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Message: <blockquote data-quote="texastoast" data-source="post: 7058370" data-attributes="member: 6873909">That's a sweet reveal the way you describe it here.  Just make sure you think through some of the questions it raises, since the authors of the book didn't do it for you, this being a change.  Why is she disguising herself as a man?  Does whatever magic she uses change her voice?  Was the person who attacked your character's clan male or female?  If female, why was your character able to recognize her?  If male, then what gives?  Was she masquerading as Ricatvio then too, in which case should your PC have recognized him immediately?  I totally get not wanting to get overloaded with NPCs, just be sure you don't make changes that make no sense to your players.For what it's worth, I'll chip in with what I'm doing with Rictavio.  He is the party's named ally, which they've figured out, and they hung out at the tower one night, during which Ezmerelda showed up.  Rictavio shared some background Barovia information and gave each party member a relevant magical item from his treasure chest in the tower.  He also gave the party a Sending Stone so that they could stay in touch, and told them he and Ezmerelda had business to attend to while they went on their way.  For instance, today, while they're at the winery, he sent a message informing them that something went down in Vallaki last night (Strahd's attack on the church and his attempt to find Ireena in the Baron's, but as he's in the Tower now, Rictavio doesn't know details.)  He's definitely an important part of our story, and he's a valuable source of information, but he's not always hanging around, which I'm very happy about.This may be how you're doing it already, but I wanted to point out that according to the RAW the fated ally can only give inspiration when in the presence of Strahd.  Given that the party's whole fight is in some sense against Strahd, the enemy of Strahd assisting them on any facet of their adventure (ie not just in his presence) seems totally reasonable, but I'm always a fan of making changes on purpose, not simply due to losing track of the game's (copious, innumerable) factoids and rules.I took what I found was the preponderance of the advice and let my party split themselves up after clearing the winery.  The group escorting Ireena etc. back to Krezk encountered a pack of 3 dire wolves, one of whom was Deathfang (I panicked, having neglected to think of a name, and picked something kind of cliche), an old, scarred dire wolf known in these parts, who had been the one to separate Ireena and Izek and take Izek's arm.  It turned into a bit of a comedy of errors, as my warlock took a chance and cast Fear while Izek and Ismark were in melee with the wolves, and thus in the AoE; they both failed their saves, and two of the three wolves made theirs.  I proceeded to forget that it was a concentration spell and didn't know how to dispel it, so round after round Izek would attempt to run away, the wolves would get attacks of opportunity, he would fail his save, be knocked prone, and the whole scene would keep repeating.  I figured out midway through that I was doing it wrong and that all my Eldritch Blasting ended the Fear spell, and everybody came back to the battle.  Being at range gave Izek a chance to show off his weird fire attack, which brought about some wide-eyed gasps at the table.  Eventually we emerged victorious, and Ireena jumped down from the wine wagon to give a "my hero!" hug to Izek, which after a little uncertainty he figured out how to receive (he doesn't get a lot of hugs), and a ray of unclouded sunlight fell briefly upon them.  (As I've mentioned, I'm trying to build the "points of light" idea into my campaign, that if we can make enough people happy and optimistic, it'll undermine Strahd's power, which will have mechanical effects down the line.)  That elicited a "What is going on?!", which I think was a win.</blockquote>

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