Campaign Intros: Curse of Strahd Prequel

because one campaign in this setting wasn't enough for me or my husband (the DM), we decided to pass the time between sessions of the main game with a prequel solo game! we're only about 6 sessions in, but it got off to a pretty grim start and has only gotten grimmer

which, ya know, is lowkey the goal for a gothic horror campaign, so it works!

~anyway~

the setting (and some backstory)

if you're familiar with Curse of Strahd as written (or you read my last campaign intro), you've probably got a decent understanding of the basic setting already, so i'll go into more detail here about Kire's immediate circumstances—in other words, how this mess all started

once upon a time, there lived a family; a mother named Ravena, a father named Barov, and two sons named Strahd and Sergei. they lived peacefully as the rulers of a happy little country centered in a prosperous valley. but their neighbors grew envious of their good fortune, and one day, they conspired together to attack and take the wealth for themselves. they killed the king and queen, but left the boys alive; and placed Strahd, the older of the two, on the throne as a puppet ruler

but Strahd was cunning and coy and bitter, and as he grew, he studied and practiced everything he could, and became a skilled fighter and mage. soon, he took his vengeance, slaying those responsible for his parents' murders and conquering their lands. he named his new domain Barovia, after his father, and called the castle he built there Ravenloft, for his mother

and then, unsatisfied, he kept going, conquering and devouring and leaving ruin in his wake

the rest of the continent watched his spree with apprehension, and when they could stand their fear no more, banded together to form a massive army to take him on. in time, they were able to drive him back to his castle, where they defeated him. Strahd, finally, was dead. except, well . . .

it didn't stick

through some unholy magicks, he had escaped death. all that effort, all those deaths, for naught. in order to keep him and his army from continuing their path of destruction, a curse was placed to keep him confined to his homeland, and Barovia—and everyone within it—were banished to the Shadowfell, a demi-plane of evil

it's about five years later. with no one else to conquer, Strahd has turned on his own people, and in turn, some of his own men turned on him. the war continues, now a fight for the freedom of Barovia against its own king. it is a fight for the very soul of the nation—and, unfortunately, the people of Barovia seem to be losing

the party

Kire Dalca: my PC! you know her, you met her here. a variant human eldritch knight. though she was once an idealistic young soldier, the war has taken nearly everything from her; her friends, her mentor, her idealism, her mental health, even her chance of ever seeing home again even if she does survive. wary and hyper-alert, she can be suspicious and jumpy. her sense of humor has become dark and wry. she was never much of a people-person, but she's even less of one now, alternating between distant and gruff. even so, she remains compassionate and clings to hope, willing to throw herself in harms' way to save an ally or in the name of the greater good

Carlen II: an elven NPC and an incidental companion from Valakia, stronghold of the resistance. named for his father, and hopes to pass the name down to his grandson. a kind and compassionate family man, he's studied some holy magic and uses it to help where he can

some NPCs

Carlen I: Carlen II's father. a serious man and notably strong mage, deeply involved in the resistance, serving as one of its big three alongside Andrel and a mysterious third who recently quit

Andrel: a holy man who once served as Strahd's personal pastor and healer, and was even a close "friend" of his, until their moral differences became too great. an incredibly powerful cleric. about twenty years ago, he ventured into a nearby valley in service of his god, the Morning Lord, and returned with suddenly red hair and an aura that drives away evil things. he’s one of the few people Strahd truly fears or respects—he's also an excellent baker!

Pete Durst: a physician in Barovia. he's thin and has a bit of a skullet and deep, dark eyes. not a very nice person. though a member of the Chertobog-worshipping community group, he's been acting kinda weird and suspicious lately

Gustav Durst: Pete's cousin. a hearty and robust "family man" who hasn't gone to Chertobog church meetings in about a year. may be cheating on his wife

Elisa Durst: Gustav's wife. she was pregnant about a year ago, and then she wasn't, and none of their friends have seen the baby. come to think of it, they haven't really seen her, either. may be part of a blood god cult

Harkis Wayburn: a large, jovial man with a big bushy red beard and hair. doesn't quite know his own strength. an excellent entertainer, his stores of wine are plenty and his were-boars-in-blankets are a hit with party guests. hosts the Chertobog meetings at his home. his family came to Barovia from Calatia about 50 years ago, and made their fortune through the fur trade. he's incredibly generous, sending Kire and Carlen on their way with roughly a pound of were-pigs and a fur coat each

Andrei Wayburn: one of Harkis's sons. these days, he's busy being a teenage rebel and having his own little religious meetings centered on Chertobog's evil rival, Shuderbog, a god of blood and death and violence. apparently, he's inherited his mother's charisma and converted some townspeople (cue group glare at Pete)

The Order of the Silver Dragon: a brotherhood of paladins devoted to different gods, led by the silver dragon Argynsvost. they were instrumental in the fight against Strahd, being the first to start the counterattack against him. they pushed his forces back to Barovia, giving armies like Kire's the opportunity to enter the country while Strahd was distracted. many of their dead have returned as revenants

The Order of the Feather: an order of paladins devoted to the Barovian storm god Retrut, they historically served as the von Zarovich family's personal guard. they were part of Strahd's forces when his conquests first began, but joined the resistance when he turned his violence against his own people. their initiation rituals are a closely guarded secret. many, if not all, of their members are raven masters; as such, they're a crucial part of communication networks. some have been said to also use their ravens in battle. in uniform, they're easily recognizable; matte black armor, tall shields marked with a raven, the leader's helmet winged and beaked, all carrying spears that seem to hum like lightning

Strahd: the man monster, the myth, the legend. you know him, you love to hate him, but he's younger and not quite so bored yet. ruthless, cunning, powerful, he craves revenge and control and cares very little who he has to step on to get what he wants. according to Andrel, he's been getting very creative with his experiments lately; in addition to self-experimentation and figuring out how to create vampire spawn, he's also been making awful horrible evil monsters like the skin kites

[redacted]: a horrifying eldritch family who lives in a cute little blue farmhouse surrounded by impossibly vast fields of "corn" and "scarecrows." that's right, they made an appearance in the prequel too! well, appearance is a strong word—we never actually see them here. we just know there's a father, a mother, and a child, whose disembodied voices speak in charming southern (US) drawls and teleport around you, asking you to stay for dinner. and, when you refuse, they sigh and say, oh well, at least a descendant of yours will

the plot

stationed in Barovia village with nothing much to do, Kire jumps at the chance to help investigate a strange occurrence troubling the town: from this area alone, three hundred and twenty-one people have gone missing over the past year. they suspect that it is not the vampire spawn or werewolves to blame, but humans, perhaps a cult of some kind

while out in the woods searching for evidence of cult activity, she meets Carlen II, who is out on his own investigation. apparently, someone has been attacking people on the roads to Valakia, and just leaving the bodies there. concerned the investigations could be related, they agree to work together, and make their way to Valakia to follow up on a lead

when they arrive, the city is in the midst of a siege. they barely manage to get inside in one piece, and spend a tense evening with the resistance at the temple. two of its big three members are there, but the mysterious third left some time ago. no one really wants to talk about him, but it does come up that Andril and Carlen Sr. had been working on a magical sword (named the Sunsword) for him to use against Strahd before he left

the next day, Valakia is sent into a panic when a ballista bearing Strahd's personal battle flag flies over the wall and slams into the ground. worried the fight is unwinnable, Nedrick, the new leader of the Order of the Feather, suggests Andril use the Sunsword and take Strahd out. unfortunately, the Sunsword will not be powerful enough to do that except in the hands of its intended owner

and so, Kire and Carlen hit the road again, travelling back to Barovia in the hopes that they can find the mysterious third there and convince him to take up the cause again before it's too late

They are cursed, both of them!

Haven’t you heard? They made a prequel to Curse of Strahd! It’s about Strahd’s childhood with his loyal servant I think it’s called “Tome of Strahd”

Inktober day 9- Swing.

As a prequel to our group’s Curse of Strahd, I ran the House on Gryphon Hill for Alex, where she played Virginia Weathermay. Here is a tender moment between Strahd in his human form and Virginia Weathermay (who was reincarnated into Linda in our game.)

would you mind talking about ur dnd campaign?? i liked those arts u did of ur characters!!

GAHHH I forgot to answer this I'm so sorry. The one I've drawn the most is my human cleric Pascale, aunt of Strahd! I made her for a 300~ years prequel to Curse of Strahd we did as a fun short game with Argyn and their Knights! They all died! Because Barovia is still shit!

[Irregular Webcomic! #1752 Rerun](https://ift.tt/2MDeOl5)

Betraying the fans.

This phrase really annoys me. I see it as a manifestation of unrealistic expectations on the part of people who enjoy some form of entertainment. No artist or entertainer can realistically be expected to keep on producing material that produces the same (or greater) pleasure as their earlier works, ad infinitum. At some point it's inevitable that the next thing they do will be of lesser quality, or will conflict with what went before, or will change the context of what went before to the point that it no longer seems as good as it used to.

So what? People are only human. They produce bad work now and then. They make mistakes every so often. They do boneheaded things sometimes. It's extremely rare that they are actively trying to annoy and alienate the people who most appreciate what they do.

And how, exactly, is making a mistake now "betraying" what they did before? Nothing anyone does can invalidate the pleasure you got out of enjoying some work of fiction or art in the past. You enjoyed it - you can't un-enjoy it.

The obvious example - the one most of you are probably thinking of already - is Star Wars. George Lucas did some really stupid things with the special editions and the prequels. But how is that a betrayal of anything? Suddenly people don't remember that Han shot first? The Empire Strikes Back now sucks all of a sudden? You realise you didn't actually enjoy those movies for 15 years before they got modified?

Remember the good stuff. Don't dwell on how someone "betrayed" you and gave you something that wasn't as good as what they gave you before. Because they didn't. They didn't take away the enjoyment you already had. They just gave you something that didn't live up to your hopes. If you let that ruin your recollection of how good things were, you've betrayed yourself by painting your pleasant memories with bitterness.

I see a similar thing when publishers release new editions of things like games - roleplaying games and Magic: the Gathering cards are examples that come to my mind. Bunches of people complain that suddenly their old editions are now "worthless" or "useless". As if it's now impossible to even use the previous edition when a newer edition exists. Well, you know, it's still possible to run a first edition game of Dungeons & Dragons today. That simple fact seems to elude some people.

These are all symptoms of what I see as a tendency to live in the present, and consider the past as something not worth remembering. In this day of immediacy and instant global connectivity, people tend to flit from activity to activity, garnering joy and fun where they find it, and always seeking new and more exciting stuff to do now. Which is fine in itself, but not at the cost of savouring the good times you've already experienced.

Nobody can ever take away the sense of wonder and amazement I felt when, as a child, I sat entranced by Star Wars in the cinema. Nothing George Lucas can do can betray that memory. He could come to my place and axe his way through the door and burn me in my sleep - that would be betraying me as a fellow human being - but he can't betray me as a fan, no matter how many crappy prequels he makes or how much he mangles the original movies. Because that memory is mine, and I won't let anything spoil it for me.

Why do people let things ruin the enjoyment they've previously had? You don't have to let it. Preserve your memories. Relive the joy you've felt during the good times. Remember the good things. Life is more rewarding that way.

2018-06-30 Rerun commentary: I did in fact run a First Edition Dungeons & Dragons (i.e. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) game not long ago, after Fifth Edition had been released. I did this for two reasons. Firstly, although I wanted to move on to Fifth Edition, I hadn't run D&D for several years - most of my recent gaming had been using GURPS - and I wanted to try running a rules set I was more familiar with first. (I skipped running games in all of Second through Fourth Editions, although I did buy some of the source books.) Secondly, the adventure I wanted to run was the classic First Edition adventure Ravenloft. Although an adaptation of this adventure to Fifth Edition, titled Curse of Strahd has since been published, it wasn't available at the time, and besides, I wanted to replicate the full First Edition experience for my players. As it happens, they didn't enjoy the game as much as subsequent Fifth Edition adventures I've run. This is because the D&D publishers have in fact improved the rules over the years, making them more streamlined, easier to use, and more balanced in gameplay. Also possibly perhaps because I was a little rusty in my game mastering skills.

Meet the Blorbos: Kire Dalca

today, it's Cerris's many greats aunt, Kire (pronounced "keer-reh") Dalca!

so apparently one Curse of Strahd campaign was not enough, because my husband decided to also write a prequel campaign! for this solo adventure in the world of Barovia 400 years earlier, i wanted to experiment with martial classes so i made her a solider. but evidently i wasn't feeling creative enough to invent a whole new hometown, so i decided, hey, why not just make her from the same town as Cerris? and then that very quickly morphed into what if she's his great-great-great etc. aunt? because i have no self control

when she first arrived in Barovia (as part of a massive army sent to keep Strahd from conquering the whole continent), Kire was idealistic, surrounded by friends and allies, certain that Strahd could be stopped and the war would be over soon. certain of her own heroics and fellow knights' survival. but time and hardship have worn her down: one can only watch a friend die so many times before developing self-sacrificial strategies to protect her allies, whatever the cost. one can only witness so many horrors before becoming constantly wary and hyper-alert. one can only be trapped in the Shadowfell for so long before giving into cynicism and gallows humor

she carries on in the name of those she's lost, but she's not the same person she was five years ago. embittered and wry and anxious, she can be cold and jumpy. and yet, a part of her still clings to the hope that with the right information, there's still some way to stop this. there must be—otherwise, what's the point of continuing to fight?

Rahadin having his first date ever gets everyone at Ravenloft involved (art by my lovely GM and gf @copypastus)

Welcome and Tag Masterlist

hello and welcome! i love playing TTRPGs, and as it says in the bio, i have Too Many Thoughts about my PCs from my various campaigns to keep them to myself anymore. so i made this sideblog to infodump about my beloved PC blorbos!

as a general note, this is not a family-friendly blog. there's a lot of adult language, adult themes, and written descriptions of TTRPG violence that can at times get pretty gorey. i do tag potential triggers by the specific post and try hide more triggering parts of posts under cuts, but i am only one human. please feel free to let me know (either publicly or privately) if i missed a trigger tag or if there is something you would like me to tag for!

also please feel free to send me asks about any of the characters or campaigns, or even just TTRPG things in general. i love these topics and will gladly take any opportunity to chat about them!

finally. there's a lot of blorbos on this blog, and a lot of NPCs, and a lot of campaigns, and a lot of tags, so under the cut here is a handy little guide to help keep them all straight!*

*disclaimer: nothing and no one here is straight. i am incapable of making characters and stories that aren't queer and so are most of the people i play with.

without further ado, the campaigns! i will probably be redoing my campaign intros and character intros at some point, and will add the links for those once completed. these are listed as Campaign Title, System Used, in reverse chronological order.

Curse of Strahd, DnD 5e my current obsession. this is a heavily homebrewed version of Curse of Strahd (like, we're talking a good 80% or more homebrew) DMed by my husband, @somethingclevermahogony. it's all of your dark queer gothic horror dreams come true! this campaign is just absolutely chalk full of dead doves like body horror, child abuse and death (almost entirely off-screen), animal cruelty, body horror, gallows humor, cannibalism, oh my god so much gore, and body horror. but don't let that get you down; there's also a lot of very funny and very heartwarming moments in this campaign and the worldbuilding our DM does is so fucking cool. this is also technically two campaigns, as we have both a present day game with two PCs, based on the Curse of Strahd book, and a prequel campaign with just me as a player, which delves into some of the history around when Barovia was first closed off from the rest of Faerun, roughly 400 years before the main campaign. in the present day, i play a human tempest cleric named Cerris Dalca Tempescu, who is just so very very tired. our other PC is Shalden Broadfist, a purple half-orc paladin who serves a desert worm cult. our party is rounded out with a couple of NPCs; Vasillica, a flesh golem made out of pieces of the bodies and souls of at least a dozen different people by an insane angel, and Milo, an adorable little klepto halfling boy who used to be the Bagman and still has Bagman powers. in the prequel, i play Kire Dalca, a human eldritch knight fighter who came to Barovia as part of the original war effort against Strahd and then got trapped in Barovia. coincidentally, she's Cerris's many many greats aunt and she's also so very very tired (and maybe pregnant shhh). the tag for the present day campaign is #curse of strahd homebrew, and the prequel is #curse of strahd prequel, and you can find them both or general CoS things under #curse of strahd. recurring character tags include #cerris tempescu for my cleric, #shalden broadfist for my companion PC, #ireena my beloved for (of course) the brilliant NPC Ireena Kolyana, #meow meow milo and #the bagman for Milo, and #kire dalca for my fighter. pretty soon there will also probably be tags for the secondary PCs we made as backup characters in case our first PCs die, as they have actually both been introduced in canon now.

Hot Gay Pirates in Your Area! Avatar Legends: The RPG my other current campaign, with my college TTRPG group (which includes my husband as a player). it's set in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, during the era of Kyoshi. specifically, it's late summer in 250BG (Before Genocide). there are some promised darker elements, as well as a lot of enemy deaths, due to the nature of this campaign, but overall it's a very fun, chaotic, and queer story! we play as a party of pirates/smugglers on a small ship called The Confusion, working for the Ruike clan, a coastal Fire Nation crime family. our total ship crew currently numbers 10, with four PCs, but it might very well get bigger given that we started with a crew of 9. i play Aila Ruike, granddaughter of the head of the clan and heir apparent after her father. she serves as The Confusion's sort of second in command, and is a talented firebender and swordswoman, though she's much better at environmental control and defense than offense. she's stoic and stern and kind of mean in a hot way, and has two priorities in life: upholding her family honor and taking care of her team. my husband plays Bo of the Foggy Swamp Tribe, a waterbender who ran away from home to avoid the pressures and responsibility of leadership. he's flirty and silly and a little bit vicious in battle (his bending style is based on the US "boxing" style rough-and-tumble), and pretends to be a lot dumber than he actually is. we also have Onartok of the Southern Water Tribe, a sweet but naïve waterbender prince who, like Bo, ran away from home to avoid the pressures of leadership. before joining the crew, he was "roommates" with Aila's cousin Jai. and finally, the enigmatic Lì, a former EK child soldier who ran away from the army and is now a fabulous genderfluid pirate who goes off on violent side-quests with Aila while the waterbenders are doing nice people side-quests. tags for this campaign include #hot gay pirates in your area!, #our ship is called the confusion for a reason, #atla, and #aila ruike.

Acquisitions, Incorporated: Cauldron & Kettle Questing Company, DnD 5e this was our second campaign with our college TTRPG group, and was a fun romp set in the world of Acquisitions, Inc., an actual play podcast by Penny Arcade based around the idea of "classic adventuring parties but make it capitalism." it was primarily played out of the official Acquisitions, Inc., playbook, with some additional homebrew expansions and a nice little extra homebrew arc on the end that introduced us to the incredible chaos of the D10,000 wild magic table. we played as the Cauldron & Kettle Questing Co., a subsidiary branch of the larger Acq Inc. corporation, based in Phandalin. at our branch, we also owned a tea shop named the Cauldron & Kettle Cafe, and we had a steam-powered teapot-shaped vehicle dubbed the Tea Trolley. this campaign accidentally ended up going very hard on the found family vibes. i played Jun Vyardes, a half-elf light cleric/bard, travelling priestess of the fire and revelry goddess Vestia. she's very devoted to her found family, and after a life of wandering, is finally starting to learn how to settle down and grow roots. my husband played Tim Cobbletoss, a half-orc barbarian primarily raised by a blind halfling woman, so in personality he's basically a british grandma with occasional anger issues. he and Jun share a human father we affectionately referred to as Daddy Bard, who is such a terrible father that complaining about him is actually part of how these two started bonding. we also had Briny (played by the same person as Onartok), a goblinoid blood hunter who likes shells and the ocean and gambling even though they don't actually know anything about gambling; and Taku (played by the same person as Lì), a whooping crane aarakocra monk who is very smart and powerful and unfortunately also fragile, and whom Jun regarded as a little brother and became very protective of. tags for this campaign include #acquisitions incorporated, #Cauldron & Kettle Questing Co., #bard is only one letter away from bad (for Daddy Bard nonsense), #jun vyardes, and #tim and jun.

The Orphic Uprising and The Amazonomachy, Cypher these were two continuous arcs that together formed the first campaign with our college TTRPG group. they were set in the world of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, so we sometimes refer to them collectively as the PJO campaign. we played as a group of Camp Half-Blood kids, all in their late teens by the end of the story. in The Orphic Uprising, it was a group of four of us sent on a prophecy quest to the Underworld to rescue Dionysus and prevent the children of Nyx's attempted takeover of Olympus. in the Amazonomachy, it was a group of five sent out to prevent the Amazons' attempted takeover of Olympus, because apparently Olympus just cannot catch a break! i played Nina Grayson, daughter of Nike, a talented gymnast, dancer, and rock-climber lowkey obsessed with victory and willing to fight a little dirty if that's what it took to win. i had a lot of fun with her mechanically, as she was basically an unkillable damage- and debuff-dealing machine--she just, ya know, also didn't really have any social skills and was very much a himbo. iconic himbo acts of hers include solving a puzzle by punching a horse statue in the face, getting set on fire and then putting it out by drenching herself in monster blood, solving a locked door problem by punching the lock open, splitting the party to go undercover with the Amazons without telling her friends she was only fake-betraying them, and punching a bitchy goddess so hard it temporarily killed her. i love her. at some point she acquired the nickname Larry. my husband played Chuck Hickey, an Italian-American son of Dionysus who lived on his grandparents' vineyard who really embraced the chaotic side of his godly heritage. silly and goofy but also a talented battle strategist, highly charismatic, and capable of turning into a fire-breathing leopard. cause, ya know, Dionysus. the other character present for both arcs was Beatrice Starveling, a NY-based daughter of Apollo raised by her two gay dads. she was an incredible performer, a true bardic legend, and alongside Chuck, played a key part in helping Nina come out of her shell. for The Orphic Uprising, our final party member was . . . i gotta be honest i don't remember his name, just that he was kind of an obnoxious Mary Sue type son of Aphrodite, who the rest of us all had a grand time poking fun at and complaining about when the player did not return for the second arc. for The Amazonomachy, we welcomed two new players and their PCs, Bryce (played by the same person as Onartok and Briny) and Murph (played by the same person as Lì and Taku). Bryce was a dumbass (affectionate) son of Eros who was sweet and well-meaning but generally clueless, and somehow had really good game with the ladies. Murph was a son of Epimetheus (hindsight), a surfer bro and himbo extraordinaire with amazing luck and an incredible knack for having just the right tool for the job, somehow. tags for this campaign include #confusion crew, #the orphic uprising, #the amazonomachy, and #nina grayson.

North Pines Camp, Monster of the Week, and Grovington College, Demon Hunters: A Comedy of Terrors these two campaigns were my first dives into TTRPGs, both with the same GM and both with slightly altered versions of the same PC for me, so the GM and i had a few fun inside jokes and callbacks during the second one. these were played before i met my husband and before i got good at note-taking, so my memory of them is very hazy. tbh any content posted about these two will be undetailed, completely out of context, and full of holes, but the basic shenanigans are still very fun to look back on. North Pines Camp was a kids' summer camp in ?????, built on top of what used to be monster-hunter training grounds. our PCs were all camp employees, and our main goal was typically to keep the kids safe (or rescue them) from whatever ~monster of the week~ showed up to wreak havoc. there was a deeper mystery element running through it, about what happened to the old monster-hunter camp here, but we never got far enough into the story to really get anywhere with it. Grovington College was a decently sized college with greek life located in Grovington, ?????, USA; it housed a chapter of the Brotherhood, a demon/monster-slaying organization. our PCs were all members of this chapter, tasked with taking care of various demon and monster problems around campus and the town as a whole, in between doing college student/professor things. in these campaigns, i played Indigo Sullivan, a queer psychic with both a caffeine and an attitude problem. technically they were two separate characters for the two campaigns, but like, the version of him that continues to roll around in my head is an amalgam of both PCs plus all the additional things i've tacked onto him as time has gone on. most of those additions can be summed up as "he's now even more queer and has even more problems." tags for these campaigns are #north pines camp, #grovington college, and #indigo sullivan.

and that is all of them, phew! that's a lot thank you for reading this all and please enjoy my blog!