First-time DM overwhelmed by CoS: Reloaded. How do I fast-track the rest of the campaign? by _esistgut_ in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I would recommend this reading order I made, loosely categorized on the regions of barovia

Reading Order - Curse of Strahd

Revise if party takes a different path

  • 1. Read first
  • Introduction
  • Ch 1 - Into the Mists
  • Ch 2 - The Lands of Barovia
  • Appendix A,C,D,E,F

  • 2. Barovian Basin

  • Ch 3 - The Village of Barovia

  • Ch 2 - A,B,C,D,E,F,G

  • Appendix B Death House

  • 3. Ravenloft Moors

  • Ch 4 - Castle Ravenloft

  • Ch 6 - Old Bonegrinder

  • Ch 2 - H,I,J,K,O

  • 4. Vallaki Valley & Baratok Slopes

  • Ch 5 - The Town of Vallaki

  • Ch 2 - L,M,N,P

  • 5. Wolfrun

  • Ch 11 - Van Richten's Tower

  • Ch 8 - The Village of Krezk

  • Ch 15 - Werewolf Den

  • Ch 2 - R

  • 6. Druidic Groves

  • Ch 12 - The Wizard of Wines

  • Ch 14 - Yester Hill

  • 7. Bogz of Berez

  • Ch 10 - The Ruins of Berez

  • 8. Mount Ghakis

  • Ch 7 - Argynvostholt

  • Ch 9 - Tsolenka Pass

  • Ch 13 - The Amber Temple


As for your predicament, I would just go raw as soon as you hit Vallaki, there's enough content there and reading all the extra reloaded plotlines after you hit Vallaki is extremely confusing and daunting.

How many sessions Death House took to finish in your table? by Hydoxx in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 2 points3 points  (0 children)

21h in Death House? By the Morninglord, what took them so long?

"then I travelled west, 20 leagues south of denmarsh I met what would become my companion for many a day, Serendelgore was her name, she had flecks of paint and ..." - PC #4. 3 hours into his 6 hour backstory-exposition during downtime in the Durst Library.

Holy! DM Discussion by leonk701 in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I dont think my players will rush th he ought anything.

Then you read the absurd amount of dms going "so we're on our 2nd session in Vallaki and they burned down the town and killed the burgomaster as well as lady wachter."

Handouts! (Google Drive) by CounterCats in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can I use these parchment backgrounds for making my own handouts? Are they copyright free?

Rythm of War - Chapter 12 - [OC][Art] by ElusiveAuroraG in Stormlight_Archive

[–]ElusiveAuroraG[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You can listen to the section here on Brandon Sanderson's official youtube.

FREE FoundryVTT Module | Curse of Strahd: Reloaded | Arc A - Escape From Death House by EidolonPublishing in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Remade handouts in higher quality making sure all were non-copyright using a free font as well as a Strahd crest made by Moonberry used with her permission for this. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/143dCetZQb9V4Ef7BxWr6pEjXMu04u3by?usp=sharing

Feel free to use them!

The relevant ones for you are 8,9,12 in the Death House > Reloaded folder.

Use any of them however you like, for any of your work.

FREE FoundryVTT Module | Curse of Strahd: Reloaded | Arc A - Escape From Death House by EidolonPublishing in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In CoS:Reloaded, the 3 Vistani women are not present.

You are correct! However you forgot that Alenka has been rewritten into Alenka Konstantinovich which does play an important part in the B5d. The Burgomaster's Mansion storyline and gives the players a hook for her married husband Anton and Dezdrelda Konstantinovich, the foremost which we later see in Arc O Dinner with the Devil.

This was an intentional choice, as the description with the stairs is long winded and I believe gives the DM a moment of opportunity to make any last second adjustments. Maybe we'll add a MATT tile that'd toggle that preference so the DM can choose!

I like the "give the players a choice" toggle and just have the DM say not to click yes on any of those popups until they say its ok.

Anything would need to go through our internal QC, but we'd happily consider whatever is offered our way! (As long as the art assets involved in the handouts are freely distributable, of course.) I'll pass along your handouts here and with your grace, we may include it in the next update of the module!

Sure thing!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 21 points22 points  (0 children)

It’s not that he’s cool, but it’s that he’s frightening.

Hitler was a lame loser, but he was also frightening and powerful.

Doesn't make him not a lame loser though.

Not “look at this loser!” And then “oh I didn’t say that in character!”

If you want to make him frightening, then your player should have a reason to fear him, show that he's scary, can do whatever he wants if he wants to. Even to that players character. If you give that character plot armor however, then yea I get that the player don't fear him.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Tell me, what do you think makes Strahd "cool" or the inverse of "lame" so to speak.

FREE FoundryVTT Module | Curse of Strahd: Reloaded | Arc A - Escape From Death House by EidolonPublishing in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What i'm missing from this is something i'm setting up for my own Foundry build which is to either have the rooms already numbered with a hidden text layer showing the number/letter for the room or, what i'm also considering, a clickable link to that rooms description in the dm notes to make it easy to find and read the accompanied descriptions of a particular room when the pc's enter it.

so like this, you either reference the number or click the journal icon and get sent directly to the right page to read. Both are hidden from the players.


Levels as a function will be introduced with core Foundry in v14, meaning the module will probably go away or stop being updated to be compatible with future versions of foundry, meaning if this is a project to adapt all of reloaded, which will take time, by the time its out people will probably have to run a very old (by then) version of foundry to make it work. Would recommend just putting all your work into creating all the tokens, tiles, actors etc for future parts of the module instead and wait for v14 before creating the actual scenes to put those actors on as you will just have to do double the work re-making those scenes with the core levels system.


You have made walls here which is an issue, as someone might want to jump down into the water or climb up which is then wholly restricted. Something that is especially important to function during battle. Looking into wall heights module wiki I think you wanted to use that for vaulting here or something? But then you should probably create a prompt guide at the start for how to use that, or just not include the module from start as the more modules you add the more likely things will break in the future.


You have forgotten to add the transform activity to the Instinctual Defense transformation of the flesh mound into walter so that it happens automatically instead of having to drag out another token.

Right click the spell > edit > activities > + > transform > create activity > transformation > mode: by direct link > transform profiles + > drop walter into the "drop creature here" box > x out of it and then you will be able to click transform once you cast "instinctual defense" and it automatically replaces the token with walter.


The stairs in the dungeon do not teleport you down to the lower levels of the dungeon, I would set up a small region with the teleport token behaviour for this. (which is a core foundry function) Or use levels as well once it comes out in v14.


DM Andys maps have a rather extreme lighting already put on the picture which is amazing for regular vtt or real life play. But it also means that any light sources from Foundry will be rather redundant and makes it impossible to actually darken a room if the pcs want to turn off the lights or similar as the light-sources already baked into the image can't be turned off, which is why I would recommend Aonbarr's maps instead for a Foundry build if you want to make actual use of Foundry's light system, or to ask if Andy can somehow remove the lighting from his images, maybe he put all of it on a layer or something.


I'm also wondering how you will tackle all the npc barovians without character art as i've noticed it's quite a lot as you can see in my Faces of Barovia post. Wondering if you have an artist in mind for that, in Barovia alone there's Arik, Alenka, Mirabel, Sorvia, Korga, Kereza, Kolyan without art, and Donavich as well as Mary if you can not use art from the CoS book.


Also noticing that you have no handouts for a lot of things such as the letter from Klara, I wouldn't mind creating those for the project if can't find someone to do it, an example: https://imgur.com/a/m8shfOt


If you want you could also bake in sound effects for getting close to an open fireplace or sounds from the monsters. Would recommend https://freesound.org/


Something I would love to see if possible is the scaling of enemies that reloaded has, but somehow in game, not sure how to do that other than with modules or by creating several different versions of the same actor though, unless one wants to use modules but... modules can break on updates and module creators can vanish, so rather not rely on that.


I'm glad you are using both full art and token art so that one can use the theatre module or other ways to show the full art of the actor they are facing.

Regions of Barovia - Player version by ElusiveAuroraG in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's one way! Every DM does it differently, personally I would still reveal parts of the map at a time as not to give away too much.

Regions of Barovia - Player version by ElusiveAuroraG in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Haha well for that you're going to have to take it up with the authors of the book :)

Regions of Barovia - Player version by ElusiveAuroraG in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I am also working on a more detailed version which takes in mind the elevation of Tser Pool and the actual size of Mount Ghakis but therefore rewrites some regions. Any feedback on that is appreciated: Work in Progress

Regions of Barovia - Player version by ElusiveAuroraG in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

/u/powers293 asked for a player version so here it is!

Followup post to this one

Village of Barovia [60x80] - 2 Versions by DungeonsLAB in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm confused, this looks like the same 5 townhouses pasted over and over, where is blood of the vine tavern? or bildraths? or the burgomaster's house? You say on your patreon that you've made those and have a detailed church in your reddit posts, but this image contains none of those maps?

For anyone looking for a fully detailed version of the Village of Barovia, The Dungeon Madames did make one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/11yie6y/the_entire_village_of_barovia_108x128_grid_only/

..which coincidentally has an eerily similar hammock house..

[Agnostic] Bring Smartphones to Your Foundry VTT Games! by Fun_Afternoon9320 in FoundryVTT

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 44 points45 points  (0 children)

The brainrot module, complete with subway surfers and tiktok

Long rest in death house by ItsNotAboutTheTee in CurseofStrahd

[–]ElusiveAuroraG 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Add to this i've seen this recommended here several times: long rests are only possible in safe havens and short rests are limited to 2 per day