Duke of Darkwater
From Changeling Venue
The Duke is also known as the Drowned God, 'Davy Jones,' the Devil Jonah, or by his own preference, the Dutchman. This black-hearted Fae prefers to cast himself as loving and benevolent, killing his charges with kindness or working them to death on the seafloor in forced 'worship' of his godhood. He makes deals that give his charges the very things they want... all of which are, of course, empty and withered - while the Duke laughs at the 'prize' that his charges labored for and won. Phrase your wishes very carefully... for the sea is listening.
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Description
Look ahead, look a stern,
Look the weather in the lee,
Blow high! Blow low! And so sailed we.
I see a wreck to the windward
And a lofty ship to lee,
With cutlass and gun,
O we fought for hours three;
Blow high! Blow low! And so sailed we.
The ship it was their coffin
And their grave it was the sea.
A sailing down all on
The coasts of High Barbary...
The Fae known as the Dutchman or the Drowned God is a frightening-looking monster, human when it chooses to be, cthulean and tentacled when it does not. Some say the Bermuda Triangle is his demesne, others insist he lives at the very bottom of the Marianas Trench. Where the sea is wild, cold or unyielding, there he walks and there he takes his prizes from the wrecks of ships strewn before him for his pleasure by the Undines and the Sirens who serve him best.
Did he save the sailors, cast adrift by the storm? Or does he bring the high waters, causing their pathetic plight in the first place? No one knows, and likely both, for the Dutchman is a consummate opportunist. Despite his quiet smile, he is even more sadistic than many Fae keepers, hiding his laughter behind a grandfatherly pat on the back or a Captain's wink and 'trust me.' Serve a few years, then find your freedom... but who can tell how many years are passing when you are drowned in the deepest seas, far from the movement of the sun?
Beneath the waves lies a seafloor realm, littered with ancient temples of broken stone. Among them are fragments, bones of servants ground to grist dragging these boulders from the underwater mountain that birthed them. These temples pay homage to the master of that realm in one of his forms, that of a terrible kraken. In the inky blackness you can rarely see anything at all... but when the Drowned God passes you by, you may see a titanic gray form shimmering with a strange luminescence, as the stretch of tentacles whip the water overhead. When the Drowned God does not pass you by, a poor sailor may become just another broken slave littering the seafloor; food for the lampreys to pick at, then nothing more than bones ground down until there is nothing at all.
Falsely kind and infinitely capricious, he collects slaves for his own pleasure, then works them to death to build temples he might never even see. The worship he cares for is the pain of working, the suffering of slaves, the agony of fresh wounds in the brine and the songs of the undines, always calling... calling for more sailors to come to his ocean lair. Ships have crashed on his rocks because of their song, their sailors sinking into the depths for the Duke of Darkwater's amusement.
The Supplicants
So forgive me my rough mood unaccustomed to sue;
I woo not, perhaps, as your landlubbers do.
My voice is attuned to the sound of the gun
That startles the deep when the combat's begun.
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be...
The realm of the Dutchman is a hard place, and it crafts those within it to match its hardness. Those who survive their first drowning, who suck the chilly brine into their lungs and draw sustenance from water instead of air, are put to work as slaves or as undines. Those who don't survive escape the realm of the Drowned God by the only means he finds acceptable: death.
Those who somehow live long enough to grow accustomed to his lair find themselves changed. Some are hardened into muscular beasts accustomed to life beneath the waves, others are shaped into beautiful mermaids of song and beckoning to bring the Dutchman more slaves for his labors. Those who survive the longest, who become so truly akin to the Drowned God as to resemble him in one fashion or another, find their will sucked from their body and replaced by their newfound worship, welcomed into the Priesthood of the Drowned God and tasked to oversee the workers in their cruel toil, to build new temples for the worship of their lord and master.
Associated Gentry
The Gentleman - A rivalry began between these two gentry when the Dutchman kidnapped The Gentleman's favorite manservant.
Jolite L Rouge - A rival between these two exists because they both wish to capture the shipwrecked of the Carribean.
Pirates, Undines and Seafarers
- Althea Sexton - Elemental, Waterborn
- Douglas Newman - Darkling, Tunnelgrub
- Elizabeth Ann Sexton - Elemental, Waterborn
- Laurel Thorn - Elemental, Waterborn: I dreamed for the sea to take me. I dreamed and dreamed and it came to be. Now I am the sea - no shore! - and I'll never dream no more.
- Nemo - Beast, Swimmerskin
- Quinn Denton - Elemental, Waterborn
- Varsha - His Elemental Figurehead
- Dominic Thorn - Fairest, Draconic Once I believed I came for the sea. Now I know it was the sea that came for me, and in her unforgiving embrace the last memories of my humanity sank to the cold dark depths.
- Judas - Wizened Chatelaine
