So I've been running curse of strahd for a while now and (after sort of ruining the old bonegrinder encounter, as i had my party face strahd for the first time in person shortly after leaving the village of barovia, where he gave them an ultimatum to meet him at his castle or else he would hunt them down himself, so they were so scared they ran right past the windmill) the party recently arrived in vallaki. i've been reading up on the chapter a little and i really like izek, though i don't think he's really all that fleshed out or well utilized, especially seeing as he's ireena's brother, so i've been trying to come up with something more interesting. my idea is as follows:
vargas first encountered izek when he was still a young boy living in the orphanage, where he was sent to after the tragic death of his parents and the loss of his sister during a wolf attack. being aware of lady wachter and her disdain for his family, as well as her open admiration for strahd, he realized she would eventually try to get rid of him, so he needed a way to protect himself against her. seeing potential in the young boy, vargas decided that izek would be that way. for that end he used a powerful spellbook he found in the woods during his youth -originally belonging to a certain mad mage and the same book his son uses in his escape attempts-, to make a pact with a fiend to force izek into serving him. however encountering ireena (in my game ismark went with the party to vallaki to help protect ireena, as he felt he needed to fulfil his father's last wish to see ireena safe from strahd. however once in vallaki, he will decide to travel back to barovia to follow in his father's footsteps, while asking vargas to look out for her in his absence, which will lead to the inevitable encounter of ireena and izek), forces his old personality to shine through, causing him to act in a somewhat strange and erratic manner, as his two conflicting personalities clash with each other. the goal is for the party to pick up on his behaviour, uncover what happened to izek and to hopefully free him from vargas's influence.
what do you guys think? i'm not sure if it is the best story ever, but i feel it's somewhat of a waste for a character so closely connected to ireena to not really do much and most likely to just die in battle.
It's entirely up to you if you want to make him more complex. He's not that important a character really, and is it really worth having the players invest time and energy into his storyline? Izek is written as a cruel brute - how much opportunity for conversation is there really going to be for him to talk to the PCs?
If your PCs enjoy a meandering adventure where they explore the lives of the NPCs then it might be worthwhile, but if your PCs are more keen on dealing with Strahd and escaping the mists they'll likely just cut him down anyway.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So I've been running curse of strahd for a while now and (after sort of ruining the old bonegrinder encounter, as i had my party face strahd for the first time in person shortly after leaving the village of barovia, where he gave them an ultimatum to meet him at his castle or else he would hunt them down himself, so they were so scared they ran right past the windmill) the party recently arrived in vallaki. i've been reading up on the chapter a little and i really like izek, though i don't think he's really all that fleshed out or well utilized, especially seeing as he's ireena's brother, so i've been trying to come up with something more interesting. my idea is as follows:
vargas first encountered izek when he was still a young boy living in the orphanage, where he was sent to after the tragic death of his parents and the loss of his sister during a wolf attack. being aware of lady wachter and her disdain for his family, as well as her open admiration for strahd, he realized she would eventually try to get rid of him, so he needed a way to protect himself against her. seeing potential in the young boy, vargas decided that izek would be that way. for that end he used a powerful spellbook he found in the woods during his youth -originally belonging to a certain mad mage and the same book his son uses in his escape attempts-, to make a pact with a fiend to force izek into serving him. however encountering ireena (in my game ismark went with the party to vallaki to help protect ireena, as he felt he needed to fulfil his father's last wish to see ireena safe from strahd. however once in vallaki, he will decide to travel back to barovia to follow in his father's footsteps, while asking vargas to look out for her in his absence, which will lead to the inevitable encounter of ireena and izek), forces his old personality to shine through, causing him to act in a somewhat strange and erratic manner, as his two conflicting personalities clash with each other. the goal is for the party to pick up on his behaviour, uncover what happened to izek and to hopefully free him from vargas's influence.
what do you guys think? i'm not sure if it is the best story ever, but i feel it's somewhat of a waste for a character so closely connected to ireena to not really do much and most likely to just die in battle.
It's entirely up to you if you want to make him more complex. He's not that important a character really, and is it really worth having the players invest time and energy into his storyline? Izek is written as a cruel brute - how much opportunity for conversation is there really going to be for him to talk to the PCs?
If your PCs enjoy a meandering adventure where they explore the lives of the NPCs then it might be worthwhile, but if your PCs are more keen on dealing with Strahd and escaping the mists they'll likely just cut him down anyway.