Re Va m p e d

The Essential Curse of Strahd Companion

The Town of Vallaki

All is not well with this module guide for
Curse of Strahd

A module guide from Lunch Break Heroes

Credits Patrons
Writer & Designer: Lunch Break Heroes This guide was made possible through the support of
the following patrons.
Special Thanks
The following community members have made sig- Gold Tier
nificant contributions to this guide, either directly or • Justin Mendoza
indirectly. • Keith Nicholson
• u/MandyMod
• u/DragnaCarta Platinum Tier
• u/Ziopliukas • Thomas van Iersel
• u/Attercops
• u/JadeRavens

Artwork
• Maps of Barovia and Krezk: u/Expert-Use
• Other images from Pixabay.com

Disclaimer: Lunch Break Heroes is not liable for any loss

of limbs, sanity, or soul that may arise as a result of using
this guide to traverse the lands of Barovia. We are addi-
tionally indemnified against the effects that any player
might experience after eating at Morgantha’s diner.

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Page ii | Intro
The Town of Vallaki Locations

I
There are ten locations in Vallaki. For each of those lo-
f Death House and the Village of Barovia are cations, jot down a few quick notes about what players
the tutorial and introductory levels of Curse of will find at there. Pay special attention to the Burgo-
Strahd, then the Town of Vallaki is the start of master’s Mansion, Wachterhaus, the Coffin Maker’s
the game proper. Shop, and anywhere that the Fortunes of Ravenloft
The length of the Vallaki’s chapter, combined with point the players. Add any new locations that you wish
the high number of NPCs and events within the town, to add to the town, such as St. Andral’s Orphanage
make it a daunting prospect for many Dungeon Masters. from MandyMod.
There’s a lot going on, and the module as written throws
a lot of it at you and the players within a short period of # Name
time. 1 Town Gates
This guide will walk you through the process of 2 St. Andral’s Church
preparing you for Vallaki by getting you organized and
3 Blue Water Inn
showing you that not everything needs to be thrown at
the players at once. 4 Burgomaster’s Mansion
5 Wachterhaus
6 Arasek Stockyard
Video Companion
Watch the companion video for this chapter on YouTube. 7 Coffin Maker’s Shop
8 Blinsky Toys
9 Town Square
Take Your Time 10 Vistani Camp

Vallaki is a hub, from whence the bulk of the module’s

story branches out. It’s a location that your players Plot Hooks & Quests
are likely to return to time and time again for various
The next list contains all of the plot hooks and quests
reasons.
that start in or around Vallaki, their triggers, and some
Because they’ll be returning to Vallaki many times
notes on their possible outcomes, good or bad. This
over the course of the game, you should take your time
allows you to quickly reference what your players came
with the events in the town. There’s no need to throw
there to do, why, and what can happen one way or an-
everything at your players within the first three days
other.
after their arrival.
Common hooks and quests include the Baron’s miss-
By taking your time and spacing out the individual
ing staff members, killing Izek Strazni, and finding the
events of the town, each event gets its time in the spot-
missing bones of St. Andral. Your adventure may include
light. Additionally, unrelated events won’t be conflated
any number of additional quests and hooks.
with one another due to their chronological proximity.

Prep - Read the Chapter NPCs

The third list you should make contains the NPCs in the
If you haven’t read the chapter for Vallaki, then it’s time
town, and where they might be found at a given time or
to do so. Read it in its entirety at least once, and twice if
under certain circumstances. This is where you should
you have both the time and patience.
also keep notes on the personality and mannerisms of
Prep - Make Some Lists the NPCs.
Not every character is important, and your party
There is a lot of related information scattered through-
probably won’t interact with all of them on a meaningful
out Vallaki’s chapter in the module. To help yourself stay
level, if at all. As such, we’ve organized the NPCs by their
organized, you should make three lists.
level of importance in the table below.
1. Locations
Note that these lists can change depending on your
2. Plot hooks & quests
circumstances, such as who Strahd’s Enemy is in your
3. NPCs
game.

The Town of Vallaki | Page 3

Primary NPCs The Cracked Anvil
These are your star characters in Vallaki, aside from The Cracked Anvil is run by Dmitri Valistov (NG male
the players themselves. These are individuals whom human commoner), a surly man of large stature. Dmitri
you should know inside and out. They should have is adept at shoeing horses and creating basic hunting
their own unique personality that is memorable to the traps, but he is not a weaponsmith or armorsmith. De-
players. spite that, he sells an assortment of low-grade weapons
and armor that you can find in the starting equipment
Primary NPC Name
list of the Player’s Handbook. Each item was taken from
Vargas Vallakovich
the body of a dead adventurer.
Victor Vallakovich
Fiona Wachter The Straight Arrow
Father Lucian Petrovich The Straight Arrow is run by Ana Krogarov (LG female
Danika Dorakova human commoner), a distant cousin of Bluto. She crafts
Urwin Martikov short and long bows of decent quality while her assis-
Izek Strazni tant and son, Duryan (LG male human non-combatant),
crafts arrows and quills.
Rictavio/Rudolph van Richten
Henrik van der Voort Endless Delight Clothiers
Milivoj
The Endless Delight Clothier is run by twin brothers
Harwin and Hewin Yustov (NG male human common-
Secondary NPCs ers). They sell various bolts of cloth, along with basic
These NPCs should have developed motivations, but clothing that is worn by most residents of the town. In
your players aren’t likely to interact with them on a addition, they offer bespoke clothing to those who are
repeated basis. You should expend less effort in devel- willing to pay a higher price.
oping these characters. Player characters who are looking to venture into the
mountains may also find warm weather clothing that
Secondary NPC Name will protect them from sub-zero temperatures.
Stella Wachter
Nikolai Wachter Jr. Stefanovich & Sons Apothecary
Karl Wachter Gregor Stefanovich (LE male human commoner) has no
Bluto Krogarov children, but decided that having the words “and sons”
in his shop’s name would garner more trust in his busi-
Yeska
ness. He is also not a true apothecary, and peddles fake
Gadof Blinsky “cure all” potions to anyone who ventures into his store.
Lydia Petrovna Unbeknownst to Gregor, several items on his shelf are
real and potent, such as the bottle of Alchemist’s Fire
Tertiary NPCs and several Potions of Healing.
This is everyone else in town. These are the “back- St. Andral’s Orphanage
ground extras” that you can pull from when you have
St. Andral’s Orphanage is a popular addition to Curse of
need of a random NPC interaction. Many of these can be
Strahd, written by Reddit user MandyMod. It provides
combined into composite characters, or omitted alto-
additional quest hooks into the Werewolf’s den later in
gether.
the module, and it also increases the difficulty of finding
Add Shops and returning the bones of St. Andral to the church.
You may find MandyMod’s full writeup here.
While Barovia is not a bustling center of commerce, and
This guide makes modifications and extensions to the
resource scarcity is part of the horror genre, a town like
St. Andral’s Orphanage quest, which are outlined below.
Vallaki ought to have more shops than simply a general
store and a toy shop.
You may add the following shops in order to provide
your players with more activities within town, and a
greater ability to prepare for the harshness of the Baro-
vian wilderness.

Page 4 | The Town of Vallaki

Milivoj’s Story
Milivoj lives at the orphanage as a part time caretaker.
After three orphan boys went missing, he contracted the
wolf hunters at the Blue Water Inn to find them. In order
to get the money to hire the hunters, he was manipulat-
ed by Ernst Larnak into stealing the bones of St. Andral
and giving them to the coffin maker.
Now, Milivoj has fallen mysteriously ill, and lies cata-
tonic in his bedroom. In order to discover the location of
the bones, players will have to cure Milivoj or find them
by some other means.
The Headmistress’s Troubles
Inside the orphanage, players will find the stern head-
mistress, Claudia Belasco. She’s doing her best to juggle
the problem of a sick and dying Milivoj with the perva-
sive nightmares and unexplained bruises on nearly all of
the children in her care.
If the party investigates, they’ll discover that a new
addition to the orphanage, Felix, is being influenced by a
shadow demon who inhabits a locket that Felix carries.
The demon is working through Felix to deliver terrible
nightmares to the children of the orphanage, while
sucking away Milivoj’s life essence in order to break free
from the locket.
When players confront Felix, they’ll likely fight the
demon. If it feels like the players are too big a threat,
the demon will do its best to escape with Felix into the
hustle and bustle of Vallaki.
If the players catch the demon and kill it, then Milivoj
wakes up and tells the players all about the missing
bones of St. Andral. However, if Felix and his demon ar-
en’t caught and dealt with, they’ll hide in a crypt in the
church graveyard. In 1d4 days, Milivoj will die and the
demon will break free of its prison.
A Demon on the Loose
If the demon is freed, it will take full possession of Felix
and begin to hunt down orphans that were recently ad-
opted out. One family will die each night for 1d4+3 days.
After the first three days, the townsfolk demand justice.
In lieu of any known perpetrator, the Baron will arrest
Claudia Belasco and attempt to burn her at the stake to
appease the bloodthirsty masses.
The demon will go on killing after that until it runs out
of families, or the players kill the demon. If the players
do not kill the demon, it leaves Vallaki and takes up resi-
dence in the Amber Temple.
Players may find clues as to which family is next by ex-
amining a ledger of recent adoptions in Claudia’s office.
The ledger shows which orphans have been adopted out
to families inside of Vallaki, which are the demon’s next
targets.
Vasili von Holtz
Vasili von Holtz is Strahd’s alter ego. He uses the guise of
Vasili to move among the people of Barovia and to act as
his own representative in diplomatic matters.
During the game, Vasili is a great way to get Strahd to
personally interact with your party, gather information,
and subtly work against them. You may introduce him to
the party at any point after the players pass Old Bone-
grinder—either on the road as a traveler in need of help,
or in Vallaki as a friendly face.
Vasili, on the surface, is friendly, helpful, and informa-
tive. He claims to come by his wealth of knowledge by
way of his work around town as an accountant. When
asked, however, no shop keeper remembers ever work-
ing with someone named Vasili.
Despite his friendly facade, Strahd (acting as Vasili) is
always working against the party in some subtle fashion.
Some popular methods are wooing Ireena to get her
away from the party, sowing mistrust among the party
members, and giving the party items that work against
them.
For example, Vasili can send the party out to retrieve
a wagon shipment that he was expecting, only for the
players to find a suit of plate armor that is, in reali-
ty, Strahd’s Animated Armor. If one of your players
equips it, then all Strahd has to do at an opportune
moment is speak a command word, and the armor turns
against the player.
If your players don’t know that Strahd can walk
around in the Barovian daytime, then having Vasili walk
around Vallaki during the day is a great way to throw
even the most suspicious player off his scent. You can
also have him court Ireena on the church grounds while
the bones are gone, which is another good deflection for
suspicious players.
Despite Strahd’s skill in disguising himself, there are
a couple of things that can give Vasili away. The first is
the old letter in Wachterhaus from Vasili to Lovina. This
is an incredibly old letter, and the handwriting matches
that in the Tome of Strahd. The second is Vasili’s house—
an idea from DragnaCarta. The house is locked up tight
like nothing else in Vallaki, but if the players do man-
age to break in, they’ll find an empty house covered in
dust that hasn’t been used in decades. These two clues
should be enough to let any party of players know that
Vasili von Holtz is more than what he claims to be.
The Town of Vallaki | Page 5
The Feast of St. Andral
The biggest problem with the Feast of St. Andral event is
its timeline. According to the module, it takes place on
the same night as the Festival of Blazing Sun, three days
after the player’s arrival. We recommend pushing it out
so that the Feast event takes place ten days after the
players arrive in Vallaki, as well as changing things so
that Father Lucian only notices the missing bones seven
days after the players arrive.
This change to the timeline sets the Feast event apart
from other events in the town and gives your players
the opportunity to get comfortable within Vallaki and
get to know its residents. It also gives Strahd time to
visit Ireena in the guise of Vasili von Holtz.

New Motivations
Very little is written about Strahd’s motivations for the
Feast event in the module. We aim to rectify that by
fleshing out the purpose for attacking the church of St.
Andral.
Here, Strahd aims to manipulate Ireena in to believing
that the only safe place for her is Castle Ravenloft. To
that end, he instructs his bride, Anastrasya, to conduct
the attack on the church.
Anastrasya is not a normal vampire spawn. She pos-
sesses a will of her own, and acts to further her own
goals. She and Strahd’s other brides have become jeal-
ous of Ireena and the time that Strahd is spending on
her. Because of his, Anastrasya aims to kill Ireena during
the attack on the church.
During the attack, Anastrasya actively searches for
Ireena. When things seem at their worst, Strahd arrives
in the guise of Vasili to save Ireena. Anastrasya takes
that opportunity to reveal Vasili’s true identity to Ireena.
In turn, Strahd sends his bride and the spawn back to
Castle Ravenloft, or kills them all in a rage.

Page 6 | The Town of Vallaki