D&D General What other famous D&D villains deserve to be Dark Lords?

[MonsterEnvy]

For the most part I don’t feel D&D villains deserve to be Darklords. It’s a punishment that slots them into a particular role.

 

[Voadam]

Ashardalon was mentioned a few times upthread, as well as another dragon or two. I'm coming up blank; are there any dragon Dark Lords? I think that would be interesting.

I believe 4e had one in a Dungeon issue. I believe he was tied into the Arkhosia vs Bael Turath war plot line.

AD&D Ravenloft was against dragons in the setting for the most part.

 

[humble minion]

Dragons are a bit of a tough sell for Darklords. Darklords (the well-written ones, anyway) are all about the fall or the transgression. You don't generally get to be a Darklord by just sitting on yur pile of gold in your cave, occasionally rampaging, and being continuously, monotonously evil (Vlad Drakov, yes I know you were the exception, but you sucked then too). There has to be a moment at which you choose the unspeakable.

Dragons in D&D tend not to work that way, being largely alignment-locked and colour-coded for your convenience as they are. Off the top of my head, the best candidate I can think of was the silver dragon from a very old Dragonlance module that went crazed after the War of the Lance and started torturing and experimenting on draconians, trying to turn them back into dragons.

 

[Remathilis]

Ashardalon was mentioned a few times upthread, as well as another dragon or two. I'm coming up blank; are there any dragon Dark Lords? I think that would be interesting.

Ashardalon was mentioned a few times upthread, as well as another dragon or two. I'm coming up blank; are there any dragon Dark Lords? I think that would be interesting.

Classic Ravenloft had almost no nonhuman (or started out non-human) Darklords at all. I think there were a few elves (Eason, Trissenta) and the Nightmare Court, but most were either born a human or were a monster that looked human. In hindsight, I think it might have been a missed opportunity to make some new non-human Darklords or move some of the 4e Darklords forward to 5e.

 

[humble minion]

Classic Ravenloft had almost no nonhuman (or started out non-human) Darklords at all.

Ravenloft has always been the setting for approximately human-looking bad guys. Lycanthropes or golems were common enough, but beyond that? As far as genuine nonhumanoid monsters go, even way back in the AD&D era there was what, Gwydion, King Crocodile, the Elder Brain, and then ...? I suppose Ebonbane sorta counts.

I largely skipped over the 4e era so might have missed some stuff, but to my knowledge there's never even been a dwarf or halfling or gnome darklord.

 

[Remathilis]

Ravenloft has always been the setting for approximately human-looking bad guys. Lycanthropes or golems were common enough, but beyond that? As far as genuine nonhumanoid monsters go, even way back in the AD&D era there was what, Gwydion, King Crocodile, the Elder Brain, and then ...? I suppose Ebonbane sorta counts.

I largely skipped over the 4e era so might have missed some stuff, but to my knowledge there's never even been a dwarf or halfling or gnome darklord.

Aside from Eason (wood elf) and Trissenta (drow), you got to go all the way to 4e to find another PC race darklord who isn't human. (Sunderheart is co-ruled by two tiefling lovers). Kinda a missed opportunity with 5e to open up and design some new non-human Darklords

 

[Remathilis]

Oh there IS a dragon darklord. He is called Arantor and he is an undead silver dragon who betrayed Arkhosia and found himself ruling a domain of traitors, betrayers and anarchists called Monadhan.

Man, those 4e domains would make a sweet option to rework. Unfortunately, 4e lore is memory-holded.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Venger (or better yet, the Dungeon Master!) should be the Dark Lord of the Realm.

 

[Green Giant]

Rhoubhe Manslayer from the Birthright Campaign Setting. Curse is he can no longer directly hurt humans (his sword swings miss, his arrows fly astray, his spells fail to take hold, etc.)

Heck, many of the Awnsheghlien can fit into Ravenloft with a little work.

 

[haakon1]

4e lore is memory-holded.

What does that mean? You think WotC doesn’t like 4e content, or something more?

And is “memory-holded” a term? (Taps on iPad.) My internet speak does not include that term?

Seriously though, a lot of tapping on the iPad, as mine gets stuck even deleting part of the quote, selecting, typing, etc. Seems to be a problem just on ENworld, but perhaps it’s also specific to my device.