#Adelhelm Van Helsing

[ramblingnerdsposts]

First rambling of account! This will be about one of the D&D campaigns I am currently in, a Curse of Strahd game. I am just super excited about it, with the character drama and development possible! Before I go further with the rambling, let me present the cast of this campaign really quickly: we have our DM, my character, the walking Castlevania reference known as Adelhelm Van Helsing, a Hexblade Warlock, an anthropologist wizard called Cassini, an excitable but naive tiefling, our bard Eri, a young woman with mysterious origins and a peculiar way of seeing the world, the human fighter Sarrith, a gruff woman haunted by a mysterious shadow, a Kender cleric named Hope Lost, a cynical woman who only has her faith to rely on, and the dhampir rogue Deryth, a professional conman that is really hard to read. (This is my reading of the characters, so if you find another description of them it might differ).

Anyway, for this ramble I’ll talk about my boy Adelhelm. He’s a bit of a complicated guy. His family, the Van Helsing, have made a deal with the Raven Queen generations ago to become monster hunters. It’s the family business to hunt vampires, liches, fiends and demons. It’s pretty much all he knows too, and because of this he lacked friends growing up, only having his family as people he cared about. Then, one night, he comes back home to find most of his family massacred, his sister and father gone, the library containing the knowledge of hundreds of his ancestors now turned to ash. He learns with the help of his family’s employees that vampires attacked and that Strahd was likely the one behind it. He is now in Barovia, trying to put an end to Strahd and avenge his family, while also trying to find where his sister and father ended up.

So, in terms of psychology, Adelhelm feels insane pressure to carry on his family’s legacy, as he’s pretty much the only one left who can do it, while also grieving the loss of the only people he has ever cared for and feeling guilt for his absence during the massacre. In short, Adelhelm is not exactly happy, and he’s more kept alive through sheer hatred and drive than anything else. He also has a really hard time really opening up to anybody, preferring to take on his problems by himself.

Now, for recent events, the party has fought a bunch of living trees and kicked their asses, and they slept under Leomund’s tiny hut with a new person that Adelhelm doesn’t trust very much. During the night, Sarrith took Deryth’s coat from him and ended up keeping it for a while, hinting at feelings between the two, while Adelhelm got cuddled by Cassini during the night (the wholesome kind of cuddles). And he actually liked the physical contact. So he’s confused, he’s developing feelings for Cassini, though even with prodding from Eri he didn’t admit to it. He was awkward for a bit and tried to keep his distance, but eventually with convincing from the bard, he decided to apologize for staying away from Cassini, which she accepted, then he said in an indirect manner that he wouldn’t mind it happening again. You know, romance subplot stuff.

But in Adelhelm’s mind, a lot was going on. He realized through the night that despite his annoyances with her (she tends to ask a LOT of questions), he cares for her. A lot. More than a friend. And he also realized he cares about the others. And he is TERRIFIED by that prospect. Getting close to people again is a risk. A risk that what he went through with his family’s death could happen again. And he does not want that. So now Adelhelm is torn and has a choice to make. He either pushes them away and becomes alone again, to wallow in his own misery, or he tries to open up to them and make new friends and maybe find love, but takes the risk of Strahd or another undead taking these people away from him too. And he does not know what to do.

If you stayed until the end, thanks for reading my rambling! There will be more in the future, on both this campaign, the other one and stuff like video games and anime I enjoy. Until then, later!

#dungeons and dragons #curse of strahd #my characters #character development #ramblings #romance #Adelhelm Van Helsing #ttrpg #storytelling #story time #monster hunters #castlevania #A whole lot of castlevania stuff #nerdlife #nerd explains #nerd rambling

[star-girl-arisen]

So I'm tagging this Xeritoph even though it has nothing to do with my Xeritoph game (which is a d&d game I DM for in the world of Xeritoph) because it is the only tag that my fellow players have blocked.

So I'm playing in a Curse of Strahd game with the same group that is in my game, we just have a different DM (Nick). A brief intro is that we are all from different worlds and have all ended up in Barovia. A super brief run down of the group is: my character, the human fighter with a living shadow Sarrith Nayic, my fiancee's character, a Kender who lost her home and should've died Hope Lost, her girlfriend's character, an anthropologist tiefling who is too naive for her own good Cassini, a Castlevania reference Adelhelm Van Helsing, my friend Slime's character, a dhampir with a mysterious past Deryth (yes, pronounced like my character's name), and a weird bard named Eri.

Currently, several characters are pursuing romantic subplots with other player characters. My character has a huge crush on Deryth and had briefly stolen his famous coat because he threw it at her when she was complaining while in Leomund's Tiny Hut, all while Cassini and Adelhelm pursue a romantic subplot (Cassini is very oblivious and all of us are having fun with this). The big thing here is that Sarrith is polyamorous, but has never focused on how she experiences romantic attraction, so it is all new to her (she is 28 for the record, for backstory reasons she never had given herself the space to even consider romance) and she has realized not only does she have feelings for Deryth but also for Cassini *and* Hope. So she is in one hell of a pickle right now and I have to wait until next Saturday for the next CoS (or some say CoSm) session, where Sarrith will he professing to Deryth, and I will keep you all abreast with those happenings!

#xeritoph