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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9167165" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/DnI0BNR.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>Old Bonegrinder</strong> is perhaps one of the most infamous TPK areas in Curse of Strahd. It was so bad that when running it Chris Perkins himself replaced the night hags with green hags. In SitA, the night hags are Morgon, Gregor, and Ophelia, the last of whom still retains her original gender. Also in this version, Barovians with souls are tastier than those without, which is who they make their pies out of. The coven plays the role of an unassuming family of bakers and will attempt to avert the party’s suspicions by supplying them with useful information about Strahd and his minions. Especially so should the PCs offer to spare their lives if battle turns against the hags. They also have two unique magic items: a Heartstone that grants +2 on a saving throw or cure a disease once per use (10 uses total), and a soul bag which collects the souls of people they kill via dream hauntings. There’s also a leather tome beneath the windmill’s bed which can reveal additional information to the PCs via Arcana or Investigation checks, such as the deadly secret behind dream pastry recipes or the hags’ inability to harvest one of the Vistani owners of the Blood of the Vine Inn.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/XqqFEbE.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>The Town of Vallaki</strong> is one of the larger sections of SitA. So large in fact, it takes up a little less than a third of the book by page count. Which makes sense, as it’s the main hub of civilization in Barovia and home to the most NPCs. Some of the bigger changes include making Gadot Blinsky wear full clown and jester makeup, and her ownership over Piccolo is temporary as the animal isn’t allowed at the Blue Water Inn and thus Rictavia must find someone else to watch over it.</p><p></p><p>As for the reigning noble families, Victoria, the Vallakovich’s daughter, has the most changes. Resentful at being pressed into an arranged marriage, she tried to polymorph Nikolai Wachter into a cat, which only worked on his mind and not his body. Additionally, Victoria’s spells are warped, causing her damage whenever she casts them with various body horror results, and instead of skeletal cats she has a swarm of gremishkas as pets in the attic. The Baroness Lydia Vallakovich* is still a tyrannical woman unable to take criticism, and is much more prone to resorting to capital punishment rather than time in the stocks like her default male counterpart. Her husband, Vargas Vallakovich, takes the role of a meek victim who pretends that all is well behind a smiling facade and tea parties with villagers.</p><p></p><p>*Once again, it should be Vallakovna.</p><p></p><p>As for Lydia’s chief enforcer, Isabel Strazni is a part tiefling, part human woman due to making a deal with the Dark Powers. So no, Ismark wouldn’t also have a tiefling heritage as a result of this. As Ismark is her sibling and not Ireena, she’s obsessed with him instead, and upon the party’s arrival in Vallaki will attempt to kidnap him. Isabel’s stat block is thus a bit different than Izek’s, having tiefling fire resistance and the bonus spells of the default race.</p><p></p><p>As for the Wachters, Fiona Wachter’s replaced by Lord Karl Wachter Senior, and he’s still a demented devil-worshiper eager to please Strahd. His stats are different, being that of a Priest of Osybus whose stat block is reprinted from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. This version of the Wachter leader trades in the mostly non-offensive cleric spells of Lady Wachter for more directly offensive options, such as the ability to multiattack with either a Soul Blade that causes tattoos to appear on Karl’s body with each kill, or a ranged Necrotic Bolt that is like Chill Touch but does more damage. The tattoos can be expended as a rechargeable ability to summon shadowy duplicates of the slain victim to fight on his behalf. Not only that, Lord Wachter has a stage 2 battle where if he drops to 0 hit points, he rises back as undead which has half hit points and a randomly-determined d6 buff. Between these buffed-up stats, the skeletons and cultists in the basement, and the imp, this makes Lord Wachter one of the deadliest fights in Vallaki were it not for the vampires in the coffin shop.</p><p></p><p>For Saint Andral’s Church, SitA’s author makes mention of Saint Andral’s Orphanage, a new location that was created by people doing online guides for Curse of Strahd as a means for PCs to find a safe haven for rescued children in the module. SitA simplifies the process by giving the church itself living space for orphans. The characters and relevant plots are more or less the same save for genders being reversed, plus some deeper details on role-playing them is is par for the course for this book.</p><p></p><p>Something else I’d like to cover: the author incorrectly cited DragnaCarta of CoS Reloaded fame as the one who came up with the Orphanage idea, but it actually originated by MandyMod of Fleshing Out Curse of Strahd. Dragna incorporated Mandy’s idea into his own guide, but he isn’t the originator. I spoke with Dragna to make sure I got the information right (I’m on his Discord server/Patreon) and he confirmed that the original idea was Mandy’s.</p><p></p><p>The Coffin Maker’s Shop has a suggestion that the vampire spawn within are former adventurers from a doomed journey into Barovia, and to make them PCs from prior campaigns you’ve run with the gaming group for that intended emotional gut punch. SitA also suggests that the players of PCs who are not present with the rest of the party at the moment should run a vampire spawn sans regeneration abilities in a literal Player vs Player match. Otherwise, the author suggests removing the spawn’s regeneration in general if you want to make them less powerful.</p><p></p><p>I admit that I’m not exactly a fan of these changes. Players taking on the role of the enemy are going to subconsciously pull their punches, and will not wish to cause resentment from killing a PC, much less causing a Total Party Kill. Even without regeneration, the 6 vampire spawn are still an incredibly deadly encounter due to action economy and their abilities. Personally when I ran this encounter, I had half the spawn escape the coffin shop with the intent of going to Saint Andral’s Church to cause a massacre . Meanwhile, the remaining three stayed behind to fight the PCs. This gave the group a better fighting chance while also maintaining dramatic tension.</p><p></p><p>Henrika Van Der Voort in SiTA differs in that she doesn’t know that there are six vampire spawn upstairs, but she has strong suspicions.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/zZtaB4W.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>The Bluewater Inn</strong> is Vallaki’s primary drinking hub and center of quest hooks, as is RPG tradition. The PCs can automatically spot the ravens perching on the roof, who in not squawking at the party is an indirect means of showing that there’s no danger waiting for them within. SitA has the good advice of not having every NPC be present in the Inn at once, as this can overwhelm players and waste time, so the narrative focus should be on just one or two NPCs at a time while saving the others for future events and quest hooks. The character with the most changes is Rictavia, aka Rudolph Van Richten who is a woman in both her real and disguised identities. In fact, Rictavia’s appearance is like that of a female version of her deceased son Erasmus. While she still is (wrongly this time) suspicious of the Vistani outside town as possible agents of Strahd, she’s no longer training a racist tiger. Right now she’s trying to gather information on wereravens and their allegiances, and is also planning an eventual trip to the Ambler Temple. PCs have the opportunity to encounter Van Richten there or on the way up via Tsolenka Pass. Statwise she’s the same as her default Curse of Strahd counterpart.</p><p></p><p>Ez and Van Richten’s relationship is better in SiTA, too. They are currently separated, but that’s because Ez is currently out patrolling the Barovia countryside rather than Van Richten cutting off ties with her protege due to not wanting to harm others with her curse.</p><p></p><p>However, we get a new NPC not present in the original module. Erasmus is an incorporeal undead subtly tailing his mother on the other side of the Ethereal Plane, and while he can appear to onlookers for a few minutes at a time Van Richten is unable to see him due to repressed trauma. Even in undeath, he is still an optimistic artist, and has a good friendship with Ez. He even has his own stat block as a regular ghost.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/KbBqx7s.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>Van Richten’s Tower</strong> is covered a bit out of order, being between two Vallaki-centric locations. Given that there aren't really any characters here that can’t be encountered elsewhere, the only change of note includes the circumstances of Yan’s death. Instead of Yan being a Vistani killed for trying to steal Van Richten’s wagon, he was Arrigal’s ex-partner. When Van Richten found this out while the two were traveling together, they came to blows. Due to this, Van Richten believes that all Vistani are in league with Strahd and is using Yan’s decapitated head to gather information on them. PCs who cast Speak with Dead on Yan can learn more about the foul plots of Strahd and the druids, such as the druid’s plans to steal the last gem from the winery and how werewolves are kidnapping people to infect with lycanthropy. Van Richten’s personal journal has been changed around to reflect the altered backstory, most notably removing the Vistani elements from Ez’s family.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/huvQa2E.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>The Northern Vistani Camp</strong> actually spends more word count on the Dusk Elves than the Vistani, which I suppose is due to the latter getting a full write-up earlier at the Tser Pool encampment. In SitA, the roles (and stat blocks) of Kasimir Velikov and Patrina Velikovna are switched, where it is Patrina who is found in camp and her brother needs to be revived at the Amber Temple. As I mentioned earlier in this review, SiTA ties these two dusk elves more closely to the Temple’s history, where it was Kasimir who revealed its secrets to Strahd who then made a deal with Vampyr once there. Kasimir had a more platonic friendship with Strahd, and was stoned to death due to the other elves fearing that his interest in Strahd and the Dark Powers made him a danger. Thus, Strahd’s genocide was motivated by the dusk elves killing her long-time friend, where she and Rahadin targeted the men rather than the women, telling the survivors to never reproduce lest they too be slain.</p><p></p><p>As for Luvash and Arrigal, the latter is the only real Strahd loyalist in camp, and Luvash and the others aren’t fond of her views and forbid her from talking about the Countess around the children. Due to this, Luvash’s worry over her missing son Ari produces a red herring where she wrongly believes her sister to have filled his head with lies, causing Ari to run off to find the vampire.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ydZ9Zgq.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>Lake Zarovich</strong> gets a massive expansion in SitA. Most notably, it is home to Vodnici, a fey caretaker of the lake who is fighting a losing battle in halting the lake’s decay after the Mists claimed Barovia. There used to be other rusalkas helping her with this, but over time they all died off. The fish have all but disappeared, contributing to Vallaki’s food crisis. This plot point has three acts: the Vistani Encampment, where the PCs can learn about Ari’s disappearance, the Lake’s decline, the fisher Bluto who has been selling strange murkstones found in the lake which are actually fragments of petrified rusalka, and a mysterious creature sighted on the surface. PCs can find Bluto in a hovel on the lake shore or selling murkstones in town.The PCs can join a search and rescue team to look for Ari, who is found holding a basket overflowing with fish but soaking wet. Later that night, the PCs can find a possessed Ari and others being lured to the Lake via Vodnici’s magical influence. Those adjacent to a murkstone increase the Wisdom save DC to resist by 5, and it’s not just this particular group of Vistani who are heading to the lake. The rusalka spirits, in calling for their fallen kin to return to the Lake, are causing those in possession of the murkstones to bring them back despite the fact that this will kill them.</p><p></p><p>As Ari disappears into the lake, the PCs must fight four rusalka spirits who are entrancing the Vistani and townsfolk. The party hears a child’s scream from Bluto’s shack, where they can find the fisherman cowered, Luvash’s form turned to stone, and Ari glowing with moonlight coming from his eyes and mouth as stones float around him. Vodnici is hoping to turn Ari into a magical slave to recover the rest of the rusalka, even though this influx of energy will kill him eventually. The PCs thus can either resort to violence and killing Vodnici to save Ari, or try to make a deal in a non-violent way of returning the murkstones to the Lake. In fact, the peaceful option is the best route: killing Vodnici will destroy all the murkstones and accelerate the toxic decay in Lake Zarovich, dooming Vallaki in the long term. Working with Vodnici grants rest to the rusalka spirits, causing the Lake to mend itself and provide a less toxic environment for fishing. PCs who die in battle with Vodnici will have not only many Vistani and Vallakians drown, the rusalka spirits will still be restless and adopt a violent attitude towards all humanoids, which will cause Vallaki to be depopulated from people fleeing over time.</p><p></p><p>Statwise, the rusalka are CR 1 undead who are slow on land (10 feet) but fast in water (60 feet). They are also invisible when fully immersed, and take necrotic damage should they be forced to leave the waters of the Lake. They can deal bludgeoning and necrotic damage with a touch, and grapple and restrain Medium and smaller targets as part of the same attack. They can deal further bludgeoning damage as a bonus action via Strangling grappled targets, and alternatively they have a Rusalka’s Tune which is akin to a harpy’s Luring Song but the range is also extended to humanoids within 150 feet of a murkstone. In fact, the text forgot to replace one mention of “harpy” with “rusalka,” given it’s almost word for word the same as that monster’s song ability.</p><p></p><p>As for Vodnici, they are also a rusalka but with a unique stat block and abilities: a much tougher CR 7 with an array of Innate Spellcasting with a preference for nature-based AoE magic like fog cloud, plant growth, and thorn whip. They’re also immune to scrying and similar magical detection abilities, primarily fight with a bite attack that can swallow Medium or smaller targets, polymorph into humanoid forms, and has a rechargeable Water Jet AoE line attack that damages and pushes away targets. Unlike regular rusalka, Vodnici can move normally on land and doesn’t have any weaknesses from being away from the lake. However, this weakness is traded in for susceptibility to lightning damage, where their speed is halved and they suffer disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws until the end of their next turn.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> I like Lord Wachter’s souped-up stat block, as the default Fiona doesn’t have many reliable means of directly harming the party and can feel anticlimactic in that sense. I’m more iffy on the PvP idea involving the vampire spawn in the coffin shop, and don’t think that removing their regeneration is enough to even the odds of this extremely difficult encounter. Victoria having gremishka pets instead of skeletal cats feels a bit less classically gothic, but her self-harming spells are a good alternative to showing that she’s messing with stuff she shouldn't be. Personally speaking, it still feels weird to keep Van Richten as an anti-Vistani racist in spite of going with the new backstory in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. Particularly when SitA makes clear that the Vistani as a whole aren’t really allies with Strahd so much as an arm’s length relationship. This makes Van Richten look unreasonable and paranoid, which if she’s drawn as a Fated Ally can cause the PCs to doubt her judgment. Then again, I can see this confirming that the PCs are Barovia’s best hope, as the other people with the capability to defy Strahd have their own major flaws.</p><p></p><p>I do like how Yan’s head has more information to give the PCs for future hooks elsewhere in Barovia. I also like how the Bluto/Arabelle encounter on Lake Zarovich is more or less reimagined and expanded upon. While it still has the potentially triggering material of child death, it’s less of a one-and-done encounter and more an involved side quest with multiple outcomes and consequences. I do feel it’s a bit railroady in how the events trigger: PCs who hear a rumor about a mysterious creature in the lake may choose to investigate ahead of time, bypassing the search for Ari. Additionally, Luvash being turned to stone in the shack is purely a Cutscene Power. Neither Vodnici nor the rusalka have the means of petrifying targets.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we finish up this review with a tour of Castle Ravenloft and the rest of Barovia!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 9167165, member: 6750502"] [img]https://i.imgur.com/DnI0BNR.png[/img] [b]Old Bonegrinder[/b] is perhaps one of the most infamous TPK areas in Curse of Strahd. It was so bad that when running it Chris Perkins himself replaced the night hags with green hags. In SitA, the night hags are Morgon, Gregor, and Ophelia, the last of whom still retains her original gender. Also in this version, Barovians with souls are tastier than those without, which is who they make their pies out of. The coven plays the role of an unassuming family of bakers and will attempt to avert the party’s suspicions by supplying them with useful information about Strahd and his minions. Especially so should the PCs offer to spare their lives if battle turns against the hags. They also have two unique magic items: a Heartstone that grants +2 on a saving throw or cure a disease once per use (10 uses total), and a soul bag which collects the souls of people they kill via dream hauntings. There’s also a leather tome beneath the windmill’s bed which can reveal additional information to the PCs via Arcana or Investigation checks, such as the deadly secret behind dream pastry recipes or the hags’ inability to harvest one of the Vistani owners of the Blood of the Vine Inn. [img]https://i.imgur.com/XqqFEbE.png[/img] [b]The Town of Vallaki[/b] is one of the larger sections of SitA. So large in fact, it takes up a little less than a third of the book by page count. Which makes sense, as it’s the main hub of civilization in Barovia and home to the most NPCs. Some of the bigger changes include making Gadot Blinsky wear full clown and jester makeup, and her ownership over Piccolo is temporary as the animal isn’t allowed at the Blue Water Inn and thus Rictavia must find someone else to watch over it. As for the reigning noble families, Victoria, the Vallakovich’s daughter, has the most changes. Resentful at being pressed into an arranged marriage, she tried to polymorph Nikolai Wachter into a cat, which only worked on his mind and not his body. Additionally, Victoria’s spells are warped, causing her damage whenever she casts them with various body horror results, and instead of skeletal cats she has a swarm of gremishkas as pets in the attic. The Baroness Lydia Vallakovich* is still a tyrannical woman unable to take criticism, and is much more prone to resorting to capital punishment rather than time in the stocks like her default male counterpart. Her husband, Vargas Vallakovich, takes the role of a meek victim who pretends that all is well behind a smiling facade and tea parties with villagers. *Once again, it should be Vallakovna. As for Lydia’s chief enforcer, Isabel Strazni is a part tiefling, part human woman due to making a deal with the Dark Powers. So no, Ismark wouldn’t also have a tiefling heritage as a result of this. As Ismark is her sibling and not Ireena, she’s obsessed with him instead, and upon the party’s arrival in Vallaki will attempt to kidnap him. Isabel’s stat block is thus a bit different than Izek’s, having tiefling fire resistance and the bonus spells of the default race. As for the Wachters, Fiona Wachter’s replaced by Lord Karl Wachter Senior, and he’s still a demented devil-worshiper eager to please Strahd. His stats are different, being that of a Priest of Osybus whose stat block is reprinted from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. This version of the Wachter leader trades in the mostly non-offensive cleric spells of Lady Wachter for more directly offensive options, such as the ability to multiattack with either a Soul Blade that causes tattoos to appear on Karl’s body with each kill, or a ranged Necrotic Bolt that is like Chill Touch but does more damage. The tattoos can be expended as a rechargeable ability to summon shadowy duplicates of the slain victim to fight on his behalf. Not only that, Lord Wachter has a stage 2 battle where if he drops to 0 hit points, he rises back as undead which has half hit points and a randomly-determined d6 buff. Between these buffed-up stats, the skeletons and cultists in the basement, and the imp, this makes Lord Wachter one of the deadliest fights in Vallaki were it not for the vampires in the coffin shop. For Saint Andral’s Church, SitA’s author makes mention of Saint Andral’s Orphanage, a new location that was created by people doing online guides for Curse of Strahd as a means for PCs to find a safe haven for rescued children in the module. SitA simplifies the process by giving the church itself living space for orphans. The characters and relevant plots are more or less the same save for genders being reversed, plus some deeper details on role-playing them is is par for the course for this book. Something else I’d like to cover: the author incorrectly cited DragnaCarta of CoS Reloaded fame as the one who came up with the Orphanage idea, but it actually originated by MandyMod of Fleshing Out Curse of Strahd. Dragna incorporated Mandy’s idea into his own guide, but he isn’t the originator. I spoke with Dragna to make sure I got the information right (I’m on his Discord server/Patreon) and he confirmed that the original idea was Mandy’s. The Coffin Maker’s Shop has a suggestion that the vampire spawn within are former adventurers from a doomed journey into Barovia, and to make them PCs from prior campaigns you’ve run with the gaming group for that intended emotional gut punch. SitA also suggests that the players of PCs who are not present with the rest of the party at the moment should run a vampire spawn sans regeneration abilities in a literal Player vs Player match. Otherwise, the author suggests removing the spawn’s regeneration in general if you want to make them less powerful. I admit that I’m not exactly a fan of these changes. Players taking on the role of the enemy are going to subconsciously pull their punches, and will not wish to cause resentment from killing a PC, much less causing a Total Party Kill. Even without regeneration, the 6 vampire spawn are still an incredibly deadly encounter due to action economy and their abilities. Personally when I ran this encounter, I had half the spawn escape the coffin shop with the intent of going to Saint Andral’s Church to cause a massacre . Meanwhile, the remaining three stayed behind to fight the PCs. This gave the group a better fighting chance while also maintaining dramatic tension. Henrika Van Der Voort in SiTA differs in that she doesn’t know that there are six vampire spawn upstairs, but she has strong suspicions. [img]https://i.imgur.com/zZtaB4W.png[/img] [b]The Bluewater Inn[/b] is Vallaki’s primary drinking hub and center of quest hooks, as is RPG tradition. The PCs can automatically spot the ravens perching on the roof, who in not squawking at the party is an indirect means of showing that there’s no danger waiting for them within. SitA has the good advice of not having every NPC be present in the Inn at once, as this can overwhelm players and waste time, so the narrative focus should be on just one or two NPCs at a time while saving the others for future events and quest hooks. The character with the most changes is Rictavia, aka Rudolph Van Richten who is a woman in both her real and disguised identities. In fact, Rictavia’s appearance is like that of a female version of her deceased son Erasmus. While she still is (wrongly this time) suspicious of the Vistani outside town as possible agents of Strahd, she’s no longer training a racist tiger. Right now she’s trying to gather information on wereravens and their allegiances, and is also planning an eventual trip to the Ambler Temple. PCs have the opportunity to encounter Van Richten there or on the way up via Tsolenka Pass. Statwise she’s the same as her default Curse of Strahd counterpart. Ez and Van Richten’s relationship is better in SiTA, too. They are currently separated, but that’s because Ez is currently out patrolling the Barovia countryside rather than Van Richten cutting off ties with her protege due to not wanting to harm others with her curse. However, we get a new NPC not present in the original module. Erasmus is an incorporeal undead subtly tailing his mother on the other side of the Ethereal Plane, and while he can appear to onlookers for a few minutes at a time Van Richten is unable to see him due to repressed trauma. Even in undeath, he is still an optimistic artist, and has a good friendship with Ez. He even has his own stat block as a regular ghost. [img]https://i.imgur.com/KbBqx7s.png[/img] [b]Van Richten’s Tower[/b] is covered a bit out of order, being between two Vallaki-centric locations. Given that there aren't really any characters here that can’t be encountered elsewhere, the only change of note includes the circumstances of Yan’s death. Instead of Yan being a Vistani killed for trying to steal Van Richten’s wagon, he was Arrigal’s ex-partner. When Van Richten found this out while the two were traveling together, they came to blows. Due to this, Van Richten believes that all Vistani are in league with Strahd and is using Yan’s decapitated head to gather information on them. PCs who cast Speak with Dead on Yan can learn more about the foul plots of Strahd and the druids, such as the druid’s plans to steal the last gem from the winery and how werewolves are kidnapping people to infect with lycanthropy. Van Richten’s personal journal has been changed around to reflect the altered backstory, most notably removing the Vistani elements from Ez’s family. [img]https://i.imgur.com/huvQa2E.png[/img] [b]The Northern Vistani Camp[/b] actually spends more word count on the Dusk Elves than the Vistani, which I suppose is due to the latter getting a full write-up earlier at the Tser Pool encampment. In SitA, the roles (and stat blocks) of Kasimir Velikov and Patrina Velikovna are switched, where it is Patrina who is found in camp and her brother needs to be revived at the Amber Temple. As I mentioned earlier in this review, SiTA ties these two dusk elves more closely to the Temple’s history, where it was Kasimir who revealed its secrets to Strahd who then made a deal with Vampyr once there. Kasimir had a more platonic friendship with Strahd, and was stoned to death due to the other elves fearing that his interest in Strahd and the Dark Powers made him a danger. Thus, Strahd’s genocide was motivated by the dusk elves killing her long-time friend, where she and Rahadin targeted the men rather than the women, telling the survivors to never reproduce lest they too be slain. As for Luvash and Arrigal, the latter is the only real Strahd loyalist in camp, and Luvash and the others aren’t fond of her views and forbid her from talking about the Countess around the children. Due to this, Luvash’s worry over her missing son Ari produces a red herring where she wrongly believes her sister to have filled his head with lies, causing Ari to run off to find the vampire. [img]https://i.imgur.com/ydZ9Zgq.png[/img] [b]Lake Zarovich[/b] gets a massive expansion in SitA. Most notably, it is home to Vodnici, a fey caretaker of the lake who is fighting a losing battle in halting the lake’s decay after the Mists claimed Barovia. There used to be other rusalkas helping her with this, but over time they all died off. The fish have all but disappeared, contributing to Vallaki’s food crisis. This plot point has three acts: the Vistani Encampment, where the PCs can learn about Ari’s disappearance, the Lake’s decline, the fisher Bluto who has been selling strange murkstones found in the lake which are actually fragments of petrified rusalka, and a mysterious creature sighted on the surface. PCs can find Bluto in a hovel on the lake shore or selling murkstones in town.The PCs can join a search and rescue team to look for Ari, who is found holding a basket overflowing with fish but soaking wet. Later that night, the PCs can find a possessed Ari and others being lured to the Lake via Vodnici’s magical influence. Those adjacent to a murkstone increase the Wisdom save DC to resist by 5, and it’s not just this particular group of Vistani who are heading to the lake. The rusalka spirits, in calling for their fallen kin to return to the Lake, are causing those in possession of the murkstones to bring them back despite the fact that this will kill them. As Ari disappears into the lake, the PCs must fight four rusalka spirits who are entrancing the Vistani and townsfolk. The party hears a child’s scream from Bluto’s shack, where they can find the fisherman cowered, Luvash’s form turned to stone, and Ari glowing with moonlight coming from his eyes and mouth as stones float around him. Vodnici is hoping to turn Ari into a magical slave to recover the rest of the rusalka, even though this influx of energy will kill him eventually. The PCs thus can either resort to violence and killing Vodnici to save Ari, or try to make a deal in a non-violent way of returning the murkstones to the Lake. In fact, the peaceful option is the best route: killing Vodnici will destroy all the murkstones and accelerate the toxic decay in Lake Zarovich, dooming Vallaki in the long term. Working with Vodnici grants rest to the rusalka spirits, causing the Lake to mend itself and provide a less toxic environment for fishing. PCs who die in battle with Vodnici will have not only many Vistani and Vallakians drown, the rusalka spirits will still be restless and adopt a violent attitude towards all humanoids, which will cause Vallaki to be depopulated from people fleeing over time. Statwise, the rusalka are CR 1 undead who are slow on land (10 feet) but fast in water (60 feet). They are also invisible when fully immersed, and take necrotic damage should they be forced to leave the waters of the Lake. They can deal bludgeoning and necrotic damage with a touch, and grapple and restrain Medium and smaller targets as part of the same attack. They can deal further bludgeoning damage as a bonus action via Strangling grappled targets, and alternatively they have a Rusalka’s Tune which is akin to a harpy’s Luring Song but the range is also extended to humanoids within 150 feet of a murkstone. In fact, the text forgot to replace one mention of “harpy” with “rusalka,” given it’s almost word for word the same as that monster’s song ability. As for Vodnici, they are also a rusalka but with a unique stat block and abilities: a much tougher CR 7 with an array of Innate Spellcasting with a preference for nature-based AoE magic like fog cloud, plant growth, and thorn whip. They’re also immune to scrying and similar magical detection abilities, primarily fight with a bite attack that can swallow Medium or smaller targets, polymorph into humanoid forms, and has a rechargeable Water Jet AoE line attack that damages and pushes away targets. Unlike regular rusalka, Vodnici can move normally on land and doesn’t have any weaknesses from being away from the lake. However, this weakness is traded in for susceptibility to lightning damage, where their speed is halved and they suffer disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws until the end of their next turn. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] I like Lord Wachter’s souped-up stat block, as the default Fiona doesn’t have many reliable means of directly harming the party and can feel anticlimactic in that sense. I’m more iffy on the PvP idea involving the vampire spawn in the coffin shop, and don’t think that removing their regeneration is enough to even the odds of this extremely difficult encounter. Victoria having gremishka pets instead of skeletal cats feels a bit less classically gothic, but her self-harming spells are a good alternative to showing that she’s messing with stuff she shouldn't be. Personally speaking, it still feels weird to keep Van Richten as an anti-Vistani racist in spite of going with the new backstory in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. Particularly when SitA makes clear that the Vistani as a whole aren’t really allies with Strahd so much as an arm’s length relationship. This makes Van Richten look unreasonable and paranoid, which if she’s drawn as a Fated Ally can cause the PCs to doubt her judgment. Then again, I can see this confirming that the PCs are Barovia’s best hope, as the other people with the capability to defy Strahd have their own major flaws. I do like how Yan’s head has more information to give the PCs for future hooks elsewhere in Barovia. I also like how the Bluto/Arabelle encounter on Lake Zarovich is more or less reimagined and expanded upon. While it still has the potentially triggering material of child death, it’s less of a one-and-done encounter and more an involved side quest with multiple outcomes and consequences. I do feel it’s a bit railroady in how the events trigger: PCs who hear a rumor about a mysterious creature in the lake may choose to investigate ahead of time, bypassing the search for Ari. Additionally, Luvash being turned to stone in the shack is purely a Cutscene Power. Neither Vodnici nor the rusalka have the means of petrifying targets. [b]Join us next time as we finish up this review with a tour of Castle Ravenloft and the rest of Barovia![/b] [/QUOTE]
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