Domains of Ravenloft

In a far-flung corner of the Plane of Shadow drifts a hidden expanse of roiling mist and vague semi-reality. At this eerie edge of the multiverse, the Dark Powers collect the most wicked beings from across ages and worlds within inescapable, mist-shrouded domains. These are the Domains of Dread, the nightmare demiplanes that form the D&D setting of Ravenloft. Untold terrors lurk within these lands, yet the collection of the Dark Powers is far from complete.

This chapter provides information for the DM and explores the misty truths of the Domains of Dread, along with a sampling of the terrifying domains, dreaded Darklords, and daring wanderers trapped in the Dark Powers' clutches.

Nature of Ravenloft

Nothing one might assume about any world on the Material Plane is necessarily true in the Domains of Dread. The following sections detail how the Dark Powers manipulate the Land of the Mists, and what domain inhabitants accept as the ways of their world (or desperately avoid pondering).

The Mists

The Mists can always be found at a domain’s borders but can also appear in dense banks that rise wherever adventures demand. Such banks might veil strangers or hidden foes, or they can transport those who enter them to distant lands, other domains, or even beyond the Domains of Dread. The Mists are inscrutable, but they ever serve the schemes of the Dark Powers, delivering creatures wherever these wicked forces desire.

The Dark Powers also grant Darklords limited ability to manipulate the Mists surrounding their domains, allowing most to open or close their domains' borders to others on a whim. If a domain’s borders are closed, supernatural agitation is obvious to any who approach the Mists. This takes the form of roiling disturbances within the haze, menacing silhouettes, threatening sounds, or other activity themed to the Darklord or domain. Creatures that enter the Mists at this time, including flying creatures, are subject to the following effects:

• A creature that starts its turn in the Mists must succeed on a DC 20 Constitution saving throw or gain 1 level of exhaustion. This exhaustion can’t be removed while the creature is in the Mists.
• No matter how far a creature travels in the Mists, or which direction it goes, it gets turned around so that it eventually ends up back in the domain it left.
• The area within the Mists is heavily obscured (see the Player’s Handbook for details).

Most Darklords can keep their domains' borders closed indefinitely and can reopen them at will. For some Darklords, slightly varied effects manifest when they close their domains. Others are limited in their ability to affect their borders. For each domain, specifics appear in the “Closing the Borders” portion of the section on that domain’s Darklord.

If a domain’s borders are open, the domain is still not easy to escape from. The area within the Mists remains heavily obscured, but the Mists don’t cause creatures to gain levels of exhaustion. Characters intent on passing through the Mists travel for 1d6 hours, then roll on the Wandering the Mists table to determine what happens.

Wandering the Mists

Mist Talismans

A Mist talisman is a nonmagical object, akin to a dowsing rod or a lodestone, that resonates with the unique nature of the domain where it originates, allowing the creature holding it to find a path through the Mists to that domain. By holding the talisman and focusing on its domain of origin, a creature in the Mists can reach that domain after 2d6 hours of travel. Any creatures that willingly follow the creature with the Mist talisman also reach the same destination. A Mist talisman is no help to a creature imprisoned within a domain’s closed borders. If the borders of the destination domain are closed, roll on the Wandering the Mists table to determine what happens.

Mist talismans take ominous forms, and no two are alike. A family’s burned holy book, a battered stuffed toy, a papyrus scroll, or any of the items on the Horror Trinket in chapter 1 might serve as Mist talismans. Few who dwell in the Domains of Dread know how to use Mist talismans or have interest in traveling to other domains. Those who do, though, might share a Mist talisman with adventurers or could know where such an item is located. You can use Mist talismans to guide characters from one domain to another as your adventures require.

The domains detailed in this chapter suggest Mist talismans that can be used to reach them, but these aren’t exhaustive lists. Use them as inspiration for Mist talismans of your own design.

Magic and Metaphysics

The Dark Powers manipulate the domains and creatures within their grasp in the most fundamental ways, controlling magic, the nature of life and death, and the means of escaping from their nightmare realms.

Mysterious Magic

In some domains, magic is an everyday part of life, while in others, insular communities fear it as the province of monsters. Few domains deny magic entirely or outlaw its use, but magic might be rare beyond the spellcasting of local healers or the power of the occasional family heirloom. It’s up to you to decide how pervasive magic is in a domain, choosing whether a dearth or an excess of magic is more terrifying.

Rarity of Magic

In domains where inhabitants regard simple magic as remarkable, those inhabitants' lack of engagement with the supernatural doesn’t mean you should limit magic for adventurers. Rather, use this as an opportunity to feature magic-using characters as figures of awe or terror, or to assign storied origins to common magic items.

Corrupted Magic

The Dark Powers influence magical effects, imparting them with sinister qualities. How these changes manifest are for you to decide and can shift from domain to domain. Do summoned creatures appear undead in one domain or violently mutated in another? Do divination spells rasp in the voices of otherworldly ancients? Do the effects of drinking a potion of healing feel like grubs weaving wounds shut from within? Magic looks menacing in the Domains of Dread, but descriptive embellishments shouldn’t change the actual effects of spells or magic items.

Prison of Souls

Everyone among the Domains of Dread is a prisoner. The Darklords number among the most prominent captives, but every creature claimed by the Mists dwells outside the natural order of the multiverse. Even death doesn’t afford an escape from the Dark Powers, which hoard every soul that falls into their clutches. In the Land of the Mists, death isn’t an escape, but the beginning of a new terror.

Soulless Shells

Not every being among the Domains of Dread has a soul. Many inhabitants of each domain are creations of the Dark Powers, whose bodies have been formed from the land and the Mists. For all intents and purposes, and even under magical detection, these beings are what they appear to be. The Dark Powers fashion them as living puppets—individuals who live unremarkable lives that reinforce the status quo, culture, and frustration that torment a domain’s Darklord.

Bright Souls

Individuals born in the Land of the Mists who have souls tend to be vibrant, imaginative, and ambitious. But they find these virtues stifled by the dour, soulless individuals who outnumber them, leading many to seek better lives and answers to the mysteries of their home domain. Every player’s character who was born in a domain is one of these vibrant souls.

Death in Ravenloft

When a creature with a soul dies among the Domains of Dread, its spirit becomes caught in the Mists and can’t travel to the afterlife. If a creature who has been dead for at least 24 hours returns to life by way of a spell or other supernatural means, it realizes that its spirit is trapped within the Mists, likely forever. Using the rules for “Fear and Stress” from chapter 4, the creature gains a new Seed of Fear.

If a being with a soul dies and is not returned to life, that soul remains trapped within the Domains of Dread until it is reincarnated, a process that can take decades. Individuals who inherit the same soul over generations often look alike and might recall memories of their past lives.

Metaphysical Mysteries

The state of souls in the Domains of Dread provides a dose of existential terror to those hoping to manipulate life and death to escape these realms. Beyond that, who does and doesn’t have a soul among the domains rarely matters unless an adventure explores themes of life, death, and reincarnation. Players might create ties with long-dead individuals using the Dark Gifts and backgrounds presented in chapter 1. But overall, spiritual stagnation in the Land of the Mists is meant to provide the opportunity for grim revelations, not existential bookkeeping.

Planar Connections

Each domain is its own demiplane, isolated from all other planes including the Material Plane. No spell—not even wish—allows escape from the Domains of Dread. Spells such as astral projection, plane shift, teleport, and similar magic cast for the purpose of escaping a domain simply fail, as do effects that banish a creature to another plane. These restrictions apply to all other effects, including magic items and artifacts that transport or banish creatures to other planes. Magic that allows transit to the Border Ethereal, such as the etherealness spell and the Etherealness feature of ghosts, is the exception to this rule. A creature that enters the Border Ethereal from a domain is pulled back into the domain it left upon leaving the Ethereal.

For the purpose of spells whose effects change across or are blocked by planar boundaries (such as sending), each domain is considered its own plane. Magic that summons creatures or objects from other planes functions normally, as does magic that involves an extradimensional space. Spells cast within an extradimensional space (such as that created by Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion are subject to the same restrictions as magic cast within a domain.

While in the Domains of Dread, characters who receive spells from deities or otherworldly patrons continue to do so. In addition, spells that allow contact with beings from other planes function normally, with one proviso: the domain’s Darklord senses when someone in their domain casts such a spell and can choose to make themself the spell’s target, so that they become the one who is contacted.

Life in the Domains of Dread

The realities of the Domains of Dread seem strange or impossible to individuals from other worlds, but for those who live among the Mists, they’re facts of life. With no basis for comparison, domain inhabitants call those who speak of other worlds liars. For them, the following topics are standard aspects of life in their home domain or in a broader collection of domains they call the Land of the Mists.

Culture and Technology

Each domain boasts its own culture, either drawn from the Material Plane or a parody manufactured to torment a Darklord. As such, a domain might exhibit traditions and technologies unheard of in other domains. The specifics of each domain’s technological advancements are left to you. If you wish domains to feature cutting-edge weird science or inventions such as firearms (see the Dungeon Master’s Guide), feel free to do so. Regardless of a domain’s culture and innovations, the Mists prevent knowledge of them from spreading. Even if an innovation is taken from one domain to another, the suspicion of the new domain’s inhabitants prevents it from gaining acceptance. Such is the subtle control of the Dark Powers, ensuring their nightmare realms remain just so.

Currency

Many domains mint their own gold, silver, and copper coins. Though these currencies bear different markings, merchants aren’t particular about the designs stamped on coinage. A gold piece from Barovia spends as well in Borca as it does in Har’Akir, as long as it weighs true. Platinum and electrum coins rarely circulate through the domains, but they appear often enough—originating from hidden troves or ancient vaults—that no trader questions their value.

Languages

By impossible coincidence, all domains share a language despite their profoundly different origins: Common, which functions as a shared tongue throughout the Land of the Mists. Beyond this, all the other languages noted in the Player’s Handbook and Monster Manual are spoken among the Domains of Dread, some more pervasively than others. The same language spoken in multiple domains might bear subtle differences or unique words. Speakers from different domains might also have distinct accents, but their words are understandable.

DM Option: Domain Languages

If you want to highlight the differences between domains, you can do away with Common and decide that the inhabitants of each domain speak their own unique language, which either take the name of their domain or a culturally specific name. For example, the language of Barovia could be Barovian or Balok. The languages of specific races, such as Elvish or Dwarvish, remain the same in every domain. Those who wish to learn a domain’s language can do so using the training downtime activity (see the Player’s Handbook). Although it takes 250 days to gain mastery of a language, consider allowing characters to navigate basic social interactions—such as asking for directions or conveying peaceful intentions—after 7 days of training.

Religion

In many domains, locals maintain chilly relationships with aloof deities, knowing “the gods” only through hollow rituals and clergy with scant supernatural powers. Conversely, some people privately worship ancestral gods—deities of their family’s tradition with whom they form deep, personal connections. Divergent faiths abound, and some that begin as charlatanry inexplicably gain the power of true faith. Ultimately, any deity from the Player’s Handbook or any other setting might find followers among the Domains of Dread. By the same token, the Dark Powers breathe life into the beliefs of cruel practices and the faiths of false zealots.

One noteworthy exception to this is the worship of the god Ezra, which has its origins in the Mists (see the “Ezra, God of the Mists” sidebar). For your adventures, you define what deities are worshiped in a domain and whether those deities are actual gods, manifestations of the Dark Powers, or one masquerading as the other.

Ezra, God of the Mists

The denizens of several domains worship an aloof god known as Ezra. Depicted as a vague, vaporous figure, the god is known for her dark, billowing hair and for her ability to manipulate the Mists. Her holy symbol is a sprig of belladonna atop a silver kite shield. Beyond that, her disparate sects of worshipers view her differently—and contradictorily. For some, Ezra is a goodly guardian, while others perceive her as a soul-stealing embodiment of the Mists. Ultimately, though, her true nature is a mystery. Whether she’s a manifestation of the Dark Powers, an aspect of the Plane of Shadow’s mysterious Raven Queen, or something else entirely is for you to decide. Whatever the case, Ezra’s followers, traditions, alignment, and the domains she grants her clerics vary widely. Collaborate with players who want to create characters devoted to Ezra to define the god’s role in their domain of origin.

Time and Dates

The Domains of Dread don’t share a unified calendar. However, in most domains, locals measure time by “moons” rather than months. As a measurement of time, each moon begins on the first night of a full moon and lasts a full lunar cycle. A year consists of twelve moons, or twelve lunar cycles. While domains don’t ascribe to a shared history, the populace of all domains inexplicably accept the current year as 735. Some local histories cleave to anomalous dates and methods of tracking years, but these are considered obsolete. No such irregularities exist in Barovia, though, where year 1 corresponds with the founding of Barovia by the von Zarovich family.

Travel and Correspondence

In some domains, the residents are aware that realms exist beyond the Mists, but most have little interest in lands beyond their own. The Darklords' obsessions distract them from concerns about the nature of their domains or what lies beyond the Mists. This preoccupation, along with the lack of shared borders or reliable travel, means that mercantile ventures and military conquests between domains are essentially impossible.

Rare individuals do travel between the domains, such as adventurers or roving Vistani families (detailed at the end of this chapter). Others who wish to travel from one domain to another might wander into the Mists hoping to be carried elsewhere, or they can employ Mist talismans to guide them.

Due to the danger and unreliability of traveling the Mists, those few with interests beyond their home domains make letter writing their preferred method of communication. A group called the Keepers of the Feather (detailed in the “Travelers in the Mists” section later in this chapter) oversees a private network of carrier ravens that possesses the uncanny ability to navigate the Mists. These ravens deliver envelopes and tiny parcels between private rookeries maintained by the Keepers. Individuals and businesses friendly with the Keepers—such as a village notary or inn—might surreptitiously contract their services, allowing customers to send a letter for 1 gp. These letters must include a destination where another Keeper can receive them, then either hold or deliver the correspondence—with delivery costs an additional 1 gp. Letters take at least one day to deliver. The Keepers of the Feather make no assurances about the safe delivery of letters in their charge, but their services prove relatively reliable. Rumors speak of more expensive services the Keepers provide to select clients, such as delivery to individuals whose whereabouts are unknown or verbal messages relayed by talking ravens.

Featured Domains

The following sections explore some of the most notorious Domains of Dread. Each of these realms is a setting unto itself and might host adventures of your design. These featured domains share the following format:

• Overview. Each domain has a brief overview with its Darklord’s name, the horror genres that inspire it (explored in chapter 2), distinctive hallmarks, and related Mist talismans.
• Noteworthy Features. Details about the domain known by the domain’s residents and those who have traveled there appear in this section.
• Settlements and Sites. This section provides an overview of the domain’s most infamous locations. In many cases, these locations are represented on a map of the domain. Each map also notes additional sites waiting to be detailed in your adventures.
• Darklord. A description of the domain’s Darklord appears here, along with details revealing the roots of their evil.
• Adventures. This section describes the kinds of adventures that naturally fit within the domain.
• Domain Focus. For most domains, this final section highlights specific story elements and provides domain-specific tools to aid you in creating adventures around the domain’s Darklord and the horror of their realm.

Facing Darklords

Each Darklord in this chapter has a stat block from the Monster Manual or chapter 5 that you can use or customize to suit your adventures. Though you might be tempted to make a Darklord an overwhelming threat, doing so risks distancing a rich, versatile villain from the characters. A Darklord is often far from the most physically daunting creature in their domain, but their nature as a Darklord makes permanently defeating them challenging. To defeat a Darklord, the characters should focus on undermining the Darklord’s plots and striking at the core of the Darklord’s torments to make them vulnerable (topics explored in “The Domain’s Downfall” in chapter 2). A climatic encounter with a Darklord should happen when and how it’s right for your adventures. After all, dread isn’t a factor of challenge rating or character level, but of the suspense your adventures create.

Characters from Domains

This chapter includes sidebars designed to help create player characters who hail from particular Domains of Dread. These sidebars describe the people of a particular domain, the horrors they routinely face, and their naming conventions. Share these sidebars freely with your players if they create characters from these domains. The naming conventions they reference note the names of peoples featured in the “Character Names” section of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, they do not describe a domain’s broader culture. Use the questions included in each sidebar to inspire players with ideas for their characters. Players don’t need to answer every question or concern themselves with accurately representing a domain. Rather, it’s more important they create details that forge a strong sense of connection with their homeland.

Barovia

Domain of the First Vampire

Darklord

Strahd von Zarovich

Genre

Gothic horror

Hallmarks

Undead despot, notorious haunted stronghold, tragic resurrection

Mist Talismans

Barovian wine bottle, von Zarovich family crest, Mark of the Raven talisman

In Barovia, the night is a curse. With the dying of the light, wicked souls slip from the darkened spires of Castle Ravenloft to work the will of an immortal overlord. This is the realm of the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, whose depravities have doomed him and countless generations to endlessly repeating cycles of obsession and despair.

The howls of wolves and shrieks of raven swarms echo through the dismal valleys and oppressive forests of Barovia. In isolated communities, superstitious villagers find the brightness in their lives smothered by dread of their aloof overlord, his baleful servants, and ancient evils that fester unopposed. All the domain’s residents know to fear the Mists and the long Barovian nights, as through them the Devil Strahd watches and reaches to claim whatever he desires. Yet none realize their torments have played out over and over again, all part of Strahd’s plot to claim one victim who has eluded him for generations.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Barovia know the following facts:

• Barovia is a gloomy realm of valleys isolated by wolf-prowled forests and treacherous mountains. Dense clouds cast the land in perpetual gloom.
• The land’s somber, superstitious people live in small, scattered villages. These communities are each led by a burgomaster who seeks to avoid the ire of the land’s aloof lord, Count Strahd von Zarovich. Strangers are widely viewed with suspicion.
• Many locals believe Count von Zarovich is a vampire. He dwells in Castle Ravenloft, a citadel from which few return.
• Vistani bands passing through Barovia are under the protection of the count. This protection stems from a past kindness the Vistani showed the count and from his long association with the fortune-teller Madam Eva. (See “Travelers in the Mists” at the end of this chapter for details on the Vistani.)
• The stories of Barovia’s people are full of hidden evils: treacherous witches, secretive cults, portentous ravens, vicious werewolves, and worse.

Barovian Characters

A diverse populace dwells in Barovia, their ancestors drawn from lands long ago conquered by Count von Zarovich. The people favor dressing in muted but functional clothes, have a wide range of skin and hair colors, and often have names inspired by Slavic peoples. When players create characters from Barovia, ask them the following questions.

What was your life like in Barovia? Were you the child of a shepherd, vintner, or burgomaster? Was your life humble, or were you spared scarcity of coin and food? Did someone in your life vanish, or did you suffer some brush with the creatures of the night?

What superstitions do you cleave to? Is there something you do or say every morning or at night? Do animals—particularly bats, ravens, or wolves—feature in your superstitions? What superstitions do you have regarding coins, doorways, meals, or wounds?

Do you have recurring dreams or visions of unfamiliar experiences or past lives? Who were you in these dreams? What do they tell you about Barovia? Do you believe they hold any truth? Does Count Strahd von Zarovich feature in any of these visions?

Settlements and Sites

Barovia’s people are slow to trust strangers, but they eagerly share tales of the past tragedies and grim rumors that haunt every corner of their land. Ancient mysteries pervade the domain, and those who leave the relative safety of Barovia’s settlements enter perilous lands where mortals aren’t welcome.

Castle Ravenloft

Castle Ravenloft is Count Strahd von Zarovich’s accursed sanctuary. Here Strahd committed his bloodiest crimes and began the cycle of despair in which all Barovia remains locked. Lurking Undead, tormented spirits, and Strahd’s other servants haunt the vast castle, each serving the count’s schemes; reflecting some aspect of his depraved past; or protecting his coffin, which lies hidden within the castle’s vast catacombs. Mementos of lost times and fallen heroes lie scattered throughout the count’s home. Strahd keeps these relics close, but that might hold the key to his undoing. Castle Ravenloft is detailed in the adventure Curse of Strahd.

Krezk

Nestled on the edge of Barovia, Krezk is a hardy and self-sustaining village. Burgomaster Dmitri Krezkov scours the land for wine and other small luxuries, hoping to infuse some happiness into the villagers' lives. Krezk’s most prominent landmark, the Abbey of Saint Markovia, looms high on a nearby cliff. This abbey is the home of a group of strange, afflicted creatures who work for a young and striking abbot. Some believe the abbot to be Strahd in disguise, although in truth he is a celestial being who has been corrupted by the Dark Powers.

Vallaki

Isolated from the rest of Barovia, Vallaki appears at first as an oddly mirthful place, but this seeming joy is an illusion. The burgomaster, Baron Vargas Vallakovich, is convinced happiness holds the key to Vallaki’s salvation, and so he convenes festival after bizarre festival with titles such as the Festival of the Blazing Sun, the Promenade of Coffins, and the Wolf’s Head Jamboree. Additionally, numerous factions are active within the town, including the Keepers of the Feather and the priests of Osybus (see “Travelers in the Mists” and “Other Groups,” respectively, later in this chapter).

Village of Barovia

Lying in the shadow of Castle Ravenloft, the village of Barovia is oppressed by fear. The villagers rarely venture from their homes, suspecting their neighbors of wickedness and fearing evils are taking root in the shadows. Their fears are largely justified, as ghosts and vampire spawn haunt the town, and many locals have been consumed by their own callousness or wicked temptations. A rare exception to the village’s cold desperation can be found at the local tavern called the Blood of the Vine. Those few who would oppose Strahd’s evil congregate here—and are in turn spied upon by the count’s agents.

The Amber Temple

Once a haven of virtuous wizards, the Amber Temple was long ago corrupted by evil. It was here that Strahd made his pact with the Dark Powers to become a vampire, with the blessing of the lich Exethanter. While the lich remains, albeit as a mere shadow of its former self, the true evil within the Amber Temple lies within its collection of amber sarcophagi. These monoliths hold vestiges of dead, hateful gods—beings that aspire to re-create past depravities and manipulate mortals to fulfill unspeakable agendas. Various evil forces set their intentions upon the Amber Temple, viewing it as a nexus of secrets underpinning the nature of the Domains of Dread. The priests of Osybus (detailed in the “Other Groups” section later in this chapter) have particular interest in this site.

Strahd von Zarovich

In life, Count Strahd von Zarovich was a ruthlessly effective conqueror. Over decades of brutal military campaigning, he defeated his rivals and forged a nation. Retiring from war, Strahd settled in the beautiful valley where he’d won his greatest victory. There, in the way of his ancestors, he spilled his blood into the earth, sealing a pact between himself and the land. In honor of his parents, King Barov and Queen Ravenovia, he named the valley Barovia and constructed his fortress-home, Castle Ravenloft.

Strahd had spent his youth at war fighting alongside Ulmed, the founder of the Ulmist Inquisition, but as he reached his middle years he sought the comforts of family. He invited his kin to live with him at Castle Ravenloft, and was eventually joined by his younger brother, Sergei.

Sergei was everything Strahd wasn’t—youthful, empathic, and warm. Soon after he arrived in Barovia, the younger von Zarovich and a local villager named Tatyana fell in love. Strahd resented his brother, even more so after meeting Tatyana and experiencing her pure kindness. Obsessing over her, Strahd sought to woo Tatyana but was soundly rebuffed. Unwilling to accept her wishes or Sergei as his better, Strahd delved into the sinister secrets of his land and came to learn of the Amber Temple. There, amid hidden lore and the imprisoned vestiges of ancient evil, Strahd first encountered the Dark Powers—and made a bargain with them to regain his vitality and ensnare Tatyana’s heart.

The day of Sergei and Tatyana’s wedding, Strahd murdered Sergei and, to seal his pact with the Dark Powers, drank his brother’s blood. He revealed his new might to Tatyana, expecting to enthrall her. Instead, horrified by Sergei’s murder, Tatyana fled Strahd, ultimately leaping from the height of Castle Ravenloft to escape him and vanishing into the Mists. At the same time, traitors from among the castle’s guards and wedding’s guests rose up to assassinate Strahd. Despite suffering countless wounds, Strahd did not die. The nature of his bargain with the Dark Powers was revealed, and Strahd became the multiverse’s first vampire. A night of bloody rage followed, and when dawn touched the parapets of Castle Ravenloft, no living soul survived within. But Strahd remained.

Little is known of the origins of the Domains of Dread, but what’s certain is that they began here. Strahd’s villainy, his connection to his land, and his entanglement with the sinister Priest of Osybus (detailed in chapter 5) drew all of Barovia into the Shadowfell. This began a succession of torments that haunt the Count still and spill forth to drag others into the Land of the Mists.

Strahd’s Powers and Dominion

Strahd is a patient and dramatic mastermind. His statistics are similar to those of a vampire and his spellcasting prowess is formidable, enabling him to face most threats directly. Strahd ever seeks to escape his boredom and draws challenges out for as long as it entertains him. However, if insulted, the Darklord can turn all of Barovia against his foes.

The Ancient, the Land

Strahd is bound to Barovia and it to him in a way few rulers or Darklords understand. As part of this relationship, Strahd knows when any creature enters or dies violently within Barovia—and takes personal offense when his agents or the domain’s wolves are slain. Strahd can also manifest a variety of dramatic effects, such as causing his voice to be heard on the wind, making his visage appear in the clouds, changing the weather, and so forth. He can’t use these effects to aid him in combat, but they can make his presence known throughout the land.

Master Vampire

Strahd eagerly plays the parts of nobleman and gracious host, but drops these pretenses when they no longer serve him, revealing his megalomania and monstrous nature. Strahd believes he has no peers and eagerly cultivates servants, particularly vampire spawn. He hasn’t survived for ages by being reckless, though, and he retreats or sacrifices even his favorite agents when necessary.

Vistani Sanctuary

The ancient Vistani fortune-teller Madame Eva makes her home in Barovia. She knows much of Strahd and has occasionally served as an intermediary between him and various Vistani bands when it serves her own mysterious goals. As part of this arrangement, Strahd avoids harming Vistani who travel within his land.

Closing the Borders

Strahd closes Barovia’s borders whenever something that interests him threatens to escape, surrounding the domain with poisonous mist. Those who enter the Mists choke and are affected as detailed in “The Mists” section at the start of this chapter.

Strahd’s Torment

Eternity is a cruel consort. The following are just a few of the torments Strahd endures:

• Through endless generations, Tatyana has been reincarnated again and again. Each time Strahd believes he can undo his past failures, win Tatyana’s heart, and in so doing free himself from his ages-long curse. Each time, though, Tatyana renounces him once more.
• Strahd chafes within the borders of his domain. His desire for novelty, passion, and conquest matches his thirst for blood.
• Strahd considers Barovia’s people dull inferiors, even as he resents them for the simple pleasures of hope and companionship they possess.

Roleplaying Strahd

Strahd von Zarovich is infinitely egotistical, cruel, and manipulative—a charming monster who wears the trappings of power and class. The vampire victimizes his subjects whenever the urge strikes, reveling in the fear he causes.

Personality Trait

“I am Barovia’s lord. All within this land are mine.”

Ideal

“I sacrificed my life to forge this land. None deserve respect and love more than me.”

Bond

“My subjects exist to serve and sustain me. The blood of the defiant tastes the sweetest.”

Flaw

“I crave the company of equals—if only such individuals existed.”

Adventures in Barovia

Count Strahd von Zarovich casts a shadow no matter where heroes tread in Barovia, and sooner or later, they’ll face an inevitable showdown with the land’s vampiric overlord. The domain’s innumerable evils all ultimately tie back to Strahd. Any corrupt individual, sinister cult, or rampaging monster might have been inspired by the Darklord, their evil ultimately furthering the count’s plots and infamy.

Strahd’s depravity takes physical form in the vampire’s lair, Castle Ravenloft. The castle is itself a notorious legend intrinsic to the count’s terror. The Mists often deposit strangers to Barovia within sight of the fortress, daring the unwary to approach. Ultimately, only the bravest lay siege to the castle or accept the count’s invitations to visit him there. But Castle Ravenloft needn’t be challenged in a single assault, and defeating Strahd might not be the only goal of those who enter. The library, chapel, and catacombs of Castle Ravenloft all hold tempting secrets that might be vital to countering the count’s plots or undoing other evils. Or Strahd might make good on an invitation to grant guests shelter and safety within the Castle Ravenloft—for a time. Ultimately, don’t hesitate to employ the setting’s most infamous castle even if you don’t plan to run a lengthy siege.

The adventure Curse of Strahd explores Barovia and Castle Ravenloft in detail, but you can also use the ideas on the Barovia Adventures table to create your own plots.

Barovia Adventures

Incarnations of Tatyana

The curse that engulfs Barovia means that the soul of Tatyana, the subject of Strahd’s obsession, perpetually reincarnates into new physical forms. No matter what form she takes, Strahd unceasingly seeks her, determined to possess her and soothe his rejected ego. The following section explores creating stories with Tatyana’s latest incarnation at their center. This incarnation—whether an unwitting innocent, a determined vampire, a villain, or something else entirely—influences both Strahd’s and the characters' relationship with her. Consider how changing Tatyana’s incarnation allows you to give your own distinct spin to Ravenloft’s classic tale.

Characters and groups marked with an asterisk on the following tables are further detailed in the “Travelers in the Mist” section at the end of in this chapter.

Who Is Tatyana?

When building your version of Tatyana, use the Tatyana’s Incarnation table to determine the character’s basic description. Once you’re satisfied, consult the following “Connection to Strahd” section to determine the incarnation’s relationship to Barovia’s Darklord. Alternatively, if you wish Tatyana’s incarnation to appear outside Barovia and potentially lead adventurers to Strahd’s domain, consider the plots in the “Beyond Barovia” section.

Tatyana’s Incarnation

Connection to Strahd

Once you know what form Tatyana’s current incarnation takes, consider how the character feels toward Barovia’s Darklord. If your version of Tatyana wants to stay away from Strahd, whether or not the incarnation knows they possess Tatyana’s soul, roll on the Avoiding Strahd table. Alternatively, if they’re compelled to destroy Strahd, roll on the Hunting Strahd table.

Avoiding Strahd

Hunting Strahd

Beyond Barovia

It’s not necessary to have Tatyana’s incarnation appear within Barovia. Rather, Tatyana’s spirit might arise in another land or under strange circumstances. The Lost Tatyana table provides suggestions for such characters and their objectives.

Lost Tatyana

Bluetspur

Domain of Alien Memories

Darklord

The God-Brain of Bluetspur

Genre

Cosmic horror

Hallmarks

Alien abductions, otherworldly landscapes, untrustworthy memories, monstrous experimentation

Mist Talismans

Dream journal, metallic implant, scrap of bizarre technology

Protean apocalypses scar the impossible vistas of Bluetspur, and none who witness them remember. This alien domain etches itself not upon the waking mind, but rather upon the body as inexplicable scars and on the psyche through nightmares.

Not all the Domains of Dread are drawn from worlds hospitable to life. Bluetspur’s scale and impossible geometry induce instinctual anxiety. Gaseous tempests whirl upon the hooked peaks of gravity-defying mountains, oily spires twist in semi-organic contortions, caustic fumaroles yawn and snap shut hungrily, and above it all hangs a dying red orb. Little can survive this wasteland, which is why Bluetspur’s masters dwell underground.

Beneath the alien surface, the mind flayers of Bluetspur drift through the howling darkness of their ancient metropolis-laboratory. Within this sprawling installation, the illithids' numbers are few and their tentacles twitch with undisguised urgency. They toil to prevent the unthinkable: their primordial leader, the God-Brain of Bluetspur, is dying. Through these end times, the mind flayers work desperately to reconcile their god’s demented whims even as they struggle to delay its demise. To those ends, their tentacles slip through the Mists to drag unwitting souls back to Bluetspur for all manner of experiments. Many abductees are returned with only psychic scars, while others are never seen again. An unlucky few find themselves set upon strange routes leading back to the alien realm, arriving only to realize they’ve visited Bluetspur before.

Noteworthy Features

Those few people who glimpse Bluetspur know it only as a nameless realm from their impossible dreams. These visions share the following facts:

• The land’s surface is a lethal, alien place, scattered with the ruins of long-extinct civilizations.
• A mountain—massive beyond all words—looms as a constant presence and thrums with a soundless pulse that nonetheless demands attention. Misshapen shadows crawl among its fissures.
• Those who dream of events in this land often bear inexplicable scars, marks lending impossible evidence to their visions.

Settlements and Sites

The surface of Bluetspur is vast, spanning a continent-sized region that is hostile to all but the most tenacious forms of life. Due to the endless assault of supernatural weather and earthquakes, civilization—as defined by the illithids—exists entirely below the ground. The Mists encroach even here, filling shadowed chasms and abandoned corridors. While the mind flayers have their own ways of describing the realm’s features, the half-lucid ramblings of those who dream of the domain stretch to name and relate several prominent sites.

Mount Makab

Calling Makab a mountain is a wild misnomer; it is a malignant deformation on a planetary scale, a spire with no apparent summit. Its contorted slopes stretch into the toxic heavens, and its form occupies the periphery of viewers' attention no matter which direction they look.

Mount Makab is not a natural feature, but rather part of a colossal, illithid-designed device. Its purposes remain largely mysterious to outsiders, but one thing is certain: it amplifies psionic energy, allowing Bluetspur’s mind flayers to project their thoughts into other Domains of Dread.

Citadel Subterrene

Below Mount Makab stretches the hive-like lair of the illithids. This mind flayer metropolis comprises innumerable interconnected compounds—laboratory vaults, custom prison-habitats, intellect devourer preserves, incubation domes, brain-filled synapse libraries, testing hippodromes, surgical theaters, and facilities that beggar rational description. Non-illithids find travel within the citadel maddening, like trying to find a specific point within a writhing knot of worms. Locations are inaccessible to creatures reliant upon basic terrestrial mobility or without the ability to access psionically controlled mechanisms. Entering Citadel Subterrene is simple, though, as fissures across Bluetspur, particularly upon Mount Makab, lead within.

The Chamber of the God-Brain

The Chamber of the God-Brain rests miles below Citadel Subterrene. The cathedral-like chamber is roughly ovoid in shape, with walls of gleaming, organic metal. The massive God-Brain trembles in a pool of medicinal brine and experimental chemicals capable of dissolving most other creatures. The massive, alien brain’s affliction is clear from the leaking holes pocking its deep-wrinkled lobes. Illithid attendants in eerie protective garb endlessly attend to their dying overlord and indulge even its most blasphemous schemes, such as the creation of Vampiric Mind Flayer (see chapter 5).

Mount Grysl

Mount Grysl’s polypous spires once served as a secondary installation of the domain’s resident mind flayers, but the residents rebelled against the God-Brain’s self-serving obsessions. As one might amputate an infected limb, the God-Brain cut off Mount Grysl from its psychic network. The abandoned residents largely succumbed to infighting and each other’s amoral experiments. The spirits of these tormented mind flayers remain within Mount Grysl, as does the rebellion’s leader: a bloated deviant that calls itself the High Master and seeks to undermine the God-Brain.

The God-Brain

The scope of what mind flayers call history exists on a cosmic scale. Through ages of empire and conflict, the illithid elder brains indulged experiments without comparison or reference for lesser beings, explorations beyond the boundaries of time, reality, immortality, and the multiverse. Many failed—at least one catastrophically so.

To summarize an eon of atrocities, one elder brain’s reality-bending research had an unexpected result, revealing to it a malignant truth for which existence was unprepared. Guided by this burgeoning revelation, the elder brain turned and preyed upon its peers, consuming their discoveries and their physical forms to fuel an impossible apotheosis. Ultimately, though, the weight of the elder brain’s deeds caused its own physicality to rebel, giving rise to an alien disease that began devouring its fleshy form. Horrified by an affliction that infected only them, the other elder brains united and psionically expelled the diseased brain from existence.

Or so they thought.

From a place without time or reality, the Dark Powers plucked the dying elder brain and planted it upon a tormented world. Ever since, the God-Brain of Bluetspur has dreamed and desperately indulged ever more demented schemes as it seeks to save its own life and give action to a thought alien even to it.

The God-Brain’s Powers and Dominion

The God-Brain is more akin to a physical location or massive object than a creature. Its droves of servants are more direct threats than the inscrutable Darklord itself.

Overmind

The God-Brain commands untold numbers of Mind Flayer, Intellect Devourer, and other creatures. Within Bluetspur, it is constantly telepathically linked with all its servants and knows anything that they know. The God-Brain delegates broad goals to its most effective servants, encouraging them to indulge all manner of radical experiments.

Mist Vibrations

Through the awesome psychic resonances of Mount Makab, the God-Brain can guide any of its servants or other psychically aligned minds through the Mists to Bluetspur. In effect, it provides a vision or dream of the domain that itself functions as a Mist talisman.

Life Support

The illithids of Bluetspur toil to save their elder brain through all manner of outlandish scientific and medical means. Among the most bizarre of these schemes is the God-Brain’s own: the creation of degenerate servants that hunt for balms for its affliction. These Vampiric Mind Flayer (see chapter 5) slip from Bluetspur to prey upon Humanoids. They then return to the God-Brain, bloated with cerebrospinal fluid to momentarily dull its suffering.

Closing the Borders

When the God-Brain closes Bluetspur’s borders, the surface of the domain is wracked by extreme electrical storms, and alien vapors rise at the domain’s distant edges and within its hidden tunnels. Rather than barring creatures' escape, these Mists repress memories. Any non-Aberration who leaves Bluetspur is transported to a familiar place where they soon wake up, even if they weren’t previously asleep. Their time in Bluetspur is repressed, altered as if by the modify memory spell. See “Recovering Memories” below for more details.

The God-Brain’s Torment

The God-Brain of Bluetspur is an entirely unreliable cosmic entity, an immortal inflicted with mortality. Although its death is likely still millennia away, this inevitability leads it to hastily indulge all manner of amoral extremes.

Roleplaying the God-Brain

The God-Brain’s influence drives the mind flayers beyond their domain to purse all manner of subtle observations, bizarre experiments, repeat abductions, and visceral mutilations.

Adventures in Bluetspur

While Bluetspur’s otherworldly hazards and the mind flayers' defenses can challenge even the highest-level heroes, the domain’s menace proves most pernicious when it intrudes on other domains. Taking inspiration from sci-fi horror and tales of alien abduction, adventures involving Bluetspur’s mind flayers might begin anywhere with bad dreams or a stranger’s impossible rantings. Over time, disappearances, inexplicable scars, subdermal implants, and unlocked memories might reveal the mind flayers' tentacles enwrap more than anyone thought possible. See “Return to Bluetspur” for details on running adventures featuring lost memories, or consider developing other plots using the Bluetspur Adventures table.

Bluetspur Adventures

Return to Bluetspur

Bluetspur can be more chilling as a memory than as a new discovery. Use this section to create adventures that reveal impossible knowledge, hint at unremembered experiences, or take place as recollected adventures out of continuity with a campaign.

Recovering Memories

Knowing that secrets lurk within one’s own mind holds unique terror. When running adventurers featuring hidden memories, consider how those memories might be revealed.

Magical Recovery

Both the mind flayers of Bluetspur and the Mists surrounding the domain employ methods similar to the modify memory spell to obscure victims' memories of their abduction, replacing them with hazy events or gaps of missing time. A character’s true memories can be restored by a remove curse or greater restoration spell. A victim of the mind flayers might have endured dozens of memory modifications, each requiring its own magical removal, resulting in the recovery of a few traumatic memories at a time.

Alienism

Scientifically curious lands in your campaign might feature burgeoning practitioners of alienism or psychiatry. Inexperienced practitioners of these disciplines merge scientific treatments, spiritualism, magic, and hokum, yet still obtain results. A session or series of sessions with a committed alienist might allow a character to remember a forgotten event. By the same token, though, time spent with a duplicitous alienist might leave a character vulnerable to suggestion and false memories. Such revelations can play out in your adventures narratively at any pace you desire.

Gradual Recovery

Lost memories might gradually reveal themselves in response to events in adventures. As the characters encounter evidence of Bluetspur’s mind flayers, consider giving individuals access to information they shouldn’t logically possess or granting them advantage on rolls related to their hidden memories, doled out as you deem appropriate. This might take the form of allowing the character to navigate an alien installation, operate an inscrutable device, or read an otherworldly language. Don’t explain why the character gains these benefits, though, and let them make their own explanations to other characters. Lost memories might also take the form of Dark Gifts (see chapter 1).

Alien Artifacts

The mind flayers of Bluetspur might leave evidence of their bizarre plots behind in other domains. Use the artifacts on the Aberrant Evidence table to provoke investigations, trigger lost memories, or even serve as Mist talismans.

Aberrant Evidence

Lost Memories

When revealing lost memories, cultivate the disquiet that comes with vivid recollections out of sync with a character’s history. The scenes on the Suppressed Memories table include deliberately disjointed specifics that you can adjust or leave incoherent as you please. Many can also be used as the first moments of a longer memory. If you’d like the memory to continue, ask the player of the character remembering the event what happens next.

Suppressed Memories

Adventures Out of Time

The most effective way to reveal characters' missing memories is to revisit them as an adventure. Players might run lower-level versions of their characters or use the survivors from Survivors to represent their past selves. Or characters might play forgotten versions of themselves—perhaps very different from who they are now—or individuals in the memories of another character. Run this adventure as an experience detached from your campaign’s timeline, a flashback that relates the terrors of being a victim of the mind flayers' plots. Death likely doesn’t mean much in these adventures, as characters somehow survived to remember their traumas—perhaps through miraculous mind flayer surgeries. However, developments in the past can provide all manner of revelations, potentially unveiling terrifying truths hidden within characters' own minds and bodies.

Borca

Domain of Desire and Deceit

• Darklords: Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya

Genres

Gothic horror and psychological horror

Hallmarks

Political intrigue, poison, revenge

Mist Talismans

Dram of sweet-smelling poison, singed love letter, tarnished signet ring

Borca’s nobles entangle the domain in a web of intrigues. While the common folk scrape for survival, the domain’s callous aristocrats distract themselves with cruel diversions. They pay what they consider pittances in gold, land, and lives in pursuit of power, thrills, and the rarest pleasure: untarnished emotion. The common folk are merely tools to be exploited and discarded. Silver-tongued schemers use dreams and ambition to tempt innocents into debt, blackmail, and ruin, while furthering their rivalries or searching for decadent thrills. Guile and apathy are virtues in Borca, and none embody them more than the domain’s two Darklords: the genius poisoner Ivana Boritsi and the childishly cruel stalker Ivan Dilisnya.

Outside the bejeweled playgrounds of the land’s elite, Borca’s common folk struggle against crime, poverty, and starvation. In scattered villages and tenement-filled cities, locals view nobles as celebrities, and their idealized vision of noble life leads them to mimic the aristocrats' callousness and appetite for empty fads. These starry-eyed innocents provide ready pawns for corruption. And those who don’t bend to the whims of Borca’s rulers face humiliation before they’re inevitably crushed.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Borca know the following facts:

• Powerful families control the government, commerce, and entertainment in Borca. The Boritsi family holds the greatest influence.
• Borcan noble families include a dominant main family and lesser branch lineages. Branch noble families (sometimes with different surnames) are subservient to the main family.
• Each noble family maintains an estate with village-sized holdings nearby. These estates are testaments to the family’s prestige, fortune, and hidden secrets.
• The common folk live in rural villages that serve noble interests or in crowded cities. Most either avoid entanglements with powerful but fickle nobles or desperately court their favor.
• Culture and prestige in Borca reach their height in the fabulous city of Levkarest. At its heart rises the Great Cathedral of the god Ezra.

Borcan Characters

Characters from Borca might be members of a decadent noble family or struggling peasants. In either case, much of the populace possesses dark hair and varied skin tones with cool undertones. Names often take inspiration from German, Slavic, and more fantastical conventions. When players create characters from Borca, consider asking them the following questions.

Do you come from a noble family? If so, are you in contact with any of its other members? Whom do you love or serve in your family? If you don’t, why do people mistake you for nobility?

How have you enriched a noble family? Have you invested in a noble’s business? Does a percentage of your pay go toward an inescapable debt? Does an arranged marriage loom in your future?

Whom have you hurt? In your family’s struggles, your attempts to get ahead, or your desire to impress an acquaintance, you’ve done someone a significant wrong. What was it? Why did you do it? Do you regret it?

Settlements and Sites

Most of Borca’s people live in small agricultural communities under the rule of noble landlords, or in poverty in the larger settlements of Lechberg, Levkarest, or Sturben. Nobles keep country homes among the nation’s forests or rolling hills, well apart from the common rabble. Mobility between country and town is a luxury of the wealthy, making horses and coaches symbols of prestige.

Levkarest

Borca’s capital stands at the pinnacle of culture and power. Unpopular members of the noble families squabble in the halls of the People’s Parliament, the land’s ineffective seat of government. The true rulers of the nation conduct business in the offices of faceless mercantile ventures and the back rooms of avant-garde clubs. The commoners of Levkarest glimpse this world of toxic glamor only from afar, or when nobles exploit street-level fads.

Beyond the nobles' elaborate rivalries, another force moves in Levkarest. At the Great Cathedral, pious commoners and aristocrats alike beg for the favor of the deity Ezra, but in the catacombs beneath the cathedral, a hidden cell of the Ulmist Inquisition meets. This society cultivates psionic prowess to undermine the evil in people’s souls before it comes to fruition. Yet despite its ties to heroes and vast lore, the society finds its numbers dwindling. (See “Other Groups” later in this chapter for details.)

New Ilvin

Remarkably, when the town of Ilvin burned, no lives were lost. Rather than rebuilding, the seven hundred survivors moved their homes a few miles east and founded New Ilvin. This sleepy community seems ordinary in every way, but residents avoid speaking of Old Ilvin and never return, going so far as to pave a new road to avoid the burned-out ruins.

Sturben

Long considered Levkarest’s unfashionable shadow, the city of Sturben has become a haven for those seeking distance from the domain’s elite. To counter the half-hearted justice doled out by local nobles, the city council of Sturben reinstituted a severe court system from Borca’s past, where anyone can bring and argue cases before five masked judges. The judges who hear cases at the Faceless Court change, but their masks remain the same: grimly ornate visages inspired by Borca’s mysterious first inhabitants. The court sends iron-masked circuit judges into the surrounding lands to execute justice. For especially contentious cases, judges imprison all involved and drag them to Sturben to face trial.

Misericordia and Other Noble Estates

Each of the domain’s prominent families maintains an opulent and extravagantly named manor, as noted on the Noble Families and Estates table. Following the custom of Borcan high society, each family is expected to host at least two formal balls, banquets, or other extravagances annually. These events provide the setting for intrigues, politics, business arrangements, seductions, embarrassments, and social warfare. (See the “Nobles of Borca” section for more on these families.)

Among the most decadent noble holdings is Misericordia, the Boritsi estate. Situated amid miles of fields, greenhouses, and alchemy labs used to create exceptional Boritsi-branded perfumes and tinctures, the manor features multiple widow’s walks and more than three hundred rooms. An awe-inspiring array of unique plants grows within the estate’s private conservatory wings. The distillates from these plants furnish the lady of the house, Ivana Boritsi, with a room-sized perfume organ—along with a hidden, parallel collection of remarkable poisons.

Noble Families and Estates

Domain with Two Darklords

Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya are coequal rulers of Borca. As they both committed depraved crimes in the same land at the same time, the Dark Powers gathered them both into the Domains of Dread. Generally, though, Ivana and Ivan have little to do with one another. Their homes occupy opposite ends of the domain, and their interests rarely overlap—that is, until suitably intriguing characters arrive.

Ivana and Ivan are opposite sides of the same tarnished coin. Ivana fought for all she has and now loathes it; Ivan was given everything and believes he was denied what he deserves. Ivana is forced into society; Ivan thirsts for attention. Ivana appears perpetually youthful; Ivan bears the weight of ages.

Although your adventures might focus on either Darklord, Borca presents the opportunity to explore multiple facets of arrogance, selfishness, and obsession. The characters might become the objects of both Darklords' interests. This could put them at the center of a rivalry between the two or provide them with the unique opportunity to leverage one Darklord’s power against another. An adventure in Borca doesn’t have to involve a conflict between its two Darklords, but if it does, consider putting the party at the center of it.

Ivana Boritsi

The firstborn of the fantastically wealthy Boritsi aristocrats, Ivana was clever, poised, and—in her father Klaus’s eyes—utterly unfit to lead their family. Unwilling to accept her father’s view, Ivana spent her youth eschewing the dalliances of her kin, instead learning every aspect of her family’s business in perfumes and medicinal herbs. Her mother, Camille, encouraged her daughter and tried to ensure that Ivana would one day lead the family.

Ivana’s focus on her goals faltered when she met Pieter, a skilled chemist in the family’s service. From him, Ivana learned alchemy and the perfumer’s art, and the two grew close. Camille recognized Ivana’s budding romance and saw the lowborn Pieter as a threat to Ivana’s prospects. Camille thus seduced the young man and arranged for Ivana to discover them, intent on convincing her daughter to forsake this and all future romances.

Ivana took a different lesson from the experience. Realizing the depths of her family’s corruption, she poisoned her mother and her callous brothers, with the goal of forcing Klaus to name her his heir. Creating and employing a series of aromatic toxins, she watched her siblings and treacherous mother sicken and die. None suspected her involvement.

On Ivana’s eighteenth birthday, the aged and ailing Klaus summoned her to his office to share a momentous decision. Having lost his sons, Klaus named Ivana’s cousin, Ivan Dilisnya, his heir. He had already announced his decision to the estate staff and sent a messenger to inform the Dilisnyas.

Ivana only laughed as a toxic mist poured across the Boritsi estate. Having expected her father’s pettiness, she had manufactured a disaster that turned all the estate’s perfume into poison. Drinking the antidote, Ivana watched as Klaus and all the manor’s workers and inhabitants died choking amid a violet fog. By the time the poison cleared, the land of Borca had become surrounded by the Mists.

Ivana’s Powers and Dominion

Ivana appears to be a young human woman with statistics similar to a spy. Since her arrival in the Land of the Mists, her blood has been tainted with poison, and angry red-and-black veins visibly show through her pale skin. While this discoloration is unignorable, the toxins grant her immunity to poison damage and being poisoned. Her genius and ambition define her manipulations.

Alchemical Innovator

By spending one uninterrupted hour within her laboratory at the Boritsi Estate, Ivana can create ten doses of any poison or re-create the effect of one wizard spell of 7th level or lower. She keeps a variety of poisons on hand at all times. See “Intrigue in Borca” later in this section for details on how Ivana uses alchemy in her manipulations.

Callous Genius

Ivana’s genius and cynicism, in combination with the Dark Powers' aid, grant her insight into the nature of Borca’s people that borders on precognition. She’s always one step ahead of her rivals and has prepared the perfect situation, stand-in, or poison accordingly. However, Ivana has a facile understanding of true love and companionship, so those who behave in an unexpectedly selfless manner might undermine her elaborate contingencies.

Gardens of Evil

Ivana delights in her gardens, both the exotic conservatories within the Boritsi Estate and the flower fields surrounding her manor. She has created innumerable unique plants, as well as plant creatures with strange abilities and unflagging loyalty to her.

Tyrant Maker

Ivana’s ambition drives her to take on any challenge. She reflexively seeks political and financial control over all Borca, and casually manipulates the domain’s noble families into destroying one another.

Closing the Borders

Ivana can close or open Borca’s borders once per day. She rarely closes the borders, as her manipulations typically prevent her victims from leaving. She might open or close the borders to confound the whims of her co-Darklord, Ivan, though. When she does close Borca’s borders, the Mists rise as a wall of acrid chemicals that affect creatures as detailed in “The Mists” section at the start of this chapter.

Ivana’s Torment

Ivana conquered her rivals, yet still suffers. The following circumstances endlessly torment the Darklord:

• Ivana has not aged since the Mists claimed Borca, and her youthful appearance leads many to underestimate her.
• Ivana rules her family’s business and political empire brilliantly. Despite this, she is endlessly doubted and second guessed. Many believe she is a typical, vacant noble youth or the puppet of her elder cousin, Ivan Dilisnya.
• Ivana’s genius and refinement lead her to grow swiftly bored of most potential allies and rivals. She ever seeks her equal in intellect and ambition, and she is ever disappointed. Maintaining her family’s vast array of social expectations is especially tedious.
• Ivana never found her father’s will and knows that should it fall into the wrong hands, her depraved cousin Ivan could claim all she’s earned. She’ll do anything to prevent this.

Roleplaying Ivana

Ivana Boritsi’s exceptional mind and remarkable senses of hearing, taste, and smell inform her elevated fancies and expansive knowledge of art, food, fashion, social protocols, alchemy, and perfume. Few people can hold her attention, and none can redeem themselves in her eyes from even a moment’s boorishness.

Personality Trait

“I’m perfect, and no one else understands the strain and expectation that comes with being the best at everything.”

Ideal

“One day I’ll find someone worth my time. Everyone else is boring at best.”

Bond

“Only my plants and formulas never disappoint me.”

Flaw

“It’s insulting to think I haven’t anticipated every possible outcome.”

Ivan Dilisnya

The Dilisnya family maintains a tradition of treachery. The land of Borca originates from the same world as Barovia’s conquerors, the von Zaroviches, and Dilisnyas were present at Castle Ravenloft the night of Strahd von Zarovich’s transformation.

Ages later, the siblings Boris and Camille Dilisnya each plotted to steal the prestige of their cousins, the Boritsis. Camille manipulated her way into the Boritsi family while Boris prepared his son Ivan to be the new head of a united Boritsi–Dilisnya line. Despite abundant opportunities to excel, Ivan grew to embody childish vice and impulsiveness, with his family’s wealth and doting servants exacerbating these whims. Frequent “accidents” transpired around Ivan, forcing his family to cover up the maimings and deaths of numerous pets and servants. Only Ivan’s sister, Kristina, was exempt from his bullying and wicked tricks.

Over time, Kristina proved precocious and eager to learn. Ivan, however, became stubbornly obsessed with childish toys and behaviors. He encouraged his sister to indulge his idealized visions of their childhood, going so far as to affect childlike behaviors and ways of speaking. Although his family members grew increasingly unsettled, they sheltered the future head of their house, reshaping their estate and investing in whimsical diversions for him.

On the night Ivana Boritsi poisoned her family, Ivan learned of his parents' intention to send Kristina to a prestigious boarding school. Screams, cruel cackling, and clockwork screeching filled the Dilisnya estate that night. When it ended, Ivan was the last living member of the Dilisnya family, and the Mists closed in around Borca.

Ivan’s Powers and Dominion

Ivan isn’t a physically or magically powerful Darklord. He’s an extremely old man, but supernaturally he remains as physically fit as he was in the prime of life and has the statistics of a human noble. His menace manifests in the form of psychological manipulation, making others doubt reality, and causing victims to overestimate his control.

Cursed Correspondence

Ivan loathes leaving his estate, but the Dark Powers have granted him the ability to have his letters delivered anywhere he pleases. See “Intrigue in Borca” later in this section for details on Ivan’s letters.

Manipulative Actor

One of Ivan’s favorite manipulations is using his letters and his high-pitched voice to pretend to be a lonely youngster. Ivan keeps out of sight from those he targets for deception so they don’t realize the discordance between his childlike affectations and his appearance. If forced to reveal his aged form, he pretends to be confused and employs elaborate clockwork toys, disguises, and conveyances that further mask his true ability.

Toy Maker

The Dark Powers provide Ivan with any toy he desires. Creatures of many sorts serve Ivan, and any of them, from maids to monstrous guardians, could be clockwork devices or stuffed toys. This doesn’t change the creatures' statistics and is revealed only in dramatic moments. Individuals the characters have known for years might eventually be revealed as Ivan’s toys.

Wicked Wonderland

The Dilisnya estate, Degravo, is a confusing tangle of topiary gardens, hedge mazes, and neglected petting zoos that abut sheer cliffs. The mansion lies at the heart of the estate, and is divided into multiple structures, including the Laughing House, a playhouse where life-sized toys enact brutal operas, and Ivan’s Playroom, a wing dedicated to the master of the estate’s clockwork tinkering and private decadences. Ivan tempts victims to his home, where they gradually realize they’re trapped in a fun house of childish grotesqueries. Those unable to escape are eventually forced to don the ludicrous livery of the Dilisnya household staff and become Ivan’s new servants.

Closing the Borders

Ivan can close or open Borca’s borders once per day. He closes them to prevent those he’s obsessing over from escaping. When he closes Borca’s borders, the Mists rise as detailed in “The Mists” section at the start of this chapter. Additionally, the fog is filled with Ivan’s taunting voice and patrolled by grim clockwork toys.

Ivan’s Torment

Since the night the Mists took Borca, Ivan rarely leaves the Dilisnya estate. The following circumstances endlessly torment him:

• Ivan is alone, and the solitude terrifies him. He was given everything, destroyed it all, and doesn’t know how to live. He endlessly creates fawning, fake family from clockwork creations to distract him from his solitude.
• Ivan resents Ivana Boritsi, his closest relative, for having the power he was groomed for, but he also views her as his only peer and as a potential replacement for his sister. Ivana, however, avoids him at all costs.
• Ivan looks like a fantastically unkempt old man, a state he believes he has no control over and that grows more pronounced daily. He thinks Ivana keeps the secret of her eternal youth from him.

Roleplaying Ivan

Ivan demands to be the center of attention while remaining deeply suspicious of the world beyond Degravo. With his family gone, he coaxes guests to his home to indulge in a perverse mixture of fabulous decadence and his off-putting, childish whims. Ivan delights in his guests' discomfort and in forcing them to entertain him.

Personality Trait

“The world exists only to bring me pleasure.”

Ideal

“I never want to be bored or alone again.”

Bond

“My possessions are mine to do with as I please. I decide their fate.”

Flaw

“I break whatever bores me. At least a broken toy is unique.”

Adventures in Borca

Borca provides opportunities for political intrigues, family power struggles, and callous betrayals set amid a backdrop of ludicrous wealth and perverse visions of refinement. Adventures set in Borca often involve characters participating in the machinations of the domain’s nobles, whether as involuntary pawns or as part of schemes to see them indebted to amoral patrons. The domain’s two Darklords also provide opportunities to explore different types of amoral arrogance and petty obsessions. Characters might become caught between Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya’s unique obsessions—but could also learn that the best way to undermine these villains is to play them against one another.

The following sections detail the schemes of the domain’s nobles and Darklords, while the Borca Adventures table suggests other adventures appropriate to the domain.

Borca Adventures

Nobles of Borca

From their decadent manors and lofty business offices, twelve prominent noble families rule over Borcan politics, industry, art, entertainment, religion, and every other aspect of life in the domain. The following families are Borca’s most prominent, though dozens of lesser branch families orbit each:

• Boritsi. The Boritsi name is a mark of quality and innovation, appearing across Borca on perfumes, tonics, and dozens of buildings and theaters. Countless families claim ties to the Boritsis.
• Dilisnya. The family defensively guards its prestige, as its wealth is based in agriculture—particularly rearing pigs. Treacherous branch families have warred among themselves since the loss of nearly the entire main family.
• Eris. The elderly Tolashara Eris claims to be the last of her line. She pours her family’s wealth into supporting art in Levkarest and endlessly building her estate both taller and deeper.
• Ivliskova. The Ivliskovas run dozens of orphanages and the elite Ivliskova Finishing School. This boarding school boasts a flawless graduation rate—for those students who don’t disappear.
• Nobriskov. Pious and formal, the Nobriskovs claim descent from Borca’s ancient clans and hide their family’s lycanthropic curse.
• Nuikin. Every member of this competitive family is expected to become a genius in their respective field. Numerous libraries, museums, and theaters advertise Nuikin accomplishments.
• Ocrotire. The Ocrotires descend from respected admirals and seafaring explorers (despite Borca’s lack of a coast). Their estate features a vast oceanarium featuring thousands of bizarre sea creatures and a complete megalodon skeleton.
• Olzanik. This family of metalworkers obsesses over war. To them, every success is a conquest, but no Olzanik has ever seen battle in national service.
• Piechota. The estate of Borca’s best ranchers lies half ruined as the result of another family’s treachery. Their wealth largely expended, the Piechotas open their home to travelers along the Ruby Road.
• Pretorius. The Pretorius estate is a raucous casino surrounded by the Ash Gardens, a region burned in a vast wildfire. Those who can’t pay debts incurred at the casino are burned alive and their ashes scattered in the wastelands.
• Ritter. The shear-wielding Ritters define the cutting edge of fashion. Their coveted designs change seasonally, and any who create reproductions meet vicious ends.
• Tatenna. Bankers and landlords, the Tatennas track debts across the domain. They deal with every family except the Olzaniks, with whom they maintain a generations-old feud.

Intrigue in Borca

Endless power games play out in Borca. Something as simple as having the right talent or piece of gear could cause a noble to take notice of a character and invite them to an outing or event that leads to further intrigues. These plots initially revolve around small, petty things, but culminate in disasters and true outrages. They often play out in familiar ways.

Ready Accomplices

Characters readily win contacts among Borca’s nobility, since the elite seem easily charmed by the adventuring life. Friendly nobles soon embroil new acquaintances in their schemes, asking characters for favors meant to prove friendship or trustworthiness. These requests typically play into characters' action-first inclinations and gradually add up, giving the noble knowledge they can later leverage however they please.

Ignoble Bonds

Between adventures, a noble contact might share their problems with a character or seek favors from a character. Roll or choose an option from the Ignoble Request table to determine what the contact wishes. These requests target a specific rival or member of another family, and lead to increasingly dramatic treacheries.

Ignoble Request

Lethal Leverage

Ever thinking of themself, the aforementioned noble contact seeks leverage over the characters. The Lethal Leverage table suggests things a noble contact might seek to use against adventurers. Once they have such leverage, the noble contact is no longer a friend, but rather the characters' debt holder or blackmailer. Most such treacherous individuals try to ensure that threats or magic can’t easily compel them to relinquish their leverage, such as sending it to a third party or disseminating it within a group of allies.

Lethal Leverage

Coup de Grace

Once the aforementioned noble has gained leverage over the party, they might make all sorts of demands. It’s then up to the characters whether they obey or find a way to escape the noble’s schemes. This might even be the point where the noble reveals that they’ve been an agent of Ivana Boritsi or Ivan Dilisnya all along, and now the Darklord they serve has a use for the characters.

Ivana’s Intrigues

Ivana Boritsi’s interests lie in manipulating sweeping aspects of Borca’s society, asserting her dominance amid an ever-shifting landscape of petty noble schemes. She isn’t a spellcaster, but her insights into alchemy allow her to create chemically potent mind-altering effects. Ivana’s chemical arsenal includes drinks that convey illusory sensations, perfumes that charm creatures, and dramatic poisons activated by innocuous secondary triggers. Through suggestion and by subtly exposing targets to her chemicals, Ivana convinces victims she’s practically omnipotent.

Use the poisons detailed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide as a baseline for the effects Ivana creates and combine them with the effects of enchantment and illusion spells to design custom, nonmagical toxins for her. The Ivana’s Whisper combines an inhaled poison and the dream spell, creating a tool Ivana uses to manipulate her agents.

Ivan’s Intrigues

Ivan Dilisnya has a simple desire: companionship. Unfortunately, he’s a selfish and controlling individual. To enable his need for attention, the Dark Powers granted him a subtle ability to have the letters he writes magically delivered. Ivan uses this simple power for amoral, cowardly ends. On rare occasions Ivan takes his clockwork coach through communities to watch for passersby worth writing to.

The Darklord’s Letters

Ivan’s letters are supernatural missives relayed by the Dark Powers. If Ivan writes a letter and addresses it to a creature whose name he knows and whom he’s seen before, he can choose to have one such letter vanish at midnight of the following night. That letter then reappears in an unobserved but obvious space near the letter’s addressee during their next long rest. The letter might appear among the recipient’s mundane mail, on their bedside table, or among their gear. A letter’s mysterious means of delivery is never observed. Ivan’s letters can reach a target anywhere within the Domains of Dread.

The Darklord Knows

Ivan supernaturally knows the location of every letter he has magically sent within the last month, pinpointed to within 1 mile. As a result, he can tell that one of his letters is in a settlement, but not in which house. He also knows when his letters are destroyed.

The Darklord’s Demands

Ivan persistently pesters people with his letters, often fixating on two or three individuals. He writes frequently, using the facade of the recipient’s secret admirer, a youngster in need of help, or a distant family member, though his lies fracture over time. His salutations are off-putting or childishly insulting, like “Dear Delicious Knuckle” or “My Preening Pig-Face.” His letters' contents typically focus on him rather than the recipient, obsessing over his feelings, distractions, and self-indulgent rants. Inevitably, his cowardly cruelty shows through as the letters grow increasingly possessive and insulting. He initially coaxes recipients to fetch gifts for him or to undermine his foes, but his requests culminate in insisting that the recipient joins him at Degravo, the Dilisnya estate.

The Carnival

Wandering Domain of Wonders

• Darklord: Nepenthe

Genres

Body horror and dark fantasy

Hallmarks

Entertainment, fey bargains, misfits, wandering exiles

Mist Talismans

Carnival flier, colorful ticket, strange prize from a Carnival game

Resplendent with bright banners, calliope music, and the smells of rich food, the Carnival promises visitors a surreal wonderland where any dream is possible.

Garish fliers appear before the Carnival’s arrival, promising marvels, terrors, and a brief escape from the gloom of daily life. But nothing in the Land of the Mists is beyond suspicion, and the wise know strangers are intrinsically dangerous.

The Carnival doesn’t exist to entertain its visitors. Rather, it’s a traveling domain, capable of visiting other domains and lands beyond the Mists. Visibly marked as outsiders by birth, circumstance, intention, or talent, the Carnival’s troupers trade their unique performances for coin and whatever else they need to survive. Although these entertainers are well intentioned, sinister forces travel in their wake. The longer the Carnival tarries in one place, the greater the threat to the performers and visitors. So the Carnival travels constantly, lest the troupers endanger the lands they visit.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with the Carnival know the following facts:

• Fliers advertising the Carnival’s impending arrival appear mysteriously in communities before it appears. The Carnival doesn’t contribute to their production or distribution.
• Two silver pieces buy a ticket to the Carnival, while the Big Top’s shows, the Hall of Horrors, and sideshows have their own entry fees.
• The Carnival wanders endlessly, never staying anywhere for more than a few weeks. Most settlements welcome this traveling diversion, but tragedies follow its path.
• Merchants unaffiliated with the Carnival follow its travels and set up shop alongside it. Known as the Litwick Market, this collection of tents and booths is filled with strange vendors and stranger goods.
• Those seeking an escape from a place or their current lives can join the Carnival. As long as travelers are willing to work and contribute to the community, they’re welcome to stay as long as they like.

Carnival Characters

When players create characters from the Carnival, consider asking them the following questions.

What sets you apart from your birth family? Do you have a unique talent or inborn ability? Do you display a physical difference? Do you carry a curse or blessing? How do you feel about your differences?

Do you perform? Have you devised a way to profit from your circumstances? Are you proud of your performances? Do you have a show mentor or partner? Or do you earn your way in the Carnival as a laborer, as a vendor, or in another role?

How did you join the Carnival? Did you run away to join? Were you an outcast who found a home with the Carnival? Did Isolde or a trouper save you from danger?

Settlements and Sites

This small domain encompasses only a few hundred square yards. A handful of horses and exotic pack animals transport the Carnival’s two dozen wagons from site to site.

One of the Carnival’s oldest performers, Hermos the Half-Giant, handles the Carnival’s day-to-day operations. Hermos is a mountain of muscle half again as tall as most human adults. His deliberate manner and coolheaded demeanor earn him the respect of the Carnival’s troupers. Other senior or charismatic figures hold influence over cliquish groups of performers, but few dare openly contradict Hermos since he’s favored by the Carnival’s leader, Isolde.

The Carnival’s arrangement varies depending on where it sets up, but always includes a thoroughfare of games, food, and sideshow stalls leading from the ticketing gate to the Big Top.

Big Top

Standing at the Carnival’s center is the Big Top, its largest tent. The Big Top houses spectacular shows, from acrobats and displays of magic to beloved plays. Three coppers buy a visitor admittance for as long as they like, with performances of varying quality running from sunrise until midnight.

Sideshows

Lurid banners with exaggerated art and the calls of barkers advertise the Carnival’s unusual performers. For 2 copper pieces, visitors enter a tent and watch a performer’s show. The Carnival’s best-known attractions include the following troupers (along with the stat blocks they use):

• Tindal the Barker. Tindal, the Carnival’s cynical, fast-talking lead barker (mage), tours the grounds with visitors. At their last stop, he reveals his own uniqueness as the Amazing Soul-less Man: he casts no reflection and claims to lack a soul.
• Alti the Werehare. A quick-tongued rapper and dancer, Alti (wererat) is a bombastic performer who turns into a rabbit on nights of the full moon.
• Amelia the Vampire. Amelia (scout with a flying speed of 30 feet) is a cheery acrobat aided in her performances by a pair of leathery wings that allows her to fly. Before stepping on stage, she powders her face, affects a somber accent, and pretends to be undead.
• Charlotte the Fire Eater. This juggling daredevil (veteran) performs with a dizzying array of flaming knives and other deadly objects. She claims that her blood is flammable and that she’s burned the hair off eighteen hecklers.
• The Organ Grinder. This somber clown grinds an ornate barrel organ (scout). An attendant group of mischievous, half-trained, not-quite-identifiable animals caper to this music. The clown never speaks but allows visitors to guess at the animals' nature for a copper piece.
• Silessa the Snake. A dancer and animal tamer, Silessa (druid) performs with a collection of rare serpents. She claims she was born a snake and magically transformed into an elf.

Hall of Horrors

A severe, bespectacled academic, Professor Pacali runs the Carnival’s Hall of Horrors. This sizable, sinister tent contains a maze of taxidermic creatures, cabinets of curiosity, peculiar specimens in jars, and the occasional true wonder. Pacali hides a personal unsettling secret. During his time as a researcher at the Brautslava Institute in Darkon, Pacali was cursed: his worst impulses now grow from his body as terrible creatures. He bottles these murderous homunculi and touts them as “Professor Pacali’s Pickled Punks,” but every now and then one “escapes.” Pacali persistently criticizes Hermos and Isolde, but rarely acts against them directly.

Litwick Market

The Carnival doesn’t travel alone. Wherever it goes, fey creatures chase after it, appearing on the Carnival’s outskirts as mysterious merchants selling dangerous enigmas and Mist talismans. They peddle lost memories or love potions for peculiar prices, such as the buyer’s dreams or ability to speak vowels. Gradually, more dangerous fey arrive—creatures who delight in sabotaging performances or nearby settlements. These tricks and accidents grow increasingly dangerous, potentially culminating in disasters for which the Carnival’s troupers ultimately take the blame. All these fey hold a grudge against the Carnival. They light their stalls with eerie colored lanterns and call themselves the Litwick Market.

Isolde and Nepenthe

Isolde, the Carnival’s leader, is an eladrin (an elf native to the Feywild). She is a Fey who otherwise uses the cambion stat block. She is never seen without her holy avenger longsword, Nepenthe, which glows red with hate. Nepenthe, not Isolde, is the Carnival’s Darklord.

Isolde

Isolde was a holy warrior devoted to a pantheon of elven deities called the Seldarine. In this role, she defended the Feywild against dragons, demons, and other threats. In time, her heroics caught the eye of an archfey named Zybilna, who had forged secret pacts with some of the fiends Isolde and her companions had slain. Rather than be angry at Isolde, Zybilna was impressed by her. She enlisted a powerful fiend known only as “the Caller” to corrupt and slay all of Isolde’s companions, leaving Isolde alone, bitter, and vulnerable. The insidious archfey then befriended Isolde and offered to help her forget her terrible losses. Isolde became the master of a traveling fey carnival that served as a gateway to Zybilna’s domain. The carnival did what Zybilna hoped it would do: it brought comfort to Isolde and quelled her thirst for vengeance.

Zybilna and Isolde enjoyed a strong partnership for years, but as time wore on, they grew distant until their relationship finally soured. Eladrin crave change, yet Isolde felt like she was frozen in time. She wished to leave the fey carnival and pursue other dreams, but Zybilna wouldn’t hear of it and secretly used wish spells to make Isolde place her devotion to the carnival above her desire to leave it.

When Isolde’s fey carnival crossed paths with another carnival from the Shadowfell, the eladrin found the escape she longed for. Isolde orchestrated a trade with the other carnival’s owners, a pair of shadar-kai (elves native to the Shadowfell). Isolde would become the master of their carnival, and they would become the masters of hers. To appease Zybilna, this arrangement would remain in place only until the two carnivals crossed paths again.

Zybilna was intrigued enough by the shadar-kai to let Isolde go, but not without casting a spell that made Isolde forget about Zybilna and her Feywild domain, thus preventing the eladrin from divulging the archfey’s secrets. As a further punishment, Zybilna sent malevolent fey creatures to hound Isolde and her Shadowfell carnival. Isolde doesn’t know who is behind this petty torment, nor does she care. Her hunt for the Caller and her thirst for vengeance have become all-consuming.

Nepenthe

The holy avenger named Nepenthe was crafted by shadar-kai to mete out justice as an executioner’s weapon. In its lifetime, the sword has beheaded thousands of criminals, not all of whom were guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. The sword cannot distinguish the guilty from the innocent. With each beheading, it hungers for more justice and blood.

Nepenthe came to the Carnival in the hands of a retired half-ogre who moonlighted as a sword-swallower. When the half-ogre died of old age, the sword was deemed the property of the Carnival. It was given to Isolde by the Carnival’s previous owners, who claimed that the sword would help her protect the Carnival against any threat.

In Isolde, the sword found a partner who shared its blind malice toward the guilty. Isolde uses Nepenthe to behead anyone found guilty of stealing from the Carnival or inflicting harm upon it.

As soon as Isolde took up the blade, it rekindled the grief and fury she had suppressed for so long, awakening the desire to avenge her long-dead companions by slaying the fiend she knows as the Caller (see “Mist Wanderers” later in this chapter for details). Isolde always chooses the Carnival’s stops based on her predictions of the Caller’s next steps, and if her pursuit forces the Carnival into danger, so be it. Only by ridding Isolde of Nepenthe can she truly escape the Dark Powers' clutches. But Isolde will never part with the blade willingly, and if it is taken from the Carnival, the sword will always find its way back.

In addition to having the properties of a holy avenger, Nepenthe is a sentient, neutral evil weapon with an Intelligence of 10, a Wisdom of 8, and a Charisma of 18. It has hearing and darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. It can read and understand Elvish. It can also speak Elvish, but only through the voice of its wielder, with whom the sword can communicate telepathically. When using its telepathy to speak to Isolde, the sword can mimic the voices of Isolde’s fallen companions as it drives her to catch their fiendish killer. Unlike Isolde, whose motives are good, the sword is corrupt and irredeemable.

Freedom of the Mists

The Carnival travels through the Mists and between other Domains of Dread as Isolde pleases—though the Dark Powers occasionally send it off course. The Carnival provides one of the few means of escaping from another Darklord’s domain, since it ignores the closed borders of other domains. Other Darklords cannot travel with the Carnival to escape their own domains, however.

Closing the Borders

Nepenthe can close the borders of its domain, as detailed in “The Mists” at the start of this chapter. With the sword’s consent, Isolde can do the same. When the Carnival’s borders close, the Mists are filled with eerie, colorful lights and distant music, echoing memories of past carnivals.

Isolde’s Torment

Isolde is both protector and prisoner of the Carnival.

The following truths endlessly weigh upon her:

• The Carnival constantly grows, bringing additional souls dependent on Isolde’s guardianship. She’s tortured by her obligation toward the Carnival’s troupers and her vow to avenge her murdered companions.
• Isolde obsessively plots the perfect confrontation with her immortal quarry, the Caller. But the small concerns of the Carnival nag at her ceaselessly, exacerbated by the fey interlopers drawn to her presence. Her burdens drive her to seek seclusion to keep her legendary temper in check.
• Isolde dreads the day when the Carnival crosses paths with its fey counterpart for a second time. Were that to happen, Isolde would be forced to relinquish the Carnival to its true shadar-kai masters, and Nepenthe along with it.

Roleplaying Isolde

The Carnival is the closest thing Isolde has to a family and a home, and she expects everyone who works for her to carry their weight. She endlessly overburdens herself, struggling to protect those around her as her hate for the Caller drives her forward at any cost.

Personality Trait

“We all contribute so that we all benefit. Those who do not carry the burden do not eat.”

Ideal

“Those most deserving of aid are those who never ask for it.”

Bond

“You share a bond with those you travel with, a bond closer than blood. Choose well who you share the road with, lest you carry them forever.”

Flaw

“For my victories and scars, I deserve more than a nursemaid’s duty.”

Adventures in the Carnival

The Carnival deals in fabricated spectacles and cheap surprises, but it disguises actual marvels of a far deadlier sort. Even as the Carnival’s troupers astonish their visitors with amazing performances, a surreal world of outlandish beings, dangerous bargains, and deadly tricks encroaches on the festivities, threatening performers and audiences alike. The Carnival provides a safe place for a time, but the longer it lingers, the greater the danger grows—whether from intolerant common folk, jaded troupers, dangerous fey, or Isolde’s tireless quest.

Consider the plots on the Carnival Adventures table when planning adventures in this domain.

Carnival Adventures

Darkon

Domain on the Brink of Destruction

• Darklord: None

Genres

Dark fantasy and disaster horror

Hallmarks

Fractured realm, magical ruins, ongoing supernatural catastrophe

Mist Talismans

Ashes of a corpse, coin stamped with Azalin Rex’s face, tainted spring water

The domain of Darkon has failed. Across the land, ageless monuments and magical wonders crumble before the Shroud—the Mists turned hungry.

Once the prison of the lich Azalin Rex, Darkon stretched between two oceans, its lands filled with gothic cities and the monuments of forgotten wizard-tyrants. Largely ignoring his role as ruler, Azalin dwelled in seclusion while manufacturing magical atrocities and manipulating prophecies to free himself from the Dark Powers' grip. He finally succeeded, orchestrating a magical event that shook the entire domain: the Hour of Ascension. The Darklord vanished—and Darkon changed.

Since Azalin’s disappearance, a strange golden star called the King’s Tear hangs in the heavens, and each night the Mists surrounding the domain roil with hidden activity and creep inward. These Mists, now known throughout the domain as the Shroud, erode Darkon’s borders. Those fleeing the Shroud report strange shapes and figures within. What happens to the lands claimed by the Shroud is a mystery, and none who enter it return.

Despite facing gradual annihilation, Darkon’s living population largely ignores the threat, dismissing reports of vanished regions as rumors and fearmongering. As the domain splits into crumbling islands, ambitious beings vie for Azalin’s power, each claiming to be the lost king’s obvious successor. These would-be tyrants blame one another for the domain’s dissolution, and each believes they alone can save Darkon by becoming its sole ruler.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Darkon know the following facts:

• The Mists consuming Darkon have divided the land into four regions: the Jagged Coast, Lychgate, the Mistlands, and Rexcrown.
• Azalin Rex, King of Darkon, vanished during the Hour of Ascension. Since then, an unmoving golden star called the King’s Tear hangs in the sky. The sun and moon pass behind this star daily.
• The Kargat, the nation’s secret police, is particularly active in Darkon’s largest cities: Martira Bay and Il Aluk.
• The night after any Humanoid dies, its corpse rises as a mindless Undead that shambles into the night. Locals swiftly burn bodies to prevent this.

Darkonian Characters

Darkon boasts particularly varied human and nonhuman populations. While diverse groups of humans dwell in the domain’s cities, there are several communities where nonhumans are in the majority, including the dwarves and orcs of Tempe Falls, the elves of Neblus and Nevuchar Springs, the gnomes and halflings of Mayvin, and the dragonborn and drow of Vradlock. People of any sort might find a home somewhere in Darkon. When players create characters from Darkon, consider asking them the following questions.

What part of Darkon are you from? Are you from the mysterious Jagged Coast, the decadent lands of Rexcrown, or the eerie Mistlands? Were you raised in a community where your people were in the majority?

How has your life been affected by the Shroud? Was your home consumed by the Shroud? Have members of your family vanished? Or do you believe the Shroud is a delusion of superstitious locals?

How does your community prevent the dead from rising? Is burning corpses a common practice or a taboo? How have you seen a burial rite go wrong?

Settlements and Sites

Darkon is a land of dark wonders and apathy. The ruins of forgotten magical empires and impossible architecture litter the land, but the jaded people ignore these marvels to focus on daily concerns.

Castle Avernus

In the minds of Darkon’s people, Castle Avernus was the sanctuary of their aloof king and the citadel from which he watched over his people. In truth, Avernus was a perilously haunted fortress, home to Azalin’s deadliest servants and magical depravities. During the Hour of Ascension, that changed.

Castle Avernus was destroyed in a torrent of otherworldly flame, an explosion that froze partway through its blast. The castle now hangs in midair, its chambers, laboratories, and crypts suspended in disjointed sections. Magic woven into the fortress’s stones attempts to heal the shattered castle, causing new halls and rambling stairs to form between fractured floors. These surreal ruins can’t conceal the magical radiance hanging at the castle’s core—a vestige of the magical force that destroyed the castle and precipitated the Hour of Ascension. This mysterious force now calls to spirits across Darkon, drawing them in to feed an ongoing magical reaction.

Despite the devastation, Castle Avernus isn’t empty. Azalin’s treasures and former servants survived, including Ebbasheyth, the Darklord’s black shadow dragon advisor; a vast library that records the memories of all who die in Darkon; and the tomb haunted by Irik Zal’honen, Azalin’s son.

Il Aluk

A city of spires and leering gargoyles, Il Aluk is home to Darkon’s elite and presents a facade of cosmopolitan glamor that fails to hide its crumbling social order. Cut off from ports elsewhere in the domain, Il Aluk’s nobles cling to lies of prosperity while their fortunes dwindle. They have passed their suffering on to their servants, forcing the populace into poverty and inciting a swell of a violence ranging from riots to assassinations. The nobles' rising fear then swept Madame Eris into power; her elitist cruelties and faux reminiscences have precipitated a rash of brutal murders and fabulous balls.

Martira Bay

The foggy port of Martira Bay is no stranger to mystery. A center of trade, the city receives regular visits from eerie vessels from mysterious lands. The oddities these ships bring make Martirans indifferent to miraculous sights. This unflappability helps residents avoid standing out or drawing the attention of the Kargat, Darkon’s secret police, who conduct their domain-spanning conspiracies from the city’s notorious fortress, the Black Tower (see “Other Groups” later in this chapter for details).

An unprecedented number of serial killers prey on Martira Bay, most infamously the Midnight Slasher, the Spider, and the Weeping Woman. The overwhelmed constabulary has requested aid from spiritualist groups and professional detectives such as the Ray Agency and the Dusklight Detectives.

Nevuchar Springs

Colorful chemical lanterns limn the paths of Nevuchar Springs, following carved cliff trails that descend to the Nocturnal Sea and paved stairs rising to the famed cavern pools in the nearby hills. Here the town’s elf mystics, known as the Eternal Order, study alchemy and the rare properties of their famed amber hot springs. Secretive traditions veil their methods, but the miraculous effects of their practices are undeniable. Those in need of healing or relaxation visit lavish spas such as the famous Cascana Sanitarium. For all the springs' wonders, some who visit emerge psychologically changed. The locals shrug off these dangers, repeating the local aphorism and spa slogan: “Never wait to wash away the old you.”

Rivalis

Quaint pleasantness is a way of life in Rivalis. This town boasts a population of halfling fishers and culinarians, while old human families keep estates around the nearby lakes. When brigands threaten the town or fishing boats vanish—victims of the lake monster, Wolf-Head Wylie—things are only briefly “unfortunate.” Discussing such events at the town’s larger public houses, such as Old Nuck’s or the Lost Goat Knight, spurs locals to change the subject.

Inheritors of Darkon

Since the disappearance of Azalin Rex, Darkon has been without a Darklord. Three individuals strive to claim Azalin’s place as the domain’s ruler, though none know what that entails. Additionally, these individuals cannot open or close the domain’s borders.

Alcio “Baron” Metus

Alcio was never close to her brother, Baron, even after a Kargat vampire turned them both into undead servants. When her creator was destroyed, Alcio and Baron went their separate ways.

It took Alcio years to learn of her brother’s death at the hands of Rudolph van Richten, a doctor from Rivalis (see “Mist Wanderers” at the end of the chapter). Furious, she sought revenge, but van Richten had moved on, his trail hidden by the Mists. Alcio sought hints of the doctor’s location at Richten House, his family’s estate. There, she found the spirit of Rudolph’s wife, Doctor Ingrid van Richten. Despite imaginative bargains and threats, Alcio couldn’t convince Ingrid to reveal anything beyond psychological diagnoses and bemused mockery. Furious, the vampire sought other avenues in her search for her brother’s slayer.

In Martira Bay, Alcio discovered Baron’s allies in the Kargat. Through audacity and violence, she adopted her brother’s rank and the fiction that he held a noble title. As Baron Metus, Alcio flourished in the criminal and espionage communities the Kargat dominated.

When Azalin vanished, Alcio turned her connections with living criminals against the Kargat’s largely vampiric leaders. They quickly fell to her allied gangs-turned-vampire hunters, and the Kargat fractured, with Alcio taking over the Black Tower.

Now, Alcio spreads her agents across Darkon, targeting Il Aluk as the next addition to her territory. She still seeks information on Rudolph van Richten, either his whereabouts or a means to coerce Ingrid van Richten to betray what she knows.

Using Alcio Metus

Alcio is a flashy, passionate, and fantastically violent vampire. As the head of the Kargat and the region’s criminal operations, she rules the Jagged Coast using information and intimidation. She’s quick to punish incompetence and quicker to reward daring, but she reserves her greatest rewards for those who further her plots for revenge against Rudolph van Richten.

Darcalus Rex

During her annual midnight submergence in the deepest of Nevuchar Springs’s miraculous baths, Cardinna Artazas—the community’s thrice-reincarnated elder mystic—received an apocalyptic vision from the spirit of the pools. Throughout history, the waters had cryptically spoken to members of the Eternal Order. Now Cardinna interpreted their message as a personal mission to prevent the end of the world.

Having heard of the Shroud, Cardinna delved into the libraries of her order. There, she discovered writings alluding to “the land,” “the ancient,” and their reliance on one another. She surmised that Darkon needed not just a ruler but a heart. Though most thought of Azalin as Darkon’s only ruler, there was once another: Darcalus Rex, its first king.

Through magic and chemical manipulation, Cardinna summoned the spirit of Darcalus Rex, the tyrannical wizard-king who ruled prior to Azalin. Cardinna’s magic worked, causing a mysterious entity to inhabit her order’s sacred pools. Now she dedicates the Eternal Order’s resources to what she believes is a necessary evil: nurturing a reborn tyrant who tests her resolve as he demands ever greater magical reagents and sacrifices.

Using Darcalus

Darcalus Rex is a necrichor (see chapter 5) who cares little for the survival of Darkon—and might not even be the ancient ruler. The elf archmage Cardinna Artazas desperately believes she’s doing what must be done—including corrupting her order—to save her homeland.

Madame Talisveri Eris

The members of the Eris family stand proudly as Il Aluk’s foremost artisans of the grand craft of lying. Despite its ancient name, the family has long endured crushing debt. Through poise and predatory business dealings, members have clung to their rotted estate, Calasquel. As the fortunes of Il Aluk’s elite withered, Talisveri Eris took advantage of her family’s duplicitous expertise, peddling empty assurances from the center of a web of credit, gossip, and desperate debtors.

Bubbly and fantastically vain, Madame Eris would appear to be a woman of nearly eighty if her attempts at magical age-defiance hadn’t resulted in her permanent invisibility. The result of imbibing a flawed magic elixir meant to make her look younger, Eris’s invisibility has persisted for decades. She uses avant-garde fashion and gallons of makeup to create the face she presents publicly, as well as presenting numerous alter egos: fictitious family members such as her miserly cousin, Halpernista; her foppish nephew, Oscanor; and her bewilderingly ancient and perpetually furious sister, Lady Tatsaul.

Madame Eris hosts elaborate balls at Calasquel, outside Il Aluk, during which she privately meets with attendees, learns their woes, and tempts them into exploitative business ventures. She plays the nostalgic, elder aristocrat who themes her events around bygone decades, featuring period entertainments and fare that only she remembers—since they’re largely lies of her creation.

On the night of each new moon, Madame Eris hosts a private event, gathering her loyal and indebted associates. She refers to this group as the Family. As she deeply exploits these entitled young nobles, she leads them to believe they’re key to restoring Il Aluk’s grandeur. During this event, she encourages her guests to drink a cordial called the Spirit of Nobility. This magic elixir grants the drinker the effect of a greater invisibility spell until dawn. Madame Eris then encourages her guests to indulge their desire for violence—and commit crimes that further her plots. Residents of Il Aluk stay indoors during the new moon, believing hateful spirits walk the streets then.

Using Madame Eris

Madame Eris is a human noble. Her body is permanently invisible, but her cosmetics and clothing aren’t. It takes her at least 10 minutes and copious cosmetics to create a visible form. She dresses in a fashion typical of her desired appearance or of a fictitious family member.

####### Who Is Azalin Rex?

In life, Azalin was an arrogant wizard-tyrant who murdered his brother, executed his son, and embroiled his nation in unending war. The Mists claimed him and he emerged in Barovia. When the locals asked him who he was, he responded “azal’Lan,” meaning “wizard-king” in his native language.

In Barovia, Azalin formed a truce with Strahd von Zarovich. From the count and the land’s ancient ruins, he learned much of the nature of the Domains of Dread. Azalin and Strahd attempted to escape Barovia multiple times, but failure and resentment eventually turned the villains into vicious rivals. When Azalin forsook Castle Ravenloft and reentered the Mists, his own domain, Darkon, took shape around him.

Few understood the nature of the Domains of Dread and the Dark Powers more astutely than Azalin. The lich considered the Dark Powers his personal rivals and spent centuries concocting audacious plots to escape Ravenloft. With the Hour of Ascension, he may have succeeded.

Adventures in Darkon

Darkon presents a dystopian fantasy setting perfect for exploring the darker sides of familiar magic and monsters. Creatures such as dragons and beholders that might be ill-suited to other domains find natural homes among this realm’s scattered settlements and ancient magical ruins. The Darkon Adventures table provides suggestions for various adventures in the domain.

Darkon Adventures

The Doomed Domain

Unlike domains that feature claustrophobic, tightly themed horror, Darkon provides a setting for a horror-tinged quest with the highest possible stakes. The specifics of such a campaign involve the characters engaging with a handful of elements: fate, hope, allies, rivals, dread, and a campaign climax. Use this section to generate an outline for a campaign focused on the doom of an entire domain.

The Secret of Darkon’s Doom

When Azalin Rex disappeared during the Hour of Ascension, Darkon lost its Darklord and the phenomenon called the Shroud began consuming the domain. When preparing your campaign, use the Darkon’s Destruction and Azalin’s Fate tables to establish an idea of why Darkon is being destroyed.

Darkon’s Destruction

Azalin’s Fate

The Shroud

During the day, the Mists surrounding Darkon can be traversed as normal, allowing creatures to travel between domains or regions of Darkon itself. At night, though, the Mists surrounding the domain turn deadly and encroach on the land—sometimes by infinitesimal degrees, other times in unstoppable floods. The fates of those claimed by these surges is a mystery. If a character experiments with the Shroud, a taste of this threat can take the form of damage, stress (see “Fear and Stress” in chapter 4), or a glimpse of the deadly forces lurking beyond. Don’t outright slay characters who encounter the Shroud, but make sure the experience reinforces the threat to all of Darkon.

Darkon’s Deliverance

Darkon can be saved. Characters might discover a possibility on the Darkon’s Salvation table, leading them to goals on the Means to Save Darkon table.

Darkon’s Salvation

Means to Save Darkon

Desperate Allies and Rivals

The Darkon Allies table describes characters and groups who strive to save the domain, while the Darkon Rivals table notes those who scheme to ruin it.

Darkon Allies

Darkon Rivals

Dread in Darkon

While the Shroud poses a domain-spanning threat, other dooms threaten adventurers in Darkon. Consider the grim omens and lurking terrors on the Dread in Darkon table as recurring threats in your adventures.

Dread in Darkon

Darkon’s Final Fate

While planning your adventures in Darkon, keep the end of the campaign in mind. Your plans for this climax might change multiple times during the campaign, shifting with the characters' actions and goals. The suggestions on the Darkon Finale table offer conclusions that can guide your adventures.

Darkon Finale

Ultimately, whatever course you choose, the characters in horror stories rarely escape unscarred. Perhaps a character or one of their allies must make a dramatic sacrifice to save Darkon—or become the new Azalin. Or perhaps Darkon is irrevocably, doomed and the characters must choose which piece of the fractured domain will survive. In any case, whether a new Darklord rises or Darkon is otherwise spared, one nightmare’s end is likely another’s beginning.

Dementlieu

Domain of Decadent Delusion

Darklord

Saidra d’Honaire

Genres

Dark fantasy and psychological horror

Hallmarks

Masquerades, decadent aristocracy, social decay, illusions, impostor syndrome

Mist Talismans

Jeweled or feathered mask, article of well-worn fine clothing, shoe made of glass or gold

Every night brings another glittering affair in Dementlieu, whose citizens live glamorous and exciting lives. They enjoy the finest clothes, elegant jewels, grand ballrooms—and most extravagantly, the Grand Masquerade hosted by Duchess Saidra d’Honaire every seventh day at her island estate. Everyone who is anyone attends the duchess’s balls, and everyone who longs to be someone tries to wrangle an invitation or sneak in uninvited. But Duchess Saidra’s wrath upon those who dare to set foot where they don’t belong is truly horrible—and inevitably fatal.

The domain of Dementlieu consists of the city of Port-a-Lucine, which embraces the murky waters of Pernault Bay and Lucine Bay, as well as shifting scraps of fog-shrouded suburban areas around the city. Port-a-Lucine is a festering mire of rot and decay hidden beneath a glittering facade of decadent wealth. Everything appears more valuable, more solid, and more wholesome than the actuality, and everyone behaves as if the illusion of grandeur and prosperity were real.

Everyone in Dementlieu sweats to get by, but admitting to reality means social ruin. The poorest citizens struggle to maintain a middle-class appearance, scrounging through garbage heaps at night to find wares to sell in their shops in the morning. The members of the true middle class pretend to be titled aristocracy, but they wear much-patched and mended clothes, and starve for a week to host a ball that barely passes as lavish—by recycling table scraps into mysterious pâtés and cleverly disguised dumplings. The real aristocracy of the domain exists solely in its Darklord, Duchess d’Honaire.

Anyone who lets the mask slip meets a grisly end. When an “aristocrat” at the duchess’s masquerade loses a button from a fraying coat, the duchess pronounces the impostor’s doom and the unmasked pretender crumbles to dust. When a struggling merchant fails to keep up appearances, the resulting fall is less public but no less final. Left with no home and no livelihood, these wretches inevitably fall prey to the Red Death. This mysterious spirit haunts the poorest parts of town and drains every glimmer of life from its victims—and is embodied by Duchess Saidra.

Dementlieuse Characters

Characters from Dementlieu come from a vast array of origins and have widely varied appearances. Dapper orcs and down-on-their-luck drow would be equally at home in this fairytale domain. The naming conventions often take broad inspiration from the French language. When players create characters from Dementlieu, ask them the following questions.

Have you ever attended the Grand Masquerade? Did you come from an aristocratic family honored with invitations to the ball, or did you sneak in and successfully avoid discovery? Did you see someone being unmasked?

How much of an impostor are you? Everyone in Dementlieu pretends to be something they’re not. Your family pretended to greater wealth and status than their means. Is the rest of your life a lie? How much of it do you feel is a lie? Do you suspect you are unqualified for your class or background? Do you pretend to be better than your actual skills and abilities allow? Do you claim capabilities you lack entirely?

Do you owe anything to a fairy godmother? The fey who live in the Three Odd Gables at the north edge of town sometimes aid people in perpetrating their deceptions; maybe they helped you. Did you look for them, or did one of them come to you? What aid did they offer? What seemingly reasonable price did they ask in return? How is it proving difficult to repay? Are you now a hexblood (see chapter 1) because of this?

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Dementlieu know the following facts:

• The city’s decadent aristocrats keep a busy social calendar, fluttering like butterflies to multiple events each day: museum and art gallery exhibitions, concerts and play performances, brunches, luncheons, teas, dinners, and especially balls.
• Every week brings the preeminent social event of the city: the Grand Masquerade, hosted by Duchess Saidra d’Honaire. Invitations are coveted, and attendees outnumber the invitations.
• Nothing in Dementlieu is as it appears. Everyone pretends to be wealthier than they are. Magical illusions hide disrepair, and lies great and small fill everyday communication. Everyone knows these truths, but no one dares speak of them.
• The day-to-day administration of Port-a-Lucine rests in the hands of Lord Governor Marcel Guignol. He hears counsel from a group of five advisors drawn from the ranks of the aristocracy, including Duchess Saidra. With this council, he writes laws that a small city watch helps him enforce. He also serves as the sole judge when those laws are broken.
• Decorative masks are a common accessory in Dementlieu, worn at social events and in daily life alike. Many people know their neighbors by their masks better than by their faces.

Settlements and Sites

Port-a-Lucine shines with the veneer of a sophisticated city. It boasts a university, an opera house, a wax museum, and an aquarium, as well as a scandalous cabaret (the Red Widow Theater) and lush gardens. The Zuvich Hospital offers the highest standards of science-based medical care, while the Great Library curates a large collection of supposedly significant but largely repetitive writings.

D’Honaire Estate

Decorated with fanciful gargoyles and lurid tapestries, the lavish home of Duchess Saidra d’Honaire is the setting of the Grand Masquerade (detailed later in this domain). A small army of energetic, masked ghouls constantly prepare for the upcoming festivities.

Mother of Tears Cathedral

The Mother of Tears Cathedral is the most honest place in Dementlieu. Dedicated to the god Ezra, the cathedral’s teachings put greater emphasis on weeping for the horrors of the world than on taking any action to cure or combat them. The clergy resists acknowledging any kind of distinction of class or rank among the worshipers, despite the stark stratification of society outside the cathedral’s walls. All people are desperate wretches in the merciful hands of Ezra, who mourns for and with them all. A magnificent alabaster statue of Ezra, her sword and shield set aside as she weeps into her hands, adorns the sanctuary.

Red Widow Theater

The Red Widow is a cabaret known for lively music, provocative dancing, and shady dealings. A gigantic statue of a spider, painted in garish crimson with a black hourglass shape on its abdomen, adorns the front roof of the building, inviting customers into its decadent web. At this shrine to decadent pleasures, attendees celebrate beauty and life in defiance of the crushing poverty and horror outside.

But the theater harbors horrors nonetheless: shape-shifters use the cabaret’s intimate spaces to find prey. Though rumors persist of shape-shifting giant spiders that feast on unwitting customers, they fail to depress attendance at the theater’s performances.

Three Odd Gables

Under the eaves of the Tenebrarum Woods at the end of Mill Street, a coven of green hags lives in three crooked houses. These fey delight in meddling in the lives of Dementlieu’s citizens, adopting disguises as kindly grandmothers and using their magic to help impoverished people pass as well-to-do aristocrats or attend the Grand Masquerade. Their price seems perfectly reasonable, until their clients discover a hidden catch.

Chateaufaux

The people of Port-a-Lucine speak as if Dementlieu included a large swath of countryside called Chateaufaux, where nobles summer at their estates and prosperous farms and villages send goods for sale into the city. But no one has been outside the city, no goods arrive from beyond the city, and Chateaufaux does not exist. The Mists creep close to the walls of Port-a-Lucine, occasionally exposing shifting patches of forests and meadows, but nothing more.

Saidra d’Honaire

Saidra d’Honaire grew up on a tiny farm, living alone with her father after the death of her beloved mother. Her father called her “Duchess,” claiming that he was a duke exiled from his rightful home by a vicious younger brother. The young girl took pleasure in lording that fact over other peasant children, proclaiming herself superior by birth despite her present circumstances. Saidra had no friends but many playmates, as she bullied other children into entertaining her.

When Saidra was a teenager, her father married a prosperous merchant with two daughters a few years older than Saidra. Though her father urged the three girls to love each other as sisters, his new wife and her daughters scorned Saidra, mocking her claims to nobility and treating her as a servant. Despite the family’s new wealth, Saidra continued to dress in rags and labor from dawn to dusk, acting as a housemaid to her stepmother and stepsisters.

A harder blow descended when Saidra’s stepmother casually mentioned the death of a duke who ruled nearby. Saidra asked if this duke was her father’s wicked brother, and if his demise meant her father could reclaim his title. Her stepmother and stepsisters laughed at her, and her father admitted the truth. He had been only a servant in the duke’s household and fled when he was caught trying to steal silver from the kitchen.

Saidra refused to accept this bitter truth. Fleeing the house, she went to her mother’s grave and begged the departed spirit to aid her. A kind, grandmotherly figure appeared and granted Saidra’s wish, bestowing on her a magnificent gown and fine jewels to attend the masquerade ball that celebrated the coronation of the new duke. Saidra rode to the ball in a stately conjured carriage, determined to kill the duke and claim his title.

At the ball, the glamour around Saidra made her irresistible to the duke, and they danced together for hours. Saidra began to contemplate an alternative to murdering the duke: she could marry the poor fool and become the duchess she’d always believed herself to be.

But as the clock struck midnight, terror stalked the ball as guests started rapidly sickening and dying. The plague afflicted the duke and Saidra as well. As they lay dying in each other’s arms, the duke gasped a fateful confession: he was not the son of the late duke, but of a servant in the duke’s household. The duke, unable to have children of his own, claimed the servant’s infant son and raised him. Later, that servant was caught stealing from the kitchen and fled the house with his young daughter.

Enraged to discover this “duke” was no more a real duke than her father—and worse, that he was her brother, Saidra drew her blade and drove it into the pretender’s heart. She stumbled out of the palace, but the plague claimed her on the stairs.

Saidra awoke on the foggy grounds of her new estate in Port-a-Lucine, a true duchess, as she had always imagined, but also an undead wraith. When she’s dressed in elegant gowns and an elaborate mask, those around her accept the obvious lie that she’s a living woman. When she isn’t hosting her masquerade balls, she sheds her garb and stalks the city as a murderous spirit known as the Red Death. In either form, her goal is the same: to unmask and destroy pompous fools who pretend to be what they are not, aspire to higher station than they deserve, and fail to maintain the appearance of normalcy.

Saidra’s Powers and Dominion

Saidra’s form is a vaporous as her claims to nobility. She’s a crimson spirit with statistics similar to a wraith. She can cast the disintegrate spell (save DC 18) on any creature that reveals themself to be lying about who they are. In her guise as duchess, Saidra dons a bird-like mask and fashionable scarlet gowns. As the Red Death, she is nothing more than a crimson-tinged shadow.

Closing the Borders

When Duchess Saidra wants to close the borders of her domain, the Mists don’t rise. Rather, those who try to leave find themselves roaming the lands of Chateaufaux. Stately houses stand atop gently rolling hills amid lush farmlands and vineyards, but the houses never get any closer, no matter how long one travels. And sooner or later, travelers always find themselves back on the outskirts of Port-a-Lucine.

Saidra’s Torment

Duchess Saidra is finally the noble she always wanted to be, but a number of circumstances prevent her from enjoying her reign:

• Saidra is plagued by the fear of being unmasked and having the truth of her origins revealed. She projects her insecurity outward, accusing others of her own sin as she delights in unmasking frauds and social climbers.
• While hunting the streets as the Red Death, Saidra seeks her lost family. She resents but longs for her father, but she still fears her stepmother and stepsisters. She occasionally receives vague letters in their handwriting Chateaufaux.
• As a wraith, Saidra is incapable of enjoying the pleasures her station affords her. No matter how lavish her parties, the fact of her true form taints every moment of the charade.

Roleplaying Saidra

Duchess Saidra behaves how she believes wealthy people behave. She hides her lack of worldliness behind decadence, which those around her quickly turn into fashion and fads. Her fantastic temper reveals itself whenever she’s made to look foolish or finds someone out of their place in the social order.

Personality Trait

“I am imperious with my lessers and any who step out of place.”

Ideal

“To everyone a place in society, and everyone in their place. Anyone who aspires to a position they’re not entitled to or qualified for must be punished.”

Bond

“I have achieved the status I deserve, and no one will take it away from me.”

Flaw

“I fear that one day my father, my stepmother or stepsisters, or the mysterious spirit who clothed me for the duke’s masquerade will appear and reveal the shame of my true history.”

Adventures in Dementlieu

Duchess Saidra’s story presents a warped fairytale rooted in the common anxieties of modern life: fear of missing out and of being “unmasked” as a fraud. As the characters navigate the anxious social scene of Port-a-Lucine, they play out echoes of familiar tales. The green hags who live in the Three Odd Gables serve as “fairy godmothers” to any character who wants to dress up for the duchess’s ball, but the hags don’t bestow their favors freely. Their gifts comes with strict conditions, such as a requirement to leave the ball by midnight or a demand to humiliate another attendee. The hags scheme to ruin mortal lives for their own pleasure, so their every act of apparent kindness is calculated toward that end. See “The Grand Masquerade” for suggestions of how to run Dementlieu’s premier social event.

As adventurers interact with people in Port-a-Lucine, they find everyone obsessed with status. Outsiders new to the city are an unknown quantity, and people try to quickly identify their relative social status. Characters can easily pass as aristocrats, particularly if they flaunt their wealth and claim ancestral lands in Chateaufaux. But if they admit to a lower social status, or if their poor manners reveal their inferior quality, they become targets of derision and the city’s social scene closes to them.

For more adventure ideas, consider the plots on the Dementlieu Adventures table.

Dementlieu Adventures

The Grand Masquerade

The horror of the Grand Masquerade focuses on the fear of discovery—being forced to interact with people in a setting where you don’t belong, and where the consequence of exposure can be catastrophic.

For the people of Port-a-Lucine, attending the Grand Masquerade signals a victory in their ceaseless quest for status. Visiting Duchess Saidra’s estate, tasting her refreshments, moving in her social circle, and dancing to the music of her first-class orchestra are delights to be savored—and entirely worth the risk of discovery. To adventurers, though, these delights might not be sufficient motivation to take that risk. The Grand Masquerade is a fantastic adventure backdrop, but not a complete adventure. Adventurers need a good reason to attend; you can give them one by rolling on the Grand Masquerade Objectives table that follows. Link these objectives to larger adventures in Dementlieu, such as those growing from the seeds on the Dementlieu Adventures table.

Grand Masquerade Objectives

Once the characters have a reason to be at the Grand Masquerade, they face a series of dangerous trials as they navigate the social intricacies of the ball. Common challenges include securing an invitation, acquiring a costume, navigating social niceties, and dancing. Random complications can arise at any point during the ball, heightening the constant risk of unmasking.

Invitations and Costumes

An invitation to the Grand Masquerade is a fiercely coveted item in Dementlieu. Tension builds throughout the week as members of the aristocracy wait to see whether they’ll make the list. The duchess’s servants deliver invitations two days before the event.

Invitations

If the characters have established themselves in Port-a-Lucine as important, wealthy, and interesting people, they receive genuine invitations. The duchess hears about them if they spend lavishly, or as your adventure demands. Forging an invitation requires a successful DC 10 Intelligence check.

Costumes

A basic costume with a simple mask costs 5 gp. But elaborate costumes are a status symbol, and shoddy costumes attract unwanted attention. Ultimately, the characters decide how much to spend (or the hags of the Three Odd Gables can provide elaborate costumes for “free”).

Arriving at the Masquerade

When the characters arrive at the duchess’s estate, the Darklord’s ghoul servants check invitations and outfits at the doors. They refuse entry to anyone missing acceptable versions of either. Ask the characters to make Charisma (Deception) checks if they present false invitations or have expressed worry that their costumes are subpar, but unless they roll especially poorly, the check simply reinforces the fear of being caught.

Social Niceties

Once inside the Grand Masquerade, the characters must observe a host of unwritten rules of etiquette and act like they know exactly what they’re doing at all times. Other guests make idle conversation and assume that characters know people throughout the city. At the first hint that a character might not belong at the masquerade, guests start loudly asking pointed questions, attracting increasing notice.

Allow the characters to employ the following tactics in their interactions at the Grand Masquerade:

• Characters can keep a close eye on how other people behave and mimic that behavior. Use Wisdom (Perception) checks to measure how keenly they observe the partygoers' deportment, and Intelligence (Investigation) checks to deduce the right behavior for a particular situation.
• Characters can apply magic or intuition to discern the response or behavior that a questioner expects. Use Wisdom (Insight) checks unless characters have access to mind-reading spells such as detect thoughts or similar magic.
• Characters can fake it ‘til they make it. Use Charisma (Deception) checks extensively as characters work their way through the ball. Failed checks draw increased attention; on successful checks, the questioners lose interest.
• Characters can distract watchers to shift attention if things go badly. Use Charisma (Deception) or Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) checks (or any other reasonable skill checks the players suggest) to determine whether they turn the focus away from their errors.

Dancing

Port-a-Lucine’s high society has an established canon of dances that everyone knows and performs competently. These include paired dances and group dances, and involve dancing with a bewildering number of people over the course of the evening. Dancing is an opportunity to seize a fleeting connection with an important contact—and a chance to make a fatal error that results in being unmasked.

Characters might try to learn the basic dances as they prepare for the Grand Masquerade, but no outsider can hope to learn every step in as little as a week. Like navigating the social niceties of the gathering, fumbling through a dance involves careful observation and skilled fakery, plus the added ingredients of natural grace and agility. Allow characters to make Dexterity (Acrobatics) or Charisma (Performance) checks to see if they pull off the steps—either through natural agility (Dexterity) or though their ability to make their moves look good anyway (Charisma).

Random Complications

Use the Grand Masquerade Complications table to arbitrarily introduce a new element to the ball and keep the players on their toes.

Grand Masquerade Complications

Unmasking

If the duchess unmasks someone at the ball, read this text to the players to describe what happens (unless they intervene):

“You!”

A piercing voice cuts through the noise of the ball. The music stops and conversations hush as all eyes turn to Duchess Saidra and the poor fool she’s confronted. The mask falls from his terror-struck face as the duchess raises her hand. “You dare intrude into the sanctity of my home?” she intones. A hunched, ghoulish footman clutching a dustpan scrambles forward. “You defile my Grand Masquerade with your unworthy presence? I condemn you.” With those words, a chill wave emanates from the duchess, and the unmasked figure crumbles to dust.

The duchess turns away, the ghoulish footman starts sweeping up the mess, and everyone around you pointedly returns to their own business.

If the adventurers attract the duchess’s wrath, they are unlikely to cower in fear as she pronounces her judgment and gathers the energy to destroy them. They might try to flee, which could lead to a chase involving Saidra’s servants or guests. If the characters attack Duchess Saidra, even if defeated she won’t remain so for long unless she is first unmasked as a fraud. Not doing so terminally hampers the characters’ entrance to Dementlieuse society.

Falkovnia

Domain Besieged by the Dead

• Darklord: Vladeska Drakov

Genre

Disaster horror

Hallmarks

Dwindling resources, fickle hero worship, impending disaster, suspicion, totalitarianism, zombies

Mist Talismans

Arms marked with the Blood Falcon, bloody spear head, correspondence from Lekar, sample of zombie flesh

The days of the living are numbered in Falkovnia. The people would flee if they could, taking their chances in the Mists, but they aren’t allowed that choice. The military has turned against the people, making them prisoners within their own country. With cudgel and pike, the soldiers of Falkovnia force every commoner into grueling labor, rushing them to raise fortifications and scrape scrawny roots from the dirt. Every lash strike, every day of meager rations is necessary—or so the soldiers claim—because time is short and the dead are coming.

Falkovnia is a land besieged. Empty countryside surrounds ruined or crumbling cities. A few desperate pockets of civilization survive, carrying on not out of hope, but out of fear of the land’s merciless soldiers. Led by General Vladeska Drakov, Falkovnia’s military organizes a desperate and occasionally effective defense against an implacable foe: the ever-growing armies of the dead.

Every month a new zombie legion issues from the Mists. Never emerging from the same place twice, the horde sweeps across the land, drawn to the densest populations of the living. That’s currently the Falkovnian capital of Lekar, where unfit and underfed conscripts defend crumbling walls alongside General Drakov and her crimson-armored elite soldiers, the Talons. Causalities stack up during the zombie sieges, but miracles and moments of valor have not abandoned Falkovnia. The people’s numbers dwindle, but they soldier on.

In the aftermath of an attack, the Falkovnians burn their dead, repair what they can, and whisper that now might be the time to flee. Invariably, though, someone speaks too loudly and a so-called traitor is impaled upon Lekar’s walls. The people might want to abandon their homes, but Vladeska Drakov will not know defeat.

Falkovnian Characters

Characters from Falkovnia have good reason to be in other domains, having fled their homeland’s zombie plague. Such individuals have likely seen horrors and know tragedy. Falkovnia’s residents often have brown hair and varied skin tones with warm undertones. Their names are broadly inspired by the German language. When players create characters from Falkovnia, consider asking them the following questions.

How did you escape the Falkovnian military? Were you separated from your unit? Were you sacrificed or left for dead as part of a military strategy? Did you abandon or betray your unit? Were you once considered a Trueborn, or do you have a Blood Falcon tattoo?

How did you escape the zombie hordes? Were you lucky enough not to encounter the undead? Did you defeat animate corpses or flee from them? Did you fall but somehow escape notice by the undead? Did they, for some remarkable reason, ignore you?

What do you care for in Lekar? You know Lekar’s days are numbered; any day now the zombies will sweep over the city’s last defenders. Do you want to stop them to save loved ones? Do you want to prevent the hordes from destroying your life’s work? Do you know of something in Lekar that can save Falkovnia’s people?

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Falkovnia know the following facts:

• Every month, on the night of the new moon, thousands of zombies appear from the Mists and invade Falkovnia.
• Ruins cover Falkovnia—cities and villages crushed by zombie hordes and haunted by undead stragglers.
• Elite Falkovnian soldiers known as Talons patrol the land, hunting for deserters, looters, and strangers to press into service. Talon officers bear the Blood Falcon, the symbol of Vladeska Drakov, tattooed prominently on their bodies.
• There is only one punishment for any crime in Falkovnia: impalement.
• Individuals earn public or military esteem for special acts of heroism. Dubbed “Trueborn of Falkovnia,” these national heroes are treated well, but the fickle public turns against them if they’re perceived as not doing enough to end the undead invasion.

Settlements and Sites

Falkovnia’s settlements lie in ruin, its cities crumbling and unprotected, its villages abandoned and overgrown. Still, bastions of civilization hold out against the undead infesting the land, while dangers more terrifying than zombies lurk in hidden places.

Lekar

The only city left in Falkovnia, Lekar now bears the brunt of the zombie invasion. The old city outgrew its walls multiple times since its founding, leaving its districts divided by fortifications. During the First Siege of Lekar, General Drakov sacrificed the entirety of the northern River Ward, leaving hundreds of souls to be slaughtered but allowing the remaining defenders to turn back the zombie horde.

The city’s survivors face harsh conditions. Talon soldiers patrol the walls and the streets, keeping peace in the cramped slums that now fill the city. Troops lead civilians outside the walls to scavenge from ruined settlements and work the fields of abandoned farms, but their harvests are never enough for the city’s survivors. Though bitter and desperate, soldiers live marginally better than civilians, being assured of daily rations and housing in the Bastion Ward—the Talons-only district around city hall where General Drakov established her command center. From here, Drakov orders daily public executions as conscripts dispense supplies to the masses, and she plans how to resist the next zombie attack.

Morfenzi

Once a rich rural community, Morfenzi now holds only rubble and graves. The fields surrounding it remain strangely fertile, making them a prime destination for bands of farmers dispatched from Lekar. The Talons keep an outpost hidden beneath the town’s ruins, under the command of one of General Drakov’s surviving aides, the brilliant arcanist and scientist Vjorn Horstman. Horstman runs the post as his personal laboratory, obsessively striving to create new weapons to help Drakov win her war.

Silbervas

Groups of fractious survivors claim sections of this small city’s ruins, scavenging and skirmishing over territory and resources. The survivors are unified in their commitment to silence, to avoid attracting the notice of zombies—and whoever makes their home in the ominously lit Dekovan Palace overlooking the ruins.

Vigila Forest

Towering black deciduous trees pierce the canopy of Falkovnia’s dense, whispering forests. Called “sentries of death,” these trees inspire grim stories suggesting that their wood is haunted or their roots reach into the realm of the dead. In contrast, a ring of pale sentry trees stands in the depths of the Vigila Forest. Tales tell that none who enter the ring survive. The zombie plague seems to offer proof of their truth: few undead emerge from the forest, and those that do are entirely skeletonized.

Vladeska Drakov

In the world of her birth, Vladeska Drakov was known as the Crimson Falcon, leader of a peerless mercenary army called the Falcon’s Talons. She and her troops executed a thousand ancient grudges and petty atrocities in a land of bitterly feuding royal families. Infamous but respected, Drakov amassed a fortune and planned to retire young, buying a title and a realm to rule.

The sacking of Yeivere changed her plans. During that city’s razing, Drakov’s mercenaries went a step too far. The Falcon’s Talons killed a unique soul during their slaughter. None can say who the soul was—a prince, a saint, a witch, an angel—but with its death, the world turned against them.

The ruling families united to hunt the Talons. Thanks to her tactical genius, Drakov repelled her pursuers and went on the offensive. One by one she attacked her former benefactors, burning villages, pressing citizens into service, and impaling anyone with a drop of noble blood. Though it took years, Drakov forged a bloody empire. But while sacking the burning city of her last remaining foe, Drakov and her troops were engulfed by strange smoke. When it cleared, everything they knew was gone.

Transported to an unfamiliar land, Drakov and her troops wasted little time subjugating it. The realm fell quickly, even easily, and upon taking the city of Lekar, Drakov prepared to name herself ruler of her new empire: Falkovnia.

Then, under a moonless sky, the dead rose against the land’s invaders. The surrounding villages fell to the zombies with hardly a sound, and undead claws scraped Lekar’s walls before the first alarms were raised. The First Siege of Lekar raged for four days. Drakov’s strategies, both brilliant and desperate, eventually turned back the zombie horde, but at the cost of most of her veteran troops.

Since then, Drakov has lost nearly her entire nation. Every month a new desperate battle unfolds. She prepares ceaselessly for each, certain of her plans and ultimate victory, but doubting the mettle of her troops. With threats and public, impalings she tries to keep her people more terrified of her than of the undead. And with every new moon she faces an unconquerable foe, never revealing to anyone that each zombie bears the familiar, rotting face of an innocent her soldiers once put to the sword.

Vladeska’s Powers and Dominion

Vladeska Drakov is an experienced military commander with statistics similar to those of a knight. While her martial skill is considerable, her true might comes in the form of the obedient army that unquestioningly enacts her every whim.

The Falcon’s Talons

Vladeska’s military forces are both completely overwhelming and entirely outnumbered. As an occupying force, the Talons are terrifying. Their numbers are relatively few, but they’re organized enough to oppress Lekar’s ragged survivors and enforce Drakov’s totalitarian laws. In the face of zombie hordes, though, they’re fighting a losing battle against foes whose numbers only grow. And every time a Talon falls, Lekar’s final defeat grows closer. Talon soldiers use the guard stat block, while commanders are Veteran.

Martial Law

Lekar—and, to an extent, all of Falkovnia—is a martial dictatorship. Drakov’s troops carry out example-setting impalings as punishment for even the slightest crimes. These executions serve the greater good and impose necessary order, but make it clear that zombies aren’t the realm’s only monsters.

Only Bad Decisions

There is one simple truth in Falkovnia: the dead are about to kill everyone. This sets the stage for countless bad decisions, from leaders making terrible sacrifices or permitting amoral acts to individuals making fatalistic choices. Everyone in Falkovnia behaves as if it’s their last day alive—because it probably is.

Closing the Borders

Unlike most Darklords, Vladeska Drakov can’t open her domain’s borders, so Falkovnia’s borders are usually closed. Anyone who enters the Mists surrounding Falkovnia encounters an endless number of zombies. Even if travelers somehow avoid these shambling corpses, they emerge from the Mists back in Falkovnia, pursued by an undead mob. For one week every month, though, following the night of the new moon, the Mists surrounding Falkovnia are empty of zombies and the borders open. During this time, Drakov sends patrols of Talons to sweep the edges of the Mists for deserters. These patrols are difficult to avoid and battles with them often attract zombies.

Vladeska’s Torment

Vladeska Drakov is close to attaining her desired empire, but circumstances keep it ever out of reach:

• Vladeska knows it’s only a matter of time until zombies overrun Lekar. She has no time for rest or deliberation; every moment must be used to the fullest before the hordes return. Every wasted second is a life lost.
• Vladeska refuses to flee. She knows doing so could save many of Lekar’s people, but it would mean admitting failure—a fate worse than death.
• Vladeska recognizes every zombie’s face, knowing they’re her own fallen soldiers, the defenders of communities she razed, or murdered civilians. She doesn’t understand why this is, but she knows the zombies are coming for her alone.

Roleplaying Vladeska

Steely and fierce, Vladeska Drakov views softness as weakness and resents having her time wasted. She values cold competency and makes life-and-death decisions mercilessly. Her isolation and the stress of rule weigh heavily upon her, but daily catastrophes keep her focused on her nation’s needs and not her failures. She believes a foe from her past is responsible for the endless zombie attacks and quietly looks for trustworthy agents to find the zombies' source.

Personality Trait

“I am the only one capable of making the decisions required for the greater good. This proves my excellence and sets me apart.”

Ideal

“Once I’ve crushed my opposition, I will claim my realm, ruling not as a conqueror but as royalty.”

Bond

“All who live in my domain are my troops, and they exist to further my will. Those who deny me are traitors bound for execution.”

Flaw

“I and all I command will know death before we show weakness in defeat.”

Adventures in Falkovnia

Falkovnia provides the perfect setting for disaster horror, particularly of the zombie apocalypse variety. Characters might be harried by zombie pursuit across the empty countryside or asked to defend the last holdout of civilization against a relentless horde. The zombies could serve as direct threats or motivate others to monstrous deeds, with the ends supposedly justifying the means.

You determine the composition and behavior of the zombie hordes of Falkovnia. The zombies emerge from the Mists on the night of the new moon and trudge toward the last holdouts of civilization. Whether they move in a single wave or scatter into smaller bands, this surge brings a monthly threat to besiege the walls of Lekar.

When creating zombie encounters, consider the average level of your group and what threats you want to represent. The “Zombie” entry in chapter 5 presents a variety of zombie types to complement the shambling zombie of the Monster Manual, posing greater threats or terrifying surprises. The horde can also include other corporeal Undead such as Skeleton, Ghoul, or Wight. Alternatively, the “zombies” might not be Undead at all but another group attempting to lay claim to Falkovnia—perhaps a forgotten human culture or relentless giants.

Falkovnia is one of the few domains where the characters and the land’s Darklord theoretically represent the same side, united against the zombies. The characters might defend Drakov’s people and enact her defensive measures, but might also try to subvert her Pyrrhic strategies or attempt to smuggle survivors to safe locations outside Lekar. Consider exploring plots in which the characters rise in the Darklord’s esteem as Trueborn of Falkovnia, but then must walk the line of both keeping Drakov’s trust and upholding their principles.

Consider the plots on the Falkovnia Adventures table when planning adventures in this domain.

Falkovnia Adventures

Siege of Lekar

Falkovnia’s terrors culminate monthly in the zombie assault on Lekar. If you plan to involve characters in Vladeska Drakov’s war against the undead, first consider how they become involved. The following examples are just a few of the possibilities:

• Forced Conscripts. The characters run into an overwhelming force of Talons and are absorbed into its ranks. When zombies appear at the city wall, the characters are offered their freedom in return for defending the city.
• Last Bastion. Far from Lekar, the characters fall in with local survivors who say the city is the country’s last safe bastion. Upon arriving, they discover the sanctuary is not what they’d hoped.
• Missed Connection. The characters come to Falkovnia having heard tales of it before the land’s zombie uprising. An individual or item they seek is now in Lekar, forcing the characters to search the city and then escape.
• Mindtaker Mists. The Mists deposit the characters' consciousnesses into soldiers, Talon officers, or unprepared peasants preparing for the siege. Consult the “Survivors” section of chapter 4 for suggestions on how to represent soldiers bound to face the horde.

Before the Siege

However the characters become enlisted in Lekar’s defense, they face a hopeless battle. They join hundreds of unprepared defenders, including Commoner holding clubs or longbows for the first time.

Prior to the start of the siege, determine where the characters will be positioned among the city’s fortifications or on the streets. The specifics of these locations don’t matter—no precision tactics will change the characters' fortunes against the zombie horde. Allow the characters to strategize however they please, though.

Fortifications

Stairways within Lekar’s 40-foot-high towers grant access to the 30-foot-high walls. Parapets guard both, providing defenders with three-quarters cover from those outside the walls. Fortifications around the gates hold controls for massive barred doors and portcullises. Both towers and gates contain suspended cauldron (detailed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide).

Streets

The streets are packed with poorly armed commoners and cruel Talon soldiers. Any character who succeeds on a DC 16 Wisdom (Perception) check finds useful materials among the carts and cargo cleared from the streets—weapons, a variety of adventuring gear, or the resources to approximate one Gunpowder Keg (described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide).

During the Siege

Run the siege as a series of encounters rather than one extended battle. As terrible events unfold around the characters, it’s up to them to determine who and how they’ll help.

Begin the siege with zombies approaching Lekar’s walls. The characters might pick off distant zombies or enact plans to destroy dozens at a time. The characters' strategies are likely successful, but the horde soon begins overwhelming defenses nearby. Once the characters defeat a few zombies, roll 1d6 and consult the Zombie Siege Encounters table. The event rolled unfolds within sight of one of the characters. It’s up to the characters to either take action or let the event transpire. When the characters complete an encounter, roll on the table again. If the characters ignore one of these events, the defenders' situation worsens. Add +2 to the next roll on the table.

The siege lasts as long as you like. Use frantic rushes between emergencies to describe small horrors and victories while wearing down the characters' resources with brief zombie attacks. If the characters feel completely overwhelmed, Talon Priest with Potion of Healing might appear, or an officer can enlist characters to deliver orders from General Drakov (likely related to the siege’s climax).

As the battle reaches what you determine to be the halfway point, start rolling 2d6 on the Zombie Siege Encounters table and consult the “Concluding the Siege” section to guide the battle toward its climax.

Zombie Siege Encounters

Concluding the Siege

After several encounters and hours of battle, guide the siege toward its conclusion. Use crumbling fortifications, routed defenders, and surprise zombie appearances to make it clear that a section of Lekar is lost. General Drakov puts a desperate plan from the Zombie Siege Climax table into effect if the characters don’t stop her.

Zombie Siege Climax

Drakov’s scheme might be even more alarming, involving magical or monstrous secret weapons.

Once you’ve determined how the siege will unfold, start foreshadowing Drakov’s scheme, giving the characters the opportunity to aid it, enact a less destructive plan, or save innocents. Use missives intercepted from messengers or a Sending Stones taken from a fallen Talon officer to clue the party in on Drakov’s strategy.

In the aftermath, the characters are recognized for their heroics, winning esteem among the citizens, with the Talons, or from Drakov herself. This can lead to new daring assignments or even being put in charge of preparing for next month’s dire siege.

Har’Akir

Domain of the Ancient Dead

• Darklord: Ankhtepot

Genre

Dark fantasy

Hallmarks

Ancient tombs, desert perils, lost gods, mummies

Mist Talismans

Canopic jar, lapis lazuli scarab, scroll of hieroglyphics

The sands of time bury the desert realm of Har’Akir. Here, the wonders of fallen empires and pyramids of forgotten pharaohs crumble beneath a merciless sun. Untold generations of tombs and secrets lie beneath the sands, markers of a history the land’s few residents know of only in story and song. Their interest in past splendor is smothered, as life is harsh in Har’Akir and the living exist only to serve a deathless god-king.

This realm of fierce deserts and mysterious monuments is ruled by the mummy Ankhtepot, speaker for the gods and immortal pharaoh. From his golden pyramid in the City of the Dead, the Darklord watches over his domain, careless of the passage of mortal lives as he sends his servants in search of his only remaining desire: his ka, the missing piece of his fractured soul.

As the pharaoh obsesses over his lost treasure and thoughts of escaping his impossibly long undead existence, his servants plague the domain in his name. In hidden tomb-courts, withered, animal-headed elder mummies known as the Children of Ankhtepot luxuriate as emissaries of false gods. And in the mud brick city of Muhar, the priests of morbid gods oversee all aspects of life, apportioning food and blessings to the worthy and punishing blasphemers. But all the pharaoh’s servants also pursue his quest to find his mysterious lost treasure, and are ever desperate for some clue or news to placate Ankhtepot and spare them from the storms of his wrath and his buried legions of the ancient dead.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Har’Akir know the following facts:

• Har’Akir is a land of vast deserts and deadly storms. Water is scarce beyond the land’s few oases and the city of Muhar.
• The land is ruled by Pharaoh Ankhtepot, the immortal intermediary between the mortals and the gods. The pharaoh rules from his pyramid, Pharaoh’s Rest, in the City of the Dead.
• The people worship a pantheon of strict gods (see “Gods of Har’Akir” later in this section). The priests of these gods oversee all aspects of labor, agriculture, trade, justice, and religion in the pharaoh’s name.
• The monuments, tombs, and pyramids of past golden ages litter Har’Akir. These countless tombs are interconnected, forming a vast, semi-hidden underground network called the Labyrinth.
• Akirran death rituals call for removing the heart, draining the body of blood, and wrapping the remains in linen. These methods preserve the body so the pharaoh might call it to service. It is a crime to burn the dead.
• Akirrans value music, and many locals are accomplished singers or proficient in playing the reed pipe, goblet drum, or arched harp.

Akirran Characters

Characters from Har’Akir claim descent from an ancient culture and have survived in an extreme environment. Most of the land’s people have dark hair and a variety of warm skin tones favoring golden to deep brown and black shades, and names with Egyptian inspirations. When players create characters from Har’Akir, consider asking them the following questions.

How do you survive in the desert realm? Are you a laborer in the fields or camps surrounding Muhar? Are you a scribe or priest of Har’Akir’s gods? Are you a trader who travels the land or a member of the desert-dwellers known as Sute’s Chosen?

What role does music play in your life? Do you prefer to sing, dance, or play an instrument? What animal, hero, god, or past pharaoh is evoked in your favorite song? How do others feel about your performances?

How do the gods feature in your life? Are you a devout follower of all the gods of Har’Akir, or do you favor a single deity? Do you worship only as you must to gain food and protection from the priests? Do you secretly worship a deity other than the gods of Har’Akir?

Settlements and Sites

Har’Akir sprawls across a desert bordered in the east by crumbling, canyon-etched mountains. Most locals live around four oases, located in the bed of an immense river that dried up long ago.

The Oases

Four oases hold all the water in Har’Akir, making them focuses of life among the domain’s people, beasts, and monstrous inhabitants:

• Muhar Oasis. The largest oasis shares a name with the city of Muhar, which sits upon its southern shore. Gazelles and herons frequent its northern shore, often attracting predators such as crocodiles, hyenas, chimeras, and giant scorpions.
• Red Oasis. Har’Akir’s people say this oasis’s waters are poison, as the oasis was given by the gods to the beasts of the land. Prides of cunning lions hunt nearby, frequently washing their kills here.
• Sek’s Tears. The waters of this oasis are said to be able to heal any affliction, but they are guarded by the sphinxes who dwell in the nearby canyons.
• White Oasis. Holy to the god Neb, the White Oasis is surrounded by rich deposits of limestone favored in the creation of monuments and tombs. A largely disused quarry nearby now shelters a community of recluses called River’s Shelter. All of the residents expect to die soon, for one reason or another, and seek to cleanse themselves with the White Oasis’s waters before meeting their end.

Muhar

With a population of approximately 3,000 people, Muhar is the largest settlement in Har’Akir and the center of trade, agriculture, art, and religion in the domain. The Temple of Ese towers over the city, its limestone walls glinting like a jewel in the sun. Here Akirrans worship, receive food shares, seek justice, and receive medicine or healing, all from the hands of High Priest Isu Rehkotep. The priest claims to speak for Pharaoh Ankhtepot in all matters, and her word is considered both royal decree and divine edict. In truth, though, the pharaoh cares little for the living so long as order is maintained, leaving Rehkotep to run Muhar largely as she pleases. Those who displease Rehkotep or oppose her priest-guards are thrown into the Mouth of Oru, a pit that connects to the Labyrinth.

Ousa’s Pyramid

A mountain of white limestone rises above the southern plateaus of Har’Akir. This pyramid is known as the spirit home of Ousa, partner of Ese and the god who rules in the afterlife. Akirrans whisper that the interior holds a door between this world and the land of the dead. In front of this wonder, a giant statue of Anu, the Great Jackal, overlooks parched riverbeds. A small order of jackal-masked priests guards entry to the pyramid. The priests follow the commands of Thute, a limber and vicious Child of Ankhtepot with a jackal’s head.

The Labyrinth

Beneath the Sands of Sute lie generations of hidden tombs, built one atop the other and hidden by the sands of ages. Elaborated upon by the Dark Powers, these endless, entangled crypts are known as the Labyrinth—a vast, dungeon-underworld that connects every tomb and monument in Har’Akir. The Children of Ankhtepot and their undead servants make use of hidden thoroughfares connecting to the City of the Dead. But many less-traveled passages lie throughout the Labyrinth, forming a sprawling wilderness of crumbling, monster-haunted ruins and trap-laden passages. Within the deepest of these secret places lie crypts dedicated to gods that predate Pharaoh Ankhtepot’s reign. A traitorous Child of Ankhtepot called Senmet also lurks within these passages, seeking ways to depose Ankhtepot and become the new pharaoh.

The Sands of Sute

The desert between the old riverbed and the Sun’s Throne Mountains is the largest, most inhospitable region of Har’Akir. Two mighty sandstorms rage over the region: the Breath of the Forgotten and the Breath of the False. These storms are said to impose tests from the gods on those who enter them, trials that punish those living lives without consequence or faith. They are also known to stop and rise without warning, obeying Ankhtepot’s whims. Religious guides known as Sute’s Chosen wander the region; the order’s members claim to know how to read and navigate past the storms to reach the City of the Dead by the most expedient route.

City of the Dead

The Sun’s Throne Mountains are a massive monument to the dead, their cliffs dotted with the cavern-tombs of forgotten heroes and nobles. The densest collection of these crypts lines the monument- and temple-filled canyon called the City of the Dead. This necropolis climbs the canyon walls, where whole cliffs have been sculpted into massive statues of Har’Akir’s gods and pharaohs. Among these monuments hide entrances to ancient tombs, many of which belong to past high priests of Muhar and Children of Ankhtepot.

The City of the Dead rises toward the sculpted, golden mountain called Pharaoh’s Rest, the massive pyramid of Pharaoh Ankhtepot. From here, the Darklord can see across much of the domain as he sends agents to hunt the missing piece of his soul.

The Bent Pyramid

In the northern desert stands a small pyramid that has a curious design: the sides rise from the earth at a steep angle until halfway up, then come together at a shallower angle. The Bent Pyramid, which is encased in black granite, has no interior, no temple, and no obvious reason for existing. Sute’s Chosen, however, know it sits atop a well of immense magical power that can be tapped by manipulating sound waves.

Ankhtepot

In an ancient country the inhabitants called the Land of Reeds and Lotuses, Ankhtepot served three generations of pharaohs as high priest. When the second pharaoh died, her unworthy son ascended to the throne. The new pharaoh quickly became unpopular among the people and priests. Seeking a remedy for this, Ankhtepot came to believe that the gods wanted another to take the pharaoh’s place, one with knowledge of rule and the deities' blessing.

On the day of the ritual that would consecrate the pharaoh’s connection with the gods, Ankhtepot rallied his loyal priests and murdered their liege. He had misjudged the peoples' loyalty, though, and they rose up and executed the traitorous priests.

Moreover, Ankhtepot had misjudged the will of his gods. As he stood before them in death, the immortals forsook him, cursing him and denying him entry to the afterlife. Instead, they returned him to the world, but stripped away a piece of his soul, his ka—the vital essence that inspires all living beings.

Ankhtepot reawakened, trapped and paralyzed within his corpse as he was mummified along with his treacherous followers. The murderous priest felt the pain of every cut and every organ removed as if he were alive. Then, within an unmarked crypt, he suffered and starved for what felt like an eternity.

Untold years passed, but on the day the last memory of Ankhtepot’s name faded from his homeland, a voice intruded on the priest’s prison, asking if he still felt he was worthy to rule. Through the ages, Ankhtepot’s arrogance hadn’t waned, and he answered with certainty. Granted new freedom by the Dark Powers, Ankhtepot emerged from his crypt into the domain of Har’Akir.

In this new land, Ankhtepot found a pious people devoted to the same gods he once served. Immediately he set to wiping out that religion, replacing it with new gods of his own imagining, false divinities for whom he alone spoke. Using blasphemous rites, Ankhtepot resurrected the priests once buried alongside him as powerful mummies, replacing their heads with those of beasts holy to his new faith. These Children of Ankhtepot served him as they did in life, and together the dead conquered the souls of Har’Akir.

The ages have marched ever on. Ankhtepot has known treachery and conquest. He has known divinity and rule. But now he knows only boredom and despair. His sole remaining desire is to recover his lost ka, which he knows remains somewhere in Har’Akir. With it, he hopes to become mortal again, die, and face his original gods' judgment once more. Whether this means peace or oblivion is meaningless to him. Ankhtepot seeks only an end.

Ankhtepot’s Powers and Dominion

A fantastically ancient Undead, Ankhtepot has statistics similar to a mummy lord. Beyond this, he rules as pharaoh, national leader, and voice of the gods. None in Har’Akir, among the living or the dead, denies his will, but the Darklord’s wishes are few. He cares only for order and to find his lost ka.

Children of Ankhtepot

The Darklord is served by many of the same priests who died alongside him in ages past. He resurrected these Mummy and Mummy Lord with the heads of animals, painting them as spirits and harbingers of his fictitious gods of Har’Akir. As Ankhtepot has grown bored with mortal concerns, the Children of Ankhtepot have pursued their own vices. Many dream and despair in their crypts. Others foment small cults of their own. And still others seek to undermine the pharaoh and claim his position—including the treacherous mummy lord Senmet.

The Gods' Law

Although Ankhtepot cares nothing for fragile, short-lived mortals, he has a tyrant’s obsession with order and knows the living might be useful in finding his lost ka. To that end, he relies on his priests to maintain peace in Har’Akir and provide for the people. Should the populace grow discontent, Ankhtepot expects the priests to deal with discord swiftly. If they can’t, he sends his mummy servants to indiscriminately quell any uprising. Examples of such massacres fill Har’Akir’s history, but they are known only to the domain’s priests.

Pharaoh’s Priests

The priests of Har’Akir’s gods work Ankhtepot’s will. Most priests believe themselves to be devout servants of the gods, having no idea that their deities are false. They keep alert for strangers and omens, reporting them to their superiors and, ultimately, High Priestess Isu Rehkotep. The high priestess dutifully watches for signs of a mysterious treasure her pharaoh seeks and orders any strangers in Har’Akir brought to her at the Temple of Ese, but she also relishes her influence and decadent lifestyle. She dreads the day Ankhtepot blames her for not finding what he desires, though she has no idea she’s searching for the Darklord’s ka.

Closing the Borders

When Ankhtepot wishes to close the borders of Har’Akir, mighty sandstorms rise at the edges of the domain. Those who enter the storms are affected as detailed in “The Mists” at the start of this chapter, but in addition, they take 2d6 slashing damage per round from the scouring sands.

Ankhtepot’s Torment

The Dark Powers torment Ankhtepot in one simple, all-encompassing way: they won’t let him die. Existence is pain for the pharaoh. He vividly remembers every one of his crimes and understands that his ambitions have sustained his corporeal form for untold lifetimes. He seeks his ka and rebirth as a mortal not to prolong his existence, but so his life might finally end.

Roleplaying Ankhtepot

Ankhtepot is seen only a few times a year, when his priests bring offerings to Pharaoh’s Rest and beseech him for the gods' empty blessings. Those who glimpse the pharaoh describe a withered corpse clad in black linen wrappings and gold adornments, with a voice like sand ground between clashing mountains. The only time he bothers with either the living or the dead is when they actively offend him (such as by trespassing upon his solitude at Pharaoh’s Rest), when they bring him hope of finding his ever-elusive ka, or when disappointment kindles his rage.

Personality Trait

“The stirring of a song, the scent of bread, the cool rush of water over skin. I have forgotten it all.”

Ideal

“I will regain my ka and stand before the gods renewed, before I face the final darkness.”

Bond

“My final age will be peaceful, and my domain will know order.”

Flaw

“I will cross any boundary, uncover any secret, shred any soul, if it gains me my death.”

Adventures in Har’Akir

If you find terror in trap-laden tombs and ancient curses (explored further in chapter 4), Har’Akir provides them in endless supply. The land’s central plot—the search to find Pharaoh Ankhtepot’s ka—can lead adventurers to explore mysterious sites as they seek hiding places undisturbed for centuries. Consider running a tour of the domain’s most intriguing locales, punctuated with treks across the brutal deserts—landscapes fraught with hazards such as extreme heat, quicksand, and sandstorms whipped up by strong winds, all detailed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. In the course of their adventures, characters can learn the truth of Ankhtepot’s origins and Har’Akir’s original gods. How they use these discoveries is up to them, but each discovery should bring the characters closer to sealing Ankhtepot’s doom or their own. “The Darklord’s Soul” below provides ideas for running adventures focused on Ankhtepot’s obsession, while the Har’Akir Adventures table suggests other plots that might unfold in this domain.

Har’Akir Adventures

Gods of Har’Akir

Har’Akir’s people once worshiped the deities of the Egyptian pantheon—the same deities Ankhtepot once served. But the spiteful Darklord scoured the old religions from his domain, replacing them with parodies that make him and his followers central to the land’s faith. Over generations, these deities have become the gods of Har’Akir:

Anu, who judges the fate of the dead

Ese, who presides over life and the living

Neb, who guards the path of the dead

Oru, who orders the heavens and all beneath

Ousa, who controls death and the dead

Sek, who heals the sick and cultivates life

Sute, who sows despair and discord

The Dark Powers have granted a measure of power to Ankhtepot’s false gods. Clerics who worship one of Har’Akir’s gods or the pantheon as a whole receive power as if they worshiped a true deity that offers the death domain. Despite their distinct roles, traditions, and places within the lives of Har’Akir’s people, these gods are all especially aloof, cryptic, morbid, and supportive of the pharaoh’s rule.

The Darklord’s Soul

Above all things, Pharaoh Ankhtepot seeks to retrieve his ka, the missing piece of his soul. Characters in Har’Akir are likely to become involved in the pharaoh’s search. Before they do, though, consider the specifics of that search, what form his lost ka might take, how characters might become involved, and what happens if the pharaoh does recover his soul.

The Soul’s Shape

Before tasking characters with retrieving it, determine what form the pharaoh’s ka takes. It might be a physical object, a living creature, or a spiritual concept that needs to be summoned into being. Roll or choose an option from the Ankhtepot’s Soul table to determine the form of the Darklord’s ka.

Ankhtepot’s Soul

The Hunters' Role

Once you know the form of Pharaoh Ankhtepot’s ka, determine how the characters become involved with the hunt for it. Events might make finding the soul to be in the characters' best interests, or they might already possess it—making them the Darklord’s quarry. In any case, while it’s well known that the pharaoh seeks some lost treasure, he doesn’t advertise that what he seeks is his own ka, making this revelation part of any successful hunt. Roll or choose an option from the Hunt for the Ka table to determine what form the domain-spanning quest takes.

Hunt for the Ka

The Resurrection Ritual

Once Pharaoh Ankhtepot’s ka is found, he must still heal his fractured soul. Doing so requires a ritual with several components:

• It must be performed in a specially prepared chamber at the heart of Ousa’s Pyramid.
• It must be performed for 1 hour, starting when the full moon is at its highest point.
• If the ka exists within another being, it must be released at the ritual’s climax, with the possessor being slain and granted the honor of mummification.
• If the ka does not exist within another being, at the ritual’s climax a worthy life must be extinguished to seal the ka to the rest of the pharaoh’s soul.

The ritual is enacted and watched over by the Darklord’s servants, living priests, Children of Ankhtepot, and other deathless guardians. The Darklord and any required victim must remain present for the duration of the rite. If the ritual is disrupted, the ka escapes, fleeing the pyramid and potentially taking on another form. Even if the ka is recaptured, the ritual can’t be performed again until the next full moon. In any case, Pharaoh Ankhtepot is furious if the ritual fails, taking his rage out on all present—and perhaps, all of Har’Akir.

The Pharaoh’s Return

If the ritual is successful, Ankhtepot is reborn.

Roll or choose an option from the Ankhtepot Reborn table to determine what this means for Har’Akir.

Ankhtepot Reborn

Hazlan

Domain Doomed by Magic

• Darklord: Hazlik

Genres

Dark fantasy and disaster horror

Hallmarks

Amoral spellcasters, magic-ravaged environment, magical experiments, wild magic

Mist Talismans

Eye of Hazlik amulet, gremishka foot, scrap from a red robe

In Hazlan, magic is authority, justification for any excess, and—for those without it—the specter of inevitable doom. This domain is less a nation than a vast magical laboratory, whose wizard overlord Hazlik views every being as either an apprentice or a test subject. He conscripts those he acknowledges as lesser wizards into performing elaborate magical experiments, twisting the fabric of magic and reality until it frays. These experiments endlessly scar a domain drained of vitality, tortured by magical disasters, and overrun with abominations. The greatest wounds affect the invisible flows of magic underpinning the land, turning it erratic and dangerous.

Despite the domain’s magical dangers, the ambitions of the spellcasting elite grow more audacious by the day. Paranoid and controlling, Hazlik watches the schemes of his lessers, observing them through the Eye of Hazlik. This pervasive eye-shaped symbol marks structures, decorations, clothing, and individuals, and through these eyes the Darklord sees all. He watches as common folk cower at the passage of his ostentatious apprentices. He watches as monstrosities birthed from strange experiments prowl openly. He watches as ravenous worms from deep within the poisoned land crawl to the surface in search of food. And he watches every new magical innovation, eager to claim it and add the discovery to his list of glorious achievements.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Hazlan know the following facts:

• The wizard Hazlik rules Hazlan. His apprentices have free rein to exploit the land and its people to further their magical experiments.
• Inhabitants claim the eyelike design called the Eye of Hazlik bears Hazlik’s blessing and wards off dangerous magic.
• Magic is unreliable in Hazlan, resulting in dangerous side effects.
• The visible effects of magical disasters disfigure the domain, from rivers poisoned by alchemical runoff to craters caused by magical explosions.
• Creatures warped by magical experiments infest the domain, including magic-hungry Gremishka (see chapter 5) and ravenous Purple Worm.

Hazlani Characters

Characters from Hazlan have been exposed to strange magic all their lives. People of all descriptions and races hail from the domain, perhaps living in small communities or having been created by magic. When players create characters from Hazlan, consider asking them the following questions.

What is your relationship with magic? Do you avoid magic, knowing the danger it represents? Did you learn enough to aid in practical activities or to set you apart from those with no magic? Did you embrace magic to join Hazlan’s elite?

Has magic altered you? Have you been affected by a magical disaster, pollution, or experimentation? Do you have an obvious Dark Gift or characteristic that sets you apart?

Do you carry an Eye of Hazlik? This symbol of your people is said to ward off dangerous magic. Do you carry one as a talisman or bear one as a tattoo? Or do you hate the mark, viewing it as a symbol of magic-using oppressors?

Settlements and Sites

Hazlan’s few remaining communities are populated by hunters, miners, and artisans. They struggle to learn a glimmer of magic to earn a measure of respect from the domain’s spellcasters. Mages live wherever they please, in traveling caravan palaces, floating towers, or more fanciful dwellings. Most gather close to Hazlik’s palace, Veneficus.

Ramulai

Thick, sparkling smog chokes the village of Ramulai. The nearby mines yield a host of rare elements useful in magical experimentation, and Hazlik’s apprentices have constructed numerous alchemical refineries and dangerous laboratories in Ramulai to take advantage of this resource. The waste from these industries fills the Burning River, named for the regularity with which the pollutants within it ignite, causing the waters to burn with colored flames. These toxins sicken the people of Ramulai, cause transformations among the regional wildlife, and created the swampland known as the Brew.

Sly-Var

Hazlik’s apprentices live in Sly-Var, a settlement composed of a collection of laboratories. Spellcasters obsessed with earning the Darklord’s favor raise architecturally discordant towers that defy physical laws by floating, being accessible only by magic, or being larger on the inside than the outside. The town’s residents magically create whatever they need, resulting in little need for trade. This leaves the labyrinthine streets and knotted bridges between intertwined compounds eerily empty. Common folk often disappear among these streets, the victims of magical guardians, escaped test subjects, or wizards who see the magically deficient as stock for their experiments.

Toyalis

The largest town in Hazlan spreads along the canyon floor where the slow, iridescent waters of the Alterity River and the Strangers' Tears meet. Toyalis boasts a population of poor but hardworking common folk united by their shared pursuit of prosperity and terror of the domain’s magic-using elite. Although the townsfolk have no passion for magic, colorful murals and decorations depicting magical creatures, arcane symbols, and the Eye of Hazlik cover the town’s rough wooden and adobe structures.

Several times each season, one of Hazlik’s apprentices leads a procession of attendants and magical wonders to Toyalis in search of replacement servants, new apprentices, or stock for magical experiments. A carnival atmosphere ensues, with this apprentice displaying their magical accomplishments and setting up competitions to assess the locals. These contests involve tests of magical ingenuity, strangely themed talent shows, and open brawls. When the mage’s procession leaves, it takes townsfolk deemed valuable with it.

The Lacuna

At the center of Hazlan sprawls a mysterious region of persistent, knee-high ground fog. Anyone who steps into the fog falls as though into a ravine. Few who tumble in reemerge.

The vapors of the Lacuna are identical to the Mists that border the domain. The people of Hazlan know that the Lacuna used to be smaller, and that it was created by a magical disaster. The fog has since spread, extending in tendrils toward sources of powerful magic throughout the domain. Originally, the Lacuna reached exclusively toward Veneficus and the Mound of the Worm. Since then, Hazlik’s apprentices have placed sprawling magical sigils upon the land, runes that slowed the Lacuna’s growth but split its development in multiple directions.

Veneficus

Hazlik’s crimson-towered palace stands atop the jagged mesa called the Red Rise. The Darklord dwells here alone, attended by a staff of servile constructs and magical creations. Although the palace features impressive audience chambers and decadent pleasure gardens, Hazlik rarely welcomes guests. Only his most accomplished apprentices attend him with any regularity. Apprentices who displease him never return from the Darklord’s palace. Left to his solitude, Hazlik spends days at a time within his personal meditation chambers, avoiding sleep and using the Eyes of Hazlik throughout the domain to search for useful magic—and to identify any who might be acting against him.

Disaster Sites

The landscape of Hazlan bears the scars of reckless magical experiments and wizardly rivalries. The following are examples of the bizarre sites that dot the domain:

• The Brew. This toxic marsh is poisoned by alchemical pollution from Ramulai and populated by sapient fungi and enraged plant creatures.
• The Fleshless Forest. Every plant and creature within this forest was turned to stone. The condition is infectious.
• Moonstone Valley. Meteors and otherworldly creatures crash in this wasteland during every new moon.
• Mound of the Worm. Land rose from deep underground to form this mesa, unleashing dozens of purple worms upon the surface. The aged albino worm Gravedrinker dominates this region.
• The Orbitoclasts. One of numerous floating rock formations in central Hazlik, it bears an uncanny resemblance to tools used in performing lobotomies.
• The Playas. These former lakes have been reduced to quicksand-riddled purple worm feeding grounds.
• Seething. This region is devoid of life, and its land crumbles away into the Mists.

Hazlik

The wizard Hazlik always stood one formula away from attaining his dreams. Raised among the merciless Red Wizards of Thay on the world of Toril, Hazlik steadily rose among the ranks of those obsessive, treacherous spellcasters. Eager and encouraged to push past the weakness of mortality, he sought to discover hidden truths of magic and its command of reality. He obsessed over radical pursuits, such as creating the perfect mortal form and visiting dream realms within an individual’s psyche.

As Hazlik advanced in power, he developed rivalries with his fellow Red Wizards. Through petty contests, victories, and embarrassments, he grew increasingly arrogant, orchestrating events that left his rivals scarred by his spells or their own backfiring magic. During these feuds, there was one competitor Hazlik was unable to defeat: the Red Wizard Indreficus. Hazlik gradually came to fixate on Indreficus as his true rival. Indreficus shared Hazlik’s genius and arrogance, and they spent many seasons as vicious adversaries and passionate lovers. They drove one another to feats of magical brilliance both revolutionary and unspeakable. For a time, the two ambitious wizards knew a wicked peace.

That ended when Hazlik discovered that Indreficus had gained the attention of the land’s ruling zulkirs and planned to betray Hazlik to garner their favor. Heartbroken and enraged, Hazlik captured Indreficus and subjected him to a nightmarish experiment that left him permanently transformed into a pain-wracked living portal. Hazlik presented his creation to the zulkirs, planning to impress his people’s rulers and gain their patronage.

Instead, the zulkirs revealed that Indreficus had not betrayed him. Rather, the zulkirs had watched the pair’s ascent and, wary of their potential, sought to undermine them before they became threats. Moreover, they deemed Hazlik’s transformation of Indreficus an abomination. As punishment, they ruled that every rival Hazlik had defeated could exact a penance of their choosing upon him. But even as the first brand-wielding member of the mob of Hazlik’s scarred rivals approached to take their revenge, Hazlik fled through the groaning portal that had been Indreficus.

To his surprise, Hazlik emerged in a grim netherworld of fog and hateful visions where Indreficus’s condemning voice hounded him mercilessly. Eventually, he escaped those nightmare lands into a realm that knew nothing of magic. He had changed, becoming covered in golden tattoos evocative of symbols that meant “traitor” in his homeland. Undaunted, Hazlik claimed the title of zulkir and dubbed his new world Hazlan.

Hazlik’s Powers and Dominion

Hazlik is a vain, egotistical overlord, convinced he is the supreme being in his domain. His statistics echo those of an archmage, but he favors using an array of magic items rather than his own spells.

Glory Taker

At any given time, Hazlik permits dozens of apprentices to study at his feet. His lessons are infrequent, demanding, and filled with mocking examples. Those who don’t impress him don’t survive long. He encourages rivalries among his students and drives them to push the boundaries of magical possibilities. His goading results in magical wonders, failed experiments, and the magical disasters that plague the land. Hazlik claims his apprentices' successes as his own, both to hide his lack of innovation and to further his reputation as Hazlan’s greatest wizard. His favorite—or least disappointing—apprentices include the masked wizard Yhal the Skygazer, shadow-cloaked Ruzelo, and the daring genius Eleni.

Inside the Experiment

Hazlik realizes that Hazlan doesn’t feel as real as the world of his birth, though he’s yet to discover why. He pushes his apprentices to chip away at the nature of the land, hoping to find out what lies beyond—and ultimately, to escape. He cares nothing for the domain or its inhabitants, as he’s confident he’ll be able to leave before Hazlan becomes utterly uninhabitable.

Magic Hoarder

Hazlik’s magical ability is impeded, so he covetously pursues magic items. If he learns of a useful magic item, he sends an apprentice to claim it for him or hires adventurers to retrieve it. These items enable Hazlik to hide his limitations and give him a taste of the magic he’s lost.

Omnipresent Observer

Hazlik spies on his domain’s inhabitants using his personal sigil, the Eye of Hazlik. The details of his pervasive surveillance are detailed in “The Eye of Hazlik” later in this domain description.

Closing the Borders

Hazlik can open and close the borders of his domain at will, as detailed in “The Mists” at the start of this chapter. In addition to the normal effects, these Mists are filled with the results of horrific magical experiments, such as misshapen chimeras, incomplete golems, and droves of Gremishka (see chapter 5).

Hazlik’s Torment

Hazlik’s arrogance defines his existence, but various aspects of his imprisonment undermine his ego and force him to doubt himself:

• Since entering Hazlan, Hazlik hasn’t been able to learn new magic. No matter how much he studies or researches new magical lore or spells, he cannot master them. He can use and prepare any spell he already knows but can no longer advance the magical research that formerly drove his life.
• Vivid nightmares wherein Indreficus taunts him for his failures compound Hazlik’s frustrations, and he avoids sleeping to prevent them. By employing rare herbs and tinctures, he can go for days without sleeping, but his stock needs regular replenishing. This cycle casts Hazlik between extremes of exhaustion, jitteriness, and paranoia.
• Hazlik is terrified of others learning of his limitations. This leads him to berate and betray other wizards, claim magical discoveries as his own, and endlessly spy on both rivals and visitors to his realm.
• Hazlik openly denies the various destructions afflicting his realm. At first, he didn’t care that this strange world was being destroyed, expecting to escape it swiftly. As that seems increasingly unlikely, his dread clashes with his refusal to acknowledge that he’s ever wrong.

Roleplaying Hazlik

To Hazlik, everything is a useful tool, an amusement, or a potential spell component. However, he’s deeply frustrated by his paralyzed magical ability and lashes out in response to the slightest setback.

Personality Trait

“Morality is a comfortable term for cowardice. Reality bends to those bold enough to learn its secrets.”

Ideal

“Knowledge is worth any price.”

Bond

“My discoveries will change magic forever, and I will be legendary.”

Flaw

“My brilliance knows no rivals.”

Adventures in Hazlan

While Hazlan’s magic-using elite test the boundaries of arcane possibility, the domain around them crumbles. The result is a realm where supernatural disasters wrack the land and magic turns against the characters, forcing them to doubt abilities they previously took for granted. Here, no adventure site is too fantastical. Anything explainable as “an evil wizard did it” fits perfectly, and impossibilities that challenge adventurers of any level can arise. The “Magic in the Dying Domain” section that follows explores the unpredictability of magic in Hazlan, while the Hazlan Adventures table suggests other adventures that might unfold here.

Hazlan Adventures

Magic in the Dying Domain

Magic is a source of both prestige and terror in Hazlan. Commoners fear it but know it represents a path out of desperation, while the elite equate worth and magical skill. Adventurers in Hazlan are treated as outsiders by the elite and potential threats by the common folk. Worse, visitors who don’t understand the dangerous nature of magic in the domain might accidentally unleash magical ruin.

Hazlan Wild Magic

Excessive experimentation has caused the nature of magic in Hazlan to fray, making the entire domain a region of wild magic. Whenever a character in Hazlan expends a spell slot to cast a spell of 1st level or higher or actives a magic item, an additional effect might occur. The character’s player rolls a d10. If they roll a 1, roll on the Hazlan Wild Magic table to determine the effect. Only Hazlik is unaffected by the domain’s wild magic.

Hazlan Wild Magic

The Eye of Hazlik

A stylized eyelike design adorns buildings, art, clothing, and talismans across Hazlan: the Eye of Hazlik. Locals claim the symbol wards off dangerous magic and offers protection from magical creatures. It’s also said that spellcasters who wear the symbol are less likely to suffer the domain’s wild magic effects. Remarkably, it’s not all superstition.

An Eye of Hazlik takes a shape reminiscent of the eyelike tattoos that cover Hazlik’s body. It can be any size and can be created from any medium: a tattoo, a medallion, an embroidered motif, or even a building-sized mural. Within the borders of Hazlan, an Eye of Hazlik has the following traits:

• An Eye of Hazlik is not magical.
• Anyone who openly wears an Eye of Hazlik on their person or clothing or as a talisman can, once per day, choose not to roll on the Hazlan Wild Magic table.
• Hazlik is aware of any spell cast or magic item used within his domain within 30 feet of an Eye of Hazlik. He is also aware of the spell’s level and the rarity of such a magic item.
• At any time, Hazlik can use any Eye of Hazlik in his domain as a stationary eye created by the arcane eye spell. He can spy through the eye whenever and for as long as he pleases. The eye radiates magic while Hazlik spies through it.

An Eye of Hazlik taps into the Darklord’s mastery of magic within his domain, helping to stabilize the wearer’s magic—at a price. Hazlik uses the eyes to keep tabs on magic-users in his domain, spying on those who might be useful or threatening to him. This surveillance enables him to reinforce his reputation as an ever-present, brilliant overlord.

I’Cath

Domain Trapped in a Dream

• Darklord: Tsien Chiang

Genres

Body horror and cosmic horror

Hallmarks

Endlessly changing labyrinth, deadly jiangshi, inescapable dreamworld

Mist Talismans

Scrap of ghost hair silk, small golden bell, scroll covered in prayers

When the inhabitants of I’Cath fall asleep, they enter an alternate version of the city they call home—a city dreamed into being by the domain’s Darklord. In time, these poor souls can’t remember which version is the real I’Cath and which one is the dream.

In the physical world, I’Cath’s surreal, knotted streets echo with their emptiness. Within spare, meandering row houses, the majority of the populace slump against walls or sprawl against each other where they fell. These people lie trapped within a collective dream world created by the city’s ruler, Tsien Chiang. Within this shared dream they labor ceaselessly, ever striving to create the impossible, perfect city of a perfectionist mastermind.

Within the dreaming domain of I’Cath, Darklord Tsien Chiang rules a golden vision of the city—a place of ultimate beauty and efficiency where all things move according to her design. For her, it is near perfection. For her people, it is a nightmare of inescapable drudgery from which death is the only escape. The dream city’s identical, even streets sprawl across a broad hill, atop which rises a glorious palace Tsien Chiang shares with her four perfect daughters. Day or night, the streets are filled with people ever toiling to perfect the buildings, reshape the gardens, and undo the work of the previous days and weeks in favor of new designs. Within the dream, the people don’t sleep, eat, or need to attend to any other concerns. They know only their work and the glory of Tsien Chiang.

In the waking world, the truth of I’Cath is starkly apparent. Rows of decrepit, moldy homes merge to line endless, coiling avenues. The streets wind and double back, but eventually climb the rise at the city’s center, where the infamous Palace of Bones and the gold-scaled Ping’On Tower loom. By day, the streets are largely empty, except for those few desperate residents of I’Cath who have yet to succumb to the domain’s dream. They rush through their days, scavenging what they can in hopes of enduring the coming night.

Every twilight, Tsien Chiang climbs the spirit-infested Ping’On Tower and tolls the Nightingale Bell. This renews the magic of her dream world and keeps her citizens asleep, but it also calls forth the legion of I’Cath’s undead ancestors whom she has bent to her will. Nightly these jiangshi (see chapter 5) emerge from their tombs and reshape the city’s mazelike streets, striving to match Tsien Chiang’s vision with merciless perfection. The Darklord’s servants carefully move any sleepers they encounter out of the way of their work, but prey upon any waking souls who cross their paths.

Any whom the Mists carry to I’Cath or who wake from Tsien Chiang’s dream find themselves in a gray, haunted, ever-changing city where food is scarce and jiangshi hunt the living. With twilight comes a terrible choice: endure the uncertain terrors of the waking world or succumb to endless servitude in sleep.

I’cathan Characters

Characters from I’Cath have known wonder and want, and often have remarkable stories about how they left their homeland’s dual realities. The domain’s residents tend to have dark hair and a range of sandy skin tones. Their names might take inspiration from Chinese names. When players create characters from I’Cath, consider asking them the following questions.

How did you escape I’Cath? Did you discover a secret way out of the city? Did a family member make a bargain with Tsien Chiang that gave you a chance at a better life? Did Tsien Chiang send you forth for a reason?

Whom did you leave behind in I’Cath? Why didn’t they go with you? Did you try to forget about them? Do you plan to return to I’Cath for them?

How long were you awake? How did you evade or distract the jiangshi and the hungry ghosts? Did you find or lose something during your wandering? Do you bear a mark or scar from the experience?

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with I’Cath know the following facts:

• The citizens of the vast city of I’Cath sleep endlessly within their homes.
• Those who wake feel the pangs of starvation. Food is more valuable in the city than gold.
• Jiangshi haunt the streets of I’Cath, tearing down whole districts and rebuilding them.
• Tsien Chiang rules the city from the Palace of Bones. By day, she drafts plans to improve I’Cath. By night, she rules over her people’s dreams.
• Tsien Chiang’s four supernatural daughters wander the city by day and gather at the Palace of Bones at night.
• The streets and row homes of I’Cath change nightly, making navigation next to impossible. The city has a single exit, the Four Trees Gate, but few know how to reach it.

Sites

The gray homes and windowless walls of I’Cath’s real, waking city create a maze that changes nightly. Amid this ever-shifting labyrinth, a few locations remain the same.

Gemstone Garden

A beautiful park of fruiting trees and glistening ponds filled with bone-white carp covers acres of rich land hidden within the city. A dozen gleaming, gem-colored pavilions give the sprawling garden its name. Waking residents of I’Cath yearn to visit the park to harvest its bountiful trees and pools, but they dare not, since the garden’s thousands of shrines and memorials form a massive graveyard. The dead here don’t lie quietly, as each marker names an ancient jiangshi. These jiangshi work Tsien Chiang’s will throughout the city, but they return to seek vengeance if anyone intrudes in their garden.

Gwai-Huit Center

During daylight hours, the empty stalls of this vast, dismal market hide a handful of tents and shrouded booths where unscrupulous merchants sell wares and talismans for scraps of food—largely stolen from the Gemstone Garden or carried by strangers from beyond the Mists. In return, they offer goods pilfered from the Mansions or rarities such as silk made from ghost hair and vinegar said to ward off jiangshi.

Every dawn, a single stall in the market mysteriously restocks with wilted vegetables. The hope of finding a bit of food attracts desperate, awake individuals from across the city.

The Mansions

The people of I’Cath call the city’s countless row homes the Mansions. Sliding doorways grant access to the Mansions' leaky and poorly maintained four-story interior structures. I’Cath’s residents inhabit these areas in clusters of sleeping, difficult-to-wake bodies. By night, the long-haired spirits of Ping’On Tower wander the Mansions, searching for homes and families long ago destroyed in the city’s renovations.

As characters explore the Mansions, consider how to represent the thousands of perpetually sleeping bodies inside. Do I’Cath’s residents lie where they fell? Did the city’s jiangshi place them in orderly rows or stacks? Does the dream have a physical manifestation or toll? Do pale mushrooms or webs cover the sleepers? Consider using the helpless sleepers to reinforce body horror themes or the flavors of another horror genre discussed in chapter 2.

The Palace of Bones

The home of Tsien Chiang and her daughters stands upon a hill at I’Cath’s center. Its walls and supports are built from the bones of those who died as a result of the Darklord’s harsh governance over her homeland. Inside, the grimly beautiful palace displays its splendor with elaborate architecture and bone murals, while revealing its neglect with disrepair and emptiness. Only Tsien Chiang’s library sees regular use. The Darklord spends her days here, drawing new plans for her city and analyzing mysterious forces and mystical fortunes in pursuit of the ultimate harmonious design.

Beautiful but poisonous plants fill the palace’s courtyard. Among these gardens rise an ancient willow tree and Ping’On Tower.

Ping’On Tower

A hollow octagonal tower climbs from the grounds of the Palace of Bones, its fourteen levels decorated with eaves bearing furious-looking golden dragons. The topmost floor houses the Nightingale Bell, a broken bell forged from the scale of an ancient gold dragon. Stairs spiral up the structure’s hollow interior, but the tower is far from unoccupied. By day, hundreds of spirits, hungry for the offerings and remembrances once provided by their lost families, mournfully drift through the tower. At twilight, when Tsien Chiang climbs the tower to ring the Nightingale Bell, the ghosts scatter to wander the city and fruitlessly wonder why they’ve been forgotten.

Tsien Chiang’s Dream

Hidden behind the waking reality of I’Cath is a perfect city of precision, obedience, and gold that exists only in Darklord Tsien Chiang’s dreams. Through the warped power of the Nightingale Bell, she shares her vision of a sprawling, orderly city run by an obedient, thankful populace. The bell spreads the dream to dominate the sleep of I’Cath’s population, causing it to persist even when Tsien Chiang is awake. The dream city is a vision of perfection for Tsien Chiang, but for all others it’s a realm of inescapable drudgery and thankless labor.

Tsien Chiang

When Tsien Chiang was a child, her home was destroyed by a colonizing force, forcing her to flee into frozen mountains where she expected to die. Fortunately, a gold dragon took pity on her and gave her shelter. With nowhere else to go, Chiang promised to serve the dragon.

During the years that followed, Tsien Chiang attended the dragon, learning mysterious magic and medicine. In time, she became an accomplished wizard. Yet when she spoke of avenging her family and reclaiming her people’s land, her dragon mentor chided her for holding onto her hatred and refused to teach her dangerous magic.

Eventually, Chiang could deny her revenge no longer. Among her mentor’s records, she had learned of a bell that could make its ringer’s dreams come true—but creating the bell required the scale of a gold dragon. Knowing her mentor would never provide a scale, Chiang drugged the dragon with a rare herb, planning to steal a small scale while he slept. But in her haste, she mixed the herbal concoction poorly. The dragon’s body and everything nearby rapidly aged and decayed, killing her benefactor and destroying a hoard filled with ages of treasures and wisdom. Chiang’s home had been destroyed again, but a single golden scale remained. Using the scale, Chiang constructed the Nightingale Bell and dragged it into her occupied city. Tolling it, she wished for a city devoid of invaders—and instantly they vanished.

Awed and delighted, the nation executed the few invaders lingering outside the city and made Tsien Chiang their queen. Chiang ruled for years, enacting vast reforms and strict but sensible laws in pursuit of creating the perfect empire. She had a family, taking particular pride in her four beloved daughters.

As the memory of Chiang’s past victories faded, her people grew frustrated with the queen’s stern laws and demanding orders. Though her capital had become a radiant center of learning and art, the citizens revolted. Chiang acted swiftly to quell the uprising with numerous executions, yet the revolution grew. Everything she had wished for fell into flames. She showed no mercy to the rebels, ordering her armies to kill the families of all insurrectionists. In response, assassins struck Tsien Chiang’s palace. Although she survived, her family did not.

Distraught, Chiang climbed to the highest tower of her palace, looked out over her burning dreams, and struck the Nightingale Bell. Rather than granting her vengeful wish, the bell cracked and spilled a golden mist across the land. When the mist cleared, Tsien Chiang’s perfect city was gone, replaced by the unreal prison-city of I’Cath.

Chiang’s Powers and Dominion

Tsien Chiang’s statistics are similar to those of a mage with access to a variety of magic items—her favorite being an ornate robe that functions similarly to a Heward’s handy haversack and wings of flying. She uses this robe to store scrolls detailing her most recent plans for I’Cath’s renovation. Additionally, Tsien Chiang enforces her will upon her domain in a variety of other ways.

Dream of Perfection

Tsien Chiang’s magical creation, the Nightingale Bell, traveled with her to I’Cath. Soon after the city’s rebirth, Chiang used the cracked bell to wish for her perfect city. Instead, her wish created a persistent dream world that occupies the dreams of all who sleep in I’Cath. In this dream, Tsien Chiang’s every plan is executed to perfection. As her city moves with brilliant efficiency, Chiang luxuriates with perfect dream versions of her lost daughters.

Renovating the City

Each evening, {$b } Tsien Chiang relays her orders for I’Cath’s reconstruction to her droves of jiangshi agents, led by Minister Suen. Suen then disseminates these orders to the jiangshi of the Gemstone Garden, who work through the night. Every morning, Tsien Chiang finds some aspect of the city’s miraculous changes unacceptable and returns to her palace, where she spends the day assembling new orders for her jiangshi servants.

The Darklord’s Daughters

When Tsien Chiang arrived in I’Cath, she used the Nightingale Bell to revive her four daughters, who had been murdered in the uprising against her. The bell created two sets of interpretations of her daughters. The set inside the dream city are perfect recreations of Chiang’s lost daughters. Those in the waking city are monstrous interpretations of Chiang’s memories, innocent but unnatural beings. The eerie daughters in the waking world hold the key to undermining Tsien Chiang’s hold over the city’s dreams.

Closing the Borders

I’Cath is surrounded by walls and by the Mists beyond that. Chiang believes everyone in I’Cath has a responsibility to strive for perfection, so she keeps her people imprisoned within the city. As a result, the domain’s borders are always closed, as detailed in the “The Mists” section at the start of this chapter. Should Chiang choose to open the domain’s borders, the Four Trees Gate appears, and the Mists beyond the walls don’t prevent passage.

Chiang’s Torment

Fortune confounds Tsien Chiang in numerous ways, but the following are the most pronounced examples:

• Chiang wishes to make the dream of I’Cath a reality, and though her servants follow her plans perfectly, the city grows endlessly more disordered.
• Chiang relishes the dream vision of I’Cath, but it makes the reality of her city all the more unbearable. She won’t let the corruption of her real city invade her dream, and aggressively stamps out any imperfection in the dream realm.
• The loss of Chiang’s daughters haunts her. She knows the idealized dream versions of her daughters are fictions, but she still spends as much time with them as possible. She avoids their eerie waking-world versions, whom she fails to love.

Roleplaying Chiang

Tsien Chiang pursues an unattainable set of goals: a perfect city, a thankful populace, and an ideal family. Yet she is unable to articulate the specifics of her desires and unwilling to compromise. She lashes out at those unable to match her visions of perfection, seeing others' failings but not her own. Only the dream created by the Nightingale Bell offers her any respite.

Personality Trait

“I see what’s best for my city and its people. I will lead them to perfection.”

Ideal

“Once my city knows harmony, then I can rest.”

Bond

“What I want and what’s best for my people are one and the same.”

Flaw

“Perfection is the only acceptable standard. The flawed must be remade, and the lazy must serve.”

Adventures in I’Cath

I’Cath presents two worlds: a reality of want and desperation, and a dream of beautiful control, both dominated by Tsien Chiang.

The reality of I’Cath is an inescapable ghost city, overrun by jiangshi and ghosts. Escaping means engaging with those who know the city’s secrets, whether sleeping residents, wandering ghosts, or deadly jiangshi.

The dream of I’Cath presents a second layer to the prison city. The characters might find ways to move in and out of the dream. I’Cath’s people have no such recourse on their own, but if the characters wake individuals or disrupt the dream, they could allow those caught within to escape. (See “The Dream of I’Cath” later in this domain for details.)

Darklord Tsien Chiang and her daughters dwell at the heart of both these worlds. Working with or undermining them provides paths to disrupting the Dream of I’Cath and ultimately escaping. But Tsien Chiang holds great power over both her realms, and if she is convinced that either her city or her dream is beyond redemption, her edicts turn dire.

Consider the plots on the I’Cath Adventures table when planning adventures in this domain.

I’Cath Adventures

The Dream of I’Cath

For some, the unending dream Tsien Chiang forces upon her populace presents a tempting alternative to the bleak, haunted reality of I’Cath. However, those who succumb to the dream retain little hope of escaping the city.

Dreams of Perfection

Anyone who sleeps in I’Cath enters Tsien Chiang’s dream of a bustling, beautiful city filled with smiling people. But the forced smiles hide desperation from the watchful eyes of Tsien Chiang’s stoic jiangshi ministers. The people undertake endless, repetitive tasks—such as scrubbing the city’s coinage or counting the seconds. Those who fail to keep up are reassigned to exhausting labor. Those who rebel are either dragged off to lightless cells or slain outright, forcing them to awaken in the real world.

Nature of the Dream

Creatures in the dream of I’Cath have the statistics they do in waking life. If a creature dies in the dream, it takes 3d6 psychic damage, returns to the waking world, and does not receive any benefit from the rest that just ended.

The Nightingale Bell

The Nightingale Bell fuels Tsien Chiang’s dream. Chiang must ring the bell once per day to maintain the dream. Otherwise, the dream fades and everyone in the domain wakes. Only Tsien Chiang can use the Nightingale Bell to maintain the dream of I’Cath. However, anyone can ring the bell to enter the dream bodily as though it were a demiplane. A creature that physically enters the dream leaves behind no body, and if killed, dies for real. The Nightingale Bell is protected by the Dark Powers and can’t be destroyed.

Dreaming the Dream

A character cannot remove levels of exhaustion by finishing a long rest in I’Cath if they spend any part of that rest in Tsien Chiang’s dream. Characters with no levels of exhaustion wake from the dream after 6 hours. Characters with 1 or more levels of exhaustion can try to wake up after every 6 hours they spend within the dream; to awaken, they must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. Those who fail remain within the dream for another 6 hours, after which they can try to escape again. Creatures that do not sleep can choose to enter the dream by meditating. If they enter the dream, they are affected by it as if they were sleeping. Many residents of I’Cath don’t attempt to escape the dream, considering existence within it preferable to life in the real city.

Tsien Chiang’s Daughters

In her desperation to be reunited with her daughters, Tsien Chiang used the Nightingale Bell to wish her murdered children back into being. To her shock, each daughter reborn into the waking world took on an unnatural form. Although these young women mirror the personalities of Tsien Chiang’s true daughters and their doubles in the dream version of I’Cath, their forms and abilities are radically different. Chiang shuns them, but doesn’t do them harm. Now these four strange beings wander I’Cath, curious about the city and eager to please their mother. Every dusk they assemble at the Palace of Bones, hoping for kindness from Tsien Chiang as she hurriedly passes them to ascend Ping’On Tower.

Tsien Chiang’s daughters are generally good natured, but anxieties prevent the daughters from sleeping. If offered comfort and kindness so that the four sisters are all equally at ease, the daughters are able to fall asleep (see “Disrupting the Dream”).

Tsien Chiang’s four daughters have the following names, forms, and simple dreams:

• Tsien Lei-An. Voiceless Tsien Lei-An is made entirely of eyes and has the statistics of a scarecrow. She wishes for a robe of ghost hair silk or a jiangshi’s slippers. She spends much of her time wandering the Mansions, rooting through the possessions of sleeping city-dwellers.
• Tsien Man-Yi. Made of pale wood, Tsien Man-Yi must remain near the willow tree in the courtyard of the Palace of Bones, and has the statistics of a dryad. She wishes for flowers from the Gemstone Garden or for a friend to fall asleep under her tree’s boughs.
• Tsien Seu-Mei. Voiceless Tsien Seu-Mei is made entirely of teeth and has the statistics of a ghoul. She wishes to eat a delicious dessert or care for one of the fish of the Gemstone Gardens. She often wanders the stalls of Gwai-Huit Center.
• Tsien Wai-Ching. Made of living fog, Tsien Wai-Ching is the youngest daughter and has the statistics of a specter. She wishes to help a spirit from Ping’On Tower find its family or to play with an incorporeal toy. She regularly explores the memorials in the Gemstone Gardens.

Disrupting the Dream

Damaging Tsien Chiang’s dream undermines her grip on I’Cath, freeing the dreaming populace and opening the domain’s borders. Thousands of living people suddenly need to be fed, but they can reclaim their normal lives.

Those seeking to spoil Tsien Chiang’s dream can do so in the following ways:

• Dreaming Daughters. If all four of Tsien Chiang’s daughters in the waking world fall asleep, their sleeping forms replace their doubles in the dream city. This unites them with their mother in her perfect world, exactly as they’ve always wanted. Tsien Chiang, however, is horrified by their intrusion and flees her dream.
• Dreams of Revolution. I’Cath’s dreamers and displaced ancestral spirits might be persuaded to revolt against Tsien Chiang. This leads to extreme responses from the Darklord and her servants, but could force her to neglect or end the dream.
• Waking Dream. A particularly compelling waking individual, spirit, or goal within I’Cath distracts Tsien Chiang from her dream. Perhaps the spirits of her lost family haunt the Mansions, or an individual directs the jiangshi to perfectly execute the Darklord’s plans. Either outcome might lead Tsien Chiang to focus on reality and let her dreams slip away—for a time.

Kalakeri

Domain of Betrayal and Revenge

• Darklord: Ramya Vasavadan

Genres

Gothic horror and dark fantasy

Hallmarks

Monstrous leaders, family intrigue, war-torn nation

Mist Talismans

Ornate but rusted talwar, shield emblazoned with a wyvern-and-lotus emblem, a well-polished skull

For untold generations, the Vasavadan dynasty has ruled over the Great Kingdom of Kalakeri. This land was one of stability and prosperity until a barbarous civil war and a queen’s dying curse brought low what centuries never could. Once an unrivaled power known throughout the world for its rare resources and vibrant trade, Kalakeri is now locked in an endless storm of violence. At the center of that storm stand the remnants of the Vasavadan: three heirs transformed into unspeakable monsters by their depravity and hatred.

Kalakeri is a deceptively beautiful land of verdant rain forests and an idyllic web of rivers and lakes known as the Backwaters. Rare creatures and extraordinary magical plants are found across the forest peninsula locals call the Harvest Peninsula. At the height of its prosperity, Kalakeri was a robust center of art, commerce, and religion, with foreign merchants spreading wild tales of Sri Raji, the Steaming Lands, the Land at the Heart of the World, and other fanciful names for Kalakeri. Now Kalakeri is a shadow of its past glory, a quagmire of intrigue and despair where fortunes change on a whim.

The people of Kalakeri live in dread, as a single misstep means doom. Schemers and hapless citizens alike are tossed by the tidal forces of the royal family. Following her betrayal and assassination, Maharani Ramya was restored to the world to avenge herself against her treacherous siblings, Arijani and Reeva. Ramya’s curse manifests in both her deathless rage and in the monstrous forms afflicting her siblings. Both sides continue to escalate their atrocities against one another, drawing the powerful and the innocent alike into their squabbles. As Arijani and Reeva host murderous galas to entice fiendish allies, the forces of the Darklord search out and execute anyone they consider treasonous, adding their skulls to Ramya’s ever-growing Tower of Traitors.

Kalakeri Characters

Characters from Kalakeri hail from a rich, wondrous land tainted by suspicion. They are typically dark-haired, dark-eyed, brown-skinned people with Indian- inspired names. When players create characters from Kalakeri, consider asking them the following questions.

How has the war between the Vasavadans affected you? Residents of Jadurai live in the midst of conflict. Are you on Ramya’s or Arijani and Reeva’s side? Have you changed sides or tried to avoid the conflict entirely? If you haven’t taken part directly in the conflict, has someone you care about been harmed by it?

What part of society do you come from? Kalakeri is built on social class, with the nobility at the top, wealthy merchants and military officers next, and everyone else below. Where do you stand, and do you wish to rise or simply to survive?

What are you hiding from the royal family? Does your family harbor a traitor, or do they avoid conscription into Ramya’s army? Are you brave enough to pass on intelligence to a faction? Or do you work to overthrow both Vasavadan factions to end their strife?

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Kalakeri know the following facts:

• Two factions struggle to lay claim to Kalakeri’s Sapphire Throne: the soldiers and loyalists of Maharani Ramya, and the nobles and merchants who support the younger royal siblings, Arijani and Reeva.
• The vast city of Jadurai performs multiple duties as Kalakeri’s capital, the site of the royal palace, and a battlefield where factions struggle to claim or hold it as a symbol of rule.
• Fierce followers of each faction scour the land, murdering any who oppose their faction.
• Refugees from the strife hide in the Backwaters, and rebel groups there organize against the entire Vasavadan family.
• The Tower of Traitors is a dizzying, skull-studded structure that grows daily. Some say its completion will cleanse the nation of evil, while others believe it will summon the gods' wrath.

Settlements and Sites

Kalakeri is dominated by tropical rain forests that surround hundreds of miles of inland waterways. Farming and fishing villages line these waterways and the coast.

Jadurai

This city is thousands of years old. Here ancient structures with the architecture of previous dynasties stand alongside modern buildings. Hardly a month passes without locals rediscovering a forgotten chamber or catacomb.

The colorfully canopied Lakshma Market trades in everything from betel leaves to the eggs of wyverns, which are common near the mountain spires known as the Lesser and Greater Vochalam. People of all social classes flock to the market, moving past the flower-petaled kolam that ward the entrances of the high temple of Kalakeri’s gods.

Jadurai retains its splendor, but the conflict between Ramya and her siblings takes an enormous toll. Sections of the city lie in ruins, and the slums encroach farther every day as misery and squalor consume Jadurai from the inside.

The Backwaters

An extensive web of brackish rivers and lakes crisscrosses the Harvest Peninsula. Houseboats travel their lengths, ferrying food and wares between thriving trade towns, rural villages, and the estates of regional nobles.

Refugees from the ongoing war and the rampant poverty of Jadurai seek haven in the Backwaters. Those brave enough to fight the tyranny of the Vasavadan scions organize into rebel bands that prepare desperate, dangerous attacks on the royal family.

Kalakeri’s most fearsome predators inhabit the Backwaters, including Basilisk, Hydra, Stone Giant, and Cloud Giant.

Cerulean Citadel

The Cerulean Citadel is the palace of the royal family. The jewel in Jadurai’s crown, it derives its name from the sky-blue sandstone used to construct its outer walls. The octagonal Citadel encompasses one hundred acres. Within its defensive walls and strategic bastions lies a complex of beautifully designed marble quarters and pavilions, arranged between courtyards, baths, ponds, and gardens. Bas-reliefs adorn the buildings, depicting the history, heroes, and legends of the kingdom, some of which remain mysteries to the wisest scholars. The central domed court houses the Sapphire Throne and is the hub of political activity in the Citadel. Beneath the Citadel, vast tunnels for storing supplies and secretly moving troops also hide the magical troves of forgotten rulers.

Tower of Traitors

The Tower of Traitors is an ever-expanding structure on the outskirts of Jadurai, situated on the battlefield where Arijani and Reeva murdered Ramya, precipitating the creation of Kalakeri as a domain. Row upon row of skulls, all taken from Ramya’s fallen enemies, fill depressions set into the stone tower. Two skulls hold places of special prominence: the original human skulls of Arijani and Reeva. Ramya’s skeletal soldiers continue to build the tower as part of her plan to rid Kalakeri of evil and receive the gods' blessings.

The Vochalams

Two treacherous mountains jut from the forest-cloaked hills and cliffs of southwestern Kalakeri. The Greater Vochalam and the slightly smaller Lesser Vochalam are home to vast numbers of wyverns. Legends say that temples crown both mountains and that an ancient deity placed a treasure able to grant wishes in one of them. Whoever claims the treasure in the wrong temple, though, is turned into a wyvern loyal to Kalakeri’s true leader.

The Ashram of Niranjan

Another Domain of Dread hails from the same lands as Kalakeri. Those who sail into the Mists of the Sea of Spears often find this shadow-haunted domain of Niranjan, which is detailed further in the “Other Domains of Dread” section later in this chapter.

Ramya Vasavadan

The Vasavadan dynasty has ruled over Kalakeri since ancient times. Ramya Vasavadan was hand-picked by her father to succeed him, but on the bleak day of the maharana’s death, Ramya’s brother, Arijani, declared himself the new maharana. Allied with ranas hungry for unearned power, Arijani tried to force Ramya to relinquish the Sapphire Throne.

Ramya refused to yield. Moving swiftly, she organized her allies, met her brother in battle, and captured him. She intended to execute Arijani, but her sister Reeva counseled her to be merciful. Ultimately, Ramya forgave the rebel faction, Arijani was imprisoned, and Ramya ascended as Kalakeri’s maharani, Queen of Kings.

A golden period in Kalakeri’s history followed as Ramya promoted learning and upheld justice. Meanwhile, Reeva secretly coordinated with Ramya’s foes. After years of resentment and plotting, the rebels freed Arijani and spurred nobles across the nation into open revolt.

The resulting conflict swiftly turned vicious. Regretting her past mercy, Ramya captured enemy ranas and executed them using flame and ravenous tigers, while her loyalists put anyone suspected of treason to the sword. The maharani’s brutality increased distrust in her rule, and the fighting spread.

After numerous battles, Reeva begged her sister to meet her brother and negotiate an end to the war. Ramya, who remained ignorant of Reeva’s part in freeing Arijani, trusted her sister—and walked straight into their trap.

Ambushers slaughtered Ramya’s royal guards and captured the maharani. In the central courtyard of the Cerulean Citadel, Arijani sentenced his sister to death. As the court strangler’s garrote crushed her windpipe, Ramya cursed her brother and sister, calling them bloodthirsty beasts. Arijani and Reeva denied their sister the honors befitting a maharani, dumping Ramya’s corpse into the sea. As they did, a terrible monsoon struck the Harvest Peninsula, bringing with it walls of supernatural mist that closed around Kalakeri.

The storm lashed Kalakeri for weeks, and when it reached its height, Ramya emerged from her watery grave. Reborn with terrifying power, she called upon those who had been slaughtered in her service. Loyal in death, a corpse legion joined the revitalized maharani. They stalked the streets of Jadurai, tore down the gates of the Cerulean Citadel, and slaughtered those who had betrayed Ramya. They dragged Arijani and Reeva into the courtyard where their sister died, and there Ramya declared them traitors. The treacherous pair clawed and howled like beasts as undead elephants crushed them to death. Their wails of terror left Ramya unmoved.

Arijani and Reeva’s plots didn’t end with their lives, however. They too were reborn, transformed into fiends with animalistic features by their souls' ravenous desires. And so the conflict gripping Kalakeri continues, trapping the nation in an endless war and forcing its people to swear loyalty to monsters.

Ramya’s Powers and Dominion

Reborn as a death knight, Ramya desperately tries to hold on to or retake the Sapphire Throne in a cycle of victory and loss with her equally uncompromising siblings. Although an illusion disguises her deathless state, Ramya constantly feels the chill in her bones and her own crumbling flesh. Her existence has becomes one of constant struggle, doubt, and defeat as her obsessions shape all of Kalakeri.

War Leader

Ramya eagerly leads her troops in battle. She rides into combat upon a war elephant or wyvern and carries the legendary talwar (longsword) and longbow of the Vasavadan dynasty’s founder. The Vasavadan coat of arms, a golden wyvern clutching a white lotus in its talons, emblazons her armor and that of her soldiers.

Merciless

Ramya demands loyalty from her subjects. She and her soldiers kill anyone who she considers a traitor, a status extended not only to those who back Arijani and Reeva, but even to those who don’t support her vociferously enough. Her paranoia makes her ruthless, leading her to slaughter countless innocents.

Deathless Loyalty

Kalakeri’s armies and the guards of the Cerulean Citadel obey Ramya without question, despite thousands of them having died in her service. These soldiers' loyalty follows them into death. Any living soldier who dies in Ramya’s service returns to life as an Undead warrior—a skeleton or wight—on the night of the next new moon and rejoins the maharani’s army. Ramya’s living followers consider this deathless state an honor and the ultimate mark of loyalty.

Blood Relatives

Ramya never compromises with her siblings Arijani and Reeva. She constantly struggles to quell the rebellion they lead, as detailed in “Treachery in Kalakeri” later in this domain.

Closing the Borders

Ramya can close or open Kalakeri’s borders as detailed in “The Mists” at the start of this chapter, but she can do so only while she controls the Sapphire Throne. If her faction is driven out of Jadurai, the domain’s borders remain in their current state until she regains control.

Ramya’s Torment

The Dark Powers endlessly conspire to confound Ramya, most persistently in the following ways:

• Ramya’s treacherous siblings, Arijani and Reeva, endlessly contest her reign and sow discord across Kalakeri. Ramya both loathes and loves her siblings, so despite their perpetual deceptions, she remains vulnerable to their promises and lies.
• Ramya can manipulate her domain and control its borders only while she controls the Sapphire Throne. If she is ousted and one of her siblings controls the Cerulean Citadel, doubt and despair weaken her influence over her domain until she retakes her seat of power.
• An illusion masks Ramya’s Undead state. Her true nature is revealed only by the chill of her skin and in her withered reflection. Ramya permits no mirrors in her presence, lest her curse be revealed.

Roleplaying Ramya

Ramya is distant and aloof, though she craves connection. Those who speak with her find her measured in conversation, and capable of kindness and humor. However, a vein of paranoia runs through all her actions, and she reacts to any hint of suspicious words or deeds with creative and potentially lethal tests and punishments.

Personality Trait

“There is loyalty, and there is treachery. In rule, there are no half measures.”

Ideal

“I will regain my deserved glory even if I must scour the world with my wrath.”

Bond

“I still love those who oppose me. The flames of righteousness provide the swiftest path to renewal.”

Flaw

“None are truly trustworthy. I am utterly alone.”

Adventures in Kalakeri

Kalakeri is trapped in an unbreakable spiral of suffering and hate. The common folk exert no control over the struggle for the Sapphire Throne and are forced to maintain the appearance of loyalty toward rival terrors.

Every part of Kalakeri holds secrets and dangers, and nowhere is untouched by its rulers' war for dominance. When planning adventures in Kalakeri, consider who currently controls the Sapphire Throne—Ramya or Arijani and Reeva. Either faction is likely to notice the party and court them as potential allies. The characters then walk the fine line detailed in the “Treachery in Kalakeri” section later in this domain description.

The wilds of Kalakeri might also fuel terrifying adventures. The land holds all manner of perilous ruins and mysteries, from the secrets of lost rulers to the practices of forbidden magical sects. Without a steady, reliable presence on the throne, ancient cults, deadly beasts, and opportunistic demagogues are free to unleash dooms upon isolated villages. Your adventures might lead characters into Kalakeri’s deepest wilds to rediscover lost secrets, save innocents, or curry favor with a faction.

Consider the plots on the Kalakeri Adventures table when planning adventures in this domain.

Kalakeri Adventures

Vasavadan Traitors

Maharani Ramya’s rule over Kalakeri is constantly jeopardized and undermined by her deceitful siblings' endless pursuit of power. Arijani and Reeva promise their followers wealth, freedom, and a chance for unprecedented social ascension, but in truth, their agendas are entirely self-serving, and they care for nothing but control. Whether or not the characters agree with these rebellious royals' agendas, they present the most significant opposition to Ramya’s ruthless control of Kalakeri—while defeating them is the swiftest route to gaining Ramya’s favor.

Arijani

Arijani is the charming face of resistance for all who oppose Ramya’s control of the Sapphire Throne. Like Ramya and Reeva, Arijani was given a second life by the Dark Powers. Now a rakshasa, Arijani uses his mastery of illusions and Reeva’s insights to manipulate Ramya and his other foes. He’s gregarious and enjoys the finer things in life, traits that ingratiate him with the wealthy and influential supporters he seeks to attract to his cause. These traits also allow him to cultivate a persona of vacant decadence, which he uses as a mask so his foes will underestimate him and reveal themselves. Arijani has faked his and Reeva’s deaths on multiple occasions, after which they always return “resurrected,” leading Ramya to believe they can never be truly defeated.

Reeva

Reeva remembers a time when she loved Ramya, before her sister eclipsed her in their family’s esteem. Unable to overtake Ramya in leadership skills, she sought more subtle methods. Her interests in intrigue and magic intensified when she discovered a hidden library beneath the Cerulean Citadel—a repository of insidious magic hearkening back to the rule of certain tyrannical Vasavadan ancestors. Reeva uses what she discovered there to further Arijani’s ambitions and yearns to gain control over the citadel so she can unearth its deepest, most insidious secrets.

After her murder, Reeva was reborn as an arcanaloth, a state that horrifies her. When frustrated, she vents her rage by instructing her servants to abduct someone she considers beautiful and then overseeing that beauty’s destruction. Reeva is a cunning plotter, strategist, and manipulator. She applies these talents to her magic, entreating fiends for aid and using them to hasten the day when no one will underestimate her again. Many of Arijani’s allies don’t trust Reeva. Behind her back, they mockingly call her charismatic Arijani’s opposite, or “Inajira.”

Treachery in Kalakeri

The struggle between the heirs to the Sapphire Throne drives the conflict in Kalakeri. Both Ramya’s loyalists and Arijani and Reeva’s rebels are fanatics, eager to report or act against those they consider traitors to the nation’s rightful ruler or rulers. Meanwhile, the common folk in areas under a faction’s clear control extol their loyalty to the local power loudly; in less stable areas, most keep their allegiance secret. While exploring the domain, characters regularly face questions about their loyalty—and in this conflict, neutrality is tantamount to betraying both sides. The characters' answers eventually earn them the attention of one side or the other, with members of that faction trying to dragoon them into the conflict.

Renown in Kalakeri

Judgment follows everything the characters do in Kalakeri. Those who support either of the domain’s factions earn enemies and allies. Those who don’t support a faction draw suspicion. Those who play the factions against one another might earn the favor of both—but for how long?

Using the renown system from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, track the characters' standing with Kalakeri’s two factions. Every character begins with 0 renown score with each faction. Characters gain or lose points as they act against or in the service of either faction. As they do so, their standing with the factions changes, granting them access to favors or provoking reprisals. Characters adjust their renown score once per adventure, and rarely by more than 5 points. The Renown in Kalakeri table notes activities that increase or decrease a character’s renown score.

Intrigue and Horror

When dealing with Kalakeri’s factions, every option or choice has ramifications. Give the characters opportunities to meet, interact with, and rise in the esteem of Ramya, Arijani, and Reeva. As they do, highlight the monstrous nature of the three villains and that dealing with them involves hard choices. The renown system requires the characters to become active participants in the horrors of Kalakeri, encouraging them to ally with evil beings or make uncomfortable concessions to win greater victories later. Perhaps the characters betray Ramya in a way that evicts her from Jadurai for years, or cause one of Arijani and Reeva’s political alliances to crumble. How far will they go for such opportunities?

Benefits of Renown

Whether the characters back Ramya or Arijani and Reeva, or seek to play both sides, those who advance in their standing with a faction advance in that side’s esteem, gaining favor with that faction’s leader or leaders and influence over their plots. Use the examples of these benefits in the following sections to guide you in creating further rewards and concessions appropriate to the characters' standing.

Losing Renown

A character’s renown score with a faction can drop to less than 0. A faction mistrusts and actively opposes the suggestions of characters with a renown score of–1 or lower. Those with a renown score of–5 or lower are actively hunted by a faction’s members and considered enemy agents.

Recovering Renown

It’s possible for characters to gain renown with a faction, betray the faction, and still maintain a measure of respect with the group. Characters might thus thread the needle of serving both groups. Relationships constantly shift in Kalakeri, and grudges rarely last long. As a result, the characters might walk the razor’s edge of loyalty and betrayal in hopes of furthering their own goals.

Continual Conflict

Kalakeri’s factions are locked in a stalemate, their victories and losses forgotten within days or weeks. Characters who interact with the factions might change this balance. But if either faction firmly controls Kalakeri, the leaders enact their monstrous agendas upon the land, leading only to continued suffering. The Dark Powers ensure that the defeated faction doesn’t remain quelled for long, though. The characters might instead try to gain influence with Ramya or with Arijani and Reeva to curb the villains' atrocities and mitigate the wickedness in Kalakeri. Such actions put the characters at risk, but if they don’t intercede, who will?

####### Renown in Kalakeri

Loyalists of Kalakeri

The Kalakeri military and traditionalists throughout the domain back Maharani Ramya’s claim to the Sapphire Throne. Ramya tries to eliminate her siblings and the rebels supporting them through dramatic military actions and merciless trials and tests of loyalty. The loyalists covet Jadurai as a center of power and revere the Tower of Traitors, which serves as a command center and a symbol of undying loyalty.

Benefits of Renown

Those who gain certain thresholds of renown with the loyalists can make requests of that faction and Maharani Ramya. These requests and the threshold at which they’ll be entertained are detailed on the Loyalist Benefits table—along with how the request adjusts the character’s renown score with the faction, if applicable. Ramya treats those with a renown score of 25 or higher as trusted advisors and reveals her undead nature to them.

####### Loyalist Benefits

Rebels of Kalakeri

Since Arijani and Reeva’s murder and monstrous resurrection, control of the Sapphire Throne has passed between Ramya and Arijani multiple times. Using their influence among the ranas and merchants in the western part of Kalakeri, Arijani and Reeva have repeatedly driven Ramya out of the capital or into shocking defeats. When in control of the Cerulean Citadel, Arijani hosts decadent parties to spread his influence among Kalakeri’s elite and those who further his interests. These events serve a secondary role in concealing private feasts featuring obscene delicacies and mortal flesh, allowing Arijani and Reeva to satisfy their fiendish hungers.

Benefits of Renown

Those who gain certain thresholds of renown with the rebels can make requests of that faction, Arijani, and Reeva. These requests and the threshold at which they’ll be entertained are detailed on the Rebel Benefits table—along with how the request adjusts the character’s renown score with the faction, if applicable. Arijani and Reeva never reveal their true natures to anyone.

####### Rebel Benefits

Kartakass

Domain of Tarnished Dreams

• Darklord: Harkon Lukas

Genres

Dark fantasy and gothic horror

Hallmarks

Hidden identities, dangerous performances, exploitative ambitions, werewolves

Mist Talismans

Handbill advertising remarkable performances, rustic woodcut of hunting wolves, wolf’s tooth necklace

Kartakass is a vast stage that serenades the ambitious with promises of fame. Performance is a way of life in this forested domain, with everyone from the bards of Skald to the actors of Emherst pursuing dazzling dreams. Here, the people live by a simple rule: never let an audience grow bored.

To outsiders, life feels staged and surreal in Kartakass, as every plant and beast, every peasant and performer strives to prove their greatness. Trees and flowers burst into bloom and then wither after their extended spring, while songbirds sing themselves hoarse. And every local, from the youngest child to the most venerable elder, knows that dreams, fame, and immortal adulation are theirs for the taking—if they prove worthy.

In Kartakass, individuals strive for glory. Where talent and expertise fail, obsession and duplicity reign, leading to repeating cycles of triumph, betrayal, and despair. Predators of all sorts flourish in this land of consuming passions and vicious secrets. With each full moon, the truth of Kartakass is exposed, and lycanthropes reveal their hunger for dominance and for blood.

Kartakan Characters

Characters from Kartakass are quick to smile—and quicker to be suspicious of others' smiling faces. The domain’s population is comprised of a variety of peoples who have broad ranges of rich skin and hair colors. The use of dyes and cosmetics to accent one’s features and memorability is common among all genders. When players create characters from Kartakass, consider asking them the following questions.

What artistic skill do you idealize or have a talent for? Is it a natural skill? Is it your family’s preferred art form? Did you learn it from an idol or mentor?

What do you use your talents, work, or travels to hide? Does insecurity or doubt drive you to excel? Did someone best you in your field of mastery? Does a vice, curse, or rumor color your reputation?

What does success mean to you? Do you pursue wealth, fame, love, or acceptance? What extremes would you embrace to gain success?

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Kartakass know the following facts:

• Kartakass has no unifying government. Instead, each settlement is governed by a meistersinger, who is acknowledged as the mayor and embodiment of local art. Meistersingers maintain creative rivalries with each other, largely for show.
• Settlements pride themselves on performative traditions, such as distinctive dress or song stylings.
• Wolves roam the land freely. Few venture outside during the full moon, fearing werewolves.
• A sourceless song whispers through the mystical Wildersung Wood, always fading before it ends. Although no one knows its conclusion, all Kartakans know the beginning: “Sing of the trees, give voice to the breeze, and stave off the bloom of doom. While the wise sing their song, guilty necks stretch long, and…”

Settlements and Sites

Kartakass is a gentle land of rolling hills, light forests, and clear lakes. The domain welcomes strangers. Small bands of merchants roam along the Lost Chord road or visit the quay at Point Hallucination in hopes of welcoming visitors and directing them to the domain’s festively decorated communities.

Emherst

Upon the cave-threaded, wooded rise known as the Fox’s Theater stands the idyllic village of Emherst—and beneath it lies the true Emherst. On the surface, Emherst is an elaborate, immersive stage. Every “resident” is an in-character actor, and most are younger than thirty, including those playing aged roles. These are students of the Emherst School of Living Theater located in the Understage, a network of caverns beneath the village. This underground “backstage” connects every structure in the village via tunnels and hosts elaborate elevators and special-effects devices. Incredibly devoted to their craft, the instructors, students, and support staff of Emherst continually improvise performances, taking seven weeks to prepare before performing uninterrupted through an eighth “live” week. As actors refuse to break character, outsiders find the performances changing around them to incorporate their interactions with the community. Ruthless competition for prime roles leads to tragedy, the appearance of tragedy, or individual breaks with reality.

Harmonia

Among the oldest settlements in Kartakass, Harmonia is considered the heart of the land’s musical traditions. Entertainers pursuing the “true” music of Kartakass train and perform in the town’s numerous venues, such as the Harmonic Hall school of music and the acoustically complex Amphitheater of Harmonia, which projects whispers in some areas and silences screams in others. Artists vie for opportunities to present their work at the supremely popular Crystal Club, a members-only venue inside a cave that features a stage constructed from a massive natural geode. The club is known for its dramatic decor and overly critical clientele, and it’s widely rumored that performers who fail to impress at the exclusive club go into exile. The bloodier truth reflects the fact that the club’s membership is restricted to lycanthropes. This echoes the secret of Harmonia: its vaunted traditions, such as night performances, fur-trimmed clothing, and grisly woodcuts, are inexorably intertwined with bestial curses.

Medria

The fishing village of Medria sits on the southern shore of Tragedy’s Stage, a lake known for its notoriously choppy waters. The community’s residents are uniquely inured to apocalypse scenarios, since early morning sound blasts, wandering puppets, and lurid but heatless explosions regularly emanate from the studios of local dramatic effects artists and their apprentices. Magic and theatricality blur in Medria, leaving the locals numb to both wonder and danger.

Skald

The largest community in Kartakass, Skald presents itself as a bustling hub of commerce and creativity that boasts the best of everything in the land. The lure of overnight celebrity, glowing marquees, and fawning crowds attracts the ambitious to Skald, aspiring to the fame of stars such as the renowned bard Akriel Lukas. Yet behind the facade of creativity and freethinking, business owners and aging celebrities prey on youth and creativity, while critics and struggling performers create a culture of desperate deceptions. Vice, criminality, dark bargains, and supernatural predators flourish in Skald, like a pack of wolves hiding behind glamorous masks.

Wildersung Wood

The straight-limbed trees that make up this wood bear bark that causes sounds to echo. Wildlife lurks restlessly in the Wildersung Wood, stalking travelers with unusual boldness. And each day at twilight, a sourceless chorus drifts through the trees. The voices always sing the opening verses of the same song, but fade before it ends. Legends warn that any who hear the song should raise their voices and join the chorus. Those who don’t risk meeting a terrible fate—strangers or those who refuse to sing are regularly discovered with inexplicably broken necks.

Harkon Lukas

Harkon Lukas’s life companions are ambition and blood. Born amid a community of lycanthropes, he dreamed of commanding not just a pack, but a whole army, a nation, even an empire of born predators. Early in life, he sought to unite his reckless werebeast family and turn them into tools of his ambition. When they failed him, though, Harkon lashed out, ultimately driving the lycanthropes to turn on him. The would-be leader murdered dozens but barely escaped alive, fleeing into a nation of humans.

In the years that followed, Harkon learned how to blend in with other peoples, how to manipulate those he considered his inferiors, and how to turn adoration into a weapon. He decided that if rule over a nation of hunters wasn’t possible, he would force an empire of sheep to dance to the howling of wolves. Harkon Lukas became a legend, a performer, a teacher, a scoundrel, and a luminary. People flocked to bask in his remarkable presence.

Eventually, though, the land’s rulers realized the threat Harkon posed. Officials tried to quietly imprison him for invented crimes, but the people defended him. When royal agents came for him en masse, the lycanthrope feigned his death. Outraged, the celebrity’s followers rioted, and as the news spread, their outrage inspired a revolution. Within a week, the nation’s government had crumbled, its defenders fleeing before an army that bore the red-stained coffin of Harkon Lukas at its head. As the rebel forces neared the walls of the royal palace, they were met by a contrite monarch, who gave a heartfelt speech, begging forgiveness and outlining concessions and a way for the nation to move forward. The rebels agreed to further negotiation.

At that moment, Harkon Lukas ended his ploy, bursting from his crimson coffin in wolf form and devouring the monarch before thousands of followers. Drenched in blood, the “resurrected” Harkon returned to his human form and donned a battered crown amid the roaring cheers of a nation of fans. But before the reign of the wolf could begin, the Mists rose amid the assembled throng and closed around their champion. When they cleared, the sovereign-wolf was no longer a step away from rule, but a stranger in an unfamiliar provincial land called Kartakass.

Harkon’s Powers and Dominion

A born liar and shape-shifter, Harkon Lukas orchestrates elaborate manipulations. He has statistics similar to a loup garou (see chapter 5) but is never forced to change shape, either by the moon or by other external factors. He prefers his human form, but explores different physical details as the mood strikes him. He’s rarely seen without his signature wide-brimmed hat; wolf’s tooth necklace; and violin, which he calls Bleeding Heart.

Hungry for Fame

Despite being Darklord, Harkon Lukas numbers among the least feared of Kartakass’s people. He ever seeks to win esteem and influence among the domain’s people, but the locals constantly forget he’s a relevant modern performer. They remember his works fondly but vaguely, ever distracted by new novelties. In response, Harkon reinvents himself time and time again, striving to win the domain’s love. To this end, he often exploits ambitious and naive new talent. He collects promising up-and-coming performers, becomes their mentor, traps them within the bond of lycanthropy, and then uses them as tools (see the “Insatiable Hungers” section later in this domain for details). Such alliances rarely last for more than a few months before Harkon grows bored and steals his protégés' performance ideas, their wealth, and their lives.

The Lukas Clan

Harkon Lukas uses and manipulates all those around him with two exceptions: his eldest adult children, Akriel and Casimir. Both children aren’t lycanthropes and have complicated relations with their father, seeking to both earn his favor and surpass his greatest triumphs. Akriel idolizes Harkon and mimics his performing style to fuel her own career. As the Dark Powers don’t torment her as they do Harkon, her reputation steadily grows—much to her father’s resentment. Casimir, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with Harkon and seeks to make his own way in life. Whether at the whims of his father or the Mists, though, he always finds his way back to Kartakass.

The Old Kartakan Inn and Taverna

Lukas owns this intimate, traditional tavern in Skald. Nightly, either Harkon Lukas (if he’s in town) or new artists under his tutelage perform here. Any newcomer who performs on the Old Kartakan’s stage is sure to become Skald’s newest celebrity, with all the adulation, opportunity, and jealousy that inspires. Harkon keeps a private suite in the taverna. Those who come here seeking him must first talk their way past the taverna’s heavily tattooed head bouncer and mixologist, the werewolf Haldrake Moonbaun.

Closing the Borders

When Harkon chooses to close Kartakass’s borders, a soothing song fills the Mists. The Mists function as detailed in “The Mists” at the start of this chapter, but in addition, any creature in the Mists that has its speed reduced to 0 by exhaustion falls unconscious and is teleported out of the Mists. The creature awakes at the Mists' edge back in Kartakass 1d6 hours later.

Harkon Lukas’s Torment

The Dark Powers endlessly stymie Harkon’s quest for fame, assaulting his ego in the following ways:

• Harkon is obsessed with spreading his fame and travels Kartakass endlessly. Whenever he returns to a community, though, he finds he has been forgotten. Semi-polite variations of “I thought you’d retired” ever torment him.
• Harkon believes he just needs to find the right act, styling, or inspiration to finally cement him in the hearts of Kartakass’s people—and from there, take control of the nation.
• Although Harkon is unable to build his own fame, he has a peerless eye for talent. His protégés swiftly attain stardom, and with it, Harkon’s resentment.
• Harkon’s frustration eventually gives way to indulgences of his lycanthropic hungers. Bloody slaughters of his students and rivals often precede him moving on to another town.

Roleplaying Harkon

Harkon Lukas thrives on compliments and control. The lycanthrope skillfully reads other people, anticipates their ambitions and desires, and readily exploits them. He has a talent for flattery and making others feel like the center of the world. But he’s a natural liar, and his seeming earnestness disguises double meanings and lies.

Personality Trait

“My words are beauty, my deeds are power, and my aspirations will change the world.”

Ideal

“Everyone wants to love me. I’ll make them realize that.”

Bond

“I share my passions broadly and intensely, but everyone understands that the most dazzling flames die fastest.”

Flaw

“Anyone who spurns my love will know my hunger.”

Adventures in Kartakass

The desires and secrets of Kartakass’s people run in parallel with those of the lycanthropes that flourish here. The domain’s residents consider lycanthropes to be legendary threats, but in truth any resident who gives in to their vices might be consumed by the beast within. Numerous types of lycanthropes might flourish in Kartakass, or the curse of lycanthropy could spontaneously manifest in people who can’t control their passions. Use or customize the lycanthropes in the Monster Manual to create cursed individuals transformed by desire and vice into bestial hybrids.

Kartakass also presents a fantastic domain in which to explore surreal twists on nature. The Dark Powers might give animals and plants friendly voices and welcoming aspects, but every being in the domain has an agenda. The cycle of life, as framed by predators and prey, takes on a grisly cast when a songbird’s aria is cut short by lupine jaws.

Consider the plots on the Kartakass Adventures table when planning adventures in this domain.

Kartakass Adventures

Insatiable Hungers

In Kartakass, characters can effortlessly earn reputations as heroes and luminaries. Their smallest feats become exaggerated in stories and song, opening the door for greater connections and opportunities. Depict the public’s interest in the characters by using the renown system presented in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.Start the characters with high renown scores, but let their renown scores decay if they don’t work to keep the public’s interest. At the height of their fame, characters might be recognized by strangers on the streets, given free room and board, or invited to lavish social events. As their novelty fades, though, they’ll find passersby snickering behind their backs and social circles closing to them. There are ways to alter the characters' social trajectory, though, such as embracing a relationship with Harkon Lukas.

The Darklord’s Betrayal

Harkon Lukas approaches the characters as an ally who eagerly sponsors their adventures and rise to fame. Although he does this in hopes of benefiting from the characters' triumphs and stealing their celebrity, the Darklord can be a powerful ally. Ultimately, though, all of Harkon’s relationships walk a familiar path.

Meeting the Darklord

Through sycophants and werewolf allies, the Darklord learns of noteworthy characters before they hear of him. By manufacturing a chance encounter, Harkon takes the opportunity to be impressed by or indebt himself to the characters. He then uses tactics on the Favors for Harkon Lukas table to share a goal with intriguing characters. However Harkon comes to need or employ the characters, he encourages and compliments them. Afterward, he seeks to employ the characters further, either on personal jobs or by tipping them off about grander quests.

####### Favors for Harkon Lukas

Bite of the Darklord

After gaining a measure of the party’s confidence or singling out a character as a useful favorite, Harkon Lukas asks his eccentric signature question: “May I bite you?” He does this while removing his wolf tooth necklace and offering to place it around a character’s neck. By doing so, he marks the character as his protégé. If the character refuses, Harkon respects their decision but hopes they will reconsider. If the character accepts, the Darklord gives them Harkon’s Bite (see the description below). Harkon acknowledges that the necklace carries minor magic to bless the wearer’s performances. However, he doesn’t mention that it also curses the wearer with lycanthropy. The Darklord can create one new necklace every week.

The Darklord’s Pack

Harkon curses protégés with lycanthropy to force them into a circle of confidence. During the first full moon after a character receives Harkon’s Bite, the Darklord lingers nearby to “discover” their transformation. He promises to keep this secret and reveals his own lycanthropy. The Darklord then uses this shared secret to gain leverage over the character and pushes them to embrace the curse. Harkon is initially patient with those who refuse his aid but manufactures perils that push the character to rely on him.

• The Darklord’s Betrayal. Inevitably, the Darklord grows tired of his protégés. Harkon begins treating them as minions or expendables to be used in his schemes. Those who resist find their reputations destroyed, their secrets revealed, and wolves dogging their steps. The only recourse is to flee Kartakass, upstage the Darklord, or somehow reveal Harkon Lukas as a monster.

{@item Harkon’s Bite|VRGR}

Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)

A dire wolf tooth dangles from this simple cord necklace. While you wear it, the necklace grants you a +1 bonus to ability checks and saving throws.

Curse

Attuning to Harkon’s Bite curses you until either Harkon Lukas removes the necklace from you or you are targeted by a remove curse spell or similar magic. As long as you remain cursed, you cannot remove the necklace.

Upon donning or removing the necklace, whether you are attuned to it or not, you are afflicted with werewolf lycanthropy as detailed in the Monster Manual. The curse lasts until the dawn after the next full moon. If you are still wearing the necklace at this time, you are afflicted with the lycanthropy again.

Lamordia

Domain of Snow and Stitched Flesh

• Darklord: Viktra Mordenheim

Genres

Body horror and gothic horror

Hallmarks

Amoral science, bizarre constructs, frigid wilderness, mutagenic radiation

Mist Talismans

Animate finger, glowing minerals, preserved limb

Life is cheap in Lamordia. As far as the land’s esteemed scholars are concerned, the spark that animates flesh is merely the result of chemical accidents and the proper formulas. Golems, homunculi, and other constructed beings groan to life to support a populace desperate to survive in this frigid realm.

Frozen bogs and glacial expanses surround Lamordia’s smog- and machinery-filled cities. Unpredictable blizzards plague the long winters, and the chill summers last only a few weeks. Those who brave the wilds must contend with starving predators, from wolf packs and giant owls to isolated Humanoid clans struggling to subsist outside the domain’s iron-walled cities. The cruel environment and populace threatened by starvation make Lamordia a crucible of desperate innovations. Claiming to work for the greater good, innovators and scholars push beyond the limits of morality. Their scalpels turn scientific pursuits into butchery, as their experiments reach beyond what is necessary for health to grasp after the secrets of existence. Flesh is Lamordia’s most abundant natural resource, exploited for both desperate purposes and vain ambitions. And no ambitions have led to greater evils than the work of the domain’s Darklord, Dr. Viktra Mordenheim.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Lamordia know these facts:

• Lamordia is a frigid land of barren mountains, frozen swamps, and icy seas. Its ruler, Baron von Aubrecker, hasn’t left his estate for years, though he issues proclamations and sends agents to collect taxes.
• Steam power driven by boiling sewers fuels clockwork inventions and massive cranes in the city of Ludendorf. The necessity of such innovations in fending off starvation and the frigid environment encourages the scientists at Ludendorf University to push the boundaries of science and morality.
• The reclusive genius Dr. Viktra Mordenheim created or inspired Ludendorf’s greatest innovations.
• Few voluntarily trek into Lamordia’s wilderness, fearing freak blizzards, starving beasts, and creatures warped by strange radiation.

Lamordian Characters

Characters from Lamordia are typically direct, skeptical of superstition, and inured to cold. Humans and gnomes are the domain’s primary residents, with white hair and skin, often tinged blue or gray, being common. German conventions inspire many names in the region. When players create characters from Lamordia, consider asking them the following questions.

Where and how were you raised in Lamordia? Were you a whaler, clerk, or factory owner in Ludendorf? Were you a miner, hunter, or prospector in Neufurchtenburg? Or if you lived outside these communities' walls, how did your family survive?

What is your relationship with Ludendorf University? Were you educated there? Have you used tools created by its scientists? Were you hired to participate in a doctor’s or student’s experiments? Did you sell them the flesh rights to your body?

How has the land scarred you? Have you suffered from frostbite in the wilderness? Do chemical or radiation burns scar your body? Did you sell a body part for coin? Did someone steal an organ from you while you slept?

Settlements and Sites

The bulk of Lamordia’s population is divided between two smoke-belching communities, Ludendorf and Neufurchtenburg. Few dwell outside these settlements, since life is short in the frigid wilderness.

Ludendorf

The city of Ludendorf is a morass of steam-powered factories operating at the behest of morally bankrupt barons. Boiling sewers and steam tunnels thread the city’s foundations, heating cramped tenements and powering the cranes needed by the city’s fleet. These ironclad, ice-breaking whaling vessels dare the Sea of Secrets to bring back massive beasts that provide vital food and fuel for the city.

Ensconced in the city’s heart, Ludendorf University supports many local industries. Funded by corrupt entrepreneurs and wealthy but immoral benefactors, the university’s vast curriculum boasts esoteric programs such as alchemical combustion, chemical sentience, and speculative anatomy. The sciences reign here, and students and faculty alike push to discover technologies that will net lucrative contracts from the city’s wealthy overlords. The university continually needs new subjects for experiments and hires volunteers or pays individuals for “flesh rights”—ownership of their cadavers once they die. A secret society within Ludendorf University idolizes Dr. Mordenheim and follows the reckless paths laid by her lesser-known early works.

Neufurchtenburg

Neufurchtenburg is a hardy town of bent-backed miners and desperate fortune-seekers. Tapped-out mines provide shelter for the residents, while the iron-walled city hosts the smoking refineries necessary to process minerals harvested from the mountain range known as the Sleeping Beast. These rarified, little-understood elements are then shipped to Ludendorf’s factories. Radiation-warped monsters and dangerous Humanoids from the nearby bogs roam the town’s borders, mounting assaults to steal minerals and disrupt mining operations. Neufurchtenburg’s hardy populace uses hulking clockwork machines, cutting-edge firearms, and destructive alchemy to fend off these incursions.

Schloss Aubrecker

The von Aubrecker clan has ruled Lamordia for as long as anyone remembers, from their ancestral home—a wind-whipped castle on a remote island. But Lamordia’s ruler, Baron Rudolph von Aubrecker, has not made a public appearance in the two decades since he alone survived a tragic shipwreck with the help of Dr. Mordenheim. Those who have business with the baron are welcome for a brief stay, but they interact only with his perpetually smiling butler, Gerta. Visitors never enter the castle’s west wing, where the baron—transformed into a brain in a jar (see chapter 5) by Mordenheim’s experiments—works to rebuild his lost body and exact revenge upon the doctor.

Schloss Mordenheim

This imposing complex perches on a dramatic cliff overlooking the icy sea and serves as the abode of Dr. Viktra Mordenheim, Lamordia’s Darklord. The doctor lives in a small portion of the castle, a high turret that holds her multi-level laboratory and personal chambers. The rest of the castle is home to her assistants and to servitor creations said to be generations beyond the inventions of Lamordia’s other scientists. Dr. Mordenheim doesn’t receive guests, but once a year she petitions Ludendorf University to send her its most promising student to serve as her new lab assistant. The doctor also regularly hires mercenaries, supposedly to find rare components for her experiments, recover stolen inventions, or fend off the mysterious figures that lurk in the lands around her home.

The Sleeping Beast

Overgrown with bizarrely warped forests, this jagged mountain range stretches for miles along the domain’s southern border. A blanket of eerie calm hangs over its peaks, the result of high levels of radioactivity in the strange mineral deposits that vein the region. Warped beasts with lopsided anatomy, extra heads, and stranger qualities roam here, ambushing the desperate miners. The mountains' name stems from the legends originating with the bog-dwelling precursors of Lamordia’s people who believed that the range was actually a single unfathomably large creature, and the veins of strange minerals were the beast’s bones and blood. They punished anyone who harvested minerals from the Sleeping Beast, since doing so risked waking the beast and precipitating an apocalyptic disaster.

Viktra Mordenheim

A child prodigy from a minor noble family, the brilliant Viktra Mordenheim became obsessed with the complexities of Humanoid anatomy at an early age. She taught herself medicine as a child, and as a teen earned both a doctorate and an appointment as a preeminent researcher at a local university. Despite her genius, though, the young Dr. Mordenheim lacked empathy, compassion, and moral qualms. She pursued medicine solely to satiate her burning intellectual curiosity, never to aid her patients. She perceived magic as stealing the powers of otherworldly beings and cheating the laws of nature, and sought instead to use her mind to master the world.

Eventually, Dr. Mordenheim became convinced that she could do more than create life—she could defeat death! She wished to breathe sentience into dead flesh and produce sturdier shells than the bodies of fragile, temporary mortals. She added corpse theft to her repertoire, employing thieves to procure specimens for her tests. This was how she met Elise, a beautiful but reckless body snatcher who was charmed by the doctor’s aloofness and whose spontaneity entranced the methodical surgeon.

When Elise began showing signs of an incurable wasting disease, it was the first time either woman had felt the pangs of despair. In the months that followed, Dr. Mordenheim desperately hastened her experiments, employing anyone who would bring her bodies—both newly dead and still living. On her operating table, victims were killed, returned to life, and died again as Mordenheim sought to glimpse the secrets hidden in the instant of death.

One moonless night, Elise fell into a sleep from which she wouldn’t wake. Bringing Elise to her lab, Dr. Mordenheim worked feverishly for days to save her, pouring what she’d learned from a thousand deaths into saving one life. Elise became the recipient of the doctor’s masterpiece, the end to disease and death: an artificial organ Mordenheim called the Unbreakable Heart. But as she stitched the miraculous device into place, constables burst into the lab and accused the doctor of facilitating numerous murders. As Dr. Mordenheim struggled against arrest, smoking chemicals and arcing electricity filled the laboratory. Before she lost consciousness, she saw Elise rise from the table, the Unbreakable Heart glowing within her behind golden stitches.

Dr. Mordenheim awoke in Lamordia, an unfamiliar land where her genius was celebrated. Elise and the Unbreakable Heart were nowhere to be found, but the doctor soon heard rumors of a glowing woman wandering in the icy wastes. Since then, Mordenheim has continued her experiments on the dead and living, striving to recreate her successes and failing every time. Between disappointments she searches the hinterlands, hoping to find Elise—and with her, the miracle of the Unbreakable Heart.

Mordenheim’s Powers and Dominion

Dr. Viktra Mordenheim dresses in functional, bloodstained lab wear. Her statistics are similar to those of a spy, but her focus is on science and her medical genius is unmatched. From her laboratory at Schloss Mordenheim, Dr. Mordenheim uses her scientific genius to pursue and pervert the secrets of life. Eschewing magic, the doctor uses unfathomable scientific secrets to achieve goals known only to her. While this might lead to plots involving all manner of amoral science, the doctor’s work includes the following routine abominable operations.

Construct Creation

Dr. Mordenheim can create any Construct or corporeal Undead by working in her laboratory for a number of uninterrupted days equal to the creature’s challenge rating. At the end of the final day, the creature is complete and obeys her will. She uses this ability to create Flesh Golem and Homunculus, as well as Zombie, Death’s Head, and Brain in a Jar (see chapter 5).

• Reborn Maker. A side effect of Dr. Mordenheim’s experiments is the creation of reborn (see chapter 1). It takes her 1d4 days and the dead bodies of two Medium or Small Humanoids to create one reborn.
• Brain Swap. Dr. Mordenheim can place a creature’s brain or head into another body, moving it from a donor to a recipient. The process requires the donor to have a brain and either be incapacitated or to have been dead for less than 24 hours. In an operation that takes 1 hour, the doctor transfers the donor’s brain or head from their body to the incapacitated or dead corporeal body of a creature without a brain. The donor awakes 1 hour later with control of the recipient’s body.

While controlling the recipient’s body, the donor retains their alignment, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. They otherwise use the recipient’s body’s statistics, but don’t gain access to the recipient’s knowledge, class features, or proficiencies. Dr. Mordenheim can swap a donor’s brain or head back from the recipient’s body to their original body through this same process, as long as the original body exists and no more than 1 week has passed. This period can be extended if steps are taken to preserve the original body, such as by keeping it in cold storage or under the effect of a gentle repose spell.

Closing the Borders

When Dr. Mordenheim closes Lamordia’s borders, temperatures across the domain drop below 0 degrees and driving snow scours the land (detailed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide). Those who reach the Mists find they function as detailed in “The Mists” at the start of this chapter.

Mordenheim’s Torment

Although Dr. Mordenheim doesn’t show her emotions, she’s vexed by the following circumstances:

• Mordenheim cannot remake the miracle of scientific immortality embodied by the Unbreakable Heart. She relentlessly tries to understand and repeat the circumstances of its creation, but fails every time.
• Elise evades Mordenheim’s attempts to find her.
• The people of Lamordia view Mordenheim as a luminary and savior. She does not understand why and loathes the distractions they create.

Roleplaying Mordenheim

Dr. Mordenheim’s most chilling feature is her absolute disregard for others' well-being and autonomy. Her lack of empathy is immediately apparent to any who meet her. She views people as mere collections of neurons and meat, and she considers herself so superior that others' lives mean nothing to her.

Personality Trait

“The body holds so many secrets. If you’ve nothing else useful to offer, your body’s secrets will reveal themselves on my slab.”

Ideal

“The perfect form and mind do not exist because I’ve not created them yet.”

Bond

“My genius is a blessing. Those who walk from my laboratory are reborn blessed.”

Flaw

“No one will ever approach my levels of genius. I simply cannot be matched.”

Adventures in Lamordia

Themes of body horror pervade adventures set in Lamordia. Here characters might become victims of Dr. Mordenheim’s experiments or uncover terrible truths underlying the domain’s strange science.

In the latter case, Lamordia’s sinister steampunk veneer offers a perfect setting for a grotesque flavor of gothic horror, focusing on lives enslaved to machines, the worth of flesh, and the cult of scientific advancement at any cost. The harsh landscape feeds into this with both brutal cold and deadly creatures. Are the “whales” the mighty steamships of Ludendorf hunt for food and fuel truly whales, or perhaps dinosaurs, dragon turtles, or abominations created from people’s flesh? At the other extreme, how do Lamordia’s original inhabitants—the spirits of forgotten tribes, icy Fey spirits, or the Sleeping Beast—feel about the land’s exploitation?

The monsters that roam Lamordia are lab-crafted horrors or mutated beasts, but use the statistics of creatures from the Monster Manual. A monstrosity burned by radiation might use the stat block for a cyclops, while a scientist’s winged flesh-blob assistant might use a homunculus’s stat block.

Beyond these possibilities, consider the plots on the Lamordia Adventures table when planning adventures in this domain.

Lamordia Adventures

Mordenheim’s Monsters

The horror at Lamordia’s heart is Dr. Mordenheim’s bizarre experiments and ceaseless search for Elise.

Elise and the Unbreakable Heart

Above all else, Dr. Mordenheim’s objectives are finding Elise and recovering or re-creating the Unbreakable Heart.

Elise

Dr. Mordenheim’s supposed beloved and greatest achievement, Elise is a confused, frustrated soul who never wished for her current circumstances. She’s now a flesh golem with the following adjustments:

• Elise does not have the Berserk or Aversion of Fire traits.
• She has immunity to cold damage.

Elise’s heart has been replaced with the Unbreakable Heart. If this device is removed, Elise dies, even if it is replaced with another heart. Elise is horrified by what Dr. Mordenheim did to her and tries to avoid the doctor and all strangers, fearing they might kill her to learn the Unbreakable Heart’s secrets. She roams without destination but keeps a hidden sanctuary at Hope’s Heart on the Isles of Agony. Although she has tried to leave Lamordia, the Mists prevent her from doing so.

The Unbreakable Heart

The Unbreakable Heart is a nonmagical scientific wonder that replaces a creature’s heart. The device installs itself, connecting to a creature’s anatomy and stitching itself into place if positioned in a cavity where the creature’s heart used to be. A creature with the device inside them is immune to disease, ceases to age, and does not die of old age, though they can still die in other ways. The glowing device sheds light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet. While inside a creature, the device causes the creature to shed dim light in a 10-foot radius.

Re-created by the Doctor

If the characters oppose Dr. Mordenheim, they face droves of her bizarre creations. They also risk becoming her newest experimental subjects.

Dr. Mordenheim’s experiments provide an opportunity to put players in control of strange creatures or unique bodies. Either as part of an adventure or a longer campaign, the characters might awaken with their minds transplanted into terrifying new forms. Such a plot comes with both opportunities and pitfalls. On the one hand, waking up in Mordenheim’s laboratory, either recently changed into reborn (see chapter 1) or about to undergo that process, could be an exciting way to start an adventure or whole campaign. On the other, players might not appreciate losing access to their characters or having their bodies held hostage to Dr. Mordenheim’s plots. Before running an adventure where players lose control of their characters or decisions about those characters are made for them, ask the players if they’re comfortable with such possibilities. It’s better to tip your hand about the plot than to lose a player’s investment in the game.

When delivering characters into the Darklord’s clutches, employ scenarios where the party is actively involved, not merely abducted in their sleep. Consider using any of the following events that might lead to plots involving Dr. Mordenheim.

Overwhelmed

Constructs created by Dr. Mordenheim attack the party or their allies (at the doctor’s command or otherwise). These foes are more powerful than the characters, who might defeat the majority of the attackers before being overwhelmed.

Self-Sacrifice

A massive sea beast attacks the characters' ship. The characters save the other passengers but fall into the icy water. They awake to discover that Dr. Mordenheim has “saved” them.

Worse Than Death

The characters are legitimately defeated during another adventure. Rather than the campaign ending, they awake in Dr. Mordenheim’s clutches, delivered there by the Mists.

Mordenheim’s Designs

Once the characters become subject to Dr. Mordenheim’s schemes, consider what she wants of them and what bodies she fashions to ensure that her new agents can fulfill her goals. While she could create a device or a chemical dependency that encourages the characters to serve her, holding their original bodies hostage is probably enticement enough. The Serving Dr. Mordenheim table suggests schemes the doctor might coerce the party to take part in. Whether she intends to fulfill her promises or keep her new agents hostage forever is up to you.

Serving Dr. Mordenheim

Mordent

Domain of the Haunted

• Darklord: Wilfred Godefroy

Genre

Ghost stories

Hallmarks

Ancestral curses, haunted mansions, mist-shrouded moors, vengeful spirits

Mist Talismans

Broken jewelry, death mask, faded love letter, family portrait

When death occurs in Mordent, it doesn’t signal a passage to a state of rest, or an end to the struggle of mortal existence. Death here heralds the beginning of a haunted afterlife as a restless spirit. The dead earn no rest, no finality, no peace—just a passage into a shadow world of wispy phantoms, mournful groaning, and clanking chains.

At first glance, Mordent is a quiet domain of peaceful country estates that sprawl across rolling moors. Landowners of the aristocratic class maintain a pretense of being the benevolent custodians of the land and its hard-working farmers, fishers, and laborers. From the loftiest families to the lowliest workers, Mordent’s people cling to traditions that define the order of society and each person’s place in it. They do things “the way they have always been done,” because the old ways offer stability and security in an uncertain world.

Beneath that peaceful veneer lies a troubled society trapped in the ghostly grasp of its ancestors. The past can’t be forgotten or left behind, because the spirits haunting the land embody that past. The social order can’t change, because the restless dead enforce the old ways to maintain that order.

In Mordent, the dead who have unfinished business or a strong tie to a place or a family line manifest as all manner of spectral terrors. But not every unquiet spirit haunts the living. Isolated spirits wander the moors and ignore the living, or melt slowly into the Mists until at last they forget their identities. An unlucky few become trapped in the magical experiments of twisted scholars or bound to the service of the Darklord of the domain, Lord Wilfred Godefroy. And those with a personal connection to the Darklord are inevitably drawn to his manor on Gryphon Hill to become part of his endless torment.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Mordent know the following facts:

• Most of Mordent’s people live in quaint communities, the largest of which is the seaside town of Mordentshire.
• The estates of wealthy families dot the Mordentish countryside. Most residents live private lives adhering to vague strictures of what is proper or polite.
• The spirits of the dead don’t rest quietly in Mordent. Each denizen of this realm can relate a story of a terrifying haunting that they or someone they know experienced personally.
• The House on Gryphon Hill is the most famous haunted house in Mordent, known to be occupied by the spirit of Lord Wilfred Godefroy—an evil man who murdered his wife and daughter.
• The proximity of the spirit realm spurs local eccentrics to investigate spiritualism and the nature of the soul.

Mordentish Characters

Characters from Mordent are typically earnest and practical. Humans are the domain’s primary residents. Locals have varied hair colors and a range of skin tones from black to pink, often with reddish undertones. Celtic and English conventions inspire many names in the region. When players create characters from Mordent, consider asking them the following questions.

Who your family? Ancestry matters in Mordent. Are you from a landed family? Or were your parents tenant farmers, fishers, laborers, or in service to one of the noble estates?

What are your family secrets? In Mordent, a secret shame, dismal curse, or gruesome haunt accompanies every family name. How much do you know about the skeletons in your family’s closet? What guilt or misfortune do you carry with you?

What’s your experience with the supernatural? Have you encountered a ghost or spirit, or heard a firsthand account of a haunting from someone close to you? How did that experience affect you?

Settlements and Sites

The lands of Mordent are carved into estates passed down through hereditary lines, accompanied by minor titles of nobility. These estates—including Gryphon Hill, Heather House, and Westcote Manor—number among the most notable landmarks in the domain. The tenant farmers who work the land pay a portion of their crops to the landowners as rent. A small but relatively well-off middle class populates the handful of towns and villages scattered across the domain, most notably the town of Mordentshire.

Mordentshire

Perched atop a chalky cliff overlooking a quiet harbor, the small town of Mordentshire is the domain’s center of trade—and thus, a place that the well-to-do aristocratic families of the countryside visit as little as possible. A cold wind blows in constantly from the sea, frequently escalating into howling storms. When the winds die down, they’re replaced by a shroud of bone-chilling fog, which the locals call “the breath of the dead.”

Mordentshire’s businesses largely cater to local laborers, with a few remarkable exceptions. Saulbridge Sanitarium provides a refuge for the ill while also secretly hosting a cell of the Ulmist Inquisition (see “Other Groups” later in this chapter). There’s also the herbalist shop of the scholar Rudolph van Richten. When van Richten is away, his shop is run by local mystery enthusiast Beatrice Polk or by twin sisters Gennifer and Laurie Weathermay-Foxgrove (see “Travelers in the Mist” for information on van Richten and the Weathermay-Foxgroves).

Heather House

In Mordentshire, the Weathermay family are respected local paragons of virtue and good sense—despite some family members' unfortunate proclivity for adventuring. The head of the family, Alice Weathermay, serves as mayor of Mordentshire and maintains her family’s cliffside home, Heather House. The manor has known joy and tragedy, and reflects both in its ivy-shrouded stone and sharp gables. Within, the house is a museum of family trophies and heirlooms, including a grand rosewood harpsichord and the wheelchair of Lord Byron Weathermay, the house’s architect, who ensured that clever lifts made his home fully accessible. At the edge of Heather House’s grounds is the Weathermay Mausoleum, the resting place of generations of Weathermays—and the location of a secret magical laboratory guarded by the quasit Tintantilus.

Idlethorp

In the shadow of Punchinel Manor lie the ruins of a small, abandoned hamlet that once functioned as a crossroads trading post of minor importance in the western part of Mordent. The last owner of Punchinel Manor was an artificer who crafted unique miniature flesh golems from stitched-together body parts—a pair of hands attached directly to a head, for example. He was murdered by his creations, and the manor has remained unoccupied for years.

Sigil Lakes

Viewed from above, three lakes in southwestern Mordent appear to form a mystical symbol, though as far as anyone can tell, the triangular shape of the lakes and their peculiar arrangement are entirely natural. Recently, a circle of druids gathered in the nearby village of Glaston to plan a rite using the lakes to create a magical passage to similarly shaped sites in other lands. The fate of the druids is unknown, but the region is now haunted by a terrifying variety of ghostly animals that delight in hunting the living.

Wilfred Godefroy

Lord Wilfred Godefroy was an unremarkable minor aristocrat who inherited the estate of Gryphon Hill near Mordentshire centuries ago, after murdering his father. An angry and abusive man throughout his life, he also murdered his wife, Estelle, and young daughter, Penelope, in a fit of rage. The two rose that night as mournful phantoms and haunted him with their wailing and condemnation. Every night for the next year, the spirits appeared and tormented him, until in desperation he took his life on the anniversary of their murder.

But Lord Godefroy’s suicide didn’t stop his torment. His spirit lingered in Gryphon Hill, and the ghosts of his wife and daughter haunted him day and night. Moreover, the spirit of his murdered father soon appeared to join the chorus of condemnation. Lord Godefroy possessed an adventurer and attempted to use the living body to put his family’s spirits to rest—but the adventurer died, and then his ghost began to haunt Godefroy as well.

In desperation, Lord Godefroy sought out a different kind of help in the world of the living. He began haunting an alchemist named Rastinon, urging him to pursue research into mortal souls. Rastinon crafted a terrible artifact he called the Apparatus, which could separate the soul from a living body, translocate souls from one body to another, and otherwise manipulate the substance and energy of spirits both living and undead. Lord Godefroy hoped the Apparatus would send all spirits (including him) to their deserved rests, but the artifact had the opposite effect: its necromantic energy washed through the region around Mordentshire, killing every living being in it. As the Mists rose, Lord Godefroy became lord over a land of ghosts, haunted by the spirits whose deaths he had caused. Now, all living souls that dwell in Mordent are doomed to haunt the domain’s Darklord long after the demise of their mortal bodies.

Godefroy’s Powers and Dominion

Lord Wilfred Godefroy rules his own personal afterlife. His statistics are similar to those of a ghost, and he is one of the most powerful spectral Undead in the domain. From the House on Gryphon Hill, Godefroy forces throngs of the dead to serve his will and to seek out a path to their true, final deaths.

Lord of the Dead

After 24 hours, the spirit of anyone who dies in Mordent reappears as a ghost, a specter, or another incorporeal Undead near where they died. These spectral dead can be magically returned to life as normal, but those who aren’t restored to life linger as Undead until they’re destroyed or the Mists claim them. Spectral agents of Lord Godefroy remain alert for useful souls that might be enlisted into the Darklord’s service.

Gryphon Hill

The House on Gryphon Hill, just outside Mordentshire, is home of Lord Wilfred Godefroy. Hundreds of spirits are bound to the house and the surrounding grounds, and all serve the lord of the house and struggle to keep in his good graces. Those spirits who rebel are punished, either forced to face Godefroy’s kennel of spectral hounds or dragged to the deepest recesses of the house, which even the eldest spirits fear. Any spirits capable of possessing the living are permitted to do so only when Lord Godefroy commands it. The Darklord rarely allows the dead to experience life like this, and when he does, it’s to possess those who can work his will elsewhere in the domain or to expand the eclectic structure that is the House on Gryphon Hill.

The Apparatus

Lord Godefroy has not given up hope that the bizarre device called the Apparatus might allow him to escape his torment and reach a more peaceful afterlife. Godefroy’s servants have spent centuries abducting magical geniuses, possessing them and convincing them to recreate the Apparatus again and again, often with unpredictable or catastrophic results. The magical device has caused all manner of inexplicable teleportations, mergings of living beings, duplications of souls, and strange manipulations of the Mists. At any time, Godefroy’s servants are working to perfect the Apparatus somewhere in Mordent.

The Living and the Dead

Lord Godefroy eagerly seeks news of anyone with the ability to exorcise spirits, learn secrets from those long dead, or slip beyond the boundaries of the Mists. His most useful contact in learning news and keeping tabs on the living is Alice Weathermay, mayor of Mordentshire. Godefroy manipulates her to pass on information and do his bidding by holding the spirit of her dead husband, Daniel Foxgrove, hostage.

Closing the Borders

When Godefroy wishes to close his domain, fog rolls in off the sea and blankets the land. Everything in the domain that’s outdoors is heavily obscured by the fog (see the Player’s Handbook). Characters who reach the domain’s borders through this fog are affected as detailed in “The Mists” at the start of this chapter.

Godefroy’s Torment

Lord Godefroy is an abyss of grief and rage, tormented by the following circumstances:

• Godefroy is concerned only with his own misery; the suffering of the other spirits in Mordent merely fuels his torment.
• Exceptionally arrogant, Godefroy brooks no opinions or criticisms from his inferiors, and blames every failure on his spirit servants.
• Godefroy’s family still haunts the House on Gryphon Hill. Although he wishes for their love, he avoids the floor of the house where they dwell, resenting their rightful condemnation.
• Godefroy is convinced the Apparatus is the key to escaping his undead existence. However, he can’t grasp even its basic workings and is frustrated by every delay and malfunction related to the device.

Foundations of Horror

Three years after the 1983 release of the adventure Ravenloft, the sequel adventure, Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill, debuted. The adventure pulled back the Mists on the domain of Mordent, a realm of terrors beyond Barovia, and introduced such characters as Lord Byron Weathermay, the mesmerist Germain d’Honaire, the tragic Godefroy family, the lycanthropic Timothys, and Azalin the lich—names you’ll find throughout this book. With the House on Gryphon Hill, Barovia and Mordent paved the way for Ravenloft to become a vast and varied setting encompassing dozens of Domains of Dread.

Roleplaying Godefroy

The thinnest veneer of gentility covers Lord Godefroy’s boundless rage. Arrogant, impatient, and quick to offer mockery, the Darklord seeks any opportunity to vent centuries of frustration. He eagerly uses threats and violence to manipulate the living and the dead, eagerly taking advantage of any connection he perceives—especially ties to family.

Personality Trait

“I have no patience for insult, disrespect, or provocation, and I respond with violence to any affront.”

Ideal

“My perspective and concerns are the only ones that matter.”

Bond

“Gryphon Hill is my ancestral home. I am deeply bound to that site, its history, and my ancestral line.”

Flaw

“I’m surrounded by idiots, and few people are more insufferable than the living.”

Adventures in Mordent

Mordent is the realm of the classic ghost story. In tone and trappings, the domain resembles the countrysides of Gothic literature: lands dotted with haunted manor houses, stalked by packs of ghost hounds, and troubled by the spirits of dead warlocks that cause trees to rot from the inside out.

Any kind of ghost story adventure (as described in chapter 2) fits in Mordent. This domain is particularly appropriate for stories that deal with the lingering influence of the past, the oppressive weight of tradition, and the ongoing effects of generational curses. The restless spirits enforce an archaic and repressive social order where everyone knows their place, and those who step out of line are punished—sometimes gruesomely.

Consider the plots on the Mordent Adventures table when planning adventures in this domain.

Mordent Adventures

Haunting Mordent

Crafting an adventure around a haunting is similar to building any other adventure. The “Ghost Stories” section of chapter 2 provides a good starting point for detailing elements of a ghost story. This section supplements that material with advice specific to building an adventure reminiscent of a classic ghost story, focusing on three key elements of such tales: history, tragedy, and romance. Throughout this section, consider the word ghost synonymous with any sort of spirit or incorporeal Undead.

History

Because elements of a ghost’s mortal life define and foreshadow the course of their death and undeath, a common aspect of a ghost-story adventure involves piecing together the history of the ghost’s life to figure out how to put the spirit to rest. This gives any ghost story characteristics similar to a mystery. Be generous in planting clues to the ghost’s history throughout the adventure, assuming that the players will miss several of them. You can use the Ghost’s History table to determine how long the ghost has been Undead.

Ghost’s History

Tragedy

Ghosts embody the pain and grief that surround death. To build an effective ghost story adventure, present either the ghost or those they haunt as the tragic victims of painful circumstance. The Tragic Elements table offers suggestions, framing each as a tragic element for either the ghost or their victims.

Tragic Elements

Romance

Issues of love and romance are intimately bound to the tragic elements of a ghost story, or can supplement those elements to make the ghost sympathetic. The Romantic Elements table offers suggestions.

Romantic Elements

Putting the Pieces Together

Once you’ve thought about the roles of history, tragedy, and romance, you might already have a clear idea of where you want to go with your ghost-story adventure. If you need inspiration to put the pieces together, consider these questions.

Who’s the villain

A D&D adventure often revolves around the activity of a villain, but the villain in a ghost story might or might not be the ghost themself. If you’ve built a tragic ghost who’s deeply in love with the person they’re haunting, the villain might be someone else entirely—someone obsessed with the haunted person, perhaps, who goes to great lengths to keep the ghost away.

What’s the beginning of the story

While a ghost’s history frames how the story plays out, the adventure doesn’t begin until a group of adventurers becomes involved and entangled in the ghost’s undeath. At the beginning of the adventure, let the players know about an eerie occurrence and give them a reason to care about it. The party might encounter the ghost right away, but even if destroyed, the ghost keeps returning until their business is resolved.

What resources are available to the characters

The bulk of a ghost-story adventure involves learning about the ghost and their haunting while continuing to deal with escalating supernatural manifestations. Characters might interview locals; read letters, diaries, or historical records; or examine objects found at the haunted site to piece together the information they need to put the ghost to rest.

How does it end

In Mordent, the spirits of the dead don’t naturally pass on to a final rest, but characters can prevent the restless dead from interfering any further in the affairs of the living. That often involves completing whatever business a ghost left unfinished, resolving the ghost’s attachment to something or someone in the living world, or finding a way to destroy the ghost so they can’t return, which is usually a matter of exploiting their attachment to people or a location.

Richemulot

Domain of Disease, Isolation, and Wererats

• Darklord: Jacqueline Renier

Genres

Disaster horror and gothic horror

Hallmarks

Contagion, crumbling infrastructure, martial law, rats and vermin, wererats

Mist Talismans

Plague mask, rat’s tail, snake-oil curative

Like a pendulum, Richemulot swings perpetually between hope and despair. Some days, the sun rises over Pont-a-Museau as if it were an ordinary city, and not one in which many of the buildings stand empty and abandoned. On those days, people move freely through the open gates, and the silent, heavily armored guards of the Casques Silencieux watch over calm promenades and markets. But a day or a week or a month later, the first telltale cough cracks amid the crowd. As people evacuate the streets and lock their doors, rats crawl from the sewers in tremendous numbers. Shortly thereafter, the gates slam shut. No doctors come, and no information arrives; the populace is left to die.

The Gnawing Plague stalks Richemulot, arriving without warning. It comes with the rats, but it doesn’t leave with them. For weeks or months at a time, life becomes an interminable wait as people peer out from between slatted windows and wonder how long the plague will last this time. Inevitably, frustration and fear beget superstition and violence.

Eventually the gates open, signaling that the city is safe again. How the Casques Silencieux know is a mystery, but their judgment always proves correct. And so the cycle goes, from ruin to relief and back again, with de facto ruler Mademoiselle Jacqueline Renier ever above it all, tirelessly working to pull her realm back from the brink of total collapse.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Richemulot know the following facts:

• The Gnawing Plague, or simply “the Gnaws,” is a deadly, recurring ailment that afflicts Richemulot.
• Richemulot’s royal family died of the plague. Mademoiselle Jacqueline Renier, the nation’s most prestigious aristocrat, rules as temporary warden.
• When the plague swells to epidemic proportions, the state police, the Casques Silencieux, enacts martial law and quarantines whole cities.
• The government organizes no food or medical aid for quarantined communities, leaving residents to contend as best they can.
• Richemulot’s cities contain an inexplicably large number of buildings, an amount greater than their highest populations would have ever warranted.
• Rat swarms prowl city streets like packs of dogs.

Richemuloise Characters

The people of Richemulot know how unexpectedly death can arrive. The domain is predominantly populated by humans and halflings with dark hair colors and various rich skin tones, many of whom bear the marks of childhood diseases or medical treatments. When players create characters from Richemulot, consider asking them the following questions.

How do you avoid the Gnawing Plague? The Gnawing Plague visits Richemulot regularly. When the plague comes and the cities face quarantines, how do you stay safe? Do you keep a stockpile of food and other supplies for the inevitable lockdowns? Do you rob your neighbors or rely on their kindness?

Are you a survivor of the Gnawing Plague? Did someone tend to you while you were sick? Did you undergo a remarkable treatment? What scars or painful memories do you have from the experience?

How did the Gnawing Plague change your destiny? Did your chances for education, travel, or apprenticeship vanish? Were you a noble who lost all they had? Were you banished from your community when you got sick?

Settlements and Sites

The majority of Richemulot’s population is divided between its three walled cities, Mortigny, Pont-a-Museau, and Saint Ronges, though villages and isolated farmsteads dot the swampy countryside.

Pont-a-Museau

The capital of Richemulot, Pont-a-Museau straddles the Musarde River, its buildings dominating both banks and the islands and bridges between. The city’s abundant space could easily house twenty thousand souls, but although it’s Richemulot’s most populous city, fewer than half that number live here. Still, Pont-a-Museau’s casual sophistication hints at a cosmopolitan past. Indeed, the sprawling, foreign architecture gives rise to one of Richemulot’s most widespread folk tales—that the people living here now aren’t the land’s first inhabitants.

The citizens of Pont-a-Museau share their city with rats. These vermin are a ubiquitous presence, and visitors become accustomed to the flash of sudden movement at the periphery of their vision. Some say they are Jacqueline Renier’s spies. This rumor might contain truth, as many who whisper it vanish in the night and are never seen again.

Chateau Delanuit

Upon an island in the center of the Musarde sits Chateau Delanuit, the hereditary Renier estate. From here, Jacqueline Renier rules Richemulot. She holds audience from her parlors and public courtrooms, but her private residence is sacrosanct, and few outside her family ever visit it.

Unknown to all but the Renier family and their staunchest allies, Chateau Delanuit stands above the inscrutable Inverted Court, a downward-spilling palace that connects to the vast sewer system of Pont-a-Museau and beyond. This is the epicenter of Richemulot’s polity, the clandestine home of its wererat families, and the true capital of the domain.

Saint Ronges

Though Saint Ronges shares the same mysterious origin as the rest of Richemulot’s cities, the cause of its depopulation is well known: the Plague strikes harder here, and for longer, than anywhere else in the domain.

This was not always so. When Jacqueline Renier first ascended to the throne and imposed her law upon the land, the people of Saint Ronges resisted her rule. Renier granted the city its freedom, absent the support and infrastructure of the state. To this day that remains the case, though the dwindling People’s Council of Saint Ronges has long since learned its lesson. The council has repeatedly petitioned Mademoiselle Renier for mercy. For now, she is still considering.

Mortigny

Mortigny is both the smallest of Richemulot’s three cities and the most overcrowded; its streets are congested and its buildings strained to capacity. The town resembles an extended tenement, with new construction built atop old and hastily thrown together shanties lining the inside of its walls.

Mortigny is quickly quarantined during surges of plague, but anyone is allowed to enter the city so long as they do so with the understanding that they can’t leave. Small communities across the domain send their sick to Mortigny, both to be rid of them and because the city has Richemulot’s largest concentration of medical practitioners. The best of these healers work at Mortigny West Clinic under Doctor Simone Temator. Doctors across the city fight tirelessly to aid the sick and research new treatments for the Gnaws, but ultimately their work does little to curb the disease. Many desperate practitioners have turned to unconventional methods to halt the plague’s spread.

Jacqueline Renier

A century ago, Richemulot was a lively place. In those days, not a building stood vacant as merchants from both ends of the Musarde set up shop along the broad boulevards of Pont-a-Museau. As wealth trickled into the merchants' coffers, those of low birth began to taste the benefits of nobility.

Renier saw how the city was changing and tried to convince her family of the danger it posed. The burgeoning middle class sapped her family’s authority, transforming them from lords over the commoners into mere landlords. But Renier’s family surrendered to the times. Her grandfather grew infirm over the years and less able to look out for the family’s interests, and the others—even her twin sister, Louise—seemed oblivious to the threat. It fell to Jacqueline to correct their failings.

Finding like-minded souls took Renier years, but she finally became aware of the mysterious Trueblood Council, a secret society of Richemulot’s eldest and most esteemed families. Expending a fortune, Renier aggressively pursued membership. Finally she was granted an invitation to join the society’s members at their meeting place hidden among the sewers of Pont-a-Museau. But when Renier arrived, she found a throng of filthy commoners, not the dramatic masterminds she’d expected. As she cursed them and set off to fetch the guards, the council members revealed their true wererat forms. That night, she was inducted into their ranks.

Renier swiftly accepted her new life as a wererat and her status as a member of Richemulot’s first inhabitants. Her spite toward the lowborn turned instead toward non-wererats. Her first major act consisted of conferring the gift of lycanthropy upon her family. Only her twin, Louise, resisted, for which Jacqueline disfigured her and cast her out.

Next, she bent her wererat allies to her vicious pursuit of control, unifying the country’s verminous hordes. Within the sewers of Pont-a-Museau, the wererats concocted a roiling pestilence incubated in the filth of the bourgeoisie. Disease was not unknown in Richemulot, but the virulence of this new Gnawing Plague sent panic through the populace. The disease killed indiscriminately, wiping out the nation’s royal dynasty and leaving power vacuums filled and then quickly emptied by ailing nobles. Only the Reniers proved immune, and eventually Jacqueline stood as the highest-born noble in the land, and the nation’s de facto leader.

The people begged Renier for help. Disgusted by the masses, she deemed them unworthy merely for the circumstance of their birth and the scarcity of coins in their pockets, Renier let them die. As the last human soul expired in Pont-a-Museau, the Mists rose, drawing Richemulot into the Domains of Dread.

Jacqueline’s Powers and Dominion

Although Jacqueline Renier has statistics similar to those of a wererat, she assumes her hybrid or rat form only when forced to defend herself or when pushed to the brink of rage. She is rarely without guards, be they members of the Casques Silencieux, wererat bodyguards, or hidden swarms of rats.

Casques Silencieux

The Darklord’s silent state police guard Chateau Delanuit and enforce her quarantines across Richemulot. Rather than the soldiers they appear to be, these troops are animated armor filled with rats that mindlessly and mercilessly enact Jacqueline Renier’s will. If a guard is defeated, the armor collapses, releasing a swarm of rats.

Plague Seasons

The Inverted Court beneath Chateau Delanuit holds hidden sewer laboratories where wererat alchemists endlessly brew ever-more-virulent strains of the Gnawing Plague and even worse maladies. Rats are then infected with these diseases to spread them across the domain. As each strain is subtly different, creatures might fall victim to the Gnawing Plague again and again.

Rat Queen

Jacqueline Renier can understand and magically command any rat within 120 feet of her using limited telepathy. All rats in Richemulot are especially intelligent and eagerly obey Renier’s will. This typically involves spying for her: eavesdropping on conversations, tailing individuals, and reporting back.

Closing the Borders

When Jacqueline Renier wishes to close her domain’s borders, the Mists rise at the edge of the lands, as detailed in “The Mists” at the start of this chapter. Additionally, the Mists are filled with Swarm of Rats; endless waves of them attack any creatures that enter the Mists.

Jacqueline’s Torment

As Darklord and de facto steward of Richemulot, Jacqueline Renier stands at the height of society. However, when Richemulot was claimed by the Mists, its populace consisted mostly of commoners once more. Rather than ruling a land dominated by her wererat peers, Renier now endures various torments:

• Renier has no taste for ruling, yet feels obligated to keep up appearances to maintain her power. Her decrees are rash and self-serving.
• Renier’s schemes killed most of the finer aspects of Richemulot’s society. She endlessly craves the decadence she once took for granted.
• The people talk of establishing a new government when the threat of the plague passes. Renier and her wererat allies must constantly create new strains of the plague to maintain power.

Roleplaying Jacqueline

Jacqueline Renier believes she’s infallible. Proper rule by the Reniers benefits all, and she is obviously the greatest of the Reniers. On some level, she knows that her certainty is born of unchecked privilege and vanity. These flashes of clarity frustrate her, leading her to impose cruel edicts and public displays of her superiority, such as city-spanning punishments and dramatic executions.

Personality Trait

“The commoners think they’re the future. I’ll show them how much they need me.”

Ideal

“Nothing is more important than the preservation of power.”

Bond

“Those who show their obedience are my true subjects. All others have a chance to prove their loyalty. Is that not mercy?”

Flaw

“I will let everything rot in the streets before I give up one bit of what I was given.”

Adventures in Richemulot

Adventurers might be accustomed to defeating foes using sword and spell, but such weapons hold little power against a nation-spanning plague. The characters might even be able to handle maladies when they afflict one or two members of the party, but their magical resources are quickly expended in the face of relentless contagion that’s intentionally spread. The “Cycle of the Plague” section later in this domain explores how to use an ongoing disease as a backdrop to your adventures, while the Richemulot Adventures table suggests other plots that might unfold in the domain.

Richemulot Adventures

The Gnawing Plague

The Gnawing Plague, also known as “the Gnaws,” is known in every corner of Richemulot.

Transmission

The Gnaws is spread when a creature is bitten by a rat, giant rat, swarm of rats, or wererat that carries the disease, or by coming into physical contact with an infected creature.

Infection

Creatures exposed to the disease must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or become infected. The DC of this saving throw can increase depending on the severity of the plague’s spread (see “Cycle of the Plague” below).

Symptoms

It takes 1d2 days for the Gnawing Plague’s symptoms to manifest in an infected creature. The infected creature then gains 1 level of exhaustion, regains only half the normal number of hit points from spending Hit Dice, and regains no hit points from finishing a long rest.

The plague’s symptoms include buboes, fatigue, splotchy rashes, sweats, and shaking, particularly facial tremors. Locals liken these twitches to the sniffing of rats. Sufferers often have scraps of leather placed in their mouths to prevent their teeth from clattering, though they inevitably gnaw through these scraps.

Recovery

At the end of each long rest, an infected creature must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the creature gains 1 level of exhaustion. On a successful save, the creature’s exhaustion level decreases by 1. If a successful saving throw reduces the infected creature’s level of exhaustion below 1, the creature recovers from the disease.

Immunity

All forms of rats and wererats are immune to the Gnawing Plague.

Cycle of the Plague

The Gnawing Plague is an ever-present threat in Richemulot. At any given time, every community in the domain is in one of four stages of the plague. Whenever characters find themselves in a community, determine what stage that community is experiencing and if it’s different from the day before.

Progressing Stages

The plague’s progress begins at stage one, advances to stage four, and then either wanes back to stage one or ends when everyone in a community is dead. Each stage can last for days or weeks, as appropriate for your adventures.

Alternatively, if you’d like to have the plague play out more randomly, roll a d20 each day. If you roll 2 or lower, the stage decreases by one. If you roll a 17 or higher, the stage increases by one. If the characters spend at least 1 hour during the day working to treat the sick, the stage decreases by one if you roll a 4 or lower.

Let the plague’s cycle proceed for as long as your adventures demand, waxing or waning whenever it’s most dramatic. The plague will never kill everyone in Richemulot; there will always be miraculous cures or reasons for Jacqueline Renier to withdraw her infected rat swarms. The cities then repopulate swiftly, with new residents emerging from the Mists to little notice. This ensures that after a period of relative peace, the plague’s next wave is just as devastating as the last.

Stage One: Threat

At its calmest, the plague isn’t obvious in the population. The plague behaves as detailed in “The Gnawing Plague” section and isn’t likely to spread unless an influx of the Darklord’s rats causes it to.

Stage Two: Outbreak

Coughing can be heard in the streets. Furtive looks pass between strangers, and the Casques Silencieux appear in increasing numbers. During this stage, whenever a character goes out in public, roll or choose an encounter from the Stage Two Encounters table. If exposed to the Gnawing Plague, a character must succeed on a Constitution saving throw to resist the disease with the DC listed in the table entry for that encounter.

Stage Two Encounters

Stage Three: Illness

All businesses close, and the gates to walled communities are sealed. The Casques Silencieux usher anyone on the streets back into their homes. Those without shelter congregate in alleys, where the rats grow bold. During this stage, whenever a character goes out in public, roll or choose an encounter from the Stage Three Encounters table. If exposed to the Gnawing Plague, a character must succeed on a Constitution saving throw to resist the disease with the DC listed in the table entry for that encounter.

Stage Three Encounters

Stage Four: Pestilence

The dead lie in the streets. Neighbors shun one another. Everyone hears the gnawing sounds in the dark, but no one searches out the source. During this stage, whenever a character goes out in public, roll or choose an encounter from the Stage Four Encounters table. If exposed to the Gnawing Plague, a character must succeed on a Constitution saving throw to resist the disease with the DC listed in the table entry for that encounter.

Stage Four Encounters

Tepest

Domain of Nature’s Cruel Secrets

• Darklord: Mother Lorinda

Genre

Folk horror

Hallmarks

Fey bargains, nature worship, rural festivals, secret sacrifices

Mist Talismans

Bloodstained farm implement, dried crown of white camellias, straw doll

All is well in Tepest. Fields shine with the golden hues of a bountiful harvest, and horned village children happily recite sing-song rhymes. But those who linger among this land’s pastures and colorful cottages can’t escape the feeling of being watched, or the impression that the idyllic fields have a distinctly somber cast. The locals dismiss such worries as the tricks of scheming fey, but their smiles fail to mask the desperation in their eyes.

Brutality wears a welcoming face in Tepest—a truth embodied by the ancient hag Lorinda, who betrayed her coven in pursuit of a daughter to love. Taking the guise of a deity called Mother, Lorinda has adopted the entire village of Viktal, protecting its people from nature’s whims so they can feed her accursed offspring. Meanwhile, lingering in forests and hiding beneath the earth, resentful fey watch and plot, offering cruel bargains to those who wander beyond Mother’s sight.

The people of Viktal, Tepest’s only remaining community, do what they must to survive, using tradition and faith to cloak their fear of the wilds and their complicity in a cycle of murder. Strangers are symbols of hope to them—either as a promise of a life free from terror, or as potential sacrifices for the next necessary slaughter.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Tepest know the following facts:

• Viktal is the only noteworthy community in Tepest. The idyllic village’s residents devoutly follow the optimistic, naturalistic faith of the god known as Mother. Supposedly, no one born there ever wants to leave.
• The frequent festivals in Viktal include a fertility celebration called the Tithe, which occurs once each season.
• The most zealous of Viktal’s faithful are Mother’s Minders. These devotees sacrifice their left eyes to Mother to show their faith.
• Caves dot the land, connecting to deeper caverns where dangerous fey dwell. The people of Viktal fear the fey and blame them for every accident and ill.
• Few children are born in Tepest. Determined would-be parents must bargain with Mother or the fey to bring them a child.

Tepestani Characters

Characters from Tepest come from a rural background, having fled the village of Viktal. Humans and hexbloods (see chapter 1) of any appearance are common, but other folk with ties to the fey might also hail from the domain. When players create characters from Tepest, consider asking them the following questions.

What do you love about Tepest? Is it the peaceful life or the bounty of nature? Is it your family or the colorful festivals? Feel free to invent customs and rural celebrations that hold significance for you.

How do you feel about Mother? Do you devotedly follow the deity? Did you sacrifice an eye to her to become one of Mother’s Minders? Are you a hexblood that she created? Or do you follow your village’s customs out of expectation or fear?

Who have you lost to the Tithe? A parent or sibling? A friend or partner? Do you understand the necessity of the loss, or do you want revenge?

Settlements and Sites

The forested valley of Tepest stretches between ranges of rugged mountains etched with dramatic cliffs and mysterious vales. Rocky soil and unpredictable weather make much of the region ill-suited to agriculture, and deadly predators, murderous goblins, and cunning fey haunt the wilds. Despite this, the land around the community of Viktal is a haven of peace and bounty. Most people in the domain live here, though scattered homesteaders and hermits take their chances in the wilds.

Viktal

Tales of the days before Mother arrived claim that the families of Viktal barely scraped enough from the earth to survive, and often lost livestock and children to malicious fey. Today, Mother ensures peace in Viktal. Wicker scarecrows guard the rich fields, and friendly people go about their business with idyllic simplicity. Families in the community share their crops and resources equally. The cheery villagers welcome visitors, showing eager interest in their stories and lodging them free of charge at the village inn, the Fisher’s Rest. Visitors are welcome to stay for as long as they like, especially as one of the seasonal Tithe festivals approaches.

The Gurgyl

Those who venture into the wilds on a moonlit night might see a massive shape silently lumbering through Tepest’s woods. The Gurgyl, a structure of thorns, wicker, and giants' bones, appears as a misshapen, towerlike nest balanced on three skeletal dragon legs. Lorinda and her daughter Laoirse dwell inside this mobile fortress, which holds Lorinda’s kitchen-laboratory, Laoirse’s nursery-oubliette, and the Old Cauldron, a plugged pot where Lorinda’s coven-sisters languish. The Gurgyl ranges across Tepest at Lorinda’s will and might appear anywhere. The villagers of Viktal know the Gurgyl serves their god in some way, but sighting it portends bad luck.

Kellee

The gates to the walled village of Kellee hang open, and its crumbling houses stand empty. Lorinda first sought to spread her worship here, but something went terribly wrong. Now, one of hag’s forsaken creations haunts the abandoned village, and neither Mother nor her followers dare approach the place.

The Lost Court

This serene valley lies in the shadow of Mount Arak. By day, its woods throng with fat, happy animals. By night, the ground turns to mud and brambles from which the transformed victims of deadly magic rise. A sanctuary from the terrible night beckons on the shore of Lake Lenore—the sturdy walls and warm hearth of the Nobody’s Inn. The fey and their servants avoid the inn and its skeletal innkeeper, Bryonna, at all costs.

Mount Arak

Miles of tunnels run beneath Tepest’s forests and vales, all of which eventually lead to vast hidden caverns beneath the dramatic peaks of Mount Arak. The fey create their homes in a realm of glowing crystals and mist-filled fissures. Dozens of different species live here, under the seelie Queen Maeve and the unseelie Prince Loht. These siblings jointly rule their hidden realm together despite a strained relationship.

The inhabitants of Arak resent the people of the surface for ancient slights and view them as dangerous. They avoid the folk of Viktal but eagerly play malicious tricks on those who venture into the wilderness. The fey could easily overwhelm the surface dwellers, but Maeve and Loht hold them at bay to avoid the hag Lorinda’s ire. The fey monarchs believe Lorinda’s followers possess a weapon capable of unleashing a deadly force and that it is locked beneath the three-peaked mountain called Gwydion’s Claw.

Mother Lorinda

Lorinda, Laveeda, and Leticia, the Mindefisk sisters, were gifts from the faeries to their lonely mother, a kind, honest woman who wanted daughters to cherish. Their brutish father and brothers resented the girls, whose sufferings grew worse after their mother died. Desiring a better life, the sisters began preying upon travelers who passed by their secluded home. They murdered wealthy strangers, stole their valuables, and disposed of the bodies in their family’s stewpot. The sisters' wickedness was revealed and when they squabbled over a stranger they all fancied and ultimately murdered the traveler. When the rest of the family discovered their terrible deeds, the sisters killed their father and brothers. As their murder spree unfolded, the Mists rose. When they cleared, unfamiliar mountains in a land called Tepest surrounded the sisters' simple valley home, and their true nature as vicious hags manifested.

From the strange fey of Tepest, the three hags learned magic that they used to prey upon the humans of the nearby valleys. Over generations, they became known as fickle sages and weavers of dooms and miracles. Strangers sought them out, begging for bountiful crops, potent medicines, or the children that fate denied them. The hags sowed blessings and despair in equal measure. Numerous hexblood children originated from the hags' cauldron. In time, the hag Lorinda asked her sisters to help create a child of their own. But Laveeda and Leticia refused, loathing the idea of sharing their magic and secrets.

In secret, Lorinda assembled a creature of animal parts, brambles, and foul magic. With its help, she ambushed her sisters and trapped them inside their own magic cauldron. Soon after, Lorinda’s creation fell apart, and she has used magic stolen from her imprisoned sisters ever since to create flawed, hungry beings she calls children (see “Lorinda’s Children” below). She manipulates the people of Tepest to provide excellent meals for her daughter.

Lorinda’s Powers and Dominion

Lorinda is a green hag of extreme age. In her true form, she carries her darling family—three grim dolls she calls Laveeda, Leticia, and Laoirse. When dealing with the residents of Viktal, she takes on her benevolent illusory guise as Mother.

Mother

Lorinda wears the guise of Mother to manipulate the people of Viktal. In this illusory form, she appears as a matronly figure wearing a cloak of moth wings and bearing a branch burning with torches. Using her control of the land as Tepest’s Darklord, Mother brings bounty to fields and flocks, or curses farms with famine and aberrant livestock. Those in her service rarely produce offspring and so petition her for hexblood children (see chapter 1). All Mother asks of her followers in return for her blessing is that they love her best, remain watchful for those of weak faith, and offer seasonal sacrifices (see “Viktal and the Tithe”).

Mother’s Minders

Servants of Mother prove their faith through song, rustic art, and small sacrifices. The most devout, called Mother’s Minders, each undertake a ritual in which they pluck out their left eye, gifting its sight to Mother. Lorinda can see through her followers' empty eye sockets as though they were hag eyes (detailed in the Monster Manual). Additionally, she can teleport at will from the Gurgyl to an unoccupied space adjacent to any Mother’s Minder. On the rare times she does, she appears to physically crawl out of her follower’s empty eye socket.

Laveeda and Leticia

Lorinda’s sisters are imprisoned in a fat cauldron that serves as the engine for their animated home, the Gurgyl. Lorinda can use her sisters' prison to cast any of the spells shared by a hag coven (detailed in the Monster Manual). If the cauldron is unsealed, Laveeda and Leticia seek swift revenge against their sister.

Lorinda’s Children

Lorinda pushes the limits of her foul magic to turn sticks and carcasses into her own children. She loves these monstrous beings, naming them all Laoirse and treating them as if they were the same individual. These creatures rarely live for more than a few weeks—except when a villager is sacrificed to Mother during the Tithe, which extends Laoirse’s life by a few weeks. Lorinda dotes on her children, rarely letting them leave the Gurgyl, and wreaking horrible vengeance on any who harm them.

Lorinda’s Torment

Lorinda endures various miseries, the following chief among them:

• Lorinda desires to have a family, but her inherently controlling, murderous nature leads her to destroy whatever she creates.
• She constantly doubts the adoration she receives from her daughters and worshipers. Lorinda requires constant proof of their love.
• Lorinda can create hexblood children for others, but any being she fashions for herself is monstrous, ravenous, and short-lived.
• Lorinda fears that her sisters will one day escape their captivity and take revenge on her.

Roleplaying Lorinda

Lorinda loves the trappings of motherhood and is off-puttingly maternal toward all those she encounters. She’s quick to dote on others, calling them unsettling pet names like “lostling,” “caterpillar,” or “sweetskin.” She insists that others call her some variation of “mother.” Lorinda relishes the worship of Viktal’s people but treats them as livestock, guarding them fiercely only to slaughter them as she wills. In her Mother guise, she maintains an air of benevolence, claiming to ask for little despite her followers' supposed sloth and ingratitude. She will do anything to prevent the villagers from learning her true nature.

Personality Trait

“I’m the greatest parent in the world. I just need children worthy of my love.”

Ideal

“Good children get rewards. Bad children get punished.”

Bond

“My sweet Laoirse is my world.”

Flaw

“The children can’t know what I was—what I am.”

Adventures in Tepest

The horror of Tepest rises from its mysterious wilderness and the seemingly idyllic community of Viktal. Here, dread lies in contrasts. Tree branches grasp like claws while every cottage exudes a warm glow. Smiles come readily but last too long. Wildflowers grow from the carcasses of mutated lambs.

The Mists deposit visitors to Tepest near Viktal, whose folk encourage strangers to partake of the village’s hospitality. Will characters accept a welcome respite, or will they be suspicious of their hosts? Do they ask about Mother? If they discover the horror of the Tithe, do the characters view the villagers as victims or monsters? The following section, “Viktal and the Tithe,” explores how to draw characters into the village’s eerie traditions.

Beyond Viktal, the inescapable hostility of the natural world holds sway. Harsh weather casts a pall over the land, and predators and dangerous plant creatures haunt the forests. Any kind of Fey creature might dwell in the domain—or beneath it in the realms of Arak. Even whimsical fey take on a malicious tinge in Tepest, whether as thieves, kidnappers, deal-makers, or collectors of eerie trophies. Like the land itself, the fey have strange powers, and villagers pushed to desperation seek them out in the hopes of bargaining for what fate has denied them.

When planning adventures in this domain, consider the plots on the Tepest Adventures table.

Tepest Adventures

Viktal and the Tithe

Those who come to Tepest inevitably arrive near the domain’s lone surviving settlement, Viktal. There, they find welcoming people, warm food and beds, and an unsettling sense that the daily life and traditions of the villagers conceal horrible secrets. What starts as glimpses of strange behaviors or rustic decorations culminates in learning the village’s secrets firsthand during the seasonal Tithe. This section explores the village of Viktal and provides guidance on how the Tithe unfolds.

Welcome to Viktal

The rustic community of Viktal consists of a few dozen simple cottages surrounding a market square, a meeting hall, and an inn. Farms and fishing shacks cluster around the village, shying away from the shadows of the surrounding woods and mountains. Those who visit Viktal soon meet Mother’s faithful, who appear at first to practice a local, naturalistic faith. But as the characters explore, they notice especially pious villagers with missing eyes called Mother’s Minders and other locals engaging in unsettling behavior.

The villagers are curious about strangers, and eventually someone invites the outsiders to the Fisher’s Rest for a free meal and to share their stories. The villagers encourage new arrivals to become part of the community, since that’s what Mother teaches them to do—and to broaden the pool of sacrifice fodder for the next Tithe.

When the characters visit Viktal, roll or choose options from the Sights in Viktal table to set the tone of the village’s strangeness.

Sights in Viktal

The Tithe

The Tithe festival takes place in Viktal four times each year, during the equinoxes and solstices. During this day-long celebration, Mother’s followers revel in the bounty of nature and new life. The villagers spend weeks in preparation for the celebration, and villagers eagerly explain that the Tithe is a commemoration of nature’s abundance during which a measure of the town’s bounty is returned to Mother. In truth, the a festival is meant to prepare one of the villagers for slaughter at the hands of Lorinda’s child, the latest Laoirse.

Tithe Celebration

The Tithe’s festivities start early in the morning, when the town’s elders lead everyone in a parade to a prepared festival ground in a field outside town. The assembled villagers spend the day partaking in contests, feasting, dancing, and song.

Tithe Events

Celebratory events on the day include traditional entertainment and competitions. Everyone is encouraged to participate and live life to its fullest. Events end with contest victors receiving small tokens as rewards, and whoever wins the most before dusk is named Mother’s Favorite. These events involve simple challenges and ability checks, though elaborate events might run as chases (see the Dungeon Master’s Guide) or combat with weapons customized to deal low or no damage. Roll for or choose two or three activities from the Tithe Events table to determine what events the characters might participate in during the Tithe.

####### Tithe Events

Mother’s Blessing

At dusk, the town’s leader names Mother’s Favorite and grants them a crown of white camellias prior to an hours-long, communal feast. Then, near midnight, the celebrants move farther into the fields to receive Mother’s blessing.

At midnight, amid ceremony and solemnity, Mother appears to her worshipers. Mother’s Favorite is instructed to carry a bowl of food and gifts to Mother. As they do, the latest Laoirse—viewed by the villagers as a manifestation of nature’s hunger—appears and attacks. All assembled expect Laoirse to slaughter the victim, spilling their blood and bringing fertility to the fields for another season—and gaining an extra few weeks of life before inevitably decaying like all Mother’s prior children. As Laoirse drags away her meal, Mother blesses her faithful and vanishes. The villagers merrily return to their homes, having completed the Tithe for another season.

The particulars of how this ritual plays out are up to you, but it always culminates in Laoirse’s attack. Whether a character is chosen as Mother’s Favorite or the party tries to defend the victim, roll or choose an option from the Lorinda’s Daughter table to determine what horror arrives at the ritual’s climax. Creatures on the table marked with an asterisk are detailed in chapter 5.

####### Lorinda’s Daughter

Valachan

Domain of the Hunter

• Darklord: Chakuna

Genres

Gothic horror and slasher horror

Hallmarks

Diabolical traps, hostile wilderness, survival games

Mist Talismans

Displacer beast skin, poisonous flower blossom, rusty foot trap

In the jungles of Valachan, survivors must guard their hearts lest something monstrous eat them. For some, that risk is worth the reward of the unusual plants and magical creatures this land is home to. But Valachan is fiercely protected by its Darklord, the devious and immortal hunter Chakuna. She roams the jungles hunting dangerous beasts—and when she grows dissatisfied with simpler prey, she draws sapient quarry into a fatal contest.

Pitted against other conscripted players in a game of cat and mouse, Chakuna’s prey struggle to survive the deadly Valachan rain forest and one another, all while being pursued by the Darklord. Treacherous quicksand and other deadly hazards cover the terrain, and populations of stealthy werepanthers support the Darklord. But desperate contenders might also find unlikely allies who oppose Chakuna and her horrific hunts.

Valachan has villages but contains no cities or towns, since the forest doesn’t allow them to be built. Every shivering leaf and every creature’s eyes hold an eerie awareness. The forests watch, and they whisper what they see to Chakuna.

A mystery that ties the Darklord to her domain could shatter her power or plunge the land into utter catastrophe. The secret pulses in the breath of the forest, timed to the heartbeat of its master. Those who survive long enough in Valachan to discover its secrets might end up twisted into the predator they oppose.

Noteworthy Features

Those familiar with Valachan know the following facts:

• Valachan is a land of dense rain forests, sandy shores, and forest-covered mountains. This wilderness is fantastically dangerous, but the people who dwell here have long flourished.
• Valachan hosts the Trial of Hearts, a battle royale conducted during certain full moons by the land’s greatest hunter, Chakuna.
• Any wild plant or creature in the jungles of Valachan might turn hostile toward explorers.
• Packs of displacer beasts roam the jungle, led by Yana, a preternaturally cunning displacer beast that serves Chakuna.

Valachani Characters

Characters from Valachan typically hail from small, rain forest communities. The domain’s people are predominantly humans with dark hair and a range of warm, brown skin tones. Some names take inspiration from Mesoamerican languages. When players create characters from Valachan, consider asking them the following questions:

How did you avoid or survive participating in the Trial of Hearts? Did you flee Valachan to evade the hunt? Did you somehow escape Chakuna after being selected? Did you volunteer to protect somebody else?

Why aren’t you a werepanther? Are you from one of the outlying villages, like Shuaran? Were you adopted? Were you born without the gift, or do you display a different manifestation?

What secret of the land do you know better than anyone else? Is it the existence of the grotto filled with healing flowers? The secret way out of a box canyon? How to get a giant parrot to like you?

Settlements and Sites

Valachan is beautiful, lush, and wild. Every kind of colorful creature and vibrant bloom flourishes here, and from its deep gulches to its heady mountain ridges, the domain teems with life. Rumors of this land’s rare abundance often escape the domain, enticing traders, herbalists, beast tamers, and seekers of magical reagents to search it out. But visitors must tread lightly and take their plunder sparingly, or the wrath of the Darklord will surely find them.

Valachan has no established roads, but well-traveled game trails snake through the dense forest, marked out by generations of inhabitants. These paths are easily spotted by those who know how to look for them.

Every living thing in Valachan generates wily camouflage, venom, spines, tricks, or traps. Nothing here is safe, defenseless, or as it seems.

Eirubamba River

Wildflowers, enticing fruits, and medicinal herbs grow in the forests and upon the shorelines around the Eirubamba River. Most rain forest predators won’t approach the river, though, fearing the territorial Giant Wasp that swarm among the rare plants.

Oselo

Darklord Chakuna’s home village, Oselo appears prosperous and relaxed, and the people are friendly to traders and visitors. Nothing strange occurs during the day. But at night, everything changes. Hunters shift into the forms of panthers and ocelots, forming packs that roam deep into the jungle and return with meat after assisting Chakuna on her hunts. In the aftermath, an underlying disquiet permeates the entire village. A spiritual struggle torments the community, the people torn between wanting to live in peace and obeying Chakuna’s will.

The Oselo people occasionally adopt wayward outsiders, granting them protection from the Trial of Hearts. Once adopted into the village, individuals must prove themselves by undertaking initiation ceremonies focused around surviving in the forest for a week with no tools.

Pantara Lodge

The seat of power in Valachan, Pantara Lodge is a series of thatch buildings strung together high in the forest canopy, suspended above the overgrown ruins of a castle reclaimed by the jungle. Chakuna’s home holds only the bare necessities: an armory, an infirmary, and a stable of displacer beasts. Chakuna’s displacer beast hunting partner, Yana, remains by her side here.

Those who listen closely while at Pantara Lodge hear muttering in the night. These whispers issue from the head of Urik von Kharkov, Valachan’s deposed former Darklord, who spews curses and secrets from a chamber hidden at the lodge’s heart.

Shuaran

The skilled warriors of Shuaran village don’t shape-shift like the Oselo, though Oselo refugees who believe Chakuna’s rule is cursed and shun her protection can be found here. Opposed to the rule of Chakuna, the Shuaran fear her deeply and might aid those who resist her, defining their relationships with strangers through a prickly, easily offended sense of honor. The Shuaran constantly guard against a local shrewdness of howling apes to the south near Yakum Beach. A soft and menacing whooping in the distance can be heard in the village at all times.

Yaguara’s Heart

The most secret of secret places in Valachan, Yaguara’s Heart lies at the center of a maze of mountains southwest of Pantara Lodge. Within this canyon lies a small, crumbling temple nestled among treacherous cliffs and grasping forest. In the blood-painted caverns hidden beneath the temple lies a stone altar bearing the still-beating heart of Darklord Chakuna. Here, an aspiring Darklord can perform a ritual to consume Chakuna’s heart and take her place as ruler of Valachan, or destroy it and loose the sapient rage of the rain forest on anyone trapped within the domain’s borders. Only Chakuna, the displacer beast Yana, and von Kharkov’s remains know the location of Chakuna’s heart and how to claim her power.

Chakuna

In Valachan, the fall of one Darklord led inevitably to the rise of another. For Chakuna, caught in a cycle of bloodshed and trapped by the forest that lends her power, the tools of the oppressor became the means of her bitter domination.

The Darklord Urik von Kharkov ruled from the now-ruined Castle Pantara, a fortress of tyranny and torment from which he hunted the people of Valachan for sport. Over untold years, the hunt grew in complexity, and von Kharkov sought out the rarest, most dangerous prey. Chakuna’s people, the Oselo, became his favorite targets.

The Oselo are hunters and people of the jungle. But by the light of the moon, many grow fur, claws, and fangs, revealing their true nature as watchful and dangerous lycanthropes. By the time Chakuna was a teenager, von Kharkov had fine-tuned the horror of his hunts into a regulated tournament. He hunted her people to the brink of extinction, preventing their escape by closing the domain’s borders and trapping them within the Mists.

Chakuna swore to save her people. She entered the tournament freely, determined to turn the tables on von Kharkov or die. She vowed to sacrifice whatever it took to defeat the Darklord—but learned quickly that it takes monstrosity to beat a monster. Chakuna found von Kharkov’s weakness, burned Castle Pantara to the ground, and kept the former Darklord’s head.

Chakuna’s Powers and Dominion

Chakuna gained her status as a Darklord when she defeated Urik von Kharkov. In so doing, though, she discovered a terrible truth about the nature of Valachan, and she now lives to maintain the domain and the cycle of predator and prey. Chakuna has statistics similar to a weretiger, but her animal and hybrid forms have the appearance of a panther.

Heartless

Chakuna has no heart—literally. At the height of her contest with von Kharkov, she ripped it out of her chest with her fingers and placed it at the center of the Yaguara Mountain maze, then replaced it by taking and eating von Kharkov’s heart. Doing so, she co-opted von Kharkov’s powers and accursed immortality and claimed Valachan as her own. Within Yaguara’s Heart, the sacred nexus of the maze, Chakuna’s heart still beats as one with the land, infinitely connected and as robust as the rain forest. But like anything that lives, her tie with the domain she’s claimed must be maintained. Life eats life. And so Chakuna sacrifices the blood of the hunted to the land to maintain her grip on power. If she doesn’t, the plants and animals of the domain grow hostile, threatening to wipe out all who dwell there.

The Trial of Hearts

Chakuna has formalized the slaughter she must commit to maintain her tie with the domain as a ritualized battle royale known as the Trial of Hearts (detailed below).

Closing the Borders

When Chakuna chooses to close the borders of her domain, the seas grow rough and the Mists rise. In addition to their normal effects (see “Influence of the Mists” at the start of this chapter), the Mists of Valachan are home to Displacer Beast and other deadly predators that attack all creatures they meet.

Chakuna’s Torment

Chakuna’s tie to Valachan is different from the domain bonds of most other Darklords, as hers is a willing bond. She must endlessly steep the land in blood to ensure her survival and protect her people from the vicious land, so that the hunts she vowed to stop now continue in her name. She shields her people from the slaughter, but the rest of Valachan is fair game.

Roleplaying Chakuna

The whole web of life in Valachan bends to a singular malevolent consciousness that demands Chakuna prove her worth as its keeper and apex predator, lest it rise up to consume her people. In response, Chakuna is canny, remorseless, and vindictive. She’s come to enjoy playing with her food—and she has a whole domain to feed.

Personality Trait

“I owe nothing to those I hunt. They are nothing more than prey.”

Ideal

“If I’m cleverer than you, then I deserve to live, and you deserve to die.”

Bond

“My people are the strongest people, and I ensure they survive.”

Flaw

“Everyone and everything lies. Only by expecting treachery will a hunter survive.”

Adventures in Valachan

Valachan forces adventurers to survive in a wilderness that’s not merely hostile, but is actively trying to destroy them. Other terrors in the Domains of Dread take the form of vicious villains or terrifying monsters. But in Valachan, the land is the greatest threat, and the domain’s murderous Darklord hones that threat like a weapon.

The Trial of Hearts anchors the terror in Valachan, but the domain’s dangerous wilderness threatens anyone who explores the land. In addition to natural rain-forest predators, dinosaurs and Displacer Beast roam the domain. Its varied Plant creatures include wicked Twig Blight, cruel Treant, and manipulative Dryad all expressing the land’s underlying blood thirst. The people of the land—the werepanthers of Oselo, the Shuaran, and remote groups of lizardfolk—might provide assistance to outsiders, but they don’t tolerate those who insult their ways or bring Chakuna’s wrath upon them. Parties without experience exploring dangerous wilds can enlist a guide to aid them, a service that the Oselo are particularly willing to provide.

Valachan provides the opportunity to exaggerate everything the players and characters know about the threats of nature. The Survival skill proves invaluable in navigating the rain forest, determining what kind of creature mauled a corpse, and understanding how different venoms afflict a jungle survivor. The primal power of the land manifests as environmental hazards such as sudden storms, cliff walls made of vertical quicksand, and naturally occurring pit and snare traps. Whispering hollows, carnivorous plants, and cursing winds can overtly reveal the wilderness’s hunger.

Consider the plots on the Valachan Adventures table when planning adventures in this domain.

Valachan Adventures

The Trial of Hearts

Those who venture into Valachan unprepared risk running afoul of Chakuna and becoming her quarry in the deadly Trial of Hearts. Scenarios like the following might lead to the characters becoming involved in the trial:

• Unwitting Criminals. The characters come to Valachan seeking a miraculous plant, rare creature, or unique item—and are captured when they discover their prize is sacred to the domain’s people. To redeem themselves, outsiders must participate in the Trial of Hearts.
• Deadly Detour. While traveling elsewhere, the party is shipwrecked or ambushed by a deadly predator. The characters awake in Valachan, where Chakuna treats them as trespassers.
• Mindtaker Mists. The Mists deposit the consciousnesses of each of the characters into guests at Pantara Lodge. Whether the guests are recreational hunters, unsuspecting foreign nobles, or skilled local warriors, they soon discover that Chakuna’s hospitality has a deadly ulterior motive. Consult the “Survivors” section of chapter 4 for options to represent those destined to become prey.

Rules of the Trial

On the night of certain full moons, Chakuna selects fifteen souls within her domain who she considers worthy prey. She leads the participants to Pantara Lodge, shows them every courtesy, and then sets out the rules of her test:

• Contenders may divide into small groups or choose to participate alone.
• Once groups are established at the trial’s start, alliances between contenders are not permitted.
• Contenders must reach one of two shrines: either on Kiru Island or between the lakes called the Scars atop Anquara Plateau.
• Contenders may leave Pantara Lodge at dawn the next day. Later that day, at dusk, Chakuna pursues the contenders with hunting partners of her choice, attempting to slay anyone she encounters outside a shrine.
• Contenders may kill one another for any reason—particularly to take a shrine.
• The trial does not stop for any reason until Chakuna arrives at both shrines and acknowledges the winners there.
• Winners are escorted to Shuaran, and from there, out of Valachan.
• Losers rot where they fall in the jungle.
• Violations of the rules are punishable by death.

Chakuna closes her domain’s borders while the trial is underway and can change the hunt’s rules on a whim. For example, if she catches a competitor too soon, she might offer to release them if they sacrifice an arm to feed her beasts.

Travel in Valachan

Impenetrable rain forests, jagged cliffs, and deadly rapids fill the wilderness of Valachan, and characters exploring the domain or participating in the Trial of Hearts must travel through these deadly wilds. Maps of Valachan can be obtained from the Oselo, the Shuaran people, or from Chakuna.

The domain’s jungles are difficult terrain, reducing a party’s pace by half. This means characters can move through most of the domain at a normal pace of 11/2 miles per hour and 12 miles per day. Characters can move at a fast or slow pace, with effects as detailed in the Player’s Handbook.

Characters able to fly find their flight slowed by strong winds (effectively difficult terrain), and might face deadly airborne creatures such as Chimera, Harpy, and Pteranodon. Chakuna might also add rules to the Trial of Hearts that deem flight and magical travel off limits. If she does, the Mists aid in enforcing these rules.

As Darklord of Valachan, Chakuna isn’t impeded by difficult terrain in the domain’s wilderness. Instead of tracking how Chakuna follows characters participating in the hunt, have her appear to watch and toy with other participants, then confront the characters at the most dramatic moment.

Dangers of the Trial

Valachan offers thousands of ways to die, and characters can encounter many of them during the Trial of Hearts, including jungle predators, animated plants, and displacer beasts. Those who choose Kiru Island as their goal must cross treacherous waters to reach it, while those who head for the Scars must climb the towering Anquara Plateau. Additionally, each hour the characters travel through the domain, roll on the Valachan Hunt Complications table for an encounter. Characters traveling at a fast pace roll twice on this table and use the lower result. Characters traveling at a slow pace roll twice on the table and use the higher result.

Completing the Trial

At both Kiru Island and the Scars, a shrine on stilts offers the only safety during the Trial of Hearts. When Chakuna arrives at a shrine, whoever she finds inside wins the trial—or so she claims. Whether Chakuna abides by the rules of her trial is up to you.

Ultimately, escaping Chakuna requires finding her heart and destroying it. This prevents Chakuna from recovering if slain. If the characters learn the secret of how Chakuna consumed von Kharkov’s heart and took his place as Darklord, any of them might seek to follow a similar path. Doing so requires replacing Chakuna’s heart with a character’s own heart, or the land utterly rebels and tries to kill all sapient beings in the domain. Those who take Chakuna’s mantle can ensure their allies' safety, but Valachan becomes their eternal prison.

Valachan Hunt Complications

Other Domains of Dread

The Land of the Mists comprise more than the domains presented in this chapter thus far. Countless domains drift through the Mists. The following lands hint at the multitudes of additional domains that make up the Domains of Dread. Detail and explore these domains in your adventures as you please, or use them as examples when creating your own domains using the guidance in chapter 2. Not all domains need to be elaborately detailed settings. As the domains in this section demonstrate, creating a simple concept for a Darklord and the horrors surrounding them can be a perfect starting point for further development over the course of your adventures.

While exploring the Domains of Dread, should the Mists carry characters to a mysterious domain, roll on the Domains of Ravenloft table to randomly determine where the Dark Powers have guided the party. Domains marked with an asterisk are described earlier in this chapter.

Domains of Ravenloft

Cyre 1313, The Mourning Rail

Darklord

The Last Passenger

Hallmarks

Escape from disaster, lightning rail

The disaster known as the Mourning numbers among the greatest tragedies to befall the world of Eberron—a mysterious calamity that killed nearly everyone in the land of Cyre. In the nation’s capital of Metrol, some citizens foresaw the coming devastation and sought to escape upon lightning rails, elemental-powered engines capable of pulling trains of passenger carriages. As scared innocents packed Metrol’s last lightning rail, known as Cyre 1313, the evacuation was delayed at the demand of a late-arriving VIP. Hundreds were forced from passenger carriages to admit and maintain the secrecy of this last passenger and their retinue. When the lightning rail did finally depart, it was too late. The disaster of the Mourning overtook the train and its hundreds of escapees. But even as it did, the Mists claimed Cyre 1313 and all aboard it. Now, the last lightning rail from Metrol hurtles through the Mists as a traveling domain. Those on board fear the disaster pursuing them, the mysterious passenger seated in the train’s foremost carriage, and the necrotic energy now infusing the engine’s elemental spirit. Yet none of the passengers realize their endless escape is pointless, as Cyre 1313 carries only the dead.

Forlorn

Darklord

Tristen ApBlanc

Hallmarks

Life and death, strange invention

Tristen ApBlanc was born amid tragedy, the son of a vampire father and a human noble. His parents were murdered by fearful villagers, leaving Tristen to be adopted by local druids. But during his teenage years, Tristen’s dhampir nature revealed itself (see chapter 1). When the druids discovered the youth’s hunger for blood, they cast him out, but Tristen grew enraged and slaughtered the druids, draining them all. The sacred waters of the druids' rituals had infused their blood, though, making it poison to the half-vampire. Tristen died with his adopted family, but as the Mists closed in around their sacred stone circle, he rose a ghost. Unexpectedly, with the dawn, Tristen’s dhampir body was restored. Now, Tristen lives by day, a perpetually young, charming, invention-obsessed dhampir dwelling in Castle Tristenoira, the smoking fortress his goblin servants built over the druid circle of his one-time family. At night, though, the young dhampir dies a painful death, in his spectral form, and seeks to scour all that is green and vibrant from his land.

Ghastria

Darklord

Marquis Stezen D’Polarno

Hallmarks

Cursed art, dour population

A notorious hedonist, Marquis Stezen D’Polarno was popular among his noble peers but craved immortality. A mysterious artist offered him eternity by painting D’Polarno’s portrait upon a magical canvas. But the artist didn’t mention that the painting would strip D’Polarno of his love of life and natural charm. The marquis has discovered a reprieve from his now-dulled existence, however—once every season, when he shows the painting to an audience, it consumes their souls and refreshes his thrill for life. D’Polarno’s artistic predations captured the attention of the Dark Powers, which drew his lands into the Mists. Now, Ghastria is a fertile island that, like its lord, lacks an essential vim except for once a season when vigor fleetingly returns.

G’henna

• Darklord: Yagno Petrovna

Hallmarks

Corrupt theocracy, false deity

Born of a Barovian family, Yagno Petrovna went missing upon the slopes of Mount Ghakis as a youth. As a violent storm rose, he took shelter in a mysterious ruin and was found wandering the hills weeks later, babbling about an amber idol and the god he’d discovered, Zhakata the Provider and the Devourer. His family sought to help him, but when they discovered Yagno secretly sacrificing people to his fictitious god, they chased him into the Mists. When Yagno emerged, the domain of G’henna sprawled before him.

Life is hard in G’henna, a rocky land home to fierce, starving animals. The domain’s people worship the bestial god Zhakata and regularly travel to the cathedral-city of Zhukar. There, they offer their crops in sacrifice and hear Zhakata’s will through the words of revered prophet Yagno Petrovna.

Invidia

• Darklord: Gabrielle Aderre

Hallmarks

Bad parents, possessed children

Gabrielle Aderre is convinced that her son, Malocchio, is destined for greatness. From her estate outside the village of Karina, she employs an endless string of servants to provide Malocchio the best possible upbringing. Inevitably, though, every servant flees or vanishes, either as a result of Gabrielle’s unreasonable expectations or the deadly tricks and accidents that frequently occur around the child. Gabrielle isn’t content to leave her son’s grand destiny to chance, though. Using her precious bone spirit board, she calls upon supernatural forces to guide and protect her son. Spirits, angels, fiends, and worse answer her summons, but as long as they chart Malocchio’s path to glory, Gabrielle eagerly accepts their gifts.

Keening

• Darklord: Tristessa

Hallmarks

Banshee, silent village

The forbidding land of Keening is dominated by Mount Lament, at whose base lies the village of Anwrtyn, where all the residents are deaf. This is no accident, for the locals purposefully deafen themselves so they won’t hear the shrieking of the banshee Tristessa, a mournful spirit who roams Mount Lament and whose wail carries through the night. In life, Tristessa dwelled under Mount Arak in Tepest (detailed earlier in this chapter), but she was exiled for crimes against her people. In death, she endlessly seeks to be reunited with the family slain by her misdeeds.

Klorr

• Darklord: Klorr

Hallmarks

Impending doom, surreal environment

Klorr is the end of worlds. Here, shattered islands drift through a misty netherworld, caught in a swirling spiral that ends at the unignorable, burning eye called Klorr. Thirteen stars orbit this sun-like sphere, one winking out every hour. Each time one of the stars dies, one of the domain’s ruined islands is drawn into Klorr and consumed by flames. With it, each other island wrenches ahead, then halts, one hour closer to the same doom.

Those who dwell upon the crumbling land masses trapped in the domain constantly count the hours until their end. Few know how they came to Klorr or when new islands are added to the cycle, only that the Mists closed in and doomed them. Amid the realm’s surreal skies float the ruins of lost and failed domains—among them, a tower like a blackened rose and a city of skulls—as well as timeless echoes of domains that yet exist. Those cast away amid this orderly apocalypse grow ever more desperate to defy the doomsday clock and the will of a hidden Darklord, the obsessed clockmaker named Klorr.

Markovia

• Darklord: Dr. Frantisek Markov

Hallmarks

Depraved science, sapient animals

Dr. Frantisek Markov is a genius—but less so than yesterday. His Markov Formula grants him unparalleled intellect, but it insidiously steals more than it gives, making him increasingly dull-witted and bestial in form. Despairing, the doctor fled to a tropical island he dubbed Markovia, where he tests new versions of his formula on the local fauna in hopes of recovering his waning genius. As a result of these tests, animals across Markovia now possess sapience and have been deluded into believing Markov is their god.

The Nightmare Lands

Darklord

The Nightmare Court

Hallmarks

Nightmares, reoccurring dreams

Any who sleep might close their eyes and become forever trapped in the Nightmare Lands, a phantasmagoric realm whose features shift endlessly. Those who visit and escape speak of malicious wildernesses; the empty city called Nod; and uncountable drifting spheres, each containing a stranger’s unending nightmare. Insidious entities called the Nightmare Court rule the domain. None know how many members compose the court, but they include the tragically graceful Ghost Dancer, the tomb-bound Hypnos, the witch Mullonga, the trickster Morpheus, and the embodiment of terror known as the Nightmare Man. These beings are artisans of nightmares, visiting terrors upon any whose sleeping minds brush against the domain.

The Nightmare Court’s members share one commonality: all are the living nightmares of Caroline Dinwiddy, a potent psychic who repressed memories of her own heartless deeds. These memories torment her sleeping mind, creating the Nightmare Court. Deep within the City of Nod, inside a warped reimagining of the clinic where she once worked, Dinwiddy sleeps without waking, refusing to face the terrors her dreams unleash upon innocents across the multiverse.

Niranjan

• Darklord: Sarthak

Hallmarks

Asceticism, brainwashing, shadows

An island chain that once belonged to the domain of Kalakeri, the Ashram of Niranjan was a vibrant vihara, or monastery, for ascetic scholars who practiced Ramsana, a way of life whose central tenet advises nonattachment to the material world. Now only a small, reclusive group of these scholars remains, led by the elderly sadhu (holy figure) Niranjan. In truth, Niranjan is Sarthak, a wicked bronze dragon who send agents into the Mists bearing his philosophical writings. These works promise escape and peace to any who adopt their teachings and search the Mists for their source. Anyone who comes to the ashram must divest themselves of worldly goods, which are added to Sarthak’s hidden hoard. The false sadhu then helps his victim enter a blissful trance that causes their soul to slip away from their body over the course of days. Sarthak consumes this soul and replaces it with a shadow, leaving the victim’s body under his control.

Nova Vaasa

• Darklord: Myar Hiregaard

Hallmarks

Nomadic riders, transformation

An unparalleled warrior, Myar Hiregaard united the nomadic tribes of the vast plains of Nova Vaasa. But, while respected as a soldier, Myar made a poor peacetime leader. When brutal games could no longer keep her interest, she incited hostilities between two of her vassal tribes, then led her own forces to crush them. Subtly, she did this again and again. After Myar’s greatest massacre, the Mists enfolded all of Nova Vaasa, splitting Myar’s personality in two when they did. Now she rules her people with strict fairness, but when her bloodlust is piqued, she transforms into the raging knight called Malkan and sows discord across the plains.

Odaire

• Darklord: Maligno

Hallmarks

Evil toys, village of children

The toymaker Guiseppe had his wish for a family granted when his creation, the marionette Figlio, came to life. A proud father, the toymaker presented his son to all the other people of his village, Odaire. The local children loved Figlio, but their parents were skeptical, saying the marionette was nothing but a toy. Over time, this doubt enraged Figlio, and the marionette convinced Guiseppe to craft siblings for him. Then, when the time was right, Guiseppe’s creations did away with all the adults in Odaire. Claimed by the Mists, Odaire is a village populated only by children and ruled by the carrionette Figlio, who now calls himself Maligno. (See chapter 5 for details on Carrionette.)

The Rider’s Bridge

Darklord

The Headless Rider

Hallmarks

Haunted bridge, murderous legend

Nearly every domain knows some version of the apparition called the Headless Rider. It appears as a mercenary in dark armor in Mordent, a ghostly cataphract in Har’Akir, and a mutated centaur in Lamordia, but in each incarnation certain details remain true: the rider is missing its head, it appears upon a prominent bridge, and it decapitates victims as it endlessly searches for its own head. Should someone escape an encounter with the Headless Rider, they might find a different domain on the opposite side of the spirit’s bridge. (See the dullahan in chapter 5 for more details on headless riders.)

Risibilos

• Darklord: Doerdon

Hallmarks

Misdirection, ventriloquism

The Risibilos is a small music hall, similar to those found in any decent-sized city. Its lord, Doerdon, was once a king—one so thoroughly humorless that he forbade his subjects the privilege of laughter, upon pain of death. He is now cursed to entertain others, a task he is utterly unqualified for.

Fortunately, the Mists delivered him a partner, a ventriloquist’s dummy carved in the likeness of Strahd von Zarovich. The eerie dummy has a mind of its own, insisting that it is the real Strahd and that the creature currently sitting upon the throne of Castle Ravenloft is a mere impostor. It rages at the audience and makes audacious promises to any who will help it regain its station. This is hilarious to anyone with the slightest inkling of who Strahd is, and their peals of laughter are agony to Doerdon’s ears.

Scaena

• Darklord: Lemont Sediam Juste

Hallmarks

Reality-manipulating theater

Lemont Sediam Juste fancied himself a serious playwright, and he achieved popular, if not critical, acclaim throughout Dementlieu for his works of grisly horror. But he craved respectability, and with his new play Apparitions, Lemont believed he would find it. The night of the premiere, when the audience signaled their boredom, the playwright was crestfallen. His supporters wanted blood, so he gave them what they craved. By the play’s end, Lemont had joined the play and viscerally murdered every member of the cast while the crowd roared their approval. As the show ended, the playhouse broke from Dementlieu, and Scaena was formed. Comprising a single playhouse, the domain can create any reality Lemont desires upon its stage. The Darklord’s immersive performances are somewhat predictable, though, as they always end in slaughter.

Sea of Sorrows

Darklord

Pietra van Riese

Hallmarks

Island domains, nautical horror

The murderous pirate Pietra van Riese, captain of the Relentless, had an unsavory reputation for attaching her captives to ropes and dragging them through the water until they drowned. She never removed the detritus of her victims, even though some returned to life as zombies. The Relentless was ultimately sunk by rival captains, but death couldn’t keep Pietra. She awoke in the Sea of Sorrows, water in her lungs and sea creatures making their homes in her flesh. Her crew stirred with her, now fish-eaten corpses. When Pietra sought to speak with them, her voice emerged from their mouths.

The Relentless sails a domain that can overlap any body of water in any other domain. Some domains border the Sea of Sorrows, while others have their own names for these mysterious waters. Those who venture into the Mists by boat might find themselves amid an endless, debris- and sargassum-choked expanse of eerie beasts and shifting islands, including the following:

• Blaustein. This island-fortress domain was once ruled by the notorious Bluebeard, but his spectral wives overthrew him and now endlessly torment him.

• Dominia. The asylum of the vampire Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth rises upon this stormy island. The asylum’s patients are all dramatically different versions of Heinfroth inspired by who he was at various points during his lengthy life.
• Isle of the Ravens. A storm of ravens surrounds this forested islet. Hidden amid the feathered gale, an impossibly tall tower stretches into the sky. This is the home of the Lady of Ravens, and any who offend her join her ebon-winged flock.
• The Lighthouse. Otherworldly light shines from atop this twisted spur of bizarre fossils. Anyone who enters finds that the light doesn’t call out to the sea, but down to what lurks in the pit hidden within.
• Vigilant’s Bluff. An undead paladin holds vigil atop this drowned island. Weary travelers can find refuge here if they’re respectful of the paladin’s faith. The bones of those who were not litter the surrounding coral.

The Shadowlands

• Darklord: Ebonbane

Hallmarks

Falls from grace, heroic sacrifice

Within this forested land of peasants and heroes dwells an order of questing knights known as the Circle. These knights seek to vanquish evil, following the example of their founder, the paladin Kateri Shadowborn. Even long generations after Kateri’s death, members of the Shadowborn family still number among the Circle, their heroics known across the Shadowlands and in other domains. Yet despite their victories, the foes and failures of these knights are ever drawn back to the Shadowlands, filling it with vengeful souls and monsters. These include villains such as the necromancer Morgoroth; the fallen paladin Elena Faith-hold; and Ebonbane, Kateri Shadowborn’s accursed sword.

Souragne

• Darklord: Anton Misroi

Hallmarks

Imprisonment, swamp magic

In society, Anton Misroi presented himself as an upstanding gentleman. But within the walls of the prison over which he was warden, he was a sadist who believed righteousness was on his side. When his torturous punishments finally drove the prison’s inmates to rise up, the bloody riot that ensued drew the attentions of the Dark Powers. During the uprising, Misroi was drowned in the swamps surrounding the prison. But he rose again soon after, an undead warden in search of inmates.

Beyond Misroi’s prison, alligator-filled swamps cover the domain of Souragne right up to the sinking settlement of Port d’Elhour and Marais d’Tarascon, a village where above-ground crypts outnumber the residences of the living.

Staunton Bluffs

• Darklord: Teresa Bleysmith

Hallmarks

Endless warfare, repeating history

Eerily faceless mercenary regiments sweep the countryside of Staunton Bluffs. Burning villages and killing helpless residents, they push ever eastward toward Castle Stonecrest, hereditary home of the Bleysmith family. Teresa Bleysmith, spurred by jealousy of her brother, Torrence, gave her family’s foes the intelligence they needed to raid Staunton Bluffs. The attack was never supposed to go so far, but the duplicitous mercenaries stormed through the countryside to take Castle Stonecrest within a day. Teresa survived the attack, but when she surveyed the damage done and found her family dead by her own designs, she threw herself from the bluffs. Now she haunts her own domain, where she repeatedly relives the day of her betrayal.

Tovag

• Darklord: Kas the Bloody Handed

Hallmarks

Undead military dictatorship

Notorious across the planes, the vampire Kas was once the champion of the lich Vecna. Wielding the artifact that bears his name, he betrayed his master, and the resulting battle supposedly destroyed them both. In truth, Vecna escaped and grew in power over ages and across worlds. Kas, though, was claimed by the Mists, and in his wasteland domain of Tovag, he believes his war with Vecna rages on. Patrols of prisoner-soldiers under undead commanders scour the land, dragooning strangers to serve in Kas’s armies and to manufacture bizarre war machines. When Kas deems the time right, he sends his forces into the Mists, believing that Vecna’s realm lies just beyond. Invariably, those troops never return, leaving the vampire to rage, rebuild his forces, and continue his search for the Sword of Kas (detailed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide), which he considers his key to victory.

Vhage Agency

• Darklord: Flimira Vhage

Hallmarks

Detective work, memory loss

Everything inside the office of the Vhage Agency appears as a monotone gray. Anyone who passes the frosted glass door that leads into this single-room domain is expected by Flimira “Flintlock” Vhage, the detective agency’s owner. From this hub for occult detective adventures (see chapter 2), Vhage collects mysterious correspondence relating to mysteries all across the Domains of Dread. She enlists agents to investigate these cases, and then report back to her. However, she never reveals her own past as a detective turned criminal, her involvement in every case her agency investigates, or that the Vhage Agency exists entirely within her mind.

Zherisia

• Darklord: Sodo

Hallmarks

Serial murderers, urban decay

Each day, the city of Paridon in Zherisia erupts in riots over food scarcity, taxation, and citizens who go missing by the dozens every night. At least one murderer stalks Paridon: the ancient doppelganger Sodo, who has impersonated so many people that it now finds it impossible to hold a form for more than a few days at a time. As Sodo’s flesh runs like hot wax, it staves off dissolution by consuming the organs of humanoids. Paridon’s streets serve as the doppelganger’s hunting ground, and those who enter the sewers risk attracting the notice of countless Carrion Stalker (see chapter 5) and their monstrous Hive Queen.

Travelers in the Mists

Adventures in the Domains of Dread often indulge in a single domain’s distinctly frightful themes. But if you plan to run whole campaigns set in the Land of the Mists, creating narratives that span domains can prove challenging if every realm is a world unto itself. Individuals who willfully brave the Mists to travel between domains are especially useful in your broader horror stories.

While it’s true that most residents of the Domains of Dread never leave their home domains and wisely don’t fixate on what lies beyond the Mists, some daring souls do. Many such inquisitive individuals simply vanish, the Mists delivering them to deadly domains from which they never return. But others manage to band together, learning the ways of the Mists, how to travel through them, and how to survive their dangers. Those who travel between domains might have the Mist Walker Dark Gift (see chapter 1) or know how to employ Mist talismans (detailed at the start of this chapter). Such travelers can provide the following services adventurers might find useful:

• Evidence of other domains
• News, rumors, and requests for help
• Information on Mist talismans
• Guidance or traveling companions

The characters in your adventures should feel special if they travel the Mists, as few have the courage to do so. When characters encounter travelers from other domains, those individuals should likewise be remarkable or have a desperate reason to have braved the Mists. Learning about such wanderers can drive the characters from a single adventure into a larger campaign that explores other domains.

The following sections present groups and individuals who routinely travel the Mists. The Strangers in the Mists table also suggests the kinds of people characters might encounter amid the Mists.

Strangers in the Mists

Keepers of the Feather

When asked about the origins of their society, the members of the Keepers of the Feather speak of their traditions originating long ago and beyond the Mists. This is true, but most who repeat that story are only trying to layer a mystical facade over their dilettante spiritualism.

Only the group’s highest-ranking members know that the Keepers of the Feather began in Barovia as a small sect of Wereraven (see chapter 5) dedicated to opposing the evils of Strahd von Zarovich. Though their numbers were not enough to oppose the Darklord directly, they sought useful lore and aided brave souls from the shadows, manipulating fortune to confound some of Strahd’s more diabolical plots. Over generations, the wereravens' hidden resistance to Strahd continued in Barovia, but some among them learned of other lands suffering beyond the Mists. Unwilling to let the innocents of those lands fend for themselves, some of the Keepers of the Feather ventured forth, hoping to share their wisdom and their subtle resistance to evil with those who needed it most.

However, the Mists find a way to twist even the best of intentions. In the cities of urbane domains like Borca, Darkon, and Dementlieu, the mystical writings and talismans the wereravens carried from Barovia came to the attention of the bored elite. Fascinated, these socialites became obsessed with the occult, seeking out esoteric works, hiring doubtful fortune-tellers, and hosting parlor séances. In most cases, the results were passing fads. In some, they were catastrophic—the unprepared successfully summoned fiends and angry spirits into their salons. But a few earnest amateur spiritualists genuinely sought to learn more about the secrets beyond their homes, their lives, and the Mists. In these would-be occultists, the wereravens saw potential.

Keeper Characters

Characters playing members of the Keepers of the Feather have access to contacts with interest in spiritualism and the occult, including hapless dilettantes, reclusive scholars, correspondents from other domains, and hucksters. At any time, members of the organization might call upon their contacts to uncover some esoteric secret, engage in a supernatural investigation, or even explore another domain.

When players create Keeper of the Feather characters, ask them the following questions.

What sparked your interest in the occult? Did you encounter a mysterious being that you want to understand? Is membership a family tradition? Are you trying to contact someone beyond the grave? Do you seek some other knowledge?

What esoteric knowledge most interests you? Are you curious about archeology, astrology, divination, cryptozoology, electricity, or spiritualism? How has this gotten you into trouble?

Who aids your investigations? Is another Keeper your mentor? Do you and other Keepers meet regularly? Do you correspond with a Keeper in another domain? Did this person give you your Mark of the Raven talisman?

Keeper Societies

Beyond Barovia, where the eldest wereraven members of the Keepers of the Feather keep a low profile, Keepers organize into small social clubs with shared interests in occultism. Some members are actual invested scholars, while others are simply bored rich folk. But all have a strong interest in séances, fortune-telling, secrets of the afterlife, sightings of mysterious creatures, metaphysical theories, and tales of the macabre. Among their misinterpretations and outright flimflam—like round planet theory and dikesha dice—Keepers also possess hints of truth and the tools wereravens have long used to combat evil. Among these are spirit boards (detailed in chapter 4), tarokka decks, Mist talismans, and piecemeal occult writings from various domains. Some among the Keepers don’t know the true power of these tools, but this doesn’t dull their enthusiasm.

Knowing the threats that Darklords and other evils pose, wereravens of the Keepers typically don’t reveal themselves to those not of their kind. Rather, they infiltrate Keeper societies as reclusive members, traveling experts, or foreign scholars. Some Keepers also tell of sightings or visitations involving giant raven-like beings that appear, speak some prophecy or deliver some message, then vanish, often presaging either wonder or disaster. The wereravens take little issue with these exaggerated tales from those who’ve witnessed their hybrid forms, and they willingly play into the tales of the Keepers if it means spurring them to action.

The Keepers of the Feather are a loose organization, incorporating members who operate alone or in small groups, as well as elite social clubs or secretive societies. In all cases, Keepers identify each other by the Mark of the Raven, a sunburst emblem worn as a pin or amulet. Drawn from esoteric writings, this mark is a recreation of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, a storied religious artifact from Barovia. Though these reproductions carry no magical properties and most non-wereraven Keepers don’t know the symbol’s origin, many foul forces instinctively recognize the symbol as an emblem of good.

Keeper Rookeries

Keeper cells strive to correspond and share discoveries between communities and domains. To facilitate this, the wereravens have taught some Keepers how to raise messenger ravens capable of delivering letters through the Mists. Most non-Keepers who learn of this consider it a trick, or fear what it means to receive messages from beyond the Mists, encouraging the Keepers to offer this rare service only to group members and their allies. Keeper ravens as a means of correspondence is detailed in “Life in the Domains of Dread” earlier in this chapter.

Keeper Adventures

The Keeper Adventures table offers ideas for strange events that can touch off stories involving the Keepers of the Feather.

Keeper Adventures

Vistani

Known throughout the Land of the Mists, Vistani (singular: Vistana) are a people with a unique understanding of the Domains of Dread and the hidden paths between them. Following itinerant traditions, many Vistani travel between domains, learning much of hidden lands, the many faces of evil, and the strange wonders of the Mists. A people unto themselves, Vistani refuse to be captives of a single domain, the Mists, or any terror.

Vistani Culture

Unlike the denizens of individual domains, Vistani are inhabitants of the Land of the Mist as a whole. Although they trace their origins to the same world as Barovia, many Vistani look toward the future, learning from their traditions and from one another to better face whatever lies ahead.

Vistani bands consist primarily of one or more extended human families who can trace their heritage back to age-old Vistani clans. Over generations of exploring the Mists, though, individuals of other ancestries have been accepted into some clans and now are full-fledged members of Vistani culture (see the “Vistani Characters” sidebar for details).

As they travel, members of a Vistani band walk, ride on horseback, and drive ledge wagons, stopping at night to set up camp. Vistani bands occasionally camp near welcoming communities to trade and resupply, but rarely stay more than a week—though this can be complicated if a Darklord closes a domain’s borders. Most bands make their living primarily through craftwork (especially delicate silversmithing), horse rearing, and trading wares carried between domains.

Meetings between Vistani bands are opportunities to trade, catch up with friends, and share both news and warnings of dangers ahead or behind.

Vistani Magic and the Mists

Vistani pass their varied teachings through their families as stories and songs, detailing lessons learned from generations of travelers, warnings specific to visited domains, and traditional magic. Spellcasters aren’t uncommon among Vistani bands, with many favoring divination magic for the practical help it provides in avoiding danger. Spellcasters often incorporate their people’s traditional divination tools into their spellcasting, including the fortune-telling cards called tarokka decks.

With their experience navigating the Mists, many Vistani understand how to employ Mist talismans (detailed at the start of this chapter) to reach specific domains, or possess the Mist Walker Dark Gift (see chapter 1), allowing them to make their way between domains. Vistani don’t enter the Mists lightly, though, knowing that each such passage holds inherent danger. Caravan leaders ensure that every family member is accounted for before moving on, ensuring no one gets lost in the Mists.

Vistani Knowledge

Vistani travelers have a holistic perspective on the Domains of Dread and know the following secrets:

• The Mists are more than weather and are manipulated by forces that seem fickle and often cruel.
• The Mists can carry travelers between lands and can be coerced but never controlled.
• Evil is real and embodied by individuals of terrible power.
• Time, reality, and memory don’t always move in reliable ways, particularly between domains.
• One might glimpse their fortune, but such things endlessly shift. Every soul makes their own fate.

Views of Vistani

Their travels across domains bring many Vistani into contact with a wide range of people. As the only outsiders that some remote communities see in the course of a year, the news and goods Vistani bring ensures a genuine welcome and renewal of longstanding trade relationships. Some more dismal communities view Vistani with suspicion, though, being wary of anyone who emerges from the Mists. But even these communities often find the lure of news and trade too tempting to forgo entirely.

Most people who live among the Domains of Dread know the following things about Vistani:

• They don’t fear the Mists and can travel safely through the Mists to other lands.
• They carry goods and stories from far-off lands.
• They’re protective of their families, which includes members of other caravans.
• Most don’t discuss their culture or beliefs with outsiders.
• Their travel routes are unpredictable, and a community might go years without seeing a Vistani caravan.

Traveling with Vistani

Members of Vistani bands understand the disorienting, dangerous nature of the Mists better than anyone. Vistani caravans sometimes take pity on those who ask them for help, especially strangers from unfamiliar lands hopelessly searching for home, allowing such wayfarers to travel with them as far as the next settlement. In rare cases, a clan might even adopt a gracious, helpful traveler.

Characters who befriend or do right by members of a Vistani band might be allowed to take shelter or travel with a caravan for a time. But Vistani travelers quickly share tales of danger and of those who’ve wronged them with other caravans, and those who slight one Vistana often meet others who share a grudge against them.

Vistani Characters

Being a Vistana makes a character part of a larger family and cultural tradition. Most Vistani are human, but many bands incorporate other peoples, particularly halflings, wood elves, orcs, and tieflings. Vistani have a range of skin, eye, and hair colors. When players create Vistani characters, consider asking them the following questions.

Did you leave your clan’s caravan? If so, are you seeking to right a wrong done to them, or to spare them from harm? If not, how do you balance your adventures with your family’s travels? Are there ways you and your family keep tabs on one another?

How much do you know about navigating the Mists? Do you know how to travel between domains? Do you use divination magic to guide your fate? Or do you know little about it, having left navigation to others?

How do you feel about being away from your people? Do you enjoy socializing with a variety of people? Did you seek a settled life? Do you want to finish your tasks quickly and return to your family?

Famed Vistani

Some Vistani are legends among their people, and their bands might be encountered anywhere. The individuals noted here number among the most famous Vistani band leaders:

• Hyskosa. A renowned poet and storyteller, Hyskosa leads a caravan that embraces the Mists and goes where they lead it. As a result, his clan is unmoored from time and reality, appearing in different ages, in strange versions and configurations of domains, and even on worlds beyond the Domains of Dread. His lyrical accounts of his travels are often viewed as prophecies.
• Madame Eva. A controversial figure among Vistani, Madame Eva made a bargain with the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich. As a result, the evils that lurk in Barovia avoid Vistani. However, Madame Eva and her followers occasionally ally with the infamous count, giving them a sinister reputation. Madame Eva and her unique band of Vistani are detailed in the adventure Curse of Strahd.
• Mother Luba. The halfling Mother Luba is known for putting unquiet spirits to rest and transporting wayward souls through the Mists to their rightful homes. Those wicked spirits beyond her aid she trapped within her tarokka deck, which became known as Luba’s Tarokka of Souls (detailed in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything).

Other Groups

Representatives of various organizations have their own reasons for exploring the Mists and might be encountered in multiple domains.

Church of Ezra

Pious souls in various domains pray to Ezra, an aloof god who embodies the Mists (as detailed at the start of this chapter). With no domain-spanning organization, the church serves largely as a formalization of local superstitions, whether in modest rural temples or urban cathedrals. When many common folk give voice to their hopes or seek to ward off evil, it’s to Ezra they pray.

The Circle

The heroic knights of this order quest from the Shadowlands (detailed in “Other Domains of Dread”) in search of evil to vanquish. Bold and proud, many members of the Circle inadvertently race toward dramatic tragedies. The more successful knights venture back to the Shadowlands with evidence of their victories, often carrying evil back to their homeland. The knights of the Circle regularly provide bold—and ill-fated—assistance to other would-be heroes.

The Kargat and the Kargatane

Darkon’s secret police, the Kargat, is composed of vampires and others supernaturally disposed toward intrigue. Since Azalin’s disappearance (see “Darkon” earlier in this chapter), the Kargat enforces the will of fractious, power-hungry leaders. The organization is in turn served by the Kargatane, a cultish lower echelon of mortals drawn to service with promises of wealth and supernatural power. Long-serving members of the Kargatane earn transformation into dhampirs (see chapter 1), the first step toward becoming a member of the Kargat and attaining immortality. Agents of both groups wander Darkon and beyond, creating shadowy conspiracies to gain magical power and control by any means possible.

Order of the Guardians

This network of scholars and monastic caretakers hunts down and puts an end to dangerous supernatural objects, cursed items, and stranger anomalies. In the case of dangers they can’t destroy, the Guardians hope to prevent calamities by containing them within hidden, heavily warded, vault-like monasteries. Over generations, these sites have become repositories of incredible secrets and great evil that members of the order struggle to contain. Guardian monasteries are hidden in multiple domains, with the best known being Watchers' Stronghold in Darkon. Power-hungry groups and unscrupulous lore seekers, such as the Kargat and the priests of Osybus, often target these ancient vaults, seeking powers few can hope to control. The Guardians might share goals with characters trying to prevent supernatural dangers, but they just as easily could consider characters threats themselves.

Priests of Osybus

These cultists channel the might of the Dark Powers and steal souls to gain the ability to transcend death. With their foul immortality, they work to unshackle the first Darklord, Strahd von Zarovich, from the Domains of Dread. This inspires them to learn all they can about the nature of the Mists and its deepest mysteries. The priests spread their teachings, forming shadowy cults that draw adventurers into their schemes. These villains are further detailed in chapter 5.

Ulmist Inquisition

The three branches of the Ulmist Inquisition trace their origins to Malitain, a mysterious, cult-infested city from the same world as Barovia. These inquisitors employ varied psionic powers to stamp out evil, but their zeal and willingness to peer into others' minds mean that many fear them just as much as the villains they oppose. Cells of the Ulmist Inquisition might be found within any domain and often ally with the Church of Ezra while opposing the priests of Osybus. Ulmist inquisitors might ally with characters against evil, but they are just as likely to see corruption within adventurers' souls. These inquisitors are further detailed in chapter 5.

Mist Wanderers

The individuals in this section travel the Mists, carrying with them rumors and mysteries that can lead characters from one domain to the next. Any of these travelers might use Mist talismans or other methods to aid characters in undertaking their own journeys.

Alanik Ray and Arthur Sedgwick

Known as the Great Detective, Alanik Ray possesses an unrivaled deductive mind. The century-old elf has a knack for seeing through falsehoods, a talent aided by decades of experience and science-driven deductive methods.

As a young detective in Darkon, Alanik revealed his father’s criminal empire and oversaw its destruction. His success launched his career as a private detective, embroiling him in the intrigues of Martira Bay’s nobility. During this time, he met the young physician Arthur Sedgwick, who became his partner and saved Alanik’s life countless times. The pair’s adventures—including several deadly encounters with the Kargat—eventually led them to relocate to Port-a-Lucine in Dementlieu. A mystery involving a shape-shifting serial killer resulted in a fall from a roof that paralyzed Alanik’s legs. Within the following month, the pair created a custom wheelchair for Alanik, and they married.

Today, Alanik Ray and Arthur Sedgwick investigate mysteries wherever need and novelty take them. Arthur lends his practicality and martial skill to Alanik’s dazzling intellect during the pair’s exploits. Sedgwick also chronicles their adventures and has published two volumes to date: The Life of Alanik Ray and The Casebook of Alanik Ray.

Alanik Ray’s Traits

• Ideal. “Logic is a guide but also an illusion. Order and reason don’t supersede what is right.”
• Bond. “I have the perspective to see depravities others can’t. I use my insight to reveal wickedness and make the world a better place.”
• Flaw. “Most people are dangerous, manipulative liars and not to be trusted.”

Arthur Sedgwick’s Traits

• Ideal. “The sicknesses of the world are vast, but I can help others find the medicine they need.”
• Bond. “I can’t withhold care, no matter how ill a soul might be.”
• Flaw. “I focus so much on others that I often don’t see what’s afflicting me.”

Adventures with Alanik and Arthur

Alanik Ray is an exceptional investigator with an uncanny ability to notice detail and make deductive leaps. Despite his experience with the paranormal, he relies on his husband Arthur to keep him out of true supernatural peril. Still, the detectives manage to find trouble wherever they go. Use the statistics of Spy to approximate both Alanik Ray and Arthur Sedgwick. Consider the following plots when featuring the detectives in your adventures:

• Alanik is confounded by a murderer preying on a family. Arthur discovers that these murders repeat in a centuries-long cycle and seeks detectives with greater supernatural experience.
• Alanik exposes a community’s constabulary, whose members accuse individuals of crimes before the offenses occur. He seeks help in dismantling the dangerous system.
• A serial killer called the Midnight Slasher leaves behind gory messages such as, “I live in your city” and “I lurk in your nightmares.” When the characters meet Alanik, he reveals that these messages appear at crime scenes in multiple communities, on the same nights.

The Caller

Folktales of the Caller carry a cold, cruel authenticity, hinting of a vicious mythos too specific to be fiction. The Caller numbers among the most notorious supernatural figures in the Land of the Mists, and where it walks, doom inevitably follows.

The Caller appears as a comely individual of any gender, which takes disarming forms to gain the trust of a specific individual. Whether as a friend, paramour, mentor, or rival, the Caller isolates its target, leading the victim to depend on it emotionally or materially. Over time, the Caller coerces or outright forces its victim to acts of deepening selfishness and immorality. Then when the target reaches a peak of depravity or despair, the Caller abandons its mark, leaving them to face the consequences. The suffering the Caller causes is never isolated, triggering a tragic chain of events that can throw a family, a community, or a whole domain into anguish. Those investigating the history of a calamity might discover generations-spanning cycles of the Caller’s manipulations. These schemes shape a mysterious agenda—one gradually molding the Land of the Mists to a nefarious purpose.

The Caller’s Traits

The Caller’s true agendas and disposition are unknowable to mortals. As the ultimate mimic, it can change its personality to reflect whatever most appeals to its current victim.

Adventures with the Caller

The Caller uses statistics similar to a succubus/ incubus, and no matter how many times it’s defeated, it always returns. Use the Caller to create adventures involving secret histories, domain-spanning conspiracies, and truths hinting at the nature of the Dark Powers. Consider the following plots when featuring the Caller in an adventure:

• One of the characters' allies requests they check in on the ally’s brother. This pious or artistic soul has been convinced by a charming peer (the Caller in disguise) to attend a retreat that is secretly a meeting of the priests of Osybus.
• An old friend reappears in a character’s life. Likable and knowledgeable but shy, this friend assists the character without recompense. Eventually, the friend (actually the Caller) gets into trouble and needs the character to do them a number of increasingly unscrupulous favors.
• A powerful individual such as Firan Zal’honan (see below), Isolde (see “The Carnival” earlier in this chapter), or a domain’s Darklord summons the party and requests they hunt down the Caller. This figure provides their agents with a device that allows the bearers to travel to whatever domain the Caller is currently in.

Erasmus van Richten

Kidnapped by criminals, transformed into a vampire, slain by his father: Erasmus van Richten’s teenage years haven’t been pleasant. They haven’t been entirely terrible, either.

The ghostly son of Ingrid and Rudolph van Richten (detailed later in this section) follows his father, trying to aid him and ever wishing he could let his father know he’s okay. But the interaction of Rudolph’s curse and Erasmus’s unique nature prevents the elder van Richten from perceiving his son’s ghostly existence. Erasmus could have become a sorrowful bystander, but his unfaltering empathy and the circle of kind souls in van Richten’s orbit have kept him engaged over the years.

Erasmus is a unique spirit. His behavior and rare appearances mark him as a thoughtful, art-loving teenager. He can’t express himself as fully as he’d like, since he can appear for only a few minutes every day and can’t speak. However, he can manipulate ectoplasm to paint colorful, floating symbols and images. When possible, he depicts information and conveys emotions or warnings. Erasmus’s art is fleeting, though, vanishing in seconds. Sadly, his father cannot perceive him or any manifestation he creates.

While traveling with his father, Erasmus bonds with Rudolph’s allies. Aromantic yet deeply affectionate, Erasmus delights in frequenting the rooms of those he cares about, leaving behind colorful greetings. He never pushes others to reveal his presence, though, since attempts to do so only cause Rudolph pain.

Erasmus van Richten’s Traits

• Ideal. “I’ve been given a second chance, and I’ll make sure it has a purpose.”
• Bond. “I lost my family, but I can embrace a new one. Anyone who needs me and means well is welcome.”
• Flaw. “I’ve been the source of so much trouble. I never want to be a bother.”

Adventures with Erasmus van Richten

Erasmus is a ghost and the heart of the van Richten family. Consider the following plots when featuring Erasmus in an adventure:

• Erasmus understands the unquiet dead. Through devices such as tarokka decks and spirit boards, he reveals the histories and intentions of spirits.
• An overzealous priest detects the undead presence hovering near Rudolph van Richten and threatens Rudolph, Erasmus, or both.
• A powerful spirit, such as Lord Godefroy of Mordent, kidnaps Erasmus to manipulate his father.

Ez d’Avenir

Born Ezmerelda Radanavich but preferring the name Ez, this young wanderer first encountered monsters among her manipulative family, who posed as Vistani to prey upon travelers. Eventually, they kidnapped Erasmus van Richten and sold him to his death at the hands of the vampire Baron Metus. In the brief time she knew him, Ez befriended Erasmus and heard him speak lovingly of a different sort of family than the one she knew. When Erasmus’s father, Rudolph van Richten, tracked her family down and delivered her mother to justice, Ez didn’t stop him.

In the years that followed, Ez joined a Vistani band, adopted the name Ez d’Avenir, and traveled far but never found the belonging Erasmus described. Eventually she sought out someone she knew could tell her more: Rudolph van Richten. After a wary introduction, Ez met van Richten and studied with him for a time, learning all she could of hunting deadly creatures. Although her and Rudolph’s personalities clashed, Ez was surprised to reconnect with Erasmus, now a ghost. She and the spirit renewed their friendship and ultimately discovered paths beyond Rudolph van Richten’s obsession. Rather than let her relationship with the doctor turn sour, Ez departed Mordentshire to hunt evil and find a family on her own terms.

Since then, Ez has changed much, learning the ways of the Mists and replacing her leg with a splendid prosthetic after a werewolf attack. She hopes that her explorations and her old mentor’s wisdom eventually allow her to create a place that feels safe enough to call home.

Ez d’Avenir’s Traits

• Ideal. “Evil that feeds on the innocent is the worst of all evils and must be destroyed.”
• Bond. “I’ve known little of family, but I hold those I care for close, and one day I’ll consider them a family of my own.”
• Flaw. “I go where angels fear to tread.”

Adventures with Ez d’Avenir

Use the statistics of an assassin to represent Ez, or you can use her Ezmerelda d’Avenir from Curse of Strahd. Consider the following plots when featuring Ez in an adventure:

• Ez discovers an incarnation of the tragic soul Tatyana (detailed in the “Barovia” domain). While investigating ways to keep her safe, she accidentally alerts Strahd’s agents to her existence.
• From a cell in Il Aluk, Ez’s mother Irena Radanavich manipulates a web of lies to bring her daughter back into the family.

Firan Zal’honan

A mask of charm and congeniality conceals one of the most ingenious and utterly ruthless intellects to stalk through the Mists. A wandering scholar, Firan Zal’honan is quick to claim his descent from a noble pedigree. In another life, he claims, he could have ruled as a wizard-king. But his brilliance led him along a stranger path: seeking to escape the Mists into the “true realities” beyond. Firan keeps the basis for his strange theories secret, but his ambitions drive him to travel the domains; visit accursed sites; and investigate inscrutable prophecy cycles, temporal conjunctions, and an unknown figure he calls “the escapee.”

For all his arrogance, Firan dreads the Mists and seeks assistance traversing them. His most noteworthy partner is the Vistani leader Madame Eva, who secretly allows him to barter strange secrets for her agents' guidance through the Mists.

Firan is an enigmatic and abrasive expert, but his knowledge of the domains and their secrets is without peer. His research causes him to regularly cross paths with other sinister scholars, such as the priests of Osybus, a group he’s equally likely to aid or oppose as his investigations demand. Firan’s eccentricities include loathing the domain of Darkon, an almost-personal hatred for Barovia’s Count Strahd von Zarovich, and his earnest fear of the Mists—he claims that if he entered them unguided, he would never escape. However, those who prove useful to him can earn a valuable temporary ally.

Firan Zal’honan’s Traits