Episode 19: Hercules

Welcome to Wonderful World of Darklords! In this episode, we're going from talking tigers to literal freaking gods with what might be our most powerful darklord to date: Hades. (We don't know whether we'd back Hades, Elsa, or Maleficent in a fight, and we don't want to be anywhere in a hundred-mile radius if that ever happens.) Making the god of the underworld a darklord was a tricky proposition; after all, the Dark Powers weren't able to hang onto Vecna. We figured out a solution that lets us bring everyone's favorite evil motor-mouth in without having to shatter the demiplane in the process. Topics discussed include:
• How Hercules works in some of the dark, horrifying themes of Greek mythology despite being a bowdlerization, and how to generalize those themes to an entire domain;
• How to make your PCs the main characters of a Hercules domain even though the movie has a full-on prophesied Chosen One (it doesn't have to involve killing him this time, we promise!);
• Monsters and characters from Greek mythology that lend themselves beautifully to a sprawling domain that still keeps Hades as its primary mover and shaker;
• Serious geeking out over the gods of Ravenloft and how the gods of Olympus fit into their metaphysic;
• and more!
(We don't actually discuss Vecna. We're sorry. Rachel keeps forgetting Vecna was a darklord because he's connected to so much non-Ravenloft material that the idea of diving into all of it causes her to automatically fail a Fear save. Please don't @ us; it's taking all her willpower not to rerecord the entire episode.)
The full writeup for Olympus is available for free on DM's Guild: www.dmsguild.c...
All music recordings are in the public domain (mark 1.0) and are licensed through musopen.org (musopen.org/) :
Chopin Nocturne in B-Flat Minor, Op. 9 No.1 (musopen.org/mu...) (main theme), performed by Eduardo Vinuela
Chopin Etude Op. 25, No. 12 in C Minor: “Ocean” (musopen.org/mu...) (darklord theme), performed by Edward Neeman
Chopin Nocturne in F Minor, Op. 55 No. 1 (musopen.org/mu...) (land theme), performed by Luke Faulkner
Rachmaninoff Morceaux de Fantaisie, Op. 3 - 2. Prélude in C sharp minor (musopen.org/mu...) (Dread Possibilities), performed by Sergei Rachmaninoff
Chopin Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72 No. 1 (musopen.org/mu...) (parting thoughts), performed by Luke Faulkner
Dialog for Yensid was written by Azalin Rex himself: www.tumblr.com/...
The Wonderful World of Darklords logo was designed by Halite Jones, whom you can find on Tumblr (www.tumblr.com...) and Instagram ( / insta_halite ) : www.tumblr.com...
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[@codydwyerify]

I think the coolest meta Easter egg you could have is that the fates are actually avatars of The Dark Powers. The definition and meta physics of Ravenloft is that dark lords are all tragic figures, in the Greek tragic sense. And they all have a doomed *FATE*.
Looking at the characters of the Fates, they clearly see the larger plot, and Hades is subservient to them, in the same way that dark lords ultimately answer to the dark powers. They don't seem bothered by what actually happens, but they are there as the mechanics of fate and to witness date play out.
Which makes me think, there is another group of fantastic female 'witnesses' who could definitely have the ability to give a dark Lord 'ideas' and 'inspiration'. And canonically, the Muses feed on the creativity (torment) of their targets... That actually is a fantastic fit.
Porque no los dos?

[@WonderfulWorldofDarklord]

I love this as a take on the Fates that's specifically linked to messing with the darklords. Our Hadestown Fates were more about messing with the PCs.

[@MrMoonside]

Groovy

[@krabbi_patti]

Hercules is a sigma gigachad.
But read the rest of this.
Hades in movies: 🤓👍
Zeus in movies: 🗿🍷
Hades in the actual myths:🗿🍷
Zeus in the actual myths:🤓👍