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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9480004" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/hpGTyXr.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/362609/Beneath-Old-Bonegrinder--expanded-maps-and-content-for-Curse-of-Strahd" target="_blank">Product Link</a>Product Type: AdventureCoS-Required? YesRounding 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 backstory. Tying the two together, Gadof Blinsky has a brother by the name of Piccolo, who was jealous of Gadof’s talent and spent his idle time consuming dream pastries to entertain fantasies of being a renowned toymaker. Not willing to commit to hard work of improving one’s talent, Piccolo made a deal with the hags to have talent surpassing his brother’s. Taking a piece of his soul and replacing it with something rotten and wicked, the hags granted him the ability to create magical marionette monsters out of captured children. From the basement in Old Bonegrinder, Piccolo sent a pair of Carrionettes to infiltrate Vallaki and assassinate his brother while the PCs are in town!And in case you’re wondering, the adventure has it so that Blinsky doesn’t know what happened to his brother. Believing him dead, he names his pet monkey after him out of a sense of familial longing and respect.The product provides several sample hooks to get the party’s interest: the first involves the Madam Eva result of the 7 of Glyphs placing the Tarokka treasure in the windmill, the second has an NPC ask the PCs to buy a toy from Blinsky’s, the third involves Arabelle having a vision of caged children and strange toys, and the fourth involves the Abbot hiring the party to find the nicest gift for Vasilka’s supposed wedding with Strahd from Blinsky’s. Why would a toy shop be appropriate for wedding gifts? Maybe he’s looking for miniature Strahd/Vasilka figurines to place on top of the wedding cake?The adventure begins at Blinsky’s toy shop, and we get a proper grid map of the place for the inevitable rolling of initiative. A pair of carionnettes lurking among the displays use this opportunity to attack, focusing on the party as Blinsky hides. Once they’re dispatched, their forms can be examined, revealing that they’re coated in magical aftereffects of an Oil of Etherealness which they used to infiltrate the town. There’s also a windmill logo on their backs which NPCs can mention must represent Old Bonegrinder. If Baron Vallakovich is made aware of the marionette attack, he will offer to pay the party 200 gold to quietly investigate the threat so as not to cause panic and spreading of unhappiness.Old Bonegrinder has the same layout as it does in the default module. However, the number of night hags currently present depends on the average party level: 0 for 5th level PCs, 1 for 6th level, and 2 for 7th level. It’s presumed that any missing hags are busy venturing around Barovia selling dream pastries and/or kidnapping children. A hag who drops to half hit points in combat will turn ethereal to flee, following the party as they explore the rest of the dungeon. Freek and Myrtle, the two captive children, will mention that there are more kids held in the windmill’s basement, which can be entered via the back side of the first floor stairs.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/NFf93FW.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The windmill’s basement is a new 6-room dungeon. There’s 2d4 children in a dormitory, and one of them who has magical talent will start to panic at the sight of the PCs and inadvertently cast either a beneficial or harmful spell depending on the result of a Persuasion check to calm him down. Piccolo took some other children into his workshop to transform into monsters, and as they haven’t been seen since the children will mention that some among their number were taken elsewhere in the basement.There’s also a gremishka, one of the hag’s pets, who will feign being abused by the hags to get on the party’s good side while plotting a means of ambushing them and killing any familiars or similar pet companions. Another room contains a golem laboratory with two living heads in jars: one belongs to Isa the tiefling adventurer, the other to Madalin, a Vistani agent of Strahd, and both of whom want to be attached to a headless flesh golem body in order to get out of the basement. They are both genuine in wanting to help the party and kill the hags, but both are less than honest about it. Isa is a pathological liar and will claim to be a doctor who can heal the party if they aid her, while Madalin will use reverse psychology to make them pick the tiefling first in hopes of trusting him more once her lie is discovered. Both use flesh golem stats but with some innate abilities of their lineages (tiefling spells or Vistani curses and evil eye), but if in combat with the hags the monsters will utter a command word to seize control of the golem for 1 minute.Piccolo is accompanied by four carrionettes in his private workshop. He is a CR 6 fiend who has a variety of non-offensive yet still dangerous spells such as Suggestion, Animate Objects, and Silence, has an Eldritch Sting melee attack that can force a target to attack another creature of Piccolo’s choosing, can manipulate strings attached to allies as a reaction to pull them in and shield him from attacks, and has various lair actions such as granting increased speed to marionette minions and creating a tangled web of strings that restrain those within the AoE.The basement has various treasures, such as a disguise kit and tinker’s tools, Marvelous Pigments in the workshop, a brewery containing Oils of Etherealness and more brews of hag elixirs as per the ones in Old Bonegrinder in the default adventure. There’s demonic ichor on the brewery floor that can warp the flesh of those traversing it on a failed Constitution save. It manifests in a variety of effects, such as a tail that can be used as a whip, or negative ones such as having arms and legs switch places.Rescued children will want to either live with Ismark and Ireena in the Village of Barovia or at Saint Andral’s Church in Vallaki. If Isa was freed, she will want to go to Krezk in hopes that the Abbot can give her a proper body. Madalin will instead remain with the party until he can contact Strahd or his minions to screw over the PCs. Surviving hags (and Piccolo if the party left the dungeon with the children but didn’t kill him) will hunt down the party for revenge. If Gadof Blinsky learns of what happened to his brother, he will become depressed and close his shop indefinitely.The book ends with some Troubleshooting tips. It does cover consequences for leaving the dungeon early, which I noted above, as well as harm to children being a particularly sensitive topic. But it also discusses the soul-swapping attack of carrionettes and how they can have potential character-ending consequences. The book suggests ways of blunting it, like having PCs not fall unconscious when soul-swapped and can return to their bodies by attacking their possessed forms as the carrionette-body with silver needles, or the carrionette returning to its construct body when the controlled character falls to 0 hit points.Overall Thoughts: I’m of two minds when it comes to this adventure. First off, I like that it blunts the lethality of a literal coven of night hags with a less lethal but still dangerous dungeon crawl. Altering the number of hags present based on party level is also a good idea. However, the adventure’s recommended level of 5 to 7 still puts it a bit above the baseline for PCs just leaving the Village of Barovia (3rd) and coming to Vallaki (4th). It thus works best if the party visits the latter town first and is connected to Old Bonegrinder later as a hook. PCs who visit on their way may still be underleveled, but as Curse of Strahd is an adventure where characters are expected to run away from dangerous encounters, this isn’t too bad.I am not as fond of tying Gadof Blinsky into the hag subplot and giving him an evil brother. I know that he’s a fan favorite and I’ve seen some creative ideas provided for him, but there’s already more than enough side quests going on in Vallaki as is. And he can still be helpful in revealing Izek’s obsession with Ireena via the dolls made in her likeness, so he isn’t entirely just for show. Sometimes a creepy toymaker is just a creepy toymaker, and that’s fine too.Join us next time as we visit Immol, a village of psionic refugees suffering under a curse in Ravenloft Gazetteer: Barovia Volume 1!</blockquote>

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