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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9485032" data-attributes="member: 6750502">Chapter VII: Mausoleum is a short distance northwest of Heather House, being the ancestral crypts of the Weathermay family. It is a single-level, 7 room pseudo-dungeon. As mentioned before in this post, it requires a key from Heather House that isn’t detailed in that chapter in order to get into the place. The Mausoleum’s foyer is lit by Continual Flame spells, but there is a group of Strahd Zombies that appear as a Delirium episode. There are tougher enemies here, such as an allip and wraiths in some of the rooms who will attack intruders at the behest of Azalin and/or the Creature. Azalin is resting in a coffin in the central nave, and although he will fight the PCs he will retreat, reporting back to the Creature that he had to run due to their danger.Azalin more or less uses the default lich stat block, although his spell allotments are different. For example, he has Antimagic Field and Feeblemind instead of Dominate Monster and Power Word Stun for 8th level spells, or Ice Storm replacing Blight as a 4th level spell. He also has much higher physical ability scores but lower mental ones, and instead of the Disrupt Life legendary action Azalin has Repel Life that teleports a target away in a random direction if they fail a Charisma save.There is treasure to be found in the crypt: Lord Renier’s corpse holds a Sun Blade along with 5,000 gold worth of jewelry, but anyone who takes anything from the mausoleum will be cursed to have disadvantage on all saving throws until everything is returned. The ghost of Lord Godefroy, who is the Darklord of Mordent in the proper campaign setting, is here if the Apparatus isn’t present. He will attempt to possess a PC to go to Griffon Hill to find his daughter’s body and bury it in a cemetery. Once that is done, he begs a priest to forgive his sins in order to pass on.Chapter VIII: Griffon Hill Manor is the adventure’s namesake, the place so scary it even caused (good-aligned) Strahd to flee from it in terror. Centuries ago, it was the domain of the Godefroy noble family, but its patriarch, Lord William Godefroy, brutally murdered his family. The place would then be sold off to various people over the generations, only for each successive owner to commit atrocities or go insane. Thus, for most of its history, it remained unoccupied.The Manor is a 42 room, 4 level dungeon crawl, with a ground floor, first floor, rooftops, and basement. The front entrance has monsters enchanted to deal with troublemakers, the first set being Will-o-Wisps who attack if the knocker on the door is used (a precautionary measure by the Creature), and a pair of stone golems carved in the likeness of griffons to attack anyone leaving the house with stolen property. The ghosts of Lady and Penelope Godefroy are also here. The former will attack the PCs, thinking them to be her murderous husband, and the latter is nonhostile but will attempt to possess a PC in order to run to the chapel before leaving the body and departing for the true afterlife. The remaining encounters in the Manor are hardly a challenge for 9th-level PCs, such as a swarm of rats, a pair of wraiths guarding the way to the chapel who will attack anyone Penelope possesses, a lair of lightning elementals* in the abandoned lab used to build the Apparatus, a pair of giant spiders at the top of some stairs, or a Vampire Bride of the Creature who will try to ambush the PCs when they’re in combat with another monster. The most significant treasure to be found here that aren’t randomized Special Items is in the altar at the chapel. The altar is trapped to teleport anyone who doesn’t speak the password into the basement’s cells which also hold a pair of bodaks. Once that trap’s overcome, the PCs can find  expensive golden chalice and a lawful good candle of invocation.*A new monster, basically like most elementals but with a paralyzing counterattack, rechargeable AoE, and can do ranged attacks dealing either thunder or lightning damage.As for clues to Strahd’s experiments, the library has a short journal written by the Creature talking about his alliance with Azalin, available as a handout in the back of this product. While it doesn’t explain why Strahd was building the Apparatus, it does more or less name and shame the lich, and illuminates that he is pretending to be a copycat vampire to throw the writer off the trail while the Creature works on the Apparatus. An Apparatus that can be used to make a new body, which Azalin wanted to use to replace his decaying one.Another major clue is in the private study in the basement behind a secret door,* which via an hour of research and a DC 18 Arcana check reveals the basic functioning of the Apparatus. Finally, Strahd’s converted bedroom holds a coffin beneath the bed and a strongbox with three trapped locks to overcome. Within they can find various potions and alchemical supplies. His spellbook, a bag of topaz gems, a ledger of “places he uses to hide things,” with “no further info, only a list of places” but the text doesn’t elaborate. The final page of his spellbook does have a more useful handout, being a list of hidden places in the Manor to find various stuff.*Besides one exception, the various secret doors in this place aren’t given DCs for finding them.Chapter IX: Boar’s Den is a side trek dungeon for PCs who seek to deal with Mordentshire’s lycanthrope problem. It’s easy to find, as the wereboars don’t even bother trying to hide their tracks, believing that nothing in the town can pose a threat to them. It’s a two-story, 8 room dungeon. And unless the PCs are all physical attackers with no silver or magic weapons (press X to doubt), the majority of encounters are trivial. Besides their leader Gavin McGuinty, there’s only a total of 8 other wereboars and two giant boars. However, one of them will try to be deceitful in order to stay the PCs’ wrath.Content Warning: False Rape Accusation[spoiler]One of the wereboars, Colette O’Shea, is pregnant. She is proud of bearing what she believes to be Gavin’s children, but if the PCs encounter her she will start fake-crying, claiming that she was kidnapped by the lycanthropes for “breeding.” She is hoping that the PCs will spare her, but if they don’t believe her, appear ready to harm her, or attempt to remove her lycanthropy, she’ll attack.[/spoiler]The more threatening encounters include a stone golem carved in Orcus’ likeness that has a unique aura that deals necrotic damage to those within 10 feet, and Gavin McGuinty himself. Gavin is a wereboar who can cast spells as a 9th level cleric, can expend spell slots to deal additional necrotic damage with his attacks, and can spend a reaction once per rest to gain advantage on an attack. He has lair actions where he has a 25% chance to teleport into the Abyss for 1 round after he’s hit by an attack, heal damage from a necrotic attack instead of being harmed, and “stomps on the ground sending trash floating everywhere. For one round, all ranged attacks against him.”The final lair action just cuts off there. Presumably it imposes disadvantage, but an error is still an error.The PCs can learn useful things pertinent to their investigation besides treasure. A tapestry of one of the former owners of Griffon Hill Manor* channels that person’s spirit, and can animate herself in the tapestry and thus answer up to 5 questions about the wereboars, their alliance with the Creature, and Griffon Hill Manor. She is unable to speak, so PCs will need to get creative in order to communicate. The other major clues are correspondence letters between Gavin and the Creature, with the handwriting appearing identical to the Alchemist. The handout is a paraphrased summary, where Gavin and his wereboars are told to prevent anyone from taking the hidden path between Mordentshire and Griffon Hill Manor, but otherwise to stay out of town and not afflict anyone from there (foreigners are perfectly fine). Being Chaotic Evil demon-worshipers, Gavin isn’t following the latter instructions, and two of the Events in Chapter 3 involve a randomly-determined villager being infected.*There’s a portrait of her in one of the rooms which the PCs will recognize if they’d been there.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/gAiqxSG.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Chapter X: Pendulum serves as this module’s equivalent to Madam Eva’s Tarokka reading. In fact, it’s inspired directly by I10’s own scene. It involves convincing either the Alchemist and/or Lady Virginia Weathermay to make a trip to Doctor d’Honaire’s sanitarium to undergo hypnosis and unearth repressed memories. The process determines several vital aspects of the module: the Creature’s Goal, what NPC the Creature is posing as, the location of the 4 Special Items, and the current location of the Apparatus. The results can be done either by a quick series of dice rolls, or a more involved process where the DM gives an appropriate handout to each player. The DM plays the role of the good Doctor, asking the NPC a relevant question, and then the player, as either Lady Virginia or the Alchemist, chooses one of the in-character responses on index cards which determine the result. The responses are appropriately vague, like “A foul beast snatched it from my hands and took it. It ran to its foul lair deep in the woods” describes the item as being in the wereboar lair. Each of these in-character answers has a letter of the alphabet, which corresponds to the locations and results in this chapter for the DM to reference.All in all, it’s a pretty cool and evocative take on the Tarokka method of randomization. However, it is limited in that it requires the PCs to take one of the two NPCs to the sanitarium, and also trust the doctor enough to do so. If the party doesn’t do that, the DM will have to come up with the results themselves. And given that the adventure’s nonlinear, they may put that on the back-burner while they explore Mordent first. Imagine them going to a place where an Item or the Apparatus might be first, then return with evidence of the Alchemist’s experiments and subject him to hypnosis, and then it turns out that the “empty” area was one of the results!In the official Castle Ravenloft adventures, this is why Madam Eva is typically placed somewhere most gaming groups will stumble upon her very early. If you go for a much more open-ended feel, you shouldn’t lock such important things behind something PCs may come by much later.As for the Creature’s goals, they really don’t change his tactics or final resolution in the module. For instance, one goal might be to kill the Alchemist, another is to regain true life and no longer be undead, a third is to ruin the Alchemist and Lady Virginia’s relationship so that he can claim her for himself, and the fourth is re-establishing a new power base in Mordentshire after losing Barovia. Regardless of the goal, the Creature will still try and fail at one point to kill the Alchemist in one of the random Events, and he will still try to force the Alchemist into the Apparatus at the endgame.His disguise is more diverse, in that he more or less possesses the body of one of the NPCs in the module. Unlike the random card drawing from dozens of townsfolk, there’s only 5 results for this: Lord Weathermay or Lady Virginia, Mistress Ardent (Virginia’s childhood friend), him actually having no disguise and being a distinct entity, or is actually sharing the same body with the Alchemist in a Jekyll-Hyde scenario. In this last case, the Alchemist loses control to the Creature at night or whenever he fails a Charisma saving throw when undergoing extreme stress. Initially neither of them are aware that they’re the same person. If posing as an NPC, the Creature will be a convincing actor, but otherwise use their identity to hamper the PC’s investigation.So, what are these Special Items, exactly? They are the Soul Searcher Medallion (can reveal a creature’s true nature, showing the effects of a shapechanged, mentally controlled, or possessed creature), the Ring of Reversion (can only be attuned to by someone who can cast cantrips, let the wielder end a possession upon a creature via an attack roll), the Rod of Rastinon (required to activate and use the Apparatus’ recombining ability to get the Creature and Alchemist back together), and Missing Entries (the Alchemist’s private notes talking about his desire to protect her from the Creature, which was created by him and then stole his Apparatus)Chapter XI: Apparatus is the shortest chapter in the book, at 1 page. It basically talks about the machine’s functions. Although the Creature was able to steal it via dissembling its parts, there is no mention of what happens or how heavy it is if the PCs try to do that themselves to move it somewhere safer. Usually it is defended by a Vampire Groom/Bride and nearly 20 Strahd zombies and skeletons when initially found. Otherwise, the adventure’s Endgame has a separate set of combatants.Without the Rod of Rastinon, the Apparatus’ only major function is turning someone into a Transpossessed. With the Rod, the Alchemist and Creature can be brought together again and killed for good.Given its danger, PCs will doubtlessly consider sabotaging it. However, that will lead to a Bad End, as successive damage will cause cascading effects. The first 20 points of damage will cause an AoE shockwave dealing force damage, 50 points an even more damaging and wider-range shockwave, and at 100 points the Apparatus magically nukes everything within a 3 mile radius, with 1 mile being the effects of a Sphere of Annihilation. Mordentshire will be destroyed by this.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/JBzoO7s.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Chapter XII: Endgame is the adventure’s finale, and only occurs when 3 qualifiers are met: the PCs know the Apparatus’ location, they either know where the Rod of Rastinon is or have it in their possession, and the Alchemist experiences a strong desire to go to the Apparatus’ location. This last part is presumably more by DM Fiat by my reading. The weather starts to get stormy, and the Creature will direct Azalin to get the Rod, where he and some hell hounds and Transpossessed will arrive to take it by force if need be. The lich only wants the rod and won’t prioritize killing the PCs. If a character holding the rod is reduced to 0 hit points, Azalin will teleport away with them, telling the rest of the party to meet him at the Apparatus’ location (he wants the Creature to die so he can take the device himself), and the PC will be stable at 0 hit points outside its location.The Creature is accompanied by various vampire and undead-themed monsters (dire wolves, skeletons and zombies, bat and rat swarms) plus three wereboars. Although present, Azalin will not participate, waiting until both sides exhaust themselves. Both Strahds want the Rod of Rastinon, attempting to push the other into the Apparatus while the monsters run interference against the PCs if they get involved.You read that right, it doesn’t matter if the Alchemist or Creature puts the other inside, for it’s a false element of choice.But what if they both die before either gets into the Apparatus, which their stat blocks list as the only true way they can die? The book doesn’t say In the event of a Jekyll-Hyde dual possession, Strahd rapidly shifts forms as he approaches the machine and enters it.Once one of them enters, the Apparatus begins to make the two Strahds one again as the PCs experience (non-Delirium) flashbacks each time lightning strikes. There are 8 total flashbacks, a mixture of combat and non-combat ones, including two that involve fighting the Creature as a more calculating Strahd and then as a more animalistic-acting enemy. During these scenes, their interactions with Strahd determine the epilogue, whether the vampire accepts that his fate as a Darklord is sealed (where he goes back to Barovia and pens his autobiography I, Strahd) or to fight it (has a scene where Azalin is unable to find a means to repair the Apparatus, realizing he was tricked by Strahd and swears vengeance on him and the PCs).Azalin will teleport away with the Apparatus at the seventh strike, and none of the PCs will be able to stop him with Counterspell due to Cutscene Boxed Text.The final lightning strike provides the only other real “choice” for the PCs to make in the adventure.Content Warning: Assisted Suicide[spoiler]Strahd appears nearby, calling out to them and appearing as the Alchemist. He gives a sorrowful speech on being regretful for all the misery he’s caused. He holds a bottle of poison in his hands, asking the PCs for advice. He is suicidal and wants to end his own life, believing that it will end the nightmare of him causing more woe to others, but muses if it’s still possible for the PCs to save him from this “ultimate sin” of ending his own life. Strahd is personally unable to go through with it, and the PCs will more or less have to physically take the poison themselves and make him drink it or otherwise kill him. This is the “right choice.”[/spoiler]But what if the PCs don’t go through with it and make the “wrong choice?” Well, the book has one of two suggestions: to either restart the entire adventure with the PCs awakening back at the inn via a Groundhog Day time loop, or have the Creature assume dominance and replay the prior seven lightning strike scenes.This is downright terrible game design. I can guarantee you that most gaming groups aren’t going to want to play the same adventure again in quick succession, and doing the same 7 encounters will be downright torturous. I also don’t like the underlying subtext of the Content Warning either.Chapter XIII: Conclusion wraps up the adventure. Any survivors of the Weathermay family (or estate handlers in the event of their deaths) will pay the PCs the promised silver for solving the mystery. Additionally, they are welcome to stay in Mordentshire as permanent residents. Lady Virginia will be without a suitor, and the adventure floats the possibility of a PC courting her. There’s a brief rundown of Loose Ends of other characters, which are less definitive answers and more “what if?” suggestions for future adventures. The only definitive one is that any Transpossessed not freed will abandon Mordentshire to start new lives in order to better hatch evil plots.Overall Thoughts: A spiritual sequel to the House on Gryphon Hill is an idea with promise, and Curse of Strahd’s open-ended sandbox nature can be easily preserved when applied to a mystery focus in a sleepy Georgian-era style town. And yet this promise is ruined by the adventure’s many flaws covered above, such as missing and poorly-placed information, the cardinal sin of outright neutralizing common spells that mid to high level PCs make frequent use of for artificial difficulty, and the false choice at the campaign’s climax. I haven’t read the original I10 module, so I can’t say much of this is a downgrade or even an improvement, but regardless I cannot recommend this adventure. Not even for mining for ideas.Join us next time as we take a trip to some new domains in Ezmerelda’s Guide to Ravenloft!</blockquote>

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