The Mansion of Blue Beard

CharacterA man can tell a thousand lies I’ve learned my lesson wellHope I live to tell the secret I have learned, ‘til thenIt will burn inside of meThe truth is never far behindYou keep it hidden wellIf I live to tellThe secret I knew thenIf I had the chance again- A female bard sings an old Pandemonium song.

PowersThe dark, handsome and absolutely charming man that lives in this mansion is sometimes called Blue Beard (Pr/male human/F11/CE), due to his blue-black facial hair. He is barely resistible by any female visitor, learned, beautiful by any standards and can seem to be of any species as that of his visitors. After much game and calculated hounding he will ask his chosen for marriage. That is where the fairytale ends and terror begins. He is just a mortal’s essence incorporated in the plane’s sequence of egos and turmoil of sickness and antithesis, however the very plane has invited him into it’s picaresque collection of horrors and given him his own realm as an archetype of old tales and terror.

DescriptionIt is said that he murdered his first wife for betraying him. He married again, but hid the body of that first one on a room in the West Wing (even though there is no more west or east for that matter). He told his second wife never to enter that room, but curiosity got the best of her and she hired someone to break in. He found out and killed her, adding her to the existing menagerie of death. So it was for some six marriages until a wife particularly similar to the first managed to escape and kill him with the help of a lover. Obviously some things changed as he passed away to the Plane of Howling Madness.

The beautiful mansion was reconstructed exactly as before, even to the secret room and the hidden wax seal that he used to discover disobeying wives on the door. His power is now great within his realm, possibly capable of kicking out nosy demigods or entities. He can will into existence fake suns, lakes and daisies, even seasons, if that suits his particular madness. All to charm his lovely visitor. Male visitors should make out in haste lest they be seen as competitors and swiftly disposed of.

Principal TownsThere is the mansion and the mansion only, however it is so intricate and exquisitely compelling that one would be tempted to pass centuries analyzing each room.

Special Conditions“If I ran away I’d never had the strength to go very far” Cliffs, seas, and whatever may inhabit the realm’s master’s subconscious appear surrounding the mansion. Hellhounds materialize to hunt down the more tenacious. Storms bring down fliers or hit them with lightning. Escape is impossible at best and usually lethal; he’s even beat succubus on their own game and he is not above seducing asuras, baatezu or any female being that enters his mansion.

Besides the impossibility of escape, it is important to notice that female characters find themselves mostly incapable of fighting him. Level or Hit Dice is effectively reduced by half and a save vs. terror at -2 (or vs. death at –3) must be made to resist the urge to run away in terror. Even then, if Blue Beard is somehow killed, his house vanishes to reappear some months afterwards in another location, with a lust for his killer’s soul.

Principal Non-Player CharactersThe Irony of fate, and irony’s fate, seems inescapable. Brides-to-be have a slim chance of survival by being curious, but cautious. Unbeknownst to the vindictive husband, in the eternal love nest, hidden behind Blue Beard’s portrait is the diary of the first-among-all wife, telling the rabid jealousy and violent tendencies observed in the husband. The slow degradation of such a wonderful man into a merciless monster eventually consumes him and slays his fiancée. Some have found it along the centuries, but none still in time to save themselves.

ServicesThe mansion is surely a thief’s paradise in respectable loot that could reach good prices in an open market. However anyone who steals from Blue Beard is marked and cursed with a discreet urge to go back to Pandemonium that eventually becomes overwhelming and either maddens the victim or takes him to his, or her, fate.