In the other thread I also read several mentions to those fanes. What are those exactly? Where is Saint's Hill?
I like that idea. Expanding on the stone circle at Old Bonegrinder desecrated with children's teeth, I can do something at Berez's (haven't read much about that yet). And the third circle I'm thinking of placing it on the forest path that leads to Rictavio's tower, the path north of Svalich Road. Just because it makes an equilateral triangle and I like me some geometric order.
There was another Ravenloft hardcover adventure that was written in 2006 for 3E called '
Expedition To Castle Ravenloft'. This was another attempt to expand the original I6 into a larger "campaign". To do this, the authors Bruce Cordell and James Wyatt created three magical fanes in the land, from which Strahd corrupted and took much of his magical power. In order to help defeat the vampire lord, the PCs could find each of these three fanes, kill the hag that protected it, and cleanse the fane to cut off Strahd's power from it (making him less powerful and easier to defeat later on.)
I liked that idea of giving the PCs something to do to make Strahd less powerful, so I incorporated the concept into Curse of Strahd. And it actually wasn't that difficult, because CoS had several creatures and locations written into it that worked as wider-range stand-ins for the three hags and fanes in
Expedition. In Expedition, one of the three fanes was located just past the Crossroads on the path leading up towards the bridge across Tser Falls, called Lysaga Hill.
Long before Strahd, this hill was a profane site where an evil cult would make sacrifices. However, at some point past that a Saint Ecatarina came and cleansed the area, and built her monastery on the site. At some point following the saint's death the tower there fell, although the people of Barovia still revered it as a holy site. Eventually, however, a coven of witches (men and women from Barovia and the surrounding farmlands) took up the cult again on Lysaga Hill, and under the auspices of a green hag, Baba Zelenna, took to worshipping a demon called Chernovog.
Much of this information from
Expedition about Lysaga Hill got reincorporated in future products-- Claudio Pozas' adventure in Dungeon Magazine called 'Fair Barovia!' that was mainly focused in Vallaki still had Lysaga Hill as a location (and instead of the hag Baba Zelenna, the villain there became a banshee witch named Patrina Velikovna). And then Chris Perkins took the stuff both Expedition and Fair Barovia and reincorporated it again-- for instance taking the name Lysaga and creating Baba Lysaga from it, and taking Patrina and her brother Kasimir's story from Fair Barovia! (which matches the story in CoS of he and the elves stoning his sister so that Strahd couldn't have her and it turning her into a banshee) but moving her from the hill to Strahd's crypt instead.
I had actually made plans two summers ago to start prepping an
Expedition To Castle Ravenloft campaign for 5E (with additional plots from Fair Barovia! and other Ravenloft adventures sprinkled in) even prior to hearing the
Curse of Strahd publishing announcement. And in my prep I kept the "consecrate the three fanes to reduce Strahd's power" as a major focus and pathway for the PCs to follow. When I then heard CoS was being made I ended up waiting on it, and then when it got released I read the CoS book and saw it doing a whole heap of the exact stuff I had intended to do. So I decided to use CoS as my foundation, and then peppered it in with additional plots and hooks from Expedition and Fair Barovia (that were not already reincorporated.)
One of these plots were the three fanes. But whereas
Expedition had them at Lysaga Hill, the Ivlis Marsh (southeast of the village of Barovia), and the Tser Poll Encampment itself (because Madam Eva was in fact a hag in disguise)... I discovered that CoS had nicely put in a pair of locations with ancient standing stones (the Megaliths, and the Menhirs.) I decided that the easiest thing to do was treat those two locations as two of the fanes-- both of which coincidentally enough were being looked over by hags (Morgantha at Old Bonegrinder and Baba Lysaga at the ruins of Berez)-- and create a third standing stone location watched over by another hag. And since Expedition already included an old monastery ruin at Lysaga Hill that was the abode of a green hag named Baba Zelenna, I just added a standing stone to the location and voila! I had three magical "fanes" that were demarcated by standing stones, all three of which were guarded over by hags. And the fanes were guarded because they granted Strahd more of a connection to his Land and they needed protecting.
Now just for fun I also did a whole bunch of extra stuff to connect everything together. In CoS the church in Vallaki has the Bones of St. Andral, and in the crypts beneath the Castle there is the Thighbone of St. Markovia. And in Expedition, the ruins at Lysaga Hill were a former monastery built by a St. Ecatarina. So because St. Markovia also had an Abbey dedicated to her in Kresk, I decided to really play the "three saints" angle up by reincorporating all these things into the story and changing some names and such. St. Ecatarina was a young priestess from the Village of Barovia who grew up in the church there, and when she got older and with the blessing of the Morninglord, built a convent and arboretum at what would become known as Saint's Hill. When she disappeared and her convent tower destroyed several years later, the people of Barovia erected an Obelisk in her name at the Arboretum, renamed Barovia's church in her honor, and made her a Saint.
In Vallaki, I reincorporated the Monastery of the White Sun from the Fair Barovia! adventure (that uses Leo Dilisnya as a villain-- the guy who had Strahd struck down at the wedding and whose bones are currently protected in the lead-lined box in Lady Wachter's closet) and put that in Vallaki itself in place of the Church of St. Andral (renaming it the Monastery of St. Andral.) St. Andral was a famous wandering monk in service of the Morninglord, and who spent many of his days in quiet contemplation underneath the ley-lines of power that criss-crossed where the Megaliths eventually would be built (down the cliffs from Old Bonegrinder). As he got older the monks in Vallaki renamed the Monastery there in his honor, and upon his death the Megaliths were raised where he spent much of his time in prayer to the Morninglord and made him a Saint. And finally, St. Markovia remained much as has been written-- she was a young paladin born in the village of Berez and who grew up in the Abbey in Kresk. Her holy power became so great that the people said she could take on the Vampire Lord himself. When she returned to her home in Berez, Strahd sent a cadre of vampire spawn whom she smote easily. She then was convinced to march onto the Castle wherein she and Strahd fought mightily, but no one ever saw Markovia again (because he killed her and had her entombed in his crypts.) In her honor the people of the valley erected the Menhirs outside of her village of Berez (which Strahd eventually flooded it in a fit of pique), renamed the Abbey in her name, and sainted her as well.
So now in my game there are three famous saints of the Morninglord, all three have monuments erected in their honor (which just coincidentally are where the magical ley-lines of energy in the valley focus themselves), and the three churches in the three towns all bear their names.
Saint Ecatarina - cleric of the Morninglord
- the Obelisk of St. Ecatarina at Saint's Hill (watched over by Baba Zelenna)
- the Church of St. Ecatarina in the village of Barovia
Saint Andral - monk of the Morninglord
- the Megaliths of St. Andral at Old Bonegrider (watched over by Baba Morgantha)
- the Monastery of St. Andral in Vallaki
Saint Markovia - paladin of the Morninglord
- the Menhirs of St. Markovia at the Ruins of Berez (watched over by Baba Lysaga)
- the Abbey of St. Markovia in Kresk
