Café de Nuit

This is an odd thread I thought would be useful for the game. How do you think a love-story should be run between two characters when one of them is a monster of Ravenloft? Presuming the character is already in love with one of them or likely to fall in love when they become or are revealed as a creature of the night.

It's come up in my stories recently.

This would be drastically affected by what type of monster the PC's potential love-interest happens to be, and which one (the human or the monster, or both for that matter) is fixated on the other. Details?

I agree with Rotipher, I need a bit more detail. What kind of monster, who is the character etc.

A love story including a goblin would be cute.

How about something with a bit more flavor, and more classic? May be done a lot, but how about a fey and a human? 'Course, an elf and a fey would be interesting as well...

A love story including a goblin would be cute.

Ick.

Well depending on what the 'monster' is you could follow themes of tragedy, fatalism, unwholsomeness(I hope thats a word), the intolerance of others or even hope. Could be a good opportunity to show the other players the emotional side of the 'monster'. I almost always portray creatures as sympathetic.
An example I like that I've done is set the players against some goblins in Darkon. They were going to ambush a small 'villiage' of the guys when they saw how affectionate a mother goblin was to its young. They ended up trying a more diplomatic approach and avoided bloodshed. (I portray creatures differently depending on the domain- thus those same goblins in Tepest would've been crueler and wouldn't've displayed even the slightest affection towards their young). Don't know if that helped but it would be interesting to know what monster you are referring to.

MY group of PC finally befriended the dreaded Dr. Nicephor Scola* , a neutral evil psychiatrist/necromancer who began as a simple "lets spook the players" character and who will probably end as a major vilain later on. I just played well his high mental stats and he managed to profit greatly from the players (who mostly don't understand very well how). He is now just waiting for the best occasion to slip away, preferably with the PCs thinking he's dead.

What the PC did to help him in his task will much later on turns again them.

Not really related to romance but that's just to say how much fun it is to play your "monsters" to the best of their habilities... It then become easy to slowly drag the PC to the dark side as they gradually find more reasons to justify their acts.




* See my other related thread about integrating Ravenloft in an ongoing campaign for more info on that NPC.

In my game one of the PCs has a nasty habit of meeting wrong "women"/monsters (due to failed powers check). First it was a hag disguised as a beautiful maid, then red widow, now Ivana Boritsi. Not exactly the same thing, till the end PC was convinced that they were women. And romance didn't last longer than one night.

Hi all,

And romance didn't last longer than one night.

that is not romance!

truly romance between a monster and PC could very well happen. Vampires, fey, and werewolves are of course the more obvious choices. thing pretending to be women, but really allegories for sexually insatiable women (red widows, hags, etc etc) are also good, but the romance will end badly rather quickly.

What is the end goal of the romance? mariage, family, puppies (or children) or five minutes of feeling each other up in an alley? that also changes the perspective a bit. One should involve long walks, poetry, gifts and the other merely a strong drink.

So, basically, we need to hear more.

jennifer

A good NPC to be used for romance purpose on a female PC would be Tristen ApBlanc, lord of Forlorn who have a charisma of 19. I will describe his Vampyre form more like a manly charismatic highlander ( a la William Wallace/Mel Gibson ), using the movie soundtrack in the background. The picture in Domains of dreads doesn't do him justice at all. One must really read the forlorn box set to understand the potential...

It will be a challenge to explain his disapearance every evening and his innability to leave the castle but it is worth a try.

Oh, I was confused. That's not romance- that's lust. Romance is far more than physical attraction, here I was thinking there was an emotional attatchment. Use accurate words.

Its emotional attachment and let's go for the classic in Vampire.

Okay, a vampire. That's a classic as you say, but it still leaves a number of questions open.

What are the vampire's true intentions towards the PC? Is the character just a light snack in the making, or a desirable slave, or a potential 'bride/groom'? Does the vampire genuinely care for the PC, to whatever degree you feel vampires to be capable of caring IYC? Does the vampire actually not want to make the PC undead, be it for affection's sake or for convenience (i.e. it's helpful to have an ally who doesn't disintegrate in daylight)?

How 'old' is this vampire, both chronologically (which greatly affects the vampire's power, in Ravenloft) and psychologically (which affects how 'human' the vampire acts and feels)? Is the vampire in thrall to an older, stronger master? If not, are there vampire spawn or slaves in the vampiric loved one's service, who might be jealous of their master's love or attention toward the PC?

What are the PC's intentions toward the vampire, for that matter?

Actually, the main problem in RL is to create the romantic situation in the first place because most players/PCs gets very suspicious of everything in these cursed lands .