Café de Nuit

Have you ever came across a character and thought that they would be a prime canidate for becoming a DL? If so, who?

Any of the Demon Princes from Jack Vance's series of that name, but especially Kokor Hekkus and Howard Alan Treesong.

And Steerpike, from Gormenghast.

Petr Stepanovich Verchovenskij, the nihilist manipolator from Dostoevskij's The Possessed.

Davy Jones from "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." That entire movie screamed Ravenloft and gothic horror to me.

Ghisteslwchlohm from Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle Master Trilogy. He has the hubris, he has the power, he has the drive to do anything at all to anyone else to get what he wants.

Also, Takano Miyo from Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni would seem to be an appropriate choice for the status of Darklord.

Sad thing is that I'm only familiar with Davy Jones (what would be his domain and be curse then). I'll have to check out the others on wikipedia then.

For me I'd go with Bruno Glening from the game Animamundi: Dark Alchemist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animamundi:_Dark_Alchemist). The game itself has a beautiful goth theme and look and Bruno has the tragety, obsession, and perversity to make him a canidate. Then again, the whole cast fits in pretty well.

If you're familiar with Bastion Press's gaming suppliment, "Villians", Alystin Azmyrial (the pop-up preview on this page, http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php? ... =1434&it=1 will tell you all about her.) Raised by her crazy mother, the vain little meglomaniac whose obsessed with beauty (her own and others) is a shoe-in. Just give her what she wants in her adventure hook but render her perminantly blind so she can't enjoy her new-found eternal beauty.

The other mom in Coraline.

Edmond Dantes , the Count of Monte Cristo (and not the recentish stupid hollywood movie verson which missed the point completely ).

A clear case of vengance going too far, perhaps he relaises it in the end, but he's bitter and twisted enough to be a DL for sure...

The Narrator in Notes from Underground and Lucy Snowe from Villette would make good lords to form a cluster with. He with his unrepentant rage and thirst for vengence, her with her emotional detachment and repressed feelings, it makes me think of a cold, dark domain, with tall, brooding Victorian buildings and thin alleyways.

Lilith Weatherwax and Reacher Glit are probably the two most Darklordy villains from the Discworld series(Witches Abroad and Going Postal, respectively.) Though a lot of Pratchett's villains-and, perhaps more importantly, his heroes-are interesting enough to get the Dark Powers's interest.

Definitely second the Other Mother from Coraline and Lilith Weatherwax from Witches Abroad. Those two are quite nearly Darklords already, focusing on a specific area.

On a grander scale, I would nominate the Lord Ruler from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy (and titular first novel). An immortal, unimaginably powerful tyrant, who nevertheless justifies himself on the grounds that he protects the land from something even more hideously dangerous. And it just gets better from there.

Freddy Krueger is another obvious choice, even if the Nightmare Man is a close parallel anyway.

Nimue from the Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell would make an excellent Darklord.

Horus from the Warhammer 40,000 universe would make an interesting Darklord of an Island of Terror, I reckon.

Oddly enough, I've always thought Pinhead from Hellraiser would make a good darklord. He may have untold power and mastery over pain, but he knows exactly the humanity and feelings he's lost and feels an agony beyond the physical that he long ago damned himself to.

Come to think of it, much of Clive Barker's stuff works well for darklords, not just Pinhead. Both of his computer games, Jericho and Undying revolved around trapped ultimate evil.