During my Session Zero for Curse of Strahd one of my players told me they wanted to play as a fortune-teller. I felt this was a perfect opportunity to tie their character into the adventure by making them a Vistana, they agreed to my idea, so we set out to create a character. While there are plenty of homebrew race and class options available online for Vistana player characters, I wanted to create a character using only official content. Let’s get started!
What am I looking for in a Vistana PC?
Before I looked at which race and class my Vistana player character should be, it seemed like a good idea to summarize what I was looking for. At a glance, the Vistani are travelers and storytellers that use the tarroka deck to guide their travels and predict the future. Additionally, they can charm and curse their enemies with their “Evil Eye”. This means a Vistana adventurer should ideally have access to some amount of magic, and would have a preference for Divination and Enchantment magic.
What Race Might a Vistana be?
In past revisions of Barovia, the Vistani are presented as a lineage of humans, which meant to be a Vistana you needed to be a human. In the modern version of Barovia, being Vistani is a tradition rather than a lineage, meaning we have a lot more race options than before. While the Vistani are still mostly human, it would not be unheard of for many of the races in the player’s handbook to be a Vistana.
While this meant I had plenty of race options for a Vistana player character, I wasn’t really excited by any of them. This led me to the Hexblood option from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, which has interesting abilities for a Vistana. The race grants Hex Magic, which works well to represent the “Evil Eye”, and the Eerie Token feature could add some weirder magic to the character. On the other hand, most of the Hexblood lore would have to be ignored, so perhaps a variant human with the Magic Initiate feat is a stronger option.
What Class Might a Vistana be?
There are many classes that fit my criteria for a Vistana adventurer; so as an exercise, I looked into famous Vistana and thought about what class they would be. This helped me to gather potential classes for my Vistana player character, the famous individuals were:
Hyskosa. A well-known poet and storyteller among the Vistani, Hyskosa would likely be a College of Eloquence Bard. This class provides access to plenty of Divination and Enchantment magic, plus expertise in performance could represent skill as a storyteller.
Madame Eva. The greatest of the Vistani fortune-tellers, Madame Eva would likely be a Divination Wizard. This grants the portent feature, which does a good job of representing visions of the future, and has access to quite a few Divination spells.
Mother Luba. A wanderer who traps harmful spirits in her tarokka deck, Mother Luba would likely be a Phantom Rogue. This is the least magical of the options, but the flavor of trapping souls in a tarroka deck is quite interesting. In addition, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything added Luba’s Tarokka of Souls as a magic item, which could be fun to give out as an item during Curse of Strahd.
Final Thoughts
In the end, my player and I decided on a Hexblood Phantom Rogue for their character, since we were both excited by the story of Mother Luba. Creating a Vistana player character was an exciting challenge, I hope that this gives players and DMs ideas to make their own characters!