Ravenloft Ruckus: A Dungeon Master's Diary of Devious Delights

After a long, dry spell (pun intended), our D&D gaming group, the aptly named Dungeoneers, reunited to once again delve deep into Ravenloft. Ah, Ravenloft, with its labyrinthine passageways and dark gothic halls filled with the dreadful screams of terror, the hauntingly eerie wailing of the damned and the occasional side snore from our late-arriving Cleric. As self-appointed Dungeon Master, I opted to go full in with all the horrors of Ravenloft, incorporating almost all of the tiles in a pre-built dungeon along with some seedy shenanigans along the way. Also, I threw in a custom-built Lego ballista. Just for fun, of course! 

The pre-built symmetrical Ravenloft dungeon

After a few catchup chats, pizza and drinks, the D20s were warmed up and our adventure began...

The overall premise was quite simple: The Dungeoneers, comprising a steadfast human ranger, a resourceful elvish wizard, a fiery dragon-born wizard and a holy dwarven cleric found themselves yanked from their normal day-to-day activities and thrust onto the cold dungeon floor of Castle Ravenloft, for reasons unbeknownst to them. Well, maybe a little "beknownst".

The main winch and arm of the ballista

Escape the dungeon. It was that simple....or was it? 😈 Okay, so I threw in a few snags. They were trapped and the only out of the dungeon was to use a giant Lego ballista to break down a wall and escape through the secret stairway and back to their dreary lives of salvaging undersea flora off the Namibian coastline and navigating the perilous realms of insurance claim handling. But, rather fiendishly, I removed the main winch and arm of the ballista and scattered the parts throughout the dungeon! Also, I deliberately created a symmetrical dungeon with an East and West wing, prompting them with the most critical decision in all of D&D: Do we split the party? 

Alas, to my chagrin, they opted to play it safe. "Never split the party". Well, we'll see 😁. 

I built a hard dungeon. My intention was to force them into a no-win situation. Each of the tiles that held a piece of the scattered Lego ballista parts also housed a nasty surprise: a mini boss villain. I threw in the werewolf, the howling hag and the kobold sorcerer. With the hag in particular, I had a lot of fun. I radomnly shuffled and placed the 5 hag tokens along with all the various monster tokens throughout the dungeon. This meant that even if they defeated her, she would just respawn again! Oh, and did I mention that, should they miraculously manage to break it down, on the other side of the wall there waited in the shadows a delectable dracolich? Yep, Gravestorm was set to pop-up and cease their escape.

Behind the Dungeon Master screen

In other words, "They be dead!" Muahahahahaha.

I didn't want to make it too obvious though. And I didn't want them all dead in the first 30 minutes. No, this was to be a slow, painful experience that would last an excruciatingly looong time. So I gave them some respite and aid by throwing in 2 starting treasure items per player, 5 healing surges as well as a few scattered items around the dungeon including items from Ravenloft's adventure deck such as the Icon of Ravenloft, the silver dagger and a few more. I also included Gravestorm's phylactery. But of course, they would be dead before ever reaching the ballista. Right?

Their first encounter with the Howling hag had me in stitches. "Never split the party" ? Whoosh! The hag just teleported the Cleric to a random crypt corner tile on the far side of the dungeon. This was by the far the most hilarious outtake in a dungeon I had ever seen. The cleric having words with his 'mother-in-law' howling Husnah as they conversed in the Kokni Marathi dialect and yet, just as it all seemed like water under the village bridge, Whoosh! again and the cleric was dead. Next to go was the wizard, then the ranger.

Oh oh oh! My very nefarious schemes were coming along quite wonderfully!! Nobody could survive this dungeon. Right???!!! But, by Strahd's bloody ballsack, they overcame every single fucking obstacle I threw at them.

Clever teamwork, whether in pairs or as a party and they defeated the werewolf, using the dagger to prevent it's regenerative ability. The wizard came in early game blazing with his daily powers and also managed to hit level 2 which worked out in the entire party's favor as he fireballed and thunderwaved his way through many, many perils. The ranger also upped a level but, armed with the Ring of Winter daily powers, was resourceful in some tactical AOE attacks. And of course, the fighter, resilient as ever, using his inherit dragon-born garlic breath to take out hordes of enemies and then pressing on, delivering blow after blow after blow. Our cleric, having woken up after some coffee and chocolates, brought some much needed healing to the fray and also had all the fun specialized treasure items. Also, they managed to keep the hag alive long enough to uncover most of her tokens on the board. Which had her teleporting like mad but also meant that the chances of her respawning were next to zero. She did eventually respawn but that was close to end-game. They collected ALL the Lego ballista parts and sent the villainous kobold sorcerer klikkety klakking off to nowhere. 

They broke through the dungeon wall after assembling the broken parts and dealt with the dracolich. At that point, the cleric, armed with a wand of polymorph which scared the gazoodles out of dear Gravestorm, allowed them to deliver a few timely attacks on the dracolich and sneak past onto the secret stairway tile.

Despite everything I threw at them, they survived, and with healing surges to spare. Maybe I'm getting too soft or maybe our Dungeoneers are more apt and skilled than this conniving dungeon master. All in all, I'm thrilled that they survived and made it through. I'm proud of my little dungeon party and am looking forward to the next gaming session. It was a great night of dungeon crawling, of laughter, teamwork and teleporting mother-in-laws.