Dread Figures

The Realms of Terror sit alone among planes in its capacity to transform those once unremarkable, once good, and once keen into the unrecognizable twisted by what could have been. These creatures are Dread Figures—while not masters of their own domains, they have given themselves to the Mists of Death and been embraced in kind, thrust forward by mad and hungry compulsions. Dread Figures may be tragic and some even unwilling, but once they have found the cool embrace of the Mists, they will never, ever be let go.

Dread Figures in The Domains of Dread

Dread Figures, shorthand DF, are a separate class of playable characters angled toward monstrous, subversive, and antagonist play. While not every player antagonist must be a Dread Figure in The Domains of Dread, all DFs create roleplay through conflict generated by their applied template which grant them novel mechanics, adjustments and more so to remain threatening—and exciting—whenever encountered.

Playing a Dread Figure

A DF is applied for during that character’s creation or after an inciting incident during play, such as if that character would have been ordinarily closured. A prospective DF must have at least 60 days IRT of active play on The Domains of Dread so to be familiar with the server’s mechanics and Roleplay Expectations. They have their own application form available on the Discord. Special considerations and exemptions from regular characters are as follows:

1. When entering the game world for the first time or upon receipt of their applied template, a DF has 8 months or 243 days IRT before they are automatically closured. Extensions may be given by the Game Masters to allow an in-progress plot to gracefully conclude or for real life issues with availability.
2. Once the applied template is received, a DF will no longer gain hostile experience. Instead they will receive boosted storyline experience and weekly stipends IRT.
3. DFs begin play at the 9th level across domains—should the character have existed prior to receiving an applied template, they will be raised to the 9th level if lower. About a month and a half of active play IRT is expected to reach the 14th level.
4. DFs may be attacked with lethal damage at any time by other player characters without supervision—there is no opt out for being a DF is alone sufficient opt in.
5. DFs may not attack other player characters lethally without cause to do so, such as those characters hunting the DF after an initial skirmish. Should they attack others lethally, supervision is not required. Being downed by a DF equals being maimed for the victim the first time it happens—a DF is permitted to finish off player characters for whom they have already downed once even in future engagements.
6. Likewise a DF is permitted to be downed once and be maimed rather than killed or destroyed. Assuming their applied template has no mechanisms in place for automatic resurrection, their next downed state is lethal and the DF shall be closured.
7. A DF may always attack other player characters with nonlethal damage. Exceptions may be made for only real life inabilities to participate in the scene per the Game Rules.
8. A DF, as may other player characters, closure themselves at will and receive Mist Tokens.
9. Player characters kidnapped or detained by a DF are subject to the same rules as they would were the DF another player character, per the Character versus Character Rules. It is the DF’s responsibility to ensure sufficient roleplay is given to their prisoner and that clues are given to assist the search process for investigators.
10. DFs will not appear in the active player list by default. This may be toggled on or off in their bespoke menu, invoked with the !df chat command.

Template Families

The Accursed

Doomed One

Born from the desperate and the foolish, Doomed Ones are any humanoid in the Realms of Terror who have given themselves to the Mists in pursuit of ambition or another vice. Their dreadful compulsion grants them power related to these aspirations, but it is the curse they bear that will grow ever more debilitating and frustrating, hastening an inevitable descent into pure Corruption and madness.

Feytouched

Marked by native Fey, Feytouched gain fey enchantment in exchange for their humanoid mind and senses being slowly and irreversibly devoured by the chaotic, capricious whimsies of a true Fey in service to the Shadowed Sea.

Inhabited

Once formless spirits wandering the infinite plains of the Dread Ethereal, some ghosts decide they wish to walk the Dread Material and be alive as they once were—by possessing the body of the Inhabited. An exhaustive struggle characterizes these beings as the specters vie for control, tricking or manipulating the Inhabited to tragic, terrible ends. The Inhabited may take on their spectral likeness, temporarily rescinding corporeal forms for something insubstantial and twelvefold more wicked.

The Beyond

Awakened

Masters of solipsism, Awakened are the formerly mortal possessors of great Inherent power—stemming from their bodies as Ascetics or their minds as Psions—who believe themselves to have become perfect embodiments of the Dread Astral, manifesting reality pinholes wherever they walk as quasi-Outsiders.

Psion, Aberrant

Psions who have embraced their alien nature before the Dread Astral, these creatures devour sentient intelligences to fuel their dark desires, preferably through the brain. Indulging these feedings catalyzes a change within them known only as ceremorphosis—a slow and insidious transformation to become what they call the ideal form in mind flayers.

The Created

Homunculus, Dread

Stolen souls given to sculpted, inured simulacra, Dread Homunculi imitate familiar visages with frightening accuracy. Nevertheless, they are doomed to become aware over the course of their existence that they are “other than”, and lack life’s divine spark. Likewise they will become miserous and develop zeitgebers relating to the ambitions they can no longer realize, vengeful to the last for what has been taken.

Golem, Dread

Creations of intense passion impressed upon by their creator’s twisted desires, Dread Golems are novel consciousnesses which arise from these bodies as “alive” but naive constructs. Their relationship with their creator is forgone and tragic, as neither may live without the other, yet are constantly frustrated by their opposite’s inability to fulfill their own passions. Their zeitgebers are ironic parodies of the creator’s fears, as Dread Golems inevitably turn into their—and their own—worst nightmares.

The Living Dead

Ancient Dead

Preserved in a manner profane, the Ancient Dead are the corporeal guardians of specific times and places, now displaced by the Mists of Death. Their anger over not being able to return to their rightful halls cause these creatures to bestow deadly ancient hexes upon the still living as they scourge and scour the land in pursuit of impossible answers.

Death Knight

As loyal in death as they were in life, Death Knights are raised for eternal service to evil ideoligions. This bracken and blackguard connection to their beliefs or deities permit them great Occult powers based on the nature of their unholy knighthood as the gleeful vassals of only the most vile.

Ghoul, Dread

Insidious creatures ever starving and ever hungry, Dread Ghouls are unique among the living dead for they alone may suppress their ghoulish mien to appear as though alive—for a time. Their more complex appetites require the constant consumption of sentient flesh, and ever-shifting palates work to ensure that there will always come the time where they are forced to shed any deception to be among the ravenous carrion feeders so known to the Realms of Terror.

Lich

Arcanists formerly alive who have taken on the shroud of undead immortality in pursuit of greater ambition, Liches are feared throughout the Prime Material and the Realms of Terror prove no exception. Their unholy archmagic allows Liches capabilities well beyond mortal arcanists—after trapping the souls of said mortal arcanists. They remain tethered to the Dread Material through their phylactery, whereupon they will be destroyed in an instant were it ever to come under harm.

Revenant, Dread

What is dead may never die, and this is made no truer than beyond the Misty Border with Dread Revenants. Raised in moments of utter, vociferous hatred and need for vengeance, these engines of terror refuse their own destruction unless it is by the object of their unholy revenge. In this Dread Revenants cannot be stopped—only ever slowed down.

Vampire

Inheritors of the “first gift” ever bestowed by the Mists of Death, vampires are the unliving children of their vampiric sires. Clannish feeders upon the blood of the living, these creatures are nocturnal predators cursed to be annihilated should they ever again walk in sunlight. The nature of their curse provides power in exchange for ironic weaknesses relating to the vampires’ lives, times which are now frustratingly closed and foreign to them.

Shapechangers

Doppelganger, Dread

The spawn of amorphous beings uncommon to the Realms of Terror, Dread Doppelgangers may emulate the appearance of any human they are able to touch. Yet they are relentlessly jealous of their double, normal humanoids of whom they cannot kill and must instead torment, harangue and gaslight into believing that they are the copy and the Dread Doppelganger the real article.

Werecreature

Divided between accursed and trueborn, Werecreatures are any who may change their shape from humanoid to any hybrid contingent with their wereborn strain. Thrust ever onward by whatever desires their new instincts dictate, these beings separate themselves from their “kin” by their strength and willingness—should the beast ever overcome the man—to precipitate untold disaster and misery.