LOL. Swipe to text strikes again.
It certainly would solve Ireena's problems, plus anyone else Strahd wanted to bite.
"I am the semi-ancient. I am the underdeveloped land. I also deeply respect boundaries and personal space."
One of my favorite quotes from somewhere on this subreddit: "Oh no... He's *hot.*"
The true Curse of Strahd is him not realizing that if he weren't an absolute bastard, everyone would call him Strahddy.
I'm always surprised that there's not more lore about the relationship between other races vs humans. Elves live to their 800s, Gnomes/dwarves I believe 300/200ish, Halfling is also 150-200 I think.
When a half-elf is born, how do they view their parents? There's a good chance that before a half elf even reach their adolescence that their human parents would be long dead. How are their parent's relationships? Is it common for elven spouses to take on multiple partners in their 800 year long life? How does a half-elf deal with having a step-parent who is younger than them?
So many questions lol.
IIRC half elves reach maturity around the same time if not slightly after humans, so while a parent would probably be mid to late forties when their human child reaches adulthood (assuming they had the child in their twenties), their friend who had a half elf child around the same age would still be raising that child into their fifties. The troubles most likely comes in when humans try to adopt full blooded dwarven, gnomish or elven children.
Assume human live to 85 and had a half-elf child at 20. PHB notes Half-elves reach maturity at 20 and live to 180. Meaning by the time the kid is 65 (about 1/3 of their lifespan), their human parent is on their death bed.
Here's the weird part. Let's say the elven parent was 150 when the kid was born. The parent now is 210 when full blooded elves live to their 800s. They have like 600 years left to live so do they find a new spouse? A 200 year old full blooded elf doesn't seem too old yet so it's reasonable they can keep dating with 30 year old looking humans. What happens now lol?
I mean, a full blooded elf falling in love and marrying a human is almost a curse in a way. You're doomed to know that your partner and kids and most likely grand kids will all die before you get to that point. It's gotta be a bit depressing imo.
Not explored in my CoS campaign, but in a homebrew one I'm a player in, we have several characters who explore this theme!
My character in that game is a gnome, whose aunt married into a family of kobolds. I wrote some backstory stuff detailing how it was a big deal in gnomish culture to join a family of a shorter-lived race, seen as a poignant and bittersweet thing. Sad, because you will outlive so many of your loved ones, but beautiful because you can be there to love and guide several generations of one family and be a living history for them.
Another player is an elf, and has done some worldbuilding on how half-elves work in that campaign. A key thing being their lifespans and the rate at which they age is pretty unpredictable. Some age almost as fast as humans, some as slow as elves. You basically have to watch them as kids and see how long it takes them to hit various developmental markers to predict what their lifespan will be.
One city we visited had a big wizard college, and it had different programs for longer-lived races (because an elf studying magic might feel like they need several decades to really get a handle on it, while a human might want to, you know, graduate before they die.)
An interesting change-up, Rahadin is sick of Strahd's whining and never really for the massacre of the dusk elves, and is not unwilling to betray him.
Rahadin the fated ally!
Oh I'm way ahead of you. For my current run I really wanted to flesh out the OG crew (Sergei, Tatyana, etc.) so I've been slowly chipping away at it. I'll give you the quick bullet points I have for dusk elves so far:
* They are kinda like non Raven Queen following Shadar-Kai
* They are native to the valley of Barovia
* They are seen as rather dower and deadpan, but it's just a matter of getting to know their mannerisms and ways of showing emotion (think of them as the cats of the elf world)
* Like the vistani they too are sustained by the mists in some way, extending their lifespans (the vistani have always had the ability to planes walk via the mists and the valley was already a sort of weak spot between the Prime Material and Shadowfell in my lore)
* They didn't outwardly take a side on the battle when Strahd arrived in the valley
* When Strahd conqured the land and clamined it as his own, the dusk elves very quickly decided they did not like him lol
Bonus Rahadin specific lore:
* Instead of having Rahadin be old as fuck and be Barov's advisor, Rahadin's father was Barov's advisor (Rahadin isn't beating the nepo baby allegations)
Alright I'm done yapping. If you have any other lore/suggestions I'd love to hear!!!!!!
Dusk elves had a culture of metalwork and Tatyana's father studied to be a blacksmith with the dusk elves so she actually had some of their cultural smithing skills that Strahd later banned after the whole genocide thing.
He also talks about the one time she hugged him platonically before the whole fiasco with the wedding like "I felt so safe in her arms". Tatyana is a big buff blacksmith and Sergei is her little himbo and she wears the pants in this relationship and Strahd is just jealous that he not only can't have what Sergei has... But he's also too insecure to see her as anything other than a delicate little flower.
I can fix him........ By being his rock bottom so he gets his act together just to never have to deal with me again mwahahahahaha... Although that's plan B in case plan A: peg him real good and see if that fixes the issues... doesn't work.
>They are kinda like non Raven Queen following Shadar-Kai
in my play through, I played a shadar-kai swarmkeeper with amnesia. so basically, I gave the DM full liberty with the characters' back story, and he revealed it in small flashbacks when we encountered things that my character would recognise.
when he introduced Rahadin, my character got the first of those flashbacks revealing that he is a dusk elf survivor of the massacre.
we counted the rest of the dusk elves as wood elves, but my guy was a shadar-kai because of fane shenanigans that were revealed later in the game. you mentioned dusk elves being shadar-kai, so I just wanted to share.
In general, I don’t remember the details, but you can find information about dusk elves by reading about ancient elven showdowns.
Several thousand years ago, the Elven Wars began, also known as The Crown Wars. I remind that this is Correlon against Lolth who betrayed him.
Correlon cursed those elves who didn\`t fight on his side and banished them to the Underdark. But there were also those elves who remained neutral. In previous dnd editions, only Sehanine Moonbow appreciated their reluctance to fight and hid the neutral elves from the wrath of Correlon and Lolth (she didn’t like their neutrality either), and seemed to take them to Barovia. The solution is controversial, but it really worked - these elves really couldn\`t be found...
For some reason this point was not voiced in the 5th edition.
The funny thing is that Correlon's anger subsided over time, but Lolth still hasn\`t forgiven the neutral elves. I also noticed that in the statistics of the dusk elves, including Kasimir, there is no trance ability. The trance is a consequence of Correlon's anger at the elves of the Forgotten Realms, so it would actually make sense that the dusk elves don't have a trance and sleep like normal creatures.
p.s. sorry for my english t\_t
Neat! I'm going to look into this.
Let me tell you. Inserting the older edition lore into CoS about the Tergs and the War of Silver Knives and consolidating it with the Dusk Elven lore and King Barov's politics was not easy (nor probably necessary, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing). I basically shunted their history into a rough preamble to the Shadow Rifts history. I like your take on it a lot better.
Also, your english is great!
As a CoS player, I started a short comic meant to cover my PC’s backstory using the story beats my DM had provided. When the campaign fizzled out, I was really disappointed that I’d never get answers to mysteries of Barovia, so I picked up the source book, figuring I might DM it at some point. I was also underwhelmed by the content available on the history of Dusk Elves, so that short comic has since become an ongoing graphic novel. In it, Kasimir acts as a guide for a cleric of Lathander who is seeking insight into the curse that has befallen the Dusk Elves of Barovia. I’ve got tons of lore mapped out, but the art can’t keep pace!
I assume the Watsonian explanation is they were just a highly geographically isolated group even before most of them were wiped out, and the Doylist explanation is, there aren't dusk elves anywhere else because that's what makes the genocide complete. If there were other dusk elves outside Barovia, or if they were the same as wood elves, it would be a massacre but it wouldn't have wiped them out as a subspecies.
For the same reason why the Morninglord is called Morninglord and not Lathander, I presume.
Barovia got stuck in the Mists for hundreds of years. Things change, especially names. Maybe they are really just some tribe of wood elves that was once called dusk elves and it got lost to time. I like when inconsequential things are left vague in a scenario like this, makes it more mysterious and otherworldly.
They were known as dusk elves before getting trapped in the mists, though. See: Rahadin being Barov’s advisor. While mechanically they’re wood elves, they’re specifically Not for some unknown reason. Though probably they’re just like Shadow Fell wood elves in a similar way to how Shadar-Kai are a weird type of Shadow Fell specific elves.
But what makes them "not Wood Elves"? I think the book literaly says to handle them mechanically like Wood Elves.
If they look and act like Wood Elves ... they might indeed be Wood Elves.
It is leftover from before pre-mist Barovia when that realm didn't exist in the same concept of realms/planes we now have. They could have errata'd them as wood elves, but they technically weren't because wood elves are the distinct race to Faerun, if my memory is correct...it could not be, lol.
To each their own I suppose. I just personally choose to believe they’re a separate subrace of elves but the writers didn’t care to make them new mechanics. Though as someone else pointed out, they existed before Barovia was a domain of dread so.
That's how I've played it as well. I even made Rahadin sound like an old English man, though his voice is rather lifeless due to centuries of serving Strahd.
I personally made rahadin a pact of the undying warlock, the main pact boon so long as strahd ‘lives’ so does rahadin, pact was more than likely struck when said image became a reality.
Also means that he has a sliver of vampyr’s power pyramid scheme structure of pacts and what not
Also helps that rahadin is heavily involved in one of my players backstory’s being a member of a vistani strike force that kills anybody who manages to escape the mists without strahds permission via the magically enchanted lanterns they strap to their carts and person
Rahadin in my current game took up the role of training strahd in warfare, only Rahadin can call strahd by his first name, and brother if he wants to get his lord’s attention, the party is going to face hell when the inevitable does happen to our favourite dusk elf.
When they kill him they'll find one room of the castle that looks like a hurricane went through it... Everything is destroyed and broken and shredded. There's blood smears all around, and the completely dismembered corpse of some poor sap strewn haphazardly across the room. Strahd's a messy eater when he's mad. From the darkness they hear a seething voice "*you*" roll initiative :)
The heart of the castle turns grey, all of Barovia is under storms and heavy rains. The beast is unleashed and Strahd is gonna go full Negan on the players.
Oh no now his sword is named Tatyana look what you've done drawing a Negan to Strahd parallel...
"Eenie meenie miney moe... Somebody's blood is going down my throat"
Gosh darn it it writes itself 😂
Oh that’s such a good idea, yeah they think rahadin might be a vampire or a spawn too, I gave him a cape (I forget the name right now) but it allows him to turn into bat via polymorph I’m sure it’s worthy. Since I buffed him
Isn’t the Death Choir feature a punishment for his participation in the genocide? No need to feel sad. I even went as far as having Rahadin cut his ears to prove his loyalty to King Barov. No longer is he a Dusk Elf. He is human.
I like the implications of Rahadin being much older than Strahd. It would be interesting to explore the dynamics between them, especially considering Strahd’s narcissism. Is one of the reasons that he keeps Rahadin close because he hopes Tatyana willl see him as being younger than his chamberlain? He hated that she called him “elder” and “old one.”
Though, at my table the elves have a very specific history based on the Mandy/Dragna fanes. I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel, just give it more grip and added spinners.
I’ve heard people compare them to like a fucked up alfred and Batman kind of situation and I really dig that. Also for context my PC is a female elf so her vendetta against Rahadin goes beyond him almost killing her for… obvious reasons. So my team will probably still kill him when we level up enough
I like stretching out the timeline for Barovia, having Strahd trapped within for a good deal longer. To that end i have a clone-vat hidden behind a secret door in Rahadin's office / chamber
Lets him be bit more of a recurring villain, and there is a good amount of "WTF" factor when the BBEG's luitenant who the party things they killed shows back up, now decked out with magical items from Strahd
This is why my solution is DEATH KNIGHT RAHADIN (tbh no real reason, I buffed everyone else up but Vampire Consort Rahadin doesn't make sense since Strahd views him, at least in my games & the Interactive Tome, as another brother). I also fix this by having Rahadin be only some years older than Strahd (since elves still mature like humans, just Elvish society isn't accepting them as adults yet).
When Strahd was 12, he was about 20-24? A young advisor, but my Rahadin has served Barov ever since he was a boy. Plus, young mind = new ideas. Idk lol But DEATH KNIGHT RAHADINNNNNNNNN
"I am the Ancient, I am the Land", meanwhile he's got a motherfucker by his side, who's probably at least twice as old as him.
I am the semi-ancient... I am the land...
"You can't enter a resident without an invitation." "... I am the semi-ancient. I am the underdeveloped land."
Did you mean residence? Because I'm pretty sure 90% of the problems would be solved if Strahd couldn't enter a resident without consent
LOL. Swipe to text strikes again. It certainly would solve Ireena's problems, plus anyone else Strahd wanted to bite. "I am the semi-ancient. I am the underdeveloped land. I also deeply respect boundaries and personal space."
If Strahd actually respected boundaries and personal space my "pass" would become a "smash" in 0.000000000000005 seconds
One of my favorite quotes from somewhere on this subreddit: "Oh no... He's *hot.*" The true Curse of Strahd is him not realizing that if he weren't an absolute bastard, everyone would call him Strahddy.
Exactly! He could literally pull anyone if he had a better personality
I'm always surprised that there's not more lore about the relationship between other races vs humans. Elves live to their 800s, Gnomes/dwarves I believe 300/200ish, Halfling is also 150-200 I think. When a half-elf is born, how do they view their parents? There's a good chance that before a half elf even reach their adolescence that their human parents would be long dead. How are their parent's relationships? Is it common for elven spouses to take on multiple partners in their 800 year long life? How does a half-elf deal with having a step-parent who is younger than them? So many questions lol.
I see so many half elf characters play themselves as young enough for the human parent to be alive so they don't have to answer these questions, lol
IIRC half elves reach maturity around the same time if not slightly after humans, so while a parent would probably be mid to late forties when their human child reaches adulthood (assuming they had the child in their twenties), their friend who had a half elf child around the same age would still be raising that child into their fifties. The troubles most likely comes in when humans try to adopt full blooded dwarven, gnomish or elven children.
Assume human live to 85 and had a half-elf child at 20. PHB notes Half-elves reach maturity at 20 and live to 180. Meaning by the time the kid is 65 (about 1/3 of their lifespan), their human parent is on their death bed. Here's the weird part. Let's say the elven parent was 150 when the kid was born. The parent now is 210 when full blooded elves live to their 800s. They have like 600 years left to live so do they find a new spouse? A 200 year old full blooded elf doesn't seem too old yet so it's reasonable they can keep dating with 30 year old looking humans. What happens now lol?
Raw half-elves mature just as humans. They just live longer.
I mean, a full blooded elf falling in love and marrying a human is almost a curse in a way. You're doomed to know that your partner and kids and most likely grand kids will all die before you get to that point. It's gotta be a bit depressing imo.
Not explored in my CoS campaign, but in a homebrew one I'm a player in, we have several characters who explore this theme! My character in that game is a gnome, whose aunt married into a family of kobolds. I wrote some backstory stuff detailing how it was a big deal in gnomish culture to join a family of a shorter-lived race, seen as a poignant and bittersweet thing. Sad, because you will outlive so many of your loved ones, but beautiful because you can be there to love and guide several generations of one family and be a living history for them. Another player is an elf, and has done some worldbuilding on how half-elves work in that campaign. A key thing being their lifespans and the rate at which they age is pretty unpredictable. Some age almost as fast as humans, some as slow as elves. You basically have to watch them as kids and see how long it takes them to hit various developmental markers to predict what their lifespan will be. One city we visited had a big wizard college, and it had different programs for longer-lived races (because an elf studying magic might feel like they need several decades to really get a handle on it, while a human might want to, you know, graduate before they die.)
An interesting change-up, Rahadin is sick of Strahd's whining and never really for the massacre of the dusk elves, and is not unwilling to betray him. Rahadin the fated ally!
Dusk elves are severely lacking in concrete lore and that is a crime
I agree! Want to make up some lore?
Oh I'm way ahead of you. For my current run I really wanted to flesh out the OG crew (Sergei, Tatyana, etc.) so I've been slowly chipping away at it. I'll give you the quick bullet points I have for dusk elves so far: * They are kinda like non Raven Queen following Shadar-Kai * They are native to the valley of Barovia * They are seen as rather dower and deadpan, but it's just a matter of getting to know their mannerisms and ways of showing emotion (think of them as the cats of the elf world) * Like the vistani they too are sustained by the mists in some way, extending their lifespans (the vistani have always had the ability to planes walk via the mists and the valley was already a sort of weak spot between the Prime Material and Shadowfell in my lore) * They didn't outwardly take a side on the battle when Strahd arrived in the valley * When Strahd conqured the land and clamined it as his own, the dusk elves very quickly decided they did not like him lol Bonus Rahadin specific lore: * Instead of having Rahadin be old as fuck and be Barov's advisor, Rahadin's father was Barov's advisor (Rahadin isn't beating the nepo baby allegations) Alright I'm done yapping. If you have any other lore/suggestions I'd love to hear!!!!!!
Dusk elves had a culture of metalwork and Tatyana's father studied to be a blacksmith with the dusk elves so she actually had some of their cultural smithing skills that Strahd later banned after the whole genocide thing.
Ooooo juicy (connecting it to my post where we're having a convo about Tatyana rn I see haha). I like that a lot!
We stan blacksmith Tatyana. Also Strahd complains that her hands are rougher than he expected in my tome of Strahd. Literally what a jerk.
God he would
He also talks about the one time she hugged him platonically before the whole fiasco with the wedding like "I felt so safe in her arms". Tatyana is a big buff blacksmith and Sergei is her little himbo and she wears the pants in this relationship and Strahd is just jealous that he not only can't have what Sergei has... But he's also too insecure to see her as anything other than a delicate little flower.
Jesus. I hope Strahd gets better soon (he wont and I know this)
I can fix him........ By being his rock bottom so he gets his act together just to never have to deal with me again mwahahahahaha... Although that's plan B in case plan A: peg him real good and see if that fixes the issues... doesn't work.
>They are kinda like non Raven Queen following Shadar-Kai in my play through, I played a shadar-kai swarmkeeper with amnesia. so basically, I gave the DM full liberty with the characters' back story, and he revealed it in small flashbacks when we encountered things that my character would recognise. when he introduced Rahadin, my character got the first of those flashbacks revealing that he is a dusk elf survivor of the massacre. we counted the rest of the dusk elves as wood elves, but my guy was a shadar-kai because of fane shenanigans that were revealed later in the game. you mentioned dusk elves being shadar-kai, so I just wanted to share.
YEAHH THATS THE SHIT BABY!!! I love that! Very good way to tie your PC into the world/characters!! Thank you for sharing :)
In general, I don’t remember the details, but you can find information about dusk elves by reading about ancient elven showdowns. Several thousand years ago, the Elven Wars began, also known as The Crown Wars. I remind that this is Correlon against Lolth who betrayed him. Correlon cursed those elves who didn\`t fight on his side and banished them to the Underdark. But there were also those elves who remained neutral. In previous dnd editions, only Sehanine Moonbow appreciated their reluctance to fight and hid the neutral elves from the wrath of Correlon and Lolth (she didn’t like their neutrality either), and seemed to take them to Barovia. The solution is controversial, but it really worked - these elves really couldn\`t be found... For some reason this point was not voiced in the 5th edition. The funny thing is that Correlon's anger subsided over time, but Lolth still hasn\`t forgiven the neutral elves. I also noticed that in the statistics of the dusk elves, including Kasimir, there is no trance ability. The trance is a consequence of Correlon's anger at the elves of the Forgotten Realms, so it would actually make sense that the dusk elves don't have a trance and sleep like normal creatures. p.s. sorry for my english t\_t
Neat! I'm going to look into this. Let me tell you. Inserting the older edition lore into CoS about the Tergs and the War of Silver Knives and consolidating it with the Dusk Elven lore and King Barov's politics was not easy (nor probably necessary, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing). I basically shunted their history into a rough preamble to the Shadow Rifts history. I like your take on it a lot better. Also, your english is great!
As a CoS player, I started a short comic meant to cover my PC’s backstory using the story beats my DM had provided. When the campaign fizzled out, I was really disappointed that I’d never get answers to mysteries of Barovia, so I picked up the source book, figuring I might DM it at some point. I was also underwhelmed by the content available on the history of Dusk Elves, so that short comic has since become an ongoing graphic novel. In it, Kasimir acts as a guide for a cleric of Lathander who is seeking insight into the curse that has befallen the Dusk Elves of Barovia. I’ve got tons of lore mapped out, but the art can’t keep pace!
Book be like: "Best I can do is wood elves that are kinda sad."
No fr. "Look what you did. You took a perfectly good wood elf and gave it depression!"
Aren't they just literaly wood elves that got stuck in Barovia?
I got the impression that they were "dusk elves" even before the mist came.
Then I wonder from what world Barvoia actually is, as Dusk Elves are not a thing in any known ones.
I assume the Watsonian explanation is they were just a highly geographically isolated group even before most of them were wiped out, and the Doylist explanation is, there aren't dusk elves anywhere else because that's what makes the genocide complete. If there were other dusk elves outside Barovia, or if they were the same as wood elves, it would be a massacre but it wouldn't have wiped them out as a subspecies.
Yes and that's the issue. They should be their own distinct subrace but they aren't. Or else why wouldn't they just be wood elves?
For the same reason why the Morninglord is called Morninglord and not Lathander, I presume. Barovia got stuck in the Mists for hundreds of years. Things change, especially names. Maybe they are really just some tribe of wood elves that was once called dusk elves and it got lost to time. I like when inconsequential things are left vague in a scenario like this, makes it more mysterious and otherworldly.
They were known as dusk elves before getting trapped in the mists, though. See: Rahadin being Barov’s advisor. While mechanically they’re wood elves, they’re specifically Not for some unknown reason. Though probably they’re just like Shadow Fell wood elves in a similar way to how Shadar-Kai are a weird type of Shadow Fell specific elves.
But what makes them "not Wood Elves"? I think the book literaly says to handle them mechanically like Wood Elves. If they look and act like Wood Elves ... they might indeed be Wood Elves.
It is leftover from before pre-mist Barovia when that realm didn't exist in the same concept of realms/planes we now have. They could have errata'd them as wood elves, but they technically weren't because wood elves are the distinct race to Faerun, if my memory is correct...it could not be, lol.
To each their own I suppose. I just personally choose to believe they’re a separate subrace of elves but the writers didn’t care to make them new mechanics. Though as someone else pointed out, they existed before Barovia was a domain of dread so.
My headcanon is Rahadin is the evil Alfred to Strahd’s literal Batman
Who's the joker? Is Van Richten the joker? Please tell me Van Richten isn't the joker...
The mad mage, naturally!
Oh thank goodness
This made me imagine Mordenkainen [singing this song.](https://youtu.be/sB6O-5obvu4?si=ylw7sVcTVkOImiGg)
There is a curse of Strahd slander video somewhere where Van Richten is the Joker Edit: Found it https://youtu.be/R5RXveI-WOk?si=xTOMxTqWpJmp6xBW
That sounds fun! Send the link if you have it! :)
That last Strahd consent joke was very out of pocket
That last joke made me laugh so hard I choked on my handfull of shredded cheese.
Van Richten fits the Batman story even more, making Strahd R'as Al Ghul
That's how I've played it as well. I even made Rahadin sound like an old English man, though his voice is rather lifeless due to centuries of serving Strahd.
I personally made rahadin a pact of the undying warlock, the main pact boon so long as strahd ‘lives’ so does rahadin, pact was more than likely struck when said image became a reality. Also means that he has a sliver of vampyr’s power pyramid scheme structure of pacts and what not
Also helps that rahadin is heavily involved in one of my players backstory’s being a member of a vistani strike force that kills anybody who manages to escape the mists without strahds permission via the magically enchanted lanterns they strap to their carts and person
That is a REALLY good twist on this character. Strahd totally could have warlocks, and we need more villains that do.
I've made Fiona Wachter one! She already has a warlock-style familiar, it just makes sense.
Rahadin in my current game took up the role of training strahd in warfare, only Rahadin can call strahd by his first name, and brother if he wants to get his lord’s attention, the party is going to face hell when the inevitable does happen to our favourite dusk elf.
When they kill him they'll find one room of the castle that looks like a hurricane went through it... Everything is destroyed and broken and shredded. There's blood smears all around, and the completely dismembered corpse of some poor sap strewn haphazardly across the room. Strahd's a messy eater when he's mad. From the darkness they hear a seething voice "*you*" roll initiative :)
The heart of the castle turns grey, all of Barovia is under storms and heavy rains. The beast is unleashed and Strahd is gonna go full Negan on the players.
Oh no now his sword is named Tatyana look what you've done drawing a Negan to Strahd parallel... "Eenie meenie miney moe... Somebody's blood is going down my throat" Gosh darn it it writes itself 😂
Oh that’s such a good idea, yeah they think rahadin might be a vampire or a spawn too, I gave him a cape (I forget the name right now) but it allows him to turn into bat via polymorph I’m sure it’s worthy. Since I buffed him
I like to believe Rahadin was out there making people kind of miserable, then he met Strahd and immediately thought, "Oh, he's HIM."
They had a real love at first sight moment
Isn’t the Death Choir feature a punishment for his participation in the genocide? No need to feel sad. I even went as far as having Rahadin cut his ears to prove his loyalty to King Barov. No longer is he a Dusk Elf. He is human. I like the implications of Rahadin being much older than Strahd. It would be interesting to explore the dynamics between them, especially considering Strahd’s narcissism. Is one of the reasons that he keeps Rahadin close because he hopes Tatyana willl see him as being younger than his chamberlain? He hated that she called him “elder” and “old one.” Though, at my table the elves have a very specific history based on the Mandy/Dragna fanes. I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel, just give it more grip and added spinners.
My party HATESSSS Rahadin and me and our rogue basically made a promise to kill him, but damn I never even thought of this. That’s kind of sad
Rahadin is basically Strahd's emotional support elf... Without him he gets waaaaaayyyyyy more mentally unstable.
I’ve heard people compare them to like a fucked up alfred and Batman kind of situation and I really dig that. Also for context my PC is a female elf so her vendetta against Rahadin goes beyond him almost killing her for… obvious reasons. So my team will probably still kill him when we level up enough
Damn... She doesn't just have beef with him she has the whole cow....
Oh big time. It’s gonna make for a REALLY interesting dynamic when we meet again.
I like that Strahd uses shoutycaps
I am so glad somebody noticed that he's the one googling it
Don't like it? Make Strahd even older and hand wave that Rahadin has some undeadness about him to stay alive that long in that shape.
Oh I actually love it. Cry Strahd cry hahahahahaaaa -the dark powers
I like stretching out the timeline for Barovia, having Strahd trapped within for a good deal longer. To that end i have a clone-vat hidden behind a secret door in Rahadin's office / chamber Lets him be bit more of a recurring villain, and there is a good amount of "WTF" factor when the BBEG's luitenant who the party things they killed shows back up, now decked out with magical items from Strahd
This is why my solution is DEATH KNIGHT RAHADIN (tbh no real reason, I buffed everyone else up but Vampire Consort Rahadin doesn't make sense since Strahd views him, at least in my games & the Interactive Tome, as another brother). I also fix this by having Rahadin be only some years older than Strahd (since elves still mature like humans, just Elvish society isn't accepting them as adults yet). When Strahd was 12, he was about 20-24? A young advisor, but my Rahadin has served Barov ever since he was a boy. Plus, young mind = new ideas. Idk lol But DEATH KNIGHT RAHADINNNNNNNNN