While the rest of the group goes over their options, Sirya Aseaquen carefully(?) navigates through Castle Ravenloft on her own. Until she isn’t alone.

In these session prep posts, I go over what I did to prepare for my monthly CoS sessions. I also talk a bit about what happened and what I need to prep for next time!

What I prepped:

Recap

Shorter recaps, one for Kara’s side of things (with the rest of the party) and one for Sirya (alone in Castle Ravenloft). Next time I’ll need to do a longer recap to mix things up, but for now we stuck with another short recap.

Reviewed werewolf den area

I wasn’t sure where Kara and the NPCs would go next, but the werewolf den was a possibility. They know it holds the final item they need to confront Strahd. I reread over the area and made some notes about the changes I planned to make to the area. Since we’re nearing the end of the campaign, I’m trying to streamline a few elements here and there.

Wrote out Escher and Alexander conversation

Sirya would have the opportunity to listen in on a conversation between two of Strahd’s vampire spawn, so I went ahead and prewrote that so I didn’t have to improvise a whole conversation with myself mid-session. This allowed me to deliver some previously-unknown information, which helped a lot.

Reviewed Castle Ravenloft

I gave another read back through the areas that the party hadn’t gotten to yet, in case Sirya did some more exploring (she did). This helped me find the one other way out of the castle—the room with the magic teleporting brazier in it.

What I improvised:

Not too much this time, though after she stole back the holy symbol of ravenkind from Sir Alexander, he gave chase. Sirya wondered if he knew about a particular trapdoor in the crypt area. I decided that he probably knew about it. But, maybe there was a 20% chance he had forgotten or wasn’t thinking about it. I had Kara’s player roll percentile dice, she got a 12, so he fell victim to the trapdoor. This allowed Sirya time to escape—if not Alexander himself, at least Castle Ravenloft.

What I’ll prep for next time:

Recap and review of the Abbey of Saint Markovia

Sirya used the magic brazier in Strahd’s castle to escape and has found herself in the Abbey of Saint Markovia. I’ll need to review the area and prepare my recap to remind the players about what they discovered there. It’s been a while since they were in Krezk!

Thanks for reading!