One of the really cool things in Ravenloft: Horrors Within is that, in addition to the stat blocks for Darklords, we also get bespoke stat blocks for a number of potential allies in our travels across the Mists. While we don't have Alanik Ray and Arthur Sedgwick, and we may or may not have the appropriate stat block for Firan Zal'honen (depending on what you think the version of that character the party might meet is, we get a few of the Mist Wanderers.
While Ravenloft is a setting that operates on full nightmare logic, it's not without its own friendly faces. The PCs might take it upon themselves to face the terrors of the Mists, but they're not the only ones fighting back.
In most D&D campaigns, you have a number of friendly NPCs who can help the party out - often they simply serve as quest-givers or as people who have some knowledge that can help the party out. But sometimes, they can accompany a party and aid them as, essentially, NPC party members. And I think that's where these stat blocks becomes really useful.
Gennifer and Laurie Weathermay-Foxgrove are the twin apprentices of Rudolph Van Richten's. They hail from Mordent, and are relatively young but established monster-hunters.
Gennifer has a sort of Druid/Cleric set of abilities, with a little bit of healing and radiant damage she can dish out. At CR 3, Gennifer is a formidable ally to a tier 1 party, and the extra healing and damage she can deal can be a real asset.
However, Gennifer comes with a major downside: unbeknownst to everyone, she is actually already cursed with a werewolf bite. Thus, if she ever drops to 0 HP, she will transform into a werewolf.
I believe that, rules as written, that means she is permanently changed and also becomes chaotic evil. DMs can choose to be a little less bleak and allow the party to subdue her and even maybe cure her with a Remove Curse spell.
But I will say, if you're willing to go dark (and this is Ravenloft,) you might make the transformation truly permanent, and force the party to either kill her, imprison her, or risk her stalking the party for the rest of the adventure.
Gennifer has been suppressing her curse, so she seems to be aware of it, but I think it's implied that she's keeping this a secret, even from her sister. If a party member learns of this through insight, or perhaps investigation or even medicine checks, you might have her play the trope of "don't tell my sister - I don't want to upset her." Indeed, learning of her affliction before she gets transformed will lend to the tension that builds with her - it forces the party to do whatever they can to prevent her from going to 0 HP, an extra challenge that can make combat more difficult and really raise the stakes of any encounter that involves her.
Even if the party convinces her to step back from her monster-hunting activities, two things will happen: first, the party is down a character who can heal and do some pretty potent magical effects and spells. Second, just because she is sitting back at home in Mordent doesn't mean that she's safe - what even is a "safe" place in Ravenloft?
This transformation will be especially upsetting because her twin sister, Laurie, is likely to be there with her when it happens.
Laurie is also CR 3, and ultimately has a bit of a simpler stat block. She's basically a straightforward fighter-like character, though she has a reaction that can protect either herself or a nearby ally. This does mean that if the twins stick together, Gennifer will be a little safer thanks to this.
There's plenty of human drama to mine from the secret Gennifer keeps from Laurie, and I'd lean into that, as horror often works best when you get into the specifics of the characters.
Bringing two CR 3 character to aid the party could potentially balance combat quite a bit in the party's favor. Gennifer can be a liability, of course, but until she goes down, she's going to have a lot of powerful stuff she can do to help.
There's no strict guidance on adding NPCs to a combat encounter - my simple rule is just to add the NPCs' XP amounts to the total encounter budget. The twins might help the party face down a monster they'd normally not be ready to face, but this can start to warp the balance - even if the XP balances out, a Strigoi is still going to insta-kill lower-level characters. Thus, I'd instead err on the side of more monsters of the CR that the party was already going to face.
I'd also err on keeping these NPCs in supporting roles. Consider letting the players direct how the characters will act on the adventure - asking them to do things like Investigation or Religion checks (maybe phrased more like, in-character, asking them "What do you think of this symbol?") In combat, I might even recommend handing over control of the NPCs to the players, though if the Suppressed Lycanthropy element of Gennifer isn't common knowledge, you might instead just run both of them.
Allied NPCs can be a lot of fun, but I'd also generally not run them with the party for an entire campaign. Sure, there's precedence for this (Balnor from NADDPOD comes to mind, as well as Essek for the latter part of Critical Role's Mighty Nein campagin) but without a lot of engineering on your part, the twins won't scale up as the party levels up.
In tier 1, the twins will be very formidable allies, but by the time the party gets into tier 2, the PCs will start to outstrip the Twins as powerful monster hunters, so you might have them settle back into Support NPCs by then.
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