I’m starting a Curse of Strahd campaign this weekend, but I’ll be running it as “Strahd’s Salvation”, wherein characters are Strahd’s “friends” and allies, seeking to lift the curse so they can all (including Strahd) die in peace, and STAY dead. This will mean the characters will know Strahd’s full history, which I’ll tweak in places, and be quite familiar with Barovia. Both of these are fine, because despite the setting being already written, I’ll allow plenty of opportunity for the players to customize the world through some carefully crafted questions (which I have not carefully crafted yet, but when I do I’ll post them).
My concern right now is starting level. They have been around for centuries and could conceivably be 10th level, but I don’t think it would be satisfying to start a campaign at level 10.
What I THINK I’ll do is let my players pick a standard DW playbook, level it to 10, and then have the character die and be “reborn” as skeleton, mummy, ghost, etc. (one of the Awful Good Games playbooks). The characters will then start the game with 10 levels of something, and then start over at level 1 with an undead playbook (keeping all of their level 10 moves and stats). BUT I DON’T KNOW IF THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO HANDLE IT.
What do you think is the best way to represent characters that have been around for centuries (who may have died a time or two) to start my “Strahd’s Salvation” campaign? (No amnesia lol)
Thanks in advance!
Start them at level one and fictionally position them as powerful – a punch can knock down a door, or whatever. But maybe they’re just old or newly undead and it’s hard to manifest powers just yet
That’s a great idea, and being “newly” undead can be fun for the fiction, as we discover WHY they’re newly undead… did they run into an adventuring party that was there to kill Strahd (giving them an added nemesis running around)? Did they do something to displease their master (showing he can be brutal even to his allies, creating a great motivation for the characters to try to end the state of affairs)? Did they meet up with von Richten and lose (foreshadowing a powerful enemy)?
Also, as you said, being “newly” undead and needing to relearn how to manifest their power is a fictionally appropriate way to rationalize a level 1 start.
My players will have fun with that, roleplaying how their characters REMEMBER that they can do a thing, but are unable to do so because of their setback. Thanks Aaron Griffin!
Their psyche mostly consists of memories and emotion, not knowledge and training. They start at 1st, and as they gain levels, they are remembering their abilities of old. Maybe they are reborn into bodies of freshly created, and relatively unscathed, zombies down in one of Strahd’s laboratories.
Yes, memories and emotion. That’s how I’ll spin it to them! Thanks R Patrick Neal!
I’m thinking something similar to Revenants though (Like the Order of the Silver Dragon), but not based on “revenge”. Their “spirit seeks out a new corpse or skeleton to animate…” (Curse of Strahd page 130)
I think starting first level is of utmost importance. The level reflects the arc of that character within your campaign, not the character as a whole. Remember. They play THE fighter and THE Cleric, and see how they evolve across, and during your adventure. As a GM, you can always grant a free move of their class, or a free move you make for them, earned narratively.