The first campaign I ever ran was Curse of Strahd. I had DMed a couple of sessions prior, but this was the first real deal. While I did enjoy it, there was one hole in the story that really bugged me: the winery’s gems. They really don’t play much of a role in the story as written, but my players took an interest in them. Further, I accidentally gave my players a handout from the original Ravenloft campaign that mentioned three fanes that aren’t in the reboot. Naturally, they also took a strong interest in these, so I decided to also work those in rather than retcon the handout.

Three gems and three fanes seemed too perfect an opportunity to miss, I just needed another set of three to complete the trope. As I was figuring out what to do with the gems and fanes, I ran across MandyMod's Fleshing Out Curse of Strahd , and it seemed MandyMod agreed with me, rounding out the set with a trio of Archfey sisters: The Ladies Three. I decided to take some inspiration from that and run with it. The party was a ragtag bunch of six adventurers from all over.

• Markos: A Barbarian of the Path of the Ancestral Guardian. As a Vistana, he grew up in and out of Barovia. Like his mentor Stanimir, he did not subscribe to the evil ways of Strahd but was powerless to do anything about it until the rest of the party arrived.
• Jarad: A Druid of the Circle of Spores from Ravnica, and a Drow of the Golgari Swarm. He was chasing his traitor brother when they got lost in strange mists, and he stumbled out of Barovia’s forests.
• Yuhua: A Yuan-ti Pureblood Warlock of The Fiend. She had set out from home in search of great power to prove herself to her people, following stories of a mortal who had attained near-godhood and had control of his own demiplane.
• Mairin: A Triton Bard of the College of Lore who had fled home, seeking fame to prove herself to her parents who were pressuring her to become a fighter rather than a lowly bard. She and Yuhua were in a tavern and had responded to a plea from a group of travelers to help their prince.
• Takonka: A Goliath Champion Fighter with a long history of gladiatorial competition, at least until a scandal made him flee. Since he could not stay, he set out to explore and adventure, finding Kawkwa along the way.
• Kawkwa: An Owl-like Aarakocra, and traveling companion of Takonka, who follows the Path of the Berserker Barbarian. Kawkwa and Takonka were rabble-rousing in a tavern when they agreed to help a group of local villagers go after werewolves that had kidnapped their children. They were the only two survivors of the party, but were trapped in the mists of Barovia.

The Ladies and The Gems

Long before Strahd invaded the area that he later called Barovia, the inhabitants of the area had constructed three fanes, within which they revered three Archfey ladies: The Huntress in the mountains, The Weaver in the swamp, and The Seeker in the forest. Each fane was the home of one of the gems: sources of great Feywild magic, each uniquely tied to one of the ladies, that could be used to commune with, and sometimes even visit, their lady in the Feywild. Additionally, each of these Archfey had a specific tree that was near and dear to them. Though I never explained the specific significance of the tree to my players, I envisioned the sisters and their trees to have a relationship not unlike dryads and their trees. Each tree is the source of the sister’s power, and though killing their tree does not kill the sister, it does severely weaken her and leave her with constant, unrelenting dread.

Because each of the sisters embodied an aspect of the wilderness, when Strahd took over Barovia, he could not fully assume the role of lord and become “the land” until he subjugated all three of them. He trapped the first in a Sisyphean struggle that required her to protect herself and her tree, leaving her unable to help the others for fear of losing herself. He destroyed the sacred tree of the second sister, trapping her in perpetual mourning. And though the third was able to escape, she had to abandon her followers and her sisters, and so retained only a sliver of her former power; even Strahd does not know her current whereabouts.

The Feywild

Barovia was originally part of the material plane, but Strahd’s deal pulled it onto an isolated part of the Shadowfel called the Planes of Dread. For any of you familiar with the Planes of Dread, mention of travel to the Feywild might seem out of place. I decided to shuffle that traditional interpretation just a little bit, however. I tend to see the Shadowfel and the Feywild as mirrors of the material plane: The basic structures—the hills and mountains, the lakes and oceans, even the cities—remain but are different, according to which mirror is being observed.

What I decided was that Barovia’s Shadowfel became merged with its material and Feywild counterparts. This left the material plane very boring and drab, just as it was written. But the effect it had on the Feywild was much more extreme. The air became thick and sickly, almost difficult to breathe. Large vines pervaded the forest floor, but where one would expect to see color, they would see only black; where they would expect yellow or orange flowers on the vines, they would see only wilted black petals dripping black ooze. The black ooze covered everything, not unlike the aftermath of an oil spill. The creatures of the Feywild were affected similarly: the branches and leaves of a dryad took on the same oily appearance as their trees, the horns of satyrs grew mangled and twisted, and any humanoids unlucky enough to get caught here slowly transformed into meazels.

Restoration and Blessings

Before they could face Strahd, the party needed to weaken him and strengthen themselves. Though they did not know what journey they had started when they stumbled upon the first gem, they soon latched onto this storyline and saw it to completion. In each case, they had to locate the gem, activate the shrine, travel to the Feywild, and free the sister. Once freed and restored, the Archfey could bestow the blessing of her fane onto the party, depriving Strahd of a bit of his power. Of course, once Strahd realized this was happening, he did everything in his power to stop them…

Photo by Eoin Anderson.