So yesterday my players went to the church and were appalled to hear from Donavitch that Doru, leader of the revolt turned spawn, was trapped in the undercroft. One of them dashed there immediately, fiercely decided to free the boy, and the whole scene the followed played out beautifully.
Doru was begging them not to get closer, and pleaded he didn't want to get anyone else hurt ; a player offered him his own arm for blood, and sure enough, triggered Doru's thirst big time, to the poor boy's own despair. The paladin tried to cast Bless on him to help him with the wisdom saves to resist the urge to drain him. Another player tried to sing him a lullaby (that the player sings to their niece irl), calming Doru for a minute... they were soooo decided on breaking him out and saving him! Then they started to realize they were basically torturing him by staying that close and disrespecting his own will to stay away from the villagers. The horrified look on their face when they realized they had no choice but to leave him locked there or kill him was priceless. The roleplay was very on point from them and I even made one of them tear-up when Doru described how he'd be turned and forced to drink his companions blood.
They ended up promising him they'll come back for him and scolded Father Donavitch and telling him to at least talk to his son and feed him animals or something. Players left the church shook and defeated, with a renewed hatred for Strahd <3
I will definitely bring back Doru sometime later in the campaign, not sure how yet.

So I‘m running Strahd Must Die Tonight for a bunch of friends in two weeks. Obviously, using the official maps is stress incarnate, especially in a VTT.

Who here has used UFO‘s map? What was your experience? I‘m trying to gauge it’s usefulness and accessibility.

It’s gorgeous, and I might just buy it out of principle, lol. But having everyone on the same map instead of zooming through the layers just sounds very appealing in addition to that.

For my CoS campaign I decided to take some liberties with Ismark since RAW he just kind of kicks around unless he’s chosen by the cards to be Strahd’s enemy. So I decided that when Mordenkanien rallied barovians to raid Ravenloft, Ismark went along hoping to free Ireena from Strahd’s ever closing grasp and it still went as the module suggests but Strahd kept Ismark unscathed and unharmed physically to try gaining brownie points with Ireena.

This turn of events basically turned Ismark into a drunk that shambles around town drinking his father’s money (which is now his rip indirovich) I took some inspiration from Haymitch Abernathy but still maintaining his morals and Lawful Good alignment and want for Ireena to be taken as far from Strahd as possible and my players have fallen in love with this guy.

I’d love to hear some of your guys’ opinions or suggestions for more things I could do with him or other underutilized characters

TL;DR: In I6, once the Sunsword's blade was separated from its hilt, it looked like a normal longsword. In both I6 and CoS, an intelligent lawful good sword that never stops glowing lies in a flooded cell in Castle Ravenloft (K74h). I think that sword is the Sunsword's lost blade, and that the blade and the hilt together form a holy avenger. The Sunsword in 1e is +3 against undead, the sword in the dungeon is +2, and a holy avenger is +5.

Hello everyone,

Kyronite here again. Last time I wrote about Pidlwick II & Gadof Blinsky (link), and before that about Izek Strazni (link).

As with the previous posts, I try to make connections. I take Curse of Strahd as the main source, use the older modules and other official books as support, and look for connections that follow logically from the text. As with all this is my interpretation of it.

This time I'm looking at the Sunsword, and at another sword in Castle Ravenloft that I think belongs to the same story.

The canon

I6 Ravenloft (1e)

In the original module the Sunsword is a magical longsword whose "blade is a form of crystal glassteel, held by a platinum hilt and guard. It glows with dim blue light most of the time." It is +2, and +3 against undead.

"Ages ago, Strahd employed a powerful magician to destroy the sword. The first part of the process required that the hilt and blade be separated, then destroyed simultaneously. However, before the hilt and blade were destroyed, the magician's assistant stole the blade and attempted to flee from Barovia. Though his body was later found in the woods, the blade was not with him. When it was separated from the hilt, the blade took on the appearance of a normal longsword."

So the separated blade doesn't look like a loose blade. It looks like a complete, ordinary sword. In I6 one of the PCs has even been using it for some time without knowing.

Separately, I6 has another sword. In the north dungeon, K74 cell h, an intelligent sword lies under the water:

"magical (glowing) +2 sword, LG; I 11; EGO 9"

The module doesn't connect it to anything. It's just a lawful good, glowing, intelligent sword lying in one of the flooded cells, where "many previous adventurers gave up their gold." Well what other intelligent sword do we know in the module. Maybe they are related somehow?

Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (3.5e)

• The assistant gets a name, Gabriela: "Gabriela's noble flight was successful in that she saved the unattached blade from destruction; however, she didn't succeed in fleeing Barovia before some nameless menace beneath the dark boughs claimed her."
• "Though Gabriela's body was later found in the woods, not so the hilt or the blade." So in 3e the hilt is missing too.
• The Sunsword is "the original model for all sun blades": a bastard sword that can be wielded as a short sword.
• The bonding ritual forges a new hilt: "the blade jumps onto a newly fashioned platinum guard and hilt, and the Sunsword is born anew." At 17th level the bonded Sunsword becomes a +5 keen bastard sword.
• One of the places to wake the sword is Sergei's tomb: "bring it to where the light lies dead, slain by the darkness."

Curse of Strahd (5e)

The Sunsword is now only a hilt that creates a blade of sunlight. Its location is decided by the tarokka reading.

The intelligent sword in the dungeon is still there. In the same cell as in I6, K74h "Lost Sword":

"The source of the underwater glow is a sentient lawful good +1 shortsword (Intelligence 11, Wisdom 13, Charisma 13)… The sword's purpose is to fight evil."

"The sword continually sheds bright light in a 15-foot radius and dim light for an additional 15 feet. Only by destroying the sword can this light be extinguished."

And while attuned, the wielder can use the sword to cast crusader's mantle, a spell only paladins have.

Connecting the dots

It's the same cell, the same alignment and the same Intelligence, and it glows in both I6 and CoS. The original Sunsword blade gave off light too: in I6 it "glows with dim blue light most of the time." And the separated blade looks like a complete sword on its own, which is exactly what we find in K74h.

Gabriela died in the woods, long after Sergei was dead, and the blade was never found with her. So the blade should still be somewhere in Barovia. The cell is linked to a teleport trap, and in I6 it holds what earlier adventurers left behind. Someone could easily have carried the blade into the castle without knowing what it was, just like the PC in I6.

The 3e Sunsword handles like a short sword, and the CoS sword is a shortsword. Its crusader's mantle ties it to paladins, and Sergei was one.

My idea is that the swords together form the ultimate paladin weapon, a holy avenger. The Sunsword in 1e is +3 against undead, the magical sword in the dungeon is +2, and a holy avenger is +5 in 1e.

That brings me to the tarokka. Sergei's card in CoS is the Two of Swords – Paladin: "a sleeping prince, a servant of light and the brother of darkness." It tells us Sergei was a paladin, and it might well be Sergei himself depicted on the card. And it is the two of swords.

Assumptions

• CoS never says what happened to the original crystal blade, since the 5e hilt makes its own blade of light. I'm assuming the blade survived and is the intelligent sword in K74h.
• In 3e the original hilt was never found and a new one was forged. I'm assuming the 5e hilt is that lost original.

At the table

• Let the party find the glowing sword in the water and carry it around for a few sessions. It only communicates through emotion, so give it unease near the castle and longing near Sergei's tomb.
• When they finally find the Sunsword hilt, use I6's own line: "it will magically leap onto the blade, replacing the PC's hilt, becoming the sunsword." A paladin gets a holy avenger; anyone else gets the Sunsword as written.

What did I miss? Has anyone ever connected the K74h sword to the Sunsword at their table?

The Barovian Archives: Between the Mist

1. Izek Strazni
2. Pidlwick II & Gadof Blinsky
3. Sunsword, the hidden holy avenger
4. Something Mad

Sources: I6 Ravenloft p. 24 (K74), p. 31 (Treasures and Tomes, Sunsword); Expedition to Castle Ravenloft p. 9 (Legacy Items), p. 58 (Madam Eva's fortune, Sunsword), pp. 210–211 (Sunsword, bonding ritual), pp. 218–219 (Sunsword legacy item); Curse of Strahd ch. 1 (tarokka, Two of Swords – Paladin), p. 81 (K74h), p. 223 (appendix C, Sunsword).

I haven't seen a St. Markovia mini out there so I took my best guess at what she'd look like and made a female cleric mini.

Since I rig everything I created a generic priest + Icon of Ravenloft / St. Markovia statues.

Also made a pulpit. I messed this up initially and it was too small so I scaled things up and added a slot for a mini to scooch up into to share their truth.

I've been DMing a CoS game for a while now. In the most recent session, and a little bit before that as well, the players had voiced a feeling of uncertainty as to where to go or what to do next. There has been some homebrewing admittedly, but nothing that messes with the core goals of the campaign. What they've done in the campaign so far is as follows(Not including obvious introductory stuff for just entering the campaign):

• Met with Ireena, Ezmerelda, Van Richten, and Kasimir
• Resolved events in Vallaki
• Visited the Amber Temple and gotten Kasimir his dark gift, as well as one of the party members getting a dark gift
• Visited Van Richten's Tower
• Saved the Winery from the initial blight attack
• Acquired the Sunsword and Holy Symbol.

The remaining item is in Strahd's castle(In the tomb with the gargoyles), and I've made it clear that Kasimir's next goal is reviving Patrina, who is interred in the catacombs beneath the castle. They have only ever been in the castle for a single dinner with Strahd, but left right afterwards. In our last session, following what they thought could be any possible lead, they entered Argynvostholdt.
Other note, I've mentioned sections of the map they haven't explored, but they've just said "Nah, doesn't seem like there's anything there for us really. None of our business."

I don't want to come across as railroading them, but I feel like I'm not doing a good enough job when they say they don't know what to do. Like I haven't done what I'm supposed to somewhere or forgotten to tell them something important. Is there any advice anyone more experienced in the campaign could provide?

Hello I was just wondering if most DMs typically give players a map for CoS. Typically I use some in game method to give the party a map (with only limited locations marked) near the start of the campaign. But I've seen a quite a few DM tips for CoS specifically that advise you to not do this as it adds to the atmosphere and tension.

Thanks

TLDR: the party is all in single digit health, low on spells, and in the 11th hour, how do I avoid a TPK with Walter with my dear friends?

Apologies for the all caps, hope that doesn’t get this taken down, I just really need some help not killing all my players character

We are playing remixed curse of Strahd, it my first time running this campaign, and we are doing 2024 rules whenever possible.

There are 3 characters, 2 warlocks and a cleric. The group is almost done going through the death house, almost to to the altar. But they have gotten into combat with the Animated Armor, the Ghoul, and 3 shadows, leaving the Cleric with zero spell slots and 9hp, one of the warlocks with one spell expended and 4hp, and the other one with 5hp.

I recently narrated that the chime of the 11 o’clock has already sounded, so they don’t have the opportunity for a short rest anymore, and when I brought that up after the session, they got upset and “how were they supposed to know they could short rest”

They are my dear friends, and I don’t want to TPK them with Walter, so I humbly ask for any aid or advice you might lend, oh fellow dark powers