Running Curse of Strahd create many unexpected stories. I ran it slowly over two years. Sinking into many excellent details. With many memories to relish. The DnD party interacted with the world in fascinating, unexpected ways. This blog with contain many plot points, key details and other spoilers for Curse of Strahd (non-revamped).

Beyond here are spoilers.
If you have questions about DMing CoS and don’t want spoilers – reach out at drachis@drachis.com or @Drachis on Twitter. I’ll try and answer those questions as best as possible.

One of the players of my current DnD campaign asked:

Yo, so you’ve run Curse of Strahd before. I’ve been trying to find time to read through the book for it so I can be prepared to run it in the somewhat near future. People talk a lot about it being cool because it’s just a good tragedy. Which really interests me, because I’m all about that. I think satisfying emotional beats in role-playing games are the cream of the crop, and experiencing something sad but worthwhile in that context sounds like an experience that I definitely want. You’ve run it before. From a DM’s perspective, what about CoS is interesting or noteworthy to you? What would you say is so appealing about it?

Curse of Strahd is an excellent space to explore horror themes. With the consent of your players it can look into the evil natures of humanity. What happens when you are placed in situations which offer the chance to break promises, kill the innocent and deal with death? It can help us look at what makes us human, and how monsters exist as facets of our imagination. I picked it as something to run for Halloween. The rich world and intertwined characters kept me running the world to play through those elements. It takes time to build up to sad impactful moments. Sometimes that ones you setup don’t resonate with the audience. For our table Izek was the most creepy character. He represented the discomfort with knowable characters (the obsessed Otaku trope). For a table with mostly female players familiar with anime, this hit closer to home than a vampire lord. I used that as a guide for how to describe Strahd which was different than how he was written in the module. Sure he could be dripping in blood, but it was much more creepy for him to keep a lock of hair from each of his ex-wives near a statue of them. Learning to read the table and plan based on their world view is a strength of the improve of DnD.

How this is written, and reading it

Please skim. The format is sparse. Each block sets the stage with light context. Followed by a walk through of key interactions. An exploration on how beats were setup. What landed or missed. Some interactions are forgotten, it’s improve. Details require referencing the source module. Characters will be refereed to by their class name. DM notes and retrospective will be green text.

Introduction

There are many stories in Barovia which set the stage for excellent emotional beats. Weaving those for players who want to “f- around and find out” is a different tale. There are strong beats. Different than one my anticipate in reading the module. Keep your players in mind. They will shape the vitality of the game world as much as you.

Call to Adventure

It started with a journey through the mists. After a night of revelry The party camped for the night in a lush forest in the Forgotten Realms. Yet awoke to gnarled trees and grey skies. This wasn’t my first option, I attempted three of the offered adventure hooks. The plea for help fell short. With the party focused on other roleplay they missed the call to adventure. The offer of gold perked up the Rouge but did not sway the others. The Vistanti made a second plea for assistance against the evil forces, wolves and vampires, plaguing his homeland to the West. He paid half ahead in strange eagle coins. The prospect of heroics perked up the rest of the party. Promptly they headed out – in the wrong direction. Deep in the forests to the East, lost and confused they slew a beast and ate it. Settling in for the night to distant howling wolves the mists rolled in. Dawn broke to silver skies and they were on the outskirts of Barovia.

This entry point required heavy railroading. The lack of attention to details or reminders required additional steps. It did ensure that the main section of the adventure started as written but reduced agency. If I had stuck to the first two calls as my hard line in it would of been a miss. I could of interposed another adventure in front of the party (Hoard of the Dragon Queen?). Using the mists as a transition element ensured that the adventure started as it was written in the module. The players had signed up knowing we would be playing Curse of Strahd. A stronger start would of been to have them begin in Barovia. Narrate the intro without agency over a few sentences. Or enter Barovia from another point. The western edge near Krezk would of created a unique adventure. In addition it would of required me to adapt the module to to their play. Changing the module to fit the players was work I didn’t know how to do at the start of the adventure. Look for opportunities to give players rewards for their strong choices.

The Party

We had a rotating cast of players ranging from 4 to 6. It was a fun table. Coordinating 6 players with continuity is difficult. I’d recommend starting with 4. if the group maintains strong order or manners increasing to 6 can work well. Our 5th player (Ranger) was the key to balancing the group dynamics and focusing aiming the group at finishing the campaign. I’ve broken out the character dynamics and timeline in a second post. Questions about character creation, adding or replacing characters mid way are in a third post.

Curse of Strahd, party lineup and rotating cast

Strong emotional beats,

Village of Barovia,

loss of guiding light, making an orphanage and introduction to fear.

The game started with the party going through Death House. The Sorcerer on the second session into the house and the other party members found them in a room of the house. It was an awkward character intro which resulted in the party attacking the new party member. In the basement for the boss fight the Paladin fell in battle. They were the guiding light for the party in their quest. With them gone and the addition of a lawful evil Sorcerer the average alignment compass of the party shifted towards Neutral.

While exploring the Village of Barovia after Death House the party found a hag selling pies. This was a neat interaction. With the pure as dew Cleric eating a pie made of children. The Sorcerer the villager who was trading their child for pies. Sealing their partner with a pile of pies to sup on and taking all their children. The Party took the villager’s children, gave them to a weeping widow and started an orphanage. The players celebrated it as a good deed, but it was an orphanage with orphans that they made. Not a moral high ground to start the campaign on. It was a good demonstration of expected world interactions.

They convinced Irena to travel with them after defending her from wolves over night. Her introduction was intended to show her as a strong individual struggling against the forces of the night. It did endear her to the party. Gaining an extra blade made that endearment stronger. Adding her to the party as an NPC was a good way to transfer world information to the party. It also complicated play with an additional permanent character to manage on the player side. I ceded control to the party with the option to retake her for plot actions. It skewed the difficultly down for many encounters as they used her combat abilities. There were some clever illusion uses to try and hide her from prying eyes. Her position as a key in the plot wasn’t communicated heavily enough.

Hags and the windmill

This was mostly a murder fest. The party quickly established their hold on the windmill. Yelling that they had the deed (true, they found it in Death House). This became the parties base of operations.

Vallaki and the first festival, commitment and about-face

The party agreed to preform at the festival after meeting the Mayor. Yet after talking to villagers about the frequency of the festivals they ditched out. Avoided the festival angered the Mayor, and he put a warent out for the party. This became a strong point of contention with the Mayor leading to more interesting story moments with him and Izek.

The Tower, paying attention to the world

There is a trapped cart outside the Wizard’s tower… no one checked for traps before trying to open it. So it blew up. Traps are fairly rare, leveraging passive perception or insight to make this a less punishing moment could of been better. The party got a golem from the tower, they also missed out on all of the notes in the card and that information had to be filtered in through other channels.

Winery, Yesterhill, the loss of Irena. Turning down the danger.

I made a mistake of reducing the danger posed by the twig blights between sessions to stop a total party kill. The players noticed and it reduced the suspension of disbelief they held. Following that I had Strahd assault them at Yester Hill. He stole away Irena in a bid to make the party chase him to his castle. They were too scared and stayed in western Barovia for as long as they were able. I didn’t have a good idea of other plot hooks to pull the party to Castle Ravenloft. The idea of losing their friend Irena who had been traveling with them for about a week in game / 4 months out of game wasn’t enough due to character & player motivations.

The second festival, a man stocked to madness.

When the party did sneak back into Valaki they encountered a man in the stocks who had laughed at the first festival. Rather than free him from the stocks, they told him of all the night terrors which existed around the town. It was fun RP, and revealed that the morality of the party was slipping.

Rictavio, a lost Tiger a mad man. Or a perfectly nice day in Barovia.

The Barbarian used speak with animals, freed the Tiger in Valaki, it went off to slay the Vistanti. Along the way Rictavio had a change of heart seeing that pain only brought on more pain. The Ranger joined around this time and helped with recapturing it. The Ranger had been having a perfectly good time, saving a girl from drowning and had yet to experience the evil nature of the world.

Going to Krezk,

Fallen angel, living dead child. Ghosts in your friend.

The monk helped revive a child in the village. The party then attempted to curry favor with the traumatized child with paltry gifts. The side characters were good for fleshing out the world but the interactions felt like rep building not solid world interactions. The monk/Fallen Angel was a quick trusted character. The created a moment of peace in the chaotic wolf-whirlwind world.

On leaving Krezk the Rogue encountered a ghost, was tied up by the Barbarian and became a backpack for a session. Loss of control abilities on player characters need to have real time short effects. The downside they present is that the player is removed from the game. If the party doesn’t advance time in game. Letting the possession play out in 20-30 minutes of real time is important. It is frustrating to come to the game to play and get locked out, even if through your character choices.

Dinner invitation

Strahd invited the party to dinner to celebrate his betrothal to Irena. The bridge to the castle is a hazard, and the Barbarian feel through, getting to the main tower of the castle and making their way up through the catacombs alone to join the party. The Bard joined for just the meal and without a care in the world made strong lore calls. They were a visiting player and a good medium for new information that no one else has inquired about. In exiting they tried to shake hands with Strahd’s butler and were knocked out by the aura of lost souls around him. At departure and as the player left the Bard got Roc’d away to Mount Ghakis.

Bridge over troubled waters

Strahd encountered the party at the bridge on the way to the Amber Temple. He informed them that there was nothing for them there. To bolster his power he used Animate Object as a means to create allies for the battle. The narrow space of the bridge and layers to the guard houses made for interesting combat terrain. The animated objects charged down the bridge making the space more contentious. I added a cursed item to one guard tower which was intended to make character who found it change races into an ice genasi. As the campaign progressed I lost track of it. The fight ended with Strahd warning the party away from the Amber Temple. They failed to listen.

Amber Temple

The lost library, great power, no responsibility, a friend cast to the dark.

Pointing the party to this place was a choice I wasn’t ready to fully handle. I wanted to go there because it looked interesting on paper. It has a lot of mechanics which caused tension to run high. Inspired great art. Running this area smoothly requires out of game conversations about the risks it can pose.

I’ve broken it out into a another post.

The Druid and Rogue after touching everything in sight.

Departure and Death

When a player leaves how do you close out the story of their character?

Holding an in game funeral was one of the strongest emotional beats. After losing the Druid in the Amber Temple it gave the group a solemn moment of silence to breathe into. Though it wouldn’t be Barovia without some complications. So the first grave they attempted to dig was occupied. In addition it helped helped minimize bleed of the character death paired with a friend quitting play. This provided solid closure for the characters and players. It took a whole session and it ran at the player’s pacing. This was run heavily on the request of the Ranger, their improv skills led the party to a heartfelt moment. The player’s illustrations helped immortalize it. The ritual helped bring humanity to a group of murder hobos

That’s OUR windmill.

During the Death House introduction the party found the deed to the windmill. Around level 9 in an encounter with Strahd in the Slavish woods he gloated that he would use Animate Obejct on the windmill. Through quick thinking the party was able to get there first. They animated the windmill and had it hit him. A few hits from the windmill and Strahd retreated on his Nightmare. The windmill lay in ruins, both closing a safe haven for the party and giving a personal and immediate reason to go defeat Strahd.

Final fight!

Ghosts in your blood

After all the adventures across Barovia the time it took for the party to find their way through Strahd’s Castle was equivalent to two of the previous zones combined. The party came in full force to the castle and made short work of every obstacle. It is a complex multi layer environment. I spent time ahead of each castle session drawing the maps on velum for the table to have less down time as the party explored.

For the final confrontation I added an additional stage to the Strahd fight. The party was high enough level that a direct fight was over quickly. It took a few weeks of painting ahead to get the model ready. Using a Warhammer 40k model of a Mortarch of Night as a second stage for Strahd added an additional layer of tension to the end game. His ability set was pulled from a mix of CR 15 monsters with the stats reduced. He was a combination of many element, a sword which put ghosts in the enemy’s blood, the mount played off the blood left by the ghosts to heal or teleport through the elemental plane of blood.. Adding this layer of customization to the Strahd fight made our campaign’s end unique.

Epilogue

After Strahd fell I maneuvered the party through the Village of Barovia. Revealed that the Paladin was still alive. Shunted them down old Slavich road and out of the pocket dimension.

Personal Health

I was tired after running the game. Spending only a single session closing out Barovia after Strahd fell. The Party was ready to romp across the lands as victors. Recover the spoils or crafts they had set in motion and keep playing. By closing the campaign so abruptly it ended out sessions together. This denial of rewards was not satisfying for the players or myself. The exhaustion from both in game and out of game events led to me taking a break from DMing for about two years.

Remember to take the time you need as DM to take care of your self. Running a campaign is hard at points. Rushing the story doesn’t make it better for players. Taking a break for a couple weeks is better than breaking entirely.

Cutting and avoided content.

The Druid arrived during a wolf attack and to avoid potential overlap and confusion, I didn’t make the werewolves a faction the party interacted with. They happened off screen and were where the Druid stayed (in wolf form) while they were unable to attend the game.

In Krezk, the Abby mutants were placed in the shadows of the story only pointing the party to other content. Their arc didn’t enhance the flow of our game. In addition I judged that we were running long and it would detract from us finishing the campaign.

The party never ventured south along Luna River near Valaki, so they didn’t find the swamp witches, or that gem for Wizard of the Wines. No Mad Mage, they saw lighting above Lake Zarovich and avoided that forest.

Notes

I try to avoid using the word “dark” for evil.
The Vistanti were portrayed as wandering carnival folks. Secondary characters had both positive and negative encounters with them. Rictavio’s malice towards them was intended to come across as bitter not valiant.