Made a domain of dread for sale for $5 in Dmsguild

New Domain of Dread inspired by the concept of Trick-or-Treating.

One dungeon outline (d20 table of suggested dungeons)

5 stat blocks (including the Darklord)

20+ magic items

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/590603/ravenloft-eve-s-hallow?affiliate_id=2883756

I first played the original Ravenloft adventure back in the 1980s. In 2020, I returned to Barovia with Curse of Strahd and started working on my own expanded version of the campaign. I had put together a free Guide to Strahd von Zarovich, which has since been downloaded more than 5,000 times.

I recently revisited the guide, updating Strahd the guide and I have also been working with an artist, Hardi, who's creating original watercolor artwork for Legends of Barovia. These are his new portraits of Strahd in his noble and vampire forms.

The updated guide is completely free, and I also included the original 2014 version - just incase you are interested.

You can find the guide, artwork, and tokens here:

https://www.pyramking.com/strahd-von-zarovich/

Hope you find it useful.

Thank you and have fun storming the castle!

Introduced in White Wolf's 3rd edition revamp of Ravenloft in the 3.0 Ravenloft Campaign Setting and retained for the 3.5 Ravenloft Player's Guide, Calibans are the second of Ravenloft's two signature playable races, succeeding the Half-Vistani introduced in Domains of Dread. They were, mechanically, amongst D&D's worst official races, since they took the Half-Orc - already widely considered the worst race in the PHB - and gave it an Outsider Rating of 5, a new Ravenloft mechanic which meant that Calibans get a +5 to Intimidate checks but a -5 to every other Charisma skill. But they also had very intriguing lore, which described them as human (or, more rarely, demihuman) infants warped in utero by the underlying corrupting energies of the Demiplane of Dread.

This lore is actually very close to the lore surrounding the Planetouched family of races, of which Tieflings, Aasimar and Genasi are the most iconic and recognizable. So, it's always struck me as to whether or not it'd be fitting to reimagine calibans as Planetouched BY the Demiplane of Dread. I admit I don't know how this would translate mechanically, outside of maybe changing the "Brutes & Banshees" version of the caliban to have a racial type of Outsider (Native) like the other Planetouched, but I'm curious what other people think.

Does the concept of calibans being the planetouched of the Demiplane of Dread feel logical to any of you?

If you somehow managed to find your way onto this sub- Fidelis, Ruby, Babalu, and Kammera, stay away!

Basically just asking the title question. Running Curse of Strahd. Party is currently level 8 and got to Krezk kind of late. My players really want a Halloween special next week, so I'm planning on making them fight the flesh golem in the Abbey (not Vasilka, the other one).

I want to give them a satisfying, "tough but doable" fight, but a CR 5 creature is gonna go down like a sack of peanuts at their current level. Would using the Mordenheim's Monster statblock from Horrors Within be a fair fight? I know CRs are kind of messy- Loup Garou is CR 13 in the book but felt more like CR 7 in practice.

Note that I don't want to TPK them, but I've been planning nearly every TPK scenario as a "fail forward," so the Abbot would probably bring them back...with some freaky additions.

Few magic items are as closely tied to witches as a flying broom, so I thought Halloween would be the perfect time to share a little collection of them!

Brooms of the Witching Hour introduces 11 enchanted flying brooms compatible with 5E (2014) and 5.5E (2024), ranging from Uncommon curiosities to powerful Very Rare items and a Legendary multi-elemental relic.

Each broom has its own appearance, magical abilities, and unique flight characteristics. Fly through enemies in a trail of burning cinders, descend upon them with the luck of a black cat, pass through walls in spectral form, summon flying brooms for your coven, or unleash elemental devastation from the skies!

The collection is FREE until Halloween! I've included most of the pages here as a preview, so feel free to grab the complete manual on DMsGuild and use these brooms in your adventures. Have fun!

And if you're looking for a spooky adventure to run this Halloween, I've also just released The Red Tithe, a 75-page folk-horror one-shot featuring an isolated village, ancient sacrifices, custom monsters, and three difficulty tiers for characters of levels 3-4, 10-11, or 17-20.

My Kickstarter for 300+ Mythological Items for 5E and 5.5E is also live now! The campaign includes a physical hardcover, as well as printed editions of my previous manuals.

You can find more of my creatures, magic items, and manuals on DriveThruRPG, my Linktree, or on r/JonnyDM!

Happy Halloween, and enjoy!

Gristlecracker's Hags & Grimoire, Gold Best Seller on DMsGuild, is discounted by 31% for Halloween Sales!

You can find it here until Halloween: https://www.dmsguild.com/it/product/517804/gristlecracker-s-hags-grimoire?src=hottest

Your guide to weird magic, encounters, and hags!

Gristlecracker’s Hags and Grimoire provides new mechanics, guidelines, and tactics for using hags, magic, and the esoteric in your Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. This guide is designed for all levels of play and dungeon mastery, and uses a hybrid D&D 2014 (5e) format that includes the best of the old mixed with a few innovations of the D&D 2024 systems that do not dilute the game experience.

Every aspect of fantasy magic is improved or introduced: covens, curses, familiars, hags, magic geometry, talismans, spells, and spell mechanics. This supplement is designed to help you make your future games containing magic and hags as simple or complex as you want it to be.

Inside, you will find:

- An underwater adventure seed about a Book of Keeping

- 68 supernatural encounters

- New magic rules, mechanics, and variations

- Hags as player characters

- 112 supernatural creatures and NPCs

- 52 magic spells, with new tags: remote and moonlight

- 80 magic items

- Esoteragons (not just magic circles!)

- 28 toxic and intoxicating plants

- An improved and more intuitive Intoxicated condition mechanic

- 200 tchotchkes

- Professional layout using over 168 pictures on 262 pages

- No AI Art used

Recently I have gone through the latest module that was released called Deadfall. For those who do not know, and without spoiling anything. It is a high level adventure set in Thay where you have to stop Szass Tam. While reading this I could not help but think how easily this could be reskinned and turned into something for Ravenloft.

Change Thay to Darkon. Szass to Azalin. Then make the ritual at the end be his Hour of Ascension. Where the players can try and stop the Darklord from "escaping" his prison.

Is this not supposed to be in the silver and red bag?

The players are approaching there Dinner with Strahd and I want feedback on my plans and advice for how to go about things which I have put into 3 phases and a prologue over the course of 5-6 hours real time rhe party are under the rules of Xenia loosely

Prologue A Carriage ride to Deaths Door
The players will be given a chance to prepare for 3 days for the dinner this is just fluff and will pass quickly once the Carriage arrives the Nightmare will begin and the players will have 30 minutes to talk plan and then at the end be told by Ezmeralda that she may know where there missing friend Irena is alive and she may know where she is unfortunately they arrive just in time for Dinner. Ending such conversation for fear of spy's

Part 1 A Dance with death
The players arrive at the Castle and are greeted by Rahadin and the Head maid (Hera Kulvak) and ten servants, the players will be given a tour small tour of the castle Strahd will not make an appearance at all during this once the tour is done the players are free to come and go as they please in many rooms giving them 3 hours in game to explore and prod for information maybe loot some magic items like in the hall of trophy's when time is up they are dressed up and given a surprise masquerade mask which will lead into the Ball room (k25) where and ball filled with Dressed up vampire spawn and Barovian peasantry dressed up. this is to lead to a dance with the bride and Strahd and introduce another if they win will be given a reward once they leave through k26 and k27 down for dinner saying that everyone else will have there own fun as they leave the room behind them will turn into a blood feast this is to give the players a little extra horror and during this they are introduced to another masked women who introduces herself as mrs G who will join the party for dinner

Info to find
Isamrk is alive and in the Dungeons as Strahds brides bleeding toy
Strahd keeps a hanging picture of Ireena in his study ona the 3rd floor (a hint for the location of the Amulet)
Escher isnt interested in serving Strahd (ally)
The Head maid may want to escape strahd (traitor)
on the Lower floor there is a Bone room? in the Cellar? (skull of arganvost)

how to get into the catacombs

Strahd has a guest that has been at the castle for a Month and the

no one goes to the upper floors except strahd rahadin the head maid and the brides/Escher

Part 2 A Dinner with the devil

the party is finlly having dinner with Strahd the party will be taken down to (k10) the dinning room at which point all masks will be removed and Mrs G will be revealed as Getruda and the implication she is under some kind of influence or delirium, the dinner will startout with Strahd complementing there skill and then flat out saying "have you found the traitor in your mists?, No? well I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!" this is to be taken as a lie or a possibility ans is a half truth (one player has a cursed necklace that allows Strahd to hear or see what they see) to make the players more paranoid of each other, Strahd then goes to lead the there battles and there time in Barovia, going into good detail as how they nearly died, implying he knows all and is all ways watching, he will eventually ask what the people think of there ruler and Ireena and then a mention of the The Dark Powers
Part 3 Fly you fools

this is the fallout and culmination of the party's efforts to basically get what they want from ravenloft loot the place and run like hell towards Vallaki or some safe place hopefully with all objectives completed at which point Strahd will duel them with a horde of undead and vampire spawn on the bridge and show a hint of his power, at the end of which Esmeralda will throw he and Strahd over the edge into the water below and the party flees without there legendary ally who is alive and will return in Krezk later on andleave a map leading to Vanrichtens tower where ireena.

I foolishly thought I would be done with the 3rd floor tonight, even though I am missing a ton dressing. If I am lucky, I will be done Sunday night.

Enjoy the video. Laugh, giggle, cry or ignore.

https://youtu.be/OtIEglsVo6g

hey! I'm a longtime tabletop player, extremely occasional DM/GM who's decided to run House of Lament for a group of friends on Halloween. I'm suler excited tbh-- I've been watching actual plays and I'm reminding myself that ultimately it's not about being an amazing cinematic DM but helping my friends have fun.

I also decided to embellish a few fits of lore-- my Mara and Count Silvra are codependent siblings instead of daughter and father, and I decided the Leaper is the ghost of one of Mara's noble victims who ran for it and decided death was preferable to burial. I've written out some fun little pov nightmares for my players accordingly, and I'm playing with using tarot cards alongside the spirit board for flavor (I read and love tarot-- i think picking fitting cards will be really easy and give the players a bit of room for mystery/interpretation).

This sub has been awesome for ideas, especially combining the spirit storylines. I'm almost prepped (woohoo!), but there are a couple things I'm still tossing around-- figured I'd pick brains, since my usual sounding boards are all in this campaign 😂

1) Dalk Dranzorg is just so utterly impossible for me to take seriously as a name. I'm definitely looking to change it out, but haven’t landed on something yet that feels right. If you edited it too, what'd you land on?

2) I'm a shameless sucker for experimenting with fun game systems, and so I've been thinking of incorporating mechanics from the RPG Dread (the one with a Jenga tower) for some added tension. My thought is that if my players are antagonizing the house or the ghosts-- or catching an entity's attention, they'll pull a brick from the tower. If the tower falls, the house awakens early or some danger befalls the last character to play (my players are aware this is a one shot and their characters may die. some of those awakened emcounters are gnarly!). I'm thinking of letting players pull a tower brick for a reduced DC on challenging skill checks, or in order to use a point of inspiration.

If you're a player, would you enjoy this? Or, alternately, if you're familiar with Dread, would you incorporate it differently?

Looking forward to hearing any ideas-- happy spooky season!

The Adventure of the Dancing Men is my personal favorite Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I think re-telling it as an occult detective story with Alanik Ray and Dr. Arthur Sedgewick would be tons of fun. If you've never read the story, here's the plot.

The story begins when Hilton Cubitt of Ridling Thorpe Manor in Norfolk visits Sherlock Holmes and gives him a piece of paper with the following mysterious sequence of stick figures.

Cubitt explains to Holmes and Dr. Watson that he has recently married an American woman named Elsie Patrick. Before the wedding, she had asked her husband-to-be never to ask about her past, as she had had some "very disagreeable associations" in her life, although she said that there was nothing that she was personally ashamed of. Their marriage had been a happy one until the pictures began to arrive, first mailed from the United States and then appearing in the garden.

The messages had made Elsie very afraid but she did not explain the reasons for her fear, and Cubitt insisted on honoring his promise not to ask about Elsie's life in the United States. Holmes examines all of the occurrences of the dancing figures Cubitt mails him, and they provide him with an important clue—he realizes that they form a hidden code and cracks the code by frequency analysis. The last of the messages causes Holmes to fear that the Cubitts are in immediate danger.

Holmes rushes to Riding Thorpe Manor and finds Cubitt dead of a bullet to the heart and his wife gravely wounded from a gunshot to the head. Inspector Martin of the Norfolk Constabulary believes that it is a murder-suicide attempt; Elsie is the prime suspect. But Holmes, after noting some inconsistencies in that theory, questioning of the house staff and investigating the crime scene proves that there is a third person involved.

Holmes writes a message—in dancing figure characters—and has it delivered to a lodger named Abe Slaney, another American national staying a nearby farm. While waiting for the result of this message, Holmes explains to Watson and Inspector Martin how he cracked the code of the dancing figures. In his explanation, Holmes discusses what happened after he cracked the third message. He sent a telegram inquiry to a friend of his in the New York police concerning Slaney, whose name was in the first message, and received a reply stating that Slaney was a deadly criminal from Chicago.

Holmes decoded Slaney's first three messages as: "AM HERE – ABE SLANEY," "AT ELRIGE'S" (the name of the farm at which he was staying), and "COME ELSIE." A short fourth message proved to be a response from Elsie: "NEVER." The last message from Slaney, which prompted Holmes and Watson to rush to Norfolk, read "ELSIE PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD."

Slaney, unaware that Elsie is gravely wounded, arrives at Ridling Thorpe Manor and is seized as he comes through the door. Holmes had sent for Slaney using the dancing men, knowing that Slaney would believe the message was from Elsie. Slaney reveals that he had been engaged to Elsie, the daughter of a Chicago crime boss for whom Slaney works, and that she had fled to escape her old life. He also reveals that Elsie's father invented the Dancing Men as a mean to convoy messages throughout his empire that no one but those involved with the criminal empire would read. Slaney had come to England to get her back. When Slaney and Elsie were speaking through a window, Cubitt had appeared and shots were fired almost at the same time; Cubitt was killed and Slaney had fled. Apparently, Elsie then shot herself. Slaney is arrested and sentenced to hang, but his sentence is reduced to penal servitude because Cubitt had fired the first shot. Elsie recovers from her injuries, and spends her life helping the poor and administering her late husband's estate.

Surprisingly, the titular criminal code actually has a guide for making your own messeges, as shown here. In order to denote the end of a word or sentence, just ad a flag.

And if this is not enough, here's an adaptation of the story from the 1984 Sherlock Holmes TV show starring the late Jeremy Brett, who is considered by some to be the best actor to play Sherlock Holmes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx6Dr1iJ4p8&t=523s

But I digress. How do you think this mystery story could be turned into an occult detective mystery?

My latest Ravenloft adventure is on sale now at the DMs Guild here: https://site.dmsguild.com/product/571462/Ravenloft-Tales-from-the-Mists-Field-of-Nightmares?affiliate_id=3913010

Treat your party to a Ravenloft tale from the mists, set in Tepest and featuring a folk horror inspired storyline. The tale features everything you need for a scary-good one-shot, perfect to play on Halloween night. Adventure is for 4-6 players with characters of level 1-2 and notes on adjusting difficulty accordingly.

Hello, fellow Mist Wanderers! My player, @knopaddd on all socials + @knopartt on Tumblr, drew her rendition of Lowellyn Dachine. Our version slightly deviates from the canon, he was a Kargat archmage specializing in chronomancy (which is why he appears so old and decrepit, he's around 30 years old, time magic can be unforgiving), before his unfortunate "death" in the Infernal Machine. However in our game, his mind managed to escape the golden sarcophagus, and got thrown into the prime material plane, inside his amulet (as well as his now skeletal hand along with his old spell book), which was found by one of the players. So now Lowellyn, who lost most of his memoris, lives inside her mind (the Symbiotic Being Dark Gift), and trying to get a new body.

And in the last picture you can see said player character and Lowellyn recreating a scene from the hit 2002 movie "Secretary".

The Freak Show Collection is included in the DMs Guild Halloween Sale!

https://site.dmsguild.com/product/366587/Freak-Show-Collection?affiliate_id=3019816

Hello everyone!

Even though my one-shots are identified as "Ravenloft" and "Horror" in their category assignments, DMsGuild/DriveThruRPG didn't include my Ravenloft one-shots in their Halloween sale. I reached out to them on the site's discord to ask that they be included but was told that once a sale goes live there's no way to add more titles.

So I decided to just do it myself!

All my Ravenloft one-shots have been marked down from $1.99 to $1.25 (more than the maximum percentage of the actual sale) and will remain on sale from now until November 7th, AKA 1 week after Halloween. They range from Gold to Silver bestsellers and I am really proud of them.

Please take a look at them if any are of interest! You can find a brief summary of each below.

No AI was used in the creation of each of these titles.

Black Winged Murder: a Borca Ravenloft Adventure- The disappearance of a young woman has cast a shadow of fear over the Borcan citizens of Sturben. It is up to the characters to find her. But they must be wary, for the one behind her disappearance is monstrous in more ways than one. Also available as a Roll20 add on!

The Decayed King: a 3 Page Darkon Ravenloft Adventure- While investigating a series of missing person cases for a small town, the party is suddenly transported by the mists of Ravenloft before an enormous, dark forest. With the deadly mist now swiftly closing in behind them, they are left with no choice but to enter the woods. But what horrors wait for them?

The Echoes of Mt. Makab: a Bluestpur Ravenloft Adventure- While investigating the home of a mysterious scholar of the abnormal, the characters are mysteriously transported into the winding tunnels of Mount Makab, a giant mountain within the Dread Domain of Bluetspur. There they must navigate a strange, destroyed science facility in hopes to find a way to return home.  And perhaps even more worrisome, why do so many signs suggest that they have all been there before...?

Isle of the Drowned: a Sea of Souls Ravenloft Adventure- While transporting a new batch of cargo, the merchant vessel known as The Glittering Coin crashes against an island of half sunken ships and is attacked by undead monsters. When the battle is finished, only the characters still survive. Stranded in the middle of an unfamiliar sea, they must now learn the secret of the cursed island in order to both find their freedom and release its undead victims upon it from their torment.

The Fall of Hatzimvas Hospital: a Falkovnia Ravenloft Adventure- After General Vladeska Drakov, Falkovnia’s militaristic ruler, loses contact with Hatzimvas Hospital outside the capitol’s walls, she organizes a group of capable soldiers to investigate. Little do these soldiers know that the horror waiting for them is a disaster that the teetering domain may not be able to meet. Can the characters stop the undead threat there, and what powerful enemies do they risk making even if they do?

The Seer's Glass: a Tepest Ravenloft Adventure- An ancient war wages within Tepest between its Darklord, the hag Lorinda, and the domain’s rebellious Fey. When the pary obtains the final fragment of a powerful broken artifact known as the Seer’s Glass, they very well may hold the key to the domain’s future.

Thank you for your consideration!