Dread Figures

The Realms of Terror have the unique capacity, moreso than any other known plane or demiplane, to transform the once unremarkable, the once good, the once keen into twisted versions of what could have been. These individuals are Dread Figures, creatures that - while not yet the masters of their own domains - have nevertheless given themselves to the Misty Plane, compelled ever-onward by wicked need and worse ambition. They may be tragic, even unwilling, but all Dread Figures are in the cool embrace of the Mists of Death, creating untold misery in their wakes.

Dread Figures in The Domains of Dread

Dread Figures, shorthand DF, are a separate class of playable character geared toward monstrous or otherwise subversive antagonist play. While not all antagonists in The Domains of Dread must be a Dread Figure, all Dread Figures by nature create conflict propelling their story and the stories of those around them. In exchange for this service to the roleplay a template is applied to the character, giving them novel mechanics, attribute adjustments, and more to ensure that they remain uniquely threatening - and exciting - where encountered.

Playing a Dread Figure

Dread Figures, like all playable characters, are applied for during character creation. A prospective Dread Figure must have at least 60 days of relatively active play on The Domains of Dread, to ensure basic familiarity with the server's mechanics and expectations for roleplay. They have their own application form available on the Discord. Considerations and exemptions from regular characters are as follows:

1. When first entering the game world, the Dread Figure has 8 months or 243 days before they are automatically closured. Extensions may be provided by Game Masters for reasons of allowing an in-progress plot to gracefully conclude or real-life issues with availability.
2. Dread Figures do not receive any hostile experience. Instead, they receive boosted storyline experience and experience stipends when playing once a week IRT.
3. Dread Figures begin play at the 8th level - if the character existed before becoming a Dread Figure, they will be raised to the 8th level. It is estimated that about a month and a half of active play between the enhanced storyline experience and stipends is needed to reach the 14th level.
4. Dread Figures are allowed to be attacked with lethal damage at any time by other player characters - there is no opt out as being a Dread Figure is sufficient, perpetual opt in.
5. Dread Figures may not lethally attack other player characters without sufficient cause to do so, such as those player characters hunting the Dread Figure actively or after an initial skirmish. Being downed by a Dread Figure is equivalent to being maimed the first time it happens - a Dread Figure is allowed to finish off player characters of whom they have already downed once in any further engagement.
6. Likewise, a Dread Figure is allowed to be downed once to then avoid being killed or destroyed. Assuming their template has no other mechanisms in place for automatic resurrection, their next downed state is lethal and the Dread Figure will be closured.
7. A Dread Figure always has sufficient opt in to attack other player characters nonlethally. Exceptions may be made for reasons of real life inability to participate in the scene, per the Game Rules.
8. A Dread Figure, as with other player characters, always have the right to closure themselves at-will. Mist Tokens will be dispensed to the player based primarily on time spent alive and number of successful roleplay encounters whether or not they went hostile.
9. Player characters kidnapped or detained by Dread Figures are subject to the same considerations they would be if detained or kidnapped by other players - the Dread Figure has a responsibility to ensure sufficient roleplay is given to their prisoner and to provide clues to the search process for prospective investigators.
10. Dread Figures do not appear in the player list by default when online. This may be toggled on or off at-will with their bespoke menu.

Available Templates

• Ancient Dead: Preserved in a manner old and profane, the ancient dead is a corporeal undead commanding great resistance to spells and spell-like abilities as they bestow deadly ancient hexes upon the still living.
• Awakened: Masters of solipsism, awakened are formerly mortal possessors of inherent abilities - either the body, as in Ascetics, or the mind as in Psions - that believe themselves now be perfect embodiments of the Dread Astral Plane, manifesting a reality pinhole wherever they walk as true outsiders.
• Death Knight: As loyal in death as they were in life, death knights raise themselves in service to an evil ideoligion. This wicked connection to their chosen beliefs or deity permit them occult powers based on the nature of their unholy knighthood as gleeful vassals of only the most vile.
• Doomed One: The domain of the desperate or once foolish, doomed ones are any humanoid in the Realms of Terror who have given themselves to the Misty Plane in pursuit of a vice. Their dread compulsion grants them powers associated with that vice, but they will never, ever be satisfied, inevitably hastening their descent into unbidden madness.
• Doppelganger, Dread: The spawn of shapeshifters rare to the Realms of Terror, dread doppelgangers are capable of copying the appearance of any humanoid they are able to touch. Yet they are relentlessly jealous of their double, a normal humanoid of whom they will systemically torment, harangue, and harass all to attempt to ultimately replace them forever.
• Feytouched: Marked by shadow fey of reputable power, feytouched gain powers of fey enchantment in exchange for their humanoid ambitions being slowly and irreversibly malformed into the chaotic whimsies of a true fey in service of the Shadow Rift.
• Fleshcrafted: Golems or homunculi impressed upon by the dark desires of their creators, fleshcrafted are the sometimes near-perfect imitations of humanoids given thought and sufficient flesh. Despite this, it is the curse of the fleshcrafted to never be at ease in society and, should they discover the stolen nature of their "birth" and zeitgebers, are brought to paths of untold tragedy.
• Ghoul, Dread: Compelled by an appetite and thirst for gluttony as unending as it is relentless, dread ghouls are the voracious undead consumers of living, sentient flesh. Should they fulfill their appetites, the dread ghoul is unique in that they may hide amongst the living, suppressing their ghoulish skin - but there will always come a time where they will not have enough, and become like the starving carrion feeders so known to the Realms of Terror.
• Inhabited: Once formless spirits or spectres, a ghost may decide that they wish to be what they were once again - by possessing the body of the inhabited. Their story is one of struggle as the spirit works tirelessly to gain more control, often tricking or manipulating the inhabited to grisly ends. In exchange the inhabited may take on spectral likeness, blurring the lines between what is the ghost and what is the man.
• Lich: Formerly living arcanists who have turned to undeath to further their ambitions, liches are known throughout the Prime Material and the Realms of Terror are no exception. Their undead archmagic allows liches to use chosen spells as spell-like abilities, in exchange for needing to trap the souls of other arcanists. They remain tethered to this world through their phylactery, being destroyed in an instant should it ever come under harm.
• Lycanthrope, Dread: Divided between the accursed and trueborn are the dread lycanthropes, creatures who many change their shape from humanoid to that of a hybrid contingent upon their lycanthropic strain. Pulled ever onward by the instinctual, often bestial desires at their most base, dread lycanthropes separate themselves from their kin by their strength and willingness - should the beast overcome the man - to create widespread misery.
• Ooze, Dread: Once a mindless ooze, dread oozes have obtained, by some strange quirk of the Mists of Death, the sentience and fragmented memories of their last humanoid absorption. Gaining an intelligence score has a disturbing effect on the ooze, unequipped as they are to reconcile new wants and desires competing with their normal state of consumptive absorption. Though they may take on the humanoid mien by reconstituting themselves, dread oozes must continually assimilate living mass or lose corporality.
• Psion, Aberrant: Psions that have embraced their aberrant nature, aberrant psions consume the intelligence of sentient individuals they slay, preferably through the brain. Indulging these feedings push the aberrant psion closer and closer to their ultimate goal of ceremorphosis - transforming into what they believe to be the perfect form of an illithid.
• Revenant, Dread: What is dead may never truly die, such is the wicked cycle of the dread revenant. Undead who now refuse to be destroyed until they have settled with the object of their unholy revenge, revenants oft cannot be stopped in this goal - only ever slowed down.
• Vampire: Inheritors of the "first gift" ever bequeathed in the Realms of Terror, vampires are the unliving children of their vampiric sires. Feeding on the blood of the still living, they are nocturnal predators destroyed should they ever walk again in sunlight. Their vampiric curse provides power in exchange for ironic weaknesses relating to the vampire's life, now closed off and alien to them.