How do you portray Strahd?

[Don Fernando]

If only Ravenloft had therapy groups. Oh well.

"Hi, My Name is Strahd . . . and I'm an addict."

"Hi, Strahd"

"I haven't been able to break my addiction for over 500 years. I'm obsessed with this girl, you see, and just can't shake this. I've also got an issue with drinking. Blood, that is. . ."

(this is just a bit of fun. No offense intended to real groups that do good work helping many people)

LOL ... I guess addiction is not Sthrad's main problem, he is after all the quintessential stalker...

[Lovecraftforever]

True, I agree with Lovecraftforever.

But I consider Strahd to be evil and malicious, not because he was born that way, but because his life has made him that way. In I, Strahd he starts as a great general, his men have great loyalty for him (well not all.. ). but in becoming a Vampire he turned into a resentful and bitter man..err... vampire. I think this is 'cause he knows deep inside he did terrible things to become what he is.

And as for the land, unlike any other darklords Barovia was not given to him, he won the land in a war. It is, under his consideration, a well earned right.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR I STRAHD!!!!!!!!!

Ok. Something odd dawned on me.

The infamous night Strahd murdered his brother and his lady love. They would have died that night even if Strahd had not made the deal with the dark powers!

The night of the wedding just happened to be the same night the traitors in the castle chose to betray Strahd and kill him and the other royalty.

Strahds deal actually ended up SAVING the lives of many people.

[Don Fernando]

[..]

Strahds deal actually ended up SAVING the lives of many people.

True indeed! This is what makes that night so infamous for Strahd, that despite all of "efforts", the one person that should have survived actually died...and at his very own hands (come to think of it, this is really a terrible story to live with an entire eternity...)

[DilisnyaRevenge]

His "protectiveness" of his land can also be seen in a bit more sinister light. Remembering that the I Strahd books, including the Caretaker story in Tales of Ravenloft are told from his point of view, seen from the outside, it's not protectiveness, but extreme possessiveness. This ties into his lust for Tatyana. He's all about what's "rightfully" his: his land, his people, his woman.

I love this interpretation. Lots of food for thought in just this one paragraph.

[Sareau]

I think you need to be aware that Strahd is a Eastern nobleman-and Eastern Europe and Western Europe had vastly differing concepts of nobility. If you touched Strahd's people, even one under sentence of death by Strahd, you would be stepping on his toes, and then he'd have to land on you with both feet or lose his noble status from his perspective.

Strahd is an autocrat-technically, the land and all he owns are HIS-no one else may touch them without somehow diminishing Strahd's power, so of course he defends them much like a mother bear-but his motivation is not the protection of his people, but the protection of his power.

As one of Strahd's guards told a player in our campaign, "Do you really think HE needs us to maintain his authority? You have it backwards-HIS authority maintains our arms..."

Strahd is a noble, but also a danger-he is like a bonfire, best met with respect and distance...

[Lovecraftforever]

I think you need to be aware that Strahd is a Eastern nobleman-and Eastern Europe and Western Europe had vastly differing concepts of nobility. If you touched Strahd's people, even one under sentence of death by Strahd, you would be stepping on his toes, and then he'd have to land on you with both feet or lose his noble status from his perspective.

Strahd is an autocrat-technically, the land and all he owns are HIS-no one else may touch them without somehow diminishing Strahd's power, so of course he defends them much like a mother bear-but his motivation is not the protection of his people, but the protection of his power.

As one of Strahd's guards told a player in our campaign, "Do you really think HE needs us to maintain his authority? You have it backwards-HIS authority maintains our arms..."

Strahd is a noble, but also a danger-he is like a bonfire, best met with respect and distance...

Well, like the subject of the thread, Strahd is open to interpretation. I prefer the anti-hero Strahd.

[LadySoth]

Strahd is open to interpretation. I prefer the anti-hero Strahd.

I do too. Although at times Strahd does some admittedly terrible things, I still consistently like him as a character. I think he's first and foremost a self-centered conquerer, however, he has a highly developed sense of honor, and this keeps him to his own code of right and wrong. Surely his actions in the short story "Caretaker" are evidence enough of that. Whatever his motivations, his presence is a stabilizing one for Barovia, and his leadership tactics, while harsh, are certainly effective. I'd say, he's primarily a product of his time period and culture. The post about him being an Eastern European nobleman brought up several good points as well. Strahd definitely has that element of machismo that marks him from a masculine-centric culture, where he feels entitled to everything; this also can be seen in his relentless pursuit of Tatyana.

I am loving this thread.

For those interested, check similar discussion about Dracula's love-life here: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... php?t=7096
From a cultural standpoint, the two characters share much in common, although I would argue that literarily, Strahd is a much more advanced and defined character, by virtue of having so many books written about him, while we have comparatively little to go on in regards to Drac, except the original novel.

[sPtJanly]

The way my DM has been portraying Strahd has been evolving along side our characters. The Count's first introduction was shortly after the funeral of a slain party member. He had died saving my character from a cooper dragon who had recently come through the mists into Borovia.

The back story behind the dragon was that he had killed his life long mate and ate their clutch. The Dark Powers grabbed him up gifted him with a venomous scorpion tail. Sorry, I love details.

Strahd welcomed us into his home at Castle Ravenloft as heroes of Borovia for killing the dragon who was rampaging since his arrival. Reading over some of the previous posts I have come to a conclusion about one of Strahd's hiden characteristics that I never thought of before. I agree that he is extremely territorial and I believe that the vampireism has heighten that already natural trait he possessed in his mortal life. Underneath the gratitude I think there might have been resentment since he is the alpha male and was unable to fully protect the land from the dragon. The fact of the mater was that we had just stumbled upon the dragon first. Other than that he was accommodating in every way and I think we saw the more human side of Strahd who you would want to be friends with. He gave my character wise advice that has shaped the current state of how I play him now. Most of it was not an act with makes him truely a tragic figure in my mind.

We had a unique chance to spar with the count during the daylight hours. Yeah, either he has some high SPF sunscreen on or cast Mimic Mortal shortly before hand. In this I think he was showing off his deadly calm skill with his bastard sword. Another link to his mortality where he spent most of his life on a battlefield honing this skill. After we retired to his drawling room to smoke, drink, and talk about politics, joke and other matters like gentlemen do.

That night something spooked one of our party members and the next morning he asked if we could leave, now. Not sure of what it was, but the place is a sink hole of evil and wouldn't be to hard to imagine what got out despite Strahd's attempts to make the place look and feel normal. Well, as normal as a creepy run down castle can be.

In Borovia Village shortly after leaving the Castle one of our party members was replacing gear lost in the fight with the dragon and his acid breath. The merchant wouldn't serve "his kind" due to his half elven heritage and my character stepped in to tell the reluctant merchant that he is refusing a hero of Borovia and that we had just come from Castle Ravenloft as guests of his Count. The fear and instant compliance was unsettling and my character felt bad that issue was pushed. It reveled another part of Strahd's nature that his people were visibly scared to raise his ire. We might as well had a OR rating once word spread we had just come back from the Castle.

The second encounter with Strahd was a year or two later and there was an apparent change in his outward behavior. The castle was being renovated and massive trade was being opened throughout the domain and beyond. Like the Count had done for my character with his advise, another of our party members had opened the door of trade with him since our first departure. He dealt in producing and selling the count magic for two reasons. To make gold and secretly to keep tabs on Strahd's activities since he was the one who wanted to leave the Castle during our first stay. Something about these transactions and visit from our group had sparked a desire to open himself and the Castle to the outside world again. Though strictly on his terms with some comprise, but he was making an effort to appear more human like. Maybe this is a genuine desire to bring Borovia prosperity, but the beast in him still holds the reins. I think one of the hiden motives is to search the core for his lost love through expanded trade.

Dr. Von Ricton is a close friend and ally to the group and like an uncle to my character. He is disturbed by one particular detail in our encounters with the Count, his ability to walk in the daylight. Either he was mistaken in the research of the Guide to Vampires about Strahd or he is more powerful of a vampire than he figured in the timeline of events he uncovered. He is reluctantly leaning toward the the second conclusion and will more than likely find the truth of the matter soon enough in his research. Strahd's previous stand on the Von Ricton's Guide to Vampires in Borovia was merely propaganda and and slander against the Count. Now he wants to have the Doctor as an invited guest to the Castle to discuss the misunderstands of the Guide.

One of my favorites. Any time you shine a light (......) on a NPC of RL and develop upon on not only their established backstrory, but their continued evolution, your going to find your players have a more serious response to the NPC and their qualities and flaws.

[Sareau]

For those interested, check similar discussion about Dracula's love-life here: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... php?t=7096
From a cultural standpoint, the two characters share much in common, although I would argue that literarily, Strahd is a much more advanced and defined character, by virtue of having so many books written about him, while we have comparatively little to go on in regards to Drac, except the original novel.

Comparatively little? Between novels, comics, movies, television, and even commercials, there's a plethora of material out there on Dracula-more if you include his real life counterpart, Vlad IV. Dracula is the most filmed character in movies after Sherlock Holmes, although Dracula may have passed Holmes in recent decades.

There's so much out there on Dracula, in fact, that I think he's inspired three or four darklords, all based on different interpretations of the vampire and their Prince of Darkness.

Canonically, Stoker only wrote the one novel, true-though Fred Saberhagen practically made a career out of his Dracula novels, and there are more Dracula novels out there than anyone wants to recount.

Aside from reigning Prince of Darkness for the past century or so, Dracula has dominated our culture, becoming an icon of decadence, evil, and the aristocracy. He is Power run amok, the worst excesses of wealth and privilege, the nastiest underbelly of government exposed, and yet, he is a prince as noble and pure as from any fairy tale. He is equally comfortable in the halls of the socialists as the palaces of the wealthy, and he is something we all recognise as hand in hand with power and wealth-it isn't a paucity of material, but it's abundance that makes Dracula hard to figure out.

Of course, it means also no one is wrong in their interpretation of the character, either...

[Don Fernando]

FWIW I see Strahd as a completely different character compared to Dracula.
Less driven by "the hunger" and more calculating and cold. Also in my games I like to emphasize his abilities in the arcane, using necromancy as often as he can. I think this makes him a more complicated character too.

This might sound crazy but I have always liked the portrayal of Strahd in Strahd's Possession (PC game).I think I kept that image 'cause I enjoyed the game so much.

[Zettaijin]

For those interested, check similar discussion about Dracula's love-life here: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... php?t=7096
From a cultural standpoint, the two characters share much in common, although I would argue that literarily, Strahd is a much more advanced and defined character, by virtue of having so many books written about him, while we have comparatively little to go on in regards to Drac, except the original novel.

Comparatively little? Between novels, comics, movies, television, and even commercials, there's a plethora of material out there on Dracula-more if you include his real life counterpart, Vlad IV. Dracula is the most filmed character in movies after Sherlock Holmes, although Dracula may have passed Holmes in recent decades.

There's so much out there on Dracula, in fact, that I think he's inspired three or four darklords, all based on different interpretations of the vampire and their Prince of Darkness.

Canonically, Stoker only wrote the one novel, true-though Fred Saberhagen practically made a career out of his Dracula novels, and there are more Dracula novels out there than anyone wants to recount.

Aside from reigning Prince of Darkness for the past century or so, Dracula has dominated our culture, becoming an icon of decadence, evil, and the aristocracy. He is Power run amok, the worst excesses of wealth and privilege, the nastiest underbelly of government exposed, and yet, he is a prince as noble and pure as from any fairy tale. He is equally comfortable in the halls of the socialists as the palaces of the wealthy, and he is something we all recognise as hand in hand with power and wealth-it isn't a paucity of material, but it's abundance that makes Dracula hard to figure out.

Of course, it means also no one is wrong in their interpretation of the character, either...

I'm partial to the portly, mustachioed itteration of Dracula seen in Shaitani Dracula. There's something to be said about a Dracula who seems more comfortable rambling from his lawn chair in the back of his house than running about as a blood sucking anachronism with an accent.

[LadySoth]

Comparatively little? Between novels, comics, movies, television, and even commercials, there's a plethora of material out there on Dracula-more if you include his real life counterpart, Vlad IV. Dracula is the most filmed character in movies after Sherlock Holmes, although Dracula may have passed Holmes in recent decades.

True. However, while numerous other creative minds have tried their hand at writing in the Dracula mythos, here, I was referring to Stoker's original depiction of the character. (of which there is only the novel Dracula and the short story/omitted first chapter "Dracula's Guest")

Basing a lot of Stoker's characterization of Dracula on the real-life historical figure is in actuality a bit of a misnomer, since Stoker had the entire novel outlined, and the character largely concieved before he came across the exploits of Vlad the Impaler i.e. "Dracula." According to horror film historian David J. Skal, Stoker used the Dracula myth as a "window-dressing" for the character, a neat way to finish off his initial conception, rather than the core of his vampire count.

[Sareau]

About the only thing Stoker used from Vlad IV in his book was the nickname, which he liked. However, the character of Dracula, particularly the description Stoker uses, is that of a actor Stoker intended to play the Count in plays of his novel-the play Stoker himself wrote for the actor is pretty bad, which goes to show even Stoker could't be relied upon to keep his Dracula consistent.

If you tell anyone Dracula dies by havig his throat slit by a Bowie knife as the sun sets, they'll look at you like you're an idiot-I've won bar bets with that one.

[ewancummins]

Bowie knives are magic. Everybody knows that. The first was forged from a fallen star!

[DocBeard]

Castlevania Dracula. At least for fight scenes; turning into a whole flock of bats, spitting fire, rising out of a targeted PC's shadow, that whole deal. If the players work their way to a direct confrontation with Strahd, they deserve all the stops being pulled out.