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Luke

2021-06-09T06:07:01Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Prologue */

{{Story}}
{{Heresy}}
{{Sick|THE FILTH, OH EMPEROR, THE FILTH}}

Luke is the most horrible creature ever to be produced by a combination of over-affectionate parents, bad hygiene, and sheer horrible horribleness - [[Chris-Chan| wait one goddamn minute this sounds familiar]]. Luke is the closest [[/tg/]] has ever come to encountering [[Foulspawn]], complete with all the vomit-induction that implies. Luke goes beyond merely disgusting; the disgust he exudes moves ahead of him ''like a living thing,'' coating all nearby with unpleasantness.

The ultimate example of [[That Guy]], Luke is so absolutely vile that he defies classification... Just... Just read the threads. Read the threads and ''be afraid''.

*http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6898745/
*http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6910746/

== The Story of Luke ==
The story of this horrific flesh-beast was wrought upon /tg/ by an anon known only as "Walrus." He tells of his interactions with Luke at the University of York, along with his fellow devou/tg/uardsmen "Sirk" and "Nairda" <s>which are totally not "Kris" and "Adrian" backwards</s> (Wait, does that mean the narrator's name is actually Surlaw?). The story is told in posts by Walrus, with the occasional interjection by Sirk.

Behold, and despair.

=== Prologue ===
I think everyone I play with these days is a That Guy, just more the awesomeface type and less the fag up the session and get everyone annoyed type.

That said, over the years I've had the pleasures of three f-tards.

The first. The first I shall call Luke, for that was his name. He was housemates with my friends in first and second year at Uni, and I had the misfortune of living with him in third. He was prettymuch stereotypical worst-case That-Guy neckbeard. To call him repellent would have been doing an injustice; he had an odour that preceded him by several minutes. His teeth were, quite literally, green. In the year I lived with him, he never showered once, never washed, never cleaned up after himself, never did dishes, never shaved, nothing. You could see people edge away from him as he entered rooms. You could actually see the moment the smell violated their scent receptors, as their face would suddenly freeze in horror.

He moved out of our house the day before the contract expired - we'd never seen the inside of his room until this point I'll add; none of us could brave the odour. We insisted he kept his door shut. As we were finishing moving out, I heard a scream from one of the girls who was moving in, and went (all chivalrous like) to investigate.
----
I wasn't quite prepared for what was in that room.

The smell, even after my other housemate had opened the window in there the day before, was appalling. You could see ... 'stuff' ... hanging in the air from the light that filtered in through windows caked with handprints. There was still filth everywhere in there - the carpet must have been inch thick with shed hair, bits of food, discarded wank rags, and discared wrappers. It was disgusting. Weirdly, there were wood shavings under the window, where he appeared to have been gnawing on the windowsill...

What had made the girl scream though was she had gone to flip the mattress, presumably in the hopes that the remains of Luke would thus be as far from her body as possible.

It looked like Luke had done that first, to conceal ... well. There was a stain. A huge. Rancid. Black. Stain. About crotch height, and about three foot around. I don't know what the fuck he did; if he shit himself or what; but it was ... it was terrifying.
----
The only time I ever saw Luke clean was when his evidently long-suffering parents picked him up for weekends. He'd always return looking slightly thinner and paler, red-raw and clean shaven. My guess is they put him out back and blasted him with a pressure hose. The parents were really nice - how they spawned him I have no idea.

They were also really, really rich; meaning this kid was spoiled as high fuck, and loved to use it to one up people. I remember saving up most of my money to buy a new computer - at the time it was top of the line, and I was proud as fucking hell of it. It took a massive chunk of my money, but god it was glorious. I felt like the king of the fucking internet at the time. People coming round just to bask in the glory of it, it was fantastic.

Three days later, Luke turns up, and looks all interested in it. The next fucking day, his parents have bought him almost the exact same computer, just with a bigger monitor and better surround; and at his insistence all of those tacky little mods that just make you go 'faggot'. Gold plated, premium brand, cables; more LEDs than you can handle, that kinda shit.

I'll point out at the time his computer hadn't been that much worse than mine - he just couldn't stand not having the best one.

This repeated itself later when I got a laptop; I blew all my money on one that was the best I could afford - his parents bought him an alienware one. FFFf-
----
I'm now having horrible flashbacks of his keyboards and mice. And of the time I went to play something on media player on his computer and saw his file history...

The kid musta gotten OFF on being that dirty.

And the best bit? The VERY best bit? He was studying to become a doctor.

He was also a consummate liar. He just seemed to be unable to tell the truth, even to the simplest things. He would come out with ... stories. Some of Luke's stories were legendary; but the one that still sticks with me is "The Time He Won 30,000 Pounds At A Counterstrike Tournament, But Had To Give It Back Because They Found Out He'd Been Wallhacking".

But I digress - this should be about how he's /tg/ related.

Well, he played Magic the Gathering for a start. And his decks were almost invariably terrible. He had a hardon for Samurai during Kamigawa, but played them incredibly defensively; he'd dump thirty creatures and then sit there. He had a hardon for Qumulox during Mirrodin - he'd literally throw one in every deck running. He'd make up the rules for cards, and have to query every card by grabbing it off the table (leaving horrible, horrible marks on a card - we actually have one somewhere that has his finger prints marked into the paper from some substance on his hands at the time)... and then he'd forget what stuff did within thirty seconds and have to do it again.
----
He would consistently try and do things that were mind numbingly obviously wrong - I CAST TERROR ON THE PIT TRAP was the big one that sticks with me. Mostly because he tried it about eight times.

It was like everything you told him was a square peg for a round hole - somehow information just didn't relay itself from the real world into his head.

... we did manage to take advantage of his annoying habit of picking up cards during one game with unhinged; where we had that card that does you damage when you touch it. The guy playing the deck pulled out some big rubber gloves and played it. Luke immediately reaches over, grabs it and reads it. Puts it down on his side of the table. Picks it up to look at it again, then puts it down again. Realises it's on the wrong side of the table and slides it back. Next round, he picks it up again just to check.

His redeeming feature was it meant that you never came last in a multiplayer game.

He also played D&D. He even DM'd once.
----
He was a huge weeaboo. Every character had flowing hair, and katanas, and I'm sure he tried at least once to have one with wings. (And the one that had 'Skin Colour: Normal' listed on the sheet, something that made the entire table crack up when it came to light.)

He would make up his stats and modifiers - his character sheet itself would bear no resemblance to anything even remotely like the rules; and all of the various numbers listed would be completely unrelated to each other. He would literally roll a dice, and then say another random number anytime he was called to do anything. It got to the point where one DM sat him down, and walked him through the entirety of character creation again based on the classes he had listed, and ended up having to prettymuch adjust everything about him - he was about eight levels higher than us, had two stats that implied he'd rolled a nineteen, extra feats, all kinds of crap.

He still just made up numbers when he felt like it.

It was this occasion where we saw the inside of his character folio though. He had this little black book that he used for character sheets, and he's sit during sessions leant back with a pencil, with the book folded up like he was fairly obviously writing things surreptitiously, but we'd just ignored it as being him being fucking weird.

Turns out he'd been drawing. Very bad porn. Of Dizzy from Guilty Gear. And wolves. And, well, prettymuch everything you see on the ass end of deviantart. And there were pages that were stuck together; or smeared from him obviously having stroked them ...

Shit makes me cringe just thinking about it.
----
I'll add that at the time we were playing in games where there were regularly six or seven players; so he was fairly marginalised, and most of why we put up with him. That and people lived with him, so you could never quite escape him following.

He played a rogue once, after having seen someone else - possibly me this time - do it (he had a thing for copying other people's characters, prettymuch verbatim, and then just describing them weeaboo, and sulking when they did stuff he did better than them).

You know the apocryphal story about the player who goes up to the LG Captain of the Guard and says 'Oh and by the way, I'm chaotic evil, so if you ever need anyone assassinated, just ask me *WINK*'? ... Yeah. .... Yeah. He then proceeds to get pissy and storm off when the guard turns round and arrests him.

He also played a Blackguard in an evil game, where we were basically resurrected villains of the gameworld's past, called together to do great dastardly works and whatnot. He decided, without checking with the DM, he was the High Priest of the evil god that the people ressing us worked for. He then gave this huge long back story about how he'd assaulted a great banquet of paladins with his army, but been defeated, and then resurrected, and that's why he was here.

It took us a minute to think this through - this great and powerful high priest who in the backstory was slaying heroes left right and center, pissing on altars and sleeping with beautiful women, whose name was apparently legendary... had knowingly attacked a gathering of paladins having lunch.. and lost. (This eventually evolved into the tale of how Luke Attacked The Sunday School Trip To Pizza Hut With A Cabbage And Lost.) That's before you even get to the disconnect with how he "roleplayed" it, and how he described it.
----
''(At this point another Anon, presumably Sirk or Nairda, pipes in.)''

Sadly I was never around for him DMing his own game - and I've only heard some of the stories of how bad it was; mostly involving how he was a railroading asshole, with no idea of how the rules worked. And how he turned one of the PCs into a scalie with a tail that got longer by a foot a day, and increased the PCs stats by +2 every foot it grew. ... He also had a DMPC paladin that kept turning up and winking, making the bad guys explode; or completely disabling the players so he could go off on a huge fanwank exposition of how something really awesomely supercool was happening - with the obvious caveat that this was Luke, and his ability to describe ubersupercool was limited to IT NEEDS MORE KATANAS AND WINGS AND SPARKLES."
----
It ... it says enough for itself really. Lets just say a lot of the filenames were anagrams of 'cats', and that his chair had these mysterious white stains in a small triangle near the front of the seat that he claimed were from him dropping yoghurt.

Anyway, I have to head out for a bit - so I can't regale you with much more of the tales of Luke and his terrible.

Beyond that though, I just have to deal with the Homebrewer-Who-Can-Only-Roleplay-Himself (aka Chaotic Stubbornly-Stupid); The Railroading Pedophile Rules Lawyer (who doesn't know the rules, has hygeine and self-care almost as bad as luke, and is just generally another asshole); and the short period where The Guy Who Wants To Play The Little (cat)Girl And Seduce The PCs joined a game I was running.

The upside is I also get to play with someone who regularly plays Lawful Good right - or Alzheimer's Dwarf when he's trolling the two bad DMs - someone who plays Chaotic Angry right and has a fairly enjoyable if mary-sue-dmpc-heavy homebrew system (he gets away with it because we don't take it seriously, and he seems to actually enjoy that), and a guy who loves playing minmaxed fighter types as embittered heroes.

'''''Thus ended the prelude , and thus began the first thread.'''''

=== The First Thread ===
'''Part the First: Walrus'''

The story of Luke, Plagueson of Nurgle continues.

I shall regale you now, with the tale of my people.

I first met Luke on the first night of University. We were the only ones not drinking that night, and he invited me to his room. My first mistake. His room was on the highest floor of the building (a fact that I would later grow to be grateful for in the extreme) and out of the way of the rest of us in the house, with the third year transfer students. We had been in the halls of residence for a scant 6 hours.
----
His room was an absolute mess. Boxes overturned, clothes strewn everywhere, a hastily set up X Box on the side, a smelly bean bag and a camping chair. At the time, I was naïve enough to have not seen the way most people live and Luke was scrubbed clean and in ironed clothes, so I made the assumption that perhaps he had arrived late, or was just a little untidy. We played bad racing games for half an evening, before I got tired of crashing fast moving trucks into walls for points. We said our goodnights, and I went back to my room on the ground floor.

So began my Luke experience, one which was to last for nearly 4 years.

Right from the word go, he was a bit of an outsider, tolerated mostly due to habitual British politeness and an unwillingness to “be a git.” At the time, we weren't even people who could be classed as true neckbeards – I played MtG, and one of our number played MtG and had a little experience of 3.5. Of course, as such things go, we all ended up getting involved in societies, and by the end of the first term, I was playing in two 3.5 homebrews and a Unisystem game (but those are entirely different stories.)
----
Of course, we passed around what we knew – we all started to dabble in a bit of everything. Luke picked stuff up too, but it was obvious that he wasn't as quick as the rest of us but we were patient. We noticed two things here; the first that he would act as arrogant as he could in all situations (even the ones where he cast Terror on the Pit Trap. Twice.); the second, that whenever I lent him a deck, it would always come back strangely a little harder to shuffle…

It was at about this time that I started to teach the other members of our group the nuance of Warhammer 40k. As with everything else, Luke picked things up a little slower than the rest of us. This was offset, in part, by the fact that he apparently had the unlimited riches of his parents to call on. Up until this point, we had made light of the fact that he would regularly be seen with a big tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in his greasy, possibly hairy palms (another one for later, if I get that far,) but silently wondered how someone could afford to dine on such food with a student budget. Half a week after the rules were passed around and we played a few test games, he turned up in the kitchen with a full 2000 points marine army, complete with 1000 point Grey Knight, all metal model detachment for use in larger games. Here begins Case Study 1.
----
'''Part the Second: Walrus'''

''CASE STUDY 1: Being a case study of THAT GUY at work in 40k.''

We left Luke to his own devices assembling and painting his own army. As it turned out, his modelling left a lot to be desired (marine chests on upside down, grenades glues to bolters, that kind of thing) and his painting technique seemed to consist of dipping the models in emulsion then using a sharpie to draw eyes on the finished product. The beautifully painted “colour test” models turned out, after extreme questioning with a pair of clothes pegs, to be his sister’s work. If you’re out there, Luke’s Sister, I would gladly pay you to paint an army for me.

We decided to run a test game. Luke’s Grey Knight Detachment and my Fists army versus 2000 points of Tyranids. We weren't bothered about strict rules, since I was the only vet at the table, so out of sportsmanship we allowed the ‘nid players to ignore their force organisation limits (big mistake, but I digress.) Fast forward to turn 4, and the Fists have managed to whittle down the huge ‘nid army to two squads of bottle caps (genestealers) two hive tyrants and a carnifex, with minimal losses in return. Luke’s Grey Knights have hidden behind the imperial ruins all game, and have refused to move. He is grinning like an idiot, beads of sweat pouring down his face. My earwax is starting to melt and leak out of my ears, such is the smell. The assault comes next turn, and my commander, dreadnought and remaining marine squads get into position to accept the charge, assuming we’ll be backed up by the Grey Knights.
----
The charge comes, and miraculously, there are units standing at the end of it! My commander himself manages to fell one of the Hive Tyrants with his thunder hammer, whilst the carnifex smashes the dreadnought to bits. The marines on the flank manage to hold out against the other tyrant, barely. This is the point where the Knights charge in and save the day. We go to the movement phase.

He moves the grey knights away from the combats. Silence falls over the table, and I give Luke the horrified look of the boned team mate. He grins, exposing his greenish grey teeth and melting my eyebrows with a halitose reply:

“I’ll let you die, and dhen run in and take all duh glory!”

((Author’s note – Luke quotes are correct, he cannot pronounce words with a ‘th’ at the beginning properly))

He passes his shooting phase, and so no genestealers die.

My mouth almost hits the table at the retardedness of this plan, but he’s adamant, and sticks to it. I charge the carnifex with my commander, am wiped out in the next combat, and go to hit my head against a wall. The next turn, the ‘nids move 12 inches and assault 6, easily getting all of his grey knights. He is wiped off the board in a turn, still grinning like an idiot. In later months, he will boast to people about the match he played where his 1000 point army almost beat a 4000 point nid army that wasn't using the force org chart.
----
'''Part the Third: Walrus'''

Here endeth Case Study 1.

So, time passes and Luke finally gets his own decks – samurai, and the U/B Broodstar precon. He is hilariously bad at magic, managing to get into a board winning position and then do nothing except grin and threaten people he can’t attack with… uh… attacking if they don’t do what he wants. He then sulks whenever he doesn't win, which is all the time. Meanwhile, the status of my own decks is improving, although some of the ones that he used at the start have to be sleeved. As he grows more unkempt, and I can breathe alarmingly clearly when he is around, I begin to suspect that perhaps his crystallized sweat is what makes the cards sticky. These decks are sleeved, with the exception of one particularly sticky deck, which is incinerated.

Around this time, we decide to play a uni house game of 3.5. A DM is nominated and we start on the game. The game is hilariously bad, and full of DMPC, railroading and badly written “original fiction” from the DM, who based the entire campaign on his 218 page book-in-the-making. It’s another story altogether, but one I might rage about some time. For posterity Luke’s character background read like this:

“I am the leader of a small gong of thieves. We were hired to steal a jewel from the thing of the land. We was were in an inn when we were approached by a powerful stalker, who made us go.”

He played a CE rogue, in a party of neutral and good PCs, in a setting full of LG NPCs, whilst telling them that he was CE, and would love if they would help him stab the party up. He then sulked at everyone when he got imprisoned, shoved down holes for being obviously evil, used as a shield, etc.

Then, of course, he decided to run his own game. Case Study 2.
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CASE STUDY 2: Being a study of THAT GUY being the DM

So, as sceptical as we were, 3 of us rolled up 4th level characters and sat down at the table. This case study will be presented as a Blow-by-blow.

L: Ok, you’re on a ship.

P1: How did we get here, why are we here?

L: You just woke up on the ship. You’re going to another land.

P2: Uh, well… ok. I’ll have a look around. Is there anyone to talk to, or anything that looks vaguely important to look at?

L: There’s nothing important to look at, and you are locked in your cabin.

P1: Right, well, if the situation’s the same for me, I’ll use my open lock skill to try and pick the lock on my door open. [Roll: something like 25]

L: You can’t. It is magical, and breaks your lock picks.

P1: …

<Some time passes, with us trying to interact with the world and being told that we can’t.>

L: Suddenly, the ship starts to roll around, and you can hear lightning overhead. The doors swing open on your cabins.

P2: But wait… weren't the doors….

P1, P3: *shrug*

P2: Ok, anyway, we head up onto the deck. It’s been about 5 minutes since the doors swung open, right?

L: About that. Everyone seems to have abandoned the ship. The skies are dark; it’s a big storm! A huge wave, must be about 100 feet high, rises up to crash down onto the ship – make reflex saves!

<Saves turn up 5, 15 and a natural 20>

L: You all manage to leap out of the way.

…
----
<We assume that a hole opened up in the 100ft high wave, which is why we all managed to not be hit by it, and why the ship didn’t sink. We manage to find our way to an obviously unsafe life raft, which sinks the moment we get away from the ship. We make our checks to swim, failing miserably, and are informed that we’re drowning.>

P3: … and that’s me unconscious too.

L: You all wake up; you’re in a cell, which looks like it’s made out of a cave.

P1: Wait, what?

L: It was all a dream, although you can’t tell how you got here. A man in full plate suddenly appears in front of you, laughing. “Haha, now that you are captured, the resistance has no chance to defeat me!”

P2: Uh… what resistance?

L: <ignoring> He then teleports away. What do you do?

P2: Well, I’ll try and pick the lock on the cell we’re being held in. <Rolls>

L: You can’t *bile-grin, once again, I notice the sweat, including the massive sweat patches under his arms.*

P1: Well, ok, I’ll try and kick the door out then.

L: On closer inspection, the cell is closed by a completely invisible, indestructible wall of force.

…

<And so we wait, until his DMPC turns up and dispels the wall of force somehow.>

P3: Gosh, we’re all really impressed. Who are you?

DMPC: *Blah blah blah leader of resistance blah blah, getting killed at dawn or something, different coloured eyes.*

P2: Great, so you can help us out of here.

DMPC: Yes, if you’ll help me.

<At this point, Luke does an IC flirt with P2. The look on P2s face was priceless, and I’ll remember it until the end of time.>
----
((For those who ask, he was taking the back door into becoming a doctor – he hadn't quite got the grades at school, so he was doing a chemistry degree and then a doctorate. Incidentally, if I ever find out he’s working near me, I’m signing up with Bupa, even if I have to remortgage my house.))

So, we eventually get out of the prison, and find our way to the armoury of the castle (!!) that we’re in. At this point, Luke takes great relish in describing all the magical armour in front of us, unguarded, and the guns (yes, guns, in 3.5 – he’d “homebrewed” them – 1d12+Dex damage, 17-20 x3 crit.) and the gunpowder. Doing what any sensible group of players would do in this situation, we took three guns each and tried to take the armour.

L: Uh, you can’t… it doesn't seem to move off the stand.

P3: No problem, I have 20 strength, We’ll take it with us!

So we set light to a trail of gunpowder and ran like buggery whilst the castle exploded. Cue a huge weepy scene from the DMPC that it won’t be enough to stop the BBEGs army of thousands (who reside in the one castle, that we blew up with them in it, for the record) from assaulting us in the morning. We get whisked away to a faggy tree village full of elves who sing and frolic while they try and get the guns off us. No dice, we threaten to shoot any elf who tries – for once, they get the message. However, in the morning, the armour has miraculously disappeared. The army is also attacking, so we rush down to see if we can help.

As it turns out, the army was attacking in groups of three, and the elves were not around at all. So, we lay into the army of three, defeating it easily with our guns of destruction. And then another group of three. And another. And Another. For an hour. As we’re getting bored, the BBEG turns up, along with a good 20 of his minions who surround us.
----
L: And you won’t be able to kill him, because he’s a level 30 wizard in full plate! *sickly grin at everyone, because he’s obviously the greatest DM alive and deserves praise*

P2: Fine, I shoot him then. Stuff it. <Rolls a 20. Then a 20. Then a 20>

P1: AHA! Instant death!

L: Uh, you shoot at him and just before the bullet hits he teleports away, shouting curses! His army breaks and runs.

…

P2: But wait… if we killed all those soldiers, and then him, doesn't that mean we get EXP from the encounter?

L: Y-essss…

P2: *Now frantically thumbing through a DMG* And since that’s X groups of level 5 soldiers, and one level 30 wizard… that’s enough to make us… Level 17!

P3: OH GOD WHAT *Falls off his chair*

L: At this point, you all wake up in a throne room. There's the wizard there laughing at you. “And that is why you must never be set free!” He laughs, before disappearing. You are in a force cage in the throne room, but there is a woman in the room that you recognize.

P1: Wait… no, I cba.

At this point, one of our friends, whom I shall refer to as Nairda (he’ll understand why) walked into the room. I, being player 1, promptly ripped my sheet in half, and offered him the bottom half. He graciously accepted, and roleplayed the combat legs of my character, whilst I took charge of the skills torso. The game was called 10 minutes later, when we had another dream sequence.

Here endeth Case Study 2.
----
'''Part the Fourth: Walrus'''

Skipping forward about a year. We have moved out of the halls, and into rented accommodation. Due to British politeness and general apathy, Luke has managed to follow us into a house, shared with Nairda and myself. Of course, he demands the biggest room on account of something or other. I think the excuse this time was that he had once been a pro motocross racer, but had fallen off and broken his spine in 4 places (but it was ok, because he got better.) This was when, deprived of his weekly visits home, we began to appreciate the true strangeness of Luke. We never found evidence that he used the bathroom.

As days turned into weeks we found increasingly that the windows had to be left open 24/7. At one point, as the weeks turned into a month, we noticed that a moss-like substance had actually started to grow on the one shirt that he had been wearing for the duration. His wealth was having a profound impact here as well, as the house began to fill with half eaten sandwiches, discarded chocolate bars and Luke’s Cup, which he always drank orange juice out of. It had not been cleaned since that first night when I met him. I kid you not. The thing was like the holy grail of aids. He drank everything out of that cup; squash, water, wine, beer, tea, you name it.
----
Finally, after an extensive bout of rodent hunting, disposal and cleanup of the living space, we decided to actually do something about it. We broached the subject carefully, at one of our mass gatherings of a card gaming nature (Deck Status: Most decks fine after being hidden – Luke had decided to use a Golgari deck that I had left on my desk and it was rendered completely unshufflable. I lost about £30 of rare in that one due to the cards sticking together to produce Vulturous Overgrown Putrefy.) We started the discussion with a simple question: “What time do you guys have to get up to be ready for uni in a morning?”

L: Well, I normally get up quarter of an hour before the lesson (crap, as we lived 20 minutes away by bike), then brush my teeth (this got a snort) then shower – if I need to! *huge crap grin, causing most of us to lean back*

Nairda: Luke, you smell like a mixture of crap and cum, there is moss growing on your shirt. Get a shower and clean yourself up.

…he didn't know really how to take that. He mumbled an excuse, left the room and spent the next week playing Linkin Park really loudly so that we couldn't sleep.

This brings me to the end of the first year of my Luke Experience. There are more tales, of which I may regale a couple if they're wanted. However, it is 3a.m. here, so my eloquence is sharply declining - be warned.
Continue? Y/N
----
'''Part the Fifth: Walrus'''

Right, fine. Due to popular demand:

CASE STUDY THREE: Being a study of THAT GUY participating in Call of Cthulhu

Ok, so not long after the episode, most of us got into Lovecraftian horror in a big way. It was only natural that Nairda end up running a CoC campaign – he’s stupidly good at horror and suspense in games. So, with me as a bystander (CoC isn't really my thing, and I digress too much to be helpful to a good atmosphere) the game was set – to begin with, a premade module “The Fall of Paradise” or similar – I highly encourage you to get a copy of Carmina Burana and play through it, for the record.

Anyway, the game starts with the exploration of a haunted house. The game progresses smoothly, with a little sanity loss and Luke not saying much. The room is bearable – despite the balmy evening, Luke has recently returned from a weekend parent visit; he has been hosed down and his clothes have been replaced. He only smells mildly. The party returns to its homes at night (I won’t spoil the plot for you, in case you want to play it), and Luke’s character, having seen a particular painting, starts to have a vision.

N: You wake up, seemingly unable to move. There are a group of monks, wearing dark robes and white, plain masks at the foot of your bed. They start to approach you, silently.

L: Oh, ok.

N: … what? Is that how your character reacts?

L: Yes, dhis happens to me all duh time *Huge, cocky, Azathoth munching grin. We note that he seems to have escaped without having his teeth looked at – the gums are starting to turn black*

N: …
----
So, we continue. Luke receives (and protests for 10 minutes) moderate sanity damage for being stroked by inquisitive monks from ancient Mesopotamia. The game is very, very successful, and runs for several more sessions. We eventually find the party (and Luke’s new character, the last having been dispatched by a giant demon spider god with a legspan the size of a cathedral because he annoyed Nairda enough) being chased by a demonic bloodhound of enormous size and ferocity. They are cornered in a house, and the dog is inside. The party splits up, with Luke following another THAT GUY as the rest of the party escape through the back door.

N: Ok, you two are still in the house, which is shaking. The light outside is fading, and the you can hear the growling and sniffing of the dog as it searches for you. What do you do?

THATGUY: I take a long drink from my hip flask, and then go to the toilet.

L: I follow him!

N: …uh… why?

L: I want to see if there’s a katana in there! *Huge retarded grin. A weaker member of the group has to leave the room.*

At this point, Nairda visibly facepalmed.

N: Ok, you both get to, uh, the toilet. There is no katana. What do you do?

TG: I take a long drink from my hip flask, and then use the toilet.

L: I watch, and wait.

N: OH GOD WHAT?! Er… fine. A small time passes. The beast is getting really close now.

TG: *zip* I take a long drink from my hip flask, and look for a way out.

N: Ok, there’s a fire escape not far from you – you could get down that if you could batter the door down.

L: I flush the toilet and go after him! *Obviously enjoying himself at this point*

<TG Rolls well on his strength check, and gets it open in two attempts. The dog is now very close, and gaining ground.>
----
N: *Annoyed by both of them at this point* So, you’re racing down the stairs, you can feel the breath of the dog on your back, it’s that close. What do you do?

TG: I take a long drink from my hi-

N: IT’S JAWS CLAMP AROUND YOUR NECK BEFORE YOU GET THE CHANCE! WHY DID YOU DO SOMETHING SO RETARDED? YOU ARE DEAD! … and you, Luke?

L: Uh, I keep running.

N: Good choice. The dog seems to be busy with TG’s remains, so you can get away. You remember that the legend says that the dog can only kill one being per
night, so you’re probably safe, for now. What do you do?

L: I will use my mobile phone to call the police.

N: … ok. What do you want to say?

L: I say that I was, uh, just passing by this house, when I saw a brutally maimed dead body on the stairwell.

N: …What? Really?

L: Yes, and I’ll say that it doesn't have anything to do with me.

N: The operator asks you to wait there whilst the poli-

L: I hang up and run off.

P3: … you *do* know they’ll trace your phone, don’t you Luke?

L: They can’t, that technology doesn't exist.

P3: Uh, yes it does.

L: No it doesn't; my dad worked with the police on some murder cases, and they can’t trace mobile phones.

<<s>The Other Luke Sufferer</s> Sirk turns his laptop screen round to an entry on mobile phone tracking techniques used by the police>

L: …well *my* mobile phone is untraceable.

N: Riiiight. The police pick you up within the hour, and bundle you into a car.

L: No they don’t, it’s untraceable!

N: *Awesomeface*

L: Fine, I get my gun out and shoot at them then!
----
Needless to say, he died a bullet filled death as he got shot by trained policemen. He sulked for a while, and went to play some loud Linkin Park. It was 4 a.m. at this point, so we got an angry visit from the neighbours. Still, he didn't bother to reroll, which was a good thing – with only one THAT GUY in the game, it was a lot smoother… at least until the competent and awake party members got abducted – but that’s another story.

Come to think of it, that’s about the time that Luke started whooping in his sleep. A high pitched, whooping cough that may have been a sleep defect, but was more probably the sound of him loudly cracking one off to Dizzy from Guilty Gear, covered in shit. That revelation caused some IRL sanity loss, but again, another story for another case study.

Well, that’s me for tonight guys; there is a lot more of the Luke experience to recount, but my writing is going down the pan. Tomorrow, more Luke! Until then, hopefully our suffering has entertained you moderately. Thank you, eloquen/tg/entlemen, and goodnight.

Tl;dr: What are you even doing in this thread if you can’t be bothered to read it?

Also, general THAT GUY thread from now on. I’ll be back tomorrow.
----
'''Part the Sixth: Sirk'''

*shrug* ... reminds me of another CoC game he joined, run by a third (that's right, a third) That Guy (this one is the pedophile I mentioned in the last thread - the pissing hip flask drinker is the catgirl player who tried to seduce PCs. Thankfully we ended up never having to see him again after halfway through second year outside of the MtG society at the Uni)

We were playing in a game where we had to stat ourselves - something that rarely ends well, but this time went pretty fairly. We all got a few little bonuses to stuff that we really didn't deserve, in my case to explosives because I happened to have read the anarchists cookbook once, and had a reputation for setting stuff on fire when bored.

In Luke's case, he rolled something with an impossibly high fellowshippy-charismay-type score; and a Katana, and all kinds of crazy martial skills; because he 'was a black belt in three matial arts, and had the belt above black in another one, and kept a katana under his bed at all times'.
----
iir he also had Knowledge(science) because he was a chemist, which somehow - because of his inability to even tangentially obey the rules - gave him a +2 synergy bonus to jump.

... that's also reminded me of the time we started trolling him in character in another game, and convinced his character through judicious applications of illusions and magic that HE WAS THE CHOSEN ONE OF THE DRAGON GOD, and ended up getting him to lead suicidal charges on stuff. It was actually seeing the LegoRobot comic recently that brought all that back, and made us all wonder 'hey whatever happened to him...'

But yeah, I'm out too. Hopefully back tomorrow with a photo of him; and more epic tales from beyond the curtain.
----
>Come to think of it, that’s about the time that Luke started whooping in his sleep. A high pitched, whooping cough that may have been a sleep defect, but was more probably the sound of him loudly cracking one off to Dizzy from Guilty Gear, covered in shit. That revelation caused some IRL sanity loss, but again, another story for another case study.

He loved the shitting dicknipples. I wish I exaggerated.
----
'''Part the Seventh: Walrus'''

Luke was mostly unavoidable. In first year, he was in the same halls as the rest of our group. Second year, everyone in those halls split into two houses (except The Other Luke Sufferer who moved in with a third group), sadly this included Luke because he pulled an allmighty shitfit when he was told where to go - he ended up paying twice as much rent as the rest of them, so they all had to pay less which they thought waived it. Third year, Naidra moved out of that house for a work placement, and TOLS took over his contract - aside from Luke it was a damn good house; and the rent drop was pretty substantial. Luke almost pulled another shitfit however when he came back to discover TOLS had taken over the second biggest room, and ended up forcing the Luke suffering writefag above (who is about 6'8 and built to match) into a room that was approximately the same size as a double bed or he'd default on the contract and leave us in shit with the landlord. He also threatened to sue said landlord unless something was done about it.

Luke also was in the same chemistry course as one of us, and thus followed him home; as well as attending all the same societies and social functions that the rest of us did. There really wasn't much we could do to avoid him.

The way we eventually got rid of him - as awful as it sounds - was to be rude enough to him till he got the point, and didn't ask him to join us in the house we moved into in year three even though we were (and made it clear we were) desperately looking for a last housemate to fill in.

'''''Thus ended the first thread, and thus began the second.'''''

=== The Second Thread ===
I shall regale you once again, with the tale of my people.

Before we start, I find it interesting in the extreme that I appear to have been stricken by Father Nurgle himself for daring to elaborate on the exploits of a certain THAT GUY, Luke. However, my tale is an important one, and so I shall continue regardless - apologies for my absence in the last day.

Now... are we sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. First, a recap.

Luke is the name of a certain housemate that my friends and I had the extreme displeasure of sharing a house with during most of our time at university. He has already been established as a foul smelling, unwashed braggart with a penchant for creating monstrously weeaboo DMPCs and turning otherwise positive experiences into foul gaffs of legend. I was... surprised to discover that you gentlemen had not heard so many tales about one THAT GUY, but I guess he was a fairly rare person after all. Despite his being a mess of a human being, with the personal hygiene habits that would disgust a troll, Luke was training to be a doctor. He had access to an undefined fortune givn to him by his thoroughly nice, if embarrassed , parents and flaunted this whenever he could.

And now, on with the story...
----
'''Part the Eighth: Walrus'''

So, our first year in the house had come to an end. Nairda was going to be spending his next year of study in London, which meant he was moving out; therefore it was time to find a new housemate. Fortunately, one was at hand - TOLS from last night, who from here on shall be referred to as Sirk (again, he'll understand) was looking for a new house, preferably one with a larger room than the box he had been staying in. It seemed a natural choice. At the same time, I managed to agree with Luke that it was high time that we swapped the room assignments around; a change is as good as a rest, after all. Enter case study 3(b)

CASE STUDY 3(b): Being a case study of THAT GUY interacting with a landlord and fellow tenants

The agreement sank in, and I let it lay for the next month or so, until Nairda's time in the house was just about up. I helped him move out (enjoying the loud conversation at the top of the stairs where his parents complained about the godawful stink that was coming from a certain person's room) and then waited until Sirk came around to look over the property. Luke deigned to turn his Limp Biscuit (Sp? Eh.) off and join us. I naturally brought up the issue with the rooms. Beforehand, I had discussed with Luke about how we should draw straws to see who got each room, with the shortest straw getting the booby prize - a room with slightly lower rent than the others, but only big enough to fit a bed inside. Luke, however, had other ideas.

Once again, he showed us his grin - teeth completely green now, blackened gums with bright red swollen bits. I'm a fairly strong-stomached man, but I confess I had to lean back at the smell of his breath, like he'd been eating roadkill recently. He informed us cheerfully that he was taking the largest room in the house and that there was nothing that we could do about it.
----
Being the savvy people that we are, we went to get a copy of the contract, which (oddly enough we thought at the time, but realizing our salvation at that moment) stated that the Landlord actually had final say in the running of the household - which, we reasoned, was grounds enough for moving Luke into one of the smaller rooms, or at least having a fair draw. Luke would only give us a wild, bloodshot grin when we suggested this. We decided that he was bluffing, due to his persistent superiority complex. This, of course, was a man who claimed that he had once been commissioned by the secret service to test their security systems, such was his hacking skill. They hadn't paid him for this work, interestingly enough. In any case, we thought that we'd have a good chance with the landlord, since he and Luke had been rather chilly since he found out that he'd started shifting his rubbish out of the window and into the back garden.

In short, we were wrong.

When we approached our landlord, he told us with pained expression that he could do no such thing. "I'm sorry, Walrus" he said, substituting my own name, "But I got a letter the other day from his family lawyer. I can't do a thing until we're done with this."

As it turns out, most landlords in the area write their own contracts, which are checked over briefly before being ok'd. Luke had gone so far as to have his family lawyer scour the contract for inconsistencies, and, being an actual lawyer, had found grounds to contest the contract and force a change in it's wording. When we got back, the crap-eating grin and roiling sweaty face confirmed; he had spent large amounts of his parents' money to ensure that he got to pick which room he wanted, and that he couldn't be evicted by the Landlord for his machinations.

We had been trolled.
----
With our fury only matched by the viscosity of his breath as it left his lungs, we were legally forced to accept defeat. In the interests of fairness, me and Sirk drew straws for the remaining rooms - I pulled the short straw, and moved into the box room. The only consolation was months later, when we saw his parents; the drawn, apologetic look on their faces spoke volumes.

And so life went on. Mice were purged, we build a furnace in the back garden to incinerate the less toxic rubbish rather than let the bin overfill and eventually we started shifting the more toxic rubbish into the shed, or into other people's bins to avoid being infected. I didn't get away unscathed, but this is not the time or place to talk about infection. Safe to say that the next few months of my life were agonizing as well as underwhelming. Time passed. Deck Status, pretty good. I had successfully managed to keep my more prized decks hidden from Luke's greasy touch with the use of decoy decks, left in my normal hiding places for him to find. I confronted him on this issue, to which I got an angry reply:

"So what if I want to play with a different deck once every so often? It's not as if you were using them at the time. Besides, I'd let you use mine if you wanted to. The stickiness isn't even my fault; I shaved my palms just last week!"

Make of that what you will. Eventually, he agreed to a deal; we would stop ridiculing his hairy palms in public, if he would wear a pair of pink marigolds whenever he used someone else's deck. He stuck to this deal for a week, and then stopped playing magic, insisting that it was a stupid, childish game. We were not disappointed.
----
'''Part the Ninth: Walrus'''

It was at about this time that we started to turn our hand to RTS games. So, we had a look around all the games that we had with us, eventually settling on Dawn of War. We only had a Dark Crusade disk going, so we elected on a couple of games of that while we waited for the rest to stream.

CASE STUDY 4: Being a case study of THAT GUY playing LAN games

A little aside; as mentioned before, Luke was (and presumably still is) a subscriber to the "one upmanship" school of socializing. Sirk had recently spent a good chunk of his dwindling money on a brand new computer; it was a glorious beast. Within a week, of course, Luke's bespoke new P.C. complete with flashing LEDs, a mouse more expensive than my laptop and more cooling systems than a Boeing 747 was delivered to our door. It has to be noted that the courier was reluctant to give Luke the electronic signing device, and then tak it back. In the space of the 10 seconds it took Luke to scrawl his name, the pad had become visibly moist and greasy. I thanked the stars that he'd given up on Magic. Of course, then we had to listen to him wandering around the house loudly talking about how great his new computer was. I took the brunt, having no real space in my room to hide. Regular showering was barely enough to fight off the lingering smell that this caused on my skin and clothes.
----
After setting up his P.C, we were challenged to a game of DoW - Luke proclaiming himself to be a master of RTS games, citing his victory at a Korean Starcraft tournament as proof. Allegedly, he'd been disqualified because they didn't find out that he wasn't Korean until he'd won the final round. So, with that in mind, we started the computer up, linked them, and got playing. Sirk and I chose Tau, and Luke, Necron. We played for a good 15 minutes, me initiating a rush and then pulling back to allow the game to continue for as long as possible, and Sirk and Luke turtling. I noticed that Luke had captured no objectives at this point, and put it down to him probably not knowing how the game worked. The turtling continued for another half an hour, before Luke made a sensible suggestion! Pizza! This was ordered post haste, and we continued with the game.

Pizza arrived soon after, and so we called a temporary truce while we picked it up. Units were set on guard, and we shifted over to the door to receive our ill-gotten gains. Curiously, Luke was absent. Sirk was gaming in his room and I in the living, room, so Sirk got the honour of taking Luke his pizza (he may have sprinkled a fair amount of curry powder on it before hand, but you'd have to ask him.) I took my seat back at the table, and idly scanned the battlefield. Near my line of broadsides and fire warrior teams, about 50 or 60 necron corpses of various flavour. The door upstairs crashed open, and Luke came thundering downstairs, bearing down on me like a fabled beast of pungent legend.
----
"YOU CHEATED! WE SAID THERE'D BE A CEASEFIRE!" He roared, filling the room with an angry, rotten musk. He'd obviously been concentrating; he was bright red, and the sweat patches covered the sides of his olive green T shirt. If nothing else, Luke has made me very conscious about the state of my underarms during important events. I questioned his meaning of cease fire - he'd obviously marched his necrons right up to my main defensive line. "I HAD THEM ON PASSIVE, I WAS GOING TO WALK THEM INTO YOUR BASE FOR WHEN WE STARTED AGAIN!"

Needless to say, we called it a night soon after. Sirk feigned a sudden attack of his sleep disorder, and I grew very tired due to a busy day.
At this point, I'm going to take a moment of time to answer some of the questions that have already come up in the thread. If people just want me to continue instead, just say so.
----
'''Part the Tenth: Sirk'''

''In reply to an anon jokingly claiming to be Luke''

Sadly, I know that's not Luke; because Luke's typing was worse than dyslexic (one of our other good friends, the personification of Lawful Angry I mentioned in the original thread, being dyslexic and yet still managing to be infinitely more legible); and was often sprinkled with misspelled pseudo-leet.

The one that sticks with me, because I used it to name a WoW and DnD character, was his computers password - Undying Love (cringe). Or in his case, 4n!13n9!0v. The characters became Andilen, for the record; although for a long time we did use ANDILENGIOV as a warcry.
----
'''Part the Eleventh: Walrus'''

''In reply to an anon asking if Luke would ever appear on the register''

And finally, no. He wont appear on a register for another few years, if he passes at all. His grades at school weren't quite good enough to get him straight onto a medical course, so he was doing a master's in chemistry first, THEN studying Medicine. We probably have another 3 or 4 years yet.

Still, watch this space for Luke Flu (or Nurgle's Rot, whichever you prefer)

I think that'll do for an intermission. Did you all remember to get your ice cream from the salesmen and visit the toilet? Excellent. Continuing in the next post.

I think, at this point, we will talk a little of revenge. You see, Luke had an almost spiritual connection with his computer, if such a thing were possible. He loved it deeply, and often. He loved the perceived prestige of having a good computer too - he did have a top of the line laptop as well, but would always use as much of his effort to transport the desktop PC with him wherever he went, if possible. This included the uni LAN gaming society, other friends' houses, Uni itself if he needed to do work that existed on his own hard drive...

And he loved to "let people have a go." He would, wherever possible, try and coax people into using his hardware, to see how good it was. I tried this myself, once. He insisted, and being even more apathetic then than I am now, I reluctantly accepted. The PC was in his room.

That was the first time I'd seen the inside of Luke's room since he'd taken over in the summer. Words can hardly describe my horror, but since I'm meant to be telling the story I will do my best. On the windowsill, a grimy vase with some dead flowers in, possibly tulips, visible from behind half opened, stained curtains. The light cast into the room is orange in colour due to the time of day and colouring of the curtains, highlighting the answer to a question that Sirk and myself had asked each other for weeks: Where has the cutlery gone? No less than 6 plates, in assorted levels of moudlyness, most of the forks and a lot of knives, too. No less than 6 almost-empty tubs of B+J Ice cream, with various amounts of culture, ranging from Manchester to Vienna in advancement on the "World cities" culture scale. The floor was almost invisible, but a large chunk of carpet was missing, obviously eaten away by some substance or creature.
----
I barely had a moment to take all of this in before the smell hit me. Rancid is too mild a word to use in these circumstances. I think a cross between curdled milk, old rooms and pig manure might suffice. I was hastily welcomed into this "inner sanctum" by Luke himself, and placed on a moist swivel chair in front of the computer. He placed the headphones on my head quickly, sending a chill of abject horror down my spine as they stuck slightly to my ears. He then proceeded to tell me all about the specifications of his computer, before leaning right over me to log himself in, catching me in the face with the side of his sweat stained shirt.

My line had finally been crossed. I made my excuses, and left. The clothes, I never wore again - indeed I took the first opportunity to lose them. I shaved my head, and showered for a good hour before I felt clean enough to take a shower. I never set foot in that room again for the rest of Luke's tenure, but, of course, what happened when I did is a story for later on. A line had been crossed, and revenge was the order of the day.

Starting with Luke's computer.
----
We eventually managed to coax Luke into moving his computer downstairs for a night, under the pretense of an "executive LAN party evening," where we would all sit around our table on swivel chairs and play games where we could see each other. He gladly agreed, having an opportunity to both show off his computer again, and his swivel chair, which of course he had bought especially because it was better than we could afford. The stage was set, the pizza in, and our material prepared.

CASE STUDY 5: Being a case study of THAT GUY's reaction to a fake virus.

Luke, as aforementioned, had proclaimed himself a master hacker, employed by the secret service to aid them with security. We brought him onto this topic of discussion slowly, over the course of the night, whilst ensuring that his Cup (as mentioned previously) was topped up. His current beverage of choice being Lipton Ice Tea, infused with the strata of orange juice and coffee remaining in the cup. Eventually, of course, nature called (or possibly whispered) and Luke grumbled something, made sure all our games were paused (ensuring that he managed to touch our hands with his at least once in the process by grabbing our mouse hands) and shuffled to the toilet. We took a moment to lift ourselves from the shock of being touched by Luke, and moved to his computer. A picture will follow, posted by Sirk (Thanks!)

''It should be noted that, while Sirk does not immediately post a picture, he does, in fact, eventually delivar.''
----
[[File:GinyuPwnsJoo.jpg|''Sirk:'' The original image, taken from the email with the original little codepiece, circa November 2005, still sitting in my hotmail account. Being the techie guy landed me with the job of putting everything together - although the pieces were contributed by 'Walrus' and 'Nairda' respectively.]]
----
ASIDE: HOW TO CREATE YOUR FAKE VIRUS!

Step one: Get a friend who can create executables, or do it yourself if you know how (Thanks Sirk!)

Step two: Create a naff wallpaper

Step three: Using a clip drive, transfer the executable and the wallpaper to your recipient's computer. Hide them in a safe folder!

Step four: Change all desktop shortcuts so that they link to the executable. Load up the wallpaper.

Step five: Use your fuse box to fake a momentary power cut.

We worked more efficiently than we have worked before, or since. By the time Luke came back from the toilet, the Desktop PCs were rebooting and running through scandisks. Luke, of course, had such a good computer security system (designed by himself, no less) that he did not need to run a scandisk. No worries, he assured us with his grin, we would all be getting beaten again very soon. Grin check: At this point, I was sure that Luke's mouth was beginning to rot, such was the smell of decay that came from it when he opened his mouth. His teeth were approaching forest green in colour.

Unfortunately for Luke, his computer had been infected by the dreaded Ginyu virus, that Sirk and I had read warnings about over the past week. Luke, of course, was quick to ascertain that he knew the guy who had created the virus (ironically true) and had trained him himself (not so true) - This would be no problem to a hacker of his skill!

We eventually called the night due to Luke's faulty computer ("wouldn't want to catch it off you!") and went to bed. Sirk may have erased the executable at some point, but he never said. There were a lot of raging sounds from his room though; Revenge tasted very sweet indeed.
----
'''Part the Twelfth: Sirk'''

Actually, that was all Nairda. All it was was a simple '00 Print THE GINYU TEAM PWNS YOU, 01 Goto 00' that was set to run fullscreen and couldn't be closed unless you rebooted; and was set as a replacement for every shortcut he had.

There was also the other time I pulled the old 'take a screenshot of the desktop and set it as the wallpaper, then hide all the icons in a folder' trick. That left him hammering at his mouse convinced it was broken, before throwing it on the floor in rage, and going and getting his OTHER $200 mouse. Which then also didn't work. I dropped a hint that maybe it was the Ginyu virus again; but....
----
'''Part the Thirteenth: Walrus'''

So again, time moves on and, perhaps sadly, we come to the last major case study of living with THAT GUY. The world turned, and spring turned into early summer. Luke had thankfully been abducted by his parents several times over the intervening months, with predictable results - the raw, scraped look of a man who has been forcibly pushed down a stretch of white water rapids with a barber's shop at the end. Each time, the same cycle of filth build up. It was at one point where Sirk and I had just managed to find evidence of the end of the squirrel infestation that Luke announced that he would be looking to move into a house. There he stood, in all his encrusted glory, with a look in his eyes that perhaps implied that there was some part of him that truly, honestly needed us. He was looking for a house for next year's study, he informed us, as the Landlord had refused to renew the contract and was looking for new tenants after the end of the currant tenancy. Me and Sirk exchanged a look, an I gave possibly the most meaningful response I have ever, and may ever give.

"Righto then, good luck with that."

He never spoke to us again. He left for his room, and soon we heard loud rap music permeating through the floorboards above the living room, a cacophony that was to last for several days before he was threatened with an ASBO by the neighbours. His smell lingered for a while, then went to join him.

But that, of course, is not entirely the end of the tale.
----
'''Part the Fourteenth: Walrus'''

CASE STUDY 6: Being a case study of THAT GUY's room, after his departure.

Luke left several weeks later. Sirk and I had found accommodation elsewhere in a house with our other friends and acquaintances from the society. As all of you will know, however, an integral part of the end of a tenancy is the cleaning up of the house in order for viewing to take place. We elected to draw straws for cleaning tasks. We would each clean our own rooms, of course, and then draw straws for division of tasks. One one side was Luke's room and the Bathroom. On the other wise was the living room and the kitchen. I drew Luke's room.

Not one to back out on a deal, I donned my old clothes and gloves, drew a deep breath, and opened the door to the room. The first objective would be the windows - if I could open those, the smell would start to disperse from the room, allowing me to work without retching too much.

The door was difficult to open. Several seconds of pushing followed, without success. In the end, I took a couple of steps back and threw my weight against the door.
----
Of course, with the momentum of my not-too-modest weight, I ended up inside the room, on my knees. The first thing that struck me was this: The object obstructing the door was the aftermath of a refuse avalanche. I was currently knee deep in cocktail sausage packaging, half finished Pot Noodles and, disturbingly, clumps of hair. Then the smell hit me. Before, it was merely extraordinarily foul. Now, the coming of the warmer weather had combined with the mounting refuse to create... I resolved not to breathe, and focus on the objective. I waded forward past the landslide, dislodging a bad that contained hundreds of tiny flies, clouding my vision. My eyes watered as the smell overpowered my senses, and the wax began to melt in my ears. Every inch of uncovered skin itched, such was the foulness of the place. Finally, I made it to the window, and pushed it open, dislodging a year and a half of dust and corrosion. Sweet air!

I took a deep breath, and waded back out of the room. Obviously, the room needed to air out a little - Sirk didn't mind, as long as I got rid of the clothes I had worn and didn't go anywhere near him. I showered.
----
A couple of hours later I returned, in a different set of old clothes. The air was... bearable, at least. But the rubbish would have to go first. Our bin was already full, so it was time to employ the shed to hold the refuse while we waited for night to fall, to deliver presents to unwitting neighbouring bins. Rubbish collection and movement is never a nice task at the best of times. Luke had never used a bin bag to store his waste in, so the first task was to gather everything into easy carrying devices. Of the rubbish, the more notable pieces contained Luke's Book (which has been alluded to before, but not extrapolated on by myself,) heavily used and stained with a green, slightly viscous substance. Smell confirmed as cum, much to my revulsion. No less than 6 of the 8 house plates, with large amounts of furry mold growing from their surfaces (and in one case, the underside as well.) The remains of the dead flowers, also covered in mold along with the vase. Two heavily used pornography books, depicting a faeces-related fetish on the encrusted covers. The remains of a pizza, possibly the one from Case Study 4, covered in flies, with evidence of maggot infestation.

I resolved to be a better person for the rest of my life, if only I never had to do this again. Waste successfully moved, I surveyed the room at large. The carpet was caked in dirt, hair and an unknown substance. The area of the carpet that had been eaten away during my last visit had grown significantly to about a half foot in diameter; blackened around the edges. This revealed the large hole in the skirting board, the area littered with droppings concurrent with the squirrel infestation.
----
The furniture in the room had been left largely intact, but with a thin coating of waxy grease. He had left his Cup, which had started with a drinking capacity of about 1.5 pints, but now could carry as much fluid as a champagne flute. This was hastily disposed of. The house cutlery, although tarnished, would survive. I put them to one side to give to Sirk later. The curtains were removed, to be washed. This dislodged a small rain of dirt and grime from the top of the curtain rail, where it had collected. The windowsill was caked with dirt, presumably from when the vase of flowers fell over. This would only be removed with a wallpaper stripper. I moved over to the last part of the room that I hadn't surveyed yet; the bed. The duvet and sheets, of course, would have to go. I pulled them from the bed. What I saw there caused a hasty retreat to the bathroom.

A large black stain, at groin height on the mattress. Yellowed at the edges, but only just noticeable. No smell, blessed be, but enough to make me wretch my dinner into the toilet pan. Eventually, after I had composed myself, I called Sirk, and showed him, with similar consequences. We turned the mattress over, and resolved never to speak of it again. We moved the furniture in such a way that the holes in the carpet were concealed, and scrubbed the floor as best we could. Once all of the grime was removed, it was about 3 a.m. in the morning. Just in time, as the first house inspection was in the morning.
----
The house inspection went reasonably well. We had worked our hands raw for most of the previous 48 hours, so we were glad of the rest. The landlord, too, was pleased and impressed; liberal and strategic use of air freshener had all but obliterated the lingering smell - only a slight metallic tang to the air remained.

The prospective tenants were three South American exchange students, all female. They liked the living room and kitchen, found the bathroom and smaller bedrooms to their liking, and really liked the location. Just one room left. The landlord looked over their heads at us, penseivly. We nodded slightly, and with a deep breath he opened the door to the room. We went downstairs, to get a cup of hard earned coffee; we could do no more.

I will never forget the screech of horror, disgust and revulsion as he turned the mattress over.

Surprisingly, he managed to secure the deal. We gave him an inventory of the damages to the room, which he assured us he would claim from Luke. We moved out a week later, into our new home. We were followed.
----
'''Part the Fifteenth: Sirk'''

I'll grant you that Luke's room was bad .... but aside from the strip in there where we were winning the battle to keep the bathroom clear of Luke-filth (we had to dispose of mopheads every foot or so of cleaning; wringing them out didn't get rid of the .. for want of a better word ... solid organic matter. Nothing internal mind you - we wouldn't have stood for that - but the amount of very-clearly-Luke's hair and footprints and ugh....

HOW THE FUCK HE DID IT WHEN HE DIDN'T EVEN USE THE SHOWER

THERE WAS A FINE WHITE GREASE MIST ON THE WINDOWS OF HIS ROOM THAT I HAD TO GO BACK AND CLEAN WITH OVEN CLEANER TO REMOVE. FFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

So. So much rage.

Oh god the flies... it took us so long to make the - now obvious - connection with the flies and his room. We'd assumed there had been some food off in the bin (which, as is often the way in student houses, was often piled two feet high with pizza and takeaway boxes)... and had a big run of sterilizing the kitchen.

Seriously, you're bringing back the most horrible memories.

Like his bag of potatoes.

...How on earth did I manage to suppress all this?
----
'''Part the Sixteenth: Walrus'''

About a week after moving into our new house, we had a knock at the door. It was, to use the cliche, dark, cold and slightly drizzly weather, so we were surprised to get a visitor - especially during our 10 way Magic night. It was Rho'nekh, our new, lawful-angry housemate, who let the visitor in and welcomed him.

As my nose shut down in self-defense, I realized who had darkened our door.

He had apparently managed to locate us from talking to people on our respective courses. He had then made the trip across our city to find us, in the drizzle, to tell us all about the flat that his parents had got him in the middle of town and that his internet wasn't working yet so he would use ours. Sure enough, within half an hour of his entry, all conversation had shut down bar Luke talking about his newest Laptop and all his new friends. The conversation moved onto the old house.

"It was awesome, wasn't it guys?" he said. "I can't believe we had to leave. Still," he grinned, exposing a mouth of clearly rotten, gums and olive hued teeth, "It's not as if it was much of a problem to move out, was it? I bet you guys had to spend ages clearing your rooms out though; they were awful!"

A silence descended on the room. After what seemed like an eternity, Sirk broke it.

"Get. Out."

=== Epilogue ===
And that was the last time we really ever saw Luke, thankfully. I did have the misfortune to bump into him outside a curry shop in the December of that year. His approaching musk was easily distinguishable over the curry spices, which sent that familiar primal dread coursing through my body. Thankfully, I managed a convincing impression of a German exchange student which confused him for long enough that I was able to flee while he saw through my disguise on account of me not having a German accent, and looking like me.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was our Luke experience. There are, of course, other stories...

But those might be for another time. Oh, one last thing...

Sirk and Myself did visit the old house once more, a few months after we'd left to collect some belongings that we had forgotten in the move. As we waited for one of the girls to return with our things, we had a quick look around. One of the other girls smiled at us, with greenish teeth. The house was starting to encrust with filth...

And here endeth the tale. I have apparently been The Walrus. Thanks for your attention.It has been a pleasure.

Sweet dreams.

== Gallery of the Spawn of Nurgle ==
<gallery>
File:Luke2.jpg|Can you not smell the sickening odor of decay, wafting from everywhere, yet nowhere?
File:Luke3.jpg|You are his now. His, and his alone. The fetid darkness surrounding his being envelops you, and you know no more.
File:Luke4.jpg|Even Grandfather Nurgle cannot stand such a monstrosity.
</gallery>

Ogre

2021-06-09T03:12:13Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Shrek */

{{dnd-stub}}
{{Topquote|SomeBODY once told me the world is gonna roll me...|The opening line of Smash Mouth's All Star, used in the opening credits of the animated movie Shrek. Will inevitably be used as a reply whenever ogres come up.}}

A staple of fantasy settings, the '''Ogre''' derives from various European and Asian lores relating to [[giant]]s. Typically, ogres are the smallest, ugliest, dumbest and crudest of the variant giants; this justifies their frequent alliances with [[goblins]] and [[orcs]] due to a similar distaste for making an honest living and love of fighting. Generally, when your party is capable of killing orcs easily, ogres are the next step up. Generally the only real common thread among ogre legends is that they are large and that they eat the flesh of men. Tusks or fangs are also common, but not required.

Exactly just how crude they are varies from setting to setting. [[Pathfinder]] infamously made its ogres into inbred, cannibalistic, depraved rapist monsters straight out of some hicksploitation horror film. Picture a cross between The Hills Have Eyes and Deliverance played out by giants and you got the basic idea.

== Shrek ==
[[File:Shrek.jpg|200px|thumb|right|It's all ogre now.]]
Brought to you by Dreamworks. This infamous ogre was created by animators who were kicked off of animating 'Prince of Egypt'. While the movie was low budget and above average at best, it is somehow one of the highest grossing franchises of all time, spawning a lot of fucking movies (though the second one is pretty good). It is also such a well known meme on the internet that it even has it's own [[4chan|chan]] and a million other shopped joke pictures. There's even an [[Squad Broken|infamous]] short story that spawned the phrase [[/d/|"Shrek is Love. Shrek is Life."]]

Shrek's ogres are very unique compared to other franchises; they're Scottish-accented, green-skinned louts with strange-looking ears and they live in swamps. And aside from their strange choice of food (onion, pumpkin, slugs, eye jelly, etc) and [[Luke|questionable hygiene]], they're not too different from regular blokes. Apparently have a constellation in the Shrek universe named after a renowned ogre named Bloodnok the Flatulent.

==Warhammer Fantasy==
[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] has the [[Ogre Kingdoms]], a race of semi-Cossack Stone Age giants who live in frigid mountains full of primeval megafauna and have a culture that revolves around fighting and eating, since they have a magic curse that prevents them from ever being able to feel full. They're known for taking up mercenary work to expand their list of victims.

==Warcraft==
In [[Warcraft]], Ogres are race of brutish barbarian-like humanoids organized into clans similar to the Orcs in Draenor. The Orc warlock Gul'dan developed two-headed Ogres to be slightly smarter than the average Ogre, he also made Ogre Magi who are smart enough to use magic. Two-headed ogres have also always been natural. They are descended from earth giants that got smaller over many generations. For being dumb brutes, they are still the smartest of their kin. With actual education and slaves to take out their aggression on, they became as advanced as the [[Roman Empire]] back on Draenor, their shared homeland with the Orcs. On Azeroth, they rarely get anywhere and just congregate into tribes of marauders, sometimes allied with other bandits. The Horde has a few ogres in its ranks.

==Kings of War==
In [[Kings of War]], Ogres are a warrior race who make their living as mercenaries, kinda like in Warhammer. There are a number of differences between the two, however; Mantic ogres, rather than being shirtless sumo wrestlers like they're portrayed as in most media, are athletic and muscular (if a little top-heavy) and use proper weapons and armour, fitting for a race whose entire livelihood is their business as professional soldiers. They also have no central leadership, so clans will fight as allies for just about any army between them. Not much is known about their background.

==D&D==
The D&D Ogre is perhaps the iconic example of a fantasy ogre. Formally considered "giant kin", they are the least of the various giant races, due to their comparatively small stature (9 to 10 feet tall), brutish natures, and savagery. D&D Ogres are basically described as either smaller, more active and (comparatively) intelligent [[Hill Giant]]s, or else as bigger, lazier, less sociable [[orc]]s: they live nomadic existences in the wilderness, eating whatever they can catch and supplementing it with acts of banditry and thuggery; they are readily enticed into the hordes of evil humanoids or swayed by powerful warlords and mages to serve them.

This depends slightly on edition and somewhat more on setting; in [[Dragonlance]], for example, whilst many ogres do live the primitive bandit lifestyle, they are actually civilized and have their own empire far to the east of Ansalon. They're still savage and violent, but they're far less stupid and dull-witted than in other settings, even if they pale to the intelligence and magical might of their [[Irda]] ancestors. On the other hand, the ogres of [[Golarion]] are some of the nastiest monsters in the game, hands down. Built up using Hillbilly Horror as their theme - you know, movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn, etc? - they're hideously deformed, savage, sadistic brutes whose "culture" boils down to incest, necrophilia, torture, murder, rape, violence, cruelty, rape, bestiality, getting drunk, making "art" out of corpses, demon-worship, domestic abuse and rape.

For the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] creature called the Ogre Mage, see the [[Oni]] page. For the ultimate extension of their Orc-like nature, see the [[Half-Ogre]] page.

===1e===
[[File:Ogre 1e.png|right|300px]]
Ogres are amongst the multiple races presented with race-classes in the [[Mystara]] splatbook [[Known World Gazetteers|The Orcs of Thar]], with the following mechanics:

::Ogre Ability Modifiers: +2 Strength, +1 Constitution, -1 Dexterity, -1 Wisdom
::Ogre Minimum Strength: 16
::Note: Like all Humanoids from "The Orcs of Thar", an Ogre has racial ability score caps of 18 in all scores bar [[Intelligence]] and [[Wisdom]], which are capped at 16.
::Note: Like all Humanoids from "The Orcs of Thar", an Ogre determines its [[Charisma]] score for interacting with [[human]]s and [[demihuman]]s by dividing its Charisma score by 3 (rounding down) and subtacting the result from 9.
::Ogre Natural Armor Class: 9
::Can become [[Shaman]]s (4th level) and [[Wokani]] (2nd level).

{| class=wikitable
!Ogre's's level || XP Required || Ogre's hit dice
|-
|Youngster (-2)||-4,800||2d8+1
|-
|Teenager (-1)||-2,400||3d8+1
|-
|0||0||4d8+1
|-
|1||4,800||5d8+2
|-
|2||14,200||6d8+2
|-
|3||33,200||-
|-
|4||71,200||7d8+2
|-
|5||145,l200||8d8+2
|-
|6||295,200||9d8+3
|-
|7||595,200||-
|-
|8||895,200||10d8+3
|-
|9||1,195,200||+2 Hit Points
|-
|Subsequent||300,000||+2 Hit Points
|}

===2e===
[[File:Ogre MM 2e.png|right|300px]]
Adult ogres stand 9 to 10 feet tall and weigh 300 to 350 pounds. Their skin colors range from a dead yellow to a dull black-brown, and (rarely) a sickly violet. Their warty bumps are often of a different color – or at least darker than their hides. Their eyes are purple with white pupils. Teeth and talons are orange or black. Ogres have long, greasy hair of blackish-blue to dull dark green. Their odor is repellent, reminiscent of curdled milk.

Rendered playable in the Complete Book of Humanoids, alongside their [[Half-Ogre]] progeny and their [[Oni]] cousins:
::Ability Score Range: [[Strength]] 16/20, [[Dexterity]] 2/8, [[Constitution]] 14/20, [[Intelligence]] 2/8, [[Wisdom]] 2/9, [[Charisma]] 2/8
::Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha
::Class & Level Limits: [[Fighter]] 12, [[Shaman]] 3
::+4 [[Hit point]]s at first level
::Natural Armor Class of 5
::Ogre Shamans have access to the [[Cleric Domain|Spheres]] of Combat, Divination, Healing, Protection and Sun.
::Take damage as Large creatures.
::-4 attack roll penalty against [[dwarf]] and [[gnome]] opponents.
::Weapon Proficiencies: Club, Goblin Stick, Halberd, Spear, Two-handed Sword, Voulge.
::Non-Weapon Proficiencies: Drinking, Eating, Fire-building, Hunting, Intimidation, Religion, Tracking, Wild Fighting.

===3e===
[[File:Ogre 3e.jpg|right|300px]]
In 3e Ogres look distinctly non-human. Rules to make ogre characters are presented in the Monster Manual:
::+10 [[Strength]], -2 [[Dexterity]], +4 [[Constitution]], -4 [[Intelligence]], -4 [[Charisma]].
::Large size.
::Space/Reach: 10 feet/10 feet.
::40 feet base land speed.
::60 feet Darkvision.
::Racial [[Hit Dice]]: An ogre begins with four levels of giant, which provide 4d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +3, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +4, Ref +1, and Will +1.
::Racial [[Skills]]: An ogre’s giant levels give it skill points equal to 7 × (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1). Its class skills are Climb, Listen, and Spot.
::Racial [[Feat]]s: An ogre’s giant levels give it two feats.
::An ogre is automatically proficient with simple weapons, martial weapons, light and medium armor, and shields.
::+5 natural armor bonus.
::Automatic Languages: Common, Giant. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Orc, Goblin, Terran.
::[[Favored Class]]: [[Barbarian]].
::[[Level Adjustment]]: +2.

3e presents Ogres as the least members of [[giant]]kind: short, dumb but still very strong.

===4e===
{{dnd-stub}}

===5e===
5e continues presenting ogres as the least of all [[giant]]s; their place in the [[Ordning]] is firmly at the bottom (which, admittedly, is where they were back in AD&D when the Ordning was unique to the [[Forgotten Realms]]). They are characterized as big, dumb, stupid, cruel, gluttonous brutes who collect treasure because they like shiny stuff and they love the taste of sapient flesh.

<gallery>
Ogre MCV1.jpg
Ogre MM 4e.jpg
Ogre MM 5e.jpg
5e OGRE BATTERING RAM.png| knock knock
5e Ogre Howdah .png
</gallery>

{{D&D1e-Races}}
{{D&D2e-Races}}
[[Category: Giants]]

==Monstergirls==
{{Monstergirls}}
[[File:MGE Ogre.jpg|200px|thumb|right|The Ogre of the Monster Girl Encyclopedia.]]
Much like the [[orc]] [[monstergirl]], ogre monstergirls are something of a rarity; when they do appear, they are usually orcs writ large, being big, boisterous bruisers who probably aren't the smartest, but who tremendous appetites for pleasure, in the form of sex, eating, drinking and fighting. Their primary defining attribute is their stature, with odd skin tones being frequent. Green is a particularly common skin color for ogres, inspired by the British food mascot "the Jolly Green Giant" and Marvel's She-Hulk, and as such it can be very hard to tell an ogre monstergirl from an orc monstergirl if the latter aren't being depicted as pig-girls.

Ogre girls are often [[musclegirl]]s, referencing their trademark superhuman strength, but not always; many are just depicted as curvy women who happen to be taller and supernaturally strong, influenced by Japanese artistic tropes. The hedonistic attitudes of ogres means that there is a distinct subset for "BBW" artwork in the fandom, resulting in ogres that are visibly chubby, but not so much as to make them truly fat and hideous. A third fetishistic depiction is the "strongfat" build, which literally attempts to marry the musclegirl and BBW design by giving them strong-looking, muscular limbs contrasting wide hips, massive breasts and buttocks, and soft, chubby bellies - although technically she's human rather than an ogre, Cattleya of [[Queen's Blade]] is a perfect example of (a well-done, modest) depiction of this kind.

In the east there's little distinction between ogres and [[oni]]: large, strong and passionate individuals with a love for booze and fighting. In fact, the word ogre is the most common translation of oni, and consequently the oni traditions of weird skin color, and/or horns, and occasionally extra eyes, are liberally applied to their depictions of ogres. In truth, the only major difference between the two is that oni are usually portrayed as having innate magical abilities, and even that's not set in stone.

In the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], ogres are thusly portrayed as long-horned green-skinned oni who love to fight and fuck. Their basic modus operandi is running around and beating up dudes until they find one who impresses them with how well he fought back, at which point they drag him home to their cave and subdue him with lots of rough sex. For a long time they were thought to be the most outright abusive monstergirl in the setting, until it was finally clarified that the encyclopedia's overly-flowery writing style had complicated translations and that they are instead supposed to be practitioners of "rough affection"; the kind of rough & tumble one-of-the-guys tomboys who express approval with a punch on the shoulder, a fake headlock or a quick noogie.

==See Also==
*[[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition races]]

<center>
<gallery>
File:Reclining Ogre.jpg
</gallery>
</center>

[[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Kings of War]]

Flesh Golem

2021-06-09T00:46:54Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* D&D 5e */

[[File:boris tea.jpg|thumb|Boris Karloff: The original flesh golem.]]
'''Flesh Golems''', as their name suggests, are a kind of [[golem]] made from human flesh...

What? Alright, alright, we'll get serious. You're familiar with the story of Frankenstein's Monster? About a mad scientist trying to create life by stitching together a bunch of corpse pieces and zapping it with lightning? Well, [[Dungeons & Dragons]] never met an idea they couldn't steal, and so promptly co-opted the idea for their own setting.

Flesh Golems are created by taking parts from multiple corpses - and it always has to be multiple corpses, with [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and [[Pathfinder]] traditionally requiring 6; 4 separate limbs, 1 for the torso, and 1 for the brain (head optional) - and melding them together before animating them as a [[golem]]. Depending on the setting, this may or may not have certain advantages over the usual golems of clay or metal. At the very least, it tends to be easier and cheaper than the standard golem, but they're also more likely to run amok.

Distinguished variants include more horrific and obviously undead forms of flesh golem (known variously as Zombie Golems and Carrion Golems) and the obvious sapient golem ala Frankenstein's Monster.

==D&D==
===AD&D===
Introduced in this edition as a "Lesser Golem", the Flesh Golem is a big, dumb, lumbering brute, mostly useful for its relative ease of construction. Hideously strong, it doesn't handle combat well, having a tendency to fly into a mindless berserk fury if forced to fight for too long (cumulative 1% chance per round). Immune to attacks from non-magical weapons, fire and cold-based spells only Slow them for a few rounds, whilst electrical attacks heal them (1 HP per damage die inflicted) instead of hurting them.

The same edition featured two variants, both native to [[Ravenloft]].

The "Ravenloftian Flesh Golem" is a direct reference to Frankenstein's Monster, and is far more powerful than its standard cousin; it's more intelligent (sometimes to the point of true sentience, although in such cases the golem inevitably turns on its "master") and has great healing powers - it regains 1 hit point per hour and, if slain, can be resurrected by sewing up its wounds and jolting it with lightning. And those are just some of its powers. It does have a unique weakness, in that it takes significant damage from fire. Adam, Lamordia's [[Darklord]], is the best known of these flesh golems.

The Zombie Golem is an even more grotesque version of the standard flesh golem, made from rotting flesh which later editions would specify have to be taken from bodies that had originally been animated as [[zombie]]s. It's even more sluggish and stupid than a normal flesh golem, and lacks its standard magical defenses, but can't go berserk, can be healed by Animate Dead spells, and exudes a noxious stench akin to that of a Ghast.

[[Mystara]] is home to the "Drolem", which is what you get when you make a Flesh Golem out of '''[[Dragon]]''' bodyparts.

====Flesh Golem PCs====
The "Book of Secrets", #3 of the [[Books of S]] netbooks for [[Ravenloft]], features an article called "Wretched Creations" which presents rules for playing a Flesh Golem PC in a game of [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] 2nd edition.

Inspired by the earlier articles on [[Broken One]] and [[therianthrope]] PCs from the Book of Souls, which in turn were inspired by the rules for [[undead]] PCs from the Requiem: The Grim Harvest official [[splatbook]], they are true to AD&D [[Ravenloft]] rules: overly complex and guaranteed to fuck you over sooner rather than later.

To start with, flesh golem PCs have supernatural physical abilities, but distinctly substandard mental ones. Thus, they ignore the normal dice roll range for generating ability scores and use this one instead:
::Strength: 4d4+4
::Dexterity: 4d4+4
::Constitutiion: 4d4+4
::Intelligence: 3d6
::Wisdom: 1d4+2
::Charisma: 1d4+2

Next, race. Now, technically, your race is "Flesh Golem", but you have to consider what races your golem was built out of. This means you need to determine the ultimate origins of your golems ''Brain'', ''Head/Torso'', ''Arms'' and ''Legs''. Whilst a DM may allow you to skip this and just pick a base race if your backstory justifies it, there is, of course, the option to randomly roll on a d100 table for each component.

Brain Table:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Race || Traits
|-
| 01||[[Dwarf]] || -1 Charisma, Magic Resistance, Mining Skill, Fearlessness, Magical Item Use, +10% Open Locks, +15% Find/Remove Traps, -5% Read Langauges
|-
| 02||[[Elf]] || Secret Doors, Iron Will, +5% Hide in Shadows
|-
| 03-04||[[Gnome]] || +1 Intelligence, -1 Wisdom, Magic Resistance, Mining Skill, Magical Item Use, +5% Open Locks, +10% Find/Remove Traps, +5% Hide in Shadows
|-
| 05||[[Half-Elf]] || Secret Doors, Iron Will, +10% Hide in Shadows, -5% Open Locks
|-
| 06-07||[[Halfling]] || Magic Resistance, Determination, +5% Open Locks, +5% Find/Remove Traps, +15% Hide in Shadows, -5% Read Langauges
|-
| 08-09||[[Half-Vistani]] || +1 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence, Nature Affinity, Fire Building, Tralaks, Moon Madness
|-
| 10-100||Human || None
|}

Head 'n' Torso Table:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Race || Traits
|-
| 01||[[Dwarf]] || +1 Constitution, Infravision, -10% Climb Walls
|-
| 02||[[Elf]] || +1 Dexterity, -1 Constitution, Infravision
|-
| 03-04||[[Gnome]] || Infravision, +10% Detect Noise, -15% Climb Walls
|-
| 05||[[Half-Elf]] || Infravision, +5% Dectect Noise
|-
| 06-07||[[Halfling]] || +1 Dexterity, -1 Strength, Infravision, +5% Detect Noise, -15% Climb Walls
|-
| 08-100||Human || None
|}

Arms Table:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Race || Traits
|-
| 01||[[Elf]] || Weapon Expertise, +10% Pick Pockets
|-
| 02||[[Half-Elf]] || +5% Pick Pockets
|-
| 03-04||[[Halfling]] || Combat Bonuses, +5% Pick Pockets
|-
| 05-100||[[Human]] || None
|}

Legs Table:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Race || Traits
|-
|01 ||[[Elf]] || Surprise Bonus
|-
| 02-03||[[Gnome]] || +5% Move Silently
|-
| 04-05||[[Halfling]] || Surprise Bonus, +10% Move Silently
|-
| 06||[[Half-Elf]] || +5% Move Silently
|-
| 07-100||[[Human]] || None
|}

Additionally, there is a 1% chance your golem includes some kind of monstrous humanoid component, taken from the d8 table below:
{| class=wikitable
!Roll ||Part || Traits
|-
| 1||[[Hag|Annis]] Head+Torso || 60' infravision, -2 bonus to AC
|-
| 2||[[Doppelganger]] Brain || +1 Charisma, Disguise proficiency for free
|-
| 3||[[Ermordenung]] Arms || Unarmed strikes do +1d6 poison damage if victim fails save vs. poison
|-
| 4||[[Goblyn]] Head+Torso || 90' infravision, bite attack (1d6 damage)
|-
| 5||[[Mind Flayer]] Brain || +1 Intelligence, mentally contacting the golem causes the contacted to be stunned for 1d8 rounds
|-
| 6||[[Paka]] Brain || Summon & control 2d6 domestic cats 1/day
|-
| 7||[[Reaver]] Arms || Swim speed 12
|-
| 8||[[Vampyre]] Head+Torso || Bite attack (1d6 damage) that Charms victim if they fail a save vs. Poison with a +2 bonus
|}

Now it's time to pick your class: [[Fighter]], [[Avenger]], [[Thief]] or multiclassed Fighter/Thief. Also, because golems suffer a "spiritual battle", good golems raise their experience totals to increase in level by +20%, and neutral golems do so by +10%.

As with the undead heroes from Requiem: The Grim Harvest, flesh golem PCs are saddled with the Alignment Descent system, which basically means they need to check against a complex grid system after each adventure to see whether or not they slide towards Chaotic Evil [[alignment]].

Now let's talk about the common advantages to playing a flesh golem. For starters, you're completely immune to all life-affecting spells and effects, aging, suffocation, disease, poison, mind-affecting spells and effects, and telepathy. Also, you only need to eat the equivalent of a suckling pig's worth of raw meat or carrion per week - failing to keep up with this causes you to lose 1 Constitution point per week of starvation until you catch up with the cumulative food debt, whereupon your Constitution returns at a rate of 1 point per day.

Now, the drawbacks. Firstly, that protection against mental jiggery-pokery does '''not''' apply to regular old Fear, Horror and Madness checks. In fact, because of how abysmal your Wisdom score is, these checks will largely screw you over. Secondly, obviously, you look like a monster; aside from your shit Charisma score, you suffer a whopping '''+12 penalty''' to Reaction rolls to creatures seeing your visage for the first time. Invest in concealing clothing. Thirdly, there's the uncontrollable rage; whenever you are exposed to violence, involved in any kind of hostile confrotantion (including verbal), or even surprised, you have to roll a d6. Roll a 3 or less, and you stay in control. On a 4, you flee for 1d4 rounds. On a 5, you attack the nearest NPC for 1d10 rounds. And on a six, you attack ''everything'' around you for 1d10 rounds. Oh, and because you are considered "morally responsible" for this despite literally not having the choice over whether or not to attack it, you can still fall afoul of [[Powers Check]]s provoked by this unthinking rampage. Finally, you have a ''zeitgeber'', a specific stimulus (sight, sound, odor, situation, etc) that, for whatever reason, renders you mentally insensate for 1d6 rounds, leaving you completely unable to do anything.

Now, your proficiencies. Because you're a cobbled together thing which uses a stolen brain, you have to spend half your starting nonweapon proficiency points on randomly generated proficiencies. Yay. On the plus side, you can spend the remaining half of your points however you wish, and can even use them to buy supernatural golem powers, which consist of:
* Animate Undead: Costs 4 NWP points, lets you animate twice your HD in [[zombie]]s 1/week.
* Attack Resistance: Makes you immune to mundane weapons. Every 3 NWP points spent boosts the enchantment required to hit you by +1.
* Cause Disease: Allows you to inflict diseases with your unarmed attacks. For 1 NWP point, you can cause a ''Debilitating'' disease that will steadily drop the victim to Strength 2. For 3 NWP points, you can cause a ''Fatal'' disease that will negate magical healing and cost them 1 Constitution per day until they die. Even creatures without Constitution scores are vulnerable to this one, losing 10% maximim HP per day until destroyed.
* Cause Despair: Costs 2 NWP points, lets you plunge all creatures around you into a state of near-defenseless apathy 3/day if they fail a save vs. death magic.
* Climb Walls: Costs 2 slots, gives you the ability to use the thief skill of the same name. Can't be taken if you have the Thief class.
* Damage Immunity: Costs 2 slots, grants you immunity to one elemental damage type and auto-success on saves against it.
* Damage Resistance: Costs 1 slot, grants you 50% resistance to one elemental damage type and a +4 bonus to saves against it.
* Hideous Laugh: Costs 2 slots. You can unleash a terrifying laugh 3/day; creatures must save vs. death magic (-2 penalty) or suffer a Fear check.
* Hide in Shadows: Costs 2 slots, gives you the ability to use the thief skill of the same name. Can't be taken if you have the Thief class.
* Hyper-Regeneration: Costs 6 slots. When reduced to 0 HP, you begin regenerating 10 HP per round until fully healed. You can only be killed if destroyed with fire or acid damage.
* Move Silently: Costs 2 slots, gives you the ability to use the thief skill of the same name. Can't be taken if you have the Thief class.
* Resilient Flesh: Grants you resistance to enemy magic; 2 slots per +1 to all saves vs. damage dealing magic.
* Stench of Decay: Costs 3 slots. You exude a [[ghast]]-like stench.
* Weapon Resistance: Costs 2 slots, gives you 50% resistance to either Bludgeoning, Piercing or Slashing damage.

You can also select vulnerabilities (Allergen, Allergen Ward, Animal Repulsion, Weapon Vulnerability) to gain a bonus NWP slot per vulenrability chosen.

===D&D 3.x & PF===
The D&D 3e flesh golem appears in the first [[Monster Manual]]. It is essentially the same as its AD&D counterpart, save for one new trait; zapping it with lightning fixes any Slow effect it may be under, and also heals it instead of hurting it.

A 3e update for the Zombie Golem appeared in the [[Ravenloft]] Gazetteer #2.

[[Heroes of Horror]] introduced the cadaver golem, an intelligent golem that can gain new skills and abilities by attaching new body parts from other creatures to itself. [[Serpent Kingdoms]] introduced the serpentflesh golem, a golem made out of dead snakes or other scaly creatures. They usually are made by people who really hate [[Serpentfolk]]. [[Fiend Folio]] introduced the demonflesh golem, made of the flesh of demons.

[[Pathfinder]]'s flesh golem appeared in its first bestiary. Its equivalent to the Zombie Golem, the foul-smelling, disease carrying Carrion Golem, appeared in the 2nd Bestiary.

===D&D 4e===
There are multiple kinds of flesh golem in D&D 4e.

The standard Flesh Golem appeared in the Monster Manual 1 for this edition. It's pretty much the traditional D&D flesh golem; a cheap, low-level golem that stands out by being strong, tough & stupid, with a propensity to fly into berserk rages.

The Open Grave sourcebook features the Blaspheme, a direct reference to Frankenstein's Monster in the form of a unique undead created from multiple body parts, and the Cadaver Golem, a rare outcome where an attempt to create a flesh golem imbues it with its own sentience, which typically hates its creator. This version of the cadaver golem has very different abilities than the one from the previous edition, as it doesn't gain new abilities from assimilated flesh.

===D&D 5e===
Appearing in the Monster Manual, the 5e Flesh Golem mostly preserves its tradition of being a shambling, destructive, unstable brute, but with a few tweaks for the new edition. This is the first edition where the standard flesh golem has some kind of pyrophobia, in the form of suffering Disadvantage on its attack rolls and ability checks until the end of its next turn if it takes fire damage.

===Gallery===
<gallery>
flesh golem 1e.jpg|1e
flesh golem MM 1e 2.jpg
flesh golem MCV1.jpg|2e
flesh golem MCR3.png
Flesh golem Clay golem MM 2e.png
flesh golem 4e.jpg|4e
flesh golem 5e.jpg|5e
flesh golem PF CHR.jpg|PF
flesh golem PF 2e.png|PF 2e
</gallery>
{{D&D2e-Races}}

==World of Darkness==
Rules for crafting flesh golems as adversaries appeared in the New [[World of Darkness]] 1e sourcebook "Antagonists". This idea was then expanded upon to create the game-line [[Promethean: The Created]], in which you basically play as different lineages of flesh golems.

==Monstergirls?==
{{Monstergirls}}
[[File:Flesh Golem MG.jpg|300px|thumb|right|What better bride than one you built yourself?]]

Now, you might think that in comparison to standard golems, flesh golems would never get the [[monstergirls]] treatment. After all, they're pretty much the [[necromancer]] version of the golem, right? Well, you're wrong: beside the fact that monstergirl [[zombie]]s and [[ghoul]]s are things, it does make a morbid sense. If you're crazy enough to gather corpse-bits, stitch them all together and bring them to life, why not try and do it with bits taken from dead women and make yourself a girlfriend out of it? Heck, there's even some actual movies along this theme, from the legendary Universal film "Bride of Frankenstein" to the infamous horror-comedy "Frankenhooker", in which a hapless mad scientist ends up building a strangely sexy super-slut female flesh golem from the bodies of dead whores.

The [[Book of Erotic Fantasy]] takes this to its conclusion with the Pleasure Golem, made from "extremely fresh" humanoid flesh and wax. Normally it looks like a bunch of stitched-together bodies but it can use Disguise Self at-will to look like anyone within the limits of the spell (this means on average in the 5'-7' range), so those who like them some [[shortstack]]s but also the more [[amazon]]ian physique might be better off with two Pleasure Golems instead of one. Pleasure Golems have no minds of their own; instead they have a drive to deliver pleasure and have a semblance of life thanks to an infusion with a fire [[elemental]]. They cannot speak, but they can produce sexual noises. And it's worth noting that they always sound and feel the same (it's up in the air if this means that you'll be able to feel the stitchings), [[RAW]] Disguise Self can make them look, [[magical realm|smell and taste differently]]. Certain Pleasure Golems are built with extreme docility in mind for the more... harsh of owners, so there's a rough 5% chance that a threatened Pleasure Golem will not fight back when attacked. When it is attacked however it can clumsily defend itself with its fist, and has the standard Construct immunities. The Pleasure Golem does have one crippling flaw: its Intoxicating Pheromones Extraordinary Ability. All creatures (but the text specifies this as mammalian) within 30' of a Pleasure Golem have to roll a DC15 Will save or come under effect of the ''Vision of Exquisite Pleasure'' spell. This flat-out STUNS the target for the spell's duration, and since you have to save every turn in the presence of a Pleasure Golem... well, you better hope your Will save lasts longer than you do.

If this isn't enough for you, the [[Scarred Lands]] sourcebook for "Shelzar, City of Sins" has a sidebar on page 63 introducing "Sex Constructs"; flesh golem-like entities engineered by perverse wizards in pursuit of the wealth of the most hedonistic and debauched nobles of this infamous city of carnal pleasures. The two specific types mentioned are the Sintaur, resembling a [[centaur]] whose lower body is made of two human lower torsos melded together, with each "foot" replaced by a dextrous, long-fingered human hand and each pair of leg-arms having its own set of attendant genitals, and female sintaurs having two to three pairs of "huge" breasts; and the Slavering Orificer, which is basically described as a [[Gibbering Mouther]] made out of vaginas instead of mouths and which is associated with revels of such debauchery that the construct often doesn't survive the orgy that centers on it. Truly, creations worthy of a [[Slaanesh]]ii [[necromancer]].

[[Category: Monsters]]

Demiplane of Dread

2021-06-09T00:20:56Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Lamordia 5e */

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'''The Demiplane of Dread''' is a unique [[Demiplane]] - or, perhaps more accurately, a series of interlinked demiplanes - within the [[Great Wheel]] cosmology of [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. This is the actual "world" in which the campaign setting of [[Ravenloft]] is based, and so the name is often used when trying to describe the "Ravenloft world".

The precise origins of the Demiplane of Dread are lost to history. Its creators are enigmatic beings known only as "The Dark Powers", who maintain and defend their creation with mighty magic and jealous zeal. It's believed they have some kind of mutual non-aggression pact with the various gods of the Great Wheel, but nothing canon is ever defined. It is believed to lie where the [[Ethereal Plane]] meets the [[Plane of Shadow]], but is able to manifest portals absolutely ''everywhere'', even in places normally restricted to planar portals, such as [[Dark Sun|Athas]] or the [[Phlogiston]]. Such portals usually appear as banks of fog or mist, but will adapt themselves to other sight-obscuring phenomena - and are usually one-way. Getting ''in'' is easy, but getting '''out'''? Canonically you won't be able to leave unless the Dark Powers will it, short of using artifact-level items like the dreaded Rift Spanner which just so happens to be the kind of item that could turn you into a [[Darklord]] just from getting it to work properly.

Aaand then came 3.5 which opened a doorway into the [[World Serpent Inn]], breaking the whole point of this prison plane. Here it's a failsafe for DMs when their parties reach their 16th birthday and are sick of Goth. Its doorway on the Demiplane's side of things changes every night. Mind you, even back in AD&D, portals '''out''' of the Demiplane of Dread were explicitly a thing and even listed in major [[splatbook]]s like the Domains of Dread - for example, the Isle of Lament in Lamordia houses one such portal, so you can leave just by going there, if you can sneak past Adam.

==Planar Traits==
The Demiplane of Dread's creators have molded the reality of this world into a new fashion, forcibly imposing the rules of [[Gothic Horror]] on the setting. There are many ways that this molding manifests, but some of the more overt include the following:
* [[Necromancer|Necromancy]] spells are empowered and rendered more dangerous; spells like Animate Dead will call up more creatures than the caster may be able to control, whilst spells that instantly kill their victims usually cause such victims to arise spontaneously as the [[undead]] - and often as ones quite pissed off at their killer. Certain non-necromancy, non-instant-kill spells even have a chance of doing this, such as Disintegrate turning a completely disintegrated victim into an incorporeal undead! Using any necromancy spell provokes a powers check unless it's purely defensive, doesn't affect undead, and doesn't manipulate life force; that list of "safe" spells is quite narrow.
* [[Diviner|Divination]] spells are pretty much worthless; spells that detect moral alignment invariably fail, spells aimed at detecting monstrous species either are unreliable (Detect Undead) or flatly won't work (using True Seeing to look for natural shapechangers), spells that revolve around mental contact risk driving you mad if you accidentally use them on certain inhuman creatures, and in general you can't trust the result of divination spells because the normal awareness of when such a spell has failed doesn't occur in the Demiplane of Dread. Oh, and Scrying type spells create a visible sensory apparatus that can alert your target that you're scrying on them, which can even serve as a conduit for things like gaze attacks. There's a practical reason for this; horrific things aren't quite as scary if you know their true nature too early, and so this element was put in to keep from having the DM tip their hands too soon and ruin the scare.
* [[Conjurer|Conjuration]] allows entities from other planes to be summoned, but they won't be able to return home when the spell expires. Obviously, quite a few of them will be ''very'' upset with their summoner because of this. Even before they figure this out, the binding aspects of conjuration spells are weaker in the Demiplane of Dread, giving summoned creatures a chance to escape its bonds the moment it arrives.
* [[Abjurer|Abjuration]] spells that banish creatures to another plane do not work. Rather, they ''appear'' to work but just toss the target somewhere else within the demiplane.
* [[Illusionist|Illusion]] spells that manipulate shadows are 20% more powerful, but the caster risks losing control of it when the spell ends, releasing a free-willed [[shadow]].
* Spells that directly interfere with the fabric of a Domain, such as manipulating weather, can often attract the attention of the resident [[Darklord]], and who might be able to subvert or negate these same spells if they have related powers.
* Teleportation spells are restricted; each domain is treated like its own separate plane of existence. High-level teleportation spells can overcome this if the border is not closed. Nothing can teleport out of a closed domain or the Demiplane entirely.
* Curses are empowered, and even non-spellcasters can potentially lay deadly or deforming curses on people if their rage or grief is intense enough to catch the notice of the [[Dark Powers]].
* The [[Dark Powers]] are watching everybody and seem to enjoy turning people into monsters that reflect their own evil deeds. When a creature performs some evil act, which range from casting necromantic spells to premeditated murder, the Dark Powers [[Powers Check|might notice]] and start the process. The changes are subtle or even helpful at first, allowing the victim to more easily perform his evil acts, which lures the victim into more evil, gaining more attention and transformation, until he is completely transformed into a monster or even a [[darklord]] of his own domain.
* Intelligent undead, like vampires, can tell if their minds are being read and can choose which thoughts they will project. Depending on the circumstances, this may be a false image passing them off as human or an up-close look at the most evil parts of their minds meant to drive the would-be mind reader insane.
* 5th edition's overhaul of the lore drops most of the above rules but adds some new ones. If you die in the Demiplane of Dread your soul does not move into the afterlife and is trapped there until it is eventually reincarnated. People who are resurrected after being dead for over 24 hour discover this and are traumatized by the experience.
* Also in 5th edition, Darklords can sense when somebody in their domain is trying to cast spells that contact beings on other planes and can make themselves the target of the spell.

==Mapping the Demiplane==
Geo-physically, the Demiplane of Dread consists of various bubbles of reality, ranging in size from a single room to full-fledged countries, all floating in a sea of ephemeral mist; each of these reality bubbles (called "Domains") is typically centered around a [[Darklord]], a villain whose evil caught the eyes of the Dark Powers and so they responded by imprisoning them within the Demiplane. 3rd edition's unpublished [[splatbook]] "[[Van Richten's Guide]] to the Mists" introduced the concept of ''Oubliettes'', which are basically prototype or abandoned Domains that don't contain a Darklord. A Domain may exist on its own (an "Island of Terror") or be physically coterminous with one or more more other domains, forming what is called a "Cluster". The largest and oldest Cluster in the Demiplane is called "The Core", and this is basically Ground Zero for the setting.

Traveling between Domains is a little tricky to describe. If two Domains are coterminous, you can simply walk between them, as if they were normal lands. If you want to get to a Domain that ''isn't'' coterminous, then you have to just walk into the Mists and hope you'll end up where you want to go. Certain spots are known to have what are essentially portals that can link different Domains together, in that traveling from these spots (which may require unique triggers before they kick in) will usually end you up in a specific Domain; known as "Mistways", these portals can be either one way or two way, and vary in reliability (aka, how likely you are to end up at the intended destination instead of fuck-knows-where) from "guaranteed" to "you rolls the dice, you takes your chances".

Traveling between Domains is made more complicated by the fact that most [[Darklord]]s have a power called "Closing the Borders," which causes the borders of their Domain to become enveloped in a barrier of some sort unique to that Darklord that prevents escape in some fashion - some are non-lethal, most will kill you if you try. A rare few can be circumvented by the right esoteric circumstances (for example, [[undead]] or [[construct]]s can safely walk through poisonous borders like that of Barovia, because they're fundamentally immune to poison), but in general this is the ultimate [[Railroading]] tool the DM has to keep you from just saying "fuck this" and leaving the domain.

Precisely why the Dark Powers collect these [[Darklord]]s is unknown, and theories abound; the Demiplane of Dread has been described as a prison, a gathering place for evil, a grand study into the nature of evil, a unique kind of Hell, or even a Purgatory by various fans.

Another great mystery is the nature of its native population. Some Domains were physically taken from their homeworlds, but most are described as "copies" rather than direct abductions of land. This then leaves players wondering: are the locals actually "real", or are they merely soulless simulacra - props in the grand theater of Gothic Horror tales that the Dark Powers are conducting? Nothing concrete has ever been given. This isn't entirely consistent however, with other originals becoming ruins (Like Kalidnay) or vanishing entirely (like Har’Akir).

===The Core===
As mentioned above, this is the "core" of Ravenloft, the sole normal-style continent where the bulk of the game focuses on. Think of it as something akin to the Sword Coast of the [[Forgotten Realms]], or Ansalon in [[Dragonlance]]. The precise layout has changed over Ravenloft's life, usually as a result of [[Advancing the Storyline]] - most prominently, it changed massively after the [[Grand Conjunction]], and then changed a little during both the [[Grim Harvest]] and the shift from 2e to 3e.

The Core is made up of the following Domains.

=====Barovia=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Blatant Dracula Knockoff
::[[Darklord]]: [[Strahd von Zarovich]]

This is the oldest domain in Ravenloft, the literal heart of the Demiplane of Dread. It's ruled by Strahd, and is basically Dracula in D&D. It is also home to the titular [[Castle Ravenloft]], Strahd's humble abode. This domain has been visited in literally ''every single edition'' of D&D after BECMI; even 4th edition, the only edition without an adaptation of I6 to its titles, has the adventure "Fair Barovia" in [[Dungeon Magazine]] #207, which has the party exploring Barovia and completing assorted side-quests.

=====Borca=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Poisoners, Italy under the Borgia Family
::[[Darklord]]: Ivana Boritsi

Originally, Borca was ruled by the Darklord Camille Boritsi, and was half its present size, sharing borders with the near-identical domain of Dorvini. Ivana poisoned her mother because her mom seduced her boyfriend, and during the Grand Conjunction, her domain and that of her cousin Ivan Dilisnya merged together due to their great similarities.

=====Darkon=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Age to Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Plains, Mountains & Swamps
::Motif: Generic [[Dark Fantasy]]
::[[Darklord]]: Azalin

Darkon is notable as the most overtly fantastical realm in the Demiplane of Dread, with a relatively huge population of [[demihuman]]s that sees humans going from the usual 90+% population merit to only 75% as well as the greatest amount of local toleration for arcane magic.

If one spends a month in the realm they lose their memories until they leave the domain, thinking they've always been from Darkon. Unfortunately, the new state from having lost memories convinces one to never leave unless forced to.

=====Dementlieu=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains
::Motif: Renaissance France/Victorian England
::[[Darklord]]: Dominic D'Honaire

Though not as overtly modeled on London as the domain of Paridon, Dementlieu definitely taps into the Gothic Urban Horror motif, as is made clear by the way it is home to myriad mystical mind-manipulators and the character Alanik Ray, who is basically Sherlock Holmes if he was an [[elf]]. It's considered the "cultural heart" of the Core.

=====Falkovnia=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains
::Motif: Military Horror, Fascism, Urban Squalor
::[[Darklord]]: Vlad Drakov

Slap together Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, paint it up in the most shit-awful and miserable stereotypes of Dark Ages Europe, and have the place be run by a man who melds Hitler with Vlad the Impaler and is so bloodthirsty they'd both be disgusted by him. Falkovnia is outright called the biggest shithole in the Demiplane of Dread.

=====Forlorn=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Dreary Scotland with a dash of Brak Man Morn
::[[Darklord]]: Tristen ApBlanc

A vaguely Scottish Celtic themed domain that nobody gives a shit about because there's nothing in it but killer plants, giant bugs, and [[goblyn]]s. 3e tried to fix this by adding a small population of native humans, but the overall domain is still a monster-infested backwoods, so nobody fucking cares. As for its resident asshole, ApBlanc is a [[vampyre]] by day, and a ghost by night, proving once and for all that the Dark Powers do, indeed, have a sense of humor.

=====Hazlan=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Hills, Mountains & Plains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy meets Yellow Peril
::[[Darklord]]: Hazlik

Essentially a tiny sliver of [[Thay]] transplanted into the Demiplane of Dread, where a tiny minutia (the Mulan ethnicity) rules over and brutally represses a far vaster majority (the Rashemani). One of only two places so absolutely shit that [[The Lawgiver]] is actually worshipped here.

=====Invidia=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Lethally Impulsive Stupidity
::[[Darklord]]: Gabrielle Aderre

A land of passionate, hot-blooded and constantly feuding individuals, including mercenary armies, ogres, giants, and wolfweres. The [[Vistani]] are executed on sight here, and as such, its hunter-mercenaries are on the collective shit-list of both Strahd von Zerovich and Ivan Dilisnya.

=====Kartakass=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
::[[Darklord]]: Meistersinger Harkon Lukas

A rural backwoods inhabited by proud, cocky, music-loving foresters who are quite happy with the way things are, thank you. They are totally oblivious to the population of [[wolfwere]]s hiding amongst them.

=====Keening=====
::Cultural Level: None (formerly Chivalric)
::Landscape: Temperate Mountains (Bleached of Life)
::Motif: Endless Grief
::[[Darklord]]: Tristessa the Banshee

A cursed and forsaken realm, with a population consisting solely of its mad, grief-stricken [[banshee]] [[darklord]], her court of half-insane [[undead]] [[fey]], and a village of [[skeleton]]s that constantly mime out the actions of their last day.

=====Lamordia=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Mad Science ala Frankenstein
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Mordenheim & Adam

A stuffy, tempest-lashed domain that prides itself on its scientific acumen and its staunch rationalistic beliefs, totally denying the fantastical nature of the world around them.

=====Mordent=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Plains & Swamps
::Motif: Ghost-Haunted Rural Britain/Scotland
::[[Darklord]]: Lord Wilfred Godefroy

It's basically the setting for every ghost-related Gothic Horror novel ever written. High concentration of both incorporeal undead and mist creatures in a land dotted by small villages sheltering the living. Is also full of ancient ruined manors, decaying coats of arms and dying or dead noble families, furthering that neo-Britain impression by casting it as the decaying remnants of a once-mighty civilization. The false history implies they share a mutual background with Borca, perhaps having originated from the same nameless fantasy world.

=====Necropolis=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Temperate Settled Area
::Motif: City of the Dead
::[[Darklord]]: Death

Once a bustling metropolis in Darkon called Il Aluk, the place was destroyed and turned into a city of sapient undead creatures protected behind a mystical veil that kills and reanimates any living humanoids that enter. This was caused by Azalin achieving an epic-level fuck up with his magic. Generally considered the worst domain in the Core because you can't go in there without being transformed into an [[undead]], which in AD&D came with associated rules that, in the grand tradition of [[Ravenloft]], utterly fucked you over pretty much from the get-go. Its Darklord, "Death", is an uber-powerful ghost with hyper-lethal abilities that was created from a clone of Azalin and which has gone absolutely insane, believing itself to be the literal spirit of death.

=====Nova Vaasa=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Russia under Peter the Great
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Tristen Hiregaard/Malken

A horse-filled steppeland dominated by sweeping grassy plains and crushing urban poverty and squalor, presided over by a mixture of corrupt aristocrats and Lawful Good types who view "law" as more important than "good". This is the ''other'' domain shitty enough to have [[The Lawgiver]] as the state religion, and is such a hellhole that ''Barovians'' look down on its people as backward hicks.

=====Richemulot=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Wererat Land
::[[Darklord]]: Jacqueline Renier

A pseudo-French domain distinguished mostly by being the largest breeding ground of [[wererat]]s in the entire demiplane. The name is literally French for "Rich Mouse", which pretty much gives the game away from the start if you know the language..

=====The Shadow Rift=====
::Cultural Level: Unknowable
::Landscape: Eternally Dark Mysical
::Motif: Dark Faerie Tales
::[[Darklord]]: Gwydion the Shadow Fiend

This is the homeland of the [[Shadow Fey]], and as such no mortals know anything about the place. The court is found at the bottom of a chasm filled with mist, protecting it from the sun, as well as erasing anything stupid enough to try penetrating so deeply into said-mist. In classic Faerie fashion, time works differently here, with a fortnight outside equaling a year ''inside.''

=====Sithicus=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Declining [[Elf]] Kingdom
::[[Darklord]]: Inza Kulchevitch

The only domain in the Core that has a [[demihuman]] majority population, this was formerly the domain of [[Lord Soth]], and is thus loosely based on the [[Dragonlance]] setting. May or may not contain vampire [[kender]].

=====Tepest=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Grim Faerie Tales Europe meets Salem Witch Trials
::[[Darklord]]: The Sisters Mindefisk

Hands down one of the most primitive and worthless backwaters in the Core, Tepest's trio of [[hag]] [[darklord]]s are practically non-entities in their own land, with the focus instead being on how the ignorant superstitious peasantry are falling increasingly under the sway of a self-righteous inquisition of self-proclaimed [[fey]]-hunters and [[witch]]-burners. The sisters ''do'' fan the flames of said-group so they can harvest the bodies of anyone condemned, but mostly stick to hiding in their cottage.

=====Valachan=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: African Savages
::[[Darklord]]: Baron Urik von Kharkov

A rugged wilderness inhabited by dusky-skinned foresters who take pride in their absolute ignorance when it comes to book-learning or anything not related to the practicalities of forest-work, to the point they even look down upon their own priests. Befittingly, this leaves them too ignorant to realize they are being eaten alive by a hidden population of [[nosferatu]] and [[werepanther]]s.

=====Verbrek=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Swamps
::Motif: Werewolf Country
::[[Darklord]]: Alfred Timothy

The obligatory [[werewolf]] domain, to contrast the Dracula and Frankenstein ones. Everybody here knows the wilderness (as embodied by the werewolves) is at their door, and live accordingly. This domain was originally called '''Arkandale''' and was run by Alfred's father, Nathan, until he lost the Dark Powers' interest by actually making peace with his lot in life and coming to enjoy being a riverboating casino owner, even if it did mean no longer being able to hunt on the land.

[[Quoth the Raven]] #1 offers an alternative take on the domain where Nathan reclaims it after Alfred's werewolf supremacist cult causes a deadly famine and then civil war amongst the local lycanthropes, which leads to it being renamed Arkandale once more.

===The Seas===
The Core is surrounded by two seas; the Nocturnal Sea and the Sea of Sorrows, which are technically their own unique Clusters that just so happen to adjoin the Core. Because of this, they're put in their own specific sections.

====The Sea of Sorrows====
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Pieter van Riese

This is the Western Sea of the Core, a cold, stormy, mist- (and Mist-)haunted expanse of water populated by various islands, representing the scattered domains of lesser Darklords. Its own "true" Darklord is Captain Pieter van Riese; a [[ghost]] based on the legendary Flying Dutchman who has perhaps the greatest freedom of any Darklord in Ravenloft - he can even leave his ship to go on land and enter other domains! This is because his curse is to ''never'' be able to find his own way, but instead to only be able to take others to where they want to go.

=====Carcharodon Isle=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Hills
::Motif: <s>Ladyhawke</s> Parted Lovers
::[[Darklord]]: Alison Marjory and Sean Mako

An island cursed with two darklords; a fisherman turned [[wereshark]] and a [[merfolk|mermaid]]-turned-human turned [[seawolf]], whose curses prevent them from ever meeting in their human forms. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====Markovia=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Warm Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: The Island of Dr. Moreau
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Markov

It's literally just the Island of Dr Moreau in D&D. That's it. Originally part of the Core, but was moved out to the Sea of Sorrows as a result of the [[Grand Conjunction]]. Nothing here except the [[Darklord]], his [[Broken One]] minions, and a small temple of priests dedicated to guarding a powerful evil artifact that would be of great interest to the Darklord.

=====Blaustein=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Bluebeard

A small island consisting of a castle and a single village, whose population are fanatically loyal to the blue-bearded master of the castle above.

=====Demise=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Althea

A rocky island made from a mostly cooled volcano, this is basically a glorified dungeon that serves as the prison of the [[medusa]] Althea. Fans have tried to expand this by adding the ghost of her murdered [[maedar]] husband (arguably a much better candidate for the darklord) and her maedar son, who hates both of his crazy parents and wants off this godsforsaken rock.

=====Dominia=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Insanity and Institutional Abuse
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth

A small island that houses the most famous (if not only) insane asylum in all of the Core. A pity it's actually a nest of cerebral vampires, ruled over a crazed psychiatrist determined to push the studies of inflicting madness and terror to their absolute limit.

=====Ghastria=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Stezen D'Polarno

A surprisingly grim and colorless place which grows abundant food that, mysteriously, holds no taste when consumed.

====The Nocturnal Sea====
::[[Darklord]]: Meredoth

The cold and dismal Eastern Sea of the Core, which only emerged from the Mists after the events of the [[Grand Conjunction]], ruled over by Meredoth, an epic-level [[Necromancer]] from Glantri in [[Mystara]]. Although strongly associated with ''Graben Island'', which is where "his" people live, Meredoth can actually travel the Sea at will, and in fact lairs himself on the wintery isle of ''Todstein''. Like the Sea of Sorrows, there are plenty of other domains scattered around the Nocturnal Sea ruled over by their own lords.

=====Isle of the Ravens=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: The Lady of Ravens

A deserted island home only to its darklord, an insane but powerful sorceress from a [[Gormentghast]]ian family, and her legions of raven and [[fey]] servants. Whilst it was first mentioned in official media, appearing in brief summary in the writeup of the Nocturnal Sea in the Domains of Dread revised campaign setting, it was fans who fleshed it out; the Isle of the Ravens first received a writeup in the [[Books of S|Book of Sacrifices]], before later being revisited in [[Quoth the Raven]] #13.

=====L'ile de la Tempete=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Alain Monette

A rocky and treacherous island whose lighthouse serves only to lure sailors to their doom upon its shores.

=====Liffe=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Baron Evensong or Assorted Demilords

A surprisingly large and fertile island, with one of the biggest and most welcoming populations of any island-domains in the Nocturnal Sea. Originally ruled by Baron Evensong, although the fanmade Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer downgraded him to one of a cluster of different super-minor darklords.

=====Locknar Cove=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Cold, eroded hills and thick, old growth forest
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

A quiet, humble island of fisherfolk that lies off the combined shorelines of Darkon and Nova Vassa, close to the isle of Liffe. Hidden at its core like a toad in a stone, the ghost of an avaricious pirate who valued wealth beyond his own life guards a vast treasure hoard. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

===The Clusters===
====The Amber Wastes====
::Motif: Dark Fantasy [[Egypt]]

It's Gothic Horror Egypt in D&D. What more is there to say? Its constituent domains are ''Har'Akir'', ''Sebua'', and ''Pharazia''.

=====Har'Akir=====
::Cultural Level: Bronze Age
::Landscape: Desert and Badlands
::Motif: Mummy Horror Movies
::[[Darklord]]: Anhtepot

''Har'Akir'' is a tiny little village of Egyptian peasants who live next to a tomb housing the [[darklord]] Ankhtepot, a pharaoh who blasphemed against the gods and was condemned to both eternity as a [[mummy]] and to be trapped in obscurity with only a single village of humble peasants to "lord over".

=====Sebua=====
::Cultural Level: Bronze Age Darklord, Stone Age natives
::Landscape: Desert Wasteland
::Motif: Mummy Horror meets Ghost Horror
::[[Darklord]]: Tiyet

''Sebua'' consists of an abandoned Egyptian manor next to an oasis haunted by both a tribe of feral children, who inhabit the nearby ruins of a fallen city, and the [[darklord]] Tiyet, a unique female [[mummy]] who appears as a gorgeous woman... save for her insatiable hunger for human hearts.

=====Pharazia=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape: Deserts, Oases, Rivers
::Motif: Arabian Nights Horror meets Religious Fundamentalism
::[[Darklord]]: Diamabel
''Pharazia'' is a pseudo-Arabian city-state ruled over by its [[darklord]] Diamabel; a moralistic fanatic who led a campaign of genocidal terror in life, when felled by an arrow he arose as the shining [[angel]] he always wanted to become... only to find he transformed into a hideous [[undead]] version of himself at night.

====The Burning Peaks====
::Motif: [[Dark Fantasy]]

A two-domain cluster made up of ''Cavitus'', the realm of [[Vecna]], and ''Tovag'', the realm of [[Kas]].

=====Cavitus=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Negative Energy-Infused Wasteland
::Motif: Cartoonish [[Necromancer]]-Ruled Hellhole
::[[Darklord]]: [[Vecna]]

=====Tovag=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Mountains, Scrub Pine Forests
::Motif: [[Vampire]]s, War Horror
::[[Darklord]]: [[Kas]]

====The Frozen Reaches====
::Motif: Dark Fantasy Russia

It's basically the frozen wintery hell that everybody imagines that Russia is transplanted into D&D. Its constituent domains are ''Sanguinia'' and ''Vorostokov'',

=====Sanguina=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Prince Ladislav Mircea

Sanguina is an Early Medieval Russian kingdom ruled over by Prince Ladislav Mircea, a self-centered [[alchemist]] who accidentally transformed himself into a [[mutant]] [[vampire]], possibly a [[Vrykolaka]], that feeds on the Four Humours (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile) in an effort to save himself from a deadly plague.

=====Vorostokov=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Boyar Gregor Zolnik

Vorostokov is a frigid Dark Ages wasteland of villages and forests trapped in a perpetual winter, ruled over by the [[Loup du Noir]] Boyar Gregor Zolnik.

====The Shadowlands====
::Motif: Medieval Dark Fantasy

Intimately tied to a single world, the Shadowlands are made up of three domains that all tie to one long story of corruption; ''Avonleigh'', ''Nidala'', and ''Shadowborn Manor''.

=====Avonleigh=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Morgoroth the Black

Avonleigh is a monster-haunted forest ruled over by the [[darklord]] Morgoroth the Black, a [[planeswalker]] [[wizard]] who traveled to the homeland of the three domains and ended up destroying the not!Arthurian court there through accident. He is now trapped as a ephemeral shade unless the enchanted mirror that trapped him in this state is reassembled in his former mansion home.

=====Shadowborn Manor=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Ebonbane

Shadowborn Manor is a manor other than Morgoroth's that is the resting place of Ebonbane, a raging fiend trapped in a sword, which is itself trapped in a crystal sarcophagus. Ebonbane is so dangerous that Morgoroth actually uses his magic to assist in keeping the damn thing locked up.

=====Nidala=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Elena Faith-Hold

Nidala is the only actually populated domain, and is ruled over by the self-righteous fanatical fallen [[paladin]] Elena Faith-Hold.

====The Verduous Lands====
::Motif: Tropical Dark Fantasy

The hot and humid hellholes, full of deadly predators and equally deadly plants. For some reason the moon is never seen here.

=====Saragoss=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Draga Saltbiter

Saragoss is an oceanic domain; a vast entangling sargassum patch full of wrecked ships crawling with [[ghoul]]s and cannibal [[pirate]]s above and [[sahuagin]] and [[shark]]s below, with a self-loathing [[wereshark]] [[pirate]] and [[cleric]] of [[Umberlee]] for a [[darklord]].

=====The Wildlands=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape: Tropical Jungles and Swamps
::Motif: Twisted Animal Fables
::[[Darklord]]: King Crocodile

The Wildlands are basically [[grimdark]] Jungle Book; a tropical jungle full of asshole talking animals ruled over by the monstrous King Crocodile.

=====Sri Raji=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Rain forests, hills, and mountains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy India / Sri Lanka
::[[Darklord]]: Maharaja Arijani

''Formerly'' an Island of Terror, Sri Raji is a domain in the Verduous Lands cluster ruled by the [[Rakshasa]] Maharaja Arijani. The Verduous Lands cluster does not have a moon with potentially interesting consequences for lycanthropes having some part of the lunar cycle as their trigger condition. Equally, there should be no tides. Most of the human inhabitants of Sri Raji congregate in three cities, each located surprisingly close to the domain border. A fourth city, Mahakala, is less populated and commonly referred to as "accursed". It's basically Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but with more [[rakshasa]]s, [[beastfolk]] and giant insects.

====Zherisia====
::Motif: Urban Dark Fantasy

Differentiating itself from other clusters, Zherisia is composed of the city domain of ''Paridon'' and ''Timor'', a former Island of Terror now transformed into the sewers underneath Paridon.

=====Paridon=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Urban
::Motif: Gothic-Era Urban Horror
::[[Darklord]]:Sodo

Paridon is a sprawling London-esque city infested with a uniquely powerful strain of [[doppelganger]]s, whose [[darklord]] is a many-cursed psychotic doppelganger named Sodo.

=====Timor=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Underground Tunnels
::Motif: Monsters From Below
::[[Darklord]]: The Marikith Queen

Timor is a dripping hive of tunnels infested by xenomorph expies called Marikith.

====Republica de Neuva Aragona====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Tropical Jungle Islands

A two-domain cluster made up of neighboring isles in a tropical ocean known to its inhabitants as Mar de Lagrimas (the Sea of Tears), both themed after the Spanish colonies of South America. Unusually, the two domains are historically linked; both were connected to the same history involving the "native" colonists rising up against the rule of the motherland of Aragona and fighting for their indepence, which led to the two primary land-masses - the island of '''Resistencia''' and the mainland of '''Maconda''' each gaining a [[Darklord]] out of that initial struggle. It appears in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Resistencia=====
Resistencia is haunted by the [[ghost]] of Don Santiago de Quijada y Alvarez, the leader of the failed army sent by the motherland to quash the independence revolution.

=====Maconda=====
Maconda, on the other hand, is led openly and in darkness by the man who led the independence revolution: the [[wereananconda]] President-General Martin Jose Maconda.

====Colonies of the Holy Empire====
An unusual [[netbook]] cluster in that it's not technically presented ''as'' a cluster. The Colonies of the Holy Empire are a collective of domains that all draw from the same homeworld, a pastiche of Central/South America and its invasion by the Spanish Conquistadors, which appeared in the [[Books of S]] [[netbook]]s. Despite this shared origin, they are not presented as being geographically linked in the usual way of a cluster. ''Mictlan'' appeared in the Book of Shadows, whilst ''Igid Rabi-i'' and ''Cumbre de Oro'' both appeared in the Book of Sacrifices.

=====Mictlan=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Tropical Jungle
::[[Darklord]]: Commander Hernando Mouriros

A pastiche of the [[Aztec]] empire, the invasion of an army from a mysterious Chivalric realm has destabilize the realm and caused it to begin falling apart into civil war. And all the while, the invaders, cursed to never die unless they can conquer all of Mictlan, press on desperately in an attempt to end their long and bloody campaign.

=====Igid Rabi-i=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric, Classical or Dark Ages, depending on region
::[[Darklord]]: Arcapatos Miguel Agustin

A deeply spiritual domain wracked with internal conflict, for its leader is a priest who cares nothing for the realm, and everything for chasing a "holy relic" that evades his every attempt to grasp it.

=====Cumbre de Oro=====
::Cultural Level: Savage (Iron Age ruins, Medieval Avaricios)
::[[Darklord]]: Anibal Coronado

A cursed city of vast riches, a pastiche of El Dorado, haunted by the undead remnants of an explorer's party that gave their lives to find those riches and still refused to stop searching for wealth. This domain is actually a part of the larger Mictlan domain.

===The Islands of Terror===
=====Arlington Farm=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance decayed to Dark Ages
::Landscape: Single large wheat & corn farm
::Motif: Killer Scarecrows
::[[Darklord]]: Henry Arlington

The cursed farm of a farmer so obsessed with the success of his land that he not only killed to acquire it, but he began performing blood rites to ensure its success, murdering people and hiding their bodies in his scarecrows. Eventually, his cursed creations turned on him and turned him into one of them. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Bluetspur=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Age
::Landscape: Temperate hills, plains, and mountains
::Motif: [[Yog-Sothothery]]
::[[Darklord]]: The [[Illithid]] God-Brain

Meaning "Blood Trail" in German, it's a desolate wasteland with nightly, violent electrical storms on the surface. Beneath the surface lie the maddening and sprawling cities of illithids and their tortured and experimented slaves. This is also the home of the infamous Vampiric Mind Flayers, a creature that is technically indestructible in AD&D.

=====Callista=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Flooded Islets
::Motif: Gothic Vienna
::[[Darklord]]: Rafe Ungard

A once large island that has been reduced to tiny islets by intense flooding, peopled with a passionately chivalric (in the sense of "women are sacred and must be protected") people who claim to be the ''true'' [[Vistani]], ignorant of the fact that they are actually the cursed reincarnations of the true Vistani seen elsewhere in the Misty Realms. Because only 20% of their children are girls, they are overwhelmingly, patronizingly chivalric, and will sooner die than hurt women. The realm is also home to a large population of [[Paka]], who believe it to be a defiled holy site and hate the Callistans passionately. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Davion=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Shifts
::Motif: Dueling Psyches
::[[Darklord]]: Davion the Mad

A twisting realm that was created when a miscast Wish spell merged the mindscapes of the wizard Davion and his three hirelings - the male [[mage]] Ausgustus, the male [[fighter]] Boromar, and the female [[cleric]] of [[Loviatar]] Narana - into a single unit, leaving them struggling for dominion.

=====The Eternal Torture=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Decaying Sailing Ship
::Motif: [[Ghoul]] Ship
::[[Darklord]]: Miles Havelocke

The cursed ship of Miles Havelocke, a mutineer who led his crew to commit cannibalism upon the loyal members of the crew. Now a crew of [[ghast]]s, they endlessly search for land, attacking and feeding upon any unlucky ships they encounter as their passage leads them to the Nocturnal Sea, the Sea of Sorrows, and the oceans off all other domains, but never to the land they desperately wish to reach. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Farelle=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Woodlands
::Motif: Acceptance of Self
::[[Darklord]]: Jark Karn, The Jackal Who Would Not Be A Coward

An island splinter of the Wildlands, inhabited by a burgeoning population who are genuinely warm, welcoming and thriving. A pity that this is the manifestation of the darklord's curse. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====G'Henna=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Cold and temperate hills, plains, mountains, and deserts
::Motif: Corrupt [[Theocracy]]
::[[Darklord]]: Yagno Petrovna

Here a starving population works the fields to produce food to be sacrificed for the god [[Zhakata]]. Unfortunately the god doesn't exist and priests of the god eat the offerings, while the farmers starve themselves waiting for a god that will never come.

=====The House of Lament=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Mansion
::Motif: Haunted/Evil House
::[[Darklord]]: The House Itself

The House of Lament is a cursed structure that is simultaneous domain and darklord; a haunted structure that demands the sacrifice of human souls in an effort to quell its inescapable loneliness.

=====I'Cath=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Temperate Forest
::Motif: [[Oriental Adventures|Chinese Ghost Stories]]
::[[Darklord]]: Tsien Chiang

A tiny Island of Terror inhabited only by its Darklord and her four daughters - the three evil daughters Hate, Spite and Scream, all of whom are variant Con-tinh (evil spirit women), and the benevolent, tormented good daughter Nightingale. Her domain is similar to Forlorn in that it's basically a glorified dungeon, with literally nothing to do except show up and defeat the Darklord or die trying, except it's [[Oriental Adventures|Chinese]], not Scottish. Tsien Chiang is a misandrist [[necromancer]] from [[Kara-tur]], based on an ''incredibly'' minor character from the [[Forgotten Realms]] lore. She can also transform into an evil [[Treant]].

=====Immerabt=====
::Cultural Level: Late Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate & Cold Plains, Mountains and Aquatic
::Motif: When Death Becomes Relief
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Dorothy Hemphyll

An incredibly advanced domain whose scientific prowess can challenge that of Lamordia's, especially in medical sciences. It bulges with life to the point of being overrun with it, and yet death is a mercy that all too few can find, especially under the watchful eye of the Healer's Guild. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Incitatus=====
::Cultural Level: Classical reduced to Stone Age
::Landscape: Desolate, Lifeless City and rural surroundings
::Motif: Scientific Hubris Brings Apocalypse
::[[Darklord]]: Ahasveros

The lifeless remains of what was once a great scientific civilization, one that destroyed itself attempting to harness the power of the sea to annihilate an enemy nation with an artificially created tidal wave. Now, all that remains is the reclusive ghostly remains of the scientist who created that tidal wave, and destroyed his own people with it. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Kalidnay=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Desert
::Motif: [[Dark Sun|Athas]]
::[[Darklord]]: Thakok-An

The city and lands surrounding Kalidnay in Athas, which are nothing but ruins within [[Dark Sun]]'s setting proper. Its inhabitants actually prefer the Demiplane of Dread to actually living in Athas. Just let that sink in.

=====Karss=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Massive Prison in the middle of nowhere
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Warden Jonar Tamh

Formerly the Great Prison of the [[Harmonium]], an experiment in reformation-focused incarceration launched by the Hardheads on the faction's homeworld of Ortho, the warden's descent into cruelty and draconian punishments in defiance of the experiment's focus led to its being ripped from Ortho and stranded in the Mists. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Kislova=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Mountainous Grasslands
::Motif: Futility of Power Behind the Throne
::[[Darklord]]: Baroness Ilsabet Obour

A domain adapted from the Ravenloft novel "Baroness of Blood", ruled over by a malevolent [[alchemist]] turned pain-eating monster. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====The Lost Wizard's Tower=====
::Cultural Level: Savage, vestiges of Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forest & Hills
::Motif: Obsessive Love
::[[Darklord]]: [[Jinx]]

Once, there was a cat; a [[familiar]] to a powerful [[alchemist]] and [[transmuter]] named Margaret Landsdale. Then she grew overbold with her experiments and tested a formula on her familiar in order to enhance his intelligence. It worked all too well; now, Jinx could think as well as any human... and get jealous. That jealousy led to her death, and now it leads to the death of any arcane spellcaster whom Jinx tries to take as her replacement. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Miseria=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate hills, forests, caves
::Motif: Ghostly Hauntings
::[[Darklord]]: Cassandre Desesprits

A rugged and inhospitable land whose people struggle to survive and put food on the tables, all whilst dealing with the vast legions of ghosts that haunt the realm. And nobody suspects that a humble barmaid with a heart full of spite and selfishness is the ultimate cause for their damnation. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====The Nightmare Lands=====
::Cultural Level: None
::Landscape: Ever-Changing
::Motif: Nightmares
::[[Darklord]]: The Nightmare Man and his Nightmare Court

A strange realm that exists halfway between the Demiplane of Dread and the [[Plane of Dreams]], ruled over by Darklord-like figures who live to visit mortals with nightmares and ultimately draw them into complete insanity.

=====The Northlands=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric declined to Medieval, Early Medieval declined to Dark Ages
::Landscape: Temperate forests, hills, mountains, plains, swamps
::Motif: [[Vikings]]
::[[Darklord]]: Jarl Gravstein Hansen

A land patterned after the ancient Norse lands, where one Jarl's selfishness is causing the decline of everything his people had worked for. This netbook canon domain debuted in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002, and was revisited in its 2003 issue.

=====Nosos=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Polluted Hellscape
::Motif: Rampant Pollution, Capitalism Gone Wrong
::[[Darklord]]: Malus Sceleris

A hellish polluted pit of a domain, where disease runs rampant amidst mountains of filth and sewerage in a sky clouded with fumes, smoke and gas.

=====Nzari=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age, Renaissance in Mr. Klein's camp
::Landscape: Tropical Rainforest
::Motif: Darkest Africa
::[[Darklord]]: Gatwe and Mr. Klein.

A domain inspired by the Darkest Africa tropes in general and the novel Heart of Darkness in particular. A land of cannibalistic natives, jungle monsters, and a brutal overlord who thinks of himself as the civilizing force, begging the question: "who is the real savage?" This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2003.

=====Odiare=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate settled area
::Motif: Twisted Pinocchio
::[[Darklord]]: Maligno

Island from [[Masque of the Red Death|Gothic Earth's]] Italy, populated by children and the [[carrionette]]s who killed the adults that used to live here. Naturally, all the kiddos are quite concerned about what'll happen when they're old enough to be labeled an adult.

=====Olympus=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Temeprate Forest & Hills, Cold Mountains, Warm Aquatic
::Motif: Greek Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Hercules

A pastiche of mythological Greece, ruled over by a pantheon of Living Gods - fallen heroes who have taken the identities of the Greek Deities as their own. And the once shining hope against those cruel, petty deities is in fact the worst of them all. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====The Raging Tears=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Single Rotting Ship
::Motif: Ghost Ship
::[[Darklord]]: Urdogen "The Red"

The cursed vessel of a long-forgotten pirate from [[Forgotten Realms|Faerun]], whose restless soul is condemned to wander the seas forever and never attain the power he once knew as the feared pirate king of the Inner Sea of Faerun. Whilst the ghost ship can be found in any sea in the Demiplane, or even sometimes beyond, its physical remains lie in the Sea of Sorrows, and must be found if one would put Urdogen to his long-cheated fate. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====Rokushima Táiyoo=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape: Archipelago with forests, hills, and mountains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy Japan
::[[Darklord]]: Haki Shinpi

Four islands surrounded by a poisonous salt water ocean. Each island's ruler hates the others, whilst the Darklord (their father) is forced to watch as they tear apart his dreams of unity and peace. It's also the home of the [[Akikage]] (ghost ninjas), [[Hebi-no-Onna]]s (snake women), and [[Kizoku]] (vampiric womanizers). Despite a Dark Ages cultural level, it's interested in the gunpowder weapons of Dementlieu and Darkon. Fun fact: the ''Anesthesia'' spell is popular here, as its use allows the dying to face death with a clear mind, and thus die with honor.

Strangely, the capitals of the four warring brothers have the Japanese names of various real world countries: Beikoku (米国, United States of America), Eikoku (英国, England), Chuugoka (corruption of 中国, China), and Roshiya (Literally just Russia said funny). As long as it sounds Japanese! Sadly, that's more than can be said for the Dark Lord's name...

=====Romagna=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Mild Plains and Forests
::Motif: Eternal Love
::[[Darklord]]: Serenissa D'Aubliet

A peaceful and gentle agricultural domain that seems free of the darkness of other, grimmer realms. But its shadows still linger, in the form of a spectral darklord who, whilst powerless to affect the natives, has no such restrictions against preying on visitors. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====Saarkaath=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Mountains, Forest
::Motif: Blood Purity
::[[Darklord]]: Hakaan na Uruk

A realm of [[half-orc]]s turned inwards into a brutal and pointless butchery, where the inhabitants try to claim "purity" of either [[human]] or [[orc]]ish heritage despite all being mixed race. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====San Bartolome=====
::Cultural Level: Middle Ages
::Landscape: Warm, Rugged, Mountainous
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Isabel de Sargas

A theocratic tropical paradise that is obsessed with the need to attain spiritual purification through righteous behavior and serial reincarnation. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====Scaena=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: The inside of a theater
::Motif: Mad Artistry
::[[Darklord]]: Lemot Sediam Juste

The personal theatre of Lemot Sediam Juste, who went insane and murdered his entire cast of actors, then burned down the theatre with himself in it, all because he couldn't accept that he was only good at writing comedies and he was a fucking terrible author of tragedies. Now it wanders the Misty Realms, luring in victims to serve as cast and audience alike, all ultimately to meet destruction.

=====Seradan=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temeprate Forests, Hills
::Motif: [[Stupid Nuetral]]
::[[Darklord]]: Geren Horstadt

A domain from which all of the metaphorical life has been sapped; a dull and colorless place of dull and colorless people, its inhabitants almostly aggressively average, sluggish and dreamy in their actions. All the better to torment its darklord. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Secrets.

=====Souragne=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Tropical Swamps
::Motif: Southern Gothic
::[[Darklord]]: Anton Misroi

It's basically the Ravenloft version of the Antebellum South as a whole and New Orleans in particular.

=====Staunton Bluffs=====
::Cultural Level: Middle Ages
::Landscape: Cold Prairies and Forests
::Motif: Cowardice and treachery
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Torrence Bleysmith

A small realm of prairies, overseen by the mad, bitter ghost of the man who caused the downfall of the people who once dwelled here.

=====Stonewall=====
::Cultural Level: Civalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Mountains
::Motif: Puritan Intolerance
::[[Darklord]]: Bethany Stone

Once a small town near Salem, Massachusetts in the real world - or at least its Gothic Earth analogue, Stonewall has been ripped from its moorings and cast into the myths thanks to the machinations of its darklord; a woman so self-righteous and hateful that she killed her own daughter to carry on her moral crusade. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Tower of the Phantom Lover=====
::Cultural Level: NA
::Landscape: Tower over underground labyrinth
::Motif: Sexual Predation
::[[Darklord]]: The Phantom Lover

The mysterious hideaway of the malevolent spirit known as the Phantom Lover, who seeks to seduce and then slaughter women pining for lost love.

=====Tsuu-y-Teke=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Warm Deserts, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Desert Country Native American Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Heresa Heri, The Vulture King

A domain inspired by the myths of desert-dwelling Native American cultures. A realm of seemingly eternal day, haunted by a malevolent vulture-spirit who once tried to steal all the lights of day and night for himself. Netbook canon. First appeared in the [[Books of S|Book of Shadows]] for 2e, then was updated to 3e in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Vechor=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Warm Forests, Hills & Swamps
::Motif: Insanity Made Real
::[[Darklord]]: Easan the Mad

A vaguely India-esque domain ruled over by an insane [[elf]] [[wizard]] who has the power to reshape the surroundings based on his current mad whim.

=====Vin'Ejal=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Arctic Coastal Mountain
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Benada Nameless

A frigid island that drifts in an icy sea, whose people struggle to survive in the face of the eternal winter and the packs of [[seawolf|seawolves]] haunting their rich seas, haunted by a most unusual darklord; a [[yuan-ti]]-blooded [[weresnake]]! Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====Vulnara=====
::Cultural Level: Late Chivalric to Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Mountains
::Motif: All-Consuming Bitterness
::[[Darklord]]: Kasselheim Blightlyng

A realm of unusually somber and technology-focused [[gnome]]s and [[svirfneblin]], shaped by the prejudices of a bitter, self-loathing, humor-hating gnomish [[vampire]] cursed with failing senses and growing madness. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Vultharesk=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages, Renaissance on the Godwyn Estate
::Landscape: Cold Mountains
::Motif: Moral Guardianship
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Trevor Godwyn, "The Mirror Man"

A strict, almost puritanical domain obsessed with the necessities of survival and averse to all things that are not "right" or "proper". But this attitude is not born out of morals or self-righteousness, but fear, for they are haunted by an ever-present spirit who will punish those that fails to live up to his strict sense of decency. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Shadows.

=====Wayward on the Bone Sands=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Barren Desert
::Motif: Cannibalism, Killer Kids
::[[Darklord]]: Caleb Wicks

A cursed desert village of former humans turned into [[quevari]] after being seduced into genocide against (and cannibalism of) their [[gnome]] neighbors by the malicious child cannibal Caleb Wicks. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Secrets.

=====Whal=====
::Cultural Level: Renaisssance
::Landscape: Cold Forested Hills
::Motif: Moby Dick
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Jacobi Robertsonn

A sturdy, practical domain dedicated to the hunting of fish, seals and whales... no mean feat when your land is home to the demiplane's largest congregation of [[wereorca]]s. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====The Winding Road=====
::Cultural Level: Nonexistent
::Landscape: Random road
::Motif: Random Encounter
::[[Darklord]]: The Headless Horseman

Hands down one of the worst Domains in classical Ravenloft, the Winding Road is a glorified random encounter in which the party is suddenly attacked by the Headless Horseman, a powerful [[undead]] warrior mounted on horseback. Who is he? Well, there's three stories about where he came from. The first one is that he was an innocent man executed by Drakov's men. The second one is that he was a man who chopped off his own head rather than be killed by one of Strahd's men. And the third is that he was a bard who failed to entertain Ivana Boritsi as she bathed, so she chopped off his head and mixed his blood into her bathwater. If you think that none of those sound like a Darklord's backstory, you're not wrong. Oh, and you also have to fight the undead severed heads that precede and then follow the Horseman's run-by attack, which includes several [[medusa]] heads.

=====Yatehcaa=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Mountains, High Desert
::Motif: Native American Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Coyote

A domain based on certain Native American myths, where the people live simple, happy lives, whilst trying to avoid the attentions of the malicious trickster and fallen hero-deity Coyote. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

==Cyre?==
In [[Eberron]], the nation of Cyre was destroyed in the Day of Mourning, leaving only the [[Mournland]] behind. That Cyre became a Demiplane of Dread is perhaps the most common theory on the origin of the Mournland within the fandom, as it checks all the boxes for explanations.
*The Mournland stops at Cyre’s artificial, political, borders and thus had to be caused by some intelligent actor. The Dark Powers certainly count. It also explains why it stops so exactly at the water that the docks were left behind.
*The Mournland’s border is a wall of “dead-gray mist”. The link is obvious. In 4th Edition, this dead-gray mist supernaturally drains people of hope.
*The Forge of War states that Dannel ir'Wynarn insistence that the crown of Galifar belonged to her was the only thing keeping the Last War going, making her prime Darklord material.
*Dark Sun material describes Kalidnay as having been destroyed by "unknown disaster" that left it only "a jumble of ruins". The ruins in the Mournland are described being "moved", "rearranged", "turned 90 degrees", or "found miles from where war-era maps say they should be", which certainly can be described as a "jumble". The one adventure that travels to the ruined city (DSM2) mentions several structures remain intact, and many appear to be ruins purely because they're centuries old, which fits the multiple Mournland adventures with surviving structures, and several people seem to have died suddenly in a way that their body was intact. (While some of the Mournland's signature features are absent, all outside descriptions of Kalidnay are centuries after the fact while all descriptions of the Mournland are 0-4 years after its creation.)

None of this will ever be confirmed, and it’s unlikely to be anti-confirmed, as the truth of the Mourning is one of Eberron’s mysteries that exists to have no answer but what the [[Dungeon Master]] gives them. The setting's creator has however concurred it's a good option if one wanted some bit of Eberron in Ravenloft.

The theory received a bit of a nod in 5th edition with the reveal of a new Domain of Dread that is a fragment of Cyre that was taken by the mists on the Day of Mourning.

==4th Edition: Islands of Terror==
In the [[World Axis]], the idea of the Demiplane of Dread being its own independent universe was basically dropped. The idea, however, remained in the form of the ''Domains of Dread''; regions in the [[Shadowfell]] created in response to great evils in the Material World, essentially mimicking the Islands of Terror format of the Demiplane, but with one major difference: these Domains are still part of the Shadowfell as a whole. As a result, if you can find the rite or secret or whatever it is that grants you passage, then you can flee the Domain through its misty veil and into the wider Shadowfell... which isn't necessarily that much of an improvement, but hey.

The idea of the Core is complete absent in 4th edition. Perhaps, if [[Ravenloft]] had been revived in this setting, the Core would have instead become more of a cursed but otherwise normal world, similar to and yet separate from the Domains of Dread seen in the Shadowfell. We'll never know.

The 4e Domains of Dread consist of the following:

=====Sunderheart=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Half-ruined city on a cliff's edge at the edge of a swampy river dela
::Motif: Diabolist Grand Guignol
::[[Darklord]]: Ivania Dreygu and Vorno "The Ghoul" Kahnebor

Originally the [[Bael Turath]] city of Harrack Unarth, Sunderheart's doom came when it came under the control of the lovers Ivania Dreygu and Vorno Kahnebor, the [[Nentir Vale]] version of Romeo and Juliet... if Romeo and Juliet were debauched hedonistic [[tiefling]]s who engaged in rape, murder and cannibalism and who massacred their entire families so they could be together. Eventually, Vorno became so vile that even Ivania grew sick of him, so she murdered him by feeding him a servant girl whom she had fed with a deadly poison. Then she woke up in Sunderheart with her [[ghoul]]ified [[undead]] lover fused to her back like a monstrous parasitic twin. Now she rules by day over the half of the city still inhabited by the living, and Vorno the Ghoul rules over the undead-haunted ruins at night.

=====Graefmotte=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Dense Pine Forest, Mountains
::Motif: Starvation
::[[Darklord]]: Lord Durven Graef

When the [[Yeenoghu]]-worshipping hordes of the White Ruin threatened the empire of Nerath in the [[Nentir Vale]], Lord Graef was the ruler of a minor frontier province who had already lost two of his three children. Desperate to preserve his family legacy, he was determined that his final son, Geoffery Graef, would not answer King Elidyr's call to take up arms against the horde. When his son disagreed, they fought, and Lord Graef accidentally killed his son by causing him to fall and fatally strike his head. Which was when the [[gnoll]] warbands fell upon Graefmotte. Lord Graef led the fighting over the night, and was near-mortally wounded; disemboweled and with an arm bitten off, nobody expected him to cling to life for a day and a night... never mind for his wounds to fully heal. Ever since then, Graefmotte has been a land cursed, where its people face a slow, withering death by starvation, or a quick, bloody one at the jaws of the maddened gnolls and starvation-spawned [[ghoul]]s that haunt the ever-shifting forest.

=====Monadhan=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Tropical Rainforest
::Motif: Treachery
::[[Darklord]]: Arantor

During the war between [[Bael Turath]] and [[Arkhosia]], the [[Metallic Dragon#Silver Dragon|Silver Dragon]] Arantor and his daughter mrissa were called upon to destroy a remote Turathi military outpost, almost hidden within thick tropical rainforest, whose isolation and surroundings made it virtually unreachable by ground-based forces. But after they hit their target, they realized that their intel had been faulty; this was no military camp, it was a refugee center for Turathi civilians! Father and daughter quarreled over what to do, with Imrissa wanting to return to Arkhosia and take responsibility for their crimes, whilst the glory-hound Arantor insisted they conceal it and protect their reputations. The argument grew so heated that Arantor slew his daughter, and then, stricken by guilt, he massacred the survivors of his first attack before becoming a plague upon the Turathi until his death. Which was when he awoke as a [[dracolich]] in a cavern deep below a twisted reflection of Monadhan, which has now become a gathering point for traitors. The greater the betrayal, and the more pathetic the reason, the more likely the perpetrator is to find a place within Monadhan - whether by being swallowed by the Mists, or by awakening there alive and whole after dying for their misdeeds. As a result, Monadhan is now an oubliette for treacherous scum from across time and space.

=====The Endless Road=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: An endless road winding through forests, hills and plains
::Motif: You can't escape your sins
::[[Darklord]]: Eli van Hassen

The tiny little roadside town of Tranquility was a peaceful place, until the day a four-headed [[hydra]] lurched from the fens and began plaguing the people. When a wandering [[adventurer]] known only as "The Horseman" arrived and slew the beast, the people celebrated. But the town's ruler, Eli van Hassen, a man forever plagued by resentment and inferiority over his provincial abode, resented the hero's fame. He forced his daughter to slander the man, accusing him of rape, and whipped the people of Tranquility into a frenzied mob who executed their savior despite his former protests. Now Eli and his daughter inhabit a fortified mansion that sits on the side of a great road, which stretches on to infinity; unless the Road decides to let you go, which it can do to anywhere in the [[Multiverse]], you can walk forever and never leave. Of course, that risks attack by the undead remains of the Headless Horseman, who wants revenge on the van Hassens, but will happily settle for anyone else he can get his hands on.

=====Timbergorge=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Dense confider forest
::Motif: Nature's Savagery
::[[Darklord]]: Silvermaw

When a naive [[treant]] allowed [[human]]s to settle in the planeshifting forest that was an [[archfey]]'s garden under his care, he was horrified when they began to create a fire to keep them warm as they slept. But when he attacked in an effort to quench the flames, he burned himself and then set the forest ablaze, leaving it to burn as he focused on slaying the human interlopers. For this, his master cut the garden away and banished it to the [[Shadowfell]]. Here, the tribal humans have become a pack of werewolves, endlessly hunting and being hunted by the mad, wounded treant, who has coated his mouth with molten silver so that he may better rend and bite his foes; hence his name "Silvermaw".

==5th Edition: The Alternate Continuity==
In February 2021, it was announced across the internet that the Demiplane of Dread would at last make an official return as a D&D setting for [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]] in the form of [[Van Richten's Guide]] to [[Ravenloft]]. But it also openly announced that the 30 domains of dread that would be debuting in the book would include a mixture of brand new domains, classic domains, and revamped/reimagined takes on old domains - something that immediately began raising hackles amongst the Ravenloft fandom, who tend towards the [[grognard]]ier side of the fence. Why did they do this? Was it because the last version of Ravenloft-as-setting was done by [[White Wolf]] and there were legal entanglements preventing [[Wizards of the Coast]] from reusing their inventions? Was it because a lot of Ravenloft classic lore was actually kind of stupid and in desperate need of revamping? Was it because of [[SJW]]s? (probably a little considering some of the weirder changes made) Some combination thereof? The world may never know.

Either way, the 5e version of the Demiplane of Dread thusly has its own unique take on the different Domains, which this section will try to break down for comparison's sake.

5th edition no longer has the Core although a few Clusters still exist, but are now treated as single domains, and also changes the rules for traveling between domains. If the borders of a domain are not closed, entering the mists on the borders only takes you to another domain if you get a lucky roll, and usually you will end up back in the domain where you started or just wander the mists going nowhere. And even if you do get lucky it is up to the DM to decide where to drop you. You can choose what domain you want to go to and bypass this roll by carrying a mist talisman, which is an item related in some way to that domain or at least that domain's theme, and each domain has a few possible items you can use as a talisman for it. If you have the Mist Walker dark gift, you can travel to any domain that you know the name of without a talisman, but at the cost of not being able to stay in one place for too long.

===Detailed Domains===
These domains have received descriptions a few pages long.

=====Barovia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

It's literally just Barovia as seen in [[Curse of Strahd]]. The only major change is that now the Dark Powers have started to get creative and may have Tatyana reincarnate as someone unexpected to mess with Strahd.

=====Bluetspur 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Utterly alien
::Motif: Alien Horror, amnesia
::[[Darklord]]: The God-Brain

Aside from some slight tweaks to the backstory of the God-Brain and a shift in focus to more of an "alien abductions/unspeakable alien experiments" motif, Bluetspur is basically unchanged.

=====Borca 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Outside of the changes to the [[Darklord]]s, there's nothing new here.

=====[[The Carnival]] 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

No longer a wandering point of light, [[The Carnival]] is now a free-floating island of terror, with the role of [[Darklord]] being shared between Isolde and Nepenthe, a cursed sword she carries. The backstory has also been changed extensively, involving a counterpart to the Carnival run by [[shadar-kai]]. The Carnival is also haunted by the ''Litwick Market'', a black market of malicious fey with a grudge against the Carnival who invariably show up once the Carnival settles down and start making trouble. Also, the Twisting is no longer a thing.

=====Darkon 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: The end of the world
::[[Darklord]]: Azalin Rex, currently MIA

The first "continuation" domain, Azalin went missing during an event called the Hour of Ascension and now Darkon is falling apart, slowly being dissolved by the Mists. The domain has become split into four islands. During the day the mists can be crossed as normal, but during the night anything covered by the mists disappears and the mists swallow a little bit more of the land in tiny steps or in huge floods. As was the case during the original [[Grim Harvest|Shrouded Years]], a number of demilords are trying and failing to hold it together. Collectively known as The Inheritors, they consist of the vampire Alcio Metus (sister to the late Baron Metus), Cardinna Artazas and the Necrichor of Darcalus Rex, and Madame Talisveri Eris. The only clue about where Azalin went is a strange glowing object called the King's Tear which appeared floating over Darkon at the same time that he vanished.

=====Dementlieu 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Masquerade and imposter syndrome
::[[Darklord]]: Saidra d'Honaire

Completely rewritten, Dementlieu is now an impoverished city where everybody tries desperately to pretend they are richer and more important than they actually are, lest they be disintegrated by its new [[Darklord]]; Saidra d'Honaire. Also has a Masque of the Red Death thing going on, making it a bit like Sanguinia.

=====Falkovnia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Zombie Apocalypse
::[[Darklord]]: Vladeska Drakov

Completely rewritten, Falkovnia is no longer the "war horror" domain, but instead a zombie apocalypse domain, where new [[Darklord]] Vladeska Drakov struggles to keep the living alive in the face of monthly sieges by massive armies of the [[Walking Dead]]. Maybe they didn't want [[/pol/]] fanboying the original Vlad?

=====Har'Akir 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Completely rewritten, Har'Akir is now a sprawling, heavily populated land where [[necrocracy|the living bow to a mummified aristocracy]] and Ankhtepot actually wishes for death.

=====Haz'lan 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Wild magic, environmental destruction, magic-based classism
::[[Darklord]]: Hazlik

This retconned version of the domain has dropped the Mulans vs. Rashemani racism of the past and is now being devastated by a series of arcane apocalypses. [[Darklord]] Hazlik now suffers a combination of his old curse and Azalin's curse.

=====I'Cath 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Denial of reality
::[[Darklord]]: Tsien Chiang

Completely rewritten, I'Cath has gone from a glorified [[Oriental Adventures]] [[dungeon]] to a crumbling city where the population is largely trapped in an eternal slumber, forced to constantly work at building and rebuilding a dream-version of I'Cath at the behest of [[Darklord]] Tsien Chiang, who can never be satisfied with what she has. When the inhabitants wake, they must scavenge for food in a city constantly being rebuilt by Tsien Chian's armies of [[Jiangshi]], who will not harm a sleeper, but will happily tear an awake mortal limb from limb.

=====Kalakeri=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: War-torn nation, faction mechanics
::[[Darklord]]: Ramya Vasavadan

New domain, although it's intended to take the place of the old domain of Sri Raji, which is mentioned as an alternative name for it. This India-themed domain is locked in an eternal civil war between its [[Darklord]], Ramya Vasavadan, and her two [[fiend]]ish siblings; Arijani the [[Rakshasa]] and Reeva the [[Arcanaloth]].

=====Kartakass 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Show business, predatory business practices, werewolves
::[[Darklord]]: Harkon Lukas

Largely unchanged, save for the revisions to [[Darklord|Harkon Lukas']] story and the replacement of [[wolfwere]]s with [[Loup-garou]].

=====Lamordia 5e=====
::Cultural Level: Steampunk
::Landscape: Arctic
::Motif: Mad science, biting cold, implicit kaiju
::[[Darklord]]: Viktra Mordenheim

Basically unchanged, save for a new emphasis on an arctic climate and the tweaks to its [[Darklord]], replacing Viktor Mordenheim and Adam with Viktra Mordenheim and Elise. The darklord curse has been given a twist, too: Viktra succeeded where Victor would perpetually fail-- but she cannot duplicate her success and the living (golem-like) Elise shuns her and hides in the wilderness. Also, the whalers operating out of Ludendorf may or may not be hunting creatures [[Kraken|more fearsome than actual whales]], and it's heavily implied that there may be a radioactive kaiju hibernating under the mountain range not-so-subtly named "The Sleeping Beast".

=====Mordent 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Ghosts and haunted houses
::[[Darklord]]:

The only change here is to [[Darklord|Wilfred Godefroy's]] curse and backstory, which now involves the famous Alchemist's Apparatus first introduced to [[Ravenloft]] lore in [[I10: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill]].

=====Richemulot 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Pandemic, wererats
::[[Darklord]]: Jacqueline Renier

Retconned into a plague-stricken nation barely avoiding crumbling into total ruination through the machinations of [[Darklord|Jacqueline Renier]], who's also responsible for the plagues in the first place as she's a one-percenter who despises the middle-class.

=====Tepest 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Wickerman/Midsommar type of stories
::[[Darklord]]: Lorinda Mindefisk

Sitting somewhere between continuation and retcon, Tepest has lost its anti-fey inquisition and is now focused on its [[Darklord]]; Lorinda Mindefisk, who imprisoned her sisters in a cauldron because they refused to let her have a child.

=====Valachan 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Jungle
::Motif: The deadliest game
::[[Darklord]]: Chakuna

Similarly to Tepest, Valachan is supposed to be a continuation of its former self, although there's a lot of retcons to the lore. Since [[Darklord|Baron Urik von Kharkov]] was slain by Chakuna, the jungles have turned hungry, rendering the realm a land where everything is out for blood and those appetites are barely kept in check by regular ceremonial blood sacrifices known as the Trial of Hearts.

===Summarized Domains===
These domains only received a short block of text about them. Several of them are completely new domains and so are intended to just be ideas for Dungeon Masters to build on.

=====Cyre 1313, The Mourning Rail=====
::Cultural Level: Dungeonpunk
::Landscape: A magical train traveling through the Mists
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: The Last Passenger

The first ever [[Eberron]] Domain of Dread. On the day that Cyre was destroyed by the Mourning, a train was about to carry a bunch of refugees who saw the disaster coming out of Cyre, but the train's departure was delayed by a mysterious VIP who threw hundreds of the train's passengers out to make room for their self and their retinue and to be sure nobody on the train would learn their identity, and so the train departed too late. The train was taken into the mists when the Mourning hit where it became a mobile domain constantly running from the Mourning which the passengers think is still chasing them. The passengers still haven't noticed that the Mourning already killed them.

=====Forlorn 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====Ghastria 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====G'henna 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====Invidia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Rewritten; Gabrielle Aderre is now the [[Darklord]], constantly dabbling in black magic and conjuring all manner of outsiders to try and ensure that her beloved (and implicitly possessed) son Malocchio will have the best of futures.

=====Keening 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Now has a living population who live in terror of its [[banshee]] [[Darklord]]. They fear the Darklord so much that they have actually destroyed their own sense of hearing to protect themselves.

=====Klorr=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Surreal environment
::Motif: Impending Doom
::[[Darklord]]: Klorr

New domain mentioned in brief, a series of shattered islands floating through a misty netherworld, swirling around a blazing giant eye, where one island is obliterated every hour only for another to take its place.

=====Markovia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Tropical island
::Motif: Flowers for Algernon syndrome, furries
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Frantisek Markov

Rewritten into a mixture of Dr. Moreau and Dr. Jekyll.

=====The Nightmare Lands 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Nightmares
::[[Darklord]]: The Nightmare Court

Largely unchanged, save for the new origin of the Nightmare Court as multiple personas birthed from the mind of a powerful but monstrous [[psion]]icist who tries to run from the crimes of her past and deny that they ever existed.

=====Niranjan=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Island monastery
::Motif: [[Path of Inspiration]]
::[[Darklord]]: Sarthak

New domain mentioned in brief, tied to Kalakeri, ruled over by a corrupted [[Metallic Dragon|Brass Dragon]] who poses as a ''sadhu'' to lure victims into sacrificing their worldly goods for his hoard before he consumes their souls and replaces it with an obedient shadow.

=====Nova Vaasa 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Myar Hiregaard

Rewritten; now less Russian and more Mongolian, with a female [[Darklord]] named Myar Hiregaard who united the warring tribes of her homelands, only to turn them against each other once more when she grew bored with peacetime.

=====Odaire 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for the minor detail that Maligno ''changed'' his name to that from his original, less ridiculous name of ''Figlio''.

=====The Rider's Bridge=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Yet another reinterpretation of the Headless Horseman, this time as a [[dullahan]] who shows up at important bridges in domain-specific forms and attacks anyone who tries to cross. Successfully crossing the bridge may transport you to a different domain.

=====Risibilos 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Parody
::[[Darklord]]: Doerdon

A super-minor domain originally mentioned in brief as part of the infamously terrible "Book of Crypts" anthology. Rewritten into a domain-hopping music hall, where the [[Iron Warriors|humorless]] former-king Doerdon is now condemned to an agonizing eternity as an entertainer, with a sentient ventriloquist dummy in the likeness of Strahd von Zarovich as his partner in comedy. Needless to say, don't be surprised if your DM brings a Strahd muppet to the table.

=====Scaena 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:
Unchanged from its original lore.

=====Sea of Sorrows 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

The Darklord is now Pietra van Rise, a vicious female [[pirate]] turned ghost or sea zombie (it's not clear which). Mention is also made of Blaustein (now ruled by the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives), Dominia (the patients are all avatars of Dr. Heinfroth), the Isle of the Ravens (unchanged), and the new domains of The Lighthouse, which features, well, a lighthouse, and Vigilant's Bluff, where an undead paladin offers refuge so long as you respect his faith.

=====The Shadowlands 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged.

=====Souragne 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Still Southern Gothic New Orleans, but Anton's got a new backstory as a sadistic prison warden and has been downgraded in terms of power.

=====Staunton Bluffs 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Largely identical, except the former [[darklord]] is now a good guy and his crime has been given to his retconned sister, Teresa Bleysmith.

=====Tovag 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

No longer connected to Cavitus, [[Kas]] now fixates on finding [[Vecna]] and resuming their ancient battle.

=====Vhage Agency=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: An office building
::Motif: Insanity, Film Noir
::[[Darklord]]: Flimira Vhage

A new domain in the form of a detective agency ruled over by Flimira Vhage, who remains unaware that literally the entire agency only exists in her own broken mind. Oh, and it literally looks like an old [[noir]] film brought to life, complete with everything inside being in different shades of monotone gray.

=====Zherisia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Serial killings
::[[Darklord]]: Sodo

The elaborate dread [[doppelganger]] society has been wiped out. Now there's just a starving city descending into madness and a single ancient doppelganger trying to preserve its existence through cannibalism. The sewers that used to be called Timor still exist but the marikiths have been replaced with [[Carrion Stalker]]s.

==Notable Non-Darklords==
* [[Van Richten]]
* [[Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins]]
* [[Jander Sunstar]]
* [[Alanik Ray]]
* [[Larissa Snowmane]]
* [[Vistani]]

{{Planescape-Cosmology}}
[[Category:Ravenloft]]

Demiplane of Dread

2021-06-09T00:17:58Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Lamordia 5e */

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'''The Demiplane of Dread''' is a unique [[Demiplane]] - or, perhaps more accurately, a series of interlinked demiplanes - within the [[Great Wheel]] cosmology of [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. This is the actual "world" in which the campaign setting of [[Ravenloft]] is based, and so the name is often used when trying to describe the "Ravenloft world".

The precise origins of the Demiplane of Dread are lost to history. Its creators are enigmatic beings known only as "The Dark Powers", who maintain and defend their creation with mighty magic and jealous zeal. It's believed they have some kind of mutual non-aggression pact with the various gods of the Great Wheel, but nothing canon is ever defined. It is believed to lie where the [[Ethereal Plane]] meets the [[Plane of Shadow]], but is able to manifest portals absolutely ''everywhere'', even in places normally restricted to planar portals, such as [[Dark Sun|Athas]] or the [[Phlogiston]]. Such portals usually appear as banks of fog or mist, but will adapt themselves to other sight-obscuring phenomena - and are usually one-way. Getting ''in'' is easy, but getting '''out'''? Canonically you won't be able to leave unless the Dark Powers will it, short of using artifact-level items like the dreaded Rift Spanner which just so happens to be the kind of item that could turn you into a [[Darklord]] just from getting it to work properly.

Aaand then came 3.5 which opened a doorway into the [[World Serpent Inn]], breaking the whole point of this prison plane. Here it's a failsafe for DMs when their parties reach their 16th birthday and are sick of Goth. Its doorway on the Demiplane's side of things changes every night. Mind you, even back in AD&D, portals '''out''' of the Demiplane of Dread were explicitly a thing and even listed in major [[splatbook]]s like the Domains of Dread - for example, the Isle of Lament in Lamordia houses one such portal, so you can leave just by going there, if you can sneak past Adam.

==Planar Traits==
The Demiplane of Dread's creators have molded the reality of this world into a new fashion, forcibly imposing the rules of [[Gothic Horror]] on the setting. There are many ways that this molding manifests, but some of the more overt include the following:
* [[Necromancer|Necromancy]] spells are empowered and rendered more dangerous; spells like Animate Dead will call up more creatures than the caster may be able to control, whilst spells that instantly kill their victims usually cause such victims to arise spontaneously as the [[undead]] - and often as ones quite pissed off at their killer. Certain non-necromancy, non-instant-kill spells even have a chance of doing this, such as Disintegrate turning a completely disintegrated victim into an incorporeal undead! Using any necromancy spell provokes a powers check unless it's purely defensive, doesn't affect undead, and doesn't manipulate life force; that list of "safe" spells is quite narrow.
* [[Diviner|Divination]] spells are pretty much worthless; spells that detect moral alignment invariably fail, spells aimed at detecting monstrous species either are unreliable (Detect Undead) or flatly won't work (using True Seeing to look for natural shapechangers), spells that revolve around mental contact risk driving you mad if you accidentally use them on certain inhuman creatures, and in general you can't trust the result of divination spells because the normal awareness of when such a spell has failed doesn't occur in the Demiplane of Dread. Oh, and Scrying type spells create a visible sensory apparatus that can alert your target that you're scrying on them, which can even serve as a conduit for things like gaze attacks. There's a practical reason for this; horrific things aren't quite as scary if you know their true nature too early, and so this element was put in to keep from having the DM tip their hands too soon and ruin the scare.
* [[Conjurer|Conjuration]] allows entities from other planes to be summoned, but they won't be able to return home when the spell expires. Obviously, quite a few of them will be ''very'' upset with their summoner because of this. Even before they figure this out, the binding aspects of conjuration spells are weaker in the Demiplane of Dread, giving summoned creatures a chance to escape its bonds the moment it arrives.
* [[Abjurer|Abjuration]] spells that banish creatures to another plane do not work. Rather, they ''appear'' to work but just toss the target somewhere else within the demiplane.
* [[Illusionist|Illusion]] spells that manipulate shadows are 20% more powerful, but the caster risks losing control of it when the spell ends, releasing a free-willed [[shadow]].
* Spells that directly interfere with the fabric of a Domain, such as manipulating weather, can often attract the attention of the resident [[Darklord]], and who might be able to subvert or negate these same spells if they have related powers.
* Teleportation spells are restricted; each domain is treated like its own separate plane of existence. High-level teleportation spells can overcome this if the border is not closed. Nothing can teleport out of a closed domain or the Demiplane entirely.
* Curses are empowered, and even non-spellcasters can potentially lay deadly or deforming curses on people if their rage or grief is intense enough to catch the notice of the [[Dark Powers]].
* The [[Dark Powers]] are watching everybody and seem to enjoy turning people into monsters that reflect their own evil deeds. When a creature performs some evil act, which range from casting necromantic spells to premeditated murder, the Dark Powers [[Powers Check|might notice]] and start the process. The changes are subtle or even helpful at first, allowing the victim to more easily perform his evil acts, which lures the victim into more evil, gaining more attention and transformation, until he is completely transformed into a monster or even a [[darklord]] of his own domain.
* Intelligent undead, like vampires, can tell if their minds are being read and can choose which thoughts they will project. Depending on the circumstances, this may be a false image passing them off as human or an up-close look at the most evil parts of their minds meant to drive the would-be mind reader insane.
* 5th edition's overhaul of the lore drops most of the above rules but adds some new ones. If you die in the Demiplane of Dread your soul does not move into the afterlife and is trapped there until it is eventually reincarnated. People who are resurrected after being dead for over 24 hour discover this and are traumatized by the experience.
* Also in 5th edition, Darklords can sense when somebody in their domain is trying to cast spells that contact beings on other planes and can make themselves the target of the spell.

==Mapping the Demiplane==
Geo-physically, the Demiplane of Dread consists of various bubbles of reality, ranging in size from a single room to full-fledged countries, all floating in a sea of ephemeral mist; each of these reality bubbles (called "Domains") is typically centered around a [[Darklord]], a villain whose evil caught the eyes of the Dark Powers and so they responded by imprisoning them within the Demiplane. 3rd edition's unpublished [[splatbook]] "[[Van Richten's Guide]] to the Mists" introduced the concept of ''Oubliettes'', which are basically prototype or abandoned Domains that don't contain a Darklord. A Domain may exist on its own (an "Island of Terror") or be physically coterminous with one or more more other domains, forming what is called a "Cluster". The largest and oldest Cluster in the Demiplane is called "The Core", and this is basically Ground Zero for the setting.

Traveling between Domains is a little tricky to describe. If two Domains are coterminous, you can simply walk between them, as if they were normal lands. If you want to get to a Domain that ''isn't'' coterminous, then you have to just walk into the Mists and hope you'll end up where you want to go. Certain spots are known to have what are essentially portals that can link different Domains together, in that traveling from these spots (which may require unique triggers before they kick in) will usually end you up in a specific Domain; known as "Mistways", these portals can be either one way or two way, and vary in reliability (aka, how likely you are to end up at the intended destination instead of fuck-knows-where) from "guaranteed" to "you rolls the dice, you takes your chances".

Traveling between Domains is made more complicated by the fact that most [[Darklord]]s have a power called "Closing the Borders," which causes the borders of their Domain to become enveloped in a barrier of some sort unique to that Darklord that prevents escape in some fashion - some are non-lethal, most will kill you if you try. A rare few can be circumvented by the right esoteric circumstances (for example, [[undead]] or [[construct]]s can safely walk through poisonous borders like that of Barovia, because they're fundamentally immune to poison), but in general this is the ultimate [[Railroading]] tool the DM has to keep you from just saying "fuck this" and leaving the domain.

Precisely why the Dark Powers collect these [[Darklord]]s is unknown, and theories abound; the Demiplane of Dread has been described as a prison, a gathering place for evil, a grand study into the nature of evil, a unique kind of Hell, or even a Purgatory by various fans.

Another great mystery is the nature of its native population. Some Domains were physically taken from their homeworlds, but most are described as "copies" rather than direct abductions of land. This then leaves players wondering: are the locals actually "real", or are they merely soulless simulacra - props in the grand theater of Gothic Horror tales that the Dark Powers are conducting? Nothing concrete has ever been given. This isn't entirely consistent however, with other originals becoming ruins (Like Kalidnay) or vanishing entirely (like Har’Akir).

===The Core===
As mentioned above, this is the "core" of Ravenloft, the sole normal-style continent where the bulk of the game focuses on. Think of it as something akin to the Sword Coast of the [[Forgotten Realms]], or Ansalon in [[Dragonlance]]. The precise layout has changed over Ravenloft's life, usually as a result of [[Advancing the Storyline]] - most prominently, it changed massively after the [[Grand Conjunction]], and then changed a little during both the [[Grim Harvest]] and the shift from 2e to 3e.

The Core is made up of the following Domains.

=====Barovia=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Blatant Dracula Knockoff
::[[Darklord]]: [[Strahd von Zarovich]]

This is the oldest domain in Ravenloft, the literal heart of the Demiplane of Dread. It's ruled by Strahd, and is basically Dracula in D&D. It is also home to the titular [[Castle Ravenloft]], Strahd's humble abode. This domain has been visited in literally ''every single edition'' of D&D after BECMI; even 4th edition, the only edition without an adaptation of I6 to its titles, has the adventure "Fair Barovia" in [[Dungeon Magazine]] #207, which has the party exploring Barovia and completing assorted side-quests.

=====Borca=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Poisoners, Italy under the Borgia Family
::[[Darklord]]: Ivana Boritsi

Originally, Borca was ruled by the Darklord Camille Boritsi, and was half its present size, sharing borders with the near-identical domain of Dorvini. Ivana poisoned her mother because her mom seduced her boyfriend, and during the Grand Conjunction, her domain and that of her cousin Ivan Dilisnya merged together due to their great similarities.

=====Darkon=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Age to Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Plains, Mountains & Swamps
::Motif: Generic [[Dark Fantasy]]
::[[Darklord]]: Azalin

Darkon is notable as the most overtly fantastical realm in the Demiplane of Dread, with a relatively huge population of [[demihuman]]s that sees humans going from the usual 90+% population merit to only 75% as well as the greatest amount of local toleration for arcane magic.

If one spends a month in the realm they lose their memories until they leave the domain, thinking they've always been from Darkon. Unfortunately, the new state from having lost memories convinces one to never leave unless forced to.

=====Dementlieu=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains
::Motif: Renaissance France/Victorian England
::[[Darklord]]: Dominic D'Honaire

Though not as overtly modeled on London as the domain of Paridon, Dementlieu definitely taps into the Gothic Urban Horror motif, as is made clear by the way it is home to myriad mystical mind-manipulators and the character Alanik Ray, who is basically Sherlock Holmes if he was an [[elf]]. It's considered the "cultural heart" of the Core.

=====Falkovnia=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains
::Motif: Military Horror, Fascism, Urban Squalor
::[[Darklord]]: Vlad Drakov

Slap together Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, paint it up in the most shit-awful and miserable stereotypes of Dark Ages Europe, and have the place be run by a man who melds Hitler with Vlad the Impaler and is so bloodthirsty they'd both be disgusted by him. Falkovnia is outright called the biggest shithole in the Demiplane of Dread.

=====Forlorn=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Dreary Scotland with a dash of Brak Man Morn
::[[Darklord]]: Tristen ApBlanc

A vaguely Scottish Celtic themed domain that nobody gives a shit about because there's nothing in it but killer plants, giant bugs, and [[goblyn]]s. 3e tried to fix this by adding a small population of native humans, but the overall domain is still a monster-infested backwoods, so nobody fucking cares. As for its resident asshole, ApBlanc is a [[vampyre]] by day, and a ghost by night, proving once and for all that the Dark Powers do, indeed, have a sense of humor.

=====Hazlan=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Hills, Mountains & Plains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy meets Yellow Peril
::[[Darklord]]: Hazlik

Essentially a tiny sliver of [[Thay]] transplanted into the Demiplane of Dread, where a tiny minutia (the Mulan ethnicity) rules over and brutally represses a far vaster majority (the Rashemani). One of only two places so absolutely shit that [[The Lawgiver]] is actually worshipped here.

=====Invidia=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Lethally Impulsive Stupidity
::[[Darklord]]: Gabrielle Aderre

A land of passionate, hot-blooded and constantly feuding individuals, including mercenary armies, ogres, giants, and wolfweres. The [[Vistani]] are executed on sight here, and as such, its hunter-mercenaries are on the collective shit-list of both Strahd von Zerovich and Ivan Dilisnya.

=====Kartakass=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
::[[Darklord]]: Meistersinger Harkon Lukas

A rural backwoods inhabited by proud, cocky, music-loving foresters who are quite happy with the way things are, thank you. They are totally oblivious to the population of [[wolfwere]]s hiding amongst them.

=====Keening=====
::Cultural Level: None (formerly Chivalric)
::Landscape: Temperate Mountains (Bleached of Life)
::Motif: Endless Grief
::[[Darklord]]: Tristessa the Banshee

A cursed and forsaken realm, with a population consisting solely of its mad, grief-stricken [[banshee]] [[darklord]], her court of half-insane [[undead]] [[fey]], and a village of [[skeleton]]s that constantly mime out the actions of their last day.

=====Lamordia=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Mad Science ala Frankenstein
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Mordenheim & Adam

A stuffy, tempest-lashed domain that prides itself on its scientific acumen and its staunch rationalistic beliefs, totally denying the fantastical nature of the world around them.

=====Mordent=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Plains & Swamps
::Motif: Ghost-Haunted Rural Britain/Scotland
::[[Darklord]]: Lord Wilfred Godefroy

It's basically the setting for every ghost-related Gothic Horror novel ever written. High concentration of both incorporeal undead and mist creatures in a land dotted by small villages sheltering the living. Is also full of ancient ruined manors, decaying coats of arms and dying or dead noble families, furthering that neo-Britain impression by casting it as the decaying remnants of a once-mighty civilization. The false history implies they share a mutual background with Borca, perhaps having originated from the same nameless fantasy world.

=====Necropolis=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Temperate Settled Area
::Motif: City of the Dead
::[[Darklord]]: Death

Once a bustling metropolis in Darkon called Il Aluk, the place was destroyed and turned into a city of sapient undead creatures protected behind a mystical veil that kills and reanimates any living humanoids that enter. This was caused by Azalin achieving an epic-level fuck up with his magic. Generally considered the worst domain in the Core because you can't go in there without being transformed into an [[undead]], which in AD&D came with associated rules that, in the grand tradition of [[Ravenloft]], utterly fucked you over pretty much from the get-go. Its Darklord, "Death", is an uber-powerful ghost with hyper-lethal abilities that was created from a clone of Azalin and which has gone absolutely insane, believing itself to be the literal spirit of death.

=====Nova Vaasa=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Russia under Peter the Great
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Tristen Hiregaard/Malken

A horse-filled steppeland dominated by sweeping grassy plains and crushing urban poverty and squalor, presided over by a mixture of corrupt aristocrats and Lawful Good types who view "law" as more important than "good". This is the ''other'' domain shitty enough to have [[The Lawgiver]] as the state religion, and is such a hellhole that ''Barovians'' look down on its people as backward hicks.

=====Richemulot=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Wererat Land
::[[Darklord]]: Jacqueline Renier

A pseudo-French domain distinguished mostly by being the largest breeding ground of [[wererat]]s in the entire demiplane. The name is literally French for "Rich Mouse", which pretty much gives the game away from the start if you know the language..

=====The Shadow Rift=====
::Cultural Level: Unknowable
::Landscape: Eternally Dark Mysical
::Motif: Dark Faerie Tales
::[[Darklord]]: Gwydion the Shadow Fiend

This is the homeland of the [[Shadow Fey]], and as such no mortals know anything about the place. The court is found at the bottom of a chasm filled with mist, protecting it from the sun, as well as erasing anything stupid enough to try penetrating so deeply into said-mist. In classic Faerie fashion, time works differently here, with a fortnight outside equaling a year ''inside.''

=====Sithicus=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Declining [[Elf]] Kingdom
::[[Darklord]]: Inza Kulchevitch

The only domain in the Core that has a [[demihuman]] majority population, this was formerly the domain of [[Lord Soth]], and is thus loosely based on the [[Dragonlance]] setting. May or may not contain vampire [[kender]].

=====Tepest=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Grim Faerie Tales Europe meets Salem Witch Trials
::[[Darklord]]: The Sisters Mindefisk

Hands down one of the most primitive and worthless backwaters in the Core, Tepest's trio of [[hag]] [[darklord]]s are practically non-entities in their own land, with the focus instead being on how the ignorant superstitious peasantry are falling increasingly under the sway of a self-righteous inquisition of self-proclaimed [[fey]]-hunters and [[witch]]-burners. The sisters ''do'' fan the flames of said-group so they can harvest the bodies of anyone condemned, but mostly stick to hiding in their cottage.

=====Valachan=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: African Savages
::[[Darklord]]: Baron Urik von Kharkov

A rugged wilderness inhabited by dusky-skinned foresters who take pride in their absolute ignorance when it comes to book-learning or anything not related to the practicalities of forest-work, to the point they even look down upon their own priests. Befittingly, this leaves them too ignorant to realize they are being eaten alive by a hidden population of [[nosferatu]] and [[werepanther]]s.

=====Verbrek=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Swamps
::Motif: Werewolf Country
::[[Darklord]]: Alfred Timothy

The obligatory [[werewolf]] domain, to contrast the Dracula and Frankenstein ones. Everybody here knows the wilderness (as embodied by the werewolves) is at their door, and live accordingly. This domain was originally called '''Arkandale''' and was run by Alfred's father, Nathan, until he lost the Dark Powers' interest by actually making peace with his lot in life and coming to enjoy being a riverboating casino owner, even if it did mean no longer being able to hunt on the land.

[[Quoth the Raven]] #1 offers an alternative take on the domain where Nathan reclaims it after Alfred's werewolf supremacist cult causes a deadly famine and then civil war amongst the local lycanthropes, which leads to it being renamed Arkandale once more.

===The Seas===
The Core is surrounded by two seas; the Nocturnal Sea and the Sea of Sorrows, which are technically their own unique Clusters that just so happen to adjoin the Core. Because of this, they're put in their own specific sections.

====The Sea of Sorrows====
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Pieter van Riese

This is the Western Sea of the Core, a cold, stormy, mist- (and Mist-)haunted expanse of water populated by various islands, representing the scattered domains of lesser Darklords. Its own "true" Darklord is Captain Pieter van Riese; a [[ghost]] based on the legendary Flying Dutchman who has perhaps the greatest freedom of any Darklord in Ravenloft - he can even leave his ship to go on land and enter other domains! This is because his curse is to ''never'' be able to find his own way, but instead to only be able to take others to where they want to go.

=====Carcharodon Isle=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Hills
::Motif: <s>Ladyhawke</s> Parted Lovers
::[[Darklord]]: Alison Marjory and Sean Mako

An island cursed with two darklords; a fisherman turned [[wereshark]] and a [[merfolk|mermaid]]-turned-human turned [[seawolf]], whose curses prevent them from ever meeting in their human forms. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====Markovia=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Warm Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: The Island of Dr. Moreau
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Markov

It's literally just the Island of Dr Moreau in D&D. That's it. Originally part of the Core, but was moved out to the Sea of Sorrows as a result of the [[Grand Conjunction]]. Nothing here except the [[Darklord]], his [[Broken One]] minions, and a small temple of priests dedicated to guarding a powerful evil artifact that would be of great interest to the Darklord.

=====Blaustein=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Bluebeard

A small island consisting of a castle and a single village, whose population are fanatically loyal to the blue-bearded master of the castle above.

=====Demise=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Althea

A rocky island made from a mostly cooled volcano, this is basically a glorified dungeon that serves as the prison of the [[medusa]] Althea. Fans have tried to expand this by adding the ghost of her murdered [[maedar]] husband (arguably a much better candidate for the darklord) and her maedar son, who hates both of his crazy parents and wants off this godsforsaken rock.

=====Dominia=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Insanity and Institutional Abuse
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth

A small island that houses the most famous (if not only) insane asylum in all of the Core. A pity it's actually a nest of cerebral vampires, ruled over a crazed psychiatrist determined to push the studies of inflicting madness and terror to their absolute limit.

=====Ghastria=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Stezen D'Polarno

A surprisingly grim and colorless place which grows abundant food that, mysteriously, holds no taste when consumed.

====The Nocturnal Sea====
::[[Darklord]]: Meredoth

The cold and dismal Eastern Sea of the Core, which only emerged from the Mists after the events of the [[Grand Conjunction]], ruled over by Meredoth, an epic-level [[Necromancer]] from Glantri in [[Mystara]]. Although strongly associated with ''Graben Island'', which is where "his" people live, Meredoth can actually travel the Sea at will, and in fact lairs himself on the wintery isle of ''Todstein''. Like the Sea of Sorrows, there are plenty of other domains scattered around the Nocturnal Sea ruled over by their own lords.

=====Isle of the Ravens=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: The Lady of Ravens

A deserted island home only to its darklord, an insane but powerful sorceress from a [[Gormentghast]]ian family, and her legions of raven and [[fey]] servants. Whilst it was first mentioned in official media, appearing in brief summary in the writeup of the Nocturnal Sea in the Domains of Dread revised campaign setting, it was fans who fleshed it out; the Isle of the Ravens first received a writeup in the [[Books of S|Book of Sacrifices]], before later being revisited in [[Quoth the Raven]] #13.

=====L'ile de la Tempete=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Alain Monette

A rocky and treacherous island whose lighthouse serves only to lure sailors to their doom upon its shores.

=====Liffe=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Baron Evensong or Assorted Demilords

A surprisingly large and fertile island, with one of the biggest and most welcoming populations of any island-domains in the Nocturnal Sea. Originally ruled by Baron Evensong, although the fanmade Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer downgraded him to one of a cluster of different super-minor darklords.

=====Locknar Cove=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Cold, eroded hills and thick, old growth forest
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

A quiet, humble island of fisherfolk that lies off the combined shorelines of Darkon and Nova Vassa, close to the isle of Liffe. Hidden at its core like a toad in a stone, the ghost of an avaricious pirate who valued wealth beyond his own life guards a vast treasure hoard. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

===The Clusters===
====The Amber Wastes====
::Motif: Dark Fantasy [[Egypt]]

It's Gothic Horror Egypt in D&D. What more is there to say? Its constituent domains are ''Har'Akir'', ''Sebua'', and ''Pharazia''.

=====Har'Akir=====
::Cultural Level: Bronze Age
::Landscape: Desert and Badlands
::Motif: Mummy Horror Movies
::[[Darklord]]: Anhtepot

''Har'Akir'' is a tiny little village of Egyptian peasants who live next to a tomb housing the [[darklord]] Ankhtepot, a pharaoh who blasphemed against the gods and was condemned to both eternity as a [[mummy]] and to be trapped in obscurity with only a single village of humble peasants to "lord over".

=====Sebua=====
::Cultural Level: Bronze Age Darklord, Stone Age natives
::Landscape: Desert Wasteland
::Motif: Mummy Horror meets Ghost Horror
::[[Darklord]]: Tiyet

''Sebua'' consists of an abandoned Egyptian manor next to an oasis haunted by both a tribe of feral children, who inhabit the nearby ruins of a fallen city, and the [[darklord]] Tiyet, a unique female [[mummy]] who appears as a gorgeous woman... save for her insatiable hunger for human hearts.

=====Pharazia=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape: Deserts, Oases, Rivers
::Motif: Arabian Nights Horror meets Religious Fundamentalism
::[[Darklord]]: Diamabel
''Pharazia'' is a pseudo-Arabian city-state ruled over by its [[darklord]] Diamabel; a moralistic fanatic who led a campaign of genocidal terror in life, when felled by an arrow he arose as the shining [[angel]] he always wanted to become... only to find he transformed into a hideous [[undead]] version of himself at night.

====The Burning Peaks====
::Motif: [[Dark Fantasy]]

A two-domain cluster made up of ''Cavitus'', the realm of [[Vecna]], and ''Tovag'', the realm of [[Kas]].

=====Cavitus=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Negative Energy-Infused Wasteland
::Motif: Cartoonish [[Necromancer]]-Ruled Hellhole
::[[Darklord]]: [[Vecna]]

=====Tovag=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Mountains, Scrub Pine Forests
::Motif: [[Vampire]]s, War Horror
::[[Darklord]]: [[Kas]]

====The Frozen Reaches====
::Motif: Dark Fantasy Russia

It's basically the frozen wintery hell that everybody imagines that Russia is transplanted into D&D. Its constituent domains are ''Sanguinia'' and ''Vorostokov'',

=====Sanguina=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Prince Ladislav Mircea

Sanguina is an Early Medieval Russian kingdom ruled over by Prince Ladislav Mircea, a self-centered [[alchemist]] who accidentally transformed himself into a [[mutant]] [[vampire]], possibly a [[Vrykolaka]], that feeds on the Four Humours (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile) in an effort to save himself from a deadly plague.

=====Vorostokov=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Boyar Gregor Zolnik

Vorostokov is a frigid Dark Ages wasteland of villages and forests trapped in a perpetual winter, ruled over by the [[Loup du Noir]] Boyar Gregor Zolnik.

====The Shadowlands====
::Motif: Medieval Dark Fantasy

Intimately tied to a single world, the Shadowlands are made up of three domains that all tie to one long story of corruption; ''Avonleigh'', ''Nidala'', and ''Shadowborn Manor''.

=====Avonleigh=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Morgoroth the Black

Avonleigh is a monster-haunted forest ruled over by the [[darklord]] Morgoroth the Black, a [[planeswalker]] [[wizard]] who traveled to the homeland of the three domains and ended up destroying the not!Arthurian court there through accident. He is now trapped as a ephemeral shade unless the enchanted mirror that trapped him in this state is reassembled in his former mansion home.

=====Shadowborn Manor=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Ebonbane

Shadowborn Manor is a manor other than Morgoroth's that is the resting place of Ebonbane, a raging fiend trapped in a sword, which is itself trapped in a crystal sarcophagus. Ebonbane is so dangerous that Morgoroth actually uses his magic to assist in keeping the damn thing locked up.

=====Nidala=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Elena Faith-Hold

Nidala is the only actually populated domain, and is ruled over by the self-righteous fanatical fallen [[paladin]] Elena Faith-Hold.

====The Verduous Lands====
::Motif: Tropical Dark Fantasy

The hot and humid hellholes, full of deadly predators and equally deadly plants. For some reason the moon is never seen here.

=====Saragoss=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Draga Saltbiter

Saragoss is an oceanic domain; a vast entangling sargassum patch full of wrecked ships crawling with [[ghoul]]s and cannibal [[pirate]]s above and [[sahuagin]] and [[shark]]s below, with a self-loathing [[wereshark]] [[pirate]] and [[cleric]] of [[Umberlee]] for a [[darklord]].

=====The Wildlands=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape: Tropical Jungles and Swamps
::Motif: Twisted Animal Fables
::[[Darklord]]: King Crocodile

The Wildlands are basically [[grimdark]] Jungle Book; a tropical jungle full of asshole talking animals ruled over by the monstrous King Crocodile.

=====Sri Raji=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Rain forests, hills, and mountains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy India / Sri Lanka
::[[Darklord]]: Maharaja Arijani

''Formerly'' an Island of Terror, Sri Raji is a domain in the Verduous Lands cluster ruled by the [[Rakshasa]] Maharaja Arijani. The Verduous Lands cluster does not have a moon with potentially interesting consequences for lycanthropes having some part of the lunar cycle as their trigger condition. Equally, there should be no tides. Most of the human inhabitants of Sri Raji congregate in three cities, each located surprisingly close to the domain border. A fourth city, Mahakala, is less populated and commonly referred to as "accursed". It's basically Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but with more [[rakshasa]]s, [[beastfolk]] and giant insects.

====Zherisia====
::Motif: Urban Dark Fantasy

Differentiating itself from other clusters, Zherisia is composed of the city domain of ''Paridon'' and ''Timor'', a former Island of Terror now transformed into the sewers underneath Paridon.

=====Paridon=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Urban
::Motif: Gothic-Era Urban Horror
::[[Darklord]]:Sodo

Paridon is a sprawling London-esque city infested with a uniquely powerful strain of [[doppelganger]]s, whose [[darklord]] is a many-cursed psychotic doppelganger named Sodo.

=====Timor=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Underground Tunnels
::Motif: Monsters From Below
::[[Darklord]]: The Marikith Queen

Timor is a dripping hive of tunnels infested by xenomorph expies called Marikith.

====Republica de Neuva Aragona====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Tropical Jungle Islands

A two-domain cluster made up of neighboring isles in a tropical ocean known to its inhabitants as Mar de Lagrimas (the Sea of Tears), both themed after the Spanish colonies of South America. Unusually, the two domains are historically linked; both were connected to the same history involving the "native" colonists rising up against the rule of the motherland of Aragona and fighting for their indepence, which led to the two primary land-masses - the island of '''Resistencia''' and the mainland of '''Maconda''' each gaining a [[Darklord]] out of that initial struggle. It appears in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Resistencia=====
Resistencia is haunted by the [[ghost]] of Don Santiago de Quijada y Alvarez, the leader of the failed army sent by the motherland to quash the independence revolution.

=====Maconda=====
Maconda, on the other hand, is led openly and in darkness by the man who led the independence revolution: the [[wereananconda]] President-General Martin Jose Maconda.

====Colonies of the Holy Empire====
An unusual [[netbook]] cluster in that it's not technically presented ''as'' a cluster. The Colonies of the Holy Empire are a collective of domains that all draw from the same homeworld, a pastiche of Central/South America and its invasion by the Spanish Conquistadors, which appeared in the [[Books of S]] [[netbook]]s. Despite this shared origin, they are not presented as being geographically linked in the usual way of a cluster. ''Mictlan'' appeared in the Book of Shadows, whilst ''Igid Rabi-i'' and ''Cumbre de Oro'' both appeared in the Book of Sacrifices.

=====Mictlan=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Tropical Jungle
::[[Darklord]]: Commander Hernando Mouriros

A pastiche of the [[Aztec]] empire, the invasion of an army from a mysterious Chivalric realm has destabilize the realm and caused it to begin falling apart into civil war. And all the while, the invaders, cursed to never die unless they can conquer all of Mictlan, press on desperately in an attempt to end their long and bloody campaign.

=====Igid Rabi-i=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric, Classical or Dark Ages, depending on region
::[[Darklord]]: Arcapatos Miguel Agustin

A deeply spiritual domain wracked with internal conflict, for its leader is a priest who cares nothing for the realm, and everything for chasing a "holy relic" that evades his every attempt to grasp it.

=====Cumbre de Oro=====
::Cultural Level: Savage (Iron Age ruins, Medieval Avaricios)
::[[Darklord]]: Anibal Coronado

A cursed city of vast riches, a pastiche of El Dorado, haunted by the undead remnants of an explorer's party that gave their lives to find those riches and still refused to stop searching for wealth. This domain is actually a part of the larger Mictlan domain.

===The Islands of Terror===
=====Arlington Farm=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance decayed to Dark Ages
::Landscape: Single large wheat & corn farm
::Motif: Killer Scarecrows
::[[Darklord]]: Henry Arlington

The cursed farm of a farmer so obsessed with the success of his land that he not only killed to acquire it, but he began performing blood rites to ensure its success, murdering people and hiding their bodies in his scarecrows. Eventually, his cursed creations turned on him and turned him into one of them. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Bluetspur=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Age
::Landscape: Temperate hills, plains, and mountains
::Motif: [[Yog-Sothothery]]
::[[Darklord]]: The [[Illithid]] God-Brain

Meaning "Blood Trail" in German, it's a desolate wasteland with nightly, violent electrical storms on the surface. Beneath the surface lie the maddening and sprawling cities of illithids and their tortured and experimented slaves. This is also the home of the infamous Vampiric Mind Flayers, a creature that is technically indestructible in AD&D.

=====Callista=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Flooded Islets
::Motif: Gothic Vienna
::[[Darklord]]: Rafe Ungard

A once large island that has been reduced to tiny islets by intense flooding, peopled with a passionately chivalric (in the sense of "women are sacred and must be protected") people who claim to be the ''true'' [[Vistani]], ignorant of the fact that they are actually the cursed reincarnations of the true Vistani seen elsewhere in the Misty Realms. Because only 20% of their children are girls, they are overwhelmingly, patronizingly chivalric, and will sooner die than hurt women. The realm is also home to a large population of [[Paka]], who believe it to be a defiled holy site and hate the Callistans passionately. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Davion=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Shifts
::Motif: Dueling Psyches
::[[Darklord]]: Davion the Mad

A twisting realm that was created when a miscast Wish spell merged the mindscapes of the wizard Davion and his three hirelings - the male [[mage]] Ausgustus, the male [[fighter]] Boromar, and the female [[cleric]] of [[Loviatar]] Narana - into a single unit, leaving them struggling for dominion.

=====The Eternal Torture=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Decaying Sailing Ship
::Motif: [[Ghoul]] Ship
::[[Darklord]]: Miles Havelocke

The cursed ship of Miles Havelocke, a mutineer who led his crew to commit cannibalism upon the loyal members of the crew. Now a crew of [[ghast]]s, they endlessly search for land, attacking and feeding upon any unlucky ships they encounter as their passage leads them to the Nocturnal Sea, the Sea of Sorrows, and the oceans off all other domains, but never to the land they desperately wish to reach. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Farelle=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Woodlands
::Motif: Acceptance of Self
::[[Darklord]]: Jark Karn, The Jackal Who Would Not Be A Coward

An island splinter of the Wildlands, inhabited by a burgeoning population who are genuinely warm, welcoming and thriving. A pity that this is the manifestation of the darklord's curse. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====G'Henna=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Cold and temperate hills, plains, mountains, and deserts
::Motif: Corrupt [[Theocracy]]
::[[Darklord]]: Yagno Petrovna

Here a starving population works the fields to produce food to be sacrificed for the god [[Zhakata]]. Unfortunately the god doesn't exist and priests of the god eat the offerings, while the farmers starve themselves waiting for a god that will never come.

=====The House of Lament=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Mansion
::Motif: Haunted/Evil House
::[[Darklord]]: The House Itself

The House of Lament is a cursed structure that is simultaneous domain and darklord; a haunted structure that demands the sacrifice of human souls in an effort to quell its inescapable loneliness.

=====I'Cath=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Temperate Forest
::Motif: [[Oriental Adventures|Chinese Ghost Stories]]
::[[Darklord]]: Tsien Chiang

A tiny Island of Terror inhabited only by its Darklord and her four daughters - the three evil daughters Hate, Spite and Scream, all of whom are variant Con-tinh (evil spirit women), and the benevolent, tormented good daughter Nightingale. Her domain is similar to Forlorn in that it's basically a glorified dungeon, with literally nothing to do except show up and defeat the Darklord or die trying, except it's [[Oriental Adventures|Chinese]], not Scottish. Tsien Chiang is a misandrist [[necromancer]] from [[Kara-tur]], based on an ''incredibly'' minor character from the [[Forgotten Realms]] lore. She can also transform into an evil [[Treant]].

=====Immerabt=====
::Cultural Level: Late Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate & Cold Plains, Mountains and Aquatic
::Motif: When Death Becomes Relief
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Dorothy Hemphyll

An incredibly advanced domain whose scientific prowess can challenge that of Lamordia's, especially in medical sciences. It bulges with life to the point of being overrun with it, and yet death is a mercy that all too few can find, especially under the watchful eye of the Healer's Guild. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Incitatus=====
::Cultural Level: Classical reduced to Stone Age
::Landscape: Desolate, Lifeless City and rural surroundings
::Motif: Scientific Hubris Brings Apocalypse
::[[Darklord]]: Ahasveros

The lifeless remains of what was once a great scientific civilization, one that destroyed itself attempting to harness the power of the sea to annihilate an enemy nation with an artificially created tidal wave. Now, all that remains is the reclusive ghostly remains of the scientist who created that tidal wave, and destroyed his own people with it. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Kalidnay=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Desert
::Motif: [[Dark Sun|Athas]]
::[[Darklord]]: Thakok-An

The city and lands surrounding Kalidnay in Athas, which are nothing but ruins within [[Dark Sun]]'s setting proper. Its inhabitants actually prefer the Demiplane of Dread to actually living in Athas. Just let that sink in.

=====Karss=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Massive Prison in the middle of nowhere
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Warden Jonar Tamh

Formerly the Great Prison of the [[Harmonium]], an experiment in reformation-focused incarceration launched by the Hardheads on the faction's homeworld of Ortho, the warden's descent into cruelty and draconian punishments in defiance of the experiment's focus led to its being ripped from Ortho and stranded in the Mists. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Kislova=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Mountainous Grasslands
::Motif: Futility of Power Behind the Throne
::[[Darklord]]: Baroness Ilsabet Obour

A domain adapted from the Ravenloft novel "Baroness of Blood", ruled over by a malevolent [[alchemist]] turned pain-eating monster. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====The Lost Wizard's Tower=====
::Cultural Level: Savage, vestiges of Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forest & Hills
::Motif: Obsessive Love
::[[Darklord]]: [[Jinx]]

Once, there was a cat; a [[familiar]] to a powerful [[alchemist]] and [[transmuter]] named Margaret Landsdale. Then she grew overbold with her experiments and tested a formula on her familiar in order to enhance his intelligence. It worked all too well; now, Jinx could think as well as any human... and get jealous. That jealousy led to her death, and now it leads to the death of any arcane spellcaster whom Jinx tries to take as her replacement. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Miseria=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate hills, forests, caves
::Motif: Ghostly Hauntings
::[[Darklord]]: Cassandre Desesprits

A rugged and inhospitable land whose people struggle to survive and put food on the tables, all whilst dealing with the vast legions of ghosts that haunt the realm. And nobody suspects that a humble barmaid with a heart full of spite and selfishness is the ultimate cause for their damnation. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====The Nightmare Lands=====
::Cultural Level: None
::Landscape: Ever-Changing
::Motif: Nightmares
::[[Darklord]]: The Nightmare Man and his Nightmare Court

A strange realm that exists halfway between the Demiplane of Dread and the [[Plane of Dreams]], ruled over by Darklord-like figures who live to visit mortals with nightmares and ultimately draw them into complete insanity.

=====The Northlands=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric declined to Medieval, Early Medieval declined to Dark Ages
::Landscape: Temperate forests, hills, mountains, plains, swamps
::Motif: [[Vikings]]
::[[Darklord]]: Jarl Gravstein Hansen

A land patterned after the ancient Norse lands, where one Jarl's selfishness is causing the decline of everything his people had worked for. This netbook canon domain debuted in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002, and was revisited in its 2003 issue.

=====Nosos=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Polluted Hellscape
::Motif: Rampant Pollution, Capitalism Gone Wrong
::[[Darklord]]: Malus Sceleris

A hellish polluted pit of a domain, where disease runs rampant amidst mountains of filth and sewerage in a sky clouded with fumes, smoke and gas.

=====Nzari=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age, Renaissance in Mr. Klein's camp
::Landscape: Tropical Rainforest
::Motif: Darkest Africa
::[[Darklord]]: Gatwe and Mr. Klein.

A domain inspired by the Darkest Africa tropes in general and the novel Heart of Darkness in particular. A land of cannibalistic natives, jungle monsters, and a brutal overlord who thinks of himself as the civilizing force, begging the question: "who is the real savage?" This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2003.

=====Odiare=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate settled area
::Motif: Twisted Pinocchio
::[[Darklord]]: Maligno

Island from [[Masque of the Red Death|Gothic Earth's]] Italy, populated by children and the [[carrionette]]s who killed the adults that used to live here. Naturally, all the kiddos are quite concerned about what'll happen when they're old enough to be labeled an adult.

=====Olympus=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Temeprate Forest & Hills, Cold Mountains, Warm Aquatic
::Motif: Greek Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Hercules

A pastiche of mythological Greece, ruled over by a pantheon of Living Gods - fallen heroes who have taken the identities of the Greek Deities as their own. And the once shining hope against those cruel, petty deities is in fact the worst of them all. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====The Raging Tears=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Single Rotting Ship
::Motif: Ghost Ship
::[[Darklord]]: Urdogen "The Red"

The cursed vessel of a long-forgotten pirate from [[Forgotten Realms|Faerun]], whose restless soul is condemned to wander the seas forever and never attain the power he once knew as the feared pirate king of the Inner Sea of Faerun. Whilst the ghost ship can be found in any sea in the Demiplane, or even sometimes beyond, its physical remains lie in the Sea of Sorrows, and must be found if one would put Urdogen to his long-cheated fate. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====Rokushima Táiyoo=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape: Archipelago with forests, hills, and mountains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy Japan
::[[Darklord]]: Haki Shinpi

Four islands surrounded by a poisonous salt water ocean. Each island's ruler hates the others, whilst the Darklord (their father) is forced to watch as they tear apart his dreams of unity and peace. It's also the home of the [[Akikage]] (ghost ninjas), [[Hebi-no-Onna]]s (snake women), and [[Kizoku]] (vampiric womanizers). Despite a Dark Ages cultural level, it's interested in the gunpowder weapons of Dementlieu and Darkon. Fun fact: the ''Anesthesia'' spell is popular here, as its use allows the dying to face death with a clear mind, and thus die with honor.

Strangely, the capitals of the four warring brothers have the Japanese names of various real world countries: Beikoku (米国, United States of America), Eikoku (英国, England), Chuugoka (corruption of 中国, China), and Roshiya (Literally just Russia said funny). As long as it sounds Japanese! Sadly, that's more than can be said for the Dark Lord's name...

=====Romagna=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Mild Plains and Forests
::Motif: Eternal Love
::[[Darklord]]: Serenissa D'Aubliet

A peaceful and gentle agricultural domain that seems free of the darkness of other, grimmer realms. But its shadows still linger, in the form of a spectral darklord who, whilst powerless to affect the natives, has no such restrictions against preying on visitors. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====Saarkaath=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Mountains, Forest
::Motif: Blood Purity
::[[Darklord]]: Hakaan na Uruk

A realm of [[half-orc]]s turned inwards into a brutal and pointless butchery, where the inhabitants try to claim "purity" of either [[human]] or [[orc]]ish heritage despite all being mixed race. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====San Bartolome=====
::Cultural Level: Middle Ages
::Landscape: Warm, Rugged, Mountainous
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Isabel de Sargas

A theocratic tropical paradise that is obsessed with the need to attain spiritual purification through righteous behavior and serial reincarnation. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====Scaena=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: The inside of a theater
::Motif: Mad Artistry
::[[Darklord]]: Lemot Sediam Juste

The personal theatre of Lemot Sediam Juste, who went insane and murdered his entire cast of actors, then burned down the theatre with himself in it, all because he couldn't accept that he was only good at writing comedies and he was a fucking terrible author of tragedies. Now it wanders the Misty Realms, luring in victims to serve as cast and audience alike, all ultimately to meet destruction.

=====Seradan=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temeprate Forests, Hills
::Motif: [[Stupid Nuetral]]
::[[Darklord]]: Geren Horstadt

A domain from which all of the metaphorical life has been sapped; a dull and colorless place of dull and colorless people, its inhabitants almostly aggressively average, sluggish and dreamy in their actions. All the better to torment its darklord. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Secrets.

=====Souragne=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Tropical Swamps
::Motif: Southern Gothic
::[[Darklord]]: Anton Misroi

It's basically the Ravenloft version of the Antebellum South as a whole and New Orleans in particular.

=====Staunton Bluffs=====
::Cultural Level: Middle Ages
::Landscape: Cold Prairies and Forests
::Motif: Cowardice and treachery
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Torrence Bleysmith

A small realm of prairies, overseen by the mad, bitter ghost of the man who caused the downfall of the people who once dwelled here.

=====Stonewall=====
::Cultural Level: Civalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Mountains
::Motif: Puritan Intolerance
::[[Darklord]]: Bethany Stone

Once a small town near Salem, Massachusetts in the real world - or at least its Gothic Earth analogue, Stonewall has been ripped from its moorings and cast into the myths thanks to the machinations of its darklord; a woman so self-righteous and hateful that she killed her own daughter to carry on her moral crusade. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Tower of the Phantom Lover=====
::Cultural Level: NA
::Landscape: Tower over underground labyrinth
::Motif: Sexual Predation
::[[Darklord]]: The Phantom Lover

The mysterious hideaway of the malevolent spirit known as the Phantom Lover, who seeks to seduce and then slaughter women pining for lost love.

=====Tsuu-y-Teke=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Warm Deserts, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Desert Country Native American Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Heresa Heri, The Vulture King

A domain inspired by the myths of desert-dwelling Native American cultures. A realm of seemingly eternal day, haunted by a malevolent vulture-spirit who once tried to steal all the lights of day and night for himself. Netbook canon. First appeared in the [[Books of S|Book of Shadows]] for 2e, then was updated to 3e in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Vechor=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Warm Forests, Hills & Swamps
::Motif: Insanity Made Real
::[[Darklord]]: Easan the Mad

A vaguely India-esque domain ruled over by an insane [[elf]] [[wizard]] who has the power to reshape the surroundings based on his current mad whim.

=====Vin'Ejal=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Arctic Coastal Mountain
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Benada Nameless

A frigid island that drifts in an icy sea, whose people struggle to survive in the face of the eternal winter and the packs of [[seawolf|seawolves]] haunting their rich seas, haunted by a most unusual darklord; a [[yuan-ti]]-blooded [[weresnake]]! Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====Vulnara=====
::Cultural Level: Late Chivalric to Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Mountains
::Motif: All-Consuming Bitterness
::[[Darklord]]: Kasselheim Blightlyng

A realm of unusually somber and technology-focused [[gnome]]s and [[svirfneblin]], shaped by the prejudices of a bitter, self-loathing, humor-hating gnomish [[vampire]] cursed with failing senses and growing madness. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Vultharesk=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages, Renaissance on the Godwyn Estate
::Landscape: Cold Mountains
::Motif: Moral Guardianship
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Trevor Godwyn, "The Mirror Man"

A strict, almost puritanical domain obsessed with the necessities of survival and averse to all things that are not "right" or "proper". But this attitude is not born out of morals or self-righteousness, but fear, for they are haunted by an ever-present spirit who will punish those that fails to live up to his strict sense of decency. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Shadows.

=====Wayward on the Bone Sands=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Barren Desert
::Motif: Cannibalism, Killer Kids
::[[Darklord]]: Caleb Wicks

A cursed desert village of former humans turned into [[quevari]] after being seduced into genocide against (and cannibalism of) their [[gnome]] neighbors by the malicious child cannibal Caleb Wicks. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Secrets.

=====Whal=====
::Cultural Level: Renaisssance
::Landscape: Cold Forested Hills
::Motif: Moby Dick
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Jacobi Robertsonn

A sturdy, practical domain dedicated to the hunting of fish, seals and whales... no mean feat when your land is home to the demiplane's largest congregation of [[wereorca]]s. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====The Winding Road=====
::Cultural Level: Nonexistent
::Landscape: Random road
::Motif: Random Encounter
::[[Darklord]]: The Headless Horseman

Hands down one of the worst Domains in classical Ravenloft, the Winding Road is a glorified random encounter in which the party is suddenly attacked by the Headless Horseman, a powerful [[undead]] warrior mounted on horseback. Who is he? Well, there's three stories about where he came from. The first one is that he was an innocent man executed by Drakov's men. The second one is that he was a man who chopped off his own head rather than be killed by one of Strahd's men. And the third is that he was a bard who failed to entertain Ivana Boritsi as she bathed, so she chopped off his head and mixed his blood into her bathwater. If you think that none of those sound like a Darklord's backstory, you're not wrong. Oh, and you also have to fight the undead severed heads that precede and then follow the Horseman's run-by attack, which includes several [[medusa]] heads.

=====Yatehcaa=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Mountains, High Desert
::Motif: Native American Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Coyote

A domain based on certain Native American myths, where the people live simple, happy lives, whilst trying to avoid the attentions of the malicious trickster and fallen hero-deity Coyote. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

==Cyre?==
In [[Eberron]], the nation of Cyre was destroyed in the Day of Mourning, leaving only the [[Mournland]] behind. That Cyre became a Demiplane of Dread is perhaps the most common theory on the origin of the Mournland within the fandom, as it checks all the boxes for explanations.
*The Mournland stops at Cyre’s artificial, political, borders and thus had to be caused by some intelligent actor. The Dark Powers certainly count. It also explains why it stops so exactly at the water that the docks were left behind.
*The Mournland’s border is a wall of “dead-gray mist”. The link is obvious. In 4th Edition, this dead-gray mist supernaturally drains people of hope.
*The Forge of War states that Dannel ir'Wynarn insistence that the crown of Galifar belonged to her was the only thing keeping the Last War going, making her prime Darklord material.
*Dark Sun material describes Kalidnay as having been destroyed by "unknown disaster" that left it only "a jumble of ruins". The ruins in the Mournland are described being "moved", "rearranged", "turned 90 degrees", or "found miles from where war-era maps say they should be", which certainly can be described as a "jumble". The one adventure that travels to the ruined city (DSM2) mentions several structures remain intact, and many appear to be ruins purely because they're centuries old, which fits the multiple Mournland adventures with surviving structures, and several people seem to have died suddenly in a way that their body was intact. (While some of the Mournland's signature features are absent, all outside descriptions of Kalidnay are centuries after the fact while all descriptions of the Mournland are 0-4 years after its creation.)

None of this will ever be confirmed, and it’s unlikely to be anti-confirmed, as the truth of the Mourning is one of Eberron’s mysteries that exists to have no answer but what the [[Dungeon Master]] gives them. The setting's creator has however concurred it's a good option if one wanted some bit of Eberron in Ravenloft.

The theory received a bit of a nod in 5th edition with the reveal of a new Domain of Dread that is a fragment of Cyre that was taken by the mists on the Day of Mourning.

==4th Edition: Islands of Terror==
In the [[World Axis]], the idea of the Demiplane of Dread being its own independent universe was basically dropped. The idea, however, remained in the form of the ''Domains of Dread''; regions in the [[Shadowfell]] created in response to great evils in the Material World, essentially mimicking the Islands of Terror format of the Demiplane, but with one major difference: these Domains are still part of the Shadowfell as a whole. As a result, if you can find the rite or secret or whatever it is that grants you passage, then you can flee the Domain through its misty veil and into the wider Shadowfell... which isn't necessarily that much of an improvement, but hey.

The idea of the Core is complete absent in 4th edition. Perhaps, if [[Ravenloft]] had been revived in this setting, the Core would have instead become more of a cursed but otherwise normal world, similar to and yet separate from the Domains of Dread seen in the Shadowfell. We'll never know.

The 4e Domains of Dread consist of the following:

=====Sunderheart=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Half-ruined city on a cliff's edge at the edge of a swampy river dela
::Motif: Diabolist Grand Guignol
::[[Darklord]]: Ivania Dreygu and Vorno "The Ghoul" Kahnebor

Originally the [[Bael Turath]] city of Harrack Unarth, Sunderheart's doom came when it came under the control of the lovers Ivania Dreygu and Vorno Kahnebor, the [[Nentir Vale]] version of Romeo and Juliet... if Romeo and Juliet were debauched hedonistic [[tiefling]]s who engaged in rape, murder and cannibalism and who massacred their entire families so they could be together. Eventually, Vorno became so vile that even Ivania grew sick of him, so she murdered him by feeding him a servant girl whom she had fed with a deadly poison. Then she woke up in Sunderheart with her [[ghoul]]ified [[undead]] lover fused to her back like a monstrous parasitic twin. Now she rules by day over the half of the city still inhabited by the living, and Vorno the Ghoul rules over the undead-haunted ruins at night.

=====Graefmotte=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Dense Pine Forest, Mountains
::Motif: Starvation
::[[Darklord]]: Lord Durven Graef

When the [[Yeenoghu]]-worshipping hordes of the White Ruin threatened the empire of Nerath in the [[Nentir Vale]], Lord Graef was the ruler of a minor frontier province who had already lost two of his three children. Desperate to preserve his family legacy, he was determined that his final son, Geoffery Graef, would not answer King Elidyr's call to take up arms against the horde. When his son disagreed, they fought, and Lord Graef accidentally killed his son by causing him to fall and fatally strike his head. Which was when the [[gnoll]] warbands fell upon Graefmotte. Lord Graef led the fighting over the night, and was near-mortally wounded; disemboweled and with an arm bitten off, nobody expected him to cling to life for a day and a night... never mind for his wounds to fully heal. Ever since then, Graefmotte has been a land cursed, where its people face a slow, withering death by starvation, or a quick, bloody one at the jaws of the maddened gnolls and starvation-spawned [[ghoul]]s that haunt the ever-shifting forest.

=====Monadhan=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Tropical Rainforest
::Motif: Treachery
::[[Darklord]]: Arantor

During the war between [[Bael Turath]] and [[Arkhosia]], the [[Metallic Dragon#Silver Dragon|Silver Dragon]] Arantor and his daughter mrissa were called upon to destroy a remote Turathi military outpost, almost hidden within thick tropical rainforest, whose isolation and surroundings made it virtually unreachable by ground-based forces. But after they hit their target, they realized that their intel had been faulty; this was no military camp, it was a refugee center for Turathi civilians! Father and daughter quarreled over what to do, with Imrissa wanting to return to Arkhosia and take responsibility for their crimes, whilst the glory-hound Arantor insisted they conceal it and protect their reputations. The argument grew so heated that Arantor slew his daughter, and then, stricken by guilt, he massacred the survivors of his first attack before becoming a plague upon the Turathi until his death. Which was when he awoke as a [[dracolich]] in a cavern deep below a twisted reflection of Monadhan, which has now become a gathering point for traitors. The greater the betrayal, and the more pathetic the reason, the more likely the perpetrator is to find a place within Monadhan - whether by being swallowed by the Mists, or by awakening there alive and whole after dying for their misdeeds. As a result, Monadhan is now an oubliette for treacherous scum from across time and space.

=====The Endless Road=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: An endless road winding through forests, hills and plains
::Motif: You can't escape your sins
::[[Darklord]]: Eli van Hassen

The tiny little roadside town of Tranquility was a peaceful place, until the day a four-headed [[hydra]] lurched from the fens and began plaguing the people. When a wandering [[adventurer]] known only as "The Horseman" arrived and slew the beast, the people celebrated. But the town's ruler, Eli van Hassen, a man forever plagued by resentment and inferiority over his provincial abode, resented the hero's fame. He forced his daughter to slander the man, accusing him of rape, and whipped the people of Tranquility into a frenzied mob who executed their savior despite his former protests. Now Eli and his daughter inhabit a fortified mansion that sits on the side of a great road, which stretches on to infinity; unless the Road decides to let you go, which it can do to anywhere in the [[Multiverse]], you can walk forever and never leave. Of course, that risks attack by the undead remains of the Headless Horseman, who wants revenge on the van Hassens, but will happily settle for anyone else he can get his hands on.

=====Timbergorge=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Dense confider forest
::Motif: Nature's Savagery
::[[Darklord]]: Silvermaw

When a naive [[treant]] allowed [[human]]s to settle in the planeshifting forest that was an [[archfey]]'s garden under his care, he was horrified when they began to create a fire to keep them warm as they slept. But when he attacked in an effort to quench the flames, he burned himself and then set the forest ablaze, leaving it to burn as he focused on slaying the human interlopers. For this, his master cut the garden away and banished it to the [[Shadowfell]]. Here, the tribal humans have become a pack of werewolves, endlessly hunting and being hunted by the mad, wounded treant, who has coated his mouth with molten silver so that he may better rend and bite his foes; hence his name "Silvermaw".

==5th Edition: The Alternate Continuity==
In February 2021, it was announced across the internet that the Demiplane of Dread would at last make an official return as a D&D setting for [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]] in the form of [[Van Richten's Guide]] to [[Ravenloft]]. But it also openly announced that the 30 domains of dread that would be debuting in the book would include a mixture of brand new domains, classic domains, and revamped/reimagined takes on old domains - something that immediately began raising hackles amongst the Ravenloft fandom, who tend towards the [[grognard]]ier side of the fence. Why did they do this? Was it because the last version of Ravenloft-as-setting was done by [[White Wolf]] and there were legal entanglements preventing [[Wizards of the Coast]] from reusing their inventions? Was it because a lot of Ravenloft classic lore was actually kind of stupid and in desperate need of revamping? Was it because of [[SJW]]s? (probably a little considering some of the weirder changes made) Some combination thereof? The world may never know.

Either way, the 5e version of the Demiplane of Dread thusly has its own unique take on the different Domains, which this section will try to break down for comparison's sake.

5th edition no longer has the Core although a few Clusters still exist, but are now treated as single domains, and also changes the rules for traveling between domains. If the borders of a domain are not closed, entering the mists on the borders only takes you to another domain if you get a lucky roll, and usually you will end up back in the domain where you started or just wander the mists going nowhere. And even if you do get lucky it is up to the DM to decide where to drop you. You can choose what domain you want to go to and bypass this roll by carrying a mist talisman, which is an item related in some way to that domain or at least that domain's theme, and each domain has a few possible items you can use as a talisman for it. If you have the Mist Walker dark gift, you can travel to any domain that you know the name of without a talisman, but at the cost of not being able to stay in one place for too long.

===Detailed Domains===
These domains have received descriptions a few pages long.

=====Barovia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

It's literally just Barovia as seen in [[Curse of Strahd]]. The only major change is that now the Dark Powers have started to get creative and may have Tatyana reincarnate as someone unexpected to mess with Strahd.

=====Bluetspur 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Utterly alien
::Motif: Alien Horror, amnesia
::[[Darklord]]: The God-Brain

Aside from some slight tweaks to the backstory of the God-Brain and a shift in focus to more of an "alien abductions/unspeakable alien experiments" motif, Bluetspur is basically unchanged.

=====Borca 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Outside of the changes to the [[Darklord]]s, there's nothing new here.

=====[[The Carnival]] 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

No longer a wandering point of light, [[The Carnival]] is now a free-floating island of terror, with the role of [[Darklord]] being shared between Isolde and Nepenthe, a cursed sword she carries. The backstory has also been changed extensively, involving a counterpart to the Carnival run by [[shadar-kai]]. The Carnival is also haunted by the ''Litwick Market'', a black market of malicious fey with a grudge against the Carnival who invariably show up once the Carnival settles down and start making trouble. Also, the Twisting is no longer a thing.

=====Darkon 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: The end of the world
::[[Darklord]]: Azalin Rex, currently MIA

The first "continuation" domain, Azalin went missing during an event called the Hour of Ascension and now Darkon is falling apart, slowly being dissolved by the Mists. The domain has become split into four islands. During the day the mists can be crossed as normal, but during the night anything covered by the mists disappears and the mists swallow a little bit more of the land in tiny steps or in huge floods. As was the case during the original [[Grim Harvest|Shrouded Years]], a number of demilords are trying and failing to hold it together. Collectively known as The Inheritors, they consist of the vampire Alcio Metus (sister to the late Baron Metus), Cardinna Artazas and the Necrichor of Darcalus Rex, and Madame Talisveri Eris. The only clue about where Azalin went is a strange glowing object called the King's Tear which appeared floating over Darkon at the same time that he vanished.

=====Dementlieu 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Masquerade and imposter syndrome
::[[Darklord]]: Saidra d'Honaire

Completely rewritten, Dementlieu is now an impoverished city where everybody tries desperately to pretend they are richer and more important than they actually are, lest they be disintegrated by its new [[Darklord]]; Saidra d'Honaire. Also has a Masque of the Red Death thing going on, making it a bit like Sanguinia.

=====Falkovnia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Zombie Apocalypse
::[[Darklord]]: Vladeska Drakov

Completely rewritten, Falkovnia is no longer the "war horror" domain, but instead a zombie apocalypse domain, where new [[Darklord]] Vladeska Drakov struggles to keep the living alive in the face of monthly sieges by massive armies of the [[Walking Dead]]. Maybe they didn't want [[/pol/]] fanboying the original Vlad?

=====Har'Akir 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Completely rewritten, Har'Akir is now a sprawling, heavily populated land where [[necrocracy|the living bow to a mummified aristocracy]] and Ankhtepot actually wishes for death.

=====Haz'lan 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Wild magic, environmental destruction, magic-based classism
::[[Darklord]]: Hazlik

This retconned version of the domain has dropped the Mulans vs. Rashemani racism of the past and is now being devastated by a series of arcane apocalypses. [[Darklord]] Hazlik now suffers a combination of his old curse and Azalin's curse.

=====I'Cath 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Denial of reality
::[[Darklord]]: Tsien Chiang

Completely rewritten, I'Cath has gone from a glorified [[Oriental Adventures]] [[dungeon]] to a crumbling city where the population is largely trapped in an eternal slumber, forced to constantly work at building and rebuilding a dream-version of I'Cath at the behest of [[Darklord]] Tsien Chiang, who can never be satisfied with what she has. When the inhabitants wake, they must scavenge for food in a city constantly being rebuilt by Tsien Chian's armies of [[Jiangshi]], who will not harm a sleeper, but will happily tear an awake mortal limb from limb.

=====Kalakeri=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: War-torn nation, faction mechanics
::[[Darklord]]: Ramya Vasavadan

New domain, although it's intended to take the place of the old domain of Sri Raji, which is mentioned as an alternative name for it. This India-themed domain is locked in an eternal civil war between its [[Darklord]], Ramya Vasavadan, and her two [[fiend]]ish siblings; Arijani the [[Rakshasa]] and Reeva the [[Arcanaloth]].

=====Kartakass 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Show business, predatory business practices, werewolves
::[[Darklord]]: Harkon Lukas

Largely unchanged, save for the revisions to [[Darklord|Harkon Lukas']] story and the replacement of [[wolfwere]]s with [[Loup-garou]].

=====Lamordia 5e=====
::Cultural Level: Steampunk
::Landscape: Arctic
::Motif: Mad science, biting cold, implicit kaiju
::[[Darklord]]: Viktra Mordenheim

Basically unchanged, save for a new emphasis on an arctic climate and the tweaks to its [[Darklord]], replacing Viktor Mordenheim and Adam with Viktra Mordenheim and Elise. The darklord curse has been given a twist, too: Viktra succeeded where Victor would perpetually fail-- but she cannot duplicate her success and the living (golem-like) Elise shuns her and hides in the wilderness. Also, the whalers may or may not be hunting creatures [[Kraken|more fearsome than actual whales]], and it's heavily implied that there may be a radioactive kaiju hibernating under the mountain range not-so-subtly named "The Sleeping Beast".

=====Mordent 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Ghosts and haunted houses
::[[Darklord]]:

The only change here is to [[Darklord|Wilfred Godefroy's]] curse and backstory, which now involves the famous Alchemist's Apparatus first introduced to [[Ravenloft]] lore in [[I10: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill]].

=====Richemulot 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Pandemic, wererats
::[[Darklord]]: Jacqueline Renier

Retconned into a plague-stricken nation barely avoiding crumbling into total ruination through the machinations of [[Darklord|Jacqueline Renier]], who's also responsible for the plagues in the first place as she's a one-percenter who despises the middle-class.

=====Tepest 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Wickerman/Midsommar type of stories
::[[Darklord]]: Lorinda Mindefisk

Sitting somewhere between continuation and retcon, Tepest has lost its anti-fey inquisition and is now focused on its [[Darklord]]; Lorinda Mindefisk, who imprisoned her sisters in a cauldron because they refused to let her have a child.

=====Valachan 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Jungle
::Motif: The deadliest game
::[[Darklord]]: Chakuna

Similarly to Tepest, Valachan is supposed to be a continuation of its former self, although there's a lot of retcons to the lore. Since [[Darklord|Baron Urik von Kharkov]] was slain by Chakuna, the jungles have turned hungry, rendering the realm a land where everything is out for blood and those appetites are barely kept in check by regular ceremonial blood sacrifices known as the Trial of Hearts.

===Summarized Domains===
These domains only received a short block of text about them. Several of them are completely new domains and so are intended to just be ideas for Dungeon Masters to build on.

=====Cyre 1313, The Mourning Rail=====
::Cultural Level: Dungeonpunk
::Landscape: A magical train traveling through the Mists
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: The Last Passenger

The first ever [[Eberron]] Domain of Dread. On the day that Cyre was destroyed by the Mourning, a train was about to carry a bunch of refugees who saw the disaster coming out of Cyre, but the train's departure was delayed by a mysterious VIP who threw hundreds of the train's passengers out to make room for their self and their retinue and to be sure nobody on the train would learn their identity, and so the train departed too late. The train was taken into the mists when the Mourning hit where it became a mobile domain constantly running from the Mourning which the passengers think is still chasing them. The passengers still haven't noticed that the Mourning already killed them.

=====Forlorn 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====Ghastria 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====G'henna 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====Invidia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Rewritten; Gabrielle Aderre is now the [[Darklord]], constantly dabbling in black magic and conjuring all manner of outsiders to try and ensure that her beloved (and implicitly possessed) son Malocchio will have the best of futures.

=====Keening 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Now has a living population who live in terror of its [[banshee]] [[Darklord]]. They fear the Darklord so much that they have actually destroyed their own sense of hearing to protect themselves.

=====Klorr=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Surreal environment
::Motif: Impending Doom
::[[Darklord]]: Klorr

New domain mentioned in brief, a series of shattered islands floating through a misty netherworld, swirling around a blazing giant eye, where one island is obliterated every hour only for another to take its place.

=====Markovia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Tropical island
::Motif: Flowers for Algernon syndrome, furries
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Frantisek Markov

Rewritten into a mixture of Dr. Moreau and Dr. Jekyll.

=====The Nightmare Lands 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Nightmares
::[[Darklord]]: The Nightmare Court

Largely unchanged, save for the new origin of the Nightmare Court as multiple personas birthed from the mind of a powerful but monstrous [[psion]]icist who tries to run from the crimes of her past and deny that they ever existed.

=====Niranjan=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Island monastery
::Motif: [[Path of Inspiration]]
::[[Darklord]]: Sarthak

New domain mentioned in brief, tied to Kalakeri, ruled over by a corrupted [[Metallic Dragon|Brass Dragon]] who poses as a ''sadhu'' to lure victims into sacrificing their worldly goods for his hoard before he consumes their souls and replaces it with an obedient shadow.

=====Nova Vaasa 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Myar Hiregaard

Rewritten; now less Russian and more Mongolian, with a female [[Darklord]] named Myar Hiregaard who united the warring tribes of her homelands, only to turn them against each other once more when she grew bored with peacetime.

=====Odaire 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for the minor detail that Maligno ''changed'' his name to that from his original, less ridiculous name of ''Figlio''.

=====The Rider's Bridge=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Yet another reinterpretation of the Headless Horseman, this time as a [[dullahan]] who shows up at important bridges in domain-specific forms and attacks anyone who tries to cross. Successfully crossing the bridge may transport you to a different domain.

=====Risibilos 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Parody
::[[Darklord]]: Doerdon

A super-minor domain originally mentioned in brief as part of the infamously terrible "Book of Crypts" anthology. Rewritten into a domain-hopping music hall, where the [[Iron Warriors|humorless]] former-king Doerdon is now condemned to an agonizing eternity as an entertainer, with a sentient ventriloquist dummy in the likeness of Strahd von Zarovich as his partner in comedy. Needless to say, don't be surprised if your DM brings a Strahd muppet to the table.

=====Scaena 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:
Unchanged from its original lore.

=====Sea of Sorrows 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

The Darklord is now Pietra van Rise, a vicious female [[pirate]] turned ghost or sea zombie (it's not clear which). Mention is also made of Blaustein (now ruled by the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives), Dominia (the patients are all avatars of Dr. Heinfroth), the Isle of the Ravens (unchanged), and the new domains of The Lighthouse, which features, well, a lighthouse, and Vigilant's Bluff, where an undead paladin offers refuge so long as you respect his faith.

=====The Shadowlands 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged.

=====Souragne 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Still Southern Gothic New Orleans, but Anton's got a new backstory as a sadistic prison warden and has been downgraded in terms of power.

=====Staunton Bluffs 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Largely identical, except the former [[darklord]] is now a good guy and his crime has been given to his retconned sister, Teresa Bleysmith.

=====Tovag 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

No longer connected to Cavitus, [[Kas]] now fixates on finding [[Vecna]] and resuming their ancient battle.

=====Vhage Agency=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: An office building
::Motif: Insanity, Film Noir
::[[Darklord]]: Flimira Vhage

A new domain in the form of a detective agency ruled over by Flimira Vhage, who remains unaware that literally the entire agency only exists in her own broken mind. Oh, and it literally looks like an old [[noir]] film brought to life, complete with everything inside being in different shades of monotone gray.

=====Zherisia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Serial killings
::[[Darklord]]: Sodo

The elaborate dread [[doppelganger]] society has been wiped out. Now there's just a starving city descending into madness and a single ancient doppelganger trying to preserve its existence through cannibalism. The sewers that used to be called Timor still exist but the marikiths have been replaced with [[Carrion Stalker]]s.

==Notable Non-Darklords==
* [[Van Richten]]
* [[Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins]]
* [[Jander Sunstar]]
* [[Alanik Ray]]
* [[Larissa Snowmane]]
* [[Vistani]]

{{Planescape-Cosmology}}
[[Category:Ravenloft]]

Kraken

2021-06-09T00:16:45Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* D&D */

{{stub}}

{{topquote|Release the Kraken! 
''The tolling of the iron bell!'' 
''Release the Kraken!'' 
''Rising from the depths of hell!''|Danny Sexbang, signing the death sentence of a kingdom}}

The '''Kraken''' is a monster from European mythology, presumably Nordic, and is described as a sea-going creature of such enormous size that when it comes to the surface to doze and bask in the sunlight, sailors have been known to mistake it for an island and walk around on its back, getting a hell of a surprise when it inevitably decides to submerge again.

In the original myths, the kraken is never really described beyond being a bloody huge thing living deep under the water. In pop culture, however, it has become synonymous with an incredibly huge squid, though it's unclear if this is because of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] doing it or the other way around. Most likely this impression came about due to the examples of 12 meter long Giant Squids (''Architeuthis dux'') that occasionally wash up on shore.

==D&D==
In D&D, the kraken is typically presented as an enormous [[aberration]] or magical beast, in the form of a ridiculously huge squid with genius-level intelligence, powerful magical abilities, and an even bigger ego. Ironically, despite 4th edition's terrible reputation, it actually preserved the traditional kraken, and even gave it a ''nastier'' relative that hunted the [[Astral Sea]]. It was 5th edition that broke with tradition, portraying its kraken as a deformed fish-frog-lizard thing with tentacles reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen's creation (then again no description was given in the 5e monster manual, and older lore mentions Kraken do like to ''upgrade'' themselves), though it's still an egotistical super-genius with a spate of nasty legendary actions.
<gallery>
Kraken MM 1e.jpg|1e
Kraken 1e.jpg
Giant squid MCV2.jpg|2e
Giant squid MM 2e.png
Kraken 3e.jpg|3e
Astral kraken.jpg|The Astral Kraken from 3e's Planar Handbook.
Kraken 4e.jpg|4e
Kraken 5e.jpg|5e took inspiration from Clash of the Titans
Kraken saltmarsh.jpg|For some reason, the baby kraken in [[Ghosts of Saltmarsh]] uses the 3e design. Apparently the one from the Monster Manual was already heavily modified.
</gallery>

===[[Birthright]]===
{{Infobox Deity
|Name = Kraken
|Symbol =
|Aliases = The Many-Limbed God
|Alignment = Chaotic Evil
|Divine Rank = Unknown
|Pantheon = Cerilian
|Portfolio = Sahuagin, sea
|Domains =
|Home Plane = [[Prime Material Plane]] (''Krakennauricht'', Aebrynis)
|Worshippers = Sahuagin
|Favoured Weapon =
}}
[[Birthright]] had the Kraken as one of the unique [[awnshegh]] that bedevil Cerillia, and, atypically for one of the animalistic ones, also a super-smart genius. It is terrifying, given its massive size in a relatively-grounded and realistic campaign setting, and no one knows what the actual fuck it is, what it's doing, or why it picked the former Great Bay, now the Krakennauricht as its territory. Maybe it was one of the mounts Azrai rode across the sea, maybe it was a creature from the elemental plane of water the evil god corrupted for some inscrutable purpose. Either way, it's the biggest monster in the world... and it has enslaved the [[Sahuagin]], having destroyed their civilization and using them as its minions. They worship the Kraken as the Many-Limbed God and offer it whatever treasures they obtain from the ships they sink and live sacrifices. Most notably, the priests of the Kraken do actually have access to [[cleric]] spells, though where and how they get the spells is unknown. For some reason, it has also forbidden the Sahuagin to make themselves known to other races, leaving the Krakennauricht, and from setting foot on land, with the exception of Krakenstaur.

{{D&D-Birthright-Deities}}

==MGE==
{{monstergirls}}
In the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], the kraken is a giant squid-girl, a relative of the [[scylla]]. Taking the form of a taller-than-average and hugely busty white-skinned woman with ten squid-like tentacles, they are mostly shy and retiring - but when they go hunting for a boyfriend, they have been known to sink whole ships to snatch up the man they like, leaving the rest as prey for the swarms of aquatic mamono who flock to them when they go husband-hunting. They have the ability to spit a magical ink that consumes light, creating magical patches of darkness.

==40k==
Warhammer 40k has [[Hive Fleet Kraken]], a large fleet of [[Tyranid]] organisms noted for encircling foes at every level. There are also proper krakens found on [[Fenris]], although they are largely suspected to be of Tyranid origin.

=See Also=
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDN_nGcQg7M| Mr. Rhexx's analysis of them,] [[Fleshcrafting|which attributes their new look to a love of fleshcrafting.]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4itm0SRxAro| Release the Kraken by Ninja Sex Party], textbook example of why one should never summon the Kraken... He's just such a huge dork.

[[Category: Monsters]]

Demiplane of Dread

2021-06-09T00:15:37Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Lamordia 5e */

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'''The Demiplane of Dread''' is a unique [[Demiplane]] - or, perhaps more accurately, a series of interlinked demiplanes - within the [[Great Wheel]] cosmology of [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. This is the actual "world" in which the campaign setting of [[Ravenloft]] is based, and so the name is often used when trying to describe the "Ravenloft world".

The precise origins of the Demiplane of Dread are lost to history. Its creators are enigmatic beings known only as "The Dark Powers", who maintain and defend their creation with mighty magic and jealous zeal. It's believed they have some kind of mutual non-aggression pact with the various gods of the Great Wheel, but nothing canon is ever defined. It is believed to lie where the [[Ethereal Plane]] meets the [[Plane of Shadow]], but is able to manifest portals absolutely ''everywhere'', even in places normally restricted to planar portals, such as [[Dark Sun|Athas]] or the [[Phlogiston]]. Such portals usually appear as banks of fog or mist, but will adapt themselves to other sight-obscuring phenomena - and are usually one-way. Getting ''in'' is easy, but getting '''out'''? Canonically you won't be able to leave unless the Dark Powers will it, short of using artifact-level items like the dreaded Rift Spanner which just so happens to be the kind of item that could turn you into a [[Darklord]] just from getting it to work properly.

Aaand then came 3.5 which opened a doorway into the [[World Serpent Inn]], breaking the whole point of this prison plane. Here it's a failsafe for DMs when their parties reach their 16th birthday and are sick of Goth. Its doorway on the Demiplane's side of things changes every night. Mind you, even back in AD&D, portals '''out''' of the Demiplane of Dread were explicitly a thing and even listed in major [[splatbook]]s like the Domains of Dread - for example, the Isle of Lament in Lamordia houses one such portal, so you can leave just by going there, if you can sneak past Adam.

==Planar Traits==
The Demiplane of Dread's creators have molded the reality of this world into a new fashion, forcibly imposing the rules of [[Gothic Horror]] on the setting. There are many ways that this molding manifests, but some of the more overt include the following:
* [[Necromancer|Necromancy]] spells are empowered and rendered more dangerous; spells like Animate Dead will call up more creatures than the caster may be able to control, whilst spells that instantly kill their victims usually cause such victims to arise spontaneously as the [[undead]] - and often as ones quite pissed off at their killer. Certain non-necromancy, non-instant-kill spells even have a chance of doing this, such as Disintegrate turning a completely disintegrated victim into an incorporeal undead! Using any necromancy spell provokes a powers check unless it's purely defensive, doesn't affect undead, and doesn't manipulate life force; that list of "safe" spells is quite narrow.
* [[Diviner|Divination]] spells are pretty much worthless; spells that detect moral alignment invariably fail, spells aimed at detecting monstrous species either are unreliable (Detect Undead) or flatly won't work (using True Seeing to look for natural shapechangers), spells that revolve around mental contact risk driving you mad if you accidentally use them on certain inhuman creatures, and in general you can't trust the result of divination spells because the normal awareness of when such a spell has failed doesn't occur in the Demiplane of Dread. Oh, and Scrying type spells create a visible sensory apparatus that can alert your target that you're scrying on them, which can even serve as a conduit for things like gaze attacks. There's a practical reason for this; horrific things aren't quite as scary if you know their true nature too early, and so this element was put in to keep from having the DM tip their hands too soon and ruin the scare.
* [[Conjurer|Conjuration]] allows entities from other planes to be summoned, but they won't be able to return home when the spell expires. Obviously, quite a few of them will be ''very'' upset with their summoner because of this. Even before they figure this out, the binding aspects of conjuration spells are weaker in the Demiplane of Dread, giving summoned creatures a chance to escape its bonds the moment it arrives.
* [[Abjurer|Abjuration]] spells that banish creatures to another plane do not work. Rather, they ''appear'' to work but just toss the target somewhere else within the demiplane.
* [[Illusionist|Illusion]] spells that manipulate shadows are 20% more powerful, but the caster risks losing control of it when the spell ends, releasing a free-willed [[shadow]].
* Spells that directly interfere with the fabric of a Domain, such as manipulating weather, can often attract the attention of the resident [[Darklord]], and who might be able to subvert or negate these same spells if they have related powers.
* Teleportation spells are restricted; each domain is treated like its own separate plane of existence. High-level teleportation spells can overcome this if the border is not closed. Nothing can teleport out of a closed domain or the Demiplane entirely.
* Curses are empowered, and even non-spellcasters can potentially lay deadly or deforming curses on people if their rage or grief is intense enough to catch the notice of the [[Dark Powers]].
* The [[Dark Powers]] are watching everybody and seem to enjoy turning people into monsters that reflect their own evil deeds. When a creature performs some evil act, which range from casting necromantic spells to premeditated murder, the Dark Powers [[Powers Check|might notice]] and start the process. The changes are subtle or even helpful at first, allowing the victim to more easily perform his evil acts, which lures the victim into more evil, gaining more attention and transformation, until he is completely transformed into a monster or even a [[darklord]] of his own domain.
* Intelligent undead, like vampires, can tell if their minds are being read and can choose which thoughts they will project. Depending on the circumstances, this may be a false image passing them off as human or an up-close look at the most evil parts of their minds meant to drive the would-be mind reader insane.
* 5th edition's overhaul of the lore drops most of the above rules but adds some new ones. If you die in the Demiplane of Dread your soul does not move into the afterlife and is trapped there until it is eventually reincarnated. People who are resurrected after being dead for over 24 hour discover this and are traumatized by the experience.
* Also in 5th edition, Darklords can sense when somebody in their domain is trying to cast spells that contact beings on other planes and can make themselves the target of the spell.

==Mapping the Demiplane==
Geo-physically, the Demiplane of Dread consists of various bubbles of reality, ranging in size from a single room to full-fledged countries, all floating in a sea of ephemeral mist; each of these reality bubbles (called "Domains") is typically centered around a [[Darklord]], a villain whose evil caught the eyes of the Dark Powers and so they responded by imprisoning them within the Demiplane. 3rd edition's unpublished [[splatbook]] "[[Van Richten's Guide]] to the Mists" introduced the concept of ''Oubliettes'', which are basically prototype or abandoned Domains that don't contain a Darklord. A Domain may exist on its own (an "Island of Terror") or be physically coterminous with one or more more other domains, forming what is called a "Cluster". The largest and oldest Cluster in the Demiplane is called "The Core", and this is basically Ground Zero for the setting.

Traveling between Domains is a little tricky to describe. If two Domains are coterminous, you can simply walk between them, as if they were normal lands. If you want to get to a Domain that ''isn't'' coterminous, then you have to just walk into the Mists and hope you'll end up where you want to go. Certain spots are known to have what are essentially portals that can link different Domains together, in that traveling from these spots (which may require unique triggers before they kick in) will usually end you up in a specific Domain; known as "Mistways", these portals can be either one way or two way, and vary in reliability (aka, how likely you are to end up at the intended destination instead of fuck-knows-where) from "guaranteed" to "you rolls the dice, you takes your chances".

Traveling between Domains is made more complicated by the fact that most [[Darklord]]s have a power called "Closing the Borders," which causes the borders of their Domain to become enveloped in a barrier of some sort unique to that Darklord that prevents escape in some fashion - some are non-lethal, most will kill you if you try. A rare few can be circumvented by the right esoteric circumstances (for example, [[undead]] or [[construct]]s can safely walk through poisonous borders like that of Barovia, because they're fundamentally immune to poison), but in general this is the ultimate [[Railroading]] tool the DM has to keep you from just saying "fuck this" and leaving the domain.

Precisely why the Dark Powers collect these [[Darklord]]s is unknown, and theories abound; the Demiplane of Dread has been described as a prison, a gathering place for evil, a grand study into the nature of evil, a unique kind of Hell, or even a Purgatory by various fans.

Another great mystery is the nature of its native population. Some Domains were physically taken from their homeworlds, but most are described as "copies" rather than direct abductions of land. This then leaves players wondering: are the locals actually "real", or are they merely soulless simulacra - props in the grand theater of Gothic Horror tales that the Dark Powers are conducting? Nothing concrete has ever been given. This isn't entirely consistent however, with other originals becoming ruins (Like Kalidnay) or vanishing entirely (like Har’Akir).

===The Core===
As mentioned above, this is the "core" of Ravenloft, the sole normal-style continent where the bulk of the game focuses on. Think of it as something akin to the Sword Coast of the [[Forgotten Realms]], or Ansalon in [[Dragonlance]]. The precise layout has changed over Ravenloft's life, usually as a result of [[Advancing the Storyline]] - most prominently, it changed massively after the [[Grand Conjunction]], and then changed a little during both the [[Grim Harvest]] and the shift from 2e to 3e.

The Core is made up of the following Domains.

=====Barovia=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Blatant Dracula Knockoff
::[[Darklord]]: [[Strahd von Zarovich]]

This is the oldest domain in Ravenloft, the literal heart of the Demiplane of Dread. It's ruled by Strahd, and is basically Dracula in D&D. It is also home to the titular [[Castle Ravenloft]], Strahd's humble abode. This domain has been visited in literally ''every single edition'' of D&D after BECMI; even 4th edition, the only edition without an adaptation of I6 to its titles, has the adventure "Fair Barovia" in [[Dungeon Magazine]] #207, which has the party exploring Barovia and completing assorted side-quests.

=====Borca=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Poisoners, Italy under the Borgia Family
::[[Darklord]]: Ivana Boritsi

Originally, Borca was ruled by the Darklord Camille Boritsi, and was half its present size, sharing borders with the near-identical domain of Dorvini. Ivana poisoned her mother because her mom seduced her boyfriend, and during the Grand Conjunction, her domain and that of her cousin Ivan Dilisnya merged together due to their great similarities.

=====Darkon=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Age to Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Plains, Mountains & Swamps
::Motif: Generic [[Dark Fantasy]]
::[[Darklord]]: Azalin

Darkon is notable as the most overtly fantastical realm in the Demiplane of Dread, with a relatively huge population of [[demihuman]]s that sees humans going from the usual 90+% population merit to only 75% as well as the greatest amount of local toleration for arcane magic.

If one spends a month in the realm they lose their memories until they leave the domain, thinking they've always been from Darkon. Unfortunately, the new state from having lost memories convinces one to never leave unless forced to.

=====Dementlieu=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains
::Motif: Renaissance France/Victorian England
::[[Darklord]]: Dominic D'Honaire

Though not as overtly modeled on London as the domain of Paridon, Dementlieu definitely taps into the Gothic Urban Horror motif, as is made clear by the way it is home to myriad mystical mind-manipulators and the character Alanik Ray, who is basically Sherlock Holmes if he was an [[elf]]. It's considered the "cultural heart" of the Core.

=====Falkovnia=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains
::Motif: Military Horror, Fascism, Urban Squalor
::[[Darklord]]: Vlad Drakov

Slap together Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, paint it up in the most shit-awful and miserable stereotypes of Dark Ages Europe, and have the place be run by a man who melds Hitler with Vlad the Impaler and is so bloodthirsty they'd both be disgusted by him. Falkovnia is outright called the biggest shithole in the Demiplane of Dread.

=====Forlorn=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Dreary Scotland with a dash of Brak Man Morn
::[[Darklord]]: Tristen ApBlanc

A vaguely Scottish Celtic themed domain that nobody gives a shit about because there's nothing in it but killer plants, giant bugs, and [[goblyn]]s. 3e tried to fix this by adding a small population of native humans, but the overall domain is still a monster-infested backwoods, so nobody fucking cares. As for its resident asshole, ApBlanc is a [[vampyre]] by day, and a ghost by night, proving once and for all that the Dark Powers do, indeed, have a sense of humor.

=====Hazlan=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Hills, Mountains & Plains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy meets Yellow Peril
::[[Darklord]]: Hazlik

Essentially a tiny sliver of [[Thay]] transplanted into the Demiplane of Dread, where a tiny minutia (the Mulan ethnicity) rules over and brutally represses a far vaster majority (the Rashemani). One of only two places so absolutely shit that [[The Lawgiver]] is actually worshipped here.

=====Invidia=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Lethally Impulsive Stupidity
::[[Darklord]]: Gabrielle Aderre

A land of passionate, hot-blooded and constantly feuding individuals, including mercenary armies, ogres, giants, and wolfweres. The [[Vistani]] are executed on sight here, and as such, its hunter-mercenaries are on the collective shit-list of both Strahd von Zerovich and Ivan Dilisnya.

=====Kartakass=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
::[[Darklord]]: Meistersinger Harkon Lukas

A rural backwoods inhabited by proud, cocky, music-loving foresters who are quite happy with the way things are, thank you. They are totally oblivious to the population of [[wolfwere]]s hiding amongst them.

=====Keening=====
::Cultural Level: None (formerly Chivalric)
::Landscape: Temperate Mountains (Bleached of Life)
::Motif: Endless Grief
::[[Darklord]]: Tristessa the Banshee

A cursed and forsaken realm, with a population consisting solely of its mad, grief-stricken [[banshee]] [[darklord]], her court of half-insane [[undead]] [[fey]], and a village of [[skeleton]]s that constantly mime out the actions of their last day.

=====Lamordia=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Mad Science ala Frankenstein
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Mordenheim & Adam

A stuffy, tempest-lashed domain that prides itself on its scientific acumen and its staunch rationalistic beliefs, totally denying the fantastical nature of the world around them.

=====Mordent=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Plains & Swamps
::Motif: Ghost-Haunted Rural Britain/Scotland
::[[Darklord]]: Lord Wilfred Godefroy

It's basically the setting for every ghost-related Gothic Horror novel ever written. High concentration of both incorporeal undead and mist creatures in a land dotted by small villages sheltering the living. Is also full of ancient ruined manors, decaying coats of arms and dying or dead noble families, furthering that neo-Britain impression by casting it as the decaying remnants of a once-mighty civilization. The false history implies they share a mutual background with Borca, perhaps having originated from the same nameless fantasy world.

=====Necropolis=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Temperate Settled Area
::Motif: City of the Dead
::[[Darklord]]: Death

Once a bustling metropolis in Darkon called Il Aluk, the place was destroyed and turned into a city of sapient undead creatures protected behind a mystical veil that kills and reanimates any living humanoids that enter. This was caused by Azalin achieving an epic-level fuck up with his magic. Generally considered the worst domain in the Core because you can't go in there without being transformed into an [[undead]], which in AD&D came with associated rules that, in the grand tradition of [[Ravenloft]], utterly fucked you over pretty much from the get-go. Its Darklord, "Death", is an uber-powerful ghost with hyper-lethal abilities that was created from a clone of Azalin and which has gone absolutely insane, believing itself to be the literal spirit of death.

=====Nova Vaasa=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Russia under Peter the Great
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Tristen Hiregaard/Malken

A horse-filled steppeland dominated by sweeping grassy plains and crushing urban poverty and squalor, presided over by a mixture of corrupt aristocrats and Lawful Good types who view "law" as more important than "good". This is the ''other'' domain shitty enough to have [[The Lawgiver]] as the state religion, and is such a hellhole that ''Barovians'' look down on its people as backward hicks.

=====Richemulot=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Wererat Land
::[[Darklord]]: Jacqueline Renier

A pseudo-French domain distinguished mostly by being the largest breeding ground of [[wererat]]s in the entire demiplane. The name is literally French for "Rich Mouse", which pretty much gives the game away from the start if you know the language..

=====The Shadow Rift=====
::Cultural Level: Unknowable
::Landscape: Eternally Dark Mysical
::Motif: Dark Faerie Tales
::[[Darklord]]: Gwydion the Shadow Fiend

This is the homeland of the [[Shadow Fey]], and as such no mortals know anything about the place. The court is found at the bottom of a chasm filled with mist, protecting it from the sun, as well as erasing anything stupid enough to try penetrating so deeply into said-mist. In classic Faerie fashion, time works differently here, with a fortnight outside equaling a year ''inside.''

=====Sithicus=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Declining [[Elf]] Kingdom
::[[Darklord]]: Inza Kulchevitch

The only domain in the Core that has a [[demihuman]] majority population, this was formerly the domain of [[Lord Soth]], and is thus loosely based on the [[Dragonlance]] setting. May or may not contain vampire [[kender]].

=====Tepest=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Grim Faerie Tales Europe meets Salem Witch Trials
::[[Darklord]]: The Sisters Mindefisk

Hands down one of the most primitive and worthless backwaters in the Core, Tepest's trio of [[hag]] [[darklord]]s are practically non-entities in their own land, with the focus instead being on how the ignorant superstitious peasantry are falling increasingly under the sway of a self-righteous inquisition of self-proclaimed [[fey]]-hunters and [[witch]]-burners. The sisters ''do'' fan the flames of said-group so they can harvest the bodies of anyone condemned, but mostly stick to hiding in their cottage.

=====Valachan=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: African Savages
::[[Darklord]]: Baron Urik von Kharkov

A rugged wilderness inhabited by dusky-skinned foresters who take pride in their absolute ignorance when it comes to book-learning or anything not related to the practicalities of forest-work, to the point they even look down upon their own priests. Befittingly, this leaves them too ignorant to realize they are being eaten alive by a hidden population of [[nosferatu]] and [[werepanther]]s.

=====Verbrek=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Swamps
::Motif: Werewolf Country
::[[Darklord]]: Alfred Timothy

The obligatory [[werewolf]] domain, to contrast the Dracula and Frankenstein ones. Everybody here knows the wilderness (as embodied by the werewolves) is at their door, and live accordingly. This domain was originally called '''Arkandale''' and was run by Alfred's father, Nathan, until he lost the Dark Powers' interest by actually making peace with his lot in life and coming to enjoy being a riverboating casino owner, even if it did mean no longer being able to hunt on the land.

[[Quoth the Raven]] #1 offers an alternative take on the domain where Nathan reclaims it after Alfred's werewolf supremacist cult causes a deadly famine and then civil war amongst the local lycanthropes, which leads to it being renamed Arkandale once more.

===The Seas===
The Core is surrounded by two seas; the Nocturnal Sea and the Sea of Sorrows, which are technically their own unique Clusters that just so happen to adjoin the Core. Because of this, they're put in their own specific sections.

====The Sea of Sorrows====
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Pieter van Riese

This is the Western Sea of the Core, a cold, stormy, mist- (and Mist-)haunted expanse of water populated by various islands, representing the scattered domains of lesser Darklords. Its own "true" Darklord is Captain Pieter van Riese; a [[ghost]] based on the legendary Flying Dutchman who has perhaps the greatest freedom of any Darklord in Ravenloft - he can even leave his ship to go on land and enter other domains! This is because his curse is to ''never'' be able to find his own way, but instead to only be able to take others to where they want to go.

=====Carcharodon Isle=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Hills
::Motif: <s>Ladyhawke</s> Parted Lovers
::[[Darklord]]: Alison Marjory and Sean Mako

An island cursed with two darklords; a fisherman turned [[wereshark]] and a [[merfolk|mermaid]]-turned-human turned [[seawolf]], whose curses prevent them from ever meeting in their human forms. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====Markovia=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Warm Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: The Island of Dr. Moreau
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Markov

It's literally just the Island of Dr Moreau in D&D. That's it. Originally part of the Core, but was moved out to the Sea of Sorrows as a result of the [[Grand Conjunction]]. Nothing here except the [[Darklord]], his [[Broken One]] minions, and a small temple of priests dedicated to guarding a powerful evil artifact that would be of great interest to the Darklord.

=====Blaustein=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Bluebeard

A small island consisting of a castle and a single village, whose population are fanatically loyal to the blue-bearded master of the castle above.

=====Demise=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Althea

A rocky island made from a mostly cooled volcano, this is basically a glorified dungeon that serves as the prison of the [[medusa]] Althea. Fans have tried to expand this by adding the ghost of her murdered [[maedar]] husband (arguably a much better candidate for the darklord) and her maedar son, who hates both of his crazy parents and wants off this godsforsaken rock.

=====Dominia=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Insanity and Institutional Abuse
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth

A small island that houses the most famous (if not only) insane asylum in all of the Core. A pity it's actually a nest of cerebral vampires, ruled over a crazed psychiatrist determined to push the studies of inflicting madness and terror to their absolute limit.

=====Ghastria=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Stezen D'Polarno

A surprisingly grim and colorless place which grows abundant food that, mysteriously, holds no taste when consumed.

====The Nocturnal Sea====
::[[Darklord]]: Meredoth

The cold and dismal Eastern Sea of the Core, which only emerged from the Mists after the events of the [[Grand Conjunction]], ruled over by Meredoth, an epic-level [[Necromancer]] from Glantri in [[Mystara]]. Although strongly associated with ''Graben Island'', which is where "his" people live, Meredoth can actually travel the Sea at will, and in fact lairs himself on the wintery isle of ''Todstein''. Like the Sea of Sorrows, there are plenty of other domains scattered around the Nocturnal Sea ruled over by their own lords.

=====Isle of the Ravens=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: The Lady of Ravens

A deserted island home only to its darklord, an insane but powerful sorceress from a [[Gormentghast]]ian family, and her legions of raven and [[fey]] servants. Whilst it was first mentioned in official media, appearing in brief summary in the writeup of the Nocturnal Sea in the Domains of Dread revised campaign setting, it was fans who fleshed it out; the Isle of the Ravens first received a writeup in the [[Books of S|Book of Sacrifices]], before later being revisited in [[Quoth the Raven]] #13.

=====L'ile de la Tempete=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Alain Monette

A rocky and treacherous island whose lighthouse serves only to lure sailors to their doom upon its shores.

=====Liffe=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Baron Evensong or Assorted Demilords

A surprisingly large and fertile island, with one of the biggest and most welcoming populations of any island-domains in the Nocturnal Sea. Originally ruled by Baron Evensong, although the fanmade Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer downgraded him to one of a cluster of different super-minor darklords.

=====Locknar Cove=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Cold, eroded hills and thick, old growth forest
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

A quiet, humble island of fisherfolk that lies off the combined shorelines of Darkon and Nova Vassa, close to the isle of Liffe. Hidden at its core like a toad in a stone, the ghost of an avaricious pirate who valued wealth beyond his own life guards a vast treasure hoard. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

===The Clusters===
====The Amber Wastes====
::Motif: Dark Fantasy [[Egypt]]

It's Gothic Horror Egypt in D&D. What more is there to say? Its constituent domains are ''Har'Akir'', ''Sebua'', and ''Pharazia''.

=====Har'Akir=====
::Cultural Level: Bronze Age
::Landscape: Desert and Badlands
::Motif: Mummy Horror Movies
::[[Darklord]]: Anhtepot

''Har'Akir'' is a tiny little village of Egyptian peasants who live next to a tomb housing the [[darklord]] Ankhtepot, a pharaoh who blasphemed against the gods and was condemned to both eternity as a [[mummy]] and to be trapped in obscurity with only a single village of humble peasants to "lord over".

=====Sebua=====
::Cultural Level: Bronze Age Darklord, Stone Age natives
::Landscape: Desert Wasteland
::Motif: Mummy Horror meets Ghost Horror
::[[Darklord]]: Tiyet

''Sebua'' consists of an abandoned Egyptian manor next to an oasis haunted by both a tribe of feral children, who inhabit the nearby ruins of a fallen city, and the [[darklord]] Tiyet, a unique female [[mummy]] who appears as a gorgeous woman... save for her insatiable hunger for human hearts.

=====Pharazia=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape: Deserts, Oases, Rivers
::Motif: Arabian Nights Horror meets Religious Fundamentalism
::[[Darklord]]: Diamabel
''Pharazia'' is a pseudo-Arabian city-state ruled over by its [[darklord]] Diamabel; a moralistic fanatic who led a campaign of genocidal terror in life, when felled by an arrow he arose as the shining [[angel]] he always wanted to become... only to find he transformed into a hideous [[undead]] version of himself at night.

====The Burning Peaks====
::Motif: [[Dark Fantasy]]

A two-domain cluster made up of ''Cavitus'', the realm of [[Vecna]], and ''Tovag'', the realm of [[Kas]].

=====Cavitus=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Negative Energy-Infused Wasteland
::Motif: Cartoonish [[Necromancer]]-Ruled Hellhole
::[[Darklord]]: [[Vecna]]

=====Tovag=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Mountains, Scrub Pine Forests
::Motif: [[Vampire]]s, War Horror
::[[Darklord]]: [[Kas]]

====The Frozen Reaches====
::Motif: Dark Fantasy Russia

It's basically the frozen wintery hell that everybody imagines that Russia is transplanted into D&D. Its constituent domains are ''Sanguinia'' and ''Vorostokov'',

=====Sanguina=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Prince Ladislav Mircea

Sanguina is an Early Medieval Russian kingdom ruled over by Prince Ladislav Mircea, a self-centered [[alchemist]] who accidentally transformed himself into a [[mutant]] [[vampire]], possibly a [[Vrykolaka]], that feeds on the Four Humours (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile) in an effort to save himself from a deadly plague.

=====Vorostokov=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Boyar Gregor Zolnik

Vorostokov is a frigid Dark Ages wasteland of villages and forests trapped in a perpetual winter, ruled over by the [[Loup du Noir]] Boyar Gregor Zolnik.

====The Shadowlands====
::Motif: Medieval Dark Fantasy

Intimately tied to a single world, the Shadowlands are made up of three domains that all tie to one long story of corruption; ''Avonleigh'', ''Nidala'', and ''Shadowborn Manor''.

=====Avonleigh=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Morgoroth the Black

Avonleigh is a monster-haunted forest ruled over by the [[darklord]] Morgoroth the Black, a [[planeswalker]] [[wizard]] who traveled to the homeland of the three domains and ended up destroying the not!Arthurian court there through accident. He is now trapped as a ephemeral shade unless the enchanted mirror that trapped him in this state is reassembled in his former mansion home.

=====Shadowborn Manor=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Ebonbane

Shadowborn Manor is a manor other than Morgoroth's that is the resting place of Ebonbane, a raging fiend trapped in a sword, which is itself trapped in a crystal sarcophagus. Ebonbane is so dangerous that Morgoroth actually uses his magic to assist in keeping the damn thing locked up.

=====Nidala=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Elena Faith-Hold

Nidala is the only actually populated domain, and is ruled over by the self-righteous fanatical fallen [[paladin]] Elena Faith-Hold.

====The Verduous Lands====
::Motif: Tropical Dark Fantasy

The hot and humid hellholes, full of deadly predators and equally deadly plants. For some reason the moon is never seen here.

=====Saragoss=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Draga Saltbiter

Saragoss is an oceanic domain; a vast entangling sargassum patch full of wrecked ships crawling with [[ghoul]]s and cannibal [[pirate]]s above and [[sahuagin]] and [[shark]]s below, with a self-loathing [[wereshark]] [[pirate]] and [[cleric]] of [[Umberlee]] for a [[darklord]].

=====The Wildlands=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape: Tropical Jungles and Swamps
::Motif: Twisted Animal Fables
::[[Darklord]]: King Crocodile

The Wildlands are basically [[grimdark]] Jungle Book; a tropical jungle full of asshole talking animals ruled over by the monstrous King Crocodile.

=====Sri Raji=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Rain forests, hills, and mountains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy India / Sri Lanka
::[[Darklord]]: Maharaja Arijani

''Formerly'' an Island of Terror, Sri Raji is a domain in the Verduous Lands cluster ruled by the [[Rakshasa]] Maharaja Arijani. The Verduous Lands cluster does not have a moon with potentially interesting consequences for lycanthropes having some part of the lunar cycle as their trigger condition. Equally, there should be no tides. Most of the human inhabitants of Sri Raji congregate in three cities, each located surprisingly close to the domain border. A fourth city, Mahakala, is less populated and commonly referred to as "accursed". It's basically Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but with more [[rakshasa]]s, [[beastfolk]] and giant insects.

====Zherisia====
::Motif: Urban Dark Fantasy

Differentiating itself from other clusters, Zherisia is composed of the city domain of ''Paridon'' and ''Timor'', a former Island of Terror now transformed into the sewers underneath Paridon.

=====Paridon=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Urban
::Motif: Gothic-Era Urban Horror
::[[Darklord]]:Sodo

Paridon is a sprawling London-esque city infested with a uniquely powerful strain of [[doppelganger]]s, whose [[darklord]] is a many-cursed psychotic doppelganger named Sodo.

=====Timor=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Underground Tunnels
::Motif: Monsters From Below
::[[Darklord]]: The Marikith Queen

Timor is a dripping hive of tunnels infested by xenomorph expies called Marikith.

====Republica de Neuva Aragona====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Tropical Jungle Islands

A two-domain cluster made up of neighboring isles in a tropical ocean known to its inhabitants as Mar de Lagrimas (the Sea of Tears), both themed after the Spanish colonies of South America. Unusually, the two domains are historically linked; both were connected to the same history involving the "native" colonists rising up against the rule of the motherland of Aragona and fighting for their indepence, which led to the two primary land-masses - the island of '''Resistencia''' and the mainland of '''Maconda''' each gaining a [[Darklord]] out of that initial struggle. It appears in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Resistencia=====
Resistencia is haunted by the [[ghost]] of Don Santiago de Quijada y Alvarez, the leader of the failed army sent by the motherland to quash the independence revolution.

=====Maconda=====
Maconda, on the other hand, is led openly and in darkness by the man who led the independence revolution: the [[wereananconda]] President-General Martin Jose Maconda.

====Colonies of the Holy Empire====
An unusual [[netbook]] cluster in that it's not technically presented ''as'' a cluster. The Colonies of the Holy Empire are a collective of domains that all draw from the same homeworld, a pastiche of Central/South America and its invasion by the Spanish Conquistadors, which appeared in the [[Books of S]] [[netbook]]s. Despite this shared origin, they are not presented as being geographically linked in the usual way of a cluster. ''Mictlan'' appeared in the Book of Shadows, whilst ''Igid Rabi-i'' and ''Cumbre de Oro'' both appeared in the Book of Sacrifices.

=====Mictlan=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Tropical Jungle
::[[Darklord]]: Commander Hernando Mouriros

A pastiche of the [[Aztec]] empire, the invasion of an army from a mysterious Chivalric realm has destabilize the realm and caused it to begin falling apart into civil war. And all the while, the invaders, cursed to never die unless they can conquer all of Mictlan, press on desperately in an attempt to end their long and bloody campaign.

=====Igid Rabi-i=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric, Classical or Dark Ages, depending on region
::[[Darklord]]: Arcapatos Miguel Agustin

A deeply spiritual domain wracked with internal conflict, for its leader is a priest who cares nothing for the realm, and everything for chasing a "holy relic" that evades his every attempt to grasp it.

=====Cumbre de Oro=====
::Cultural Level: Savage (Iron Age ruins, Medieval Avaricios)
::[[Darklord]]: Anibal Coronado

A cursed city of vast riches, a pastiche of El Dorado, haunted by the undead remnants of an explorer's party that gave their lives to find those riches and still refused to stop searching for wealth. This domain is actually a part of the larger Mictlan domain.

===The Islands of Terror===
=====Arlington Farm=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance decayed to Dark Ages
::Landscape: Single large wheat & corn farm
::Motif: Killer Scarecrows
::[[Darklord]]: Henry Arlington

The cursed farm of a farmer so obsessed with the success of his land that he not only killed to acquire it, but he began performing blood rites to ensure its success, murdering people and hiding their bodies in his scarecrows. Eventually, his cursed creations turned on him and turned him into one of them. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Bluetspur=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Age
::Landscape: Temperate hills, plains, and mountains
::Motif: [[Yog-Sothothery]]
::[[Darklord]]: The [[Illithid]] God-Brain

Meaning "Blood Trail" in German, it's a desolate wasteland with nightly, violent electrical storms on the surface. Beneath the surface lie the maddening and sprawling cities of illithids and their tortured and experimented slaves. This is also the home of the infamous Vampiric Mind Flayers, a creature that is technically indestructible in AD&D.

=====Callista=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Flooded Islets
::Motif: Gothic Vienna
::[[Darklord]]: Rafe Ungard

A once large island that has been reduced to tiny islets by intense flooding, peopled with a passionately chivalric (in the sense of "women are sacred and must be protected") people who claim to be the ''true'' [[Vistani]], ignorant of the fact that they are actually the cursed reincarnations of the true Vistani seen elsewhere in the Misty Realms. Because only 20% of their children are girls, they are overwhelmingly, patronizingly chivalric, and will sooner die than hurt women. The realm is also home to a large population of [[Paka]], who believe it to be a defiled holy site and hate the Callistans passionately. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Davion=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Shifts
::Motif: Dueling Psyches
::[[Darklord]]: Davion the Mad

A twisting realm that was created when a miscast Wish spell merged the mindscapes of the wizard Davion and his three hirelings - the male [[mage]] Ausgustus, the male [[fighter]] Boromar, and the female [[cleric]] of [[Loviatar]] Narana - into a single unit, leaving them struggling for dominion.

=====The Eternal Torture=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Decaying Sailing Ship
::Motif: [[Ghoul]] Ship
::[[Darklord]]: Miles Havelocke

The cursed ship of Miles Havelocke, a mutineer who led his crew to commit cannibalism upon the loyal members of the crew. Now a crew of [[ghast]]s, they endlessly search for land, attacking and feeding upon any unlucky ships they encounter as their passage leads them to the Nocturnal Sea, the Sea of Sorrows, and the oceans off all other domains, but never to the land they desperately wish to reach. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Farelle=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Woodlands
::Motif: Acceptance of Self
::[[Darklord]]: Jark Karn, The Jackal Who Would Not Be A Coward

An island splinter of the Wildlands, inhabited by a burgeoning population who are genuinely warm, welcoming and thriving. A pity that this is the manifestation of the darklord's curse. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====G'Henna=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Cold and temperate hills, plains, mountains, and deserts
::Motif: Corrupt [[Theocracy]]
::[[Darklord]]: Yagno Petrovna

Here a starving population works the fields to produce food to be sacrificed for the god [[Zhakata]]. Unfortunately the god doesn't exist and priests of the god eat the offerings, while the farmers starve themselves waiting for a god that will never come.

=====The House of Lament=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Mansion
::Motif: Haunted/Evil House
::[[Darklord]]: The House Itself

The House of Lament is a cursed structure that is simultaneous domain and darklord; a haunted structure that demands the sacrifice of human souls in an effort to quell its inescapable loneliness.

=====I'Cath=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Temperate Forest
::Motif: [[Oriental Adventures|Chinese Ghost Stories]]
::[[Darklord]]: Tsien Chiang

A tiny Island of Terror inhabited only by its Darklord and her four daughters - the three evil daughters Hate, Spite and Scream, all of whom are variant Con-tinh (evil spirit women), and the benevolent, tormented good daughter Nightingale. Her domain is similar to Forlorn in that it's basically a glorified dungeon, with literally nothing to do except show up and defeat the Darklord or die trying, except it's [[Oriental Adventures|Chinese]], not Scottish. Tsien Chiang is a misandrist [[necromancer]] from [[Kara-tur]], based on an ''incredibly'' minor character from the [[Forgotten Realms]] lore. She can also transform into an evil [[Treant]].

=====Immerabt=====
::Cultural Level: Late Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate & Cold Plains, Mountains and Aquatic
::Motif: When Death Becomes Relief
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Dorothy Hemphyll

An incredibly advanced domain whose scientific prowess can challenge that of Lamordia's, especially in medical sciences. It bulges with life to the point of being overrun with it, and yet death is a mercy that all too few can find, especially under the watchful eye of the Healer's Guild. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Incitatus=====
::Cultural Level: Classical reduced to Stone Age
::Landscape: Desolate, Lifeless City and rural surroundings
::Motif: Scientific Hubris Brings Apocalypse
::[[Darklord]]: Ahasveros

The lifeless remains of what was once a great scientific civilization, one that destroyed itself attempting to harness the power of the sea to annihilate an enemy nation with an artificially created tidal wave. Now, all that remains is the reclusive ghostly remains of the scientist who created that tidal wave, and destroyed his own people with it. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Kalidnay=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Desert
::Motif: [[Dark Sun|Athas]]
::[[Darklord]]: Thakok-An

The city and lands surrounding Kalidnay in Athas, which are nothing but ruins within [[Dark Sun]]'s setting proper. Its inhabitants actually prefer the Demiplane of Dread to actually living in Athas. Just let that sink in.

=====Karss=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Massive Prison in the middle of nowhere
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Warden Jonar Tamh

Formerly the Great Prison of the [[Harmonium]], an experiment in reformation-focused incarceration launched by the Hardheads on the faction's homeworld of Ortho, the warden's descent into cruelty and draconian punishments in defiance of the experiment's focus led to its being ripped from Ortho and stranded in the Mists. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Kislova=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Mountainous Grasslands
::Motif: Futility of Power Behind the Throne
::[[Darklord]]: Baroness Ilsabet Obour

A domain adapted from the Ravenloft novel "Baroness of Blood", ruled over by a malevolent [[alchemist]] turned pain-eating monster. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====The Lost Wizard's Tower=====
::Cultural Level: Savage, vestiges of Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forest & Hills
::Motif: Obsessive Love
::[[Darklord]]: [[Jinx]]

Once, there was a cat; a [[familiar]] to a powerful [[alchemist]] and [[transmuter]] named Margaret Landsdale. Then she grew overbold with her experiments and tested a formula on her familiar in order to enhance his intelligence. It worked all too well; now, Jinx could think as well as any human... and get jealous. That jealousy led to her death, and now it leads to the death of any arcane spellcaster whom Jinx tries to take as her replacement. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Miseria=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate hills, forests, caves
::Motif: Ghostly Hauntings
::[[Darklord]]: Cassandre Desesprits

A rugged and inhospitable land whose people struggle to survive and put food on the tables, all whilst dealing with the vast legions of ghosts that haunt the realm. And nobody suspects that a humble barmaid with a heart full of spite and selfishness is the ultimate cause for their damnation. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====The Nightmare Lands=====
::Cultural Level: None
::Landscape: Ever-Changing
::Motif: Nightmares
::[[Darklord]]: The Nightmare Man and his Nightmare Court

A strange realm that exists halfway between the Demiplane of Dread and the [[Plane of Dreams]], ruled over by Darklord-like figures who live to visit mortals with nightmares and ultimately draw them into complete insanity.

=====The Northlands=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric declined to Medieval, Early Medieval declined to Dark Ages
::Landscape: Temperate forests, hills, mountains, plains, swamps
::Motif: [[Vikings]]
::[[Darklord]]: Jarl Gravstein Hansen

A land patterned after the ancient Norse lands, where one Jarl's selfishness is causing the decline of everything his people had worked for. This netbook canon domain debuted in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002, and was revisited in its 2003 issue.

=====Nosos=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Polluted Hellscape
::Motif: Rampant Pollution, Capitalism Gone Wrong
::[[Darklord]]: Malus Sceleris

A hellish polluted pit of a domain, where disease runs rampant amidst mountains of filth and sewerage in a sky clouded with fumes, smoke and gas.

=====Nzari=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age, Renaissance in Mr. Klein's camp
::Landscape: Tropical Rainforest
::Motif: Darkest Africa
::[[Darklord]]: Gatwe and Mr. Klein.

A domain inspired by the Darkest Africa tropes in general and the novel Heart of Darkness in particular. A land of cannibalistic natives, jungle monsters, and a brutal overlord who thinks of himself as the civilizing force, begging the question: "who is the real savage?" This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2003.

=====Odiare=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate settled area
::Motif: Twisted Pinocchio
::[[Darklord]]: Maligno

Island from [[Masque of the Red Death|Gothic Earth's]] Italy, populated by children and the [[carrionette]]s who killed the adults that used to live here. Naturally, all the kiddos are quite concerned about what'll happen when they're old enough to be labeled an adult.

=====Olympus=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Temeprate Forest & Hills, Cold Mountains, Warm Aquatic
::Motif: Greek Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Hercules

A pastiche of mythological Greece, ruled over by a pantheon of Living Gods - fallen heroes who have taken the identities of the Greek Deities as their own. And the once shining hope against those cruel, petty deities is in fact the worst of them all. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====The Raging Tears=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Single Rotting Ship
::Motif: Ghost Ship
::[[Darklord]]: Urdogen "The Red"

The cursed vessel of a long-forgotten pirate from [[Forgotten Realms|Faerun]], whose restless soul is condemned to wander the seas forever and never attain the power he once knew as the feared pirate king of the Inner Sea of Faerun. Whilst the ghost ship can be found in any sea in the Demiplane, or even sometimes beyond, its physical remains lie in the Sea of Sorrows, and must be found if one would put Urdogen to his long-cheated fate. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====Rokushima Táiyoo=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape: Archipelago with forests, hills, and mountains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy Japan
::[[Darklord]]: Haki Shinpi

Four islands surrounded by a poisonous salt water ocean. Each island's ruler hates the others, whilst the Darklord (their father) is forced to watch as they tear apart his dreams of unity and peace. It's also the home of the [[Akikage]] (ghost ninjas), [[Hebi-no-Onna]]s (snake women), and [[Kizoku]] (vampiric womanizers). Despite a Dark Ages cultural level, it's interested in the gunpowder weapons of Dementlieu and Darkon. Fun fact: the ''Anesthesia'' spell is popular here, as its use allows the dying to face death with a clear mind, and thus die with honor.

Strangely, the capitals of the four warring brothers have the Japanese names of various real world countries: Beikoku (米国, United States of America), Eikoku (英国, England), Chuugoka (corruption of 中国, China), and Roshiya (Literally just Russia said funny). As long as it sounds Japanese! Sadly, that's more than can be said for the Dark Lord's name...

=====Romagna=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Mild Plains and Forests
::Motif: Eternal Love
::[[Darklord]]: Serenissa D'Aubliet

A peaceful and gentle agricultural domain that seems free of the darkness of other, grimmer realms. But its shadows still linger, in the form of a spectral darklord who, whilst powerless to affect the natives, has no such restrictions against preying on visitors. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====Saarkaath=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Mountains, Forest
::Motif: Blood Purity
::[[Darklord]]: Hakaan na Uruk

A realm of [[half-orc]]s turned inwards into a brutal and pointless butchery, where the inhabitants try to claim "purity" of either [[human]] or [[orc]]ish heritage despite all being mixed race. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====San Bartolome=====
::Cultural Level: Middle Ages
::Landscape: Warm, Rugged, Mountainous
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Isabel de Sargas

A theocratic tropical paradise that is obsessed with the need to attain spiritual purification through righteous behavior and serial reincarnation. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====Scaena=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: The inside of a theater
::Motif: Mad Artistry
::[[Darklord]]: Lemot Sediam Juste

The personal theatre of Lemot Sediam Juste, who went insane and murdered his entire cast of actors, then burned down the theatre with himself in it, all because he couldn't accept that he was only good at writing comedies and he was a fucking terrible author of tragedies. Now it wanders the Misty Realms, luring in victims to serve as cast and audience alike, all ultimately to meet destruction.

=====Seradan=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temeprate Forests, Hills
::Motif: [[Stupid Nuetral]]
::[[Darklord]]: Geren Horstadt

A domain from which all of the metaphorical life has been sapped; a dull and colorless place of dull and colorless people, its inhabitants almostly aggressively average, sluggish and dreamy in their actions. All the better to torment its darklord. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Secrets.

=====Souragne=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Tropical Swamps
::Motif: Southern Gothic
::[[Darklord]]: Anton Misroi

It's basically the Ravenloft version of the Antebellum South as a whole and New Orleans in particular.

=====Staunton Bluffs=====
::Cultural Level: Middle Ages
::Landscape: Cold Prairies and Forests
::Motif: Cowardice and treachery
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Torrence Bleysmith

A small realm of prairies, overseen by the mad, bitter ghost of the man who caused the downfall of the people who once dwelled here.

=====Stonewall=====
::Cultural Level: Civalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Mountains
::Motif: Puritan Intolerance
::[[Darklord]]: Bethany Stone

Once a small town near Salem, Massachusetts in the real world - or at least its Gothic Earth analogue, Stonewall has been ripped from its moorings and cast into the myths thanks to the machinations of its darklord; a woman so self-righteous and hateful that she killed her own daughter to carry on her moral crusade. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Tower of the Phantom Lover=====
::Cultural Level: NA
::Landscape: Tower over underground labyrinth
::Motif: Sexual Predation
::[[Darklord]]: The Phantom Lover

The mysterious hideaway of the malevolent spirit known as the Phantom Lover, who seeks to seduce and then slaughter women pining for lost love.

=====Tsuu-y-Teke=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Warm Deserts, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Desert Country Native American Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Heresa Heri, The Vulture King

A domain inspired by the myths of desert-dwelling Native American cultures. A realm of seemingly eternal day, haunted by a malevolent vulture-spirit who once tried to steal all the lights of day and night for himself. Netbook canon. First appeared in the [[Books of S|Book of Shadows]] for 2e, then was updated to 3e in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Vechor=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Warm Forests, Hills & Swamps
::Motif: Insanity Made Real
::[[Darklord]]: Easan the Mad

A vaguely India-esque domain ruled over by an insane [[elf]] [[wizard]] who has the power to reshape the surroundings based on his current mad whim.

=====Vin'Ejal=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Arctic Coastal Mountain
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Benada Nameless

A frigid island that drifts in an icy sea, whose people struggle to survive in the face of the eternal winter and the packs of [[seawolf|seawolves]] haunting their rich seas, haunted by a most unusual darklord; a [[yuan-ti]]-blooded [[weresnake]]! Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====Vulnara=====
::Cultural Level: Late Chivalric to Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Mountains
::Motif: All-Consuming Bitterness
::[[Darklord]]: Kasselheim Blightlyng

A realm of unusually somber and technology-focused [[gnome]]s and [[svirfneblin]], shaped by the prejudices of a bitter, self-loathing, humor-hating gnomish [[vampire]] cursed with failing senses and growing madness. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Vultharesk=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages, Renaissance on the Godwyn Estate
::Landscape: Cold Mountains
::Motif: Moral Guardianship
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Trevor Godwyn, "The Mirror Man"

A strict, almost puritanical domain obsessed with the necessities of survival and averse to all things that are not "right" or "proper". But this attitude is not born out of morals or self-righteousness, but fear, for they are haunted by an ever-present spirit who will punish those that fails to live up to his strict sense of decency. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Shadows.

=====Wayward on the Bone Sands=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Barren Desert
::Motif: Cannibalism, Killer Kids
::[[Darklord]]: Caleb Wicks

A cursed desert village of former humans turned into [[quevari]] after being seduced into genocide against (and cannibalism of) their [[gnome]] neighbors by the malicious child cannibal Caleb Wicks. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Secrets.

=====Whal=====
::Cultural Level: Renaisssance
::Landscape: Cold Forested Hills
::Motif: Moby Dick
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Jacobi Robertsonn

A sturdy, practical domain dedicated to the hunting of fish, seals and whales... no mean feat when your land is home to the demiplane's largest congregation of [[wereorca]]s. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====The Winding Road=====
::Cultural Level: Nonexistent
::Landscape: Random road
::Motif: Random Encounter
::[[Darklord]]: The Headless Horseman

Hands down one of the worst Domains in classical Ravenloft, the Winding Road is a glorified random encounter in which the party is suddenly attacked by the Headless Horseman, a powerful [[undead]] warrior mounted on horseback. Who is he? Well, there's three stories about where he came from. The first one is that he was an innocent man executed by Drakov's men. The second one is that he was a man who chopped off his own head rather than be killed by one of Strahd's men. And the third is that he was a bard who failed to entertain Ivana Boritsi as she bathed, so she chopped off his head and mixed his blood into her bathwater. If you think that none of those sound like a Darklord's backstory, you're not wrong. Oh, and you also have to fight the undead severed heads that precede and then follow the Horseman's run-by attack, which includes several [[medusa]] heads.

=====Yatehcaa=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Mountains, High Desert
::Motif: Native American Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Coyote

A domain based on certain Native American myths, where the people live simple, happy lives, whilst trying to avoid the attentions of the malicious trickster and fallen hero-deity Coyote. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

==Cyre?==
In [[Eberron]], the nation of Cyre was destroyed in the Day of Mourning, leaving only the [[Mournland]] behind. That Cyre became a Demiplane of Dread is perhaps the most common theory on the origin of the Mournland within the fandom, as it checks all the boxes for explanations.
*The Mournland stops at Cyre’s artificial, political, borders and thus had to be caused by some intelligent actor. The Dark Powers certainly count. It also explains why it stops so exactly at the water that the docks were left behind.
*The Mournland’s border is a wall of “dead-gray mist”. The link is obvious. In 4th Edition, this dead-gray mist supernaturally drains people of hope.
*The Forge of War states that Dannel ir'Wynarn insistence that the crown of Galifar belonged to her was the only thing keeping the Last War going, making her prime Darklord material.
*Dark Sun material describes Kalidnay as having been destroyed by "unknown disaster" that left it only "a jumble of ruins". The ruins in the Mournland are described being "moved", "rearranged", "turned 90 degrees", or "found miles from where war-era maps say they should be", which certainly can be described as a "jumble". The one adventure that travels to the ruined city (DSM2) mentions several structures remain intact, and many appear to be ruins purely because they're centuries old, which fits the multiple Mournland adventures with surviving structures, and several people seem to have died suddenly in a way that their body was intact. (While some of the Mournland's signature features are absent, all outside descriptions of Kalidnay are centuries after the fact while all descriptions of the Mournland are 0-4 years after its creation.)

None of this will ever be confirmed, and it’s unlikely to be anti-confirmed, as the truth of the Mourning is one of Eberron’s mysteries that exists to have no answer but what the [[Dungeon Master]] gives them. The setting's creator has however concurred it's a good option if one wanted some bit of Eberron in Ravenloft.

The theory received a bit of a nod in 5th edition with the reveal of a new Domain of Dread that is a fragment of Cyre that was taken by the mists on the Day of Mourning.

==4th Edition: Islands of Terror==
In the [[World Axis]], the idea of the Demiplane of Dread being its own independent universe was basically dropped. The idea, however, remained in the form of the ''Domains of Dread''; regions in the [[Shadowfell]] created in response to great evils in the Material World, essentially mimicking the Islands of Terror format of the Demiplane, but with one major difference: these Domains are still part of the Shadowfell as a whole. As a result, if you can find the rite or secret or whatever it is that grants you passage, then you can flee the Domain through its misty veil and into the wider Shadowfell... which isn't necessarily that much of an improvement, but hey.

The idea of the Core is complete absent in 4th edition. Perhaps, if [[Ravenloft]] had been revived in this setting, the Core would have instead become more of a cursed but otherwise normal world, similar to and yet separate from the Domains of Dread seen in the Shadowfell. We'll never know.

The 4e Domains of Dread consist of the following:

=====Sunderheart=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Half-ruined city on a cliff's edge at the edge of a swampy river dela
::Motif: Diabolist Grand Guignol
::[[Darklord]]: Ivania Dreygu and Vorno "The Ghoul" Kahnebor

Originally the [[Bael Turath]] city of Harrack Unarth, Sunderheart's doom came when it came under the control of the lovers Ivania Dreygu and Vorno Kahnebor, the [[Nentir Vale]] version of Romeo and Juliet... if Romeo and Juliet were debauched hedonistic [[tiefling]]s who engaged in rape, murder and cannibalism and who massacred their entire families so they could be together. Eventually, Vorno became so vile that even Ivania grew sick of him, so she murdered him by feeding him a servant girl whom she had fed with a deadly poison. Then she woke up in Sunderheart with her [[ghoul]]ified [[undead]] lover fused to her back like a monstrous parasitic twin. Now she rules by day over the half of the city still inhabited by the living, and Vorno the Ghoul rules over the undead-haunted ruins at night.

=====Graefmotte=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Dense Pine Forest, Mountains
::Motif: Starvation
::[[Darklord]]: Lord Durven Graef

When the [[Yeenoghu]]-worshipping hordes of the White Ruin threatened the empire of Nerath in the [[Nentir Vale]], Lord Graef was the ruler of a minor frontier province who had already lost two of his three children. Desperate to preserve his family legacy, he was determined that his final son, Geoffery Graef, would not answer King Elidyr's call to take up arms against the horde. When his son disagreed, they fought, and Lord Graef accidentally killed his son by causing him to fall and fatally strike his head. Which was when the [[gnoll]] warbands fell upon Graefmotte. Lord Graef led the fighting over the night, and was near-mortally wounded; disemboweled and with an arm bitten off, nobody expected him to cling to life for a day and a night... never mind for his wounds to fully heal. Ever since then, Graefmotte has been a land cursed, where its people face a slow, withering death by starvation, or a quick, bloody one at the jaws of the maddened gnolls and starvation-spawned [[ghoul]]s that haunt the ever-shifting forest.

=====Monadhan=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Tropical Rainforest
::Motif: Treachery
::[[Darklord]]: Arantor

During the war between [[Bael Turath]] and [[Arkhosia]], the [[Metallic Dragon#Silver Dragon|Silver Dragon]] Arantor and his daughter mrissa were called upon to destroy a remote Turathi military outpost, almost hidden within thick tropical rainforest, whose isolation and surroundings made it virtually unreachable by ground-based forces. But after they hit their target, they realized that their intel had been faulty; this was no military camp, it was a refugee center for Turathi civilians! Father and daughter quarreled over what to do, with Imrissa wanting to return to Arkhosia and take responsibility for their crimes, whilst the glory-hound Arantor insisted they conceal it and protect their reputations. The argument grew so heated that Arantor slew his daughter, and then, stricken by guilt, he massacred the survivors of his first attack before becoming a plague upon the Turathi until his death. Which was when he awoke as a [[dracolich]] in a cavern deep below a twisted reflection of Monadhan, which has now become a gathering point for traitors. The greater the betrayal, and the more pathetic the reason, the more likely the perpetrator is to find a place within Monadhan - whether by being swallowed by the Mists, or by awakening there alive and whole after dying for their misdeeds. As a result, Monadhan is now an oubliette for treacherous scum from across time and space.

=====The Endless Road=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: An endless road winding through forests, hills and plains
::Motif: You can't escape your sins
::[[Darklord]]: Eli van Hassen

The tiny little roadside town of Tranquility was a peaceful place, until the day a four-headed [[hydra]] lurched from the fens and began plaguing the people. When a wandering [[adventurer]] known only as "The Horseman" arrived and slew the beast, the people celebrated. But the town's ruler, Eli van Hassen, a man forever plagued by resentment and inferiority over his provincial abode, resented the hero's fame. He forced his daughter to slander the man, accusing him of rape, and whipped the people of Tranquility into a frenzied mob who executed their savior despite his former protests. Now Eli and his daughter inhabit a fortified mansion that sits on the side of a great road, which stretches on to infinity; unless the Road decides to let you go, which it can do to anywhere in the [[Multiverse]], you can walk forever and never leave. Of course, that risks attack by the undead remains of the Headless Horseman, who wants revenge on the van Hassens, but will happily settle for anyone else he can get his hands on.

=====Timbergorge=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Dense confider forest
::Motif: Nature's Savagery
::[[Darklord]]: Silvermaw

When a naive [[treant]] allowed [[human]]s to settle in the planeshifting forest that was an [[archfey]]'s garden under his care, he was horrified when they began to create a fire to keep them warm as they slept. But when he attacked in an effort to quench the flames, he burned himself and then set the forest ablaze, leaving it to burn as he focused on slaying the human interlopers. For this, his master cut the garden away and banished it to the [[Shadowfell]]. Here, the tribal humans have become a pack of werewolves, endlessly hunting and being hunted by the mad, wounded treant, who has coated his mouth with molten silver so that he may better rend and bite his foes; hence his name "Silvermaw".

==5th Edition: The Alternate Continuity==
In February 2021, it was announced across the internet that the Demiplane of Dread would at last make an official return as a D&D setting for [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]] in the form of [[Van Richten's Guide]] to [[Ravenloft]]. But it also openly announced that the 30 domains of dread that would be debuting in the book would include a mixture of brand new domains, classic domains, and revamped/reimagined takes on old domains - something that immediately began raising hackles amongst the Ravenloft fandom, who tend towards the [[grognard]]ier side of the fence. Why did they do this? Was it because the last version of Ravenloft-as-setting was done by [[White Wolf]] and there were legal entanglements preventing [[Wizards of the Coast]] from reusing their inventions? Was it because a lot of Ravenloft classic lore was actually kind of stupid and in desperate need of revamping? Was it because of [[SJW]]s? (probably a little considering some of the weirder changes made) Some combination thereof? The world may never know.

Either way, the 5e version of the Demiplane of Dread thusly has its own unique take on the different Domains, which this section will try to break down for comparison's sake.

5th edition no longer has the Core although a few Clusters still exist, but are now treated as single domains, and also changes the rules for traveling between domains. If the borders of a domain are not closed, entering the mists on the borders only takes you to another domain if you get a lucky roll, and usually you will end up back in the domain where you started or just wander the mists going nowhere. And even if you do get lucky it is up to the DM to decide where to drop you. You can choose what domain you want to go to and bypass this roll by carrying a mist talisman, which is an item related in some way to that domain or at least that domain's theme, and each domain has a few possible items you can use as a talisman for it. If you have the Mist Walker dark gift, you can travel to any domain that you know the name of without a talisman, but at the cost of not being able to stay in one place for too long.

===Detailed Domains===
These domains have received descriptions a few pages long.

=====Barovia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

It's literally just Barovia as seen in [[Curse of Strahd]]. The only major change is that now the Dark Powers have started to get creative and may have Tatyana reincarnate as someone unexpected to mess with Strahd.

=====Bluetspur 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Utterly alien
::Motif: Alien Horror, amnesia
::[[Darklord]]: The God-Brain

Aside from some slight tweaks to the backstory of the God-Brain and a shift in focus to more of an "alien abductions/unspeakable alien experiments" motif, Bluetspur is basically unchanged.

=====Borca 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Outside of the changes to the [[Darklord]]s, there's nothing new here.

=====[[The Carnival]] 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

No longer a wandering point of light, [[The Carnival]] is now a free-floating island of terror, with the role of [[Darklord]] being shared between Isolde and Nepenthe, a cursed sword she carries. The backstory has also been changed extensively, involving a counterpart to the Carnival run by [[shadar-kai]]. The Carnival is also haunted by the ''Litwick Market'', a black market of malicious fey with a grudge against the Carnival who invariably show up once the Carnival settles down and start making trouble. Also, the Twisting is no longer a thing.

=====Darkon 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: The end of the world
::[[Darklord]]: Azalin Rex, currently MIA

The first "continuation" domain, Azalin went missing during an event called the Hour of Ascension and now Darkon is falling apart, slowly being dissolved by the Mists. The domain has become split into four islands. During the day the mists can be crossed as normal, but during the night anything covered by the mists disappears and the mists swallow a little bit more of the land in tiny steps or in huge floods. As was the case during the original [[Grim Harvest|Shrouded Years]], a number of demilords are trying and failing to hold it together. Collectively known as The Inheritors, they consist of the vampire Alcio Metus (sister to the late Baron Metus), Cardinna Artazas and the Necrichor of Darcalus Rex, and Madame Talisveri Eris. The only clue about where Azalin went is a strange glowing object called the King's Tear which appeared floating over Darkon at the same time that he vanished.

=====Dementlieu 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Masquerade and imposter syndrome
::[[Darklord]]: Saidra d'Honaire

Completely rewritten, Dementlieu is now an impoverished city where everybody tries desperately to pretend they are richer and more important than they actually are, lest they be disintegrated by its new [[Darklord]]; Saidra d'Honaire. Also has a Masque of the Red Death thing going on, making it a bit like Sanguinia.

=====Falkovnia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Zombie Apocalypse
::[[Darklord]]: Vladeska Drakov

Completely rewritten, Falkovnia is no longer the "war horror" domain, but instead a zombie apocalypse domain, where new [[Darklord]] Vladeska Drakov struggles to keep the living alive in the face of monthly sieges by massive armies of the [[Walking Dead]]. Maybe they didn't want [[/pol/]] fanboying the original Vlad?

=====Har'Akir 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Completely rewritten, Har'Akir is now a sprawling, heavily populated land where [[necrocracy|the living bow to a mummified aristocracy]] and Ankhtepot actually wishes for death.

=====Haz'lan 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Wild magic, environmental destruction, magic-based classism
::[[Darklord]]: Hazlik

This retconned version of the domain has dropped the Mulans vs. Rashemani racism of the past and is now being devastated by a series of arcane apocalypses. [[Darklord]] Hazlik now suffers a combination of his old curse and Azalin's curse.

=====I'Cath 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Denial of reality
::[[Darklord]]: Tsien Chiang

Completely rewritten, I'Cath has gone from a glorified [[Oriental Adventures]] [[dungeon]] to a crumbling city where the population is largely trapped in an eternal slumber, forced to constantly work at building and rebuilding a dream-version of I'Cath at the behest of [[Darklord]] Tsien Chiang, who can never be satisfied with what she has. When the inhabitants wake, they must scavenge for food in a city constantly being rebuilt by Tsien Chian's armies of [[Jiangshi]], who will not harm a sleeper, but will happily tear an awake mortal limb from limb.

=====Kalakeri=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: War-torn nation, faction mechanics
::[[Darklord]]: Ramya Vasavadan

New domain, although it's intended to take the place of the old domain of Sri Raji, which is mentioned as an alternative name for it. This India-themed domain is locked in an eternal civil war between its [[Darklord]], Ramya Vasavadan, and her two [[fiend]]ish siblings; Arijani the [[Rakshasa]] and Reeva the [[Arcanaloth]].

=====Kartakass 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Show business, predatory business practices, werewolves
::[[Darklord]]: Harkon Lukas

Largely unchanged, save for the revisions to [[Darklord|Harkon Lukas']] story and the replacement of [[wolfwere]]s with [[Loup-garou]].

=====Lamordia 5e=====
::Cultural Level: Steampunk
::Landscape: Arctic
::Motif: Mad science, biting cold, implicit kaiju
::[[Darklord]]: Viktra Mordenheim

Basically unchanged, save for a new emphasis on an arctic climate and the tweaks to its [[Darklord]], replacing Viktor Mordenheim and Adam with Viktra Mordenheim and Elise. The darklord curse has been given a twist, too: Viktra succeeded where Victor would perpetually fail-- but she cannot duplicate her success and the living (golem-like) Elise shuns her. Also, the whalers may or may not be hunting creatures [[Kraken|more fearsome than actual whales]], and it's heavily implied that there may be a radioactive kaiju hibernating under the mountain range not-so-subtly named "The Sleeping Beast".

=====Mordent 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Ghosts and haunted houses
::[[Darklord]]:

The only change here is to [[Darklord|Wilfred Godefroy's]] curse and backstory, which now involves the famous Alchemist's Apparatus first introduced to [[Ravenloft]] lore in [[I10: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill]].

=====Richemulot 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Pandemic, wererats
::[[Darklord]]: Jacqueline Renier

Retconned into a plague-stricken nation barely avoiding crumbling into total ruination through the machinations of [[Darklord|Jacqueline Renier]], who's also responsible for the plagues in the first place as she's a one-percenter who despises the middle-class.

=====Tepest 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Wickerman/Midsommar type of stories
::[[Darklord]]: Lorinda Mindefisk

Sitting somewhere between continuation and retcon, Tepest has lost its anti-fey inquisition and is now focused on its [[Darklord]]; Lorinda Mindefisk, who imprisoned her sisters in a cauldron because they refused to let her have a child.

=====Valachan 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Jungle
::Motif: The deadliest game
::[[Darklord]]: Chakuna

Similarly to Tepest, Valachan is supposed to be a continuation of its former self, although there's a lot of retcons to the lore. Since [[Darklord|Baron Urik von Kharkov]] was slain by Chakuna, the jungles have turned hungry, rendering the realm a land where everything is out for blood and those appetites are barely kept in check by regular ceremonial blood sacrifices known as the Trial of Hearts.

===Summarized Domains===
These domains only received a short block of text about them. Several of them are completely new domains and so are intended to just be ideas for Dungeon Masters to build on.

=====Cyre 1313, The Mourning Rail=====
::Cultural Level: Dungeonpunk
::Landscape: A magical train traveling through the Mists
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: The Last Passenger

The first ever [[Eberron]] Domain of Dread. On the day that Cyre was destroyed by the Mourning, a train was about to carry a bunch of refugees who saw the disaster coming out of Cyre, but the train's departure was delayed by a mysterious VIP who threw hundreds of the train's passengers out to make room for their self and their retinue and to be sure nobody on the train would learn their identity, and so the train departed too late. The train was taken into the mists when the Mourning hit where it became a mobile domain constantly running from the Mourning which the passengers think is still chasing them. The passengers still haven't noticed that the Mourning already killed them.

=====Forlorn 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====Ghastria 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====G'henna 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====Invidia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Rewritten; Gabrielle Aderre is now the [[Darklord]], constantly dabbling in black magic and conjuring all manner of outsiders to try and ensure that her beloved (and implicitly possessed) son Malocchio will have the best of futures.

=====Keening 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Now has a living population who live in terror of its [[banshee]] [[Darklord]]. They fear the Darklord so much that they have actually destroyed their own sense of hearing to protect themselves.

=====Klorr=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Surreal environment
::Motif: Impending Doom
::[[Darklord]]: Klorr

New domain mentioned in brief, a series of shattered islands floating through a misty netherworld, swirling around a blazing giant eye, where one island is obliterated every hour only for another to take its place.

=====Markovia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Tropical island
::Motif: Flowers for Algernon syndrome, furries
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Frantisek Markov

Rewritten into a mixture of Dr. Moreau and Dr. Jekyll.

=====The Nightmare Lands 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Nightmares
::[[Darklord]]: The Nightmare Court

Largely unchanged, save for the new origin of the Nightmare Court as multiple personas birthed from the mind of a powerful but monstrous [[psion]]icist who tries to run from the crimes of her past and deny that they ever existed.

=====Niranjan=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Island monastery
::Motif: [[Path of Inspiration]]
::[[Darklord]]: Sarthak

New domain mentioned in brief, tied to Kalakeri, ruled over by a corrupted [[Metallic Dragon|Brass Dragon]] who poses as a ''sadhu'' to lure victims into sacrificing their worldly goods for his hoard before he consumes their souls and replaces it with an obedient shadow.

=====Nova Vaasa 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Myar Hiregaard

Rewritten; now less Russian and more Mongolian, with a female [[Darklord]] named Myar Hiregaard who united the warring tribes of her homelands, only to turn them against each other once more when she grew bored with peacetime.

=====Odaire 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for the minor detail that Maligno ''changed'' his name to that from his original, less ridiculous name of ''Figlio''.

=====The Rider's Bridge=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Yet another reinterpretation of the Headless Horseman, this time as a [[dullahan]] who shows up at important bridges in domain-specific forms and attacks anyone who tries to cross. Successfully crossing the bridge may transport you to a different domain.

=====Risibilos 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Parody
::[[Darklord]]: Doerdon

A super-minor domain originally mentioned in brief as part of the infamously terrible "Book of Crypts" anthology. Rewritten into a domain-hopping music hall, where the [[Iron Warriors|humorless]] former-king Doerdon is now condemned to an agonizing eternity as an entertainer, with a sentient ventriloquist dummy in the likeness of Strahd von Zarovich as his partner in comedy. Needless to say, don't be surprised if your DM brings a Strahd muppet to the table.

=====Scaena 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:
Unchanged from its original lore.

=====Sea of Sorrows 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

The Darklord is now Pietra van Rise, a vicious female [[pirate]] turned ghost or sea zombie (it's not clear which). Mention is also made of Blaustein (now ruled by the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives), Dominia (the patients are all avatars of Dr. Heinfroth), the Isle of the Ravens (unchanged), and the new domains of The Lighthouse, which features, well, a lighthouse, and Vigilant's Bluff, where an undead paladin offers refuge so long as you respect his faith.

=====The Shadowlands 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged.

=====Souragne 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Still Southern Gothic New Orleans, but Anton's got a new backstory as a sadistic prison warden and has been downgraded in terms of power.

=====Staunton Bluffs 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Largely identical, except the former [[darklord]] is now a good guy and his crime has been given to his retconned sister, Teresa Bleysmith.

=====Tovag 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

No longer connected to Cavitus, [[Kas]] now fixates on finding [[Vecna]] and resuming their ancient battle.

=====Vhage Agency=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: An office building
::Motif: Insanity, Film Noir
::[[Darklord]]: Flimira Vhage

A new domain in the form of a detective agency ruled over by Flimira Vhage, who remains unaware that literally the entire agency only exists in her own broken mind. Oh, and it literally looks like an old [[noir]] film brought to life, complete with everything inside being in different shades of monotone gray.

=====Zherisia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Serial killings
::[[Darklord]]: Sodo

The elaborate dread [[doppelganger]] society has been wiped out. Now there's just a starving city descending into madness and a single ancient doppelganger trying to preserve its existence through cannibalism. The sewers that used to be called Timor still exist but the marikiths have been replaced with [[Carrion Stalker]]s.

==Notable Non-Darklords==
* [[Van Richten]]
* [[Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins]]
* [[Jander Sunstar]]
* [[Alanik Ray]]
* [[Larissa Snowmane]]
* [[Vistani]]

{{Planescape-Cosmology}}
[[Category:Ravenloft]]

Demiplane of Dread

2021-06-09T00:15:11Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Lamordia 5e */

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'''The Demiplane of Dread''' is a unique [[Demiplane]] - or, perhaps more accurately, a series of interlinked demiplanes - within the [[Great Wheel]] cosmology of [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. This is the actual "world" in which the campaign setting of [[Ravenloft]] is based, and so the name is often used when trying to describe the "Ravenloft world".

The precise origins of the Demiplane of Dread are lost to history. Its creators are enigmatic beings known only as "The Dark Powers", who maintain and defend their creation with mighty magic and jealous zeal. It's believed they have some kind of mutual non-aggression pact with the various gods of the Great Wheel, but nothing canon is ever defined. It is believed to lie where the [[Ethereal Plane]] meets the [[Plane of Shadow]], but is able to manifest portals absolutely ''everywhere'', even in places normally restricted to planar portals, such as [[Dark Sun|Athas]] or the [[Phlogiston]]. Such portals usually appear as banks of fog or mist, but will adapt themselves to other sight-obscuring phenomena - and are usually one-way. Getting ''in'' is easy, but getting '''out'''? Canonically you won't be able to leave unless the Dark Powers will it, short of using artifact-level items like the dreaded Rift Spanner which just so happens to be the kind of item that could turn you into a [[Darklord]] just from getting it to work properly.

Aaand then came 3.5 which opened a doorway into the [[World Serpent Inn]], breaking the whole point of this prison plane. Here it's a failsafe for DMs when their parties reach their 16th birthday and are sick of Goth. Its doorway on the Demiplane's side of things changes every night. Mind you, even back in AD&D, portals '''out''' of the Demiplane of Dread were explicitly a thing and even listed in major [[splatbook]]s like the Domains of Dread - for example, the Isle of Lament in Lamordia houses one such portal, so you can leave just by going there, if you can sneak past Adam.

==Planar Traits==
The Demiplane of Dread's creators have molded the reality of this world into a new fashion, forcibly imposing the rules of [[Gothic Horror]] on the setting. There are many ways that this molding manifests, but some of the more overt include the following:
* [[Necromancer|Necromancy]] spells are empowered and rendered more dangerous; spells like Animate Dead will call up more creatures than the caster may be able to control, whilst spells that instantly kill their victims usually cause such victims to arise spontaneously as the [[undead]] - and often as ones quite pissed off at their killer. Certain non-necromancy, non-instant-kill spells even have a chance of doing this, such as Disintegrate turning a completely disintegrated victim into an incorporeal undead! Using any necromancy spell provokes a powers check unless it's purely defensive, doesn't affect undead, and doesn't manipulate life force; that list of "safe" spells is quite narrow.
* [[Diviner|Divination]] spells are pretty much worthless; spells that detect moral alignment invariably fail, spells aimed at detecting monstrous species either are unreliable (Detect Undead) or flatly won't work (using True Seeing to look for natural shapechangers), spells that revolve around mental contact risk driving you mad if you accidentally use them on certain inhuman creatures, and in general you can't trust the result of divination spells because the normal awareness of when such a spell has failed doesn't occur in the Demiplane of Dread. Oh, and Scrying type spells create a visible sensory apparatus that can alert your target that you're scrying on them, which can even serve as a conduit for things like gaze attacks. There's a practical reason for this; horrific things aren't quite as scary if you know their true nature too early, and so this element was put in to keep from having the DM tip their hands too soon and ruin the scare.
* [[Conjurer|Conjuration]] allows entities from other planes to be summoned, but they won't be able to return home when the spell expires. Obviously, quite a few of them will be ''very'' upset with their summoner because of this. Even before they figure this out, the binding aspects of conjuration spells are weaker in the Demiplane of Dread, giving summoned creatures a chance to escape its bonds the moment it arrives.
* [[Abjurer|Abjuration]] spells that banish creatures to another plane do not work. Rather, they ''appear'' to work but just toss the target somewhere else within the demiplane.
* [[Illusionist|Illusion]] spells that manipulate shadows are 20% more powerful, but the caster risks losing control of it when the spell ends, releasing a free-willed [[shadow]].
* Spells that directly interfere with the fabric of a Domain, such as manipulating weather, can often attract the attention of the resident [[Darklord]], and who might be able to subvert or negate these same spells if they have related powers.
* Teleportation spells are restricted; each domain is treated like its own separate plane of existence. High-level teleportation spells can overcome this if the border is not closed. Nothing can teleport out of a closed domain or the Demiplane entirely.
* Curses are empowered, and even non-spellcasters can potentially lay deadly or deforming curses on people if their rage or grief is intense enough to catch the notice of the [[Dark Powers]].
* The [[Dark Powers]] are watching everybody and seem to enjoy turning people into monsters that reflect their own evil deeds. When a creature performs some evil act, which range from casting necromantic spells to premeditated murder, the Dark Powers [[Powers Check|might notice]] and start the process. The changes are subtle or even helpful at first, allowing the victim to more easily perform his evil acts, which lures the victim into more evil, gaining more attention and transformation, until he is completely transformed into a monster or even a [[darklord]] of his own domain.
* Intelligent undead, like vampires, can tell if their minds are being read and can choose which thoughts they will project. Depending on the circumstances, this may be a false image passing them off as human or an up-close look at the most evil parts of their minds meant to drive the would-be mind reader insane.
* 5th edition's overhaul of the lore drops most of the above rules but adds some new ones. If you die in the Demiplane of Dread your soul does not move into the afterlife and is trapped there until it is eventually reincarnated. People who are resurrected after being dead for over 24 hour discover this and are traumatized by the experience.
* Also in 5th edition, Darklords can sense when somebody in their domain is trying to cast spells that contact beings on other planes and can make themselves the target of the spell.

==Mapping the Demiplane==
Geo-physically, the Demiplane of Dread consists of various bubbles of reality, ranging in size from a single room to full-fledged countries, all floating in a sea of ephemeral mist; each of these reality bubbles (called "Domains") is typically centered around a [[Darklord]], a villain whose evil caught the eyes of the Dark Powers and so they responded by imprisoning them within the Demiplane. 3rd edition's unpublished [[splatbook]] "[[Van Richten's Guide]] to the Mists" introduced the concept of ''Oubliettes'', which are basically prototype or abandoned Domains that don't contain a Darklord. A Domain may exist on its own (an "Island of Terror") or be physically coterminous with one or more more other domains, forming what is called a "Cluster". The largest and oldest Cluster in the Demiplane is called "The Core", and this is basically Ground Zero for the setting.

Traveling between Domains is a little tricky to describe. If two Domains are coterminous, you can simply walk between them, as if they were normal lands. If you want to get to a Domain that ''isn't'' coterminous, then you have to just walk into the Mists and hope you'll end up where you want to go. Certain spots are known to have what are essentially portals that can link different Domains together, in that traveling from these spots (which may require unique triggers before they kick in) will usually end you up in a specific Domain; known as "Mistways", these portals can be either one way or two way, and vary in reliability (aka, how likely you are to end up at the intended destination instead of fuck-knows-where) from "guaranteed" to "you rolls the dice, you takes your chances".

Traveling between Domains is made more complicated by the fact that most [[Darklord]]s have a power called "Closing the Borders," which causes the borders of their Domain to become enveloped in a barrier of some sort unique to that Darklord that prevents escape in some fashion - some are non-lethal, most will kill you if you try. A rare few can be circumvented by the right esoteric circumstances (for example, [[undead]] or [[construct]]s can safely walk through poisonous borders like that of Barovia, because they're fundamentally immune to poison), but in general this is the ultimate [[Railroading]] tool the DM has to keep you from just saying "fuck this" and leaving the domain.

Precisely why the Dark Powers collect these [[Darklord]]s is unknown, and theories abound; the Demiplane of Dread has been described as a prison, a gathering place for evil, a grand study into the nature of evil, a unique kind of Hell, or even a Purgatory by various fans.

Another great mystery is the nature of its native population. Some Domains were physically taken from their homeworlds, but most are described as "copies" rather than direct abductions of land. This then leaves players wondering: are the locals actually "real", or are they merely soulless simulacra - props in the grand theater of Gothic Horror tales that the Dark Powers are conducting? Nothing concrete has ever been given. This isn't entirely consistent however, with other originals becoming ruins (Like Kalidnay) or vanishing entirely (like Har’Akir).

===The Core===
As mentioned above, this is the "core" of Ravenloft, the sole normal-style continent where the bulk of the game focuses on. Think of it as something akin to the Sword Coast of the [[Forgotten Realms]], or Ansalon in [[Dragonlance]]. The precise layout has changed over Ravenloft's life, usually as a result of [[Advancing the Storyline]] - most prominently, it changed massively after the [[Grand Conjunction]], and then changed a little during both the [[Grim Harvest]] and the shift from 2e to 3e.

The Core is made up of the following Domains.

=====Barovia=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Blatant Dracula Knockoff
::[[Darklord]]: [[Strahd von Zarovich]]

This is the oldest domain in Ravenloft, the literal heart of the Demiplane of Dread. It's ruled by Strahd, and is basically Dracula in D&D. It is also home to the titular [[Castle Ravenloft]], Strahd's humble abode. This domain has been visited in literally ''every single edition'' of D&D after BECMI; even 4th edition, the only edition without an adaptation of I6 to its titles, has the adventure "Fair Barovia" in [[Dungeon Magazine]] #207, which has the party exploring Barovia and completing assorted side-quests.

=====Borca=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Poisoners, Italy under the Borgia Family
::[[Darklord]]: Ivana Boritsi

Originally, Borca was ruled by the Darklord Camille Boritsi, and was half its present size, sharing borders with the near-identical domain of Dorvini. Ivana poisoned her mother because her mom seduced her boyfriend, and during the Grand Conjunction, her domain and that of her cousin Ivan Dilisnya merged together due to their great similarities.

=====Darkon=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Age to Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Plains, Mountains & Swamps
::Motif: Generic [[Dark Fantasy]]
::[[Darklord]]: Azalin

Darkon is notable as the most overtly fantastical realm in the Demiplane of Dread, with a relatively huge population of [[demihuman]]s that sees humans going from the usual 90+% population merit to only 75% as well as the greatest amount of local toleration for arcane magic.

If one spends a month in the realm they lose their memories until they leave the domain, thinking they've always been from Darkon. Unfortunately, the new state from having lost memories convinces one to never leave unless forced to.

=====Dementlieu=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains
::Motif: Renaissance France/Victorian England
::[[Darklord]]: Dominic D'Honaire

Though not as overtly modeled on London as the domain of Paridon, Dementlieu definitely taps into the Gothic Urban Horror motif, as is made clear by the way it is home to myriad mystical mind-manipulators and the character Alanik Ray, who is basically Sherlock Holmes if he was an [[elf]]. It's considered the "cultural heart" of the Core.

=====Falkovnia=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains
::Motif: Military Horror, Fascism, Urban Squalor
::[[Darklord]]: Vlad Drakov

Slap together Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, paint it up in the most shit-awful and miserable stereotypes of Dark Ages Europe, and have the place be run by a man who melds Hitler with Vlad the Impaler and is so bloodthirsty they'd both be disgusted by him. Falkovnia is outright called the biggest shithole in the Demiplane of Dread.

=====Forlorn=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Dreary Scotland with a dash of Brak Man Morn
::[[Darklord]]: Tristen ApBlanc

A vaguely Scottish Celtic themed domain that nobody gives a shit about because there's nothing in it but killer plants, giant bugs, and [[goblyn]]s. 3e tried to fix this by adding a small population of native humans, but the overall domain is still a monster-infested backwoods, so nobody fucking cares. As for its resident asshole, ApBlanc is a [[vampyre]] by day, and a ghost by night, proving once and for all that the Dark Powers do, indeed, have a sense of humor.

=====Hazlan=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Hills, Mountains & Plains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy meets Yellow Peril
::[[Darklord]]: Hazlik

Essentially a tiny sliver of [[Thay]] transplanted into the Demiplane of Dread, where a tiny minutia (the Mulan ethnicity) rules over and brutally represses a far vaster majority (the Rashemani). One of only two places so absolutely shit that [[The Lawgiver]] is actually worshipped here.

=====Invidia=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Lethally Impulsive Stupidity
::[[Darklord]]: Gabrielle Aderre

A land of passionate, hot-blooded and constantly feuding individuals, including mercenary armies, ogres, giants, and wolfweres. The [[Vistani]] are executed on sight here, and as such, its hunter-mercenaries are on the collective shit-list of both Strahd von Zerovich and Ivan Dilisnya.

=====Kartakass=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
::[[Darklord]]: Meistersinger Harkon Lukas

A rural backwoods inhabited by proud, cocky, music-loving foresters who are quite happy with the way things are, thank you. They are totally oblivious to the population of [[wolfwere]]s hiding amongst them.

=====Keening=====
::Cultural Level: None (formerly Chivalric)
::Landscape: Temperate Mountains (Bleached of Life)
::Motif: Endless Grief
::[[Darklord]]: Tristessa the Banshee

A cursed and forsaken realm, with a population consisting solely of its mad, grief-stricken [[banshee]] [[darklord]], her court of half-insane [[undead]] [[fey]], and a village of [[skeleton]]s that constantly mime out the actions of their last day.

=====Lamordia=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Mad Science ala Frankenstein
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Mordenheim & Adam

A stuffy, tempest-lashed domain that prides itself on its scientific acumen and its staunch rationalistic beliefs, totally denying the fantastical nature of the world around them.

=====Mordent=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Plains & Swamps
::Motif: Ghost-Haunted Rural Britain/Scotland
::[[Darklord]]: Lord Wilfred Godefroy

It's basically the setting for every ghost-related Gothic Horror novel ever written. High concentration of both incorporeal undead and mist creatures in a land dotted by small villages sheltering the living. Is also full of ancient ruined manors, decaying coats of arms and dying or dead noble families, furthering that neo-Britain impression by casting it as the decaying remnants of a once-mighty civilization. The false history implies they share a mutual background with Borca, perhaps having originated from the same nameless fantasy world.

=====Necropolis=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Temperate Settled Area
::Motif: City of the Dead
::[[Darklord]]: Death

Once a bustling metropolis in Darkon called Il Aluk, the place was destroyed and turned into a city of sapient undead creatures protected behind a mystical veil that kills and reanimates any living humanoids that enter. This was caused by Azalin achieving an epic-level fuck up with his magic. Generally considered the worst domain in the Core because you can't go in there without being transformed into an [[undead]], which in AD&D came with associated rules that, in the grand tradition of [[Ravenloft]], utterly fucked you over pretty much from the get-go. Its Darklord, "Death", is an uber-powerful ghost with hyper-lethal abilities that was created from a clone of Azalin and which has gone absolutely insane, believing itself to be the literal spirit of death.

=====Nova Vaasa=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Russia under Peter the Great
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Tristen Hiregaard/Malken

A horse-filled steppeland dominated by sweeping grassy plains and crushing urban poverty and squalor, presided over by a mixture of corrupt aristocrats and Lawful Good types who view "law" as more important than "good". This is the ''other'' domain shitty enough to have [[The Lawgiver]] as the state religion, and is such a hellhole that ''Barovians'' look down on its people as backward hicks.

=====Richemulot=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains
::Motif: Wererat Land
::[[Darklord]]: Jacqueline Renier

A pseudo-French domain distinguished mostly by being the largest breeding ground of [[wererat]]s in the entire demiplane. The name is literally French for "Rich Mouse", which pretty much gives the game away from the start if you know the language..

=====The Shadow Rift=====
::Cultural Level: Unknowable
::Landscape: Eternally Dark Mysical
::Motif: Dark Faerie Tales
::[[Darklord]]: Gwydion the Shadow Fiend

This is the homeland of the [[Shadow Fey]], and as such no mortals know anything about the place. The court is found at the bottom of a chasm filled with mist, protecting it from the sun, as well as erasing anything stupid enough to try penetrating so deeply into said-mist. In classic Faerie fashion, time works differently here, with a fortnight outside equaling a year ''inside.''

=====Sithicus=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Declining [[Elf]] Kingdom
::[[Darklord]]: Inza Kulchevitch

The only domain in the Core that has a [[demihuman]] majority population, this was formerly the domain of [[Lord Soth]], and is thus loosely based on the [[Dragonlance]] setting. May or may not contain vampire [[kender]].

=====Tepest=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: Grim Faerie Tales Europe meets Salem Witch Trials
::[[Darklord]]: The Sisters Mindefisk

Hands down one of the most primitive and worthless backwaters in the Core, Tepest's trio of [[hag]] [[darklord]]s are practically non-entities in their own land, with the focus instead being on how the ignorant superstitious peasantry are falling increasingly under the sway of a self-righteous inquisition of self-proclaimed [[fey]]-hunters and [[witch]]-burners. The sisters ''do'' fan the flames of said-group so they can harvest the bodies of anyone condemned, but mostly stick to hiding in their cottage.

=====Valachan=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Hills
::Motif: African Savages
::[[Darklord]]: Baron Urik von Kharkov

A rugged wilderness inhabited by dusky-skinned foresters who take pride in their absolute ignorance when it comes to book-learning or anything not related to the practicalities of forest-work, to the point they even look down upon their own priests. Befittingly, this leaves them too ignorant to realize they are being eaten alive by a hidden population of [[nosferatu]] and [[werepanther]]s.

=====Verbrek=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Swamps
::Motif: Werewolf Country
::[[Darklord]]: Alfred Timothy

The obligatory [[werewolf]] domain, to contrast the Dracula and Frankenstein ones. Everybody here knows the wilderness (as embodied by the werewolves) is at their door, and live accordingly. This domain was originally called '''Arkandale''' and was run by Alfred's father, Nathan, until he lost the Dark Powers' interest by actually making peace with his lot in life and coming to enjoy being a riverboating casino owner, even if it did mean no longer being able to hunt on the land.

[[Quoth the Raven]] #1 offers an alternative take on the domain where Nathan reclaims it after Alfred's werewolf supremacist cult causes a deadly famine and then civil war amongst the local lycanthropes, which leads to it being renamed Arkandale once more.

===The Seas===
The Core is surrounded by two seas; the Nocturnal Sea and the Sea of Sorrows, which are technically their own unique Clusters that just so happen to adjoin the Core. Because of this, they're put in their own specific sections.

====The Sea of Sorrows====
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Pieter van Riese

This is the Western Sea of the Core, a cold, stormy, mist- (and Mist-)haunted expanse of water populated by various islands, representing the scattered domains of lesser Darklords. Its own "true" Darklord is Captain Pieter van Riese; a [[ghost]] based on the legendary Flying Dutchman who has perhaps the greatest freedom of any Darklord in Ravenloft - he can even leave his ship to go on land and enter other domains! This is because his curse is to ''never'' be able to find his own way, but instead to only be able to take others to where they want to go.

=====Carcharodon Isle=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate Hills
::Motif: <s>Ladyhawke</s> Parted Lovers
::[[Darklord]]: Alison Marjory and Sean Mako

An island cursed with two darklords; a fisherman turned [[wereshark]] and a [[merfolk|mermaid]]-turned-human turned [[seawolf]], whose curses prevent them from ever meeting in their human forms. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====Markovia=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Warm Forests, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: The Island of Dr. Moreau
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Markov

It's literally just the Island of Dr Moreau in D&D. That's it. Originally part of the Core, but was moved out to the Sea of Sorrows as a result of the [[Grand Conjunction]]. Nothing here except the [[Darklord]], his [[Broken One]] minions, and a small temple of priests dedicated to guarding a powerful evil artifact that would be of great interest to the Darklord.

=====Blaustein=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Bluebeard

A small island consisting of a castle and a single village, whose population are fanatically loyal to the blue-bearded master of the castle above.

=====Demise=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Althea

A rocky island made from a mostly cooled volcano, this is basically a glorified dungeon that serves as the prison of the [[medusa]] Althea. Fans have tried to expand this by adding the ghost of her murdered [[maedar]] husband (arguably a much better candidate for the darklord) and her maedar son, who hates both of his crazy parents and wants off this godsforsaken rock.

=====Dominia=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Insanity and Institutional Abuse
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth

A small island that houses the most famous (if not only) insane asylum in all of the Core. A pity it's actually a nest of cerebral vampires, ruled over a crazed psychiatrist determined to push the studies of inflicting madness and terror to their absolute limit.

=====Ghastria=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Stezen D'Polarno

A surprisingly grim and colorless place which grows abundant food that, mysteriously, holds no taste when consumed.

====The Nocturnal Sea====
::[[Darklord]]: Meredoth

The cold and dismal Eastern Sea of the Core, which only emerged from the Mists after the events of the [[Grand Conjunction]], ruled over by Meredoth, an epic-level [[Necromancer]] from Glantri in [[Mystara]]. Although strongly associated with ''Graben Island'', which is where "his" people live, Meredoth can actually travel the Sea at will, and in fact lairs himself on the wintery isle of ''Todstein''. Like the Sea of Sorrows, there are plenty of other domains scattered around the Nocturnal Sea ruled over by their own lords.

=====Isle of the Ravens=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: The Lady of Ravens

A deserted island home only to its darklord, an insane but powerful sorceress from a [[Gormentghast]]ian family, and her legions of raven and [[fey]] servants. Whilst it was first mentioned in official media, appearing in brief summary in the writeup of the Nocturnal Sea in the Domains of Dread revised campaign setting, it was fans who fleshed it out; the Isle of the Ravens first received a writeup in the [[Books of S|Book of Sacrifices]], before later being revisited in [[Quoth the Raven]] #13.

=====L'ile de la Tempete=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Alain Monette

A rocky and treacherous island whose lighthouse serves only to lure sailors to their doom upon its shores.

=====Liffe=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Baron Evensong or Assorted Demilords

A surprisingly large and fertile island, with one of the biggest and most welcoming populations of any island-domains in the Nocturnal Sea. Originally ruled by Baron Evensong, although the fanmade Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer downgraded him to one of a cluster of different super-minor darklords.

=====Locknar Cove=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Cold, eroded hills and thick, old growth forest
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

A quiet, humble island of fisherfolk that lies off the combined shorelines of Darkon and Nova Vassa, close to the isle of Liffe. Hidden at its core like a toad in a stone, the ghost of an avaricious pirate who valued wealth beyond his own life guards a vast treasure hoard. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

===The Clusters===
====The Amber Wastes====
::Motif: Dark Fantasy [[Egypt]]

It's Gothic Horror Egypt in D&D. What more is there to say? Its constituent domains are ''Har'Akir'', ''Sebua'', and ''Pharazia''.

=====Har'Akir=====
::Cultural Level: Bronze Age
::Landscape: Desert and Badlands
::Motif: Mummy Horror Movies
::[[Darklord]]: Anhtepot

''Har'Akir'' is a tiny little village of Egyptian peasants who live next to a tomb housing the [[darklord]] Ankhtepot, a pharaoh who blasphemed against the gods and was condemned to both eternity as a [[mummy]] and to be trapped in obscurity with only a single village of humble peasants to "lord over".

=====Sebua=====
::Cultural Level: Bronze Age Darklord, Stone Age natives
::Landscape: Desert Wasteland
::Motif: Mummy Horror meets Ghost Horror
::[[Darklord]]: Tiyet

''Sebua'' consists of an abandoned Egyptian manor next to an oasis haunted by both a tribe of feral children, who inhabit the nearby ruins of a fallen city, and the [[darklord]] Tiyet, a unique female [[mummy]] who appears as a gorgeous woman... save for her insatiable hunger for human hearts.

=====Pharazia=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape: Deserts, Oases, Rivers
::Motif: Arabian Nights Horror meets Religious Fundamentalism
::[[Darklord]]: Diamabel
''Pharazia'' is a pseudo-Arabian city-state ruled over by its [[darklord]] Diamabel; a moralistic fanatic who led a campaign of genocidal terror in life, when felled by an arrow he arose as the shining [[angel]] he always wanted to become... only to find he transformed into a hideous [[undead]] version of himself at night.

====The Burning Peaks====
::Motif: [[Dark Fantasy]]

A two-domain cluster made up of ''Cavitus'', the realm of [[Vecna]], and ''Tovag'', the realm of [[Kas]].

=====Cavitus=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Negative Energy-Infused Wasteland
::Motif: Cartoonish [[Necromancer]]-Ruled Hellhole
::[[Darklord]]: [[Vecna]]

=====Tovag=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Mountains, Scrub Pine Forests
::Motif: [[Vampire]]s, War Horror
::[[Darklord]]: [[Kas]]

====The Frozen Reaches====
::Motif: Dark Fantasy Russia

It's basically the frozen wintery hell that everybody imagines that Russia is transplanted into D&D. Its constituent domains are ''Sanguinia'' and ''Vorostokov'',

=====Sanguina=====
::Cultural Level: Early Medieval
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Prince Ladislav Mircea

Sanguina is an Early Medieval Russian kingdom ruled over by Prince Ladislav Mircea, a self-centered [[alchemist]] who accidentally transformed himself into a [[mutant]] [[vampire]], possibly a [[Vrykolaka]], that feeds on the Four Humours (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile) in an effort to save himself from a deadly plague.

=====Vorostokov=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Boyar Gregor Zolnik

Vorostokov is a frigid Dark Ages wasteland of villages and forests trapped in a perpetual winter, ruled over by the [[Loup du Noir]] Boyar Gregor Zolnik.

====The Shadowlands====
::Motif: Medieval Dark Fantasy

Intimately tied to a single world, the Shadowlands are made up of three domains that all tie to one long story of corruption; ''Avonleigh'', ''Nidala'', and ''Shadowborn Manor''.

=====Avonleigh=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Morgoroth the Black

Avonleigh is a monster-haunted forest ruled over by the [[darklord]] Morgoroth the Black, a [[planeswalker]] [[wizard]] who traveled to the homeland of the three domains and ended up destroying the not!Arthurian court there through accident. He is now trapped as a ephemeral shade unless the enchanted mirror that trapped him in this state is reassembled in his former mansion home.

=====Shadowborn Manor=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Ebonbane

Shadowborn Manor is a manor other than Morgoroth's that is the resting place of Ebonbane, a raging fiend trapped in a sword, which is itself trapped in a crystal sarcophagus. Ebonbane is so dangerous that Morgoroth actually uses his magic to assist in keeping the damn thing locked up.

=====Nidala=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Elena Faith-Hold

Nidala is the only actually populated domain, and is ruled over by the self-righteous fanatical fallen [[paladin]] Elena Faith-Hold.

====The Verduous Lands====
::Motif: Tropical Dark Fantasy

The hot and humid hellholes, full of deadly predators and equally deadly plants. For some reason the moon is never seen here.

=====Saragoss=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Draga Saltbiter

Saragoss is an oceanic domain; a vast entangling sargassum patch full of wrecked ships crawling with [[ghoul]]s and cannibal [[pirate]]s above and [[sahuagin]] and [[shark]]s below, with a self-loathing [[wereshark]] [[pirate]] and [[cleric]] of [[Umberlee]] for a [[darklord]].

=====The Wildlands=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape: Tropical Jungles and Swamps
::Motif: Twisted Animal Fables
::[[Darklord]]: King Crocodile

The Wildlands are basically [[grimdark]] Jungle Book; a tropical jungle full of asshole talking animals ruled over by the monstrous King Crocodile.

=====Sri Raji=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Rain forests, hills, and mountains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy India / Sri Lanka
::[[Darklord]]: Maharaja Arijani

''Formerly'' an Island of Terror, Sri Raji is a domain in the Verduous Lands cluster ruled by the [[Rakshasa]] Maharaja Arijani. The Verduous Lands cluster does not have a moon with potentially interesting consequences for lycanthropes having some part of the lunar cycle as their trigger condition. Equally, there should be no tides. Most of the human inhabitants of Sri Raji congregate in three cities, each located surprisingly close to the domain border. A fourth city, Mahakala, is less populated and commonly referred to as "accursed". It's basically Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but with more [[rakshasa]]s, [[beastfolk]] and giant insects.

====Zherisia====
::Motif: Urban Dark Fantasy

Differentiating itself from other clusters, Zherisia is composed of the city domain of ''Paridon'' and ''Timor'', a former Island of Terror now transformed into the sewers underneath Paridon.

=====Paridon=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Urban
::Motif: Gothic-Era Urban Horror
::[[Darklord]]:Sodo

Paridon is a sprawling London-esque city infested with a uniquely powerful strain of [[doppelganger]]s, whose [[darklord]] is a many-cursed psychotic doppelganger named Sodo.

=====Timor=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Underground Tunnels
::Motif: Monsters From Below
::[[Darklord]]: The Marikith Queen

Timor is a dripping hive of tunnels infested by xenomorph expies called Marikith.

====Republica de Neuva Aragona====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Tropical Jungle Islands

A two-domain cluster made up of neighboring isles in a tropical ocean known to its inhabitants as Mar de Lagrimas (the Sea of Tears), both themed after the Spanish colonies of South America. Unusually, the two domains are historically linked; both were connected to the same history involving the "native" colonists rising up against the rule of the motherland of Aragona and fighting for their indepence, which led to the two primary land-masses - the island of '''Resistencia''' and the mainland of '''Maconda''' each gaining a [[Darklord]] out of that initial struggle. It appears in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Resistencia=====
Resistencia is haunted by the [[ghost]] of Don Santiago de Quijada y Alvarez, the leader of the failed army sent by the motherland to quash the independence revolution.

=====Maconda=====
Maconda, on the other hand, is led openly and in darkness by the man who led the independence revolution: the [[wereananconda]] President-General Martin Jose Maconda.

====Colonies of the Holy Empire====
An unusual [[netbook]] cluster in that it's not technically presented ''as'' a cluster. The Colonies of the Holy Empire are a collective of domains that all draw from the same homeworld, a pastiche of Central/South America and its invasion by the Spanish Conquistadors, which appeared in the [[Books of S]] [[netbook]]s. Despite this shared origin, they are not presented as being geographically linked in the usual way of a cluster. ''Mictlan'' appeared in the Book of Shadows, whilst ''Igid Rabi-i'' and ''Cumbre de Oro'' both appeared in the Book of Sacrifices.

=====Mictlan=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Tropical Jungle
::[[Darklord]]: Commander Hernando Mouriros

A pastiche of the [[Aztec]] empire, the invasion of an army from a mysterious Chivalric realm has destabilize the realm and caused it to begin falling apart into civil war. And all the while, the invaders, cursed to never die unless they can conquer all of Mictlan, press on desperately in an attempt to end their long and bloody campaign.

=====Igid Rabi-i=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric, Classical or Dark Ages, depending on region
::[[Darklord]]: Arcapatos Miguel Agustin

A deeply spiritual domain wracked with internal conflict, for its leader is a priest who cares nothing for the realm, and everything for chasing a "holy relic" that evades his every attempt to grasp it.

=====Cumbre de Oro=====
::Cultural Level: Savage (Iron Age ruins, Medieval Avaricios)
::[[Darklord]]: Anibal Coronado

A cursed city of vast riches, a pastiche of El Dorado, haunted by the undead remnants of an explorer's party that gave their lives to find those riches and still refused to stop searching for wealth. This domain is actually a part of the larger Mictlan domain.

===The Islands of Terror===
=====Arlington Farm=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance decayed to Dark Ages
::Landscape: Single large wheat & corn farm
::Motif: Killer Scarecrows
::[[Darklord]]: Henry Arlington

The cursed farm of a farmer so obsessed with the success of his land that he not only killed to acquire it, but he began performing blood rites to ensure its success, murdering people and hiding their bodies in his scarecrows. Eventually, his cursed creations turned on him and turned him into one of them. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Bluetspur=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Age
::Landscape: Temperate hills, plains, and mountains
::Motif: [[Yog-Sothothery]]
::[[Darklord]]: The [[Illithid]] God-Brain

Meaning "Blood Trail" in German, it's a desolate wasteland with nightly, violent electrical storms on the surface. Beneath the surface lie the maddening and sprawling cities of illithids and their tortured and experimented slaves. This is also the home of the infamous Vampiric Mind Flayers, a creature that is technically indestructible in AD&D.

=====Callista=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Flooded Islets
::Motif: Gothic Vienna
::[[Darklord]]: Rafe Ungard

A once large island that has been reduced to tiny islets by intense flooding, peopled with a passionately chivalric (in the sense of "women are sacred and must be protected") people who claim to be the ''true'' [[Vistani]], ignorant of the fact that they are actually the cursed reincarnations of the true Vistani seen elsewhere in the Misty Realms. Because only 20% of their children are girls, they are overwhelmingly, patronizingly chivalric, and will sooner die than hurt women. The realm is also home to a large population of [[Paka]], who believe it to be a defiled holy site and hate the Callistans passionately. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Davion=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Shifts
::Motif: Dueling Psyches
::[[Darklord]]: Davion the Mad

A twisting realm that was created when a miscast Wish spell merged the mindscapes of the wizard Davion and his three hirelings - the male [[mage]] Ausgustus, the male [[fighter]] Boromar, and the female [[cleric]] of [[Loviatar]] Narana - into a single unit, leaving them struggling for dominion.

=====The Eternal Torture=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Decaying Sailing Ship
::Motif: [[Ghoul]] Ship
::[[Darklord]]: Miles Havelocke

The cursed ship of Miles Havelocke, a mutineer who led his crew to commit cannibalism upon the loyal members of the crew. Now a crew of [[ghast]]s, they endlessly search for land, attacking and feeding upon any unlucky ships they encounter as their passage leads them to the Nocturnal Sea, the Sea of Sorrows, and the oceans off all other domains, but never to the land they desperately wish to reach. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Farelle=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Woodlands
::Motif: Acceptance of Self
::[[Darklord]]: Jark Karn, The Jackal Who Would Not Be A Coward

An island splinter of the Wildlands, inhabited by a burgeoning population who are genuinely warm, welcoming and thriving. A pity that this is the manifestation of the darklord's curse. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====G'Henna=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Cold and temperate hills, plains, mountains, and deserts
::Motif: Corrupt [[Theocracy]]
::[[Darklord]]: Yagno Petrovna

Here a starving population works the fields to produce food to be sacrificed for the god [[Zhakata]]. Unfortunately the god doesn't exist and priests of the god eat the offerings, while the farmers starve themselves waiting for a god that will never come.

=====The House of Lament=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Mansion
::Motif: Haunted/Evil House
::[[Darklord]]: The House Itself

The House of Lament is a cursed structure that is simultaneous domain and darklord; a haunted structure that demands the sacrifice of human souls in an effort to quell its inescapable loneliness.

=====I'Cath=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Temperate Forest
::Motif: [[Oriental Adventures|Chinese Ghost Stories]]
::[[Darklord]]: Tsien Chiang

A tiny Island of Terror inhabited only by its Darklord and her four daughters - the three evil daughters Hate, Spite and Scream, all of whom are variant Con-tinh (evil spirit women), and the benevolent, tormented good daughter Nightingale. Her domain is similar to Forlorn in that it's basically a glorified dungeon, with literally nothing to do except show up and defeat the Darklord or die trying, except it's [[Oriental Adventures|Chinese]], not Scottish. Tsien Chiang is a misandrist [[necromancer]] from [[Kara-tur]], based on an ''incredibly'' minor character from the [[Forgotten Realms]] lore. She can also transform into an evil [[Treant]].

=====Immerabt=====
::Cultural Level: Late Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate & Cold Plains, Mountains and Aquatic
::Motif: When Death Becomes Relief
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Dorothy Hemphyll

An incredibly advanced domain whose scientific prowess can challenge that of Lamordia's, especially in medical sciences. It bulges with life to the point of being overrun with it, and yet death is a mercy that all too few can find, especially under the watchful eye of the Healer's Guild. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Incitatus=====
::Cultural Level: Classical reduced to Stone Age
::Landscape: Desolate, Lifeless City and rural surroundings
::Motif: Scientific Hubris Brings Apocalypse
::[[Darklord]]: Ahasveros

The lifeless remains of what was once a great scientific civilization, one that destroyed itself attempting to harness the power of the sea to annihilate an enemy nation with an artificially created tidal wave. Now, all that remains is the reclusive ghostly remains of the scientist who created that tidal wave, and destroyed his own people with it. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Kalidnay=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Desert
::Motif: [[Dark Sun|Athas]]
::[[Darklord]]: Thakok-An

The city and lands surrounding Kalidnay in Athas, which are nothing but ruins within [[Dark Sun]]'s setting proper. Its inhabitants actually prefer the Demiplane of Dread to actually living in Athas. Just let that sink in.

=====Karss=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Massive Prison in the middle of nowhere
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Warden Jonar Tamh

Formerly the Great Prison of the [[Harmonium]], an experiment in reformation-focused incarceration launched by the Hardheads on the faction's homeworld of Ortho, the warden's descent into cruelty and draconian punishments in defiance of the experiment's focus led to its being ripped from Ortho and stranded in the Mists. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====Kislova=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Mountainous Grasslands
::Motif: Futility of Power Behind the Throne
::[[Darklord]]: Baroness Ilsabet Obour

A domain adapted from the Ravenloft novel "Baroness of Blood", ruled over by a malevolent [[alchemist]] turned pain-eating monster. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====The Lost Wizard's Tower=====
::Cultural Level: Savage, vestiges of Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forest & Hills
::Motif: Obsessive Love
::[[Darklord]]: [[Jinx]]

Once, there was a cat; a [[familiar]] to a powerful [[alchemist]] and [[transmuter]] named Margaret Landsdale. Then she grew overbold with her experiments and tested a formula on her familiar in order to enhance his intelligence. It worked all too well; now, Jinx could think as well as any human... and get jealous. That jealousy led to her death, and now it leads to the death of any arcane spellcaster whom Jinx tries to take as her replacement. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Miseria=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temperate hills, forests, caves
::Motif: Ghostly Hauntings
::[[Darklord]]: Cassandre Desesprits

A rugged and inhospitable land whose people struggle to survive and put food on the tables, all whilst dealing with the vast legions of ghosts that haunt the realm. And nobody suspects that a humble barmaid with a heart full of spite and selfishness is the ultimate cause for their damnation. This netbook canon domain debuted in the 2001 issue of the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]].

=====The Nightmare Lands=====
::Cultural Level: None
::Landscape: Ever-Changing
::Motif: Nightmares
::[[Darklord]]: The Nightmare Man and his Nightmare Court

A strange realm that exists halfway between the Demiplane of Dread and the [[Plane of Dreams]], ruled over by Darklord-like figures who live to visit mortals with nightmares and ultimately draw them into complete insanity.

=====The Northlands=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric declined to Medieval, Early Medieval declined to Dark Ages
::Landscape: Temperate forests, hills, mountains, plains, swamps
::Motif: [[Vikings]]
::[[Darklord]]: Jarl Gravstein Hansen

A land patterned after the ancient Norse lands, where one Jarl's selfishness is causing the decline of everything his people had worked for. This netbook canon domain debuted in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002, and was revisited in its 2003 issue.

=====Nosos=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: Polluted Hellscape
::Motif: Rampant Pollution, Capitalism Gone Wrong
::[[Darklord]]: Malus Sceleris

A hellish polluted pit of a domain, where disease runs rampant amidst mountains of filth and sewerage in a sky clouded with fumes, smoke and gas.

=====Nzari=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age, Renaissance in Mr. Klein's camp
::Landscape: Tropical Rainforest
::Motif: Darkest Africa
::[[Darklord]]: Gatwe and Mr. Klein.

A domain inspired by the Darkest Africa tropes in general and the novel Heart of Darkness in particular. A land of cannibalistic natives, jungle monsters, and a brutal overlord who thinks of himself as the civilizing force, begging the question: "who is the real savage?" This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2003.

=====Odiare=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate settled area
::Motif: Twisted Pinocchio
::[[Darklord]]: Maligno

Island from [[Masque of the Red Death|Gothic Earth's]] Italy, populated by children and the [[carrionette]]s who killed the adults that used to live here. Naturally, all the kiddos are quite concerned about what'll happen when they're old enough to be labeled an adult.

=====Olympus=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Temeprate Forest & Hills, Cold Mountains, Warm Aquatic
::Motif: Greek Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Hercules

A pastiche of mythological Greece, ruled over by a pantheon of Living Gods - fallen heroes who have taken the identities of the Greek Deities as their own. And the once shining hope against those cruel, petty deities is in fact the worst of them all. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====The Raging Tears=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Single Rotting Ship
::Motif: Ghost Ship
::[[Darklord]]: Urdogen "The Red"

The cursed vessel of a long-forgotten pirate from [[Forgotten Realms|Faerun]], whose restless soul is condemned to wander the seas forever and never attain the power he once knew as the feared pirate king of the Inner Sea of Faerun. Whilst the ghost ship can be found in any sea in the Demiplane, or even sometimes beyond, its physical remains lie in the Sea of Sorrows, and must be found if one would put Urdogen to his long-cheated fate. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====Rokushima Táiyoo=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages
::Landscape: Archipelago with forests, hills, and mountains
::Motif: Dark Fantasy Japan
::[[Darklord]]: Haki Shinpi

Four islands surrounded by a poisonous salt water ocean. Each island's ruler hates the others, whilst the Darklord (their father) is forced to watch as they tear apart his dreams of unity and peace. It's also the home of the [[Akikage]] (ghost ninjas), [[Hebi-no-Onna]]s (snake women), and [[Kizoku]] (vampiric womanizers). Despite a Dark Ages cultural level, it's interested in the gunpowder weapons of Dementlieu and Darkon. Fun fact: the ''Anesthesia'' spell is popular here, as its use allows the dying to face death with a clear mind, and thus die with honor.

Strangely, the capitals of the four warring brothers have the Japanese names of various real world countries: Beikoku (米国, United States of America), Eikoku (英国, England), Chuugoka (corruption of 中国, China), and Roshiya (Literally just Russia said funny). As long as it sounds Japanese! Sadly, that's more than can be said for the Dark Lord's name...

=====Romagna=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Mild Plains and Forests
::Motif: Eternal Love
::[[Darklord]]: Serenissa D'Aubliet

A peaceful and gentle agricultural domain that seems free of the darkness of other, grimmer realms. But its shadows still linger, in the form of a spectral darklord who, whilst powerless to affect the natives, has no such restrictions against preying on visitors. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====Saarkaath=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Temperate Mountains, Forest
::Motif: Blood Purity
::[[Darklord]]: Hakaan na Uruk

A realm of [[half-orc]]s turned inwards into a brutal and pointless butchery, where the inhabitants try to claim "purity" of either [[human]] or [[orc]]ish heritage despite all being mixed race. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====San Bartolome=====
::Cultural Level: Middle Ages
::Landscape: Warm, Rugged, Mountainous
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Isabel de Sargas

A theocratic tropical paradise that is obsessed with the need to attain spiritual purification through righteous behavior and serial reincarnation. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sacrifices.

=====Scaena=====
::Cultural Level: Renaissance
::Landscape: The inside of a theater
::Motif: Mad Artistry
::[[Darklord]]: Lemot Sediam Juste

The personal theatre of Lemot Sediam Juste, who went insane and murdered his entire cast of actors, then burned down the theatre with himself in it, all because he couldn't accept that he was only good at writing comedies and he was a fucking terrible author of tragedies. Now it wanders the Misty Realms, luring in victims to serve as cast and audience alike, all ultimately to meet destruction.

=====Seradan=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Temeprate Forests, Hills
::Motif: [[Stupid Nuetral]]
::[[Darklord]]: Geren Horstadt

A domain from which all of the metaphorical life has been sapped; a dull and colorless place of dull and colorless people, its inhabitants almostly aggressively average, sluggish and dreamy in their actions. All the better to torment its darklord. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Secrets.

=====Souragne=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Tropical Swamps
::Motif: Southern Gothic
::[[Darklord]]: Anton Misroi

It's basically the Ravenloft version of the Antebellum South as a whole and New Orleans in particular.

=====Staunton Bluffs=====
::Cultural Level: Middle Ages
::Landscape: Cold Prairies and Forests
::Motif: Cowardice and treachery
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Torrence Bleysmith

A small realm of prairies, overseen by the mad, bitter ghost of the man who caused the downfall of the people who once dwelled here.

=====Stonewall=====
::Cultural Level: Civalric
::Landscape: Temperate Forests & Mountains
::Motif: Puritan Intolerance
::[[Darklord]]: Bethany Stone

Once a small town near Salem, Massachusetts in the real world - or at least its Gothic Earth analogue, Stonewall has been ripped from its moorings and cast into the myths thanks to the machinations of its darklord; a woman so self-righteous and hateful that she killed her own daughter to carry on her moral crusade. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Tower of the Phantom Lover=====
::Cultural Level: NA
::Landscape: Tower over underground labyrinth
::Motif: Sexual Predation
::[[Darklord]]: The Phantom Lover

The mysterious hideaway of the malevolent spirit known as the Phantom Lover, who seeks to seduce and then slaughter women pining for lost love.

=====Tsuu-y-Teke=====
::Cultural Level: Stone Age
::Landscape: Warm Deserts, Hills & Mountains
::Motif: Desert Country Native American Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Heresa Heri, The Vulture King

A domain inspired by the myths of desert-dwelling Native American cultures. A realm of seemingly eternal day, haunted by a malevolent vulture-spirit who once tried to steal all the lights of day and night for himself. Netbook canon. First appeared in the [[Books of S|Book of Shadows]] for 2e, then was updated to 3e in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Vechor=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Warm Forests, Hills & Swamps
::Motif: Insanity Made Real
::[[Darklord]]: Easan the Mad

A vaguely India-esque domain ruled over by an insane [[elf]] [[wizard]] who has the power to reshape the surroundings based on his current mad whim.

=====Vin'Ejal=====
::Cultural Level: Medieval
::Landscape: Arctic Coastal Mountain
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Benada Nameless

A frigid island that drifts in an icy sea, whose people struggle to survive in the face of the eternal winter and the packs of [[seawolf|seawolves]] haunting their rich seas, haunted by a most unusual darklord; a [[yuan-ti]]-blooded [[weresnake]]! Netbook canon domain from the Book of Souls.

=====Vulnara=====
::Cultural Level: Late Chivalric to Renaissance
::Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Mountains
::Motif: All-Consuming Bitterness
::[[Darklord]]: Kasselheim Blightlyng

A realm of unusually somber and technology-focused [[gnome]]s and [[svirfneblin]], shaped by the prejudices of a bitter, self-loathing, humor-hating gnomish [[vampire]] cursed with failing senses and growing madness. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

=====Vultharesk=====
::Cultural Level: Dark Ages, Renaissance on the Godwyn Estate
::Landscape: Cold Mountains
::Motif: Moral Guardianship
::[[Darklord]]: Sir Trevor Godwyn, "The Mirror Man"

A strict, almost puritanical domain obsessed with the necessities of survival and averse to all things that are not "right" or "proper". But this attitude is not born out of morals or self-righteousness, but fear, for they are haunted by an ever-present spirit who will punish those that fails to live up to his strict sense of decency. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Shadows.

=====Wayward on the Bone Sands=====
::Cultural Level: Chivalric
::Landscape: Barren Desert
::Motif: Cannibalism, Killer Kids
::[[Darklord]]: Caleb Wicks

A cursed desert village of former humans turned into [[quevari]] after being seduced into genocide against (and cannibalism of) their [[gnome]] neighbors by the malicious child cannibal Caleb Wicks. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Secrets.

=====Whal=====
::Cultural Level: Renaisssance
::Landscape: Cold Forested Hills
::Motif: Moby Dick
::[[Darklord]]: Captain Jacobi Robertsonn

A sturdy, practical domain dedicated to the hunting of fish, seals and whales... no mean feat when your land is home to the demiplane's largest congregation of [[wereorca]]s. Netbook canon domain from the Book of Sorrows.

=====The Winding Road=====
::Cultural Level: Nonexistent
::Landscape: Random road
::Motif: Random Encounter
::[[Darklord]]: The Headless Horseman

Hands down one of the worst Domains in classical Ravenloft, the Winding Road is a glorified random encounter in which the party is suddenly attacked by the Headless Horseman, a powerful [[undead]] warrior mounted on horseback. Who is he? Well, there's three stories about where he came from. The first one is that he was an innocent man executed by Drakov's men. The second one is that he was a man who chopped off his own head rather than be killed by one of Strahd's men. And the third is that he was a bard who failed to entertain Ivana Boritsi as she bathed, so she chopped off his head and mixed his blood into her bathwater. If you think that none of those sound like a Darklord's backstory, you're not wrong. Oh, and you also have to fight the undead severed heads that precede and then follow the Horseman's run-by attack, which includes several [[medusa]] heads.

=====Yatehcaa=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Mountains, High Desert
::Motif: Native American Mythology
::[[Darklord]]: Coyote

A domain based on certain Native American myths, where the people live simple, happy lives, whilst trying to avoid the attentions of the malicious trickster and fallen hero-deity Coyote. This netbook canon domain can be found in the [[Undead Sea Scrolls]] 2002.

==Cyre?==
In [[Eberron]], the nation of Cyre was destroyed in the Day of Mourning, leaving only the [[Mournland]] behind. That Cyre became a Demiplane of Dread is perhaps the most common theory on the origin of the Mournland within the fandom, as it checks all the boxes for explanations.
*The Mournland stops at Cyre’s artificial, political, borders and thus had to be caused by some intelligent actor. The Dark Powers certainly count. It also explains why it stops so exactly at the water that the docks were left behind.
*The Mournland’s border is a wall of “dead-gray mist”. The link is obvious. In 4th Edition, this dead-gray mist supernaturally drains people of hope.
*The Forge of War states that Dannel ir'Wynarn insistence that the crown of Galifar belonged to her was the only thing keeping the Last War going, making her prime Darklord material.
*Dark Sun material describes Kalidnay as having been destroyed by "unknown disaster" that left it only "a jumble of ruins". The ruins in the Mournland are described being "moved", "rearranged", "turned 90 degrees", or "found miles from where war-era maps say they should be", which certainly can be described as a "jumble". The one adventure that travels to the ruined city (DSM2) mentions several structures remain intact, and many appear to be ruins purely because they're centuries old, which fits the multiple Mournland adventures with surviving structures, and several people seem to have died suddenly in a way that their body was intact. (While some of the Mournland's signature features are absent, all outside descriptions of Kalidnay are centuries after the fact while all descriptions of the Mournland are 0-4 years after its creation.)

None of this will ever be confirmed, and it’s unlikely to be anti-confirmed, as the truth of the Mourning is one of Eberron’s mysteries that exists to have no answer but what the [[Dungeon Master]] gives them. The setting's creator has however concurred it's a good option if one wanted some bit of Eberron in Ravenloft.

The theory received a bit of a nod in 5th edition with the reveal of a new Domain of Dread that is a fragment of Cyre that was taken by the mists on the Day of Mourning.

==4th Edition: Islands of Terror==
In the [[World Axis]], the idea of the Demiplane of Dread being its own independent universe was basically dropped. The idea, however, remained in the form of the ''Domains of Dread''; regions in the [[Shadowfell]] created in response to great evils in the Material World, essentially mimicking the Islands of Terror format of the Demiplane, but with one major difference: these Domains are still part of the Shadowfell as a whole. As a result, if you can find the rite or secret or whatever it is that grants you passage, then you can flee the Domain through its misty veil and into the wider Shadowfell... which isn't necessarily that much of an improvement, but hey.

The idea of the Core is complete absent in 4th edition. Perhaps, if [[Ravenloft]] had been revived in this setting, the Core would have instead become more of a cursed but otherwise normal world, similar to and yet separate from the Domains of Dread seen in the Shadowfell. We'll never know.

The 4e Domains of Dread consist of the following:

=====Sunderheart=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Half-ruined city on a cliff's edge at the edge of a swampy river dela
::Motif: Diabolist Grand Guignol
::[[Darklord]]: Ivania Dreygu and Vorno "The Ghoul" Kahnebor

Originally the [[Bael Turath]] city of Harrack Unarth, Sunderheart's doom came when it came under the control of the lovers Ivania Dreygu and Vorno Kahnebor, the [[Nentir Vale]] version of Romeo and Juliet... if Romeo and Juliet were debauched hedonistic [[tiefling]]s who engaged in rape, murder and cannibalism and who massacred their entire families so they could be together. Eventually, Vorno became so vile that even Ivania grew sick of him, so she murdered him by feeding him a servant girl whom she had fed with a deadly poison. Then she woke up in Sunderheart with her [[ghoul]]ified [[undead]] lover fused to her back like a monstrous parasitic twin. Now she rules by day over the half of the city still inhabited by the living, and Vorno the Ghoul rules over the undead-haunted ruins at night.

=====Graefmotte=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Dense Pine Forest, Mountains
::Motif: Starvation
::[[Darklord]]: Lord Durven Graef

When the [[Yeenoghu]]-worshipping hordes of the White Ruin threatened the empire of Nerath in the [[Nentir Vale]], Lord Graef was the ruler of a minor frontier province who had already lost two of his three children. Desperate to preserve his family legacy, he was determined that his final son, Geoffery Graef, would not answer King Elidyr's call to take up arms against the horde. When his son disagreed, they fought, and Lord Graef accidentally killed his son by causing him to fall and fatally strike his head. Which was when the [[gnoll]] warbands fell upon Graefmotte. Lord Graef led the fighting over the night, and was near-mortally wounded; disemboweled and with an arm bitten off, nobody expected him to cling to life for a day and a night... never mind for his wounds to fully heal. Ever since then, Graefmotte has been a land cursed, where its people face a slow, withering death by starvation, or a quick, bloody one at the jaws of the maddened gnolls and starvation-spawned [[ghoul]]s that haunt the ever-shifting forest.

=====Monadhan=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: Tropical Rainforest
::Motif: Treachery
::[[Darklord]]: Arantor

During the war between [[Bael Turath]] and [[Arkhosia]], the [[Metallic Dragon#Silver Dragon|Silver Dragon]] Arantor and his daughter mrissa were called upon to destroy a remote Turathi military outpost, almost hidden within thick tropical rainforest, whose isolation and surroundings made it virtually unreachable by ground-based forces. But after they hit their target, they realized that their intel had been faulty; this was no military camp, it was a refugee center for Turathi civilians! Father and daughter quarreled over what to do, with Imrissa wanting to return to Arkhosia and take responsibility for their crimes, whilst the glory-hound Arantor insisted they conceal it and protect their reputations. The argument grew so heated that Arantor slew his daughter, and then, stricken by guilt, he massacred the survivors of his first attack before becoming a plague upon the Turathi until his death. Which was when he awoke as a [[dracolich]] in a cavern deep below a twisted reflection of Monadhan, which has now become a gathering point for traitors. The greater the betrayal, and the more pathetic the reason, the more likely the perpetrator is to find a place within Monadhan - whether by being swallowed by the Mists, or by awakening there alive and whole after dying for their misdeeds. As a result, Monadhan is now an oubliette for treacherous scum from across time and space.

=====The Endless Road=====
::Cultural Level: Classical
::Landscape: An endless road winding through forests, hills and plains
::Motif: You can't escape your sins
::[[Darklord]]: Eli van Hassen

The tiny little roadside town of Tranquility was a peaceful place, until the day a four-headed [[hydra]] lurched from the fens and began plaguing the people. When a wandering [[adventurer]] known only as "The Horseman" arrived and slew the beast, the people celebrated. But the town's ruler, Eli van Hassen, a man forever plagued by resentment and inferiority over his provincial abode, resented the hero's fame. He forced his daughter to slander the man, accusing him of rape, and whipped the people of Tranquility into a frenzied mob who executed their savior despite his former protests. Now Eli and his daughter inhabit a fortified mansion that sits on the side of a great road, which stretches on to infinity; unless the Road decides to let you go, which it can do to anywhere in the [[Multiverse]], you can walk forever and never leave. Of course, that risks attack by the undead remains of the Headless Horseman, who wants revenge on the van Hassens, but will happily settle for anyone else he can get his hands on.

=====Timbergorge=====
::Cultural Level: Iron Age
::Landscape: Dense confider forest
::Motif: Nature's Savagery
::[[Darklord]]: Silvermaw

When a naive [[treant]] allowed [[human]]s to settle in the planeshifting forest that was an [[archfey]]'s garden under his care, he was horrified when they began to create a fire to keep them warm as they slept. But when he attacked in an effort to quench the flames, he burned himself and then set the forest ablaze, leaving it to burn as he focused on slaying the human interlopers. For this, his master cut the garden away and banished it to the [[Shadowfell]]. Here, the tribal humans have become a pack of werewolves, endlessly hunting and being hunted by the mad, wounded treant, who has coated his mouth with molten silver so that he may better rend and bite his foes; hence his name "Silvermaw".

==5th Edition: The Alternate Continuity==
In February 2021, it was announced across the internet that the Demiplane of Dread would at last make an official return as a D&D setting for [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]] in the form of [[Van Richten's Guide]] to [[Ravenloft]]. But it also openly announced that the 30 domains of dread that would be debuting in the book would include a mixture of brand new domains, classic domains, and revamped/reimagined takes on old domains - something that immediately began raising hackles amongst the Ravenloft fandom, who tend towards the [[grognard]]ier side of the fence. Why did they do this? Was it because the last version of Ravenloft-as-setting was done by [[White Wolf]] and there were legal entanglements preventing [[Wizards of the Coast]] from reusing their inventions? Was it because a lot of Ravenloft classic lore was actually kind of stupid and in desperate need of revamping? Was it because of [[SJW]]s? (probably a little considering some of the weirder changes made) Some combination thereof? The world may never know.

Either way, the 5e version of the Demiplane of Dread thusly has its own unique take on the different Domains, which this section will try to break down for comparison's sake.

5th edition no longer has the Core although a few Clusters still exist, but are now treated as single domains, and also changes the rules for traveling between domains. If the borders of a domain are not closed, entering the mists on the borders only takes you to another domain if you get a lucky roll, and usually you will end up back in the domain where you started or just wander the mists going nowhere. And even if you do get lucky it is up to the DM to decide where to drop you. You can choose what domain you want to go to and bypass this roll by carrying a mist talisman, which is an item related in some way to that domain or at least that domain's theme, and each domain has a few possible items you can use as a talisman for it. If you have the Mist Walker dark gift, you can travel to any domain that you know the name of without a talisman, but at the cost of not being able to stay in one place for too long.

===Detailed Domains===
These domains have received descriptions a few pages long.

=====Barovia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

It's literally just Barovia as seen in [[Curse of Strahd]]. The only major change is that now the Dark Powers have started to get creative and may have Tatyana reincarnate as someone unexpected to mess with Strahd.

=====Bluetspur 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Utterly alien
::Motif: Alien Horror, amnesia
::[[Darklord]]: The God-Brain

Aside from some slight tweaks to the backstory of the God-Brain and a shift in focus to more of an "alien abductions/unspeakable alien experiments" motif, Bluetspur is basically unchanged.

=====Borca 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Outside of the changes to the [[Darklord]]s, there's nothing new here.

=====[[The Carnival]] 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

No longer a wandering point of light, [[The Carnival]] is now a free-floating island of terror, with the role of [[Darklord]] being shared between Isolde and Nepenthe, a cursed sword she carries. The backstory has also been changed extensively, involving a counterpart to the Carnival run by [[shadar-kai]]. The Carnival is also haunted by the ''Litwick Market'', a black market of malicious fey with a grudge against the Carnival who invariably show up once the Carnival settles down and start making trouble. Also, the Twisting is no longer a thing.

=====Darkon 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: The end of the world
::[[Darklord]]: Azalin Rex, currently MIA

The first "continuation" domain, Azalin went missing during an event called the Hour of Ascension and now Darkon is falling apart, slowly being dissolved by the Mists. The domain has become split into four islands. During the day the mists can be crossed as normal, but during the night anything covered by the mists disappears and the mists swallow a little bit more of the land in tiny steps or in huge floods. As was the case during the original [[Grim Harvest|Shrouded Years]], a number of demilords are trying and failing to hold it together. Collectively known as The Inheritors, they consist of the vampire Alcio Metus (sister to the late Baron Metus), Cardinna Artazas and the Necrichor of Darcalus Rex, and Madame Talisveri Eris. The only clue about where Azalin went is a strange glowing object called the King's Tear which appeared floating over Darkon at the same time that he vanished.

=====Dementlieu 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Masquerade and imposter syndrome
::[[Darklord]]: Saidra d'Honaire

Completely rewritten, Dementlieu is now an impoverished city where everybody tries desperately to pretend they are richer and more important than they actually are, lest they be disintegrated by its new [[Darklord]]; Saidra d'Honaire. Also has a Masque of the Red Death thing going on, making it a bit like Sanguinia.

=====Falkovnia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Zombie Apocalypse
::[[Darklord]]: Vladeska Drakov

Completely rewritten, Falkovnia is no longer the "war horror" domain, but instead a zombie apocalypse domain, where new [[Darklord]] Vladeska Drakov struggles to keep the living alive in the face of monthly sieges by massive armies of the [[Walking Dead]]. Maybe they didn't want [[/pol/]] fanboying the original Vlad?

=====Har'Akir 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Completely rewritten, Har'Akir is now a sprawling, heavily populated land where [[necrocracy|the living bow to a mummified aristocracy]] and Ankhtepot actually wishes for death.

=====Haz'lan 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Wild magic, environmental destruction, magic-based classism
::[[Darklord]]: Hazlik

This retconned version of the domain has dropped the Mulans vs. Rashemani racism of the past and is now being devastated by a series of arcane apocalypses. [[Darklord]] Hazlik now suffers a combination of his old curse and Azalin's curse.

=====I'Cath 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Denial of reality
::[[Darklord]]: Tsien Chiang

Completely rewritten, I'Cath has gone from a glorified [[Oriental Adventures]] [[dungeon]] to a crumbling city where the population is largely trapped in an eternal slumber, forced to constantly work at building and rebuilding a dream-version of I'Cath at the behest of [[Darklord]] Tsien Chiang, who can never be satisfied with what she has. When the inhabitants wake, they must scavenge for food in a city constantly being rebuilt by Tsien Chian's armies of [[Jiangshi]], who will not harm a sleeper, but will happily tear an awake mortal limb from limb.

=====Kalakeri=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: War-torn nation, faction mechanics
::[[Darklord]]: Ramya Vasavadan

New domain, although it's intended to take the place of the old domain of Sri Raji, which is mentioned as an alternative name for it. This India-themed domain is locked in an eternal civil war between its [[Darklord]], Ramya Vasavadan, and her two [[fiend]]ish siblings; Arijani the [[Rakshasa]] and Reeva the [[Arcanaloth]].

=====Kartakass 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Show business, predatory business practices, werewolves
::[[Darklord]]: Harkon Lukas

Largely unchanged, save for the revisions to [[Darklord|Harkon Lukas']] story and the replacement of [[wolfwere]]s with [[Loup-garou]].

=====Lamordia 5e=====
::Cultural Level: Steampunk
::Landscape: Arctic
::Motif: Mad science, biting cold, implicit kaiju
::[[Darklord]]: Viktra Mordenheim

Basically unchanged, save for a new emphasis on an arctic climate and the tweaks to its [[Darklord]], replacing Viktor Mordenheim and Adam with Viktra Mordenheim and Elise. The darklord curse has been given a twist, too: Viktra succeeded where Victor would perpetually fail-- but she cannot duplicate her success and the living (golem-like) Elise shuns her. Also, the whalers may or may not be hunting creatures [[Kraken|more fearsome than whales]], and it's heavily implied that there may be a radioactive kaiju hibernating under the mountain range not-so-subtly named "The Sleeping Beast".

=====Mordent 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Ghosts and haunted houses
::[[Darklord]]:

The only change here is to [[Darklord|Wilfred Godefroy's]] curse and backstory, which now involves the famous Alchemist's Apparatus first introduced to [[Ravenloft]] lore in [[I10: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill]].

=====Richemulot 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Pandemic, wererats
::[[Darklord]]: Jacqueline Renier

Retconned into a plague-stricken nation barely avoiding crumbling into total ruination through the machinations of [[Darklord|Jacqueline Renier]], who's also responsible for the plagues in the first place as she's a one-percenter who despises the middle-class.

=====Tepest 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Wickerman/Midsommar type of stories
::[[Darklord]]: Lorinda Mindefisk

Sitting somewhere between continuation and retcon, Tepest has lost its anti-fey inquisition and is now focused on its [[Darklord]]; Lorinda Mindefisk, who imprisoned her sisters in a cauldron because they refused to let her have a child.

=====Valachan 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Jungle
::Motif: The deadliest game
::[[Darklord]]: Chakuna

Similarly to Tepest, Valachan is supposed to be a continuation of its former self, although there's a lot of retcons to the lore. Since [[Darklord|Baron Urik von Kharkov]] was slain by Chakuna, the jungles have turned hungry, rendering the realm a land where everything is out for blood and those appetites are barely kept in check by regular ceremonial blood sacrifices known as the Trial of Hearts.

===Summarized Domains===
These domains only received a short block of text about them. Several of them are completely new domains and so are intended to just be ideas for Dungeon Masters to build on.

=====Cyre 1313, The Mourning Rail=====
::Cultural Level: Dungeonpunk
::Landscape: A magical train traveling through the Mists
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: The Last Passenger

The first ever [[Eberron]] Domain of Dread. On the day that Cyre was destroyed by the Mourning, a train was about to carry a bunch of refugees who saw the disaster coming out of Cyre, but the train's departure was delayed by a mysterious VIP who threw hundreds of the train's passengers out to make room for their self and their retinue and to be sure nobody on the train would learn their identity, and so the train departed too late. The train was taken into the mists when the Mourning hit where it became a mobile domain constantly running from the Mourning which the passengers think is still chasing them. The passengers still haven't noticed that the Mourning already killed them.

=====Forlorn 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====Ghastria 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====G'henna 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for a few details about its Darklord's history.

=====Invidia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Rewritten; Gabrielle Aderre is now the [[Darklord]], constantly dabbling in black magic and conjuring all manner of outsiders to try and ensure that her beloved (and implicitly possessed) son Malocchio will have the best of futures.

=====Keening 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Now has a living population who live in terror of its [[banshee]] [[Darklord]]. They fear the Darklord so much that they have actually destroyed their own sense of hearing to protect themselves.

=====Klorr=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Surreal environment
::Motif: Impending Doom
::[[Darklord]]: Klorr

New domain mentioned in brief, a series of shattered islands floating through a misty netherworld, swirling around a blazing giant eye, where one island is obliterated every hour only for another to take its place.

=====Markovia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Tropical island
::Motif: Flowers for Algernon syndrome, furries
::[[Darklord]]: Dr. Frantisek Markov

Rewritten into a mixture of Dr. Moreau and Dr. Jekyll.

=====The Nightmare Lands 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Nightmares
::[[Darklord]]: The Nightmare Court

Largely unchanged, save for the new origin of the Nightmare Court as multiple personas birthed from the mind of a powerful but monstrous [[psion]]icist who tries to run from the crimes of her past and deny that they ever existed.

=====Niranjan=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: Island monastery
::Motif: [[Path of Inspiration]]
::[[Darklord]]: Sarthak

New domain mentioned in brief, tied to Kalakeri, ruled over by a corrupted [[Metallic Dragon|Brass Dragon]] who poses as a ''sadhu'' to lure victims into sacrificing their worldly goods for his hoard before he consumes their souls and replaces it with an obedient shadow.

=====Nova Vaasa 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]: Myar Hiregaard

Rewritten; now less Russian and more Mongolian, with a female [[Darklord]] named Myar Hiregaard who united the warring tribes of her homelands, only to turn them against each other once more when she grew bored with peacetime.

=====Odaire 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged, save for the minor detail that Maligno ''changed'' his name to that from his original, less ridiculous name of ''Figlio''.

=====The Rider's Bridge=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Yet another reinterpretation of the Headless Horseman, this time as a [[dullahan]] who shows up at important bridges in domain-specific forms and attacks anyone who tries to cross. Successfully crossing the bridge may transport you to a different domain.

=====Risibilos 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Parody
::[[Darklord]]: Doerdon

A super-minor domain originally mentioned in brief as part of the infamously terrible "Book of Crypts" anthology. Rewritten into a domain-hopping music hall, where the [[Iron Warriors|humorless]] former-king Doerdon is now condemned to an agonizing eternity as an entertainer, with a sentient ventriloquist dummy in the likeness of Strahd von Zarovich as his partner in comedy. Needless to say, don't be surprised if your DM brings a Strahd muppet to the table.

=====Scaena 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:
Unchanged from its original lore.

=====Sea of Sorrows 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

The Darklord is now Pietra van Rise, a vicious female [[pirate]] turned ghost or sea zombie (it's not clear which). Mention is also made of Blaustein (now ruled by the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives), Dominia (the patients are all avatars of Dr. Heinfroth), the Isle of the Ravens (unchanged), and the new domains of The Lighthouse, which features, well, a lighthouse, and Vigilant's Bluff, where an undead paladin offers refuge so long as you respect his faith.

=====The Shadowlands 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Unchanged.

=====Souragne 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Still Southern Gothic New Orleans, but Anton's got a new backstory as a sadistic prison warden and has been downgraded in terms of power.

=====Staunton Bluffs 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

Largely identical, except the former [[darklord]] is now a good guy and his crime has been given to his retconned sister, Teresa Bleysmith.

=====Tovag 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif:
::[[Darklord]]:

No longer connected to Cavitus, [[Kas]] now fixates on finding [[Vecna]] and resuming their ancient battle.

=====Vhage Agency=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape: An office building
::Motif: Insanity, Film Noir
::[[Darklord]]: Flimira Vhage

A new domain in the form of a detective agency ruled over by Flimira Vhage, who remains unaware that literally the entire agency only exists in her own broken mind. Oh, and it literally looks like an old [[noir]] film brought to life, complete with everything inside being in different shades of monotone gray.

=====Zherisia 5e=====
::Cultural Level:
::Landscape:
::Motif: Serial killings
::[[Darklord]]: Sodo

The elaborate dread [[doppelganger]] society has been wiped out. Now there's just a starving city descending into madness and a single ancient doppelganger trying to preserve its existence through cannibalism. The sewers that used to be called Timor still exist but the marikiths have been replaced with [[Carrion Stalker]]s.

==Notable Non-Darklords==
* [[Van Richten]]
* [[Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins]]
* [[Jander Sunstar]]
* [[Alanik Ray]]
* [[Larissa Snowmane]]
* [[Vistani]]

{{Planescape-Cosmology}}
[[Category:Ravenloft]]

Franken Fran

2021-06-08T22:11:15Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Characters */

{{Template:Heresy}}
{{promotions}}
[[Category:Weeaboo]][[Category:Monstergirls]]

'''WARNING: This shit is not as kawaii as the cover may have lead you to believe.
'''
[[image:fran.jpg|thumb|right|Should not want...]]
Franken Fran is <s>guro fapmaterial</s> guro-themed comedy [[manga]] for <s>sickfucks</s> [[brits|clever people with twisted sense of humour]]. Most often the plot circles around Fran, her clients and "[[Promotions|operations]]".

The world of Franken Fran is a somewhat the same as our world with a [[Grimdark|batshit crazy version of the natural laws.]] People can [[Lucius|reincarnate]] inside the bodies of others in the form of sentient tumors. Microcellular parasites that makes people die by bleeding explosions. Ancient curses can make you live forever by [[wat|having living colonies of insects take the place of your organs.]] [[Perpetual|Immortal]], [[Angron|psychopatic]], [[Lamenters|absurdly lucky]] criminals whom somehow might have been [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|great conqueror in times past]] All this while having access to ridicoulously advanced medical science capable of merging bodies together, and have them function indivually, even after being blown to small, unrecognizable bits. Also, most of the times, you're not in for the ride to being with.

[[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bile]] and [[Urien Rakarth]] talk with her about their latest exploits and swap tips over tea and a friendly card game every few months. They also fap to her picture.

==Characters==
'''Fran'''- Mad scientist, [[Loli|loli]] frankenstein, though a pretty [[Weeaboo|kawaii]] one. She also has crush on her father, being singular proof that incest is wincest. Does everything in the name of "SCIENCE" and love. Has lots of stitches and is considered to be Madaraki's masterpeice, also has lots and lots of arms and can self-repair even when her head is lopped off.
''Note: Her values and her patient's values might differ. Be warned.''

'''Veronica'''- [[DFC|Flatso]] killing machine (also Fran's younger Sister). When she does not kill, she tsunderes. Luckily, [[Khorne|she likes killing.]]

'''Naomitsu Madaraki'''- "The Professor", "father" of Fran, Veronica and presumably a few other not-so-pretty freaks. Been around since the first World War, so he's pretty old, but still the best biotechnic in the world.

'''Okita'''- "The Professor" might be the best biotechnic in the world, but Fran wants to give a try too. And most often, the result is something like this. Cat with man's head ([[Meme|a cat is fine too]]). Still, maybe the most sane character in the whole series. Yeah, it's pretty mental.

'''Gavril'''- Fran's older sister that likes killing people, but mostly eating people. She is a shapeshifting teenage rebel 'transformer' that wears a pair of headphones. Said headphones are like kitchen timers that may or may not determine just what monstrosity she turns into. Also has surprisingly good teaching skills.

'''Adorea''' Her job is to collect and store as many organs as possible for Fran's use. Constantly wrapped up in bandages. Forgotten/tricked by her boyfriend after convinced her to donate her organs to save his own ass. Fran's twisted sense of morality/romance turned her into a writhing mass of God knows what capable to gobble up people out of insecurity-induced stress. It's very creepy when you think about a walking, wriggling mass of a cannibal in the shape of young girl.

'''Rumiko Kuhou''' obligatory female investigator, also an airhead but somewhat competent, probably Fran's favorite, unwilling test subject. Got herself cloned, unwillingly. Said clones were made capable of reproducing via meiosis, unwillingly. Were conscripted and made to battle Gavril 24/7 until the army chose to nuke the crap out of the island they were all trapped in instead of dropping more supplies. Then, later they were sold as "extras" for a rich guy's personal anime-themed park, until the original Rumiko got mixed up with the clones, and forced to undergo even more, unrequested surgery (unwillingly) until her sanity snapped.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Fran_Cover.jpg|The covers look like this...
Image:Fran2.jpg|...and this is what we get.
Image:Franservice.jpg|I'mma let you finish but Franken Fran had one of the best f(r)anservices of all time!
</gallery>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
===Rule34===

PROMOTIONS Ahead. Expand at your own risk.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
<center><gallery>
image:FranRule1.jpg|This is actually canon.
image:FranRule8.jpg
image:FranRule5.jpg
image:FranRule2.png
image:FranRule7.jpg
image:FranRule3.png
image:FranRule4.jpg
image:FranRule6.jpg
image:FranRule9.jpg
</gallery></center>
</div>
</div>

[[Category:Weeaboo]][[Category:NSFW]]

Ghoul

2021-06-08T21:10:48Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Dungeons & Dragons */

'''Ghouls''' are monsters that have appeared in a wide variety of forms throughout roleplaying history; if you have a fantasy or a horror setting, then you're very likely to encounter something referred to as a "ghoul." Taking their name from "Ghul", an Arabic evil spirit or [[Genie|djinn]] that haunted graveyards and feasted on the corpses interred there, ghouls are typically undead creatures that are driven by an insatiable urge for flesh. Ardent necrovores, most forms of ghoul in /tg/ media also happily kill living beings to produce more corpses for them to feed on.

In the middle eastern mythology, the ghouls dwells in burial grounds and other uninhabited places. It is a fiendish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis (Arabic version of the devil). A ghoul is also a desert-dwelling, shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary people into the desert wastes or abandoned places to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, drinks blood, steals coins, eats the dead, then taking the form of the person most recently eaten.

The "iconic" ghoul in most minds, based on the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' version, which is in turn based on the [[H.P. Lovecraft]] version, is actually fairly close to the iconic "Romero [[Zombie]]"; an undead flesh-eater that ceaselessly hunts for prey and which carries debilitating diseases that can cause those it wounds or kills to eventually become ghouls themselves. This is actually quite fitting, as Romero himself referred to his original movie's monsters ''as'' "Ghouls", as at the time people only knew zombies from their role in Haitian mythology as undead automatons (which incidentally is the exact role that ''D&D'' zombies occupy).

==All Flesh Must Be Eaten==
In addition to the ability to reference Romero and call any zombies you create "ghouls", actual ghouls appear in the Atlas of the Walking Dead sourcebook. They are portrayed as intelligent, rational, unearthly beings with the ability to shapeshift between human-like and zombie-like forms, magical skills, and a need to feed on corpses.

==Call of Cthulhu==
As per their depiction in [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s books, Ghouls in the Cthulhuverse are a fairly benign race of alien creatures who look like someone mixed a humanoid with a dog and a carnivorous donkey and then allowed it to get slightly corpse-like. They feed exclusively on dead flesh and can transform willing humans into members of their own race, but have little malign intent towards humanity.

Probably. I mean, there are stories...

<gallery>
ghoul Cthulhu Companion 1e.jpg
ghoul dreamlands 3e.png
ghoul SPFG Cthulhu Monsters.jpg
ghoul Arkham Unveiled 4e.jpg
</gallery>

==Dungeons & Dragons==
The most iconic form of ghoul in many eyes, D&D ghouls are undead who can spread through an infectious disease they carry in their fangs/claws, be created by [[necromancer]]s, or spontaneously arise from the bodies of cannibals or evil gluttons. They are faster, more agile and more intelligent than zombies, with at least a bestial level of intelligence, and a genuinely macabre and malevolent nature.

They are perhaps most infamous for their paralyzing touch, which lets them freeze your PC immobile so they can then eat them alive; this notoriously cheap ability has frustrated many players, especially because, traditionally, [[Mary Sue|elves are immune to its effects]] for no discernible non-fluff reason.

Ghouls also have more powerful versions, such as the Ghast (which is basically a leveled-up ghoul with a permanent stinking cloud aura who ''can'' paralyze elves) and - starting late 2e - the Ghoul Lord. From at least the 1e Monster Manual there's an aquatic version, the Lacedon.

The first ghoul-focused adventure was Wolfgang Baur's 2e "Kingdom of the Ghouls" (or "White Kingdom"), published Dungeon #70. Baur was well-versed in classic Weird, and sprinkles quotes from Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith throughout. This is an [[Underdark]] epic set on the north shore of no other than the Sunless Sea of ''[[D1-2-3: Drow Trilogy|Depths]]'' fame. Your job is to gather up the other Underdark races and to lead them on a multiracial crusade against something ''clearly'' anathema to all life - well, clearly except to opportunists like (here) the [[cloaker]]s.

5e attempts an origin-mythos. Here, Ghouls came to being in the Abyss, where an Elf worshiper of (who else) [[Orcus]] named [[Doresain]] turned from his people and feasted on humanoid flesh to honor his god. The Demonic Prince of Undeath, pleased with this development, made the elf into the first ghoul, and he happily created ghouls from the other servants of Orcus, until [[Yeenoghu]] robbed him of his domain. He turned to Orcus, who refused to help. Thus, he turned to the elven gods, who took pity on him and helped him escape. Ever since then, elves are immune to the ghouls paralyzing touch as thanks from Doresain for the Elf Gods saving him. Though he is not going to stop his servants from snacking on Elf meat as he never truly reformed.

<gallery>
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</gallery>

===Lovecraftian Ghoul 5e PCs===
In [[Sandy Petersen]]'s [[Cthulhu Mythos]] for 5e, the Lovecraftian Ghoul (discussed above) is presented as a playable race.

::Ability Score Increase: +1 Constitution, +1 Intelligence
::Size: Medium
::Speed: 30 feet
::Vision: Darkvision 60 feet
::Grave Nose: You have Advantage on Perception checks made using smell to detect or recognize corpses, decaying things, meat, and the [[undead]].
::Bite: You can make a Bite attack (1d4 piercing, Finesse weapon trait) as an Unarmed Strike.
::Claws: You can make a Claw attack (1d4 piercing, Finesse weapon trait) as an Unarmed Strike.
::Psychic Feast: When you feed on the flesh of a dead humanoid or monstrosity, so long as that creature has been dead a bare minimum of 25 hours, you can gain an insight; with the DM's permission, either gain one skill or tool proficiency possessed by the creature, or multiply a shared skill/tool proficiency by 1.5. You can maintain up to three "insights" at a time, and at the DM's permission, older corpses may grant more than one insight at a time. Feasting requires at least one minute of consuming the corpse.
::Inured to Disease: You are immune to nonmagical disease and have Advantage on saves against magical disease.
::Subrace: Choose whether you were Raised by Ghouls, [[Dwarves]], [[Elves]], [[Half-Elves]], [[Half-Orc]]s, or [[Human]]s.

''Raised by Ghouls''
::Burrower: You have a Burrow speed of 10 feet that applies to sand, earth, mud and ice. You can either leave a tunnel behind you as you dig (lets you dig indefinitely) or not (in which case you must hold your breath).
::::Scrounger: You have Advantage on Perception and Investigation checks made to find objects that have been hidden, particularly by being concealed in rubble or undergrowth, or by being buried.
::Bonus Language: Ghoul

''Raised by Dwarves''
::Dwarven Combat Training: You have proficiency with the Battleaxe, Handaxe, Light Hammer and Warhammer.
::Tool Proficiency: You have proficiency with either smith's tools, brewer's supplies or mason's tools.
::Stonecunning: Apply double your Proficiency bonus when making History checks relating to origin of stonework.
::Bonus Language: Dwarven

''Raised by Elves''
::Elven Influence: Choose one elf subrace. You gain all of that subrace's traits outside of its ability score increase.
::Bonus Language: Elfin

''Raised by Half-Elves''
::Skill Versatility: You have Proficiency in two skills of your choice.
::Bonus Language: Elfin

''Raised by Half-Orcs''
::Menacing: You have proficiency in Intimidation.
::Savage Attacks: When you land a critical hit with a melee weapon, add one bonus damage dice.
::Bonus Language: Orc

''Raised by Humans''
:Ability Score Increase: Two ability scores of your choice from the following list increase by +1 each - Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom or Charisma.

==Pathfinder==
Like most OGL monsters they are pretty close to their 3.5 incarnation except for system wide difference. One change outside of this is that since all of a ghoul's weapons are now primary attacks it has no need for the multiattack feat and gets weapon finesse instead. Mechanically this means it's 5% more likely to hit with its bite and 15% more likely with its claws, on what was already one of most likely monsters to TPK. More powerful related creatures exist: Genies cursed to undeath called Ghuls, and extraplanar Leng Ghouls.

Fluff wise however, Pathfinder has one major difference: It remembers ghouls are actually intelligent. For this reason they often form actual cities, albeit in places like the [[Underdark|Underdar... "Darklands"]] or necromancer ruled nation of Geb.

They're also a bloodline. It was primarily intended for ghoul [[Sorcerer]]s, but can be used by players. Likely uses the "magical event" explanation, possibly as simple as "your mom had ghoul fever when pregnant, but survive". You never know though.

==Warhammer Fantasy==
[[File:Crypt Ghoul.jpeg|thumb|right|300px]]
In the [[Warhammer Fantasy]] world and the later [[Age of Sigmar]] setting, Crypt Ghouls are corrupted humans and their descendants reduced to cannibalism, something that irrevocably tainted them to the point they are not undead, but close enough thanks to Death Magic flowing through them that they instinctively obey the [[Vampire Counts]]. Most are drawn to Strigoi who are the Vampiric equivalent of themselves and make any Strigoi into their "alpha male/female", which is why Strigoi Vampires are called "Strigoi Ghoul Kings". In Age of Sigmar, Ghouls are not as rare thanks to [[Ushoran]] wandering the setting and spreading an infectious madness everywhere he goes, making members of all races and allegiances turn into [[Flesh-Eater Courts|packs of delusional, feral cannibals]] that think they're actually [[Bretonnia|Bretonnians]].

A small number serve the [[Lahmian]] Bloodline, specifically a handful of tribes that worship [[Queen Neferata]] as a goddess. They are called The Wretches.

Sometimes Ghouls will drink Vampire blood, usually as a gift from their master. This shortens their lifespan drastically but gives them great power, turning them into gigantic hulks called Crypt Horrors. Horrors regenerate wounds, are far stronger than any mortal being, and are immune to the magic warding of the servants of [[Morr]] and [[Sigmar]] which enables them to invade and desecrate cemeteries so their lesser kin and masters can enter and feast without fear or pain.

There is another creature similar to a Ghoul, called a [[Mourngul]], although its much closer to undead than a Ghoul is.

As of [[Age of Sigmar]] Ghoulism is contagious, as [[Ushoran]] turns out to have survived the destruction of the old setting and apparently is delusional to the degree that not only does he believe he's in a rebuilt Mourkain and meeting nobles while in actuality he's at the center of a roaming horde of cannibals and savage vampires, but that delusion is contagious; anywhere he goes in the Realms (and apparently he goes everywhere, unpredictably) members of any race from any society or faith can be drawn into the same delusion. Mortals become Ghouls as they see themselves wearing finery and politely eating morsels among friends and their lord while in reality they are degenerated monsters shoving fistfuls of manflesh into their mouths and snarling at each other.

<gallery>
Image:BLACK EYED GHOUL, ELVES CONFIRMED AS GHOULS.jpg
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Image:Ghoul Army.jpg
</gallery>
{{Vampire Count Troops}}
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]][[Category:Vampire Counts]][[Category:Undead Legion]][[Category:Flesh-Eater Courts]]

==World of Darkness==
Ghouls in the [[World of Darkness]] have no real resemblance to any of their cousins mentioned here, and are mostly named as such because "Renfields" was a stupid name for a minor template. In essence, in [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] and [[Vampire: The Requiem]], vampires who feed a mortal regularly with their blood can give that mortal ever-lasting youth, a vampire-like healing factor, and technically minor access to vampire powers. Why would they do this? Because it also puts a mind-whammy on the ghoul compelling them to love, honor & obey the vampire with all their hearts, and with the added stick that missing a regular feeding will strip the ghoul of all its powers ''and'' cause age to rapidly catch up with them, vampires find ghouls essential as the closest things they can know to loyal, trustworthy servants capable of operating during the day.

That said, Vampire: the Requiem also introduces another kind of ghoul in its 1e sourcebook "Night Horrors: The Wicked Dead". This is a depraved occultist who has used dark magical rituals to gain a form of immortality fueled by the consumption of raw meat. These ghouls - or "ghuls", to distinguish them from the vampiric blood-vassals - have all of the benefits of being a living human, but is unaging and cannot be killed except with great difficulty; they are only inconvenienced by Aggravated damage, and when their health bar fills with that damage type, they dissolve into a bloody mist that then reforms itself at the site of their last meal. They remain in torpor at that sight for 10-Morality days, during which time they can be killed by burning them. They suffer a compulsion to feast on raw meat from midnight until dawn, can learn the vampiric disciplines of Celerity, Majesty and Vigor, can project a glamor that allows them to better seduce their victims, and can cause delusions of being an animal in anyone whose eyes they meet. They may also be skilled alchemists, have the ability to see aura, or be capable of altering luck in their favor.

==Fallout==
In the [[Fallout]] universe, some humans who are irradiated don't die horribly, but mutate; their skin sloughs off and their nails turn into claws, but they become seemingly immortal, in the "immune to aging" sense, and immune to radiation - they can even learn to "feed" on radiation to replace the need for physical sustenance. These zombie-like bastards are known in-universe as "ghouls". Many retain their human minds and now have to put up with prejudice from their former neighbors; partly because they look like burnt walking corpses, but mainly because they sometimes lose their minds and become zombie-like roving cannibalistic horrors, known as feral ghouls, the widespread assumption being that this is the eventual fate of all ghouls (though mostly the former - as a Ghoul points out in FO4, regular people break and go killing all the time too in Fallout, so...).

What they look like depends on the game. Feral Ghouls in Fallout 1, 2, 3 and NV have no skin and exposed teeth while normal ghouls look like people with flaking, dead skin. From Fallout 4 and forward, feral ghouls look like cancerous, dangling messes (but with their skin intact), while normal ghouls look like severe burn victims, usually with no hair or nose.

==Shadowrun==
All "undead" (the term is used loosely here, for all are actually still alive) in the Sixth World are infectees of HMHVV. 'Human (and) Meta-Human Vampiric Virus' is a magical disease that magically reshapes the host's DNA and aura to turn them into a monster straight out of a Hammer horror movies, save for the fact they don't really die. The first variant creates a whole rainbow of race-based vampire variants, the second a mess of lycanthrope-like poor sods, but the HMHVV III strain, also called the Krieger strain, always creates ghouls. It is both the most virulent of the three strains as it is transmissible via bodily fluids contact instead of [[/d/|draining the victim's life force almost to zero before willingly trying to infect them]], and one of the suckiest.

Ghouls in shadowrun are normal people who look like walking corpses, with ugly cuts and freakishly pale skin. They can go out in sunlight, though it causes them discomfort. All ghouls are rendered blind by tissue necrosis, though their senses of smell and hearing sharpen to compensate and they can 'see' magic to track prey. Like all HMHVV infectees however, they need to eat live or recently dead (meta-)human tissues to survive, in their case raw flesh. Some are driven insane and turned feral by the infection, some aren't; but all need to feed on metahuman meat or starve and eventually go feral anyway. Those who aren't animalistic monsters tend to get jobs that offer ready access to human flesh, like medical waste disposal workers. Their bodies don't accept implants well, but they're stronger than normal, so some do work as Shadowrunners. If having to be a cannibal to survive wasn't bad enough, most places in the Sixth World have an open bounty on (dead) ghouls (due to Strain III being so highly contagious). [[grimdark|Just drag the body to your nearest police station and cash in]].

==Monstergirls?!==
{{Monstergirls}}

Now, we know what you're thinking: "Surely, being flesh-eating undead monsters, ghouls are one of the monsters that nobody has '''ever''' tried to [[monstergirls|sexy up]], right?" Well, naive young soul, I'm afraid that you're wrong, and it has happened.

Worst part is that it's not without precedence. There are actual mythical tales in which human men unwittingly marry female ghouls, completely ignorant of their brides' necrophagic tastes until inevitably they suspect her of cheating and learn the horrifying truth. Death or divorce tends to follow swiftly after. Likewise, because ghouls are often portrayed as inherently more "alive" than [[zombie]]s, it's relatively easy to envision families with a dark secret that involves successful necrophilia in horror games; there's a reason why [[Dungeons & Dragons]] has a [[Half-Ghoul]] racial template, and why [[Pathfinder]] has its Ghoul Bloodline for [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|sorcerers]].

Still, ghoul monstergirls are a rarity and considered to be pretty deep down the rabbithole of MG fetishism - after all, necrophilia is considerably more deviant (and unhealthy) than xenophilia. They are often mischievous, with a macabre sense of humor ("ghoulish", in other words) and an aggressive personality. Long tongues and a dominant attitude during sex are also a common thing. Other interpretations go back to the original myths and exploit the whole necrophagic genie thing, making them more mystical in nature.

In the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], ghouls are a smarter (in the way that a feral dog is smarter than a bimbo) version of the [[zombie]] whose intense hunger for flesh has been converted into a huge craving for semen (...yes, really). They are oral fetishists to an incredible degree, with mouths so sensitive they can even orgasm from the pleasure they experience in blowing a man. If it weren't for the fact their genitalia are even more sensitive than their mouths, they'd probably never do anything but give oral sex. Even when they aren't blowing the men they catch, a mystical compound in their saliva means that the hickeys and lovebites they love giving are incredibly arousing, sending a surge of sexual pleasure through their lover's body whenever their lips contact his body.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:World of Darkness]][[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Monsters]] [[Category: Undead]] [[Category: Cthulhu Mythos]]

Great Race of Yith

2021-06-08T18:04:18Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A:

{{stub}}
[[File:Yith.PNG|thumb|What a nerd!]]

The '''Great Race of Yith''', also known as the '''Yith''' or '''Yithians''', are an alien race invented by [[H.P. Lovecraft]]. Like the [[Elder Thing]]s, they are amongst the minority of Mythosian aliens portrayed in a relatively "human" manner. They are known as "the Great Race" because they have mastered the art of using [[psionics]] to traverse time and space, allowing them to broadcast their psyches into the void to other planets and through the vastness of time, allowing them to switch bodies with beings in those far-flung spheres.

This ability is mostly used to gather knowledge, which they have been doing for [[Nyarlathotep]] knows how long. Every knowledge that was learned from during their body swapping experience with other species (history, scientific progress, culture and so on...) were recorded in their own archive library, one of which was located at the city of Pnakotus on Earth, below Australia's Great Sandy Desert. The ability can be also be used as some kind of a racial emergency button; in the face of a race-wide cataclysm, as many Yith as possible use their powers to reach to a more favorable body in a chosen timeline and swap places with them, transplanting themselves out of danger and leaving their old bodies, now hosting the new minds of their victims, to die in their wake. Children of these bodysnatched Yith will be brought up as part of the Yith culture, effectively supplanting the entire race in everything but genetics.

What a bunch of dicks.

The Yith have already done this race-swap trick at least once, abandoning their original bodies for the ones they appear in during pretty much every Mythos story or depiction they have appeared in so far. Lore says that they will eventually abandon these bodies for those of the hyper-evolved beetles that will inherit the Earth after humanity goes extinct. Their current body is a massive slug-like invertebrate, looking like a cone of flesh bigger than a man, which slides around on a single slug-like foot. From the narrow pointy top of the body emerges four tentacles; two end in large, crab-like claws and serve as arms, whilst one is tipped with a "head" (basically a round sphere that houses several large eyes and other sensory organs) and the other ends in four trumpet-like protrusions that are the Yith's mouths.

So in short, they are alien nerds with super psychokinesis and they live to record other species' shit.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
great race SPFG Cthulhu Monsters.jpg|Call of Cthulhu
great race Keepers Companion 5e.jpg
great race Miskatonic University 5e.png
great race Deities and Demigods.jpg|D&D
yithian B3 PF.jpg|Pathfinder
</gallery>

[[Category: Monsters]] [[Category: Cthulhu Mythos]]

Van Richten's Guide

2021-06-08T17:53:18Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft */

{{NeedsImages}}
'''The Van Richten's Guides''' are a series of monster-related sourcebooks written for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and connected to the setting of [[Ravenloft]].

From an in-universe perspective, the Guides are, as their title says, treatises on monster-hunting written by the esteemed Dr. [[Van Richten]], the most prolific and well-educated monster hunter in all of the [[Demiplane of Dread]]. At some point, Van Richten disappeared, after which his legacy was taken up by the [[Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins]]. In addition to completing and publishing his own unfinished notes - the Guides to the Fiend, Vistani and Witch - they went on to create their own guides, which they published under the same name for legacy purposes and to ensure they would reach their target audience.

On the meta-level, each Guidebook examines a single creature type and expands upon it to make it both a better fit for Ravenloft's purported "Gothic Horror" goal (even if, in practice, it leans closer to [[Castlevania]] amongst most people who actually play it), providing an exhaustive examination of tactics that can be used to run that monster or fight that monster, variant "salient abilities", unique weaknesses, lore, and other aspects that flesh them out.

Van Richten wrote and published on his own the following books for the [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] system:
* Guide to [[Vampire]]s
* Guide to [[Lich]]es
* Guide to [[Ghost]]s
* Guide to [[Therianthrope|Werebeasts]]
* Guide to [[Fiend]]s
* Guide to the [[Mummy|Ancient Dead]]
* Guide to the [[Golem|Created]]
* Guide to the [[Vistani]]

These books were later reprinted in "collected editions" by the Weathermay Twins, known as the Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendiums. The third and last of these volumes also included the otherwise unprinted "Van Richten's Guide to [[Witch]]es", which, as the name suggests, examines [[Witch]]es, [[Warlock]]s and [[Hag]]s.

The Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins wrote two guides completely of their own for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3rd edition which saw print; one for the [[Walking Dead]] and a second for the [[Shadow Fey]]. A third guidebook, dedicated to "The Mists", which focused on anomalous and eerie entities born from the reality-binding vapors that wreathe the land, in addition to covering Outlanders (humanoids from other worlds brought amongst the ignorant natives of the [[Demiplane of Dread]]) and anomalous reality-zones that one might encounter whilst enveloped by the Mists, was completely written up... but, [[White Wolf]] lost the license before they could officially print and sell it. The PDF was set free onto the internet, and is now hosted on, amongst other things, the [[Fraternity of Shadows]] website.

Looking into adapting content found in these guides to later editions? Note that not everything written by White Wolf & Sword&Sorcery for 3-3.5e was converted entirely everything from the 2nd Edition, and- more intriguingly, the powers Liches are privy to in Guide to the Lich are still, 3.5 canon, such as the salient abilities Liches gain are in Monsters of Faerun, though only a small excerpt. Please note, that these make both liches and vampires essentially epic-level threats, whom are more dangerous depending on their personal holdings and age- a vampire patriarch for example, is essentially a demigod immune to sunlight, and probably only beatable if they gained additional weaknesses over their long-term existence, they can even fully heal themselves once per day through the use of their alternate form ability, which has an additional form of their choosing- essentially their second Castlevania Dracula Form- limited to no CR or cap or anything. They can even cheat themselves into becoming this strong. If you've ever heard of the epic-questline, the Quicksilver Hourglass in 3.5, a quest where you have to stop members of the Union of Eclipses using a deific artifact to age the world to death and rule the remainder, then failure would result in vampires like this popping up all over the material plane. Bullet dodged.

==Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft==
A book titled "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft" released on 18th May 2021, serving as the complete [[Ravenloft]] setting book for [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]].

For players, this book offers mechanics for [[Dhampir]], [[Hexblood]] and [[Reborn]] "races", new "horror-themed" Trinkets, tips on altering backgrounds to a more horror motif, the new (or possibly reprinted from [[Curse of Strahd]]) Haunted One and Investigator backgrounds, the [[Occultist|College of Spirits]] subclass for [[bard]]s and the [[Undead]] patron for [[warlock]]s. A new mechanic in the form of "Dark Gifts" is also offered, replacing the [[Powers Check]]s of old.

Most of the book is dedicated to DMs, however. The second chapter is devoted to the topic of ''Creating Domains of Dread'', and provides advice on building darklords and their domains, and discusses the major genres of horror useful to a Ravenloft 5e game, which it breaks down as ''Body Horror'', ''Cosmic Horror'', ''Dark Fantasy'', ''Folk Horror'', ''Ghost Story'', ''Gothic Horror'' and ''Other''.

Chapter 3 is devoted to providing details on '''Domains of Ravenloft'''. Most of this is devoted to domains; seventeen of which are about four pages long, with most of that being [[Darklord]] related, and another dozen or so that are only a single paragraph long.

Still in chapter 3, it then provides major Ravenloft organizations (with the emphasis on the [[keepers of the Feather]] and the [[Vistani]] and prominent NPCs native to the Demiplane of Dread:
* [[Alanik Ray]] & Arthur Sedgwick (the Ravenloftian Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson)
* The Caller (obviously the [[Incubus]] known as the [[Gentleman Caller]])
* Erasmus van Richten (Dr. van Richten's previously dead [[vampire]] son)
* [[Ez d'Avenir]]
* [[Firan Zal'honan]]
* [[Jander Sunstar]] (heroic [[elf]] [[vampire]])
* [[Larissa Snowmane]]
* Dr. Rudolph [[van Richten]] (the iconic van Helsing expy)
* The [[Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins]]

Chapter 4 is short again, and is full of basic DM tricks, hence its title of '''Horror Adventures'''. Most of interest are new mechanics for curses, fear, stress, haunted traps, and survivors. There's also a short adventure set in the infamous House of Lament.

Finally, chapter 5 is all about the '''Monsters of Ravenloft'''. Whilst there are some new critters, most of these are actually returning beasties from old! A major detail, however, is that [[FAIL|none of the entries bother to list the creature's alignments]], so for all we know, that [[Berserker|Relentless Killer]] [[Trap|could just be a Neutral Good softie]]!
* [[Doppelganger Plant|Bodytaker Plant]] (originally called the Doppelganger Plant, an expy of the pods from Invasion of the body Snatchers)
* [[Boneless]]
* [[Brain in a Jar]]
* [[Carrion Stalker]]
* [[Carrionette]]
* [[Death's Head]]
* [[Dullahan]]
* [[Gallows Speaker]]
* [[Gremishka]]
* [[Jiangshi]]
* [[Loup-garou|Loup Garou]]
* [[Necrichor]]
* [[Nosferatu]]
* Priests of [[Osybus]]
* [[Relentless Killer]]
* [[Star Spawn]] Emissary
* [[Strigoi]]
* Swarms (Maggots, Scarabs)
* Ulmist Inquisitors
* [[Unspeakable Horror]]s
* [[Vampire|Vampiric]] [[Mind Flayer]]
* [[Wereraven]]
* [[Zombie]]s (swarm of zombie limbs, zombie clot, zombie plague spreader)

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Ravenloft]] [[Category: Game Books]]

Dhampir

2021-06-08T17:47:19Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft */

[[File:Alucard1.png|250px|thumb|right|Alucard from [[Castlevania]] is a Dhampir, sort of. Here's a hot take: Did you know Alucard is Dracula spelled backwards?]]

Although the idea of [[vampire]]s being sexy is generally associated with lore from the Gothic Horror novels of the late 1800s to today, even before that, in the Balkan region of Europe, it was believed that some vampires would come back from the dead and have sex with their wives - sex that could lead to the birth of half human, half vampire offspring. Known variously as '''Dhampyres''', '''Dhampirs''', '''Dhamphirs''' or '''Dhampyrs''', these mythological beings were believed to have certain vampiric strengths, which made them excellent vampire hunters, but none of their vampiric weaknesses, such as an aversion to sunlight or need to feed on blood.

In /tg/, dhampyres are a comparatively rare sight; they're considered too much the natural fit for "edgelords" - the kinds of players who usually migrate to [[drow]] or [[tiefling]] PCs because they think the "dark, brooding, angsty character" is [[awesome]] - or else they're seen as too rooted in Gothic Horror. Others even think they're ''too'' fantastical to believe in their existence, even by the standards of your typical fantasy world. Or they may simply defy the fundamental rules of a given setting's vampires. But they do survive here and there.

=Dungeons & Dragons=
[[Dungeons & Dragons]] has a... rather inglorious history with the dhampir.

Despite what you'd expect, there '''wasn't''' a dhampir in the [[Ravenloft]] setting - not as a PC race, and not even as a monster! The first dhampir didn't debut in [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] 2nd edition until the "Guide to Translyvania" [[splatbook]] for [[Masque of the Red Death]] was release. The Masque version was depicted as the child of a [[vampire]] father and a [[human]] mother, with the mother dying in childbirth. They inherited none of their vampiric progenitor's weaknesses, but inherited multiple supernatural abilities; they could detect vampires within 40 feet, were at least implied to be inhumanly strong, could only be hurt by +1 weapons, were resistant (+4 to saves) against the vampire's charming gaze, had their own paralyzing gaze that only worked on vampires, could summon and mentally control domesticated animals, were immune to non-magical weapons, and could hurt vampires with mundane melee weapons - in fact, vampires can't regenerate damage done to them by dhampirs normally, they have to run away and hide in their coffins for their healing sleep. You'd think that this would make them incredibly powerful allies to the forces of good, since they sound like absolute monster killing units, but the dhampirs of Gothic Earth have two drawbacks. One: their supernatural powers only work if they've consumed human blood within the last week. Two: unless properly buried (staked through the heart or decapitated), dead dhampirs automatically arise from the grave as full-fledged [[vampire]]s. These traits were enough for them to be declared as Nearly Always Evil and Not For Player Usage... because, y'know, Masque of the Red Death was all kinds of bullshit, even for [[TSR]].

Lore-wise, Gothic Earth dhamprs are basically a bunch of wangsty bastards because of the whole "I can get superpowers if I drink human blood, but society frowns on that thing" and "I am doomed to become a vampire on death unless I am buried with a stake in the heart"... you know, the usual vampire pity-party shit. They are social recluses, and generally go unnoticed amongst the population. The children of dhampirs have a 50/50 chance of being either dhampirs or humans.

[[Ravenloft]] in AD&D instead made use of the [[Vorlog]] and [[Vampyre]] races as monsters. It wasn't until it was updated for [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]] that dhampirs made it into the [[Demiplane of Dread]], and here they were literally just a 3e conversion of the Gothic Earth dhampir.

D&D has had a couple of attempts at a dhampyre race, but none have really taken off officially; there was a "Katane" race in [[Dragon Magazine]] #313, and assorted "Half-Vampire" templates, most notably the Dhampir and [[Vorlog]] templates in [[Ravenloft]] 3rd edition. Ironically, the closest time D&D got to it was in 4th edition; the Dhampyr as a feat-based "pseudo-template" was one of their earliest racial experiments in Dragon Magazine, whilst the [[Vryloka]] of ''Heroes of Shadow'' was essentially a Dhampyr with its name taken from another kind of vampire.

The unofficial [[Ravenloft]] 5e corebook from the Fraternity of Shadows fansite features a dhampyre race as one of the options, and Dhampyr is a UA slated for release with Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

[[Pathfinder]] is the only "D&D edition" thus far to feature a fully supported dhampyre player race, with four sub-variants to reflect the four specific kinds of vampire present in [[Golarion]]. Svetochers are descended from classic movie vampires, ru-shi are the children of [[Jiangshi|jiang-shi]] (Chinese hopping corpses that suck chi), ajibachana are the progeny of vetala (Indian thought vampires), and ancient-born come from [[nosferatu]].

Normally, dhampir have two major weaknesses: they're dazzled in sunlight, like a [[drow]], and, while they are living creatures, they are treated as undead for the purposes of positive and negative energy. This means [[wat|cure spells fry them and inflict spells heal them]]. While the various sub-races offer replacement penalties for the former, and it can be removed entirely at the cost of one's racial spell-like abilities, the latter you're pretty much stuck with. A feat can half-fix it: you'll still take damage from stuff that specifically hurts undead, but you can get half-healing from cure-spells and such.

==Player Character Stats==
===3rd Edition===
====Ravenloft Dhampir Template====
::Available Creatures: Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid.
::Type changes to Monstrous Humanoid.
::Hit Dice: Increase by one die type, to a maximum of D12.
::Speed: Unchanged
::Armor Class: +4 natural armor.
::Attack: Gain a Slam attack.
::Full Attack: An unarmed dhampir can fight with its slam attack or its natural weapons (if any). An armed dhampir typically uses its weapon as its primary attack and follows up with a slam/natural weapon as a natural secondary attack.
::Damage: A dhampir's slam attack uses either the damage values for a vampire or the base creature's own, whichever is higher.
::Special Attacks: Gain the following, all of which have a Save DC of 10 + 1/2 dhampir's Hit Dice + dhampir's Charisma modifier unless noted otherwise.
:::Domination (Su): A dhampir that meets the gaze of a creature within 30 feet (treat as gaze attack, except dhampir must take a standard action and it does not affect those looking at the dhampir) can afflict them with a Dominate Person (caster level 12).
:::Blood Drain (Ex): By successfully grappling and pinning a foe, a dhampir can inflict 1d4 points of Constitution damage each round they maintain the grapple.
:::Children of the Night (Su): Once per day, a dhampir can call forth either a pack of 4d8 [[Giant Rat|Dire Rats]], a swarm of 10d10 Bats, or a pack of 3d6 Wolves. The summoned animals arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve the dhampir for up to 1 hour.
::Special Qualities: Gain the following bonus SQs.
:::[[Damage Reduction]] (Su): 10/Magic
:::Resistance (Su): Cold 10, Electricity 10.
:::Spider Climb (Ex): A dhampir can scale sheer surfaces as if under a Spider Climb (caster level 12th) spell.
:::Fast Healing (Ex): A dhampir regains 1 hit point per round so long as it has not been reduced to -10 hit points.
:::Blood Requirement (Ex): A dhampir must consume humanoid blood at least once per week or it cannot use its supernatural special attacks or special qualities until it does.
:::Vulnerability to Sunlight (Su): A dhampir in natural sunlight cannot its supernatural special attacks or special qualities.
:::Restless (Su): Unless its body is destroyed as per vampire methodology, a dhampir will rise from its grave 1d4 days later as either a vampire spawn (if Hit Dice were less than 5) or a vampire.
::Saves: As base creature plus character class.
::Abilities: +4 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +4 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +4 Charisma
::Skills: +6 racial bonus on BLuff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot.
::Feats: If it meets the prerequisites, a dhampir gains Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative and Lightning Reflexes.
::Environment: Any land.
::Organization: Solitary
::Treasure: Double standard
::Alignment: Any
::Advancement: By character class

====Katane Template====
Cursed with a thirst for living blood and possessed of awful powers befitting creatures of the night, katanes are some of the more common half-undead. The human-like appearance and social behavior of vampires and their spawn result in ample opportunities for half-breed creation, and some vampires retain enough human sentiment to care for the child, improving the katane's chances of survival.

Katanes are pale and slender, with jet-black hair and red, black, green, or yellow eyes. They have pronounced canines that extend for feeding and slightly pointed ears. Some of the less fortunate (those with a Charisma score of 7 or below) have batlike features.

A katane has certain qualities it shares with all of its fellow "Half-Undead"; the [[Fetch]], [[Ghul]] and [[Ghedan]]. These traits are listed as the Half-Undead Super Template, meaning these special qualities are common to all four racial templates.

::Abilities: +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma
::Skills: +4 racial bonus to Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, and Spot.
::Feats: Improved Initiative as a bonus feat.
::Challenge Rating: +1
::[[Level Adjustment]]: +1
::Environment: Same as Base Creature
::Alignment: Often Chaotic Evil
::Organiation: Solitary, Gang (2-4 base creatures or vampires + 1 katane) or Party (2-8 base creatures or vampires + 2-4 katanes)
::Special Attacks:
:::Blood Drain (Ex): By making a successful Grapple check and pinning its target, a katane can inflict 1d4 Constitution drain on its target each round it sustains the pin.
:::Charm Person (Sp): A katane can cast Charm Person by locking gaze with a humanoid creature. This Charm spell has a caster level equal to the katane's Hit Dice and a Save DC of 10 + Katane's Hit Dice + Katane's Charisma modifier. A katane can use this ability a number of times per day equal to its Charisma modifier (minimum of 1).
::Special Qualities:
:::Blood Hunger (Ex): A katane must use its Blood Drain at least once every three days. If it does not feed, it must make a DC 15 Will save (DC + 1 cumulative with each extra day it goes without feeding). On a failure, the katane suffers a cumulative -1 morale penalty to its attack rolls, ability checks, skill checks and saving throws until it finally uses its Blood Drain.
:::Damage Reduction (Su): 5/Silver
:::Vampire Kin (Ex): Katane have none of the weaknesses of the Vampire template, and are immune to the Domination power of vampires.
:::Light Sensitivity (Ex): A katane is Dazzled when exposed to bright sunlight or the Daylight spell.
:::Resistances (Ex): Cold Resist 5 and Electricity Resist 5.
:::Sense Vampires (Su): A katane can automatically determine if there is a vampire, katane or any other undead that feeds on blood within 200 feet. This ability only warns the katane that such creatures are there; it does not inform them of their numbers nor their power, and is not accurate enough to aid in blindfighting or otherwise pinpointing a target.
:::Spider Climb (Ex): A katane can climb any surface, as if under a permanent spider climb spell.

Half-Undead Super-Template:
::Call of Undeath (Ex): A half-undead has a 3% chance per Hit Dice that it will rise as a full undead of its progenitor type upon its death.
::Darkvision (Ex): A half-undead gains Darkvision 60 feet, unless it already has a better range of darkvision.
::Detection (Ex): A half-undead registers as an Undead creature of half its actual Hit Dice for spells/abilities that detect the undead.
::Fortification (Ex): A half-undead has a 50% chance to negate critical hits and sneak attacks. If granted Fortification from a suit of magic armor, use the superior change.
::Immunity to Energy Drain (Ex)
::Necrotic Life: When attacked by a spell or effect that deals hit point damage with negative energy, a half-undead takes half-damage on a failed save and no damage on a successful save.
::Slow Aging (Ex): Upon reaching maturity, a half-undead ages at one quarter (1/4th) the normal rate for its living race.
::Turn Kind (Ex): A half-undead [[Cleric]] gains a +2 bonus on checks made to turn, rebuke, command or bolster undead of its progenitor type.
::Vulnerability to Holy Water (Ex): A half-undead takes 1d4 damage per flask of holy water it is hit with.
::Vulnerability to Turning (Ex): Clerics can attempt to turn or rebuke the half-undead as if it were truly undead. If the attempt would be powerful enough to affect an undead of equivalent Hit Dice, the half-undead suffers a -4 penalty to all attacks, saves, skill checks and ability checks for 10 rounds or until the cleric who turned/rebuked it attacks the half-undead. If the attempt would be powerful enough to command or destroy an undead of equivalent Hit Dice, the half-undead is Stunned for 2d4 rounds instead.
::Saves: +2 racial bonus on all saves against fear, poison, disease, paralysis and necromancy spells.

===4e Dhampyr Feat Chain===
Core Feat: Vampiric Heritage (Vampire Bloodline)
::Prerequisite: Living Humanoid Race
::Benefit: You gain Blood Drain as a Racial Encounter Power, as well as a +2 bonus to Perception and Insight checks made to sense & recognize dhampyrs and the undead.
::Special: You are considered a vampire for the purpose of effects that relate to vampires.

'''Heroic Tier Feats:'''
* Vampire Alacrity: +1 feat bonus to Speed.
* Mist Form: Swap one 10th level or higher utility power for the Mist Form utility power. You must be at least 10th level to take this feat.
* Night's Sight: You gain Low-Light Vision.

'''Paragon Tier Feats:'''
* Blooded Regeneration: Swap one 10th level or higher ultility power for the Bloodied Regeneration utility power.
* Dominating Gaze: Swap one 15th level or higher daily attack power for the Dominating Gaze attack power. You must be at least 15th level to select this feat.
* Savage Bite: You can use Blood Drain on targets that grant you Combat Advantage as well as one targets you have grabbed.

'''Epic Tier Feats:'''
* Scent of Blood: You have Combat Advantage against living enemies that are Bloodied.

'''Dhampyr Racial Powers:'''
'''Blood Drain:''' ''Vigor rushes through your body as you drain life energy from your victim.''
::Encounter, Healing, Standard Action, Melee (Touch), Targets 1 living creature you have grabbed. Attack is Ability + 2 vs. Fortitude and on a hit you inflict 1d4 + Con modifier damage and can spend a healing surge. Increase the bonus by +2 and damage by +1d4 at each tier shift (+4/2d4 damage at level 11, +6/3d4 damage at level 21). You choose whether this attack keys off of Strength, Constitution or Dexterity when you first select Vampiric Heritage.

'''Mist Form:''' ''Your form dissolves into an eerie, billowing mist.''
::Daily, Polymorph, Standard Action, Personal. You become Insubstantial and gain a Fly speed of 8 (Hover), but cannot make any attacks. This lasts until the end of your next turn, but can be sustained as a Minor Action.

'''Bloodied Regeneration:''' ''Your wounds call to your immortal blood, which surges to repair your body.''
::Daily, Healing, Minor Action, Personal. Only available if you are Bloodied. You gain Regeneration 5 until the end of the encounter or until you are no longer Bloodied, whichever comes first.

'''Dominating Gaze:''' ''The authority in your piercing gaze demands utter submission.''
::Daily, Charm, Minor Action, Ranged 5, Targets 1 creature, Attack is Ability + 4 vs. Will (bonus increases to +6 at 21st level). On a hit, the target is Dominated (save ends) and as an aftereffect the target is Dazed (save ends). On a miss, the target is Dazed (save ends). When you take the Dominating Gaze feat, you determine if this attack keys off of Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma.

===Pathfinder===
[[File:Dhampir ARG 1.png|thumb]]
====Generic Dhampir Stats====
::+2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution
::Humanoid (Dhampir)
::Medium
::Base speed 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet, low-light vision.
::Manipulative: +2 racial bonus on Bluff and Perception checks.
::Undead Resistance: +2 racial bonus on saving throws against disease and mind-affecting effects.
::Light Sensitivity: Dazzled when exposed to bright sunlight or a Daylight spell.
::Negative Energy Affinity: A dhampir is harmed by positive energy and healed by negative energy.
::Spell-Like Ability: Detect Undead 3/day with caster level equal to the dhampir's character level.
::Resist Level Drain (Ex): A dhampir suffers no penalties from negative levels (although can still be killed by them) and all negative levels are automatically removed 24 hours later without the need for an additional saving throw.

====Svetocher (Moroi Dhampir)====
::Change Ability Modifiers to: +2 Str, +2 Cha, -2 Con
::Replace Manipulative skill bonuses with: +2 Diplomacy, +2 Knowledge (Nobility)
::Change Spell-Like Ability (Detect Undead) to: Obscuring Mist
::Replace Light Sensitivity With: -1 penalty on saves against effects that deal positive energy damage.
::Gain the following new traits:
* Mind Trapper: +2 trait bonus on Charisma checks made to convince enchanted allies to do what you want.
* Sensual Grace: +2 trait bonus on Bluff checks made against creatures attracted to you.

====Ancient-Born ([[Nosferatu]] Dhampir)====
::Change Ability Modifiers to: +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Con
::Replace Manipulative skill bonuses with: +2 Climb, +2 Survival
::Change Spell-Like Ability (Detect Undead) to: Doom
::Replace Light Sensitivity With: -1 penalty on saving throws against effects that damage/drain/reduce Physical Ability Scores.
::Gain the following new traits:
* Old Before Your Time: Creatures trying to discern your true age must make a Perception or Sense Motive check, which you oppose with a Bluff check with a +5 trait bonus. You also gain a +2 trait bonus on Disguise checks made to make yourself look older, ignoring the check penalty for disguising yourself as a different age category whilst doing so.
* Thrall Spotter: +5 trait bonus on Sense Motive checks made to determine if a creature is under a Charm or Compulsion effect.

====Ru-shi ([[Jiangshi]] Dhampir)====
::Change Ability Modifiers to: +2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Wis
::Replace Manipulative skill bonuses with: +2 Acrobatics, +2 Knowledge (Engineering)
::Change Spell-Like Ability (Detect Undead) to: Erase
::Replace Light Sensitivity With: -1 penalty on saves against sonic effects and spells.
::Gain the following new traits:
* Linguistic Genius: +1 trait bonus on Linguistics checks, Linguistics is always a class skill for you, gain +1 bonus language at character creation.
* Numerological Gift: At character reaction, roll 3d6; the number you roll becomes your Number Totem, which can never change. Once per day, when you roll your totem number on a D20, you may treat that roll as if you had rolled a natural 20.

====Ajibachana (Vetala Dhampir)====
::Change Ability Modifiers to: +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Int
::Replace Manipulative skill bonuses with: +2 Escape Artist, +2 Use Magic Device
::Change Spell-Like Ability (Detect Undead) to: Comprehend Languages
::Replace Light Sensitivity With: -1 penalty to Caster level when in sanctified ground, such as that created by Consecrate or Hallow.
::Gain the following new traits:
* Half-Forgotten Secrets: Choose one Knowledge skill; you gain a +1 trait bonus to this skill and always treat it as a class skill. Then choose a second Knowledge skill; you gain a +1 trait bonus to this skill.
* Unidentifiable Appeal: +1 trait bonus to Disguise, +1 trait bonus on Diplomacy checks made to influence those who would be attracted to you.

<gallery>
Dhampir ARG 2.png
Dhampir B2 PF.png
</gallery>

{{Pathfinder-Races}}

===5th Edition===
====Midgard====
The [[Midgard]] setting has dhampirs in a pretty prominent role, with mechanics for both [[Pathfinder]] 1e and [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition|D&D 5e]].

'''5e Midgard Dhampir:'''
::Ability Score Increase: +2 Charisma, +1 Dexterity
::Size: Medium
::Speed: 35 feet
::Darkvision: 60 feet
::Dark Thirst: You can make an Unarmed Strike to bite a creature that is Incapacitated or which you have Grappled. If it hits, this attack does 1 Piercing damage. If the creature has blood and is not an Undead or Construct, you can then feed from it, inflicting Necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) on the creature and regaining 1 spent hit die for yourself. You can regain a number of spent hit die with this ability equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) per long rest.
::Predatory Charm: Once per short rest, you can use an action to magically beguile a visible creature within 30 feet; this ability has no effect on creatures that are immune to being Charmed. For 1 hour, you have Advantage on all Charisma checks against the beguiled creature. After 1 hour, or if you or any of your allies attack or damage the creature, the effect wears off, and the target becomes instinctively repulsed by you until the next dawn. During this time, the creature is immune to your Predatory Charm ability and acts in a hostile, though not necessarily violent, way.
::Undead Resistance: You have Advantage on saving throws against Disease and are Resistant to Necrotic Damage.

====Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes====
If the [[Midgard]] dhampir doesn't suit your fancy for a [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition|5e]] vampire-blooded PC, there's always [[Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes]]. In their book on the [[Shadowfell]], the dhampyr is one of four "shadow-touched" races presented for 5th edition. Here, they are divided into three subraces; ''Trueborn'' are the "normal" dhampirs; ''Dayborn'' are dhampirs whose mothers attempted to have them spiritually purified in the womb, resulting in them being born at day in a ritual circle attended by [[cleric]]s; finally, ''Darkborn'' are dhampirs born to vampires created by the curses of the [[Dark Powers]] or similar black magic, rather than the standard vampiric breed.

''Core Stats:''
::Ability Score Increase: +1 Constitution
::Size: Medium
::Speed: 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::Bite: Your fangs are a natural weapon, which you can use to attack a grappled or unconscious humanoid. You attack using either Strength or Dexterity. If you hit with it, you deal 1d6 piercing damage plus necrotic damage equal to your Constitution modifier. When you bite a living creature, you can regain a number of hit points equal to the necrotic damage done and gain enough nourishment (food and drink) to sustain you for one day. Once you regain hit points in this manner, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
::Hunter of the Night: You gain proficiency with the Perception and Stealth skills.
::Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common
::Epic Racial: Spider Climb: When you reach 25th character level, you can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check
::Subraces: Choose the ''Trueborn'', ''Dayborn'' or ''Darkborn'' subrace.

''Trueborn:''
::Ability Score Increase: +2 Intelligence
::Unholy Legacy: You can cast the Prestidigitation cantrip at will. From 3rd level, you can cast Charm Person once per day. From 5th level, you can cast Gaseous Form on yourself once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability score for these spells.

''Dayborn:''
::Ability Score Increase: +2 Wisdom
::Cleansing Touch: You can cast Lesser Restoration 1/day using Wisdom as your spellcasting ability score.
::Denial of Servitude: Once per day, when you are Charmed, you can use your Reaction to negate the Charmed effect.

''Darkborn:''
::Ability Score Increase: +2 Charisma
::Dark Gamble: You have advantage on all Charisma saving throws against magic. In addition, if you succeed on a Charisma saving throw, you gain temporary hit points equal to half your level, but if you fail on a Charisma saving throw, you take force damage equal to the difference between your roll and the save DC.
::Dark Whispers: You know the Message cantrip and can cast it without the need for any components, using Charisma as your spellcasting ability score.

====Gothic Lineages UA====
A semi-offical version of the Dhampir as a race appeared in 5th Edition in the Gothic Lineages Unearthed Arcana. Their fluff is more vague and general than that standard "half-vampire" concept, and there's tables you can roll on to decide what your Dhampir's origin is and what they hunger for. The example origins range from "partially-transformed vampire" to "host of an otherworldly parasite that compels you to feed on others" and the hungers can be fairly typical monstrous foods like blood and raw meat, but can also be things like spinal fluid, dreams, and the color from a person's appearance.

'''Traits:'''

'''Ability Score Increase.''' +2 to an ability score of your choice, +1 to a different ability score of your choice.

'''Type:''' Humanoid ''and'' Undead. This means that all spells and effects that work on either Humanoids ''or'' Undead affect you. The good news is that this means Cure Wounds still affects you since it works on humanoids.

'''Size:''' Medium or Small (choose when you gain this lineage)

'''Speed:''' 35 feet

'''Darkvision.''' You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light.

'''Spider Climb.''' You have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. At 3rd level, you can move up, down, and across vertical surfaces and upside down along ceilings, while leaving your hands free.

'''Vampiric Bite.''' Your fanged bite is a natural weapon, which counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient. You add your
Constitution modifier to the attack and damage rolls when you attack with your bite. Your bite deals 1d4 piercing damage on a hit. While you
are missing half or more of your hit points, you have advantage on attack rolls you make with this bite. When you use your bite and hit a creature that isn’t a Construct or an Undead, you can empower yourself in one of the following ways of your choice:

• regain hit points equal to the damage dealt by the bite

• gain a bonus to the next ability check or attack roll you make; the bonus equals the damage dealt by the bite

You can empower yourself with your bite a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

====Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft====
The Dhampir lineage reappeared in ''[[Van Richten's Guide|Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft]]'' with a few modifications. The fluff is still the same, with the addition of a few Ravenloft-specific sources for your character's nature as a dhampir, but the crunch has been tweaked a bit. You're no longer undead, now being purely of the humanoid creature type, but you now also don't need to breathe. You also get to choose between either getting two free skill proficiencies or the skills and movement speeds granted by whatever race you were before you became a dhampir.

=Chronicles of Darkness=
Dhampir in the original [[World of Darkness]] were introduced in the ''Time of Thin Blood'' sourcebook. Full-on kindred couldn't have kids at all. But "thin bloods," fourteenth or fifteenth generation vampires whose connection to Cain is extremely tenuous can, though the pregnancy is long and difficult because undead bodies aren't well suited to carrying kids.

The result is a dhampir, a creature mechanically all-but-identical to a revenant, or hereditary ghoul that produces its own vitae. Dhampir are living creatures, and have a pool of vitae separate from their normal blood, though they do get tired if they exhaust it. They suffer frenzy like a vampire, but can resist it much more easily, and like ghouls can go out in the day light and so on. Because thin-bloods have only started showing up in the last twenty or so years, no one knows what happens to an old dhampir.

Dhampyres were introduced to the New [[World of Darkness]] in the [[Vampire: The Requiem]] sourcebook ''Night Horrors: The Wicked Dead''. Born of either blasphemous occult rituals or deep, sincere, obsessive love between a vampire and a mortal, dhampyres are cursed creatures who are hypnotically alluring to vampires, but whose blood is not only devoid of nutritional value for them, but exposes the vampire to a powerful curse if they share the same clan.

They're also mildly infamous for the fact that, because they're born of unnatural magical origins, they don't adhere to the standard rules of baby-making. So, you can get a dhampyre from a homosexual coupling, a female vampire could impregnate her male human lover, and a male vampire could fall pregnant by a female human lover, depending on what rituals are used to make the dhampyre in the first place.

2e revised them significantly, making them technically human but tainted by their vampiric parent's Vitae. They retain their ability to do strange things to the vampires who drink from their blood, but they also possess a unique connection to the workings of fate and a curse based on their vampiric parent's clan. As most dhampir are treated only slightly better than ghouls by their vampiric parents (if the vampire doesn't simply abandon them and leave them ignorant of their half-damned heritage), it is unsurprising that some of them end up becoming vampire hunters.

=Monstergirls=
{{Monstergirls}}
[[File:MGE Dhampir.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The MGE Dhampir, ready to lay some vampires and save some cute guys! No, that's not a typo.]]

Ironically, despite the sexual appeal of vampires, the dhampir rarely gets the same treatment. Whilst this may be partially due to the dhampir's relative obscurity, another issue may be that they don't really have anything going for them that the standard vampire-as-monstergirl doesn't (aside from not having to worry about that "lack of bloodflow" joke). After all, in most depictions, the dhampir is basically a "tamed" vampire, with less raw vampiric power and without the pesky problems of sunlight or needing to worry you'll be eaten alive by one. But most monstergirl depictions of vampires tone down the need for blood and make their vampires "safe", meaning that without any real fear of dying from your vampire lover, a dhampir just looks like a poor man's imitation. Still, in more honest [[Dark Fantasy]]-leaning settings, dhampirs may get the credit they deserve.

And there is one montergirl setting where dhampirs are embraced: in the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], dhampirs are born on those rare occasions when a vampire gets pregnant without having come to truly love/respect the father of her child. This results in the offspring being a "half-vampire", with her own entirely unique set of powers. MGE Dhampirs are basically non-arrogant, non-tsundere vampires in terms of sex. In fact, they think that true vampires are stuck up bitches who need to be taken down a few pegs. Thusly, they like to roam the world and fight vampires, breaking their arrogance by basically dom-sexing them until their mind breaks and they become more submissive. They especially like going after vampires who have a guy they're being all tsundere-bitch to and simultaneously breaking the vampire down and building the guy up, with lots and lots of vamp-subbing threesomes. Sometimes the dhampir will stay with the couple if she really likes the guy, other times she'll move on and leave them to what, in her eyes, is a happier relationship.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Mixed Races]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category: Pathfinder]][[Category: Races]][[Category: Ravenloft]][[Category: Undead]][[Category:World of Darkness]]

Xeelee Sequence

2021-06-08T15:04:29Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:7D8B:11C3:FB75:EE3A: /* Transcendence */

{{Grimdark}}
{{Awesome}}

[[File:View_of_the_xeelee_ring_by_steve_burg-d4kvuvu.jpg|660px|thumb|right|WH40K is Grimdark? Their universe is a shitty place to live? Oh, that is just fucking '''''adorable'''''.]]
{{Topquote|Do not remember heroes. Do not speak their names.

''Remember my words, but do not speak my name.''

''I have a vision of a Galaxy overrun by mankind from Core to rim. Of four hundred billion stars each enslaved to the rhythms of Earth’s day, Earth’s year. I have a vision of a trillion planets pulsing to the beat of a human heart.''

''And I have a vision of a child. Who will grow up knowing neither family nor comfort. Who will not be distracted by the illusion of a long life. Who will know nothing but honor and duty. Who will die joyously for the sake of mankind.''

''That is a hero. And I will never know her name.''

''Always remember: a brief life burns brightly.''|Hama Druz, de facto founder of the ICoG. Promoting the ethics of child suicide bombers. Yeah, he's [[That Guy|'''''that''''']] type of person.}}
'''Xeelee Sequence''' is a series of [[Hard Science Fiction|hard]] (ish) science fiction novels and short stories written by British author Stephen Baxter, which spans billions of years of fictional history (leaving 40k in the dust with its "mere" 10,000), with plots revolving around theoretical physics, futurology, multiple universes, artificial intelligence, faster-than-light travel, and the usual existential and social philosophical issues that tend to go with such works.

Most relevant to /tg/'s interests, though, is that Xeelee is ''unbelievably'' [[grimdark]]. Like, holy shitballs, final word on the matter, makes 40k look like Sesame Street with butterflies and rainbows in comparison, '''grimdark'''. The Interim Coalition of Governance, just to pick one example, is arguably the most grimdark galactic government in all of fiction, even giving [[1984]] a run for its money, although the Empire of Sol and the Holy Superet Church of Light come pretty close to being a bunch of amoral dipshits. The Xeeleeverse is a place where the concept of hope and humanity has been forgotten so hard that trillions of child soldiers are sent to fight (and get slaughtered) in a war they don't have a hope in hell of winning, and the Coalition knows it and doesn't care. All in all, there is a '''''good reason''''' why the Xeelee used to be the main image of the Grimdark template you see above, for a ''very'' good reason.

==Plot in a Nutshell==
[[File:D8pnzvk-f1122a2a-0f2e-4853-9beb-5806147475bc.jpg|350px|right|thumb|And you thought the [[Old Ones]] were ancient. Credits to [https://www.deviantart.com/frogisis/art/Prehistory-526839392 Frogisis].]]
To make things short and easy, the entirety of the Xeelee Sequence is centered around the cosmic war between the Xeelee, the masters of 'baryonic' matter (AKA normal matter for us non-scientist plebeians) and the Photino [[Tzeentch|Bird]]s, the masters of dark matter. The war stretched through the entire timeline, from the split microseconds of the Big Bang to the heat death of the entire universe. The war started because the Photino Birds as creatures made from dark matter, wanted to make their home a little bit more comfy, and in order to do this they decide to unintentionally [[Grimdark|exterminate all Baryonic lifeforms in the entirety of the universe by reducing all the stars into white dwarfs via accelerated cosmic heat death.]] The Xeelee understandably did not like the idea of some home invader trying to do a home deco around their turf and the battle begin. Yes, you hear us right, the entire war was due to the Photino Birds, for all intents and purposes, searching for a comfier home to live in. Essentially, the war stretched throughout all of time, since almost every major race in the Xeelee Sequence have weaponized Time Travel, and since Stephen Baxter '''KNOWS''' his science better than most sci-fi authors, FTL travel has significant affects on time dilation. Granted, his work relied a lot on speculative physics; for example, The Great Attractor has proven to be much less massive than what was thought when the novel was written and has an even larger mass concentration behind it.

But what about us [[human]]s? We got our asses kicked by two alien races; the Squeem and Qax, and the latter of the two was so traumatic that it turned humanity into one of the most xenocidal forces in all of science-fiction. Seriously, the [[Imperium of Man]] has nothing compared to these assholes, and no chapter in human history was so downright depressing and fucked up as Qax occupation. Humanity has reached to the point that it wants to force the one Xeelee inhabiting the Milky Way to GTFO because they thought the giant Cosmic Ring that the Xeelee was making was a weapon designed to destroy humanity ([[Derp|when in reality the Ring was made by the Xeelee to save ''ALL'' Baryonic lifeforms, including humans, and bring them a new Universe]]). This understandably annoyed the shit out of the Xeelee, so they decided to leave the galaxy. And what did humanity do after the Xeelee left? [[Horus Heresy|It collapsed into a wide scale civil war before being unified by another tyrannical regime,]] [[Age of Strife| and then humanity evolved into different species and fought each other in the period known as the Bifurcation, some humans losing their consciousness in the process of evolution.]] In the following millions of years, the descendants of humans have annoyed the Xeelee to the point that they got fed up with our shit and decide to lock the entire Sol System in a fourth-dimensional prison [[Grimdark|while leaving pretty much 99% of humanity to die off.]] The only humans who are actually doing OK (sort of) are the passengers of the Great Northern, a generation ship that predated all the asshole empires, wound up stuck five million years in the future, and promptly made a beeline for Xeelee-controlled space to hide.

Unfortunately for the Xeelee, dark matter outnumbers and outmasses baryonic matter 9-to-1, meaning that the war was long-decided eons ago. Desperate, the Xeelee decide to create the aforementioned Cosmic Ring to open a gateway to a new universe to escape to. The Photino Birds find this giant Cosmic Ring to be a threat and decide to destroy it, and almost succeed - but in the end, the remaining Xeelee, humans and other baryonic lifeforms managed to escape into the new universe, leaving the old Universe to be conquered by the Photino Birds. [[Grimdark|Those unfortunate chaps who missed their chance would die a slow and painful death as their universe becomes unfit to uphold baryonic life.]]

What Baxter should be commended on is the fact that his aliens are truly ''alien'' in every sense of the word. None of them are even remotely humanoid and almost all of them (Baring the Silver Ghosts) do not think like a human; with the majority of them bearing chemistry so fucking bizarre it borderlines on theoretical physics for some of them.
==Notable Factions==
There are multiple factions that spanned the entirety of the Xeelee Sequence. Here are some notable examples.

===Xeelee===
[[File:XeeleeFront.jpg|300px|right|thumb|A Xeelee Nightfighter.]]
The main "mascot" faction of the entire series, the Xeelee are the undisputed masters of all Baryonic life. They are made from space-time defects and were born in 10−43 seconds after the Big Bang during the Planck Epoch, where the four fundamental universal forces (Gravity, Electromagnetism, Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces) have yet to diverge; ergo physics were still fused under the Grand Unified superforce AKA GUT (Grand Unified Theory). They eventually formed a symbiosis with Bose-Einstein Condensate creatures and allied with the Quagmites, creatures made from Quagma during the Quark Epoch approximately 1 microsecond after the Big Bang. The proto-Xeelee then went to war with the Anti-Matter aliens before winning by tweaking the universal constants so that there was more baryonic matter than anti-matter. Fun fact, that war ''accidentally'' created cosmic inflation.

The Xeelee are so far up on the technological scale that they might as well be gods. Their most notable vehicles are the Xeelee Nightfighters, and in most cases the Nightfighters ARE the Xeelee themselves. These chumps make the [[Necrons]] look like [[Orks]] in comparison. Seriously, not only do they weaponize Time Travel, they also have the ability to use ''entire'' galaxies as ''literal'' building blocks to create megastructures, such as the Xeelee Ring (or Bolder's Ring to humans). When things get ugly, the Xeelee drop the star-busting pistols and upgrade themselves with gravitational slingshots that can launch a hyperknot of cosmic string, [[Exterminatus|''50,000 light-years in length, with the mass of a hundred billion stars, moving at the speed of light to turn weaponised galaxies into silly string'']]. They are tough enough to laugh off attacks from guns that shoot neutron stars and ''black holes'' at 99.c the speed of light, and they come in the untold trillions. These guys are one of the apex predators in all of Science Fiction. They are not to be fucked with.

===Photino Birds===
[[File:Photino_Birds.JPG|300px|right|thumb|A Flock of Photino Birds.]]
The Photino Birds are the main adversaries to the Xeelee and the undisputed masters of all dark life, with absolute mastery over dark matter. Unfortunately for the Xeelee, dark matter just so happens to outmass Baryonic matter 9-to-1, meaning that the Xeelee are outnumbered and out-[[Dakka]]'d. First encountered somewhere between the late Planck Epoch and the early Hadron Epoch 20 microseconds after the Big Bang. They are acausal, von Neumann swarms of self-replicating dark matter entities who are not bound by the effects of temporal entropy. All Photino Birds resemble an ovoid/seed-shaped mass approximately 40 meters long and rarely interact with baryonic matter due to being made up of dark matter. The only thing that could kill them are exotic weapons with extreme - and we mean '''''EXTREME''''' - gravitational forces like monopole cannons, the singularity lasers of starbreakers and a cosmic string to the face.

The Photino Birds attempted to destroy the Xeelee Ring, as they view it as a threat to their manifest destiny on making the universe more comfy for them, preventing the baryonic lifeforms from ever achieving a safe haven in which to live. In a nutshell, these guys are selfish dicks who can't even share the same bed with the Xeelee, and instead try to create a complete mess of the Universe instead. All because the Xeelee held most of the blanket when they try to go to sleep. When angered sufficiently, they also use Galaxies as glorified weapon systems by ''flinging the entire fucking Galaxy at whoever pissed them off''. They are responsible for creating a war (to use "war" generously; the slaughter is so one-sided that some books imply ''the Birds didn't even realize the Xeelee existed'') that makes the [[War in Heaven]] look like a well-accustomed tea party in comparison.

===Interim Coalition of Governance===
[[File:ICoG_Flag.JPG|300px|right|thumb|The Flag of the ICoG.]]
What can be briefly described as the [[That Guy|Khmer Rouge on Bath Salts with its Head of State as Pol Pot on Acid and jacked up to interstellar levels.]]

The ICoG was one of the major human governing polities that emerged after the Qax occupation, which forcefully [[Grimdark|deleted most of human history and forced humanity into a multi-billion year PTSD]]. The ICoG is identifiable by two things: the first is that they are complete dicks that makes [[Eldrad]] look like a gentleman, and the second is that they are xenocidal as fuck. The ICoG is one of the most oppressive and [[grimdark]] factions in all of science fiction, which is an impressive feat all by itself. The ICoG makes you hate humanity. Seriously, these guys are just ''evil''.

The ICoG spent the lives of countless children, all in a gamble to get rid of the Xeelee from their galaxy and become the dominant lifeforms in the entire universe. They exterminated countless aliens who were in their way, and reduced those who surrendered to a fate worse then death. They commit countless atrocities, not because they are [[Imperial Guard|backed into a corner]], but just so they can sate their wounded and shattered egos, which never truly recovered from their occupation by the Qax. They are absolute hypocrites and liars that makes the [[High Lords of Terra]] look competent. They created such a totalitarian shithole, not because of some pseudo-philosophical [[Communism|bullshit]], but because they are a bunch of spiteful pricks who want to make their people suffer. They want to channel their suffering and hate towards the Xeelee, who are trying to save them from the Photino Birds. And what did the ICoG do once they finally drove the Xeelee out of the Milky Way? Did they usher in a new golden age or do they amend their crimes? Nope they immediately fell into civil war before being unified by another tyrannical regime, which also quickly collapses. Seriously, fuck the ICoG, just fuck 'em. When we mean the combined and concentrated [[Grimdark]] from all of WH40K still pales in comparison to just the ICoG itself, '''WE FUCKING MEAN IT.'''
<gallery>
Xeelee_sequence_exultant_greenship_color_sketch.jpg|Artwork of an ICoG Greenship. [[MOAR DAKKA|Possessing more firepower than the entirety of Segementum Solar, ''combined''.]]
</gallery>
===Transcendence===
[[File:Transcendence.JPG|300px|right|thumb|The Voidplane of the Transcendence.]]
Humanity from the far, ''far'' future. Basically the [[Star Trek|Q from Star Trek,]] only on steroids and completely unhinged.

So named because of how the multiple transhuman races have 'ascended' to a literal plane of higher existence, kinda like the Matrix if it could reality warp. Oh yeah, you heard us right. '''''Reality warp'''''. As such, the Transcendence was more of a collective consciousness than an actual polity. They were also just as homicidal as the ICoG, with Transcendence Humanity going on their merry murder-spree across the entire galactic supercluster, turning entire Neutron Stars into relativistic ICBMs and even contemplating on condemning every single Human whoever lived or will live into perpetual agony. Just because ''they can''. [[Chaos]] wishes it could be this nihilistic when it grows up.

If they are feeling incredibly spiteful today, they may turn a baseline Human into a Quantum Wave Function entity and force them to monitor the universe as it dies from premature heat death. Still, despite all their omniscient and neigh omnipotent power, they finally got the full attention of the Xeelee after they were finally sick of our [[bullshit]] and proceeded to Godstomp them back into the literal stone age; trapping the remnants of Humanity on Earth in a four-dimensional hypercube while letting the rest of Mankind to [[Grimdark|freeze to death.]]
{{Clear}}

===Squeem===
[[File:Squeem_Ship.JPG|300px|right|thumb|A Squeem Ship.]]
(Pronounced as Scheme)

The oddly named Squeem were a race of eusocial hive-minded squid-fishes and were the first alien race to fully conquer Humanity. Despite starting off roughly the same as Humans chronologically with technology equal to us, the Squeem lucked out by discovering Xeelee tech of which they could reverse-engineer. [[Rape|You can imagine how ''that'' worked out when they invaded the Humans.]]

Due to how unimpressive their base technology is, it didn't take long for the ICoG to completely curbstomp them to the ground and forced them to de-evolve into human-dependent symbiotes. Still, their occupation left a nasty scar for Humanity as it led to the freezing of the Earth's oceans, starving/freezing billions in the process and the following memory-wipe of all Humans to the point that they forgot that organisms once lived in the ocean.

By far the weakest race in the Xeelee Sequence, although this is all relative in Sci-Fi as the Squeem are still powerful enough to kick War-in-Heaven Necrons in the dick and assrape everyone else with their self-improving GUT-driven missiles and stolen starbreaker technology.
{{Clear}}

===Qax===
[[File:Qax.JPG|300px|right|thumb|A Hexagonal group of Qax.]]
The second alien race to conquer Humanity and basically the tertiary antagonists of the Sequence after the Photino Birds and Humanity itself. The Qax weren't actually a race of militaristic conquerors, unlike other conventional Sci-Fi races. They were actually a race of merchants and traders, the reason why they conquered Humanity right after the Squeem and treated them like shit was because [[Dick|it was just '''''THAT''''' easy.]] Which kind of gives you a clue on how '''fucked''' the Xeelee Sequence is, if the fucking merchants behave like this. The Qax were truly ''alien'' in every sense of the word. They were a bunch of 90-meter wide, hyper-individualistic race of convection cells held together by a core of a micro black hole. In a sense, they were a race of [[Wat|living thunderstorms.]] Due to the fact that they are made of convection cells, they were functionally immortal in the traditional sense as they could easily replace these cells, although their complex biology meant that they had a ''very'' low population numbering in only a few thousand, meaning that they place immense value on their individual lives. Nevertheless, because they were living hurricanes that lived off the currents of wind, solar flares, virtual particles and space-time itself, they were individually quite powerful, with only three to four Qax being needed to control the entirety of Humanity on Earth.

Masters of genetic engineering which led to the creation of the treacherous Human Pharaohs and a respectable time-travelling military to boot, the Qax were known to utilize the Spline (Themselves a race of 1km wide living meatbags) as biological warships because its cheaper that way and were known to make their own bootleg starbreakers. They also have weaponised Grey Goo that could breakdown mountains, wipe out every biological compound right down to the bedrock and even [[What|turn waste into food.]] The Qax was finally decimated when a Human [[Just As Planned|tricked one of them into firing a bootleg Starbreaker in their home star causing it to go supernova.]] They were eventually pushed out of the galaxy by the ICoG, but the trauma of losing so many including their homeworld to their own slaves has made every Qax in the future to kill all Humans on sight as their base instincts.

===Silver Ghosts===
[[File:Silver_Ghosts.JPG|300px|right|thumb|A Lone Silver Ghost.]]
The only race in the entirety of the Sequence that isn't a [[That Guy|homicidal jackass]]. Seriously, they actually have a dry sense of humour, which brings in much-needed levity in this absolutely depressing saga. The Silver Ghosts are a passive race of spherical aliens approximately five-foot-wide in diameter with a weight of one ton and resembling a floating spherical mirror. So-called the Silver Ghosts because of their...well...[[Derp|silvery skin]], a big misnomer is to think of the Ghosts as a single organism. They are not. Rather, like the Portuguese Man-o-War, they are actually a superorganism made out of various individual organisms all cooperating as one to better survive this ultra-Grimdark setting. Apparently, this is due to the fact that the Ghosts had a [[Dark Angels|ultra-secret and ultra-heretical past where they had a civil war which made their Star turn into a Red Giant]]. By cooperating to the extent where a Silver Ghost can literally choose which cell to die - making them functionally immortal - the Silver Ghosts became a post-scarcity society.

Inside a Silver Ghost host a fleshy substance with a core strangely resembling a [[Wat|Human fetus]]. Oh, but it gets weirder. Their silver skin - in itself an independent organism as aforementioned - fucks around with Planck's Constant (Ergo: it was a Planck-zero layer, a sandwich around a zone where Planck's constant was lowered), making their skin ultra-reflective to the point of being immune to ALL DEWs. In fact, it was considered normal for Silver Ghosts to ''literally'' sunbathe in the core of a star. At the start of the Third Expansion, the Silver Ghosts were unfortunate enough to be in the way of the growing ICoG despite occupying a significant chunk of the Perseus Arm in the Milky Way Galaxy. Despite being passive, the Silver Ghosts weren't slouches in combat, especially when led by the Black Ghost. During the war, the Silver Ghosts were using the gravitational energy of entire star clusters to fuck around the universal constants such as the Lightspeed Constant (Cockblocking Humanity from going FTL) and the Electromagnetic Binding Forces (Makes everything baryonic including Humans; brittle). These stars were quickly used up like giant Double-A batteries and replaced not long after. They were also doing a lot of whacky shit outside of your typical time travel shenanigans such as Planck teleporting entire planets and battlefleets as weapons and even entertaining the idea of creating a Force Vacuum Collapse to destroy the entire ''fucking'' universe if need be. Yeah, and do take note that they are the ''second weakest race'' in the Sequence.

Still, being the nice guys and all, it still didn't stop Humanity from wiping out the Ghosts and farming their skin for shits and giggles. This is the Sequence, only the assholes survives.

==Shortlist of [[Grimdark]] Shit in the Sequence==
[[File:2vaeaod7lc461.jpg|400px|right|thumb|It's like the [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism] but the control panel has completely broken off.]]
[[File:Xeelee_40k.jpg|400px|right|thumb|[[Meme|As they say, there is always a bigger fish.]]]]
This is just a small taste on why the Xeelee Sequence is a pants-shittingly terrifying place to live in.

*It is already a foregone conclusion that the entire Universe [[Grimdark|will die a slow and painful death.]]
*Before the really bad shit starts happening, humanity was fucked up from the start. The Holy Superet Church of Light raised a girl called "Lieserl" as one of their projects, innocent enough right? Well she was infused with nanomachines which caused her to grow to the age of 90 years in 90 days. She was downloaded into a virtual copy, dropped into the sun, to monitor the Photino Bird threat and forgotten about.
*Empress Shira, a girl from a Qax-occupied future, subjugates Earth and makes them believe in a bullshit religion worshipping the sun, in an attempt to not get occupied in this timeline. Well her Empire was the most oppressive and amoral empire yet. For instance, one of her guards found an unauthorized colony of humans living out of the Solar System, and disassembled it, putting all of the inhabitants into stasis pods. Alpha Centauri, one of their colonies, didn't handle the situation any better, unleashing a data-virus on the Earth and hitting it with asteroids, causing tsunamis until Shira gave up. She still didn't prevent Earth from being occupied by the Squeem or Qax. Also, the bad shit is only getting started.
*The entire Human race has its culture and history destroyed by the Qax in order to pacify and turn them into useful slaves. Literally, we mean using nanites to kill plants and destroy fossil records. Qax blow bubbles into the bedrock called [[Hive World|Conurbations]] which are basically hive cities shaped like domes and absolutely MISERABLE to live in.
**Oh did we forget to mention, Conurbations are meant as temporary structures. When the Qax left Earth, no new Conurbations could be built. This resulted in Conurbations becoming unlivable, fucking fantastic.
*The Qax occupation deliberately altered the Earth's biosphere, causing mass extinction and pushing the human race on the brink of catastrophe. The Squeem on the other hand, dropped bio-engineered plagues to extirpate out a large segment of humanity's population, and froze the entire fucking oceans using electricity in a process called "polar cubic ice".
**The Qax leaving did not end happily for humanity. As seen above, the Qax were the ones who made new Conurbations, and also provided food to all the humans. People were homeless and starving, trying to grow food in the nanite-fucked ground, but they couldn't. Also the Green Army deliberately withheld rations from the people.
*Human traitors who sold out their race to the Qax are given genetic engineering to become immortal 'Pharaohs'. The immortality, however, is random especially for their children, as sometimes their kids are [[Loli|stuck being an]] [[Shota|8-year-old ''forever''.]] Or, in some cases, stopped growing in-utero, forcing the mother to commit an abortion.
*The Silver Ghosts also abducted humans to keep as samples for experiments. Alien Joseph Mengele, hurray. One of their subjects, labeled "five" was raised differently from humans. When she was extremely young, some human samples who broke into the facility had the audacity to subdue and rape her. What a warm welcome into humanity.
*When the ICoG exterminated the Silver Ghosts, they kept some of their genetic samples so they could use their skin for augmented purposes. [[Flayed Ones|Ergo, they reduced an entire race into cosmetic farm animals to be harvested and the humans wear them as skin.]] This applies the same to any aliens exterminated by humanity.
*Humanity went on a mass universal xenocide campaign before entering a 500,000-year siege in the Lanikea Galactic Supercluster. You'll be thankful when the Xeelee put an end to humanity's brutal curbstomping of every Xenos species.
*The way the Xeelee exterminated humanity was unbelievably brutal, they planted a Xeelee Flower in every star and covered it in XCM (Xeelee Construction Material). While everyone froze to death, the Xeelee provided booths for humanity to escape into (because they aren't a bunch of fucking monsters, they were trying to stop humanity's murder-rampage), and a four-dimensional prison for them to rot in.
**Going on the theme of humanity's murder-rampage, they sent a Xeelee Nightfighter back in time to interrupt Michael Poole's wormhole project, and also kill humanity by firing thousands of diamonds which weigh several thousand tons. Michael drove the single nightfighter back to the galaxy's center with its tail between its legs, but the Nightfighter made sure that humanity would never spread throughout the galaxy and cause pain and misery for themselves and any other species, which the Xeelee was honestly right for doing.
*When the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] stopped innovating, it's because of [[Fail|incompetence.]] When the ICoG stopped innovating it's because there's no point in this [[Grimdark]] future. It makes no difference if you send child soldiers or mechas against the Xeelee, because they'll kill you anyways, so they just send child soldiers because its cheaper.
**Also, the Guild of Engineers are so wung-ho on standardization throughout the galaxy. That means technology stood static for tens of thousands of years. It doesn't matter anyways, because the Xeelee are capable of fucking up even the best technology a human can make.
*Throughout the ICoG's history, the rate of interservice abuse was so extreme, that the commissaries (Their version of the Commissar) routinely [[Blam|beat their conscripts to death.]] [[Grimdark|Do take note that all these conscripts are ''children''. So expect a ''LOT'' of child abuse.]] It gets to the point of being borderline uncomfortable to read.
**In the short story "Riding the Rock," the Interim Coalition of Governance took over a world and proceeded to condition the children into child soldiers. They took a school, which honestly was like Pol Pot's S-21, and forced the children to do unspeakable things: they beat them to death, forced them to fight, and tried to "breed out their emotions" to prepare them to fight the Xeelee.
**Because the ICoG has time travel if you did an oopsie, every single variant of your past, present and future self will either be tortured to death or get a summary kicked to the jaw for a crime you have yet or have not commit.
**One of the highest honours a parent would receive is if their child were to be inducted into what is effectively a child suicide bomber corp.
**Hama Druz was a bitch to the highest degree. He organized a witch hunt on all the Jasofts and Pharaohs (human collaborators who served the Qax), even though they were the last remembers of Earth and only serving the Qax out of necessity, and most Pharaohs were TRYING TO HELP HUMANITY DURING THE RULE OF THE QAX. Hama, being the racist twat, proceeded every abhuman species which evolved in the universe. Needless to say, most human settlements were less-than-thrilled to join the Third Expansion. Also did we forget to mention, Hama Druz continued the Extirpation, which was ''deleting every bit of old data** like how the Qax did, honestly what the fuck.
*Humans in the ICoG are indoctrinated by birth about the Druz Doctrine and, unlike the half-assed attempts of the Imperium to issue autocratic control, [[1984|the ICoG goes full 1984 and have near totalitarian surveillance right down to control of your timeline.]]
**In fact, the rate of indoctrination was so extreme, that even the ''thought'' of going against Coalition doctrine convinced one of the characters to nearly commit suicide out of ''pure instinct''.
*When there is rebellious dissent, the Imperium uses the [[Adeptus Arbites]] and rarely, a small Crusade to crush them and retake the world. When there is even a ''potential'' tinge of dissent, the ICoG dump an entire moon with the population of tens of billions into a Gas Giant; [[Dick|just to make a statement.]]
*You'll be living in a barracks ball: a spherical conurbation where you live with your cadre of child soldiers, where you'll ride a Greenship straight to your death, or you'll live on a rock: a filthy and miserable environment where you'll work until you die by the hands of the Xeelee. So many children are expended, their names had to be etched on the wall via nanotechnology. Talk about literally becoming a statistic.
*If you somehow manage to avoid being conscripted into the Green Army as a child soldier, then you will be living in a coalescence, a literal human ant farm built out of faeces with a million people crammed into a space the size of a city block. They make the underhive of a [[Hiveworld]] look pristine in contrast.
**Coalescences half a million years later evolved into even more nightmarish versions, with humans preforming functions with their own bodies such as recycling air, recycling shit. Yes, we mean post-humans swimming in shit and converting it into food.
**These nightmarish environments evolve wherever there is massive overcrowding and nowhere else to go. This can happen to any society, and evolved in Rome, Mars, and on a Xeelee structure called the "Wheel" which is a smaller dollar-store knockoff of Bolder's Ring.
*Many of the ICoG's child soldiers are bred from either vats or 'breeders' from Coalescences. [[NSFW|Breeders are human Martian females that are pumped with so many hormones and genetic engineering that their stomachs balloon-up with the number of babies they are carrying.]] [[FATAL|Breeders are essentially impregnated the moment they menstruate and continue the rest of their lives shitting out <s>babies</s> child soldiers until they expire.]] Human females in the Xeelee are reduced to birthing sows. [[Grimdark|Yes, this is state-sanctioned child rape.]] [[Daemonculaba]], eat your heart out.
*The ICoG forbids ALL forms of heroism as it runs counter to the Druz Doctrine and risks splitting humanity apart due to the dangers of individualism and egotism being a potential byproduct of heroic deeds. So if you wanna be a goody-two-shoes and save someone by ignoring orders like [[Star Wars|Luke Skywalker]] or sacrifice yourself for the greater good like [[WH40K|Sanguinius]], the ICoG would go back in time to arrest you, charge you and than [[Blam|execute you]] if you're the former, or erase your existence from history if you're the latter, or do both if they are feeling particularly spiteful today. The ICoG wants you to die like a bitch, so you will die like a ''BITCH''.
*The ICoG's motto is "A brief life burns brightly". They mean it ''literally'', with the average lifespan of a human being measured 16 years of age at most, as the majority of humanity are child soldiers bred to die in the front lines. Combine with the mass state-sanctioned child abuse and child rape, the stripping of identity and the fact that the concept of the nuclear family is pretty much extinguished, you will die a brutal and ignoble death, a death which will be reduced to a statistic and quickly forgotten. They make even the callousness of a [[Death Korps of Krieg|Krieger]] and an [[Iron Warriors|Iron Warrior]] look like a bunch of woodland hippies in comparison.
**On average, the life of a Green Army soldier measured in just 1.7 missions before death, with 10 billion child soldiers dying each year. It was estimated that ''30 trillion'' child soldiers died in asteroid trenches surrounding the Milky Way's galactic core for over 20,000 years, just to make ''one'' Xeelee to fuck off.
*In one short story, during the Squeem Occupation (The first alien occupiers of Old Earth), a couple of human refugees decided to make a break for it. They modified an asteroid by putting a GUT-drive on it and turning it into a spaceship before escaping the Solar System. The Squeem took note of this and launched a GUT-missile that could tracked them, theoretically, '''forever'''. Since missiles have a better thrust-to-weight ratio, it would eventually catch up. In order to avoid being turned into stardust, the humans slowly increased their velocity, in which the missile would respond in kind, creating an intergalactic cat-and-mouse chase. The faster the ship travelled near light speed, the greater the G-force and inertia. Eventually, slowly but surely, [[Grimdark|the crew of that ship would experience every bit of their bones and organs slowly breaking by the crushing G-force.]] Some of the humans commit suicide whilst others uploaded their minds on a computer. Eventually, they manage to get rid of the missile via baiting it in a black hole's event horizon. Unfortunately, this is the Xeelee and Stephen Baxter knows his shit. The faster you go, the more extreme the time dilation. Ergo, once the humans finally got out of the chase, [[Grimdark|several million years have passed. By this point, the Photino Birds have won and they enter a dying Universe.]]
*In another short story, a Human crew encountered a derelict ship, whose hull is seemingly made out of [[Sons of Malice|human bones.]] Once they entered the ship, they realised that the ship was housing a community of degenerate humans that got lost in space. How did they survive for so long without any agriculture? [[NSFW|By turning their women into a literal food vending machine.]] [[FATAL|Yeah, turns out that the skeleton decoration on the ship's hull were actually ''baby bones'';]] [[Grimdark|they literally reduced infants into ration-packs and farmed meat produce.]]
**Baxter has a tendency for flesh-ships. Near the end of the novel "Raft", the main character gets exiled to the Boneys because nobody else would take him. Well, the Boneys are a fucking ''ball of flayed skins and skeletons'' floating in space. These people live in a mini world made of corpses, and eat discarded corpses from the Raft and Belt societies. The whole place smells like rotten corpses, and it's also described as absolutely filthy.
**Keeping in theme with the flesh-ships, Spline ships are massive asteroid-like meatballs a few kilometers wide. It's said to feel like being swallowed, being in a Spline ship.
*One of the ICoG's distant descendants, the Transcendence came to an endpoint, of which they concluded that humanity = suffering, and that it would instead reach into every timeline of every human that has ever existed, would exist, or could exist and just annihilate them; forcing every human who ever lived to experience all the pain and suffering of every other human who ever lived, over the course of quadrillions of relative years. They consider this as 'paradise'.
*Configuration Space from "Reality Dust" is a bunch of bacteria in the Callisto ice neurally and chemically communicating with each other to form a new universe: an island with a mountain of order, and a sea of entropy. This island seems pretty nice, but the ocean is all black and it melts whoever touches it by the power of entropy. There's a community of degenerate humans in this universe which are basically zombies.
**A character was downloaded into this space, and started doing normal shit like eating the grass. She touched the water and melted her fingers off. She saw one of the "zombies" and explored the forest. There, she found even larger, more depraved zombies in the forest.

==Things that make the Xeelee Sequence [[Grimdark|Absurdly and Horrifyingly Overpowered]]==
[[File:LJeEPUd.jpg|500px|right|thumb|Unless you're [[/co/|Marvel/DC]], [[Doctor Who]] or the Downstreamers, this is the most appropriate fate of whoever mess with these fuckers.]]
As you know by now, the Xeeleeverse is not the nicest place to live in; arguably one of the worst settings you could ever conceivably have your unfortunate sorry ass be dropped in. Yet, it is the setting's power capabilities that would truly catch the eye of most of you readers here. There is a reason why the term "Xeeleestomp" is a thing. These guys [[Rape|curbstomps]] [[The Culture]]. Comparisons between WH40K is needed in terms of context. Here is a shortlist that showcase just how overpowered the Sequence truly is:

*Every single faction, even the weakest ones are Type 4 to Type 5 civilizations on the Kardashev Scale. To give you some context, the Imperium of Man is considered a Type 2 Civilization, which means that they control the energy output of multiple star systems, whilst the Necrons and Ancient Eldar are an early Type 3 who controls the energy output of a single Galaxy. In the Xeeleeverse, factions like the ICoG and the Qax - who are Type 4s - are easily harnessing the energy output of ''Galaxy Clusters''.
**To give a better context, the Silver Ghosts, easily one of the weakest factions in the Sequence, is generally agreed among multiple versus forums to be able to utterly [[Rape|''steamroll'' the entirety of the 40k universe, ''combined''.]]
*Every A.I. and supercomputers in the Xeeleeverse use CTC (Closed Timelike Curve), essentially meaning that they could travel back or forwards in time to achieve unlimited processing.
**The Xeelee themselves one-up this by having the Anti-Xeelee, an A.I. construct made of probability quantum wave functions and is a fixed point in time, meaning that it exists in the beginning, present and end of the Universe, all at the same time.
**The Xeelee' equivalent of a supercomputer is a supermassive black hole. Yes, they use the core of Galaxies as a desktop.
*Every FTL ship is effectively a timeship. Time travel is heavily militarized with ships from various factions going back in time to accelerate the civilizationary progress a hundred-thousand fold or grant their ancestors effective precognition.
*The Space Marines use miniature [[Bolter|rocket launchers]] as standard equipment, whilst other factions use [[Gauss|molecular-disintegrator beams]] and [[Shuriken Catapult|monomolecular shuriken cannons]]. Compared to other Sci-Fi universes, that seems over-the-topped. In the Xeeleeverse, the ICoG's equivalent of the [[Imperial Guard|dudes in T-Shirts]] carries [[Lasgun|Flashlights]] that could turn boats into slag and kill thousands of humans in seconds. Their Flamers act more like Meltas, flash-frying and carbonising people in a near-instant. Their 'Bolter' equivalents are guns that fire GUT-rounds. GUT stands for Grand Universal Theory, or in layman's terms, they are rifles that fire pellets with the mass-energy density of a ''Big Bang'' (approximately 10-36 seconds at the beginning of time) - ergo, [[Exterminatus|Big Bang Rifles.]] For anti-air purposes, the Green Army ground forces use Monopole Cannons, that fires one-dimensional, space-time defects at near the speed of light as their RPG equivalents. They also have reverse-engineered Xeelee Starbreakers that could rip apart anything, up to and including, entire Stars.
*The average joe in the ICoG wear skinsuits which could affectively negate the melta-level effects of their flamethrowers. Have fun imagining a couple of guys that are almost completely immune to Melta weapons.
*Basic GUT-ship and vehicle weapons from the ICoG involves firing black holes, neutron stars and monopoles at near the speed of light. These black hole cannons mind you, could disrupt the event horizon of a galactic core. The ships themselves could tank a point-blank burn from a Magnetar Eruption and are protected by a Gravastar Shield, which is a pocket dimension that defends them from FTL foreknowledge and other forms of conventional or physical attack.
*Your average tweeb in their mother's basement can make wormholes for shits and giggles.
*The Imperium considers the [[Vraks|Siege of Vraks]] as one of the largest and longest form of trench warfare in their history. The ICoG use ''entire galactic superclusters'' as trenching material on their off days.
*The Silver Ghosts had Quantum Gravity AI that was both acausal and allows it to see the future. Unlike the [[Eldar]] [[Farseer|Farseers]], they are always proven right with flawless precognition.
**They later one-up themselves by creating a Planck Zero AI, which, as its name suggests, lowered Planck's Constant to zero via shoving it in a pocket universe. The A.I. had infinite computational power and could make these computations in zero time.
**When the Silver Ghosts got their shiny skins flayed by child soldiers and hunters, the Quantum Gravity AI was taken and implanted into weaponized humans who could see into the future. In the story "Gravity Dreams," nearly a million years in the future, a boy heard the transmission of a girl in another universe, the same universe of the book "Raft," which was reaching the end of the stelliferous era.
*The Silver Ghosts used teleportation that deliberately increases Planck’s Constant, which in turn, increased the uncertainty principle, which in turn, makes the manipulation of the probability of a given object's place absolute. This range from a single person to entire planets.
*The Silver Ghosts could rewrite the laws of physics. From weakening the electromagnetic force (Thereby increasing the lightspeed constant at the expanse of shaking matter apart) to increasing the strength of gravity by a factor of a billion.
*The Xeelee Nightfighter 'wings' are composed of space-time defects called "Domain Walls" which stretch for tens of kilometres and are constructed from one-dimensional singularities. The materials for the ship itself are called...well...Xeelee Construction Material (XCM for short)(Also called Xeelee Hull-Plate). You know those Big Bang Rifles that the ICoG's basic grunts carry around as mentioned earlier? Yeah, they do as much damage to these Nightfighers as a [[Stubber#Stub Gun|Stub Gun]] could do to Terminator Armour.
*The Xeelee lives off on the event horizons of supermassive black holes. Only extreme gravitational forces or their own Starbreakers could actually harm them. You know the XCMs? Yeah, they violate the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which means all of its atoms share the same quantum state; able to absorb energy with a 100% efficiency. Essentially meaning that using direct energy weapons or exterminatus-level bombs like a Cyclonic Torpedo would do nothing and in fact, [[Troll|may actually ''heal them''.]]
**An example of this is when a human used a literal XCM umbrella to shield himself from an exploding stellar nova.
*Their Nightfighters could stay motionless to going at near the speed of light in a blink of an eye. Their most basic and common weapon, the Starbreaker as mentioned before, are basically black hole lasers that open a wound in space-time - which are also cherry-red in colour due to electromagnetic red-shift - that could blow up a star system for the kicks.
*The Xeelee could reshape and move entire galaxies like lego set-pieces. The construction of the Xeelee Ring was a one-dimensional singularity that was turned into a cosmic string and was big enough to start pulling ''Galaxy Clusters'' into its gravitational well.
*The Xeelee have weapons that could vapourize ''weaponized galaxies''. These are essentially cosmic string anti-air missiles, thousands of light-years wide and moving at over half-light speed to ''bisect entire galaxies''.
*The Photino Birds could use said aforementioned weaponized galaxies as anti-armour weapons.
*The Photino Birds lives off the gravitational and stellar energy of stars. Ergo, they started a mass reconstruction program via the mass accelerated heat death of the Universe, turning every star into a white dwarf, whose long lifespans in the hundreds of trillions maximizes the Birds' comfort and reproduction cycle. This contradicts the Xeelee's way of life as they need the event horizon of a black hole to sustain themselves. Accelerated heat death = no supernova = no black holes. Ergo, war begins.
**The Photino Birds's reproduction is a form of self-cloning or replication. They are in effect, Dark Matter von Neumann swarms.
*The Photino Birds were creating an inertia bomb big enough to shake the Xeelee Ring - a ten million light-years wide construct - into pieces.
*The Photino Birds was making the Xeelee their whipping bitch. Take that into consideration. In other words, they made the strongest beings possibly made out of Baryonic matter flee the universe with their tails in between their legs.
*There are also the Monads which are the 'Gods' of the Xeeleeverse. They live in the 'Bulk', which is the space between universes and are so god damned powerful, they view both the Xeelee and Photino Birds in the same way the Xeelee and Photino Birds view humanity.

==See Also==
*[http://www.stephen-baxter.com/articles.html#xeelee The complete Xeelee timeline]

[[category: Literature]]