D&D 5E Mining Curse of Strahd for my non-horror homebrew setting?

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Elvish Lore

Explorer

• Feb 13, 2018

• #1

I run a Middle-earth adjacent 5e campaign. There's plenty of magic, so it's not nearly as low-fantasy as ME, but it's got a fairly grounded tone even with 5e as the engine. But to be sure, it's heroic fantasy and not horror.

My question: will I be able to mine 5e's Curse of Strahd sourcebook for my homebrew? I'm looking for villains, creepy locations, monsters... etc. My game isn't horror and I know Curse of Strahd aims fairly squarely at a gothic horror tone of fantasy. Is this stuff still useful for me to steal from? or is too of a piece with the Strahd of it all and too focused on a single gothic horror storyline?

If i can get use out of a lot of the book, though not necessarily all, I would buy it. But I don't want to waste my money.

Any guidance here is appreciated. Thanks.

 

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Swarmkeeper

Hero

• Feb 13, 2018

• #2

I've used Fiona Wachter's house, the cultist HQ in Vallaki, in my non-horror homebrew campaign. Worked well and, thanks to the players, Fiona is now a recurring villain. I reskinned her as a fiend warlock from Volo's, FWIW.

 

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

• Feb 13, 2018

• #3

It will be useful. I can't say how useful.

 

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bgbarcus

Explorer

• Feb 22, 2018

• #4

Castle Ravenloft is the only place that is really Gothic horror. The rest of encounter areas can be used easily in most fantasy settings, you may want to include fewer vampire spawn and make some of the NPCs less insane. But the horror part of CoS is mostly created by the DM. The encounter areas are designed to make it easy to highlight the horror, but it's not ingrained.

 

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Rils

Explorer

• Feb 23, 2018

• #5

There's a ton of useful stuff in there, whether you use Strahd as the plot or not. Villains, creepy locations, check. Monsters - nothing too unusual, it's all gothic horror themed, so werewolves, zombies, vampires, Frankenstein, ghosts, etc - but the story makes VERY good use of them. The variety of locations covers most of the horror tropes, although what you do with them is just as important as the location itself. And a giant trap filled creep-tastic castle comes in handy regardless of who lives there. The story is very easy to peel away from the locations. Definitely worth picking up, IMO, if you're looking for horror elements to incorporate in your campaign.

 

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Elvish Lore

Explorer

• Feb 23, 2018

• #6

Thanks everybody for your excellent replies. Sounds like I should purchase this!