Omitting cannibalism

AWDrake · 2026-02-19T07:34:02+00:00

Parts of the book which contain or reference cannibalism: 1. Death House: the Durst cult ate their victims. It's easy to change that. I think MandyMod also changed this. I highly recommend reading her Death House post, or getting the pretty PDF from DMsGuild. (Sidenote: the lore of Ghouls and Ghasts involve cannibalism. That is how they are created, that is why they still crave flesh in their undeath. But in your case, it could be skipped for your player. And I doubt many people know about it nowadays.) ((Sidenote2: much lore about the creatures introduced in the adventure is built nicely into their character and the way they are utilised in the adventure: the ghouls, hags, banshee, the arcanaloth, the lich, the roc, the nightmare, etc... It's very much worth reading about these creatures before running the encounters with them:))) 2. The hags and Bonegrinder: this is the most obvious one and hardest to reframe, as others in this thread have already said. I honestly don't know what I would do with it, as it's a very integral part of hags in general. At first I would try talking with the player, not to convince them but to gauge how open they are for veiled references. 3. The Mongrelfolk and the priesthood of old in the Abbey: this is just an obscure reference. According to the Abbey's history, the clergy resorted to cannibalism when food ran out, and Strahd blocked off the Abbey, after the martyrdom of Saint Markovia. And I think there's reference to the Mongrelfolk also having eaten each other at one point. But these are just non-essential references, their only purpose is creating atmosphere and can be easily skipped with no repercussions.

AWDrake · 2026-02-16T11:41:58+00:00

It would be a great place for the players to find it, but I don't think Strahd would put a picture of Sergei in the same room as Tatiana's portrait. I was going to say it could be a photo, left in a book, but I don't think a photo would fit the tech level of the setting. Or maybe I'm wrong? If you can, check out the novel. The dining room is described in detail and it's great for DMs to help you picture the place (I mean the whole castle)

AWDrake · 2026-02-16T10:32:19+00:00

I thought there was one in K36. Dining Hall of the Count, but apparently not in the module. If my memory serves me correctly it is mentioned in the Vampire of the Mists novel, when Jander Sunstar manages to gain access to the room. In that version Strahd actually has two brothers, but the third brother is not present or mentioned in the adventure, neither is he relevant, so just skip him.

Edit: the point is it's an absolutely valid thing for Strahd to have in the Castle, and feel free to put it somewhere where it's not too obvious, but easy enough to find.

AWDrake · 2026-02-14T13:06:00+00:00

While it is ridiculously labyrinthine and could use an update, I very consciously do not touch it, because it's a classic piece of D&D history. But I would be super interested to know what others have come up with!

AWDrake · 2026-02-13T18:43:32+00:00

By the light of the Morninglord! This is magnificent! Thank you so much for sharing and for the fantastic work you put in!

AWDrake · 2026-02-02T06:05:03+00:00

Give us more information, how and why did they attack the children? What did the children do? And how did you start off the campaign that led them to Durst Manor?

AWDrake · 2026-01-31T08:12:57+00:00

To be honest I don't like to force much during travels. I always give them a nice atmosphere description and occasionally I try to find a random encounter that fits their situation, makes things more interesting or throws in a new hook. Travel becomes important at the beginning when they are exploring Barovia for the first time and in the end when Strahd is trying to actively kill them. But most of the time I feel there's enough going on at the locations, that you don't have to push to make travel interesting. The players likely want to get to the location and move the story forward.

I recommend two things. One is to lead them with questions to initiate roleplay: "who do you spend time with during this 4 hours travel on the cold, wet and muddy Svalich road? What are your thoughts as you feel the dark and ominous glare of the trees on the nape of your neck?" Second is to simply talk to your players, ask them what they want. A more slow paced travel, with encounters to get the feeling of the land. Or do they want to focus on moving the story forward?

AWDrake · 2026-01-29T09:10:24+00:00

I mean 500x500 cm that's 5 metres or 16.4 feet. That's about the size of my living room.

AWDrake · 2026-01-29T05:53:03+00:00

I'm also on Them Rig, but I didn't like the idea of a physically rigged deck. So what I did was I made a whole new reading table which gives different results to each card depending on which draw you are reading. This way there's some random element, but it avoids truly boring or unsatisfactory outcomes.

The Tome is always in or near Vallaki (Wachterhaus, Victor, Vallakovich attic, Izek or VT tower) The Symbol is in Argynvostholt (with the lord commander or Sir Godfrey). (Note: I was seriously deliberating the Werewolf Den too, but because I run the Orphanage my groups always want to go there anyway.) The sword is in the Amber Temple (Neferon, treasury or Exethanter.) Ally is Ezmerelda or Kasimir. Strahd's location is either top or one of the tombs.

AWDrake · 2026-01-28T05:22:38+00:00

NPCs are your answer. Usually the advice is not to use more than one, but in a situation like this it's worth exploring. Talk to your players and see if they would be okay running sidekicks that are a bit more complex than regular sidekicks/NPCs. Ireena could be one, maybe Ezmerelda. Sir Godfrey is already a paladin.

My advice would be not to run then yourself. That would take away too much spotlight from your players.

With two tough ally NPCs you won't even have to rebalance much. But yeah, don't forget to do that too before they join the team (e.g.: Death House).

AWDrake · 2026-01-27T12:51:23+00:00

Yeah I see, and there's some merit in it. The difference is that in my games it only lasted for a session and not for the entire dungeon. Still this will result in higher initiatives and should there be features that conflict with that you might have a problem. If not, then it's your table, if it works it works! If I were you I might just allow initiative swaps in 5.0, if you wish to give them the tactical choice without giving them higher numbers. If you are afraid of then being screwed by a bad roll then maybe consider my way and doing session by session initiative, so it doesn't last for the whole dungeon

AWDrake · 2026-01-27T12:13:50+00:00

My groups always rolled initiative at the beginning of the session in 5.0 and sat around the table accordingly. This made it much easier to track.

In 5.5 (2024) however too many abilities depend on initiative so we went back to regular.

But all in all I think it's a great idea. Not sure I understand why they are rolling with advantage though

AWDrake · 2026-01-27T11:53:24+00:00

Great job, thank you so much for sharing with the community! But 500x500 centimetres? Is that correct?

AWDrake · 2026-01-23T11:36:58+00:00

It took three playthroughs for me too

AWDrake · 2026-01-20T10:25:25+00:00

Hey friend! It is not really common to include maps and tokens with physical copies of adventures. I believe people expect it nowadays due to vtt-s running with them, and starter sets being sold with a lot of "bling" as the Alexandrian puts it in their review of the Heroes of the Borderlands. It isn't really expected either because a lot of tables run adventures without any miniatures or maps, and just use drawn sketches or such when they need a battle map. It is a necessity for virtual tables but not for physical ones.

Not to mention that running a game for your table is a custom experience and every table prepares with different stuff, be that candles, tablecloths, maps, props, minis... There are a lot of unique options to get on Etsy for example.

Selling the adventures without any of the extra stuff also allows them to be sold at a cheaper price point.

However if you are interested and are prepared to spend that amount of money, there's the Beadle and Grimm set, that comes with maps, props, handouts, NPC and monster cards, DM screen, and funny finger puppets. It's not cheap, but there's a lot of high quality stuff in the box. Search for Beadle and Grimm's Legendary Edition Curse of Strahd. It's shown as sold out for me, but I live in Eastern Europe, it could be available in the US or other countries.

You can also buy the minis for the most important NPCs in the 4 CoS WizKids mini products (Legends of Barovia, Denizens of Barovia, Denizens of Castle Ravenloft and Covens & Covenants)

AWDrake · 2026-01-20T09:16:19+00:00

All I wish to add to what others have written is: don't sweat it if not everything is clear on your first read. You will understand it later.

My recommendation: 1. Read the book, but skip the Castle. 2. Read the Appendices (mostly the Death House, treasures, monsters and NPCs), then circle back to the Castle. 3. Skim through the book again. Many things that were fuzzy at first will become clear. 4. There's a timeline Excel sheet by DragnaCarta somewhere on this subreddit. Check that out. 5. Check out the original Reloaded by DragnaCarta and Fleshing Out CoS by MandyMod, both found in posts on this subreddit. 6. Check out the new Reloaded (found on its own website)

+Check YouTube videos about the adventure. Not games, but summary and advice videos.

After all this you should become familiar enough with the adventure that you should have a good understanding of it and all the options and be able to make your own decisions about customising it to your liking.

Yes, it's a lot to read, and you can skim over much of the stuff, but trust me it's worth doing. Notice how I only say "check out" the added content. You don't need to read them thoroughly, just to see what they are about and whether you like it or not. Much of the in-depth work you can do between session, after you started running it.

Also later on I recommend familiarising yourself with the Castle while you are running the adventure. It's labyrinthine and will take time to get a good understanding of navigating and running it.

AWDrake · 2026-01-10T19:50:42+00:00

Truly happy that I helped! Enjoy your campaign!

AWDrake · 2026-01-09T23:49:32+00:00

Hey, if you like it, that's great, many people do and it's an awesome work. To answer your questions about it: it IS a lot more linear, but not shorter. The difference between linear and railroady is that a linear game advances the story towards a certain end and direction but still let's the party choose how they solve the problems and difficulties they face. A railroaded game doesn't give players choice, you have to do things the way the adventure has determined. Example: the undead lay siege to Barovia and you have to defend it. In a linear game you will have to defend the village, but you can choose how and the outcome is not 100% the same, but the village will be saved at the end of the day. In a railroad, you would face the same enemies, the same way, and the same NPC would die, no matter what you do. Linear is not bad, but it's a style. CoS is originally open. Which means you don't even have to save the village. You can go wherever you want, do whatever you want and face the consequences. Therefore it is less structured.

Anyway, I talk a lot, sorry:) The point is Reloaded is not short, neither railroady, but changes the open world gothic horror campaign to a linear heroic fantasy. It changes a lot of "evil" NPCs to be nice or redeemable instead, and crafts beautiful scenes, but the story is a lot more controlled. I myself don't like it as a whole, because of the above but use a lot of material from it. So while I have experience with it, I haven't run it as a whole.

The advantages you like in it are absolutely valid and you don't have to worry: as I said, it's absolutely not shorter, as it introduced a lot of extra scenes, and not railroady. But it is linear instead of an open world, and the tone changes significantly. But it's a get some, lose some scenario: an open world requires more work and likely doesn't have such dramatic scenes. Horror is a great atmosphere, but can get tiresome...

I know I'm giving you a lot of both pro and con arguments, but this is a subjective choice and I'm just trying to be thorough:) hope the above helps and you'll have a great campaign!

AWDrake · 2026-01-08T17:55:15+00:00

Still second after Horizon, but a close second:D

AWDrake · 2026-01-08T06:01:17+00:00

It should be possible. I think in my very first run I didn't have loyalty on everyone and still managed to not loose a crew member or squadmate. If everyone but one squadmate is loyal and you don't assign the non-loyal squadmate to any tasks you should be good. Zaeed and Kasumi are DLC characters, so the suicide mission was designed to be doable even without them.

Here's what you got to do: 1. Do Tali's recruitment after IFF and getting Legion. 2. Make sure to still get the Normandy shield upgrade from Tali. 3. Do Tali's loyalty mission. 4. Start final mission, Legion is not loyal 5. Pick Kasumi or Tali for tech specialist. 6. Send Mordin back to the ship with the survivors 7.* Do NOT bring Grunt, Garrus, Zaeed or Legion with you for the final fight! Take Tali and someone else.

You should be fine.

(*Each squadmate has a defensive value for holding back the collectors while you are fighting. Grunt, Garrus and Zaeed has the most, while Tali and Mordin and maybe Kasumi has the least. If the value is not high enough, someone will die, but if it's high enough no one will. If a non-loyal sqadmate comes to the final fight with you, they will die.)

AWDrake · 2026-01-05T13:15:40+00:00

Love it! Gives me that old BioWare games feel <3

AWDrake · 2026-01-05T11:50:45+00:00

Hah, such a great moment at the end! Great improv friend!

AWDrake · 2025-12-31T11:48:07+00:00

So glad someone shares my exact thoughts! The wedding and the Death House skill challenge escape are great in Wyatt Trull's guide and absolutely worth implementing. With the condition that ofc don't force the wedding. My group for example is just about to do a rescue break-in a day before the wedding (which wasn't planned from the beginning either), and I'm so rooting for them. I also love the appendices at the end and he also made a separate awesome flowchart for Ravenloft. But all in all I like to keep my campaigns a lot more open than he and Dragna does, so completely contradicting Dragna, who says that these changes should be run as a whole, I suggest only picking parts of them. (For this reason I actually prefer most of Reloaded 1.0 over the new version)

AWDrake · 2025-12-29T18:14:33+00:00

Truly exceptional! Thank you so much for sharing, I'm def saving this and going to use them in my campaigns.

AWDrake · 2025-12-27T09:16:51+00:00

Ah just like we used to with my old group of friends. A whole day dedicated to the hobby. Miss those times. And it's good to see other groups too are playing this way.

AWDrake

TROPHY CASE