Café de Nuit

So I'm kicking off my new game tomorrow. As I've mentioned on a few other threads, it's set in a tiny, backwater Gundarak village of about sixty people, in the year 740 B.C. Last week I had three of my six promised players over to create characters. As was expected, the new PCs are all related - two brothers and thir cousins. But what I didn't expect was that each of them would pick up on the Red-Haired feat and take it, all choosing Cure Light Wounds. I've got a sneaking suspicion that two of the remaining players will also take this. I know that the sixth wants to be blonde

Now rather than look on this as a problem, I look on it as an opportunity. With at least 10% of the village - and probably more - being slightly "fey-touched", there's plenty of room for me to work in some terrible, terrible history to the place. As a friend put it, daddy could come a'callin'. But I just don't know what to do with this - there's so many possibilities, and I know I'm missing some really good ones.

The plot of the game is going to revolve around the Barovian occupation, and the response of the players to the utter destruction of their homes - the first scenario starts with the village being burned while they are out farming. So what would all of you do with this? What terrible secret does the town of Koskun hold?

Thanks in advance,
Bloody Morgan

Well I like the idea of perhaps there is something in the water of the area that makes the men sterile and a fiend with the shapechanging ability is actually the father of all the children.

Don't know how gothic that is but it is kind of messed up.

Hi all,
The fact that some of your players from the same village have the same looks and same abilities does not directly have to mean that they have the same father. In an extremly small gene pool such as a village of 60 (assuming the village was not decimated by something horrible recently, but alsways had a population of around sixty) everybody is closely related from different sides to everybody else. So the originator of the red hair and the strange abilities could wel be a great great grandfather, now long dead.
That is a bit more in keeping with the gothic horror theme. the current generation and that of their parents can't do anything about the situation, and are relatively innocent.
Plus it might take some more time for people to find out what is going on.

jennifer

For a less-Gothic but more gritty explanation, perhaps the PCs' village was founded by redheads, who were on the run from Barovia because of their magical heritage. Many generations ago, Strahd could have grown curious about the redheaded Forfarians' special talents, and the PCs' own ancestors fled to Gundarak to escape the count's "research". Ever since, the redheads' descendents have spun tales of the horrible experiments of Count Von Zarovich, and how their bloodline must keep its powers secret to avoid further persecution.

Of course, this would add a whole new dimension to Strahd's subsequent takeover of the area! The PCs might start out by having to convince the non-redhead Gundarakites (who initially see Strahd as a better lord than the despised Duke Gundar) that House Von Zarovich is crawling with evil wizards, citing their own families' history as proof. They'd become involved with the resistance against the Barovian takeover ... only to face enemies who know about the redheads' special powers, and who aren't above turning the tables on the heroes, by convincing Gundarakite NPCs that it's they who are hiding "evil magics". By the end of the campaign, the PCs should learn the horrible truth -- that the current Count Strahd is the same monstrous tyrant who'd hounded their ancestors from Barovia -- and perhaps even be forced to fight their own redheaded relatives: those left behind in Barovia, whose names they've heard honored so often in fireside tales ... and whom Strahd turned into vampire-spawn generations ago, and has taught to loathe their still-living kin for "abandoning" them.

If all of them choose the same spell i would have them quite closely related. Or perhaps their common ancestor was a redhead known for his healing skills. Or the same faerie (or similar) being (who should have some healing power) had a place in their ancestry.

BTW are there any redheaded NPCs in canon material?

The Giamarga wrote:BTW are there any redheaded NPCs in canon material?

There's the druids who oppose Tristan ApBlanc, in Castle Forlorn.

A belated thank you all for this - lootable ideas aplenty here. The specific attack on the town (and subsequent enslavement of the survivors) is going to tie into a specific Barovian interest in the town as suggested by Rotipher, though the history leading to all this is so ancient that the PCs now nothing of it (mostly because I only saw your response after the game ). The terrible background several generations back is in line with what I was thinking, thanks Jennifer, though I now have to decide who this fiendish or fey ancestor is, and what they were planning. More fun Thanks also Desertriding - I like your idea, but it's a wee bit too immediate for the game. The plan is for their history to slowly unfurl with lots of research. Direct parentage is too.... direct, I suppose. But it's certainly an idea I'll hold onto for an interesting small NPC setting.

As a curio, three of my players have the red-head feat (two brothers and a cousin) and the other two are auburn but featless, and are also cousins. I'm really looking forwards to how all this unfolds.

EH thanks for at least letting me know you read what I suggested. I also thought it was to immediate but I threw the idea out there ahwhoo glad this board could be of help.

Glad to hear we could help, Morgan! Oh, BTW, I don't know if this is also something you could write into the backstory, for the long-forgotten flight of the PCs' ancestors from Barovia ... but a majority of canon sources (though not all; there's some contradictions here and there) seem to tell us that *Tatyana* had auburn hair. Granted, the original Tatyana was no Forfarian, but it does add yet another facet to why a lot of redheads (or perhaps one redheaded woman in particular; might the current copy NOT be the first of her kind to escape Barovia?) may have been in such a rush to get the heck out of Strahd's domain.... ;-D

Hmm. Tying it into Tatyana might be very handy.

If people are interested, here's the rundown of the first session. If not, I'll not post anymore.

The game starts in late September of 740 B.C. in the tiny town of Koskun, nestled on the slopes of the Bloodfangs, looking over the Tepurich forest. On this day, the PCs are all working the furthest fields from the town - herding pigs and goats and cutting grain*. A thick fog has been hanging in the area all day, so it is not until the workers are returning home at dusk that they smell the smoke on the air or see the flickering fires. They find their town burnt to the ground, half the population cut down and left to rot. Many of their family members are dead, especially the elderly.

They stay long enough to bury the dead, and then pack what little they have left and head North along the only road out of town, following the hoofprints and wagon tracks they find. That night on Gundar's Road they meet a band of refugees from Teufeldorf, who tell them of the Barovian invasion and the fall of their town. The leader, one Ardonk Szeriesa, informs the group of his plans to head West to his cousins, in the hope that the Barovians will be content to have the cities and will leave them be. In return for their few livestock, the refugees trade weapons taken from Teufeldorf, and a strange book bound in pale leather looted from the twisted tower**.

Over the next week*** they continue to follow the road north, passing several small towns under Barovian control on the way. They avoid the garrisoned troops, and manage to discover that a caravan carrying captives passed by several days before, led by Barovian militamen. No-one can tell them why the invaders would burn out and enslave their town however; everywhere else has been subjugated and put to work.

On the seventh day they reach Teufeldorf. Forming a plan to pose as labourers looking for work, they approach the gates. But when quizzed by the guards, they reveal that they are from Koskun, and all that they can think to say is that they have been following the tracks of the bandits who raided their village. They are taken to the captain overseeing the town, who detains them while he waits for orders on their fate...

* I have no idea whether on not this is seasonal. Look! A distraction!
** One of the players wants to be a wizard, so this is to be his spellbook. It's going to have a terrible history to go with it, as soon as I figure one out.
*** I have also greatly increased certain distances in the Core, mostly because I like large realms where it takes a while to get anywhere. I find this increases the sense of isolation.

Thank you again Rotipher for your idea of Barovian interest in the town. It gives me a good reason for why the invaders woulod utterly destroy one village while leaving the others untouched, which is what I needed to get the players out there and moving, as well as to give them a mission. And now they really have nowhere to go home to. Strahd wants the redheads of that town... now I have a few weeks to decide why

Bloody Morgan

Hi Morgan,
This story starts out nice. Now the players have no home and are adrift in the world alone. This will give them reason to stay together.

as some nice future plot hooks you could have them discover that one familymember survived the massacre of their home town.

A nice start
Jennifer

Well, they are currently tracking their surviving family members (one is looking for his infant child) so I think there's plenty to work with there. I was pretty happy with it as a background - when I decided to run Ravenloft I was stuck for a long time on how to get a group together ic. Adventuring parties just make no sense at all in the setting, to me anyway. Far too high fantasy.

Bloody Morgan