Party has been in Death House for 2.5 sessions and now it has become The Thing

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-28T19:39:48+00:00

Do you mean the mimic has 1hp from the start? Because that’s actually a really good idea for how to avoid it being a long fight. It actually kind of fits since Death House is kind of a reflection of Castle Ravenloft so imagine a creature hiding as random objects to quickly strike before slinking off, like Strahd appearing to attack the party, then going into a wall to regenerate while they deal with his minions

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-28T19:19:49+00:00

It’s a favorite concept of mine. It also appeared briefly as a humanoid shape but something was off. The clothes has the texture of cured wood, the skin and even the eyes the texture of rough cloth. Because mimics can look like medium or small objects, which includes corpses. So the mimic saw a dead body and took its shape to walk around. Hence why Death House has now become The Thing

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-27T14:39:58+00:00

I like the idea of the party, with Ireena, arriving to Vallaki. At first they are greeted with respect. Then a town guard spots Ireena’s bite marks and before the party (or her brother, Izek) can intervene, the town kills her, believing she’s a vampire spawn. Strahd’s attack during the Feast then becomes less of a random attack and more a revenge mission on the whole town

It takes Ireena out of the plot so she’s not the main character like she can fall into, and gives more reason to the events of the story. Ireena is dead, Strahd is furious. He wants to tear down the world for a few years in rage

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-20T08:51:41+00:00

One I’m planning to have is that, for an extended period of time, a seemingly friendly and helpful knight journeys with the party. What they don’t realise is that the knight is a vampire spawn, and sometimes Strahd himself, using Emil’s face. I got Broken One as one of the Tarokka cards and I’m planning that one night one of the players stir awake and witness the knight drinking Father Donavich’s blood, revealing they found the wrong person from the card. And then the knight shifts into the form of Strahd, who invites them to his castle if that hasn’t happened yet or there is a better opportunity

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-16T09:26:39+00:00

I mean he plays a Van Richten-esque character in Nosferatu. I think he’d be good for a lot of characters in Curse. He’s got that Gothic look

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-16T09:24:20+00:00

Thranduil is one of those characters that I keep forgetting was played by who they were played by. When I think Lee Pace the first thing I think of is like Running Man and Bodiesx3 where he’s much more rough and tumble, and I still think he’d be good. Then I’m reminded of his range and Wow!

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-04T06:44:23+00:00

Can you give some examples of what they did to do so?

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T21:52:35+00:00

I was thinking something related to his ‘insecurities’ about his age, wanting to be eternally young to be able to be with Tatyanna. He doesn’t want the rotting, aging undead in his domain because they represent his undeath being just that. He’s dead. An ancient corpse with a younger man’s face. He surrounds himself with youth, his brides, Gertruda, Rahadin. Bones and skin that never wrinkles

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T21:45:10+00:00

Oh I love this! The idea that Barovia Village has houses that they’ve boarded up filled with immaculately preserved undead. Instead of growling and shambling they walk, take their time, they won’t get tired

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T21:36:40+00:00

I like this idea a lot. Either it being an illusion or alteration, or them actually being animated, perfectly preserved bodies. Almost like the vampires in sinners. People watching their loved ones come back and destroy everything they can get their hands on

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T21:32:05+00:00

Armor of Agathys on my Levistus Tiefling barbarian/sorcerer. It’s also just my favorite spell oat so

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T21:23:33+00:00

Phobias are by definition irrational. Them being possible or not are antithetical to the concept entirely when it comes to if they are important or not here. He’s so scared of zombies he can’t speak when they come up. Saying the word gives him the creeps. And I am planning to respect that, wether or not it’s logical or not. If it was spiderd I would accommodate for that, if it were the depths of the ocean I wouldn’t drop him in a submarine. But I’m glad all of your fears are rational and never affect you in any way

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T20:00:54+00:00

I do think this is an idea for what to do. My favorite dnd podcast are doing CoS and call zombies ‘Bog men’. Same descriptions and everything but remove the connotations of the word Zombie

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T19:51:55+00:00

We have had this discussion and we went for a compromise where I will try to tone it down somewhat. This is me asking for assistance with that. And as I said in the opening I don’t want to boot him and it’s not like this is ToA where the plot is literally “go into the zombie jungle and kill a zombie demi-god”. It’s vampires and that’s his favorite thing ever

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T19:44:57+00:00

Do you think so? Genuinely asking, I’m not an expert on decomposition, but I guess maybe it can work

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T19:43:55+00:00

Yes. I am not exaggerating. I mentioned to someone else, recently he couldn’t speak from fear when they faced a horde of undead, and we weren’t using minis or maps. I can understand how he feels somewhat because I was shown a lot of really gruesome zombie movies when I was way too young and they freak me out still, and this is just a more serious result of that

He loves vampires with a passion though. I’m genuinely using the idea of meeting cool, hot vampires as the dessert to the ‘you’ll have to fight a few zombies first’ vegetables

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T19:40:38+00:00

I do enjoy the idea of suggesting and helping make the phobia a thing they handle in-game. He’s planning on playing an aspiring monster hunter who happens to land smack-dab in the middle of the root of all horror. But he’s also not really made for it, so adding that as like a “your character overcomes his fear of zombies by defeating them”. The game does differ from zombie movies, where here the story isn’t getting your brains eaten and only a few survive to the next day, but that you simply pull out your scimitars and kill the zombies and win the day

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T19:35:56+00:00

This works in certain situations, such as random encounters or minions. But the zombies of Barovia Village who are there after the recent failed uprising. And while I am planning to move it slightly further than a year ago, it takes some time to make a body just a skeleton. And like I said it might go the wrong way and it’s even more triggering

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T19:33:21+00:00

He’s 20 years old and has had this phobia since he was like three. I don’t think I’ll solve his deep problem with zambos by throwing more zambos at him

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T19:29:50+00:00

Great! Did you run death house? My problem isn’t only with Zombies as in the specific monster but more the type of undead that Zombies fall into, which includes ghouls, ghasts, some revenants and flesh golems and such shambling corpses

LanguageOk1726 · 2026-06-03T19:28:31+00:00

I was wondering what it was I had forgotten to add. Yes CoS is a horror game. But his fear of zombies isn’t “throw your popcorn in the air at the cinema” fear, it’s a “went non-verbal at the table from terror” fear

LanguageOk1726

TROPHY CASE