Dread Figures

The Realms of Terror stands alone among planes or demiplanes in its capacity to transform the once unremarkable, the once good, the once keen into versions twisted and warped by what could have been. These individuals are known as Dread Figures, creatures that—while not the masters of their own domains—never nevertheless given themselves to the Mists of Death and been embraced in kind, compelled ever onward by wicked need and worse ambition. They may be tragic, even unwilling but once a Dread Figure is in the cool embrace of the Mists of Death, they will never, ever let them go.

Dread Figures in The Domains of Dread

Dread Figures, shorthand DF, are a separate class of playable character geared toward monstrous and subversive antagonist play. While not every player antagonist in The Domains of Dread must be a Dread Figure all Dread Figures create conflict unique to their applied template granting them novel mechanics, adjustments and more so to remain a threatening—and exciting—force wherever encountered.

Playing a Dread Figure

Dread Figures are applied for during character creation or after an inciting incident during play, such as if that character would have been closured. A prospective Dread Figure must have at least 60 days IRT of active play on The Domains of Dread to ensure 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 or upon receipt of template, the Dread Figure has 8 months or 243 days IRT before they are automatically closured. Extensions may be provided by the 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 hostile experience. Instead they receive boosted storyline experience and stipends when playing once a week IRT.
3. Dread Figures begin play at the 9th level across host domains—if the character existed prior to becoming a Dread Figure, they will be raised to at least the 9th level if they were not already. It is estimated that about a month and half of active play IRT between the boosted storyline experience and weekly stipends is needed to reach the 14th level.
4. Dread Figures are allowed to be attacked with lethal damage at any time by other characters—there is no opt out as being a Dread Figure alone is sufficient opt in.
5. Dread Figures may not attack other characters with lethal damage without sufficient cause to do so, such as those characters hunting the Dread Figure 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 characters of whom they have already downed once in any future engagement.
6. Likewise, a Dread Figure is allowed to be downed once before avoiding 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 opt in to attack other characters with nonlethal damage. Exceptions may be made for reasons of real life inability to participate in the scene per the Game Rules.
8. A Dread Figure, as do other characters, has the right to closure themselves at will and receive Mist Tokens.
9. Characters kidnapped or detained by a Dread Figure are subject to the same considerations they would be if detained or kidnapped by other characters, per the Character versus Character Rules. The Dread Figure has a responsibility to ensure sufficient roleplay is given to their prisoner and to provide clues that assist the search process for investigators.
10. Dread Figures do 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.

Available Templates

• Ancient Dead: Preserved in a manner profane, the Ancient Dead is a corporeal undead who commands great resistance to spells and spell-like abilities as they bestow deadly greater hexes upon the still living.
• Awakened: Masters of solipsism, Awakened are the formerly mortal possessors of Inherent power—either from the body, as Ascetics, or the mind as Psions—that believe themselves to be the perfect embodiments of the Dread Astral, 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 the eternal service of an evil ideoligion. Their wicked connection to their beliefs or deity permit them Occult powers based on the nature of their unholy knighthood as the gleeful vassals of only the most vile.
• Doomed One: The outcome of the desperate and foolish, Doomed Ones are any humanoid in the Realms of Terror who have given themselves to the Mists of Death in pursuit of their vice. Their dreadful compulsion grants them powers related to that vice but they will never, ever be satisfied, hastening an inevitable descent into madness.
• Doppelganger, Dread: The spawn of shapechangers rare to the Realms of Terror, Dread Doppelgangers copy the appearances of any humanoid they are able to touch. Yet they are relentlessly jealous of their double, a normal humanoid they cannot kill and must instead torment, harangue and gaslight into believing that they are the copy and the Dread Doppelganger the real article.
• Feytouched: Marked by native Fey of reputable power, Feytouched gain the powers of fey enchantment in exchange for their humanoid ambitions being slowly and irreversibly overwritten with 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 almost perfect imitations of humanoids given thought and sufficient flesh. Despite this, it is their curse to never be at ease in society and, should they discover the stolen nature of their “birth” and subsequent zeitgerbers, are forced into paths of untold tragedy.
• Ghoul, Dread: Compelled by a constant appetite and thirst for gluttony as relentless as it is implacable, Dread Ghouls are the voracious, corporeal consumers of living, sentient flesh. Should they serve their appetites the Dread Ghoul is unique in that they may hide amongst the living, suppressing their ghoulish mien—but inevitable is the time where they have not had enough and become like the starving undead carrion feeders so known to the Realms of Terror.
• Inhabited: Once formless spirits or spectres wandering the Dread Ethereal, a ghost may decide that they wish to walk the Dread Material and be as they were once again—by possessing the body of the Inhabited. Their story is one of tireless struggle as the spirit vies for control, often tricking or manipulating the Inhabited to grisly effect. In exchange the Inhabited may take on their spectral likeness, blurring the line between what is the incorporeal and the corporeal.
• Lich: Arcanists formerly living who have taken on undeath to further their ambitions, Liches are feared 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 the Dread Material through their phylactery, destroying them in an instant should it ever come under harm.
• Lycanthrope, Dread: Divided between the accursed and trueborn shapechanger is the Dread Lycanthrope, creatures who may change their shape from humanoid to a hybrid contingent with their lycanthropic strain. Thrust ever onward by their instinctual, bestial desires, Dread Lycanthropes separate themselves from their kin by strength and their willingness—should the beast ever overcome the man—to precipitate widespread disaster and misery.
• Ooze, Dread: At one time 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 Dread Ooze, unequipped to reconcile new wants and desires competing with their normal state of thoughtless consumption. Though they may take on their humanoid mien by reconstituting themselves, Dread Oozes must continually assimilate living mass or lose corporeality.
• Psion, Aberrant: Psions that have embraced their alien nature, Aberrant Psions consume the intelligence of sentient individuals that they slay, preferably through the brain. Indulging these feedings catalyzes a change in the Aberrant Psion known only as ceremorphosis—a transformation into what they believe to be the ideal form of a mind flayer.
• Revenant, Dread: What is dead may never truly die, and this is no truer than the wicked cycle of the Dread Revenant. Corporeal undead who refuse to be destroyed until they have settled with the object of their unholy revenge, Dread Revenants cannot be stopped in their goal—only slowed down.
• Vampire: Inheritors of the “first gift” ever bestowed by the Mists of Death, Vampires are the unliving children of their vampiric sires. Feeding on the blood of the living, they are nocturnal predators destroyed should they ever again walk in sunlight. Their vampiric curse provides power in exchange for ironic weaknesses relating to the vampire’s life, a time now closed off and foreign to them.