Risibilos

The Domain of Dread known as Risibilos is a gaudy, claustrophobic realm of footlights and false laughter—a theater district where the show must go on, even as the audience weeps and the players scream behind their painted smiles.

At the heart of Risibilos stands the Risibilos Playhouse, a once-modest music hall that has expanded into a grotesque metropolis of velvet curtains, tilted marquees, and alleyways haunted by forgotten punchlines. This is a realm ruled not by tyrants or monsters of flesh and blood, but by a performance—a joke spun too long, too thin, and too deep to be funny anymore.

Risibilos is a domain built on theater, but here, performance is not art—it is the law of reality. The domain reshapes itself constantly: cobblestone streets become stages, cafés erupt into soliloquies, and citizens can find themselves recast in new lives without warning. Every moment is performative. Every interaction has an audience.

• Architecture resembles endless performance venues: opera houses, vaudeville stages, cramped dressing rooms, and audience pits. Mirrors abound, but they do not always reflect what’s there.
• The weather changes to suit the tone of the current "scene." A tragic monologue may bring thunder. A failed joke might draw jeers from the skies.
• Masks and makeup are mandatory. The citizens of Risibilos cannot remove them—not truly.

The domain’s Darklord is Doerdon, a once-mediocre entertainer consumed by jealousy and desperation. Despised for his lack of talent, Doerdon vanished into the Mists after a final, failed act ended with him hurling his ventriloquist dummy into the crowd and being laughed off stage.

But the Mists had a cruel sense of humor. When Doerdon awoke, the dummy had returned—and it spoke back.

Now, Doerdon performs endlessly alongside his sentient ventriloquist puppet, a wooden caricature of Strahd von Zarovich, carved in grotesque jest but animated by something much darker.

• The puppet—called Strado—outshines Doerdon in every performance.
• It mocks its master, the audience, and the very notion of reality, slowly driving everyone to madness.
• Some whisper that Strado is the true Darklord, and Doerdon merely its host or opening act.

Risibilos is built on humiliation, madness, and the grotesque nature of laughter. Here, comedy is a weapon, and laughter is compulsory—even when it hurts.

• Forced Performance: No one rests. Every moment risks becoming part of the next "act." If a person refuses, they risk being dragged backstage and never returning.
• Jeering Audience: Laughter echoes through the realm, often without source. Sometimes the audience is real. Sometimes, it is only in your head.
• Masks and Identity: The people of Risibilos lose their identities over time, replaced by roles they didn’t choose. Their faces—painted, masked, or disfigured—reflect not who they are, but how the show sees them.

Key Locations

• The Risibilos Playhouse: A towering music hall that stretches impossibly high and deep. It contains hundreds of stages, trapdoors, and black-box theaters, all bleeding into one another. Time bends within.
• The Hall of Hecklers: A colonnaded amphitheater where hecklers are punished by being forced to perform the jokes they mocked—for eternity.
• Prop Alley: A twisting backstreet where discarded props slowly become real. A rubber chicken might bite. A slapstick may crack bones.
• The Dressing Room Eternal: A gilded maze of mirrors where lost performers wander forever, rehearsing scenes they never lived.