As someone who just got Curse of Strahd, i can't help but feel like the Lake Zarovich encounter is a bit underdeveloped; there's no real challenge to it, you just go out on a boat, grab the child with little resistance, and go back to shore. I've seen a lot of people around the internet put some sort of monster in the lake, and i'd love to get you guys' ideas. I'm personally considering a Chuul.
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I am a human person very good at doing human person things, yes yes, i enjoy normal human person things like wearing clothes on my skin and walking with my leg, yes yes, am not a yuan-ti infiltrator, am human person
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A good resource for this would be the Curse of Strahd subreddit. They’ve done amazing work over there. I’m running a CoS campaign and placed a temple to the old gods: The Seeker, The Weaver, and The Huntress on an island in the middle of the lake. It held the keys to unlocking trials to reconsecrate their places of power to help against Strahd.
I had a monster come by and steal the bag with the girl in it after it fell under the surface, because I have several different factions with an interest in children.
I had a monster come by and steal the bag with the girl in it after it fell under the surface, because I have several different factions with an interest in children.
What kind of monster?
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I am a human person very good at doing human person things, yes yes, i enjoy normal human person things like wearing clothes on my skin and walking with my leg, yes yes, am not a yuan-ti infiltrator, am human person
IF YOU'RE READING THIS GO WATCH INFINITY TRAIN ON HBOMAX
Well, there are a few things to consider here. The first is, knowing all the fish are dead, what could live down there? The second is why was poor Bluto Krogarov attempting to drown little Arabelle? The third is who Arabelle is.
Assuming anything predatory lives below the surface, it's not feeding on meat. Not unless it's being fed from outside the lake. Maybe people stay away from the shore, for fear of being pulled in. If there is a monster, you need to telegraph it. You also want to make sure whatever monster you throw at the party isn't something that will completely overpower them at this level. If they're forced to fight, say, an aboleth for Arabelle's fate, they're hosed. It's a deadly encounter for a party of four 6th-level characters. And there's no guarantee they'll all be in boats on the lake.
For example, the vampire spawn in the upstairs of the coffin maker's, while tough, do not need to be fought right after the party arrives. In fact, they don't need to be fought at all. It's possible to recover the bones and reconsecrate the church without incident. But I also bring it up to highlight the danger it poses. Many DMs run it early, as I did my first time, but that's a mistake. The point is to get the party an invitation to Castle Ravenloft. If the party is successful in thwarting the Feast, then Strahd sends them an invite. If they fail and whisk Ireena away to Krezk for her safety, then the is drawn to the pool, is absconded away by Sergei's ghost, and Strahd sends them a letter anyway.
Assuming you still wish to use a monster, consider one who can mind control and direct someone to bring it food. That said, what if it's not a beastie?
In older Ravenloft lore, there are only three laws in Barovia; all of which are punishable by death.
No one enters Castle Ravenloft unbidden
Do not steal from the State
Vistani blood is not to be spilled
Drowning Arabelle is a clever shortcut around the third law. Too clever, in my opinion, for Bluto. So, was Arabelle chosen at random or deliberately? Would her death trigger something? Can someone else (i.e. not a monster) be responsible?
Personally, if I had to have a villain, I'd use Victor or Lady Wachter. Victor can be using Bluto, and the chaos surrounding her intended death, as a scapegoat for his missing teleportation victims. (Victor can also use the aformentioned vampire spawn.) And Lady Wachter can just want it mess up Vargas's "All will be well" schtick. If things aren't well, if he's incompetent, then the balance of power shifts in her favor. And Bluto is found in a trance, so he could be soulless just as easily as he could be under an enchantment.
In my campaign, I had it so when my party uses the rowboats/swims/water walks out to save Arabelle, it triggers an encounter with a zombie hydra. Bluto is attempting to sacrifice a Vistani to the lake so that there are fish again. I used this as an opportunity to come up with a reason why the fish are disappearing.
I had a few different ideas with this, one being that Strahd is the one who puts the zombie hydra there (there’s already a hydra in the lake but he zombifies it), in order to test the party’s strength. There’s a Bounty board in Vallaki that directs them to the lake “the fish are missing investigate the lake” yadda yadda, and then also when they get there Bluto is in the middle of his sacrifice. They fight the hydra and it kicks the party’s collective ass, and then Strahd can come down the the banks of the lake and straight up one shot it. It’s a good way to show how powerful Strahd actually is. Have him be disappointed in the party that they couldn’t do it. OR maybe they do kill it and he is impressed. “Thanks for taking care of that for me. You’re more powerful than I thought.” (He’s using this to play with his food and do some information gathering).
My party left IRena in the care of Ez at Van Richten’s Tower, but when shit went down in Vallaki, Van Richten ended up rescuing the party in his Rictavio disguise and blew his cover. I didn’t want the meeting between Van Richten and Esmerelda to take place so soon, so I had it so that Esmerelda and IRena went looking for Arabelle. (Esmerelda mentioned to the party that she was helping the nearby Vistani camp search for Arabelle when they first encountered her). As the party walked back to Vallaki, and they passed one of the small rivers leading from the lake, they found a small shoe with a ruffled sock still in it floating in the water (I was using this as another hook to push them to the lake but they didn’t bite. There’s a lot of important things to do in Vallaki). Instead of going to investigate, they sent a message to Esmerelda via raven that they found a small shoe floating in the lake and maybe it’s worth checking out. Ireena is a sweetie pie so of course when a little girl’s life is at stake, she’s going to jump on the opportunity to help out, so I had Esmerelda and Ireena go to the lake on their own to find Arabelle. When the party approaches the lake this time, they find Esmerelda pouring water out of her prosthetic leg, Ireena exhausted laying on the shore, and Arabelle dancing around doing some sick karate moves super jacked about the awesome hydra fight Esmerelda and Ireena just had in order to rescue her from Bluto. (Might be cool to have the hydra just be a normal hydra they defeated and then maybe later on have the hydra reanimate into a zombie hydra when they go to find the Mad Mage, or maybe Strahd reanimates it while the party approaches the ladies on the lake).
As others have said, including a monster here could make things a bit more exciting. One suggestion would be to have the monster appear on the shore as the party is figuring out what exactly is going out on the lake with Arabelle. Then they'll have to make decisions with respect to fighting the monster vs finding a way out onto the lake to save her.
In general with Lake Zarovich, I've seen a lot of people use it as a spot to include another town/village/POI for more than just the lake encounter.
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As someone who just got Curse of Strahd, i can't help but feel like the Lake Zarovich encounter is a bit underdeveloped; there's no real challenge to it, you just go out on a boat, grab the child with little resistance, and go back to shore. I've seen a lot of people around the internet put some sort of monster in the lake, and i'd love to get you guys' ideas. I'm personally considering a Chuul.
I am a human person very good at doing human person things, yes yes, i enjoy normal human person things like wearing clothes on my skin and walking with my leg, yes yes, am not a yuan-ti infiltrator, am human person
IF YOU'RE READING THIS GO WATCH INFINITY TRAIN ON HBOMAX
A good resource for this would be the Curse of Strahd subreddit. They’ve done amazing work over there. I’m running a CoS campaign and placed a temple to the old gods: The Seeker, The Weaver, and The Huntress on an island in the middle of the lake. It held the keys to unlocking trials to reconsecrate their places of power to help against Strahd.
I had a monster come by and steal the bag with the girl in it after it fell under the surface, because I have several different factions with an interest in children.
What kind of monster?
I am a human person very good at doing human person things, yes yes, i enjoy normal human person things like wearing clothes on my skin and walking with my leg, yes yes, am not a yuan-ti infiltrator, am human person
IF YOU'RE READING THIS GO WATCH INFINITY TRAIN ON HBOMAX
Well, there are a few things to consider here. The first is, knowing all the fish are dead, what could live down there? The second is why was poor Bluto Krogarov attempting to drown little Arabelle? The third is who Arabelle is.
Assuming anything predatory lives below the surface, it's not feeding on meat. Not unless it's being fed from outside the lake. Maybe people stay away from the shore, for fear of being pulled in. If there is a monster, you need to telegraph it. You also want to make sure whatever monster you throw at the party isn't something that will completely overpower them at this level. If they're forced to fight, say, an aboleth for Arabelle's fate, they're hosed. It's a deadly encounter for a party of four 6th-level characters. And there's no guarantee they'll all be in boats on the lake.
For example, the vampire spawn in the upstairs of the coffin maker's, while tough, do not need to be fought right after the party arrives. In fact, they don't need to be fought at all. It's possible to recover the bones and reconsecrate the church without incident. But I also bring it up to highlight the danger it poses. Many DMs run it early, as I did my first time, but that's a mistake. The point is to get the party an invitation to Castle Ravenloft. If the party is successful in thwarting the Feast, then Strahd sends them an invite. If they fail and whisk Ireena away to Krezk for her safety, then the is drawn to the pool, is absconded away by Sergei's ghost, and Strahd sends them a letter anyway.
Assuming you still wish to use a monster, consider one who can mind control and direct someone to bring it food. That said, what if it's not a beastie?
In older Ravenloft lore, there are only three laws in Barovia; all of which are punishable by death.
Drowning Arabelle is a clever shortcut around the third law. Too clever, in my opinion, for Bluto. So, was Arabelle chosen at random or deliberately? Would her death trigger something? Can someone else (i.e. not a monster) be responsible?
Personally, if I had to have a villain, I'd use Victor or Lady Wachter. Victor can be using Bluto, and the chaos surrounding her intended death, as a scapegoat for his missing teleportation victims. (Victor can also use the aformentioned vampire spawn.) And Lady Wachter can just want it mess up Vargas's "All will be well" schtick. If things aren't well, if he's incompetent, then the balance of power shifts in her favor. And Bluto is found in a trance, so he could be soulless just as easily as he could be under an enchantment.
Try using a monster like, the one outsde the doors of Dorin, LOTR fellowship. It is called watcher in the water.
In my campaign, I had it so when my party uses the rowboats/swims/water walks out to save Arabelle, it triggers an encounter with a zombie hydra. Bluto is attempting to sacrifice a Vistani to the lake so that there are fish again. I used this as an opportunity to come up with a reason why the fish are disappearing.
I had a few different ideas with this, one being that Strahd is the one who puts the zombie hydra there (there’s already a hydra in the lake but he zombifies it), in order to test the party’s strength. There’s a Bounty board in Vallaki that directs them to the lake “the fish are missing investigate the lake” yadda yadda, and then also when they get there Bluto is in the middle of his sacrifice. They fight the hydra and it kicks the party’s collective ass, and then Strahd can come down the the banks of the lake and straight up one shot it. It’s a good way to show how powerful Strahd actually is. Have him be disappointed in the party that they couldn’t do it. OR maybe they do kill it and he is impressed. “Thanks for taking care of that for me. You’re more powerful than I thought.” (He’s using this to play with his food and do some information gathering).
My party left IRena in the care of Ez at Van Richten’s Tower, but when shit went down in Vallaki, Van Richten ended up rescuing the party in his Rictavio disguise and blew his cover. I didn’t want the meeting between Van Richten and Esmerelda to take place so soon, so I had it so that Esmerelda and IRena went looking for Arabelle. (Esmerelda mentioned to the party that she was helping the nearby Vistani camp search for Arabelle when they first encountered her). As the party walked back to Vallaki, and they passed one of the small rivers leading from the lake, they found a small shoe with a ruffled sock still in it floating in the water (I was using this as another hook to push them to the lake but they didn’t bite. There’s a lot of important things to do in Vallaki). Instead of going to investigate, they sent a message to Esmerelda via raven that they found a small shoe floating in the lake and maybe it’s worth checking out. Ireena is a sweetie pie so of course when a little girl’s life is at stake, she’s going to jump on the opportunity to help out, so I had Esmerelda and Ireena go to the lake on their own to find Arabelle. When the party approaches the lake this time, they find Esmerelda pouring water out of her prosthetic leg, Ireena exhausted laying on the shore, and Arabelle dancing around doing some sick karate moves super jacked about the awesome hydra fight Esmerelda and Ireena just had in order to rescue her from Bluto. (Might be cool to have the hydra just be a normal hydra they defeated and then maybe later on have the hydra reanimate into a zombie hydra when they go to find the Mad Mage, or maybe Strahd reanimates it while the party approaches the ladies on the lake).
Hope this was helpful. :)
As others have said, including a monster here could make things a bit more exciting. One suggestion would be to have the monster appear on the shore as the party is figuring out what exactly is going out on the lake with Arabelle. Then they'll have to make decisions with respect to fighting the monster vs finding a way out onto the lake to save her.
In general with Lake Zarovich, I've seen a lot of people use it as a spot to include another town/village/POI for more than just the lake encounter.