Ingrid Cunigast

"Yes, it is a wonder we've found each other again after so long apart, isn't it...? Sometimes I feel as though someone or something is pulling my life on strings like a puppeteer... but that's a silly thought, isn't it? Oh well. If you must leave again, please just... take care. I don't want to have to hold my daughter's corpse in my arms a second time. With everyone dying around you, it worries me that you'll be next."

Ingrid Cunigast is an NPC in an original story Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition campaign titled Disciples of Atropus, which began on October 16th, 2020.

Ingrid Cunigast was born to Belladonna Niezjye and Aleksandr Niezjye on Tarsakh 16, 1463 DR, 18 years before her younger sister, Ivanoska Niezjye. Ingrid was turned into a vampire at age 18 after slipping into the Mists and becoming temporarily trapped in a demiplane of the Shadowfell, a Domain of Dread known as Barovia. It is implied, but not confirmed, that Strahd von Zarovich himself turned Ingrid into a vampire. Why she was allowed to become a true vampire and leave Barovia is unknown.

Ingrid Cunigast is the wife of Logan Cunigast, mother of Gadaric Cunigast, and the long-lost mother of Maria Cunigast, one of the player characters in the campaign she acts as an NPC in. Growing up, Ingrid's family lived in harsh conditions in the town of Harrowdale, Cormyr, and her family farm suffered from a drought and poor harvests for many years. Due to a series of unlucky mistakes made in her youth, Ingrid unintentionally made a deal with a powerful fey being known as The Cultivator, who promised her farm's prosperity for as long as she lived in exchange for her firstborn child. It was not long after that Ingrid would accidentally become lost in Barovia and be turned into a vampire, thus ending her life prematurely and causing the benefits of the deal to expire.

Ingrid met a man named Logan Cunigast who was a monster hunter working with a subgroup of The Zhentarim known as Ilmater's Shield, then led by a man named Theodore Brightedge. Logan was assigned to hunt down and kill Ingrid, but upon cornering his prey, realized that the vampire he had been sent to kill was little more than a scared young girl. He took pity on Ingrid and decided to spare her life, eventually defecting from Ilmater's Shield as the two fell in love and decided to elope. While on honeymoon in the Thunderpeak Mountains, they conceived a child, and spent the duration of Ingrid's first pregnancy on vacation. When the time came, however, Ingrid's child was stillborn, and The Zhentarim had been hunting her and Logan down and were closing in on their position. Due to the grief of losing her first child and the imminent threat of being caught by the Zhentarim, Ingrid and Logan fled from the Thunderpeak Mountains and descended into the Fields of the Dead, where they found a frontier town named Soubar that happened to have an old mansion that was no longer in use. Together, they purchased the mansion and renamed it to Cunigast Manor, instating themselves as the Baron and Baroness of the small town and creating a standing militia known as The Purple Flame to protect them from The Zhentarim.

When Ivanoska was 18 years old, her and Ingrid's parents died in a freak accident as their family farm burned down. Ingrid took pity on her younger sister and offered her a place to stay in Cunigast Manor, as well as setting her up with an education at Candlekeep and getting in touch with a professor of archaeology named Runa Renwick, who would go on to become Ivanoska's mentor and ultimately, the main antagonist of the campaign. Ingrid worked alongside Ruin in exchange for magical defenses for Cunigast Manor, which were ultimately successful in keeping The Zhentarim at bay, but renounced her loyalty to Ruin when she realized how poorly Ivanoska had been treated under her care. It was not long after Ingrid renounced her loyalty to Ruin that through a series of unlikely events, she was reunited with her long-lost daughter, Maria Cunigast. She has since apologized profusely for abandoning Maria at birth, and has pledged her undying love for her and is working to make amends and repair their familial relationship.