Café de Nuit

So I watched this wonderful super-villain-bowl cartoon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMnAGN2gRsw
and couldn't help but think: what would a similar contest between all the darklords look like?
Take all the Ravenloft lords, darklords and overlords, past and present, put them in a big arena and make them fight until only one is left standing.
What is going to happen? What will each of them do? Who will be the winner?

Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Vecna and Gwydion should be neutralized somehow, or it's an overkill.
2. Most mortal humans without fighting skills will die on the first rounds - including D'Honnaire, Bluebeard, Ilsabeth, Lyron, Donskoy, Ivana etc. Ivan will last longer, hopping around cackling madly and poisoning people, but then Sodo will approach him guised like Ivan's sister and stab him with the Fang of the Nosferatu while he is stunned.
3. Of course, all the dead darklords will shortly return to another round as undead controlled by Azalin, Misroi or somebody else.
4. Althea petrifies several foes with her gaze before getting beheaded by the Headless Horseman.
5. Jacqueline Renier takes her gaseous form and waits for most of the combatants to kill themselves before joining the battle. Strahd might do the same.
6. The last round probably belongs to Strahd, Azalin and Soth, for both popularity and strength.

Your turn. What else do you think will happen?

Strahd gets distracted by a simulacrum of Tatyana, who flashes him from somewhere in the front row, and Soth pushes him over a kneeling Azalin unto a row of stakes (stamped curiously with the copyright "V.R."). The two boneheads rattle a giggle like schoolyard kids before facing one another and engaging in a very intense battle of the red-eye glaredown...

King Crocodile eat them all, lol.

At the end the winner discovers they were all creations of Lemot Sediam Juste in Scaena, and it was all part of his new show, which he is going to repeat over and over again.

Okay this is a long and winding analysis. For this hypothetical death fight, I'm going to make some assumptions
1) It's not in an open colosseum but instead in a temporary domain of some considerable where all the darklords are drawn into. Vecna's avatar is drawn from his god plane, and the Obsidian Gate is brought to this temporary domain and opened such that Gwydion can bet let out. Since Soth was mentioned, ex-darklords are drawn back in or revived.
2)Demilords (pocket domain darklords) might be able to bring their domains with them, in which case they can overlap.
3) The battleground is not a featureless, enclosed one but instead is physical terrain with concealment and other creatures, maybe even bystanders because the Dark Powers are bastards like that. These innocent bystanders can be controlled or manipulated by various darklords.
4) Some darklords are immortal, in which case only their temporary destruction is needed to take them out of the fight as they'll need to reform.
5) In cases where darklord abilities compete for control over subjects (such as Azalin and Misroi's command over the undead), potential subjects of their control are rendered helpless with conflicting commands.


Okay, first thing's first. The most imminent conflict will be Vecna and Gwydion, and their fight is likely to be earth-shattering. Other darklords will either take up sides or flee Vecna and Gwydion duke it out, and provided they don't destroy everything else in the conflict, somewhere during the fighting they fall into the Obsidian Gate where they're held forever (or at least the duration of the fight.) Somewhere along the way, Kas will probably get mixed in at some point and side against Vecna only to betray Gwydion at the last moment and either gets vaporized or pulled in with them.

The second big conflict is Strahd and Azalin, their long held hatred of each other boiling to the surface again. Azalin will try to call upon the other darklords to help him destroy Strahd, for he'll say Strahd's the reason they're all held there, but Strahd will counter and say that Azalin was the instigator of the Grand Conjunction and reveal him as a lich. A second round of camps will form, though many might stay out of the fight. Soth, ever able to be manipulated, will side with Azalin against Strahd because of past Soth/Strahd enmity.

On Azalin's side, I see:
Anton Misroi (via his enmity for Death given in the FoS netbooks)
Donskoy
Gabrielle Aderre
Gundar
Harkon Lukas
Ivana Boritsi
Soth

On Strahd's side:
Death
Urik von Kharkov (past enmity from days as slave to the Kargat)

Initially neutral parties would include:
Dominic d'Honaire (amassing his own protective army via dominated patsies)
Hazlik (besieged in his dreams by the Nightmare Court, he has his own problems)
Inza (manipulating things from the shadows)
Ivan Dilisnya (see below)
Meredoth
Most demilords and darklords of islands of terror
Vlad Drakov (surprisingly, but he would be divided between his hatred of Azalin on the one hand his fear of Soth on the other- which could be implied by his refusal to become involved in Malocchio's invasion of Sithicus)

Meredoth will at first stay out of any conflicts due to his isolationism, but his impatient psychopathy will eventually cause him to lash out at or otherwise alienate everybody else, after which he will come under fire from all sides and be put down.

Ivan Dilisnya flees the massacre into the House of Lament. The House is likely the only place Lemot Sediam Juste can manifest his theater domain, which gets the foppish theater aficionado Dilisnya's attention. Juste convinces Dilisnya he's just a puppet, thereby eliminating Dilisnya from the competition. However, Juste is trapped inside the House. Unable to leave, he dies within. The Phantom Lover is also drawn to the House just because of a spiritual kinship. The Lover and the Spirit of Mara undue each other with twisted obsessive love. The House itself is subsequently blown apart as collateral damage in the arcane conflicts of various combatants.

On the sidelines, Vlad Drakov stays out of the conflict for the above mentioned reasons. He instead goes after loner, unaffiliated parties to eliminate the competition and keep them from building their own power bases. Among the first to go is D'Honaire, followed by many of the more minor darklords. Meanwhile, Hazlik's mind and then body are destroyed by the Nightmare Court, as it's been implied he's already fallen under their influence in normal canon. With their only really easy target taken out and many other darklords they could affect dead, the Nightmare Court are ruled out by winning by default since they're dream entities. (Or they might be killed off trying to take Drakov's dreams because he's a honey badger like that.)

Meanwhile, Strahd's side will initially be overwhelmed due to Azalin's superior forces and numbers. However, Strahd will flee and perhaps fake his death, waiting for Azalin to overreach his bounds and alienate his other allies. Von Kharkov and Death will fall, leaving Azalin's delicate alliance to turn on itself.

Soth will once again tire of being used as a tool so he'll turn on Azalin, causing the lich lord's alliance to break. (As a death knight Soth can't be controlled). Misroi tires of the whole debacle and uses sheer force of will to break apart a chunk of the battleground domain and return back to Souragne (remember it's been established he can to some degree thwart the Dark Powers' influence, by willing his domain to remain separate from the Core.) Azalin's other allies will die, already be dead, turn against Azalin, or be inconsequential in Soth vs. Azalin. At this point, Drakov cuts in and joins Soth.

As Soth/Drakov and Azalin tire each other out, Strahd has rejuvenated and replenished his resources. He swoops in and destroys whomever is leftover. And that's how it ends because Strahd seems to be always left the last lord standing.

Wonderful, Lesser Evil. You actually made it closer to the Hunger Games than just a great skirmish. Thank you!

And what do you think will happen with the God Brain and Ebonbane?

Jack the Reaper wrote:And what do you think will happen with the God Brain and Ebonbane?

Everyone counts out the God Brain. It's psychic powers are strong enough to control any mortal, and rip apart almost any undead.

Everyone counts out the God Brain. It's psychic powers are strong enough to control any mortal, and rip apart almost any undead.

Well, maybe Ebonbane can kill it. It should be immune to mental attacks, and capable to resist psychokinetic attacks long enough to pierce the God Brain to its core (maybe animating other blades to aid).

A lot of what happens with Ebonbane and the Godbrain depend on where their placed in the terrain.

Does Ebonbane bring along its manor? Is it still trapped in the sword? If not, it will likely set about bringing various darklords and uncorrupted bystanders under its influence and possibly corrupt the domain to its influence as with the Phantasmal Forest.. Its first target is likely to be Faith-Hold, as it kills and reanimates her under its control only to have that undercut by Azalin or Misroi. If unfettered by some mortal shell (the sword or the lodestone paladin's body), Ebonbane may simply flee the domain. On the other hand, its extreme power might be recognized early on by Vecna and/or Gwydion and destroyed.

The Godbrain has extreme psychic power but its major vulnerability is a glaring one: lack of mobility. Part of its power lies in its inaccessibility at the heart of a mind flayer-infested underground lair. Removed from that, it's much more vulnerable, allowing hit and run attacks from more mobile opponents. Like Ebonbane, it might be recognized early on as a near god like being by either Vecna or Gwydion and subsequently destroyed. If it started the battle in a remote underground lair, it might very lay low until only a few lords were left and then pick off the leftovers. However, this depends upon a lot of suppositions (the Dark Powers not placing Gwydion in the same dark place, Vecna the God of Secrets not knowing about the God-Brain, etc.)

And King Crocodile? Could't he swallow all of Misroi's and Azalin's Undead?

Ebonbane will come as a Sword, and there's no reason the manor shall come with it. It will undoubtedly take control of all the swords and blades in the area, putting them to a deadly use.

As to King Crocodile, he will certainly devour several minions and maybe few darklords as well, but I imagine Malus Sceleris killing him by accelerating his illness.

Essan the mad should also be considered.

While his reality shaping powers are slow he also tends to be able to cast far more freely than others and he regenerates from anything quickly enough, short of disintegration. Given that he can also read minds of anyone in his domain at will using detect thoughts with no save and we are saying the domains kind of overlap for this purpose he has a huge advantage there. Still he also can animate any object or plant in the battleground at will.

I imagine that unless he is focused fire on fairly early he will slowly change the battlefield to his favor and begin animating anything around him. Meanwhile his spell list is fairly potent even if not a full match for the biggest spell casters of the realms. Still if given the time he can turn most of the floor to plaid colored lava, the walls are suddenly toxic poison spikes or the sky begins raining exploding thunderstones the size of fists after a time he may just become a true threat to everyone.

As for how he fits in with the others well... He doesn't really have any rivalries or such and would probably stay out to prepare or pick at any target at random that seems weak. He is more interested in studying the soul but if he knew everyone was there for combat he likely would treat it as a distraction. He is erratic and also cunning but I do know for a fact he would probably be a bit careless what with his practical immortality.

He could be beaten but he would not go easily nor would he be out for long unless disintegrated.

Easan the Mad, Davion the Mad and Chardath Spulzeer are all madmen and all have reality-altering powers. They should all three fight among themselves until the craziest is left. I would like to see that battle!

My bet would be on Easan in that match.