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We had a blast with The Haunting of Harrowstone, which I DMed in my Ravenloft campaign. 9/10!
Those are the things I changed:
- No trust mechanics (didn’t see it as working well, I roleplayed it instead).
- Thugs in the cemetery event: made them throw mud at Kendra, to have Kendra a more sympathetic and “person you want to protect” NPC.
- Old Gibs Hephenus gets a bigger role in the adventure (he knows a lot, since he was a guard at the prison 50 years ago!), as well as in the background of the prison fire story.
- Vesorianna’s story was changed a bit. Removed the hysterics and made her more heroic (she wanted to save some of the guards down below, but the guards at the lift were cowards and her effort was spoiled by these coward guards (Gibs, I’m again looking at you!).
- When the fire started, people remembered Vesorianna locked in a room. Gibs was supposed to get her out, but the coward fled instead. Later, when she was in the list of people missing, town people assumed that after being freed by Gibs (as he said he did), Vesorianna probably came back inside the burning prison, where she died.
- I didn’t use the items that were belongings of the 5 BBGs. HoH is low level, and the PCs are 8th so I removed the items.
- Vesorianna’s name is spelled one letter per day (and not once every d4 days). I planned the possibility that her family name (Hawkran) would have to be spelled too if PCs really needed time.
- Added a few creepy effects in the village, that were caused by the 5 BBGs - zombies at night, rambling writing with blood in a caster's spellbook that fades away, premonitions, priest forgetting the name of their god, all the animals start howling at the same time at night, etc.
- Since the PCs are 8th level, boosted the 5 BBGs hps and the DCs to resist their effects.
- Changed the 5 BBGs background to make them fit into Ravenloft’s domains.
If you want to read my campaign journals, it starts at session 51, ends at sesion 56: http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/TheVeranda.html (under Joel's Campaign).
Joël
And the final scene with Vesorianna getting excuses from pityfull Gibs was very cool. She could not be in peace without it.
A few days later, Gibs hanged himself over remorses for his coward life.
Nice. I ideas for Vesorianna
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Some good stuff there. I too went for a more heroic Vesorianna. I didn't change her role in life, but I had her role in death be more meaningful. Rather than have the Warden be solely responsible for holding Harrowstone in check, I had it as a joint effort by the couple. So when the Warden was taken, Vesorianna wasn't struggling because she was weaker than her husband, but because it was always a 2 spirit job to begin with.
I think some kind of sped up timetable on the letters is a good idea. I read a suggestion on the board of having it eventually become two letters at a time-- I like that a lot because it allows players to spend some time getting acclimated and exploring Ravengro, but then let's you pick up the sense of urgency once they actually begin exploring Harrowstone.