Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
That’s pretty much what I do.
D&D 5E Sanitizing Curse of Strahd (+)
- Thread starter Gradine
- Start date
Swarmkeeper
Hero
Bump: More Strahd love, less halfling and gnome hate...
Swarmkeeper
Hero
I ran the Lake Zarovich kidnapping plot hook last night except I flipped it around quite a bit: Arabelle went willingly on the boat b/c she was bragging about catching a bigger fish than Bluto ever could to the urchins of Vallaki. She's a bit of a tough one and the town kids admire her gusto. Bluto gladly brought her along for good luck.
In any case, while out on the boat she ends up knocking out Bluto (who in this version was a halfling) because he was hogging the best fishing pole and had injured a raven to presumably use for bait. She ends up caring for the bird and fishing happily by herself. As the party (three level 2 PCs and two level 2 PCs) approached in their rowboats, through the lightly obscuring fog, they could spy a taller figure fishing and then a smaller figure getting up from being prone. The two start struggling for control of the fishing pole, the raven squawking all the while. The larger figure pushes the smaller one overboard and continues fishing calmly. When the party's two rowboats come within reach, they meet Arabelle, confidently fishing away. The PCs actually get annoyed with her since she has caused such a big kerfuffle and has half her camp out and about looking for her (and caused one member of the camp to take some awful punishment for losing track of her). Bluto pops his head above water and says he's been attacked - to which Arabelle sneers. Then he is dragged under and blood bubbles up as tentacles burst above the surface threatening to capsize the boats. Turned into a nice chase scene with the boats both getting capsized, the party losing 100' of hempen rope, but ultimately with the PCs making it back to shore. Then a battle ensues on shore with nasty giant wolf spiders and some Strahd Zombies. Three of the Five PCs nearly perished. At the end of the night, they were very eager to return Arabelle, who they blamed for all their troubles, back to her father and get her out of their sight!
In any case, while out on the boat she ends up knocking out Bluto (who in this version was a halfling) because he was hogging the best fishing pole and had injured a raven to presumably use for bait. She ends up caring for the bird and fishing happily by herself. As the party (three level 2 PCs and two level 2 PCs) approached in their rowboats, through the lightly obscuring fog, they could spy a taller figure fishing and then a smaller figure getting up from being prone. The two start struggling for control of the fishing pole, the raven squawking all the while. The larger figure pushes the smaller one overboard and continues fishing calmly. When the party's two rowboats come within reach, they meet Arabelle, confidently fishing away. The PCs actually get annoyed with her since she has caused such a big kerfuffle and has half her camp out and about looking for her (and caused one member of the camp to take some awful punishment for losing track of her). Bluto pops his head above water and says he's been attacked - to which Arabelle sneers. Then he is dragged under and blood bubbles up as tentacles burst above the surface threatening to capsize the boats. Turned into a nice chase scene with the boats both getting capsized, the party losing 100' of hempen rope, but ultimately with the PCs making it back to shore. Then a battle ensues on shore with nasty giant wolf spiders and some Strahd Zombies. Three of the Five PCs nearly perished. At the end of the night, they were very eager to return Arabelle, who they blamed for all their troubles, back to her father and get her out of their sight!
Hugh_the_DM
Villager
Sorry if this is thread necromancy but I've just started running CoS so I'm hoovering up any and all good ideas for tweaks and edits. Saw this thread and thought I'd chime in, for what it's worth...
Obviousily, the cardinal rule is "know your group".
My two cents worth on the OP's ideas and what I am doing for my group:
1) the Vistani - racial/cultural representation is too big an issue for me to fix. But we all need to do our part otherwise it will never get better...
The vistani are stereotypes and there is a tendency in RPG design to take these stereotypes and run with them to the extreme - The same can be true of any fantasy culture which is a direct representation of an existing culture, or even a clumsy metaphor for one (e.g. the entirety of "oriental adventures", Tolkien's races being analogous to human cultures/races, or pretty much all of "medieval fantasy" being a tiny chunk of 14th century europe with added magic)
Making the Vistani more like wiccans is an approach that could work... but then you risk offending wiccans or, maybe worse, making them into a different stereotype. But if it works for you and your group, go for it!
For MY players, I have emphasised that they are an imaginary people, based on a romanticized fiction of a collection of stereotypes which were themselves based on romanticized fiction.
I have then gone on to stress that the Vistani are simply a culture with the full gamut of good and bad people like any other culture. Some of them serve Strahd willingly, some serve out of fear, most are just trying to get by and feed their families while upholding their way of life, and some actively oppose (or try to "cure") him.
People are people. Some people are from cultures that we don't fully understand, or have aspects that we find distasteful to our own cultural sensibilities. Welcome to Earth.
(The travelling community here in Ireland, having cultural similarities to the Roma, suffer much of the same prejudices that the Vistani do, and the walls of division are built on very deep foundatins of mistrust, on both sides - one of my players is active in the area of trying to bring education and social equality to the travelling community in rural areas, so I had to tread carefully with any parallells and am regularly informed if I overstep)
2) dead children - My group would be pretty grossed out if children were killed "on screen" but they're ok with the implication that it has happened or that it will happen if they don't take action. Many groups would not be so blasé about it.
Here are a couple of ideas to change whatever you gotta change to make it work:
Re child ghosts - probably not too bad as long as there aren't child corpses. Creepy child ghosts are a staple of horror after all. Just gloss over the specifics of their demise and go for creepy rather than anguished.
Re the Dream Pastries - I think the thing here is less the dead kids and more the corruption of the adults to the point that they are "willing" to hand over their kids. You could have some kind of "changeling ritual" where the "donated" children are cursed to turn into hags on their 13th birthday, just like a hag's child would. And then drop them at an orphanage or at a random farmhouse. (just ignore the whole "Hags eat children" thing)
3) the dusk elves - in my game the dusk elves know they are doomed and are just going through the motions of life because they know on some level that their souls will be trapped in Barovia for eternity regardless.
Kasimir is trying to bring back his sister because of guilt. He wants to save her from torment. That's it. Nothing incestuous, no pimping her out to repopulate. He's not really stable and isn't thinking much beyond that. To be honest, nor had I until now.
Thinking about it now, here are a couple of ideas:
The humans aren't willing to procreate with the dusk elves, even if the elves were willing to, because they know Strahd did this to them and wants the elves to live with their doom. And even if they did, the dusk elves would still be "no more" because their elven blood would be diluted by human blood. (Elven pride/arrogance/superiority is a major part of their cultural personality in my game)
There isn't a solution to their problem except maybe freeing them all from Barovia and finding them some other elven community to live in, out in the world.
That's just how I'm approaching things, and a couple of ideas off the top of my head. Hope it's of some help to someone ;-)
Obviousily, the cardinal rule is "know your group".
My two cents worth on the OP's ideas and what I am doing for my group:
1) the Vistani - racial/cultural representation is too big an issue for me to fix. But we all need to do our part otherwise it will never get better...
The vistani are stereotypes and there is a tendency in RPG design to take these stereotypes and run with them to the extreme - The same can be true of any fantasy culture which is a direct representation of an existing culture, or even a clumsy metaphor for one (e.g. the entirety of "oriental adventures", Tolkien's races being analogous to human cultures/races, or pretty much all of "medieval fantasy" being a tiny chunk of 14th century europe with added magic)
Making the Vistani more like wiccans is an approach that could work... but then you risk offending wiccans or, maybe worse, making them into a different stereotype. But if it works for you and your group, go for it!
For MY players, I have emphasised that they are an imaginary people, based on a romanticized fiction of a collection of stereotypes which were themselves based on romanticized fiction.
I have then gone on to stress that the Vistani are simply a culture with the full gamut of good and bad people like any other culture. Some of them serve Strahd willingly, some serve out of fear, most are just trying to get by and feed their families while upholding their way of life, and some actively oppose (or try to "cure") him.
People are people. Some people are from cultures that we don't fully understand, or have aspects that we find distasteful to our own cultural sensibilities. Welcome to Earth.
(The travelling community here in Ireland, having cultural similarities to the Roma, suffer much of the same prejudices that the Vistani do, and the walls of division are built on very deep foundatins of mistrust, on both sides - one of my players is active in the area of trying to bring education and social equality to the travelling community in rural areas, so I had to tread carefully with any parallells and am regularly informed if I overstep)
2) dead children - My group would be pretty grossed out if children were killed "on screen" but they're ok with the implication that it has happened or that it will happen if they don't take action. Many groups would not be so blasé about it.
Here are a couple of ideas to change whatever you gotta change to make it work:
Re child ghosts - probably not too bad as long as there aren't child corpses. Creepy child ghosts are a staple of horror after all. Just gloss over the specifics of their demise and go for creepy rather than anguished.
Re the Dream Pastries - I think the thing here is less the dead kids and more the corruption of the adults to the point that they are "willing" to hand over their kids. You could have some kind of "changeling ritual" where the "donated" children are cursed to turn into hags on their 13th birthday, just like a hag's child would. And then drop them at an orphanage or at a random farmhouse. (just ignore the whole "Hags eat children" thing)
3) the dusk elves - in my game the dusk elves know they are doomed and are just going through the motions of life because they know on some level that their souls will be trapped in Barovia for eternity regardless.
Kasimir is trying to bring back his sister because of guilt. He wants to save her from torment. That's it. Nothing incestuous, no pimping her out to repopulate. He's not really stable and isn't thinking much beyond that. To be honest, nor had I until now.
Thinking about it now, here are a couple of ideas:
The humans aren't willing to procreate with the dusk elves, even if the elves were willing to, because they know Strahd did this to them and wants the elves to live with their doom. And even if they did, the dusk elves would still be "no more" because their elven blood would be diluted by human blood. (Elven pride/arrogance/superiority is a major part of their cultural personality in my game)
There isn't a solution to their problem except maybe freeing them all from Barovia and finding them some other elven community to live in, out in the world.
That's just how I'm approaching things, and a couple of ideas off the top of my head. Hope it's of some help to someone ;-)
FrozenNorth
Hero
I’ll definitely agree that if Lovecraftian horror can be rehabilitated (and a diverse group of authors are doing just that), than gothic horror can be rehabilitated as well.
Bolares
Hero
If I was going to tackle Dusk Elves in my game, I'd probably tell a similar story to the Genophage in Mass Effect. Strahd put up an sterilizing curse on the elves, and the elf they are trying to ressurect is the one who can break the curse somehow. Not by being a baby factor, but by reversing/curing it.
MGibster
Legend
I don't even know what it means to make a group more like Wiccans. I don't tend to think of Wiccans as their own race or ethnicity.
I've heard other people have this interpretation of Kasimir but I never got the impression that there was anything incestuous or he had any desire to pimp his sister out. He feels extreme guilt and wants to bring her back but he's blinded by how evil she actually is.
Just about any work from previous decades is going to have aspects that a modern audience finds unpalatable. I watched The Monster Squad a few years back for the first time since seeing it in theaters back in 1987 and was mildly surprised by the overt homophobia. Even in a kid's movie, that kind of homophobic language was unremarkable at the time but you can't help but notice it now. And Dracula? I'm not ever sure where to begin. It's got a lot of baggage from its anti-Semitic stereotypes to sex & gender as seen through a Victorian lens.
I have no idea what this means. It is a abbreviation that has passed me by, could you please elaborate?
Scribe
Legend
Positive contribution only, I believe.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I had a similar thought, as I’ve been playing the remaster a lot lately.
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