Cliffton Willgoat

Originally the sole Darklord of Conquista, as his sins caused it to take form in the Demiplane of Dread. To his immense chagrin, he is now only one of four Darklord candidates, and he must win the Dread Election to be able to wield his full power.

Background

The Failure

Born in Prime Material Conquista, Cliffton chafed at his mundane life as a gas station attendant, yet refused to make the effort to better his life. As the only thing he took pride in was his young and beautiful wife, Cliffton erupted in rage when a Hombre Valiente tried to seduce her and assaulted the man, landing himself in a jail cell and facing stiff punishment. When his wife secured his release by sleeping with the Hombre Valiente in question and suggested she might now finally conceive, Cliffton took this as an insult of his manhood. He beat his wife unconscious and left town to find a new, better life elsewhere.

Cliffton found only humiliation and pain; a string of menial jobs he was unable to hold onto; a Witch offered him an opportunity to sire her children as a substitute for her husband, only to magically restrain and rape him when he tried to attack her; a group of Hombres Valientes abducted and tortured him for fun, then abandoned him in the desert to die, a goatmask stapled to his face to mark him as an outcast.

Determined to survive, Cliffton crawled through the desert until he chanced upon the Evil intelligent dagger Ixion, which promised to save him if he would bond with it. Cliffton hesitated only until the blade offered him revenge, at which point he seized it by the hilt, despite being able to guess at the weapon's full malice.

The Monster

Cliffton retraced his steps, murdering both those who had harmed him and uninvolved bystanders to salve his wounded ego, then feasting on their corpses. His victims included the Hombres Valientes who had used him for a night's entertainment and every citizen in the town they protected; the Witch who had assaulted him and her husband - and her unborn child; and finally his wife, who was now living with the Hombre Valiente who had originally tried to seduce her. To Cliffton's stunned surprise, his wife called for him to save her as he stabbed her to death. With his old house going up in flames around him, Cliffton realised for the first time that Ixion had warped him into a monstrous hybrid of man and goat. Through the crackling of the flames, he heard the screaming of an infant that might or might not be his ... and then the Mists came for him.

The Darklord

Cliffton found himself the first, only, Darklord of Conquista as it exists in the Demiplane of Dread. In spite of finding himself an exile from humanity, he learned to revel in his status as ruler of all the monsters in the domain when Conquista was still an Island of Terror. Every night, he would stir up the horrors of the Mists and lead them against the settlements of humanity... And then the Red Haunt and la Infestación decided to use his land to test their theories as to which was stronger: tyranny or anarchy. Even as the two Fiends warped the political scene of Conquista, the Dark Powers twisted the Darklordship, taking away the certainty Cliffton had come to have in his power over the forces of Evil and his self-perception as a living incarnation of il Demonio.