(Realize this might be getting out of hand for a sinple advice thread, what with all the context and whatnot. Should I turn this into a Storytime?)
Alright, so last night we played the dinner at Ravenloft (which the players loved) and I have a couple new ideas running around in my head.
But let's start at the beginning. The players tie up the Vallakovichs in their house (locking Viktor in the shackle room after stuffing a Dream Pastry in his mouth to pacify him) and sleep through the night (an unfortunate accident occurred, but is not relvant to this post). My cleric took the magic mirror out of the house after casting Nondetection and buried it behind the manor (the Hags had asked them rather forcefully to use it to take out Van Richten).
After this, they toured the street for a little, seeing what I assume would be normal after a coup d'etat, spiced up by the fact that Lady Wachter is actually a cutist leader (so broken windows and doors, dead bodies, exctatic cultists copulating in the streets, and the town square filled by a crowd who brought forth "Vallakovich loyalists" for a group of shirtless fanatics with stars carved into their raw flesh to execute and toss into a pile at the side of the square.
The party recoils from this, ordering the murders to stop at once and announcing a city-wide trial come noon. They go to speak with lady Wachter, who is oversseing things gleefully. They invoke the deal they made upon planning the baron's overthrowal: they want to be appointed supreme Judges and Commanders of the Guard of Vallaki. Wachter agrees with no problem (shaking off a Suggestion casted by the Cleric) knowing full well her legitimacy stems from the capillary control derived of her cult and not the rule of law).
The party then brings the Baron and his wife onto the stage (Viktor wasn't properly contained and Misty Stepped out of his shackles during the night, fleeing to brood on his revenge), before a crowd of Vallakians chanting for their death. Through some very good roleplaying and rolls (including a nat 1 for the malleability of the collective villagers) the players manage to downgrade the death sentence of the Baron and all his "loyalists" to an exile: the loyalists due west (picked up by Van Richten and the Keepers of the Feather), the baron and his wife to Lake Zarovich on a rowless rowboat (picked up by the Mad Mage).
After this the party decided (as they had announced preciously) to go take up Strahd's dinner invitation. Dinner went well, with the Strahd's biggest fan in the party (the sorcerer) starting to doubt him somewhat, the cleric having his faith put in question and almost throwing it away (with that still being a distinct possibility, since Strahd told him to verify what he had said by giving him a scroll of Commune -and everything that implies), the barbarian clearly not trusting Strahd very much at all but being brushed off by the others since he is actually crazy and suffers from grave pseudo-PTSD, and the druid actually seriously considering joining Strahd, since he considers all the things they have done to be bad enough already that becoming his chief druid would just be another drop in the bucket.
The main thing that surprised me were the sorcerer's continued efforts to protect the innocent population of Barovia, both in Vallaki and as he bargained the conditions of his support to Strahd. So Strahd agreed to keep the innocents out of this, but that actually seems really out of character, not only for his tendency to use hostages (which will undoubtedly come up at some point) but for the fact that he revels in tormenting Barovians in his free time. So I came up with a way of rationalizing what is going to happen (that being Vallaki is going to absolutely degenerate into a tyranny, with lady Wachter and her close circle snorting fantasy coke all the livelong day as the inhabitants slave in newly established mines to get the fancy bling and in the fields, as peasants do. All this backed by the hags, who produce a constant stream of Dream Pastries to keep the population subdued. The Abbot might play a role in this, augmenting the city's reproductive capacities, since the hags can only work with souled children). The explanation Strahd would give for this is simple: all this suffering is not only not really happening to his people, but he is shouldering its burden, since the city would reserve the heavy jobs and menial labour to the soulless, and being the soulless a manifestation of his own will, he is the one paying the price for the wellbeing of Vallaki (obiously mistreating the soulless is still evil, but he doesn't think that at all and in fact will try to convince the party of the opposite).
Thoughts?
