After getting tired of reading and re-reading chapters to prep, I found your channel. It has helped me SO MUCH in these last 8 months of campaign! Thank you so much for all this amazing content; with this video, I come to a close with this playlist (my players will only have the fanes left after the temple), deeply glad for an amazing person like you creating these guides. After CoS I plan on DMing The Wild Beyond, and imagine my pure delight to see that you have also covered that one :)
Thanks for these DM Guides for this campaign. I feel I have been doing the party a dis-service by not preparing enough. This will give me the edge I need to be better able to make the encounters more meaningful and adventurous. I am planning on most dark gifts being permanent with limited uses per day. The side effects will be fun to incorporate into play as well. Thanks again for helping someone who hasn't DM'd in quite some time get an edge back.
My homebrew campaign that I'm picking and choosing adventures for (and adjusting the narrative of to fit my story) is slowly becoming a proxy CoS campaign. So many good adventures and evocative locations. My amber temple is being restructured into a plot point for my BBeG to become a Hierarch lich (thank you Pointy Hat). The temple was built as a prison for evil, and a bastion of forbidden knowledge by an ancient mages circle. Exethanter, as well as my BBEG, are remnants of that circle; and upon greater restoration will provide some exposition to what happened with the BBEG.
Fun thing I’m considering as a change. According to the lore of a Boneclaw monster: Failing to brew or finish creating the phylactory or lich potion correctly will instead result in the creator becoming a boneclaw, and being bound to an evil individual as their forever lich like servant. Imagine a powerful mage attempting to become a lich to defeat a Strahd and instead becoming an immortal monster serving him. Imagine that that is instead the final fate of Modenkeinen.
My PCs are heading there now, and they just hit lvl 7 at Tsolenka Pass, so I searched TH-cam for some pointers to help me avoid a nasty TPK. Got a lot of ideas from watching these videos, so thanks. Probably gonna make a few encounters a tiny bit less deadly for them, or at least give them a proper warning before the Arcanaloth throws a fireball in their face,
I made a big player in my campaign. She is the person that bring Strand to the amber temple and show him this dark power. She is also the patron of my party warlock, she also had an affair with the paladin of the party back in the day (he is a resurrected knight of arghinvost), and used him to breach throgh tsolenka pass (occupied by the order back in the day). She also appeared in a vision to the wizard and the cleric promising power to then if they bring Kasimir here. Also when they cleared the old bonegrinder, Morghanta escaped. Patrina spirit presented the hag with the third jewel of the winery so she could make shadowy copies of her and act as a coven all by herself. Soo I'm rly looking forward to see what gonna happen in this last chamber!
“You can accept the dark gift to become a lich only if a character can cast level 9 spells” does WotC even like.. read their own modules? Why would this even exist in the campaign if the requirement for becoming a lich is far out of the scope of the adventure? While I enjoy a lot of the setting of CoS, so much of the campaign rules as written just leaves me scratching my head… community work is truly a saving grace
How would you reconcile the party coming to the Amber Temple to find a way to defeat Strahd and then be made to walk away empty handed since no such thing exists? "Welp, guess we're just going to go visit Castle Ravenloft now..."
learning how he got his powers and what he was willing to do to get them can be a powerful tool! in addition, meeting Rahadin here is a great way to see into the inner workings of Strahds castle!
They just rescued Irena from the wedding, by killing her in front of Strahd. Once they barely made it out. They came to the Temple for the Sword. The rogue befriended the bezerkers wolf. Strahd wanted a spy. Now they are just inside the Temple and Rahadin will walk in with an ultimatum.
Make your players, soul linked with the guardian, so if the player falls to 0 HP the guardian absorb the player soul, and go offline, now that player can't be resurrected, and if the guardian is destroyed, the attuned player die. And of course, my boy Strand knows about ir!!
My players I think are going for dinner tonight. Strahd will tell his story and will use the teleportation circle to show them the vestiges. In addition, the bard in my group has levelled up and multi classed to a Hexblade warlock. I have hidden the sunsword in the empty sarcophagus, and have that acting as her patron (good). She is now bound to come and rescue it.
What do you think would happen if you resurrected a body who's soul had already been reincarnated? Does the current incarnation die and the soul slingshots back into its old body? Does it get the its old memories back and keep the new ones it made in its newest form? Maybe both beings are alive and share the soul in a sort of spiritual quantum super position and they're somewhat aware of everything the other is, like 2 linked quantum particles that take shape when the other does without fail, instantaneously and regardless of distance. Maybe the old body doesn't have a soul and it's like a Barovian husk? Or it becomes a intelligent undead of it's own, not necessarily hostile, but definitely not the old creature. Lots of interesting possibilities here.
My player is playing a warforged controlled by a god so most of these mind altering effects would do nothing I okayed the idea before I knew about the Amber temple he could just take a bunch of the ones that impose mental deficiencies and the warforged which has no mind wouldn't be affected
These videos are criminally underrated!! EVERY DM needs to watch these before, during, or after running anything Barovia
haha thank you! the only way to get the word out is liking, commenting, subscribing and sharing!
Agree!
After getting tired of reading and re-reading chapters to prep, I found your channel. It has helped me SO MUCH in these last 8 months of campaign! Thank you so much for all this amazing content; with this video, I come to a close with this playlist (my players will only have the fanes left after the temple), deeply glad for an amazing person like you creating these guides. After CoS I plan on DMing The Wild Beyond, and imagine my pure delight to see that you have also covered that one :)
Thank you so much!
I'm loving these videos, thank you so much for making them, they are extremely helpful!
thank you! happy to help!
Thanks for these DM Guides for this campaign. I feel I have been doing the party a dis-service by not preparing enough. This will give me the edge I need to be better able to make the encounters more meaningful and adventurous.
I am planning on most dark gifts being permanent with limited uses per day. The side effects will be fun to incorporate into play as well. Thanks again for helping someone who hasn't DM'd in quite some time get an edge back.
thank you and no problem!
My homebrew campaign that I'm picking and choosing adventures for (and adjusting the narrative of to fit my story) is slowly becoming a proxy CoS campaign. So many good adventures and evocative locations.
My amber temple is being restructured into a plot point for my BBeG to become a Hierarch lich (thank you Pointy Hat). The temple was built as a prison for evil, and a bastion of forbidden knowledge by an ancient mages circle. Exethanter, as well as my BBEG, are remnants of that circle; and upon greater restoration will provide some exposition to what happened with the BBEG.
Fun thing I’m considering as a change. According to the lore of a Boneclaw monster: Failing to brew or finish creating the phylactory or lich potion correctly will instead result in the creator becoming a boneclaw, and being bound to an evil individual as their forever lich like servant. Imagine a powerful mage attempting to become a lich to defeat a Strahd and instead becoming an immortal monster serving him. Imagine that that is instead the final fate of Modenkeinen.
My PCs are heading there now, and they just hit lvl 7 at Tsolenka Pass, so I searched TH-cam for some pointers to help me avoid a nasty TPK.
Got a lot of ideas from watching these videos, so thanks.
Probably gonna make a few encounters a tiny bit less deadly for them, or at least give them a proper warning before the Arcanaloth throws a fireball in their face,
fair enough!
I made a big player in my campaign. She is the person that bring Strand to the amber temple and show him this dark power. She is also the patron of my party warlock, she also had an affair with the paladin of the party back in the day (he is a resurrected knight of arghinvost), and used him to breach throgh tsolenka pass (occupied by the order back in the day). She also appeared in a vision to the wizard and the cleric promising power to then if they bring Kasimir here.
Also when they cleared the old bonegrinder, Morghanta escaped. Patrina spirit presented the hag with the third jewel of the winery so she could make shadowy copies of her and act as a coven all by herself. Soo I'm rly looking forward to see what gonna happen in this last chamber!
“You can accept the dark gift to become a lich only if a character can cast level 9 spells” does WotC even like.. read their own modules? Why would this even exist in the campaign if the requirement for becoming a lich is far out of the scope of the adventure? While I enjoy a lot of the setting of CoS, so much of the campaign rules as written just leaves me scratching my head… community work is truly a saving grace
haha for sure
The lich rp event can be raising certain characters and involving them in a dark ritual to make the potion 😈
haha oh yes! tons of crazy awesome moments to be had with that!
How would you reconcile the party coming to the Amber Temple to find a way to defeat Strahd and then be made to walk away empty handed since no such thing exists? "Welp, guess we're just going to go visit Castle Ravenloft now..."
learning how he got his powers and what he was willing to do to get them can be a powerful tool! in addition, meeting Rahadin here is a great way to see into the inner workings of Strahds castle!
They just rescued Irena from the wedding, by killing her in front of Strahd. Once they barely made it out. They came to the Temple for the Sword. The rogue befriended the bezerkers wolf. Strahd wanted a spy. Now they are just inside the Temple and Rahadin will walk in with an ultimatum.
Gotta make them an offer they cant refuse haha awesome stuff!
Make your players, soul linked with the guardian, so if the player falls to 0 HP the guardian absorb the player soul, and go offline, now that player can't be resurrected, and if the guardian is destroyed, the attuned player die. And of course, my boy Strand knows about ir!!
awesome stuff!
I imagine my players resurrecting Argonvosthold
now that is a badass way to take on Strahd haha
My players I think are going for dinner tonight. Strahd will tell his story and will use the teleportation circle to show them the vestiges.
In addition, the bard in my group has levelled up and multi classed to a Hexblade warlock. I have hidden the sunsword in the empty sarcophagus, and have that acting as her patron (good). She is now bound to come and rescue it.
awesome stuff! tying the players to the world is always fantastic!
Oh man I hope you said this before seeing the shield guardian in RotFM.
haha i did this series after my Rime series!
What do you think would happen if you resurrected a body who's soul had already been reincarnated?
Does the current incarnation die and the soul slingshots back into its old body? Does it get the its old memories back and keep the new ones it made in its newest form?
Maybe both beings are alive and share the soul in a sort of spiritual quantum super position and they're somewhat aware of everything the other is, like 2 linked quantum particles that take shape when the other does without fail, instantaneously and regardless of distance.
Maybe the old body doesn't have a soul and it's like a Barovian husk?
Or it becomes a intelligent undead of it's own, not necessarily hostile, but definitely not the old creature.
Lots of interesting possibilities here.
haha for sure, tons of great stuff there!
My player is playing a warforged controlled by a god so most of these mind altering effects would do nothing I okayed the idea before I knew about the Amber temple he could just take a bunch of the ones that impose mental deficiencies and the warforged which has no mind wouldn't be affected