October—the perfect month for Curse of Strahd! Sirya continues her escape from Castle Ravenloft and her pursuer, the vampire spawn Alexander. Meanwhile, Kara and the rest of the party check in on Sirya with magic and decide what they’re going to do.

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

Even though we had a missed session, everyone was pretty excited to get into things and had a good memory of what happened. So, I didn’t need a long recap. This let me spend more time getting the right maps pulled up.

  • Stat blocks for the deva and flesh golem

Sirya had teleported from Castle Ravenloft to the Abbey of Saint Markovia. I looked over the stat blocks for the NPCs there, just in case, but I wasn’t sure how the combination of Sirya, Alexander, and the Abbot would go. Turns out, I didn’t need to prep more than that—Sirya bypassed encountering the Abbot altogether to escape into Krezk.

  • A few different ideas for NPC antagonist actions

I sketched out a few ways that the vampire spawn trying to stop Sirya’s escape would act. He was stalled for a few turns, so Sirya used that to escape the abbey. It didn’t make sense for him to know she had left the abbey, thus Sirya was able to take a rest while he uselessly searched the building. That was as much as I had figured out, so the rest of his actions in this session I improvised.

What I improvised:

  • Running random encounters for travel

Kara was able to contact Sirya with sending, so the rest of the party learned that she had teleported all the way to Krezk. They agreed on a meeting place. So, I used the random encounter table to throw a combat encounter and a small discovery into travel time. The purpose of this was to emphasize that travelling in Barovia is always eventful.

  • NPC antagonist reactions to PC’s actions

After Sirya got farther away from Alexander, I had to figure out what he would do. He’s let them get away one too many times now. Sirya took the holy symbol of ravenkind from him. So he’s not giving up. He’s a pretty powerful vampire spawn. I improvised him bullying the people of Krezk into allowing him to search for Sirya in their homes. It’s forceful, but again, he’s messed up too many times, and he can’t afford for Sirya to get away. This also pushed Sirya to make some quick decisions (which turned out well for her—she did get away).

  • Wizard’s responses to sending

Kara and Sirya want to get the wizard at the foot of Mt. Baratok on their side. Unfortunately, he’s extremely paranoid, and Kara doesn’t have the greater restoration spell yet that would cure him per the adventure’s instructions. They tried to persuade him by talking to him with sending. This didn’t go as well as they wanted; he didn’t take it well, assuming that they’re trying to trick him. I don’t know what the PCs will try to do next, but they’re pretty set on this idea.

What I’ll prep for next time:

  • More NPC antagonist plotting

Alexander will continue to pursue the PCs this time. He’s not going to return to Castle Ravenloft until he gets the holy symbol of ravenkind back, at least. Since the group is in the latter sections of the adventure, this will be a good build-up into a confrontation with him before they fight Strahd.

  • Streamline the werewolf den area

I think I’m going to edit some of the werewolf den part of the adventure. I made some changes to the werewolf group’s dynamics, so I’ll make changes to elements of the den to reflect those changes. And, I want to tighten up the area in general to save time while keeping it challenging.

  • Map links in prep notes

I keep my session prep note in Evernote. This lets me add links to stat blocks. I just realized I could probably do the same thing to the maps in D&D Beyond, so I’ll try that next time and see if it’s helpful.

Thanks for reading! Hope any spooky October sessions go well for you all.