Curse of Strahd Architects Room Question (SPOILERS!)

Warning: big spoiler. If you are a player in this adventure, you probably shouldn't be reading this.


In the Amber Temple, the Architect's Room (X20) is a twelve-foot-tall model of castle Ravenloft. It is not clear to me whether it is intended that this be a solid sculpture of the castle showing only the outside of the castle (exterior-only model), or whether the inside is depicted as well. Could a party studying the castle learn anything about the rooms and passages of the castle?

It is described as a "scale model of the castle out of magically sculpted rock. Anyone who has seen the castle recognizes this replica for what it is." The read-out text describes it this way: "Dominating this room is a twelve-foot-tall model of a dark castle with high walls and tall spires."

Another hint is that if the card reading reveals that a treasure is here, "it’s hidden in the miniature castle. The characters must smash their way into the castle to reach it."

Also, it notes that the chest once contained the floor plans of the castle, but that they were long lost.

Based on the description, I think that the intention is that is is meant to be an exterior-only model.

Unfortunately, I misread, or didn't think about it enough when the party found it. I let them study it and role inspection checks to see how well they are were able to sketch it and take notes about it--in general how much they could learn from it. They will have to see how well it helps when then actually visit the castle.

Now I have to make some decisions on what their efforts and successful ability checks will mean. Here are my thoughts:

• The model shows the exterior in exquisite, realistic, details.
• Through windows, some basic elements of the interior floor plan can be seen. But the model doesn't open up, so there is no way to get derive complete, accurate floor plans.
• Any furnishing indicated in the rooms that can been seen are decorative and demonstrative only. Artimus had no idea how Strahd would actually decorate the rooms.
• The interior layout could have seen significant remodeling over time.
• I will provide the party with a printout of maps 1 and 2
• For above-ground locations, the party will have advantage on determining directions, finding stairs, and determining outer-room locations.
• The party has no information about and therefore have not advantages when exploring locations below ground.

For DMs that have run CoS, and whose party found the Architect's room, how did you handle it?

Your solution sounds perfect.

My players haven't gotten there (yet) but I expect it soon as we're at 7th level and one of the players just made a very ill-fated deal with Baba Lysaga, complete with Geas to accept a gift from the Amber Temple in exchange for a cure for several members of the group who were bitten by werewolves. I wouldn't want the replica to be internally accurate because it would be a big spoiler to give away all the hidden passages and take a lot of the fun of exploring the castle out of the game.

But at the least, they should know there's a back door.

Oh, and random when you get there, I'd consider having an answer ready as to breaking in through the chapel windows or any window for that matter. The book says the chapel windows are boarded up, but boards can be broken and pried out, and there's not much saying how high up they are. Further, it's a judgment call on how big any other windows are. I figured this castle was built for defense, so I can't imagine they designed it for enemies to be able to easily bust in.

I had it as a scale model inside and out, with the various levels being removable to see inside. I mainly did this because I had decided to hide a clue inside the model for the PCs to find. I also had a replica of the crystal heart represented by a small red crystal suspended from a thin chain. I allowed the PCs to make a map based on their examination of the model, but told them the more detailed they made the map, the longer it would take, and the more likely the other denizens of the temple would find them.

FWIW the reason I did this is that it didn't make sense to me (as written) why the model was in the temple, and why it was called "the architect's room". Why would the architect of Castle Ravenloft be living in the evil temple?!?! Castle Ravenloft was built before Strahd pursued his pact with the dark powers.

I decided to make Khazan (of Khazan's tower) and the "architect" the same person. Then I decided to make Khazan the person who went to the temple in search of becoming a lich. He succeeded and became the lich Exethanter. I decided that when he was alive, and designing the castle, Khazan modified the teleportation room to allow him to escape through the brazier to his 'home". Strahd did not know about the addition. The PCs discovered some of Khazan's notes in the tower, including a journal entry saying that he was taking his research, and the model, to the Amber Temple.

Thus the PCs had a reason to go to the temple and seek out the model, as a potential means to escape Barovia.

Well, Castle Ravenloft is a ridiculous 250 feet high.
So a twelve-foot high model is 1/20th the size. A twenty-foot wide hallway would be 1 foot wide. Which is roughly three times the size of maps for D&D miniatures, where that same corridor would be four inches.

That’s more than large enough to have the interiors. So it might reveal the locations of secret passages, but maybe not the secret doors (and their triggers), traps, or the like,

mjsoctober said:

FWIW the reason I did this is that it didn't make sense to me (as written) why the model was in the temple, and why it was called "the architect's room". Why would the architect of Castle Ravenloft be living in the evil temple?!?! Castle Ravenloft was built before Strahd pursued his pact with the dark powers.

Click to expand...

Curse of Strahd really does a LOT of crazy illogical stuff with Barovia’s origins and Strahd’s timeline.

mjsoctober said:

I had it as a scale model inside and out, with the various levels being removable to see inside. I mainly did this because I had decided to hide a clue inside the model for the PCs to find. I also had a replica of the crystal heart represented by a small red crystal suspended from a thin chain. I allowed the PCs to make a map based on their examination of the model, but told them the more detailed they made the map, the longer it would take, and the more likely the other denizens of the temple would find them.

FWIW the reason I did this is that it didn't make sense to me (as written) why the model was in the temple, and why it was called "the architect's room". Why would the architect of Castle Ravenloft be living in the evil temple?!?! Castle Ravenloft was built before Strahd pursued his pact with the dark powers.

I decided to make Khazan (of Khazan's tower) and the "architect" the same person. Then I decided to make Khazan the person who went to the temple in search of becoming a lich. He succeeded and became the lich Exethanter. I decided that when he was alive, and designing the castle, Khazan modified the teleportation room to allow him to escape through the brazier to his 'home". Strahd did not know about the addition. The PCs discovered some of Khazan's notes in the tower, including a journal entry saying that he was taking his research, and the model, to the Amber Temple.

Thus the PCs had a reason to go to the temple and seek out the model, as a potential means to escape Barovia.

Click to expand...

That is EXACTLY what I did too! Khazan is an important character in my CoS campaign and finding him in the Amber Temple is an important part of my players' preparation for their second foray in to the castle because in the first one they got lost and overwhelmed and barely escaped with their lives. Think of the model as a tool for planning a heist, with Argynvost's skull or the Sunsword as the goals! Plan it well, get in and get out. The PCs haven't been to the Architect's room yet but when they do, I plan to outright hand them the main map, it's too glorious to keep hidden and not share, they will lose their minds. I can just see them discussing it for at least a couple of hours trying to strategize their expedition down to the last detail.

Another option I've thought of is giving them these maps: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/GryphonHill/barovia/castleravenloft.html

The maps might not match perfectly because they are from the I6 maps. I don't like secret doors being shown but the Campaign Cartographer files are provided, so I can download and edit them.

Another option is to just give them the map for the above ground locations but not the levels below ground.

But the more I think about it, the more I think that I will stick to the plan in my original post.

1. I'm lazy. The next session will be intense to DM, I want to spend planning time on going over Chapter 4 several more times and planning out various tactics for Strahd and his minions.

2. Most architectural models are not full floor plans.

3. Even if the model did fully model the interior, they would not indicate secret doors, passages, and traps.

4. I have the excellent Castle Ravenloft battlemaps by G Jensen (Castle Ravenloft hires colour jpg maps). I plan to bring these into RealmWorks and reveal the map as they explore it. For the non-subterranean levels, if they roll well, I may even remove the "fog of war" filter for an area larger than they can actually see, to represent their understanding of the layout.

MNblockhead said:

Another option I've thought of is giving them these maps: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/GryphonHill/barovia/castleravenloft.html.

Click to expand...

Nice, those are awesome (my players are manually mapping, hard to do). Believe I'm changing my tune on the replica, though the party will have to invent a way to disassemble it without breaking it to get a really nice set of maps. Now I just need to find a way to drop a hint the Architect's Room exists...

toucanbuzz said:

Nice, those are awesome (my players are manually mapping, hard to do). Believe I'm changing my tune on the replica, though the party will have to invent a way to disassemble it without breaking it to get a really nice set of maps. Now I just need to find a way to drop a hint the Architect's Room exists...

Click to expand...

Read mjsoctober's post above, if you haven't already. I really wish I thought of merging Khazan, the "architect", and Exethanter the same person. If you do that, you have more opportunities to "drop hints" about all three. Perhaps Van Richten has found papers in the Tower he's hiding out at (or the players discover the papers in the tower or in Esmeralda's wagon). Perhaps the model is only the exterior model but the floor plans are in the lich's library.

I am loathe to reveal all of Castle Ravenloft's secrets to the players, however. It seems anticlimatic. Already my next session is look more like a siege. The random encounter mechanics provides a greater attrition challenge if the party has to explore, which in turn may cause even a self assured party to take some precautions. I certainly would *not* include traps and secret passages.