afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VIII

[afroakuma]

Propably the best fitting definition I saw. Something's still missing though... hmm...

I mean I did warn you not to read it. I take no blame, you knew what you were getting into.

Some of those aren't bad.

I mean what they did to Althea was just plain rude. Obvious, yes, but also deeply unfair.

You are the best making-stuff-upper around.

Yeah yeah.

Incidentally, Dalmosh and I had requests a page ago, regarding making stuff up about the Black Abyss and the Plane of Mirrors.

Ugh, yeah, that's gonna be a lot. Gonna keep a pin in those for the moment.

@afro re. the Dark Powers post

That sounds similar to your take on Carceri. Or rather, your take on Carceri sounds similar to this.

Do you think the two planes are in any way connected?

Nope. There are some thin similarities, but it's important to understand that in the Demiplane of Dread, there's no clarity of "escape" as a purpose, it's more about "ending torment" - the darklords do not have a ton of idea that they're trapped in a particular way for the most part, or otherwise know that to do thing A will result in benefit B. It's a private little morality play for each of them that they all keep failing because of very personal reasons, and their domains only ever reflect back what they deserve. Carceri is very much "a prison to escape" - it's right there in the name - and everyone there is a prisoner of the same sort. It's not personal, it's festering the same set of toxic emotions and attitudes within all of them. Paranoia. Spite. Selfishness. Carceri is a hell in which everyone jails one another. In the Demiplane of Dread, the darklords are their own victims. Most pointedly, Carceri is absolutely the appropriate cosmic destination for those who hold true to convictions (where those convictions involve being a heinous jerk). The Demiplane of Dread hungers for those who violate their own convictions.

Ultimately, the fundamental contrast comes down to that the Demiplane of Dread wants to see if you can change, even though it deliberately provokes and screws with you to test you. Carceri doesn't want you to change except to get even worse. Once you're in, it never wants to let you go.

Anyway, on to the making stuff up bit.

How did Jack Karn, Baron Lyron Ebonsong and Althea become darklords of their respective domains (respectively Ferelle, Liffe and the island of Demise)?

Bearing in mind that I've basically had to do this wholecloth:

Spoiler: Jack Karn

Show

The jackalwere Karn was infamous even among his own kind for his absolute hatred of humans. He would pass up other prey for the chance to tear apart a human, and considered all humans to be beasts no better than sheep. So vicious was his contempt that he was well-known for hounding individual humans, wounding them but leaving them alive simply to enjoy their agony. His infamy spread and he became a figure of fear - the Night Hound, a legendary brigand as much as a legendary beast, and as his tale spread, it reached others of his kind. A female travelled to the lands Karn favored, making her lair in a wooded copse, and sought him out with intent to mate with the fearsome terror Karn. The two joined, and she produced a child by him.

Karn began to notice that the human population in the region was beginning to decline, far moreso than his own predations would cause. Assuming human form despite his disgust, he travellled among their villages to discern if there was something out of the ordinary - a war between the sheep, or a plague felling the helpless beasts, anything he could gloat over - but no, the only thing they attributed it to was monsters in the night. Worse, they were no longer speaking of the legendary Night Hound, but instead talking as though he was a mere predatory animal rather than the glorious apex predator and icon of terror he had built himself up to be.

Karn returned to the wooded lair to share his discoveries with his mate, who revealed that she had planned a marvelous surprise for him. Knowing how much he despised humans, and wanting to make a mark on the land for their son, she had gathered the pack of jackalweres from her own homeland and brought them together here. In two nights, she told him, they would move out en masse, engaging in a glorious bloodbath of carnage, purging the humans from their land, reducing them to a bare handful to torture for sport.

In theory, Karn should have been thrilled - after all, every fiber of him hated humans, and to massacre them all alongside his kindred, creating a hunting ground over which he would reign supreme? That should have been his dream... but all Karn could think of was how much he would miss hounding a victim through the night, the screams of his "sheep" as they fell beneath his fangs, the dark satisfaction of filling his belly with human flesh and lording his supremacy over them. The cull was his, Karn reasoned, and these interlopers were depriving him of his sport. In his silent fury, Karn devised a solution to ensure that the human population would never decline to the point that he might need to exist on lesser prey, deprived of the sadistic pleasures he had come to enjoy from tormenting his "flock." Taking the form of a friendly tinker, Karn went to the nearest village and warned the humans there of a pack of jackalweres assembling in a wooded copse, predators who would surely destroy them. A mob was raised, and with torches and pitchforks they went forth to the copse that had been Karn's lair, setting it ablaze. The jackalwere stood before the blaze, remembering only as the fires reached their height that his mate and child were within. He could see them in the depths - trapped under a burning branch. It would have been well within his power to save them, but in that moment, surrounded by his hated prey, all that Karn could think of was how he would never go hungry again, never have to share with another. He turned away, and the rolling smoke concealed the Mists that wrapped around him.

Now the darklord of his own domain, "Jack" Karn has exactly what he always wanted - the human population of Farelle is thriving, their numbers growing with every season. The darklord has more humans than he knows what to do with, but none of them see him as anything but a friendly tinker and travelling merchant. The jackalweres of the land do not recognize him either, although they know and revere the "Night Hound" and await his return. The people of Farelle are a simple folk - so simple that Jack Karn finds himself constantly roaming his domain to put the skills he has developed as a tinker to service to keep the humans from failing due to their ineptitude. He repairs plows and wagon wheels, mends crossbows, and is constantly conveying needed goods between the two main towns of the island and outlying farms. The wolf has become the shepherd, hating that he has to protect and support the humans lest their own incompetence reduce their numbers.

For Karn has discovered something horrific about this new land - his fears about there being insufficient humans are reflected by it with a curse on him. Should the population fall below a certain level, his curse slowly begins transforming him into a human - forever. As well, the same fears he harnessed to slaughter his own kind remain buried within the populace of the isle. Whenever Karn succumbs to his hunger and takes his true form as a jackal, he appears as a monstrous shadowy hound with glowing eyes - and someone always spots him and sends up a cry of alarm. For 48 hours, Karn remains bound to his jackal form while mobs of humans hunt for him. As for his ability to command his domain, Jack Karn is no lord and holds no status, except insofar as he can command the dogs and jackals of Farelle telepathically. His presence is also inherently soothing to humans around him while in human form, an intensification of the soporific gaze of the jackalwere. Karn has to carefully manage the beasts whose appetites drive them to rip apart humans to feast on, lest their depredations threaten to trigger his curse.

The terrible irony that Karn refuses to acknowledge is that the humans would in fact be perfectly capable of building and growth of numbers without his constant intervention - indeed, the "blessing" that ensures humans will always be calm in his presence, allowing him to meddle in their affairs without suspicion, is in fact just self-reinforcement of Karn's belief that humans are no better than sheep and incapable of survival without his agency. The darklord moves among them, lives among them, works most of his life for their benefit, while hating every single thing about them and the role he plays - and he does not have to. If Karn were capable of believing the humans to be more than livestock for his hungers, he might realize that he doesn't need to live as something he hates, day in and day out - but his contempt runs so deep that he would rather send his canines to scare off his own kind in order to protect and preserve the prey he so completely and utterly despises, allowing him to reinforce his belief in their inferiority.

In short, the jackal has become a shepherd to a flock that only require a shepherd because he believes they do, living in fear of the fruit of his hatred and hunger. Everything he does is unnecessary and he is totally incapable of even considering that possibility, for to do so would be to admit that humans are more than sheep.

Baron Evensong's story is known in full and pretty dull. He believed himself a just and moral man who would teach others through song, and when others failed to "learn" from him, he decided to up the ante by having his harpsichord magically enchanted to have power over human souls. The enchantment messed up and drew his own life force into it, but shriven of mortality, the Baron decided that what he could not do with magic, he'd do the old-fashioned way. After all, if people wouldn't heed his instructions, they obviously deserved to die, right? Only ever able to see people as objects to compel to his will, the Baron went on a murdering spree and ended up in Ravenloft, where he gets to spend each evening totally alone - for 100 years at a time. Now he recognizes the value of others, as his centuries of solitude madden him - but he remains convinced of his righteousness and believes that he deserves to be able to have company during his torments, because of how good a person he is. In so doing, not only does he deny himself an opportunity for release and commit further atrocity; he also directly imperils himself, for the harpsichord containing his life force is part of the library, and his guests can destroy it and end his existence for good.

As for Althea... I'll have to get back to you on that. I severely dislike the fanon version as it stands but there's very little to work with on her.