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Product Type: Adventure
CoS-Required? No, but can be set after it as a sequel
Note: Due to length, this review will be covered in 3 posts. Will summarize my Thoughts at the end of the third.
While the original I6 module is iconic for its part in birthing the Ravenloft setting, the followup I10 adventure introduced more elements that would become part and parcel of the Domain of Dread. Through it we got the existence of Mordent and other realms beyond Barovia, and characters such as Azalin and the Weathermay family. It wasn’t as well-received as its predecessor, but it still laid important groundwork for the eventual Black Box setting.
Just as Curse of Strahd is a modern retelling of earlier Castle Ravenloft adventures, so too is Griffon Hill Manor meant to be an adaptation of the House on Griffon Hill, as the book so claims. In naming the product Curse of Strahd II, it’s designed to be a sequel to that most popular of adventures, for 7th to 12th level PCs but optimized for 9th level ones.
Hold on, something doesn’t seem right here…
Wait a second, it’s Gryphon, not Griffon!
Unfortunately, this is but a taste of things to come, as this product is absolutely riddled with grammar errors, sentences that abruptly end, unnecessary repetition of words, and generally has strong vibes of “first draft in dire need of an editing pass.” And in checking the credits, I don’t see any editor listed! Errors of some kind or another are a frequent element throughout the book, and it made reading it a real slog. Here’s but a few examples:
page 34 said:
This vast courtyard is paved with cobblestones. The main entrance lies directly opposite the gatehouse. A door to your immediate right is a simple wooden door leading to the stables.
Unnecessary repetition.
page 17 said:
When they catch up, Azalin is waiting for them with 12 vampire spawn. The PCs should run away from this mob rather than confront it. Allow the PCs to run without having
As usual, Azalin has no desire to stay.
Without having to do what, exactly? The sentence abruptly ends before moving on to the next single-sentence paragraph.
page 43 said:
The stone doors are 15 feet high, secured by three locks (DC 15). All three locks open to the same key (found in location 8 in Heather House). The mechanism is such that failure to open one relocks them all.
This complex tripartite lock is needed in order to enter the Weathermay Mausoleum. But that referenced location? It’s 9 pages earlier in the book, but that room doesn’t make mention of any key at all. In fact, a CTRL + F search of the word “key” only comes up with two other keys in the module, which unlock different doors entirely, so it’s not a sense of the author misplacing it elsewhere and forgetting to change things around.
Also, one of the Handouts in the appendix, Handout 8: Alchemist’s Tale, has no reference in the adventure proper for when to hand it out to the PCs. Using CTRL + F only pulls up the Table of Contents and the entry in the appendix. It’s an in-character journal of Strahd talking about how he somehow survived the events of Curse of Strahd, taking shelter in a burned-out building before meeting and receiving a Tarokka prophecy from a Vistani child, which set him on a personal journey to find a means of cleansing himself of his personal darkness.
And this isn’t counting the other weaknesses in the adventure that we’ll see in this review. Normally I save these kinds of criticisms for particular places in the book. But given their frequency even from the start, I can only do a big-picture survey and admit this heavily covered my views throughout the work.
Chapter I: Adventure Background gives us the big picture of things. The module takes place in Mordentshire and its environs, a remote seaside village that was ruled by Azlin centuries ago before a group of adventurers drove him out. They weren’t able to kill the lich for good, so he’s been waiting in a cave, biding his time to make his return. Mordentshire has long since forgotten Azalin’s reign, now ruled by Lord Byron Weathermay who is a fair and just leader. Overall, the region remained a sleepy, uneventful place, but that would all come to an end when Strahd arrived in town!
Through reasons unknown, the vampire somehow survived the events at the end of Curse of Strahd. Now more humble and self-aware of his wicked nature, he sought to find a means of ridding himself of his dark side, journeying to Mordentshire and taking refuge at Griffon Hill Manor. He built an ingenious alchemical structure known as the Apparatus, theoretically capable of taking a life form and draining away its evil nature. Sensing the magical power of this new arrival, Azalin met with Strahd and offered to help, designing the Rod of Rastinon* which would supposedly control it and hoping that the machine’s research would help him create a body to replace his old, bony one.
*The ‘rod’ part of the magic item’s name is consistently lower-case throughout the product, at odds with every other magic item detailed.
The experiment did drain Strahd of his evil nature, but split him into two new beings, each bearing the original’s distilled essence of good and evil. The good one was a human, stripped of his undead nature, becoming a kindly Alchemist. The other, more powerful Strahd, was a more animalistic version of himself known as the Creature. The Apparatus got damaged and the Rod of Rastinon later lost, but that mattered little now that it’s done its job
Alchemist Strahd was initially unaware of the Creature coming into existence. He fell in love with Lady Virginia Weathermay, Lord Weathermay’s daughter, and for a time it did seem as though his worst days were behind him. The Creature eventually found Azalin, offering to make him a new body by fixing the old Apparatus. In reality, the Creature hopes to raise an army by kidnapping villagers and subjecting them to the Apparatus, turning them into monsters known as the Transpossessed. He also seeks to kill the Alchemist, but doesn’t realize at the time that neither can be truly destroyed as long as the other lives; both must die at once.
The adventure notes that while the text differentiates the good and evil halves of Strahd via titles, the DM should always call both of them “Strahd” or “Count Strahd” in order to make it murkier which one is the “real” one and disentangle who is doing what and where. To muddy things further, Azalin poses as the Creature when he can in order to throw people off the vampire’s trail.
Unrelated to Strahd and Azalin, a secondary danger to Mordentshire is a small community of wereboars who worship the demon lord Orcus. While they arrived due to sensing the Creature’s fell power, they are otherwise unaware of the deeper conspiracy. The Creature will still exploit them if need be, such as using them as scapegoats for the strange happenings around town.
A common mechanic throughout this adventure is
Delirium, which is an intentionally mysterious group-based hallucination that afflicts the PCs throughout the module. Generally speaking, it causes them to experience visions that range from dangerous monsters attacking them, flashbacks to memories from Castle Ravenloft, the Mists overwhelming them, and so on. The module has several points where Delirium triggers, but it’s encouraged for the DM to spring it on the party at other times based on the needs of the story. Damage and maladies suffered aren’t truly real, so a Charisma save at the end can help remove half the damage/recover half their expended spell slots/conditions during the episode. PCs who’d ordinarily “die” and fail that save instead awake with 1 hit point.
Now, I should note that even if Delirium’s purpose is left vague, this adventure is optimized for 9th level PCs. At this tier of power they can easily access effects that can counteract it to help them recover. Would it be cured (short-term or long-term) by Remove Curse, Break Enchantment, or Greater Restoration? That is unsaid. What happens if a PC casts True Seeing to try and shake off the Delirium delusions? Well, we’ll cover that right now.
Spells and abilities that reveal information about the lay of the land or precise location of things or people don’t work at all in this adventure, and spells designed to illuminate on the nature of the Transpossessed or those possessed by the Creature always come back with “unclear” answers. So spellcasting PCs hoping to strut their stuff in a mystery-centric adventure are going to be sorely disappointed!
As for Mordentshire itself, it is a more “rational” realm than Barovia. Its people are still superstitious, but they rationalize supernatural happenings as some unknown province of science. Thankfully, they aren’t scared of overt displays of magical power and regard nonhumans with curiosity more than panic in being familiar with most of the “classic races.” The land is surrounded by dangerous Mists, but they cannot be controlled by anyone to allow others through as long as the Apparatus exists.
The undead are more willful in this land, translating into making it more difficult to turn undead. The book lists a penalty to the DC for turning undead based on how close they are to the Creature and also the time of day, ranging from -1 to -5. Additionally, undead cannot be destroyed unless there’s no penalty on the saving throw or a creature rolls a natural 1.
The adventure begins in
Chapter II: Introduction with the PCs awakening at an inn, having lost all sense of recollection how they got there. It’s been about a month based on hair growth, and all their equipment except for the clothes on their backs is missing. Major items from Curse of Strahd like the Tarokka treasures and Icon of Ravenloft, plus silver coins and jewelry, are gone for good. Or at least, that’s how it appears; the adventure makes reference to Special Items multiple times via randomly-determined results without really explaining what these Special Items are, so one could presume that these are the missing Tarokka treasures. However, it’s much further in the book (Chapter 10) that elaborates that these Special Items are the unique ones in the module such as the Rod of Rastinon. While the information’s there, burying it in the later chapters without explaining them up front just leads to confusion.
In reality, the PCs were hired by Lord Weathermay to come to town to investigate recent happenings at Griffon Hill Manor, but upon arriving the party was afflicted by Delirium and started fighting among themselves, causing property damage. The townsfolk had to form a mob to arrest them. Upon finding out who they were, Lord Weathermay entrusted them into the care of Doctor d’Honaire, a psychologist and hypnotist who has been feeding them and changing their clothes at the inn for the past month. In order to “prevent theft,” the town’s mayor* divided up the party’s equipment to various townsfolk for safekeeping.
*Who is appointed by Lord Weathermay, so this isn’t a democratic rule in case anyone’s wondering.
Dr. d’Honaire is more than happy to illuminate the PCs on what happened, and is downstairs at the inn when they wak up. He doesn’t exactly know what triggered their delusional meltdowns or from whence they came. He runs a sanatorium in town, and can provide directions there as well as to the Weathermay Estate.
Chapter III: Events covers 13 scenes that trigger based on certain actions the PCs take and certain places they visit. As Griffon Hill Manor is an open-ended module, the Events aren’t chronological. Most are small affairs little more than an encounter or small setback, such as the weather taking a turn for the worse with a table of sample results; the PCs coming across a black cat that forces them to make Charisma saves or suffer disadvantage on their next initiative roll due to bad luck; an angry mob that forms calling for the PC’s heads if they end up killing a villager with witnesses and can’t prove that said villager was a monster (typically a Transpossessed or wereboar), and whose trial’s outcome depends on how well inclined Lord Weathermay is to the party and how innocent they can make themselves look; or the Creature kidnapping villagers to become Transpossessed every night, where the DM secretly draws 1d6 cards from a 52 playing card deck (minus Jokers) and matches them up to a table in back to see which NPCs become monstrous.
There’s an Event that deserves calling out for special mention. The first is when the PCs visit Heather House, where Lord Byron Weathermay introduces himself, hiring them to investigate what’s going on at Griffon Hill Manor. The building’s been haunted for centuries, but that didn’t stop Strahd from moving in and conducting research. One month ago during a storm, Strahd fled from the manor in terror, and Lady Virginia also fell ill with fever and delusions. Neither of them remember exactly what they were scared of, but express extreme distress at the mention of Griffon Hill. Weathermay offers to pay the party 10,000 silver pieces once they find out the cause, plus 1,000 silver pieces plus free lodging each day.
After this discussion, Lady Virginia and Count Strahd enter the room, introducing themselves. Strahd is the spitting image of the one from Castle Ravenloft, but his hair is dyed blonde and his ears are round rather than pointed. Strahd doesn’t remember the PCs, only having the vague sense that they’re familiar to him. The module tells the PCs to make a saving throw before reading the boxed text of Strahd and Virginia’s introduction, but only after it’s read are the results given: any PC who failed sees the Alchemist’s figure briefly changed to look like his old self, in fact seeing the Creature.
Since it will be relevant at multiple points throughout the adventure, I figure that I should discuss the Alchemist’s and Creature’s stat blocks. The Alchemist is a Lawful Good humanoid (not undead, importantly), and is much less powerful than standard Strahd at CR 5. His most notable abilities are being a 9th level Intelligence-based spellcaster, with mostly defensive and utility magic and nothing offensive. He can expend spell slots to make Magic Draughts, that are either Explosives that deal 1d6 fire damage per spell level, or Healing mixtures that restore 1d4 hit points per spell level. He also has some raven-themed abilities, like summoning a flock of raven shadows as a reaction to gain +3 Armor Class or a magic dagger called Raven’s Beak. And should the Alchemist ever ordinarily die, he is saved by some bizarre twist of fate. The exception to this is at the Endgame of the adventure in Chapter 12, or whenever he and the Creature are both at 0 hit points at the same time.
As for the Creature, he’s pretty much just Strahd’s stats from Curse of Strahd, save with immunity to the Charmed, Frightened, and Poisoned conditions; no Lair Actions as he’s not in Castle Ravenloft anymore; and Soul Merge which is basically like Misty Escape but he can possess and lay dormant in another creature’s body while in mist form. He will do this to a random Transpossessed in town if such an event happens.
Chapter IV: Mordentshire details the village, briefly covering 28 locations along with a map of the settlement. The PCs’ equipment is divided between 7 locations sorted by type: mounts and animals are held at the Livery, the Smithy has their armor, etc. The townsfolk give them back without any convincing, but the Mayor who has their weapons will remind the party that violence will not be tolerated in Mordentshire. There’s only a few potentially-violent encounters here, mostly consisting of Delirium episodes such as hell hounds burning down the church at night or swarms of spiders in the PCs’ rooms back at the end. But there are some real dangers here, like banshees roaming the wharf at night once enough people become Transpossessed, as well as ghosts in the cemetery.
Van Richten’s herbalist shop is in town, and should any PCs decide to check there they will hear from neighbors that he's been gone for a while, which isn’t unusual, and the place is locked. The building itself is heavily trapped, and PCs who wish to break in must succeed on both an Arcana and Thieves’ Tools check of DC 21. Failing either causes the entire house to explode, dealing 20d10 radiant damage to everyone inside and within 10 feet, which can result in a Total Party Kill. But should they safely get inside, there isn’t much in the way of useful stuff besides potions of healing, holy water, and various books and letters of early drafts of his Guides and correspondence letters with famous figures throughout the multiverse.
We’ve had a lot of talk on the Transpossessed, so let’s go into further detail about them. They are basically the distilled evil of mortal souls given humanoid form, with the partially-broken Apparatus without the Rod of Rastinon merely transforming people placed in it rather than fully separating them. Physically speaking they look identical to the original being, but have superb physical prowess and a variety of supernatural abilities. They have no moral compass, but are fanatically loyal to the Creature and serve as spies in town to report on the PCs. Statwise, all Transpossessed share the same traits: CR 5 humanoids with a beefy 136 hit points but low Armor Class of 13, are proficient in every save except for Dexterity and Intelligence, are immune to the Charmed, Frightened, and Stunned conditions, can command skeletons and zombies within a 30 foot radius of themselves, regenerate hit points like a troll, have very damaging grappling fists and can drain a grappled target’s soul dealing psychic damage and stunning them on a failed Charisma save, and are immune to any effect that can negate or remove possession save that of the Ring of Reversal, a unique treasure in this module.
9th-level parties shouldn’t have much trouble taking on one or two Transpossessed, but if they attack in groups they can be quite the threat.
Chapter V: Moors details the lands surrounding Mordentshire, which can be nice and scenic during spring and summer. But during the fall and winter they become a wet, dreary, and cold place. As of the adventure, the moors are in the “dreary” phase. The other major areas in the module detailed in further chapters (with the exception of Chapter 10’s sanitarium) are found here, requiring the PCs to leave town. Some of the more notable places include a camp of 90 bandits in the seaside cliffs* who ended up trapped when the Mists came up, and have a small treasury of coins, jewelry, and potions; a hidden pathway to Griffon Hill guarded by a well-meaning treant employed by the Alchemist, but is unaware that the Creature has been posing as his good half to gain access to the Manor this way; and dark woods which have a 1d20 table of random encounters (mislabeled 1d8 on the table itself) with results ranging from corrupted treants and zombies to displacer beasts and wereboar raiding parties. There’s even a 1d8 table of harmless but creepy sightings, such as a stick doll crucified to a nearby tree trunk.
*If this sounds like a lot to handle, it is, and the module has no dungeon complex or maps for the caves. Even with a 9th and higher level party, fighting them conventionally will take too long session-wise.
Chapter VI: Heather House is the Weathermay family’s residence. The first time the PCs come here, it is a pleasant, sunny scene, but going there again the environment takes a more sinister vibe. Foul weather results are always triggered when going back here, there’s no signs of animals anywhere, and the manor is filled with creepy stuff. While certain parts of the estate are open (adventure doesn’t note which rooms), PCs who go looking around without permission are treated as intruders without a timely explanation. Male NPCs can offer to help the party look around and into strange happenings, and Lord Weathermay is initially unaware of the strange events in this chapter given that he delegates his staff to take care of things due to his physical state as a wheelchair user.
Heather House has a ground floor, first floor, and basement, with a total of 41 rooms. Some of the more notable rooms and encounters include the study which has a book talking about the nature of the soul (perused by the Alchemist), and an iron safe containing a lot of wealth and the deed to the family estates but no DC or combination for unlocking it; stables, with the skeletons of dead horses that were killed by the Transpossessed and animate to attack the PCs; an adjoining tack and gear room revealing that various straps and harness bolts were subtly sabotaged on an Investigation check; broken furniture and belongings in the servants’ quarters if one or more servants are Transpossessed; a kitchen whose foods are rotting supernaturally fast, to the horror of the chef, and a swarm of flies on the windowpane who will attack those who come close, dealing necrotic damage; a room sealed by bricks that belonged to the late Lady Weathermay which is occupied by an imp in raven form who can actually help the PCs with information based on the DM’s judgment and adventure’s needs in exchange for absurd favors (won’t reveal the Creature’s identity); and a hidden chamber in the basement which the Creature currently lives, with 6 Strahd skeletons and a Vampire Bride* named Emma serving as guards.
*Vampire Brides/Grooms are a new monster in this module, basically being a stronger form of Vampire Spawn who can more easily pass for human and can command skeletons and zombies within 30 feet.
Split Into Two Posts Due to Length
