r/CurseofStrahd

Another comic from Dark Horse, spotlighting Lamordia and Viktra again. Oh - and Ez, perhaps among other monster hunters in later installments? (I never understand if the blurbs are describing the first issue, or the whole series.)

https://www.darkhorse.com/newsfeed/horror-awaits-in-the-new-four-issue-comic-series-dungeons-dragons-ravenloft/

Not *exactly* in time for the Season of Horror but hey, kinda a nice post-script.

“Ravenloft is falling apart, and nobody knows why. Fortunately, monster hunter Ez D’Avenir is on the case! She’s searching the frozen wasteland of Lamordia for an undead creature that may hold the key to Ravenloft’s fate. But when Darklord Viktra Mordenheim catches wind of her quest, Ez is suddenly the one being hunted!”

I see posts of people’s campaigns that lasted years, and I have no idea how they found the content to stretch it out that long. I’m not knocking on it, I honestly really respect the dedication to storytelling and world building. I used the book with my party and nothing else, really, and it took about 4 months. If I had to guess, I’d say it was about 18-20 2-3 hour sessions until Strahd died.

So, I’m curious, how often do longer campaigns use extra supplements?

I had the idea to run curse of Strahd for some veteran players but set in the American age of steam/Wild West and with the twist that it’s not advertised as CoS. If you’ve tried something similar how did it go? The plan isn’t to hide it completely but it would be fun to mess with my usually group of players

Hey yall, currently in the middle of prepping the Amber Temple and reviewing all the vestiges in the amber sarcophugi. I think like many people, pretty underwhelmed by many of them. I find the boons disappointing since so many are incredibly temporary and the banes disappointong cause they're either purely cosmetic or just otherwise lame. So I'm curious what people have been doing with them in their games to make them more fun for the players and work within the context of their campaigns.

Still making my way through all the already posted stuff people have made over the years but curious to get a more current take and have a bit of a conversation.

Im DMing the campaign and plan on using the dream pastries encounter in barovia village. Do the hags understand the aging of other races, my party consists of a kobold, Kenku, Tortle, and hobgoblin. would they potentially confuse atleast the kobold and kenku to be children and try to tag and bag em.

I'm an experienced GM who got his start with D&D. Curse Of Strahd was one of my first modules, and, while I never finished it, I wad always attracted to its potential.

I'm planning on returning to D&D, and planning on running Curse Of Strahd with Fleshing Out Curse Of Strahd. But I can't help but want to add my own content and draw from what I love.

I'm thinking about drawing heavily from Fear And Hunger: Termina for my game, specifically elements like the Old Gods replacing the Dark Powers, possibly replacing certain characters with characters inspired by contestants from Fear And Hunger 2, and maybe even incorporating elements like Moonscorch which is one of my favorite elements of Fear And Hunger: Termina.

Does anyone have any advice for incorporating these elements into Curse Of Strahd? Note, I will still be avoiding more sensitive elements from Fear And Hunger: Termina like sexual abuse, amputation, graphic gender dysphoria, and things like that.

Edit:

Old Gods: In Fear And Hunger, there are gods who are characterized as having a perverse, symbiotic relationship with humanity. Gro Goroth is a destruction god who desires violence, wrath, bloodshed and destruction. Sylvian is a creation god who loves humanity, but her affections were not reciprocated, causing those affections to turn perverse, possessive, twisted and obsessive. The other old gods like the God Of Fear And Hunger desire an agonized, strife-ridden humanity. All old gods desire worship and dependance, and their blessings are often indistinguishable from curses.

Moonscorch: In Fear And Hunger: Termina, characters who succumb to despair mutate into abominations reflecting their fears regarding themselves. Marcoh, a man afraid of hurting people, becomes a lumbering, violent brute named Giant. Olivia, a woman bound to a wheelchair, becomes a mechanical monstrosity both freed from the ground, but lacking arms and legs, unable to bend at all and encased in mechanical iron. Osaa, an african mage afraid of being controlled by outside forces, is dominated by a parasite, rendering him a hostage in his own body. These endings are evocative and terrifying, and invoke the personal fears of every playable character in a compelling and tragic way.

Hello,

I'm running a Curse of Strahd prequel one-shot where my players will play as Ba'al Verzi assassins during THE wedding.

What I need is a picture of Ravenloft where it's not destroyed/run down/dark and gloomy, as this was back when the weather was still nice and the castle had not been left to rot.

Does anyone have any suggestions/sources? I do not want to use AI for this.

Thanks!

Dungeon Sonus just released Curse of Strahd: Chapter 4, Part 1 Audiobook.

I’m going to be DMing Curse of Strahd in a couple of months for three players, so we’re currently in the character creation/pre-Session 0 discussion. I sent my players the “player introduction” post from this subreddit, which clarified to them what to expect from this campaign and to hopefully help shape their expectations accordingly.

One of my players had the idea to play a warlock, whose patron is a Medusa-like gorgon trapped in the Faewild, who requires the warlock to occasionally kidnap beautiful people for her statue garden in the Faewild. I’m uncertain about agreeing to this, purely because I’m not sure how it would impact the game overall. What do other people think? My player is more than willing to adapt things and change their character if needed. I’m just not sure if it would have a negative impact on the campaign and take away from the story. Any thoughts and feedback would be appreciated! Thanks!

Does anyone have a good map that's just the OG dungeon (and the bossfight area) from death house? I want to print the map at a A3 paper in a graphic store, one just for the house and one for the dungeon. I already have the house map but i can't seem to find one that is just the dungeon and has good quality for print. I'm searching for one that is the OG from the adventure, to match the house one.
Does anyone have one to share? :D

Hey all. I'll be DMing tCoS for the first time and I finally know all my players' characters. Allow me to introduce them to you... And hopefully you will have some nice ideas on what to focus to give them the best experience.

Petrichor "Penta" Candlemaker - half-elf rogue/cleric multiclass - the priest of the goddess of hearth, home and family

Petrichor is a kid from a poor family, he was risen by abusive father, his oldest brother and beloved older sister were both killed (separately) by criminals of the town he lived in. Later a good priest took him in a monastery and set him on the path of a holy man who actually has some powers to help others.

Petrichor has learnt that the powers that be (nobility, rich folk...) don't care for people in need and the help usually comes from those who know the need themselves. And as such, he does not really believe in his deity... But his deity apparently believes in him. (He decided to roll every time he wants to use his divine powers to see if they work - I am curious how soon he regrets that.)

His longterm goal is to found an orphanage in his town to help the poor children and give them the protection nobody else does.

I have and idea of actually having this character to be Sergei reincarnated. I know it is usually not encouraged to avoid main character player issue but I have absolute trust in this player that he will give the others their time in the spotlight too.

Premek Wiseling - halfling rogue - the riddler

A naive halfling guy who loves riddles of all kinds and jumped into the adventure inspired by his grandfather's stories... Only to find how dangerous busyness it is. His whole previous party was slaughtered by werevolves.

He has a platonic love interest, a noble lady he (and his previous party) helped to cure from magical madness.

He is terrified of failure of his intelect and his long term goal is to experience some adventure and eventually build his own dungeon that will function like a safe escape game.

Feastlove Hamhock - halfling wizard - the lazy opportunist

A halfling guy from a wealthy farmer family... Who prefered reading to working on the fields. Therefore he left to the city to study the magic arts... And on the school, he cheated as much as he could and wrote his own results and sent them back home... Until he was caught.

I believe his ambition is a recognition and respect of the people in his home village. To be "somebody important"... And preferably not to have to work too hard to achieve that.

He has a dark secret, before he left to study in the city, he made his girlfriend pregnant and he persuaded her to get abortion and then he left.

Nishaya Ebony Amaryllis Esmeray - dark elf fighter - the falied assassin

Dark elf girl from a powerful family. Her older sister Keyara leads a secret rebellion against their mother's diplomatic efforts to keep peace with humans and she is a bad influence on Nishaya. She (Keyara) gave Nishaya a mission - to murder some human heir se the war between dark elves and humans can break again... And Nishaya failed terribly. She can't return home until she fulfills her oath to her sister - until the heir is killed. But she also owns her life to Petrichor who saved her from the law and now travels with him until she pays her debt to him. (And she is learning that things are not that black and white as her sister told her.)

Her ambition is to prove she is better than her mother and sister. She admires strength (any kind) and believes a given word is sacred.

She is no saint though, she did kill innocent people, burnt down houses etc., serving her sister's cause.

Starting point

The baron they all serve has received a letter from Van Richten with request for help. Van Richten went to Barovia to release the land and it's ruler from the curse that had been laid on it and is now asking for some helping hands. He also mentions Madam Eva who should be avare of his location.

However, from the very start, Van Richten is in Strahd's prison enjoing the lord's "hospitality"... And who knows, maybe it was Strahd who had sent the letter.

My plans

Strahd is not mentioned as the BBEG in the letter and he will use that try to maintain the role of a cursed victim and a ruler misunderstood by his subjects as long as possible. Naturally, there will be a moment when he flips... ("You want me to be the bad guy? Alright then, I will be the bad guy.")

Fated Ally will be Esmeralda who is in Barovia searching for her mentor.

I intend to have the game a little bit more coherent and story focused. (That's what both me and the players prefer.) Not 100% sandbox where I just let the players to roam blinldy all over. I don't like the idea that the only "motivation" in the game is to escape Barovia and not being killed by Strahd. But I think the starting point is already a good first push in some direction.

My party starts on 4th level and I've decided to allow each one a uncommon magic item (not a weapon). That fits the theme that they are adventurers worthy of sending to help a legendary monster hunter... And also worthy of Strahd's attention. (I know a lot of people likes to run TCOS as a low-level survival horror with scarce resources but me and my party are not amongst those people. Please, accept this decision will provide a better experience for my table.)

Questions and ideas

Dusk Elves - I think is it logical to replace them with Dark Elves, right? How do you think they - and people of Barovia will react when a living Dark Elf woman walks amongst them?

Ireena - How would you play her that this specific party likes her? I can already see some similarities with the noblewoman Premek loves so she should be enthusiastic about riddles.

What themes would you highlight/add to engage with each PC? To challenge their values or bring up their weaknesses and dark secrets?

Magic item for Feastlove - the player mention that he would want a Ring of Mind Shielding. I understand it is a little bit too powerful item, however... What would you think about the ring coming up with a soul of his unborn kid? (Feastlove's lover had it during the procedure and then she gave the ring to him as a parting gift - so he remembers her.)

Any other ideas and suggestions for the game for this party? (Yeah, I've read the whole book and I did check some parts of the Reloaded and other versions and I am collecting some inspiration points from them.)

currently I am running my players through death House, I don't know how to drive them to put the bodies to rest nothing seems to tell them to do so. and when I get into brovian town I don't know how to drive them to the other side quests outside the burgomaster outside giving them rumors in the tavern I can't figure out what else to do that is creative

When Madam Eva is giving her card reading it says to refrence things in the book my question is on the Marionette does the book want me to describe A. or B. to the party as both are on the page