Happy nearly-Halloween! Use code WEDDING10 for 10% off your DMsGuild purchase: www.dmsguild.com/product/249933/Curse-of-Strahd-The-Wedding-At-Ravenloft?src=GDiWaRYT (Expires 10/26/23)
Mind if I promote my DMsGuild stuff just a teensy bit? It's difficult to get noticed as a small creator. I have a lot of publications, including spellbooks like "Spells from the Far Realm" and "Time Magic".
As a DM who finished up their Curse of Strahd game a few days ago, I cannot overstate how helpful the Curse of Strahd subreddit is. Dragnacarta, Mandymod and more have fantastic ideas, expansions, guides, and tips to use for your CoS game. It is how I originally learned of the Wedding at Ravenloft which massively improved the ending of the campaign for us.
@@robsonclark9678 its kind of mandatory if you want the campaign to be worth anything. a lot of the book just doesn't make sense, and there is a lot of just really poorly written things. lots of combat imbalance as well.
You can put me in the "not a fan" category for the whole "it's all an unbreakable cycle" thing. I think it's cool that Strahd, Irena, and Barovia have been stuck in a cycle for centuries when the PCs arrive. But if the PCs absolutely cannot break the cycle, anything they do other than personally escaping is a pointless ghost train ride, with them as passengers. Same goes for the fact that all the other Domains are the same way. It tends to put the Darklord and their Realm at the center of the story instead of the PCs.
I think the whole “Barovia is trapped in an endless cycle” is a great excuse to return over and over and/or take the campaign beyond lvl 10, into more endgame Freeform territory, as the party might decide to take the fight to those who trapped Barovia and Strahd in the first place. Deleting the entire dread-domain all together. This then turns into an adventure in the shadowfel, fighting ultimately the eldritch horrors called “the mists” to finally free the land permanently and send it back to where it’s supposed to be. Am I alone in this thought process?
It would probably entail breaking the pact between Strahd and whatever Dark Powers that keep bringing him back, basically ensuring that he _stays_ dead for good this time.
Funnily enough, that's what I'm actually doing with my party in the campaign I'm running. They're part way through Curse of Strahd, but I'm going beyond that into a full campaign to lvl 20 where they have to work their way through multiple dark domains before making their way to the Dark Powers. Only by destroying the Dark Powers can they truly free all the domains of Ravenloft.
I like the idea of of the domains of dread, but in application it always feels fundamentally bad knowing at any level that everything will always return to starting conditions. I wouldn’t be able to kick off the module w/o the endgame being to collapse the domain entirely and free the souls of everyone that isn’t the dark lord. In execution of feel like taking inspiration from HBO’s Westworld would be powerfully real, having all of the normal Strahd scenes and tropes play out, but then to also have threads that they could pull that would lead to the knowledge of and ability to collapse the domain.
That's definitely a possible way to do it, and it has a traditional heroic D&D vibe to it. But I think Strahd returning is meant to emphasize the hopelessness and horror of Ravenloft as a campaign setting, different from a normal adventure. They can never really beat Strahd, the most they can do is get out alive, and maybe save Ireena/Tatyana's soul.
My thoughts are that the whole of Barovia is kind of a prison/ holodeck. Regardless how many Strahd tortures and kills, always the same citizen are back with slight variations on the same template. It keeps creatures much too dangerous to roam freely trapped in a simulation of their home, while distracting them with 'entertainment'.
I ran the wedding but uhh at some point decided to give my players the bomb trap from Esmeralda's wagon? Anyways it was deemed "the basketball" and they threw it during the wedding vows. Chaos ensued, allies were hit, enemies were hit, Ireena was hit, ahhhhh. Anyways Strahd got away since I was running stronger stat blocks, the players thought it was all over. They read his bedroom trap and proceeded to Sergei's tomb for the final battle. It was a worthy fight overcoming what initially felt like defeat and the session ended on a high note. Epilogue was basically one player ascended to the throne as a champion of Shar to spread her influence (funnily enough this was decided way before we played BG3 and just a fun coincidence that parallels one of the best games ever), one player joined mid-way theough so i had him spirited in as a champion of the fanes and he had to stay to continue trying to renew the lands, the paladin became the new head of the order of the silver dragons (which was another neat coincidence that he was a silver dragonborn), and the last player decided to go back to Faerun to play with the mermaids or something nesr waterdeep. After many years the influence of Vampyr would take root again and he would designate a new champion to rise up against my player. We left it at that with the option to run a crazy custom boss fight as a 1-shot sometime later to truly end the cycle if we felt like it. Anyways the best advice for CoS is don't run it RAW. So much more can be fleshed out from the module, although it is a lot of work keeping track of alterations.
YESSSSS! I loved running Wedding at Ravenloft. And it's very cool to see it physically in your hands!! My only "problem" is that my players are too smart and conflict-avoidant for their own good so they avoided any big-battle situations as carefully as possible. Thus, the campaign lasted many sessions after the wedding lolol so this wasn't the "big bang" ending I expected. Their bard changeling managed to swap places with Ireena and "marry" Strahd in her stead, just barely delaying Ireena's turning, though that did end up happening before long anyway. So the final few sessions were all about kidnapping a violent vampire-spawn-Ireena with no control over her own actions and finding a way to cure her and reunite her soul with Sergei, which they did. But their final battle on their own terms (weirdly at the pool of Krezk) was, after 2.5 years, thankfully anything but anti-climactic.
Strahd did his very best to kidnap Ireena once we arrived in Krezk, but we managed to reunite her with Sergej through a lot of shenanigans. For us, we got a lot of milage from the *Tome of Strahd* add-on. Strahd did have a very climatic final battle with our worn down party, but the final show-down was with Vurdulac afterwards. Freeing Barovia from its cycle of suffering and saving it from Strahds grasp. Our groups motive from the begining was to break the cycle though.
I’ve actually looked at this PDF before, and I immediately knew it was a no-go for my players. One, because they would break the vow with Rahadin immediately and we would go right to the final fight; and two because my players killed Rahadin halfway through the adventure.
OMG. What perfect timing. The group I'm running DID screw up and lost Ireena (with a little help of one of the more greedier players) and I was planning on ending things with a wedding but wasn't clear how to pull it off....this is perfect!!!🙏✌😎
In my home game, I re-wrote the ending of CoS to be similar to the ending of Wrath of the Lich King from WoW. Strahd fell, but did not retreat to his coffin. Instead, the mists coalesced onto his throne, where shadowy thorns pierced and bound him. The players soon discovered that Strahd was the one who bore the curse. He could never leave and he could never die. Strahd revealed that unless one of the players took his place as Lord of Barovia, their souls would be trapped here for eternity, just like his. In the end, Strahd was freed from his prison, and the LG Cleric stayed behind, sealing the gates of Barovia forever so that none but he would have to endure the torment.
Ironically we finished Strahd last night! Ours went very differently though, as Ireena married our bard before we went to the castle for the wedding, so in stead Strahd was very, very angry, played cat and mouse with us for a hot minute, killed Ismark and a few other important NPCs. Ireena ran away after a meltdown, and Strahd found her before we did. He killed her in his crypt, but we killed him right back, and got Madame Ava to help us resurrect Ireena after we got out of the castle.
Oh I had a great time at the wedding... we may have had to flee said wedding and do the proper confrontation later due to, well, turning Ireena to stone. It sounded like a good idea. Also yes, my rogue DID object to the marriage. Strahd suggested they to shut up.
Played 5e CoS once. Rather than having Ireena as an NPC, the GM decided my fem rogue was her re-incarnation (without checking I was OK with this first). He kept using that as an excuse to overrule anything I tried to do that was counter to the narrative. I knee him in the groin when he grabs me - no, you submit to him dancing with you. I move well away from the spooky lake before anything comes out - no, you are standing right by the lake when he appears. Etc. The final straw came when my character was a day or two away from being fed upon for the third time (thus turning her into a vampire). We were ready for the final showdown, but the GM says, "I asked everyone (he didn't ask me), and you all want to keep doing side quests to level up further (we were at 9 or 10). So sorry your character will die." At that point, my character killed herself (with a request that the party incinerate her remains, they did, denying Strahd his "bride") and I quit the game.
I've been a player in this module a few times. The argument for the ending of module being satisfying or not is heavily DM dependant and varies from table to table. I've been at both points. One DM was running the game with the explicit idea of being out for blood and that's all. I nearly physically wept when it was done with how brutal the experience was. To hear that it didn't even truly matter beating Strahd was literal pain. On the other side, my second DM truly was invested in telling a great story with us. He played the module hard, but fair. Some characters died, blood shed. But at the end when hearing again that it was all a cycle to be repeated again, I felt much better, because it gave our characters a chance to be pulled back in for a reunion to fight once more and not feel like Barovia was inescapable and devoid of hope. It truly depends on what kind of table you're at if you'll accept the ending or not. I do like the happy endings, but I understand the Shadowfell and that it makes logical sense for the conclusion.
Guys, I need some help. As a DM I cant stand the way this module os written for the Strahd motivacional aspects for inviting "aventurers" to his lands and dinners... Need better ideas
I think the "Free Barovia from its endless cycle" goal needs more fleshing out, just like Strahd's final fight. It's level10+ stuff, so I see why GMs and homebrewers alike might be intimidated, but tackling the Dark Forces needs more meat to it. People want to kill gods, an attempt would be appreciated, even if you can't account for all the possibilities.
I've ran CoS twice, and wanna share how I modified the ending. Both times ended in the party orchestrating an assault from the various towns they united. I also pulled Argynvost into it a lot; laying him to rest resulted in a beam of light illuminating the manor, which gave everyone hope. Strahd would also an army of his undead servants to battle the townsfolk. The battle was mainly to keep his focus so the party could slip in to rescue Ireena, who had been captured by this point, but my favorite part is how when the duel with Strahd starts, he monologues a bit, gesturing how the party's army was losing the battle. More and more undead keep rising up out of the ground by the minute. Then suddenly, there's a terrifying roar. Only the party and Strahd can see it, but the spirit of Argynvost flies overhead, as several more undead rise up out of the ground, bearing the crest of the Silver Dragon, as Argynvost's revenants return for one last fight. And at that, Strahd has a breakdown, Ireena maybe tries to sneak attack him with a stake, or dies, whatever's needed for him to take the gloves off. At the end, the party, if they've done enough research, has a means to seal away Strahd, hopefully for good (where they get to fight an avatar of Vampyre himself).
As an addition to the ending, after Strahd is defeated, I like to add the ritual to trap Vampyr in his amber sarcophagus, thus ending the cycle of Strahd being brought back.
Not only does this sound like a better ending to the vanilla CoS experience, but I think this would make for a fun Halloween oneshot with a few changes. Imagine if Strahd kidnapped a well like NPC (or even an absent PC), and it's up to the party to stop the wedding before Strahd takes a new wife/husband
8:45 This, exactly this. The reason why I (or most of the table I usually play with) would attack during the ceremony. - which given the whole 'till death do us part'-'that's exactly the plan'-thing shouldn't hold any special significance - and 'as the pinnacle of teasing superiority' would probably be the moment Strahd would probably expect it the most, thus making it the worst moment to strike. Is exactly because 'it feels like the ticking clock'.
My favorite part of this supplement is actually the "You won!" prose at the end that narrates the cycle of Strahd's curse. I've run Curse of Strahd twice and the game where I included this prose at the end was my favorite.
Dang, my group is literally fighting Strahd tonight. This would have been a super interesting way to end the campaign. Unfortunately, I made one of my players the reincarnation of Tatyana (in session zero I offered the option of one "amnesia" backstory and she picked it, so I gave her Ireena's story). Strahd captured her by forcing her to trade herself for Ismark's freedom and the player is now a vampire hell-bent on "freeing Strahd and Barovia from all suffering".
This sounds like an awesome adventure, but I feel like it would put Lawful characters a huge bind. Breaking an oath of hospitality isn't something many strongly Lawful characters would be willing to do.
this sounds exactly like how my dm ran this finale, wow - if she used it, she did a great job with it, and i had so much fun with our finale lol. great video on something that sounds totally helpful!
I just want to give a shout out to my Archer Ranger who, to the best of my knowledge, has not missed a single shot with an arrow in the whole campaign! She missed some attacks with her short swords, but with her bow she was the very incarnation of the myth of the Perfect Elven Accuracy! (Including sticking 2 arrows in Strahd when he turned invisible! Failed the Deception to convince him she saw through it, though.)
I think it's great to fleshout Barovia more. A module can only outline so many possibilities in a scenario. I for one would try to work out the brides' problems that arise at one point rather than using their rivalry to our advantage. That's just me, the vampire kid tho. I just read the Disabilities & DnD article too and it's... mindboggling. There are some points in there about representing people as not just being a burden or being evil for having some mental affliction. They note there are ways you can incorporate a disability into a character & flavor skills like Tracking to rely on other senses. Then they make a weird argument "why show disabled people wanting to magically cure their disability?" As someone with disabilities & physically handicap friends of course we'd all magically cure our blindness & pain if we could! Anyway, about Esmerelda and the "mixed signals" about her leg, the main topic I assumed this referred to: the reason she hides her prosthetic leg isn't out of shame, it's because she is a wanted woman & the posters point out her most recognizable feature: she's missing a leg. This is something she used to hide, but shows off more openly in 5E specifically to address ableism.
Re: The endless cycle ending... I actually had an idea for it a while ago So, as written, the "souls'' available in Barovia are those of adventurers who've previously died while fighting Strahd in previous cycles, and we can all agree that Strahd is linked to the land itself. At some point, the souls have to start accumulating. It sort of made me think of how Janet gets reset an infinite amount of times in the show The Good Place, and ultimately becomes more powerful and knowledgeable every time. What if it's the same for Strahd? Everytime the cycle restarts, he restarts with more souls in the land, and after a few hundred resets of the cycle, he has more power at his disposal, remembering more of his past cycles, and ultimately, in a Groundhog Day type scenario, sets his sights on attempting to escape the Mist or absorb more Domains of Dread into Barovia, thus gaining more land, more power. I thought it would be a neat setting with an Edwardian, Industrial-era feel and have a sort of First World War feel to it between the different Darklords in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, where the adventure is set in the backdrop, with secret agents trying to thwart the threats of war and nation-expansion through violence between the Darklords themselves, who've reset themselves to become even more powerful than the Mists... Might be convoluted, but I think there's promise! Could make for a great sequel campaign to mitigate the ending of Strahd as a prompt for another!
This sounds like a nice option, it does require some changes and omissions to the adventure. Since Irena can be your prophetic ally to defeat Strahd, or be united with Sergei and be out of Strahd’s reach during the adventure, this wedding module would not necessarily work for everyone. It depends on the group and what you are aiming for as well. When I played this adventure (that was my introduction to DND 5e), Irena ended up I becoming his vampire bride and we had to fight her as well as Strahd. The fact that the cycle wasn’t broken even after we killed him, despite all of the sacrifices our group made, to me - made this a harrowing experience, but in a good way, because my character (the only one that was allowed to leave Barovia after all was said and done) was physically scarred and traumatized. This made this character much more interesting now, and I would love to play it again, dealing with the post trauma of visiting Barovia and finding a cure to his condition.
The module includes a LOT of information on customizing it to suit the situation your players and your campaign is in (including characters who have different roles or have died over the course of your campaign.) I promise you that there is a lot more information in the full book than I can explicitly repeat in a 12 minute video 😜
There are some problems when it comes to the Vestani in Ravenloft, but when you choose to run this adventure or those based around it, you are essentially making a bargain with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is the inspiration for this adventure. If you want something divorced from Dracula, then you're running something that isn't Ravenloft. That's fine. One way I have dealt with the Vestani in the past is to include other Roma inspired tribes who are unable to travel the mists, and they treat the Vestani for what they are---a tribe that5 has given it's soul over to Strahd.
Yes but you're not allowed context and nuance on the Internet, everything is either amazing or terrible, and you're not allowed to adapt anything pre-1990 just in case it offends someone.
I think people forget that D&D is infinitely flexible. If you don't like something, tweak it, change it, toss it out and use something better. It's your campaign after all. In my CoS campaign, I replaced the village of Barovia entirely, included classic fairytale characters as well as classic horror characters. My group is likely going to run into Dr. Frankenstein pretty soon as he's taken to using vampire blood to finally bring his creature to life. As for the Vistani, I mean they could be reskinned a number of different ways! They could be a traveling circus troupe, a group of evil fey, a cult of vampire wannabes or even a traveling caravan of Strahd's own noble court. It's fine to rewrite things to suit your tastes as a DM. And yes, it's still Ravenloft.
@@themisfitowl2595 I applaud your creative spirit, but if you replace Barovia and Strahd, and Castle Ravenloft it really is somewhere other than Ravenloft. That's a like saying I'm going to run something in castle Greyhawk, but you write the city of Grayhawk and castle Grayhawk out of the story. D&D is extremely flexible, but I wouldn't call it infinitely flexible. It does have it's breaking points where you can push past what the game is designed to be. And there are certain things D&D isn't designed for---horror in D&D is actually a poor fit. It can be achieved, but it's really difficult to maintain that ever present sense of dread. In most horror, the main characters are victims and at the mercy of powers beyond their control. Alien and the Exorcist are great examples, as is the film Oculus. Call of Cthulhu really captures the sense that the characters are victims and just trying to survive and retain their grip on their own sanity. It's a much better system for running horror. D&D is a heroic sword and sorcery game and is made for that kind of story. D&D characters almost always have the power to damage and overcome their adversaries in a broad number of ways. The instant they swing and damage what ever is the main threat is, there's a catharsis that drains all that dread you've built up out of the scenario, and then it becomes a tactical problem. That's what it is designed to do. At the core of D&D, it's still Conan and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and Elric, and LOTR, Arthurian legends, classical mythology, etc. That's the beating heart of D&D going all the way back to the early 1970s.
"I can't think of any party sitting and watching..." meanwhile, my party, giving Ireena to Strahd to get cred with him so they could murder his other brides and rahadin during the wedding night while strahd was distracted To give credit to my players, it was a clone of her they made after getting Mord's spellbook, but still, the poor clone, they got the abbot to put Vasilka brain in the clone and we convinced her she always was Ireena, and counter on Strahd's lack of giving a shit about his "beloved" beyond her body enough to not know the difference. At the wedding I had Vampyr shatter the windows and send shadows to attack "Ireena" and call Strahd a fool, the party kept her from dying, and Strahd was convinced that Vampyr is what's been keeping his beloved from him so they teamed up to go stop him at the amber temple where they used strahd as a meat shield they trapped in a wall of force with Vampyr's avatar
One of my best tricks is "using" the tarrot deck for determining the locations of the items, but still picking the coolest/most dramatic locations before hand. What you need is a tarrot deck and a cool box that has a lid. Pick the 3 cards you want and olace face up in the lid of the box and set aside before the game where the players can't see it. Then take the rest of the deck and make a big show of shuffling, asking players to shuffle or cut the deck. Then you place the deck in the box, place on the lid, and the cards you want are now on top! Speak and incantation, open the box, and reveal the cards! You now have a cool moment and have those areas prepped!
I've always loved the ideas of the different Domains in Ravenloft being these unending nightmares, doomed to repeat as a special kind of hell for the worst people in the multiverse. But I also love the idea that the Dreadlords of the domains are somewhat aware of each other and also all hate each other. Like, of COURSE they are all just the shittiest neighbors one could ever imagine. But I do wish there was more put on the idea of getting some of the common people OUT of the mists and move them on to a new life.
Oh, and I also love the idea of having the players "escape" Barovia just to wind up in some OTHER Domain of Dread and have to then deal with that bullshit. Maybe even having the Cyre 1313 as this repeating scenario between each Domain as they come to realise they might not actually have a way out.
One of our group members is running Curse of Strahd. As a first time DM. For a group that breaks every campaign we play. I really feel for her. This time we broke combat by figuring out movement control is a thing. We handle every combat the same way. Knock 'em down and kick 'em to death. I fear she'll try to "fix" the problem by tailoring Strahd to specifically counter us despite Strahd never having fought us before.
@@Mistshinobi That's actually bad writing. Simply, just saying Strahd knows no matter what the players do to keep things secret is just meta gaming. In our campaign we jumped a hag in the woods and killed it. I mean it was like a damned mugging. Did Strahd have a spy in bushes, in the woods, in the middle of the night? If so then why aren't the players even allowed to try and detect and remove these spies? Why can't the ravens feed information to the players about Stahd's whereabouts. I'm not attacking you by the way. I'm just pointing out what I see as some very weak writing.
@@danmorgan3685 a) there's a difference between one fight vs 'we handle every combat the same way' but also b) strahd literally has scrying in his statblock (though there's no reason why the party Couldn't take pains to counter that in a campaign?)
Is tried this module (which is great, I like it a lot !) with the most experienced of my two groups. They declared that Stradh deserved a break and some love, made sure the wedding went through and, to quote, “his stabbing won’t draw any blood with her in the chamber, so the oath of hospitality stands”. They thus decided that it was a fitting end for the bride character if they left before the biting actually pierced the skin. She “rerolled” as a bard and this is her favourite story to tell !
Original Ravenloft released in the 80s was a luxurious module. My gaming group had disbanded by then due to the usual leaving for college and so on events so I never played it but still have the original in the box of other vintage adventures. B2 and the G-series got the most use back then and with the kids who are college age now...Time flies GD.
I'm actually using the ending of Strahd as a way to drive my campaign forward. I have a full campaign that will gake my players to lvl. 20 where they have to work their way through multiple Dark Domains to reach the Dark Powers. Only by defeating the Dark Powers can the domains of Ravenloft be truly freed.
I really like this as an alternative ending that makes everything feel a little more full. We had Irena stashed with Mordenkainen in his mansion, with the help of stellar persuasion rolls. Getting her out of there would have taken some DM shenanigans, but could have worked. Our DM instead seeded ideas of an even bigger bad, some sort of eldritch horror, throughout the campaign and especially through the Amber Temple. After dealing with Strahd, we had another climatic battle in the castle great hall against that thing, helping break the Strahd cycle and giving the ending a little more oomph. Our DM was notably not a fan of the cycle, hence why he 'fixed' that piece. I don't mind it, but if its more alluded to in a cinematic, post credits scene way. My character doesn't need to know its all going to start again.
For any DMs looking to tackle the "endless cycle" caveat to the ending of Curse of Stradh, check out Lunch Break Heroes' "Ending Curse of Stradh with a BANG!" video. Now I haven't ran CoS myself, or read through the associated expansion Lunch Break Heroes made to go along with the video, but I wouldn't be making this comment if I didn't think it offered a DM any useful inspiration/content for their game. Lunch Break Heroes has a whole series on ways to beef up CoS w/o rewriting the whole module, and the ending he talks about sounds like, if not an exciting capstone to your adventure - then maybe an interesting plot for a "epilogue adventure" if your players are looking to revisit Barovia post-game.
This is pretty interesting information; it seems like a valuable addition to my collection of guides. Fascinating, too, that it can maybe be used to parallel Sergei and Tatyana's wedding in 351 (If one uses the timeline from I, Strahd). I can also see how some people might view the ending as a little anticlimatic. A lot of the guides I saw on the CoS reddit suggested doing the Dinner With Strahd prior to the final confrontation in a very similar vein to act one of this for this reason.
Once my players killed Strahd all but one left Barovia, that one, a cleric, was like I'm going to fix this land. Then in the "what are they up to now" credits scene i had her be the new tyrant that ruled the land based on the twisted version her faith had become. Regarding final battle i had them fight Strahd in his armor in the throne room. When he got low, he dropped down through the floor (like Kitty Pryde) while the suit kept fighting them. Then they found him in the crypts and when the fight started, on initiative count 20 Strahd snapped his fingers and every crypt opened. All the uncleared crypts (most of them) disgorged their occupants at the party while Strahd played rope-a-dope, and he engaged the party when they killed his Nightmare horse. Also way earlier in the campaign they followed the Abbott 's wedding party to the castle and used it as cover to sneak in to look for the dragon's skull. As they left the courtyard they heard screams behind them but ignored it (Strahd and brides feasting on the villagers that had also followed the charismatic Abbott).
Wuups, I ran the wedding mid campaign. Not having read that book I did use several of the ideas here, like Strahd making the moon full (thus having the werewolf in the party turn on them). Actually at the endgame right now after two years of running this, so its a bit late for me, but trying to figure out the balance between an epic and exhausting encounter. It's rough so I do love the idea of ending with the wedding, and might try that if I ever run this again.
Very interestring. Strahd capturing Ireena wouldn't have worked in my campaign because the players protectected her at all cost. She also became a badasss who really didn't need rescuing.
I ended my players campaign with them each being a new adventure of their choice, entering a prosperous, blossoming Barovia. They hear a birth taking place near the Blue Water Inn. They assist this woman all they can and help bring a barovian baby into the world. The baby's pale white skin only highlights it's hair black as night, and eyes crimson red. My players had mixed reactions. But they DEFEATED Strahd. They ESCAPED the mist. You wouldn't slay a dragon and say "well this was all for naught. There will just be another dragon."
Thank you, editor Ginny, for the specific links to other problems. I game with two women, one of whom is non-white, and a half-giant. We're actively more aware of tropes and stereotypes, and our DM has skipped over several portions of modules and descriptions that went places that none of us want to go, even - or especially - when we're having escapist fantasy fun.
I wish I’d had this before my party killed Strahd in TWO FREAKING ROUNDS! Although I don’t think Strahd capturing Ireena would have quite worked for our party, given that they practically adopted her as one of their own and even let her have the freaking Sunsword. (I gave her fighter levels so she wouldn’t be completely useless in the many combats the party got her involved in.)
And the illusory Strahd would have been seen through immediately, because our rouge took the dark gift from the Amber Temple that gives them truesight.
You know, now that I think about it, Ireena getting kidnapped might have actually worked even better because of our party’s circumstances. They now have the opportunity to recover the Sunsword and save Ireena, who they’re very attached to.
Tbh, if your players know what they are doing, Strahd's default stats are pitiable in close combat... Because that's not what he excels at. He's a nobleman and a general, a strategist from a long forgotten expansionist empire. Use his knowledge and power over the land, not his strength. Call upon Strahd's allies against the players... And his vampiric spawn! Bring them into the fray. I personally made the area around Ravenloft ripe with buried undead of all kinds (the wasteland of a long forgotten battlefield), waiting to be called upon. That said, the battle was still doable for the players, I made sure of that, but the shock and panic of seeing an whole army raising behind them made it all very memorable. Make it double so if they remembered to gather all their allies from previous towns to invade the castle. Did you know that, per lore from old CoS campaign books, Strahd's castle would have tomes of every single magic in existence? Try giving him a Clone instead of an illusion, especially given his past collaboration with a certain lich necromancer. :D
Having read and tried to run CoS, honestly i felt a thing that missed from the original Ravenloft module was strahd motivations, since he's the one that lured the players in borivia is weird that the manual give not that much information for it. The orginal module gave a tarot enentry for why he let the player in and what he wants from them, some of them pretty interesting liek the one of "strhad wants to steal the identity of a character and use it to leave borovia" to the weird "wants to charm the pc into attacking irina so he can swoop in and save ger to win her love" (couldn't he do that whit other borovian?) To the stupid "apparently one of your plater has carried the blade half of rhe sunsword this whole time, it just look and sct like a completely normal sword unless reunited with the hilt"
I have a temptation to run Curse of Strahd in a Pathfinder conversion; Strahd then becomes a full-on overpowered horror (make him level +4 when faced) where the iconic items become essential before facing him, giving him key weaknesses, and allowing him to completely toy with them until they explore and find the key items they need.
Haven't watched the video or read the comments because I don't wanna get spoiled, but I was literally playing Curse of Strahd the night this was uploaded hahaaaa.
This was the first module I made a video about. It was my first attempt at a campaign during Covid. My players had a blast....whenever I made a whole new homebrew location that was not in the book. The campaign ended early. Hope others can learn from you and many other DMs on how to improve on this campaign!
Thank you so much for the resources about the changes to the vistani, I thought it was really weird when reading the module at first and I wasn't sure how to go about fixing it
I can’t believe this book exists. I’m literally planning the invitation to the castle session right now and I have had planned for months that it would be a surprise wedding. Except in mine the real surprise is at the ceremony Ismark will rush the bride and groom and Strahd, assuming he is trying to kill Strahd himself, will allow him to strike but at the last second he stabs Ireena with a previously agreed upon fatal blow. It’ll cause so much chaos directed toward Ismark, who will almost definitely die right then, that it’ll allow time for the players to escape and either run the castle or try to escape out. Whatever they choose. Now that I know about this, I’m definitely gunna adapt some of it into my plans. I love dnd.
My biggest issue with running the base version of the campaign that it very much feels like this is Mashop of all of the different raven law campaigns that were made a great example Of this is . warnings spoilers ahead the retrieving of the dragon skull from castle raven loft. Keeping in mind this thing is the size of a large dragon sculpt. It weighs about 70 to 80 pounds. Now that's about the average carry amount of most players. Unless you're running a Goliath or something like that. It is a very strong character and has the extra ability for racial. Even that being said, you're still having a hard time carrying this. And it's in the castle, so to get the bonus from it. You have to go to the castle. Go to the jungle and get the skull, carry it out of the dungeon and carry it back to the keep, put it on top of the keep and then go back to the Castle to fight The boss if that's the case, why might not just fighting the boss to begin with? I usually add him, put it somewhere other than the dungeon because it doesn't make sense. The same is true for the crips. With the Amber tombs, it kinda just feels like it's part of a different campaign. Some of the other stuff is workable, but a lot of it feels like it's just. We threw it all together. Here's raven loft. On top of that, I do agree that He goes down way too easily. By the time you get to level 10. We had a wizard in our party and. We're able to keep him in. A small area and throw it down Sickening radiance, which Justice destroyed him on top of the fact that we were doing crazy amount of output for damage
Loved the way you started the video by joking about Halloween practically starting in September. The apartment building I live in has been decorated for Halloween for a couple of weeks now. Strahd and Ravenloft weren't such big deals in 1st Edition. Only a few adventure delt with them. Our gaming group started the 1st module with me as DM but we never finished it. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears was a big hit on the radio at the time, so my players renamed it "The Strahd Theme,." Although I was DMing the adventure, Strahd/Ravenloft was never really one of my favorites. Two of my favorites from 1st Edition: DungeonLand and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror. Basically Alice in Wonderland, but the characters have been given D&D stats, the danger level of some encounters was amped up a bit, and it even includes a few groaner puns. (Which would make them perfect for someone we all know.) Side Question: Do vampires (and some other undead) still drain levels in 5th edition? I always hated this. To me, experience levels were just that: things a character learned to do (or do better) because of their years of experience. It made no sense to me that undead creatures could--in effect--drain knowledge-gained abilities from characters, Not to mention the fact that it would totally suck. If I player lost too many levels, they would basically be reduced to semi-useless baggage.
I am starting this and will be going full castlevania "You think you killed Strahd but you only fought a pretender siphoning his dark energy, when that antagonist dies the real boss fight begins and Strahd isn't a man but a massive coalescing of dark energy with different mechanics.
My party and I finished the campaign last night and while we didn't have access to "The Wedding" module, we still had an awesome ending, so I thought I will share it here. So, our final showdown is at Castle Ravenloft. My character is a changeling Mastermind Rogue, the rest of the party includes a Druid, a Paladin, a Wizard-Fighter, a Fighter-Wizard, a Monk and a Sorcerer. We enter the tomb, Strahd emerges from the coffin. I ask the DM if Strahd is looking at my character now. "No, he isn't". OK, my character turns into "Tatyana", right before combat starts. The party loves it. Strahd notices me, rolls an intelligence check to see if it is really Ireena. He fails the check by 1 point. He tries to charm my character into "falling in love with him", but I roll high on the saving throw, I succeed. He basically wasted his turn on me. We land some hits on him, he eventually "dies", but the Heart brings him back. Since my character stabbed him with the Light Sword, he feels slightly betrayed, he is furious, so he charges at me and brings me down to 7 HP. I am right after Strahd in the initiative order, so I stab him with the Light Sword, I crit, and since he's surrounded by my allies, I deal a lot of sneak attack damage. As I disengage and run away, I (still pretending to be Tatyana/Ireena) hurl insults at him, something along the lines of "You are the one who betrayed me. You killed your own brother, the man I wanted to spend my life with. Do you really think that I could ever love you!? You are a monster". My party loves it!!! Our lovely Druid heals me, the rest of the casters gang up on him with all sorts of shiny spells, paralyse him and Strahd dies, thinking that Ireena came to the castle to kill him. We are all very happy with the ending, though our flying Sorcerer is now a werewolf...
So crazy that I just found this video! The other night I finished running our second session of Curse of Strahd and have decided I need to take over this story because following the module diligently is just NOT compelling the players enough to really get invested. I decided I'm going to have Strahd confront them after they pass the crossroads to the castle and make a deal with Ireena -- to come with him willingly, or he will kill the adventurers. At first she will refuse, but after a few rounds where Strahd demonstrates his overwhelming power, she will agree and Strahd's minions will appear and sweep her away. This should light a fire in their bellies!! I'm also realizing that I am far and away creative enough to view the module as simply a suggested framework, and create a story that I know my players will love and get into. Originally, I was trying to stick to the book faithfully....and when the players go off script, that makes my dialog feel very unnatural, as I try to rack my brain on the fly, making sure I'm not violating any of the written lore....or not missing something deep in the module.
When I played Curse of Strahd, Strahd showed up and kidnapped Ireena very early on, while we were in the village of Barovia. Before leaving he informed the party that the wedding was to take place in 10 days and we were all invited. When the time came we all went and no one tried to intervene, the party cleric (me) even performed the ceremony. Right afterwards, Strahd bit Ireena and took her off to bury her so she could turn. The party had their night in Ravenloft, where we stole a bunch of Strahd's things. However, the following night, Strahd got a nasty surprise: Due to a homebrew item the party had (an amulet that collected the souls of certain NPCs who died in its presence), Ireena didn't become a vampire and was just a corpse. The party got pummeled by a storm with thunder so loud several of us were deafened, and we had to fight a Relentless Juggernaut. We survived that, but Arganvostholt, where we were camping, got destroyed. Fun times.
While I don't think Barovia being caught in an endless cycle ruins the fun of the game to me, I do think that it misses an opportunity. Having a way to end the cycle provides an interesting decision. Does the party find a way to save everybody in Barovia and provide them with the chance of a happy life, or do they break the cycle by allowing the land to simply fade away forever.
I've been DM Ravenloft/Curse of Strahd for over 20 years and had to change so many things because of the 'ending'. From Domain Lords making a deal with the players to Strahd being something else entirely. Great video on how to continue changing things up.
Slooooowly playing a 1 on 1 game with my wife. Always open to new tips. My wife's main character is an undead warlock. We played a one session intro where her character made a pact with Myrkul. I basically played it like Myrkul wants Strahd dead as a reminder that nobody can escape death. In exchange, he will bring back her character's brutally murdered family. Working other details for each of her party characters into moments throughout. Was toying with pulling in the Boneyard as a final boss from Dungeon Dad.
I have heard of another supplement for Curse of Strahd that apparently addresses some of the other issues with the campaign (notably it tackles the issues with the Vistani, and I believe also the disability issues). It is called She is the Ancient, and features a gender-bent version of the campaign. It also gives Strahd more motives. I haven't read it myself but I've heard great things. This wedding supplement seems amazing, and thank you for sharing. I have a friend who played in Curse of Strahd, and they ended the campaign with a wedding, much like this one. It was super compelling and everyone had a lot of fun. It was especially fun for that party, because they'd previously attempted to assassinate Strahd at a wedding of their own (the two druids got married), which was naturally officiated by Strahd. A captured Ireena was the maid of honour, and my friend's first PC (a paladin) kicked ass as one of Strahd's brides.
Fun fact for those unaware: Ginny actually ran an ad for She Is The Ancient a few years back, and that video is featured in the listing for the module 😃 Highly recommend that module in general, it is an excellent resource, with great tips and thoughtful alternatives to the original, and with amazing art too!
I used a variation of this wedding. The “does anyone have any objections” in hindsight was exactly the narrative moment my party was looking for. My problem was Strahd doesn’t have many good minions and unless he constantly appears to the party he’s largely absent from the module. So I gave him some expecting them to be mini boss battles leading up to the final fight. Only my party pretended to be friendly with Strahd from the off. He had no real reason to send minions after them and they were all present at the wedding. It was more than the party could handle which resulted in a TPK. Was early in my DMing career and I still wish I’d handled it better
My party finished strahd quickly, but we built up to it. We faced harsh challenge after harsh challenge. We didn't have much to build strahd up in power, but in pressure. We ended up taking him down with a Sunblade wielding Paladin, pretty fitting. We coordinated this attack from a balcony in the chapel of the wedding. It was good. The DM wasnt happy, but I feel DMs often miss that a satisfying conclusion to the story for the players is good. You don't have to nearly kill us, or kill almost all of us. We ended up sneaking off from Rahaden pretty early, in the foyer. We found a lot of things to help us in the castle, and pretty much one shot Strahd (Paladin with extra attack and 3rd level spell slots for Smite).
If anyone is planning a CoS Campaign should urgently check out DragnaCarta‘s CoS ReReloaded guide. It is in work as we speak but enough has been released to start the campaign and make use of the content as it releases. Literally every open end and weird piece of „content for the sake of content“ has been recontextualized and given meaning. Also concerning the end fight with Strahd: Dragna has created an amazing 3-phase statblock with logical abilities and a great difficulty
I use RavenLoft as a "Run the Gauntlet!" adventure... Strahd is a demon lord vampire who owns a country in one of the layers of the Abyss, you ain't gonna beat him. I let a few rumors fly from Barovians, Vistani, and perhaps a werewolf (in human form) as to where the exit is. Of course there are variations, but typically it starts in Hommlet, the village which provides the farming required for the Keep on the Borderlands. The players meet a few old-time retired adventurers who have gone quite mad from their time spent in Barovia, and receive a hook of some sort. Then just go in, do that one thing, and get the eff out before something bad happens.
People complaining about stereotypes in a fantasy game just blow me away with their stupidity. In CoS you can buy meat pies made with meat that came from children….but they complain about stereotypes. Not to mention that a horror module is intended to be uncomfortable and have unsavory elements to it.
Everyone wants everything to be looked at through their current glasses of how society should be. It's lame and completely ignores how people really are. Its more Fantasy land than d&d.
My favorite part of Ravenloft is that no matter what happens, no matter who lives or dies, no matter if Strahd even manages to claim his bride, he will never be genuinely happy. He suffers every time, and I think that's beautiful.
Our DM ran this bit and our party totally attacked at the ceremony. It wasn't until after the campaign was over that we found out there was all this material. Kinda felt bad, but it was a good story.
My thoughts on the ‘Barovia can never be free’ stuff is it feels a bit too meta. Our players want to feel like the pain they went through really mattered. So of course they want to beat Strahd for good! In the Amber temple I revealed the nature of the realm of dread and Strahd’s whole deal and gave them a free wish scroll to summon Strahd’s creator. Which turned into a dope ‘fight a mad god’ encounter where they had to seal him back in an amber coffin. They had a blast. Then they got to kill Strahd for good. I also see the value in not including that and have him just die lol
We skipped our BBEG fight after a 2 years campaign! T__T Very experienced DM had this and other CoS supplements (it is a great source!). The day before the ceremony, we made a diplomatic diversion through the Abbot. Snuck from the roof and Locate creature to extract Irena. Silent, Levitate and invisibility spells galore. We left Barovia without exchanging one blow with Strahd (Made a deal with the entity emprisoning him)! It's been 3 weeks now and I'm still in FOMO shock!
This was my first campaign lol My DM managed to make Strahd stronger and it was a fun campaign. When i fought his daughters, i had rolled THREE nat 20's in a row. What a session that was lol
In the draft phase of a Star Wars 5e homebrew, “Curse of Darth Strahd.” I used Lunch Break Heroes’, “Binding of Vampyr,” to replace the cyclical ending in our classic play through. It provided a more epic finale. Depending on how my planet hopping heroes go, the wedding would be a fun new option.
My problem with the "endless cycle" thing was less that what we did was meaningless, it was that the cycle restarted way too fast. Our DM had it so that it was about a year later that Strahd came back, and at that point, why did we bother killing him? We'd have been better off just living in Barovia and trying to make it as safe as we could. Give it 100 years. Hell, 50 years. Let a whole generation grow up without the shadow of Strahd before the cycle begins again. Not a year: after a long, drag out fight of prepared actions to hit the guy and chip damage to beat him, we deserved way longer than a year narratively.
This is a great resource. My advice is to use Visilka as a wedding double scape-goat for the players to retreat. Making this whole chapter just a 2nd to the last encounter with Strahd.
Also a plug for Wyatt's Companion for Dungeon of the Mad Mage! It really adds flavor to some of the more drab levels in Undermountain. Our campaign is on dungeon level 17 and could not imagine it without his additional content.
My character found a Tiger Beat poster of Strahd and fell in love with him. Proceeded to try (unsuccessfully) to woo him and then just joined his forces holding out the hope that she'll snag him eventually (I was leaving the group due to a split our group decided was needed and joining a different campaign).
My first character to die was in curse of Strahd. The thing was, the instructions for when we were given the option to leave Barovia, we had to give our character sheet away. I wasn't going to do that, so I continued playing a character that would have taken the opportunity to leave.
Happy nearly-Halloween! Use code WEDDING10 for 10% off your DMsGuild purchase: www.dmsguild.com/product/249933/Curse-of-Strahd-The-Wedding-At-Ravenloft?src=GDiWaRYT (Expires 10/26/23)
Mind if I promote my DMsGuild stuff just a teensy bit? It's difficult to get noticed as a small creator. I have a lot of publications, including spellbooks like "Spells from the Far Realm" and "Time Magic".
what do you call a wyvern with 2 wings or a dragon with 4 wings
Can I just say I play a paladin named Judas so I got a strangely unique vibe from you being betrayed by a Judas hahaha.
@@kindred8359 Loot to be.
As a DM who finished up their Curse of Strahd game a few days ago, I cannot overstate how helpful the Curse of Strahd subreddit is. Dragnacarta, Mandymod and more have fantastic ideas, expansions, guides, and tips to use for your CoS game. It is how I originally learned of the Wedding at Ravenloft which massively improved the ending of the campaign for us.
Oh shit there's a whole subreddit for this one book!? Hell ya! Thanks for the tip!
@@robsonclark9678 its kind of mandatory if you want the campaign to be worth anything. a lot of the book just doesn't make sense, and there is a lot of just really poorly written things. lots of combat imbalance as well.
You can put me in the "not a fan" category for the whole "it's all an unbreakable cycle" thing. I think it's cool that Strahd, Irena, and Barovia have been stuck in a cycle for centuries when the PCs arrive. But if the PCs absolutely cannot break the cycle, anything they do other than personally escaping is a pointless ghost train ride, with them as passengers.
Same goes for the fact that all the other Domains are the same way. It tends to put the Darklord and their Realm at the center of the story instead of the PCs.
I think the whole “Barovia is trapped in an endless cycle” is a great excuse to return over and over and/or take the campaign beyond lvl 10, into more endgame Freeform territory, as the party might decide to take the fight to those who trapped Barovia and Strahd in the first place. Deleting the entire dread-domain all together. This then turns into an adventure in the shadowfel, fighting ultimately the eldritch horrors called “the mists” to finally free the land permanently and send it back to where it’s supposed to be. Am I alone in this thought process?
It would probably entail breaking the pact between Strahd and whatever Dark Powers that keep bringing him back, basically ensuring that he _stays_ dead for good this time.
Funnily enough, that's what I'm actually doing with my party in the campaign I'm running. They're part way through Curse of Strahd, but I'm going beyond that into a full campaign to lvl 20 where they have to work their way through multiple dark domains before making their way to the Dark Powers. Only by destroying the Dark Powers can they truly free all the domains of Ravenloft.
I like the idea of of the domains of dread, but in application it always feels fundamentally bad knowing at any level that everything will always return to starting conditions. I wouldn’t be able to kick off the module w/o the endgame being to collapse the domain entirely and free the souls of everyone that isn’t the dark lord. In execution of feel like taking inspiration from HBO’s Westworld would be powerfully real, having all of the normal Strahd scenes and tropes play out, but then to also have threads that they could pull that would lead to the knowledge of and ability to collapse the domain.
That's definitely a possible way to do it, and it has a traditional heroic D&D vibe to it. But I think Strahd returning is meant to emphasize the hopelessness and horror of Ravenloft as a campaign setting, different from a normal adventure. They can never really beat Strahd, the most they can do is get out alive, and maybe save Ireena/Tatyana's soul.
My thoughts are that the whole of Barovia is kind of a prison/ holodeck. Regardless how many Strahd tortures and kills, always the same citizen are back with slight variations on the same template. It keeps creatures much too dangerous to roam freely trapped in a simulation of their home, while distracting them with 'entertainment'.
I ran the wedding but uhh at some point decided to give my players the bomb trap from Esmeralda's wagon? Anyways it was deemed "the basketball" and they threw it during the wedding vows. Chaos ensued, allies were hit, enemies were hit, Ireena was hit, ahhhhh. Anyways Strahd got away since I was running stronger stat blocks, the players thought it was all over. They read his bedroom trap and proceeded to Sergei's tomb for the final battle. It was a worthy fight overcoming what initially felt like defeat and the session ended on a high note.
Epilogue was basically one player ascended to the throne as a champion of Shar to spread her influence (funnily enough this was decided way before we played BG3 and just a fun coincidence that parallels one of the best games ever), one player joined mid-way theough so i had him spirited in as a champion of the fanes and he had to stay to continue trying to renew the lands, the paladin became the new head of the order of the silver dragons (which was another neat coincidence that he was a silver dragonborn), and the last player decided to go back to Faerun to play with the mermaids or something nesr waterdeep. After many years the influence of Vampyr would take root again and he would designate a new champion to rise up against my player. We left it at that with the option to run a crazy custom boss fight as a 1-shot sometime later to truly end the cycle if we felt like it.
Anyways the best advice for CoS is don't run it RAW. So much more can be fleshed out from the module, although it is a lot of work keeping track of alterations.
I can't believe Ginny managed to get the actual reviewers on camera like that.
YESSSSS! I loved running Wedding at Ravenloft. And it's very cool to see it physically in your hands!!
My only "problem" is that my players are too smart and conflict-avoidant for their own good so they avoided any big-battle situations as carefully as possible. Thus, the campaign lasted many sessions after the wedding lolol so this wasn't the "big bang" ending I expected. Their bard changeling managed to swap places with Ireena and "marry" Strahd in her stead, just barely delaying Ireena's turning, though that did end up happening before long anyway. So the final few sessions were all about kidnapping a violent vampire-spawn-Ireena with no control over her own actions and finding a way to cure her and reunite her soul with Sergei, which they did.
But their final battle on their own terms (weirdly at the pool of Krezk) was, after 2.5 years, thankfully anything but anti-climactic.
God, that is such a bard move, I love it 😂
Strahd did his very best to kidnap Ireena once we arrived in Krezk, but we managed to reunite her with Sergej through a lot of shenanigans.
For us, we got a lot of milage from the *Tome of Strahd* add-on.
Strahd did have a very climatic final battle with our worn down party, but the final show-down was with Vurdulac afterwards. Freeing Barovia from its cycle of suffering and saving it from Strahds grasp. Our groups motive from the begining was to break the cycle though.
I’ve actually looked at this PDF before, and I immediately knew it was a no-go for my players. One, because they would break the vow with Rahadin immediately and we would go right to the final fight; and two because my players killed Rahadin halfway through the adventure.
OMG. What perfect timing. The group I'm running DID screw up and lost Ireena (with a little help of one of the more greedier players) and I was planning on ending things with a wedding but wasn't clear how to pull it off....this is perfect!!!🙏✌😎
In my home game, I re-wrote the ending of CoS to be similar to the ending of Wrath of the Lich King from WoW.
Strahd fell, but did not retreat to his coffin. Instead, the mists coalesced onto his throne, where shadowy thorns pierced and bound him. The players soon discovered that Strahd was the one who bore the curse. He could never leave and he could never die. Strahd revealed that unless one of the players took his place as Lord of Barovia, their souls would be trapped here for eternity, just like his.
In the end, Strahd was freed from his prison, and the LG Cleric stayed behind, sealing the gates of Barovia forever so that none but he would have to endure the torment.
Ironically we finished Strahd last night! Ours went very differently though, as Ireena married our bard before we went to the castle for the wedding, so in stead Strahd was very, very angry, played cat and mouse with us for a hot minute, killed Ismark and a few other important NPCs. Ireena ran away after a meltdown, and Strahd found her before we did. He killed her in his crypt, but we killed him right back, and got Madame Ava to help us resurrect Ireena after we got out of the castle.
Oh I had a great time at the wedding... we may have had to flee said wedding and do the proper confrontation later due to, well, turning Ireena to stone. It sounded like a good idea.
Also yes, my rogue DID object to the marriage. Strahd suggested they to shut up.
It WAS a good idea. You can't get blood from a stone!
That is a peak d&d move and I love it. Proper shenanigans at their finest.
Played 5e CoS once. Rather than having Ireena as an NPC, the GM decided my fem rogue was her re-incarnation (without checking I was OK with this first). He kept using that as an excuse to overrule anything I tried to do that was counter to the narrative.
I knee him in the groin when he grabs me - no, you submit to him dancing with you.
I move well away from the spooky lake before anything comes out - no, you are standing right by the lake when he appears.
Etc.
The final straw came when my character was a day or two away from being fed upon for the third time (thus turning her into a vampire). We were ready for the final showdown, but the GM says, "I asked everyone (he didn't ask me), and you all want to keep doing side quests to level up further (we were at 9 or 10). So sorry your character will die." At that point, my character killed herself (with a request that the party incinerate her remains, they did, denying Strahd his "bride") and I quit the game.
Whoa, you had a bad GM 😨
I've been a player in this module a few times. The argument for the ending of module being satisfying or not is heavily DM dependant and varies from table to table. I've been at both points. One DM was running the game with the explicit idea of being out for blood and that's all. I nearly physically wept when it was done with how brutal the experience was. To hear that it didn't even truly matter beating Strahd was literal pain. On the other side, my second DM truly was invested in telling a great story with us. He played the module hard, but fair. Some characters died, blood shed. But at the end when hearing again that it was all a cycle to be repeated again, I felt much better, because it gave our characters a chance to be pulled back in for a reunion to fight once more and not feel like Barovia was inescapable and devoid of hope.
It truly depends on what kind of table you're at if you'll accept the ending or not. I do like the happy endings, but I understand the Shadowfell and that it makes logical sense for the conclusion.
Guys, I need some help.
As a DM I cant stand the way this module os written for the Strahd motivacional aspects for inviting "aventurers" to his lands and dinners...
Need better ideas
I think the "Free Barovia from its endless cycle" goal needs more fleshing out, just like Strahd's final fight. It's level10+ stuff, so I see why GMs and homebrewers alike might be intimidated, but tackling the Dark Forces needs more meat to it. People want to kill gods, an attempt would be appreciated, even if you can't account for all the possibilities.
By the Myriad- wait wrong game
I've ran CoS twice, and wanna share how I modified the ending. Both times ended in the party orchestrating an assault from the various towns they united. I also pulled Argynvost into it a lot; laying him to rest resulted in a beam of light illuminating the manor, which gave everyone hope.
Strahd would also an army of his undead servants to battle the townsfolk. The battle was mainly to keep his focus so the party could slip in to rescue Ireena, who had been captured by this point, but my favorite part is how when the duel with Strahd starts, he monologues a bit, gesturing how the party's army was losing the battle. More and more undead keep rising up out of the ground by the minute. Then suddenly, there's a terrifying roar. Only the party and Strahd can see it, but the spirit of Argynvost flies overhead, as several more undead rise up out of the ground, bearing the crest of the Silver Dragon, as Argynvost's revenants return for one last fight.
And at that, Strahd has a breakdown, Ireena maybe tries to sneak attack him with a stake, or dies, whatever's needed for him to take the gloves off.
At the end, the party, if they've done enough research, has a means to seal away Strahd, hopefully for good (where they get to fight an avatar of Vampyre himself).
"Can you feel in your blood?!"
*shocked wheeze laugh at Ginny's face*
Me: planning the wedding end
The party: reunites ireena with sergej instead
me: internal screaming
As an addition to the ending, after Strahd is defeated, I like to add the ritual to trap Vampyr in his amber sarcophagus, thus ending the cycle of Strahd being brought back.
Not only does this sound like a better ending to the vanilla CoS experience, but I think this would make for a fun Halloween oneshot with a few changes.
Imagine if Strahd kidnapped a well like NPC (or even an absent PC), and it's up to the party to stop the wedding before Strahd takes a new wife/husband
8:45
This, exactly this.
The reason why I (or most of the table I usually play with) would attack during the ceremony.
- which given the whole 'till death do us part'-'that's exactly the plan'-thing shouldn't hold any special significance
- and 'as the pinnacle of teasing superiority' would probably be the moment Strahd would probably expect it the most, thus making it the worst moment to strike.
Is exactly because 'it feels like the ticking clock'.
My favorite part of this supplement is actually the "You won!" prose at the end that narrates the cycle of Strahd's curse. I've run Curse of Strahd twice and the game where I included this prose at the end was my favorite.
Dang, my group is literally fighting Strahd tonight. This would have been a super interesting way to end the campaign.
Unfortunately, I made one of my players the reincarnation of Tatyana (in session zero I offered the option of one "amnesia" backstory and she picked it, so I gave her Ireena's story). Strahd captured her by forcing her to trade herself for Ismark's freedom and the player is now a vampire hell-bent on "freeing Strahd and Barovia from all suffering".
This sounds like an awesome adventure, but I feel like it would put Lawful characters a huge bind. Breaking an oath of hospitality isn't something many strongly Lawful characters would be willing to do.
this sounds exactly like how my dm ran this finale, wow - if she used it, she did a great job with it, and i had so much fun with our finale lol. great video on something that sounds totally helpful!
I just want to give a shout out to my Archer Ranger who, to the best of my knowledge, has not missed a single shot with an arrow in the whole campaign! She missed some attacks with her short swords, but with her bow she was the very incarnation of the myth of the Perfect Elven Accuracy!
(Including sticking 2 arrows in Strahd when he turned invisible! Failed the Deception to convince him she saw through it, though.)
I think it's great to fleshout Barovia more. A module can only outline so many possibilities in a scenario. I for one would try to work out the brides' problems that arise at one point rather than using their rivalry to our advantage. That's just me, the vampire kid tho.
I just read the Disabilities & DnD article too and it's... mindboggling. There are some points in there about representing people as not just being a burden or being evil for having some mental affliction. They note there are ways you can incorporate a disability into a character & flavor skills like Tracking to rely on other senses. Then they make a weird argument "why show disabled people wanting to magically cure their disability?" As someone with disabilities & physically handicap friends of course we'd all magically cure our blindness & pain if we could!
Anyway, about Esmerelda and the "mixed signals" about her leg, the main topic I assumed this referred to: the reason she hides her prosthetic leg isn't out of shame, it's because she is a wanted woman & the posters point out her most recognizable feature: she's missing a leg. This is something she used to hide, but shows off more openly in 5E specifically to address ableism.
Re: The endless cycle ending... I actually had an idea for it a while ago
So, as written, the "souls'' available in Barovia are those of adventurers who've previously died while fighting Strahd in previous cycles, and we can all agree that Strahd is linked to the land itself. At some point, the souls have to start accumulating. It sort of made me think of how Janet gets reset an infinite amount of times in the show The Good Place, and ultimately becomes more powerful and knowledgeable every time. What if it's the same for Strahd? Everytime the cycle restarts, he restarts with more souls in the land, and after a few hundred resets of the cycle, he has more power at his disposal, remembering more of his past cycles, and ultimately, in a Groundhog Day type scenario, sets his sights on attempting to escape the Mist or absorb more Domains of Dread into Barovia, thus gaining more land, more power. I thought it would be a neat setting with an Edwardian, Industrial-era feel and have a sort of First World War feel to it between the different Darklords in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, where the adventure is set in the backdrop, with secret agents trying to thwart the threats of war and nation-expansion through violence between the Darklords themselves, who've reset themselves to become even more powerful than the Mists...
Might be convoluted, but I think there's promise! Could make for a great sequel campaign to mitigate the ending of Strahd as a prompt for another!
This sounds like a nice option, it does require some changes and omissions to the adventure. Since Irena can be your prophetic ally to defeat Strahd, or be united with Sergei and be out of Strahd’s reach during the adventure, this wedding module would not necessarily work for everyone. It depends on the group and what you are aiming for as well. When I played this adventure (that was my introduction to DND 5e), Irena ended up I becoming his vampire bride and we had to fight her as well as Strahd. The fact that the cycle wasn’t broken even after we killed him, despite all of the sacrifices our group made, to me - made this a harrowing experience, but in a good way, because my character (the only one that was allowed to leave Barovia after all was said and done) was physically scarred and traumatized. This made this character much more interesting now, and I would love to play it again, dealing with the post trauma of visiting Barovia and finding a cure to his condition.
The module includes a LOT of information on customizing it to suit the situation your players and your campaign is in (including characters who have different roles or have died over the course of your campaign.) I promise you that there is a lot more information in the full book than I can explicitly repeat in a 12 minute video 😜
There are some problems when it comes to the Vestani in Ravenloft, but when you choose to run this adventure or those based around it, you are essentially making a bargain with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is the inspiration for this adventure. If you want something divorced from Dracula, then you're running something that isn't Ravenloft. That's fine.
One way I have dealt with the Vestani in the past is to include other Roma inspired tribes who are unable to travel the mists, and they treat the Vestani for what they are---a tribe that5 has given it's soul over to Strahd.
Are you saying that being racist to the Romani is an indispensable part of Dracula? They're barely in the original novel
Yes but you're not allowed context and nuance on the Internet, everything is either amazing or terrible, and you're not allowed to adapt anything pre-1990 just in case it offends someone.
@@HMJ66 Funny. True and sad, but still funny. Best and cheers
I think people forget that D&D is infinitely flexible. If you don't like something, tweak it, change it, toss it out and use something better. It's your campaign after all.
In my CoS campaign, I replaced the village of Barovia entirely, included classic fairytale characters as well as classic horror characters. My group is likely going to run into Dr. Frankenstein pretty soon as he's taken to using vampire blood to finally bring his creature to life.
As for the Vistani, I mean they could be reskinned a number of different ways! They could be a traveling circus troupe, a group of evil fey, a cult of vampire wannabes or even a traveling caravan of Strahd's own noble court. It's fine to rewrite things to suit your tastes as a DM. And yes, it's still Ravenloft.
@@themisfitowl2595 I applaud your creative spirit, but if you replace Barovia and Strahd, and Castle Ravenloft it really is somewhere other than Ravenloft.
That's a like saying I'm going to run something in castle Greyhawk, but you write the city of Grayhawk and castle Grayhawk out of the story.
D&D is extremely flexible, but I wouldn't call it infinitely flexible. It does have it's breaking points where you can push past what the game is designed to be. And there are certain things D&D isn't designed for---horror in D&D is actually a poor fit. It can be achieved, but it's really difficult to maintain that ever present sense of dread.
In most horror, the main characters are victims and at the mercy of powers beyond their control. Alien and the Exorcist are great examples, as is the film Oculus. Call of Cthulhu really captures the sense that the characters are victims and just trying to survive and retain their grip on their own sanity. It's a much better system for running horror.
D&D is a heroic sword and sorcery game and is made for that kind of story. D&D characters almost always have the power to damage and overcome their adversaries in a broad number of ways. The instant they swing and damage what ever is the main threat is, there's a catharsis that drains all that dread you've built up out of the scenario, and then it becomes a tactical problem. That's what it is designed to do.
At the core of D&D, it's still Conan and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and Elric, and LOTR, Arthurian legends, classical mythology, etc. That's the beating heart of D&D going all the way back to the early 1970s.
"I can't think of any party sitting and watching..." meanwhile, my party, giving Ireena to Strahd to get cred with him so they could murder his other brides and rahadin during the wedding night while strahd was distracted
To give credit to my players, it was a clone of her they made after getting Mord's spellbook, but still, the poor clone, they got the abbot to put Vasilka brain in the clone and we convinced her she always was Ireena, and counter on Strahd's lack of giving a shit about his "beloved" beyond her body enough to not know the difference.
At the wedding I had Vampyr shatter the windows and send shadows to attack "Ireena" and call Strahd a fool, the party kept her from dying, and Strahd was convinced that Vampyr is what's been keeping his beloved from him so they teamed up to go stop him at the amber temple
where they used strahd as a meat shield they trapped in a wall of force with Vampyr's avatar
One of my best tricks is "using" the tarrot deck for determining the locations of the items, but still picking the coolest/most dramatic locations before hand. What you need is a tarrot deck and a cool box that has a lid. Pick the 3 cards you want and olace face up in the lid of the box and set aside before the game where the players can't see it. Then take the rest of the deck and make a big show of shuffling, asking players to shuffle or cut the deck. Then you place the deck in the box, place on the lid, and the cards you want are now on top! Speak and incantation, open the box, and reveal the cards! You now have a cool moment and have those areas prepped!
I've always loved the ideas of the different Domains in Ravenloft being these unending nightmares, doomed to repeat as a special kind of hell for the worst people in the multiverse. But I also love the idea that the Dreadlords of the domains are somewhat aware of each other and also all hate each other. Like, of COURSE they are all just the shittiest neighbors one could ever imagine.
But I do wish there was more put on the idea of getting some of the common people OUT of the mists and move them on to a new life.
Oh, and I also love the idea of having the players "escape" Barovia just to wind up in some OTHER Domain of Dread and have to then deal with that bullshit. Maybe even having the Cyre 1313 as this repeating scenario between each Domain as they come to realise they might not actually have a way out.
Have you heard of the Black Dice Society? The DM of the Ravenloft campaign, BDave Walters, takes things in a somewhat similar direction.
One of our group members is running Curse of Strahd. As a first time DM. For a group that breaks every campaign we play.
I really feel for her.
This time we broke combat by figuring out movement control is a thing. We handle every combat the same way. Knock 'em down and kick 'em to death. I fear she'll try to "fix" the problem by tailoring Strahd to specifically counter us despite Strahd never having fought us before.
To be fair, Strahd doesn't need to have fought you before to know your tactics. He has eyes and ears everywhere and word gets back to him.
I mean - one of the major things Strahd has is the advantage of knowledge, he's supposed to know things about the party before they even meet.
@@Mistshinobi That's actually bad writing. Simply, just saying Strahd knows no matter what the players do to keep things secret is just meta gaming. In our campaign we jumped a hag in the woods and killed it. I mean it was like a damned mugging. Did Strahd have a spy in bushes, in the woods, in the middle of the night? If so then why aren't the players even allowed to try and detect and remove these spies? Why can't the ravens feed information to the players about Stahd's whereabouts.
I'm not attacking you by the way. I'm just pointing out what I see as some very weak writing.
@@danmorgan3685 a) there's a difference between one fight vs 'we handle every combat the same way' but also b) strahd literally has scrying in his statblock (though there's no reason why the party Couldn't take pains to counter that in a campaign?)
Is tried this module (which is great, I like it a lot !) with the most experienced of my two groups. They declared that Stradh deserved a break and some love, made sure the wedding went through and, to quote, “his stabbing won’t draw any blood with her in the chamber, so the oath of hospitality stands”.
They thus decided that it was a fitting end for the bride character if they left before the biting actually pierced the skin.
She “rerolled” as a bard and this is her favourite story to tell !
Original Ravenloft released in the 80s was a luxurious module. My gaming group had disbanded by then due to the usual leaving for college and so on events so I never played it but still have the original in the box of other vintage adventures. B2 and the G-series got the most use back then and with the kids who are college age now...Time flies GD.
I'm actually using the ending of Strahd as a way to drive my campaign forward. I have a full campaign that will gake my players to lvl. 20 where they have to work their way through multiple Dark Domains to reach the Dark Powers. Only by defeating the Dark Powers can the domains of Ravenloft be truly freed.
I really like this as an alternative ending that makes everything feel a little more full. We had Irena stashed with Mordenkainen in his mansion, with the help of stellar persuasion rolls. Getting her out of there would have taken some DM shenanigans, but could have worked. Our DM instead seeded ideas of an even bigger bad, some sort of eldritch horror, throughout the campaign and especially through the Amber Temple. After dealing with Strahd, we had another climatic battle in the castle great hall against that thing, helping break the Strahd cycle and giving the ending a little more oomph.
Our DM was notably not a fan of the cycle, hence why he 'fixed' that piece. I don't mind it, but if its more alluded to in a cinematic, post credits scene way. My character doesn't need to know its all going to start again.
For any DMs looking to tackle the "endless cycle" caveat to the ending of Curse of Stradh, check out Lunch Break Heroes' "Ending Curse of Stradh with a BANG!" video.
Now I haven't ran CoS myself, or read through the associated expansion Lunch Break Heroes made to go along with the video, but I wouldn't be making this comment if I didn't think it offered a DM any useful inspiration/content for their game.
Lunch Break Heroes has a whole series on ways to beef up CoS w/o rewriting the whole module, and the ending he talks about sounds like, if not an exciting capstone to your adventure - then maybe an interesting plot for a "epilogue adventure" if your players are looking to revisit Barovia post-game.
Saving this to watch later. Our party is mid fight with Strahd… it’s not looking good
This is pretty interesting information; it seems like a valuable addition to my collection of guides. Fascinating, too, that it can maybe be used to parallel Sergei and Tatyana's wedding in 351 (If one uses the timeline from I, Strahd). I can also see how some people might view the ending as a little anticlimatic. A lot of the guides I saw on the CoS reddit suggested doing the Dinner With Strahd prior to the final confrontation in a very similar vein to act one of this for this reason.
Once my players killed Strahd all but one left Barovia, that one, a cleric, was like I'm going to fix this land. Then in the "what are they up to now" credits scene i had her be the new tyrant that ruled the land based on the twisted version her faith had become.
Regarding final battle i had them fight Strahd in his armor in the throne room. When he got low, he dropped down through the floor (like Kitty Pryde) while the suit kept fighting them. Then they found him in the crypts and when the fight started, on initiative count 20 Strahd snapped his fingers and every crypt opened. All the uncleared crypts (most of them) disgorged their occupants at the party while Strahd played rope-a-dope, and he engaged the party when they killed his Nightmare horse.
Also way earlier in the campaign they followed the Abbott 's wedding party to the castle and used it as cover to sneak in to look for the dragon's skull. As they left the courtyard they heard screams behind them but ignored it (Strahd and brides feasting on the villagers that had also followed the charismatic Abbott).
Wuups, I ran the wedding mid campaign. Not having read that book I did use several of the ideas here, like Strahd making the moon full (thus having the werewolf in the party turn on them).
Actually at the endgame right now after two years of running this, so its a bit late for me, but trying to figure out the balance between an epic and exhausting encounter. It's rough so I do love the idea of ending with the wedding, and might try that if I ever run this again.
"Any objections?"
*casts max level fireball*
Very interestring. Strahd capturing Ireena wouldn't have worked in my campaign because the players protectected her at all cost. She also became a badasss who really didn't need rescuing.
I ended my players campaign with them each being a new adventure of their choice, entering a prosperous, blossoming Barovia. They hear a birth taking place near the Blue Water Inn. They assist this woman all they can and help bring a barovian baby into the world. The baby's pale white skin only highlights it's hair black as night, and eyes crimson red.
My players had mixed reactions. But they DEFEATED Strahd. They ESCAPED the mist. You wouldn't slay a dragon and say "well this was all for naught. There will just be another dragon."
Currently about to play this campaign, so I'm just gonna leave a comment here for the algorithm to ding and let the video play muted
Thank you, editor Ginny, for the specific links to other problems. I game with two women, one of whom is non-white, and a half-giant. We're actively more aware of tropes and stereotypes, and our DM has skipped over several portions of modules and descriptions that went places that none of us want to go, even - or especially - when we're having escapist fantasy fun.
I wish I’d had this before my party killed Strahd in TWO FREAKING ROUNDS! Although I don’t think Strahd capturing Ireena would have quite worked for our party, given that they practically adopted her as one of their own and even let her have the freaking Sunsword. (I gave her fighter levels so she wouldn’t be completely useless in the many combats the party got her involved in.)
And the illusory Strahd would have been seen through immediately, because our rouge took the dark gift from the Amber Temple that gives them truesight.
You know, now that I think about it, Ireena getting kidnapped might have actually worked even better because of our party’s circumstances. They now have the opportunity to recover the Sunsword and save Ireena, who they’re very attached to.
Tbh, if your players know what they are doing, Strahd's default stats are pitiable in close combat... Because that's not what he excels at. He's a nobleman and a general, a strategist from a long forgotten expansionist empire. Use his knowledge and power over the land, not his strength. Call upon Strahd's allies against the players... And his vampiric spawn! Bring them into the fray. I personally made the area around Ravenloft ripe with buried undead of all kinds (the wasteland of a long forgotten battlefield), waiting to be called upon. That said, the battle was still doable for the players, I made sure of that, but the shock and panic of seeing an whole army raising behind them made it all very memorable. Make it double so if they remembered to gather all their allies from previous towns to invade the castle.
Did you know that, per lore from old CoS campaign books, Strahd's castle would have tomes of every single magic in existence? Try giving him a Clone instead of an illusion, especially given his past collaboration with a certain lich necromancer. :D
Having read and tried to run CoS, honestly i felt a thing that missed from the original Ravenloft module was strahd motivations, since he's the one that lured the players in borivia is weird that the manual give not that much information for it.
The orginal module gave a tarot enentry for why he let the player in and what he wants from them, some of them pretty interesting liek the one of "strhad wants to steal the identity of a character and use it to leave borovia" to the weird "wants to charm the pc into attacking irina so he can swoop in and save ger to win her love" (couldn't he do that whit other borovian?) To the stupid "apparently one of your plater has carried the blade half of rhe sunsword this whole time, it just look and sct like a completely normal sword unless reunited with the hilt"
I have a temptation to run Curse of Strahd in a Pathfinder conversion; Strahd then becomes a full-on overpowered horror (make him level +4 when faced) where the iconic items become essential before facing him, giving him key weaknesses, and allowing him to completely toy with them until they explore and find the key items they need.
Haven't watched the video or read the comments because I don't wanna get spoiled, but I was literally playing Curse of Strahd the night this was uploaded hahaaaa.
Considering how long it took myself and my married friends to get wedding invites put together, Strahd really had this waiting in the (bat) wings. XD
This was the first module I made a video about. It was my first attempt at a campaign during Covid. My players had a blast....whenever I made a whole new homebrew location that was not in the book. The campaign ended early. Hope others can learn from you and many other DMs on how to improve on this campaign!
Hey, it's Green DM! How you doing, man?
Thank you so much for the resources about the changes to the vistani, I thought it was really weird when reading the module at first and I wasn't sure how to go about fixing it
I can’t believe this book exists. I’m literally planning the invitation to the castle session right now and I have had planned for months that it would be a surprise wedding. Except in mine the real surprise is at the ceremony Ismark will rush the bride and groom and Strahd, assuming he is trying to kill Strahd himself, will allow him to strike but at the last second he stabs Ireena with a previously agreed upon fatal blow. It’ll cause so much chaos directed toward Ismark, who will almost definitely die right then, that it’ll allow time for the players to escape and either run the castle or try to escape out. Whatever they choose.
Now that I know about this, I’m definitely gunna adapt some of it into my plans. I love dnd.
My biggest issue with running the base version of the campaign that it very much feels like this is Mashop of all of the different raven law campaigns that were made a great example Of this is . warnings spoilers ahead the retrieving of the dragon skull from castle raven loft. Keeping in mind this thing is the size of a large dragon sculpt. It weighs about 70 to 80 pounds. Now that's about the average carry amount of most players. Unless you're running a Goliath or something like that. It is a very strong character and has the extra ability for racial. Even that being said, you're still having a hard time carrying this. And it's in the castle, so to get the bonus from it. You have to go to the castle. Go to the jungle and get the skull, carry it out of the dungeon and carry it back to the keep, put it on top of the keep and then go back to the Castle to fight The boss if that's the case, why might not just fighting the boss to begin with? I usually add him, put it somewhere other than the dungeon because it doesn't make sense. The same is true for the crips. With the Amber tombs, it kinda just feels like it's part of a different campaign. Some of the other stuff is workable, but a lot of it feels like it's just. We threw it all together. Here's raven loft. On top of that, I do agree that He goes down way too easily. By the time you get to level 10.
We had a wizard in our party and.
We're able to keep him in. A small area and throw it down Sickening radiance, which Justice destroyed him on top of the fact that we were doing crazy amount of output for damage
Always crazy to see your friend's content get thrown up into big videos like this. So proud of him.
Loved the way you started the video by joking about Halloween practically starting in September. The apartment building I live in has been decorated for Halloween for a couple of weeks now. Strahd and Ravenloft weren't such big deals in 1st Edition. Only a few adventure delt with them. Our gaming group started the 1st module with me as DM but we never finished it. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears was a big hit on the radio at the time, so my players renamed it "The Strahd Theme,." Although I was DMing the adventure, Strahd/Ravenloft was never really one of my favorites.
Two of my favorites from 1st Edition: DungeonLand and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror. Basically Alice in Wonderland, but the characters have been given D&D stats, the danger level of some encounters was amped up a bit, and it even includes a few groaner puns. (Which would make them perfect for someone we all know.)
Side Question: Do vampires (and some other undead) still drain levels in 5th edition? I always hated this. To me, experience levels were just that: things a character learned to do (or do better) because of their years of experience. It made no sense to me that undead creatures could--in effect--drain knowledge-gained abilities from characters, Not to mention the fact that it would totally suck. If I player lost too many levels, they would basically be reduced to semi-useless baggage.
I am starting this and will be going full castlevania "You think you killed Strahd but you only fought a pretender siphoning his dark energy, when that antagonist dies the real boss fight begins and Strahd isn't a man but a massive coalescing of dark energy with different mechanics.
My party and I finished the campaign last night and while we didn't have access to "The Wedding" module, we still had an awesome ending, so I thought I will share it here.
So, our final showdown is at Castle Ravenloft. My character is a changeling Mastermind Rogue, the rest of the party includes a Druid, a Paladin, a Wizard-Fighter, a Fighter-Wizard, a Monk and a Sorcerer. We enter the tomb, Strahd emerges from the coffin. I ask the DM if Strahd is looking at my character now. "No, he isn't". OK, my character turns into "Tatyana", right before combat starts.
The party loves it. Strahd notices me, rolls an intelligence check to see if it is really Ireena. He fails the check by 1 point. He tries to charm my character into "falling in love with him", but I roll high on the saving throw, I succeed. He basically wasted his turn on me. We land some hits on him, he eventually "dies", but the Heart brings him back. Since my character stabbed him with the Light Sword, he feels slightly betrayed, he is furious, so he charges at me and brings me down to 7 HP. I am right after Strahd in the initiative order, so I stab him with the Light Sword, I crit, and since he's surrounded by my allies, I deal a lot of sneak attack damage. As I disengage and run away, I (still pretending to be Tatyana/Ireena) hurl insults at him, something along the lines of "You are the one who betrayed me. You killed your own brother, the man I wanted to spend my life with. Do you really think that I could ever love you!? You are a monster".
My party loves it!!! Our lovely Druid heals me, the rest of the casters gang up on him with all sorts of shiny spells, paralyse him and Strahd dies, thinking that Ireena came to the castle to kill him. We are all very happy with the ending, though our flying Sorcerer is now a werewolf...
So crazy that I just found this video! The other night I finished running our second session of Curse of Strahd and have decided I need to take over this story because following the module diligently is just NOT compelling the players enough to really get invested. I decided I'm going to have Strahd confront them after they pass the crossroads to the castle and make a deal with Ireena -- to come with him willingly, or he will kill the adventurers. At first she will refuse, but after a few rounds where Strahd demonstrates his overwhelming power, she will agree and Strahd's minions will appear and sweep her away. This should light a fire in their bellies!!
I'm also realizing that I am far and away creative enough to view the module as simply a suggested framework, and create a story that I know my players will love and get into. Originally, I was trying to stick to the book faithfully....and when the players go off script, that makes my dialog feel very unnatural, as I try to rack my brain on the fly, making sure I'm not violating any of the written lore....or not missing something deep in the module.
When I played Curse of Strahd, Strahd showed up and kidnapped Ireena very early on, while we were in the village of Barovia. Before leaving he informed the party that the wedding was to take place in 10 days and we were all invited. When the time came we all went and no one tried to intervene, the party cleric (me) even performed the ceremony. Right afterwards, Strahd bit Ireena and took her off to bury her so she could turn. The party had their night in Ravenloft, where we stole a bunch of Strahd's things. However, the following night, Strahd got a nasty surprise: Due to a homebrew item the party had (an amulet that collected the souls of certain NPCs who died in its presence), Ireena didn't become a vampire and was just a corpse. The party got pummeled by a storm with thunder so loud several of us were deafened, and we had to fight a Relentless Juggernaut. We survived that, but Arganvostholt, where we were camping, got destroyed. Fun times.
After BG3 I’m picturing people using this and tweaking it to fit Ascended Astarion 😳😢
While I don't think Barovia being caught in an endless cycle ruins the fun of the game to me, I do think that it misses an opportunity. Having a way to end the cycle provides an interesting decision. Does the party find a way to save everybody in Barovia and provide them with the chance of a happy life, or do they break the cycle by allowing the land to simply fade away forever.
I've been DM Ravenloft/Curse of Strahd for over 20 years and had to change so many things because of the 'ending'. From Domain Lords making a deal with the players to Strahd being something else entirely. Great video on how to continue changing things up.
Slooooowly playing a 1 on 1 game with my wife. Always open to new tips. My wife's main character is an undead warlock. We played a one session intro where her character made a pact with Myrkul. I basically played it like Myrkul wants Strahd dead as a reminder that nobody can escape death. In exchange, he will bring back her character's brutally murdered family. Working other details for each of her party characters into moments throughout.
Was toying with pulling in the Boneyard as a final boss from Dungeon Dad.
I have heard of another supplement for Curse of Strahd that apparently addresses some of the other issues with the campaign (notably it tackles the issues with the Vistani, and I believe also the disability issues). It is called She is the Ancient, and features a gender-bent version of the campaign. It also gives Strahd more motives. I haven't read it myself but I've heard great things.
This wedding supplement seems amazing, and thank you for sharing. I have a friend who played in Curse of Strahd, and they ended the campaign with a wedding, much like this one. It was super compelling and everyone had a lot of fun. It was especially fun for that party, because they'd previously attempted to assassinate Strahd at a wedding of their own (the two druids got married), which was naturally officiated by Strahd. A captured Ireena was the maid of honour, and my friend's first PC (a paladin) kicked ass as one of Strahd's brides.
Fun fact for those unaware: Ginny actually ran an ad for She Is The Ancient a few years back, and that video is featured in the listing for the module 😃
Highly recommend that module in general, it is an excellent resource, with great tips and thoughtful alternatives to the original, and with amazing art too!
I used the wedding as our capstone and it RULED!!!! Highly recommended
I used a variation of this wedding. The “does anyone have any objections” in hindsight was exactly the narrative moment my party was looking for. My problem was Strahd doesn’t have many good minions and unless he constantly appears to the party he’s largely absent from the module. So I gave him some expecting them to be mini boss battles leading up to the final fight. Only my party pretended to be friendly with Strahd from the off. He had no real reason to send minions after them and they were all present at the wedding. It was more than the party could handle which resulted in a TPK. Was early in my DMing career and I still wish I’d handled it better
We travelled through the realms of dread, and only encountered Stahd briefly once. Azalin Rex was our big bad entirely.
My party finished strahd quickly, but we built up to it. We faced harsh challenge after harsh challenge. We didn't have much to build strahd up in power, but in pressure. We ended up taking him down with a Sunblade wielding Paladin, pretty fitting.
We coordinated this attack from a balcony in the chapel of the wedding. It was good.
The DM wasnt happy, but I feel DMs often miss that a satisfying conclusion to the story for the players is good. You don't have to nearly kill us, or kill almost all of us.
We ended up sneaking off from Rahaden pretty early, in the foyer. We found a lot of things to help us in the castle, and pretty much one shot Strahd (Paladin with extra attack and 3rd level spell slots for Smite).
If anyone is planning a CoS Campaign should urgently check out DragnaCarta‘s CoS ReReloaded guide. It is in work as we speak but enough has been released to start the campaign and make use of the content as it releases. Literally every open end and weird piece of „content for the sake of content“ has been recontextualized and given meaning.
Also concerning the end fight with Strahd: Dragna has created an amazing 3-phase statblock with logical abilities and a great difficulty
I use RavenLoft as a "Run the Gauntlet!" adventure... Strahd is a demon lord vampire who owns a country in one of the layers of the Abyss, you ain't gonna beat him. I let a few rumors fly from Barovians, Vistani, and perhaps a werewolf (in human form) as to where the exit is.
Of course there are variations, but typically it starts in Hommlet, the village which provides the farming required for the Keep on the Borderlands. The players meet a few old-time retired adventurers who have gone quite mad from their time spent in Barovia, and receive a hook of some sort. Then just go in, do that one thing, and get the eff out before something bad happens.
I picked this up the moment I knew I was running the campaign. Its such an amazing module
People complaining about stereotypes in a fantasy game just blow me away with their stupidity. In CoS you can buy meat pies made with meat that came from children….but they complain about stereotypes.
Not to mention that a horror module is intended to be uncomfortable and have unsavory elements to it.
Everyone wants everything to be looked at through their current glasses of how society should be. It's lame and completely ignores how people really are. Its more Fantasy land than d&d.
My favorite part of Ravenloft is that no matter what happens, no matter who lives or dies, no matter if Strahd even manages to claim his bride, he will never be genuinely happy. He suffers every time, and I think that's beautiful.
THIS is some seriously good advice.
U know, I got a character concept that's a combo of dhampir, hexblood, and reborn that I'd love to see someone as talented as you try to bring to life
Our DM ran this bit and our party totally attacked at the ceremony. It wasn't until after the campaign was over that we found out there was all this material. Kinda felt bad, but it was a good story.
The castle itself has enough vanilla content for a mini campaign, it's huge! Just more fodder for the next descent into ol Ravenloft! :)
These guidelines for the Vistani are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing these!
"Blegh"
the classic vampire catchphrase, blegh
You're looking mad fit in that thumbnail. Congrats on the hard work that must take.
My thoughts on the ‘Barovia can never be free’ stuff is it feels a bit too meta. Our players want to feel like the pain they went through really mattered. So of course they want to beat Strahd for good!
In the Amber temple I revealed the nature of the realm of dread and Strahd’s whole deal and gave them a free wish scroll to summon Strahd’s creator. Which turned into a dope ‘fight a mad god’ encounter where they had to seal him back in an amber coffin. They had a blast. Then they got to kill Strahd for good.
I also see the value in not including that and have him just die lol
We skipped our BBEG fight after a 2 years campaign! T__T
Very experienced DM had this and other CoS supplements (it is a great source!).
The day before the ceremony, we made a diplomatic diversion through the Abbot.
Snuck from the roof and Locate creature to extract Irena. Silent, Levitate and invisibility spells galore.
We left Barovia without exchanging one blow with Strahd (Made a deal with the entity emprisoning him)!
It's been 3 weeks now and I'm still in FOMO shock!
The players who felt they could leave Barovia after defeating Strahd; even though, he ends up coming back hardly felt lackluster. They won regardless.
This was my first campaign lol
My DM managed to make Strahd stronger and it was a fun campaign.
When i fought his daughters, i had rolled THREE nat 20's in a row.
What a session that was lol
I'd love to have Ginny run a CoS game, man
I think she'd make a better player
Not to dismiss her as a good Dm
What timing! I'm preping to run Strahd starting this Friday! (Side note. I've never run a module before) thanks!!
In the draft phase of a Star Wars 5e homebrew, “Curse of Darth Strahd.”
I used Lunch Break Heroes’, “Binding of Vampyr,” to replace the cyclical ending in our classic play through. It provided a more epic finale.
Depending on how my planet hopping heroes go, the wedding would be a fun new option.
Running Strahd for my 5E players in the new year - thank you for this!
My problem with the "endless cycle" thing was less that what we did was meaningless, it was that the cycle restarted way too fast.
Our DM had it so that it was about a year later that Strahd came back, and at that point, why did we bother killing him? We'd have been better off just living in Barovia and trying to make it as safe as we could.
Give it 100 years. Hell, 50 years. Let a whole generation grow up without the shadow of Strahd before the cycle begins again.
Not a year: after a long, drag out fight of prepared actions to hit the guy and chip damage to beat him, we deserved way longer than a year narratively.
This is a great resource. My advice is to use Visilka as a wedding double scape-goat for the players to retreat. Making this whole chapter just a 2nd to the last encounter with Strahd.
Also a plug for Wyatt's Companion for Dungeon of the Mad Mage! It really adds flavor to some of the more drab levels in Undermountain. Our campaign is on dungeon level 17 and could not imagine it without his additional content.
I just finished studying the module in preparation to run CoS. This video came at the PERFECT time!! Hell yeah!!
My character found a Tiger Beat poster of Strahd and fell in love with him. Proceeded to try (unsuccessfully) to woo him and then just joined his forces holding out the hope that she'll snag him eventually (I was leaving the group due to a split our group decided was needed and joining a different campaign).
My first character to die was in curse of Strahd. The thing was, the instructions for when we were given the option to leave Barovia, we had to give our character sheet away. I wasn't going to do that, so I continued playing a character that would have taken the opportunity to leave.
that murder joke killed me! lol Great video
Oh my god, the "myrrh... myrrDUR" vine bit totally caught me off guard and I burst out laughing. Perfect use of my favorite vine!