Using Nidala and Bonemaw

[The Lesser Evil]

Okay, here's my idea I had been examining the idea that Joan of Arc had primarily been an inspirational figure that rejuvenated morale. (Basically a figurehead and a banner to rally around.) Some say her military advisers/commanders etc. were the "power behind the throne" so to speak.) It makes sense to me that within Faithhold's rise to power, there would have to be somebody within the system that would see her as a useful pawn and thus help her rise to power for his own interests. Even if he knew most of her visions were phony baloney. So he would be tied directly to Faithhold's ascent to power (and descent from grace). I kind of view him as a war profiteer who plays both sides to prolong the War against Evil. (People can be easier to manipulate when they have an enemy to dehumanize and gang up against.) Though nominally on the side of good, Theokos might've periodically sabotaged his own side in order to keep the war going. He would probably have wanted to weed out those fighting the War too pure or too canny for him to manipulate or coerce. I could easily see Shadowbane being one of the incorruptible, so perhaps Theokos’ defining movement might be withholding some information that caused Shadowbane to perish, thus directly linking him to the affair with Shadowbane’s death and Ebonbane.

When examining exact figures for whom to model Theokos on, I had originally thought of patterning Theokos after Gilles de Rais http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais a companion-at-arms of Joan of Arc who would later go on to be accused of occultism and child murdering himself. Wikipedia paints him as being known to be a flamboyant and reckless fighter in his youth before withdrawing from military and public life to oversee the construction of a chapel and spun himself into a financial hole by funding an outrageously expensive play. Later on he was accused of engaging in the occultist arts (such as demon summoning and alchemy) and the murder of multiple children. His conflict with and subsequent kidnapping of a cleric convinced the Bishop he was guilty of the other crimes. The occultist aspects and early life of de Rais fits with my imagining of Theokos, but the child murdering is more CE than LE and does not fit my image of Theokos

Another figure I was looking at was King Charles VII http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_VII_of_France the king in which Joan of Arc had been told by the angels to support. Like de Rais, he was known to be quite flamboyant in his youth (according to the Wikipedia article, which can of course be of disputable authenticity). However military defeats and being disowned by his father crushed his spirit and made him despair. There is some speculation that Joan of Arc gained access to his royal court because the situation for him was so desperate in the French civil wars going on at the time. Later on, we see he has goes paranoid and delirious from some kind of affliction and allows himself to starve to death, not trusting his attending son to take care of him. If we were to take aspects of Charles, we might take an aspect of despair over losing power and seeing Faithhold as a way of maintaining it.

Whether or not the Wikipedia articles are really accurate or not is beyond our purposes; we’re just looking for source fodder to base a bad guy upon. So combining King Charles and Gilles de Rais, we get a somewhat self-aggrandizing, overly bold figure in his life. Later on, he is disgraced, loses some measure of status, and becomes bitter and cold-hearted because of it. He retires and funds a number of eccentric, quasi-charitable projects, perhaps in order to buy some of his reputation back. But Theokos also dabbles in the black arts until he becomes pretty proficient in it, but nothing really seems to help him regain his former status, title or wealth. He eventually tries to contact a devil (ice devil) and tries to summon it, resulting in a situation as describes in that Wikipedia article on Giles de Rais. However, his summoning did not completely fail- he had gotten the devil’s attention and therefore more or less inadvertently self-initiated a transposition process. From there, further evil acts began corrupting him.

Knowing he had more or less blown his chances at being in the limelight directly, Theokos set about to gain influence by proxy. Though he was now in his graying years without the formal power he once had, he had accumulated a reputation for kindness and generosity thanks to his quasi-philanthropic works. Therefore, he had the ear of several powerful people. He just needed a mascot to fully utilize and exploit his connections, a cause to profit from and become relevant again (if only in association to his mascot.) Here is where Faithhold came in. And you know the rest of the backstory.

You’ve got several themes you can play up with Theokos here, a few comparisons and contrasts you can make with Faithhold. First of all, both are two-faced, but unlike Faithhold, Theokos doesn’t deceive himself- he knows perfectly well he is the scum of the earth. Secondly, whereas Faithhold’s evil is more active and wrathful, “hot” if you will; Theokos is more inactive and slothful or greedy, “cold” if you will. They make an odd “Red Oni/Blue Oni” duo. An optional element here is to decide how much you want to play the sloth/despair angle, having “given up” on being good. If he’s always been evil, then he’s only slothful in that he lives as a parasite off of Faithhold. If he was at one point good but his bitterness and despair made him give up on that, then he’ll have a lot more to despair about. Unlike Faithhold who is eternally in denial never giving up the idea that she is righteous, Theokos either never had it to begin with or gave up on it a long time ago.

Another question you might deal with is how much of Theokos’ evil has been from the influence of the devil. By default, I have most of his evil not as malice from an extraplanar creature but from his own greed and sloth. However, one could play upon the creeping presence of the creature replacing his greed with a cold hatred for all whom are around him. Perhaps after the devil summoning that went awry is where he really started down the path to evil. I prefer him to have started on it earlier, but it’s something you can play with. The fiend’s madness at being trapped mid transposition in a mortal shell can be played up too. It unnerves Theokos that, whereas he’s not the one going mad, he may be losing control of his body to the mad fiend.

The thing to keep in mind is not to make Theokos responsible for all of Faithhold's evil; he was merely an encourager or enabler. Faithhold is still the darklord even though Theokos is probably more darkhearted because she's done more evil actively and had the potential for better. For example, Banemaw is entirely Faithhold's invention as far as I'm concerned.

[IrvyneWolfe]

I was reading the Pathfinder description for the Gelugon, and it mentions that each one has, at their core, a frozen mortal heart that allows them to make decisions free from all emotion. It's an interesting explanation for Theokos' legendary detachment. If that heart once belonged to a confidant of Faith-hold it would explain why the devil feels drawn to her, especially if the mortal died cursing her for some reason. The devil, however, is as much a prisoner as Elena because he was born/created to be naturally detached, and for the most part he is, but his heart's obsession with seeing Elena fall even further means that he can never leave. It may be less a "curse" in the typical Ravenloft fashion and more of a compulsive disorder and since Theokos was never wired to be able to regulate these urges he's a slave to them.

Also, if that frozen heart doesn't necessarily have to be in his chest it'd make a good phylactery.

[divinedragonslayer]

The Lesser Evil: That was a great idea. Playing with the Arthurian legend further he could almost be considered a stand in for Merlin. Though Morgoroth probably was intended as such. I can see him being a schemer and cold hearted manipulator from another world besides the one that Elana came from. I don't want either of them to know each other. I love the idea of them being foils for each other to the point of being red and blue onis. Though I'd rather think of them as being the big bad and the lancer instead. I don't know if I'd stat him out though right now. That doesn't mean I don't have an idea how I would.

Ivryne: Okay I love the idea of his heart being removed from his body and used as a phylactery of sorts. Devil, half, or completely mortal that is going to be incorporated to his curse.

[The Lesser Evil]

I was reading the Pathfinder description for the Gelugon, and it mentions that each one has, at their core, a frozen mortal heart that allows them to make decisions free from all emotion. It's an interesting explanation for Theokos' legendary detachment. If that heart once belonged to a confidant of Faith-hold it would explain why the devil feels drawn to her, especially if the mortal died cursing her for some reason. The devil, however, is as much a prisoner as Elena because he was born/created to be naturally detached, and for the most part he is, but his heart's obsession with seeing Elena fall even further means that he can never leave. It may be less a "curse" in the typical Ravenloft fashion and more of a compulsive disorder and since Theokos was never wired to be able to regulate these urges he's a slave to them.

Also, if that frozen heart doesn't necessarily have to be in his chest it'd make a good phylactery.

Oh, this is quite interesting! Great find! To make this ironic, perhaps the confidant was quite fond of Faithhold, perhaps verging on romantic feelings or hero worship. Suspecting treachery as is her paranoia, Faithhold performed a detect passion out of habit and the admirer having strong feelings to her pinged as "evil". So she made an example out of the "traitorous" admirer, perhaps executing the poor fool publicly and maybe even going so far as to cut out the admirer's heart (the heart of a traitor). As Faithhold turned on her would-be admirer, he/she's strong positive feelings is snuffed, and the admirer dies and goes to Hell. Somehow, the evil soul rises through the ranks and becomes the ice devil we know and eventually takes an interest in Nidala because of some vague half memory of its former life. But without its heart, it can't really fathom why it was vaguely interested in Faithhold and/or Nidala.

Meanwhile, the admirer's mortal heart could've been lost in the transfer over to Ravenloft. It could still harbor the concentrated emotions as the admirer died and perhaps has even gathered all of the lingering emotions of those betrayed by Faithhold- making it a powerful but dreadfully cursed artifact, the Heart of the Traitor or Traitor's Heart or some such.

The Lesser Evil: That was a great idea. Playing with the Arthurian legend further he could almost be considered a stand in for Merlin. Though Morgoroth probably was intended as such. I can see him being a schemer and cold hearted manipulator from another world besides the one that Elana came from. I don't want either of them to know each other. I love the idea of them being foils for each other to the point of being red and blue onis. Though I'd rather think of them as being the big bad and the lancer instead. I don't know if I'd stat him out though right now. That doesn't mean I don't have an idea how I would.

Ivryne: Okay I love the idea of his heart being removed from his body and used as a phylactery of sorts. Devil, half, or completely mortal that is going to be incorporated to his curse.

Oh, good observation there! Merlin was often described as being half-demon in the legends, wasn't he? I need to do some more research on Morgoroth before I figure out my take on him.

If you wanted to go with the mortal/fiend fusion I proposed above, you could put in the bit about the devil getting its heart lost and made into a phylactery when the Dark Powers fused man and fiend mid-transposition, leaving the pair with the mortal Theokos' heart and the fiend's lost somewhere in the Mist. Perhaps the reason why the gelugon took interest in mortal Theokos' botched summoning is because it had some hazy, dream-like memories of Faithhold and Nidala.

At its most complex if we put everything we have above together, you could have both the Heart of the Traitor (the admirer's mortal heart) and the fiend's immortal heart phylactery and have everybody stumbling over each other in setting getting the two confused.

[IrvyneWolfe]

In my head I see all this happening back when she was still an actual paladin. As I see it in my head this admirer/confidant may have served a role similar to what he does now. More or less handling the day to day business of Elena's war on evil. He may have loved her deeply, and as time went on he began to make morally grey decisions to keep things running smoothly. When he finally crossed one too many lines he pinged as evil and Elena, the lawful stupid paladin that she was, immediately had him executed. This man died swimming in feelings of betrayal (after all she did all this for HER), and cursing Elena's name with his final breath.

By the time he died he was a Lawful Evil soul, so he's bound for hell were his heart is given to a burgeoning Ice Devil, Theokos. That heart, however, linked him irrevocably to Elena and caused him to end up in Ravenloft when she became a dark lord. Theokos has an intrinsic understanding of Elena because of his connection to her deceased admirer/confidant, and he uses it to prolong her spiral into corruption, savoring every moment of it.

However, he also knows that his desire to do this comes from his mortal heart, and it drives him mad that he cannot simply leave for the lower planes and leave this woman to her fate. Her corruption is an addiction for him, one born in the heart of that betrayed confidant. Even if he could teleport out of Ravenloft he'd be psychologically unable to leave Elena's side. As a wrinkle Theokos knows that his heart is no longer inside of him, it's lost somewhere else and he believes if he can find it he can purge its imperfect mortal weakness, and be free of Nidala.

Reluctantly Theokos has made contact with Ebonbane's minions, and they have an unlikely partnership in so much as they can with neither side even remotely trusting the other. However, they both agree that they want Elena to suffer in her cage for as long as possible and that common footing is enough to keep them from overtly trying to destroy one another. In that event, however, Theokos is sure he'd have the upper hand (really being ignorant of just how powerful Ebonbane is). Now if Ebonbane were to ever find Theokos' heart (or even discover that the devil had such a blatant weakness) he'd try to enslave him with it.

[divinedragonslayer]

I don't know if he was described as a half demon, but I do remember him filling the role of adviser, alchemist, and magician for the round table. He also helped King Artur retrieve a sword from the Lady of the Lake.

So playing off that theme I'm thinking that Theokos was an adviser who manipulated the ruler. Known for being an incredibly cold and calculating person he would sacrifice anyone for his ambitions. And that was his downfall. He finally sacrificed his family and or lover in a black pact with a devil for power. Upon sealing the pact he and the devil were drawn into Ravenloft by the Dark Powers. To fit his cold and calculating personality his heart was removed as per the curse and hidden away in Nidala. But his heart also contained his soul and his magical powers. His soul was replaced by the ice devil's soul. Only able to call on a fraction of the devil's power he could not take the reigns of power from Elana. Not that he'd stand much chance anyway.

Alternatively he could've been an admirer from afar whom she didn't love and thus turned into Theokos the advisor, but I don't know if I like that as much truthfully.

[Atma]

I don't know if he was described as a half demon, but I do remember him filling the role of adviser, alchemist, and magician for the round table. He also helped King Artur retrieve a sword from the Lady of the Lake.

Merlin's father was an incubus who seduced a woman in her dreams. As a boy, Merlin had prophetic visions, and, because he had no physical father, he was offered up to be sacrificed to consecrate the successful completion of Uther Pendragon's fortress. It was prophecied that a boy of no mortal father would permit the fortress to be completed successfully, as whenever the workmen would start to work, the ground would shake and destroy everything built at the site. Through Merlin's insight, it was discovered that the mischief was caused by a white dragon and a red dragon sealed beneath the earth by a king of the Angles and a king of the Franks centuries before. Once they were released, they flew into the air and started fighting again. Before Merlin could finish explaining, Uther Pendragon shot an arrow into the red dragon, wounding it, thereby permitting the white dragon to slay it. Then Merlin said that the red dragon's death meant that the Normans would invade and conquer Britain (ala the Norman Invasion).

[divinedragonslayer]

That is interesting about Theokos. I'm definitely making Theokos a half fiend after reading that. That being said I kind of like the idea of Theokos being able to summon fiends from the mists. But the price for this ability is they are made up of his life force as well.

I've also been reading up and found exactly what I feel Bonemaw should be in my humble opinion. Bonemaw is the manifestation of the lies, the pain, misery, and death Elana has inflicted on the world. He is an antagonist rather than any real threat. The heroes cannot harm him or be harmed by him. He is a fleeting glimpse in the fires of destruction, a reminder to Lady Faith-hold that her grip on the people and this land is slipping out of her grasp. Only Elana can seem to harm the foul creature and then it is never truly slain.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

This thread kind of got away from me. I've had it in an open tab for months, meaning to read through everything, but haven't gotten around to it until today. Great stuff! I'm glad I'm not alone in loving Elena and thinking way too much about her.

That doesn't mean she isn't still engaged in them, though. Alcoholism, drug abuse, self-mutilation, it's really only limited by the DM's imagination and what the group will tolerate. It's not as gratuitous as it sounds. In fact it's quite human. Something few are willing to admit but still a part of our psychology.

Wow... that's good stuff. I could certainly see her doing some self-destructive behaviors when her doubts rise to the surface. The self-mutilation would probably take the form of a religious sort of flagellation or mortification or trying to create her own stigmata, as a sacrifice or purification ritual to Belenus. (Privately, of course, and only in places that could be easily hidden, so as not to shake the people's faith in her perfection.) And, if I'm not mistaken, one of her edicts listed in IoT is a prohibition on alcohol. I could definitely see her hitting up the confiscated stores of booze on a particularly bad night. (maybe justifying it to herself as "sacramental wine" as the priests of Belenus might have used in "less enlightened" times)

And as for your "Faithhold II", perhaps Faithhold I's curse (as related in the "visionary" version) is beginning to happen again to a younger clergywoman. She's having visions of a questionable quality. Faithhold sees a kindred spirit in her and begins (ostensibly) grooming the young woman to be her successor.

I love anything that adds to the cast of characters around a darklord. This is sort of similar to what happened with the young priestess Sharon Braeburn (a PC's mother) in my campaign. Elena didn't take such a direct interest in her, but she did go through the same journey of going from uncertainty and questioning to horror and hatred, the more she found out about her sins. But a formal successor going through the same process could be interesting.

I've always seen Banemaw as a sign of Elena's declining mental health. Her determination to destroy evil at all costs, and her fake detect evil power, lead to innocent villages getting wiped out occasionally.

Whoa... I think you just triggered a brainstorm. What if Banemaw is _linked_ to her fake detect evil power? Individual Nidalans have learned to keep their emotions toward her in check when she inspects them, according to IoT, but as a whole, there's got to be a lot of simmering resentment beneath the surface. Added to the hatred of the outright rebels, like The Pack, there's plenty of ill-will toward Elena in all of Nidala. Then there are the few who follow in her footsteps, the jackbooted thugs who enjoy following her orders to oppress the people in the name of religion, who might actually admire her. All that emotion towards her takes on a nebulous emotional resonance throughout the domain.... which filters through her weird detect "evil" power, amplified by her darklord/domain connection to give her the uneasy sense that out there somewhere in her domain is a great evil. A nebulous and hidden evil that is corrupting her people, threatening to swallow them whole. She gives it a name: Banemaw. When she burns a village, and says that she tried to save them, but Banemaw got there first, it's figurative. She tried to save their souls, but they were already corrupted, so she was forced to burn them. But hearing this, people take it as literal, starting the rumor of a real dragon.

As Faithhold damned herself through a series of evil actions resulting in failed powers checks, Theokos was also damning himself, but in a more literal way. He was undergoing a transposition with a fiend, an ice devil (gelugon), for the coldness he showed towards others. When Faithhold was drawn into Ravenloft, Theokos came along for the ride.

ooooooOOOOOOOoooooooo. I like this too. Perhaps even more than my "extension of Ebonbane" idea. (To be honest, I think that one came from a desire to make Theokos make sense with respect to the limited number of fiends in Ravenloft. i.e. if he's part of Ebonbane, he's not really another fiend running around the world. This idea does the same thing. If he's not a full fiend, he doesn't count. that's good.) Really, the best way fiends make sense in a gothic setting is in the form of a human or "human" that's an extreme embodiment of a sin or a type of evil. (not a giant ice-bug monster). Seizing on the "cold" and "inhuman" aspects and taking them figurative as well as literal is a great way to make the connection between "corrupt scheming priest" and "giant ice-bug monster" seem natural.

I was reading the Pathfinder description for the Gelugon, and it mentions that each one has, at their core, a frozen mortal heart that allows them to make decisions free from all emotion.

nice find, and it lends even more credence to the idea of Theokos having once been human. I don't know if I love making him into two characters, though. I'd rather the heart have come from the man that he still is, rather than a different guy that was connected to Elena who is now dead.

I'll have to think more on this origin and see if I can come up with something that fits how I see him. As much as I like trying to tie in real-world inspiration like Gilles de Rais and Charles VII, neither fits the character I envision. I'd like to see more of the "corrupt, high-ranking priest" in there. He's described as a servant, a chaplain, an adviser, and "pious" (for Nidalan definitions of pious). I don't see that in even a "retired" amalgam of de Rais or Charles.

[The Lesser Evil]

On the subject of Ebonbane, Theokos, and their relation to each other, if one were so inclined one could set up a rivalry between them to be an obscure reflection of the Blood War (or just general demon/devil hate). Either one could've answered the call to deal with the other's presence on the Material Plane (perhaps not in the way either intended- one is transplanted into the sword, one is transplanted into the man).

Generally their methods differ, at least at first. Ebonbane is a force of chaos and rapid consumption, outright enslaving entities via undeath etc, and for those it can't directly command or possess, corrupt by appealing to the basest of instincts and emotions. In other words, it's very much about acting out the Id.

Theokos, on the other hand, appeals to the darkness within the light of a person's righteousness. Order, (self)-righteousness, and perhaps even piety are intertwined with the being's evil. In a sense, Theokos is very much the chains of the Superego gone awry- the base instincts and emotions (which to Theokos would probably include even or especially GOOD emotions)

Faithhold, meanwhile, is inadvertently caught in between the dispute of these two "half fiends" (in that only part of their essence might be embodied within external objects here in Ravenloft). If Ebonbane is the Id and Theokos the Superego, then perhaps that would make Elena the Ego that acts as a balancing force of pragmatism between the two. (As shown in her willingness to lie, focusing more on intimidating her people rather than going out into the forest, etc.)

Another interesting development might be how the fiends might change to resemble what one another. As Ebonbane becomes more successful in forming pockets domains of those who once knew Shadowbourne, it seems to be becoming more subtle. Naturally I'd assume its focus overtime would shift away from destruction and revenge to ruling over the many tiny pocket kingdoms that dwell within the Phantasmal Forest, thereby drifting more towards Law. At the same time, a maddened gelugon trapped within the body of Theokos could become ever more and more maddened, driven over the edge towards chaos through rage and petty destruction.

If both half-fiends turned away from their own natures to become Neutral Evil, theoretically one might be able to combine them to form a whole fiend. Something like the spirit of the incorporeal Ebonbane and the fleshy form of the mad gelugon Theokos, and you might have a fairly powerful force on your side if you could bind it. Now, who would have the power to try such a thing? A very powerful wizard, certainly. Oh yeah, we have Morgoroth.

Anyway, just some random thoughts for a possible plot line.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Indeed, the opposite ethical alignments is a flaw in my "Theokos as extension of Ebonbane" theory that was pointed out to me once before. Perhaps setting them at odds (or an uneasy doomed alliance) with each other is better.

[divinedragonslayer]

And the thread slipped away from me too for that matter. That being said I like the idea of idea of Bonemaw being a corruption of Elana's detection abilities. What happens when a whole community has strong enough hatred for her? That would be a really strong aura of 'evil'. That being said why is Bonemaw portrayed as a dragon instead of an incorporeal fiend?

As for Theokos I love the idea of him having the ice related power of an ice devil and the heart without being an actual fiend. His corruption could be like Elana's herself. A cold, uncaring religious leader who ruled without mercy. Maybe not fully evil if that makes sense. At least not until he has his final act of ultimate evil which draws him into Ravenloft. Someone that believed in absolute law without mercy or context.

As for Ebonbane versus Theokos I don't see it happening as much if Theokos is mortal. But I have other things to work out before I approach that.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

And the thread slipped away from me too for that matter. That being said I like the idea of idea of Bonemaw being a corruption of Elana's detection abilities. What happens when a whole community has strong enough hatred for her? That would be a really strong aura of 'evil'. That being said why is Bonemaw portrayed as a dragon instead of an incorporeal fiend?

Cultural tropes and legends? Elena's own hubris? She sees herself as the great hero. If all the epic stories in the Great Kingdom are about heroes slaying dragons, she'd naturally cast this nebulous evil presence in that role. All indications are that the big incorporeal fiend in that world (Ebonbane) is a unique case, and not a usual thing that happens. And "dragon" in a lot of old legends doesn't just mean "big scaly bag of hp with a breath weapon" as it often does in d&d, it's a symbol for spiritual taint, depravity, and corruption. That's the sort of "dragon" she would see Banemaw as, I think.

[The Lesser Evil]

IIRC, in a lot of mythology and legend, dragons (or serpents) were identified with/used as metaphor for sin (especially greed- hence the whole dragons hoarding treasure idea) and/or invading armies. I think had proposed a idea earlier making Banemaw a manifestation of Elena's sin. (wrath might be an obvious choice, but pride/hypocrisy could be another.) It could even be a manifestation of sloth for giving into her self-deception/not questioning the lies of Belenus' doctrine being fed to her.

[The Lesser Evil]

Another idea on dragon shape, on p. 10 of Islands of Terror, it describes the storm above Faith Hold giving "a continuous stream of lightning into the uppermost tower of the citadel, powering the various engines Elena has had built in her hold." But never goes on to explicitly describe what these "ENGINES" are used for...

Later on p. 14, we learn that when a village turns (in her eyes) to evil beyond redemption, her followers descend down upon it "like a nightmarish horde... The steel robs young and old alike of their lives as the village goes up in flames." Now in the that I cut out, they describe the destruction Faithhold's goons cause as simply the work of swords and torches, but I'd think at least a couple people would escape here and there to tell others. But what if laying waste to the villages is what Faithhold used her horrible "engines" for? (I think this possibility was discussed on another thread, I can't recall.)

Now what if we imagined that all the hate and obsession being thrown about could go into one of these "engines" made to convince the populace Banemaw was real? You could have a dread golem/construct (or a mist creature possessed construct) that functions in all intents and purposes as a dragon, and may even transform the construct a bit to personify a dragon better.