Judith Erinea D’alrose

Judith Erinea D’alrose is the Darklord of the domain of dread known as Visalaire. She is a former noble knight from Aldmeer that belonged to the church of Leneiru, goddess of love. Lady Judith Erinea D’alrose, last of her family, resided in the town (now city) of Kuln in the Free Realms before she was taken by the Mists. Her legacy in the Free Realms is that of a perverted noble, a notorious killer and a dark chapter of the church of Leneiru in Kuln.

Irredeemable Life
From a young age Judith was raised and groomed by her noble parents in a way that made her develop a narcissistic complex. All her life was spent in vanity and self-admiration. When she became a knight, she viewed herself as the most worthy knight in the realm and honed her skills so that no inferiors could claim to defeat her. Anyone who so much as scratched her face in battle would be in a world of hurt and possibly death. Of course, if someone would die Judith made sure that the person was killed in secret.

A narcissistic woman in her thirties, Judith loved herself and her own idealised image more than anyone and anything else. She loved herself so much to the point of renouncing romantic love that came from anywhere else, and when she had sexual intercourse with someone she forced them to drink a potion that briefly altered their appearance into hers so that, in her mind, she was making love with herself. As time went by she started viewing other people’s appearance with disdain and came to the belief that she was the only pure, beautiful and worthy of love. She forced the staff in her castle to drink the potion and alter their appearance into her own image and beat up anyone who was caught not looking like her. Of course, Judith was not satisfied with that either and sought ways of making changes that were more permanent. She hired a skilled transmuter, master in flesh warping and facial reconstruction, and started threatening her staff to undergo a permanent change or be released from service. Some of the staff succumbed as they really needed the money and they didn’t have anywhere else to go. Everyone else who quit she killed so they wouldn’t talk. After that was done the transmuter altered the servants’s faces and her wish was fulfilled. The transmuter also altered the vocal cords of the servants and changed them to make the voice of their mistress come out of their throats when they spoke as per the her request. After a time, any servant nearing their wit’s end that tried to escape, Judith also executed. After she would kill a servant like that she would sever the head and mount it in animated statues the transmuter made for her. A time came when she demanded that the transmuter also alter his face or else. After this the transmuter had enough; he went to the authorities of Kuln and gave away everything that Judith had done. Word then got out.

When the guard went in her mansion, priests and acolytes of the church of Leneiru went in there as well, and once they broke in they saw the abominations. Judith was in the basement at the time and heard the guards breaking in and the priests yelling that she was no longer part of the church and that Leneiru now forsakes her as she is a scourge to love and to all that is good. She escaped from the basement’s back door and since they could not find her, they burned down her mansion along with her unholy creations after evacuating the few surviving servants.

Watching from a distance Judith swore revenge. During the same night she went to the church of Leneiru full of hate and anger, and slaughtered every priest and acolyte inside. She severed their heads after defacing them and scattered them on the streets. She was laughing when arrows punctured her back and she fell in the ground nearing death. At that moment she saw the transmuter above her, watching her as he was drawing a sword. While she lay there helpless, the transmuter severed her head as the Mists took her.

Darklord of Visalaire
She woke up in a castle in a strange land she did not know, her head missing. She was now a dullahan; the darklord of this domain of dread. Her vision was different and she could not physically speak; instead her disembodied voice could only wail and make eerie incoherent noises. She looked all over the castle for her missing head but could not find it, instead only seeing myriad portraits of her with her head still attached that brought her desperation and pain, but also nostalgia and fulfillment that she gazed upon her beautiful image. These portraits only made her more decisive in finding her lost beautiful head. She was convinced that her head was somewhere in this land surrounded by mist and every night she was outside searching.

The land itself is constructed in a way by the Dark Powers so that Judith is always tormented, never finding her actual head. The cursed land of Visalaire has numerous trees called Death’s Head Trees from which heads dangle like foul fruit. Judith is cursed, and sees in some of the heads of the trees her own head. In reality it is an illusion viewable only by her, despite her truesight.

She will claim a head from a tree that she thinks it is hers while the other heads in the tree attack her. After she is done she will place said head on herself, and, after it bonds, she will be able to speak normally and be satisfied for a time. That is until that head starts looking less and less like hers and then falls off after a short while at which point she will realize it’s not her head. She then starts her search again.

Judith is not cursed with only seeing heads from said trees as her head, but also the heads of other humanoids that are stranded and live in this land. Each and every humanoid she sees seemingly bears her head with no exceptions. Seeing her head everywhere makes her long for her lost head even more and makes her miss the times she could view her reflection and fall in love with herself all over again. During the first few years in the domain Judith stopped at nothing to claim heads that she thought are her true head. Of course no head was ever her true head. She is reasoning that the person that has her true head will be the person most charismatic, or the person most able to stand against her in combat or otherwise possess extraordinary features since only her true image can be the one truly worthy of containing the best qualities a humanoid can strive for. In her hunts she strove to draw out these qualities in her victims.

Of course no matter what Judith does she will never find her true head, and the more she realizes that the heads she claims are not her head the more she is convinced that she is closing in finding it, unreasonably thinking that next time will be different. The lands around her castle are filled with dozens upon dozens of discarded heads; many of them are Death’s Heads loitering around, serving the will of the darklord and attacking any trespassers on sight, as she does not think that anyone is worthy of approaching her castle without an invitation. The curse of Visalaire can sometimes transform such a discarded head into a Vargouille. Judith uses these Vargouilles as scouts and servants, ever on the lookout for her true head.

The denizens and locals that are trapped and live in Visalaire know that seeing a Vargouille is never a good omen, and also know to hide whenever they hear galloping accompanied with the wail and screams of a woman in the night. They call her the Headless Lady, although they all know or learn her real name at some point. Her castle is dubbed by them as Castle Guillotine, however, its ‘’official’’ name given to it by the darklord is Castle D’alrose.

These communities fear her and actively search for people’s heads to bring to her in order to appease the lady. A band of adventurers stumbling upon such a village can find the villagers being these sympathetic civilians that in time will kindly ask and plead to be allowed to kill a number of said band in order to send the deceased’s heads to the darklord. If refusal is expressed they will tend to get more insistent to the point of force. The only exception to this is a certain village that refuses to do that and risks assaults by Judith’s forces in order to punish them.

Grim Contests
Judith has found that always personally hunting for her head is time consuming and sometimes tedious if fun. So, she made up various contests and forces people to compete in order to draw those who potentially have her true head while she enjoys herself. Since she believes that only the most bright, charismatic, strong and wise can possess her true beautiful head, she invites to her castle a select people at a time and makes them partake in these various trials and contests designed to try everyone in order to cull the number of candidates and finally decide who has her true head. Most of the time, these contests are equally ridiculous and equally horrifying. Sometimes it could be things like a competition of who can hit a villager in the head with a rock from afar or a swordfight tournament to the death. At other instances it could be a dance competition carrying on even after the contestants’ feet start bleeding or an eating contest going on until the contestants drop dead, or the hunting of horrifying creatures that can maim and eat people; these are only some of contest ideas she executes. Anyone not playing to win is executed on the spot as the possessor of her true visage would never be a loser and a coward. Those that lost a contest but managed to survive are rewarded with an amount of gold and are escorted out of the castle.

When a winner arises, Judith beheads said winner and wears their head, only to discover after a time that this head is also false, leading to the next contest. Various villagers from all over are forced to compete; and when trapped adventurers show up in the domain and are invited, the villagers rejoice since a number of them will be spared from the contests. Some will even try to convince outsiders that it is a good idea to compete, in order to save their own skin. Anyone that fails to show up in the castle for a contest is hunted down; sometimes by the darklord herself for sport. Sometimes a whole village will pay for that slight. Judith typically hosts these contests every thirty or so days as this is the time it takes for her to realise a head is fake, but there are rare instances when she will spontaneously decide to host one for one reason or another. The one village that refuses to hunt for stranger’s heads also refuses to take part in her contests, risking the wrath of the Headless Lady even more. There have been a number of raids in the village in the past and it always ends when one or more villagers are taken as potential candidates.

Servants and Horrors in Her Wake
Judith has more servants that hunt for her head and otherwise act out her will than just Vargouilles. A number of undead horseriders coming from humanoids she has killed answer to her beck and call, killing and serving her at command. They are skeletons riding skeletal horses; a macabre horde of undead riders ever in the search. After the darklord slays a humanoid, the Skeleton comes out of the dead body, and the rest of the remains become a Boneless; a husk of skin and meat that slithers and flops. She doesn’t keep a boneless like she does with the skeletons and instead lets it be, as it disgusts her and makes a mess in her castle. There are a number of boneless roaming the domain aimlessly, attacking random creatures because of that.

When a skeleton horseman dies its head takes off in the air and becomes a Skeletal Death’s Head.

After the first years of Judith hunting personally for her head, she now mostly relies on her undead riders, the villagers, her scouting Vargouilles, and her contests. Many deaths result from her contests and from her servant's killings as well as her own.

The spirits of the dead that have been slain in this realm do not move to their afterlife and are instead trapped in Visalaire. Ghosts and apparitions of various kinds haunt the land as a result.

Further Torment
The darkord still roams the domain during some nights while riding her Nightmare, and if someone picks her fancy she will pay them a visit. Depending on the interaction she will assault them, just talk to them, invite them for a cup of tea at her castle or invite them to a contest; it can go in a number of ways. Judith can communicate telepathically with any number of other creatures she wants but she still cannot speak physically or hear her voice when she does not have a head. A creature that does not know a language cannot be communicated telepathically much to her annoyance. Each time she speaks telepathically to someone her voice echoes inside that someone’s head as eerie whispers from beyond the grave, and the person feels chilly as if an unseen cold wind just passed though. This telepathic ability is also a torture to her, as she hates that others can hear her beautiful voice in their heads while she cannot. While she has a head bonded she can physically talk with her voice though, but as the head starts looking less and less like her, so does the voice becomes increasingly alien. During the quiet hours in her castle she tries to sing, but every time her voice fails her as it only ever produces odd unintelligible sounds.

The land of Visalaire also contains various medium-sized walking statues of finely sculpted marble, depicting a warrior woman’s body complete with a marble likeness of Judith’s head. These roaming marble constructs are spawned from the darklord’s sheer vanity and their mere existence torments her; another way that the Dark Powers torture her. Of course at the same time Judith cannot bring herself to destroy said statues, as destroying her perfect visage would be nothing short of a sacrilege. These walking statues are harmless most of the time but they will voicelessly attack anyone that comes close to 5 feet of them or anyone that threatens them in any way, while retaining their unchanging grimace. Only the darklord is exempt from their attacks. Sometimes, Judith comes out of Castle D'alrose and gazes upon such a statue for hours on end, her eerie weeping echoing in the area around.

In some especially cursed places, the land itself shifts and grows flesh that takes the form of the lost face of Judith. They don’t speak and instead only growl, yell and laugh, and sometimes try to eat creatures that stand on them. Judith herself hates these occurrences as she finds that they are tasteless and stain her perfect visage by being loud, disgusting piles of stray meat that disgustingly eat creatures in a very non-elegant way. They also remind her of her living moments when she was less than the perfect person she claimed she was; the instances when her striving perfection showed flaws.

Nightmare Steed
Her steed is the same one she had while she was a knight living in Kuln. After she was drawn in Visalaire, her steed was also drawn in and transformed into a Nightmare. The steed did not have a given name in life and so it remains nameless as Judith grew to not care about it or anything else besides her. Outside of her castle, Judith rides on her Nightmare steed with an infernal tack, and uses the spurs to summon the nightmare from the castle’s nightmarish stable when she is not riding it. The stable has bodies and meat stranded in the walls and the feeding troughs for the nightmare to eat. The nightmare disappears along with the infernal tack if and when Judith dies, and respawns with the tack when Judith is eventually returned to life by the Dark Powers. If the nightmare dies but Judith does not, it reappears in the stables after 1 to 4 hours. When Judith is spotted around the domain she is always riding her Nightmare, who is completely obedient to her, bringing terror in the hearts of the denizens.

Death
Anyone who tries to challenge and kill the Headless Lady is in for an increasingly deadly fight, even more so if that fight takes place in her lair, namely Castle D’alrose. While she is in her castle, Judith can use the magic suffusing her cursed lair to gain an edge in battle. In the event she is killed, anyone in this domain of dread is free to leave from the mists and return to where they were taken from or where they entered. The Dark Powers always bring her back to life, typically after 2 to 12 days. If anyone wants to leave the domain it should be done posthaste before she returns. No matter what happens, Judith will never escape her torment and will never know peace; death is but a sweet, temporary break in this unending cycle.

Statistics
Judith Erinea D’alrose has the stats of a Dullahan with these changes:

--- Judith has telepathy with a range of 60 feet. Thus, she can communicate mentally with another creature that she can see within the specified range. The contacted creature doesn't need to share a language with her to communicate in this way, but it must be able to understand at least one language. She can communicate with multiple creatures at once but the creatures cannot communicate back like that and have to speak to her in order to talk to her.

---She wears plate armor instead of a breastplate, increasing her AC to 18.

---She carries a longsword instead of a battleaxe.

---She is attuned to an Infernal Tack and can use the spurs to summon her Nightmare as an action. The Nightmare appears at the start of her next turn, within 20 feet of her. It acts as her ally and takes its turn on her initiative count.

---When a humanoid is killed by Judith, its Skeleton rises from the body leaving behind a Boneless. Both creatures take their turn directly after hers and act as her allies. If a Skeleton created like that dies, its head becomes a skeletal Gnashing Death’s Head that is also her ally.

---Lair Actions

While Judith is in Castle D’alrose, she can take lair actions as long as she isn't incapacitated.

On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), Judith can take one of the following lair action options, or forgo using any of them in that round:

- Judith targets any number of doors and windows that she can see, causing each one to either open or close as she wishes. These doors and windows are locked (needing a successful DC 20 Strength check to force open, or unlock using a Knock spell) until she chooses to end the effect, or until she uses this lair action again.

- Judith uses her Fiery Skull action and has advantage on the attack roll.

- Judith can cast the spell Animate Objects at the spell's base level once per short rest.

---Her Challenge Rating is increased to 12 when encountered in her lair.