Lamest Dark Lord, and Possible Fixes...

[NeoTiamat]

No, that all makes perfect sense. But it would have been nice for there to be more to the trigger event of Lukas then slaughtering nameless Barovian peasants.

[cure]

Actually I should add a second vote for the Three Hags. From a distance they seem alright, but in trying to think up interesting plots for them, I realised that they are pointless in the extreme. Now they don't have to be pointless, but that is how they are as written. Eat some goblins, eat some men, brew a potion or two, keep the inquistion well greased so as to have body parts to brew a potion or two. A goblin king leading raids in Nova Vaasa would be more fun. A real witch would be more fun. The Night Hag in Matira Bay is more fun since she at least has a goal. Couldn't the Hags be trying to Awakening the trees of the domain with the intention of marching of Llira? As is they are pointless spellcasters, with cool magic, that they don't use to any end.

[Igor the Henchman]

Couldn't the Hags be trying to Awakening the trees of the domain with the intention of marching of Llira?

Why not? Awesome plot, I'll keep it in the back of my brain. Allows for a tie-in with Blackroot, too.

One of the great things about the three hags is the constant scheming and conlicts that happen between them. Maybe one of the sisters decided to destroy Llira (with the aforementioned tree-awakening scheme), another wants to prevent it (thus helping the PCs to foil the plan), with a third trying to play them against each other? Yet when the PCs decide to attack the hags directly, the sisters still come to each other's aid (misery loves company, after all).

[cure]

Lukas is interesting because he combines what is worst in man and wolf as well as what is best. He is arguably the core's greatest artist and certainly its greatest singer, touching a primal passion that no mere human ever could, and he hunts werewolves - natural and afflicted - not to make the world a better place but rather out of racial hatred and that their pelts might furnish his den, showing a cruelty that surpasses what either a mere man or a mere wolf would exhibit. Wandering around Barovia pursuing both of these activities evidently attracted more than just the attention of the devil Strahd.

[Spiteful Crow]

No, that all makes perfect sense. But it would have been nice for there to be more to the trigger event of Lukas then slaughtering nameless Barovian peasants.

You're in luck, then! They were Faerunian peasants.

And we all know Faerunian peasants are all level 25 wizards.

[cure]

No, that all makes perfect sense. But it would have been nice for there to be more to the trigger event of Lukas then slaughtering nameless Barovian peasants.

You're in luck, then! They were Faerunian peasants.

And we all know Faerunian peasants are all level 25 wizards.

Better still, it was both!

The Faeurnian peasants got him haulled into Ravenloft and with the addition of the Barovian peasants and with Strahd on his heels, he fleed into the Mists that gifted him with Karkatass.

[Bluebomber4evr]

I'm going to break this down into several categories:

Hard to use: These darklords are given little to no background or insight into their motivations, thus making them difficult to use.

-The Illithid God-Brain: what did this one mind flayer elder brain do that made it so much more worse than all the other elder brains across the multiverse? The one chance we had to try and learn more about this darklord, Thoughts of Darkness, was a wasted opportunity.

-Meredoth: seems too passive to be of much use. He just wants to be left alone with his experiments. Boring!

-The Lady of Ravens: mainly because we still have no official backstory for this character--what is her curse? Why is she a darklord?

Good Idea, Bad Execution: The basic idea for these darklords is good, but the end product we were left with makes them lame.

-Malus Sclerius: His domain is cool. A darklord with disease powers is cool. But this guy is too much of a pushover and his backstory is silly. "Waah! My daddy spends all day in the forest, so I'm going to cut the trees down and make factories! Then he'll be sorry!"

-Malken: only because of the all the conflicting backstories...he's almost as confusing as the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC comics universe. Gaz 5 cleaned him up a bit, but he still has that stigma with me.

Diet Coke Darklords (just one calorie! not evil enough!): These guys just lack the extra oomph when compared to the likes of Strahd or Azalin.

-Hazlik: He's been debated quite a bit so far on this thread, and I agree with what's been said about him. Yeah, he's evil, but what'd he do to become a darklord?

-Harkon Lukas: He's a great character, but I fail to see what justifies him becoming a darklord, really. He does have interesting motivations, but his backstory needs some work

-Shinpi Haki: Maybe I'm missing something, but Haki just seems pathetic...while his curse is certainly fitting, it just doesn't seem Ravenloft-y to me. Where's the temptation for his greatest desires, just out of reach? What does he have to work towards? Strahd is tempted by Tatyana every generation...Haki just gets to watch his empire crumble.

-Adam: He should have been modeled closer to Frankenstein's monster. The Creature of Shelley's novel took revenge on Dr. Frankenstein by strangling all of the his creator's friends and family in an effort to extort love and attention out of him. Adam just mangled Elise in self-defense.

Just plain all-around bad: These are just stinkers through and through...nothing remotely redeemable about them!

-Tsien Chiang: 'nuff said

-Inza: Like Tsien, she's evil to the point of cartoon super-villainy. The only thing she has over Tsien is that she's not a racist stereotype. Inza also suffers from the "you're not as good as the guy before you" curse...Much like how everyone hated Rodimus Prime in the Transformers cartoon when Optimus Prime died. It didn't matter what they did with the character, he couldn't fill Optimus' shoes. Same with Inza. She's no Soth.

[NeoTiamat]

Well... strictly speaking, Inza is a Vistana, so you could call it an 'evil murdering gypsy' stereotype.

[Mangrum]

As ever, I find it useful to note that Tsien Chiang is closely -- closely -- modeled on the villain in A Chinese Ghost Story.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

-Meredoth: seems too passive to be of much use. He just wants to be left alone with his experiments. Boring!

FWIW, I'm doing my best to pry the necromancer out of his lab once in a while, with the NS Survey. (And man, is the cantankerous old coot ever griping about that! ) There's only so much I can do to motivate a die-hard misanthrope like him, but certain events of 737 and 750 have at least made Meredoth aware that there is a world out there.

[Brandi]

As ever, I find it useful to note that Tsien Chiang is closely -- closely -- modeled on the villain in A Chinese Ghost Story.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, the domain seems to be modeled pretty well on A Chinese Ghost Story (or at least Pu Songling's story that it's adapted from).

[Brandi]

-The Illithid God-Brain: what did this one mind flayer elder brain do that made it so much more worse than all the other elder brains across the multiverse? The one chance we had to try and learn more about this darklord, Thoughts of Darkness, was a wasted opportunity.

-The Lady of Ravens: mainly because we still have no official backstory for this character--what is her curse? Why is she a darklord?

There's no official stuff, no, but the Book of Sacrifices has pretty decent treatments of both these characters that you might want to look at.

[Sylaire]

As ever, I find it useful to note that Tsien Chiang is closely -- closely -- modeled on the villain in A Chinese Ghost Story.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, the domain seems to be modeled pretty well on A Chinese Ghost Story (or at least Pu Songling's story that it's adapted from).

Does it make something less of a racist stereotype if it's drawn from source material created in the culture it's allegedly racist against?

Seriously, I'm not quite sure what makes Tsien Chiang an insulting mockery of Chinese culture as a whole as opposed to being an evil individual from a pseudo-Chinese background*--at least, any more than Vlad Drakov is an insulting mockery of Eastern European culture or Dominic d'Honaire an insulting mockery of French culture or Wilfred Godefroy an insulting mockery of the British aristocracy or Ankhtepot an insulting mockery of Egypt (actually, if you think about it, he's the most racist portrayal of any darklord, because the whole "The Curse of the Mummy" riff was entirely created by Western sensationalism with no more than a passing vague not to any genuine ancient Egyptian practice...). I always thought I'Cath was kind of a waste--what's the point of including an Asian-themed domain when it's an "empty-except-for-the-monsters" encounter zone? Why not actually give the PCs actual people to interact with?

*"Kara-Tur: Because We Couldn't Be Bothered To Invent An Actual Fantasy World" could have been the official TSR slogan, there.

[Sylaire]

-The Illithid God-Brain: what did this one mind flayer elder brain do that made it so much more worse than all the other elder brains across the multiverse? The one chance we had to try and learn more about this darklord, Thoughts of Darkness, was a wasted opportunity.

There's no official stuff, no, but the Book of Sacrifices has pretty decent treatments of both these characters that you might want to look at.

I'd be interested in checking that out. The God-Brain has the significant problem that it started out as a monster, and not a human-like monster but a essentially alien monster from a society so different from any human one that it's hard to empathize with its sufferings.

-Adam: He should have been modeled closer to Frankenstein's monster. The Creature of Shelley's novel took revenge on Dr. Frankenstein by strangling all of the his creator's friends and family in an effort to extort love and attention out of him. Adam just mangled Elise in self-defense.

I agree. All of the truly evil acts attributable to Adam seem to be ones that occurred after he became darklord of Lamordia. I've never really understood the constant hammering of the point "ADAM is the darklord of Lamordia" by TSR/WotC. It would all make sense if Mordenheim was the darklord and Adam was his curse: Mordenheim committed the initial evil act of rejecting the divine and any greater concept of morality, then the secondary evil act of mishandling Adam once he'd created life(though ironically, Mordenheim was a better, more responsible creator than Frankenstein was). Mordenheim is the unrepentant sinner who continues to repeat his original mistakes (and commit hideously evil acts, including murder, to those ends), and it's Mordenheim who is forced to both witness Elise's constant suffering and see his master creation be his implacable enemy (and indeed, he can never destroy that enemy because his own existence is tied to Adam's). Mordenheim fits every requirement of what a darklord is, and yet he isn't one.

In a way, it's an extension of how society at large treated Frankenstein's monster--with immediate hatred and rejection based upon his external features. Adam is Mordenheim's "Monster," therefore he must be the darklord, regardless of who is the true villain of the piece. Apparently the Dark Powers have a truly savage sense of irony, eh?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I'd be interested in checking that out. The God-Brain has the significant problem that it started out as a monster, and not a human-like monster but a essentially alien monster from a society so different from any human one that it's hard to empathize with its sufferings.

Which is why you'll probably like the Book of Sacrifices' treatment: it resolves the issue of the God-Brain's being "too inhuman for a darklord" rather brilliantly.