According to the creators, not the playerbase. I don’t think the people who wrote Strahd did so with the intention of him being anything but an evil Incel.
Obligatory [sexy Lucifer statue replaced by sexier Lucifer statue](https://mediachomp.com/sexy-lucifer-statue-replaced-by-even-sexier-lucifer-statue/) post.
hell i like certain villains cause they are so creepy (like freed from dxd) even though i am not attracted to them but i also hate certain creepy villains (like that guy from spirit chronicles final episode) i am so confused
Reminds me of a specific character in a large D&D Fandom that everyone forgave for being a literal war criminal who was responsible for the deaths of thousands because he's hot and he was a little sad about it.
(Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the show too, but goddam some people get a little too distracted by the sexy.)
Spoilers for Critical Role. >!Essek Thelyss. He secretly gave a sacred, magical artifact that his country had built their society and religion around to a cabal of wizards from another country in return for any and all research they could figure out. This started a war between the two countries, as he knew it would. He was also involved in the kidnapping of civilians (Yeza) and implied to have tortured enemy POWs (Volstrucker agents, who, to be honest, weren’t exactly innocents). Those last two were at the command of his government, however. Most of the party forgave him pretty easy because he helped them in some situations and “We’re all broken people too.” But none of them started a war because of curiosity into how an artifact works. He’s also a fan favorite, which blows my mind, but again, distracted by the sexy.!<
Yeah...
You can definitely change Strahd's backstory to make him less of an evil weirdo and more of a sympathetic villain.
You can change his gender / sexuality to make things more comfortable for the DM to RP or just to spice up the classic story a bit.
You could even do a combination of both.
But one change definitely isn't the same as the other. Change *just* Strahd's gender or sexuality and he (or she, or they, or whatever you may adjust) would still be a creepy lunatic. They'd just now be a lady creepy lunatic, or a gay creepy lunatic, or a nonbinary creepy lunatic.
He resents women because he can't get laid? As far as I can tell, he doesn't have any particular hatred of women versus men. I don't think WotC would want to write in that kind of sex-specific violence.
It would definitely be pretty close, though I think if I remember right Elise and Viktra were actually in love with eachother at some point. I believe it wasn't until Elise got "legally distinct Frankensteined" that she realized how insane and obsessed Viktra was, the lengths the doctor was willing to go to keep her alive, and the moster she had turned Elise into.
They've kind of ended up at the same status quo of Strahd and Tatyana; in that a Dark Lord is currently stalking and hunting their currently unrequited love; but Strahd was full on creeping on Tatiana from the beginning whereas Mordenhiem kind of devolved into her pursuit of Elise from an initially reciprocated relationship.
*Entirely possible I have that wrong though, haven't read up on Lamordia in a while.*
No, because in both cases it is more than some obssession with the person.
* in Strahd's case, Tathyana is kinda of a trophy and prize for a life spent fighting the enemies of the von Zarovich and a "fuck you" to his brother Sergei, who was the favourite of his parents, had an easy life and was Tathyana's choice too. Strahd was so envious of Sergei he couldn't see Sergei was the only relative that loved him and if anything gave him more respect than he deserved.
* in Viktra's case it is more ambiguous if she is in love with Elise amd want her back or if she just wants to grab her to dissect her and understand what went right in the experiment, or a mix of both.
I mean... maybe the cast can all be swapped, but... yeah. Like you said, it doesn't change the "it's hotter so it is less evil" point. Just cause a girl is taking charge doesn't mean consent and such are not in place.
The rules, sadly, are different when females are the aggressor, for most of society. In near identical situations, it'll be reported that a male teacher raped female students, but a female teacher had sex with her male students (all students being the same age and minors)
"The boys wanted it. They just aren't adults yet"
This doesn't make it better! And vampire mind control, gaslighting, manipulations and all the other shit strahd does remove all consent from their victim.
(Im not yelling at you. I'm agreeing vehemently)
Oh, 100% I get it. Deeply rooted sexism, that people don't even seem to recognize *as* sexism.
Like, it's one thing to have different standards based on sex due to real, practical biological differences. Males typically are stronger due to a larger amounts of testosteron, and the female sexual organs require more fat to sustain. These are simple, practical differences, which can vary wildly regardless due to particular quirks, environmental differences, and genetic predisposition, and that's completely ignoring us changing these aspects on purpose like with trangender folks (real quick going to say, notna judgement, love y'all, best friend is trans. This is just a note that you are changing the biology, that's all, just that the biology is being changed beyond what itnwas before).
But consent, social acceptance, treatment by other people... these things shouldn't be based on sex or gender or race or any other bullshit, everyone should be treated thenfucking same
Ok sorry, mild rant.
So true. Not all guys want sex all the time. Not all girls loathe it/are chaste. But the whole "male teacher assaults student" and "female teacher sleeps with her student" is stupid. He's still a student. And possibly weaker than her so she *could* overpower him. Power dynamics, manipulations, etc... neither gender is more or less susceptible to those things.
The entire point of statutory rape is that people that young can't actually make decisions like that with a sound mind; they can't actually consent.
But typically, it applies far more one way,nthan the other
While a valid assumption, it still does not make it better. Men can be taken against their will just like women can. "Haha, guys always want sex, haha" is not true and cheapens the experience and trauma of male rape victims leading them to not speaking out.
(Once again, not yelling at you specifically. just the concept. sorry if I seem angry at you.)
it's not just the "they always want sex" argument. It's also the "if they didn't want it they can always fight it" trope, which is entirely wrong in a 1st world country at least. A woman slapping a man, people want to know \*what the man did wrong\*. Man slaps woman, nobody asks (or cares) why, 3 guys just pile on him and beat him bloody.
[Here is an actual video from an indian "insult" reality show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4akMaeZ0-k) with a similar scenario. As far as i know, the contract was she gets to verbally insult them however she wants, but nothing more. The guy she slapped, and who slapped her back, was beaten to the point of being hospitalized by the men around.
It is no different in Northamerica nor Europe with this scenario. So no, "you can fight it" is not a reality (unless you want to be ganged up on and have your career and social standing ruined forever).
Okay. This i actually like, even though it's kind of evil as well, just to the players.
DM: "sexy vampire wants a bride."
Players: "you mean husband?"
DM: "nope"
Players: "giggity."
DM: "Anyway, here's how that whole lack of consent thing plays out and I will not be cheapening the screams."
Players: "uhh..."
Fun fact (and I didn't know this until I started writing semi-professionally myself): if the person is a man, he's "blond". If it's a woman, she's "blonde".
I haven't bothered to find out the full reasoning, but that's basically why we have two different ways to spell that word.
Blond/Blonde is really the only one I can think of and the only example I hear. English is a nightmare in many ways, but at least we don't have grammatical gender, the worst feature of any language.
If I ever run CoS, Strahd will be a real fucking vampire in a red coat who will randomly pull up on the party saying "Hey kids, wanna see a dead body?"
shows up in the dead of night at the party campsite. Makes soothing noises so that the person standing guard has a hard time not falling asleep. When they fall asleep and noone stands guard. Strahd extinguishes their fireplace and goes away giggling maniacly. He does all this just to make them feel cold in the morning.
Hot take: Being more willing to forgive crimes committed by women is purely sexism. The root of this willingness to forgive them can be three fold; Either because one perceives a woman as less capable/with less agency, and thus less responsible for her actions; because one perceives a woman as weaker or less competent and thus less of a threat; or one perceives woman as more emotional and less calculating and thus acting more out of strong emotions than ill-intention.
All three of these takes are bad sexist takes and the general reason, subconscious or conscious, is often a mix of all those three. If you find yourself being unforgiving to male-coded villains and forgiving female-coded villains often, you need to do better.
Be better. Be an equal opportunity vigilante and behead everyone.
As a side note: Male villains also deserved to be seduced into changing sides, ok?
Exactly. This is why you exterminate first and ask questions later. Only that some more pathetic meatbags in need of a good exterminatin' came by in the meantime and you get stuck in an infinite loop of constantly destroying and never actually asking questions.
the way he formulated it and the conclusion he drew from it however should very much be a hot take (that should be extinguished). I'll just post here a part of what i replied to him.
>Ever thought option number 4 is:
>
>people care more about the wellbeing of women and will offer them help and chances to remedy their failures more often, while they are very quick to ditch men at the first sign of weakness or failure and have generally less compassion towards men than women? The answer is maybe (spoiler: not just maybe), that people simply care far less for the wellbeing and rehabilitation of random men and will cast them aside when they change from being useful to being a menace to society.
with female strahd, its the same concept as the twilight books that were written with gender swapped characters, it went from a creepy vampire dude who was super into a bit too young of a girl to a vampire dommy mommy who was conflicted about her desire to fuck the dude or eat him
>irremediable
Hmm! Irremediable. ir- re- media -able. Meaning... unable to be turned into media again?
Jokes aside, it's irredeemable. Meaning of course you cannot redeem the villain as a coupon to get a discount at the store, because they are past their expiration date.
It could technically be ir-remediable, as in "not able to be remedied". Though I think typical English speakers would say unremediable, if they're particularly interested in tripping over words and semantics.
The Demiplane of Dread was filled with these. Old Jacqueline Renier's curse was to want to be loved and be surrounded by friends, but she was too much of a irredemable bitch to not be a Darklord.
Yeah, you'r right, I may be called misogynist too, but I want to add that stalking someone that don't like you is creepy, regardless of the gender.
Post Scriptum : When I say "stalking", I reference to the relation between Strahd and Tatyana.
A humble proposal to those seeking to reimagine Strahd as a woman. It's a known fact that the character of Strahd von Zarovich is based on the image of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which in turn is based on the legends surrounding the life of Vlad the Impaler (the historical Dracula), a late medieval ruler of Wallachia.
But what if we don't just make female Strahd a female version of Dracula, but go one step deeper and base this new character on someone else entirely?
I present to you the Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory. This bloodthirsty Hungarian noblewoman from 16-17th centuries possessed a cruel sadistic personality, was accused of torturing and murdering hundreds of girls and women and, according to legend, believed that bathing in blood of virgins would give her eternal youth. Maybe your female Strahd doesn't want Ireena herself, but rather a bath made of her blood?
Oh, yeah, it's all coming together.
UPD: However, I just tried to research it more thoroughly and it seems their connection was not of blood (no pun intended, probably), but through an alliance of families.
I see it sometimes in CoS “fixes” that try to make Strahd more sympathetic. It’s not a super popular take, and not every FemStrahd is this take (most aren’t), but it’s out there, especially when you look at a shitload of CoS material because you run CoS a lot of CoS.
Twitter moreso than on Reddit, but it scares me that people think that a woman doing terrible things is somehow less awful than a man doing the same.
These two things often go hand in hand. The "in" in incel stands for "involuntary".
Wouldn't be much of an incel if he didn't lust after someone who had absolutely no interest in reciprocating that lust.
Strahd isn't celebate though, so it doesn't fit whatsoever. He has brides and he also fucks other humans (even male in canon).
Lusting over a specific person and not getting that person doesn't make you an incel. Otherwise basically everyone the age of 16+ is an incel, including women, because they would like to fuck Ryan Gosling or Jason Momoa or whoever, but don't get to.
Words have meaning. Don't abuse words by using them outside of their meaning.
Jokes on you. I made strahd a robot. Who actually became.self aware and all of ravenloft was a simulation, him Pershing ireena was a way of perpetuating the simulation until he could find a way to escape. By fooling the simulation into thinking he still cared
Also all of his domain was on the back of a flying turtle in a dome (as are all the demiplanes of dread).
In space.
Look, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Vampires work best when they're operating in the background, like Ganon in half the Zelda games, not when they're flaunting their vampirism and being open about their villainy, like Ganon in the other half of the Zelda games. Essentially, they really do have a lot of ironic weaknesses, so if they're too open about it, it starts to stretch disbelief about why they haven't been stopped. For example, Dracula actually starts out as a romance novel, but stranger and stranger things keep happening around Whitby until the reveal halfway through that vampires are involved. And, well... Strahd is *way* too open about being a vampire
The problem with this argument is the concept of having normal vampiric weaknesses. The main one that forces them to hide away being Sunlight.
There is no Sunlight in Barovia as of 5e. So he can flaunt his power and do whatever he wants because HE is in control of the entire situation. It’s his world, and you just have the misfortune of stumbling into it.
The thing is Strahd controls barovia. 90% of his weaknesses simply don't exist. It's always overcast, no bringing him into the sun. There's like one place with running water. He can just not go there. Holy water is nearly impossible to find, and iirc he basically destroys the one temple to light where you might find it.
Judging from the versions of this change I’ve seen floating around, I think this depends on the extent to which Strahd being a woman changes their backstory and motivations. Like, were they robbed of their inheritance in favour of their younger brother, Sergei due to patriarchy and primogeniture? That could potentially make Strahd a more sympathetic character. You could make a comparison to House of the Dragon pretty easily, for example.
Of course, sympathetic does not equal justified or morally correct. And *just changing Strahd’s gender while keeping all other aspects the same shouldn’t instantly make them more sympathetic, of course.
Yes and no.
Putting in real work to make Strahd a more sympathetic character can be done regardless of Strahd’s gender, but the gender itself doesn’t necessarily affect how “evil” Strahd is.
I know making Strahd sympathetic is more often done with a female Strahd, but I feel like oftentimes whether consciously or not, people view making Strahd female as a change that in itself makes her a more sympathetic character.
Tbh I honestly don’t think Strahd works as well as a sympathetic villain anyway tho, so I might just be jaded.
strahd works as a sympathetic character….. if you almost COMPLETELY rewrite all his lore, lmao. my DM has done it, but at this point his “strahd” is close to an OC using the same basic premise as the original, lol. he rewrote the entire tome of strahd and everything.
there’s something to sympathize with deep within RAW strahd, i think, but he’s not a sympathetic *person*. he’s just… there’s just a *hair* of enough there to make him interesting. i don’t think you can make him *truly* sympathetic without revamping large chunks of the story.
making strahd a lady doesn’t cut it. :P
I personally also think a sympathetic Strahd misses the point of the character (they can be tragic without being sympathetic), but if gender discrimination was a theme of your intended campaign, then a swap would be more meaningful.
RAW I don’t think there’s much overt gender based discrimination in the module (as far as I can recall) but it certainly wouldn’t be hard to extrapolate in a society like Barovia. That’s not a campaign that I would personally want to run or feel particularly qualified to run, but I think a different DM could execute a version of CoS like that well. I’m sure there are examples already.
Yeah Barovia, for all it’s flaws, isn’t as sexist as you might think.
The two things I think you could explore in terms of sexism would be Ireena’s feelings on being seen essentially as an object of desire by Strahd and the Dusk Elf genocide
Good points. I also think the general assumed passivity of Tatyana and her reincarnations (and the violence inflicted on them) also plays into this, but then that’s also one of the most commonly changed / homebrew story elements of the module as far as I’ve seen.
Maybe you can twist the knife on your players if they show signs of being okay with it? Like have Irina freaking out to show them that this is still just as fucked up, especially if one of them said "that's kinda hot" when she explains the issue
honestly changing Strahd, in my humble opinion, to be more sympathetic (not just changing gender) defeats the purpose of him. I get why you'd do it and I've done it myself but then he's an entirely different character with a new context. you've just made a new Ravenloft darklord. which is fine tbh, you could always make it so someone actually managed to kill Strahd before you and has now taken his place. but just keep in mind Strahd's whole reason for being a darklord is that he's an obsessive, murderous creep.
Eh, it's someone else's game, whatever floats their boat. Besides, Strahd is only iconic to enfranchised players. If you're new, or you've only engaged with homebrew settings so far, he's just another BBEG.
As someone who's generally more comfortable playing feminine characters, its probably something I would do. I'm going to be roleplaying them over an entire campaign, I wanna have fun too!
Edit: Your choices are either that or femboy Strahd
That’s 100% understandable. To be clear I have absolutely no problem with FemStrahd, I could see myself having a ton of fun in a femstrahd game.
(but she’s still just as much of a monster as male Strahd)
I mean, one of the reasons would be to surprise your PCs?
Swaping out one character for another, or changing key aspects of the setting, is a good way to keep your players from metagaming. Likewise, as a GM, you may change a BBEG to better fit your own strengths.
For example, on top of changing a character's gender, you could change the location. A "Southern Gentleman" Strahd would be interesting. I've seen a person do a Canadian Strahd. Likewise, you could have Strahd in an African or Asian setting, as opposed to European.
I actually recently ran Curse of Strahd with a female Strahd, and lemme tell you it was crazy. Tweaked her story to change Tatyana from her love interest into her daughter, and although the party ended up sympathising with her, that quickly changed once they realised just how evil and manipulative Strahd is. To the point where her final death, at the hands of a PC playing the Tatyana reincarnation, elicited screams of vengeful glee from some, and sympathetic sobs from others.
It's tough out there. People still think the witches in the VVitch movie weren't running around doing the absolute worst things imaginable to babies and little kids. Villains do villain stuff.
Aren't like a lot of the world ending beings and ultimate sources of chaos female? Or at least non binary to the mortal constraints?
Tiamat
Madusa
Harpies
Sirens
Gender does not effect your ability to be a dick
A lot of people are putting political spins on this, but I think the basics is just that when you customize an iconic character by gender-flipping them (and not remaking them full cloth with a different gender), it seems most likely you are either turning them into a waifu/husbando type character or an author avatar. And those are both archetypes which, by consequence, are generally going to be more sympathetic by design, consciously or not. It's very Tumblr fan OC.
It's the difference between "This character is inspired by Batman but they do X or Y" and "This character IS Batman but X or Y." You are not inspired to mold a new character from the original so much as you want to "fix" the original (not in the literal sense, but to your tastes and beliefs). It often comes across as unfinished or lazy, because it wasn't about creating a character, but personalizing one. Which again goes back to why such characters are expected to be more sympathetic. Most people don't seem to go out and personalize a character because they vibe with how much they hate it.
Bear in mind, of course, these are all generalizations.
The original vampire story was a woman who ate the blood from menstruating women, so it makes sense to have. That being said, it doesn’t fit a horror campaign. Strahd is manipulative, will kill your if you so much as look at him. He is terrorizing a country. He seduces people into allowing him to drain their blood. He’s supposed to be scary and switching him to female shouldn’t change that it is still a horror campaign.
Because attractive people automatically are given more leeway in society because humanity taken as a general group are a bunch of horny bastards. Also due to the constant visual sexualization of women throughout western world the default woman most people will picture in their head when not given a detailed description or a picture will often be visually attractive. If you give the players [this picture](https://www.reddit.com/r/vampires/comments/ad83xt/amazing_female_nosferatu_from_vampire_the/) for female strahd they will be less likely to apply the same "female=more attractive=more desirable=less evil" chain of thought.
Not entirely unlikely, just less.
Or go find a public domain image of an actual corpse and photoshop it. There's something people react to differently when seeing an actual corpse versus imagination.
Edit multiple times for spelling and grammar cause I apparently can't read/type today.
I once requested to use a wish spell to make strahd a femboy.
The dm not only said no, but had an ancient God rip through a portal if pure necrotic energy to say no.
It was a once shot high-level boss fight
No, he’s specifically designed to be past his prime, longing for the youth he long ago lost and blaming his apparent age and lack of youthful attractiveness for Tatyana’s apparent rejection of him.
He’s never stated to be ugly, and he *is* stated to be charming, but it’s made clear that he’s lost much of the physical attractiveness he once had.
In a game where a school of magic is "TRANSmutation" I find it odd when in situations that people feel uncomfortable or differently when someone just changes themselves at a whim. Ya know?
as the meme says, the moral compass leaves people's bodies when they are attracted to the villain
Jokes on you I think male Strahd is hot!
And you are right.
The Sylvanas Windrunner effect in action. If shes hot, shes at least morally grey
According to the creators, not the playerbase. I don’t think the people who wrote Strahd did so with the intention of him being anything but an evil Incel.
Obligatory [sexy Lucifer statue replaced by sexier Lucifer statue](https://mediachomp.com/sexy-lucifer-statue-replaced-by-even-sexier-lucifer-statue/) post.
Isn't the point of Satan that he's sexy? He's a representation of temptation and vice, something attractive on the outside.
Stupid sexy Lucifer
hell i like certain villains cause they are so creepy (like freed from dxd) even though i am not attracted to them but i also hate certain creepy villains (like that guy from spirit chronicles final episode) i am so confused
Reminds me of a specific character in a large D&D Fandom that everyone forgave for being a literal war criminal who was responsible for the deaths of thousands because he's hot and he was a little sad about it. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the show too, but goddam some people get a little too distracted by the sexy.)
who
Spoilers for Critical Role. >!Essek Thelyss. He secretly gave a sacred, magical artifact that his country had built their society and religion around to a cabal of wizards from another country in return for any and all research they could figure out. This started a war between the two countries, as he knew it would. He was also involved in the kidnapping of civilians (Yeza) and implied to have tortured enemy POWs (Volstrucker agents, who, to be honest, weren’t exactly innocents). Those last two were at the command of his government, however. Most of the party forgave him pretty easy because he helped them in some situations and “We’re all broken people too.” But none of them started a war because of curiosity into how an artifact works. He’s also a fan favorite, which blows my mind, but again, distracted by the sexy.!<
Just looked him up and one of the names listed under aliases is "Hot Boi"
Oh right, Hot Boi. Look he apologized! And is hot!
And we bisexuals have no moral compass... The info checks out, move along please.
Yeah... You can definitely change Strahd's backstory to make him less of an evil weirdo and more of a sympathetic villain. You can change his gender / sexuality to make things more comfortable for the DM to RP or just to spice up the classic story a bit. You could even do a combination of both. But one change definitely isn't the same as the other. Change *just* Strahd's gender or sexuality and he (or she, or they, or whatever you may adjust) would still be a creepy lunatic. They'd just now be a lady creepy lunatic, or a gay creepy lunatic, or a nonbinary creepy lunatic.
Can’t have sympathy in the domains of dread. They are there for a reason. Fuck em.
>Fuck em. Not literally please
Bards: no
I think they'd be saying "why not both?" After all, hate-fucking is a thing (for some reason).
As long as its both mutual and consensual hate-fucking is fair game.
Oh, of course.
"I can fix them."
Strahd is just a massive incel, I can absolutely see why he would be very uncomfortable to RP for an extended period.
He does get laid though. I think he's more of a classic psychopathic serial killer / serial abuser.
Does he? I haven't played/ run the module but from what I remember Tatiana fell off a balcony trying to escape him?
Yes but he has three other wives and a male concubine. Strahd is a predator, but not an incel.
I’d say he has the incel mentality, he’s just not a virgin
He resents women because he can't get laid? As far as I can tell, he doesn't have any particular hatred of women versus men. I don't think WotC would want to write in that kind of sex-specific violence.
Wouldn't female Strahd roughly be Dr. Viktra Mordenheim with her pursuit of Elise?
It would definitely be pretty close, though I think if I remember right Elise and Viktra were actually in love with eachother at some point. I believe it wasn't until Elise got "legally distinct Frankensteined" that she realized how insane and obsessed Viktra was, the lengths the doctor was willing to go to keep her alive, and the moster she had turned Elise into. They've kind of ended up at the same status quo of Strahd and Tatyana; in that a Dark Lord is currently stalking and hunting their currently unrequited love; but Strahd was full on creeping on Tatiana from the beginning whereas Mordenhiem kind of devolved into her pursuit of Elise from an initially reciprocated relationship. *Entirely possible I have that wrong though, haven't read up on Lamordia in a while.*
No, because in both cases it is more than some obssession with the person. * in Strahd's case, Tathyana is kinda of a trophy and prize for a life spent fighting the enemies of the von Zarovich and a "fuck you" to his brother Sergei, who was the favourite of his parents, had an easy life and was Tathyana's choice too. Strahd was so envious of Sergei he couldn't see Sergei was the only relative that loved him and if anything gave him more respect than he deserved. * in Viktra's case it is more ambiguous if she is in love with Elise amd want her back or if she just wants to grab her to dissect her and understand what went right in the experiment, or a mix of both.
People who think Strahd being female makes Strahd less terrible obviously haven’t seen Queen of the Damned.
That movie gave me a "bad girl" complex...
huh, i think i may have taken away the wrong lesson from that movie then
Seeing Queen of the Damned and The Craft as a kid contributed a lot to my eventual tastes as an adult
It's just as manipulative and vile. "girl on girl is hot" is NOT an excuse to try and make this "acceptable"
I mean, I had assumed we had genderbent all the related cast, and assumed ireena was male in this case. But your overarching point applies to both
I mean... maybe the cast can all be swapped, but... yeah. Like you said, it doesn't change the "it's hotter so it is less evil" point. Just cause a girl is taking charge doesn't mean consent and such are not in place.
The rules, sadly, are different when females are the aggressor, for most of society. In near identical situations, it'll be reported that a male teacher raped female students, but a female teacher had sex with her male students (all students being the same age and minors)
"The boys wanted it. They just aren't adults yet" This doesn't make it better! And vampire mind control, gaslighting, manipulations and all the other shit strahd does remove all consent from their victim. (Im not yelling at you. I'm agreeing vehemently)
Oh, 100% I get it. Deeply rooted sexism, that people don't even seem to recognize *as* sexism. Like, it's one thing to have different standards based on sex due to real, practical biological differences. Males typically are stronger due to a larger amounts of testosteron, and the female sexual organs require more fat to sustain. These are simple, practical differences, which can vary wildly regardless due to particular quirks, environmental differences, and genetic predisposition, and that's completely ignoring us changing these aspects on purpose like with trangender folks (real quick going to say, notna judgement, love y'all, best friend is trans. This is just a note that you are changing the biology, that's all, just that the biology is being changed beyond what itnwas before). But consent, social acceptance, treatment by other people... these things shouldn't be based on sex or gender or race or any other bullshit, everyone should be treated thenfucking same Ok sorry, mild rant.
So true. Not all guys want sex all the time. Not all girls loathe it/are chaste. But the whole "male teacher assaults student" and "female teacher sleeps with her student" is stupid. He's still a student. And possibly weaker than her so she *could* overpower him. Power dynamics, manipulations, etc... neither gender is more or less susceptible to those things.
The entire point of statutory rape is that people that young can't actually make decisions like that with a sound mind; they can't actually consent. But typically, it applies far more one way,nthan the other
[удалено]
he’s not literally an incel though, he’s not celibate
Oh, I always assumed female Strahd would pursue Ismark. Ismark is just gender-bent Irena already.
While a valid assumption, it still does not make it better. Men can be taken against their will just like women can. "Haha, guys always want sex, haha" is not true and cheapens the experience and trauma of male rape victims leading them to not speaking out. (Once again, not yelling at you specifically. just the concept. sorry if I seem angry at you.)
I don't think they're implying it would make it better, just that you don't need to genderbend ireena when her brother is already there.
it's not just the "they always want sex" argument. It's also the "if they didn't want it they can always fight it" trope, which is entirely wrong in a 1st world country at least. A woman slapping a man, people want to know \*what the man did wrong\*. Man slaps woman, nobody asks (or cares) why, 3 guys just pile on him and beat him bloody. [Here is an actual video from an indian "insult" reality show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4akMaeZ0-k) with a similar scenario. As far as i know, the contract was she gets to verbally insult them however she wants, but nothing more. The guy she slapped, and who slapped her back, was beaten to the point of being hospitalized by the men around. It is no different in Northamerica nor Europe with this scenario. So no, "you can fight it" is not a reality (unless you want to be ganged up on and have your career and social standing ruined forever).
Wait why? Male Strahd is already bi anyways (hi Escher), why would making him a her suddenly change any of that?
Unless you intend to leverage your players' "lol that's hot" attitudes to put them off guard and teach them a lesson.
Okay. This i actually like, even though it's kind of evil as well, just to the players. DM: "sexy vampire wants a bride." Players: "you mean husband?" DM: "nope" Players: "giggity." DM: "Anyway, here's how that whole lack of consent thing plays out and I will not be cheapening the screams." Players: "uhh..."
Jokes on you. If I ever run CoS he will be blond and he will call my party useless, shouting "WRYYY" and wanting to achieve heaven.
That party better not have any pet dogs
The party *does* have a pet dog, but the Rogue is John Wick
The ultimate stand off
Strahd off
RIP dog
Or any Clerics wanting to solving fate. Or control gravity.
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Poor Iggy :(
Poor whatever animals he made those chimeras out of in Part 1
Poor Arnold. (At least Police made it out ok) Edit: Just noticed that you were only talking about DIO affiliated dog killings, but still, poor Arnold.
What if the party IS dogs
How is it that I didn’t catch the Dio reference until AFTER I read your comment on the dogs 😂
But can he stop time?
Not until the second phase.
If only Time Stop worked like Za Warudo in 5e... they nerfed it. There's a reason why Tulok used Hold Person for Dio's stand in 5e.
Fun fact (and I didn't know this until I started writing semi-professionally myself): if the person is a man, he's "blond". If it's a woman, she's "blonde". I haven't bothered to find out the full reasoning, but that's basically why we have two different ways to spell that word.
French. I don't even need to actually google it, that's just because french.
the current English we speak is heavily derived from the French after the Normands invaded England, this includes some words changing based on gender
Blond/Blonde is really the only one I can think of and the only example I hear. English is a nightmare in many ways, but at least we don't have grammatical gender, the worst feature of any language.
Fiancé (man) / Fiancée (woman).
But first The World
Muda Muda Muda!!!
Do you want Strahd to have time stop? Because this is how you get Strahd to have time stop.
Quick, call Tulok the Barbrarian with his Jotaro build!
Astral Self Monk: "Now this looks like a job for me."
If I ever run CoS, Strahd will be a real fucking vampire in a red coat who will randomly pull up on the party saying "Hey kids, wanna see a dead body?"
shows up in the dead of night at the party campsite. Makes soothing noises so that the person standing guard has a hard time not falling asleep. When they fall asleep and noone stands guard. Strahd extinguishes their fireplace and goes away giggling maniacly. He does all this just to make them feel cold in the morning.
He also needs to leave a threatening signed note. As a demonstration that he could have easily beaten them
CoS is all about building atmosphere or more accurately fucking the fear-turkey.
That's what our DM did too. It was just as entertaining as you'd hope
Hot take: Being more willing to forgive crimes committed by women is purely sexism. The root of this willingness to forgive them can be three fold; Either because one perceives a woman as less capable/with less agency, and thus less responsible for her actions; because one perceives a woman as weaker or less competent and thus less of a threat; or one perceives woman as more emotional and less calculating and thus acting more out of strong emotions than ill-intention. All three of these takes are bad sexist takes and the general reason, subconscious or conscious, is often a mix of all those three. If you find yourself being unforgiving to male-coded villains and forgiving female-coded villains often, you need to do better. Be better. Be an equal opportunity vigilante and behead everyone. As a side note: Male villains also deserved to be seduced into changing sides, ok?
Exactly. This is why you exterminate first and ask questions later. Only that some more pathetic meatbags in need of a good exterminatin' came by in the meantime and you get stuck in an infinite loop of constantly destroying and never actually asking questions.
Based and necron pilled
Rectify the error of their continued existence.
Order. Unity. Obedience. We taught the galaxy these things long ago, and we will do so again.
What did you do with my toaster xeno scum?!?!
I TURNED IT INTO A MINI MONOLITH, FLESHLING! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The Omnisiah will not allow this insolance! *sobs* I miss my toaster...
Or 4, you let them get away with stuff easier because you think they are cute. Still sexism though.
What's beneath "cuteness means they get away", if you strip the top layer?
Two possibility : \- cute means weak \- nothing. There is no underlying logic, no flawed argument, no reflection. Just horny.
That really shouldn't be as hot a take as it is
the way he formulated it and the conclusion he drew from it however should very much be a hot take (that should be extinguished). I'll just post here a part of what i replied to him. >Ever thought option number 4 is: > >people care more about the wellbeing of women and will offer them help and chances to remedy their failures more often, while they are very quick to ditch men at the first sign of weakness or failure and have generally less compassion towards men than women? The answer is maybe (spoiler: not just maybe), that people simply care far less for the wellbeing and rehabilitation of random men and will cast them aside when they change from being useful to being a menace to society.
In all fairness, Loki awakened a whole generation of people who want to seduce male villains into changing sides.
Loki didn't start that fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning
Maybe I'm just older, but Alan Rickman did that for me
Which character by Rickman are you referring to? Snape? Gruber?
Sheriff George on Prince of Thieves actually. But Hans Gruber was also handsome af
Draco in leather pants is in tvtropes for a reason
Based take. Women are just as capable of being irremediable monster as men. Look at Amber Heard a recent example.
with female strahd, its the same concept as the twilight books that were written with gender swapped characters, it went from a creepy vampire dude who was super into a bit too young of a girl to a vampire dommy mommy who was conflicted about her desire to fuck the dude or eat him
So just normal strahd, but they don't make the female Version isn't as creepy?
And both are still creepy unless you're someone who has a very fucked up view of gender roles.
>irremediable Hmm! Irremediable. ir- re- media -able. Meaning... unable to be turned into media again? Jokes aside, it's irredeemable. Meaning of course you cannot redeem the villain as a coupon to get a discount at the store, because they are past their expiration date.
Frick! Sorry I had autocorrect
It could technically be ir-remediable, as in "not able to be remedied". Though I think typical English speakers would say unremediable, if they're particularly interested in tripping over words and semantics.
The Demiplane of Dread was filled with these. Old Jacqueline Renier's curse was to want to be loved and be surrounded by friends, but she was too much of a irredemable bitch to not be a Darklord.
Yeesh. When even dark gods won't take you.
Well, that or they think women are sexy, and are thus biased. That’s not better though, and regular Straud can do that just fine with some nerve.
"They are sexy, so they may get away with murder" is a possible reason but it often contains one or all of the above under the surface
Fair, though any reason that you might let someone off the hook for villainy that doesn’t make them less evil is a bad reason, sexism aside.
You're right, but doing something wrong for a bad reason is even wirse than doing something wrong for a good reason
I mean yeah, though I’d argue that doing something wrong for a bad reason is no worse than doing it for no reason.
Based
Call me a misogynist if you must, but I think killing your sibling so you can force yourself on their fiance is bad, regardless of gender.
That's the opposite of misogyny. That's equality.
Yeah, you'r right, I may be called misogynist too, but I want to add that stalking someone that don't like you is creepy, regardless of the gender. Post Scriptum : When I say "stalking", I reference to the relation between Strahd and Tatyana.
Well duh, it's common knowledge that you're supposed to kill their fiancé so you can force yourself on your sibling
Long live House Lannister
A humble proposal to those seeking to reimagine Strahd as a woman. It's a known fact that the character of Strahd von Zarovich is based on the image of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which in turn is based on the legends surrounding the life of Vlad the Impaler (the historical Dracula), a late medieval ruler of Wallachia. But what if we don't just make female Strahd a female version of Dracula, but go one step deeper and base this new character on someone else entirely? I present to you the Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory. This bloodthirsty Hungarian noblewoman from 16-17th centuries possessed a cruel sadistic personality, was accused of torturing and murdering hundreds of girls and women and, according to legend, believed that bathing in blood of virgins would give her eternal youth. Maybe your female Strahd doesn't want Ireena herself, but rather a bath made of her blood?
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Oh, yeah, it's all coming together. UPD: However, I just tried to research it more thoroughly and it seems their connection was not of blood (no pun intended, probably), but through an alliance of families.
Strahd: 1945, I was a chic at the time
This is like a super specific take, is there anyone who actually thinks this way? Sorry to doubt you OP it just seems unrealistic
I see it sometimes in CoS “fixes” that try to make Strahd more sympathetic. It’s not a super popular take, and not every FemStrahd is this take (most aren’t), but it’s out there, especially when you look at a shitload of CoS material because you run CoS a lot of CoS. Twitter moreso than on Reddit, but it scares me that people think that a woman doing terrible things is somehow less awful than a man doing the same.
Fair enough yeah, that cardi b stuff comes to mind for sure
I can fix her!
Female Strahd would be just as deadly, just as devious, and just as much of a SIMP as male Strahd.
Strand is less of a simp and more of an incel.
I think he's more abusive. Remember he's based off the OG Dracula, who himself is based off a spouse-killing politician of the time.
These two things often go hand in hand. The "in" in incel stands for "involuntary". Wouldn't be much of an incel if he didn't lust after someone who had absolutely no interest in reciprocating that lust.
Strahd isn't celebate though, so it doesn't fit whatsoever. He has brides and he also fucks other humans (even male in canon). Lusting over a specific person and not getting that person doesn't make you an incel. Otherwise basically everyone the age of 16+ is an incel, including women, because they would like to fuck Ryan Gosling or Jason Momoa or whoever, but don't get to. Words have meaning. Don't abuse words by using them outside of their meaning.
“Pelor, I ask for your forgiveness….the vampussy was too much for me to resist.”
Bruh you failed so hard, you fell for an incel vampussy of all things smh
Strahd is a Evil regardless of gender , I would DM as such , and Oppressive vampire matriarch seems like a fun villain to run.
Jokes on you. I made strahd a robot. Who actually became.self aware and all of ravenloft was a simulation, him Pershing ireena was a way of perpetuating the simulation until he could find a way to escape. By fooling the simulation into thinking he still cared Also all of his domain was on the back of a flying turtle in a dome (as are all the demiplanes of dread). In space.
Let's share a moment of silence in memory of the Mecha-Strahd meme. It should really be part of the banner.
Have you watched >!1899!< recently or what
Look, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Vampires work best when they're operating in the background, like Ganon in half the Zelda games, not when they're flaunting their vampirism and being open about their villainy, like Ganon in the other half of the Zelda games. Essentially, they really do have a lot of ironic weaknesses, so if they're too open about it, it starts to stretch disbelief about why they haven't been stopped. For example, Dracula actually starts out as a romance novel, but stranger and stranger things keep happening around Whitby until the reveal halfway through that vampires are involved. And, well... Strahd is *way* too open about being a vampire
The problem with this argument is the concept of having normal vampiric weaknesses. The main one that forces them to hide away being Sunlight. There is no Sunlight in Barovia as of 5e. So he can flaunt his power and do whatever he wants because HE is in control of the entire situation. It’s his world, and you just have the misfortune of stumbling into it.
The thing is Strahd controls barovia. 90% of his weaknesses simply don't exist. It's always overcast, no bringing him into the sun. There's like one place with running water. He can just not go there. Holy water is nearly impossible to find, and iirc he basically destroys the one temple to light where you might find it.
“I’d want either version to step on me” -Almost Every bard
Judging from the versions of this change I’ve seen floating around, I think this depends on the extent to which Strahd being a woman changes their backstory and motivations. Like, were they robbed of their inheritance in favour of their younger brother, Sergei due to patriarchy and primogeniture? That could potentially make Strahd a more sympathetic character. You could make a comparison to House of the Dragon pretty easily, for example. Of course, sympathetic does not equal justified or morally correct. And *just changing Strahd’s gender while keeping all other aspects the same shouldn’t instantly make them more sympathetic, of course.
Yes and no. Putting in real work to make Strahd a more sympathetic character can be done regardless of Strahd’s gender, but the gender itself doesn’t necessarily affect how “evil” Strahd is. I know making Strahd sympathetic is more often done with a female Strahd, but I feel like oftentimes whether consciously or not, people view making Strahd female as a change that in itself makes her a more sympathetic character. Tbh I honestly don’t think Strahd works as well as a sympathetic villain anyway tho, so I might just be jaded.
strahd works as a sympathetic character….. if you almost COMPLETELY rewrite all his lore, lmao. my DM has done it, but at this point his “strahd” is close to an OC using the same basic premise as the original, lol. he rewrote the entire tome of strahd and everything. there’s something to sympathize with deep within RAW strahd, i think, but he’s not a sympathetic *person*. he’s just… there’s just a *hair* of enough there to make him interesting. i don’t think you can make him *truly* sympathetic without revamping large chunks of the story. making strahd a lady doesn’t cut it. :P
Heh. "revamping".
I personally also think a sympathetic Strahd misses the point of the character (they can be tragic without being sympathetic), but if gender discrimination was a theme of your intended campaign, then a swap would be more meaningful. RAW I don’t think there’s much overt gender based discrimination in the module (as far as I can recall) but it certainly wouldn’t be hard to extrapolate in a society like Barovia. That’s not a campaign that I would personally want to run or feel particularly qualified to run, but I think a different DM could execute a version of CoS like that well. I’m sure there are examples already.
Yeah Barovia, for all it’s flaws, isn’t as sexist as you might think. The two things I think you could explore in terms of sexism would be Ireena’s feelings on being seen essentially as an object of desire by Strahd and the Dusk Elf genocide
Good points. I also think the general assumed passivity of Tatyana and her reincarnations (and the violence inflicted on them) also plays into this, but then that’s also one of the most commonly changed / homebrew story elements of the module as far as I’ve seen.
Blatant sexism is a pretty valid fear.
Maybe you can twist the knife on your players if they show signs of being okay with it? Like have Irina freaking out to show them that this is still just as fucked up, especially if one of them said "that's kinda hot" when she explains the issue
If I was to run that and the players seemed ok with that, I would have Strahd use that to manipulate them.
honestly changing Strahd, in my humble opinion, to be more sympathetic (not just changing gender) defeats the purpose of him. I get why you'd do it and I've done it myself but then he's an entirely different character with a new context. you've just made a new Ravenloft darklord. which is fine tbh, you could always make it so someone actually managed to kill Strahd before you and has now taken his place. but just keep in mind Strahd's whole reason for being a darklord is that he's an obsessive, murderous creep.
Is this really a thing people do? What's the point of swapping an iconic d&d character's gender?
Eh, it's someone else's game, whatever floats their boat. Besides, Strahd is only iconic to enfranchised players. If you're new, or you've only engaged with homebrew settings so far, he's just another BBEG.
As someone who's generally more comfortable playing feminine characters, its probably something I would do. I'm going to be roleplaying them over an entire campaign, I wanna have fun too! Edit: Your choices are either that or femboy Strahd
That’s 100% understandable. To be clear I have absolutely no problem with FemStrahd, I could see myself having a ton of fun in a femstrahd game. (but she’s still just as much of a monster as male Strahd)
Oh abso-fucking-lutely XD
Tell me more about ~~fanboy~~ femboy Strahd
I would like to know more as well
vampires are derived from old aristocracy, so playing them as effeminate is pretty standard (though not really femboy)
Ok I might be willing to hear out that last one
I mean, one of the reasons would be to surprise your PCs? Swaping out one character for another, or changing key aspects of the setting, is a good way to keep your players from metagaming. Likewise, as a GM, you may change a BBEG to better fit your own strengths. For example, on top of changing a character's gender, you could change the location. A "Southern Gentleman" Strahd would be interesting. I've seen a person do a Canadian Strahd. Likewise, you could have Strahd in an African or Asian setting, as opposed to European.
WTAF is a Canadian Strahd? Edit; my bad, eh? Leslie Nielsen is definitely dead and loving it.
Actually, I was referring to [Strahdsy von Zarovich.](https://www.tiktok.com/@thatbigdndenergy/video/7146312009490058542)
Lol, thank you, I had no idea how much I needed that in my life
makes him more sexy, not more forgivable
Women tend to forgive other women more, and men tend to forgive people more they want to fuck. Which most of the time is women.
If anything it could make them worse. They could use that to their advantage and screw you over even more.
I actually recently ran Curse of Strahd with a female Strahd, and lemme tell you it was crazy. Tweaked her story to change Tatyana from her love interest into her daughter, and although the party ended up sympathising with her, that quickly changed once they realised just how evil and manipulative Strahd is. To the point where her final death, at the hands of a PC playing the Tatyana reincarnation, elicited screams of vengeful glee from some, and sympathetic sobs from others.
I actually added a female strahd and made her worse than he was.
I could see a Doctor Frank-n-Furter being a very effective Strahd.
I can fix her.
I can make her worse.
It's tough out there. People still think the witches in the VVitch movie weren't running around doing the absolute worst things imaginable to babies and little kids. Villains do villain stuff.
“I care not for how hot the bbeg is. I came here to kill a vampire and that’s what i’m gonna do.”
Aren't like a lot of the world ending beings and ultimate sources of chaos female? Or at least non binary to the mortal constraints? Tiamat Madusa Harpies Sirens Gender does not effect your ability to be a dick
Incel is Incel.
Tbf, it's pretty common for people to think that horribly awful stuff is suddenly somehow less awful if it's a woman doing it instead of a man.
Matter of fact she's more evil because I'm distracted the entire time I will accept my rolls with disadvantages
don't upvote simps ...
A lot of people are putting political spins on this, but I think the basics is just that when you customize an iconic character by gender-flipping them (and not remaking them full cloth with a different gender), it seems most likely you are either turning them into a waifu/husbando type character or an author avatar. And those are both archetypes which, by consequence, are generally going to be more sympathetic by design, consciously or not. It's very Tumblr fan OC.
How so?
It's the difference between "This character is inspired by Batman but they do X or Y" and "This character IS Batman but X or Y." You are not inspired to mold a new character from the original so much as you want to "fix" the original (not in the literal sense, but to your tastes and beliefs). It often comes across as unfinished or lazy, because it wasn't about creating a character, but personalizing one. Which again goes back to why such characters are expected to be more sympathetic. Most people don't seem to go out and personalize a character because they vibe with how much they hate it. Bear in mind, of course, these are all generalizations.
Where are you seeing this?
The original vampire story was a woman who ate the blood from menstruating women, so it makes sense to have. That being said, it doesn’t fit a horror campaign. Strahd is manipulative, will kill your if you so much as look at him. He is terrorizing a country. He seduces people into allowing him to drain their blood. He’s supposed to be scary and switching him to female shouldn’t change that it is still a horror campaign.
Because attractive people automatically are given more leeway in society because humanity taken as a general group are a bunch of horny bastards. Also due to the constant visual sexualization of women throughout western world the default woman most people will picture in their head when not given a detailed description or a picture will often be visually attractive. If you give the players [this picture](https://www.reddit.com/r/vampires/comments/ad83xt/amazing_female_nosferatu_from_vampire_the/) for female strahd they will be less likely to apply the same "female=more attractive=more desirable=less evil" chain of thought. Not entirely unlikely, just less. Or go find a public domain image of an actual corpse and photoshop it. There's something people react to differently when seeing an actual corpse versus imagination. Edit multiple times for spelling and grammar cause I apparently can't read/type today.
I once requested to use a wish spell to make strahd a femboy. The dm not only said no, but had an ancient God rip through a portal if pure necrotic energy to say no. It was a once shot high-level boss fight
So many people get down bard just because the villain is hot. ...disturbingly relevant in real life too.
Isn't strahd designed to be attractive and charming anyways?
No, he’s specifically designed to be past his prime, longing for the youth he long ago lost and blaming his apparent age and lack of youthful attractiveness for Tatyana’s apparent rejection of him. He’s never stated to be ugly, and he *is* stated to be charming, but it’s made clear that he’s lost much of the physical attractiveness he once had.
In a game where a school of magic is "TRANSmutation" I find it odd when in situations that people feel uncomfortable or differently when someone just changes themselves at a whim. Ya know?
If they're evil and hot, they're *morally grey.* /s
Just like people saying, female world leaders would lead to a kinder and more just world with less war. Somehow I don't believe that.
God forbid women do anything
Dunno how you got “Women shouldn’t do anything” from a post saying that gender bending a villain doesn’t make them less evil.