Café de Nuit

No one, except Mistmaster, ever replies to me on my own topic, so I'm trying a new topic thread... Also resubmitted since I misspelled the title.

It would be nice if 1) Non-immortal-dreadlord domains were a bit older than they were so we could have some more space for "true" history. 2) There were more options for Darklord descendants and bloodlines.

If you have any ideas for former Darklords of preexisting domains that would let those domains be older, post them here!

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Falkovnia.
  
  Vlad Drakov ← Falcon the Great (Interregnum Dreadlord) ← the Cruel Panoply
  
  Vlad Drakov and his Talons of the Hawk awoke in Darkon and made the failed raid as in canon. His retreat into Falkovnia, though, was even more unsettling than seeing Darkonian peasants and his fallen cohort rise against him as undead. The unfamiliar Falkovnian peasants prostrated themselves before him and greeted Vlad Drakov by name and more importantly, by noble title! Some gruesome interrogations later, as best as Drakov could tell, he had taken over the life of an identical twin who was also a noble man. It wasn't just him, every one of his Talons had a whole false family and personal history. Drakov was soon escorted back to "his" manor house where he had servants, oil paintings, and books of genealogy to prove his heritage here. Of course, Vlad Drakov is still Vlad Drakov. He played the whole incident off as a combination of dark magic and taking a hit in the head while in Darkon, and immediately began plotting to claim his country to mold into his ideal vision.
  Vlad slew Falcon the Great, an "Interregnum Dreadlord" who had insufficient might to rule Falkovnia, but could anchor the domain while the Dark Powers prepared the land for the successor of the former true Darklord of Falkovnia: the Cruel Panoply. Falkovnia's emergence date gets pushed back from BC 689 to nearer to 600.

Rokushima.
  
  Industrial Revolution (Darklord 2) ← Closed Country Era (Darklord 1) ← Warring States
  
  Rokushima is rather mediocre. If I revamped it (def. not up to that task), I would add dynamism by following the overall historical high notes of the "closed country" Tokugawa shogunate and the sudden about face on that policy that birthed the Meiji Restoration. In the closed country era, you have enforced social codes and the persecution of "foreign" elements. In the new revolutionary era, there is a certain gothic noir appeal where rapid industrialization clashes with traditional ways of life. Conflicts and points of interest for a revised Rokushima could include fallen houses, a turn of the social order which has made irrelevant and outcast whole professions, the stagnation of institutions that could not transform, a feverish push for progress at the cost of 'cultural soul', and forgotten traditions coming back around to haunt.
  There would be at least two Darklords, if not more. One would have closed the country in reaction to colonizers/trade boats/military aggression from the Core and isolated Rokushima as an island domain. Another Darklord would have ended that era and reopened Rokushima with an eye towards industrialization so it can cross swords equally with the rest of the "enlightened Core."

Richemulot.
  
  Jacqueline Renier ← Claude Renier ← (BC 694 Depopulation event) ← (Pre-BC 694 Richemulot Darklord 0)
  
  Richemulot used to have a much larger population before the arrival of the Reniers. As was extensively discussed in Gazetteer 3, some prior civilization built the massive cities and sewers, but then a horrific depopulation event wiped out a third of the citizens and made the rest forget their history and what happened. I see this plot hook as an opportunity to explore the consequences of a Darklord failing (or succeeding) so catastrophically, even worse than Azalin's blow-ups relatively speaking, that the Dark Powers have to scrap what they had, lock down the history completely, and restart the domain as another entirely. While Richemulot's population does not remember, those from the land's old neighbors may recall what happened to the vanished country. If Jacqueline's plague plans come to fruition, the land may witness yet another mass extinction.

I've always figured that the Dark Powers just retroactively go back and make it that the "new" land was always there to begin with, manipulating not just memory but actually bending time and space. So the line between real and fake history becomes blurred.

For the Cruel Panoply, I see it as fake history taking on a life of its own. The Dark Powers created a legend/history of a villain so terrible that it becomes a darklord on its own terms. It created a story so fitting for a Darklord, it actually became a darklord!

For Rokushima, I like the industrialization idea, but I'm to much of a fan of current Rokushima. The closed states era could be Darklordship passing from Haki Shinpi to one of his sons. Perhaps one of the more mercantile sons is actually obssessed with outsider culture, but do to social pressures from court and the risk of the former followers of his brothers gaining firearms/outside support he is forced to close of his country from the outsiders he so admires. The industrialization could be this son of Haki being deposed by an adviser who, ironically, see's the son as holding the country back, and now is cursed to be unable keep the culture of Rokushima alive

For Richliuemont, one idea could be it was once Timor. When Timor was taken into the mists, part of its sewers seperated and became part of Richliuemont

I do without false history completely.

Here's an idea for Richemulot: Richemulot's initial destruction event may have come from a horribly virulent Black Plague event. Perhaps in those days, it was an overcrowded, disease-ridden medieval level domain. The Plague event might have been caused (on purpose or by accident) by a cult dedicated to the Withered Rat (a twisted "godling" that Gerard Renier made a pact with to reanimate Simon Audaire and receive cleric spells from- see Gaz III p. 103) Seeing the folly of the past, the Withered Rat might sponsor the cult of Simon Audaire to prevent Jackie Renier from accidentally wiping out the population of prey once again. (For the record, Jackie wants to create a Becoming Plague not to wipe out humanity but to change everyone into wererats that will adore her. This may however lead to a crisis of resources or mutated plague that drastically reduces or wipes out the population.) How the Withered Rat learned of Jackie's scheme (if the godling somehow just didn't know) would need to be determined.

Other domains:
-Hazlan- the mythic history lends itself to going back all the way into prehuman deep time. (Admittedly, you would have to account for the large chunks of time in between the time of the ancient civilizations and the current Ravenloft timeline) In any case, the various nonhuman civilizations always kind of struck me as archaic references to the creator races from Forgotten Realms- having a fey/elf darklord from/similar to some of the corrupt elf houses from the Crown Wars could work for very early darklord. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Crown_Wars

More recently in Hazlani false history (and the first we could probably easily produce a line of darklord succession to Hazlik), Yome of the Weeping Eyes, last of the Warrodine Dynasty, could have been a darklord, perhaps a Nero or Caligula like figure before losing his life to a warlord's blade. The mantle of darklord could've passed from warlord to warlord through the Years of the Tattered Banner until Hazlik's ascension.

-Invidia- Gaz IV suggests Treholan (Bakholis' ancestor) was quite ruthless in butchering his rivals to unify of Invidia. You probably would need to account for a number of years between his lifetime and Bakholis'.

-Nova Vaasa- Sainted Prince Gorkin, whom established the Church of the Lawgiver and engaged in the Wars of Conversion, could have been a darklord, though one would need to explain the length of time between his life and that of Tristen Hiregaard. One could model Gorkin after a dark version of Akhenaten, whom tried to establish a monotheistic or henotheistic overlay upon ancient Egyptian religion. He may have been an early follower of Bane on Faerun. Saint Jokum the Pacifier sounds worthy of being a darklord too, though again he lived back in Nova Vaasa's mythic history. Of course, Romir could have been darklord before Tristen. One may need to alter the (perceived) timing of the Second Judgement of the Lawgiver, of course.