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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8805596" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/WC35rGy.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/397773/The-Barovia-Gazetteer-Collected-Edition" target="_blank">Product Link</a>Product Type: DMing ToolsCoS-Required? YesJust about every official megacampaign has online guides for how to optimally run it. Curse of Strahd’s popularity means that it has quite a number of such guides. The <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/curseofstrahd" target="_blank">r/curseofstrahd</a> subreddit has two notable ones, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/9pbka6/fleshing_out_curse_of_strahd_master_table_of/" target="_blank">Fleshing Out Curse of Strahd</a> and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/9bpzbh/curse_of_strahd_reloaded_compilation_thread/" target="_blank">Curse of Strahd Reloaded.</a> Many guides, including these, also give supplementary content not present in the original module. The Barovia Gazetteer by Marc Singer is a similar series, albeit a professionally-designed product on the Dungeon Master’s Guild. In addition to having its own material, the book makes reference to other online articles complete with embedded URL links for expanding beyond the contents inside. I like this touch, for it shows that the book wasn’t just one person’s thoughts in isolation but is pulling from a variety of voices for Curse of Strahd.Introduction outlines the Gazetteer’s mission statement: to provide dungeon masters with additional resources in the form of bonus scenarios, encounters, fleshing out of characters, and background information to allow for a more immersive campaign while making things easier for said DMs. The guide goes over typical stuff (session zero discussion on campaign tone, safety tools, etc), and to its credit it also mentions that given the outlander nature of PCs that players should avoid backstories that tie them too closely to non-Barovian settings. Instead it pushes them to more unanswered mysteries and being tied to other PCs. I like this, as I’ve heard one too often of players who expected CoS to take place in the broader Forgotten Realms or Eberron only to find that those settings’ institutions never come into play. It also goes over likely means of resurrection access in the campaign as written and how to handle character death given that the scarcity of high-level magic means that death has greater consequences.Perhaps the most notable aspect of the introduction is an alternate start; the author feels that the default hooks have various flaws (“drive the Vistani out of town” has Antiziganist overtones, Plea for Help treats level 1 PCs as famed adventurers, Creeping Fog is railroaded, Werewolves in the Mists can result in OP PCs receiving Harper equipment of silver weapons and spell scrolls). Instead, a hook is provided in the Faerunian town of Daggerford, where the PCs received word of an escaped murderer and cannibal known as Ghazlak Gorlu who has a bounty on his head. A rival group of adventurers, the Black Banners, are eager to snag the bounty and thus view the PCs as competition. They too will end up in Barovia, seemingly one step ahead of the party, but they are overconfident and will do various things one shouldn’t do when playing Curse of Strahd. The Black Banners basically act like a gaming group who decides to “murderhobo their way through the campaign.”A caravan of Vistani are fleeing Barovia and want nothing to do with Strahd’s schemes, and quickly become the scapegoat for the town’s woes as Arrigal was responsible for freeing Ghazlak from custody as part of a ploy to lure new adventurers into Barovia. The townsfolk are unaware that Vistani aren’t a monolith and find it all too easy to shift their anger to strangers from out of town. PCs can learn that another group of Vistani headed south with Ghazlak, and if they showed kindness to the innocent Vistani will be given a small token that serves as a signal to others of their kind that the party is to be trusted. This has an in-game effect too, automatically shifting the attitudes of non-evil Vistani one step up when displayed.The PCs have opportunities to find out more about Ghazlak’s escape and the surrounding environment, which has various hooks of people mysteriously disappearing due to the Mists of Barovia. After some encounters with gnolls fleeing the Mists and packs of wolves scavenging the body of one of the missing townsfolk, the PCs will be claimed by the Mists and reach 2nd level. The designer notes explain the various decisions of this new hook: the Black Banners serve as an object lesson and rivals to contrast the party’s actions, an opportunity to learn more about the Vistani on non-hostile terms, the opportunity to enter Barovia via a gradual buildup of “something’s not right” without feeling tricked out of nowhere. As for Ghazlak Gorlu, he’s not from Barovia nor an intentional servant of Strahd. He’s just a garden-variety depraved killer who upon fleeing into the Domains of Dread will serve as another (early to midgame) threat for the PCs to prove their heroism.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/n5UETrC.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Land of Barovia outlines the domain in broad terms. First off, the Gazetteer recommends enlarging the map so that 1 hex equals 1 mile (rather than ¼ mile). This way, travel between areas is longer and it doesn’t feel like the PCs can cross most of the land before the sun goes down. For certain places such as the Amber Temple, it forces the PCs to make camp outside the larger population centers, imposing the risky choice of forced marches to travel quicker at risk of reduced passive Perception and exhaustion. It also recommends using a variant natural healing rule where PCs don’t regain hit points at the end of a long rest unless they rest in town or a safe area, giving further incentive for PCs to plan out their trips. We also get new encounters to spice things up, such as a band of skeletal outlaw raiders who gradually increase their strength as the PCs level. By level 8 the party has a chance at fighting their leader, Red Lukas, and make the Old Svalich Road safer to travel from then on out.The next big portion of this section details the people of Barovia. Some of it touches upon existing material, but other things are expanded further. For example, the influx of outlanders means that there’s quite a number of foreign coins in circulation in Barovia’s economy. The calendar system is lunar due to needing to track lycanthrope appearances, and thus every month has some lunar-themed name: first month is Cold Moon, sixth month is Summer Moon, ninth month is Harvest Moon, etc). Due to the fear of vampires, it is traditional when having visitors over to hold the door open and see if they walk in unprompted once they arrive. The Gazetteer alters the historical events somewhat to make Strahd’s conquest of the valley to be one masked as liberation via wars against humanoid monsters (orcs, goblins, etc) known as the “beastmen.” Naturally there are in-game texts (also available as new PDF handouts) that expand on the history. The perpetual dusk/night cycle of Barovia, along with roving monsters, means that alternative food sources are used in spite of the valley’s fertile nature. Root vegetables which don’t need much sunlight are common, such as leeks and carrots, and mushrooms are a vital part of the Barovian diet. Flax is a staple crop most farmland is dedicated towards. Cows and sheep require too much land and thus make them easy targets for wolves and monsters, so goats, pigs, chickens, and hares are the primary domestic livestock. Times are still lean, so most meat comes from hunting, and many have taken to hunting wolves due to both them and humans having depleted most of the small game. Finally, the wines of Barovia have had their names changed (“du le stomp is terrible French,” “Red Dragon Crush sounds like something you buy out of a vending machine”) to names such as purpuric (grapemash), balorosu (red dragon), sangovin (blood wine), and tsuika (a plum brandy). The Wizard of Wines doesn’t serve champagne, but instead aszu which is a sweet dessert wine made by grapes infected with noble rot. We also get monetary values for barrels of wine given how important they are to the Barovian economy, and prices have changed for the Blue Water Inn and Blood of the Vine. The latter inn is farther from the Wizard of Wines, so they charge more.Death House explains that the adventure is highly lethal, and suggests some modifications so it’s still dangerous yet doesn’t risk a TPK too easily. First off, the Durst children are changed to be just one pair rather than two with different motivations. As the book explains, “there is a difference between playing a sincere character and playing a liar, and players can usually pick up on it. Don’t lie to your players when you need them to believe you.” In this case, the house is placed on the outskirts of Barovia so it’s the first place the party will see, ideally when it’s nightfall and they are seeking shelter. The children will be scared when the PCs approach, to make it seem like less of a trap, so the hook is that they know their baby brother is in trouble and don’t know where their parents are. This can serve as a hook for PCs to be more likely to want to help them. The Gazetteer calls out MandyMod’s Fleshing Out CoS guide for expanding on the Durst family history as well as other suggestions: removing the flying broom monster if it wouldn’t fit tonally (and help conserve party resources), changing the shambling mound in the final room to a gibbering mouther for a more reasonable “boss battle,” and the shadows in the Darklords’ Shrine attack one at a time rather than all at once due to being able to easily kill low-level characters.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/YgKtG02.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Village of Barovia mentions that the area runs very well as written, given that most of the content has existed since the original 1983 module and had plenty of time to be improved. But there’s still content for this book, as it serves as a vital “first impression” to the foundations of the greater campaign. We get “at a glance” information surmising important aspects (population, industry, leader, etc) in one-sentence outlines,* and a suggestion for a slower sense of decay by altering the random encounters for the contents of random houses. This is opposed to the default adventure, where it seems like the village is on the verge of collapse where zombies and rats outnumber human residents. A good amount of space is focused on role-playing Ireena: she can be made to be more useful than a “damsel in distress” by using sidekick progression rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, and she can serve as an in-campaign “tour guide” in explaining aspects of Barovia to the fresh-out-of-the Mists PCs. Furthermore, Ireena is understandably angry at having lost her father and is about to lose the only home she’s ever known, so instead of taking it out on the party (“they’ll see her as an ingrate”) the book mentions she should run to the village square after a suitably emotional scene. She’ll call out other villagers for not caring for Donavich in his grief, not answering the burgomaster when he called on them for aid, and even curses the name of Strahd for killing her father and stealing the sun. Not only does this show that Ireena knows who to blame, it also illuminates to the party the true stakes of getting her to a safe haven and why Ismark wants to get her out of the village. Another suggested scene is to have her go sightseeing the marching dead at night, as she loved seeing the “ghost parade” since she was little. This shows that she is more than just a woman consumed by sadness while also illuminating how Barovians can find beauty of a sort even when living in gloom. Basically, make Ireena more of a living, breathing character than an escort quest stat block.*This is repeated for Krezk and Vallaki, too!There’s some other general notes, such as having Strahd showing up at the funeral of Kolyan Indirovich in paying respects to the late burgomaster. This is a good way to introduce him to the party without combat. The last big part of the Village of Barovia section is a suggested optional encounter to better put the party in Ireena’s shoes via a flashback encounter. In this case, the players take control of Ireena, Ismark, and Kolyan as the village’s mansion is assaulted by Strahd’s monstrous minions, and Kolyan risks an ever-more-likely heart attack under certain circumstances (taking the Dash action, any round he takes damage, etc). They must fight off 3 waves of enemies during the siege, although none will target Ireena. It’s also a good opportunity to insert replacement PCs for ones who died during Death House, for they could be present during the siege and thus be tied in to escorting Ireena out of the Village of Barovia.Tser Pool Camp and the Tarokka covers another vital area of the campaign. We get some general tips on portraying the Vistani: don’t portray them as thieving drunkards or jovial performers as those are equally stereotypical, remove the fact that Madam Eva is Strahd’s half-sister as it has no impact on the campaign, reuse Stanimir’s story from the Mysterious Visitors hook from the default adventure to explain how they were granted safe passage by Strahd, and read Van Richten’s Guide to the Vistani for more in-depth notes on their culture. As for the Tarokka reading, it suggests rigging the deck if it’s your first time DMing, and to remove certain cards in that there should be results to try and avoid.For the treasure locations, the 2 of Stars should be removed as it gives the PCs one treasure immediately with no effort, while the 7 of Coins makes the party backtrack to the River Ivlis crossroads which can take a lot of time depending on the map scale. We get some recommended locations for narrative strength such as Van Richten’s Tower and Sergei’s Tomb. The Gazetteer breaks convention from other guides regarding placing treasures in Castle Ravenloft, for it helps encourage exploration of different levels and PCs may still be able to go there early via a “social phase.” This phase is later covered under the Castle Ravenloft section of the guide proper.For Strahd’s Enemy, it’s suggested that when rigging the deck to pick an ally who balances out the party’s weaknesses. Certain cards are suggested to be removed, such as Innocent (Ireena is already with them) and Marionette (both allies are weak and Pidlwick II may not be encountered late in the game if at all). The Gazetteer recommends a half-dozen allies, notably the more popular and iconic ones such as Ezmerelda d’Avenir, Kasimir Velikov, and Davian Martikov.Finally, for Strahd’s Location it mentions that the Ghost or Raven cards pose risks as the magical barrier could end up splitting the party if not outright preventing them entry. It talks about how locations can force the party to explore more of Castle Ravenloft and what fits with the tone and theme of the campaign. Fighting Strahd in Sergei’s Tomb fits in well with the gothic tones of the villain’s sins, while fighting at the Overlook is a classic “fighting the bad guy on top of a castle while lightning strikes” climactic scene.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/5fftEIu.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Old Bonegrinder discusses how the hags are notoriously difficult to fight, and can end up swinging one way or another in a near-party wipe or the PCs coming back at a time where they’re powerful enough to easily dispatch the hags. A good amount of text covers their ethereal nature and dream-haunting ability, and how to best make use of that and plan for them as a GM. Several tactics for confounding the hags are given, along with ways the hags can adapt to them (Leomund’s TIny Hut, the antimagic field of Van Richten’s Tower, St. Andral’s Church when the bones are returned, using a Magic Circle spell in a Glyph of Warding and what NPCs can prepare such spells). The book even provides a detailed sidebar of how the author’s own gaming group managed to outsmart and trap the night hags in play:<img src="https://i.imgur.com/z6pGsGA.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Thoughts So Far: The Barovia Gazetteer has a rather unfortunate name, for it implies less DMing tips for a module and more a setting expansion to Barovia. Which is a shame, for it contains some really good advice. I’m quite fond of the details for farming and livestock, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jec7s3m-uTs" target="_blank">as this is one of the most vital aspects of worldbuilding</a> in that it provides plausible explanations for how people trapped in a perpetually dusky, monster-filled land would adapt to survive. I also like the addition of more “out of world” characters to Barovia such as Ghazlak and the Black Banners, showing that the Mists haven’t just claimed the PCs. The restructuring of Death House and applying Sidekick rules to Ireena (along with a sample progression in the rear appendix) are kind of obvious in hindsight, but really great suggestions for new DMs who may inadvertently get themselves tripped up by unexpected lethality in the module.Join us next time as we cover the Town of Vallaki, the fate of the Black Banners, and Rudolf Van Richten’s hate crimes!</blockquote>

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