#(and it doesn't solve the original problem of Death House not connecting to Barovia)

[spyridonya]

Death House Fanon Plot

So, I’m doing Curse of Strahd and working on Death House and checked out the guides. The crunch and atmospheric details are good and using skill checks to get out of the house sounds great.

I am so very, very disappointed with the plot.

It’s horrifically triggery in several, several ways. Still birth, child abuse, child death, body horror, infidelity, misogyny, and romanticizing power imbalances.

And it doesn’t solve the problem it’s trying to fix.

Read below for the rant, cut due to the zillion triggers.

Death House doesn’t have much of connection to Barovia/Ravenloft in general so the plot is the owners of Death House, Mr. and Mrs. Durst who are minor nobility, think Strahd is a dark messiah that will help them and their death cult become immortal. Mr. Durst even writes for help pleading how to deal with his wife after his problematic affair with the maid results with a stillborn child.

Strahd goes ‘nah’.

For reasons, the parents tap into Dark Power Energy and turn into ghouls, forgetting had two kids they genuinely love and locked in their room for safety, and said kids die of hunger. Oh, and you can find a old deed to the Windmill where more horrific things happen. Because it’s the Curse of Stahd.

Anyway, the plot is nonsense. So, two popular creators rewrote Death House plot.

Instead of having the Dursts being batshit insane, Mrs. Durst feels sad and ugly and old and Mr. Durst feels so sad and depressed and that his wife doesn’t meet his needs. So, Mr. Durst has an affair with his young maid that he Totally Does Not Have a Power Imbalance with No Really This is Romantic - see, look there’s a romance novel that’s Exactly Like Them. Mr. Durst knocked up the maid. Mrs. Durst gets jealous and makes a death cult, Mrs. Durst nags her husband to join, Mrs. Durst gets so jealous after the baby is born that she kills the maid, sacrifices the baby, everyone becomes a ghoul and Mr. Durst goes to hang himself -- even though he’s supposed to be a ghoul. The baby then becomes a flesh monster that can never die.

Oh, and they still forget their other kids in the house. And you get a note about Mr. Durst worrying about his kids while his wife now hates them all.

Not only do we have the Unfortunate Implications Affair, Non-Ironic Gothic Horror Misogyny, we now have three dead kids, and one of them turns into an Eldritch Abomination that you probably can’t kill.

And it still doesn’t connect to Barovia any differently than in RAW. The only tangible change is ‘stillborn’ is switched to ‘bastard’.

I managed to fix it a little bit. But that’s for another time.