STRAHD MUST DIE

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This document includes the two free Strahd adventures from D&D Beyond:

Strahd Must Die Tonight. Originally published here
Strahd Must Die Again. Originally published here

Guide to Reading this document

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Strahd Must Die Tonight!

Have you had your annual Halloween playthrough of Ravenloft yet? It's one of my favorite Halloween traditions. If you haven’t ever had a D&D Halloween mega-party and battled your way through the halls of Castle Ravenloft with the sole objective of destroying Count Strahd von Zarovich, then you need to wrangle your friends and try it!

Your goal is to create a scenario in which it’s possible for the heroes to kill Strahd von Zarovich in a single session of play. This means that, instead of preparing all of Curse of Strahd, you will only need to prepare Fortunes of Ravenloft from chapter 1 and Castle Ravenloft from chapter 4 of the adventure. Ravenloft is a large place, and exploring it thoroughly isn’t really possible in a single sitting. You will have to make a few changes in order for the characters to fight Strahd before the night ends or people get exhausted. I’ll include the changes and optional rules I use to run Ravenloft as a one-shot adventure, but feel free to mix and match these rules to suit your table.

Some Assembly Required

Strahd from Curse of StrahdTo battle Strahd in a single night, all you need is a copy of Curse of Strahd and 3 to 6 players. Some things that will make your play session easier and more exciting include:

A tarokka deck.
A map of Castle Ravenloft found in chapter 4 of the adventure. However, while stylish, this map is famously hard to use as a battle map. There is a more user-friendly top-down layout of Castle Ravenloft available in D&D Beyond's Maps tool, which is available to Master-tier subscribers.
Pregenerated characters. If you want your game to be easy to pick up and play, you might want to create enough pregenerated characters for your whole group, since time is of the essence for this dungeon delve.
A 60-minute hourglass. This is perhaps the most luxurious optional item, but boy is it fun. More on this below.

One-Session Ravenloft Rules

This is not a normal session of D&D. Unless you have friends who could play D&D from dawn to dusk, you will most likely need to impose a concrete and — if we’re being honest with ourselves — arbitrary time limit upon the adventure. For most groups, the maximum amount of time they can commit to playing D&D is about 4 hours. To that end, I created some rules and limitations that turn this exploration of Castle Ravenloft into a deadly race against the clock.

Countdown to the Count

In the past, I’ve struggled to run Ravenloft in a single game session. It’s too big for a one-shot game, especially if your players really want to explore the castle and soak in all the details. My ideal D&D game lasts about 4 hours … or enough time to explore and appreciate about a half of the castle, in my experience.

If you like a 4-hour game of D&D, then “Strahd Must Die Tonight” has a four-hour real-life time limit (plus the half hour or so it takes to fight Strahd). I like to have Strahd appear before them in person as they enter the castle and declare that they have “four hours until planar midnight,” which sidesteps the issue of game time passing differently than in real-time. Once the four hours are up, Strahd immediately appears before the party and attacks. Come life or come death, the hunt ends here.

Bestowing Gifts on the Adventures

At the end of every real-life hour, Strahd appears before the party and mocks the party, pitying their inevitable defeat. He offers to bestow a random gift upon one of the characters, determined from the table below — if that character allows Strahd to bite them and drink their blood first (Strahd makes a single Bite attack against the volunteer that always hits). These gifts are designed to speed up play by goading the players into rash action. If you feel an event would drag the game down, you can replace it.

Why does Strahd give these gifts? The same reason he’s set a time limit at all: he’s toying with the characters like a cat toys with a mouse. He believes himself invincible… until any character finds the sunsword. Once he knows this item has been found, his hourly taunting visits are replaced with hourly surprise attacks against the character wielding the blade. He materializes from thin air, strikes, then flees using his Shapechanger trait as quickly as possible.

Having a 60-minute hourglass at the table that you use to track time at the table instead of a digital timer makes this adventure particularly memorable, dramatic, and campy. The players can see their time trickling away before their very eyes — and you can make a big show of tipping it over again once Strahd appears. It makes me feel like the Wicked Witch of the West taunting Dorothy with how long she has left to live.

STRAHD MUST DIE TONIGHT

Strahd Random Event Table

The following effects only function while within Castle Ravenloft.

1d8	Event
1	One melee weapon of the character’s choice in their possession deals an extra 2d6 radiant damage against all undead except Strahd.
2	The character’s damage-dealing cantrips deal an extra 2d6 radiant damage against all undead except Strahd.
3	The character regains 2d6 hit points whenever they kill a living creature with blood in its body.
4	The character and up to six other creatures that they are touching can teleport to the castle’s Chapel (area K15) by spending 10 minutes in meditation.
5	The character instantly regains a spell slot of a level of their choice.
6	The character is immune to being charmed by all creatures except Strahd.
7	The character is immune to being restrained and paralyzed except by Strahd.
8	The character learns the fastest way to the room containing the closest item or being determined by the Fortunes of Ravenloft, as if under the effects of a find the path spell.

No Wandering Monsters

There’s already no way the characters will get through all of Castle Ravenloft in one night, there’s no need to bog play down with random encounters. If the characters decide to “camp” and wait for Strahd rather than searching for him—and this makes the game less fun for you or the players—roll on the random encounters in Castle Ravenloft table once every ten minutes of real time until they leave the area they’re camping in as Strahd tries to “smoke them out.” If you have to roll again during an encounter in progress, the new creatures join the encounter and roll initiative if necessary.

Finding Ireena

Ireena artworkIn the past, I’ve had my players use Ireena Kolyana, Ezmerelda d’Avenir, Rudolph van Richten, and other major Ravenloft NPCs as their player characters, rebuilt as pregenerated characters. This is a fun idea, but if you’re not planning on using pregens and want to keep the predatory story of Strahd and Ireena intact, you can cast Ireena as Strahd’s Enemy (see “Fortunes of Ravenloft,” below).

In this scenario, Ireena has already been spirited away to Castle Ravenloft. She may be in need of rescuing, Princess Zelda-style, or she may be mounting a desperate escape of her own. Either way, she uses veteran statistics and appears somewhere in the castle based on your tarokka reading.

The Mists Constrict

The Mists of Ravenloft constrict tightly around the master’s castle, preventing all living creatures from exiting the castle grounds, even using magical means. Spells and effects that teleport creatures out of the castle (such as some effects of the brazier in area 78), instantly fail.

The mists form a wall of opaque fog just beyond the gate towers (area J), and otherwise surrounds the castle’s outer walls at a range of 100 feet. See the “Walls of Ravenloft” map.

Character Creation

I recommend creating characters using the array or point buy, and allowing them to choose one piece of nonmagical armor of their choice (plus a shield, if desired), two nonmagical weapons of their choice (or three weapons, if they are dual-wielding), plus 100 gp to purchase other adventuring gear and a single rare magic item of their choice. I would recommend screening which magic items they take. Items that are particularly powerful against vampires (such as a sun blade can make this scenario very easy, so use your best judgment.

See “Choose your Difficulty” to see what level the characters should be.

Choose Your Difficulty

You can make this adventure easier or harder by changing the level of your characters. Strahd von Zarovich may be a CR 15 vampire, but the legendary artifacts of Ravenloft possess incredible power. If your party is skilled (or lucky) enough to find all three artifacts, it’s possible that with good strategy, even a party of 5th-level characters can defeat Strahd.

A party seeking a hard adventure should play 6th-level characters, a medium adventure caters to 8th-level characters, and an easy attack on the castle can be accomplished by 10th-level characters. Start from this baseline, and adjust according to party size and time limit.

Party Size. This adventure is balanced around a party of 4–5 characters. For every character you add to the party above 5, each character starts 1 level lower. For example, a party of 6 characters on a medium-difficulty adventure should each be 7th level. Likewise, every character you remove from the party below 4, each character gains 1 level.

Time Limit. This adventure is balanced around a 4-hour time limit (plus the time it takes to fight Strahd). For every 2 hours you add to this time, each character starts 1 level lower. For example, a party of 5 characters on a medium-difficulty adventure with a 6-hour timer should each be 6th level. For every 1 hour you detract from this time, each character starts 1 level higher.

STRAHD MUST DIE TONIGHT

Character Death and 'Losing' the Adventure

What happens if a character dies? That’s entirely up to you. Odds are, your players don’t want to sit idly at the table with a torn-up character sheet while the rest of their friends struggle through the adventure, minus one player. Here are some alternatives to character death:

Casual Revival. When a character would die, they instead fall unconscious and gain 1 level of exhaustion.
Gothic Revival. When a character would die, they instead fall unconscious and gain a permanent lingering injury.
Casual Permadeath. When a character dies, their player must make a new character, who is introduced at any time before the next encounter.
Gothic Permadeath. When a character dies, their player must make a new character of one level lower than their last character, who is introduced at any time before the next encounter.

The only situation in which the characters lose the adventure is if the entire party is killed at once. There’s just no coming back from that.

Fortunes of Ravenloft

There are three powerful artifacts which can defeat Strahd scattered throughout the realm of Barovia. Unfortunately, your players do not have the luxury of wandering all over Barovia, they can only explore Castle Ravenloft itself. The location of these items are determined by a random tarokka reading, which prevents players from memorizing the exact location of the artifacts. It’s an excellent way to make this adventure replayable in future years!

If you want, you can simply do a tarokka reading as prescribed in Curse of Strahd and consider any artifacts drawn outside of the castle “unobtainable,” adding a level of randomized difficulty to the adventure. I’m not a fan of that. When I run a Ravenloft one-shot, I use a modified version of the tarokka drawing in Curse of Strahd that removes locations outside of the castle. You’ll need either an actual tarokka deck or a modified deck of standard playing cards.

Before the game begins, you’ll want to separate your tarokka deck into the High Deck and the Low Deck. The first three cards are drawn from the low deck, and determine the location of the three artifacts capable of defeating Strahd. The first card determines the location of the Tome of Strahd. The second card determines the location of the (such as a holy symbol of Ravenkind. The third card determines the location of the (such as a sunsword, the fourth card determines the location of Strahd’s enemy, and the fifth card determines the location of Strahd himself.

Variant: Empowered Tome of Strahd

In Curse of Strahd, the Tome of Strahd possesses no magical powers. If you wish to make finding the tome more exciting, you can have the tome grant the following trait to anyone who attunes to it.

Bearer of Strahd’s Truth. While attuned to the Tome of Strahd, you have advantage on saving throws made to resist Strahd’s spells and effects. If you succeed on a saving throw against Strahd’s Charm feature, Strahd takes 22 (4d10) psychic damage.

The Low Deck

First, separate your tarokka deck into the High Deck and the Low Deck. The Low Deck is usually larger, but it’s been modified for this adventure to remove results outside of the castle. This modified Low Deck consists of the following cards:

The Paladin (2 of Spades)
The Mercenary (4 of Spades)
The Dictator (8 of Spades)
The Warrior (10 of Spades)
The Transmuter (1 of Clubs)
The Necromancer (8 of Clubs)
The Merchant (4 of Diamonds)
The Miser (9 of Diamonds)
The Shepherd (4 of Hearts)
The Anarchist (6 of Hearts)
The Priest (10 of Hearts)

The High Deck

The High Deck consists of the following cards; if you’re using a standard deck of playing cards, the High deck is comprised of both Jokers, and the Jack, Queen, and King of each suit:

The Artifact (Joker 1)
The Beast (Jack of Diamonds)
The Broken One (King of Diamonds)
The Darklord (King of Spades)
The Donjon (King of Clubs)
The Seer (Jack of Clubs)
The Ghost (King of Hearts)
The Executioner (Jack of Spades)
The Horseman (Joker 2)
The Innocent (Queen of Hearts)
The Marionette (Jack of Hearts)
The Mists (Queen of Spades)
The Raven (Queen of Clubs)
The Tempter (Queen of Diamonds)

STRAHD MUST DIE TONIGHT

The Card Reading

With the decks thus separated, you are prepared to do a tarokka reading and randomize the assorted treasures of Ravenloft, as well as the location of Strahd’s enemy and the vampire himself. If this is your first time running Ravenloft, you may wish to perform the card reading in private ahead of time so that you can prepare for these locations instead of taking notes on the fly.

I recommend reading the Fortunes of Ravenloft section of Curse of Strahd at least once in full if you intend to perform the card reading for your players as a prologue to the adventure. This card reading could take many forms; see “Starting the Adventure,” below.

The Artifacts. The first step of the reading is fairly simple. Draw three cards from the Low Deck, and compare them in order to the treasure locations table in Curse of Strahd. Set these cards aside.

Strahd’s Enemy. Next, draw one more card from the Low Deck and compare it to the treasure locations table in Curse of Strahd, just as before. I always cast Ireena Kolyana as Strahd’s enemy and give her veteran statistics, and the card you draw from the Low Deck determines where Ireena is within Castle Ravenloft. She is either captured or fighting for her life against Strahd’s minions.

Strahd’s Location. Finally, draw a single card from the High Deck and compare it to the Strahd’s location in the castle table in Curse of Strahd. This determines where in the castle Strahd lurks when he is not antagonizing the characters.

Starting the Adventure

Do you want to start this adventure with a dramatic inciting incident that urges the characters to explore the castle? Or do you want the characters to begin their exploration of Castle Ravenloft solemnly, with dread and caution hanging over every room?

Personally, I prefer the explosive beginning. Here’s one way:

The characters are all in a carriage racing towards Castle Ravenloft. Lightning streaks through the sky and thunder rumbles all around them. They are traveling at this breakneck pace with legendary vampire hunter Rudolph van Richten, after he gathered them in a last-ditch effort to kill Strahd von Zarovich. He frantically explains what he has learned to

them, and displays the tarokka cards and their cryptic clues. Then, as the carriage crosses the rickety bridge to Castle Ravenloft, a gargoyle swoops from the sky and tears Van Richten from the cart and the two plummet over one thousand feet into the gorge beneath the castle.

The carriage careens into courtyard of Castle Ravenloft and crashes as the horses fall mysteriously dead. The characters are hurled from the carriage into the courtyard. As they rise, muddy and soaked through, a massive and ghostly apparition of Strahd appears before them. He cackles at their misfortune and raises an hourglass filled with blood-red sand. He looks down upon them and says:

“I am the ancient. I am the land. I am Count Strahd von Zarovich. Gaze upon me and tremble, foolish hunters. The walls of Castle Ravenloft are my domain, and here, I reign supreme. You wish to hunt me down? So be it. We are but four hours from planar midnight. I grant you four cosmic hours to explore the castle, uncover its mysteries, and confront me." Strahd turns over the hourglass and the sands begin to trickle into the bottom bell. "But when the sands of time run out, so too will your lives. Welcome to Castle Ravenloft. Welcome… to your doom!”

Strahd cackles, and his apparition and his voice fade into the mist as the doors of Castle Ravenloft swing open behind him. The characters stand in the Front Courtyard (area K1), and the door opens into the Entry (area K7). Let the games begin.

Ending the Adventure

In Curse of Strahd, Strahd’s death marks the climax of the adventure. The ending is how the rest of Barovia begins to rebuild after the tyrant’s death, and the fates of the characters, Ireena, the spirits of Sergei and Tatyana, and so forth. In this abridged version, Strahd’s death is probably the end. Because this adventure strips out a lot of the deliciously gothic melodrama to streamline the experience, there isn’t much character drama to resolve in the wake of Strahd’s death. In my experience, the best way to end this adventure is to describe Strahd’s death in extravagant detail, then stand and declare “congratulations!” and then pull over the candy bowl and cool down with your friends for a bit.

Of course, that assumes your party killed Strahd. If they TPK’d before they could do that, well… bring that candy bowl anyway. They might need a little pick-me-up. Happy Halloween!

STRAHD MUST DIE TONIGHT

Strahd Must Die Again!

This scenario is based on the D&D adventure Curse of Strahd, and Strahd Must Die Tonight!, a distillation of that adventure designed to be run in a single night as a Halloween event. Strahd Must Die Again is a sequel to Strahd Must Die Tonight, but it’s perfectly usable as a standalone experience. This scenario is a weirder and much less traditional adaptation of the source material, making it ideal for people who’ve already played through the original adventure in some way, or for those who want a more out-there corruption of Ravenloft’s gothic horror aesthetic.

Scenario

The goal of this adventure is simple: kill Strahd in a single four-hour session of D&D. This scenario begins just as a group of adventures kill Strahd—or at least, that’s what they think. The battle was easy. Too easy.

As Strahd’s lifeless corpse hits the floor, it shrivels into the withered husk of a shapeshifting vampire spawn. As the adventurers gaze upon this pale imitation of the vampire lord Strahd, dozens of Strahd lookalikes appear from every door and window to jeer and bid them welcome to Castle Ravenloft. As the adventurers tear through the castle in search of the real Strahd von Zarovich, they discover that Strahd has been infected by a mind flayer tadpole, and is slowly transforming into a vampiric mind flayer. He uses his vampire spawn—now all psychically linked to his own mind—to harangue and confuse his would-be killers as he tries to survive until his transformation is complete.

Adventure Background

This adventure begins as a group of adventures kill a doppelganger of Count Strahd von Zarovich in the chapel of Castle Ravenloft. Two weeks prior to this event, a mind flayer from the dread domain of Bluetspur traveled to Barovia in secret in hopes of subverting Strahd and making him a vassal to the God Brain of Bluetspur. This mind flayer was an elderly and ambitious illithid named Zisk, and it is protected by a near-feral vampiric illithid named Athaekeetha. Ceremorphosis—the process of an illithid tadpole transforming its host into a mind flayer—acted strangely upon Strahd, and he lay dormant until his castle was invaded by adventures seeking to kill him.

The task of slaying Strahd is no longer as simple as finding and destroying him. Now, the adventurers must balance finding the items capable of destroying Strahd, surviving his psychic doppelgangers and alien allies, and finding him before his transformation is complete.

Some Assembly Required

The materials needed to play this scenario are identical to those needed to play Strahd Must Die Tonight!, but they have been reprinted here for your convenience.

To battle illithid-Strahd in a single night, all you need is a copy of Curse of Strahd and 3 to 6 friends to play with. Some things that will make your play session easier and more exciting include:

A tarokka deck.
A top-down map of Castle Ravenloft, like this map pack found on the Dungeon Masters Guild. The isometric poster map of the castle that comes with Curse of Strahd is gorgeous, but it can be hard to read on the fly. You can take these maps to a print shop and get a gorgeous set of battle maps, or use it as a reference to hand-draw the maps on a vinyl wet-erase mat.
Pre-generated characters. If you want your game to be easy to pick up and play, you may want to create enough pre-generated characters for your whole group, since time is of the essence for this dungeon delve. (See “Character Creation” for information on how to create characters for this scenario.) A 60-minute hourglass. This is perhaps the most luxurious optional item, but boy is it fun. More on this below.

Single-Night Ravenloft “Event” Rules

This is not a normal session of D&D. Ravenloft isn’t a small dungeon, and a party could explore it for a dozen hours or more without defeating Strahd. Unless you have friends who could play D&D from dawn to dusk, you will most likely need to impose a concrete time limit upon the adventure. For most groups, the maximum amount of time they can commit to playing D&D is about 4 hours. This scenario transforms a routine exploration of Castle Ravenloft into a deadly race against the clock to find a metamorphosing Count Strahd, all while the adventurers are stalked by a deadly hunter.

Countdown to the Count

Castle Ravenloft is too big to explore fully in a one-shot game, especially if your players are roleplaying and soaking in all the gothic details. Just like Strahd Must Die Tonight, this scenario has a four-hour time limit that lets your players explore as much of the castle as they want before time runs out and the final confrontation begins.

Strahd is slowly transforming into a vampiric illithid. At the end of every real-life hour, a psychic projection of Strahd appears before the party to taunt them, and to display how far his physical transformation has progressed over the past hour. He offers to bestow a random gift upon one of the characters, determined from the table below—if that character allows Strahd to gaze into their eyes, establishing a mental link between them.

STRAHD MUST DIE AGAIN

Three things happen to a character that allows a fragment of Strahd’s newfound psychic power into their mind:

The character takes 14 (4d6) psychic damage.
The character rolls once on the table below, gaining the benefit they rolled.
The voice of Strahd quietly whispers in the characters ear for the rest of the night. Keep the effect of the whispers secret from the player: accepting Strahd’s mental link imposes disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws to resist Strahd’s Charm action. He takes advantage of this during the final battle.

These gifts are designed to speed up play by goading the players into rash action. If you feel an event would drag the game down, you can replace it. Once the four hours are up, Strahd immediately appears before the party, in person, and attacks. Come life or come death, the hunt ends here.

Having a 60-minute hourglass at the table that you use to track time at the table instead of a digital timer makes this event particularly memorable, dramatic, and campy. The players can see their time trickling away before their very eyes—and you can make a big show of tipping it over again once Strahd appears. This can invoke memories of the Wicked Witch of the West taunting Dorothy with how long she has left to live in The Wizard of Oz.

Strahd Random Event Table

The following effects only function while within Castle Ravenloft:

1d8	Event
1	One melee weapon of the character’s choice in their possession deals an extra 2d6 psychic damage against all undead except Strahd.
2	The character’s damage-dealing cantrips deal an extra 2d6 psychic damage against all undead except Strahd.
3	The character regains hit points whenever they kill a creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher. The number of hit points regained is 2d6 + the creature’s Intelligence modifier (minimum of 1).
4	The character and up to six other creatures that they are touching can teleport to the castle’s Chapel (area K15) by spending 10 minutes in meditation.
5	The character instantly regains a spell slot of a level of their choice.
6	The character is immune to being charmed by all creatures except Strahd.
7	The character is immune to being restrained and paralyzed except by Strahd.
8	The character can cast scrying upon the Tome of Strahd, Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, or sunswordsunsword by spending 10 minutes in meditation.

Finding Ireena

Ireena Kolyana is a central figure of Curse of Strahd. In this abbreviated version of Ravenloft, she has taken up the blade and ventured into Castle Ravenloft of her own accord to defeat Strahd herself. Strahd’s transformation has dulled his predatory infatuation with her (at least for now), and he treats her as just another intruder. She is always Strahd’s Enemy, as described in “Fortunes of Ravenloft,” below, and uses veteran statistics.

The Mists Constrict

The mists form a wall of opaque fog just beyond the gate towers (area J), and otherwise surrounds the castle’s outer walls at a range of 100 feet. See the “Walls of Ravenloft” map.

No Wandering Monsters

There’s already no way the characters will get through all of Castle Ravenloft in one night, there’s no need to bog play down with random encounters. The only exception is the vampiric mind flayer Athaekeetha, who relentlessly hunts down the player characters. For more information on the villains of this adventure, see “Evil Masters of Ravenloft,” below.

STRAHD MUST DIE AGAIN

Character Creation

Characters for this scenario should be created in the following manner:

Determine their ability scores using the array or point buy, then choose their race, class, and background as normal.
Each character can choose one piece of nonmagical armor of their choice (plus a shield, if desired), two nonmagical weapons of their choice (or three weapons, if they are dual-wielding), plus 100 gp to purchase other adventuring gear.
Each character can also choose a single rare magic item of their choice. The DM should screen which magic items they take. Items that are particularly powerful against vampires (such as a sun blade) can make this scenario excessively easy.

Once characters have been created, use the guidelines in “Choose your Difficulty” to determine what level the characters should be. Also, once the characters levels have been finalized, the DM should take note of each characters’ Wisdom (Perception) score. Knowing these scores will help if the characters are ambushed by Athaekeetha (see “Evil Masters of Ravenloft,” below).

Choose Your Difficulty

You can make this adventure easier or harder by changing the level of your characters. Count Strahd von Zarovich may be a CR 15 vampire, but the legendary artifacts of Ravenloft possess incredible power. If your party is skilled (or lucky) enough to find all three artifacts, it’s possible that with good strategy, even a party of 5th-level characters can defeat Strahd.

A party seeking a hard adventure should play 7th-level characters, a medium adventure caters to 9th-level characters, and an easy attack on the castle can be accomplished by 10th-level characters. Start from this baseline, and adjust according to party size and time limit.

Party Size. This adventure is balanced around a party of 4–5 characters. For every character you add to the party above 5, each character starts 1 level lower. For example, a party of 6 characters on a medium-difficulty adventure should each be 8th level. Likewise, every character you remove from the party below 4, each character gains 1 level.

Time Limit. This adventure is balanced around a 4-hour time limit (plus the time it takes to fight Strahd). For every 2 hours you add to this time, each character starts 1 level lower—since every hour they spend within the castle increases their chances of finding the incredibly powerful Artifacts of Ravenloft. For example, a party of 5 characters on a medium-difficulty adventure with a 6-hour timer should each be 6th level. For every 1 hour you detract from this time, each character starts 1 level higher.

Character Death and “Losing” the Adventure

Casual Revival. When a character would die, they instead fall unconscious and gain 1 level of exhaustion.
Gothic Revival. When a character would die, they instead fall unconscious and gain a permanent Lingering Injury.
Casual Permadeath. When a character dies, their player must make a new character, who is introduced at any time before the next encounter.
Gothic Permadeath. When a character dies, their player must make a new character of one level lower than their last character, who is introduced at any time before the next encounter. The only situation in which the characters lose the adventure is if the entire party is killed at once. There’s just no coming back from that.

Evil Masters of Ravenloft

Castle Ravenloft has long been the domain of the vampire Strahd von Zarovich. However, things have changed since the arrival of mind flayers from Bluetspur. Four sinister new evils now lair within the castle.

Strahd von Zarovich, Illithid Vampire

Strahd undergoes ceremorphosis—the process of transforming into a mind flayer—over the course of this adventure. At the start of the game, he looks the same as he usually does. However, his powers and physical appearance change drastically each time he psychically appears to the characters at the end of each hour of gameplay. By the time that the characters enter Castle Ravenloft, Strahd’s ceremorphosis has already progressed far enough to alter his personality. He is still his suave, overconfident self, but he has embraced his transformation, and is eager to demonstrate his new powers.

Strahd von Zarovich uses his usual statistics, but gains new powers at the end of each hour. The sooner the adventurers find him and defeat him, the weaker he will be.

Hour 1. Strahd’s eyes are cloudy and lack both pupils and irises. His well-trimmed hair has vanished, and his pale skin is slimy and rubbery. His nose has flattened into a small mound with slit-like nostrils. He gains telepathy out to 120 feet, and the ability to use a mind flayer’s Mind Blast action, (save DC 18).

Hour 2. Strahd’s body becomes inhumanly tall and thin, and his features become gaunt and alien. He gains Magic Resistance, granting him advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Hour 3. Four slimy tentacles grow from Strahd’s jaw. He can now use a mind flayer’s Tentacles attack (+9 to hit, save DC 18).

Hour 4. Strahd’s transformation is complete. His mouth has become a tiny hole ringed with razor sharp teeth, and he now looks more like a mind flayer than a human being. His rubbery flesh is paper-white, and mottled with crimson splotches, like bloodstains. He can now use a mind flayer’s Extract Brain attack (+9 to hit).

STRAHD MUST DIE AGAIN

Strahd Doppelgangers

In order to protect himself as he undergoes ceremorphosis, Strahd gathered dozens of his vampire spawn. Using his nascent psychic abilities, he granted them the power to change their appearance to mimic his own. Whenever the characters meet a named character within Castle Ravenloft that isn’t Strahd, Zisk, or Athaekeetha, that character is replaced with a vampire spawn that fully appears to be Strahd. A vampire spawn pretending to be Strahd in this way reverts to its original appearance when it dies, transforming to look like a pallid humanoid that bears no resemblance to Strahd.

A false Strahd keeps the personality of the original character, but otherwise fully believes itself to be Strahd von Zarovich. For example, Gertruda (area K42), isn’t a human commoner but a vampire spawn that appears to be Strahd. She otherwise behaves exactly as Gertruda.

Additionally, whenever the characters enter an area within Castle Ravenloft for the first time and that area has no other creatures in it, a Strahd-lookalike vampire spawn waits in that area. It doesn’t pursue the characters from this area. If these vampire spawn begin to seriously annoy you or your players, or drag down the pace of the game, you can remove them for about an hour of real time.

Zisk, the Mastermind

Zisk is a former servant of the God Brain, Darklord of the Domain of Bluetspur—one of the many domains of Ravenloft that exist beyond the borders of Barovia. This wizened, hunched, and wrinkled mind flayer betrayed its Darklord by embracing arcane magic and becoming a lich. It longs to achieve a grand act of conquest for the God Brain, so that it may proudly return to its Darklord’s side. It is immensely proud of its victory over Strahd von Zarovich, and is overconfidently eager to see its creation triumph over the pesky group of adventurers that have invaded Castle Ravenloft.

Zisk is an alhoon, and replaces Rahadin in area K72 of the castle. Here he waits in safety, alternately monitoring the development of Strahd’s transformation and the adventurers’ progress using a crystal ball.

Athaekeetha, the Headhunter

Athaekeetha is a feral vampiric illithid created by horrific experiments within the illithid-dominated domain of Bluetspur. Though vampirism granted Athaekeetha incredible physical strength and supernatural powers, it also wreaked havoc upon its alien mind, reducing Athaekeetha to little more than a feral beast. It loyally serves its master, Zisk, the illithid mastermind responsible for Strahd’s transformation. Athaekeetha has earned a reputation within Barovia; a character that succeeds on a DC 15 Intelligence (History) check recalls that, for the past two weeks, a mysterious killer has stalked the land, severing the heads of all it kills. Within Barovia, Athaekeetha is best known as the Headhunter.

Once one hour of real time has passed (after Strahd’s first psychic appearance to the characters), Zisk unleashes Athaekeetha upon the castle to hunt down and destroy the adventurers. When Athaekeetha begins its hunt, all light sources within the castle are magically extinguished, plunging the entire castle into darkness. The characters must rely on their darkvision or carry a light source in order to see—and Athaekeetha hates light (see the Photosenstive Fury trait in its stat block).

Roll 1d6 whenever the adventurers move between areas or spend more than 10 minutes in a single area (such as casting a ritual or taking a short rest). On a roll of 6, Athaekeetha has tracked them down and is currently in an adjacent area. This area can be connected by doors or by stairs. Which adjacent area Athaekeetha appears in is up to you, but the Headhunter’s arrival is heralded by its emotional telepathy. All creatures within 60 feet of the feral illithid begins to feel strange emotions in the back of their mind, like hunger, hatred, and sorrow. Over time, they may realize that this sensation represents that their hunter is close.

Once the Headhunter enters an area adjacent to the one the characters are currently in, it hides in the shadows, usually on the ceiling. If the characters enter this area, it waits until the characters have entered and started interacting with the area’s inhabitants (if any), and then attacks while they’re distracted. If the area has no inhabitants, it crawls along the walls and ceiling, keeping about 50 feet behind its quarry. A character that makes a successful DC 18 Wisdom (Perception) notices Athaekeetha if it’s hiding in the same room as them. If Athaekeetha enters an area that the characters are already in, it must make a successful Dexterity (Stealth) check opposed by the characters’ passive Wisdom (Perception) scores.

When the Headhunter attacks, it starts by using a Mind Blast, then attacks a stunned creature with its Sanguine Tentacles. If it successfully grapples a creature with its tentacles, it uses its Extract Brain legendary action as soon as possible. It flees once it has either killed a character or been reduced to half its hit point maximum—using its Move legendary action whenever possible. Once Athaekeetha flees, it waits to attack again until it’s restored to full hit points using its Regeneration trait.

STRAHD MUST DIE TONIGHT

Fortunes of Ravenloft

Variant: Empowered Tome of Strahd

In Curse of Strahd, the Tome of Strahd possesses no magical powers. If you wish to make finding the tome more exciting, you can have the tome grant the following trait to anyone who attunes to it.

The Low Deck

The Paladin (2 of Spades)
The Mercenary (4 of Spades)
The Dictator (8 of Spades)
The Warrior (10 of Spades)
The Transmuter (1 of Clubs)
The Necromancer (8 of Clubs)
The Merchant (4 of Diamonds)
The Miser (9 of Diamonds)
The Shepherd (4 of Hearts)
The Anarchist (6 of Hearts)
The Priest (10 of Hearts)

The High Deck

The High Deck consists of the following cards; if you’re using a standard deck of playing cards, the High deck is comprised of both Jokers, and the Jack, Queen, and King of each suit:

The Artifact (Joker 1)
The Beast (Jack of Diamonds)
The Broken One (King of Diamonds)
The Darklord (King of Spades)
The Donjon (King of Clubs)
The Seer (Jack of Clubs)
The Ghost (King of Hearts)
The Executioner (Jack of Spades)
The Horseman (Joker 2)
The Innocent (Queen of Hearts)
The Marionette (Jack of Hearts)
The Mists (Queen of Spades)
The Raven (Queen of Clubs)
The Tempter (Queen of Diamonds)

STRAHD MUST DIE TONIGHT

The Card Reading

Read the “Fortunes of Ravenloft” section of Curse of Strahd at least once in full if you intend to perform the card reading for your players as a prologue to the adventure. This card reading could take many forms; see “Starting the Adventure,” below.

The Artifacts. The first step of the reading is fairly simple. Draw three cards from the Low Deck, and compare them in order to the Treasure Locations table in Curse of Strahd. Set these cards aside.

Strahd’s Enemy. Next, draw one more card from the Low Deck and compare it to the Treasure Locations table in Curse of Strahd, just as before. Ireena Kolyana is always Strahd’s enemy in this scenario. She uses veteran statistics, and the card you draw from the Low Deck determines where Ireena is within Castle Ravenloft. She can be found severely wounded, recovering from a fight against Strahd’s minions.

Strahd’s Location. Finally, draw a single card from the High Deck and compare it to the Strahd’s Location in the Castle table in Curse of Strahd. This determines where in the castle Strahd lurks when he is not antagonizing the characters.

Starting the Adventure

If you’ve read everything that comes before this point, you’re ready to start the adventure! The characters start their exploration of Castle Ravenloft in the castle’s chapel (area K15). Read or paraphrase the following. Each paragraph break marks a place where you can easily pause for characters to react, comment, or investigate the scene before moving on.

You plunge a stake into the heart of Strahd von Zarovich. Moonlight floods into the chapel of Castle Ravenloft, bathing the count in silvery light as the vampire falls to the ground, a look of shock and horror etched across his pallid face. It was all surprisingly easy; you wandered straight into the castle, barged into the chapel, and killed the most powerful vampire in Barovia without breaking a sweat.

As you stand over Strahd’s corpse, however, it begins to shrivel and twitch. Its bones seem to shift beneath its skin, and its hair grows from Strahd’s impeccable raven hair into a rat’s nest of greasy brown tangles. This corpse looks like that of a lesser vampire, but whatever it was, it wasn’t Strahd.

Then, the door to the chapel slams open. A quartet of Strahds emerges, each one the spitting image of the count which you thought you just killed. “Good evening,” says one. “I am the ancient,” says another. “I am the land,” says a third. “My beginnings are lost in the darkness of the past,” says the fourth. “And we are all Strahd von Zarovich,” they all say in unison.

The four vampire spawn attack, and fight to the death. When they are all dead, read or paraphrase the following:

A cackle pierces the air. A shimmering, illusory image of Strahd appears before the chapel’s altar, laughing manically at the scene of carnage before him. The image of a hunched, hooded being with four tentacles curling out of its dark cloak stands beside him. “I see you’ve met my doppelgangers. Charming, aren’t they?” Strahd sneers. He turns to the figure next to him, and mutters, “Zisk, I trust that these spawn will keep our uninvited guests at bay until my transformation is complete?”

The hooded figure steps forward and removes his cowl, revealing the tentacled face of a withered mind flayer. It removes a large hourglass from beneath its cloak and addresses you directly. “Planar midnight is four hours from now. By that time, Strahd will have become something new… something greater… something that will destroy you, and usher in a new era for Barovia—the era of the illithid.” It turns the hourglass over, and its blood-red sands begin to trickle away. “Struggle as you wish. You will never find Strahd’s resting place before his transformation is complete.”

The two villains cackle, and their illusory figures fade out of sight. Now, the adventure truly begins.

Ending the Adventure

Strahd’s death marks the end of this adventure. If you’re running low on time, you can ignore Strahd’s Misty Escape feature, and just rule that his body falls to the ground, giving the characters the opportunity to drive a stake through his heart to kill him. This adventure eschews most of the Gothic melodrama that characterizes the story of Strahd, Tatyana, Sergei, and Ireena, in favor of weirder and more immediate action. Because of that, there isn’t much character drama to resolve in the wake of Strahd’s death. The best way to end this adventure is to describe Strahd’s death in extravagant detail, then stand and declare “congratulations!” and then pull over the candy bowl and cool down with your friends for a bit.

That draws this Halloween’s horrific Ravenloft redux to a close. Happy Halloween!

STRAHD MUST DIE TONIGHT

Tarokka Games

The following pages includes several table card games that can be played with a Tarokka deck.

Geas

by William Connors; appeared in Dragon Magazine #210

Background

The origins of the Tarokka deck are as mysterious as those of the Vistani who craft them. There are those who say that the first Tarokka deck was created in some distant land where it had no unusual powers. Through fair means or foul, the deck came into the possession of the Vistani and therefore into the misty domains of Ravenloft.

While some people are able to use the cards to predict the future, often with amazing accuracy, the vast majority of Ravenloft's Tarokka decks are used for nothing more mysterious than common card games. Fortunately, this more mundane use of the cards is very entertaining and doesn't require an ability check.

The deck

The Tarokka is a special deck of cards used by the Vistani for fortune-telling and entertainment. It is composed of 54 cards. These cards are split into two groups, the smaller Crown Deck (also known as the high deck) and the larger Common Deck (also known as the low deck). The Common Deck is composed of four suits of 10 cards each, a total of 40 cards. The other 14 cards are all unique and comprise the Crown Deck.

The four suits of the Common Deck (swords, stars, glyphs, and coins) each represent one of the major character classes in the classic AD&D® game (fighters, wizards, priests, and thieves). The nine numbered cards in these suits represent the alignments available in the game, ranging from chaotic to lawful and good to evil. For the purposes of the Geas game, it is only important to note that cards numbered 1, 2, or 3 are of good alignment, those numbered 4, 5, or 6 represent neutral characters, and those with a 7, 8, or 9 on them are evil. In addition, each suit contains a tenth card, known as the Archetype card, that is without a numeric value or alignment. The special uses of Archetype cards are defined later.

The cards of the Crown Deck represent the quests that adventuring parties undertake to score points for the players. Although each of these cards has a unique name and illustration, all 14 of them are identical for the purposes of game play.

Object of the Game

Players of Geas attempt to assemble a party of adventurers (made up of cards from the Common Deck) and then score points by completing quests (represented by the cards in the Crown Deck).

The player who has completed the most quests when the deck has been cycled through three times wins the hand. The game is completed after each of the players at the table has dealt one hand.

Number of players

Geas ("Tahn" in the Vistani language) plays equally well with three, four, or five persons, a feature that has no doubt led to its great popularity among the gypsies. Anyone who travels with the Vistani will note that it is not uncommon for those riding in a wagon to spend hours playing this game while their driver guides them through the mists toward their next destination.

Preparing to Play

The game begins with the selection of the dealer. To do this, each player shuffles the deck and then draws a card from its middle. Whoever draws the highest numbered card is the dealer for the first hand. Those who draw a card from the Crown Deck are assumed to have lost, while an Archetype card is treated as higher than any numbered card. If two or more players draw cards of the same rank, and those cards are the highest ones drawn, each of those players selects an additional card until all ties are broken.

The deal

The game of Geas is played as a series of hands, each of which begins with the dealer distributing five cards to form each player's hand. Throughout the game, all players will maintain a five-card hand, although the cards in this hand will change as play progresses.

Those cards not dealt into a player's hand are formed up and placed in the center of the table to form a reserve. The top card of the reserve is flipped face up to start the discard pile. With this done, the game is ready to commence.

The Draw and the Play

After the deal, the hand begins with the player to the dealer's left drawing either the top (face-down) card from the reserve or the top (face-up) card from the discard pile. They add this card to their hand, being careful -- if it was a face-down card -- not to allow the other players in the game to see it.

After this draw, the player will have six cards in their hand. The turn ends when they select one of these cards and either plays or discards it. The player must remove one of the cards from their hand in order to return it to the five-card limit. There are many ways in which this can be accomplished: forming a party, completing a quest, attacking another party, replacing a party member, or discarding.

TAROKKA GAMES

Forming a party

A card from the low deck can be played out onto the table, in front of the player, to start or fill out that player's party of adventurers. There are two types of parties, adventuring and discordant.

Adventuring parties: A player has a full adventuring party when they have played on the table before them four cards (one from each suit) that are of similar alignment (all good, all neutral, or all evil). Once a player has such a party assembled, they are vulnerable to attack by other players, but also are able to complete quests (thus scoring points).
Discordant parties: It is possible for a player to assemble a party of adventurers that are of differing alignments. Like an adventuring party, the group must have one card from each suit in it, but these cards need not be of like alignments. Discordant parties are vulnerable to attack, but may not complete quests.

An Archetype card can be used to help form a party, and if a player chooses to use an Archetype card in this way, the card represents whatever alignment the player desires. For instance, it can be used with other low-numbered cards to form a good-aligned party, or with high-numbered cards to form an evil-aligned party. As the composition of the player's party of adventurers changes during the game (because of attacks or the replacing of party members), the designated alignment of the Archetype card can be changed by the player at any time.

Completing a quest

If the player has assembled a full adventuring party, they may complete a quest. This is done by playing any Crown Deck card from their hand face up near the adventuring party. Once a Crown Deck card has been played, it scores one point for the player and cannot be removed in any way.

Attacking another party

There are two important elements to consider in making an attack on another player's party. First, is the group vulnerable to an attack? Second, do you have the right cards to make an attack?

In order to be vulnerable to attack, a player must have a full adventuring party (see "Forming a Party"). An incomplete party may not be attacked. A complete but discordant party is vulnerable to attack. An Archetype card that represents a member of a party is always invulnerable to attack.

If a player is vulnerable, any one of his cards can be attacked and destroyed only by the card with the next higher number in its suit or by the Archetype card for its suit. For the purposes of this determination, the 1 card of a suit outranks the 9 of that suit. Thus, the 9 of Swords can be used to destroy (only) the 8 of Swords, but the 1 of Swords can, in turn, be used to destroy the 9. An attack made with an Archetype card destroys any card of the same suit. Thus, the Archetype of Swords -- if it is played from the hand of one player against a sword card in the party of another player -- can destroy any other sword card in the game.

Attacked cards and the card used to battle them go to the bottom of the discard pile, so that neither of those cards is available to be taken into the hand of the next player in turn.

Replacing a party member

From time to time, a player may need to change the alignment of his party or may wish to replace a normal card with an Archetype to help protect his group from attacks. This is easy enough to do -- any face-up card in a party may be replaced by one of the same suit from the player's hand. The replaced card goes to the bottom of the discard pile.

Discarding

If none of these options is particularly appealing to the player, they may take a card from his hand and place it on the top of the discard pile, making it available to be picked up by the next player in turn. A player may not discard one of the cards that he has played on the table before them. The only way in which a played card may be removed is described above in "Replacing a party member". Cards representing completed quests can never be played, but a Crown Card in a player's hand may be discarded.

Continuing Play

Once the player to the left of the dealer has taken his turn, play proceeds clockwise around the table. This continues until the last card in the reserve is drawn and either played or discarded.

Once this is done, the discard pile is picked up by the person who dealt that hand. The cards are shuffled, squared up, and placed face down on the table to form a new reserve. After a cut by the player who will deal the next hand, the top card of this pile is flipped face up to form a new discard pile.

The next player in sequence, the one to the left of the last person to play, either draws the top card from the reserve or the top card from the discard pile, and play proceeds from there.

Concluding the Hand

The hand ends when the deck has been cycled through three times -- that is, the initial deal and then two subsequent passes through the reserve. As soon as the player who drew the last card from the reserve completes his turn, play is halted.

Closing out. At this point, any player who has a full adventuring party on the table before him and unplayed Crown Cards in his hand must play them. It is not possible to make attacks or perform any other type of action at this point. Players make note of how many points each of them has scored, and the deal passes to the next person in line.
Early conclusion. A hand also ends when all 14 of the quests in the deck are completed. After all, there is no point in continuing to play beyond that point.

Concluding the Game

A Geas game is over after everyone at the table has dealt a hand. At this time, the number of points scored is totaled, and the person whose adventurers completed the most quests is the winner.

TAROKKA GAMES

Tips on play

During playtests, many styles of play proved to be effective. The following are among the most effective of them.

Quest Hoarding. Do your best not to discard quests (cards from the Crown Deck), even when your hand is full. This is especially true during the later phases of a hand. The odds are that any quest card you toss down will quickly be snapped up by another player and end up scoring a point for his team of adventurers.
Discordant Parties. At first glance, the thought of forming a discordant party might seem absurd. After all, it makes you vulnerable to attacks and doesnt permit you to complete quests. However, it does allow you to keep a card or two out of circulation. This is especially important if a certain card can complete a party for the player to your left, and you don't want to discard it to give him a chance to pick it up.
Archetypes. The Archetype cards are incredibly valuable when placed in your party. If you draw one of these cards, consider getting it into play as quickly as possible. Of course, Archetype cards are deadly weapons if you need to break up another players adventuring party. However, they are far more valuable as indestructible party members. Use them to attack others only in the most desperate situations.
Unique Alignments. Keep an eye on the alignments of the parties being constructed by the other players. After all, if two players are trying to complete parties of similar alignments, they'll be fighting over the same cards. If you're the only one trying to forge a party of, say, good characters, you'll have a much easier time getting the cards you need.
Changing Alignments. Don't be afraid to change alignments if you have to. This is especially true in a four- or five-player game when your alignment matches one (or more) of the other players' parties. This is especially important to remember if you have at least one Archetype card in your party. Because these cards have no set alignment of their own, they allow you to quickly shift from one alignment to another with much less effort than a player who has none of these valuable cards.

Variations

The rules presented in this article detail the most commonly played form of Geas, but there are lots of variations on this theme. Some are more common than others, but all have been found at one time or another within the misty borders of Ravenloft's macabre domains.

The two-player game

It is possible to play with only two players, but this is generally only done as a contest of honor or a type of duel. In such cases, defeat in the game can result in any number of horrible fates for the loser. Among the gypsies, a two-player game of Geas is known as "Tangar Rak," or Confrontation.

Lots of players

More than six players also can be accommodated, but it is standard practice to use one deck of cards for every five players. Stories have been told of Vistani games that included as many as 30 players and six decks, but the logistics involved make this an almost unheard-of event. Games involving more than one deck are known by the Vistani as "Tankempaki,"" or Great Battles.

Gambling

The Vistani often play this game for money, especially when playing with outsiders. When playing for money, every character playing tosses in a gold piece as an ante. Whenever a PC completes a quest, she tosses in an additional coin. At the end of the hand (sometimes the game), the player who completed the most quests claims the pot.

Nine alignments

Players who wish to add an extra level of complication to the game might wish to consider the full alignments of the cards in the Common Deck. The complete alignments of the cards are as follows:


One	Chaotic good
Two	Lawful good
Three	Neutral good
Four	Lawful neutral
Five	Neutral
Six	Chaotic neutral
Seven	Neutral evil
Eight	Lawful evil
Nine	Chaotic evil

When this option is used, an adventuring party can be composed of characters that are all lawful or all chaotic, in addition to the more traditional good, neutral, or evil gatherings. Thus, a party would be complete if it had the one of swords, the six of stars, the six of glyphs, and the nine of coins.

Neutrals wild!

When this option is used, the three neutral-aligned cards (the 4, 5, and 6 cards) can be used to fill out an otherwise good or evil party. This option generally results in the quick formation of a party and the rapid completion of all the quests in the deck.

TAROKKA GAMES

Prophet's Gambit

by Sean Goodison; appeared in the Curse of Strahd Tarokka Deck.

Setup

Shuffle the 14 High cards, marked with a Crown symbol, andset them aside. The remaining 40 Common cards form the deck players will draw from during play, and consists of four suits (Swords, Stars, Coins, and Glyphs), each with a Master and cards numbered 1 through 9.

Choose a player to be the dealer.

The dealer shuffles the deck, then places a card face-up inthe center of the table. This is the Focus card, and is shared by all players. Then, they place one card per player face-down around the Focus. These are the players' Fate cards.

Players may look at their own Fate card at any time.

Each player is dealt a hand of 6 cards, and the deck is placed within easy reach of all players. Discarded cards should be placed in a pile face-up, next to the deck.

How to Play

The goal of the game is to refine your hand down to 3 cards, which will be combined with the hidden Fate card and shared Focus card to make the best hand of 5 cards possible.

The Bid

Each player selects one card to play from their hand. These are all placed face-up in front of the players simultaneously.

Rounds 1 and 2

The player with the highest numbered card in front of them may discard their Fate card and replace it with a new card drawn from the deck. Then, they take the first turn this round.

Each player takes a turn (moving around the table clockwise) choosing either Play or Risk, as described below. Once each player has taken a turn, a second round begins, which follows the same procedure as the first round.

Play. Play a card from your hand, covering your previously played card. If the card is a Master (a common card with no number) or has a number lower than that of the player to your right, you may draw a card and then discard a card.
Risk. Discard a card from your hand, and reveal the top card from the High deck. Each High card triggers a different special effect which is resolved immediately and then discarded. These effects are detailed at the end of the rules.

The Execution

After the second round, the player who has the highest numbered card showing decides whether to "kill" (discard) or "save" (keep) the Focus card. If killed, the Focus card is removed from play, and all players' final hands will consist of only four cards instead of five.

The Reveal

Finally, players reveal their hand of cards and Fate cards. Theplayer with the best combination of cards using their hand,Fate card, and possibly Focus cards is the winner.

Ties. In the case of two players being tied for anything, the playerclosest ot the dealer clockwise wins.

Ranking of Hands

In order from strongest to weakest:

Family (straight flush)
Circle (four of a kind)
Fortune (full house)
Village (straight)
Guild (flush)
Three of a kind
Two pairs
One pair
Highest card

High Card Effects

Revealing cards from the High deck is risky, as there's notelling what chaos you might unleash!

Artifact. Swap your Fate card with the Focus card.
Beast. Each player discards a card, then draws a card.
Broken One. Discard your hand, then draw that many cards.
Darklord. Choose another player. Look at their hand of cardsand choose one for them to discard, then they draw a card.
Donjon. Each player must discard cards until they have threeleft in their hand. Immediately advance to the Reveal.
Executioner. Keep this card on the table in front of you.Regardless of who wins the Execution, you decide whetherto kill or save the Focus card.
Mists. Rotate all Fate cards one player clockwise.
Ghost. Choose a card from the discard pile to add to yourhand, then discard a card.
Horseman. Draw two cards, then discard two cards.
Innocent. Keep this card on the table in front of you. You andyour cards can't be affected by any future High card effects.
Marionette. Choose a player who hasn't taken a turn thisround. That player must immediately play either theirhighest or lowest numbered card, as directed by you.
Raven. Each player chooses a card from their hand andpasses it to the player on their left.
Seer. Look at all players' Fate cards once.
Tempter. Exchange a card from your hand with a randomcard from another player's hand.

TAROKKA GAMES

Swords

by Andrew Hackward; appeared in the Book of Shadows.

This four-player game requires a deck of tarokka cards. The high deck is not used. The forty cards of the low deck are shuffled and dealt around the table, starting with the dealers right. Once all cards are dealt, the player to the dealers right bids on how many tricks she thinks she can take. Bidding then proceeds around the table, ending with the dealer. Players sitting opposite each other are partners, and the partnership contract is the total of the two individual bids.

Play is simple. The first player may lead any card, and the other players must, in turn, follow suit if possible. The highest card played of the suit led wins the trick, which is placed face down in front of the winning player. (Archetype cards beat all others in their suits.) This player then leads for the second trick. If a player cannot follow suit, she may discard any other suit, or may play a card from the suit of swords. These cards are trump, and any sword card beats any other card (with higher swords beating lower ones, of course).

When all ten tricks have been played, the hand is scored. A partnership that did not make their joint bid loses five points for every trick bid. A partnership that made their contract gains ten points for every trick bid, minus two points per extra trick. So if the bid is four and the partnership made six, they would score forty for the bid, minus four for two extra tricks, for a total of 36.

There are two special bids, however, that alter these scoring rules slightly.

Any player may make a bid of "Lose." This bid means that she is going to set out to lose all the tricks. She must still follow all the rules about following suit. If she does, in fact, manage to lose all the tricks, she scores 50 points for her partnership. However, if she takes even one trick, she loses 50 points instead. The partner of the "Lose" bidder must make her bid on her own, while also "protecting" her partner. However, in this case she is not penalized for excess tricks (although the opponents still are). Any tricks taken by the "Lose" player do not count toward the partnership total.

The other bid is open only to the dealer. After hearing the other three bids, the dealer may make a bid of "Break". This bid means that she thinks she can "break" the opponents' contract (i.e., cause them to take fewer tricks than they bid). Further, the "break" bidder is not required to follow suit, and may play whichever card she wishes. As in the "lose" bid, any tricks taken by the dealer do not count toward her partner's bid, and any overtricks taken by her partner are not penalized. If the "break" is successful, the dealer scores 100 points and the opponents score zero. (They are not penalized, however.) However, if the "break" is unsuccessful, the opponents score 20 points for each trick bid, plus a bonus of five points per overtrick. The dealer scores zero.

Games can be played for a certain number of hands, usually twelve, or to a certain number of points, usually 300. It is common for games of swords to be played for money, usually a copper per point, but other stakes can and have been used. Rumor has it that Malocchio Aderre once surrounded a Vistani camp with his men, then forced the raunies two sons to play a game of swords with him and his lieutenant using the raunie's tarokka deck. For every hand the Vistani youths won, Malocchio allowed one Vistana to go free. For every hand Aderre won, the raunie lost another finger.

Darkling

by Andrew Hackard; appeared in the Book of Souls

Equipment Needed

One or more common decks
Three to six players

Goal

To get rid of all the cards in your hand.

This one’s pretty simple. Cards go from 1-A. Deal cards clockwise around the table until all cards are exhausted (it does not matter if some players get more cards). It’s best to use one deck for three or four and two decks for five or six; the game is playable by up to eight people but gets very unwieldy. It’s a poor game for two players.

The player to the dealer’s left starts by playing from her hand, and play then moves clockwise (suit doesn’t matter.) Cards build up in rank and also in number of cards played; players may play the same number as the player before them or more (but not fewer). A player who cannot play or chooses not to play may pass by saying “Lunadi.” Whenever anyone plays an archetype card or set, she may then immediately play anything out of her hand, and play continues to the left; the same thing occurs if all players pass back to her. When a player goes out, the player to her left may play anything.

So, let’s say the first player plays a single 1. The next player plays a 3, and the next player then plays two 4’s. The following player could play any pair (or triple or more) of 5’s or higher, or could pass. When the round ends, by archetype cards being played or a play being passed all the way around, then the play starts over with any cards. (I’m afraid I’m not explaining this very clearly; feel free to ask for clarifications.)

TAROKKA GAMES

The play continues until only one player has cards left, and players keep track of the order in which they “go out.” The players rank themselves from top to bottom, using the following terms:


First:	Raunie
Next:	Prastona (only in games with four or more players)
Next:	Giogoto (only in games with six or more players)
Middle:	Vardo (only in games with an odd number of players)
Next:	Giorgio
Next:	Mortu
Last:	Darkling

In some tasques, this game is called Dukkar and that rank comes last, but—especially since the Grand Conjunction—this is much less common. When boys play, it is common to replace Raunie with Captain and Prastona with Vistana (although girls will often tease boys with the real names, of course!). It is also common, especially when the adults are elsewhere, to replace all of these ranks with more scurrilous ones (so be creative).

For the next hand, deal as usual, but before play begins, the top and bottom players exchange a certain number of cards. In three-player games, the Raunie and Darkling trade one card apiece; in four- or five-player games the Raunie and Darkling trade two cards and the Prastona and Mortu trade one, and so forth. The Vardo, being a wagon, just sits there. The better player in each pair usually gives the worst cards to the other player and gets his best cards in exchange, though she may request certain cards (to complete a pair or triple, for instance). It is customary but not required to allow the lower player to keep sets and not have to break them.

This game can literally go on for hours, with some players being the Raunie over and over and then, in the space of two or three hands, becoming the Mortu or Darkling.

The Barovian Mists

by Andrew Hackard; appeared in the Book of Souls

Equipment Needed

One or more full decks
Works well for any number of players, just figure one deck for every four or fraction above four)

Goal

To get all the cards.

Deal the cards counterclockwise (again, it doesn’t matter if one player gets more cards than another); the players square the cards and leave them face down. Play starts with the dealer and moves to the right.

All cards are played from the face down decks by flipping over the top card. Numbers are nulls, and there’s no significance to one number over another. However, the crown cards and the archetypes (collectively called the High Deck) change the rules slightly.

When a player flips over a High card, the next player gets a certain number of cards to turn over a High card herself or the first player gets all the cards on the table (and adds them, face down, to her hand). Then the first player resumes play. If the next player does draw a High card, then the next player after him must do the same thing until someone doesn’t; the last successful player gets all the cards.


1-card draw	Artifact, Donjon, Raven, Beast, Ghost, Marionette
2-card draw	Darklord, Esper, Hangman, Horseman
3-card draw	Mists, Broken One, Temptress, Innocent
4-card draw	all Archetypes

So, for example, Esmerelda plays the Mists from her hand. The next player, Stefan, has three cards in which to play another High card, or Esmerelda gets the cards on the table.

That’s it. When a player has no cards, he’s out, and when one player has all the cards, she wins! (This one’s usually pretty quick.)

Variation

Some tribes play that if two cards played one after the other match, any player who slaps the pile before the next card is played gets the pile and starts again. Slaps override even High card plays, and any High cards of the same rank (on the chart above) are considered to “match.” Some groups even let new players enter in mid-game by “slapping in.”

Example: Stefan plays the Donjon. Esmerelda plays the Beast. Normally, the next player would have to play one card and hope for a High card, but Stefan sees the match and slaps the pile, getting the cards.

TAROKKA GAMES

Endari-Vitir

by Andrew Hackard; appeared in the Book of Souls

Here’s Endari-vitir, an especially beloved form of Vistani poker. The draw version is described here, but there are also stud variations and things even more exotic.

Equipment Needed

One crown Deck
One Low Deck (suits) (For especially large games, a second Low Deck may be added)
Coins or chips

Goal

To win money by having either the highest or lowest hand.

Cut for dealer; archetypes are high, 1’s low, crown cards are nils. Dealer shuffles and then deals four cards to each player, starting to his left and moving clockwise. (There is an ante.) The player to the dealer’s left bets first and may bet any amount up to the ante or may check by saying “Lunadi.” Raises are uncommon but possible; you may not raise by an amount more than the ante in the first round. Folds are also uncommon early on; a player signifies a fold by saying “Dya-yahg.”

After everyone has bet or checked, the player to the dealer’s left may draw one or two cards or may stand pat. The dealer gives that player the number of cards discarded plus one, to bring the hand up to five cards. Every discard must be matched by a second ante into the pot, so a player who discards two cards must also contribute a double ante. (This is not a game for the poor; however, stakes tend to be quite low, and it’s equally common to play for fun, or to use the chips as markers for a winner’s prize.) Then there is a second round of betting; raises may be up to a double ante with no limit. Players call by saying “Koorah,” and when all players have called or folded, the hands are exposed. High and low hands split the pot.

Scoring the Hands

The archetype cards may be high or low in their suit. Crown cards are nulls and do not contribute to scoring (but see below). For example, a player who has 3-6-6-CC has a pair of sixes, nothing more. The hands rank as follows, high to low:

The Vistana: Five crown cards automatically take the whole pot (or split with any other player lucky enough to get five crown cards).
Tasque: Five connected cards of the same suit (they may wrap around). 2-3-4-5-6 of glyphs or 9-A-1-2-3 of stars would be tasques. Two tasques are compared starting with the highest cards on down.
Vardo: Three cards of one rank and two of another (a full house).
Tetran: Four cards of the same rank; the fifth card may be anything, even a null (but nulls rank below all other cards).
Caravan: Five connected cards of different suits. Comparison is as for tasques.
Lunaset: Five cards, all of different suits (in other words, one star, one glyph, one coin, one sword, and one crown).
Petit Caravan: Four connected cards of different suits and a null (a “four-straight”).

Tribe: Five cards of the same suit.
Family: Four cards of the same suit and a null.
Marriage with Children: Two pairs.
Triskan: Three cards of the same rank.
Marriage: Two cards of the same rank.
Giorgio: Anything that doesn’t fit the above.

In multi-deck games, it is traditional to allow hands with two identical cards to beat others, so a marriage with two sixes of swords would beat a marriage of a six of coins and a six of glyphs.

Variation

Sometimes, for spice, it is agreed that the archetypes will be wild cards. (In this case, there are only four archetypes, even if multiple low decks are used.) Archetypes may be used to match in suit but not rank or rank but not suit. For example, a player has the archetype of swords, the six of glyphs, the six of swords, and the seven of glyphs before the draw; he may consider his archetype to be a six of coins or stars, but not glyphs or swords. He may also consider it to be a glyph but need not specify which one until the hands are exposed. Archetypes may not be used for nulls.

Giorgios

by Andrew Hackard; appeared in the Book of Souls

Equipment Needed

One low deck (1-A in each suit)
Kidlets (use a second low deck for four or more)

Goal

Dump your hand.

Deal six cards to each player. Turn over the top card. Dealer goes first, and may match the top card in rank or suit (or both, in a multi-deck game). If dealer cannot play, she must draw from the face-down cards until she can.

Sixes are the “giorgios,” and may be used as any suit. You may not play one giorgio on top of another.

The hand ends when one player goes out or no one can play and there are no cards left to draw. Each player with cards left adds the number of cards to his score; when one player goes over 25 the game is over and the lowest score wins. Giorgios count as two cards.

Variation I

Each player adds the sum of the card values, and the game goes until one player has over 100 points. Archetype cards count as 10 and giorgios count as 15 (ouch!).

Variation II

When a deuce is played, the next player must either match the deuce with another deuce or draw two cards and forfeit her turn. If two deuces are played together, then the next player must draw four, and so on. In this version the deuces are called the Donnolas (the weasels). Some people combine this with a rule where the archetype of stars, here called the Strega (the witch) forces the next player to draw three cards.

TAROKKA GAMES

Giorgios at the Prastonata

by Andrew Hackard; appeared in the Book of Souls

Equipment Needed

One full Tarokka deck (use a second full deck for six or more adults)

Goal

Get the most crown cards and/or be the first to go out.

Deal six cards to each player. Every player immediately pulls out any crown cards he has in his hand and puts them in front of him. Then deal again, giving each player enough cards to bring him back up to six. Repeat until all players have six low cards in their hands.

Play begins as above. However, if a player is drawing from the deck and draws a crown card, he immediately puts it in front of him and play passes to his left. The hand is over when all the crown cards have been played or one player has gone out.

Scoring

Each player receives one point for each crown card in front of him; if a player went out, he receives a five-point bonus. Play continues to 50 points.

Sciocco

by Andrew Hackard; appeared in the Book of Souls

Here’s a good game for really little kids. “Sciocco” is the Vistani word for “silly” (well, it is now).

Equipment Needed

Cards (see below)
Up to ten observant youngsters

Goal

Get four of a kind.

This one’s easy. Take a deck of cards and remove sets of four for each player. (If you have eight players, take the 1-8 of each suit out.) Shuffle the cards and deal four to each player. Then, every player discards one to her left and picks up the card from her right. (This won’t work if your players won’t sit in a circle, so make them.) This continues until one player has four of a kind, at which point she just starts passing the card immediately from right to left. She also has to touch her chin with her forefinger. Everyone who notices her do this has to do it as well, until only one person does NOT notice. And when he finally gets the clue, everyone shouts “Sciocco!” at him and the game starts over.

Variation

Put enough objects (spoons, for instance) in the middle of the circle for all the players except one. Instead of touching the chin, the players have to sneak the objects out of the circle. Otherwise, it’s identical.

Precision

by Andrew Hackard; appeared in the Book of Souls

This one’s for somewhat older Vistani children, probably early adolescents.

Equipment Needed

One low deck, including archetypes
Three to seven players

This game lasts for several rounds, depending on the number of players. Three players can play for 13 rounds, four for ten, five for eight, six for six, and seven for five. Start off by dealing one card to each player, and then turn over the next card. Whatever suit that card is becomes trump; a card in the trump suit is always higher than any card in another suit.

The players bid on how many tricks (sets of cards) they think they can take. (Obviously, for round one, that’s either one or zero, called Pass or Lunadi.) The players have to take exactly that number or tricks to score points. (It is traditional for the dealer, at the end of the bidding, to say either “sotto,” if the total bid is less than the total number of tricks possible, “sopra” if too many tricks were bid, or “esatto” if the total bid equals the number of tricks.) Players who do not take what they have bid release their frustration by yelling “Concime!” unless there are adults about, in which case they just sit and grumble.

After the bidding, the first player leads and the other players must follow suit if able. If unable to follow suit, a player may play any card. If a player does make his bid precisely, he gets ten points plus the amount of his bid unless he bid Lunadi, in which case he gets 5 points plus the number of cards in his hand. Then the cards are shuffled and one more card is dealt to every player than the previous hand. On the final hand, there is no trump card. After that hand, the player with the highest total score wins.

TAROKKA GAMES

Cinque Elementi

by Andrew Hackard; appeared in the Book of Souls

This is a five-handed variation on Hearts… with a few added rules. The name of the game means “The Five Elements.”

Equipment Needed

Five players
One full deck of cards

Cut for the dealer; high card deals. Shuffle the cards thoroughly. Deal the cards, starting to the dealer’s left and moving left, in sets of 3, 2, 2, and 3 cards to each player. After each round of dealing, put one card into a sixth hand called the Vedova (widow). At the end of the deal, each player should have ten cards and the vedova will have four; these four cards will not be used.

Play consists of five rounds, over and over until one person scores 100 points and thus loses. In each round, a different suit is the “penalty suit,” as explained in a moment. Also, in each round, players pass two cards to another player as indicated below.


Round 1:	Terra (earth) —PS swords, pass to immediate left.
Round 2:	Aria (air) —PS coins, pass to second on left
Round 3:	Acqua (water) —PS glyphs, pass to second on right
Round 4:	Fuoco (fire) —PS stars, pass to immediate right
Round 5:	Anima (spirit) —PS crowns, hold all cards

Play begins with the player to the dealer’s left. He may lead any suit but the penalty suit (or a special crown card). (If a crown card is led, that player is considered to have won the trick unless one of the four special cards, listed below, is played—the first player to play one of those to a trick where a crown card is led wins the trick.) A player who does not have a card in the suit led may play any card. Once a penalty-suit card has been played to a trick, the penalty suit (or special crown card) may be led.

At the end of the ten tricks, players look through the tricks they have taken and count the number of penalty cards; this number is added to their score. (A player who takes no tricks is given a -5 bonus.) There are four special crown cards that can affect this score, however:


The Darklord:	Adds ten points to the player’s score.
The Hangman:	Doubles all penalty cards in that player’s hand, including the Darklord.
The Artifact:	The player with this card subtracts the points rather than adding them to his score (but see below).
The Innocent:	Negates all penalty cards.

(Note that these four cards do not count as crown cards during the “anima” round.)

If a player takes all ten penalty-suit cards and the Darklord, he is said to have a Paatern. A player with a paatern may either subtract 20 points from his score or add 20 points to the other four players’ scores—unless that player has also taken another special card. The Hangman doubles this to 40 points, the Innocent negates even the paatern, and the Artifact reverses the paatern, so that the player may either add 20 points to his score or subtract 20 points from everyone else’s. (Or 40, if the player is unlucky enough to get both the Artifact and the Hangman.)

Should a player collect all ten penalty cards and all four special crown cards, he is said to have completed the Paatern Grosse and his score immediately reverts to zero. (Of course, if he had a negative score to begin with, this isn’t such a good thing.)

After the hand, the cards are reshuffled—carefully!— and the deal passes to the right. The player with the fewest points when one player goes over 100 points wins the game.

Games of Cinque Elementi can go very quickly, if one player is very lucky, or can take quite a while, when no player has been lucky. This is a favorite of slightly older children; for younger children, some of the rules may be relaxed, and sometimes the crown deck and vedova are omitted and the game is a four-player game rather than a five-player game.

TAROKKA GAMES

The Deck of Decks

This section features the 3rd-party product, the Deck of Decks, which is an actual deck of
54 cards (standard poker-sized cards, each with 3 images) that serves a total of five purposes:

First and foremost, it is a standard 54-card deck of PLAYING CARDS that can be used
for any non-D&D card game requiring up to 54 cards.
It is a deck of 5e compatible TAROKKA (TAROT) CARDS that can be used in an TTRPG
game. This is the center image on all 54 cards.
It is a DECK OF MANY THINGS. This includes 22 cards (the two jokers are shared with
the deck of illusions) that can be pulled out into their own deck for game play. Full deck vs.
standard deck and cards with enmity are also identified. These are cards noted with a red
dragon in the top left corner.
It is a DECK OF ILLUSIONS. This includes 34 cards (including the two jokers that are
shared with the deck of many things) that can be pulled into their own deck for game play.
These are cards noted with an eye image in the top left corner.
It is a DECK OF COMMONS. This includes 52 cards consisting of a variety of common
magic items that can be used for a variety of purposes including random loot generation.
These are cards with a large bluish banner in the bottom right corner.