Burgomaster Ivan Randovich

Ivan Randovich was the burgomaster of Orașnou and a member of its ruling council. Openly contemptuous and greedy, Ivan Randovich was also secretly one of the Obsessions, a group of special agents serving Esmae Amarantha, the mightiest Barovian Witch in Barovia. Service to his mistress ultimately resulted in Ivan's death.

History

Like his liege, Count Strahd von Zarovich, Ivan Randovich was a tyrant whose rule inspired dread and despair in the villagers of Orașnou. He unjustly confiscated personal goods from villagers and skimmed the taxes he was responsible for collecting for years- all for some increased feeling of protection that he could never fulfill. Despite his skimming, Ivan retained Strahd's favor and support. This was yet another source of fear for the townspeople, for they knew it meant Strahd's wrath. Eugen Adi and Scartia Krutz were Ivan's tax collectors.

Burgomaster Ivan Randovich gained considerable wealth from the people of Orașnou. In addition to the heavy taxes he levied, he maintained a monopoly on the sale of many goods, things for which he established high prices. He lived in the stately Randovich Manor, protected by a wall and a retinue of thugs. This is not to say that the manor was unbreachable- Fillar Esven regularly pilfered from Ivan's ill-gotten gains without detection for a time.

Ivan Randovich was the lover of Lady Marilena Fidatov. Their love was not genuine but rather a mutual attempt to manipulate each other. Marilena broke off their engagement when she discovered Ivan's infidelity. In revenge, Ivan paid off one of her servants to poison her during a gala ball. As she perished, Marilena called out to dark powers not to let her manor prove benefit to anyone else. They cursed the manor and its inhabitants to repeat the last hours of their existence by day and become frightful parodies by night. Marilena lingered on as a banshee, determined not to let anyone gain her wealth. For his part, Ivan decreed that none should approach Fidatov Manor.

Eventually Ivan Randovich met the witch named Esmae Amarantha. She recognized his irrational love for wealth and exploited it, putting him to work in her schemes. Esmae Amarantha thought of him as the Third of her Obsessions. Ivan was the one who discovered the imprisonment of the Evening Glory in the Amber Temple. Esmae recruited his help in breaching the Amber Temple. Ivan seduced and manipulated one of the wizards of the Amber Temple to murder Dr. Keletifold, a necessity to open the vault imprisoning the Evening Glory's vestige. Later, Ivan secured Tatyana's comb for Esmae. It was an item Esmae needed for her final transformation into an immortal Tatyana Federovna.

Although fulfilling Strahd's tax requirements always proved a daunting task for Ivan Randovich, things seemed dire during an especially brutal winter. A series of calamities and mishaps resulted in the loss or destruction of much of Orașnou's food and livestock supply. It would seem that the village would be doomed to perish either through starvation or through Strahd's punishment for failing to pay its taxes. Outlander adventurers appeared from the Mists and helped to mitigate the situation

Through their adventures, the outlanders discovered several secrets. After they put to rest Lady Fidatov, Ivan Randovich feared their suspicions of his darker motives. He recruited the adventurers for a mission to the Amber Temple to find an artifact that would allegedly imprison the dark entities responsible for Orașnou's troubles. In truth, the artifact was the silver locket, an artifact Esmae used to hold the Evening Glory's essence before merging with the vestige. The retrieval of the artifact would please Esmae- or give Ivan some protection if she turned against him. Ivan ultimately intended for the adventurers to not leave the temple alive- killed either by the temple's dangers or by Ivan himself. When the adventurers emerged from the Temple, Ivan and his bodyguards attacked them, only to be slain in the ensuing combat.

The death of their burgomaster left Orașnou's villagers with a new sense of fear in the form of uncertainty. Despite his self-serving ways, his guiding hand had given them a sense of security. Scartia Krutz was left in charge of running the town and ensuring the tax payments to Strahd- tasks she find monumentally difficult.