Café de Nuit

Sabrina Whitestag, Darklord of Vespa
Lv 7 Half-Elf Warlock

Physical Description: With her waist-length light blonde hair, expressive blue eyes and short, slender frame one would be more likely to mistake Sabrina as a fantasy hero’s love interest. She compliments this with her light colored gowns to emphasize status as leader and gentle mannerisms until her true colors show and her face betrays her emotions in the most expressive manner, making her look like a cruel parody of herself.

Background: Sabrina was always a “blessed” girl, born with the eldritch powers of her maternal grandmother her parents couldn’t bear to let their special little girl be exposed to a world that would fear her. Never setting foot outside her estate, she lived a fairy tale life with her childhood friend, Illarian, playing along. When Illarian’s father was killed by the king’s enforcers for refusing to pay protection money, the grown-up world called for him to join a local rebellion. But what fun it seemed to Sabrina that she invited herself along despite his protests.

Within time the adventure lost its luster. The woods were too dirty to hide in, death unnerved her, and her blessed status scared her comrades. But Illarian was there to comfort her until he changed. With their leader dead, the title was forced upon him and he had less time for her. No matter how much she begged and pleaded for him to leave his responsibilities behind and run away with her, he wouldn’t listen. Accusing him of being selfish and not caring about her anymore, she ran away.

Seeing Sabrina’s powers as a useful weapon the king feed her honeyed words of how he cared for her wellbeing and fed her anger and hurt. When she learnt that Illarian had fallen for a recently joined priestess, her heart broke and she attempted to drown the rebellion out by breaking a dam. Not only did it fail, but a major trading village was eradicated, costing many lives, the king his needed supplies and months worth of planning. So he decided to cut his losses and kill Sabrina before she caused any more trouble. That’s why all those cruel, selfish people had to pay. Using the court wizard’s experimental magical weapon she lured the rebellion into the king’s castle, overloaded it with her eldritch magic, ready to die with them in the explosion.

Current Sketch: Believing that her powers warped her to a new world, Sabrina sees this as a fresh start. Using the outcasts of Ravenloft, she believes they will be indebted to her and help rebuild Vespa with her as their beloved queen. She feeds their insecurities with lies about the “Shining Lord” that will raise among them. Alas it is her flaws that will make sure that it is fear and protection not love and admiration that keep them there. And woe is to those that “betray” her for they are like a caged animal at the mercy of an angry, destructive child.

The ghosts also provide a problem, especially that priestess who took her beloved Illarian away. Sabrina prefers to have her subjects or any PCs handle this on her behalf, but wishes when the time is right to destroy the priestess herself.

Combat: Sabrina will keep her distance preferring to use her invocations, curses, and blasts to subdue enemies while her guards handle things up front. If enraged, she becomes less careful and will launch an all-out attack.

Lair: Castle Vespa. While half of it is in ruins, Sabrina has been working to subdue the ghosts and bring it back to its former glory by “inviting” a few talented craftsmen to do the work.

Hope I dont annoy anyone......with posting this.

Princess Stella, Darklord of the Woods of the Floating Coffin


General Description: A woman whose skin is ice, whose hair is snow, and whose dress is composed of a mist that trails behind her as she walks. Her eyes reflect only a deep sadness, of loneliness and regret yet she herself does not know why.
Her body of flesh remains as it was those many years ago, only frozen in that dreadful moment, clutching a mans heart to her chest, and encased in a coffin of ice and snow.

Current Sketch: Her plans the same as they have always been, find her lost love to break the curse. Many a time she is mistaken and leads astray many a young male only for them to die when the truth is known.

Lair: Her lair is the woods, though she may go wherever the snow spreads. Which covers her fathers ancient kingdom.

Combat: She hates combat immensely, preferring to charm the men who try to attack her, or running away. If she has to fight, she controls the ice to strike those who go against her. She may also use the frozen bodies of those helpless victims caught by the snow as minions.

Background: Princess Stella was born into a life of luxury and comfort, she was a girl who was said to be easily angered and whose paranoia made her strike out at her servants. But her boredom made her escape the city at night, hungry to explore the parts of the kingdom she was not allowed to go.

One day she met a commoner, a boy who swept her away with sweet words and kindness. Whether she was at first really in love with him, or merely in love with the thrill and the danger attached to such an illicit romance she cared not. What began was a secret love affair whose only other witnesses was the moon and the creatures which roamed the woods.
Though one night as she returned the kings viceroy caught sight of her, and let the king know of his daughters escapades.

Her father flew into a fury, and said that if she ever saw the boy again, she would be disowned and would be eternally denied her crown.
Unwilling to obey her father, she crept out of the castle to meet with her lover, and then they ran from the city, deep into the forest at the outskirts of the kingdom. They made refuge in an old hunters shack, long since abandoned. For the next two years they made a living in these woods. Though the boredom of the former princess became unbearable.
It was shortly after that her lover began to disappear for days at a time, with no reason or explanation.

Her boredom added with her paranoia made her doubt her love, and began to yearn for the place she once called home. So one night, as her love slept she walked to the cities walls, and begged to see her father.
Though her fathers anger would not let her come near, the kings viceroy came to her and made her an offer to regain her fathers love, and regain her birthright.

Her beloveds heart for her crown. In the morning he set off one final time, and returned at sunset. She drew him close, and hugged him. Then his breath went still as a skinning knife dug deep into his back.
She choked back her tears as she cut out his heart, and then from his hand dropped a ring. A modest ring, but a ring that he worked days on end to obtain. An engagement ring that spoke the depths of his love.
She realised then she did love him, that her paranoia and greed had killed the only man who ever loved her.

She cradled his heart to her chest and screamed. The tears poured down her face, and the moment they touched the ground the earth began to freeze. Its spread slow at first freezing everything at that moment. Birds were caught frozen in midair, and deer were frozen grazing. Locked in that slice of time. Her body collapsed still clutching her lovers heart. The ice creating a coffin of snow and crystal around her. Falling into an endless slumber, awaiting the kiss from her love she will never get.
When she came to, she was made of ice and snow, possessing not the memories of killing her love. Only that he had gone away, and was awaiting his return. Clutching a dagger of ice in her hand.

Every 100 years his reincarnation will walk through the woods, and she gains another chance to erase the mistakes of her past. Though every 100 years the same blood will be on her hands, and her body of ice will melt from the heat of his love. Only to awake in a body of snow again, with no memories of killing him, and yet again beginning her journey to search for him.

In the years in between she beckons young men into the woods, whether it is to quench her loneliness, or whether she believes them to be him is unknown. Though anyone who kisses her lips, who is not her beloved will turn into a statue of ice and snow.

So she walks through this place of endless winter, of frozen time and pain till the day she breaks her curse.

The Train Master, Darklord of Grand Central

Physical Description: If such a being could be given a form other then the city which he is, then he would be a ghost composed of mist. Large and unbound whose very presence causes the players to cough at the stench of pollution and corruption he is composed of.

Current Sketch: The train masters plans is to grow outwards, to increase the size of the city and to dig his roots deeper into the world. Forcing more to conform to his idea of order and perfection.

Background: There is a darkness afoot in the metropolis of New Glenwhich and one which is not the capitalism and organised crime which terrorises the citizens. But a more subtle corruption that seems to eat away at you the longer you stay, who the mad give the name “The Train Master”, an idea of a man whose existence is considered nothing but a rumour, merely a way to give evil a face the more rational conclude. But its an idea that inspires fear in the deepest parts of this labyrinth of stone and iron.

The Train Master as the stories say is said to be the architect, the engineer, the artist, and the visionary which runs Grand Central and the cesspit of civilization that surrounds it. Is he one or is he many? Or a merely a creation of the masses imagination. Whatever the cause, the general consensus (between those who care) is that something is running the city, and its not the lords and ladies who hold the cities wealth, there is a ghost in the machine.

A ghost who is the seething pollution which permeates the air and the engines that produce it; who is the sound of metal grinding against metal, and those who toil to create it. Whose roots are the tracks which stretch across this land, and whose blood is the people which inhabit this place; mere cogs in this grand machination, each believing they have a say in there day to day life, both keeping this boom town alive and furthering its plans.

The rumours are many though a few carry certain recurring themes, one is that the train master is all that remains of the esteemed engineer and architect Marcus Stephenson, a man who is said to be the founder and inventor who created this contagion known as grand central.

A man who came to this forsaken land to study what he believes is the manifestation of corruption. To cultivate and siphon it and use it as fuel to power his inventions. He called this manifestation “Mist” and through its use it is said his sanity became suspect. Killing and destroying all those helped him create the city.

It is said he was a man so obsessed with order and the desire to be forever, that he began to forsake his own body, ripping off his chaotic and living flesh a slice at a time to become one with his greatest creation. Binding himself to this city of trains losing his identity and gaining a more ordered one in the process.

Though if this is true then his greatest success is also his curse, bound in a body of cogs and gears which confines him forever to this place. A man whose achievements mean nothing, lost to the mists of time, remembered and known through madmen and a handful of tales, that even then only hint at his existence.

So he works through proxies the stories tell, through the creatures known as the faceless cabal and the trains he engineered, pulling more into the city. The peoples suffering becomes the fuel which pushes the trains further out, which in turn brings more in. Increasing the cities size and influence, whose tracks begin to spread more and more "connecting people together" they say.

So the city grows, and as long as the corruption keeps flowing, the trains will keep going.

But as I said before, this is merely one of the rumours. Even then the details of this story is suspect, for there are no records of a man called Marcus Stephenson. Nor anything to suggest that the man ever existed.

Vestiver, darklord of Vinara

And they did live by watchfires – and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings – the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather’d round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other’s face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain’d;
Forests were set on fire – but hour by hour
They fell and faded – and the crackling trunks
Extinguish’d with a crash – and all was black.

- George Gordon Byron,
“Darkness”

The mummy lord Vestiver is a blackened skeletal wretch. Of his flesh only charred vestiges remain. His eyes are deep-set glowing embers. His garments, once princely regal, are now little more than fire-ravaged tatters hanging from his scarecrow frame. His fire-scarred face is kept hidden behind a crimson papier-mâché mask, a mockery of the local nobility fashion. His raspy voice evokes the rustle dried of parchment.

Vestiver can also be met under the guise of a mortal whose life he recently took. A good observer might detect something amiss in the slightly sickly look and the darting eyes, which Vestiver explains away to recent stress or fatigue. Both in his real and borrowed forms, Vestiver is fond of smoking a pipe, usually an ornate, long-stemmed one.

Background

Vestiver was born to a poor family in Akorah, a corruption-ridden city built on the slope of a dead volcano. When the boy was only seven years old, a great fire spread through the destitute neighbourhood where he lived. Vestiver was the only survivor.

In the small hospice that took him in, Vestiver was heard whispering that fire was talking to him, telling him he shouldn’t have survived. A week later, the hospice itself went up in flames. To Vestiver, it became clear that fire was determined to claim him. Confused and terrified, he tried to appease it in the only way he could imagine: by helping it claim others. In the following years, he had started dozens of great fires within Akorah. When he grew older, Vestiver founded a cruel nihilistic cult.

One year, Mount Karaum shook, showing signs of imminent eruption. Delighted, Vestiver mobilized all his followers to try to seal as many of the city exits as possible. In the general panic, Vestiver’s men collapsed buildings and blocked entire streets. In the end, the attempt proved a fiasco. Vestiver’s cult was overeager and disorganized. Past the initial surprise, the militia had no trouble cornering and executing the fire cultists. Vestiver himself tried to flee, but was cornered inside a warehouse building. Rather than surrender, he sealed the edifice and put it ablaze, immolating himself and his would-be captors. Just as he was consumed by flames, Mount Karaum finally erupted. Akorah was destroyed, just as Vestiver had dreamed.

In the aftermath of the eruption, Vestiver’s cremated body was preserved by volcanic ash. Some years later, people from the neighbouring city Venikar came to rebuild their old capital. Their prodding disturbed Vestiver’s remains, causing him to arise as a wretched thing of ash and charred bone.

Current Sketch

Now darklord of all Vinara, Vestiver leads a new underground group called the Black Fire Sept. Aside from worshipping fire and revelling in destruction, the Sept draws gold from all over the domain selling potent narcotics and “protection” from fire hazards. To Vestiver, these activities are mere childish games. His ultimate aim is to spread fiery destruction across the whole domain and beyond.

The Dark Powers have laid a heavy, twofold curse on the mummy lord. For one thing, he is continuously forced to keep his temper in check, for his emotions provoke eruptions of real fire. The flames always manifest near an object or person Vestiver considers valuable. Whatever damage ensures, Vestiver is powerless to prevent it.

The second half of his curse is continual temptation to re-experience mortality. Whenever Vestiver kills someone with his own hands or using one of his attacks, he gains the ability to assume that person’s form for 13 days. Though his game statistics remain unchanged, Vestiver gains the appearance and many of the memories of his victim. He also gains the subject’s emotional baggage. If, for example, a young man whose form Vestiver has chosen to assume was secretly in love with a particular young woman, Vestiver would himself experience the attraction. If she would later be killed by one of the mummy’s rash emotions, he would suffer from the loss.

During the first 12 days of using this power, Vestiver is free to assume and shed his mortal visage at will. On the 13ieth day, the temptation to don mortality for one last time becomes unbearably strong. In the end, his mortal form erupts in flames. It is Vestiver’s curse to experience the lives of those he has destroyed, and inevitably relive the moment of his death.

Vestiver clings to the belief that he could be allowed to regain mortality permanently if he were to appease his inner fire with destruction on a large enough scale. His cult is currently researching a means to force all of Vinara’s volcanic mountains to erupt all at once. When the day finally comes, all inside the domain will be consumed by Vestiver’s cleansing fire.