Van Richten's Tower

Area N2 (Blue Water Inn, Vallaki) + Area V (Tower, Lake Baratok)

Hook: A monster hunter has been watching Barovia from a tower on the lake. He knows more about lycanthropy, vampire spawn, and the nature of Strahd's curse than almost anyone alive. He is also deeply dangerous to approach.

Current Status (as of session 24): Dormant — brushed but never opened. In session 19, Corvin and Logi found Rictavio's carnival wagon at Arasek Stockyard (something large slammed against the inside; the sides were dark with old blood) but never connected it to the bard at the inn. The party has since gone on to Castle Ravenloft. Van Richten is presumably still in Vallaki as Rictavio — and the man who kept his secret, Urwin Martikov, died to a party blade in the inn chaos (sessions 20–21). The raven network will have told Van Richten everything. What a monster hunter concludes about adventurers who killed a Keeper in his own inn is an open question with teeth.

Overview

The tower at Lake Baratok belongs to Dr. Rudolph Van Richten — the most accomplished monster hunter in living memory. He came to Barovia to kill Strahd and has been here long enough to know that killing Strahd is not straightforward. He is not at the tower. He is in Vallaki, in disguise.

Ezmerelda d'Avenir is a monster hunter in her own right — half-Vistani, prosthetic lower leg (lost to a werewolf), and the closest thing Van Richten has to a successor. Her barrel-topped wagon is parked near the tower at Lake Baratok. It is rigged with explosives. The trap is real and she will not apologize for it.

Tone: Competence and damage. Van Richten and Ezmerelda are not warm. They are people who have been fighting monsters long enough to be difficult to like and impossible to dismiss.

Finding Van Richten in Vallaki

He calls himself Rictavio — a colorfully dressed half-elf bard with outrageous stories about a faraway carnival. He performs in the taproom of the Blue Water Inn. His stories are absurd and he presents them as true. He is easy to dismiss.

He is hard to dismiss twice.

His disguise holds because he uses a hat of disguise and a ring of mind shielding. Anyone looking carefully will notice that his stories contain too much accurate detail about monsters. Urwin Martikov knew who he was and kept the secret; with Urwin dead (sessions 20–21), Danika likely holds it now.

Twice daily — at dawn and again at dusk — Rictavio leaves the inn carrying apples and a cooked wolf steak. He claims the food is for a "destitute toymaker and his monkey." The apples are for his horse Drusilla in the inn's stable (area N2f). The steak is for a saber-toothed tiger he keeps locked in a carnival wagon parked at Arasek Stockyard (campaign canon since session 19 — the book places it at N5). The tiger is real. The wagon is locked with an iron key he carries. Corvin and Logi heard the tiger throw itself against the wagon wall in session 19 without learning what it was.

He will not identify himself to strangers without reason. He will watch the party, ask questions while appearing to merely chat, and make a decision about them before they make one about him. If the party has done notable things — and at this point they have — he will have heard. The wereraven network has been watching.

The Tower

Area V — Lake Baratok. A stone tower on a small island, reached by an earthen causeway. The tower has no door. Entry requires standing on the floor tiles outside in the correct sequence — the puzzle must be discovered. Getting it wrong produces no punishment; the entrance simply doesn't open.

Inside: Van Richten's research. Extensive notes on Strahd's history, weaknesses, known behaviors, and the Fanes of Barovia. Also: detailed notes on lycanthropy, on vampire spawn conversion, on what happens when a person is changed against their will versus willingly.

Ezmerelda's barrel-topped wagon is parked near the tower base. It is trapped — explosive. She will not apologize for it. Do not let the party approach the wagon carelessly.

For this party, the tower's contents are directly relevant:

• Logi's vampiric sensitivity is documented in Van Richten's notes on partial conversion — the tooth bonded to him, the hunger that remains. Van Richten has a theory about what it means long-term.
• Myra's lycanthropy — known to her and the party since the inn night (sessions 20–22) — matches his notes on involuntary transformation to the letter. He has written about the moon cycle, the memory loss around transformation, the hunting instinct that targets specific people. He wrote those notes about someone else. The parallel will be visible.

Ezmerelda

She is at the tower — Van Richten is in Vallaki and she is at the tower, and neither of them is where the other is. She is watchful, fast, and not inclined to trust strangers — particularly strangers traveling toward Castle Ravenloft on Strahd's invitation. She will not attack the party without cause. She will question them at length before deciding they aren't cause.

What she can offer the party:

• Knowledge of the road ahead. She has scouted more of Barovia than anyone outside the Vistani.
• Her skills. If the party earns her trust, she is a meaningful addition to a Ravenloft assault. The "stands alone" card from the reading reflects the truth at that moment — but the reading was months ago and she wasn't in Barovia yet.
• A direct question about Myra, if she observes the party long enough: she will notice. She has seen lycanthropes. She knows the signs. Whether she says something, and to whom, is a decision.

What she will not do: follow the party blindly. She has her own objectives in Barovia — primarily Van Richten's safety — and she will not subordinate them entirely.

Van Richten

He is in Vallaki as Rictavio, staying at the Blue Water Inn. If the party ever goes to the tower without finding him first, he learns about them through the Martikov raven network and will make contact — and that network buried one of its own because of this party.

He is old. He has lost almost everyone he has ever cared about to monsters. He came here knowing he might not leave. He is honest about this and it does not make him easier to deal with.

What he knows that no one else does:

• The Fanes of Barovia — three sacred sites (swamp, forest, mountain) that Strahd corrupted when he bound the land to himself. Reconsecrating them would weaken his connection to Barovia significantly.
• That Strahd's invitation is genuine in its own way. Strahd is bored. He receives people because watching them fail is the only entertainment Barovia provides him.
• That the party carrying three anchor items tied to a restored person is something he has never seen and has no research notes on. It interests him. (Updated: the anchors dissolved with Corvin in session 21 — but the items still exist, and a case study that ended is still a case study.)

The Difficulty

Van Richten does not trust easily and has reasons for this. Ezmerelda is harder to read than she appears and her loyalty is to Van Richten first. The tower's explosive trap is real — if the party sends someone ahead carelessly, the wagon goes up.

The more significant difficulty: if Myra is present and Ezmerelda suspects what she is, the monster hunter's instinct is not a comfortable thing to be the subject of. She will not act without certainty. But she will watch.