In my own campaign, a number of Darklords have gotten offed. Ivana Bortisti of Borca died early on, at the hands of mauraders and demons, which the players failed to stop. The territory was taken over by a psychopath called Xanth the Torturer, who was in the party's employ. He was just ready to become a Darklord when the assassination happened and he was swept in. It caused quite an upset in Borca society.
Also Yagno Petrovna was killed at the accidental hands of the players. They didn't know who it was that they were attacking. The land of G'Henna dissolved right out from under the players and they speant a month wandering the mists. When they reemerged they found the previous land of G'Henna had become two smaller domains.
I don't like my players even knowing who the darklords are, let alone killing them.Darklords could be defeated in extremely rare circumstances and not in a usual manner
They've met: Ivan, Dominic, Gabby, Harkon(in scaena), Dominiani (in scaena), Juste, and Nathan Timothy. Harkon was the only one confirmed to be a DL. The rest were just known as NPC's.
THey met a few Darklords: Strahd (in House of Strahd), Harkon (Feast of Goblyns), Dominiani (Bleak House), Soth, Tristen Hiregaard (although Malken wasn't involved), Death and Azalin (Requiem, but Azalin explodes soon enough). So a total of... 7 only.
I've offed Gabrielle Aderre, Urik Von Kharkov (in Felkovic's Cat, although instead of disappearing, the domain just got a new boss), Lyron Evensong, Bluebeard, Radaga, Gundar (but he came back), the Three Hags (leaving Blackroot in charge), and porbably a few others in one-shots...
Urik von Kharkov - Valachan is now ruled by a dark knight known only as The Fallen, who maintained the domain's affinity for large predatory cats, but with tigers instead of panthers. The coastline has extended down further now and includes a maze of large and small islands that house pirate freedom fighters.
Inza Kulchevich - Sithicus has been taken over by an asian elven vampiress. The domain, as a result, has a significant asian flavour now. Inza wasn't killed, she was merely replaced and now serves as advisor to the new Darklord. Behind the scenes, she now plots against the new ruler in order to regain her domain.
Lord Wilfred Godefroy - The Church of Ezra (in every domain) is being slowly taken over by the Black Pope and his fanatic followers. The Black Pope has captured Godefroy's ghost and now uses his dark ghostly essence to fuel bizarre, malevolent experiments.
In every instance, the PC's have never confronted or killed the Darklords that I have replaced. I agree whole-heartedly with any and all posts that recommend the PC's rarely, if ever at all, find out who the Darklords are, let alone that Darklords in general even exist.
-VNM
:D
They saw him physically destroyed by an avatar of an evil undead god, but shortly afterwards Azalin's phylactery was brought out to the avatar and Azalin merely possessed the avatar's body.
For a while after that, Azalin was walking the land with the added powers of a lesser deity's avatar, including things like triple-attacks and item creation!
Eventually, Azalin agreed to release the avatar from the torment, and killed the body. The avatar thus released returned to the Outer Planes and was soon recorporated in the Prime.
Eventually, Azalin agreed to release the avatar from the torment, and killed the body. The avatar thus released returned to the Outer Planes and was soon recorporated in the Prime.
If I might ask out of curosity, why the heck would he do that? Release the avatar and give up all that power I mean.
My campaign meets monthly, and we've been going since September 1999, so we just played on the exact five-year anniverary of our first adventure a couple of months ago. In that time, they have met and been honored as loyal Darkonese by Azalin Rex.
While traveling through the Lamordian wilderness, they entered and fled in terror from Schloss Mordenheim, having met Dr. Mordenheim. Soon after, they glimpsed and fled in terror as Anhktepot and Senmet bludgeoned one another. Much more recently, they glimpsed and stayed well away from Dominic d'Honaire.
Aside from those few, they have heard of King Drakov, Count von Zarovich, and High Patriarch Petrovna, but they only know them as the rulers of other domains. They heard of Harkon Lukas while in Kartakass, and they have heard of Daegon, but they have yet to meet either, as their adventures have taken them away from the aftermath of Feast of Goblyns, which they were too late to complete and other adventurers botched in their absence.
Who have they killed? Well, I wasn't thinking of Lyron Evensong as a Darklord, but they did kill him. And, after the corruption of many of their friends and the brutal torture of another (which led to them euthanizing her), the heroes have decided that d'Honaire must go. Of course, after the mess they made of his affairs during their last stay in Dementlieu, Docteur d'Honaire has decided that same thing about them. And, in two weeks, we find out whether righteous indignation is enough to overcome the spider in his own web!
If I might ask out of curosity, why the heck would he do that? Release the avatar and give up all that power I mean.
There were several reasons, but the main one was that the avatar would infallibly return to the creator deity (an outer plane resident) when Azalin released it - one of the few situations of interplanar travel where the Dark Powers cannot intervene. Azalin had a series of contingency plans set up to try to exploit this loophole, though it didn't have the desired effect.
Another reason was that the avatar and Azalin were locked in a constant battle of mental willpower. Although he enjoyed the immense power bestowed on him by his Darklord status as well as the INT bonus of being a very powerful lich, Azalin would ultimately have lost control of the avatar's body anyway. Past a certain stage, the battle could have jeopardized Azalin's permanent sanity. Like any bad relationship, Azalin wanted to be in control of the separation.
I have laid Mara formthe House of Lament to rest, but I like the domain to much and keep resurrecting (sorry) it for a game now and then. The last time I used it appeared it was no longer a domain in my games, but a house haunted by all of Mara's victims. Needless to say, not much has changed.
Next time I ruin a campaign though, Mara will be back in control (again) for a little more fun and games with the players.
One of my players, a mid-level psionicst with all the munchkiny min-maxed psionic abilities DarkSun could provide once got it in his head to face off against Soth. He developed the perfect plan.
He had a small metal disc enchanted by the party mage with a silence spell, which he magnetised onto Soth’s armour (thus negating the power-work attacks). He then proceeded to slap around Soth who couldn’t land a hit. The player had these two powers always active that kept him immune to energy attacks and absorbed the damage from physical attacks to rebound back. Not to mention all the built energy form walking through all of Soth’s minions.
Too bad he didn’t know death knights could dispel magic. Silence spell went *blooie* and with one word Soth finished him off.
When the players reached him, his intellet had become so great that he could alter reality with his will, letting things, wounds etc. appear or disappear etc. As you can imagine, the assault on Dominiari was the greatest disaster the players had ever experienced. They ended up on the operation tables. Luckily for them, one of them was still free and succeeded in switching Dominiari's syringe with another one that he filled with some chemicals he found in teh operation rooms. When Dominiari injected himself with that stuff, he was killed, freeing Dominia, which isn again led by Dr. Heinfroth and under the power of Pieter van Riese.
Apart from that, they just know Harkon Lukas, whom they long considered a friend and allied werewolf-hunter, but recently found out to actually be kartakass' darklord.
One of my players, a mid-level psionicst with all the munchkiny min-maxed psionic abilities DarkSun could provide once got it in his head to face off against Soth. He developed the perfect plan.
He had a small metal disc enchanted by the party mage with a silence spell, which he magnetised onto Soth’s armour (thus negating the power-work attacks). He then proceeded to slap around Soth who couldn’t land a hit. The player had these two powers always active that kept him immune to energy attacks and absorbed the damage from physical attacks to rebound back. Not to mention all the built energy form walking through all of Soth’s minions.
Too bad he didn’t know death knights could dispel magic. Silence spell went *blooie* and with one word Soth finished him off.
Heh... Someone needed to do their research better... :D
Drakov died at the hands of a resurrected Irik Zal'Honan when he realized he could personally lead the next invasion of Darkon.
Yagno Petrovna died at the hands of an angry mob after a week of increasingly desperate attempts to get his powers back. His end was strangely fitting--Zhakata has provided....eeewwww....
Elena Faith-Hold died at the hands of Gondegal, who now rules Nidala. Elena has returned as a death knight, though, and Godegal is finding out (again) that ruling a country is tougher than it looks.
Wilfred Godefroy was destroyed permanently, and the House on Gryphon Hill now exists only in the spirit world, where it has been taken over by Alice Weathermay.
That's all I can think of for now, but there are many more, and huge changes for the ones that are still alive.
As a player ive faced strahd numerous times but when I reran the campaign as GM i replaced strahd with Drachenfels (from the jack yeovil novel) to give it a nasty twist. If you like ravenloft -you will love the book drachenfels.
Like most though I try and keep darklord encounters to a minimum.
The problem with a lot of the 2nd edition products was that if they was more than 2 lines of description for an NPC -it was likely they were a darklord in disguise.
I also ported the Windom Earl character from twin peaks to be a fallen paladin nemesis for the players. The chess game scenario worked rather well
Through questioning and detective work they traced where the people disapeared at... they found an inn in the middle of nowhere... a place that didnt have an inn there before. They searched the place...discovered they were traped inside and couldn't get out.. that night as both moons were full the inn appeared in a forest with them in it... they weren't in kansas any more. They found themselves in a realm called darkon in the forest of shadows and a day after they got their the inn disapeared.
Of course finding 13 npcs wasn't easy but they did it. The halfling was a halfling vampire, an elf a elven vampire working for the karagate, a dwarf was a ghoul lord.. well what do ya expect in the realms of dread?
As for darklords they have met a couple. Strahd rode by in his carraige and wandered into the blood o the vine inn when the party was staying there... no combat was involved as the players propmptly changed residence.
Adam wandered into town when they were up in his domain. Party learned a valuable lesson... dont cast fireballs out your inn window at rough looking dudes wandering through town on a rainy/foggy night. After a pursuit where the party got away they decided they never wanted to meet any more darklords...
Thats the way I try and keep darklords. They are critters of mystery, as some of my players call them, the ultimate bad dude in a domain we dont wanta mess with. I buff up DLs saving throws, hps, ac, resistances and regeneration. My players have roleplaying fear of DLs down pat. While its possible to defeat a DL my players would have to have a very good reason to try as it would be far to much trouble to take one on lightly.