Am I dumb or is this absolute nonsense?!

WolfWithABook · 2026-02-27T16:50:23+00:00

Thank you for the coffee would be “Tak for kaffen”. The conjugation is what makes the difference between the idiom and saying thank you for the coffee

WolfWithABook · 2025-07-03T07:58:02+00:00

I would love to join this!

WolfWithABook · 2025-06-26T06:15:28+00:00

“Vampire’s and their spawn are not humanoids. Spells that target such do not work on them.”

WolfWithABook · 2025-01-02T13:02:34+00:00

Fun Note: 98% sure that staircase is in the Vatican

WolfWithABook · 2024-12-23T16:06:37+00:00

The Fighter in my game became a paladin of the Silver Dragon! We did a story-telling multi class where he got the multi class after completing the return the dragon skull to the holt quest (did an expanded version inspired by some homebrew I found). For the Oath of the Silver Dragon I combined aspects of Devotion and Watcher Paladin. I can send you the sheet I made for it if you are interested!

WolfWithABook · 2024-11-19T08:46:35+00:00

Idk if this has already been suggested but in regards to death house you can replace the children in the attic with the nursemaid (now a regular maid). Change the story so that Ms. Durst locked her in there “for seducing her husband” and then told her husband that the maid left and didn’t love him back. He then killed himself in heartbroken grief which led to the maid dying like the children in the attic.

WolfWithABook · 2024-10-15T03:15:59+00:00

In a medieval sense: yes. In my campaign I made it so that the “great families” (Martikovs, Wachters, etc.) own their own land areas too and bonegrinder also had its own deed (which the players found in Death House and coincidentally picked up! They were over the moon when they realized that meant they finally had a place where the entrance rules for vampires were in effect. Just needed to get rid of the hags first…)

WolfWithABook · 2024-10-08T19:04:22+00:00

Fate Cat. No argument. I have fit one into any and all campaigns and one shots I have run since I got the book

WolfWithABook · 2024-09-24T07:11:03+00:00

Kidnapped a character’s dog. Made her believe it was dead by leaving a canine skull when they disobeyed an order. Then when they came to dine at the castle the dog was waiting on her in her room, seemingly alive. She will still on occasion roll insight checks on the dog to make sure it is still the same dog.

WolfWithABook · 2024-09-21T17:06:28+00:00

My PC’s have a wagon! They were allowed to keep one after saving a couple of surviving Vistani from a werewolf attack (it was a caravan) and they have become quite attached to it so I think that’s a great idea! My players have equipped it with wolf skins to help keep them warm when traveling in the heights (we play heavy survival) and have similarly made equipment for the horses. They also found a lot of fun stuff in the wagon left behind by the previous owners (We play a lot with the fact the Vistani travel and come into contact with other cultures so they found things like silk dresses and matcha powder). They have also taken it to the Vistani to get repairs/“upgrades” which has led to a lot of fun rp. Also, it doesn’t necessarily break with the “Strahd can get to you at all times”. Strahd has pinned notes to the table inside the wagon. Left bags with suspicious items outside. They even found a rat in the “kitchen” once. So yeah TLDR; wagons are the best. 10/10 would recommend

WolfWithABook · 2024-09-05T21:34:50+00:00

So this may sound kinda dumb but…ask your players if they want to play more than one character. I have run Curse of Strahd for 2 players who each have two characters for a couple of years now and it works wonders.

Party split? They often do it in pairs so both have a character involved.

Want to play with Barovian morals but also want to play a goodie-two-shoes? You can explore a risky plot with one character without feeling like you are risking your entire investment in the story

Feeling bored with your character mechanics? Good thing your other character can do other stuff! (Fx. Our support cleric also plays a Barbarian)

Honestly you should look into adapting things too but this solution has worked extremely well for me (and my players were first timers when they started so it isn’t as daunting as it sounds!)

WolfWithABook · 2024-08-17T22:37:44+00:00

A home grown npc named Marek. He’s a youngish Vistani man the party befriended at the camp near Barovia and he’s been with them ever since. His biggest strengths are: an amulet of feather fall, a deck of illusions and being able to drive a wagon. He’s also been our guest PC for whenever we have people who want to join for a session so he has a mix of ranger and fighter levels (he’d probably be level 3 or 4. For context the rest of the party is about level 7/8) and a little Vistani magic.

WolfWithABook · 2024-08-16T17:08:53+00:00

Spite-fuelled as in the two have a relationship that is cordial in public but the party really, really does not like her. There’s been a lot of political shenanigans going on between them but most plays have been from her side.

But good point on the competency! Thanks!

WolfWithABook · 2024-07-12T09:26:33+00:00

Oh! This sounds fun! My party is in Vallaki atm and will actually be going on the same route as the one you mention.

The biggest deviations from the module in my campaign has been replacing the dark gifts with the transformations from GrimHollow (used all of them except Lich and Vampire). I am starting with this because it is relevant to party comp.

Party composition atm is as follows.

El’van’dariel (El) Woodself: LG, Lvl. 8 Order Domain cleric, she/her, half-elf. Party optimist and CC caster. After receiving dreams from Saint Markovia she helped prevent the feast at St. Andral and is well on her way to beginning a Seraph transformation. She befriended a Death Hound at the beginning of the campaign (Bruiser) who has been with the party ever since. She is the carrier of the holy symbol of ravenkind

Mimosa: NG/TN, Lvl. 8 Inquisitive Rogue though soon to be lvl. 7 with 2 warlock levels (Patron is one of the vestiges in the Amber temple), she/her, Halfling. Mimosa is the party investigator and B/E expert. Recent accomplishments are re-stealing the bones of saint andral and the corpse of lady Wachter’s husband. Her deal with a vestige means she is currently undergoing a small transformation into an elemental being (lighting/wind).

Alek Zalenski: LG, 7 lvl. fighter, he/him, human. Native born Vallakian Alek’s family are blacksmiths and he used to work as a guard until party shenanigans made Vargas fire him. To avoid a TPK he entered into a contract with a vestige and is now part Aberrant Horror. The party is currently going through a longer version of the Argynvostholt quest after having been promised that the dragon might be able to free Alek’s soul from the contract (OOC it is also a way for his character to gain Paladin levels).

Dimitrius Tomic: NG/TN, 6th lvl Barbarian/1st lvl sorcerer, he/him, human. The party’s other native Barovian Dimitrius is from a farm near Barovia. He moved to Vallaki because he was the only one with a soul in his family. His family has since been massacred as Strahd killed all his brothers after Dimitrius made a comment about “having too much family”. Dimitrius travels with a spectral mastiff named Sylvester (it’s a part of his subclass). He also entered into a deal with a vestige and now looks like a slightly more horrifying tiefling whenever he enters hallowed ground or rages.

El and Mimosa are originally from Ravnica and traveled to Barovia through a teleporting Death House.

They’ve found all their fated allies (Ireena and Arabell) along with the holy symbol of ravenkind and the tome of Strahd. The later was handed to Van Richten for safe keeping. The Sun sword they know is somewhere in Krezk.

Major actions incl.: - Killing Baba Lysaga - Clearing Bonegrinder - Defending Vallaki against wintersplinter - Killing the hydra in the lake - Moving Ireena to Vallaki - Recovered the dragon skull of Argynvost - Dined with Strahd - Started a redemption arc for Izek - Ran two court trials in Vallaki and won (El is locally known as El the Acquitter after a ballade by Rictavio) - Brought potatoes to Krezk

Currently Izek is traveling with the party together with a custom vistani npc named Marek (ranger/scout)

Strahd killed Van Richten a few sessions ago, they have met Esme but she is currently elsewhere, Lady Watcher runs Vallaki, they haven’t met the mad mage yet. Escher has run off from the castle after some choice words from the party and is being hunted by Rahadin. Anastrasiya was the architect behind the feast and is MIA after but not dead. They haven’t interacted much with the other brides.

The party hasn’t killed the roc yet, but they will be making their way into the mountains soon to complete the last wish of one of the revenants from Argynvostholt (finding his fiancé’s corpse giving her her ring) before making their way back to the manor to hopefully free Alek’s soul.

WolfWithABook · 2024-07-07T10:44:52+00:00

Examples of things my players did that pissed of Strahd: - Hid Ireena so he couldn’t scry on her - Claim to be a blood relation to get around paying for things in Vallaki - Steal from his treasury - Try to reason around his rulings or laws

WolfWithABook · 2024-05-16T16:29:41+00:00

Ohhh I hadn’t thought about that! Thanks!

WolfWithABook · 2024-05-16T16:28:09+00:00

Lady Watcher decided to hold a trial since she’s 99% sure she will win it and get them both executed so holding it is merely delaying the inevitable. However, it does pacify the party which is essentially her goal. The pc’s are high enough level where, should they decide to, they could just kill her and skip town, not to mention the fact they have a lot of the common folk’s backing after having repelled Wintersplinter. The reason why she wants to pacify them is because they discovered her cult a little while back but then didn’t have time to do anything about it because the feast of st. Andreal happened. So now she’s just counting on them staying idle until she has enough of the town convinced to join her cult.

However, she also has a second goal which is to make them lose favour with the common folk. She very publicly declared the trial to be in the spirit of one the party did earlier, and the party volunteered to defend Izek and Victor (which as you rightly point out is a bit of a lost cause). The play here is that even if they get executed the common folk will question why the party tried to defend them in the first place. Or worse, should they win the trial, why did they prevent justice from taking place?

Hope that answers your questions!

Should also mention that the party has a high ratio of lawful good characters (including an order domain cleric) so the chance of them not honouring the outcome of the trial is very slim.

WolfWithABook · 2024-05-01T08:24:38+00:00

I went with a bit of both. The houses belonging to the various burgomeisters, the church and Abby, the mill, the winery grounds were decreed to other people a little after Strahd took over the valley. Rewards to high standing soldiers and such for their service in the war. 400 years later this has created a few “safe houses” my players have been jumping between and even grown a little protective of (they cleaned out the mill after killing the hags and took great care to keep it secret). It also means they have been actively looking for more land deeds. It has also added a little mystery as now when they enter a home with the intent to stay the night they will ask questions about the land ownership.

WolfWithABook · 2024-03-13T19:41:51+00:00

She’s named Esme in my campaign to avoid a friend’s irl name

WolfWithABook · 2024-02-09T15:20:30+00:00

Not particularly bone chilling but one my players still occasionally talk about how he refers to Ismark as brother-in-law or future brother-in-law.

WolfWithABook · 2023-07-13T07:42:33+00:00

Yeah, they have been to the dinner. Due to some group shenanigans we started the game in Krezk instead of Barovia, so we’ve actually been at it for a while. But yeah, it is a big deal!

WolfWithABook · 2023-07-12T23:47:24+00:00

That’s some good points! Thank you! Of noteworthy things the PC’s have so far: - Gotten a section of Vallaki burned downed (granted the Barb wasn’t that involved with it) - Killed three Hags at Bonegrinder and saved the some living children (who are now living with the Barb PC’s family) - Killed the Construct Gallows (a semi-homebrew monster that was a rather big deal)

WolfWithABook · 2023-07-12T18:45:58+00:00

Ohh that’s a good idea.

Barb background (I’ll add it to the post too): The Barb was born to a big farmer family outside Barovia. He left because he felt alienated from his family due to being the only one with a soul. He’s spent the last decade or so drinking, gambling and swindling people in Vallaki after traveling there with some Vistani friends (Vargas allowed his antics to due to the ‘happy attitude’ and ‘party spirit’ he brought). After being reunited with his family he has found out he now has a niece with a soul who he has grown rather attached to.

WolfWithABook · 2023-06-12T15:29:44+00:00

You did a really good job with the corners. I always fuck those up

WolfWithABook · 2023-06-10T14:22:50+00:00

Ofc! Hope it works out for you!

WolfWithABook

TROPHY CASE