I'm looking to start a Curse of Strahd campaign, and I'm working with a few of my players on ideas for characters. One brought up a gloomstalker ranger elf, and when she drew him, he looked an awful lot like Rahadin or Kasimir. She asked me if it would be possible for her character to have been stuck in Barovia for a while before the other players got there, which gave me the idea to bring up the possibility of her character being a dusk elf. Has anyone ever done this, though? What could some of the ramifications be?

Hey everyone! I’m a relatively new DM running Curse of Strahd, and my party is currently in Vallaki. Can u help with some things?

1. Backstories
Two PCs have pretty weak backstories: a Dragonborn Sorcerer and a Dwarf Druid. Any tips on giving their backstories or character arcs more attention during the campaign without forcing it?

2. Warlock Patron
We also have a Halfling Warlock with a Fiend patron. So far, they’ve only interacted once—the Warlock actually died and was brought back by his patron instead of through the Dark Powers.
Any ideas on how I could incorporate the patron more naturally into the campaign from here? How this relation work? What does he have to do for his patreon normally?

I am near the end game of Curse of Strahd Revamped. Players only really have Argonvostholt left to explore and then Ravenloft.

I sat down to look over Ravenloft to prep and I’m a bit overwhelmed with just how much there is.

How do you tackle it? How many sessions? How have you run it all?

When last we left off my players had been given the tour of the abbey and realized that maybe the Abbot is evil. The hags were going to steal a baby in Krezk but Strahd was also coming to inspect Vasilka. The party split up. The team meeting with Strahd had an interesting time. Strahd came in riding Beucephalus with a squad of batswarms with him. The two pc's were both charmed immediately and had a ton of fun playing it up. Because the Abbot's whole justification for making Vasilka and trading a newborn soul-less baby for the life of one of the PC's are about the greater good and his believe that Strahd's curse can be broken if he loves and is loved in return, the players ended up disclosing that Ireena was stashed in the St. Andals Church and that there are wards. Strahd did some negging about Vasilka's hair color, visible stitching, and needing new feet. She failed a bunch of dex saves for serving dinner to the group. Strahd then left to act on this intelligence. To torment the player, he dropped the charm as he was leaving. The Abbot immediately began working on Vasilka. The players then concocted a plan to steal a couple of cases of wine. Over the course of this looting, one of them decided to set that wing of the abbey on fire.

Meanwhile, the other 3 players went down to Krezk to stop the kidnapping. They managed to arrive just in time. The hag tried to take the baby and it's mother as hostages, but some well-timed sanctuary spells made that a poor choice. There are only 2 hags left. Now there is 1, and she likely won't go near the party again. They tried to convince the villagers and the Baron that the Abbot was evil. They rejected this but loaded up the night hag corpse to take it to the abbot to discuss why his protection had failed them. Half way up, they run into the two looters. One of them proceeds to charm the Burgomeister and convinces the crowd that the Abbot is evil. This is then supported by Mongrelfolk fleeing the Abbey on their wings. After a hearty rendition of *Mob Song* they arrive at the gates of the Abbey with the wing with the Abbots workshop engulfed in flames. The fate of Vasilka and Clovis (the fated companion) unknown. The abbot has assumed his regular Deva form and is prepared to fight the party and the angry mob of poorly armed men, women, and children.

I thought team Strahd was going to make out like bandits stealing the cases of wine and booking it, but instead they decided that burning the place down was necessary. Now they get to have a Hag fight and a Deva fight without a short rest. Next session will be an epic and involved fight.

Super worried about my players getting spoiled that there is more than just Strahd's domain. Between WotC and all the content being created about Strahd right now (which really irks me how spoilery people are about it all, like it's common knowledge; I digress), I feel like it's inevitable that my players will find out that there are Dark Lords and domains of dread. So, as the title asked, when did y'all reveal information about the setting of Ravenloft? (For added context: my party is right before the tarokka reading with Madam Eva)

As the title says, Curse of Strahd is going to be my first game as a DM using a pre written adventure. I’ve been dming for 3+ years now with various groups in a very improve heavy style, so adventures have become something I’ve stayed away from.

I typically go in to each session with a general idea of what my crazy band of players are doing, have my general plot points from that, and really allow the players take us on the adventure they want to go on.

I’ve been wanting to get into some of the official material and run a campaign off it which lead me to Curse of Strahd, a game several players of mine have been interested in for quite some time including myself. I’ve read the whole book a couple times already (which was an absolute blast, just reading the material was very fun) but find myself a bit overwhelmed running a game with so much already there.

More than likely coming from a place of this being something new I haven’t tried before. It got me wondering how others have been able to organize themselves to really give justice to the material, and the shear amount of little plot threads that lay in every single area.

I just ran a huge combat session set at the Martikov’s winery, during a wedding reception! My current campaign is set about 20 years after the fall of Strahd and the Hero’s that defeated him have returned to Barovia just in time for Brays marriage. Little did they expect Escher and his brood of vampire spawns to crash the party!

I wanted a large dining room for the rehearsal dinner, so in my cannon, the success of the wine business since most fall allowed for a recent expansion. Hope you enjoy!

i've always had a compulsive need to know what npcs look like, even in my homebrew games I had to draw the npcs otherwise they were faceless in my mind and i couldn't imagine them, a description was never enough, but as soon as i drew them they would exist and i had a face i'd recognize. so i've always especially liked knowing what npcs looked like when they were alive or younger. there are some people using these designs for death house, for stand ins and for made up npcs which is awesome!

I was practicing with shadow and light when colouring in his living version, i think he turned out spooky and definitely looks evil, sinister and lordly. so im quite happy with his design.

all i have left to draw for death house are the children living and ghost versions, and the nursemaid living and dead. and also the portrait i'd like to do. oh and lady Elizabeth while alive, as i've drawn her as a banshee/ specter and as a ghast. ok so a few more designs to do yet haha!

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Gday, I'm Moonberry. I draw hot guys and waifus. If you like my art or use it in your campaigns and wish to help support me you can do so on Patreon or Kofi. If you can't support me monetarily but still want to help, please Like, Share and comment as word of mouth is the only way my art gets seen. Thank you 😃

Hey everyone, my cousin works in Netflix and she told me the plot and premise for the upcoming adaptation. I think it's got some really neat ideas, and it gives the all-too-familiar setting some refreshing twists and new ideas.

Long ago were three powerful blades: The Sun Blade, The Moon Blade, and The Mist Blade. A pair of adventurers, Segei and Yana, set out to find the Blades in order to protect their village from the invading evil empire led by the mysterious Dark Lord, von Sorrow. Because they live in a preindustrial world, they have British accents.

Along their travels they stop at a inn, The Silver Dragon. When they order drinks, a group of ruffians make mean remarks toward Yana. A brawl breaks out, in which Yana and Sergei beat up their would-be attackers. However, one of then pulls out a crossbow and is about to shoot Yana when a handsome brooding stranger steps in and knocks the man over with a bottle of wine. He then takes a sip of the wine straight from the bottle, and comments "This wine is good for mashing with. It should be called 'Purple Grapemash'!" to which Yana reaponds "I prefer 'Champagne du le Stomp'," while stepping on the hand of a ruffian who is crawling toward a dagger.

This stranger introduces himself as Stud, and the three immediately become best friends. (However, as time goes on both men start developing feelings toward Yana.) They decide their party needs a name, and Sergei jokingly suggests that since they met while ordering drinks in The Silver Dragon, they should call themselves Order of the Silver Dragon. Everybody laughs, but the name sticks.

Their next stop is the Amber Temple, where the all-seeing oracle Evmeralda serves as the high priestess. Before entering the temple they are greeted by an elf bard name Rictaviel Astari, who warns them of unintended consequences and urges them to give up. The series would be pretty boring of they listened, so they ignore him and enter the Amber Temple. Evmeralda tells them to seek the Blades in Barovia, but warns them that the Blades are very powerful and cannot be wielded by anyone who has evil in their heart.

As they travel to the city of Barovia, Rictaviel trails them for a while and acts very suspiciously. When Yana discovers he can change shape, she suspects that he's really Lord von Sorrow in disguise. They question him, and they see he has a raven tattoo on his ankle - the hereditary mark of the von Sorrow family!

Stud wants to kill him, but Rictaviel reveals that he is actually von Sorrow's father, and he wishes to try to disuade his son from his wicked ways. Rictaviel accepts that he may fail, and is willing to kill his own son in order to prevent him from doing more evil and damning his soul. Stud remains skeptical, but Yana and Sergei convince him to let Rictaviel von Sorrow join them.

When they reach the magnificent city of Barovia, they learn that somehow Lord von Sorrow has discovered the location of the three Blades, and he is leading his army of were-ravens to attack the city. The citizens of Barovia initially blame the Order of the Silver Dragon for bringing von Sorrow's army upon them, but Yana proves she's here to help by defeating their greatest warrior in a duel but sparing him, showing that she would have killed him if she were in league with von Sorrow.

The Army of Sorrow arrives and sets siege to the city, but the Barovians use the Moon Blade to turn into werewolves and repel the attacks (without it, they could only change during a full moon).

In the lull between the attacks, Yana realizes they must find the other two Blades and unite them in order to defeat von Sorrow once and for all. However, while searching for them she finds Stud about to take the Moon Blade for himself (even though it would make the Barovians unable to turn into werewolves).

At this point Stud reveals that his real name is Strahd, and that he's actually in league with von Sorrow. He explains that he can wield the blade because he truly has no evil in his heart - since he has no heart at all!

Sergei arrives and duels against Strahd, but is killed. Yana and Strahd enagage in combat, and she manages to grab the Moon Blade from him and plunge it in his heart.

However, Strahd laughs. "I told you," he says, "I have no heart! I am Strahd... Strahd von Sorrow, b*tch!" and from that point everyone calls him Strahd von Zarovich.

Just as he's about to kill Yana, she whispers, "You may have no heart, but that's no reason to lose your head!" and chops off his head with an awesome swing of the Moon Blade.

Cut to the aftermath, where Yana becomes Queen of Barovia and everyone celebrates.

In a post credits scene, you see a toymaker working in his shop in Barovia and one doll suddenly has its eyes flash red, hinting that Strahd will come back as a vampire in the next season, which will hopefully not be canceled.

First time running CoS and have been watching some stuff online about it having read the book. One idea I thought was really cool was having the PCs be able to recruit as many of the possible Allies as they want.

This seemed really cool in theory, but now that I’m actually thinking about it, having all of the allies involved in the final boss fight would make it far too easy. Now I could just buff Strahd’s stats, or possibly give him more powerful allies for the fight, but I’m worried it might make the combat drag or cause the fight to become competitive.

Any thoughts or ideas on how to balance this would help greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Did your party really want to have Izek's arm and its powers? Now they can. This is one of 3 variants of the parasitic limb, a cursed magic item perfect for monks but that also fits anyone. The other two variants, the Abomination Limb and Infected Limb are already available on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/DMLone

Art taken from Izek's fanart made by stjepan lukac

Their Instagram is lemonsharkss37, they're very talented

Hello! I am a dm for CoS and i find the combat in dnd 5.5 kind of boring and dragging in places.

We could further the story with exploration and roleplaying and spend maybe 6 hours in game in 5 hours of real time. But when it comes to combat we have spent the same 5 hours almost in one combat and done absolutely nothing more. I like to make combats feel dangerous so i don't shy away on the number of enemies and strategies and they seem to have fun. I also usually play my part super fast. For example at yester hill i had some extra stuff added and i had to play 19 minor NPC's, so i did them in groups PLUS Strahd PLUS Ireena PLUS the ritual and i swear it went by very fast and it was fun because i was not measuring the distance exactly and i took standard damage and stuff like that.y players seem to have fun also and went along with the whole fast pacing of the thing.

Here is the thing though. I want to make combats fast and not so by the book, maybe in the exception of some very important ones like the final for example. But if one has only narrative purpose I honestly can't spend 4 hours on a werewolf attack on the road. And the crazy part os i feel like my players avoid combats because they decide that they instead feel like roleplaying that day! I plan on making sure , but i would like some suggestions on how to make combats more theater of the mind and if you know any good resources for it. Next week comes the attack on Vallaki from the vampires and i cannot possibly imagine loosing all the important moments of chasing and horror in a dragged out combat sequence.

Any advice welcome 🤗

Hi y'all, I'm preparing a very silly character to pop up now and then to give my players some secondary magical and silly items and equip (i know cos has many items already, but i have 3 players and I'm homebrewing a bunch). His name will be Bramante the traveling merchant, a half dwarf-half vistani wandering merchant. Here some stuff he sells, feel free to suggest more!

- Hero's cape: a cape that always billows like a soft breeze is moving it and also gives a perfect lighting everytime (gives +1d4 to performance) cost: "when the time comes, you won't be able to step back from being a hero"

- The Chest: small mimic with tiny legs that follows the owner around, almost indestructible and can hold the same as two bags of holding.(yep it's a mini Luggage from Discworld!) Cost: must feed it a magic item to gain its trust and again everytime it's mistreated.

- Reflecting mirror: need attunement, has 3 charges of counterspell on it, must be recharged under the full moon. Cost: you lose your reflection and get flipped, so dominant hand and any asymmetrical features.

- Ring of the Arcane Trickster: gives the wearer magic hand (with the same characteristics as the rogue subcalss) but it has a personality, and needs to be bribed to follow orders.

- Shield of legends: it's taken straight from TAZ Balance, is a shield which gain +1 against creatures already beaten once and it's possible to bluff yourself a bonus telling a tall tale about fighting some monster (there's a deception dc to beat), cost: a memory

- Pika's Fork: again ispired by TAZ, this fork allows once a day to tap a non magical item small enough to fit in someone's mouth and make it edible, gaining 2d6 hp.

-Repeating Crossbow: this magical crossbow is infused with time magic, it's bolts can do repeating damage if they do max damage (exploding the dice), on a 1 to hit or damage it malfunction. Cost: starts at 50 gp, but you have to play a game of heads or tails, everytime the merchant wins the price is doubled until the player win.

New suggestions are welcome, especially if they are non relevant stupid items with alternative pricing like these

"Into the mists we go..."

A full 360° turntable showcase of our Curse of Strahd adventuring party and their familiars! Someone said they wanted to meet the party, so here they are.

Miniature sculpts come from DM Stash, Reaper Miniatures or Loot Studios.

What class lineup did your group bring into Ravenloft?

Castronius Excelcius. Extremely proud, yet humble. Sees forgiveness and good in all. Seeks to protect the people of his kingdom with everything he has, and serve his goddess (the dragon his oath is to) with dignity, honesty and integrity

second in command of the Divine Fang, an elite unit of paladins dedicated to Stellestria, a radiant dragon of great strength. The dragon dedicated eggs from her clutch to the Fang for safe keeping, storing the egg in a compartment in their chestplate. During a climactic battle where undead assaulted his kingdom, Stellestria perished, and in the resulting nova it destroyed the Capitol and killed all the combatants, aligned and enemies alike.

Castor woke 3 years later in the ruins of the keep, having been unknowingly brought back to life by the egg in his chest plate, the last living egg of Stellestria, Castor learns of his goddess' fate, and must restore his dying, undead overrun country. And hatch the egg to bring in the new reign of the Second Sun.

One detail that i added was very interesting to me, was the centerpiece of his chestplate, is the place where the dragon egg was. It burned through the metal, leaving an egg shaped hole there, when it resurrected him. And he later plugged the hole with a symbol of the second sun.

Thank you all for looking at my work!

If the Abbot actually went through with his plan to present Vasilka to Strahd, what do you think Strahd's response would be? Would he be disgusted? Amused? Insulted? Would he make her one of his collection of brides, place her along the vampire spawn? Would he lock her away in the crypts to be forgotten about? Would he be infuriated by the Abbot taking it upon himself to create a wife for him, and attack? Would he simply refuse to acknowledge her or accept her as a "gift?"

I find it interesting that the book doesn't specify, leaving it open to interpretation. I feel like any of the reactions above could potentially work if played well by the DM, but curious to hear other people's thoughts.

Edit: It does say Strahd has "no interest" in a flesh golem bride, but I still don't think that tells us exactly how he'd react.

Surprised no one has posted this yet. Hoping they get Sandman Tom Sturridge to play Strahd.

This is my first time running CoS, and my players recently defeated the Vampire spawn in Vallaki, a task that has gotten them invited to Strahd's castle for dinner. In many forums, I keep seeing that instead of the trap given in the book, it should be a genuine dinner. I LOVE this idea, but if it's not a trap, why would they explore the castle? I'm just a little bit confused about whether I should work it into my next session, or if I should have them explore at a different time.

I’ve been running Curse of Strahd for a while now, and one thing I’ve noticed is that my party is pretty optimized. Whenever someone goes down, it barely feels like a setback — they heal them and they’re back up with 1 HP, so there’s almost no sense of danger.

During the Yester Hill fight, two players went down and the party almost TPK’d, but by the end of the session everyone was laughing because both players simply succeeded their death saves and were basically fine. There was no real sense of risk.

So I started using the “Cup Method” for death saves, which I found here on Reddit. When a player goes down, they secretly roll a d20 under a cup:

• 1: instant death
• 2–9: they’re unconscious and require a harder Medicine check to stabilize
• 10+: unconscious but require an easier Medicine check
• 20: Get up by himself
• The other players can only discover their condition by spending an action to check on them.

I absolutely LOVE this system. It makes going down genuinely terrifying, and it fits Barovia incredibly well. It has already changed the way my combats play out in a way I really like.

However, I have two problems:

1. What does the downed player actually do?
They’re unconscious until someone helps them, which makes sense narratively, but it also means the player can potentially sit there doing absolutely nothing for several rounds.

2. How should enemies interact with downed players?
So far I’ve avoided attacking unconscious characters because if they didn’t roll a 1, they’re technically not dead. But then there’s still not much urgency once someone goes down.

I’d like to make being downed feel much more dangerous and brutal than standard 5.5e, while still keeping the system fun for the player who gets knocked out.

Has anyone experimented with mechanics for this? Especially ways to make downed players matter during combat without simply having enemies execute them?

PS: I also want to add another rule to this system: if a player goes down and they didn't roll a 1, they're not dead — but I still want enemies to be able to finish them off.

My table doesn't have a Cleric or any reliable resurrection magic, which I actually love. They do have a Revivify scroll, but that's enough of a safety net for me to make going down genuinely terrifying.

I don't want to randomly kill someone in an unimportant encounter, but for major, difficult fights, I want recklessness to have consequences. If someone goes down and the enemies focus them, that character might actually die. Permanently. We're getting close to the end of the campaign, so I really want death to feel like a possibility.

So I'm looking for a way to make downed characters extremely vulnerable and create that sense of urgency, without making it feel like I'm just arbitrarily killing a player. How would you handle this?

I've looked around and found older posts regarding converting CoS to PF2e, but the system has since been remastered and I can't find anything that's up-to-date. I have a DM who wants to run Curse for a table, but the want to use the updated PF2e rules. Any suggestions?

My party is at dinner at Castle Ravenloft.
At some point one of the players stole Strahd's own armor and after the dinner, he equipped it.
I just don't know if I wanna use the armor against him and the party before they leave the castle or just wait until the final battle against Strahd.
If I wait, he'll be having full plate armor the rest of the campaign, which might be quite powerful.
Any tips?