A Deductive Reasoning Test Conducted by S

[Ender]

My Curse of Strahd campaign is loosely connected to the overall campaign setting. I'm running a secondary narrative arc where the players are slowly learning that the demiplane was constructed and that not everything operates naturally. They are just about to have a meeting with S, as a cameo, in which she will bring to light some of her findings and suspicions. This is a an S who's still pretty arrogant and thinks the party is going to be a waste of her time. As such, she wants to give them a small test to determine if she should bother with this meeting. I want her to present the party with a handful of clues and have them deduce something about the nature of the demiplane. I'm not sure, however, what this test would entail.


Here are some related bits of information the party already has:

1. Curse of Strahd introduces the concept of the soulless Barovians, which I haven't played up a lot. The party has noticed that some Barovians seem on autopilot, but haven't delved into the 'why' just yet.

2. Strahd being 'imprisoned' has been mentioned, but my players thus far think it was used metaphorically.

3. Tatyana's continual reincarnation is all but a fully-accepted fact to the party.

4. Border closures have been noted as an observable phenomenon, but they assume Strahd is just really powerful. The concept of a Darklord hasn't been introduced yet.


What information I suspect S could tell them:

1. There are domains, each with a Darklord.

2. Each domain may very well be fabricated, with anything before its seminal event being false history.

3. Some Barovians are soulless (I assume she would have been smart enough to figure this out during her journey).


What test of intellect might S have them perform? What other information might she have for them? Her role here is not to explicitly help the party defeat Strahd, but to provide information that helps them to understand the nature of the demiplane, which lets me foreshadow the culmination of that particular story arc.

[DustBunny]

Stealing an idea from an old TV episode...

The PC's are given an ancient book - yellowed pages, cracked leather, etc. - written many many years ago by a long dead author. They are told to read it and give their conclusion as to what it reveals.

What's in the book? A basic overview (no secret stuff) of the history of the realm from the beginning up to the _present_ day.

[Ender]

That feels, perhaps, a bit too open-ended. My group would likely flounder with all the information, having been giving no direction and no specific clues that would lead them to any conclusion. Ideally, I think, I'd want them to start somewhat confused by what's in front of them, but quickly pick up on a pattern, then try to reason out the pattern. I don't know that they need the right answer, but I also feel like the right answer shouldn't be akin to the proverbial needle in the haystack.

For instance, if the party were unfamiliar with the concept of a werewolf, you could present to them the following evidence:

1. X people were killed by what appears to be a large wolf.
2. Villagers have noticed that Person Y is always missing during these attacks.
3. Torn clothes have been found outside the village on the night of the attacks.
4. Person Y has been seen in the woods the following morning without clothes.

That would be a small example where a party could say "Ah, Person Y has probably been committing these murders, given his conspicuous absences and reappearances. The clothing information suggests they are Person Y's clothing and he has lost them involuntarily. Maybe they are transforming into this large wolf?" It's not wholly accurate, but it's very close to the truth and uses logical steps. I'd want to do the same thing with something a bit more complex. Maybe get the party to deduce the existence of the soulless Barovians or the concept of a Darklord or, potentially, go so far as to infer the existence of the Dark Powers.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Wait, why are there soulless Barovians?

EDIT: Oh, it's from CoS. Can you give us a summary?

[Ender]

Whoops! Thought I'd replied, but apparently I forgot. CoS has this to say:

Barovians are made of flesh and blood. They are born, they live, they age, and they die. But not all of them-only about one in every ten-have souls.

When a being with a soul dies in Barovia, that soul remains trapped in Strahd's domain until it is reincarnated in a newborn. It can take decades for a bodiless soul to find a host, and Barovians who share the same soul over generations tend to look alike. That is why Ireena Kolyana looks exactly like Strahd's beloved Tatyana-both women were born with the same soul.

Strahd needs loyal subjects to feed his ego. Barovians without souls are empty shells created by his consciousness to fill out the local population. Although they are physically indistinguishable from Barovians with souls, they tend to be bereft of charm and imagination and to be more compliant and depressed than the others. They dress in drab clothing, whereas Barovians who have souls wear clothes with a splash of color or individuality.

A Barovian woman, soulless or not, can give birth. A child born in Barovia might have a soul even if one or both parents do not. Conversely, the child of two parents· with souls isn't certain to have a soul of its own. Barovians without souls are maudlin folk who experience fear but neither laugh nor cry.

Ireena Kolyana and her brother Ismark both have souls, as do all Vistani. Which Barovians have souls and which don't is left up to you.

Strahd periodically feeds on the blood of Barovians who have souls, but he can't draw nourishment from the blood of the soulless. He can tell at a glance whether a Barovian has a soul or is merely a shell.

I'm not planning on following this 100%. For instance, I don't think every soul should get reincarnated, just Tatyana. The 1 in 10 bit is a bit strong, too. I also think Strahd shouldn't know that some are missing souls and that he could feed on anyone, but perhaps is naturally inclined to feed on those with souls. In general, I think the "soulless" aspect is an offshoot of the Dark Powers' wholesale fabrication of the land, which is something that S speculated on. She questioned how one knows they are "real" if they were born before a domain's seminal event. I'd extend it further and suggest that the Dark Powers create people from time to time, for their own machinations, and these Mist-constructed individuals wouldn't have true souls. Personalities, perhaps, but not souls.

I'm uncertain how someone would discover this fact. I like the idea that maybe it's the soulless who are reincarnated, which would make my players doubt if Ireena has a soul. It would also instill a certain amount of fear in one Barovian native PC, given that he found his name and sketch in an old book detailing Barovian lineages. Still, there's no real proof here, nor even any good correlations.

[The Lesser Evil]

I'm uncertain how someone would discover this fact.

Curse of Strahd p. 155 says that there's a Barovian folk belief that newborn infants that don't cry don't have souls. Anyway, you might have S direct them to the pregnant woman and the midwife detailed on page 155, help out with the delivery, and then talk with the parties involved and have them come back to S with their conclusions as a test.