Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 109 - Lore Series - All About Strahd

Episode Date: January 23, 2022

Another episode continuing the lore series, this time focusing on one of my favorite Big Bads:  Strahd von Zarovich.  Treating him as just another vampire does this amazing villain a disservice.  He is complex, has a rich backstory, amazing powers, and can serve as a great antagonist to the PCs, whether in Barovia or your custom home game. If you're interested in supporting the podcast, please consider donating at ko-fi.com/taking20podcast.

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. He has legendary actions available, lair actions while in Castle Ravenloft, and is a decidedly lethal opponent. You don't live for 400 or more years and not be both powerful and shrewd. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 109 of the Taking20 podcast. This week, all about that vampire lord, Strahd. This week's sponsor, air freshener. I've invented an air freshener that you can control with your mind.

It makes sense when you think about it. I think I'm going to like these lore episodes going forward. They're harder to research and require more work than my standard advice episodes. going forward. They're harder to research and require more work than my standard advice episodes, but every single one of these episodes have given me ideas

on something unique and new to include in my own gaming world. Some piece of trivia about demons or devils or in this week's case, the Vampire Lord Strahd. If there's a piece of lore you'd like me to cover in your gaming system, no matter what it is,

shoot me a suggestion to feedback at taking20podcast.com. Also, I wanted to take some time to thank some recent coffee donors. Steven, Ross, Daniel, David, Howard, thank you all so much for the donations, and thank you for the suggestions to the podcast. I greatly appreciate your generosity. Okay, starting off with a heads up. Officially, Strahd is a Wizards of the Coast property, so much of the material of this

episode will apply to the 5e game system. That doesn't mean you couldn't apply the same knowledge to some big bad vampire lord, regardless of what they look like. So if you're playing Call of Cthulhu, Starfinder, Pathfinder, or Delta Green, you could port a lot of these concepts over to the big bad in your game. bad in your game. Strahd Von Zarovich is a vampire ruler of Barovia that has been part of D&D lore since Advanced Dungeons & Dragons module I6 Ravenloft. That module was written by Laura and Tracy Hickman. Yep, that Tracy Hickman who teamed up with Margaret Weiss to write the Dragonlance trilogy. They playtested their module for five years every Halloween with friends until it resembled the product that got released in 1983 by TSR. Strahd, his mannerisms, and the entire setting has its roots in every classical vampire that you can name. Vampires played by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi to legends of Dracula and Viscount de Morievre.

Strahd is believed to be the first truly well-developed villain to appear in the AD&D game system. He was capable of changing the course of events, the environment, the layout of the castle, and monsters in Barovia to suit his own evil ends. That power gave DMs the flexibility to modify the entire adventure as they saw fit. It really was a masterpiece of an adventure, even given the relative immaturity of an adventure, even given the relative immaturity of the RPG publishing genre at the time. Of course, most of my listeners will know Strahd from The Curse of Strahd Adventure. I won't go into many details about the adventure itself because I try to avoid spoilers as much as I can, but there may be a few details leak out

into this episode that might spoil Strahd's motivations, characters, or possible encounters. If you want to avoid any risk of these types of spoilers, turn back now. Very well. Abandon all hope of completely avoiding spoilers, all ye who enter here. The Curse of Strahd Adventure is a remake or reboot of the original I6 adventure module that I talked about, Ravenloft. It was written by the amazing DM Chris Perkins with assistance from the authors of the original module, Laura and Tracy Hickman. Strahd, if the histories are to be believed, was once lawful good, fighting for those causes throughout his youth. He was born to King Barov and Queen Ravenia von Zarevich, who also gave birth to another son,

Sturm, 12 years later. Strahd became a full general at the age of 21. He led a war against the group known as the Tergs. During this campaign, his parents gave birth to Strahd's youngest brother, Sergei. The war lasted for 26 years, and in the 25th year of the conflict, Strahd's parents were slain by the Tergs. As the years of his youth waned, however, and middle age began to take hold, Strahd was concerned that he had wasted his youth fighting the war and instead conquered the region of Barovia and set himself up as lord of the land. He invited his family to come join him at Castle Ravenloft, including his younger brothers Sturm and Sergei.

Sometime after the family reunion, Strahd fell in love with a young Barovian woman named Tatyana Fedorovna. Unfortunately, Tatyana had already chosen the younger brother, Sergei. Believing it was because Sergei was younger, Strahd sought magical means to restore his youth. was younger, Strahd sought magical means to restore his youth. In a moment of desperate frustration, he made, quote, a pact with death, a pact of blood, as what Strahd called it. On the day of Sergei and Tatyana's wedding, approximately five years after his parents' death, Strahd murdered his brother and confessed his love to Tatyana, but overcome with grief, she threw herself from the balcony of Castle Ravenloft to her death. Strahd himself was shot down by arrows from the castle guards, but even so, he did not die.

He was turned into a vampire by whatever pact he made, and he's ruled Barovia from Ravenloft ever since. Strahd has unparalleled controls on the inner workings of Ravenloft and is a force of nature unto himself. unparalleled control of the inner workings of Ravenloft and is a force of nature unto himself. When Strahd decides to close the borders of his lands, poisonous mists will rise up and suffocate anyone attempting to pass through them. There are only two ways to avoid the poisonous fog. Immunity to poison, by the way magic doesn't help, but creatures that are innately immune to poison like elementals, constructs, and the undead have nothing to fear from it, or by ceasing the attempt to escape. In addition, the Vistani people that live there know a secret antidote which renders the drinker immune to the closed border. This fog permanently rings the village of Barovia. Strahd's curse is that once every generation he will meet a woman whom he

believes is Tatiana reincarnated. He always tries to woo her and win her to loving him, but the woman inevitably dies, usually by her own hand. Strahd is perhaps the most difficult of all Dark Lords to face. His mastery of necromancy is so great he produced a kind of super zombie, one that's capable of seeing invisible foes, regenerating like a troll and whose appendages continue to fight even when you sever them. Strahd has had to battle at least two other Dark Lords that entered his domain in the past, by the way. Aslan Rex the Lich and Lord Soth the Death Knight. And while we're at it, let's talk about Dark Lords. A Dark Lord was

originally an individual who had committed a truly horrific crime which drew the attention of the Dark Powers. What are the Dark Powers? Nobody knows. Some believe that they're evil deities, some think they're personifications of evil acts, but whatever they are, when they find someone truly worthy of the Dark Lord title, they will craft a domain for them to rule, which for Strahd was Barovia, and then surround it with mists, thereby cementing the area as both a domain for the new evil ruler and a prison to keep them there. The Dark Lord gains incredible powers while within its borders, but can never leave those borders. Within their domains, the Dark Lords are forever tormented by the objects of their desires, which are often the objects for which they committed their crimes, and these objects vary from Dark Lord to Dark Lord. There are a slew of

Dark Lords named since 2nd edition, two most famous being Vecna, yes that Vecna, as in I in hand of Vecna fame, and Lord Soth, the Death Knight of Dragonlance fame that has an interesting history all of his own. For more details about the dark powers and some of these and some powerful creatures to include in a Ravenloft-type campaign, please see Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. It's a 256-page supplement which details 39 other domains and powerful creatures to include in any gothic horror-type adventure. But I've wandered far afield again. Sorry about that. Sometimes I chase squirrels. So Strahd is the Dark Lord over Barovia, which is both his domain and prison. Strahd is an iconic character and has been in the D&D world for almost 40 years as of this recording. I think all of us would kill to write a character with that level of endurance in the gaming zeitgeist.

He has made at least a passing appearance in every edition of Dungeons & Dragons from 2nd through 5th. Strahd has lived for more than four centuries and repeatedly experiences the loss of his love. He is, if you'll pardon the phrase, a weapons-grade undead badass that is a challenge rating or CR 15 for a reason. He has legendary actions available, lair actions while in Castle Ravenloft, and is a decidedly lethal opponent. You don't live for 400 or more years and not be both powerful and shrewd. He is doomed to fall in love over and over again, only to watch the new object of his affections kill themselves or die every single time. Not to mention the family issues, by the way. Okay, sure, yeah, he killed

his youngest brother and all, but that's all forgiven now. It's been four centuries, right? Wrong. His great-niece, Lysa von Zarevich, granddaughter of Sturm, transformed herself into a vampire to challenge his rule of Barovia. She conspired with the High Master Illithid to generate a race of mind-flayer vampires to help her depose Strahd, but her plan failed. Mainly because they discovered you can't turn a Mind Flayer into a vampire because of incompatible physiology, and any vampire that they implanted with a larva to become an Illithid created this insane monster that had to be put down like a rabid animal. The Highmaster Illithid is helping Lysa, by the way, because he wants to be free of the Elder Brain and thinks becoming a vampire is the only way to do so.

For more on Illithids and Elder Brains, please see episode 49, where I talk about them at length. With the help of Emil Bolenbach, an insane medical researcher and golem creator, Strahd poisoned Lysa as punishment for her plotting against him. It caused her to fall into a deep sleep from which she cannot wake. So he can't get the woman that he loves, his family's trying to kill him, no wonder he's bitter, pissed, lonely, and evil. Like most vampire lords, Strahd has a host of creatures at his beck and call, including other vampires, werewolves, especially a group called the Children of Mother Night, insects, bats, swarms of creatures, and various other undead fae, giants, and animals.

They serve him and only him because they know what will happen should they fail him. There's a group of time-manipulating, or at least time-traveling, Vistani that can exist within the domain of Ravenloft called the Zorovan tribe who serve Strahd. They can curse the players and be major thorns in the players' sides throughout adventure. Strahd effectively has complete control over the land and every animal in it. Most of the intelligent creatures follow him out of fear, with the exception of the children of Mother Night, the werewolves who follow Strahd out of respect for his strength. So how can you use Strahd in your adventures? Strahd is not a typical vampire. He's not a big

bad that you should allow your players to stroll into Ravenloft with a whittled wooden stake made from an old table leg, stab him in the heart, and be home by dinner. He is tough, ruthless, intelligent, and wields tremendous power. He can change the land itself and castle Ravenloft of Baze's commands. He can change doors, rooms, summon choking mists, and has numerous allies, and could snuff out the PCs almost at will. Only late in Curse of Strahd Adventure Path should the party even entertain a passing thought of challenging the Vampire Lord. And then, only if they've accomplished some of the other major milestones of the adventure. party even entertain a passing thought of challenging the vampire lord, and then only if they've accomplished some of the other major milestones of the adventure. Strahd plays with

the party not because they pose a serious threat when they arrive in Barovia, but because he's bored. He's hundreds of years old, and the players offer a welcome diversion to his dreary life, and to him, they are amusing playthings that can keep him occupied. And to him, they are amusing playthings that can keep him occupied. Every villain has a weakness, and Strahd's ego is his. His failure to act when the PCs first arrive at, like, what, third level? He thinks they're nothing to him. He could teleport them a mile up in the air and drop them onto Ravenloft's ramparts like bags of rotten cabbage.

But when the PCs start gaining in strength and levels, wouldn't someone as old and as intelligent as he is recognize that eventually these new people could become a threat and cause him problems? I understand being bored with existence since not much changes in this little demiplane, but he'd be damn near indestructible if not for his own cockiness. But what if you want to use Strahd in a campaign that isn't the 5e adventure path? Strahd can be picked up and dropped into any campaign world that needs a little horror and well-defined strong big bad. His tragic backstory and constant suffering makes him a sympathetic villain in a lot of ways, especially if you gradually reveal his history over time. Almost every game system that you can name, Pathfinder, Starfinder, etc., have stats for a typical vampire, but don't fall into that trap.

Strahd is no typical vampire. He will be advanced in some way with more hit points, better attacks, better spells, additional abilities. He will be much harder to kill than your run-of-the-mill garden variety vampire. So if you do bring him into your campaign, make sure you beef him up a little bit. I want to give credit to another podcast called Three Wise DMs. They just finished their campaign Curse of Strahd, and the DM Dave of that group actually leveled Strahd up to CR20.

If you don't mind spoilers, they have a number of great discussions about their campaign over on their podcast and the challenges of both running and playing it. Give them a listen if you have some time. I think Strahd works best as a distant big bad at first. The PCs should encounter those that are cursed by Strahd, have had interactions with Strahd. The PCs should see the effects of Strahd's presence or rulership over an area before they even maybe even get a name to associate with a ruler that's keeping people, elves, centaurs, mermen, frost giants, whatever under their thumb. that's keeping people, elves, centaurs, mermen, frost giants, whatever, under their thumb.

Gradually introduce hints that this might be a vampire, with vampire thralls, werewolves, people who are hypnotized or charmed into following them, and so forth. If your campaign doesn't force Strahd to remain in an area like Ravenloft and Barovia, you'll have to figure out why he hangs around. He's powerful enough he could go nearly anywhere, so why hasn't he? Is it because he has ties to the area? He's made a bargain for power and the creature that granted the power to him requires him to remain here?

Or is it because he's looking for his version of Tatiana? While we're talking about porting Strahd over, if you want to duplicate the Tatiana storyline, you'll need to determine if he's found his Tatiana yet, whether he is caught in the infinite cycle of repeating the tragic ending of a romance, or has he not found her yet and the tragedy is just beginning. You can make Strahd easier on lower-level PCs by playing up his personality flaw of being overconfident, ignoring the party at first, letting his minions handle it. This will allow the characters to grow in level, and you, DM, can bring Strahd's power to bear when you feel like the PCs could conceivably challenge,

and maybe even slay him. At this point, I want to talk about one more thing about Strahd, but it is the biggest spoiler of the episode. So if you don't want to get anything spoiled, thank you for listening. Tune in next week when we discuss the power rumors have in campaign worlds. Okay, spoilers ahoy. Here's the last thing I want to talk about with Strahd. Whether you are using him in Ravenloft or your campaign world, remember, in most game systems, just reducing him to zero hit points won't kill him. You have to find his

coffin, open it up, and slay him there as he returns. Even though his body may be temporarily destroyed because you dropped him to zero hit points, he likely still exists in some form, whether spiritual or gaseous vapor, depending on your game system. He will still use any living minions to prevent the PCs from slaying him permanently and will hold nothing at all back at that point. Should the PCs manage to drop Strahd and force him to flee to his coffin, you need to throw the kitchen sink at the players to try to slow them down or hopefully completely prevent them from taking him out. He is a smart big bad and wants to live. His coffin should be surrounded by traps

that are harmless to undead, but potentially lethal to the living. Negative energy, poison gas, high-level sleep stunning, and confusion effects. Much like I discussed in the Lich episode, vampires will zealously defend the area where their coffin is, just like liches vigorously defend where their soul jar or phylactery is located. Strahd is one of my favorite big bads ever made. He is complex, has mostly believable motivations, has a great tragedy to give him depth, has positive aspects, and isn't just a comic book villain.

If you haven't played or run Curse of Strahd, I'd recommend giving it a try or bringing Strahd into your world. Fighting an epic badass vampire? Hopefully you and your table will have fun doing it. I've received a lot of requests for more lore episodes, so I hope this was what you were looking for. Look out for more of them in the future that spans different game systems.

I think the next lore episode will be a few weeks out, and it's going to be one of my favorite world-shaping events, the Cataclysm of Kryn. But next week, rumors. Before I go, I once again want to thank our sponsor, air fresheners. I heard that Tesla is releasing an air freshener made especially for their cars.

It mostly smells like musk. This has been episode 109, all about Strahd. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube media production, copyright 2022. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.