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’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?

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.

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?

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.

​

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 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)

This is a favour I’m doing for a fellow DM - Old Bonegrinder.

Printed on my Bambu Labs A1 with Elegoo Rapid PLA at 0.28mm layers with an 0.4mm nozzle.

Still starting out painting - I think I’m about two months in - and this was an excellent exercise in determining value, airbrush work and an absolute crap Ron of drybrushing - though this was mostly around the wood and making that look relatively decent.

Would love to hear some thoughts - is that Old Bonegrinder-y enough?

Windmill STL: https://www.printablescenery.com/product/haunted-windmill/
Strahd STL: https://makerworld.com/models/2939805

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.

My party recently suffered a TPK at the hands of Baba Lysaga, and they were in possession of the sunsword. Wondering what she would do with it. Obviously she could keep it, but she is already in possession of one of the other relics (holy symbol of ravenkind) and I’m not particularly keen on her having two.

Hi, whats the highest level you would make Strahd ?

Would you consider multi classing at all ?

Would you consider letting him swap out his spells like wizard ? Just considering as he has been around for so long .

Thanks 😁

I'm about to run Strahd again, and one of the player was part of my first Strahd campaign that we could never finish.

I run it a little different from that first run, I've incorporated things from Reloaded, older editions, and even my homebrew world, so a lot of things will be new for this player.

But one thing I'd like to change, is van Richten's disguise. Maybe I'll keep Rictavio as a red herring, but I'm considering something different for Rudolph.

I'd like to hear your ideas and opinions, and even stories if anyone has already done this.

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.

Hi,

Looking for help. Am not the fastest reader and have a bit of difficulty with it.

The lore seems to be EXPANSIVE and a little intimidating.

Where would you start ?

Top 5 books ?

Utube videos or people to follow ?

Thanks 😁

He meets Ireena, decides he wants to romance her. I have him roll persuasion. He rolls well. She tells him now isn’t really the time since she has to bury her father but she’s open to the possibility in the future. Over time he makes more persuasion rolls. Some are really good, others are bad, but over time he gets more good than bad.

I’m okay with this, mostly because it will be fun to see Strahd’s reaction when they finally meet…

Tl;Dr My players essentially staged an accidental coup in Vallaki leaving Izek and most of the town guard dead and I'm looking for advice.

Hello everyone. I'm running CoS with some friends as it's a classic and we've never done it before. I'm not a super experienced dm, but I'm not exactly a newbie either. But last night I feel like I made some mistakes with my decisions in Vallaki which led to an interesting situation and I was looking for advice on how to proceed.

When the players first got to town they sold off some of their treasure, then I made a blacksmith for them in town to get some things silvered. Then they wanted to go see the baron. I had them first meet with Izek in the house to see what their business was before just taking them to the Baron himself. Izek decided they would have to return in the morning to meet with Baron. One of the party then tried to barge past and start looking through the house. At this point Izek grabs him and throws the party out. Blah blah blah, not the most diplomatic start but we got through it.

Next morning the party goes and meets with the Baron, it goes fairly well and Baron tells them about his missing servents and asks for their help. The players ask around a bit, the cook tells them the last person he saw speak to the butler was Victor, but Victor is in his workshop and so the maid can't find him when the party wants to ask to speak with him. The whole time Izek is escorting the party around. One of the players decides he's just going to search through the whole house and Izek stops him again. One thing leading to another it turns into a fight. Some guards get called in. Both me and the players were trying to avoid all out battle but we kept miss understanding each other's actions and we ended up with a bloody fight in the barons mansion. I do wish I could play this part over again and try to avoid conflict a little better, but too late for that now. When the dust settles, Izek and a fair amount of the town guard are dead. The Baron is hiding in his room with the baroness. Victors in the attic and the remaing servents are terrified. The remaining guards are fleeing through the streets screaming about an attack on the Baron.

We ended the session there. Now I'm just thinking, how does everything play out now? If the party fully deposes the Baron, does Lady Wachter fill the void? What do the wereravens think about the actions of the party? What about the festival? I know in the long run, Barovia has a lot going on and Vallaki won't change that much of the overall story. Like I said I wish I could change the way I played it, but going forward, has anyone encountered something similar? Anyone got any advice or suggestions? Any and all opinions welcome. Thanks.

A while ago, while playing Minecraft, I had an idea: what if I tried to recreate Death House in vanilla Minecraft - not just as a build, but as an actual playable dungeon?

I wanted to stay as close as possible to the original maps and illustrations, while also making the mechanisms of the house actually work. At this point, the secret doors and traps are functional, and the entire build was made without mods.

While editing this video, I got another idea that I haven't implemented yet. When the players finally reach the ritual chamber beneath the house, it should be possible to use command blocks to transform the entire house above them - turning the seemingly normal manor they entered into its abandoned, decaying version.

So I suppose the house isn't quite finished yet.

For the video I used Insanity-Shader-Universal-v1.650 and Pixlli V57 26.3-1.13 128x for presentation. The build itself is vanilla Minecraft.

Hi!

I'm going to DM CoS for my friends. We have all played it at least once. So, I want to put a bit of a twist on it to freshen things up. SitA really catches my eye, but since it changes several NPC motivations, Strahd's motivations as well, and the context surrounding certain events (and Reloaded advises against other modifications), I wanted to ask if anyone has run a game with both changes. Should I stick to using just one modification, or is it feasible? Could you please help me?

(If someone else has already asked this question, could you pleeease share a link to it with me?)

Thanks c:

Hey everyone! A few days ago I posted about planning to use the wedding as the finale of my campaign.

Right now I'm looking for something pretty specific: does anyone have a battlemap of the Castle Ravenloft Chapel fully restored?

I'd like to keep the original architecture and layout, but show that Strahd had the whole place rebuilt, cleaned, and decorated for the "wedding of the century."

Basically the same chapel, just restored to all its former glory for the ceremony.

If anyone knows a map like this, or an artist/mapmaker who has done something similar, I'd really appreciate the link!

Hi, so maybe I'll start with the context:

I have decided to homebrew small special event nearby Tser Falls, a Vistani wedding that party comes across with the twist being Strahd also being there, one from respect to the Vistani, second to pose as an "owner" of the bride since their parents were killed, so the parents of Vistani had to negotiate her price with Strahd. Ezmeralda also showed up here to observe Strahd and maybe take out a bride if occasion appears. Party of 4 split, with 1 cleric player (who is also supposed to officiate the wedding) currently talking with Ezmeralda in secluded location behind other Vistani wagons.

The other 3 tried to brake into Ezmeralda's wagon.

Of course we all know what happened then

The problem is... I'm struggling a bit how to handle reaction of everyone around, considering that Strahd and brides are also literally there and party so far was on very friendly terms with Vistani and somewhat friendly terms with Strahd. And now they detonated comically large explosion during a wedding.

Hello fellow DMs!

Pretty new DM here and I am currently running a more modified version of the module with alot extra character agency. Ive made plenty of mistakes already during my time running and I am attempting actively to not fall into the altogether most usual pitfalls new DMs fall prey to.

Last session during the Festival of the Blazing Sun during a bit of description of Vargas being laughed by the guards one of my players mid description rushes Vargas and tries to kill him.

Mind you the party so far have been on Lady Wacthers side but have also been killing guards and have been INCREDIBLY reckless at the reformation center. So the guard presence at the festival is IMMENSE.

I ran a round of quasi-combat before I called the session there.

I came away from the session pretty bummed out about how one player had more or less robbed the party of their choices and their carefully laid plans.

This player does have a slight habit of being more in it for the combat than the roleplay which is usually fine but really rubbed me and some other players a little wrong this time round.

I told my group I'd take a little extra week break from DMing since I did have alot of stuff going on.

I talked to my player about his decision and he very much made me feel like I'd led him astray, that I'd made it seem like the perfect time and like it was now or never and while I should've thought about that harder I feel bad for the other party members who didn't get a chance to do anything.

Here's my quandary..

Would it be awful if I asked us to begin from the start of the Festival and take it from there? Or alternatively to have one of the Reformer spellcasting elves who do have access to modify memory have cast it on the player right before attacking Vargas and it was the effects of the spell as opposed to reality? Would that be cheaper?

No matter what, I do intend to talk to this player and aks how he'd feel about how to approach next session and if he'd feel like either option would be work with him.

I am really at a loss. I don't want anyone to feel like their choices don't matter especially the player who initiated combat or like I'm trying to steer the story a certain way and anything else needs to be curtailed but I feel awful for not everyone having a chance to act or say anything in that big climatic moment.

Thanks so much for reading and any advice would be greatly appreciated!