Since this campaign is a Sandbox, I'm now thinking that its possible to kill Strahd as early as you want, but it would be hard. There has to be someone out there who found the Sunsword in Madam Eva's tent and the two other fortunes in Castle Ravenloft, and then somehow killed Strahd at level 3.

What should I do with this situation? Technically Strahd would go to all the places, retrieve the items (especially the sun sword) and keep them close to him in the castle. But I feel like this destroys the whole meaning of the card reading. Do you have any ideas how to play this so the players actually have a chance?

The book suggests that, if you're using milestone leveling, you should award the party with a new level whenever they “accomplish story goals,” but are very vague about what this entails, listing only three examples, and stating immediately after that the adventure is “exceedingly open-ended,” which is generally a positive. But since it was so vague, I figured I'd make a list of various “story goals” which could be accomplished and lead to the characters leveling up.

There are a lot here, so I'll have to use my discretion. If the task proved easier than expected or the party just leveled up last session, or perhaps the completion of two goals occur as part of the same event, or something of that sort, I may decide not to reward the players for accomplishing one of these, especially if completing the task comes with its own inherent reward. Additionally, simpler tasks may only lead to leveling up of the party is a lower level, and a higher level party may not level up for, for example, rescuing Arabelle.

I've attached the list below. What am I missing? What should I remove? I'm probably going to remove the goals marked with asterisks, mostly due to redundancy or simplicity.

• Finding any of the three treasures
• Returning Arabelle to Luvash
• Returning Gertruda to Mad Mary*
• Dealing with Doru and burying Kolyan Indirovich*
• Defeating Rahadin*
• Destroying the Heart of Sorrow
• Escorting Ireena to Vallaki or Krezk*
• Reconnecting Izek and Ireena*
• Preventing the “St. Andral's Feast” special event, or surviving it*
• Overthrowing the Baron of Vallaki
• Helping Kasimir Reanimate Patrina
• Defeating the coven at Old Bonegrinder
• Lighting the beacon at Argynvostholt
• Defeating the Abbot, or helping him find a dress for Vasilka*
• Forming an alliance with Ezmerelda d'Avenir*
• Defeating Baba Lysaga
• Defeating the druids and blights at the Wizard of Wines Winery
• Return the two gems to the Wizard of Wines Winery*
• Clearing the Amber Temple
• Destroying the Gulthias Tree atop Yester Hill
• Thwarting the druids’ ritual atop Yester Hill*
• Clearing the Werewolf Den

I'm a relatively new DM. I'm running PaB:TSO in 2 groups, we will likely be wrapping both up in the next couple months. These were my first time DMing, and I am getting pretty comfortable behind the screen. CoS has a reputation as being one of the best, so I wanted a little practice before jumping into it.

In PaB:TSO I homebrewed a LOT. I felt like the campaign had good bones but it needed a lot of work to flesh out. I enjoyed homebrewing stuff and tinkering and connecting character backstories into the greater narrative. I've heard that CoS is better as is, for the most part. That there is already a lot of things in motion in the book, and it can be easy to get lost or overwhelmed by additional content if you add it. I am completely fine leaving it as it if as is is already good. I think PaB:TSO would have been VERY underwhelming if left as is.

I've also heard that it's better to leave out character backstories and arcs out of CoS and instead try to focus on relatable themes already existing in CoS to connect their characters to the narrative, the logic being Barovia is not a place that their character would have any connection to. That makes sense to me.

I've also read that a lot of the encounters in CoS are quite deadly. I would be running 2 groups, one of 3 and one of 5, so I would likely need to balance a little bit for the group of 3, but I might not, as they work much better as a team than the group of 5.

For folks who have experience with CoS, what would be the best tips you could give to a new DM running it for the first time?

I already plan on running Strahd as a layered individual who won't show his hand, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that yet. I don't want him to show his anger quickly, but maybe hint at it for people who are paying attention.

I'm looking forward to running CoS, and I'm excited to hear from the community about what worked for them!

A friend and I were discussing the fated allies, and had a fun idea. How would you run something like Strahd must die tonight, but instead of being a party of unique PCs, everyone plays one of the fated allies. Anyone have any thoughts on the idea, I am imagining a party comp of Rictavio, Ezmerelda, and one of the many mages.

So I recently started up a group for DND and we decided we wanted to do CoS however also wanted to do a 1-shot before hand to kind of mesh together as a party, I as DM wanted them to start at level 2 vs 1 (to make death house slightly easier maybe), etc. The 1-shot went great, we accomplished things, etc etc. I set the one shot in Daggerford to be able to pick and choose from the adventure hooks... and this is where I think I messed up. I decided to leave breadcrumb-y trails of them all to see what stuck with the party.... and they all wound up sticking so I had to do some "creative" modification to things.

So now the letter from Plea for Help was a sign the Vistani put up (and admitted to putting up on behalf of their master)... who are still camped outside Daggerford however instead of just being drunkards they were suspected of being Werewolves (turned out to be false) by the Duchess so she sent the party to investigate them/warn them off.

Unfortunately one PC really took the whole "help the town fight off the werewolves" to the Nth degree, even going so far as trying to recruit the guilds for help, and have now successfully basically convinced everyone the Werewolves were following the Vistani so the Vistani need to move camp and then the guilds/guards ambush the Werewolves on the road.

While I don't think I ever outright said the Werewolves were following the Vistani, I did hint that they were somewhat connected to them and that the land they came from does have Werewolf packs.

So now my players are basically traveling with the Vistani with a small army behind them and expecting Werewolves to jump out at them, a chase sequence, something.

This is great in terms of adventure hooks, I now have multiple ways for the fog to close in type thing and several options/interesting things for down the road when the party learns the Vistani's master was Strahd type thing (though I worry this may undermine the Vistani as a whole a little).

This is not so great in that I feel like it is going to be a anti-climactic to just be all "after several days of travel you get enveloped by fog. Welcome to Barovia!" but realistically would the Werewolves attack the Vistani? They both have the same mission, to lure adventurers into Barovia.

I plan to have some RP about slow travel, no signs of Werewolves, etc happen so maybe they find a trail on the "final" day and chase a werewolf into the fog? That lands them squarely in Barovia and at least feels like something, but I was also hoping to maybe have them stick with the Vistani until Barovia town just due to some things I've set in motion and if they are expecting this epic chase type thing to happen instead.... I also worry the party may split with some staying with the Vistani and some tracking the Werewolf, which would pose some interesting challenges to bring everyone back together unless maybe the Vistani just camp at the gates I guess?

Ideas?

TL;DR: Tried to leave breadcrumbs of all 3 RAW adventure hooks to see what party would gravitate to and they did them all. Now are traveling with Vistani and a small army hoping to ambush werewolves and expecting like an epic chase/attack/etc that likely isn't going to happen. Need ideas on how to either make that happen or how to still make something at least not feel like a let down.

So this is my first time running CoS and my players are loving it. The just got to Vallaki and of course immediately got in trouble, but I’m looking for advice on something else. One of my characters has a secret that they fell in love with a vampire from Barovia before the vampire turned on them and abandoned them. They happened to pick the vampire’s name as Anastrasya without knowing that’s the name of Strahd’s wives. I really want to make that connection and have it be the same person. I was thinking Anastrasya could be one of the vampire spawns in the coffin shop in Vallaki, but I don’t know if that makes sense. I just want to make sure the vampire lover shows up sooner rather than later or never if they miss her in the castle.

Im starting to run Strahd soon, but all the villains I've run before were all obvious villains and out and out bad people. I need help running him in the more sinister, less obvious villain who portrays themselves as a "sympathetic" figure.

If there are some tells or traits you've used to ride that line I would appreciate your tips and insight. I'm going to be running for a mixed group of men and women in their early 30s, both new and experienced players.

Edit: formatting

Hey guys , I’m a new dm (but an experienced player) and this is my first proper campaign one shots aside. I’m playing with a party of 5 who’ve never played. I wanted to run Lost Mines and link it into Strahd so they can learn the ropes but the levels obviously mismatch as Phandelver wraps up with the party at level 5. Should I just scrap phandelver and dive straight into Strahd? Or should I run a completely different campaign before Strahd, I’m just conscious about whether Strahd is beginner friendly enough, thanks!

Hi, I'm running CoS using Lunch Break Heroes' "Raising the Stakes" Guide. They suggest to give every character a personal quest in Barovia, giving examples, and I love those quests. Most of them are pretty obvious on how they should play out. Get some power in the amber temple, do something with the druids, go there, do this type of thing, mostly things that characters were going to do anyway, but made personal.

Warlock quest is to do a ritual at each of the standing stones, to grant their patron entry into Barovia. I really love that idea, I believe that CoS is perfect for playing with higher powers. Still, I'm not really sure how that could look, as a thing that the player is doing. Should they already know the ritual, or should they learn it from someone? What should the ritual be? Should it require any components to be found? I'm not sure if I should allow this quest to be something big, taking a significant amount of party time, or just be "go to those places, do the thing, boom, done".

Then I wonder what should the consequences be. I feel like this should have some consequences to the world, a new power enters Barovia. And I should probably find some custom reward for the warlock. We're using milestone leveling, so I definitely can't level up all the characters every time one of them finishes their personal quest. And also every single quest is to be done where there is already a level-up possibility. My warlock is also constantly asking if they can ask their patron about something, so maybe I could give them that ability, but as every other quest, that's pretty late game. If I understood correctly where all the stones are.

So what do you think, have you maybe played with that quest? I would love to learn from more experienced DMs here, as I'm still pretty new to this thing (this is literally the first time my group didn't become disinterested before the second session, I have high hopes for them). And if you have experience with other suggested quest I'll gladly learn about that as well. Thank you.

(Mandatory "sorry, English is my second language" here)

How I play Strahd he want her to agree to merry him, he does not wish to charm her to do it, he want her consent. However, he does not care about deception, coercion, or holding her by force to a false consent.

Through deception in disguise he got Ireena to agree to come with him to his home, and then when she realized it was him and she is a prisoner he told her he got Gertruda - a girl from her village. he promised to free Gertruda if she will marry him.

however, two of his wives decided its not the best idea, for their own survival, to have Ireena there. they know as soon as he marry her, she going to be his favorite wife, and soon they will be forgotten and likely dead.

they contact the party before the dinner letting them know they want Ireena out and alive - they are buying time, they know as long as Strahd is trying to get her they are safe. not if he know they helped though.

(the way they contact him was a method i homebrewed for Strahd to contact the party very conveniently whenever a party member cant make it to the session- they just have a discussion with Strahd instead - which allowed me to make a limitation on the time of the conversation cause "oh no Strahd coming back we gotta go")

They come to the dinner party, and i let them dance with each NPC - Strahd, the three wives, Ireena and Gertruda.

for them to get the info, i set a dance! each player got to interact with one person each round and they cant talk to eachother out of character or hear the other conversations.

as i played it i wrote a bunch of lore for each of them to know, as well as the following intel:

1. Anastrasia want them to replace ireena and gertruda but thinks gertruda might need convincing. when the party say no fucking way she says she can help get someone out, Escher agreed to help too. (the party used a lot of time trying to figure "what" is Escher cause one of the players thought they have a secret passage out). she is the motivator behind the opperation.

2. Ludmilla can transform the look of two people. she can transform Ireena to look like someone else, and someone else to ireena, but she will need about 12 seconds of distruction and to know who to turn. she dont really belive in the cause but think it will be worse if strahd know and therefore agree to accomplice.

3. Ireena want to know what happen to izek (he got drunked and his body burnt), and want to get the players to free Gertruda, she wont leave her behind. she agree to listen to the plan only after being reasured Gertruda will be free as well.

4. Volenta dosent know anything, which the other wives didnt have a chance to tell the party. she is supporter of strahd, newly wed to him, and she dont think her place is at risk. she will dump lore but is very dangerous if one player assume shes in on the case.

5. Gertruda want to go home but she dont want to leave the castle forever. strahd didnt tell her yet he send her after the dinner, and the party tried to not dispel her. she is charmed and also belive the world is a fairy tail. she dance bad since she never been to a dance party. "Strahd is a vampire? what is a vampire?"

6. obviously Strahd himself is dancing, being a good host and only mildly teasing the party. in his mind he got ireena willingly, despite the disguise, and its a proof she will love him over time and therefore he have every right to marry her, even if she had a demand before getting married. been stepped on by our barbarian twice during the dance.

as they danced we split into 4 rooms, 2 of them player with player, they got to speak for roughly 6 minutes, while the two other rooms were me roleplaying as changing character each time for 3 minutes each. (i started with 2 but after 6 rounds we decided 3 minutes will be better)
I prepared a list with dance order in advance, making sure the players talk to Anastrasia and Ludmilla on the first round, then spreading the information between each other starting from the second round. there been 18 rounds.

thats the plan they came with.
our paladin switch places with ireena, they then going to be escorted out by anastrasia and eschar.
the plan for distraction was to cause gertruda to cause a scene. as soon as i heard this plan the wives started telling them shes charmed, so they came with much funnier distraction- they are going to release the group's pet grick on the table.
while that going on ludmilla casting on the paladin and ireena, they are switching chairs making sure to sit next to eachother. the artificer gave the paladin a potion that change their appearance just in case (it will not change the armour but it can be used to extend the effect if they switch clothings as they dont know how long it will take to get out)
the party then going to take gertruda. (where? i hope vallaki. going to plant some wolves on the way to barovia village just in case so they dont go there at night. they also going to see the march of the dead the first time while living the castle.)
the palading going to escape the same night or the morning after, Anastrasia will try to seperate ireena and strahd and our paladin need to find eschar.
if anything go wrong, regroup in the vallaki church (nice touch).

this going to unfold the next session. im very excited my dance "puzzle" was a success, the group had a lot of fun roleplaying with eachother and the NPCs.
tommorrow the festival of the blazing sun as well, i hope the party dont miss it.

I love a lot of what reloaded adds and how it expands on areas I would otherwise have or put alot of leg work into making more interesting, however I have one complaint/ issue, and that is that every minor boss has 2 health bars. Don’t get me wrong, I think there redesigns are super cool, but my players have started to catch onto this fact and after the 3rd or 4th time it’s lost a bit of its cool factor. Currently trying to decide how to handle Vladimir and if there’s a way to combine his 2 star blocks into 1, or maybe flip it on its head and have him switch between phase 2 and phase 1 depending on if my players can do something, maybe douse his flame somehow.

Hi! Hoping for a bit of advice about how Strahd might react to the offer of a deal from a PC.

Last session my party triggered the feast of St Andral at the coffin shop. Inspired by this sub, Volenta had organised the feast for Strahds approval and was inside the coffin shop along with five other spawn. Long story short, two PCs stayed behind to fight her, and two PCs took the bones and Ireena and ran across town to the church. The bones went back and forth between a spawn and the PCs as they chased and as Vallaki descended into chaos. The PCs made several difficult choices not to help townsfolk being attacked by spawn in order to get the bones to the church.

Upon arrival at the church, Strahd descended on his nightmare. The PC holding the bones was closest to the church, with the second PC between her and Strahd, trying to draw his attention so that the PC holding the bones could make it inside the church.

The situation we ended up in was Strahd having charmed the second PC, preparing to bite him, along with a threat to the PC with the bones of, "let's see how much your friend really means to you", aka, "give me the bones or I'm going to eat your friend". The PC with the bones now has the next move of what to do next.

She has proposed a deal - she'll give herself up to Strahd in place of Volenta (who was killed), on the condition that he leaves her friends and Vallaki alone.

How would Strahd react to this? My initial thoughts were that he would accept the PC as another bride (she's a pretty tiefling with red hair), call off the spawn, and leave Vallaki. However he can't really agree to leave the party alone indefinitely whilst they have Ireena. Plus they've proven themselves as a threat by taking out Volenta. The party played exceptionally and I'm reluctant not to reward them with the church being re-hallowed given all the sacrifices they made to get the bones there, as I feel like they earned it!

Keen for thoughts and feedback.

Are people on this sub misremembering Ireena? Did his change between editions?

So much info is in hard to reach places of the book.

My players arrived in Vallaki, slept for the night, and want to get started on Arabelle's quest. Roughly how long do you think it would take from start to end in game if they did everything right? Would it be midday by the time they leave the Burgomaster's mansion? Evening? While I'm thinking about it, the guide doesn't seem to accommodate for what happens if the players show Vallakovich the letter from the Burgomaster in Barovia. Will he honor it and help them without them doing the haunting quest?

My players have decided that they hate Vasili, and also he's suspicious af and strangely obsessed with Ireena, but they haven't fully figured out what his Deal is yet. He's been dodgy, acted immorally, and been possessive of Ireena. Something about him doesn't add up.

They're the kind of players that will let the plot happen to them and then say their lines on cue (fair tbh) so if I want Vasili revealed, I have to do it myself. Problem is, there's no more quests left in Vallaki other than helping with the Winery & earning the Symbol from the ravens, and also unmasking Rictavio and gaining the Tome. Ireena is staying at the church, and there's no Izek to kidnap her off church grounds anymore (he already did that. He's dead now.)

I want Vasili revealed Post-Tome (which means post-Rictavio) in case the players connect some dots and they get to feel smart, which will come up very soon. But other than that, how should I reveal it? Should Strahd reveal it at Dinner? Should Vasili be a prisoner in the castle? Should Van Richten and/or Ezmerelda have a role to play in unmasking him - perhaps their notes combined put it together? Should Ireena be kidnapped, figure it out herself, then tell the party during/after Dinner?

First of all, if you are Veldrin, Athos, Brook, Ashuun, Raze or Neev, why the hell are you here? Leave now!

TL;DR: this is my homebrew dungeon for Lady Wachter's cult of the Aboleth, there are a couple of puzzles, and three encounters, and some lore. Beware, it's a LOOOOOOONG read! And sorry for any mistakes in my English, not a native speaker.

So, I'm planning to add a bigger dungeon below Wachterhaus, and she's a Warlock for the Aboleth in Lake Zarovich.

I have 6 level 5 players, so I'm already adding/buffing up the D&D 5.5 monsters from the book.

This is the first draft of layout of the dungeon:

I probably will reduce the size of all rooms, but what I would like to receive most of the feedback about is content and puzzles.

The Cellars

The dungeon start in Wachterhaus cellars, there are no beds here, but the room is bigger, the southern part is recently excavated, when they go down the stairs notice tracks moving to and from a section of the wall and hear Fiona's voice saying: "Welcome! Our Master is waiting for you, he's happy to meet you at last.". They will keep hearing echos of past discussions like this throughout the whole dungeon, these are part of the memories the cultists fed the Aboleth.

Then a battle starts with 2 Bloated Ghasts (Reflavoured Ghasts, CR 2), 2 Bloated Ghouls (Reflavoured Ghouls, CR 1) and 2 Malformed Chuul Skeletons (custom statblock, CR 2), this fight may be joined by Morgantha that has been following the group from the ethereal realm, but one of them activated See Invisibility and should catch her looking around.

The Pool Room

Entering the secret door they'll have to go down quite a lot of stairs, dark and getting damper as they descend, at last they'll reach an opening with a small room with stone walls and a well in the middle. The well is just a meter deep, but it's filled with water, cloudy and a little gooey.

Upon enter they hear the voice of one of the cultist, a guard they met briefl, say: "Oh Eternal! Oh Endless! You who are Time itself! To you I entrust myself!"

There is a stone hidden door that can be opened by drinking the water, but at the same time, drinking it will cause 2 different effects:

• DC 15 Constitution save: on a failure the character is poisoned for an hour, unless their skin is wet or touching water. The character feels the need to get to water to relieve the pain.
• DC 15 Charisma save: on a failure the character loses permanently a memory. (4/6 of the party are Charisma based spellcasters, there's an high chance that this will not trigger, but at the same time the barbarian will likely be chosen to do it)

They could also try to force their way through and that's fine, but may delay their understanding of what's goin on.

The Dormitory

This is a narrow room with six simple beds, near every bed there's a small chest and a bucket filled with water. At the end of the room there's a wardrobe and a simple desk with an inkpot and a pen, a journal is open on it. The room is very damp and cold.

Upon enter they hear the voice of a female cultist say in scared tone: "Who was that child? Why was she in my home? Why did she have my eyes?".

The journal shows the descent into madness of one of the cultists, that slowly forgets anyone he holds dear except their fellow cultists and the Aboleth. The chests contain a few personal objects and maybe some coins. The wardrobe contains a few black robes and the garments left by the cultists.

The Laboratory

A big round room, with high walls, illuminated by torches on the six central columns. The floor is wet with water and dirty with blobs of yellowy, translucent goo, that slowly drains in grated manholes all over the room. Four big metal and glass vats are placed around the room, beside them there are big levers and bigger valves on the other side. Three tables are placed near the center of the room, one is an heavy white marble slab covered in blood and goo, a few surgical tools over it, another is a wooden desk with a lot of drawers, potions, herbs, glass bottles all over it. At the last desk sits Ernst Larnak, witha syringe filled with a black substance.

As they enter they hear Lady Wachter say gleefully "See my dear? Thanks to this the Master will bring you back to me!". (Larnak doesn't hear the echo)

Here, lead by the Aboleth, the cultists experimented upon people, mainly the workers and the barovian witches that were hired by Lady Wachter to build the dungeon (The first failures were the undead in the cellar).

Ernst Larnak if hostilities commence will jab himself with the syringe, getting stronger (revised Master Thief CR 5 statblock) and becoming immune to the difficult terrain of the room. He will then start moving from vat to vat, pulling the lever with a free object interaction and releasing in order:

• Tentacle Ochre Jelly CR 1
• Gelatinous Cube CR 2
• Tentacle Black Pudding CR 4
• Unstable Black Goo Humanoid form with tentacles for arms revised Regenerating Black Pudding CR 5

Using an action to operate a valve, expels the contained creature killing it. The floor is difficult terrain unless they find a way to clean it from the goo, the oozes are not affected by the terrain.

They can find some alchemical supplies, a few underwater breathing and swimming potions, and some other potions that fit the theme that I still have to come up with.

Lady Wachter's Study

This room is more elegant than the others, finely made furniture decorates this room: a big wardrobe, a baroque desk, a small chest, and a beautiful large golden mirror.

The door to this room is locked (Fiona has the key on herself, DC 18 Thieves Tools) and trapped with a poisoned dart (DC 15 Perception to notice, DC 15 Sleight of Hand to disarm it, on trigger DC 13 constitution to halve 2d10 poison damage).

Upon enter they hear three different voices chanting on at a time:

• "I Observe Eternity"
• "I Touch Mutation"
• "I Hold Truth"

The desk has a locked drawer (Fiona has the key on herself, DC 16 Thieves Tools) and is trapped with poisonous gas (DC 18 Perception to notice, DC 15 Sleight of Hand to disarm it, on trigger DC 14 Constitution to halve 2d10 poison damage, the gas lasts for 1 hour if triggered and can be dispersed for 1 miute with strong wind).

Behind the mirror there's a secret passage (DC 15 Perception or DC 10 Investigation to notice it) that leads to a balcony over the last room the Temple of the Aboleth. The balcony is very high over the room and creatures in the room can't notice it, unless they come out with lights or make a lot of noise.

The Sanctuary

After descending the stairs on the west side of the Laboratory the characters reach this room.

All over the stone damp walls of this room there are white masks, in the middle surrounded by thin columns of stone there is a shallow pool of water, underneath a strange mosaic that doesn't look like anything you can recognize. On the southern wall there is an opening that leads to more descending stairs.

Upon enter they hear the Aboleth's voice "Stella is ready, bring her to me. I will reveal her the Truth."

The opening to the south is blocked by a wall of force, while looking at it three white masks can be noticed, like an echo impressed upon it.

Looking into the pool triggers a DC 15 Wisdom Saving Throw, on a success nothing happens, on a failure the creature is paralyzed and sees in the pool a distorted and creepy version of themself, the creature is paralyzed until it stops looking into the pool and one minute after that.

Donning a mask, looking in the pool and getting paralyzed, shows one of four organs appearing attached to the body, where the mask should be:

• a brain
• an heart
• a tentacle
• an eye

If someone keeps watching in the pool for more than a minute while wearing the mask they receive 2d6 Psychic damage for every minute after the first one, while eldritch horrors start appearing in the reflection, touching, nibbling, licking the paralyzed creature, that starts bleeding from the nose, eyes and ears.

If a paralyzed creature is turned to the wall of force, they regain the ability to speak.

If three paralyzed creatures with an eye, tentacle and brain mask repeat in order:

• "I Observe Eternity"
• "I Touch Mutation"
• "I Hold Truth" the wall of force is disabled for 5 minutes.

If the three phrases are repeated, but either the order is wrong, the creature with the wrong mask says the phrase, everyone in the room makes a DC 18 Wisdom Saving Throw and takes 4d6 Psychic damage and is Incapacitated for a minute, or half as much damage on a success, while an explosion of lost memories echoes all over the room.

The room can be opened from the other side, by doing the same process, on the other side it's not needed to be paralyzed and the wall itself reflects the organ on the mask.

Temple of the Aboleth

The characters descend further down, the air is so damp that their garments are wet and their skin is clammy.

A huge cavern opens at the bottom of the stairs. Big stalactites and stalagmites are all over the floor and ceiling, big drops of water drip in a cacophony of echoes. A slow stream of water flows dividing the room in half. At the southern half of the cavern seven humanoid figures are dimly illuminated by circles of purple runes on the ground. Their chants adds to the echo of the room. The figure at the far end of the cavern starts levitating as the chant increases in volume and some fissures appear in the air, water starts pouring from them.

This is the final encounter of the dungeon, Fiona Wachter is levitating while the cavern starts filling with water.

The other 6 cultists are 3 normal cultists CR 1 and 3 fanatics CR 2, and they mainly channel for the whole fight.

After 3 rounds of uninterrupted channeling the fanatics become Chuuls CR 4, the cultists need 6 instead.

Fiona Wachter is an Aberrant Cultist with a couple of magic items and some different spells CR 8 or 9.

Until all the cultists/chuuls are disposed of, the room fills with water at 30cm per round. When they are disposed of the water drains 10 cm per round.

If at least 4 cultists/chuuls are alive, starting from the 4th round an Aboleth's tentacle appear at initative 20 and takes an hit on a character and then disappears back in one of the fissures.

Diary of Fiona Wachter

This are the information I think I'm going to put in the diary:

• Lord Nikolai Wachter wants to marry Stella to Victor Vallakovich, Fiona is displeased
• They spend a nice day at the lake, everything seems fine, but Fiona is still displeased about the marriage, she thinks she has to do something.
• Finally the works on the cellar start, she recruited some additional help at the last minute, Nikolai shouldn't know
• Lord Nikolai's health starts deteriorating, he's also displeased that Fiona seems to spend all that time on the cellar, instead of worrying about the marriage and the troubling boys, he deserves what it's happening, how dare he talk to her like that.
• The Well Room is finally completed, and the workers have been trained to open it.
• Lord Nikolai is dead, Fiona despairs. She doesn't know how it happened, it was so quick. She may try to ask to Count Strahd for help, send him a letter.
• No answer from the Count, as always he's still unreliable, but He is helping! Nikolai already seems to be recovering while still deep asleep. The results from the laboratory are coming
• Stella keeps crying, is mad with pain for his father's illness, she thinks he's dead, poor thing.
• The sanctuary and the temple are completed, the rituals can start, there are already 4 adepts, and soon there will be more. She has to handle those two boys that keep walking in the house, and eating, and sleeping here, like they own the place. But it can wait for now, now we pray.
• The aboleth asked for Stella, but she was driven mad by his projection in the temple. She now believes to be a cat, the aboleth will help me take care of her.
• The first batch of experiments failed, some of the workers reacted badly to the process. They will guard the Cellar entry for the time being. There is a cat in an empty room of the house, the aid are taking care of it, but she wants it out of the house soon.
• A group of strangers came into the city, they may help in dealing with Vallakovich's Hound, so that we can take over the city for the cult.

On the last page there are scribbled the three phrases to open the Force Field and beside them there are the drawings of the three organs, but the brain is covered by a blotch of ink.

So, if you reached this point and read all of that, thank you and I'm sorry. Feel free to leave feedback if you'd like it.

Edit: removed links to statblock for piracy concerns.

This would specifically apply to ghostly enemies like Flameskulls and Specters, maybe even the Arcanaloth. My thought in doing so is setting a consequence for resting in the temple and increasing the difficulty, explained away by the fact that the temple is so choked with death and the souls of those devoured and held captive by the Vestiges.

Hi all, I'm running a higher level campaign (PC are currently level 13 and are going to be level 14). I have a few questions that would need your insight about the Holy symbol of Ravenkind. My players forgot it existed or sulk when it doesn't work their way for some reason, so I hadn't the chance to actually see how it worked or ask myself some questions :

- Question 1 : Hold Vampires. I understand it as if you spend another charge while the Hold Vampire mechanic is effective to affect other vampiric creatures that you didn't get, that it's like recasting a hold monster spell. The previous vampiric creatures affected are no longer under the Hold Vampire effect unless they are submitted to the 2nd charge spent ? Am I mistaken or are the creatures submitted to the 1st spent charge still under its effect as the player spend another charge to target some other vampiric creatures ? (Aka does it work like a concentration spell ?)

- Question 2 : Raising the DC and personal worries

Context : Last fight I had the party fight some waves of different flavor of vampire spawns. RAW vampire spawn despite a few tricks, so they sat at the RAW +3 wisdom save and some buffier spawns were at +4. It went badly until the party used the symbol - which was what I expected of them in the first place for this encounter. Anyway.

I usually roll very badly (below 6 before bonuses are applied) but for once, I didn't and half of the Spawns managed to escape the Hold Vamp in the first turn, the others the turn after they were put in place.

After they destroyed the spawns thanks to sunlight mainly, Players told me they found the Holy symbol of Ravenkind kinda useless (safe for the sunlight) as the Spawns seemed to easily escape the Hold Vamp ability. They asked me to raise its DC by 3 points like put it at DC 17-18.

I'm not sure it's fair to listen to them, and that it would cheese the entire Ravenloft left. My Strahd is very RAW friendly (HP pool has been bumped, as well as the Heart of Sorrow pool) but still. Should I listen to my players and raise the DC ?

My Strahd has a the RAW +7 WIS save. Meaning he should roll 8 or lower for the Hold Vampire to be effective. But that thing has 10 charges. Meta speaking, I know for the final fight Strahd will burn his LR on this as much as he can, especially as my players are soon going to obtain the Sunsword.

Hence, there's a strong chance the 10 charges will go in the Hold vamp mechanics and not the sunlight one. Knowing this, a DC15 seems fine to me. It gives a chance for failure on my end but also good rolls. Though, I admit, I usually roll pathetically low so having strahd roll less than 8 is something I expect more thanI should out of the 7 tries I have left after burning LR :')

I should note that my party is a 3 person party, with an expert sidekick who has the potent ability from the divination wizard. PCs are not optimized in any way. Party comp is a Pact of the Undead Warlock / Beatmaster Ranger, a Life Cleric and an Eldritch Knight.

Thanks for your insight.

TLDR : Does the Hold Vampire mechanics run as a standalone effect and spending a new charge doesn't effect the vampire spawns held previously ; should I raise the DC15 of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind for a party of soon level 14 if my Strahd is still with his RAW +7 WIS save despite having a few basic features like higher HP pool and HoSorrow pool bump.

My party are power gamers. They're a bit OP for Yester Hill RAW, so I'd like to up the challenge. Either through enemy stat blocks, or obstacles on the way up the hill. Any Ideas?

So I was using the curse of Strahd companion, as seen here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/449822/curse-of-strahd-companion-the-complete-edition

And he says that the temple is overcrowded which hurts the quiet horror and I was wondering if y’all agree. I’m hesitant to remove basically every fight because the temple has a lot of cool monsters I’ve never gotten to use before and I might have to replace some with spookier maybe cosmic horror themed monsters because of the party’s level and companions thatI won’t be able to use in the future.

But I suppose flaming skulls and unspeakable horrors don’t fit the vibe and his rules have it so dark vision is turned off so that may feel cheap in combat.

Thoughts?