u/gadimus

I spent some time yesterday writing and editing the following fanfic / backstory of the Durst family. It was a fun little exercise to flesh out why things are the way that they are when when players enter the Death House. I tried to keep this relatively SFW but there are some gruesome / shocking details nearer the end to be expected. It sets up the sequence for the Death House but it doesn't tell that story.

Feel free to use or riff on this however you'd like. Any feedback is welcome too. I'd like to write more like this.

---

The Dursts were once a simple family in Barovia like most any other. Not brilliant or courageous. Not too terribly kind or cruel. They looked after their own... to an extent. Even before darkness fell, life in Barovia was never easy. The land was neither kind nor cruel - it was indifferent and hardships were faced equally by all Barovians. The Dursts, like many others, admired and envied the old noble families - the Kolyanovich, the Vallaki, the Ulrich - these were some of the oldest, the Burgomasters, the leaders, the founders of settlements and infrastructure, the dreamers and innovators.

The Dursts hungered for the day that their family would taste fortune and be revered. Through sheer luck they would find a taste of such wealth when one day a distant cousin arrived. A child's child of a younger Durst sibling who left home either for glory or bread, returned to Barovia. We can't be sure why they returned, perhaps for similar reasons to why their ancestor left or perhaps the blood of their other ancestors longed for kinship. What we do know is that they brought with them ideas and innovations from far off lands. Notably the windmill. At this time in Barovia milling was typically done by hand which was both labor intensive and inconsistent. The Mill (much later known as the Old Durst Mill) eventually became a central hub for consistent flour production and distribution across Barovia with the Dursts taking their small share. This turn of chance paved their rise towards opulence.

An elder Durst would say "Flour in Barovia is Durst Flour, Bread is Durst Bread" though no one would call it that. Ironically the more that they held this notion of grandeur the more that they neglected the mill and the quality of flour it produced. They had an insatiable hunger for status and admiration - to be seen as a great family line that nothing else mattered. They believed that the mill was a stepping stone, like so many things beneath them.

The Dursts built themselves a manor home and filled it with imported trinkets, stained glass artwork depicting forgotten saints, grotesque artifacts, and a grand piano that none of them ever learned to play. Every room proclaimed wealth. None displayed taste. As each generation's pride and appetites grew the Durst family became synonymous with greed, with sickening sacks of flour filled with sawdust and weevils. The Dursts hoped to be revered, yet they became reviled. Durst Bread was a label applied only to the vilest of loaves.

One Durst Senior obsessed with knowledge collected books from far and wide filling his study. He was convinced that he too could write and penned a massive tome "The History of the Dusk Elves" without ever having met one or studied their history. This was the driest book ever written - it was once said that a single reading could "run lake Zarovich dry". Nevertheless each Durst after him held onto the belief that they too could be great writers and so many became prolifically dull writers with excellent penmanship.

The Dursts kept both servants and slaves seldom making a clear distinction between the two. Those who displeased the family might spend days in an iron cage or locked in a cupboard. Others were simply forgotten. Servants might be given bedding and regular food but both were worked beyond measure. They all became gaunt shadows that clung to the walls. Even their cries hidden away but not forgotten. Better to be not seen and not heard than the alternative.

Below the manor, adjacent to the well, they dug a family crypt, expanding further with each passing generation. Hearing of successful mines in the mountains yielding ample supplies of Iron, Gold and Amber one Durst heir became convinced the grounds beneath their estate could hold riches as well. Becoming convinced that there was salt vein below them they expanded the crypts into a sprawl of exploratory tunnels. Because of this belief the family refused to buy salt going so far as to even write poetry about their good fortunes to come "The salt vein is near, don't waste copper when our fortunes are clear!".

With each new venture the Dursts further neglected the mill which was the source of their fortune. Over the years the mill's foundation had slumped and its axle turned eccentric, each rotation would swing wildly into action and then grind to a tragic halt. Through the passing of time the mill's rotation grew more eccentric. Each turn lurched violently before grinding to another halt. So too with the Dursts. The family would go through the same cycles. A tunnel collapse crushing Durst senior - closing off part of the crypts and hopes for the salt vein. A poor harvest leading to poor yield of flour, famine and hunger. A business ventured soured, an affair, a murder... or two. Each generation brought new energy and eccentricity that would inevitably spiral in and out of control.

In an attempt to rise through the social order the Dursts held banquets to emulate how they believed nobles should act. Inviting guests from the old families but few ever came. Those that did returned with stories of gaudy tasteless art or acts of debauchery bringing further shame to the Durst family. One even told stories of a bizarre crypt beneath the manor - of people kept in cages.

An obsessive Durst cousin carved winding tunnels, refusing to return to the surface in hope of finding his fortunes. Another installed lead pipes in the manor building a bath and privy which drained into those same tunnels below. In noble circles the Dursts were a mockery. Only those hungry to climb the social order clung to the Dursts like weevils to their flour - nesting in the Durst's shadow.

This leads us to the final Dursts - Gustav and Elizabeth. They were first cousins of their dwindling line. By their time the mill had fallen into deep disrepair. Beyond function, its great wheel sat seized in place in a way that no man could move it any further. The same seemed to be the fate of the Durst family. A family such as theirs would normally seek a marriage that further brokered wealth and status but no Barovian of good standing would marry a Durst and a Durst would never marry beneath themselves - and so Gustav and Elizabeth married each other.

Gustav's grandfather died of exhaustion turning the wheel of the mill, his mother and father died from contaminated flour. Like all Dursts, Gustav had a fervent belief that he would succeed, that their status as nobility and wealth would sustain themselves. He set his vanity above all spending what little the family had on the finest garments for his extensive wardrobe. He was the culmination of all Dursts before him, he believed he was the embodiment of grandeur. He hosted parties like no other, he hosted and entertained guests from far and wide. Spending time with inferiors and sycophants who fawned over him only increased his hunger for more. The more he desired to be loved the more he became a source of mockery and derision. After every failed banquet, every embarrassment he would return with another attempt - No locals want to attend? Invite strangers. The children interrupt? Lock them in the attic. Each act more desperate than the last but he held onto the belief that he would achieve what his ancestors believe.

Elizabeth's mother died in childbirth and her father drank himself to death shortly thereafter. She was taken care of in the Durst home but left in neglect. The elder matriarchs fawned over Gustav yet unlike Gustav and many of the Dursts before her Elizabeth was in fact brilliant. She taught herself to read, to play the grand piano and had an intuitive understanding of the family affairs. She knew their fortunes were limited. She knew that their reputation was abysmal. She did not care. With the mill no longer functioning and the poor spending habits of her uncles their accounts in Vallaki were nearly exhausted. The days ahead were bound to be dark but Elizabeth also had a darker side. As a child she would torture small animals on the estate. Pinning frogs to fenceposts. Plucking feathers from nesting hens. Drowning kittens in the well just to watch them claw for air. All of these things brought her glee. Eventually Elizabeth, without supervision, found the forbidden section of the Durst library. Though mostly fiction the depraved acts she found left her hungry in ways that she could not describe. A deep longing craving. No longer kittens clawing at the bath water but rather a whole person writhing in agony, the light in their eyes snuffed out like the flame of a candle. Blood offerings. Flesh sculptures. Feasts upon the living to gain their strength. She was smart enough to know that these were fictional depraved acts but unlike her husband and children - she loved the feeling of power.

And as darkness fell in Barovia, as the mists forbade all passage beyond its borders, Elizabeth saw her opportunity. Like every elder Durst before her her eyes grew wide with ambition. She believed that she had finally found the venture that would change the fate of her family.

This was my first campaign so I was treating it like a learning opportunity. I was going to be happy either way but I didn't expect it to get funded at the rate things were going. I'm feeling overwhelmed with the support from backers - some I know personally and many complete strangers. I get to buy the nice espresso as a treat now.

I did some dumb things like skipping prelaunch and not having marketing assets all polished and ready. I wrote A LOT in the story all ALL of my updates but my droning on maybe isn't what people want to see. Short sweet punchy positive and with lots of pictures seems to be the ideal recipe.

I went into the campaign with a decent following - maybe 200 emails and about 1500 unique followers across various platforms.

For my next campaign my aim is to

- not skip the prelaunch phase (too many buttons that I can't resist clicking but I will try)

- develop all of the content in the prelaunch phase which will run for maybe a month

- launch with very clear graphical marketing on the story page that concisely outlines the rewards and milestones

- render a couple teaser videos to sprinkle in during launch and the live campaign

- time the launch with a series of freebies on the various print sites

- sites like Thingiverse operate on a 1 week window for the homepage and 1 month window for the category so the goal would be to have two featured models that have a shot at the homepage weekly and then hopefully those also rise to the top of the gaming category for the month - in a perfect world this can also drive to the campaign on cults, thangs, printables and other sites

- I like the idea of running ads too but it'll come down to how clear the rewards are and how compelling the marketing content is

- If time permits I will also use my passion for writing to create supplemental content and a mini game associated with the campaign rewards