Reconciliation Lamordia

This proposal takes the proposed changes to Lamordia by the 5th edition of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game, and attempts to combine them with the Falkovnia that had become known during the 1st through 3rd editions.

The Actor

Consider that Victor Mordenheim may have been the son and heir of the dominant branch of the Mordenheim family, but there were other branches of the family. Assume that some of Victor's relatives were still living in Lamordia when the Mists came to draw it into the Demiplane of Dread. For the purposes of the Reconciliation, Viktra Mordenheim is not a counterpart to Victor, but the descendant of one of his cousins, born in Lamordia as it has become known through the 1st through 3rd editions.

The Fall

Viktra grows up a scientifically brilliant, but emotionally stunted woman - not unlike Victor. Unlike Victor, she did not meet anyone even remotely like Elise von Brandthofen; all she knows is her scientific curiosity - her hunger. Due to her unceasing desire to know, Viktra delves deeper and deeper into the secrets of science at the University of Leidenheim; physics, biology, chemistry... and she stumbles upon the writings of her distant 'cousin' Victor, discarded by the university authorities. For a time, Viktra is absorbed by the knowledge 'cousin Victor' had gained, but then she alone realizes something: Victor should already have been dead of old age many years over, and yet he is known to still be alive and active.

Viktra comes to an erroneous conclusion. She comes to believe that through his admittedly brilliant scientific research, Victor has managed to win the prize he sought and that she herself seeks in turn. She is outraged by her mistaken belief that Victor has discovered the secret of life eternal, and is now just sitting on the secret instead of sharing it with the world.

It is this which brings Viktra to sneak into Schloss Mordenheim, armed with all the tools and weapons her science can muster. Horg is no match for Viktra's preparations, and Victor soon finds himself stunned by a paralytic dart, only to wake up strapped to an operating table. For a screaming, sleepless week, Victor suffers the torments of the damned as Viktra cuts into his flesh and performs experiments, seeking the font of life eternal that she is convinced lies within. What she discovers, she pours into the creation of the Unbreakable Heart, convinced that here she holds the key to life eternal...! All she needs is the appropriate test subject to try it out on.

Viktra does not know who Elise was. All she knows is that the grotesquely mutilated body in Victor's laboratory is the perfect test case to prove her theories. If she can kindle such a faint spark of life into a bonfire, then the Unbreakable Heart is everything she believes it to be. So while Victor screams and begs her to desist, Viktra stitches her creation into poor Elise's chest.

At this point, Viktra is interrupted not by constables, but by Adam bursting into the room. Drawn by the pain he had been forced to share with his creator, the Darklord of Lamordia assaults Viktra with all the rage and strength within him, and finally lays his hands on her throat - only to pause with shock when he witnesses the transformation taking place in the laboratory. Elise is regenerating, her flesh aglow with the power of the Unbreakable Heart. For the first time in so long, she draws breath. When she releases that breath, it is a scream of animalistic rage. When she charges Adam and Viktra, knocking them out a window and into the raging sea below, the power in her frame is beyond human.

The Gaol

Viktra awakens on the shore of the Sea of Sorrows, her body badly bruised and abraded, but still alive. She discovers herself to be in a part of Lamordia she never heard of; a Lamordia where science is booming and her name is celebrated.

Lamordia has grown, extending to the north-by-northwest. Although the new land matches the old Lamordia in geography and climate, its culture is different, with the industry of the Lamordians invested in an industrial revolution. Great factories rend the air with noise day and night; scientists are striving mightily to both outdo each other and push back the limits of knowledge; weapons, tools and devices are being churned out and sold to the rest of the Core at a breakneck speed. The ordinary people of Lamordia are not quite aware of the change, and there is no conflict between the Old and New Lamordia.

Consequences

Viktra has a position of esteem in the new Lamordia, but she is stymied in her quest to conquer death and achieve life everlasting. No matter how much she studies and experiments, she can never again produce another Unbreakable Heart - not unless she manages to either get her hands on Victor Mordenheim or her first prototype Heart. Over the years, she has sent out agents (both hired mortals and flesh golems of her own creation) to either snatch Victor from his gloomy castle or to find and capture Elise. To date, all these attempts have failed, and Viktra is frustrated by her inability to leave New Lamordia and see to her affairs herself.

Elise Mordenheim is once again whole in body, but far from whole in mind. The years of torment under Victor's "care" have left her with little more than an animalistic intellect, and she wanders the expanded Lamordia like a wounded animal. The fact that the Unbreakable Heart has given her strength and endurance at the very least equal to Adam makes her a dangerous enemy to face, but she far prefers to flee her fractured memories of human civilization in general, and the Mordenheims in particular.

Victor Mordenheim is now tormented not only by his failures, but also by the fact that a "lesser" intellect (he disdains Viktra as a ham-handed dilettante) managed to succeed where he failed. He yearns to have Elise back, so he can try to restore her mind, but his agents have been no more successful at finding the savage 'glowing woman' than have Viktra's.

Adam is largely amused by the turn events have taken, although he is angered that there is now a part of Lamordia he cannot enter, and the fact that Elise flees him just as she would any human fills him with a strange melancholy.