This guide is meant to provide DMs with an overview of one of D&D's major villains - the vampire Strahd Von Zarovich. I am going to go through each product from each edition that has Strahd in it, and pull out notable material to give you stuff to use when you put Strahd in your games. This should give you options as far as how to run Strahd and which version of his story you want to go with.

Strahd is regarded as one of D&D's greatest villains. The adventure he first appeared in, Ravenloft, is considered one of the best of all time. He was so popular that he spawned an entire setting - second edition's "Ravenloft" campaign.

I'm sure I've missed some stuff. Feel free to let me know, and if I can I'll track down the material and add it to this post.

Real Life Origin
According to this interview, Tracy Hickman made up the original Ravenloft adventure (initially titled "Vampyr") in the '70's and ran it for his group on Halloween. He continued to run it every Halloween for 5 years, each time tweaking and developing it more.

The original idea came to him when he was playing in his friend's D&D campaign. The heroes were going through a dungeon, and in a room was a vampire. Tracy thought to himself that a vampire was worthy of being a main villain, and it didn't feel right as a random monster in a dungeon. He read Bram Stoker's Dracula and got to work. Eventually he and his wife sold the finished version to TSR.

The Essential Information

Here's what you need to know about Strahd:

• He calls himself "the first vampire". The villagers of Barovia call him "The devil Strahd."
• He lives in Castle Ravenloft.
• He is served by bats, wolves and "Strahd" zombies.
• He is cursed to always pursue a woman who looks like his unrequited love Tatyana, but he is never able to marry her.
• He rules a kingdom called Barovia. He can control choking fog that surrounds the place.
• In most editions, he is unaffected by garlic and mirrors. He usually has some sort of protection against sunlight, whether a natural resistance or an artifact.
• In life, his younger brother Sergei was about to marry a woman named Tatyana. Strahd was in love with her, but she thought he was too old. Strahd killed his brother and tried to profess his love to Tatyana. She fled and jumped off a balcony to her death (or she plunged into a mist, depending on the edition). "Death", or the dark powers of Ravenloft, took notice of Strahd's evil act. Strahd turned into a vampire and went on a rampage, killing his guards and the wedding party. His realm of Barovia became shrouded with mist and he became cursed. Over the many years, women would be born in his domain that looked and acted like Tatyana. When he discovers this "reincarnation", he tries to make her his bride but he always fails.
• In 4th edition, Ravenloft is in the Shadowfell.

My Experience With Strahd

As a kid, I bought the 1e adventure at a convention. I flipped through it, saw the huge map of the castle and felt overwhelmed. This adventure had too many moving parts for me, so I never ran it.

When I got the 2e Ravenloft boxed set, I ran a Ravenloft campaign. I saw that Strahd had 55 hit points, and felt my hack and slash heroes would destroy him in a fight. I didn't feel capable of running him, as he had so many powers and spells to keep track of. Not wanting to make a mockery of a major NPC, I never used him.

AD&D 1st Edition

I6 Ravenloft

This adventure was written by Tracy and Laura Hickman. It features art by my favorite D&D artist, Clyde Caldwell, and IMO his depiction of Strahd (whether in black and white or fully painted) puts everyone else to shame.

The Plot: There is a woman in Barovia named Ireena who looks like Strahd's beloved Tatyana. Strahd wants her, the heroes get involved. It's a classic tale of a vampire living in a castle looming over a sad village. Most of the plot points are variable, determined by a random card reading....

Fortunes of Ravenloft: The DM does this card reading before the adventure begins or during the session when the PCs meet the gypsies. There's instructions on using a deck of cards to do the reading. This reading determines major plot points of the actual adventure, including:

• What Strahd's goal is. One goal possibility includes polymorphing a PC into a vampire (!) and putting them in a coffin. Strahd joins the party, impersonating the PC
• Where the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is.
• Where the Tome of Strahd is.
• Where Strahd is located in the castle for the final battle.
• Where the Sunsword Hilt is.

Strahd is a complicated villain to run. He has a lot of powers and abilities. He is meant to pop in, hurt the heroes, and then flee back to his castle. This is a tricky thing to do in D&D. Here's some of his traits:

• He has 55 hit points and an AC of -1 (which is the equivalent of a 21 AC in 5e terms).
• When he hits an enemy, they lose two levels!
• There is a 60% chance he knows where the heroes are throughout the adventure, thanks to a network of spies and servants.

Leaving Barovia is Fatal: If the heroes try to leave Barovia before the adventure is finished, they choke and die within 24 hours due to the poison fog outside the town.

Book Found in Strahd's Lounge: "Life Among the Undead: Learning to Cope"

Ireena/Tatyana

How it Ends: Once the group defeats Strahd, the ghost (?) of Strahd thanks the heroes, and then he asks Tatyana/Ireena to join him in the afterlife. She realizes she is Tatyana reborn, takes his hand, and they walk off together and vanish.

Magic Items: A good portion of this adventure involves the heroes tracking down items that are essential to learning more about Strahd and defeating him. These items appear in many subsequent adventures over the editions:

• Holy Symbol of Ravenkind: It basically paralyzes vampires for d10 rounds once per week. 
• Sunsword: +2 sword, glows when undead are close, does +10 damage versus vampires. This item is weird. It's just the blade. When the group finds the blade, it magically attaches to the hilt of a hero's sword, supplanting the previous blade.
• Tome of Strahd: A diary written by Strahd that reveals his origin. It's written in a weird shorthand so PCs only have a 30% chance of understanding.

Don't Trust Gypsies: Gypsies will sell the PCs a potion that protects them from the vampire. It's a fake.

The Carriage: The heroes come upon a carriage with two horses. The door is open. If the PCs get in, the horses pull the carriage to Castle Ravenloft.

Strahd Zombies: These monsters lose a limb whenever they take 5+ damage, but the limb continues to attack.

I've never run this module, but it looks like a lot of fun. After going through all of the subsequent remakes and sequels, none of them really measure up to this one.

I10 Ravenloft 2: The House on Gryphon Hill

This is a really weird adventure. It can be run as a sequel to the original, or there is a section explaining how to combine this with the original. This whole book has actually been sort of written out of continuity in some future products. For years, the pdf of this was offered as a free download on the official D&D site along with other oddities.

It has a lot of great ideas. The whole concept of a device that switches the souls of monsters and villagers is really fun. Also, hypnotism has never really been explored in D&D, and seems like it could lead to cool things.

This blog points out that the adventure was only outlined by the Hickmans, and that other designers filled in the blanks. Ravenloft 2 seems to be pretty reviled.

The Plot: The soul of Strahd has split into two creatures, one good ("The Alchemist"), one bad ("The Creature"). One half is searching for the other half. This takes place in a village called Mordentshire. There is this giant device which is being used to switch souls between people and monsters.

Hypnotism: This adventure uses the fortune teller random placement gimmick again, but this time instead of using a tarot card reading, it involves "The Mersmerist's Pendulum". The heroes get hypnotized, and the DM rolls on a random chart to determine the location of items and Strahd's goal.

The Apparatus: This thing is two stories tall and is a device that the Alchemist is using to try to purge his soul of evil. It has the power to switch souls between two creatures.

Magic Items:

• The Ring of Reversion: Can restore the rightful spirit to a possessed body.
• The Rod of Rastinon: This can be used with the Apparatus to drive out the evil Strahd.
• The Soul Searcher Orb: This can reveal the true nature of a creature.

The Beginning: The entire adventure starts off with the heroes fighting and being killed by Strahd... but it's only a dream.

Delirium: Throughout the adventure, the heroes are suffering from delirium caused by a fever. They will have -2 to all die rolls or see hallucinations at certain points.

Murder in Mordentshire: If a hero kills a townsperson, a mob of villagers comes and gets them and they are put on trial for murder. The character could be sentenced to slavery or death.

Black Cat: There is a black cat that, when it crosses a PC's path, forces a saving throw. Fail means that the PC suffers a -1 to rolls in the next encounter and "...will also suffer one unfortunate accident of the DM's choice."

Climax: The whole story of the adventure is meant to culminate in a scene where the two Strahds are in the apparatus. Lightning strikes the place and the two Strahds run out into the rain and fight each other. The heroes can only see five feet ahead due to sheets of rain. There's these flashes of lightning that illuminate the scene and trigger encounters, like battling zombie versions of themselves, etc.

The slightly complex tracking chart

Strahd's Stats: He gained a few hit points. He's up to 69 now. He's also got a sword of wounding and a rope of entangling.

Azalin the Lich: This NPC went on to big things. He gets his own domain of dread in 2nd edition, is featured in a series of novels, and is part of the 2nd edition Ravenloft pseudo-adventure path. In this adventure, he's an ally of Strahd. Fun facts:

• He has a -14 comeliness. That's the most 1st edition sentence ever.
• He has a quasit named Tintantilus, who can take the form of a bat or wolf.
• His body is decaying, and he needs a new one.

AD&D 2nd Edition

Ravenloft Boxed Set

In 2nd edition, the whole Ravenloft concept was expanded into a complete campaign setting boxed set. Ravenloft is this demiplane of horror that people get drawn into and are trapped in by the Ravenloft mist (an ethereal plane fog that can reach into the Prime Material and pull people into Ravenloft).

The demiplane is divided up into islands and other 'domains', each bordered by the mists of Ravenloft that keep people in. Barovia is one such domain. Once in a while, there is a "conjunction" where the borders of two domains overlap. At those times, people can travel between those domains.

Strahd's Domain: Barovia is detailed. We learn:

• Anyone entering Strahd's castle uninvited will be put to death
• There's a choking fog similar to the stuff in the 1e adventure. Anyone who tries to leave Barovia through the fog loses 1 point of constitution per hour until they die or come back. Strahd can lift the fog if he chooses. 
• The Vistani (gypsies) are Strahd's spies.

2nd Edition Strahd: Strahd is now a 16th level Necromancer Vampire. He's got all sorts of new tweaks:

• His hit points have dropped to 55.
• He can cast 8th level spells! He's got finger of death and limited wish.
• He can stand 10 rounds of sunlight and you need a +2 weapon to hit him.
• He can appear in any area of Barovia at any time (!).
• During the day, he falls into a coma and appears dead.

Gypsy Pact: In the year 470 (current year in the revised boxed set is 740) Strahd made a pact with the gypsy Madame Eva. Strahd would protect her and her people, and in turn she and her Vistani would search for an exit from Barovia.

Ravenloft 2 Was a Dream: There's an interesting note that in 579, Azalin the lich transported himself and Strahd to a domain called "Mordent". This is apparently where Ravenloft 2 took place (Mordentshire). Mordent was annexed into Barovia, and neither Strahd nor Azalin the lich remembers what happened there. Azalin the lich ended up ruling his own domain, and he hates Strahd.

From the Shadows

Strahd is featured in some of the adventures that form a sort of Ravenloft adventure path. It is known as "The Grand Conjunction Cycle" . What's weird is that the adventures vary in level, so you couldn't run them in the intended order with the same group of heroes if you wanted to. From the Shadows is the fifth in the cycle. There's no problem in reordering them by level, as the connecting story is very loose (almost non-existent). Here's the first four:

1. Feast of Goblyns: An adventure about a wolfwere.
2. Ship of Horror: The heroes sail to an island to battle a necromancer.
3. Touch of Death: A desert trek and mummies.
4. Night of the Walking Dead: Zombies!

From the Shadows is part 5, and it is the notorious adventure that starts off with an encounter where the headless horseman cuts the heroes heads off, no matter what they do. Needless to say, my group absolutely loathed this module.

The Plot: Azalin the lich wants to know more about how the demiplane of Ravenloft formed. He's trying to undo it, so he can escape. He sends the group back in time and, I guess, to the prime material plane to steal the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind right after Strahd first became a vampire.

His thinking is that this will cause the Grand Conjunction to take place (it does). This Conjunction causes the lands of Ravenloft to return to the Prime Material plane.

Time Travel: When Azalin sends the heroes back in time to Castle Ravenloft, they inhabit the body of a random wedding guest. You roll on a chart to see what class (if any) each PC is. I can't even fathom what players must have thought of this after already being railroaded into having their heads cut off.

The Adventure Wants to Make Your Players Angry: The heroes appear in Castle Ravenloft just 5 rounds before Strahd chases Tatyana and she jumps off the balcony to her doom. Once she dies, Strahd flips out and goes on a murderous rampage. So.. he attacks the PCs.

Look at this DM advice here:

"The rest of this encounter is a merry chase in which Strahd kills all the characters one by one. The DM should be cruel; none of the players are losing their real characters."

When I ran this way back when in my early teens, even I knew to alter all of this. Once all the PCs are slain or if they crossed a certain drawbridge, they appear back in Azalin's laboratory.

The rest of the adventure involves the group exploring Azalin's castle. It leads right into the final adventure in the Grand Conjunction Cycle...

Roots of Evil

This is a really convoluted, gigantic adventure. It's the final part of the Grand Conjunction Cycle. The story boils down to the fact that Azalin is trying to use the heroes to kill Strahd. Strahd made a pact with yugoloths that didn't go well, and now yugoloths are trying to kill him and get their Book of Secrets back.

The heroes kind of travel around and watch NPCs do things. Strahd bosses them around. Here's some Azalin dialogue:

“I challenge you!” he hisses your way, his dried lips drawn back in a sinister smile.

“I challenge you to catch me! If even one of you survives -- an amusing idea -- I shall revive you all and give you the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind (and the Icon)!

“Now, to use a quaint mortal phrase, tag -- you’re it!”

Bleah.

Double Your Magic Items: This module has a massive dungeon full of very creative rooms. There is actually one room where magic mirrors create ghoul doubles of the group.. and their magic items:

"They have the same clothes and items as the PC, but the undead creatures lack the intelligence to cast spells or use magical items that must be activated. They will, however, use the weapon carried by the PC."

So... the heroes kill 6 ghouls and double their magic items?

More Time Travel: Then Azalin sends the heroes back in time. They possess the bodies of Strahd's foot soldiers (they have basic soldier stats with 18 hit points). Then they ruin his deal with the yugoloths and come back to present day.

This Dissolves The Demiplane: Doing this fulfills the prophecy, and Ravenloft ceases to exist. There's just mist and monsters.. and Castle Ravenloft.

The Climax: In the end, Azalin, Inajira (the yugoloth who wants his yugoloth-summoning book back) and Strahd fight. Strahd's wife, a queen (who is an incarnation of Tatyana), helps the heroes destroy the book. They place Azalin's phylactery and the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind on an altar, and Ravenloft is reformed and the bad guys are sucked back into their domains.

The party appears wherever the DM wants, be it Ravenloft or some prime world.

House of Strahd

This adventure is a "remake" or "update" of the original 1st edition adventure. It updates everything to the 2e rules and adds in the Ravenloft fear and horror checks. I really like the way it is condensed and formatted. It's very easy on the eyes (though I'd imagine that the pink boxed text sections might melt some sensitive retinas) and looks worthy of being run.

Van Richten's Guide to Vampires

This vampire-centric supplement has a few pages devoted to Strahd. It tells the tale of a bard named Greggori Kolyan. Strahd captured him, told him his origin, and had the bard write it down. The bard was then allowed to leave, to spread the word of Strahd.

This is basically a re-telling of Strahd's story, slightly altered. There's a guard who figured out Strahd's plan to kill his brother. Strahd killed him but was mortally wounded. That is when Strahd made the dark pact.

Dragon Magazine 205

A woman named Dori Hein writes a bit about Strahd. Check out this little nugget:

He's rich!

The article points out that the Grand Conjunction cycle caused a lot of changes in Ravenloft. The Grand Conjunction was a real life excuse to ditch certain boring domains (or ones that just didn't fit) and to add new ones to the setting.

D&D 3rd Edition

Dragon Magazine 315 - Ravenloft: The Return of Strahd

This article stats out Strahd for 3rd edition. There's two versions of him, one as a vampire and the other as a high level necromancer.

There's notes on running Strahd as a villain who strikes at the heroes, and then gets away. "When you run Strahd, think of two escape plans he can use if the PCs get the upper hand."

Here's some tips we are given:

• Listening: Strahd is always eavesdropping with his crystal ball and invisibility.
• Test With Minions: Strahd sends his bats, wolves or zombies after the group to observe their tactics and capabilities.
• Slow Them Down: Use symbol spells to block doors and buy time.
• Separate: Strahd should try and isolate a PC, drain their blood and make them his vampiric thrall. Alternately he could dominate them.

Map: Then we get a map of Castle Ravenloft. This has got to be one of the most-mapped locales in D&D history.

Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

This is a gigantic hardcover adventure by the great Bruce Cordell. It is basically just a 3rd edition remake of the original 1e adventure with a lot of extraneous additions. There is a lot of free stuff and previews pertaining to this adventure on the wizards site.

3rd Edition Strahd: Strahd is a CR 15 monster, and he looks more Castlevania-y than ever. Also:

• He has 70 hit points.
• He has an artifact known as the dayheart. It makes Strahd immune to sunlight.
• There are three sites in the woods where he performs rituals that give him special powers. 
• This adventure calls The Sunsword "the original model for all sun blades".
• He has a minion named Kavan the Grim, who is a "daywalker" created by Strahd. He is a savage berserker.

The Plot: The adventure goes like this:

1. Zombies attack Barovia. Those who are bitten become zombies.
2. The heroes meet Ireena, who is the reincarnation of Tatyana.
3. The group tracks down the source of the zombies (a necromancer).
4. The group visit Madame Eva at the Tser Pool encampment.
5. She does a card reading, which works quite like in the original 1e adventure.
6. The group tracks down the Sunsword, The Tome of Strahd and the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind in the lands of Barovia.
7. While doing so, they'll face off against werewolves, a crazed trapper and three hags.
8. The group goes to Castle Ravenloft to battle Strahd.

3e Ireena/Tatyana

Encounters: The book uses the "encounter" format, where each battle gets a two-page spread and a detailed map. I really like the Dining Room. Here's some of the flavor:

"At the end of the table, his back to you, sits an elegant gentleman in the fine clothing of a nobleman. As you enter, he turns to face you, revealing a gaunt but aristocratic face with prominent cheekbones and a high forehead. His piercing eyes take you in, then he slowly smiles. "Welcome to Castle Ravenloft", he says."

He invites the heroes to eat with him The wine is laced with vampiric blood! Drinking it gives a hero a penalty to save against his domination ability.

If/when a fight breaks out, he assumes gaseous form and flees.

Madame Eva

Lots of Strahd Fights: The final battle with Strahd occurs in a room determined by Madame Eva's card reading. The book actually has about 10 encounters, all fully statted out, of possible battles with Strahd.

Organizations: The book also contains a prestige class and a guild:

• Knights of the Raven: Champions of evil against the undead. They ca speak with ravens, and they have a celestial raven as a companion. The raven ally can give an enemy a penalty to AC, or prevent attacks of opportunity, that kind of thing. Higher level knights can see through their eyes and cast spells through them. The ghost of one of these knights is in Castle Ravenloft (on page 146). She is Lady Vey Rallen, now a ghost powered by positive energy.
• Lightbringers: A guild of undead hunters. Not much to it, really. The guild helps them out, loaning a member NPCs or casting restoration once in a while for free.

There's also really weird magic item:

Vampire Hide Armor: Yes, armor made from the skin of a vampire! It's just regular magic leather armor +3, and it gives a bit of damage resistance to silver and magic.

This adventure looks fun, but it definitely feels overloaded with unnecessary encounters. There's all sorts of weird monsters in the castle that feel really out of place, including a gibbering mouther, a barlgura and giant ants.

Dragon Magazine 359

This is the final print issue of Dragon, and it is absolutely loaded with great stuff. There is a list of the top 20 villains of D&D in which Strahd gets a full page bio. There's stats for a new creature associated with the vampire:  

Strahd's Skeletal Steed: It's an undead skeleton horse that can breathe noxious gas five times per day. It also has the ability to revert to a pile of bones when not in use.

D&D 4th Edition

Open Grave

I love this book. Strahd is located in the "Undead Hall of Infamy" section of Open Grave. Here's what we learn:

• Guess what? No more 55 hit points. 4e Strahd has 930 hit points!
• When he drops to 0 hit points, he doesn't die. He turns to mist and must reach his coffin within 2 hours.
• For 27 years Strahd warred against the savage and barbaric Tergs, "..leading his troops with a combination of bravery, tactical genius and unrivaled charisma."
• He claimed an enemy stronghold and renamed it Castle Ravenloft in memory of his mother, Ravenia.
• In 4e, apparently Strahd sought a ritual hoping to restore his youth so that Tatyana would find him appealing. Frustrated, he ended up using a necromantic ritual to turn into a vampire.

Dragon Magazine 416 - History Check: Strahd and Van Richten

This article is perfect if you just want one succinct document that explains the basics of Strahd's story. There's not much new here, but it is well worth a read.

Novels

Vampire of the Mists

The premise to this one is interesting. An elf vampire named Jander of the Forgotten Realms falls in love with an insane woman. She blames Barovia for her madness, and dies. Jander kills everyone in the asylum and is sucked into Ravenloft and basically Jander goes through the 1e Ravenloft module. It turns out Anna is actually the original Tatyana (!).

Knight of the Black Rose

This book stars Lord Soth (of Dragonlance fame) in a tale about how the dark powers of Ravenloft brought him to Barovia. This book is all about Lord Soth vs. Strahd, which sounds very cool.

I, Strahd

This is a retelling of Strahd's origin, written in memoir form. People seem to like it. You can listen to part of the audiobook here.

I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin

I'd never heard of this one before. This book is also in memoir form, and deals with the time in which Strahd had bound Azalin the Lich into his service. There's a long build up, and then Strahd and Azalin go to war in the last 50 pages. People really seem to love these I, Strahd books by P.N. Elrod, even those who aren't into D&D.

Related NPCs

Dr. Van Richten

He was a doctor whose son was kidnapped by Vistani and sold to a vampire named Baron Metus. The son became a vampire minion. When Dr. Van Richten tracked him down, his son begged his father to slay him. He did.

Metus got revenge by killing Van Richten's wife. Dr. Van Richten closed up his practice and devoted his life to slaying Metus, vampires, and assorted undead.

Dr. Van Richten destroyed Metus and wrote a series of guides on supernatural monsters.

As of 4th edition, Van Richten owned a herbalist shop in Darkon (Azalin the lich's domain).

Lyssa Von Zarovich

Lyssa is a descendant of Strahd who appears in Thoughts of Darkness, a high level adventure in the domain of mindflayers. In the adventure, she creates vampire illithids for a mind flayer trying to overthrow an elder brain. In exchange, she wants the mind flayers to attack Barovia.

In this adventure, she actually steals the Tome of Strahd and learns how to build the apparatus from Ravenloft 2. It is further revealed that there is a group of psionic monks called the Brotherhood of Contemplative Monks living in Barovia.

Lyssa is the granddaughter of Sturm Von Zarovich, one of the few people to survive Strahd's wedding massacre. Lyssa despises Strahd and plots against him.

In order to become a vampire, she made a dark pact. She slew her fiance and taunted his ghost. The ghost used its aging ability to age her 200 years (which was a way to explain how powerful she was. She had more hit points than Strahd).

Further Reading

Fraternity of Shadows: A complete Strahd chronology.
Official 3e stats and info on Ireena
Let's Play Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession - A playthrough of an old Ravenloft video game. 
A Review of the Castle Ravenloft Board Game
Check out the official Strahd D&D miniature

Tonight's game was a bit fetch-questy. That's something I try to avoid, as it feels too much like a video game, but tonight I made an exception. This chapter is heavy on setting material, but almost completely devoid of actual plot specifics. 

We had a pile of twizzler bites, which is a superior D&D food in my humble opinion. I told a story about how french bread pizza tore up the roof of my mouth that made Jessie laugh so much she almost died. Later, I tried to do a British accent for a slave NPC but I couldn't get it right. Jessie then did one for me, which kills me every time.

It looks like we are going to skip the next chapter of this book, which is optional. The heroes found a map of a place called "Pelion" in Tcian Sumere. If they investigate, they end up in this weird flashback adventure that requires the heroes to actually make different characters to go through. I had thought about changing it, but I think we are just going to skip it.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard

The Goblins

Last time, the heroes had traveled to a drow city in the Greyhawk setting to find a drow named Erehe whose memory had been erased. Tonight we finished it and are about to head into the endgame of the adventure.

The heroes had slain two drow in the city and took their cloaks. They fled to the secret tunnel where the goblins were hiding out. The group had also hidden two slaves there that they had rescued.

I had detailed the goblins a bit. I decided they looked similar to the goblins in Labyrinth, and that they mispronounced words. I got this idea from a reddit thread. Here's some examples:

• Library = "Lyeberry"
• Supposedly = "Supposably"
• Especially = "Eckspecially"

So the wounded heroes go in the goblin tunnel and I proceed to try to roleplay the goblins, loading up their sentences with mispronunciations. I burned through them so fast that I actually ran out in no time at all. Their names included "Warsh", "Moot", "Excedra" and "Boss Ungyun".

The goblins all sleep in a pile in the tunnel. I was wondering if the heroes would be grossed out by this or what. The heroes just climbed right into the sweaty pile and went to sleep.

The next day, Bidam noticed that his Orcusword was cracked. A goblin showed him to a weapon smith shop that could help. While there, some kuo toa showed up and demanded that the smith stop everything and repair a kuo toa whip's pincer staff, which had an ornate carving of Blibdoolpoolp on it.

A fight broke out, and the heroes killed the kuo toa. They took the pincer staff, thinking it was cool.

Assassinating A Kilsek Guard

Bidam had to use his backup sword while the Orcusword was at the shop. The group had a task to complete - they had to kill the captain of the Kilsek guard. They were going through the city killing anyone sympathetic to House Tormtor.

The group found her at a "torture shop". I really don't want graphic torture scenes in my games, so I had previously wracked my brain to think of a type torture shop that was almost pleasant. What I came up with was a slave-grooming shop. In this place:

• A bugbear slave was having his fur shaved.
• A dwarf slave was having his beard braided.
• A human slave was getting tattoos.

Nieriv, the captain of the guard, was watching the groomers shave her bugbear.

The heroes cooked up a plan. They went and bought some drow poison, and coated Bidam's blade with it. Then they waited for Nieriv to leave the shop. The heroes pretended to get in a fight with each other. They both made deception rolls and pulled it off.

Then they set it up so that Bidam would make like he was trying to stab Theran, but Theran would move and the blade would strike Nieriv.

This worked! But... Nieriv made her save against the poison! She flexed her magic adamantine arm and threw Theran 15 feet! Then she grabbed Bidam by the throat with her magic arm. Fingertip claws popped out and injected Bidam with drow poison!

The heroes rallied, killed Nieriv and fled the scene.

They met up with Terrigen, the scarred rebel drow. He held up his end of the bargain, and told the group they could find Erehe ouside the city walls. He was on a hill watching a huge battle...

The Battle of the Great Gate

There's two paragraphs of flavor text describing this scene. Drow armies are doing battle as fireballs explode and demons are summoned.

Erehe is on a hill with Verdaeth, the leader of Tormtor, along with three more drow and 6 displacer beasts. Verdaeth is riding a nightmare (an evil horse with flaming hooves).

Bidam really wanted the nightmare. I kept mum on this, because I had anticipated that and had planned accordingly.

Another fetch-quest deal was cut. Verdaeth knew what the heroes wanted to know (while Erehe's memory had been wiped, Verdaeth knew more than anyone suspected). She'd tell them if they would go assassinate Liminis, who was guarding the wall to the Great Gate.

And so we had a big battle on a 30 foot high wall. 4 drow archers opened fire on the heroes. As the heroes tore into them, Liminis pulled out a black wand (a wand of darkness - a magic item I think I got from the 2e Drow of the Underdark book). He used the wand to summon a nightmare. He climbed on it, and flew above the wall, ready to drop spells on the heroes.

Theran used a thunderwave spell to send the archers flying over the side of the wall. Then he and Bidam starting shooting chromatic orb spells up at Liminis.

Liminis responded by casting cloudkill on them, which I had to look up, as I wasn't sure if it blocks line of sight (it doesn't).

The heroes reeled from the spell. Theran got out of the cloud and cast Tasha's hideous laughter, which is quite a nasty spell. Liminis rolled a 2 on his save, and laughed so hard he fell prone. He plummeted off of his mount and down to the battlefield below.

As fate would have it, his wand of darkness flew from his hand and landed right at the feet of the heroes.

The Wand of Darkness has some cool properties:

• It does 1d2 damage to good creatures who touch it.
• It can cast darkness.
• It can summon a nightmare who "..knows and serves the wielder."

The group made their way back to Verdaeth and she held up her end of the deal. She explained that Erehe and Kestod had been tasked by their god, Kiaransalee, to hide the Wand of Orcus. They stashed it on the 4th layer of Pandemonium.

Orcus was on the trail of the wand. If he got the wand, he would assume his demon lord form once more! The heroes realized they needed to get to the wand before Orcus did.

Next time, the group will head to the city of Greyhawk and then go back to Sigil to begin the final chapter of Dead Gods.

You can buy Frozen Castle here.

You may or may not have heard about the Dungeon Master's Guild. It is an official D&D site where you can buy 5e adventures. You can make 5e stuff, put it up on there, and make some money. You are even allowed to set your adventures in the Forgotten Realms. Pretty cool, right?

Kobold Press, the makers of Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat, have put out an adventure on the DM's Guild site that is linked to Hoard. It's only 3 bucks, so I figured I'd buy it and review it. Let's check it out.


The Plot: The plot goes like this:

• The heroes go to try to loot and possibly repair the crashed flying castle from Hoard chapter 8.
• They explore the glacier that it crashed in, and see that the cult of the dragon is there.
• The heroes might make friends with residents of the glacier, which include dwarves, orcs and frost giants (you should definitely have them befriend the giants).
• The group and their new NPC friends begin repairing the castle.
• The cult sends hundreds of enemies to kill the heroes and take the castle back.

The Art: First off, it has art by Bryan Syme and Marcel Mercado, people who did a lot of the art in the actual Tyranny books. So that's awesome. This really feels like an "official" addition to Tyranny.

This Thing Runs Slow: This is a 14 page .pdf, and for some reason it runs incredibly slow on Adobe Reader. My laptop practically melts every time I try to go to the next page. Maybe it's a problem on my end? It runs much more smoothly on my tablet.

Running This As Part of Tyranny of Dragons: If you're going to run this in conjunction with Hoard of the Dragon Queen, then you should make sure that the the flying castle crashes in chapter 8. The best way to do this is to kill Blagothkus. I know there were a good number of groups who kept the castle or did something else with it, so as a DM you'll need to make Blagothkus more aggressive.

When to Run This: This adventure is meant for 10th to 11th level adventurers. I am thinking that when you run Rise of Tiamat, you could have the heroes go through episode 3 (the yuan-ti dungeon) and then do episode 2, which is set near the Spine of the World. Once the heroes deal with the dragon in episode 2, you can place clues that direct the group to the crashed castle. The group could even sail to the Miklos Glacier on Frostskimmer.

On page 6 of this .pdf, there is a note that the remains of a frost giant named Storvild is in Arauthator's iceberg in The Sea of Moving Ice. The corpse has a bracelet which matches the one on a beard of Brunvild, a giant in the frozen castle adventure.

This adventure also assumes that Glazhael, the white dragon from Hoard chapter 8, got away by "..simply flying away in the face of danger and the castle's crash". As far as I can tell, most groups that played through Hoard killed this dragon. In this, Glazhael has rescued some cultists and they are hanging out near a fissure. If Glazhael died in your game, I think you could replace him with Arveiaturace, the mate of Arauthator, which I discuss in my Guide to Tyranny of Dragons.

Exploring: The heroes will need to traverse the Miklos Glacier, partaking in some sandbox-y exploring. There's a pile of random encounters (which I always recommend that you pre-roll in advance). The encounters are just a sentence long, like "2d6 winter wolves". I wish they would have given a little more detail.

There are a bunch of factions here, including dwarves and orcs. The heroes are going to need their help if they are to dig out the castle and get it running.

My Favorite Part of This Adventure: There's an awesome section detailing three ways that the heroes can win over the frost giants that live in the area. I don't want to spoil too much, but I really get a kick out of the second option. The heroes go on a 'vision quest', drinking spirit brew and wandering into the frozen waste. They proceed to have surreal encounters with a 20 foot tall reindeer and a frost giant god jumping around, chopping chasms into the ice with a massive axe.

The Castle: My other favorite thing in this adventure is the expanded list of commands that you can use in the flying castle. You can have the castle drift in the wind, form a cloud veil around it, or even create a storm that allows the person flying the castle to shoot lightning bolts at a target within 1,000 feet!

The whole thing ends with a hoard of enemies coming to the castle while the heroes are fixing it up. They'll have to defend the castle in a mass combat with over 200 enemies.

The adventure gives some notes on how to handle this without endless dice rolling, but it is very vague. You'll definitely need to do some serious preparation to make this run smoothly.

Overall

For $3, this is worth owning. Good art, nice map, great layout, decent material. I kind of hope they put out more supplements for the under-detailed chapters in the Tyranny storyline. I am thinking specifically of the metallic dragons chapter and the Thay section in Rise of Tiamat.

I love how the adventure gives details on how to win over the giants. I wish they had made material like that for the other factions as well.

This .pdf offers a broad overview of the glacier area and leaves the specifics up to the DM. The adventure could have used a lot more detailed encounters, particularly when exploring the glacier. Out of the Abyss did a great job in this regard, while taking up very little space in the book. All we needed here was a single page of developed random encounters, each with some kind of gimmick or twist.

I also don't like the vague nature of the final siege. That scene deserves a couple of pages with detailed rules on how to handle the combat. This would be a case where the old "encounters" format from the 3rd edition expeditions books and 4th edition could have been used to great effect.

All in all, this is a decent supplement. I hope more like it are created.

Tonight we played through what I think is the most important chapter in all of Dead Gods. This is the session in which the heroes found the Wand of Orcus. I upped the ante a bit by changing the adventure slightly - I decided to have Orcus show up to try to stop them from destroying his wand! If Orcus can get his wand back, he will become a full-fledged demon lord again.

I was counting on a couple things going into this chapter. There's a good chance that a PC will die while destroying the wand. I placed a clue in an earlier part of the session to try to help the heroes avoid that fate.

I knew also that the heroes could break the Orcusword. Doing so staggers Orcus for 1-3 hours. He can't do anything. So, as long as they remembered that, they could survive.

In this, Orcus is a lich-thing, a weaker version of himself. He obtained this power called The Last Word. With it, he can kill anyone, even a god, just by speaking it. I added in a detail - once spoken, it takes days to recharge. That's how I explained away why Orcus wouldn't just speak the word and kill the heroes instantly.

I basically used Orcus' stats from Out of the Abyss. I added in the madness checks and Orcus' custom madness chart.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard

Greyhawk

The heroes had helped the drow in Erelhei-Cinlu. They returned the favor by bringing the group and the two slaves they freed to a merchant house. A drow mage used the teleport circle there to send the heroes to Greyhawk.

I used the 2e "Greyhawk: Gem of the Flanaess" book to flesh out the city. This book is hard to use, as every single page reference just says "see chapter 3, FFF." No page numbers!

The group appeared in a circle in the Sage's Guild, made friends with the shocked sages (who trade the drow merchants for herbs and mushrooms on occasion), and headed out into the city.

Their pifwafwis (magic drow cloaks) immediately disintegrated. Theran instantly figured it was due to the sunlight (George was really sharp tonight).

They returned the slaves to their grandfather, a locksmith, and asked around about finding a way home. They were told that a great wizard spent a lot of time at The Green Dragon Inn.

This inn was founded by Lord Robilar, one of the first real-life D&D characters. Gary Gygax's character Mordenkainen hangs out there.

Mordenkainen

Bidam and Theran enterd the inn and spotted Mordenkainen sitting alone at a table studying a three-level chessboard. They had a tense discussion (Theran was heavily disguised, being an elf who looks like a drow and all...).

Mordenkainen took an interest in the Orcusword, and decided to play Theran in a game of dragonchess. Dragonchess is an actual game invented by Gary Gygax, printed in Dragon issue #100 and #400.

Dragon Chess

Theran actually almost won (we played it out with a few arcana rolls). Mordenkainen was impressed with Theran's intellect and he wanted to study the heroes' items, so he took them on his flying carpet to the Wizards Guildhall, which is a building shaped like a pyramid. The more advanced the magic student, the higher up in the pyramid they live. The very top is said to hold a treasure vault with a pile of magic items. Mordenkainen has a laboratory on the level just below that.

Mordenkainen studied the Orcusword and told the heroes that, if shattered, it would stagger Orcus. He taught them some of his spells:

• Bidam learned Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion
• Theran learned Mordenkainen's Lucubration (lets you recall a spell you already cast).

In Rogue's Gallery, Mordenkainen has a magic item: The Silver Key. It can open portals four times a day! He found it in a temple of "Dalt, God of Portals and Enclosures". How perfect is that?

Mordenkainen knew of a portal to Sigil in Greyhawk, so he brought the heroes to it and activated it with the silver key. He wished them well in their battle against Orcus.

Sigil

We blew through a bunch of side-plots real quick:

• The magic door in their festhall is now making noises. You can hear a heartbeat coming from it if you press your ear to it.
• Fall-From-Grace, the succubus paladin, had researched the Last Word on her own and told the heroes about it. The now knew how Orcus had been killing gods.

Bidam also finished creating his artifact - The Heart of the Lady of Pain. He had to fill three sensory stones with memories relating to the three building blocks of love:

1. Acceptance: Giving the nascent demon lord Bazuuma love despite her 20 hideous eyes.
2. Understanding: Learning at last that the drow Erehe had hid the Wand of Orcus in Pandemonium.
3. Appreciation: The twin experiences of sleeping in the goblin pile in the drow city, and appreciating the aid of the great wizard Mordenkainen

I guess Bidam will give the heart to the Lady of Pain next session, which will be fun.

Fall From Grace by Sir Tiefling

Fall From Grace joined the party. I like her and I wanted the group to have a healer NPC, as things were likely to get rough in the final area of this session. I gave her an item from Planescape Torment: The Chastity Bodice. It magically keeps itself clean and mends any tears on its own. A few times in this session, Bidam told Fall From Grace to kiss enemies. Fall from Grace's kiss kills. She refused to do it, fearing that it would lead her down a dark path.

Pandemonium

The group used a portal to enter the plane of Pandemonium. It's a plane of tunnels, filled with strong winds and the sound of both maddening laughter and screams in the distance. When traveling, the gravity works in a way where you can walk on the walls or ceiling.

The heroes start on the first layer of Pandemonium. They need to get to the 4th. The way the heroes are intended to get there involves interacting a traveling circus called the Cynosure.

The Cynosure

In this adventure, the heroes are meant to stumble on The Cynosure (which is a collective of carts and a floating fortress that wanders the plane). They can watch a show, meet some NPCs, and learn how to get to other levels of the plane. The heroes can sit in the fortress and observe a circus show and see all sorts of stuff, including a clue as to how to safely destroy the wand. There's even an encounter where the adventurers fight an owlbear.

But this is D&D, and you never know what's going to happen. Here's what the group did: They let the Cynosure pass them by! They thought it was suspicious and decided to just leave the whole thing alone.

I thought that the group would keep wandering, slowly succumb to the madness of the plane and eventually turn back to seek out The Cynosure. But Theran remembered his planar compass, which directs you to the nearest portal. He also had the warp sense spell, which identifies portals and their keys.

So basically, the heroes found where they needed to go while skipping a huge section of the adventure.

They ended up in a tavern in a keep on another layer of Pandemonium, with a whole bunch of shady customers. The point here is for the heroes to find out about a way to get to the 4th layer - a creature called The Ingress can take them there. But there's all these bad guys here, and they don't want anyone else knowing about the Ingress. There's a cool piece of art depicting these weird bad guys.

The Ormyrr is the Jabba the Hut guy with four arms

A huge fight broke out. The heroes pummeled these guys with some creative and goofy attacks:

• Theran stuck his wand of magic missiles in an Ormyrr's anus and opened fire.
• Bidam farted into his mage hand and gave the leader what he calls a "cup of cheese".
• Then Bidam finished the leader off by crushing his balls with a mage hand of his own.

The heroes then made their way to the Ingress, a big blobby monster with little helper-spawns. They ate all the food the heroes had (including potions!) and then turned the heroes to liquid and brought them to the fourth layer - where the Wand of Orcus was waiting.

The Wand of Orcus

The group appeared in a dark, silent cavern. Bones and skulls littered the floor throughout the complex. An agent of Orcus was lurking here - his name was Quah-Nomag. The agent did his best to confuse and delay the group, knowing that the visages and Orcus himself were on the way.

Theran noticed that the golden circlet he'd taken from Tcian Sumere was pulsing. He knew that meant that the wand was near.

Quah-Nomag was invisible and flying, and ultimately he attacked the group with a cone of cold spell. He tried to flee, but Bidam stopped him cold with a Tasha's hideous laughter spell. The group took him out. It turned out this was Quah's astral form - his mortal body was on some prime material world.

During the battle, Theran used his wand of darkness to animate the bones on the floor into a skeletal servant.

The group wanted to take a short rest. But 5 minutes into it, visages appeared and attacked. The visages used their lucidity control to make the heroes think a huge modron march was trampling through the area.

The battle was difficult, but the heroes prevailed.

They wandered the caves, eventually coming upon the main area. The wand of Orcus was in a room protected by a wall of force. The heroes didn't know this, but the wall could only be destroyed by one of three things:

1. A disintegrate spell.
2. A follower of the drow goddess Kiaransalee.
3. 50 points of damage from the bones on the floor.

Theran immediately had his skeleton attack the wall, just to test it. Since the skeleton was made up of bones from the floor, Theran was shocked to see the skeleton actually tearing through the wall!

The skeleton started to bash through, when the group heard a roar and smelled the stench of decaying flesh. Orcus had arrived!

Black mist seeped in from the tunnel they'd come from. The hideous remains of the demon lord rose up before them and roared! The group made madness checks, which they all failed. Each gained a permanent form of madness.

Initiative was rolled. Bidam won! And he immediately shattered the Orcusword! Orcus howled in pain. His wings folded around him and he fell back into the darkness. The adventurers had bought themselves some time. Orcus would be reeling for at least an hour.

The skeleton bashed through the wall of force and Theran's golden circlet pulsed stronger. The group knew from a previous casting of an identify spell that if the circlet was touched to the wand, the wand would be destroyed.

Here is where I got worried. If Theran touched the circlet to the wand, he'd die in the explosion!

Here's what it says in the text:

"But if a PC who wars (or simply possesses) the circlet grabs the wand, he suddenly feels compelled to touch the skull to the golden band. This action destroys the circlet, the skull, and the character - instantly."

It goes on to say that the only safe way to destroy the Wand of Orcus is to place the circlet on the ground (or some other surface) and then touch the skull to it. I wanted to have a circus performer demonstrate this, but the group skipped The Cynosure.

So guess what Theran did? He handed the circlet to his skeleton minion, and had it touch the circlet to the wand! The wand, circlet and skeleton were all destroyed.

They heard Orcus howl and heard a magical whooshing sound, then silence. They had visions of the stone corpse of Orcus forming in the astral plane, floating among all the other dead gods.

The heroes had succeeded! They'd have to find a way home and deal with their madness. There's still two chapters to go....

In this guide, I will attempt to give an overview on how vampires can be used in Dungeons & Dragons. I'll go over their stats and abilities in each edition, and then I'll discuss popular vampire movies that you can mine for more material.

There's so much stuff out there that I'm going to try to just go over the main books and dragon articles. I won't discuss the main vampire NPC in D&D, Strahd, as I've already written a guide for him. If you think I missed something major, let me know.

In my opinion, there are two things you should check out if you plan on using a vampire as a major villain in your campaign:

1. Van Richten's Guide to Vampires: This 2nd edition sourcebook is brimming over with useful ideas.
2. Bram Stoker's Dracula: This movie is, in my opinion, really under-rated. I watched it the other day and it blew my mind. If you are going to run Curse of Strahd, you should most definitely check this out.

The Essential Information


This is the basic stuff you should know when running a vampire:

• Those who have their blood drained by a vampire and drop to 0 hit points become a vampiric thrall.
• Vampires must rest in a coffin during the day.
• If they are dropped to 0 hit points, they aren't slain - they assume gaseous form and flee to their coffins. There, they rest and heal.
• Vampires have innate regeneration.
• Can turn into a bat at will.
• They can charm people as per the spell.
• Vampires have the ability to summon hordes of bats, rats, or wolves.
• They recoil from garlic, mirrors and holy symbols.
• Direct sunlight kills them, as does being immersed in running water.
• Holy water damages them.
• The most effective way to kill them is to drive a stake through their heart (which paralyzes them) and then cut off their head. 
• There are a ton of vampire variants with all sorts of different powers and abilities.

AD&D 1st Edition

The vampire is in the Monster Manual and he is the "...most dreaded of the chaotic evil undead..."

• Vampires live in two planes at once - the material and the negative material.
• Vampires have an 18/76 strength.
• If it hits an enemy, the enemy loses two levels. Yes, from each attack.
• There's also a note about vampires of the 'eastern world'. They're invisible!
• Creating a thrall involves draining their life energy and then burying them. The thrall rises up after a day. "If the vampire which slew the creature is itself killed, the vampires created by it become free-willed monsters."

Dragon Magazine 126


This issue has a few articles on undead and vampires.

Hearts of Darkness

We are given a rundown of all the ins and outs of being a vampire. There are a few interesting notes:

• At night, a vampire is invulnerable to most attacks.
• Ingesting food and drink causes them pain. They can only nibble on a few crumbs and sip wine.
• Vampires have no soul, and that is why they have no shadow or reflection.

We get an in-depth history of the real-life Vlad the Impaler and full-blown stats for Dracula. There's stats for a few other creatures:

• Vrykolakas: Greek vampires. The vrykolkas are corpses possessed by demons who like to spread fear.
• Baobhan Sith: Evil demons who appear as young women. They trick their victims into letting them drain all the blood from their victims' bodies.

A Touch of Evil

This article fleshes out undead creatures. It provides vague details on a demonic type of vampire:

Demon Vampire: Demon vampires are "...among the greatest and most evil servants of Orcus." These vampires rise up after being killed by the kiss of a succubus. They don't rest in coffins and they can walk during the day. At night they can summon demon-spawned vampires from the abyss. Sometimes they serve or marry the succubus that slew them.

AD&D 2nd Edition

There are a million variants of vampires in 2nd edition. First I'll go over the main (errata'd) entry, then I'll add in notes on other types.

• They cast no shadow or reflection. They move in complete silence.
• 2e vampires have the ability to spider climb to scale sheer surfaces.
• They recoil from lawful good holy symbols.
• When destroying a vampire, holy wafers must be stuffed in its severed head.
• Vampires can't enter a residence without being invited. Charmed victims can be used to invite the vampire in.

In Dragon Magazine 150, an updated version of the vampire appeared. Apparently there were some errors in the vampire that appeared in the compendium.

Ravenloft Vampires: There are three ways to become a Ravenloft vampire:

1. Deadly Desire: This person gives up a portion of their spirit to the Dark Powers of Ravenloft. They are stripped of their humanity and become vampires. Over centuries, they come to regret the decision and seek out their own destruction.
2. The Curse: The person becomes a vampire through a cursed item (like a ring) or someone curses them. Often this type of vampire hates who they have become.
3. The Victim: Those slain by a vampire become a vampire.

Cerebral Vampires: These vampires absorb mental energies of their victims. They sink their fangs into the back of a victim's skull. These victims become ghouls under the vampire's control.

Drow Vampires: Drow consider it an honor to become a vampire. Their touch drains hit points and their gaze can make enemies become awestruck. They can turn into spiders and assume the form of a poisonous cloud.

Dwarf Vampire: These guys can permanently drain points of constitution. They can walk through stone and are harmed by water from a natural spring.

Elf Vampire: They transform forests into places of death and decay. They drain Charisma and leave victims with permanent scars.  Their own faces are scarred and twisted, causing those seeing them to make a saving throw or be paralyzed with horror (and if you roll a natural one... you die!).

Gnome Vampire: Gnome vampires have a "painful arthritic attack." Yep, they drain Dexterity and cause stiffness to the joints and muscles. Seriously. They can laugh hideously and cause people to feel the effects of a Tasha's hideous laughter spell.

Halfling Vampire: Halfling vampires radiate an aura that fatigues enemies. They can't stand the odor of a smoking pipe, and burning hearths can destroy them.

Illithid Vampire: These are from the high-level Ravenloft adventure Thoughts of Darkness. Vampire mind flayers! They are utterly insane. Their mind blast causes victims to make a madness check.

Vampyre: These creatures are variants. They are not undead.

• They "...employ the wanton garb of a harlot to lure victims into their clutches."
• Vampyres lure some poor sap to their homes, and then they and their vampire friends pounce on him or her. They drink the victim's blood over the course of a few days.
• They travel in packs and are able to have children.

Van Richten's Guide to Vampires

This sourcebook is by the late, great Nigel Findley and it's pretty much the best source of vampire material for D&D that I know of. I am going to present some of the good stuff, but there's a lot more in the book that you should definitely check out if you're thinking of using a vampire as a major villain in your campaign. Vampires are categorized according to age. Vampires under 99 years old are known as "fledglings". Vampires over 1,000 years old are known as "patriarchs".

Vampire Blood: It actually does d6 damage if it touches bare skin. If the blood is in a vial and it is exposed to sunlight, it explodes!

Gaseous Form: Vampires can modify their gaseous form, changing it to a thick fog to a thin, almost invisible mist. The book suggests that some vampires may have their coffins in a building with no doors. The vampire enters and leaves simply by passing through a tiny crack in the wall while in gaseous form.

Blood Lust: Some vampires suffer from this curse. The mere sight of blood sends them into a frenzy which can be satisfied only by the ingestion of that source of blood, by any means. Once the vampire drinks the blood, it won't suffer from blood lust for 2d6 turns (1-2 hours).

Vampiric Curse: Some vampires can cast a special curse spell that slowly transforms someone into a vampire. They need to make a saving throw every time the sun rises. Fail means they lose a point of Strength. Once it's at 0, they die and rise up as a vampire under command of the vampire.

Using a Stake: The stake must be wood, and should be made from wood that relates to the vampire's personal history. If the stake is removed from the vampire's heart, the vampire will rise again. You have to cut off its head. Attacking with the stake means rolling to hit an AC of -1 (AC 21 in 5e terms). If the monster is immobile (ie, asleep in its coffin), no roll is required.

Sunlight: Fledglings can't use any powers in sunlight, and all they can do is try to get out of it. It dies in a minute and is completely destroyed. Each round, the vampire takes 3d6 damage and the exposed flesh will burst into flame. Ancient vampires might survive in sunlight for up to an hour. Patriarchs can actually walk in sunlight with no ill effects. 

Vampires That Don't Drink Blood: The book has a lot of cool ideas on other things a vampire might feed on, including spinal fluid, hearts, memories, or good old-fashioned hit points.

How Often do Vampires Feed?: Fledglings need to drink 12 hit points worth of blood every 24 hours. Patriarchs can live on 6 hit points worth per day.

Creating a Vampire Groom or Bride: The vampire can bestow a "Dark Kiss" on a mate. Hold on to your pants:

1. The vampire drains the blood of the mate three times, almost to death on each occasion.
2. This process causes no pain. In fact, it is "...the most euphoric, ecstatic experience, in comparison to which all other pleasures fade into insignificance."
3. Then the vampire lets the mate drink the vampire's own blood.
4. The mate goes into a blood frenzy! The vampire may actually have to struggle to survive this process. The mate can only feed for a short time, or they will be driven incurably insane and will die in agony within 24 hours.
5. The mate goes into a coma for an hour or two, and then rises as a vampiric bride or groom.
6. Usually the mate's sanity isn't completely intact.
7. The vampire and the mate share a telepathic bond.

Miscellaneous Stuff:

• If a vampire is blinded by a spell or effect, it can shift into its bat form and use sonar. Deafness would shut down the bat's echolocation ability. 
• Polymorph spells only last for a minute, and then the vampire resumes whatever form it was in previously.
• Those with evil holy symbols can "turn" a vampire - success means the vampire is under their control! The vampire will obey the letter of the commands, but not the spirit. 
• Blessed weapons harm vampires, but do minimal damage.
• 3/4ths of the vampire's body must be submerged in running water for an entire minute the water to kill it. The heart in particular must be under water.

Drinking Blood: This section is awesome. It gives a lot of fun details on how the process works.

• The vampire uses its 'eye teeth' to open a major vessel, usually in the throat. "Sometimes vampires will choose another major blood vessel such as the femoral artery, on the inside of the thigh near the groin..." Egad.
• Vampires drink the blood like "..a babe drinks its mother's milk."
• Usually a vampire will open a small wound and drink just a bit of blood. They don't want to kill their victim because in general they don't like creating subservient vampires (potential rivals).
• They can feed from freshly-slain victims, but the blood spoils rapidly. Once four hours have passed, the blood is no good.
• Drinking the blood of animals makes a vampire ill.
• No PC Vampires: This book repeatedly warns DMs not to let PCs become vampires. If they do become vampires, they should turn over their character sheet to the DM and let the DM run them as an NPC. The reason for this is because the character will simply be far too powerful.

D&D 3rd Edition

In 3e, vampires are a template - a set of stats you slap on to an existing creature.

They can now dominate a foe - completely controlling them for as long as the vampire spends a standard action.

They still drain 2 levels per hit, and now they gain 5 temporary hit points per level drained.

Dragon Magazine 348 - Bloodlines: Three Variant Vampires


This article gives us a few new types of vampires:

• Savage Vampire: Ogre vampires! Those they slay rise up as zombies under their command. They can turn into animals and can summon animals like bears or crocodiles.
• Shadow Vampire: These vampires can literally travel between shadows as if they were dimension door spells.
• Terror Vampire: These creatures feed on fear. They can suppress their vampiric traits for 7 rounds per day, appearing to be 'normal' living humanoids. Their gaze attack is identical to the eyebite spell which can sicken you, panic you or even put you into a coma. Terror vampires also have a suite of spells they use to mess with people.

D&D 4th Edition

Many of their resistances are gone. They're not harmed by garlic or even wooden stakes!

A vampire lord has a spiked chain and can use a nasty power when an enemy is bloodied - blood drain, which weakens the foe and heals the vampire for 46 points.

Heroes of Shadow

Get a load of this. In 4e, vampire is also a character class! It's in the Heroes of Shadow supplement.

A vampire character can actually take healing surges from willing characters during a rest.
When bloodied, vampires gain regeneration equal to their Charisma modifier.

Over the course of 30 levels, the character gains all of the powers of a vampire, including the ability to turn into a bat, dominate foes, and assume gaseous form.

Vryloka

Even weirder, this book also includes a vampiric race called the Vryloka. You could make a Vryloka Vampire. Vryloka are basically 2e Vampyres - living vampires. They keep their true nature a secret and live as nobles displaced from their ancestral homelands. It was a weird choice to make them have red hair.

• When they kill or bloody an enemy, a Vryloka can gain temporary hit points, move or gain a +2 to hit.
• They have eyes that turn red when angered or excited.
• Most of them have red hair and pale skin.
• Their origin involves a Red Witch who gave the original Vrylokas a blood-bonding ritual. It gave them the power of vampire without the taint of undeath. Some think the Red Witch and the Raven Queen are connected somehow.
• As they gain levels, Vryloka gain the ability to turn into a "bloodwolf" (a shadow wolf with red eyes). They also eventually gain the ability to fly by assuming the form of a hazy red and black shadow.

D&D 5th Edition

I think they did a great job with vampires in the 5e monster manual.The 5e vampire is very powerful and has a lot of cool options. I think legendary actions are a great way to give major monsters a big boost.

• 5e vampires have extremely strong regeneration. They train 20 hit points per round! Sunlight doe 20 radiant per round.
• They take 20 acid damage per round in running water.
• 5e vampires get two attacks per round. Ideally, they grapple you as part of their unarmed strike, and then bite you. The bite reduces your hit point maximum and the vapire regains that amount of hit points.
• They get legendary actions, which take place at the end of other creature's turns. They can actually make another unarmed strike/grapple and a bite before their next turn.
• Their lair has a lot of regional effects, including a large population of bats, rats and wolves, withered plants, shadows that are gaunt and seem to move on their own, and creeping fog.

Movies

To gear up for Curse of Strahd, I watched a bunch of vampire movies. Many of them are Dracula films, as that's what the Strahd story is similar to.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Gary Oldman as Dracula

This film really blew my mind. I think if there's one movie to watch before you run Curse of Strahd, this is it. The movie is just dripping with utter creativity.

I can't express just how dirty and zany this thing is but I'm going to try: Dracula's brides (one of which is a topless Monica Belluci) eat a baby! And then we get an extreme close-up of Keanu Reeves in full-on Bill and Ted mode screaming and gnashing his teeth in a truly comical fashion.

This movie is really fun. It's too long, but there's enough good parts to make it worth watching.

Van Helsing

Richard Roxburgh as Dracula

Hugh Jackman plays the vampire hunter in a movie that is absolutely overloaded with action scenes and horror movie monsters. I enjoy the spirit of the thing, but some of the concepts just don't work. The idea that Dracula's vampire brides gave birth to hundreds of stillborn bat-babies that need to be brought to life by Frankenstein's lightning contraption is just too stupid for me, even when I'm trying to cut the film some slack.

Dracula Untold

Luke Evans as Dracula

This film creates a backstory for Dracula. Most of the movie is set in the 1400's, and tells a story of how Dracula decided to become a vampire to save his people. This is a very, very D&D vampire movie. Vlad is ridiculously powerful once he gains vampiric abilities. He literally fights 1,000 soldiers and kills them all. Then, later, he summons a swarm of thousands of bats to create a cyclone and.. well, it's ridiculous. I think the best way to describe this movie is "a bad idea done well". It never should have been made, but they did the best they could with it.

Nosferatu Phantom Der Nacht

Klaus Kinski as Dracula

This one's in german and is directed by the great Werner Herzog. The Dracula in this movie is the Nosferatu version, and he is really creepy. The film moves real slow, but it's very good for the first hour or so before it starts to drag. Compared to the panicky explosion-per-minute feel of Van Helsing, this feels refreshing. This movie is good if you want to run a really creepy, more monster-ish type of vampire that is in no way sexy at all.

Interview With The Vampire

Kirsten Dunst as Claudia

This film is based on the extremely popular "Vampire Chronicles" novels by Anne Rice. In the '90's, the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG was a very big deal and there were lots and lots of people really into this stuff.

If you haven't seen this movie, the idea of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as vampires may not seem like something worth seeing, but this movie is really awesome. It gives you a very viable alternate view on vampires, particularly on how and why they make other vampires and the rules in which they govern themselves.

This movie also has a truly great vampire NPC - a little girl vampire named Claudia. Her mind is old, but her body is eternally young.

Let the Right One In

This one doesn't really have many D&D implications, it's just a great movie and I feel like I should point it out in case some of you haven't seen it. This movie also involves a child vampire and how it survives. In Interview with the Vampire, the vampires are killing a few people per day, and nobody seems to notice. In this film, the vampire has to go to great lengths to pull off such a feat.

This film has a really cool take on what happens to a vampire when they enter a residence uninvited. This is one that will stick with you after you see it, especially if you read up on it a bit. I haven't seen the American remake of this, but if you can handle subtitles you should definitely check this version out. Here's the trailer. As of this writing, it is on Netflix.

Mina Murray from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Mr. Hyde is fond of Mina

I want to talk about one "NPC" in particular in the Dracula movies. The female victims, Mina and Lucy, are used in different ways in each film. Mina, wife of John Harker, is usually the object of Dracula's "affection."

In Alan Moore's comic, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mina is the main character. Mina was bitten by Dracula, but Dracula is slain and thus the vampiric curse is lifted from her (in the movie version, she is a vampire).

Alan's take on vampirism is very amusing. As a result of Dracula's feeding, Mina has these burn scars on her neck. His take seems to be that vampirism is similar to a sexually transmitted disease - an idea that I find hilarious.

Also, there's this underpinning notion that since Mina's fleeting encounter with a vampire, her husband just doesn't do it for her (although in the comic, he has rejected her because of her scars). You get the feeling that if given the choice, she'd pick the vampire over her husband despite all the baggage that comes with it. Now she's out in the world searching for similar thrills from other adventurers and monsters.

Further Reading

Vampire Name Generator
Hack and Slash: Ecology of the Vampire
3rd Edition Vampire Template
Dice of Doom Vampire Overview
Types of Vampires Wiki

Tonight we wrapped up the "side adventure" that is meant to be threaded through the main storyline in Dead Gods. Honestly, they probably should have just published it on its' own. It's pretty good, but it has nothing to do with the main Orcus storyline.

If I were to run this again, I think I might have changed the side adventure to link it to Orcus. In Dead Gods, we learn that the actual skull on the Wand of Orcus is a guy named Anarchocles. Orcus used to command his skeletal remains to do stuff for him using the golden circlet (which the heroes used last session to destroy the Wand of Orcus).

I think I would change the story of Anarchocles to make it that Anarchocles was a god who fought Orcus long ago and perished. And now, through the stones in his fallen temple, he is reaching out to aid the heroes in defeating Orcus.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard

Trapped

We picked up right where we left off last time. The group had just defeated Orcus and destroyed the Wand of Orcus. They kept the iron handle of the wand, and Bidam decided to keep the shattered Orcusword.

They were seemingly trapped in the 4th layer of Pandemonium with no way out. Theran used his wand of darkness to summon a nightmare. If you read the 5e monster manual, you'll see that nightmares want food and if they don't get it, they still serve their master but do so resentfully.

The heroes used the nightmare to shift into the ethereal plane. They floated around there and followed their planar compass until they found an ethereal curtain which got them back to Sigil, in the poor and dangerous district known as The Hive.

Demonic Madness

The heroes were still suffering from demonic madness. Bidam had the urge to make the weak suffer. He viciously berated a poor slovenly strumpet. Theran wanted to experiment on the dead, and Fall From Grace nearly abandoned her faith. She had to be restrained from using her deadly kiss, something she swore never to do.

The adventurers were able to pay a healer 450 gold each to cast Greater Restoration on each of them, healing them.

The group met with the leader of the Sensates, Factol Erin Montgomery Darkflame. There, they pieced together what had happened in this campaign: Orcus had killed Primus, lord of the modrons, and replaced him. Orcus sent the modrons out on a march to search the planes for the Wand of Orcus. Once he got some lead, he left and another modron transformed into Primus and none was the wiser. Orcus made visages to go hunt down the wand and the two amnesiac drow who had hid it, but the heroes beat him to it.

The heroes were given high faction ranks, as a result o their heroic deeds. I couldn't find all the info I needed in the Adventurers League .pdfs, so I kept it vague for now. Bidam is now a "mentor" in the Sensates, and Theran is a mentor in the Free League. Both are now movers and shakers in the faction world, if they want to be.

The Heart of the Lady of Pain

At last it was time to pull the trigger on this. After a few days of rest, the heroes were accosted by Gonard Flumph. This Donald Trump NPC was angry at the heroes for what happened to his daughter (she had found a cursed gem which Orcus used to summon and kill her.

Flumph had some hired goons and went on a rant which turned into a tirade on the Lady of Pain. I tried to include all the classic Trump quotes, including of course the Megyn Kelly "Blood coming out her.. wherever.." comment.

The Lady of Pain appeared and mazed Flumph for daring to speak her name. Then, she stood there looming over the adventurers. They handed her the Heart of the Lady of Pain. The Lady pressed it into her chest. Things got trippy. Her shadow turned to iron and floated toward the heroes' festhall. The lady vanished.

The heroes followed the Iron Shadow (which is the villain of Tales From the Infinite Staircase, which I may or may not run one day). The Shadow passed through the door that would not open in the festhall.

This triggered an event the Dabuses had been preparing the building for - the building was about to 'give birth' to a new section of the city! The door that would not open swung open and building materials rocketed out. Everyone ran for their lives. When they came to, the group found that they now owned an entire square in the Lower Ward.

The square included relocated Sigil locales, including the Zactar Cathedral (Umbra's temple), The Screaming Tower (home of Zaraga the hag and her 99 gargoyles), Vrischika's Curiosity Shoppe and more.

Additionally, there were many archways in the square, each containing a portal to a plane. A dabus handed the heroes three metal keys. These keys could unlock any door or portal in the square.

The portals led to places the heroes had been, including: Limbo, the Astral Plane, Undermountain (in the Forgotten Realms), the City of Greyhawk, and more. There was one portal that led right to the Infinite Staircase, just in case I decide to run that down the road.

The basic idea here was that since Bidam had given the Lady a gift, she gave the heroes a gift in return. Bidam had attempted to fill the void inside the Lady of Pain, which is more than almost anyone else had ever done for her.

The First Stone

After the group had digested all of that stuff, it was time to kick off the actual adventure. This is the third part of the side-scenario in this book. It is about a temple with mysterious stones that two factions are fighting over. It is all a plot by this guy Argesh Fiord, who is trying to use the temple to force a faction war. Argesh hates both factions and wants them to destroy each other.

This is a really railroad-y adventure. It starts off with flavor text where Argesh walks up to the PCs and uses a geas on them - no saving throw. The heroes must go to the temple and say the word "Badir".

The adventurers went there, snuck past the guards into the temple, and said the word. They were sucked into a stone, into a quasi-realm. They were adventuring through the memories of a dead god of wind and rain, named Badir. Each time the group completed a memory, one of them had a gem embedded into their forehead. Once they'd completed them all, they could place their gems into the stones.

The group appeared in a temple of Badir, where priests prayed. In a back room, the group found dead clerics and two men struggling. Basically, the other priests burst in and thought the heroes had killed all these people. Badir contacted Theran mentally and Theran spoke the wisdom of Badir to the priests.

This was a really weird one that I couldn't make a lot of sense of, so we just moved on.

The Second Stone

In this memory, we learn that Badir's father, Nol, hated Badir. Nol is a god of the sun and couldn't accept that his child was a lord of wind and rain.

Nol called on a brass dragon to kill his son when he was a child. Our heroes were there to protect him! Theran cast darkness where the dragon was, but the dragon had blindsight. The dragon breathed fire on Theran, but the wizard was protected by his amulet of flowing flame.

Theran summoned the nightmare and tried to escape with Badir to the ethereal plane, but alas these memory scenes are like an "instance". You can't leave their boundaries.

Bidam jumped on the nightmare with the kid and flew into the air. The dragon flew up after them. The group begged the kid to use his powers, which are not defined in the book. I decided to have the kid roll to see if he could pull something off - I rolled a natural 20. The kid created a storm cloud that blasted the dragon with lightning and did piles of damage.

Theran pelted the dragon with magic missiles. Fall From Grace flew up and cut into the dragon, killing it. Memory over.

The Third Stone

In that last memory, all damage the group took was healed. Even if they died, they'd come back to life. In the rest of these, any damage taken "counts".

The group was on a battlefield where the armies of Badir and Nol were at war. The heroes were soldiers of Badir. They rode into combat as archers fired on them. They tore into their foes, defeating enemy soldiers and berserkers. Piece of cake.

The Fourth Stone

The heroes appeared here as ghosts in a crumbling citadel. They looked down on Badir, who was old and dying. His followers were gone, and thus he had no power to continue on.

The group searched the citadel and found a lone weeping handmaiden. They brought her to Badir. She wept over him, and he died.

The Fifth Stone

The adventurers appear in the astral plane. They see Badir's followers, who are taking apart the dead god's stone body. They would use the stone to create the temple in Sigil.

There was nothing to do here but bear witness as Badir spoke in their minds about how what they did wasn't right or wrong, it just was.

The Sixth Stone

Argesh Fiord and his slaad

A sixth stone rose from the ground. This one is really, really weird. The heroes go into some sort of future memory. They're still in the church. Argesh Fiord and a red slaad attack the heroes.

Theran was slashed repeatedly by the slaad, and was infected by a slaad tadpole, which will hatch in three months. It was nice to see that even though I had run the Limbo adventures so long ago, the group remembered exactly what slaads could do.

The group defeated them and placed their gems in the stones. The final flavor text:

"Golden light shines everywhere. The ground shudders as if in a rumbling earthquake, though there's really no "earth" in Sigil. The entire floor of the church glows like an activated portal, and the stones and the ruins begin to tumble downward into what looks like the astral plane. In a sudden shaft of bright illumination, the silhouette of a fine-featured man turns toward you, nods, and walks straight into the portal's light."

The heroes fall back into real Sigil, and they see that the temple is entirely gone. This actually makes the factions happy, as there's nothing there to fight over.

It's an interesting adventure and I think the right DM could make it really awesome.

Next time we'll go through the very last chapter of Dead Gods.

You can read Dragon Plus Issue 6 here. Short version of this article: Go read this. It's much better than the previous issues, and it has a free download of a portion of the Curse of Strahd adventure.

A new issue of Dragon Plus has been posted! This one is full of Curse of Strahd stuff. Let's check it out and see if there is anything we can loot for our campaigns.

Links

• Death House -They continue to hand out free adventures. In this one, we get "Death House", which I believe is the level 1 adventure right out of Curse of Strahd.
• Monster Manual Errata
• Dungeon Master's Guide Errata

Unraveling Ravenloft

This is an interview with Tracy Hickman, co-author of the original Ravenloft AD&D adventure. He was a consultant on Curse of Strahd.  This is basically the same article posted on the D&D site a few weeks back, talking about the origin of vampires and how he came up with Ravenloft.

The part I find most interesting is the section about researching the origin of vampire stories (it traces back to Lord Byron):

"What the Hickmans found was that the romantic vampire of the earliest years of the genre was not just a spouse beater but a spouse killer, the archetype of abuse in the worst kind of destructive codependency.

“Strahd came directly from the roots of vampire lore. The origins of the modern vampire spring from feminine cautionary tales warning women away from the 'bluebeard' archetype. It was essential to understand this in order to properly construct him,” Hickman says. 

“But the vampire genre has taken a turn from its roots in recent years. The vampire we so often see today exemplifies the polar opposite of the original archetype: the lie that it’s okay to enter into a romance with an abusive monster, because if you love it enough, it will change.”

The thought that the Twilight movies boil down to the idea that a person can change her abusive partner if they just love them enough.. how awful.

When I run Curse of Strahd, I am going to keep the idea that Strahd is an abusive boyfriend at the forefront, making sure to subtly have him behave in the same manner. He'll do something terrible to the one he loves, but then apologize and be all sweet and use the excuse that he's a vampire - he can't help what he is.

What does it say about the target of Strahd's affection that they would decide to actually become a vampire in order to be him? Not only have they failed to change him, they have now become a monster just like he is.

Volo's Visit to Barovia

Behold, the best article in all of Dragon Plus history thus far. The mighty Ed Greenwood is the author of a really fun story which is absolutely loaded with information on Barovia. It also seems like a DM could rip this off for their game.

The Story: Volo goes to Barovia with the aid of Elminster's magic. He runs into a vampire spawn and he is saved by a gypsy woman/adventurer. Then he stops at the Blood of the Vine Inn and on to a new town where he meets a weird NPC and has a run-in with Strahd himself.

The Talisman: Elminster gives Volo a way to escape the mists of Barovia - he implants a talisman (which contains a piece of one of Strahd's fingernails in it) under Volo's skin in a complex magic ritual. When Volo wants to return home, he must say "Dharts" three times to activate the magic.

Great Greenwood Detail: Elminster gives Volo a bunch of equipment, including a waterskin full of water with a little mint in it. Ed Greenwood is so good at giving details that make the world feel real and interesting.

Ezmerelda D'Avenir: She saves Volo, and seems to be a gypsy vampire hunter. She has a piece of art and everything (this issue is overloaded with new art from Curse of Strahd, to my delight). I assume she is an NPC in the Curse of Strahd adventure. Volo gives us an interesting description of her:

"Flashing eyes, nigh-fearless, and knows what she’s doing when it comes to battling undead. I couldn’t help but notice there was something odd about her right boot; it didn’t match her left."

The Blood of the Vine: An inn right out of the original Ravenloft adventure. It's warm and cozy, if shabby. A place where people trade, gossip, smoke pipes, whittle and gamble. They sing loudly, laugh often and react quickly.

• Barkeep: "Goodman" Arik, a quiet, wary-seeming sort.
• Menu: "Stews and ale and warm round loaves of dark nut bread with strong yellow-green cheeses of unfamiliar local varieties."

We actually get a map of Barovia in this issue

We get a bit of info on the expanded realm of Barovia:

• Landmarks - Mount Bartok, Mount Ghakis and Lake Zarovich
• Vallaki - A pallisaded town
• Krezk - A walled village
• Abbey of Saint Markovia - I wonder if this is an update of the Brotherhood of Contemplative Monks from Thoughts of Darkness?
• Argynvostholt - A ruined mansion that was once home to a knightly order. Possibly a version of the Knights of the Raven from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft?
• Vallaki - A cheerful place, ruled by Baron Vargas Ballakovich. Plagued by wolf attacks.

The Mysterious Rictavio: A half-elf bard has a cane in his hand and a pet monkey on his shoulder. I get the feeling he is Van Richten in disguise. He urges Volo to stay away from Castle Ravenloft.

Volo the NPC: A really fun idea might be to put Volo in your Curse of Strahd game. He can accompany the heroes, and when he is in danger, he can say "Dhart" three times and vanish. I actually mis-typed that word as "Shart", which might also be a fun command word. I once knew a guy who had a band named "Shat", which I thought was quite clever.

Interview: Patrick Rothfuss

What, Ho!

You might know this fellow as one of the players in the Acquisitions Incorporated games, or from his many novels.

He talks about how when he was a kid, the other kids at school wouldn't let him play D&D with them. How depressing is that?

He also says this:

“It is hard for people to understand these days that you did not instantaneously have access to a community that fits you."

I wonder what it's like for younger people. Can they even imagine the world without the internet? I'll tell you what it was like: It sucked. You watched what was on TV or you rented movies and games from a store. You read magazines that had news that was very out of date. There is more of a sense of what is acceptable behavior now.

Let me tell you, when I visit New York City today, it is full of kind, smart, well-groomed people compared to the city from just 15 years ago. I was astonished when I rode the subway into Brooklyn last year. Everyone was so well-behaved.

Dungeons, Dragons & Disabilities

This is an article about disabled players and characters. Check out what the author says:

"Our characters were thinly veiled caricatures of ourselves, and my companion’s storytelling stumbled when I announced that I wanted to shoot the dragon with an arrow.

“But… you’re blind. You can’t see well enough even to shoot a bullseye with a bow and arrow!” Even though I’d rolled a natural 20, and this was just a game, he told me that we had to go by the limits of what people think a blind person can or cannot do. This was my first exposure to rules that said I couldn’t do whatever I wanted with my imagination because of implicit assumptions about disability."

Ok. I hear what she's saying, but in the example there about the blind archer, I don't understand what she thinks is the correct answer to the problem. I do think that on a natural 20, the blind archer should definitely have hit.

But in other situations, should the DM allow the blind archer to shoot unimpeded? Should the DM give them a magic item that lets them see in a magical way (like Daredevil's sonar), or is that insulting?

Then there's this:

"A sighted DM can theoretically call someone out for cheating, but with a blind DM it’s all about trust."

If you cheat while playing D&D with a blind DM.. wow. That is about as low as it gets.

Very interesting article!

This is an awesome issue and you need to check it out, if just for the free adventure.

Check out my review of Dragon Plus issues 1-5 here.

You can download this adventure for free right here in Dragon Plus Issue 6. 

Wizards just released a .pdf of Death House, a 1st level adventure that is part of Curse of Strahd - the new adventure that comes out next month. I'm going to read and review it right here for you so we can get a look at what Curse of Strahd is going to be like.

This is an adventure that will be run in game stores, so there's spoilers in here. If you're a player, you should really skip this article as you're just going to ruin it for yourself and possibly everyone else.

The Story

The Death House is in the village of Barovia. It has burned to the ground many times, only to rise from the ashes time and again. It was once home to a cult slain by Strahd. Their spirits still lurk in the dungeons underneath the Death House.

The heroes are pulled from their world into a forest in Barovia by the mists of Ravenloft. They come upon a village at night and meet two little kids named Rose and Thorn. The kids say that there's a monster in their house and that they won't go back in until they are gone.

The truth is that these kids are illusions made by the house. Here's the deal with them:

"The children died of starvation centuries ago after their insane parents locked them in the attic and forgot about them. They were too young and innocent to understand that their parents were guilty of heinous crimes."

How about that? Yikes. Later, the heroes might come upon their skeletons and even be possessed by their ghosts.

Exploring

Haunted House: Running the exploration of the Death House is going to require finesse on the DM's part. There's a whole lot of rooms with nothing in them. Some players might be hungry for combat and may get turned off by the lack of action. Remember that this is an adventure that ramps in intensity from start to finish. The beginning is slow and the horror builds all the way to the frenzied escape at the end.

Once the heroes begin exploring, the mists of Ravenloft surround the Death House. Basically, the group is trapped into the Death House and they can't leave until they've gone through it. I'm not sure exactly what happens if they go into the fog. I suppose that's elaborated on in the hardcover book.

Trinkets, Clues and Loot: Each room has interesting little things, like a top hat, or suits of armor with visored helms in the shape of wolf heads. These kind of things are cool, because some players might latch onto something and use it to help define who their character is.

Here's an example of the weird little details spread throughout the Death House:

"Oil lamps are mounted on the oak-paneled walls, which are carved with woodland scenes of trees, falling leaves, and tiny critters. Characters who search the walls for secret doors or otherwise inspect the paneling can, with a successful DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check, notice tiny corpses hanging from the trees and worms bursting up from the ground."

Possession: There's a chance the heroes will be possessed by the ghosts of Rose and Thorn. If so, they gain flaws. Thorn's is "I'm scared of everything, including my own shadow, and weep with despair when things don't go my way." I can see some players having trouble with this, so I think you should be mindful of how you use it.

Nice Treasure: There's a lot of cool loot in one of the final areas, including a bunch of trinkets. Who wouldn't want a hag's severed finger? Imagine the hijinks the heroes could get into with a bag full of guano.

There's also an aspergillum carved from bone. I have no idea what that is, so I googled it. An aspergillum is an implement for sprinkling holy water - a perforated ball at the end of a short handle.

Final Room is Decent: The final encounter involves a dais and chanting ghostly voices. They demand a sacrifice. If the heroes don't provide one, a monster lurches up to attack them. It's kind of cool, though I don't really like the choice for the final monster and I think I might change it when I run this.

The Best Part of This Adventure: My favorite part of this adventure occurs at the end. Once the heroes have either made a sacrifice or killed the monster, the Death House itself tries to do them in. The doors are all replaced by slashing scythes. How awesome is that? Every room with a fireplace or oven is filled with poisonous black smoke. You have to roll initiative and everything - it's the group vs. the Death House. Awesome.

Once the heroes escape, they will be 3rd level.

Overall Thoughts

Building Tension: This is a severe change of pace from the previous adventures, and it will require a different set of skills from the DM. Running your heroes through a haunted house means in theory you want to build tension, which is very tricky in a game where the players are likely to be joking around.

You might want to use the Fear and Horror Check rules in the DMG on page 266 for a few scenes.

I'm a little concerned that players will get bored exploring so many empty rooms. You'll need to be very mindful of pacing. If you let the group linger and sift through each room, it could really drag. Don't be afraid to say "That's all that's in there."

Resting: You should also think about what to do if the group wants to take a long rest. They could hole up in a room. Does anything happen overnight? I think something should. Maybe they have weird nightmares, maybe the specter comes to haunt them, who knows. I think one cool idea is for them to hear rats in the walls, to foreshadow the final "escape" section.

Combat: If you have a group that is combat-oriented, you might want to throw one or two battles at them when they first arrive in Barovia. They could fight Strahd's bats or wolves in the woods, perhaps. Or you could run a variant of the vampire spawn encounter in the Volo story in Dragon Plus. This way, the group has scratched the itch and will be more inclined to accept the opening exploration.

Foreshadowing: I think it might be helpful to foreshadow the final escape portion by trying to creep the players out. As the players explore, have the PCs smell smoke, maybe have them hear a scythe cutting through the air as they pass through a door, that kind of thing. It's always nice to plant legit clues and give the group things to speculate about. Just remember that if they correctly guess what's being foreshadowed, don't punish them. They were clever, let them reap the rewards.

This seems like a decent adventure. I'll be interested to see how it goes when people run it.

For more, check out my Guide to Strahd.

Last night we played through the last chapter of Dead Gods. Overall, I'd say that Dead Gods is good, but I didn't like some of the early chapters.

After this, we're going to go through the other Chris Perkins Dungeon Magazine Planescape adventure, Nemesis. I've prepared most of it, and I like the first part but I'm not that into the rest. I'm probably going to edit it down.

Then we will start Curse of Strahd, which I am really pumped up about.

Quick Note: I refer to the big bad guy of this as "Orcus", but the adventure calls the reborn Orcus "Tenebrous." I don't use the name "Tenebrous" as Orcus' name has a lot of value in my game, and calling him Tenebrous might make things a little confusing for my players.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPC - Fall From Grace - Succubus Paladin

Downtime in (blank) Square

Our heroes had received ownership of an entire square of buildings. I ran a few scenes to demonstrate their new status.

The whole thing started off with a question. The place needed a name. I had a list of suggestions in case the players were stumped. They quickly decided to call this place "Deadbook Square." They find planescape slang amusing, and they like saying that they are going to "put someone in the deadbook."

I had an NPC named Lissandra the Gateseeker come and study all of the new portals in the square. She keeps a record of portals in Sigil, and charges people for portal information.

I was wondering what the heroes would do with her. These portals are a big deal. While it is illegal in Sigil to charge a "toll" for a portal, they could have done it anyway. Or they might have come up with some other wacky money-making scheme.

The heroes talked to Lissandra and tried to buy her entire portal book off of her. Lissandra was appalled at the lowball offers. She said no. The heroes just let her catalog the portals and went about their business.

The Free League

Shemeshka

I also wanted to establish their new high rank in their factions. Theran is a member of the Free League, who are business people who watch each other's backs. He was invited to a meeting in the gate town of Tradegate.

Deadbook Square has this huge, empty 3-story building. Everyone wanted to rent it from Theran to start a business. There was a lot of haggling. Shemeshka the Marauder expected to have it, as Shemeshka had helped the heroes out during "Umbra" adventure (the group had accidentally sent a gorgon on a rampage in the streets and ran away).

Ultimately, the heroes decided to give each floor to a different business person. This upset Shemeshka mightily and there will probably be repercussions.

The Sensates

The Gilded Hall

Bidam was invited to meet with the Sensates, in The Gilded Hall in Arborea. This place is so beautiful that devils have actually died just looking at it. People come here to join the never-ending party.

Basically, the high-ups in the faction talked with Bidam, discussing theories about what happened with Orcus. They talked about the Lady of Pain, noting that since Bidam gave her the Heart of Lady of Pain she hasn't killed anyone - she just sends people to The Mazes now.

They also tried to figure out what happened to the NPC Srivlanka Flumph. The heroes never found out. The truth is that she had found a gem in Tcian Sumere that summoned her to Orcus. Orcus killed her and her soul was in this magic cauldron in Tcian Sumere. Now that Orcus is dead, Tcian Sumere has vanished. Flumph is just gone, and the heroes will never know what happened to her unless they use some divination spells.

The Thief

This adventure has some railroading in it. This whole chapter kicks off with a thief stealing the handle of the wand of orcus from the heroes and giving it to the ogre mage intent on resurrecting Orcus. Here's a quote from the text:

"Quah-Nomag hires the top-shelf thief Ash Vodiran to steal it for him. Vodiran can easily overcome any locks, barriers, guardians or magical wards put in place to protect the wand, and the PCs eventually learn that it's gone missing from wherever they left it."

Now this could be a big problem with some groups. You can get into this real hazy territory where the group might protest, saying they had set magic traps. They might have even mentioned this 5 months ago in real life and you just forgot or didn't hear it.

Not a problem with my group. They have never set traps or wards (even after I gave them warding spells!) in their home. In fact, they were attacked at home by a fire demon a while back, and even after that event no precautions were put in place. I had given them a map of their home and everything.

So yeah, Ash Vodiran just walked into their house while they were sleeping. He rifled through their stuff, took the handle, and pocketed 2,000 gp of their money. He left a note that said:

"Thanks for the wand and the money! -Ash Vodiran."

Boy, were they mad when they woke up. The heroes rounded up their buddy Fall From Grace and scoured the city. They found out from Kylie the Tout that Ash had headed to the Astral Plane. That lead us to the official adventure...

The Guardian of the Dead Gods

The heroes use a portal to the Astral Plane. There, this god is waiting for them. He's Anubis the Egyptian God, known here as The Guardian of the Dead Gods. He warns the heroes that things are afoot, and points in the direction of the calamity.

I was wondering if the heroes would summon their pirate ship with their magic whalebone. They didn't. In the Astral Plane, you can fly with a thought, so they just started flying toward the trouble.

So Quah Nomag is on the giant, stone dead body of Orcus, which is maybe a mile across. It has this magic field, which means that the heroes can only land on Orcus' feet. The place has its own gravity, so they'd have to walk and climb to get to the head, where Quah-Nomag was.

Forest of Death

The heroes came across a "forest" of visages, all turned to stone. They could still warp perceptions, and so they gave the heroes some freaky visions of Orcus moments from my past campaigns (including when Orcus attacked The Raven Queen at the end of the 4e main adventure path). The heroes made their saves and moved on.

They climbed up Orcus' belly. At the summit, 12 skeletons burst out of the ground. These guys have 13 hit points, and they do 5 damage. My group is 8th level. These 12 skeletons really ripped up my group! Theran relies on magic missile too much, and Bidam's breath weapon just isn't powerful enough to be effective against them.

This was a bloody battle. When it was over, Fall From Grace used up her entire Lay on Hands power (she has a pool of 40 hit points to heal with).

The Everchanging Fiend

The group made their way down the belly, coming upon pools of liquid/negative energy. Even getting near them causes damage.

When describing them, I used the word "miasma". I don't know exactly what it means, I just like saying it. Jessie got really excited and she told George to steer clear of the pools. Because they contained miasma, you see.

They continued down and came upon an awesome little entity. It is this creature that changes forms every round, simulating Orcus' rise from mortal to demon lord. It goes like this:

Portly, Evil Wizard - Larvae - Manes - Barlgura - Chasme - Vrock - Hezrous - Balor - Ram-headed Balor - Orcus - Dead God Orcus - "Tenebrous" - Portly, Evil Wizard, etc.

I didn't know Orcus was once an evil, human wizard. I thought that was really cool. Guess what my group did? Avoided him completely! Son of a...

The Ritual of Revival

Quah-Namog

The group climbs to the head of Orcus. Theran actually fell while climbing, but Fall From Grace flew and caught him before he plunged to his death.

Orcus' mouth is a cavern full of bat swarms and abyssal bats (varrangoin). The group was careful not to disturb them.

They spotted Quah-Namog, chanting away. They rushed him, but this flavor text kicked in:

"You stand in the City of Doors, yet somehow you realize that you've also been catapulted into the future. The burg you once knew so well has become a charnel house. Bodies lay strewn about the streets red with blood. And in the middle of the carnage is a sight that makes your mind reel."

They see Orcus in Sigil, standing over the corpses of Zeus, Thor, Paladine, and Mystra. Also there were dead homebrew gods from my campaigns, including the goddess that Fall From Grace worships. To the shock of the heroes, Orcus is holding the severed head of The Lady of Pain.

"Sigil is dead. The Multiverse belongs to Tenebrous."

The heroes had absolutely no idea what to do. Orcus roared and rushed Bidam. Bidam had been the one who shattered the Orcusword a few sessions back and clearly Orcus wanted revenge. Orcus swiped him, with +17 to hit. He did 21 points of damage.

Now the party was really freaked out! They looked around for a recognizable portal. Theran summoned the nightmare from his wand of darkness. He wanted to use it to shift to the Ethereal Plane. But for some reason, the power didn't work.

Fall From Grace was spoiling for a fight now. Orcus had killed her god! Bidam shouted to her to use her kiss on Orcus - Fall From Grace can kill people with her kiss, but up until now she swore never to do it.

Fall From Grace charged Orcus, but Orcus snatched her up in his mighty hand and began to crush her, doing 21 points per round.

Bidam pulled out the planar compass. He knew they needed to find a portal and get the heck out of this place. To his shock, he saw the dial on the compass spinning wildly.

I dropped a slight hint here - Fall From Grace wondered aloud how they had even traveled to the future in the first place.

The heroes realized that this was some kind of visage hallucination. They disbelieved, made their saving throws, and appeared back in the Astral Plane.

The damage they took was real. This was a last-ditch effort by Orcus to stop the heroes while his servant completed the ritual.

Free, the group rushed Quah Namog, disrupted his ritual, and chucked him into Orcus' mouth, where the bats and varrangoin swarmed him.

Orcus vanished. The heroes were suddenly floating in the Astral Plane. No sign of the bad guys.

It's All Over

They made their way back to Sigil, and in the days ahead there were all sorts of rumors. Some said Orcus was truly dead, others said his body had gone somewhere for safekeeping until he could be revived.

During his rampage, he'd caused a lot of destruction. Orcus killed:

• Bwimb, paraelemental prince of ooze
• Primus, lord of the modrons. He was replaced by a secundus.
• Maanzecorian, mind flayer god of secrets. Now Ilsensine was supreme god of mind flayers.
• Tomeri, goddess of wisdom and love.
• Camaxtli, god of fear.

Further Effects:

• Nekrotheptis Skorpia, my super-cool NPC who lived in Set's Realm, was injured but not killed.
• Kiaransalee, the drow goddess who had hid the wand of orcus was now really worried that Orcus would pop up and get revenge on her.
• The Sigil portal to Ranais/Crux on Yggdrasil had vanished.
• Tcian Sumere, Orcus' home on the Negative Material Plane had vanished.
• House Tormtor was defeated in the Vault of the Drow.

And here's one I found quite amusing. The heroes skipped a huge section of the Pandemonium adventure (it involved a huge traveling carnival called The Cynosure), which I think the author of this adventure really liked. Here's this quote, one of the final passages in the whole book:

"The Cynosure continues to flourish, and the show goes on..."

I read this aloud to the group. My players started cracking up. I shook my fist at them in mock rage. How dare they skip The Cynosure!?

Overall, this was a really fun adventure. I waited about 20 years to run it, and I'm glad I did.

Next up is Nemesis, an adventure where our heroes go to an Abyssal Realm to claim four, count them, four magic swords from a marilith.

This is a guide to the Infinite Staircase, a location that has appeared in a number of D&D products over the years. The point of this is to give DMs an overview of the place as a campaign reference. I'm going to talk about the 5th edition material up front, and then go back over all of the old stuff.

The Staircase is a really fun way to send your heroes to other planes and it is also an awesome adventuring location all its own. It really feels like a great way to send low level heroes on planar adventures.

Most of the information on the Staircase comes from a Planescape adventure by Monte Cook, called Tales From The Infinite Staircase. You can buy it here.

D&D 5th Edition

Dungeon Master's Guide

In the 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide on page 58, we are given some basic info on The Infinite Staircase:

• You can find your heart's desire through diligent searching of each landing.
• Doors are often guarded by devas, sphinxes, or yugoloths.

It's very interesting that this was included in the core DMG. Chris Perkins has hinted that the things put into the core books are clues to upcoming adventures. Maybe we'll get a plane-hopping adventure that uses the Staircase within the next few years...?

Essential Information

Here's the basic stuff you need to know to use the Infinite Staircase in your campaign.

• "The Staircase is the goal of every longing heart, the road to every dream."
• The Infinite Staircase has doors that lead to many different planes.
• The Staircase joins with any area on a plane where intelligent creatures have expressed some sort of creative spirit.  
• Stairs that lead to evil planes are cold and shadowy. Stairs that lead to Upper Planes are clean, bright and warm.  
• Gravity changes from landing to landing. 
• Each landing has a door. The keys to the doors are always mysteries, riddles and puzzles. 
• Dark passages are said to lead to cities where all magic fails or where visitors age, wither and die.
• The Staircase is guarded by Lillendi, snake-women who serve a moon goddess.
• Those who offend the moon-goddess are trapped here.  
• The Staircase is always under construction. The builders are always heard but never seen. 
• Strange creatures of elemental time supervise its operation. 
• A person can travel the staircase to get to the city of their heart's desire, but only once. This usually only happens to lone travelers.
• There's a guild of adventurers who live on the Staircase, known as The Planewalker's Guild.

AD&D 2nd Edition

Tales From the Infinite Staircase

This book contains all of the base information for the Staircase, as well as a pile of loosely-linked adventures. There's this entity known as The Iron Shadow that is draining creativity in the planes, and our heroes need to stop it. It's a very loose storyline, and a portion of it is left up to the DM to resolve however they see fit.

Origin of the Infinite Staircase: It grew out of the Gates of the Moon in Selune's palace on the Plane of Ysgard.

Beginning an Ascent: The staircase appears as a spiraling silver stairway entwined with ivy. The first landing is 1,000 feet overhead. The landing is a 200 foot disc with other staircases extending off - each staircase looks different and is made of different material.

Duration: Travel times between landings can last from hours to one or two days.

Flying: Flying works as long as you stay close to the stairs. If you fly 25 feet or more away, you might pass through an invisible fold that causes the flyer to appear in some random plane with no way back. Those lost in this way are never seen again.

Teleporting: It doesn't work here.

Falling: If you fall off a landing or stairwell, you plummet 10d100 feet before landing on a stairwell.

Landings: These are all different sizes. Every landing has a door, which could be anything from an open archway to a metal vault door.

Doors: Many doors open into cellars or abandoned buildings. Usually the people in that plane don't even know the door is there.

The book actually lists a few doors and where they go to:

• One leads to a village on Oerth (the Greyhawk campaign setting).
• One leads to Broken Reach, the town in The Plain of 1,000 Portals.
• One actually links to the city of Sigil. It leads to the Guildhall Ward, within a garden's archway. Going through from the Sigil side requires a portal key - an ounce of silver.

Unstable areas: There are some parts where steps are missing, or the staircase is in danger of collapsing. There are also unstable magic zones, where there are weird effects:

• A random creature turns invisible.
• Damage from spells is doubled.
• While in the area, a creature has a 19 strength but a 3 intelligence.

Encounters: Heroes can run into all sorts of beings on the Staircase. Here's some from the book:

• Cats, dogs or little kids who walked through a portal accidentally.
• Planewalking adventurers.
• A dwarf who won't admit he's lost.
• A lillend who can give directions.
• A Manticore.

Magic: Magic doesn't work well in the staircase. In general, wizards need to have special keys called runes to cast spells, Runes need to be inscribed on spell components. There's a different rune for each for each school of magic. The Staircase affects certain spells:

• Places on the Staircase can't be scryed, only individuals. 
• Weather-affecting magic doesn't work. 
• Monster summoning spells all summon the same type of monster, the Einheriar.

Einheriar: These are spirits employed by gods who are servants, warriors and guards. They appear as wispy humanoid warriors, resembling humans. They are usually fighters, but they are also often wizards, thieves or priests. Their alignment varies.

The Gates of the Moon: The Staircase is linked/based out of Argentil, the palace of Selune, goddess of the moon and stars. The palace is on a rocky island lit by a nearly full moon. Selune is a god, so "..anyone stupid enough to enter the Gates of the Moon seeking to attack, steal from or even spy on Selune is instantly and automatically destroyed..."

Argentil: A silver palace guarded by a lone silver golem that can breathe poison gas that kills you if you fail your saving throw. 

The mood of the denizens of the isle (lillendi and "shards") there goes from friendly to brooding with the cycle of the moon. The Infinite Staircase is only accessible during the full moon.

The Shards: They look like human women, but they are made of moonlight and flame. They are very moody. Shards are chaotic good, are immune to fire and they can see in darkness. Shards can cast burning hands, light, darkness, faerie fire and dancing lights.

A Lillend

The Lillendi: They are guardians of the Infinite Staircase. They look like winged human women with the lower body of a serpent.

• They have their own factions, which they call "mysteries." The more mysteries one lillend belongs to, the higher her status. They wear masks to reflect this status - these masks are called faceless masks of infinity.
• Lillendi love music and art, and creativity. Songs and poems mean more to them than gold.
• They are prejudiced against devils, tieflings and modrons because of their lawful nature.
• They can constrict enemies with their tails
• They can cast spells like speak with plants, Otto's irresistible dance, knock, light, polymorph self, and transport via plants

The Planewalkers Guild: An organization of adventurers who are based on the Infinite Staircase. They've been around for 900 years, and began as a protective society for planar travelers.

Their headquarters is a large landing with tents and buildings. They welcome strangers, feed them and give them a place to sleep. Here's a few of the main members:

• Hav'run Thain: This minotaur leads the guild. He is peace-loving and is accompanied by a kyrie named Vagis.
• Oriam Trascalia: An old human wizard who doesn't do a lot of planewalking anymore.

Joining the Guild: You have to pay a yearly due of 10 gold. Dues increase as you gain levels.

For Duty & Deity

This is an AD&D Second Edition adventure set partly in the Forgotten Realms. The heroes must rescue a goddess named Waukeen, who has been captured by the demon lord Graz'zt. To get to Graz'zt's Abyssal Layer, the group needs to use the Infinite Staircase.

The heroes step through a magic mirror and emerge onto a silver staircase. They'll meet a lillend named Cattariina, who can tell them about the Infinite Staircase. After a day of traveling, the group comes upon an interesting place..

The Nowhere Inn

The Nowhere Inn: A community of tents and temporary structures on a wide landing. It holds a collection of roving merchants and misfits. If the group sleeps here, they may find some of their stuff has been stolen from a thief who is now long gone. Here's some places and people at this location:

• Ching-Dau: Lives in a pink tent, sells meat.
• Allisa Misthaven: An elf who sells elven wine called Starclear. It's a watered-down impersonation of Evermead, a fine elven drink.
• Ceylon: An ogre mage who offers to be a guide. He is a coward that places his own safety first.

The heroes will eventually come to stairs of black stone, which is dirty and cobwebbed. The door on the landing bears the insignia of a six-fingered hand. It opens into a dead-end alley in an Abyssal town, where a blue sun hangs overhead. Our heroes can now enter into Graz'zt's triple realm and seek out Waukeen.

D&D 3rd Edition

Fiendish Codex I

Lillend

The material in this book is shockingly similar to the 2e stuff. We learn a few cool things. Here's a quote:

"Here and there other staircases come into view, some of which appear to be upside down or at odd angles to the traveler's perspective. All are part of the same massive expanse, which bends and folds in on itself in a manner unperceivable by the traveler but no less real because of it."

The book gives us a list of Abyssal locations that connect to the Staircase:

• Zelatar and Samora (In Graz'zt's Triple Realm).
• Zoragmelok, the seat of Fraz-Urb'Luu.
• Rivenheart, the sacred fane of Malcanthet.

Travel from one landing to another takes 4d12 hours, halved if the group has a guide. For every six hours of climbing, a PC must make a save or become fatigued.

Not too much info. In general, the Staircase seems to get a blurb. It's never been overly-detailed and I think it's full of adventuring possibilities. At the very least, it's a cool place to use for session or two.

For more on The Infinite Staircase, check out mimir.net. They have lots of cool ideas and NPCs here.

Recently, Monte Cook posted a very interesting article on critical misses in roleplaying games. It details his current take on how a roll of a natural one should be handled in an RPG.

I am going to go over how critical misses work in D&D and other similar games, highlighting cool stuff that you might want to implement in your campaign. Then I am going to talk about my experience with critical misses and talk a bit about Monte's article.

I really like the idea that rolling double ones when you have disadvantage triggers a special critical miss effect. I guess the problem there is that I don't think I have ever seen that happen. It's so rare that it's probably not worth putting much effort into.

Critical Misses in D&D 5th Edition

Here's what the Player's Handbook has to say about natural ones:

On page 242 of the DMG, we get this bit about skill checks:

There's also an optional "Lingering Injuries" chart in the DMG on page 272. It's suggested to be used for creatures that get hit by a critical hit or those that fail a save by 5 or more, but you could work it into a critical miss. The chart includes results like:

• Lose an Eye: Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) and ranged attack rolls.
• Limp: Your speed is reduced by 5 feet and you must make a dexterity check to use the dash action - fail and you fall prone.
• Horrible Scar: Disadvantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks.

That's it! Not a lot of material for DMs to use when it comes to critical misses. Let's look at older editions and other systems for more material. This next article is extremely hardcore.

Dragon Magazine #39 - Good Hits & Bad Misses
This is from way back in 1980, when the AD&D rules were generally hard to figure out. The author of this article starts off by addressing some confusion. He is unsure if a critical miss is on a roll of a natural one or not. He's pointing out that if a critical miss is not a natural roll of one, but a 1 after all modifiers are applied, it doesn't make much sense. He also doesn't like it the other way, either. Here's a quote:

"Or, if these will help, then what’s the point of having the rule, since all one needs is a + 1 dagger to boost any rolls of 1 up to 2, and your worries are over. And, if a 1 is always a fumble, a character will fumble 5% of the time, whether he or she is 1st, 5th, or 15th level."

This article contains a bunch of critical hit charts for different types of weapons, including "Table-Edged Weapons" (?). These results are extremely brutal by today's standards. Some of the possible outcomes include:

• Shield destroyed.
• Triple damage!
• Helm removed - lose ear (stunned for d6 rounds if no helm)
• Eye removed.
• Throat Cut - immediate death! (no effect if helmed)
• Decapitated - Immediate death.

OK. Wow. That's just for table-edged weapons. So yeah, wear a helmet, people! And consider using a table edge in melee, it will mess people up big time.

Here's some results for missile and thrusting weapons:

• Weapon arm struck: -4 to hit
• Struck in chest: DEATH in 2-4 days!
• Larynx punctured (no effect if helmed)
• My favorite - Struck in head: You lose d6 points of intelligence (no effect if helmed).

Then there's a fumble effects chart. Here's some results:

• Slip: Make a DEX check or fall and be stunned for d4 rounds.
• Lose grip: Drop weapon.
• Weapon breaks.
• Hit self: DOUBLE DAMAGE. You hit yourself for double damage.
• Critical hit... on your friend! "Sorry, Mike." This is how player vs. player stuff breaks out, people.
• Twist ankle: You move at half speed for one turn (that's ten minutes in the game)

This is one wild article. There were some really, really lethal campaigns way back when.

Pathfinder Critical Fumble Deck

This is an actual deck of cards that you can buy. When a character rolls a critical miss, they draw from the deck and apply the effects. Each card has a separate result for melee, ranged, 'natural' and magic attacks. It is awesome and very creative.

Back in around 2009, I started using Paizo's critical hit deck in my 4e games. It was extremely popular. I added in the rule that I could choose one bad guy per session who also could use the deck (having all the monsters use it would have been way too deadly, in my opinion).

I then tried to introduce the critical fumble deck, but my players would have none of it. I tried to entice them by saying that all my bad guys except the main villains in each session would also draw from it, but still nobody wanted any part of it. I think we used it one time and that was it. Players really are very wary of critical miss effects.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

In this game, which is basically an old school variation of the D&D 3.5 rules, a roll of a natural one is a "fumble". A fumble means that you miss and you have to roll on the fumble chart. The heavier the armor you are wearing, the bigger the die you use to roll on it. So, if you're wearing no armor, you roll a d4. If you're wearing plate mail, you roll a d16 (this game uses really funky dice).

My favorite result: "Like a turtle on its back, you slip and land upside down, flailing about and unable to right yourself."

In DCC RPG, casting a spell requires a "spell check". Basically, you roll to see if your spell works and if so, how well. Rolling a natural one is a failure, and may result in the caster gaining "corruption" (the magic mutates him or her) or "disapproval" ( a cleric is punished by their god in some way).

Wizardly magic in DCC is a pretty evil thing. Using it slowly transforms the caster into this hideous abomination.

Some of my favorite corruption results:

• The caster's eyes change. Their eyes might start to grow an unearthly color, gain light sensitivity, gain infravision, or become large and unblinking, like a fish.
• The caster permanently crackles with energy of a type associated with the type of spell they normally cast.
• Caster's skin changes - albino, clear, reptilian scales, deep blue, etc.
• Demonic Taint: The character gains claws, feet turn into hooves, or the legs become goat-like.
• A sliver of the character's soul is claimed by a demon lord.
• The character gains a third eye on their palm, chest, forehead, etc.

How awesome is that?

Badass Heroes

I have always liked critical miss rules both as a player and as a DM, but my players have always hated them.

I once ran an Al Qadim campaign long ago. It was a solo campaign, but sometimes other people would play for extended periods of time. The "main character" of this campaign often rolled really badly. The player would get frustrated. He said he felt like his character was always slipping on a banana peel.

I had a hard time wrapping my head around this. There was one incident in particular where he and the major bad guy of the campaign had a wild brawl in a major city street. This bad guy just plain beat him in combat due to random dice rolls and ran off. The hero survived, as citizens quickly patched up his wounds. He was at this point a beloved and legendary figure in the Land of Fate. The player hated the fact that he lost that fight.

I have always had Indiana Jones in my mind as the template for a D&D character. Indiana Jones sometimes "looks stupid". He is terrified of snakes. Even in the newest Indiana Jones movie, he almost dies in quick sand because he can't bring himself to grab a snake and use it as a rope to pull himself out.

If you remember, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, young Indy stole an artifact from treasure hunters. They chased him on a train. Indy fell through the roof of a train car, and found himself face to face with a lion. He grabbed a whip, tried to use it, and rolled a one - he whipped himself in the face and gave himself a permanent scar on his chin. Now that is a critical fumble right there.

The bad guys actually had to save him from the lion. Indy ran away with the artifact and got all the way home, just to have the bad guys show up with local authorities and take it back. He "slipped on a banana peel" and then some.

Indiana Jones is awesome. He's one of the iconic heroes of our time. And yet he constantly "looks stupid", I guess, to some people. To me, it's just fun. It's a humorous wrinkle in a deadly situation, and it keeps things from getting stale.

To me, it's unrealistic and boring when a main character does everything perfectly. What's the point?

I guess some people want their character to be an ideal sort of hero - a Conan type who kicks everyone's ass and always looks cool doing it. I hesitate to use the term "adolescent power fantasy" but I can't think of a better one.

To deal with these "Conan" players, I would suggest that DMs narrate their critical misses differently. A Conan critical miss should not be his fault - it should be something like this: Conan swings at a bad guy, but the bad guy fell over which caused Conan's sword to hit a rock. Conan is so strong that he might have damaged his own sword thanks mostly to the clumsiness of his foe. Even when Conan rolls a one, his enemy is the one who slips on a banana peel.

That way, the player who prefers the Conan type doesn't feel foolish and the vision of his character isn't compromised.

I kind of flinch at accommodating a player this way just because it so goes against my own sense of style. But everyone is different, and part of the fun of the game is smooshing together all these different concepts to see what new idea and situations emerge.

Critical Misses Make You "Feel Bad"

Here's a quote from Monte's article:

"Everyone’s sitting around the table, immersed in the Ninth World. Bruce’s character is talking an NPC into letting him take a look at a strange numenera device the fellow found. The NPC is reluctant, and the GM asks Bruce to make a roll based on his skill at persuasion.

Bruce rolls a 1. Everyone at the table laughs. Someone says, “I think you just called his mother something obscene, Bruce.” More laughter.

It’s a funny moment, and we’ve all been there, but it also has some negative connotations. Bruce—the player, not the character, remember—didn’t do anything wrong. Rolling a 1 isn’t his fault, per se. The die just does that on its own. About 1 in 20 times, actually. But if the GM actually incorporates some version of the joke into the actual narrative of the game—that is to say, that Bruce’s character said something foolish or untoward—Bruce feels bad."

He rolled a 1 and everyone laughed. And the player felt bad.

That just doesn't sit well with me. I see what Monte is saying. I just don't agree that all players "feel bad" or embarrassed when they roll a one. I don't. It's part of the roller coaster ride of D&D.

But even if that is the case, then to me the solution is not to eliminate critical misses, but rather to alter their effects. In fact, Monte goes on to explain that in Numenara, that is how critical misses work. They trigger a "GM Intrusion."

So in this example, Bruce is trying to get someone to let him examine their device. He rolls a one. The GM decides that the NPC in question is a racist, and hates Bruce's character's race. Or Bruce's character reminds them of their father, who they hate. Or the NPC sees something of Bruce's that he wants in exchange.

This way, the 1 has an effect but it doesn't make Bruce look "foolish". Instead, it makes the NPC a more detailed, interesting obstacle.

I think Monte's take is probably the best way to handle critical misses in 2016. But I really do have a problem with the mindset that a one makes you look stupid and might make you feel bad. To me, that is rooted in the idea that you are trying to "win" D&D (or whatever game) and that the key to "winning" is always rolling high.

Nobody wants to roll low a lot. Nobody likes missing or failing a skill check. But let's face it, most modern campaigns are not lethal in any way. Your character is probably not going to die (depending on your DM, I suppose). So rolling low isn't really a negative consequence, it just adds drama. Some of the most fun sessions I've ever had is when everyone keeps rolling low and they just have to run away.

When I ran Skull & Shackles, the heroes had just acquired a pirate ship. On their maiden voyage, they hit a freak storm (I rolled high on an encounter chart). The pilot rolled a natural one on her navigation check. The ship sank! The heroes barely survived! They were rescued by a ship full of unsavory sailors and many hijinks were had. Nobody could stop laughing that their ship actually sank like that. Nobody "felt bad." It was one of the most fun parts of the whole campaign.

Custom D&D 5th Edition Critical Miss Charts

• The DNDUI Critical Miss Chart - This one is hilarious.
• The James Introcaso Critical Miss Chart 
• The Save Versus Critical Miss Chart
• The Reddit Critical Miss Chart

A marilith

Tonight we started "Nemesis", a Planescape adventure by Chris Perkins from Dungeon Magazine #60. The plan is to finish this and then start Curse of Strahd, which is also by Chris Perkins.

We didn't get nearly as far as I wanted to. I had cooked up what turned out to be too much side stuff prior to the start of the adventure. I had some ideas that I was excited about and it came off very well, so no big deal.

One thing I have noticed about Planescape is that despite the setting being all about adventuring in the planes, the best parts of every adventure take place in the city of Sigil. Maybe that's just because I love running city adventures.

If you just want to read about the actual "Nemesis" adventure, skip down to the "Four Missing Swords" section.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPC - Fall From Grace - Succubus Paladin

Downtime

I wanted to do a bunch of stuff to demonstrate the ramifications of allowing Lissandra the Gateseeker to learn the keys to their portals. The heroes now own a square in the city of Sigil, which contains ten buildings and ten portals to other planes. So here's some of the hijinks:

Other Adventurers: A group of NPC heroes went into the portal to Undermountain, did some rooms from the 3.5 adventure, then came back injured and told the heroes about it.

Dustman Vacation: A Dustman named Pox and the cadaver collector (a corpse-collecting golem the heroes helped create in the first sessions of this campaign) had a week off, so they decided to go through the portal to Sylvania, the party town. They came back a week later. Pox had a magic STD and the cadaver colloctor's hollow interior was half full of booze.

Creeper: The group dealt with a patron of their festhall who had fallen in love with one of the women who worked there. Bidam took him down with some nerve hold that Xena the Warrior Princess uses.

Bearded Devils

Devil Patrol: The devils who the heroes allowed to take up one floor of the three-story building last time are now patrolling the square. They stopped and harassed Fall From Grace. She's a succubus paladin. The devils suspected she was a Blood War spy of some kind. The heroes told them to get lost.

Then came the main event. If you remember last time, a thief named Ash Vodiran stole the handle to the wand of orcus and gave it to Quah-Nomag, who almost brought Orcus back to life.

Remember how I mentioned that the heroes had never fortfied or protected their home in an way? No magic spells. No special locks. Nothing. And they have tons of magic items. Even after Ash robbed them, they never did anything about it.

So, the heroes wake up one morning, and there's a note on their bag of holding. It said: "Made another withdrawal. Thanks!" - Ash Vodiran

He stole 18,000 gold. The heroes were now penniless! Both of the heroes were really mad. They hit the streets and asked around, trying to find this guy. They ended up basically retracing his steps the night before:

1. Ash bought Kesai-Serris (a beautiful woman who works at the Brothel for Slaking Intellectual Lusts) a diamond necklace worth 5,000 gold.
2. Ash bought 1,000 gold worth of cheese and gave it to The Us (the rats with exposed brains who have a hive mind). The Us explained to the heroes that they'd once saved Ash from a mind flayer that he had stolen from, and the cheese was his way of saying thank you.
3. Ash spent 6,000 gold on a magic tattoo from Fell (the "Fallen" dabus that most people shun). The tattoo allows Ash to open one lock per day just by touching it.
4. Ash went to The Flame Pits, a magic bath house. He got a massage, manicure, pedicure, and facial treatment with the finest planar magic for a cool 1,000 gold.
5. Ash ended his night a Fortune's Wheel, the casino owned by Shemeshka the Marauder. He blew the rest of their money there.

All of their gold was spent! The heroes found out which room Ash was in. They bashed the door in.

I made Ash to be like Dante from Devil-May-Cry, a ridiculous anti-hero dude. He's a half elf with white hair. His room was trashed, and Kylie the Tout was sound asleep next to him.

He woke up and was all cool and calm. The heroes yelled at him. He told them that he assumed 18,000 gold was just a drop in the bucket to people like them.

We rolled initiative and Ash won. He is half-tiefling. He has the power to turn incorporeal, his "shadow form", for as long as he can hold his breath. Planescape tieflings have unique things like this, and I thought this was a cool way to explain why people call him the greatest thief in Sigil.

The heroes tried various things to harm him while Kylie told them to knock it off.

Shemeshka

Then Shemeshka showed up. Shemeshka paid Ash's debt, plus 2,000 gold. In exchange, she wanted certain rights in Deadbook Square (the city section that the heroes own).

In the Shemeshka article in Dungeon Magazine, it has a lot of little tidbits. One is the possibility that Kylie is the daughter of Shemeshka. The other is that Shemeshka wants someone to break into The Tower of Ravaastas on another plane.

So Shemeshka is going to have Ash "work off the debt" Shemeshka paid by going on a mission to bust into the Tower of Ravaastas.

And Shemeshka also tried to leverage the payoff to expand his business interests further in Deadbook Square.

On top of that, Shemeshka might also have been looking out for Kylie.

Theran and Bidam left Ash with Shemeshka, but they still really wanted revenge on Ash. They did research on him. They learned about his powers, they learned where he came from (he bounced from plane to plane, getting drunk, stealing stuff and getting chased out of town before settling in Sigil). They even heard the rumors about Kylie and Shemeshka.

They tried to figure out how they could kill him. If the guy could turn into a shadow just by holding his breath, in theory he could escape almost any physical threat.

Bidam finally decided the best way to do this was to get a woman to seduce him and kill him in his sleep.

The heroes put this on hold. We hadn't even started Nemesis yet and it was getting late! George and Jessie are going to mull their revenge scheme over the course of this week.

Four Missing Swords

Bariaur

This adventure starts off with a waitress named Salja Slitterknife hiring the heroes to find her brother, Llisian. The note she sent to the heroes is amusingly Planescape-y:

"If you cutters want a job, meet me in the alley behind the Sail at the end of my shift. I'll be waiting with the jink - No peelers. -S."

The adventurers met with the waitress. She offered the heroes a magic ring if they could find her brother, Llisian. She told them:

• Llisian had stolen a magic sword.
• Llisin and Salja have amulets that let them see into the other's amulet if they're on the same plane.
• Salja looked into the amulet, saw a tiger's face and a flash of light. Since then - nothing. She thinks Llisian might be dead.
• Llisian was last seen heading to a statue in the Hive.

Warrin Spellbinder

Rakshasa

The heroes took the job and went to the statue, which depicted a giant bariaur. In a nearby alley, a man was calling for help. The heroes peered in and saw a rakshasa was holding a magic sword, about to kill a guy.

The heroes rushed in to help. The rakshasa had a bunch of mooks ready, who jumped out of nearby windows. The mooks (members of the Xaositect faction) fought the heroes while the rakshasa escaped through a portal. The heroes killed the mooks, no problem. The rakshasa got away.

The guy on the ground was not Llisian. He was Warren Spellbinder, a clerk who worked in the Hall of Records. The rakshasa had tricked him into stealing a magic sword from a vault in the Hall. The rakshasa was just about to dispose of him when the heroes showed up.

So! That's two separate thefts of two different magic swords.

Puzzle Party

Dabuses

Then, as they left the alley, three dabus (goat-men who maintain the city) approached the heroes. They talk in magic symbols (called rebuses) that hover in the air above them.

In this adventure, you actually print out symbols and hand them to the players to translate. Here's one:

There's no translation! I had to sit down and figure them out myself!

Here's what this pictured one says: "There is a missing sword which we are seeking for (bee-something) the gate. Will you try to bring it back to the cage? We would be happy and grateful."

The players got a kick out of this. I like the idea that dabuses in Sigil have to stand there while people squint and slowly puzzle out what they're saying.

One of the dabuses had a magic sword. It was stolen! That's three separate swords, all stolen. They gave the group a map of Vudra, an Abyssal Realm full of poison and mariliths (four armed demons with the lower body of a snake). They told the group to seek out Rule of Three (a major NPC in Sigil) at a bar called The Slaughterhouse.

The Slaughterhouse

Tiefling

Rule of Three was at a table with Turia, the crabby tiefling that the heroes met in the "Umbra" adventure. She glowered at the heroes. She too was looking for a stolen magic sword, to give to her faction - The Doomguard (weaponmakers).

Rule of Three told them what was going on. There's a marilith named Kaliva that, for whatever reason, has decided she wants four magic swords. Her agents have stolen these swords from Sigil.

He gave the group directions on how to get to the marilith's realm of Vudra. As payment for this information, he wanted a piece of treasure from the marilith's horde in return - a magic necklace. The heroes agreed.

Then Bidam turned to Turia and asked if she wanted to come. I was not prepared for this. The group already had Fall From Grace. I didn't want to run a second NPC.

Jessie found this funny, as I stammered at the table. In the module, it does say Turia wants to join the group. The heroes felt like this was going to be a challenge (and it is - the marilith is super-deadly).

So next thing we know, I'm roleplaying conversations between NPC party members and Jessie is laughing. She realized this was what I was trying to avoid.

It is so awkward having two NPCs converse. You have to switch voices and everything. I did it fine, but you run out of breath.

Back to the Plain of 1,000 Portals

Armanite

So to get to the Abyssal Realm of Vudra, the group had to go through the Plain of 1,000 Portals. They stopped to visit the wanna-be demon lord Bazuuma (the lady with 20 eyes). Bidam discovered that Bazuuma would be giving birth to his child.

A seer had a vision of what the child would be. It would be a demon dragon that would grow to be so powerful, that Bazuuma could challenge the demon lord Pazuzu for control of the Plain of 1,000  Portals.

I definitely want to play this out in the future, as I've never been a big fan of Pazuzu and would like to run an adventure where heroes and a demon dragon take him down.

The group left Bazuuma and headed for a bridge of skulls, where there was an armanite guard on each end. They followed Rule of Three's instructions - don't talk to the guard on the right.

The left guard brought the heroes to a door hidden by an illusion. The door was covered in dwarven runes and writing.

Theran cast comprehend languages. It said: "The River of Doom. Ten platinum coins. Only fools may enter."

The River Styx 

The stairs led down to a cavern with an underground river. It was, in fact, the River Styx. One drop of that water could erase the heroes' memories forever!

A skiff came ashore, driven by a hooded, skeletal boatman. The heroes got in the skiff, paid the toll, and told him they needed to go to Vudra. The floor of the skiff was full of writhing snakes, but they did not harm the heroes.

The skiff set off down the river.

That's where we had to stop. It was a really fun session, and it sort of bums me out that we'll be stopping the campaign in a week or two.

We could always come back to it. I'd like to run Tales From The Infinite Staircase. We'll do Curse of Strahd, and see what the next adventure is. If the next 5e adventure isn't my bag, we'll probably come back to Planescape.

The original art by Dave Trampier

In this guide I am going to try and give a comprehensive overview on Emirikol the Chaotic. This guide attempts to collect all the lore and put it in one place to give DMs a nice launching point for using Emirikol in a campaign.

You could use Emirikol as a villain or as a crazy, dangerous NPC the heroes need to associate with. You could also just take some of the material in here and apply it to powerful wizards in your home campaign.

Emirikol is a hard guy to pin down. If you know anything more about Emirikol, please let me know and I'll add it to this guide.

The Essential Information

AD&D 2e version by David O Miller

• Emirikol is a chaotic neutral level 24 wizard who dabbles in wild magic. 
• He is a "middle-aged man with a dark, well-trimmed beard, simple but not elegant clothing." 
• He lives in a tower protected by a magic metalstorm, rips in reality and magic-eating creatures.
• Emirikol has a close companion named Tiae, who is a tiefling thief.
• He can fly innately thanks to experiments with a potion of flying. 
• If he is attacked physically, a contingency spell kicks in that casts a disintegrate spell at the attacker.
• He is primarily concerned with things happening on other planes
• He associates with demon lords, including Demogorgon.
• He has five iron golems that he can see, hear and speak through.
• He has a lot of magic items, including Demonwing - a demon ship that is also a layer of the Abyss.

Where did Emirikol Come From?

The Hackmaster version of Emirikol

Emirikol the Chaotic first appeared in the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. It was just an illustration, nothing else. If you google Emirikol you will find piles of blog posts about how this single image gave DMs all sorts of ideas. Many used The Green Griffon tavern in their games. Others recreated this exact scene, with Emirikol riding through a city on a horse firing off spells. Many players made Emirikol the Chaotic as their character.

This person claims that Emirikol was actually a character in a game that Gary Gygax ran in a convention. I have no idea if this is true or not.

The Mysterious Artist

Wormy by Dave Trampier

The original piece of Emirikol art was done by the late Dave Trampier. Trampier drew a number of iconic D&D images as well as a long-running comic in Dragon Magazine called "Wormy." Trampier suddenly stopped submitting things to TSR and apparently some TSR employees thought he had died.

It turned out that Trampier had moved and took a job as a cab driver. When people tried to contact him about his D&D work, he would politely tell them to leave him alone.

There's more information here.

AD&D Second Edition

A Paladin in Hell

Emirikol, the 24th level wizard

It wasn't until second edition that Emirikol actually appeared in an adventure. This one is by the great Monte Cook, and is itself based on another famous AD&D image of a paladin in hell. In this high level epic, the heroes really must go to hell to rescue a paladin and an entire church. This adventure is in a generic setting and is meant to be placed in whatever campaign world you are using.

To get to hell, the heroes must visit Emirikol's home and use his ship Demonwing, which can sail the River Styx. I love this adventure. I am guessing not many people ran it because it is for really high level characters. Here is what we learn:

Emirikol's Mephit: The adventurers have just learned that they have to go to hell. A fire mephit appears and hands them a message:

"I can provide the means to recover what has been lost, but I will give it only to those who ask for it in person. - Emirikol the Chaotic"

What is Known: Emirikol disappeared 30 years ago after a sorcerous duel with a wizard named Tinnestron. 

Emirikol's Companion: When the church got sucked into hell, there were a lot of people inside. One of them was Tiae, Emirikol's closest companion.

• Tiae is a beautiful tiefling who has eyes that glow bright yellow (she covers them with lenses so people don't freak out). She has a ridge of spines that run down her neck and back.
• She is a 13th level thief.
• Tiae wears one ring of joining, and Emirikol wears the other. This means that Emirikol can see and hear through Tiae and she can do the same with him.
• She also wear a ring of shadows, which creates shadows for her to lurk in.

The Metalstorm: The sorcerous battle created The metalstorm, an eternal storm of magnetic winds that carry shards of steel summoned from another plane. The clanging of metal can be heard up to 20 miles away.

• The metal blocks ethereal travel.
• Entering the metalstorm causes you to take d100 damage per round.
• The center of the metalstorm is calm. In it is Emirikol's lair.

Reality Rents: In the eye of the metalstorm, reality has become "threadbare, frayed, and even torn in spots." Those wandering here might fall into another plane. Check it out:

If you fall through a reality rent, you have one round to get back through. If you don't, the hole slowly closes and you're trapped in another plane.

The Magic-Starved: These creatures feed on magical energy and wander in and out of the reality holes. Spells have no affect on them. In fact, they "eat" magic. They swarm casters and beg them to use spells.

If someone casts a spell, they must keep making saving throws as the magic-starved start stealing their memorized spells.

Steeds of Chaos: Also lurking in the eye of the metalstorm are over 20,000 horse-sized creatures that each look different. They run in a circle, an endless stampede inside the metal storm, trampling anything in their path. If you get trampled you take 10d6 damage per round.

The Crystal Spire: This 2,000 foot tall tower is made of crystal and rises up from the sea. The top of it is flat, and on it is a fortress made of polished iron. Halfway up the spire is a ledge and an iron bar. A magic mouth says: "Grasp and speak of the beauty of chaos." Doing so is the way to get into Emirikol's lair.

The Fortress: This fortress is not detailed. All that is said about the fortress is that each room inside it shifts and moves around, and that the place is very deadly and loaded with treasure. I think I would take the rooms in "Emirikol Was Framed!" (a DCC RPG adventure I describe below) and use them as the interior of the fortress.

Don't Try To Get Into The Fortress: Flying around, trying any other way to get in leads to Emirikol's iron golems telling the heroes they're being "rude." If the heroes persist, they are plane shifted to a dangerous layer of The Abyss.

Emirikol's Audience Chamber: The heroes stand on a brass platform floating in darkness. hovering in the darkness is a throne, on which Emirikol sits. He offers the heroes Demonwing, which will get them to Hell.

The Throne of Power: His throne is an artifact. It casts an anti-magic shell in a 50 foot radius that does not affect who sits on the throne.

• It allows a caster to turn "touch" spells into ranged spells.
• The throne allows Emirikol to connect to his golems.
• One spell can be stored in the throne.

D&D 3rd Edition

The Fist of Emirikol

Some of the chart results.

This is both an item in the game and a unique d20 given out as a promotional item.

The Fist of Emirikol is said to be an item Emirikol used often. It is made from bone, and there's a sigil carved in each of its 20 sides.

So basically, your character chucks it at an enemy and the player rolls on a chart for the random effect. The effect is triggered. Most of the effects do a lot of damage. Once the effect is resolved, the fist disintegrates and re-appears in a bag carried by the owner the following day, ready to be used again.

This comes from a free .pdf on the wizards site here. That page also includes a web program that rolls the Fist of Emirikol die for you.

Emirikol in Greyhawk?

Emirikol by Doug Kovacs

This document from greyhawkonline shows that Emirikol lives in the nation of Ull on the world of Oerth. Ull is ruled by a half-ogre named Bruzharag the Misbegotten. I'm not sure if this is referring to material in an official D&D publication or not.

D&D 4th Edition

The Book of Vile Darkness

The main book in this little set has quotes from a lot of different D&D NPCs. There is one from Emirikol:

"This world, I fear, has outlived its usefulness." - Emirikol the Chaotic

D&D 5th Edition

Monster Manual

On page 60 there is a quote from Emirikol. It is placed on a page with stats of demons. That makes sense, I guess, because demons are chaotic.

I like that they've made an effort to keep Emirikol's name out there. It feels like it is time to do something major with him.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Generally I try to keep these guides to "official" D&D stuff, but the DCC stuff I think really does a good job capturing the spirit of Emirikol. I assume they were able to use him through the 3rd edition SRD?

Lokerimon the Lawful

First off, we get an image in the DCC RPG rulebook which is somewhat familiar:

That's a pretty fun idea, to have Emirikol's lawful counterpart. Maybe he was created through some spell effect, where Emirikol accidentally created his exact opposite.

Emirikol's Entropic Maelstrom

This is a wizard spell on page 217 of the core rulebook. If anyone deserves a named spell, it is Emirikol.

This spell creates a maelstrom. "A bank of lightning-filled, purple-black fog appears, and the howling of the damned is heard with its misty confines."

In DCC RPG, when you cast a spell, you roll on a table. The higher the roll, the more powerful the effect.

At low levels, the maelstrom decays non-magic metal and organic materials. It gives weapons a -2 to hit and damage, and a -2 to AC. These are permanent effects! Worse, the next critical hit destroys the affected armor and weapons.

Higher Level versions of this spell:

• All creatures age 2d10 years (elves age 2d10x10 years!).
• All creatures must save or be transformed into glass, sand, tin, "dead vermin" or even primordial ooze.
• The highest result: "All mortal creatures in the area of effect are torn apart by the uncaring, chaotic forces that reside in the heart of the cosmos."

They really don't mess around in the DCC RPG.

Emirikol Was Framed!

You can buy this adventure right here. Centuries ago, Emirikol had a lover named Leotah, who was also a powerful wizard. Emirikol basically dumped her to focus on Chaos. Since that time, the two have been quietly at war.

In this adventure, Leotah has a new scheme to mess with Emirikol. Yes, that's right. She's going to frame Emirikol for a crime he did not commit!

This whole adventure actually starts with what appears to be Emirikol riding a horse rampaging through the city. There's also winged gorillas, known here as "gorhellas."

Basically the heroes have to go to Emirikol's Tower and adventure their way through a bunch of crazy rooms to get to Emirikol. Once they do, we reach the big finale where, of course, Leotah shows up. It's up to the heroes to decide which side to take, if any.

We learn a bit more about Emirikol:

• On the night of the new moon, Emirikol must sleep in a glass sarcophagus, breathing the vapors of a death head lotus to replenish his power.
• Emirikol draws power from an artifact known as "The Glass Darkly." Destroying it may kill Emirikol as well.
• Emirikol lives in The Shifting Tower...

The Shifting Tower

• It is 200 feet tall and surrounded by a trapezoidal-shaped wall. 
• It is located in a city.
• The blocks immediately surrounding the tower are vacant. Nobody wants to live near Emirikol.
• The tower's appearance shifts several times an hour. Sometimes it's made of crystal, sometimes it is a pillar of roiling flame (!), etc.
• The exterior is guarded by a pterodactyl.

Inside the Tower: The walls have veins. If the walls are cracked, they will bleed crimson ichor. The windows are made from "crystallized sweat of demons."

The Golem Room: There's a room with golems on slabs that resemble Emirikol. A hero who is not careful will end up might end up getting their soul drawn into one. It is not pleasant.

The Cranium Library: This room has shelves lined with skulls. Each skull stores knowledge, which you can access by touching one.

Emirikol's Inner Sanctum: This room is mirrored, creating endless reflections in all directions. In the center of the room is a floating chair "shaped like a hollow metal sphere shaved in half."

Links

• A Nice Summation of Emirikol the Chaotic
• This blog post discusses the different Emirikol tributes in other games
• 4th edition version of Emirikol, fully statted, by Tim Brannan
• The real world location that Trampier used as background reference
• The variations on the 1e Paladin in Hell drawing (on which the 2e adventure is based)

In this guide I am going to take a crack at providing DMs with an overview of the Ethereal Plane.

First I'm going to give the essential information for those running 5th edition D&D games. Then I'm going to go back over the older editions and pull out useful information that can enhance a visit there.

I have long found the ethereal plane to be extremely confusing. It seemed so similar to the Astral Plane. I would actually avoid using it because I just didn't know anything about it.

Let's go over the 5th edition information first, then we'll dig back and see what other cool stuff is out there.

The Essential Information


Here's the basic stuff you should know about the Ethereal Plane:

• Overlap: The Ethereal Plane overlaps the world. You can see and hear the world from the Ethereal.
• Safety: When you're in the ethereal, most people in the world can't see or affect you with a few exceptions.
• Walk Through Walls: If you have the ability to go ethereal, you can utilize it to walk through walls, spy on someone or escape a deadly battle.
• Two Halves: The Ethereal Plane is broken into two sections, The Border Ethereal and the Deep Ethereal.
• Portals: The Ethereal is full of floating "curtains" that are portals to other planes
• Demiplanes: The Ethereal is where demiplanes are made. You can even learn spells to create or destroy demiplanes.

D&D 5th Edition

Here's how the Ethereal Plane is described on page 301 of the Player's Handbook:

"The Ethereal Plane is a misty, fog-bound dimension that is sometimes described as a great ocean. Its shores, called the Border Ethereal, overlap the Material Plane and the Inner Planes, so that every location on those planes has a corresponding location on the Ethereal Plane. Certain creatures can see into the Border Ethereal, and the see invisibility and true seeing spell grant that ability. Some magical effects also extend from the Material Plane into the Border Ethereal, particularly effects that use force energy such as forcecage and wall of force. The depths of the plane, the Deep Ethereal, are a region of swirling mists and colorful fogs."

The Ethereal Plane is further described on page 48 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. We learn:

• Overlap: The Ethereal Plane overlaps both the material plane and the inner planes. Every location on those planes has a corresponding location on the Ethereal Plane.
• Flying: The laws of gravity don't apply. A creature can move any direction, even up or down.
• Being Ethereal: Creatures in the Ethereal can't attack creatures on the overlapping plane, nor affect objects or be heard.
• Ether Cyclone: Twisting vortexes in the Ethereal that can hurl travelers into a random plane.

There are two sections of the Ethereal Plane

1. The Border Ethereal: Visibility is limited to 60 feet. You can see 30 feet into whatever plane it overlaps.
2. The Deep Ethereal: Travel through the Deep Ethereal takes d10x10 hours no matter where one is headed. Visibility is 30 feet. There are portals scattered throughout this area leading to the Shadowfell, the plane of fire, and other places.

The Etherealness Spell: This 7th-level spell is on page 238 of the Player's Handbook. It allows the caster to travel into the Border Ethereal for up to 8 hours.

Other spells that interact with the Ethereal Plane:

• Plane Shift: Allows casters to go to the Border Ethereal or the Deep Ethereal.
• Blink: On a roll of 11 or higher, the caster appears in the Ethereal Plane.
• Forbiddance: It blocks out creatures from the Ethereal plane.
• Leomund's Secret Chest: The chest and its contents are actually floating in the ethereal!
• Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound: It can see into the Ethereal.
• See Invisibility: The caster can see into the Ethereal Plane. Ethereal creatures and objects appear ghostly and translucent.
• True Seeing: The caster can see into the ethereal plane up to 120 feet.
• Wall of Force: The wall extends into the Ethereal.

Truesight: Creatures with truesight can see into the Ethereal.

Magic Items: There are two items that deal with the ethereal:

• Oil of Etherealness (DMG page 183): You can use this to cover one medium-sized person with the oil, which causes them to gain the effects of the etherealness spell for one hour. 
• Plate Armor of Etherealness (DMG page 185): Once per day you can speak a command word and gain etherealness for 10 minutes. This armor is legendary - extraordinarily rare.

Monsters: Certain monsters can travel between the material plane and the ethereal.

• Ghost: Ghosts can see into the Ethereal, and they can shift to and from the plane.
• Kuo Toa: These fish-men can actually see 30 feet into the Ethereal.
• Night Hag: They can visit a sleeping person ethereally and intrude on their dreams. If the victim dies in their sleep, she can claim their corrupted soul in her soul bag. Hags can use their heartstones to travel to and from the Ethereal Plane.
• Nightmare: These evil horses can take three willing creatures within 5 feet to and from the Ethereal.
• Phase Spider: They can shift into the ethereal, using the ability to sort of "teleport" around the  battlefield.
• Succubus: They can travel to and from the Ethereal. They like to visit people in the ethereal, whispering forbidden pleasures. This makes the victim more susceptible to temptation in life.

AD&D 1st Edition

A Waystation in the Ethereal Plane

There is an entire chapter devoted to the Ethereal Plane in the 1e Monster Manual. It is the cosmic "glue" that binds the Prime Material and inner planes together. It contains the "protomatter" that new demi-planes are made of.

There's a note that "an enterprising spell caster can utilize the Leomund's secret chest spell as a method of travel..." Other fun facts:

• Protection: Buildings can be treated with an alchemic mixture containing gorgon's blood that can be mixed into the mortar of a building. This prevents ethereal and astral creatures from passing through.
• You Can't Make People Explode: A traveler cannot materialize partially inside the body of an enemy! All living beings, including plants, have an aura that prevents ethereal travelers from passing through them.
• Time is Slower: Time passes ten times slower in the Ethereal Plane. A ghost's attack would drain only d4 years off of your life in the Ethereal.
• Eat Less: You still get hungry, but less so. You only need to eat every 10 days.

Stuff You Run Into: There's all sorts of weird stuff in the ethereal:

• Supply caches containing food and water for 100 days, meant for long trips through the ethereal.
• Waystations: Places like taverns or guardposts for nearby curtains
• Beings turned into ethereal stone (the most common item found in the border ethereal)

Demi-Planes in the Ethereal: The Ethereal contains planes still being formed, globs of proto-matter gathering other proto-matter. There are four named demiplanes:

• The Demi-Plane of Shadow
• The Demi-Plane of Time: Those who enter leave much older or younger.
• The Demi-Plane of ElectroMagnetism: A dying realm being devoured by the quasi-elemental plane of lightning.
• The Demi-Plane of Imprisonment: This is only a rumored location, a place where beings of great evil are trapped.

AD&D 2nd Edition

A Guide to the Ethereal Plane

The Ethereal is also known as "The Misty Shore" or "The Waveless Sea." Here's some fun facts:

• It connects most worlds, aka the Forgotten Realms, Oerth, etc. Krynn and Dark Sun aren't reachable.
• The Ethereal connects to the Inner Planes (the elemental planes). It doesn't connect to the outer planes or the astral plane.
• Nothing sits in relation to anything else. Relative distance lies only in your perception.

Ethersickness: The first time you spend 10 minutes in the Deep Ethereal, you make a saving throw. If you fail, you have a -2 to all rolls until you leave.

The Wall of Color: This is a shimmering wall of ethereal mist that is seemingly infinite. It contains portals to every elemental plane, the prime material plane and a pile of demiplanes.

Chronolily: These giant flowers let you see into the past, present or future. Its petals form a bowl that contains a golden nectar. Images shift in them at random every 30 seconds. Certain wizards have figured out how to control what it shows by plucking petals in a certain sequence.

Ether Gap: A rip in the ethereal plane that is like a black hole. If you get sucked inside, you are lost to the multiverse. Not even a wish can bring you back.


Protomatter: Blobs of stuff that make up demiplanes. There's 3 types:

• Ephemeral: 99% of the time it turns back into ethereal mist within a few seconds. It feels like a clump of fluffy snowflakes.
• Quintessential: This stuff feels like a cork. The blobs are up to 1,000 feet long. You can chip them up and make weapons or construction materials to make buildings but it only lasts for d100 hours before becoming mist.
• Stable: It feels like metal sheathed in a thin layer of leather. This eventually becomes a demiplane.

New Spells: All of these only work in the Ethereal Plane. Here's some of the more impressive ones:

• (lvl 5) Stabilize Ether: It stabilizes protomatter, allowing you to use it to make stuff.
• (lvl 6) Dissipate: The victim boils away and merges with the mist. Only a wish spell can bring them back to life. Yikes.
• (lvl 8) Demiplane Seed: This creates a demiplane in the Deep Ethereal. The demiplane grows one foot in radius every day to a max of 10 feet per level of the caster. The caster can create whatever environment they wish.
• (lvl 9) Demiplane Decay: This spell actually destroys demiplanes.

Demiplanes: There's descriptions of a pile of demiplanes. I talk about some of them further down - these demiplanes have been featured in a few other products.

There's a chart that you can use to roll up a random demiplane. Let's make one:

To get to my demiplane, you must pass through an olive curtain. The demiplane is 3 miles in diameter and contains a marsh. It is inhabited by... beholders!

This book is loaded with encounters and weird places. It's probably the one thing you'll want if you're going to use the Ethereal.

Dragon Magazine 213 - The Demiplane of Shadow

I get the feeling that in 3e, this became the Plane of Shadow, and in 4e it became The Shadowfell. This article actually mentions that "scholars" believe that the demiplane will become a fully-fledged plane within a few centuries. Pretty cool.

This article is a little skimpy on details of the plane. Most of it talks about shades, including warrior shades, wizard shades, etc.

Vortexes: It is a gloomy land in perpetual twilight. In the sky above the demiplane is a vortex to the positive material plane, and a vortex to the negative material plane.

Gloomy: It is similar to a mortal world. There is weather, hills, forests, etc. It is always twilight here. Any food and water found here has no substance in which to nourish.

Creatures: We get a list of creatures that dwell here, including shadow dragons. We also get:

• Umbrimals: Natives of the plane, shadowy elemental types.
• Shades: Once-powerful mortals who tried to become immortal by infusing their bodies with shadowstuff.

D&D 3rd Edition

Ethereal Filcher

The Ethereal as described in the Manual of the Planes is basically the same as in older editions. It sums it up with this quote:

"The Ethereal Plane is a Transitive Plane, a plane of getting from one place to another."

There's a few monsters linked to the Ethereal.

Ethereal Filcher: These really, really weird creatures slip into the world, steal a trinket from a person, and then slip back into the ethereal. Wow, their lair must be 5e trinket heaven.

Ethereal Marauder

Ethereal Marauder: These guys live in the Ethereal and are about 4 feet tall. It hunts people in the material plane, popping in, biting them, and popping back out.

It would be cool if there was a monster who could drag people into the Ethereal.

Dragon Magazine 313 - Ghost Elves of the Ethereal Plane

Thousands of years ago when the elven civil war led to the fall of the drow, the ghost elves were elves who remained neutral in the conflict. The drow fled to the underdark, then came back and wiped out most of the ghost elves.

An "alien entity" called Thule appeared and offered to save the last of the ghost elves in exchange for their service. The ghost elves signed a contract with Thule, only to discover he was a pit fiend. He took them to Hell and did all sorts of terrible things to them.

He ultimately made the ghost elves into soldiers for the Blood War, which made them into great warriors. The ghost elves eventually killed the pit fiend and fled to the Ethereal Plane.

Now they live in the Ethereal plane and make war with devils.

• Ghost Elves are stern and cold. Earning their trust involves many subtle tests and trials.
• They are neutral.
• They have abandoned worship of any god.
• They despise drow.
• Ghost elves have gray hair, pale skin that glows in darkness (they can suppress this when they concentrate), and their eyes are like mirrors.
• They have hidden homes in forests on the material plane that hold secret portals to the Ethereal.

Cities: Ghost Elven cities in the ethereal are lit by silvery light, and are laid out without regard to gravity. They have domesticated phase spiders in their patrols.

Powers: As they gain levels, they gain powers. They start off able to travel to the ethereal. Eventually they can see invisible, blink (as per the spell), and eventually shift to the ethereal at will.

Dragon Magazine 353 - Multiple Dementia: A Guide to the Demiplanes

This article details some demiplanes that exist in the Ethereal Plane. Most of these are updates from the 2e Ethereal book.

The Black Abyss: This place is pleasant but empty and eerily silent. You drift through caverns of white stone, and you might find weird items like gems or magic items. There's a famous brass tablet with the words: "...we are safe now upon this furthest shore. The stolen gift of... Vaati...sealed and sustaining Lord Ygor..."

In the largest cavern there's a huge obelisk with the words "Time" and "Space" carved on it.

In the center of the demiplane is a swirling pool of darkness. Those who enter it vanish. Possibly to Limbo or the Negative Material Plane.

Judging from hints in this article, it seems that the obelisk is somehow related to the spawning stone in Limbo. "Ygor" might refer to Ygorl, Lord of Entropy, one of the slaad lords. The reference to the Vaati refers to the wind dukes, the blue-skinned people who try to guard pieces of the rod of seven parts.

So the slaad stole something from the wind dukes and hid it here in the ethereal plane..? Awesome.

The Demiplane of Imprisonment: This place is the prison of an incredibly powerful creature who wants to destroy everything. The prisoner can reach out to people in the world in their sleep.

Those who get within 500 feet of this demiplane have visions or dreams - they'll need to make saving throws or be compelled to touch the crystal. If they touch it, they are trapped inside the crystal.

The crystal moves 20 feet per round through the ethereal, under the control of the prisoner inside.

Time does not pass and magic does not function inside the crystal. The being inside can change the shape of its' prison, but not the size or mass.

A few prisoners have escaped the crystal with the aid of a wish spell from an outside party. They are completely insane.

There's a huge list of other demiplanes. Here's some of the ones I thought were cool:

• Demiplane of Haven: A city created by the mercane to compete with Sigil for the title "Hub of the Multiverse."
• Demiplane of Time: A place filled with storms and odd temporal effects.
• Neth, the Demiplane That Lives: A living, protoplasmic demiplane possessed of a childlike curiosity.

Further Reading

• There, Not There: A 3rd Edition Article on Etherealness by Skip Williams
• The Difference Between Incorporeal and Ethereal by Sean K. Reynolds
• Blog of Holding is Not a Fan of The Ethereal Plane

Today I just want to write a little bit about a campaign that I'm playing in. We played last Saturday and it was really good.

My Sunday group wasn't able to meet, so we'll finish Nemesis next Sunday. I haven't gotten Curse of Strahd in the mail yet but it should come soon.

Ebberon

So for the past 18 months or so, I've been playing in a 5e Eberron campaign run by my friend. We play once a month. We're about to hit sixth level.

One nice thing about this campaign is that I know absolutely nothing about Eberron. It is all new to me. Honestly, I find the whole thing pretty confusing. I can't keep all the organizations and merchant houses straight.

The DM has basically planted a pile of mini-adventures in the city of Sharn (which I love), and our group kind of picks and chooses what we want to do.

The overall story involves the deck of many things. The cards are scattered throughout the city. Apparently two rakshasas who might be "Lords of Dust" are doing this for some reason.

Each session is better than the last, and the one we just did was really good.

The Bag of Beans

When we sat down, the DM said in advance that this session might be a little loose and we should feel free to do whatever. He has a little baby so the guy has his hands full.

My character is a big, hairy guy (like Indiana Jones' friend Salla). He drinks and carouses all the time to try to forget the events of the Last War. He piloted an elemental airship and it crashed. My character is jolly and he likes to make friends with everybody.

So we're in this dungeon area and we found some kind of demon corpse. Once we fully explored the room, I decided it was time to use my bag of beans.

A bag of beans is a magic item. I have 7 beans. I plant a bean in the ground and a minute later a random thing happens. I roll on a chart from the DMG that the DM has. I have purposely not looked at this chart because I love random charts and I want to be surprised.

So my bean sprouts a statue that looks like me and keeps insulting me. My allies decided to tip it over. It shattered, dust swirled and took off down the hall. I got the feeling this dust cloud was somehow related to the demon corpse thing.

We talked for a minute and realized that we should go get a hireling to help us handle these weird rooms and traps.

The Hireling

So up into the city we went. We selected three NPCs and each character came up with a different test. The NPCs had to:

• Go on a supply run and buy adventuring equipment
• Find a book in a library
• Have a drinking contest

We scored the NPCs and the winner was a goblin named Swack.

We gave him an official uniform: A big droopy hat, a one-piece jumpsuit/pajamas with buttflaps, gloves, goggles and a backpack loaded with all that weird dungeoneering stuff (ten foot pole, spikes, etc).

The DM rolled on the NPC charts in the DMG. Our little Swack had:

• A twitchy eye
• High INT
• Low WIS
• Hot-tempered
• A skilled dancer! 

He was an intense little dude.

So we go back down into a dungeon we were exploring. I found a secret compartment in an altar. I could see it was magically trapped.

The party fighter asked Swack to go handle it. I told him he didn't have to, but Swack's eye started twitching and I got out of the way.

Swack opened it, and poison gas hit him right in the face. He died.

The very first encounter! Poor guy.

We sent hams to his wives (he has two wives, it's a goblin cultural thing) and went to the cemetery and buried him.

Bean Number Two

After some discussion, the group decided it wasn't too disrespectful to plant a bean from the bag of beans on the fresh soil atop Swack's grave, so that's what I did.

Lo and behold, a GEYSER OF WINE exploded out of Swack's grave. I quickly filled my canteen with it. I've decided we will drink Swack's wine to celebrate once we've assembled the deck of many things.

At this point we were laughing quite a bit. We knew what we had to do - get another hireling!

Hireling Number Two

Three more NPCs were recruited and they too went through grueling tests of skill and wits.

The winner was Jenny, a human woman (with an Australian accent) who had braided hair. Some of her traits:

• High WIS
• Low CON
• Perfect Memory
• Low Voice
• Rude
• Afraid of water

We gave her her droopy cap and buttflap pajama/clothes.

We went to go talk to a priest at the Church of the Silver Flame for a quest. There were a lot of plants outside. I knew what I had to do.

After chatting with the priest, we stopped on the way out. I planted a bean. I had to know what happened!

Bean Number Three

Suddenly, 5 pink toads appeared. I got excited, because I am trying to build a mermaid aquarium in our base and the pink toads are a great addition.

I was wary, though. I wanted to use mage hand to move them into my handy haversack.

But the group wanted our new hireling, Jenny, to touch them. So she did. She touched a pink toad and it immediately transformed into a grizzly bear! We did battle with it.

I realized that this might be my only chance to wrestle a bear into submission in Dungeons & Dragons. I had to try. You know what happened? That bear immediately pinned me to the ground and beat the bejeezus out of me. I was at -3 hit points within 2 rounds!

Thankfully the group killed it and healed me. The other toads vanished.

Let the Players Do Their Thing

It was an awesome session and it reminded me for the millionth time that the best sessions are when it feels like the players are in the driver's seat. We had freedom to do as we pleased, and it was very enjoyable.

It helps that his sessions are 6 hours long. Mine are only 2, maybe 3 hours. The thing about letting the players take the reigns is that it generally eats up a lot of time as the players discuss options.

In a "railroad", you can get a lot done because we're just going from encounter to encounter. There's not much exploring or dead ends or extraneous interaction with NPCs.

I'll definitely try to run my games more like this one, though, because I really enjoyed it.

I decided to write a summary of the first episode of Dice, Camera, Action! It is a new weekly stream on twitch and youtube where mighty Chris Perkins runs Curse of Strahd for a group of players.

This is not going to be a critique or anything like that. I'm going to summarize the events and provide timestamps for the parts that I think are the best. At the end I'll offer my general thoughts.

You can watch this right here on youtube.

The Party

The Waffle Crew (aka The Warriors of Waffles)

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

The Beginning

The characters are 3rd level and they've been adventuring together for a while.

It all begins with our heroes cooking wieners over a campfire. We learn a bit about each character:

• Strix: She wears crusty clothing that she always picks at and she has... a cranium rat! Awesome. Its' name is Stinky. She scratches its' brain. Apparently Stinky is a little slow.
• Diath: He's a tomb raiding type who is cleaning his trusty lockpicks. He has a mysterious ring of keys that he carefully protects.
• Evelyn: She wears white and gold armor. Her face is described as "cherubic." She has a pet mouse, named Juniper.
• Paultin: He plays the lute and the bagpipe. He can be a little mouthy. He has a rival who may or may not be a voice in his head.

So the mists suck the group into Ravenloft. Their campfire becomes a bonfire. A dark figure appears in the flames and glowers at Evelyn. Strix soils herself.

Entering Barovia

The group comes upon a rusty gate and passes through. The gate swings shut behind them. I should point out that the heroes sent Evelyn through the gates alone as trap bait.

The adventurers come upon the corpse of a commoner who has been clawed to death. He is clutching an envelope. In it is a letter from Kolyan Indirovich, the Burgomaster of Barovia. The group learns that there is a vampire causing problems here, to put it mildly.

Evelyn casts Detect Evil and she realizes the entire realm is tainted with evil. She drops to one knee, overwhelmed. Strix splashes her with filthy puddle water to snap her out of it.

Lathander

There is some discussion of Evelyn's god, Lathander, and whether his connection with Evelyn is severed (she still has her spells and powers). Strix thinks Lathander is busy picking his butt.

The group follows wagon tracks and comes upon a village. They spot the Blood of the Vine Inn and they hear sobbing coming from a boarded up building.

Evelyn shimmies through the window to look for the crying woman. She draws her axe, Lightfall. It is double bladed and has the symbol of Lathander on it. Holly sketches the symbol of Lathander real quick:

Evelyn finds the crying lady. The lady is holding what appears to be... a dead baby! Evelyn looks closer and sees it is actually a doll missing an eye. She says "the devil Strahd" took her baby, Gertruda. Evelyn promises to get the baby back.

The woman explains that Strahd hunts the people of Barovia, aided by wolves and bats.

She gives Evelyn the doll. It has a tag on it that says: "Is no fun, is no Blinsky." No idea what that means!

The Blood of the Vine

They go into the Blood of the Vine tavern. Paultin fires up his bard ability to perform in exchange for free food and drinks. His bagpipe-playing impresses 3 women wearing colorful clothes (it turns out that they are owners of the bar and are Vistani - gypsies).

One woman says she didn't think Paultin's performance was that great, so Paultin busts out his magic eyes of charming to change her mind.

Diath meets an NPC named Ismarck who is related to Ireena, daughter of the Burgomaster. He wants the group to meet her.

Paultin ends up dancing with one of the Vistani. The group gets weirded out by shadows on the wall moving strangely and they decide to leave. Strix uses magic to leave a foul odor in her wake. I don't think she cared too much for the vistani, who had assumed Strix was a servant.

They go with Ismarck to his dilapidated "mansion." They meet Ireena, who is wearing armor and a red tunic. She has two puncture marks on her neck!

That's where we stop.

Next Week: We'll learn more about Strahd and meet a Vistani who can divine the future.

Chris says he's been taking notes during the game and he has a lot of ideas for things to do with the characters. I am really interested to see what he has come up with.

Timestamps

• (16:00) The heroes enter Ravenloft, Strix is grossed out by Evelyn's friendliness.
• (23:28) It turns out that the group was originally on a quest to get waffles.
• (43:40) Strix gets freaked out when she learns that vampires can turn to mist.
• (1:04) Evelyn wields Lightfall.
• (1:23) Paultin uses his eyes of charming, Evelyn is his wingman.

Thoughts
The Group So Far: Evelyn and Strix both feel like classic characters right off the bat. Evelyn immediately took on the role of party leader and it works really well. It's a good group. Everyone seems at the very least pleasant. 

Holly: Holly is hilarious. If I had to pick a favorite so far, it would definitely be her. Her character is actually using Planescape slang, so apparently she is from Sigil. She refers to the Lady of Pain's Mazes at one point. I hope we get some kind of flashback into her past.

Chris Does Great Voices: Chris does a bunch of really good voices in this. I almost want to cut out his reading of the letter and just play the recording of it when my players come across the letter in my game.

No Combat: Not one battle! It was fine. The session was going at a leisurely pace but it didn't drag much. If you're looking for combat and stats stuff, this is not the session for you.

Overall: It was a good first episode. There were a couple of slight audio hiccups but they were extremely minor. It was amusing to see someone come in the door behind Anna and grab a box or something and creep back out. Is she at a campus or something?

It will be fun to see how things develop.

We just finished Nemesis and it was a very good session. I changed a few things in the adventure. I junked a lot of the rooms in the yuan-ti dungeon because they felt unnecessary. I de-powered the marilith slightly, as I was worried she was too deadly. It turns out I probably should have left her alone.

I purposely had Raja Khan the rakshasa run away because.. well, I just don't like rakshasas. I don't know why, but they just don't appeal to me. I guess they feel too much like a Disney movie villain.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Drow Wizard
* NPCs - Fall From Grace (Succubus Paladin), Turia (Tiefling Fighter)

The Bloodsea

Shaktari, Queen of Mariliths

The heroes had come to the Abyss in search of four magic swords that had been stolen from people in the city of Sigil. They were sailing the river styx to Kaliva's Island, one of many islands in the Bloodsea. The Bloodsea is ruled by Shaktari, Queen of the Mariliths. Each individual island has a marilith ruler of its own.

The heroes disembarked and headed onto the beach. To get to the jungle, they would have to climb up a slope.

Eyewing

As they did so, four eyewings swooped down and cried poison tears on them. The heroes made quick work of them.

The Taboolands

The group headed into the jungle. The insects there can give you the poisoned condition if you fail your save. The overall realm has this poisonous atmosphere - after 12 hours, you have to make saving throws or become poisoned.

The heroes ended up following the map that the dabuses gave them to The Taboolands. There they met a tribe of people who had been dragged into this realm by Kaliva's yuan-ti. They're sort of like the cast from Lost, but they wear loincloths and paint their bodies.

Once they found out that the heroes were here to kill Kaliva, they gave them a magic item - an arrow of demon slaying. Turia wanted it, but so did Theran. Crabby old Turia decided to have an archery competition with him to prove she deserved it. Theran won, and it wasn't even close (even though Turia is a fighter and Theran is a spellcaster!). For the rest of the adventure, Turia kept sarcastically calling Theran "Trick Shot." She was bitter that he had won.

The Halfling Traitor

Arjin the halfling, a cowardly member of the Alives, offered to take the group to get Shaktari's Ichor. When drank, the ichor could protect you from the poisonous atmosphere of the realm for one week.

What the heroes didn't know was that Arjin was actually Raja Khan the rakshasa in disguise. Over the course of the adventure, the group gave him a magic cloak and Theran's crossbow that shot flaming bolts, having no idea that they were actually arming their enemy.

Teleporter Chamber
"Arjin" led the group to a building in the base of one of the mountains where the ichor was. It was in a serpentine fountain. Theran used his wand of secrets to find a secret door. Beyond it was a hallway.

I had the group make a marching order, as they were about to hit a trap that I thought was cool. Bidam led the group down the hall, and a pit trap opened up beneath his feet. He made his save and hopped back. The pit was 20 feet deep and full of snakes! The group was able to go around it.

The group explored a side chamber and found a magic cloak that could protect against the poisonous atmosphere of this realm. They gave it to Arjin, who graciously accepted.

Then they made their way to a room with a giant statue of a 5-headed snake. Three yuan-ti attacked, and the group made quick work of them. They turned their attention to the statue.

Each snake head of the statue had a set of different-colored eyes. There was a lever below each head. Bidam began pulling levers:

• Purple Eyes: It teleported the group back to the area with Shaktari's Ichor.
• Red Eyes: A symbol of pain hovered in the air, injuring everyone.
• At this point, it was decided that everyone but Bidam would wait out in the hall so only Bidam would have to take damage.
• Blue Eyes: Bidam was hit with a lightning bolt.
• Black Eyes: In 2e terms this energy drained you! I changed it to: Weakened until a long rest. Bidam made his save so it wasn't an issue.
• Green Eyes: Teleport to Raja Khan's Lair. Poor Bidam picked the "correct" lever dead last.

The group headed in, pulled the lever and teleported to Raja's lair as well.

Raja Khan's Temple

Raja Khan lived in a small palace high up on one of the other mountains. The group had no idea that Raja was right there among them magically disguised as a halfling.

Outside the palace were dozens of poles, each holding a severed head. They realized that one was Llisian Slitterknife, the guy they'd been hired to find.

The group passed through the entrance, which were golden doors. Inside was a vast open area with two statues and a few side chambers. The statues:

1. A cambion (I don't really understand who this is or why it is here)
2. A giant two headed tiger. This thing was actually alive - It was Raja Khan's pet, covered in a stoneskin.

So the adventurers checked out a bunch of mundane side areas and were stumped. How could the place be so empty?

Weirdly, the heroes asked Arjin to take a look around. This played right into Raja's hands. He hammed it up big time, walking around rubbing his chin and going "Hmmmm..." Then he walked over to the statue of the tiger, leaned on it with one hand and pretended to be deep in thought.

Suddenly, the statue came alive. It blew by Arjin and attacked the heroes! They groaned at Arjin, still thinking he was just some idiot.

To their surprise Arjin turned into Raja Khan and laughed at them. While the NPCs fought the tiger, Bidam ran over and sliced into Raja Khan. Raja magically dominated the dragonborn and made Bidam attack Theran! Poor Theran got hurt really bad.

Raja ran through a back wall. The group killed the tiger and cursed.

The Tiger-Ladies

They decided to try and follow Raja. They too ran through the wall - an illusory wall, it turned out. They ran downstairs and came to a hallway that had a floor completely covered in centipedes. They caught a glimpse of Raja going around the corner and through a door.

The group walked through the centipedes (if you walk carefully, they leave you alone) and listened at the door Raja had entered. They heard muffled arguing, and then saw a flash of light through the cracks.

It turned out that Raja Khan had argued with his two concubines and then cast Plane Shift to escape. I decided that Raja ended up warning Kaliva, handing her the magic sword Starzad, and running away to parts unknown.

The group burst into the room only to find Raja's two concubines, Serinza and Thoebe, staring at them in fear. In the adventure these women are yuan-ti, but I decided to change them into tiger-ladies (who look like Tigra from the Avengers) from some far flung plane. One was actually a white tiger-lady.

The group questioned them and eventually learned of a teleport circle in a secret room nearby that could take them to Khaliva's lair. They also found Llisian's magic amulet. They took it with the grim knowledge that they would have to give it to his sister and explain that he was dead.

The group needed to heal, so they took a long rest in the palace. They locked the poor tiger-ladies in a hanging cage just to be on the safe side. Fall From Grace was not pleased with this, and watched over them.

Once healed, the group teleported to Kaliva's lair.

The Four Swords
Kaliva lived in a cavern on the third mountain, in a building surrounded by a moat of sentient ooze. The moat could and did attack with pseudopods.

The group explored side caves. They found a long-dead wizard and looted both his spellbook and his wand of lightning bolts (!). Theran loves that wand and I think it has replaced the wand of magic missiles as his go-to weapon. I mean.. it does 8d6 and it has 7 charges!

In a fungus chamber they found a massive pile of gold. Sticking out of it was a magic horn of blasting! Bidam claimed the horn.

Stocked up on damage-dealing magic items, the group made their way into the shrine.

The Shrine of Shaktari

Kaliva knows the group is coming, so she has set up a trap. She has an illusion of herself prepared to go. The hope is that the group will waste their big attacks on the illusion (including the arrow of demon slaying). Then, the real Kaliva pops out from behind a huge statue and surprises them!

So.. the heroes go in. The illusion rushes them. Theran fires off a lightning bolt and is shocked when it passes right through her. Fall From Grace and Turia race forward, and their attacks pass through as well. Interestingly, Bidam cast mirror image on himself (he's an eldritch knight). He'd never used this spell before. Bidam moved to the statue and used a bonus action to hack at the statue, thinking maybe the statue was the real threat.

Theran suddenly realized what was going on. He disbelieved - and indeed, it was an illusion.

Bidam hacked away at the statue. First of all, I had Bidam roll a perception check to see if he noticed the real Kaliva hiding right there behind the statue. He didn't.

Second, in the adventure, the statue comes to life if it is "deliberately defiled." It is 12 feet tall, has six attacks and breathes a cloud of poison that KILLS YOU if you fail your save ("after 1d4 rounds of helplessness").

I had previously decided to not use the statue as a threat because I feared that Kaliva alone was going to be tough enough. With the statue in play the group would have been slaughtered. In retrospect I should have had the statue do something minor, like breath a cone of poison each round or something.

So Bidam hacks into the statue, sparks fly, and suddenly Kaliva slides out from behind the statue in slow motion and closes in on Bidam. Kaliva had all four magic swords in her hands:

• Starzad: Vorpal scimitar
• Ffazablur: Sword of sharpness
• Midnight: Sword of life stealing
• Wizardbane: A magic, spell-casting sword

Kaliva kicked off her attacks with a critical hit from the vorpal sword! That means... it cuts off Bidam's head! Or, it would have, if it hadn't hit a mirror image instead.

Kaliva was a whirlwind of blades, but all she did was take out all of Bidam's mirror images.

Theran hit her with a lightning bolt (doing half damage because of the marilith's resistance). Fall From Grace ran forward and hacked into Kaliva.

Turia snatched the arrow of demon slaying from Theran, fired it... and missed. On her next turn, she ran over, did a forward roll, snatched the arrow off the ground and fired it from a kneeling position... and missed again. On the turn after that, she rolled, snatched the arrow and uttered a catchphrase: "Let's see you slither out of this one!" She fired... and missed again.

The marilith mauled Fall from Grace in a single round, nearly killing her. Fall From Grace used lay on hands to heal herself. Kaliva tore into her again.

Bidam sliced into Kaliva and then Fall from Grace landed the killing blow by charging her sword with radiant energy (divine smite).

Fall from Grace had just a couple hit points left. Her chastity bodice was sliced to shreds, but the magic kicked in and it repaired itself in moments - good as new. Unfortunately, blood poured out from the underside of the bodice, pooling on the floor. She was hurt very badly.

The place began to rumble. The heroes ran out of the shrine as it collapsed. They made their way to the massive treasure pile and dumped it in their bag of holding.

Escape

They used the teleport circle to return to Raja Khan's palace. No sign of Raja.

The heroes asked the tiger ladies to return with them to Sigil to work in their festhall. I decided that Serinza, the white tiger lady, is going to ask Theran to become his apprentice.

They decided to loot those golden doors. Next time they'll have to work out the logistics of getting those doors through the jungle and onto that little ferry full of snakes.

I also decided that Fall From Grace is going to stay with the Alives, and escort them onto the ferry in groups. She'll take each group down the river styx, journey with them through the Plain of 1,000 portals, and take them through the portal to Sigil. Then she's going to give them her share of the huge treasure pile so they can survive in the city. That's what a paladin would do, right?

We are going to play one more session of this. I want to see what the group does with Ash Vodiran, the thief who stole all their money last session.

I also want the group to go through a short adventure from Well of Worlds, where they actually break in to one of the Lady of Pain's Mazes.

When I read this adventure, I really didn't like the second half of it. I generally am not a fan of jungles in D&D. I also don't like yuan-ti or rakshasas. But this adventure was really good, pretty much awesome from start to finish. I actually liked this as much if not more than Umbra.

Welcome to the recap of Episode 2 of Dice, Camera, Action! I'm going to give you a summary of what happened, provide timestamps for what I think are the most interesting parts, and then I'll give my general thoughts.

A Valuable DM Aid: I think that the best thing about this stream is the fact that when I watch it, I feel like I can run it for my group. I could definitely run the opening of this adventure without reading the book.

I think any DM who has the time can watch this and learn not only what happens in the adventure, but they also get to see how Chris presents it. The stuff with the mists and the wolves in particular is going to help me out when I run this.

You can watch this episode right here on youtube.

Last Time: The heroes entered Ravenloft and went to a tavern. They learned that a vampire named Strahd is terrorizing the local populace. They just went to the home of Ireena, who has two puncture marks on her neck...

The Party

The Waffle Crew (aka Waffleloft)

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

New Look
Our viewing screen has been reconfigured. The background changes from one Curse of Strahd image to another. The NPC art shifts throughout the session and someone is writing jokes on them, which I get a kick out of. Looks like they accidentally tagged Paultin with Diath's name and class.

The Church

Ireena

We learn that Strahd has visited Ireena twice in the night. She is not a full vampire, but she's on her way.

Her father is in a coffin, surrounded by wilting flowers. He "died from fright." He needs to be buried in a consecrated area.

The heroes agree to take the coffin to the church and bury him. Ismark, Ireena's brother, warns the group that they avoid the church because they hear a lot of screams coming from it. The church is run by a priest named Donavich. Ireena puts on armor, grabs a sword and picks up the coffin.

The group carries the coffin to the church. Along the way, Paultin jumps on the coffin and plays a tune. This music attracts wolves in the mist. The mist begins to swirl around the heroes.

The doors to the church have claw marks on them and have been scarred by fire. Evelyn bravely enters.

Never Speak the Name of EssPants

Donavich the Priest

A young man under the floorboards of the church yells out, "Father! I'm starving!" It's Doru, Donavich's son. The priest is behind the altar, praying/weeping. Strix gives him a snack - a cracker possibly dotted with pocket lint.

Donavich explains that "the devil" turned his son into a monster. He tells the heroes not to say Strahd's name out loud. Strix refers to him as Mr. S-Pants or "The" S-Pants. It turns out that Strahd turned his son into a vampire. The priest can't bring himself to kill his son.

The group steels themselves and heads down into the basement. Doru is indeed a vampire spawn. Interestingly, Evelyn immediately moves to smite him. She is a paladin, after all.

Battle Against a Vampire Spawn

Doru, the vampire spawn

We get our first attack roll of the campaign. Evelyn charges the vampire spawn and rolls an 11 (+6 to hit, so 17 total). With divine smite she does a total of 26 points!

For the majority of this battle, Jared rolls extremely poorly. He keeps throwing his dagger, missing, picking it up and throwing it again. The DM's dice were on fire. He made almost every save, nullifying most of the spell attempts.

The vampire spawn tries to run up the stairs and out of the building to escape the onslaught. Paultin casts discordant whispers. Evelyn rolls a natural 1 and misses. Strix hits it with a ray of frost, slowing it down.

The spawn tears into Evelyn (critical hit, doing 13 damage!). She is bloodied from a single swipe.

Up the Stairs: Covered in ice, the vampire spawn tries to run up the stairs. Diath rolls, picks up his dagger and throws it in "one badass motion." The poor guy misses again.

Evelyn comes over and hits the vampire spawn with ensnaring strike. The vampire is wrapped in massive, thorny vines that strain to keep him in place, but the vampire spawn makes his save and plows through them.

Strix cast chromatic orb and injures it. The vampire spawn ascends the stairs. Paultin slices it, but his weapon does not affect it. Evelyn hacks into it with Lightfall.

Strix is dismayed to see that the vampire spawn's wounds are healing due to regeneration.

Jared rolls so poorly that he is sucked into a dark realm where shame reigns for all eternity:


Out of the Church: The spawn is upstairs and ends up impaled on Ireena's blade. With the blade still stuck in it, the spawn runs out of the church. Paultin hits him with more dissonant whispers. Diath chucks a flaming flask of oil at it, which hits and also dispels his shame cloud. 

Strix teleports using Misty Step and chases the vampire spawn, who is still on fire. A wolf bites her leg to try to trip her up. Paultin hits it with whispers and then Diath runs up and hacks into the wolf, rolling the first natural 20 in combat of the campaign. He kills it in one shot.

Into the Mists: The vampire gets away, with Ireena's sword still stuck in him.

The Burial

The group gets to burying the dead dad. Then they look around and see they are surrounded by about 24 wolves. The pack of beasts stares at the group with evil eyes.... and that's where we end.

Next Week: Chris is not sure how the heroes will get out of this one. He wants the players to come back next week with an iron clad plan.

Timestamps

• (9:51) Evelyn maybe, sort of has the ability to consecrate?
• (41:48) He's chained up, right?
• (49:43) The heroes approach Doru, the vampire spawn in the basement.
• (1:22:26) Diath throws flaming oil.
• (1:30:40) The group figures out exactly what the dissonant whispers are whispering to the wolf.

Thoughts

Anna's giant d20

Enhancements: I love the new screen and all the funny stuff they did with it. The changing images and the jokes gave the game an extra layer of fun.

Pets in D&D: It's funny, it seems to always happen. Pets always get forgotten in D&D. We see neither hide nor hair of Juniper or Stinky. I know it's only been one session, but it's almost like a tradition. I can't tell you how many times I was running a game and the group suddenly realizes that they have a goat with them.

Anna is Great: Anna is pleasant, she is a natural leader, and she roleplays her character extremely well. In fact, as far as roleplaying goes, I personally think she is right up there with the best players I've ever seen. It felt like she really carried the group to an extent this week. She doesn't seem to know her stats very well, but we got a glimpse of her Player's Handbook and it had a whole bunch of tabs in it. That means she probably takes time to do character work between sessions and will likely be up to speed on her paladin stuff shortly.

Dice Rolls: I can't think of anything that could be done about this, but it's too bad there isn't some way for us to see everyone's die rolls. I suppose they could put some kind of dice roller on the screen, but I prefer real dice to computer stuff.

Subdued: The Crew was noticeably more subdued this week. I'm not sure why that is, but it definitely felt different this time around. We got to know Jared a little better. He seemed to come alive during the combat. In general, he seems very level-headed and could be the guy who will keep the plot moving forward when necessary.

All in all, it was a decent session. The group did not get to the tarokka reading, which is a bummer. It will be very interesting to see how the cliffhanger is resolved.

Welcome to what will hopefully be a useful guide to running Curse of Strahd. My goal here is to provide a resource for all of us DMs to use. I am going to go through the book and try to organize things, figure out any confusing sections, and possibly provide cheat sheets for any scenes with a lot of moving parts.

I am going to be nibbling away on this for the next week or two, so please bear with me as I go chapter by chapter. Check back here often for updates!

Official Links:

Death HouseA pdf of the level one adventure from Curse of Strahd
Haunted One Background and Trinkets
Table of Contents
Barovian Souls
Story Bible
Black and White Free Maps (untagged)
All of the Maps by Mike Schley
Handouts
Volo's Visit to BaroviaA great story/overview of Barovia by Ed Greenwood
Adventurers' League DM and Player Guides
Adventurer's League Launch Page
Dice, Camera, Action!This is a stream of the adventure's author running Curse of Strahd. If you have the time, definitely check this out.

Other Links:

An Enhanced Version of Strahd
Enhancing Curse of Strahd
Merric Blackman Curse of Strahd Playthrough

My Links:

My Review/Rundown of Death House
Guide to Strahd von Zarovich
Guide to Vampires

Planning

You should definitely check out the Adventurers League DM Guide for Curse of Strahd, as it has a number of fun things you might want to include in your game.

Jenny Greenteeth: This hag can help out the adventurers and she is the only spellcaster who offers services in Barovia. The heroes have to pay he in gold and will also have to do a random hilarious service for her.

Death in Ravenloft: This rule option says that if a character is under 5th level and they die, the Dark Powers of Ravenloft will resurrect them! The adventurer will rise up the very next round, but they will have to roll on a chart for a "dark gift." They will also be Touched by the Mists. "You're tainted by evil. Cats hiss as you approach, milk sours at your touch..." The character also gains..

Resurrection Madness: Souls of the dead are trapped in Barovia. When  character is resurrected they gain a form of indefinite madness from realizing that their spirit is trapped in Ravenloft, possibly forever. This is discussed in the Curse of Strahd book on page 24.

Roaming Barovia: This adventure is wide open. It is possible that the heroes will end up in  place way too dangerous for them. If this is something you don't normally do, you might want to alert your players before the first session of this fact. Some players go into a campaign with the assumption that everything is scaled to their level. Here is the areas by level chart (page 6) with page numbers for each area:

(Level 3) Village of Barovia: Flavor page 33 (the heroes will likely hit A, B and C before arriving at Barovia),
(Level 4) Town of Vallaki: (work in progress, I swear)
(Level 4) Old Bonegrinder
(Level 5) Village of Krezk
(Level 5) Wizard of Wines Winery
(Level 6) Van Richten's Tower
(Level 6) Yester Hill
(Level 7) Argynvostholt
(Level 7) Werewolf Den
(Level 8) Tsolenka Pass
(Level 8) The Ruins of Berez
(Level 9) Castle Ravenloft
(Level 9) The Amber Temple

Before You Start the Campaign


Here's some stuff you might want to do before you begin the first session:

• Decide Between Level One or Level Three: If you want to run "Death House" (page 211) start the group at level one. If you want to jump right in to the main adventure, have the group make level three characters.
• Handout: Print out the handout called "Version Two" on page 256 in case the heroes find the body in the Svalich Woods (page 34). 
• Notes: Check out page 7 and maybe jot down a few little moments like a sight only the hero with the highest passive perception sees, an example of age, etc.
• The Mists: Make sure you understand how the mists work (page 23) and have those elusive exhaustion rules ready (Player's Handbook page 291). When you're in the fog, you're heavily obscured (PH page 183) which means you are blinded - attacks rolls against the blinded person have advantage, and the blinded person's attack rolls have disadvantage.
• Souls: Make sure you understand Barovian Souls (page 24). Only 1 in 10 Barovians have a soul!
• NPCs: Make a bunch of Barovian villager families (use the name list on page 25) in case the heroes explore houses in Barovia (page 41). That's d4 adults and d8-1 kids per dwelling. Remember that most Barovians are bland, depressed nothings. You might want to come up with personalities only for the 10% that have souls.
• Zombies: Make sure you have Strahd Zombie stats ready, maybe roll out how many zombies there are in a house or two.
• Yikes: Check out/absorb the night hag stats just in case things get hairy when the heroes get to page 48.

How to Start the Adventure
 
1. Adventure Hooks: Pick a hook from the pile on pages 18-22 and run it. Here's the three that I think are kind of the "main" ones:

• Plea For Help (page 18): A gypsy gives the group an invite to Ravenloft. 
• Creeping Fog (page 22): The heroes are camping, the mists take them to Ravenloft. 
• Mysterious Visitors (page 19): The group investigates gypsies, are escorted through Barovia.
  

2. The Lands of Barovia: Go to the map of Barovia on page 35. The heroes come in on the far right of the map and experience these encounters in order:

• A. The Road (page 33): Creepy forest. The heroes walk for 5 hours and then...
• B. Gates of Barovia (page 33): Headless statues, gate swings open.The image of this place is on the bottom of page 34.
• C. Svalich Woods (page 34): Where they might find a dead guy with a letter.

 3. The Village of Barovia: Once the group gets to town, there are some choices to make:

• If the heroes are level 1: and you are going to run "Death House", skip to page 211 and read that flavor text. Once this adventure is done, then proceed...
• If the heroes are level 3: read the flavor text on page 41 (Mad Mary's weeping).
• As the Group Begins to Explore the Town:They see an old lady selling dream pastries (she does her best to avoid the heroes). This one is a bit weird and dangerous.
• Follow the Weeping: Checking out the weeping will bring the group right by Bildrath's Mercantile and the Blood of the Vine Tavern. A major NPC awaits the heroes in the tavern, so put a neon sign on it or something.
• Exploring: The group will probably check out Mad Mary (page 44), then buy some stuff at Bildrath's (page 43) and check out the tavern (also page 43).
• The Tavern: The heroes can meet Ismark. If you did the "Pleas for Help" hook, Ismark says the letter is a forgery. Ismark wants the heroes to come to his mansion to help his sister...
• Burgomaster's Mansion (page 44): The heroes meet Ireena and see that their father needs to be buried in the cemetary...
• Church (page 45): There's a vampire spawn and some shenanigans.

 Obviously I am just getting started! Check back again soon, I'll be working on this for a while.

Now that we've finished Nemesis, tonight I decided to run an adventure from Well of Worlds. In this adventure, the heroes go in to one of the Lady of Pain's Mazes. It is an awesome idea, but there really isn't a whole lot of material for the Maze. There's a couple rooms, a couple of factions searching the place, and that's it. I tried to find more material on the Mazes that would help me flesh it out, but I couldn't find much.

Faction War: A few days ago I bought a Planescape book that I have never read. It's Faction War, a big adventure that was meant to be the start of an epic trilogy, but the trilogy never happened because TSR went out of business.

I have been reading through it and it has 30+ pages full of new Sigil details! There's also a massive adventure and tons of info. It gave me a million ideas. I think our group is just going to keep playing Planescape. I'm already writing a guide to Curse of Strahd and writing summaries for Dice, Camera, Action, I don't feel like it is necessary to also run Curse of Strahd and write about it.

Maze Alterations: In the written adventure, the heroes break into the Maze to steal a sword. I changed this so that the heroes had to break my Donald Trump NPC out of the Maze. A bunch of factions have realized that Trump hid an item that could be used to possibly overthrow the Lady of Pain, and now it is a race to get to him (and it) first.

There's a ton of extraneous stuff in this summary. Really it's all extraneous, but this was one of the best sessions of the whole campaign. If you just want to see what the Mazes adventure is like, skip down to "Meeting with the Factol."

The Party

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

Downtime


The heroes had killed the marilith named Kaliva and took her four magic swords.

They did a ton of stuff:

Golden Doors: They stole Raja Khan's golden doors and had them installed at their festhall. It was quite a process getting it over the River Styx and through the Abyss.

Rescue the Alives: Fall From Grace made a bunch of trips back to Kaliva's Island, and rescued the entire tribe of Alives. She set them up in Sigil. 40 of them became Sensates, which made The Factol of the Sensates, Erin Darkflame Montgomery, very pleased with Bidam.

Cacklestorm: On the way home through the Abyss, a cacklestorm hit. Theran failed his save and began laughing, paralyzed. This is a permanent effect until you give him the cure - which the group didn't have (cure: drink 10 vials of holy water). They had summoned the nightmare with the wand of darkness, so they put Theran on its back and kept moving. He was cured in Sigil.

Fell: The heroes gave the swords to their rightful owners and fulfilled all of their obligations.When they gave Ffazablur (sword of quickness) back to the dabus, I did a thing where Fell the fallen dabus happened to be nearby. The dabuses glared at him. Fell hung his head and walked away. This is a bit of foreshadowing to set up next session.

Cubic Gate: A scummy wizard wanted his sword, Midnight, back. He has this huge backstory connected to Kaliva. Basically, Kaliva was a mortal who rejected Nalen's romantic advances, so he turned her into a low level demon and abandoned her in the Abyss. Kaliva worked her way up the demonic ranks in the Blood War and became a Marilith, and she wanted those 4 swords to get revenge on Nalen.

I figured the heroes would be appalled, but they shrugged it off. They gave him the sword, and he gave them a cubic gate in exchange. He showed them how to use it. I mapped out the places it can take them. I'm sure this will get use in future sessions.

Tiger Ladies: The adventurers had rescued Raja's two tiger lady concubines. One of them got a job working at a gambling hall owned by Shemeshka the Marauder. The other decided to become Theran's apprentice! We did a wizardly training montage, and now she's first level. Each session she survives, she will gain a level.

Undermountain: I have this NPC adventuring group using the portal to Undermountain. Each time we play, this group goes into an actual area of an Undermountain module and reports back later. These NPCs will also slowly gain levels.


Cranium Rats: A cranium rat warned Bidam that Ash Vodiran (the thief who stole 18,000 gold from them and blew it all in one night) was under their protection.

I did a bunch of reading on cranium rats. Cranium rats have exposed brains, and they all share a single hive mind. They hate mind flayers.

In Faction War, it says that there are actually four separate groups of cranium rats in Sigil, each with their own hive minds. They are known as "The Four Great Minds." They do not get along with each other. It says that they sometimes utilize mind-shackled slaves to attack or thwart the others. I immediately had ideas. I am working on names for the four great minds. Here is what I have so far. It's a work in progress:

• Many-as-One: These are the rats the heroes have been dealing with. This is the name they were given in Planescape: Torment.
• Vermin Supreme: Stupid, I know, but it makes me laugh.
• The Manifold Singularity: ?
• I'm torn between these crap ones: Merged Multitude (ugh), Unification Consensus or Integrated Lenothix. Maybe none of the above! I'm still working on it.

Blood War Brewing: I did a thing where the devils who live in Deadbook Square (which is the collection of buildings that the heroes own) are not happy that there is a portal to the Plain of 1,000 Portals in the square. They are worried about demons coming through. They are secretly considering going on a raid through there.

Shemeshka Applies Pressure: The heroes own the buildings in Deadbook Square. Shemeshka basically wants to put as many businesses as possible here, but the heroes aren't letting her. So she tried to use the organizations she either controls or has sway in to pressure them. The heroes haven't realized that this is her doing yet:

• Mutual Trade Association: They said the heroes would need to register with them (for a hefty fee), or they would have to start doing inspections of their festhall. The heroes said no.
• Knights of the Crosstrade: This group wanted a 1,000 gp membership fee, or else other festhalls might start to try to steal their employees. Heroes said no again.
• Runner & Escorts Guild: Demanded that the heroes compensate their employees up to the "Sigil standard" or else they'd take them to court. The heroes paid 2,000 gp in back pay.
• The Adventurers Guild: They wanted a 1,000 gold membership fee or else the other Adventurers in Sigil might become a problem. There's a lot of jealousy going around in the adventuring community and the feeling is that Bidam and Theran aren't sharing the wealth, so to speak.

Meeting With the Factol

Erin Darkflame Montgomery, Factol of the Sensates

With all of that out of the way, Bidam got a note from Factol Erin Montgomery Darkflame, leader of the Sensates. Bidam met with her. He learned that Gonard Flumph (my goofball Donald Trump NPC - I like working Donald Trump-isms into the game) had hidden a really powerful item somewhere before he got Mazed. This item supposedly was powerful enough to change Sigil or even threaten the Lady of Pain.

Other factions are aware of this, and they are all gearing up to get to Flumph first.

So Bidam rounds up Theran, Selinza and Fall From Grace and they go through a portal into the Maze.

The Maze

How to Run a Maze: In D&D, it is hard to run a maze or Labyrinth. Way back when, my friend created a teleporting maze. We wandered it for hours of real life time. He wanted us to figure out the right sequence of portals to use, but we never came close to figuring it out. Some of the players got really bored/annoyed.

This adventure gives you a few ways to handle navigation of the Maze. You can narrate every intersection and turn, or you could go abstract. Time was at a premium, so I boiled it down to a single roll. Fail meant that someone else got to Flumph first and the heroes would have to snatch him from their clutches. The heroes failed.

What Does a Maze Look Like? So the group wandered the Maze for hours. In the adventure, it suggests that wandering the Maze could take a day or more. I had a really hard time finding any description or detail on the Mazes. In Planescape: Torment, there is a Maze, but it has a lot of weird black roots so I think it was themed specifically for the prisoner, Ravel Puzzlewell.

I decided that Flumph's maze was made of good old Planescape metal encrusted with verdigris. I didn't know what verdigris was until I came across the word when I ran the Temple of Elemental Evil:

Verdigris

Verdigris: A bright bluish-green encrustation or patina formed on copper or brass by atmospheric oxidation, consisting of basic copper carbonate.

Exploring the Maze: The group wandered for hours and came upon a door. They listened and heard people talking. The Harmonium (who are sort of the town guards of Sigil) was in there, looking for Flumph.

I thought the group was going to jump in and attack. This Harmonium patrol was led by Durkayle, the demoted member of the Harmonium from the Umbra adventure. But.. the group just waited for them to leave.

In the room was a huge statue of the Lady of Pain. When damaged, it repaired itself.

The Fated: A few more hours of wandering led to their goal: Flumph's chamber. Unfortunately, The Fated got to him first. The Fated is a faction that believes in survival of the fittest. Their Factol is Rowan Darkwood, an NPC who does major stuff in Faction War.

The Fated want to take Flumph out of there, but the heroes are ready to fight. The adventurers drop the Fated easily. Selinza cast her first spells and hit both times.

Trump Time: Flumph was appalled to see the heroes again. He blamed them for the death of his daughter. I had written down a bunch of recent Trump quotes from the past month or two and worked them into the conversation, slightly modified to fit the situation:

• "Dark Elves come to Sigil... they bring drugs, they're rapists..."
• "I happen to think you're a lightweight."
• "I was ready for you, but it's much easier if the Fated do it, don't you agree? And to think, I had such an easy life - what do I need this for, right?"

I can't believe I forgot to use the quote where he talks about the size of his "manhood." There's more, but you get the idea. I do a terrible Trump impression, but I love doing it. This NPC is meant to be a foil for the group, so I play him as a scoundrel.

Flumph also couldn't believe that Bidam and Theran were accompanied by such beautiful women.

The group huddled up and talked over what they wanted to do. They decided to bring him along with them and get this mysterious item. Then they were going to dunk his head in the River Styx and wipe his memory clean! And after that, they were going to dump him back in the Maze. Pretty clever, I thought.

Charming Trump: Fall From Grace used her innate succubus ability, and charmed him. He kept telling her she was almost as beautiful as his wife, Melania, and that he was "...very rich, I'm very successful. I make a lot of money!"

They got Flumph out of there and smuggled him through Sigil. They were worried that the Lady of Pain would do horrible things to them all if she found them.

The Mysterious Item

Fall From Grace as she appeared in Planescape:Torment

X Marks the Spot: They went to Tradegate in the Outlands, and headed to the site where this item is buried. It was sunny out and the tall grass swayed in the wind. Flumph said that the item was buried at the base of a cherry tree with pink leaves.

The heroes got to the spot only to find someone already there, digging! Ash Vodiran, the thief who had stolen piles of stuff on two separate occasions, was here as an agent of Shemeshka the Marauder.

He sat at the base of the tree drinking Razorvine Wine, being all casual and cool. He wasn't digging the hole. He had brought 100 cranium rats here in a bag of holding to do it for him!

Swarm of Cranium Rats: Speaking in monster stat terms, the cranium rats were one massive swarm. I statted them out to be similar to a dragon. They have a mind blast that does 22 damage and stuns you for one minute (save at the end of each round).

Ash used his power to hold his breath and become a shadow/insubstantial. He began to do a goofy dance as the massive horde of cranium rats unleashed a single mind blast.

This blast actually took Theran into negative hit points! Bidam and Fall From Grace were stunned. The only people who made their saves were Selinza and Flumph!

Flumph was still magically charmed. He searched Fall from Grace for a healing potion. We all agreed that Flumph would do the following: He slipped his hand under her chastity bodice and copped a feel! What a scumbag! Fall From Grace was stunned and thus couldn't act, but she still knew what was happening. She was overcome with rage and loathing, dark feelings she had tried for years to suppress.

Level 1 Wizard vs. a Horde: Ash told Selinza she was a total babe and should hang out with him sometime. He told the rats not to attack her. He told her she should just leave.

Selinza looked back at Tradegate, then down at Theran. She knew she was outmatched... but she decided to stay and fight!

I asked George (he plays Theran) what she did. Theran had his wand of lightning bolts in his hand. She couldn't use that wand, but she could use his wand of magic missiles! She grabbed it and unleashed a torrent of missiles on the swarm.

Bidam came to and dumped his jar of milk of healing (trust me, you don't want to know where this stuff came from) into Theran. The rats literally swarmed all over his body, eating him alive! He took a pile of damage and things were looking grim.

Vaimish Crasad

Cavalry: Riders on horses came over the hill. It was Vaimish Crasad the paladin lord, accompanied by his squad of paladins and clerics! The heroes met him wayyyy back in the Great Modron March. He and his sister had been turned into Modronoid abominations and died. The adventurers actually found a way to get them raised from the dead and back to normal. They have been eternally grateful ever since.

I deliberately set this tree here because Vaimish's fortress is close by. I knew the group would have trouble with the rat swarm so I had prepared for these guys to show up to make the save.

So the paladins crushed the rat swarm and they even had special manacles that could hold Ash (rare variants of the Harmonium shackles that prevent plane shifting). Vaimish had received holy visions from his god hinting at this battle for weeks, and thus he was very prepared.

Fall From Grace Revenge: When Fall From Grace came to, she lunged at Flumph. She was going to kiss him - her kiss means death, but it also means that she forfeits her status as a paladin. She was angry and blind with rage. The heroes held her back.

Then, once she was calm, Theran turned around and blasted Flumph with a chromatic orb spell. These lawful good paladins were shocked. They quickly healed Flumph and chastised the heroes, and especially Fall From Grace. "You are above the cold-blooded murder of a defenseless man!"

Ash ended up being taken to the jail in the paladin lord's fortress.

The Mysterious Item: The heroes finally checked out the buried item. It was in a trapped box, which they were able to get open.

In it was the Staff of Aoskar, the god of portals who nearly took Sigil over long ago. This staff had the power to alter and create portals in Sigil, and it also had a portion of Aoskar's godly essence inside...

That's where we stopped. We'll do more next week.