Conjuring Barovia: How to Create an Immersive Curse of Strahd Experience
Few adventures have haunted the imaginations of Dungeon Masters quite like Curse of Strahd. Between the fog-choked valleys, gothic castles, and morally gray choices, Barovia is a land that lingers in the mind long after the dice stop rolling.
If you’re running Curse of Strahd for the first time, you’re stepping into one of D&D’s most iconic and atmospheric settings. With a little preparation, you can make it unforgettable for new and veteran players alike. Follow this guide to create an immersive Curse of Strahd campaign your players will talk about for years to come.
FOR DM’S EYES ONLY! Spoilers abound below, so if you ever want to play this campaign, avert thine eyes now.
Study the Lore Ahead of Time
Before you summon the ravens, start by diving deep into the story itself. Curse of Strahd isn’t a module you can improvise on the fly; it’s a layered, gothic tapestry filled with intricately interwoven storylines, powerful NPCs, and moral complexity. You gotta be ready for anything!
Read the entire book cover to cover before you even run your session zero and take notes. I’d also recommend rereading it again after the first few sessions, when you’ve gotten a feel for your group’s play style. Because this is a complex story, you need complete understanding of the narrative, character motivations, and secret revelations before your players even answer the call to adventure.
In true TTRPG fashion, there are also countless community resources that can make your prep easier. Look up guides on Reddit’s r/CurseofStrahd and YouTube especially for gamemaster insight. Seeing how other DMs interpret Barovia will spark your own creative choices and help you avoid common pitfalls (like when to introduce Madam Eva’s reading or how to pace travel between towns).
Don’t forget the notebook! Check out this gorgeous notebook from Creeping Moon →
How to Create an Immersive CoS Experience
Running Curse of Strahd relies on knowledge and performance, but a little atmosphere helps, too! Before you put on your DM hat, set the scene with a few tech and accessories to create a truly unique CoS experience.
Create Some Visuals
Barovia is a land of crumbling manors, fog-shrouded forests, ancient maps, and haunting letters. Physical props and visuals can instantly make your game feel real. The Strahd module includes plenty of visuals and props you can use in your game, but creating the visuals adds a touch of authenticity your players will be super stoked about.
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Maps: Use aged parchment or digital maps projected onto your table.
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Artifacts: Print or craft letters from Strahd, tarot-style cards for Madam Eva, or wax-sealed envelopes to deliver important plot points.
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Miniatures and terrain: Even a few candles around a cardboard castle can become Castle Ravenloft with the right mood lighting.
Having props, no matter how small, makes the story feel real and alive.
Invoke the Mists
The mists of Barovia are practically a character in their own right, always lingering, whispering, and hungry for wayward adventurers. Try a small fog machine to fill the air before sessions begin, or use dry ice for a more subtle effect.
Pro tip: Safety first! If you use a fog machine in a small space, be sure to have adequate ventilation.
Set the Scene
The villages and manors of Barovia are the epitome of gothic decadence—velvet drapes, gilded mirrors, decorative candelabra. While you can definitely go all out with the set dressing if you want to, a few small touches can go a long way!
You can easily create a similar vibe with a simple centerpiece: velvet tablecloth, dried flowers, pillar candles, and even fake bones from the craft store.
Cast Light
Lighting is another great storytelling tool. With subtle cues, you can totally influence the mood of the game. Cold, eerie tones (pale blues, greens, or purples) work beautifully for dungeons, forests, or Castle Ravenloft. Warm amber tones set the stage for fleeting moments of comfort—like when the players gather around the campfire or during the Festival of the Blazing Sun.
You don’t need particularly fancy tech. A few LED strips or color-changing bulbs can transform the mood of your entire table with a tap. But remember: your players need to see their notes and dice rolls, so don’t go too overboard. Maybe save the theatrics for boss battles or big RP moments.
Sound
Nothing builds tension like the right soundtrack. Create a playlist that shifts with the pacing of your sessions—somber strings for exploration, low ambient hums for travel, and haunting choirs for boss encounters. Even subtle touches, like the sound of rain, footsteps, or wolves in the distance, can raise goosebumps at just the right moment.
Tools like Syrinscape or Tabletop Audio offer ready-made Curse of Strahd-themed soundscapes, but there are plenty of free fan-made playlists on Youtube and Spotify.
Check these playlists out:
Light the Candles
Scent is the sense most tied to memory—and therefore one of the most powerful tools for immersion. A few well-chosen candles can make your table feel transported straight into Barovia with the mists closing in.
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A Walk in the Woods: Pleasant, airy notes of pine and sandalwood in this candle lull players into a false sense of security.
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Realm of Shadows: Notes of pomegranate, star anise, and wet slate create an eerie, umbral scent—perfect for Castle Ravenloft.
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House of the Witch: Tangy and bittersweet, this candle smells of blood orange, tonka, and patchouli. Burn when the players encounter the hags at the Old Bonegrinder.
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Dungeon Depths: The subtle coolness of this candle conjures damp cavern walls and mystery. Perfect for any of the dungeons and eerie places in CoS.
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Black Hound Tavern: Leather, clove, and amber create a comforting blend for longer tavern scenes or the lively (and strange) nights spent in Vallaki.
By the way—our 16oz soy wax candles include a metallic d20 inside. Imagine your players’ faces when you roll one of those while casting one of Strahd’s 9th level spells.
Create a Menu
Barovia isn’t exactly known for its culinary delights, but Strahd’s foul influence can’t reach your living room! Keep your players fed with a menu that doubles as an immersive tool.
Serve hearty, rustic foods that evoke the world—think stews, crusty breads, roasted veggies, dark ales. For lighter fare, serve traditional snacks with these D&D inspired cocktails and mocktails.
And don’t forget the Dream Pastries! While they’re made with the crushed bones of children in the game, there are plenty of recipes out there that players have adapted sans bonemeal. You can try this recipe a Reddit user developed for a sweet version, or you could always grab some cherry danishes from the nearest grocery store. Set them out early in the session, before your players learn what’s actually in them. The look on their faces when the truth comes out? Priceless.
Advice for Running Curse of Strahd
Now that your space is all set, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of the campaign. Here are a few crucial elements to put some brainpower toward when setting up the campaign.
Integrating Player Characters into the Narrative
The mists may be indifferent, but your story shouldn’t be. One of the best ways to make Curse of Strahd feel personal is by weaving each player character’s backstory directly into the fabric of Barovia.
Encourage your players to create characters with strong personal motivations—a lost loved one, a mysterious curse, or a haunting vision that led them to the mists. Then, take those threads and tie them to the world’s existing elements. Maybe the cleric’s deity has gone silent since entering Barovia, or the rogue once stole from a Vistani merchant who now remembers them. Small connections like these transform the setting from a prewritten adventure into their story.
Don’t be afraid to alter or swap out NPCs to serve your players’ arcs (check out the Ireena Kolyana section below). Perhaps one of Strahd’s spies bears a resemblance to a PC’s estranged sibling, or the spirit in the Abbey of Saint Markovia recognizes a paladin’s holy symbol. The best thing about this module is that there’s so much detail, providing endless opportunities for character origins and backstories.
For example, I once had someone ask if they could play a dhampir in a CoS campaign I was running. If you’ve read the module by now, you’ll know that that was a pretty big ask. But once I gave it some thought, I enthusiastically said yes—because I knew that would make the setting that more fun and engaging for the player. (She also ended up being a vampire-hunter, too, so it was easy to tie in her story to Van Richten’s.)
The most important thing is to stay flexible. Let your players’ choices reshape the narrative as the campaign unfolds. If someone has a compelling backstory hook, find a place for it in Barovia’s shadows.
Be Artful with the Horror
This might seem counterintuitive for a horror campaign, but it’s sound advice that the book itself even recommends. The most frightening thing about Barovia is its endless banality, the persistence of life in its saddest, dreadful state with no hope of redemption. Strahd is the land, inevitable and inexorable.
I asked our shipping & wholesale coordinator, Dash, if they had any notes about their experience playing CoS:
“For this type of horror, less-is-more. Balancing a well-paced story with ushering a party through an adventure is a delicate art but it's good not to rush critical moments. This book works best when the DM uses the scenes and events to build suspense. Enjoy the moments when the players don't know what's next. The threat of violence can be more effective than the violence itself.”
Jumpscares are fun, and you can certainly employ them when it feels right, but like Dash said, the threat of danger can be more hair-raising than a big scare. One of my favorite bits that I like to use early on is having PCs catch a glimpse of themselves in a reflective surface and seeing a dead or distorted version of themselves staring back. Once they blink or look away, the reflection clears and it’s their normal face again.
Roleplaying Strahd
Strahd is one of the most larger-than-life D&D characters ever created. While there are notes in the module on roleplaying Strahd, as well as examples of great DMs online bringing the character to life, we encourage you to put your own spin on it.
Remember: our villain may be a bloodthirsty, soulless monster, but he was once a noble and a general. He’s smart and genteel when he wants to be, and vicious when he doesn’t. There are many ways to communicate this in your portrayal of him
Here are a few suggestions to get the ideas flowing:
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The king of horror himself, Vincent Price is a great starting point for roleplaying Strahd. Take some inspiration from Vincent and hide Strahd’s madness beneath a thin layer of smarmy ostentatiousness.
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Richard Boxburgh’s portrayal of Dracula in Van Helsing (2004) remains iconic. His barely-contained intensity is both eerie and compelling, perfect for a Strahd who is consumed by only one thing: want.
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Anthony Hopkins is known for his chilling portrayal of Hannibal Lecter, which is an excellent inspiration for Strahd on its own. But I’ll go a step further and say that his performance as Dr. Robert Ford from Westworld would be perfect for a modified campaign where Strahd is tired and very, very old. Finally, he’s become tired of the endless games, tired of immortality, tired of the world he created. Control—that’s all the cares for anymore. The quiet, polite way he conducts himself is a mask for the cunning, sinister villain he truly is.
The Problem with Ireena Kolyana
As written, Ireena is a blank slate, damsel-in-distress type character… and that’s always bothered me because she is the crux of the entire plot.
When I ran Curse of Strahd, I gave Ireena more agency—largely because the art of her in the book looks incredibly badass. I made her a Fighter for simplicity’s sake, though I could easily see her being played as a Sorcerer or Cleric (especially if the party currently lacks healers).
Of course, that’s a lot to keep up with as a DM. I like the idea that MandyMod came up with on the r/CurseofStrahd subreddit:
“If you can somehow transfer Ireena's narrative function to a PC, eliminating her as an NPC altogether, that'd be ideal. Now, Strahd is after a PC because that player is his reincarnated love. This makes things very personal to the players and makes them the center of the plot.”
Boom. I’m using this idea the next time I play Cos.
The Mists of Barovia Await
Running Curse of Strahd is all about crafting an experience steeped in dread, drama, and fleeting moments of beauty. Barovia is a stage for tragedy and triumph alike, and as the DM, you’re both storyteller and architect of the mists. By mastering the lore, shaping the atmosphere, and weaving your players’ stories into the narrative, you’ll transform Curse of Strahd into a campaign they’ll never forget.
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