Editing Darklord (section)

==Dr. Victor Mordenheim & Adam==
Co-Darklords of Lamordia, of a sort. Like the character of Victor Frankenstein (best known for creating Frankenstein's monster) he was based on, Dr. Victor Mordenheim sought to create life and was certain that a soul was not necessary for it to exist. To show him the error of his ways, the gods saw fit to endow the doctor's creation with a soul--specifically, an irredeemably evil soul. The newly created dread flesh [[golem]] was dubbed Adam, and he soon grew jealous of the love that his maker's wife Elise and adopted daughter Eva had for him. Adam's plan to kidnap Elise failed, and instead he killed Eva and wounded Elise so badly she went into a vegetative state. It was at that time that the doctor and his creation were taken together into Ravenloft. 

The doctor himself resides in his own mansion, Schloss Mordenheim, spending most of his time obsessively trying to revive his comatose-but-alive wife (who has herself long since gone mad due to her life support system causing her constant pain simply by being active), up to the point of continually constructing new bodies out of exhumed or painlessly-killed female corpses for her, but is cursed to never succeed and to never stop trying. Note that this is not out of love, though Mordenheim still believes that it is--it has become nothing more than a compulsion that has become his only reason for living. Meanwhile, Adam is now the "ruler" of an inhospitable island aptly dubbed the Isle of Agony off the coast of Lamordia inhabited solely by himself, forever cut off from the acceptance that he sought, cursed to feel the doctor's pain as his own, and rejected by the very land that he supposedly controls (as it is influenced by Mordenheim and not Adam). Adam's only form of solace comes from sabotaging Dr. Mordenheim's attempts at reviving Elise just to spite him. Player characters who meet Adam and treat him without pity or revulsion may be able to get some useful information out of him or even get him to open the borders of Lamordia, but he is very prone to anger and is virtually unstoppable once enraged. 

So strong is Mordenheim's disbelief in magic that his own domain also (potentially) interferes with divine magic of any kind, making it unreliable, and may even block any magical attempts to heal Elise. Worse still, Mordenheim's attempts at training apprentices over the years in the vain hope that they might just achieve the necessary breakthrough to restoring Elise has unleashed quite a few mad scientist villains, or monsters born of mad science (such as the Living Brain, a disembodied brain in a life-support jar that uses its psionic powers to direct and dominate a major organized crime ring), onto Ravenloft at large. 

In a curious twist, Adam is the Darklord and is the one with the power to close Lamordia's borders, but both Adam and his creator are effectively immortal and ageless, and Mordenheim even shares his creation's immunities and regenerative properties. If either is killed and their corpse completely destroyed by fire, acid, or even disintegration, either will simply reincarnate into the nearest most recently deceased male corpse (for Mordenheim) or flesh golem corpse (for Adam, and there are a quite a number of these running around Lamordia, made either by Mordenheim as failed bodies for Elise and futile attempts to recreate Adam's "success," or Adam's frustrated attempts at making sympathetic company for himself), and will shortly thereafter shape their new bodies into looking just like their previous selves. The only way to destroy Adam and Mordenheim for good is to destroy them together at the same time. If DMs decide to allow the permanent destruction of Darklords (see above), then the fate of Elise and Lamordia itself is up to them; one appropriate denouement could be that the permanent deaths of Adam and Mordenheim might just be the spark Mordenheim's machinery needs to briefly restore Elise long enough to rise up and forgive their long-suffering spirits before leading both to their afterlives, just before the land suddenly twists and shifts to reflect the curse and nature of its new Darklord.

Adam and Dr. Mordenheim first appeared in the 1994 boxed set "Adam's Wrath," intended for outlander PCs to undertake a [[Weekend in Hell]] adventure. 
<gallery>
victor mordenheim Red Boxed Set.jpg
victor mordenheim Domains of Dread.png
adam Red Boxed Set.jpg
adam Domains of Dread.png
adam vs mordenheim Adam's Wrath.jpg|Adam and Victor wrasslin'
</gallery>

===5e===
'''Viktra Mordenheim''' was born the daughter of a minor noble family, as well as a natural prodigy in medicine - she taught herself anatomy as a child, and by the time she was a teenager she held a doctorate ''and'' had been appointed as a preeminent researcher at a local university. For all her genius, however, Viktra was arrogant, not to mention completely lacking in empathy, compassion and moral qualms. To her, medicine was just a way to sate her burning curiosity about the secrets of life. Also, she hated magic, regarding it as as "stealing the powers of otherworldly beings and cheating the laws of nature", and thus inferior to '''SCIENCE!'''

In the best Frankenstein tradition, she grew obsessed with the idea that she could not merely mend the sick, but actively create and even improve upon life. So she began hiring the services of bodysnatchers to provide her with fresh human cadavers for her research. This is how she met Elise; amazingly, the cold, aloof methodical surgeon and the beautiful but reckless and spontaneous body snatcher became infatuated with each other, and the two women's relationship swiftly changed from professional to personal. When Elise contracted an incurable wasting disease, Mordenheim became obsessed with saving her, and her experiments increased in numbers - she also began having living victims actively kidnapped for her experiments. Through countless murders, resurrections and remurders, Viktra honed her knowledege. Finally, as Elise fell into the deep sleep that marked the final stages of the disease, Viktra poured everything she had learned from a thousand deaths into saving a single life, crafting and installing the Unbreakable Heart: an artificial super-organ.

But just as she was stitching the fabulous device into place, constables burst into her lab, accusing her of being behind the recent string of kidnappings and murders. In the struggle, the lab caught fire and flooded with acrid chemical smoke: Mordenheim's last vision was of Elise rising from her table, a golden light glowing in her chest where the Unbreakable Heart had been installed.

When Mordenheim came to, she was in a strange, icy realm called "Lamordia", where she was hailed as the greatest genius ever, but there was no sign of Elise.

Viktra's torments largely center around Elise and the Unbreakable Heart; she can neither recreate the Heart on her own, but nor can she find Elise to study it again. Secondary to this curse is that she is showered with the love, respect and attention of Lamordia, whose people view her as a luminary savior; to Mordenheim, they are incomprehensible, and she loathes their constant distractions from her work.
<gallery>
DR. VIKTRA MORDENHEIM.jpg
</gallery>