Café de Nuit

My favorite dark lord has to be Ebonbane. I just love the idea of the monster trapped within the house. Then again I just love the whole Shadowborn story line. Elana is a close second but she's apart of the Shadowborn cluster so much I really want to run a campaign. Preferably with a child or great grand child of Alexi's shows up to finally end Ebonbane and overthrow Elana.

Althea! I love medusas with all my heart, and relish the opportunity to use them whenever I get a chance.

Adam/Dr. Mordenheim are a close runner up for me. I love their complex interactions, and Lamordia is always my pick for a good starting domain.

Both the Hags and Urik von Kharkov are close to my heart. I didn't love them at first, but an in-depth examination and explanation by some of the FoS forum members helped turn me around on them and show me all the nuance I'd been missing!

Of course, it's hard to go wrong with Strahd. To my mind, he's maybe even more of an iconic villain than Dracula. Dragon named him as their #1 villain of all time, and I think he well and truly deserves the title.

I'll go out on a limb and say I push Tristessa (of Keening) just over the line above Strahd as my favorite purely b/c of her curse. Tristessa is/was evil and certainly deserves her punishment, but the details of her curse (the thing with the babies) is so tortuously cruel even for Ravenloft. Its the kind of story I feel could be spun to players to make them actually feel bad for a banshee.

Strahd's curse is pretty perfect, and he's a better and more rounded out character, but...god damn, Tristessa.

Agreed. As evil as Tristessa was in life, in undeath she's insane with grief over the loss of the one being she ever wholly loved. To what extent can a madwoman be blamed for her actions, especially when evil entities are empowering her and undeath keeps her trapped in her pain?

...

And how could anyone ever fix her?

A lot of unexpected favorites here. Von Kharkov has previously gotten a lot of hate on here, so it's good to see he's getting some appreciation. Tristessa's always struck me as unlikely to be somebody's favorite because she's hard to use (due to being mostly reactive and incoherent- therefore unable to keep an agenda). Though these problems could be fixed with a few tweaks.

Hazlik's grown to be a favorite of mine for several reasons. He's a complex, dynamic character with a lot of cognitive dissonance. His plan for the transplanar genocide of the Mulani coinciding with the 4e Spellplague gives you a lot to work with regarding FR hooks if you wanted to integrate them. And his implicit victimization by Hypnos of the Nightmare Court is another set of hooks.

Faith-Hold has traditionally been a favorite because of the power of the fallen paladin and fanatical zealot archetypes and what you can do with the Arthurian mythos when combined with Joan of Arc. Ebonbane might fit in here somewhere too, but I'm less enthused with him than what he's doing and what he's done. Personality wise, Ebonbane seems kinda generic, but what he's done to the Shadowborns and his forming of the Phantasmal Forest psuedodomains is pretty impressive.

Vecna's the darklord I've gotten the most use out of, and even though he's gone his legacy can remain still in his cult and the various items associated with his mythos. Harkon Lukas is also one I've gotten use of, you can do a lot with him as he's filled with interesting contradictions (not to mention STYLE!).

In no particular order, five I like quite a lot:

Vlad Drakov

Jacqueline Renier

Ivana Boritsi

Ivan Dilisnya

Dominic D'Honaire

Malus Sceleris.


I like how he is basically a Captain Planet villain.

ewancummins wrote:Ivan Dilisnya

May I ask why you like him? I'm trying to understand his appeal.

Not quite a darklord but a character with some real potential as one, Loht from the Shadow Rift. His story is sympathetic, his crimes are certainly severe given the culture of the Arak, and he makes for a much more interesting and dynamic darklord than Gwydion. Especially if he becomes the very thing he's trying to stop: a looming darkness that haunts his people. He has all the elements of a tragic villain who earned his punishment.

High Priest Mikhal wrote:

ewancummins wrote:Ivan Dilisnya

May I ask why you like him? I'm trying to understand his appeal.

Not quite a darklord but a character with some real potential as one, Loht from the Shadow Rift. His story is sympathetic, his crimes are certainly severe given the culture of the Arak, and he makes for a much more interesting and dynamic darklord than Gwydion. Especially if he becomes the very thing he's trying to stop: a looming darkness that haunts his people. He has all the elements of a tragic villain who earned his punishment.

I like Ivan because:

poison

theatrical weirdness

human evil

family background with ties to other domains and their history, linked to other families

Jimsolo wrote:
Of course, it's hard to go wrong with Strahd. To my mind, he's maybe even more of an iconic villain than Dracula. Dragon named him as their #1 villain of all time, and I think he well and truly deserves the title.

He completely deserves the acclaim! Wonderful villian!

ewancummins wrote:

I like Ivan because:

poison

theatrical weirdness

human evil

family background with ties to other domains and their history, linked to other families

To build upon this, Ivan has a level of pathetic wretchedness, impish eccentricity, and raw childishness rarely seen in darklords. This is in stark contrast to (and thus plays well with) his cunning mind and deadliness. He is a decadent fop, but he is a highly dangerous decadent fop. And Ivan's eccentricity and appreciation for over-the-top theatrical antics provide him the motivation for unpredictable and memorable antics and goals.

Good arguments!
Makes me wish I'd campaigned in Borca sometime. ^_^ It'd be a little like maneuvring against the Joker.

I have two favorite background darklords , that is two darklords the players will never deal with directly, which are The Dukkar (He made Dark Lord in my campaign) and Vlad Drakov. Both are Darklords that people point at as truly horrible, even other Darklords. The Dukkar is a Hitler clone who I like to see suffer. He is in a domain where all the natives are Vistani. Drakov is both feared and laughed at. The fact he is kicked to the curb causes everyone outside his domain to laugh at him but no one wants to wind up in Falkovnia. The one thing people do not laugh about is the fact that they can be enslaved and sent to Falkovnia.

The rest of my favorire canon Dark Lords are mostly affably evil, pragmatic evil , villains with good publicity . My favorites include Herself, Dominic, and Harkon Lucas.

Rock wrote:Good arguments!
Makes me wish I'd campaigned in Borca sometime. ^_^ It'd be a little like maneuvring against the Joker.

''Where does he get these wonderful toys?"

Lord Soth. I wish he'd stayed in the setting rather than getting removed.