I haven’t put too much thought into this, but I had an idea of making Tatyana Strahd’s first wife who died. Then her soul goes to another woman who falls in love with Sergei and that’s the story as normal.
Basically I was thinking it would give Strahd a bit more of a reason to consider her to be ‘his’. She’s literally his wife at one point.
Like I said I haven’t really gone too far, but what do you think?
Posted Feb 22, 2019, 5:41 AM UTC
I think the change you're proposing could work, just keep in mind that it's a big one—Strahd's curse is no longer that he'll repeatedly fail to win Tatyana, it's that he'll fail to win Tatyana back, if they were originally married/presumably in love. It makes him more sympathetic in the sense that he's pursuing his own wife, not his brother's, and it's more understandable why he'd fall prey to the Dark Powers. Basically, Strahd and Tatyana having been romantically linked adds legitimacy to his claim, not just in his eye's but likely many others.
That said, such a drastic switch could be really interesting! It lets you make some decisions about what makes Strahd a villain beyond pursuing Ireena, as well as how Tatyana's reincarnations work (wouldn't Sergei's fiance have recognized his brother as her former husband, after all?).
I mean maybe? Though I thought her reincarnations didn’t remember their past lives. Plus with Strahd getting old he could have recognized her and assumed she was simply interested in the “new model”.
That's true, her reincarnations don't automatically retain their memories, but in the module there are two instances where Ireena meets Sergei (the Epilogue and the Something Blue event in Krezk) and "becomes" Tatyana by recognizing him as the man she loves. Granted, that would complicate things, if Ireena is able to tell adventurers right off the bat she's being targeted by her first husband, but it's something I think needs to be taken into account—if Tatyana shared her first life with Strahd, why aren't her memories triggered by meeting him? Does she still recognize Sergei, who she knew in her second life?
I know I’m late to the thread but one thing I did was the Castlevania route where it was his wife and the church killed her for x reason and Sergei is the one they order to do it so now there is a much more (in my opinion) reasonable explanation for Strahds feelings towards both Tatyana and Sergei.
You’re not late. Welcome to my thread. Enter freely of your own will and leave some of the happiness your bring.
Thanks, yeah the main thing I did was that I used the MTG Innestrad Plane shift so that during the madness of the church those who were deemed “sinners” needed to be killed. Enter Sergei being ordered to kill Tatiana and Strahd going nuts and killing his brother and becoming a vampire. Plus it gives an extra challenge to my players to have to avoid an insane Solar as well as Strahd
I do like that idea. Especially because it gives Sergei something of a personality what with him killing her and all.
Are you saying he’s a solar now?
No but that’s an even better idea..... if you look up the plane shift guide it gives you some stuff to incorporate into Curse of Strahd and one of the ideas they give you is the Church of Avacyn which is a church headed by a corrupted solar that has turned the church into just one massive crusade to purge all sin in an attempt to weaken Strahd. But now that you mention Sergei, having him reincarnated as an angel to serve the solar in his flight is a great idea.
Edit: Sorry I always forget to click on the comment I’m replying to.
[deleted]
As I understand it, souls are only trapped because Strahd says that none may leave the mists of Barovia; so having her soul trapped in Barovia, before Strahd is cursed for killing his brother, seems a little backwards. Another issue is that when a soul is reincarnated in Barovia, it still has to go through the whole life cycle.
It's not a horrible idea, but it is a messy one...
A change I was thinking of making was what if Tatiyana was Strahd's daughter/little sister; it is a similar idea to making her his wife, but it takes out the romantic love aspect and replaces it with familial love. Strahd is surrounded by the corpses of his immediate family, and he spent move of his mortal youth being a loyal son/brother, and he still holds onto the old family in the crypts and pays his respects to them. What if Tatiyana was the last/only member of his family he could ever see alive, because everyone else died before Barovia became cursed?
I am leaning more towards little sister, but making her his daughter would also work, especially in conjunction with the dead wife plot proposed by OP. This change would also taint the Tatiyana-Sergei romance, if the DM want's to keep it in, as Strahd would point out it is an incestuous aberration, and giving him some (shaky) moral grounds for his past actions.
I just wanted to share the route I'm taking, which is somewhat similar. I had Strahd and Tatyana meet fairly early into his rule in Barovia, and actually hit it off fairly well. However (taking inspiration from MandyMod's Dark Powers Guide) Vampyr had already latched onto Strahd by this point. Past his physical prime in his 40s, Strahd clung to the power Vampyr offered him during times of struggle when he was conquering the valley.
Strahd and Tatyana are together for a few months, but Vampyr drives a wedge between them, manipulating Strahd into thinking Tatyana's love is not true, and causing Strahd to push her away and eventually end the relationship. Prior to Vampyr's interference, it was an actual loving and wholesome relationship.
Years pass and Sergei arrives in Barovia after wrapping things up back home. Strahd is miserable ever since breaking up with Tatyana, and Vampyr torments him over it, reinforcing Strahd's belief that Vampyr is the only one he can trust. Sergei eventually meets Tatyana, and asks for Strahd's blessing to court her. His pride was too great to say no, and so they got together. Vampyr then started singing a different tune, manipulating Strahd into despising Sergei (why does he deserve her? Don't you deserve the love of a beautiful maiden?).
Vampyr basically mindfucks Strahd endlessly, preying off Strahd's isolation and loneliness, eventually convincing him to kill Sergei and take Tatyana for himself.
So basically, it is a very interesting change with a lot of potential, especially since it sets up a more sympathetic view of Strahd. It even opens up other avenues on how the curse might be broken, but that's another story.
I think the only issue with the idea you're implementing would be the whole reincarnation thing. It's more like the soul bounces to a new woman, which would have to be rationalized in the world and story you tell, as opposed to a reincarnation into a fresh body. The train of thought of a legitimate relationship existing is a rich vein to explore, but how you get there can be a slippery slope. Work out the kinks and you might he onto something here.
I don’t know about Strahd’s wife, but I talked with a friend before about Tatiyana being a supernatural being of some sort. A being with unusual charming abilities that she may or may not have been aware of. Like she was a creation of the Dark Powers to drive people into madness with her beauty.
Sergei was supposed to dedicate himself to the church, but cast that aside after meeting this peasant girl. He was willing to give up his noble position for her. And Strahd, well we know what happened to him.
These two brothers fought over the same woman. And after everything was said and done, she vanished. She threw herself off a cliff, but her body was never found. Now she spends her reincarnations haunting Strahd, making him dive deeper into his madness as he inflicts his own self-torment pursing her.
That’s actually very cool. I like ireena as a tragic character but that’s definitely a great angle to play
I like Ireena how she is, though it was an interesting discussion with that friend. At the time we were both running through the module blind as players, and we’d just gotten the tome of Strahd that described the past events. My character had gotten dreams about what had happened between Strahd and Tatiyana, but he didn’t know if they were true events or not. At the time he thought Strahd was just obsessing over a woman that looked like Tatiyana, rather than an actual reincarnation. After reading the book, he started to understand things a little more.
My character actually fell in love with Ireena, and she seemed to reciprocate those feelings, despite them not knowing each other for very long in-game. So my friend started theorizing that maybe Ireena/Tatiyana was more than she appeared to be. That maybe she was manipulating everything. I took it more that she was a Helen of Troy type beauty, one that men would fight over whether she liked it or not.