Arabelle’s Fortune Telling

I was scanning through the 4e module Fair Barovia this morning, looking for the encounter at the base of Tser Falls to adapt into “my” Barovia for this evening’s game, when I came across this module’s version of the Tarokka reading again, here given by a grown-up Arabelle.

Powersore RPG has a fun lore deep-dive into past versions of Barovia that spends a fair amount of time on Fair Barovia and the various connections between the NPCs featured in both. Fair Barovia is interesting as it cannot be nailed down as a clear sequel or prequel— For example, Kolyan Indirovich, burgomaster of the Village of Barovia, has not yet found and adopted his daughter Ireena, while Arabelle is a grown woman and a gifted Vistani seer in her own right. Given the cyclical nature of time and generations in Barovia, I’m not sure it matters too much anyway. Best not to think about it too much.

Arabelle’s Tarokka reading offers a small boon (or curse!) in a specific location based on the suit and face of the card drawn. The module’s reading uses a handful of cards from a standard deck of cards, but can easily be adapted to the Tarokka deck we’ve grown to love. I’ll weigh our adapted list in favor of boons since I see this reading as a potential reward for saving Arabelle from the lake, but as with everything else in this wretched valley, there is still a certain amount of risk when playing with fate. For this reading, we’ll only use the low deck (1-10 of the four suits).

To start, we’ll identify the locations where the effects of the reading apply:

Coins: (Diamonds): Krezk / Monastery / Fidatov Estate
Swords (Spades): Argynvostholt
Stars (Clubs): Berez
Glyphs (Hearts): The Winery / Yester Hill

You could swap out any location, including Castle Ravenloft or the Amber Temple, but I chose these four as I expect the party will need their full faculties in the final two dungeons of the game.

The Fidatov estate is the manor home featured in DDAL04-09: The Tempter, one of my favorite modules from the Curse of Strahd AL season. Check out this chapter of Fleshing out Curse of Strahd from the CoS subreddit for an idea on how to integrate the estate with Krezk, and I’ll try to write up a post on running the estate within a Curse of Strahd campaign as well— it was one of my favorite “side quest” sessions the last time I ran the campaign, as there is no better reward for a DM than dropping a cursed honeypot in front of a bunch of greedy PCs who will greedily snatch up piles of gold despite knowing it is 100% cursed and a bad idea.

I assume when I do this reading, the party will not have visited any of these locations, so we can look to the descriptions given for the treasure locations in Chapter One for ideas on how to describe the locations without explicitly naming them (Curse of Strahd, pp. 12-15).

Have each player draw a card (or Arabelle draws for them). The suit determines the location, while the value applies the affect from the list below. Have Arabelle read the italicized text when the card is drawn.

  1. Advantage on initiative rolls
    Danger lurks around every corner, but your reflexes are heightened in this place, and your guard remains up where your companions may falter.
  2. Disadvantage on initiative rolls
    Blades will be drawn when you least expect it.
  3. Bonus 1d4 to health gained from second wind (Fighter), dark one’s blessing (Warlock, Fiend patron) and hit dice rolls
    Your blood will sustain you in this place.
  4. Automatically roll 51 on Barovian nightmare d100 rolls. This does not affect haunting from a Night Hag if the party has made an enemy of Morgantha and her daughters.‡
    Rest easy in this location, for the first time in too long, an easy, dreamless sleep comes to you.
  5. Advantage on INT/WIS/CHA ability checks and saving throws
    Your soul is shielded from from evil in this place.
  6. Disadvantage on INT/WIS/CHA ability checks and saving throws*
    Your soul is laid bare and vulnerable in this place.
  7. Advantage on STR/DEX/CON ability checks and saving throws
    Strength courses through your veins, you draw newfound power from this place, finding yourself capable of new feats.
  8. Disadvantage on STR/DEX/CON ability checks and saving throws*
    The place saps your life, atrophying your very being and wasting away as long as you remain.
  9. Advantage on Concentration CON saving throws†
    The weave is closer in this place, your connection and concentration stronger for it.
  10. Disadvantage on Concentration CON saving throws†
    The weave is thin and frayed in this place, your connection to your magic holding by a thread, easily broken.

* One of the Fair Barovia possibilities limits the curse to until the character is bloodied (a 4e term, reaching half hit points or below), and in the same light, the broad curses on checks and saves could end once the PC reached 0 HP for the first time in the chosen location. If you wish to do this, add “…but ebbing life sustains you.” to the prophecy.
† If you draw either of these for a non-spellcaster, quickly roll a d8 and use that result from the table instead.
‡ To add an unfortunate twist on this one, (or you’re not a sadist penalizing sleep as I do), when resting, the character falls into a deep slumber, and cannot be woken except by taking damage, after which they will gain no benefit from the long rest.


Credit where credit is due, some of the above lines (and of course the core idea) of the table above are adapted or lifted directly from Fair Barovia, by Claudio Pozas, published in Dungeon Magazine #207. The original reading can be found on page 47.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…
Hamlet

Dreams ended up being one of my favorite storytelling tools throughout the campaign. Sometimes it was major undertakings— I wrote longer dream narratives for every character on two occasions: once for their first session, as part of bringing them together and introducing them to the Demiplane of Dread, and again to get them interested in the Amber Temple. The vestiges imprisoned there reached out to each of them, promising great power and pushing them to return to Kasimir and venture south into the mountains. Some nights, I would have short hand-written bits and pieces, used to nudge the narrative in one direction or the other, or reveal bits and pieces to those who had given me backstory to play with— Sumu’s history in Barovia, Chand’s past run-ins with lycanthropes, laying the groundwork for things to come.

When we started Curse of Strahd, we had a small army of six PCs marauding across Barovia. I knew they would quickly be making friends and influencing people, and they shortly already had Ismark and Ireena in tow. When I realized how easily a well-balanced party of six made it through Death House more-or-less unscathed (which I’ve often heard referred to as TPK House), I started looking into ways to make Barovia as a whole that much more dangerous. If the party was rolling into every fight fresh-faced and at full strength, hair combed and muscles oiled like Leonidas at Thermopylae, nothing I threw at them “by the book” was going to be much of a threat.

Increasing encounter CR helps, but I wasn’t very good at it, and even a few more zombies in the horde didn’t do much, so instead looked for ways ways to tax their most precious assets— health and magic.

Every long rest in Barovia required a “nightmare roll” at the end of the night, to see who slept through the night unscathed. The roll was a d100 + their Charisma save, with an optional 1d10 if they felt “safe” that night. I left the d10 to the players discretion— How had the previous day’s events affected them? Were they in warm beds in the Blue Water Inn, or curled up under a damp fur ten feet away from a party member’s charred corpse?

I would also offer a (very high DC) save for the various effects of the nightmares that might halve the effect, running the campaign again, I would not offer that again.

RangeEffect
1-5Roll twice, halve the results (round <6 up to 6)
6-10Dream Spell "Nightmare" (PHB 236) - No benefits of rest, 3d6 psychic damage
11-15Gain 1 Level of exhaustion
16-202d6 Psychic damage
21-25Long-Term Madness (1d8 Hours)
26-30Fail to recover 2d4 spell slots, or 2d6 psychic damage if not a spellcaster
31-40Do not recover health
41-45Fail to recover 1d4 spell slots or 1d6 psychic damage if not a spellcaster
46-50Do not recover hit dice
51-99No Effect
100+Recover 1 additional hit die (lost if not spent before the next long rest)
* Roll 1d100
* Add 1d10 if you're feeling safe in your bed tonight
* Halve the total roll if sleeping inside Castle Ravenloft
* Races who do not sleep (elves) cannot roll below 21
* Native Barovians cannot roll below 31
* Roll optionally for NPCS

Last Night I Dreamt of Ravenloft Again…

Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death.
Richard III

Portends and prophecy, dreams and nightmares are constant motifs in Curse of Strahd. Ireena dreams of Strahd every night following his visit. Izek dreams of Ireena. The Tarroka deck literally spells out the party’s fate. Birds of ill open (somewhat subverted in this case) warn unsuspecting adventurers off from some of the most dangerous encounters of the valley, including Old Bonegrinder, which party fresh out of Death House might think would be an excellent place to explore.

When I started Curse of Strahd, I wanted to do it right. I was nervous. We’d come off more than a year of Out of the Abyss under a seasoned DM. I had never played before that year, but here I was claiming I was going to run Curse of Strahd, a sandbox campaign that relies more than anything on tone. On getting suspense, dread, and atmosphere down. Every module from Adventurer’s League Season 4 warned, “For a Ravenloft game, the world itself should be treated with great respect—it is a character unto itself…” I wanted to do Ravenloft right, to tell a story worth telling. I read PN Elrond’s I, Strahd. I got my hands on old Ravenloft modules, Van Richthen’s Guide to Vampires, and poured every DM’s guide on the web I could find. We discussed character creation over email over a couple weeks, and soon enough it was time for our first session.

The party met in a tavern. Of course. Why not? It’s overdone because it works. The book offers three introductions to get a group of adventurers into Barovia. Vistani visitors. Werewolves in the woods. And a strange visitor in a tavern. To get each of them into the tavern, though, I wrote up a handful of dreams the night before, distributing to the players as they arrived that night.

I. Kolyana Inderovich’s Mansion

You find yourself standing in the dark entrance hall of an aging mansion. The air is cold. You notice the widows have been boarded and the door barred. You look down, notice unfamiliar clothing and a sword you don’t recognize clutched in your hand. A howl outside pierces the night, joined by a chorus of the same from all sides of the house. The front door shudders under a massive blow, flexing on its hinges against the the crossbeam haphazardly installed across the doorframe. A woman screams from behind you, “Papa, Papa, no! Please wake up!”
You turn and run into the house, following the sound of sobbing, but room after room, door after door, you never seem to get any closer. Eventually you realize you the sobbing is gone, and you are no longer running to something, but from something. The walls have turned to clay and stone as you continue running, ducking and weaving as you search for an exit. Something slick and wet grasps at your leg, pulling you to the floor.

You wake with a start, your cloths cold and damp from your own sweat.

Everyone is troubled by bad dreams at some point, and you have had more than your fair share yourself, but never anything like this last one. That same morning, something inside you you can’t place, a drive, an instinct, a whisper— brings you back to the Crossing Inn, a waystation for travelers along the Phlan Path on the edge of the Quivering Forest, where you stopped in a ten-day past.

II. The Fall of Argynvostholt

The sound of battle echoes around you, the bitter smell of blood and smoke, the scream of metal on metal and the cries of dying men and women. A large wooden throne stands at one end of the hall, and six knights decked in silver and black stand shoulder-to-shoulder as crimson clad soldiers pour through every door. A massive roar shakes the room to its very foundation, and with a mighty crash the entire western wall collapses under the weight of something falling from above.

One of the knights breaks from the ranks and begins cleaving his way through the soldiers before he is overwhelmed. Tears in his eyes, one knight leads the remaining four with a wordless howl of anguish like nothing you’ve never heard. You barely get your sword up in time as you find yourself engaged in the melee yourself, and lose track of the remaining knights as a sea of crimson surrounds both you and them. At a mighty blow to the head, everything goes black, and you wake with a start by the smoldering remains of your fire.

Everyone is troubled by bad dreams at some point, and you have had more than your fair share yourself, but never anything like this last one. That same morning, something inside you you can’t place, a drive, an instinct, a whisper— brings you back to the Crossing Inn, a waystation for travelers along the Phlan Path on the edge of the Quivering Forest, where you stopped in a ten-day past.

III. Marina’s Death

You find yourself restrained on a bed in a small room. The window has been boarded up, and a fire burns in the hearth. What little light filters through the boards on the western window burns a deep blood-red. You hear a soft sobbing muffled by the door. “Come, we haven’t much time, sundown is almost upon us and then The Devil will walk among us again.” The door creaks open to reveal two men, one in a rough-hewn robe, the other in a much finer garment, distressed from a few day’s wear.

The man in the robe begins intoning a prayer, and both stride toward you, tears streaming from the second man’s eyes. He bends down and whispers, “I love you, my child.” The first man produces a mallet and wooden stake, the end tempered to a fine point. The second man takes them, and after a moment’s hesitation, sets the stake to your breast and raises the mallet above his head. With a tormented cry, the mallet comes crashing down in a single mighty blow.
You wake with a start, the blanket you fell asleep with twisted tightly around your body like a straitjacket. The fire in the hearth has gone cold.

Everyone is troubled by bad dreams at some point, and you have had more than your fair share yourself, but never anything like this last one. That same morning, something inside you you can’t place, a drive, an instinct, a whisper— brings you back to the Crossing Inn, a waystation for travelers along the Phlan Path on the edge of the Quivering Forest, where you stopped in a ten-day past.

IV. Strahd Pursues Tatyana

You are racing across slick cobblestone, the rain striking your face, but you don’t feel the cold. Every corner you turn, every door you wrench open, you catch a glimpse of her— and she’s gone again. You round a tower and find yourself in a garden, warm light glowing from the stained glass behind you. She is in front of you, and now turns to look back. In that moment, in her eyes you see is all: fear, revulsion, and yes, hatred. She turns away. With a burst of speed, she strides for the low wall of the overlook. One, two, three steps. Without a break in her momentum, not a moment’s hesitation, she leaps, plants a foot on the wall— and without a sound is gone.

You bolt for the overlook, an inhuman cry erupting from your throat. As you lean past the gargoyles facing out into the void a sudden updraft brings a lace veil riding up from below. You reach for it, but just as quickly it whips away, disappearing into the misty darkness.
With a start up you sit up suddenly, drenched in a cold sweat and a knot at the pit of your stomach.

Everyone is troubled by bad dreams at some point, and you have had more than your fair share yourself, but never anything like this last one. That same morning, something inside you you can’t place, a drive, an instinct, a whisper— brings you back to the Crossing Inn, a waystation for travelers along the Phlan Path on the edge of the Quivering Forest, where you stopped in a ten-day past.

V. Strahd Takes Ravenloft Castle

You are standing among ranks of men at attention inside the curtain wall of a massive keep. Trash and offal collects in the corners, a stained glass window stands smashed, but beyond this abuse and neglect, the strength and beauty of this place is readily apparent. The sheer size imparts a sense of awe like you’ve never felt before. Thunder rumbles softly in the distance as a slow drizzle leaves everyone uncomfortable and wet, but nobody moves. A tall figure on a black steed crosses the drawbridge ahead of you, and dismounts at the center of the courtyard. The man is an imposing presence, and you can feel those around you shift uncomfortably under his gaze. He draws a dagger from his belt, and a chaplain steps forward holding a small gold ewer, from which he pours a dark wine across the blade of the dagger. He makes a sign of his faith over the glistening dagger before stepping back. The tall man removes his glove and pulls back the sleeve of his cloak, baring his forearm to the sky. He raises the dagger to the sky before pointing it briefly North, East, South, and West, then stabs in lightly into his wrist.

“I am Strahd. I am the Land,” he intones loudly, “Draw near and witness, I, Strahd am the Land.” Count Strahd von Zarovich then looks up, straight into your eyes, with menacing, burning orbs that seem to lay bare every inch of your soul. You bolt upright with a scream, startling those around you not yet asleep. The fire beside you still glows brightly, but does nothing to warm the chill that has taken ahold of you.

Everyone is troubled by bad dreams at some point, and you have had more than your fair share yourself, but never anything like this last one. That same morning, something inside you you can’t place, a drive, an instinct, a whisper— brings you back to the Crossing Inn, a waystation for travelers along the Phlan Path on the edge of the Quivering Forest, where you stopped in a ten-day past.

VI. Vilnius’ Narrow Escape

The light of the driftglobe glitters off the amber walls of the arched corridor. A hand grabs your shoulder and roughly pulls you back. The wizard points his staff to the wall before you, and mutters an incantation. A rune you clearly missed yourself reveals itself among the dirt and grime, glowing for a second before dispersing in a blast of light and necrotic energy. You shudder, imaging what something like that would have done to you if you’d stepped any closer. “Stupid fool, pay attention, or you’ll get us both killed!” he berates you, and shoves you back in front of him. A mad laughter echoes from the hall behind you, and you turn to see three skulls rise from an alcove, wreathed in a green flame. A bolt of fire shoots from the center skull’s eyes, grazing the side of your head. Self preservation kicks in and you bolt for the stairs at the end of the hall. Three successive explosions fill the hall behind you, and the acrid smell of burning flesh and hair fills your nostrils. You can tell the old man is certainly not long for this world, even if he did somehow survive that.

You burst through one pair of doors and then another, then with a misty step, reach the balcony opposite this massive chamber. As you enter the smaller antechamber beyond the balcony, a massive jackal-headed warrior stands at the center of the room, now turning to you with a massive fist raised. A flick of the wrist and you get your shield up just in time as you duck around the deadly statue. The attack glances off your shoulder, a wash of arcane energy deflecting the blow, the massive fist cracking the stone floor at your feet instead. You burst through the doors in front of you and with a flourish, turn invisible. Golems like that can’t be that smart, can they?

A start, and your eyes fly open, awake but unable to move at first. After a few terrifying seconds you regain control of your limbs and sit up with a shudder. The fire in the hearth has gone cold.

Everyone is troubled by bad dreams at some point, and you have had more than your fair share yourself, but never anything like this last one. That same morning, something inside you you can’t place, a drive, an instinct, a whisper— brings you back to the Crossing Inn, a waystation for travelers along the Phlan Path on the edge of the Quivering Forest, where you stopped in a ten-day past.

Once everyone was at the table, I gave an adapted version of Arrigal’s into hook (CoS pp 18—19), and we were off and running.

In the end, some of the dreams worked better than others. A couple players never made it far enough in the campaign to visit the sites they had dreamed of. But when it worked out for other characters, it was great to see the spark and excitement of recognition as someone connected the dots. III, IV, and V were adapted from excerpts in I, Strahd, the rest drawn from the adventure text itself.