Heresiarchs and the named campaigns

Many of the 5x5 Fronts naturally would feature a Heresiarch as an archvillain manipulating the scene throughout the campaign. It's not my intention that Heresiarchs can be defeated. They are more like the Elder Evils of Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos; i.e., they can be stopped, slowed down, or put back into torpor, but you don't just shout huzzah and kill them. In reality, you may not even meet or see them; merely the effects of their Machiavellian manipulation of events. 

Anyway, I thought it nice to go and decide which of the Heresiarchs might belong to which of the various campaigns, and how. So far, only DARKNESS IN THE HILL COUNTRY has a confirmed Heresiarch presence; although CULT OF UNDEATH has it's own Elder Evil.

Jairan Neferirkare, the Soulless is explicitly referenced as a background patron of some of the villains here. There's even a chance that reckless PCs will travel to her refuge in the Shadow Realm, an alternate reality much like Stranger Things' Upside-down, or D&D's Plane of Shadow (or Shadowfell as it was rebranded starting with 4e). This could be extremely foolish, especially if it's a head-long assault, but I like the idea, maybe, of a sneaking infiltration of some kind. 

We'll see. Maybe she's just a shadowy (no pun intended) figure in the background, however. In fact, that is probably the best way to use these supervillains in the first place.

I have an AI image of Jairan handy, but not a Hero Forge one, so I'll skip her for now, and tag her as needing an updated Hero Forge approach.

While this was initially going to be more of a "against the vampires" campaign, it's kind of evolved into something else. It does have the Elder Evil Bokrug the Water-lizard in it, but he's probably going to be "downgraded" from Elder Evil to "merely" end-boss monster. However, I want to at least reference a Heresiarch as a vague shadowy threat looming in the background of every campaign. Given that three of the five (or even six, possibly) fronts of Cult of Undeath take the PCs to the Eltdown Fens, a vast bosky wetland where they can rummage around for multiple birds with the one stone that is the visit to the area, I think it interesting to think that one of the hidden dangers deep in the swamp is Amrruk the Ancient. He's in his torpor, as normal, but maybe even Otto von Szell is trying to take advantage of his power while he slumbers, and the threat of him coming awake is maybe more compelling than Bokrug the Water-lizard, who honestly is a little bit forced just for the Lovecraft reference. 

The third of my original three campaigns doesn't have much development yet, other than it will be loosely inspired by The Hangover and will take place in, or at least on the fringes of, Baal Hamazi, with Glittering Simashki, the borderlands wretched hive of scum and villainy city on the bottom of the Rudmont Escarpment. Hutran Kutir, and his machinations in Baal Hamazi is an obvious Heresiarch to be used here, but the Mind-Wizards would include Gothan, the Mind-wizard. Maybe they both have a role? I don't have any of the fronts really developed for this one yeet.

This one will likely be a "small" campaign 5x5, maybe only a 3x5, as it happens. Jairan Neferirkare is an obvious one as the former "Queen" of Hyperborea before its collapse. Arzana, Clad in Black is the alleged weapon of mass destruction that she used, and Seggeir, the Hoarfell King is also an obvious one as a cold-themed Heresiarch. I have no idea what the fronts will look like yet, but those are the ones I think are likely to make a cameo.

This is the one that has privateer action, vampires, undead savages, etc. Although Curse of the Corsair Coast (see below) seems like an obvious one to feature Bernat Haspar de Ruze, I think I want him on this one, actually. The next one will be more based on Freeport stuff. I hadn't actually necessarily meant him to be a ghost pirate, but it just started to be more interesting to me than a lich pirate, and now I've got this Hero Forge model. 

Finally, 

Given that it's specifically meant to be a seriously truncated and modified, yet hopefully still slightly recognizable adaptation of a whole bunch of Freeport modules, I should probably use a Heresiarch that fits that theme. And the one that best does is the one that I said the other day isn't actually one of my heresiarchs, but who should be; some kind of analog to the King in Yellow. I had, in a much earlier version of the setting, called Charon the King in Yellow, but I wonder if Culsans the Judge is a better King in Yellow than Charon. Charun is the Etruscan name for a similar figure, probably borrowed linguistically from the Greeks. I don't know yet. I'll noodle around with that some more for some time. The King in Yellow isn't actually a name, and I want a name. But I don't want Hastur. So, I'll keep poking around with ideas until I find one that I like.