Dr. Rudolph van Richten (5th Edition)
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This section contains canon info from officially published sources |
NOTE: This entry is for the 5th Edition version of Dr. Rudolph van Richten presented in Curse of Strahd. For the older edition character, see Dr. Rudolph van Richten (NPC).
Dr. van Richten makes a notable appearance in the 5th Edition module, Curse of Strahd, though not in his famous persona as the monster hunter and writer of the Van Richten's Guides he is notable for in previous Ravenloft products. Instead, he adopts the guise of Rictavio, a traveling half-elf bard, storyteller, and ringmaster gathering stories and watching out for talent. In reality he is gathering formation and waiting for an optimal time to strike at Strahd, preferably when the vampire lord is in hibernation. Unlike other versions of van Richten, the Curse of Strahd van Richten is a loner because he knows the full extent of his curse.[1]
History
Much of Dr. van Richten's early history before he came a monster hunter remains the same. One key difference is that he did not wholesale murder the Vistani that kidnapped his son Erasmus van Richten. In fact, one of them, Ezmerelda d'Avenir appeared to him one day and expressed her remorse, eventually becoming van Richten's student in monster hunting. However, their relationship frayed after a couple of years, and at, Ezmerelda's suggestion, they left each other's company amicably.[2]
At some point in his adventuring career, a Vistani seer cursed van Richten, dooming his friends to die. Curse of Strahd is not specific to when in his adventuring career or why van Richten's curse was put upon him, though he is aware of it.[1] In contrast, in the traditional van Richten story, van Richten is cursed by Madame Radanavich early on in his career but does not realize how it has effected him until 741 BC (the year before he retires). He thus operates as a loner, to not cause the death of any friends or allies he would work with.[1]
Eventually, Dr. van Richten set his sights upon the destruction of Strahd. By now having adopted the identity of Rictavio, van Richten eventually encountered Yan, an exiled Vistani. Once Yan discovered van Richten's intentions to go to Barovia and seek out the Vistani there, Yan tried to make off with Rictavio's Wagon along with Piccolo. Van Richten caught him and killed the thief, removed his head, and preserved it with special magic oils to be used with speak with dead later on.[3]
Rictavio came to Barovia in the guise of Rictavio[1] and set up shop at a then abandoned tower formerly belonging to the wizard Khazan. Dr. van Richten made Khazan's old tower his own for a time, before moving on to Vallaki and setting up shop there.[4] In the meantime, Ezmerelda heard rumors about her former mentor's travel to Barovia to take out Strahd, and she traveled to Barovia to find van Richten, eventually setting up shop in his old tower.[5]
About a month prior to the current point in the timeline of the module, "Rictavio" came to Vallaki. There he met and purchased a doll of a Vistani from Gadof Blinsky. Noting the toymaker's loneliness and despair, van Richten left his pet monkey, Piccolo with Blinsky for company.[6] Dr. van Richten has stayed at the Blue Water Inn and received generous treatment from the charitable Urwin Martikov.[7]. Dr. van Richten keeps his wagon (and his sabre-toothed tiger) inside the Arasek Stockyards, bribing off its owners to prevent any details from leaking out.[8]
Modus Operandi
As previously mentioned, Dr. van Richten is a loner, posing in his Rictavio guise to gather information until the time is right to strike against Strahd. Van Richten drives a carnival wagon[9] pulled by a horse] named Drusilla.[10] Dr. van Richten uses his sabre-toothed tiger to hunt evil Vistani, for which it is especially trained to do.[8] Currently, van Richten is gathering information on both a)the Keepers of the Feather to learn their allegiances/membership and b)the evil Vistani of Arrigal's Clan at the Vistani camp near Vallaki. Van Richten plans on sending the tiger after the evil Vistani in the camp.
Art
p. 238
Game Statistics
As a Priest NPC Archetype or Rictavio from Curse of Strahd[11]
Appearances
ROLE PLAYING NOTES
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This section contains Homebrew non-canon info, created by fans |
THE LEGEND:
Rudolph Van Richten is an old monster hunter. Let me say that again...he is an old monster hunter. He got into the monster hunting trade around the time his son was 14, which would probably put Van Richten in his late thirties to early forties. Ball-parking it, he's probably at least in his 80s by now. This is a man who has been hunting and slaying monsters for decades.
The name Van Richten is known; the common folk know it; the monsters know it--he is a legend. Imagine if you will, the “scary stories” that parents tell their kids to possibly frighten them away from certain things. Van Richten is the scary story that monsters tell their children. By the time your players meet him (for real--not just his disguise), they should have heard the name several times. So, how should this play out? Here are a few ideas...
• Van Richten wrote a series of books, detailing all he knew about monsters of all sorts. The 'Van Richten's Guide to the [monster]' series. Perhaps your players find a copy of one...perhaps when they succeed on a monster-knowledge check, you tell them that they remember reading [fact] in the book Van Richten's Guide to [monster].
• If the players do something impressive involving slaying monsters, have NPCs compare them to the legends they have heard of Van Richten.
• Perhaps work with a player to inject an encounter with Van Richten into their backstory.
• If the PCs are hanging around somewhere, perhaps someone in a tavern launches into a story of one of Rudolph Van Richten's exploits.
• Some monsters are afraid of him. If Van Richten drops the Rictavio disguise and when he becomes known, intelligent monsters may balk at the idea of fighting him. Others may specifically target him for the “glory of killing Van Richten.”
• If NPCs become aware of who he is, their treatment of him should border on worship...albeit, distant. Just imagine if Batman suddenly turned up in the local pub. They are astounded by him, admire him, but are kind of afraid of him.
A PHYSICIAN:
Before Van Richten became the great monster hunter he is known as today, he was a doctor. His medical background should carry through into how he operates today.
• He does have a good Medicine check, and should be quick to look for cause of death, stabilize injured people, treat injuries, etc.
• He should have a great deal of understanding about anatomy and has extended this knowledge to include monster anatomy and biology. He knows what harms them and why, he knows where to hit them to make it hurt. He has figured this out by doing autopsies on monsters he killed.
• To reflect his medical background, he has the Healer feat.
• His way of thinking and his approach to things has a scholarly bent. He is not quick to rush into danger and instead gathers information before he acts.
THE WEIGHT OF EXPERIENCE:
Van Richten is (certainly within Ravenloft) the greatest and most experienced monster hunter to have ever lived. Additionally, we know that he has taken out creatures far outside of his weight class. Canonically to Ravenloft Lore, Van Richten has taken out full vampires, lycanthropes of all sorts, and even a few Mummy Lords. So, what does this mean? Well...basically, mix together a Witcher and Batman, and then pack it into a really old physician.
• If it involves monsters, Van Richten knows it. No check necessary.
• If a monster is vulnerable to something, he's carrying it. Feel free to include “traditional” vulnerabilities that monsters could have that aren't necessarily in the books. Wolfsbane (specially prepared Aconite) repels or poisons werewolves, garlic repulses vampires, etc.
• If there is something you can create that a monster is harmed by, he knows how to make it.
• If he knows in advance what sort of monster he is going to go up against and there is a Cleric spell that would be useful, assume he prepared it.
• His ability to predict the actions of monsters should be nearly flawless. As the DM...straight up cheat with his predictive abilities. You know what your monsters are going to do next, so have him react accordingly. He sees the werewolves in front and correctly predicts that another group would be moving in stealth to flank the party. If one is about to rush him and attack him, he moves out of its movement range before it can charge. When it comes to getting attacked by monsters, he is simply never surprised by what they do. Strahd Von Zarovich is an exception...elder vampires are extremely hard to predict.
• His understanding of how monsters behave should be uncanny. He doesn't need to track them; he can generally make a reliable guess at where their lair would be. If he decides to stake out a monster to ambush it when it next attacks someone, he always stakes out the right place.
• He can produce non-traditional solutions to dealing with certain kinds of monsters. For example, he may be able to figure out a way to put a ghost to rest (by breaking its ties to the world), rather than having to fight it.
• He will use his skills to help the party coordinate. He's not a specialist in small unit tactics, so he won't actually try to command the PCs, but he will give them advice and call warnings. For example: "The attack from the front is a decoy!"
Van Richten's skill-set should be eclectic in the extreme. He has picked up bits and pieces of useful knowledge from all over the place. He is not proficient with Smith's tools, but knows how to Silver a weapon. He's not proficient with a Poisoner's Kit, but knows how to make several toxins and compounds that are effective against various sorts of monster. He's not a proficient survivalist, but can identify monster tracks on sight. He's not proficient in Investigation, but he can piece together the evidence of a monster attack easy as breathing.
Van Richten's campaign against monsters is obsessive. He is on a lifelong rampage of revenge over what Baron Metus did to his son. He has gathered up every single possible tool that he can get his hands on that makes him more effective at killing monsters and discarded most of the rest.
THE SLAYER:
Van Richten kills monsters. He doesn't fight or battle or hunt monsters, he kills them. And he does all of this, despite only having a CR of 9. The players that travel with him should be constantly shocked (and appalled) at all the sneaky, filthy, under-handed tricks he pulls in order to kill the maximum number of monsters as swiftly and efficiently as possible. That is how Van Richten operates.
• Necromancer and his undead holed up in an old mansion? Bar the doors and set it on fire.
• Vampire built his lair on low ground? Divert a river to flood the whole thing with running water.
• Vampire didn't make sure his coffin was under enough layers of solid material? Blow/tear the top off and bathe the coffin in daylight.
• Found the vampire's coffin before you go to kill it? Anyone know the spell leomund's tiny hut? That'll prevent the vampire's mist form from getting back to its coffin.
• Cave full of werewolves? Set large fires in the entrances, then cave the entrance in beyond the fire...then just wait for the fire to eat all the air out of the cave.
• Necromancer with an army? Infect the army with Corpseblight then put a crossbow bolt through the necromancer's throat while he struggles to figure out why his undead army is falling apart.
In short...if you can think of a horrific, brutal, and/or efficient way for him to kill things with the environment, without really endangering himself directly...he'll do it.
THE OLD HERO:
Van Richten is not as young as he once was. If anything, this has emphasized his traits mentioned above. Once upon a time, he was young and strong and agile--able to fight monsters directly and come out on top. But now he's old. His body can't keep up with his old way of fighting, so he's had to adapt. He focuses more on magic now, but mostly focuses on killing things without having to actually fight them.
In a straight fight, he’s more likely to let the PCs handle the front lines. They're young enough to handle it, after all, which could be where you use his support-caster loadout.
As to his personality, he’s not a generic crotchety old man. He’s a really old monster hunter...master of his trade and too old to put up with any shenanigans or BS from players. He's mellowed out somewhat since he got started, but he’s still quite determined to see the end of any monsters he can.
His age is a balancing factor that should keep him from turning into the star of the campaign. While Van Richten’s personality and aura should boarder on the mythic, he has worked with countless groups of adventurers and heroes...it would be easy for him to steal the spotlight from the PCs. So the DM should balance this with the fact that he's old and he's cautious.
A CURSED MAN:
Van Richten suffers a curse bestowed on him by a Vistani:
Live you always among monsters, and see everyone you love die beneath their claws.
Its effect on him can best be summarized with this statement: "Van Richten Dies Last." This curse is both a boon and a bane to him. The curse is a large part of why he has lived so long--how he has accumulated so much experience and expertise. He is cursed to always see his friends and allies die--which means he has to live long enough to see it happen.
For a long time, he was unaware of the exact nature of the curse on him, but he is apparently aware of it now.
• Van Richten feels guilty. For decades he fought alongside others with monsters, completely unaware that he was a doombringer among them. Now that he knows, he is burdened by all the deaths he feels that his presence caused.
• Van Richten isolates himself. He doesn't let people get close to him for fear that his curse will take them out.
• If Van Richten is traveling with the party, he has excellent odds of surviving--if someone is going to die in the party, it'll be someone other than him.
• Van Richten's curse should have a tangible impact if he’s traveling with the party: he is a doombringer of the highest order. His mere presence among the party should invite tragedy and disaster.
The Tragedy of Ezmerelda and Van Richten. In the backstory that created Ezmerelda d’Avenir (Appendix D: Monsters and NPCs pages 230-231), there's a tragedy in there: Van Richten's curse could have been lifted years ago.
By Ravenloft Lore, the strongest of curses laid down by a Vistani can only be lifted by the Vistani who placed it, or a blood relative of that Vistani. Van Richten's curse was a Death Curse laid on him by Ezmerelda's mother. Only Ezmerelda has the ability to revoke the curse. But here's the problem... Ezmerelda is Vistani...by nature; they are secretive about their abilities. Beyond that, Van Richten doesn't trust Vistani and likely commanded Ezmerelda to not use her Vistani abilities in his presence. As a result, Van Richten doesn't know how Vistani curses work--he doesn't know that they can be revoked by a blood relative of the one who laid it. He's a Cleric, he has undoubtedly tried remove curse on himself and it failed. As far as he knows, the curse is permanent. Van Richten is also secretive and, as mentioned, doesn't trust the Vistani. He kept Ezmerelda at arm's length as best he could both because he couldn't trust her, but also to try to protect her from the curse...and even if he was aware of the curse when they traveled together, he never told her about it.
If either one of them had been less secretive, more open, his curse would have been revoked a long time ago.
If the players want to help Van Richten break the curse, here's the backstory:
The story of Ezmerelda and Van Richten's history was written in the Van Richten's Journal (Appendix F: Handouts pages 254-255). It involves him destroying Ezmerelda's caravan while she was very, very young. She survived the undead assault and later got picked up by another caravan of Vistani (it was actually the Zarovan tribe--Madam Eva's caravan). She originally wanted revenge on Van Richten, but time with Eva (and the presence of the most powerful Vistani of them all) showed her the tragedy of what had happened from an outside perspective. Ezmerelda realized that the whole thing was a horrible tragedy and wrongs had been committed on both sides. She, thus, set out to try to find Van Richten and try to make things right...though Eva never told her about the curse her mother had laid on Van Richten.
Van Richten and Ezmerelda must travel to the place the curse was first laid...a small clearing in the forests of Barovia where the ruins of Ezmerelda's caravan still lie. Both must verbally acknowledge the wrong that had been done and verbally forgive one another for it...then the remains of Ezmerelda's caravan must be burned.
THE DISGUISE:
Van Richten got the idea for “Rictavio” from his exposure to Ezmerelda and her occasional methods for blending in when going somewhere that didn't like Vistani. In short: "Sometimes the best disguise is being the most obvious thing in the room." As mentioned above, Ezmerelda has never encountered the Rictavio disguise and Van Richten isn't familiar with any of the disguises Ezmerelda is currently using.
It is a rather perfect disguise. Van Richten is known as a grim and serious individual, a dour old man who roves the world slaying monsters. “Rictavio” is a flamboyant fop who tells ludicrous stories, commits crimes against music, and is constantly trying to recruit people to his Circus of Wonders. He should be portrayed as extremely over the top and completely harmless. It should be very jarring to your players if he drops the act and reveals who he truly is. Furthermore, Rictavio knows that even if someone suspects he's hiding something, they are extremely unlikely to guess the truth. If a player rolls well on Insight against him and figures out he's full of crap, that only tells them that he's lying about something...not what he is lying about. And his response is to just carry on and ignore accusations. Sure, the PCs may figure out that he's full of it (his stories are obvious fabrications) but he just carries right along, sticking to his guns even though the players know it’s a load of BS.
The players should have a hard time to get a serious read on Rictavio's personality. He strikes them as so straight forward--a carnie who is spinning tall tales for amusement. So they shouldn’t suspect that he's any more than what he appears to be.
A HARD MAN TO PIN DOWN:
Van Richten is a man with a plan for killing Strahd Von Zarovich, and it's a plan that plays well to his aged capabilities: "wait til Strahd takes a long nap, then stake him in his sleep." Of anyone in the valley, Van Richten knows how deadly Strahd is. He has fought elder vampires before and Strahd is the greatest of them all. He may very well believe that trying to fight him head on is pure folly, but he’s the one most capable of doing so.
It's important to note: Most of the "Destined Allies" the party can draw from Madame Eva’s Tarokka card reading have notes about how the PCs can get that individual to join them. Van Richten has no such notes. Instead, it says this...
Van Richten works alone. [...] Furthermore, he believes too much is at stake to risk exposure.
Van Richten is aware of Madame Eva but (unlike many others in the valley) he won't immediately cave to her prophecies, drop everything he has been working on, and throw his lot in with the PCs. Here are a few important things to keep in mind if the party is trying to recruit him...
• Van Richten is quite certain that if he drops his disguise, Strahd will find him and set out to kill him. (This is one of Strahd's Primary Goals as listed in Chapter 1)
• Van Richten's disguise is magically augmented. As long as the party can't get his hat off, they cannot prove that he’s not a carnie ringmaster
• Van Richten's disguise is only useful against Strahd as long as no one knows who he really is. The ring of mind shielding only works on him...it doesn't work on the PCs. He knows that if anyone else finds out, Strahd can charm them, read their mind or otherwise extract that information from them.
• Van Richten is fully aware of his curse. He will avoid physically joining up with the party for fear that he will get them all killed.
• Van Richten does not talk about his curse. He knows well the bravery of adventurers and that telling them about his curse tends to result in responses like "Oh, you don't need to worry about us, we're strong!" followed shortly by ":dying noises:." Rebuffing their advances without mentioning the curse is much more effective at getting them to stay away from him so his curse doesn't kill them.
• Even if Van Richten consents to offer them aid, it should be indirect as much as possible. He has his plan, he's set in his ways, and he’s not going to go gallivanting off with a bunch of young adventurers. And, he should stay in character as much as possible...blowing his cover will only bring Strahd down on him AND the PCs.
Ideally, even if the party can convince him to help...his help should primarily take the form of a surprisingly knowledgeable carnival ringmaster who is "certainly not going to go out and fight monsters with you. I'm a ringmaster, not an adventurer!"
He may lend the party his carnival wagon to travel around in (once he finds somewhere else to stash his saber-toothed tiger that has been trained to hunt Vistani, or he may lend them the tiger), give them helpful advice--possibly using ravens to stay in touch over long-distance if the PCs make friends with the Keepers of the Feather, and provide the sort of support that a Carnie could offer. But, it should take rather extreme circumstances for him to actually be honest with the PCs...and they may have to do something about his curse before he'll actually travel with them.
GETTING HIM TO JOIN UP:
Van Richten wants to stay under cover...so how does the party get him to change his mind?
Easy: Ruin his plan.
If Van Richten's cover is blown, his plan is a wash. The whole plan depends on his identity staying a secret until Strahd goes into hibernation. If Strahd identifies Van Richten before then, he will try to kill him and Van Richten is pretty sure he can't take Strahd in a straight-up fight. Thus...if Van Richten’s cover is blown, he is stuck with two bad choices: Either he tries to keep going it alone, possibly getting killed by Strahd, and fails his “final mission,” or he accepts the risk to the PCs and joins them to try to take Strahd down directly. A few example ways to blow his cover...
• Knock his hat off. A hat of disguise only works as long as it stays on your head, so if something happens that knocks his hat off; “Rictavio” is replaced by Van Richten.
• Let the Tyger Tyger event happen (chapter 5). When Rictavio flees to the Tower of Khazan, he's inside an antimagic field and cannot disguise himself.
• Even if Van Richten is distorting his voice, if the PCs have already befriended Ezmerelda, she may still recognize it...even if what she recognizes is the cadence his voice adopts when he's explaining something.
ABILITY LOADOUT:
Van Richten is a Cleric...and his listed prepared spells speaks more of a support caster than a monster hunter who has gone solo. But, because he's a Cleric, he can swap out his prepared spells at will to any other spells on the Cleric list. Here are a few notes on spells for him to use...
• Dawn creates sunlight. If he can lock a vampire down within the area of effect, they will be dust in short order.
• Dispel Evil and Good breaks a vampire's charm. However...things can't really leave Barovia, so the dismissal part of that spell won't be terribly effective here.
• Geas is useful when he needs to find something. For example, capture a werewolf then place a geas on it to lead them to the den.
• Lesser and Greater Restoration are enormously useful, as is remove curse.
• Guiding Bolt is a great weapon against Vampires. Shuts down their regeneration, and gives the next attack advantage.
• Hallow: If Van Richten can get his hands on the material components for this, he can create holy ground to help protect the PCs. Create a bubble of hallowed ground around the antimagic field that covers the Tower of Khazan....talk about a fortress. Sure, you'll have a bubble of non-hallowed ground where the antimagic field zone is...but the territory around the tower itself will be holy ground.
• Given his skill at predicting his foes...dropping sanctuary on a creature they are about to attack can completely trash their attempts.
• Spirit Guardians is another spell that is just....awesome.
RUDOLPH VAN RICHTEN QUOTES:
"It is my sincere wish that any soul who comes into possession of this booklet may employ the dearly-bought wisdom herein to strike at the heart of monstrous villainy wherever it arises. Make no mistake: it is a bloody business, and not for the faint of heart. Often, it is those of us familiar with tragedy who can best pierce the darkness. We hunt monsters so the innocent don’t have to."
"For more than three decades now, I have undertaken to investigate and expose creatures of darkness to the purifying light of truth and knowledge. “Hero” I am named in some circles; “sage” and “master hunter” I am called in others. Today I am a man who has simply lived too long."
"The fight against creatures of darkness is a difficult, and often painful one! But it is a good fight, and one that must be fought."
"Destroying everything seems like the best option."
