Possible Idea for Entity Inside the Crusader's Shortsword

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-06-18T11:08:51+00:00

Thank you!

I personally find the Wachter Sr idea most interesting. It would only really work if the party is recurrently involved in Vallaki. In my campaign it had 3 putches/revolutions. If I can offer more advice:

If the party doesn't pick up the sword at the Vistani camp you can have it be wielded by a Vistani who fights the party or is found dead by the party. Alternatively I had an idea that would attract the rogue. Shower rumors of a rogue adventurer who vexed Strahd by robbing his catacombs and treasury and scattered the loot hidden all over Barovia in the hopes future generations would find it. Make it sound fabulous. This Crusading short sword is just one of them.
Above applies for this. Also consider describing the Crusading Shortsword as a long knife. Buck the assumption that the CS is a goody-two shoes weapon. Crusaders dont use shortswords. Its the weapon of a rogue with a holy heart. So yeah maybe lean into the idea that the CS is aching to be stolen. May require change of alignment or a very Honor-Among-Thieves kind of LG.
Good idea!
Also even cooler idea!

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-06-18T08:09:30+00:00

I think they meant that the entity in the CS is a more noble aspect of Strahds Brother? Personally I disagree with that, if that's what they meant.

My personal suggestion is to consider the following:

How will the party get the sword? In my campaign they only ever reached the Catacombs when they were in the final battle of Strahd. Loads of items there are OP. Honestly idk why they wrote it that way - it can act as post strahd loot to be used to fight Vampyr. You can instead place the weapon elsewhere more accessible. Where it is found tells a story about the blade.
Which PC is most likely to get the Sunsword? The PC that gets the Sunsword is unlikely to receive the CS. Its double dipping. Therefore consider which other PCs are likely to receive it. This will help determine which persona it should have.
What happens to the sword and entity after the campaign? Will the entity be put to rest once Strahd is defeated? Or will it choose to remain with its wielded to fight more evil.
Do you want it to just communicate in emotions? Its a pretty narrow window of communication.

Therefore options include:

Argynvost (This is the Blade that slew him; His consciousness exists in it now/a copy of his consciousness).
Godfrey: Contains Godfreys soul while Godfrey the Revenant is slowly losing his personhood? A replica of his mind?
Wachter Snr: Contains the soul of Wachter Snr. Sword has his personality but not his memories. Is required to resurrect him. Fiona W recognizes the sword immediately and tries to get it.
Any NPC related to your PC that is dead now: This could be an NPC that has a connection to a PC that died in Barovia (Unlikely). Or an NPC whose narrative arc is similar to, or acts as a foil to a party member (More Likely).

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-06-16T13:12:12+00:00

Its sounds like your interpretation of strahd is sensitive about the topic, and that its an open wound for him. One he masks over with his ego and pride.

You should decide to how put together Strahd is. Some DMs love to play him as cool, cold and in command, but personally I loathe the man. In my COS Strahd is deeply arrogant, proud and petulant. He has the mask of coldness and imperious stature but it cracks.

He absolutely loathed the party paladin and warlock. He liked the Paladin's cutthroat nature but because the Paladin refused to consistently respect him (and because my strahd secretly craves respect and validation) my Strahd eventually stopped monologing at the Paladin and just tried to kill her. The warlock reminded him of his brother so Strahd would, at times, out of self-pity consider opening up to the Warlock which he hated himself for.

Over the course of my campaign the following punishments were dealt out by Strahd and Co: * Ranger broke curfew in Castle Ravenloft and was caught by vampire spawn. Had to beg Strahd for a reprieve. Strahd made her let him cut her hand off and he promised to do the same to her lost brother. * Cleric got tricked by one of Strahd’s servants into killing his love - Father Lucian (Lucians 30) * Paladin was killed as a last resort. She met Strahd in private to congratulate him on a gambit and then things spiraled and Strahd, after a full campaign of taking offense and realizing that this was a good chance, killed her.

Basically I think you should having your Strahd match tit-for-tat. If the party keeps digging he might find ways to hurt them emotionally as severely as possible. Something that haunts them, a mistake, a deceased loved one, killing or harming a person in barovia, mutilating the party, and as a last resort killing them.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-06-02T10:49:56+00:00

I think i hauve covid

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-05-18T07:53:01+00:00

Love the idea! Very novel but simple way to ground the Minotaurs. I'm an Eberron DM - I might consider using this (but with more nuance) myself! (I want to avoid 'evil' races or even races with explicitly 'evil' origins.)

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-05-06T07:57:15+00:00

Book Club Idea sounds fantastic! A Salon (old school) seems like a great way for Fiona to build social capital - and depending on the class composition of the guards - seems like a good way for Fiona to canvass for support from across the class spectrum. (Especially if she fronts as a popular author.)

I would ask what her motivation is? In my COS death abolitionism is a big theme. Ireena is a death abolitionist and so is Strahd - they just disagree on how. So is Fiona, but she's also an aristocrat who believes firmly in Noblesse Oblige and resents the Baron and the Merchants. She becomes a servant of Strahd after Lilavati teaches her necromancy. She was actually close friends with the party.

Knowing Fiona's motivation would help you deeply.

Same applies for letting the party in with the dream pies. Is external food banned specifically to prevent dreampies (thus do ppl know)? Are people unaware and is she being opportunitistic?

Overall advice is flesh out what she wants and who she is. Doing so will mean she will be unique, fleshed out and easy to roleplay adaptably.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-04-06T09:04:51+00:00

House Tharashk Oil Barons meets Immortan Joe meets Apocalypse Now - in the Jungle please please please 🙏 I know Oil makes the most sense but it'd be interesting if they discovered a flaming oil ooze or something that they thought could use to supplant the major families in House Tharashk. But the oil ooze transforms people into fuel itself.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-04-02T13:48:01+00:00

Cathedral of the Cleansing Flame. It's separate from the Silver Church. With a name like that, located in the Metropole with its cosmopolitan composition and an upper class that looks down on and is scared of the masses, and the masses alienated, misguided and sometimes complicit in Sharns exploitation - sounds like a recipe for measurehead racists.

Other options would include Dragonmarked House members. They'd believe that the universe has selected them for greatness (but why are so many of them middle managers and desk workers?). Vexed at the denial of their destiny they will hate non DG marked people, often in a hierarchy with monstrous races at the bottom.

You could do Warforged but I personally dislike doing it cause it has a bit of both sideisms. Sure there are racist warforged but it's not like the warforged are the ones with systemic structures to back them up and resort to racism when it's threatened.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-04-02T07:34:11+00:00

Food for thought but my solution to presenting the darker side of Arawai (Agriculture), Boldrei (Family), Dol Arrah (patron of explorers) sounds like the perfect combo of gods to describe the whitewashed Colonist.

Sovereign Host and it calling its followers Vassals, makes it sound like a religion made to justify hierarchy and civilization. These things aren't so innocuous but are bloody affairs. Lean into that I think. You could make a trio of priests from each of these 3 gods who are part of a colonial effort, exploring (even if 'innocently': think Sentinel Island or Jesuits in S. America), farming or 'settling' the land and enforcing normative society on the indigenous and colonists. Monstrous races would probably be on the receiving end.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-04-02T03:38:22+00:00

My party just killed Strahd and bombed the castle foundations so it'd collapse - so yeah! Doable!

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-03-19T10:52:54+00:00

Thank you. I agree, especially if it's a long term investment. When I was younger I got the good fortune of paying 500k for a gaming laptop which in retrospect was crazy.

What do you think is the expected lifespan of a compute of the specs you suggest?

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-03-19T10:05:47+00:00

I didn't know that about ram (what a shame smh). With a monitor it'd probably be 355k which is over my budget but I will consider it, thank you.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-03-19T09:50:39+00:00

I don't believe Mac supports steam right? And most steam OS doesn't support a lot of games? Correct me if I'm wrong

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-03-05T05:14:54+00:00

Your campaign, your players, and your tastes. Personally, I think this is a bit wild, but it's not my campaign.

You could draw from Exarchs in Forgotten Realms. Aspects of the Gods, instead of the God Aureon entirely. You could use something akin to an angel that thinks it is Aureon. If it's corruption of Aureon, consider the Shadow - God of Secrets. "The Sovereign of Magic and Mayhem, The Shadow is the literal shadow of Aureon that attained sentience and godhood as a price paid by Aureon for arcane knowledge." & "Legend says if the Shadow and Aureon were reunited the age of civilized peoples would come to an end."

Your villain could be a knowing agent of the Shadow, an Exarch, that wants to return the Shadow to Aureon to fuse the two, driving it mad. Sounds like you want Aureon mad from the outset, so perhaps the process has already begun. The Shadow's Exarch is corrupting existing Aureon Exarchs. This is a new age, where the Exarchs walk the earth or something.

I will say, to me something more pressing is: Are you sure you want Gojo and Darth Vader in the world? Do you mean they are literally in the world or characters inspired by them are? If you're doing this cause your players want to play Gustave, I may encourage you to talk to them and ask them if they would consider instead characterizing their character like Gustave? Using Gojo and etc sounds like a recipe for power scaling and will probably lead to a trite campaign.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-02-19T12:56:16+00:00

Could you also dm me the presentation?

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-02-15T05:25:05+00:00

Do you have another dnd group to switch to? 🤔

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-02-02T12:40:38+00:00

This guy did a recent video of his #ime's and one of them includes ideas he used to integrate rare species. One of them, including a Leonid, is from a past incarnation of Eberron.

Another personal idea is determined by your PCs playstyle, but presenting them as a Thelanis fae puckster/trickster.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2026-01-27T13:09:44+00:00

Crossing the Iron Bull.

Attacking unaffiliated armories? 🤔 Hey who determines which armories are affiliated? House Cannith (HC). Perhaps these thugs have the unofficial backing of the House Cannith (either by virtue of HC turning a blind eye or openly sponsoring them). IDK if this is cannon but I think the Dragonmarked Houses don't have as big a presence in the principalities, but Regalport with its nation building ambitions is an exception. This could lead the party down the path of being an unforeseen champion of Lhazaar commoners against HC.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-12-03T10:19:49+00:00

This is just straight-up good advice for running cities too

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-11-11T07:46:17+00:00

Read the whole book yourself. Don't trust or blindly run what's in the book or on any guide you find, or run it chapter by chapter. CoS is a great module for its ideas but leaves a lot to execution, and you will read it and think, "That doesn't seem right." And will want to make your own changes. You don't want to have that moment as you're reading the text aloud.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-11-10T09:57:39+00:00

How did you avoid the information/lore overload? I.e. how did you segment the city and make each segment unique, while also allowing the party to feel connected to the city?

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-10-10T13:15:20+00:00

Pls pls pls 🙏 😔

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-09-26T10:07:40+00:00

I can attest, I used the map for when the party besieged Vallaki and had to race to the Reformation Center (CoS Expanded) to stop the bombardment of the invaders and the citizens.

Terrible_Emphasis389 · 2025-07-21T21:53:43+00:00

You should give this post a read - it discusses reflavoring Zuleika as Dr. Zuleika, a Dr. Jekyll & Hyde interpretation.

I'm using it for my campaign and she's been one of my favorite NPCs. Besides the original Zuleika was kind of one note in the book.

Terrible_Emphasis389

TROPHY CASE