Strahd throughout the Ages (of D&D)

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE OLDER VERSIONS OF RAVENLOFT AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

While reading through the 5e version of Curse of Strahd I was floored by how well thought out and characterized the land of Barovia was. But there was a bit of a discrepancy to me. See, my first foray into Ravenloft was not as a DM, but as a player over 15 years ago with the 3.5 module Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. There were items missing from the 2014 version that I remembered adoring in that campaign. And when I asked to borrow that book from my old DM, sure enough there was a ton of missing content that had been replaced! Whether those changes are necessarily better for worse obviously will vary from any given play group, but I thought it might be fun to list some of the changes that the battle against Strahd has had.

RAVENLOFT

The original adventure from 1983, and also the shortest. A campaign designed to only last three levels from 5-7. This is a classic haunted castle, with almost the entire campaign happening within the walls of Castle Ravenloft.

• Strahd is not trapped in Barovia. In fact, he is the only person not trapped. No Dark Powers tormenting him, and no constant cycle of reincarnation for Tatyana. Here, Barovia is just a secluded land hidden by his mists that he controls the gates in and out of. Similarly though, Strahd is just as weak to the sunlight there as he would be anywhere else. Essentially, he is a scheming tyrant in full control.
• Strahd will only have one motivation for the duration of the campaign and he specifically lured the PCs to Barovia for the purpose of completing them. Four options are listed and they all have very interesting twists:
  • He could seek the love of Ireena, but he very specifically wants her to love him willingly. His plan is to charm all the PCs protecting her, and then swoop in to save her as the hero while the PCs try to kill her. (Oddly enough, think Syndrome from the Incredibles)
  • He could want to finish creating a magical artifact that would generate a permanent sphere of darkness, which would give him free reign to travel anywhere he liked. He mistakenly believes that the PCs have the final piece and will try to isolate them one by one to figure out which one has it. When he realizes the answer is none of them, he tries to slaughter them all in rage
  • He could want to destroy the Sunsword. The module actually insists that at least one PC start as a sword wielding fighter, because that character specifically will start using the the the blade of the Sunsword (which is made of a blue glass like steel) as a normal sword with the incorrect hilt. Finding the true hilt will turn it into the full Sunsword.
  • Perhaps the most novel, Strahd may want to replace a PC. His plan is to turn one of them into a vampire, then polymorph into them while he places the original in his coffin. Then he'll claim he found a secret way out of Barovia and leave with them to start a new life. The plan is to essentially replace that PC and move to another country with no wandering rumors that there is a vampire on the loose.
• The campaign is small, as in the only locations really are Castle Ravenloft, Barovia, and Svalich Road in between. Everything else was added later. No Vallaki, No Krezk, even Dusk Elves and the Amber Temple are missing!
• Notable encounters are wildly different:
  • There is no Heart of Sorrow, but instead the Guardian of Sorrow! Where instead of the Heart connecting to Strahd, it connects to the tower it is found in instead, animating it and turning the spire into a living trap!
  • The majority of the other named encounters are instead somewhat generic halloween style monsters, witches, ghosts, ghouls, worgs, and such
  • Crazily enough, the crypts are just as odd a mix of serious tombs with plot relevance and silly puns as it is now.
  • Speaking of which, the catacombs are now covered in a moving black ceiling, which in reality is the 3000 bats that live in the castle. Nasty.
• The Cast List is incredibly small
  • Strahd, who is a tenth level caster but otherwise a relatively normal vampire
  • Ireena, who is a 4th level fighter, which in campaign that only runs from 5-7 puts her close with any PC
  • Madame Eva, who's role remains relatively the same with the exceptions that she is a normal human with no other connection to Strahd, who only serves him as a matter of convenience. Her people, not yet called the Vistani, have a potion that Strahd gave them to let the safely travel the mists, but it is impossible for the PCs to find it.
  • Donavich, who makes a point to mention that famously Strahd is incredibly meticulous and would likely have a book somewhere that he could have accidentally recorded an exploitable weakness (The Tome of Strahd). Doru is nowhere to be found.
  • Ismark appears, but basically just to point people to Ireena
  • Oddly enough Mad Mary and Gertruda are there as well with their story basically being the exact same
  • The inside of the castle has some familiar faces as well, though I was definitely surprised to see which ones made it all the way to CoS because they are definitely lacking some of the more well known standouts
    • Helga the maid, doing the exact same trick but as a full fledged vampire
    • Lief Lipsiege, also performing his begrudging role as the accountant
    • Cyrus Belview, still just as giggly at the thought of watching the PCs die, but without the mongrelfolk
    • Sasha Ivliskova, a rather nondescript Barovian who serves now as the only Bride of Strahd
    • Patrina Velikovna, still the would be bride with her story relatively similar, but now a banshee from a normal elf
    • An Beucephalus, 'The Wonder Horse', as our good old nightmare
    • There is also an unnamed Werewolf in prison that acts exactly the same as Emil does in later additions
• The basic campaign is simple and effective. Try to survive in Castle Ravenloft long enough to find the weapons against Strahd, and kill him quickly. Strahd's spies report back to him four times a day and have a 60% chance to tell him the party's precise location. If he knows either from them or by learning it himself, he will make a move against the party within the next 2 hours. From there he acts much like modern strahd. Hit the party, get as much bang for his buck as his motivation dictates, and get out of there. Without the ability to phase through walls naturally.
• The Tarokka reading is relatively the same, with two notable exceptions. The first is that the 'fated ally' is replaced with one of Strahd's motivations listed above. The second is that because it uses the a standard playing card deck, the suit of the card pulled will either grant a buff or debuff to encourage players to either fight there or run.
• Once Strahd's dead, he's dead forever. The mists disappear and Ireena awakens as Tatyana to reunite with Sergei's ghost.

HOUSE OF STRAHD

Power Creep is a hell of a thing. At this point, Ravenloft had been around long enough that more and more powerful creatures and PCs came to challenge the relative threat of Strahd. So much so that in this adventure Strahd was printed with TWO statblocks. One to challenge low level parties around 6-8, and one to challenge parties up to level 13, where he acts a 16th level caster with access to eight level spells as he is now a true Darklord! And that is far from the only change to this more refined vampire hunt.

• A bit more on Strahd here. The man is now a more melancholy necromancer, trying desperately to beat the Dark Powers, but never succeeding. the book becomes even more explicit about his tactics, even pointing out specific opportunities for attack in any given room.
  • He still has his spies report on the party's location every two hours, where the chance to know where they are is down to 50%. But that is only outside the castle. Inside, Strahd always knows where they are and can attack them constantly, though the book does say he needs a minimum of a half four between random attacks.
  • The book also points out a very specific weakness for Strahd. Namely that he wants to scare the PCs far more than he wants to kill them. That urge to play with his food is explicitly named as an exploit the PCs can use against him.
  • We also have the birth of the Cursed Strahd. Now officially inside a Demiplane of Dread, Strahd's variable motivations are the same as before, but they are now all secondary to possessing Ireena and turning her into a vampire bride. And now many of them have new twists
    • The book actually makes a very clear distinction about his feelings for Ireena. His primary motivation is to possess Ireena, but making her fall in love with him first is secondary. His plan to make Ireena the human love him is guaranteed to fail as fate will not allow her to ever fall in love with Strahd. Once he realizes this, he'll go for broke, turn Ireena into a vampire, and the two of them will slaughter the party.
    • The Sunsword is now even more of a threat to him. The light it radiates will instantly paralyze him for one round before contingency spells he has kick in,
    • His plan to create a sphere of darkness is completely unchanged
    • His attempt to leave Barovia disguised as a PC is now motivated by his desire to escape Barovia. This plan is doomed to fail as well, and he will try to kill the PCs in a fit of rage when it does
  • Strahd also has access to a unique horrific spell: Strahd's Malefic Meld. The spell takes two monsters, say a wolf and a giant spider, and forcibly melds them together into a single nightmare creature with characteristics of both.
  • The defeat condition for Strahd is now merely to bring him down to 0 hp or to activate his contingency. Essentially Strahd declares that the party is more trouble than they are worth and agrees to lift the mist for them. Or they can have the option to venture into Ravenloft to stake his heart, which is a much more difficult endeavor. Either way, Strahd is now coming back in 20 years
• The Vistani are now officially here in name. And now there is the knowledge that they don't all serve Strahd. The same potion exists, and is just as difficult to find. But the Tarokka reading Madame Eva gives is far more in depth. It is no longer just a simple reading but a full performance, with every character meant to pick a card closest to their class, with Madame Eva flipping the card for Strahd's motivation.
• Strahd is still totally vulnerable to the sunlight of Barovia, and the book takes advantage of that with a full on clock. Every action a person could take has a time it takes to do it, ticking the clock closer and closer to sundown. Players have to spend their time officially, or end up in a very precarious position when night falls.
• The cast is relatively unchanged, but several of them have been expanded on.
  • Ismark is stronger, and much easier to gain the trust of
  • Donavich is renamed Donovan and is similarly several levels higher
  • Angry mobs are now running rampant as well
• The rest of the book is primarily rebalancing, with the artifacts being more effective against Strahd specifically. Traps are finetuned, monsters are stronger, new ones like gargoyle golems and living paintings are added, and overall trying to survive in Castle Ravenloft is just that little bit harder
• The book came part of a box set for the Ravenloft Campaign setting, so while the whole area was expanded, it was expected that you had access to other materials, which makes certain references a bit more difficult to run. For Clarity, everything I referenced is what is contained within House of Strahd as a stand alone book

EXPEDITION TO CASTLE RAVENLOFT

If Ravenloft is a classic haunted castle, and House of Strahd is a vampire hunt, then the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is a full on action horror movie. No longer are we stuck in the village of Barovia, now we explore the land of Barovia. A full campaign from levels 6-10, the book really delves into Strahd's connection with the land of Barovia itself.

• First off, the length. I hadn't mentioned it yet because of the more isolated nature of the campaigns, but this is where Ravenloft really gets into the nitty gritty. Ravenloft was about 30 pages, and House of Strahd was 60. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft clocks in at a mighty 220 pages for a five level campaign. For comparison, Curse of Strahd is 256 for a ten level campaign. Holy Hell…
• Strahd himself. The man has now gone full supervillain. He claims to be the first vampire now, though there is absolutely no evidence to support this. And he now commands a much vaster spread of powerful named allies to protect his interests and advance his wishes.
  • The biggest change is absolutely his connection with the land. In this version, Strahd took the time to learn every ancient secret of the land and found three Ancient Fanes, and claimed their power as his own. Until the 'saints' guarding the fanes are defeated, they will continue to supply Strahd with powers that make him nigh unkillable. The Forest Fane grants him the effects of a permanent Nondetection spell making him impossible to track. The mountain fane grants him a permanent force armor that massively increases his AC in a manner that protects him even from incorporeal attacks. It even remains active while in gaseous form. And the Swamp Fane gives him resistance to many common damage types.
  • He lacks almost all common vampire weaknesses, and can enter all buildings at will. Notably, he can still be turned by clerics, but not permanently held off. Strahd still has his weakness to Sunlight and is still not immune to the light of Barovia, but he has created a powerful workaround that allows him to walk in the daylight as long as it survives. More on that later…
  • Now his motivations. Of course Ireena is always his number one priority. Strahd visiting Ireena three times has been a consistent part of their story in every module but here it is explicitly stated that this is Strahd's twisted idea of wooing her. He spent the last two visits using his Dominate ability to force her into complacency and drain blood bit by bit and has will finish the conversion on the third bite. Horribly, Ireena doesn't know that she is still under the effect of a Dominate Person and Strahd plans to activate that ability at the most opportune time for himself. This obsession is still his primary motivation, but Strahd's secondary goal is once again variable. In fact, the fake letter to the PCs that is supposed to lure them in to Ravenloft is penned in a manner that will lead to them solving Strahd's problem for him. Only one of these threats happens in the campaign RAW, but they are all doozies:
    • A coven of witches could be planning to challenge the mighty Strahd for control of the land. Baba Zelenna has gathered these witches at Lysaga Hill to summon a demon powerful enough to defeat Strahd. As long as the PCs are witch hunting, Strahd will even send allies to help support their fight. If they have taken no other major action against him, Strahd even calls them allies
    • Years of depravity and undeath may have caused Strahd to grow mad, and I do mean that literally. In this version, Strahd's madness has grown so great that it has physically manifested in the castle as a shapeless spawn that now controls Castle Ravenloft. While it is in play, Strahd is fully mad, acting erratically, almost feral. He'll cast spells with no regard for who gets caught them, he'll always attack the last person who managed to hit him. All the while Ireena is getting tormented with the after effect of his madness as well. And the longer the PCs let it remain, the more likely they'll grow mad as well. Killing the madness spawn restores Strahd to normal and stops the spread of madness, though he is forever changed by the event.
    • Strahd may want to create an army of vampires blessed with the same gift to endure the sunlight he himself has. Here, he tries to rush the party to the castle so he can convert them one by one. Here the battle is not just between Strahd, but between the party itself as they are made to wonder if anyone has turned.
    • If brutality is more your speed, perhaps Strahd is trying to bring the werewolves into his fold. Savage slasher movie like attacks continue until the beasts in Svalich woods are dealt with one way or another. Even then, Strahd himself will start savagely ripping Barovians to shreds if he believes they helped the party in defeating powerful allies.
    • Or he may want to cover the world in undeath. This version is a necromancer once more. He brings the PCs to Barovia, with the explicit intention of releasing them again as carriers of an undead plague. The campaign becomes a race against the clock to stop the entire village of Barovia from falling to undeath.
• Once more, Barovia is no longer placed in the domains of dread. Instead the book offers several suggestions as to how to incorporate the adventure into the various other worlds of Dnd, with options for the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and even in a D20 modern campaign. Here, the mists act more as a natural barrier then a supernatural one, as many of the adventure hooks rely on the idea of getting in and getting out.
• That transitions nicely to the village of Barovia itself. Arrival to the town is not as quiet as it is in other versions. Here Barovia is the victim of a full on zombie attack that the PCs must fend off regardless of the scenario. The center of this outbreak is the newly added Doru. Here Danovich (Not Donavich) discovered a book that could bring back the dead, and after his son was killed by bandits, he used it. He doesn't care who dies as long as his son lives, and is far too crazed to realize this undeath is no longer living.
• Unlike before, the Vistani are not a specific ethnicity of people. In expedition, they are a gang of humans and halflings, that are explicitly bandit types. Here this band of criminals engage in whatever illegal enterprises they want with Strahd's protection, making them fanatically loyal to him.
• Speaking of Vistani, Madame Eva is no longer a member of them. She still uses them as she likes, and still performs the reading, but Madame Eva is now much more directly tied to serving Strahd. First off, she's an Annis Hag now, extra big and everything. And she serves as the protector of one of the Fanes. And the reason she's willing to help the party while still remaining loyal to Strahd is greatly changed. In this version she used to be human, but when Strahd claimed the Fanes, she and her sisters got changed into hags to serve as guardians for them. She wants to be free from Strahd's control, but she is also incredibly wary that while it is possible to resotre a fane with a holy relic, the fastest way to restore her Fane would be to kill her. So she is constantly walking this tightrope of helping but not so much that she'll be doomed. Her reading tells the PCs the same things as before, but the fifth card now reveals the source of the zombies in Barovia, which is always the same answer no matter the card.
• Madame Eva is not the only servant of Strahd to be greatly expanded on. Sasha, the one room vampire from the original now has a much more prominent role. She was the former Burgomaster of Barovia who distracted Strahd for a time by letting him give her his undivided as a wife. But he eventually got bored with her, turned her into a vampire, and locked her in her crypt. She is now let loose only to act as a spy for Strahd against the party.
• There are other unique enemies that only appear here as well. Kavan the Grim is a vampire Strahd created as an experiment to perfect his ability to make Daywalkers. While other vampires apart from Strahd still suffer from sunlight aversion, Kavan's successful conversion allows this barbarian to tear through his enemies in broad daylight with vampiric strength, There is also Varikov the Trapper, an insane dwarf who has shifted from hunting wolves to hunting humanoids, more than happy to skin any who fall victim to him.
• But enemies are not the only new addition, as there are unique allies for the party as well! Two factions. The Knights of the Raven are a holy order devoted to fighting the undead. They believed good could only shine in the face of evil, and were nearly brought to extinction when Strahd conquered the valley. Now there are only two members left, and one of them isn't quite living. There's also the Lightbringers, a guild of undead hunters. While they may not have the skill of the knights, they have vastly more resources.
• The artifacts are all the same, but now finding them is not enough. The key ones, like the Sunsword are not at full power when you find them, and have to have their powers unlocked by completing various tasks around Barovia
• And finally, the Castle itself.
  • The heart was the change that inspired this post in the first place. It is no longer the Guardian of Sorrow animating the Tower in the first two adventures, and it is not the Heart of Sorrow that offers Strahd a certain threshold of damage immunity in Curse of Strahd. Here it is the Dayheart. The Dayheart is Strahd's workaround to defeat his weakness to sunlight. Any vampire linked to it is totally immune to daylight. It is impossibly hard to break, as it has been additionally fortified by a barbed devil. And until Strahd perfects his ability to perfect making Daywalkers like Kavan, he and every other vampire he makes are reliant on it to be dominant in Barovia.
  • The castle is also decidedly more hellish, filled with devil worshiping warlocks, shadow demons, and a sacrificial altar to something called The Blood God
  • In a bit of an error, the expedition doesn't actually give the adventure a section detailing the ending. Instead the adventure notes several events happening when Strahd is defeated spread throughout the book. Mainly that when found in his tomb, Strahd is weak but still able to beg for his life, offering whatever he can think of to guarantee mercy. If the players still kill him, Sergei is reunited with Tatyana, Strahd permanently dies and Barovia is finally able to start rebuilding.

And with all that those changes from the first edition to Curse of Strahd, there are still dozens of things I didn't mention. from the introduction of Saint Markovia, to the subtle changes to the tome of Strahd in every edition. And that's not to forget the sequel adventures that Strahd appears in, though since those aren't nearly in the same vain as Castle Ravenloft, I'm going to ignore them for my own sanity.

After going through the adventures, watching the evolution of Strahd, both the vampire and the campaign has been fascinating. There are so many parts of his story that I've read for Curse of Strahd that people mention as core components of his character that aren't even present in some of the adventures. The domains of dread are only mentioned in two adventures, and the Dark Powers tormenting Strahd are only present in one! The nature of the Vistani change in every book, and Madame Eva has a significantly different nuance in almost every one. Ireena seems to be the one remarkably consistent point across every adventure. Somewhat fitting for the story of Strahd in canon and IRL. And Strahd himself changes from a sadistic tyrant with free reign, to a patient yet melancholy darklord, to a machiavellan supervillain able to wield his enemies like a knife against each other, and finally to abusive conqueror incapable of recognizing his own flaws.

I'm sure there are things I have missed, but really after all of this, I'm just impressed how no matter the version Strahd always manages to loom over the narrative. And no matter how he dies, another group of players will always come back to Ravenloft and find the Devil Strahd waiting for them.