#so ... azalin ??? what the fuck ???
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[gripping my desk, teeth clenched, fifteen espressos empty around me] i just need another tattoo
#i'm kidding i don't do caffeine#but if i don't get some more ink by the end of the year i Will go apeshit actually#i need the fuckign. vonZ crest somewhere#also azalin's fiery eye sigil#bc putting both of those on the same body couldn't POSSIBLY have consequences hghdg#and god now i gotta think about what to do with my scars#teeth? teeth would fuck so hard
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Love making memes out of the late/end-of-campaign plans I have floating around in my head
#blood cw#blood#gore cw#gore#ravenloft#strahd von zarovich#azalin rex#saidra d'honaire#(I changed her last name in my campaign for reasons but nevertheless)#I will gladly provide context to what the fuck this image is about if asked#but it is late and I must snooze#for now just know that I saw Saidra and said 'Okay but you know what would be cool? If she could bend and meld flesh and bone at will.'#my ideas are ridiculous but I am having a good time so#oh yeah also since I got real tired by the end#that stuff along the clock is flesh and muscle tissue btw
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I'm sorry but what is Azalin doing there chatting casually with VR ? Like I know it's Darkon and everything but I really didn't remember ... this ... in this story.
#myst is asleep I can read in peace more than 3 pages in 4 hours#so ... azalin ??? what the fuck ???#hnk ramblings#reading tales of ravenloft 1994 and discovering I never bothered to read the first novel in the book only to read the caretaker#like wtf though I didn't remember the part where in VR's backstory he just met with azalin in the forest after an attack xD ?#who's impersonating lord rex ...#or this actually happened ?#like ... no srsly beyonce meme but with azalin right now
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also: real fuckin funny to me the boundary between the cos enjoyers and then the Ravenloft Gang Gang
#in that if you read someone's description you can immediately tell what faction they ally#im thinking about the fuckin#dog enjoyers: this is 1/4th lab 1/4th pitbull 1/32nd ass whooper and 15/32nds cool as fuck#cat enjoyers: he is orange#NOT TRYING TO START SHIT I PROMISE LMAO#i just get so confused when anyone talks about azalin rex LMAO ive gotta plow through war against Heem
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This week in Barovia Darkon....
Compiled from like four maps, including the VRGTR one. I had a proper think, read three of the Ravenloft books that detail information on Darkon/Azalin, read the VRGTR chapter on the topic and discarded most of it, and read part of an AD&D adventure set in Darkon/Barovia and discarded a lot of that, too.
Anyway. A few towns have flipped which side of the river they're on and I'm not 100% sure I have ALL small settlements, but if you want a high resolution map of Darkon for your adventures, hit me up?
But I digress.
This week, my players headed to Tempe Falls and were shocked to find a relatively normal town. Like. Okay, it's boring, but that seemed to be the worst of it. There was way more racial diversity than they're used to (Barovia being almost entirely humans with the odd dusk elf for variety). The innkeeper cheerily sold them four rooms and they settled in to enjoy some decent dwarven alcohol.
(Their was a funny moment when everyone collectively realized that a: they have a TON of gold and jewels from the amber temple and b: they probably can't use the gold because it all has Strahd's face on it and all they know about Darkon is that it went to war with Barovia at some point in the past.)
There were some people in the inn: assorted traders, a clerk who appeared to be staying in town while doing some audits or paperwork or something, and a couple of guard/soldier types with some kind of chain denoting rank as part of their uniform. They also had a chat with a somewhat disoriented sorcerer, one Firan Zal'honen. He claims to have only emerged from the mists himself a few weeks ago. I'm sure he's nothing to worry about. It's fine.
Anyway.
The party traded gold for a carriage and two draft horses, on the grounds that they now have
the cleric
the rogue
the fighter
the artificer
the wizard
the bard
Ireena Kolyana
Ludmilla Vilisevic
Volenta Popofsky
and of those, the wizard, the artificer, and the two vampires have issues with sunlight. Oh, and Darkon has an excess of suns. It's fine.
They then decided that they ought to try and find a larger town. The innkeeper gave them the skinny and said that Corvia is a decently big place, but Il Aluk is an actual city. She also warned them to please, fucking PLEASE follow the laws or else they're likely to end up in a world of trouble. The party did briefly lose their minds when they noticed a piebald raven flying around town that headed back to the inn where they're staying. Again, it's fine.
Then they headed out of the Balinok mountains and into the foothills and the town of Mayvin. It's a gnomish town with a massive clocktower and patent hall; the artificer is delighted.
The local scuttlebut is that something really fucking bad happened in Il Aluk and the golden star in the sky overhead appeared shortly thereafter. So naturally my players are like, "WELL WE GOTTA GO THERE!" They also heard the name "Castle Avernus" and the fighter (originally and quite recently from the Forgotten Realms) started freaking out about Elturel. The players also noticed something really off about the (as yet unnamed) Kargat stationed in Mayvin. I ruled that they have no good way of knowing exactly what the Kargat are, though, since the concept of ghouled mortals is basically nonexistent in DnD. (I saw a sidebar in the Ravenloft Gazetteer and thought it was interesting enough to include it...)
My reading list for this week is the first half of The Neverending Story, because I feel like The Nothing is a decent analogue for what's happening, slowly, to Avernus while Firan is swanning about near the borders.
#curse of strahd#curse of azalin?#this took a turn for the weird#but hey if you're gonna escape Strahd because he Personally Hates You#there are worst approaches to diving into the mists and heading for a guy who hates him at least as much as he hates you#although I shudder to think what he'd do with Tatyana if he had the genuine article#darkon#ravenloft#maps#map of darkon#dnd#dungeons and dragons#dungeons and/or dragons#strahd von zarovich#azalin rex#firan zal'honen
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PLEASE talk to me about Azalin, I want to hear every word of your take on him.
ANON, I AM SO HAPPY YOU ASKED ME THAT! I don't have a COMPLETE picture yet since I haven't read every single ravenloft supplement and novel, but I think I've read enough to put together a picture of what this man would be like in a relationship.
WARNING, I talk about his sex life and what his kinks are under the readmore. Another content warning for unhealthy relationship dynamics. Proceed with caution!
SO. Azalin Rex. Darklord of Darkon. Before we really get started, let's establish one thing.
From what I've seen, the only canonical time we see Azalin go out of his way for a sexual relationship is when he wanted a son. It wasn't out of love or lust, it was to secure an heir to Knurl.
A lot of people speculate that Azalin is aroace, and I can totally see that.
HOWEVER.
I also think, at the same time, he's a massive fucking pervert who gets off on other things.
Alt Text:
"Azalin encourages his subjects to debase themselves as a method of societal control and to soothe his battered ego. He throws depraved, seasonal masquerades for the nobility to flaunt his superiority; he toys with his servants' allegiances, seeing how far they will sink to curry his favor. Azalin has honed torment to an art form."
This is an excerpt from one of the Ravenloft source books, and I think it perfectly illustrates what I'm talking about.
The biggest turn-on for Azalin Rex is power over others.
He doesn't join in the debauchery, he observes it. He sits back, gets comfortable, and watches people debase themselves. He tests people and sees how far they'll push themselves before they break. All because they want to please him and want his praise.
I think Azalin loves that. I think he loves having that power over so many people, and that he can have near-complete control over anyone he wants.
Hell, even in the questionable book Tower of Doom, where we see Azalin seduce one of his Kargat officers, it still plays into the dynamic we've established. He knows sex is a highly motivating reward. A high value treat, if you will. She did a good job, and sexual contact is particularly motivating for a lot of people, especially when it's with someone you would do anything to please.
The fact that close-contact sex with Azalin is apparently necrotic and her flesh starts to rot afterwards is another point. Azalin will cure the necrosis and restore her body when she returns, but only if she finishes the job he dispatched her to do. She is effectively on a time limit now, frantically trying to do what was asked of her so she doesn't die horribly.
Now, to be fair, I don't consider Tower of Doom to be canon. But it fits my hypothesis of Azalin's biggest kink being utter domination over others.
So what does that mean for a romantic relationship?
I think any relationship with Azalin Rex is going to be unhealthy at its core. He's a manipulative bastard who likes to watch how far people will go to please him. And it's not going to be a 'traditional' relationship--like I said, we never see him express any sort of interest in one in any of the canon supplements. A relationship with Azalin is going to be because he thinks it would be beneficial to him in some way, even if he is fond of the other person.
If he's still ruling over Darkon, I can see him taking someone as a partner if only because he's sick of his sycophantic court trying to throw their daughters at him in marriage. Very much an exasperated "You'll do" sentiment where it's more out of convenience than sexual attraction.
Even if he actually really likes the person he's with, he's still going to be subjugating them to his will, and that's just something that comes with the territory. Fundamentally, I think Azalin Rex is incapable of respecting anyone as an equal, and that's going to impact all of his interactions with people, romantic relationships included.
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decided to sketch hoagie / agatha because self indulgence
ok so context about creating this pc:
the first CoS campaign i ever played was also my first time EVER playing 5e, cuz we moved from GURPS to 5e for CoS. either way, the CoS 1 DM pulled each player aside to help us manually make our character sheets. DM pulls me aside and is like 'ok what do you wanna play?' and me, with no context of CoS or 5e at all during the entire creation process, was like, 'i wanna be a redhead evadey vampire-hunter PC! oh i wanna call her Valentina, so gothic romantic! it fits!' and anyways my DM was like 'did you read the module?' and i felt bad like something was wrong but he wouldnt explain to me. so, with still no context i was all big brain like, 'okay nevermind. ill make something new that isnt related to that at redhead pc idea at all. give this new PC all the possible curses, corruption, suffering stuff! i dont care if she gets corrupted, dies, or goes insane, woo!' - and anyways the DM was way too onboard and gave my PC amnesia due to all the curses so i knew she was gonna go through ✨ trauma ✨
ok anyways here hoagie lore:
shes my cos/multicampaign piglin PC who is having an enjoyable corruption arc. since shes influenced by my cracked headcanon minecraft piglin lore, i decided to make her a yugoloth 'prototype soul' who reincarnates (pseudo-soul) repeatedly to gather souls for her 'prototype soul' back in her home plane. the more souls she collects the more corrupt she becomes. (DMs have me roll to discreetly steal souls from the party hehe. if i get 'caught' the party can kill me or exile me from the party, which happened at the end of LMoP then she got attacked by a warlock of azalin so thats something but anyways)
she consumes souls using her lil black book that she carries with her everywhere. the black book was a trinket but the CoS - 1 DM and LMoP DM, both made it where it was her personal journal and her warlock (strahd) pact tome. i made strahd the patron for obvious reasons but also because in CoS - 1, the DM decided to secretly make her a strahd consort, as he was entering her dreams trying to manipulate/soothe her while she was dealing with other curses stacking and breaking her sanity.
the DM never told me how charmed she was, but when she was conscious, she would react to things not there. except it was THERE BECAUSE STRAHD WAS STALKING US FUCK OYU STRA anyways her dreams got more and more corrupt cuz she was suffering from like the other stack of curses. my DM didnt tell me any of these curses until it was naturally revealed and she had to roll wis saves to not have a mental break down. shes fine though shes got strahd and i hate my dm for literally not telling me she was a consort until after the campaign ended but he couldnt say cuz it was one of the potential reveals where she wouldve betrayed the party
but yes thank you for reading
random junk here:
CoS 1 = Curse of Strahd (Ended. Strahd's Beloved Killed by the Abbot)
CoS 2 = Curse of Strahd (20 BC years after CoS 1. Ongoing, Strahd's Beloved Alive and in love with a PC)
LMoP = Lost Mine of Phandelver
N/A = Not Available until in-campaign reveal
ok goodbye!!
#syrips pc: hoagie#syrips pc: agatha#pc art#curse of strahd spoilers#one day ill play my valentina PC#syrips art
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3+5 for Mallory and/or 9+10 for temp!
3. What was their most expensive purchase/where does their disposable income go? (Gets you thinking about socio-economic class, values, and how they spend their leisure time)
I don't know if I think that Mallory ever had much in the way of disposable income, but I certainly think they've always had an allowance. I think a lot of their budget may have gone towards very nice clothing, and their most expensive purchase was likely a spell scroll way back in the day--their sister, Pexeva, lost her tongue to Azalin's machinations. I think they've have tried greater restoration, for her. I do not think they succeeded.
5. What was the last time they cried, and under what circumstances? (Good way to get some *emotional* backstory in.)
So, trait I haven't talked about--Mallory is a Huge Fucking Crybaby. I think they cried somewhat recently in campaign--while they were absolutely shitfaced drunk. Wasn't even an emotional cry--they just wanted to not be drunk anymore, and that wasn't happening, and it was big scawy.
9. What is their favorite holiday?
Oh, man, time to speculate about holidays in Candle Keep. I've always thought of Temp as kind of a summer person, so I think there's probably some sort of first-fruit harvest festival he was in love with as a kid and still has a grudging respect for now. Temp isn't a klepto, he's just a hoarder--doesn't know what he might need--but this kinda takes that pressure off; fruit doesn't keep. He can think in wants, not needs.
10. [opens inventory] No, but to be more practical about it--obviously Temperance post-campaign and traumatized has a few affects he keeps on him, but there's a thru-line even before that. He's got a little hand-comb, I think, because his hair can be unruly and even as a semi-feral ten year old, you only get it so matted the once. A loop of string, because the man has fidgety tendencies. His journal, and later *Ivan's* journal, which he does not ever drop. A sewing kit that came with several needles and is down to one which makes that one needle VERY precious.
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Making myself sad thinking about how upset Valentine will be when she finds out what happened to Uriah and Nahara.
Like she's Captain Free Will, so I'm picturing a conflicted emotional storm of They Chose This And Are Being Stupidly Noble But Also Fuck Azalin Rex Severely My Friends Deserved Better And He Kind Of Forced Them To Live Like This With His Bullshit.
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Tales from D&D: Polycule Therapy
[Hello. It's been a bit since I wrote one of these.
This is about my Ravenloft campaign, with a party that I had to split (scheduling became nightmarish with getting 8 schedules to align so the party was split into 4/3 players instead of all 7) while doing some neat schenanigans.
So I met with the 3-player party Sunday night and they were the group who were going to get a parleyance with Azalin Rex. The entire reason why is kinda complicated, but TL;DR is that Azalin wants to fuck over the God-Brain and Harkon Lukas in order to help out his adoptive son get the fuck out of Kartakass and Bluetspur. There's more to it/the party's current goals, but it's not relevant to the story. What IS relevant is the conversation Azalin had with Varis, an Astral Self Monk, concerning Barovia.
Varis has been hunting down a group of Ba'al Verzi assassins who had killed his mentor for a while now. Azalin informs him that they're headed for Barovia, and then goes on a small tangent about how Strahd von Zarovich will probably find the party and how he's pathetic and mentions the whole Tatyana situation. He also says,
"He already has an entire harem as well. Three wives and a husband, and yet he still goes after this woman! It's pathetic!"
And then Varis says, "Maybe I can help them out." Azalin does insight, gets a Nat 20, and realizes that Varis may be able to help Azalin annoy an old "comrade" of his.
They formulate a plan where Varis is going to try and message the polycule and slowly pry them away from Strahd. Azalin is 100% on board with this because hey, more ways to torment von Zarovich will forever be a win in his book, and gives him a medallion that can cast Sending 3 times/day to the polycule, or once/day to anyone else.
Operation: Polycule Therapy is a go.
So the party already was making plans on the side to visit Barovia because Azalin's "son" wants to find the Mad Mage and see if he can get the enchantments Azalin had woven around him off, and now they have additional goals; find the assassins and fuck over Strahd's day.
(Of course, Azalin has more plans for Barovia, but that will be revealed later)
The player has already planned out the Sending messages and everything. I get to reprise my role as Escher. This is going to be fucking hilarious. I will give an update (or try to) with the results of this.]
#ravenloft#tales from d&d#curse of strahd#technically relevant lmao#D&D#azalin also bestowed a level in warlock and sorcerer to the two other parts of the 3 person party#its going to be fucking hilarious when the warlock shit goes off#since the player is going only one level in we frankensteined archfey#so when he charms people its the illusory azalin that azalin uses on everyone#and when he frightens its non-illusioned azalin#and altered faerie fire and sleep to command and compelled duel#and also this warlock is int-based because artificer took the offer and it makes sense for azalin#(since we already have an undead warlock i dont mind 2 classes but i dont want overlapping subclasses so i offered fiendlock#and we came up with this. also had the quote#Ah yes#Azalin Rex the Celestial being.#cant wait for this to progress lmao
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how much do you know about the house on gryphon hill? I think it's super interesting
so i skimmed the first section of house on gryphon hill and thought "oh cool! lore!" and then i kept reading and went "wait what" and that just about sums up the module i think hghdg
it's just so weird, like. understandably so, given that it was meant to be a direct sequel to the first ever ravenloft adventure, before anyone knew what they were doing about anything, or had any of the core lore down pat, so it feels very directionless and random looking back on it now.
but also like. blonde strahd. lawful good strahd. strahd is a victor frankenstein and/or dr jekyll type heehoo :) he did a whoopsie but it's a different whoopsie than the one ur thinking of. but now the strahd u do know is here and is evil :( he still has dark hair bc we have to color code our npcs for your convenience. also azalin is here somehow.
i do like how it got later kinda-retconned into "yes, strahd and azalin ended up in mordent during their many escape attempts, and neither of them remember what the fuck happened there. stop asking them." bc that's just funny honestly
i should read the rest of it at some point, i don't think i ever actually finished it
#ravenloft mood#house on gryphon hill is hilarious that's my Official Verdict#almost nonfunctional as a ravenloft module but it's hardly unique in that respect#at least these days
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Strazalin: Our Last Summer, The Ravenloft/ABBA Jukebox Musical
This started as a joke, but now I think it’s pretty great…So I curated a playlist of all ABBA songs which I felt really embodied the story told in I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin by P.J. Elrod. This turned into a pretty great jukebox musical for Ravenloft, and so I’ve written out this analysis. I think this is better than Mamma Mia, so take that as you will. There’s a way that ABBA speaks to Ravenloft like no other musical group will do. Most of this playlist are songs from Strahd’s perspective which is most of the novel too. So here are my ramblings, and there’s a link at the bottom to go follow the playlist on Spotify if interested.
Act 1
1. Our Last Summer - Our story begins with Strahd von Zarovich reminiscing about the time he’s spent with Azalin over the past few summers (many years of summers in fact). There’s a montage of scenes as a preview to the rest of our story. Alternate: Our story begins with Strahd von Zarovich reminiscing about the time he’s spent with his lover, Alek Gwylim, and his obsession, Tatyana and her reincarnations. He is ultimately oblivious to the impending War about to be.
2. Watch Out - Strahd meets the Zarovan tribe. In a meeting with Madam Eva, Strahd is warned to watch out for the Necromancer who he is destined to go to war with. (The Necromancer turns out to be Azal’lan.)
3. Arrival - Firan Zal’honan arrives in Barovia from the Mists. Bagpipes are in the background - Strahd mentions bagpipes like once in this book, so it fits.
4. The Day Before You Came - Strahd reflects on his normal routine the day before Azalin came into his life stirring up all kinds of chaos.
5. I’ve Been Waiting for You - Strahd has been waiting for The Necromancer for a long time. Suddenly, he finds him.
6. I Have a Dream - Both Strahd and Azalin join forces with the common goal, or dream, of breaking free of the Dark Powers control and out of the Mists back to the material plane.
7. I Let the Music Speak - More like, I let the magic speak. This song starts the tale of Azalin tutoring Strahd in magic. Side note but also Strahd keeps mentioning Azalin not being one for music. Strahd is a music man and plays the organ. This song slaps so gotta do it.
8. When I Kissed the Teacher - So…Strahd is engaged with his tutor.
9. Andante, Andante - See the above. Also, “please don’t let me down” is his way of saying don’t betray me even though it is inevitable. Just think about it.
10. Knowing Me, Knowing You - Inevitably, Strahd and Azalin split. Azalin moves to the tower renovated by Van Richten in 5e. They know each other well to know they can never really live without being in fear that one would destroy the other.
11. Me and I - While trying to break free, Strahd’s personality splits apart in Mordent. His two personalities sing this one.
12. Two For the Price of One - Again a play on Strahd’s two personalities. Azalin handles Strahd putting him back together again.
13. When All is Said and Done - Strahd wakes up in Barovia a while later unaware of what happened and that his personalities split. In the crystal ball he finds Azalin in a domain of his own, Darkon. They have biting words. This tension marks the end of Act 1.
[End of Act 1]
Act 2
14. The Name of the Game - Strahd wonders what the game with Azalin is all for. What is the name of the game? This opens Act 2. This tension is the key aspect of Act 2.
15. I’m a Marionette - This song can be used in reference to many different apprentices of Azalin including my PC in CoS. Since he cannot master new magic, he is forced to use others to master what he cannot. These apprentices are usually subject to Azalin’s mental games and manipulation making them a marionette. Strahd was also one as Azalin curse Strahd in order not to put the big picture/dots together. This is the name of the game.
16. Rock Me - Azalin and Strahd chat escalating to Azalin challenging Strahd to a war between their domains.
17. Soldiers - It’s war. Soldiers sing the song that neither dark lord will knowing that neither can see battle due to being stuck in their own domains.
18. The Winner Take It All - Strahd singing The Winner Takes it All is all I’ve ever wanted, but ultimately, Azalin is the better ruler and has a victory over Strahd in the sense that Strahd will always view Azalin with fear.
19. One of Us - This song is sung by both Azalin and Strahd missing each other in their domains. The loneliness of being a Dark Lord I suppose.
20. Move On - Eventually, Strahd and Azalin just move on from war. It’s just not worth it. Not until Strahd is more creative in his approach to battle with Azalin.
21. So Long - I final fuck you to Strahd from Azalin.
22. As Good As New - Azalin and Strahd’s relationship has never been better than being out of war and being separated.
23. The Way Old Friends Do - Azalin and Strahd are old friends. “And after fights and words of violence, we make up with each other - the way old friends do.”
[End of Act 2]
And that’s the show! The War Against Azalin really slaps, so I would recommend also picking up the book for spicy content (and also listening to it with your Strahd cardboard cutout if you’re like me and @sapphogothicc. Here’s a link to the playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/track/6TI91Un4sxz3ehEhguwKuc?si=j3DWuLMITteC01fnjEdG9A
#ravenloft#strahd#strahd von zarovich#curse of strahd#dnd#azalin#azalin rex#firan zalhonan#abba#jukebox musical#rudolph van richten#van richten#I strahd#the war against azalin#dnd memes#the winner takes it all#barovia#darkon#mordent#alek gwylim
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Azalin: All of my subjects have free access to elementary education, including immigrants.
Strahd: The same immigrants whom you routinely brainwash.
Azalin: My laws are sensical, publicly accessible, and apply equally to the rich and the poor.
Strahd: Except whoever pisses you off personally.
Azalin: My roads and cities are safe. Violent crime is less common in Darkon than in any other nation in the Core.
Strahd: And you know this because you have everyone under surveillance.
Azalin: My citizens are protected from invasion and disaster. No one starves in Darkon.
Strahd: Especially not your secret vampire police.
Azalin: Darkon is the home of the most prestigious and comprehensive university in the Land of Mists.
Strahd: Which you blew up, along with the rest of your capital city, in a vain attempt to escape the Land of Mists.
Azalin: ...So what? Do you honestly think you’re better at governance than I am?
Strahd: HAHAHAHA fuck no.
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KING OF THE DEAD by Gene DeWeese
[intro post]
oh boy, oh happy day, i get to talk about Azalin Rex
this book does some fun stuff with mild fakeouts and starting at the end and then jumping back to the beginning in a way where it's not immediately clear how one connects to the other, but it's not done in such a way that it's meant to pull the wool over the reader's eyes, which is good bc i already knew the end twist going in and lemme tell u it is very satisfying watching our charming protag charge headlong and heedlessly towards his own doom
Firan Zal'Honen is a wizard! he's the very best wizard who ever wizarded, and currently he has no idea where he came from or why he's not there anymore or what the fuck just happened
all he knows is, he was tortured with visions for a bit, as one does, and then the mist spat him out in a place called Darkon, and the guy in charge of Darkon, helpfully named Darcalus, is the object of Firan's utter and all consuming loathing, and also killed his son probably
so Firan does what any reasonable wizard would do and enlists the help of some local coup-organizers to weasel his way into the upcoming Met Gala for all the governors in this place. he sneaks out of the approved areas, argues with the ghost of his son for a bit, barges in some places he's not supposed to be, and finally finds what he's been after: the object containing the soul of his nemesis, without which Darcalus, an undead wretch, is mortal and vulnerable
smashy smashy!
unfortunately this is Ravenloft, where the universe can and will bend over backwards to fuck you over, and Firan has some conspicuous gaps in his memory. gaps that are helpfully filled when the punchup with Darcalus turns into a merging of souls and minds and oh shit, thats you Firan buddy! the thing you were hellbent on revenge for? you did all that!
and now the book takes 150 pages to explain itself, going down the laundry list of Firan's life up to this point. this is less interesting to me than what just happened, so suffice to say he was a stubborn and prideful magical prodigy that ended up the wizard-king ruler of a country called Knurl out in the prime material plane
the man's lawful evil all the way down, having some uhhhhhhh lets say draconian ideas about how to maintain peace and order, and yes it does involve a lot of beheadings how did u guess. eventually he figures out that magic can't, in fact, keep him kicking forever, and puts some effort into getting himself an heir.
there's a frankly hilarious bit where he has a crisis of confidence upon realizing that a decade of trying has produced no viable results, and despite having mastery of the unquenchable fire of the stars he apparently never learned the Scan Ur Dick spell, so the problem might just be you, Firan, did u ever think of that before blaming ur wife
anyway turns out his wife did in fact curse his dick so once he got that taken care of he gets himself a lovely lil scion to raise in his perfect mirror image
shockingly, this goes as follows:
Firan: "my son! i will teach you to rule as i do, with a fair and just iron fist!"
Irik: "hm. consider, tyranny bad? oh cool ur not listening immmmm just gonna go join the rebels real quick"
Firan: "........."
Firan: "anyway i need to execute you now"
Irik: "cool. i forgive you btw."
Firan, an hour later: [great sobbing wizard tantrum about how his son's dead now]
me: [also great sobbing wizard tantrum about how his son's dead now]
seriously, despite being the world's stupidest smart person, and also objectively evil, this guy has a lot of pathos! i feel for this idiot! i wanna shake him by the lapels and make him acknowledge how much he actually cares for his son!
the big thing here is he's baked Lawfulness into his own nature to the point where any emotion that doesn't follow what his idea of a Proper Ruler should be gets ruthlessly cauterized. except it doesn't work like that, you prick, so he ends up eating his own tail about how he did exactly the right thing, his only fault was not raising irik to be a "stronger" prince, and thats why he feels like his heart is breaking from grief and guilt.
except it can't be guilt bc he did nothing wrong. do u see the problem here.
anyway this is where the quote unquote Dark Powers get involved. they coerce Firan into taking the next step on his Foolproof Live Forever Through Positive Thinking And Magic plan, and one really bad baja blast later the man's a fullblown lich
lich powers! necromancy! shame the only form he's capable of bringing his son back to life in is a wretched rotting shadow of true life, in constant agony and despair, and not even Firan is gonna settle for that
so back to the drawing board! he spends the next few decades scouring the continent for magical secrets and tales of resurrection, trying to find a way to bring his son back properly and gain atonement for both of them
eventually the mists take him and drop him into Barovia, bc Strahd's the fuckign welcome wagon for new arrivals i guess, and Firan, by now called Azalin, sets up shop in Castle Ravenloft for forty fuckign years
they were tombmates
oh my god, they were tombmates
to my unending outrage, the book spends barely a chapter on this period. give me more damn you! show me the petty squabbles, the arguments over who keeps leaving corpses in the hallway, the lingering sexual tension on movie nights! i deserve to know who tops goddammit!
but no, we just skip to Azalin chasing after a mirage into the mists four decades later, and then uhhhhhh getting split in two? like when a cartoon character gets zapped with a science laser and splits into Good Half and Evil Half? except it's Human Half and Lich Half, which hate each other on instinct
and we're back at the beginning! with human Firan acting on his loathing for the lich Darcalus, only to fuse together again and force him to confront the fact that the person he holds such hatred and anger for is himself
thus, Azalin Rex settles into his final form. a wretched, undead genius, locked in his own prison domain and given a country to rule the way one gives a highly maladjusted macaw a rubix cube with a peanut hidden inside
in conclusion, i am now in the stage of grief labeled "memes"
#church's ravenloft reviews#king of the dead#guys i love this book so much#i love this IDIOT so much#he's an awful awful person and he's my poor little meow meow no i will not be taking questions at this time
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TOWER OF DOOM by Mark Anthony
[intro post]
so i was actually warned away from this book, by ppl who'd read the series and who, at the time, did not know me terribly well
bc of course it went straight to the top of my to-read list
and now, having read it, hoooooo boy dear readers let me tell you, that tower sure can doom
we've got a classic hunchback of notre dame here folks; shitty baron in a shitty provincial town, with a disabled half-brother in a tower ringing bells, etc etc etc, and also some business with a lady doctor of genuinely supernatural goodness, and something about a werecat secret agent of Azalin Rex sniffing around bc the baron's plotting against the king and whathaveyou
now i need to take a moment, right here at the top, to talk about this werecat
Jadis is.... well she wouldn't be out of place in a C-grade James Bond novelization. she's The Sexiest Sexy Lady Who Ever Breasted Boobily Down The Stairs, and also she can turn into a giant fuckoff panther bc what's sexier than that. she's a strong independent career-minded woman, and oh yeah she fucks her boss
the boss who is a lich
yeah that boss
now it's not that i object to lichfucking in principal! far from it! anyone who knows me can attest that this is in fact my brand!
what i do object to is the fact that it's written about as well as baby's first straightguy fanfiction! and also that IT'S IN CHAPTER TWO. THEY LEAD WITH THIS. RIGHT OUT THE GATE HERE.
it's just. it's so badly written guys. it's barely five paragraphs and i am scarred by how clumsy and amateurish the writing is.
like fuck, i can do better than this! i should do better than this! hold my beer, i'm going to take a hammer and FIX the canon
ahem. anyway.
so Jadis has her necro moment and we move on, thank god, and get the rest of what passes for plot moving
to summarize a lot of faffing about and establishing the tone as Needlessly Bleak, the local baron found a magic rock that absorbs souls and makes zombies, and he's running a transparently fake inquisition to find ""traitors"" to execute in order to charge this thing up like a battery
meanwhile our resident Tower Hunchback gets tricked by someone else into carting home a really really cursed bell for the belltower
a cursed bell that kills ppl! fantastic
it's… honestly really boring to talk about lmao. our friend Wort starts doing his "you want a monster? i'll show you a monster" revenge plot, killing off the baron's inner circle one by one and being all tortured about his station in life, and it's fine, i guess.
there's also a fancy doctorlady whose name i've already forgotten here to see the goodness in all life or whatever, ministering to the poor idiot townspeople who don't know what deafness is (i wish i was kidding)
naturally there's some hamfisted romance between them, and naturally it made me gag more than the lichfucking did. these aren't people, they're caricatures from an author with no goddamn idea what he's doing, and i can feel the pain of his editor as if it were my own
it's trying to tell a story about social rejection, and relative monstrosity, and how being ostracized should drive ppl together against their oppressors but instead only builds divisions between them, as victims tend to be myopic and very attached to their own suffering, to the exclusion of solidarity with their peers
it's trying to tell that story, but it. is not succeeding. it's so hamfisted in its writing, and so full of awkward straight dude horniness, and it's just… so bad you guys.
anyway there's even more faffing, half the cast is dead of Bell Ghosts Disorder by now, and the most interesting thing that happens is Jadis starts to realize that uhhhhh maybe not using protection when getting with a powerful arcane undead is gonna have some longterm consequences my dude
altho i don't think condoms help with magical necrosis so uh. not really sure what she was meant to do differently here. not fuck the lich? not a chance
the good news is she's mostly spared those consequences by dying in a firetrap the baron left her in! so sad, rip catgirl. it's at this point the baron's Big Evil Scheme is revealed, and he's planning to… use the soulstone to animate a big fuckoff war tower, drive the thing directly to Castle Avernus, and i guess bash Azalin to death with it?
no idea why Azzy even needed to get Jadis involved in this, given she does practically nothing to stop it and it collapses anyway under the weight of its own stupidity. Wort's mad with power by now, there's zombies everywhere, this author clearly has a Thing for lovingly described corpses and decay and i don't even know what to do with that
the eventual resolution involves something about the inherent goodness of the human spirit breaking the bell's curse, and also a very disney villain death for the baron. it's very strange, given all the needless cruelty and lurid gore that lead up to it. Wort accidentally drives the walking tower off a cliff, the doctor lady survives to haunt the moors as a ghost? angel? angelghost? maimed and ugly now by her injuries but healing ppl in mysterious silence, something something morality tale
ultimately you can give this one a pass. the quality of the writing is just too bad to put up with, and the plot is largely unremarkable except for the bizarre decision to have a catgirl fuck a lich
now if you'll excuse me, i have some free, uncompensated rewriting to do.
#church's ravenloft reviews#im just#oh lord folks its a bad one#easily the worst of the lot i've read so far#knight of the black rose was just BORING this is ACTIVELY HAZARDOUS TO HUMAN LIFE#its worth noting that this was published BEFORE king of the dead#i think it was azalin's first actual appearance?#im reading them all out of order tho so dont quote me on that#BUT it's worth noting that the guy who wrote this one#was NOT invited back to write azalin's standalone origin story#AND I FUCKIGN WONDER WHY
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LORD OF THE NECROPOLIS by Gene DeWeese
[intro post]
The Five Times Azalin Rex Nearly Escaped Darkon, And The One Time He… Nope, Fucked Up Again
this is a weird one lads i'm not gonna lie
i'll say upfront the pacing is all over the place, and i definitely think it should have been a series of vignettes rather than one long story, bc it does nooooot work if ur expecting a standard three-act structure
but i think i can forgive it that, it's an interesting ride all the same
so! Azalin Rex is sad. he's sad for all the reasons described in King of the Dead; dead son, trapped in Darkon, hideous rotting lich body, etc etc
so what's a bastard with an unreasonable amount of wizard power to do? channel that Tim Curry clip that's been going around and say "i'm going to face Strahd in the one arena he can't best me in….. TIME TRAVEL."
for the record i had this idea first u can ask my DM
why does he hate Strahd with the firey burning passion of a thousand suns? i don't know, the book does not adequately explain it, but that's ok bc i'm taking it upon myself to explore the possibilities in my private fanfiction folder
what the book does explain is that Azalin's got it in his head that Strahd is the reason for all of this. Strahd was the first darklord after all, the first being pulled into the mists, and Barovia now acts like a magnet for other stolen lands to attach to in the weird misty void, so if Azalin can… kill Strahd before that happens.... he'll be freed? maybe?
world's smartest wizard everybody
so Azalin does the extremely sane thing of folding his phylactery, the thing that contains his entire soul, into a quantum metapoint and implanting that into the chest of Some Random Guy, and then using said Random Guy as an anchor point with which to travel back in fuckign time, to the night of Strahd's Big Oopsie
this? works?? somehow?? don't question it it just does.
at this point the book says to you "hey did you like I, Strahd? would you like to read it again, with Azalin Rex involved this time?" and i said "yes please, a double scoop of that for me" because of course i did
what follows is the Dark Souls of time travel combined with the Hitman of time travel. Azalin can have his con score back when he's proved he doesn't need it, being weak as a ghostly kitten outside of Darkon and without his own physical body to inhabit, and it is truly, genuinely hilarious watching him try to Weekend at Bernie's his way to getting the drop on an unaware, mortal Strahd by piloting like three successive corpses around with an ineptitude you wouldn't expect from Darkon's Most Special Wizard Boy
i cannot emphasize enough how much Strahd has no idea this is happening. no idea! he is completely unaware! doesn't even know there's corpses walking around out of the crypts and making the guards shit themselves!
and Azalin still can't manage to shank the bastard
eventually he resorts to nudging the mind of our old friend Alek Gwilym, hoping to make him catch his beloved lord in the act of plotting fratricide, and uhhhh he sort of succeeds there?
what follows is exactly what happened in I, Strahd, with Strahd leaping to the offensive and the both of them mortally wounding each other, and oof, ouch, i did not think Alek's death would hit me this hard the second time around but it diiiiiid, it did and now im crying again
it is extremely fun getting this whole sequence from Azalin's perspective too, especially given he knows what's more or less going to happen here, what he's trying to prevent.
spoiler alert, he doesn't prevent shit (and may or may not have ensured that shit happened as intended? it's ambiguous, but i think we're definitely dealing with an unbreakable paradox situation here)
anyway this is the point at which the timeline identifies the irritant taking various corpses for a joyride and summarily ejects Azalin from the picture, along with the dude he brought with him to house his phylactery. the bad news is, Azalin accomplished fuck all for his trouble. the good news is, he has a body again!
the medium news is that body is Alek Gwilym's.
yeah he was inside the dude's corpse when the mists yanked him out of Strahd's past, which explains why, in I, Strahd, his body just disappears after Strahd hides it in a closet to conceal his crimes. go figure, huh.
this is where the pacing gets uhhhhhh weird. what follows is a few decades of Azalin trying ever more unhinged methods of getting the fuck out of dodge, all while still piloting Alek's corpse. i guess one body is the same as another, to an immortal lich wizard king?
the plot meanders a bit, going largely nowhere. Azalin makes a few clones, trying to see if the curses limiting his power could be circumvented by growing a new body somehow? that doesn't pan out, so he just. lets the clones free-roam i guess. irresponsible, but whatever. he also sends his sheriff's secret police to every other domain he can find, collecting magic items and books and scraps of rumor, trying to find any possible way to escape the cage that is Darkon.
i'd like to know why he's so obsessed with it, personally. what's out there for you, Azzie me boy? what the hell do you think you're gonna find outside the mists that you can't have inside them? what are you trying to escape to? there's nothing waiting for you out there. you don't have anyone left. the one thing you care about is empty.
but he wouldn't be a darklord if he wasn't obsessed with things he can't have for reasons he can't explain, so we go through the next third of the book like this until he finds A Device that supposedly will elevate him to near-godlike power, possibly enough to blow this popsicle stand for good
but "aha!" he thinks, "what if this Device doesn't work? or simply kills me? i know, i'll make an exact duplicate in Travel Size, in order to test it first! i am very clever."
so he does just that, magically photocopying the thing and picking Another Random Guy to be his test subject, reasoning that if it fails that’s useful data, and if it succeeds the result will still be weaker than he is probably, and thus not a threat
unfortunately for everyone involved, one of his clones is also there! and is piiiiissed Azalin picked, again, Some Random Guy for this honor instead of him, Lowellyn Dachine, who is surely Azalin's long-lost son bc his mother told him so
he is actually an Azalin clone though so like. he's half right.
anyway he does an extremely well-adjusted thing and leaps into the machine too, and, well… have you ever seen The Fly? yeah it was kind of like that, except with souls, and the mingled power of untold ancient sorceries
Azalin sees this, thinks "well, it worked," and dives headfirst at his own quest bed i mean the full sized Device
and it…. actually does work for him! Alek's body, which he'd been wearing like a blonde, handsome person suit for like fifty years, is obliterated utterly, and Azalin actually goes god tier? bodiless, near-omnipotent, powerful enough to rip through the mists and resurrect Irik, his son what he executed in a fit of hurt feelings back in his home plane
ah, but where is dear Irik's soul you ask? apparently it's in nega-hell, the hell beneath hell from whence all evil comes
this clearly won't do, so Azalin gets busy ripping a hole through realities to retrieve his boy, except, except--! oh no! it was a cunningly disguised hand puppet instead of the real thing!
and uh. hm. Azzie. just checking, but how big did you make that doorway into the nadir of the multiverse? big enough to swallow a city you say? hm! thats a problem.
especially since it turns out that the cosmic horrorterrors that inhabit the place that Satan warns his kids about at bedtime were in fact the Dark Powers that led Azalin down this whole sordid path in the first place
oh yes, these fuckers play the long game don't they, sticking their greasy lil tentacles into the world and manipulating young Firan Zal'Honan into becoming a wizard powerful enough, and desperate enough, to rip a hole through realities big enough to free them
and just like that, all of Darkon's gone to shit. smh, there go the property values.
Azalin, duly horrified by what he's been tricked into doing, tries an old standby again and flees backwards in time to his own childhood, on the night of the first event that put his life on the path that led him here
he's unable to actually do anything to affect that event, though, as it seems that being outside Darkon still makes him pathetically weak, to the point of being nearly a harmless specter.
time is a flat circle, fixed points will always happen the way they want to, and Azalin Rex, specifically, is always doomed.
pretty depressing way to end a book right!
fortunately for us, the readers, this is not actually the end of Darkon and Azalin as we know them. multiverse canon is flexible, and this isn't even the only time Azalin's fucked up catastrophically and ruined everything for everyone. approximately 70% of all apocalypses in the mists are Azalin-based. hell, this isn’t even the one true canon as far as the nature of the Dark Powers is concerned! so feel free to set aside as much of the canon of this book as you like, salt to taste, and reheat on high if need be.
overall this book isn't bad, it's just weird. it's got a lot of interesting lore, and some really excellent high points, it's just that it's mixed in with some fairly boring and inexplicable stretches of Nothing Much In Particular, and also Azalin continues to be the world's dumbest smart person. again, it really should have been a series of short stories or vignettes instead of one big novel, bc the pacing choices really threw me for a loop.
but if you feel like tracking it down it's worth it to read i think, if only as a weird companion book to King of the Dead
#church's ravenloft reviews#i give this one a solid 6/10#the high points are really fun but the rest of it drags the score down to Just Average im afraid#ur gonna spend the whole book wondering where the fuck this titular Necropolis comes in#and then ur gonna finish it and go ''well what the fuck was that''
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