The Domains of Dread are perfect prisons. The Darklords find themselves in positions of unrivaled power, not realizing that the domains are actually their cages.
Azalin Rex, though, is an exception. More than any other Darklord, he sought to understand the nature of the Mists, and somehow wrenched his mind away from the soporific influence of the Dark Powers that causes the Darklords (and many other inhabitants of Ravenloft) to rationalize the incongruities of their nightmare reality.
Azalin has, it seems, escaped from Ravenloft.
Now, there is precedence. Vecna, the ancient Lich who even succeeded in becoming a deity (if perhaps a lesser one,) was able to escape his domain and even attempt a ritual at becoming a greater deity within the city of Sigil (which is not supposed to be possible given the Lady of Pain). Liches, after all, must acquire immense arcane knowledge.
Still, Azalin's story is somewhat surprising. Metanarratively, I believe he was introduced specifically for the Ravenloft setting, and so figures like Vecna or Lord Soth, who came from the Greyhawk and Dragonlance settings, respectively, sort of "had other places to be," which is why it makes sense that WotC (and I think WotC did own D&D by the time that Die, Vecna, Die! came out) allowed them to escape (well, it was also a bit of a rights issue for Lord Soth). (Actually, no, scratch all this: Azalin's from Greyhawk originally.)
But it's interesting: while you could just run an adventure (or a whole campaign) in Darkon with Azalin back there before the Hour of Acension, I think that an Azalin-focused campaign is one that might go outside the traditional claustrophobic horror genre and veer more into traditional heroic D&D fantasy.
Let's talk about his stat block:
To a great extent, Azalin's stats are similar to that of a Lich, which makes sense given that he is a Lich. He's CR 23 (up from 21). He loses the At Will 5th level Fireball, but gets a 2/day Modify Memory. He's got more HP and while he can't cast Shield, his Counterspell lets him cast the spells that he counters. Also, his legendary actions are a little different.
But I think to a large extent, he's just a slightly tougher Lich, which is fine - Liches got way easier to run in 5.5 and also have enough HP to actually stick around for a few rounds.
One of the funny things, though, about both Liches and Darklords is that both have a thing that causes them to come back if slain. In Azalin's case, he's got multiple spirit jars, one that is outside of Darkon and one that is his old throne back in the ruins of Castle Avernus, which he'll default to if his preferred jar is destroyed.
If you're doing a story pre-Hour of Ascension, you could just have him respawn at the castle.
But yeah, let's talk about Azalin in a post-Hour of Ascension role.
First off, I think he might just not be in the Domains of Dread anymore at all. Perhaps he's in the broader Shadowfell, or he's back on the Prime Material Plane.
The possibilities for these scenarios are endless: a powerful ancient Lich unleashed upon the world. Now, I think you could have some fun with the fact that no one outside of the Domains of Dread has likely heard of him (though I guess some people do escape the Mists). I think that in this case, you might have some of the elements of Ravenloft kind of cling to him as he journeys across the multiverse.
One broad scenario could be that the Dark Powers reach out to the party to give them the campaign-spanning quest of capturing Azalin and delivering him back to Darkon. Perhaps as an alternative, and even an option for the players to consider aiding him, would be that Azalin, having finally escaped and thus escaped his inability to learn new magic (I think he and Hazlik have similar torments,) he has now figured out a plan that could unravel the Demiplane of Dread in its entirety. This would result in every living soul in Ravenloft dying, but Azalin might dismiss this concern and claim he's doing them a mercy, even if his main motivation is to never be trapped there again.
Now, one of the oddities of the 5E Ravenloft books is the presence of Firan Zal'honen. Presented as an evil-but-potentially-friendly archmage in Van Richten's, those with familiarity with the old lore (or who can connect some elements even in Van Richten's itself, like the name of his imp familiar) will know that this is actually Azalin's real, mortal name.
Horrors Within isn't coy about this, but adds some wrinkles - that Azalin may have been shattered or sealed away, and that this Firan could either be him in disguise or a fragment of him.
Since Van Richten's came out, I've had a concept in which Azalin's plan required the creation of a double to distract or appease the Dark Powers and let him escape, a sacrifice, essentially. But this copy, the living Firan Zal'Honen, assumes himself to be the real Azalin, and that the plan was only a partial success, getting him out of Darkon but leaving him still trapped in Ravenloft, unaware that his fate was always part of the plan. (The campaign would probably conclude with the Dark Powers offering the party a similar option: that a copy of each of them be made, and then one of the two versions of them would be allowed to escape while the other would remain trapped, and there would be no way of knowing which was which).
Azalin as an adversary in combat is powerful, so a low-level party would have a very hard time fighting him. But beyond simply his CR, I also think that, as the one guy who really understands the Domains of Dread (Strahd strives toward this, but my interpretation is that he gets distracted by his obsession over Tatyana, and probably forgets the nature of his torment and imprisonment periodically) he's the villain (whether antagonist or not) that really lends himself to a higher-level campaign that deals with the more metaphysical aspects of the setting, and therefore suits higher-level, more powerful PCs.
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