D&D 5E Ravenloft: How would you do the new "Grand Conjunction"?

[Faolyn]

I'm running Curse of Strahd--currently on hiatus, as we rotate our DMs every few months to help prevent uneven wear and tear--and by the time it's my turn to run again, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft will be out. I... am not really enjoying CoS and I've had to add or change a lot of things to make it more interesting to me, but I have such a bad habit of stopping games midway that I'm determined to see this one through to the end, or until a TPK, whichever comes first. The players are enjoying it, anyway, even if not one of them actually wants to enter Castle Ravenloft itself and confront Strahd.

While we obviously don't know a lot about how they're doing the new RL, we have heard that the domains are going to be more like Islands and less like the Core, that there's going to be a bunch of new Darklords, and some domains are going to be quite different than the way they used to be.

At the moment, I really want to embrace this change actually in-game, not just wait until the next time I start up a new RL game. This feeling may change once I actually read the book, but right now, I'm getting interesting visuals of the new Domains of Dread being heralded by bizarre reality quakes, strange cracks appearing in the sky and disgorging disturbing monsters, and people and objects literally appearing or disappearing right in front of the PC's eyes.

So, bearing in mind we have incomplete information, if you guys were going to bring in these changes mid-game, how would you do it?

 

[TheSword]

Run the castle as a Heist?

 

[Faolyn]

Run the castle as a Heist?

Well, my question is really how people would input the new edition changes mid-game...

 

[TheSword]

Well, my question is really how people would input the new edition changes mid-game...

If you want Strahd to be the heart of things. You could have the shattering of the lore be tangible to Strahd. His frustration could increase as the lands he feels should be his (but never will be now) are lost to him forever.

Visions in the sky/dreams/in still water/in the mist show the new realms changing.

Strahds anger increases with each vision. Until simply being in Barovia is to be in mortal peril. All the people the PCs have saved/allied with are targeted. Escape involves sneaking into the castle during one of strahds rages to find the symbol of Ravenkind which will allow them to pass through the mists.

 

[TheSword]

The trips to the other domains could involve each one’s independence and uniqueness vs strahds attempt to constrain them via the dark powers. The PCs can undo Strahds grip by defeating his agents and ensuring the dark lords suffer in their own prisons.