Darklord: Strahd von Zarovich - Hallmarks: Undead despot, notorious haunted stronghold, tragic resurrection
In Barovia, the night is a curse. With the dying of the light, wicked souls slip from the darkened spires of Castle Ravenloft to work the will of an immortal overlord. This is the realm of the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, whose depravities have doomed him and countless generations to endlessly repeating cycles of obsession and despair.

 

Darklord: The God-Brain of Bluetspur - Hallmarks: Alien abductions, otherworldly landscapes, untrustworthy memories, monstrous experimentation
Protean apocalypses scar the impossible vistas of Bluetspur, and none who witness them remember. This alien domain etches itself not upon the waking mind, but rather upon the body as inexplicable scars and on the psyche through nightmares.

 

Darklord: Ivana Boritsi and Dilisnya - Hallmarks: Political intrigue, poison, revenge
Borca’s nobles entangle the domain in a web of intrigues. While the common folk scrape for survival, the domain’s callous aristocrats distract themselves with cruel diversions. They pay what they consider pittances in gold, land, and lives in pursuit of power, thrills, and the rarest pleasure: untarnished emotion. The common folk are merely tools to be exploited and discarded. Silver-tongued schemers use dreams and ambition to tempt innocents into debt, blackmail, and ruin, while furthering their rivalries or searching for decadent thrills. Guile and apathy are virtues in Borca, and none embody them more than the domain’s two Darklords: the genius poisoner Ivana Boritsi and the childishly cruel stalker Ivan Dilisnya.

 

Darklord: Nepenthe - Hallmarks: Entertainment, fey bargains, misfits, wandering exiles
Resplendent with bright banners, calliope music, and the smells of rich food, the Carnival promises visitors a surreal wonderland where any dream is possible.


 

Darklord: None - Hallmarks: Fractured realm, magical ruins, ongoing supernatural catastrophe
The domain of Darkon has failed. Across the land, ageless monuments and magical wonders crumble before the Shroud—the Mists turned hungry.


 

Darklord: Saidra d'Honaire - Hallmarks: Masquerades, decadent aristocracy, social decay, impostor syndrome
Every night brings another glittering affair in Dementlieu, whose citizens live glamorous and exciting lives. They enjoy the finest clothes, elegant jewels, grand ballrooms—and most extravagantly, the Grand Masquerade hosted by Duchess Saidra d’Honaire every seventh day at her island estate. Everyone who is anyone attends the duchess’s balls, and everyone who longs to be someone tries to wrangle an invitation or sneak in uninvited. But Duchess Saidra’s wrath upon those who dare to set foot where they don’t belong is truly horrible—and inevitably fatal.

 

Darklord: Vladeska Drakov - Hallmarks: Dwindling resources, fickle hero worship, impending disaster, suspicion, totalitarianism, zombies
The days of the living are numbered in Falkovnia. The people would flee if they could, taking their chances in the Mists, but they aren’t allowed that choice. The military has turned against the people, making them prisoners within their own country. With cudgel and pike, the soldiers of Falkovnia force every commoner into grueling labor, rushing them to raise fortifications and scrape scrawny roots from the dirt. Every lash strike, every day of meager rations is necessary—or so the soldiers claim—because time is short and the dead are coming.

 

Darklord: Ankhtepot - Hallmarks: Ancient tombs, desert perils, lost gods, mummies
The sands of time bury the desert realm of Har’Akir. Here, the wonders of fallen empires and pyramids of forgotten pharaohs crumble beneath a merciless sun. Untold generations of tombs and secrets lie beneath the sands, markers of a history the land’s few residents know of only in story and song. Their interest in past splendor is smothered, as life is harsh in Har’Akir and the living exist only to serve a deathless god-king.

 

Darklord: Hazlik - Hallmarks: Amoral spellcasters, magic-ravaged environment, magical experiments, wild magic
In Hazlan, magic is authority, justification for any excess, and—for those without it—the specter of inevitable doom. This domain is less a nation than a vast magical laboratory, whose wizard overlord Hazlik views every being as either an apprentice or a test subject. He conscripts those he acknowledges as lesser wizards into performing elaborate magical experiments, twisting the fabric of magic and reality until it frays. These experiments endlessly scar a domain drained of vitality, tortured by magical disasters, and overrun with abominations. The greatest wounds affect the invisible flows of magic underpinning the land, turning it erratic and dangerous.

 

Darklord: Tsien Chiang - Hallmarks: Endlessly changing labyrinth, deadly jiangshi, inescapable dreamworld
When the inhabitants of I’Cath fall asleep, they enter an alternate version of the city they call home—a city dreamed into being by the domain’s Darklord. In time, these poor souls can’t remember which version is the real I’Cath and which one is the dream.

 

Darklord: Ramya Vasavadan - Hallmarks: Monstrous leaders, family intrigue, war-torn nation
For untold generations, the Vasavadan dynasty has ruled over the Great Kingdom of Kalakeri. This land was one of stability and prosperity until a barbarous civil war and a queen’s dying curse brought low what centuries never could. Once an unrivaled power known throughout the world for its rare resources and vibrant trade, Kalakeri is now locked in an endless storm of violence. At the center of that storm stand the remnants of the Vasavadan: three heirs transformed into unspeakable monsters by their depravity and hatred.

 

Darklord: Harkon Lukas - Hallmarks: Hidden identities, dangerous performances, exploitative ambitions, werewolves
Kartakass is a vast stage that serenades the ambitious with promises of fame. Performance is a way of life in this forested domain, with everyone from the bards of Skald to the actors of Emherst pursuing dazzling dreams. Here, the people live by a simple rule: never let an audience grow bored.

 

Darklord: Viktra Mordenheim - Hallmarks: Amoral science, bizarre constructs, frigid wilderness, mutagenic radiation - Life is cheap in Lamordia. As far as the land’s esteemed scholars are concerned, the spark that animates flesh is merely the result of chemical accidents and the proper formulas. Golems, homunculi, and other constructed beings groan to life to support a populace desperate to survive in this frigid realm.

 

Darklord: Wilfred Godefroy - Hallmarks: Ancestral curses, haunted mansions, mist-shrouded moors, vengeful spirits - When death occurs in Mordent, it doesn’t signal a passage to a state of rest, or an end to the struggle of mortal existence. Death here heralds the beginning of a haunted afterlife as a restless spirit. The dead earn no rest, no finality, no peace—just a passage into a shadow world of wispy phantoms, mournful groaning, and clanking chains.

 

Darklord: Jacqueline Renier - Hallmarks: Contagion, crumbling infrastructure, martial law, rats and vermine, wererats
Like a pendulum, Richemulot swings perpetually between hope and despair. Some days, the sun rises over Pont-a-Museau as if it were an ordinary city, and not one in which many of the buildings stand empty and abandoned. On those days, people move freely through the open gates, and the silent, heavily armored guards of the Casques Silencieux watch over calm promenades and markets. But a day or a week or a month later, the first telltale cough cracks amid the crowd. As people evacuate the streets and lock their doors, rats crawl from the sewers in tremendous numbers. Shortly thereafter, the gates slam shut. No doctors come, and no information arrives; the populace is left to die.

 

Darklord: Mother Lorinda - Hallmarks: Fey bargains, nature worship, rural festivals, secret sacrifices
All is well in Tepest. Fields shine with the golden hues of a bountiful harvest, and horned village children happily recite sing-song rhymes. But those who linger among this land’s pastures and colorful cottages can’t escape the feeling of being watched, or the impression that the idyllic fields have a distinctly somber cast. The locals dismiss such worries as the tricks of scheming fey, but their smiles fail to mask the desperation in their eyes.

 

Darklord: Chakuna - Hallmarks: Diabolical traps, hostile wilderness, survival games
In the jungles of Valachan, survivors must guard their hearts lest something monstrous eat them. For some, that risk is worth the reward of the unusual plants and magical creatures this land is home to. But Valachan is fiercely protected by its Darklord, the devious and immortal hunter Chakuna. She roams the jungles hunting dangerous beasts—and when she grows dissatisfied with simpler prey, she draws sapient quarry into a fatal contest.

 

Darklord: The Last Passenger - Hallmarks: Escape from disaster, lightning rail
The disaster known as the Mourning numbers among the greatest tragedies to befall the world of Eberron—a mysterious calamity that killed nearly everyone in the land of Cyre. In the nation’s capital of Metrol, some citizens foresaw the coming devastation and sought to escape upon lightning rails, elemental-powered engines capable of pulling trains of passenger carriages. As scared innocents packed Metrol’s last lightning rail, known as Cyre 1313, the evacuation was delayed at the demand of a late-arriving VIP. Hundreds were forced from passenger carriages to admit and maintain the secrecy of this last passenger and their retinue. When the lightning rail did finally depart, it was too late. The disaster of the Mourning overtook the train and its hundreds of escapees. But even as it did, the Mists claimed Cyre 1313 and all aboard it. Now, the last lightning rail from Metrol hurtles through the Mists as a traveling domain. Those on board fear the disaster pursuing them, the mysterious passenger seated in the train’s foremost carriage, and the necrotic energy now infusing the engine’s elemental spirit. Yet none of the passengers realize their endless escape is pointless, as Cyre 1313 carries only the dead.

 

Darklord: Tristen ApBlanc - Hallmarks: Life and death, strange invention
Tristen ApBlanc was born amid tragedy, the son of a vampire father and a human noble. His parents were murdered by fearful villagers, leaving Tristen to be adopted by local druids. But during his teenage years, Tristen’s dhampir nature revealed itself. When the druids discovered the youth’s hunger for blood, they cast him out, but Tristen grew enraged and slaughtered the druids, draining them all. The sacred waters of the druids’ rituals had infused their blood, though, making it poison to the half-vampire. Tristen died with his adopted family, but as the Mists closed in around their sacred stone circle, he rose a ghost. Unexpectedly, with the dawn, Tristen’s dhampir body was restored. Now, Tristen lives by day, a perpetually young, charming, invention-obsessed dhampir dwelling in Castle Tristenoira, the smoking fortress his goblin servants built over the druid circle of his one-time family. At night, though, the young dhampir dies a painful death, in his spectral form, and seeks to scour all that is green and vibrant from his land.

 

Darklord: Marquis Stezen D'Polarno - Hallmarks: Cursed art, dour population
A notorious hedonist, Marquis Stezen D’Polarno was popular among his noble peers but craved immortality. A mysterious artist offered him eternity by painting D’Polarno’s portrait upon a magical canvas. But the artist didn’t mention that the painting would strip D’Polarno of his love of life and natural charm. The marquis has discovered a reprieve from his now-dulled existence, however—once every season, when he shows the painting to an audience, it consumes their souls and refreshes his thrill for life. D’Polarno’s artistic predations captured the attention of the Dark Powers, which drew his lands into the Mists. Now, Ghastria is a fertile island that, like its lord, lacks an essential vim except for once a season when vigor fleetingly returns.

 

Darklord: Yagno Petrovna - Hallmarks: Corrupt theocracy, false deity
Born of a Barovian family, Yagno Petrovna went missing upon the slopes of Mount Ghakis as a youth. As a violent storm rose, he took shelter in a mysterious ruin and was found wandering the hills weeks later, babbling about an amber idol and the god he’d discovered, Zhakata the Provider and the Devourer. His family sought to help him, but when they discovered Yagno secretly sacrificing people to his fictitious god, they chased him into the Mists. When Yagno emerged, the domain of G’henna sprawled before him.

 

Darklord: Gabrielle Aderre - Hallmarks: Bad parents, possessed children
Gabrielle Aderre is convinced that her son, Malocchio, is destined for greatness. From her estate outside the village of Karina, she employs an endless string of servants to provide Malocchio the best possible upbringing. Inevitably, though, every servant flees or vanishes, either as a result of Gabrielle’s unreasonable expectations or the deadly tricks and accidents that frequently occur around the child. Gabrielle isn’t content to leave her son’s grand destiny to chance, though. Using her precious bone spirit board, she calls upon supernatural forces to guide and protect her son. Spirits, angels, fiends, and worse answer her summons, but as long as they chart Malocchio’s path to glory, Gabrielle eagerly accepts their gifts.

 

Darklord: Tristessa - Hallmarks: Banshee, silent village
The forbidding land of Keening is dominated by Mount Lament, at whose base lies the village of Anwrtyn, where all the residents are deaf. This is no accident, for the locals purposefully deafen themselves so they won’t hear the shrieking of the banshee Tristessa, a mournful spirit who roams Mount Lament and whose wail carries through the night. In life, Tristessa dwelled under Mount Arak in Tepest (detailed earlier in this chapter), but she was exiled for crimes against her people. In death, she endlessly seeks to be reunited with the family slain by her misdeeds.

 

Darklord: Klorr - Hallmarks: Impending doom, surreal environment
Klorr is the end of worlds. Here, shattered islands drift through a misty netherworld, caught in a swirling spiral that ends at the unignorable, burning eye called Klorr. Thirteen stars orbit this sun-like sphere, one winking out every hour. Each time one of the stars dies, one of the domain’s ruined islands is drawn into Klorr and consumed by flames. With it, each other island wrenches ahead, then halts, one hour closer to the same doom.

 

Darklord: Dr. Frantisek Markov - Hallmarks: Depraved science, sapient animals
Dr. Frantisek Markov is a genius—but less so than yesterday. His Markov Formula grants him unparalleled intellect, but it insidiously steals more than it gives, making him increasingly dull-witted and bestial in form. Despairing, the doctor fled to a tropical island he dubbed Markovia, where he tests new versions of his formula on the local fauna in hopes of recovering his waning genius. As a result of these tests, animals across Markovia now possess sapience and have been deluded into believing Markov is their god.

 

Darklord: The Nightmare Court - Hallmarks: Nightmares, reoccuring dreams
Any who sleep might close their eyes and become forever trapped in the Nightmare Lands, a phantasmagoric realm whose features shift endlessly. Those who visit and escape speak of malicious wildernesses; the empty city called Nod; and uncountable drifting spheres, each containing a stranger’s unending nightmare. Insidious entities called the Nightmare Court rule the domain. None know how many members compose the court, but they include the tragically graceful Ghost Dancer, the tomb-bound Hypnos, the witch Mullonga, the trickster Morpheus, and the embodiment of terror known as the Nightmare Man. These beings are artisans of nightmares, visiting terrors upon any whose sleeping minds brush against the domain.

 

Darklord: Sarthak - Hallmarks: Asceticism, brainwashing, shadows
An island chain that once belonged to the domain of Kalakeri, the Ashram of Niranjan was a vibrant vihara, or monastery, for ascetic scholars who practiced Ramsana, a way of life whose central tenet advises nonattachment to the material world. Now only a small, reclusive group of these scholars remains, led by the elderly sadhu (holy figure) Niranjan. In truth, Niranjan is Sarthak, a wicked bronze dragon who send agents into the Mists bearing his philosophical writings. These works promise escape and peace to any who adopt their teachings and search the Mists for their source. Anyone who comes to the ashram must divest themselves of worldly goods, which are added to Sarthak’s hidden hoard. The false sadhu then helps his victim enter a blissful trance that causes their soul to slip away from their body over the course of days. Sarthak consumes this soul and replaces it with a Shadow, leaving the victim’s body under his control.

 

Darklord: Myar Hiregaard - Hallmarks: Nomadic riders, transformation
An unparalleled warrior, Myar Hiregaard united the nomadic tribes of the vast plains of Nova Vaasa. But, while respected as a soldier, Myar made a poor peacetime leader. When brutal games could no longer keep her interest, she incited hostilities between two of her vassal tribes, then led her own forces to crush them. Subtly, she did this again and again. After Myar’s greatest massacre, the Mists enfolded all of Nova Vaasa, splitting Myar’s personality in two when they did. Now she rules her people with strict fairness, but when her bloodlust is piqued, she transforms into the raging knight called Malkan and sows discord across the plains.

 

Darklord: Maligno - Hallmarks: Evil toys, village of children
The toymaker Guiseppe had his wish for a family granted when his creation, the marionette Figlio, came to life. A proud father, the toymaker presented his son to all the other people of his village, Odaire. The local children loved Figlio, but their parents were skeptical, saying the marionette was nothing but a toy. Over time, this doubt enraged Figlio, and the marionette convinced Guiseppe to craft siblings for him. Then, when the time was right, Guiseppe’s creations did away with all the adults in Odaire. Claimed by the Mists, Odaire is a village populated only by children and ruled by the carrionette Figlio, who now calls himself Maligno.

 

Darklord: The Headless Rider - Hallmarks: Haunted bridge, murderous legend
Nearly every domain knows some version of the apparition called the Headless Rider. It appears as a mercenary in dark armor in Mordent, a ghostly cataphract in Har’Akir, and a mutated centaur in Lamordia, but in each incarnation certain details remain true: the rider is missing its head, it appears upon a prominent bridge, and it decapitates victims as it endlessly searches for its own head. Should someone escape an encounter with the Headless Rider, they might find a different domain on the opposite side of the spirit’s bridge.

 

Darklord: Doerdon - Hallmarks: Misdirection, ventriloquism
The Risibilos is a small music hall, similar to those found in any decent-sized city. Its lord, Doerdon, was once a king—one so thoroughly humorless that he forbade his subjects the privilege of laughter, upon pain of death. He is now cursed to entertain others, a task he is utterly unqualified for.

 

Darklord: Lemont Sediam Juste - Hallmarks: Reality-manipulating theater
Lemont Sediam Juste fancied himself a serious playwright, and he achieved popular, if not critical, acclaim throughout Dementlieu for his works of grisly horror. But he craved respectability, and with his new play Apparitions, Lemont believed he would find it. The night of the premiere, when the audience signaled their boredom, the playwright was crestfallen. His supporters wanted blood, so he gave them what they craved. By the play’s end, Lemont had joined the play and viscerally murdered every member of the cast while the crowd roared their approval. As the show ended, the playhouse broke from Dementlieu, and Scaena was formed. Comprising a single playhouse, the domain can create any reality Lemont desires upon its stage. The Darklord’s immersive performances are somewhat predictable, though, as they always end in slaughter.

 

Darklord: Pietra van Riese - Hallmarks: Island domains, nautical horror
The murderous pirate Pietra van Riese, captain of the Relentless, had an unsavory reputation for attaching her captives to ropes and dragging them through the water until they drowned. She never removed the detritus of her victims, even though some returned to life as zombies. The Relentless was ultimately sunk by rival captains, but death couldn’t keep Pietra. She awoke in the Sea of Sorrows, water in her lungs and sea creatures making their homes in her flesh. Her crew stirred with her, now fish-eaten corpses. When Pietra sought to speak with them, her voice emerged from their mouths.

 

Darklord: Ebonbane - Hallmarks: Falls from grace, heroic sacrifice
Within this forested land of peasants and heroes dwells an order of questing knights known as the Circle. These knights seek to vanquish evil, following the example of their founder, the paladin Kateri Shadowborn. Even long generations after Kateri’s death, members of the Shadowborn family still number among the Circle, their heroics known across the Shadowlands and in other domains. Yet despite their victories, the foes and failures of these knights are ever drawn back to the Shadowlands, filling it with vengeful souls and monsters. These include villains such as the necromancer Morgoroth; the fallen paladin Elena Faith-hold; and Ebonbane, Kateri Shadowborn’s accursed sword.

 

Darklord: Anton Misroi - Hallmarks: Imprisonment, swamp magic
In society, Anton Misroi presented himself as an upstanding gentleman. But within the walls of the prison over which he was warden, he was a sadist who believed righteousness was on his side. When his torturous punishments finally drove the prison’s inmates to rise up, the bloody riot that ensued drew the attentions of the Dark Powers. During the uprising, Misroi was drowned in the swamps surrounding the prison. But he rose again soon after, an undead warden in search of inmates.

 

Darklord: Teresa Bleysmith - Hallmarks: Endless warfare, repeating history
Eerily faceless mercenary regiments sweep the countryside of Staunton Bluffs. Burning villages and killing helpless residents, they push ever eastward toward Castle Stonecrest, hereditary home of the Bleysmith family. Teresa Bleysmith, spurred by jealousy of her brother, Torrence, gave her family’s foes the intelligence they needed to raid Staunton Bluffs. The attack was never supposed to go so far, but the duplicitous mercenaries stormed through the countryside to take Castle Stonecrest within a day. Teresa survived the attack, but when she surveyed the damage done and found her family dead by her own designs, she threw herself from the bluffs. Now she haunts her own domain, where she repeatedly relives the day of her betrayal.

 

Darklord: Kas the Bloody Handed - Hallmarks: Undead military dictatorship
Notorious across the planes, the vampire Kas was once the champion of the lich Vecna. Wielding the artifact that bears his name, he betrayed his master, and the resulting battle supposedly destroyed them both. In truth, Vecna escaped and grew in power over ages and across worlds. Kas, though, was claimed by the Mists, and in his wasteland domain of Tovag, he believes his war with Vecna rages on. Patrols of prisoner-soldiers under undead commanders scour the land, dragooning strangers to serve in Kas’s armies and to manufacture bizarre war machines. When Kas deems the time right, he sends his forces into the Mists, believing that Vecna’s realm lies just beyond. Invariably, those troops never return, leaving the vampire to rage, rebuild his forces, and continue his search for the Sword of Kas, which he considers his key to victory.

 

Darklord: Filmira Vhage - Hallmarks: Detective work, memory loss
Everything inside the office of the Vhage Agency appears as a monotone gray. Anyone who passes the frosted glass door that leads into this single-room domain is expected by Flimira “Flintlock” Vhage, the detective agency’s   From this hub for occult detective adventures, Vhage collects mysterious correspondence relating to mysteries all across the Domains of Dread. She enlists agents to investigate these cases, and then report back to her. However, she never reveals her own past as a detective turned criminal, her involvement in every case her agency investigates, or that the Vhage Agency exists entirely within her mind.

 

Darklord: Sodo - Hallmarks: Serial murderers, urban decay
Each day, the city of Paridon in Zherisia erupts in riots over food scarcity, taxation, and citizens who go missing by the dozens every night. At least one murderer stalks Paridon: the ancient doppelganger Sodo, who has impersonated so many people that it now finds it impossible to hold a form for more than a few days at a time. As Sodo’s flesh runs like hot wax, it staves off dissolution by consuming the organs of humanoids. Paridon’s streets serve as the doppelganger’s hunting ground, and those who enter the sewers risk attracting the notice of countless Carrion Stalker and their monstrous Hive Queen.