DragnaCarta
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Curse of Strahd Reloaded Update: Arc O: Dinner with the Devil is now available
🕑 Added 2024-04-12 11:54:29 +0000 UTCI'm excited to share the seventh public installment of my revised Curse of Strahd guide, Curse of Strahd: Reloaded. This new release contains Arc O: Dinner with the Devil, which includes:
Road to Ravenloft. New encounters with Arrigal, Doru and Father Donavich, the skeletal rider, and Strahd's black carriage.
Meeting the Brides. An all-new "cocktail hour" with Strahd's consorts, including a hunt for a secret traitor who can assist the players in planning their heist of Ravenloft.
Dinner with Strahd. A tense dining experience with Strahd, followed by a tour of the castle's public areas and a high-stakes test of the players' ethics.
The Nightmare. An overnight stay at Castle Ravenloft, including a nightmare sequence featuring the history of the castle and the tormented spirit of Varushka, a former servant.
In addition, this new update contains a number of edits, tweaks, and additions to previously released portions of the guide. You can find a full changelog here.
Click here to read about the new update.
Please also note that I've removed the vestigial Arc D: The Tome of Strahd, which I merged with Arc H: The Lost Soul several updates ago.
Thank you to all of the readers and playtesters who provided suggestions and feedback following the previous public release!
As always, I want your feedback and comments to help make this guide the best it can be. Is the adventure fun? Is the content accessible? Is there anything missing, or anything I can do better? Please let me know any and everything I can do to improve!
Thank you always to everyone who has supported this project, as well as to my incredible patrons for their support.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Cheers,
Dragna
Comments
DragnaCarta
Fantastic! Thank you for running through all that; I always enjoy hearing how sessions unfold and how players react. Hope you and the players enjoy Varushka's Nightmare, and the heist afterward!
Phillip Hazlet
I ran part of this last night. My players loved it. One PC went disguised as Ireena and the player said she was scared the whole time. Flavor description text I read and extra personality/play notes helped bring the consorts to life. Lightning to the tower really surprised them and my old school 1e player thought the witch/construction crew was really interesting. Thank you for the notes on questions Strahd can ask to keep players talking and show what he cares about. I loved the puzzle box in the carriage. Players had fun with it too. I thought it was a little too obvious and would take seconds. It was appropriately difficult and took them a few minutes to puzzle through. Perfect. I ran it 3 hours from leaving Vallaki, encounter with rider, carriage, arrival, dinner, tour, lightning. Description of the paths NPCs take on tours is insanely useful. I’m definitely coming back for more :)
DragnaCarta
Ah, gotcha; love that paranoia. Glad everyone enjoyed Pidlwick as well! "Nightmare Maid" is the first phase, and "Soul of Despair" is the second.
Søren Andersen
Hi Dragna. My players were confused in a really good way and they got paranoid every time they entered a new layer and couldn't figure out, what chance was coming. I also liked Pidlewick here. He is fun to play. Thet gave him the ability to speak with the help of a special voicebox that they found in Blinksys Toystore. Which one of the statblocks is the first in Varushkas phase?
DragnaCarta
Hey Søren, and glad you like the guide! I'm sorry to hear your players were confused - do you think the guide requires any revisions? To answer your question - Varushka is a two-phased boss like most of the boss fights in Reloaded. It looks like I forgot to add her second-phase transformation as a feature in her first-phase statblock, so I'll be sure to fix that in the next update!
Søren Andersen
Hi Dragna. I Really like All your work. Playing this chapter now, and My players are so confused when they are caught i the nigthmare. I have a question for you. Why do Varushka have two different statblocks in the chapter?
