Random tour of the demiplane! (Grand C help...)

[HuManBing]

From the Shadows: Once in Avernus, the adventure proceeds largely as normal. The PCs are sent back in time several times, and Azalin performs his time travel alterations carefully, using the guidelines set forth in my earlier posts in this thread.

If you agree with the idea of Azalin storing the Holy Symbol and Icon in a planar pocket, then you could even show Azalin retrieving them with a spell after the time travel is over. He could leave the PCs' heads on the wall briefly and cast a spell, and the command words could be a description of the first NPC's death during the time travel sequence. The two symbols would then materialize, and he would leave with them (presumably using Mage Hand or some spell to carry them, since he cannot touch them himself).

From then on, the PCs would deal with Skeever, the naga, and so forth on their own. I'm toying with the idea of adding a prisoner escape subplot to the adventure - the PCs must help free the leaders of the Agence d'Affaires whom Azalin imprisoned here. (These would have to be waaaaaay up on the totem pole for him to bother with. Maybe even a couple of them are rogue Kargat members who betrayed him?)

Another quest they may have to undertake is to scribble out their memory entries in Azalin's Book of Names (otherwise known to Lovecraftians as the, erm, "Nomicon"). Perhaps one of the Agence members knows that they will never be truly autonomous beings unless they eliminate Azalin's method of controlling their memories. Their experiences in Falkovnia would probably persuade them of the importance of keeping their memories intact, too.

Hyskosa would also have his last appearance here, telling the PCs what Azalin plans to do and how they must stop him. He tells them that the phylactery is key to killing him.

(Both of these facts are true, but Hyskosa does not know that Azalin is by now unstoppable, and that killing him will merely accelerate the Grand Conjunction.)

The PCs then bring his phylactery across the nation, tracking him down by using the flaming-eye trick (the skull's eyes flame briefly when they point towards Azalin). The final showdown in Nevuchar Springs may even feature members of the moribund Agence d'Affaires, especially any who were converted to Kargatane or Kargat against their will. Azalin faces off against the combined heroes, who try to stop a massive sacrifice of elven life: Azalin has already slain a massive number of elven innocents to trigger a Dark Powers check, and the bonds separating Ravenloft from the Prime are already weakening. The PCs "kill" Azalin, sending him into his phylactery, and carry the phylactery through the mists.

Hyskosa's well-intentioned efforts to prevent the Grand Conjunction have in fact ensured it will take place.

In my campaign, I plan to let the PCs return to their homeworld for a while, to see the devastation and misery the Grand Conjunction causes. I may even let them travel to Oerth to try to hunt down Azalin there, although that's more of a leap into unfamiliar territory for me. (He would probably be very dissatisfied with the current state of Knurl, his birthplace, and might either abandon it entirely or whip it into shape as a powerful magical center again.)

Either way, I would suggest letting your PCs run at least one other adventure on a Prime world before running Roots of Evil, if only to hammer home the enormity of what they've done. Imagine if not even Elminster the Mighty can make a humble "Detect Evil" spell work! Imagine the havoc that even a lowly wolfwere like Harkon Lukas could cause on a Prime kingdom, being indestructible!

[The Giamarga]

*casts ressurect thread*

After rereading I, Strahd and doing some research on the Ba'al Verzi I have some remarks on Strahd's pact with Death to add to this excellent thread.

4. What could Strahd bargain to him? [...] Perhaps Strahd bargained his soul (the Yugoloths would indeed relish a powerful warrior's soul)...

Perhaps that can resolve the issue that question by smoothing out Rotipher's note below:

IIRC, pre-vampire Strahd was statted as a 20th level fighter (!) in RoE, yet described as a 5th level wizard (not even specialized) in other products. Granted, the 2E rules made it pretty tough for a human to have two classes back then, so the writers were in a bind to reconcile his spellcasting and his "mighty warrior" rep...

Strahd could have traded his martial ability as part of his cost to Inajira. After all, after Strahd has successfully regained Barovia, what need does he have of his fighting abilities? And so, after winning the war and reclaiming Barovia but before moving into Castle Ravenloft (pre-"I, Strahd"), Inajira could have stopped by for the first installment of Strahd's payments. I figure demons/devils/yugoloths should have the ability to drain a *portion* of someone's life essence and need not take the entirety of it. This would then explain why Strahd is no longer a 20th level fighter but is instead a 5th level wizard.

Of course, that leaves the problem of how Strahd lost those levels if the deal had been disrupted... But this at least gets us half of the way there...

Actually I kind of like that explanation. Well Strahd need not have had 20 level in the Fighter class, but I always though he deserves more than those palsy 4 or 5 (or even 8 if you'd translate 2E vampire HD into fighter levels.) Maybe he traded part of his soul to Inajira. Botched/variant trap the soul spell,anyone? Or maybe level-drain by ba'al verzi dagger?

Perhaps in a strange time-loop twisted way because of the botched deal Strahd only lost a part of his soul right in the beginnning, caused by the heros which he later send back in time.

5. BOOK? Somehow, Strahd gets ahold of Inajira's book. [...]How does he do this? I have no satisfactory answer.

It says it in Roots of Evil, during the Q&A session with Strahd before heading off to Azalin's crypt.

"It’s a long story, but I will tell you some of it. When I was a human general fighting for the freedom of Barovia, I...I suffered from moments of self-doubt. One night, before a particularly hopeless battle, a conjurer came to me with the Book of Keeping and told me that I could achieve easy victory with it. Foolishly, I agreed to use the book. Inajira came, and I agreed to serve his masters if they would grant me the throne of Barovia."

So Strahd wasn't the one to obtain Inajira's Book of Keeping, it was this random conjurer who did. Was this conjurer the "Death" that Strahd would later bargain with?

Indeed interesting questions. Another one would be:

Who/what are Inajiras masters? I would posit that one of them is "Death". And what kind of being would be a master to an arcanoloth? An ultroloth? Altraloth? A Baern? The description in I, Strahd and the sheer power of Death point to something as powerful as the highest of planar lords (i.e. Asmodeus, Demogorgon, ???).

And how does/did Strahd serve them? By becoming the first darklord in their newly created experimental demiplane?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

And how does/did Strahd serve them? By becoming the first darklord in their newly created experimental demiplane?

The whole issue of 'outing' the Dark Powers aside, that would imply that Strahd never actually breached his pact with Inajira, i.e. that he's doing exactly what he agreed to, by being a darklord. If so, why would Inajira act like Strahd had cheated his way out of their agreement? For that matter, why would the DPs have left the yugoloth trapped in the Land of Mists, if its mission to recruit Strahd as a darklord had been a complete success?

The way I'd interpret Strahd's statement about the "conjurer" was that he is simply lying to the PCs, to downplay his own level of indebtedness to Inajira. Claiming he'd sworn his service (though not his soul) at the urging of somebody else sounds rather less disreputable than admitting he'd voluntarily initiated a scheme to sell his soul to a fiend, and so makes the PCs' mission seem a tad more palatable. (Strahd knows very well that mortal heroes can be finicky about the nature of their missions, and he prefers to guard his mortal self's "honorable warrior" image when he can.)

FWIW, the being(s) with which Strahd swore his later pact never actually identified it/themselves as "Death". The voices Strahd heard claimed to be all manner of frightening things (probably metaphorically), and the aging Strahd's own fear of mortality led him to name their source "Death". The notion that one specific creature/force called "Death" was responsible for his transition to darklordship was therefore his own interpretation -- one the Dark Powers (hardly the most forthcoming of informants) never bothered to contradict -- rather than an idea the DPs, themselves, had ever initiated.

[The Giamarga]

Sure it could be that he lied about the conjurer. But then the question remains how he could have summoned an arcanoloth to a summoning circle. A feat that imho opinion was still beyond the aged fighter and dabbling wizard mortal Strahd. (At least by D&D rules, unless you use UA incantations.) But I don't think that the "to serve his masters" part is a lie. And the title "Death" aside, my questions remains: Who was/were the being(s) that he made his pact with and that told him how to (unwittingly) become a vampire. Who are/were Inajira's masters? (And what are/were their goals?)

I recently reread the scene in I Strahd and though it is never really revealed the entity does make it's overwhelming power known once. Strahd also writes about some notion of tentacles iirc. (Unfortunately I don't have the book with me now. So if anyone could look it up and quote the section that would be great.) This power was of deific proportions similar to how i would envision an albeit hidden appearance of a Fiendish Lord. And that fiendish would equate daemonic (or proto-daemonic) here is imho rather probable. Did I mention that the Ba'al Verzi stirke me as very daemonic in nature? Perhaps theys were taught how to fashion their knifes by daemons. I rather like the idea that the fiends behind the scenes in Barovia's history are daemons. That they are deeply hidden, and it is hard to make any sense of their goals only fits.