You can watch this episode here on youtube.

Welcome to a summary of Episode 3! Timestamps are at the bottom.

It looks like there are some people who aren't thrilled with Dice, Camera, Action! so far.

I can see what they are saying, but it hasn't hampered my enjoyment of the show. I am assuming that it will take this group a bunch of sessions before they find a rhythm.

To me, this is a D&D game. I'm not watching this like it is a TV show where the performers need to entertain me. I am watching this to gain insight into how Chris runs an actual game, and to see his vision of how this adventure should be run.

Warning: You might want to skip the first 30 minutes of this video. There is a lot of sound interference. I guess it was rain and thunder from outside..? It's pretty hard to watch. The good news is that once it stops, I'd say this was the best session yet and the group really clicked.

Last Time: The Wafflers went to bury a guy and fought a vampire spawn, who ran away. We left off with the group in the cemetery, surrounded by dozens of wolves...

The Party

The Waffle Crew

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard

The wolves surround the heroes. The nearest wolf is about 30 feet away. Ismark says that they are the eyes and ears of the devil. Strix tries to intimidate the wolves and rolls a one. The wolves roll their eyes.

Lightning flashes for a moment - they spot a humanoid shape. It disappears. The wolves sort of back off.. it's kind of like the ending of The Birds.

In real life, Holly's cat jumps onto her chair.

Strix befriends a crow. It perches on her head, then flies over to a tombstone of someone named Escher. It flies out of town toward a place called Vallaki. The group decides to follow it.

The heroes walk down a road for a bit. They pass an old gallows. When Diath looks back at the noose, he sees a body hanging from it. The rest of the group sees it. Evelyn wants to go poke it. The body looks just like Diath. Diath examines it and is freaked out.

The group goes to Tser Falls. There are vistani (gypsies) camped there, and they are drunk. Paultin jumps right in to party with them. Evelyn does too.

Diath and Strix creep around. They slip into a tent and meet a fortuneteller - Madame Eva. Chris does a great Madame Eva voice.

Madame Eva knows a lot about Strix. We get confirmation that Strix was a member of the Dustmen in Sigil (they pick up dead bodies in The Hive and bring them to the mortuary). Eva says that Strix was actually born in Barovia and that the villagers would have killed her if she had stayed. The vistani brought her to Sigil when she was a baby.

Madame Eva says: "You were raised in the city of doors. All doors lead home."

Strix has an aunt, a brother and three cousins. Her brother is dangerous and special, like Strix. He is a "bad man."  Madame Eva says that when Strix sees rotten wolf heads, her family is close.

The rest of the Wafflers gather in Madame Eva's tent. Paultin is drunk. Madame Eva knows much about them, and freaks everyone out.

Eva says that Evelyn was brought to Barovia by Lathander. Evelyn is the "key" to everything that is happening. "It is a wonder that Strahd hasn't noticed you, yet."

Madame Eva does the tarokka reading. It is fun to follow along in the Curse of Strahd book to see what the results mean. I won't spoil it here. This reading determines the most important details in the entire adventure.

The best part is that Chris actually mailed the players tarokka cards a month ago. The players haven't been allowed to open them until now. The envelopes are sealed with wax. Here's the results of the reading:

• (Diath's card) The Tome of Strahd: Bishop - They'll find it "..beyond the amber doors."
• (Evelyn's card) The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind: Abjurer - The symbol is in "a fallen house guarded by a stone dragon."
• (Strix's card) The Sunsword: Anarchist - "Wall of bones - remains of enemies long forgotten."
• (Paultin's card) Strahd's Enemy: Mists - "A vistana searching for her mentor at St. Markovia's Abbey."
• (Chris's card) Strahd: Raven - "Look to the mother's tomb - the mother of evil." Madame Eva straight tells them that the mother of evil lies under Castle Ravenloft.

Evelyn gets jealous when Madame Eva says the vistana will be very important to Paultin. Later on, she convinces Paultin to come visit a windmill with her once the adventure is over.

The Mysterious Envelope

Diath asks Eva why he saw himself hanging from the gallows. She says the land is trying to turn the heroes against each other and themselves.

Paultin, still drunk, almost barfs on the table. He wants Madame Eva to rank his mystery woman's looks on a scale from 1-10. Madame Eva starts swearing at the heroes, which is most amusing. 

Hanging out with the vistani, the group learns about a wizard who rallied the people to fight Strahd at Castle Ravenloft, but the wizard fell a thousand feet to his death during the conflict. The vistani went to find the wizard's body, but it was gone.

The group learns that Strahd once had a consort named Tatyana. They also learn that many Barovians have no souls - they have no charm and no spark. They don't cry.

Strix asks the vistani about ravens. Ravens carry lost souls with them. They don't associate with people. Strix gets on her horse and is described as a "moth-eaten heap of sadness."

The adventurers borrow horses from the vistani. Strix and Evelyn have to share one. It is named Valentina.

The group argues about whether or not to check out the windmill that they specifically were told to avoid.

The adventurers travel the road and pass numerous landmarks. They come to another set of massive gates.

They spot.. a windmill! And the mysterious crow is there. That's where we end it.

Chris asks the group if they want to go to the windmill. Everyone but Diath wants to go.

Time Stamps

• (22:00) "My son is gone!"
• (26:38) Ireena ruins Evelyn's happy place.
• (36:10) The hanging body.
• (58:36) The tarokka reading.
• (1:11:10) Madame Eva has a surprisingly foul mouth.
• (1:35:18) Diath and Paultin share a horse... and maybe more.
• (1:36:38) Comparing notes on the windmill.

Thoughts

The Water: There were some serious sound issues for the first 30 minutes. It honestly sounded like someone taking a pee. It was very distracting, to the point that I could barely focus on what was happening.

Everything Comes Together: I can imagine people tuning out from the sound problems, which is too bad because once we got past the flushing sound, the group really started to gel. The tarokka reading was really fun and all of these players are really fun and funny. You could sense the group forming a cohesive whole.

Good episode!

I got an art commission for this campaign. Above is Bidam looking at the planar compass, Theran getting ready to load it, and the Lady of Pain looming behind them. I like to get at least one art commission for each of my campaigns.

This week we are going through an adventure in Undersigil. I dug up all of the material I could find on it - which isn't much. A lot of the best stuff is in Planescape: Torment. Stuff I like:

• The Warrens of Thought: Home of the cranium rats.
• The Weeping Statue: A weird talking stone head that leaks polluted water through its eyes.
• A Weird Coffin Room: Glowing coffins and a dead body.

If you want an easy way to scan material to use in Planescape:Torment, check out this youtube playlist. You can skim the list and click on any places that look interesting to you. This game is overloaded with well-developed ideas that capture the Planescape feel.

Last Time: The heroes killed a swarm of 100 cranium rats. Now, the rest of the rats, known collectively as Many-as-One, are out for revenge.

Additionally, last week the heroes found an item that could possibly change Sigil and threaten the Lady of Pain. This is the Staff of Aoskar, an item that can supposedly create and alter portals. There is a sect called the Will of One (from Uncaged: The Faces of Sigil) who want it, as they want to bring Aoskar back. They are allied with Fell, the Fallen Dabus.

I actually had an art commission done a few years ago that depicts Aoskar:

Here, he's undead - That campaign was about "zombie gods" stomping around cities like Godzilla. I found a description online that said he had a big beard and a "universe" robe. It described his staff in detail. There are other people who think Aoskar has two heads. This is because his followers bred Aoskian hounds - dogs with two heads.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Selinza ("Litorian" Wizard, level 1)

The River Styx

The heroes took my donald trump NPC to the river styx and dumped his head in it. This wiped his memory clean. I am going with the 2e river styx rules as opposed to the 5e river styx, which feebleminds you.

They left memory-wiped donald trump with their wannabe-demonlord friend and went to their home. I had made a map of the place that the heroes live in ("Deadbook Square") and I gave the players each a copy.

On the way home, they gave the staff of aoskar to a dabus. They would learn a short while later that somebody attacked the dabus and stole the staff!

I did some more stuff involving Shemeshka using her political organizations to mess with the heroes. They did not figure that out she was behind it:

• Inspection: The heroes had their festhall inspected, and they learned that their staircase was not "centaur-accessible." They were fined and had to have the staircase widened or else The Guvner faction would shut them down.
• NPC Bar Fight: Members of the Adventurers' Guild came to the square and started trouble at the Smoldering Corpse Inn. Bidam and Theran had to break a fight up between them and the devils. This other adventuring group is an "alternate universe" version of the heroes in Chris Perkins' Dice, Camera, Action game. In this group, Evelyn is a paladin of The Raven Queen. These new adventurers chastised the heroes for not joining the Guild and for letting devils live in their square.

Revenge of the Cranium Rats

Shortly after that, the entire horde of cranium rats came to Deadbook Square to get revenge. 350 cranium rats attacked everyone in the square, letting off massive mind blast pulses. 20 devils rushed out to fight them, but many of them got stunned. The heroes started hitting the swarm with area effect spells and powers.

The 99 gargoyles came out of the screaming tower to help. Then the hag from the tower came out and started firing off spells.

The rats were starting to get slaughtered, so they scattered.

Parlakk Ratcatcher

The group met with a guy named Parlak Ratcatcher (from Uncaged: Faces of Sigil). He explained to the group that there are actually four different cranium rat hiveminds in Sigil. Many-as-One is the dominant one, the other three lie beneath the city in the realm known as Undersigil.

Parlakk Ratcatcher was linked to another hivemind, known as Vermin Supreme. A deal was worked out. Vermin Supreme would help the heroes recover the Staff of Aoskar if they would help destroy Many-as-One.

Undersigil

The group went down to Undersigil. They took out some wererat guards and there was a fairly epic battle and a blazing inferno. In the end, the heroes had wiped out Many-as-One. Vermin Supreme was now the dominant cranium rat hivemind in Sigil.

Vermin Supreme had seen people with the staff of aoskar in Undersigil. They led the heroes to a stone face in the wall. polluted water seeped from its eyes and mouth.

The Weeping Stone

This is a modified version of a scene out of Planescape:Torment. Here, the heroes talked to the face and learned that they had to give him some fresh water. They opened their canteens, and gave him some. He thanked them and slid up into the ceiling, opening up a secret passageway.

Fell and the Staff of Aoskar

Fell

The adventurers crept down the passageway. In a chamber beyond, they listened to the bad guys. It was Fell, the rogue dabus, and three scummy-looking people (members of a sect known as The Will of One). Fell was practicing the use of the Staff of Aoskar, trying to open portals. The heroes remembered that Fell was the dabus who actually started worshiping Aoskar way back when.

He opened one to The Beastlands, and a small mortai (cloud with a face in it) came through. The portal closed. The mortai started arguing with them - it wanted to return home.

That's when the heroes jumped in. They wanted to get surprise, but Fall From Grace rolled low and I guess her chastity bodice rubbed against the stone wall and made a clattering sound.

Fell cast phantom steed. He and a flunky jumped on it and sped off down a hallway at 100 feet per round! The other two flunkies didn't want any trouble.

The heroes cut a quick deal. They jumped on the mortai (who was marshmallow-like in solidity) and chased after Fell. In return, they told the mortai that they would get him back to The Beastlands.

The Chase

Coaxmetal, the iron golem

When I was cooking up this adventure, I looked through the DMG for assistance. I didn't want to make a boring final fight. I saw an option about having a chase, and I thought that would be cool.

So in this encounter, the heroes slowly close in on Fell as they race through Undersgil. They trade range attacks with the guy on the horse while Fell uses the staff to open small, temporary portals to the plane of fire that shoot out jets of flame and etc.

The group sped through:

• The Dead Nations: A vast complex full of sentient undead.
• The Silent King's Throne Room: A ruler of the dead.
• Symbol of Torment: A strange chamber with huge bladed symbols in the ground (that's the symbol of Torment, a room The Nameless One goes to in Planescape:Torment).
• Secret Dabus Area: A place with shimmering white walls and 30 dabuses.. This might be the rumored place where the dabus actually live. I read a really cool theory that the dabus might be what people are reborn as when they die in Sigil.
• Coaxmetal's Forge: The final area - a forge where a 30 foot tall iron golem hammered away. This is Coaxmetal, a really cool NPC from Planescape:Torment.

This was a way for me to throw concepts at the players, just to try to give them a taste of some of the cool stuff under the city.

The heroes fought Fell and his flunky. Fell revealed a really cool power. He's like other dabuses - he communicates with symbols that float above his head (called rebuses). Fell can actually make a rebus real!

Example of Rebuses - translation at bottom.

So I had Fell "say" to the heroes: "Can I axe you a question?" And the axe became a gigantic magic axe that starts hacking into them.

Theran went down during the battle, but he rolled a 20 on a death save and popped back up!

Once the flunky died, the Lady of Pain appeared. Fell cowered before her. She snatched the staff of aoskar from him and let him leave. Fall-From-Grace theorized that she lets Fell live because if he dies, the spirit of Fell gets to move on. By keeping him alive and a prisoner in Sigil, he has to live forever in shame.

Then she turned to the heroes and did weird stuff to them:

• Bidam's Void: She stared at Bidam. Bidam felt a void grow in his heart (literally). He also felt the exterior of his heart being covered in cool metal. My idea here is that the heroes will soon be chasing after the Iron Shadow, a piece of the lady of pain that broke off and now is wandering the planes causing problems. Bidam's heart can now act as a prison for the Iron Shadow.
• Theran's Spell Book: The Lady looked at Theran. His spellbook bean to glow. He heard the sound of a pen scratching on paper. Something had been written in his book. This is sort of "blank check" I wrote myself. I'm not sure what's in there yet - it's invisible writing. I'm going to think it over during the week and have it ready for next session.

The heroes vanished in a flash and found themselves back in their home up in Sigil. They took the mortai to the beastlands.

A'kin the Friendly Fiend

Unity of Rings

Upon returning home, an NPC named Unity of Rings sidled up to Theran. He is a guy who gives advice (he's also from Uncaged: Faces of Sigil). He told the heroes that A'kin the Friendly Fiend's magic shop was giving out free items. He 'advised' the heroes to check it out.

They did. As soon as they entered the shop, A'kin (a raavasta, like Shemeshka the Marauder) put a "closed" sign on the door.

A'kin listed the organizations that were harassing them:

• Mutual Trade Association
• Knights of the Cross-Trade
• Runners & Escort Guild
• Adventurer's Guild

All of them were run by Shemshka! A'kin said that he knew a way to get rid of her once and for all...

That's where we stopped. It was a pretty good one. I'm going to do two more semi-homebrew sessions and then start Tales from the Infinite Staircase.

Today I'm going to write about something near and dear to my heart - getting art commissions for roleplaying games. I love getting professional art of characters from my campaigns. Having an actual visual representation of the heroes helps so much and helps the players get into the game more.

I have one artist that I go to. Well, they're twins, so it's really two artists. They are very inexpensive, really fast, and very professional. They are the Fraim Brothers.

I order black and white art. I think for younger people, black and white art is no good. I grew up with black and white interior RPG art, so it's fine with me. The Fraims do color, but it costs more. Sometimes I take a stab at coloring them on my own in photoshop, with mixed results.

Finding an Artist

I have tried other artists and it is almost always a fiasco. Most artists don't return my messages.

Some tell me they only take commissions of stuff they feel like drawing, and that my thing didn't fit the criteria.

The biggest pains are the ones who take your money and then take forever to do the work (if they do it at all).

I found one artist who drew art on a live stream. She was really good. She took my money to draw a dwarf (no background, just one dwarf) and told me it might take a few weeks. It took her 4 months to get around to it. Keep in mind, she drew on her livestream all the time. She just had to wait until she felt like it. It was a good piece of art, but it was not worth the wait.

Don't Be Vague

The key to getting an art commission is in your description. Don't be vague and make sure you send reference images.

I had one player who was in marketing. I asked him to send me a description of his character to send to the artists. His description of his character was the most bizarre thing I'd ever read. I don't remember the exact description, but it was something like:

"Think of a bodybuilder combined with the Hulk. He's got a helmet with one horn on it and the biggest sword you've ever seen. He's pro-active and screams INTENSITY." 

He included an image of an oily, steroided-up bodybuilder doing a posing routine.

Here's the pencils of the group image. See if you can spot his character:

This art came back and he didn't like how his character looked. Nobody liked it! In my opinion, his description was simply poor. I don't remember why we didn't get it corrected.

That player was quite a character. At least once every session, he'd get up and do something perverted with a remote control or a joystick or something. There was one time when he put a blanket over his body and pretended to be a ghost for about 5 minutes. By that point, we were desensitized to his antics and just kept playing while he waved his arms around and went: "OOOoooo."

I'm not much of a colorist, but I tried to dress it up. He was a goliath, so I could do some fun stuff with his skin:


Placing an Order

It's pretty simple. Here's how it works:

1. Send an email/message, get a price estimate.
2. Pay. I use paypal.
3. Send a description.
4. Check out the pencils, tell them about any corrections.
5. Enjoy your finished product.

My Planescape Commission

Here's the description I sent:

"There's two heroes looking at their planar compass. The lady of pain is behind them, looking ominous. They are in the city of sigil, but i don't really need any special detail, just something to indicate they are in the city. This is the city that is in a tube, so there's buildings up above them - but you will be happy to know that there is a haze that hovers in the air that pretty much blocks those buildings from view. This haze is the light source of the city.

The Heroes:

Theran - He's a dark elf wizard with long blonde hair. He wears a robe of eyes (attached image).

Bidam is a dragonborn fighter with platinum scales. He's got a sword of sharpness. He's wearing armor and has a bag of holding, which just looks like a normal D&D backpack.

They are looking at their planar compass, trying to find the location of the nearest portal in the city.

The Lady of Pain is this weird entity who rules Sigil. She is 12 feet tall, hovers off the ground and never speaks. She's got all these blades sticking out of her head. When someone makes her angry, she sends them to extra-planar Mazes.

Planar Compass: I don't know if we'd even be able to see it in this image, but here's the description. It's a 6 inch iron sphere. The two halves of the sphere split apart, revealing a hollow cavity within. When an object from a plane is placed in the cavity and the two halves are joined, the direction of the nearest portal of that plane is revealed - the compass has a small arrow that juts out of one of the halves, pointing the way."

I sent a pile of reference images. Here are some:

Two days later, they sent me the pencils and asked for corrections. The only thing I asked was to get rid of the fuzz around the lady of pain's mask:

Two days after that I got the final inked version emailed to me:

Four days after that, this came in the mail:

That's it! The original art always looks much cooler than the scan. I'm not sure how to describe it.. you can see every line and every shade of grey.

Here's some of my other favorite commissions from days of yore:

This is a scene from a game I ran at the tender age of 14. The villain of my campaign was Lord Soth, and he was wielding an evil sword called Ebonbane (which is an NPC/item from a Ravenloft adventure). One of the characters challenged him to a duel, and he was winning. Soth jumped through a portal to escape. The players really liked that session, so I had it immortalized.

These are the bad guys from a recent campaign I ran. They are a bunch of "zombie" gods and primordials:

From left to right, they are:

• Shar: The Forgotten Realms goddess.
• Piranoth: The primordial from Revenge of the Giants.
• Timesius: The primordial from E3 Prince of Undeath.
• Orcus: Orcus had been killed when my players went through E3. Here he's wielding the Orcusword.
• Aoskar: The god of portals referred to in many Planescape products.
• A former character who had turned into an evil lich-god and had the wand of orcus.

This is maybe my most infamous campaign - a "D&D Next" conversion of the Pathfinder Skull & Shackles adventure path. These were the filthiest, most perverted bunch of scoundrels you will ever meet on the high seas. It really got out of hand, but it was fun and fondly remembered.

Here's my colored version:

I don't think any of these cost me more than $60. To me, that is a great deal. If your whole group chips in, then it's going to cost you very little. I pay for them all myself. I do that so I get to keep the finished art.

If you have a campaign that has some legs and you think will be fondly remembered by your group, you might want to get a commission. Get it while everyone remembers all the little details, so that they can be included in the art.

Remember that sometimes the art isn't going to come out how you envisioned. Some players might not like what they get. I don't think I've ever had a bad commission.

Yesterday I played in the Eberron campaign again. I wrote about the previous session here.

Each session is better than the last one. Yesterday's session continued that trend, and we really captured the "D&D feeling." I learned quite a bit about pacing and it has made me take a step back and re-think a few things.

Last time we did a lot of mini-missions. This time we basically focused on a single scenario.

In this campaign, we are assembling the deck of many things. The cards are spread out all over Sharn, the city of towers. One of the cards is in the possession of this woman, her last name is Tain. I don't know anything about Eberron, so I don't know if this is some kind of major NPC or not.

This Tain person had used the card to control an NPC and do some bad stuff. We decided to break into her place and steal the card.

The Plan

The DM had drawn some giant poster maps of Tain Manor and the compound. Our characters were able to obtain the layout to the manor and we planned our assault.

A good portion of the session just involved us players planning. As a DM, I hate this. I desperately try to avoid "wasting" table time on what I often consider to be abstract nothing-talk.

I like my sessions to be two, maybe three hours long. In this group, we play six or seven hours. So there's plenty of "breathing room." We can mess around as much as we like.

What I found yesterday was that the planning process was really about us taking control of the game. The DM was allowing us to tackle this map any way we wanted. It was quite liberating.

I usually hate planning because it tends to drag, but here it didn't feel like it dragged at all. We kept coming up with funnier and funnier ideas.

The vault we needed to break into was past Tain's bedroom. Her kids had rooms right down the hall. I was a bit baffled about how we could sneak through her room without waking her. I assumed there would be magical traps that would go off (I was right).

Another player said that we should plan our break-in during mealtime. Tain and her kids would be eating downstairs. The upstairs area would be free! That was such a smart idea, I was really excited.

Our Plan Goes Horribly Wrong

So it went like this. We paid off a delivery guy who was scheduled to deliver a crate of stuff for Tain Manor. All of us got in the crate, except for the fighter. The party fighter drove the cart, and the donkey pulling it.

The idea was that the crate would be dropped off in a storage area, we'd break out and get to sneaking.

But when we got there, the guards took the crate and told the fighter to go home! They plopped us in the storage room, but the fighter was gone.

We busted out of our crate, I cast invisibility and twinned it (I'm a sorcerer). So two of us were invisible, and poor Jenny, our sidekick NPC, was not.

We went and stole some servant clothes, using prestidigitation to draw two servants away.

The fighter climbed the wall, found us and put on some servant clothes.

We crept into Tain Manor. The wizard and I were invisible. The fighter and Jenny bluffed their way upstairs.

We made our way into Tain's room and encountered our magically-compelled NPC friend. We subdued her and made our way to the vault.

The Magic Vault

The vault was guarded by these three magic paintings. The contents of the vault magically changed depending on which of the paintings were hanging on the wall. So we had to experiment with them.

This is where our poor hireling comes in. It's Jenny's job to be trap bait. So she opens the door and goes in, and vanishes. Poor Jenny. We triggered a magical alarm and we knew guards were on their way.

We tried every combination, and there was all sorts of weird stuff in the vault. We finally opened the door and the interior of the vault was red. The card was on a shelf, and there was a gibbering mouther in there.

I've never fought a gibbering mouther before. It was awesome. It has two auras - one blinds you, one turns the floor to gooey madness.

The guards burst in to the room and we were in big trouble. We were on the third floor, and my character was ankle-deep in gibbering floor goo. I asked the DM if it was possible to actually slide through the goo to the floor below. He said yes!

So we're fending off the guards and the mouther, sinking into the quicksand floor.

Poor Jenny bursts out of the vault and tries to help us. As we sink through the floor and fall into a bathroom, we hear Jenny get murdered by the mouther (she has the stats of a commoner). That's our second hireling dead.

We plopped through the floor and ended up pinned in a tiny room with guards in both doors. Our fighter used a trip attack to drop the guard blocking one door.

Escape

Our wizard was getting hurt bad. I cast fly and twinned it, so our fighter could fly too. I grabbed the wizard and we flew out of Tain Manor. To our dismay, Tain's brother was on a griffon and chased us. The griffon was extremely fast.

Tain's brother cast fireball, which actually killed our wizard. I made my save but I was in bad shape. I made my concentration check, thankfully. I still had the unconscious wizard in my arms. I almost wanted to fail it, because then I could plummet and cast feather fall to put some distance between us and the griffon (we were way at the top of the city of Sharn, hundreds of feet in the air). 

The DM had described another tower right by us. I knew I couldn't take another hit, so I flew through a window in the tower that was too small for the griffon to fit through. I tried to get out of line of sight of the window.

There were two old men in there, quilting. I dumped a potion of healing in the wizard. She came to, made her way to the window and blasted the griffon and the wizard with a lightning bolt spell. She killed them both!

I gave the old guys money for the window and a bottle of frostmantle fire (eberron booze). They gave me a quilt.

I flew over to the dead body of Tain's brother. I put a pot of dirt next to him and planted a magic bean in it. I rolled on the chart, and I summoned a bunch of pink toads that I assumed would transform into grizzly bears when touched! A pretty nice present for Tain and her men, if you ask me.

We flew home. We only need five more cards to complete the deck of many things.

The other players were laughing and talking about how bad our plan was and how we bungled everything. I didn't see it that way at all. We got the card! And it was awesome. Very few D&D plans actually work out. I mean, the DM kind of has to throw in wrinkles, or else the adventure would be pretty boring, right?

Jenny was dead, so we recruited a new hireling. The DM rolled on the NPC chart. We got this old gnome lady who is "extremely ugly," according to the chart. As fate would have it, she is also on a search for romance.

That's where we stopped.

Managing Table Time

The whole thing has made me re-think how I run my games to a degree. As a DM, I am always cracking the whip. I hate wasted time. But in this case it wasn't really wasted time. We the players were, in a way, creating the adventure.

As a DM, generally I don't create situations where my players need to make a big plan, because it often leads to problems. If I do, I always have an NPC tell offer up a default plan that they can take if they want, so we can get to the action. Here are some of the more common issues I've seen when groups put their heads together to figure out how to approach a situation:

• Dominant Personality: One player takes control and talks over everyone else. Other players let it happen but secretly get more annoyed each time it occurs. 
• Arguing: Arguments break out. A lot of times, players simply can't agree on the best course of action. This is often caused by one player wanting a plan that allows them to use one of their special abilities or items, even though it may be extremely risky.
• Weird Ideas: You may have noticed this - some players have really weird (to you, at least) ideas of what would work and what wouldn't. I can't tell you how many times I've had a player say out loud that the group shouldn't do something because X will happen - and I have no idea why they think that. In those cases, I use an NPC to tell them X will not happen. 
• Not Understanding the DM's Style: People think really differently, and it can make for a bumpy D&D experience. A lot of times this is driven by players who think that everything in the world is scaled for their level. In my games, if you are thrown in jail for doing something terrible in town (such as killing a bartender to avenge an insult) - you're in jail. You're probably not getting out and you might have to make a new character. I make this very clear before the heroes do something that might get them arrested, but it still comes up now and then. My brother ran Drizzt as a character back in the 90's. He committed murder in a major city, and he's been languishing in prison ever since.
• Everyone is Passive: This is like that couple you might know, who say to each other: "What do you want to do?" and the other one says, "I don't know, what do you want to do?" And so they don't do anything. Sometimes you get a group like that. Nobody wants to take control. That can be really weird for you as a DM. It can be downright excruciating and will make you want to railroad them all the time just to keep things from grinding to a halt.
• Some Players Get Bored: Planning is also the time when some players mentally check out. While a few more involved players are brainstorming, other players just doodle or flip through a book or whatever. That only really gets annoying when these players then have the gall to complain later about the plan.

But in this group, it wasn't a problem. We all contributed and hammered out a fun plan that seemed logical (at the time).

It's so weird for me being a player. I have to keep stopping myself from trying to facilitate the game. That's not my job! I get to sit back and enjoy. It's actually kind of hard for me.

The DM has me keep track of initiative, which makes it even trickier. When combat rolls around I am keeping things rolling and telling everyone to take their turn. On one hand, I like it because I like to keep things moving. On the other hand, it puts me in DM mode and I kind of forget my role at the table.

You can watch this episode right here on youtube.

There was no show last week, so we're a little crusty.

There's a new guy, a "guest star." He's very good. I'd say he should play every week, but I don't like more than 4 players in this format. The screen gets cluttered and the game slowed down a bit too much for my liking. If someone has to miss a session, he should definitely jump in, though.

Early on, there was a glitch which at first looked major but ended up being no big deal. Apparently the Twitch stream crashed. We miss virtually none of the session, though. You just have to skip ahead in the stream a little bit. I don't understand why they didn't edit out the dead air time. I guess they wanted us to see the dancing mind flayer, which was pretty amusing.

Last Time: We learned that Strix has family in the town of Vallaki. We learn that Diath was dirt poor and lived on the streets of Waterdeep. Someone gave him a ring of keys when he was panhandling.


The Waffle Crew+1

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Chris) Falkon - Wereraven
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard

There's a fifth player. He is Chris Trott, from Yogscast. His character at the start is listed as "A Raven."

The players don't seem to remember that they told Chris they were going into this tower last time. Chris says it starts raining, I guess he's trying to get them to go in.

This will be interesting! This location has really powerful creatures in it that can easily kill this party.

Evelyn casts detect evil/good. She detects both good and evil in the tower. The group was a bit indecisive here, so Evelyn again slips into the leader role and gets things moving. She is awesome.

The raven transforms into a naked dude! He's a wereraven! I guess he's one of the Keepers of the Feather.

And then... the stream crashed. We get a note on the screen that says we should skip ahead to 16:15.

At about 15 minutes in, we get audio of the session. So if you skip to 16:15, you actually miss a bit of the game.

Chris Trott has got a great voice. His character's name is Falkon, and he says that he wants the group to help him defeat the evil inside. Children have been abducted and taken into this place, which is called the bonegrinder. How the heck are they going to do that?

They go in and look around. There are pastries in the oven. The heroes are sure these are delicious "people pastries." The women upstairs yell at the heroes to go away. Falkon tells the adventurers that those women are hags.

They should put the bonegrinder map on the screen.

Strix wants to blow up the ceiling. Diath points out that if they do that, they might blow up the children.

Falkon turns into a raven and tries to sneak upstairs to take a peek. He rolls a one on his stealth check!

The hags taunt the heroes from upstairs. They say that "mother will be home soon." If all three hags are home and within 30 feet of each other, they can use a pile of deadly spells and our heroes are utterly doomed. In fact, if all three hags are together, they can kill the entire group in a single round with three lightning bolt spells.

Diath blocks the front door with a cart and puts down caltrops. The group heads upstairs and yup... two hags.

Evelyn leads the charge and attacks. The group misses a few attacks on the hags. The hags turn invisible. Evelyn swings blindly and hits an invisible hag. Falkon goes downstairs and grabs a bag of flour. Smart! Unfortunately, by the time he gets back upstairs, both of the hags are visible.

One hag becomes visible as she casts vicious mockery. Evelyn makes her save. So.. Chris is using green hags, not the night hags in the book. They're weaker than night hags, but they still have an AC of 17 and 82 hit points each.

Paultin pulls two kids out of crates and brings them downstairs and Falkon runs upstairs with the flour. He's naked except for a single sock.

There's a lot of back and forth, mostly missing. The hags are whittled down. The hags jump through a window to escape.

Diath looks out the window and he doesn't see the hags. They've turned invisible again.

Morgantha, the night hag

Someone tries to open the front door from outside! It's either the mother hag, or the two injured hags. Diath has a great idea. He asks Falkon to turn into a raven, fly outside and see who is out there.

Ohh no. It's the mother! She yells in through the door for her daughters to open the door. Falkon uses his mimicry ability to imitate one of the daughter hags and try to urge the mother not to come in.

Strix goes downstairs and checks a cabinet. She's sure this is the place mentioned by Madame Eva and she thinks it is somehow linked to her past. She loots three elixirs, respectively labeled "Youth,""Laughter" and "Mother's Milk." Strix checks out a barrel full of demon ichor. She tips it over.

Outside, Falkon gets a look at the mother hag. She has a cart with a sack in it. Ohh man.. she has a kid in the sack!

Holly's cat makes its second appearance on Dice, Camera Action.

Chris drops a hint that those other two hags might be nearby, but the group doesn't pick up on it. The adventurers are kind of messing around at the tower as they try to decide what to do. Evelyn tells the group to run and that she'll hold off the night hag. The group doesn't listen.

Most of the group ends up running over to the mother hag. The kids hide in tall grass, and Paultin keeps them company.

The invisible, injured hags close in on Paultin. Yikes! That's where we stopped!

They are really screwed! 

Timestamps

• (29:20) Let's blow up the ceiling.
• (40:30) I love it when Chris swears.
• (1:45:03) The hags return.

Thoughts

Learning is Fundamental: Now that I have read a good portion of the adventure, it is really fun to see the players go through it. I know what's coming up and it makes the show more enjoyable.

Chris Perkins Runs the Hags: This hag encounter has been talked about a lot online. It is very deadly! I was really shocked to see that Chris changed the night hags to green hags. He wrote this adventure and he made this section for level 4 characters! Why is he changing it? Clearly he wanted it to be a deadly place when he created it, but here he is holding back.

I understand that he doesn't want to wipe out the entire party because that will kind of suck for the show, but it still kind of rubs me the wrong way. He can always have the hags knock them out and try to cook them, I guess. There's a ton of NPCs in the adventure that could show up to help the heroes out, too - Ezmerelda is actually pretty powerful.

The New Guy: Chris Trott was very good, but I don't really get why he was on the show. As I said above, having a fifth player slowed the game down. This entire session was basically one combat. At this rate, it seems like it will take a decade to get through this entire adventure.

Overall: It was a pretty good episode. Diath is becoming a real solid dude. I like how Chris makes the combats very twisty. It's fun!

On Sunday night we played through another session of my Planescape campaign. Right now we're going through a trilogy of homebrew adventures that will bridge the gap between Nemesis and Tales From the Infinite Staircase. This is partly to buy me time while I read and absorb the staircase adventures. I'm pretty sure I won't be using all of the scenarios in that book, as a number of them don't appeal to me.

Ignus

This session revolved around an NPC from the Planescape:Torment computer game. His name is Ignus. He's a sinister wizard obsessed with fire. He is actually on fire, in fact.

In the game and my campaign, Ignus starts off immobile - an attraction in a bar. In the game, you can free him and have him join your group. In my game tonight, the heroes could free him and cure him, too.

I changed the story of Ignus. In my game, Ignus was tricked by Shemeshka the Marauder into committing arson on her enemies. Then she manipulated him into becoming an inert humanoid portal to the plane of fire.

The Arcanaloths

A'kin the Friendly Fiend

Shemeshka's enemy/rival, A'kin knows this. He helps the heroes free Ignus and use him to blackmail Shemeshka into leaving the heroes alone.

Shemeshka and A'kin are fascinating Planescape NPCs. They are both Arcanaloths, both possibly exiled from their home plane of Gehenna. They have what appears to be a love/hate relationship. Shemeshka has burned down A'kin's magic store three times in the last hundred years.

• A'kin: Always seems friendly. Some people hear him screaming and throwing things at night. The book suggests that he might have been an ally of devils in the Blood War and that he did something so terrible that he was exiled. No specific details, though.
• Shemeshka: She's an amoral manipulator. She has agents spying on everyone, and she secretly controls a number of organizations. I thought I had read somewhere that Shemeska is actually a male who lives as a female, but I can't find it now. Shemeshka is referred to as a "she" in Uncaged, but the gender symbol in the stat block says Shemeshka is male.

I decided for the purposes of my campaign, that A'kin cut a deal with the devils. He was going to hand over almost every single arcanaloth to them, so that the devils could enslave them/kill them/use them for nefarious purposes relating to the Blood War. A'kin was essentially going to commit genocide on his own kind! In return, he asked the devils to spare himself and Shemeshka, who he loves.

The arcanaloths found out about this plot, and A'kin and Shemeshka had to flee Gehenna, never to return. Shemeshka is mostly furious, but slightly flattered that A'kin wanted her spared. So now they do this dance where A'kin trolls her, she gets mad, and then he says sorry and they make up for a day.

Plans for the Infinite Staircase

Ignus

Last time we played, the Lady of Pain did stuff to the heroes. She did something to Bidam's heart, and enchanted Theran's spell book. My idea is that if each hero adheres to their core philosophy, they will be given tools via the heart and spellbook that can help them defeat the Iron Shadow (the villain of the Infinite Staircase). Here's my plan as of now:

Theran: He believes in reading and learning, basically. So each adventure, when an encounter is getting crazy, Theran's spellbook will glow. If he takes a round to read it, he will be given magical knowledge - he'll learn a bit about the Iron Shadow and he'll learn a magic item formula. If he doesn't read the page right then, it's gone forever. The book will also be a key tool in defeating the Shadow.

Bidam: He likes to love them and leave them, or as he says, "Hit it and quit it." Every adventure he will meet someone. He will have a choice of hitting it or quitting it. Either choice has ramifications:

• Hit It: The person is imbued with a metal coating over their heart. All of the people Bidam infects will become minor sources of pain in the multiverse. The heart of the Lady of Pain is failing, and she wants others to help her carry the burden of the void inside of her. Each of these people will have the lesser ability to look at people and cause bloody cuts to appear on their body like the Lady of Pain can.
• Quit It: If Bidam decides not to seduce somone, or if he tries to go back to someone he had a fling with a while before, a member of the Zactar faction dies. You may remember that the Zactars are the followers of Umbra - the Lady of Pain does not want new factions in Sigil, so this is a way to eliminate them. It hinges on whether or not Bidam stays true to his beliefs - belief is the most important thing in Planescape.

I used a lot of material from Uncaged: The Faces of Sigil. That book is loaded with NPCs and has a few detailed locations, too. I've been going through that book and taking notes, as that is how I retain all this stuff.

I also decided that from here on out, I will try and make sure that in each session Theran's robe of eyes is useful (see invisible) and Bidam's sword of sharpness is useful (cuts through stuff). I want them to feel like their magic items are useful and have a lot of value.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Selinza ("Litorian" Wizard, level 3) 

Back to Deadbook Square

We picked up where we left off last time, In A'kin's office. He explained that Ignus knows things that they can use to blackmail Shemeshka into leaving them alone.

They left to go to the Smoldering Corpse to check out Ignus. They were stopped by an NPC that I stole from Curse of Strahd: "A small man with no legs named Filmore Stunk, who can drink whole casks of wine without getting drunk." He sold them two poisons - torpor and essence of ether (from the 5e DMG). Both of them can knock people out. I put this here to give the heroes a chance to buy an item that would help them in a later encounter. At the very least, it reinforces the notion that their choices matter in game.

As they finished their transaction, they heard A'kin screaming and trashing the upstairs area of his shop. They came very close to investigating, but decided against it. This is a trait he has that is unexplained in the books. For my game, I'm saying he's endlessly tormented by his failed scheme and the fact that Shemeshka won't be with him.

Festhall: Clients are becoming depressed. I had read this funny idea on reddit about how some people feel ashamed by the porn they watch, and that they could use a "post-porn depression councilor." I decided some "johns" at the festhall become depressed after their visits (I googled some vile acts on urban dictionary, and invented "the Sigil Hot Pocket"). The heroes hired a councilor named Aza Dowling.

Here's the deal. This councilor is actually an agent of Shemeshka from Uncaged. There is this NPC shapechanger named Fallow. He has multiple personalities. He is a member of every single faction, and he spies on them all for Shemeshka. Aza Dowling is the Sensate spy!

So the seed for Shemeska's revenge is already planted. A spy is in their midst.

The group checked out Ignus and talked with Drusilla. She's this real sad NPC (also from Planescape: Torment) who was in love with Ignus before all this happened. She continues to watch over him and hopes one day he will be free. The heroes felt sorry for her and gave her a job.

They did some research and learned they needed two things to free Ignus:

1. A decanter of endless water, No problem, they know a dabus who has one. The dabus gladly loans it to them)
2. A "Ritual of Hydration." I made this up. It's a ritual that creates links to the plane of water - it can counteract the link to the plane of fire in Ignus.

The Doomguard

The Armory

The heroes found out that the Doomguard faction created the ritual for their tower of salt. The group headed to their headquarters... to steal it!

The Doomguard is a faction that believes in entropy. They want to speed along the death of the universe. So they make weapons. The armory has four towers attached to the building, each of which also exists in a different plane.

The "Tower of Sealt" exists on the elemental plane of Salt. It is overseen by a guy called Roth, Doomlord of Salt.

Long story short, Fall From Grace shapechanged into the form of a Doomguard member. The heroes enlisted the help of Turia, the crabby tiefling from Nemesis.

The heroes got a look at the leader of the Doomguard, Factol Pentar. I want to introduce her now, as she is a big deal in the Faction War adventure.

Factol Pentar

The heroes sneak up to the room where the ritual is, and they poison a guard (torpor - knocks him out). They go into the room, detect and avoid a glyph of warding, cut a steel cord with the sword of sharpness and yoink the ritual, which is iscribed on a sheet of metal.

As they turn to leave, two guards come up the stairs. I gave them 5e thug stats and decided to give them this slightly modified 2e doomguard ability:

Entropic Blow: Once per week, a doomguard can attack with disadvantage. If they hit, they do half your hit points in damage!

The group subdued the guards. Turia came up and was most distressed. The group told her they'd go do the ritual and bring the sheet back. They could even cast mending to fix the steel cord!

The group raced back to the Smoldering Corpse bar, and they cast the ritual using the decanter. Ignus was free, but still on fire. And he was saying crazy crap like:

• "I live! Long have I slept! Dream of Flames!"
• "Ignus hears you all! Burn!"
• "The fires grow dim - soon, I shall perish."

The heroes had a hard time figured out how to de-fire him. Theran has this amulet of flowing flame that belonged to a demon lord named Alzrius (they stole it from an abyssal fortress long ago). He put the necklace on Ignus and poof - flames out. Ignus plopped to the ground, a withered up burnt fellow.

The Other Place

Iarmid, owner of The Other Place

After some healing and examination at the church, the heroes were having a hard time getting coherent speech out of Ignus. There was only one thing that could help him recover - take him to a magic spa. Yes, my campaign is stupid. This is an actual location in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil called "The Other Place." The heroes took Ignus, Drusila, Fall From Grace and Selinza the cat lady (who is now a 3rd level wizard) to the spa and we had ourselves a montage:

• Bath: The heroes got a cleansing bath. Theran and Fall From Grace took a bath in holy water (Fall From Grace did not remove her chastity bodice for this - everyone else chose to be butt-naked).
• Grooming: Then there was skin-grooming, scale scraping, etc. Poor Ignus got a whole layer of charred skin removed.
• ManiPedi: They got their nails manicured/sharpened.
• Massage: Then they got hour-long massages from four armed reaves. A reave is.. a four armed creature with leathery skin. They are warrior mercenaries, except for these people, I guess.

Wouldn't you know it, Bidam and his reave lady masseuse hit it off! Bidam used the ancient art of seduction on her and had himself a romantic encounter. When it was all over, he felt his metal heart beat oddly. He somehow saw the reave's heart through her chest - he watched as a liquid metal coated it. Bidam was extremely alarmed, to say the least.

Jessie (she plays Bidam) eventually vowed that Bidam would purposely not seduce the next person to come along, to see if anything weird happened.

The spa worked. Ignus remembered! Sort of! He realized that he had stashed sensory stones in his house long ago. The sensory stones contained incriminating memories that would show that Shemeshka was guilty of a myriad of crimes. These stones were what the heroes needed to blackmail Shemeshka. Ignus was still too frazzled to record new ones or, really, be coherent for long.

The Slags

Before he became a fiery guy, Ignus lived in a section of The Hive (the worst part of Sigil). In the years since Ignus had last been there, the area his home was in had become The Slags.

The Origin of The Slags: The blood war spilled over through portals into The Hive. For weeks, devils and demons battled each other, destroying buildings and magically warping the area. Now it is a place that has earthquakes, ruined buildings, and there are tanari supply caches everywhere (magic crates full of demonic magic items!). Cool, right?

So the heroes go in and walk through the "crooked maze of ramshackle buildings." The whole place rumbled. Fall From Grace warned the heroes that earthquakes were common here.

A two-headed dog that was five feet long glared at them from a side alley. Bidam threw it some rations and made some great animal handling rolls! Bidam befriended this creature - which is an Aoskian hound. Followers of Aoskar bred the animals long ago. They have the ability to stun you with their bark.

The group continued on, and they found the remains of Ignus' home. It had been cut in half by an explosion. In the years since, razorvine had grown over it almost completely. A ladder led from the ground to the third floor, where Ignus' stash was.

Ignus had told them he had a secret compartment in the wall - it was a metal carving of the Lady of Pain's face that opened when you said the command phrase: "Dream of Flames."

The group climbed up. The saw some slimy eggs in a corner. They found the stones, as well as the spell book of Ignus. Then... an earthquake hit! The floor split wide open and Theran fell 3 stories, cut by razorvine the whole way down (that's 3d6 + 15 points of damage)! He had just a few hit points remaining.

Worse, a chasme flew toward them. Those were indeed chasme eggs in that building.

5e chasmes are really deadly. If they hit you, you take 16 damage + 24 necrotic! And the necrotic can't be healed until you take a long rest! It also has this droning power, which knocks you unconscious if you fail your save.

I knew this was a tough monster, but it only had 84 hit points. The heroes are 8th level. They can do a lot of damage in a single round.

As it turned out, I think the group barely got a shot in. This was a very deadly encounter.

The chasme did piles of damage to Fall From Grace and dropped Bidam unconscious with the droning aura.

Selinza jumped off of the building and used feather fall to land on the street next to Theran. She made him invisible.

Theran spotted a building nearby - an invisible building that he could see thanks to his robe of eyes. It was just ten feet high, and cube-shaped. It had demogorgon's face carved into each side and no visible entrances. It was a tanari supply cache!

Theran actually ran over to it, invisible, and began to study it.

There were some shenanigans. Ultimately, Fall From Grace got the chasme to chase her, allowing the heroes to flee to safety. Fall From Grace was ultimately able to lose the chasme thanks to some good die rolls.

Theran kept studying the cache. He really wanted to get inside it but he couldn't figure out how.

Bidam realized a way - they could get Ash Vodiran, the greatest thief of Sigil, to walk through by becoming insubstantial!

That was my idea when I made this. I just wanted to see if they would be willing to let Ash out prison, or if they could come up with some other clever way to get inside.

The heroes regrouped at home. They put the sensory stones in a magic vault to keep them safe (The Vault of the Ninth World, from Planescape: Torment).

A'kin delivired a message to Shemeska, then hid with the heroes in the shadows near his magic shop. He gleefully rubbedhis hands together. Theran could see Shemeshka approach The Friendly Fiend shop invisibly. She was furious. She cast fireball and blew the place up!

A'kin cackled in delight and told the heroes that Shemeshka would leave them alone for a while at least.

That's where we stopped! It was a really good session. Planescape is so rich with material that it feels like we've barely scratched the surface of the setting.

The title of this episode is: Naked Uppercut in the Rain

There was no DCA last week, probably because of PAX. I really wish they'd keep this on a weekly schedule.

Where to Watch This Show: I didn't realize that Twitch archives each episode. That means you don't have to wait for the show to be posted on youtube (which usually takes a few days). Twitch actually runs better for me than youtube, so I highly recommend you try watching it there.

There's about 15 minutes of dancing mindflayer before the show starts, so I've put a timestamp in the link to the beginning which starts pretty abruptly:

You can watch this episode on Twitch here.
 
Last Time: In the previous session, we left off with the group battling a bunch of hags. Most of the group is by the front door of the windmill dealing with the "mother" hag, Morgantha. Paultin is over in the grass and he has two other hags looming over him.

The Waffle Crew+1

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Chris) Falkon - Wereraven
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard 

We start off with no sound. Critical Role DM Matt Mercer is running the game...? They're fighting four tarrasques? Paultin dies.. Evelyn cries and says, "My one and only love!"

Chris Perkins kicks Mercer out. Chris says he had to use the restroom.

Green Hag

OK, here we go. Paultin's about to die. Two green hags, invisible, are about to murder him. Suddenly, the NPCs we forgot were there jump in! Ireena and Ismark attack the hags. They are fighting 5-10 feet from a precipice. Paultin grabs the kids and flees. We learn later that one hag falls off the side and the other one lies in the grass, presumably dead.

Over by the front door, the group keeps rolling natural ones. It's pretty uncanny. Diath stabs the mother hag. Falkon, in bird form, chews up a dream pastry and tries to regurgitate it into the hag's mouth. The hag fails her save!

Wow.. check out page 125 of Curse of Strahd. She's in a trance for d4+4 hours! She's incapacitated!

Oh nooo... Evelyn stabs her, which wakes her up! The hag is out of her stupor. The group had Morgantha defeated but they didn't realize it!

Strix casts a chromatic orb spell.. and rolls a natural one! Their dice are ice cold. Falkon assumes human form, he's naked now. He calls out "Eyes up here, hag!" and gives her an uppercut, but her chin is like iron. It is decided that the name of this episode is "Naked Uppercut in the Rain."

The hag turns invisible.

Strix

Strix hears trouble over by the precipice. She sees Ireena is 40 feet down, hanging on to a rock. A hag is holding onto her. Both are dangling 120 feet in the air.

Strix tries to intimidate the hag into letting go of Ireena. Strix tells the hag that her mother is very angry. She has disadvantage on her check. Strix rolls well! The hag falls 120 feet to the rocks below.

Back by the front door, Paultin casts faerie fire which illuminates the invisible mother hag. Wow, that's like the only time I have ever seen faerie fire used in a useful way, and it helps the party big time.

Evelyn drops the mother hag and does a dramatic religious prayer/pose.

Strix lowers a rope to Ireena and almost falls off the side. Ireena is wearing heavy armor, and is too heavy for one person to hold. Ismark and the party run over to help.

As the party is trying to pull up Ireena, we learn that the hag in the grass isn't dead! The hag runs up and crashes into the line of people holding the rope! The group makes their saves. Ismark finishes her off.  Wow that would have been pretty crazy if the group rolled poorly.

The group goes over to Morgantha's cart by the front door and pulls the third kid out of the sack. So there's three rescued kids in total: Myrtle, Freek and Emmerich (Chris took this last name off the list of names on page 25). Emmerich is a shell, he has no soul. Freek is attached to Paultin and follows him around. Paultin doesn't want to call the kid "freak" so he refers to him as Jimmy.

We learn that Falkon was once close with Escher (who the group learned a bit about back in the village), but Escher is now evil and allied with Strahd. Falkon tells the heroes to kill him and to make it quick and merciful. It's interesting that Chris is making Escher a featured NPC.

Diath loots a dream pastry. The group decides to take a long rest at the windmill. During this time, Strix wisely inspects the potions she found last time. One is a potion of longevity, another infects the drinker with cackle fever, and the last one is a poison called pale tincture.

The next morning, they set the windmill on fire. Ismark takes the children back to Barovia for their own safety. Falkon has to leave the party.

Chris Trott is really good! He added a lot to the game and he gave a sort of weight to the proceedings. He knew a lot about the backstory and it was very impressive.

We get a bunch of hilarious goodbyes, including a naked hug between Falkon and Diath.

The group is stopped at the gate to Vallaki. The group tells the guards they are here for waffles and to defeat Strahd. Diath is introduced as "Diath, Windmill's Bane." The group learns that waffles can be had at the Blue Mountain Inn.

A guard points out that Strix, a tiefling, looks like the burgomaster's right hand man. Wow! I think Strix's brother is Izek Strazni, one of my favorite NPCs in Curse of Strahd. Izek has a thing for Ireena, so this should get real interesting.

Check out Izek's origin:

How crazy is that? Strix is basically canon.

The guards give a pile of info. The group enters Vallaki, and that's where we stop. Vallaki is loaded with stuff to do. We may be spending quite a while here.

The group has hit level 4. Next week we will have a guest: Erika Ishii. Chris decides to give Paultin inspiration for the faerie fire and gives Strix inspiration for intimidating the hag. If you don't know, that means that the heroes can re-roll one roll in a future session.

Inspiration has been tricky to use in an effective way. I've found that players don't really care about it after a couple sessions and that it feels cheap when given out too freely. I guess Chris is using it sparingly to make it feel more special.

Timestamps

(28:42) Morgantha the hag also has a foul mouth.
(45:56) Strix tries to help the dangler.
(1:04:20) The Rear Huggy/Evelyn makes the party barf.
(1:41:00) The group says goodbye to the kids.
(1:48:26) Diath wants a special goodbye from Falkon.

Overall

This was a very fun session. The group really clicked nicely and it was a very enjoyable episode to watch. For me, personally, I wish the group would get more done, but I'm probably in the minority on that one. In particular I feel like time was wasted once the fight was over. We could have got a good 15 minutes of exploring Vallaki instead of the extended rest sequence, but again maybe that's just me.

Somebody Draw Them: I am hoping some enterprising artist out there draws this group. I'd really like to see exactly what they look like.

D&D is Sort of Popular: On top of that, does anyone else find it weird that D&D is more socially accepted now? I'm not complaining! It's just hard to adjust to. For most of my life, people would outwardly kind of roll their eyes when I talked about D&D, but once they heard some stories about it they'd get interested. Then they'd play and love it.

It's really odd to live in a time where comic book movies and fantasy stuff are cool and mainstream. I'm glad! I wish it was like this when I was a kid.

It's that time again! Dragon Plus Issue 7 is out. Let's roll up our sleeves and put on our pointy wizard hats.

You can read this issue here.

As always, I am focusing on the tabletop D&D stuff in this issue. There's also articles about the Baldur's Gate expansion, the Tyrants of the Underdark minis game, and more. Each of these articles is gigantic and seem like they are full of useful material.

My biggest beef with the first bunch of issues of Dragon Plus was that it felt shallow. That is no longer the case. Each article is well thought out.

Letters From The Editor

Matt Chapman talks about how he watches about 16 hours of streaming D&D games per week. Wow. He actually uses the phrase "celebrity DMs." What a weird time we live in.

I kind of feel like I should be checking these shows out, but it feels like a significant investment of time. This is coming from a dude with piles of free time!

Dice Camera Action: D&D as Entertainment

In this article, we get quotes from a number of DMs who stream online. They talk about how good audio equipment is important, the importance of improv skills to keep the game from being boring to watch and making rules calls on the fly.

They also talk a bit about the weirdness of having people watch you play. I imagine it must be quite nerve-wracking. I suppose the watchers who don't like it will just leave.

I'd like to see another article that describes what a streaming session is like, from setting up the software to wrapping up. What kind of technical glitches can happen? What kind of feedback do you get? Do you need a tech person there? That kind of thing.

The Journal of Ezmerelda D'Avenir

Ezmerelda's Wagon

Here we go. I'm most interested in Curse of Strahd stuff. One of the things I like most about Dragon Plus is that they use "clean art" from 5e products. It is shockingly hard to find the original art online. In this one we get the full version of Ezmerlda's cart, which is something I dug around on the internet to find in vain.

The journal starts off like this: "In the event of my death, it is my wish that someone take up a sharpened stake of silver and bury it in the chest of Strahd von Zarovich, who I believe to be a grand progenitor of vampires, and possibly the first of their kind. "

That's pretty awesome. There are passages on vampire spawn, Strahd, and holy water.

If you have a player in your Curse of Strahd campaign who is up for reading in between sessions, you might want to have the heroes find this journal.

In my opinion, the group should meet Ezmerelda at around 6th level. So I'd say the group should find her journal on the road to Vallaki. Maybe she was attacked by wolves, was wounded and staggered off, inadvertently leaving some of her stuff behind.

Making Madam Eva

My Madame Eva Twitter Fortune

This article is about how they made the twitter bot that tweeted out fortunes to everyone. I got a fortune back then, it was fun.

The best quote from this is: "Determined to capture Barovia's dank vibe..." I have to work "dank vibe" into a real life sentence.

These developers have made other apps, including this weird one:

"Neither of which is as weird as Kazemi’s killer app. Every month $50 worth of goodies turn up at his door, purchased by an automated shopper that randomly scours Amazon for him. “Everyone loves that thing but me because we have to live with the stuff it sends,” says Stanton..."

So.. what does it buy? I don't understand why anyone would want this.

Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Heroes

This has a .pdf with rules for you to make a revenant character (!), as well as some new builds. There's a monster hunter and the inquisitive.

They suggest the idea of letting a slain character rise up as a revenant. That's pretty awesome.

Community: Is No Fun, Is No Blinsky

One of the more amusing weirdos in Curse of Strahd is Blinsky, the toymaker. His creepy toys are strewn all throughout the adventure.

This article is loaded with creepy Blinsky toys. Some of them even get art. Really fun stuff, very useful!

Tavern Tales

Mike Mearls talks about some of the best stuff from the DMs Guild so far. He talks about:

• Blood Magic: A mechanic that allows casters to burn hit dice for special abilities.
• Book Of Beasts: Stats for a number of demons from previous editions that I like, including the gnaw demon and the blood demon.
• Battle for the Undercity: A collection of three short scenarios to drop into a city campaign.

I have a hunch, old chum. DMs Guild authors, you might want to title your products starting with the letter "b."

Holy Crap. A Curse of Strahd walkthrough map! Get this now! Right here.

Overall

This was a pretty awesome issue. No article can touch Ed Greenwood's Barovia tour from last issue, but this has plenty of useful stuff.  You get a heck of a lot of material for free.

I personally would have liked to see an article detailing possible encounters with Strahd in Curse of Strahd. That seems like a part DMs are struggling with. But I am thinking that this publication really isn't about articles like that.

This issue is worth looking at, just for the walkthrough map alone.

On Sunday I ran another homebrewed session of Planescape. Next week, we're going to start Tales From the Infinite Staircase.

This session was all about "playing with toys." I picked out NPCs and concepts that I personally enjoy and worked out a scenario with them. The topics included:

• Bazuuma: A goofy home-made "good" nascent demon lord that I use quite a bit.
• Bechard: A demon lord who is barely detailed in the books, mostly in the Fiendish Codex. I like his story and the players latched onto it when it was firs introduced way back when.
• Succubus Problems: The tension between Red Shroud and her daughter, Fall From Grace
• The Iron Shadow: I am developing the "curses" the Lady of Pain gave the heroes a few sessions ago. These curses are actually tools to defeat the Iron Shadow, the villain of the Infinite Staircase.

Occipitus

The "Good" Demon Lords: This concept kind of blossomed out of my Shackled City campaign in 2008. In The Shackled City adventure path, one PC can become the ruler of a demonic layer called Occipitus. The character gains a smoking eye and special powers. Awesome, right? Since that time, in my campaign there's been a few 'good'-aligned demon lords:

• Lord Pip: The halfling who gained the Smoking Eye.
• Dyakis: A demon lord that was bound in a sword. The wielder eventually merged with it and rules a layer I made up called Nephrax.
• Bazuuma: A beautiful lady with 20 eyes who is on her way to becoming a demon lord. Originally she was going to be a demon lord of vanity, but the heroes in my Blackmoor campaign infused her with positive energy (long story). So now she's all about positivity and self esteem.

I don't know what this is building towards, but it's a long term story in my campaigns that will be good fodder for us to mess with however we like.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Selinza ("Litorian" Wizard, level 4)  

Downtime

We did a big old pile of downtime stuff. I love the downtime between adventures, as you can develop the NPCs and do lots of fun little stories.

Last time, the heroes had found a building full of demon treasure (a "tanari treasure cache") with no entrance. They debated whether or not to go enlist the aid of "The Greatest Thief in Sigil," Ash Vodiran. They'd left him in a prison, in custody of paladins in the Outlands.

Ash had the ability to become insubstantial. In theory, he could easily get in and out of the cache, which was the size of a shack. But Ash had stolen from the heroes twice and they really don't like him. They decided to leave him there for now.

We did some stuff with their festhall. Basically I just wanted the heroes to get a glimpse of Aza Dowling, the "post-coitus depression councilor." The heroes don't know it, but she is a spy of Shemeshka. So far they suspect nothing.

The heroes own a bunch of buildings in an area of sigil known as Deadbook square. Because of recent developments, two groups moved out (the devils and Shemeshka's casino), leaving vacancies.

These vacancies were filled by:

The Drow: A handful of male drow from Undermountain have moved in. They are led by a drow who is possessed by the evil sword Craggis (the villain in the final adventure of the Great Modron March). The heroes had given Craggis to Paellistra, the drow priestess in Undermountain. The heroes don't know it yet, but these guys are here in Sigil to acquire slaves.

The Creepy Guy: In Curse of Strahd, there's this wizard who is making a flesh golem bride for Strahd. I decided that there's a guy in Sigil who is opening a high-end store where people can buy flesh golem husbands and wives, girlfriends, whatever. You pick a head and a body and they're all yours for a considerable investment! He tried to get the heroes to sign a contract so that he could use their bodies once they're dead, but the heroes didn't bite.

The Other Adventurers: Each session I have the NPC heroes go on an adventure. This time, Selinza, Theran's cat lady apprentice, went with them. She's trying to level up! They went on this whole quest that I spent too much time cooking up. The gist of this whole thing was that the group got split up and Selinza used Theran's Portal Beacon to get them re-united.

Hit it? Or Quit It?! Bidam's Lady of Pain curse is tied to his life philosophy of Hit it and Quit it. Last session, he learned that when he hits it, his partner gains an iron coating over their heart. Bidam's not sure what that means.

So this session, he looked at Vrishika, the blue-skinned alu-fiend who runs a magic shop. She's been an ally of the group for a very long time. Bidam suddenly had to choose whether to hit it or quit it. Jessie (Bidam's player) agonized over this choice. She was afraid something bad would happen. Bidam eventually decided to not hit it. He heard a slicing noise and a splatter sound. He doesn't know it yet, but one of the Zactars (worshipers of Umbra) is dead.

Sark Axebarrel is One Day from Retirement: There's these NPCs who deliver soul larvae to Bazuuma, the nascent demon lord. They just go through the portal and her fortress is right there on the first layer of the Abyss. They are getting rich off of this easy gig.

I had Sark tell the heroes that he's got enough money to buy a home in Heart's Faith and settle down. Basically I was recreating this scene, really fighting hard not to let myself go too over the top and make it obvious what was about to happen.

So Sark and the bariaur go through the portal, there's an explosion and they die. The heroes catch a glimpse of this as the portal closes.

The heroes run through the portal and find a bunch of Solamiths scooping up the larvae. In the distance, the heroes can see Bazuuma's fortress going haywire.

The heroes pumelled the solamiths pretty good. During the battle, Theran's spellbook glowed. His curse from the lady of pain is that his spellbook can give him valuable information, but he has to look at it in one round or it disappears forever. He looked and learned about the Iron Shadow's shadow (it's made of radiant energy) and he also learned a magic item formula. He can now make a whispering flask, which is a githzerai healing powder.

The solamiths were defeated. The group raced to the fortress.

Theran can see invisible thanks to his robe of eyes, and he saw a red-skinned succubus invisibly flying into the fortress. He didn't recognize her, though they had actually met her before.

Red Shroud

They run inside and saw Bazuuma giving birth. Gonard Flumph, my Donald Trump NPC, was here helping to deliver the baby. The heroes had wiped his memory in the River Styx and left him here with Bazuuma. Red Shroud, invisible, was poisoning the drinks on the table next to her. These drinks are meant for Bazuuma and the baby, once it's born.

Theran got weird here. He didn't attack. He didn't do anything, really. He just watched Red Shroud. She flew away. He didn't stop her. Bazuuma gave birth to an abyssal dragon (Bidam is the father, FYI).

Bazuuma reached for the drink, and only then did Theran stop her. The way it played out, she probably could have drank it if I felt like it.

The heroes did let Gonard Flumph drink it.. all of it. The heroes hate Gonard Flumph! To their dismay, he didn't die. They didn't know it, but Red Shroud had used a poison that only affected evil creatures, called Golden Ice. Neither Bazuuma nor Flumph are evil. So in the end, this poison wouldn't have worked, anyway.

My idea here is that Red Shroud had been ordered to poison Bazuuma. I figured the heroes would think Pazuzu told her to do it, as he rules the Plane of 1,000 Portals. But it was actually Red Shroud's mother, Malcanthet (Queen of the Succubi), who views Bazuuma as an abomination - a good demon lord. Red Shroud did not realize that Bazuuma was actually good, and so her golden ice wouldn't work.

Pazuzu

Bazuuma gave birth to the Abyssal Dragon. The heroes retrieved the soul larvae that poor Sark Axebarrel died delivering. Bazuuma ate almost all of them and transformed into a full-fledged demon lord! She was all disoriented and knew that many demon lords would want her dead.

The heroes decided to hide her and find a new home for her. They stashed her by the River Styx in the secret area that they'd used to sail to Kaliva's Isle during Nemesis. She pulled out one of her 20 eyes and handed it to Theran. She could see through it and teleport to it once the heroes had found her new home.

The adventurers headed to the portal to Nephrax, the abyssal realm of my homebrewed demon lord from my last campaign.

The heroes shmoozed with demon NPCs in the palace of Dyakis (demon lord of "soulstones" - demonic ioun stones). Bidam ends up with another hit it or quit it - he hooks up with a fun-loving demon named Yulmanda. She now has an iron-coated heart and thus will play a part in the endgame of the Iron Shadow.

The heroes figure out that their best plan is to seek out the demon lord Bechard. Bechard is a beached whale rotting away in Yeenoghu's layer. He is also an obyrith, one of 12 ancient demons that predate almost everyone else alive. They assumed he had tremendous knowledge.

The heroes had heard about him before and felt sorry for him. They decided that they'd try to help save him if he'd tell them of an abyssal layer that Bazuuma could dwell in.

As fate would have it, the heroes have a cubic gate. That's a magic item that can take you to six different planar locations. One location is Bechard's Landing! I'd wanted the heroes to meet Bechard for a long time, so I had already established it as one of the places they could go to using the gate.

They appeared on Bechard's Landing in Yeenoghu's Realm.

Out on the water, they saw Bechard's Cyrt, the pirate ship they can summon with a magic whalebone. They used this magic ship to sail through Limbo and the astral sea in separate adventures. The ship started heading toward them - skeletal Captain Ricketshanks spotted them in his trusty eyeglass.

The heroes saw Bechard not far away, laying on the beach, covered in rotting wounds. A hurricane was localized over him, pelting the poor whale with acidic rain.

Yeenoghu

He was impaled on a giant harpoon that pinned him to the ground. The harpoon was attached to a chain that connected to a huge statue of Yeenoghu looking down on him.

Basically, this was a 4e skill challenge. Bidam headed into the hurricane:

• Wind:  Sent Bidam hurtling into a rocky outcropping.
• Acid Rain: Failed to pierce his hide.
• Debris: Wind blew Bechard's caustic blood into Bidam, searing him.
• Demonic Entity: A demonic presence in the hurricane entered Bidam's body. I was originally going to have it just be a thing that gives Bidam disadvantage once in a single session, but I had another idea at the table so for now Bidam has yet to feel the effects of the entity.

Bechard telepathically reached out to Bidam and agreed to the deal. Bidam needed to deal with the chained harpoon. My intention here was for Bidam to use his sword of sharpness to cut the chain. But instead, he pulled out his horn of blasting and used it on the statue of Yeenoghu. Awesome! The statue crumbled and Bechard was free.

They fed Bechard 30 soul larvae, given to them by Bazuuma. This gave Bechard the strength to swim again. He blew blood and gore out of his blowhole, trying to clear out his system.

The heroes boarded Bechard's Cyst and followed the whale. Bechard led them to an area of the Abyssian Ocean called The Stygian Eye. This is a magic maelstrom that randomly teleports you to an abyssal layer. Bechard, being an obyrith, had long ago devised a way to use the maelstrom to teleport to a layer of his choosing.

As the heroes got close, the clouds above shifted. They formed the twin heads of Demogorgon! One mouth opened, and out came a hideous savage wyvern, which swooped down at the ship. Theran hammered away at it with lightning bolts. It hit Bidam with its stinger, doing a total of 35 points in one shot! Bidam chopped it up, and another lightning bolt killed it.

The other head in the clouds roared, and a massive tidal wave struck the ship! Bidam and Fall From Grace went overboard! Bechard opened the portal. Bidam and Fall From Grace were in danger of being stranded!

Fall From Grace made some big rolls and was able to take flight, grab Bidam, and get back on the ship. They sailed through the portal, escaping Demogorgon's wrath. As they sailed into the Maelstrom, thin bolts of energy danced over them and created sparks. Theran didn't notice it, but his cubic gate was struck with a bolt and damaged.

When I was cooking u this adventure, I looked online for abyssal lairs with no ruler. I ended up going with layer 9 - Burningwater. There's very little detail on it. I didn't like the name, but in the end it seemed like the best choice.

It's an endless sea. Inside the water are "twisted lobsters, shellfish and armored fish." I decided to tie it to another Obyrith (using an article by James Jacobs from Dragon Magazine #357) named Cabiri.

Bechard let out a whale call, and a ruined city rose up from beneath the water. This was Bazuuma's new home.

Theran held up Bazuuma's eye, and she appeared in a flash with her dozen demons. The heroes had succeeded.

As Bazuuma was still getting used to her new powers, she couldn't teleport the heroes anywhere safe. Burningwater has virtually no portals in it - that's why it's abandoned, I decided.

Bechard was out in the ocean, so the heroes had to figure out their own way home. No problem, right? They have the cubic gate!

They looked it over and decided to go to the astral sea - Hestavar, the heavenly city where angels and devils co-existed in peace.

But when Theran pressed the button, he realized too late that the cubic gate had been damaged in the maelstrom! The heroes disappeared from Burningwater and appeared... somewhere else.

That's where we stopped. It was a good session. The players really like the whole curse of the lady of pain storyline, so it's going quite well.

Now that I've gone over the book in agonizing detail, I am ready to write a review of Curse of Strahd, a Dungeons & Dragons adventure meant for characters levels 1-10. I'll try and make this short and sweet (hours later: I failed).

We'll go over the good stuff, the bad stuff, and then I'll give my overall thoughts.

The Good

This adventure is something of a "re-imagining" of the original Ravenloft adventure, with a bunch of extra stuff added in. They did this in 3rd edition with Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and I think Curse of Strahd pulls it off far better.

The entire concept of needing to go track down the different items to defeat Strahd gives the heroes a reason to go to these side places, so they don't feel like filler.

You can really tell that a wizards staffer wrote this adventure, as opposed to the outside studios that made Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss and etc. This adventure is much tighter and cohesive. Everything has a certain rhyme or reason, and the different locales are linked to each other in natural ways.

Often in the other 5e adventures, you could sense that different people worked on different chapters. This led to an uneven feel and a lack of cohesiveness that meant you had to sit down and put in a lot of work to make the adventure feel like a continuous story rather than a collection of isolated locales.

Lots of Material to Raid

My favorite NPC

Many of the locations in Curse of Strahd are a lot of fun and are worthy of being pulled out and used in your own campaign even if you never use this adventure.

Vallaki: This area is overloaded with great stuff. It's a little crowded and confusing, but I love the Wachters and I think Izek Strazni is a top notch villain.

Ruins of Berez: Baba Lysaga is a fantastic villain. I think every DM should try and put this chapter into their campaign in some way. I am fascinated to see if there is any link to Baba Yaga. There's so many possibilities.

The Amber Temple: I'm a bit torn on this place. It feels sort of like it doesn't belong in this book. It's a great locale and maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it actually defines just who the Dark Powers of Ravenloft are! I love it. If you are running a campaign that involves Vecna, I think you should definitely use this place. It honestly feels like this temple can be the centerpiece of a Vecna-based adventure or campaign.

Van Richten's Tower: I love this area so much. It's simple and very D&D. You can use the traps here in any campaign.

Billions of Good Ideas
The most important thing to me in any product is new, fun ideas. Stuff that inspires me and the players. This book is full of them.

The Dream Pastries are fantastic. Stella, the girl who acts like a cat is in my opinion a really fun NPC. The Revenants in Argynvostholt are very cool and I think Sir Godfrey looks awesome. The flesh golem bride is a hilariously creepy idea that can lead to all sorts of great things. As soon as I read the name Seriach the Hell Hound Whisperer, I knew I had to use this NPC in my own campaign in some fashion. Even though she's just one of the NPCs in the crypts, Sasha Ivliskova the old vampire wife of Strahd's who has been locked away and forgotten immediately gave me a lot of cool ideas.

There's even good little ideas in a throwaway item like Rictavio's journal. There's a mention of an orc who can bite through chains and there is a description of conjoined goblin twins. You just read those entries and an NPC pops into your head, fully formed.

Links to Many Different Settings

Tenebrous aka Undead Orcus

One of the most enjoyable things about this book is that there are quiet little links to many other D&D products. From what I understand, the Wizard of Wines is from Rahasia (which was written by the Hickmans, who also wrote the original Ravenloft adventure). There's a prominent NPC linked to Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure. There's vestiges linked to Dead Gods and Savage Tide. I bet there's a ton more that I didn't even pick up on.

I really appreciate the time and effort put in to give us those sorts of details. This book was not slapped together. It feels like they went over it time and again, adding layers of tweaks and details. It really shines through.

The Art

One of my favorite pieces of art in Curse of Strahd

I am really pleased that they put some full-page images in this book. I love D&D art. It really helps me visualize things. I would say that most of the art in this book is above average, but there has been no art in 5e that has really blown me away. Are we simply past the era of superstar artists?

I still maintain that if there is a great 5e artist, it is Mike Schley. His maps are fantastic and fun to look at.

Steady Improvement

Each time wizards of the coast puts out a new D&D adventure, they fix some mistakes from the last one. Previously, there was a problem in that the adventures were simply too long. Going from level 1 to 16 or whatever takes a lot longer than 6 months for most groups.

In this adventure, you go from levels 1-10. There is still a ton of material and you will definitely get your money's worth, but you won't necessarily need to invest a year of your life of weekly play to get through it.

The Bad

Let me say that I think this is the best adventure so far, and I think it wins by a wide margin. Tyranny of Dragons was uneven and underdeveloped in many places. Princes of the Apocalypse just felt flat to me and I hated the haunted keeps. Out of the Abyss was cool but read like it was a slog and I get the sense a lot of people bailed out on the adventure once they got to the surface at level 8.

So I definitely would say that Curse of Strahd is worth buying. Even if you don't run it, there is a metric ton of material in the book that you can use for your campaign. That said...

Does Anyone Really Want a Remake?

Judging from the popularity of this adventure, I'd say that the answer to this is "yes." But for me, I'd much prefer a sequel that builds on past events rather than a "re-telling." This adventure is handled in a way where you could say it is a sequel, but if you ran the original Ravenloft adventure then you're putting your players through a deluxe version of the same thing.

I want new ideas. I want underdeveloped concepts from previous editions to get a chance to shine. I want new classics. Re-creating old material is, to me, a way of saying: "The old stuff was better and we can't top it." That's not true. There's a lot of people out there with awesome ideas. Just give them an outlet and let's move things forward.

Filler

While they put in a herculean effort to make all of the locations worthwhile, some of them come off as filler. Tsolenka Pass seems very insignificant. Yester's Hill is basically an elaborate encounter with druids. The Werewolf Clan feels extremely optional and the werewolves feel like one horror element too many. Argynvostholt comes off to me as overblown and almost completely extraneous.

The weirdest one is the hags in Old Bonegrinder. There is a good chance that the group will be 4th level when they go here, and they will be walking into a TPK against three night hags. What's weirder is that when the author ran this on Dice, Camera, Action, he changed them to weaker green hags. Why were they night hags in the first place?

New DMs Don't Know What to Do with This

I have read similar comments from numerous new DMs on Reddit. They are saying that they bought this book and they have no idea how to run it.

That is because wizards is still organizing these books in that weird way where each location gets a chapter and you have to dig through them to find out how the plot gets you from one place to another.

The whole book starts off with miscellaneous jumbled chapters loaded with all sorts of disparate concepts like how the mists work and where things are on the overland map, often then referring us to another chapter for the bulk of the material.

The entire Tser Pool Encampment is actually lodged into one of these chapters rather than being given its own section. It's a tiny location, but it contains such a major part of the plot (the tarokka reading) that you expect it to have its own chapter rather than being buried in that miscellaneous Barovia description section. I think that if they had put Tser Pool, the gypsy description and the tarokka rules all in one singular gypsy-centric chapter, it would have made things easier for me.

In the case of Curse of Strahd, the organization makes a bit more sense because the entire idea of this adventure is that you do the tarokka reading and are basically randomly assigned areas to visit. But it's up to the DM to figure out how to get the group to these places, and new DMs are going to have a hard time with that. The hooks that take you from one area to another are buried deep in each chapter. You have to read the entire book to understand how to link things together, and you better take notes because few people will be able to remember all of that material.

This is a big book and it requires a lot of reading. I can see how many newcomers might feel overwhelmed. We really needed a page with a synopsis/sample plot, detailing how the campaign progresses from one location to the next.

I still think they should be organizing these adventures like Pathfinder Adventure Paths - linear. If you want a sandbox, It's not hard at all to make a sandbox out of a railroad. But it is very time-consuming to turn this sandbox into a path. And I still really wish they'd put page number references rather than "see chapter 5 of the DMG."

Continuous Organizational Issues

I found this hazard to be annoyingly difficult to look up.

What's funny about these organizational choices is that I personally benefit from them. My "guides" to these adventures where I try to help DMs prepare are by far the most popular articles on my site. To me, that says that DMs need help with these books. That should not be the case! The point of a published adventure is to make it so that the DM does not have to do a lot of work!

Even the best adventures require a certain amount of prep and research. When I ran White Plume Mountain for 5e a year or two ago, it took just a few hours to prep. I got four full sessions out of it. I cannot tell you the hours upon hours I have spent looking up stuff and connecting dots with Curse of Strahd. It felt like a chore. It felt like work. It took me weeks and sometimes I dreaded going back to it. And I love D&D! I am a big Chris Perkins fan!

Having to sit there and look up every god damn magic item, monster and especially the traps and environmental hazards (which are really annoying to find) was the worst! Here's an example...

The Charm of Heroism: On page 39 of Curse of Strahd, the heroes might be given a charm of heroism. We are told to "see "Supernatural Gifts" in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master's Guide."

Now let's go find it. We don't have a page number so we have to flip through the book. What a pain. We find it. It says "This charm allows you to give yourself the benefit of a potion of heroism as an action."

So guess what?! Now we have to find the potion of heroism. No page number, no nothing. Let's go find it.

It's on page 188 of the DMG. Guess what it says? "...For the same duration, you are under the effect of the bless spell (no concentration required)."

NOW WE HAVE TO LOOK UP BLESS.

It's on PH page 219. +d4 to attack rolls or saves for one minute.

I really, really wish that they would just write what some of this stuff does right in the adventure text. So many games are going to come to a screeching halt because of this charm of heroism. DMs who don't prepare this kind of thing in advance are suddenly flipping through multiple books while their players sit there and time ticks away. It's an easy thing to overlook, as you'll assume you can just flip to a page and boom there's the info.

The Art

I mentioned the good stuff about the art, now here's the bad. I personally don't like the way Strahd looks. To me, Strahd will always look like the guy in the AD&D 1st edition Clyde Caldwell painting. In this book, Strahd is.. purple? Sort of? And the details on his face in almost every piece are a bit mushy. 

Seriously though, look at the above comparison. Am I just an old fogey? The 5e cover certainly isn't bad at all. I like the surreal quality of it, which is something I really enjoyed on Jeff Easley covers. It really isn't fair to ask anyone to follow up an iconic piece of D&D art. But to me, that is not Strahd.

Couldn't they have just hired Clyde Caldwell to do the 5e cover and update his look? I understand that the Bela Lugosi-style vampire is extremely dated, but this new dude does absolutely nothing for me.

The interior art is also hampered by the 5e "page rips," something I've groaned about before. This design choice actually obscures parts of the art and in some cases makes them look significantly worse.

Check out this example. This is art of the gates of Barovia:

Do you see how the white paper obscures the top of the art? It's so close to one of the statues that it lessens the effect - it becomes difficult to see that both heads are lopped off.

There also seems to be an issue with how the art turns out when printed. While I like that full page art is used, a lot of the full page pieces are muddy or vague. Take a look at this image from page 83. I have the digital version and how it looks in the book side by side.

And keep in mind that the above book version is actually a bit brighter than what I am looking at in my book! I understand that some of this must just be the mechanics of how things are printed. But between the darkening and the page rips, I think the artists are being done a disservice. When I saw this art of the ghoul in the book, I thought it was horrible. Most of the page was black. It felt like a missed opportunity. But then I found the original art online.. and it's good!

The Poster Map

I think I am in the minority on this, but I feel strongly about it. The poster map feels wasted. On one side, there's a map of Barovia and the towns. This is useful to a degree, as you and your players can look at it on the table and track where the group is, particularly when they are on the road.

The other side has the Castle Ravenloft map. Even at poster map size, the castle sections are small. They're isometric, which is a bit confusing. Worst of all, this poster map has the secret doorsand the traps on it.

So if you plop this thing down on the table, your players are going to know a lot more about the castle than they should and an entire element is taken out of the game. That's not the end of the world. But even when this thing is on the table, you need to squint and turn this gigantic map around to kind of, sort of, point out where the heroes are.

Even if the DM just wants to use the map to personally refer to in play, how the heck are you going to do that? It's gigantic! Are you going to fold up your map in ways it wasn't meant to be bent? Are you going to unfurl this massive thing and hold it up in front of your face and speak to the players?

To me, this thing is completely impractical. I would have preferred a separate booklet with the castle sections on individual pages with DM notes.

I have always liked battle maps. This poster could have had one side with some generic, reusable areas at five feet per square. Divide one side up into quarters for four maps: The road, a village street, an inn and a church, cave or dungeon interior. The other side can have some specific but reusable locales. Mostly Castle Ravenloft areas - especially the crypts! In fact, an entire side might be devoted to the crypts, as that is a massive area that the adventurers will probably spend a lot of time in.

I know 5e is miniatures-optional, but there are some locations in every adventure where you just need minis or some kind of visual representation of where the characters are and what the room is like.

Death House

This mini-adventure is designed to get the heroes from level 1 to level 3. Honestly, I think it doesn't belong in this book. It's not a bad adventure. I love the idea. It would be a great Expeditions scenario.

I think there's too many rooms in Death House and it feels like if you don't run the adventure carefully, your group will get bored. I also don't like the choice of final monster at all. This location has no real connection to anything in Curse of Strahd, which is a bummer because there is so much material out there to play with.

Instead of going through Death House, the group could have interacted with Strahd or one of his underlings like Rahadin. They could have encountered Beucephalus the nightmare in the woods. They could have found Ezmerelda's trail, or a villager comatose from a dream pastry. A vestige could have reached out to tempt them. Sergei's spirit might have lead them into Barovia. They could have had some kind of chase or interaction with the gypsies. There's so many possibilities.

I think Curse of Strahd would have been much better served with an introductory mini-adventure that brings the group into Barovia and lets them have a few easy fights and roleplaying encounters, so that new players have the opportunity to learn the basics of the game. In fact, they probably should have just done the Madam Eva tarokka reading right off the bat rather than hoping the group makes their way to Tser Pool.

Tarokka Woes

It's not the end of the world or anything, but I pre-ordered the tarokka deck well before the Curse of Strahd book even came out. The deck did not actually come out and arrive at my house until at least a month after the book did.

I had originally planned on starting Curse of Strahd right when the book came out. I would have been really annoyed to find that I wouldn't even have the deck when my group got to the tarokka reading. I actually looked into buying an older version of the deck online when I heard that the official deck wouldn't be out on time.

It doesn't seem like rocket science to know that the tarokka deck should be out by the time the book is, if not before. All of those Adventurer's League groups are starting Curse of Strahd right when the book is out. These potential customers are right there in stores where the decks can be sold. The tarokka reading is essential to the adventure and is meant to be done in one of the first sessions. If the group goes through the reading and the deck isn't even out yet, then that DM isn't going to buy the deck when it does come out because it is no longer needed! It's too late!

Overall

Most of my gripes really have nothing to do with the actual content of the adventure, but rather how it is presented. Every single 5e adventure requires a ridiculous amount of "homework" and I think that is a shame.

But the fact remains that if you can get past all of that, this is the best 5e adventure yet. It is full of great ideas. Many of the locations are fantastic. Tons of thought and care went into this and it really shows.

I think a lot of people might regard Curse of Strahd as a modern classic, perhaps even moreso than The Red Hand of Doom. Time will tell on that one. But there is no question that this is a great adventure that is well worth your money.

Here's the deal. Tonight's session got really "adult." We really didn't even get into the Infinite Staircase at all. So if this raunchy stuff isn't your cup of tea, just click away now!

I will try and use polite language to describe the proceedings.

In this session, I used some material from Curse of Strahd and then we handled some subplot storylines. We didn't get through even half of what I wanted to because things got out of hand and honestly we were laughing so much that it ate up a lot of time. To me, that's a good session.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Selinza ("Litorian" Wizard, level 4)

The Shadowfell

Blinsky

Last time, there was this demon storm (The Stygian Eye) that had damaged the cubic gate (a device that lets the heroes travel to one of six planes). They used the cubic gate to try to go to a city in the astral plane, but because the gate was damaged they ended up in... Barovia.

Well, not Curse of Strahd Barovia. It's my 'alternate universe' version of Barovia, situated in The Shadowfell.

The heroes appeared in the village of Barovia and saw that the villagers were emotionless. Some of the buildings and people were transparent. They soon learned that The Iron Shadow (the weird entity that grew out of The Lady of Pain when Bidam gave her the Heart of the Lady of Pain) had come to Barovia and drained it of vitality.

When The Iron Shadow comes to a place, it drains all creativity and vibrance. In some locales, people and places actually vanish from existence.

The group busted out their planar compass, which directed them to the nearest planar portal. They followed the arrow down a dark road. They saw a cart on the side of the road. In it was Blinsky, an NPC from Curse of Strahd. He makes evil toys.

The group loved Blinsky and thoroughly enjoyed the terrible pseudo-russian accent i did for him (especially when he said "cat lady" as "kit-LAY dee"). They bought some toys off of him. Theran actually bought the ventriloquist dummy that looks like Strahd. Bidam bought a hag doll that has three child dolls in it, as if the hag ate them.

The planar compass was pointing toward the Ruins of Berez. Blinsky warned them that Berez was home to "old ladies with cats."

The Creeping Hut

The group headed to Berez and found 9 witches in the center of the ruins, stirring a cauldron. There were black cats everywhere. An animated hut that walked with roots (sort of like spider legs) was nearby - this is the Creeping Hut. The group decided to just walk up to them and say hello.

If you read my Curse of Strahd stuff you know that I love Baba Lysaga and her Creeping Hut. I decided to keep Lysaga out of this, because I don't want to waste her on a throwaway encounter.  Plus, I really like the Barovian Witches from Curse of Strahd so I thought this would be fun.

The witches were pleasant with the heroes and offered to share their meal. A witch held up two cages. In each cage was a child. The witches were about to throw the kids in the cauldron and cook them up!

The adventurers attacked. The witches fired off rays of sickness. The rays did some damage, but the group made their saves and avoided being poisoned.

Bidam decimated three of them with his horn of blasting (the hags only have 16 hit points each). Theran unleashed magic missiles, Fall From Grace charged, determined to keep the kids from harm. A witch tried to creep up behind the party, but Selinza blew her away with magic missiles.

The witches were destroyed. I played the Creeping Hut as a frightened animal. In Curse of Strahd, the hut is extremely powerful (263 hit points!). That's a long, drawn out fight and this is meant to just be a little side thing to get the group back home.

The group freed the kids and Fall From Grace promised to take them somewhere safe. The kids are Freek and Muriel. In Curse of Strahd, these kids were prisoners in Old Bonegrinder.

The compass pointed right at the Creeping Hut. There was a planar portal in there. Theran tried to calm the hut down, but rolled extremely poorly. Bidam had much better luck. He befriended the hut and it allowed them to go inside.

Theran cast Warp Sense, a planescape spell that allowed him to find out where the portal went (the gate town of Sylvania) and what activated it (a broom).

The group activated the portal and went through. The heroes were disturbed to see that this portal led right to an orphanage.

Sylvania is a big party town. The group came here a few times during the Great Modron March, and had some hijinks with a guy in a toga and his sister.

As fate would have it, there's a portal to Deadbook Square in Sylvania. So there you go, the adventurers made their way home.

The Good Church

An asura.

Back in Sigil, the heroes got wrapped up in this little storyline I have been slipping in the last few sessions. There's a worker at the festhall who thinks her goddess wants her to have a child of a chosen one.

She was upset because it has been so long and she'd looked for this chosen one everywhere. As this woman (an asura) vented to the heroes, Malweis the paladin (leader of the band of NPC adventurers that live in Deadbook Square) was nearby doing some carpentry work, hammering away. Malweis got all sweaty. He took his shirt off. Ladies nearby swooned, overwhelmed by his mighty 18 charisma. The asura again wondered aloud if she'd ever find this mystery person.

The group laughed and picked up on my "subtle" clues. Malweis is the guy. The problem is that he's in a secret romance with another woman who works at the festhall. I put a number of clues to this relationship in previous sessions, so the players really lit up when it all came together.

The adventurers brainstormed ideas. They seriously wanted to cast polymorph other on the asura so that she looked like Malweis' girlfriend...! But the asura is lawful good. She refused and was appalled.

The heroes ultimately decided to let this story sit. They will mull it over between sessions.

The group rested for the night. The next day they looked into rumors that a Zactar (worshipers of Umbra) had died. They didn't put together that it was Bidam's "Hit it or Quit it" curse that had killed her.

The Sensates

OK. A few days ago, I saw Chris Perkins jokingly mention something on Twitter about a Dragon magazine article about orgies:

I looked into it. In Dragon magazine #10, there is indeed an article called "Orgies, Inc." My mind was blown.

It turns out that this article isn't really about orgies. It's basically a first edition version of the downtime activity of carousing. The purpose was to give the adventurers something to spend money on: "Lusty indulgence in wine, women and song."

It did have this amusing comment in it: "A player can orgy continuously for as many days as he has constitution points, then must rest for as many days as he orgied."

So obviously I read this and realized that the heroes needed "to orgy." I cooked up a thing where Bidam was invited to a Sensate orgy (Bidam belongs to the Sensates, a faction that believes in experiencing everything: sights, tastes, sounds, etc).

The Sensates were thrilled that he showed up. Throughout the campaign, Bidam has created a number of sensory stones of a most adult nature and has a bit of a following.

I cooked up a pile of NPCs for Bidam to orgy with. Some of them were people they'd met before, some were Planescape: Torment NPCs, some were new. I used a number of 4e races, because it seems fun to take 4e concepts and put them in the 2e Planescape setting and see how they mix. I put in guys, women, whatever, just to see what Jessie would do with it. Here's some of the orgiers:

• Lela Melarik: A women that the heroes rescued from Kaliva's Island during the "Nemesis" adventure.
• Splinter: Githzerai.
• Lady Thorncombe: A lady who teaches magic.
• Unfulfilled Desires: A Planescape: Torment NPC who can remove desires from your mind.
• Lloyd Bonér: Satyr.
• Barlow: Minotaur.
• Blenda: Goliath.
• Ivy Darksoul: Shade (A human infused with shadow energy).
• Jillian Allurid: Alu-Fiend (succubus spawn).
• Valna: Tiefling with a forked tongue.
• And last but not least, A modron. The modron had an attachment where each of his hands should be. One was a phallus fitted with with a thruster. The other was basically a moist crevasse that could spin. The modron didn't really understand what the heck was going on, but he wanted to figure it out and be useful.

Modron

So the orgiers get comfortable. People start drinking wine made from Razorvine. Next thing you know, everyone starts orgying. I ran this like a 4th edition skill challenge. I'd throw out a situation, Jessie would tell me what Bidam did, then she'd roll and see what happened.

I ask Jessie who she wants Bidam to orgy on.. or with.. or whatever. She says to me: "The modron." You probably had to be there, but we couldn't stop laughing.

The modron was wandering around, offering to extract fluids or massage orifices and was getting rejected left and right.

My first task here in the skill challenge involved teabagging. I admitted this out loud and again we died laughing. Was Bidam going to put his scrotum in the modron's spinning appendage? That sounded horrible!

Jessie had a change of heart. She picked the shade, Ivy Darksoul. Bidam teabagged this nice young lady, but injured himself in the process (failed his dexterity check). He needed to rest for five minutes.

Next thing you know, the goliath lady comes over and oral stuff happens. I had this written down - while Bidam is doing the honors, the modron comes over and politely offers to do stuff. Bidam agrees and the modron extracts fluids from Bidam. Bidam nearly passed out due to lack of oxygen, but made his constitution check.

Alu Fiend

A woman nearby learned that wine and orgying don't always mix. She threw up. Bidam dodged it with a dexterity check. There was some other goofy encounters with various partners that built to two major developments.

Last session, a demonic entity from Yeenoghu's realm had entered Bidam's body. Now, the demonic entity was being orgied out of Bidam's body and into Valna the tiefling!

Bidam realized what was happening. There was a bit of maneuvering, and ultimately the demon spirit was sucked into the modron's receptacle. The demon spirit cursed Bidam and swore revenge. For now, Yeenoghu's demon agent was trapped in the modron's fluid container.

Then we got to the main part - Bidam felt his metal-coated heart beat. Everything went into slow motion. He had to choose someone to either hit or quit. He chose to "hit"... Lady Thorncombe.

So there's three people who are linked to the Lady of Pain and the Iron Shadow:

1. The four-armed reave masseuse
2. The demon from Nephrax
3. Lady Thorncombe, Sensate

What was supposed to be a short, goofy little joke segment ended up being the centerpiece of the whole night.

Whispering Flask

Theran headed to Limbo and the githzerai city of Zerthadlun. He got his ingredients, he met with the ruler (Adlishar Raman) and I squeezed in some githzerai quotes like: "Endure. And in enduring, grow strong."

Bidam brought his ingredients back to his wizardly lab. I had cooked up a small chart based on the potion miscibility chart in the DMG. Theran would need to make a skill check to make the whispering flask. If he failed, there was a possibility there would be a massive explosion. He rolled high.

The whispering flask holds githzerai healing powder. You touch the spice to your skin, and it fills wounds and heal them. It also heals holes in your psyche, removing doubts. I think it is originally from Planescape: Torment. I found it here at Planewalker.com, which is loaded with great Planescape material. I decided it healed 2d8+4 hit points. I want the group to have access to more powerful healing potions. 2d4+2 isn't cutting it any more, and I hate rolling d4's.

Malcanthet's Scheme

Malcanthet, demon lord of Succubi

While the adventurers were off doing their thing, Fall From Grace decided to sneak into the Abyss. She wanted to go take care of Red Shroud once and for all. Red Shroud is Fall From Grace's mother. She sold Fall From Grace to devils when she was an infant. Fall from Grace had a horrific childhood, obviously. Somehow she escaped and actually became a paladin for a goddess of good.

The heroes had a run-in with Red Shroud last adventure, and Fall From Grace wants to kill her once and for all. The problem is that Red Shroud is really powerful.

Basically what happened here was that Fall From Grace was shocked to see that Red Shroud's town of Broken Reach was decimated. Malcanthet, demon lord of Succubi (and Red Shroud's mother) had sent her agents there. It turns out that it was Malcanthet who ordered Red Shroud to kill Bazuuma last session. Red Shroud failed.

Radiant Sister

So Malcanthet's agents, the Radiant Sisters (13 super-succubi with halos of various colors) descended on Broken Reach. They killed many of the denizens and imprisoned Red Shroud's friends and her consort in golden puzzle box prisons.

The radiant sisters have these vorpal whip-daggers. They whipped poor Red Shroud and told her that she needed to find Bazuuma and atone for her failure. Only then would she get her friends back.

Fall From Grace saw all of this from her hiding place and didn't know what to think. She returned to Sigil and told the heroes. The group wasn't sure what to do with this information, but they were alarmed.

I am setting up a session down the road. I want to use the Malcanthet stuff from Dragon #353 and a part of a Savage Tide adventure (in Dungeon #149, I think). I guess I'm just putting the wheels in motion.

I really love the D&D Abyss. I like the demon lords, I like the layers and I love the massive variety of demons out there. There are so many different breeds of demons spread out in different D&D products. You can just pick your favorites and do whatever you want with them.

The Staircase

So after all that stuff, we finally got to the actual adventure. As written, there's this wizard who gets in trouble due to a crazed sorceress who unleashed a demon on the staircase. The heroes are supposed to save the wizard, who is stuck on a landing with no way off. I streamlined it.

I had Vrishika (long-time ally of the heroes) take a rogue (Rubix the chaosman) into the Infinite Staircase to see if there was anything worth stealing. Vrishika got in trouble with the demon and ended up trapped on the landing. Rubix fled.

So Rubix told the heroes what happened and in they went. The heroes met a lillend, a guardian of the staircase, and she explained how the staircase worked (which I went over ad nauseam in my Guide to the Infinite Staircase).

She also made sure to emphasize that in the Infinite Staircase, anyone could seek out and find a door to their heart's desire. The catch is that once they found it, they'd never leave. Selinza pointed out that she'd want a door that brought her to Raja Khan, the rakshasa from Nemesis. Fall From Grace assumed her door would take her to Red Shroud, so she could have her revenge.

I had cooked up a bunch of landings with portals, just so the group could get a feel for the place. The landings and doors are supposed to be themed to be similar to the plane they are linked to. So for example, if the door on a landing led to the plane of fire, then maybe the landing was made of volcanic rock and the door had fire etchings on it or something.

The heroes found landings that held portals to the plane of water, the Feywild, Acheron, and Mechanus. There were also doors to weird prime worlds.

The heroes found doors to a world of giants, a world where men were at war with women, and a world where it always rained and thus the entire planet was flooded.

That's where we had to stop! We'll do the actual staircase adventure next time.

You can watch this episode on Twitch here (This link skips the 10 minutes of dancing mindflayer).

A new player joins the group tonight. Erika Ishii plays a fighter who I think is higher level then the rest of the party. She's very cool. I'll add some thoughts about her at the end of this summary.

Last time, the heroes arrived at Vallaki. Vallaki is a village full of fun stuff and I am really looking forward to seeing how everything plays out.

The Waffle Crew+1

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Erika) Dee - Human Fighter
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard 

The crew enters Vallaki and they spot Rictavio's wagon of wonders. Evelyn gets excited and the group goes to check it out. Evelyn knocks and loudly inquires about the wonders. They hear a commotion inside - wood cracking.

Chris shows the players the picture of the wagon from his book. They should try and put these images on the full screen for a moment, so we can get a good look at it. It's hard to see inside Chris' tiny rectangle.

Erika's character comes over and warns the heroes not to go in. Her name is Dee. Dee is 6 1/2 feet tall, she has dark hair and scars all over her face. Apparently she is part of Rictavio's show - she's a strongwoman.

Dee does card tricks, and Erika actually has a deck of cards and hilariously does a trick. Awesome.

The group goes to the Blue Mountain Inn. Paultin plays music in exchange for free rooms. He rolls good. Dee and Evelyn dance.

Two hunters who smell like barf tell Evelyn she's going to die soon. Dee tells the guys to shut up.

Strix makes friends with the owner, Urwin Martikov. He talks to Strix about Izek Strazni - the guy who is probably her brother. He also warns her that the Burgomaster of Vallaki is crazy.

Strix helps out in the kitchen. I can't believe the group hasn't ordered waffles yet. Wait.. in the kitchen... Strix spots a waffle maker!

Dee introduces the group to Rictavio. Evelyn subtly peers into Rictavio's journal (which is full of fun stuff) and sees notes about Filmore Stunk. She can't make out the whole line, heh heh. I used him in my Planescape campaign a few weeks ago.

Rictavio starts translating Madame Eva's reading for them. Rictavio basically gives the group a road map for the campaign:

• Evelyn: The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is in Argynvostholt. 
• Diath: The Tome of Strahd is in The Amber Temple.
• Paultin: Ezmerelda is in St. Markovia's Abbey.
• Strix: The Sunsword is in a bone ossuary in Castle Ravenloft.

I am really interested to see Chris run the Amber Temple. It's an awesome location and I can't imagine what the group will do when they get to the final rooms. Just picturing Evelyn in there is funny.

Strix talks to Rictavio alone and intimidates him, warning him that if he doesn't help the group they're stuck here. Rictavio tells her that he's cursed by the vistani and if he helps them, they are doomed.

Paultin is drunk and can't remember his reading. Evelyn remembers. Chris gives her inspiration for that. I think Anna took notes on the entire reading in real life, which is just another reason why she is a fantastic player.

Chris reminds the players that some of them got inspiration last time. It's funny, inspiration often goes forgotten. You'd think players would really latch on to it, but that is usually not the case.

The group goes back downstairs, and spots some menacing town guards. Diath detects a secret door (he rolled a natural 20 on his check) and the group slips through. A guard calls out for the group to halt, but they shut the door and go down the hall. The group ends up going through a few rooms and peers outside the inn.

They spot Izek and a bunch of guards outside. One of Izek's arms is huge, red and demonic. The group tries to keep out of sight and creep away. Dee goes out there and tries to distract them with a card trick. Izek questions her, sees through her deception and we roll initiative.

Izek pulls out a huge axe and does 21 points of damage to Dee. Yikes. Dee hits him with her shield and knocks him to the ground, then she stabs him with her spear.

The group comes out to help.

Diath flings daggers and kills a guard. Evelyn charges out and hacks a guard with Lightfall, her axe. She rolls a natural 20 and cuts a guard in half.

For the critical hit, Chris has Anna do max damage and then roll damage again and add it. I believe that is a critical hit rule from one of the playtest packets. I don't really like the 5e critical hit rule (roll damage twice, add it together and then add bonuses). I kind of like good old-fashioned double damage. The extra rolling is a bit of a pain and explaining how it works at the table can be a little awkward.

Izek does somewhere around 30 points to poor Dee. The guards stab her for more. She's still up! Wow, she has a ton of hit points. Evelyn heals her for 9 points.

Paultin casts Invisibility on Strix. She calls out to Izek and tells him she's his sister. She casts mage armor and becomes visible. Izek stops the fight and questions her.

Izek runs up and awkwardly hugs her, and that's where we stop.

Timestamps

(1:11:44) Evelyn wants a song.
(1:30:49) The Group spots Izek Strazni.
(2:04:26) Izek meets Strix

Overall

Chugging Along: The first hour was too unfocused for me. The group spent a lot of time chatting by the wagon and in the inn. Once the group talked with Rictavio, things got moving. I like Chris' Rictavio voice. Honestly, this is a pretty skippable episode.

Dee is Good: I really like Dee. She is a character that you immediately get a vivid mental image of. Erika has a great voice and she brings a certain electricity to the game. I don't know if Dee is a permanent addition or if she's a "guest star" for a few weeks like Chris Trott was. Maybe we'll see another group made up of Chris, Erika and other guest stars down the road.

A Thought: Some day I'd really like to see Ed Greenwood run a campaign. He's been running games forever and he has a fantastic voice. The material he cooks up on Candlekeep is really amazing. The guy has fleshed out every little detail of the world.

Today I am going to attempt to write about how I prepare adventures. This is just the way I do it. It works for me, so maybe there will be something here that can help you. I use published adventures and "official" material a lot, so most of this focuses on how to siphon the essential material out of D&D adventures and organize it on a note sheet.

Some people can just read an adventure and they are ready to run it. I am not like that. In order for me to absorb it, I have to take notes.

The Basic Idea

You want to get all the essential things you need to know for the session on a few sheets of paper. Write it in a way that, as soon as you glance at it, you are reminded of what's next.

Homework? When you run a game, you'll be blabbing away and multitasking like crazy. Having concise and organized notes means you won't have to waste precious table time looking things up. You will have it all right there! In my experience, looking stuff up ends up wasting tons of time and players might get bored. Your session can lose steam and get derailed if you're not careful.

Read through the adventure and take notes on a sheet of paper (or whatever). Leave space on the right side to create sidebars, and also leave room on the side for notes during the game. Look up stuff and add in your own flourishes. Write page numbers to the important stuff in the adventure. When we play, I write down initiative and hit points right there on the sheet.

Write Notes During the Game: Also, during the game, when something special happens, immediately write it down on your sheet. It could be a funny line someone said, an idea for the future that pops into your head during the game, or a cool moment that happened that you want to make sure you don't forget.

A lot of times when you run a game, there's awesome little moments that get lost in the shuffle. Those little nuggets are the lifeblood of a good campaign. You do not want to lose them! They are the things you can build on.

Preparation Time: Generally you should never spend more time preparing than your session is long. So if you run 4 hour sessions, you should not spend more than 4 hours preparing. Generally you won't need more than an hour or two to prepare. You can "fall down the rabbit hole" when preparing, so be mindful. Make sure you get your essential outline done before you start reading up on weird stuff and adding all sorts of non-essential side jaunts.

Trim Away: When preparing a published adventure, feel free to junk whatever you don't like. You're the director of the movie, so put your stamp on it. You are not obligated to stick to the text. Prep time is the perfect time to add your own fun details.

My Notes

This is the first page of my notes for my last Planescape session. It probably looks like gibberish. I tried to highlight the important stuff and I will try to explain it below. This page involves the group's sojourn into Barovia. I pulled out a bunch of stuff from Curse of Strahd and had my way with it:

Let's go over each highlighted part:

What Happened Last Time: I start every session reminding the group what happened in the previous session. Players generally don't remember too many details. This helps get them in the right frame of mind so we're off and running right away. It's good to write this down in advance, so you can get all the details straight.

When you present this to the group, don't drone on and on. Just say the main things that happened and anything relevant to the current session. Try to say just a few sentences. Definitely mention the funny or cool stuff that the heroes did last time so you can set the mood and spark their memory.

Space for Sidebar: Leave space on the right side of your sheet. A lot of times when you are preparing a published adventure, the information is presented to you in non-linear ways. Old adventures tend to give you weird details in weird places. I put that important information in sidebars on my sheet, so it doesn't interrupt my flow in the game.

Sidebar-worthy information might include:

• Details on a Town/Place: The ruler, a few places, a few NPCs.
• Special Rules: Such as "Chaos Shaping" rules when you go to the plane of Limbo, or drowning rules if I'm running an aquatic adventure, that kind of thing.
• Background/History: Adventure authors tend to go apeshit writing background info that the heroes will never learn. It's often complicated and I have a hard time keeping it straight. I make a sidebar and spell it out in a few bullet points on the off chance that the group actually investigates the history.
• Ship stats/Ballista stats: If the group is using a special vessel or weird siege item, I'll write the stats of it, and any special rules (often a ballista has a weird rate of fire).

Initiative & Hit Points: Leave space on the right side of the page for notes. I like to use this area to write down initiative and monster hit points. You've got everything right there in one place - the monster stats, the initiative order and how hurt the monsters are. It keeps things running smoothly.

Encounters: I try to organize my gibberish so that the most important things are immediately noticeable. I underline and put boxes around the most important things, and to separate sections. It might look like hieroglyphics to others, but as long as it makes sense to you, you're good. The point of this is for you to get all the information you need at a glance.

Monster Stats: As you take notes in each area/room in the adventure, write down the monster stats right in that room description. One great thing about 5e is that monster stats are super-simple. Here's the stats of one of my favorite D&D monsters, the ogre:

Here's how I'd write this monster on my sheet:

(MM pg 237) Ogre:AC:11HP:59  +6 13 (2d8+4) dmg

• Spd:40 DEX:-1

That's it! That's the essentials, boiled into pretty much one line. A couple things to note:

• Saving Throws: I know what spells my players use, so I only write down those saving throw numbers. If the save is 0, I don't even write it down.
• Range Weapons: In most stat blocks, the humanoid bad guys have a range attack that pretty much has an identical attack bonus and damage to their melee attack. If I think I won't remember that the Ogre has a javelin, I might note it and the range: (javelin 20/120).

Spellcasting Monsters: Writing down that kind of monster stat takes no time at all. Creatures with spells require a bit more effort.

When I write down spellcasters, I absolutely make sure to write down their save DC and their spell attack bonus. This is one of the things that most frequently causes a session to slow down. I always write these numbers down, sometimes repeatedly just to make sure I see it right away.

Spells: Preparing monster spells is funny. How many rounds does a combat last? In my sessions, not many. Just 2 or 3 rounds, really. So I look over the monster's spell list and I find a few spells it will use. In bullet points, I write the spell down and what it does.

If you look at my Barovian Witches stat block up there, you'll see my format. Here's ray of sickness:

Ray of Sickness: Rg: 60  +4 2d8 poi (+CON save DC:10Fail = poisoned until the end of my next turn)Poisoned = Disadvantage on to hit & skills.

Other Things to Do

Add in NPC Notes: This happens over and over in D&D - everyone forgets that there are NPCs and animals traveling with the group.

The best way to avoid this is to write at least one little moment for each NPC somewhere in your outline. It could be a reaction to an event, a funny line, a heroic moment, or maybe the NPC has some kind of moral conflict. If you are able to include animal companions in each of your sessions outside of when they are used in battle, you are doing a great job.

Maps: Sometimes if I am preparing a dungeon, I draw a map right on my notepage. Usually I change maps. I cut out all of the empty rooms and the rooms I don't want to use. Generally, I simplify dungeons so we can get to the good stuff. I feel like a giant dungeon sometimes can create malaise and it might even sour your whole campaign. So I draw a crappy little map and I label each room with what is inside.

Having a map that you can look at and see what is in each room right there is extremely helpful! That's one reason why I love the Castle Ravenloft walkthrough map so much:

Magic Items: Write down what they do! Write down a page number. If you have the time, write it on an index card so you can just hand it to the player and you won't have to stop and explain what it does.

Names: You should write some cool fantasy names down on your sheet. Usually in a session, the group will end up talking to some random citizens, guards or waitresses. If you have a pre-made name list, you can just grab a name without missing a beat.

Notes During the Game: If you look on my sheet, you'll see right by "Toys" that I noted which toy each hero bought. Those are exactly the kind of little details that I won't remember at the end of the session. Now, when the session is over I can mull it over and maybe think of something fun to do with these items. Maybe the Strahd ventriloquist dummy gets possessed or something? Who knows. The information is there, that's the important thing.

Ideas: In general, no matter where you are, any time you have an idea you should write it down immediately. These ideas will disappear and sometimes you'll remember them when it is too late to use them. That is the worst.

Separate Sheets

Guess what? You're probably going to need to make yourself some reference sheets as your campaign grows. You're going to update these after every session.

In my Planescape campaign, my heroes "own" a bunch of buildings in the city of Sigil and there's all these portals to other planes there. The adventurers run a festhall:

Over the course of this campaign, I have made a few reference sheets. All of these stay on my clipboard, underneath my adventure notes:

Festhall: This sheet lists all of the workers in the festhall that the heroes own. For each NPC worker, I wrote down their name, race, and a sentence on what they are like/their story.

Curiosity Shoppe: One of the closest allies of the group owns a magic shop which I lifted out of Planescape: Torment. I have a page that lists the items she sells, and information about the owner and her tragic past.

Sigil: Normally I'd have at the very least some notes on the city of Sigil, but it's not necessary. This blog is my notes repository! I just keep my Guide to Sigil open during the game.

NPC Cards

Often in my campaigns, I'll have an NPC accompany the party. I write their stats on an index card. I don't write them on paper because if I have too many sheets of paper, it gets jumbled up. These sit to my right, by my dice bag.

My group has two NPCs with them, Fall From Grace and Selinza the cat lady. They are on index cards:

On the back of Fall From Grace's card are notes on her magic chastity bodice. On the back of Selinza's card are her spell details.

Don't Lose These: There is nothing more annoying than losing these little cards! I always keep them right in a special pouch in my gaming bag so this doesn't happen.

When the Session is Over

Sit down for a minute and write notes for next time. Jot down ideas and developments that could happen next session or in the future. Right after the session is when I have my best ideas and everything is fresh in my head. That's the best time to do it. You'll probably be fried, as DMing can be very draining, but this only takes a minute and you will thank yourself next session.

Published Adventures

I prepared a page of Death House, the level one Curse of Strahd adventure. I went a little overboard so I could try to demonstrate everything better. Honestly if I was going to run this, each room would be a sentence or two except for the library.

Here's the page from the pdf, and my notes:

Important things:

Bullet Points: Most of my notes are in bullet point and list form. It's very easy to clump stuff together that way, and each line contains a separate important thing.

Page Number: Try to note what page in the pdf/book this stuff is on for easy reference. I put it in a circle so it stands out.

Dumbwaiter: The dumbwaiter might be important, so I put it in a box. The heroes in theory could get into all sorts of hijinks in there.

Secret Stuff: I generally put parenthesis around secret things so I don't accidentally read them out loud. Secret doors, especially!

Always Write Down the DCs: Keep them nice and clear!

Flavor Text: If a room has stuff meant to be read aloud, I note it on my sheet and I'll write the gist of the text in parenthesis.

Library: If you see room 8 on my sheet, it's a library. Another good thing about this type of preparation is that you can flesh things out. Most times if there is a library in an adventure, I make up some books that the heroes might loot. The books sometimes refer to the setting, sometimes they're just jokes, sometimes they refer to some obscure thing from a past campaign to give the players the sense that the things they do matter and will be referred to in future campaigns.

In this instance, The books I made:

• The Tergs: A reference to the horde that Sergei and Strahd battled back before Strahd became a vampire.
• Hag Theory: The secret purpose of this book is to help the heroes identify the potions in Old Bonegrinder. Those potions are deadly!
• The Mesmerist's Pendulum: This is just a goofball reference to Ravenloft 2.
• Mordenkainen's Spectacular Legend: He's a famous wizard! And the heroes don't know it yet, but they might have a run-in with someone quite similar to this fellow...

There You Go

That is how I prepare. The more you do it, the more of a shorthand you will create and the faster you will get at it. When I prepare like this, the material is lodged in my brain so well that sometimes I don't even need to look at my notes for long stretches of the game.

I think if you take anything out of this, it's that the most important thing for you to think about is looking up spells, magic items and monsters in advance. I am guessing some groups don't mind doing that at the table. But if you are like me and you are looking to get things done and keep things snappy, you should probably do it.

This article is about developing sub-plots and storylines in Dungeons & Dragons. D&D is weird. You're not writing a book. You can't just think of a storyline and then force your players to walk down that path. Players always do things you don't expect.

That is the fun of D&D, but it also makes things complicated.

It's hard to put into words how to handle storylines, but I am going to give it a try. Here's what works for me.

My games have two threads:

• Main Plot: Whatever adventure I am currently running.
• Sub-Plots: Little story elements that might grow in time.

The Big Picture

In each session, I run a portion of a published campaign/adventure. When the group goes home, I introduce/develop NPCs and ideas. The heroes interact with them, and a chain of events causes a story to unfurl. Eventually that subplot will either culminate in a session of its' own or get tied into the main story.

Here's an outline of how you can progress storylines. I'm going to explain all of this further below:

1. Establish story elements in the campaign
2. Plan out an idea
3. Foreshadow the idea and put it in play
4. Let the group twist and shape your idea
5. Build on what they did and hand it back to them
6. Let it grow until it explodes.
7. Reinforce the notion that player choices matter

Establishing Story Elements

So how do we start? You need set up some elements. By "elements", I mean NPCs, places, factions, whatever. Define them. Introduce them into the campaign. Then, as the characters interact with them, develop the relationship. Sub-plots can grow from this.

Brainstorm: To start with, create a bunch of stuff for the heroes to interact with. I usually run games where the heroes have a "base," either a pirate ship or a hometown. I make up a bunch of NPCs, whatever I think is fun. I give the NPCs secrets and motivations. I make sure many of the NPCs are nice and helpful to the group, and that I don't just use them as a way to "screw over" the players plotwise.

Put Your Elements in Play: Let the group interact with your elements. You might have some favorites, so try those out on the group first and see what the players do.

Player Reactions: As the group mingles with your elements, they might be sort of overwhelmed in a meta-game way. They might wonder "Which of these NPCs have story hooks?" or "What are we 'supposed' to do with them?"

It's good to keep them on their toes! Your world will feel rich and more real. The truth is that maybe you have cool plot ideas for one or two of them, but the rest of these elements are in play just for fun. You throw them out there, and see what comes of it. In time, that NPC might spark a plot, but in the meantime they're a face in the crowd.

The group will be surrounded by potential plot hooks which can slowly grow over time in natural ways.

Let me give some examples of how an element can grow into an adventure:

The Cleric: A cleric at the church often heals the heroes for free, because the heroes are low level and they are just starting out. Perhaps as they gain levels, the heroes offer big donations to the church to return the favor. You might decide that the church built an entirely new wing  using the money the PCs gave them.

Maybe things get bad for the heroes down the road - the whole world has turned against them. Or they are suffering from a curse. The only people willing to help are the members of the church. They let the group stay there, but the curse brings danger to the church. We have a whole adventure with the heroes and the NPC cleric trying to fend off monsters drawn by the curse and trying to figure out a cure. I'd bet the heroes would feel undying loyalty to this church and do everything they could to keep it from harm.

Factions: I'm running a Planescape campaign. Planescape is full of all of factions that characters often join. You can build something out of that. Each session, have that character do something with the faction and interact with members of the faction.

One character in my campaign, Bidam, joined the Sensates, a faction devoted to experiencing everything there is to experience. They record their experiences on magic sensory stones, which allows other people to relive your experience and feel what you felt.

There is a ridiculous amount of possibility with that. You could have the heroes use some sensory stones and see something that sparks an adventure - maybe they spot an overlooked magic item in the memory in the sensory stone.

The heroes can make friends with other Sensates and do tasks for them. The group can rub elbows with the Factol (the leader of the faction). Maybe the faction goes to war with another faction, which could lead to a series of pretty epic adventures.

Intertwining Sub-Plots: Once you've established your element, you can have it interact with other elements to create a complex narrative.

In order to do this, you need to look at your list of elements and think about how they might interact with each other and the main story.

Quick Example: Selinza is the apprentice to the party mage, Theran. Her ultimate goal is to find the villain who took her from her homeland and get revenge. After a few sessions adventuring alongside the group, Selinza goes with the heroes to the Infinite Staircase. She learns that in the staircase you can find a door to your heart's desire, but you will never return. She thinks that if she finds this door, it will take her to the villain. So now she is trying to sharpen her wizard skills so she can go get him.

The apprentice story and the Infinite Staircase were both separate elements, and we found a connection. Now we have connected them in a logical way and the world feels more rich and "real."

Foreshadowing

One of the goals of D&D is to give the players the feeling that they're in the middle of a saga. Things are happening, everything's boiling over, the world is alive.

The best way to foster this feeling is to plant story seeds. I'm going to give two examples, one with no foreshadowing, and one with foreshadowing:

No Foreshadowing: Let's say the heroes live in a village and they protect it on occasion. You decide that you want to have an ogre pulling a cart full of bomb-throwing goblins rampage through the village.

Now, you could just have it happen. Who are these bad guys? Where did they come from? Why are they doing this? It doesn't really matter, because they are here right now making things explode and they're probably going to be dead in an hour or so.

You can get a lot more mileage out of this with a little planning. It will also feel much more climactic as you build up to it. Here's what I mean:

Foreshadowing: Let's say there's a jerk guard in the town. The heroes have interacted with him and humiliated him in previous sessions. Let's plant the seeds:

Session 1:

• Family: Establish that the jerk guard has family all over the area, in many different settlements.
• Rumors: The group is on an adventure and they hear some bad guys talking about the ogre in hushed tones. They talk about his scars and his band of loyal goblins and how they eat people or whatever. They can communicate with each other through enchanted skulls.

Session 2:

• Ogre's Handiwork: The heroes are out on an adventure and they discover a nearby settlement or farm has been blown up. Could this be the work of the ogre? There are a few survivors. they ask the heroes to bring them to the village.
• Things Are Afoot: The heroes do so and then need to deal with the rest of session 2's main adventure. What they don't know is that the survivor of the ruined village is related to jerk guard. Survivor stays with jerk guard and reveals that he stole something off of a dead goblin - a magic skull.
• Recruitment: The jerk guard secretly uses the skull and contacts the ogre. He wants to help the ogre come here and kill the heroes.

Session 3:

• Climax: Now we have the ogre and the bomb-throwing goblins show up. 
• Development: Jerk guard might reveal what he did, he might not. Maybe during the carnage, jerk guard realizes he made a horrible mistake and tries to help the heroes while risking his own life.

With foreshadowing, everything feels organic and has more meaning.

Let the Group Shape Your Ideas

So you've cooked up a "story map." Here's the thing. This is D&D! The players might make a car wreck out of your scenario. Maybe in session 2 of the above example, the heroes somehow find the enchanted skull on the villager.

Your instinct might be to try to steer it back "on course." Don't! This is a cool development too! The heroes have stumbled onto a way to contact the ogre. What wacky player-thing will they do with it? Find out and roll with it.

Preparation: What this means is that right when you are ready to start foreshadowing this potential plot, you need to have the bad guys statted out, the enchanted skull's specifics, where the bad guys live and what their ultimate goal is.

That way, when the players tap dance all over this thing, you will be able to handle it smoothly.

That's the Fun of D&D: What I have learned over time is that much of the joy of being a DM is in throwing something out there and seeing what the group does with it. When you're not married to a story, it's very liberating. Together, you and the players are creating this living novel and nobody knows how it will end.

It is scary to allow the group to turn your thing upside down, because you might feel unsure as how you will fill your session. But if you prepare for a disruption, then it's no big deal. The key is to have a clear picture of the antagonist and what they want.

NPCs Are Vital: The above story grew out of a jerk NPC. That's why I think it is important for you to establish NPCs in the campaign for the group to interact with. Give them secrets and motivations.

Make sure many of them are kind and helpful to the PCs! Don't fall into the trap of using NPCs as triggers for bad events all the time. This will lead to the players not wanting to interact with NPCs at all, because it always leads to bad things.

Build on What Your Group Has Done

In one of his DM Experience columns, Chris Perkins said that in his Iomandra campaign he would have 3 main plots. He'd dangle them out there and see which one that the heroes took. Chris said that the other two plots developed without the group's involvement. The world doesn't wait for them. Their choices matter and the group may have to deal with the ramifications down the road.

D&D is alive. You've dangled an element in front of them. They have done things with the element that maybe you didn't expect. Now you use logic and determine the ramifications or developments of their choices. Here's an example:

The War: The heroes are friends with a woman named Pollidemia. There's a war brewing in her homeland and she feels compelled to go help. All Pollidemia has is a really crappy sword. You know that the party fighter has a magic sword that he doesn't use any more. Your secret plan is that in a few sessions, the group will be drawn into this war and Pollidemia might be a valuable ally in one way or another. There's a fateful choice here:

1. If the party fighter loans her the magic sword, the sword turns the tide in a crucial battle over there.
2. If the party fighter doesn't think of it, or just doesn't want to give up the sword, then that crucial battle goes poorly. Pollidemia's crappy sword shatters, her arm is severed and she is left for dead. She survives, just barely.

When you introduce this plot, be aware of some possibilities:

1. The group might drop everything and go off to that war with Pollidemia.
2. The group might give her some other type of aid or boon.
3. Maybe the group convinces Pollidemia not to go at all.

Think Ahead: Be ready for anything! What you need to do here is come up with the details of the battle and know what happens if it's won, and what happens if it is lost. Keep in mind that the group might go there and sketch out what happens if they do.

And here's the most important thing: If the group abandons the adventure they're in the middle of to go to this war, figure out the consequences! If they were tracking down some bad guy but then they leave, that means the bad guy is now running amok.

The point of this example is to show that the choice the group makes here will have major consequences. Not necessarily good or bad, just drastically different.

Know Your Players: If you've played with the same people for a while, you will likely be able to predict what they will do in certain situations. That will make planning much easier!

Grow the Story Until it Explodes

Now that we're off and running, just play off the group. Eventually it might build into something that you can get a full session out of.

Keeping Track of Plots

How do you keep all this stuff straight? I'm sure there are a lot of ways. Here is what works for me.

Record Your Sessions/Write a Summary: Using a digital recording device is the best way to keep track of things. It can be a pain to skim through it later, but it's there if you don't remember about how something went down. Writing a session summary is great, as you have an accurate log of what happened. Be sure to write it within a day or two of the session, otherwise you might forget details.

Keep a Plot Log: I have a text file on my computer. On it are all of the little elements and ideas in play in the campaign, each on their own line. After each session, I open it and update it.

Right now in that file I have all sorts of stuff, from magic items I want to give the group to vague concepts that I need to think about more. There's over 20 elements in there right now. I won't list them all, but here's a few so you can get a clear picture of how I use this:

• Bro: I had an idea last night for a frat bro NPC who hangs out with a dwarf that is always drunk. I brainstormed funny things for him to say, googled a bunch of "bro" words and I watched this youtube clip of Will Ferrell. I'm thinking the group might want to party with him.
• "Slicing Power": This is part of a giant storyline I have going that would take forever to explain. The fighter and a few NPCs have been magically touched by the Lady of Pain. They don't know it, but they have the power to cut people just by looking at them. I want to start foreshadowing this, so I am going to have the heroes hear a rumor that a citizen was killed in this manner. If they investigate, they might link the incident to an NPC and learn the whole story.
• Aza Dowling: There's a spy for Shemeshka the Marauder working at a business the heroes own. Next session, I want to plant a subtle clue that something is up with Aza and that she might be stealing valuable information.

Eternally Updating: At the end of the next session, I'll come back and update these. If the "slicing power" goes unnoticed, I'll plan the next step and type it in.

That's how I do it. You just track and update each plot after each session.

Plot Hammer

I'm sure there are much more elegant ways to handle storylines. However you do it, just remember the keys to a satisfying sub-plot.

• Foreshadow the plot whenever possible
• Play off what the heroes do and grow the story
• Use logical consequences
• Track story progress after each session
• Keep your eyes peeled for intersecting plotline opportunities

Remember most of all that this is about having fun. When you're torn about what to do next with a sub-plot, just go with what is most fun for you and/or the players.

I've been reading that a lot of newer dungeon masters are having a hard time figuring out how to run Curse of Strahd. In this article, I am going to give you an outline of how you can put this adventure together. If you are a new DM and have other questions, feel free to ask in the comments below or email me.

Note: I used art from Jason Thompson's Curse of Strahd Walkthrough map, which you can get here. It is a very helpful aid when trying to visualize the adventure.

I made two outlines. One is short and simple. The other one is more detailed. My way is not the "right" way. There is no "right" way. Every DM has their own style. I am just trying to give an example of how to organize this adventure.

This Show Helps: If you have the time and you are new to D&D, you might want to watch Dice Camera Action. On that show, the guy who wrote this adventure runs it for a group. You can see how he ran it and how he handled things. It is very helpful. I write summaries of each episode here.

What Do I Do With This? You might look at the Curse of Strahd book and ask yourself, "What do I do with this?" Your job is to link the different areas and ideas together to form a storyline path. There's a lot of details in a lot of different places, and it can be very difficult to fit it all together. I would suggest that you create an outline of the places you want the group to go to, and in what order. I wrote a Guide to Curse of Strahd which might help you figure out other stuff, too.

Making Your Outline: When planning out your campaign outline, keep in mind that certain things might change once you start running the game, depending on the actions of the players. For the most part, you'll probably be fine. The fact that the magic items that the heroes need to get (the tome, the icon and the sunsword) are in specific areas means that the group has to go to those areas at some point.

Making Connections: The trickiest thing about making an outline for Curse of Strahd is finding out how to connect one section to the next. The details are buried in the text of each chapter. If things get muddled and your group is floundering in the game, remember that you can use the wereravens to nudge them in the right direction. The wereravens are good guy allies of the heroes from start to finish.

How to Handle the Tarokka Reading: In the adventure, it is suggested that the DM do one reading before the game, and then another if the heroes go to Eva's. This way, if the heroes never meet Eva, you have determined where the items are and etc. Be aware that if you do the reading at the table with your players, you might get results that you don't like.

As an example, while I think the Amber Temple is awesome, it just didn't feel right to me. So if I did a reading at the table and I draw the temple, I'm kind of stuck with it.

For the tarokka reading, I just picked the results that I wanted. That way I could put the items in locations that I want to run, use the NPC I like, and put Strahd in the room that I think is the most fitting.

When it came time to run this, I would stack my tarokka deck so that when I did the reading at the table when running the game, it would give me the results I wanted. If you don't own a tarokka deck, that's fine. You can just narrate the reading. That actually makes it easier.

Strahd Encounters: One thing the book leaves in your hands is when, where and how Strahd interacts with the group as they travel through Barovia. There are general guidelines for encounters on page 10, and there are a number of suggested Strahd encounters sprinkled in various chapters, but ultimately it's up to you to decide what you want to do.

I placed four Strahd Encounters prior to the actual trip into Castle Ravenloft. I decided to make one a dramatic introduction encounter, and the other 3 based on each of Strahd's Goals (listed on page 10).

Gaining Levels: I would recommend not giving out experience points when you run this. Just have the group level at certain points, usually after they finish a chapter. I'll note times to level in the outline.

Sometimes the group might fly through a chapter in a single session, and it will feel too soon to level them. In that instance, don't level them for at least another session or two. 5th edition D&D is supposed to be flexible, so that 4th level characters can handle 6th level areas. Some areas will probably take longer than you expected, so the discrepancy in leveling should even out.

Starting at Level 3: If I ran this adventure, I would start the group at level 3. If you decide to start at level one, you could run Death House (page 211) or you could cook up a little introductory adventure in the world the heroes come from, before they are drawn to Barovia.

Be careful, though. If you have new players, they might get attached to your world. They might not want to leave! If you do make up an intro adventure, you might want to use the werewolves and Vistani in your homebrewed adventure so that the tone of Curse of Strahd is ingrained in your campaign from the start.

Short Outline

Here is a simple outline of how you could run this adventure. We'll assume that the characters start at level three.

1. Creeping Fog: (page 22) The group is drawn into the mists

2. Village: The group follows the road and comes to the village of Barovia. They meet vistani who tell them to seek out Madam Eva. They also meet Ismark and Ireena, who want to flee to Vallaki once they bury their father. Strahd attacks the group in the graveyard.

3. Madam Eva: The raven guides the group to Tser Pool (page 36), which is on the way to Vallaki. The vistani talk with the heroes. Madam Eva does her reading. Here's the results I chose:

• Tome of Strahd is in Van Richten's Tower
• Icon of Ravenkind is in Krezk
• Strahd's Enemy is Ezmerelda
• The Sunsword is in The Ruins of Berez
• The final battle with Strahd occurs in Strahd's Tomb (page 93).

After the reading, Ismark wants to get Ireena to Vallaki, where he hopes she'll be safe from Strahd.

4. Vallaki: The group travels to Vallaki. They meet the Keepers of the Feather and Rictavio. Rictavio translates Madam Eva's reading. Rictavio has to flee Vallaki, so he tells the group to go to Van Richten's Tower. The Tome of Strahd is there.

5. Van Richten's Tower: The heroes obtain the tome and meet Ezmerelda. Strahd Attacks.

6. Roadblock: The group goes to Krezk, but they aren't allowed in. They must go get wine from the Wizard of Wines first.

7. The Wizard of Wines: The place is over-run with monsters. The group needs to get a magic gem from Yester Hill. I decided not to require the group to get the gem in Berez.

8. Yester Hill: Twig Blights, druids and a statue of Strahd. The group gets the gem. They can now get the wine and will be allowed into Krezk.

9. Krezk: The group might have a major encounter at the pool (page 156). The Icon of Ravenkind is in room 13 (page 150).

10. Ruins of Berez: The group will have to battle Baba Lysaga and her Creeping Hut to obtain the Sunsword.

11. Invitation: Once the battle is complete, the heroes find the Black Carriage (page 37) waiting for them. Wind blows, and an invitation to the castle (page 251) lands at their feet. The heroes get in, and the carriage takes them to Castle Ravenloft.

12. The Castle: The heroes make their way through the castle and have a final battle with Strahd and his brides in his tomb.

13. Epilogue: The sun is out, and the heroes can at last go home.

Things to Do

That's a simple "road map" for you to follow. The group might decide to go to a place like Argynvostholt just to check it out, and they might decide to go to a location "out of order." But that's our basic framework and we can change it as we like as the campaign progresses.

Things you might want to do when you plan your campaign out:

• Create an Outline: Plan out the locations that you want to use in order. Use the "Areas by Level" chart as your guide (page 6).
• Place Encounters: Pick out the random encounters you want to use (on pages 28-33).  You can roll them during the game if you want, but I like to place them in advance so I can make sure I get to use the ones that I like when I want. Also, rolling during the game eats up time and can become a pain.
• Plan Out and Place Your Strahd Encounters: There's a major Strahd Encounter in Krezk (on page 156) that you probably want to use. There's a very scary and deadly one, too ("St. Andral's Feast" on page 124). Even if you use those, you still might want to make up some on your own (see page 10 for guidance). Strahd is supposed to be popping up a number of times before the group gets to the castle.
• Look at the Marks of Horror: (page 7) Try to add little flourishes in the adventure, like creeping shadows and decay. Doing it in advance is usually better than making those things up on the fly, though you can do either or both.
• Trinkets: You might want to place trinkets (page 210) in your outline. These types of fun but non-essential things are easy to forget. There's a lot of cool trinkets that deserve to be used. Your players will appreciate little details like this, as it all adds up to an enriched game experience.

Detailed Outline
The short outline is probably all you need to look at. But I'd also like to give an example of a more detailed outline that allows you to foreshadow things and help you get all of your ideas in one place. I started by doing the Tarokka Reading:

Tarokka Results

• Master of Stars (Van Richten's Tower) Tome of Strahd
• Monk (Krezk) Holy symbol of Ravenkind
• Enchanter (Ruins of Berez) The Sunsword
• Mists (Ezmerelda) The book provides an option for the group to meet her in almost every single chapter. I decided that I want the group to meet her at Van Richten's Tower
• Darklord The final battle with Strahd occurs in Strahd's Tomb

We start the outline by picking out a hook. Then we are going to organize and connect all of the chapters we want to use. When you make your outline, add in your own ideas and flourishes. Change whatever you want. You do not have to stick to the book.

Creeping Fog: (pg 22) It's evening. The mists draw the heroes into Barovia. You'll have to cook up some reason as to how this happens. You could even have it where the group doesn't know each other, and that they each were drawn into the mists from separate locations. They all emerge in Barovia at the same time.

Skeletal Rider: Upon emerging from the mist, they see a skeletal rider in the distance ("skeletal rider" page 31). It does not attack. It is searching for a way to escape the fog. I decided to make the Skeletal Rider the "spirit of the campaign," so to speak.

Each time the group sees the rider, a trinket falls off the horse and the rider leaves it. The group may wonder if the rider is trying to help them in some weird way. In my mind, the rider is a person that will never give up trying to get out of Barovia. The rider refuses to "die" for good and dropping a trinket it found in the woods is the rider's way of helping the group defeat Strahd.

• Trinket: A little black book that records your dreams, and yours alone, when you sleep. This will be useful further along if the heroes have "prophetic dreams."

I decided to start the campaign off with a bang. First the group walks down the road for hours, and then they have their first Strahd Encounter. The journey to the village:

• Old Svalich Road: (page 33) The group gets a look at the realm.
• Gates of Barovia: (page 33) The heroes pass through massive gates flanked by headless statues
• Svalich Woods: (page 34) The group might find a letter.

Strahd Encounter I: It's evening. A thick fog rolls in. The group encounters some Strahd zombies ("Zombies" page 31, Strahd Zombie stats on page 241). One of the zombies must have had an interesting job in life, because it is wearing..

• Trinket: A black executioner's hood.

During the battle, a black carriage comes down the road. Rahadin (page 236) is driving it. A passenger emerges - it's Strahd. If they peer into the carriage, the heroes might spot one of Strahd's consorts wearing a skull mask (Valenta Popofsky, page 94).

There's a lantern on the carriage that causes Strahd to cast a long shadow. Narrate Strahd's shadow as moving in impossible ways. The shadow's claws extend and it gets larger and larger. The shadow is creeping toward the heroes, reaching for their throats.

Strahd gives the group a single warning about Ireena, who they haven't even met yet: "She is mine!" (perceptive heroes will see the consort Valenta shift uncomfortably in the carriage). If the adventurers give him some of that patented sassy player backtalk, Strahd tries to charm a PC that you think Strahd might want as a consort or a successor. Maybe have Stahd's shadow reach out to caress the target.

The point of the charm attempt is really so that the group can see that the DC of Strahd's charm power is 17, and thus they are warned that Strahd is extremely powerful. Just say the DC out loud, unless you don't like doing that kind of thing. Also remember that Strahd is protected by the Heart Of Sorrow (page 59), which absorbs up to 50 points of damage.

Strahd admires his charmed subject for a moment (to tease that he might want that PC as his own servant/ally), then releases the hold and gets back in the carriage. The black carriage rides away and almost immediately vanishes into the fog, as if it was never there.

Village of Barovia

Raven: The group enters the village and notices that a raven is watching them from a rooftop. This is Muriel Vinshaw (page 161), the wereraven ("wereraven" page 32). She flies down the street and perches on the sign of the Blood of the Vine tavern. The group doesn't know it yet, but she's watching out for their interests.

The Hag: I would not use the Morgantha encounter ("Dream Pastries" page 48). Instead, I'd have two villagers fighting over a dream pastry (dream pastry info is on page 125). A villager desperately needs his fix, so to speak. This way, you can get across the story of the dream pastries without potentially putting the group up against the hag, who is really powerful.

Mary: The group will hear crying and they might investigate Mad Mary (who talks about Gertruda, an NPC in the castle on page 68). Her doll, "Morbid Molly,"is described in this article.

The group might visit Bildrath's Mercantile to buy supplies.

Blood of the Vine: The heroes will probably (hopefully) enter the Blood of the Vine tavern. A whole bunch of stuff happens here:

• Vistani Owners: The owners tell the heroes they should visit Madam Eva at Tser Pool (which is on page 36). 
• The Mirror Character: While in the tavern, pick a character. This character looks in the mirror in the tavern and see that their reflection makes them look significantly older - grey hair, wrinkles, crow's feet. This character is going to have progressively worse visions throughout the adventure. Nobody else sees it - just them! 
• Radu: Let's put a vistani NPC in the tavern. I want him to try to steal things from the group later on. We'll make up a name: Radu Radovich. Let's go ahead and let the group get a look at him when they enter the tavern. Who knows, maybe they'll figure out he's up to something. He's from the Vistani camp on page 119. He's supposed to be looking for Arabelle, a 7 year old girl (see page 119) but he's a jerk and now he's seeking an opportunity to suck up to Strahd.   
• Ismark: The heroes meet Ismark, who really needs the group's help. He asks them to come to his mansion.

Ireena Introduction: Ismark brings them to his home (page 44). The group hears cries from upstairs. His sister Ireena is having a fit in her sleep. A healer-type can calm her down. The group will see two puncture marks on her neck. Ismark will sadly tell the tale of what Strahd is doing to her, and that he wants to take her to Vallaki once their father is buried.

I would play up the "abusive boyfriend" subtext that is mentioned in the foreward. I would run Ireena as if she mostly fears and hates Strahd, but a part of her is drawn to him. Maybe throughout the adventure at quiet times, the group sees Ireena touching her puncture marks with a faraway look in her eyes. I added those moments into the outline so I wouldn't forget when the time comes to run it.

The Church: Ireena and Ismark recruit the heroes to bury their father. The group goes to the church (page 45) meets the priest and his son. The priest hands a wineskin to the players and says, "Please take this. I don't think The Morninglord would approve of how I am filling this."

• Trinket: A wineskin that refills when interred with a dead person for a night

They go out into the graveyard and begin burying the Burgomaster (see page 47). Ireena and Ismark are with the group, of course. This is a great time to do a Strahd Encounter!

Strahd Encounter II

Fog rolls in. The sound of wings flapping fills the air. A massive swarm of bats burst out of the fog and flies into, past and through the party. This does no damage, it's just meant to throw the characters off balance and obscure their vision for a moment. The swarm scatters. The group hears growling. Snarling wolves creep out from the mist and attack the adventurers (except for Ireena)!

As the battle commences, Strahd appears in the mist. He holds a hand out toward Ireena and says, "Tatyana, come to me." Ireena feels drawn to him. She starts approaching him, a mix of fear and yearning etched on her face. If none of the heroes try to stop her, Ismark will hold her back.

After a few rounds of fighting, the wolves back off. If a hero did particularly well in the combat, Strahd compliments them. He says to Ireena in a pained voice, "They cant keep us apart for long." Then he turns to mist and vanishes.

Remember that the heart of sorrow absorbs the first 50 points of damage Strahd takes (see page 59). So if the heroes strike Strahd, you should decide if it looks like he's invincible, or whether some kind of red field appears and blocks the attack. Some groups might get frustrated if they think Strahd has "plot immunity," so I'd probably narrate some kind of effect where it is clear that the field is getting damaged with each strike.

Aftermath: The group may want to check on Ireena who maybe stabs a dead wolf over and over in frustration. Ismark reminds the heroes that they should finish burying his father. As the group puts the last shovelful of dirt on the grave, the March of the Dead (page 48) kicks in. A ghostly procession of the deceased heads toward Castle Ravenloft. This event hopefully will give the group the feeling that "this place is crazy!" and that there is a lot happening here.

The Characters Hit Level Four

Tser Pool
When the Group Rests: A character has a prophetic dream: They see a mansion, a woman lying in bed with what looks like a mannequin, a door with what sounds like a cat scratching on the other side, and a distinctive wedding dress on a display. For a moment, the dress is being worn by a woman with white powdered skin and she looks pleased. This dream gives clues about the Wachters (page 110) and that the wedding gown should be taken and brought to The Abbot (page 155).

Vistani Crook: Radu the gypsy spy (who I talked about above in the Blood of the Vine section) tries to steal a token of some kind from each character (this is described in "Strahd's Spies" on page 29). Strahd can use these tokens for scrying. Radu has the stats of a bandit (Monster Manual page 343). If the heroes catch him, he can give them information about the dusk elves at his camp (page 119).

The Raven: Once the group has rested or whatever, the Raven shows up again. It gets their attention. It flies down the road a bit and tries to get the group to follow it. It wants to lead the group to Madam Eva's, for the all-important tarokka reading.

The Journey to Tser Falls:

• River Ivlis: (page 35) The group crosses the river.
• River Ivlis Crossroads: (page 35) There's a gallows here. One of the heroes might see something that will creep them out.

Arrival: The group comes to the Tser Pool Encampment (page 36) and they are welcomed by drunken vistani. The vistani greet the heroes, offer them drinks, and talk about Rictavio. They think there's something up with him. He's mysterious - dangerous. This is just a little added incentive to nudge the group toward Vallaki. They might be skeptical that Ireena will be safe there. A gypsy is drunk and messing with a lock that he "found" in Vallaki.

• Trinket: A lock that opens when blood is dripped in its keyhole. He'll let them have it. He has other, more reliable locks.

The Tarokka Reading: Madame Eva does the reading (see the results above).

Vistani Debauchery: After the reading, the vistani want to drink with the adventurers some more. They'll try to get the heroes drunk and sell them phony potions. If  things get heated between the heroes and the vistani, this is a golden opportunity to break out the evil eye or curse rules (page 28).

Muriel's Warning: If possible, Muriel the wereraven will assume human form and draw one hero away from the camp. She says: "The vistani are Strahd's minions! You should leave at once. You will find allies and guidance at the Blue River Inn in Vallaki. Beware - the devil's eyes and ears are everywhere." If you want, have her turn into a raven right in front of the character. Or try to keep her identity a secret for the sake of mystery.

Vallaki

The trip to Vallaki:

• Tser Falls: (page 37) A massive waterfall.
• Second Gates of Ravenloft: (page 33) Same as above, headless statues and massive gates.
• Bonegrinder: Along the way, the group will see Old Bonegrinder. The raven will do what she can to ward the heroes away from this place as it is a very deadly area. You might want to change the hags to green hags, and you might want to say Morgantha is not home.
• Maybe Some Wolves: If the group doesn't go to the Bonegrinder, you might want to run "Wolves" on page 33. Strahd is testing the group's capabilities.

The Characters Hit Level 5

This chapter (page 95) is overloaded with stuff. It's awesome, but it is hard to figure out what to use when. It might be best to plop the group down and give them a chance to explore Vallaki at their own speed. If the group makes a beeline for Rictavio, you could say that Rictavio is gone but will be back for a few hours. This gives the group time to look around, if that's what they want to do.

Izek Strasni: (pages 231-232) I think Izek is a really cool bad guy, so I want to give him a super cool slow motion movie intro. The heroes are walking down the street checking out Vallaki and they see Izek. Izek is leaning against a wall as his guards question a nervous citizen. As he gives the heroes the stink-eye, he smokes a special pipe...

• Trinket: A black wooden pipe that creates puffs of smoke that look like skulls.

There's a lot of hijinks they can get up to:

• Town Square: (page 119) People trapped in the stocks as punishment for "malicious unhappiness."
• The Burgomaster's Mansion: (page 103) Where criminals are brought in for "malicious unhappiness."
• The Wachterhaus: Home of the schemer Lady Wachter. The character who had the prophetic dream will instantly recognize this place and have flashbacks to their dream. The group might spot a girl in a window meowing like a cat at them (Upstairs Hall page 113). This is Stella, Lady Wachter's daughter.
• Rictavio's Wagon: (page 115) There's a lot of stuff in there.
• Vistani Camp: (page 119) They're looking for Arabelle, a little girl.
• Lake Zarovich: (page 38) The group might want to check out Lake Zarovich, which is just north of Vallaki. There is a creepy guy there named Bluto and a little girl.
• The Mad Mage: (page 39) He's across the lake if you want to get a little nutty.

Adding in an NPC: There's a throwaway NPC in the castle that I like. She is Sasha Ivliskova (page 89), a vampire bride (vampire spawn stats, Monster Manual page 298) that Strahd got bored with and locked away in a crypt. I want her to try to join the party and wreak havoc of one kind or another.

• How She Escaped: Let's say that she tricked Cyrus Belview into letting her out. She just sweet-talked him a little bit. Strahd might know this happened and probably doesn't care.
• What She Wants: Sasha wants revenge on Strahd. She really does want to help the heroes. The problem is that she's a crazy evil vampire, so things probably aren't going to work out. She can't help but resent Ireena.

If you want to put the story in motion, I'd do this:

The Dancing Monkey: Piccolo the dancing monkey does a little jig and hands the group a card that says: "Is no fun, is no Blinsky!" He tries to lead the group to Blinsky's toy shop.

Blinsky's: If the group follows Piccolo, he brings them to Blinsky's (page 118). If the group doesn't ask, Blinsky will mention how kind and gracious Rictavio is. Blinsky is very loyal to him. He will gladly direct the group to the Blue Mountain Inn, and says, "Tell him Blinsky sent you."

Sasha: As the group leaves Blinsky's, a woman comes in and brushes past the group. This is Sasha. She's trying to make a first impression. She's got a hooded cloak on during the day, even though it's always cloudy, a bit of sunlight comes through that makes her uncomfortable. She's wearing vistani clothes and has a dagger and a bow. This is because the previous night, she drank a vistani's blood and dumped the body in the Arasek Stockyard (page 115).

She will not join the party now. She wants them to want her to. If she talks about herself, she will mention that she wanders the land alone, and that she is searching for someone. By sheer coincidence, this matches up with what Madam Eva said in the tarokka reading (see "Mists" (Queen of Spades on page 17). The group might think that Sasha is the ally that Madam Eva foretold.

The Blue River Inn: When the group enters the inn, the same character as before looks in the mirror and this time their reflection is of a very old person with liver spots, little to no hair, yellow teeth and is struggling to breathe.

The Allies: The group meets the Keepers and they will allow the heroes to visit Rictavio. Rictavio is tense - he thinks Strahd is onto him. Rictavio will interpret Madam Eva's reading for them, literally telling them where the items are. He wants to say more, but there's a commotion downstairs. Guards have come for him. Rictavio may have caused "malicious unhappiness."

Escape: The keepers help the group slip out of the inn (or maybe the group just wants to fight the guards). Rictavio asks the heroes to escort him to his wagon in the stockyards. When they get there, Izek Strasni (pages 231-232) and a pile of guards are waiting.

Izek reveals that he knows the devil Strahd is looking for him. "We're going to hand you over to him..." Izek then sees Ireena. He's been dreaming of her (see "family is forever" on page 232). He orders his men to kill everyone except "that woman"(Ireena).

Tiger: A couple of fun things can happen in this fight. Van Richten has a tiger in his wagon who can jump in to help the group. Sasha will also run in at an opportune time to save a hero and prove her worth as an ally. Now she's ready to join the party.

Sasha is going to crash and burn. I want her out of the picture by the time the group gets to Van Richten's Tower. So her jealousy of Ireena and her bloodlust should seep out in short order.

Once the guards are defeated, Rictavio flees town and wishes the group good luck. The deaths of the guards have no witnesses. People blame it all on the mysterious Rictavio.

Invitation: At this point, the group might want to just get out of Vallaki. If they haven't been to Lady Wachter's, they are invited there to have a meal with her. She will want to try to recruit the group to kill the Burgomaster or to join her "book club" (devil worshiping cult).

During the meal, she excuses herself, and Stella peers into the room and meows. She'll scamper up to her room. This might entice the group to explore.

The Characters Hit Level 6

Van Richten's Tower

The Journey to the Tower:

• Skeletal Rider Again: On the road to Van Richten's Tower, the group again spots the skeletal rider. Ireena explains that she believes the rider is eternally searching for a way out of Barovia - but there is no way out. Trinket: The rider drops a trinket wrapped in cloth. It is a vial of perfume, the scent of which only certain creatures can detect.  Let's say that it is called "Conjunction" and the vial is engraved with the image of a happy wolf. When this perfume is worn, Strahd's wolves will like the smell and won't attack that character. In fact, they might even act like happy dogs around the character.
• The End of Sasha: If Sasha is still with the party on the road to Van Richten's, it's time for her to turn. If the group makes camp for the night, she'll take a watch if they let her. She won't be able to control her bloodlust. If everyone's asleep, she'll try to drink Ismark's blood and kill him. If there's a PC that has been particularly nice to her, she'll nudge them awake. Blood is running down her chin. She'll ask for forgiveness. The group will either have to kill her, or she'll flee back to crypt 20 in Castle Ravenloft.
• Zombies: If they don't camp and are walking on the road near Van Richten's Tower, a horde of Strahd Zombies lumbers out of the fog ("Zombies" page 33). A massive battle breaks out. Blood spilled puts her into a frenzy. Sasha will jump Ismark and drain him dry if she can.
• Luna River Crossroads: (page 40) Crossroads with some flavor text.
• The Aging Tree: The heroes spot a tree shedding its leaves. Wind blows and the leaves swirl around the characters. The leaves turn yellow, then grey, then crumble into nothing. The tree literally ages before their eyes, growing a few feet and then turning almost black. Its branches droop down and fall off. One touch will cause the brittle wood of the trunk to break and tip over.

The Tower: The group will have to deal with the crazy traps here. The Tome Of Strahd is on the Fourth Floor (page 171)

Ezmerelda: As the group emerges from the tower, Ezmerelda shows up ("Ezmerelda's Retreat" page 172). She just tried to fight Strahd in Castle Ravenloft and it didn't go well. She's hurt bad. As she talks to the group, slip in this comment: "I'm searching for my mentor. I try not to stay in one place long. I had been staying near St. Markovia's Abbey..." This is wording right out of Madame Eva's fortune. But the group probably got burned by Sasha, who said similar things. I just think it's an amusing thing to do.

Strahd Encounter III

As the group talks with their new buddy, it starts to rain. She tells them that she knows where the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is - it's in St. Markovia's Abbey in a secret compartment. Fog rolls in. Thunder rumbles.

As the group starts to head out into the suddenly-thick fog, Strahd arrives with swarms of bats. He will mock Ezmerelda for failing to kill him, and he will demand to know where Van Richten is.

The bat swarms and Strahd attacks. Strahd focuses on the hero with the tome. During this entire encounter, Strahd ignores Ireena. He can feel her watching him. He is giving her the cold shoulder to try to make her realize that she actually wants his attention.

Strahd will back off after a few rounds. Perhaps during the battle, he takes notice of any PCs who he thinks might make for a good consort/successor. He goes from angry to intrigued. He compliments that person and tells the group "Do as I have done and accept Barovia as your prison. You are all my subjects!" He turns into mist and vanishes into the fog.

Resting: A lot happens during the next rest:

• Ireena: During a rest, Ireena gets a far away look in her eye. In the middle of the night she wakes up, petrified. She felt Strahd calling to her, speaking in her mind. 
• Info Dump: Ezmerelda dishes out some of her backstory. She was a vistani but turned on them, she is missing part of her leg, and she is actually searching for Van Richten, her former mentor. 
• It Was All a Dream: A character has a prophetic dream about a statue of Strahd on a hill. There is a green glow coming from inside his head. This foreshadows the statue at Yester Hill (page 198).

The Journey to Krezk:

• Raven River Crossroads: (page 40) An intersection with some flavor.
• A Delicious Snack: Muriel, in raven form, flies over the group. She is carrying a small sack in her beak. She drops it to the heroes and flies off. In the sack is a loaf of dark nut bread from the Blue River Inn. The point of this is to reinforce the idea that the wereravens are allies. Additionally, we can show the players that some kind of encounter doesn't happen every time Muriel shows up and that she's not just a plot device.
• Along the way to Krezk: The hero who has the Tome of Strahd comes upon a corpse that looks just like them (see "corpse" page 30)

Approaching Krezk: As the heroes approach Krezk (page 143), Ezmerelda again reiterates: "We may have to jump through some hoops before they let us in." If anyone asks why, she says "They caught me sneaking around in there and it got a little ugly." This is not meant to be anything major, it's just a way to let Ezmerelda show some personality and reinforce the fact that the place is under lockdown.

GemQuest: The place is walled in. The burgomaster will talk with them over the wall ("Burgomaster Dmitri Krezkov" page 145). He is worried that they are allies of the devil Strahd. He asks the adventurers to get a wagonload of wined from the Wizard of Wines winery. The next delivery is long overdue. If they do this, he'll let them in.

The Wizard of Wines

Journey to the Wizard of Wines:

• Scarecrows: A freak lightning storm hits. On the way to the Wizard of Wines, Baba Lysaga's scarecrows attack ("Scarecrow" encounter page 31, stats page 231). During the battle, lightning strikes a tree and it topples onto the scene.
• Allies: As the group nears the winery, they meet Davian Martikov and his family (wereravens). He explains that this is his winery, and that it's been overrun by invaders.

Invaders: I do not like twig blights. So I'd replace them with Strahd Zombies controlled by necromancers. The group will be up to their necks in zombies, but hopefully they can clear the place out. Let's put one zombie in pirate clothes. It has a wooden hand...

• Trinket: The wooden hand of a notorious pirate. Carved into the hand is a crude 'treasure map', which leads to the treasury in Castle Ravenloft (page 67).

More Bad News: The winery is powered by magic gems, and all of them have been stolen. Damian will need at least one - which was stolen by the villains at Yester Hill. I won't mention the gem at Lysaga's as I don't want the group to go there yet (it's dangerous). We'll say that Damian is happy just to get one gem back and feels that he's asked more than enough of the group.

Yester Hill: (page 197) We're going to revamp this area to use undead instead of twig blights. The "Hidden Graves" have zombies, the druid circle is a "Circle of Bones," the druids are mages, and the Gulthias Tree is a "Desecration" from the 4th edition book Open Grave. A Desecration is the "animated remains of a deserted cemetery." We'll just re-flavor the Gulthias tree stats and boom, done. The group obtains the gem.

Now the group can bring the wine back to Krezk.

The Heroes Hit Level 7

Village of Krezk

Rest:  More fateful resting:

• Ezmerelda's Adventure: Ezmerelda describes some of the areas she saw in Castle Ravenloft. She mentions the painting of Tatyana in room 37 (page 66). Ezmerelda realizes that Ireena looks almost exactly like the woman in the painting. Ireena touches her bite marks and looks off into the distance.
• Dreaming About Horses: A character has a prophetic dream of a horse with flaming hooves (Beucephalus, page 39), a prisoner in a cell transforming into a werewolf (Emil, page 81) and a youthful man sipping wine looking at a portrait of Strahd. He angrily tosses the glass against a wall (Escher, page 70).

Return to Krezk: The heroes can come in if they brought the wine. Ezmerelda says there's a magic pool that has healing powers and leads them to it ("Pool and Shrine" page 146). This triggers a major event...

Strahd Encounter IV

Something Blue: (page 156) Ireena sees Sergei in the pool. If the heroes don't stop her, Sergei frees her spirit and both of them vanish.

Strahd immediately goes crazy and sends lightning down on the group. From this moment on, he wants to destroy the characters.

After that, the group needs to get the Icon of Ravenkind from the Abbey (page 147). It's in...

The Main Hall: (page 150) The Icon is in a secret compartment. Ezmerelda knows this but wasn't able to snatch it when she was last here.

The Abbot: When the group meets the abbot, he will look the group over up and down excitedly. He'd love to make a golem of their parts! He asks if they would donate their parts to him - once they've died far in the future, of course. He looks at a female character's hands, and exclaims that her hands would be perfect for the bride. The bride's hands are from two different people and look very mismatched once it is pointed out to the viewer.

Master Bedroom: (page 178) The 'mirror' character looks into the freestanding mirror and their reflection is literally them as a fresh corpse with a pair of puncture wounds on their neck.

All that's left to get is The Sunsword. It's time to face Baba Lysaga

The Heroes Hit Level 8

Ruins of Berez

This place is dangerous. Muriel is here and ready to help. She can direct the heroes to the ghost.

Big Battle: The ghost can lead the group to the sunsword, which is under Marina's monument. The Creeping Hut will likely charge and Baba will fly around in her giant skull. It should be an epic battle. The group will probably find the other gem in the creeping hut, and if they want, Muriel could fly it over to the Wizard of Wines

Rest: Once the battle is over, the group might rest. A character has a prophetic dream of a pulsing red heart. The heartbeat pulses through Strahd's body somehow. This is a clue to the Heart of Sorrow (page 59). When the heroes awaken, the skeletal rider is watching them. The rider leaves a trinket that might help them out in the castle in a small way...

• Trinket: An bouquet of funerary flowers that always looks and smells fresh. There are two cards. One says "for Helga" (she's on page 64) and the other says "for Gertuda" (she's on page 68). Giving this bouquet to one of those NPCs will cause them to like and become loyal to the character who hands her the bouquet  The roses are all pink (which, according to teleflora.com, signifies love, grace, appreciation and gentility. Let's say that as soon as a rose is separated from the others, it rots. That way the group doesn't split the bouquet and give the roses to both. We want them to make a choice here.

The Invitation: As the group is rested or prepares to leave Berez, thunder rumbles in the distance. A warm breeze blows. There's a flash of lightning, and the heroes see The Black Carriage waiting for them (change the flavor text and use it, pages 37-38). A sealed envelope is carried on a breeze from the carriage to the heroes' feet (Invitation is on page 251)

When the heroes get in, the carriage takes the group to the gates of ravenloft (page 38).

The Characters Hit Level 9

Castle Ravenloft

Dining Hall: (page 56) Once this crazy encounter is over, the "mirror" character looks at their reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and sees a Strahd zombie looking back at them. The zombie is wearing tattered remnants of the character's equipment and is holding Van Richten's severed head in its hands. Nobody else can see it! If it seems more creepy/amusing, have the severed head be another member of the party.

The heroes make their way through the gigantic castle and fight Strahd for the final time in his crypt (Strahd's Tomb page 93). His brides are in there, too! When Strahd dies, read the flavor text on page 207.

The Group Should Hit Level 10

Epilogue

The fog around the land thins ("Escape from Barovia" page 208). The sun comes out. Escape is now possible through the mists.

One Last Reflection: The group celebrates at the Blue River Inn with Muriel, the Martikovs, Rictavio, Ezmerelda, Piccolo the monkey and whatever other friends they made during the campaign. This might be too goofy or cheesy for you, but I think it would be funny for the "mirror" character to look in a mirror one final time. The character is relieved to see that they look normal, but is shocked to see Sergei's ghost behind him. Sergei pats the character on the back and says, "Well done! Well done, indeed!" And you know what else? Everybody in the bar sees Sergei in the mirror, too.

The Warrior: As the heroes leave Barovia, they spot the skeletal rider at the edge of the realm. He nods to the heroes, steps into the mists, and disappears. He leaves them one final trinket (I altered the "87-88 old little doll..." trinket):

• Trinket: An old little doll of Strahd. The doll's body has wounds on it which match up to the big attacks the group used to kill Strahd. Months later, when Strahd is reborn in Barovia, the "wounds" heal and the doll is like new.

The Best Thing

Outline done! You know what the best thing is? You are going to have months to refine the back end of this outline as you play through the adventure. You'll likely have a million more great ideas that you can add into your document.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

Strix

Episode 7: "Unhappy Days"

You can watch this episode on twitch here.

This week, @moopdrea generously allowed me to use her rendering of Strix in this summary. She is extremely talented and has my eternal gratitude! Check Moop out on twitter here.  

Art Stuff: If any of you are artists, I would be more than happy to post your DCA art on this blog (you can contact me here). I am very interested in seeing artistic renderings of this party, as I can't really picture them in my head. It's kind of hard to fill these summaries with Curse of Strahd art that I haven't already used a few times before.

Last time: The group met Rictavio and had a run-in with the town guards outside the Blue River Inn. We stopped last time with the villain Izek Strasni hugging his sister, Strix.

The Waffle Crew

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Erika) Dee - Human Fighter
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue  

Warning: This episode is very good. Honestly, if you are planning on watching this, you should not read my summary until after you've seen it. There's a lot of fun things that will kind of be spoiled if you read them here first.

Nate couldn't play this week, so we are Paultin-less. Chris says that Paultin passed out in the bar. Izek wants the group to meet the "Burgermaster" (Burgomaster - ruler of Vallaki). Izek isn't happy with Diath, who killed one of the guards.

Izek wants Diath to be put under arrest. The group tries to talk their way out of it, and it doesn't go well. Strix literally just turns and runs away.

The guards start pummeling Diath. Izek hits Evelyn for 15 points. Wow. The heroes are hurt badly, so they surrender!

Strix is about 60 feet away from everyone. A mysterious stranger in a cloak offers to help her. She agrees and he brings her into an alley. This person, an elderly man with yellow teeth, wants to bring Strix to Lady Wachter, who hates the Burgomaster. It turns out that Lady Wachter is Strix's aunt.

Back by the inn.. Hey.. Ireena is here again. She pops out of the front door. I think the group forgot about Ireena last time. Ireena is ready to help the heroes, but doesn't.

Mystery dude brings Strix to Lady Wachter's mansion, the Wachterhaus. The mystery guy is Ernst, an ally/agent of Lady Wachter. Strix and Wachter talks for a bit, and Wachter agrees to help Strix save her friends.

The rest of the group is manacled. Dee and Evelyn are brought to the Burgomaster's mansion. Stuff happens and Dee and Evelyn are basically freed and allowed to return to the Inn.

Diath is taken to the stocks. This will be interesting. Is he going to wear a donkey mask? Nope. He's put in the stocks, but no plaster donkey mask. The guy next to him has one, and there's a kid next to that guy. A little kid picks up some rocks and prepares to throw them at Diath.

Back at the mansion, Lady Wachter explains that some kind of infernal deal was made to create Strix. Lady Wachter reveals that she is a devil worshiper. She says that Strix can rule this town.

Strix and Lady Wachter go into another room. While checking out Wachter's cats, Strix says, "I see you don't have a significant other." Ohh this will be good.

Lady Wachter says, "Would you like to meet my husband?" Ha! Wow.

They go upstairs and down a hallway. Behind one door, a woman says in a scratchy voice , "Little kitty doesn't know you. Little kitty doesn't like the smell of you!" Wow, one of my favorite Curse of Strahd NPCs. I really hope we see more of her.

Lady Wachter shows Strix her husband. He's dead. She sleeps next to his corpse every night in bed.

Izek brings Dee and Evelyn back to the Blue Water Inn. Evelyn asks Izek to bring Diath here as well, and Izek says he will.

Dee and Evelyn start arguing with Lady Wachter's unruly sons. There's a festival coming up where a big wicker sun will be lit on fire. Evelyn dares them to go light it now. They love this idea.

In the stocks.. Diath is subtly using his thief skills to free himself. He gets one hand free. The kid hucks some rocks at Diath. One is a critical hit! Diath almost drops his thieves' tools.

Diath offers the kid a reward. He uses his free hand to grab a dream pastry. If the kid eats it, he will be in a drug-induced euphoric haze for hours.

The kid sees that Diath's arm is free and calls the guards. Diath looks at the kid and whispers, "I'll kill you."

The guard shoos the annoying kid away and spots the dream pastry on the ground. He picks it up and starts eating it. The guard falls to the ground in a pastry-induced stupor. Izek shows up and takes Diath out of the stocks. Izek told Evelyn he'd bring Diath to them. But he's not. He's bringing him to the gallows!

Rictavio takes Dee out of the inn and uses his magic to heal her. Rictavio tells Dee they need to leave Vallaki, to go find Ezmerelda (Rictavo realized that Paultin's tarokka card is describing Ezmerelda, his old protege). Dee is torn, but leaves town with Rictavio.

In the mansion, Lady Wachter gives a pretty epic speech, urging Strix to accept Strahd as her lord.

At the gallows, Izek strings Diath up. Diath has a flashback to when he actually saw his dead body hanging from a gallows.

They pull the lever! Is Diath dead? That's where we stop.

Timestamps

(14:44) When Diath killed a guard, was that against the law?
(41:40) Strix has to drink wine
(51:03) Dee has a lot of guts
(1:26:50) Strix meets Nikolai Wachter
(1:32:40) A kid throws rocks at Diath, who is in the stocks.

Overall

Great Session: Everyone was in a really good mood this week and it was fun from beginning to the end. This might have been the best one yet.

They Split the Party: Very interesting that Chris intentionally split the party. There were characters in 3 different areas! He cut between them and it worked out pretty well. It makes me think I should try it in a session soon, as I usually avoid it like the plague.

Dee Should Come Back: I guess Erika is gone, though Chris said she might be back some day. Maybe if/when the group goes to Van Richten's Tower? I really like Dee and honestly I would like her to be part of the crew for good.

Vallaki is Complex: When reading the Vallaki section in Curse of Strahd, I thought the settlement was awesome but I also felt like I would have a hard time handling so many moving parts. Watching Chris run it helps immeasurably. Anyone planning on running this chapter really needs to watch this episode.

There are certain rules in 5th edition that I just can't remember. I have decided to create this page to use as a reference where I can quickly look up all the stuff I just can never remember during a game.

I am working under the assumption that if it helps me, then maybe it will help you, too.

Essential Official D&D Links

D&D Basic Rules Online
D&D Player's Rules .pdf
D&D DM Rules .pdf
Player's Handbook Errata
Dungeon Master's Guide Errata
Monster Manual Errata
D&D Spell List
Hoard of the Dragon Queen Online Supplement .pdf
Tyranny of Dragons Online Supplement .pdf
Elemental Evil Player's Companion .pdf

Index of the Index

• Attunement: DMG pages 136-138
• Concentration: PH page 203
• Cover: PH page 196
• Death: PH page 197
• Exhaustion: PH page 291
• Knocking Creatures Unconscious: PH page 198
• Learning Spells: PH page 114
• Paying for Spells: Adventurer's League DM Guide
• Ranged Attacks in Close Combat: PH page 195
• Resting & Spending Hit Dice: PH page 186
• Scrolls: DMG pages 199, 200
• Surprise: PH page 189
• Traps and Hazards: PH page 105, 110, 122

Index of Forgotten Rules

Attunement (DMG pages 136-138)

Using a Magic Item You Are Not Attuned to: You gain only the normal benefits of the item (if you grab a magic shield that requires attunement, it only give you the benefits of a normal shield).

How to Attune: Spend a short rest focused only on that item while being in physical contact with it.

• An item can only be attuned to one creature at a time
• You can only be attuned to 3 items, max

Command Words: You learn the command words of an item automatically when you attune to it.

You Lose Attunement If:

• You die.
• You are more than 100 feet away from the item for 24 hours.
• Another creatures attunes to the item.
• Voluntary: You can voluntarily end attunement by spending a short rest focused on the item.

Concentration (PH page 203)

Normal: You can move and attack as normal.
Ending It: You can end concentration at any time (no action required).

Concentration Is Broken If:

• You cast another spell that requires concentration.
• When You Take Damage: Make a Con save. The DC is 10 or 1/2 the damage you take, whichever is higher. Fail = lose concentration.
• If you are incapacitated or you die.
• Environment: If you're on a ship hit by a wave or something like that, you might have to make a DC 10 Con save to maintain concentration.

Cover (PH page 196)

Half Cover: +2 to AC and Dex saves (low wall, tree trunk, creature).
Three-Quarters Cover: +5 to AC and Dex saves (portcullis, arrow slit, thick tree trunk).
Total Cover: Can't be targeted (completely concealed by an obstacle).

Death (PH page 197)

Dropping to 0 Hit Points:

• You're unconscious.
• Make a death save each turn. Roll a d20. 10 or higher is a success, lower is a failure. Once you have three successes, you are stable and you stop making death saves. On your third failure, you die. If you roll a natural 20 on a death save, you regain one hit point. If you roll a 1, that counts as two failures.
• Damage at 0 HP: If you take damage, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If you are hit by a critical hit, you suffer two failures.

Stabilizing the Dying: DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check. Success = You have 0 hit points, are unconscious, you are stable (no death saves required). You regain 1 hit point after d4 hours.

Instant Death: When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum (no death saves - you're just dead).

Exhaustion (PH page 291)

You might get exhausted from starvation or exposure to the elements, etc. You make a saving throw of an appropriate type, and if you fail you gain a level of exhaustion. You'll have to make more saves until you get somewhere safe. Each failed save brings you to the next level.

Effects Stack: These effects are cumulative, so at level 2, you have disadvantage on ability checks ad your speed is halved).

1. Disadvantage on ability checks.
2. Speed halved.
3. Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws.
4. Hit point maximum halved.
5. Speed reduced to 0.
6. Death.

Taking a Long Rest: Reduces your exhaustion by one level, but only if you have access to food and drink.

Knocking Creatures Unconscious (PH page 198)

When you drop a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, you can choose to knock them out. They are unconscious and stable. They regain one hit point in d4 hours.

Learning Spells (PH page 115)

Each time you gain a level, you can add two wizard spells of a level for which you have spell slots and of your choice you can cast to your spellbook.

Copying a Spell Into Your Spellbook:

• You can add a spell if it is of a level for which you have spell slots.
• Takes 2 hours and 50 gp per level of the spell.

Copying a Spell You Know Into Another Book: Takes 1 hour and 10 gp per level of the spell.

Paying for Spells: (Adventurer's League DM Guide)

I like to use this as a guideline in case my players want to go pay someone to cast a spell.

Prone (PH page 190, Prone Condition: PH page 293)


When Prone: You have disadvantage on attack rolls

Melee Attacks vs. Prone Targets: Attackers have advantage to hit you if they are within 5 feet.
Ranged Attacks vs. Prone Targets: Attackers have disadvantage if they are more than 5 feet away.

Movement:

• You can drop prone without using any of your speed.
• Standing up: Costs half your speed. If your speed is 0, you can't stand up.
• Moving While Prone: You can crawl. Crawling costs one extra foot of movement. So if your speed is 30, you can crawl 15 feet.

Ranged Attacks in Close Combat: (PH page 195)

If you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature, you have disadvantage on ranged attack rolls.

Resting (PH page 186)

Hit Dice: You have Hit Dice equal to your level. Example: A level 8 fighter has 8 hit dice (8d10).

Spending a Hit Die: Roll the hit die and add your Con modifier.

Short Rest: At least one hour, you can eat, read, and tend to wounds. At the end of the short rest, you can spend one or more Hit Dice.

Long Rest:

• One Hit Point: You have to have at least one hit point at the start of a long rest to gain the benefits. 
• One Every 24 Hours: You can only take on long rest in a 24 hour period.
• 8 Hours or More: At least 8 hours long. You can sleep, eat, talk, or stand watch (for no longer than 2 hours).
• At the End of a Long Rest: You regain all lost hit points. You also regain up to half of your total Hit Dice. 

Scrolls (DMG page 199, 200)

There are 2 types of scrolls. Scrolls of protection (DMG page 199) and spell scrolls (page 200).

Scroll of Protection: (DMG page 199) For five minutes, you are surrounded by a magical barrier that prevents creatures of a certain type (Fey, Undead, etc) from affecting you. A creature can try to break bypass the barrier for good with a DC 15 Charisma check.

Spell Scrolls: (DMG page 200)

• Who Can Use Scrolls: If the spell is on your class's spell list, you can use an action to cast it off the scroll (no components needed).
• Who Can't: If the spell isn't on your class list, it is unintelligible to you.
• High Level Spells: If the spell is a higher level than you can cast, you make an ability check: DC = 10 + the spell's level. Fail means the scroll is wasted! You might want to use the Scroll Mishap table (DMG page 140).
• Determine DC and Bonus: Check the chart on DMG page 200 to see what the Save DC and attack bonus is.
• How to Copy a Scroll Into a Spell Book: You can copy a spell off of a scroll into your spell book. Make an Intelligence (Arcana) check, DC = 10 + the spell's level. The scroll is destroyed whether the roll is a success or not. Once the magic is invoked, it crumbles to dust.

Surprise (PH page 189)

Surprised: You can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. This also includes bonus actions ("...anything that deprives you of your ability to take actions also prevents you from taking a bonus action").

Procedure:

1. The DM figures out if anyone is surprised.
2. Everyone rolls initiative.
3. Take turns. Those who are surprised probably can't do anything.
4. Next round: Once we get through the first round, we're in combat as normal.

Traps and Hazards (DMG pages 105, 110, 122)

• List of Traps: DMG page 122 (pit traps, etc)
• Environmental Effects: DMG page 110 (extreme cold, quicksand, etc)
• Dungeon Hazards: DMG page 105 (molds, slimes, webs, etc)

Links

10 Most Common Mistakes in 5th Edition

We played some Planescape last night. I had spent some time over the week brainstorming and I had a flood of ideas.

The Iron Shadow is a vague entity in the Infinite Staircase. I decided I want to have a sort of 'video game boss fight' with her at the end and I was able to map out the basic idea of how it will go.

Splitting the Party: If you watched this past week's episode of Dice, Camera, Action, you saw Chris Perkins willingly split the group up. He also killed a character. I'm pretty sure I know what is going to happen - the slain rogue is going to rise up as an undead revenant, which is something discussed in Curse of Strahd.

I decided that I want to try splitting the party up in my game and see how it goes. I also had an idea for killing off a party member. I set up the split this week, and the possible "death" will happen two sessions from now.

The Plan: My plan is to run some of the Staircase adventures, and I'm going to mix in For Duty & Deity, which is linked to the Staircase. After that, I have an idea for a hag-centric adventure and a succubus-themed adventure. I've started planting seeds for them now. I am very excited about the hag adventure and I can't wait to run it.

I was thinking about hag covens (when all 3 hags are within 30 feet of each other, they have a pool of powerful spells they can use). I decided that there is a Sigil coven:

• Zaraga: The hag in the Screaming Tower in "Umbra."
• Virinis: The hag who owns The Worm's Guts, also from "Umbra."
• Ravel Puzzelwell: The hag from Planescape: Torment. She is mazed, but I'm going to say that people visit her in the maze. Ravel knows the way out, but she fears what the Lady of Pain would do to her if she left.

The Plan: I've prepared most of the Staircase adventures. This book is very hit or miss. I don't like the art, and the adventures are really wordy. If there's a 14 page adventure, it has 9 pages of backstory and then a brief 5 page sketch of an adventure. The ideas are good but they're not detailed enough.

Tonight my plan was to run the group through a condensed version of the first Staircase adventure, and then do a whole pile of fun stuff in the City of Sigil. It was a good session and I'm quite excited to run the next two sessions.

Last Time: The heroes had entered the Infinite Staircase to save their friend. Apparently there is a demon on a rampage.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Selinza ("Litorian" Wizard, level 5) 

The group came to a landing where three giant spiders lurked on webs that linked to another landing. They made quick work of the spiders, and Selinza got to use her new abjuration powers. Basically, when she casts an abjuration spell, she gains a sort of force field that absorbs 13 points of damage. It's very cool. I started using her to try out spells people don't use much, like aid and beacon of hope.

With the spiders dead, the heroes climbed the webbing up to the next landing. As they made their climb checks, I foreshadowed the idea of them falling into the void of the Staircase. They have been told that if they fall into the void, they will appear in some other plane and will never be seen again.

Manes

Demons: The group came up to a landing where the servants of the demon (Gerrzog, a glabrezu) lurked. The group pounded 13 manes and then fought an evil knight who could throw hovering "snake spheres."

With that done, the group came upon the demon, who was actually sleeping in this precarious metal structure between two landings. The idea here is to just send the structure and Gerrzog hurtling into the void.

But this is D&D, so, when presented with this scenario, what does Bidam say? "Let's cut his dick off!"

There was a bunch of debating and hand-wringing. The glabrezu is extremely powerful. Bidam suddenly realized they could just send the whole structure plummeting into the void, and they did so.

They rescued their friend and returned to Sigil, where I had a million little things planned.

The Contest: Throughout the rest of the session, the employees of the festhall decided to have a competition. Each night, they wanted to see who could seduce Bidam or Theran. In my head, I thought that the heroes would refuse to sleep with any of them. Especially Theran, who is a bookish sort of fellow.

Many of the NPCs who work in the festhall are based on ideas from the infamous "harlot table" from the AD&D 1st edition DMG. Others are from Ed Greenwood's epic list of "paid companions" (check out the third post down right here).

To my surprise, Theran spent the night with an 'expensive doxy,' and a 'saucy tart' the next night. Bidam hooked up with the "Snakehips" (contortionist), and the "Footwarmer" (experienced older lady) the next evening.

The competition among the employees then became who would be rejected first. That happened on night 3, when the flesh golem lady came calling.

Setting up a Big Event: I made sure to include a number of moments of Theran and his apprentice, Selinza, in their wizardly lab making whispering motes (githzerai healing powder). I want to establish this for my big scene in a couple of weeks, where Theran might be murdered depending on how things play out.

The Hag Covens: There's a hag that lives in the square that the heroes own, named Zaraga. Last session, the heroes went to Barovia, killed some witches and interacted with the Creeping Hut. Bidam made friends with the hut, which I played like a dog, basically. Baba Lysaga, one of my favorite Curse of Strahd NPCs, has tracked the heroes down. She flew through Sigil in her magic upside-down giant skull, with the Creeping Hut scampering after her.

Baba Lysaga was set to attack the heroes, when Zaraga stepped up to defend them. Zaraga warned Lysaga that she did not want to spark a war between the Sigil coven and the Barovia coven. After a bit of back and forth, Lysaga decided that she would call upon the heroes for a favor (which will happen when I run my hag adventure).

I had her spray them with water, which enchanted their items. Basically, Lysaga wanted to give the group something that could tell the heroes when the favor was to be called in. So the Strahd dummy and the hag doll that they bought in Barovia last session were brought to life. When the time came, the dolls would tell the heroes what to do. In the meantime, I get to do a goofy vampire voice and a cackling hag voice.

Theran really didn't like his vampire dummy, because in order for it to talk he needed to put his hand through the "rear." The dummy thinks he is the real devil Strahd and I rattled off a bunch of lines I had prepared before the game.

Baba Yaga

I was impressed when, as this whole thing unfolded, Jessie actually asked if Baba Lysaga knows Baba Yaga and "Burba Larga." In a previous campaign years ago, we did a whole bunch of stuff involving an NPC I made up: Burba Larga, Baba Yaga's embarrassing, untalented daughter. Burba Larga provided some of the biggest laughs in any campaign I've ever run, and Jessie actually pretty much guessed where I'm going with this hag stuff without even realizing it.

Chad Menses: I had come up with an idea for a "frat bro" NPC last week (whose friend, Dorpin No-Beard, is a dwarf who is always hammered). I introduced him to the group and he was a huge hit. Next week, I think I am going to have the heroes party with him.

Basically, this is another excuse for me to do a goofy voice. I researched a bunch of dumb things for him to say, including "We're going to Sylvania to PTV" (pound that vag). And, "My dwarf bro Dorpin is already turnt!" He called Bidam and Theran "B-Slice" and "T-Slice" respectively. I think I am going to try and google "legendary party stories" and see if I can make a fun little skill challenge out of whatever I find.

Low Level Drama: We did some other stuff with the low-level NPC party, which involved some drama with the paladin and his lady love. Basically, there's a woman who is sure her god told her to have a baby with the paladin, as the child is destined for great things. But the paladin is in love with somebody else. The group was batting ideas around involving a "glory hole" and/or a turkey baster. They decided to mull it over for now.

This whole storyline just started out of an impulse, and I'm letting the group do what they want with it and see what happens. I'm assuming I'll be able to tie it in to a main adventure sooner or later.

Raja Khan

Foreshadowing: I included a couple of little things to kind of build up to major stuff. I had a dabus who has a magic sword (from "Nemesis" originally) greet Theran and give him a meaningful look. Theran was weirded out by this. Basically, this Dabus is going to play a role in my "murder" scenario in a couple of weeks. I also had Selinza mention wanting to go find her enemy Raja Khan a number of times. I want Raja Khan in their heads, because he will also play a part in the "murder" scenario.

Judge Gabberslug

The Court of Woe: Another long story. Basically Bidam is infecting people with weird powers linked to the Lady of Pain. One of these people, a reave masseuse, was arrested. It turns out that she cut someone up real good. The reave tried to explain that all she did was look at the person and that the cuts appeared magically, just like how the Lady of Pain does it.

A lawyer asked the heroes to come to the reave's murder trial to testify on her behalf. This allowed me to use Judge Gabberslug, an awesome NPC from Uncaged: Faces of Sigil. Basically he's a demon who has a courthouse in the Negative Material Plane. The courthouse itself is made up of the calcified faces of those he has found guilty.

The heroes testified on the reave's behalf. Gabberslug thought their story was a joke. He pointed to a dustman in the court and told the reave to look at him and cut him. She tried, but nothing happened. The judge laughed, and told Bidam to do it. Bidam looked at the guy... and suddenly, cuts appeared all over his body. The poor Dustman's eyes were cut out!

The court erupted and went into chaos. Bidam was shocked at what he had just done. Gabberslug was terrified of being involved with the Lady of Pain in any way, so he immediately declared the reave innocent and begged the heroes and her to leave his court at once.

I love Gabberslug and I hope I can find a way to use him again. I'd love to do some sort of "courtroom drama" session of D&D, but I have absolutely no idea how to pull it off.

With that done, Jessie (Bidam's player) was really shocked and pumped up. Bidam had the power to cut people just by looking at them! Bidam remembered that the Lady of Pain had stopped using that power for a while, and the heroes thought maybe she had transferred the power to Bidam somehow.

I plan on having this be a thing where Bidam can't really control it, but it will come up once per session (especially if a battle starts to drag). Theran will also soon develop a cool power, but that won't come for another 2 or 3 sessions.

The Dream Well: That night, Theran had a dream about a thing called the Dream Well. This is what the next session is about. Theran sensed a connection to the Dream Well, and that it would enchant his spell book. He dreamt of a path through the Staircase that led right to it.

When he woke up, assembled the group and headed into the Staircase. He wanted to check out the Dream Well.

Each set of stairs in the Infinite Staircase are made of different materials. As they ascended a set of glass stairs, the glass cracked under Bidam's feet and he fell through. Selinza cast feather fall as a reaction, but he still fell 60 feet in a single round. Fall From Grace took flight and tried to grab Bidam's hand before Bidam vanished into another plane. We rolled, their hands clasped - and both of them vanished.

Cheating: This is something I almost never do. Whether Jessie made her saving throws or not, her character was going to fall into the plane. I really don't like doing it, but I decided to give it a try after I saw Chris Perkins steering his group in a similar fashion. When the glass cracked, Bidam rolled a save to grab onto the edge. He made the save, but I said that the glass he grabbed on to immediately cracked and he fell.

When Fall From Grace flew to catch him, I had Bidam make a check to grab her hand. He made this too. I narrated it as meaning that because they were touching, both of them fell through into some other plane. If Bidam had failed that roll, Fall From Grace still would have fell through.

The Group is Split: Theran and Selinza looked down in shock. Were their friends lost forever? The glass stairs cracked under their feet. Theran flung a rope up to a railing on a landing above, and some good rolls were made. The stairs collapsed beneath them, and Theran held onto the rope while Selinza held onto him. A lillend (guardian of the Staircase) appeared and helped them up.

Theran was really thrown by this. I think his player, George, was in uncharted territory. I have NEVER split the party like this before, so he was wondering if there was some kind of hook or gimmick to solve this problem. There's not! Next session, the party will be split and they should reunite by the end of the session. I am especially excited to run Theran and his apprentice on an adventure alone together. It just seems like a cool thing to do.

So overall, the wheels are in motion. A very good session. I am considering trying to plan out my sessions so they build to a big event every 3 or 4 times we play. I get a little worried about the game getting stale and I want to make sure the players have plenty of "holy crap" and "remember when..?" stuff happening.

Watching Chris Perkins each week is helping me immensely. I'd highly suggest you check out Dice, Camera, Action some time. The latest session was very good.

Sharn, City of Towers

On Saturday I played through another session of my friend's Eberron campaign. It takes place in Sharn, the city of towers.

My character is a 6th level sorcerer. I have a bag of beans (I'm almost out of beans) a necklace of fireballs (with four beads) and a heward's handy haversack.

In this session, we learned that our NPC friend had been turned to stone and was going to be sold as a statue at an auction. Our job was to try to get our friend back.

The statue was in a gallery owned by a medusa who was a high-ranking member of one of the "houses." Daask, I think? There are a million different houses in Eberron and I have a hard time keeping them all straight.

The Medusa

We are only 6th level and were very worried about taking on a medusa. So for two hours or so, we brainstormed ideas. We came up with about 6 fun ideas, but nobody could come to a consensus on what to do:

• We didn't want to fight the medusa.
• We didn't want to steal from her.
• We didn't want to hijack the statue after it was sold, because it might be impossible.
• We didn't want to meet with the medusa and cut a deal because we'd be at her mercy there in front of her.

She's a medusa. She could just turn us to stone.

After tons of recon and research, you can probably guess what we decided to do. We  just broke in and tried to snatch the statue.

The New Hireling

Our group likes to hire a hireling NPC and see how long they can survive. The newest one was an old gnome lady. She creeped me out. She had a dead bird's head in her necklace or something. Her job was just to have a cart ready (driven by some beast of burden) and when we came out with the statue, we'd get on the cart and ride to freedom.

We busted into the place and there were a bunch of gnolls inside who immediately spotted us. Somehow the fighter ended up fighting them outside, while me and the mage headed for the statue. The statue was guarded by two yetis who were part of some magic trap - they were statues that came to life. The yetis did piles of damage.

I started chucking gems from my necklace of fireballs and yelling out things like "See you in hell *******!" They killed the yetis, but the whole place was on fire and we had to make saving throws each round from the smoke.

Bad to Worse

Before we could even get to the statue, the medusa showed up. I used my sorcerer ability to "twin" a spell, so I could cast invisibility on myself and the mage. We had learned that if a medusa can't see you, it can't turn you to stone.

Luckily for us, the fighter had somehow shaken off the gnolls. He ran in and started hacking away at the medusa.

We could hear screams from outside. The gnolls were eating our poor little gnome NPC buddy. She didn't even survive her first encounter.

We unloaded on the medusa as the fighter "tanked." The mage and I blew through most of our spells, whittling away at the medusa. It took a long time and it was very scary. The fighter had to make a saving throw or turn to stone - thankfully he made it. I finally dropped her with a measly magic missile.

Worse to Dead

The place was full of smoke and we could hear more monsters mobilizing. We knew there was a troll nearby. Earlier, during our research phase, this troll bouncer was talking crap to us. Knowing trolls are vulnerable to fire, my character lit a torch and waved it in his face and gave him some choice words (in a Sean Connery voice, because that's my character).

I used a shatter spell to blow a hole in the wall so we could escape. We're in Sharn, city of towers. We're pretty high up. My plan was for us to jump off a ledge, and my feather fall spell would kick in.

Technically, the statue was an NPC with the petrified condition. I was hoping that meant that I could feather fall the statue, and we could hold on to it and float down to safety far below.

We never got to try out this plan, because the troll rounded a corner and beat the bejeezus out of us. Get this. The troll killed me! As in, dead-dead!

Thankfully the party mage rolled insanely well all night, and she dropped the troll with a fire bolt.

I Died!

There was a bunch of hiding and sneaking, and eventually the group got me and the statue home.

They brought me somewhere and paid to have me raised. The DM said that raise dead in Eberron was rare? He decided that I had 'resurrection sickness.' This means that I have a -4 to all rolls. Once I take a long rest, it will be -3, etc.

That might not sound too bad, but in this campaign, we pretty much play through one day per session! That means I will have minuses for the next 4 months of my life!

It's not the end of the world or anything. I immediately got a kick out of hamming up my sickness. My character walked around in a bathrobe and had ice on his head.

I Bought My Own Tombstone

I got the feeling that if I die again, I'm just dead and I'll have to make a one character. So I bought a tombstone and set up my grave plot. Then I planted a magic bean in my grave and rolled on the chart. Know what I rolled? 100. A beanstalk rose up high into the sky.

The DM decided that the next session will be about what we find when we climb the beanstalk.

Old Man

It was a fun session, but I was a little off. When I was in high school, I could play D&D for 24 hours straight and feel fine. Now I tend to get tired and restless after 3 hours. So in this session, it kicked in and I actually started to get a headache at the 5 hour mark. It was a good session, but I really wasn't able to enjoy it.

The other players loved this session big time. It was one long rolling fight and we took on an awful lot of powerful creatures. I am interested to see what is at the top of the beanstalk. I can't even guess.

Diath & Strix

Episode 8 Title: "Really Most Sincerely Dead"

You can watch this episode on Twitch here.

Special thanks to Durian, who graciously allowed me to use her depiction of Strix and Diath in this article. She is an awesome artist and a nice person! I see she has made more DCA art. Check it out on her tumblr here.

Jared couldn't play this week, so we have only 3 players. It feels really weird.

Last Time: The group got split up in Vallaki. Strix met Lady Wachter and Diath was about to be hung...

The Waffle Crew

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard 
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer 

Strix is with Lady Wachter. She brings Strix down to the cellar to meet Wachter's "book club" (band of devil worshipers). Strix is freaked out, so she makes up a story about cats on fire but Lady Wachter sees through it.

Strix pulls out the demon ichor that she took from the hags. She throws it on the ground and casts firebolt on it. She rolls a natural 20 and ignites it! There is an explosion and the cultists robes burst into flames. Strix tries to run to the stairs but a skeletal hand reaches up from under the floor and grabs her ankle.

Meanwhile, over in the Blue Water Inn, Evelyn wakes Paultin up. Ireena is there, too. They head out to the stocks to find Diath. They spot a huge flock of ravens hovering over the town square. The heroes hear what sounds like children screaming.

Back in the cellar, Strix casts Misty Step. She teleports out of the hand's grasp and appears at the top of the stairs. She opens the door and is looking for an exit. Her brother, Izek, is banging on the door outside the house calling for Strix. She runs over to him. Wachter's spy, Ernst, is lying on the ground. Apparently Izek beat him up.

Strix teams up with Izek and they head down into the cellar. Five skeletons rise up from the ground and attack Izek. Strix tells Wachter to "Suck it." As Izek does battle, Strix runs away out of the house and in search of her allies.

In the town square, a guard is being attacked by a flock of ravens.  Evelyn spots Diath. He's dead, hanging from a noose.

Evelyn prays for Diath and Paultin plays a song. Suddenly, time slows for Evelyn. The world is responding to her dismay. Evelyn calls on the Morninglord to save Diath. Evelyn senses that Diath has not gone into the light.

In the clouds, Paultin sees a massive skull in the clouds. It dissolves. I am not sure what this is all about.

Strix arrives and the group is united once more. The group brings Diath's corpse to St. Andral's church. Ireena heads to the inn.

The group meets a handsome gravedigger named Milivoj. In the church they meet an old, thin priest named Lucian Petrovich. Evelyn asks him to perform last rites.

The group starts arguing about whether Diath's spirit can move on or not. The priest says nobody's soul can leave Barovia.

The priest says that the Abbot of St. Markovia Abbey might be able to help. We're going to Krezk! To get there, "You must travel through wolf-infested forests.."

The group leaves the church and both Strix and Evelyn say goodbye to the handsome gravedigger. He stares at them dumbly.

The group pays two wolf hunters (Stoldar and Yevgeni) to come along with them. The heroes are told by the owner of the Blue Water Inn that, if they can, they should check out the Wizard of Wines winery. Wine shipments have mysteriously stopped arriving.

Diath's body is wrapped up in a blanket like a "corpse burrito." Paultin flirts with some really harsh guards, and the heroes leave Vallaki.

As they hit the road, they spot a Vistani camp nearby. The NPC hunters refuse to go visit the vistani. The group goes to check out the camp. Strix has a spontaneous freakout over Diath.

When they get themselves together, the group approaches the camp. A guard warns them that they should go away. The guard is an elf with dark eyes and skin (he's a dusk elf). He tells Evelyn that most of the vistani are out looking for a missing child named Arabelle.

The group decides to turn back and head to Krezk. They want to find the kid, but they feel like they need to try to raise Diath first. The dusk elf warns them that St. Markovia's Abbey is a place of madness.

Strix says, "The Waffle Crew will be back." I think that's the first time the waffle moniker has been uttered in-game. I still don't think they've gotten to eat waffles yet. Maybe once Strahd is dead...

During their journey on the road, the group passes Argynvostholt, home to a silver dragon. The wolf hunters are alarmed at the lack of wolves. Strix assumes there's a wolf army waiting for them.

The group arrives at Krezk.  That's where we stop.

Chris says the next session will be crazy. I am guessing that Diath rises up as a revenant, but who knows!

Timestamps

• (55:30) Removing Diath from the noose.
• (1:13:30) Evelyn is so distraught.
• (1:30:43) One of the guards is a little crabby.

Overall

NPC Juggling: I admire how Chris is able to handle so many different 'factions' and how some of them actually oppose each other. The whole world isn't against the heroes. Even the bad guys will sometimes aid them if their motivations line up.

The Mythical DM: It's funny, after reading about Chris Perkins for so long I had this image in my head of the "perfect DM." As a DM, I always felt like I was mediocre at best and that Perkins was doing things really differently.

I've been pleasantly surprised to see that Chris Perkins is a dude just like us. He's a very good DM, but it turns out that there is no mythical DM who is operating on another level. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and our own way of running the game. We are juggling a million things at once, and it's not easy for any of us.