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To elaborate on Theodore Beal/Vox Day... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Day https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale Vox Day has pretty openly been a scumbag for years, ranging from Holocaust denial to other forms of bigotry. When Macris hired him to work on an RPG book this was...

Argynvostholt is actually a breath of fresh air in comparison to the prior chapters in that it adds to the place rather than restricts. Some of the revisions it makes include giving unique personalities, descriptions, and even weapons for the undead knights in the dungeon, along with...

Castle Ravenloft has always been an end-game dungeon for Curse of Strahd, and many genre-savvy players often put off exploring it until they tied up all the loose ends in the rest of Barovia. There have been non-lethal incentives to explore it prematurely, such as a Tarokka treasure or Destined...

Product Link Product Type: GMing Tools Cos-Required? Yes When reviewing the Barovia Gazetteer Collected Edition and more recently She Is the Ancient, I mentioned what I now dub “overhaul guides” for Curse of Strahd. While most are free plus or minus a few Patreon-exclusive perks, the Curse of...

Castle Ravenloft starts out by saying that the dungeon is bigger than it needs to be, although it doesn’t have any suggestions for making the castle crawl shorter or more concise. Most of the changes to the rooms involve backstory alterations, like the Vistani minions being general Barovian...

Thank you for that! And I certainly can't say no to seeing more reviewers and Let's Readers out there! If I had any advice to give, I'd suggest reviewing books or franchises you feel passionate about. That gives you extra energy in making it through otherwise large tomes. It doesn't have to be...

Old Bonegrinder 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...

Product Link Product Type: DMing Tools CoS-Required? Yes Curse of Strahd is a popular campaign; perhaps one of the most popular. But it suffers from poor organization, some encounters of questionable balance, and less-than-progressive holdovers in portrayal of certain groups, among other...

Is there anything explicitly saying that they can't fight in other ways than using artifacts? I mean, by using the traditional D&D magic system instead of the elemental colors, MtG 5e settings are already breaking the lore in another way. At some point something has to give in the conversion...

Unless I'm missing something in the card descriptions, I don't see why summoning spirits for historical purposes is something that breaks MtG lore. One of the cards is even named Spirit Summoning.

Some recommendations of my own. A publisher known as Bonus Action Rainbow made a sourcebook reworking the Relationship rules, and they regularly make free and extra paid-for maps on their Patreon. The relationship book provides more detail and gradations for Relationships, adds in Cliques as...

The problem with using Murgaxor as the primary villain is that he looks more appropriately "villainous" as a sort of humorous villain in a PG-rated show or movie. He has more Ludo Avarius vibes than Azula or Fire Lord Ozai. Which can be good if you want to lean into Strixhaven being a more...

Product Link Product Type: DMing Tools CoS-Required? Yes Of the various innovative ideas in Curse of Strahd, one of the more notable ones is the concept of the Destined Ally, a randomly-determined NPC in Madam Eva’s Tarokka reading who will aid the party in their fight against Strahd Von...

Laziness. Strixhaven DMs is the subreddit, and this is their accompanying Discord. The subreddit's quite popular, with around 5,000 members. It ain't no r/curseofstrahd, but it has an active community and people regularly chiming in regarding those asking for advice. There exists hardly...

Product Link Product Type: DMing Tool CoS-Required? Yes Another Oliver Clegg* product, Barovian Nights looks to spice up Curse of Strahd’s overland travel with a lot more random encounters. The default adventure has 25 different overland encounter types, but the only real variance is whether...

I found Strixhaven to be downright soulless in comparison to a lot of other WotC campaigns on the market. Even with less than stellar ones, you still had an outline for an adventure, challenges to face, villains to vanquish. Stakes of some kind. Strixhaven feels like someone's unfinished draft...

Product Link Product Type: Bestiary CoS-Required? No, but presumably meant to be used as a replacement for the default CoS Strahd of that book. As an iconic D&D figure who has existed across editions, the capabilities of Strahd Von Zarovich have differed between incarnations. In the original...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? Yes This one-shot adventure is designed for 4 5th-level PCs. But unlike other adventure products designed to supplement the base Curse of Strahd campaign, this one is a prequel where the players take on the role of Knights of the Silver...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure (Mini-Game) CoS-Required? Yes Besides being the largest population center in Barovia, Vallaki is known for its many mandatory festivals. While the Baron’s poor attempts at enlivening community spirit is a major part of resentment against his regime, the...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? Yes Dracula isn’t the only gothic monster Curse of Strahd deploys. Vasilka the flesh golem has a similar role to Frankenstein’s monster, but her creator, the Abbot, isn’t much of a mad scientist. He is closer to being a monster himself, as a...