Curse of Strahd Reloaded Update: Fighting the Druids & Road to Yester Hill

This is the second in a series of weekly posts providing updates on my progress in drafting and editing the new Reloaded guide. You can find all previous posts here.

Since last week's update, I've completed the following additions to the guide:

• Drafted a new History of the Winery sidebar
• Drafted the players' fight with a revised druid assailant, two swarms of twig blights, and two twig blight elders in the fermentation chamber, including the players' efforts to rescue an imprisoned swarm of ravens and new information regarding the druids and their plots.
• Drafted the players' exploration of the first floor of the winery, including a new emergency supply cache containing healing and loot.
• Drafted the players' exploration of the second floor of the winery, including a battle with a revised druid assailant and three vine blights.
• Designed the players' combat with the druidic leader, a revised druid naturalist named Lorghoth the Decayer with the ability to assume the form of a shambling mound.
• Drafted the players' introduction to the Keepers of the Feather, and Davian's request for the players to journey to Yester Hill.
• Drafted an encounter with the spirit of Kavan, the Blood-Drinker, on the path to Yester Hill.
• Drafted an encounter with Strahd von Zarovich on the path to Yester Hill.

Here's a sneak preview of two excerpts from this week's work: the beginning of the players' first meeting with the druid assailant Silvia, and the beginning of the players' second encounter with Strahd:

The Tortured Raven

As the players climb the spiral staircase or back staircase toward the first floor, read:

The air grows steadily warmer as you approach the upper floors, your boots treading softly across the soft, supple bed of black roots that cascades like a waterfall across the stairs.

As you approach the first landing, the silence is pierced by a haunting, desperate scream, which is followed soon after by the rustling of many feathers.

The scream originates from the large room containing the winery’s fermentation vats, which is largely as described in W9. Fermentation Vats (p. 176). However, replace the final two sentences of the room’s description with the following text:

Beneath the sloping roof stretch thick rafters, from which hang six wooden cages arranged side-by-side. Each cage holds more than a dozen ravens crammed together, with little space to move or breathe. Most of the ravens bear cuts or broken beaks, and all of them are missing feathers.

A wild-looking female figure stands beneath the leftmost cage, surrounded by a swarm of nearly two-dozen small, twiglike creatures. She holds a tall, gnarled staff in her hand, and wears a gown made of animal skins and a headdress with goat horns. 

Two twiglike creatures, slightly larger than the others, cling to the sides of the wooden cage before her, their sharp, pointed arms pushed through the bars of the cage. The woman nods, and the creatures pierce the sides of a battered-looking raven, which screams again in helpless agony.

The woman is a druid assailant and is surrounded by two swarms of twig blights. The two creatures clinging to the cage are twig blight elders. 

The Raven's Interrogation

If the players linger and remain undetected, they can hear the druid (using the spell speak with animals) speak to the battered raven with a series of caws and clicks. A player who uses similar magic to understand the speech of ravens hears the following conversation:

The druid hisses. “Where is it?” she asks. “Give it up, and your torment will end.”

The raven cackles weakly, blood dripping from the corkscrew wounds upon its breast. “The thing you seek was lost long ago. You will never find it.”

The druid snarls, baring her teeth. “Liar!” She turns to the twig creatures and speaks two words in a strange language. The creatures incline their heads, then turn to pierce the raven’s sides again.

A player who speaks Druidic recognizes the druids’ words as: “Hurt him.”

The Nightmare

After departing Kavan’s cairn, the players can return to the path and continue traveling south to Yester Hill. After one and one-quarter miles and an additional twenty-five minutes, the players encounter Strahd von Zarovich riding his nightmare, Beucephalus. Read:

"Good evening," echoes a voice from ahead of you, "or, perhaps, good morning?"

A tall, pale figure emerges from the inky darkness betwixt the trees, riding atop a fiery steed. The figure's eyes burn through the shadows like smoldering coals, and his alabaster skin seems as cold as marble in the moonlight. He is immaculate in dark, tailored armor, and beneath his pristine, obsidian-black hair, his lips - as red as fresh blood - curl into a satisfied, malevolent smile.

The steed beneath him snorts, flames dancing from its nostrils as its fiery mane flickers like a hellish halo around its head. Wisps of acrid smoke fill the air with a scent like sulfur and burnt flesh, and powerful muscles flex faintly beneath the contours of its coal-black hide. You notice a flash of metal, gleaming with gold and deep burgundy, glittering within the saddlebags strapped to the beast’s back.

The man's heel clicks against his steed's side, and it steps obediently forward to obstruct your path. Strahd's smile widens as he drinks in the sight of you, his gaze boring through the dancing shadows that lurk amidst the path.

The object in Beucephalus’ saddlebags is Strahd’s animated armor (as described in Strahd’s Animated Armor, p. 227). It is currently disassembled and inactive, though it attacks with its shocking bolt action if the players disturb it.

Strahd greets the players with familiarity. He then asks what business they might have on the road to Yester Hill - especially at such a dark and forsaken time of night. “I find that it is always the final hours before dawn that I most enjoy,” Strahd says, “but I confess I did not expect to find kindred spirits on such a lonely path this eve.”

If the players attempt to conceal their purpose, Strahd guesses aloud that they have come for much the same reason he has - to witness the Forest Folks’ great “triumph,” the birth of the tree blight they call Wintersplinter. “Although,” he notes with amusement, his dark eyes glittering in the darkness, “I would hazard to guess that you have come not to celebrate their druids’ mighty victory, but to vanquish it - by sword and spell.”

In either case, Strahd invites the players to walk alongside him as he rides to Yester Hill, “for the road is dark, and company always welcome.”

You can get full access to my in-progress drafts by joining the Patreon as a paid member. All working drafts and outlines for future arcs, as well as a changelog and Trello board of upcoming edits, can be found on the Patreon Bronze Masterpost.

Thank you for following and using this guide! I look forward to bringing you future updates.

Cheers,
Dragna