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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mouseferatu" data-source="post: 6851388" data-attributes="member: 1288">I figured we could use a place to discuss the adventure, talk about our reactions to it, etc., without worrying about having to hide spoilers.Because I'm going to start by talking about some questions and problems, I want to make it clear up front that I love this adventure. I'm tempted to run it, and I haven't said that about a published adventure in a very long time. It's atmospheric, creative, the works.That said...1) I was really, really hoping they'd take the opportunity to get rid of the stupid joke names on the crypts beneath Castle Ravenloft. Horror has room for humor--may even require it--but it has to be the right kind of humor. Humor to lighten the mood, not destroy it. Those joke names literally belong on tombstones outside Disney's haunted mansion. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />2) Did I miss something, or did the adventure never reveal who stole the champagne "seed" from the winery? The mad druids have one. Baba Lyssaga has one. But the third, the one for which the wereraven who owns the place blames his son? I never saw any talk of where it actually ended up, or who took it.3) The Amber Temple. No. Just... No. There are some cool ideas there, but the implication that the vestiges trapped within are the mysterious Dark Powers, the beings who made the pact with Strahd and tore Barovia off into its own demiplane? No. Leaving aside the fact that the Dark Powers should never be defined--it ruins the mystique--there is nothing about the vestiges to suggest they're powerful enough to accomplish something like that. It doesn't work, on either an in-game or meta level. (Also, I really dislike the "disposable lich NPC around every corner" trope we see in so many D&D adventures, but that's a separate issue.)3a) All that said, the one location where it appears a vestige has somehow escaped... Do we think that's an Easter egg nod toward Vecna's escape from Ravenloft, since he was a vestige last we saw of him in 3E?4) I haven't run the numbers, but I'm a bit concerned that Strahd--for all his cool powers, and all the great ways he can/should be run--may not do enough damage for his CR. That's just a nitpick, though.Again, I realize this is mostly a complainy post. That's because those are the issues I want to discuss first, not because I think it's in any way a bad adventure. On the contrary, it's one of my favorite non-core D&D purchases in a very long time.</blockquote>

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