7 Blink-&-You'll-Miss-It Details for DMs in Curse of Strahd

Curse of Strahd has a lot of info in it - some of which is buried away, easy to gloss over and forget about, or where info concerning a particular NPC is spread across multiple chapters. In this video, I cover seven very easy-to-miss bits and pieces of information, based on my own experiences, having played and DMed CoS, and from what I've seen on various CoS forums online, such as on Facebook groups and the dedicated subreddit.
Did you know them all already? Great - you're a CoS master! Do you know of anything I should've included, or that CoS DMs ought to (or need to) know? Why not less us know in the comments? Thanks, Mist Wanderers!
00:00 Intro
01:42 1. Lady Wachter's imp
02:54 2. Lady Wachter's amended spell list
03:51 3. Empty houses during Festivals
06:53 4. Playing the Vistani optimally in combat
08:52 5. Vilnius' role in the Amber Temple
11:31 6. Kasimir's & Patrina's information
13:19 7. Final battle minions
15:21 Outro
Music credits: "Ghostpocalypse - 6 Crossing the Threshold", "Long Note Four" and "Fantastic Dim Bar" by Kevin MacLeod (a.k.a. Incompetech); licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/...
All images, logos, etc. are the copyright of their respective creators, the vast majority of which will be from Wizards of the Coast, as per their Fan Content Policy.

[@Prokidneytheif1]

Sometimes the places where they hide information amazes me. A lot of this I would miss very very very easily!

[@DMoftheMists]

I know right? 😬 Glad it was helpful! 😃

[@zoboothemafoo]

Having Majesto spy on the players disguised as a raven and making them think it's one of the wereraven's birds is just devious. (I'm doing it)

[@DMoftheMists]

YES! Do it... 😈

[@smeekings]

Great vid, didn’t know any of these and I thought I’d devoured the entire book

[@DMoftheMists]

Thank you! 😃 Glad you found it useful.

[@diegolamanya345]

great video. The idea about vilnius is actually pretty good. About strahd's minions I think this is intended. It's a tragic villain, in the end, he's just alone, he has no more allies, no friends, noone to mourn his death, all he has is his ungodly powers and oh boy is he going to unleash their full potential unto the players. It's a high stakes tragic ending for a horror campaign. As it should be.

[@DMoftheMists]

Thanks! I really like that perspective on Strahd - I agree! Also, "high stakes" - pun intended? 😆😉

[@diegolamanya345]

@@DMoftheMists Pun very much intended ;) I think the overall narative is that the charismatic but cruel tyrant is slowly stripped of any allies while the party on the other hand has been gathering them. The end is meant to be a confrontation of what good leadership and kidness can do that pure raw evil power can't. It's the trope that fuels almost all horror stories.

[@DMoftheMists]

I like this thinking a lot.

[@joshuabraddy6264]

Great vid! The Patrina stuff is definitely a good shout as her and Kasimir's info is soo spread out over the book. Also love hearing you hired a romani sensitivity consultant for your published material! I'd be curious re a Strahd combat video around your experience of his wall phasing ability as the community often seems pretty divided on this and how much 'fun' it is if you really play smart with it.

[@DMoftheMists]

Thanks! 😃 Yeah I've been weighing up doing a video on Strahd's combat tactics. When I ran him, I used his RAW stat block (albeit with spells amended) and had him phase through walls - AFAIK all my players enjoyed the battle and saw it as a challenge more than a frustration, but it might be different from table to table. I've also been meaning to look into DragnaCarta's (of CoS Reloaded) three-phase Strahd, plus the CR 27 Strahd that's on DMsGuild, both of which would negate the need to do the wall-phasing (I think).

[@maestrosdelcalabozo1899]

Great video, do you have a favorite homebrew to add to the adventure? I added a whole dragon zombie buried beneath Vallaki.

[@DMoftheMists]

Thanks! Funnily enough I've been meaning to do a video called something like "My 5 Favourite Homebrew Additions to CoS". Similar to your dragon zombie (cool idea!), I planned for Argynvost to appear as a ghost dragon (from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons) if/when they tried to return the skull, but we had to end the campaign sooner than expected as two players moved away, so it didn't play out, sadly!

[@maestrosdelcalabozo1899]

@@DMoftheMists thanks! And yeah, that would be a great video :)

[@dario5178]

Interesting video, good points. Have you ever ran Death House or the House of Lament from Van Richten's guide? I'm interested in running those adventures in my campaign.

[@DMoftheMists]

Thanks! I didn't run Death House when I ran CoS because we did Lost Mine of Phandelver before it, so they would've been overlevelled for it. I'd love to run it as a one-shot one day (maybe over Halloween) or if I do another run of CoS. I ran House of Lament but adapted it for a higher-level party and changed some of the story. So instead of them helping just 1 of the 3 'spirits' (IIRC), they helped Mara take down Dranzorg but then had to fight her as well.

[@AzraelThanatos]

If you don't mind buying the pieces of it, there is also the Misty Fortunes & Absent Hearts campaign that was created for the Adventurer's League as an alternate full campaign that also has a bunch of additional content.

[@DMoftheMists]

Oh yeah! I didn't use that during my run of CoS, but I considered buying it anyway to take a look at it. Maybe I can do a video on it giving my thoughts - we'll see. Thanks for suggesting it.