Campaign Plot Notes

General Preemptive Notes Party Size

I HIGHLY recommend a small party for this particular campaign. Four players I think would be ideal. Why? This is a campaign that takes place in the horror genre and as human beings, we naturally find safety in numbers. Your players aren’t going to feel as anxious if they march into a haunted house in a party of 7 as they would going in alone. Not only will it be easier to manage as a DM, but overall a small party will improve the general atmosphere of the game. (reddit)

Your Characters’ Stake in Barovia

One of the biggest problems I’ve had with this campaign is getting the characters to actually care about saving Barovia. My players, mind you, are having a blast. But their characters more often than not simply stumble from one disaster to the next. (reddit)

To preemptively strike this, try to give your player’s characters’ some hold to Barovia. For instance, two of my characters were unknowingly born in Barovia. This is actually their home and they’ll come to realize this. Also, make sure to make some NPCs relevant and likeable. If the characters care about the Barovian natives, they’ll care more about helping Barovia as a whole. (reddit)

Your Characters’ Morality

Remember that one of the main goals of CoS is to corrupt your characters. No matter how happy and pure they may be entering Barovia, the horrors that characters face and the double-edged choices they’ll be forced to make is meant to change them for the worse. Remember that. (reddit)

Don’t be Afraid to Laugh

That being said, this is game. Yes, it’s a horror game. But even if a situation is really friggin effed up, you and your players are allowed to joke and laugh. Even though the characters are suffering doesn’t mean your players should be. (reddit)

Leveling

I didn’t really mean to do this, but with all the content that I’ve added to this campaign, the level cap is no longer 1-10, but more like 1-15. If you use a lot of the advice I write here, you should prepare for that as well. (reddit)

Some Background Prep Before even getting your players together, there are a few background things I’d like to cover. While the printed book gives you a fair amount to work with, I found the general outline/goal for the entire story to be a bit lacking. So here’s some general info you should know before getting started. (reddit)

Trapped in Barovia

Most likely, your players are going to want to know why they’re trapped in Barovia. What in the world happened and how could such a place exist? If you have even a slightly inquisitive group, someone is going to want answers somewhere along the line and as the DM, you need to be ready for that. So here’s what going down! (reddit)

The Demiplanes of Dread

Once upon a time, there was an entire dimension called the Core as big and wondrous as Faerun. But, over the course of time, this dimension was split into a multitude of small, isolated dimensions. Demiplanes, to be more precise. Barovia is one of these demiplanes. (reddit)

Click here for a nice map of the Core, complete with misty borders. Barovia is near the middle bottom. (reddit)

The Dark Powers

Why did the big dimension get split up? Because of the Dark Powers. (reddit)

The Dark Powers are essentially a pantheon of old, dark gods. They’re very powerful, usually sinister beings. (reddit)

Each demiplane has a ruling Dark Power. That god basically owns that particular mini world. However, these gods cannot actually own a plane just by wanting it. Instead, they choose a champion amongst mortals and form a sort of pact with them. That mortal becomes the Dark Power’s anchor to that particular demiplane. (reddit)

The Dark Powers are always at war with one another, essentially fighting for real estate. It’s possible for one Dark Power to supplant another as ruler of a particular demiplane, provided they too have a chosen champion in that plane. (reddit)

In CoS, the Dark Power that rules over Barovia is named Vampyr (original, I know), and it is currently trapped within a vestige at the Amber Temple. Strahd is Vampyr’s chosen champion to rule over Barovia, therefore giving Vampyr dominion over this demiplane. (reddit)

The End Goal You don’t need to delve very far into the campaign to know that defeating Strahd is the goal of the story. However, this seemed a little trite to me. Yes, Strahd is an amazing villain and I love him to pieces. But having that as the end goal essentially turns the whole story into a leveling up forward march to that single goal. There’s no greater purpose presented. So here’s what I’ve added and edited to take this story to the next level. (reddit)

Firstly, STRAHD CANNOT DIE.

Not because he’s a vampire, but because he’s connected to a Dark Power. Even if you’ve got a band of level 30 characters all beating him to a pulp, Strahd would simple be resurrected the following dusk. Barovia is eternally under his control and he may even take pleasure in this. You might want to throw in something later in the campaign where the characters kill him but he appears to laugh at them the following day. Strahd is absolutely immortal and therefore the characters will never be able to leave Barovia. (reddit)

So how can your players actually win?

After looking at a few different sources as well as brainstorming myself, I’ve come up with some viable options for characters to come across in order to defeat Strahd and escape Barovia. I think of this like a video game with multiple endings. There’s the good ending, the bad ending, and the true ending, ect. Here they are: (reddit)

Trap Strahd

This idea comes from the series, “Dice, Camera, Action.” You can find the whole thing on YouTube and I highly recommend watching it. Their first season takes them through CoS and I learned a great deal simply from watching them play together. (reddit)

Their solution to defeating Strahd was to trap him within a doll, body and soul. If Strahd’s not around to rule Barovia, Barovia is basically free. Even though the Dark Power still technically has dominion, it can’t do anything without a champion in which to rule through. (reddit)

You don’t have to use a doll to trap Strahd, of course. But this is a solid solution to beating the campaign. (reddit)

Change Strahd’s Heart

If you’ve read the background about him in the printed book, you’ll know Strahd’s a pretty jaded guy. He’s bitter about a lot of things, especially the bit about Tatiana and Sergei. If, somehow, your players manage to change Strahd from a bad guy into a good guy, he won’t torture Barovia anymore and your players win. (reddit)

I have some ideas as to how players can go about this route that I’ll go into more detail later on (the power of true love! *eye sparkle*). But honestly, I think this solution is the least feasible. After all, Strahd isn’t just jaded, he’s also an awful person. It’s not impossible that players may be able to change his heart, but I think it’s pretty improbable. (reddit)

Replace Strahd

This is the option I find the most interesting. While technically considered a “bad” ending, supplanting Strahd as ruler of Barovia is a pretty neat idea. The problem is, how far would someone have to fall, morally speaking, in order to do this? How far are your players willing to go? (reddit)

Who can replace Strahd?

A family member.

There are a few mentioned family members in CoS, namely Arabelle, the Vistani Child, and Madam Eva, the Vistani fortuneteller. For flavor, you may even want to add another related NPC somewhere. Or, do what I did and make one of your player characters a distant relative (unknown to them of course). (reddit)

The idea behind this option is that it would be easy to transfer the Dark Power’s sway from Strahd to someone of his own blood. The Dark Power wouldn’t see much of a difference. However, coming under the influence of any Dark Power does terrible things to a person’s soul and personality. Even if Arabelle becomes the next ruler of Barovia, for instance, she’ll likely have a descent before too long and become an even worse ruler than Strahd. (reddit)

The players would feel all successful and the new ruler would let them leave Barovia. But within a year or so, unknown to the players, Barovia would again be plunged into a terrible darkness. (reddit)

A Player Character

Throughout the campaign, you should design several opportunities for your characters to draw the attention of a Dark Power. Remember, even though Vampyr rules over this demiplane at the moment, another god can take over at any time. If your players start to behave more and more morally ambiguous, or show off their growing strength and potential, they’ll start to draw that attention. (reddit)

If a Dark Power chooses a character as their champion, the character will gain great power and may supplant both Strahd and Vampyr as rulers of Barovia. (reddit)

This comes at a cost of course. The characters will have to fall from grace more than once. And if they succeed, they’ll be as trapped in Barovia as Strahd was. (reddit)

You can make up these dark powers as you go if you like, or tailor one specifically for each character like I did. You can base one off one of the vestiges in the Amber Temple, as well. My warlock player, for instance, has her patron in the Amber Temple and she has no idea. (reddit)

This is what I personally consider the ultimate Bad Ending, in which the good guys actually become the bad guys at the end. But let’s face it, that’s pretty cool though, huh? (reddit)

Kill the Dark Power

If trapping Strahd or changing his heart are the Good Endings and replacing him is the Bad Ending, I consider this the True Ending. Killing the Dark Power, Vampyr, would not only end Strahd, but also completely release Barovia as a Demiplane of Dread. No god or their twisted champion would hold sway over the land anymore. (reddit)

There are a few things that would need to happen for this to go well. (reddit)

One: None of your player characters can have a deal with a Dark Power. If they do, killing Vampyr will be no different from supplanting him. The player’s Dark Power would simply take over. (reddit)

Your characters would need to release Vampyr from the vestige in the Amber Temple. Basically, they need to start the apocalypse to stop the apocalypse. (reddit)

Thirdly, the characters will actually have to figure all this out. I’ve put clues and stuff throughout the chapters of this campaign and you too can borrow those ideas. But essentially, your players are going to have to understand Dark Powers, demiplanes, the whole shebang, in order to see the greater picture of what they’ll have to do. (reddit)

And that's it for now! Those are my general notes on things you should know and consider before starting out. Gather a nice little party and stay tuned for my next entry on entering Barovia and tackling the Death House. (reddit)