#dndlore #dungeonsanddragons #strahd D&D villains aim to be one thing, as good villians as Strahd von Zarovich from Curse of Strahd. Enjoy my first video properly about Dungeons & Dragons Lore!
I have an idea for an adventure where the PCs defeat a witch and find Sturm, the second Von Zavorich brother, revealing that the witch was Strahd's former lover who mistook the brothers, he eventually finds Tatiana's current incarnation and falls in love with her.
Pardon me while I steal this and run with it, because the horrible dramatic irony of Strahd ONCE AGAIN 'losing' her love to his brother is ABSOLUTELY GENIUS!
I think the biggest thing that would make Strahd irredeemable would be his lack of will to change. This would make sense for an immortal character stuck in his ways, and I think it makes it more realistic and tragic to suggest that Strahd *could* change and be redeemed (that anyone, in theory, could), but it is just something that he refuses to do, a character flaw.
This is a great summary of his backstory - it will save those running the campaign from listening to the (admittedly well-written and still worth a listen) "I, Strahd" audiobook if they're not keen on the idea. I agree that Strahd is evil, though my interpretation is "Every villain is the hero of their own story" ideology. For example - sure Strahd has done genocidal things, but that's the conquest he grew up with from his father, so it's a normalized thing for him and is a means to conquer your enemy. He didn't do it out of love of killing or wanting to make others deliberately suffer. Yes, it's still killing and I'm not defending that, but there's a nuance of separation with intent. What I'm trying to get at, is there are shades of "Evil" and I feel playing him in that way provides a far more developed villain that has human complexities and layers to them rather than a more static "He is evil because he wants this and does bad stuff to get it. The end." that others and the Curse of Strahd campaign portrays him as.
Luckily my dm didn't make Strahd at all redeemable, But we did not know anywhere near as much of the lore as you just presented. This was very informative. I would love to see more videos like this.
