Countess Isolde of Maun is a powerful Vampire Lady and a major villainess in the Fighting Fantasy gamebook Howl of the Werewolf. She is the vassal of Count Varcolac Wulfen, but yearns to overthrow him and tries to use the playable character to take control of the province of Lupravia. The dynamics between Countess Isolde and Count Wulfen are similar to that of Katarina Heydrich and her vampire brother Count Reiner Heydrich.
Appearance[]
Countess Isolde appears under the aspect of a young and very beautiful woman, with pale skin and long, blonde hair, clad in a simple but lavish long, purple velvet robe, and a black and red cape typical for a Vampire Noble.
However, such attractive aspect is the result of a glamour magic, for she in fact looks much less pleasant. She is aging, with white hair and a wrinkled face, twisted by vampirism and black magic.
Personality[]
Like every member of the Cadre Infernal, Countess Isolde always was vile and ambitious, caring only about herself. She willingly sold her soul to a demon for power and relishes in her new vampiric unlife. She does not care a bit for her subjects, whose lot worsened ever since she gained power.
She is cold, poised and refined, with perfect manners and excellent tastes. She welcomes visitors politely and is not above helping them, but only if she can find an interest in it.
But there can be no mistake, she is cruel, vicious and sadistic. She openly enjoys ordering people's death or killing them herself, but enjoys even more breaking their spirit and having them as her slaves. She is also very vain, taking great care in hiding her true face under a mask of beauty.
She is power-hungry and vindictive, wanting nothing more than complete dominion over Lupravia, and deeply resenting having to serve under Count Wulfen. She is good at seizing opportunities and possible assets, using them to fulfil her agenda.
Finally, she is arrogant and taunting to her foes, but violently lashes out when things do not unfold as she pleases, and flees whenever she is bested, though only to better backstab her foes when their guard is down.
Powers and Abilities[]
Countess Isolde is a highly powerful Vampire Lady. While she is equal in fighting skills with the vampires fought in other gamebooks (already very dangerous foes in their own right), her power vastly surpasses them all.
She displays perfect mastery of the classical vampiric powers, being able to shape-shift, to command feral beasts and animals and to control the weather at will. She also demonstrates powers akin to that of a ghost, being able to fly and to glide across the ground without moving.
She is never seen transforming to a bat or other animals, but she can turn to mist, dissolving into a black cloud, and to alter her features. Her control over beasts expands even to were beasts and lycanthropy, being able to keep the playable character under the curse despite them having killed the source of it, though only after she placed them under her control.
Finally, she can hypnotize people, to bite them without resistance or brainwash them thoroughly, making them her slaves outright or delaying her control until the right moment.
Like all vampires, she has enormous physical strength, speed, stamina and reflexes, enough to fight for hours without tiring even a little. Whether she learnt how to fight is not known, but she is mighty enough to match even the best warriors and immune to normal weapons.
On the downside, she can only drink blood and cannot expose herself to sunlight, needing to rest in coffins. She dislikes mirrors, cannot stand the sight of crosses, even makeshift ones, and is very vulnerable to silver, but she can regain some strength by resting.
Finally, Isolde is well-versed in Dark Magic, despite not being a sorceress in the proper sense. She can watch over all her domain and exert her magic at distance, as seen as she raises a corpse as an undead miles away from her tower after identifying the people there as foes. She can see through paintings of herself, animate objects like statues, summon evil spirits, and manifest as a spectral vampire, either through her mist transformation or a form of astral projection.
Background[]
Countess Isolde of Maun rules the namesake domain of Maun in the province of Lupravia, located in the country of Mauristasia, in the north of the continent of the Old World. Little is known of her ancestors but her title reveals that she inherited it. Despite having the same nobility rank, she is vassal to the House of Wulfen.
About twenty years before the start of the story, Countess Isolde joined with a group of equally malevolent public figures, to restore the Cadre Infernal. Under their impulse, what was decades ago a shady yet not dangerous secret society of Mauristasian nobles, seeking to increase their influence through alliances and magic, became a cabal meant to gain power for the sake of power.
Guided by the sorceress Serena of Saarven, Isolde, Count Wulfen, Lady Aranaea (whose five husbands had "mysteriously" died), and the Abbott of the Black Monks, summoned a Wolf Demon and sold their souls to it, each relinquishing a precious item it the ritual.
The demon possessed Wulfen and turned him to an Arch Lycanthrope, but only he and Isolde, who became a Vampire Lady, gained power. The other three were reduced to strong but degenerate and barely sapient monsters.
The Abbott became the Maggot and went back to his Abbey, where he turned all his monks into humanoid insects. Serena became a giant snake hybrid deprived of sentience, kept in a circus as Serpensa the Snake Woman. Aranea became the hybrid Spider Queen and took shelter in a cave, raving madly and eating all passers-by while keeping their desiccated bodies with her. They all kept with them the silver dagger that they used for the ritual.
As Wulfen was holding Lupravia in his grasp and spawned hordes of were-beasts, Isolde strengthened her rule over her domain, making it the grimmest and most desolate place in the already harsh Lupravia. Just as people ignore that Wulfen is a werewolf but horrible rumors abound about him, she never flaunts her vampirism to her subjects, who nevertheless steer clear of her gloomy tower. She is reviled, at best for letting them in their hard lot, at worst (and more accurately) for causing it in the first place.
Countess Isolde resents Wulfen's rule, but he is too powerful and has the Wolf Demon's favour, so she has no choice but to submit and bid her time, waiting not so secretly for an opportunity to take over.
Role in the Story[]
The player character is a seasoned adventurer who gets lost at night within a forest and bitten by a black werewolf, later revealed to be Count Wulfen's younger brother Garoul, feared as the Mad Prince. Running the risk of becoming one, they must find and kill the source of the curse, the Count himself, before the next full moon.
They have a score of Change measuring the progression of their lycanthropy, which must be kept as low as possible. Also, They start the adventure with less skill (power level) than usual, but the more their lycanthropy progresses, the more their skill is raised, and the more special lycanthropic abilities they gain: night vision, howl that weakens normal mortal foes, unarmed fight, regaining stamina (life-points) after a fight, and the damaging cursed blood.
Adventure in Maun[]
Contrary to the other members of the Cadre Infernal, who are only powerful foes that can be avoided, Countess Isolde is at the center of a side-quest. Though whether to confront her, ignore her, or skip her domain altogether remains up for the player to decide.
The hero can meet the powerful vampire-hunter Van Richten (who strangely lacks a first name). He is a noble and stalwart, if paranoid and a bit fanatical, member of the monster-hunting Order of the Black Rose, who attacks the hero if they fail a test of Change or if he learns of their lycanthropy. He can shoot a silver bullet costing 4 in stamina, 1 in skill and 1 in luck, and is a powerful swordsman with 10 in skill and 9 in stamina. Fighting him must be avoided at all cost, for killing a good man costs 1 in luck.
Van Richten asks for the hero's help, giving them his flintlock pistol if they accept. It is a powerful weapon that can kill enemies in one shot, and fire silver bullets useful against supernatural beings. If they search for him in the home of his ally Doctor Kafka, they reveal the truth about Countess Isolde, who retaliates at distance, rising the corpse Kafka was autopsying as an undead that must be destroyed. Van Richten follows the hero as they storm the Tower of Maun, fighting by their side but running the risk of dying in battle.
If the hero ventures alone in the village, they find a gloomy setting, full of downcast and wary citizen hiding in their homes at night. The blacksmith advises them to ask Countess Isolde or the Black Monks for help, being likely under the sway of the Cadre Infernal, but the priest warns them that Isolde is the cause of their woes that must be destroyed.
Asking for the Countess' help is a bad idea, as she tries to hypnotize the hero, who must win a test of Change to resist. If they fail, they become her slave and she gives them her silver dagger, ordering them to kill the Arch Lycanthrope, leading to the bad ending. If they resist, they must fight Isolde but cannot prevent her to flee when they win.
Storming the Tower[]
The Countess is always aware of their arrival, creating a score of Alarm to measure the hero's stealth in their tower. The more they get remarked, the more enemies they fight. The tower is guarded by two Fang Hounds, but if the hero uses the Call of the Wild ability to make them flee in Van Richten's presence, he recognizes it as a dark power and attacks them.
The hero must explore the entire tower, from the caves to every floor, to find and destroy the Countess' coffins, but she can watch them through paintings of herself (a nod to Count Heydrich in Vault of the Vampire and to Oldoran Zagor in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain). Of course, the more they explore the more the Alarm score risks to be raised. They must avoid drinking the red wine in the cave, for it is blood that can raise their Change score.
Rising through the floors, the heroes will fight animated armours, statues or even stained glass designs, but find useful items, including a powerful elixir of life that can restore their stats to the fullest.
Confronting Countess Isolde[]
Countess Isolde of Maun resides in the sixth floor. If the Alarm score is too high, they must fight summoned Shadow spirits called Tenebraes. The hero must first win a test of Change to resist her hypnosis, or become her slave leading to the bad ending. If Van Richten is with them, his warning breaks her charm, but he dies fighting her butler, both falling through the window.
The werebat butler protects his mistress.
Isolde's butler and bodyguard Gustav is a werebat with 8 in skill and 8 in stamina, whose blows can worsen their Change, and who grabs them and flies to drop them if he wins two attack rounds in a row, costing 4 in stamina and 1 in skill, unless they have the Quickening ability and only lose 3 in stamina. The butler is strong, but not much of a threat.
Isolde herself is a powerful enemy with 10 in skill and 13 in stamina, who seals the hero's doom if they lack a silver dagger, but can be forced to flee with a silver cross or two silver chandeliers in a makeshift one. Silver projectiles cost her 4 in stamina each, and a flintlock shot can kill her in one shot.
If she wins two attack rounds in a row she bites them, costing 3 in stamina and adding 1 to the Change score, but if they bear the Cursed Blood she loses 3 in stamina. The battle is won after her stamina falls under 5 or less.
When defeated, Isolde turns into black mist to escape. If the hero did not destroy enough of her secret coffins, she hides in one of them and the hero cannot destroy her for good, but they can steal her treasure and the silver dagger with which she performed the summoning ritual.
As they exit her tower, she manifests as a spectre in a last-ditch attempt. Under this form she has 8 in skill and 6 in stamina, and drains them of 1 in stamina if she wins even one attack round.
If on the contrary the hero destroyed her coffins, they can find her resting in her last one, and stake her with their sword to destroy her once and for all and free Maun of her blight at long last.
Bad Ending[]
If the hero kills Count Wulfen and banish the Wolf Demon who gave him his power, but are under Countess Isolde's spell, she appears flying outside the window. They cannot help but open it to invite her in. She gleefully thanks them, taking control of Wulfen Castle and Lupravia, and keeps them under their curse despite their victory, ruling forever with them as her werewolf slave.
Good Ending[]
If the hero never met Isolde or never fell under her sway, Count Wulfen's death frees them from the curse at last, leaving them to bask in the moonlight, in a land that no longer has to fear the howl of the werewolf and can finally enjoy lasting peace.
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 Villains
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Dark Gods Demon Princes of Titan Allansia Khul Old World Others | ||