Dark Powers and Domain Prisons
At a glance
Two Hundred Summers’s account of the Dark Powers reframes domains as gifts that imprison their lords, and raises the possibility that such a gift could be undone.
What the company was told
- Two Hundred Summers said the Dark Powers granted Strahd Barovia and trapped him there for eternity; Strahd has died repeatedly and returned.
- He said Azalin had dealt with the powers and Strahd had long tried unsuccessfully to escape.
- He described Strahd’s mother as a benevolent ruler and protector before the coming of Strahd’s armies brought evil and corruption.
- The Amber Temple, he said, was the original manifestation of these powers in Barovia. Frozen winds prevent raven reconnaissance.
- Domains are granted to lords by the powers. He suggested that some way might exist to “ungift” one, and noted the presence of powerful entities throughout the domains.
- He believed a person could become a Darklord by committing sufficient evil, illustrating his claim with Klorr.
- His story makes Klorr’s desired mastery of time a prison requiring hourly rituals to avoid ceasing to exist.
- Asked about a stake through Strahd’s heart, he said it should be effective according to what they had heard. This was not a confirmed method of ending Strahd’s recurring return.
Why it matters
The account may offer a way to understand Darkon’s collapse and the failed escape, beyond simply killing a lord. None of its proposed mechanisms has been independently tested by the company.
Uncertainties
- Can a domain be “ungifted,” and at what cost?
- What does the Amber Temple actually contain?
- What does Klorr’s thirteen-world cycle mean for other domains?