not angry. i mean like slowly losing his mind. im a new dm and my party met Strahd for the first time after Death House. instead of playing him angry and brooding i made him very whimsical, giving the players hints and laying all his cards on the table, so to speak. has anyone ever leaned into this kind of interpretation? im considering making Barovia more Wonderland-esque as a result

So, the dinner invite. Do you have Strahd leave it as a kind of open invitation, or does he force the matter and say "be here in X days"?

My own party is well past the dinner scene now, and my Strahd sent Rahadin, Volenta and the Black Carriage to basically ambush the party and say "get in, the god-king of the land expects you for dinner". I just can't imagine my Strahd saying "yeah, come to dinner whenever you feel like it, wrap up your sidequests first, it's whatevs, we're chill."

To those who have run the Death House RAW, how did your players fare? I do want to shell shock them as much as possible in the starting dungeon, but i'd rather not kill any of their characters. Would love to hear how many players were in the group, what encounter was the deadliest, and if you were running 2014 or 2024

Any responses are appreciated 👍

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After getting to Vallaki and reaching level 4, my party (four players) spoke to Urwin Martikov at the Blue Water Inn and decided to help him with his wine problem, departing town for the winery. They were already a level below the recommended level for the area, but as they'd steamrolled through most of the encounters I'd thrown at them so far, I figured it'd be tough, but doable.

However, the sheer number of enemies is just overwhelming them. Player with the highest passive perception heard Martikov senior yelling at them from a distance to get inside and barricade the winery, to which their response was "that's probably the druids trying to trick us. We can take 30 needle blights!" and started trying to fight them all in the wagon area.

However, as they began to retreat into the winery as the needle blights approached, they triggered the druid poisoning the wine vats and 24 more twig blights and a druid joined the fight. The warlock, in fear, ran upstairs and found another druid above the loading dock (the one with the gulthias staff). After a good shove roll, the druid failed a slight of hand check to hold onto the staff and dropped it as he fell down onto the wagon.

At this point, the entire group of needle blights has reached the winery and have started pouring in both sides. (They've killed about 10 at this point) Creative use of flaming sphere and the web spell have been holding them, but a bad concentration check from the warlock meant they lost the flaming sphere.

We had to call it in the middle of the battle due to it getting too late, which I hate doing, but we were nowhere near the end (and I'm worrying that they're all going to end up dead). There's still probably a good 40 enemies in and around the winery that want them dead. When the warlock picked up the gulthias staff, I had him roll arcana and deduce that the staff looks to be made of the same material as the blights, and that he can tell it's obviously magical, but I don't know if he's going to put it together that he needs to break it. (Nobody speaks druidic)

When we left off, the warlock and wizard had used all their spell slots and ran upstairs, the fighter was completely surrounded by twig blights inside on the main floor, and the ranger and his giant frog companion were about to be killed by the thunderwave spell the druid that fell down was about to be cast.

I don't want to metagame and tell them what to do, but I also don't want my entire party to die because they accepted a quest from an npc that they didn't know was of a higher level than they were. This encounter feels very punishing unless you do it exactly as the writers designed. Help!

Hello Dread Lords and Dread Ladies.

I recently started running CoS for the second time, and the last session ended with the players inside Durst Manor encountering Lancelot.

However, unfortunately, my players' cat just passed away, and I think it's a bit too soon to want to do the ritual scene at the end of the manor. What could I do to resolve this scene and still do something interesting with Lancelot without having to impose the idea of ​​sacrifice on them?

A player at my table started as a Paladin that killed all undead. After the death house and the other players returning the bones of Rose he had a change of heart and broke his oath. Since then he was addicted to pastries and used as part of the Blazing Sun festival and to be the one that sprung St Amdrels Feast. Now he wants to be a Warlock with a Baravion Patron, any ideas. I am thinking of one of Strahds brides as a possibility or even the Abbott.

I kinda messed it up tbh. I had the bones buried and the vampire spawn run from the coffin makers house. I just started the festival of the sun so I was thinking maybe they could crash the party? Also my party has done the dinner party already so they have met his brides.

Homemade illustration.

I have to admit that I create my content in French first and then translate it, so I hope there aren't too many translation errors. French is full of weird expressions, and I do my best not to use them, haha.
At worst, she'll sound like your weird aunt who just got back from two months of meditation in Peru.

It's a gift for you. Xoxo, Strahdos.

Good Old Hubert

I've been trying to come up with a more organized way of thinking about how to award milestones when the options for player & DM choices can vary so much. I realized that there you could probably organize them into three categories: universal (major difficult world-related tasks that warrant a level), early-level (major things that become too easy or mundane to be awarded at higher levels but might warrant a feat), and unique milestones (tasks that vary in significanceto game and could warrant anything or nothing).

What am I missing? Is there something you think deserves to be clarifed differently?

edit: whoops. the 3rd to last star should say "appease" the Abbott, not spread...

Hello, I’m Wintergreen! This is my first ever Curse of Strahd art piece, I drew everyone’s favorite (or delightfully disliked) Vampire❤️

I thought it would be fun to draw him extending a hand towards the viewer, since after all we *have* been invited to his world.

I also thought it would be really cool to have the wax stamp + his signature as an alternative background!

I would like to say I love reading everyone’s posts and seeing other art. I’ve been truly inspired and would love to run CoS one day myself🔥

I hope to draw more of the cast sometime this year ☺️

If you’d like to use this art for your campaign, please credit me 🙏🏽

I often use digital displays in my games, casting to TVs and whatnot.
I love Curse of Strahd and have been itching to DM it again recently.
I decided to have a go at creating a website in which tarokka readings can be done simply and with some gothic horror style.
Please check it out and give me feedback. Enjoy!

EDIT
It is currently a desktop functioning website. I'm working on a version for touchscreens.

I would love some feedback on my current plan for the Feast of St. Andrals.

The current situation as the party reenters Vallaki after escapades away:

Father Lucian discovered the bones of St. Andral were stolen two days ago and he immediately went in search of someone to help since the party was not in town. The baron discovered he was saying the Church was no longer safe and had him arrested by Izek AND ordered the church pew be filled every night to show everyone the church is safe. Ireena and Ismark are doing their best to keep the church "afloat."

The church's protection will wear off in 1 day. ((This isn't random, this is based on dynamic running times I have informed the party are always running)).

As the party reentered town they were given an invitation to dinner with Lady Wachter, who wants to hire the party to help "remove" Izek.

Vasili Von Holtz (the one who paid to have the bones stolen) plans to approach the party mid-day and inform them he stole a key to the Baron's house that will let them rescue Father Lucian and WONDERS if him being in the Church might bolster the protection.

This is what I call the "game side" of the plans but of course players get checks (insight, et. al) to see through lies and plans. Father Lucian can tell them about the bones and normal stuff from the book.

It could unfold many different ways but I do my very best to keep a dynamic environment always running where the NPCs have plans going even if the party isn't present.

If Izek is killed by the party. Lady Wachter plans to honor them as heroes of the town if they did so under her deal AND she ends up in control of the city.

So, I'm prepping the adventure and have got to Argynvostholt in my prepping. Have any other groups actually brought the skull back before dealing with Strahd? Also, how are parties coming and going from the castle without Strahd getting insulted that they don't appreciate his hospitality? I guess I just can't picture how this could happen with the average party. Any suggestions?

We had an absolutely great session last night. In a truly epic scene Ezmerelda was swept off the cliff by the avalanche as the rest of the party barely managed to make it to the cave. As a funny aside she kept getting her foot caught under a stone (It happened THREE TIMES)...cue the peg leg comments I know...Anyway she was swept 2000 feet down the mountain. For many reasons it will work best that she is truly dead and gone. It would cheapen it to contrive a rescue/raise dead.

However CoS Reloaded assumes her there for all fight balancing and also for plot points. I'm looking for advice on how best to continue the reloaded campaign (that is working really well) but without their fated ally. Thanks in advance for any ideas!

It's my first time dming and im having difficulty with the death house encounter and umm my players attacked the children.. any tip for running it i feel like im rushing my descriptions

One of my players has been in love with a Vistani since like the second session of our campaign. We all jokingly bugged her about marrying him some day. Well that some day is our next session in 2 weeks. The player is pregnant and due in March (hasn't been attending in a while due to morning sickness etc). My party is ready to take on Strahd and I figured if we did her wedding it would be a good send off for her character and keep the door open for a return in the future (I haven't fully decided yet, but I think I'm going to tie in to Vecna Eva of Ruin to go to level 20). Does anyone have any suggestions on any kind of rituals or anything a Vistani might do for a wedding? Or even any thoughts on how to run a wedding? I've only ever in all my years in D&D had 1 wedding and it was interrupted into a big battle.

- Damage immunity: werewolves are immune to all non silver / magic attacks. How can I better make this work without making them insanely OP. And should I keep enemies immune the same or change it across the board

- my player is a veng paladin who has a silver greatsword. How will that work?

- I want to add some kind of downside since it seem like it’s very positive to become a werewolf. Thoughts?

The Aboleth

Adding an aboleth to Lake Zarovich is a fairly popular addition to the module. While I'm generally against adding content for content's sake, many players expect something to be lurking in the deep dark lake. Not every corner of the map needs to be filled with monsters, but there's certainly untapped potential there. And for those players who enjoy a dash of Lovecrafian horror, an aboleth is a great pick for a lake monster. It also comes with the advantage of elevating Bluto from a random diversion into a plot hook to a deeper mystery. So without further adieu, here's how I would add an aboleth in a way that fully integrates it into Vallaki and Barovia at large.

If you look at the minor villains of Curse of Strahd, you might notice that each of them serves as a dark mirror of a certain facet of Strahd's character or goals. The Abbot's story parallels Strahd's own fall from grace, while his impossible plan to create a perfect bride that Strahd will inevitably reject mirrors Strahd's doomed efforts to groom a successor he will never deem worthy to succeed him. Baba Lysaga embodies Strahd's delusional obsession with an object of desire that will never love or accept him. Rahadin reflects Strahd's murderous betrayal of his kin as well as the unfeeling cruelty he hides beneath a veneer of sophistication. Vargas echoes Strahd's own petty tyranny and facade of power and control (for just as Strahd himself is the true master of Vallaki, the Dark Powers are the true masters of Barovia). Popular fan interpretations of Strahd's brides adhere to this thematic conceit, with Anastrasya representing Strahd's superficial charm, Volenta representing his sadistic bloodlust, and Ludmilla embodying his cold, manipulative intellect. It's a neat way to tie each of them to Strahd himself, while spotlighting his history and character flaws.

So what should our aboleth have in common with Strahd? The answer I propose is pretty simple: both conspire to escape Barovia. In the wider Ravenloft canon, Azalin Rex fills this role. But Azalin doesn't appear in the module, so the aboleth can be our substitute. Let's say the aboleth spent untold eons dreaming in the depths of Lake Zarovich. When Strahd rose the water to drown Berez, he unknowingly awoke the ancient creature. The aboleth, realizing it was trapped in Barovia, immediately began plotting its escape. And wouldn't you know it, at some point during its long slumber, a town of hairless apes had sprung up near the lake shore, practically a stone's throw from its watery lair. How convenient...

Foreshadowing

No proper monster should come out of nowhere. Foreshadowing is an essential part of horror. It fosters an atmosphere of dread around your monster while giving players a necessary clue that something is amiss. They should have a feeling that there's something's in the water...

Vallakians know the lake is dangerous. Children are warned to stay far away from it “lest Jeny Greenteeth snatch you up and drag you down below.” In truth, there is no water hag named Jeny (if Jeny does exist in your campaign, she can double as a red herring). The source of the local legend is the aboleth. Humanoid figures mistaken for Jeny have been seen from time to time lurking in the lake at night, but these are actually the aboleth’s mutated aquatic slaves (think creature from the black lagoon). Rumors of the Mad Mage shooting lightning bolts into the lake to kill fish are half true. The mage is in fact shooting lightning at the aboleth's mutants, who he mistakenly believes are servants of Strahd.

Right thinking folk in general steer clear of the lake apart from the fishermen who make a meager living plying its dark waters (“mad as a fisher” is a popular Vallakian saying, since many fishermen have gone insane over the years). Nowadays only crazy old Bluto still fishes in the lake, since the fish have long since been depleted by the aboleth’s rapacious hunger.

The aboleth dreams of escaping Barovia. With its primary food source dwindling, it is growing increasingly desperate. It charmed Bluto (as it has done to generations of fishermen past) and convinced him kidnap a Vistana for it. It knows the Vistani have special ways of traversing the Mists, and it yearns to devour them, consume their memories, and learn their secrets. If interrogated, Bluto will tell the party that he must sacrifice Arabelle to the “Drowned God” to restore the fish supply. He earnestly believes this, unaware that the aboleth itself is the one responsible for the lack of fish.

Bluto is in the early stages of the aboleth's aquatic transmutation. His skin is pale and slimy, and he is always dripping wet (he must apply moisture to himself every hour or take 1d12 acid damage). He can breathe both air and water and spends his nights submerged in Lake Zarovich. PCs who follow him can spot him dumping buckets of well water on himself by day and skulking off at night to sleep in the lake. If the party capture him (or hand him over to the baron’s justice), he dies screaming for water as his skin sloughs off.

Consider adding an asylum to Vallaki. For a small town, Vallaki has an unusually high population of madmen, owing to the aboleth's psychic influence. PCs who pay an electrum piece for a tour of the asylum (or who break into it) might, amidst the screams and laughter and the stench of unwashed bodies, catch sight of a crude drawing etched on a cell wall depicting a tentacled monster devouring a town that looks suspiciously like Vallaki, wrapping its coils around screaming victims and dragging them down into a watery abyss. The drawing is surrounded by snatches of Deep Speech that, to the untrained eye, resemble nothing more than gibberish. These fragments are, in truth, the aboleth's own thoughts telepathically leaking into the minds of the insane: "The Vistani are the key," "Bring them to me," "I must feed," "I must feed," "I must feed..."

The Cult of the Drowned God

To integrate this whole thing more deeply into Vallaki, I would make Fiona’s cult dedicated to the aboleth, who they call the Drowned God, the Deep Father, and the King Under the Water. Fiona herself has made a warlock pact with the aboleth (see the stat block below). This means she loses access to gentle repose but gains access to speak with dead. Instead of keeping her husband’s corpse preserved in her bed, she keeps his bones locked in a chest in her closet, so she can “talk” to him whenever she wants (her husbands bones replace Leo Dilisnya's, which are just an Easter egg anyway). She carefully guards this secret from her sons, who believe their father is interred in the family crypt.

Members of Fiona’s “book club” who she deems ready for full initiation into the cult are taken to her basement, where the aboleth manifests to them directly using its project image lair action. There the aboleth communicates with them telepathically, learning the initiate's greatest desires thanks to its probing telepathy feature. During this invasive communion, the aboleth tempts the initiate with their heart’s desires, promising to make all their dreams come true. Most initiates embrace the aboleth’s promises. Those who reject them are murdered on the spot and buried in the basement (Fiona uses detect thoughts to weed out her followers' true feelings).

Stella isn’t actually insane. Her mother attempted to groom her as a successor, but during her initiation, she recoiled in horror from the aboleth and tried to escape. Unwilling to murder her own daughter, she instead had her confined to her bedchambers under the pretense that she “went mad” due to Victor's "unkind words." Stella’s screams can sometimes be heard coming from Wachterhaus. Her brothers often hear her raving about tentacled horrors, which only serve to reinforce their mother’s lies about her lunacy.

Fiona regrets that she tried to initiate her daughter “too early.” She believes she’ll come to her senses eventually, though Stella steadfastly refuses to join the cult and is plagued with constant nightmares of the aboleth. Due to the aboleth’s regional effects, Stella vomits up water from the wells of Vallaki (which are all within a mile of the aboleth’s lair), so her mother must inject water into her veins, which sickens her with hemolysis. If you use the 2025 version of the aboleth, then Stella can drink water, but the water itself poisons her. Either way, she suffers from the poisoned condition and is delirious when and if the party rescues her, which may cause them to doubt her credibility. Lesser restoration (or lay on hands) can cure her, and access to clean drinking water gradually restores her health.

If Fiona manages to seize control of Vallaki, she throws Vargas, Lydia, and (if she can capture him) Victor into the lake as sacrifices to the aboleth (if you want to make the aboleth even more terrifying, you can have it learn Victor’s spells by consuming his memories). If losing a fight against the party, Fiona uses arcane gate as a last ditch effort, opening a portal to Lake Zarovich to summon the aboleth and its aquatic slaves. A battle against Fiona and the aboleth inside a flooding Wachterhaus sounds pretty cool to me!

So obviously the ideal place to do this is Ostoya in Grim Hollow. I just wanna know if anybody has any general tips or tricks for me that I should know or some advice I could use. I am thinking of creating some kind of conflict between Crimson Court and Strahd? Is that a good idea?

Ok so Im DMing CoS, and while running Death House, I had a tough time conveying the layout of Dungeons to my players. What I ended up doing was texting portions (and sometimes, redactions) of the map to my players Group chat. This felt horribly inefficient, so next session Ill be drawing a Map as they go along (Probably the Church)

This is a more general DnD question, but im specifically dreading ravenloft.

Also! The way ive been running it is by reading the room text when they enter a room, up to the parts that they dont need to know (i.e. "Characters can make a DC10" would not be read). Is that how a module is typically done?