Dragna's Blog: Why Bring Back the Fanes? (Fanes Part II)

This is Part II of a multi-part series. You can read the other parts of this series below:
Part I: The History of the Fanes
Part II: Why Bring Back the Fanes?
Part III: Reinventing the Fanes

Why Bring Back the Fanes?

In last week's devblog, we discussed the history of the Fanes through Ravenloft history, from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft to today. We also discussed the two sets of standing stones in 5th Edition's Curse of Strahd, and the unresolved mysteries that haunt them—including the unnamed "ancient beliefs" once held by Barovia's berserkers and druids. This week, we'll delve more deeply into how to fill in these gaps—including why (and how) we might transport the Fanes to a modern-day Ravenloft.

Let's start with "why." As we've previously discussed, Curse of Strahd's creation of the druids and berserkers of the Balinok Mountains raised a number of unanswered questions:

• What "ancient beliefs" did the druids once hold?

• Why did they turn away from those beliefs?

• Why would they begin worshipping Strahd instead?

That third question is perhaps the most provocative. Remember: druids are traditionally viewed as protectors or guardians of nature—and Strahd is a vampire, a creature of darkness. (Indeed, Strahd has explicitly brought corruption to the land through the Mists, his wolves and vermin, and the general malaise that has befallen the wilderness.) Unless we're assuming that the valley's indigenous people were always vaguely evil, we're going to need a real reason for the druids to abandon their heritage and start worshipping Strahd instead.

So why might the druids have abandoned their previous faith? The easiest answer that comes to mind is: "Because their previous god(s) abandoned them, or failed to help them, in their hour of need."

And what hour of need might that have been? Curse of Strahd already hints at a potential answer: the arrival of King Dostron the Hellborn, the valley's "ancient ruler" who "claimed descent from a duke of the Nine Hells," whose "deeds did justice to his ancestry," and whose ruined fortress provided the foundation for Castle Ravenloft. If King Dostron conquered the valley, the druids and berserkers may well have called upon their god(s) to defend them—and seen their faith broken when it failed to protect them.

But why might the druids' god(s) have abandoned them? Here, too, Curse of Strahd provides a potential answer: Kavan. A "ruthless chieftain whose tribe lived in the Balinok Mountains centuries before the arrival of Strahd von Zarovich," Kavan "had some traits in common with vampires: he slept during the day and hunted at night, he drank the blood of his prey, and he lived underground." His blood spear even "drain[ed] life from those it kill[ed] and transfer[ed] that life to its wielder, imbuing [him] with the stamina to keep fighting." If Kavan's profane acts offended the druids' god(s)—or if his bloodthirst and corruption drove him to desecrate the druids' holy places—it's easy to see why the power of the druids' faith might have waned.

We now have a vaguely coherent history of the druids: Long ago, the druids had a set of "ancient beliefs" and a god(s) that they worshipped. However, Kavan's actions desecrated their holy places, offending and weakening their gods. When King Dostron invaded the valley, the druids' god(s) refused or were unable to protect them, and their faith broke for good. Centuries later, when Strahd von Zarovich came to the valley, the druids sought to appease him to gain protection from others who might wish them harm—an alliance that, over the centuries, came to resemble worship instead of mere loyalty.

And why do the druids worship Strahd today? "[B]ecause of his ability to control the weather and the beasts of Barovia." We already know how Strahd controls the beasts of Barovia—vampires by their nature tend to attract "noticeable increase[s] in the population of bats, rats, and wolves in the region" near their lairs. In Barovia, these creatures have a unique "supernatural link to Strahd," which causes them to "heed the will of Strahd" and become "Strahd's loyal servants."

But what about the weather? In Curse of Strahd, Strahd seems to control the weather freely: "Lightning from the heavens" strikes the wizard Mordenkainen, "the dark clouds coalesce into a terrible visage" and "blue lightning splits the sky" when Sergei finds Ireena, and the "thunderclouds above [Castle Ravenloft] suddenly coalesce into the terrible visage of Strahd" if the players mount the North Tower Rooftop. Strahd's power seems to extend even further, too, "us[ing] his power over the land to swell the" Luna River, "flooding the village of [Berez] and forcing the residents to flee."

"I am the Land," Strahd says in the Tome of Strahd. In Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, Strahd "bec[a]me the Land" by claiming the power of the Fanes for his own. This, then, seems to provide an answer to our question about the Fanes: Bringing the Fanes into 5th Edition's Curse of Strahd allows us to explain how Strahd is able to control the weather and rivers of Barovia. It also, however, raises a possible solution to a problem we didn't even know we had: the Epilogue of Curse of Strahd.

In Curse of Strahd, "Strahd's death grants Barovia a reprieve": "[t]he fog that surrounds the land thins, and it no longer harms those who pass through it. The dark clouds that have loomed over the valley for centuries give way to sunshine," and "[t]he bats, wolves, and dire wolves of Barovia lose their supernatural link to Strahd," "becom[ing] ordinary beasts, destined to be hunted down or driven to the farthest reaches of the Svalich Woods."

However, Ezmerelda d'Avenir "isn't convinced that Strahd is truly dead"—and her 'suspicion proves justified." "Strahd's destruction is temporary, for his curse can't be so easily ended": "The ancient Dark Powers . . . cause [him] to re-form after a period of months." "When Strahd is reborn, the mists surround the land of Barovia once more," "the beasts of the land once more fall under [his] spell, and the burgomasters fortify their settlements, hoping against all hope that someone can save them from Strahd again."

There are, fundamentally, two kinds of stories: external arcs and internal arc. In an external arc, the protagonist's external world changes over the course of the story, bringing them new status, power, or relationships (e.g., reuniting with one's loved ones, achieving a position of respect, or saving the life of a precious person). In an internal arc, the protagonist's internal world changes instead: they conquer personal flaws, brave long-held fears, or undergo a revelation regarding their place in the world.

Most Dungeons & Dragons modules focus entirely on external arcs: the players recover the lost treasure, defeat the ancient evil, and save the day. Many horror movies or games, by contrast, often focus on internal arcs: the players cannot permanently defeat the evil itself, but they can defeat the flaws or fears that the evil capitalizes or represents, and so gain self-actualization.

Curse of Strahd, in preventing the players from winning any permanent victory, deprives the campaign of a true external arc. Though one can argue that Ireena's arc (which inevitably ends with her reuniting with Sergei) or the players' arc (which ends in their escape from Barovia) form the external arc of the campaign, both have clear flaws: in the former case, Ireena is treated as little more than an afterthought by the campaign, and her arc is emotionally unsatisfying and thematically repulsive; in the latter, the players' characters have no history and no future—they begin the campaign in Barovia, and end it there.

More significantly, stories are about people, not plots—and Curse of Strahd is nothing without its NPCs, from the Martikovs to Father Lucian and beyond. But the module's epilogue is a wholesale rejection of this concept: no matter what the players do, they cannot save those who they care most about. Their journey is selfish at best, and pointless at worst.

Given that the players achieve no internal arc either—by default, and in the vast majority of campaigns, they end the campaign the same people as when they began—the entire campaign would seem to be a waste of time, potentially spurring some players to ask: What did we really achieve over the past fifty sessions, other than passing the time?

It was this dilemma, way back in my first Curse of Strahd campaign, that prompted me to ask: How can the players free Barovia of Strahd's control? Surely, I felt, there must be some way to free the Barovians of the Dark Powers' grasp—unlike Strahd, they and their ancestors had committed no sin, and the Dark Powers had no valid claim to their souls. But if the Dark Powers had no claim to the Barovians' souls (or, indeed, the land of Barovia itself beyond Strahd's own soul), how and why was it that the Barovians had been imprisoned along with their lord?

And then I realized: the Dark Powers hadn't taken the Barovians. The Dark Powers had taken Strahd. And according to the Tome of Strahd, the history of Berez, and Strahd's control of the weather, Strahd is the Land. And since the Barovians dwelled in the Land, they came along automatically when the Dark Powers pulled Strahd into the Demiplanes of Dread—like fleas on a dog.

The key, then, lay in finding a way to sever Strahd's connection to the Land, so that even if the Dark Powers could resurrect him for their fell entertainment, the innocent Barovians themselves would be free. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft provided the perfect solution: Just as Strahd became the Land by binding the Fanes to his service, so too could the players free the Land by severing that connection.

(Did I mention that, in the AD&D module Roots of Evil, we learn that the Barovia that Strahd dwells in is a copy of the real one, and that there's a "Prime Material Barovia" complete with a Castle Ravenloft and a "King Barov von Zarovich VI" descended from Strahd's family that remained in the Material Plane? In AD&D, the Dark Powers only got Strahd's soul, and had to replicate the land he dwelled in to create his Domain; in Curse of Strahd, the Dark Powers got the land and people as well. What made the difference? Here, it's the Fanes!)

That brings us to Reloaded's basic task: Bringing the Fanes into the modern era. But how could we implement them—and what were the right and wrong ways to go about doing so, both from a narrative- and game-design perspective? We'll answer those questions next week!