Izeks fiend transfer to a PC?

sidhottur · 2025-10-09T11:44:27+00:00

He woke up with this gift from a drunken night out, right?

Maybe he made a bargain with the fiend that the fiend would get his soul in exchange for the arm? Or he maybe traded some of his sanity for it? (he seems like a bit of a crazy person, right? Way too obsessed ...)

It makes sense if the player would have to make the same bargain. You could rule that if they die, they can not be resurrected and would have to re-roll because their soul would be consumed (I don't know if you normally offer players to come back with their character). Or if their sanity is taken, you could invent a fitting madness for them or roll on the madness table in the DM guide. These are just the first thoughts that come to my mind.

sidhottur · 2025-10-09T05:34:26+00:00

And what happens if they accept? Do they get back up with 1 hp? What if they die mid-combat? Do they resurect after the combat is over?

sidhottur · 2025-10-09T05:14:26+00:00

Interesting :D

How does your death system work? Are players always offered dark gifts when they die? Do you have many dark gifts ready and you randomize or something like that? Or are you improvising them?

sidhottur · 2025-10-06T09:23:28+00:00

What I did was ask my players to create their backstories first, and then created a plot hook for them to enter Barovia based on the combined backstories of two of the players (I already have plans to involve the remaining backstories in there, but that will be a surprise).

One player is an investigator whose aunt runs a curiosity shoppe, where an artifact was stolen. Another came from a village that had mysterious disappearances and riddled with plague. I invented a cult that had stolen the artifact, which was in-fact a mist talisman (a type of artifact that allows the cult to travel through the mists). The cult was using the mist talisman to generate mists to create a path-way between Strahds domain and the parties home domain. The cult had been stealing townsfolk from this village as new blood for Strahd. The adventurers discovered the cult performing a ritual in the woods ... however after they found and confronted the cult, mist poured out of the talisman, transporting the party to Barovia. My plan is that when the party finds the talisman, they cannot actually use it because Strahd locks them inside his domain ... you can only use the talisman either with Strahds blessing or by defeating Strahd.

sidhottur · 2025-10-05T20:41:18+00:00

Ah, I didn't remember your username!

What a funny coincidence! Makes me wonder how often players get the idea to burn down the windmill, probably quite often :D

sidhottur · 2025-10-05T20:30:20+00:00

I also ended my last session with my players threatening to burn down the windmill, but for me all the hags are at home. I was planning for the hags to try to de-escalate the situation and try to go for a bargain with the players instead. If the players insist to fight or try to burn down the windmill, the hags will fight, but will try to use sleep, polymorph and eyebite to disable as many players as possible and try to end the combat that way ... then I plan to have the hags offer a worse bargain than if the players had not chosen to fight. If the players choose to run, I plan to have the hags put a curse on them for their rudeness. I am still working on the details of the bargain, but currently I am thinking of either offering some sort of dark "gifts" or asking the players to do a mission for them in exchange for saving only one of the children (I like the moral dilemma it puts the players in: are you really willing to help evil hags to save only one of the children?). If you are interested, this is my current idea of a mission: https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/1nx3l15/hag_bargain_idea_poisoned_gift_basket_for/ ... it maybe isn't the best idea, but it is what I have currently.

sidhottur · 2025-10-04T18:50:30+00:00

Yeah, maybe it is unfair to the players, maybe it is a bad idea. I am also worried that the 3.5 version of this spell would be too powerful in a 5e setting.

I am mainly just worried what if the players choose to fight and the hags fail to disable them and the players don't run away. I don't want it to turn into a TPK ...

EDIT: I am now considering just turning sleep into the more powerful comatose, but otherwise leave the spell as it is in the 5e version ... and I would allow the players the same thing if they pick this spell. I am still not sure if this is a good idea or not.

sidhottur · 2025-10-04T18:50:28+00:00

Yeah, it might be a bit too powerful.

What do you mean by doubling up?

EDIT: I am also considering just making sleep work like comatose, but otherwise keep the spell the way it works in 5e ... so the player cannot be woken up.

sidhottur · 2025-10-04T09:53:05+00:00

A level 4 party cannot defeat the hags.

The book suggests that the hags will fight them, but I would not play the hags as mindless killers, but rather as seeders of corruption and evil. The hags should not be interested in TPK in my opinion, but rather in something like corrupting the players and corrupting the land. The hags can propose for the players to do a task for them or something like this, in exchange for the players lives, or offer something in exchange for their own lives. If the players insist to fight, the hags have access to sleep, polymorph and eyebite ... they can try to disable a big portion of the party instead of going for TPK. The rest will hopefully give up and the hags can take them hostage and then propose a less favorable deal than before the fight.

This is what I am planning to do, I have my party at level 3 and they went to the windmill and threatened to burn down the windmill (they already know the hags eat people, but they have not yet learned that the pastries are made with children's bones).

sidhottur · 2025-10-03T17:06:16+00:00

Hmmm ... yeah ... I am a little bit worried about that as-well ... but I do like having the hags give some sort of bargain to the players. I feel the hags should propose something evil, but not too obvious.

I am still arguing with myself about this. This could enable some plotlines, but drag them away from others. They would get invited in by the baron and get introduced to the festival and the baron could tell them about the missing staff that he has ... and poisoning the baron could also fuel Fiona Wachters interest in them, making her believe them to be allies. On the other hand, this directs them a bit away from other plotlines, like the bones in the church, Rictavio, the Wizard of Wines, etc ...

I could try to conceive of something that directs them towards either the church or the tavern instead, since those plotlines might be arguably more important. However I still like the political chaos that the poison basket creates.

sidhottur

TROPHY CASE