate Darkness in the netbook version; eventually realizing that her hatred of maedars outweighed her desire for a child, she tried to murder her final son, Leftheris. Although her undead husband saved his life, it was enough for the Dark Powers to make her into the darklord of Demise.
* OutsideGenreFoe: Not just the only known medusa in Ravenloft, but her prison is implied to be of extraterrestrial origin. (It's got strange marks on the walls that even magic can't interpret and seems to be in the center of an impact strike.)
* {{Retcon}}: Prior to ''Domains of Dread'', she was just a unique NPC, not a Darklord. ''Quoth the Raven #21'' retconned a lot of information about her, in order to make her more deserving of a darklord position.
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: She is constantly trying to seduce male visitors in hopes of getting the child she so yearns for.
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: Much as the netbook version wishes he ''hadn't'', Stelios did father a maedar son on her in their final tryst before she murdered him. Also, in all versions, any children she tries to have likely lost their biological father after the conception, thanks to her petrifying gaze and curse.
* TakenForGranite: Well, she ''is'' a medusa.
* TragicKeepsake: The Netbook version only. The centerpiece of her CreepySouvenir collection? A lovingly displayed altar covered in ''rows'' of tiny, perfectly formed statues of human infants... the petrified forms of all her babies. She knows they're dead, but constantly comes back to them, singing to them, playing with them, even giving them little presents she's scavenged from the island; an attempt to comfort their souls and convince them that she does still remember and love them.
* TragicVillain: The netbook version is one. If her husband had been willing to let her keep and raise just ''one'' of their human children, instead of forcing her to watch them be petrified at the sight of her eyes before he tried to make her have the next one, she would never have done the things she did.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: In her netbook version's backstory, after her attempt to try veiling herself to spare her baby failed [[note]]her infant daughter accidentally pulled off Althea's blindfold and was petrified[[/note]], she resorted to a scheme to ''blind her babies'' so they'd never be able to see her deadly eyes. Unfortunately, the first son she tried to do this to was "rescued" by human adventurers.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Captain Pieter van Riese, Darklord of the Sea of Sorrows]]
!!Captain Pieter van Riese, Darklord of the Sea of Sorrows
A sailor obsessed with finding a Northern Passage from his home to the rich lands of the East, he drove his men mercilessly, even as the sea itself seemed to rise against him. With his ship sinking, he promised the lives of himself and his crew to someone, ''anyone'' who could help him find the Passage, and something listened. Now his ghost and the ghosts of his crew roam the Sea of Sorrows, seeking a crew that will aid their escape. According to issue #22 of the ''Quoth the Raven'' netbook, he comes from Gothic Earth's Netherlands.
----
* DealWithTheDevil: He made one with whatever power may or may not have been listening at the time, swearing the lives of himself and his crew in exchange for aid in finding the passage he sought.
* {{Expy}}: Of the Flying Dutchman.
* GhostShip: The ''Relentless''.
* {{Greed}}: The reason he was damned. His goal to become rich by finding a Northern Passage drove him to obsession and then to madness, until he got his wish in the worst way possible.
* HypnoticEyes: Able to dominate any living person who looks into them.
* IronicHell: In his ''Quoth the Raven'' writeup, his ship can go anywhere or any''when'', he can run his ship alone, he can call both ghosts and living men to crew if he gets lonely, and when he arrives somewhere he can actually disembark and get some shore leave, unlike seemingly every other darklord... except he can't choose what his destination is -- either he must be chartered to go somewhere or the Dark Powers select for him. This is, to a would-be explorer, ''utter hell''.
* NeutralEvil: InUniverse -- it's the official CharacterAlignment given in his profile writeups.
* SoulJar: Destroy his ship, and you destroy him. Good luck destroying a ghost ship, though.
* SummonMagic: He can summon up to eight bowlyns (sea ghosts) to fight by his side.
* TimeTravel: According to ''Quoth the Raven'', his ship can sail through time just as easily as through the sea, if the Dark Powers permit.
* {{Transplant}}: In his ''Quoth the Raven'' writeup, he comes from [[TabletopGame/MasqueOfTheRedDeath Gothic Earth]].
* WanderingJew: Of the Flying Dutchman variant, cursed to sail the seas for eternity. (Bonus points for actually being Dutch -- and for being Gothic Earth's Flying Dutchman -- in the netbook version.)
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Bluebeard, Darklord of Blaustein]]
!!Bluebeard, Darklord of Blaustein
[[Literature/{{Bluebeard}} This is the story of Bluebeard]]: he gives his new wife a golden key, and tells her never to enter the room it unlocks. Out of curiosity, she does, only to discover the bodies of his previous wives. She locks the door, only to find the key now has a bloodstain on it, which she cannot get rid of, try as she might. Bluebeard then asks for the key, sees the bloodstain, and consigns his wife to the secret room as punishment for disobedience.
In the end, the Mists of Ravenloft took Bluebeard, giving him the domain of Blaustein. His curse is two-fold. First, his dead wives are now perfectly loyal [[OurGhostsAreDifferent spectres]], and whenever he sleeps in his castle, he wakes up in the secret room, with his wives surrounding him, demonstrating their honest affection. Second, despite the people of Blaustein being utterly loyal to him, he cannot take a bride from them, for when he ''does'' desire one of the women of Blaustein he sees in her place the image of one of his dead wives as a grinning corpse.
For all that, though, he hasn't stopped seeking a perfectly loyal wife, marrying women from other domains or other worlds -- indeed, it's said he's one of the darklords who can draw people to him through the Mists. Of course, they always fail him... and another spectre soon joins the others.
----
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: He wanted his wives to be perfectly loyal, and they are. No-one said they had to be ''alive'', though. Worse, having perfectly loyal wives is useless to a man so utterly incapable of faith or trust.
* BeardOfEvil: Yup, and it really is blue, though it's turning into more of a navy lately.
* TheBluebeard: The original from the fairytale, his serial murder of his wives being what got him imprisoned in the Demiplane of Dread.
* HauntedCastle: Bluebeard's Castle, which he tries to avoid as much as he can, only returning to sleep there every three days.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: He can make the people of Blaustein remember only what he wants them to.
* LawfulEvil: His official InUniverse alignment.
* LivingLieDetector: He can use ''detect lies'' on anyone he meets, as part of his paranoia shtick.
* TheMakeover: His looks have been slowly improving over his time in Ravenloft, going from ugly to not-too-bad in about a century.
* PublicDomainCharacter: Unusually for the main Ravenloft setting, which typically uses expies.
* UndyingLoyalty: How he's treated by his people... and by his dead wives. Indeed, his situation would be quite comfortable and happy, if only Bluebeard could become the sort of person who was capable of trust.
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: His beard, of course.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Doctor Daclaud Heinfroth, Darklord of Dominia]]
!!Doctor Daclaud Heinfroth, Darklord of Dominia
Heinfroth's fear of falling prey to the madness that ran in his family led him to perform monstrous experiments on his helpless mental patients in the hope of finding a cure. They didn't have quite the results he wanted, resulting in him becoming the first cerebral vampire, then in his becoming darklord of Dominia, condemning him never to escape his fear.
----
* BedlamHouse: His domain.
* ChaoticEvil: His official InUniverse alignment.
* DrivenToMadness: The fate of his patients, as Heinfroth seeks to deepen his understanding of insanity.
* MonsterProgenitor: The first cerebral vampire, and the only person who knows how to create more.
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Well, in his case it's a 'downright evil' doctorate.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Cerebral vampires feed on the cerebral fluid in the brain. If they kill their feeding victims, these will rise as ghouls.
* ProfessorGuineaPig: He experimented on himself when he was satisfied by the results of his experiments on the insane. What he didn't know was that his "donor" had been chosen to be a vampire bride, resulting in him becoming the first cerebral vampire.
* PsychoPsychologist: Heinfroth's greatest drive is understanding the nature of madness, and the lengths he'd go to that end made him a Darklord.
* TotallyNotAWerewolf: He's often suspected of being a werewolf due to his lupine features. On top of that, he doesn't have the standard vampiric weaknesses to garlic and sunlight.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: According to ''Domains of Dread'', he's renowned as the demiplane's leading expert on mental disorders.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Marquis Stezan d'Polarno, Darklord of Ghastria]]
!!Marquis Stezan d'Polarno, Darklord of Ghastria
Ghastria, a small island domain near Sithicus, is ruled by Stezan d'Polarno. Don't be fooled by his perennially depressed exterior, though: he's a real party animal. If you're ever invited to his manor, bring a friend. In fact, bring every friend you've got. Pretty please?
----
* AFeteWorseThanDeath: Once a season, he invites every stranger in Ghastria to a party, where he exposes them to his painting and steals their souls. He ''does'' spare a few guests to debauch himself with/upon afterward (particularly pretty ladies), but the text notably [[FridgeHorror doesn't mention if anyone actually makes it out of these bashes alive]].
* TheAgeless: Has not aged one bit since entering Ravenloft.
* BadassNormal: In his rejuvenated state all of his powers are stripped away, but he remains a skilled fighter.
* BeigeProse: After being cursed, his speech lost every ounce of tact and charm that it once had.
* TheBore: In his normal state.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Has learned by now not to expose too many peasants to his painting, as he needs people to till the fields and produce goods. Not ''too'' many.
* TheCharmer: Prior to being cursed.
* ChaoticEvil: In-universe, this is him when he's rejuvinated. He has about two days to stuff in all the joy he'll experience in a full season, and he knows it, so he'll indulge as completely as he can, becoming a MoodSwinger whose only goal is to experience as much as possible as quickly as possible.
* CoolSword: A ''rapier of quickness''.
* TheCoup: Attempted one of these, secretly manipulating the people into a rebellion against the king. It failed, and he was [[EmptyShell punished appropriately]].
* DontCreateAMartyr: Why the king couldn't just kill him.
* EmptyShell: The king's curse trapped every ounce of d'Polarno's vibrance and love of life into his painting, leaving him listless, miserable and blunt.
* {{Expy}}: A very loose one of [[{{Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray}} Dorian Gray]] in that he's a hedonist whose life is tied to a painting.
* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: East Riding, the main village of Ghastria, once had a church that brought its citizens happiness. D'Polarno found this unsettling, so he burned it down and hanged the clerics.
* FisherKing: For most of the year food in Ghastria looks good, but tastes utterly bland. Crops harvested during the brief time in which he's rejuvenated, however, are delicious.
* TheHedonist: At most he has fifty hours to enjoy having his soul back, and can only be rejuvenated once per season, so he'll cram in every possible thrill he can, from eating and drinking to sex to [[BreadEggsMilkSquick murder]].
* MadeOfIndestructium: D'Polarno's painting cannot be damaged or destroyed until he is dead.
* MakeAnExampleOfThem: Occasionally leaves the remains of his parties lying out in public to remind people not to cross him.
* ManipulativeBastard: To the point where he managed to arrange over ''one hundred'' political assassinations without losing one shred of his positive image. After he was cursed, however, he lost the ingenuity and charisma he needed to pull this off. He still tried, though, and ended up utterly destroying his power base.
* MoodSwinger: In his normal state, he's drab and lifeless. After his painting has absorbed souls, however, he's a volatile and unpredictable hedonist.
* NeutralEvil: In-universe, this is his alignment in his normal state. He's still as evil as when he has his full soul, but his lack of all joy and desire means that he's not as chaotic as he is when restored.
* NighInvulnerable: In his normal state he heals rapidly, reforming even if his body is destroyed. This does not apply during his rejuvenated state, however, when he can be killed like anyone else.
* PortalPicture: Inverted. When he seals his domain, the borders of Ghastria are replaced by gigantic paintings that look like normal landscapes but prove their real nature when someone walks into them.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Has ruled Ghastria for centuries.
* {{Revenge}}: Managed to muster enough spirit to poison the entire royal household.
* SenseFreak: While rejuvenated, since that's the only time he can appreciate sensations.
* SoulJar: His painting has the [[AnatomyOfTheSoul chunk of his soul]] that contains his ''joi de vivre''.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Back in his home kingdom, he pretended to be a philanthropic nobleman who fought for the people. In truth, however, this was just a front he used to cover his ambitions. Averted after his curse left him unable to maintain the mask.
* YourSoulIsMine: Once per season, he may command his painting to drain the souls of those in its presence, gaining the entirety of his own soul back for a number of hours equal to the number of souls absorbed, up to fifty.
* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Not only does he oppress and tax his people unmercifully, but he'll take peasants and expose them to his painting if he has no other choice.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Frantisek Markov, Darklord of Markovia]]
!!Frantisek Markov, Darklord of Markovia
A large, stout, intimidating-looking man who used to be a hog farmer and butcher in Barovia. He grew bored of butchering pigs and started experimenting on them, experimented on his wife when she found out, and was exiled to the end of the world when the village found her still-living (for a short while, anyway) body. For whatever reason[[note]]doubtless involving the ''[[BodyHorror condition]]'' his wife's body was found in[[/note]], the Mists expanded to give him his own domain.
----
* BalefulPolymorph: In effect what happens to any human or large enough animal he gets his hands on, as they all get turned into Broken Ones - unfortunately for them, he accomplishes this through hours of torturous BodyHorror supernaturally-empowered amateur surgery.
* CruellaToAnimals: He brutally mutilates animals with his twisted surgeries to create near-human monsters known as Broken Ones.
* {{Expy}}: He's based on [[Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau Dr. Moreau]], albeit with metamorphic powers.
* FateWorseThanDeath: becoming a victim of his twisted experiments is one of the more gruesome fates in the setting, which is saying something; and you probably won't even die from it.
* ForScience: He started experimenting on the hogs he was farming for the sheer thrill of it; surgical amputations, grafts, and glandular injections were fascinating to try, and even if it killed all the animals he worked with, so what? He could still sell the meat afterwards.
* LaserGuidedKarma: In the ending for his only official adventure, the party is able to escape when [[ShoutOut the Broken Ones capture him, strap him down and start vivisecting him]], similar to how Dr. Moreau is brutally killed by his own creations in some depictions of the story.
* LawfulEvil: InUniverse -- it's the official CharacterAlignment given in his profile writeups.
* MadScientist: His curiosity about surgery and physical alteration surpasses all concerns about ethics; he casually torments and mutilates animals and humans alike, creating horrific mutant monsters to further his understanding of anatomy and flesh-crafting.
* MagicPoweredPseudoScience: Though he thinks of himself as a brilliant scientist, the truth is he's really about as skilled as you'd expect a self-taught sadistic amateur surgeon to be; he can do the impossible things he does because of the covert blessings of the Dark Powers.
* MeatGrinderSurgery: The only type he's capable of, being a butcher by trade and not a surgeon. It only works thanks to the Dark Powers' dubious blessing.
* SlasherSmile: His broad, toothy grin is officially described as being unnerving rather than comforting, as it always appears "threatening" or "predatory".
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Unfortunately for him, while he is a master, his curse is to never have a fully human form -- and to have his own head in any form he takes (so he's always identifiable). He tends to prefer a gorilla body in order to retain opposable thumbs.
[[/folder]]
----
[[folder:Althea, Darklord of Demise]]
!!Althea, Darklord of Demise
Demise, a small island dominated by a massive caldera, is home to perhaps the only medusa in Ravenloft, a desperate madwoman trapped in a strange labyrinth. Received a drastic revamp in the 21st ''Quoth the Raven'' netbook, which makes her more deserving of her nature as a darklord.
----
* {{Butterface}}: Her body is perfect, her voice is beautiful, but, well...
* CollectorOfTheStrange: The netbook version at least treats the myriad petrified victims on her island as a personal collection of artworks, and is very angry at people "messing" with it.
* DeathByWomanScorned: In her netbook revamp, the first part of her Act of Ultimate Darkness was murdering her Maedar husband for the years of emotional abuse he'd given her. This drew the mountain they lived on into the Mists, where Stelios used his powers as a glyptar to reshape it into its present form, but it wasn't until the second act that she truly became a cursed Darklord.
* DomesticAbuse: The netbook version of her suffered from the emotional abuse variant; her husband Stelios refused to use his powers to undo her petrifying gaze on their many, many human children, even though Althea was heartbroken by each death. Eventually, the strain of this broke her down to the point she murdered him, incapable of standing by as he used her as a broodmare to produce a maedar son whilst letting their other children die at the sight of her.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: The whole story of her damnation in the netbook version; she wanted a child to love and to love her back, to the extent that she didn't ''care'' whether they were a medusa, a maedar or even a human. She just wanted one child to call her own. Naturally, her curse is to subvert this; childless she is, and childless she will remain. Something ''always'' happens to prevent her from having a baby. A bird snatches away her mate's blindfold at the worst possible time. She finds a blind man who seems acceptable, but he's a eunuch. On one tragic occurrence, she got pregnant, but the egg was cracked open (possibly by Stelios) before it was ready to hatch and the father tried to escape, only to break his neck in a pit.
* FantasticRacism: Netbook version only. She '''hates''' maedars, regarding them as nothing more than parasites that medusas would be better off without. This began as just a skepticism about the exulted role and reverence that maedars were held in by medusa society, but was nurtured to its final form by her maedar spouse's emotional abuse of her. It eventually reached the point where she was willing to murder ''her own son'', the child she'd been trying to have for years, maybe decades, because her hatred of maedars had been stoked to the point it outweighed her desperate longing for a child.
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Trapped in a labyrinth she can't escape, in a caldera with fifty-foot walls, on a tiny island. She doesn't get a lot of visitors.
* GorgeousGorgon: [[http://www.lomion.de/cmm/medusarv.php Her portrait]] is considerably more attractive than her description.
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Desperately seeking a mate, and will pick one member of any group who enters her labyrinth to spare toward that end. Elaborated upon to tragic extents in her netbook version.
* {{Irony}}: The netbook version has a very cruel variant. She finally has enough of losing her children to her husband's callousness and murders him... only to find he's left her SomeoneToRememberHimBy. And it's a maedar son, so she finally has a child. But by this point she's so traumatised by Stelios and post-partum depression that she ''hates'' having another maedar in her life... and so she tries to kill him.
* MagicMusic: In her netbook version, she has a magically empowered song that lets her act as an EnthrallingSiren. She doesn't consciously know that she has this power, though, as it's a gift from the Dark Powers.
* TheMaze: Her labyrinth has white walls, some of which are illusory, with strange writing on them.
* {{Medusa}}: A TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons one.
* OffingTheOffspring: The culmination of her Act of Ultimate Darkness in the netbook version; eventually realizing that her hatred of maedars outweighed her desire for a child, she tried to murder her final son, Leftheris. Although her undead husband saved his life, it was enough for the Dark Powers to make her into the darklord of Demise.
* OutsideGenreFoe: Not just the only known medusa in Ravenloft, but her prison is implied to be of extraterrestrial origin. (It's got strange marks on the walls that even magic can't interpret and seems to be in the center of an impact strike.)
* {{Retcon}}: Prior to ''Domains of Dread'', she was just a unique NPC, not a Darklord. ''Quoth the Raven #21'' retconned a lot of information about her, in order to make her more deserving of a darklord position.
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: She is constantly trying to seduce male visitors in hopes of getting the child she so yearns for.
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: Much as the netbook version wishes he ''hadn't'', Stelios did father a maedar son on her in their final tryst before she murdered him. Also, in all versions, any children she tries to have likely lost their biological father after the conception, thanks to her petrifying gaze and curse.
* TakenForGranite: Well, she ''is'' a medusa.
* TragicKeepsake: The Netbook version only. The centerpiece of her CreepySouvenir collection? A lovingly displayed altar covered in ''rows'' of tiny, perfectly formed statues of human infants... the petrified forms of all her babies. She knows they're dead, but constantly comes back to them, singing to them, playing with them, even giving them little presents she's scavenged from the island; an attempt to comfort their souls and convince them that she does still remember and love them.
* TragicVillain: The netbook version is one. If her husband had been willing to let her keep and raise just ''one'' of their human children, instead of forcing her to watch them be petrified at the sight of her eyes before he tried to make her have the next one, she would never have done the things she did.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: In her netbook version's backstory, after her attempt to try veiling herself to spare her baby failed [[note]]her infant daughter accidentally pulled off Althea's blindfold and was petrified[[/note]], she resorted to a scheme to ''blind her babies'' so they'd never be able to see her deadly eyes. Unfortunately, the first son she tried to do this to was "rescued" by human adventurers.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Captain Pieter van Riese, Darklord of the Sea of Sorrows]]
!!Captain Pieter van Riese, Darklord of the Sea of Sorrows
A sailor obsessed with finding a Northern Passage from his home to the rich lands of the East, he drove his men mercilessly, even as the sea itself seemed to rise against him. With his ship sinking, he promised the lives of himself and his crew to someone, ''anyone'' who could help him find the Passage, and something listened. Now his ghost and the ghosts of his crew roam the Sea of Sorrows, seeking a crew that will aid their escape. According to issue #22 of the ''Quoth the Raven'' netbook, he comes from Gothic Earth's Netherlands.
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* DealWithTheDevil: He made one with whatever power may or may not have been listening at the time, swearing the lives of himself and his crew in exchange for aid in finding the passage he sought.
* {{Expy}}: Of the Flying Dutchman.
* GhostShip: The ''Relentless''.
* {{Greed}}: The reason he was damned. His goal to become rich by finding a Northern Passage drove him to obsession and then to madness, until he got his wish in the worst way possible.
* HypnoticEyes: Able to dominate any living person who looks into them.
* IronicHell: In his ''Quoth the Raven'' writeup, his ship can go anywhere or any''when'', he can run his ship alone, he can call both ghosts and living men to crew if he gets lonely, and when he arrives somewhere he can actually disembark and get some shore leave, unlike seemingly every other darklord... except he can't choose what his destination is -- either he must be chartered to go somewhere or the Dark Powers select for him. This is, to a would-be explorer, ''utter hell''.
* NeutralEvil: InUniverse -- it's the official CharacterAlignment given in his profile writeups.
* SoulJar: Destroy his ship, and you destroy him. Good luck destroying a ghost ship, though.
* SummonMagic: He can summon up to eight bowlyns (sea ghosts) to fight by his side.
* TimeTravel: According to ''Quoth the Raven'', his ship can sail through time just as easily as through the sea, if the Dark Powers permit.
* {{Transplant}}: In his ''Quoth the Raven'' writeup, he comes from [[TabletopGame/MasqueOfTheRedDeath Gothic Earth]].
* WanderingJew: Of the Flying Dutchman variant, cursed to sail the seas for eternity. (Bonus points for actually being Dutch -- and for being Gothic Earth's Flying Dutchman -- in the netbook version.)
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Bluebeard, Darklord of Blaustein]]
!!Bluebeard, Darklord of Blaustein
[[Literature/{{Bluebeard}} This is the story of Bluebeard]]: he gives his new wife a golden key, and tells her never to enter the room it unlocks. Out of curiosity, she does, only to discover the bodies of his previous wives. She locks the door, only to find the key now has a bloodstain on it, which she cannot get rid of, try as she might. Bluebeard then asks for the key, sees the bloodstain, and consigns his wife to the secret room as punishment for disobedience.
In the end, the Mists of Ravenloft took Bluebeard, giving him the domain of Blaustein. His curse is two-fold. First, his dead wives are now perfectly loyal [[OurGhostsAreDifferent spectres]], and whenever he sleeps in his castle, he wakes up in the secret room, with his wives surrounding him, demonstrating their honest affection. Second, despite the people of Blaustein being utterly loyal to him, he cannot take a bride from them, for when he ''does'' desire one of the women of Blaustein he sees in her place the image of one of his dead wives as a grinning corpse.
For all that, though, he hasn't stopped seeking a perfectly loyal wife, marrying women from other domains or other worlds -- indeed, it's said he's one of the darklords who can draw people to him through the Mists. Of course, they always fail him... and another spectre soon joins the others.
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* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: He wanted his wives to be perfectly loyal, and they are. No-one said they had to be ''alive'', though. Worse, having perfectly loyal wives is useless to a man so utterly incapable of faith or trust.
* BeardOfEvil: Yup, and it really is blue, though it's turning into more of a navy lately.
* TheBluebeard: The original from the fairytale, his serial murder of his wives being what got him imprisoned in the Demiplane of Dread.
* HauntedCastle: Bluebeard's Castle, which he tries to avoid as much as he can, only returning to sleep there every three days.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: He can make the people of Blaustein remember only what he wants them to.
* LawfulEvil: His official InUniverse alignment.
* LivingLieDetector: He can use ''detect lies'' on anyone he meets, as part of his paranoia shtick.
* TheMakeover: His looks have been slowly improving over his time in Ravenloft, going from ugly to not-too-bad in about a century.
* PublicDomainCharacter: Unusually for the main Ravenloft setting, which typically uses expies.
* UndyingLoyalty: How he's treated by his people... and by his dead wives. Indeed, his situation would be quite comfortable and happy, if only Bluebeard could become the sort of person who was capable of trust.
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: His beard, of course.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Doctor Daclaud Heinfroth, Darklord of Dominia]]
!!Doctor Daclaud Heinfroth, Darklord of Dominia
Heinfroth's fear of falling prey to the madness that ran in his family led him to perform monstrous experiments on his helpless mental patients in the hope of finding a cure. They didn't have quite the results he wanted, resulting in him becoming the first cerebral vampire, then in his becoming darklord of Dominia, condemning him never to escape his fear.
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* BedlamHouse: His domain.
* ChaoticEvil: His official InUniverse alignment.
* DrivenToMadness: The fate of his patients, as Heinfroth seeks to deepen his understanding of insanity.
* MonsterProgenitor: The first cerebral vampire, and the only person who knows how to create more.
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Well, in his case it's a 'downright evil' doctorate.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Cerebral vampires feed on the cerebral fluid in the brain. If they kill their feeding victims, these will rise as ghouls.
* ProfessorGuineaPig: He experimented on himself when he was satisfied by the results of his experiments on the insane. What he didn't know was that his "donor" had been chosen to be a vampire bride, resulting in him becoming the first cerebral vampire.
* PsychoPsychologist: Heinfroth's greatest drive is understanding the nature of madness, and the lengths he'd go to that end made him a Darklord.
* TotallyNotAWerewolf: He's often suspected of being a werewolf due to his lupine features. On top of that, he doesn't have the standard vampiric weaknesses to garlic and sunlight.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: According to ''Domains of Dread'', he's renowned as the demiplane's leading expert on mental disorders.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Marquis Stezan d'Polarno, Darklord of Ghastria]]
!!Marquis Stezan d'Polarno, Darklord of Ghastria
Ghastria, a small island domain near Sithicus, is ruled by Stezan d'Polarno. Don't be fooled by his perennially depressed exterior, though: he's a real party animal. If you're ever invited to his manor, bring a friend. In fact, bring every friend you've got. Pretty please?
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* AFeteWorseThanDeath: Once a season, he invites every stranger in Ghastria to a party, where he exposes them to his painting and steals their souls. He ''does'' spare a few guests to debauch himself with/upon afterward (particularly pretty ladies), but the text notably [[FridgeHorror doesn't mention if anyone actually makes it out of these bashes alive]].
* TheAgeless: Has not aged one bit since entering Ravenloft.
* BadassNormal: In his rejuvenated state all of his powers are stripped away, but he remains a skilled fighter.
* BeigeProse: After being cursed, his speech lost every ounce of tact and charm that it once had.
* TheBore: In his normal state.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Has learned by now not to expose too many peasants to his painting, as he needs people to till the fields and produce goods. Not ''too'' many.
* TheCharmer: Prior to being cursed.
* ChaoticEvil: In-universe, this is him when he's rejuvinated. He has about two days to stuff in all the joy he'll experience in a full season, and he knows it, so he'll indulge as completely as he can, becoming a MoodSwinger whose only goal is to experience as much as possible as quickly as possible.
* CoolSword: A ''rapier of quickness''.
* TheCoup: Attempted one of these, secretly manipulating the people into a rebellion against the king. It failed, and he was [[EmptyShell punished appropriately]].
* DontCreateAMartyr: Why the king couldn't just kill him.
* EmptyShell: The king's curse trapped every ounce of d'Polarno's vibrance and love of life into his painting, leaving him listless, miserable and blunt.
* {{Expy}}: A very loose one of [[{{Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray}} Dorian Gray]] in that he's a hedonist whose life is tied to a painting.
* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: East Riding, the main village of Ghastria, once had a church that brought its citizens happiness. D'Polarno found this unsettling, so he burned it down and hanged the clerics.
* FisherKing: For most of the year food in Ghastria looks good, but tastes utterly bland. Crops harvested during the brief time in which he's rejuvenated, however, are delicious.
* TheHedonist: At most he has fifty hours to enjoy having his soul back, and can only be rejuvenated once per season, so he'll cram in every possible thrill he can, from eating and drinking to sex to [[BreadEggsMilkSquick murder]].
* MadeOfIndestructium: D'Polarno's painting cannot be damaged or destroyed until he is dead.
* MakeAnExampleOfThem: Occasionally leaves the remains of his parties lying out in public to remind people not to cross him.
* ManipulativeBastard: To the point where he managed to arrange over ''one hundred'' political assassinations without losing one shred of his positive image. After he was cursed, however, he lost the ingenuity and charisma he needed to pull this off. He still tried, though, and ended up utterly destroying his power base.
* MoodSwinger: In his normal state, he's drab and lifeless. After his painting has absorbed souls, however, he's a volatile and unpredictable hedonist.
* NeutralEvil: In-universe, this is his alignment in his normal state. He's still as evil as when he has his full soul, but his lack of all joy and desire means that he's not as chaotic as he is when restored.
* NighInvulnerable: In his normal state he heals rapidly, reforming even if his body is destroyed. This does not apply during his rejuvenated state, however, when he can be killed like anyone else.
* PortalPicture: Inverted. When he seals his domain, the borders of Ghastria are replaced by gigantic paintings that look like normal landscapes but prove their real nature when someone walks into them.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Has ruled Ghastria for centuries.
* {{Revenge}}: Managed to muster enough spirit to poison the entire royal household.
* SenseFreak: While rejuvenated, since that's the only time he can appreciate sensations.
* SoulJar: His painting has the [[AnatomyOfTheSoul chunk of his soul]] that contains his ''joi de vivre''.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Back in his home kingdom, he pretended to be a philanthropic nobleman who fought for the people. In truth, however, this was just a front he used to cover his ambitions. Averted after his curse left him unable to maintain the mask.
* YourSoulIsMine: Once per season, he may command his painting to drain the souls of those in its presence, gaining the entirety of his own soul back for a number of hours equal to the number of souls absorbed, up to fifty.
* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Not only does he oppress and tax his people unmercifully, but he'll take peasants and expose them to his painting if he has no other choice.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Frantisek Markov, Darklord of Markovia]]
!!Frantisek Markov, Darklord of Markovia
A large, stout, intimidating-looking man who used to be a hog farmer and butcher in Barovia. He grew bored of butchering pigs and started experimenting on them, experimented on his wife when she found out, and was exiled to the end of the world when the village found her still-living (for a short while, anyway) body. For whatever reason[[note]]doubtless involving the ''[[BodyHorror condition]]'' his wife's body was found in[[/note]], the Mists expanded to give him his own domain.
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* BalefulPolymorph: In effect what happens to any human or large enough animal he gets his hands on, as they all get turned into Broken Ones - unfortunately for them, he accomplishes this through hours of torturous BodyHorror supernaturally-empowered amateur surgery.
* CruellaToAnimals: He brutally mutilates animals with his twisted surgeries to create near-human monsters known as Broken Ones.
* {{Expy}}: He's based on [[Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau Dr. Moreau]], albeit with metamorphic powers.
* FateWorseThanDeath: becoming a victim of his twisted experiments is one of the more gruesome fates in the setting, which is saying something; and you probably won't even die from it.
* ForScience: He started experimenting on the hogs he was farming for the sheer thrill of it; surgical amputations, grafts, and glandular injections were fascinating to try, and even if it killed all the animals he worked with, so what? He could still sell the meat afterwards.
* LaserGuidedKarma: In the ending for his only official adventure, the party is able to escape when [[ShoutOut the Broken Ones capture him, strap him down and start vivisecting him]], similar to how Dr. Moreau is brutally killed by his own creations in some depictions of the story.
* LawfulEvil: InUniverse -- it's the official CharacterAlignment given in his profile writeups.
* MadScientist: His curiosity about surgery and physical alteration surpasses all concerns about ethics; he casually torments and mutilates animals and humans alike, creating horrific mutant monsters to further his understanding of anatomy and flesh-crafting.
* MagicPoweredPseudoScience: Though he thinks of himself as a brilliant scientist, the truth is he's really about as skilled as you'd expect a self-taught sadistic amateur surgeon to be; he can do the impossible things he does because of the covert blessings of the Dark Powers.
* MeatGrinderSurgery: The only type he's capable of, being a butcher by trade and not a surgeon. It only works thanks to the Dark Powers' dubious blessing.
* SlasherSmile: His broad, toothy grin is officially described as being unnerving rather than comforting, as it always appears "threatening" or "predatory".
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Unfortunately for him, while he is a master, his curse is to never have a fully human form -- and to have his own head in any form he takes (so he's always identifiable). He tends to prefer a gorilla body in order to retain opposable thumbs.
[[/folder]]
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