Welcome back to The Chris Abraham Show. This episode collects Sessions 27 28 and 29 of our Dungeons and Dragons campaign The Curse of Strahd and turns them into one continuous descent into Castle Ravenloft.If you are not a D and D person, here is the simple setup. Our small band of adventurers is trapped in Barovia, a mist locked valley ruled by Strahd von Zarovich, an ancient vampire lord with the patience of a spider and the manners of a king. We have been trying to protect Ireena Kolyana from...
Welcome back to The Chris Abraham Show. This episode collects Sessions 27 28 and 29 of our Dungeons and Dragons campaign The Curse of Strahd and turns them into one continuous descent into Castle Ravenloft.
If you are not a D and D person, here is the simple setup. Our small band of adventurers is trapped in Barovia, a mist locked valley ruled by Strahd von Zarovich, an ancient vampire lord with the patience of a spider and the manners of a king. We have been trying to protect Ireena Kolyana from him, recover the Amulet of Ravenkind, and stay alive long enough to do something that matters. Recently we failed to retrieve that amulet in Vallaki, lied to Ireena’s brother Ismark to keep him from charging into a suicide mission, and then finally had to admit the truth. Ireena was taken by Strahd.
So when the invitation arrives, we accept it. Dinner at Ravenloft. Polite. Civilized. Completely insane.
On the road, Barovia reminds us that travel is never just travel. Revenants on a skeletal horse ambush the party and an ogre zombie joins the slaughter. Ismark is dropped in the chaos and only survives because Urihorn rides in on his mountain lion and drags him back from the edge. The undead die laughing with a promise that they will meet us again.
Then the castle welcomes us. An unmanned coach. A swaying drawbridge over a gorge. Doors opening by themselves. Rahadin, Strahd’s chamberlain, arriving with a choir of invisible screams. A banquet hall glittering with chandeliers and a feast laid out like a joke.
Strahd plays the gracious host and then reveals the knife. Ireena enters. So does Yeska, a young altar boy we once tried to keep safe. Both are vampires now. And Ireena is wearing the Amulet of Ravenkind, the holy artifact we lost and desperately needed. The room goes cold in the way only a story can go cold when you realize the villain has been moving pieces you did not even know were on the board.
From there, we start exploring Ravenloft and the castle starts teaching us its rules. Vampire spawn watch from the walls. A ruined chapel dares us to touch what should not be touched. Secret passages lead to trapped rooms. A captive accountant named Lief sits chained to a desk keeping Strahd’s books like bureaucracy is also immortal. A maid begs to be rescued. A centuries old portrait shows Ireena as if she has always been here.
And then the traps get personal. A coffer releases a green gas that drops party members without a fair fight. An animated suit of red armor hunts like a machine and kills Ismark. When we wake later, the castle has rearranged the scene. Bodies are missing. The fire relights itself. Evidence disappears. A bell summons spiders. Burning webs threatens to burn the whole structure down. A tub of blood erupts with a screaming figure and then the blood is gone like it never existed.
Finally, a dusty dining room offers one last bait. A wedding cake explodes. And Strahd arrives not as a man in a cape, but as a pressure in the air, an invisible silhouette reaching for us.
This is the Ravenloft arc where hospitality becomes horror, where grief becomes motion, and where the castle itself feels like the weapon.
Cast and characters
Chris as Radley human Eldritch Knight
Sean D as Urihorn Tenpenny halfling Beastmaster with a mountain lion
Cary as Perlan Goodshadow halfling Monk
Trip as Daermon Cobain elf Arcane Trickster
DM Sean S
If you enjoy gothic horror fantasy, actual play storytelling, and campaigns that refuse to let anyone feel comfortable, you are in the right place.
