For me it is Adam, Urik Von Kharkov, and Eason. There may be things I don't know about them but they don't seem to rate it to me.
the other one, esean the mad, dark lord of vechor. easean was a elf who faught a evil wardude, who captures him and bonds him with a fiend to figure elves, out. easean gets lost, and sorta cures himself. after this evil wardude wins all his fights and conqours everything he gets bored enough to check out whaat his elf/fiend science project is doing. when he finds out that easean is fine., he captures easean again and screws with him some more... shouldn't the evil sucker who made easean bond with the fiend be the darklord there? not easean?
illithid got brain. i fail to see what this particular godbrain of the illithids would do that would be vile by our standards that any other 10000 godbrains wouldn't do in a second. its inferred that he did somthing that even most illithids were all like "dude srsly... gtfo". i know this is a nod to a HPLovecraft theme, but its lame seeing how lovecraft hated gothic horror. i don't think it has any place in ravenloft. i once read somewhere that lovecraft walked out of a movie theater playing bela lugosis dracula. thats like walking out on strahds granpapa. lol. ;)
the other one, esean the mad, dark lord of vechor. easean was a elf who faught a evil wardude, who captures him and bonds him with a fiend to figure elves, out. easean gets lost, and sorta cures himself. after this evil wardude wins all his fights and conqours everything he gets bored enough to check out whaat his elf/fiend science project is doing. when he finds out that easean is fine., he captures easean again and screws with him some more... shouldn't the evil sucker who made easean bond with the fiend be the darklord there? not easean?
This isn't an official source but it works for me. The god brain was originally from a humanoid race who fought the mind flayers. He admired their strong minds and discipline. He came up with making a new race from the best of his race and the best of the mind flayer race. He found out that the eldar brain was dying and got the mind flayers to join his brain with its. He then betrays his people to the mind flayers and earns his domain. You can find it in the Book of Sacrafices as a free download from this address http://www.kargatane.com/ . It has a bunch of other nice netbooks and is worth checking out.
its the equivilant of eating one bad pork chop an- erm... yeah whoops. lol.
Adam makes sense as a Darklord. Especially if you go with the idea that his attack on Elise and Eva was deliberate malice, and not an accident.
Easan's soul is fused with a fiend. His madness has driven him to atrocities every bit as bad as the warmage that cursed him, but its the remnant of the hero he once was, and the anguish he feels at the experiments he has convinced himself are necessary, that truly makes him a Darklord.
As for the Godbrain, I love the idea of illithid elder brain so twisted as to horrify even the mind flayers.
Remember, mind flayers of other worlds hate and fear the undead. They are relatively powerless against them.
And so, when a particular elder brain began experimenting with necromancy . . .
awesome to find this out, and exlain to me =] so it is a little horriying to have just a tiny bit of human in that fatty mess of synapse and evil intentions,lol. in the book of aberations it also explains that mind flayers are baasically born as tadpoles that take over a subjects head, which is why you see some male and female mind flayers, gene splicing has always been a part of thier culture, i guess they must have been kinda irked as a whole to find out one tained piece of brain goo sent them into the demiplane of dread.
its the equivilant of eating one bad pork chop an- erm... yeah whoops. lol.
Actually it is the human part that is running the brain, it was really close to death and the human was one of the strong psionists ever.
What you should always remember about Darklords is, evil alone is not enough. There must also be passion, and suffering, and just small spark of guilt.
Adam makes sense as a Darklord. Especially if you go with the idea that his attack on Elise and Eva was deliberate malice, and not an accident.
Easan's soul is fused with a fiend. His madness has driven him to atrocities every bit as bad as the warmage that cursed him, but its the remnant of the hero he once was, and the anguish he feels at the experiments he has convinced himself are necessary, that truly makes him a Darklord.
As for the Godbrain, I love the idea of illithid elder brain so twisted as to horrify even the mind flayers.
Remember, mind flayers of other worlds hate and fear the undead. They are relatively powerless against them.
And so, when a particular elder brain began experimenting with necromancy . . .
yesh i want to narrow down that part. mindflayers not liking necromantic stuff, so ... he had a avon party with a vampire?
thats pretty much my point, mindflayers being abberations don't have the same sensibilities that we do. for all we know the god brain might hae been using necromancy to thwart the mindflayers, doing some good to others and that was enough by mindflayer terms to send them to the dread realm?
granted i havn't read the netbook yet because that domain because it has a lovcraftian flair to it i avoid it. the only thing bluestpar has ever done right in my opinion is introduce a psionic influence in barovia. and lisa von zarovich. whatever happened with that monastary?
mystery in some things is good and all, but then the subject is vague already with a sense of mystery wrapped in an inigma, bowtied with a riddle... its frustrating.
as far as easan goes, if he doesn't even know hes hurt because he has no clue what he was doing in the first place, hes really not suffering any more is he? i think he becomes pointless. and most darklords have some sort of achillies heel. it might be near impossible to accomplish but its there. easan has none. i think thats one of the few things that irks me, no motivation. the fiend and he have fursed to so absolutly there is no difference between the two.
Actually it is the human part that is running the brain, it was really close to death and the human was one of the strong psionists ever.
intresting =]
What you should always remember about Darklords is, evil alone is not enough. There must also be passion, and suffering, and just small spark of guilt.
Adam makes sense as a Darklord. Especially if you go with the idea that his attack on Elise and Eva was deliberate malice, and not an accident.
Easan's soul is fused with a fiend. His madness has driven him to atrocities every bit as bad as the warmage that cursed him, but its the remnant of the hero he once was, and the anguish he feels at the experiments he has convinced himself are necessary, that truly makes him a Darklord.
As for the Godbrain, I love the idea of illithid elder brain so twisted as to horrify even the mind flayers.
Remember, mind flayers of other worlds hate and fear the undead. They are relatively powerless against them.
And so, when a particular elder brain began experimenting with necromancy . . .
I don't see it. One incident that effects only 3 people? I would think Ravenloft would be TEEMING with dark lords if that was enough.
yesh i want to narrow down that part. mindflayers not liking necromantic stuff, so ... he had a avon party with a vampire?
thats pretty much my point, mindflayers being abberations don't have the same sensibilities that we do. for all we know the god brain might hae been using necromancy to thwart the mindflayers, doing some good to others and that was enough by mindflayer terms to send them to the dread realm?
granted i havn't read the netbook yet because that domain because it has a lovcraftian flair to it i avoid it. the only thing bluestpar has ever done right in my opinion is introduce a psionic influence in barovia. and lisa von zarovich. whatever happened with that monastary?
mystery in some things is good and all, but then the subject is vague already with a sense of mystery wrapped in an inigma, bowtied with a riddle... its frustrating.
as far as easan goes, if he doesn't even know hes hurt because he has no clue what he was doing in the first place, hes really not suffering any more is he? i think he becomes pointless. and most darklords have some sort of achillies heel. it might be near impossible to accomplish but its there. easan has none. i think thats one of the few things that irks me, no motivation. the fiend and he have fursed to so absolutly there is no difference between the two.
You might want to download most if not all of the netbooks. They are interesting and deal with far more than justBlutestpar.
i don't know if anyone have insight for this one let me knowanother darklord that might be questionable, maligno the pinokeeo wannabe? he fits most of the requirments to being an effective darklord except for the fact he is as scary as a wooden doll.
Malingo is easily a dark lord. Someone who can make puppets that can take over my body is scary enough for me. Sir Tristen Hiregard maybe, his murders were the result of a curse and he was trying to kill himself over them.
tristen malken is a good a one to bring up. are they there because malken may secretly have some guilt about the things they do? or is it all based on tristan not wanting to do suicide/minor genocide on his faimly tree?
hes another one that is cursed by proxy, like easan. i don't think cursed by proxy should count as much.
heres another question, the land size a darklords gets is based on thier will and personality crossed referenced by the aamount of evil they did/doing as we speak. nova vaasa is huge, so his evil is on par with azalin? whats strahd doing thats making him look like such a slacker? ;)
still the puppet fails to impress me with a full party, unless i have a mini adventure with npc classes. then that place is perfect! i might write one up this week end. thanks for letting me see the possibilities!:D
tristen malken is a good a one to bring up. are they there because malken may secretly have some guilt about the things they do? or is it all based on tristan not wanting to do suicide/minor genocide on his faimly tree?
hes another one that is cursed by proxy, like easan. i don't think cursed by proxy should count as much.
heres another question, the land size a darklords gets is based on thier will and personality crossed referenced by the aamount of evil they did/doing as we speak. nova vaasa is huge, so his evil is on par with azalin? whats strahd doing thats making him look like such a slacker? ;)
A good question there, Strahd and Malken should trade places where the size of their realms is concerned. Also I think the Dukkar deserves his own realm. I would make it a realm where there is nothing but Vistani that don't get static burn. They also don't recognize him at all. A few giorglos wander in and out (such as the PCs) from time to time to taunt him but they never stay long. So the Dukkar is entirely dependent on people he despises.
I've read Domains and Denizens from Ravenloft 2nd E. over and over, and I still haven't been able to find out what exactly their curse is.
The Dark Lords are a bit dramatic and camp in their selection is must be said. What qualifies any one of them qualifies thousands from every campaign setting. I attribute it to an extra quality the Dark Powers see in them beyond simply passionate, guilty bad people to be thrown into a Hell to punish the wicked. They need these people for something more than that, perhaps a testing ground for the non-corrupt, a function these Dark Lords provide that any given drow priest of Lolth or Shar would not fulfill despite having committed at least equal acts of evil.
I always wondered exactly. I know Strahd is a vampire, but how did he become one. He was a fighter and 5th level mage when Barovia taken into Ravenloft (from what game world I wonder, same with some other domains, Ahktepot's, Maligno's maker's domain, etc.) And the vistani. It's said whatever world they came from an ancestor of theirs carved a club from the tree at the top of the world.
The details of strahd's change from mortal to vampire is detailed in "I Strahd, the memoirs of a vampire."
He was a commander of a great army trying to reclaim his ancestral lands.
after his victory he calls for his family, and his hatred of his brother blossoms
strahd made a deal with an unknown (possibly the dark powers...) entity to claim the love of his brothers fiance
he killed his brother and most of the party guests on the night of his wedding (which was a really good idea 
)
I don't think it ever mentions the name of the original world that barovia belonged to...
I like to think that what we know as ravenloft was started during a grand conjunction, barovia replaced what was already there... almost like reinstalling windows lol (probably not explaining that too well lol)
ttfn