Help! Lyssa Von Zarovich

[steveflam]

Hello everybody! I am looking for information on Lyssa Von Zarovich whether it be 2nd edition or 3.0! Thanks in advance!

[DocBeard]

Let's see...

I have stuff from whatsis, the Children of the Night: Vampires book.

In a nutshell, she's a member of a group of von Zaroviches who escaped the slaughter at Ravenloft. She became a vampire only about a hundred years ago, for strange reasons...apperently the branch of the family wants to depose Strahd or something...and has since been a thorn in his side. She gained extra power by killing her lover and letting his ghost attack her, draining her age and giving her the power of an elder.

She's played a major role in Thoughts of Darkness, trying to breed a new kind of Mind Flayer vampire, and was bested by Strahd when he tricked her into consuming the blood of a golem that was designed to exhaust her, so he could 'reeducate' her over the hundred years it took to ware off. I believe 3E assumed she escaped.

[steveflam]

So she is in Children of the Night and THoughts of Darkness but not in any 3.0 material?

[Joël of the FoS]

She has a sidebar in Gaz 1.

Joël

[steveflam]

In the Who's doomed part?

[Joël of the FoS]

Nope, in the Barovia descr.!

Jo

[cure]

The volontary aging by the ghost to give herself the powers of an ancient vampire is generally deemed to be a hideous bit of metagaming stuck into the head of an NPC. ("OK, if I were centuries older I would drain more levels per attack. So how do I become centuries older without actually putting in the time? Well, ghosts age the living. Maybe that would work on me too despite the fact that I am (un)dead. Well, what do I have to lose other than my (un)life?") In 3e the authors tried to wallpaper over this bit of madness by muddying the waters as to exactly what she was after in respect to the ghost and how she gained her incredible power in that encounter. Other than that and the mad mindflayer vampire project, under the nose of the omniscient Godbrain, she is chiefly noteworthy for her general plotting against Strahd and for being one of the sexiest creatures in the Land of Mists (which is perhaps why the Godbrained played along with her conspiracy against him). Evidently, she is something of an anarchist or at least hates being governed in preference to governing. She currently plays at being the leader of a bunch of blood cultists, at least when not sleeping.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

In a nutshell, she's a member of a group of von Zaroviches who escaped the slaughter at Ravenloft. She became a vampire only about a hundred years ago, for strange reasons...apperently the branch of the family wants to depose Strahd or something...and has since been a thorn in his side.

Aside from the unpopular aged-by-a-ghost justification for her level of power, there's actually a big continuity-error in Lyssa's CotN write-up. On the one hand, it describes Lyssa as being a granddaughter of Sturm von Zarovich -- the oft-forgotten middle brother of Strahd and Sergei -- who'd set out to destroy Strahd, by any means necessary, because of the stain his misdeeds had inflicted upon the family. On the other hand, it then turns around and describes her as the daughter of Anna von Zarovich ... who, herself, was born nearly three hundred years after the Castle Ravenloft massacre!

OOC, this gaff is easily explained: whoever wrote Lyssa's background had plainly pulled Anna's name off the old Black Box set's "Bloodlines" chart for the Von Zaroviches, but hadn't noticed the multi-century gap between Sturm's generation and Anna's. In-game, unfortunately, the discrepancy is a serious continuity error ... not least because, as Anna's husband was a man named Tod Heitman, Lyssa wouldn't even bear the Von Zarovich surname, if they were her real parents!

The way that several of us resolve this, in our own games, is to say that Lyssa is Sturm's granddaughter -- hence, a fair portion of her age as a vampire is legitimate, not a kludge -- but that she (falsely) claims to be a descendent of Anna and Tod, when pesky mortals ask when she was born or question her ties to the living Von Zarovich clan. (Anna and Tod vanished many years ago, according to the "Bloodlines" family tree, so none of the family's living members can confirm or refute this.) The fact that she hates Strahd, whereas most of the clan appears to staunchly support him as of LotB, just goes to show that her great-uncle's had far more success in winning over their loyalty and obedience than Lyssa, now that no one but she is left who carries a grudge over his AoUD.

How she accounts for not being named "Lyssa Heitman" is anyone's guess . Still, it's better than trying to explain how Sturm could have a granddaughter born three centuries after he died.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

The volontary aging by the ghost to give herself the powers of an ancient vampire is generally deemed to be a hideous bit of metagaming stuck into the head of an NPC. ("OK, if I were centuries older I would drain more levels per attack. So how do I become centuries older without actually putting in the time? Well, ghosts age the living. Maybe that would work on me too despite the fact that I am (un)dead. Well, what do I have to lose other than my (un)life?") In 3e the authors tried to wallpaper over this bit of madness by muddying the waters as to exactly what she was after in respect to the ghost and how she gained her incredible power in that encounter.

FWIW, I re-papered this IMC by saying that before she struck a deal with the mind flayers, Lyssa'd already spent a few subjective centuries in the realm of the Arak. This not only makes her unearned age-category more palatable, but it gives her some sith allies she'll be able to call upon, once she recovers sufficiently from Strahd's booby-trap to make it to the Shadow Rift. (The sith had never encountered a vampire before Lyssa showed up, so they were intrigued by her pseudo-immortal status and kept her around as a necromantic curiosity. )

[Nikolas of the Mists]

Whenever I need to find sources on something in the demiplane of dread I always check the old kargatane site's Ravenloft Catalogue.

It never fails to amaze. (Well ok it disaoppinted me once when I found it didn't have a cross reference to the city of thaan on the Mt Makab entry, but other than that it has been golden.)

[Antifascist]

Y'all keep talking about what an attractive undead lady Lyssa is, but it seems as though the internet is bereft of her visage. I have done a million google image searches for her. Do any of y'all have it, that I might make my own decision about her comeliness?

Also, I never had Thoughts of Darkness or whatever, but it seems to me that 3.5 really depowered Lyssa, at least in terms of her class. (The ghost thing does seem rather hokey.) It seems to me that anyone able to help create "vampiric illithids" should be a higher level of sorcererer than the Gazetter gave her. I wanna say it was less than 5. That's way too small if you ask me.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Actually, given that Lyssa'd originally been a fighter in life, and didn't know any magic in her 2E appearances, even two levels of sorcerer is a considerable arcane power-up!

AFAIK, her actual role in creating vampire illithids consisted of chomping the necks of catatonic host-bodies into which larval illithids had just been implanted. Any vampire could've done that; she just came up with the sick idea of combining vampirism and ceremorphosis.

[Antifascist]

Actually, given that Lyssa'd originally been a fighter in life, and didn't know any magic in her 2E appearances, even two levels of sorcerer is a considerable arcane power-up!

AFAIK, her actual role in creating vampire illithids consisted of chomping the necks of catatonic host-bodies into which larval illithids had just been implanted. Any vampire could've done that; she just came up with the sick idea of combining vampirism and ceremorphosis.

hecks, I didn't know that. The only person I ever spoke to about it (and this was years ago, mind you) said she "conducted the ritual", leading me to believe that she had played some kind of hardcore integral role. I never had anything involving her, so I just took him at his word (the normal inference being that if she played an integral role, then she must have cast some spells or something). Then, when I saw her as only a 2nd level Sorcerer, it just didn't jive based on that description. Sorry for not knowing!

[HuManBing]

...the old kargatane site's Ravenloft Catalogue.

It never fails to disappoint.

I had to read that twice! Do you mean to say "It never fails me"? Or even "It never disappoints me"? Because both are really good. But "It never fails to disappoint" is not so good!

[Nikolas of the Mists]

...the old kargatane site's Ravenloft Catalogue.

It never fails to disappoint.

I had to read that twice! Do you mean to say "It never fails me"? Or even "It never disappoints me"? Because both are really good. But "It never fails to disappoint" is not so good!

oi fixt. I iz gud at wrytin, rly.