You are not correct: you don't raise or lower your pitch by raising or lowering your larynx, but by closing and stretching your vocal chords or the opposite. Raising or lowering your larynx can help you both with your high or low pitch in different ways, but not necessarily its "height".

This is divine. I LOVE this take!! Much more fun 💜

Don't put the dragon skull in the swamp. It's a poor idea. The heist for the Argynvost skull from Ravenloft is a brilliant mission that both my parties loved. So what if there is a giant skull in the swamp? Not one player even asked, they were too busy trying to stay alive.

So, I need advice. is Strahd still showing up and assisting the druids when the player arrive at yester hill or would that be too challenging for the players

When my party first came to Vallaky i had just introduced Vasili Von Holtz, so while they did their downtime, Strahd just went on dates with Ireena behind the party's back

For goblin voices, I try and replicate that bit from the Korn song where he’s basically skatting like in jazz, but with a metal ‘push’ to it from the arytenoids

The module itself has the invitation but ZERO comments about what the dinner is like or why players would go or what happens if they don't go. It feels like the players will simply say "um, no" and not go until they are ready to kill Strahd. It is about the worst "let's get on some tracks" after letting the players go sandbox on every single other part of the campaign.

I'm using the march of the dead as a Chekov's gun for a siege of Ravenloft at the end of the campaign. I'm running the fanes and binding of Vampyr (Making my Eva the forest fey) as options towards a good ending where the party actually kills Strahd and frees Barovia permanently. If they do all that, Strahd being the general he is, will realize he's vulnerable now and shore up his defenses/rally his forces. The party will need to find a way to orchestrate a siege of Ravenloft with all their accumulated allies over the campaign to even get into the castle proper, and Mordy's contribution (So his power doesn't overshadow the PC's, but he still get's to flex who he is) will be using Wish and exhausting himself in the process to give the march physical form and their will back, so they can become an army of the dead for the siege, RotK style.

Oh hell naw they turned Der Freischütz from Lobotomy Corporation into a patron. In all seriousness I'm super excited for the campaign setting to be fully released. I've been a fan of your stuff for a while and a patron for around a year now, and this setting sounds like one I've been legitimately wanting to do for my next campaign for a while now. The one I'm making took place primarily in the Underdark, and I might link the two settings in my campaign once Lothburgh comes out.

Well, this is certainly an unexpected surprise! :-D I had no idea you were working on such a thing. Have you made subclasses before in the past that I missed? Good luck with this endeavor, sir. How long have you been working on these with your group; is your group using a mix of WotC subclasses with these or exclusively using these setting-subclasses now?

Hot damm these are nice sound fun as heck.

Hi brasilian love u work tks.

Hey hey ✌️

They started their adventure where our last campaign ended. There they met a woman. It was predictable that a friend of mine would try to take her to his room. There it turned out that she was a vampire. When they were following her, they got caught in the fog and fainted. After they woke up again, they were in Barovia.

Death House takes players fomr LEeel 1 to dead... lol

Blew up a PC in Vallaki town square that was exiting the campaign. Turned into combat with 3 vampire spawns. At the end each turn I rolled a 20. Had the party guess high or low on the roll. If they got it wrong something bad happened. They got it wrong on the second turn. So so Strahd showed up on his horse. Party was like we’re just going to ignore him and deal with the vampire spawn. They all rolled bad on a wisdom saving throwing. Strahd cast fireball and downed two PCs. One of the newer PCs to the campaign decided to try and reason with Strahd and was like “Can we grab dinner”. Strahd agreed and they walked through Vallaki and invited Fiona to dinner lol. We ended the session as they were all standing outside the dining hall. They have no idea who all is at dinner. Probably going to have Ismark be there and kill him to start dinner and then proceed with dinner. As soon as a servant messes up, Strahd is snapping a neck and still going on like nothing happened. Dinner should be fun

My player bullied me into running this adventure. Even if it is the best adventure written over all 5 editions (6 if you include HackMaster), I will always hate it.

Impact Winter has been a fun listen on Audible.

Oh, this is OLD Dementlieu, back when the writers were pussies. I see.

Thank you so much for this!! One thing I would love to mention is to please stay critical while watching Split. While being fantastic at showing voice acting tips, it's a really horrible movie that has caused a lot of discrimination and pain for the DID community. I would alternatively highly recommend the Jumanji series. On both an audio and visual level, not to give spoilers, but outside of the whole "playing a movie character who's inside a video game character" there are scenes in the sequel in which movie characters A & B are in video game characters A & B and then they swap, and the only way to tell who is inside which video game character is based on their mannerisms and quirks of speech, involving both gender and personality differences. it's really fascinating!!!!

Do you guys think Strahd sounds more like Béla Lugosi or Christopher Lee?

Some of fthe things my group did during downtime in Barovia included a beach episode/session at Lake Zarovich, exploring caves and oasises under the mountains, attended festivals in Vallaki etc. One of our favorite places to camp or relax was a "spirit oasis" of sorts we made up/found under Mount Ghakis. One of the PC's, Alexander, knew where we could hide from Strahd after an intense encounter and led us to one of these springs. We stayed there for a few days or weeks until we could figure out a plan. The cavern spring/spirit oasis became one of the safest places in Barovia for my party and inspired a lot of roleplay situations.

For the aspect of manipulation i had a near tpk when i was dming and only the warrior survive, stradh come and offert him some magical scroll of résurrection for each party member -1 so he had to decide which character would die. just after the character made his chose and resurect the party stradh take another scroll and tell the one who was abandoned what just happened and it was a really cool roleplay moment.

I heard this one voice actor give Strahd a voice that was somewhere between Death the Wolf and Valentino Hazbin Hotel and I was just 😭💀⚰️ CRYING THAT IS TOO ACCURATE HELP

My favorite tidbit was -and always shall be- the Ravenloft Readings that were done at GenCon in the early 90s. The creators of the campaign setting would write, act, and perform a play with characters. I distinctly remember someone (a TSR game writer) playing as Strahd, casting a polymorph other spell on one of his minions, turning the minion into a toad, a summarily stomping on the toad with his boots! It was awesome. They had sound effects and music and great laughs! Those were the days!!! They did the readings for many years though I do not know what was the last year they did them.

I actually am considering putting a false hydra into Berez. Make it an ungodly terrifying place, that made its home in the bowels of the once great city. Everyone believes Berez was destroyed in a great flood... but the actual story was it devouring folk 1 by 1. It has since moved beneath the mansion and made its nest there, and only 20 survivors remain. The only reasons Baba has survived is because shes a powerful creature in its own right, one the FH knows not to go after. Also, because Baba has grown near deaf in her old age, so she easily evades the FH. Idk if anyone else has had this idea, but would love to see your take on it!

I Jeremy Crawford spun out an entire campaign with his party using the megaliths - do you know anything about that?

ill be running Curse of stradh very soon and these ideas are golden thank you

During my group’s game we had several nods to lore and characters beyond what was in the 5th edition book. Jander Sunstar made a small appearance and had descendants mainly Evelyn Sunstar, an elf vampire who joined the party. Additionally Strahd had a second brother who was originally named Sturm Von Zarovich. We changed this lore and name to Alexander and made him younger than Sergei instead of older. Furthermore, Alexander had a much larger role than Sergei which involved him joining the party, falling in love with the heir to Neverwinter and much more. These changes added a level of intrugue that isn't explored in most Ravenloft campaigns. Other changes included adding more domains to our game and the ability to travel across the planes.

How do you play I6 in an evening? You will have to cut half the content if not more.

I am combining LMoP with DoIP and Venomfang is going to try to recruit the players to drive Cryovane from "his" domain

I've been working on text to reintegrate Zeidenburg, Teufeldorf, Immol, and Orasnou (and maybe Hoessla and Korfburg if I have time) into 5e. When I'm done, it will allow DMs to choose which towns (or all of them!) to integrate into their games!

No more decks - restock soon?

The Smokestack reminds me of a story I heard of a CoS campaign. They tried to Santa Claus their way into Ravenloft after Skydiving from the back of their druid in giant owl form, going down the chimney after taking on a few gargoyles. The smoke mephits were a hilarious surprise

I'm thinking of giving my party their invite to the dinner soon; They've already met him a few times around the place and one of my players even attempted to fight him (and proceeded to nearly die to the hoard of bats and rats that Strahd called to his side) during St Andral's Feast. . .which did not go well for them and ended with one of death saves, many extremely weak and one very dead priest. I need an excuse for them to go to the castle soon, want to nudge them in the direction of one of the fortunes (which I'm going to reroll soon; they have the Sunsword and have done VERY well concealing it from Strahd, however I don't want to throw them at Baby Lysaga for the Tome and the Holy Symbol is in Nimble-Nobs Crypt and my attempts to nudge them that way have missed unforunately). I'm going to have a fun time with it for sure, since they've got the Gertruda side-quest and the next session we do is going to be the Fall of Vallaki.

YES YES YES!! MEMOIRS OF A VAMPIRE ALL THE WAY!! Anyone I know irl who has read the novels has also tried to find a way to put my boy, Alek Gwilym into the campaign somehow. Best NPC lost to time. ✨

Hey. I’m running CoS. Love your stuff. I’m putting together a plot line where the tomb is in the barones house. And Strahd is using the Baroness to watch the Tome via the enchanted mirror. As a result. There is a 50% any night. The (unused) attic room is occupied by the Baroness. If the players go up there at night when she is there. Unless the mirror has been revealed she is sitting there quilting. With a +1 long sword. It is a beautiful perfectly napped shard of obsidian with a gold hilt sitting next to her. Leaned against the table holding the lantern.

In addition to the awkward attempt to make it a proper sequel to I6 (when it should've just been a spiritual sequel), House on Gryphon Hill is really hurt by the climax being effectively a cutscene where two NPCs kill each other. The DM is specifically given what are basically junk encounters to throw at the players to keep them from screwing up the scene.

One more minor correction...the Keepers were introduced in the "Forbidden Lore" boxed set. Great video, btw!

I don't know if I should be proud that I already knew these or if I'm into deep lol. I got really into old school ravenloft lore from a friend after I started running COS. I plan on running sequels that will change the setting into a more 2e style setting. (also someone please fix I10 I need it to be good)

I don't care what old school grognards say "the core" was a terrible, limiting idea.

I have that SAME board game. I got it after out first CoS and still haven't played it! Games need to come with the free time to play them included LOL!

My players were familiar with the original, so I shook things up by using parts of I10. As the sun went down, the tyrannical but competent Count would slowly shift into his more malevolent vampiric persona. The heroes cured Strahd with the Apparatus, only to find that the Dark Powers were now transforming Barovia to include bits of their own homelands, including friends & relatives, and wicked parts of their backgrounds. It took 100+ sessions to resolve, and was great!

so I don't mean to be pedantic or "that guy" as I love your content and channel, but by the time of the black box (and subsequent red box) of 2nd edition, Ravenloft was known as The Demiplane of Dread and was composed of several domains, one of which was Barovia. You repeatedly refer to Barovia itself and the other surrounding domains as "demiplanes." Super minor nitpick for sure.

Back in day (circa early 1980's) while I was in college, I had the great fortune to have a GREAT DM who ran the original I6 module for our group...and I was instantly in luv with it! We played it when it came out, and played it during the Halloween season! I'll never forget that. :)

I loved the I Strahd books. I read them to help me get into character when I was running CoS for my friend a few years ago.

My favorite thing about I, Strahd is that they are from Strahds point of view. And he's the bad guy, an unreliable narrator.

I would love to know more about saint Markovia

Thank you so much for all of your Strahd videos. Tonight is the final battle my players have against Strahd. BTW I have read a chapter of I, Strahd at the opening of each session, my players loved it 🖤

Wasn't Vampire of the Mists written by Christie Golden?