As part of my Curse of Strahd run (sesión 4 now) I stumbled upon an issue around the level of power or amount of help that you get from ‘Strahd’s Enemy’ – Inspiration is a great tool, yet in the very long meantime between facing Strahd directly, the ally can be quite useless.
Our ally from the tarokka was the Broken One – Father Donavich in Barovia. Donavich is the priest in charge of the church, enduring a whole year of madness and pain from his son, Doru, turned into a vampire spawn by Strahd to torture him. Donavich has trapped his son in the basement in the church.
However, Donavich is a simple acolyte, unable to perform much after solving his son’s torments (usually winds up with Doru dead).
In my campaign, the group managed to kill Doru after a fierce firefight (we are running CoS with Red Masque). A distressed Donavich begs the characters to aid him taking Doru to the altar and cries to the heavens for the Morninglord’s blessing. The church starts to tremble, the bell tolls, the doors fly open (party thought Strahd was coming) and the Morninglord answers the prayer of Donavich, bringing his son back to life.
It was something done on the spur of the moment: it created a strong emotional conection with the pain of Donavich, shown that a sliver of hope is still alive despite darkness (I am heavily following [MENTION=9789]evilbob[/MENTION] Points of Light idea).
But afterwards? I am rolling with Donavich being a full priest, who can offer some services of healing and blessing for the players – only at dawn of each day. I am using a version of brutal long rests with 1 day rest for shorts and 3 days for longs, so a healer is quite handy, as red Masque spells are fewer and slower. My doubt is whether to put him high on the spell side (9th level so he can cast 5th spells) but static on his church (which is now holy ground again, like Vallaki’s) or to simply keep him an adept.
Comments?
Our ally from the tarokka was the Broken One – Father Donavich in Barovia. Donavich is the priest in charge of the church, enduring a whole year of madness and pain from his son, Doru, turned into a vampire spawn by Strahd to torture him. Donavich has trapped his son in the basement in the church.
However, Donavich is a simple acolyte, unable to perform much after solving his son’s torments (usually winds up with Doru dead).
In my campaign, the group managed to kill Doru after a fierce firefight (we are running CoS with Red Masque). A distressed Donavich begs the characters to aid him taking Doru to the altar and cries to the heavens for the Morninglord’s blessing. The church starts to tremble, the bell tolls, the doors fly open (party thought Strahd was coming) and the Morninglord answers the prayer of Donavich, bringing his son back to life.
It was something done on the spur of the moment: it created a strong emotional conection with the pain of Donavich, shown that a sliver of hope is still alive despite darkness (I am heavily following [MENTION=9789]evilbob[/MENTION] Points of Light idea).
But afterwards? I am rolling with Donavich being a full priest, who can offer some services of healing and blessing for the players – only at dawn of each day. I am using a version of brutal long rests with 1 day rest for shorts and 3 days for longs, so a healer is quite handy, as red Masque spells are fewer and slower. My doubt is whether to put him high on the spell side (9th level so he can cast 5th spells) but static on his church (which is now holy ground again, like Vallaki’s) or to simply keep him an adept.
Comments?