Café de Nuit

Okay so my group has always been henchman averse despite being quite a small one, they don't like sharing the xp . So this next session will force them into running multiple characters for the first time.

Should I hold off on attacking Strahd, and spend some time getting them used to henchmen, or should I just send them straight into the belly of the beast?

Assuming the former , would a vampire hunt be too repetitive?

Whatever it is going to be it should reveal some secret that might be useful in the future , so far they have learned that Azalin was based in Vallaki, so in the future (if I run the GC as written , which is possible ) they will know the location of his lair. Trouble is I'm struggling to think of anything that might be revealed in this historical period that might be useful in the future.

An idea that I toyed with on another thread was that male vampires that were the direct spawn of Strahd ( not the spawn of his spawn ) were always monstrous and capable of causing him genuine harm (Leo Dilisnya's manticore form from the Fair Barovia article ) ,and that the Phantom Lover was originally a vampire progeny of Strahd's , maybe this adventure could be based around hunting a monstrous vampire and the payoff being the discovery of a weakness to use against Strahd back in their own time (the group already know the location of Leo's tomb, at least they know where it is before the GC ,as IMC the monastery is the one in Markovia)

So I grabbed an idea from one of my other threads and sent the PCs + 18 (yes that's right 18) henchmen against this time periods version of Leederick the Phantom Lover

For those who don't know, I've suggested that the phantom lover is the ghost of a unique vampire created by Strahd, with monstrous alternate forms (small black dragon).

So I (well Azalin) sent them on a mission to the Keep of Forgetting where Leederick had set up his lair

In the dungeons there they discovered a beautiful woman, apparently unharmed but prone to becoming lost in reverie.

They asked why she was in the dungeons, she replied that her husband locked her in to keep her safe

On a hunch on of the players flicked some holy water on her

It burned her

Group immediately began presenting holy symbols, but she did not recoil, holy symbols also burned her but she had a reflection.

One of the group suggested that she was a vampire in transition, he was ignored

They continued to question her she became more frantic in her insistence that everything was normal, her husband was at work, she was safe in the dungeon, at nightfall when he returned he would let her out.

They decided to try and ambush her "husband", when he went to let her out, they would attack and cut him off from exiting.

She shouted a warning, so he was not fully in position when they attacked, nevertheless they quickly surrounded him.

He transformed into a gargoyle like creature and attacked the group that stood between him and the outside.

They parried, while the other group struck, none of the gargoyles attacks got through

One of the players successfully tripped the creature just as a priest cast entangle, prone and held the beast took several hits before transforming into mist and heading outside.

The players were several steps behind the mist as it began to coalesce in the courtyard into the form of a black dragon

splitting into two groups they attempted to "wolf pack" the dragon, the group at the head defends, the group at the tail attacks

The dragon snapped it's jaws shut on a henchman's leg severing it and killing him instantly

spurred on one of the fighters charged scoring a critical hit and forcing the creature back into mist form

they followed the snaking mist back to the coffin and staked him, hurrah!

they found some minor magical treasure, big whoop

possible fallout, there's a good chance the henchman who died will come back as there was no mention of a proper burial, also the woman might become a vorlog, but that's for another day

Iirc in one of the novels Strahd and Azalin war with their spy organizations & henchmen. So having the PC inducted into the Kargatane and maybe later into the Kargat would be fitting here. They already have a Kargat handler. Becoming Kargatane and body-/time-hopping you could also tie this into the netbook kargatane characters and maybe the seminal events for the rather humorous Vallaki chapter. (I do know the netbooks with their stats and fiction offhand)

In the same vein having them jump into the in-game Fraternity of Shadows can provide similar opportunities and reveal some scholastic meta(physical) lore about Ravenloft itself. These characters stats and their stories are also in one or more of the later netbooks.

further activity will be needed, the group was meant to be picking up something to use against Strahd,

So I'm going to place a second horde, containing a vorpal blade and guarded by umber hulks further into the dungeon