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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9146339" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/NDAkf6m.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/205867/Dragons-Breath-Tavern--Adventure" target="_blank">Product Link</a>Product Type: AdventureCoS-Required? No, but is written with it in mindIt’s October, and you know what that means: time for some more reviews of fan-made Ravenloft products! I’m happy to say that people are still churning out interesting content for this setting on the Dungeon Master’s Guild!Our first product is the Dragon’s Breath Tavern, an adventure suited for 4-5 characters of levels 3rd to 5th. It takes place entirely in a tavern located alongside a road, ideally after the PCs had a tough day of journeying and would find such a place a welcome respite. But the tavern and surrounding area is ruled over by Baron Von Larr, a half-dragon who is building an army of werewolves for an even more powerful vampire lord…who is Strahd if this adventure is set in Barovia. The tavern itself has a dark secret, as its entire staff are lycanthropes (wererats or werewolves depending on PC level) and they have an underground complex where they keep captured travelers and a xorn to which they feed silver.The adventure begins as the PCs end up in a run-down looking town, and the only comfy place to stay is the Dragon’s Breath Tavern, where a raspy-sounding old woman greets them between smokes of tobacco. Inside the tavern there are some other patrons that are mere commoners plus Pritch Redbeard, a dwarven knight wearing magical plate armor who complains loudly about the supposed poor quality of the ale. Pritch’s outburst triggers some boxed text as the Baron himself appears, who settles things by offering to have the finest drinks served, where his gnomish servant brings it out for him. There’s also Sveta, a human woman secretly tasked with assassinating the Baron, and the PCs can play a new minigame (with rules!) known as Demon Dice with the Baron and patrons. The food and drink is poisoned and will give such a condition upon PCs who fail a Constitution save.You may already be thinking that this sounds a bit more…standard fantasy rather than the dark gothic atmosphere that Curse of Strahd is going for, and you’d be right. Barring the mention of the Baron working for a vampire and the ample number of lycanthropes, the Dragon’s Breath Tavern is more appropriate in your generic fantasy setting than the domain of Barovia.The real adventure starts when the lycanthrope staff members barricade the doors when the sun sets, and lie about needing to keep safe from dangers outside. The PCs can still leave, although the DM has one last chance to rope them back in by mentioning sounds of screams and violence coming from the tavern as they exit. Pritch will start a fight with a staff member, triggering his lycanthrope transformation and the others will follow suit. And here is the first big flaw: the adventure doesn’t say the total number of lycanthrope staff members at the tavern. We have a waitress and a bartender who is actually not present during this encounter but you don’t find this out in the adventure text until later, so we have at least two. Thankfully the five performers are all normal people being kept hostage by the Baron holding their families under the tavern. Should the PCs overcome the lycanthropes, the performers will fill them in about all this.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/73yRT2f.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><img src="https://i.imgur.com/2LQkrFA.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Dragon’s Breath Tavern is split into four general areas. The bar itself holds little more besides another lycanthrope (at least 3) caught in the act of dragging a commoner, an incriminating exchange of letters between Baron Von Larr and Strahd/Not-Strahd, and a locked door leading into the Bowels. The Bowels are the uppermost underground section, being mostly residential areas for the lycanthropes as well as a secret room with treasure and poison vial traps that create a Cloudkill effect when triggered and thus shattered. A pair of mimics shapeshifted into suits of armor guard the bedchambers of the Baron and his gnomish sidekick Mitchy. The old lady from earlier will also be sleeping in her hybrid form, but her old age gives her weaker stats than a typical lycanthrope. Mitchy will try to talk himself out of death by offering to bargain with the PCs on how to work the elevator to the lower levels. PCs who don’t know will need to do guesswork, which can possibly trigger a malfunction and cause a random table of dangerous effects. Mitchy is genuine, as the Baron treats him poorly and he’s grown to resent this.The Forgotten Tunnel is a short section where the PCs can slip and take bludgeoning damage from bat guano, and fight one or two carrion crawlers (based on PC level) who eat the corpses of murdered guests. The lowest level is the Baron’s Playground, which is a prison and underground arena which Baron Von Larr uses to pit prisoners against each other for his amusement. One of the cells has a xorn which is fed silver by human servants; it hasn’t bothered escaping because it’s happy being fed, and the accumulated “food” contains quite a bit of treasure. The prisoners are mostly Commoners who are useless in a fight, although one of them (Cullen) has scout stats but a broken arm and will try to run for it when he can. PCs who go into the arena will be met with boxed text of the Baron sitting on a throne with a wyrmling white dragon and lycanthrope bodyguard next to him. Sveta and one of the commoners are pitted against each other. The Baron will offer to spare the latter’s life if one of the PCs takes her place to duel Sveta. Sveta will speak in Thieves’ Cant to see if anyone understands her, and will encourage such a character to do a fake-battle to try and move closer to the Baron to kill him.Now, this sounds like a pretty clever ploy, and one to help reward a Rogue PC who has a language that otherwise won’t be used in Curse of Strahd. Sadly, the adventure enters Cutscene Mode and boxed text when Sveta attempts to attack the baron. This causes her to die from the wyrmling’s breath weapon, no save.The winner of such a contest is deemed worthy to be infected with lycanthropy, and is sent to a nearby werewolf community to be trained. But something tells me a victorious PC is not going to agree to the deal. Or agree to the lycanthropy, but not the rest of it, that naughty powergamer!In terms of stats Baron Von Larr is a melee fighter, with a multiattack rapier as his main melee tactic. He can use a breath weapon dealing cold damage, and is predictably immune to cold and vulnerable to fire. The Baron has a pretty low AC of 13, and he has two stat blocks based on party level which really only change his hit points (45 or 65) and skill modifiers. Paradoxically, the adventure mentions he is a White Half-Dragon Veteran, but when compared to the Half-Dragon Veteran stat block it’s clear he is unarmored, uses different weapons, and has different ability scores. So while I don’t think this is a big mark against the book, the adventure could be more clear that Baron Von Larr is very much a stat block all his own and not just “this stat block but with a cold breath weapon.”The adventure has a variety of endings: a DM who wishes to have a recurring villain can have the Baron or Gleycera escape…wait, who is Gleycera? Ah, it’s Gleyceras, the white dragon wyrmling. This is the only other time it’s mentioned in the text, so I don’t know which version is correct.PCs gain more experience points the more prisoners they free, including the xorn. It doesn’t say if such a monster will just flee, join the party, or refuse to budge unless a character convinces it otherwise. If he survived, Mitchy the gnome will inherit the tavern. The adventure mentions future hooks such as the vampire sending a representative to check on the Baron, the nearby lycanthropes expecting an arena winner and getting suspicious when one isn’t delivered, or the townsfolk hiring the PCs to hunt down Baron Von Larr if he escaped.Overall Thoughts: Honestly, I’m not really feeling this adventure. First is the fact that it’s not really suitable for the gothic horror atmosphere of Curse of Strahd. And even then, there are things that bring it down, such as the exact number of lycanthrope wait staff, the vagueness of the xorn’s allegiance regarding the PCs given it’s suggested as a hostage to rescue, Sveta’s inevitable death during Cutscene Mode, and the likely easiness of several encounters due to action economy of potential allies. Taking our standard 4 person party, plus Pritch, Sveta, and perhaps the Xorn, this can tip the odds heavily in the party’s favor.It’s for these reasons that I can’t recommend the adventure.Join us next time as we try to cover up a Darklord’s death in Weekend at Strahd’s!</blockquote>

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