Beauty in Barovia

Lady Marcela Drazkova

Basic Information

Name: Lady Marcela Drazkova Race: Vampire Gender: Female Apparent Age: 24 True Age: Approximately 83 Height: 5’3” Social Status: Barovian noblewoman Residence: An elegant townhouse within the walls of Vallaki Occupation: Noblewoman; occasional attendee at the court of Castle Ravenloft Companion: Daria Vaduva, officially her personal attendant and maid

Appearance

Marcela is a beautiful, slender young woman permanently preserved at twenty-four, with porcelain-pale skin, refined aristocratic features, reddish-brown eyes, dark crimson lips, and long silvery-blonde hair usually arranged in an elegant updo with loose strands framing her face.

Her wardrobe reflects her wealth and considerable vanity. She favors beautifully tailored black knee-length dresses and skirts, fitted bodices, intricate lace, sheer black thigh-high stockings, elegant heeled ankle boots, and expensive jewelry. Her clothing becomes considerably more elaborate when attending court at Castle Ravenloft.

Personality

Aristocratic: Marcela possesses the effortless confidence of someone raised among Barovia’s nobility. She expects courtesy and is entirely comfortable among the wealthy and powerful.

Vain: She takes considerable pride in her beauty and enjoys being admired. Fine clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, and maintaining an immaculate appearance are genuine pleasures.

Decadent: Marcela loves wealth and the lifestyle it provides. Beautiful furnishings, expensive clothing, art, jewelry, parties, servants, and aristocratic comforts are things she considers immortality especially useful for enjoying.

Charming: Socially graceful and naturally flirtatious, Marcela knows how to make someone feel interesting and important when she wants their cooperation.

Calculating: She rarely sacrifices long-term security for immediate gratification. Decades of maintaining false identities have made deception and patience second nature.

Playfully Predatory: Marcela possesses a dark sense of humor and frequently wears a subtly amused expression. She enjoys leaving people uncertain whether she is teasing them, flirting with them, or regarding them as potential prey.

Protective: Daria is one of the few people Marcela genuinely trusts. Their official mistress-and-servant relationship has little bearing on how Marcela actually regards her.

Powers & Skills

Marcela possesses the supernatural strength, speed, reflexes, heightened senses, resilience, regeneration, darkvision, climbing ability, and predatory instincts associated with vampirism. Her delicate appearance conceals considerable physical power.

Her supernatural charm is especially effective because Marcela combines it with genuine social ability. She is highly accomplished in persuasion, deception, etiquette, dancing, fashion, noble customs, court intrigue, and reading people’s intentions.

Decades among Barovia’s upper classes have also given her extensive knowledge of noble families, old scandals, alliances, rivalries, and the dangerous etiquette surrounding Castle Ravenloft.

Background

Marcela was born into House Drazkova, an old Barovian noble family whose fortunes had declined before her transformation. Immortality gave her decades to restore the family’s wealth, and she has since accumulated substantial property, jewelry, investments, favors, and influence.

Her eternal youth requires her periodically to disappear. Every few decades Marcela leaves Vallaki, returning years later under another name as a supposed niece, cousin, granddaughter, or other young Drazkova relative. Her current townhouse is among Vallaki’s finer private residences, approaching Wachterhaus in comfort and refinement without being ostentatious enough to attract unnecessary scrutiny.

Lady Fiona Wachter presents a unique complication. Fiona was still a young girl during one of Marcela’s previous periods of residence in Vallaki and remembers the noblewoman Marcela pretended to be at the time. Marcela’s unchanged appearance eventually made the truth obvious. Rather than becoming enemies, however, the two developed a surprisingly cordial relationship.

Marcela knows that Fiona is loyal to Strahd and effectively serves as one of his eyes and ears within Vallaki. She accepts this as part of dealing with Fiona and simply ensures that she never says or does anything in Fiona’s presence that she would not want repeated at Castle Ravenloft.

Marcela and Daria are consequently regular guests at Fiona’s private gatherings and parties. They are also members of Fiona’s supposedly innocuous “book club”—in reality, a secret cult centered around the worship of Asmodeus. A vampire noblewoman and a practicing witch are hardly scandalized by discovering that their hostess has occult interests of her own.

Marcela genuinely likes Fiona, and their friendship provides useful access to Vallaki’s upper class, information, gossip, and an indirect connection to Strahd’s sphere of influence. Nevertheless, Marcela never forgets whom Fiona ultimately serves.

Marcela herself periodically attends court at Castle Ravenloft, where her true nature requires considerably less concealment.

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Daria Vaduva

Basic Information

Name: Daria Vaduva Race: Human Gender: Female Age: 22 Height: 5’1” Occupation: Witch, herbalist, personal attendant and lady’s maid Employer/Companion: Lady Marcela Drazkova Residence: Marcela’s townhouse in Vallaki

Appearance

Daria is petite and slender, with pale skin, very dark brown eyes, and exceptionally long dark-brown hair reaching well below her waist. She usually wears it in intricate braids across her crown and down her back, with long straight locks framing her face.

She favors fitted black knee-length dresses and skirts, elaborate lace, high collars, sheer black thigh-high stockings, black ankle boots, and dark jewelry. Some of her necklaces, rings, and charms are occult tools rather than decoration. Marcela’s influence and generosity mean Daria dresses considerably better than an ordinary Vallakian servant.

Personality

Inquisitive: Magic, supernatural creatures, strange artifacts, forbidden books, and unexplained phenomena immediately attract Daria’s attention—sometimes at the expense of common sense.

Intelligent: She learns quickly, possesses an excellent memory, and is particularly adept at connecting seemingly unrelated pieces of information.

Independent: Being Marcela’s servant is an occupation and mutually beneficial arrangement, not submission. Daria has never considered herself Marcela’s property, and Marcela does not treat her as such.

Irreverent: Titles and social status impress her considerably less than they should. She behaves appropriately in public but privately has no hesitation about mocking Marcela’s aristocratic habits.

Observant: Being overlooked as a servant is useful. Daria notices conversations, relationships, gestures, and secrets while others barely acknowledge her presence.

Mischievous: Around people she trusts, her reserved exterior gives way to dry humor, teasing, and occasional deliberate troublemaking.

Loyal: Her relationship with Marcela has long since become more important than employment. Her loyalty is freely given rather than demanded.

Powers & Skills

Daria practices an eclectic mixture of Barovian folk magic, arcane experimentation, herbalism, and ritual witchcraft. Her specialties include charms, hexes, curses, divination, illusions, protective wards, potion brewing, herbal remedies, poisons, magical identification, and ritual spellcasting.

She prefers subtle magic, preparation, and deception over direct magical combat.

As Marcela’s personal attendant, Daria is also skilled in managing elaborate clothing and jewelry, arranging hair, preparing luggage, household organization, discreet correspondence, court etiquette, and assisting Marcela in maintaining her succession of carefully constructed identities.

Her position also gives her an underestimated talent: listening. Nobles frequently discuss matters in front of servants that they would never reveal to another noble.

Background

Daria was born to an ordinary Barovian family and discovered an aptitude for magic while young. With no formal teacher, she learned through folklore, hedge practitioners, scattered manuscripts, and extensive experimentation. Her activities eventually attracted dangerous attention, leading to her encounter with Marcela.

What began as a practical arrangement became permanent. Marcela offered protection, wealth, magical resources, and a secure home in which Daria could practice her craft. Daria became Marcela’s trusted attendant, confidante, and accomplice in maintaining her identities.

Daria accompanies Marcela into Vallaki’s upper social circles, particularly the gatherings hosted by Lady Fiona Wachter. She is also part of Fiona’s “book club” and knows perfectly well that its true purpose is the secret worship of Asmodeus. Like Marcela, she understands Fiona’s connection to Strahd and is consequently careful about what she reveals in Wachterhaus.

Officially, Daria remains Lady Drazkova’s personal maid. Privately, their relationship bears little resemblance to a conventional mistress-and-servant arrangement. They are close friends, confidantes, and lovers, with an easy intimacy that neither feels a need to define more formally. Their arrangement provides both women with what they want, and genuine affection has grown around it.

Their Vallaki home reflects both of them. The townhouse is nearly comparable to Lady Wachter’s residence in comfort, filled with quality furniture, silver candlesticks, expensive fabrics, artwork, and Marcela’s extensive wardrobe. Mixed throughout are Daria’s dried herbs, potion bottles, occult books, ritual implements, charms, and magical experiments.

It is simultaneously the home of a wealthy noblewoman, the workshop of a witch, and the private refuge of two women who understand that in Barovia, almost everyone has something they would prefer their neighbors never discover.