Featured Image by Daniel Rosini
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.
The Dinner with Strahd is a very interesting part of the campaign, in that it is not part of the book, actually. Strahd invites the party to dinner, but then there is nothing else involved. It’s seen as more of a trap to lure them into the castle, where he can kill them. Almost every DM who reads this can see the massive waste of potential this is, and so it has become a common homebrew to actually let the party have a formal sit down dinner with Strahd in Castle Ravenloft.
Before Dinner
First, the invitation. When does Strahd invite the party to dinner? Most Outsiders in Barovia fall into one of two camps. Either they succumb to their new life, and just become a new citizen of the valley (usually Vallaki), or they attempt to kill the monster ruling the land, and are instantly killed and turned into vampire spawn. Every so often, a group with a good head on their shoulders arrive, and actually attempt to improve the valley, and intelligently prepare to fight Strahd. Our players are one such group.
So, when the party eventually does something meaningful that either affects the valley as a whole, or directly with Strahd without foolishly trying to attack him, he invites them to dinner. He wants to know more about this group. For my group, it was at Level 4 in Krezk, when the party helped The Doctor prepare Vasilka for Strahd. After he dances with, and destroys, Vasilka, he invited them to dinner. This was clearly a moment where the party is resourceful, and interested in helping others, and didn’t attack Strahd though they were in the room with him for several minutes. It is worth noting this isn’t the first time they saw him though. He attends the Winter Splinter ritual that the party stopped, but that was simply a skirmish with the Forest Folk. This was sophisticated.
I had a fun moment leading up, as the party told a few people that they were going to Castle Ravenloft upon Strahd’s request, they all responded the same way
So when he said he wants to HAVE YOU FOR DINNER, are you sure he didn’t mean…?
So they go to the Castle, are greeted by Rahadin, and are led into the Dining Room, where Strahd is playing the organ. As they cross the threshold, e stops, the doors behind them lock, and I call for initiative. The fight with Strahd begins NOW!
This threw my players into a panic. Surely they knew this was a trap, but they didn’t expect this. I allow them all to fight Strahd to their dying breath. As the last of them drops, the illusion fades away, and they realized that nothing actually happened. Strahd isn’t even in the room yet. It was all an illusion, but the fight was the illusion, the dinner is real. If they ask Rahadin what happened, he responds “We know what you were wondering, so we let you play your fantasy out, so we can move on and enjoy dinner together.”
They know they can’t take on Strahd yet, so they might as well actually go through with the dinner, and just talk.
The Dinner
As for dinner, I loved actually having themed food around the game table. I got out the nice plates and silverware, and we really enjoyed having a semi-formal dinner. If you want to, feel free to let the players know that the next week you’ll be doing the Dinner with Strahd, so they can dress up, and maybe even pitch in some money, or make a dish inspired by the list, so that as the DM you aren’t responsible for putting on and paying for a much bigger dinner than the pizza or takeout that you might be used to.
On Reddit, u/Ason42 has a fantastic step-by-step guide to a Ten Course Dinner, that includes what dishes are served, and how the conversation goes. Go read that first, and I’ll tell you the adjustments I made.
First, I didn’t actually serve a full ten course dinner to the extent of this menu. I did however create a small tasting menu, so each course my players and I enjoyed what was the equivalent of a fancy snack, so we could eat a standard amount of food, but still feel directly involved with the characters. For example, the first entrée is listed as Roast Lamb with Apricots, and I think I did a bit of charcuterie sausage with a slice of baguette toast and some apricot jam. It’s not the same, but it felt authentic.
Second, I removed the Traitorous Bride side plot entirely. I felt like the dinner was exciting enough as it was. Without that side plot we still spent about 5 hours just doing the dinner, and we were eager to get out of the Castle and back to fighting werewolves after that. I saved the tour to the Study for the Digestif.
During the salad phase, Strahd secretly offers each of them a deal, and if they accept to drink white or red wine. For half the players White means yes, but the other half Red means yes. So this obviously is going to get some suspicion between players. However, to add to this, I think you should offer very low stakes deals, ones that the characters might actually consider accepting. In the original post, u/Ason42 gives examples like “Kill the Others” and “Turn over Ireena.” I replaced those with “Help Lady Wachter take over Vallaki” or “Tell me the secrets of the Martikov family.” These might even be things the party was planning on doing already, and make them reconsider their plans. If they do accept, then it will be easier to get them to work with him in the future. Classic manipulative behavior.
Once Strahd arrives, he has a more public request for the party, to bring him Rudolph van Richten. Strahd still doesn’t know that Rictavio is van Richten, but he knows the famed hunter is in the valley, somewhere. He also probably doesn’t know how well the party knows van Richten, if at all The deal is if they bring van Richten dead, Strahd will grant them one favor, up to and including allowing a single person to leave Barovia. If they bring van Richten alive, Strahd will grant them three favors. These are real favors, and Strahd will allow them to actually leave. He cares more about van Richten than he does the party, because he actually fears van Richten’s abilities. Rudolph van Richten is the Dumbledore to Strahd’s Voldemort.
Now, as for the other attendants at the dinner, I want to make all of the consorts (not “brides”) a little more unique. For this, I used the Lunch Break Heroes version of the consorts, where they all have class features, and personal interests. So:
- Ludmilla is a Wizard, and has the Spellcaster variant. She is also a scientist, and is torturing Emil at Tsolenka Pass. She will help The Doctor find “Fresher Parts”, and will be training Victor Vallakovich after he fails to flee the valley during the Festival of the Blazing Sun.
- Anastrasya is a Fighter, and has the Warrior variant. She is also a general, and organized St. Andral’s Feast, and the Sacking of Krezk after the Something Blue event.
- Volenta is a Rogue, and has both Sneak Attack (6d6 for a Level 11 monster), and anytime a weapon attack against Volenta misses, she can use her Reaction to make an Opportunity Attack (custom ability). Also, she loves tinkering, and I decided that every trap and hidden door throughout the Castle were actually her design. So if the party are sneaking through the castle and set off a trap, or open a secret door, she knows and will come to intercept them.
- Escher is a Bard, and has Bardic Inspiration (d10) and an attack called Screech, that is inspired from the Bruxa of The Witcher, as well as the wail of a rockstar. Escher is also the only consort who doesn’t want to be here. He was from a group of Outsiders, just like the party, and after his party died at the hands of Strahd, Strahd turned the bard into a Spawn for his entertainment. Escher will come to the party after the dinner and demand they help him escape. He will be violent, and threaten to kill the party’s allies unless they help him. He wants to leave Barovia, and Strahd, or die trying.
- Screech. Escher belts out with all of his strength producing a violent noise. Every creature within a 60ft cone must succeed a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save a creature takes 7 (2d4+3) psychic damage and is knocked prone, or half as much on a successful one.
After Dinner
At the end of the dinner, Strahd takes the party to his study (K37) and gives the party gifts, as any noble host does. These gifts should really straddle the line between helpful and harmful. As examples:
- For my Rogue Inquisitor, Strahd gave him a diamond ring. The diamond is removable, and the wearer of the ring always knows where the diamond is. Basically a tracking device. What isn’t stated, is that Strahd always knows the position of both the diamond and the ring, granting him insight to where the party is, and what they’re interested in.
- For my Monk, Strahd gave her a set of +2 Bracers, which doesn’t negate her Unarmored Defense, but the bracers are emblazoned with a raven, the symbol of the von Zarovich family. If she choses to wear them, others will see this as loyalty to Strahd.
- For my Moon Circle Druid, I gave a +2 Moon Sickle, which doubles as a spellcasting focus, and grants an additional +1d4 to all healing spells. However, if they attempt to use the Sickle against Strahd, the attack, melee or spell, will backfire on them. My hope is that they rely on it by then, and changing tactics mid-fight will be enough of surprise to force them to improvise.
Riding on the “goodwill” of these gifts, Strahd asks for the party’s advice. They are outsiders who have explored a decent bit of his valley at this point, and seem to not be foolish. He asks what he can do, as Lord of the valley, to improve the lives of his citizens. This is a legitimate request, however the way the he interprets their advice will be warped, not unlike the wish from a genie. My players had two pieces of advice:
- There should be proper cobbletone roads between the towns. Dirt roads are rough, and carriages or carts have a higher chance of getting stuck. If you want people in your valley to travel, have better roads. Strahd accepts this, and later, the party finds out that taxes have raised significantly to pay for this endeavor. The citizens are thrown deeper into poverty.
- There should be a set of guards that have jurisdiction across all three towns, for things like investigations or crimes, that don’t just stop at the town wall. Strahd accepts this, and later, the party run into guards that are part of the New Barovian Search and Rescue, which end up acting like the secret police/Gestapo.
My party loved having dinner with Strahd, and by the end of the campaign, this was still one of the sessions they remember most vividly and still talk about.
The Nerdd 
One comment