Special Treat: Momma Gobbo the Darklord
Added 2025-09-15 19:18:52 +0000 UTCI've spent the past few days gearing up for 'Who Let This Sassy Goblin Witch Into Ravenloft?' and it's made me extremely curious about my character Momma Gobbo's lifetime in the domains of dread from Ravenloft.
See, after our Curse of Strahd D&D campaign wrapped up, DM Tina did a few back and forths with me about her time as (spoilers) the new countess of Barovia. We both agreed that it would be a decadent, if short lived, rule.
If you want a taste of what it was like, I wrote some fanfiction about it.
After that, DM Tina ran a few sessions of Vecna: Eve Of Ruin, which brought Momma Gobbo back to the land of Faerun to stop Vecna from ruining the multiverse. While we never got to finish that campaign, I got to fantasize about what Momma would be like if she'd claimed both the Eye and Hand of Vecna.
When I shared my thoughts with Tina, she said "Oh, naturally. I kind of assumed that Momma Gobbo would become the Darklord of her own domain in Ravenloft eventually~"
I...had not considered this.
But I was tremendously curious.
For those who don't know, Ravenloft is a gothic horror campaign setting for D&D. It's a mist-shrouded land of horror-themed monsters (vampires, werewolves, frankensteins, etc) living in secluded little regions called Domains.
Each Domain is ruled over by a Darklord, a nigh immortal tragic but evil villain whose twisted personality shapes the very land itself. In Ravenloft, Strahd Von Zarovich is the darklord of Barovia, and Momma would be a main antagonist on that level of evil.
While I always insisted to others that Momma is a mostly good character who does good deeds, her time in Barovia twisted her; making her more willing to indulge her depraved feeder urges, feeding and fattening up those she likes, while torturing and transforming those she doesn't.
DM Tina challenged me to do a little bit of worldbuilding to determine what kind of darklord Momma would be, and what kind of domain the Mists would grant her~
So I grabbed a copy of Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft and started taking notes.
Momma Gobbo as a Darklord
From the lofty, frosting covered spires of her gingerbread castle, Momma Gobbo rules over her domain as a distant but capricious queen and witch.
She desperately wants new subjects, seeking to fatten her lands with new mistbound arrivals and lost outlanders. As such, her domain is a forked crossroads between other domains, inviting in adventurers to rest and stay a while.
In her mortal life, Momma was a powerful goblin sorceress, granted at birth the strange magical ability to conjure fattening foods at will. The consumption of these foods activates the spells within, but also causes the eater to gain weight almost instantly. The more powerful the spell, the greater the weight (1d6 x spell level pounds gained).
As a Darklord, these powers are amplified tremendously. She is able to grant them to others within her domain, turning them into depraved feeders just like her. But should one of these people abuse that power or be too easily corrupted by it, Momma is just as quick to take them away.
She has the following Background Traits:
Personality Trait: “I’m smotheringly motherly, which I’ll force everyone to enjoy~”
Ideal: “I can’t stand thinness, and must correct it”
Bond: “I lost so many friends and lovers that day, especially Vasilka. I desperately want them back in some form.”Flaw: “I’ve given up resisting my habits and indulge myself whenever possible. My habits include feeding people to bursting~”
Her goals as a darklord are simple: draw in outsiders with the promise of treasure and magical secrets, trap them in her land, feed and fatten them to death, or otherwise twist and transform them into a shape more pleasing to her.
Specifically, a goblinoid shape, as her domain is one populated by a lot of goblins!
Momma's Domain: Nilbog Crossing
The above map was generated using Perilous Shores by Watabou. It is very rough. I'll likely hand draw a better one soon.
Nilbog Crossing is a small region, only 60 square miles, with two large villages separated by a pine forest called the Briar Woods.
Briar Village is made up of mostly humans and demi-humans; a motley collection of the descendants of outlanders and travelers who got too fat to leave. They're a superstitious and fearful people who hold tremendous shame in their hearts about their secret cravings and decadent appetites. The church of Ezra holds sway here, keeping the villagers repressed and hungry.
Which is a shame for them, because just down the river lies Nilbog Village.
Nilbog Village is made up mostly of goblins who've taken human form. Some do this through magic, or magical items, while others rely on craftier means. Either way, only about 10% of the population of Nilbog is actual humans, while the rest are goblins in disguise.
The goblins of Nilbog are a sweet and hospitable people, who always have an extra seat at their dinner tables, and are quick to offer second, third, and fourth helpings to visitors. They delight in feeding guests, always eager to convince people to stay a while longer.
But those who stay in Nilbog Village too long...often become goblins themselves.
Or...if they grow too fat...they get eaten.
A Work In Progress...
I want to keep developing this little domain of dread, in the hopes that I'll have enough material to actually publish as a little setting PDF for people to use in their own Ravenloft games.
I've never put out anything this big before when it comes to D&D stuff, but I think a lot of you might dig it.
Let me know your thoughts and suggestions in the comments~
Comments
There's a lot of opportunity for all sorts of repressed desires to flow out as easily as waistlines and fat rolls. I imagine the tests in this region would be very psychological, breaking down the constructs one makes for themselves even as the limits of their stomach are tested. Perhaps the landscape shifts in how it's perceived the more people fall under its spell, like the desires and treats are slowly being revealed or seen as less sinful and more enjoyable.
Janus-006
2025-09-16 03:25:29 +0000 UTCI'm likely the worst person to offer, but I have some ideas you're free to consider. First, I'm curious if Gobbo's more Vampiric, Malevolent Fae, Magical Overlord or a combination of them. I ask just to have idea of the kind of corruption her influence could take, whether she's aware and willing of it or not as Ravenloft's Darklords are tormented by The Dark Powers that gave them a territory tailor made for them to rule. So I'm curious if her influence and desire for more subjects to pamper takes the shapes of various Goblin Fruits. Bizarre magical growths of fruit that offer a wide variety of tastes and more importantly, addicting side effects upon their likely over consumption. Like your typical blueberry ripening to interesting ideas liberally stolen from Irish Mythology in the Féar Gortach or Hungry Grass, which doomed anyone walking near it to fall into an insatiable never ending hunger with maybe a cow transformation for good measure. For something particularly twisted, we can take the legendary Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, Agnus Scythicus, (Some people of antiquity believed that sheep could come from plants); and have a giant Cotton Vine called Boramez find an unsuspecting victim to infect and turn into a host that does nothing but consume anything and anyone near the root it can fit into its maw. And when nothing is left for the host to eat, it likely becomes big enough to burst and spread spores of more Boramez. Second, might I suggest the good folk of Nilbog run a Goblin Market for neighbors or outsiders? From the same poem by Christina Rossetti, the poor Briar folk are tempted by like Laura and Lizzie with the fruit and other delicacies of the Goblin Merchants. They tell each other "We must not look at Goblin Men. Must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?" And yet, the smell of the bounty can tempt many into a Bacchic frenzy to feast on more and more. Having them come back heavier and more desperate for the food no matter what it takes to afford it, even follow the Market to a new home. And third is to just repeating Shocker in hoping there are other manifestations of fattening, hunger or longing roaming the land.
grathiam
2025-09-16 00:52:46 +0000 UTC
