This scenario is based on the D&D adventure Curse of Strahd, and Strahd Must Die Tonight!, a distillation of that adventure designed to be run in a single night as a Halloween event. Strahd Must Die Again is a sequel to Strahd Must Die Tonight, but it’s perfectly usable as a standalone experience. This scenario is a weirder and much less traditional adaptation of the source material, making it ideal for people who’ve already played through the original adventure in some way, or for those who want a more out-there corruption of Ravenloft’s gothic horror aesthetic.

Scenario

The goal of this adventure is simple: kill Strahd in a single four-hour session of D&D. This scenario begins just as a group of adventures kill Strahd—or at least, that’s what they think. The battle was easy. Too easy.

As Strahd’s lifeless corpse hits the floor, it shrivels into the withered husk of a shapeshifting vampire spawn. As the adventurers gaze upon this pale imitation of the vampire lord Strahd, dozens of Strahd lookalikes appear from every door and window to jeer and bid them welcome to Castle Ravenloft. As the adventurers tear through the castle in search of the real Strahd von Zarovich, they discover that Strahd has been infected by a mind flayer tadpole, and is slowly transforming into a vampiric mind flayer. He uses his vampire spawn—now all psychically linked to his own mind—to harangue and confuse his would-be killers as he tries to survive until his transformation is complete.

Adventure Background

This adventure begins as a group of adventures kill a doppelganger of Count Strahd von Zarovich in the chapel of Castle Ravenloft. Two weeks prior to this event, a mind flayer from the dread domain of Bluetspur traveled to Barovia in secret in hopes of subverting Strahd and making him a vassal to the God Brain of Bluetspur. This mind flayer was an elderly and ambitious illithid named Zisk, and it is protected by a near-feral vampiric illithid named Athaekeetha. Ceremorphosis—the process of an illithid tadpole transforming its host into a mind flayer—acted strangely upon Strahd, and he lay dormant until his castle was invaded by adventures seeking to kill him.

The task of slaying Strahd is no longer as simple as finding and destroying him. Now, the adventurers must balance finding the items capable of destroying Strahd, surviving his psychic doppelgangers and alien allies, and finding him before his transformation is complete.

Some Assembly Required

The materials needed to play this scenario are identical to those needed to play Strahd Must Die Tonight!, but they have been reprinted here for your convenience.

To battle illithid-Strahd in a single night, all you need is a copy of Curse of Strahd and 3 to 6 friends to play with. Some things that will make your play session easier and more exciting include:

• A tarokka deck, like the one produced by GaleForceNine.
• A top-down map of Castle Ravenloft, like this map pack found on the Dungeon Masters Guild. The isometric poster map of the castle that comes with Curse of Strahdis gorgeous, but it can be hard to read on the fly. You can take these maps to a print shop and get a gorgeous set of battle maps, or use it as a reference to hand-draw the maps on a vinyl wet-erase mat.
• Pre-generated characters. If you want your game to be easy to pick up and play, you may want to create enough pre-generated characters for your whole group, since time is of the essence for this dungeon delve. (See “Character Creation” for information on how to create characters for this scenario.)
• A 60-minute hourglass. This is perhaps the most luxurious optional item, but boy is it fun. More on this below.

Single-Night Ravenloft “Event” Rules

This is not a normal session of D&D. Ravenloft isn’t a small dungeon, and a party could explore it for a dozen hours or more without defeating Strahd. Unless you have friends who could play D&D from dawn to dusk, you will most likely need to impose a concrete time limit upon the adventure. For most groups, the maximum amount of time they can commit to playing D&D is about 4 hours. This scenario transforms a routine exploration of Castle Ravenloft into a deadly race against the clock to find a metamorphosing Count Strahd, all while the adventurers are stalked by a deadly hunter.

Countdown to the Count

Castle Ravenloft is too big to explore fully in a one-shot game, especially if your players are roleplaying and soaking in all the gothic details. Just like Strahd Must Die Tonight, this scenario has a four-hour time limit that lets your players explore as much of the castle as they want before time runs out and the final confrontation begins.

Strahd is slowly transforming into a vampiric illithid. At the end of every real-life hour, a psychic projection of Strahd appears before the party to taunt them, and to display how far his physical transformation has progressed over the past hour. He offers to bestow a random gift upon one of the characters, determined from the table below—if that character allows Strahd to gaze into their eyes, establishing a mental link between them.

Three things happen to a character that allows a fragment of Strahd’s newfound psychic power into their mind:

• The character takes 14 (4d6) psychic damage.
• The character rolls once on the table below, gaining the benefit they rolled.
• The voice of Strahd quietly whispers in the characters ear for the rest of the night. Keep the effect of the whispers secret from the player: accepting Strahd’s mental link imposes disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws to resist Strahd’s Charm action. He takes advantage of this during the final battle.

These gifts are designed to speed up play by goading the players into rash action. If you feel an event would drag the game down, you can replace it. Once the four hours are up, Strahd immediately appears before the party, in person, and attacks. Come life or come death, the hunt ends here.

Why does Strahd give these gifts? The same reason he’s set a time limit at all: he’s toying with the characters like a cat toys with a mouse. He believes himself invincible… until any character finds the Sunsword. Once he knows this item has been found, his hourly taunting visits are replaced with hourly surprise attacks against the character wielding the blade. He materializes from thin air, strikes, then flees using his Shapechanger trait as quickly as possible.

Having a 60-minute hourglass at the table that you use to track time at the table instead of a digital timer makes this event particularly memorable, dramatic, and campy. The players can see their time trickling away before their very eyes—and you can make a big show of tipping it over again once Strahd appears. This can invoke memories of the Wicked Witch of the West taunting Dorothy with how long she has left to live in The Wizard of Oz.

Strahd Random Event Table

The following effects only function while within Castle Ravenloft:

Finding Ireena

Ireena Kolyana is a central figure of Curse of Strahd. In this abbreviated version of Ravenloft, she has taken up the blade and ventured into Castle Ravenloft of her own accord to defeat Strahd herself. Strahd’s transformation has dulled his predatory infatuation with her (at least for now), and he treats her as just another intruder. She is always Strahd’s Enemy, as described in “Fortunes of Ravenloft,” below, and uses veteran statistics.

The Mists Constrict

The Mists of Ravenloft constrict tightly around the master’s castle, preventing all living creatures from exiting the castle grounds, even using magical means. Spells and effects that teleport creatures out of the castle (such as some effects of the brazier in area K78), instantly fail.

The mists form a wall of opaque fog just beyond the gate towers (area J), and otherwise surrounds the castle’s outer walls at a range of 100 feet. See the “Walls of Ravenloft” map.

No Wandering Monsters

There’s already no way the characters will get through all of Castle Ravenloft in one night, there’s no need to bog play down with random encounters. The only exception is the vampiric mind flayer Athaekeetha, who relentlessly hunts down the player characters. For more information on the villains of this adventure, see “Evil Masters of Ravenloft,” below.

Character Creation

Characters for this scenario should be created in the following manner:

• Determine their ability scores using the array or point buy, then choose their race, class, and background as normal.
• Each character can choose one piece of nonmagical armor of their choice (plus a shield, if desired), two nonmagical weapons of their choice (or three weapons, if they are dual-wielding), plus 100 gp to purchase other adventuring gear.
• Each character can also choose a single rare magic item of their choice. The DM should screen which magic items they take. Items that are particularly powerful against vampires (such as a sun blade) can make this scenario excessively easy.

Once characters have been created, use the guidelines in “Choose your Difficulty” to determine what level the characters should be. Also, once the characters levels have been finalized, the DM should take note of each characters’ Wisdom (Perception) score. Knowing these scores will help if the characters are ambushed by Athaekeetha (see “Evil Masters of Ravenloft,” below).

Choose Your Difficulty

You can make this adventure easier or harder by changing the level of your characters. Strahd von Zarovich may be a CR 15 vampire, but the legendary artifacts of Ravenloft possess incredible power. If your party is skilled (or lucky) enough to find all three artifacts, it’s possible that with good strategy, even a party of 5th-level characters can defeat Strahd.

A party seeking a hard adventure should play 7th-level characters, a medium adventure caters to 9th-level characters, and an easy attack on the castle can be accomplished by 10th-level characters. Start from this baseline, and adjust according to party size and time limit.

Party Size. This adventure is balanced around a party of 4–5 characters. For every character you add to the party above 5, each character starts 1 level lower. For example, a party of 6 characters on a medium-difficulty adventure should each be 8th level. Likewise, every character you remove from the party below 4, each character gains 1 level.

Time Limit. This adventure is balanced around a 4-hour time limit (plus the time it takes to fight Strahd). For every 2 hours you add to this time, each character starts 1 level lower—since every hour they spend within the castle increases their chances of finding the incredibly powerful Artifacts of Ravenloft. For example, a party of 5 characters on a medium-difficulty adventure with a 6-hour timer should each be 6th level. For every 1 hour you detract from this time, each character starts 1 level higher.

Character Death and “Losing” the Adventure

What happens if a character dies? That’s entirely up to you. Odds are, your players don’t want to sit idly at the table with a torn-up character sheet while the rest of their friends struggle through the adventure, minus one player. This is a party event, not a hardcore dungeon crawl. Here are some options:

• Casual Revival. When a character would die, they instead fall unconscious and gain 1 level of exhaustion.
• Gothic Revival. When a character would die, they instead fall unconscious and gain a permanent Lingering Injury.
• Casual Permadeath. When a character dies, their player must make a new character, who is introduced at any time before the next encounter.
• Gothic Permadeath. When a character dies, their player must make a new character of one level lower than their last character, who is introduced at any time before the next encounter.

The only situation in which the characters lose the adventure is if the entire party is killed at once. There’s just no coming back from that.

Evil Masters of Ravenloft

Castle Ravenloft has long been the domain of the vampire Strahd von Zarovich. However, things have changed since the arrival of mind flayers from Bluetspur. Four sinister new evils now lair within the castle.

Strahd von Zarovich, Illithid Vampire

Strahd undergoes ceremorphosis—the process of transforming into a mind flayer—over the course of this adventure. At the start of the game, he looks the same as he usually does. However, his powers and physical appearance change drastically each time he psychically appears to the characters at the end of each hour of gameplay. By the time that the characters enter Castle Ravenloft, Strahd’s ceremorphosis has already progressed far enough to alter his personality. He is still his suave, overconfident self, but he has embraced his transformation, and is eager to demonstrate his new powers.

Strahd von Zarovich uses his usual statistics, but gains new powers at the end of each hour. The sooner the adventurers find him and defeat him, the weaker he will be.

Hour 1. Strahd’s eyes are cloudy and lack both pupils and irises. His well-trimmed hair has vanished, and his pale skin is slimy and rubbery. His nose has flattened into a small mound with slit-like nostrils. He gains telepathy out to 120 feet, and the ability to use a mind flayer’s Mind Blast action, (save DC 18).

Hour 2. Strahd’s body becomes inhumanly tall and thin, and his features become gaunt and alien. He gains Magic Resistance, granting him advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Hour 3. Four slimy tentacles grow from Strahd’s jaw. He can now use a mind flayer’s Tentacles attack (+9 to hit, save DC 18).

Hour 4. Strahd’s transformation is complete. His mouth has become a tiny hole ringed with razor sharp teeth, and he now looks more like a mind flayer than a human being. His rubbery flesh is paper-white, and mottled with crimson splotches, like bloodstains. He can now use a mind flayer’s Extract Brain attack (+9 to hit). 

Strahd Doppelgangers

In order to protect himself as he undergoes ceremorphosis, Strahd gathered dozens of his vampire spawn. Using his nascent psychic abilities, he granted them the power to change their appearance to mimic his own. Whenever the characters meet a named character within Castle Ravenloft that isn’t Strahd, Zisk, or Athaekeetha, that character is replaced with a vampire spawn that fully appears to be Strahd. A vampire spawn pretending to be Strahd in this way reverts to its original appearance when it dies, transforming to look like a pallid humanoid that bears no resemblance to Strahd.

A false Strahd keeps the personality of the original character, but otherwise fully believes itself to be Strahd von Zarovich. For example, Gertruda (area K42), isn’t a human commoner but a vampire spawn that appears to be Strahd. She otherwise behaves exactly as Gertruda.

Additionally, whenever the characters enter an area within Castle Ravenloft for the first time and that area has no other creatures in it, a Strahd-lookalike vampire spawn waits in that area. It doesn’t pursue the characters from this area. If these vampire spawn begin to seriously annoy you or your players, or drag down the pace of the game, you can remove them for about an hour of real time. 

Zisk, the Mastermind

Zisk is a former servant of the God Brain, Darklord of the Domain of Bluetspur—one of the many domains of Ravenloft that exist beyond the borders of Barovia. This wizened, hunched, and wrinkled mind flayer betrayed its Darklord by embracing arcane magic and becoming a lich. It longs to achieve a grand act of conquest for the God Brain, so that it may proudly return to its Darklord’s side. It is immensely proud of its victory over Strahd von Zarovich, and is overconfidently eager to see its creation triumph over the pesky group of adventurers that have invaded Castle Ravenloft.

Zisk is an alhoon, and replaces Rahadin in area K72 of the castle. Here he waits in safety, alternately monitoring the development of Strahd’s transformation and the adventurers’ progress using a crystal ball.

Athaekeetha, the Headhunter

Athaekeetha is a feral vampiric illithid created by horrific experiments within the illithid-dominated domain of Bluetspur. Though vampirism granted Athaekeetha incredible physical strength and supernatural powers, it also wreaked havoc upon its alien mind, reducing Athaekeetha to little more than a feral beast. It loyally serves its master, Zisk, the illithid mastermind responsible for Strahd’s transformation. Athaekeetha has earned a reputation within Barovia; a character that succeeds on a DC 15 Intelligence (History) check recalls that, for the past two weeks, a mysterious killer has stalked the land, severing the heads of all it kills. Within Barovia, Athaekeetha is best known as the Headhunter.

Once one hour of real time has passed (after Strahd’s first psychic appearance to the characters), Zisk unleashes Athaekeetha upon the castle to hunt down and destroy the adventurers. When Athaekeetha begins its hunt, all light sources within the castle are magically extinguished, plunging the entire castle into darkness. The characters must rely on their darkvision or carry a light source in order to see—and Athaekeetha hates light (see the Photosenstive Fury trait in its stat block).

Roll 1d6 whenever the adventurers move between areas or spend more than 10 minutes in a single area (such as casting a ritual or taking a short rest). On a roll of 6, Athaekeetha has tracked them down and is currently in an adjacent area. This area can be connected by doors or by stairs. Which adjacent area Athaekeetha appears in is up to you, but the Headhunter’s arrival is heralded by its emotional telepathy. All creatures within 60 feet of the feral illithid begins to feel strange emotions in the back of their mind, like hunger, hatred, and sorrow. Over time, they may realize that this sensation represents that their hunter is close.

Once the Headhunter enters an area adjacent to the one the characters are currently in, it hides in the shadows, usually on the ceiling. If the characters enter this area, it waits until the characters have entered and started interacting with the area’s inhabitants (if any), and then attacks while they’re distracted. If the area has no inhabitants, it crawls along the walls and ceiling, keeping about 50 feet behind its quarry. A character that makes a successful DC 18 Wisdom (Perception) notices Athaekeetha if it’s hiding in the same room as them. If Athaekeetha enters an area that the characters are already in, it must make a successful Dexterity (Stealth) check opposed by the characters’ passive Wisdom (Perception) scores.

When the Headhunter attacks, it starts by using a Mind Blast, then attacks a stunned creature with its Sanguine Tentacles. If it successfully grapples a creature with its tentacles, it uses its Extract Brain legendary action as soon as possible. It flees once it has either killed a character or been reduced to half its hit point maximum—using its Move legendary action whenever possible. Once Athaekeetha flees, it waits to attack again until it’s restored to full hit points using its Regeneration trait.

How do you make a mind flayer truly terrifying? Check out How to Play a Mind Flayer like an Eldritch Horror.

This illustration of Athaekeetha originally appeared in Monstrous Compendium Ravenloft Appendix II: Children of the Night [1993])

Fortunes of Ravenloft

The information in this section is identical to the Fortunes of Ravenloft section from Strahd Must Die Tonight! It has been reprinted here for your convenience.

There are three powerful artifacts which can defeat Strahd scattered throughout the realm of Barovia. Unfortunately, your players do not have the luxury of wandering all over Barovia, they can only explore Castle Ravenloft itself. The location of these items are determined by a random tarokka reading, which prevents players from memorizing the exact location of the artifacts. It’s an excellent way to make this adventure replayable in future years!

If you want, you can simply do a tarokka reading as prescribed in Curse of Strahd and consider any artifacts drawn outside of the castle “unobtainable,” adding a level of randomized difficulty to the adventure. This scenario uses a modified version of the tarokka drawing in Curse of Strahd that removes locations outside of the castle. You’ll need either an actual tarokka deck or a modified deck of standard playing cards.

Before the game begins, you’ll want to separate your tarokka deck into the High Deck and the Low Deck. The first three cards are drawn from the low deck, and determine the location of the three artifacts capable of defeating Strahd. The first card determines the location of the Tome of Strahd. The second card determines the location of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. The third card determines the location of the Sunsword, the fourth card determines the location of Strahd’s enemy, and the fifth card determines the location of Strahd himself.

Variant: Empowered Tome of Strahd

In Curse of Strahd, the Tome of Strahd possesses no magical powers. If you wish to make finding the tome more exciting, you can have the tome grant the following trait to anyone who attunes to it.

Bearer of Strahd’s Truth. While attuned to the Tome of Strahd, you have advantage on saving throws made to resist Strahd’s spells and effects. If you succeed on a saving throw against Strahd’s Mind Blast action, Strahd takes 22 (4d10) psychic damage and must make a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw or be stunned until the end of his next turn. 

The Low Deck

First, separate your tarokka deck into the High Deck and the Low Deck. The Low Deck is usually larger, but it’s been modified for this adventure to remove results outside of the castle. This modified Low Deck consists of the following cards:

• The Paladin (2 of Spades)
• The Mercenary (4 of Spades)
• The Dictator (8 of Spades)
• The Warrior (10 of Spades)
• The Transmuter (1 of Clubs)
• The Necromancer (8 of Clubs)
• The Merchant (4 of Diamonds)
• The Miser (9 of Diamonds)
• The Shepherd (4 of Hearts)
• The Anarchist (6 of Hearts)
• The Priest (10 of Hearts)

The High Deck

The High Deck consists of the following cards; if you’re using a standard deck of playing cards, the High deck is comprised of both Jokers, and the Jack, Queen, and King of each suit:

• The Artifact (Joker 1)
• The Beast (Jack of Diamonds)
• The Broken One (King of Diamonds)
• The Darklord (King of Spades)
• The Donjon (King of Clubs)
• The Seer (Jack of Clubs)
• The Ghost (King of Hearts)
• The Executioner (Jack of Spades)
• The Horseman (Joker 2)
• The Innocent (Queen of Hearts)
• The Marionette (Jack of Hearts)
• The Mists (Queen of Spades)
• The Raven (Queen of Clubs)
• The Tempter (Queen of Diamonds)

The Card Reading

With the decks thus separated, you are prepared to do a tarokka reading and randomize the assorted treasures of Ravenloft, as well as the location of Strahd’s enemy and the vampire himself. If this is your first time running Ravenloft, you may wish to perform the card reading in private ahead of time so that you can prepare for these locations instead of taking notes on the fly.

Read the “Fortunes of Ravenloft” section of Curse of Strahd at least once in full if you intend to perform the card reading for your players as a prologue to the adventure. This card reading could take many forms; see “Starting the Adventure,” below.

The Artifacts. The first step of the reading is fairly simple. Draw three cards from the Low Deck, and compare them in order to the Treasure Locations table in Curse of Strahd. Set these cards aside.

Strahd’s Enemy. Next, draw one more card from the Low Deck and compare it to the Treasure Locations table in Curse of Strahd, just as before. Ireena Kolyana is always Strahd’s enemy in this scenario. She uses veteran statistics, and the card you draw from the Low Deck determines where Ireena is within Castle Ravenloft. She can be found severely wounded, recovering from a fight against Strahd’s minions.

Strahd’s Location. Finally, draw a single card from the High Deck and compare it to the Strahd’s Location in the Castle table in Curse of Strahd. This determines where in the castle Strahd lurks when he is not antagonizing the characters.

Starting the Adventure

If you’ve read everything that comes before this point, you’re ready to start the adventure! The characters start their exploration of Castle Ravenloft in the castle’s chapel (area K15). Read or paraphrase the following. Each paragraph break marks a place where you can easily pause for characters to react, comment, or investigate the scene before moving on.

You plunge a stake into the heart of Strahd von Zarovich. Moonlight floods into the chapel of Castle Ravenloft, bathing the count in silvery light as the vampire falls to the ground, a look of shock and horror etched across his pallid face. It was all surprisingly easy; you wandered straight into the castle, barged into the chapel, and killed the most powerful vampire in Barovia without breaking a sweat.

As you stand over Strahd’s corpse, however, it begins to shrivel and twitch. Its bones seem to shift beneath its skin, and its hair grows from Strahd’s impeccable raven hair into a rat’s nest of greasy brown tangles. This corpse looks like that of a lesser vampire, but whatever it was, it wasn’t Strahd.

Then, the door to the chapel slams open. A quartet of Strahds emerges, each one the spitting image of the count which you thought you just killed. “Good evening,” says one. “I am the ancient,” says another. “I am the land,” says a third. “My beginnings are lost in the darkness of the past,” says the fourth. “And we are all Strahd von Zarovich,” they all say in unison.

The four vampire spawn attack, and fight to the death. When they are all dead, read or paraphrase the following:

A cackle pierces the air. A shimmering, illusory image of Strahd appears before the chapel’s altar, laughing manically at the scene of carnage before him. The image of a hunched, hooded being with four tentacles curling out of its dark cloak stands beside him. “I see you’ve met my doppelgangers. Charming, aren’t they?” Strahd sneers. He turns to the figure next to him, and mutters, “Zisk, I trust that these spawn will keep our uninvited guests at bay until my transformation is complete?”

The hooded figure steps forward and removes his cowl, revealing the tentacled face of a withered mind flayer. It removes a large hourglass from beneath its cloak and addresses you directly. “Planar midnight is four hours from now. By that time, Strahd will have become something new… something greater… something that will destroy you, and usher in a new era for Barovia—the era of the illithid.” It turns the hourglass over, and its blood-red sands begin to trickle away. “Struggle as you wish. You will never find Strahd’s resting place before his transformation is complete.”

The two villains cackle, and their illusory figures fade out of sight. Now, the adventure truly begins.

Ending the Adventure

Strahd’s death marks the end of this adventure. If you’re running low on time, you can ignore Strahd’s Misty Escape feature, and just rule that his body falls to the ground, giving the characters the opportunity to drive a stake through his heart to kill him. This adventure eschews most of the Gothic melodrama that characterizes the story of Strahd, Tatyana, Sergei, and Ireena, in favor of weirder and more immediate action. Because of that, there isn’t much character drama to resolve in the wake of Strahd’s death. The best way to end this adventure is to describe Strahd’s death in extravagant detail, then stand and declare “congratulations!” and then pull over the candy bowl and cool down with your friends for a bit.

That draws this Halloween’s horrific Ravenloft redux to a close. Happy Halloween!

Have you read the original One-Night Ravenloft redux, Strahd Must Die Tonight? Do you prefer the tried-and-true Gothic horror of that adventure, or the weirder twist presented in this year’s scenario? Let us know in the comments! 

Did you like this adventure? You can pick up the adventures I've written on the DMs Guild, such as The Temple of Shattered Minds, a suspenseful eldritch mystery with a mind flayer villain. My most recent adventures are included in the Gold Bestseller Encounters in Avernus, a collection of over 60 unique encounters created by the Guild Adepts, which can be used to enhance your campaign in Avernus or elsewhere in the Nine Hells. Also check out the Platinum Bestseller Tactical Maps: Adventure Atlas, a collection of 88 unique encounters created by the Guild Adepts, which can be paired with the beautiful poster battlemaps in Tactical Maps Reincarnated.

James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.