Café de Nuit

I had the following idea but I think it needs some more fleshing out to do and maybe you could add some detail or give me some tips and suggestions. I am mostly faithful to the books, though I am ignoring one small passage in one of the books.

The characters are all inhabitants of a small village in Verbrek. The oldest of them has a family and a daughter who one day mysteriously vanishes. It is said she wandered into the forests alone. The father and a few other people from the village (the players characters) as well as one of the newly arrived men from another village - he has fallen in love with the girl - set out to look for her and bring her back.
Basically, the campaign i supposed to be a long search for her through a few domains with a few sidequests here and there ending with a big showdown in castle Ravenloft. The girl is in fact a reincarnation of Tatyana ( as I have said I am ignoring the sourcebooks here) and is mysteriously called to Barovia. Fun fact: The young man who fell in love with her is a reincarnation of Sergei ( I ruled that the dark powers have arranged events to torment Strahd further). I also want her to be kidnapped during the course of the adventures by foces sent by Azalin because he has found out about the reincarnation cycle and wishes to reasearch and exploit this connection to finally settle his score with a certain barovian count. And then there are the mists which can drop the chars of wherever I want to...

What do you think? Is that viable as a campaign idea? If not, why not/what shoudl I change? If yes, what can I add to make it more exiciting/scary etc.?

Definitly - sounds like all sorts of mayhem can ensue.

I think the best idea is to draw them towards Barovia, by an indirect route that seems like random hapenstance.

For example, for the first while, they could be trying to save her from werewolves - like in The Searchers. Perhaps Alfred Timothy and Strahd have the same taste in women?
Then, when they have her, they have to flee for their lives from Timothy's hordes.
Maybe they end up in Borca, and one of them ends up in jail - then they have to travel to so and so to get him or her out.
Maybe the mists come up sometime, and drop them in a strange place - so now there's a side trek to find a mist passage back.
Perhaps they get onto the Musarde River on a boat heading home - only to find out the boat is piloted by Nathan Timothy and have to jump ship in the middle of the wilderness.
For example, at one part the Sergi character might get the dreaded Crystaline disease, and the whole team has to travel in the complete oposite direction to find an antidote that can cure him.


In short, keep the players moving away from Home, even though each step they take is in the hopes of getting closer.

Drop hints of the greater wheels in motion. Perhaps the players are periodically attacked by highwaymen and assassins, who if questioned, relate that they were hired by a mysterious man, known only as "The Stick Man". Have his minions show up ever few adventures.
The Stick man is infact a vassaliche of Azalin, who is instructed to bring him the reincarnation of Tayana - and at all costs keep her out of Barovia.

Perhaps towards the end, drop some hints about Barovia - ex: a note from the Stick Man to his assassins (Bring the girl to me. She must not reach Barovia!).

Wow, that is absolutely great. I will definitely use a few of these things.
Thanks a lot.

Oh, one more thing...ever since I saw it in the VRGttWD, I wanted to use Toben the Many. Any sugegstions how he would fit into this concept? Even as a smallish villain (appearing for one session or two?)?

That's tough.
He's strictly a side quest player, but being as big a personality as he is, you want to him justice.
This means two things:
A) Giving him a forum in which he can showcase his macabre merriment
and
B) Tying him to the plot so that the players see overcoming Toben as integral to their mission.

One idea might be to taske on the variation of Toben discussed elsewhere on this board - whereby Toben is not a deadly disease. In this varient, people possessed by him can be cured.
This allows a major NPC to be "collected" and used as bait in a sadistic game.
After an adventure, the PCs and their entourage are on the road, whem they find a child running towards thm. Suddenly a storm of arrows cuts the child down. One character races forward and tries to assist, only to find the child quite dead and even mutilated. The character retreats back to the PCs, just before a band of masked men emerge from the brush. The masked men decend on the PCs but hold their fire, examine the child and set fire to the body. They explain that the boy has a terrible, incurable disease and had gone mad. They expalin that they killed him to prevent infection, and inquire if anyone was wounded by the carrier. The masked men leave with a final warning - not to go towards the hamlet off of the fork in the road. It is under quarentine.

Kater, on the road, the character complains of a wound on hsi hand. It was just a scratch that he cannot remember how he got - yet it is now festering. Once or twice have the character start laughing for no reason. That night, Toben manifests and runs off.

The trail is easy to follow - the character is heading towatrds the Hamlet at the fork in the road. There the PCs are met by Toben's ambassador - a head of one of the Masked Men hanging from a rope on a tree.

Toben infected the hamlet a while ago and began constructing his own personal community. The hamlet is now a maze of tunnles, towers and traps. He has been hard at work preparing for the PCs. Their friend is located somewhere in the village. If they can decipher the riddles and get through his maze, he will relsease him.
If they can't in 24 hours, their firend will kill himself [the means of this killing is a clue as to where the firend is hiding] and Toben will claim them all.
The game is afoot: expect many different grissly riddles, grusome traps and much double crossing from Toben.
Somehwere in the maze is the last survivor of the Masked Men, who can explain the finer details. These masked men were monks from a sect tasked with exterminating Toben, though they too have fallen for his trap. The last monk can potentially cure the friendly NPC - assuming the PCs can rescue him before oben kills him.

PS: It may be that the Monks are Darkonian - possibly even Kargatane. Thus, the survivor might be used later by the Stick Man to obtain Tatyana.

I like that idea...thanks....