Strahd's Hidden History
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- Everyone's favorite D&D vampire has been around for over forty years now, so there's a lot to know about him! Let's go over 9 things you (may not) know about Strahd, Barovia, and the Ravenloft campaign setting.
(Correction, Vampire of the Mists was written by Christie Golden. My bad!)
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What is YOUR favorite tidbit of Strahd trivia?
I really enjoy the audio book narration by R McDowell. The chapter where Strahd hunts down and deals with [the traitor] is fantastic
I enjoy (no spoilers) The Ba'al Verzi that he gets the dagger from. The interactions are sublime.
7:16 FALSE. First off, Orasnou didn't exist until it was introduced in the 5e Adventurer's League campaign Misty Fortunes and Absent Hearts. Several of the villages you mentioned simply aren't physically located on the map produced by Mike Schley. FYI, that map is more or less Central Barovia, it is not the entire country. Krofburg is indeed located in the area where Mike made his map. It's on the NE face of Mt. Ghakis. The "Flaw in the Slaw" is that the WotC editorial staff did not do their research and tell Mike about all of the things that belonged on the map in the area that he was mapping. (Zero shock, right?) No fault of Mike's, whatsoever. FYI, I'm working on an updated version that has the missing elements.
So yeah. Nothing was officially discarded, WotC dropped the ball.
9:08 24 novels.
9:21 Jander Sunstar was not named ironically. Someone on the WotC editorial staff got a hair up their rear when they found out that Strahd was by canon the first named vampire in the D&D universe. He had some hair-brained idea about putting a named vampire in another timeline that would have made him Strahd's elder. I told him that that made about as much sense as saying that some Junior Space Ranger was the first vampire. ...Next thing you know, Jander Sunstar was birthed. Of course, said WotC employee stuck his own foot in his proverbial canon, because he said that Jander became interested in Strahd due to Jander's love being tormented due to being born with just a shard of Tatyanna's soul. Which is all very interesting, but makes it necessary that Strahd was already a vampire for some time before Jander's love could have acquired said shard, and so Strahd remains the senior vampire.
9:28 Yep. Nope. Strahd is the Elder.
Forgotten fact: the fanes were mentioned very very early in the canon. In fact, the first time they were mentioned, Lathander was named. In the earliest days of ancient Barovia, the area's druids and the priests of Lathander teamed up to build the monolithic structures. This tells us two things. 1) Barovia is indeed from Faerun. 2) Jander Sunstar was not the founder of the worship of the Morning Lord in Barovia. Although there are several examples of the Morning Lord existing in Barovia before Jander Sunstar, this incident is the oldest in the timeline. (Technically 3 things, the battle of good and evil in Barovia dates back to the dawn of recorded history.)
Oh, also, the fanes which are mentioned in CoS are based on the content from 4e Expedition to Ravenloft.. and there are 3 of them, the mountain fane, the swamp fane, and the forest fane. Of course, they aren't the only ones, they are just the three named here. Actually.. nearly ALL of the new content in CoS was ripped out of 4e. The rest of it was the genius of Chris Perkins and the Hickmans. :)
I like the whole Baba Yaga nursemaid bit. It gives more dimension to the evils in Barovia
Strahd also appeared in the novel Knight of the Black Rose, which featured Lord Soth from Dragonlance gaining his own domain at the end. Also worth a read!
I DNFed that one shortly after he got to Barovia. Not entirely sure, but it didn't grab me.
@LunchBreakHeroes I enjoyed it but I get what you mean.
Strahd didn't come across like he did in the others. My guess is that James Lowder wanted to make Strahd appear more like a Boss battle for Soth.
During my group’s game we had several nods to lore and characters beyond what was in the 5th edition book. Jander Sunstar made a small appearance and had descendants mainly Evelyn Sunstar, an elf vampire who joined the party. Additionally Strahd had a second brother who was originally named Sturm Von Zarovich. We changed this lore and name to Alexander and made him younger than Sergei instead of older. Furthermore, Alexander had a much larger role than Sergei which involved him joining the party, falling in love with the heir to Neverwinter and much more. These changes added a level of intrugue that isn't explored in most Ravenloft campaigns. Other changes included adding more domains to our game and the ability to travel across the planes.
My favorite tidbit was -and always shall be- the Ravenloft Readings that were done at GenCon in the early 90s. The creators of the campaign setting would write, act, and perform a play with characters. I distinctly remember someone (a TSR game writer) playing as Strahd, casting a polymorph other spell on one of his minions, turning the minion into a toad, a summarily stomping on the toad with his boots! It was awesome. They had sound effects and music and great laughs! Those were the days!!! They did the readings for many years though I do not know what was the last year they did them.
You credit P.N. Elrod as the weiter of Vampire of the mists but it was written by Christie Golden. P.N. Elrod only wrote the I, Strahd books.
Oh, dammit! Than you. Can't believe I messed that one up. I'll update the description with a correction.
Thank you so much for all of your Strahd videos. Tonight is the final battle my players have against Strahd.
BTW I have read a chapter of I, Strahd at the opening of each session, my players loved it 🖤
Good luck and have fun!
I loved the I Strahd books. I read them to help me get into character when I was running CoS for my friend a few years ago.
YES YES YES!! MEMOIRS OF A VAMPIRE ALL THE WAY!! Anyone I know irl who has read the novels has also tried to find a way to put my boy, Alek Gwilym into the campaign somehow. Best NPC lost to time. ✨
My idea for that was to alter Rahadin's backstory to make him a reincarnation of Alek Gwilym who had attempted to stop the stoning of Patrina Velikovna and regain his memories of being Strahd's loyal friend and Chamberland. This way we don't have Alek erased from the story and we have Rahadin not being a replacement for such a great character.
My favorite thing about I, Strahd is that they are from Strahds point of view. And he's the bad guy, an unreliable narrator.
I would love to know more about saint Markovia
Back in day (circa early 1980's) while I was in college, I had the great fortune to have a GREAT DM who ran the original I6 module for our group...and I was instantly in luv with it! We played it when it came out, and played it during the Halloween season! I'll never forget that. :)
My players were familiar with the original, so I shook things up by using parts of I10. As the sun went down, the tyrannical but competent Count would slowly shift into his more malevolent vampiric persona. The heroes cured Strahd with the Apparatus, only to find that the Dark Powers were now transforming Barovia to include bits of their own homelands, including friends & relatives, and wicked parts of their backgrounds. It took 100+ sessions to resolve, and was great!
I kust wanna take a moment to thank you for the closed captions! English is not my first language so they help a lot ^_^
Not a problem!
The only thing mentioned here that I've previously actually read was _I, Strahd_ and I have to say, I concur with your verdict. It's a legitimately good book. It's quite short, at only just over 300 pages of very large font. But it was really enjoyable, and added some interesting details to the main characters we know and love from the 5e campaign.
One more minor correction...the Keepers were introduced in the "Forbidden Lore" boxed set. Great video, btw!
Thanks for the info!
Ah bought the board game on sale a while back solely for the minis. They are pretty cool.
I have that SAME board game. I got it after out first CoS and still haven't played it! Games need to come with the free time to play them included LOL!
In addition to the awkward attempt to make it a proper sequel to I6 (when it should've just been a spiritual sequel), House on Gryphon Hill is really hurt by the climax being effectively a cutscene where two NPCs kill each other. The DM is specifically given what are basically junk encounters to throw at the players to keep them from screwing up the scene.
Thank you for sponsoring you, :-P
Wasn't Vampire of the Mists written by Christie Golden?
Indeed it was. I shall live in shame.
@@LunchBreakHeroes To err is human, to arr is pirate.
Strahd is senpai!
Thank for sharing ✌️
so I don't mean to be pedantic or "that guy" as I love your content and channel, but by the time of the black box (and subsequent red box) of 2nd edition, Ravenloft was known as The Demiplane of Dread and was composed of several domains, one of which was Barovia. You repeatedly refer to Barovia itself and the other surrounding domains as "demiplanes." Super minor nitpick for sure.
I don't know if I should be proud that I already knew these or if I'm into deep lol. I got really into old school ravenloft lore from a friend after I started running COS. I plan on running sequels that will change the setting into a more 2e style setting. (also someone please fix I10 I need it to be good)
Hell yeah
First full campaign
Is there a chance for digital edition of The Deck of Many Quests - Gothic Horrors?
Do you guys think Strahd sounds more like Béla Lugosi or Christopher Lee?
I Jeremy Crawford spun out an entire campaign with his party using the megaliths - do you know anything about that?
How do you play I6 in an evening? You will have to cut half the content if not more.
I don't care what old school grognards say "the core" was a terrible, limiting idea.
What would you prefer they’d done differently?
@@LunchBreakHeroes I prefer the dread domains to be pocket dimensions, instead of being part of a larger continent. The way dread domains are created and how they're cut off from everything outside themselves lends itself better to that kind of interpretation. Where travel is disorienting and isn't meant to make any sense. Taking the road past Krezk could be just as likely to lead to Harakir as it is to lead to Richmulot, or Borca, or Lamordia. The only way to control it would be with a mist talisman.
@orgixvi3 I do not disagree with you. The 5e interpretation of the domains’ separation does this pretty well.