Mother Miranda is the main villain of Resident Evil Village, having raised the entire area into a false sense of security as their protector. There are portraits of her everywhere in the game as every person praises and worships Miranda and all she has done for them. Her children, or lords, are in surrounding areas near the village and they each have their own abilities and personalities.
The four of them are introduced briefly during the Village of Shadows storybook, and again when Ethan is taken by Heisenberg. They are more than mere pawns for Miranda regardless of their indebted servitude with secrets and a past from before they were changed, many of which players may not be aware of.
10 Donna Was The Only Survivor Of The Beneviento Family
Miranda's search for a worthy vessel for her daughter had her experiment with many children descended from the four ruling families in the area. One such person happened to be Bernadette Beneviento, a relative of Donna's that was implanted with a Cadou, only to die shortly after. Donna's parents killed themselves somewhere during the same time, leaving Donna alone with her dolls.
Angie was made by her father and became her main way of speaking to people until Miranda implanted Donna with the Cadou. Donna's control over a chemical that caused hallucinations was the only thing granted to her by the experiment as she retained her appearance apart from the mold over her right eye. She made her dolls come to life using her Cadou and gained a real voice through Angie.
9 Alcina Dimitrescu And Her Wine Business
Lady Dimitrescu was royalty before being implanted with the Cadou by Miranda, as evident by the family being the rulers of the region in the aftermath of the Great War. Her vampiric nature was only a result of the experimentation as she suffered from porphyria; The Cadou implant made her need blood for her health, which is why so many of her servants in the castle wound end up "missing."
As thanks for allowing her back into her seat of royalty, Alcina maintained the order of the village as one of the four lords. To keep up with her lifestyle, she reinvested in her family's winemaking business with a "special" ingredient to make her "Sanguis Virginis."
8 The Four Lords Existed Before Miranda
Mother Miranda wasn't the creator of this group of reigning royals, but instead only gathered the descendants of the ancient families in the aftermath of the Great War. The houses in question were made up of four mutant rulers named Berengario, Cesare, Guglielmo, and Nichola, whose descendants were all lured by Miranda and implanted with Cadou.
Miranda's influence over the village as the deity and the lords' influencer as the rulers served to make a thriving population of experiments to find the perfect vessel for her deceased daughter. Any objection to this was futile as Miranda had control over everything after the Spanish flu pandemic. She controlled their minds by infecting everyone with the mold and curing their illnesses all for her daughter.
7 The State of the Heisenberg Factory
Karl Heisenberg's exact age when he was abducted and experimented on by Miranda isn't known, but his family's factory had been abandoned after she took control of the village. He got the factory back as a gift from her after displaying his new abilities, tasked with making new vessels for her. Of course, this wouldn't last, as he resented Mother Miranda for what she did to him.
The metal army of his was outwardly seen as experiments for her but in reality, he was making these mechanical men to try and overthrow her. Similar to Donna and Moreau, he stayed to himself and invested years of work to exact his revenge. Of all the "siblings," Heisenberg was the only one that felt disdain for Miranda, loathing the other four lords for letting her get away with all that she had done.
6 Moreau's Family Practice
It's still a mystery just who Moreau was before he was infected by the Cadou, but he belonged to one of the four lord's families nonetheless. His place of experimentation for Miranda is just a little outside the reservoir that he lives in and is called Moreau's Clinic, hinting about his upbringing.
He, or at least his family, had to have been practitioners to some degree and he took over the place again for Miranda. He's the only one of the four to see Miranda as a real mother and desperately tried to impress her and his "siblings" with more Cadou experiments. He secluded himself in his reservoir and became the biggest threat to any fisherman that dared to veer too close.
5 All Men Were Turned Into Scarecrows
In Castle Dimestrescu all manner of servants were used to tend to Alcina and her daughters. The fear of being punished for any action was always there as the people who had done wrong were sent to the dungeon. Experiments on these people all ended in multiple failures, but the Lady of the castle only infected women with the Cadou.
These women would end up becoming the Moroaica and Samca that Ethan fights in the castle. The men, on the other hand, are seen before entering through the front door all set up in the garden used as scarecrows.
4 The Mechanical Army
Heisenberg's factory had years of investment in making an entire underground automated cyborg assembly line. The underground part itself was originally used as storage for several vehicles during World War II. As a secretive person that rarely was seen publicly, Heisenberg experimented on corpses rather than the living. Whether this was to be stealthy or as an act of kindness to the remaining residents of the village is something to be speculated on.
The army itself was used for multiple jobs, either as soldiers or miners for more materials and expansions. The Sturm, the helicopter-headed cyborg, was something that Heisenberg saw as a failure that he kept around. Perhaps he wasn't as cold-hearted as he appeared to be.
3 Alcina & Donna's Influence
All four lords are based on gothic literature and fantasy, conceptually created for the game to represent the different facets of horror. Lady Dimitrescu is clearly based on multiple stories of vampires, including Dracula and his three brides. Her daughters in the game possess the ability to turn into flies and Alcina is able to turn into a dragon similar to how Dracula was able to turn himself into different animals. The inspirations for her design are based on Elizabeth Bathory, the yokai hachishakusama, and Morticia Addams.
Donna, meanwhile, is based on the hauntings of homes and objects. Her concept art and behavior in the game has her treated as a ghost, puppeteering all the supernatural elements within her domain. This might even be why she doesn't seem to have a second form like the other lords.
2 Heisenberg & Moreau's Influence
H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau is the basis for Moraeu's overall character, but he also has other inspirations behind his design. Lovecraft's work is most likely the influence for his fish form as he appears to be a lot like the description of characters from Innsmouth. In his concept art, there are clear references to kappa from Japanese folklore. Heisenberg also has multiple influences, not the least of which is Doctor Frankenstein and his creature.
The both of them have a lot in common with Heisenberg as he experiments with corpses from the cemetery while also resenting his own creator. His other influence is much more direct in Dr. Werner Karl Heisenberg, who was a physicist pioneering in terrormagnetism.
1 Dimitrescu Name Origins & Pronunciation
The subject of how to actually pronounce the royal family's name has been somewhat of a debate since Lady D's name reveal. It's originally a Greek name, deriving from Demeter but has changed through its translation. The "escu" part of the name is a patronym in Romania that means "son of", making Dimitrescu mean "son of Dimitrie".
Taking the name "Dimitrie" back to Greek makes the name "Demetrios" or "follower of Demeter." In Romania, the name is phonetically pronounced, including the "escu" part of the name in the pronunciation. In the game, however, the French pronunciation is used instead, making it "Dimitress" instead. This could be an error or it might have something to do with Alcina's family relocating during the war.