Difference between revisions of "Rudolph van Richten"

Latest revision as of 15:14, 29 July 2018

The Legend

Rudolph van Richten is an old monster hunter. Let me say that again...he is an old monster hunter. He got into the monster hunting trade around the time his son was 14, which would probably put van Richten in his late thirties to early forties. Ball-parking it, he's probably at least in his 80s by now. This is a man who has been hunting and slaying monsters for decades.

The name Van Richten is known; the common folk know it, the monsters know it--he is a legend. Imagine if you will, the 'scary stories' that parents tell their kids to possibly frighten them away from certain things. Van Richten is the scary story that monsters tell their children. By the time your players meet him (for real--not just his disguise), they should have heard the name several times. So, how should this play out? Here are a few ideas...

• Van Richten wrote a series of books, detailing all he knew about monsters of all sorts. The 'Van Richten's Guide to the [monster]' series. Perhaps your players find a copy of one...perhaps when they succeed on a monster-knowledge check, you tell them that they remember reading [fact] in the book Van Richten's Guide to [monster].

• If the players do something impressive involving slaying monsters, have NPCs compare them to the legends they have heard of Van Richten.

• Perhaps work with a player to inject an encounter with Van Richten into their backstory.

• If the PCs are hanging around somewhere, perhaps someone in a tavern launches into a story of one of Rudolph Van Richten's exploits.

• Some monsters are afraid of him. If Van Richten drops the Rictavio disguise and who he is becomes known, intelligent monsters may balk at the idea of fighting him. Others may specifically target him for the 'glory of killing Van Richten.'

• If NPCs become aware of who he is, their treatment of him should border on worship...albeit, distant. Just imagine if Batman suddenly turned up in the local pub. They are astounded by him, admire him, but are kind of afraid of him.

The Beginning - A Physician

Before Van Richten became the great monster hunter he is known as today, he was a doctor. His medical background should carry through into how he operates today.

• He does have a good Medicine check, and should be quick to look for cause of death, stabilize injured people, treat injuries, etc.

• He should have a great deal of understanding about anatomy, and has extended this knowledge to include monster anatomy and biology. He knows what harms them and why, he knows where to hit them to make it hurt. He has figured this out by doing autopsies on monsters he killed.

• To reflect his medical background, I gave him the Healer Feat. (Seriously, what doctor wouldn't be able to use medical supplies to patch someone up effectively?)

• His way of thinking and his approach to things has a scholarly bent. He is not quick to rush into danger and instead gathers information before he acts.

The Weight of Experience

Van Richten is (certainly within Ravenloft) the most experienced monster hunter to have ever lived. Additionally, we know that he has taken out creatures far outside of his weight class. Canonically to Ravenloft Lore, VR has taken out full vampires, lycanthropes of all sorts, and at least one Mummy Lord. So, what does this mean? Well...basically, mix together a Witcher and Batman, then pack it into a really old guy.

• If it involves monsters, Van Richten knows it. No check necessary.

• If a monster is vulnerable to something, he's carrying it. Feel free to include 'traditional' vulnerabilities that monsters could have that aren't necessarily in the books. Wolfsbane (specially prepared Aconite) repels or poisons werewolves, garlic repulses vampires, etc.

• If there is something you can create that a monster is harmed by, he knows how to make it.

• If he knows in advance what sort of monster he is going to go up against and there is a Cleric Spell that would be useful, assume he prepared it.

• His ability to predict the actions of monsters should be nearly flawless. As the DM...straight up cheat with his predictive abilities. You know what your monsters are going to do next, so have him react accordingly. He sees the werewolves in front and correctly predicts that another group would be moving in stealth to flank the party. If one is about to rush him and attack him, he moves out of its movement range before it can charge. When it comes to getting attacked by monsters, he is simply never surprised by what they do. Strahd is an exception...elder vampires are extremely hard to predict.

• His understanding of how monsters behave should be uncanny. He doesn't need to track them, he can generally make a reliable guess at where their lair would be. If he decides to stake out a monster to ambush it when it next attacks someone, he always stakes out the right place.

• Can produce non-traditional solutions to dealing with certain kinds of monster. For example, he may be able to figure out a way to put a ghost to rest (by breaking its ties to the world), rather than having to fight it.

• He will use his skills to help the party coordinate. He's not a specialist in small unit tactics, so he won't actually try to command the PCs, but he will give them advice and call warnings. For example: "The attack from the front is a decoy!"

Van Richten's skill-set should be eclectic in the extreme. I operate under the assumption that he has picked up bits and pieces of useful knowledge from all over the place. He is not proficient with Smith's Tools, but knows how to Silver a weapon. He's not proficient with a Poisoner's Kit, but knows how to make several toxins and compounds that are effective against various sorts of monster. He's not a proficient survivalist, but can identify monster tracks on sight. He's not proficient in Investigation, but he can piece together the evidence of a monster attack easy as breathing.

VR's campaign against monsters is obsessive. He is on a lifelong Rampage of Revenge over what a Vampire did to his son. He has gathered up every single possible tool that he can get his hands on that makes him more effective at Killing Monsters and discarded most of the rest.

The Slayer

Van Richten Kills Monsters. He doesn't fight or battle or hunt monsters, he kills them. And he does all of this, despite only having a CR of 5. How, you ask? Well...If any of you have read the manga Goblin Slayer...basically that.

For the rest of you, let me give a quick explanation: in that story, the main character is on a one man extermination campaign against goblins. The people that travel with him are constantly shocked (and appalled) at all the sneaky, filthy, under-handed tricks he pulls in order to kill the maximum number of goblins as swiftly and efficiently as possible. That should be how Van Richten operates...just to give some examples...

• Necromancer and his undead holed up in an old mansion? Bar the doors and set it on fire.

• Vampire built his lair on low ground? Divert a river to flood the whole thing with Running Water.

• Vampire didn't make sure his coffin was under enough layers of solid material? Blow/tear the top off and bathe the coffin in daylight.

• Found the vampire's coffin before you go to kill it? Anyone know the spell Leomund's Tiny Hut? That'll prevent the vampire's mist form from getting back to its coffin.

• Cave full of werewolves? Set large fires in the entrances, then cave the entrance in beyond the fire...then just wait for the fire to eat all the air out of the cave.

• Necromancer with an army? Infect the army with Corpseblight (see my Ezmerelda writeup) then put a crossbow bolt through the necromancer's throat while he struggles to figure out why his undead army is falling apart.

In short...if you can think of a horrific, brutal, and/or efficient way for him to kill things with the environment, without really endangering himself directly...he'll do it.

The Old Hero

Van Richten is not as young as he once was. If anything, this has emphasized his traits mentioned above. Once upon a time, he was young and strong and agile--able to fight monsters directly and come out on top. But now he's old. His body can't keep up with his old way of fighting, so he's had to adapt. He focuses more on magic now, but mostly focuses on killing things without having to actually fight them.

In a straight fight, he is more likely to let the PCs handle the front lines. They're young enough to handle it, after all. Which could be where you use his support-caster loadout.

As to his personality, I recommend against making him a generic crotchety old man. Instead, might I recommend taking him after the mold of Vesemir from The Witcher series. Their both examples of really old monster hunters...masters of their trade, and also too old to put up with your bullcrap. He's mellowed out a lot since he got started, but is still quite determined to see the end of any monsters he can.

His age is a balancing factor that can keep him from turning into a spotlight thief. I mean...Van Richten is the main character of all of his stories. He has worked with countless groups of adventurers and heroes...it would be easy for him to steal the spotlight from the PCs. So you can balance this with the fact that he's old and he's cautious. And, well...the rest of it, I'll get to that in a sec.

A Cursed Man

Van Richten suffers a curse bestowed on him by a Vistani:

Live you always among monsters, and see everyone you love die beneath their claws.

Its effect on him can best be summarized with this statement: "Van Richten Dies Last." This curse is both a boon and a bane to him. The curse is a large part of why he has lived so long--how he has accumulated so much experience and expertise. He is cursed to always see his friends and allies die--which means he has to live long enough to see it happen.

For a long time, he was unaware of the exact nature of the curse on him, but he is apparently aware of it now (as of Curse of Strahd). Thus, we have a few effects to consider.

• Van Richten feels guilty. For decades he fought alongside others with monsters, completely unaware that he was a doombringer among them. Now that he knows, he is burdened by all the deaths he feels that his presence caused.

• Van Richten isolates himself. He doesn't let people get close to him for fear that his curse will take them out.

• If Van Richten is traveling with the party, he has excellent odds of surviving--if someone is going to die in the party, it'll be someone other than him.

• Van Richten's curse should have a tangible impact if he is traveling with the party: he is a Doombringer of the highest order. His mere presence among the party should invite tragedy and disaster.

The Tragedy of Ezmerelda and Van Richten

In the revised 5E backstory that created Ezmerelda, there's a tragedy in here: Van Richten's curse could have been lifted years ago.

By old Ravenloft Lore, the strongest of curses laid down by a Vistana can only be lifted by the Vistana who placed it, or a blood relative of that Vistana. Van Richten's curse was a Death Curse laid on him by Ezmerelda's mother. Only Ezmerelda has the ability to revoke the curse. But here's the problem...

Ezmerelda is Vistani...by nature, they are secretive about their abilities. Beyond that, Van Richten doesn't trust Vistani and likely commanded Ezmerelda to not use her Vistani abilities in his presence. As a result, Van Richten doesn't know how Vistani curses work--he doesn't know that they can be revoked by a blood relative of the one who laid it. He's a Cleric...he has undoubtedly tried Remove Curse himself and it failed. As far as he knows, the curse is permanent.

Van Richten is also secretive and, as mentioned, doesn't trust the Vistani. He kept Ezmerelda at arm's length as best he could both because he couldn't trust her, but also to try to protect her from the curse...and even if he was aware of the curse when they traveled together, he never told her about it.

If either one of them had been less secretive, more open...his curse would have been revoked a long time ago.

Flavor: If you want the curse to be broken, here's how it went down (with a different actor in Ez's place) in VR's Guide to the Vistani...with some minor tweaks to adjust for backstory inconsistencies.

NOTE: My version of Ezmerelda and VR's backstory sticks closer to the original--and what was written in the VR's Journal handout. It involves VR destroying Ezmerelda's caravan while she was very, very young. She survived the undead assault and later got picked up by another caravan of Vistani (in my version...it was actually the Zarovan tribe--Madam Eva's caravan). She originally wanted revenge on VR...but time with Eva (and the prescience of the most powerful Vistana of them all) showed her the tragedy of what had happened from an outside perspective. Ez realized that the whole thing was a horrible tragedy and wrongs had been committed on both sides. She thus set out to try to find Van Richten and try to make things right...though Eva never told her about the curse her mother had laid on Van Richten.

Van Richten and Ezmerelda must travel to the place the curse was first laid...a small clearing in the forests of Barovia where the ruins of Ezmerelda's caravan still lie. Both must verbally acknowledge the wrong that had been done and verbally forgive one another for it...then the remains of Ezmerelda's caravan must be burned (possibly while warding off an unending attack until the caravan is gone).

The Disguise

Van Richten got the idea for 'Rictavio' from his exposure to her and her occasional methods for blending in when going somewhere that didn't like Vistani. In short: "Sometimes the best disguise is being the most obvious thing in the room." As mentioned in the book, Ezmerelda has never encountered the Rictavio disguise (my explanation is that he came up with it after they parted)...in the same way, VR isn't familiar with any of the disguises Ezmerelda is currently using.

It really is a rather perfect disguise. Van Richten is known as a grim, serious individual. A dour old man who roves the world slaying monsters. "Rictavio" is a flamboyant fop who tells ludicrous stories, commits crimes against music, and is constantly trying to recruit people to his Circus of Wonders. He should be portrayed as extremely over the top and completely harmless. It should be very jarring to your players if he drops the act.

Furthermore, Rictavio knows that even if someone suspects he's hiding something, they are extremely unlikely to guess the truth. If a player rolls well on Insight against him and figures out he's full of crap, that only tells them that he's lying about something...not what he is lying about. And his response is to just carry on and ignore accusations that he is lying. Sure, the PCs may figure out that he's full of crap (his stories are obvious fabrications) but he just carries right along, sticking to his guns even though the players know it's crap.

Honestly though, I have yet to have a player try to get a serious read on Rictavio's personality. He strikes them as so straight forward--a carnie who is spinning tall tales for amusement. Sure, my players figure he's important via metagame knowledge (he had a scene where I focused on him), but they really don't suspect that he's any more than what he appears to be.

A Hard Man to Pin Down

Van Richten is a man with a plan for killing Strahd, and it's a plan that plays well to his aged capabilities: "wait til Strahd takes a long nap, then stake him in his sleep." Of anyone in the valley, Van Richten knows how deadly Strahd is. He has fought elder vampires before and Strahd is the greatest of them all. He may very well believe that trying to fight him head on is pure folly.

This can be a large part that prevents Van Richten from turning into the spotlight thief a man of his skills could very easily become...

It's important to note: Most of the "Destined Allies" the party can draw from Madame Eva have notes about how the PCs can get that individual to join them. Van Richten has no such notes. Instead, it says this...

Van Richten works alone. [...] Furthermore, he believes too much is at stake to risk exposure.

• Van Richten is (by older lore) aware of Madame Eva but (unlike many others in they valley) he won't immediately cave to her prophecies, drop everything he has been working on, and throw his lot in with the PCs. Here are a few important things to keep in mind if the party is trying to recruit him...

• Van Richten is quite certain that if he drops his disguise, Strahd will find him and wreck him. (This is one of Strahd's Primary Goals as listed in Chapter 1)

• Van Richten's disguise is magically augmented. As long as the party can't get his hat off, they cannot prove that he is not a carnie ringmaster

• Van Richten's disguise is only useful against Strahd as long as no one knows who he really is. The Ring of Mind Shielding only works on him...it doesn't work on the PCs. VR knows that if anyone else finds out, Strahd can Charm them or read their mind or otherwise extract that information from them.

• Van Richten is fully aware of his curse. He will avoid physically joining up with the party for fear that he will get them all killed.

• Van Richten does not talk about his curse. He knows well the bravery of adventurers and that telling them about his curse tends to result in responses like "Oh, you don't need to worry about us, we're strong!" followed shortly by ":dying noises:." Rebuffing their advances without mentioning the curse is much more effective at getting them to stay away from him so his curse doesn't kill them.

• Even if Van Richten consents to offer them aid, it should be indirect as much as possible. He has his plan, he's set in his ways, he's not going to go gallivanting off with a bunch of young adventurers. And, he should stay in character as much as possible...blowing his cover will only bring Strahd down on him AND the PCs.

Ideally, even if the party can convince him to help...his help should primarily take the form of a surprisingly knowledgeable carnival ringmaster who is "certainly not going to go out and fight monsters with you. I'm a ringmaster, not an adventurer!"

He may lend the party his wagon to travel around in (once he finds somewhere else to stash his tiger...or may lend them the tiger as well), give them helpful advice--possibly using ravens to stay in touch over long-distance if the PCs make friends with the Keepers, and provide the sort of support that a Carnie could offer. But, it should take rather extreme circumstances for him to actually be honest with the PCs...and they may have to do something about his Curse before he'll actually travel with them. (See the section above...Remove Curse won't cut it, the curse is far too strong.)

Getting Him to Join Up

Van Richten wants to stay under cover...so how does the party get him to change his mind?

Easy: Ruin his plan

If Van Richten's cover is blown, his plan is a wash. The whole plan depends on his identity staying a secret until Strahd goes into hibernation. If Strahd identifies Van Richten before then, he will try to kill him and VR is pretty sure he can't take Strahd in a fight. Thus...if VR's cover is blown, he is stuck with two bad choices: Either he tries to keep going it alone, gets killed by Strahd, and fails his 'final mission,' or he accepts the risk to the PCs and joins them to try to take Strahd down directly. A few example ways to blow his cover...

• Knock his hat off. A Hat of Disguise only works as long as it stays on your head, so if something happens that knocks the hat off, 'Rictavio' is replaced by Van Richten.

• Let the Tyger Tyger event happen. When Rictavio flees to the Tower of Khazan, he's inside an Antimagic field and cannot disguise himself

• Even if Van Richten is distorting his voice, Ezmerelda may still recognize it...even if what she recognizes is the cadence his voice adopts when he's explaining something.

Ability Loadout

VR is a Cleric...and his listed Prepared Spells speaks more of a support caster than a Monster Hunter who has gone solo. But, because he's a Cleric, he can swap out his prepared spells at will to any other spells on the Cleric list. Additionally, I granted him the Turn Undead feature because it just makes sense. Here are a few notes on spells for him to use...

• Dawn creates Sunlight. If he can lock a vampire down within the area of effect, they will be dust in short order.

• Dispel Evil and Good breaks a vampire's Charm. However...things can't really leave Barovia, so the Dismissal part of that spell won't be terribly effective here.

• Geas is useful when he needs to find something. For example, capture a werewolf then place a Geas on it to lead them to the den.

• Lesser and Greater Restoration are enormously useful, as is Remove Curse.

• Guiding Bolt is a great weapon against Vampires. Shuts down their regen, and gives the next attack Advantage.

• Hallow: If VR can get his hands on the material components for this, he can create Holy Ground to help protect the PCs. Create a bubble of Hallowed Ground around the Antimagic Zone that covers the Tower of Khazan....talk about a fortress. (Sure, you'll have a bubble of non-hallowed ground where the A/M zone is...but it's entirely surrounded by Hallowed territory.

• Given his skill at predicting his foes...dropping Sanctuary on a creature they are about to attack can completely trash their attempts

• Spirit Guardians is just....awesome.

If you feel he needs a bit more umph...I suggest picking a Cleric Domain for him to have features from. Might I recommend the Grave Domain.

AKA Rictavio. He is a big part of Strahd’s story, and has quite a fantastic – if tragic – story of his own, as Rudolph van Richten – legendary vampire hunter. Plus, his Vistani protégé Ezmerelda d'Avenir is in Barovia as well, and I think she’s a great possible ally for the adventurers.