Looking for advice for using Ba'al Verzi

[Ail]

Hi all,

in the campaign I am running, I got the PCs to Barovia. When I first began designing their adventures there, I made a list of items I'd like to touch or showcase somehow, some of which turned into threads of their own... or promises of thread.

One of them was the Ba'al Verzi. I'd like the PCs to know they existed and of their sinister reputation, but despite drawing the background story, I never conceived more than a few scenes concerning it. But now I feel it may be interesting, so what's happened?

Let me try to describe the relevant events and facts:

One of my players, Gheata, has focus on the great sword, but due to a night-time incident in a brothel, he lost all his clothes and possessions, having recovered almost everything except his money and weapons (greatsword included). Plus, he went to prison, but that is not relevant now.

Some time later, the group is in Barovia village, and the burgomaster is found dead one night with a Ba'al Verzi dagger plunged in his chest to the hilt. The man was a widower and had only a 15 year-old daughter, Irina.
Some people in the street talk secretively about the dagger and that it is one of them Ba'al Verzi. They make some comments about their past actions. There is one old person, kind of walking repository of knowledge in the village, that recognizes the dagger and knows the history of the sect, but he gives the PCs only a general idea. Not enough for them to be impressed, although this was probably my (as DM) failure. Surreptitiously, Gheata manages to get hold of the dagger, and two other PCs follow the other men into the Blood o' the Vine Inn (where the PCs were lodged) and find a secret entrance giving way to stairs downwards. Even though they knew the men had followed that passage they stood against another wall, presumably with another secret door, but they could not investigate further because they heard the men coming again in their direction.

Meanwhile, Irina has disappeared and the party finds she must have fled the property and climbed the wall towards the forest in a rather sudden and unthought manner.

Irina appears two nights later, bringing with her Olya, another girl that had disappeared a week before, supposedly abducted by Strahd (the people don't know for sure, but highly suspect it). They come by night, barely dressed and the village begin to murmur about them (Olya, mainly, is highly suspected of being a vampire by now). The village priest (of the morninglord) harbours them in the church. Since one of the PCs (Gregor) came to Barovia to be ordained priest of the ML, he is privy to the village priest (Donosty). Part of the group overhears conversations in the inn that are not kind at all towards Irina and some suggest it was she who killed the burgomaster. They agree, with Donosty, that it would be better to take Irina away from Barovia, and this is set in stone when Irina herself confesses to Donosty, and then admits to some members of the party, that it was she who killed her father. Olya, meanwhile, failed a madness check in the time she was absent from the village and is kept in custody by Donosty, who has no means whatsoever to cure her (nor to help in her saves) but could not convince the party to take her with them (she's no adventurer, while Irina was a budding Sorceress).

Before leaving Barovia, they had met a Vistana who could sell a greatsword to Gheata. He was unwilling to pay his price, but the gypsy said he would trade the greatsword for the Ba'al Verzi dagger Gheata had found. He found it odd that the man would trade a dagger for a greatsword, and thought it should be valuable, but since the Vistana refused to pay for it with the greatsword and some more money, he was convinced that it shouldn't be that important and made the trade.

Days later, the group is in Krezk, as Gregor passes in front of the Red Vardo Traders shop, he overhears someone commissioning the retrievance of that dagger for the price of 100 000 gp. Gregor gasps and thinks only "look the money we could have made", without any thought to how evil that Ba'al Verzi could be. I guess he's still thinking that if he can get his hands on the dagger, they can all be very rich.

So, this is the current point in the campaign relating to the Ba'al Verzi.

Background unknown to the players:
First, a small note. The men the PCs followed into the inn are Keepers of the Black Feather. There has not yet been any other reference to them in the campaign. They're also were-ravens, but apart from some subtle hints towards their physical aspect, that is not yet important.
Now, the story.

Strahd has decided he wants to take hold of the Ba'al Verzi to himself and not knowing who currently leads them, or if indeed they exist, he crafts a ploy to make them come out into the light. As it happens, the current burgomaster had currently displeased him somewhat (this was known to the PCs) and so he decided to join both things. As Van Holtz, he went to the Burgomaster's house precisely in the night when he had told him to go deliver a message to the PCs in his name (requesting them to go to Castle Ravenloft on business, for he had a proposition for them... which they accepted. That's the thread the PCs are following now). Irina had seen him before as Van Holtz and so admitted he was there on business to talk to the burgomaster. Van Holtz said that was the case, but that the burgomaster had merely to keep something secret until Strahd requested it back: it was a small package that he delivered Irina, with instructions for her not to open it. However, at the same time, he charmed her and left the precise instruction to open the package, take the dagger inside it and murder the burgomaster with it.

When her father came home, Irina killed him. She only recovered conscience after that, but remembered fully having committed the deed. She does not, however, recall the domination by Van Holtz.

Now, when this murder becomes known all accross Barovia, the current leader of the Ba'al Verzi (Nicu Moldonesti, as per Gaz 1), becomes worried because a murder has been committed without passing through the cupula of the organization, that is, him. So, he wants to find who had that dagger, who commissioned the murder, who else has pretentions to wield the Ba'al Verzi as his own. He commissions the RVT to find it and besides, make a report on who had it and the history of the dagger since the murder. For that, he'll pay the 100 000gp.
Meanwhile, Strahd is merely waiting to see who pulls the string on the other side.
Enter the Vistani: when Gheata traded the dagger, it fell into the hands of the Zarovan Vistani, and consequently into the hands of Madame Eva. Now, what happened to the dagger? Is Eva still holding it without telling anything to Strahd? Has she returned it? Will she? I haven't decided yet, but for story terms, I think the best would be for Eva to still have it without telling Strahd, so there are more possibilities for the story
.

Now, my question is this. How can I bring the secret war that will start between Strahd and Nicu over the Ba'al Verzi known to the players? How can I put them in the middle of it? I had thought that Strahd will begin killing true Ba'al Verzi assassins, taking their weapons and recruiting new ones to his ranks. Also, the players will be caught in a thread relating to Jacqueline Montarri. They have just seen her harvesting heads in the last session, and fleeing them without much problems. She was shot twice and made it pretty clear it didn't affect her much. Then she let them in a difficult predicament caught in a magical web (she was wearing a Wiz6' head at the time) and having summoned a medium spider to make them company. They defeated the spider, but will be caught in the web for another hour, and there are only 2 more hours of sun. That's less than the distance to either Krezk (where they came from) or Borgodyna (the village they are going to. No need to look it up, it doesn't come in the books).
This was the 3rd encounter with the RVT (the one with the dagger was the 2nd) and these are merely introductions. They have noticed Jackie's red ribbon. Meanwhile, they also defeated her 4 goons (who were caught in Jackie's own web and vainly asked her for mercy and help).
The idea is that after a while of travelling around they will enter Barovia with Tara Kolyana, and Strahd will have commissioned the RVT (they're a catch-all, you'd think) precisely to find the current reincarnation of Tatyana, having finally understood that she is delayed and so she must be outside his domain. The only reference he gives the RVT is a portrait. Jackie decides to take this mission on her own, since it is so important and the client has no one above him. You guessed it, the 4th encounter with the RVT is as Jacqueline and her bandits try to wrestle Tara from the group, although that should come really much later. They will be able to see her ribbon and notice that she's 'wearing' one of the heads they saw harvested (two players will have nightmares for two weeks about it, on account of a failed horror save).

So, I was thinking of intertwining this thread with the Ba'al Verzi's (there's a reason why I called my campaign 'woven fates'). Can you help me? Any help would be most welcome.

Thank you all in advance.

Ail

[Ail]

Should you care to know why or how Irina and Olya came back, here it is:

Olya was abducted by Strahd to be her bed slave (sorry, but my Strahd has many of those urges from time to time). He hasn't turned her to a vampire yet, because he likes the living warm flesh, but he fed occasionally on her.

On a whim, one night, after having observed Irina flee in a temporary madness in the direction of the forest, he decided to protect Irina and play a trick on the villagers. On the night Irina escaped, he commanded the wolves to follow her but not to harm her. She collapsed inside a cave by dawn, nearly spent from escaping the wolves the whole night. On the next night, Strahd took Olya with him on a scary trip through the woods and abandoned her by Irina's cave, telling her she was free to go. They were so near the village, that they decided to run there immediately, even though it was night (I don't remember the exact details of the how Strhad took Olya there, or what time was it then. However, that should be enough for them to reach the village by night but at a time when people were still in the taverns.... or else, and this is what I don't recall, for them to arrive a bit before dawn.... I'd have to check my notes now). As their clothes are nearly ragged, and in Olya's case practically non-existent, the villagers will be in for a shock. As a final note, Olya has failed the madness saves due to being raped and fed on by Strahd. She'll recover only with difficulty. I haven't exactly decided how the village reacted to her being in the church, as the PCs left Barovia before this became important.

[Ail]

No ideas?

I'm sad...



Anyone? Please?

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

No ideas?

I'm sad...



Anyone? Please?

I wish I could ioffer something useful, but truth be told, my Barovian history's a klittle rusty, particularly as concerns NPCs...

My suggestion, if anything: sounds like yuo've got a good foundation as it stands, I don't know that there's much to add!

Although, a good way to have PCs care about what is happeneing is to get them involved. Now, they are to some extant, but what if the dagger kept being found in dead bodies everywhere the characters end up going? Maybe one of them is unwittingly committing the murders? Or it could just be a coincidence, of course, but the people of Barovia would not see it that way... They never do!

Sorry I couldn't be any more help.

[The Giamarga]

First let me say that I quite like your story so far and it seems very well thought out.

But how the heck does that Baal'Verzi guy have 100,000gp ?!? And even if why the heck does he want to pay it? Why not send a real Ball'Verzi assassin or two after it? Or trade it for a favor (read assignment) or two in the future... 100,000gp is probably more money than the whole Barovia has available (except perhaps for Strahd himself.)

Also I would have the girl who assassinated her father really have wanted to assassinate him. Charm Person usually can't make you kill your beloved father and for Domination Van Holtz would have to be there in the room afaik. Else it is a bit too unsubtle for the likes of Strahd. And perhaps not dramatic/gothic enough...


BTW if you're searching for some nice idead involving the Baal'Verzi, I think one of the Campaign journals on this site has a cmapaign where one of the players (a rogue) has a heirloom Baal'Verzi dagger at the start of the game and the campaign culminates in a very dramatic fashion that invloves the dagger. Not sure which one that was though...

[Ail]

First let me say that I quite like your story so far and it seems very well thought out.

But how the heck does that Baal'Verzi guy have 100,000gp ?!? And even if why the heck does he want to pay it? Why not send a real Ball'Verzi assassin or two after it? Or trade it for a favor (read assignment) or two in the future... 100,000gp is probably more money than the whole Barovia has available (except perhaps for Strahd himself.)

Also I would have the girl who assassinated her father really have wanted to assassinate him. Charm Person usually can't make you kill your beloved father and for Domination Van Holtz would have to be there in the room afaik. Else it is a bit too unsubtle for the likes of Strahd. And perhaps not dramatic/gothic enough...


BTW if you're searching for some nice idead involving the Baal'Verzi, I think one of the Campaign journals on this site has a cmapaign where one of the players (a rogue) has a heirloom Baal'Verzi dagger at the start of the game and the campaign culminates in a very dramatic fashion that invloves the dagger. Not sure which one that was though...

Hi there,

thank you for the suggestion.

well, the 100 000gp are simply triple the price of a Ba'al Verzi dagger as taken from ... the RLDMG? (I'm not sure). It is Nicu who's got the money, not a simple Ba'al Verzi agent. It is the organization. And anyway, he may not pay at all. He has enlisted the RVT because they are masters of recovery, they do not question motives and they work well for a price. Also, not using your own effectives means you do not lose them and are not easily associated to the specific search.
I assume that the RVT work for all the core and I have made Krezk quite a cosmopolitan trade-full city, so there is money around. Plus, I assume the Ba'al Verzi, kiling for hire, must be wealthy enough.

As for the domination... hmmm... well, I don't really care much about mechanics when I want some effect in the story. I simply assumed Strahd (disguised as Van Holtz) had the power to force Irina (unknowingly) to kill her father, even though she loved him. You can always say she rolled pretty badly in her will save

By the way, I probably didn't make this clear enough, but she is a member of the party now.

As for the campaign you mentioned, I'll look for it. Thank you

Ail

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Don't forget that Strahd's as much a wizard as he is a vampire. He could have used a spell to make Irina's father look like a threat -- maybe an illusion, or maybe he Baleful Polymorphed the man into a venomous snake or the like -- that she'd attack without resistance. Then after the deed was done, he could've compelled Irina to forget all about it, leaving the horrified girl to (wrongly) deduce what happened from her father's remains and the bloodied dagger in her own hands.

That's a bit more Strahd's style than a brute-force compulsion effect -- if he wants to employ brute force, Count Von Zarovich just burns somebody's entire house down; when he's being coy, he'd rather play on peoples' emotions than crudely stomp them down -- and it's a lot more Gothic too, IMO.

[The Giamarga]

Right! Exactly my thoughts Crow.

@Ail: What is the RVT ?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Right! Exactly my thoughts Crow.

@Ail: What is the RVT ?

Hey, I'm still "Rotipher" here! Crow (my PC from the EwtF) gets away with way more crazy **** than I ever could.

And RVT is the Red Vardo Traders, Jacqueline Montarri's little venture into private (and highly shady) enterprise.