Who ya gonna call?
Mordent is a haunted domain where the dead find no rest but simply walk the land as ghosts; forever mourning, forever trapped in the mists of Ravenloft. Mordent is one of the Domains of Dread of Ravenloft and like all the Domains of Dread, its denizens are trapped there by the mists the surround the land. It is a domain ruled by Lord Wilfred Godefroy; the darklord of Mordent. An angry and abusive man in life whose spirit now lingers, continuing his rule of Mordent.
Information About Mordent
| Characteristic | Information |
|---|---|
| Darklord | Lord Wilfred Godefroy |
| Domain Characteristic | Domain of the Haunted |
| Genre | Ghost stories |
| Hallmarks | Ancestral curses, haunted mansions, mist-shrouded moors, vengeful spirits |
| Population | About 5,500 |
| Races | Mainly human |
| Settlements | Mordentshire Glenwich Waterford Crawford Glaston Blairsbay Candle Cross Haworth Hall |
Characteristics of Mordent
Like all Domains of Dread, Mordent has been fashioned as a torturous landscape for its Darklord, Wilfred Godefroy. Having murdered in characteristic fits of rage, his father, his wife Estelle and his daughter Penelope, Wilfred’s torture is that those that die, linger in Mordent as ghosts. Wilfred is perpetually haunted by his dead wife and child whom he regrets murdering. Such constant reminders of his errors drove him to despair, causing him to commit suicide, yet, as is the nature of Mordent, Wilfred can find no escape in death as his spirit continues to linger on.
Because of this, the living must co-exist with the dead, finding no reprieve from the past while the dead must linger on in mournful regret. On the surface, Mordent appears to be a peaceful domain, but beneath that surface is a slow despair. Many spirits can become vengeful in their undeath, spectral terrors tied to a point of strong connection, with unfinished business. Denizens of Mordent will find many such aggravated spirits haunting its people.
Others may find themselves caught up in the experiments of Godefroy’s scholars who seek a way to end the undeath around them. For others connected to Godefroy himself, they may find themselves caught in his web of endless torment.
The people of Mordent seek to deal with the stressful state of their domain by holding to tradition, living as they always have; farming the land, fishing from the sea and, for the aristocrats, maintaining their social standing from the comfort of their countryside manors.
Darklord: Wilfred Godefroy
Wilfred Godefroy is a tortured man. Tortured by his grievous errors of the past with the blood of his family on his hands and unable to escape the cycle of endless grief and despair, he searches desperately to find a means by which he can end his wretched existence and that of all ghosts. His desperation led him to an alchemist known as Rastinon whom he commissioned to make the Apparatus, a device that should have been able to separate the soul from the body and even transfer souls into other bodies. It should have been able to manipulate the matter of both body and soul into whatever state he wanted it. Unfortunately, using the Apparatus had a much worse consequence. When used it killed all living beings, turning them into ghosts. Wilfred continues to search for a way to end his existence.
Wilfred lives in a manor known as the House on Gryphon Hill. Thousands of spirits are bound to its grounds and must do the bidding of Lord Godefoy or risk invoking his wrath which might involve being savaged by his spectral hounds, or, even worse; being plunged into the terrifying depths of the house. Those that can possess the living may only do so at Godefroy’s bidding, and on those rare occasions, it is only to exact his will elsewhere in the domain.
Godefroy manipulates those of his domain to do his bidding, often with some leverage or other. He seeks information of those that might be able to exorcise the dead, that know secrets of the dead, or that can travel beyond the mists of Ravenloft (as some can do). In particular, he manipulates Alice Weathermay to do his bidding by keeping her dead husband, Daniel Foxgrove, hostage.
Locations in Mordent
Mordentshire
The largest town in Mordent is known as Mordentshire. It is the primary location for trade and business, particular among the working class (the aristocrats prefer to stay well clear of such places if they possibly can). it stands a top a cliff edge overlooking the Sea of Storms. Cold winds blow from the sea and it often brings a chilling fog that the locals call the “breath of the dead”.
Most locations in Mordentshire cater to the basic needs of the workforce, but more remarkable locations include Saulbridge Sanitarium which provides medical help for the ill as being a base for the Ulmist Inquisition. Rudolph Van Richten keeps a herbalist shop in Mordent too (when he’s not busy adventuring or investigating some supernatural occurrence or other).
Heather House
Heather House is the manor owned by the Weathermay family, which includes as its current head, Alice Weathermay who is also the mayor of Mordentshire. On its grounds is a mausoleum which houses the dead ancestors of the Weathermay family (as well as a secret laboratory guarded by the family’s quasit, Tintantilus.
Idlethorp
Idlethorp is an abandoned hamlet that once served as a crossroads village to travellers. Before it became abandoned, it was ruled over by an artificer in Punchinel Manor who would create miniature flesh golems from the body parts of victims of the hamlet. These golems might be formed from just the head and the arms of a victim for instance. This artificer had a disturbing obsession with experimenting on the dead until he was killed by his own creations.
Sigil lakes
The Sigil Lakes are 3 lakes that form an unusual, but probably natural symbol. It has become the fascination of magic wielders and particularly a circle of druids that gathered in the nearby village of Glaston to attempt to perform rituals at the lake to open gateways between those lakes and other similar looking lakes. No one knows what happened to the druids, but since then, the place has been haunted by the ghosts of dead animals that delight in hunting the living.
