Howdy! It's lovely to be in the CoS reddit! This js my first time posting here! I've also read the rules and I hope this one doesn't break the rules since it's player themed.

My friend convinced me to officially join in d&d and I've managed to find a wonderful dm hosting a pbp (play by post) curse of strahd campaign! From what I've seen curse of strahd is maxed out at level 10 but shes upped it to fifteen by adding some additional content! But thats not why im here for.

I've been green lit to play my first tabaxi and I was hoping to see if you folks had any tips or class suggestions for me! I've seen in the greater d&d reddits that tabaxi monks are amongst the most popular but i want to make sure im being a good team player! If anyone has any tips id gladly take em 😭🙌!!!

Honestly, I wasn't expecting it. I placed Strahd into Krezk in the middle of the night and charmed the burogmaster's wife to allow him inside their home, where the players chose to camp for the night. Some of the other players had fucked off for a bit, so I decided it would be a good time to try and get the Bard in Strahd's pocket.

I picked him for a reason. The character is very upset about being in Barovia and is something of a hedonist, and given the chance, would rather party and do drugs. Surely he would've agreed to some kind of deal where he'd get some relief from the horrors of this place, right?

Spits right in his god damn face.

sigh...

This game just went from casually exploring the horrors of Barovia to a straight up oppressive nightmare. Strahd immediately ripped the Burgomaster's wife's head off and left to basically ensure the town wouldn't let them in anymore, and they already basically destroyed Vallaki, and Barovia is a depressing nightmare, so they don't like that place either. Their last known bastion of safety was the tower, which Strahd immediately went and destroyed right after this encounter.

The hags are still alive, and I've turned to taking advantage of their ability to assail them in the night to rob them of their long-rest recovery and impose exhaustion. The tower was the only place the hags couldn't do this at, which they figured out, and had been using it as their rest location most nights.

They still don't know it's been annihilated, and they ran from Krezk in the middle of the night with zero plan lol.

Shit is going to get real for them next session, beyond what they already were dealing with.

I have finally finished DMing a Dragnacarta style Curse of Strahd with my party of mostly 4, a fifth left halfway thru. Twas a party consisting of:

Ukabo the Shadarkai grave cleric.

Ding Ding the half dragon Kenku Creation bard.

Frug/Vulrin the insane two personality Dark Gnome arcane trickster.

Tordak the Duergar champion.

And River the escaped Santa sweat shop Elf alchemist.

I had them choose a relic at the beginning that they felt was appropriate and I worked with them to incorporate it into their background and their background into the story of Curse of Strahd. When they got to their part of the relics story they acquired some additional power appropriate to their them and their level. Before fighting strahd they had saved the Martikovs and were gifted the Wereraven abilities which I had activate in full once they had fallen once to strahd. Only Tordak didn't want that.

The fight with Strahd was truly epic with 3 phases of ass kicking and additional magic items for Strahd such as the Sword of Kas, Robes of the Archmagi, and a Ruby spell gem holding the 8th level maddening darkness spell. His final form I changed to that of a Huge bat creature stealing stats from the Sonari bat from DM stash. I also had ireena choose to become a vampire thru the Vampyr and properly accept the gift by slaying her father(who was brought back as an undead knight thru the Deck of many Things) and then slitting her own throat( this was to fulfil the original condition of needing to kill someone you love and be killed by someone you hate).

The final hit came from the rogue Vulrin, who overcame his insanity, and delt a Critical sneak attack of 70 damage with the last strike. In the final moments he rallied everyone to one last strike as the huge vampire lord fell from the sky, every one using their best signature attack, and driving Strahd to the ground of the towers balcony with the sword of sunlight in his chest.

The after party was quick and simple, with Ireena choosing to reuse the fallen castle Ravenloft, which was flying during the battle and had fallen after Strahds death in front of the amber temple. She uses the Amber temple to fix and power the flying castle once more and take these dark powers away from this land forever. Going with her is the Keepers of the Feather and Ezmeralda and a few others who will use the castle to enter other Domains of Dread and free them from their own Dark Powers.

And thus my players and their characters now go their separate ways in life and in game with me moving soon and two others having a baby like NEXT WEEK so I definitely felt the time crunch to finish this. Thank you for those that read all this and good luck with your own campaigns.

Hello everybody,
I need some DM suggestions. We are going to start a new campaign (I am the DM). We have 3 players who are new to DND. I am not going to start them from the Death House, I will follow the Mysterious Visitors adventure start.
For many classes there will be many additions between level 2 and 3. Here are my thoughts:

* I thought if they start at level 2, I can create a small-ish combat to level up after one or two session. So they can have more time to adjust to their character sheets. (If you have any suggestions for this, other than death house, I’d like to read your comment for an encounter in the areas before/ in / around the village). For example the random encounters, coming up to scouts and helping them for a search and fighting with some creatures.

* However, I don’t want to push any event unnatural just so they’d have an encounter. Therefore, I was also thinking if I should just start them at level 3.

If you're a member of the Mistfits, read no further.

So I'm running a modified CoS game using Mandymod's additions, among others, and am expanding the game to lvl 15. My players are level 9 (almost 10) and fought Baba Lysaga last session. Here's the issue: they just accidentally? restored the swamp fane (long story) to her full power by offering her Baba's heart. I had originally planned for restoring the fanes to kick off the war with Strahd because doing so threatens his power over the land, but that feels insane to do right now while he is still literally unkillable.

When initially planning act 3 I expected them to start restoring fanes after visiting the amber temple, by then they'd have all the knowledge they needed to defeat strahd and would know the consequences of their actions. I had planned to go all-out hostile with strahd, attacking them day and night, stopping the sun from rising so their magic items don't reset, stuff like that. But if I go that hostile right now they'll have to rush to the amber temple, skip dinner with strahd (which we were all looking forward to), and basically speed run the next 5 levels or otherwise truncate our game. The level of consequences I had envisioned for these actions are fun and interesting when the party has to deal with them for a few days, but there are weeks left of this game and it would be a slog. I'm also looking not to kidnap Ireena until after they restore the mountain fane, I'm doing some past life stuff with her in the gulthias dungeon and don't want my players to miss out in it.

So, what kind of consequences can I give my players for these actions that feel realistic to Strahd's character but dont fuck up my game for the next 6 months? Ive had a few ideas, like inviting them to dinner and threatening them or trying to trap them in the castle dungeons forever. But it's difficult to justify why Strahd wouldn't continue to harass them after that, especially because one of the PCs is (finally) openly dating Ireena. Any other DMs have ideas for Strahd's reaction to this situation? The players have stolen some of his power by restoring this fane and they've been keeping Ireena hidden from his scrying so he's definitely not happy with them, but how to express that in a fun and interesting way? Also one of my PCs is Strahd's son (the same one thats dating Ireena, juicy I know) so that could factor into his decision making, their relationship isn't great, because he's Strahd and the PC is a good person, but still.

Three sessions into my fourth running of CoS, and we just had a banger of a session at the Barovia church. The four-person party had split up on the way there, leaving two at the mercantile and two continuing up to the church with the siblings. With her companion PC unexpectedly absent for this session, the reborn cleric was on her own to negotiate the mess of Doru and dad's relationship until the gents returned from their shopping trip.

Here's the thing. The cleric is reborn because of her own ruined relationship with her mother, who killed her and was eventually killed BY her reborn self. Purely by circumstance then, she had walked into this church to find an as-yet unrealized version of the same dynamic that annihilated her former life.

One false move, she thought, and Doru will be saddled with the same guilt that has plagued her since that day.

After an impassioned plea to the father to end his son's suffering fell on deaf ears, he demanded she and her late-arriving companions leave the church and tend to the burgomaster's last rites themselves.

And so the pressure continues to mount inside that little church on the hill. The outlanders have quietly resolved to pay the two another visit soon, intent on doing what the father cannot if they find Doru no closer to a miraculous faith healing.

Hi!
I am a newbie DM, soon starting a CoS campaign (still reading through the book). As far as I read, I couldn’t find anything where or from whom players can purchase items, maps. Are there any?
I know it will be scarce since its a closed community. I read there’s a map in a vistani wagon however I wonder if a vistana would just sell/share a map to the group.

Just a compilation of my favorite sketches of Strahd without the rest of the sketch for context.

Being a good Lord he is, he prepared fine clothes for all of them... But not all of them made it to the destination... Tialia, an Owlin Sorceress died by the hellish fire of Izek at the Festival of the Blazing Sun the other day, but in her place arrived Ilri - Changeling Rogue(last drawing).

I am DMing CoS this weekend and last session, my party of 4 (+ Fated Ally NPC) fled from the fight with Baba Lysaga. It is pretty important that they get her flying skull as I have flavored it to be Argynvost's skull needed to light the Beacon at Argynvostholt. So while they technically do not need to beat Baba, they do need to somehow steal the skull back. The original fight ended with one PC death and was getting close to a TPK before they fled.

They are level 8 and will be doing a part of the main quest that should bring them up to level 9 before I think they plan to return, so I have some time to plan... which means Baba has time to plan. Any suggestions on how Baba would be preparing for the party's eventual return? Should I slyly encourage the players to NOT fight Baba this time around? Any help is appreciated!

What if not only an unholy tree sprouted from a stake driven into the black heart of a long-dead vampire, but that tree actually had an equally unholy life cycle?

This is my first, rough sketch of this concept: Once it has gorged on enough lifeforce, the Gulthias Tree actually blooms!

All along its thorny branches, among the spiny leaves, blossom beautiful rose-like flowers, whose sickeningly sweet nectar attracts pollinators (in Barovia, these would be several species of bats, who grow positively addicted to the stuff), then the flowers' petals disperse in the wind, their mind-numbing perfume attracting more prey for the blights to turn into fertilizer.

Once pollinated, the flowers turn into fruits, roughly the size and shape of a human heart, whose flesh is like a persimmon's but much juicier, brims with diminutive jelly-coated seeds (so they easily slip between teeth and get swallowed), and tastes like strawberries dipped in rosewater, with a faint aftertaste of iron.

Several animals eat these fruits, and spread the seeds across Barovia, countless saplings are growing in the valley, ready to replace the one in Yester Hill should it be felled...

...anyway, both the flowers and fruits are edible, either raw or used as ingredients, flowers can be macerated or distilled into a perfume, while the fruits can be brewed into a sweet, thick, liquor-like wine.

More to come soon, including colored pics and some other extras regarding the blights...

[Linktree]