The Land of Barovia | Running Curse of Strahd 5e
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- Let's talk about the land of Barovia in Curse of Strahd! We'll go over some alternate history regarding the mist and Barovia's population, the game's map size, as well as the sunsword and the soulless Barovians!
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When Strahd became a vampire, the Dark Powers surrounded Barovia in magical mist and spirited it away from the material plane. But the mists didn't go away. They blocked out the sunlight that had once bathed the valley of Barovia and made it green and lush. Plant life began to die off, and the denizens of Strahd's domain began to die off from famine. Eventually, an equilibrium was reached. But sealed away, a new threat emerged in Barovia. Not a threat to the body, but to the soul. A malevolent divinity from within the Amber Temple has begun to eat at the souls of sleeping Barovians, pulling them out of the cycle of death and rebirth. What does this mean for your party? What does this mean for Strahd? Find out in this guide to Curse of Strahd for Dungeons & Dragons.
#dnd #rpg #dungeonsanddragons - เกม
What changes did YOU make to the land of Barovia? Let us know down below!
I added in the third Wizard of the Wines stone in(The one that was stolen 10 years ago), and made it what powers Strahd's Heart of Sorrow. It seemed to be a waste not to include the third stone somewhere and just have it not in the story at all.
I changed all the stuff you told me to add. And my players just loooooves it.
I have ran CoS more times as a one shot than the one time I've ran the campaign, so I've made a huge amount of modifications, including simplifying the land to only include essential locations, it makes such a good one shot and me and my groups always thoroughly enjoy playing through it
Land of Barovia??? kingdom of Barovia in the lands of Ravenloft.
Oh boy, I have changed some major stuff, I thought you'd enjoy hearing this take on things. I went down a veritable rabbit hole of Reddit threads in r/CurseofStrahd in an attempt to give Ireena more depth (and actually, figure out how to explain that Vasili had been courting her, she has feelings... it's a long story). I happened upon a scene that does something similar to what you've described here. It gives Sergei's role actual meaning and helpfulness! Not just... a portal that swallows up Ireena and she's not valuable as her own person and Tatyana's wants take precedence... Can you tell that bothers me?
The gist of the scene is that Ireena has been hearing Sergei's voice in her dreams for a very long time, and she hears it when she approaches the pool. When she reaches the water, all the ghosts of her past lives come out, a la Harry Potter in the Graveyard scene. There's a great confrontation where Sergei wants to whisk Ireena away, and she insists on staying to stop the madness.
There's a SECOND amazing Reddit post involved here, which throws out a fantastic solution to the biggest problem with the Curse of Strahd module. Its terrible, awful ending. "Oh you killed Strahd? Neat. Here's a really cheesy stupid cut scene about a couple of googly eyed NPC's you may or may not care about. Good job, now leave and go back to whatever part of the material plane you prefer. Oh, by the way, Strahd totally comes back in a couple months and the curse remains unbroken so everything you did actually totally doesn't even matter. Way to waste time guys, hope you enjoy your freedom!"
The new ending involves Sergei reaching a solution to break "The Curse" once and for all, and it's really really interesting. If you want to read through it, let me know. I'm reworking the remainder of my campaign to fit this in and I'm really satisfied with it.
One important note for the realism (as much as possible) lovers.
Plants actually become much LIGHTER in dark/cloudy conditions, as opposed to bright, sunny ones (if you want an example, take virtually any seed, and let it sprout under your kitchen sink, and compare the leaf color to the same type of plant sprouting under normal conditions). It's very similar to how human skin gets darker with more sun exposure.
This isn't to say that you can't have the plants feel "spooky" and ominous; describe the plants as waxy with leaves that not only are nearly white, but are grotesquely large, like swollen limbs on a pale corpse....
Paint the picture of the plants DESPERATELY competing for sunlight, as they grow tall, and thin, likely thick thorns, and potent toxins to deter any daring herbivores from nibbling at the precious leaves.
If you really want to have some fun... Leave the "normal", safe-looking leaves to plants that don't gain their energy from... "traditional" sources...
Yoink!
Thank you for this scientific explanation, I appreciate it.
Can the poisonous plants be processed in a way that makes them safe for human consumption (i.e. bamboo, arrow root, etc), or is it like those plants with a toxin that humans love to consume because it makes their bodies feel weird (i.e. peppers being eaten for their capsaicin, mint being eaten for its menthol, coffee being harvested for its caffeine, etc)?
6:15 The thing you forgot to account for with the population of Krezk is that in 3rd Edition, Krezk was not a tiny commune, it was a bustling trade metropolis and the third largest settlement in Barovia. Barovia had neighbors in 3rd edition, and Krezk is situated right on the border of the rich nation of Borca - controlling the only major trade route to the eastern nation of Nova Vaasa.
Curse of Strahd kicked everything back to early Ravenloft lore (before the other domains were there), and so Krezk was demoted to village. Can't get rich off trade if you don't have anyone to trade with.
You make this module seem far more alive than anything I ever thought! Great vid as usual!!
Thanks DC!
I'm running CoS with a friend who DM'd it before and has it basically memorized. This is going to help so much to throw him off! I'm also setting it where the war with Azalin left off. He might even try to recruit them to his cause against Strahd.
Dude you are so criminally underrated it fucking boggles me. The fact that there’s other channels out there with 5x as many subs with nowhere near the standard of content, effort and attention to detail. I’ve just begun to run CoS for the first time ever (first module as a DM as well) and these videos have been beyond invaluable in helping me prepare and run my games! You’re a legend! Big ups from Perth, Western Australia 🇦🇺
Thank you! As I always say, sharing the channel and its videos is a great way to help it grow!
@@LunchBreakHeroes I’ve already added a bunch of your videos to my “D&D Tips” playlist for new DMs, and I’ve recommended your videos very highly to my friends who are learning to run 5e games. I might actually begin a video journal on my channel of how the sessions went and what I decided to run with and the implications for my players and the game, so I will definitely give you a massive shoutout when that happens! Seriously man, you’ve inspired me heaps so thanks so much.
Kresk was described as a mining town in the old lore, so it makes sense the population would vary dramatically with booms and busts.
I like the idea that Strahd let's people into Barovia to keep a fresh supply of souls. He tricks adventurers with Vistani or the Vistani that work for him are kidnapping people to replenish the souls lost to other means.
Ashardalon in Bastion of Broken Souls is the reason people are born without souls. I just started CoS with my group where they are going to figure out that the abundance of soulless people in Barovia is giving them a haunting picture of what the rest of the world will start to look like if they cannot figure WHY people are born without souls, and do something to prevent it.
That sounds fantastic!
How have I never even made a sarcastic connection between Strahd and Twilight?? Well done as always 👍🏻
Thanks 😆
Saving the villain to save themselves just BLEW MY MIND!!
KABOOM!
I made four mile hexes, as an average.
Simply put my lore is that the lands have been growing as time has gone by. It has been rumored to "breathe" in an attempt to throw off travelers, etc. You plan for a four day trip and it turns out to be five or six! There are long time abandoned cabins, hunting blinds, etc. along the roads to give the party semi safe shelter. This changes things up a bit from sleeping under the stars o er and over and over again.
Vallaki is two miles East to West, one mile North to South.
When I realized how quickly a party could travel, I created a distortion of time and space and tied it to the gems from Wizard of the Wines. The gems provide some protection/stablization of Strahd's evil thus explaining the vineyard's ability to thrive where no other agriculture does. When all of them are in place, the roads are "safe" to travel and time passes normally, without them it takes anywhere from one hour to three hours to travel a mile. Baba took the gems to give Strahd easier access to travelers to play with.
I tweaked the vestiges so that while their powers are bound in amber, their spirits are part of the mist and feed on souls of adventurers to get strong enough to break out. That's why they try so hard to get adventurers to take dark gifts, to collect those souls when they die. Barovian souls are off limits because they're claimed by Vampyr due to his bargain with Strahd.
That's a cool idea, but I don't know if I will steal all of it. Definitely around the winery, it will be bright sunlight poking through the clouds, which is why the Druids send the blights, so that Strahd doesn't have to risk himself showing up in person. But that means the sunlight will follow Wintersplinter, who has the other gem in his body, like an enormous spotlight as he walks away from Yester Hill. The party will see him miles away. OR -- the party will see a moving shaft of sunlight, and go, "Huh, that's weird. Let's investigate."
But there is a third gem, now lost, and that may also be under a shaft of bright sunlight somewhere in Barovia. Another quest?
@@paulcoy9060 I'm not sure where you're getting sunlight from, but I go off the module stating there isn't sunlight in Barovia. So no worries there unless that's something you decide to do. The growth provided by the gems is magical, not organic. They returned the second gem so that the roads will be more stable and so the winery can produce Dragon Crush. Going to Baba would be to get the champagne vintage and extend reach of the stability. All of which is for my table, you're free to do what you want.
@@madmadame1508 In my version, the 3 magic gems were strong enough to pierce the fog above, allowing (or creating?) real sunlight into Barovia. That's why the bad guys wanted to break up the set. That's the best thing about a narrative driven roleplaying game, lots of paths to take.
@@paulcoy9060 Ah, I see. That, unfortunately, is a problem of your own making. Hope you're able to find a solution. =^-^=
Wizards with the spells of Polymorph Other follow with Plant Growth will make plants more adapted to thrive in low sun light areas.
Since you are dealing with Ravenlof, you can get a field of wheat that eats mice/ rats and strangles anyone that tries to cross them.
There is another solution (from older editions) to the Barovian food problem, for both human(oids) and vampires: permable boarders. In earlier editions there were other "domains of dread" that were also created by the Dark Powers, each with its own "Darklord" equivalent to Strahd and its own (generally some variety of gothic) theme. Darklords could close their boarders, but they generally remained open, and trade was present between the domains. So there are other locations that food and people could come from, even if there are not accessible when the players are in Barovia.
Firstly, thanks for the great videos, I have been binge watching you channel since I found it last week.
Secondly, on the question of population size and farm land to support them, the standard medieval requirement was 3 acres of crop land and 5 acres of pasture per person. So for your estimated population of 2100 that would be 16,800 acres or 26.25 square miles (about 5.12 miles x 5.12 miles). Given that you mentioned a scale of one hex being 0.25 miles, you would require 534 hexes for farming to support the population. With your revised scale of 0.75 miles per hex, this drops to 59 hexes. Even with this, in a bad year you could still have crops fail. With medieval farming, the difference between famine and plenty was very slim. Given the situation in Barovia, they might need to have even more farm land under cultivation. This, of course, is without the use of an magic to enhance the crop yield or anything like that. Given that there are a number of large lakes and rivers, fishing might be a possibility to bring in some extra food.
The whole idea of a Barovian soul entering a potential victim’s dreams to take over the body reminds me of the “Deep Sleep” games by scriptwelder.
Instead of one Barovian, imagine waking up in a dream and a massive growing shadowy blob of eyes, mouths, and arms, all comprised of souls who have died over the centuries whether it’s Barovian or an unfortunate adventurer, all fighting to return back to the living even if it means falling under Strahd’s control once more.
Krezk serves a different purpose in the campaign setting. Its the primary trade hub of Barovia and most of its wealth is concentrated there, hence the much larger population listed in 3rd edition. Its also got powerful supernatural backing in the form of Jacqueline Montarri, a character that is given a nod to in a likely Easter Egg in Blinsky's Toy Shop in Curse of Strahd . That Easter Egg being the doll with the collection of severed heads.
Thanks for the background info!
@@LunchBreakHeroes Glad I could be of some help with lore. Been a Ravenloft fan since the 90's and have collected setting material ever since. Its my favorite setting in D&D because just about literally everything has some kind of story behind it and isn't just a generic dot on a map. I love Curse of Strahd, but it definitely employs ample creative liberty when it comes to using any lore established after the I6 module. Hence the inconsistencies if you try to find answers in older materials.
Yeah it's all over the place. I found the huge population difference to be humorous in this case.
Hey! I follow this channel and I also religiously scrape through u/MandyMod's guides on Fleshing Out Curse of Strahd (read it!! If you haven't, you must!). She agrees with you on the populations of each of the settlements, so I've already been going off of 500, 1500, and 75. She actually counted the houses and accounted for how many should be abandoned, etc. It's great. Funny to me that you guys reached the same numbers anyway!
She also goes into a detail that I think is lacking in the campaign setting (if you care about that kind of thing), which is animals as food. Wildlife as written is very bizarrely horrible, because the only ones listed are wolves, rats, snakes, ravens, bats, dogs, and domesticated horses. Like... there is an ecosystem in the valley! Yes there has been a famine, but, also the land has survived somewhat. So u/MandyMod adds lists of animals to the appropriate environments where they would be, and you can start to see an actual food chain that somewhat loosely makes sense.
Regarding farming, great low-sun crops include: carrots, turnips, beets, potatoes, radishes, cabbage, mustard greens, kale, and collards.
I've definitely gone through Mandy's guides in the past. She's awesome!
I've DM'd Curse of Strahd once before, and it was a blast. I'm doing it again with a new group, partially because of your guides!
In my first game, Strahd had a strategy to leave Barovia: he thought that in order to leave, he'd first need to leave someone in his place. So, he scans the party for possible successors, and was willing to abdicate lordship over the land and try to leave Barovia with Ireena. If everyone went that far (they didn't), the plan would fail, and he would return furious and have a last fight with the party. The way he had to make the party take his place, he thought, would be for them to accept the gift of Vampir in the Amber temple, and he sent the party there after the first dinner.
This interpretation worked for me, as I thought Strahd would have tried most things by now, with different groups of adventurers, and was willing to try something radically different to see if it worked.
My game shop ran a campaign where we token a note from the novel " Knight of the Black Rose," where Strahd would meet the Dark Lord to the west face to face from time to time.
So in one mini campaign our party worked as native Barovians under mining the neighboring D.L. and drove him to met Strahd face to face, since our group was working in The Will of Strahd, Strahd beheaded the other D.L. and took his rival's land and the Domain of Barovia grew in return.
We also ran Castle Ravenloft as a high class tourist trap hotel for visiting aristocrats. With the Van Richten guides drawing the biggest gamblers. Main theme was military/ political.
As for Ireena reincarnated avatars , Strahd looks forward to The Great Game of him trying to Woo her, and how she will try to kill him this time around. In AD&D2e Red Box campaign setting, Ireena was listed as a Thief/rogue. In the Black Box, Ireena was listed as a Paladin.
How did you know I just started DMing Strahd - you must be a prophet. I've never DM'd before and we started things off with Death House. Love these videos - keep it up!
Will do!
In the same position! First time DM here and chose CoS. Have all LBHs guides as well as tons of supplemental stuff from dmsguild and reddit
Barovia can be pretty big, even if you don't change the map. Mountains, lakes, rivers, swamps, forests, old buildings everywhere .... so I was curious, why, when the party encounters Madame Eva and she tells them where the treasures are located, 15 out of 40 locations are inside Castle Ravenloft. A solid 37.5% of possible treasure locations are under the nose of the Undead Lord. Imagine a game where the Fantastic Four need to gather some items to fight Doctor Doom, and 37.5% of those items are inside Doctor Doom's castle.
"I call bullshit!" -- Johnny Storm, 2020
Now, maybe, back in the old days, before Strahd became a vampire, those items were there. Agreed. But after the incident with Tatyana, maybe some maids or butlers or soldiers or whoever is hanging around Castle Ravenloft had a flash of insight, and said to themselves, "This thing that I'm guarding or in charge of, might be better off somewhere else." Why would they do this? Because I'm the DM. And I know my players are not ready to sneak into/be invited into Castle Ravenloft. So the items are scattered around the map, and that trail leads to (does not begin at) the castle. I'm sure this a holdover from the first Ravenloft module, when the map was super-small, and all the players wanted to do was charge into the castle and fight the Big Bad Guy.
Also, if any of the items were there all this time, don't you think Strahd or Rahadin would have noticed?
"What's this?! An arcane blade, capable of killing me, laying here in my very own library?? How could I have been so blind?? Some random adventurer might have grabbed it from my shelves!!"
So now, I will use my newly expanded map to place the treasures where I think they will provide the most fun and excitement. Thumbs up if you agree.
6:13 haha. I didn't play 3rd edition, but when you said 2,000 my first thought was WTH!
You have to keep in mind that Curse of Strahd is kind of like the Campaign Sourcebook version of a Flesh Golem assembled from a bunch of different parts. The wanted to recreate the original 1st edition I6 module, but the original module was basically a one shot experience containing only just the Village of Barovia, Castle Ravenloft, and the Vistani camp. Almost the entire thing was a dungeon crawl through the castle. So in order to flesh out the campaign they decided to source from the expanded setting, but mostly did so out of context.
Krezk serves a different purpose in Curse of Strahd than it does in the greater setting. In the greater Ravenloft setting Barovia has only been completely isolated from the outside for the first 200 years after Strahd became a vampire, as there was quite possibly endless nothing beyond the borders at that time, and after that has only been completely closed off when Strahd has been completely fixated on some event going on in Barovia that he wants to have control over, such as a reincarnation of Tatyana. Those times are a generation of terror, but not an endless purgatory like in CoS.
With that in mind its important to know that Curse of Strahd repurposed a town that in the main setting is the primary trade hub of Barovia with their closest neighbor Borca, whose capital of Levkarest is just right over the misty border. Borca has comparatively massive wealth(although in the hands of few) compared to Barovia and has a vested interest in maintaining influence in Barovia as it is the homeland of Strahd's eternal enemies the Dilisnya clan. Thus the town is both a center of commerce that keeps the economy of Barovia alive while simultaneously being the cover for various factions powerful enough to not be easily stamped out by Strahd. This includes both good aligned factions such as it being the location of the MAIN church of the Morninglord, as well as more sinister factions such as the Ba'al Verzi, an assassin's guild that has existed longer than Strahd has been a vampire and were part of the original plot to kill him at Sergei's wedding.
Even more important to this towns prosperity and relative independence is the presence of the Red Vardo Traders company that specializes in tracking down rare goods and lost objects for its patrons, as well as being headed ( ;p) by one of most dangerous non-darklord persona's of Ravenloft by the name of Jacqueline Montarri a 300 year old cursed immortal with no love for Strahd or the Vistani and is quite a powerful adversary of both. For reference she actually killed Madame Eva 300 years ago and was personally beheaded by Strahd for it, but the Vistani decided to curse her with awesome and made her body immortal and took her original head. So now she has a collection of hundreds of severed heads she has collected, including Madame Eva's, that are still alive and suffering that she can adorn to use all the knowledge and power from in addition to her impressive Rogue skills and immunity to Strahd's Border closure because she doesn't need to breathe. Eva is only still alive in the present because the Zarovan don't move through time linearly so it is her past self people encounter most of the time as temporally she is dead.
So yeah Krezk is way more important in the core setting than in CoS. The Village of Barovia is its primary breadbasket, and Vallaki is its other main source of food as a fishing village, but Krezk is actually the primary center of wealth and trade in backwater Barovia.
I don't play D&D anymore, but I really enjoy your Curse of Strahd videos. Thanks for your excellent work!
Thank you!
Gold mine of info. Something tells me I'll be watching this over and over for what I plan in the future. Thank you my friend.
I had my own plot with my group before CoS, that I could connect quite well with it. The players have observed an increase in necromantic activity in Faerun and a disruption of the planes. I connected it so that Strahd would try to "pull" a part of Faerun into his demi-plane to bring new souls into his prison. The players must stop this.
The soul(less) barovians and amber temple is brilliant. It's something I'd like to integrate into my present campaign.
I added on the Gundarak region and a Sons of Gundar story, as well as the Towns of Immol and Hoessla, as well as Renika, Jarvinak and Cuzau. I also included in the Beast of the Graenseskov with my own heavy modifications. All in All, I love writing for this setting.
Regarding Strahd's response to the decreasing number of souls: I believe he'd execute the following plan:
A - manipulate the party into going to the Amber Temple
B - support them in their efforts to seal the Temple properly
C - instruct his followers with extraplanar access (Vistani and werewolf supporters) to bring larger groups of people across to bolster the limited supply of local souls. After all, every soul that comes into Barovia can't leave.
I'd imagine A and B could both be accomplished using a skilled plant who comes along with the quest. Someone like Rahadin, maybe, or come along himself if he's confident he can maintain the mask of Vasili von Holtz for long periods of time. They pose as someone whose been researching the temple for a while, and provide indications about the temple's seal being damaged and how it might be restored. C, of course, is a longer term objective, that won't be completed for quite some time.
Why? Strahd is a skilled tactician and manipulator. He has a realm that provides him sustenance, hospitable conditions (no sunlight), entertainment (controlled intake of adventurers to toy with), and the recurring opportunity to claim his long lost love (it's pretty clear he's not clued into the hopelessness of that one yet, given he still pursues Ireena). Why give all that up for an uncertain future in the outside world? That's exactly the nightmare that Barovia is for him - it's seductive enough that he doesn't _try_ to escape. He just needs to take a step to maintain it here and there.
Also, I can think of a good reason Strahd hasn't noticed the loss of souls until recently: there's been a backlog. Your narrative of the valley being much more populous, then having a good chunk of the populace die off along with most crops, creates the exact opposite situation with the soul balance: there should be more souls trapped in Barovia than there are people for them to inhabit. Add in the leak, and for the first while, the defecit isn't noticeable because there's enough extra souls that any soul that gets consumed by the Amber Temple's denizens is one that just would've floated around for a generation waiting its turn to be reborn. Given how dark Barovia is for the average peasant, I imagine many would make that trade with the dark powers, so the loss of souls is quite quick. It's only been a generation or two since we've hit the point that there are less souls than there are people, and it's already at a point where he sees it as a major problem.
I love it!
You know what heck it.
Maybe if the players have been on civil tearms with the players then he could give them a little nudge towards a ritual that could release the souls taken by the vestigages. Maybe by telling them that he once found a book that could allow them to learn it.
Or Sergei could be the one to allow the players to learn of the ritural. Giving him even more to do. Maybe the ritural requires a good person to willingly give their soul to repair the barrier.
oooh, I like the soul sacrifice.
@@LunchBreakHeroes yeah it's one of those old self sacrifice tropes. The reason I think maybe because Sergei was if I remember correctly a lawful good Cleric. Maybe the sacrifice happens after strauds demise. Maybe the Miata don't receed allowing the players to leave but instead when they try the lists send them back to the gates where Sergei, madem Eva are waiting for them to give them their last quest. If they haven't lit the beacon yet have that be apart of the ritural, and that the ritural deals with while Sergei sacrifices his soul the players and any allies they built up must defend him against Vampyre. (I found a stat block for Vampyre that could use a little doctoring. ) Either for a time or once and for all.
Excellent video, really helpful, all this will come very handy for my CoS campaign.
Also, calculating settlement population density with grains will be my new method for making census
I'll call it, "Census by nut".
"How many people live in this village?"
"Oh, about twenty grains rice worth."
"... So how many people live in this village?"
A fragment of Sergei is what gives the Sunsword sentience in my game.
I think that's a pretty popular interpretation!
i did the part with the sunsword too that it wasn't complete yet ^^ funny how i just found this video saying the same thing :p it felt " too easy " for me in the module. i also made the player who touched the sunsword the first time have a sort of flashback dream in the eyes of the sunsword itself, seeing the wedding with sergei and tatyana and how strahd went mad, and how strahd ordered to destroy the sunsword etc. Was a perfect moment to dump a mini lore moment on the players hha :p
I started CoS with my group a couple months ago and your videos and the sources you reference have been immensely helpful to our campaign and my growth as a DM. We've had several sessions before, but I don't think my players have ever been so drawn into the in-game world and story as much as they are now. They only just arrived in the village of Barovia, after the brutal Death House, and they actually enjoyed a little downtime at the Blood of the Vine, drinking cheap potato moonshine. It's great fun, thank you so much!
I'm glad I could help!
RE: Soulless Barovians, this is a perfect thing Strahd could request of the party - perhaps during the dinner. The amount of souls present in Barovia seems to be shrinking, and I think it has something to do with the Amber Temple. Go see if you can figure it out, and in exchange I will give you... gold, spell scrolls, magic items, diamonds for spell components, something else the players may want. Strahd believes he'll be getting it all back anyway when he kills them. By the time the players are powerful enough to give them a direct lead to the Amber Temple, Strahd would also know the kind of stuff they would want.
For Strahd, this is a perfect test of the party's mettle: if they succeed, they are worthy opponents (and there may be a worthy successor among them). If they die... oh well, at least I didn't have to waste my time fighting a subpar party. Better luck with the next group. For the DM, it's a great way of exposing to the party (just enough about) what the Amber Temple is, where it is, and perhaps even tell them about Exethanter as someone who can help them figure things out - especially if the Tarokka cards have fallen in such a way that no treasure is in the temple and also they don't need Kasimir.
What if you managed to have Strahd give them the quest to seal the Temple??? He doesn't want to compete for his populace with the dark powers. That would be insane.
That could work too! And it just might whittle down the number of pesky adventurers, to boot!
*Sees a new Lunch Break Heroes CoS video upload*
*Stop everything and grab some popcorn*
in a more serious note, you are a legend. I love the videos, and your insight on this module.
Thanks for all the help.
Thank you so much!
I'm currently using normal Barovia size (that one in module), but i actually like your idea about increasing it's size.
My party just met Strahd (Feast of Andral), and promised him what they will come for him.
I thinking of idea, what Strahd will use his "I am the Land" feature and to warp space and time in Barovia to make their travel harder.
And closer to the end, when they reconsecrate the shrines of the Fanes, Barovia will be back to its normal size, and they can easily travel to Castle Ravenloft for a final battle.
What do you think?
Another commenter had the same idea, and I love it!
Great series on CoS. It's helped me craft the module into my own. Very much appreciate these videos
Glad I could help!
I'm planning out CoS for my team right now and these guides are golden. I am rather fond of the idea of Strahd not being the ultimate villian but someone who is also being manipulated on a higher level. Im playing with the idea of Eldritch Beings whatnot fighting over control if the different planes and Barovia is one of them. I am working with the idea that if one person cannot make a session, their PC is 'abducted' by one of these elder gods and then returns with a tattoo and no memory of what happened (this gives the players a new mystery to figure out). It one of them dies, then they can be revived with a dark gift by making a deal with either the ruling parton of Barovia or another being that wants to take control and become patron. The souls that once belonged to the 'shells' could be caught in this cross fire and consumed as food for the unearlthy beings from the 'blind eternities'.
I personally am going to add the 'eldrazi' from magic the gathering as my rival patrons because I want some lovecraft style sh*t up in here.
I've made a great deal of changes to Barovia. For example, it's bigger! There are towns all over! The population is still diminished, but potatoes, carrots, beats, fish, and mushrooms provide the bulk of Barovia's food.. Imol grows mushrooms. Tuefeldorf has a bunch of those magic growy crystals. Here's what I've done to each town:
Vallaki:
- Has a population of around 3000 people
- The burgomaster has one of the mysterious plant growing gems, there are more of them than just the 3 the winery relies on! On his land, the baron produces enough food to feed half of Vallaki all on his own, foods they can't otherwise get in huge amounts like apples and pumpkins. I wanted more reasons for the townsfolk to put up with him than just one big scary guy. This is the reason.
-----The lake north of Vallaki has an Aboleth living in it! Having found itself trapped in this land, the wounded Aboleth made its way to the lake and cultivated a small collection of followers. It keeps its worshipper base small enough to not draw Strahd's notice, but large and organized enough to defend against the monsters of the land. The Aboleth seeks adventurers to slay Strahd so that it can return home, and taking their minds will not do as that would diminish their creativity and ability to improvise (and might invoke the wrath of the Dark Powers, this description of an Aboleth's domination is consistant with the novels). The Aboleth keeps its minions well stocked and supplied by using its powers of mutation to make the fish spawn in larger numbers than they should, and at larger sizes.
Krezk:
- Not much larger, the freaky abbot has scared a lot of people away. Sometimes people go missing, despite the town never being assaulted by the minions of the devil. I am copying this channels ideas for the Abbott wholesale.
Tuefeldorf:
- Tuefeldorf is literally Yarnham from Bloodborne. At the heart of the madness and monstrosities that grip the city (approximately 15,000 people living in its walls) is proxy war between a cunning Glabrezu from the abyss below, and the leader of the Ba'al Verzi, an Erinyes, summoned ages ago by Strahd to bring this organization in line with his vision above. The city's burgomaster and council are just puppets of these two entities who have used Lycanthropy and mutation to drag the blood war to this domain of dread.
-Intended to be introduced from levels 7 to 11
-The ruler of the Ba'al Verzi is rumored to wield a blade of sunlight, a sentient magical weapon she has bent to her will.
Imol:
-A ~75% dwarven settlement, having moved mostly underground with the depreciation of sunlight, they explored deep below the surface and have a vast mushroom farming and Rothe dairy industry.
-Madness has begun to creep into Imol as an Ulithard and its Illithid crew were awoken when a mining expedition found the displaced nautiloid buried in solid rock. The cunning ulithard has used the equipment on the Nautiloid to reach out to the powers in this land and make a deal with them. An Illithid doesn't need a soul to be in its victim to feed, and they are experts at creating the kind of fear and paranoia the dark powers crave. Strahd doesn't give a shit about what happens below the surface of Barovia.
- The party's reason for going here is a holy symbol of great power, resting with the only woman who went to Ravenloft and had relations with Strahd and left with a heartbeat, the burgomaster of Imol from ~350 years ago. I had Strahd entrust her with this item, to bury it deep below the ground.
The Village of Barovia:
-In I, Strahd this village is mostly in a sorry state because the castle hasn't ordered anything from its skilled craftsmen and ages, and no new servants have been procured. To go along with that, the village dies and withers because the new Burgomaster, Ismark the Lesser, has refused to pay taxes to "The devil". In ages past Strahd would have just beheaded the man in public, but his sister.... this time he's going to take a more gentle approach, every time he tries to use his powers to take Tatyana from the people around her, he has lost her. Instead he lets Barovia fall to ruin, he forbids trade with it. He has installed one of his wives as a loyal Boyar of Barovia, fomenting hatred in the beleaguered residents against their burgomaster. He wants Tatyana to want to leave the village of Barovia of her own accord.
-The source of all the zombies was a corrupted crystal, one of the druidic ones, placed in the town well. Strahd poisoned the crystal to produce a field of powerful necromancy to cause the vilages water supply to slowly kill the residents. Ireena drinks from the well on the mansion's property, not only not poisoned, but containing a holy Periapt of Health that purifies anyone who drinks it, should she be exposed accidentally she would be rid of the disease the next time she had a glass of water at home. The removal of this crystal has doubley harmed Barovia as only the most resilient local crops have survived the past season, famine is rampant. A single merchant has leave to sell food by the Boyar, at ten times the normal price.
The Castle:
-Strahd has living soldiers! I ended the character's "lives" at level 3 with the revolt of Leo Delinsya, the party performed admirably and saved nearly every single noble child that was in the castle that evening. Every one of them grew up with loyalty to strahd on their lips, and in turn, Strahd's loyalty to them (I, Strahd makes it pretty clear he absolutely had that even after becoming a vampire) meant that there are more Strahd Loyalists around than their used to be. Villages that wholeheartedly pledge support for Their King and make up the homes of his loyal soldiers are untouched by the dark creatures that roam the land, but are often tasked with doing unspeakable evil to their fellow Barovians whenever Strahd feels slighted.
The Party:
-I started at level 0, in Barovia, when they were young teenagers and Strahd had just taken over. They ultimately died, several montages and years later, at the betrayal of Leo Delinsya in Strahd's castle. The rogue was the third person Strahd drank dry, after Sergei. He was there when Tatyana jumped, he saw Strahd try to rape her (before pleasantly being interrupted by an arrow to the back from the traitors), he knows what Strahd *really* is. Wizard killed by Rahadin, Warlock killed by Rahadin (don't call Rahadin a coward. Don't plot against Patrina), the bard accidentally saved all the noble children by stealing all their desserts and eating them (this is how I chose to deliver the poison)
The players are having so much fun with this Barovia. It's more civilized, there's more magic, but the extra hope all of these things provide just give the people more emotional rope to be hanged with. Eldritch horrors are being everywhere thing. Ancient evil powers play games against one another, with these creatures as their pieces. The people that live in the lands are entertainment at best and food at worst.
A magic circle of protection against evil does not protect you from a lawful neutral mortal in full plate swinging a great sword or pole axe into your PC's heads.
My game shop ran a short mini campaign were Strahd was out of Castle Ravenlof for a few weeks taking a " nap." With the PC group of Outlanders taking over the castle and cleaning it up to function as a high class hotel and art gallery. Strahd has been soo bored lately he just enjoy the novelty of it all.
To prevent complaints of favoritism my DMs has everyone draw cards to see which character Arch Type they will play in game. If there is enough players, the game will be broken into two groups. The lucky ones get to RP Strahd and the monsters. So it is not the DM screwing over the players, it is another play instead.
These videos are awesome! Thanks for the insight!
Happy to help!
I love your videos! They've made planning for Curse of Strahd much easier as well as offered amazing ideas!
Glad I could help!
I love how the production value of these videos is improving!
Thanks! I try to improve at least one thing every video.
Great Video! Your entire Curse of Strahd series has been fantastic and helped me tons for my campaign!
Awesome, thank you!
Just about to run Curse of Strahd and these videos have been a huge help. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, will do!
Just signed up on Patreon. Excellent looking guides! I’m glad I found this channel right before running my campaign.
Thank you so much for your support, Eric!
Love your guides! Preparing to run Strahd. Just finished it as a player and will be DMing for another group!
Good luck!
God damn I love these videos. If I could I would spent months taking coffe (since you preffer tea, my bad) with you. As a DM currently playing this module, yours and reddit ideas for Curse of Strahd (mostly Mandymod and DragnaCarta) are PURE GOLD. Keep being this awesome. Waiting for the next video already!
Hey, I love me some java!
I'm glad these guides could help!
You've helped me so much with running this module, as well as becoming a DM. I appreciate all of the work you've put into these videos, and once I go back to work, I'm going to support you on patreon. Until then, I'll be sure to like and comment!
Thank you so much!
Absolutely love this series!
I’m glad you like it!
Thanks so much, your videos are very helpful with adding flavor and story
Glad you like them!
I absolutely adore this series! Thank you for these Guides.
Also I think the voice you gave Strahd is Perfect and I would love a video where you just talk in his voice. Anyway keep up the good Work :D
Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the series. :-)
I don't mean this in a sarcastic or rude way, but I really love how he left some of his errors in. As someone who fights a stutter, it's nice seeing him just roll with the minor errors without needing to splice multiple takes together. As always, another awesome resource for the CoS DMs!
Just wanted to say you are a fantastic resource. Invaluable for improving my game.
Thank you so much!
I just started a CoS campaign last night. I watched all your vids beforehand and the Curse of Strahd Reloaded has been a life savor too! Great video! Definitely some food for thought
Thank you so much!
Don't normally comment on youtube too much, but i just have to say, ive been running this module using your videos and the COS subreddit and it's going great. The videos keep getting better and better! keep it up!
Glad you like them!
I made the hexes 1 mile for my Barovia map so that it's easier for us to move within a 24mile/day. It made for a 70+ mile hike (if i measured it correctly), including their passage to the Vistani Encampment. I never new Barovia was meant to way bigger than the map they provided, mine just ended up 4x bigger than the regular map. It made my players experience more eerie encounters since I get to roll more dice from travel time.
Side note most forget about in the DMG, " Terrain Movement."
Even with todays cars, road safety on foot hills/ mountain roads at 30mph/ 48kmh is twice as fast to the 15 mile/ day a wagon drawn by ox travels. Those roads and foot paths feel like they take forever to cover. We travel in one hour which used to take two to five days to cover.
Seen some old roads through hills, ..
a.) If you are young and fits, you can go over the hill in an hour, 20 minutes if you want to race.
b.) Horse back it takes close to two hours if you don't want risk breaking the horse's leg.
c.) Three days by heavy loaded wagon.
d.) Four days to safety drag trees out by mule.
I solved my map problem by slowly adding new lands into Barovia, not big enough to warrant a new Domain of Dread with a ruler like Azalin, but some new farm land, orchards, small villages, lakes with fish in them, etc. The Dark Powers aren't stupid, and I run them as if they are playing with their own version of "The Sims", using real people. They realize that for their game to continue, they need to tweak a few things as it progresses. All that new land is now Barovia. And somewhere in a hundred different realities of the Multiverse, a few square acres of forest is just gone. People wonder, "What ever happened to Old Farmer Johnson? I coulda swore his farm was between here and Vaasa?" Lakes just dry up, folks will say it's probably a Wizard Duel that happened there. "Hey, didn't there used to be two mountain peaks over there?" Whole villages wiped out in a single night, must be those damn Orcs.
So, the end result is that Barovia can have vastly different architecture, language, food, clothing, depending on where you are, and the size is slowly increasing in all directions. I drew a new map, making it larger, about a hundred miles across,with new villages farther away. I made Vallaki a much more German-style town, almost big enough to be called an actual city, very organized, paved streets, bright colors on the houses, it can support 2,000 people. Also, it was added only a hundred years ago, not 500. That's why the Baron still has hope, he actually believes that being happy is a defense against the vampire Strahd.
The Sunsword has Sergei's soul inside it, powering it up. When Sergei died 500 years ago, it was just a really beautiful masterwork sword. His soul attached itself to the blade, altering it. His desire for revenge against his brother was strong enough to create a Sunsword. Maybe that's how all Sunswords are created? You're the DM, it's up to you. Anyway, Sergei wants to destroy Strahd, but he/it also fears being destroyed by Strahd. The sword has not felt that any individual so far has been up to the task. Until Mordenkainen showed up. Sensing his power, the Sunsword somehow contacted Mordenkainen, and was carried into battle a year ago. Strahd won, but the sword escaped, carried away by a faithful retainer. When the party helps Mordenkainen regains his wits, he can tell the party about his retainer, and assign him/her to the party. (Bonus -- I get to use Matt Colville's Retainer rules from "Strongholds & Followers"!)
And now, the Not-Quite-So-Dead Barovians. This land has been shut off for 500 years, and the people here know when something's not right. People who have souls are called "Eilek", people born without souls are called "Strigoi", and the generic term for actual undead monsters is "Moroi". They know who they are, and the social dynamics of Barovia are something I think I should write out before quarantine ends, so it is clear in my own mind. Like, are Strigoi allowed to become guards? Just because you don't have a soul doesn't mean you're stupid. Do they have their own sub-culture, do they view themselves as lesser than Eilek? Is there a second-class mentality imposed upon them? I think I might take some inspiration from the movie and tv show "Alien Nation".
Strigoi have no empathy, no love, no hate, the only emotion they can experience is Fear. They didn't ask to be born this way. But the big question is .... can they be trusted?
I really like the open question about the society of the soulless. That's an excellent thing to ponder--I look forward to hearing more!
And oh... my... god... Barovia as The Sims for evil powers. That's awesome! "Stonavich, I swear! I walked into the room, and when I turned around, the door was GONE! It was just me, fifteen floor rugs, and a fire place. The rugs caught fire, and if I hadn't been standing in a puddle of my own piss, I'd be dead!"
@@LunchBreakHeroes if i ever run this game i have to add that as a tavern scene, some poor farmer that the dark powers have decided to latch onto for a bit of 'fun'.
Yes! I have looking for that possibility of maybe saving Strahd, will bot be easy to make he bend the knee to teamup. But is a possibility xD
Awesome as always!
Wow man this is so great plot twist!
Another part of having such a small playing space is that it becomes overpopulated with horrors. Frightened of night hags grinding up children? Two hexes away is a den of werewolves! Look out, there's a crazy Mordenkainen in the hills! A few hours from anywhere is an entire ruined city with a mean witch! When every square mile seems to be packed with some fresh hell, it can injure the suspension of disbelief. Fun video, enjoyed it!
For sake of campaign brevity (only 5 sessions for the campaign), I left it as was, to facilitate PCs getting to different scenes quickly. If I were to run this as a sandbox campaign, I might use the 2nd ed map size.
Your videos have much more quality! :)
I try to improve one or two things every time!
Hi - awesome video! I've been going over the Adjusted Travel Table!
One issue is the new distance of Old Bonegrinder from Barovia. It's up from 12.75 miles (4 hours of average speed travel) to 38.25 (12 hours / 1.59 days of average travel).
What is Granny doing - hoofin it all the way to the village of barovia? By the time she arrives in Baroiva her pies are already a few days into spoiling.
When it was a 4-hour carting to the village, I can see it as acceptable... But not with that distance and over night. Factor in that Granny is probably moving slower than an average speed.
I propose putting Old Bonegrinder outside of Baroiva - before the River Ilvis Crossroads... That way the Vistani of Tser Falls can't foreshadow it.
As usually....amazing video :)
Thank you!
I love your idea for how souls are recycled in Barovia. When I was reading though the module, my first thought went something more along the lines of the population growing. Granted, the population growth in Barovia is probably much slower than literally anywhere else, but I doubt it wouldn't grow some over the centuries. Basically, when the demi-plane was made, there was only x amount of souls. Over time, people just... kept making more children then there were souls to occupy them.
I mean, it could be a combo, because the idea i had isn't exactly... creepy, but it does make some sort of logical sense?
I just like the idea of there only being a certain amount of souls, since you can't really create them out of thin air.
And maybe, there could be the soul of an adventurer who died here living somewhere in the land. They probably won't have the same prowess, but maybe if you have a veteran player who maybe played the original, or someone who played cos before, then you can add an npc in who looks like that character as an easter egg. Ofc only one person would get it, but it could be a cool little thing.
I hope you're going to suggest Attack Of The Mushroom People theory! No sunlight, they survive off of dead things, etc.
What are your thoughts on changing the size of Barovia mid-campaign? Not for no reason of course, but done by Strahd simply to screw with the party? After all, he IS the land
Sounds good to me!
Again I wish I could have watched this before I ran my strahd game but hey, I could just run it again
That's the spirit!
Have everyone draw cards to see which character Arch Type they will play. And have one player get Strahd and a few others to RP the monsters.
Good Video!
Thanks!
I Missed your content man!!! Great video, i always love your worldbuilding upon the base of Barovia...but...
There is no table for the adjusted distance in the description, as mentioned in the video XD
Any chance to get it?
Thank you for pointing that out! The description has been updated.
Before curse of Strahd I m running mines of phandelver.
One of the character is evil and Strahd contacted him. They freed the mine and the evil character corrupted the magic forge with Strahd blood.
The forge is now working properly again but every item imbued with magic is cursed. Strahd and Barovia will get the souls of those wearing these items and the same goes for weapons made with it.
Wheeeeeee
Icr where I saw this or if I made it up but I had it be so Soulless Barovians are relatively recent the last 100 or so years issue, which is why the number of them is so concerning.
The cause? The Dream Pies. The Hags are gathering souls via the pies because when their withdrawal reaches its peak it stops eating at the body and digs for something richer, the soul. Never ironed out the why or use for them but I thought it was cute to do.
Now I think I'll mash your suggestion and this together and say it's part of bargaining chips they're stacking up on to bargain with the vestiges perhaps for a way put of Ravenloft where they're not just the hags down the street compared to Baba Lysaga
With souls being recycled and more souls entering and being unable to leave, the dark powers have begun to fight for control of these "waiting" souls. Each time someone pledges themselves to a power, that power get that person's soul. Now there is a shortage of souls since so many have been claimed. In order to free these souls and the souls of all Barovians the players must break the seals and open the gates of Barovia. If the party is super into boss fights they can have a throw down show down at the Amber Temple after Strahd is defeated in order to get the powers to release their grip on the souls of the people of Barovia.
I’m about to run CoS in two weeks and I’m a very inexperienced DM. I’m scared, but this is very helpful
You got this, Evie!
If you haven't already, check out the r/CurseofStrahd subreddit and its Discord server.
Thank you so much for your videos!🤓👍🏻 Your content is is enormously helpful and inspiring. Moreover, it makes preparing my CoS sessions much easier and interesting. Btw: I have successfully transfered the campaign to roll20 following your advice and my players have just met van Richten and Ezmeralda at the tower of Lake baratok. From there they are now on their way to Argynvostholt with van Richtrns and Ezmeraldas cart...This is certainly going to be interesting😅 Thank you again! Greetings from Germany!
Hello there, and best of luck to you and your party at Argynvostholt! Say "Hello" to Godfrey for me!
@@LunchBreakHeroes Thank you! I will😉👍🏻
9:36 Sealing up the leaking Amber Temple to keep the Vestiges from stealing souls.. 12:00 A quest that needs a solution.. in Barovia, you say?
Sounds like a job for.. @PyramKing
Edit: I'm not so sure that Strahd would be flipping out over lost souls. Every so often an adventure party comes through and temporarily murdalizes him, which lifts the veil and lets old souls pass and new ones back in. I would think that that would keep some sort of equilibrium in balance, similar to the way the land can only support so many mouths to feed.
The vestiges becoming more powerful over time by siphoning off souls..? Now THAT could become a real problem eventually! Given Strahds' Ego and his tactical prowess, I can picture him planning an assault to whittle the vestiges down to size ever so often. Can't have some ancient evil Cthulhu type loser gods stealing his thunder in Barovia. ;)
This is great! Can you tell me the song in the intro of the video?
The short sting in the title card intro? I'm not sure anymore. For the rest of the video, it's called "Tip Toes". I forget the artist's name.
"But what do they eat?" XD
It has been a very long time since I’ve read the campaign setting books but I believe the Curse of Strahd Barovia is missing the southern half of previous edition Barovia. This includes a city much bigger than Valaki. Thought it was worth mentioning, but I can’t really remember it very well. If anyone is interested I know there is an edition with a bigger barovia
Yup! I believe it was Immol. The Ravenloft Gazetteers on DMsGuild by Oliver Clegg add some of those regions back in.
@@LunchBreakHeroes also teufeldorf, zeidenburg, krofburg, lowenturm, renika, and jarvinak
What about the undead population? The ones strahd raises to help for example, do they count as part of the population?
And the gypsies?
Plenty of wine? Grapes are a full sunshine sort of plant.
Magical winery gems!
I liked most of this, I will use a lot of this stuff to flesh out the game…but I don’t think I would use the change to the soulless people. I feel that it takes away too much of strahds power and terror, him having even a slight control over the people having souls or not makes him even more of a terror. But maybe that’s just me.
A good idea for the Barovians, but one thing i've always been a bit unclear on is why all Vistani have souls.
With this modification, it's possible that some don't. But native Barovians far outnumber the Vistani, so it's statistically more likely that they will be targeted.
Strahd, as master of Barovia, has guaranteed their safety, both to travel out of the mists, and to travel freely among the Barovians. The exact wording of his declaration may be enough to prevent any of the Vestiges from eating their souls. Strahd is a high-level wizard, and knows that HOW you say something is just as important as WHAT you say.
Or, the Vistani themselves have some protection, spells or charms.
Another possibility could be that any Vistana lacking a soul disappears when they leave Barovia. In CoS's ending after Strahd dies, the mists lift (temporarily) and you can leave, it presents that if you convince the Barovians to come with you and abandon their cursed land, any who are soulless will just fade away as they leave Barovia - it's Strahd's will over the Land that allows them to exist, and leaving his influence removes their ability to exist. The Vistani, with a handful of exceptions, leave Barovia on a regular basis, so any Vistana that is born soulless would disappear as a small child.
Conversely, you could take a more optimistic approach. Just as souls in Barovia can't leave, souls outside of Barovia can't get in. There's a surplus of souls elsewhere in the planes, but they can't get in unless carried by a living body. Bring a soulless body out, and the empty space where their soul should be sucks one in. "Nature abhors a vacuum." Or the souls feel pity for the poor thing, or they desperately want a body to inhabit. Either way, a soulless body leaves Barovia, and it gets a soul.
Paul Coy's options are good as well. The Vistani have some fairly potent magic inherent to them, and Strahd granting them free passage in and out of Barovia might have incurred some protection while within his borders. Or the Dark Powers view them as protected and don't want to attract Strahd's attention directly. Or the Vistani souls are a separate pool from the Barovian ones, and Vistani don't take the deal because they're not trapped in the dank, dismal hell of vampires and zombies that is Barovia, it's merely a stopping point. It's a lot easier to say no to the dark spirit offering you happiness in exchange for your soul if you've got other options to find happiness.
@@rashkavar kinda like that, possibly the soul leak is the guarantee that the vestani alive or dead can enter and exit the realm freely. if things go on long enough eventually a soul would be reincarnated as a vestani and leave the realm on death. that also explains the need to bring in a quota of adventurers, in theory they are replacing the souls they use up. also add in sole supplier of imported food that the residents need in order to avoid starvation and keeping food prices high to make a large profit and things could work well. other possibilities are the dream pastry supplier stealing souls for the soul trade or vestani soul smugglers, either good ones to free the souls or evil ones to sell the souls. the soul trade is a big thing in the lower planes and good or innocent souls tend to fetch the highest prices.
Where is the adjusted travel times link you mentioned? It's not in the description
where do you get the background music of your videos? it reminds me a lot of the Fable games
That’s exactly why I have it! I wanted something like the Fable music.
It’s a free song from the TH-cam library called Tip Toes, I think.
103rd Platinum Battalion reporting for duty. A bit late but eh it’s fine also I like the new graphics. You are doing great I’m excited by the new content. I hope you’re doing okay!
Doing great, Skyout! I hope it's smooth sailing for you too.
I got a question, do one get access to all extra content with just 1$? Or just the written version of this specific video?
I didn't like the fact Strahd had total control of the land. So as an insult to injury to him I had the dark powers make sure that there was total sunlight during the day and there was little that Strahd could do about it. But that didn't mean Strahd was totally powerless, he still had control of some of the monsters like the hags and a good share of living and no so living non vampire minions at his command to screw with the party during the day.
Damn it... now I want peanuts...
TAPE
HELL YEAH
YOU KNOW IT!
What if it is Vasili who brings the quest to fortify the Amber Temples seals on the vestiges to end of sapping of souls from Barovia.
That could be interesting!
who's the single guy who disliked you?
If you triple the distance Barovia will be 9 times bigger.
So if Barovia is three times bigger, distances should be multiplied by square root of 3.
But does that apply to Area or Volume? Parts of my brain are arguing with each other, and they both have valid points.
@@paulcoy9060 Measuring the size of the valley in volume would be very strange - how high up do you go? How far down? Distance, on the other hand, is oddly common - if the quote in _I, Strahd_ described the distance between two places rather than the overall area of the valley, multiplying all distances by 3 would be correct. If it mentions area, then OtocinclusAffinis is correct, and and each quarter mile hex should be more like half a mile. (0.433 miles, technically, but long distance travel is pretty rough in D&D, and half mile hexes are easier to work with.)
As @rashkavar said, distance is x3. Area is squared, so it's x9. But I'm here to coach D&D alterations, not mathematics. :-D
Can someone explain to me where they get the wine from? I must have missed it. Thanks!
The Martikovs? They grow the grapes and make the wine.
The Druids? They took some of the existing barrels of wine that were already prepared for shipment.
Personally, I didn't like your "leaking amber temple" idea that much, but you are right that the Barovian population and the soulless to souled rate doesn't make sense. So here is my Idea. As stated before when Strahd first turned and the mists took the land there would have been a massive famine. Many inhabitants died but with no soul able to reach their afterlife this left a massive pool of souls to be reincarnated. Strahd still being the megalomaniac and narcissist that he is subconsciously made the people in Barovia more fertile than they should be given malnourishment and stress they face, he later figured out to have people born on purpose and hatched a plan. He knew that no one and nothing could escape his domain and therefore Tatjana and Sergei souls were still trapped here yet he had no way to tell their souls from the many other traped by him prior to reincarnation and growing up. To get another chance at claiming Tatjana for himself Strahd made a deal with one of the Dark Powers of the Amber Temple. Maybe its Vampyre who was freed by Strahd as you suggested in your video or maybe it's another. I myself like the idea of more than one broken amber sarcophagus with at least one of which will remain an enigma to the players. While they can learn about Vampyre and the others from sources like the Liche, the Library or a Legend Lore spell this one escaped Dark Power somehow managed to destroy or scramble all records and recollections of itself. Either way, Strahd arranged for the pool of Souls to be reincarnated started to shrink if they weren't Tatjana. And while he succeeded in having Tatjana reborn before all his previous attempts to make her his have been thwarted. Not having been aware that the Soulless provides no nourishment and even after learning of it believing he had more than enough souls left he continued. But now he is approaching a point where food becomes scarce and Ireena might be his last chance to claim Tatjana before he is forced to find a way to either stop the decline of souls or escape Barovia for good.
Do you have any advice for DMs running a campaign on discord?
Its my first campaign as a DM and I'm struggling to balance roleplaying Ireena with actually running the game and a pretty silly party.
Any advice is helpful 😅
My only problem with making the travel times longer is.... Well... Mist. And wolves. Both are supposed to come out during the night and almost every NPC that my player's have talked to tell them that staying out after dark is dangerous, with little to no natural moonlight and the life-draining fogs that creep across the land at night... It would seem like it would be overly dangerous.
Ah, I understand your confusion. The deadly Mist surrounds the perimeter of Barovia, like a city wall, and doesn't enter the land. It stands as an impenetrable barrier, preventing the people from escaping.
The obscuring Fog inside Barovia is merely a weather event, and hides the monsters from the PC's sight.
Isn't the life sucking part just if you're trying to walk across the border of the plane? My read on it was that the mists that come up at night are just going to block light sources or darkvision from making the night relatively comfortable to traverse. It's a tool that lets you blind your players no matter how much they equip themselves to deal with the night.
I'd argue that the danger of staying out after dark is something the players should be forced to risk routinely. It keeps the village of Barovia isolated from the town of Vallaki. If you're going with the Barovian breadbasket idea, there's probably caravans that make the trip come harvest time to deliver food to Vallaki and bring back other supplies found there, but this would be a major undertaking and is probably conducted by Vallaki with a chunk of the town's guards and any hunters they can scrounge up to protect it. The night is dark and full of terrors; that's kinda the point. After all, a DM doesn't have an NPC tell the party "a dragon lives in this cave" with any expectation that they won't scurry in and tickle its nose, or do something equally stupid.
Can anybody tell me what I just heard 10:01
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lotta white asparagus in Barovia