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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9481852" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/3wuZJFA.jpeg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/358246/Zombies-at-the-Zalkens" target="_blank">Product Link</a>Product Type: AdventureCoS-Required? No, but is primarily designed for that moduleIreena is one of the most important NPCs in the module due to the main villain’s obsession with her and her accompaniment of the party once they leave the Village of Barovia. However, Ismark’s entrustment of her care into the PCs can come off as too trusting or naive.Zombies at the Zalkens threads that knot via the addition of a sidequest that, upon completion, confirms to Ismark that the party are reliable sorts who can safely escort his sister to Vallaki. And what is this quest? A nearby farm run by the Zalken family got overrun by monsters led by a druid. They will need to bring back either the druid (dead or alive) or her magic staff as evidence to Ismark that the job is done. 200 gold will be rewarded if either condition is met, so it’s not just a quest to “unlock” Ireena.The druid’s name is Corlin Vadu, and Baba Lysaga ordered her to attack the farm in the belief that the Zalken family is working with the Keepers of the Feather in order to hide their final magic gem. These suspicions are totally false, so Corlin’s mission is doomed to failure irregardless. But that doesn’t stop her from being a threat, in that she hopes to kidnap any surviving farmers to torture them for information that they don’t have. Lysaga also entrusted Corlin with the Soulless Staff, granting control over constructs and undead created by the hag (she can revoke such control if needed) to give the druid a small force to assault the farm.There’s information for adapting this adventure for campaigns that aren’t Curse of Strahd, including several other official 5e adventures. But generally speaking, this more or less turns the module into a “free the farm from zombies” and has no connecting elements to future plot points. It’s very much optimized for Barovia.The surviving Zalken family members can be met in the Blood of the Vine Tavern, where they give a short version of events that happened, which takes the form of a sidebar told in-character. One of the family members, Vasha, is a capable fighter and offers to accompany the PCs to take back the farmstead. She is a Dexterity-focused warrior who is armed with shortswords and daggers she can Multiattack with. She has 45 hit points, wears heavy splint mail armor so she can’t take advantage of her Dexterity bonus to Armor Class, but can still bump it up to a sturdy 20 via the Parry reaction. Vasha also has the Second Wind feature of the Fighter. All in all, she’s a pretty useful ally to have.The party has a chance of triggering one or both encounters on the way to the farmstead. They can cut through the cornfields instead of the main road but this has no benefit in faster travel time, risks the party becoming lost on a failed Survival check, and can trigger additional encounters with zombie patrols. One encounter takes place on the road, where the corpse of a farmer is placed as bait for PCs to investigate, and four scarecrows lie in wait to attack when at least one person gets close. They will try to take Vasha alive instead of killing her. The adventure also suggests for the DM to subtly hint at their vulnerability to fire damage by mentioning tufts of dried hay spilling out of them whenever they are hit by attacks.The other encounter involves patrols of zombies wandering through the cornfields: six of them are normal zombies from the Monster Manual, but two are new monsters known as Dire Zombies who are just like the normal kind but with 37 hit points and a multiattack bite and claw that deal regular and necrotic damage, the latter damage dealt on a failed Constitution save.The Zalken Family Farmhouse is a 17 room pseudo-dungeon split between two buildings (family house and barn) and has maps for the ground level, first floor, and second floor. The adventure also has battlemaps of the Farmhouse as PNG files for virtual tabletops. We also have maps for the road and cornfields in the PDF itself, but not as separate images and handouts which is a bit of an oversight.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ybyUj2s.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />In addition to Corlin the druid, the farm is home to zombies both normal and dire, as well as vine and twig blights hidden throughout the rooms. Corlin is up in the attic, conducting an unholy ritual on a dead farmer’s body. Three scarecrows are in the west section of the room, and she will initiate combat with the party when they find her, frantically screaming at them to reveal the gem’s location. The corpse will animate as a Strahd zombie. As for Corlin herself, she has 39 hit points, casts a variety of druid spells up to 2nd level, has a new cantrip in this book called Sapping Sting (if target fails a Constitution save, they take 1d4-4d4 necrotic damage dependent on level and fall prone), and has the unique ability to cast the Entangle spell to only restrain enemies and not herself or allies. Even with Vasha, the closed confines of the attic and number of enemies can make it a risky battle.Corlin will surrender if she’s brought to 10 hit points or lower, and will tell the PCs about her mission and increasing desperation to not fail Baba Lysaga. If the party’s feeling merciful, they can convince her that the Zalkens know nothing about the gem and that the quest is fruitless via Persuasion, or trick her into accepting a fake gem via a Deception check and convincing replica. One of which can actually be found in a jewelry box in the family home: a gold necklace with a green emerald. If the latter option is chosen, Corlin tells the party how to use the staff to destroy all the undead and scarecrows (but not the blights): all that’s necessary is to have a good-aligned being attune to it. If nobody in the party qualifies, then Vasha* (or Ismark) does. Once cleansed, the staff gains two unique abilities that can be used twice per day each: deal 2d8 bonus radiant damage on a melee attack with the staff to an undead, or paralyze a construct that fails a DC 15 Wisdom save if hit in melee by the staff, ignoring any Magic Resistance the construct may have.*One major error that I see is the product being contradictory about Asha’s alignment. When first met she is listed as Neutral Good, but her stat block says that she’s Chaotic Evil. As the module calls out her being a candidate for cleansing the staff, I presume that the former is correct.Overall Thoughts: This is a fine and functional mini-quest for Curse of Strahd. It provides a good incentive to establish trust between Ismark and the PCs, and thus more of a reason for him to let them escort Ireena. It foreshadows several plots later on in the module, and the mixture of undead, scarecrows, and blights is a healthy assortment of low-level monster types to avoid things from feeling too monotonous. I can’t see most gaming groups offering to spare Corlin, but I do like that the module allowed PCs to parley with and even trick her, which can help lead to an “easy solution” of killing the remaining non-blight monsters and reveal a means of unlocking her staff’s magical powers. Speaking of which, if the party somehow misses the blights, then they may still be dangerous once the Zalken family returns; the module doesn’t explain what happens in such a situation, although it may be more of an edge case.Join us next time as we get involved in a feud between two bards in the deadly domain of Dementlieu in Publish or Perish!</blockquote>

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