Role: Castle maid
A shy, platinum-haired maid with lace like spiderwebs on her dress, Dorothy led the party up through the castle after their arrival. She spoke fondly of the Count — his loneliness, his “ennui,” his talent on the great organ in the hall — and warned them of Sister Geraldine, gently steering the disturbed nun back to bed when they crossed paths with her in the corridor.
Clover’s Mother
The party believes Dorothy may be Clover’s mother, though it isn’t confirmed. What’s actually known is only that Clover’s mother worked at the castle, and Dorothy is a maid there — the connection is a strong guess, not an established fact. This is separate from, and shouldn’t be confused with, the party’s unconfirmed rumor that Tatiana might be the mother instead (see Tatiana’s and Clover’s pages).
Session 2
Brother Kristoff, met this session, recalled being captured at the drawbridge by a doorman, Christine, and a white-haired maid in a spider-silk dress with “loose lips,” who told him and his companion more about the Count than she probably should have. Confirmed by the GM: that maid was Dorothy.
Session 3 — Confirmed: Clover’s Mother, and Not Human
The party ran into Dorothy on the mountainside below the castle, in a forest clearing strung with webs as thick as ship’s rigging — Ivek and Ulfgar walked straight into them and were caught fast. She was swinging above them on what everyone took for a great cushion slung between two ropes, delighted to see them: I’ve been waiting for you for so long. What took you guys so long? Told they had been trying to kill Strahd, she laughed and observed that most fools who challenge the Lord end up as mortar in his castle.
Then she caught the scent of her child on them and her whole manner changed. Enki produced the black rose that was all that remained of Clover; she snatched it, cradled it and rocked it, singing a nursery rhyme over it. When she looked up, her hair had fallen back from her forehead and there were eight eyes set into it.
Her account of herself, given in tears: That Count is a beast. I came to him seeking shelter. He was so kind to me — so very kind. When my child was born, he turned me and left me in a room with it alone. She thanked the party for showing her daughter kindness, told them to run before she changed her mind, and rose backward into the branches — and the “cushion” she had been sitting on turned out to be her own great spider’s abdomen. Thousands of red eyes were open in the canopy above.
This confirms two things that had only been guesses: Dorothy is Clover’s mother, and she is not (or is no longer) an ordinary maid. It also confirms that the spiders in and around Castle Ravenloft are hers, and casts the spider-silk lace on her dress, the cobwebbed sarcophagus in the crypt, and the giant spiders in the witch’s kitchen in a rather different light.
Enki, who has taken a considerable liking to her, is carrying the feather duster Brielle recovered from that cobwebbed sarcophagus; Randoah gave it to him after the river crossing.