Death House is that deadly. Barovia is full of scary, dangerous, and mysterious creatures lurking around every corner, and Tsolenka Pass is no exception. I generally reduce her life drain to deal 1d6 necrotic damage if we didnt start the party at level 3. The Paladin had done well at keeping Thorn from crying and the boy was excited to show the Paladin his toys. Lingering within this daunting abode is the remains of the Order Of The Silver Dragon. There are plenty of deadly combat encounters that can take place here, from giant spiders to undead revenants and phantom warriors. I generally start my games at level 3. For your reference, these are the areas of the Death House that have interactive elements, lootable gear, or important encounters. This site works best with JavaScript enabled. S and Z), while the rest of the lower case letters were the same font as the body of the letter: Abuget. Theres no shortage of fantastic adventure modules available for D&D 5e. However, there is enough information provided to add your own spins to the Death House. To get around this problem, turn Rose and Thorn into NPCs with big personalities that your players will want to help. Perhaps she legitimately loved Gustav and hoped to free him from the cults influence. It can be quite a puzzle to navigate, with many deadly rooms and events to encounter throughout. If you do this, have the party level up once theyve escaped. Death House comes with a beautiful map, but for a quick Halloween game, its faster to avoid all of the deliberations that occur whenever players see a selection of rooms for them to explore. Maybe as a specter, she now desires vengeance more than anything else and mourns for her son. Tsolenka Pass consists of a bridge looming over the Luna River and a guard tower. So, give them vivacious temperaments or accents evocative of your favorite child protagonists in popular media (the Stranger Things kids, anyone?). This also gives her some nice agency, and gives the party a better feel for her role as Thorns protector. The usual response to this encounter is retreat. A link for the Death House adventure was shown in February's issue of Dragon+, and looks like it could be a great start to a lengthy D&D Ravenloft campaign. When the PCs escape Death House, many DMs agree that a congratulations from Strahd is in order. Now, railroading isnt a bad thing, especially for a newer group. Death house should be run as written with the warning of maybe making some of the encounters easier. If they arent seizing the chance to be heroes, appeal to their love of coin and youll have all the hook you need. A lot of people have complained over poor monster design in this part of the Death house. There is no escape, not without first defeating the seemingly unstoppable vampire Strahd Von Zarovich. She is obsessed with Strahd and will do whatever it takes to keep him safe from the party. In any discussion about this dungeon, most people tend to fall pretty firmly into one of two camps. Pretty spoopy. She was then stabbed by the cultists for unexplained reasons and cast aside. Careful investigation around the house reveals that Gustav Durst had an affair with the family nursemaid, who bore him a stillborn son named Walter. Consider also reducing the number of ghouls and/or shadows in the Dungeon Level. If they kill any creature on the altar, the cult is appeased and the characters can leave the house freely. Chef Feat in D&D 5e Explained | Useful or Pie in the Sky? 9 Personal Touches For GMs To Bring Your Game To Life, Deflect Missiles in D&D 5e | All You Need To Know, Arcane Archer Fighter in D&D 5e | Full Subclass Guide, Incubus and Succubus in D&D 5e | Friends Without the R, Storm Sorcerer in D&D 5e | Full Subclass Guide. If you start at level 2, Id say have them level up to 3 before they proceed into the Dungeon Level. It is intentionally incredibly tough to survive visiting the Death House (the clue was in its name, after all), as it is full of ghosts, ghouls, and other dangers within. Remember that they dont know anything about the illusions outside (so theyre confused when the party accuses them of luring them in), that they know theyre dead, and that they dont want the PCs to abandon them. If you already have level 3 players you can jump right into the action of Barovias encounters. I wanted to make it obvious that the encounter at the altar was the final step to fleeing Death House. If you have fewer players, its easy enough to remove some of the enemies or lower how much HP each enemy has. How did your sessions in Death House go? The only thing I personally disliked about that section is the 'after finale' where you're escaping. Oooh this is actually really neat, love the little modifiers you added. You can let them know something is coming with smell and sounds. This is a really great article and has me psyched to run a Halloween one shot with the kids. She and her daughters are, in fact, a coven of Night Hags. Be careful when you use these, though. Tsolenka Pass is relatively isolated from the rest of Barovia, making it quite an unsettling, lonely path for the party to travel down. Both DeiGratia and Abuget can be downloaded over at www.dafont.com. Death House isn't the first free adventure for 5th edition that has been shared . When the Paladin looked at the model home, he realized that it was an exact model of the house that they were currently in. Third. Players destroyed the statue of Strahd at Death House. The Count's Crypt. When Death House is rejected, it gets mad. This is not a fight encounter. Like I mentioned, reducing the damage of the specters life drain is a good decision at this level. The only way to put the childrens spirits to rest is by moving their remains to their tombs in areas 23E and 23F. The PCs could hear her making gentle cooing sounds, and see her rocking the crib gently. Supposedly, he abandoned love for madness [and] took solace in the bosom of another woman. What of the nursemaids point of view? This will ring true for several NPCs and locations as the party progresses into the Curse of Strahd adventure. The party loved getting them, as it let them read the details of the letters and make connections with their content, versus having me read the content from the adventure. NEXT: Dungeons & Dragons: The Best Online Tools For DMs. They also tried to find other houses in the fog, but quickly realized that they were being railroaded inside once the constitution/exhaustion checks started. They starved to death after their parents locked them in their room. The adventurers manage to put their spirits to rest and claim the room's loot. Well and Cultist Quarters.- In these rooms theres some treasure to be found. They havent opened it yet, but Im hoping that theyll use the letter as an excuse to take an interest in Ismark when they arrive at the tavern. They will be tempted by corrupting, evil, dark gifts that twist and mess with the characters. They become caught in the mists and can't travel to the afterlife. The second encounter is with a broom of animated attack. Cult Leaders Quarters.- Gustav and Elisabeth Durst are here, they are ghasts. The best was when the team with Scooby, Velma, Shaggy and Fred ended up down stairs and came across a table covered in a Thanksgiving dinner and the turkey was a mimic. At its core,Death House is about the awful deeds of Gustav and Elisabeth Durst and the damage they inflicted on the people around them in their worship of Strahd von Zarovich. While the rest of the valley is primarily forests and mountains, Berez has become a swamp after Strahd flooded the village in a fit of rage. Wizards of the Coast has given us the free adventure Death House to play at home last week as a preview of the Curse of Strahd book coming out this month. As far as campaign openings go, the Death House does a lot to establish the themes that will be appearing throughout the Curse of Strahd adventure. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[728,90],'tabletopjoab_com-banner-1','ezslot_7',126,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-tabletopjoab_com-banner-1-0');The Death House is meant for a group of four level 1 characters. It is also included in the Curse of Strahd adventure module on page 211 under Appendix B. Suggestions to alleviate the deadliness. I never thought of that. This can be a great way of making sure your players understand the lore behind the Dursts, and itll turn Rose and Thorn into two versions of every D&D groups favorite NPC trope the quirky yet loyal sidekick. If/when the PCs try to leave, the children will try to possess them, not out of aggression but out of fear of abandonment. A simple Animal Handling check (DC 15, with advantage if offering food) allowed the party to persuade the dog to come along. Thunk me later! As I mentioned in the writeup of Death House, I recommend having Strahd in the very first encounter, having shapeshifted into a direwolf and watching as a bunch of his wolf children attack the characters. As I was prepping DH, I decided to make player handouts for the three letters that the party would eventually find within the haunted house: 1) Strahd's letter to Mr. Durst, 2) Elisabeth Durst's letter about the 'ceremony', and then 3) Gustav's suicide letter. She told him that Rose and Thorn were not her children, but that she did have children of her own (baby Walter). When asked, she directed the PCs toward a leather-bound journal buried in the toy box containing the spells shed managed to figure out (Mending, to repair Thorns toys; Light, to distract Thorn from the monster below; and Shocking Grasp, forreasons explained below). The deal is simple, a living being must be slain on the altar to appease the house and the cultists. I find this last bit of information a potential let down for the settings tone. Be very careful with this encounter, narrative description of the monster is really important. The true horror of this location comes from a specific event that can take place if the players are not careful. 12. Its the Durst Mansion or, if the kids are talking, our home. Nobodys going to eagerly go rushing into something called the Death House. "Death House" will run your player characters through levels 1-3 if they survive. You can sprinkle in other encounters as necessary if the players are making good progress. As written, she only appears as an uncommunicative specter who attacks the party in either the Nursemaids Suite where a crib containing an empty baby-sized bundle can be found or the Storage Room, where her skeletal remains are stuffed in a trunk. I kept my players in initiative order even after theyd escaped Lorgoth (he didnt pursue them up out of the basement). Luke also has a board game obsession, plays a bunch of D&D, and makes silly videos on YouTube. From the moment the party steps into the town, they'll get a great sense that nothing is right here. Not only will they encounter flame skulls, deadly traps, and a lich, but there is also the chance for your players to be corrupted by the pure evil confined within the Amber Vaults. If an entire army of Knights could not defeat Strahd, what hope does your party have? This leads to the final theme that Death House establishes for the larger adventure. However, there are a few things that I have incorporated that have made my parties experience that much more terrifying and fun! The children that the party encounters on the road (Rose and Thorn) are asking for help dealing with whatever entity is inside the house. A big boss fight is coming up and you want the party to expend some resources, but still have some fight in them for the boss encounter! There are 38 locations in the Death House. Beware, for massive spoilers await! He's a postgraduate from Bournemouth University, having studied Scriptwriting. Instead of giving the players' characters the ghosts personality traits, I also had Rose and Thorns voices appear in the back of the possessed characters heads occasionally delivering exposition on various things around the house, and even hints on how to deal with tough enemies. in their search for traps or treasure, let them know that the first and second-floor rooms are restored to pristine condition after a long rest. Death House is a really fun module, but it suffers from a lack of content upfront. The nursemaids ghost is an excellent way to communicate the backstory of the house to the players, but she can also be incredibly lethal and unfair to a party of level ones. Three of my players were able to get boosts up to the attic from the balcony outside of the master bedroom, but the fourth, a firbolg, was too big to make it up. Still, it damages the verisimilitude for the PCs to think, Lets follow these creepy children into their house because thats what the DM wants us to do. Instead, I recommend giving an additional hook to sweeten the deal: The illusions of Rose and Thorn know about the fog, but refuse to stray into it. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The house is not at all that dangerous if your players pick the right choices. (If youre feeling generous, or really want your players to see the entirety of the house in a quick Halloween night of gaming, you could even run it at 3rd level.). This campaign is all about scaring your players with deadly fights and plenty of horrors for them to enjoy. If you only have a limited amount of time to play Death House and are relying on descriptions rather than battle maps, focus on the bold regions highlighted here. Honestly, the story behind the adventure is incredibly grim and might be off-putting to some groups. Two ghosts can easily kill a level 1 party, however they are not aggressive and even if a fight starts, the two children are more likely to flee than to attack. I am actually in the process of setting this up as a one-shot for some of my experienced gamer friends. introduction to the bleak and despair-filled land of Barovia. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[728,90],'tabletopjoab_com-medrectangle-3','ezslot_19',125,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-tabletopjoab_com-medrectangle-3-0');At least in the top 3! Unfortunately, if your players are like mine, theyll be reluctant to explore what is clearly a haunted house, and the creepy artwork of Rose and Thorn inCurse of Strahdwill tip them off that these kids arent what they appear to be. Heading further up Mount Ghakis, it is also freezing cold at night. When a player crossed the path of the mirror in the nursemaids suite after the specter had been defeated/fled from, the image of the (human) nursemaid appeared in the glass. Get around this problem, turn Rose and Thorn into NPCs with big personalities how to survive the death house curse of strahd players! 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