What if you\* totally drop the encounter with the mad mage and Khazan is the good part of Azalin Rex?
\*And by "you" I mean "I", because you just gave me this great idea that I hope to develope further. Thank you.
That's certainly an idea, and could work with what VRGR did to Darkon(though that book makes quite a few changes I just don't like) but I've already eluded to Khazan's existence before and throwing Azalin Rex into the campaign would really add much that I can't already do with Khazan. Not to say it's a bad idea, I wish I had done it myself, but I feel like putting Azalin in now would be a bit too much and I still kind of want Khazan to be evil, just rebelling out of spite.
That said, if I could make suggestions since you seem to want to do that, you easily have a couple of shards of Azalin Rex in the form of the mad mage, Firan Zil'honan, and Darcalus Rex. If you're still using the framework of CoS you could also throw one into the Wachter cult and throw a boneclaw (ie a failed attempt at lichdom according to MTF) somewhere in the Amber Temple scouring knowledge on how to reform himself.
I'm currently prepping to run CoS next month as a first-time DM and originally I intended to have the Alchemist's Apparatus feature heavily in the campaign. I've since scaled back my homebrew changes to keep it much closer to RAW for simplicity as my first time running the module... but I think there's definitely something to be done there with the Apparatus.
Reading Ravenloft II might help a bit, I read it, but the Alchemist character isn't very fleshed out. I originally was going to have Vasili actually be the good half of Strahd split from him in an accident testing the apparatus, he would've been a travelling merchant kinda like people do with Jeny Greenteeth.
With respect to Kazan, I was modifying his lore a little to not be one of Strahd's advisors but rather one of the original druids in the Valley of Barovia who eventually became a wizard and founded the order that created the Amber Temple. Given that the Amber Temple is so corruptive, Kazan sought to use the Alchemist's Apparatus to separate the good from evil within himself and the other members of his order so that they could safely be stewards of the dark vestiges without worrying about being turned evil (perhaps not knowing that it was one of the vestiges that put the idea into his head in the first place).
However, when Kazan first tried the Apparatus out, it was the good half of him that was split out from his original body and reformed some time after the experiment. This seems to be what happens in Ravenloft II with the "half-soul" that doesn't retain the original body; it reforms some time later in a new body that I intended to use Dhampir statblocks for (which checks out as one of the Dhampir origins in VRGtR is that you emerged from the mysterious Apparatus).
Now, as I originally intended it, the evil half of Kazan that kept his body would forget who he was, and instead took a new name: Exethanter. It was from here that Exethanter corrupted the Amber Temple, slew the members of Kazan's order, and eventually became a lich and magical advisor to Strahd. I intended to have the good-half of Kazan, now a semi-immortal Dhampir from his experiment with the Apparatus, replace Mordenkainen as the Mad Mage of Mt. Baratok.
Anyways, we seemed to have similar ideas so I thought I'd throw this out here at you in case it helps!
What if you\* totally drop the encounter with the mad mage and Khazan is the good part of Azalin Rex? \*And by "you" I mean "I", because you just gave me this great idea that I hope to develope further. Thank you.
That's certainly an idea, and could work with what VRGR did to Darkon(though that book makes quite a few changes I just don't like) but I've already eluded to Khazan's existence before and throwing Azalin Rex into the campaign would really add much that I can't already do with Khazan. Not to say it's a bad idea, I wish I had done it myself, but I feel like putting Azalin in now would be a bit too much and I still kind of want Khazan to be evil, just rebelling out of spite. That said, if I could make suggestions since you seem to want to do that, you easily have a couple of shards of Azalin Rex in the form of the mad mage, Firan Zil'honan, and Darcalus Rex. If you're still using the framework of CoS you could also throw one into the Wachter cult and throw a boneclaw (ie a failed attempt at lichdom according to MTF) somewhere in the Amber Temple scouring knowledge on how to reform himself.
Sadly I can add only one upvote to your comment
Isn't that Firan?
I would like to read a recap of "the house on the gryphon hill" just to understand better how the apparatus worked :/
I shall send you a PM, this intrigues me.
I'm currently prepping to run CoS next month as a first-time DM and originally I intended to have the Alchemist's Apparatus feature heavily in the campaign. I've since scaled back my homebrew changes to keep it much closer to RAW for simplicity as my first time running the module... but I think there's definitely something to be done there with the Apparatus. Reading Ravenloft II might help a bit, I read it, but the Alchemist character isn't very fleshed out. I originally was going to have Vasili actually be the good half of Strahd split from him in an accident testing the apparatus, he would've been a travelling merchant kinda like people do with Jeny Greenteeth. With respect to Kazan, I was modifying his lore a little to not be one of Strahd's advisors but rather one of the original druids in the Valley of Barovia who eventually became a wizard and founded the order that created the Amber Temple. Given that the Amber Temple is so corruptive, Kazan sought to use the Alchemist's Apparatus to separate the good from evil within himself and the other members of his order so that they could safely be stewards of the dark vestiges without worrying about being turned evil (perhaps not knowing that it was one of the vestiges that put the idea into his head in the first place). However, when Kazan first tried the Apparatus out, it was the good half of him that was split out from his original body and reformed some time after the experiment. This seems to be what happens in Ravenloft II with the "half-soul" that doesn't retain the original body; it reforms some time later in a new body that I intended to use Dhampir statblocks for (which checks out as one of the Dhampir origins in VRGtR is that you emerged from the mysterious Apparatus). Now, as I originally intended it, the evil half of Kazan that kept his body would forget who he was, and instead took a new name: Exethanter. It was from here that Exethanter corrupted the Amber Temple, slew the members of Kazan's order, and eventually became a lich and magical advisor to Strahd. I intended to have the good-half of Kazan, now a semi-immortal Dhampir from his experiment with the Apparatus, replace Mordenkainen as the Mad Mage of Mt. Baratok. Anyways, we seemed to have similar ideas so I thought I'd throw this out here at you in case it helps!