Artor Morlin, also known as The Baron of Blood, was a vampire Lord who saw Waterdeep as his own personal hunting grounds and brooked no challenges from rival vampires to his domain.
Personality
As an immortal creature who had been living in the same place for well over four centuries, Artor had to create several personalities for himself to remain incognito. In this, he lacked imagination as every one of his personae was a mercenary captain.
He was a wary individual, He would try to observe his foes and send his vampire spawn or other minions to deal with threats instead of confronting them himself. He therefore preferred to avoid notice wherever possible and maintain his public identity so that he could spend his free time hunting. After one of his dungeons was found by the nights watch, he spent the next three decades anxiously waiting and watching for signs that people had forgotten about the existence of the dungeon and that he was still out there.
Artor spent a small fortune on bloodroot in order to suggest an addiction to the drug. The purpose of this was to suggest a weakness that enemies would think to exploit and thus reveal themselves. The ploy was successful in drawing Dhusarra yr Fadila el Abhuk.
He was a pragmatic tactician and strategist who was determined to never lose a fight. He would never intentionally put himself in a position where there was any doubt of his absolute victory. He spent a small fortune and several years of unlife researching all of the inherent weaknesses of a vampire's condition just so he could cover all of his bases if an opponent ever tried to exploit even one of them.
However, in combat, his bloodlust takes over and he revels in the chaos and blood of combat.
Relationships
Artor didn't maintain many relationships. He preferred to kill his allies and make new ones after some time. He maintaines a coterie of vampire spawn, the last of whom that were documented being Arrick Kaarvol, Fhang, Rorrina of Clan Stoneshaft and a medusa named Medechai who is his favorite.
He knows Halaster Blackcloak, whom he met before he became undead. Durnan is one of his only true friends.
Through Fhang, Artor has a connection to the Unseen. He also has connections within the Church of Loviatar and the Shadow Thieves.
He is closely connected to the Gost family of Waterdeep, a relationship dating back centuries. Djarrus Gost is his dominated puppet (a fact that would've shocked Djarrus' vampire-hunting half-sister Corinna Lathankin if she'd ever found out). Artor maintained dominated servants that were connected to the church of Lathander in order to supply information to the church about rival vampires which would then be destroyed by church-sponsored vampire hunters.
Possessions
Artor wielded a +2 vampiric two-bladed sword in combat that he named Shoonfangs. He frequently coated it in purple worm poison. It was also the key to a portal that linked the Fireplace Level to the Morlin Catacombs underneath Castle Daggerford - Morlin's emergency escape route.
Artor wore a Mithral chain shirt called Artor's Armament. He also kept a 6 inch (15 cm) bloodstone gem, carved into the shape of a bowl that would fill with blood on command.
Artor's coffin was finely carved black marble and worth thousands of gold pieces to a collector.
Artor acquired one of two known copies of the Workbook of Lhoril Delhiirnyn that contained extensive research on summoning demons and a list of treasures seen in Ahghairon's Tower before it was spellwarded.
A pair of Boots of Elvenkind.
A kiira that contained the spells analyze dweomer, contact other plane, moment of prescience, scrying, and vision.
Twin daggers of venom decorated with jewels, stolen from the noble Sultlue family of Waterdeep.
A book describing religious rituals of the yuan-ti.
A pair of dueling sword won by defeating a young scion of the Silmerhelve noble family. Artor posed as a rival and acquired a rapier of puncturing and a Luck Blade (with no wishes left).
Artor had a large collection of treasures from the time of the Shoon Imperium including a suit of red dragonhide full plate armor once worn by a helmed horror made by the Shoon court mages.
Biography
Artor Morlin was as a loyal guard in the court of Qysar Shoon III at Shoonach. His employer was killed in a coup lead by his own brother and Artor became an infamous Shoon outlaw. He used his looted wealth to build Morlin Castle in what is now Daggerford and proclaimed himself Baron.
At some point, he fell to evil and became a powerful vampire. He neglected his domain and castle, letting it all fall to ruin as he chased flesh and blood. Discovering the greater opportunities and larger number of vitims in the settlement of Waterdeep, he chose to move.
Artor made a deal with Open Lord Ahghairon, promising to keep Waterdeep free of vampires other than him himself, in exchange for the position of Masked Lord.
He kept Waterdeep safe from other vampires for 4 centuries. The Company of Crazed Venturers chanced upon and defeated him. Artor was forced out of his lair. After a decade had passed, he had a vampiric servant move back into his old lair to test whether people would actually remember that he was never destroyed or not. Every five years he would kill his servant, create another and send them to perform the same task. The fourth such servant, a doppelganger named Fhang, was intended to be the last such imposter before he would return in person. However, Dhusarra el Abhuk, decided to challenge Artor for the privilege of using the city of Waterdeep as a private hunting ground.
Artor decided to use his reserve crypt beneath the Gost mausoleum in the City of the Dead during this conflict, his final emergency crypt is beneath the villa of the Gost family.
The leader of Bregan D'aerthe, Jarlaxle, has learned of the existence of a powerful potential rival based out of the Gost crypts. Rather than expend resources getting rid of Artor himself, Jarlaxle has commissioned numerous fake treasure maps that lead to the mausoleum, and distributed them to other treasure hunters and adventuring types, banking on his rivals eliminating each other for him.
Quests
- Help Artor find a new crypt, either in the Undermountain or Skullport.
- Help Artor deal with Dusharra
- Help Artor deal with Jarlaxl