The Brides of Strahd

Over the past year, a lot of folks have asked me, “Where is Anastrasya’s stat block?”

To this inquiry, I inevitably replied something along the lines of “It’ll be coming out soon!” and “We’re also overhauling Ludmilla!”

Thankfully, today is the day that I got my butt in gear and compiled the updated stat blocks for all four of Strahd’s brides into one document—we’re even including Escher, the poor guy. New and improved, bold and bodacious, and deadlier than ever.

You can download the full document over on our Patreon, but I’ve included a taste of it down below!

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Anastrasya Karelova

Anastrasya prefers to handle problems herself—and she typically opts for a permanent solution. Despite her preference for violence, she is neither impatient nor foolish. She carefully engineers any combat encounter to occur at a time and place other choice, to provide her with the greatest possible advantage. Anastrasya does not like surprises, and she is likely to break off an encounter she was not expecting, especially when things develop poorly for her. She wants to be the one to surprise her enemies, to maximize her psychological advantage.

Once combat is engaged, she fights just as smart. Having planned each engagement meticulously, she knows about the powers her opponents have displayed before. She typically tries to disable or distract characters with a weak will, typically the brutes and those with the highest damage potential among her enemies. In this, she saves her limited-use mind-controlling abilities, such as Commanding Voice for the characters which pose the greatest threat to her. She picks off spellcasters, with unrelenting direct attacks. She does not spread around her attacks, instead focusing down the target of her choice mercilessly–usually the squishiest among her opponents.

Despite the outward image of a dignified noble she maintains, Anastrasya is an absolute savage in combat. She relishes every fight, the blood dripping from her nails or running down her throat… She hits hard, and fast, and deliberately tries to shellshock her opponents with the sheer savagery of her onslaught. A favorite combination is to shove a target prone with Shove and then lay into it with her Multiattack. If she wants to disrupt the movement of characters across the battlefield, both Hurl and Commanding Voice from her legendary actions are in her toolbox. She also likes to lull characters into a false sense of security and then rapidly strike out with Bloody Talons, while repositioning herself at the same time.

Anastrasya prefers to fight alone, without minions. She also likes to lure her targets to a place where there are no witnesses to her ferocity. She prefers to keep her tricks secret and maintain a noble and dignified appearance to fool her enemies and admirers alike–it simply would not do if anyone say her in the rush of battle, with blood dripping off her talons!

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