My group are very mercenary, so it's quite possible they might end up delivering Irina to Strahd in the hopes that he'll let them leave. Has anyone had to deal with this possibility?
As someone who has not played Strahd, I would encourage you to use the spoiler function on the tooltip and not put story details in your title. That way you aren’t giving anything away for those that have not gone through the module yet. Again, I have not played it (yet) so I could be wrong but seems like a spoiler of a particular story line.
Don't worry, he didn't spoil anything. In the Curse of Strahd campaign, the party will be introduced to Ireena right away and will be told that Strahd wants her. It's no more a spoiler than it is to say Strahd is a vampire.
To answer the question, though, Strahd is very arrogant, and would probably not think he needs the party's help getting Ireena. Sure, he was grateful to the Vistani in the far past, but that was after they sheltered him from his enemies when he was in legitimate danger. If your party of level 3 characters were to start off the campaign delivering her to Strahd, he'd probably laugh and consider it a meaningless gesture. Best case scenario, he offers to turn one of them into vampire spawn, so they may walk as wolves among sheep. Strahd is a vampire, and he and his minions need blood to feed on, so he can't just let new blood out of Barovia (assuming he even has the power to let someone escape through the Mists in the first place).
My group are very mercenary, so it's quite possible they might end up delivering Irina to Strahd in the hopes that he'll let them leave. Has anyone had to deal with this possibility?
As someone who has not played Strahd, I would encourage you to use the spoiler function on the tooltip and not put story details in your title. That way you aren’t giving anything away for those that have not gone through the module yet. Again, I have not played it (yet) so I could be wrong but seems like a spoiler of a particular story line.
Don't worry, he didn't spoil anything. In the Curse of Strahd campaign, the party will be introduced to Ireena right away and will be told that Strahd wants her. It's no more a spoiler than it is to say Strahd is a vampire.
To answer the question, though, Strahd is very arrogant, and would probably not think he needs the party's help getting Ireena. Sure, he was grateful to the Vistani in the far past, but that was after they sheltered him from his enemies when he was in legitimate danger. If your party of level 3 characters were to start off the campaign delivering her to Strahd, he'd probably laugh and consider it a meaningless gesture. Best case scenario, he offers to turn one of them into vampire spawn, so they may walk as wolves among sheep. Strahd is a vampire, and he and his minions need blood to feed on, so he can't just let new blood out of Barovia (assuming he even has the power to let someone escape through the Mists in the first place).
Good to know, didn’t want that to come across all salty