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<blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8211444" data-attributes="member: 6915329"><p>A Domain, in most cases, an entire country, with lots of other people living there. As an aside, there was at least some debate as to whether or not those people were <em>real </em>people, or just copies of people (and thus, whether it was OK, alignment-wise, to then kill them). 5e didn't help much by saying that only 10% of Barovians have souls (which keep getting reincarnated), and those people who don't have souls have really flat affects. Personally, I'm not fond this particular idea, but I can also see it as a reason why the Dark Powers steal people away from the real worlds. Mars wants women, the Dark Powers want fresh souls.</p><p></p><p>Anyway.</p><p></p><p>Most of the people in a Domain are just regular joes who are just trying to live their lives in a place that often is rather awful. A lot of them become rather awful themselves, but in a boring way, so the Dark Powers ignore them. A person who steals from their customers or beats their spouse is banal. But sometimes, they become interestingly evil. Dominic's highly condensed backstory is, even at a very young age, he was a quintessential Whispers Bard with maxed-out Charisma who manipulated everyone for the heck of it, and people felt sorry for him because he was a cute wittle kid who's mom died in childbirth. So even if they realized how manipulative he was, they allowed it. One day, his actions ended up drawing too much attention and so to avoid it he convinced his family to move away. And thus, the Dark Powers created Dementlieu. </p><p></p><p>Another weird trick of the Dark Powers that they can create false histories and false memories, so even if Dementlieu never existed before that point, everyone now believed it <em>always had</em>. </p><p></p><p>So at this point, the Dark Powers started grooming Dominic for evil by rewarding him until his manipulative powers became fully supernatural in nature. As an adult, he became one of the advisors to the Governor of Dementlieu and the country's Darklord. Maybe he was the Darklord the second he entered Dementlieu that but didn't realize it until he reached adulthood. I dunno; there aren't any canonical child Darklords that I can think of.</p><p></p><p>So that's how a person from one domain can become a Darklord of another.</p><p></p><p>In rereading what (very little) has been written about Jack Karn, the jackelwere you mentioned, I see another misunderstanding. His domain, Farelle, doesn't reset. <em>Jack</em> does. He simply doesn't die if slain. If you kill Jack--he's not particularly tough--he's reborn in the body of a jackal that happens to be near his tinker's cart. Several DLs are like that. They are reborn, or magically reappear, or simply regenerate even if burned to ash and scattered to the winds. It's part of the curse.</p><p></p><p>Other Darklords <em>can </em>die permanently. The Gabrielle Aderre killed the former Darklord of Invidia. Duke Gundar was slain in an uprising and his body left to rot, and his former domain was split between Barovia and Invidia. Some Darklords continue to age (but usually slowly) and will presumably die of old age even if nothing else kills them. Drakov was like that; he was canonically 90ish but fit like he was in his 30s or 40s. </p><p></p><p>And still other Darklords are simply fired. Nathan Timothy had been bound to a riverboat but ended liking the beer-and-fishing life over the rampaging werewolf life, and so is no longer the Darklord (he's still bound to his boat). Same with Lord Soth, who spent all his time <s>in his holodeck</s> with his magic mirrors and got boring. </p><p></p><p>In <em>these </em>cases, the country is either absorbed by neighboring Domains or a new Darklord is appointed based on whoever nearby deserves it the most. For instance, Dominic has a main rival in the mind-control business. Should Dominic die, then his rival, The Brain (<em>not </em>a mouse) might very well take over--but as it stands, there's very little chance that The Brain will actually get his own Domain. He's evil, but he's not filled with the same kind of hubris that Dominic has.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Faolyn, post: 8211444, member: 6915329"] A Domain, in most cases, an entire country, with lots of other people living there. As an aside, there was at least some debate as to whether or not those people were [I]real [/I]people, or just copies of people (and thus, whether it was OK, alignment-wise, to then kill them). 5e didn't help much by saying that only 10% of Barovians have souls (which keep getting reincarnated), and those people who don't have souls have really flat affects. Personally, I'm not fond this particular idea, but I can also see it as a reason why the Dark Powers steal people away from the real worlds. Mars wants women, the Dark Powers want fresh souls. Anyway. Most of the people in a Domain are just regular joes who are just trying to live their lives in a place that often is rather awful. A lot of them become rather awful themselves, but in a boring way, so the Dark Powers ignore them. A person who steals from their customers or beats their spouse is banal. But sometimes, they become interestingly evil. Dominic's highly condensed backstory is, even at a very young age, he was a quintessential Whispers Bard with maxed-out Charisma who manipulated everyone for the heck of it, and people felt sorry for him because he was a cute wittle kid who's mom died in childbirth. So even if they realized how manipulative he was, they allowed it. One day, his actions ended up drawing too much attention and so to avoid it he convinced his family to move away. And thus, the Dark Powers created Dementlieu. Another weird trick of the Dark Powers that they can create false histories and false memories, so even if Dementlieu never existed before that point, everyone now believed it [I]always had[/I]. So at this point, the Dark Powers started grooming Dominic for evil by rewarding him until his manipulative powers became fully supernatural in nature. As an adult, he became one of the advisors to the Governor of Dementlieu and the country's Darklord. Maybe he was the Darklord the second he entered Dementlieu that but didn't realize it until he reached adulthood. I dunno; there aren't any canonical child Darklords that I can think of. So that's how a person from one domain can become a Darklord of another. In rereading what (very little) has been written about Jack Karn, the jackelwere you mentioned, I see another misunderstanding. His domain, Farelle, doesn't reset. [I]Jack[/I] does. He simply doesn't die if slain. If you kill Jack--he's not particularly tough--he's reborn in the body of a jackal that happens to be near his tinker's cart. Several DLs are like that. They are reborn, or magically reappear, or simply regenerate even if burned to ash and scattered to the winds. It's part of the curse. Other Darklords [I]can [/I]die permanently. The Gabrielle Aderre killed the former Darklord of Invidia. Duke Gundar was slain in an uprising and his body left to rot, and his former domain was split between Barovia and Invidia. Some Darklords continue to age (but usually slowly) and will presumably die of old age even if nothing else kills them. Drakov was like that; he was canonically 90ish but fit like he was in his 30s or 40s. And still other Darklords are simply fired. Nathan Timothy had been bound to a riverboat but ended liking the beer-and-fishing life over the rampaging werewolf life, and so is no longer the Darklord (he's still bound to his boat). Same with Lord Soth, who spent all his time [S]in his holodeck[/S] with his magic mirrors and got boring. In [I]these [/I]cases, the country is either absorbed by neighboring Domains or a new Darklord is appointed based on whoever nearby deserves it the most. For instance, Dominic has a main rival in the mind-control business. Should Dominic die, then his rival, The Brain ([I]not [/I]a mouse) might very well take over--but as it stands, there's very little chance that The Brain will actually get his own Domain. He's evil, but he's not filled with the same kind of hubris that Dominic has. [/QUOTE]
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