I Didn't Expect to Find the Shadowlands So Cool

 Mentioned in Van Richten as one of the "other domains," the Shadowlands is a realm of chivalric knights and an evil sword called Ebonbane.

We often talk about D&D as having a default tone of "medieval fantasy," but the truth is that there's a lot of haziness around what we mean by that. The Middle Ages, after all, were approximately a thousand years (I'm sure that some historians would have differing opinions, but I generally think of it as lasting between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the discovery by Europeans of the Americas (not really counting the Vikings).

I think a lot of settings feel a little more like the Renaissance era, and certainly a lot of us (myself certainly included) like to mix in some anachronistically modern ideas that may not have cropped up until even the Industrial Revolution or later (Eberron, for instance, is meant to feel like the 1930s with all the Pulp Adventure stories told in that time).

But if we are to consider the foundations of the fantasy genre, while we certainly cannot forget things like Greek Myth, I'd say one of the most central influences is Arthurian Legend. There's something about the story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table that feels really fundamental to how we think of fantasy.

And the Shadowlands deliberately harkens to this particular bit of legend: Ebonbane is effectively the inverted, shadow archetype of Excalibur.

Now, there's a certain aesthetic that I associate with this kind of Arthurian fantasy - I can't say precisely where it comes from, but one of deep green forests, the ground covered with moss, the woods dark with a thick canopy, and a lone knight in armor on horseback venturing through it, bravely facing whatever dangers might lurk there. I don't know precisely what the source of it is - I have a vague sense of it being linked to movies from the 60s through the 80s, though it might also be partially inspired by Disney's Sleeping Beauty, which borrowed some of its aesthetics from Medieval illustrated manuscripts.

Ravenloft covers a lot of different vibes, but it tends toward Gothic Horror. The funny thing is that in some ways, the Gothic Aesthetic was built on those in the 19th century looking back on the ruins of centuries long past with a mix of fear and nostalgia. The novel Dracula takes place contemporaneously in the 1890s, at a period in which electrification and industrialization were in full swing, but Dracula emerges in that future-oriented world as this strange and forgotten relic of a brutal medieval past, living in a drafty castle, enriched by the spoils of ancient battles and wars.

What the Shadowlands presents us with is an opportunity to really live in that medieval world. But while a classic Arthurian realm would have brave knights who do oppose the evil of that domain, the Ravenloft twist is that the greatest potential source for good is the fanatical inquisitors under the command of Elena Faith-hold. Elena is not the Darklord of the domain, though should its lord fall, she'd likely be next in line.

Instead, the lord of the Shadowlands is Ebonbane, a sentient sword.

Unlike most Darklords, who began as mortals and then had a fall from grace, Ebonbane is pure evil. Forged by cultists who opposed the heroic knight Kateri Shadowborn, Ebonbane was made out of the essences of all the evils she had defeated, and ultimately it slew her after she had gotten old and slower, then possessed her body in the hopes of doing more evil, but was then swallowed by the Mists.

Incidentally, I actually think that this makes Ebonbane a little similar to Exdeath from Final Fantasy V - in that story, long ago, a whole bunch of evil spirits were sealed within a tree. Over time, they coalesced into a single ego, and then that tree kind of grew a tangle of thorns and branches into a dark suit of armor. You spend much of the game assuming that Exdeath is some kind of evil knight.

The problem for Ebonbane, though, is that outside of Shadowborn Manor, it cannot act unless it is carried by another.

There's a lot to work with here:

First off, you can definitely fake out your players with who the actual villain of a campaign is. Ebonbane is considered a Construct while in the Manor, and can fly around like a (far more powerful) animated sword, but to go elsewhere, it needs a wielder. This can include a corpse that the sword possesses, meaning that you could easily have a figure that looks for all intents and purposes like a Death Knight of some sort, wreaking havoc across the land, burning villages to the ground, etc.

What's interesting is that the corpse isn't even considered undead: it's basically an object that Ebonbane is wielding by having the corpse wield it. A subtle hint that the party might have that there's something odd going on is that a Divine Sense might show that that moldering corpse that's walking around doesn't actually show up as undead.

The party might even fell this figure (which would be a fight against Ebonbane, using the sword's statistics) and try to figure out what to do with the evil sword the villain was carrying.

Now, the mechanics here require a little DM finesse - technically it's still the sword that the players would need to attack. But I'd extend this possession to basically let the body stand in for Ebonbane. Slaying Ebonbane makes it a +3 Longsword until it revives through Darklord Restoration, but if you don't want 1d10 weeks to pass before the Darklord becomes a threat again, I might rule that while it's possessing a corpse, maybe it drops its possession when the 50 temp HP goes away or, if that's too soon, maybe when Ebonbane gets bloodied. Presumably not being in the Manor, it would drop to the ground and appear to just be a powerful magic item.

Ok, now, how do you convince your players to try to wield Ebonbane?

Well, I think this is where Elena Faith-hold can play an important role:

In the Shadowlands, the Circle is effectively the equivalent of the Knights of the Round Table, an order of chivalric champions who are supposed to defend the good and fight the wicked. There's literally a big round table in Shadowborn Manor. The symbolism of the round table, of course, is that the order is one of equals. Thus, while Elena is a very powerful and influential member of the order, she's not its "leader" because no such role exists.

Still, she has taken the "fight the wicked" half of her charge far more seriously than the "defend the good," and even does things like feeding innocents to a dracolich to prevent the common folk from learning that the evil dragon she'd slain isn't actually gone.

In other words, she's a hatable villain that could easily feel like a major threat to the party and play the role of primary antagonist for the better part of an adventure. And it is that kind of evil that Ebonbane might present itself as the key to defeating.

So, Ebonbane can act both as a major boss fight as well as a powerful magic item. It is, also, an actual appropriate candidate for a real Hexblade patron for a Warlock (though we'll have to see if the new version in Arcana Unleashed is actually appealing to anyone given its dismal showing in Unearthed Arcana).

While Elena Faith-hold is a monstrous hypocrite, the Circle itself as a faction is still I think meant to largely be a good one. PCs might find allies amongst the knights (or even be members). But given that this is Ravenloft, these knights will likely meet tragic ends. A former ally might die trying to warn the party of the evils of Ebonbane, only for them to show up as an animated corpse wielding the blade.

Anyway, I think this domain could be an interesting aesthetic change for a general Ravenloft campaign, and could let you go for a very classical "knights & dragons" fantasy vibe that we honestly don't see very much in D&D.

It's Alive! Using Viktra Mordenheim

 As Ravenloft's Frankenstein equivalent, Viktra Mordenheim is the crafter of Flesh Golems. With a backstory that changed pretty dramatically in Van Richten's (previously she was the male Viktor Mordenehim and had a story closer to the original Frankenstein novel,) I think the key to Mordenheim is the coldness reflected in the climate of her domain of Lamordia.

More or less inventing modern science fiction with her novel, Mary Shelley's callous doctor embodies heedless scientific ambition without consideration for the consequences, and then a failure to take responsibility for his actions, to tragic results.

(As a note, I like Guillermo Del Toro, and enjoyed his adaptation, but I also felt that his choice to make the creature utterly blameless robbed the story of some of its nuance - the tragedy of Frankenstein is that if "Adam" had been given the love and affection a nascent person needs, he likely would have turned out just fine and no one would have died. But Viktor's visceral perception of him as a monster becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

In the case of Viktra Mordenheim, her initial creation is not simply done for its own reasons, but to resurrect her lover Elise. It does muddy the waters a little bit - her desire to recover the Unbreakable Heart that serves as Elise's core would effectively undo the recovery of her late lover.

But I think we can then perhaps see the somewhat sympathetic motivation - getting Elise back - was merely a story she told herself to justify the murders she committed in order to achieve this scientific breakthrough.

Here's my take: I think that Viktra Mordenheim's technological ambitions slot well into the kind of anti-humanist attitudes we've started to hear coming out of the Tech Bros of Silicon Valley of late. Empathy and emotions, to her, are things to overcome with efficient machinery. I think her grand ambition would be to eventually phase out natural humanoids in favor of compliant machines.

Mordenheim could start off as a friendly NPCs - perhaps if the party has an Artificer or Wizard in the group, or someone else who is technologically-minded, she might wish to perform research with them. At the very least, I think that she would be an influential figure in the scientific community, perhaps first introduced as a featured lecturer at a conference or something like that.

What I don't think you'll ever get from her is any warmth. Emotion - probably both positive and negative emotion - is muted for her. Even when the party comes into conflict with her, she would see them as bugs to be worked out, problems to be solved. Again, like most Darklords, she's a narcissist, but I think in this case it's a kind of cold materialism - she probably doesn't even consider her own emotions worth considering (hence her willingness to effectively re-kill Elise if it means recovering the Unbreakable Heart).

Thankfully, in Horrors Within, she got beefed up to CR 7, meaning she can hold her own in combat, and also now has thematic abilities. But this is a Darklord that should basically never be fought on her own. Naturally, Flesh Golems and Mordenheim's Monsters are the best minions for her (in the latter case, the minion is a bigger threat than she is,) but really any Construct would work - you could reflavor a Clay Golem as being a more advanced Flesh Golem, or you could simply say that she's not limited to using flesh as her material - again, she has no sentimentality to any particular form. Also, a Shield Guardian is a very likely part of her arsenal.

Unlike your vampires, werewolves, and ghosts, the horror of Viktra Mordenheim is not about her lurking around a corner or peering from the shadows. Her horror is in well-lit laboratory rooms, where she shamelessly engages in monstrous activities. Callously killing people to use their physical materials for her constructs, for example. But I think that the real horror, the real Gothic horror element here, is that no matter what, she will not see what the problem is even if she's called out. After all, organic life as it stands is subject to the whims of evolution or the so-called gods, and she is merely trying to create a more perfect being. She would classify the success of a civilization in its power efficiency rather than its creation of art and culture.

If the party slays her, I think she's likely to react with curiosity rather than anger, though if her work is disrupted, she might betray a hint of frustration. (It could be fun to RP her as developing a subtle eye-twitch that a good insight check realizes is her equivalent of bellowing with rage.)

My read on Mordenheim is that, unlike Frankenstein, she's incapable of the sense of horror that he feels when he sees his creation come to life. If she seeks to manipulate or influence the party, she will probably do so in a very calculated manner. If the party seems powerful enough to oppose her, she might visit friendly NPCs and transform them into constructs, being long gone by the time the party arrives to find their friends changed.

Even if she is, actually, acting on her emotions, such as anger at the party, she doesn't have the self-insight to realize that's why she's doing it. (She has a +0 to Wisdom, with just expertise in Medicine to make up for this).

Now, in terms of encounters, I think that Mordenheim is not at all a "lead from the front" kind of villain. She's far more likely to be behind a pane of reinforced glass with some controls while the party faces a bunch of constructs on conveyer belts. By the time the party actually finds her to face her down, she's also probably going to be protected by a lot of construct minions and in an out-of-the-way location, perhaps shooting down with her Lightning Rod from 90 feet away or using her legendary Static Explosion. She can cast Animate Objects once a day as a bonus action, and keeping at least one construct within 5 feet of her at all times allows her to use Redirect Attack to avoid incoming damage.

If character close on her, her Syringe is going to be a major way she deals with them, probably with a one-two of Lighting Rod (to ensure that they can't make opportunity attacks and then an appropriate serum for the given situation - Corrosive if she fears being followed, Deadly if the target is low on HP and needs healing, or Mind-Altering if the attacker is concentrating on a spell. Basically, she should be slippery. At 123 HP for CR 7, she's not going to go down immediately, but she also can't take a lot of punishment, so she's going to play defensively.

I will also say that the Syringe ability is a good "reveal" moment, if she has started to suspect the party is not aligned with her, busting out her Syringe in the middle of a social encounter could be fun (I might also temporarily give her other serum options, like one that knocks the target out).

In Van Richten's, they suggested using a stat block similar to a Spy, which I always felt was a weird choice. With a CR under 1, you truly would have had to play her avoiding combat at all costs, but while her new CR 7 form can hold her own, I'd still play her as extremely slippery. Especially in Schloss Mordenheim, have her make use of elevation and other ways to separate the party from her, and give her escape routes. There is a partial map of Schloss Mordenheim in Horrors Within - a great location for a final confrontation with her would be the Laboratory Tower, with Mordenheim perched above on the roof level while the party has to enter from the lower level.

The Abuser Hiding Within: Using Harkon Lukas

 Harkon Lukas is Ravenloft's prominent werewolf (well, more Loup-Garou, but that's just a souped-up Werewolf) Darklord. Among the classic Universal horror monsters, werewolves have less of an iconic exemplar than, say, vampires with Dracula or even mummies with Imhotep. I can tell you that Lon Chaney played The Wolfman, but I could not tell you the character's name.

But werewolves are cool, and perhaps the most straightforward expression of the central idea of Gothic Horror - the idea of a monster lurking beneath the surface of humanity.

In the case of Harkon Lukas, that hidden monster is tied to the expression of art. A famed musician, Lukas seeks out recognition and adulation, and in the act that got the Dark Powers to take him, he enacted a political coup with the help of his devoted fans (remember that fan is short for fanatic!)

In his domain of Kartakass, though, he's cursed to perpetual obscurity, known at best as someone who used to be great, but isn't considered so now. To pursue his ambitions, Lukas preys upon others with talent and presence, seeking to insinuate himself into their success as a springboard to his own, but underneath this slick and manipulative behavior lies jealousy, resentment, and enraged frustration.

Sadly, the world of art and entertainment can be filled with abusers and exploiters. Humans love to express ourselves through art, and few things are as attractive (at least in theory) as being a famed artist who has inspired and dazzled their audiences. Not only does this draw a lot of people seeking credit for others' work, but it also allows abusers who can take advantage of the people who want so desperately to be in that world. We have, in the past decade, seen numerous famed people in the entertainment world revealed as quite monstrous individuals - I know a couple of artists I considered myself a fan of were unmasked in this way, forcing one to reckon with the positive emotions and nostalgia for their work and even the respect we had for them.

It's generally a good idea for any Darklord to have them start playing an active role in the story early on. For none is this more true than Harkon Lukas. But also more than any, he should initially appear as a friend to the party.

Now, a knowledgable group of players might just know him through meta-knowledge, and perhaps even in-universe knowledge. But I think that Lukas is going to roll out all of the charms he has available to him. For one thing, I don't think he sees himself as an abuser. If the party has someone who interests him (naturally a Bard would be a prime target, but it could be anyone else who seems particularly full of life, and probably younger and more naive) he'll do everything to earn their trust.

But (frankly like a lot of Darklords,) he's ultimately narcissistic. He will genuinely think that he likes the members of the party as long as he feels that they can do something for him, and offer real assistance without any explicit strings attached.

However, once the party, and particularly if there's a particular PC he's fixated on, starts to defy him (maybe they refuse to take his gifted necklace,) there will be a sudden change. I think that he will start off just by shutting the person out, disappearing and giving the silent treatment, playing the victim. If this strategy doesn't bring them back, it starts to get a bit more aggressive.

Indeed, I think that he might go out of his way to target other members of the party with violence, claiming that they're poisoning his fixation's mind, stopping them from fulfilling their full potential.

Now, at CR 14, Lukas can be a formidable threat even to a high-tier-2 party on his own. And I think that the real horror-turn here is when his possessiveness turns violent.

While part of his torment is his loneliness and obscurity, he would also have a pack of werewolves at his command. (I'd also suggest reskinning other lycanthropes if you wanted to vary their CR). I imagine that the people he curses with lycanthropy might share in his torment - perhaps promised with elevation to heights of fame, by hitching their wagon to Lukas', those he has turned are also struggling with their creative process and fame. The result is a pack of frustrated artists who resent others more than they engage with their own craft.

The prevalence of music in Kartakass, as well as Harkon's artistic design in the book, suggests to me that the whole vibe of Kartakass could take on a lot of Southern Gothic vibes - loud music, alcohol, and humid summer nights feel fitting for the setting. Like Strahd (though I only rarely see people actually play him this way,) the temptation should always be to empathize with Harkon Lukas, to feel like the pain and self-loathing suggests some inner moral core. But whatever truth of that inner life there might be, it's also being used as a performance to get people to let their guards down. As a born Northerner, I've got a deeply-ingrained distrust for Southern so-called Hospitality, and Lukas embodies more than anything a friendly smile shrouding a ravenous, murderous hunger.

Werewolves in 5.5E have had a bit of a redesign - the curse they inflict isn't necessarily going to turn you into a werewolf, but it makes  you susceptible to this happening. I'd check in with players to make sure they're ok with this kind of threat to them - rules as written, getting turned puts you permanently under the DM's control and thus effectively perma-kills your character, though you could treat this instead as the reason to take on a Dark Gift (or perhaps the Lycanthrope Transformation from Grim Hollow Player's Guide) to represent this change, and perhaps add in some kind of compulsion to obey Lukas that might need to be removed somehow.

You could actually take some inspiration from a pretty great bit of Southern Gothic media from last year that also won Best Picture at the Oscars - Sinners has a music club besieged by vampires who wish to possess a young musician with magical powers (honestly, the character is almost exactly a College of Spirits Bard). In a similar manner, Lukas could wind up leading a siege of werewolves on a club in a very similar way - even the way that werewolves work now would re-create the manner in which the vampires in that movie turn the club's guests.

If you really want to amp up the terror of that siege, having a bunch of low-CR NPCs there to serve as lycanthropic converts if the party fails to protect them would really up the challenge.

But while that is an encounter I might even save for tier 3 (making individual werewolves pretty small threats, but numbers being a real challenge,) having the party face him on his own would still be pretty scary at levels 8-10. He has health regeneration as long as he doesn't take radiant damage (which might not be obvious to the players given that other werewolves and even the standard Loup Garou now don't have that) and he also gets advantage on attacks if the target has taken any damage.

Lukas is also built to shift between his forms frequently during combat, giving him a mix of charm abilities and raw damage. Lean into the surrealness and horror of these sudden transformations. You can also have him menace the party in beast form while he's friendly to them in his humanoid form to up the paranoia. Maybe he's stalking them as they travel across his domain, but not necessarily going in to attack - instead, his motivation for following them is to ensure that he's in the right place to offer them help and ingratiate himself.

This is a Darklord that I think would be a real challenge to play - but it might be a really fun challenge for your acting skills to play the different subtle layers of his persona. He's also beefy enough and powerful enough that you can back up the menace hiding underneath the surface with stats that make him nearly as powerful a combatant as Strahd.

The Master of Gryphon Hill: Using Wilfred Godefroy

 I believe the second Darklord ever introduced to D&D (though Azalin might have also shown up in that module,) Lord Wilfred Godefroy is the ghost of a murderous megalomaniac who continues in death to want dominion over others.

He's also one of the lower-CR Darklords in Horrors Within, at only CR 6 (I think the only lower ones are Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Delisnya, who are both 5). We actually don't have a lot of legendary creatures with a CR lower than 10, so this is kind of an exciting opportunity.

As the Darklord of Mordent, Godefroy is the hauntingest ghost of the ghost domain.

Ghost stories have to tread a fine line: they live in the uncanny, the liminal space between what is a familiar human (or humanoid at least in a fantasy world like those of D&D) person and something monstrous and terrifying.

In the past year or so I watched through the first three Netflix series that Mike Flanagan did. While the vampire one, Midnight Mass, was my favorite, the first two, The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, which are inspired by the works of Shirley Jackson and Henry James, respectively, deal with haunted houses.

Both are houses that, like the House on Gryphon Hill, are haunted by not one but many ghosts. In the case of Hill House, at least in Flagan's version, it's the house itself that is the monster, though some of the ghosts there further its evil by drawing other souls to become trapped within it. In Bly Manor, there's a clearer genesis for the haunting, but again, it becomes something of a snowballing tragedy, as the actions of selfish and/or desperate, or even just compulsive spirits draw other souls to become trapped.

Another important point, though, to these is the gradual emergence of the horror. There's an amazing reveal in Flanagan's Hill House (I make the distinction because the Jackson novel has a very different plot) about how the house has been tricking the family all along that I'm going to avoid spoiling here (might touch on it later past a spoiler break) that I think can be a really powerful tool in a story like this.

But I think that even if you want to have a villain (especially Darklords) show up early on in a campaign, these appearances don't need to be full confrontations. Especially in a ghost story, a brief glimpse of a ghost is the right way to introduce them.

In Ravenloft, the Domains reflect and are kind of an aspect of the Darklord, and I think we can definitely pull this with Mordent and specifically the House on Gryphon Hill.

Here's my proposal:

The party arrives in Mordent at level 1, or level 3 at max - this should be the beginning of a Ravenloft campaign if not just a limited tier 1 adventure. They are welcomed by the locals, who are eager to have some capable adventurers around to help with local problems. They are given a house to act as their headquarters. But the Mists warp their perception of it:

While the party is maybe even warned not to go to the House on Gryphon Hill, and the house they are presented with is on the other side of Mordenshire or even potentially in a different town, and has a different name, the truth is that they're getting turned around: the house they are in is the House on Gryphon Hill.

It's separated enough from town that when they visit, it's not obvious that they're coming from it, but characters will have strange moments where they find themselves on the road to Gryphon Hill, periodically.

The house, as it appears to them, is well-furnished and kept up, and they have a handful of short, spooky quests while coming back to the false safety of the house. But after several days staying there, in the middle of the night, a random party member wakes up to use the restroom, and as they walk down the hall, they suddenly feel a presence behind them. They're subjected to Godefroy's Possessive Aura, and if they fail the save, they just stand there until morning comes and the party finds them as if they were sleepwalking. If they succeed, they turn around and glimpse Lord Godefroy staring at them, looking furious, before he vanishes.

Now, yeah, these aren't part of his stat block precisely - the Possessive Aura only charms a creature for a minute and reduces their speed to 0. And despite being a Ghost, Godefroy weirdly doesn't have the ability to slip into the Ethereal Plane, but I'd allow it at least in a non-combat situation.

While the party is likely to be genre-savy enough to freaking move out of the house at this point, there will probably be some compelling reasons for them to stay.

You could run this as a single horror-movie scenario that all takes place over the course of a single night, the doors locking the party into the house. But I'd be more interested in a slow-burn. Maybe other potential solutions - staying in inns, camping out on the moors - wind up being untenable. Or, perhaps, the party does relocate but needs to go back to the house. Perhaps an ally, like one of the Weathermay-Foxgrove twins, was seen entering the house.

Now, a good haunted house has a good cast of ghosts. I'd build the adventure around a number of distinct ghost characters. Especially if the party is likely to fight the ghosts, try to use different stat blocks: Shadows, Specters, Ghosts, Wraiths, etc., and even potentially non-incorporeal undead like Wights or Revenants.

Each spirit that is highlighted in the adventure should have their own distinct backstory, some distinctive visual identifier and MO. For example, in Flanagan's Hill House, there's a man in a bowler hat who haunts the house, and he follows one of the siblings who survived the house back when they briefly lived there in the 90s, always floating behind him as a metaphor for the substance addiction he now struggles with.

The spirits need not be malevolent, but their actions might terrify or even do harm to those with whom they interact. A terrified murder-victim might lash out in what they think is self-defense, and might not be able to calm down until they are assured that nothing can hurt them anymore. A rakish thief might violently defend the treasure that they sought to pilfer until that treasure is destroyed or removed from the house. None will go away simply by defeating them in combat - their stories need to be resolved in order to allow them to find peace and stop threatening the inhabitants of the house. A t

Now, Godefroy's role in this is that he's going to actively work against the party in their efforts to resolve these stories. Ghosts tend to be fixated and obsessed with particular desires, like the rest of their mind has faded and left only this compulsion. Godefroy probably understands his ghostly nature a little better than others, but the fixation remains on control, and so he doesn't want to lose the power he feels he gets by keeping these ghosts trapped and agonized.

He can certainly attack the party, but he might also attack the other spirits that the party is trying to soothe.

I think Godefroy is probably pretty aggressive. Sticking to narrow rooms and hallways, he can use his incorporeal movement to escape if his HP gets low, in case you don't want to risk relying on his Darklord regeneration to get him back. There are probably a lot of locked doors (even doors that might become locked) that could give him greater time to escape by entering a locked room, then descending through the floor, and eventually coming somewhere the party couldn't possibly pursue him.

Also, I think he'd likely employ some hit-and-run tactics. If the party is helping some Poltergeist resolve their issues, he might come in, blast the spirit with his Hunting Rifle, and then slip away.

Ghost stories are often told as the aftermath of tragedies, and Godefroy has some tools to encourage such tragic events - if he can get someone with his Possessive Aura (which admittedly isn't terribly hard to get out from if you don't mind drawing Opportunity Attacks) he can then redirect attacks against him at the charmed creature - getting PCs to damage each other could create divisions or at least guilt.

At 2900 xp in his domain (though this only adds an extra Legendary Resistance) he's theoretically a high difficult encounter on his own for a group of 5th level players. I'm honestly a little skeptical about that, as he only has 72 HP and deals 9 or 10 damage with his two attacks. He does, of course, get some more damage out of his legendary actions.

I do generally think that I'd have this whole plot primarily in tier 1, maybe letting the party do a couple adventures at levels 1 and 2 before the haunting of their headquarters becomes clear.

And then, I think, the first true full-on fight with Godefroy is where the truth of where they are gets revealed.

If you want to move on, either ending the adventure or moving on to another domain of dread, you can do that. If you want to stick around in Mordent, Godefroy is going to need some minions when he appears again.

Cthulhu Fhtagen! Using Big Green in D&D

 One of the splashier entries among the Darklords of Ravenloft: Horrors Within is Cthulhu, the most iconic of eldritch abominations from the Lovecraft mythos, whose most famous story (maybe aside from The Shadow Over Innsmouth) is The Call of Cthulhu.

This isn't the first time Big Green from R'lyeh has shown up in D&D. Way back in 1980, the sourcebook Deities & Demigods added stat blocks for many gods from real-world mythologies, as well as figures from the works of Michael Moorcock and HP Lovecraft - the latter of whom had been licensed from Arkham House publishers, only for there to be a snafu because Arkham House had already licensed the Cthulhu mythos characters to Chaosium (which makes the stories Call of Cthulhu RPG), which TSR (D&D's then-publisher) thought was legitimate but evidently broke the terms of the deal between Arkham House and Chaosium.

I don't know what licensing tricks they pulled off this time - maybe the license changed, or maybe Cthulhu is in the public domain now - but anyway, we've got the quintessential aberration with 5E stats.

Now, Cthulhu has a CR of 25, which means that he'll be a challenge even to high-level characters. But this is also not remotely a monster you want to just show up without warning for a quick fight (unless you're aiming for comedic absurdity).

Frankly, I think that Ravenloft in general is going to work better as a setting if things really don't go past level 10, which will keep mid-teen-CR monsters like Strahd, Harkon Lukas, Ebonbane scary. And I think that actually encountering Cthulhu should be a hopeless fight unless you have some massive advantage.

In Call of Cthulhu, the most direct account of the monster (the only character who actually reports seeing the monster itself. Himself? I doubt that Cthulhu cares much about human gender identities, but Lovecraft was regressive even for a guy in the 1920s, so we can probably assume that he'd have just presumed that Cthulhu was male) is from a ship captain whose crew stumbles across a risen R'lyeh in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and must flee the massive monster, splitting its head in half with the keel of their boat, only for Cthulhu's flesh to knit itself back together as the ship speeds away.

But also, we should bear in mind that Cthulhu's fame has built him up as a more formidable monster than he's actually meant to be. He's not a god (even as much as actual gods really exist in Lovecraft) but more a kind of ancient priest-emperor. That said, he should remain utterly alien in motivation and nature.

Ravenloft's "Innsmouth" setting is a bizarre mix of the bleak and barren landscapes far from human civilization that are more akin to R'lyeh or the "Mountains of Madness" in Antarctica, but also with living mortals in rotting, decrepit settlements that are more akin to the actual coastal Massachusetts town of the same name.

Horrors Within presents Innsmouth as being a land of rival cults - specifically those to Olhydra (the lord of evil water, among the cults of Elemental Evil), Dagon (the ancient demon lord who has the same name as the actual central figure of worship from Shadow Over Innsmouth,) and Zhudun the Corpse Star, one of the Elder Evil stars (like Hadar). You can actually gain renown with various cults in your adventures there.

    I... frankly don't think that's what I'd do with it.

While the rival cult factions are not actually that out-of-place in an adventure inspired by Lovecraft's works, the greater formula is an ordinary (and boy did Lovecraft have some narrow definitions of ordinary) person encounters something strange and disturbing, and the more they uncover, the worse it gets, until they either narrowly avoid calamity or are driven insane.

For example, the Call of Cthulhu is about a man who inherits his uncle's (I think) notes on research about a global cult dedicated to this monstrous creature. The uncle has just died, and the narrator tells the reader about the various stories his uncle had found, including an artist who, like many other creatives he talked to, dreamed of Cthulhu and felt compelled to create a likeness of them, or some police officers who broke up a strange cult ritual in the tropics worshipping Cthulhu, or a sea captain who actually saw the thing himself. Everyone aware of Cthulhu seems to be dropping dead, evidently murdered by the cult, and we find out that our narrator, penned in by paranoia, has also died.

Dangerous knowledge is at the forefront of the terror of Cthulhu - either knowledge that just breaks your sense of meaning in the world or that becomes a lethal liability as people who find out what you know come after you. Only one of the characters in the story ever actually sees the monster, but the rippling terror radiates out and hits everyone.

In this sense, while Cthulhu feels right for a horror-themed game, you might want to bend the rules of Ravenloft. It feels like we ought not to even understand what the Dark Powers could do to torment Cthulhu, and perhaps he's not actually a Darklord, but maybe something else that the Domains of Dread need.

To preserve the horror of Cthulhu, I would use him more as a "background event." He's gargantuan, so we could see him doing terrifying things off in the distance. But for his kaiju-level power to land, making sure that characters would likely go down after a single round of attacks would sell the idea that this guy ought not to be engaged with.

With a +17 to hit and saving throw DCs of 25, there's a good chance that unless the party has some really insane armor, most of this stuff is going to land consistently. His standard attack pattern will probably do about 100 damage roughly, so he'll still be a real terror at level 10, when most characters still have less than 100 HP.

But you should definitely make use of Cthulhu before the party is even close enough to fight him. And here are the tools to do so:

Cthulhu can cast Dream and Geas both 3 times per day. He can also use Geas while visiting someone in their dreams.

With a DC of 25, barely anyone will ever succeed on their saves against these spells at low levels. Also, the damage from Geas could be lethal at very low levels.

Mystery is a big part of Cosmic Horror - the distinction is that while finding the truth brings relief and satisfaction in a mystery story, the truth in cosmic horror has far more disturbing implications and may very well make the investigators wish they had left things well enough alone.

Cthulhu is utterly alien but also incredibly intelligent, and while he's far more powerful than mortals and would not think of them in any empathetic way, he knows how to manipulate them. Thus, he could appear in a Dream spell as something much more familiar. If you want to foreshadow the reveal of who is manipulating the party, you could give this dream messenger a really uncanny feel to it, with unnatural speech patterns and maybe a strangely "off" face.

But I'd slow-play it. Don't even bust out Geas to start with. The dream messenger should point the party toward reasonable goals. Maybe the party is on an adventure searching for some criminal or villain, and the dream messenger gives them an important hint. The hint would push them toward something that is actually Cthulhu's agenda - moving some ancient stone that serves as a lock or something.

Cthulhu is an utter time abyss, probably billions of years old, so the ultimate utility of what he pushes them into doing might not even be clear by the end of the campaign.

Cthulhu is probably very indifferent to what mortals actually care about, and so the threat he presents might be less about his agenda than some misguided worshipper. Zealots raging against the falsehoods of their worlds or becoming nihilistic with despair at the meaninglessness of it all might seek out Cthulhu either to give them purpose or to free them from any moral fetters.

In fact, Cthulhu might not even want to be released from his "prison," but the people who have convinced themselves that he's trapped there engage in a plot to rouse him. Indeed, Cthulhu might actually be the figure that guides the party to stopping his own cult in order to get them to stop bothering him, and should they awaken him, he might just kill everything around him like a human swatting flies in their kitchen.

So yes, while I think that a climactic boss fight against Strahd or Harkon Lukas or Viktra Mordenheim is a great climax to their stories, I'd generally say not to try to prepare a fight with Cthulhu that the party stands any chance of actually winning - or rather, they shouldn't be able to win by dropping him to 0 HP. A "win" should be to just escape alive.

But that will be a challenge: Cthulhu's attacks will grapple targets, and then he has a tentacle attack that he can use on grappled creatures to suck HP out of them. He has various teleportation abilities (both for himself, grappled creatures, and one that can force-teleport others) and warps space around himself, creating difficult terrain that deals damage to creatures within it.

I actually think that against a party of late-tier-3 or tier 4 characters, it's a fairly straightforward combat to run. He's pretty beefy with 385 HP, so unless you have some insanely optimized players, he'll last a decent number of rounds, but I don't think his abilities are going to be insurmountable to a high-level group. That's why I think if you want his impact to land really well, you've got to make sure to use him at earlier levels.

Undead Warlock vs. Death Knight

 First off, we're taking a little departure with this one: this is a multiclass build. For me, I think there's just such amazing utility to starting with one level of Fighter if you want to go Bladelock that I can't really justify not doing it.

But I need a story to justify it. I had previously built this character with the 5.0 version of the subclass and not even really a Bladelock. Our hero (more of an antihero) was a courtier in a lofty hall of a nobleman, but when treacherous fey visitors turned on his childhood friend/liege lord and slaughtered everyone in the manor, he was walled up Casque of Amontillado-style in one of the walls of the basement. There, he suffocated to death and was caught in a liminal void for countless years, until a mysterious voice contacted him, instilling life into him once more as a Reborn. Emerging from the haunted ruins of the manor in which he had done his life's work, he followed the directions of the voice to a ruined tower, and therein, he found an entire knightly order that had been corrupted into undeath by those same treacherous fey, and cursed to never leave their tower. The knights offered to imbue him with power if he would act as their agent in the world, and thus he became a Warlock.

The tweak to the story is that, likely rather than a pure bureaucratic functionary, he was likely a member of some kind of honor-guard for his friend, hence beginning as a Fighter.

With that out of the way:

Something about the Undead patron to me feels particularly good for a Bladelock - while you could certainly fight in the name of a Demon Lord or an angelic avenger (actually, a "thornblade" for a coven of hags sounds cool too) I've always loved Death Knights (WoW is a big reason why) and it seems like a servant of Death Knights really ought to be more martial in nature.

    Classes:

We're trying to lean as hard into Warlock as possible. Once we secure Devouring Blade at level 12 (Fighter 1/Warlock 11) we might consider putting a bit more into Fighter to get Action Surge and a subclass, but that's outside of our purview right now.

The single level of Fighter does the following for us, though:

We get Weapon Masteries, including Graze, which will be the one we benefit from the most.

We get Medium and Heavy Armor Training. We're actually going to lean toward heavy armor because we'll need a reasonable Strength for both the Heavy weapons we want to use and the feat we'll want to take at Warlock 4.

We also get Con save proficiency, which will help us with concentration.

Once we have that first level, we're going to pour everything into Warlock, and stick with it for the rest of this 10-level build.

    Stats:

Primarily, we want to start with a 17 in Charisma and a 13 in Strength, and then try to get a decent Con - I don't typically like to dump more than one stat, so you're probably getting a 14 in Con.

    Invocations:

We're going to take most of the Blade-focused Invocations we can here. Pact of the Blade naturally at Warlock 1, and then Thirsting Blade and Eldritch Smite at Warlock 5. We'll also grab Devil's Sight, partially because Reborn don't get Darkvision, but even with other species, this lets us do Darkness shenanigans. Lifedrinker is a possibility, but I'm skipping it in favor of Lessons of the First Ones to take Tough and bolster our HP - we need to split ourselves a little between Strength, Charisma, and Con, so this will make up for both our mostly d8s of hit dice and probably not getting more than a +2 to Con. Tough effectively makes our hit dice d12s for the purpose of calculating our max HP. Finally, we'll grab Pact of the Chain as well, getting a nicely flavorful Skeleton familiar, though even though we can use them in combat, we probably won't. I'm also taking Agonizing Blast so that we can still use Eldritch Blast as a ranged option when we need to.

    Gear:

Thanks to starting as a Fighter, we'll start off with Chain Mail. Now, one thing we have to deal with is that we actually will be slowed if we take Splint or Plate, because we're not going to have more than a 14 in Strength, at least until much later in our careers. If we can get better, magic Chain Mail, that'll be great, even if it only gives us the AC of Splint or Plate.

We're going to stick with a Greatsword as our main weapon - I don't think we'll have the feats to invest in both Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master, as we'll still want to take Charisma-boosting options after level 4. That's fine, these hit very hard and have Graze.

    Feats:

We're going to grab Great Weapon Master at level 4, which will boost our Strength to 14.

    Spells:

Ok, now for the big one:

We only have two Pact slots at level 10, but they're both 5th level.

The main spells I'd focus on using are Spirit Shroud and Armor of Agathys.

Both use a bonus action to cast, one providing a bit of damage along with some resilience, and the other boosting our damage. Thanks to Tough and our armor, we should be a fair amount more resilient than your typical Warlock. Agathys is great, and in theory we can even refresh its Temp HP with Form of Dread, though against a Death Knight (maybe even one of our patrons?) its effects won't be that useful aside form the Temp HP.

Given that we have Thirsting Blade, we won't be using spells like Green-Flame Blade or Booming Blade. Again, I'd grab Eldritch Blast for a ranged option, but the rest would probably be more utility spells.

    Attack Sequence:

With our pact Greatsword in hand (doing either psychic or radiant damage - necrotic is no-go against a Death Knight) we're going to start off by casting Spirit Shroud. At 5th level, this will add 2d8 to each of our attacks, doing our choice of radiant, necrotic, or cold damage (we'll go radiant again). It's similar to Conjure Minor Elementals, but has worse damage scaling but only takes a bonus action to cast. Given how OP CME is, I think that still means this is a very solid spell. Also, CME isn't a Warlock spell.

We probably want to save our remaining spell slot to either re-up Spirit Shroud or use it on a crit for Eldritch Smite. At 5th level, Eldritch Smite does 6d8 damage, but we can make up for that if we hit three times with Spirit Shroud. But a crit would make it very worth to blast out some insane damage. Armor of Agathys could be an option if we are worried about survivability - it can also put out a lot of damage to attackers when cast at this level, but you need to hope that the Death Knight rolls low damage.

Notably, as Reborn, we might have Necrotic resistance, which would be great in a fight like this, but we also probably aren't taking it because we will get that anyway for being a 10th level Undead warlock.

    Damage Output:

Notably, we only have a +4 to Charisma, so we're not going to be hitting quite as often. That said, Graze is going to help us out a lot. The calculation is actually quite simple, as ultimately we're just making two attacks that are buffed up.

With Spirit Shroud up, we're now dealing 2d6+2d8+4 radiant damage per hit, so that's 20 damage on average, with 16 more on a crit. That said, because we have Graze, we can actually just guarantee the 4 and throw the hit and crit damage together.

With a +8 to hit, we'll land an attack on a roll of 12 or higher, so 45% of the time. Add in the 5% chance of a crit, and you get 50% of 16, or 8, and then add in the guaranteed 4 each turn to get us 12 damage per attack, or 24 damage per turn.

If we do land a crit, we will be adding 12d8, or about 54 damage on average.

Still, I'm honestly a little surprised at how underwhelming this damage is.

Oh! I forgot Great Weapon Master!

So, let's rewind:

We're actually now hitting for 2d6+2d8+4+4 on a hit, or 24 on average, and adding 16 on a crit.

Again, we're going to pull 4 out of that and add it in later for Graze, so we'll look at 20 damage on a hit.

20x45% is 9 (such round numbers!) and 5% times 16 is .8, so it's really 9.8, and then adding in the guaranteed 4 to give us 13.8 per attack, which gives us 27.6 damage per round. Certainly a bit better, but still a little underwhelming.

However, while we've used our bonus action on this turn to cast Spirit Shroud, on subsequent turns, we will get to make a Hew attack if we land a crit. With two attacks, the chance that happens is 9.75%.

Without the extra 4 from GWM, we're going to do 12 average damage on an attack (as we calculated before, ) so in the 9.75% of the time we get to do this, we're adding 1.17 damage per round, bringing us up to 28.77, which still feels pretty low.

    Ok, so we're switching our gameplan:

We're basically a Death Knight ourselves. And what does a Death Knight have? An army of skeletons.

If we assume we can find a whole bunch of bones, we're going to cast Danse Macabre, ideally before combat. We raise 5 Skeletons, and each skeleton is going to get a bonus equal to our Charisma modifier to their attack and damage rolls. This winds up actually giving them a +9 to hit, and their attacks (probably using bows to avoid being too close to the Death Knight) deal 1d6+7 damage on a hit.

If we can't cast ahead of time, we'll do this at the start of combat and immediately have them attack.

Each has a 50% chance to hit. 1d6+7 is an average of 10.5 damage, and they do an extra 3.5 on a crit. So that's 5.25 plus .175, or 5.425 damage per attack. There are five of them, so with our bonus action to command them, we're doing an average of 27.125 (already basically outpacing our previous plan).

Now, our bonus action is now spoken for, so we're just making our two melee attacks on our turn, and this time without Spirit Shroud. So, we'll deal 2d6+8 on a hit and add 2d6 on a crit, or 11 and 7. We can remove 4 guaranteed damage and calculate 11x45%, or 4.95 and then the 7x5%, or .35, for 5.3, add in the guaranteed 4 for Graze and we get 9.3 damage per attack, or 18.6 damage from us if we don't need to spend our action on Danse Macabre.

Thus, our damage becomes 45.725 and holy moly that's freaking incredible.

Two notes, one good and one bad.

The good note is that we actually don't need our bonus action after the first command if the command is simply "keep shooting at the Death Knight and spread out while staying in regular range with your shortbows," as the skeletons should continue to follow a command until it's completed. Thus, we can now get our Hew attacks in if we get them.

The bad note is that the Skeletons are going to be very fragile - the spell doesn't boost their survivability at all, and so they're prime targets to be wiped out by Hellfire Orb. Keep them spread out as much as you can to avoid losing too many to one.

Danse Macabre was a fun spell introduced in Xanathar's, but it mostly wasn't as good at higher levels when you started fighting monsters with resistance or even immunity to nonmagical weapon damage. But as that as a concept has been excised from 5.5, spells like this have gotten way better.

You will need to find corpses to animate - you can also make zombies with it, but skeletons are much better damage-dealers - but hopefully with a Death Knight you'll have plenty of bones around (though it's also unlikely that those bones are all inert).

Spirit Shroud will get a bit better when you can get 11 levels in Warlock and grab Devouring Blade (you might consider using it with Eldritch Blast when you are Fighter1/Warlock10, as EB will upgrade its number of beams a level earlier). But if you can keep those skeletal archers alive, Danse Macabre is honestly a really good source of damage.

Horrors WIthin: Darklords and Mist Travelers

 I adore Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. And the biggest disappointment in Ravenloft: Horrors Within is that so much of the new book rehashes stuff we already got just five years ago. But if there's one thing that was missing from that book, it was the lack of bespoke stat blocks for its iconic Darklords. While I understood the philosophical idea of having, say, Viktra Mordenheim use a fairly low-CR humanoid NPC stat block like a Spy, the actual choice of stat block didn't really reflect the character - a Spy has middling Intelligence, whereas Mordenheim is meant to be an evil genius.

Thus, I'm happy to say that the Darklords featured in Horrors Within do have their own stat blocks, and while not all are going to be major threats on their own to high-level parties, that's fine. A confrontation with Ivana Boritsi or Ilya Desilinya in Borca makes perfect sense as a finale for tier 1 rather than tier 3.

Outside of the stat blocks, there's also good guidance for what happens if the party kills a Darklord before the climactic boss fight - Darklords always come back, but there's greater detail about how the mists claim the bodies of the Darklords when they're slain, and how you can flavor the clear implication that things aren't over yet.

I believe every Darklord is a legendary creature, and while clearly several of them are similar to existing monsters, they have their own unique abilities.

Of note, the line-up of featured Domains in Horrors Within is not the same as that in Van Richten's, so if you were hoping to get the Darklords of Richemulot, I'Cath, or Bluetspur, you're out of luck. However, we have new domains of Innsmouth, the Shadowlands, and Sithicus, each of which grant you their respective Darklords.

We'll go in order of their Domains, alphabetically.

Strahd von Zarovich:

The OG Darklord himself, Strahd looks fairly similar to how he's appeared in books like Curse of Strahd, and is not all too dissimilar to the Vampire stat block from the Monster Manual. He is a spellcaster, and unlike the Umbral Lord, there's a somewhat more classic Wizard selection of spells (including Fireball, which I think he's always had). CR 15 like previous versions, I think the spellcasting (he can include Fireball in his multiattack) is the main distinguishing feature from standard vamps.

Ivana Boritsi:

Now a legendary CR 5 Humanoid, Ivana has several poison- and plant-themed abilities. (I guess you could use her for Poison Ivy if you wanted to do a Batman campaign?)

Ivan Delisnya:

Like his cousin and co-Darklord, Ivan is also a CR 5 humanoid. He has various mechanical abilities, like a Deadly Contraption that can clamp onto a foe, or the ability to trap the area with caltrops.

Azalin Rex:

While story-wise he seems to have successfully escaped (though we get more details on it, and it's complicated) we do get a version of the Lich, who's CR 23. He's not too dissimilar from the Monster Manual Lich, but he can siphon spells with his Counterspell to use them himself.

Saidra D'Honaire:

A much more distinct statblock, which is CR 9, than the generic "Wraith with Disintegrate" from Van Richten's, Saidra now has two forms - her socialite, masked form and her serial-killer-in-the-streets form of the Red Death, though this is more of a cosmetic change that can mask her identity than something that changes her abilities. Her most interesting ability is Truth of Die (feels very Lies of P) in which she demands a character identify themselves and then casts Disintegrate on them. If the target lied about their identity, they get disadvantage on the save. And she has another feature that says she always knows if she hears a lie.

Vladeska Drakov:

The tyrannical dictator of Falkovnia, Drakov is a very martial Darklord, a CR 12 humanoid who uses a Pike and throws spears that can impale (restrain) targets. She can even call in an artillery strike, and is very much built to fight alongside soldiers (who she can also put in the way of attacks meant for her).

Ankhtepot:

The OG Mummy Lord, this guy is CR 17, can fly, and has a recharge ability that is basically a less powerful, touch-range Power Word Kill.

Hazlik:

The former Red Wizard, Hazlik is CR 14 and somewhat similar to an Archmage in stats, but can make Wild Magic surges with a bonus action, creating randomized effects.

Cthulhu:

Yes, the most famous of Lovecraft's monsters, Cthulhu is a CR 25 gargantuan aberration. Certainly the highest-CR Darklord, while tough in combat, he's also got some powerful remote abilities, able to cast Dream and then Geas through the dream with a very tough spells ave DC of 25.

Ramya Vasavadan:

One of two Death Knight Darklords, Ramya normally disguises herself to appear still alive, and struggles to retain control of her domain while her fiendish siblings contend with her. Similar in capabilities to a Death Knight, she's actually somewhat lower CR, at 15, and when her disguise drops, nearby creatures can be frightened by the true appearance, which appears if she drops below 80 HP or if she uses her Vengeful Fire (a recharge ability similar to a Hellfire Orb).

Harkon Lukas:

The faux-friendly traveling musician with a beast lurking beneath the surface, Harkon is a CR 14 Monstrosity that is similar in a lot of ways to a Loup-Garou (I mean, he is one, but slightly tougher) but with health regeneration (that the standard Loup-Garou lost) and performance abilities that can charm and deal psychic damage (his legendary actions have him kind of cycle between his humanoid and wolf form). (I don't know about you, but I feel like he makes for an amazing Southern Gothic villain.)

Viktra Mordenheim:

The mad scientist and amoral crafter of flesh golems, Mordenheim is a CR 7 humanoid. She has some abilities that buff nearby construct allies, and both a lightning attack and a set of syringes with various serums that she can inject people with.

Wilfred Godefroy:

The greatest ghost of Gryphon Hill, Godefroy is a CR 6 undead with your standard incorporeal undead stuff. He has an aura of ghostly spirits that can possess foes, and hunts down the living with his spectral hunting rifle.

Ebonbane:

An evil sword forged of the fragments of all the evils that the heroic paladin Kateri Shadowborn defeated, Ebonbane is both a small CR 13 construct as well as a sentient artifact weapon that can be wielded by those who survive the process of attuning to it. Ebonbane can only act on its own within its keep, but in addition to slashing out at foes, it can possess bodies of the dead to act as its wielder and devour the souls of those who attempt to wield it.

Lord Soth:

The OG Death Knight, Lord Soth may or may not actually be in Ravenloft - the one in Sithicus is either a copy or perhaps he travels between his domain and the world of Krynn each night. Anyway, Lord Soth is a CR 19 undead that is similar to a Death Knight, but a little tougher and has some extra magic, as well as a once-a-day emanation that can frighten and inflict psychic damage that might instant-kill creatures.

Mother Lorinda:

The delusional, mad green hag of Tepest is a CR 8 Fey that has some similar features to a Green Hag, but can also disguise herself into "Mother," the benevolent harvest deity of Tepest, in which she can cast Charm Person as a bonus action. This form drops if she's reduced to 50 HP, and when that happens, nearby creatures can become frightened and get disadvantage on saving throws while they are.

Chakuna:

The only Darklord that isn't evil, Chakuna reclaimed her home from the colonialist man-hunter Urik von Kharkov, but had to take on the mantle of Darklord to keep him out of power. She's a werepanther, a CR 11 monstrosity, who has various abilities to help her hunt down those who enter the Trial of Hearts, including a barbed spear that inflicts an ongoing wound.

    Mist Wanderers:

There are also a few potential allies for parties to find, and have their own unique stat blocks. Given that these are more likely to be on the players' sides, they're not legendary creatures, but they do tend to have some interesting abilities.

Ez D'avenir:

Ez is a CR 8 humanoid with a mix of melee and magic abilities. She has a few bonus action options, which can bolster allies in various ways, or impose a curse once a day on a foe that can gvie them vulnerability to a damage type (and can move it around like Hex if the target dies). So, a very good ally to have!

Madam Eva:

The Vistana fortune-teller, Madam Eva is a CR 10 Humanoid with various magical abilities, including a very potent recharge ability that can deal a bunch of necrotic and psychic damage in a Fireball-sized sphere and frighten foes that fail the Wisdom save against it.

Rudolph Van Richten:

A CR 5 humanoid, Van Richten has a couple weapons that deal some bonus radiant damage, a recharge ability that can deal psychic damage and frighten foes in a cone, and some limited spellcasting ability.

Gennifer Weathermay-Foxgrove:

A CR 3 druidic apprentice of Van Richten's, she has some magical abilities including a recharge ability that can deal radiant damage and stun nearby Undead. However, she's also cursed by a werewolf, and if she drops to 0 HP, she becomes one, so be sure to keep her up!

Laurie Weathermay-Foxgrove:

Gennifer's sister and fellow apprentice to Van Richten, Laurie is also CR 3, and is more of a martial character, with weapons that deal a little extra radiant damage and a reaction to deflect attacks against her or her allies.

    For all the complaints I had about the bestiary rehashing so many creatures, this a pretty fantastic selection of unique characters. I really like the idea of having brief quests (maybe going into a single small dungeon) with one or two of these allies - perhaps investigating a haunted house with the Weathermay-Foxgrove twins or defending a Vistani caravan from attackers with Madam Eva.