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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8231638" data-attributes="member: 93670">Ok... Look at it this way Strahd, Haslik Gabrielle, etc  are mostly all somewhere between figurehead, actual ruler, or former ruler of their domains. Every single one of them has some obsession they can't let go of that keeps them from focusing on turning their respective domains into wonderful places & the Dark Powers twist the screws just enough to keep those dark lords distracted from making their domains awesome places by teasing at their obsessions.. Take the Haslan trying to build a road around the necropolis example that came up earlier in the thread(?).  It could be done & they could probably even take care of that whole necropolis eyesore if hazlik would just stop focusing all of his efforts & spare resources on arcane research towards letting him escape ravenloft.  If the players take it upon themselves to build that road they can't lean on the darklord for support.  In one of my campaigns the players built a lightningrail in barovia but strahd was off playing Pepe Le Pew chasing after Tatianaso they had to self fund in a domain without the treasury to support it.   Eventually they used the output of that mine they got running to supply some stranded cannith artificers & magewrights with the resources needed to build a lightningrail line. The players couldn't rely on strahd to bullypulpit the individual villages for them & the villagers knew it... so the players eventually had to clear out & help restart a hot spring as well as a winery to give that lightning rail some reason to run .  Strahd's typical involvements were  well meaning, distracted, & more than once made things worse because he didn't care about his relationship with the PCs.  Jacqueline would be just as easy  as she doesn't really care much about Richemulot so much as getting whatever NPC her heart is set on to love her back so now the PCs need to juggle both her and the target of her heart if they wanted to accomplish something like that lightning rail/mine/etc.  No PC needs to e targeted by the darklord for an obsessed darklord to be a wrench in the gears.</blockquote>

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