I picked this up because I heard a lot about Strahd and his Ravenloft castle. I got curious. This book here is a revision of the classic adventure for Dungeon and Dragons fifth edition. It is a Gothic Horror story, where the adventurer party is trapped within the cursed land of Barovia, and the only way they can escape is if they kill its lord, the vampire Strahd.
My impression of this module is "wide-open sandbox". After the players arrive in Barovia and get their bearings, they can go anywhere they want. There are no Beef Gates or Broken Briges to stop them from entering a given area. Each area has its own chapter, and each is written in such a way that events from one area do not influence events in other areas (with few exceptions). Thus, the party can visit each area in whatever order they want.
As far as I can tell, there is no intended story line. No plotted course for the DM exists within the book. Such a course is only vaguely implied. This is what I think.
The party arrives in Barovia. Ismark asks the party to help him escort his sister, Ireena, to the walled city of Vallaki, where she will hopefully be safe from Strahd. Once in Vallaki, the party becomes involved with Strahd's plot to attack the city's church. Regardless of whether or not the party thwarts this plot, Ismark states that this city is not as safe as he hoped. The only other option is Krezk, another settlement at the far end of the region. A subplot or two to gain access to this city of shut-ins is next, which requires traveling to regions the party otherwise might not think to visit. Once inside, Ireena is reunited with the ghost of Sergei, her lover from a past life. After this, Strahd is furious enough to seek out the party directly. At that point, the party either confronts him at some place nearby or goes directly to his castle.
There is far more to the module than what I just wrote. In fact, there is so much in the book, I don't think a DM would be able to bring it all into one campaign. I think that is the point, re-play value.
This module contains a mechanism for randomizing certain aspects of the story. The location of key items, the identity of a key ally, and location where Strahd can always be found: a tarot card reading performed by an NPC tells these to the characters. So, each playthrough of the campaign can be different. If nothing else, it provides options to the DM.
Besides the story events and this in-universe randomizing, the book contains a lot of art. It is beautiful art, creepy art, and beautifully creepy art. Some of them fill entire pages.
If I had one complaint to make of this module, it is the rigidity of the setting to change. In many places, the module states that the players cannot make the situation in a given place any better. The reasons vary from "character X is incurably insane/beyond redemption" to "the Dark Powers will prevent/negate the improvement", which is as frustrating as any thought terminating cliche. Also, the players can't make the situation in a given area worse either, because it could hardly get any worse, just a different kind of bad. I understand that this story is Gothic Horror, but it's frustrating in a game. Then again, the rigidity is sufficiently justified internally, and I imagine that the writers at Wizard of the Coast expect a DM to tweak things here and there.
Trickster Eric Novels gives "Curse of Strahd - D&D 5E module" an A+
Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
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