Ranking Destined Allies 🏆 Curse of Strahd (DM Perspective) D&D 5e
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- Опубліковано 30 чер 2024
- The tarokka reading is an iconic aspect of #CurseofStrahd that identifies the locations and identities of important treasures and people for your players to interact with. This video focuses on Strahd's Enemy, or the Destined Ally as many call it. I've tiered each potential ally as a resource for DMs running the module. Former players of the campaign will also enjoy the topic!
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Follow along in the accompanying article: www.flutesloot.com/destined-a...
Create your own Destined Ally tier list and share it with me on Twitter! tiermaker.com/create/destined...
#DungeonsandDragons #DND5e
⏰Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro and article link
01:48 Arabelle
03:50 Arrigal
06:02 Clovin
07:38 Davian
09:37 Donavich
11:27 Ezmerelda
13:11 Ireena
15:47 Ismark
16:33 Kasimir
18:26 Mordenkainen
19:05 Nikolai Sr.
20:16 Parriwimple
21:28 Pidlwick II
23:17 Rictavio
24:47 Godfrey
27:11 Sir Klutz
28:08 Stella
29:13 Vasilka
30:16 Victor
31:28 Zuleika
33:06 Final tier list summary
33:55 Tell me your thoughts
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thank you so much for this video, its insanely good and you brought my attention to potential allies that I never thought of it, Im about to the Nikolai thing where madame eva goes "oh no he is dead, never mind, good luck!" hahaha
I'm glad the video was helpful! There are many interesting characters in the module. :)
Parriwimple is the funiest destined ally I've ever got in curse of strahd. Mostly because in that campaign players hated the merchant so much they decided to kill and loot his store. So they also had to kill Parriwimple, which took a lot of good rolls and resources. I wish I could see their faces when they realized who their destined ally was.
I'm realizing an interesting point about Parriwimple is that the players could potentially kill him before their card reading.
I love using Godfrey. Gives the party a reason to do my favorite sidequest (that otherwise often does not get done), and also is very useful if the party doesn’t have a paladin or cleric.
100%! The party questing for the skull of Argynvost is so fun.
We had Mordenkainen and it takes some work to get him into the story without being awkward but my players always knew about the mad mage and the lighting that could be seen on the Mountainside. But after they defeated and healed his mind. They made a great ally for the next chapter that was Ravenloft. His spells are very very useful, and you as a DM should pick a spell list that you would pick as a player to aid your mates. Best to play support! Stoneskin, Haste, etc.
I think you handled it extremely well by making it known that he was around. Tailoring his spell list is a good idea, too.
I ran curse of strahd once and Donovich, in spite of not being the fated ally, became the parties favorite character.
It was unintentional to, the party found a way to make Dooru basically catatonic without killing him, and they made the nearby shopkeep penniless. In doing so they set up Donovich to be able to leave with them to Valaki and leave Dooru with a baby sitter.
Donovich would then go on to have a incredible character ark where he would grow give his son up, allowing him to be killed(they were in a situation where Strahd forced there hand but regardless it was still a impactful moment) and eventually joined the party has a trustful ally who recognized that his son sacrificed his life on the hope that Strahd may be defeated and he himself in order to avenge his son must aid in Strahds defeat.
It was a powerful character ark that turned this mad man with no hope left into a strong willed yet still burdened with grief priest who ultimately held up the symbol of ravenkind in the battle against Strahd.
Vasilka us best girl! So much fun, interesting story and useful! Favorite destined ally
Vasilka is BAE
I made her my campaigns da because one of the pc's is her sister!
This video made me want to make army of Allies when I play Curse of Over Compensating One.
This is good.
That's the kind of fun I hope to inspire!
I loved your list, I’m actually just starting to run Curse of Strahd, we’re just heading toward the gates of Barovia. In the card reading I was planning on having them get Ezmeralda but you have showed me some other really good allies that I hadn’t even considered yet. All three of the S Tier are really big stand outs for me. The reason I am choosing and not having an actual card reading is because all of my players are new, none of them have ever really played so I wanted to make sure to give them someone powerful enough so that they could actually defeat Strahd and survive (if possible) through a good portion of the module. I think the thing about Ezmeralda being a built in ally was super helpful, so thanks!!
I'm glad I could help open up the possibilities :) Good luck with your campaign!
I think when I ran CoS most of these characters had a huge impact on the campaign regardless of who the the chosen ally was. Kasimir wasn't thebally, for instance, but the party resurrected his sister, and they became vampires and replaced Strahd once the party finished the campaign.
Then in the middle of my next campaign (RHOD), when I needed a break to do something else, they got a message from Mordenkainen, went back into the mists, learned about the Balance, and were given an assignment to take a young heir back to castle Ravenloft to overthrow the two dark elves.
Guess who the heir ended up being.
It's true that the characters can impact the game regardless of who the Destined Ally is. Some of them can't become allies in the same way unless they're Destined Allies, or at least it doesn't seem feasible that they'd align with the players (like Vasilka).
I'm not fmailiar with The Balance, but I assume the two dark elves are the dusk elves Kasimir and Patrina (perhaps she didn't sacrifice him to become a lich), and the heir is either Ireena or Strahd.
@@FlutesLoot "The Balance" is part of the Blood War between Devils and Demons. It's mentioned in "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes" and has a lot to do with what's going on in Avernus. Because Mordenkainen is dedicated to maintaining "The Balance," he's actually kind of a nuetral character in some cases (Think of him as Doctor Strange from the MCU). If defeating Strahd unexpectedly upset the Balance in the Blood War by releasing evil souls from the Domains of Dread, Mordenkainen would definitely stoop so low as to bring Strahd back, using an unsuspecting party of Good Characters as tools.
@@danielbrooks7764 that scenario would certainly make him more interesting!
So my players in my first run of CoS drew the no ally card but they've been going around making friends and gathering favor everywhere... well almost. They wanted to get out of the Village of Barovia asap to the point where they just told Ismark to screw off and never even met Ireena for example.
But other than that, they've been doing great. They started teaching Vasilka to speak, they're helping Ezmeralda find Rudolph, planning to take Kasimir to Amber Temple and taking magic lessons from him, they made a deal with Godfrey where he would accompany them and Kasimir when needed, though he can't take any action directly against Strahd yet...
They also completely misinterpreted their prophecy so they believe that Amber Temple holds the sunblade.
This has been my experience as well where the party tends to gather in many allies beyond their destined ally.
Ezmerelda is a powerful addition to the party.
Absolutely. I've seen her prevent TPKs because of her combat power. I also homebrewed that she could use holy water as the water component of Created & Destroy Water to create a light rain of holy water. :)
Godfrey is my man, in one of the campaigns I played (Not always a forever dm yay) I was playing a vampire from the Planeshifted Supplement, and I was Wielding the sunsword, My character and Godfrey split off from the rest of them party as they went to destroy the heart and coffin (of course fighting the minions and castle along the way) me and Him drawing fire and keeping him busy two undead swordsmen.
That's as memorable as it gets! Incredible team up.
Loved this video. Running CoS for the first time with a level 6 group that just left an epic, year-long run in the Lost Mines of Phandelver.
Your video has inspired me to reduce the list of destined allies to only those who are damned, undead, non-human, or cursed. They seem more interesting and fit the motif.
That's a great idea!
I am having a fun time as a DM planning on how to run these NPCs since we just got out of House of Lament (Van Richten's Guide's replacement for Death House). Ismark and Parriwimple will be getting the himbo treatment from me, because I love roleplaying himbos and I was pretty upfront with my players that I'm doing a horror-comedy take on Curse of Strahd (we've nicknamed it Blurse of Strahd, everyone's having a great time with it so far). I'm also playing it a bit fast and loose with the rules of Destined Allies, since if the party doesn't gel with the NPC in the cards I'm not going to force them to travel with said NPC, because if I did that no one would have a fun time. I'm also contemplating making Escher a possible Destined Ally since he works so well as a narrative foil for the party's undead pact warlock. Will he be a petty asshat? Yeah, at first. I kinda liked the module's implication that Escher regrets being turned into a vampire and is just realizing how disposable he is to Strahd. He'd slowly be revealed to be taking his anger and frustration out on the party since he can't hurt his maker. If the party likes him enough and wants to go through the trouble of redeeming him, Escher could be a useful inside man for Strahd's plans.
I've been tempted to run CoS as a more comedic take, like Young Frankenstein. Blurse of Strahd is hilarious! :P
Sounds like you're having a blast. Tell me how it goes.
@@FlutesLoot I got everyone involved in the game on board with playing by comparing the tone to What We Do In The Shadows (both the movie and the series). It's not always an even 50-50 split of comedy and horror every session, but I do like that my players are fine with that. Pretty much their beef with Strahd is that he kidnapped the warlock's vampire patron and they need to figure out what Strahd is planning and how to rescue him. It's gonna be fun because those two have a history, and the patron's backstory is buckwild enough that the party is gonna have a strong reaction to learning it. We're talking "Got mistaken for the Morninglord through a comedy of errors" levels of batshit.
Also, last session our bard rolled high enough on his persuasion talking to a spirit in a painting that said spirit dropped all sense of spooky pretense and was like "Ok, look, I'm just a spirit trapped in a painting. I'm not actually one of the ghosts of the family that used to live here, I don’t even know if I was alive before this house got itself haunted. I could ask Jerry. Jerry got sealed in the castle walls before this house was built." The party also got the spirit to gossip about Strahd visiting the house, which was fun to roleplay.
@@pLanetstarBerry that's brilliant. What We Do in the Shadows is perfect to emulate in CoS.
DM-ing CoS for the first time, having not played it either, and Godfrey sounds perfect for my game
Going in with a party of a Warlock, Bard, Ranger, and Barbarian so they're alright for spells and a damage sponge, but I had hoped someone was going to play a Paladin or Cleric in this setting so I look forward to playing as him
Side note: my Ranger is also a Shifter, so I'm sure the party will want to go see the werewolves so I'm excited for that, and my Bard was a courtier so I'm excited to see if he takes the party into the political intrigue in Valaki
Sounds great! Godfrey will do well. The natural feed into the werewolf storyline will be helpful.
In my games everything is a little wonky I make it so that all destined allies are available, and I even throw in that araabelle fortells even more allies..
A few examples of how I've changed things: Stella is a medusa, pidlwick II is pretty much chucky and blinski wants to make a pidkwick III, Davian is a pseudo vampire via the raven queen, parriwimple and ireena are totally shipped, etc.
Let me know if you want any more wackiness lol
I find that players naturally try to obtain more allies and it's not too difficult. It's fine if they're not all destined since the destined ally really only does a few things: gets Strahd to want to kill them, level up the characters, unlock new story beats for the NPC, and gain a combat action to help the party.
Get as wonky and wacky as you like! :D The medusa is intriguing to me.
@@FlutesLoot heck ya! In my game Fiona Wachter decided to do some black magic rituals, which is how she has her imp familiar, and one she did while she was pregnant with Stella. She and victor were betrothed from birth and actually got along. But when they were old enough and on a date puberty hit Stella and caused her to become a medusa at the wrong time and made victor turn to stone and this shock is what made the girl go crazy and think she’s a cat. The baron took victor to the abbot to have him unpetrified and that’s why he’s been locked in the Baron’s house like a Disney princess. So if the PCs manage to heal stella they go a tough as nails ally but they’ll need to get her tinted spectacles to void her unintentionally petrifying everybody. And of course victor will go wherever she goes to protect the girl he loves
If you have any more questions let me know
@@roarkthehalf-orc6598 that's a creative twist; nice one!
When I ran CoS, my party got Ezmeralda as their DA. But, since the previous attempt ended in TPK, it was set 25 years later. So Ireena was dead, and Tatiyana was reincarnated in Ez. The way it ended up playing out was that she was captured by Strahd, so the party teamed up with Van Richten to cleanse her mind of Dominate Person and they all fought him in an epic encounter involving a T-Rex, vampire spawns fighting each other, and Strahd killing Van Richten and nearly the rogue too.
Great video, still really helpful and relevant. I'm about to begin DMing my campaign and last time I ran CoS, I made a mistake - I thought the characters with stories that fit super easily and obviously into the campaign, like Rictavio, Ezmerelda, and the Mad Mage, were BETTER choices. In retrospect, they were far less interesting than some f the A and S tier examples you gave. You've changed my mind on Piddlwick and I will definitely be dropping doll foreshadowing in the game, too!
I'm pleased to be of service! I have a few other CoS videos if you're looking for more brainstorming help.
I admittedly homebrewed TF out of Arabelle and my group absolutely fell in love with her. I remade her with player levels (as a VERY passive DMPC because I don't normally like DMPC's because I really like watching my players shine on their own) as a divine sorcerer with a strong focus on divination. I roleplayed her as a rugged but gentle tomboy who set off because she had a vision of a sunrise and wanted to unite the Barovians and the Vistani by teaming up with the party. It was a lot of fun and a unique experience and the party ended up deciding that she should take the throne after overthrowing Strahd and his minions. It was very wholesome to watch the players become attached to her, even being a little overprotective.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome!
So I decided to take the average of this video’s rankings and the rankings in the article to determine the general rankings. I gave each rank a number, so S was 5, A was 4, etc., and took the average. If two characters had the same number I just put them together for the sake of space. Here’s the result:
S Tier:
Sir Godfrey Gwilym: 5. This is because this man is perfect and my all time favorite destined ally.
A Tier:
Kasimir Velikov and Vasilka: 4.5
Arrigal and Sir Klutz: 4
B Tier:
Davian Martikov, Parriwimple, Victor Vallakovich, and Zuleika Torenescu: 3.5
Ezmerelda, Ireena, Nikolai Wachter Sr., and Rudolph Van Richten: 3
C Tier:
Donavich, Ismark, and Pidlwick II: 2.5
Mad Mage: 2
D Tier:
Stella Wachter: 1.5
Arabelle : 1
F Tier:
Clovin: 0
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
This is the best kind of comment and I appreciate you. :D
@@FlutesLoot oh my god thanks so much!
Lunch Break Heroes has new statblocks for some of the fated allies, like Cloven gets some bardic skills.
people sleep on pidlwick II and dont even realize the incredible potential of having him square up behind strahd and attempt to shove him down the stairs during the big final battle because hes sick of him being mean to his new friends
Hahahahaha THIS is untapped potential. Gotta make it happen.
We had drawn Ireena who we met the same day and we immediately felt forced to hide her somewhere and keep her safe, thus more or less forced on taking her away from the village - this was both from the point of "oh no he is gonna drink her up and we are gonna lose her and...whatever kind of help she can give us...on the day one nooo" and also "well, and now it's gonna be all about her, isn't it".
Second reason was very disliked by everyone and was the main paint point.
We took her away, did nothing that interested us on our journey in fear of her getting messed up because we wanted to do something and it ended up wasting precious time and it felt like a drag. I ended up liking her just based off of her personality but that alone was not engout. The group was still firm believer of the "it's gonna be all about her" and "our interest will be forced to change just because she is here" mentality which...I agree. Worse, the belief was correct.
I wish we drew tea kettle as our ally instead and never met her, because she became our burden on which we sacrificed both interest and resources, and we pretty much had no ally as her being anywhere near us made things worse, not better, and we became secondary in our own campaign. Perhaps we were just really unlucky though.
That's very unfortunate. I've seen players feel similarly about Ireena's drag on their story.
If the party doesn’t like Ireena, it’s probably because the DM isn’t playing her well.
@@tsifirakiehl4250 True, though I think the same could be said of most NPCs. The book doesn't actually give a lot of guidance on Ireena's behavior, personality, etc. and I've heard some DMs struggle with her because of it.
I'm a relative new DM, I plan for players to recruit a few different allies through the campaign but Sir Godfrey is their destined ally. Don't ask me how we ended up with them recruiting Doru as an ally. They were hellbend on communicating with him, so they went out hunting to bring him a deer and then they allowed him to feed on one of them, with the threat of beheading if he killed the feeder, and they made a deal with him to keep him fed if he helped them in fights. I'll allow him to stick around for a while but at some point Strahd will order him to turn on them.
Doru is a ticking timebomb :P
Kasimir! 😍
He's a gem
If you were to do this again you should change the individual tiers names("Helpful if you're careful" has Esmeralda in it...). You, as you mention many times, are rating them on both a DM and player perspective, but you also just put great companions lower in the tier list just because players tend to interact with them more naturally. This is fine, but if anyone screencapped this tier list I think some of the placements would seem ridiculous.
You're right, I used the same tier list as my article, which can be confusing. Live and learn!
Really tempted to just flat out build the "destined ally" as a Player character after listening to this.
It's certainly a valid desire for anyone who is willing to put in the work!
@@FlutesLoot I never really considered building PC to be work.
Zuleika for me is what I have used twice. I think the question to find her husband, potentially free him to attempt to gain werewolf support is riveting.
Plus I make her a werewolf moon druid from Ezmerelda encyclopedia of everything. To provide healing and utility.
2nd place for Mr is kasimir (I change his stats to a gloom weaver shadar kai
And 3rd place... is probably victor valakovich.
Each time I've ran curse of strahd I've ran CR27 Strahd and plan to end game to lvl 14 to 15 so that's why I upgrade the destined allies stats.
And I am sorry to tell you but... I like to kill off pareiwimple. Either in village of barovia or in vallaki. Depending on party decision
Those NPC changes sound really fun, and your picks are some of my favorites.
@@FlutesLoot ua-cam.com/video/7DbBLEdwVvQ/v-deo.html
If you like the stat changes here. Then you'll like the shadar kai change for rahadin. He's a buffed up shadow dancer with the 2 magical scimitars that this UA-camr homebrewd
AWesome video, it gave me some new perspective on some NPCs. Does anyone know the artist that made the image if the Abbot at 7:29? I love the image, and it would fit perfectly with my next run.
Thank you! I'm glad the video was helpful for you.
The art was commissioned by the r/CurseofStrahd subreddit: www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/ngh1im/the_first_8_npc_portraits_for_the_rcos_community/
@@FlutesLoot Awesome, there is even more cool portraits. Thanks for the reply!
@@litiumist gotta have good art!
Parriwimple is probably my favorite roleplay wise as he is a good guy in a bleak world and is pretty good in combat especially if he is geared up by the party. Obviously as a play I want the mad mage, he has a bunch of things lore wise that the party can learn from him considering he is buddies with Elminster and he definitely is the most helpful vs Strahd. Funny to see him as a bench warmer on your list though next to a cr 0 child. I know a stiff breeze kills some wizards, but come on man, lol.
Haha yeah, I didn't label the tier list very well because I recycled it from a different perspective. I should've labeled it something different to portray the DM fun/usefulness perspective.
Something to think about my fellow DM! Ireena has been in survival mode since she's caught strahds eye. Strahd knows she's his beloved tatyana. He's been, just like anything else, having fun with what he thinks is his property. All enemies know not to harm her, in fear of strahd, but harrass her. Also her red hair is a symbol for bad luck in the lands of barovia. So the people have refused to help her.
Now... to your point about ireena possibly be a pychic... her and tatyana have shared the same soul. What if you make tatyana a cleric or some other class you think fits... as ireena goes along through campaign, being protected by the Player Characters... she has violent siezers and begins to learn the skills and regain the memories of tatyana... that sun sword would look more appealing later in game.
Other reminder... i had madam eva keep pulling cards for what companion that your players should look for help... the cards would start ablaze and reappear in her deck hand... then have her say something like "hmmm. this has never happened before. The one you seek to help you through your travels is up to fate."
My players started trying to recruit almost everyone they met to take down strahd. Instead of focusing on one companion. They began to see everyone as important.
Fun ideas! It's a good idea to twist the "you have no ally" card to "it's up to you" haha.
@@FlutesLoot thanks man! If you have any bonus ideas! I'm all ears. About to run another campaign for it shortly!
I made Pidlwick II able to talk, and a distorted music box built in, that plays POP goes the Weasel
I love that! P is fun to customize.
I'm quite enamored by the story of Godfrey and Vladimir, and since my party will only be 3 players, they could use a powerful NPC to accompany them.
Hey, where do you have all the stat blocks for the allies? They would be really handy to have.
It's a loose assortment of notes, but I can share it if you go to our website and submit a form request so I can share it with you. It's not downloadable on the site, but I'm happy to email it to you.
Go evil, make Strahd your ally.
I've seen a few players tempted to do so :P
@@FlutesLoot the more players are told they aren't supposed to do something the more tempting it becomes
That's how you get trapped in barovia forever
We have Arrigal and i loooove him. He is like bro for my character
He's one of the best for DM and players to have fun.
Oh no, I'm running this for the first time with some players who are new to D&D and we got Clovin in the Tarokka my players just did. Interested to see how this plays out lol.
lol good luck with Clovin! I'm sure they'll be fine :P and I'm sure you'll make him fun.
@@FlutesLoot Lol thank you! So far:
The party fought Perriwimple (and successfully knocked him unconscious) because they hated the shopkeep, the men are simping over Ireena, the party adored the Madam Eva sequence, and one party member just wants to stay and party with the Vistani. One is obsessed with finding Gertruda since they have her doll and they are all arguing over what Dream Pastries are and what they are made of. I'm really interested in how they will react to Clovin!
29:36 I really like the Vasilka fanart you have here. Do you recall where you found it?
That was drawn by one of my players who had Vasilka as her party's destined ally :)
@@FlutesLoot Thank you for the timely response! Vasilka is my own CoS group's Destined Ally and she left a strong positive impression on them so far. Nice to see there's some commonalities between our players.
Rather than just 1 destined ally, I want to run the game with multiple possible allies. Some good, some very bad and leave it up to the players to decide “do we really want this person in our group?” And then giving Strahd some more allies and/or magic to keep him from getting overwhelmed in the final showdown (maybe some evil potential allies the party turned down).
Oh, and no using Ireena and Ismark as potential allies; Strahd’s going to be trying to kidnap Ireena all the time anyway, and Ismark is going to either follow his sister around or will get involved anyway to rescue her so why waste time on “recruiting” a guy who’s probably frothing at the mouth to kill Strahd anyway.
Sounds great! Recruiting allies and doubting choices are big parts of the module's fun :D
How come Mordenkainen is bottom of the list? The mans a level 20 wizard with 9th level spells. I used him one time and he just demolished strahd with the party.
Hi 2ndHokageSol, I think I explained it in the video and article. He adds nothing to the story and he swings the final battle(s) too much. My tier list is from the DM perspective, not how powerful they are.
@@FlutesLoot oooooh yeah that makes sense
@Professor Thinker Yeah, I don't care for him.
@Professor Thinker good luck! Let me know if he ends up being more interesting than I believe he is.
I love Parriwimple, I play him as autistic and because of that it is the NPC I most relate to
Parriwimple is a gem for DMs that take notice.
Love this, I may add Parri and play him similarly.
19:06 It's Michael, from Vsauce!
😂
God Vasilika is awesome. The Abbot convinced a reluctant Strahd to marry her and my character objected at the wedding and ended up marrying her instead lol
That's wild! Vasilka is an excellent character.
Zuleika is underrated
She's one of the best!
Have a campaign idea. Curse of Strahd but instead of making characters, the players choose destined allies to play as. It will probably go horribly.
Oh, that's interesting! Some groups already have one player play as Ireena. What's a few more? :P
@@FlutesLoot Also in my homebrew, Vistani are not connected to Strahd but are thought to be because they’re born with black hair like Strahd. So people be racist.
By your own definition of S Tier: Strahd is getting wrecked. Easy Mode.
And yet some of the strongest (mechanically) are in C and D tier. Lolwut?
There is nothing wrong with ranking them by how much fun they can be, or how useful they are at opening certain quests/plot points, but be clear about the intent of your list in your tier descriptions.
I used the tier list visuals for a different mindset (which was the angle of my article). I agree that it's a mismatch in my video.
“He’s a very opinionated guy”
That’s a fun way to say “he’s a racist old man”
I love van Richten as a character, racism and all, not all main characters need to be squeaky clean
lol too right
Mordenkhainem is not from the forgotten realms...
Alrighty
I honestly hate Ezmerelda. She only exists (as far as the narrative is concerned) to be the tragic backstory equivalent of a Sexy Lamp for Van Richten. That just strikes me as an incredibly sexist, racist, and ableist way to include diversity in the game. My gameplan was to just, y'know, have Van Richten not be cursed and not be a racist bastard. Boom -- no need for the Sexy Lamp. Van Richten becomes all the more impressive as a monster hunter because he doesn't have magic curse plot armor to keep him alive, he gets to shine through as more of a straightforward good guy in a world full of moral greys, and a needless Sexy Lamp is excised from the game. He still doesn't necessarily trust the party, but now he's less of an asshole about it. And there's not a tiger in sight! (I do actually have a plan to still include Ez as an ally of Van Richten and the party. It just won't be so squicky.)
I'm not familiar with the Sexy Lamp concept, but I think I understand your meaning. I can appreciate Van Richten being played the way you described. He's kind of an edgelord in the module haha.
@@FlutesLoot A Sexy Lamp is a character who could, functionally within the narrative, be replaced by an inanimate object with a useful piece of information written on it. This usually applies to love interests for main characters, but Van Richten being an effectively-asexual widower modifies the trope somewhat. Besides being another warm body in combat, Ez is just a Sexy Lamp for Van Richten's tragic backstory. She could be replaced by a Scroll of Remove Vistani Death-Curse which has a post-it note giving the party directions to Van Richtens hideout stuck to it, and the story wouldn't be much changed at all. But if you remove Van Richten, she has absolutely no place or purpose in the narrative. I love the idea of a badass monoplegic Vistana monster-huntress, which is why she'll still be all those things in my reworking of the character. But her being completely defined by how she ties into and supports Van Richten's story is multiple kinds of -ist.
@@thefairybug40 I like the idea of decoupling their stories. And thank you for the explanation!
REALLY?? First mistake at 0:12
It's pronounced Tair-Oh-ka. Like Tarot with a ka on the end.
1:42 It's called RAW.. Rules As Written. So you would say the RAW Module, or using the module RAW.
1:52 Air-abelle. The name predates the English language, you should be able to find a pronunciation guide somewhere.
3:25 CoS made up the lore of Madame Eva being the half-sister of Strahd. Never trust CoS lore, it leaves gaping plot holes and screws up the entire timeline. In general, CoS lore always comes LAST if there is a question of canon. FIRST OFF, Madame Eva lives outside of the time continuum. She existed LONG before Strahd did and it's utterly impossible for her to be Madame Eva. The easiest way out of that idiotic loop hole is to say that the Turg assassinated her sometime before Y350
Yeah.. I'm not doing this for 35 minutes. Buh-bye now!
Bye!