Developing a Jekyll/Hyde history for an amnesiac PC

[Ender]

I have a PC in my Curse of Strahd game that wanted to have amnesia, but with flashes of memory of his past. As much as I don't like this trope, I thought it could be interesting. The general concept was that he is a barbarian and was created by a kind alchemist that worked for Strahd. He has flashes of memory of his creator and of times when Strahd wanted to "test" the creation via sensory deprivation, torture, and forcing him to kill. He doesn't remember leaving the castle nor does he remember what happened to his creator. This has been his driving motivation to take Strahd down.

Okay, all par for the course so far. But I always do a bit of a twist on whatever my players give me (they know this going in to it). So here's what I'd like to do:

The PC is the alchemist, only after a Jekyll/Hyde scenario. So he's still created... from a certain point of view. What I'd like some input on is how to reframe the Castle Ravenloft portion of the narrative so it all still fits. Memories of his creator are, clearly, memories of himself. So how does the torture and killing fit in? What did Strahd want of the alchemist? Was the serum that transformed him into into the PC the end goal, a side-effect, an escape, or something else?

Bonus Points: My version of Curse of Strahd uses the Krezk as depicted in Gaz I, but with the CoS Abbot being a state-sponsored alchemist trying to understand the nature of life (and using the former alchemist's notes to do so). If you can tie it in to that, all the better.

[A G Thing]

Well an alchemist who uses others may torture his victims and use parts of them which would hold ethereal resonance thus emotions of the victims to be sure. But since the character is the alchemist then they would have the emotions and perspectives of the alchemist as well.

Perhaps have the player relive these memories as they come from the perspective of victims at first and have their emotions be prominent but always have the alchemist in view or part of these memories and only when the alchemist is acting or speaking have them be clear. The other victims memories should be jumbled or chaotic though. State rage, fear, sorrow etc. of the victims as highlights but also perhaps curiosity, guilt, frustration as the moods that most stand out afterwards.

The eventual reveal of the later perspective shift maybe should come from experiments where the alchemist is seemingly trying to command the victims with his mind and a link to confuse it as he turns them into construct creations. The torture and the killings are part of both gathering and preparing the materials so he could control and also make this construct for his experiment.

Strahd perhaps wanted to develop a means of controlling the living or to quantify life so as to find a way to take hold of the reincarnation process and control a soul throughout its reincarnation. For obvious reasons this would interest him greatly! To this end the experiments are the alchemist killing victims and after altering and experimenting on them tortuously to affect them so when he reincarnates them they are still bound. He uses the notes and methods and each victim he kills multiple times in different incarnations.

Finally the dark powers make his research pay off and as he imprints commands on the soul of the victim, he he is pulled into the reincarnation cycle of his victims when the experiment kills him and reincarnates them together. Deep inside him the alchemists memories remain inside him dormant and so does the understanding of what happened. With this he has learned the secret Strahd wanted as the commands to gain control of the reincarnated body he is in still are implanted but he would also be victim of them if used against him though through them he might believe he can emerge in sole control again. How fused his soul will be with his victims may be another factor working against him as time may merge them or he may be consumed by their soul entirely.

In summation the result is the accidental success of the experiment.

As for the Abbot he has been transforming the folk and animals in Barovia to develop the basis for this original research in the hopes of originally stopping Strahd's true bride from escaping in reincarnation by binding her to a golem body. Through this he hoped originally to direct the transference in a more controllable fashion.

If the Abbot is following his research then the mongrelfolk should all be mad but also have fragmentary memories of lives they could not have. The golem he is making should be more of a match for traditional Tatyanna but also built to contain her soul and obey perhaps being bound in certain ways.

If the players go there which why not then the player in question would perhaps have stronger reactions to things going on. Memories he has may even be shared. Certain key words they speak may trigger him. The Abbot may know how to defeat him suspecting him to be an escaped experiment. Penalties to saves or bonuses to saves which may grant advantage or disadvantage. One of the Abbots notebooks may contain his handwriting saying things he remembers his tormentor/himself saying even if he doesn't realize it. This may be discovered far later if he is an illiterate barbarian or if he can write maybe he realizes it later. The connection should be obvious but the only one who can give him answers according to the notes in that book would perhaps be Strahd himself as he may have helped in his original research.

[The Lesser Evil]

There's a couple of different directions you could go with this. First of all, let me say this obviously echoes overtones from I10/House on Gryphon Hill with the Apparatus and the Alchemist. So if you wanted to somehow include those, here's your answer.

Anyway, a couple of ideas
1) In CoS, Strahd is looking for a way to find a good replacement. What if he got tired of waiting for somebody to be his replacement as darklord of Barovia and wanted to artificially create one? (Of course, the barbarian is either a failed experiment or an experiment still in progress.)

2) The PC is (what remains of) the Mordentish Alchemist and Strahd's good half. However, Strahd has done his best to erase and corrupt is good half so that nobody knows and they can never be put back together again.

3) Strahd may have wanted to perfect a sort of brain-washing technique that could corrupt the most innocent of hearts in order to use it on a reincarnation of Tatyana. He may have duped the alchemist into thinking he was doing the opposite.

[Ender]

Well an alchemist who uses others may torture his victims and use parts of them which would hold ethereal resonance thus emotions of the victims to be sure. But since the character is the alchemist then they would have the emotions and perspectives of the alchemist as well.

Perhaps have the player relive these memories as they come from the perspective of victims at first and have their emotions be prominent but always have the alchemist in view or part of these memories and only when the alchemist is acting or speaking have them be clear. The other victims memories should be jumbled or chaotic though. State rage, fear, sorrow etc. of the victims as highlights but also perhaps curiosity, guilt, frustration as the moods that most stand out afterwards.

The eventual reveal of the later perspective shift maybe should come from experiments where the alchemist is seemingly trying to command the victims with his mind and a link to confuse it as he turns them into construct creations. The torture and the killings are part of both gathering and preparing the materials so he could control and also make this construct for his experiment.

Strahd perhaps wanted to develop a means of controlling the living or to quantify life so as to find a way to take hold of the reincarnation process and control a soul throughout its reincarnation. For obvious reasons this would interest him greatly! To this end the experiments are the alchemist killing victims and after altering and experimenting on them tortuously to affect them so when he reincarnates them they are still bound. He uses the notes and methods and each victim he kills multiple times in different incarnations.

Finally the dark powers make his research pay off and as he imprints commands on the soul of the victim, he he is pulled into the reincarnation cycle of his victims when the experiment kills him and reincarnates them together. Deep inside him the alchemists memories remain inside him dormant and so does the understanding of what happened. With this he has learned the secret Strahd wanted as the commands to gain control of the reincarnated body he is in still are implanted but he would also be victim of them if used against him though through them he might believe he can emerge in sole control again. How fused his soul will be with his victims may be another factor working against him as time may merge them or he may be consumed by their soul entirely.

In summation the result is the accidental success of the experiment.

I may have been a bit unclear originally. Let me clarify something. There's the alchemist (Anton Grigori) and the creature (Ghaul). The PC is playing Ghaul who was, at one time, Anton. Ghaul has memories of being tortured and being forced to kill other people as "tests" required of Anton by Strahd. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Anton also tortured others, but the memories of the pain are Ghaul's own memories. Whether or not these happened to him once he was Ghaul or while he was Anton is, as of yet, undetermined.

As for the Abbot he has been transforming the folk and animals in Barovia to develop the basis for this original research in the hopes of originally stopping Strahd's true bride from escaping in reincarnation by binding her to a golem body. Through this he hoped originally to direct the transference in a more controllable fashion.

If the Abbot is following his research then the mongrelfolk should all be mad but also have fragmentary memories of lives they could not have. The golem he is making should be more of a match for traditional Tatyanna but also built to contain her soul and obey perhaps being bound in certain ways.

If the players go there which why not then the player in question would perhaps have stronger reactions to things going on. Memories he has may even be shared. Certain key words they speak may trigger him. The Abbot may know how to defeat him suspecting him to be an escaped experiment. Penalties to saves or bonuses to saves which may grant advantage or disadvantage. One of the Abbots notebooks may contain his handwriting saying things he remembers his tormentor/himself saying even if he doesn't realize it. This may be discovered far later if he is an illiterate barbarian or if he can write maybe he realizes it later. The connection should be obvious but the only one who can give him answers according to the notes in that book would perhaps be Strahd himself as he may have helped in his original research.

I'm uncertain whether or not I want to use the mongrelfolk. I just... I never felt like they fit the Barovian atmosphere. In general, the Krezk depicted in Curse of Strahd doesn't feel appropriate, which is why I'm opting to change things around and use the Gaz I version of Krezk. I had, at one time, considered having the state-sponsored alchemist experimenting on the Hands of the Dawn Healer in the Sanctuary of First Light in Krezk. That's still a potential avenue.

There's a couple of different directions you could go with this. First of all, let me say this obviously echoes overtones from I10/House on Gryphon Hill with the Apparatus and the Alchemist. So if you wanted to somehow include those, here's your answer.

Anyway, a couple of ideas
1) In CoS, Strahd is looking for a way to find a good replacement. What if he got tired of waiting for somebody to be his replacement as darklord of Barovia and wanted to artificially create one? (Of course, the barbarian is either a failed experiment or an experiment still in progress.)

2) The PC is (what remains of) the Mordentish Alchemist and Strahd's good half. However, Strahd has done his best to erase and corrupt is good half so that nobody knows and they can never be put back together again.

3) Strahd may have wanted to perfect a sort of brain-washing technique that could corrupt the most innocent of hearts in order to use it on a reincarnation of Tatyana. He may have duped the alchemist into thinking he was doing the opposite.

It occurs to me that the description I've given of the Jekyll/Hyde transformation matches the description of the Holistic Purifiers described as one of the formulas of Alchemical Philosophy (VRA pg. 69). In fact, the example the Weathermay Twins use is that of a learned nobleman transforming into a caliban-esque hulking brute to commit crimes. But it also bears resemblance to the Philosophical Child. Agatha Clairmont notes that a child can be grown from the alchemist's own flesh and blood, resulting in, essentially, a clone and an attempt at immortality. Linking these two, could Strahd have wanted Anton to grow a younger Strahd body? Strahd was a tad disappointed that "Death" granted him immortality via vampirism, but had not reversed the aging he'd already suffered. Perhaps, through this process, Anton had tried the other formulae, building up to the Philosophical Child and had made a faulty Holistic Purifier that permanently changed him into Ghaul? Ghaul could be a younger, stronger version of Anton, the precise end-goals that Strahd was seeking for his own clone or transformation. Perhaps Strahd had to test the Ghaul transformation to make sure it held up long-term. Torture it to make sure it doesn't revert back prematurely, sensory deprivation to ensure its mind reacts differently than Anton, and then forcing it to kill strong opponents to ensure that it is physically superior.

Is that a bit too convoluted?

[A G Thing]

I may have been a bit unclear originally. Let me clarify something. There's the alchemist (Anton Grigori) and the creature (Ghaul). The PC is playing Ghaul who was, at one time, Anton. Ghaul has memories of being tortured and being forced to kill other people as "tests" required of Anton by Strahd. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Anton also tortured others, but the memories of the pain are Ghaul's own memories. Whether or not these happened to him once he was Ghaul or while he was Anton is, as of yet, undetermined.

Well then yes the Holistic Purifier seems like the best answer to this scenario. You could still adapt the whole reincarnation angle as perhaps Strahd is trying to find a way to escape through reincarnation. Perhaps Strahd knows enough to try and force a new darklord to be made by making Anton one while having Anton experiment hoping to create a darklord that can defy the mists by also being in another creature. Anton uses the HP to keep himself from having to deal with the worst of it by making himself a complaint monster for the worst of it. But Strahd wants to fuse a pure soul with a darklords and he and the darkpowers interfered to ensure that at least in part is what occurred. The resulting failure/success of the main experiment leads to the victims/subjects souls being fused into his to create a new one that when manifested gives him this new body. The old soul of Anton is still inside him and he could want back out or also begin fusing with his and the player may have to find a way to resist or remove him before that old evil infects him. Maybe the soul of Anton is now remembering what Ghaul has done and wants to separate himself from this monster. Meanwhile Strahd wants the research and results to use to perfect it in another round so he can try to use it on himself to leave Barovia.

I'm uncertain whether or not I want to use the mongrelfolk. I just... I never felt like they fit the Barovian atmosphere. In general, the Krezk depicted in Curse of Strahd doesn't feel appropriate, which is why I'm opting to change things around and use the Gaz I version of Krezk. I had, at one time, considered having the state-sponsored alchemist experimenting on the Hands of the Dawn Healer in the Sanctuary of First Light in Krezk. That's still a potential avenue.

They don't but when you told me to adapt CoS I just went with it. If not just use broken ones or madmen with appropriate fluff to how they are confined or controlled if you plan to use the dungeon intact as I described in the past post. As for adapting Gaz I, I agree it would be better to perhaps find an angle there as CoS seems to be more fantastical than I usually run.

It occurs to me that the description I've given of the Jekyll/Hyde transformation matches the description of the Holistic Purifiers described as one of the formulas of Alchemical Philosophy (VRA pg. 69). In fact, the example the Weathermay Twins use is that of a learned nobleman transforming into a caliban-esque hulking brute to commit crimes. But it also bears resemblance to the Philosophical Child. Agatha Clairmont notes that a child can be grown from the alchemist's own flesh and blood, resulting in, essentially, a clone and an attempt at immortality. Linking these two, could Strahd have wanted Anton to grow a younger Strahd body? Strahd was a tad disappointed that "Death" granted him immortality via vampirism, but had not reversed the aging he'd already suffered. Perhaps, through this process, Anton had tried the other formulae, building up to the Philosophical Child and had made a faulty Holistic Purifier that permanently changed him into Ghaul? Ghaul could be a younger, stronger version of Anton, the precise end-goals that Strahd was seeking for his own clone or transformation. Perhaps Strahd had to test the Ghaul transformation to make sure it held up long-term. Torture it to make sure it doesn't revert back prematurely, sensory deprivation to ensure its mind reacts differently than Anton, and then forcing it to kill strong opponents to ensure that it is physically superior. Is that a bit too convoluted?

In the case of confusing the player convoluted can be your friend in small doses to lead him by the nose through the mystery. As for your idea of a new body well that would certainly be similar but different to what I proposed for but I guess if you need the torture to be directly to Ghaul then it works for that purpose. Strahd also would likely test the experiment once he had the notes on how to repeat it for himself later and work on it. He can always get another alchemist.

[Ender]

They don't but when you told me to adapt CoS I just went with it. If not just use broken ones or madmen with appropriate fluff to how they are confined or controlled if you plan to use the dungeon intact as I described in the past post. As for adapting Gaz I, I agree it would be better to perhaps find an angle there as CoS seems to be more fantastical than I usually run.

And don't get me wrong, I appreciate the idea. I was only stating my own frustrations with CoS

[A G Thing]

No problem at all. Just clarifying why I tried to fit them at all. I mostly prefer my Mongrelmen in Markovia personally.

[The Lesser Evil]

It occurs to me that the description I've given of the Jekyll/Hyde transformation matches the description of the Holistic Purifiers described as one of the formulas of Alchemical Philosophy (VRA pg. 69). In fact, the example the Weathermay Twins use is that of a learned nobleman transforming into a caliban-esque hulking brute to commit crimes. But it also bears resemblance to the Philosophical Child. Agatha Clairmont notes that a child can be grown from the alchemist's own flesh and blood, resulting in, essentially, a clone and an attempt at immortality. Linking these two, could Strahd have wanted Anton to grow a younger Strahd body? Strahd was a tad disappointed that "Death" granted him immortality via vampirism, but had not reversed the aging he'd already suffered. Perhaps, through this process, Anton had tried the other formulae, building up to the Philosophical Child and had made a faulty Holistic Purifier that permanently changed him into Ghaul? Ghaul could be a younger, stronger version of Anton, the precise end-goals that Strahd was seeking for his own clone or transformation. Perhaps Strahd had to test the Ghaul transformation to make sure it held up long-term. Torture it to make sure it doesn't revert back prematurely, sensory deprivation to ensure its mind reacts differently than Anton, and then forcing it to kill strong opponents to ensure that it is physically superior.

Is that a bit too convoluted?

My big question is if Ghaul was forced to fight things to become stronger, how do you explain him starting at level 1 (or whatever level he's starting at in the game if it's not high)? Energy drain or a mind wipe?

[Ender]

It occurs to me that the description I've given of the Jekyll/Hyde transformation matches the description of the Holistic Purifiers described as one of the formulas of Alchemical Philosophy (VRA pg. 69). In fact, the example the Weathermay Twins use is that of a learned nobleman transforming into a caliban-esque hulking brute to commit crimes. But it also bears resemblance to the Philosophical Child. Agatha Clairmont notes that a child can be grown from the alchemist's own flesh and blood, resulting in, essentially, a clone and an attempt at immortality. Linking these two, could Strahd have wanted Anton to grow a younger Strahd body? Strahd was a tad disappointed that "Death" granted him immortality via vampirism, but had not reversed the aging he'd already suffered. Perhaps, through this process, Anton had tried the other formulae, building up to the Philosophical Child and had made a faulty Holistic Purifier that permanently changed him into Ghaul? Ghaul could be a younger, stronger version of Anton, the precise end-goals that Strahd was seeking for his own clone or transformation. Perhaps Strahd had to test the Ghaul transformation to make sure it held up long-term. Torture it to make sure it doesn't revert back prematurely, sensory deprivation to ensure its mind reacts differently than Anton, and then forcing it to kill strong opponents to ensure that it is physically superior.

Is that a bit too convoluted?

My big question is if Ghaul was forced to fight things to become stronger, how do you explain him starting at level 1 (or whatever level he's starting at in the game if it's not high)? Energy drain or a mind wipe?

Well, technically I never said he was getting stronger. They could have merely been testing his current strength. It's even possible he lost some fights! Regardless, the player actually joined the campaign late at level 5 (and I started it at level 3 anyway). BUT. Even if I'd started at level 1, I wouldn't feel any real need to explain it away. To me, PC classes are not the norm. Simply having a level in a PC class is exceptional, especially in a setting like Ravenloft where most NPCs are probably commoners. I run 5E where that's actually called out somewhere in the DMG if I remember correctly and I use milestone advancement instead of XP. 3E was rigorously designed to suggest that everyone has class levels and that PC classes are surprisingly common among NPCs, so if I were running that still, I might have some issues explaining away a level 1 barbarian coming out of that.