Ravenloft/Characters: Difference between revisions

=== Strahd Von Zarovich, Darklord of Barovia ===

The oldest established of Ravenloft's Darklords, Strahd fought a lifelong battle to reclaim his ancestral lands from the Tergs. After they were pacified, his younger brother, a cleric named Sergei, came to live with him. When Sergei fell in love with a village maiden named Tatyana, Strahd coveted her and tried to woo her away, failing due to his greater age and her love for Sergei. Finally, he transformed himself into a vampire, slaughtered his brother and his brother's wedding reception, then tried to [[Mind Rape]] Tatyana into becoming his wife with the use of his innate [[Charm Person]] ability, only for her to resist and leap to her death over the castle wall. His curse is that, every generation, Tatyana is reincarnated and he tries to woo her again, but she invariably dies.

 

* [[Affably Evil]]: He can be very civil, and even nice when he wants or needs to be.

* [[Cain and Abel]]: The Cain to his brother Sergei's Abel.

* [[Dogged Nice Guy]]: How he acts towards Tatyana, his brother's fiancee. At first.

* [[Love Makes You Evil]]: He murders Sergei just so he can have Tatyana, not that it works out.

* [[Necromancer]]: A very, ''very'' good one.

* [[Ominous Pipe Organ]]: He is quite good at playing one, as shown when he has his duet with Jander Sunstar in ''Vampire of the Mists''.

* [[Reincarnation Romance]]: What Strahd tries to engineer with Tatyana about once a generation. [[Failure Is the Only Option|It'll NEVER work]].

* [[Sibling Triangle]]

 

=== Azalin Rex, Darklord of Darkon ===

A powerful and tyrannical wizard-lord, who executed his own rebellious son and then turned himself into a lich to try and ensure his legacy would live on despite that. Was initially brought into Ravenloft as an "ordinary" lich and spent time as an unwilling servant to Strahd before he escaped into the Misty Border, which opened up to reveal Darkon. His curse is that his magical abilities are locked where they were when he entered the Mists; he cannot increase his magical power, nor can he learn any new spells, even though he can still design new magic.

* [[The Archmage]]: The most powerful Wizard in the Core, perhaps even in the whole Demiplane, and this is in spite of his inability to learn any new spells.

** The most ''politically'' powerful, certainly. Meredoth is actually higher-level than Azalin, but he's a recluse.

* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]: Azalin's name is his Knurl title, Azal'Lan, as misspelt by Barovians. Azal'Lan means "Wizard-King". Yes, Azalin Rex translates to "King Wizard-King"

* [[Evil Sorcerer]]

* [[I Have No Son]]: Subverted. He executed his own son in a heartbeat when he found him hiding rebels, but has secretly [[My Greatest Failure|regretted it ever since]].

* [[Necromancer]]: His control over the dead of his Domain cannot be overstated.

* [[Our Liches Are Different]]

* [[Ravens and Crows]]: His elite spies are a breed of sentient ravens (King's Ravens, or Corvus Regi).

* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: Specifically stated again and again to be his modus operandi.

 

=== Death, Darklord of Necropolis ===

A necromantic experiment of Azalin's that went way out of hand, a human turned into a unique form of elemental. Its transformation sent it insane, convincing it that it really was Death incarnate. When an attempt to escape Ravenloft left Azalin discorporated, Death was outraged, convinced Azalin had escaped it, and sought to send him to true oblivion, killing hundreds of people in the process. When Azalin returned, Death's mass murder earned it its own domain. Its curse is that it cannot escape the truth of what it originally was, no matter how deluded it becomes.

* [[A God Am I]] / [[The Grim Reaper]]: While Death believes itself to be the real thing, it's not.

* [[Gone Horribly Wrong]]: Not only was his creation an unintended result of Azalin's experiments, but he murdered the entire city of Il Aluk soon after. It later became his Domain.

* [[Pater Familicide]]: Falls short only because his daughter's fate is undetermined (see above).

* [[The Scrappy]]: Tristen isn't too well regarded by fans of Ravenloft, who regard him as one of the most ridiculous and stupidly complicated of the Darklords. The fact his domain is almost solely empty of everything besides Goblyns and beasts (as well as conveniently small and out-of-the-way) means most simply avoid Forlorn, in universe and out.

* [[Telepathy]]: With every goblyn in Forlorn.

* [[Unstuck in Time]]: Castle Tristenoira.

* [[Bad Dreams]] / [[Recurring Dreams]]: His curse. In Hazlik's dreams, he's powerless before the enemies who humiliated him. As a consequence, [[The Insomniac|he tries to stay awake as long as possible]]. [[Failure Is the Only Option|It never lasts long]].

* [[Bald of Evil]]

* [[Depraved Homosexual]]: Averted. He is a highly depraved individual, and he is homosexual, but the two factors have almost nothing in common. His Act of Ultimate Darkness was related to the man he had lusted after, but he was banished to Ravenloft for cutting out the man's heart and forcing his girlfriend to eat it, not for lusting after another man.

* [[Embarrassing Tattoo]]: [[Played for Drama]]. Hazlik's tattoos, inflicted on him by his enemies, mark him as effeminate. Literally; the tattoos he has all over him basically proclaim "I am a woman".

* [[Evil Tower of Ominousness]]: The Red Tower in Venificus, Hazlik's personal estate.

* [[Forgotten Realms]]: His world of origin.

** To put it in context: in [[Forgotten Realms]], the Mulan aren't just Thayans, they're also the main ethnic group of Mulhorand, [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|the local Egyptian equivalent]], and hinted to have actually been displaced ancient Egyptians.

* [[Revenge]]: Seeks revenge on his enemies back in his homeland.

** [[Retcon]]: In the first version of the Ravenloft setting (''Realm of Terror'') he was simply tattooed as humiliation by his enemies. The second version of the setting (''Ravenloft Campaign Setting'' aka the Red Box), the love-triangle element was added but he murdered his ''female'' lover and fed her heart to her boyfriend (TSR at the time did not want homosexuality brought up in game settings). The lover was gender-flipped when White Wolf acquired the setting (at the very least, it gives a better reason why his punitive tattoos stigmatize him as a woman!).

 

=== Adam, Darklord of Lamordia ===

 

* [[Affably Evil]]: He can be very civil if care is taken not to offend or upset him. It is just that he gets upset very easily and so it is hard to have a long conversation with him.

* [[Pinocchio Syndrome]]: Wants to be accepted as a man, not a monster. His curse is that he'll never achieve this.

 

=== Lord Wilfred Godefroy, Darklord of Mordent ===

 

* [[Affably Evil]]: Very rarely and usually for very short periods of time, but he can be charming if he wants to.

* [[Aristocrats Are Evil]]

* [[Cane Fu]]: He wields a cane that literally beats its victims into submission (manifesting as Charisma drain in-game).

* [[Ghostly Goals]]: A strange aversion. He simply became a ghost because members of his bloodline always do.

* [[Haunted House]]: Gryphon Manor is packed by lesser spirits, all of them serving and cowering before Lord Godefroy.

* [[Heir Club for Men]]: Killed his wife in a rage when she failed to give him a son.

=== Tristessa, Darklord of Keening ===

 

* [[Our Banshees Are Louder]]: She can kill up to ten people with a single scream. Fortunately, she can only do it once a day.

* [[Retcon]]: In the earliest editions she was a Drow, but she was changed to [[The Fair Folk|a Fae]] when Ravenloft was sold to White Wolf and it stuck.

* [[Affably Evil]]: Much like Strahd, he can be very civil and nice.

* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: He is a Zombie Lord, and he has control of and can see through the eyes of all of the zombies in Souragne.

 

=== Sodo, Darklord of Paridon ===

 

* [[Blood Magic]]: Sodo keeps himself immortal by killing six people once every 13 years with a magical dagger, and using their blood in a dark ritual.

* [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]]: Rose to power by engineering the death of his superiors, like so many other Darklords.

** Even more so, he's treacherous even by dread doppleganger standards-betrayal of one's brethren is about the only crime they find truly abhorrent.

* [[Involuntary Shapeshifting]]: Subverted. He can take any form he likes, but is unable to hold them for more than a minute, less when agitated (read: All the time).

 

* [[Dream Weaver]] / [[Fake Memories]]: But only in regards to the shadow fey.

* [[Eldritch Abomination]]

* [[Necromancer]]: Not one of his better-known powers, but he can control any undead in the Rift.

* [[Viral Transformation]]: Can transform 'normal' fey into shadow fey at will, but can't compel their obedience.

 

== Other Characters ==

 

* [[Badass Normal]]

* [[Expy]]: Of [[Dracula|Abraham Van Helsing]].

* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: Inverted.

* [[The Hunter]]

* [[Staking the Loved One]]: He had to kill his own son who had been turned into a vampire. This is, along with the murder of his wife by the same vampire that turned his son, what set off his monster hunting career.

 

=== Jander Sunstar ===

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters]]