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Product Link Product Type: Character Options CoS-Required? No The Tarokka deck has a special place in the broader Ravenloft universe. Originating as a means to generate treasure and character placement in the Castle Ravenloft modules, the Tarokka has expanded to other uses, such as the...

Product Link Product Type: Character Options CoS-Required? Game mechanics no, everything else yes Curse of Strahd is rather light on magic items, particularly in regards to magic weapons. It’s likely that the Sun Blade will be the only one many gaming groups ever see. Vestigial Appendages adds...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure, Location CoS-Required? No A more comedic take on the horrors of fast food retail, The Last Waffle Shop in Barovia is a collection of 6 encounters for various tiers of play. Taking place in a domain consisting of a single building, Barovian Chicken and...

Rotwald is a rustic domain, and as far as I can tell has no relation to the town of the same name from Ravenloft’s pre-5th Edition Valachan. Western Rotwald is home to open plains and villages of friendly yet magic-intolerant locals, with Lake Tranen in the center providing rivers that serve as...

Gaol is a domain that has gone by many different names, with its true name used in hushed whispers by those who see the world as it truly stands. Currently, the domain appears as the small town of Chinswyk. There’s enough buildings to support over 2,000 people, but you’d be lucky to see a...

This Chapter covers two-thirds of Ezmerelda’s Guide to Ravenloft. And it’s at this point I must highlight the lack of any bookmarks in this PDF product, which makes navigating more difficult than usual. Well, none save for two monster entries, which feels weird as it implies that the authors had...

Product Link Product Type: Character Options, Locations CoS-Required? No Bearing clear influence from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft in its title, Ezmerelda’s Guide is an impressive 170 pages of new content for both players and Dungeon Masters. Originating as two smaller Pocketbook...

Chapter VII: Mausoleum is a short distance northwest of Heather House, being the ancestral crypts of the Weathermay family. It is a single-level, 7 room pseudo-dungeon. As mentioned before in this post, it requires a key from Heather House that isn’t detailed in that chapter in order to get into...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? No, but can be set after it as a sequel Note: Due to length, this review will be covered in 3 posts. Will summarize my Thoughts at the end of the third. While the original I6 module is iconic for its part in birthing the Ravenloft setting...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? No Coming in at a mere 9 pages, only 5 of which are the adventure proper, this might be the shortest module covered yet. It’s optimized for 3-5 PCs of levels 5 to 10, which IMO is too wide a level range to really give us an accurate estimation...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? No, but is primarily designed for that module Ireena is one of the most important NPCs in the module due to the main villain’s obsession with her and her accompaniment of the party once they leave the Village of Barovia. However, Ismark’s...

Allow me to add some semi-hidden gems. I should note that I wrote reviews for all of these save the Eberron books, so these are some of my top choices. Beowulf: Age of Heroes is both an innovative historical fantasy setting and an intricate sub-system for 1 on 1 play. Publisher page...

Product Link Product Type: DMing Tools CoS-Required? Yes The original Ravenloft adventure might have been published in 1983, but it was in the 90s that it became a full-fledged setting and we got a great expansion on our favorite Darklord’s backstory in the novel I, Strahd. This decade also...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure/Location CoS-Required? Yes When the original I6 module came out, the land of Barovia was very small, consisting of little more than a village, a castle, and a Vistani encampment. When it became a full-fledged setting courtesy of the 2nd Edition “Black Box,”...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? Yes Rounding out our Curse of Strahd location enhancer adventures, Beneath Old Bonegrinder looks to alter the aforementioned windmill infamous for TPKs while also giving everyone’s favorite creepy Barovian toymaker more of a role and...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? Yes Continuing on a theme established by the previous post’s product, Atop Mount Ghakis sets out to remedy the perceived weak spots of Tsolenka Pass. In the default adventure it’s little more than a waypoint to the Amber Temple, the goat...

Chapter 6, Fearsome Foes is Frontiers’ bestiary, providing us with 23 stat blocks for various monsters, NPCs, and famous folks. It leans heavily on the Humanoid side of things, with 8 being of that type. The next-most common type are Beasts at 3, with the rest just 1 or 2. In regards to...

Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? Yes Of the various sidequests in Curse of Strahd, the one involving Mordenkainen the Mad Mage feels quite…lacking. It’s triggered in a roundabout way, of walking around in the wilderness until the party runs into him. And then they need to...

Product Link Product Type: Character Options CoS-Required? Technically no, but flavor text and item functions tie heavily into that adventure The lack of significant gear to spend money on has been a common criticism of 5th Edition, and when it comes to Curse of Strahd this is only magnified...

Chapter 5, Treasures Beyond is a rather short chapter focusing on new items both mundane and magical. We first start out with explanations of common aesthetic designs that can be found in the Western Frontier, such as the brutalist yet durable Dhakaani architecture and armaments, military...