D&D General About the goals of Strahd (Curse of Strahd) -Spoilers *Maybe*-

[S3PTI4N77]

Few days ago, I ran my first session of Curse of Strahd with my playgroup. I won't go into the details of this 14-hours-long session, but I made a decision on one of the goals of Count Strahd : Based on what had happened so far, I decided that Ireena Kolyana (Tatyana) had to fall into the hands of Strahd, becoming one of his consort vampire spawn in the meantime.

Having read the book I, Strahd : The Memoirs of a Vampire, I know how important Ireena is or can be for the story, and for Strahd. I already have plans for her character, although I am curious on your opinion about this situation. Should I have let Ireena live for the sake of her "romance"/interactions with Strahd, or else? Please let me know !

(I am curious on your thoughts on the matter, even if I don't plan to change my decision. I think the book gives me the liberty to do so.)

 

[Stormonu]

I'm a little unclear - is she already a vampire or is Strahd working towards turning her?

In all the times I've run Ravenloft, the characters protecting Ireena from Strahd has been a major plot point. Many times she has joined the party to fight at their side, with Strahd planning ambushes trying to eliminate the party or isolate Ireena so he attempt to capture her and convert her into one of his vampire brides. This has always been the Plot B of the adventure for my run-throughs.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

One of my players had the brilliant idea to kill Strahd by casting Simulacrum on Ireena but the snow used in the spell is all frozen holy water, so when Strahd bites into her he's just sucking holy water and dies. We spent a while wondering if we would need to toss on Nystul's Magic Aura too.

 

[Burnside]

From the “Strahd Prevails” section of the epilogue of Curse of Strahd:

“With the characters out of the way, Strahd shifts his attention back to making Ireena Kolyana his bride. If she is still alive and within his grasp, Ireena is turned into a vampire spawn and sealed in her crypt beneath Castle Ravenloft.”

Isn’t that pretty much the situation you’re describing? It’s already in the adventure as a thing that can happen.

 

[S3PTI4N77]

I'm a little unclear - is she already a vampire or is Strahd working towards turning her?

In all the times I've run Ravenloft, the characters protecting Ireena from Strahd has been a major plot point. Many times she has joined the party to fight at their side, with Strahd planning ambushes trying to eliminate the party or isolate Ireena so he attempt to capture her and convert her into one of his vampire brides. This has always been the Plot B of the adventure for my run-throughs.

She's already transforming. She was bitten by Strahd a third time. Next time, the PJs will see her as a vampire spawn.

 

[S3PTI4N77]

From the “Strahd Prevails” section of the epilogue of Curse of Strahd:

“With the characters out of the way, Strahd shifts his attention back to making Ireena Kolyana his bride. If she is still alive and within his grasp, Ireena is turned into a vampire spawn and sealed in her crypt beneath Castle Ravenloft.”

Isn’t that pretty much the situation you’re describing? It’s already in the adventure as a thing that can happen.

I took the liberty to ignore this particular details. Keep in mind that this happened at the first session and the PJs are just at the Village of Barovia, well and alive.

 

[Stormonu]

PJs = PCs (Player Characters)?

 

[Burnside]

I guess without knowing the details, my concerns are mostly about my view of the DM's role: presenting NPCs with motivations and environments to explore, letting the players interact with those elements, and narrating what happens as a result of player choices and the dice rolls. So for me I guess alarm bells maybe go off a bit when I hear "the plans I have in mind for Ireena" because it kinda seems like "this is what's gonna happen no matter what the players do."

But again, I'm not in your game and I don't know the dynamics. If Ireena is a vampire spawn because of choices that players made, or things they tried to prevent but the dice said otherwise, then fair enough. I'm on my third run of DMing Curse of Strahd now, and I never really have a "story" I want to "tell" when I run it - the players, the tarokka deck, and the dice pretty much tell me the story.

 

[DEFCON 1]

With the expansion of the location/setting in Curse of Strahd (as opposed to the much shorter/quicker plotline in the original I6 Ravenloft module) the Ireena storyline can actually end up being minimized for a lot of groups and their playthroughs just based on what the players end up focusing on. I know in my two campaigns I ran, one of the groups became so enamored with the results of the tarroka reading and the gathering of the items from it, that the whole Ireena plotline was barely touched upon and then fell by the wayside completely. And if the party didn't care about it... I wasn't about to force them to care just because it's the "baseline" Strahd thread in I6 and potentially that one in CoS.

So I do not see anything wrong with changing the Ireena plot thread a bit from the "baseline" by having her already a Strahd thrall from the start. If nothing else... it potentially changes the dynamic of the relationship between the party and Strahd. Now, instead of being anti-Strahd from the beginning as they have to do their best to keep Ireena safe from the Vampire Lord... they either might never even interact with her, Strahd might be more friendly with the party right now because he "has" what he wants (although of course he will eventually lose her because that is his curse), or the party might become more focused on "rescuing" her and all the other victims of Strahd and the party becomes focused on storming Strahd and the Castle rather than trying to avoid him early in the campaign.

This is one of the many things I love about Curse of Strahd... in that there's no singular way you need to run the campaign, nor the players to play the campaign. Every single playthrough can and will be different. Heck, I know that if/when I run the game again I'm going to start with the party arriving from the western valley gate and come upon Kresk as their first village to hit, rather than Barovia. That simple change (and the plotlines of the Wizard of the Wines and then the "Bride of Strahd" happening immediately from the beginning) will alter how the players embrace the setting. Because they won't be interacting with Ireena from the start, they won't get sent right to Madam Eva to get their tarroka reading that tells them Strahd is a bad dude, they won't go traipsing around the Baratok Valley merely to find the objects that the reading tells them to find. Instead... the reveals of Lord Von Zarovich as a character and how the players feel about him could be quite a bit different. And that's something I'm really looking forward to.

 

[S3PTI4N77]

She's already transforming. Next time, the PJs will see her as a vampire spawn.

PJs = PCs (Player Characters)?

Yeah, my bad, I'm from Canada (Quebec)