For my Ravenloft characters, I decided that every character I make is a heroic version of one of the Darklords. And for my first, I decided to start simple with a character archtype that everyone knows about so I can let a some of the characterization run on autopilot. Since one of the 5E Darklords, Saidra d'Honaire, is an evil version and deconstruction of Cinderella, this character is another incarnation and deconstruction of the fairy tale. Her name is Talia. Like most incarnations, she started out as a house servant or slave for an abusive step family. And through determination, cleverness, and sheer good luck, she managed to not only escape that, but marry into royalty. And this is where the horror specific flaw comes in.
Abuse like the kind most incarnations of Cinderella go through does not go away overnight. It leaves psychological wounds that can take a long time to heal if ever. And now, Talia is in a class that calls the shots, part of her is thinking the same thing her stepfamily thought. "Servants and disobedient should know their place and get punished when they do badly." And this creates much conflict in her. For example her abusive stepfamily ended up getting forced into becoming servants for houses that were just as harsh. On one hand, Talia thinks "They deserve this for how they treated me." On the other hand, she also thinks "This is not justice, it's reversing the roles and it makes me no better." I've even established that before she went throught the mists, Talia started taking therapy to try and keep her from becoming as vile as her step family.
And now suddenly, she finds herself in a living nightmare ruled by someone who was also once in her shoes, but made all the wrong choices. In other words, the horror for this character isn't about imposter syndrome. It's about fighting her inner darkness. And this can apply to other domains as well. In fact, the character is intended for a trip through multiple domains to avoid main character syndrome. So, how should this translate to roleplay? And how would it avoid dissing the other players, what was how badly girl bosses are portrayed and perceived nowadays?
BTW, here's her personality
Personality traits: No one must endure what I went through. I take great pains to always look my best and follow the current fashion trends.
Ideals: Justice. Justice is blind, not heartless. And heartless, is what I and other servants go through.
Bond: I love Ethan (Ethan is her husband and the Kingdom's prince) more then anything else in the whole world. I'll go through hell to keep his love.
Flaw: Sometimes if the right button is pushed, I induldge in the abusive behavior my stepfamily had.
When dealing with something you believe to be questionable, consult with the players of your group and see if any of them have sensitivities to it. The group I play with don't have any issues with someone going as heroic or villainous as they want to. In one game I'm in, the group has no real moral compass. When I was selecting starting gear for my character I questioned why he would have a Dungeoneer's Pack. Another player told me "You can use the pitons to restrain people you want to interrogate!" Dungeoneer's Pack it is then. In another game which I DM, a "doctor" character dissected a living (well, at the start) imp while I narrated that other devils were looking on with admiration. We were laughing about it.
But you're not in our group. So check with your own, because I've obviously got a "RP Morality" tolerance level that's going to skew things way beyond normal.
From my view, Talia is the antithesis of Strahd. Strahd wants to forcibly take the character that he believes to be a reincarnation of his wife. With Talia's backstory and traits, when she inevitably finds out about this, she should be out to stop Strahd by any means necessary. Her obvious goal would be to stop Strahd's target from becoming a victim the same way Talia was. How far into her own darkness she's going to go for that would be up to her (you) and the party she's traveling with. My group would love her. But, again, we're not your group.
And don't worry about what anybody outside your group thinks about how your group has fun. If your group likes it and they don't, that's not your problem.
For my Ravenloft characters, I decided that every character I make is a heroic version of one of the Darklords. And for my first, I decided to start simple with a character archtype that everyone knows about so I can let a some of the characterization run on autopilot. Since one of the 5E Darklords, Saidra d'Honaire, is an evil version and deconstruction of Cinderella, this character is another incarnation and deconstruction of the fairy tale. Her name is Talia. Like most incarnations, she started out as a house servant or slave for an abusive step family. And through determination, cleverness, and sheer good luck, she managed to not only escape that, but marry into royalty. And this is where the horror specific flaw comes in.
Abuse like the kind most incarnations of Cinderella go through does not go away overnight. It leaves psychological wounds that can take a long time to heal if ever. And now, Talia is in a class that calls the shots, part of her is thinking the same thing her stepfamily thought. "Servants and disobedient should know their place and get punished when they do badly." And this creates much conflict in her. For example her abusive stepfamily ended up getting forced into becoming servants for houses that were just as harsh. On one hand, Talia thinks "They deserve this for how they treated me." On the other hand, she also thinks "This is not justice, it's reversing the roles and it makes me no better." I've even established that before she went throught the mists, Talia started taking therapy to try and keep her from becoming as vile as her step family.
And now suddenly, she finds herself in a living nightmare ruled by someone who was also once in her shoes, but made all the wrong choices. In other words, the horror for this character isn't about imposter syndrome. It's about fighting her inner darkness. And this can apply to other domains as well. In fact, the character is intended for a trip through multiple domains to avoid main character syndrome. So, how should this translate to roleplay? And how would it avoid dissing the other players, what was how badly girl bosses are portrayed and perceived nowadays?
BTW, here's her personality
Personality traits: No one must endure what I went through. I take great pains to always look my best and follow the current fashion trends.
Ideals: Justice. Justice is blind, not heartless. And heartless, is what I and other servants go through.
Bond: I love Ethan (Ethan is her husband and the Kingdom's prince) more then anything else in the whole world. I'll go through hell to keep his love.
Flaw: Sometimes if the right button is pushed, I induldge in the abusive behavior my stepfamily had.
When dealing with something you believe to be questionable, consult with the players of your group and see if any of them have sensitivities to it. The group I play with don't have any issues with someone going as heroic or villainous as they want to. In one game I'm in, the group has no real moral compass. When I was selecting starting gear for my character I questioned why he would have a Dungeoneer's Pack. Another player told me "You can use the pitons to restrain people you want to interrogate!" Dungeoneer's Pack it is then. In another game which I DM, a "doctor" character dissected a living (well, at the start) imp while I narrated that other devils were looking on with admiration. We were laughing about it.
But you're not in our group. So check with your own, because I've obviously got a "RP Morality" tolerance level that's going to skew things way beyond normal.
From my view, Talia is the antithesis of Strahd. Strahd wants to forcibly take the character that he believes to be a reincarnation of his wife. With Talia's backstory and traits, when she inevitably finds out about this, she should be out to stop Strahd by any means necessary. Her obvious goal would be to stop Strahd's target from becoming a victim the same way Talia was. How far into her own darkness she's going to go for that would be up to her (you) and the party she's traveling with. My group would love her. But, again, we're not your group.
And don't worry about what anybody outside your group thinks about how your group has fun. If your group likes it and they don't, that's not your problem.
Sounds good. Thank you. And it makes options for other domains as well.