Editing Darklord (section)

===Geren Horstadt===
Darklord of Seradan.  Born the favored son of a minor noble family, Geren was a bullying braggart in private, but a charming and idolized peer in public. All that changed when, at the age of 17, he was struck by a strange wasting disease that crippled him irreversibly; he lost use of his legs, his muscles withered, and all his senses faded. Though his family bankrupted themselves to try and cure him, nothing worked. He spent fifteen years in his own personal hell, watching and envying those with normal lives, and resenting his family despite the love and care they still showered him with.

His true descent into damnation came when one of his brothers brought down a trunk full of books from the attack, and Geren learned one of his great-grandfathers had been a powerful [[wizard]] - one with considerable experience in summoning beings from the [[Lower Planes]]. When his family refused to hire a wizard to tutor Geren in magic, he decided to try summoning a [[fiend]] on his own. He called forth a [[yugoloth]], who was so surprised by the venomous manner in which Geren pleaded his case that he offered Geren a trade: the souls of Geren's famiy in exchange for the ability to "help Geren feel what others feel". 

It was a bargain Geren made without hesitation. He hired an [[assassin]] to kill every last member of his family, other than his mother. In exchange, the yugoloth gifted him with the ability to possess others, which allowed him to vicariously experience life as a normal person again. He slowly began to rebuild the family's fortunes by using possessed thralls to commit acts of murder and theft... then the townsfolk began to suspect his mother was involved, and she in turn wondered if Geren was responsible. When she confronted him, however, Geren petuantly seized control of her mind and made her kill herself. But some of the townsfolk had just arrived to question her again, and they discovered her slumping over the infamous and now-hated cripple. Realizing that Geren had been responsible, they beat him with clubs and then dragged him into the streets, where the mob lynched him; hanging him from a tree and beating him to death as they burned his family's home and himself. 

Such was Geren's rage at this fate that he returned from the grave as a powerful haunt - a [[Ravenloft]] strain of [[ghost]]. With his possession abilities enhanced, he used them to massacre the entire population of the village... which was when the Mists rolled in and claimed him for Seradan.

Geren's darklord status brings with it a cocktail of curses. The standard Darklord curse of being unable to leave his domain chafes him particularly, being that he yearns to explore and experience the world. Making matters worse is that he is now trapped in a realm of dullards, so docile, unimaginative and unfeeling that possessing them is little better than staying a ghost. For further insult, Geren can now only possess hosts for short periods of time, or else they die of a supernaturally induced fever, forcing him to largely avoid using his possession abilities.

Geren always reforms one week after being destroyed. Only if he is allowed to kill Wilhelm Braugh, the only survivor of Geren's hometown and the inspector who gave him over to the mob, will he cease to exist, having decided that there is nothing left to live for. If he closes the borders, supernatural exhaustion claims any who try to leave the domain, sapping their strength until they are left helpless.