List of Ravenloft characters
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This is a list of fictional characters from the Ravenloft campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Adam
Adam is the darklord of Lamordia. Known as Mordenheim's Monster or the Creature, he is an extremely intelligent and nimble dread flesh golem, based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Adam is the most successful creation of Dr. Victor Mordenheim in his research into the creation of life, albeit the one that causes him grief unmeasured. Adam reduced the doctor's wife Elise to a vegetative state and apparently murdered their adopted daughter Eva. The two are inextricably bound together: Dr. Mordenheim has Adam's immortality, and in return Adam shares the doctor's anguish. Usually hidden from sight, Adam is believed to spend most of his time on the Isle of Agony, part of the archipelago known as the Finger. Adam was a major character in the 1994 novel, Mordenheim, written by Chet Williamson.[1]
Ankhtepot
Anhktepot is the greater mummy darklord of Har'Akir who is usually found within his tomb. His curse is the desire to be both mortal and a great ruler, but both his wishes are denied. All he could rule is a wasteland with only one tiny community; and the only way to have mortality granted to him again is to sacrifice a human being—but the boon only endures only from dawn to dusk during which he sacrifices the entirety of his awesome powers.
His wife is Nephyr. His son is Thutepot. Anhkamon was his vizier. Those who he raised as greater mummies are known as the Children of Anhktepot. Among them is Hotep who he forced into perpetual slumber so as to nullify the risk that her lust for revenge posed.
The 3rd Verse of Hyskosa's Hexad foretells the seventh rising of Anhktepot.
A statue of Anhktepot is among the six that grace the outer wall of his tomb.
Azalin
Darklord
Darklord is a title used to refer to the mystically imprisoned and cursed ruler of a domain. A Darklord was originally an individual who had committed a truly horrific crime, which drew the attention of the enigmatic Dark Powers. The Dark Powers then proceeded to craft a personal kingdom around the Darklord. This crafted domain serves both as a kingdom and a prison: the Darklord gains incredible powers whilst within its borders but can never leave it, although most Darklords can seal their domain borders with a thought. Within their domains, the Darklords are forever tormented by the objects of their desires, which are often the objects for which they committed their crimes. The Dark Powers dangle these objects before the Darklords like the fruits of Tantalus. Each Darklord's desires and motivations differ: some desire love, some hunger for glorious victory, while others crave for the defeat and humiliation of their enemies, which may include other rival Darklords.
Frantisek Markov
Frantisek Markov is a fictional character; one of the domain lords. He grew up on a small pig farm outside the village of Vallaki in Barovia. He married a young woman from the village and they opened a butcher shop there. Out of either curosity or sadism, Frantisek began to experiment with the animals, performing surgical amputations, grafts, and glandular injections. The animals invariably died within a few days, but his gruesome hobby cost him nothing, since he could still sell the meat. When his wife discovered his ghastly pastime, she was revolted and threatened to leave him and tell the villagers about the meat they were buying. Furious, Frantisek made her his next experiment, and she lived for three days. When her body was first discovered, the villagers thought it was the body of a horrible beast. At this point, Ravenloft sent its rolling mists to claim him, where he became the darklord of Markovia.
Harkon Lukas
Harkon Lukas is the meistersinger of the Kartakan village of Skald. He is also a wolfwere and the darklord of Kartakass. He owns and resides at the Old Kartakan Inn and Taverna. Akriel Lukas and Casimir Lukas are his children.
Hazlik
Hazlik is the undisputed ruler of Hazlan. He is also its Darklord. He is more interested in cheating death and having his revenge upon his enemies, than escaping his gilded cage. The Red Wizard is one of the most powerful spellcasters in the Land of Mists and has taken the extraordinary step of publicly opening a school for the mastery of the arcane. It is called the Red Academy and is hosted by the town of Ramulai, which Hazlik is said to have raised from stone in a day. Peculiarities in the design of the town have invited speculation that it itself is some sort of immense arcane experiment. His private estate Veneficus is set back from the east bank of the Saniset River a fair distance from Toyalis.
Hazlik is described as having "no interest in the politics of his own people, instead concentrating on his magical research."[2]: 122 By and large he entrusts the rule of his land to satraps who are left in no doubt whatsoever of the horrible fate that awaits them on experimentation tables should they displease him. It is not clear how carefully he watches them, although he does at least make nominal efforts to appear to be paying attention.
The remarkable reception of the Iron Faith among the Hazlani cannot be understood in abstraction from Hazlik. Vaasi, the language of the Church of the Lawgiver, was of course the native tongue of the Hazlani. And the social order was at least as oppressive in Hazlan as in Nova Vaasa, preparing the ground for the reception of The Lawgiver's message. Hazlik himself, however, had profound reasons for being icily indifferent to the cultural sovereignty of his land: to his eye the vast majority of its inhabitants, the Rashemani, belong to an ethnic group and culture inferior to his own ethnic group, the Mulan; and his own ethnic group and culture deserve, for the pains that they have caused him, to be wiped from existence in a transplanar genocide. Finally, this project and arcane research generally, as opposed to the niceties of culture, is what he truly cares about. And his chaotic alignment expresses itself in part by an individualism that seems to take no positive account of groups.
As to the Iron Faith itself, Hazlik is an immensely proud master of arcane magic, which is a blasphemy according to its doctrine and for which, back in Kantora, he would be imprisoned, tortured, and executed publicly as an example to others.[3]: 127 Likewise, whatever faint hope that the Iron Faith had of redeeming him could hardly have survived his revocation of the ban on the use of arcane magic and his opening of the Red Academy promoting it. His tattoos, and those of the Mulan generally, are the visible signs of moral and spiritual degeneracy,[3]: 127 serving only to confirm the faith's view of him. It is difficult to imagine that homosexuality is not viewed by the Church as an instance of the violation of the "natural order in the name of self-interest and self-gratification",[3]: 126 although it is not clear whether Hazlik hides his sexual orientation. Additionally, the position of women according to the faith is, strangely enough, also an issue, for Hazlik is planning to usurp the body of his female apprentice, Eleni of Toyalis. In sum, Hazlik cuts a figure far closer to the Iron Faith's vision of Mytteri than of The Lawgiver.
Hazlik views the Iron Faith as a tool of social control, although perhaps not in the usual sense. An important clue concerning this matter follows: "The Lawgiver is the state religion in Hazlan and Nova Vaasa. In the latter, Prince Othmar uses it to justify his own regime."[2]: 52 That nothing is then said of the former, invites the conclusion that Hazlik, unlike Othmar, does not see the need to avail himself of this crutch.
Inajira
Inajira the arcanoloth originally appears as a villain in the adventure module, Roots of Evil.
385 years in the past, Strahd von Zarovich was a battle-weary mortal human. This changed when he entered a pact with the arcanoloth Inajira, who in exchange for unknown services to be rendered in the future granted Strahd's desire to be unbeatable in battle. Inajira, fearing nothing from the mortal, granted Strahd's request to hold Inajira's Book of Keeping until the contract was complete. Upon changing Strahd into a vampire, Strahd was whisked away to the Demiplane of Dread, Ravenloft, depriving Inajira of both his prized Book of Keeping and the completion of his contract with Strahd.
Exiled in disgrace for the loss of his possession and failure to seal his pact with Strahd, he is incensed later when Strahd returns to the Prime Material Plane during the Grand Conjunction and vows vengeance.
Ivana Boritsi
Ivana Boritsi was born to Camille Dilisnya and Klaus Boritsi in Borca in 689 BC. She is the sister of Anton Boritsi and Sulo Boritsi, the grandchild of Lev Dilisnya and Anna Kurdzeil, the aunt of Oton Boritsi, and the niece of Oleska Dilisnya, Richtor Dilisnya, Stepan Dilisnya and Yakov Dilisnya. She is also the cousin of Clifford Dilisnya and Virginia Dilisnya, both werewolves. In 697 BC, Ivana was given Danzig's Icon of Ezra by her father. In the same year, he was poisoned to death by her mother in response to his adultery. Ivana became ruler and darklord of Borca in 711 BC, after poisoning to death her mother, the previous holder of these offices. Since 740 BC she shares control of the domain with Ivan Dilisnya, her distant cousin, .
When Ivana fell in love with a young man named Pieter, Camille Dilisnya was incensed at her daughter finding love while it had eluded her for so long. Camille disguised herself as Ivana and seduced Ivana's one true love. She then claimed he had seduced her, and succeeded in proving in Ivana's eyes that all men were evil. Ivana took the lesson to heart, and killed Pieter by saturating her own body with a virulent poison. Two years later, she turned her friend Nostalia Romaine into the first ermordenung, and used her to assassinate her mother and became the new ruler of Borca.
Starting around 717 BC, while Ivana Boritsi was between marriages, a peculiar rumor arose — likely started by jealous rivals — that she had secretly borne, then abandoned, an illegitimate daughter. Ivana’s confidantes know that the venom flowing through her veins renders her barren and thus consider the idea ludicrous, but the tale has proven stubbornly persistent among the peasantry and has even spread far beyond Borca. In lands throughout the Core, many a wintry beauty has posed as the “dispossessed heir of Borca” to avail herself of the sympathy and prestige such an aristocratic heritage provides. Some of these women were charlatans, but others were simply naïve orphans tricked into believing a false heritage by unscrupulous advisers. Over the years, a few foolish pretenders have even traveled to Borca to present themselves to Ivana as her long-lost daughter. Ivana sees these deceivers as cruel reminders of her own bitter solitude, and rewards them accordingly.
Rudolph van Richten
Dr. Rudolph van Richten is a fictional character in the gothic horror campaign setting of Ravenloft. His adventures and battles with the undead are chronicled in numerous books and game products including a series of "Van Richten" guides.
Soth
Strahd von Zarovich
Vecna
Victor Mordenheim
Victor Mordenheim is a man of science, wishing to revive his dead wife and funnel her essence into a new living receptacle. A 1994 novel, Mordenheim, was written by Chet Williamson.[4]
Vlad Drakov
Vlad Drakov is the darklord of Falkovnia, although the extent to which he appreciates this fact, and in particular his curse, is unclear.
Drakov hails from Taladas in Krynn, where he was a mercenary captain known as the Hawk. His men were the Talons of the Hawk, and they were widely known as ruthless and brutal enforcers of whoever was paying their expenses. When Drakov first arrived in the Land of Mists, he and his men found themselves in Darkon, where they set about trying to make a territorial claim by destroying a village and putting the inhabitants on pikes. When the villagers animated as the walking dead, Drakov and his men were forced to flee into the Mists. There the domain of Falkovnia was revealed to Drakov and held him fast.
References
- ^ Williamson, Chet. Mordenheim (TSR, 1994)
- ^ a b Cermak, Andrew, John W. Mangrum, and Andrew Wyatt. Ravenloft Campaign Setting (White Wolf, 2001)
- ^ a b c Mangrum, John W., Andrew Cermak, and Chris Nichols. Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume I (White Wolf, 2002)
- ^ Williamson, Chet. Mordenheim (TSR, 1994)