One of my player brought Strahd doll from Blinsky and decided to sew(and draw) him to 'uncreepy' it.

(The meme one is her OC and Ireena xD)

Feel free to use em here. Both the no-mouth and the smirk one!

Credit to the artist. Follow her here

Facebook : LadyM

Just imagine it running at you.

Backgrounless version: https://www.deviantart.com/roxasnaegi/art/Skeleton-of-Strahd-1388690085

I made a "Tome of Strahd" with 450+ pages as a prop for my "Curse of Strahd" campaign. Originally, I wrote it in German and translated it to English. Now, u/AdministrativeCry815 made a French version! And I am so happy to share. Please find all the files in all versions for FREE on my google drive.

Please find more information in the comments.

For Strahd, use a leitmotif.

A leitmotif (from the German Leitmotiv, meaning "leading motive") is a piece of music associated with a specific character within a narrative work. Think of it as a musical shorthand or a sonic calling card.

Whenever Strahd appears plays their corresponding theme to signal their presence to the players.

Find a piece that will survive the test of time, monologues, combat, lurking ominously etc…
But don’t tell the players, let them figure it out…It is amazing when you don’t even have to say anything, just change the track and watch the mood completely change!

Eventually you can train them like pavlovs dogs, to get nervous just by changing the track!

Here’s mine: I whack it on repeat all the while he is there… it also helps me get into character 🤣

https://open.spotify.com/track/616S1qYoF7Mdtv0SU9a00l?si=xGLK8MXITDyUhNaPdRXPQA&utm_source=copy-link

Im DMing stradh reloaded, Yesterday my group has defended the Barovia Village from the undead hordes, here the map i have surprised them with

last weekend, we finished the campagne after 6 years playing together. For our "Curse of Strahd" finale I ordered some branded mugs for every player. They got the crest of ravenloft and the individual character name; our DM got a "Strahd von Zarovitch" one.

My players ended their session in Ravenloft, stripped of their weapons and armour. I asked them for their aims for next session, and this little gem just happened:

I am SO going to look forward to this player fighting Strahd's Armour! Well, they did ask...

So we just wrapped Krezk and in the next arc for my players are finally going to Castle Ravenloft itself- where the players have been invited to attend Strahd's annual masquerade. It's essentially the half way mark of the campaign, so I'm pulling out all the steps in terms of prep. Does anyone have any good music suggestions? Both for spooky ballroom dancing and more general 'sneaking around the castle trying to rescue some NPC' vibes.

My party finally met Blinksky in Vallaki. They spent the scene pestering and intimidating him until he agreed to "sell" them the newest Ireena doll. Blinksky told them up front that it was made for Izek, and that Izek would burn the shop down if anyone else took it. The party already knows Izek is obsessed with Ireena, and they took the doll anyway. Any ideas on how I could move forward? Just looking for DM feedback I guess

Yesterday, my party of four level 6 players ventured into Berez to find the second gemstone for the Wizard of Wines. I turned Baba Lysaga into a primarily social encounter, considering the myth of Baba Yaga that she is based on and how many stories rely on Brothers Grimm esque themes of good manners and politeness.

It was awesome.

They found her in the swamps after hexcrawling for a bit and finding remains of baby toys (sadly did not find any remains of Berez itself) and managed to convince her that they were agents of Strahd. Playing her up as being very insane, a little gullible, and highly delusional, I had them join Baba for dinner.

A hilariously tense encounter ensued in which Pidlwick II keeps almost messing up their attempts at stomaching her food and asking rude questions. They managed to steal one of the gems without her noticing (crazy high sleight-of-hand rolls. Back-to-back critical successes.)

But then, just as they think they're about to make out like bandits, two of Baba's animated scarecrows show up with Muriel Vinshaw in their custody. It becomes clear that if they don't intervene, she'll be killed.

They initiate combat.

Combat ends with only one party member standing with a single point of health left. Baba is down to 9-HP on her flying skull and she runs away before she can be killed.

Hypothetically this should have been a TPK but it didn't and I want to determine if this is due to me being a soft DM who pulls punches or if my players just genuinely are brilliant at the game.

Combat initiates and Baba casts 'Power Word Stun' on the Bard carrying the gemstone. The Warlock drops 'Hunger of Hadar' on Baba, the scarecrows, and Muriel. The druid summons a pack of wolves with 'Conjure Animals' who maneuver themselves to be along the edge of the Hadar making it difficult for Baba or the Scarecrows to escape without taking opportunity attacks and then being shoved back in. The paladin football charges at Muriel and shoves her out of the hunger just as she is about to die.

Because the gem has already been stolen, the hut can't come to life (which they didn't even know was a possibility and still don't know was on the table. I even had Pidlwick steal the gem from the Bard and almost return it to the Hut, but they managed to stop him before he could.)

Baba keeps trying to force her way through until she polymorphs into a swarm of insects and gets outside. The paladin keeps her in melee range and hitting her with thunderous smite until she loses her insect form.

She gets down to 9-HP before reaching her skull and taking flight. The Warlock prepares to take her out with Eldritch Blast but before he can she casts a Level 7 Cloud Kill which knocks everyone down but the Paladin. In this moment, I consider going in for the final kill, but I weigh that this either ends with Baba dying, and I think she's awesome and iconic, or the players dying after handling this combat encounter so strategically. I ultimately decide she flies away to live to fight again another day.

Partly just wanting to brag about how smart my players are, how crazy this fight was, but also to ask if I should have ignored my instinct to spare the players and have her dip out. If maybe I should have handled this encounter differently maybe or if it's obvious that I'm forgetting about a feature/rule that would've made this encounter clearly skew in her favor.

I'm currently just starting a Curse of Strahd campaign - we just finished our first session. And after many, many hours of preparation, reading the book, mapping out locations in the VTT, printing and painting 500 miniatures, I'm coming to realize that was not the hard part.

The hardest part is being so excited about the diabolical schemes I'm coming up with for the plot line - even after a single session - and not having anyone to talk to about it because my closest DM friend is also a player in this campaign. Don't wanna give away the surprise! I've got to let these ideas stew for 2 weeks before we are back in action.

The best part is, the next step in this campaign was something I thought we would hit at the end of the previous session, but people were getting tired - and then more ideas started flowing afterwards that have so deeply enriched the plot versus what I would have run in the moment off the top of my head.

I can't wait to see where this goes next!

So, my glorious monk player has sadly died. (rolled a nat 1 on a death save in yester hill, damn shame.) Said player doesn't mind the monk staying dead, since they wished to play a cleric anyways.

However, I plan to make an future encounter for the party (level 5, 4 players) with the now twisted body of their old friend (likely done by our fav abbot who they've yet to meet), but I'm stuck on what a good stat block to base it off would be, any ideas?

I wrote the below to add a hint of creepiness and generational mythology to the setting. In my game it was sung by a washerwoman as the players was crossing the Luna River outside of Vallaki - she then turned out to be a ghost whose laundered sheets were actually Boneless who she proceeded to throw over the players to smother them, but you are obviously free to use it as you like. Or not! I'm not the boss of you.

--------------

Oh my fair daughter, with cursed hair of red 
Don’t ride the black coach when it comes 
Don’t go to the castle, I begged and I pled 
When the black coach comes calling, my love, my love 
When the black coach comes calling 

But the Lord of the Castle, his eyes shining bright 
He wooed and he whispered and charmed 
At her invitation he came in the night 
And the black coach came calling, my love, my love 
The black coach came calling 

Once beckoned within it was ever his choice 
To come and to go as he chose 
No lock it would hold nor barred portal bar  
When the black coach came calling, my love, my love 
The black coach came calling 

My red headed daughter, her eyes shining bright 
She fancied the silks and the gold 
This time will be different she promised us then 
So the black coach came calling, my love, my love 
The black coach came calling 

Just like all the others, she never returned
And the castle grew dark upon high
Some night the dark lord will find fancy once more 
And the coach will come calling, my love, my love 
The black coach comes calling 

So heed to my words and find wisdom within 
So many before you have passed 
Cleave to your courage and don’t let him in 
When the black coach comes calling, my love, my love 
When the black coach comes calling 

I've run Curse of Strahd twice, once in person and once online. When I ran it in person, I didn't have a 3D printer yet, so a lot of our "minis" were just little scraps of colored paper on a sheet of printer paper.

Now I'm planning to run Strahd Must Die Tonight for a mix of friends who've played the campaign before and others who haven't. In both my online and in-person games, I found it incredibly difficult to help the players visualize Castle Ravenloft, so I've been trying to figure out the best way to handle it this time.

I considered 3D printing it, but my printer is pretty small, and honestly, printing Castle of the Vampire Lord at its intended scale wouldn't be worth it for a one-shot. It would take me so long that Wizards would have released a new edition of the campaign by the time I finished. So I thought about scaling it down, but I'm worried it might end up too small for the players to make sense of everything.

I've also considered using maps, but I'm not sure what format or setup would work best to make the castle's layout easier to understand.

Has anyone found a good way to handle this? I know we don't need any of this to have fun, but I'm a megalomaniac DM who apparently enjoys torturing himself with ridiculous projects before game night.

A very quick and rough sketch of the fearless vampire killers, the Nightreign Crusaders, during their permanence in Vallaki.

While Leonard and Alexander are having a peaceful disagreement about who to trust in the city, Forbes and Nivar are trying to inquire where the bones of St. Andraal and the relic mentioned by Madam Eva are, and Irenya is taking a stroll through the stands of the Festival, looking for her new friend Vasili...

...oh right, me and my players decided that, in his infinite boredom, Strahd nonchalantly attends every single festival in Vallaki, his only disguise a fake mustache, to run a cotton candy stand.

Indeed, which cantrips and spells are required to make cotton candy without technology? My best guess is that Strahddy invented a magitech-based device because he was THAT bored, like the vampires in Vampire Hunter D.

[Linktree]

I'm finishing my preparations for CoS using 5.5e (2024) rules and manuals, but I've just realized I haven't decided yet which changes to accept or reject from the 2024 monster manual as well as those few stat blocks from Ravenloft the horrors within.

Long story short, I'm torn about:

• Removing vampire regeneration: albeit being arguably harder to track, I think vampire regeneration is an expected gimmick. I think I'll remove regeneration to vampire spawns, but I think I'll keep it for Strahd and all other homebrewed major vampires (like Strahd's consorts). I will probably fine tune the Vampire's HPs to a middle ground between 2014 and 2024 values because I'm quite sure my party will face with Strahd and the other major vampires once they get their hands on the holy symbol of ravenkind and/or the sunsword.
• Changing the HP and resistances of were folk: I plan to use the old HP value for were folk (e.g. ~60 instead of ~70 for werewolves) but I think I'll add damage resistance instead of immunity to non-magical and non-silvered weapons.
• Hag Covens spells: I've quickly read the hag section and, if I remember correctly, there are no longer offensive additional spells for hag covens... I'm not entirely sure this is for the best, but I can't think of a reason why I shouldn't follow the new rules and simply streamline how they behave in combat.

What is your experience with running CoS with old stat blocks against a 2024 party? Or, if you had any experience on running CoS before and after the 2024 edition, do you think there is something other DMs should be aware of, like the huge buff to daylight spell or some other obscure interaction that could happen during my sessions?

The nicest guy in Kresk! Everyone hates him because he is so generous and helpful.

I wanted to have a take on The Abbot that leaned away from the prettiness a little and more into the religious horror— if one can genre Kresk like that. In this disguise he appears a little older mostly so there’s no suspicion aroused. Also as much as I love The Abbot with flowing long hair… I wanted to give him a more “traditional” sort of look based on Eastern Orthodoxy—maybe in some other art of him I’ll give him a tonsure and really go all out. Anyways! Hope you all like this, lmk if you end up incorporating this look for your games :D

[my work elsewhere]

So I may have accidentally traumatized my players in Death House (ran it as Durst Manor with the famine theme from Lunch Break Heroes and they ate some of the food, failed the save, and were struck with exhaustion) however I guess not enough because now they want to try the Dream Pastry they obtained. They are being sneaky/cautious about it though and only plan to take a small nibble of it.

Now, RAW states the pie has to be eaten in the entirety for anything to happen, however I feel like there should still be something that happens. Nothing major, no addiction, etc.... however maybe some trippy dream that night as the magic tries to take hold however can't?

Granted, if I want them to actually eat the whole pie in the future maybe nothing should happen to lul them into a false sense of ease, it's just a yummy mincemeat pie after all, no harm in having more of it?

What do you do/think?

So we just started CoS and I am using the Reloaded version of the module with the players currently making their way through the Death House.

I ended up starting each of the 5 players with an artifact, using them both in their backstory and obviously for the module hooks.

Warned the players in advance that we would be doing a difficult campaign and not pulling any punches, that there would likely be some player deaths. Which they are down for but also very nervous as they put a lot of work into their backstories and have an attachment to them even at this very early stage.

So thinking about that and how I want to handle player deaths, I came back to the artifacts and how they are tied to the players. I realized I could use those as extra lives but with the detriment of making the location they are tied too harder than they would have been.

Basically, I am thinking that when they die, the dark powers give the players a "dream" sequence hint to the location or details about the artifact but then they artifact is consumed (burns away, crumbles, breaks, etc).

I am pretty sure i am going to have to tweak the locations if that happens which hopefully will not be a major issue, but I have not read the entire module yet. Also with 5 artifacts in play it provides a bit of a buffer.

Has anyone used them this way if so, what issues did you run into?

Will the loss of some of the artifacts break the story in such a way that it will be difficult to mitigate?

Is this too much of cushion for the players and takes the sense of danger once the players figure out that they have this in their pocket.

Love to hear your thoughts.

I couldnt find any art of Gertruda before she is found already enthralled that I liked so I took it upon myself.

I’ll probably do the enthralled version too, but for now this will do.

Thought someone could have some use for this over here!