“Strahdyana Von Zarovich, at your service… or I suppose you, at mine. I wanted to commend you for your work. These lands are dangerous.
But I have yet to see you work in person. And… as the ‘Lord’-or Duchess, I suppose-of Barovia, I believe it is time I met you properly.
You say you are defenders of this place?Prove it to me.”
*Finally* posting this portrait I painted of Strahd- or in our game, Strahdyana!
A super cool soul over on the Curse of Strahd subreddit pointed out that a slight shift in her name to Strahdanya would make it sound extremely close to the Russian word for suffering (Страдание, they said) for that sweet double meaning and if that’s not the coolest fuckin thing?? So it’s Duchess Strahdanya in our game now :v)
There was also talk of changing her surname to Von Zarovna for proper suffix reasons (-na being “daughter of”), but there’s backstory reasons for not having that change in our case that I’ll post about some other time. But I figured I’d mention it for those who want to also utilize female Strahd, aka Strahdanya Von Zarovna
