Curse of Strahd - Death House Script
Curse of Strahd - Death House Script
"Rock! Paper! Scissors! Shoot!" little Thorn shouts. The souls, chanting that echoes off of every stone and corner
padlock clinks noisily as you work on its lock, then of this wretched place, rising and falling in intonation, the
clatters to the ground. The children hush as you open the words too distant, too faint to discern, but eerie and
door. The gloom strangles this place. You spot two child- incessant. The chanting caresses you like an old lover, too
sized beds, a toy chest, and a dollhouse—it's a perfect far-gone to be touched, but too close to be forgotten.
out across the room in a rhythm. Something seizes your arm! Something sharp, something
If a character passes within 5 feet of the well, the slimy, and wet and ravenous. A beast with four fanged
ghoul attempts to seize them, making a grappling tentacles for a mouth lunges for you!
check. Read:
Fingers tickle your wrist—then seize onto your arm. From
the black waters a rotted face splits into a fanged, yellow
smile!
29. GHOULISH ENCOUNTER (PG. 218) THE SHADOWS ALIVE
Four ghouls lay in this passageway, ready to make a If the characters touch the statue or take the orb, the
bad day worse for our intrepid, unlucky adventurers. five shadows manifest and attack. Your players will
The air is thick with rot and filth. Your steps sound... probably be slaughtered like defenseless, mewling
sheep, so if you want to give them one last chance to
hollow. Dust chokes the four-way tunnel, harshly boogie back from the edge of ruin, read:
throwing back your lamplight. As you venture further into A foul wind sweeps this place—one by one, shadows
the dark, the earth begins to churn! Rotted limbs burst amass into thin figures, each hissing, shrieking,
from the clay: four corpses shamble toward you, their demanding, "Return the orb! Begone from this place!"
howls rending the nighted depths!
32. HIDDEN TRAPDOOR (PG. 219)
VARIANT: SINGING GHOULS To notice the secret door to this area from Area 31
If you're using the Singing Ghouls variant described requires a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Perception)
above, only two ghouls are present in this area, and check, as noted in the module.
they can be heard with a passive Perception score of Behind the clay-layered door, stairs climb to a cramped
12. Mindless now in their hunger, the ghouls snarl
and shamble throughout the dark. Read: platform from which a ladder ascends... and above it, a
As you creep throughout the dark, the tunnels close in. trapdoor, bolted shut from this side. With an acrid taste in
Dust smothers the crossroads of the passageway. The your throat, you steel yourself, undo the bolt, and throw
stench of rot and filth invades your throat like a would-be open the door. First you notice the paws of a wolf—and
conqueror—and in the distance come echoing guttural you soon realize you're back in the den on the first floor
snarls as foul creatures shamble throughout the depths. of the manor. Curious, since you never spotted even the
hint of a trapdoor earlier.
30. STAIRS DOWN (PG. 218)
Stairs fall before you—and it's in those black depths that 33. CULT LEADERS' DEN (PG. 219)
that wretched chanting comes. The lizard at the back of The chamber is barren but for a rusting chandelier
your throat warns you away, begs you to leave this place... suspended over a table flanked by two high-backed chairs.
but there is only one way but forward. Dare you? The candlesticks standing in the corners of the room have
long since melted away. Two doors lead to nearby halls.
31. DARKLORD'S SHRINE (PG. 218)
Skeletons hang from rusty shackles. The chanting echoes MIMICRY OF A DOOR
dismally in this place. At the far end of the hall stands a Because this place wasn't deadly enough already, a
mimic has made itself into a door. If the characters
painted statue carved in the likeness of a gaunt man
approach the southwestern door (possibly from Area
dressed in a black cloak, his hand on the head of the 31), the mimic attacks the first creature to touch it.
faithful wolf at his side. In his right hand, the statue holds Read:
You reach out for the door—it doesn't budge. You try
a smoky-gray crystal orb that casts a pale sheen across the
again, failing, and when you find that you can't pull away
floor.
your hand is when the panic sets in. The door shivers,
sprouting a pair of glossy eyes and far too many fangs.
Snarling, this, this thing closes its jaws on your arm!
34. CULT LEADERS' QTRS. (PG. 219) 37. PORTCULLIS (PG. 219)
A spacious but dinghy chamber sweeps out before you. A The stairs descend to murky water, ending at a rusty iron
bedroom. The moldy feather mattress rots atop its portcullis. Beyond your reach, you spot the edge of a
bedframe. A wardrobe leans against the earthen wall. At wooden wheel embedded into the wall, and beyond that
the foot of the bed sits a footlocker. lies only darkness. Darkness and chanting: "He is the
Ancient. He is the Land."
MEET THE DURSTS
The lovely hosts have somehow managed to pack
themselves up behind a faux wall of clay, waiting for 38. RITUAL CHAMBER (PG. 219)
the day that Death House lures more fools into its The waters lap hungrily at your ankles, sending ripples
godforsaken halls. When a character takes an object
throughout its black surface. The chanting, that insidious,
from the lockbox, these two ghasts attack. Read:
The footlocker is unlocked, and full of assorted wretched, incessant, unforgiving chanting falls short.
possessions—a cloak, a yellowing leather book, a flask of All's quiet. All. A ledge lines this chamber, overlooking a
strange liquid, four scarlet vials. As you're digging dais that rises from the dark water. Chains suspended
through it, you hear something shift behind you. Nothing from the ceiling swing above a bloodstained altar carved
but the earthen wall. You turn back to your loot, pulling with gruesome depictions of grasping ghouls.
out a chainmail shirt. Then comes the sound again. Just as
"ONE MUST DIE!"
you turn back, the wall crumbles in a great clatter! Two Once a character climbs the dais, the show starts and
ghastly black-robed figures burst from the wall, snarling, death dances around the corner. Read:
You climb the dais. The bloodstained altar stands before
their claws long and yellow! These undead crouch, then
you, whispering its tales to you. Red tales. At the far end
leap forward, shrieking out a dirge—a dirge for you.
of this vile chamber, a mound of refuse—bones,
detritus—molders in a small alcove.
35. RELIQUARY (PG. 219)
Alcoves stocked with grisly trophies line the chamber—a Shivers dance up your spine. It's as if the entire chamber
severed finger, a mummified hand, the shrunken head of awaits you with bated breath... And just as you reach the
a halfling, and more. The chanting has swollen into one final step, an ill wind blows throughout the depths—
great song that shakes the very stones of this wretched thirteen shadowy figures manifest on the ledge, wielding
place, and at last you can discern its lyrics: "He is the black torches that seem to swallow light. Their faces are
Ancient" a legion voice sings, "He is the Land. He is the but voids, and in one great union they chant, "One must
Ancient. He is the Land. He is the Ancient. He is the die! One must die! ONE MUST DIE!"
Land."
LORGHOTH THE DECAYER
If the cult is denied its sacrifice, they awaken the
36. PRISON (PG. 219) shambling mound, Lorghoth the Decayer. I, for one,
A prison yawns before you in a dismal gloom. You almost
think they have it coming.
Disgusted, you turn to leave the altar—the shadowy
even hear the creak of long undisturbed shackles. The
figures hiss, and their cries of ritual sacrifice turn to,
walls and floors are stained a dull red. A macabre trail
"Lorghoth! Lorghoth! We awaken thee, Lorghoth! Rise,
leads to a lone skeleton at the far end of the hall.
Decayer! Rise!" The chamber quivers, shakes! Dust falls
Something gleams on its finger. Something gold.
from the ceiling. The mound of refuses shudders with
newfound life, a teeming mass of vines and decay!
ENDINGS SMOKE
A choice must be made: selflessness or selfishness? The room boils with smoke black as night and poisonous
as a viper's kiss. Pain blooms in your very lungs, your
THE CULT IS APPEASED (PG. 220)
guts. You taste bile at the end of your throat and know that
If the adventurers sacrifice a creature on the altar,
Death House harries them no longer. Read: the End is on Its way.
And just like that... All is quiet. Where once the hall
RATS IN THE WALLS
thundered with cries of ritual sacrifice, there is only
The wall crumbles beneath your strike, brittle as glass!
brooding silence. The blood streams down the altar,
Swarms upon swarms of rats surge out from the walls like
running through the cracks of the dais. The full weight of
arterial blood, gnashing their yellow teeth, squealing
what you've done has yet to be realized—it is instead to
together in one deafening chorus.
manifest in your dreams for months and years to come, to
haunt your every move like a shadow, to rest in your ESCAPING DEATH HOUSE
It's up to you to narrate the party's flight from the
bones like a sickness, never quite excised.
manor. There are too many choices consider, so just
In deafening silence, you and your remaining make it your own. Here's something to start you off:
companions leave this wretched place. The halls are eerily The very manor shakes in rage—bricks fall from the
quiet, but no danger abounds. The spirits that haunt this ceiling in a shower of dust, crashing into the waters, the
place seem... satisfied. Smug, even. The air is thick with dais, sending up plumes of stone shrapnel. You race from
it. As you leave this house of death behind, you know the dungeon, the dark halls pregnant with insects, all
deep in your secret heart that here you'll stay forever. That writhing and twisting in some mute agony unheard by
no matter where you go on this earth, the Death House men. All about you sing the wails of those void-faced
goes with you. spirits, howling their wounded disgust, howling for what
they're owed: you.
THE CULT IS DENIED (PG. 220)
Death House will not be denied its due. Here's SURVIVING DEATH HOUSE
sample text for the traps it lays; refer to pg. 220. Depending on the fortunes of the adventurers, you
might need to play around with this last text:
WINDOWS Death surrounds you. Through those blasphemous halls
You peel back the curtains, and with a mounting horror you run, the wails of the dead chasing you down like rabid
find that the glass has been replaced with brick. Whatever dogs, thundering about in this endless gloom until
spirits haunt this wretched house have no intention of finally—finally—you hurl yourself out from that acursed
letting you leave. manor and into the mist.
DOORS Now, and only now, do you know why the neighboring
Where there were once doors are now slashing scythes, homes are boarded up, abandoned. Only now do you
stained red in the blood of past victims. Doors to understand the full scope of this horror—the debauchery
something new, then. Doors to death. committed in those nighted depths.
You've escaped this house of death... at a cost. Paid in
either blood or sanity or shattered dreams. Will you ever
truly escape the Death House? Or shall it shadow you
from these days and on, forevermore?
WHAT'S NEXT?
The adventurers, surely shell-shocked, some
possibly even dead, are likely to seek that one
universal solace: wine. The streets, they'll notice, are
no longer choked by mist, and at the heart of this
dismal village lies the Blood of the Vine Tavern,
wherein they will meet Ismark Kolyana. That
heartbroken, wretch of a man will turn to them with
pity shining in his dull eyes, and tell them in no
uncertain terms, "Welcome to Barovia."
ARTWORK
Credit goes to Enrique Meseguer's Cathedral,
released under the Creative Commons license on
Pixabay.com.
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