Here are a few notes on spells for him to use…ĭawn creates Sunlight. Additionally, I granted him the Turn Undead feature because it just makes sense. But, because he’s a Cleric, he can swap out his prepared spells at will to any other spells on the Cleric list. VR is a Cleric…and his listed Prepared Spells speaks more of a support caster than a Monster Hunter who has gone solo. When Rictavio flees to the Tower of Khazan, he’s inside an Antimagic field and cannot disguise himselfĮven if Van Richten is distorting his voice, Ezmerelda may still recognize it…even if what she recognizes is the cadence his voice adopts when he’s explaining something. A Hat of Disguise only works as long as it stays on your head, so if something happens that knocks the hat off, ‘Rictavio’ is replaced by Van Richten. Thus…if VR’s cover is blown, he is stuck with two bad choices: Either he tries to keep going it alone, gets killed by Strahd, and fails his ‘final mission,’ or he accepts the risk to the PCs and joins them to try to take Strahd down directly. If Strahd identifies Van Richten before then, he will try to kill him and VR is pretty sure he can’t take Strahd in a fight. The whole plan depends on his identity staying a secret until Strahd goes into hibernation. If Van Richten’s cover is blown, his plan is a wash. Van Richten wants to stay under cover…so how does the party get him to change his mind? (See the section above…Remove Curse won’t cut it, the curse is far too strong.) Getting him to Join Up But, it should take rather extreme circumstances for him to actually be honest with the PCs…and they may have to do something about his Curse before he’ll actually travel with them. He may lend the party his wagon to travel around in (once he finds somewhere else to stash his tiger…or may lend them the tiger as well), give them helpful advice-possibly using ravens to stay in touch over long-distance if the PCs make friends with the Keepers, and provide the sort of support that a Carnie could offer. Ideally, even if the party can convince him to help…his help should primarily take the form of a surprisingly knowledgeable carnival ringmaster who is “certainly not going to go out and fight monsters with you. And, he should stay in character as much as possible…blowing his cover will only bring Strahd down on him AND the PCs. He has his plan, he’s set in his ways, he’s not going to go gallivanting off with a bunch of young adventurers. He knows well the bravery of adventurers and that telling them about his curse tends to result in responses like “Oh, you don’t need to worry about us, we’re strong!” followed shortly by “:dying noises.” Rebuffing their advances without mentioning the curse is much more effective at getting them to stay away from him so his curse doesn’t kill them.Įven if Van Richten consents to offer them aid, it should be indirect as much as possible. Van Richten does not talk about his curse. He will avoid physically joining up with the party for fear that he will get them all killed. VR knows that if anyone else finds out, Strahd can Charm them or read their mind or otherwise extract that information from them. The Ring of Mind Shielding only works on him…it doesn’t work on the PCs. Van Richten’s disguise is only useful against Strahd as long as no one knows who he really is. As long as the party can’t get his hat off, they cannot prove that he is not a carnie ringmaster Van Richten’s disguise is magically augmented. (This is one of Strahd’s Primary Goals as listed in Chapter 1) Van Richten is quite certain that if he drops his disguise, Strahd will find him and wreck him. Here are a few important things to keep in mind if the party is trying to recruit him… Van Richten is (by older lore) aware of Madame Eva but (unlike many others in they valley) he won’t immediately cave to her prophecies, drop everything he has been working on, and throw his lot in with the PCs. Furthermore, he believes too much is at stake to risk exposure. It’s important to note: Most of the “Destined Allies” the party can draw from Madame Eva have notes about how the PCs can get that individual to join them. This can be a large part that prevents Van Richten from turning into the spotlight thief a man of his skills could very easily become… He may very well believe that trying to fight him head on is pure folly. He has fought elder vampires before and Strahd is the greatest of them all. Van Richten is a man with a plan for killing Strahd, and it’s a plan that plays well to his aged capabilities: “wait til Strahd takes a long nap, then stake him in his sleep.” Of anyone in the valley, Van Richten knows how deadly Strahd is.
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