Mad Baron Drelev

[pennywit]

Hi, guys. I'd like a little bit of inspiration, if you have it. My players are just visiting Fort Drelev, and they're going to see this handbill. IMC, the mad baron has traded away his sanity (and future rights to his kingdom) to the shadow fey (from the Kobold Press Courts of the Shadow Fey) in exchange for military help and security. The baron (who's completely bonkers at this point) holds a "birthday party" for the duchess every week.

If my players go to the baron's party, I want them to sense this guy makes the Mad Hatter's tea party look sane. Any ideas to convey this? I'm looking for menace, almost cartoon level, but really, really friggin' scary.

[Andostre]

Just a few thoughts:

- Have the Baron reward one of his allies or a loyal follower with the hand in marriage to the son or daughter of another loyal follower. Only, nobody on either side of marriage wants the wedding to take place, including the bride and groom. In fact, Baron Drelev annulled the existing marriage of one of the betrothed to make this marriage possible. Of course, he is extremely confused why nobody seems to like this arrangement, and he's becoming increasingly agitated about the resistance to his magnanimous offer.

- Have Baron Drelev be verbally abusive to Baroness Pavetta in public over nonsense issues. Eventually, he loses his temper and orders her not to eat any food for the rest of her celebration.

- He becomes bored and orders two of his bodyguards to duel with two random pieces of silverware that he picks up.

[Spatula]

Servants who upset the Baron get their heads chopped off... and then sewn back on again, and then they are re-animated so they can continue serving. Or to tone it down some, servants could have visible scars (and maybe sewn-on rotting body parts) from where they've been punished by having fingers/hands/noses lopped off, and then re-attached surgically when the Baron's mood changed. Or maybe they're just missing bits. Maybe the servants have their human ears replaced by sewn-on elf ears, or their human ears have been cut to look more pointy, so that they can be look more faerie.

Some/all of the Baron's advisers/friends are animals. Or they turn out to be evil talking faerie animals. But maybe only he can hear the talking?

The winners or losers of the party games/competitions suffer horrible fates that everyone pretends are awesome.

The Baroness has a fake smile plastered on her face the entire time in public, but tries to get to a PC in private and desperately pleads to be taken away from the madhouse, relating awful stories in the process. Perhaps she gets caught, and since the Baron can't punish her, he orders something terrible to be done to someone she cares about (her dog?!?).

[pennywit]

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm going to see what my players do at our next session. There's a chance they might try to rescue Lord Numesti by cloak and dagger. There's also a chance my players will provoke a full-on combat with Drelev and his retinue. There's a chance my players will go to dinner with the Mad Baron and do nothing. They're very, VERY unpredictable.

I really like some of these ideas, particularly the silverware one. (I have a couple players who are complete hams. Drelev might order them to partake in the Great Tableware Duel). Also, just to make my players paranoid, I'm going to have housecats following them all over Fort Drelev, and have the Baron's castle positively crawling with them.

I don't want to draw this out too much, given that a dinner party is a major set piece in Courts of the Shadow Fey, and we already had a dinner party with prisoners as a major element in Book 2. But if my players attend, I like the idea of starting out with the Drelev seeming mildly eccentric and amusing, then coming across as b*@#~$* bonkers (and a little scary) by the end of the evening.

[Andostre]

pennywit wrote:

I really like some of these ideas, particularly the silverware one.

We all draw on our experiences for inspiration, you know what I mean?