#r: ez x urlsrta x lucian

[rahadaddy]

That was me! Last game, our cleric romanced (and married) them both.

hey no shame i’m just curious but I swear to the morninglord i saw a post about one of your PCs being in a polycule with Ezmerelda and Father Lucian can you please identify yourself I am so deeply fascinated

[rahadaddy]

Urlstra was our Twilight Cleric - a drow raised by Shadar Kai, in the service of the Raven Queen. In this version of Barovia, the Raven Queen and the Morning Lord were lovers forced apart by the creation of the Dark Domains (to house great evils, they sacrificed their love to protect the people. A wild difference from my current game, but I digress.) The first character Urlstra really fell in love with was Yeska in a totally maternal way. Yeska is Lucian's son in pretty much every version of CoS that I run. Yeska decided to play matchmaker and Urlstra (and Urlstra's player, my now girlfriend) was like, "lol give me a good reason to ship it."

So I did. I made Lucian one of three stable adults in Vallaki, held together by fantasy ibuprofen, hot in a DILF kinda way, incredibly kind, and a pretty decent cleric with some skill in combat - a legitimate threat to Strahd's vampire spawn. if not to Strahd himself. He fell in love with Urlstra I think before she fell in love with him, but they ended up being down bad for each other. They would go on mission trips to the Dusk Elf camps, not to evangelize, but to share supplies with them. Lucian spoke fluent, if Barovian, Elvish to Urlstra, they parented Yeska together, and there was a lot of peace in their relationship.

Granted, when the party met Ez, Urlstra was also down bad. Ez was reckless and smart, free spirited and so terribly awkward about romance (a "love 'em an leave 'em" type who didn't know what to do with real feelings for Urlstra). The encouraged each other to take risks, fight monstes (so many monsters), and Urlstra rescued Ez from Ludmilla. They were passionate and exciting as a couple. Ez offered to take Urlstra traveling across the mists to fight more evils, but when she thought that Urlstra was going to marry Lucian only, Ez still bought her her wedding dress.

I wasn't sure how Urlstra was going to choose. Then we had the three of them interact. It didn't go perfectly, but Yeska was enamoured of Ez and his seal of approval opened Lucian's heart to her. The two of them flirted, a little meanly but like... it worked. Urlstra encouraged them both to pursue each other and her at once. The three of them had some fun times in the Blue Water... The Church of St. Andral... and Ez's caravan. Mind you, not all of this was directly in session, but we would talk about it, write about it, and do 1x1 roleplay. The parts of it that made it into the game were delightful.

However, out of character, I was less sure what to do. We were building this fun, little polycule for fiction, but my not-yet-girlfriend who I was falling for IRL kept saying Lucian and Ez were two sides of me. It's all fun and games, flirting with your friend as a hot priest and sexy monster hunter until you catch feelings, you know? Especially since I prize my storytelling ability and didn't want to compromise it. I had to think it through.

There ended up being some worldbuilding about how souls had split (specifically St. Andral split between Ez and Lucian) and reincarnated (Urlstra was Markovia), Urlstra gained the ability to pray to the Raven Queen or the Morning Lord, and the three of them got married at Vallaki's wedding festival. Strahd then killed Urlstra on the wedding night (literally only so he could steal her shit) and Ez brought Urlstra back. The three of them hate Strahd, even though everyone else ended up neutral to posiitve towards him. It's implied that Lucian will keep down the home base in Vallaki while Ez and sometimes Urlstra travel now that Barovia is liberated from the Dark Domains. But that game has been finished for a long time.

I eventually got the girl, btw. Somehow, being a mix of Father Lucian and Ezmeralda D'Avenir is the thing to be if you want a baddie to move 1000 miles cross-country to be with you. The week we started dating, I was visiting her in Chicago. We were talking to another friend who was also running CoS and, in comparing notes on Ez, I turned to my now-GF and said, "Would you like to tell our friends where your girlfriend is?" I meant that Ez was captured by Ludmilla in Tsolenka Pass. Instead, she went, "Right... here...?" and that's the story of how we started dating.

In our current game, Blood Countess, we made Lucian's dead wife Urlstra with a Twist and the party has a straned relationship with Ez. I've been trying to decide if it's funnier for Ez and Lucian to still be a thing in Blood Countess because like... I cannot stress enough how much my GF's new cleric, Alistor, hates this woman and how much "Father Lucian definitely fucks"/"But he's my dad!!!" the warlock (Theo, Lucian's adopted daughter) has had to put up with. (Legit: the party thought he was renown rake, Alek Gwilym, reincarnated because he had ... *checks notes* Three children, one of them adopted. Which would have been even funnier, since Alek is Alistor's dad, but, no, I did something else there. A different story.)

I have only a few hours to decide if Ez and Lucian are 1. strangers 2. exes who are mad about it 3. exes who are chill with each other 4. still together in some fashion. or 5. about to start dating for the first time much to the chagrin of everyone.

hey no shame i’m just curious but I swear to the morninglord i saw a post about one of your PCs being in a polycule with Ezmerelda and Father Lucian can you please identify yourself I am so deeply fascinated