New domain: Anaides

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Across the Sea of Troubles, to the south of Acharistos, there lies the land of Anaides.

The domain is starkly divided in east and west, in part because the great river Lagneia cuts the land in two.
The eastern part, which covers two thirds of the domain, is itself covered in primeval forest; woods ancient and lush, which cover even the mountain range that rises at the Misty border the domain's western edge.
The western third has been cultivated by the domain's native populace. Here there is farmland, here there are towns and the great harbor city of Turpis.

Once, ships would regularly sail between Anaides and Acharistos, but trade has ground to a halt ever since the civil war erupted in Anaides' northern neighbour. These days, the ships just sail the Sea of Troubles to catch fish and chase the annual migrations of whales and seals.
The people of Anaides thank their lucky stars - sometimes literally - that theirs is a peaceful country free of the scourge of war. Farmers work the land, fishermen fish, and in Turpis craftsfolk craft and the scholarly elite creates useful devices and laws.
All is peaceful. All is well.
There is no reason to cross the river Lagneia, no need enter the ancient woods to harvest timber, no need to hunt beasts for their meat and pelts, no need to reopen the mines in the tree-studded mountains.
No reason at all.
After all, there are tree farms in the western part of the domain, carefully managed by lord Capricius. There is an ample supply of cattle to provide meat and leather. Why, if the present metal is carefully re-used and re-forged, there is no need at all to go looking for fresh ore!
Ask anyone in Anaides, and they will assure you that they have everything they need.
Yes, sir. There is no reason to cross the river. No reason at all.
Any and all stories of hostile Fey in the forest are surely just old superstition, and there is no need to investigate and prove or disprove them. The scholarly elite has decreed it is so, and the simple farmers and crafters agree wholeheartedly.
No reason at all...

The Darklord
Lord Capricius is Anaides' foremost timber merchant. His tree farms provide eighty percent of all the needed lumber and firewood for the populace, which is neither as large nor as bountiful as it should be, even with space in west-Anaides at something of a premium.
He is known as a wise and careful man, who tends his crop carefully and does not over-harvest the trees nor over-tax the land on which they grow. Contrary to many other men of the Quality, he takes a personal interest in the work, spending a lot of time among his trees.
When engaging in the social obligations of the elite, Lord Capricius is known as an engaging conversationalist, an excellent dancer, and a bit of a charming rake. Many a young woman - and some young men - have accepted invitations to visit Lord Capricius' stately manor and become permanent guests. It is a public secret that Lord Capricius is a member of the Cornerstone Foundation, a mystic society which practices ancient rituals and exerts influence over the nation's institutions of power - the courts, the police, the ruling council, even the twin churches of Dian and Diana - but that just adds to his roguish appeal.

What none suspect and few know - and those few the tormented souls held captive at Capricius' manor to serve his desires and salve his tormented ego - is that the timber merchant is himself one of the Fey held in such terror by the human populace: a Satyr.

In a dim past, Anaides was a rural land of rolling hills and gentle forests. The humans were at a state of development which resembled ancient Greece, tending small flocks of sheep and goats, augmenting the yield of their farms with a bit of hunting and gathering. They rarely dared venture into the forests, where they knew the Fey dwelled.
Capricius was one of those Fey. To him, humans were toys to play with as he saw fit. He was a terror to any comely youngster who ventured too close to the edge of the woodlands, and many was the time he stole a sheep or a goat to slaughter, roast and eat in the sylvan shadows that were his home.
This was not a matter of concern to the Fey. Capricius was strong, the humans were weak, and they were but dancing shadows upon the stage of the world. What Capricius deigned to do to them was none of their concern.
Then the men came, grown men carrying axes made of bronze. Bold they were, and daring, to dare and cut down trees at the edge of the forest. When Capricius confronted them, playing his pipes to force them to dance, they proved that they were cunning as well. They offered the Satyr wine, brewed and aged to become strong. Capricius drank deeply and danced wildly, he feasted on roast flesh with the axe-men and sang rumbling songs with them.
Come the dawn, and the axe-men explained to Capricius how they could use wood to build fine houses. They suggested that they could build him a fine house, one where he could 'entertain' comely women every day and drink every night, if he could only gather the wealth. And good timber was worth a lot of money...

Capricius became the axe-men's guide. If lesser Fey protested and tried to drive the men off, the Satyr played his pipes and used his innate magic to make them go away. Every day, the axe-men laboured; every night they drank and feasted and sang songs with Capricius. They spoke of the money they would earn and the celebrations they would hold once their work was done.
And Capricius dreamed dreams of red and gold, picturing himself as a lord among the humans whose comely youngsters he loved to abuse, and whose wines and foods he wished to partake of. He dreamed them well, all the time the axe-men cut a swathe out of the deep forest the Satyr had once stood watch over, driving the little Fey from their homes.
Finally, the axe-men had cut enough, and they left, carrying their bounty on carts. They would return, they said, and then they would pay Capricius his share of the price the wood would yield.

Barely had the axe-men left before Capricius was attacked, not by humans, but by Fey from the depths of the forest. They cast him down and tied him with ropes, dragged him by his heels before the Council Most Ancient; a grove of Dryads who inhabited the oldest trees in the forest. Here, the little Fey who had been driven from their homes testified against Capricius, and no matter how loudly he protested and cried out that this was all lies and he had done no harm, the Satyr was convicted of crimes against his own people.
The Council Most Ancient placed a curse on Capricius, a curse that would prevent him from using the magical powers that were his birthright. Further, they banished him from the forest until such time as he had found a way to redeem himself in the eyes of his people. Capricius was driven from the sylvan depths that had been his home with whips and cries of scorn, and he was forced out onto the rolling hills.

The Satyr fumed with rage, but was not disheartened; a fortune awaited him among the humans. A fortune, and a house his own, and unending feasts and debauchery. So he went running across the hills towards the human town whence the axe-men had come, and here he received his just reward.
His just reward for decades of assaulting any comely boy or girl to catch his eye, his just reward for decades of stealing cattle, his just reward for decades of playing cruel tricks on any human he saw with his Pan pipes and his innate magic.
The villagers cast stones at the Satyr until he fell insensate, bloodied and bruised. When Capricius awoke, he was locked in a cage in town square, an object of mockery! No matter how much he shouted of the money he was owed, all the received was laughter - especially from the axe-men when they saw him. Instead of feasts, he was thrown handfuls of kitchen garbage and leftover slops from the hog trough. By day the sun burned his skin; by night the cold left him shivering.

Stripped of his magic, all Capricius had to fall back on was his great strength, and his guile, and the spiteful hatred that burned in his heart. Every night, he worried and shook at the door to his cage, until finally he managed to snap the lock.
Under cover of darkness, he crept to where the axe-men slept. He could have killed them and have done, but that was not enough. Not enough by far.
Instead, he stole an axe, a fine axe with a fine edge, and some human clothes. These he wore - as best he could - as he snuck his way back to the forest from which he had been banished. Oh, there were guards on patrol, but this had been Capricius' home for centuries. He knew all the secret ways to avoid guards and get to where he was going: the grove of the Council Most Ancient.
By the time the arm-cry went out, it was too late. The Dryads who had guided the Fey of the land were dead, their heart-roots cut by a human axe! What the guards saw, was a whooping human, running out of the woods with an axe in one hand, a Fey bow and quiver in the other.

Capricius snuck his way back to the hills surrounding the human village. He chose his position well, and when the town's youngsters came out to guide their flocks to pasture and water, he struck. Fey-shot, the town's children were willess sacrifices to the Satyr's rage and frustration - and unmoving targets for the axe once he had done with them.
He was well-hidden by the time night fell, and distraught parents came seeking their young, only to find senseless carnage - and the familiar flint arrowheads of fey-shot.

What came next was unavoidable, perhaps. War raged across the land, as the Fey lashed out at the humans and the humans at the Fey, and Capricius watched and laughed from the shadows. Finally, there was a great clash as the united villagers stormed into the Fey-held forest.
The treacherous Satyr watched from a distance and felt content; both the Fey who had banished him and the humans who cheated him had suffered greatly. They might never recover from the wounds he had dealt them, or the harm they had done to each other.
He could leave now, find a new territory and live in peace.
...
Or could he? Did he not still deserve the money he was owed, the fine house, the unending procession of food and wine and lovers? The more he thought about it, the angrier Capricius became. How could he be content so long as anyone survived to deny him his desires?
And so it came to pass that the Satyr took up his bow and rained burning arrows down onto human and Fey alike, arrows dipped in a fiery concoction he had stolen from one of the human villages. It was fire that would only die from lack of fuel... and the woods were lush and quite dry in the heart of summer.

Capricius watched with joy in his heart as the woods that had birthed him burned, and all his foes were caught in the flames and the smoke. If he saw any come close to escaping, well, he still had some fey-shot arrows and also some more mundane ones. He took pot-shots at half-blinded, choking humans and Fey as they tried to escape the hungry flames.
Only when the smoke started to roll out towards him and the heat threatened to sear the fur from his lower half did Capricius retreat. He did not venture into the rolling hills in search of fresh wilderness, though. His hooves carried him towards the nearest village, where he knew terrified wives and some few children lurked, awaiting the end of the war.
He walked there with joy in his heart and laughter on his lips... until the smoke caught him up. No matter how fast he ran, the smoke stayed with him, overtook him, blinded him and stung his lungs.

When he finally staggered out of the smoke, Capricius found himself in Anaides. Here, he was the owner of a fine house and a thriving business. Every night, he could have a feast and wines of his choice. Loyal servants could procure prostitutes or slaves to fulfill his every desire, and sometimes guests who will not be missed are added to the master's "menagerie" in the dungeons underneath his fine house.
Capricius has everything he once wanted - and it is not enough to make him happy at all.

Darklord's curse:
The Darklord's curse is threefold:

Capricius' lungs were damaged by the smoke - a manifestation of the Mists - and no amount of medicine or curative magic can seem to mend them. He can breathe the air of the city Turpis, the farms of the western land and even the salty air of the Sea of Troubles, but it causes him discomfort verging on pain.
Only the rarefied air of a forest can soothe Capricius' aching lungs, but the Fey of the eastern lands hate him with a passion and will try to kill him if he sets hoof in their forest.
As he dares not cross the river Lagneia and the humans are too afraid to cross it and kill the Fey, Capricius had to raise his tree-farms in order to find respite from his pain. He is enraged by the necessity of pruning and harvesting his trees; he needs to keep up appearances in the only society that will have him, but he dreads a day when the humans' hunger for wood will outstrip his tree-farms' capacity, and he will have no more respite.
So dependent is Capricius on his tree-farms, that he has not yet discovered that he is trapped in Anaides...

The Satyr is still unable to practice the primal magic that was once his birthright, and he envies the very Fey who despise him. In order to touch any magic at all, he had to learn different magic. And the only group in Anaides that teaches magic is the Cornerstone Foundation.
While he enjoys having some magic once again, Capricius is bored by the society's often pointless ritual. He likewise enjoys the influence his membership has brought him, but detests the web of give and take and obligation that comes with it.
If Capricius had his way, he would be king of Anaides and High Master of the Cornerstone Foundation, but the government is too strong for him to topple, and the Foundation too fossilized to allow rapid advancement.
The Satyr must bide his time and seek opportunities for advancement. Not an easy thing for a creature that once lived purely by its selfish whims.

As the Fey are feared by the human population of Anaides, and Capricius cannot return to the forest, he must pretend to be human. Given his contempt for the species, this stings Capricius' pride. As he lacks magical disguises, he must wear special, corrective boots and trousers when he goes out, and needs must cover his horns. This hurts Capricius' body. Engaging in the intricate, highly etiquette-driven social events of the elite wears away at his patience and stings his spirit.
Even in his fine house, Capricius must be careful that the wrong human does not see what should not be seen. As a preventative measure, he has the tongues of his human "menagerie" removed, so they cannot reveal something to his servants that should be known.

Closing the Border:
Whenever Capricius wants to close the border, he must perform a ritual in one of his laboratories, hidden amongst the attics and cellars of his manor and several other properties he owns. Once the ritual is complete, undead treants rise from the soil at the very edge of Anaides. For every treant cut down, two more instantly rise, until those who wish to escape are overcome or flee back into Anaides.
Any surviving treants sink back into the soil once Capricius reopens the border, but the bodies of slain treants undergo rapid decay and become useless as lumber.

Ongoing crimes
Apart from maintaining a menagerie of victims to satisfy his desires and take out his frustrations on - and the torture rooms in which he 'trains', breaks and butchers them - Capricius is also guilty of other crimes. He is aware that the humans' civilization has hit a plateau due to their lack of access to ore. As Acharistos is too unstable for trade and the domain's mines are inaccessible, the peoples' use of the remaining metal must be carefully managed.
The best way Capricius can think of to manage the needs of the people, is to manage their numbers. As a member of the Cornerstone Foundation, Capricius could help introduce birth control policies. Instead, he regularly stalks the streets of Turpis and commits murder. From time to time he goes out into the countryside to poison wells. Every life snuffed out before its time soothes Capricius' wounded pride and gives him a sense of hope for the future - his own.

[The Lesser Evil]

I find this darklord to be one of my favorites among the various fey type villains I've seen in Ravenloft- his background is very poetic and has a lot of nasty details- more than is typical with a fey type darklord- and matches his curse and current goals. If I were to ever port Darkmoon Vale from Golarion to Ravenloft, some version of this guy would make for a very good candidate.

The main thing I find hard to believe is the one man population control thing, both in how he knows the numbers and how he finds the time. I would probably add a cadre of goons from the Cornerstone Foundation or some such in order to do a lot of his dirty work on this task at least.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I find this darklord to be one of my favorites among the various fey type villains I've seen in Ravenloft- his background is very poetic and has a lot of nasty details- more than is typical with a fey type darklord- and matches his curse and current goals. If I were to ever port Darkmoon Vale from Golarion to Ravenloft, some version of this guy would make for a very good candidate.

The main thing I find hard to believe is the one man population control thing, both in how he knows the numbers and how he finds the time. I would probably add a cadre of goons from the Cornerstone Foundation or some such in order to do a lot of his dirty work on this task at least.

Thank you for the kind words! ^_^

The issue with Capricius' "population control" isn't so much that it's realistic or effective. It's that he believes it is... and is actually just committing random murder and even mass-murder against people who have done him no harm and believe he is a wise businessman who's keeping the nation going.
His crimes are usually blamed on the forest Fey, which keeps the domain locked in terror.

[tomokaicho]

I guess his crime, as far as the DPs are concerned is betrayal (of various types). As bad as Capricius' crimes against human youth were, he is a fey and that isn't sufficient to get the notice of the DPs. So it was Capricius' betrayal of his own fey folk that caused his downfall.

Is the domain completely isolated? Access to the sea? Any prominent citizens powerful enough to trouble Capricius if they found out about his foul deeds?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Betrayal and murder of his own kind, followed by inciting a war between humans and Fey, then fixing it so both would die by destroying the very nature that had given him life. Which was another kind of treachery.

Currently, the domain Anaides is connected to Acharistos (see Mistipedia) to the north. All that lies between them is an ocean called the Sea of Troubles.
To the south, there are currently only the Mists.

There are plenty of powerful Fey in the eastern two thirds who could make jam of Capricius if he sets one hoof on their turf. Presumably the current High Master of the Cornerstone Foundation could as well, but he's an old man. If word got out that Capricius was Fey, though, every human hand would be turned against him - and he can't solo a mob with torches and pitchforks.

[tomokaicho]

Are the two churches imbued with clerical power, or are they non spellcasting lay clergy?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

The two churches have more lay clergy: magic is considered a bit "old hat". It is mostly practisedby the Cornerstone Foundation - but some priests are in the Foundation. So there is some spellcasting clergy, but it's an exclusive group.

[tomokaicho]

The two churches have more lay clergy: magic is considered a bit "old hat". It is mostly practised by the Cornerstone Foundation - but some priests are in the Foundation. So there is some spellcasting clergy, but it's an exclusive group.

I hope that you will be writing up the Cornerstone Foundation as a PHB2 Affiliation.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I'm considering a Prestige class.

[tomokaicho]

I'm considering a Prestige class.

Why not both? Making an Affiliation really tests your concept and verisimilitude.

[Joël of the FoS]

Great story. If I do not use the domain, I could use that story as a superb fireside tale. There are feys IMC, always mischievous, but to see one used by humans, and the war it generated, could be fun.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Great story. If I do not use the domain, I could use that story as a superb fireside tale. There are feys IMC, always mischievous, but to see one used by humans, and the war it generated, could be fun.

Thanks, Joël! ^_^

[tomokaicho]

Maybe the fey darklord has some Vampyre thugs to help him keep the population down, since they already view this as their solemn duty?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Not really his style, I think.

[tomokaicho]

Not really his style, I think.

He who birthed him knows best. However, it's interesting that there are other creatures that also want to keep humanity in check. Others like mind flyers as well, albeit as a food source.