#raveloft

Darklord: Tristen ApBlanc Domain: Forlorn Domain Formation: 547 BC Power Level: 💀💀💀 ⚫ ⚫ (3/5 Skulls) Sources: Domains of Dread (2e), Castles Forlorn (2e), Domains and Denizens (2e), Secrets of the Dread Realms (3e), Ravenloft Gazetteer Vol. 1 (3e), I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin (Novel)

Forlorn formed while I was a reluctant ‘guest’ at Castle Ravenloft. Neither Strahd nor I found anything of significance within. It was hardly worth the effort it took me to explore it. The name of ApBlanc’s Domain is quite fitting. It is an insignificant, pitiful land infested with goblyns and wolves with a smalls scattering of mud huddles that encompass what the peasants of this land refer to as ‘civilization’. ApBlanc dwells in Castle Tristenoira, which looms of the Lake of Red Tears. As overgrown child clinging to his morose demeanor, ‘Forlorn’ suits Tristen well.  

It took nearly three and a half centuries for our tormentors to deem Tristen deserving of his own velvet cage. The reasons for their capture of us is nonsensical at a surface level, but an obsessive nature is at it’s core. To understand Tristen’s descent into Darklordom, one must delve into his past, starting as most stories do with his parents.

Tristen’s parents, Flora ApBlanc and Rivalin ApTosh, were the Baroness and Baron of a small fiefdom in Forfar - a land located in the Prime Material Plane governed and served by a Druidic Order. Their marriage was formed of love, a rarity amongst the nobility. Rivalin left to defend their land against invaders and towards the end of the campaign, Flora was informed her husband was slain in battle. Pregnant with his child, Flora took some solace in the belief that he would live on through their child.

Flora grieved for her spouse and when she heard a tale that he was spotted roaming the lands, she searched for him. Rivalin did die on the battle field, though not from a blade or arrow, but from a vampire who scavenged the fallen and drank the last drop of Rivalin’s blood. The former Baron rose two days later as a vampire and with his love for Flora still in his heart, he made his way back home to her. This, of course, is the romantic telling of this tale. The truth is centuries old, but vampires are, like many of the undead, creatures of habit. Was it truly love that guided him or merely a sense of familiarity?

Regardless, Rivalin told Flora of what he had become and she did not turn him away. He resisted the call to the blood for as long as he could until he began to sup upon his wife as she slept. Those small sips were not enough and in time he hunted the people of Forfar. A newly turned vampire is easy to track for even the most novice of hunters and Rivalin soon met his end at the hands of an angry mob. Upon witnessing her husband’s true death, Flora dramatically laid upon his body and cried out in grief. The people, seeing her pregnant state, were convinced her baby was tainted by the vampire’s curse.

Soon after Tristen was born the people of Forfar tore down Lady ApBlanc’s door. Mobs of individuals are never particularly logical and Flora escaped with Tristen through an unguarded exit while they focused on her front door. She ran to the Druid’s sacred grove and thrust Tristen into the arms of Rual, a Druid who was meditating there and pleaded with her to keep him safe.

Rual ushered the babe into the forest as the villagers descended upon Flora. She pleaded with them and explained how Tristen was a ‘normal’ baby. His flesh was warm, not cold and he had no fangs and his heart beat steadily in his chest. However, mobs rarely listen to reason and in response to her pleas, the villagers strung Flora up and hung her from a tree.

The Druids, wishing to bring balance to such an evil act that occurred in their sacred grove, bid Rual to raise Tristen as one of their own and Flora was buried beneath the tree she died on. Rual raised Tristen as a nobleman. In her mind he would eventually return to his lands and reclaim the ApBlanc fiefdom. However, her idealistic future for the boy was always shadowed by a lingering doubt of what he could become.

When Tristen turned 15 he began to crave blood. Conducting his own research, Tristen discovered he must be a vamprye, for he craved blood like a vampire but was, by all accounts, a living being. In time he gave into his cravings and fed on the beasts of the forest and one day Rual caught him in the act.

Believing he would face the same fate as his parents, Tristen attacked his adoptive mother while she was meditating alone over a sacred antler beneath the tree where his mother’s remains were laid. Rual reacted to the attack by stabbing him in the chest with the antler. In turn, Tristen overpowered her and drained her dry. The first human blood he had ever tasted, he did not realize something was wrong until it was too late. Rual had purified herself with holy water for her ritualistic meditation.

Believing he was dying, Tristen increased his fury against Rual and though the holy water in his system would have cured him of his vampryic nature, Rual cursed him as she died. “I beseech the gods to make you an eternal prisoner of this place, which you have stained with evil!” She shouted with her last breaths, “Let murder burn your veins with every setting of the sun and may peace never come to you!”

That evening, Tristen rose as a ghost tied to the scared grove. Upon the next day, he was a mortal vampyre once again, but still unable to leave the grove. Every evening he dies, his blood burns with a painful fire and he becomes a ghost only to return to his vampyric state the next day. He attempted to escape the confines of the grove by burning down all the trees that encompassed it, but as the last tree fell, he found himself unable to leave the area. So, he lived in what once was the Druid’s sacred grove for centuries, calling upon the wolves of the forest to bring him victims and treasures.

In time he amassed enough wealth to build an estate over the grove. There he married Isolt and with her had three children. The two sons died, mistakenly, by Tristen’s own hands. His daughter, Brangain, was imprisoned below the castle until she renounced her mother’s faith. According to Tristen, Isolt committed suicide by jumping off a high tower, but the puncture wounds all over her body indicate a more obvious reason for her demise.

The castle soon fell as servants died along with their masters. The people of Forfar shunned the place and Tristen did nothing but brood in his home for five decades until he decided to expand again. Claiming to be his own relative, a common vampire tactic, Tristen built up his estate into a castle. Tristen then claimed the land of Forfar as being rightfully the ApBlanc’s to rule and declared war upon the currently ruling family, the ApFittle’s.

A long, bloody war ensued, in which Tristen sought the death of every single ApFittle and their supporters. When Tristen executed the last of his rivals, a paladin  named Andrew ApFittles, Tristen declared himself as the ‘absolute lord of his domain’. Perhaps appreciating irony, the Dark Powers answered him by drawing Tristen into Ravenloft and the Domain of Forlorn. His people became twisted goblyns though the Druids remained as they once were and tirelessly work against the ghost/vampyre.

Domain: Sebua Domain Formation: 564 BC Power Level: 💀💀💀⚫⚫ (3/5 skulls) Sources: Domains of Dread (2e), Ravenloft (3e) Tiyet is the Darklord of Sebua, a desert landscape similar to Har’Akir, though somehow manages to be less “civilized” than Ankhtepot's dry husk of a Domain. Only the ruins of the city of Anhalla remain, the population is made up of nomades, and the people recognize no formal law. Chaos reigns. 

Tiyet, a beautiful and ambitious woman, married Khamose, the 4th son of the Pharaoh. Not earning the title of "Grand" wife, Tiyet schemed to have the woman who was bestowed that title removed from her position. With a rather elaborate set up, Tiyet made it appear the Khamose's Grand wife committed adultery and as a result she was executed quite gruesomely; she was thrown into a pit of ravenous jackals.

Tiyet achieved her desires and became Khamose’s Grand Wife, but then she fell in love with Zordenahkt. Even though she really shouldn’t have felt guilty about this affair since her husband had multiple wives, it weighed heavily upon her. What she feared most wasn’t her own death at the jaws of jackals, but the judgement that would come after. I never was one to believe the gods have any say in our ultimate fate. It is absolute nonsense. But Tiyet believed and being sent to an eternity of damnation for her sins haunted her.

Zordenahkt told her about a ritual that would prevent her death, but then refused to do it for her. Honestly, what is the point of sharing such information if you’re unwilling to go through with it? It’s clearly what she wanted. I would have done it for her. Well, for a price, of course.

Their affair was discovered and Tiyet finally convinced her lover to perform the ritual, which changed her and resulted in his death. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t want to? He could have shared that particular detail with Tiyet. She became a unique sort of Mummy. She could now hear the beating of every person’s heart, echoing in her mind. This drove her to, understandably so, kill her husband and eat his heart.

This act pushed her desert home into the Mists and she became the Darklord of Sebua. She cannot abide the living (I can sympathize with this) for she constantly hears the beating of their hearts. At least once a year she must consume a beating heart, but tends to feast upon them more often than that.

In Sebua, Tiyet does not rule but remains secluded in an estate near the ruined city of Anhalla with only the undead as her company. She has immense power over the undead and though she is a Mummy herself, she appears as she did in life. If only all of us were so lucky.