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[Let's Read] DM's Guild Ravenloft Sourcebooks
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9168164" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/kqQs1bu.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Castle Ravenloft</strong> 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 sympathizers of Strahd, or the Tatyana/Ireena portrait in K37’s Study portraying Tatyana and Sergei. The painting is turned backwards to face the wall by Strahd who cannot bear to destroy it, but cannot bear to look at it either. If Kasimir is freed from his banshee form, he will seek out Patrina to murder and drink her blood before hunting down the rest of the party. Should the PCs defeat Kasimir before that, he will rise as a full vampire. As for Strahd’s accountant, Lief Lipsiege can also offer to provide crude drawings of important castle locations if the party’s nice to her. The book doesn’t specify if this is in addition to or a replacement for revealing the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind’s location. Ciri is a genderswapped version of Cyrus Belview, part of a larger change to the Abbey of Saint Markovia’s inhabitants to be experimental victims of the Abbot <a href="https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mongrelfolk" target="_blank">rather than the unfortunate implications of the original monsters they’re based on.</a></p><p></p><p>Furthermore, one of the other larger changes is to the vampire spawn found in the crypt level. Originally old brides of Strahd kept in the crypts, they have proper living quarters in the castle and various suggestions are given for why they’d be down here. Such as draining kidnapped victims of blood in order to bottle, or providing security should Strahd retreat down to the crypts.</p><p></p><p>As for Strahd’s four consorts, they are given expanded backstories in addition to the typical genderswaps. Vilisevic is a wizard who hopes to find a means of harnessing Argynvost’s soul for greater arcane power. Ofsky (originally Volenta) is an alchemist who knows a thing or two about metallurgy and gunpowder, and is seeking to build an army of armored corpses by making a deal with the Dark Powers in the Amber Temple. Esther is falling out of favor with Strahd and can act as either a guide to the castle or leading a vampire spawn ambush, depending on whether she thinks the PCs are invited guests. Anastrasya is still a woman, but changed to be a Wachter and helped mastermind the theft of the Bones of Saint Andral. It even says that the party can see her leaving the Coffin Maker’s shop to plant the bones in the Baroness’ house as a means of framing Vallaki’s leader for the theft. She’ll even go so far as to bribe Ernesta (female Ernst Larnak) to tip the PCs off on this false lead. Hmmm, this would be an interesting twist to include…if this information was provided in the Vallaki section earlier rather than in the middle of the Castle Ravenloft entry!</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/NWqIZgp.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Ruins of Berez</strong> alters the backstory of the town by having Strahd courting Marina, but the Dark Powers intervened by showing Marina the truth of her original reincarnation and the vampire countess’ atrocities. When Marina confronted her with this, Strahd flew into a rage and killed Marina and her family, her screams of anguish summoning a flood of epic proportions to destroy the village. We get a very brief illustrated page talking about how each archfey of the Ladies Three released from imprisonment removes one of Strahd’s “land-based abilities,” while also letting sunlight through the clouds which can cause problems for the vampire spawn. A cool idea…if it had further development in this book.</p><p></p><p>Another change to Berez is one I’ve seen done in the CoS community: moving Argynvost’s skull from Castle Ravenloft to be in Baba Lysaga’s possession. Instead of flying around in a skull taken from a giant, she is using the silver dragon’s skull as an aerial vehicle. SitA mentions that Lysaga can be portrayed as either male or female, with the male version being inspired and looking like Pan the faun from Pan’s Labyrinth.</p><p></p><p><strong>Mount Baratok</strong> focuses on a non-binary Mordenkainen, who is known instead as the “Angry Archmage of Baratok.” The major addition is that they’re struggling with anxiety and depression in addition to amnesia (only the latter can be cured by magic). Should the PCs help Mordenkainen, they’ll reveal vague information by saying that “something evil lives within the land even more potent than Lady Strahd.” Presumably this is a reference to the Dark Vestiges in the Amber Temple, but the book doesn’t outright say this or elaborate.</p><p></p><p><strong>Argynvostholt</strong> doesn’t really have anything new besides genderswapped titles and artwork for the undead knights. Argynvost is also changed to be a woman silver dragon, but has no artwork.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Jb6iElr.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Krezk</strong> and the <strong>Abbey of St. Markovia</strong> are some of the longer entries given the number of NPCs, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to Vallaki. SitA gives suggestions for other means for the PCs to enter town besides securing a Wizard of Wines shipment, but is a vague “do something kind or beneficial for Krezk” rather than anything detailed.</p><p></p><p>As for the Abbey, the Belviews have been changed to not be mongrelfolk, as that monster has some unfortunate implications regarding children of mixed heritage. Instead, the people living in the Abbey are regular folk who have been experimented on by the Abbot with the promise of healing. SitA cautions away from using real-life illnesses and conditions, instead drawing upon impossible conditions for the body horror such as a now-headless person walking around with their head in a jar, a tall person with no face but a mouth in the back of their head, and Cloven still has an extra head that was sewn on and is barely alive, rotting away.</p><p></p><p>The Abbot’s backstory is still quite similar: a deva sent to Krezk to aid the Belviews, she was corrupted by Strahd in her alternate Vasalisa von Holtz disguise. In SitA, the Abbot researched the works of Viktra Mordenheim in Lamordia, which along with her corruption is responsible for many of the illnesses suffered by the Abbot’s patients who expected to be healed. The Abbot is still building a flesh golem, but it’s a gift intended for Vasalisa. The golem is missing a face, and the Abbot will either ask for a PC to donate one of their own, take a face from the party by force, or ask the party to take someone else’s face. The Abbot may also hire the party to break into the Vallakovich manor’s attic, knowing that Victoria is a talented mage sure to have lots of research material.</p><p></p><p><strong>Wizard of Wines</strong> alters the importance of wine in Barovia. The three gems used to grow grapes helped prevent the evils of the land from seeping into the food. The wine, if drunk by soulless Barovians, helps stay their innately violent nature. Without such wine, many soulless Barovians would have started killing others, and hints that without this blessing Barovia would look akin to a “zombie apocalypse.” Due to this, the Martikovs distribute the wine for free, which in addition to ensuring Barovia to be a safer place also makes them a very popular and politically connected family. This also makes the retrieval of the wine gems take on an importance beyond saving their failing business. While the wine’s true nature isn’t exactly known, popular superstitions have arisen around it, and many Barovians believe drinking wine helps ward off evil influence. This section mentions that all three wine gems are missing, which contradicts the section with Yan’s severed head in Van Richten’s Tower. In that section, Yan mentioned that the druids were plotting to steal the last remaining gem from the winery. I presume that having been dead for a while, the information is out of date, but this could’ve been made clearer in the text.</p><p></p><p><strong>Amber Temple</strong> is super-short and only covers Exethanter and Vilnius, both now female NPCs. The only things of note is that PCs traveling with Exethanter in the Temple will make it so that no creatures can track the party while the lich remains with them. To make up for this sparse content, we have a one-page submission from someone besides the author discussing how one can better foreshadow this late-game dungeon earlier in the campaign.</p><p></p><p><strong>Yester Hill & Druid Faction</strong> is extremely short and besides full-page artwork only covers half a page worth of content. Much like in the original adventure, they worship Strahd in the belief that she is the will of the land itself. They also appear like humanoid-plant symbiotes, with bark-like skin, vine-like hair, and their eyes look like they’re filled with Mist. Every generation the druids increasingly forget their lineage and history, becoming even less human in mind and body.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/XGgVHJo.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Werewolf Den & Faction</strong> makes it so that the werewolves have a reliable means of navigating the Mists so they can go to other domains to kidnap people rather than relying exclusively on Strahd’s leave. Instead of exclusively targeting children to infect with lycanthropy, it’s anyone they have an easy opportunity to kidnap.</p><p></p><p><strong>Interview with the Vampire</strong> is our final section of the book, a humorous discussion with Countess Strahd Von Zarovich who is asked about her life and goals. I don’t have much to say on it besides that it plays up Strahd’s role as an arrogant vampire detached from others with almost no redeeming qualities. For example…</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> First off, I like the expansion on the differences between Strahd’s consorts in personalities and talents. Moving Argynvost’s skull outside of Castle Ravenloft is another good touch, as is changing around the Abbot’s patients. The latter two of which I plan to use in my current Curse of Strahd campaign. I’m not as fond of the rewrite of Berez; while it still places Strahd in a villainous role, the original backstory helped cement Strahd’s terrible wrath and possessiveness on anyone he deems is keeping him away from Tatyana. To show that he’s willing to punish the many for the crimes of the few. Having the flood happen as the byproduct of emotions sort of takes away Strahd’s moral culpability in it being unplanned. I also wasn’t ever fond of the existence of soulless people, so reworking them to be murder-machines kept at bay by magical wine feels doesn’t really grab me either. While I can understand if “helping save the vineyard business” isn’t a strong enough hook for do-gooder parties, gaining the aid of a wereraven spy network is reward enough in my opinion.</p><p></p><p><strong>Final Thoughts:</strong> Personally speaking, I’m rather let down by She Is the Ancient. The book suffers from poor organization and the sequestering of important information in the wrong places. The three archfey subplot is surprisingly incomplete, and the use of Vodnici and Lake Zarovich as one of the archfey is a new element not present in either DragnaCarta or MandyMod’s handling of the Fanes. Due to this, you can’t just plug the content of either guide in SitA and expect it to be ready to go. While there were parts of the book I liked, those felt sparse in comparison to my disagreements with game design, unclear information, or entries that just felt too sparse.</p><p></p><p>I can only recommend She Is the Ancient for those who want a plethora of tokens and artwork for a Rule 63 Curse of Strahd, and handout-style pages for roleplaying NPCs and their relationships with others. But for a fuller guide on running Curse of Strahd, it falls short.</p><p></p><p>Now that I’ve reviewed one of the larger sourcebooks, I plan to start work on another ambitious product made for Curse of Strahd. This one is even longer than She Is the Ancient, but with roughly two weeks left before November begins I am confident that I can start it sometime before Halloween comes around.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we check out a campaign overhaul guide two years in the making: the Curse of Strahd Companion by Wyatt Trull!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 9168164, member: 6750502"] [img]https://i.imgur.com/kqQs1bu.png[/img] [b]Castle Ravenloft[/b] 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 sympathizers of Strahd, or the Tatyana/Ireena portrait in K37’s Study portraying Tatyana and Sergei. The painting is turned backwards to face the wall by Strahd who cannot bear to destroy it, but cannot bear to look at it either. If Kasimir is freed from his banshee form, he will seek out Patrina to murder and drink her blood before hunting down the rest of the party. Should the PCs defeat Kasimir before that, he will rise as a full vampire. As for Strahd’s accountant, Lief Lipsiege can also offer to provide crude drawings of important castle locations if the party’s nice to her. The book doesn’t specify if this is in addition to or a replacement for revealing the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind’s location. Ciri is a genderswapped version of Cyrus Belview, part of a larger change to the Abbey of Saint Markovia’s inhabitants to be experimental victims of the Abbot [url=https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mongrelfolk]rather than the unfortunate implications of the original monsters they’re based on.[/url] Furthermore, one of the other larger changes is to the vampire spawn found in the crypt level. Originally old brides of Strahd kept in the crypts, they have proper living quarters in the castle and various suggestions are given for why they’d be down here. Such as draining kidnapped victims of blood in order to bottle, or providing security should Strahd retreat down to the crypts. As for Strahd’s four consorts, they are given expanded backstories in addition to the typical genderswaps. Vilisevic is a wizard who hopes to find a means of harnessing Argynvost’s soul for greater arcane power. Ofsky (originally Volenta) is an alchemist who knows a thing or two about metallurgy and gunpowder, and is seeking to build an army of armored corpses by making a deal with the Dark Powers in the Amber Temple. Esther is falling out of favor with Strahd and can act as either a guide to the castle or leading a vampire spawn ambush, depending on whether she thinks the PCs are invited guests. Anastrasya is still a woman, but changed to be a Wachter and helped mastermind the theft of the Bones of Saint Andral. It even says that the party can see her leaving the Coffin Maker’s shop to plant the bones in the Baroness’ house as a means of framing Vallaki’s leader for the theft. She’ll even go so far as to bribe Ernesta (female Ernst Larnak) to tip the PCs off on this false lead. Hmmm, this would be an interesting twist to include…if this information was provided in the Vallaki section earlier rather than in the middle of the Castle Ravenloft entry! [img]https://i.imgur.com/NWqIZgp.png[/img] [b]Ruins of Berez[/b] alters the backstory of the town by having Strahd courting Marina, but the Dark Powers intervened by showing Marina the truth of her original reincarnation and the vampire countess’ atrocities. When Marina confronted her with this, Strahd flew into a rage and killed Marina and her family, her screams of anguish summoning a flood of epic proportions to destroy the village. We get a very brief illustrated page talking about how each archfey of the Ladies Three released from imprisonment removes one of Strahd’s “land-based abilities,” while also letting sunlight through the clouds which can cause problems for the vampire spawn. A cool idea…if it had further development in this book. Another change to Berez is one I’ve seen done in the CoS community: moving Argynvost’s skull from Castle Ravenloft to be in Baba Lysaga’s possession. Instead of flying around in a skull taken from a giant, she is using the silver dragon’s skull as an aerial vehicle. SitA mentions that Lysaga can be portrayed as either male or female, with the male version being inspired and looking like Pan the faun from Pan’s Labyrinth. [b]Mount Baratok[/b] focuses on a non-binary Mordenkainen, who is known instead as the “Angry Archmage of Baratok.” The major addition is that they’re struggling with anxiety and depression in addition to amnesia (only the latter can be cured by magic). Should the PCs help Mordenkainen, they’ll reveal vague information by saying that “something evil lives within the land even more potent than Lady Strahd.” Presumably this is a reference to the Dark Vestiges in the Amber Temple, but the book doesn’t outright say this or elaborate. [b]Argynvostholt[/b] doesn’t really have anything new besides genderswapped titles and artwork for the undead knights. Argynvost is also changed to be a woman silver dragon, but has no artwork. [img]https://i.imgur.com/Jb6iElr.png[/img] [b]Krezk[/b] and the [b]Abbey of St. Markovia[/b] are some of the longer entries given the number of NPCs, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to Vallaki. SitA gives suggestions for other means for the PCs to enter town besides securing a Wizard of Wines shipment, but is a vague “do something kind or beneficial for Krezk” rather than anything detailed. As for the Abbey, the Belviews have been changed to not be mongrelfolk, as that monster has some unfortunate implications regarding children of mixed heritage. Instead, the people living in the Abbey are regular folk who have been experimented on by the Abbot with the promise of healing. SitA cautions away from using real-life illnesses and conditions, instead drawing upon impossible conditions for the body horror such as a now-headless person walking around with their head in a jar, a tall person with no face but a mouth in the back of their head, and Cloven still has an extra head that was sewn on and is barely alive, rotting away. The Abbot’s backstory is still quite similar: a deva sent to Krezk to aid the Belviews, she was corrupted by Strahd in her alternate Vasalisa von Holtz disguise. In SitA, the Abbot researched the works of Viktra Mordenheim in Lamordia, which along with her corruption is responsible for many of the illnesses suffered by the Abbot’s patients who expected to be healed. The Abbot is still building a flesh golem, but it’s a gift intended for Vasalisa. The golem is missing a face, and the Abbot will either ask for a PC to donate one of their own, take a face from the party by force, or ask the party to take someone else’s face. The Abbot may also hire the party to break into the Vallakovich manor’s attic, knowing that Victoria is a talented mage sure to have lots of research material. [b]Wizard of Wines[/b] alters the importance of wine in Barovia. The three gems used to grow grapes helped prevent the evils of the land from seeping into the food. The wine, if drunk by soulless Barovians, helps stay their innately violent nature. Without such wine, many soulless Barovians would have started killing others, and hints that without this blessing Barovia would look akin to a “zombie apocalypse.” Due to this, the Martikovs distribute the wine for free, which in addition to ensuring Barovia to be a safer place also makes them a very popular and politically connected family. This also makes the retrieval of the wine gems take on an importance beyond saving their failing business. While the wine’s true nature isn’t exactly known, popular superstitions have arisen around it, and many Barovians believe drinking wine helps ward off evil influence. This section mentions that all three wine gems are missing, which contradicts the section with Yan’s severed head in Van Richten’s Tower. In that section, Yan mentioned that the druids were plotting to steal the last remaining gem from the winery. I presume that having been dead for a while, the information is out of date, but this could’ve been made clearer in the text. [b]Amber Temple[/b] is super-short and only covers Exethanter and Vilnius, both now female NPCs. The only things of note is that PCs traveling with Exethanter in the Temple will make it so that no creatures can track the party while the lich remains with them. To make up for this sparse content, we have a one-page submission from someone besides the author discussing how one can better foreshadow this late-game dungeon earlier in the campaign. [b]Yester Hill & Druid Faction[/b] is extremely short and besides full-page artwork only covers half a page worth of content. Much like in the original adventure, they worship Strahd in the belief that she is the will of the land itself. They also appear like humanoid-plant symbiotes, with bark-like skin, vine-like hair, and their eyes look like they’re filled with Mist. Every generation the druids increasingly forget their lineage and history, becoming even less human in mind and body. [img]https://i.imgur.com/XGgVHJo.png[/img] [b]Werewolf Den & Faction[/b] makes it so that the werewolves have a reliable means of navigating the Mists so they can go to other domains to kidnap people rather than relying exclusively on Strahd’s leave. Instead of exclusively targeting children to infect with lycanthropy, it’s anyone they have an easy opportunity to kidnap. [b]Interview with the Vampire[/b] is our final section of the book, a humorous discussion with Countess Strahd Von Zarovich who is asked about her life and goals. I don’t have much to say on it besides that it plays up Strahd’s role as an arrogant vampire detached from others with almost no redeeming qualities. For example… [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] First off, I like the expansion on the differences between Strahd’s consorts in personalities and talents. Moving Argynvost’s skull outside of Castle Ravenloft is another good touch, as is changing around the Abbot’s patients. The latter two of which I plan to use in my current Curse of Strahd campaign. I’m not as fond of the rewrite of Berez; while it still places Strahd in a villainous role, the original backstory helped cement Strahd’s terrible wrath and possessiveness on anyone he deems is keeping him away from Tatyana. To show that he’s willing to punish the many for the crimes of the few. Having the flood happen as the byproduct of emotions sort of takes away Strahd’s moral culpability in it being unplanned. I also wasn’t ever fond of the existence of soulless people, so reworking them to be murder-machines kept at bay by magical wine feels doesn’t really grab me either. While I can understand if “helping save the vineyard business” isn’t a strong enough hook for do-gooder parties, gaining the aid of a wereraven spy network is reward enough in my opinion. [b]Final Thoughts:[/b] Personally speaking, I’m rather let down by She Is the Ancient. The book suffers from poor organization and the sequestering of important information in the wrong places. The three archfey subplot is surprisingly incomplete, and the use of Vodnici and Lake Zarovich as one of the archfey is a new element not present in either DragnaCarta or MandyMod’s handling of the Fanes. Due to this, you can’t just plug the content of either guide in SitA and expect it to be ready to go. While there were parts of the book I liked, those felt sparse in comparison to my disagreements with game design, unclear information, or entries that just felt too sparse. I can only recommend She Is the Ancient for those who want a plethora of tokens and artwork for a Rule 63 Curse of Strahd, and handout-style pages for roleplaying NPCs and their relationships with others. But for a fuller guide on running Curse of Strahd, it falls short. Now that I’ve reviewed one of the larger sourcebooks, I plan to start work on another ambitious product made for Curse of Strahd. This one is even longer than She Is the Ancient, but with roughly two weeks left before November begins I am confident that I can start it sometime before Halloween comes around. [b]Join us next time as we check out a campaign overhaul guide two years in the making: the Curse of Strahd Companion by Wyatt Trull![/b] [/QUOTE]
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