HOW TO PLAY CURSE OF STRAHD (Part 2: Adventure Introductions)
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- Опубликовано: 19 авг 2024
- adventure hooks are my favorite part of any pre-written
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Eastablish ❤️
@@spencerworst thanks babe
Y'know, if you change the spelling a little bit, it could be a cool settlement name. "Welcome to Eastablich" has kind of a cool ring to it.
“Do Not Play The Death House”
Instructions unclear, Strahd sent the Death House to the regular world to get more souls to feed on
I remember being turned into a werewolf along with one of the other party members. We wanted to get the pack on our side to fight strahd, so I fought the pack leader (can’t remember his name) and won, so I was given free reign over what to do with them. Good times.
That sounds amazing
Did you end up beating Strahd?
@@ellielacinoir602 yeah. We used the wereravens and werewolves to storm the castle while we snuck in through the roof with the wizard from the lake. The wizard fell almost immediately after we arrived, and we destroyed the big heart thing in the tower before descending into the crypt where we fought Strahd along with two previous party members who had been turned (their players couldn’t continue playing at a certain point, so they just became npc’s). We destroyed him in like two round because we were super powerful due to being high level and multiple homebrew weapons, but it was still pretty cool. The fog around Barovia cleared, and myself and the other player who had become a werewolf joined our pack in creating a werewolf kingdom in the epilogue. Good times all around.
DUDE that sounds fun as hell. My party just threatened to kill me when I got bit unless I took Ez's cure for lycanthropy
With the werewolf hook I feel like you get back to your faction after like a month or two and they're like "where the hell have you been?" And the party sits down and is like "let me f*king tell you."
I kinda had to start my players off with the Death House since they were all completely new to D&D, and I can’t afford buying two separate modules. I also really liked the Mysterious Visitors opening, but since I had to get them to the Death House, I kinda paired it with the Creeping Fog opening. So they met the vistani, got some backstory, had a party, then they all passed out and woke up alone in the woods. It was pretty fun, actually, and my players seemed to have fun with it.
I will also say, there are good parts of the Death House in my opinion. My players found the deeds to the house and windmill, which means they’re more likely to go check out the ol’ Bonegrinder. Not everything in there is useless! And since they were all newbies, it did a nice job of introducing them to aspects like checking for traps and general combat. We had a lot of fun with it :)
My players just completed the Ol' Binegrinder last night. They ended up burning it down. The grinding of the children to make the dream pastries really messed them up.
Death House is great. I disagree with that part, especially if you're begining at level 1. I love the haunted house thing, starting a new CoS in the couple months, my players are stoked for it. :)
Beside, you can change the Death House a bit to and be more forgiving for lv1. I prefer the flavour to the story added by Lunch Break DM.
My players actually really liked the creepy bits in Death House
When I ran my group of players through the death house, they actually loved it! Started em at lvl 1, and just slightly modified the amount of monsters per encounter and it worked fine. Still challenging, but not immediately murdering them all
This! I'm very pro DH, especially for level 1 players. :)
I've run DH a lot of times. A little bit of tweaking would be a good set-up for players on what to expect once they're out of the house.
Jacob: So, you're gonna play Curse of Strahd?
Me: Not really, no.
who doesnt want curse of strahd ?
WELL YOU SHOULD
Can't argue with that
You definitely should. Regardless if you want to or not.
Death House can actually be a blast, so long as you tweak the difficulty and make a few adjustments - that's what COS is great for though, at least in my experience. It's a giant source of inspiration for me to springboard my own ideas off of.
I also want to do the deathhouse, and already have some tweaks in mind, but exactly what tweaks do you recommend?
Minor spoilers for Death House;
While the ground floor and first floor are filled with excellent descriptions to help set the scene, some players can find the pacing a little slow. I recommend adding a few minor incongruencies, to help keep them on their toes.
When I ran it, my players had no idea they were running Death House up until they discovered the letter from Strahd. If they knew it was a haunted house going in, I think they would have treated it much differently.
I also recommend you don't show them the picture of Rose and Thorn - they are terrifying, and any sane party will walk the other way. Play them as scared, sweet children, and the reveal that they're dead will come as even more of a gut punch later on.
You can also foreshadow the fact that the house lures people in - have a pigeon slam into one of the windows as they approach the house, leaving behind a bloody smear, have a fox or other animal that has gotten lured into the house and stuck there. There's no reason it should just be humans that are lured in. You could even have a venus fly trap, if you wanted to! A fox can also offer a more light hearted moment, and it could also be making some scratching noises, to keep the players on their feet - You don't want them to be confidently be barreling through doors.
I also added harp music playing upstairs. They heard it when they first entered the Great Hall, although it abruptly stopped, as though the player was scared away.
In terms of characters, I had Gustav be in a deep depression, and the affair with the nurse maid stemmed from that. Elizabeths desire to be young and immortal also came from that, and the act of killing the Nurse Maid is what turned them from a cult that practiced animal sacrifice, to something much darker.
Aditionally, I had Walter be a bastard, not a stillborn, and in addition to being the heart of the Shambling Mound, I also had him be the house itself. I made a couple of references to the house seeming stroppy - slamming doors, tossing stuff around, like a petulant child. The players eventually caught on.
By the climax, they had the choice to kill one of their own, kill the fox, or fight the mound that was quickly assembling. They instead chose to talk to Walter. They had correctly guessed that he was an angry soul, but still wanted to impress his parents, and as such continued their work, drawing people into the house.
They asked Rose about about Walters short life, and usibng that info they were able to talk him out of what he had been doing for centuries. He began to fall apart, and so too did the house - queue flight from death house scene, with the walls oozing rats, and black smog billowing out of the fireplaces.
You may also want to add a few more letters too, to give the players a semi-complete picture of what happened
Oh, and one other thing I would had - while not all rooms should have something super cool, I'd say they should all have SOMETHING in them. Receipts for bushels of apples, poetry books, hidden stashes of brandy, a large butterfly collection. These sort of things help make the house feel truly alive, which of course, it is.
Sorry for how rambly this is, hopefully you get some use out of it though!
@@eclairz9275 Thank you so much for taking the time and typing all this out! I am extremely thankful. I like your adjustments, and they bring so much more personality and ambiance to the house. This will be my first official game where I DM, and this is really helping me out! Thanks so much
@@nephentea_1225 Glad I could help, let me know how the game goes!
One thing I would mention though is that a lot of the fights can be *extremely* hard, particularly the combat encounter with the Shadows. Make sure your players are okay with that going in.
Ascribing human characteristics to the house can also go a long way too
"Balding grass," "Coated in a perfect paintjob as palid as a corpse," "Rain trickles down the window panes like the house itself is weeping." "The aged floorboards groan as though in pain as you tread cautiously over them."
These things seem like flowery language in the moment, in addition to being pretty creepy, however they also act as foreshadowing.
@@eclairz9275 yea I already planned on slightly changing up some of the encounters.
What do you think about the encounter with the spectre of the Nursemaid? When I looked at it I thought it seemed scary as hecc, especially cause she can do 3d6 damage. How did you tweak it, and did you nerf it at all? Maybe there is something I'm missing...
I totally will! Thanks so much for your help!
I ran all of them, one for each of my player characters, and had them meet in the mists on the outskirts of Barovia.
It worked quite well!
"The Fog" introduction can be spiced up in other ways.
The Silent Hill games are proof of such. Curse of Strahd goes into way more depth, being a tabletop adventure, but some of the Silent Hill games have really good ideas to steal and tweak. I really agree with Jacob on "The Death House." ...but...
Challenge: If you have the extra time for prep... try making the bad death house good.
Example: Keeping with my references to the game I mentioned, how about turning off all of the traps in the house (but add clues for the traps you still think would work), but keeping some undead creatures and tweak some of the clues. This would be for a non-CoS adventure, but might still be interesting if you want to build a dimension shifting spooky adventure.
Once the players get close enough, have monsters 'herd' the PC's to the destination at the basement, and mysteriously lock the door once all the players are inside and have defeated the monsters (or if the party gets too weakened). Abruptly shift the house to the much more hellish (more trap filled) version, and make it so the "boss room" needs a maguffin (to enter the true version of it) strongly hinted at earlier. Make it a riddle, and the players solve the riddle by bringing back the maguffin to the basement. Make it look like the house turned into the first layer of The Nine Hells of Baator (still making it recognizable as the same house, but with disturbing decor and interior design), and tweak the layout of the dungeon to disorient the players (but don't change the layout too much).
Once the door is unlocked after the dimension shift, "break" the more unfair traps (you can even fake out the players by having some traps trigger, but fail before hurting the PC), but crank up the deadliness of some of the good ones, hinting towards needing a special tool (or a good idea from the players) to disable permanently (or rig to spring on possible pursuing monsters). Don't forget to strongly visually hint towards the deadliness of the traps.
I feel like the theater dungeon from Silent Hill 0rigins is one of the better examples of what to steal from, though said examples may need some spice to flavor the content in a better spooky light for multiple players. The office building dungeon in Silent Hill 3 is a bit interesting as well, and provides a super cool spook-out idea. Spook-Out ideas don't need to be jump-scares, but remember to remind the players the world isn't normal. Silent Hill for the original Playstation spooked with a cat jumping out of a locker after the player investigated the noise... but the other world version of the locker provided the noise, but provided the conclusion to the spook-out after some really good build-up beforehand.
The pacing might need tweaking, depending on the amount of players and if you want to make the adventure a one-shot. Throw out or "break" some traps if needed. Make the monsters appear less often, but make them count. If you're feeling pressed for time, you may need to sacrifice fluff for the more juicy bits, and provide hints to speed things up.
Have fun.
One thing I did for my game which I think can be interesting for others, was to change it all to become a matter of the players WANTING to be in Barovia instead of 'chance'. And have the players have reasons to stay there and not just go "Strahd I want out, this was a bad idea". So I worked with the players to make sure it all worked together and made sense with the thematics of the module.
Below are how the players and I wove everything together for our group:
The Shadar-kai Ranger is aware of portals between realms and his heritage is traced back to a time when his people lived in Barovia when it was in the material realm. As they fled from the tyrannical rule beginning to take form before the land becoming a demiplane, they fled to the Shadowfell to escape the vampire hounding them on the mortal plane. Thus, these elves are also related to the Dusk Elves found in Barovia.
The Half-Elf Rogue is of a noble bloodline who was a part of the Barovian aristocracy long ago before Strahd came to take over the lands (during his Crusading days) and as they lost they swore fealty to him. When he went full vampire the family split, some staying to fight and others fleeing to save the bloodlines. Generations pass as the family had thought it all behind them, when a vampire of Strahd's lineage attacks the last mansion of this family. Now the soul survivor, the rogue trained to become a vampire hunter and end the Lord of Castle Zarovich once and for all.
The human Warlock swordsman from a far away land is a wanderer and lost in both spirit and in his duty. The ancient broken sword which is said to hold the guardian spirit of his clan was shattered some time ago as the hero who wielded it was lost to history. Then... images showed in his mind. A dark looming castle, leather-clad wings covering the skies and a man in red and black dress being the only clues her has. Is this man the one who wielded the blade? Or the one who destroyed it and wounded the guardian spirit? Determined, he travels across the sea to find whatever clues he can about this place whhose name rings in his mind. 'Barovia.'
The chipper halfling bard was a happy man living a wonderful life in the farms down south. The ale was good, the warmth was comforting, and the music he played paid plenty. But fame and infamy never came to him during his early adulthood as he had hoped. People knew his musical talents were astounding, hist storytelling unique - but he needed something to stand out. His magnum opus! A story to surpass all stories! And upon hearing the tales of a noble seeking to rebuild his bloodline, joined by a mysterious bleak skinned elf showing him the way to the 'missing lands' known as Barovia - what other tale could possibly matchup to recording the adventures of these lands? But first he needs a bodyguard. And a certain swordsman from far away had caught his eye.
This way, I made sure everyone had a reason to be there and want to explore the lands other than "Strahd is a bad guy!". They all have motives, aspirations, and goals that can decide the end of this whole adventure. Whether they all walk out of this together, or they turn on each other due to new information crossing their path is left to them. But I feel like out of the options the book showed me, I felt like giving the party an actual reason to want to STAY in Barovia once they get there was key. And to me, this does this quite nicely. Has worked out great so far.
So much love for the effort you took to credit the artist providing some of your background art. Too many RUclipsrs just figure "if it's on the Internet, I can use it, so long as I don't show it for more than [some arbitrary] number of seconds". Good job! Thanks and respect from a freelance artist.
I’m sorry Jacob but I can’t watch this video because I’m about to be a player in CoS. I’ll watch as soon as the game is over I promise
we'll see you in 5 years
@@mobiushelldoctor1423 10 TPKs and 5 years later... the dm ran the entire module by the book as written for EVERY encounter + random encounters (CoS is pretty deadly if you forget retreat is an option)
Same my friend is running it and I can only compare to the little I've played of straud.
So, are you able to watch the video now? :^)
How’s it going now?
I started the game with a brief cutscene of Strahd introducing himself to the kidnapped players, and then they fall unconscious and wake in the village of Barovia. It basically replaces the "Plea for Help" introduction. I'm giving them a lot of freedom to go where they want in the world, so we'll see where it goes. Also since we were starting at level 1 I had the players come up with a reason for their characters go to Barovia.
I personally found the options given very dull, so i decided to have them be hired by a new adventuring guild in baldur's gate that tasks them with hunting down rumored spiders along the forest path of the Snakewood. Unfortunately for them, said spiders they find and slay turn out to be the "silk farm" of a nearby village who show up and mob the party bringing them, willing or not, deeper into the spider's lair where an ominous corner of fog resides. They then offer up all the slain villagers (if the party fights back) and the conscious/unconscious party members as sacrifices to the mist, tossing them inside of it. As they are falling they can barely see a cliff next to them where another batch of spiders are sent up to replenish those that were slain before... The sacrifice complete, they all pass out and wake up an unknown amount of time later by a campfire in a strange woods full of mysteries and mists.
Edit: yeah... so we started with the death house and 2 people died... heed his advice fuck this house.
That sounds awesome!
Sounds like dull intro
@@aronestone100 k
How?
why couldnt it be follow(slay) the butterflies
I started Strahd with a modified version of the intro paragraph at the front of the book, painting the picture of another party chased through the forest whilst strahd looks on, high above in his tower. It draws the players in and leaves them knowing they are not the first to enter barovia, what makes them think they are the last.
Death House, when done correctly, is an essential component of the game and you cannot change my mind. I put it before the village of Barovia while the players were being chased by woods. They were naturally inclined to go in. My players, despite quickly realizing the danger, loved how it set the stage and gave them the feel for the world. And as someone who has also played the game and subsequently survived the Death House, I really can't imagine people not running. It's a disservice to your players.
I don’t think I will ever play COS but it’s an XP to level 3 video.
As for the intro, I've used a mix of 1, 2 and 4.
Started with "so you start in a tavern" bit (kind of) in Daggerford, making the party eat and drink. At some point, there's a patron who's talking loudly and attracting a small crowd. He's a noble and he's talking trash about some nomads parked outside the city who are causing panic in town, he's telling various rumors - mostly false or half true - about them and attracting. Some people think the Vistani are fine and harmless, that all of this is just small town being smal town-y and rejecting strangers, like the barkeep who's a scrappy looking woman with a sharp tongue, but most people are afraid because they use magic, charmed the guards and have been used as scapegoats for anything going wrong in town. And so the noble eventually say that apparently, the duchess wants them gone by dawn, or she'll attack them if need be. She has said she would be ever so grateful if anyone could take care of it before it comes to violence.
They meet the Vistani and then from there, they tag along until they get to the old svalich road where they smell the corpse in the forest. At that point, if they choose to get of the Vistani caravan and investigate, I use the fog to make them loose the caravan. Mist + heavy rain = they get out of the road into the valley, find a small hamlet a little before the village, where Death House is relocated for the purpose of the thing. They are soaking wet because of the rain and asked by the children to help.
If they don't investigate, the caravan continues until sunset, seemingling never getting at the end of the road (this land is cursed and magical, so yeah). They set up camp. Player take their watch. If one player roll badly, he falls asleep. They wake up and the caravan is gone, the mist is unusually dense. If no one roll badly, something happens at some point where the players have to get into the wood (wolves, shadows lurking by, anything, they can even circle back to the corpse), and when they come back, the caravan is gone. Mist mist mist, then heavy rain, they get out of the road, on track with the rest. Badabim badabing.
I've decided to have my party of bounty hunters (lvl 5) go to Barovia to investigate the disappearance of Mordenkainen (Mordenainen is an old friend of the guild leader/owner). There they will discover a problem that must be dealt with. Mordenkainen will be one of the fate cards that the players get.
I used the creeping fog hook when I first DMed curse of Strahd. Now, I'm planning to do a mix of Mysterious Visitors and Creeping Fog.
Death house can be compressed into a five-room 5-hour one shot that sets the mood for strahd. It helped my players, because it helps explain that curse of strahd is a darker adventure than a regular dnd adventure!
I recently began DMing COS, and I mixed mysterious visitor, creeping fog, and used some wolves in then mist, and the introduced my players to Strahd, as a shadow figure who controlled the wolves, before they reach the Village.
I'm using all adventure hooks myself, basically one per player but two are doubled up for Mysterious Visitors. All set around Daggerford, they are all random adventurers who don't know one another, it'll be interesting for sure. :)
@@jeremydailey well that's a good way to set the adventure in motion. I did the same, and they all began in Daggerford :)
I started my game with the “Vistani walks into a bar” and merged with with a bit of Death House.
The group and Arrigal came across a home in the woods on their way to Barovia. The ghost kids said they needed help. The group entered the home and all their worst fears (a question I had for their players during character creation) that attacked them. One player found a carousel in the home. When he wound it, the house began collapsing. They escaped through a window as the house fell apart. The smoke from the collapse engulfed them, becoming the mists around Barovia.
Once the smoke cleared, all that was left was the carousel, playing, and turning, with the group in Barovia.
I worked with each player individually to give a reason for why they were looking for Barovia; and then did a modified version of creeping fog. It went over pretty well. Each player has their own reason why they are in Barovia; they are free to reveal it to other players if they wish.
Jacob, what did I tell you about keeping your name.
I gotta say, I offered my group 3 choices for adventures, one of them was CoS and they picked it! I wanted to either play or dm this one for years and it's finally happening! This video is a gift from the plane of Awesome thank you.
I'm about to start Humblewood, with the intention of carrying over the party to Curse of Strahd. So these videos are perfectly timed. Looking forward to adorable Vampire bat Strahd.
That sounds amazing. Do you have guide or design document on the changes you're making?
@@MrNozza123 Not yet. I'm still preping for the first session of humblewood, so Strahd is a long way off. But these videos are going to let me foreshadow things for Strahd so it's a nice seemless transition. For reference, Humblewood ends around the same time it's recommended for characters to be in CoS.
Yes, all the Curse of Strahd. I am running it starting in May and I love the way you run your games and these tips make me feel so much more prepared and comfortable going into it even after reading through the book.
Hm, a crazy idea I just had now: What if someone ran a modified version of Against the Cult of the Reptile God? Except, instead of a reptile god, it's some of Strahd cult or something. After completing it, you're asked to investigate further, descending into the mists of Barovia.
I used a variant of the version where the party meets the Vistani. It started with three unfamiliar party members in a tavern when the captain of the town guard came in and angrily started going off about “those damn caravaners.” Those three party members went to the outskirts of town to find the three other player characters sitting at the fire with the vishtani, drinking and laughing, one of whom was tied to one of the original 3’s backstory so establish a kind of trust from the getgo. When it came down to story time I dimmed the lights in the room and used an oil diffuser to illuminate it with only an emerald green light to match the color the fire turns. I also rehearsed the old man’s monologue about the backstory of Strahd and did in in perfect time to an instrumental cover of Lullaby of Woe from Witcher 3. My players tell me they love how “extra” I get with presentation.
These curse of strahd videos are helping me alot I was thinking about avoiding death house for my group so this did help me as a new dm finally decide to skip it
My first DM had an interesting way of getting us to Borovia; Asmodeus himself showed up under the guise of a card dealer (basically just blackjack) and upon winning a hand each member of the party recieved a silver coin that transported us there. Turns out Strahd was getting on Asmodeus's nerves so he sent in a party of adventurers to shake things up a bit, mostly just for the fun of it.
I used a combination of creeping fog and a call for help. I also used water deep dragon's heist as a starter. So the fog came in and took an NPC the party loved and the ghost Leif who they also adored. After the fog receded all that was left was a wax sealed letter detailing directions and pleading for the parties help.
The group I run completed the Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign prior to starting Curse of Strahd. At the end of the campaign, they went to Neverwinter to be rewarded. They received a small keep to be built on the ruins of the red brand hideout, something to bind them to the protection of the mines. After some down time, a carriage arrived to transport them back to Phandalin. At a rest stop on route, they encountered some vestani. The next evening, the carriage went out of control. The driver was missing. After wrestling the carriage to a stop, they began searching for the missing driver when a mysterious mist came upon them.
So I let my characters give me their background stories, n have thrown them in the death house as they are all new players. I changed it based on a Reddit thread and they love it.
Once they escape, I plan to use their background stories to help tie them into the plot.
Thanks for these videos as they are helpful!
Do you have said Reddit thread? Planning on running this module soon! Thanks
Cormier so below is the link to the table of contents for strahd. If breaks down each section on his interpretation. If you’re looking for death house, it’s the seventh link in the table of contents, labeled as Entering Barovia and Streamlining Death house. www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/9pbka6/fleshing_out_curse_of_strahd_master_table_of/?
Thank you so much for doing this! I haven't been playing DnD for years. Only been running much easier RPG's from "Fria ligan." I now have decided to start a Stradh adventure on Roll20 and boy am I overwhelmed. This clears things up! Thank you!
TL;DR. Bring them in with a Vistani caravan. Character engagement ensues.
I kind of did the opposite. I had (almost) all my players be part of a Vistani caravan for different reasons: rogue on the run, Rangers acting as guards, cleric riding along to study this strange culture no one in Faerun really knows anything about. Then one night after getting to know each other more, they are invited to Madam Eva’s tent. She does the reading for them, binding a particular object to certain characters and as the reading concludes they are told to find the lost child who will help them and lead them to the rose and thorn so that they may learn of Strahd’s wickedness. The mist pours in and when the party climbs out of the tent, they are now in Barovia. They meet the Warlock (a daughter of Strahd) who takes them through the murder house and I re-did it to show off how Strahd caused all this suffering for his own amusement. Less dungeon crawl. More explore this house. See what creepy crap Strahd has done.
Then at level 3 the party gets immediately invited to Strahd’s castle for the next evening. They also meet a bunch of Strahd’s other children (custom NPCs that really added a lot of fun/intrigue). That is where 1) Strahd explains his grand game of succession and the rules for it. 2) they meet Ireena and Ismark who are there as guests. This is also when Strahd takes Ireena for her second biting before whisking her back to her home.
After all this, my party was 1) invested in defeating Strahd and had seen his power. 2) Want to keep Ireena safe. 3) have a host of open objectives: finding all the items and dealing with all of Strahd’s children before he’d even allow them to confront him.
Great video. I love the Death House though. Even considering allowing the party to keep it as a permanent base in Barovia if they manage to cleanse it and/or befriend the ghost children.
Starting from the other side is an interesting idea. I have run strahd twice. The second time I actually used The Book of the Raven oneshot from Candlekeep Mysteries mixed in slightly with the Mysterious Visitor beginning as my entrance to barovia and I feel like it was an excellent start. I had arrigal be the one who wanted them to get the book (because it talks about barovia. Cant have that.) But he didnt want to incriminate himself so he had the adventurers do the dirty work to get the book for him and follow the map to get the "treasure" he said was there. They of course read the book which gave them a nice bit of lore. Instead of going to the shadow fell I had the mausoleum be at the edge of barovia and strand the players there. Arrigal showed up later when they went to vallaki to retrieve the book they still had on them, laughed when they asked about the reward he had originally promised for the quest and told them they were doomed to be strahds playthings and "thanks for helping me garner a reputation with him."
I did the vistani group the first time and while it got the players invested, since they went right to madam eva they skipped the village of barovia entirely and..... never. Visited it. At all. It set them up to try to wander off into the woods instead. They eventually died trying to kill baba lysaga at level like. 5 I think. For some reason they decided they disnt want to visit any of the towns. I dis get them into krezk once but all they wanted to do was buy better gear and leave to fight wintersplinter after helping the wereravens deliver their wine.
I'm currently running a campaign with a living world, where I've set up a bunch of stuff in the world for the players to possibly encounter. One of those was a quest that lead the players into Barovia without them knowing, it was a LOT of fun having them try to figure out where the hell they were. They realized pretty quick but it got a great reaction 'cause they weren't expecting it at all.
I actaully loved the death house, I know my dm toned it down but the way it was ran for me made a great intro
Im making a third party dnd book with new subclasses and stuff, but i need a idea for something and after watching this video you just gave me a briliant one.
My experience with the start:
Our characters start around a camp fire. I decide to cook a fish, because I expect to take a moment to learn about everyone's characters.
The Mist happens nearby.
The Barbarian thinks that mist at night is suspicious, so he walks straight in.
Immediately meet Strahd, without any description of the town just that we're under cover after walking into town.
My character has a friendly chat, but the rest of the party is (Understandably) scared of him.
The Paladin and Barbarian start taunting Strahd for being a monster.
Strahd decides to punch my Bard in the face first, immediately knocking him out... For some reason.
Spend the rest of this session and half of next session unconscious...
the point of starting them off near Barovia is to find the dead body with the real note telling people to flee the lands, and to be chased in by the wolves, which for a 5th level party might be deadly given it's Ravenloft
I have been waiting to watch this! Just finished CoS and I decided to run it as a DM myself!
I'm currently preparing to DM a Curse of Strahd campaign. I'm doing my own intro to Borovia. I'm starting with a one-shot with the party at level 2 to do a job for the Flaming Fist. This adventure is actually manipulated by the vistani to hunt down some vistani who oppose Strahd and had found a way to smuggle out someone from within. This will give them a few hundred gold pieces to do some shopping before entering Borovia in relative safety. Their guides (some vistani) who led them through the first quest offer to take them to a land where honor, eternal glory and suggest they meet Madam Eva.
I'm basically mixing up the strange visitors introduction by doing a little mini-adventure to level the party up a little and so they can buy some decent gear and/or potions.
I think IF I ever run it, I may combine “Mysterious Visitors” and “Creeping Fog”. Like... as the Vistani wrap up their tale of Strahd, they ask the players what that story means to them or something, and the Vistani say something cryptic along the lines of “well, you’re gonna meet him soon”... AND THEN have the fog flood the camp and as it lifts, they’ve been transported to Barovia. I like the fog, but I also like the story of the former... so combining them seems fun.
Our DM tied my characters backstory into our game (Lost mines of Phandelver) And during our rest my characters brother (a Necromancer) teleported? us into borovia and took our items, when we agreed to an agreement which we have yet to find out what it exactly means, we got marked. We woke up back where we left up with most of our items
So I'm running Ghosts of Saltmarsh, modified so that the big bads are actually Vampires. I recently had my players encounter a weak vampire who seemed to be controlled by someone, Strahd scoping out this plane of existence (it's a homebrew world, very chaotic and turbulent right now). They beat him, and the next morning a message in a bottle showed up by their ship essentially saying: Quite Impressive. Want to try again? Come to Barovia. I have a couple veteran players, and I let them have a little meta knowledge, just to help set the scene for the players that have never heard of Barovia or Strahd. And now they've got the chance to do CoS! They don't HAVE too, but they can.
I had my characters enter Barovia through death house.
In our session 0 we came up with an adventure that they had just completed, and in the evening, they went to visit a famous local pub. On the way to the pub, (it was very foggy that evening), they passed through a narrow alley. I then ran the Thorn&Rose encounter, which made my players head into death house all on their own.
Ever since they entered, the fog outside became thicker and thicker, so that they couldn't see anything outside.
They completed Death House, and when they left, death house had transported to its location in barovia.
I started them on level 2 (because the level up to level 2 in death house is silly) and they leveled up upon leaving DH.
I think DH isn't as bad as you make it out to be. There is a lot to explore, and a lot of flavor to find, and you can sprinkle foreshadowing all over. For example they found a book containing the family's ancestry history, with the last entry being Thorn&Rose's little brother... 400 YEARS AGO!
They just arrived at Vallaki last session, so we're not very far in.
One important change I have made is that Ismark and Ireena didn't give them their quest yet (why the hell would they).
Once Ireena leaves through the pond in Krezk, Strahd is done playing games and will try to kill the players. I really don't want that to happen too early.
Oh, and when they left Death House Strahd welcomed them to his realm, and they had a very polite chat with him.
That kind of set how I'll play Strahd most of the time.
For an introduction, I really like the alternative to Plea for Help that Curse of Strahd: Reloaded suggests, and used it with my players to great effect. Essentially, when they are still individual travelers who have never met, they receive strange dreams from Madam Eva that contain secret knowledge of their life and backstory that nobody but them could possibly know. The final dream beseeches them to travel to a specific inn where they will meet likeminded heroes that will assist them, with a vague description of each other player; For example, all of the players except our paladin was told to "Seek out the Knight of the Divine, whose righteous blade holds back the dark"; all of the players except our half-elf rogue was told to "Seek out the man born of two worlds, who wears the shadows as a cloak".
All of the players are also told to "Seek out the man of many colors, for he shall guide your path". Upon arriving to the tavern and doing party introductions, there is a flyer for a roaming camp that invites all travelers to come drink and swap stories, featuring a depiction of Stanimar, a vibrantly dressed Vistani. From there, Plea for Help continues as normal, with the exception that Stanimar and his band of Vistani are banished from Barovia by Madam Eva, so they will take you to the gates of Barovia but no farther, instead of railroading you directly to Madam Eva's camp.
Just thought of the randomest way to make creeping fog more engaging or something.
Everybody's race suddenly changes once through the fog.
Could be random, could be a polar opposite thing (like elves and orcs), could represent what they've done in their life (like how One of the histories of tiflings they had dealings with devils or whatever.)
Or maybe they just really like water so they're a race more for that.
This makes everybody confused and ask why. And if they can turn back.
Or maybe this could be something else, who knows
As if, every DM i know is too in love with their own homebrew campaigns to do any premade official adventure module.
Oof. I felt that as a DM who loves some of the official adventure modules but also knows that I can only get the group together so rarely that we always play the homebrew campaign.
In my own opinion as a DM... I am a improv DM who loosely plans ahead of time with random npc's and encounters ... premades scare me
@@TaggingSilver same I'm a improviser it's what I do best so I dont like prewrittens as much though I would like to run one eventually
@@shadowgear7032 read Acquisition Incorporated 3 times now, and even still I know my campaign did a 360 thanks to my crazy players
Creeping Fog is the backup hook for when your party is so paranoid they refuse to go with the mysterious visitors. Who would ignore the obvious hook at the start of a new campaign, you ask?
The party that disguised someone as a maid so they could sneak in to the manor to report in person to the Duchess that they completed their task, after being told that the Duchess had already retired for the night and they would inform her for them when she awakes. While forgetting that they were all male characters, making their disguise an obvious crossdress.
The party that spent 20 RL minutes investigating the trees outside the entrance gate after the fog had taken them because you described how they noticed the trees were a different type of tree from when they first entered the forest before the fog crept in.
That's who.
I had the idea for my players be asked by a local inquisitor who asks them to help him investigate rumors of undead stalking the roads in the forest which is the local town's main trade route. As they get deeper into the forest, they start seeing mist and they are slowly transported into Barovia. once they are almost near Krezk, a sudden necromantic spell is cast and the dead start rising from the ground and the inquisitor yells for the players to run.
Idk if its any good but it is something
My DM sent us into death house, i tried to sacrifice myself but he said I “ran outta time”, our cleric died trying to escape 😔
The opening I was planning to do was have the players as prisoners, who are geas'd to a paladin, and their punishment is go fight some sort of evil nonsense, that would eventually cause them to get fogged into barovia. I like the the paladin idea, as for a more dubious party, they figure out a way to get the paladin killed by barovia, and free themselves, or get freed on their own by the paladin if they prove themselves to be upright people.
Jacob: don't run death house
Me who literally just started running curse of strahd for my group: -_- bit late for that
I started the Curse of Strahd a few months ago and we ran Death House. It took a couple of sessions to get through it and we all had a blast playing it. I ended up having the cult sacrificing baby Walter and he was mutated into the Shambling Mound. As they escaped from the burning house they looked back and there were the ghostly aspirations of the children and the nanny holding Walter, looking down from the upper windows waving goodbye to them. Last night they just arrived to Vallaki.
If you want another interesting way to start it, look into the T1 Adventurers League series of adventures from the Strahd season, and it's quite good at creating a rather dark feel for it, and a slight modification to the last one makes it work for a shift to drawing them into the actual Strahd adventure rather than the chance to escape the mist.
I'm gearing up to play CoS and this is really helpful. An alternate start sounds like a really fun twist on the campaign :D
The werewolf hook could be strengthened by revealing that the werewolf they were tracking is a native Vistani of Barovia. So they start tracking the werewolf on their plane, get involved in a chase through a graveyard and get transported to Ravenloft via the mists.
When I DM'd CoS I started off with my players going to get rid of the vistani,but if I could DM this campaign again I'd go with hunting the werewolves. The Werewolf den is a pretty cool location on the map but there's not really anything that would attract the players there unless Madam Ava told them to go there... It'd be interesting if one of the Vallaki wolf hunters had some kind of side quest for the area with a minor magic item as a reward.
my character was a surprise vistani. it was pretty great. DM had a great time making storylines for each of us and i really appreciate it.
I had an idea of using the "Haunted House" from the Ghosts of Saltmarsh as the lead in, like, instead of random bandits/smugglers, they're evil Vistani that are looking for the Alchemist because he stole a few pages of the Book of Strahd and Strahd wants it back but the Vistani (whom were tricked into bringing him out of Barovia) have been searching his house for a while but can't find the hidden room. Once the characters get the pages and leave, Mists envelop them back to town and they wind up in Barovia....or Krezk, idk
Felt so cool hearing my name on a patron list. And thanks for getting the last name right Jacob. Huge respect
I LOVE THE DEATH HOUSE, both running it and being a character. now of course i made my own changes but kept the idea.
I was thinking of making an intro that is a shared dream where the players suddenly share consciousness in their sleep, due to 'unknown reason'. It will start them suddenly having this lucid nightmare on all things Barovia, starting with the scene of how Strahd became a vampire, then the Svalich Road, a glimpse of Madam Eva at the Vistani Camp, etc all that stuff without getting TOO much info. Getting into detail of how it works would be like typing a short novel in RUclips comments, so long story short, it's kinda like an interactive trailer of the campaign so that the core relationship status between players can be developed and warm them up with some hints on what they're going into.
The last part of the dream was Madam Eva calling for their help, recognizing their presence and asking them to find her. They then wake up in the Svalic Woods, and they start to seek the Vistani camp for Madame Eva for answers.
The tricky bit is establishing character motivations on why they should help Eva on her cause, and that lays on how I execute the dream. I need to make the players related to Barovia and its people somehow. Maybe in one part of the dream they'll get into Blinsky's Toy Shop and one of them recognizes a horrible toy that they remebered they owned. Or one of them had deja vu on the Vistani's clothing, remembering that they saw someone that looked like that once before a tragic event. It would take some creativity on my part and help from my players and I hope it will work. I'd gladly hear opinion on this, because otherwise I might just choose the normal route and tweak it up a bit.
My players enjoyed Death House, largely because they did not die (I removed/nerfed some deadly encounters). I also had the fog take away all their items as they slept, so the Death House was a great way to test their resourcefulness in a dangerous new land.
Can y'all do a video on warforged? I'm trying to build one and can't find much material.
Davvy Chappy made a video on 'em. It's pretty cool.
I am hoping they do some Adventurer’s League in Eberon so I can play a Warforged. (or I can make more friends near me who play D&D 😆)
Do it the old way. Warforged juggernaut forge cleric is best tank x3
I loved going with strange visitors! I had our paladin get the mission to go to Lady Morwen and the rest of the group joined on the way for selfish or confusing reasons! Like when our druid found themselves exploding out of a potato sack lying on the cart the others were traveling on because they fell asleep in it as a rat the night before!
Anyways I loved giving Lady Morwen an over the top french accent and having her make snarky remarks that our dragonborn should "be careful so they don't burn the drapes" and acting very upset at our halflings poor manners!
My hook is... Lost memory.
1. Characters know their class and proficiency but have lost their memories. The wizard has cantrips but no spell book etc. They wake up in the main hall of the death house and if they search their equipment they will find an invitation. They can die from the death house, but if the characters tpk they wake up outside the house at level 3. This can be later explained by the below point.
2. The hook is that all the players are barovians with souls. Depending on the race/class I tie their stories into the various factions in Barovia, but that he plucked their souls and dumped them into bodies using a ritual in the death house. The motivation is that strahd is trying to make them suffer due to previous slights from other lifetimes.
3. Strahd is actually the castle, the body of strahd is actually a simulacrum that he possesses. It can be "killed" but it is reanimated 24 hours later. The castle can also take features from the death house as the death house is an extension of strahd (I even teleport it around Barovia as a signal that strahd may make an appearance). To "kill" strahd the players need to stake the simulacrum in its coffin and then destroy the heart in the tower or they use another narrative method if they can work one out.
4:36 & 5:15 both say Hook 3, but I got the message. Creeping Fog is the 4th one. I'm all about that 2nd introduction, because it provides a narrative drive beyond just killing
Also death house can be more than a grindy dungeon, it sets the players up for what they're in for, letting them see some of the horrors
My group did Creeping Fog, but that's mostly because we just jumped straight into Strahd. Also, if you decide to play a rogue for this campaign, don't go Arcane Trickster, because there's little to no use for illusions in this game.
My players loved the Death House. I changed it a lot and put more story in it to make it interesting. They got 6 different letters, a few Items that hint to strahd and all in all it was a lot of fun for everyone
I also let the players be swallowed up by the fog. The intro from the Goblin Stream is amazing and gave me a lot of inspiration
"Don't run death house"
Me, a first time dm, trying to prep for my 2nd session tonight where my players are on the 2nd floor of death house and 2 of them are down to 2 hp: .....yeahp. shouldve watched this video sooner 😅
Tbf, it was a dope way to introduce my roommate's character whos a scarecrow warforged swarmkeeper ranger (whose swarm is crows) who is inhabited by the soul of the necromancer who created him who im toying with the idea of him having been a dark-powers-advisor to strahd.
Also, I opened my game with a skyrim cold open. Deadass. I had my roommate play a disposable pc whose only job was to say "hey, you, you're finally awake" when our other-game-dm who frequently curses us with meridia's beacon woke up from the mists.
Its going well I think
I split my players up and one player with Werewolves in the mist, and the other with Creeping fog. The Creeping fog was more malicious for them and withered anything it touched, and since plants were that player's only company, since they were a hermit, they freaked out.
The Werewolf was never found by the other player. In fact, the first person they found was the other player.
Each player accused the other of what the fog did. The hermit was accused of being a werewolf and accused the other player of killing her family. What a great start. 😅
Thanks for the tips Jacob. Glad to be a patron. Keep up the good work. Hope they don't have you locked in basement writing homebrew lol
I ran Death House as a oneshot for five groups of people up to now and everyone loved it. I wouldn't have players play it in the campaign either though... Starting COS soon-ish with my players and we're all pretty hyped. :D
I started my players off in combination 2 and 3 with talk and rumors of merchant caravans disappearing in fog so my players were hired to investigate and solve the problem and along the way they ran into a group of vistani so they asked questions and talk to madam Eva and when they woke up the next day they found the area covered in fog and after wondering around for awhile they came in front of the gate to Barovia.
I like the creeping fog one. It makes things even more of a mystery. I mean, its all ruined anyways because anybody who knows anything about D&D is at least AWARE of curse of strahd, even if they may not know all the specifics, but from a storytelling perspective, wandering heroes stumbling into barovia with no idea whats going on or what they should do is an interesting one that provides the maximum number of potential directions to go in or hooks to start the story.
I need your playlists for this game!
Barovia is actually quite small, castle Ravenloft can be seen from anywhere in it with good weather
Creeping fog might be interesting in a sandbox campaign if its based on a dice roll. Think youre out hunting with your party but suddenly, CoS!
This is very sequalitus and I love it
Death House is the perfect microcosm of Barovia, though! Spooky monsters, intrigue, dark themes, etc. I have my players enter from the Prime Material Plane and exit into Barovia.
I also think that the Village of Barovia is the perfect follow-up because it introduces the players to B-story; bonding with Ireena. I have all the NPC's treat the players like shit unless she's there to vouch for them, then BOOM! They got a companion they don't want anything to happen to. (I also roleplay her like a Disney Princess so that she's the only levity to this grim dark world, but that's definitely not for everyone.)
I can completely say that the Death House really did sour the first bit of game I went through. We picked up on the mystery but oh my god the kids just made my enthusiasm for the setting come grinding to a halt almost immediately. I just wound up having to tell the DM "look this is frustrating and I'm not having any fun being unable to roleplay my character I've barely even figured out" so we just had to fiddle with things a bit and rush to solving that plot thread ASAP. It... wasn't great.
As a player, I LOVED the death house! You just gotta be willing to enjoy "sidequests." It's DnD!
Jacob... I am the dank view that you seek...
Someone ran out of snacks...
I dont understand the hate for death house, now I know anecdotal evidence is the worst but my group had a blast in that house, and we are not a kick down the door type group. It's a confined haunted mansion that has much more to offer than just being a meat grinder. It also sets up that barovia is a bleak and dangerous place, you can also set up the horror aspect of it cause they are stuck there and have no idea why or how to get out. It shows that barovia has some sort of sentience and that it wants to toy with them. It's not the best start but you can do a lot with a confined haunted house, especially if the charcters stay a night or two in it
I never did Death House when I played in Curse of Strahd. There is another mini adventure leading into Curse of Strahd whose name escapes me.
I actually wrote my own introduction filled with homebrew. A murder has taken place in the village of Barovia, where the players start in a tavern. 100 gold pieces are offered to anyone who can prove the identity of the murderer. The sun sets and the streets empty. That night, there's a blue light coming from the window of a house near the Inn, which is the house of the victim. (It's also the Death House, which is haunted because evil spirits are drawn it, being the place of sorrow and desperation that it is. I'm also getting rid of the statue of Strahd, the prison, and the sacrificial alter thing because that would not make sense.) Inside the house, they find the victim's ghost who tells them the information of the murder. The victims name is Elise Firmine, an undercover vigilante who was trying to send a letter to an ally named Matthias Malvina, who lives in Vallaki, but some cult members (Does Strahd have a cult? I don't care.) found out the operation and took her out. The letter has information about one of the cult's hiding places. It's currently in the hands of the murderer, but no one in the cult understands it since it's written in druidic. (More homebrew. Druidcraft is foreign to Ravenloft. Weird idea, but it gives my druid some importance.) So the cult hired some mercenaries to kidnap Tabbris Blunderghast (The druid of the party) in the hopes that she can translate. The ghost tells all the information to the party, and begs them to send the message to Matthias. So they have a trip to Vallaki to make, plus cult members on their back. Vallaki will be the place they find Irina, and that will introduce them to the cannon plot. And now they know the location of a cult base, which will make for a good side quest. A hell of a hook if I say so myself.
I have a weird idea for using Curse of Strahd as a framework for the players being trapped in the domain of a wendigo who likes to torment and toy with her prey. It'll take a shit ton of finicking and changes, but hopefully it'll go well.
Or, you could have your players be actually from Barovia. At First Level, it wouldn't make much difference. The only downside would be that the PCs would already know who Strahd is, and what's wrong with the country, and I think my players would kind of like discovering all that by themselves. Maybe talk to your players separately, and see if anyone wants to play a reincarnated Barovian?
Also, starting on the left side of the map and working towards Strahd is so simple, so genius, I now have to re-write my intro, because I'm stealing this idea.
yay its here. I was so hyped for this :D
I had them go through the Werevolves thing, but not directly. They harpers lost contact with the Harper's House in Barovia just recently, and when they got there, they found the House trashed. Did it a little more investigation based than combat based, because I reallydon't like heavy combat in my Ravenloft.
Did NOT think about the starting position change, it makes sense. Will try that next time we revisit and give it a new spin. Also yeah, fuck the Deathhouse.
Love it... Gimme part 3 already
I'm about to start running this campaign. I was gonna run death house, but now I think I may just keep the dungeon in the back of my mind for another campaign.
Nah, If you look at some of the comments on this video, you'll see that a lot of people actually managed to pull off death house well.
Honestly, it seems like most of them modified it to be more of a suspense piece that introduces CoS's thematic elements instead of a meat grinder.
Just play around with it a bit until you're satisfied with it's lethality, really make them feel trapped by Barovia's mists, to drive home the extent of human corruption, make them sleuth their way into finding the exit to prepare them for finding all the stuff they need later on, and tempt them to give in to their darker sides for a leg up on the competition.
Honestly, most of Jacob's points could be fixed with making the Village of Barovia darker, and making death house less meat grindy.
I started my players in death house because I wanted the newer players to have a chance to
Figure out how to play from level 1. And it was a good 2 sessions to help everyone figure out roll20