Café de Nuit

Unfurtunately, as some of the GC's part-Vistani offspring are female, you can't call them "dukkars" without throwing out the traditional male-with-the-Sight definition the Vistani have been using for centuries.

Rotipher of the FoS wrote:Unfurtunately, as some of the GC's part-Vistani offspring are female, you can't call them "dukkars" without throwing out the traditional male-with-the-Sight definition the Vistani have been using for centuries.

true enough...I forot there is female spawn too...

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote: But Vigo's true form is an abomination which he hides with Illusions, making him still a candidate for the half-fiend template. I've not got the Gaz IV to hand at the moment, though, so I'll have to look at it before I can check Malocchio's stats again. I could be wrong.

I don't remember anything about Vigo's true form is an abomination...just that he is not really Vlad Drakov's son

I don't remember anything about Vigo's true form is an abomination...just that he is not really Vlad Drakov's son

I think it mentions it near the end of the Dread Possibility.

I'm pretty sure the Gentleman Caller's Children are indeed Half Fiends. Remember, Half fiends don't necessarily have to look a certain way. As well, there's always that element of Ravenloft that puts slight changes on D&D to create the atmosphere.

Lest the GC's children look like David Grohl in a Tenacious D music video

I just watched Pan's Labyrinth and found it very impressive. There's a Fascist officer in that movie who is quite depraved and cruel, and makes for a case study in army brutality.

Needless to say, I thought of the Drakovs immediately when I saw him.

It's worth watching the movie for that alone, regardless of the other compelling reasons to watch it.

I'll list a few interesting things I saw in that character below.

SPOILERS. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE (or intend to).

* Having caught two villagers in the woods, the Captain began his interrogation while looking through their bags. The father began explaining that he was catching rabbits, and the Captain scoffed at that. The son said that if his father said they were hunting rabbits, then they were hunting rabbits. The Captain took out a bottle from their bags, broke it across the son's face, and then proceeded to gouge out the son's eyes with the shards.
The father began screaming and the Captain drew his pistol and shot the father through the throat. Then he leaned close and fired shots point-blank into the heads of both men.
Finally, he found two freshly killed rabbits in the bags, and gruffly scolded his underlings for failing to adequately search the peasants before bothering him with trivialities. The Captain gave the rabbits to his cook to skin and make into stew.

* The Captain's father, a General, died in battle long ago. Before dying, he smashed his pocket watch on a rock, so his heirs would know the exact time of his death. The Captain now owns the watch and keeps it meticulously oiled and smooth-running, but he also preserved the cracked watchface as a reminder to himself. He intends to pass it on to his infant son.

* The Captain is fearless and ruthless in battle and toys with dying enemies, even aiming his gun at them within arm's reach and letting them try to avert from the gun. There's a streak of a death wish, too - he eggs on his own men by telling them it is the best way to die in battle.

* On the day his heavily pregnant wife comes to meet him, the Captain and his soldiers form an honor guard at the gate of the keep. Yet the Captain's sole comment is "You're late". His outward conduct towards her is solicitous - such as bringing her a wheelchair and umbrellas - but there is the unmistakable threat that she does not have a choice but to accept his hospitality.

* In torturing prisoners, he shows prisoners the instruments of his craft and describes what they will do to their bodies. Then he gives them a little challenge, to see if he will let them go free. In this case, he gives a stammering man the chance to leave if he can count to three without stuttering. When the man gets to "three" and then stutters, the Captain makes sympathetic noises and then shatters the man's cheekbone with a hammer.

* His pre-teen stepdaughter tries to rescue his infant son from him. He pursues her and finds her in a clearing. He wordlessly takes the son from her grasp and then shoots her in the stomach. Outside, finding himself surrounded, his last words are for his captors to tell his son what time he died. (Whereupon the captors shoot him in the face, in his right cheekbone. The Captain staggers briefly, with his right eye rolling back in its socket, before falling.)