My players are currently kicking off a Curse of Strahd campaign, and are one session away from wrapping up the optional Death House intro adventure. I also just got Vecna: Eve of Ruin, and am considering running that after my players finish up CoS. I'm still reading through V:EoR and am up to Chapter 5, which takes place in Ravenloft.
WARNING: The rest of this contains some spoilers: I love that the adventure runs all over the Multiverse and visits various campaign settings, but I'm trying to think of how to handle my PCs revisiting Barovia only to find out it is a version of Barovia from a time way before their earlier adventures. They will be familiar with Death House and have met Rose and Thorn as ghosts and laid their bones to rest, so they will be shocked to meet them as living breathing children.
This leads me to some questions and would love to see thoughts from fellow DMs:
Should I make this earlier Barovia from V:EoR on the same timeline as the Barovia from CoS, only centuries earlier?
There are some PROs to this approach: It could be cool.... the first time Strahd meets the PCs in CoS, he remembers them from the distant past and that could explain him quickly deciding they are more interesting than other adventurers he's messed with over the years...
Strahd could even say things like "you look younger than I expected / remembered" when he first meets the PCs but without explaining what he means to really freak them out / mess with them.
It could make the entire narrative tie together richly... i can do a lot of foreshadowing / flashback stuff, amd more strongly tie Vecna to the Amber Temple
BUT there are a lot of CONs with this approach:
My PCs will want to alter time and save Rose and Thorn, so I will need a workaround (kinda like the murdering your own grandfather time travel paradox);
my PCs may be frustrated, or worse, lose their suspension of disbelief, over the fact that it took forever to escape Barovia the first time and leaving this time is "super easy, barely an inconvenience",
I will need a reason why the portal to Barovia is not just through space but also through time, and will need to decide if that is the case for the other portals to other campaign settings in V:EoR and will need a compelling story reason, not just a "rule of cool"-esque handwave,
if the PCs already killed Strahd to escape CoS when they were 9th or 10th level, how do I make him still feel dangerous now that they are 14th level and he's clearly less experienced than he was when they last faced him?
Or should I make this earlier Barovia from V:EoR an alternate reality / different timeline as the Barovia from CoS? The PROs of this approach is that it makes things cleaner and probably will be simpler to run, BUT I think it could be a lost opportunity for deeper storytelling, and it may make the PCs feel less invested in the fate of NPCs if they are just "alternate timeline duplicates" and may start mowing through folks for the greater good of saving the entire multiverse.
-If you have the misfortune of coming across a dwarf named Morag, a half-elf that goes by Nichalaus, or their human travelling companions Sukiem-Tor, Ak'huma, Dat'Vi Bek and Doc Ryder, immediately start walking back from whence you came. You'll thank me later.
So I'm in a similar situation, a thought that occurred to me is maybe I just say every time strahd is defeated time resets to a certain point in barovia.
Since this veor is supposed to take place after cos why would they do it like this? Just to imply time travel?
Maybe leave it and have them concerned if they don't let rose and thorn die then they will **** everything up in the future?
Also having completed the house they think they know where to find everything second time round, but you can upgrade things, move things as well as the plot twist in VEoR
Remember that Barovia "resets" some time after the characters escape. The mists return. The power of the vestiges in the amber temple restores Strahd to his curse. Also, keep in mind that most of the creatures within Barovia are already figments of Strahd's mind. Only the beings with souls have any sort of independent existence, the rest are window dressing to make it seem like a real populated world.
With that as a context, it would be easy for the PCs to return to a Barovia with a different state of existence after they defeated Strahd the first time so I don't think you'd need to do anything special to deal with continuity ... inconsistencies would be part of the nature of the reset. The only issues would arise if the players removed items from Barovia that EoV reintroduces or if the PCs freed the soul of Tatyana but EoV contains interactions with her. However, those elements should be pretty small and if you have read both you can also be aware of any elements that you might need to change to make the continuity sufficient to revisit Barovia in EoV.
However, the NPC spirits in the death house would not really represent an issue since if they are figments then they could just be reconstituted and if they have actual souls then perhaps they were reborn when the demiplane reset after the defeat of Strahd.
I'm considering running CoS and then EvR, so I had the same question. Because VRGtR says that the Darklords are immortal suggests that Strahd is going to return no matter what. After the PCs leave after killing Strahd then the plane resets to before they were in there.
But that may make the PCs feel like their actions have done nothing. Maybe somehow tie Strahd's existence to the shard of the rod in his demiplane, and once it's removed, Strahd can be killed? Maybe make it so that while the shard remains in Barovia, Strahd rejuvenates.
But the children being alive means that it may reset to many centuries ago, and it keeps going on until someone defeats Strahd. Then after they leave, it resets back to that point in time.
The part I don't get is, why does Strahd let them leave with the Rod piece? It makes sense that the magic of the Rod piece 'reset' Strahd, perhaps (at least, as far as the PCs are concerned) even making him more powerful. It also makes sense that Strahd would want the piece in his possession, hence lending urgency to the PC's desire to obtain the piece for themselves. So WHY does Strahd let them leave with it?????
The only thing I can think of is that perhaps the Rod's presence brought back Tatyana. The only thing for which Strahd would willingly give up power is another real chance with his true love. Somehow, Strahd might understand that if he sacrifices this object of power, Tatyana will be his... in this mortal version of her, at least (until she dies and regenerates). But then the version where he doesn't let the PCs go and fights them to the death makes no sense.
What I'm suggesting is that Strahd's existence as Darklord of Barovia is tied to the rod piece existing in Barovia. In EoR, he would most likely fight them, but in other cases, he may not realise that his existence is tied to the rod piece.
In the official CoS stuff it says that the vestige of Vampyr brought back Strahd, but I think the rod piece allows the characters to have a more permanent way of killing Strahd.
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My players are currently kicking off a Curse of Strahd campaign, and are one session away from wrapping up the optional Death House intro adventure. I also just got Vecna: Eve of Ruin, and am considering running that after my players finish up CoS. I'm still reading through V:EoR and am up to Chapter 5, which takes place in Ravenloft.
WARNING: The rest of this contains some spoilers: I love that the adventure runs all over the Multiverse and visits various campaign settings, but I'm trying to think of how to handle my PCs revisiting Barovia only to find out it is a version of Barovia from a time way before their earlier adventures. They will be familiar with Death House and have met Rose and Thorn as ghosts and laid their bones to rest, so they will be shocked to meet them as living breathing children.
This leads me to some questions and would love to see thoughts from fellow DMs:
Should I make this earlier Barovia from V:EoR on the same timeline as the Barovia from CoS, only centuries earlier?
Or should I make this earlier Barovia from V:EoR an alternate reality / different timeline as the Barovia from CoS? The PROs of this approach is that it makes things cleaner and probably will be simpler to run, BUT I think it could be a lost opportunity for deeper storytelling, and it may make the PCs feel less invested in the fate of NPCs if they are just "alternate timeline duplicates" and may start mowing through folks for the greater good of saving the entire multiverse.
Thoughts?
-If you have the misfortune of coming across a dwarf named Morag, a half-elf that goes by Nichalaus, or their human travelling companions Sukiem-Tor, Ak'huma, Dat'Vi Bek and Doc Ryder, immediately start walking back from whence you came. You'll thank me later.
So I'm in a similar situation, a thought that occurred to me is maybe I just say every time strahd is defeated time resets to a certain point in barovia.
Since this veor is supposed to take place after cos why would they do it like this? Just to imply time travel?
Maybe leave it and have them concerned if they don't let rose and thorn die then they will **** everything up in the future?
Also having completed the house they think they know where to find everything second time round, but you can upgrade things, move things as well as the plot twist in VEoR
Remember that Barovia "resets" some time after the characters escape. The mists return. The power of the vestiges in the amber temple restores Strahd to his curse. Also, keep in mind that most of the creatures within Barovia are already figments of Strahd's mind. Only the beings with souls have any sort of independent existence, the rest are window dressing to make it seem like a real populated world.
With that as a context, it would be easy for the PCs to return to a Barovia with a different state of existence after they defeated Strahd the first time so I don't think you'd need to do anything special to deal with continuity ... inconsistencies would be part of the nature of the reset. The only issues would arise if the players removed items from Barovia that EoV reintroduces or if the PCs freed the soul of Tatyana but EoV contains interactions with her. However, those elements should be pretty small and if you have read both you can also be aware of any elements that you might need to change to make the continuity sufficient to revisit Barovia in EoV.
However, the NPC spirits in the death house would not really represent an issue since if they are figments then they could just be reconstituted and if they have actual souls then perhaps they were reborn when the demiplane reset after the defeat of Strahd.
I'm considering running CoS and then EvR, so I had the same question. Because VRGtR says that the Darklords are immortal suggests that Strahd is going to return no matter what. After the PCs leave after killing Strahd then the plane resets to before they were in there.
But that may make the PCs feel like their actions have done nothing. Maybe somehow tie Strahd's existence to the shard of the rod in his demiplane, and once it's removed, Strahd can be killed? Maybe make it so that while the shard remains in Barovia, Strahd rejuvenates.
But the children being alive means that it may reset to many centuries ago, and it keeps going on until someone defeats Strahd. Then after they leave, it resets back to that point in time.
Just a suggestion.
The part I don't get is, why does Strahd let them leave with the Rod piece? It makes sense that the magic of the Rod piece 'reset' Strahd, perhaps (at least, as far as the PCs are concerned) even making him more powerful. It also makes sense that Strahd would want the piece in his possession, hence lending urgency to the PC's desire to obtain the piece for themselves. So WHY does Strahd let them leave with it?????
The only thing I can think of is that perhaps the Rod's presence brought back Tatyana. The only thing for which Strahd would willingly give up power is another real chance with his true love. Somehow, Strahd might understand that if he sacrifices this object of power, Tatyana will be his... in this mortal version of her, at least (until she dies and regenerates). But then the version where he doesn't let the PCs go and fights them to the death makes no sense.
I'm just confused...
What I'm suggesting is that Strahd's existence as Darklord of Barovia is tied to the rod piece existing in Barovia. In EoR, he would most likely fight them, but in other cases, he may not realise that his existence is tied to the rod piece.
In the official CoS stuff it says that the vestige of Vampyr brought back Strahd, but I think the rod piece allows the characters to have a more permanent way of killing Strahd.