Ravenloft Remix: Sithicus

Sithicus

Precis: Decadent elf kingdom through a Gothic lens.

Conspectus: A thickly forested domain where massive trees crowd out the sun, plunging the forest floor into darkness; Sithicus has three main cities: Mal-Erek, Hroth, and Har-Thelen; each city is ruled by a hereditary governor known as the Lord Speaker, but all the Lord Speakers acknowledge that the domain is ruled by Lord Soth, a death knight who lives within the haunted Nedragaard Keep; Lord Soth's seneschal is a stout, twisted dwarf called Azrael; the people of Sithicus are elves and have an air of apathy about them, they find neither joy nor beauty in the world; furthermore, the elves are xenophobic and distrust outsiders; the songs native to the realm are mournful dirges accompanied by low-pitched, droning instruments that evoke a sense of loss; warriors from Sithicus use giant horned stag beetles as mounts; there is a small, but significant Vistanai population in Sithicus called the Wanderers—they are persecuted by Lord Soth and his knights for unknown reasons; the elves worship a constellation called Tiamat as a goddess—the constellation is said to be shaped like a five-headed dragon; strangely, the moon shines differently in Sithicus than it does in the rest of Ravenloft: the moon is black and gives off a fearful, shadowy luminescence—it is rumored that all magic in Sithicus ebbs and flows according to the dark moon's phase; Sithicus's cities are all in states of disrepair, with large gaps in stonework, potholes in the streets, crumbling castle walls, moldy books within the libraries, and public statutes that look rushed and half finished; Mason, the Lord Speaker of Har-Thelen, is the only political leader who urges the populace to rise from their decadence and engage in progressive mercantilism with the rest of Ravenloft.