I'll do your suggestion of a Vistani ambush, an armored tiger comes out of nowhere and helps fight them, but then, when it seems it's all over he turns to this monk and attacks him. That's when Rictavio appears and stops the tiger. Then he'll mention his tower as a safe spot, but, would he trust that information to a vistana? The monk is black, while vistani tend to be white... His clan probably was black as well... That would make Rictavio connect the dots and look visibly uncomfortable (even with the ring of mind shielding). Or I can forget about all that, I'm sure the players wouldn't make those connections. After all, Barovia is home to humans of all colours.
That's super interesting that your PC is black and the other Vistani (at least all the illustrations in the book) are white; that seems a nice, easy way to trigger in Rictavio's mind that the PC is from the clan in question. He was Van Richten at the time he slaughtered the clan, right, and he feels guilty for having done so? So it makes sense that 1) he would want to make amends with the PC as representative of the clan that he thought was exterminated, and 2) he would want to do so in relative secret to protect his Rictavio identity. So that would be a reason why he might invite the party to the Tower, so he could reveal himself and have that conversation.
Loving this brainstorming of three different stories!
Right? It's almost as fun as running game sessions itself. These boards and y'all's help in particular have enormously increased my confidence DMing the game.
To update where my group is at...
I took your advice about managing my NPCs, without even having read it yet.
We all took a long rest in the Tower. We did have an epic encounter when the werewolves came in response to the lightning trap. They retreated to the woods after we started tossing spells at them (I forgot about Khazan's anti-magic field until it was too late). Then my character, who has the Invisibility spell, went outside, drawing the wolves to attack, then did the door-opening dance wrong, summoning the young blue dragon. He won initiative and cast Invisibility, hid in Ezmerelda's wagon, and let the dragon attack the wolves; its initial lightning attack did 57 points to all but 2 of them. (It made me regret not taking the time - usually not worth the time - to roll up their hit points individually, since they have 58 otherwise.) That earned them a long rest without the werewolves potentially informing Strahd who was in the Tower (ie the players' whereabouts).
When they left in the morning, Van Richten and Ezmerelda decided to stay in the Tower to do their own thing(s). I haven't exactly decided what those would be. Before the PCs, along with Team Alien (Ismark, Ireena, and Izek ... 3 I's, get it?) headed to Krezk, and thence to the Wizard of Wines (which was also mentioned by Urwin in Vallaki), I had Rictavio give the party each a magic item from his chest. (I got looking at magic items in the DMG and got kind of excited about them.) Rictavio is their ally per the card reading, and unless I missed it there is no mechanical effect of that, so I wanted to play that up. By the way, do you have any suggestions for a Monk with Eyes of the Eagle? Would you give a buff on passive perception checks? That's the gift Rictavio gave to my 12yo, and I don't want it to be lame or underpowered. More importantly though, he gave the group a Sending Stone, keeping the other half himself so that he can stay in touch with the parties.
Then when they went into the Wizard of Wines, Team Alien stayed outside with Davian, although his two adult sons accompanied them because the PCs seemed to expect that they would all go together, and I couldn't think of a good reason those guys at least shouldn't. I actually found the encounter there kind of boring, so I didn't mind making it easier. The Beastmaster Ranger's familiar is an owl, our Druid cast Beast Sense to see through its eyes, and it scouted the winery, finding the druid poisoning the vats and the one with the staff. I don't know if that was more than I should have let the familiar do or not. So first thing they cornered and killed the staff druid. The young Martikovs proved helpful; someone on these boards suggested having the ravens in the winery shout about breaking the staff, and I had the two wereravens (incognito) listen and translate that squawked message to the PCs. They destroyed the staff and that just about finished that fight.
So I'm going next to try to encourage them to go to Yester Hill and put a stop to the druids before they take the wine to Krezk. I really don't want Wintersplinter to destroy the winery unless the PCs are negligent, and Davian should be able to clue them in, between telling his story and reporting on the druids fleeing south after we destroyed the Gulthias staff. Restoring the winery is worth a lot of "points of light," which I want to employ. I don't know quite what the Yester Hill encounter should look like though. I don't want Strahd to show up today to sanction the ritual to create Wintersplinter. He's going to be busy, now that he knows about Ireena in Vallaki, attacking the chapel and visiting the Burgomaster's. I suppose I could have him have done that last night (while everybody was sleeping in the Tower). Is Yester Hill resolvable if the druids don't start their ritual? What would cause them to destroy the statue (finding the gem) or the Gulthias tree otherwise?
I'm also looking ahead to their return to Krezk. Assuming they find their way to the pool, how should I handle the meeting with Ireena and Sergei? Specifically, what would Izek do? Possibly my portrayal of him is unrealistic, but he's latched tightly onto his "I would do anything to protect my sister" bond. (He kinda flipped out when a druid's thunderwave hit her.) How would the scene go where she tries to depart with Sergei if Izek is there trying to protect her (to say nothing of Ismark)? And if she does go, would Izek go ballistic and attack the party reuniting him with his sister and then leading to her (ostensible) death?
