All, or most, of the following assumptions and force-fit ideas will be based out of the material found in the Black Box. This is simply effect: I will be pre-dating Strahd with a version of the Lady of the Morning (patent pending, ewancummins? heh ). In fact, I plan on taking a bit of piss out of Strahd while doing so, not because I'm anti-anything, but because I want to work with ewancummins in making the Church a little more seamless. You'll see what I mean as I drop some admittedly vague ideas.
Pre-Ravenloft Barovia.
The Lady of the Morning is born in mortal form.
The young lady is the darling daughter of Barovia (the village). She is it's smile, it's joy, it's very heart. Her innocence is eternal.
(Barovians are none of this now...)
The Lady grows up to become the precursor to a non-persecuted witch of Hala. Her influence/adoration spreads as she begins to travel the country in her chariot of charity.
Some years later She encounters the Stranger.
(Barovians don't like strangers...)
Over time the Lady falls in love with this silver-tongued Devil and after proper courtship they marry in a fairytale celebration.
(Barovians still do love to see the occasional couple celebrate their love so openly and freely: it's a national re-living of memories for them...)
The Stranger's influence, his whispers of Evil, begin to wilt this morning flower of a young woman. She begins to see the darker things in life. Her questions are her burden, and the answers are her prison.
(Barovians
really don't like strangers...)
The village priest, an exemplary servant of Andral (?), becomes suspicious of the Stranger but shortly after disappears without a trace. The young woman, who has worked very closely with and for the church all her life, becomes distraught and begins to search for her mentor. Road is labyrinth but leads her home, to the Stranger. Stranger laughs. Woman cries. Stranger weaves dark magic and binds the woman to his will. Woman begins to corrupt the villagers of Barovia and surrounding areas on behalf of the Stranger, who has now moved into a temple secluded in the mountains. The sun begins to set on the Barovian heart.
Eventually, but only after much pain and sorrow, the will of the woman begins to glow. Dim at first, but it begins to brighten. She finds herself prostrate before the altar/picture/icon/statue of Andral (?) and unbound prayers for the people of Barovia pour from her heart and soul. The rain dies to a drizzle and the clouds begin to clear. The Lady's light begins to smoulder, and she continues her journey of mercy.
The Stranger, through his other evil pawns, becomes furious and his retaliation is intentionally obliterated from the memories of future generations.
Before the Lady can make her move against the Stranger she is captured. All manners of evil are visited upon her, both in the mountain temple and in the village square. Barovia weeps.
But somehow, the Lady's light refused to be extinguished. For every tear the lady saw trailing the cheeks of the villagers, for every sob that fell upon her ears, her light brightened. Words that betrayed her mortal condition flowed from her mouth. The people, too afraid to do anything but stay, listened. The light began to burn away the darkness. The Stranger would appear in the flesh before the people of Barovia. Darkness began to smother the light.
And I'm out of time.
I'll continue this some other time, and probably clean it up some for presentation purposes: I'm kind of shooting from the hip here. The thoughts I took from the poem aren't translating into words like I thought they would. I'm losing them as I type letters. haha.
Anybody else? Go mad...
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."
- Jean Pierre Sarrasin, "The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville"
