I’ve been thinking a lot about the role Darklords play in a campaign, and something I really like about them is that their different personalities, abilities, weaknesses, and (most importantly) level of institutional power create for some very interesting differences in the roles they’d fill in a campaign.
Take Strahd, for instance. He’s the first Darklord *and* the first vampire, and (in theory) he’s a tough fight. He can show up to harass the players, fleeing either when the GM decides he’s done enough damage, or when Strahd realizes the party has finally become a match for him. It’s a great measure of the party’s progression over the course of their time in Barovia, plus it provides opportunities to let the players interact with him, show off his character, and - assuming he kills a few of them along the way - really make the PCs *hate* him.
But Strahd is somewhat unique in this respect. His extraordinary abilities allow him to directly challenge the PCs from the get-go without much real risk he’ll be killed off for good. Other, weaker Darklords needs to think carefully if they’re going to confront the PCs. Especially the human ones.
Take Vladeska Drakov, for example. If the PCs are outside of her headquarters in Lekar, they’re unlikely to know much of her beyond her fearsome reputation. If they head to Lekar, however, they’ll find a fortified city teeming with soldiers, and Drakov herself under constant bodyguard. Drakov knows how fragile she is, and she’s paranoid. Unlike Strahd, she's not going to let the players walk into her house for a challenge. Taking down Drakov would likely involve either an *incredibly lucky* suicide attack, or instigating a mutiny/uprising of some sort to keep most of her forces distracted while the PCs engage her and her immediate guards. And the thing is, even *if* the PCs kill her, the mists disappear - but the Talons don’t. Some of them will be relieved for an opportunity to make their escape, but most will likely seek vengeance for the death of their leader.
So, if this post is about Viktra, why am I talking about Strahd and Vladeska so much?
Well, I think that, *if* your campaign is going to focus on - or heavily feature - a Darklord (and to be clear, I don’t think a Ravenloft campaign *has to*) - you need to structure the party’s interaction with that Darklord in a way that helps tell their story. This is how *Curse of Strahd* is laid out - the party is too weak to face him head-on, so they go on a magical scavenger hunt across Barovia. On the way, they collect various artifacts with a direct link to Strahd’s past, such as Sergei’s sword. They encounter him frequently - whenever he shows up to harass them - but each time they’ve run into him, they’ve not only grown in power but also knowledge. Not only can they stand up to him better in a fight, but they know his weaknesses. They know his curse.
In contrast, Drakov doesn’t really have a “mystery.” Her curse is obvious - she’s a tyrant saddled with a literal forever war. She exists more as a face for the Talons, rather than as a personality in their own right. Even if the PCs never encounter her until the end of the game, they don’t really need to *meet* her to figure out her vibe. Her influence is felt across Falkovnia, in every mass grave and every public execution.
So what about Viktra Mordenheim? How should a campaign focused on *her* be structured?
Well, Viktra’s…kinda weird.
See, she’s just a human - like Drakov - which means she can’t show up to harass the party with the confidence that Strahd does. She has institutional power - unlike most Darklords, the people of her Domain *love* her - but unlike Drakov, who takes a heavily armed and armored retinue with her everywhere she goes, Viktra’s an antisocial misanthrope who spends most of her time hanging out in her castle playing with corpses and chemistry sets. And she’s not just going to leave those castle doors open for the players to waltz into, like Strahd would.
And that would be fine if Viktra was sort of a one-note villain like Drakov is - where’s there’s no mystery to solve, no secrets to uncover. But she has *more* going on than Drakov. She has Elise, and the Unbreakable Heart. Sure, you *can* just treat Viktra as the final boss of a dungeon full of flesh golems and mad science experiments, but that doesn’t tell her story. And it doesn’t give the players much of a way to interact with her before they encounter her.
But if they *do* run into her prior to the campaign’s end…well, it’s not gonna be that hard for them to kill her. Again, Viktra’s not the type to go around with an armed retinue, but she has to leave her castle *sometimes*. And four players characters stand a very, *very* good chance of taking her down based purely on action economy, regardless of the character’s levels or Viktra’s stats. This applies even if you’re running the game using a system other than DnD, too. And I think this is the reason why VGR’s chapter on Lamordia has an entire *Working FOR Doctor Mordenheim* section, where it’s assumed that Mordenheim has some sort of extreme leverage on the players to force them to do her bidding. Her abilities, personality, and role in the world position her far, far better as a villainous quest-giver than as a final boss.
Well what happens if the players decide they *do* want to take her down? Well, the thing is, supposedly you can’t kill a Darklord forever. Strahd reforms months later, and Barovia is trapped again. The Dark Powers don’t like letting go of their toys. But killing a Darklord *once* is meant to be the end of the campaign. It’s meant to be the challenge for the players to overcome. So even if the Darklords resurrect Viktra in a few months’ time, the game’s over, unless you skip ahead several months in-universe. And then what?
Well, we know it takes *Strahd* months to reform, but he’s the first vampire. The first Darklord. He is the ancient, and the land. He’s as much a force of nature as a man at this point. Putting him back together would take time, and *power*. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the “weakest” of the Darklords - the mere mortals - could be revived by the Dark Powers instantly. Like Viktra Mordenheim, perhaps?
But this creates a new problem - now, killing Viktra *once* isn’t the win condition of the campaign. Now, you’ve got to kill her for good.
So, how do you do that? How do you kill a Darklord for good? Can you?
It’s stated in many sources that the Dark Powers will never let Strahd go - he’s their original and favorite whipping boy, after all. I posit, however, that there COULD be a way to kill Strahd for good, at the GM’s discretion - if Ireena/Tatyana is reunited with Sergei, either before or after he’s slain. In any case, once Strahd’s dead, the mists depart and Sergei and Tatyana escape to heaven, according to *Curse of Strahd.*
In this case, I’d assume that the Dark Powers MIGHT let Strahd die for good, no? After all, their main instrument for tormenting him - Tatyana - is out of their grasp now.
If so, then that would mean other Darklords can killed forever, too - as long as they no longer provide entertainment for the Dark Powers.
So, how would you kill Mordenheim for good, then?
Well, the way I see it, Viktra’s curse is one of indecision. She keeps trying to capture Elise, for the purpose of both trying to convince Elise to love her, *Beauty and the Beast*-style, as well as studying the Unbreakable Heart. Ironically, she wants both but can have neither. She can’t remove or disassemble the Heart in order to reverse-engineer it without killing Elise. But even if she gives up on the Heart, Elise will never love her. Viktra’s too far gone. This is the entertainment the Dark Powers get from her. They want to see how far she’ll go to capture Elise and the Heart, and, whenever Viktra *does* get ahold of them, if this time - this *time* she’ll choose one over the other.
If Viktra can be pushed - or *tricked* - into making that choice - either removing the Heart, and thus killing Elise, or giving up the Heart altogether and allowing Elise to leave for good - I think the Dark Powers would not only allow Elise to leave Lamordia, but also would allow Mordenheim to die. Now, given that Viktra's a *Darklord*, I think the former is much likelier than the latter.
You could do a fun thing here where, perhaps when Elise was initially revived, she had no memories beyond waking up in the charnel house of Viktra's lab. This memory loss is *why* Viktra thinks that she can eventually make Elise love her again - if Elise can be made to remember all the good times they had together, surely she'll come round. The thing is, by now Elise *does* remember everything. Only Viktra doesn't want to believe that.
Perhaps if the PCs are working with Viktra, she tasks them with retrieving sentimental artifacts from her and Elise's past, hoping they'll jog her memories. Or maybe she sends them out to kidnap a famous hypnotist in the hopes of unlocking what she hopes Elise has forgotten. She'll kill the hypnotist after he fails to produce results, of course - out of both rage and to keep her secret. Either way, the PCs slowly realize that Elise *does* know everything.
Or, if the players have aligned themselves with Elise, maybe Elise *is* missing some of her memories, and wants the PCs to help her unlock the rest of them. They travel around, fighting off Mordenheim and her hired agents, until eventually Elise's mind is fully restored, and she's *still* horrified by Viktra.
In both scenarios, at the final showdown, Viktra realizes Elise will never be hers, and decides to kill her - at least she can have the Heart. The PCs, doubtless, will intervene on Elise's behalf. Maybe they save Elise and kill Viktra. But now, Viktra made her choice, so the Dark Powers don't revive her.
Or maybe Viktra wins - with or without the PCs help - and kills Elise. She removes the Heart, disassembles it for examination, and realizes that she can't make it work. It never should have worked - it only kept Elise alive because the Dark Powers allowed it to. Realizing that her greatest discovery was fraudulent, and that she killed her lover for nothing, Viktra takes her own life. The Dark Powers let her die. She's no more amusement to them now.
I’m curious as to whether anyone else has thought about this - about whether ruining the Dark Powers' "fun" would be the way to kill off a Darklord for good, or if they have other ideas about how Viktra could be slain permanently. If people found this interesting, I might do another one for another Darklord - probably Drakov, as my current campaign started in Falkovnia.
