Adapting Modules for Ravenloft

[HyperionSol]

I'm putting together ideas for adventuring in Ravenloft. Not for a linear campaign, but to have adventures in Ravenloft like in the older days of the game where game clubs would have a stable of characters. Basically, the group can have multiple adventurers depending on who is able to be at the table and who is DMing. These lines of stories can be followed and make for fun variation and keep anyone from burning out or allow people to play even if someone is not able to attend.

My call for ideas and/or suggestions is how would YOU adapt your favorite D&D adventure to Ravenloft? Not just 5E, but any edition of D&D you prefer or found your adventure in.

Anyway, here is the first of my ideas.

UK5 Eye of the Serpent (Available at DMSGuild)

Original: The party are picked up by Rocs and dropped in a nest on Hardway Mountain. In the nest, they see a plate that talks about an Eye of the Serpent and in the distance, at the end of a winding river, there is a sparkling light. The party must navigate their way down the mountain, dealing with the hazards. They reach the 'Eye' of the serpent and discover an underground chamber of Duergar before uncovering treasure and escaping to further adventure.

Requirement: A major requirement is a mountain with a nearby river set by some plains as according to the maps in the module.

Ravenloft: The mountain is one of the Mountains of Misery in Darkon, Mount Veduradeth in Nova Vaasa, or Mount Sawtooth in Barovia.

Rocs are not something I've seen in any Ravenloft adventure, but I think making goblin beast birds who are giant eagles or the like might be just as good as some gargantuan bird who fits more to Ravenloft's themes (Suggestions?). The top of the mountain is freezing and there are dead people, perhaps frozen victims of the birds who managed to escape. The frozen areas of the mountain can have signs of a Jack Frost hanging around.

The swamp regions are populated by Bullywugs in the original module. If the adventure takes place in Hazlan, they could be survivors of magical experiments, being more savage and cruel than normal bullywugs. In other lands, they may be savages of some kind.

At the Serpent's Eye island, the Duergar could be a tribe who found themselves in Ravenloft and began trying to survive, forming a snake cult based off the snake effigies in their fort. The potential for being sinister is rather potent.

Perhaps I might cut down the amount of treasure and focus more on wilderness survival to boost the idea of the party struggling to survive rather than just having a wilderness exploration and finding treasure.

Of course, I always know it's how you tell the story along with how you set the mood and not just what you populate it with.

So if you have a favorite adventure, how would you adapt it to Ravenloft, if it isn't a Ravenloft adventure already?

[Speedwagon]

I'm not as familiar with old modules as I am with 5e ones but looking at the current ones available, I can think of a few ways to use certain elements in some modules for Ravenloft, namely:
-Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus: The Mad Max style of Avernus would make it fun to use with 5e Hazlan. There's also the initial opening at Baldur's Gate and rooting out cultists of the Dead Three that is meant to relate to the greater plot of the adventure regarding what happened to Elturel and making sure that it doesn't happen to Baldur's Gate. That entire section can be reskinned and reflavored to being pressed by Barovian boyars in annexed Gundarak to root out cultists of Erlin. The Blood War elements regarding the demons and devils can be used in tandem with the Fiends already within Ravenloft. The map of the High Hall Cathedral in Elturel can be used for other cathedrals in Ravenloft as well. Some of the nightmarish portions of Avernus can be used as dreamscapes for the Nightmare Lands or even Bluetspur.
-Candlekeep Mysteries: A lot of the stories in this compendium lend themselves to Ravenloft with some tweaking. In fact, I'm pretty sure someone on these forums (I think Mephisto) gave a bunch of suggestions for Candlekeep-esque institutions in the Misty Realm for players to visit and get baited on hooks with.
-Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep: Don't own this one so I can't speak on it.
-Curse of Strahd: Self-explanatory
-Dragons of Icespire Peak: Don't own this one or the other adventures associated with it like Divine Contention, so I can't speak on it.
-Ghosts of Saltmarsh: This has a lot of Ravenloft potential. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh can be put in places like Mordent or Souragne or Dementlieu or anywhere with a coastline, really. Salvage Operation is a great adventure to be repurposed for Ravenloft; the noble could be from Nova Vaasa and the adventure is on the Nocturnal Sea. There's great Lovecraftian potential for The Styes. Isle of the Abbey and Tammeraut's Fate would also be great fits. The Final Enemy would work excellently for a Van Richten's Guide to Horrors from the Deep.
-Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Some of the maps and smaller encounters can be used for roadside encounters or dungeon crawls.
-Hunt for the Thessalhydra: Don't own this one so I can't speak on it.
-Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden: An excellent resource for Vorostokov and Sanguinia and Lamordia. The Ten-Towns all have enough character that some reskinning can make them memorable enough to players that they can get attached to the locations (and what happens to them). Auril's island can be added to the Isles of Agony. The glacier and Netherese city can be added to the Sleeping Beast Mountains (the part that touches Darkon a bit) and would make for interesting exploration material.
-Infernal Machine Rebuild: I got nothing unfortunately.
-Locathah Rising: Make it horror by...turning someone into a locathah?
-Lost Mine of Phandelver: ???
-Out of the Abyss: This can totally be repurposed into the Shadow Rift. The stat blocks for the Demon Lords could be used for certain Archfiends in Ravenloft already for a 5e incarnation (Ebonbane could be Fraz'Urb-Luu while the Gentleman Caller can be using Graz'zt's stat block). The NPCs in the book like the group of smart Underdark races including an Illithid would be fun to play around with. The rules on Underdark travel would be helpful for Bluetspur too. The Stone Giant library seems cool enough to put somewhere in Darkon perhaps?
-Princes of the Apocalypse: The elemental focus can be reflavored to Ravenloft's specific elementals. The idea of elemental enemies can be repurposed for the Shadowlands and Ebonbane's keys: gotta travel around the Phantasmal Forest and find the Elemental Princes, defeat them, collect the elemental weapons that contain a spark of their power and then use those weapons to keep up Ebonbane's seal. You can reflavor the Elemental Princes as manifestations of the elements used to create the blade of Ebonbane.
-Rise of Tiamat: If you like Dragons you can use this for Sithicus and any domains inspired by Dragonlance (idk maybe Falkovnia has a bunch of wyverns as native monsters and the Spawn of the Lizard is trying to bring in Tiamat and you're a bunch of Falkovnian soldiers tasked with stopping that).
-Rrakma: Great for Bluetspur I suppose.
-Storm King's Thunder: The locations and maps would be excellent to use for dark fantasy style domains like Darkon or Sithicus, especially with the focus on Giants. 5e Falkovnia suggests that it might not be zombies besieging the land but Giants, so this module lends itself to that repurposing pretty easily. The undersea section could go well with Virundus and the Drowning Deep just like The Final Enemy in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
-Tales from the Yawning Portal: White Plume Mountain would be great for Darkon. Dead in Thay can be repurposed to be The Tables in Hazlan. The Sunless Citadel can be put in any domain really, but Kartakass, Daglan, Forlorn and Valachan are good fits. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan can be a great fit for 5e Valachan or the previous fanon domains like Mictlan or Cumbre de Oro or Ukhu Pacha or Ixcapa. The Forge of Fury can be put anywhere with hills I suppose. Against the Giants fits the same niche and suggestions as Storm King's Thunder. Tomb of Horrors is Tomb of Horrors, so put it somewhere high level like a section of Darkon or Cavitius or Sithicus or something like that.
-The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: There's already a link between the lore in this module and the lore in VRGTR, what with the 2 carnivals and Isolde's enemy Zybilna being Iggwilv of Greyhawk lore. The other whimsies and lore of the Domains of Delight supplement that you can get on DM's Guild can enhance any game with the fey, so it might be worth using for the Shadow Rift, Keening, Tepest and other places.
-Tomb of Annihilation: The jungle setting lends itself well to 5e Valachan. It could also lend itself well to the Verdurous Lands Cluster in a few ways. The Dragon Turtle in the bay of Port Nyanzuru can fit in Saragoss as an enemy of Draga Salt-Biter (you can build a city on its back). Port Nyanzuru and other settlements can be repurposed for Sri Raji. The Yuan-Ti dungeons and presence can be used and related to the Hindi inspiration that Sri Raji pulls on in regards to the naga. And there's more than enough for the Wildlands. The dungeon Acererak sets up can be used in a lot of places. And more importantly, the Death Curse that Acererak puts on the world with his Soul Monger might be an idea worth stealing for 'Death' in Necropolis. Perhaps he figured out a way to one-up Azalin Rex by doing what Acererak did on the whole of the Core? It would certainly draw people to Necropolis, if only to put an end to 'Death's' plans.
-Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: An excellent resource for urban adventures and can definitely be repurposed for any of the more high culture domains like Richemulot, Borca, Dementlieu and so on, especially if you like a bit of mystery and intrigue.
-Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage: The concept of Alterdeep is practically a domain of dread in and of itself, and the Spelljammer links present in the module can be attached to Bluetspur. Otherwise, find a high magic/high fantasy/dark fantasy domain and run all of the Undermountain, or you can take whichever sections of Undermountain you like and put them in a domain of dread of your choosing.

[alhoon]

About Storm King's Thunder: SOME of the giant domains could serve as domains. Fire Giant Duke Zalto comes to mind. Others, like that Cloud Giant countess less so, in my opinion.

About Out of the Abyss: Many parts could serve as domains of Ravenloft; I could well bundle 3 of them together to form an underdark cluster.

[Speedwagon]

For Storm King's Thunder, I definitely agree about Duke Zalto's Ironslag HQ. Perhaps Jarl Storvald and his area would work well as an addition to the Frozen Reaches? Jarl Storvald violated the Ordning by becoming a Frost Giant Everlasting One, cursed to not only be afflicted with such an unsightly form but forever incapable of finding the Ring of Winter that he seeks? Maybe the Dark Powers took away his innate cold immunity and now he must bundle up to not freeze to death, making him looked down upon by the other Frost Giants behind his back (as he is still their jarl, horrible as he may be). It could be a welcome addition to the Frozen Reaches Cluster. The two daughters of King Hekaton that are of evil alignment could be interesting NPCs to add to the world, perhaps there are underwater politics in the Nocturnal Sea with Virundus that we don't know?

As for Out of the Abyss, I definitely agree that it has potential for Ravenloft. The whole Araumycos section could make for interesting horror stories, along with maybe adding the 'drow' back to the Arak/the Shadow Rift/Keening in some fashion. I look at the Duergar sometimes and think "Wow, here's a handy group of despots and laborers that Vlad Drakov would love to get his hands on to make weapons against Darkon".

[Mephisto of the FoS]

There are also many from Dungeon magazines.