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Ahh that's so cool! 😃 I'll check it out. What domains have you covered off so far? And what's in the pipeline...? 👀😈

@@DMoftheMists so many! We started doing the MistHunters adventures (and may come back to them at a much higher level, seems a waste to end at level 8!) I wanted to key the adventure in the characters' back stories, so we've concentrated a good portion on domains that "link" them to those domains. So far, we have done Borca (House of Lament), Dementlieu, Kartakass, Barovia, Falkovnia, Mordent, Lamordia, Darkon, The Nightmare Lands, and now The Sea of Sorrows!

Wow, that sounds awesome! 🤩 If you're ever planning on doing Valachan, I ran the Trial of Hearts pretty much out of the two Mist Hunters modules that are Valachan-focused - it's going to be one of my next videos (ETA a couple of weeks, all going well). How did Dementlieu and Falkovnia go? I did them as well (and have done videos covering those, too). So far we've done Barovia (as per Curse of Strahd), Markovia, Falkovnia, the Carnival, Mordent (which is where I put the House of Lament), the Sea of Sorrows, Niranjan, Dementlieu, the Rider's Bridge, and Valachan. Lined up we have return visits to Markovia and Mordent, plus Forlorn, Hazlan, and Darkon. Might also do Kartakass as well.

Wow! 🤯 Those are some interesting changes! 😃 Which would you say was your favourite? And what was the players' favourite (if you know)?

@@DMoftheMists I personally liked the Naked Death House. I started it by having the party investigate an animal attack in a nearby village, north of Waterdeep. Turned out to be the werewolves that appear later in the module that are kidnapping children to repopulate Barovia. I did this to tie up a loose plot thread later in the game and give the party more incentive than just escaping. The werewolves also had an amulet that permitted escape to the prime material plane, but only if Strahd allows it. This gave the players a clear goal from the start. Save the children and convince or kill Strahd to let them escape. The first time they rest for the night, I had the mist transport them to Death house without their gear. For me, this really set the tone of the adventure and put a lot of dread into the game, right from the beginning. Was awesome watching them scavenge for gear. It encouraged exploration and It also means the players pay close attention to room descriptions. All the stuff a DM loves. My players favorite part was clearly the carriage chase from Vallaki to Castle Ravenloft. I did this by setting 5 markers along the path that required the driver to pass Ability score checks, like fallen logs, potholes, barriers, flame arrows, etc. The werewolves started 1 block away. If they failed a check, 2 werewolves catch the carriage and the rest of the party had to defend it. Was super exciting and they loved it. They ended up with a critical failure, which crashed the carriage, so they had to run that last bit on foot to the castle turn off. My biggest disappointment was the dead priest as an ally. I thought that would work out better. I was hoping for a Weekend at Bernie's, but it just didn't have the emotional effect I was aiming for.

Yes! Big fan of Dr Bowers' stuff. I ran his version of Niranjan for my players and it went down a treat.

@@DMoftheMists I just found your channel today, and I gotta say, it's some really great stuff. I love seeing new content for Ravenloft, as I feel it's pretty overlooked as a campaign setting.

Thanks! How did you find the channel, out of interest? I know right? It's quite surprising. AFAIK there's only a handful of people doing in-depth Ravenloft videos. It's one of the reasons I wanted to put content out as well, to help other Ravenloft DMs.

@DMoftheMists It came up randomly in my recommendations.

Haha yeah, sorry... 😅 I meant more in terms in breadth of experience/campaigns. Sure, I've done one looong campaign, but not done much beyond that. Or maybe I'm just modest, hehe.

@@DMoftheMists It's part of what makes your content so engaging. You're very down to earth and relatable even though you have such a vast wealth of experience to draw from. Don't change!

Thank you! 😍

You're welcome! Thanks for the kind words! 😀

I'm pretty sure I looked into it ahead of introducing him in my campaign, and the consensus was Jander with a hard 'J' - but I did see a few people suggest "Yander". I'm not 100% sure TBH. Maybe I'm wrong. A good way to know for sure would be via the audiobook version of Vampire of the Mists - at least I'm hoping they'd get it right (you'd hope so eh?).

Yeah, she's his daughter (or "who [he] considers his daughter," to use the exact wording from the book). No, I don't know a ton about her, either (other than what I put in the video). She has the tiniest mention in VRGtR (IIRC) - probably intentionally made as a 'blank slate' type of NPC so that DMs can do their thing and roleplay her however they want. If I find anything substantial on her, I'll let you know.

Hehe! It might've been me - I've mentioned it a few times, on the subreddit and a CoS DMs Facebook group - but I want to stress that I'm not the originator of the idea, so it could've been someone else... maybe even the person who originally came up with it. 🤩 Ahh that's a shame, about not being able to do it because they were pro-Vargas. I was about to say "pro-Vargas" is a phrase you don't see very often (I'd wager that 9 out of 10 parties side with the Wachters), but thinking about it, when I played CoS (before DMing it for myself), I'm sure we were pro-Vargas too... Or perhaps pro-no-one, as I think we kept away from the politics and left them all to it... 😅😬

Silvia was (and still is) the GOAT. 😊🐲 That's a cool place for the sunsword! Is it in Vladimir's possession or elsewhere?

Thank you! 😃

Yeah, it definitely helps to make them a bit more interesting - especially if the players have already fought other vampire spawn at that point (the ones in the coffin shop, the ones in the Amber Temple, etc.).

Ooo I'm not familiar with this - I'll check it out. Thanks.

Yeah, I've seen a few people make that point on discussions on this topic. Maybe that was another reason the game designers made it that way - although, that said, in other campaigns, the towns are further apart (e.g. Lost Mine of Phandelver), so I don't know... although Barovia certainly seems more medieval-feeling (and more 'primitive', for lack of a better word?) than other locations/worlds as well...

Those sound like cool ideas. They'd be a lot more work for the DM to put into motion, but if a DM is up for that then totally. You could even change Donavich to be an innkeeper along the road instead of the priest in the Village of Barovia (with Doru in the inn's basement rather than in the church) - something like that.

Thanks! That's such a cool idea! Reminds me of the Domain Jam idea I had and posted in the Ravenloft subreddit, a "what if one version of Jander turned evil and became a Darklord?": www.reddit.com/r/ravenloft/comments/19819mf/homebrew_domain_solicallor_where_the_darklord_is/ Oh yes, gosh, travelling with Ireena/'Anna' would definitely be interesting... 😬

Indeed! Very Ravenloft. 😈 And I like the idea that the children have to try and communicate where it is to the PCs so they can fight them off. I really enjoyed it when I ran it for my players.

My players are in the process of trying to adopt an orphan that they grew attached to after saving him from the Old Bonegrinder. Despite warnings that I was not above having enemies attack the kid (if they bring him with them) they seem intent on the idea. This monster sounds perfect to use after lil Justy joins the group!

YES! Do it... 😈

Yeah, I read a bunch of the Ravenloft novels recently, and I think it might be the start of the I, Strahd sequel where Strahd visits a settlement that's not a part of the 5E/CoS map. And it was fun reading about how others interacted with his domain (Jander Sunstar, Lord Soth, Azalin Rex, etc.).

I get what you're saying. I actually liked the whole "no sunlight" thing because it's like a plot twist where the players _expect_ to be safe in the daytime, then realise Strahd and his consorts can just wander out freely at any time of day - and that's pretty terrifying. I'm sorry to hear you didn't have a good time as a player in CoS. TBH, before DMing it, I was a player in a CoS game, and while I mostly enjoyed it, I had a few moments like that with my DM, too - and I think it was a DM vs player thing. A lot of it can come down to what the DM is like. Have you DM'ed CoS as well, or plan to?

@@DMoftheMists No, we never finished it, covid hit and out DM got total burnout trying to convert to digital tools and we ende dup dropping the campaign. But a player in another campaign is talking about running it so I might play it again (though we may have to make some changes to account for half the players having played the begining before), so I am holding off on running it/reading the module to after that.

Cool - I hope it works out for you. I can think of 1-2 possible ideas for alternate starts, but I don't want to spoil anything for you (albeit they're minor spoilers plus you might know the places mentioned anyway), so either let me know and I'll pass them on (in the least spoilery way possible) or feel free to send your DM my way. Or I'm sure the new DM will stumble on them anyway when they're doing their research.

@@DMoftheMists I think we visited all locations on the map before the end of the last campaign so I'll risk it feel free to give me your ideas.

Cool. One idea is that some DMs start their CoS campaigns on the west side of the map - so near Krezk - rather than Death House / Village of Barovia. It's not something I'd encourage or recommend for first-time players/DMs, but for people who have played before, it might help to mix things up a bit. The other idea - depending on how far you actually got - is just to limit it to Castle Ravenloft (and maybe 1-2 other places before it). There's a one-shot version of CoS called Strahd Must Die Tonight (www.dndbeyond.com/posts/359-strahd-must-die-tonight-how-to-play-ravenloft-in-a), which is limited to just Castle Ravenloft - but your DM could also include a few extra places to expand it out (so it's not _just_ the castle). Hope that helps.

He's great, isn't he? Such a great character.

Yeah, that could work well - a few other comments have said the same.

Gritty Realism rules definitely sound like they'd work well (and side-step the issue) of a bigger Barovia for sure.

Chuck a zero at the end of its range, and it's a hard maybe for sure.

@@DMoftheMists one of the invocations: Eldritch Spear + Spell Sniper, gets halfway there (600ft), so not fully middle to middle, but that's a lot more than I expected.

Holy moly. That is indeed about halfway there. (Note to self: don't sing Bon Jovi, don't sing Bon Jovi, don't sing Bon Jovi...)

​@@DMoftheMistsand here in barovia indeed we are living on a prayer.

Living on a Morninglord prayer, for sure. 😇😬

I know right? 😬 Glad it was helpful! 😃

Hey James. Thanks for the in-depth reply - I knew some of that stuff but not all of it (interesting the tidbit about TSR's views on Tracy's original map scale - I didn't know that). Sorry for my late reply - I've been away this past week and tried to be as deviceless as possible. Completely get what you're saying. I said this in another comment (although I think that thread's 'gone' now, as a commenter was being abusive to other commenters... 😬), but ultimately what's being talked about is old editions vs 5E - which is fine, and I completely get why people want a 'classic' experience (and I certainly don't want to get into an 'edition wars' debate here, especially as I don't know much about rules/mechanics pre-5E), but the problem is if people use a 2E/3E-style map, but use 5E's ruleset - _that's_ when there's potential problems. I also agree about harrying the players between settlements - IIRC I make that point in the video (like I said, it "depends on how you do it"), and if you're doing that, that's fine. But this is intended more for DMs who 1) increase the map size, 2) use 5E's rules, and 3) don't harry the PCs that much. Heck, I mentioned this in another comment, but I remember seeing a comment on Reddit once when someone said they increased the map size but hated random encounters between settlements and so they didn't do many or any (😵), so it's more intended for those folks. Sounds like you have the right thinking on it though. Thanks again!

That's a fair point - I know what you mean. In those instances, I don't think it hurts between sessions to ask your players if they have their sights on Argynvostholt, or Berez, or the Werewolf Den (or whatever other place) as their next destination, in order to help you to prepare for it - especially given the campaign's sandbox nature. You could also potentially slow them down with a 'random' encounter or two on the way.

Thank you! 😃 Glad you found it useful.

8mins...

so like, I think the better solution is either adding in longer long rests, or only long rests in "safe" places, ie towns, look at Darker Dungeons (homebrew packet) so you can have a camping system to get some hitdice back, but you long rests you need to wait a week so be in a safe space, tho I also like just take a day in a fortified place. This both makes travel important, and means that the party will have lost some resources by the time they make it to the sites

Thanks for your feedback. I do - after a brief intro and then explaining why people do it, I explain it's because of the long rest and Hit Dice recovery issue. That's about 5 mins in (bearing in mind the intro is the first 1-2 mins). It's not 8 mins (as per your other comment). It wasn't my intention to pad out the video or "edge [people] on" or anything like that. But sure, I'll bear this in mind for future videos I put out. Thanks again.

Also what you are describing about players going from site to site is the players actively making decisions to make the game harder, with such a small map there is nothing stopping them from just taking a long rest and going to and from safer places to long rest each time, or to travel up and down the map long resting before taking on things on opposite sides of the map, same as your problem of larger spaces

I do think that you can also mess with strahds stat block, there's isn't really a reason you cant say that his mist form couldn't last longer, or move faster then the basic vampires one, when I played in the game my dm buffed the hell out of strahd, and we still kicked his ass, so I would say that I see some merit to your point of view if you consider game rules immutable, but I think in this case changing the game rules to fit the campaign better is actually the better move, If I went to run this I would actually consider looking into older maps tho and also adding in the extra settlements as if the map is bigger the kingdom might start to feel empty

Oof, that sounds brutal (but in a good way)... 😈 If people never get to long rest, then how do you handle stuff like Hit Dice recovery, spell slot recovery, etc.? EDIT: Ohh unless they eat a dream pastry. Got it. Ohh that _is_ evil...!

@@DMoftheMists the players have been forced to accept that they just don't have any other choice, so they have been buying and eating the pastries from morgantha. I have planted a plot hook in which if they manage to restore the three fanes then the ability to long rest in Barovia will be restored. Once this happens I'm certain they'll go after the hags with vengeance on their hearts.

Thanks! I really like that perspective on Strahd - I agree! Also, "high stakes" - pun intended? 😆😉

@@DMoftheMists Pun very much intended ;) I think the overall narative is that the charismatic but cruel tyrant is slowly stripped of any allies while the party on the other hand has been gathering them. The end is meant to be a confrontation of what good leadership and kidness can do that pure raw evil power can't. It's the trope that fuels almost all horror stories.

I like this thinking a lot.

Thanks! Funnily enough I've been meaning to do a video called something like "My 5 Favourite Homebrew Additions to CoS". Similar to your dragon zombie (cool idea!), I planned for Argynvost to appear as a ghost dragon (from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons) if/when they tried to return the skull, but we had to end the campaign sooner than expected as two players moved away, so it didn't play out, sadly!

@@DMoftheMists thanks! And yeah, that would be a great video :)

Thanks! 😃 Yeah I've been weighing up doing a video on Strahd's combat tactics. When I ran him, I used his RAW stat block (albeit with spells amended) and had him phase through walls - AFAIK all my players enjoyed the battle and saw it as a challenge more than a frustration, but it might be different from table to table. I've also been meaning to look into DragnaCarta's (of CoS Reloaded) three-phase Strahd, plus the CR 27 Strahd that's on DMsGuild, both of which would negate the need to do the wall-phasing (I think).

Thanks! I didn't run Death House when I ran CoS because we did Lost Mine of Phandelver before it, so they would've been overlevelled for it. I'd love to run it as a one-shot one day (maybe over Halloween) or if I do another run of CoS. I ran House of Lament but adapted it for a higher-level party and changed some of the story. So instead of them helping just 1 of the 3 'spirits' (IIRC), they helped Mara take down Dranzorg but then had to fight her as well.

If you don't mind buying the pieces of it, there is also the Misty Fortunes & Absent Hearts campaign that was created for the Adventurer's League as an alternate full campaign that also has a bunch of additional content.

Oh yeah! I didn't use that during my run of CoS, but I considered buying it anyway to take a look at it. Maybe I can do a video on it giving my thoughts - we'll see. Thanks for suggesting it.

Thank you! 😀

Thank you! 😃 I really appreciate the kind words. Cheers!

That's a good point as well, RE: the time crunch element - I think that's a part of it as well.

That sounds like it could work. A few people have commented about the "less than a day for Ireena" aspect now. I get what people mean, but surely that just goes to show how scary Barovia is as-is? That Ismark and Ireena are too scared to take a 7-ish-hour trip without help? Because Barovia is that scary; _Strahd_ is that scary. That's what the players should be thinking/realizing IMO. Sure, extending the distance / number of days justifies it even more, but I don't think it's needed. If the DM - through I&I - makes it clear how dangerous the roads might be, there's no need to make it longer. IMO anyway.

@@DMoftheMists Well, then to bring up your point "spend a few nights outside of settlements and realize they aren't that dangerous", if they travel to Vallaki in one day and don't really feel it's that dangerous, you also break the illusion that "it's even too dangerous to travel during daytime". Another point is that this old kind woman travels to her windmill and doesn't need any escort there. Let's say we upscale the map so that Barovia Village > Old Windmill is one day's travel, and Vallaki is one day plus an hour or two, Morgantha can keep up her ruse that she can make it to her home during daytime when it's not as dangerous.

Indeed. I've heard of some DMs who do that. E.g. there's a town called Immol, right? If any DMs who did this read this, I'd be curious to know how it went in your games.

@@DMoftheMists the base game is fine as it is. Expanding the hexes to a larger size doesn't make the story better. It's just more flavor. Adding more regions does add more content, which causes another problem. The players need room to grow, which means they will be higher level when they confront Strahd. There was a remake in the 90s of the original Castle Ravenloft that had a low level campaign and a high level one, I believe level 15, that could be used to adjust the difficulty of the castle. Do you and the players want to spend more time in Barovia? Do you want to add homebrew. Personally, I have run COS 4x now and already homebrew the crap out of it so it doesnt bother me. I have been a Ravenloft DM since the mid 90s so I know my way around pretty well. Last game, I took the players into neighboring domains.

Sounds cool. I'm much newer to D&D (only started playing in 2018 & DMing since 2020), but I'm running a post-CoS Domains of Dread campaign at the mo, and the players and I are having a blast. They're Level 14 and in Valachan right now.

@@DMoftheMists it's all good. Would really recommend checking out some of the 2e and 3e resources. 5e did a good job making the domains more interesting but they really watered down the domain lords to a pg rating. The domain lords were a lot scarier and more tragic in older editions.

Thanks. Yeah, I've been doing that already to an extent. I tend to use 5E's VRGtR as a base / starting point, but look at older lore for further inspiration. When I ran Markovia I borrowed from Neither Man Nor Beast (especially the maps and info for the estate and the monastery), and I'm gonna do the same with Castles Forlorn when I run Forlorn. Helps to flesh it all out a bit more.

Thanks for the kind words! 😃 And yeah... 😂 Hey, I guess you never know who hasn't watched/read it - and I'd hate to be the one to spoil the decades-old story, haha!

Thank you! 😃

Thanks for passing on your thoughts, and also for doing so in a respectful way. Sorry for the delay in replying - I've been sick the last few days. You make some well thought-out points, and removing long rests from journeys would indeed entirely side-step the main issue I raised, but your version sounds brutal, perhaps too brutal - in an already brutal campaign. Now I'm not saying that means you're wrong, but out of interest, have you run CoS, and if so, have you run it in the way you've described? And if so, how did it go? I'm not meaning to sound gatekeepery at all, but because I think it's one of those things where DMs _think_ making it harder than it already is automatically makes it better (in theory), and that not making it near-impossibly hard isn't true to the CoS spirit, but the way you describe it - while it sounds awesome running it as a DM - sounds like it'd lead to burnout and frustration for the players, so that'd be something I'd be conscious of. But then again I guess it depends on the players as well. If you have veteran players who want a challenge and love horror, they'll probably welcome it. Other types of players, not so much. My video was more aimed at DMs who may think "I want to make the make bigger" without giving it much further thought beyond that, not realising the wider consequences of doing so. In your case, you've obviously thought about it and suggested measures to counteract it (by not allowing long rests at all) - in which case power to you. I meant to mention this in the video as well but forgot, but I read a thread once where a DM said they made the map bigger to "make Barovia scarier" but also didn't bother with on-the-road encounters because they didn't like them(!), soo… y’know, that's not good. Maybe that's an extreme example, but my advice was meant for people who increase the map but then maybe also keep everything else as-is (the random encounter types, their frequency, etc.) or make other changes that actually undo the effect they’re going for. In your case, while I don't think I'd ever run it the way you've said, with the right DM and players, it could work well - but I don't necessarily think it'd be that way for everyone. Here's an analogy I thought of. RAW CoS (and RAW CoS map size) is Dark Souls. Your version is Dark Souls on hard mode. When people make the map larger but don't compensate for the change they've made, they think they're gonna get Dark Souls on hard mode but may be accidentally making Dark Souls on easy mode. That's what I'm trying to get across. I don't think that means my way is easy - it's just not as difficult as yours, as yours is harder still. I've also seen stories (on Reddit, etc.) where CoS DMs complain that their players get to a point where they don't want to leave settlements. Now this might be due to lack of direction, but I bet once or twice it's been because the journeys have been too long and too tough. Every DM wants to make CoS scary and hard, but making it _too_ scary and hard can equally bring problems and bring campaigns to a halt. I do also partially disagree with - and could argue against - the points about Ismark & Ireena "hopping down the road" and what you said about the trade between towns, plus there's the fact that making the distances longer risks drawing out the campaign (which may be fine for a long-lasting campaign and if the players are fine with that and invested), but this comment's already pretty long as it is. Thanks again.

@@DMoftheMists Hey thanks for the long reply. I definitely respect your opinion. Yes I have run it twice this way. Neither time would I say it was too brutal. In neither campaign was there a TPK and actually none of the players had to roll up a new character, they all survived till the end. Also you don't have to throw a deadly encounter at them every time they step outside. I am not fan of random encounters .I feel as a DM you should know your players, the characters, and their current status before deciding what they might or might not encounter on the road. As an example in one of the campaigns, while on the road they stopped for the night to make camp and they were pretty beat up. It was on the way back from Berez so they were not in the best shape. My players were all talking about where they were headed and what they were going to do next and when they said they were taking a long rest I gave them plenty of opportunity to say it but they never said they were going to post watch. They all went to sleep. so they awoke to hearing logs being thrown onto the fire and poked their heads out of their tents to find Strahd sitting in a chair poking at the fire. They were shocked and horrified for sure. Strahd was just there to express his impatience that they had not yet accepted his invitation to dinner and maybe they needed a little incentive. It was also a moment for him to let them know that one among them could not be trusted and had already made a deal with him. Once the conversation started to become rude, mostly because of the parties Paladin, Strahd got annoyed whistled into the night then vanished in a cloud of mist. A pack of wolves then came crashing into the camp. At this point the party was high enough level that the fight only last a round but it ended their chance at a long rest. My point being that each encounter on the road at night doesn't need to be deadly. Another night they got drunk with a group of traveling Vistani. That night they did get a long rest on the road. I also expanded COS in other ways and have implemented some of the suggestions from Lunch Break Heroes here on RUclips. They have many great ideas for giving more depth to the campaign. I don't follow all their advice but a lot of it was really good.

Ahh that is such a *good* encounter with Strahd - good work! I get what you mean and what you're saying - I agree. Thanks! Already a fan of LBH - I used their version of the Werewolf Den and I felt it worked much better than the RAW.

Can I ask what your reasoning was for increasing it to 1 hour per hex?

I take it you're referring to poor Granny's old, tired legs...? 😉 That's another reason for not increasing the map size. The trip between the two doesn't become feasible - when it comes to 'shopping' for 'ingredients' - if the distance is made even longer than it already is. Good catch with that one.

@@DMoftheMists Granny's old tired legs you say? sure sure

Thanks! She's the best. 😸 Ohh that's a cool idea! Smart. And so someone takes the deck out of Darkon and 'frees' him? That sounds just like the kind of scheme Azalin would dream up. I like it.

One hex = 1/2 mile instead of 1/4 mile. Bigger, but not so big that moving at a fast pace isn't a viable option for covering the distance before nightfall