Feature Image by u/brochiefwave
This is part of my Revised Guide to Curse of Strahd. For the list of articles, and the order to read them, see my Intro to My Revised Guide. If you find this interesting, feel free to use as much or as little as you want.
We bounced back and forth across the valley a lot, but I won’t assume what order you’ll tackle it in. For anything that I ran as it’s presented in the WotC Curse of Strahd book, I’ll put in Italics, for anything that I ran from one of the 3rd Party Sources, I’ll put in underline.
West Barovia revolves around four areas:
- The Wizard of Wines
- Yesterhill
- van Richten’s Tower
- The Werewolf Den
Wizard of Wines
I ran the Martikovs fairly as written. The Martikovs are the ultimate source of knowledge in the valley, but they will only give little bits each encounter, as they learn to trust the party more and more. There are little notes from various sources how to make the initial invasion a little more interesting, but nothing substantial is changed.
Yesterhill
I changed the name to Yesterhill (pronounced Yester-ill) because it feels more natural. The biggest changes here, again are the history of the Forest Folk, which you can read about in my History of Barovia.
Along with the dead adventurer’s battleaxe under the Gulthias Tree, was the Sunsword hilt, as prophesized by the Tarokka Reading. The Sunsword belonged to Sergei, Strahd’s brother, and is lightly sentient, giving the party visions of the pool in Krezk. Once the party puts the hilt in the water, once they pull it back out, it will have a blade of light. This is a foreshadow of the Something Blue event. However, if Strahd sees it, he will be enraged, so hopefully they don’t pull it out while he is present for the Druid’s Ritual.
Kavan the Bloodsinger
Why does Kavan reach out and grant his spear? Well, he says “Retrieve it, and rule these mountains in my stead…” but the book gives no hint as to what he means by this, so let’s figure out what that means. First, if you present the Blood Spear to any Forest Folk, they will not fight you. If you attempt to give them commands, they say you need to go to Yaedrag, the village of the Forest Folk.
Yaedrag is a whole area that DragnaCarta has defined, complete with new hooks and conflicts. The only thing I change is that the Chief Sigrid is very proud of her position, and very loyal to Strahd. She will be willing to work with whoever holds the Bloodspear, or the “Kavan-chosen”, so long as they don’t make it clear they are anti-Strahd. As soon as they do, they will be banished from Yaedrag. The only way to truly lead the Forest Folk tribe is to defeat the Chief in one-on-one combat, called a Mok-Gora. Make it clear that the Chief is incredibly strong, so this is really an endgame type event, if they want to become the new Chief of the Forest Folk.
One of the things the Forest Folk see as a sign of worthiness from the Rozana (Ladies Three) is a Druid’s Wildshape. None of the Forest Folk can Wildshape anymore, so if you have a Druid, then this will quickly win over the Forest Folk’s respect.
Below is one of my few Stat Blocks, because DragnaCarta only has Chief Sigrid as a Berserker, but that doesn’t work with my Mok-Gora storyline. I have very little expertise with monster design, so if you have notes, let me know in the comments below.
Winter Splinter
I ran the Druids’ Ritual pretty straightforward. One change I made was that while Strahd does observe the proceedings, he does not engage. He watches the entire event, regardless of the outcome, and will only respond if the players make the mistake of attacking him. My players loved to hate this, because he is so far above what is happening, that it makes him feel even more intimidating. Shouldn’t he at least care? No. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything you, or any of these Forest Folk, do.
Mountain Fane
When they find the Sunsword, they will also find the entrance to a cave under the Gulthias Tree. This cave is the entrance to the Trial of the Huntress from MandyMod. I made minor changes to the Trial itself, but largely MandyMod created a wonderful dungeon that is perfectly mind-twisty for an ArchFey.
When Strahd deconsecrated the Fane he gained +4 to his AC, so when you complete the trial, his stat block changes -4 from what his AC is listed. Let the party know this bit of metaknowledge, so it helps them feel the purpose of all this work.
Van Richten’s Tower
The first time you get to the Lost Tower, should be with Ezmerelda, because otherwise it’s pretty far out of the way. When you get there, I hate the dancing puzzle, so instead use the eroded name puzzle from DragnaCarta. This might introduce the name Khazan, but they might have also heard the name if they’ve found the Tome of Strahd.
Most of the tower is as written, except for the basement. If you know to take the elevator down, or if someone goes up while someone else doesn’t, you can see below, then you can find a secret laboratory.
If you’ve seen the Will Smith movie I Am Legend, then you’ll know what I’m going for here. This basement can be dim, a little cold, and covered with desks and notes and various vials and tools. In the middle is a table, where a vampire spawn lays strapped down. His name is Yan, and he was a Vistani. A Vistani that was helping Rictavio the Carnival Barker enter Barovia. However, once inside, Rictavio turned on Yan, and forced vampirism upon him. Now Rictavio, actually a famous monster hunter named Rudolph van Richten, conducts painful experiments on Yan, trying to find his vampiric limits. How long can they go without drinking blood, how much of their grave dirt is required to rest, how much sunlight is required to stop regeneration, and what are the prolonged effects of sunlight? Everything that a scientist-hunter would want to know about fighting the most dangerous prey.
This isn’t the only experiment of van Richten’s however, as he also wants to create a controlled Lycan serum. He wants to see if he can infect himself as a werewolf without losing control. Some might argue that van Richten would never turn himself into a monster, but I think that van Richten knows that not only is Strahd the most powerful monster he has ever fought, but also he fully intends to die in this fight. Van Richten is old, and this is the ultimate culmination of his work. If he survives defeating Strahd, he will probably kill himself after.
In order to work on this serum, he needs the tongue of the Elder Lycan in the valley. The elder being Skennis, not Kiril, in the Werewolf Den. The problem here, is that once van Richten gets that serum made, he will start to become antsy, and impatient. He will have done everything he wants to do to prepare for his fight against Strahd. He, generally speaking, doesn’t care what the party’s plan is, and so if they want to coordinate, they will need to find a way to convince him to sit around and wait for them to also be ready. For this, my party tried giving him assignments, and told him he should study his own affects under his Lycan-serum, and record it for others to study. Once you’re at the endgame though, everything feels like it’s moving quickly, because Strahd knows that the party are actually getting strong enough to be a threat, and he will start to actively oppose them. Van Richten being impatient will be another stressor in the endgame.
Speaking of Rudolph van Richten, I hate the idea that he is a spellcaster. So below are two stat blocks, one for his human form, one for his lycan form. I have it so he changes intentionally by administering another dose of the serum, and it takes such a toll on him, that he believes (correctly) that he’ll have a heart attack after the third time. If you want more of a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, you can have him transform out of control, like Bruce Banner and the Hulk. Depends on how much Order/Chaos you want from van Richten.
In the future, I am going to replace van Richten’s main stat block with the Apothecary from the Dugeon Dude’s Sebatian Crowe’s Guide to Drakkenheim. Depending on the design, I might even give stats to The Doctor in Krezk.
The design for this was based on the Loup Garou in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.
Werewolf Den
The werewolf den I kept fairly straightforward, with a few minor changes.
First, the hook to finally go clear it out. I made it so the party was drawn in on the Full Moon, because we went with the werewolf adventure hook, so two weeks later is the New Moon. There are two types of werewolves, inherited and infected, and while the inherited werewolves can still turn on the new moon, the infected ones cannot. Because of this, even though almost all the werewolves in the valley will have retreated to the den that night, only five of them will be able to turn. The rest will all be stuck in human form. This is one of the first BIG fights that really leaves an impact on the valley, as now the werewolf threat is all but gone.
Obviously, your party doesn’t have to wait, until then, but if they haven’t, I found it worth pointing it out to them, they felt very smart. Also, this is best if they’ve already met van Richten, or otherwise know of his plan to make a Lycan serum.
Also, if they do talk to Zuleika about her missing Emil, she will tell them that he is being kept in the Tsolenka Pass, not Castle Ravenloft. More on that later.
Lastly, from my History of Barovia, you’ll see that Mother Night, whom the werewolves worship, is actually a bastardized version of the Ladies Three, the Archfey that once ruled this valley. One of these Archfey, the Huntress, granted lycanthropy to certain hunters in the valley, long before even the Tergs arrived. They don’t know much about the Archfey themselves, but the treasure is indeed cursed. Even if the Archfey have lost control of their power in this valley, curses long outlive their makers.
The Nerdd 
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