at a certain point in your game your character's actions will cause straud to take a greater interest in them he's going to want to learn more about these adventuring interlopers that are new to his realm to that end he's going to invite them to dine with him at castle ravenloft under the promise of peace and safety in this video we'll talk about the dinner event itself right from the invitation process to wrapping everything up at the very end we'll go over who's there what's going to happen and what is going through straw's head during this
whole thing first up let's talk about the invitation when your party first arrives in borovia straw doesn't care about them they're just another in a long line of adventuring parties that are doomed to join the march of the dead that is until they prove themselves by performing some grand deed or defeating some heavy-hitting foe when your party does that straw is going to turn his attention on to them he's going to want to learn more about them who are they and where are they from what makes them tick what are they afraid of and how
best can he manipulate them to serve his own ends to answer those questions strada is going to extend a formal invitation to dine at castle ravenloft the module provides four suggestions within the narrative when you should send this invitation those are when the characters deal with the spirit mirror in walkthrough house after saint andrews feast in velochi during esmeralda's retreat at van rickton's tower and after irena and sergey reunite at the kresge pool these are all just suggestions however the timing of the invitation is entirely up to you it can come whenever you want it
to heck if you want it to come when they arrive in barovia first thing and they leave death house that's totally fine it's entirely up to you that's a very valid place to put the invitation i would wait a little bit longer of course until they do some great deed or defeat a difficult foe like the hags of old bone grinder or bob lazaga or whatever maybe they picked up an item of power and strawd knows about it and he wants to maybe man do some bartering and get that item for himself it's up to
you the invitation timing should be customized to your narrative your story and your characters so do what feels right for you in nearly all instances except the spirit mirror the invitation is delivered by somebody other than strawd for st andrew's feast it's delivered by ernst larnach but in every other instance it's probably delivered by straw's steward rahiden in those cases where rawhidden delivers the invitation he does so from the black carriage that you may be familiar with from area i now he does this along this foliage road while the characters are traveling from one location
to another the carriage either overtakes them as they're traveling or it's waiting ahead of them between them and their destination all ominous-like in the distance it's entirely up to you when rawhide makes his presence known he also makes his peaceful intentions known he hands over his master's invitation along with any other message you wish him to convey and then promptly gets back in the carriage without waiting for neri a response if the characters attack him or the carriage or the horses rawhidden does his best to beat a hasty retreat he doesn't care about the carriage
he doesn't care about the horses he only wants to get back to castle ravenloft without killing the characters that's against the rules for him right now he does his best to do this using a combination of his dash action his misty step ability and his mask of the wild ability that should get him out of reach of your characters pretty easily he wants to disappear into the nearby woods which is handy because all along this fallout road that's what's on either side now that we've talked about the invitation let's talk about straw's goal with the
dinner nothing that straw does is without purpose he's not a wasteful kind of guy he doesn't do things for no reason the dinner is absolutely no exception in addition to learning more about these new adventures that are in his land he's going to have one or more overarching goals that he's going to pursue during the dinner purpose number one he might be trying to identify a new consort straw is a collector of beautiful and interesting people as you can tell from his other consorts now unfortunately one of his consorts the newest one escher is you
know not living up to straw's expectations straw is getting bored and he's looking for a new play toy so if any of the characters in your party strike him as being a suitable replacement for escher he's going to pursue changing them into a vampire consort later on in the game and then promptly locks escher away in his crypt forevermore next up he may try to identify a successor strad knows that he can't leave berovia as long as he is the dark lord of the realm now in order to gain his freedom somebody else has to
take over to that end he's going to try to identify the party member with the darkest heart and see if they are worthy to step up the plate if somebody at the dinner seems to fit the bill he's going to start testing them and measuring them in various ways throughout the rest of your campaign always finding them just a bit lacking in all areas next he may want to negotiate perhaps your party has something that straw wants maybe it's one of the fortunes of ravenloft items of power maybe it's esmerelda the avenir maybe it's irina
collianna herself if straw wants any one of those things he's going to negotiate he may offer something like money or magic items or maybe even freedom from borovia itself be careful offering that last one because your characters might actually take him up on that offer and then poof there goes your campaign if he's attempting to gain any one of the items of power like the sun sword or the tomastrad or the holy symbol of ravenkind he's going to deal directly with the character that is in possession of that item he's going to pull them aside
and give them his undivided and individual attention he'll speak to them in low tones so that the other party members can't hear all of this in order to talk to them a in private and b to achieve his next goal and that is to sow distrust amongst the party if straw feels like the party is a credible threat let's say for example they have the items of power or they've defeated several big bads throughout borovia strat is going to try to undermine their trust in each other and their unity their party cohesion as it were
to that end he will attempt to take a party member away perhaps to talk in private where the others can't hear he may bestow upon them a unique gift or whatnot anything to arouse the suspicion of the other party members he may even try to play mind games like saying saying to them over dinner one of you shall betray the others i can see it happening already i'll leave it up to you to figure out which one it is let's talk now about the arrival to the castle should your players actually accept the invitation and
if they don't well then the rest of this video is kind of a moot point anyways let's assume that they do when your characters are traveling to castle ravenloft when they hit area i the black carriage is waiting for them to take them the rest of the way the carriage ride is optional of course but it is faster and it does make traversing the trappage a lot safer nobody wants to start dinner off with a thousand foot fall when your party arrives in the courtyard of castle ravenloft they're greeted by cyrus bellevue he's dressed up
for the occasion his clothes appear to have been washed and he's tried to tame his hair with a very pungent grease he bows low to the party and motions for them to follow him inside through the large ornate double doors where he leads them to area k8 the great hall and hands them off to rawhiden at this point if any of the characters are not properly washed or attired for a fancy dinner event rahden chastises them and then leads them up to the guest room and area k50 when they enter into the room they find
gertrude and escher already laying out suitable garments for all of them appropriately sized how did straud get those measurements well that lets the imagination run wild doesn't it this encounter presents you with an opportunity to get gertrude back into the forefront of your party's mind now you see they encountered a quest for gertrude really early on in the campaign when they first came to the village of borovia and talked to mad mary by the time this dinner event rolls around i guarantee you most of them have probably forgotten about gertrude so here you are gertrude
is right in front of them you can remind them what their first quest and berovia is rescue gertrude get her back to her mother but as we've discussed in our cast of raven loft video gertrude isn't really all that willing to go back and mad mary may not be there to receive her additionally if you want escher to be a sympathetic contact within castle ravenloft this is a great opportunity to have him alone with the characters to talk with them share his backstory commiserate with him and offer any assistance that he might be willing to
give when your characters do finally enter into the dining hall the module says that they encounter an illusory straw playing the organ i want you to reconsider this straw here is not an illusion he's the real deal because he's not afraid of this little party of adventures so he actually shows up for his own dinner imagine that consider him also not playing the organ you can have him playing the organ that's fine and it's inconsequential but in my personal opinion i think it's more atmospheric and a bit more foreboding and threatening if he's simply sitting
at the table hands clasped in front of him waiting in a sinister silence for the party's arrival trod isn't the only npc present during this event other members of his household are present either as dinner guests or as white staff first up we have cyrus bellevue despite his disheveled appearance cyrus is an accomplished chef with the help of several undead servants he cooks every meal in this dinner himself down in the kitchen he also acts as the headwaiter coordinating the delivery of every course with his temporary assistant helga you probably remember helga ruvak from the
made in hell event that we talk about in that video up there helga steps out of her role as the castle maid at least for one night acting as a waitress here during the dinner she delivers all of the meals in complete silence and doesn't even make eye contact with any of the characters except for the briefest of moments this isn't by any order from strawd or cyrus she's here playing an act she wants the characters to believe that she is an unwilling captive in all of this this act sets up her further actions during
the made in hell event and her subsequent betrayal last up on the guest list we have straud's consorts ludmila anastrazia valenta and escher they're seated at the head of the table nearest distraught this is an excellent opportunity for you to introduce your characters to these consorts before the late game stages at the late game their ability to interact and show their personality is extremely limited because pretty much everything devolves into combat by that point so here during the dinner don't be afraid to let the personalities of each of these consorts show valenta is almost entirely
silent during the entire dinner except for a bit of body language here and there escher acts polite towards the party seeing a lot of himself in them and their predicament echoes the one that landed him in his current seat lumila and anastrazia are a bit catty they are very prideful and they look down on each one of the adventurers no matter how powerful they are they make little jibes and jabs here and there and some snide comments but other than that they're perfectly harmless before we go on and talk about the actual dinner event i
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let's talk about the actual dinner event and all of those courses and what happens during them despite his brutality and his evil nature straud is still a nobleman at heart as such any dinner event at his home is no small affair he spares no expense and no effort to make this an exquisite dining experience for your characters although he can't leave barovia his reach knows no bounds thanks to the vastani people to prepare for this dinner he has sent them out far and wide beyond the mists to gather all sorts of delightful ingredients that haven't
been seen in brovia for hundreds of years like any fine dining experience dinner at castle ravenloft is split up into multiple courses you have your starter your entree and your dessert each course takes about 30 minutes to an hour to complete leaving plenty of time for dialogue and interaction feel free to run this in real time heck have dinner while you're doing it if you can do it if you can swing it go ahead and actually have a fancy dinner during this gaming session it really adds to the atmosphere and makes a memorable experience if
you're doing this remotely coordinate with all your players and all of you have your own dinner and your own individual courses just to spice things up you don't have to but it makes it a lot of fun whether you're doing an actual in-person dinner or you're just describing a theater of the mind style pay attention to your players dietary preferences for example if you're playing with a group of vegans i wouldn't recommend describing a meat dish coming out in front of their characters so be mindful of what each of your actual real life players prefers
and accommodate that you don't want them to be uncomfortable or find things icky you want them to actually enjoy this experience i'll also add that at no point during the dinner does strawd or any of his consorts actually take part in the food remember they're all dead they're all vampires they just sit there drinking goblets of what our is probably blood let's face it to kick the dinner off we have the starter a bowl of lobster bisque is set in front of each one of the characters at this point straw makes a formal introduction of
himself if one has not already been made previously he also introduces each one of the consorts in turn and then begins to talk about the history of borovia and how things came to be he glosses over some of the gorier bits that involve him turning into a vampire and whatnot and he plays up his role in liberating the land from its previous owners with his story wrapped up he then turns his attention to each one of the characters individually asking about their homelands and their stories and their lives this is a great opportunity for your
players to elaborate on their character backstories and fill in any holes have fun with it improvise and build things up next up we have the entree the lobster bisque is cleared away to be replaced by a plate of sliced tender beef framed by vibrant greens in between each of the characters is a bowl of freshly baked bread and a pad of freshly churned butter by this time of the dinner strad should have a pretty good idea of who all these characters are and where they come from at this point he's going to start pursuing his
overarching goal whether that is finding a consort finding replacement negotiation or whatever else you happen to have in mind for him the entree course is going to be the longest portion of this entire dinner event strada is going to make a point to interact with the characters one-on-one there's gonna be a lot of conversation going back and forth between different npcs different characters and whatnot there's a lot here to keep track of and feel free to let the players interact amongst themselves and have their own little side discussions and whatnot this is a social event
so encourage social interactions once enough time has passed during the entree or straw has decided that he's close enough to achieving his goals or that he's moved that ball forward he calls for the dessert to be brought out the dishes for the entree are cleared and saucers of fresh fruit are brought forth the vibrant reds and yellows of the fruits picked at the height of their seasons contrast heavily with the dark and the shadows of the castle around them at this point depending upon how things have gone during the entree tensions might be high things
might be great i don't know but if tensions are high straw tries to disarm things a little bit and smooth things over with a little joke castle ravenloft has an extensive library just the other day i was reading a book about an immortal dog it was impossible to put down although straud has guaranteed the safety of the characters within his home that doesn't account for the actions of the characters themselves at any point one or more of them can launch an attack against straw or his consorts or anybody else in the dining hall in order
to prevent these hostilities and minimize damage strawd has prepared the wall of force spell if any character shows signs of aggression he immediately casts wall of force to create a barrier between those characters and himself in the consorts at that point he does his best to ease the tensions and get the dinner event back on track i assure you this barrier here is for your protection not mine you're trying to skip the end of the story but we have so many more pages to go if peace can't be achieved strawn and his consorts will disappear
from the dining hall in missed form at that point all of the lights in the castle go out and straw's guarantee of protection goes away the game is on and the party better get the hell out of dodge once the dinner is concluded assuming that the characters didn't draw his ire in one form or another straw invites them to stay the night inside of castle ravenloft even invites them to explore the castle at their leisure minus the lower levels as long as they stay in the upper levels of the castle their safety is guaranteed should
they decide to spend the night cyrus leads them back up to the guest rooms where he attends to their needs and then promptly retires to his own room in area k-66 what happens during the night is entirely up to your players they may decide to explore the castle they may just decide to take a long rest and wake up in the morning it's up to them if they decide to explore the castle pretty much everything is open they can poke their nose here poke their nose there but there are a few areas that aren't so
great for them like i said straw doesn't want them going into the lower levels like the crypt and the dungeons there's some things in there that aren't so friendly and if your characters decide to go plundering the crypts yeah strod might not be too happy with them especially if they decide to plunder sergey's crypt that's a big no-no additionally if they find the treasury by some happenstance the door there that we talk about in this video is not going to take pity on them nor are the giants spiders in the morning assuming they haven't gotten
themselves killed the characters are woken by cyrus he then leads them down into the courtyard where the black carriage is waiting to take them wherever in barovia they want to go straw's guarantee of safe passage lasts until the final character exits the carriage at that point the door slams shut with a bang the horses rear up and then dart over to castle ravenloft it's quite the to do at that point safety is no longer guaranteed and an ambush is not long in coming at your discretion go ahead and throw several vampire spawn along with a
bunch of direwolves at them just to let them know that straw still wants them dead
