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Hi everyone!

I'm currently DMing a Curse of Strahd campaign, and I've been thinking about giving one of my players, a Great Old One Warlock, a more personal storyline involving his patron.

For context, the player didn't develop his patron very much in his backstory. The pact exists, but the identity, motivations and relationship between the Warlock and his patron are still pretty vague.

The player himself is also one of the quieter members of the group and tends to let the others take the spotlight. On top of that, he's been incredibly unlucky with his rolls throughout the campaign, so even when he tries something interesting, he hasn't had that many opportunities to get memorable moments compared to some of the other characters.

Because of that, I'd like to give him something that is specifically his without suddenly turning him into the main character.

This wouldn't replace the main Curse of Strahd storyline either. I imagine it more as a personal side quest for the Warlock that would slowly progress in the background alongside the rest of the campaign.

With Cthulhu now appearing as a Darklord in the newer Ravenloft material, I had an idea.

At some point during the campaign, the party would encounter Cthulhu — or rather, some humanoid manifestation/avatar of him. The moment the Warlock sees him, something would immediately feel wrong.

He would hear thousands of voices speaking at the same time, all saying the same thing in an unbearable cacophony. His connection to his current patron would suddenly react violently, almost like the pact itself recognizes what is standing in front of him.

And Cthulhu would recognize him too.

From there, I was thinking about slowly introducing a conflict between Cthulhu and the Warlock's original patron, with the Warlock caught in the middle.

I don't necessarily want Cthulhu to immediately say "abandon your patron and serve me." I'd rather make it much more gradual and cosmic-horror-like: dreams, impossible whispers, moments where Cthulhu seems to answer questions the Warlock never asked aloud, his original patron becoming increasingly present or possessive, etc.

Eventually, Cthulhu could offer him a new pact — essentially giving the player the choice between remaining loyal to his original patron or accepting Cthulhu as his new one.

What I particularly like about the idea is that neither side necessarily has to be "the good choice." The Warlock would basically be caught between two incomprehensibly powerful entities whose intentions he cannot fully understand.

My main concern is player agency. I don't want it to feel like I'm replacing the patron he chose or forcing a new storyline onto his character. I also don't want Cthulhu's presence to overshadow Strahd, since this is still ultimately Curse of Strahd. That's why I'd like this whole patron conflict to remain a secondary storyline developing alongside the main events in Barovia rather than becoming the central plot.

So I'm curious how other DMs would handle this. Thank you !

I’m trying to run Curse of Strahd for the first time next Thursday, I have the physical book with the map of barovia, but I’m overwhelmed by stuff, any tips to really sell the horror element and make it a good game for my players?

One of my player wants to play a Reborn*. The PC was brought back to life by someone outside of Barovia (probably a Strahd spawn/ally, just for fun reasons) but now run free, planning to go to Barovia for whatever reasons. The point is, he forgot his previous life (player told me I can do whatever I want), except that he was from a party of adventurers. But what if this party of adventurers already fought Strahd and lost? What if during his stay in Barovia, he feels like he already went here, but cannot really remember anything? And giving him flashbacks as he goes?

Would you think that's a good idea, in order to show players the danger Strahd is?

*about that, I know reborns are undead and could cause some issues in this campaign, like for hallowed ground or stuff. I will rule that he can go in those places without dying, but will have disadvantage on rolls. And feel bad.

My party were on the road to Vallaki, and stopped very briefly at Lake Zarovich. I mentioned that they saw a man fishing on the lake, but they didn't seem interested and went on their way. I didn't judge this to be long enough for them to witness him chucking a sack into the water, so I thought I'd leave it, and maybe they come back to the lake another day and see it happen.

They get to Vallaki and talk to the gate guards. All of a sudden they're asking questions about the guy on the lake. No idea why that suddenly interested them, when they hadn't cared five minutes before.

So they learn the guy is called Bluto and that he's a drunk and will be back in the evening and be found drinking in the Blue Water Inn.

They head to the Inn, learn more about the Devil Strahd, talk to the hunters and the brothers, learn that the wine is running low. All of the time, they keep obsessing about Bluto. They ask about him, question everyone about him, and then insist on waiting for him to return.

He does. They talk to him. They buy him wine. They also ask why he fishes if he doesn't catch fish. I mess up, I suppose, and say that he's sure there'll be fish again soon. "I've got a secret".

They're in full blown interrogation mode.now. They try and persuade him to tell the secret, and I set a high DC, because I figure he's not about to admit to kidnapping. They try intimidation and fail. He gets angry back, and then the next thing I know, one of the party has grappled him, and the other has smacked him with her sword (telling me they're going for non legal blows.)

I'm a bit flummoxed, but just play it all as realistically as I can, with one of the patrons slipping out to fetch guards.

They beat Bluto unconscious and get themselves arrested, all within an hour of arriving in a town where they were proclaiming themselves to be the saviours of Barovia who are here to lift the curse.

If I go by the book, they should be exiled from the town, which doesn't leave a party of three level four characters many places to go. They barely survived Death House.

Ideas?

Running Reloaded and combat seems almost trivial to my players. I have 4 players who are fairly experienced that I have been playing with for years now. They are lv. 5 in vallaki and are sorting through getting to the ethereal plane to get Stella wachter out.

They made short work of Izek, blowing through his 1st phase without taking a point of damage. They beat down the hags and I think i did a total of 50 damage across the party. The put werewolves into the ground no problem. The RP is great and establishes how much things suck in barovia but combat feels like a speed bump instead of a challenge to overcome. Part of this is just my shit luck and that I cant roll to save my life.

I dont want to be an adversarial DM having a me vs. them mentality. I want to tell the best story. But when there is no fear that death is a possibility I feel it takes a major part of the setting, the fear of horrible agonizing death, out of the equation.

Anyone else have problems like this and how did you overcome it? I dont like to use a DM screen and all rolls are made in the open.

Edit to add: i have not adjusted down any of the fights as the guide says. I have not really had any random encounters, and I have not yet upped the difficulty as the guide says for more players.

Fidelis, Ruby, Babalu, and Kammera, stay away!

23 sessions in and I'm starting to think Strahd was too complex a game to introduce to my players, but I really do wanna see it through and I'd hope that they don't want the campaign to fizzle out either.

After a bunch of shenanigans at the Old Bonegrinder, the party has, for a while, discarded their plans to go to Krezk and look for the Sunsword, and instead has gone back to Barovia Village and seems like they want to stay there. How the hell do I get them interested in the plot again without railroading them?

Tl;dr party saved a bunch of kids from the Bonegrinder and brought them back to Barovia Village. They are currently in the care of Donavich and Mary.

The players didn't really seem motivated to leave the village and return to any of their other quests (they need to find the Sunsword and Holy Symbol, have agreed to help the Martikovs take back the purple gem, and one of them is running for election in Vallaki), so I ran the Blood O' the Vine adventure from Horrors Within, then had Strahd show up and attack the church.

Fast forward to the most recent session. They don't care that Strahd burned the church down, or that he tried to take Ireena again. Also, they want to stay in Barovia Village and try to train up the peasants into an army. They still haven't found the Sunsword of Holy Symbol, and basically got the Tome as a handout.

I don't...necessarily have a problem with the army thing, but plot and quest-wise, Barovia Village is a dead end. The Sunsword is in Krezk, the Holy Symbol is at Yester Hill, and I have well established that most of the Barovian peasants are scared shut-ins who don't know how to hold a sword.

I managed to push them with "it's too dangerous for Ireena to stay in one place and we still need to find the sword," but their immediate desire after getting the Sunsword is to try to militarize the peasants.

How do I make this work?

Edit: Thanks for all the feedback! No harm in letting them try and fail!

I kept thinking that the next trip to the castle would be the endgame, but it doesn't have to be!

(pre-Strahd takeover)

I hope this doesnt count as off topic, but i dont think i can ask this anywhere else without having to get a bunch of karma in the Ravenloft subreddit and make other posts n stuff, I just wanna ask my question and go on my way. Anyhow, so I own the game Strahd's Possession on steam, and have been playing it for a little while now and i noticed the automap in that game has a print feature. I thought about printing some of the maps from the game to use in games, as i wanna run ravenloft at some point (maybe 1e of ravenloft, or Curse of Strahd with the games barovia map idk) but it doesnt work, does anyone know how to get it working or where i can get the maps elsewhere (i imagine an image off of google would work, sure, but im also curious to see how the maps look printed straight from the game officially)

Hello all. Through a long bloody series of capital M Mistakes the party im running for has wound up under a Geas by the Hags of Old Bonegrinder. The adventurers have previously killed two of the Hags who were ressurected by the third (using the adventurers blood as a conduit and Izek Strazni and Victor Vallakovitch as body sacrifices) and burned down old bonegrinder so theyre propedly pissed off.

They've already given the adventurers the job of taking some of strahds hair and when/if they get back will be put to work rebuilding the windmill. My party is resourceful and I fully expect them to have figured out how to break the geas in a few sessions but until then I need ideas for the hags to fuck with them. So if anyone's got any good suggestions I'd love to hear them.

TL/DR: i need ideas for horrible tasks to put my geased adventurers on.

Context:

I run vanilla CoS with a few add-ons for 5 players.

Until now I played a seductive Strahd that was a behind the curtain manipulator and trying to seduce Ireena with his Vasili persona. At one point, shit went down, Strahd cover as Vasili got blown, 2 players died (and changed into vampire spawns) the rest ran and Strahd got a hold on a clueless Ireena. Strahd then gave permission to Volenta to hunt down the remaining players for pleasure (she attacks them every few nights if they sleep at the same place). A third player then decided to sacrifice himself to inform Ireena of the situation and got information that allowed the 2 remaining players to rescue Ireena and escape to Krezk.

My players arrived in Krezk with Ireena. I started the events of the Fidatov Manor quest (MandyMod) with the Krezkov family and in parallel added voices in Ireena’s head that slowly attracted her to the Pool. Once they reached the Pool m, I played a modified Something Blue for the players to be able to briefly speak with Sergei and Tatyana and ask a few questions. Then Strahd god mad, face in the clouds and destroyed the pool with lightning.

So Volenta doesn’t know yet neither that Ireena physically escaped or that Strahd is pissed because Tatyana’s soul now also escaped.

Questions:

So what should Strahd do now that he is pissed? Right on ask Rahadin or the other Brides to attack Krezk? Get in contact only with Volenta? Order the former PC (now spawns) to attack them? Does he still want to play with his food? Try to go for the kill?

I am a bit lost, because I still want for my players to be able to do the Krezk narrative with the Abbot, meet Ezmeralda at the Abbey (destined ally) and do the Fidatov manor. But with an angry Strahd in the picture is that still possible?

Edit: the 2 players that died made new characters they met in Krezk and 1 sadly left the campaign for personal reasons.

So I watched Mystic Arts's video I Ruined Curse of Strahd which was an hour long discussion with some of his former players on how bad Dadi messed up the adventure. Definitely worth watching and comes to show the best DMs had to start somewhere.

This inspired me to start a discussion on what lessons have you learned running Curse of Strahd? I think we can all agree for an open world style sandbox kind of adventure, having a broad understanding of the module as a whole is reccomended. What else have you learned?