A lot happened in this April’s Curse of Strahd session, so let’s try to unpack some of it.

In these posts, I talk about how I prepared for my monthly Curse of Strahd session. I also talk about what I improvised and how stuff turned out.

But, hey, I’m going to be honest here: I didn’t prep anything for this session. (I have excuses for this of course, but they’re not terribly relevant to this post.)

What I prepped:

Like I said, I didn’t prep anything for this session. I certainly thought about the session and made some plans in my head, but none of that made it into anything concrete.

Since the party was going to investigate the rumors of werewolves, I thought about how they could find the den. They could make some checks once they reached the appropriate area. If they succeeded, they could find the werewolf den without attracting the notice of other creatures. If they failed, they would run the risk of alerting the creatures guarding the den.

But, they didn’t make it there as planned.

What I improvised:

Here’s what happened—

The group decided to leave Argynvostholt and investigate the werewolves. The route they decided on took them by the mysterious tower they investigated earlier. This tower had a couple oddities—a sign on the door with figures on it, a wagon parked outside, and a magical trap that shocks those who touch the tower.

The party leaves on their journey. They notice something following them for a bit, but it doesn’t confront them. They reach the tower, and I asked them if they wanted to investigate, which they did.

I read back over through the tower’s chapter, and I was already familiar with it, so I was able to run it pretty smoothly. They solved the tower’s puzzle this time and found no one inside.

Then they checked out the wagon. Sirya, the rogue, picked the lock and opened the door.

The wagon exploded.

Opening the door trips a wire that causes a bottle of alchemist’s fire to fall, triggering in turn many other bottles of the substance, causing a loud explosion. The party took some heavy damage from the blast. So, they retreated to the forest to take a short rest.

The adventure states that the blast from the wagon would alert the werewolves out hunting. This is a group of six werewolves, nine wolves, and the leader of the pack.

This group of creatures surrounds the party and attacks soon after the short rest ends.

Unfortunately, the party was overwhelmed, and they went down after a few rounds of combat.

So now we’re here.

What I need to prep for next time:

This is the first session I’ve had to end early in order to prep for the next session. The party didn’t die, but they were knocked unconscious and are certainly captured.

And I’m pretty sure I know where they’ll be taken. They have Ireena Kolyana with them, and the werewolves are in league with Strahd—they’re going to find themselves in Castle Ravenloft.

This is very dangerous for a level 7 party. I’m going to prepare with that in mind. It’s going to be rough, but I don’t want to make it impossible for them to escape…

So I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me!

Thanks for reading! And if you have any thoughts or tips for handling this situation, I’d love to hear in the comments.