Love, Vampires & Zombies - Village of Barovia Expansion | Running Curse of Strahd 5e

Gosh, the scene where Dolan comes back to life as a zombie 🧟‍♀️ in front of his family is an absolutely heartbreaking and horrifying moment!!!

I just ran the Missing Villagers quest and was an absolute banger for my players, thanks for the idea!

In my mind Strahd already turned a previous incarnation of Tatyana into a vampire and it wasn’t satisfying because relying on compulsion to make her love him isn’t real… maybe she eventually killed herself or was killed by Van Richten/Adventurers.

In any case, this time around he’s trying to woo Ireena. The first 2 bites was just to make her more willing to listen to him…

We’re meeting for session 0 tomorrow and I’m so nervous! Thank you for these videos they’re giving me a lot of insight on how I might tell this story effectively.

I really love your work, it's been really helpful and will keep on using it. I've got a question, though. How do you connect Ireena's dad burial to the "Missing Villagers" quest?

Great stuff! I'm actually musing over having a straight up mcguffin as the reason Strahd doesn't just come and take Ireena. I ran CoS two years ago and the relationship between Strahd and Ireena, and his motives, was the number one thing that tripped me up. So now I'm thinking of having Ireena have a protective amulet, maybe the amulet of a holy person like St. Markovia), which keeps him, and his wolves, from getting within a certain distance of her. Now Strahd's motive shifts to playing his cards to get the amulet away from her so he can get her. He'll use all his cunning; his spies and those who serve him, whether through loyalty or fear, to try to deceive her into removing it for whatever reason.
Speaking of mcguffins, I'm also musing over having the sunsword's power be circular icon of the morninglord at the sword's base, right above the hilt. Strahd found that it couldn't be destroyed, only separated into the smaller part that come together to form it. The circular sun icon would even show up again if it were buried or submerged. So he had what's his name :) separate the icon into its basic parts and hide them all throughout Barovia, maybe giving them to people or families to hold onto for centuries. This could make for great fodder for decenting loyalties, i.e. perhaps some of the werewolf clan is more than happy to reveal the part of the icon hidden away in their caves, perhaps some are willing to bargain to reveal information regarding a specific part, etc. etc. Now, most of Madam Eva's readings have to do with finding these 'parts' so they can be brought together to empower the sunsword ... the sword could still be something to find per the card reading, but another idea is it could be with her- she has come into possession of the sword and has foreseen the PCs coming to Barovia. The sword is just a sword without the icon that clicks into its base. She has been longing for years for the 'chosen ones' to come and defeat Strahd so that her people could be released from his oppression and curse. She hopes the PCs are these 'chosen ones' that have come to find the pieces of the sword's icon and return them to her so she can give it them to wake to power, fulfilling that they are the chosen ones to defeat Strahd. Idk, something like that lol, would love to create a whole version like that for DMs to offer a simplier, quest/mcguffin alternative but don't have the energy alone ... if anyone reading this is interested hit me up!

I have PC Ismark and decided to change how old Burgomaster died using your suggestion on poisoned well (Heart attack? Really?). I'm going to describe in excruciating detail how Ismark was sitting by the bedside of his dying father with sword in his hand, ready to cut of his head as soon as he rises to unlife. Just adding a bit of drama. Thankfully player who is taking over Ismark is really cool and working with me quite a bit :D

What is preventing Ireena from contracting the zombie disease via drinking water? I'd imagine that Strahd would prefer her to remain alive for the time being (until he can turn her into a Vampire).

What's a good way to transition from the burial to starting the murder quest? Now that there's nothing keeping Ireena in Barovia, I'd imagine Ismark is eager to see her off, so I'm not sure how to hook the players into making the murder mystery a priority before they leave. It could be that he gives them the quest BEFORE they go do the burial, but then who would perform the ceremony, should Donavich be indisposed?

Gosh, this is so helpful! I can't wait to use these.

I REALLY enjoy the changes to Strahd-Ireena

So between villagers going missing due to Doru, and the villagers going missing due to the dream pies, I'm not there'd be any Barovian villagers left for long. I like this idea, though with villagers instead having gaps in their memories which come up when talking with the adventurers and possibly with new scars. This would be as a result of Donavich assisting in the bleeding of victims and then having Doru be capable of hypnotizing them with his gaze into forgetting it ever happened. I know technically he can't do that, but that ability is a core part of vampire mythology so I give all my vampires (except Nosferatu in Van Richten's) the ability to Charm, though the DC may vary.

Loved these addon quests which really fleshed out the village and made it more than just a Pitstop to pick up Ireena. For the zombies in the well I actually used the Zombie Plague Spreader from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft which worked really well as a 'mini boss' and explained the source of the plague.

super helpful

Using the zombie and vampire poritons of this. Tweaked the zombie part a bit though, instead of just boarding up the houses, the village has created a "quarantine" zone for the dead/dying. It's near the top most well, just north east of the Blood on the Vine tavern. Also, didn't have them "start" the investigation into the disappearances, but they were mentioned by Ismark. I also incorporated the Dream Pasteries addition you used, I just so happen to have a hexblood eladrin in my party so he called "Grandmother" being a hag almost instantly. Thanks for all the awesome content!

I don't really care for the Donavich idea. I prefer to think of him as the sole remaining sanctimonious soul, praying incessantly to keep his church hallowed ground, and the dead buried there.. buried there.. as well for a sign on how to help Doru. I could see a more complex quest, where Donovich has worked out a deal with someone for sheep's blood, and those sheep are being stolen.

I honestly figured that you had a plot about the villagers being turned in to zombies. Since the Village of Barovia has an unsustainable number of zombie residents living there (and not enough non-shell people, by CoS RAW standards, I think a zombie / villager plot makes a whole lot more sense.

Not real sure how to translate zombie overpopulation in to sheep's blood though. That might require some trigonometry. :D

I do like the concept of Doru being outdoors at night. It's entirely possible for an NPC CLERIC to not be scared of the dark in Barovia. As opposed to a simple priest. Makes sense to me. :)

OH! Your second idea is zombies!

HEHEHEHE!! You KNOW... Tristram had that.. EXACT.. same problems with zombies in the well.

Hmm... :D

(Brilliant idea!)

"Strahd wants Ireena to see the world burning down around her." I um... have an expansion on Strahd wanting to see the world burn around him. I just polished it off just now, shockingly, and I'm not quite ready to release it out in to the wild yet. I just wanted to mention that I can easily picture that as being one of Strahd's motivating factors as well.

Great minds do think alike! :D

These are great! Do you have any suggestions on how to do a similar thing to make Vallaki have more background ticking over?

Love all of this thank you so much. I am running the campaign for a second time with mostly new players, our old campaign never finished and now I can add some fresh new stuff for the returning players!

Like the second idea, but might tweak the first. The whole idea is that the cleric is morally conflicted, unable to end the suffering of his son and impotent to help him. He represents all Barovians. The time to have his moral breakdown is when the party comes into the village. The cleric knows the people in his village so he's been conflicted about feeding them to Doru, but when the characters arrive, he may try to lure them into the basement or take advantage in some other way. It could be that since Doru has not fed yet from a living soul, he can be resurrected, or killing his sire in a certain period of time would allow him to die in piece. You could play it many ways depending on how the party acts.

OMG THANK YOU! I'm prepping barovia and keep thinking to myself... what the heck am I going to do with all these zombies... my party will want to do something about them. And I don't want this to be a slog. Ty

Good video mate

I'm about to run Curse of Strahd and been doing my research and getting advice. I had the idea of pushing the Ireena timeline back and this just made me all the more confident in that decision. I'm kicking around the idea of Strahd appearing with his escorts and carriage as a noble lord would and stopping at Ireena's home just as the players are passing by. The carriage stops and Strahd steps out, but I avoid using his name, instead simply describe a lavish and handsome noble. He of course notices the party, as part of his plan and knowing he has new guests, he welcomes them with manners and compliments. Taking his time to judge and perhaps eyeball one of the more attractive ones. But before introductions can fully be concluded and his name dropped, Ireena's father, looking gaunt and on death's edge opens the door. Strahd turns his full attention there, commenting how he came to check on his health and brought a physician to assist. Ireena greets the man, as expected of her, and Strahd showers the girl with compliments. This is the point where I want the characters worried, I'll touch on the age difference between the two, and the conflict of emotions Ireena has (Strahd is trying to "take care" of her and she's thankful for him helping her father, but knows he's dangerous ) The Burgomaster is reluctant at first but with a quick charm, Strahd is granted entry into the home of the young girl and the door is closed behind them.

I feel like this gives the players a front row seat to the predatory nature of what they're fighting and sets the tone that this isn't a slasher flick. After the visit, the players can check on a distraught Ireena whose father has just passed. As for the bites, I feel they're... almost inconsequential at this stage. Strahd is working on breaking her spirit. Her body can come later.

Umm, so one of my PCs drank the water from the well....what do I do??

Hello LunchBreakHeroes, I have a question, how do you create a Barovian name? I'm reading the module and just throws at you some suggestions, but what are the rules to create one? Or do you have your own rule?

So, I am inputting a lot of different ideas into my current CoS campaign, and just curious if anyone else had an issue come up that I am foreseeing:

What if one of your PCs drinks the Zombie Water? How are you as the DM going to play that or did play that?

I actually prefer the Donavich encounter as written in the module. It's far more impactful on the players to see this loving father going absolutely mental praying to a god that has abandoned him to save a son he loves so much without succumbing to the darkness. Really paints the bleak picture of hopelessness in the Village (and Land) of Barovia without necessarily turning another NPC into an evil NPC (which we have SO many of throughout Vallaki and Krezk).

I ran the zombies in the well plot for my party last night, and instead of doing any detective work, our Paladin cast "Detect Poison and Disease" and sprinted around Barovia for the 10min durration until it detected something.

Wow this is really good. Damn it. Now I have to watch all your other videos huh?

Love your homebrew changes! Just started curse of strahd, and I'm sprinkling in these additions to Barovia, and the players are eating it up!

You just described my hometown's church on Sunday,....and most of the people here are Orthodox,
But here let me help, if you have zombies, notify the black watchmen captain, that some necromancer forgot to put away his toys,.....again
If there people dying for no reason, check the waters, there is a ghoul there,
If people especially children go missing, you have vampire partaking in unscantioned murders,
If your crops are dying some hag is living in your barn,
If your animals are being slaughtered its hormonal lycans, notify the Lycan border police,
If your children are speaking in strange tongues, it's bound to be evil spirits, talk to a legal necromancer
If your spouse/loved left you for filthy ***************VISTANI,....just get an axe and find their camp, then blame it on them!..... They deserve it, even the church will give you money for it,

Love your stuff man. I gotta say, this whole twist on Donovan got me thinking about how you can really set the tone almost right off the bat in regards to the general atmosphere of despair, while turning Donovan himself into a complex character along the way, one who the PCs might find the need to return to on occasion. So what if Donovan is aware, at least on some level, that many of Barovia's inhabitants seem to lack a soul? In this way, we can preserve his moral integrity, after a fashion, while simultaneously introducing the concept of souless shells into the game early on. Donovan only feeds those without souls to his son, as a way of justifying his actions. However, he doesn't realize that they provide little in the way of vampiric nourishment, and hence why Doru is always "staving", despite being fed regularly. I think this could be a clever clue to the party as a potential hook leading ultimately to the amber temple as well as a bargaining chip to leverage with Strahd himself, who himself is the longitudinal victim to the soul siphoning activities of the vestiges, and even Vampyr himself, to whom Strahd has no power over.... at least directly....

You have a lot of great insights and I've been enjoying your videos on character insights, but I really disagree with the zombie plague idea. Strahd destroying Berez I can get because it was probably the closest he had ever come to actually wining over one of Tatyana's reincarnations and there were three other major towns that he could still rule over and use to feed/entertain himself, so he felt justified in really turning them into an example. Strahd had ruled over Barovia for hundreds of years at that point though and he had never resorted to wanton destruction of entire populations either out of malice or carelessness before Berez. He must have had some concern for the sustainability of his lands or else Strahd would have razed and regrown Barovia a few times over by now. Strahd just dumping some zombies down a well and letting an entire village die within a few months seems very out of character. His whole "schtick" seems to be much more geared towards decades, or even centuries, long campaigns of manipulation, predation, and abuse. An entire town dying within months seems like it would be too careless and boring for him.

For my campaign, I am using Jenny Greenleaf to let the party know something is up with Donavich. Since the druid character has become BFF with Jenny (who I decided lives on the edge of town and can speak druid), the party used Jenny as an info dump about the area and she said "There are some family issues going on with Father Donavich and his son Doru but I stay out of it." So now my party knows that 1) Something is going on between them and 2) Doru is in the mix somewhere but they won't see him when they go to the church and may ask about him. Our party druid is already suspicious of Church folk so it should indeed be interesting. :3

In my game, the reason for Strahd laying off Ireena is motivated by his desire to see Ireena willingly accept her fate. Essentially, he needs her to take the next step in order for her to be like him. He needs her to see the light and join him the way Tatyana didn't. Whether that's by killing Ismark herself in a vampiric transformation, coming to Ravenloft willingly, or simply betraying her protectors' trust. The vampiric corruption in her now is only a means to that end but so is the party, the people of Barovia (town or valley), or Ismark. They are the tetters of her humanity that either Strahd or Ireena herself must destroy. Take for instance the depiction of Mina in the original Bela Lugosi Dracula. Dracula visits her a second time and after that Mina is talkign to Jonathon and almost gives in, using a vampiric gaze to draw him in and nearly ripping open his throat. This would have damned her and not even a stake in Dracula's heart would have changed that. Strahd needs Ireena to take that step. A third bite is just a formality, an admission of failure by Strahd in some ways, he wants the sacrifice of her humanity to be willing and able.

You could have made this really cool with some dark background effects, not a bright wall.

I'm running this tonight, and my party is sufficiently paranoid, and two have even eaten thier first dream pastry and are suffering the side effects. I hope I get this right, your additions are inspiring and make CoS even more immersive....thank you so very much!

In the Revamped module for Curse of Strahd, there is an encounter immediately following the burgomasters burial in which a female Vampire Spawn, Ingrid Vikhrov arrives at the church with several wolves and two werewolves. They have come to take Ireena back to Strahd, but everyone hides inside the church so Ingrid can’t enter without an invitation, to which she asks the characters “may I come in?”. In this scenario, the players are meant to stall for time, while also looking inside the church for silver that they can use to crudely silver their weapons and fight the werewolves.

Keeping in line with this guide, I wonder if the vampire spawn is actually just jealous of Ireena and wants to kill her. Since Strahd wants to make Ireena feel safe around him and inside his castle according to this guide, he probably didn’t send Ingrid. Instead, she is jealous that Ireena has attracted Strahd’s eye, and she wants that attention for herself. Perhaps she is young and petty, and she wants to kill Ireena, or perhaps taunt her into feeling unsafe around Strahd. Either way, Strahd isn’t going to like that, and if the players don’t kill her and she goes back to castle ravenloft, he’s going to punish her somehow.

Moreover, Donavich looks to be on the verge of breaking and just letting Ingrid in, and one of the lines that she says to taunt him is “I’m sure Doru would let me in.” If we are using the missing villagers quest from this guide, then it is likely that the players will have no idea who Doru is since he hasn’t been introduced yet. I’m curious to know what might happen if, while the characters are stalling Ingrid for time, they suddenly hear “FATHER, I’M STARVING!” Now, they have more problems to deal with, upping the stakes and creating an ever growing snowball of urgency.

Last session my players finished pulling the threads on the missing villagers quest. The look on their faces when Donavich confessed to feeding 40 villagers to Doru was priceless. They went to deal with Doru and left Ismark to watch father D in the church. Fantastic addition.

I'm going to start CoS tomorrow, and i'm using mix of yours, MandyMod's and DragnaCarta's idea with some of my own. While your zombie quest idea is nice, i have one problem with it. People wouldn't drink just wine, they would still mix it with water, especially for children. So lack of wine it's kinda not enough reason to check wells. I'm thinking about concentrating houses with zombies in just one part of village, around one of the wells (there are several on Barovia map). So if players start to look into this, and try to investigate what this houses have in common, and why others are safe, it's easier to lead them to the well.

What happens if a player drinks the water? (Disregarding alcohol before knowing the zombies down there)

My god, these are so amazing. I've got my players halfway through the death house as I stumbled upon your videos.. may somehow make the rest of the death house (they never visited the master bedroom yet, so there could be Gustav hanging there).. they never found the empty bundle.. though the kids ghosts said they know of no little brother of theirs, it could be that it was kept a secret from the children.. so now I've got the entire campaign filled with these amazing improvements, many thanks - new patron.

Gotta say thank you ! lunch break heroes ! For some of the Ideas in these videos I'm currently running the Curse of Strahd and they have been invaluable I've used the Zombie sickness idea and the vampire spawn Duru !

I love this explanation of Strahd Zombies. I’m going to use it. I’m also going to make the zombies try and do a semblance of normalcy, as in they sit down at tables and try to answer doors. It’s just when they get within 10 feet of a target do they attack.

Man, the idea that the people of the Village of Barovia drink wine instead of water is a tough sell for me. Alcohol is an diuretic, and wine may be cheap in Barovia, but it ain't water cheap. Supply also has to be a problem. I feel like dehydration is gonna be a bigger threat than the zombies!

I don't like the idea of Donavich a bad guy, even one with the somewhat sympathetic motivation of looking after his child.

I love a good mystery, and I feel like the one you've designed and implemented here is very well-done. It's also probably the perfect place for a mystery like in the adventure.

But the idea of poor Donavich being tormented by the cries of his son--and that holding pattern having no resolution in sight--is just too horrible for me to let go of.

This really bothered me too, why, if Strahd has bitten Ireena twice, wouldn't he just do it a third time, let alone invite strangers into his realm that might throw it off. I like your idea, and suggest that perhaps, in his twisted mind, he believes that he was shunned by Tatiana because he tried to take her by force, and so he is trying to have Ireena come to him willingly to seal the deal, and so he is railroading her toward him by burning her bridges at every other turn.
He has done absolutely everything he can to destroy her home, her life in Barovia, any shred of hope, but she still hasn't come to him, and so he willingly lets the players attempt to save her, knowing he can crush them at any minute, slowly, one by one, to show her there is absolutely no hope other than to come to him.

Hello,
I am currently running Curse of Strahd for some friends. I started watching your videos on CoS just hours before running the session that has them leave Death House and enter the village of Barovia (I created my own 'into the mists' hook). I sat down to go over some notes, re-read and memorise, etc when this video came up in my suggested list.

It jumped out at me as one of my players has read the module cover to cover but never played it; so I'm trying to do what I can to keep some surprises in line for him. I have sown the seeds of all three of your suggested questlines and its got him texting me to say he's excited to see what those new adjustments are going to turn up.

Thanks kindly, they're great suggestions and I can happily vouch that they work a treat and will be referring to your suggestions as their adventure continues.

I'm thinking that the Strahd zombies are innately drawn to the soulless Barovians, so as not to dwindle Strahd's food supply.

Your content is top tier. Good job.

Just getting to Barovia now...Great video!