[Let's Read] DM's Guild Ravenloft Sourcebooks

[Libertad]

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Product Type: Adventure
CoS-Required? No

Here we have an adventure taking place in the domain of Carnival, optimized for 3rd to 6th level characters. But the Dark Carnival isn’t like other adventures; it can be run as a multi-table event, where multiple DMs simultaneously run the same adventure for their own respective groups of players. There are rules and opportunities for one table to have an effect on the other tables as well. A Facilitator, or DM of DMs, helps move the game along at hourly intervals along with facilitating inter-table communication and interaction. The adventure can also be run as a single-table event, in which case the inter-table opportunities are removed.

The backdrop of the adventure is that the PCs have been hired by a certain notable organization in the Domains of Dread (the Kargat, a Vistani tribe, the Church of Ezra, etc) to go to the Carnival and retrieve mist talismans which are believed to be in the hands of the carnies. However, all is not fun and games, for Tindal the Barker is in reality (and unknown to even himself) a fetch, or a supernatural clone. His original self, the mage Tindafalus, is trapped in a mirror. Tindafalus is the “wicked half,” with the fetch being a kinder, more ideal version of the original. By making a deal with the domain’s darklord, Nepenthe, he has arranged for the minions of an archfey to kidnap several of the Carnival’s staff to infiltrate the domain with fetches set on freeing Tindafalus by kidnapping Tindal. Nepenthe hopes that violence will break out when Isolde the carnival ringleader returns, so that the darklord (who is an intelligent sword) will be wielded to enact a bloody slaughter.

The adventure is mini-game heavy, and every game plus the combat encounters have tables for scaling the challenges for groups of average party levels from 1st all the way up to 8th. For mini-games this changes the DC as well as damage for failure for some mini-games, while for combat it determines the number of enemies fought. There’s also a mechanic known as Hero Points introduced, where at certain times PCs can gain such points and spend them to add 1d6 to a d20 roll they make.

When the PCs first arrive they’ll be taken on a guided tour, able to explore the Carnival to a limited degree. There are enchanted funhouse mirrors reflecting the ideals, bonds, and flaws of characters. The DM can grant Inspiration for a PC who spends time explaining what the mirrors show. There’s also a marketplace that can sell equipment and vendors selling potions of Lost Memories which can instill the memories of other backgrounds and randomly determined ideals, bonds, and flaws (PCs who drink them gain a Hero Point). PCs who end up starting fights in the Carnival will be accosted by swashbuckler security guards, who will return once with reinforcements if the party manages to defeat them. Although reinforcements don’t arrive immediately and give PCs time to do some games, there is a penalty where the adventure fast-forwards to the next part (missing any remaining mini-games) as a horrified Tindal is still desperate to get whatever help he can get and contacts them immediately regarding his troubles.

Additionally, the mysterious patron who hired the PCs provides for in-game benefits in the form of specialized equipment which are lended, not given. For example, the Church of Ezra lends each PC a holy symbol which can cast misty step once per long rest, the Keepers of the Feather grant each PC a raven that can fly through the Mists to come to their aid in the form of a Hero Point, and the Ulmist Inquisition gives each PC a psi crystal which if attuned to grants telepathy to a range of 30 feet.



Part 1: Carnival Games covers the mini-games that take place before the big top event. There are 10 to participate in, and PCs need to win at least 4 games in order to impress Tindal and thus earn his confidence. Gaming groups can aid other tables via rolling to rig a game via Sleight of Hand or with Thieves’ Tools, giving the PCs of another table advantage on one d20 roll for that game. During the games, PCs can notice Clues indicating suspicious fetch activity; in lieu of performing poorly in the games, finding at least three Clues results in the same reward, as this impresses Tindal for their keen observations. The games all have some creepy risk of danger to separate them from normal carnie events: bobbing for apples has PCs roll Constitution saves as all but a few apples are poisoned (Perception to spot a safe one), dart balloons have the PCs draw quills from a spined devil to throw at balloons which impose random magical alterations to the thrower with every pop, a horse race allows PCs to choose from one of four supernatural horses (zombie horses are slower but overcome obstacles more easily, nightmares are fastest but their unruly nature increases the DC of obstacles, etc) where initiative is rolled to determine place in the race and Animal Handling or Acrobatics to avoid obstacles on the track, and a gorgon-riding contest requires a PC last at least 3 rounds bucking a gorgon as it tries to toss them off and petrify with its breath. One of the contests I really like is the PCs entering a giant sandbox to dig for buried treasure, where several treasure chests are mimic decoys who will bite an unlucky contestant. Winning a game gives a PC a random carnival prize, a 2d20 table of creepy and weird items that have no special properties or value.

Between games the PCs can have their fortunes read from a blind Vistani, where a list of vague premonitions are given on a randomly-rolled table and if one comes true during the adventure then that PC gains Inspiration. There’s also a Hall of Horrors containing escaped pickled monsters that will try to steal a random carnival prize from the PCs; tracking down and capturing them for the event’s manager gives the party the opportunity to learn more information. All in all, the mini-games are all quite clever, and the penalties and damages inflicted for failed attempts can offset the fact that many PCs participating at once increase the chances of winning a game.

PCs who earned Tindal’s trust will be informed that something is off, with him offering a pouch of mist talismans if they help him out.

Part 2: Big Top Show has the crowd move into the main tent of the Carnival. Tindal introduces the PCs to the crowd (they provide a team name or Tindal comes up with one on the spot), where they must impress the audience in at least two out of three acts. There are five acts by default to choose from, and PCs who succeed on rolls adjust the crowd’s overall attitude. More positive audiences lower the DC, but ones that get ornery end up harder to impress thereby raising the DC. For multi-table events, the total successes and failures of all tables per act determines the crowd’s mood on the next act. Tables can encourage the crowd to cheer on another table, granting the PCs of that table an Applause Point which can be spent to give one PC Inspiration.

The six acts are as follows: Chimera Tamer (PCs must handle the individual heads of an ornery chimera, with failures causing the monster to attack with those heads or a breath weapon if all PCs fail), Clown Comedians (undead clowns engage in violent slapstick with the PCs who must attack and dismember them in suitably entertaining ways), Sword Magicians (PCs enter coffins where an actress stabs flaming swords through the coffins), Tightrope Walkers (PCs tread a tightrope over a poisonous web while a mage conjures prismatic rings for them to jump through), Theater Troupe (PCs must put on a play with a wererat; failing the roll causes the wererat to bite a PC as a “surprise twist” to enliven a boring play), or Something New (an act not covered here with guidelines for setting it up).

Failures on each act carry some kind of consequence, as I mentioned for a few already. PCs who manage to entertain the crowd can take a short rest before the next event. Tindal will still promise a satchel of mist talismans either way, but on a failure only if they help clean up the stands for an hour which robs them of a rest opportunity.

Once Tindal returns with their reward, a group of fetches the PCs saw earlier via Clues ambushes the group, tossing shards of explosive glass and kidnapping Tindal. PCs who managed to see a Fetch acting suspicious earlier in the adventure have advantage on the Dexterity save to avoid the AoE damage.



Part 3: the Final Showdown is the combat-heavy portion of the adventure, being one climactic battle against a number of fetches whose stats and numbers are determined by the Average Party Level. The fetches are mirror images of the PCs, although one of them is the image of the hag Zuriñe, who is working for Nepenthe. Her fetch is the Chosen of Nepenthe and is wielding the sword in combat. The fetch is automatically attuned to the weapon (+3 greatsword or longsword damage depending on fetch strength that deals 2d10 bonus radiant damage against fiends and undead), and Nepenthe appears in the hands of another fetch if the one wielding him is slain. But it won’t be a straight fight; the fetch wielding the sword will offer the PCs a choice of a carnival game to revisit, which affects the battlefield based on the carnival game from Chapter 1. For example, choosing Apple Bobbing gives the fetches poisoned apples they can throw as a ranged weapon attack, Horse Race has the fetches mounted on horse monsters whose stat block is determined by APL, etc. PCs can trigger inter-table events, some of which can give the other parties a benefit but in some cases trigger equal-opportunity multitarget effects.

The fetches are new monsters in this adventure, and we have stat blocks for Lesser and Greater varieties. Fetches have the mirrored appearance of another, and they have advantage on certain skill checks vs their doppelganger. They can enter, exit, and teleport between reflective surfaces which grants them a free use of the Stealth skill, and breaking a reflection in which the fetch resides deals damage as they are forcefully shunted into another nearby one or the nearest unoccupied space. They also explode in a burst of damaging glass on defeat.

If the PCs are victorious, then Tindafalus’ reflection will appear in the shattered remains of the fetches, spilling the beans on his trapped fate and his scheme. Tindal the Barker has no memory of the split, so both believe themselves to be the “real one.” It is up to the PCs whether to keep Tindafalus imprisoned or replace him with Tindal; in the case of a multi-table event, it is put up to a majority vote. Either way, the kidnapped carnies are rescued, the Carnival celebrates the PCs’ actions, and they are able to leave the domain a satchel of mist tokens richer. They’re also given the invitation to be honorary carnies, having a home in Carnival should they desire.

If the PCs fail, then the carnival ringleader Isolde arrives, wrestling Nepenthe from the fetches and slaughtering them. The kidnapped carnies are freed from their mirror prisons, and Isolde tells the PCs to leave the carnival before she changes her mind in showing them mercy. But before the Mists claim them, Nepenthe bestows on each PC a Dark Gift as a “reward,” whether the PCs want one or not (it can be chosen by the players or rolled randomly, DM’s discretion). In the event that a PC already has a Dark Gift, they can choose to keep their original or replace it with a new result.

The book ends with a bunch of helpful appendices, containing stats for the new fetches as well as monsters reprinted from official sourcebooks that are in the adventure, Dramatis Personae on the major NPCs, advice on how to run multi-table adventures, the tables for the Tarokka fortunes and carnival prizes, handouts for poster and ticket artwork, and maps of the carnival and the big top tent.

Overall Thoughts: I like this adventure a lot. I don’t know how easy it is to run in a multi-table event, but as a single-group adventure it can make for a fun change of pace from the more combat-heavy dungeon crawls that predominate D&D. The rewards for a victory can be useful for spiriting the party to other domains of dread the DM has an interest in running, and the imposition of Dark Gifts in lieu of a TPK can still serve as a penalty depending on the Gift in question. It also has the benefit of giving future hooks in either getting rid of the Dark Gifts or stopping Nepenthe’s wicked designs in a future quest. The carnival games and attractions are varied and interesting enough to make for an adventure that can keep the players guessing as to what will happen next.

On the note for the major villain, I feel that the loss stakes are a bit too low; the Dark Gift penalties really only affect the PCs, and the fetches die either way. I suppose Isolde becomes more corrupted in using Nepenthe, but that isn’t exactly evident in the adventure as is or what I read in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, so to PCs not familiar with the setting may feel that a victory/defeat didn’t make all that much difference. Even on a loss, Tindafalus is still trapped, and given he’s more evil than Tindal his imprisonment may not be that bad of a thing depending on how one feels about supernatural incarceration.

Join us next time as we take a walk on the other side in an adventure where the Devil’s Brides are the star of the show in a Curse of Strahd campaign gone sideways!

[Libertad]

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Product Type: Adventure
CoS-Required? Technically no, but ties in heavily to the adventure

Note: the Tarokka Deck reviews were for another thread type I did a while ago (Mini-Games and Sub-Systems) so this is why the reviews may seem "out of order" in not reviewing the Devil's Brides next.

When it comes to the Ravenloft setting, the Tarokka Deck is perhaps as iconic as Strahd Von Zarovich himself. It plays a prominent role in each of the classic modules featuring the vampire count, from the original I6 to the current Curse of Strahd. By determining major factors of the adventure from the allies the PCs can recruit to the placement of important items in the module, it adds a sort of randomness to the composition of the castlecrawl.*

*Like a dungeoncrawl, but in a castle!

And yet, this method of plot generation hasn’t seen much use for more general-purpose adventures in the Land of Mists or other settings. Madam Eva’s Tarokka Deck of Friends, Foes, and Fortunes expands this concept into procedurally-generated short adventures. The NPCs and plots make specific references to elements in the Curse of Strahd modules, although many of them are generic enough to be repurposed for other adventures. There are 40 unique NPCs in this book, each corresponding to a “common” card of the Tarokka deck, whose role in the story can differ depending on whether the cards mark them as friend, foe, or quest-giver.

Basically, the DM separates the Tarokka Deck into a Common Deck of suites (hearts/glyphs, diamonds/coins, etc) and a High Deck of major cards (jack, queen, king, and joker cards). Between gaming sessions the DM draws three cards from the Common Deck in unconventional orders. The results will generate one NPC who plays a role in the Objective (patron, quest-giver, etc), another as a Friend to serve as their ally, and a final card as a Foe to hinder the party’s progress. The High Deck is typically drawn from zero to three times and provides optional setbacks, twists, and overall complications to the plot and which modify one of the Common Deck NPCs.

As the book’s entire contents can be accessed via the preview option on the Guild page and detailing every character would be beyond the scope of this review, I’ll instead cover the cards in broad strokes while highlighting some of the more interesting results.

The High Deck cards are not meant to provide results on their own so much as add something to an NPC that is not part of their default entry. The results are rather open-ended in what they can do, although some have more specific effects such as particular monsters. Some of the more interesting results include Dark Lord (the NPC is secretly in service to Strahd or an appropriate Dark Lord), Ghost (the NPC is an undead but is unaware of their state or how they came to be so, along with a list of small enhancements to a stat block), Innocent (the NPC has good intentions for their goals in this particular adventure, even if they overall aren’t good-aligned), and Mists (the Mists gradually close in on the PCs during their mission, spawning monsters if they tarry for too long or are slow in their progress).

One particular result, the Artifact, makes the NPC be in possession of a powerful artifact, with a list of existing suggested ones as well as a new one: Madam Eva’s Tarokka Deck. This particular deck is actually of legendary rarity rather than being an artifact proper, and is drawn from like the Deck of Many Things save that the results are one of the 14 High Deck cards. The results vary from beneficial to deleterious, and some of them are pretty cool. Darklord for example, has the card-drawer gain a temporary audience with Strahd in a conjured demiplane where he is obligated to answer a question or perform a favor that won’t be harmful to him.

The Cards of Swords are themed around those driven to fight and otherwise pursue a life of violence. They include such figures as Arlenna Naskovna the militia woman-turned-werewolf; the lumberjack Theodosia Hezekiah who finds herself barely in control to a building anger that seems to lie in wait like an opportunistic monster; an undead vigilante known as the Hood who believes that adventurers are a plague on Barovia whose quests and activities bring collateral damage to innocent villagers; and a cursed warrior known as They of Battle forced to serve as the embodiment of war and is enthralled to their hellspawned nightmare mount.

The Cards of Stars are those people who are touched in some way by magic, even if they themselves do not wield the arts of spellcasting. They include the four-armed drow Eve “Four-Hands” Heron who finds her new life as a hedge witch in Barova preferable to the unspoken horrors of the Underdark; the tiefling Magdalene Zajic who believes that a dread entity lurks in one of Barovia’s lakes and gathered a group of followers to worship and protect it; and the doppelganger Prosopon whose discovery of souls being trapped in Barovia drove them insane, and thus seeks to “free” these unfortunate people by taking on as much of a victim’s identity before killing them.

The Cards of Coins are those who engage in trade, artisanship, and the various tasks necessary for the maintenance and upkeep of feudal fantasy living. They include the swashbuckling skeptic Melusine Ember who doesn’t believe in monsters and believes them to be trickery and superstition with the culprit being human evil instead; the skilled thief Indra Sejdrescu who is in indentured servitude to a nobleman for being caught in the act; the conflicted and semi-corrupted tax collector Henly Beumont who earnestly seeks to use funds to improve the lot of Barovia’s commoners but finds the accumulated wealth too tempting not to indulge in; and the Scroogelike Drisden Von Polvinch who forged a pact with the Dark Powers for wealth and luxury, but found himself eternally haunted by three warring ghosts who all seek to use him for their own ends.

The Cards of Glyphs detail those who don’t fit anywhere else or who otherwise have unique magical features. They include the gnomish shepherd Omolara who discovered the secret to herding a huge clowder of cats and hires themselves out to villages as a ratcatcher; the firbolg revolutionary Szandor Zadijic who sought to overthrow Strahd only to end up shackled in the middle of a village to starve to death as a witness lesson to all who follow in his footsteps; and the vampire priest Athan Caltvic who pretends to be a redeemed monster in service to the Morninglord but still feeds on blood via the use of medical leeches.

All of these NPCs have roughly 1 to 1.25 pages devoted to their backstory, personality traits, and overviews for Objective adventures, the assistance they can provide as a Friend, and why they’d oppose the PCs as a Foe. The potential adventures can provide a lot of variety and inspiration for a DM. For example, let’s do a randomly-generated reading right now:

We draw the 3 of Stars, ending up with the half-elf enchanter Aelwen as the Objective, the 2 of Swords for the paladin Sir Reginold Dawnbreak as the Friend, and the Master of Coins for Luciel Menze as our Foe. And just to make things interesting, we’ll draw a High Deck card for the Friend: the Executioner.

So from these results, Aelwen tries to sell some potions to the party in the village of Vallaki, and then confiding that her pet pig Henry can answer questions in the form of prophecies via causing temperature fluctuations in water (steam for yes, iced over for no, undisturbed if unclear). She uses a free demonstration to prove its foresight, and requests the party to escort her and Henry to the Wizard of Wines for safety in fear that Strahd’s minions will use the pig for foul ends.

Our good friend Sir Reginold Dawnbreak is a traveling paladin and servant of the Morninglord, who is impulsive and is more at home in solving straightforward problems like smiting undead rather than more morally complicated scenarios. Aelwen’s task isn’t exactly his strong suit, but it would be beneath him to let such a potent tool fall into the hands of evil.

Our foe is Luciel Menze, a local guide who specializes in learning and selling the secrets of the rich due to his family being ruined at the hands of the Wachter family of Vallaki…or so his story goes. A pig which can predict the future would be a massive asset to Menze’s operations, so it’s no question that he’d try to claim the swine for himself. It’s nothing personal, merely business.

As for Sir Reginold Dawnbreak, the Executioner indicates that death’s door lurks close to him, either due to a desire to slay someone or to be slain themselves. Perhaps he’s become victim to a necrotic disease eating away at his body, or must find and slay a particular monster before it can complete a ritual to destroy an innocent soul. So a powerful divination spell can point him in the right direction for a rescue or cure, which will make him eager to get Henry to safety in Vallaki so that the animal can perform its work without the threat of sabotage.

All this took was the drawing of four cards and a few minutes of thought in linking the NPCs together.

Thoughts: Madam Eva’s Tarokka Deck of Friends, Foes, and Fortunes is a short yet indispensably useful addition to coming up with short quests on the fly. It can be adopted for non-Ravenloft campaigns with minimal tweaking (although still hews closely to horror and dark fantasy), and many of the NPCs can be useful characters for adventure ideas on their own outside of the quest-generating card system.

[Libertad]

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Product Type: Character Options
CoS-Required? No

Here we have another product that seeks to make the Tarokka deck a more frequent element in Ravenloft games. But whereas Madam Eva’s Tarokka Deck of Friends, Foes, & Fortune was focused largely on adventure generation, the Tarokka Critical Hit Deck covers combat. In-universe, the idea is that the Dark Powers have an inordinate interest in the PCs, and their influence can be called upon during momentous times.

These rules split the deck in two: 40 cards from the Common Deck, and 14 cards from the High Deck. Cards from the Common Deck can be drawn whenever a character rolls a natural 20 on an attack roll, and only one card can be drawn per turn save for “legendary situations.” The Common Deck is player-facing, meaning that only players draw from it unless they ask the DM to do so. The effects of a card are applied in addition to the normal results for a critical hit (usually double damage) rather than replacing it. A few modify the critical hits, albeit for the better; the 6 of Swords has you roll the weapon damage dice three times instead of two if attacking with a melee weapon.

The High Deck’s cards are drawn only by the Dungeon Master, and should be reserved for dramatically appropriate situations. Such as at the start of combat or when a PC rolls a natural 1 on an important task. Once a High Deck card is drawn and effects applied, it is put face-up at the bottom of the deck and that particular card can never be used more than once per session; replicated results weaken the impact.

Swords/Spades are themed around martial and physical might. Around half the cards deal additional damage, grant additional effects if the hit was a melee attack, and two of them have effects dependent on a certain equipment type. Some interesting results include the 3 of Swords (+2d6 damage, an ally with a shield can move up to their speed and make a free shove attack against the target), the 8 of Swords (choose an ally that can hear you to gain a d12 Bardic Inspiration die), and the Master of Swords (melee attack deals +20 damage, ignoring resistance and immunity).

Stars/Clubs draw upon the powers of magic and are accompanied by supernatural effects. Three of the cards grant additional damage on top of the base effect if the attack was a spell. Some interesting results include the 1 of Stars (target that doesn’t have Legendary Actions turns into a random trinket if they fail a DC 13 Constitution save), the 4 of Stars (instantly learn HP, resistances, and vulnerabilities of one enemy that you can see), and the Master of Stars (1-10 on a d20 has you roll on Wild Magic Surge table, 11-20 lets a creature of choice to regain one low-level spell slot).

Coins/Diamonds play off the power of greed and in wanting more things. Seven of the cards can cause the loss, gain, or trade of an item, or allow for/require the attacker or target to pay gold pieces to cause or resist an effect. Some interesting results include the 5 of Coins (every creature present loses 5 gold or takes 10 force damage if they can’t pay the cost), 8 of Coins (a ghost appears demanding tribute, dealing 1d100 damage minus the amount of gold paid to one ally and one creature of choice), and the Master of Coins (+3d6 damage, bonus damage dice are maximized if target is unaware or done as part of a sneak attack).

Glyphs/Hearts are themed around faith, religion, and holiness. Three of the cards grant beneficial healing effects to the card-drawer and/or allies, and two have additional effects against undead targets. Some interesting results include the 5 of Glyphs (cast a concentration-free Spike Growth spell), the 7 of Glyphs (target is Charmed by you and your allies for 1 turn unless they are immune to the condition or have Legendary Actions), and the 9 of Glyphs (target attacks one of its allies on its next turn or falls prone if they cannot do this action).

The High Deck is made up of 14 cards. If using standard playing cards, they are the Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Joker cards (Aces are the Master cards). The book advises to never draw from this deck with the intention of punishing PCs. “They are meant to enrich the game, not torment your party.” Several of the cards do impose negative conditions, so I take it that the punishment is meant more for metagaming reasons.

Some interesting results include the Darklord (shadows of the environment take pieces of the PC’s own shadows away; non-evil creatures present lose 5 HP, a single evil creature on the same plane gains the total as temporary hit points for 1 year), the Horseman (a spectral warhorse ridden by a headless corpses rushes through the area, knocking prone and dealing damage to those in its path), the Mists (Fog Cloud spell effect, but up to 1 mile and people within can see grasping vaporous hands), and the Tempter (character hears a voice granting them knowledge of learning the single answer to a question pertaining the past or present by dealing 5d10 damage to a willing creature, and if the question involves a creature’s weakness their next attack deals 1d100 necrotic damage to that creature).

Thoughts: The Critical Hit Deck is a pretty nifty feature, albeit a rather high-magic one that may not necessarily be appropriate for all Ravenloft groups. I do like the variety in critical hit possibilities so that you don’t ever really know what you’ll get when drawing. And besides some results from Coins, the vast majority of cards have no downsides or double-edged sword bargains. That role goes to the High Deck, and given how it’s restricted to DM Fiat, that prevents the default rules from feeling like a burden to the players.

[Libertad]

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Product Type: Adventure
CoS-Required? Sort of (takes place in a timeline where the PCs failed)

The Devil’s Brides is a special kind of adventure, one meant to take place after a failed Curse of Strahd campaign. In it, the players take control of the Brides of Strahd plus Escher and a now-undead Ireena Kolyana who decide to overthrow Barovia’s Darklord. Something about the PCs penetrated their icy hearts, causing them to be done with Strahd’s abusive and domineering ways. There are 6 pregenerated character sheets, and all of them are level 8 and of the dhampir race instead of using their NPC stat blocks from the adventure. Although PCs can die in a variety of ways, the Devil’s Brides presumes that certain things are true: that Strahd’s brides are alive for this module, the PCs were personally murdered by Strahd, and the Sunsword was obtained by Strahd’s agents after his victory to be put in the Von Zarovich’s Family Tomb.

As for how the pregenerated PCs are built, Anastrasya Kerelova is a Fiend Pact Warlock with Pact of the Tome along with some defensive invocations (Armor of Shadows, Fiendish Vigor) and Misty Visions. Her spells are predictably offensive, ranging from Hellish Rebuke, Eldritch Blast, Armor of Agathys, and Counterspell. Oddly she has False Image and Silent Image listed among spells known, when her invocation can make her cast both at will. Perhaps they combined spells known from normal warlock progression with invocations? That seems to be the case.

Escher is an Arcane Trickster Rogue with the Green Flame Blade cantrip to go along with his melee weapons. He specializes in enchantment and illusion spells such as Hideous Laughter, Disguise Self, and Invisibility.

Ireena Kolyana is a boring Champion Fighter and is really only good in melee combat.

Ludmilla Vilsevic is a Cleric with the Grave Domain, and she has a useful array of offensive and defensive spells: Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Dispel Magic, Death Ward, and Bless to name a few.

Volenta Popofsky is an Oath of Conquest Paladin built for melee with the Dueling Fighting Style. Her Paladin spells are mostly defensive in nature but include Branding Smite and Magic Weapon, useful for those not using the Sunsword.

Gertruda is a College of Spirits Bard but her sheet mislabels her as a Grave Cleric. Her spells mostly hew towards buffs such as Heroism, Enhance Ability, and Greater Invisibility, but she also knows Silence, Polymorph, and the ever-useful Dispel Magic and Healing Word.

Every notable class feature (including the Spirits Bard’s Tales From Beyond) is repeated in relevant text boxes, along with backstories for each PC for tips on how to RP them.

The adventure starts off with the DM asking each player a series of questions illuminating the face-heel-turn of the PCs: who one of the adventurers reminded them of, how did one of them defy Strahd even in the face of death, how they were kind to that vampire, etc. There’s also a sidebar for what the Brides would know about Castle Ravenloft given their long-time residency, and the module presumes that they know about the Heart of Sorrow and the hazards of the castle to move harmlessly from room to room. Strahd will be nonviolent at first and try to leverage information from them by interviewing them separately and also attempt to gain a promise of future loyalty if he begins to suspect that they’re up to something. As for the pacing of rests, short rests are shortened to 10 minutes instead of 1 hour, with the assumption that the party will have only 1 short rest in order to beat Strahd. After they destroy the Heart of Sorrow, he won’t politely wait for them to continue plotting his destruction.

Thus, the Devil’s Brides covers only a fraction of Castle Ravenloft’s rooms, focusing on a few that are bound to be major plot points. While neither Strahd nor the other castle inhabitants start out hostile, actions performed by the PCs can raise his suspicion over time, which can eventually cause him to take action. The adventurer’s corpses can be looted of basic and silvered weapons along with Potions of Healing, and the Sunsword lies within the tomb of Strahd’s father. The tomb can be lifted quietly with Athletics, although failing the roll will result in a loud endeavor and tip other inhabitants off that the tomb was defiled. As for Strahd, he is in a rather pleased mood, deciding to rest in the coffin of his tomb. PCs able to sneak past his passive Perception can obtain his bloody wedding ring (a new magic item that can grant 2 adult willing humanoisd +2 to AC for 7 days while they remain within 30 feet), and Strahd can be interacted with if roused. He’ll ask for healing magic from Ludmilla, which can be used to distract him to get his ring, although refusing to heal him raises his suspicion. A portrait room contains a Rug of Smothering which is harmless, but the real danger is a Guardian Portrait monster (which can be defeated in combat or negotiated with) concealing a hidden compartment with a Scroll of Bless. Visiting Strahd’s bedroom can discover a crumpled-up sleeping robe, which some of the PCs will realize is unusually careless of Strahd for he was attempting to unlock the wardrobe before he got word of the Castle being invaded. The module doesn’t say what’s in the locked wardrobe. Varushka the former maid-turned-wraith hates the Brides and can be found in the bathroom, and can alternatively be fought to a surrender or gain her trust via Persuasion to share information about hidden treasure.



The Heart of Sorrow must be destroyed in order to slay Strahd once and for all, and the location and means of fighting it are similar save that it has more Hit Points (75 instead of 50) and can cast the Wall of Flame spell every time it’s attacked. The Heart upon taking damage will attract the attention of other Castle inhabitants, such as Barovian Witches and a Night Hag.

But before this happens, the Dark Powers will reach out to the Brides, granting them unique Dark Gifts if they accept the deal to become the new Darklord(s) of Barovia after defeating Strahd. The base Gifts from Curse of Strahd can be used, and there’s 6 new ones such as an empowered bite attack, casting Death Ward or Legend Lore 3 times per day, gaining the Inspiring Leader feat, or coming back to life and trading out Dhampir for another race. Destroying the Heart of Sorrow gives the party the Shard of Sorrow. This is a new magic item that allows a character to expend Hit Die into the shard as part of a short rest like a Ring of Spell Storing, up to 25 hit points total, and any amount can heal the bearer as an action. But as the party will not have any more rests (long or short) upon destroying the Heart of Sorrow, this item can’t really be used.

After destroying the Heart, Strahd will form a message written in blood, telling the party to meet him “where I gave you my greatest gift.” This is the Chapel, and at this point randomly-determined magical traps and obstacles will hinder the party’s progress as the Darklord turns the Castle against them. Hurled household objects, animated armor monsters, crushing rooms, and a vampire spawn maid desperate to prove her love by attacking the Brides are the sample obstacles. The final battle takes place in the decrepit Chapel, with Strahd dramatically lighting a match and then extinguishing it as he does the classic “you’re making me do this” line beloved by abusers everywhere. Although he intends to destroy the Brides, he will attempt to sow doubt and dissension. For example, he may remind Gertruda of her troubled mortal life and how she has nothing to return to, and if any of them made a promise of loyalty earlier when his suspicion was raised he’ll bring that up to make the others doubt that PC’s intentions. Again, another opportunity to make a deal with the Dark Powers is provided, and can be done as an action in combat.

There are 3 different endings, complete with their own boxed text. If the PCs defeated Strahd they will each gain 4 extra permanent hit points as thanks from the souls of the departing adventurers. If the players wish to continue adventuring as the former Brides of Strahd, they can level up to 9th level and that the DM may or may not have the new magic items require attunement from then on out.

Making a deal with the Dark Powers results in the Brides feeling unafraid and alive for the first time in forever as the new masters of the domain. “The King is dead. Long live the Queen.”

If they didn’t make a deal they will walk off into the Mists, afraid and excited with a new revelation that they are free and have each other for a new life to live. “Strahd is dead, and you are free.”

If the PCs are defeated, they are looking down at Castle Ravenloft as spirits from a bird’s eye view as Strahd recovers from his wounds. They realize a familiar presence within the surrounding Mists, of their friends. This inspires them in spite of defeat, knowing that while Strahd is a monster who cannot and will not change in all these centuries, the Brides have. Upon realizing their earlier struggle, they know that they will never be alone again, and next time they may win. “Strahd lives - but so do you.”

We get a repeat of Strahd’s stat block, along with a new magic item that isn’t referenced anywhere else in the module: the Armor of Midnight is a medium adamantine armor that is effectively a breastplate in terms of AC and can turn all critical hits into normal hits. Once per long rest the wearer may cast Fear as an action, and the effect recharges without the need for a rest if the armor negates a critical hit.

Overall Thoughts: The Devil’s Brides is a clever idea in allowing gaming groups to continue in the face of a TPK, but I’m not sure how easy to run or satisfying it may be. The Brides are notably lower level than equivalent-level parties would be in storming Castle Ravenloft, and besides the Sunsword and scant treasures they likely don’t have the advantage of a campaign’s worth of accumulated magic items from Curse of Strahd to help turn the tables. The book only really works narratively for PCs who died battling Strahd in Castle Ravenloft, which only makes it useful near the end of such a campaign. Still, it’s much better than springing this halfway or early on where a TPK may not sting as much, so I can’t complain about that as much.

Join us next time as we solve the murder of the Demiplane of Dread’s most famous monster hunter in Van Richten Dies in Ravenloft!

[Libertad]

Product Link
Product Type: Adventure
CoS-Required? No, but can tie into it.

Curse of Strahd is one of the most well-known modules for 5th Edition, and the Death House introductory adventure is almost as well known among hapless newcomers. It is also a highly lethal adventure even by the standards of the campaign, which has led to a number of alterations and revisions over the years.

Van Richten Dies in Ravenloft is an alteration to that module, albeit it removes the subterranean level in favor of remaining purely aboveground. The major change to the plot is that the hook for Death House is finding Rudolf Van Richten dead on the front steps, and the party ends up in telepathic contact with him once they pick up his Ring of Mind Shielding. Once they do that, Van Richten serves as a comedic narrator to help guide them through the dungeon with some helpful advice. In this version of Death House, the house is a sentient malicious being who happened to gain the journal of Rudolf Van Richten as a rare prize after causing his death. The PCs can obtain that journal, either by stealing it themselves and risking the House’s wrath or by making a deal to return to the House with Strahd’s journal as a fair trade.

This is the body of Doctor Rudolph Van Richten, a noted vampire hunter and writer of storied guides to creatures of the night. Most importantly: he’s dead. There is no discernible cause of death. He wears a hat of disguise and ring of mind shielding (Appendix A). In his bag, he carries two potions of healing (Appendix A). Because Van Richten died while wearing the ring of mind shielding, his soul is now housed inside it, and he can telepathically communicate with any creature wearing or holding it. The ring emits a soft, blue light that slowly pulses, the pulses getting closer together the closer a creature is to the ring. Once a creature touches the ring, they immediately hear the deep, rich voice of an older man, which—perhaps too cheerily—says, “Why hello there! I guess I’m dead, then.” The ring does not light up again unless Van Richten feels he is being ignored or has something urgent to relay, in which case it flashes rapidly.

Already I’m spotting a potential problem. While it’s standard procedure for adventurers to grab valuable jewelry, there are some groups who may mistake the pulse for a trap and avoid the major change to the module entirely. They could also make the realization that a man just died, and being seen rifling through his belongings would be perceived by potential bystanders as evidence of guilt.

A good portion of Van Richten Dies in Ravenloft is the same as Death House, but with several changes. The ghostly children of Rose and Thorn aren’t present, and the House’s monsters and traps are altered. The hunter’s den (room 3) conceals a bear trap, the kitchen (4) is home to an animated flying knife,* there’s a spear trap in the servants’ room (7), the secret room contains Van Richten’s journal instead of the letter from Strahd (9) and there’s no spell scroll treasure, a ghostly harp in the conservatory (10) can trigger ghostly applause on a successful Performance check or a collapsing bench dealing damage on a failed result, a suit of animated armor attacks the PCs in the balcony (11), the nursemaid’s suite (15) has been converted to a guest suite, the attic hall (16) has a tripwire trap linked to position crossbows, there’s no specter in the storage room (18), there’s a replica dollhouse in the playroom (20) which if examined via Investigation can reveal replicas of all the traps in the house and PCs advance to 2nd level when they find the key to the secret room (9), and the secret stairs (21) lead to other areas in the Death House rather than to the subterranean level.

*The flying knife has stats similar to an animated knife, but has more hit points (17 as opposed to 12) and its basic attack deals more damage (1d8+1 vs 1d4+1).

Upon gaining Van Richten’s journal, a loud scream echoes through the house, causing a nearby book to fall over and spelling out a warning by Death House.

Damned thieves! The treasures of this house are not yours. They are the history of this land and our dread lord, and you defile this archive with your clumsy fingers and footsteps.

However, you have proven you have some ability, and so I offer this: in exchange for your lives and in no longer than two tendays, return to me with Dr. Rudolph van Richten’s journal, your own travelogue, and the dread lord’s account of his life and unlife. Sign in blood or I will spill it all.

At this point the PCs can try to make a deal. If they agree to find Strahd’s journal, they will be allowed to leave the house as the bricked-up windows become open again and all of the remaining traps are disabled. But if not, they will need to escape like in the original module, with the doors being replaced by slashing scythe-blades and rooms with heating systems (oven, stove, or fireplace) are filled with poisonous black smoke. Additionally, unlike in the original module, destroying a 5 foot section of wall (which are now brittle) summons a specter to attack the PCs. PCs that manage to escape the house reach 3rd level.

Strahd’s journal is in fact the Tome of Strahd. If returned, the Death House will be as good as its Lawful Evil word, and provide the PCs the original deed to the house. This effectively gives the party a place to stay, and the House will also give them free food for more tales of Ravenloft not yet archived in its library. The House can use its internal magic to perform all kinds of various domestic chores to make it a suitable living space. But if PCs make a deal and don’t or can’t uphold their end of the bargain, they’re plagued by restless sleep which imposes a permanent 3 levels of exhaustion until they uphold the oath.

However the PCs solve the mystery, Van Richten will be willing to act as a mentor from then on out, and grants his leave for the PCs to keep the magical items found on his corpse (not that he had any means of enforcing this). He can also suggest they journey to find his protege Ez d’Avenir or otherwise find a means of resurrecting him.

That is, if this module is being played as part of Curse of Strahd. At which point you may also wonder how Van Richten’s death affects the Artifact result from the Tarokka High Deck. In such a case, the PC’s ally against Strahd is Blinsky the toymaker, who is very obviously a huge downgrade from Van Richten for he has Commoner stats.

Overall Thoughts: Van Richten Dies in Ravenloft is still a lethal dungeon crawl, particularly if the PCs don’t have reliable means of detecting or disabling traps. But it is shorter and less monster-filled than the original module and there’s quite a bit less treasure as a result, particularly for the more potent items such as the silvered shortsword, Cloak of Protection, and spellbook in the cultist quarters. It’s meant to be more light-hearted than the default module, including Van Richten’s surprisingly nonchalant response to his own death setting the mood, which may be a subjective taste.

It can be run as a one-shot, although for a Curse of Strahd campaign I’m not too excited about the longer-term changes it would make. It gives the party’s Van Richten’s Journal far earlier than they would ordinarily get it, as opposed to finding it in his tower when they likely had more of a chance to interact with Rictavio in Vallaki and possibly Ez as a natural buildup. Secondly the great importance Madam Eva places on the Tome of Strahd means that a lot of groups may not wish to trade for it once they find out about it, at which point the 3 level exhaustion is far more of a debilitating drawback than the default Death House’s dangers. Additionally, the swapping of Van Richten as an ally for Blinsky is a letdown, and even if the PCs desired to have the legendary monster hunter alive and kicking the rarity of NPCs and treasure with access to resurrection in the module means it likely won’t happen any time soon.

Join us next time as we learn useful tips and tricks for running a better Curse of Strahd in the Barovia Gazetteer: Collected Edition!

[Libertad]

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Product Type: DMing Tools
CoS-Required? Yes

Just about every official megacampaign has online guides for how to optimally run it. Curse of Strahd’s popularity means that it has quite a number of such guides. The r/curseofstrahd subreddit has two notable ones, Fleshing Out Curse of Strahd and Curse of Strahd Reloaded. Many guides, including these, also give supplementary content not present in the original module. The Barovia Gazetteer by Marc Singer is a similar series, albeit a professionally-designed product on the Dungeon Master’s Guild. In addition to having its own material, the book makes reference to other online articles complete with embedded URL links for expanding beyond the contents inside. I like this touch, for it shows that the book wasn’t just one person’s thoughts in isolation but is pulling from a variety of voices for Curse of Strahd.

Introduction outlines the Gazetteer’s mission statement: to provide dungeon masters with additional resources in the form of bonus scenarios, encounters, fleshing out of characters, and background information to allow for a more immersive campaign while making things easier for said DMs. The guide goes over typical stuff (session zero discussion on campaign tone, safety tools, etc), and to its credit it also mentions that given the outlander nature of PCs that players should avoid backstories that tie them too closely to non-Barovian settings. Instead it pushes them to more unanswered mysteries and being tied to other PCs. I like this, as I’ve heard one too often of players who expected CoS to take place in the broader Forgotten Realms or Eberron only to find that those settings’ institutions never come into play. It also goes over likely means of resurrection access in the campaign as written and how to handle character death given that the scarcity of high-level magic means that death has greater consequences.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the introduction is an alternate start; the author feels that the default hooks have various flaws (“drive the Vistani out of town” has Antiziganist overtones, Plea for Help treats level 1 PCs as famed adventurers, Creeping Fog is railroaded, Werewolves in the Mists can result in OP PCs receiving Harper equipment of silver weapons and spell scrolls). Instead, a hook is provided in the Faerunian town of Daggerford, where the PCs received word of an escaped murderer and cannibal known as Ghazlak Gorlu who has a bounty on his head. A rival group of adventurers, the Black Banners, are eager to snag the bounty and thus view the PCs as competition. They too will end up in Barovia, seemingly one step ahead of the party, but they are overconfident and will do various things one shouldn’t do when playing Curse of Strahd. The Black Banners basically act like a gaming group who decides to “murderhobo their way through the campaign.”

A caravan of Vistani are fleeing Barovia and want nothing to do with Strahd’s schemes, and quickly become the scapegoat for the town’s woes as Arrigal was responsible for freeing Ghazlak from custody as part of a ploy to lure new adventurers into Barovia. The townsfolk are unaware that Vistani aren’t a monolith and find it all too easy to shift their anger to strangers from out of town. PCs can learn that another group of Vistani headed south with Ghazlak, and if they showed kindness to the innocent Vistani will be given a small token that serves as a signal to others of their kind that the party is to be trusted. This has an in-game effect too, automatically shifting the attitudes of non-evil Vistani one step up when displayed.

The PCs have opportunities to find out more about Ghazlak’s escape and the surrounding environment, which has various hooks of people mysteriously disappearing due to the Mists of Barovia. After some encounters with gnolls fleeing the Mists and packs of wolves scavenging the body of one of the missing townsfolk, the PCs will be claimed by the Mists and reach 2nd level. The designer notes explain the various decisions of this new hook: the Black Banners serve as an object lesson and rivals to contrast the party’s actions, an opportunity to learn more about the Vistani on non-hostile terms, the opportunity to enter Barovia via a gradual buildup of “something’s not right” without feeling tricked out of nowhere. As for Ghazlak Gorlu, he’s not from Barovia nor an intentional servant of Strahd. He’s just a garden-variety depraved killer who upon fleeing into the Domains of Dread will serve as another (early to midgame) threat for the PCs to prove their heroism.



The Land of Barovia outlines the domain in broad terms. First off, the Gazetteer recommends enlarging the map so that 1 hex equals 1 mile (rather than ¼ mile). This way, travel between areas is longer and it doesn’t feel like the PCs can cross most of the land before the sun goes down. For certain places such as the Amber Temple, it forces the PCs to make camp outside the larger population centers, imposing the risky choice of forced marches to travel quicker at risk of reduced passive Perception and exhaustion. It also recommends using a variant natural healing rule where PCs don’t regain hit points at the end of a long rest unless they rest in town or a safe area, giving further incentive for PCs to plan out their trips. We also get new encounters to spice things up, such as a band of skeletal outlaw raiders who gradually increase their strength as the PCs level. By level 8 the party has a chance at fighting their leader, Red Lukas, and make the Old Svalich Road safer to travel from then on out.

The next big portion of this section details the people of Barovia. Some of it touches upon existing material, but other things are expanded further. For example, the influx of outlanders means that there’s quite a number of foreign coins in circulation in Barovia’s economy. The calendar system is lunar due to needing to track lycanthrope appearances, and thus every month has some lunar-themed name: first month is Cold Moon, sixth month is Summer Moon, ninth month is Harvest Moon, etc). Due to the fear of vampires, it is traditional when having visitors over to hold the door open and see if they walk in unprompted once they arrive. The Gazetteer alters the historical events somewhat to make Strahd’s conquest of the valley to be one masked as liberation via wars against humanoid monsters (orcs, goblins, etc) known as the “beastmen.” Naturally there are in-game texts (also available as new PDF handouts) that expand on the history. The perpetual dusk/night cycle of Barovia, along with roving monsters, means that alternative food sources are used in spite of the valley’s fertile nature. Root vegetables which don’t need much sunlight are common, such as leeks and carrots, and mushrooms are a vital part of the Barovian diet. Flax is a staple crop most farmland is dedicated towards. Cows and sheep require too much land and thus make them easy targets for wolves and monsters, so goats, pigs, chickens, and hares are the primary domestic livestock. Times are still lean, so most meat comes from hunting, and many have taken to hunting wolves due to both them and humans having depleted most of the small game. Finally, the wines of Barovia have had their names changed (“du le stomp is terrible French,” “Red Dragon Crush sounds like something you buy out of a vending machine”) to names such as purpuric (grapemash), balorosu (red dragon), sangovin (blood wine), and tsuika (a plum brandy). The Wizard of Wines doesn’t serve champagne, but instead aszu which is a sweet dessert wine made by grapes infected with noble rot. We also get monetary values for barrels of wine given how important they are to the Barovian economy, and prices have changed for the Blue Water Inn and Blood of the Vine. The latter inn is farther from the Wizard of Wines, so they charge more.

Death House explains that the adventure is highly lethal, and suggests some modifications so it’s still dangerous yet doesn’t risk a TPK too easily. First off, the Durst children are changed to be just one pair rather than two with different motivations. As the book explains, “there is a difference between playing a sincere character and playing a liar, and players can usually pick up on it. Don’t lie to your players when you need them to believe you.” In this case, the house is placed on the outskirts of Barovia so it’s the first place the party will see, ideally when it’s nightfall and they are seeking shelter. The children will be scared when the PCs approach, to make it seem like less of a trap, so the hook is that they know their baby brother is in trouble and don’t know where their parents are. This can serve as a hook for PCs to be more likely to want to help them. The Gazetteer calls out MandyMod’s Fleshing Out CoS guide for expanding on the Durst family history as well as other suggestions: removing the flying broom monster if it wouldn’t fit tonally (and help conserve party resources), changing the shambling mound in the final room to a gibbering mouther for a more reasonable “boss battle,” and the shadows in the Darklords’ Shrine attack one at a time rather than all at once due to being able to easily kill low-level characters.



The Village of Barovia mentions that the area runs very well as written, given that most of the content has existed since the original 1983 module and had plenty of time to be improved. But there’s still content for this book, as it serves as a vital “first impression” to the foundations of the greater campaign. We get “at a glance” information surmising important aspects (population, industry, leader, etc) in one-sentence outlines,* and a suggestion for a slower sense of decay by altering the random encounters for the contents of random houses. This is opposed to the default adventure, where it seems like the village is on the verge of collapse where zombies and rats outnumber human residents. A good amount of space is focused on role-playing Ireena: she can be made to be more useful than a “damsel in distress” by using sidekick progression rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, and she can serve as an in-campaign “tour guide” in explaining aspects of Barovia to the fresh-out-of-the Mists PCs. Furthermore, Ireena is understandably angry at having lost her father and is about to lose the only home she’s ever known, so instead of taking it out on the party (“they’ll see her as an ingrate”) the book mentions she should run to the village square after a suitably emotional scene. She’ll call out other villagers for not caring for Donavich in his grief, not answering the burgomaster when he called on them for aid, and even curses the name of Strahd for killing her father and stealing the sun. Not only does this show that Ireena knows who to blame, it also illuminates to the party the true stakes of getting her to a safe haven and why Ismark wants to get her out of the village. Another suggested scene is to have her go sightseeing the marching dead at night, as she loved seeing the “ghost parade” since she was little. This shows that she is more than just a woman consumed by sadness while also illuminating how Barovians can find beauty of a sort even when living in gloom. Basically, make Ireena more of a living, breathing character than an escort quest stat block.

*This is repeated for Krezk and Vallaki, too!

There’s some other general notes, such as having Strahd showing up at the funeral of Kolyan Indirovich in paying respects to the late burgomaster. This is a good way to introduce him to the party without combat. The last big part of the Village of Barovia section is a suggested optional encounter to better put the party in Ireena’s shoes via a flashback encounter. In this case, the players take control of Ireena, Ismark, and Kolyan as the village’s mansion is assaulted by Strahd’s monstrous minions, and Kolyan risks an ever-more-likely heart attack under certain circumstances (taking the Dash action, any round he takes damage, etc). They must fight off 3 waves of enemies during the siege, although none will target Ireena. It’s also a good opportunity to insert replacement PCs for ones who died during Death House, for they could be present during the siege and thus be tied in to escorting Ireena out of the Village of Barovia.

Tser Pool Camp and the Tarokka covers another vital area of the campaign. We get some general tips on portraying the Vistani: don’t portray them as thieving drunkards or jovial performers as those are equally stereotypical, remove the fact that Madam Eva is Strahd’s half-sister as it has no impact on the campaign, reuse Stanimir’s story from the Mysterious Visitors hook from the default adventure to explain how they were granted safe passage by Strahd, and read Van Richten’s Guide to the Vistani for more in-depth notes on their culture. As for the Tarokka reading, it suggests rigging the deck if it’s your first time DMing, and to remove certain cards in that there should be results to try and avoid.

For the treasure locations, the 2 of Stars should be removed as it gives the PCs one treasure immediately with no effort, while the 7 of Coins makes the party backtrack to the River Ivlis crossroads which can take a lot of time depending on the map scale. We get some recommended locations for narrative strength such as Van Richten’s Tower and Sergei’s Tomb. The Gazetteer breaks convention from other guides regarding placing treasures in Castle Ravenloft, for it helps encourage exploration of different levels and PCs may still be able to go there early via a “social phase.” This phase is later covered under the Castle Ravenloft section of the guide proper.

For Strahd’s Enemy, it’s suggested that when rigging the deck to pick an ally who balances out the party’s weaknesses. Certain cards are suggested to be removed, such as Innocent (Ireena is already with them) and Marionette (both allies are weak and Pidlwick II may not be encountered late in the game if at all). The Gazetteer recommends a half-dozen allies, notably the more popular and iconic ones such as Ezmerelda d’Avenir, Kasimir Velikov, and Davian Martikov.

Finally, for Strahd’s Location it mentions that the Ghost or Raven cards pose risks as the magical barrier could end up splitting the party if not outright preventing them entry. It talks about how locations can force the party to explore more of Castle Ravenloft and what fits with the tone and theme of the campaign. Fighting Strahd in Sergei’s Tomb fits in well with the gothic tones of the villain’s sins, while fighting at the Overlook is a classic “fighting the bad guy on top of a castle while lightning strikes” climactic scene.



Old Bonegrinder discusses how the hags are notoriously difficult to fight, and can end up swinging one way or another in a near-party wipe or the PCs coming back at a time where they’re powerful enough to easily dispatch the hags. A good amount of text covers their ethereal nature and dream-haunting ability, and how to best make use of that and plan for them as a GM. Several tactics for confounding the hags are given, along with ways the hags can adapt to them (Leomund’s TIny Hut, the antimagic field of Van Richten’s Tower, St. Andral’s Church when the bones are returned, using a Magic Circle spell in a Glyph of Warding and what NPCs can prepare such spells). The book even provides a detailed sidebar of how the author’s own gaming group managed to outsmart and trap the night hags in play:



Thoughts So Far: The Barovia Gazetteer has a rather unfortunate name, for it implies less DMing tips for a module and more a setting expansion to Barovia. Which is a shame, for it contains some really good advice. I’m quite fond of the details for farming and livestock, as this is one of the most vital aspects of worldbuilding in that it provides plausible explanations for how people trapped in a perpetually dusky, monster-filled land would adapt to survive. I also like the addition of more “out of world” characters to Barovia such as Ghazlak and the Black Banners, showing that the Mists haven’t just claimed the PCs. The restructuring of Death House and applying Sidekick rules to Ireena (along with a sample progression in the rear appendix) are kind of obvious in hindsight, but really great suggestions for new DMs who may inadvertently get themselves tripped up by unexpected lethality in the module.

Join us next time as we cover the Town of Vallaki, the fate of the Black Banners, and Rudolf Van Richten’s hate crimes!

[Libertad]

The Town of Vallaki is a long entry, and given the settlement’s prominence in Barovian politics this is hardly surprising. Instead of having 25% of the houses containing swarms of rats, the Gazetteer decided to make the town virtually at full capacity due to rural refugees fleeing the more dangerous wilds. This allows for a different sense of desperation as their resources are stretched to their limits. We get more detail on Vallaki being separated into geographic wards which cover local culture and industries along with some new notable NPC residents who can supply the characters with specific goods. Various places get expanded on, such as St. Andral’s Church getting a proper map, or how the Martikov children at the Blue Water Inn have a knack for finding secrets around town and can tip the PCs off to odd news of the day. When it comes to the Vallakoviches, Victor gets greatly expanded on, particularly if he’s a fated ally. The book provides for different interpretations of the character, from being merely a sullen and bitter teenager to outright evil. One such suggestion involves him not being guilty of Stella Wachter going insane; that was Lady Wachter who wiped her daughter’s own memory but blamed Victor to further drive a wedge between the two families. Additionally Strahd’s teleportation brazier is moved out of the coffin maker’s shop to the Wachterhaus instead, due to making more tactical sense given their family’s alliance with the Count.

Just as importantly, we get a series of Special Events for Vallaki, including new ones and altered ones. They include the cannibal Ghazlak hiding out in the town, the Black Banners being the vampire spawn in the coffin maker's shop after Strahd killed them when they went directly to Castle Ravenloft. The fight against the Black Banners is a chase scene where the PCs must use the bones to reconsecrate the church while the vampire spawn attack the complex.* We also get alternative ways of resolving the tensions with the Baron during the Festival of the Blazing Sun, expanded clue-finding details for the quests involving tracking down the bones of St. Andral and the missing Vistani girl Arabelle, and how Vallaki’s politics change if the Wachters take over. In the case of the PCs causing political upheaval, the section also explains how Victor Vallakovich may go into hiding, and how Vallaki’s new government may develop if the Wachters are dethroned with a variety of options. One of which includes Ireena becoming the burgomaster!

*A good excuse to have Rudolph Van Richten appear to aid the party.

We have one last section, Vallaki in Flames, that serves as a late-game event where Strahd escalates things by having a monstrous horde assault the town in an event that will go down in Barovian History as the Night of Flames. All in all, a lot of additional details to bulk up Vallaki in making it a happening place PCs can find new stuff with on regular revists.

The Wizard of Wines acknowledges that hordes of blights aren’t going to be a real threat to a 5th level party, so several suggestions are made to up the ante. For instance, heavy rain can grant the blights resistance to fire when outside, the Martikovs beg the PCs not to set fire inside the winery as that will destroy their livelihood, swapping out the druid spells with more combat and terrain control ones, having a few dozen needle blights engage in long-range attacks at the party as they cross the vineyards on the way to the winery, and one druid in the wine cellar using thunderwave to create an explosion of glass shards as an AoE attack. Alterations on special events include the druids poisoning the wine (delivering the wine without dealing with the poison will cause Barovians to blame the Martikovs for the inevitable deaths) and making the suggestion that the journey to Yester Hill is provided before the wine delivery so the PCs don’t miss the option to defend the winery from Wintersplinter.

Yester Hill doesn’t have as much detail besides suggesting to scale down the map to 30 feet per square as the sheer size of the map ordinarily makes tactical movement a slog. Suggestions are made to fill the woods around with more overtly supernatural and corrupted animals reflecting the druid’s influence, such as perytons and manticores. The Gazetteer also suggests changing around the encounter order so that the Gulthias tree is encountered and fought before the druid circle, and makes Wintersplinter’s appearance a satisfying climactic finale. An alternate system for the Blood Spear of Kavan is provided, referencing Matt Mercer’s Corruption rules. Basically, the spear’s enhancement bonus and save DC improves with the wielder’s Corruption, which increases every time they kill a creature with the weapon and fail a Wisdom save.



The Village of Krezk heavily focuses on expanding and reworking the Abbot and the inhabitants. The insane mongrelfolk have problematic implications, both with the monsters being deformed from race-mixing and treating mental illness as akin to a freak show spectacle. Instead, the Abbot has miraculous healing powers, but his magic causes permanent deformations in the subjects. As they will be rejected by wider society, they more or less end up permanent residents of the Abbey, which gives the Abbot more power over them.

By far the biggest change is the addition of a False Hydra, an aberration located beneath the Abbey in a cave (and a new map to boot) where its songs can cause people to forget the existence of itself as well as others. Krezk has a disturbing amount of inconsistent memories the PCs can pick up on which is the result of residents being killed by the Abbot or Hydra. The module suggests for an unconventional change of pace that Ireena ends up kidnapped by the Abbot, and the PCs have reduced resources as a result of a fight they no longer remember. Going through the Abbey, they can put clues together that will lead them to the truth.

Note: I should note that the hydra idea was borrowed from the Goblin Punch blog, but when I clicked the link Malwarebytes threw up a Trojan warning and blocked the page. I did mention this on the product page on DM’s Guild, but also figured to repeat it in this review as a public service.

The Werewolf Den is a rather out of the way location many gaming groups will miss. The Gazetteer notes that most PCs will be reluctant to aid either werewolf that is gunning for leadership. So in an alternate event, Zuleika Toranescu will feign surrender, asking the PCs to kill Kiril when he returns. She hopes that the PCs can do their dirty work for her, but as transporting a bunch of children is easier said than done this creates a weakness for the party: if they stay and plot in the caves, the werewolves can wait them out as provisions run low. If the party escapes into the woods with the captured children, Kiril and his pack will take advantage of guerilla tactics. The book suggests making this a skill challenge where degrees of failure can impose additional complications when combat starts. Lucky PCs may make it to the walls of Krezk where there’s no forest cover for the werewolves, and archer guards can attack the regular wolves. While failure may place the werewolves in advantageous ambush positions in the middle of the forest.

We also get additional explanations on werewolves in Barovia and ways of running lycanthropy. As something for PCs, damage immunity is considered overpowered and instead suggests regeneration that doesn’t protect against silver weapons and spells, along with infected characters not gaining long rests during certain nights (full moon or every night depending on how merciful the DM feels). As for curing lycanthropy, a more complicated procedure is provided for those who feel that magical healing is too easy: a medically-applied dose of wolfsbane to cleanse the body, followed by a remove curse spell to cleanse the soul, along with lists of NPCs who are capable of doing this in the module.

Van Richten’s Tower goes into detail not just about the location, but also about ways to handle Van Richten’s backstory and his anti-Vistani sentiments. This section discusses ways to tip the PCs off to visiting the tower, such as an invitation by Van Richten himself or a mention by an ally such as the Martikovs if the characters wish to seek out a monster hunter. As for Ezmerelda’s exploding wagon, the book highly suggests finding ways to explode it, but should use the average damage rather than random as it may very easily instantly kill a character or three. As for the tower puzzle, it mentions that the book’s description is ambiguous and how in online games this may cause additional complications such as mirrored video feeds. The book also suggests ways to spice up the fights in the Special Events involving vampires or werewolves laying siege to the building. For example, the werewolves may take advantage of the tower’s antimagic field by moving inside the structure to fight, the PCs can use the animated armor or clay golems to attack the enemies, Ezmerelda can arrive to the party’s aid if they’re in dire straits, and how the door trap can be triggered to collapse enemies inside the tower.

The second half of this section goes over Rudolph Van Richten and his portrayal, namely how his plans to use a tiger to slaughter the Vistani in Vallaki which makes his role in the story rather villainous:

As written in Curse of Strahd, Rudolph van Richten is also a racist. There is no denying it; he’s trained a tiger to attack the Vistani on sight, and he murdered a Vistana just to get directions to Barovia, where he plans to kill more Vistani. Van Richten has become one of the monsters he battles, and that creates a horrible tension between how the characters are inclined to view him—how the players are inclined to view him—and how he behaves in the game.

Many DMs may prefer to avoid that tension, whether out of some attachment to previous interpretations of van Richten or simply the desire not to run acts of racial violence in their games. Both are completely understandable. But if you and your group are willing to address van Richten’s racism, it can generate a powerful dramatic conflict for the player characters.

This guide discusses Rudolph van Richten’s plans to assault the Vistani camp outside Vallaki. It assumes that there will be a conflict between the characters’ desire to cultivate van Richten as an ally and their revulsion at his desire to eliminate the Vistani. It discusses the possible opportunities the characters will have to interfere with, thwart, or unwittingly participate in his plans. It will implicate them in his attacks.

The ultimate antagonist of this particular subplot is Rudolph van Richten.

While acknowledging that many DMs may not want to have a supposedly Lawful Good character and the mascot of Ravenloft go on a one-man, one-tiger hate crime, the book explains ways to narratively handle things if they do go that route. Namely, Van Richten will attempt to attack and kill the camp’s leadership, as well as the child Arabelle for her precognitive powers that will make her the next raunie (Vistani matriarchal leader) due to the clan’s alliance with Strahd. While Van Richten is privately disgusted with himself, he views it as a necessary evil, and if need be he’ll try to trick the party into going along with the plan either directly or by leaking information to the Martikovs. In such a case, he intends to convince them he only wishes to target the individual Vistani who are directly serving Strahd. Van Richten will use himself as bait bait to lure out Arrigal, using alchemist’s fire in a circus tent rigged to explode. Along with that and setting the tiger loose, this will occupy much of the Vistani and the dusk elves as he goes to kill Arabelle. But beyond the PCs, Ezmerelda can be a wild card due to her conflicted loyalties and knowledge of what Van Richten plans to do if rescued during the rampage. It’s also possible she may die in the alchemist’s fire trap, thus causing the famed monster hunter’s curse to inadvertently claim one of his few remaining allies.

There are many ways this can go down, but a possible arc of Van Richten’s redemption may be that he hesitates upon seeing Arabelle, confronted with the enormity of what he set out to do. Additionally, his curse can be permanently lifted with the help of Arabelle: as Ezmerelda is the last survivor of the clan that laid the curse, only she can perform the Blood Rite. She never told Van Richten this because he never told her about the curse, for he’d have to explain how he got it in the first place. The Rite is a complicated magical procedure that transports Van Richten, Ezmerelda, and the PCs into an illusory psychic dreamscape operating on the nightmare logic of Van Richten’s past. Taking place in the camp of the Radanavich clan on the night Van Richten slaughtered them, the party, the Vistani, and the monster hunters must wade off waves of undead. The win conditions are if the party can save a child Ezmerelda from being killed.

Yes, the book breaks convention with the 2020 retcon, in making the people who kidnapped Van Richten’s son Vistani. The Gazetteer notes that the retcon resulted in contradictory versions between Ezmerelda’s backstory and Van Richten’s journal. While the stereotype of kidnapping children is one that’s been use to justify violence against Romani people in the real world, it has unforeseen complications in making Ezmerelda (the most notable and heroic Vistani in the module) no longer Vistani by birth. It also has the complications of cutting out why Van Richten is willing to go to such dire lengths against the Vistani, which still exist in the 2020 version. The Gazetteer suggests that the Radanavich clan were expelled from Vistani society for their crimes as one possibility. The new version of the journal changes some things around, like the monster hunter not making a deal with Azalin, and that Ezmerelda didn’t lose her leg to a werewolf but instead inadvertently to Van Richten’s own recklessness.

Argynvostholt mentions that its remote location means that most parties may not visit barring inherent wanderlust or a strong motivation. Sir Godfrey is warned against as an unbalanced ally who can take the spotlight from the PCs, and the Sunsword or Holy Symbol of Ravenkind are ideal treasures for this area. The book suggests that another hook may be an expanded version of the Arrigal’s Hunt special event, where Ezmerelda is being chased by the notorious assassin and several dusk elves. This turns the dungeon crawl into a more fast-paced multi-room fight, and it’s also suggested that Arrigal may be pursuing her for more than a stolen horse. Such as her refusal to recognize his leadership of the clan or being caught up in the feud between her mentor and the Vistani. Modifications are made to existing rooms and encounters in Argynvostholt in line with these events.

As for lighting the beacon, the book mentions that the means of finding out how to light it rests on a single counter-intuitive clue of repairing a torn painting, so it suggests making multiple clues to lead them to the study along with a link to Justin Alexander’s Three Clue Rule blog post.

The Ruins of Berez notes that this is a highly lethal area. As merely retrieving one of the Wizards of Wines gems may not be enough incentive on its own, the book suggests making it so that the Martikovs urgently ask the PCs for help in rescuing their children who were taken captive by Baba Lysaga. Additionally, placing the skull of Argynvost here in place of the hill giant’s skull is also recommended if a Tarokka treasure is in Argynvostholt. That way, this ties two out of the way locations together. Like Yester Hill, the grid-based map should be scaled down to 30 feet per square rather than 100; the book notes that the burgomaster’s mansion is bigger than Castle Ravenloft by RAW. Additionally, there’s advice on what kinds of hostile wildlife can be encountered on the way to Berez in line with its swampy nature, along with an expanded backstory and role for Muriel the wereraven. In noting she doesn’t share the same last name as the other Keepers while having a rather non-Barovian name, the Gazetteer gave her a proper backstory. Additionally, while the book applauds Curse of Strahd for introducing the first openly gay characters in a 5th Edition product, the authors saw an opportunity to add more LGBT diversity.

The Gazetteer makes Muriel a transgender woman from the Forgotten Realms. She saw many of her adventuring companions die on an ill-fated expedition into Barovia in fighting the druids of Yester Hill. The Mariktovs found her dying, and gave her lycanthropy to save her life. As Muriel had not come out of the closet yet, her new life in Barovia allowed her to adopt her current name as part of becoming who she truly is. In fact, one of her old adventuring partners has settled down in Vallaki as a blacksmith, but she is too afraid how he’ll react if they meet again; if they do, he’ll be delighted to know that she’s safe and well.

Muriel can tell the PCs how to reconsecrate the circle of standing stones to turn into a safe haven by putting the spirit of Marina Lurich to rest, who persists as an undead known as a drowned maiden. Reconsecrating the standing stone will break Baba Lysaga’s connection to the land and depower her of her magical protections.

We also have info on handling the fight with Baba Lysaga, such as allowing Treebane (magic axe obtained in Yester Hill) to do its additional damage to her Creeping Hut due to that object being made out of wood, along with captured wereravens calling out warnings from their cages to the PCs. Merciful DMs wishing to avoid a TPK may make it so that Baba Lysaga polymorphs the PCs into goats to be penned for a future sacrifice.

Thoughts So Far: The expansion of Vallaki is particularly welcome, especially regarding the revamping of the vampire spawn attack as well as going into detail on its political changes if the PCs end up causing the exile and/or deaths of the prominent families. Changing the Abbot’s patients to avoid unfortunate racist and ableist implications is similarly welcome, and it also further villainizes the Abbot and his twisted savior complex. The False Hydra and the “fight they don’t remember” is a cool idea, although as it takes away PC autonomy (“my character has a journal they record everything in!”) it requires a skilled DM to pull off well.

I don’t feel that making lycanthropy harder to cure is such a great idea given the brevity of specialized healers in the campaign. PCs who have a character that can cast Remove Curse are making the conscious decision to be more self-reliant without having to find a helpful NPC. While I can understand wanting to make sense of a contradictory backstory for Esmerelda and Van Richten, going back to the “actually the people who kidnapped his son were Vistani” runs up a bit against the earlier advice about avoiding stereotypes. A better solution would’ve been to make up a new backstory for Van Richten’s curse, such as from a creature that features in the module like Baba Lysaga. He can still decide to attack the Vistani in linking them with Strahd, which can be reflected as a man hardened by decades of violence deciding that the unthinkable must be done to defeat the overwhelming evil of Strahd.

Join us next time as we cover the rest of this product, from the two big dungeons to alternate endings for Curse of Strahd!

[Libertad]

Tsolenka Pass focuses on using the expanded map scale to turn the journey to the Amber Temple into a perilous wilderness adventure. This section references Curse of Strahd Reloaded for various environmental hazards. Things the Gazetteer itself provides is a 2d6 random encounter table for threats specific to Barovia’s mountains, using Kasimir Velikov as a guide to help them survive the journey, and an upgraded Stat block for the goat monster Sangzor among other things.

The Amber Temple hints on how the dungeon is notorious for killing PCs even by Curse of Strahd standards, but not to pull punches given the party likely heard all sorts of warnings about it for quite some time. It talks about how the placement of threats in the temple can make the party engage in one big battle or a series of smaller ones to drain their resources. For changes, the Gazetteer says that the berserkers should be expanded on as being Mountainfolk seeking shelter. They can be persuaded to not fight the PCs, and this attempt auto-succeeds if one of them displays Sangzor’s pelt. Additionally, the possession feature of the Staff of Frost should come with a warning or remedy along with a saving throw to resist, given permanently changing a PC’s personality is kind of a dick move. Diamond dust is added to the Lich’s Lair so that it can be used to cast Greater Restoration in order to restore Exethanter’s memory or unlock the command words for the volumes in the library. The library itself is greatly expanded on, containing a book that can help restore Exethanter’s memory as well as wandering allips haunted by the secrets they discovered in life. A new Special Event is added to this section as well, in having Ezmerelda show up as a general counterweight to whatever the PCs have done so far to shake things up.

Last but not least, the Gazetteer goes over the Dark Gifts, mentioning that by RAW the PCs can lose control of their characters via a single bad die roll if they turn evil. Otherwise, many of the gifts’ consequences may be cosmetic and encourage them to treat the vestiges like a grocery store for permanent buffs. The Gazetteer makes mention of Curse of Strahd Reloaded’s alternate system along with Matt Mercer’s Corruption rules for a more gradual multi-stage corruption process.



Castle Ravenloft goes into detail on this dungeon crawl. Instead of being a “final dungeon” for PCs to put off until the end, it can be made into a two-parter. An earlier “social phase” may have Strahd invite the PCs to dinner, and his intentions at this point are non-hostile. As long as they observe Barovian guest law, the party can explore the castle in relative safety, providing a great opportunity to interact with the castle inhabitants out of combat. If a treasure is to be found in Castle Ravenloft, the PCs may even mount a daring heist and the Gazetteer suggests the Treasury being perfect for such an event. PCs can stay in the guest room during this phase, and if they take a long rest a group of green hags (who replace the Barovian Witches) attempt to steal personal articles or locks of hair from the PCs for spell components. PCs who catch them in the act won’t earn reprisals from Strahd, as due to his Lawful Evil nature he will denounce the hags for violating the guest law.

The bulk of this section deals with changes and additional guidance to various rooms in the Castle. For instance, details are given in the Chapel if Strahd seeks to wed Ireena, giving outlines for characters who would be involved. Such as Rahadin being the Count’s best man, and Van Richten or Ezmerelda (if still alive) are lurking in the shadows for the perfect moment to strike the darklord.

Although it’s detailed later in the Appendix, Lifting the Curse expands on an alternate ending idea addressing DMs who may feel that the cycle of Strahd’s saga makes victory hollow if the domain will inevitably reset. This section provides more background details and “win conditions” for PCs to break the domain’s curse for good: one of the PCs is Sergei’s reincarnation, resulting in a dramatic reveal when Strahd welcomes them as his sibling during dinner at Castle Ravenloft.

In this scenario, Strahd seeks to find atonement by gaining the forgiveness of Tatyana and Sergei. How? By doing the classic drop to one knee and ask Ireena to marry him. He will then ask the reincarnated-Sergei PC to bless their union. Of course this plot is doomed to fail, for Strahd is making everything all about himself. Additionally his means of “atonement” don’t involve him giving up anything material, like his power over Barovia or allowing Ireena to live her own life on her own terms. The curse befalling Barovia can be broken by reuniting the spirits of Tatyana and Sergei…but neither of them must have accepted a dark gift from the vestiges at the Amber Temple. In such a case, the reincarnation will instead become Barovia’s new darklord.

Epilogues provides one more post-game victory which incorporates the “good ending” from Lifting the Curse where the reincarnated souls of Tatyana and Sergei are reunited. It has a detailed boxed text of the sun returning to Barovia, describing its rays shining down on the various locations explored during the campaign. Additionally, a massive celebration will be thrown for the party in the Village of Barovia, giving PCs time to tie up loose ends and say farewells to friends if they wish to leave. If Ireena ends up married, another epilogue happens nine months later as she delivers a baby. PCs who left Barovia are heading back in Ezmerelda’s wagon for the news, and as the baby cries the midwife does as well, for this is a sign that souls have returned to the land. If Ireena didn’t survive or otherwise isn’t looking to have kids, another character can be substituted, such as Stefania Martikov at the winery as Urwin is reunited with his family.

Strahd Von Zarovich: A User’s Guide is a three-page course of how to run Strahd. It’s a mixture of role-play and tactical advice. For example, it expands on his disguise as Vasili von Holtz and how being able to walk the land under an alternate identity allows him to gain a second set of impressions when people don’t know he’s Strahd, and also because he likes it:

Vasili also offers something even more important to Strahd: a chance to be among people again. In Castle Ravenloft, he’s surrounded by sycophants and mindless undead. As Vasili, he can walk the streets of Vallaki without sending the crowd running away in terror. He probably appreciates this aspect more than he would ever let on.

And then there’s the fun of it. Strahd likes being Vasili because he enjoys fooling everyone and knowing something they don’t. Not to put too fine a point on it, Strahd is a sadist whose only remaining pleasure lies in tormenting others. While you don’t want to run anything just to be sadistic to your players, there is something so inherently cruel about his betrayal of the characters’ trust as Vasili that it speaks to an essential truth of his character even as he is pursuing other goals.

The section also goes over tactics where the DM can be more lenient with the use of metagame knowledge (to a limit) given Strahd’s control over Castle Ravenloft combined with his scrying and spy network. Additionally, it recommends two combat guides on Reddit for running him when initiative is rolled, so the book instead focuses on his strategist aspect while also making it narratively satisfying without abuse of wall hacks.

Monster Hunter’s Gear provides new equipment which is notably owned by Rudolf Van Richten. It includes a modified crossbow with an underslung that can fire alchemical vials, including new powdered silver that can blind and poison lycanthropes as well as remove their damage immunity. He also has 3 doses of ether which he can use to poison and knock unconscious a target for 4 hours. Finally, an intact copy of Van Richten’s Guide to Vampires can give the PCs metagame knowledge of the traits of vampire and vampire spawn from the Monster Manual. Depending on the campaign, the Guide may also have hints of Barovia’s cyclical nature with passages of Van Richten killing Strahd in a fashion similar to the original I6 Ravenloft module.



Monsters & NPCs includes the stat blocks of new and remodeled creatures not present in the base Curse of Strahd module. We’ve got stats for individual Black Banner adventurers as vampire spawn (as the base monster but with some minor racial and/or class features to individualize them), a buffed-up stat block of Clovin Belview (bard spells and a taunt debuff), a False Hydra (like the normal one but has a rechargeable song that causes a humanoid to become incapable of noticing or remembering its presence on a failed Wisdom save), Red Lukas (undead bandit boss monster specializing in mounted combat who can summon vargouilles and has legendary actions), a buffed-up version of Sangzor (a CR 6 beast with a Legendary Action to perform a mobile kick attack), a new Warlock of the Undead (a CR 7 NPC who can turn into a more frightening visage of their patron), a Werewolf Pack Leader (like a werewolf but stronger), a unique stat block for Kolyan Indirovich for the flashback sequence in the Village of Barovia, and stat blocks for existing monsters such as Allips, Bodaks, and the Gulthias Tree.

This section ends with a unique, buffed-up CR 17 version of Strahd for more experienced and larger parties. Beyond higher stats where it counts, he can cast up to 6th level spells and has a unique 21 AC for when he’s wearing his animated armor as the major differences.

Handouts is our final section of new and altered in-game texts the PCs can find. They’re also available as their own individual PDFs for sharing with gaming groups. They include the religious history of the Abbey of St. Markova* detailing how it was brought down when one of the saints to which it is named led a doomed rebellion against Strahd with the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind; angsty writings of Victor Vallakovich’s private diary; a reworked account of Van Richten’s Journal; and a Tome of Strahd with a slightly altered backstory in line with Lifting the Curse, where Strahd was killed by his guards and rose as a vampire before Tatyana’s death.

*The Gazetteer mentions that -ovia typically denotes a place name and that Markovia is already the name of another Domain of Dread. Markova is in line with Barovian naming conventions.

Overall Thoughts: The Barovia Gazetteer is a stellar guide for DMs seeking to run Curse of Strahd. It has just a little bit of everything, from expanded details on Barovian culture and economy for increased verisimilitude, rebalancing of problematic encounters and events, and fun suggestions for adding interesting twists to virtually every location. The “social phase” idea for Castle Ravenloft is a great idea in making the dungeon more “explorable” given that most gaming groups won’t get to experience the place in its entirety.

Overall I don’t have many complaints for this, and those that exist are rather minor. I would recommend its purchase for DMs both old and new seeking to run Curse of Strahd.

Join us next time as we sail the Whale Road, seax in hand, to visit Heorot: Beowulf’s Domain of Dread!

[Libertad]

Product Link
Product Type: Location, Bestiary
CoS-Required? No

A year and a half ago I reviewed a 5e historical fantasy setting inspired by the saga of Beowulf, so upon seeing this book up on the DM’s Guild I knew that I had to review it.

Named after the famed mead fall in which the hero Beowulf fights Grendel each night, this Domain of Dread is a cold, early medieval domain inspired by the myths and legends of ancient Celtic and Nordic peoples. Dominated by a massive body of water known as the Whale Road, society is split up into semi-autonomous villages that praise and valorize mighty deeds of arms and keeping one’s word as their bond. But it is also a domain filled with monsters: trolls, wolves, giants, and worse things lurk in the uncharted wilds, and the bonds of loyalties and blood prices can cause ancestral feuds to spiral out of control. It is a realm of natural beauty, inspiring tales, good-hearted leaders, and trust forged from lifelong friendships, but it is also a land that is locked in a literal cycle of violence.



Settlements and Sites detail the major areas of Heorot. The domain is split up into several large regions, with Scyldingland, Geatland, Mycre, and Scylfingham comprising the human kingdoms. The Hranfolk, a nomadic group based off of the real-world Sami people, lair in the northern reaches, and the great mountains of Domesdæg in the northwest is a kingdom of fire giants, Dweorg Fells is home to the dweorg (a subrace of dwarf), and the Endless Ice of the far north is the dominion of first giants, dragons, and other monstrous horrors. Many of the population centers reference rules for Carousing in the Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and what kinds of complications and contacts can be made in those particular settlements. They also detail stat block references and numbers of NPCs and longships in case violence inevitably strikes, and most of the lords and ladies of the larger lands have their own unique entries. The book is a bit scattered in this last regard, where such characters are spread between 3 different areas: first a brief overview in this section, then in a section of their own labeled Lords of Heorot, and finally stat blocks in Friends and Foes. For ease of reading I’ll cover them all as they come if possible. Some commonalities I’ll note of Heorot’s significant NPCs is the Legendary Action to form a Shieldwall or Boar’s Snout, which grant free movement to nearby allies to enter into formations that can grant various benefits such as cover bonuses to AC and advantage on melee attacks in certain situations.

Scyldingland is famed for hosting the Hall of Heorot, a place full of good cheer and friendly competitions. But this happiness conceals a pall of fear and despair, for every night the monster Grendel comes to cause inevitable violence, and upon his death the Mere-Wife, his mother and the darklord of the domain, sets out to slay his killers. Due to the unique curse of the darklord she and Grendel are immortal, coming back to life as the people involved forget the incident (and those slain by them also arise). This amnesiac time loop remembered by none save those from outside the domain and a precious few NPCs who are in on the domain’s true nature. The region is also home to the town of Waelsing whose chieftain and family suffer from the cursed items of their own treasure hoard obtained from an ogre warlord; the dangerous Ettinmoors which hold a high concentration of ogres, ettins, trolls, and other minor giantkind; the Skjoldungen Isles that are rugged places only the largest of which have settlements of any size along with undead-haunted barrows; and the Mist Mere that houses the underwater grotto of Grendel and the Mere-Wife.

King Hrothgar and Queen Waltheow are the greatest authorities of the Scylding people, who are your typical “good-hearted rulers who need the PCs to keep their lands safe.” Hrothgar has become privately depressed over the nightly deaths of Grendel’s work. Which seems a bit of a contradiction, as the time loop would make him forget. PCs who slay Grendel are rewarded many great treasures along with warhorses, although due to the Darklord’s curse such boons are doomed to eventually leave their hands. In combat Hrothgar is your typical melee warrior with Legendary actions themed around granting boons and additional actions to allies. Queen Waltheow isn’t as much of a warrior, but she is a legendary alewife who can remove impurities from food and drink, her prepared meals have the benefits of Heroes Feast spell, and she can grant people Unfailing Inspiration a limited number of times per day to add 1d10 to a D20 roll once within the next 10 minutes…and if an ally nearby uses it, her Infectious Inspiration can bounce to another creature without expending the use!

I’m just imagining the Queen cheering on the PCs as they battle Grendel, making them more powerful past their mortal limits.

Geatland is the other major kingdom of Heorot from where Beowulf hails. In fact, this hero is the nephew of its king. The Geats and the Scyldings are on friendly terms due to the deep bonds between their leaders. It is due to this bond that Beowulf is amenable to traveling to Heorot Hall to stop Grendel’s rampages…again and again and again. Geatland is a heavily coastal region, and its cliffs are plagued by evil giant eagles. The High Hall is from where King Hygelac and Queen Hygd rule, with the latter being famously wise which makes her a fine ruler. The region’s more interesting places include the farming village of Greotan where a monstrous dullahan lives in a cave and emerges during low tide to ride and stalk prey among the farmland; the market town of Hrethelham, of which quality hirelings and magic items can be obtained; and the mountain range of Dragonhome, which is home to a particularly powerful dragon known as the Wyrm who is worshiped by a troll-led cult that regularly wars against the Geat-allied goliath tribes.

There’s not much to say about the King and Queen of the Geats save that the King possesses a magic ear horn that helps him hear normally due to his deafness, and the Queen possesses a modified Jug of Alchemy that generates honey, mead, and other alcoholic beverages. Silver and gold rings given in service for acts of heroism by the rulers act as Mist Tokens to Heorot.

Myrce is an independent city-state that peaceably trades with the other major kingdoms and the Hranfolk. Its greatest threat comes from the monsters of the forest who raid the town for cattle and people. Known as the Trollesweald, it is home mostly to trolls and some sceadugengan* spirits. Its King died in battle against an unknown foe, and Queen Modthryth is a half-elf woman whose disposition seems to only have improved after her husband’s death. Once a cruel and bitter ruler, she is now famed for her loyalty and kindness, remaining happily single. In terms of stats she is similar to the others, although due to worship of the Raven Queen she can magically teleport.

*This term is usually spelled without the last “n” from what I’ve seen, but this is how the sourcebook does it.

Scyflingham and Ravenswood is the territory of the Scylfing clan, whose wicked leader King Onela harbors a deep hatred for the Geats. When the Mists claimed the region, he was afflicted with a monstrous curse, where every night he turns into a two-headed monster known as a sorrowsworn and hunts the lands for hapless victims. None of his subjects know about this condition. The Ravenswood is a dangerous forest home to the dead spirits of Scylfing warriors who died at the hands of Geatish invaders.

In terms of stats King Onela has a human form that is pretty much a nonmagical melee warrior, but in his Sorrowsworn form he gains a variety of upgrades, such as gaining resistance against all damage while in darkness, natural hooklike weapons, and deals increased psychic damage to those who successfully damage him.



Hranfolk Lands detail the wide-ranging regions patrolled by the nomadic Hranfolk. The terrain consists of hilly wide fjords and deep marshy valleys in a tundra climate. The Hranfolk have the ability to travel the Mists much like the Vistani, but unlike the Vistani they often settle down long-term in lands they find amenable based on animistic traditions. They view every living creature as having a connection to the spirit realm, and bears are a sacred animal in their culture to the point that they hunt them during special holidays and bury their bones in mounds after using the rest of the body. Hranfolk souls reincarnate into the bodies of descendents, and they often assign affectionate nicknames to family members like “Little Father” once a shaman identifies the particular reborn spirit. They make use of reindeer as mounts and beasts of burden, and are famed for their skis which they use to traverse snow-blanketed regions.

The closest thing the Hranfolk have to a city is Guokso, a year-round collection of roundhouses arranged around a giant spear-like plug of gray stone they can use to magically commune with their ancestors. The leaders of various clans traditionally dwell here so as to have a means of communication between each other. One other interesting place includes the village of Ridne, whose hunters can serve as guides into the treacherous Endless Ice and is also home to a community of arcanists who train with dweorg artisans in the nearby hills.

The high leaders of the Hranfolk are King Darbmu and his husband Kare, who is also King through wedlock. They do not take to blood feuds and politicking like other leaders of Heorot, instead prioritizing ways for their people to survive the coming winters and maintain spiritual balance with the natural world. PCs who earn their respect and trust can be gifted magical rune stones which are often stone-based magic items such as a Stone of Good Luck or various Ioun Stones. Statwise they are Hranfolk Hunters, a stat block akin to rangers with specialization in bows and thrown items, along with minor spellcasting and the ability to create Hunter’s Wards which act like Protection From Evil and Good.

Endless Ice and Godsfall dominate the domain’s far north, a perpetually frozen expanse of ice and snow. Its blizzards are without compare and are magically empowered (like Eldritch Storms in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything), earning them the moniker Thrym’s Howl. All sorts of arctic monsters can be fought here, although a grand waterfall known as Godsfall is home to fossergrim and nixies who may not be as hostile as others unless their home is polluted or otherwise disrespected. The Hranfolk way station of Biktadallat serves as a jumping-off point for expeditions into the Mists to journey to other domains.

Nifolham is a tribe of frost giants living in the Endless Ice. Their queen, Kvietea, has had a secret affair with King Rodfare of the Domesdæg fire giants, but due to a misunderstanding from a breakdown of communication Kvietea now hates the man she believes to have spurned her. She has also privately forsaken the traditional worship of Thrym in favor of the troll god Vaprak the Destroyer, who granted her immortality in exchange for more power and regeneration. Now she is building a cult whose members hunt down ice trolls to consume and gain their powers.

Queen Kvietea doesn’t have a stat block of her own. She uses the stats of a Frost Giant Everlasting One, which is a multi-headed giant who can regenerate like a troll and has a Barbarian-like Vaprak’s Rage ability.

Domesdæg is the mountainous land of the fire giants, whose King Rodfare was a legendary warrior who grew jealous of his younger, more vigorous children that were fast eclipsing him in his old age. He began an affair with Queen Kvitea as the result of a midlife crisis, and in a fit of drunken resentment killed all of his children via poisoning. This happened as the Mists of Ravenloft descended due to the Mere-Wife’s own misdeeds. When King Rodfare was slain by his own wife horrified by his actions, he awoke as an undead death knight. Faced with the great shame of kin-slaying, he’s become a more reserved ruler, delegating much of his duties to fire giant necromancers. Galdorscraf is a cave located in the eastern mountains, the domicile of three hags of different types who use their natural cunning and magic to encourage vengeance and resentment among the domain’s people. Many blood feuds have been exacerbated by their doing. For those who feel they are not powerful enough to slay their hated foes, the hags have a process where they can transform someone into an ooze known as a slithering tracker that is so hungry for revenge they know of no other path.

King Rodfare is one of the most powerful creatures in Heorot. As a CR 21 Fire Giant Death Knight, he is basically a paladin with punishing physical attacks, a variety of spells, and some unique AoE fire-based attacks. However, he doesn’t have Legendary or Lair actions, which blunts his ability as a boss monster in comparison to Grendel and the Mere-Wife.

Dweorg Fells is a hilly tundra east of Hranfolk Lands home to Heorot’s duergar, or dweorg in their own cultural dialect. They live entirely underground in a series of winding tunnels with cleverly-hidden entrances to the surface. The dweorg operate on a higher level of magic and technology than the rest of the domain, with their forces supplemented by all manner of clockwork constructs and whose smithies have produced more than a few items of legends sung about in bardic tales.

Whale Road is the central sea in the domain of Heorot. Virtually every culture has lands touching this body of water, and even the Hranfolk Lands have lakes and rivers running down into it. People travel in longships to raid and trade, and sailors make use of magical sunstones to avoid getting lost at sea during the day. We do get a generous assembly of tables for random encounters at sea suitable for every Tier of play. The unique locations are all notable islands, such as Draug Island which attracts undead spirits who died at sea and is home to a cave with runic engravings dedicated to the goddess Hel, or Storm’s Eye which is home to a storm giant oracle by the name of Wyndgyfu whose visions have stretched across time and space. The oracle can even tell the PCs of how to lift the darklord’s curse and rescue the domain from the Mists, but due to Ravenloft’s corruption she has become greedy and will only offer this insight in exchange for the hoard of the Wyrm of Dragonhome.



The Mere-Wife and Grendel tell us the tragic tale of how Heorot became claimed by the Mists. Her name long forgotten, the Mere-Wife was a human woman who sought to become a warrior in a male-dominated society. But after being gravely wounded in one battle, she was kidnapped by an ogre from the Ettinmoors.

Content Warning: attempted sexual assault

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The ogre sought to make her his sex slave, but the ogre’s brother was disgusted at this idea. An argument erupted, resulting in the death of the would-be rapist.

After being rescued by the ogre’s sibling, the Mere-Wife was able to see that not all monsters were irrevocably evil, and what began as a mutual respect and friendship turned into love. They had a son who they named Grendel, and while they could not return to human society due to generations of hate and fear of monsters, they lived a relatively happy life in the swamp. This happiness would end, when the ogre was ambushed and slain by trophy hunters. Grendel began to suffer from a congenital sickness, causing the Mere-Wife to hunt for him. Due to a mistake where Grendel mistook a human for an odd animal and ate him, a strange power was unlocked. B eating the flesh of humanoids Grendel became more powerful, partially nullifying his sickness. When the Mere-Wife began hunting humanoids for him to eat, the Dark Powers of Ravenloft took notice.

More tragedy ensued when Grendel began to grow curious about human society. He was particularly fascinated with music, and the instruments being played from Heorot Hall practically enchanted him. When he entered the Hall to sing and dance, the assembled people were horrified. They saw him as a dangerous monster who just burst into their homes. Many died that night from this misunderstanding, and as Grendel fled the Hall bleeding profusely the dreadful cycle began: for nearly ten years Grendel would hunt and eat more humans, growing more powerful until the Geatish hero Beowulf accepted a quest to find and slay him. The Mere-Wife, angered with rage, came to King Hrothgar and demanded a weregild. She was refused, for monsters were considered no better than beasts and the King said that Beowulf has done a great service in ridding the land of him. She killed everyone in the hall save for King Hrothgar, to let him suffer as she had in losing what was most precious to her. Then the Mists claimed the lands touching the Whale Road as a new Domain of Dread.

The Mere-Wife is the darklord of Heorot, and her curse is that she has to experience her own son dying in her arms whenever Beowulf or some other hero wounds him. Grendel’s monstrous vitality is such that he lives until he returns to their lair so that she can personally witness his death. While the Mere-Wife wishes to take Grendel somewhere safe and never be troubled again, they cannot leave the domain, which engenders in her and Grendel a resentment of the company and good cheer the humans experience in their mead halls and villages.

The cycle is such that Grendel and anyone killed by the Mere-Wife or her son preceding her act of vengeance is revived 1d4 days after Grendel’s death. None of the domain’s permanent inhabitants remember these killings or events that arise around them, and any treasure or gifts granted for slaying Grendel are magically restored to the previous owner’s possessions. The only people who can be aware of this cycle are visitors from outside the domain and Hranfolk NPCs, but even they must succeed on a Wisdom save in order to have even hazy memories of the events. The DC lowers over time, as the cycles become more and more prominent.

The only way to end this cycle and free Heorot from the Domains of Dread is to find the legendary sword Life Blade, completely wooden yet forged from the bark of the World Tree Yggdrasil. It is in the Mere-Wife’s lair and visible to only those from beyond the domain. Once she is slain with it her blood will warm the blade, melting it like spring’s arrival driving away the snow. This metaphor represents a release from a cold, harsh winter and the bloody violence wrought over the domain. Besides the storm giant oracle, Healgamen the Scop (famed bard in Heorot Hall) knows that the key to the Mere-Wife’s deaths lies in her lair, albeit he doesn’t know about the Life Blade specifically as his advice came to him in a dreamlike vision.

We have a table for 1d20 Adventures in Heorot which provide for minor quests and encounters besides the central plot of Grendel and the Mere-Wife, along with a 1d12 table of Travelers in the Mists who can be found around the domain’s edges. The Mists are known as the Ginnungagap by locals, perceived by them as a yawning void at the land’s extremities. Encounters in the Mists include Hranfolk and Vistani travelers, message-bearing ravens of the Keepers of the Feather, and even a warlock encouraging adventurers to visit the domain of Bluetspur in hopes of manipulating them into finding powerful treasures and knowledge. We have a detailed backstory and stat block for one particular wanderer, Wiglaf Weohstansson. A very distant cousin of Beowulf, Wiglaf was a former warrior serving under King Onela but found himself driven away from his former lord’s cruel ways. After maturing and learning more about the dangers of the world by studying with the Hranfolk, he grew wise to the role of the Mists and how other lands beyond Heorot were similarly cursed in cycles of mortal sins. He can be found in other Domains of Dread, but he has a soft spot for Heorot and seeks to find the means of freeing it from the Mists.

He also has romantic feelings for Beowulf, and hasn’t confessed this to him yet. Wiglaf’s stat block has him as a melee-based fighter with wereraven abilities. He isn’t immune to non-magical, non-silvered weapons but instead regenerates damage unless damaged from a silvered weapon.



The non-bestiary side of Heorot ends with New Magic Items, detailing 21 new treasures for PCs who hold the shieldwalls and brave the currents of the Whale Road. Some of the more interesting treasures include Aesir Vessels (drinking vessels that can turn liquids placed within into various magical potions and poisons depending on rarity), a Feather of Exaction (consumable item which increases one ability score to 20 permanently but decreases a random score by 1d12; a score of 0 kills the person), Figureheads (engraved visages of various animals at the heads of longships which can grant magical buffs to the entire crew), new Figurines of Wondrous Power (such as a giant goat whose meat can magically restore lost hit points or a pair of ravens which let the item’s owner cast animal messenger on one and beast sense on the other), a Hran Spirit Whistle (stabilizes a dying creature if blown on, but cursed to have a chance of having a ghost randomly possess a nearby target if the user isn’t a cleric, druid, or Hranfolk), Ogre-Etched Weapons (+1 weapons which do maximum damage when striking dragon type creatures and nullifies their breath weapon for a turn), Sunstone (a ship on which you’re a passenger cannot become lost during daylight hours), War Banner (fabric depicting either a fearsome beast or Norse deity of strength, can grant various benefits as an action to nearby allies), and the Warlord’s Helm (legendary helmet that grants +2 AC and Wisdom and Charisma saves, upgrades cover to the next highest type, once per turn can spend reaction to have a nearby ally make an extra melee attack).

The Life Blade is the most detailed magic item here. An artifact required to defeat the Mere-Wife for good, it is a +3 longsword that deals double the rolled weapon damage on a hit. Any target reduced to 0 hit points with it is also affected by Remove Curse, and due to being forged to be wielded by giants anyone with less than 18 Strength or isn’t at least Large size suffers disadvantage on attack rolls with it. It also has 9 charges which can be spent to cast a variety of spells, such as Goodberry, Heal, Plant Growth, and Summon Beast. Those who worship a Norse god or are Chaotic Good receive additional boons such as +2 Constitution, resistance to fire damage, and can use charges to cast the Barkskin spell. But those who don’t fit these qualifications gain negative traits such as automatically extinguishing nearby nonmagical fires, and all creatures of the dragon type are hostile to the wielder and have advantage on attack rolls against them. As the sword cannot be taken more than 100 feet where it was obtained and the battle fought in an underwater grotto, the nonmagical fire curse isn’t as bad. However, one of the creature types the Mere-Wife can randomly summon is a black dragon wyrmling, which can then come into play.

Thoughts So Far: Heorot is a cool domain reminiscent of British/Nordic dark ages fantasy. There are lots of interesting locales and characters which can inspire a variety of adventure ideas beyond the central conflict with the darklord. While a bit excessive in detail, the various settlement entries are well-equipped for defenses in case the PCs decide to raid, need to defend the village from a raid, or wish to gain some hired help for an adventure. I have to wonder if the author was inspired by the Followers system for Beowulf: Age of Heroes in this last regard.

The take on the original story of Beowulf is an interesting one, and does much to expand on the backstory and role of Grendel’s mother in a narratively satisfying way that fits in with the self-damned nature of Ravenloft’s darklords.

Join us next time as we cover new monsters and NPCs in Part 2: Friends & Foes!

[Libertad]

Heorot Part 2: Friends & Foes

Making up half of the rest of Heorot, Friends and Foes provides us with 48 NPC and monster stat blocks which adventurers can encounter in this Domain of Dread. Quite a few of them have been reprinted from other 5th Edition sourcebooks, notably Rime of the Frostmaiden, or even converted from earlier Edition bestiaries. I already covered Heorot’s political leaders in the prior post, and going over every creature would make this review too long, so I’ll focus on what I think are the most interesting ones.

Amarok (CR 5) are magical wolves that are invisible and insubstantial in sunlight but appear fully-formed at night. They are revered as primordial spirits by druids and animistic faiths, but their true origins are unknown and they hunt and act without seeming rhyme or reason. They can eat the souls of people via Soul Cage, and their breaths have restorative powers that can cure exhaustion levels and diseases as well as hit point damage.



Beowulf (CR 16) is a great hero who underwent a troubling change when the Mists claimed Heorot. Whenever he takes to battle there’s an increasing chance he’ll transform into a fierce bear-like monster. Although he would make a great ally for PCs, he is unable to see the Life Blade and thus cannot wield it. Statwise he is a powerful melee-focused warrior who has Legendary Actions, gains various buffs when he fights unarmed and unarmored, can tear a limb from someone if they fail to escape his grapples by 10 or more, and every round in combat he has an increasing chance to turn into a bear or bear-human hybrid that grants him more powerful bite and claw attacks.

Bloodfire Oozes (CR 7-9 depending on size) are creations of fire giant necromancers made from slain trespassers. They have no will of their own and obey their creators, and in addition to spewing sulfur and bursting into flames they can also empower the damage of fire attacks within 60 feet.

Butsecarl (CR 3) are more powerful housecarls that serve as full-time warriors for a house or leader. They are melee fighters with the ability to Action Surge, Pack Tactics, and a special Repelling Strike where they can choose to deal half damage for the opportunity to push an enemy up to 10 feet away. There’s a sidebar for butsecarls with specialized roles on longships, with different ability scores, skills, and tool proficiencies.

Crawling Apocalypses (CR 6) are mollusk-like undead from the depths of the Whale Road, a danger to nearby communities when they wash up on shore. It can attack with barbed tentacles and its bite can inflict a unique disease known as bluerot. Bluerot causes boils and fevers along with Constitution and Charisma damage, but grants the ability to breathe underwater.

Dweorgs are a dwarven subrace blessed with magical innovations, and their origins are uncertain although Heorot’s inhabitants often tie them to Nordic mythology. They are the best crafters in the domain, although their greedy and vindictive ways often require a heavy price. We have a table for magic items they can craft for PCs separated by item rarity, GP cost, and possible services required. Dweorgs have multiple stat blocks, most being drawn from existing Duergar, although we have two new types: the Dweorg Alchemist (CR 1) and Dweorg Crafter (CR 6) who are basically Artificers that come equipped with magic items that lose their properties several days after their deaths.



Grendel (CR 19) is a powerful monster who is predictably melee-focused. He is immune to the charmed and frightened conditions and has excellent Athletics (+12) for grappling. He can Regenerate 20 hit points per round and regain hit points when biting a helpless target, and his legendary actions include being able to stuff helpless and grappled targets into his Bag of Holding along with dealing automatic damage to objects when moving. If reduced to 0 Hit Points he doesn’t die, instead regaining hit points and can move extra-fast back to the Mere-Wife’s lair at which point he dies. Grendel has no real long-range attacks besides an AoE Hopeless Hail which deals psychic damage to creatures within 15 feet.

Healgamen the Scop (CR 5) serves King Hrothgar and Queen Waltheow of Heorot Hall. His abilities are so grand that his very tales can conjure spiritual echoes of characters from his sagas. He also possesses a Lyre of Building he plays every day to make Heorot Hall look timelessly new, giving rumors that the building is indestructible. In terms of stats Healgamen shines strongest when not in battle. He has the spells of a bard and can cast Augury or Legend Lore twice per day as Scaldic Visions. Twice per day he can perform a damaging Death Whisper in the form of a riddle (“What did Odin whisper in Balder’s ear before Balder’s corpse was burned?”) that causes psychic damage to a target on a failed save and forces them to spend their movement running away from Healgamen. Five times per day he can relate a particular Saga Tale to be of use. It is a 1d12 table of various named tales. For example, the Tale of the Draugur can turn a target invisible for one round and the target deals additional necrotic damage and the frightened condition to a target struck during this time. While Tale of Hugin and Munin lets the target add a d12 to any Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma check for the next 10 minutes.

Housecarl (CR 3) are the bread and butter of Heorot’s warriors, specialized to fight in shieldwalls. They are high-AC sword and board (or spear and board) fighters who can Shield Bash, have Pack Tactics, can shield an ally as per the Protection Fighting Style, and deal 3d6 extra damage to a creature once per turn when within 5 feet of an ally also engaging the enemy.

Hranfolk have a variety of stat blocks depending on their roles, although all have the ability to communicate with reindeer. Drovers (CR 1) take care of and herd reindeer, capable of gaining a variety of buffs when mounted on a deer and can restore hit points to the deer they tend. Shamans (CR 5) cast spells and wild shape as druids but have a variety of unique abilities such as a Thunder Drum that deals 2d6 thunder damage in a 100 foot range (wow!) along with being able to cast Ceremony and Contact Other Plane as part of their religious duties. Warriors (CR 5) are powerful fighters who make use of magical runes to better survive against the horrors of the Mists, with Battle Runes that grant various buffs and a Runic Shield which can force a nearby target to reroll an attack roll.

We also get two new weapons favored by the Hranfolk: the bolas deals a base 1 bludgeoning damage as a thrown weapon but can restrain a creature, and the atlatl basically improves the range of a thrown spear to 90/240 feet.



Leif Ratatosk (CR 2) is a gnome weresquirrel who claims to have been hatched from an acorn that fell from Yggdrasil’s branches. He can be encountered as one of the sample adventure hooks, being vaguely aware of a weapon that can end Heorot’s curse somewhere in the Mist Mere. Leif doesn’t have many truly unique abilities besides gnome racial traits and the ability to transform into a squirrel or hybrid form, although his lycanthropic damage immunities make him able to punch above his weight class against many of Heorot’s horrors.

We have a sidebar for PCs who become weresquirrels. Basically they get a huge boost to Dexterity, making it a 19 if the score is lower, and gain squirrel-like climbing speed and a bite attack while in squirrel or hybrid form. Forced alignment changes from embracing the curse moves them to Chaotic alignment.

The Mere-Wife (CR 22) is the Darklord of Heorot, and her lair is an underwater grotto in the Mist Mere. In combat she is a powerful opponent with a shadow-formed blade that can be used in melee and ranged combat. She also has a variety of innate spells geared towards illusion and misdirection, and can turn into mist like a vampire to retreat to her lair should she die from non-Life Blade injuries. She also gets new abilities and Legendary Actions if Grendel is present, such as being able to protect him with warding mists that can make attackers choose a new target, and move and attack nearby opponents that harmed her or Grendel. Her lair actions include tendrils of grappling water, magical darkness, and summoning monsters made of shadow.

Nicor (CR 11) are evil sea serpents made directly from the Dark Powers and are one of the most feared creatures on the Whale Road. They have powerful melee attacks and AoE sonic attacks, and have Legendary Actions that grant it additional movement and bite attacks.

Nithing (CR 2) is a general term for those exiled from communities for dishonorable behavior, but this stat block reflects those outcasts who made pacts with wicked entities so that they can survive in a world turned against them. They aren’t physically powerful nor do they have spellcasting, but they possess an ability to charm others and instill intense desires to approach them, the ability to deal psychic damage by leeching off their life force, and a form of lonesome-induced mental influence that causes a target to view all other creatures as enemies to attack.

Nixie (CR 1) are fey who dwell in lakes, streams, and ponds, and often magically charm humanoids to serve as guards and laborers. While so charmed they have a telepathic link with the nixie and can breathe underwater. Nixies who gather into groups of 10 or more are capable of casting a collective Geas spell on a humanoid with a duration of 1 year.

Sceadugenga (CR 6) are the physical manifestations of raw vengeance, living in the dark woods of Heorot and filled with an all-consuming desire to kill anyone they come across. They fight with phantasmal blades which impose disadvantage on saving throws to targets, are able to become invisible in dim light and darkness, and can mark targets with a Wrathful Hex that causes them to suffer additional damage from the Sceadugenga’s attacks.

Selkie (CR ½) are seals with fey ancestry, allowing them to transform into humanoids or seal-humanoid hybrids. Their songs are magically-empowered, capable of healing injuries and a variety of diseases and maladies, and they fight with longswords made of mithral.* Selkie prefer the sea, but often find themselves drawn to land where they fall in love with humanoids. A few of their kind are spellcasters, gaining nature-themed innate spells such as Animal Messenger (seals only), fog cloud, and Augury and Commune with Nature as rituals. In the case of Augury, we get unique means of sea-themed casting traditions such as studying the behavior of fish or throwing clam shells.

*How much does that sell for as loot? The book doesn’t say.



The Wyrm (CR 22) is a unique fire-breathing dragon with a venomous bite, its hoard gathered from riches of the barrows of long-forgotten kingdoms. It has become lazy, content to protect its hoard and hunt animals in the mountains, yet the riches within have caused many hapless adventurers to cross paths and perish under its might. Statwise the Wyrm is well…a dragon, with powerful melee attacks, a Frightful Presence, Legendary Actions, and two types of breath weapons: your typical Fire Breath and a Sickening Slime that imposes disadvantage on various Strength abilities, saves, and attacks for 1 minute. Interestingly the Wyrm is sensitive to sunlight, suffering disadvantage on ability checks when affected. Its lair actions include tremors, noxious smoke, and magical darkness.

Overall Thoughts: The collection of new monsters is a welcome one, and are broad enough to be useful in non-Ravenloft campaigns. I do like how many of the humanoid NPCs have features which make them useful outside of direct combat, such as Waltheow’s inspirational abilities, the Dweorg magic item services, Healgamen’s bardic abilities, and the powers of the Selkie. There’s a nice variety of creature types as well, which in addition to the official monsters mentioned earlier helps Heorot from becoming too stale in the types of dangers to be found.

My main criticism is that a lot of the creatures, particularly those same humanoids, are a bit too specialized for melee. As in they don’t have reliable means of threatening flying and high-speed ranged attackers unless they get a bow or similar weapon. The Shieldwall and Boar’s Snout tactics of Heorot’s various leaders are cool and in line with early British and Scandinavian warfare, but for any spellcaster with AoE attacks this is a big glowing “FIREBALL NOW” sign. In some cases this is mitigated, like the final battle with the Mere-Wife taking place in an enclosed grotto or the fact that not all of Heorot’s leaders are the kind of people most gaming groups would seek to slay by default.

Another criticism I have are the Challenge Ratings of the darklord as well as several other prominent characters. Beowulf, King Rodfare, and the Wyrm are balanced for characters of at least Tier 3, and while Heorot has a diverse set of challenges and story ideas for all levels of play the central conflict isn’t the kind that would be friendly to lower-level parties. I suppose having the various hired help and Beowulf along for the ride is meant to help even the odds, although this runs the chance of being upshone by an NPC even if the PCs must be the ones to end the Darklord’s curse once found.

But overall, Heorot: Beowulf’s Domain of Dread is a cool domain that feels unique among Ravenloft products and has lots of material for at least several sessions worth of gaming. I certainly don’t regret its purchase, and it rates rather highly among the domain-centric sourcebooks I’ve read and reviewed so far.

Join us next time as we embark on a level 1-12 adventure path in the Realm of the Blood Queen!

[Libertad]

Product Link
Product Type: Adventure, Location
Cos-Required? No

Realm of the Blood Queen is a 1st to 12th level adventure path set in a new Domain of Dread by the name of Wreythau (pronounced Ray-thauw). Ruled over by the slumbering vampire queen Czerina Gavranova, Wreythau is a kingdom of contrasts. Multiple factions vie for power and prestige, from the Church of the Morning Lord who has fallen far from their god’s teachings to become bloodthirsty fundamentalists, the druidic Old Faith and its beastfolk worshipers beyond the walls of civilization, the trenched-in aristocracy who owe allegiance to their sleeping ruler, and the Wreythian Merchant Consortium who owns practically every commerce save land ownership due to the remaining vestiges of noble birthright.

The overall curve of the adventure is that the PCs begin in a non-Ravenloftian campaign setting, bearing witness to the Merchant Consortium’s depredations. By tracking them down to their mist-shrouded land, the party gains the attention of the darklord Czerina, who seeks to mold the PCs into valued servants to wipe out the factional opposition and bring order to her domain. Or at least, that’s her plan before the PCs inevitably oppose her.

Realm of the Blood Queen has an interesting publishing history, or rather the lack of it. First off, in searching the author’s name of Cayce Corday, it appears that this is their first foray into self-publishing. Rather impressive, given that this book is a hefty 379 pages with a lot of professional artwork, most of it original and not WotC assets. Second off is that they have quite a bit of confidence in their work. The chapter detailing Raffenburg, the dark fantasy metropolis of the setting, is Pay What You Want on the Dungeon Master’s Guild. There was no fancy KickStarter or crowdfunding, and the book was initially published incomplete, split into 2 volumes with the second volume concluding the rest of the adventure path. Unfortunately this PDF has no bookmarks or index, which for a product of its size is disadvantageous for navigation.

There’s quite a bit of odes to the Strahd-centric Ravenloft adventures, and this is intentional. Czerina is obsessed with the PCs and she regularly makes her presence known throughout the campaign, much like Strahd. The PCs can come upon her personal journal to learn of her descent into villainy, much like Strahd. As darklord Czerina has an intimate tie to the land, although she is more druidic in nature in having made deals with the fey and in her eras of slumber she is aware of every slain animal, every tectonic plate shift, and every soul within the colony hive-mind of insects. Cayce also mentions that the Blood Queen was initially designed as a female version of Strahd before spinning off into her own concept.

In the centuries since, Czerina has reigned as an immortal Queen of Blood, the tortured tyrant of twisted land that would make Barovia seem pleasant in comparison.

Just as Strahd von Zarovich was bound to a Dark Power and ascended as the Dark Lord of Barovia, so too has Czerina Gavranova come into her unholy powers.

While I can understand taking inspiration from existing concepts, I feel that one weakens themselves when they do 1 for 1 comparisons within the text of the work. The Realm of the Blood Queen has a different feel and mood than Curse of Strahd, which I feel helps it stand out better. For one, it is still dark fantasy but of a more high fantasy feel. Nonhuman races are quite prominent and not unique travelers in the population centers. In spite of the darklord’s druidic influences much of the campaign takes place in and around major population centers, with forays into the wilderness much more brief in comparison. This adventure isn’t as open-world as Curse of Strahd: the major chapters are bottled off into individual entries and are often arranged so that PCs move on once they finish their business in the prior chapter or are unable to return. But within most of those chapters there’s a lot of freedom in how they can go accomplishing their tasks or responding to plot hooks, so it’s not exactly linear either.



Player’s Guide to Wreythau outlines general DMing advice for horror and how to maintain tense atmosphere, followed up by an in-character description of this cursed land from a sailor’s not-so-tall tales. Stat generation is more generous, with a standard array of 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, and 8 or 27 point buy but with one ability score starting at 18 for free. This is due to the fact that encounters are designed to be more difficult than normal, thus the increased power for the PCs. Additionally, a more open-ended set of race generation is building off of Tasha’s Custom Lineages. New feats known as Character Creation Feats are given to be in line with broad fantasy species concepts: Flight Adept grants a character a rest-based limited fly speed, A Dash of Magic grants a free cantrip, Tough Hide gains +1 AC, etc. Sample hooks are given for every background and character class for why a PC would seek to journey to Wreythau, often tying them to some individual or faction from that realm. For instance, the Folk Hero is using herbs to delay a lycanthropic disease and learned that the Reinwald family can help cure them. While a Druid has noticed that an unnatural corruption is spreading across the wilds, with Wreythau being the epicenter.



Chapter 1: Welcome to Wreythau details the broader points of the domain’s history and politics along with the backstory of its darklord. Or as the book calls her, the Dark Lady. Czerina Gavranova was once the princess of the long-dead kingdom of Nostrovishte. The realm wasn’t very forward-thinking in being classically patriarchal, and her parents were angry at their inability to father a male heir as women couldn’t inherit titles and land. They named her Czerina out of spite, a variation on the name Czernobog of the monster of legend (and eventual Dark Power who would claim her as his champion), and her upbringing was a cruel and abusive one. She was trained as a warrior and mage, yet still not respected so she took out her rage by adopting the identity of a highwayman to take revenge on people who wronged her.

Czerina’s alternate identity became known as the Dark Rider, which would prove ideal when a neighboring kingdom invaded Nostrovishte. Many barons and dukes were killed during the invasion, and deciding to fight for her country the Dark Rider gathered unlikely allies from persecuted groups of the druidic Old Faith. Her leadership was effective, to the point that she was hailed as a savior. Feeling that she finally earned some respect, Czerina visited her parents yet again, giving them a magical gem as a prize taken in war that could theoretically grant one’s wish. Her mother spurned her, declaring loudly that she wished above everything to have a son.

This was the point at which Czerina realized that she would never be respected by her kin, and left the kingdom to live among the Old Faith. A royal son was born, Alexandros, who would become Tsar, and in time would protect his kingdom against the invading forces of Gulthias, the Champion of Czernobog. But Czerina slain him first, and would not repeat the same mistake as last time. She took over Gulthias’ mantle and was chosen as the champion of Czernobog. She then went to war against Alexandros, and in order to ensure victory she made a deal with the fairy Court of Night and Twilight. As part of the deal Czerina underwent a ritual to tie herself to the very land, becoming able to turn nature itself against Alexandros’ army. It was not enough, and when Czernobog offered to help her with just one more bargain she accepted. And so the land of Wreythau was torn from the Material Plane and made into a new Domain of Dread. Now, one of the Dark Powers had a champion of its own, to serve and mold as the entity saw fit. For the next thousand years the Dark Power engaged in a battle of wills with Czerina, stuck in a state of madness and pain from her fusion to the land as she bore continual witness to the countless minds that intersected the domain’s ecosystem.

We get some role-play advice regarding Czerina Gavranova. In short terms, she is basically an overconfident girlboss who sees something in the PCs, seeking out champions from across the Domains of Dread and beyond to test them. This is to make them stronger for the goal of uniting and solidifying her fractured kingdom. We also get personality traits to play up, both to show redeeming qualities (she is generous to those who serve her, is a woman of her word, is willing to accept criticism and advice if it will help make her more powerful) as well as ones that solidify her villainous status (she’s a sadist who justifies the suffering she causes as making people stronger, doesn’t value individual lives so much as they are useful to her grand plan of unification, hopes to grow as powerful as the gods to remake reality). Czerina will initially be polite and respectful to the PCs when they meet; even if they try to attack her or insult her she will still present an unflappable demeanor. But there are certain conversation topics that can get under her skin and reveal a more vicious side, such as dencouncing her right to rule or blame her for the death of Teadora (a friend from her backstory the PCs can learn about in her journal).

Glimpses of Wreythian History spans a little over 2,000 years of history (half that being after it becomes a Domain of Dread) although it can be summed up briefly this way. An evil druid known as Gulthias founded a religion that would become known as the Ghul Sildreth. Its goal was to turn all of nature into apex predators, and manipulated Wreythau’s ecosystem so that even the meagerest animals were dangerous to humanoids. His followers were exiled to an island where they built a new kingdom that would threaten other lands before Czerina overthrew them. Wreythau’s dwarves were given a mountain kingdom to rule over known as Barrukhirrim, but over time grew to fear Czerina’s power and started building weapons for the purposes of slaying her. Czerina’s spies learned of this and she unleashed a genocidal army upon Barrukhirrim, causing the kingdom to be renamed the Silver Graves over what was lost.

A paladin of Lathandar known as Frey attempted to lead a rebellion against Czerina, but lost. One of his angel followers, Temelloth, was captured and tortured into insanity. He was then released back into the world by Czerina for the lulz, and the angel made a pact with an unnamed Dark Power and formed a religious movement based off of warped teachings of the Morning Lord. The Church of the Morning Lord became very popular and the only real opposition to Czerina’s power structure. They aren’t a great alternative, for they are stereotypical religious fundamentalists who start oppressing and killing anyone who doesn’t meet their strict moral standards.

Sometime later, the Wreythian Merchant Consortium was founded to manage the kingdom’s economic affairs, intended by Czerina to form a centrally-planned economy to unify her country. But it basically turned into a monopolistic megacorp which prioritizes profit over patriotism. The Consortium found ways to travel beyond the domain and to various Material Plane worlds, resorting to persuasion, money, and kidnapping over the next several centuries to get the best and brightest to immigrate to Wreythau. The Consortium's depravations will be what attract the PC’s attention and get them involved in the adventure.



The People of Wreythau covers the overall culture and political power players of the domain. Although a once-cosmopolitan land connected to many realms, a millennia of being trapped in the Mists has caused its people to give in to infighting without an external threat to unite them. Resources became scarce, and due to Gulthias’ influence even the most harmless plants and animals were predators harmful to its citizens. Humans are the most numerous race, although other races have long since been assimilated into the greater human Wreythian culture.

Exceptions to this assimilation exist among the anthropomorphic animal races such as Tabaxi and Tortles; a curse that began a thousand years ago caused children to be born with warped animal-humanoid forms, which caused great social upheaval. Dubbed the Beastfolk, the survivors of the widespread violence were forced out of the major population centers to live among the wilds, causing even more of them to die from vicious wildlife. The survivors managed to build hidden communities managed by the Old Faith, who banded together with the Beastfolk out of mutual necessity. Beastfolk are a diverse people of their own, but due to this any races with significant animalistic traits are grouped in with them and persecuted. Tieflings are similarly hated (albeit not as much) due to the Church of the Morning Lord’s influence along with being seen as no different than demons and devils.

The Inquisition of the Morning Lord is the predominant religion in Wreythau, with centers of operations in the three major population centers and their headquarters being the Abbey in Leshehoff. In addition to counting the darklord as their enemy, the Inquisition also hunts the Beastfolk, followers of the Old Faith, and anyone bearing signs of corruption. Such signs are just as much based on propaganda and inaccurate superstitions to enforce social conformity as genuine means of evil detection. We get a list of 7 sample “signs of corruption,” along with how Inquisitors can subjectively interpret them in order to harass people.

The Order of Blood are a group of vampire knights pledged in service to the Dark Lady Czerina. Ysemgrin, its founder, was one of the warriors who turned upon Frey after doubts about his cause were manipulated by Czerina with a literal stab in the back during a momentous battle. The Order is currently experiencing a power struggle, with traditionalists seeking to honor their Vampire Queen and the tenets of strength through suffering. The renegades are a rising group who feel that the Order is acting too slowly and conservative in Czerina’s goal of national unification. Inspired by her legends as the Black Rider, they conduct acts of banditry upon travelers as well as more directly fighting the Beastfolk and Inquisition.

The Wreythian Merchant Consortium would all but dominate their homeland’s economy were it not for the remaining laws restricting land ownership to the nobility. Most of their leading members are rich and as such grew complacent in their lot in life, and don’t do much other than to preserve the status quo and keep the wheels of trade turning.

The House of Reinwald is a noble family of werewolves who have their roots in a tribe who received lycanthropy as blessings from the Fey. Most of these werewolves served Gulthias, but one group sided with Czerina and became the House of Reinwald. Supported by the Old Faith, they now have a prominent place in the leadership of Raffenburg, Wreythau’s largest city. They’re fond of wild parties and organizing hunts in forests which are a cover for their members to hunt down and kill people as a game of sport.

The Court of the Blood Queen is Czerina’s inner circle of trusted advisors. They include the Tax Collector Beleroth Haar An Thell, an ancient elven bladesinger who is Czerina’s husband and hopes to find a means of freeing his beloved from Czernobog’s influence; Lady Ysemgrin, who is the leader of the Order of Blood; Isidora, wife of Czerina, artist, and architect who designed the palace known as the Cairn in which the Dark Lady now lives; and R.K. Schryer,* a vampiric poet and playwright who is the leader of the Cult of Decadence, a group supernaturally inspired by Isidora’s artwork to commit acts of evil as part of an ethos that worships suffering.

*The book also spells his surname as Schreyer, and this is more frequent in going by CTRL + F.

Encounters in Wreythau cover new nature-related threats of the domain. Due to the Ghul Sildreth’s influence, nature is far more deadly. Sometimes the land itself acts to kill people, and furthering this we get two examples: Poisonous rain the color of blood can fall, causing damage to those unprotected (there are rules for waterproofing cloaks and tents via tallow, oil, and wax via the Survival skill to avoid taking damage), and Cursed Earth which manifests as random appearances of spiked pit traps. For the rain it is suggested to have it occur in outdoor battles where there is cover to be found, which serves as a convenient means of reshaping ideal movement and positioning on the spot.



The wildlife is similarly cursed: almost any plant can grow into huge carnivorous Assassin Vines, and Wreythian rats are Chaotic Evil and hunt in large aggressive packs. This is a problem to the point that every population center prioritizes pest control, as death by rat swarm is common in poorer and dirtier parts of communities. Even rabbits are predatory pack hunters, possessing lamprey-like mouths they use to clamp onto prey and weigh them down via sheer weight of numbers. Horses are also carnivorous hunters who hunt solitarily or in mated pairs. Although such horses can be domesticated, their temperamental attitudes cause the deaths of many stablehands each year.

We also have 2 sample encounters of a more supernatural variety: one is a festive party by fey who attempt to trick the PCs into engaging in an illusion concealing a grim reality: the wine is blood, the food are humanoid corpses, and sound from musical instruments being played are the cries of wounded animals. The other one is a troupe of undead musicians encountered on the road as part of a traveling caravan known as “Schryer’s Famous Players.” They are busy repairing their wagon and non-offensive, even calling out to the party to help lend a hand.

Scaling Relics of Legend details six unique magic items which can be obtained during the early parts of the adventure path. The properties of their powers means that characters can only attune to one of them at a time, and so serve as “signature magic items” for broad character archetypes. They have a default “resting state” for their initial abilities (usually a mundane item or casting focus, can summon item to hand as an action) along with +1 to +3 enhancements which are unlocked via certain prerequisites and levels (level 6 for +2, 9 for +3). Most of the prerequisites are rather grim, such as the Sword of Slaughter’s +2 level requiring killing a helpless enemy by dismemberment or the Book of Vile Darkness’ +3 bonus requiring you to drive at least one sentient creature insane. All +3 bonuses require sacrificing 9 sentient creatures a year to maintain it at that level of enhancement. Choosing not to continue to unlock or maintain a Relic’s powers due to the grim nature of empowerment will cause the item to disappear. It will reappear in the hands of a powerful enemy in the future to be determined by the DM. There is a ritual that can be used to “put a Relic to sleep” to safely get rid of it.

Staff of the Old Faith is for spellcasters and is nature-themed, usable only by spellcasters but not limited to druids and rangers. It acts as a quarterstaff and spellcasting focus of its current enhancement, can teach the wielder a new Druidic spell that can be swapped every level, and at +3 it increases one’s spellcasting modifier by +2.

Sword of Slaughter can actually take the shape of any melee weapon of the wielder’s choice provided they’re proficient with it. It acts as a weapon of its current enhancement, increases Dexterity by 2 at +2 and either Dexterity or Strength by 2 at +3 enhancement, and also at +2 it heals the wielder for 2d6 HP for every enemy they kill.

Shield of the Dead requires proficiency in shields. It acts as a shield of its enhancement, raises the wielder’s Constitution by +2 for every enhancement obtained, at +1 can redirect the damage of an ally within sight to themselves as a reaction, at +2 lets the wielder cast Life Transference without a spell slot once per long rest, and at +3 the shield can cast True Resurrection on the wielder once and refreshes upon the sacrifice of a sentient creature.

Dagger of Murder requires the wielder to have the Sneak Attack Ability. It acts as a dagger of its enhancement, at +1 adds +1d6 to the wielder’s Sneak Attack damage and another 1d6 at +3 enhancement, increases Dexterity by 2 each at +2 and +3 enhancement, and can allow the wielder to turn invisible (no duration given) as a bonus action which refreshes every time they kill a creature, and at +3 enhancement can teleport as a bonus action every time they turn invisible. I presume that this is done as a separate bonus action than the initial invisibility-turning, as you can only do one bonus action per round.

Book of Vile Darkness requires the wielder to cast arcane spells. At its resting state it grants proficiency in Taxidermy Tools, acts as a spellcasting focus of its enhancement, adds +2 to a character’s spellcasting modifier at +2 and +3 enhancement, and teaches one spell that you can cast from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list at +1 and +3 enhancement, and at +3 enhancement grants 1 bonus spell slot of the highest-level spell you can cast.

Bow of Whispers can take the form of either a shortbow or longbow, and must be proficient in that weapon’s use depending on the desired form. It is a weapon of its enhancement bonus, at +1 never runs out of arrows, deals an additional +1d6 bonus piercing damage at +1 and +3 enhancement, at +2 and +3 enhancement increases Dexterity by 2, and at +2 grants a permanent Pass Without Trace to the wielder as long as they have the weapon in their hands.

Dealing With Dead provides means of resurrection access in the campaign beyond the PC’s own capabilities. The first one is the archdruid Mata Yezinka, who if the PCs are allies of the Beastfolk (an easy option for most parties) can revive them as either a gift or for a favor depending on the circumstances. Czerina, once awakened from her slumber, can offer to revive fallen PCs as vampires. They don’t become true vampires initially, but have a progressive condition where growing bloodlust threatens to change them into a full vampire at which point they fall under DM control. The third option (which is rather late in the campaign) is being re-animated Frankenstein-style by the Mad Alchemist of Inbarev.

Thoughts So Far: The political setup of Wreythau is neat and full of plot hooks. The corrupted church, vampire knights, and werewolf nobles are all thematically gothic while being interesting concepts in their own right, and the addition of scaling magic items is a neat concept as well. The existence of sub-groups within most factions helps reflect the Dark Lady’s curse while giving the PCs opportunities to weaken them by empowering one group over the other.

But otherwise, I’m rather conflicted about the rest of things. For one, making all wildlife dangerous to the point that even animal domestication has a constant fatality rate stretches things to the point of disbelief. The utility of animal labor cannot be underestimated in pre-Industrial societies: oxes to plow fields, horses and mules for transportation, dogs for sentries and hunting, cattle for milk and meat, the list goes on. Wreythau is very much a medieval level of technology as opposed to a hunter-gatherer society, so it begs the question of how the domain’s denizens get around these shortcomings if they can’t even reliably hunt rabbits without the risk of death.

As for the Blood Queen herself, the parallels to Strahd are too numerous to the point that it’s hard to judge her on her own merits. Given that Wreythau has been a domain for a thousand years, this would make it the first one of its kind, predating even Barovia if we go by the canon timeline. On the other hand, Czerina has a unique role that separates her from that of Strahd: she isn’t initially hostile to the PCs, she is actually concerned with being a ruler first and foremost rather than pining over someone who will never reciprocate their feelings, and unlike Curse of Strahd there are enough big players in the domain with their own exclusive agendas that simply overthrowing Czerina isn’t enough to necessarily make Wreythau safer. In Curse of Strahd there are some villains who owe allegiance to the vampire count, but most of them do so defeating Strahd by campaign’s end should change Barovia for the better. In Realm of the Blood Queen you have a larger assortment of villains who if not necessarily darklords are effectively their own mini-Strahds who need to be taken care of for the good of Wreythau.

Join us next time as we begin our journey with a zombie plague in the nameless starting fantasy city, embark on a storm-swept voyage to Wreythau, and overthrow a tyrannical angel of the Church of the Morninglord!

[tomokaicho]

Much appreciation for this thread!

[Libertad]

Realm of the Blood Queen, Part 2

Chapter 2: the Drowned Dead marks the beginning of this adventure path, taking 1st level PCs to 3rd level by the end. This, and all the other adventures in Realm of the Blood Queen, use milestone progression. The adventure begins in Port Haven, a seaside city set in the campaign setting of the DM’s choice. The Wreythian Merchant Consortium imported deadly shipments of the Gulthias Flower into town, and their spores and pollen entered the water supply to infect and turn people into plant-controlled zombies. As to why the Consortium is doing this? Beleroth believes that spreading death and misery beyond the domain will make Czerina stronger to the point that she can awaken.

The first act begins innocently enough, where the PCs can go around town, interact with NPCs, and buy things. During this time they can gradually pick up clues about strange flowers for sale and pollen in the water supply. There’s even a book-seller who can sell tomes which inform the PCs about Wreythau, granting advantage on certain checks as appropriate. Eventually things come to a dreadful crescendo when a sailor collapses at an inn the PCs are staying at. Not long after he revives as a walking corpse that seeks to kill and infect others. The Gulthias Zombie is a stronger-than-normal kind, and noncombatant NPCs it hits die instantly and rise as very weak zombies. The book recommends having the main zombie attack NPCs first as a means of both increasing PC survivability while also demonstrating the need to destroy it before it causes more harm.

After the fight, the entire port will be put under quarantine, and PCs will have to hunker down and barricade the inn to make it through the night.* This can be accomplished via use of skills, tools, and magic, and failed checks cause more zombies to break through and enter into combat. The surviving PCs will have their capabilities recognized and vouched for, causing the Magistrate to hire them to investigate the source of the plague and the origin of the Gulthias flower shipment. In order to do that, the PCs will need to take a voyage to Wreythau, and it just so happens that a vessel known as the Pelican is the only ship willing to brave the journey.

*The book mentions that PCs who try to scale the quarantined walls of the neighborhood will be pushed back by archer guards. If they manage to overcome them, the book says that they may not be the heroic types suitable for this adventure and to start over with new characters.

The Pelican is an interesting multi-day voyage with a mixture of initial investigation and later combat. Captain Saltwind is a half-orc who is secretly a pirate, and he and his crew still talk like ones with phrases like “arrr matey!” The Pelican has several other passengers, each with their own secrets, such as Raum (charming masked elf who is an assassin and may kill another passenger who grows wise to him), Yasviga Reinwald (eldest daughter of the Reinwald leaders and seeks to turn one of the sailors she’s infatuated with into a werewolf), Rahved Mirsk (alchemist and wanted criminal who can give magical potions with strange side effects if PCs volunteer to be his test subjects), and Vara Skade (half-orc ranger who also counts the Wreythian Merchant Consortium as an enemy). Events during the voyage include learning more about Wreythau while having dinner with Captain Saltwind, discovering that the crew are pirates by going down into the hold after hearing strange noises, Raum attempting to covertly kill Vara, and Yasviga’s paramour becoming inordinately violent due to his lycanthropy. PCs who confront the Captain about him and his crew being pirates in a hostile manner will have him point out that a ship of his size needs at least 12 people to sail it as a bare minimum. Therefore, any supposed “victory” in their case will leave them stranded at sea.

When the Pelican starts to part the misty veil, the sailors begin painting Druidic runes on the ship to ward off the incoming leviathans that serve as Wreythau’s maritime defenses. But this won’t last, for Czerina herself seeks to test the PCs by destroying the ship. This begins a grueling ordeal where the PCs must aid the crew by attacking leviathan tentacles in combat as well as a skill challenge to help get the Pelican through intact. Successfully saving the ship manages to guide it into a controlled crash, saving most of the sailors. Failure crashes the ship, causing the PCs to have to swim to stay afloat. PCs at risk of drowning can experience one of three events: a vision from Czerina, asking who the PC is and she can answer one question in turn; finding the Dagger of Murder jutting out from a rocky shoal to climb to safety; a lightning bolt strikes the PC, doing no damage but giving them resistance to that damage type and also a personal eldritch mark indicating Czerina’s favor (advantage on certain social checks).

The rest of the chapter is a dungeon crawl among a ship graveyard. A group of cannibalistic mermaids will harry survivors, and ships and debris are spaced out enough that unathletic PCs and those without special movements will have to brave the waters more often than usual. Captain Saltwind died during the crash, and the named NPCs from the Pelican will be already on shore. Nameless NPC sailors accompanying the party will be the first targets for the mermaids which makes for a nice way to give a sense of danger to the players. One of the more notable vessels is Alexandros’ flagship, bedecked with religious iconography of Lathander. Within the vessel, certain skill checks ranging from History to Medicine can teach the party more about the events which happened here. The spirits of the former occupants exist as haunting visions, which impart more of the backstory of Wreythau’s history to the PCs. There’s also a spellbook and some magic items as treasure here. Another ship contains healing potions and healer’s kits along with a variety of paintings portraying figures and landscapes from Wreythau’s history, including Czerina. A set of magical paintings designed to sow dissent among the party will create two illusions of truthful events from the backstories of individual PCs…and a third painting will show one PC performing a variety of evil acts, such as worshiping demons and poisoning wells which are all (hopefully) false. The Sword of Slaughter and Shield of the Dead can also be found in this ship-crawl, although they are guarded by the spirit of Tsar Alexandros. The Tsar serves as a ghostly boss battle with Legendary and Lair actions, and can make use of his abilities to shove and knock opponents into nearby holes that drop into the surf below.

Characters who were overcome by mermaids may be held as hostages to be eaten later in an “optional” section of the area, where a magical Driftglobe is being used by them to sunbathe. PCs can negotiate with the mermaids for the driftglobe or any hostages, although the former is much more challenging to negotiate for. Otherwise the final section of the ship graveyard involves escaping to shore via a horizontally overtuned ship’s mast as a horde of Drowned Dead assail the party. These creatures have a grapple as their primary attack, and can vomit dealing acid damage on grappled targets as well as explode upon death.

PCs who come within sight of shore (hundreds of feet away) will see the NPC survivors getting attacked and captured by a dozen armored torch-bearing figures. These are members of the Inquisition of the Morning Lord, and this scene serves as part of a precursor to adventures involving that faction in Leshehoff.



Chapter 3: Leshehoff opens this adventure path up considerably. While the prior chapter was rather linear overall save for dealing with the mysterious passengers, the lands surrounding Leshehoff give PCs more freedom in how they can go about accomplishing the main objectives. The barony of Leshehoff is one of Wreythau’s larger population centers, being a mostly rural region and a walled town of the same name. It is also home to the Abbey of St. Zharkov, the original headquarters of the Inquisition of the Morning Lord who serve as the primary antagonistic faction of this chapter.

As the PCs track down the Inquisitor’s path or otherwise follow the roads back to civilization, the book calls out suggestions to make use of earlier encounters to show off Wreythau’s dangerous wildlife. One of the predetermined encounters involves finding an abandoned baby within a circle of standing stones. It is a Beastfolk baby whose parents were killed by wild animals while they were trying to perform a ritual to protect and bless their child. Skill checks and appropriate languages (Druidic, Sylvan) can learn more about the standing stones, such as the fact that they’re connected to the Archfey Cailleach, the Queen of Winter. A group of Beastfolk will have followed the tracks of the parents to the standing stone, and will seek to take the baby into their care. They will not be initially hostile to the PCs unless they’re intent on taking the baby for themselves.

Should the party earn their trust, they will be taken to Caeltos Village, a settlement deep within the forest. The PCs may be able to find this village on their own but will not be allowed inside if they haven't first earned the Beastfolk’s trust. We get lists of the number of warriors and noncombatants in the village, along with houses of notable occupants and the goods and services they can provide PCs as well as text inserting local color and verisimilitude. For example, children are raised communally, moving out of their homes to live with a mentor who will apprentice them in a specific craft.

PCs have the opportunity to meet the archdruid Yezinka as part of a special event, and learn more about Wreythau and especially the Inquisition of the nearby town of Leshehoff. PCs can perform quests on behalf of the community, such as breaking into the Abbey to free captured Beastfolk (Yezinka mentions there are also relics of great power to be found there), and can gain honorary membership in their tribe by retrieving a sacred mortar and pestle also stolen by the Inquisition. There’s even a more light-hearted quest to gather supplies for an upcoming wedding, which include a mixture of typical stuff (barrels of wine, stuffing to make toys) and less conventional gifts (gold and silver to be melted into arm-rings, a chain shirt). Two quests can teach the party special spell-like abilities via rituals. The one that teaches a once per day DC 20 Zone of Truth spell involves performing open-ended deeds demonstrating truth and valor. The other, which casts True Resurrection on a character, involves collecting rare herbs to mimic the Astral Projection spell in order to engage in a duel with a spirit. Both quests give specific examples of how such deeds and items can be obtained in the adventure, now or in the future.



The town of Leshehoff is surrounded by acres of farmland linked together by fortified outposts, and its military force draws from both local recruits in the Town Watch and mercenaries working for the Merchant Consortium. Baroness Ekaterina Tornheim is the land’s official leader, although she is on strained terms with the Church of the Morning Lord. The Church suspects her of blasphemous opinions and seeks to overthrow her in order to institute a theocracy. The Consortium has a presence here, although they stay out of the Church’s and Baroness’ way in favor of searching for outlaws that have passed through here from other parts of the kingdom. Another worrisome thing is that the Tax Collector, one of Czerina’s most feared agents, is coming to visit and is a sign of great woe for settlements throughout Wreythau. Taxes aren’t just paid in gold, but in blood via offerings of people from the nation’s towns. Most return home, but some do not. He will appear in town once the major plot points are resolved.

After undergoing a cumbersome approval process (or fighting the Watch and being declared outlaws), the PCs can make their way into town. While here, things are a bit open-ended, with 8 unique and detailed locations and 5 minor quests for the PCs to do.

Barony Mansion is the fortified dwelling of Baroness Ekaterina Tornheim. Although she is weighed down by the realities of feudal hierarchies, her heart is in the right place and she seeks to protect her people, although like many nobles possesses a classist streak where she doesn’t believe that commoners know what is best for themselves. Vitkor Taravos, the Inquisition’s High Inquisitor, will seek to recruit the PCs into digging up dirt on the Baroness as a means of delegitimizing her rule. The Baroness does have some skeletons in her closet: although nobody likes the Beastfolk, the Baroness is considering making an alliance with the Renegades of the Order of Blood to kill them all. Additionally, a ghost haunts the grand ballroom to play music. The ghost is actually harmless and is a woman who was killed by her religious fanatic father who viewed the idea of women musicians as a grave sin. Ekaterina knows the ghost’s story and is one of the reasons why she is a foe of the Church. The ghost can peacefully pass on if the PCs find her old prison and play one of her written pieces to a live audience. The Baroness is also a wizard, her study a veritable treasure trove of tomes, spell components, and even a bestiary of Wreythau’s various monsters.

Market Square is where PCs can go to buy supplies, but due to Consortium price-gouging everything is double the normal price save for alchemical supplies. PCs may run into the High Inquisitor Viktor Tarasov here, where he’s making an example of a suspected heretic shopkeeper by torturing him in public. Ever the showman, he will diffuse any tensions of the PCs by declaring them holy and pure, only to imply that his word is holding back the town guard from arresting them. PCs who don’t resort to violence or freeing the shopkeeper will be instructed to meet with him later, where he reveals his suspicions regarding the Baroness. To sweeten the deal, Viktor promises hefty monetary rewards and divine spellcasting services, but they have to use genuine evidence and not falsified ones; the Inquisitor knows that the best lies start with a kernel of truth.

The Copper Crown Tavern is the best of its kind in town. Its owner, Cival, is a woman who is running an underground resistance ring against the Consortium and has dug out secret passageways beneath the establishment to house rebels and refugees. She may approach the PCs with a job offer to investigate the catacombs of the Abbey and retrieve what is basically a Tarokka Deck but is instead referred to as an Oracle Deck. The Deck was kept as contraband from its former owner who the Inquisition executed, and Cival believes that a powerful divination device will better help coordinate missions for the resistance.

Otherwise the Copper Crown has a gambling hall with a list of sample mini-games (drinking, Three-Dragon Ante, boxing and duels, etc) that are resolved as either skill challenges or opposed rolls, and the secret areas have a decent-sized armory of gear, alchemical items, and poisons.

Merchant Consortium Outpost serves as a warehouse for caravans passing through Leshehoff, and it has 10 armed guards working security. Vasili Radulesc is the Regional Director, a vampire spawn who has a pet armored tiger in his office that serves as an ideal means of defense. He will brush off PCs and initially not want anything to do with them, but if they provide information about Cival’s resistance movement he can part with information about the Gulthias flowers and Consortium shipping ledgers. The information obtained reveals that the Tax Collector, Beleroth Haar an Thell, gave crates of the flowers to the Consortium with specific instructions to send them to various places.

But what if the PCs want to obtain the ledgers without dealing with Vasili? The adventure doesn’t say where the ledgers are kept.

Alchemist’s Shop was the home of Marian and Sybilla Valborg, a married couple who worshiped the Old Faith. Marian was actually burned at the stake due to Sybilla offering testimony against her husband. She did this at Marian’s behest, hoping that this would allow him to take all the blame and deflect attention away from the rest of the family.

Now the shop is troubled by another malady. An evil spirit called Mr. Splinter by Sybilla’s daughter haunts the home, making threatening statements and appearing as a frightful shape in the corner of one’s visions. Certain skills and spells can detect Mr. Splinter and find out more about his nature. Sybilla has been reluctant to seek outside help in exorcizing the spirit, for she fears that the Inquisition will blame her for it and thus leave her daughter an orphan.

PCs have various ways to resolve this encounter; smuggling the family out of town to live with the Beastfolk is one option. Burning down the house will cause Mr. Splinter to move elsewhere and torment another family. Mr. Splinter can be banished via folkloric magic which involves creating mead brewed beneath the light of the full moon with non-conventional ingredients such as onyx and sea salt. If Mr. Splinter is tricked into drinking it, he will be banished.

The Blacksmith’s Guild is owned by an old dwarf who survived Czerina’s genocide. He settled in Leshehoff, teaching his skills to smiths he found worthy. He can tell the party much about the history of the dwarven kingdom, and if the PCs offer to take an intricate metal relief of his family tree to the Silver Graves he will craft them whatever they want. The Silver Graves are visited much later on in the adventure path, so this isn’t the kind of quest that can be done immediately.

Tailor’s Shop is owned by Madalina, although she and her husband mysteriously vanished after giving birth. In reality, their child was born a Beastfolk, and frightened for its safety she will confide in foreign adventurers in wanting a way out of this predicament to avoid the entire town coming out to kill them. Magical disguises are given as vague options in helping the child live a mostly-normal life, along with smuggling the family out of town to live with the Beastfolk. This last part has more detail, for the Church realizes that something’s fishy and posted a lookout near their home.

The Abbey of St. Zharkov is our largest and most-detailed location in town, and also serves as this chapter’s major dungeon crawl. It is a 12-room, 2-story complex that has varying levels of restricted areas. PCs who made a deal with Viktor may be allowed in certain areas under escort, but otherwise they will only be allowed inside the front-door chapel for mass. The inhabitants of the Abbey have a miserable life in spite of the building’s grand design. Acolytes live in communal dorms with no privacy, self-mutilation is mandatory for repenting of sins, and access to healing magic encouraged the Inquisition to subject trainees to particularly painful exercises. Dismemberment, burning, and maiming are regular parts of training. The armory contains tactical study manuals that can grant advantage on certain skills when fighting Inquisitors, and the librarian is secretly disenchanted with the faith and may serve as a useful ally and information source if he senses a kindred spirit among the PCs. In particular, he can let the party on to the fact that the Abbot isn’t a regular mortal at all! The personal quarters of the High Inquisitor contain non-magical treasure worth a pretty gold piece along with a personal journal explaining his plans to overthrow the Baroness. This journal can be used to sway the Baroness into taking action against the Church.



As for the Abbot, he is the angel Temelloth. He has a personal sanctum where he spends most of his time in, his immortal mind pondering cosmic mysteries. If the PCs helped the High Inquisitor, they will be allowed access to this chamber to receive a blessing from Temelloth (resurrection, a +2 item, +2 ability, etc). Otherwise he will attack anyone who breaks inside. Temelloth initially has a human guise, but if the PCs admit to the angel his true nature or reduce him to a quarter health, the celestial will transform and retreat, flying over Leshehoff and commanding the Inquisition to lay waste to the town.

The Catacombs is a 9-room, 2-story mini-dungeon next to but not part of the Abbey, serving as a prison and mass grave for those tried and executed by the Inquisition. The shipwrecked survivors of the Pelican are held here, along with several Beastfolk. The outside is guarded by 4 to 6 acolytes, but inside there are undead inquisitors serving as guards as well as various traps such as poison darts and a fire-breathing statue. One non-combat encounter involves a surprisingly friendly inquisitor known as the Rat Keeper. The Rat Keeper has never been the same after a powerful blow from a Beastfolk’s axe, and is sequestered away in the Catacombs to do odd jobs. He can tell the PCs about the prisoners, the traps, and that the librarian of the Abbey knows the Abbot’s true secret. All the while, rats scatter and rush across his body and beneath his clothes as he talks.

In addition to the Tarokka Deck (a unique magic item that can cast Augury, Divination, and Legend Lore once per day), other treasures include the Beastfolk’s sacred mortar and pestle, the Staff of the Old Faith, the Bow of Whispers, and the Book of Vile Darkness. If the elf assassin Raum is still alive, he will be held in a torture chamber where Anatole Vellekov, a half-orc warlock, is attempting to extract information from him.

So, what happens if the PCs manage to gain the Baroness’ aid to wage war on the Abbey? Or if a revealed Temelloth decides to lay waste to the town? Well, we get two unique events to play out. Assaulting the Abbey has the Town Guard assemble to lay siege to the structure while the PCs go after the Church’s leader, namely the High Inquisitor and the Abbot. At most the party will have to fight 34 nameless inquisitors of varying stat blocks, but spread out around the Abbey rather than all at once. Tarasov may flee to fight another day, coming back for revenge in the next chapter of Raffenburg. If Temelloth survives, he will lay waste to Leshehoff the next night.

As for what happens when you get a fallen angel angry? Temelloth will make use of fire-based ranged spells and Flyby Attacks to attack people, only flying down to melee once targets are weakened enough. PCs will be tasked with shepherding people to safety in sturdy houses, and suggests various battlemaps to be used as a multi-stage encounter between skirmishes with Temelloth. A short rest or two should also be given before the PCs perform the final fight in one of the buildings.

The other events in town involve the Baroness’ dealing with the Order of Blood. The first event involves one of their establishment knights visiting the Copper Crown Tavern; everyone is deathly afraid of him in spite of his polite and affable nature, and PCs who engage him in conversation can learn more about his Order. They also learn that he’s hunting for a renegade member known as Sir Hajek. The next event happens as the Baroness summons the PCs to have a private dinner with her, where she seeks to hire the the party to chart the movements of the Beastfolk in order to find the location of their villages. PCs who help her out with this will earn her confidence, where she tells them that she’s seeking out the Renegades of the Order of Blood to help her war against the Beastfolk (and possibly the Inquisition depending on how things unfold). The next event will involve her riding out at midnight for a private meeting with Sir Hajek; PCs may accompany her or shadow her, depending on circumstances.

The final event serves as the chapter epilogue once the PCs have completed the major quests in Leshehoff. The town descends into a panic as villagers spread word that the Tax Collector has arrived, causing people to rush indoors and close windows as a thunderous rainstorm appears. A knock on the door comes where the PCs are staying, and it is Beleroth. He will introduce himself with feigned politeness, and the Insight skill can reveal a simmering rage in his heart. His intention is to take the PCs to the Court of the Blood Queen, and that Wreythau’s leader wishes to speak to them on an important matter.

Beleroth has surreptitiously prepared a teleportation spell to activate in order to take himself and the PCs to the Cairn, with a magic piece of chalk mixed with Czerina’s blood as one of the components. Beleroth has applied the chalk to his hands, which he will use to mark them for teleportation. At first he will pass it off as a polite handshake. If the PCs decline even that, he will teleport them anyway, for he was casting the spell the whole time.

It might seem cruel to basically give the adventurers no choice over whether they go or not, but the chance of missing what comes next is a far worse result. Besides, it will help communicate to the players the power scale that they are dealing with. Furthermore, a brief moment of helplessness helps emphasize the horrific nature of their situation, being trapped in an evil land against their will, before they regain their agency.

While I understand that meeting the primary antagonist of this adventure is an important one, this may come off as surprisingly rail-roady given how much leeway the PCs had during the rest of this chapter.

As you can probably imagine, there’s a wide variety of outcomes depending on the PC’s actions in Leshehoff. As such, the milestone achievements aren’t as set in stone, although the book recommends that the big battle against the Abbey should only happen once the PCs reach 5th level. As for when they reach 4th, it should be after they help out with a few of the smaller side quests. A sample quest trajectory is provided at the end of the chapter based on one possible route a gaming group can take.

Thoughts So Far: Now this is what I’m talking about! The first two chapters of the adventure path proper are fun to read and have an interesting array of characters and challenges that can be completed in a variety of ways. Even the more railroady section on the Pelican is spiced up with some investigative role-playing elements with multiple avenues of resolution, and the town of Leshehoff is packed with double-dealings and secrets. Some of which are innocent or for a good cause, others not so much. It lines up well with Ravenloft’s nature, such as how those of good intentions can be willing to make deals with wicked figures or troubled townsfolk who cannot turn to the Inquisition for legitimate fears. The adventure also manages to do a good job of slowly escalating a sense of horror in various parts, particularly during the Pelican voyage or the initial outbreak of the Gulthias spores, slowly giving hints of things not seeming quite right before culminating in a more overt climax.

Not only that, just about every major area which can involve combat has its own gridded map both in the book and as handouts. This is a common aspect throughout the Realm of the Blood Queen which I appreciate.

If I had to give any points of criticism, it would be Temelloth the Abbot is an extremely powerful monster to throw at a level 5 party. His perpetual flying nature under open sky means that PCs without ideal long-range attacks won’t be able to harm him much, and even with his Legendary Actions and high movement speed even snipers will likely suffer disadvantage to hit. I presume that NPC allies such as the Baroness (who’s a respectable spellcaster in her own right) can help turn the tide, although Temelloth has a good chance of causing one or several deaths with how powerful he is. There’s also the Tax Collector’s Deus Ex Teleporta, although it’s a smaller critique.

Join us next time as we awaken the Blood Queen and visit the dark fantasy metropolis of Raffenburg!

[Libertad]

Very interesting, I especially like the approach on the Red City, with innovation dying and all. I will keep this short as I believe this thread should be used to showcase your work instead of comments about it.

Like Alhoon, I'll keep this short, but I'm happy that I managed to grab and incorporate the Red City & the Snowmane Guide and the Atlas of Dread into my games!

Much appreciation for this thread!

Thank you all very much! I've pretty much been writing drafts non-stop for nearly 3 weeks in making these reviews. Unfortunately I will have to take a break after finishing Realm of the Blood Queen, for this has taken a lot out of me.

But worry not, I do intend on reviewing one more big product once I re-energize: One Night Strahd. I will also do an "epilogue" post where I highlight over books I like but don't have the time to do in-depth reviews on.

[alhoon]

Thank you. I look forward to the synopsis and may I suggest a "ranking" of sorts?