Reimagining Curse of Strahd for a more personal experience
The legendary Dungeons and Dragons module, The Curse of Strahd, stands tall alongside its infamous villain, Strahd von Zarovich. Yet I felt the setting was a bit too rigid for my creative party. The gameplay had the potential to become repetitive and lacks that personal touch that makes collaborative storytelling truly enchanting. Inspired by this I set out to reimagine the module, weaving in key elements from my players' backstories, thrilling new destinations to raise the stakes, and transforming monsters and NPCs into dynamic forces that shape players' journeys.
I absolutely love collaborative storytelling, so I thought, "Why not give this old module a makeover?" I jazzed up the locations with fun little hints about my players' backstories and potential futures. Like a treasure hunt, but instead of gold, we're digging for themes they actually want to explore, because who doesn’t want a little drama in their fantasy life?
Notable reworks (CoS Spoilers Below):
The Mad Mage of Mount Baratok
Those who have read the module know that the mad mage that resides north of the grand lake is the famous Mordenkainen, a wizard as old as Dungeons and Dragons itself. In the original module, the wizard has gone mad and will attack those that approach his hidden mansion in the mountain. This felt somewhat random and, for people less versed in the history of Dungeons and Dragons, less monumental of an encounter than it should feel. ​
For my rework, the Mordenkainen we know never decided to darken Strahd's doorstep, but instead a separate wizard of lesser skill did. Still residing in the mountain in his magical mansion, this wizard ventured with a player's character, trained them as an apprentice, and in the course of attempting to teleport out of Barovia's misty veil, accidentally teleported and wiped the apprentice's memory whilst severely damaging his own mind. ​
This alteration made the discovery of the mage and his mansion more impactful to the party. These ruins entice players to explore more deeply through three main avenues: scouring the newly designed mansion for arcane notes, piecing together a party member's past via journal scraps, and discovering forgotten arcane items. This also ensures that if the party were to fight the mage, they weren't instantly obliterated and/or killing one of the more influential wizards in the realm unknowingly.
The Morninglord and Mother Night
In the module, the Morninglord and Mother Night are two exceptionally influential deities throughout the setting, but I found them to be lacking in lore and worldbuilding. They are kept vague and rarely elaborated on. They also raise questions as to why the gods never get involved in the evil that occurs throughout the land. In most settings this would be fine, but in the world of dungeons and dragons, the gods are very much real and are deeply involved in the world of mortals. I wanted to rewrite the lore between the two gods to make it more impactful to the players' journey.
The Morninglord became a representation of the sun itself. Warmth, heat, joy, and kindness all manifest in his presence. Mother Night was never a deity of the moon, but rather one of knowledge. The manifestation of what all living things know. Building the Amber Temple for the gods, they resided in mortal form, caring for the people of the valley. While the Morninglord was gone, granting miracles across the Sword Coast, this is when Strahd visited the temple, not conferring with the Lich Exethanter, but Mother Night herself for the knowledge of vampirism. Strahd's actions resulting in the barrier separating Barovia from the rest of the world not only sealed the sun from ever touching the realm, but disconnected the goddess of knowledge from the greater world, wiping the memory of herself from all beings, meaning she forgot herself. ​
These changes to the pantheon lead to the players not just accepting that the people believe in some unknown gods, but rather the gods have had their own consequences in this entire ordeal that can influence the party's impact on the world as a whole. Mother Night's personality and influence drastically change in the story from the original module, with players able to interact and commune with her in the Amber Temple atop Mount Ghakis.
Building the Creeping House
One significant addition to the setting that was run as a figurative one-shot for my players was the Creeping House, a mansion sized mimic that hungers for weary travelers. Taking inspiration from films and shows like Monster House and Delicious in Dungeon, I wanted to create a creepy environment that told players of a manor that came to be inhabited by a crustacean like mimic that crawled from Lake Zarovich and found a mansion to be a proper shell. ​
I found the setting of Barovia could become stale when sticking to the base designs of a lot of the monsters. One can only fight so many zombies, ghosts, and werewolves before the charm begins to fade. With this in mind, I reflavored iconic enemies to give them a new and shiny coat to surprise my party. Mimics became sea dwelling crustaceans, lycanthropy became a meditative state, and those who worship Mother Night too intensely become not clerics, but shadowed monsters of themselves. I wanted to maintain the tone of the setting while expanding this unique realm's influence on its inhabitants.