Arson, destruction, revenge, feuds, lynchings, hatred... what's not to like?
I do believe that Onryo-bi makes for ten individual Faerie. Add to that the Midnight Market and Goblinholme, and that's two locations. So here's another one, and we're set with a full Ravenloft Dozen!
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The Mirror of Unseason, The Court of the Fool
- "The Good People are a quarrelseom folk, but even amongst them the feud of Bréanainn the Darkling Prince and Fionnlagh the White-Handed Hunter was legendary. Now, some say they had quarreled over a hunt, that Fionnlagh slew a stag which Bréanainn had marked, and they could not decide who deserved the kill. Others, they say the quarreled over a woman, a mortal lass of such beauty as to make even those two stare. Myself, I don't rightly know, but I think that even Bréanainn and Fionnlagh had forgotten the cause of their feud. They fought for they had always fought, and the whys and wherefores didn't trouble them much."
"Once, the two old foes were walking through the forests together, for an old foe is like an old friend, when they began a-quarreling again."
"'I am the best hider in the world.' Bréanainn declared. 'For I can hide where ever I please, and never can I be found, not by Folk and not by Man.'"
"Now, Fionnlagh wasn't about to let such a boast go unmatched, and so he challenged Bréanainn to a contest, then and there, to see who was the best hider in the world. Bréanainn went first, and took the form of a salmon, and hid amongst the thousands and thousands that swam through the streams. But Fionnlagh took the form of a bear, and for a year and a day he fished the streams, till he caught Bréanainn. 'Some hider you are!'"
"Then it was Fionnlagh's turn, and he took the form of a star, and hid in the sky. But Bréanainn, he took out his bow and he started shooting down the stars, untill he found Fionnlagh. Oh how Bréanainn laughed."
"Bréanainn took the shape of a bee in the field, but Fionnlagh took the shape of a sparrow to find him. Fionnlagh took the form of a single ear of wheat in a field, but Bréanainn became the farmer and found him. They kept it up for many a year, and though they hid in everything and everywhere, each could find the other, for they were well-matched, Lords of the Fair Folk."
"But then, Bréanainn thought that if he could not hide in this world, then he'd hide in another. And so the Darkling Prince stepped through the mirror, and in the land of reflections he hid and watched as Fionnlagh searched and searched and searched, for a year and a day. Then when at last the White-Handed Hunter gave up and sat upon a rock in front of the mirror, did Bréanainn come forth, to laugh and jeer at his foe, for he had proven himself, he was the best hider in the world. Better he had not laughed, for Fionnlagh was as proud as he."
"Well, Fionnlagh, he grew angry, and in his fury he struck the mirror Bréanainn was hidden in, shattering it into a nine shards of glass, and slicing his hand open in the doing. 'Be you so clever at disappearing, let us see you be so clever at the appearing!'"
"And Bréanainn was stuck, for with the mirror shattered he could not leave his hiding spot. Then Fionnlagh, still furious, took the shards, and threw them away, so hard that each one fell in a different land. Then Fionnlagh the Bloody-Handed Hunter departed, for he had won."
"As for the Darkling Prince? Well, Bréanainn saw he was a fool, to give his foe a chance to beat him so, and so he declared that he was prince no more, but the Amadan-na-Scathan, the Fool of the Mirror. And Fionnlagh best watch out, for someday the Amadan is going to find all nine shards and reforge the mirror, and then he'll leave his mirror realm with murder in his eye."
-The Tale of the Amadan-na-Scathan, by the Finn O'Dell, a Tepestani bard.
There is something about mirrors that unnerves the mortal mind. To look into a mirror is to see a world, identical to the real one, but with everything ever so slightly
wrong. That which is familiar becomes changed, reversed and twisted in the mirror.
Most of the time, this is nothing more than the interplay of light and space, an optical illusion created by a piece of metal-backed glass. But sometimes, there really
is something twisted in the mirror. Something wrong, something unnatural... something hateful.
Nature: Were a scholar of certain arcane subjects to hear the bard Finn O'Dell speaking in a Viktal tavern, they would be struck by the correllation to an old mystery, that of the Eight Mirrors. The Mirror of Summer, the Mirror of Spring, the Mirror of Autumn, and the Mirror of Winter form the first quartet. There are also the Mirror of Day, the Mirror of Dusk, the Mirror of Night, and the Mirror of Dawn are a second quartet.
They are of beautiful craftsmanship, though they vary wildly in style. The Mirror of Summer is a hand-mirror, with a rosewood frame and handle carved to resemble flowers. The Mirror of Night, on the other hand, is a tall wardrobe mirror, backed by black mahogany and resting on two clawed feet. No two are alike, though they tend towards the large side. None are very valuable, and are the sort of thing given to a lesser noble's daughter or located in a merchant's bedroom.
Each one is also a cursed artifact of considerable malevolence. For wherever the Eight Mirrors go, evil follows in their wake. It begins simply. Diseases take longer to run their course. Wounds are more apt to become infected. Something begins to kill the local small animals, gutting cats or dogs.
If the Mirror is allowed to remain, the evil grows. The very neighborhood lies as if under a miasma of gloom, as if the sun shines less brightly. Animals avoid the place if they can, and something begins to pick off at the weakest members of society. Infants die of colic in ever greater numbers, while the deppressed or the lonely begin to commit suicide in despair.
Should the Mirror continue, it will eventually blight the entire area, and
worse things will happen. People will fear to go about at night, for something murders them, slaying them with a spear to the back or an arrow to the skull. The corpses are skinned, or simply left hanging from a rooftop. Most mortal children disappear a few days after birth, or are found dead of various causes. A few women have healthy babes, but the infants are strange, and too bright-eyed and clever, and the mothers, one and all, refuse to name the father...
In time, the area around the Mirror becomes an urban wasteland. Only a few stubborn mortals remain, and those more timid than the most cautious Barovian peasant.
Other things will move in, creatures in need of safe lairs from which to prey on humanity.
Shattering the Mirror is simple, but it solves nothing in the long term. Some time later, be it months or decades, the Mirror appears once more, and the cycle continues.
What these scholars fail to realize is that the Mirrors aren't actually cursed. Each one is a doorway, to the Ninth Mirror, the Mirror of Unseason, the Court of the Fool.
Appearance: The Court of the Amadan-na-Scathan lies within the Mirror Realm, looking like nothing so much as the interior of an ancient mead hall from the golden days of Tepestani history. It is immense in size, four hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide, with a low, sloping roof and stout walls. There is an alien beauty about it, the walls made of silvery stone, the roof of pale, translucent thatch, and everything glows with a soft blue-white light.
And yet, it is not comfortable. There is something cold about the hall, something impersonal and callous. It has none of the warm comraderie, or even the good-natured brutality that a true mead hall would have had. The Court of the Fool feels sterile and dispassionate, at constant odds with the nature of its ruler.
At the near end of the hall, eight doors stand in the wall, though at any time some are locked and barred. The open ones lead to those Mirrors whos nature has been awakened, and it is through them that the followers of the Fool may travel. Dozens of long tables form a U-shape down the length of the hall, with fire pits flickering with cold flames inside the U. From the rafters hang skins and corpses of those captured in the hunt... some animal, some human, and some which have no earthly analogue.
The Amadan-na-Scathan himself lounges at the head of the table, seated in a great throne atop the skins of bears, and wolves, and men. Though the feast before him is eternal, though his servants carouse and revel in perpetuity, the Fool cares nothing for it. Behind him is the Ninth Mirror, a vast mirror thrice the size of a man, surrounded by a frame of steel and ice, decorated with images of death. It is the Mirror of the Unseason, and both Fool's source of power, and his prison.
The Truth: For an unknown period of time after his imprisonment, Bréanainn despaired. He was alone, he was trapped, and it was in this time that the Darkling Prince grew mad. Starved of the hunt, starved of love of women, he refused to fade away. He declared himself the Amadan-na-Scathan in his madness, claimed the title of Fool of the Mirror with pride. The once proud Faerie soured and grew crueler, colder. Of Bréanainn there remains very little. Only pride and hate.
Fionnlagh had shattered the mirror into nine shards, and scattered them. Eight of the shards he threw about the world, but the ninth he thrust into the very realm of mirrors. But though these shards were fractured, the eight shards cast about were still mirrors, and to mortal eyes they were as such. The Ninth Mirror came to rest in the Amadan's prison, to taunt him eternally.
One day, however, an opening appeared. Drunk and jealous, a man murdered his wife before the Mirror of Dusk. And suddenly, the Amadan-na-Scathan could see outside the Mirror, could influence events. For short periods of time, he could even depart. It took the Fool decades to understand precisely what had occurred, and decades longer to find another of the Mirrors and recreate it. The Eight Mirrors became gateways, portals to the Court of Amadan, but only once they had witnessed a murder of passion. Then the Fool of the Mirror could depart.
Amadan-na-Scathan had his freedom, of a sorts. If the Mirrors were found and 'activated', than he had access to the outside world. Many, many times, the Mirrors were shattered, but they always returned, though they had to witness the crime once again.
And while they were open, the Amadan-na-Scathan and his host roamed free. They became the curse, the dark blight upon the land. Faeries of disease, of despair, of murder and greed and hatred roamed free, an infestation of darkness upon the land. Children were stolen and changelings left, and at the height of his power, the Fool of the Mirror walked abroad.
But it wasn't enough. The Amadan-na-Scathan desires more than just the half-freedom so granted to him. He desires to be free, and to take his vengeance upon Fionnlagh. But there is a difficulty. The Fool cannot be released until all nine mirrors, of Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, of Day and Dusk and Night and Dawn, and of the Unseason, until all nine are together. But the Ninth Mirror is
within the Mirror Realm. The Court of the Fool is within the other Eight Mirrors, and the Ninth Mirror stands behind the Amadan's throne inside the Court.
This is the conundrum that has occupied the Amadan-na-Scathan for so many centuries.
Denizens: Over the years, the Amadan-na-Scathan has gathered a good-sized Faerie host to his side. The Faerie Lord who was once the Darkling Prince still retains much of his charisma and tactical ability, and if his vassals are now of an altogether viler sort, then so be it. With his foolishness, the Amadan-na-Scathan believes that he has ceded the right to a noble host, and so he contents himself to these dregs.
- The Amadan-na-Scathan is, of course, the pre-eminent denizen of the Ninth Mirror. Those familiar with him only through his title of the Fool of the Mirror expect a clownish or silly fellow, a jester in motley. In truth, nothing could be further from the truth.
The Amadan-na-Scathan takes the form of a tall, inhumanly handsome man of Tepestani origins, with fiery red hair and the muscled form of a hero from an epic ballad. He wears an elaborate linen tunic and leather trews, with a brilliantly colored cloak clasped at the shoulder and a stone axe at his side. He is a beautiful figure bedecked in bright and colorful clothing, an ancient warlord.
And yet, the Amadan-na-Scathan is a fool. He is a brash, reckless sort of rogue, one who dares anything. Inside, the Fool is cold, cold and dead. The Darkling Prince's lust for life has become twisted and decayed during his imprisonment. All that is left of Bréanainn is his pride and his hatred, and the Fool hates everything. He hates his realm, this cold and dismal hall. He hates his followers, considering him the vilest and meanest sort of rabble. And he hates himself, for being made the fool by the White-Handed Hunter so many eons ago.
So the Fool of the Mirror lashes out. He takes risks no sane man would, cares nothing for danger or destruction, all to spread his anger and hate. His followers think him a shining exemplar, a brave hero to lead them. But the Amadan-na-Scathan is as evil and twisted as they, though he hides it beneath a fair form.
In truth, only the hunt brings back any memories of happiness and satisfaction. The hunting of beasts, and the hunting of lusts, for the Fool of the Mirror is as much a lord of the bedchamber as of the hunt. Once one of the Eight Mirrors has opened a true pathway to the mortal realm, then the Amadan-na-Scathan hunts. The one results in dark deaths and skinned mortals left hanging from balconies. The other results in something altogether darker, the Fey-Spawn.
The Beggar is the true mind of the Court of the Fool. A hunched, stick-thin gnome of a man, emaciated and covered in sores, clad in tattered robes, this Disease-Despair-Fey is the seneschal of the Ninth Mirror. Most often found weeping tears of blood in a corner, the Beggar is a creature not to be trifled with.
It is he who maintains the great Faerie Host that obeys the Amadan-na-Scathan, for though the Fool is a great warleader of the Folk, he cares nothing for their comforts or happiness. It is the Beggar who smooths over insults, who handles the administrative affairs of the Court, who remembers the lore and history of the Court, who manipulates his master's moods to something more congenial when it is required.
For this work, the Beggar recieves nothing but kicks, curses, and insults from all around. But he is content, for with every opening of a Mirror, the Beggar's Plague of Roses spreads further. This vicious disease, causing weeping sores and hideous deformities, is whispered to be spread by homeless beggars and cripples upon the street. Slowly, charity dries up for fear of the plague, fewer than ever wish to approach these victims of the streets, and the Beggar watches as they die, alone and in agony.
For this, the Beggar is willing to put up with any number of petty insults.
Black Andrew is the Fool's Hound. If the Beggar is the Amadan-na-Scathan's right arm, then Black Andrew is his left, his enforcer and most loyal henchman. This great Death-Fey takes the form of a dread hound, a huge black dog with hellfire eyes and noxious breath. To see Black Andrew is death, it is said.
Most often, the great Fey-Hound lies at its master's feet, a silent reminder of the Amadan's power. It is a simple creature, drawn to those mortals who have not yet passed, a living omen of death. And about the Fool there are many, many who will die soon.
The Fey-Spawn are the results of the Amadan-na-Scathan's trysts with the mortal women, and they are creatures of horror indeed, as well as the Fool's personal troops. They are born as mortal children, though their eyes are too bright and all are born with srong, sharp teeth. They grow tall and strong, healthy and clever children that would be a joy to any mother, save for the fact that not a one of them possesses a soul.
Somehow, the Fey-Spawn are less than the sum of their parts. They possess no mortal soul, but no sense of the compacts and bonds of the Fair Folk. They are sociopathic and murderous, but without the propriety and reserve of the Faerie. By their sixteenth birthday, most have committed a murder, often of their own mothers.
The Fey-Spawn possess powers as well. They possess senses too keen to be natural, and they possess the power to travel past locked doors and stone walls, to escape from any bonds. Once one of the Fey-Spawn has decided upon a murder, no force in the Land may prevent them from finding and reaching their target...
Eventually, the Amadan-na-Scathan comes for his children. He takes them to the Court of the Fool, and there, they become his loyal troops, obedient, subtle, and murderous.
Defeating the Amadan-na-Scathan: Like all of the Lords of Faerie, fighting the Amadan-na-Scathan is... difficult. He is a great warrior, a hunter skilled with bow and axe, and with an aura of command that is difficult to overwhelm. He fights like a berserker, taking any risks to defeat his foe. Added to this is a host of Faerie vassals, and a small army of Fey-Spawn children.
To defeat the Amadan-na-Scathan is to free him. The Fool of the Mirror is immortal as long as he is within the mirror realm. But what the Amadan fails to realize, what he has failed to realize for an eternity, is that the shard of the original mirror, the one that creates the Ninth Mirror, the Mirror of Unseason, is not inside the mirror itself, as with all the others. It is within the Amadan's heart, piercing it. So long as it is there, the Amadan is cold and cruel and dead. And one cannot kill what is dead.
One seeking to slay the Amadan-na-Scathan must then find all Eight Mirrors, and find the shard of broken glass hidden behind each Mirror. One must then retrieve the shard of the Ninth Mirror from the heart of the Amadan-na-Scathan, and place it by its fellows. Let only the light of day touch upon this mirror, and the Amadan-na-Scathan is free of his prison.
Perhaps the removal of the shard will bring back the Darkling Prince, Bréanainn, in which case the vile host is disbanded and Fionnlagh the Bloody-Handed Hunter had best be wary. Or perhaps it simply gives the mad Fool a greater venue for his destruction, but at the cost of his immortality. No one is quite sure...
DM Notes: The Amadan-na-Scathan is a tragic foe for the PCs, a dangerous entity that needs to be stopped because he blights whatever he touches, but one that is evil through his madness and unjust imprisonment. He is a symbol of the corruption possible in Ravenloft, where even the Lords of Faerie are not immune.
There are a few campaign types present here. The first is to find and destroy one of the Eight Mirrors that is blighting an area. All manner of nasty little Faerie might be causing the trouble, and the PCs need to fight them off, figure out what's going on, and shatter the mirror before the blight extends far enough for the Amadan-na-Scathan to pass through.
A second type involves using the Fey-Spawn as stalkers or serial killers in a campaign, the result of a Mirror that has long since passed on, but one the PCs need to stop. After the second or third killer the PCs face with a similar suite of abilities, this ought to prompt the PCs to investigate.
The ultimate, epic campaign, however, is one that begins with one of the previous, or as a favor (of a very major sort) for another Faerie, and that is to destroy/free the Amadan-na-Scathan. Collecting eight cursed mirrors from around the Demiplane is liable to be... difficult, even if they are quiescent. The Guardians may have a few, or perhaps a Mirror lies in the attic of a haunted house in a neighborhood far gone in the cursed blight. Collecting all eight shards and cutting the Ninth from the Amadan-na-Scathan is liable to be a quest of incredible proportions. Will it save Bréanainn, or merely let the PCs destroy the Fool of the Mirror?
Well, some questions must be answered by the DM.
Combat Notes: The Amadan-na-Scathan is a very high level foe, in 4E terms a Solo Soldier (Leader) with excellent melee and ranged attacks, and a balanced suite of powers focusing towards powers appropriate in an classic Gaelic hero, subtly twisted.
The Fey-Spawn, for their part, are creatures with high stealth and an innate ability to track foes and escape from bonds or prisons. In 4E terms, they're Lurkers, using mortal tactics and weapons combined with superhuman abilities. A few fear powers may also be appropriate.