There once was a peasant named Vlad / Who felt neither happy nor sad / With no soul inside / T'wasn't grim when they died / Though the dirt nap did drive them quite mad. In this episode: Lay of the Land, Alterations to Magic, Resurrection Madness, the ramifications of soulless Barovians, Vistani lore, Random Encounters.

Curiosity gets the best of us, and any one of Strahd’s ploys would be enough to drag us into the prison plane of Ravenloft. But three out of five adventure hooks prefer Creeping Fog. Ask your GM if Creeping Fog is right for you. Side effects may include asphyxiation, exhaustion, and resurrection madness. In this episode: using the Tarokka deck, the portrayal of the Vistani, Adventure Hooks, Death House.

Ravenloft history, Tracy Hickman's Foreword, Introduction, Chapter 1. The mists spirit us away to Barovia, a pastiche of gothic horror tropes and modern vampire mythos. We tackle the important questions, like how to run a spooky game, and is Strahd hot or not? One thing's for certain: he sucks. As a person. But he's a compelling villain, a classic presentation of an abusive narcissist who's been serving since 1983.

We begin at the beginning, with two false entrances and a green devil face. Grab a 10-foot pole and a spare character sheet and join us as we plumb the depths of Tomb of Horrors, TSR's 1978 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons adventure, written by Gary Gygax himself. How does it hold up? What does it tell us about the tabletop community of the day? And how did this handful of black-and-white pages, barely a pamphlet, echo down the long years to inspire and traumatize generations of game designers and players? Not with fair play, that's for sure.