findinmyself
chillin
Lightning splits the clouds overhead, casting stark white light across him. Strahd turns to the sky, revealing the angular muscles of his face and hands. He has a look of power — and of madness. His once handsome face is contorted by a tragedy darker than the night itself.
Rumbling thunder pounds the castle spires. The wind’s howling increases as Strahd turns his gaze back to the village. Far below, yet not beyond his ken, a party of adventurers has just entered his domain. Strahd’s face forms a twisted smile as his dark plan unfolds. He knew they were coming, and he knows why they have come — all according to his plan. He, the master of Ravenloft, will attend to them.
Another lightning flash rips through the darkness, its thunder echoing through the castle’s towers. But Strahd is gone. Only the howling of the wind — or perhaps a lone wolf — fills the midnight air. The master of Ravenloft is having guests for dinner. And you are invited.
Hello everyone, and welcome to my open game post for 'Curse of Strahd', a vampire themed horror fest of a D&D 5th Edition campaign! I'll be the dungeon master of this absolutely amazing official adventure. Seriously, this was a gift from Wizards of the Coast. In it, a group of adventurers are drawn into the lands of Barovia, a dreary and eerie location full of strange things, creatures, and people to find. Most of all, it is ruled by the devil known as Strahd von Zarovich, who is a vampire that installs fear into his subjects and horror into the people he brings into this cursed land.
I am searching for a party of 4-6 players, each of which will be creating level 3 characters to dive into the game with. I'll be wanting players to communicate OOC often, for the sake of not overlapping each other's posts and causing some confusion. In terms of posts, I ask for no more than a paragraph. Yes, you can write massive paragraphs about inner feelings and opinions, but I find that as a DM it's much harder to talk about NPC feelings since that could reveal a lot of things. In turn, I only ask to know what your character is doing, and what they are saying, with some small level of detail to immerse us in the experience. I am a huge fan of snappy dialogue, so once dialogue commences, I won't be asking for 3 lines of speaking. Just a normal back and forth conversation, with added in mannerisms and reactions.
I will be in charge of setting scenes. Keeping the story flowing quickly is something I want to absolutely nail, so the way combat works is that in a single post, say everything and do everything your character will do on their turn, and roll for it there and then. I'll inform you of your results after the fact, and announce the next player's turn. I will inform you all of enemy AC's, so that you can determine if your attack hits or not before having to ask me.
In addition, I will warn you all that this campaign is cutthroat. I cannot guarantee some of you will live throughout this whole adventure. In the Curse of Strahd campaign, however, there are ways that circumvent this, so don't instantly start coming up with ways your backup character can be introduced. You may still come back, and I'll privately message you if your character is gonna be gone for good.
What I'm Allowing
- Player's Handbook
- Xanathar's Guide to Everything
- Volo's Guide to Monsters (If you wish to play a race from this book, please ask me in advance so we can figure how we can make it work.)
- Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
- The Tortle Package (If you wish to play the Tortle race, please ask me in advance so we can figure how we can make it work.)
In addition, and I know a lot of you may find this irritating, but I'm going to be giving anyone a no to homebrewed stuff. I am normally very open to it, but again, this campaign I want to be a genuine and real experience, without a goddamn mimic running along with the party or something. You get the picture, no?
How you can Join
The process is simple. Just drop a reply to this post with some interest, and I'll add you to the campaign. Propose some sort of character idea to me, perhaps before or after being accepted, and I'm gonna be making a group DM until we have my minimum of 4 players, in which case I'll slap an OOC down, a character page, and a handouts page. Then finally, once everyone's characters are ready, we can begin. I'd like to know some backstory of some fashion, so that I can perhaps weave it into the campaign.
I'm really excited to start this, and can't wait to bring some people along with me. Good luck, and Welcome to Barovia!
NPC Players
I have thought that perhaps I could bring in a few extras to help me with what's going on. Considering the amount of NPC's in the game, some of them being extremely key components to the story, I was thinking I could bring in some other folks from RPNation to play as some of these characters. This would mean a few things:
- Your character will be a premade one, and you'll be given a statblock and some backstory on the character, along with motives, flaws and bonds. I hope that whoever takes on the task has the ability to take a short brief and work with it, since I find taking an already existent character as your own can be an extremely fun task!
- You may not be involved with every moment of the campaign, as you'll only appear in certain places. Therefore, I might ask you to bow in and then bow right back out after 50 posts, but that doesn't mean you're over.
- Working with me. I'll be informing you of where you are and what you're doing so that you can play it how the character is best done!
Here's a list of all of the major NPC's I'm thinking of giving up, along with a brief description.
Ezmerelda D'AvenirA Vampire Hunter Protégé who has arrived in Barovia to hunt the devil Strahd down. She is skilled with a rapier, has a lot of tools at her disposal, and is decent in magical abilities too.
RictavioA self proclaimed ringmaster and glorious bard, Rictavio spreads stories of legendary proportion to the dull people of Barovia. This charming man, however, isn't all that he seems...
Ireena KolyanaA strong, reserved daughter to the burgomaster of Barovia. She has caught the eye of Strahd, and is currently being pursued by the Vampire.
I feel like all 4 of these are extremely important, and can be good allies to the party. If there are any more that you know of from the game you would want to play, let me know! Reply down below with interest and grab the NPC you want. I would like for people to be literate, obviously. Hopefully you guys are interested! This is quite unorthodox I know, but I just very much want to try it.
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Can play whatever class is needed for the party!
