Hazlik
| Hazlik | |
|---|---|
| Ravenloft character | |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
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Hazlik is a fictional character from the Ravenloft campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Fictional character biography[edit]
Hazlik is the undisputed ruler of Hazlan and its Darklord. He is more interested in cheating death and having his revenge upon his enemies than escaping his gilded cage. The Red Wizard is one of the most powerful spellcasters in the Land of Mists and has taken the extraordinary step of publicly opening a school for the mastery of the arcane, the Red Academy. It is hosted by the town of Ramulai, which Hazlik is said to have raised from stone in a day. Peculiarities in the design of the town have invited speculation that it itself is some sort of immense arcane experiment. His private estate Veneficus is set back from the east bank of the Saniset River a fair distance from Toyalis.
Hazlik is described as having "no interest in the politics of his own people, instead concentrating on his magical research."[1]:122 By and large, he entrusts the rule of his land to satraps, who are left in no doubt whatsoever of the horrible fate that awaits them on experimentation tables should they displease him. It is not clear how carefully he watches them, although he does at least make nominal efforts to appear to be paying attention.
The remarkable reception of the Iron Faith among the Hazlani cannot be understood in abstraction from Hazlik. Vaasi, the language of the Church of the Lawgiver, was of course the native tongue of the Hazlani. And the social order was at least as oppressive in Hazlan as in Nova Vaasa, preparing the ground for the reception of The Lawgiver's message. Hazlik himself, however, had profound reasons for being icily indifferent to the cultural sovereignty of his land: to his eye the vast majority of its inhabitants, the Rashemani, belong to an ethnic group and culture inferior to his own ethnic group, the Mulan; and his own ethnic group and culture deserve, for the pains that they have caused him, to be wiped from existence in a transplanar genocide. Finally, this project and arcane research generally, as opposed to the niceties of culture, is what he truly cares about. And his chaotic alignment expresses itself in part by an individualism that seems to take no positive account of groups.
As for the Iron Faith itself, Hazlik is an immensely proud master of arcane magic, which is a blasphemy according to its doctrine and for which, back in Kantora, he would be imprisoned, tortured, and executed publicly as an example to others.[2]:127 Likewise, whatever faint hope that the Iron Faith had of redeeming him could hardly have survived his revocation of the ban on the use of arcane magic and his opening of the Red Academy promoting it. His tattoos, and those of the Mulan generally, are the visible signs of moral and spiritual degeneracy,[2]:127 serving only to confirm the faith's view of him. It is difficult to imagine that homosexuality is not viewed by the Church as an instance of the violation of the "natural order in the name of self-interest and self-gratification",[2]:126 although it is not clear whether Hazlik hides his sexual orientation. Additionally, the position of women according to the faith is, strangely enough, also an issue, for Hazlik is planning to usurp the body of his female apprentice, Eleni of Toyalis. In sum, Hazlik cuts a figure far closer to the Iron Faith's vision of Mytteri than of The Lawgiver.
Hazlik views the Iron Faith as a tool of social control, although perhaps not in the usual sense. An important clue concerning this matter follows: "The Lawgiver is the state religion in Hazlan and Nova Vaasa. In the latter, Prince Othmar uses it to justify his own regime."[1]:52 That nothing is then said of the former, invites the conclusion that Hazlik, unlike Othmar, does not see the need to avail himself of this crutch.
References[edit]
Sources[edit]
- Cermak, Andrew, John W. Mangrum, and Andrew Wyatt. Secrets of the Dread Realms (White Wolf Publishing, 2001).
- Connors, William W. and Steve Miller. Domains of Dread (TSR, 1997).
- Nesmith, Bruce, and Andria Hayday. Ravenloft: Realm of Terror (TSR, 1990).
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