Domain Jam entry.
The Plagued Vale.
Domain of the Parasitic Dead.
Dark Lord: Arkon
Genre: Body horror, disaster horror
Hallmarks: Corruption, decay, despair, fungi, undeath
Mist talismans: A sample of fungi. An angel or raven feather.
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Few can escape the curse of the Plagued Vale, for it's sickness pervades the very air it's people breathe. A sea of greenish spores fills the air with like fog, engulfing all but the tallest hills or the most secluded caverns, blotting out the sun itself. Giant fungi and megaflora consume and engulf structures, and plague latches onto humanoids to consume their flesh and shatter their minds, devolving them into maddened zombies and ghouls, pained and gibbering, or mutating into more fierce and horrifying creatures altogether.
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The afflicted of Arkon's plague, as its come to be known, desperately scratch and howls at the cathedrals walls and wards, unable to get inside. Arkon, the plagued angel, is a mysterious and rarely seen monstrosity.
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The cathedral is the only truly "safe" haven in the realm, as the clerics desperately fend off the spread with their holy wards.
Settlements and Sites
A city and it's surrounding lands lie in decrepit, decayed and engulfed by great fungi. What tiny uninfected population remains in the domain are hidden at the far fringes far fringes of the Vale, guarded by their discreetness from the world at large.
The Cathedral
A towering castle of libraries and halls had been a bastion of faith for centuries prior being dragged into Ravenloft. Still, it's clerics hold out against the encroaching plague, hearts hardened against the angel as he converted the world into a realm of decay.
For all most acolytes and survivors know, all the dead want is to consume the living. To break inside the temple and infest the last pocket of resistance. Their secret, however, known only by the council of archpriests, is that they house an artifact in their deepest vault. One that Arkon craves above all else. A font of pure divinity, which he believes would purify himself of his plague, and raise himself into godhood. The priests know better. The theorize that if he would get his hands on the font of divinity, his own demonic corruption would seep into the artifact and soil it with necrotic for eternity. Meanwhile, the high priests utilize the font to power their wards, drawing on it's magic to fuel their spells in absence of their god. The object Arkon craves so much, is the only thing that also drives him away.
Over time, the cathedral has become it's own small town, locked away within it's huge stone walls, and it's peoples are mostly self-sufficient.
Arkon
In his prime, Arkon was an angel of Mt Celestia, scouting the tides of the Blood War. He was, however, captured by the Zuggtomoy, demon lord of rot and decay. She experimented on her captive, planting the seeds that would warp his mind and corrupt his soul to serve her, to spread her plagues across the multiverse. Through luck, he escaped his prison in the Abyss, but found no cure amongst his celestial kin to cure this new, almighty infection.
In desperation he sought a great artifact on the material plane, a fabled font of divine magic, that he theorized could save him from his demonic ailment. This artifact however, was coveted by a holy order of priests, who would not so much as let him enter their cathedral-fortress, and repelled him with their magic.
In his terrified desperation, the angel was assaulted by a barrage of torment as whispers in Abyssal bombarded his mind, compelling him to lash out at the city, spreading his newfound plague magic amongst it's people in a malevolent attempt to coerce the priests, raising an army of mutated plague-monsters to assault the citadel.
Arkon appears as a dark feathered angel whose wings are tattered, patchy and wart infested. His once handsome form is marred by a sentient, parasitic demonic-fungus, with buboes that perpetually consume his flesh, inflicting eternal pain upon his body and battles to possess his mind, leaving him frail and prone to bouts of severe madness.
Arkon's Torment
The dark lords greatest power is also his greatest torture. He is constantly wracked with extreme pain, and all around him, this world of his his own creation is a stark reminder of the horrors he suffered at the hands of the demon lord of fungi and decay.
His only hope for a cure is ever out of his reach, protected by it's own magic and force of clerics.
Roleplaying Arkon
Over the years, the fallen angel has grown to become thoroughly self-loathing, and to a degree, self-pitying. He sadistically shares his plague with the citizens of the realm, so all may feel his pain. For if he should suffer, then why should they not suffer with him? He's angry and desperate, a far cry from his former angelic self. Even should he somehow be cured, his mind would never be the same. Every day or as often as one sees fit, the Dungeon Master may roll on the madness tables in the DM's guide to determine what terror is inflicted on his mind, and play it up to it's most extreme.
Arkon's fungal growths is an intelligent and malevolent parasite
Arkon's Powers and Dominion
Arkon was a great angel warrior for Mt Celestia in his time, but has since fallen of his own volition, dragged down into the pits of evil by his plague. Arkon uses his own custom stat block. Depending on level, he may be based off either the deva or planetar stat block.
Ghoulish grunts. No one knows exactly what causes the dead to raise in the Vale. Whether it's the spores of rot entering the bloodstream, or whether every individual is directly infected via the plagued angel himself, the plague is everywhere and wants to infect everyone, alive or dead.
Survival. In the furthest reaches of the realm, tiny tribes of survivors may lurk in hidden caves or hilltops, keeping a wary eye out for the hordes of the plagued. But everyone knows that if you aren't close kin, every other person is a potential distraction or shield. If you meet survivors while scavenging in the city, trust no one.
Closing the Borders. The borders of the vale are thick with clouds poison so potent it harms even the Dark Lord Arkon himself. Creatures starting their turn within the mist, in addition to the usual DC 20 Constitution Saving Throw against gaining exhaustion, are poisoned for until the end of their next turn, and take 3d10 poison damage that ignores resistance and turns immunity into resistance.
Arkon tends not to be able to open the realm so that individuals may leave the Vale, and even if he could leave himself, he would not while his only chance at being cured remains locked away beneath the Cathedral.
Adventures in the Plagued Vale.
In a land choked by disease, survival is at the forefront of everyones minds.
Creatures of the Plagued Vale
| Zombie |
| Zombie Plague Spreader |
| Ghoul |
| Violet Fungus |
| Gas Spore |
Damnn, ran out of time.
Thank you for reading.