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Message: <blockquote data-quote="evilbob" data-source="post: 6871292" data-attributes="member: 9789">Ha, love it!  Totally using this.  10x better than the Strahd's sister silliness.For those who think she needs to have been around since the beginning (thus perpetuating the endless cycle of Ravenloft), she can be one of those people born with souls who is reborn each time and becomes the "Madam Eva" of that time period.  Maybe the name is more of an honorific than even a real name:  once a young woman demonstrates that she has the sight, the Vistani start calling her Madam Eva (after their greatest seer?) and eventually everyone forgets her real name anyway.  (Maybe this is the 4th Madam Eva, and she's getting pretty up there in years.)If you wanted to take it further, maybe the times when Madam Eva is dead (but before she's reborn) also tend to coincide with when Strahd has a "dormant" period (such that Van Richten has heard about) - in other words, she IS tied to Strahd in some mystical way, and he needs her to exist in order to rule...  But so far no one has figured that out (least of all Madam Eva, who would probably rather kill herself than to let him rule for a time) - other than Strahd, which is why he's never killed her and allows her free reign (unknown to her, he's fairly aware of her meddling, but he knows her fear of him and what he could do to her people keeps her in check - plus she instills such wonderful false hope in his adversaries, making their defeat even sweeter).  Maybe the original Madam Eva was part of the group that saved Strahd; she foresaw his potential for evil and cursed him so that if she were not around to watch him, he could inflict no harm.  Originally intended to ensure he didn't "go bad" after her own death if he outlived her, it accidentally cursed her as well since as a vampire he can never die - thus she must always be reborn to continue to secretly meddle in his affairs and watch over him from a distance.Tying it back into the other story from Jackdaw, she's known he will withdraw his favor from the Vistani and that's part of why she is secretly helping adventurers because she fears what that might mean for her people.  However, maybe it's even ironic:  she doesn't understand that this favor will only be withdrawn once he is gone forever, so she's really seeing the end of his curse - and the curse tying her people to him.  (Like all fortunes she only sees part of the truth and the full truth is still hidden in the fog...)</blockquote>

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