PANIC

How did they manage to kill her?

It's a perfectly valid design choice. And it doesn't "need an NPC alive to work". The adventure can continue, but its going to be brutish, violent and short, or at the very least radically diverge from the original plot. Just because you /can/ do something doesn't mean that it's not a horrifyingly bad idea to do so.
If the adventure is to rescue the princess, and you kill the princess, the plot is going to play out very differently, and it's entirely valid to say that your capture and execution by the king is very likely. Not necessarily guaranteed, but the degree there depends on how bad you fuck up.
This example is a pretty bad fuck-up.
Same sort of issue that V:tM has. You /can/ pick a fight with Caine but it is a fantastically stupid choice, and the consequences are equally dire.

They just killed a couple of spy's who were sent to kill strad after getting close to him.

>coarse

Well it is going to be rough

I'm aware Veeky Forums has a hateboner for anything youtuber related, but the kids in the Dice,Camera, Action game run by Perkins also managed to kill her.

Specifically, Holly's character used Hold Person on Ireena while Strahd was carrying her away on his baller undead steed.

It's a lot to go through, but there might be ideas there?

Her spirit now inhabits the body of the PC that delivered the killing blow, and now Strahd wants to drain it out of them. Via ritualized murder.

This shit is easy, yo.

Oh, also make sure the PCs know that Strahd makes an effort to recover her body. He'll want that around once he's done preparing the ritual to extract her soul from the PC. His efforts then will be to bring the PC alive to the ritual site, either through kidnapping or just tricking them into coming there.

Probably just make the ritual site wherever you were going to have the final confrontation anyway.

how badly fucked up is the body visually speaking
like, is weekend-at-Bernie'sing it still a viable option

That's funny. I actually killed Ireena when I ran through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

My character was Ireena's ex-lover, and the only member of the party with stealth skills, and when we read the tarot we found out the book that had Strahd's secrets was in his own tomb, at the bottom of the castle. So I had to sneak in, ALONE, almost die, and early on I ran into her and killed her because I was pretty sure Strahd was turning her into a vampire. Later, Strahd almost cornered me when I was DAMN close to getting the book, and I managed to get him the fuck off me by implying that Ireena really, really needed his help...

He was pretty salty after that.

>He was pretty salty after that.
Yeah, I imagine he would be.

Sounds like a Last Starfighter situation there, OP.
youtu.be/nLN36pgwS5o?t=1m25s

>Specifically, Holly's character used Hold Person on Ireena while Strahd was carrying her away on his baller undead steed.
What the fuck? How could that possibly kill her?

A very powerful vampire is going to DESTROY your players.

I'm not the most well-read individual but I know at the very least that in Castlevania a bunch of backwater hicks burn Drac's baby mama at the stake because they think she's a witch. Didn't pan out particularly well for them.

i second this motion, pissed off vampire tyrant genociding all living creatures.

On the bright side, you can have the party reroll as level 8+ characters.

Fall off the horse on her head, probably.

How? She was either
>being held by Strahd
>holding onto Strahd
or she would have already fallen off the horse. Hold person locks your muscles in place so she couldn't have let go.

Maybe the GM was running on the understanding that 'hold' causes spatial fixation rather than paralysis.

You relish in having a rare opportunity to drop a metric fuckton of angry vampire on your players and take out all the stops for a deliberate TPK.

And then you post about it here on Veeky Forums.

>What do I do?
Call for some Powers checks?

Nah.

It's this, surely: youtube.com/watch?v=-LFiZfFyRRs&ab_channel=takahata101

Seconding this.

Hide the body under his nose. Give him a ransom letter directing him one way while you fuck off the other way.

Thirded. Ireena was the only thing Strahd truly wanted, and now that she's been taken from him (again), he is gonna be PISSED.

Remember, the ruins of the village of Berez are ruins because the burgomaster did the same thing your players did. Have Strahd unleash hell on them, like he did on that village. Collateral damage be damned.

I don't want to just kill them though, but I don't know what to do now. It doesn't make sense for Strahd to let them live but I feel like TPKing them is a bit cheap or something

Actions have consequences. Drac is now pissed beyond belief; the campaign is now the PCs running for their goddamn lives, or trying to fight and getting curbstomped. There's plenty of opportunity there, and if they choose to fight it out and get curbstomped that's their own damn fault.

Are they new? Did you warn them that this course would piss off Drac? If you gave them ample warning you are well within your rights to TPK. Let them learn from the consequences.

>mind-affecting
It also apparently turns everyone into a psion, and then forces them to lock themselves in place spacially.

Yea he's gotta murdilate their fucking sphincters for killing her, anything else would be going easy on them considering that.

I'm sad we haven't had a full discussion on the various bluff checks this would require.

They killed his fucking waifu man, they deserve a TPK.

Pic related is going to be your npcs once drac finds them and does what he's done before when people make him angry

Roleplay Strahd correctly. He's going to come at them with everything he has. They're probably going to die. That's their fault, not yours.

Sometimes players make stupid decisions. Then they have to live with the consequences. Sometimes for the rest of their lives.

Well, if all that's happened is that she busted her neck; maybe you could get away with her "being in a coma" with some subtle illusions to make it appear that she is breathing and her heart is beating.

Strahd desperately wants her to be alive, so if you were clever about it, you could probably pull it off.

Because of that, I don't think the bluff check would be too difficult.

If she got horrifically mangled and was sent cartwheeling off a cliff, or something equally hideous, it may take a just a little bit more...creativity.

You may have to disguise a female member of your party, or sacrificial NPC, as Ireena and hope they can wing it well enough that Strahd only realises their fake once the rest of the party is a fair distance away.

However, I imagine this would be "Hiding the Suez Canal from the Luftwaffe" on the scale of hard bluffs.

Of course, this all completely falls apart if Strahd KNOWS that Ireena died when she fell off the horse.

What I've learned from this thread is to take Ireena hostage and use her against Strahd any time the vampire bastard shows up.

You'll still be swimming in undead until he kills you or thinks up a way to get her back some other way but at least you won't be turbofucked like OP's group.

>And was sent cartwheeling off a cliff, or something equally hilarious

Fixed that for you.

>was sent cartwheeling off a cliff
I'm like 40% sure that's how Tatyana died?
Fairly certain that if a party managed to do that with strahd watching, they would be more completely fucked than in OPs example.
Actual spoilers for book:
He locked the guy responsible for it in a stone coffin underground, shortly after turning him

Undead won't touch me if I strap her to my shield!

Also agreeing with this. Make it seem like they have a chance at first, and then slowly help them realize, they have no hope of any life, except eternal suffering, and endless death. Then play them this video
youtube.com/watch?v=hb8gv8YYs_o

Then politely explain, not to get too upset, and restart with new characters.

Find out each PCs backstory,
Family? Kill them
Friends? Kill them
Pets? Kill them
Favorite teacher? Kill them
Part of a guild? Kill them
House? Burn it down
Fav item? Steal it and break it
Etc etc

Let them enjoy panic and thrill and fear. Strahd is now out for revenge. They'll need every trick they can bullshit out of nowhere if they want to survive.

Rather than just TPKing them, make his into a long-running, multi-session revenge campaign. Strahd is going after their loved ones now. It needs to be a back-and-forth contest or your players will get bored and annoyed.

Whatever happens, remember to make it fun. Ignore, like, 95% of the shit in this thread and figure out ways to make this downward spiral into oblivion the most epic thing your players will ever endure.

And hey, maybe their killing of Ireena actually pays off. Strahd could have a full-on conscious death wish now, or maybe he's just so emotionally compromised that he's making obvious mistakes long enough for them to grind up to where they can be a collective threat to him.

When I ran Curse of Strahd, I made the incredible mistake of putting a female PC in the Ireena role. This was a bad choice, because the whole game became centered entirely around the 'romance'.

>I feel like TPKing them is a bit cheap or something
No it's not.

youtube.com/watch?v=g2IO_2bgJkw

This is much better than the fags shouting "TPK!".

Because players stupid enough to kill Ireena will know to retreat, hit and run, and scheme for their survival.

The OPs players are retarded, putting in effort to make them suffer isn't worth the effort.

>Strahd could have a full-on conscious death wish now,
Nah, this isn't the first time his waifu died. She'll reincarnate eventually. He'll be enraged to the point of mass genocide but not suicidal

Oh hey OP. I'm worried about being in the exact same circumstance. Some of my players redefine "fucking dumb". They started trying to kill one another the moment they got into the town of Barovia.

underrated post
sides are in orbit

These guys get it.

I mean, yeah, if it looks like your players are too dumb to survive a single night just TPK them, but this is a great opportunity for an "escape the angry vampire" campaign.

What insane brand of logic is that?
Your players are fucking morons.

the baller undead steed was high up in the air when she lost balance and fell

Whoops, should have caught her.

Yup, run for the mist wall or whatever it is in Ravenloft and hope to hell that the powers let you escape to another realm... actually, no way they let that happen lol.

I'd drop hell on wherever they are, and give them some hints on possible outs (faking their deaths, pinning the blame on someone else, blitzing Strahd in his castle while his minions are looking for them, etc)

Start the next session by having them create new, higher-level characters, entering the now post-apocalyptic Barovia. Eventually, deep in Strahd's castle, they discover the broken, suffering things that were their previous PCs.

Strahd decides killing them is too merciful

Honestly standard like a standard reaction. You've damaged the count irrevocably. Since that was the goal, it's hand out a big chunk of xp, and accelerate the story line.

No, in Bram Stoker's Dracula his brides/concubines were killed off. But he never gave a shit about them. He just brought them over so he can get his dick wet whenever he wanted and as cannon fodder in case his castle was invaded.

Drop some very heavy hints that they need to bring her body to the abbott so he can revive her/put her soul in the flesh golem
or else Stradh WILL destroy them.

I mean, the Dark Powers continuously orchestrate the demise of Tatyana's vessel. This is just par for the course for them. Might even yank the characters out of the Demiplane of Dread to rob Strahd of his chance at vengeance.

Strahd would want them dead. This is a great chance for you to actually TPK them, and then fade to black and have them come back as Revenants.

They come back and Strahd thinks their dead, make the campaign much darker, and make the Vampire Hunters the two important NPCs to progress the story.

But yes, you need to let Strahd have his revenge.