05-22-2025, 12:34 AM
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
BLOOD & PARENTAL ABUSE
CURSE OF STRAHD SPOILERS AHEAD!
CURSE OF STRAHD SPOILERS AHEAD!
Hemlock Bitterblight was the character that replaced Cassius in the old Curse of Strahd campaign i was in. i dropped Cass due to some issues i was having with him after he was basically used as an. emotional leverage thing? by Someone? but THAT doesn't matter it's neither here nor there :')
anywayyy!
HEMLOCK BITTERBLIGHT - LEVEL 7 HEXBLOOD WIZARD
Hemlock is a race called a Hexblood introduced in the book Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, which goes along very closely with most of the Curse of Strahd's module content. essentially Hexbloods are considered heirs of hags. an extension of them. sometimes they are created of a preexisting creature, sometimes they are born, but in Hemlock's case he was slowly transformed. whisked away from the outside world by a Barovian witch when he was just a toddler, i'm not entirely sure what his name was before he was renamed Hemlock by his witch mother. i also don't know if he was stolen or traded or even sold, but i'm leaning towards stolen. i live for the drama regardless
a few things Hemlock knows
- he's not Barovian - he's not even a hag-like creature by design. he was an elf before.
- his physical appearance has been slowly changing over the course of his life. he remembers having fair hair and skin once, but after every ""wash"" he wakes up a little different. a little more changed. a little more like his mother.
- his mother views him as both a tool because of his powerful magics and as a... reverse bragging right? someone to put down in place of her own vanity. Hemlock knows that she is abusive in this way but there's nothing he can do about it. where is he to go? what is he to do?
- he's very powerful. Hemlock is a wizard so all the magic he knows is self-taught or vaguely taught by his mother. as he was a 7th level caster, which not the most powerful in D&D standards, by the standards of what the party had seen he was quite powerful. i think if Hemlock were to meet Baba Lysaga ( an extremely powerful Barovian hag, a mother to all witches in a way ) he would have gone coocoo bananas. the point is that Hemlock knew he was strong but ( see next point )
- he's cowardly. there are many things about his situation that he knows is wrong and even more things that he dreams about doing to change it. standing up to his mother? making friends? leaving Barovia? all out of the question. even if he could, would it matter in the end? he struggles so terribly with self-worth that there isn't a single aspect about himself he won't have trouble putting down.
- he's bisexual lol
the washes
for reasons unrevealed to me by the dm and since i'm not Talking To Him Anymore I Will Never Know, Hemlock's mother would bathe him in blood. she'd scrub the thick crimson deep into his skin until it burned. he doesn't even know why she did this, but he has a very terrible blood aversion due to this. an idea i have as to why she might have done this is to prolong Hemlock's life so that she can keep that abuse of power over someone. but due to this process of prolonging his life, his body entered aesthetics of certain states of decay regardless, hence the white hair, green skin, and deeply sunken eyes. he has nightmares about the process very often.bisexual legend
[Image: https://file.garden/aBr2KkHDNAeZ_Vl7/hemwock.png]
that's all i got for right now but i'll see about updating this as new thoughts appearify!
[Image: https://file.garden/aBr2KkHDNAeZ_Vl7/hemwock.png]
Hemlock was dangerously into Ireena Kolyana. woman who could beat him up? yeah okay. it was a bit overwhelming to be crushing on someone after living most of his remembered life in isolation, so he didn't exactly know how to peacock around her to impress. one thing he tried doing was showing off his strongest spells like 'oooo look at me i'm a powerful caster' but he didn't realize he was doing it to peacock, he was rationalizing it as trying to convince her that he was worth keeping around as a party member. idk. i think about them often
