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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...
- Collector of the Strange: 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.
- Death by Woman Scorned: 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.
- Domestic Abuse: 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.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: 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.
- Fantastic Racism: 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.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: 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.
- Gorgeous Gorgon: Her portrait
is considerably more attractive than her description. - I Just Want to Be Loved: 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 Someone to Remember Him By. 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.
- Magic Music: In her netbook version, she has a magically empowered song that lets her act as a siren. She doesn't consciously know that she has this power, though, as it's a gift from the Dark Powers.
- The Maze: Her labyrinth has white walls, some of which are illusory, with strange writing on them.
- Medusa: A Dungeons & Dragons one.
- Offing the Offspring: 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.
- Outside-Genre Foe: 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.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She is constantly trying to seduce male visitors in hopes of getting the child she so yearns for.
- Someone to Remember Him By: 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.
- Taken for Granite: Well, she is a medusa.
- Tragic Keepsake: The Netbook version only. The centerpiece of her Creepy Souvenir 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.
- Tragic Villain: 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.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: In her netbook version's backstory, after her attempt to try veiling herself to spare her baby failed 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.
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.- Deal with the Devil: 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.
- Gender Flip: To Pietra van Riese in 5th edition.
- Ghost Ship: 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.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Able to dominate any living person who looks into them.
- Ironic Hell: In his Quoth the Raven writeup, his ship can go anywhere or anywhen, 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.
- Neutral Evil: In-Universe — it's the official Character Alignment given in his profile writeups.
- Soul Jar: Destroy his ship, and you destroy him. Good luck destroying a ghost ship, though.
- Summon Magic: He can summon up to eight bowlyns (sea ghosts) to fight by his side.
- Time Travel: 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 Gothic Earth.
- Wandering Jew: 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.)
Bluebeard, Darklord of Blaustein
Bluebeard, Darklord of Blaustein
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 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.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: 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.
- Beard of Evil: Yup, and it really is blue, though it's turning into more of a navy lately.
- The Bluebeard: The original from the fairytale, his serial murder of his wives being what got him imprisoned in the Demiplane of Dread.
- Haunted Castle: Bluebeard's Castle, which he tries to avoid as much as he can, only returning to sleep there every three days.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: He can make the people of Blaustein remember only what he wants them to.
- Lawful Evil: His official In-Universe alignment.
- Living Lie Detector: He can use detect lies on anyone he meets, as part of his paranoia shtick.
- The Makeover: His looks have been slowly improving over his time in Ravenloft, going from ugly to not-too-bad in about a century.
- Public Domain Character: Unusually for the main Ravenloft setting, which typically uses expies.
- Undying Loyalty: 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.
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.- Bedlam House: His domain.
- Chaotic Evil: His official In-Universe alignment.
- Driven to Madness: The fate of his patients, as Heinfroth seeks to deepen his understanding of insanity.
- Monster Progenitor: The first cerebral vampire, and the only person who knows how to create more.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Well, in his case it's a 'downright evil' doctorate.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Cerebral vampires feed on the cerebral fluid in the brain. If they kill their feeding victims, these will rise as ghouls.
- Professor Guinea Pig: 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.
- Psycho Psychologist: Heinfroth's greatest drive is understanding the nature of madness, and the lengths he'd go to that end made him a Darklord.
- Totally Not a Werewolf: 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.
- Villain with Good Publicity: According to Domains of Dread, he's renowned as the demiplane's leading expert on mental disorders.
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?- A Fête Worse than Death: 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
doesn't mention if anyone actually makes it out of these bashes alive. - The Ageless: Has not aged one bit since entering Ravenloft.
- Badass Normal: In his rejuvenated state all of his powers are stripped away, but he remains a skilled fighter.
- Beige Prose: After being cursed, his speech lost every ounce of tact and charm that it once had.
- The Bore: In his normal state.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: 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.
- The Charmer: Prior to being cursed.
- Chaotic Evil: 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 Mood-Swinger whose only goal is to experience as much as possible as quickly as possible.
- Cool Sword: A rapier of quickness.
- The Coup: Attempted one of these, secretly manipulating the people into a rebellion against the king. It failed, and he was punished appropriately.
- Don't Create a Martyr: Why the king couldn't just kill him.
- Empty Shell: 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 Dorian Gray in that he's a hedonist whose life is tied to a painting.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: 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.
- Fisher King: 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.
- The Hedonist: 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 murder.
- Made of Indestructium: D'Polarno's painting cannot be damaged or destroyed until he is dead.
- Make an Example of Them: Occasionally leaves the remains of his parties lying out in public to remind people not to cross him.
- Manipulative Bastard: 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.
- Mood-Swinger: In his normal state, he's drab and lifeless. After his painting has absorbed souls, however, he's a volatile and unpredictable hedonist.
- Neutral Evil: 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.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: 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.
- Portal Picture: 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.
- Really 700 Years Old: Has ruled Ghastria for centuries.
- Revenge: Managed to muster enough spirit to poison the entire royal household.
- Sense Freak: While rejuvenated, since that's the only time he can appreciate sensations.
- Soul Jar: His painting has the chunk of his soul that contains his joi de vivre.
- Villain with Good Publicity: 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.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: 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.
- 0% Approval Rating: 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.
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 reasonnote , the Mists expanded to give him his own domain.- Cruella to Animals: He brutally mutilates animals with his twisted surgeries to create near-human monsters known as Broken Ones.
- Expy: He's based on Dr. Moreau, albeit with metamorphic powers.
- Fate Worse than Death: 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.
- Forced Transformation: 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 Body Horror supernaturally-empowered amateur surgery.
- For Science!: 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.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In the ending for his only official adventure, the party is able to escape when 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.
- Lawful Evil: In-Universe — it's the official Character Alignment given in his profile writeups.
- Mad Scientist: 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.
- Magic Powered Pseudo Science: 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.
- Meat Grinder Surgery: 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.
- Slasher Smile: His broad, toothy grin is officially described as being unnerving rather than comforting, as it always appears "threatening" or "predatory".
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: 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.
