Café de Nuit

During one of these many nights when I'm dogged with insomnia I found myself musing over various things, and it crossed my mind... what is/was his religion anyway? His silver-star holy symbol is mentioned in quite a bit of the old reference material, but it's not an Eternal Order or an Ezran symbol (indeed, if Guide to the Witches is any indication he is not Ezran at all though he usually respects them).

I always thought it was Ezran but I may be confusing that with George Weathermay's holy symbol. (What's the source for the shape of the symbol?)

Not sure if it helps but i was just going through Van Richten's Guide to Ghosts and found this:

"Bow your head, Van Richten, for the goodness of fair Paladine has given me the knowledge you seek. "

"Praise be".

"Do you have the murder weapon here with you?"

"I do, wise one. Here it is. "

"Ah. I see. There is much anger within this dagger. There is a hunger here, too. A crimson thirst that rivers of vital blood could not satiate. "

"Holy one, can you see a face?"

"Indeed - a dark and sinister face that hides from the furious truth of the sun. The killer is not of our realm. He is of the realm of darkness".

[...]

"Can you give a name to the vile creature?"

"To the creature itself? No. But to the mortal form it has assumed, yes. It calls itself Dominique I'Mortain. "

"What? Holy one, are you certain? Lady Dominique is well known and respected hereabouts. I cannot take action against her without absolute cause!"

"Paladine does not deceive, Van Richten. "

"No, I suppose not. But can I rely upon your interpretations of all that you sense to be accurate?"

"Would you have come to me if you harbored any doubt?"

- Transcript of a meeting between Dr. Van Richten and a medium in Sithicus

But I suppose he was not really a Paladine worshipper himself. Perhaps it would work similar to a cleric of Good who still gets domains but need notspecifically worship one god. He could be a pantheonic worshiper.

I'm not sure he had any. He was a Darkonian by birth, and so he was probably at least a nominal member of the Eternal Order (state religions are kinda like that). But I'm sure that as an adult he had rejected whatever religious instruction he might have had along those lines, and the portrait of him in the various Guides suggests to me that he wasn't a devotee of any religion in particular, simply aligning himself with believers whose moral code he approved of.

the star holy symbol he carried was never associated with any particular faith. he used this symbol in Darklords against the child vampire.

Given the melting-pot nature of Darkon and his constant association with outlanders, Van Richten was probably the game-setting's equivalent of a Unitarian IRL: if a faith advocated moral and ethical tenets he accepted as worthy of respect, he'd honor it for that, irregardless of the details as to its mythos and practices. As for holy symbols, he probably carried a bagful of them, from a whole range of faiths, in the expectation that the undead he encountered might (due to their unique histories) be especially susceptible to the symbols of faiths that they'd once believed in or offended against.

Rotipher wrote:As for holy symbols, he probably carried a bagful of them, from a whole range of faiths, in the expectation that the undead he encountered might (due to their unique histories) be especially susceptible to the symbols of faiths that they'd once believed in or offended against.

Great. Now I've got an image of that guy from The Mummy stuck in my head. I can just picture Van Richten pulling out Holy Symbol after Holy Symbol, muttering prayers in hope that the creature is eventually going to react.

Tobias Blackburn wrote:Great. Now I've got an image of that guy from The Mummy stuck in my head. I can just picture Van Richten pulling out Holy Symbol after Holy Symbol, muttering prayers in hope that the creature is eventually going to react.

Van Richten was a hell of a lot smarter than that guy, IMO. He'd have the sense to pull them all out at once, and worry about which one it was that worked after he'd saved his own hide.

I also daresay he'd do some research to see if anything in the creature's previous life, creator's origin, etc. would indicate that a symbol of its religion would be particularly effective against it (as a sort of counterexample, the Twins found they didn't particularly need a symbol of Zhakata to work over the Glutton of G'Henna).

The star he carries is stated in Darklords (the artical about the child vampire) as the Star of David (a Jewish symbol i believe) and more than likely a hold over from the game's early days, much like like crosses. The star can be explained away by simply listing it as an outlander religion that gained a small following near Rivalis shortly after Rudolf's birth (in reallity is more likely a nod to Van Helsing's listed religion in certain versions of the character). As for the cross I alway's used it as the symbol of Mordent's High Faith, before its colapse thus explain its much wider use on bottles of holy water etc

Now, let's not go overboard and take the artwork too seriously, folks. The star was just a "generic" holy symbol, not an IRL religious reference; best to keep God out of Ravenloft, as it's enough of a theological quandry to explain why game deities don't step in and knock the DPs' heads together.

Considering how VRA included a picture of Van Richten holding a copy of "I, Strahd" -- a book which, unlike the Gazetteers, was published solely in the real world, not inside the game-setting -- it's best not to take the artwork so literally. Strahd sure as heck isn't blue, even if artists often painted him that way early on.

the star's not a star of david. The Star of David has 6 points. In the picture on page 61 of darklords, it's clearly a five pointed star, (surrounded by a circle, by the way).

Never noticed the I, Strahd in VRA. very cute! But remember that although it wasn't published in RL, VR did read the book within the book, which started "I, Strahd..." although it wasn't labelled as such. (and was much bigger, I believe).

gonzoron wrote:Never noticed the I, Strahd in VRA. very cute! But remember that although it wasn't published in RL, VR did read the book within the book, which started "I, Strahd..." although it wasn't labelled as such. (and was much bigger, I believe).

But the text that VR read didn't have an actual title. At least ostensibly, it was just a journal. And even if the good doctor recalled enough of that book's contents, after-the-fact, to transcribe it (highly unlikely), he's hardly likely to have had Strahd's self-exonerating rant turned into a properly-bound volume, then slapped such a pretentious title on the thing.

brothersale wrote:The star [of David] can be explained away by simply listing it as an outlander religion that gained a small following near Rivalis shortly after Rudolf's birth (in reallity is more likely a nod to Van Helsing's listed religion in certain versions of the character).

Pardon a digression--there's a source which claims van Helsing was Jewish? Wha...?

In Dracula (the one by Bram Stoker, lest there be any doubt) he's very Roman Catholic.

gonzoron wrote:the star's not a star of david. The Star of David has 6 points. In the picture on page 61 of darklords, it's clearly a five pointed star, (surrounded by a circle, by the way).

Sorry, you are right, I just checked the picture, and it does look different, but the art work could have been based on the text which just calls it "the holy star" and gives no description of what it looks like, alternatively it could be that the text was written after the art, I don't know, the best person to ask is the author of Merilee, William W. Connors (Kargat).

as for the van Helsing - Jewish bit I think it was one of the movies or theatrical renditions of the character that I’ve seen that made him Jewish (I don't know why so don't ask, and no I can't remember what it was in, it was ages ago)

"Dead and loving it" staring Leslie Nielsen as Drac and Mel Brooks as Dr. Abraham Van Helsing.

Great movie.