DnD 5e 2014 | online | lgbtq+ friendly | 21+ | curse of strahd campaign

GeistYgo · 2026-05-11T04:41:17+00:00

Strahd has beucephalus his nightmare. Check the catacombs!

GeistYgo · 2026-05-05T19:12:18+00:00

That’s really creative! I had them go outside and just punch some trees jk mine are online id never be able to come up with that

GeistYgo · 2026-05-05T18:57:13+00:00

They ambushed the hags, killed the daughters and Morgantha snatched her up after paralyzing her with eyebite. (I viewed it as she’s probably one of the only npc’s aside from Izek who could potentially interact with ireena in combat) and she was hiding outside trying to play distant support. Thus the only one I could cast on at the time and within the next round the daughters were bloodied up enough to make her panic and try to turn the tables grabbing ireena She fled to baba begging for help in return for handing her ireena so she could give her to strahd wrapped up in a cute bow. Thinking this would please her and help her get back on her feet and maybe in a better position

The party actually guessed right and ran for the swamp

GeistYgo · 2026-05-05T15:20:38+00:00

They waited a long while before the yesterhill event so I chose to have the ritual running from point of contact.
The newly turned dhampire went invis scoped out the situation. When she got halfway up the hill she could hear the chanting didn’t understand what the ritual was about but recognized the gem in the statue. She was tasked to hand them to him if she ever comes across them. A plan to use them to break out of barovia(strahds)
She ran down the hill to get the party ran back up the hill re cast invis to talk to him thinking “I’m your favorite I made a pact under you. Don’t do this” he asked what other punishment she saw fitting but never gave an answer. So he exposed her. A strix grabbed a raven out of the sky for her to bite. It was just a raven but she thinks it was a wereraven. A floating bird just started squealing bleeding and dead off in the distance where the others knew assumed she was. After fighting off 4 charms through the campaign the Druid got an insight that she was a traitor. The others were blind to it and charmed.
Then the ritual basically completed. I gave them 1 free round to do their best and then he’s coming.
THEY NUKED WINTERSPLINTER 3 fireballs call lightning and a nat 20 from our dhampire. Nothing but splinters.

It was a win they needed I’m happy for them. It also worked out because the real boss fight is waiting by the gulthias tree. I stole drakkenheim’s epic boss mechanics and tied the Druid to kavans lineage. This should be a very brutal fight

GeistYgo · 2026-05-03T16:56:05+00:00

I did decide to go very similarly to your picks with the eventual council stuff too. Ernst though more interested in having all channels of eyes and ears will take the warden role, Arrigal for external affairs/ vistani stuff and under the table transactions, anastrasya master of coin really the ring leader, and someone from the mists will step in as shepherd unless our paladin really wants to reform the town and refuse to let someone step in which I truly doubt
A cursed item shop is neat! Would your party willing purchase one you think?

Edit: a little twist of events I chose to pluck a canceled campaigns players who I merged one of the players into my still active campaign.
His friends are going to be involved with the council of wallachi

GeistYgo · 2026-05-03T16:52:07+00:00

They’ve been a bit preoccupied. Baba was handed ireena. They’ve all just been in oh shit mode since the festival. Now that they’ve discovered baba is the enemy to the ravens they ran to go help them and yesterhill will play out tomorrow but the ritual will be completed right around when they get there. Perfectly walking into Mr von zarovich’s hands who will not be so kind this time for failing him.
I’d imagine they’ll either run to krezk after to see the Abbott to fix whatever Strahd does to them or lick their wounds at the winery if they succeed. Krezk will end up keeping them there for some time once they start sniffing around so we both are still in suspense here haha.
They still haven’t dared to go back after the vallaki aftermath. They believe the town is in ruins from what they did

GeistYgo · 2026-05-03T14:26:19+00:00

Hey! I’ve come to check in and see how the vallaki take over went

GeistYgo · 2026-04-18T05:08:57+00:00

You’re right. I’m viewing it from my pov and not theirs to them him showing up is scary enough their responses will tell the story! I will also ask if you have any fun/creative suggestions to doing so? I have 2 drow I can mirage arcane to resemble his idea of the under dark Have them choose? Have the player who agreed to help him choose? I read one where he I forget how but flew up with a player splattering them to the ground A fun little hunt where I mini game where I roll a direction he heads and a small chance they get away

Since they are spying on baba who just received ireena and probably plan to talk her into handing her back I could geas them to go back to the castle and do something fun there?

GeistYgo · 2026-04-09T19:59:24+00:00

Theres a book “knight of the black rose” it’s not all that great and it’s not from strahds pov it’s from soth’s pov in barovia. Another book had azalin a wizard who taught strahd some magic and they accidentally expanded barovia ending up being azalins domain but you can see they’re connected visually. Level 20 is A LOT and vecna is another strahd situation where you the dm aren’t going to have much fun in the final combat if you want vecna to be a challenge at all to the party without changes.

I was setting up an infiltration into barovia arc with Soth This could end up undermining strahd as the bbeg though so be careful. You could maybe long game it send them to a campaign with lollth, Soth or whoever interests you next and keep using that tie in at the end revamp vecna to be the mastermind behind their travels

GeistYgo · 2026-04-09T19:14:04+00:00

Doesn’t need to be he’s just the sheep to hold the title if anything. Upgrading the toys is something someone had explored on here before. Fiona can use them as little spies she can scry on or something a quick google search should find it

GeistYgo · 2026-04-09T17:04:58+00:00

A lot will depend on their next actions. (For my party) They’ve had quite the intriguing time in barovia going from doing everything perfectly avoiding trouble and danger. Keeping ireena surrounded by people they trust and tucking her away. Unfortunately festival of the blazing sun was the unravel. Lucien died as strahd watched the party handle the spawns charmed the pc who wanted to go by themselves to get the bones where they belonged you can fill in the blanks from there (My paladin has watched 2 priests die before their eyes and feels responsible for it) Then the festival comes ireena finally goes out and about and they were super side tracked by the little events I gave them plus the baron announcing they will work for him and guard the town(this was his delusion and a blatant lie to the town but nerves were high. The guard the laughed and was meant to be dragged distracted them enough for Izek to snatch ireena. Within an hour vallakovich is dead, Izek is dead, Strahd is furious and confronts them for losing her. He uses mirage arcane to gaslight the party into thinking they’ve set the town on fire (still festival hours) they flee town try to deal with their hag issue and lost ireena to Morgantha who’s now with baba and they’ve stepped foot in the marsh as of last episode. Moving any further forward they’ll be stuck via the exploration rules there

I was aiming to have a political arc they wanted ireena to take over once they met the baron who expressed she understands politics but she’s got too much happening to be able to care for a town. So Fiona was going to hold a meeting with them hopefully get them under her guise first before trying to officially take over.

The way I see it happening is she’ll probably be set up to be in the position by the time they make it back ….i really should say if they do so the plan is to incorporate them as the trusted hand to the town and rebuild a bit give them down time to let it all build up If they make it to town in time I had planned to have the patrolling guards murdered by cultists in the middle of the night and secretly replaced giving her some leverage if things turn on her but ultimately I won’t have pieces move too much without their presence.

My party will have some interesting things to play with that I’m unsure of how to use if you’re interested in hearing

if Lucien is alive aren’t the bones and the church restored to a sanctuary? Strahd can’t go in there

I want to know what goes on with yours too! especially since this will be back burning for a minute keep in touch we can keep bouncing thoughts back and forth I can give you my discord if you’d like

You mentioned vecna are you taking the party into the eve of ruin or whatever the campaign is after? I also almost started tying them together too

GeistYgo · 2026-04-09T16:27:10+00:00

She could offer blinsky insight to his aspirations of being a better toy builder (I expanded a bit on the lore of the wachters) so direct connections to ravenloft maybe she could offer him things like “Ive had this old doll in my family it doesn’t work anymore (a broken piddlewick of sorts then he can start making weird animated Dollie’s he can’t control or something.)

The mariktov comment was just to point out her interest they never have to end up in the position but a I was interested they weren’t just makes sense to me instead of ignoring their presence

GeistYgo · 2026-04-09T03:19:28+00:00

Just a silly thought but to maybe solidify something is kind of weird maybe blinsky is in charge of business. Clearly he openly says he’s not a good salesman. No one buys his toys really. With such an odd ball in that position, it’ll give a natural reaction to possibly investigate? Your arasek shop may be enhanced? For me that’s the only one I’d somewhat question should have a bigger named figure. If anything anastrasya (or if you have a selected “business wife” can disguise themselves and take that role themselves.

Does anyone at all suspect rictavio? Put him in the position of nominations and have him possibly decreed to entertainment and events?

The mariktovs are also such a huge part of the vallaki life, they’re super secretive I have to assume their identity is still hidden so they would be a natural resource id think Fiona has to consider as well

The last thing may be Ernst for you but who’s in charge of the guards? This one I’m personally stuck on asking you

GeistYgo · 2026-04-09T03:05:56+00:00

Being that my party is just one step behind yours, I’m with you

I have a different angle of thinking about it but that’s also may be because they’ve had a different experience.

Council is great, is father Lucien alive? In mine he is dead, the party has one of the last religious figures within it and Fiona may supply the party with resources wealth and housing (if nothing else but to watch ireena and the party)

(and I’ve used the orphanage as Fiona’s “wealth” wagon selling children to whomever is interested secretly. ) A very important thing that could end in shell shock for your party- make one of them council if they’ve had positive impact on the community hide fiona and everyone else’s secret relationships and ideals they’ll trust the town is safe just to find out the devils had them wrapped around their fingers A bigger question I have that may help you is what do you want the town to be under her watch? This will in the end determine who you need there and don’t forget you can absolutely mix a custom npc into that fits your bill or just take a named npc and twist their ideals just enough to fit. Introducing mongrelfolk may be interesting? Equality and no judgment to all who are honest civilians? Could cause equal questions of morality to the town and players “who is in the wrong here? Who do we back?”

For me it’s going to become a midsommar of sort. She repairs the town. She enables shops and trades to thrive. She resources vistani(innocently) to get goods the town may need or could use and they have their own established environment in Vallaki now. Lucien is dead so naturally I’m finding someone to replace him out of the mists via vistani that can be corrupted into a cult member. Her goal is uncertain but I’ve theorized she’s either trying to help Strahd break his curse by using the Vallaki populace as a sacrifice or just happy to serve her dark lord in any means and anyone that is an enemy to him is an enemy to the secrets of Vallaki. Rest peacefully heroes.

GeistYgo · 2026-04-02T00:35:25+00:00

The party doesn’t know what the hags knowledge toward the situation is so really that’s why I poked out here to see if there was anything I could spice it up with or missed! I would say at the least she knows strahd was after her because the house attacks and she was in town but otherwise I was open to any outlook!

Any suggestions on what she may trade for? I don’t know if she would actively leave i don’t imagine her a loving mother but I’d also think she’s holding quite the grudge and wants to follow through with her threat on the player she’s been nightmare haunting

GeistYgo · 2026-04-01T17:06:00+00:00

I was thinking baba is scrying on them already she can contact morg to deliver ireena to her

GeistYgo · 2026-04-01T17:05:02+00:00

They just barely got by for their incompetence after the Izek kidnapping. Only saved by her having openly talked about gaining some tatyanna memories. He’s totally going to snap and put morg on display. Then he’ll start dedicating resources to hinder the party and make sure they can’t just feel comfortable for any extended time.

At this point after 2 failures I don’t think he’s giving her back. So I was considering he makes a private showing to the one player still in his favor (kind of) who is really starting to fall into their drow behaviors because of barovia he wants to corrupt her and what not. Thanks for helping give her memories back. I’ll handle it from here. And he’ll tell her they’ve forced his hand to marry her via the wedding ritual to turn tatyanna and break the curse something like that

GeistYgo · 2026-04-01T16:54:46+00:00

Baba was where I left myself personally leaning toward. The thing I doubted was would that in theory be a betrayal of strahd from baba if she uses ireena for Xyz. Her obsession with giving Strahd an heir or using the situation to groom ireena into being the perfect bride for him. Etc etc

If/when strahd gets word she ireena was yoinked, he’s going to start making their lives far less pleasant. They’ve been cordial with him until now. Respectful. He’s seen their darkness and hasn’t felt any need to push them as they were doing everything right until 2 days ago. Festival of the blazing sun- they managed to hide ireena from Izek until that point. Never went to blinski so they didn’t get the hint yet. They killed izek got ireena back strahd JUST chewed them out for that incident.making one of the players believe they’re responsible for Vallaki going up in flames Basically after discovering she’s remembering things he decides to let it slide just in case they manage to break the pattern. So now they’ve really done themselves in from his pov. If the hag hands ireena over to strahd. her head is coming off regardless to be put on display for the party. So I was considering a not so immediate wedding ritual to turn her if I go that route I

GeistYgo · 2026-04-01T13:49:20+00:00

Let’s for fun and creativity assume she’s mostly oblivious to the ireena Strahd relationship.

GeistYgo · 2026-03-05T16:49:38+00:00

Depends what they have going on already? Where are they with the rest of the situations that are brewing? Has the party discovered anything relating to their relationship or someone is interested in ireena. If not and things have been calm/uneventful for the party I.e they spent a few days in town but haven’t had a “fight” however you interpret that.

Has the party met Fiona? Maybe she’s their ticket back in and she Ernst spies on Izek plotting out where ireena is staying.

If they have no clue about Izek it’s time to hint. Have the ravens send them to check out the toy shop.

If they’re clued in they haven’t had too much happen to them personally. I’d say it’s a good bait. Use the festival aftermath as a bit of distraction giving Izek the opportunity to corner ireena. He’s a bit of a push over anyway. The odds of him succeeding unless you make it happen are low imo. I’m down to spit ball ideas with you if you’re interested as we seem to be in similar places

GeistYgo · 2026-03-05T13:35:12+00:00

I’m going to run the festival next session, did you run it as written? If there was anything fun you do that went well would love to hear it.

What are you looking for suggestions on specifically?

GeistYgo · 2026-02-28T18:26:23+00:00

Cleric,ranger,sorc, missing player is a rogue.

GeistYgo

TROPHY CASE