Bleak House & Van Richten's family

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Vlad
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Bleak House & Van Richten's family

Post by Vlad »

I'm currently reading through my Bleak house campaign set again, which I love. However, the details on when and what happened to the Van Richten family are not very detailed (some sketchy remarks here and there). Also, the set states that Radanavich moved in 10 years (?) after the famiy left. But according to the same set the dog Thane is dead for decades (plural) and that the same Radanavich caused the servants to kill each other. What happened to the family and when? Why did Rudolph never return to Richten Haus? How did he survive whatever happened to his family? What did the servants do all those times inbetween?

Are there any (canon) sources on this?
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thekristhomas
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Re: Bleak House & Van Richten's family

Post by thekristhomas »

I've been able to find nothing in canon to make sense of the inconsistencies, at some points it seems like Van Richten hasn't been in the house since childhood in others it seems like this is where he lived with his wife and son. The way that I made sense of it was this:

Van Richten lived in the house as a boy and knew all the servants

The young Van Richten went with his family on holiday

The servants all killed each other

The Van Richtens returned from holiday discovered the bodies, but kept it from the child Rudolph, sending him off to boarding school soon after

As a young man Rudy returns to Bleak House and establishes his medical practice there, begins a family

The Radanavich clan arrives, kidnaps Erasmus, cycle of revenge leading to death of almost entire Radanavich clan, Baron Metus and Rudy's young family

Rudy leaves Bleak House never to return

Ten years later Madame Radanavich returns and begins gathering the victims of her curse.

The book says in a few places that the servants killing each other happened when RvR was a child, so there's no way Radanavich could have been the cause.

As to what the spirits of the servants have been doing, the book says they are a response by the house to RvR returning, so I would assume that they have been dormant since their deaths up til the events of the adventure.
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Re: Bleak House & Van Richten's family

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Madame Radanavich is Vistani. She might have been able to time-travel, courtesy of the Mists, to put everything in place.
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Re: Bleak House & Van Richten's family

Post by Brandi »

I thought only the Zarovan Vistani had that particular talent? In VRG Vistani, Van Richten mentions that the family who kidnapped his son were Corvara and that he was having a bit of trouble overcoming prejudice towards other Corvara and Boem because of it.
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Re: Bleak House & Van Richten's family

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Maybe Radanavich was half-Zarovan on her mother's side or the Dark Powers made a special exception in her case because she was on a mission of dark vengeance.
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Re: Bleak House & Van Richten's family

Post by thekristhomas »

It does seem unlikely that the servants would all kill each other, for differing reasons, all on the same day, without some external force. However I dislike the use of time-travelling gypsies if there's any way to avoid them (YMMV), also are there half-Zarovan? I got the impression Zarovan don't breed? (I might be wrong)

What other circumstances, then, could cause the eruption of violence that claimed the otherwise thoroughly pleasant servants?
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Re: Bleak House & Van Richten's family

Post by jamesfirecat »

thekristhomas wrote:It does seem unlikely that the servants would all kill each other, for differing reasons, all on the same day, without some external force. However I dislike the use of time-travelling gypsies if there's any way to avoid them (YMMV), also are there half-Zarovan? I got the impression Zarovan don't breed? (I might be wrong)

What other circumstances, then, could cause the eruption of violence that claimed the otherwise thoroughly pleasant servants?
Well they did all murder each other for reasons that had been building up over time that seem "logical" (well as logical as any murder) without the need of time traveling gypsies to have taken place.

First Servant A steals Servant B's books proving he's been skimming money form the family for years. He does this to distract Servant B so he can try to woo his daughter.

Servant B thinks that Servant D stole the books however.

When servant D proclaims to have no idea what Servant B is talking about, Servant B is enraged and attacks him.

Servant D dies.

Servant A tries to woo servant C but she wants nothing to do with him, and he gets a little too rough with her.

Servant C dies.

Servant B returns in time to find his daughter murdered and attacks her killer who defends himself.

Servant B dies.

Servant A realizes he's murdered the woman he loved and her father and hangs himself out of remorse.

That's what happened on that particular day but there was a lot of stuff leading up to it that I'm not going to go into tonight.

It's as "reasonable" a series of events to have taken place as the last act of most Shakespearian tragedies where 3/4th of the cast off one another in short order.
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Re: Bleak House & Van Richten's family

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Shakespearean? This scenario reads more like Umineko no naku koro ni... o_o;
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