D&D Curse of Strahd Replay (Episode 2): The Long, Looong Road to Vallaki 

"Is he . . .an idiot?" "Yes. . . . .Yes he is."

3:31: "Roll a wisdom save." "That's an 8." ... "How long does a vampire's charm effect last before it wears off?" "24 hours." I waaaaaarned youuuuu!

I remember that hag encounter. Funny thing about windmills. They're flammable.

Stan Velsing: *hears screams and a lightning bolt.* Stan Velsing:.... probably nothing.

If the Hags were TRULY enterprising, figure out a way to siphon the happy dreams of the children without hurting them then invest in making them happy to recharge their joy. Not only a renewable resource, but one that would actively entice more children to join, last longer, and probably get them some great PR.

Two characters somewhat compromised (one to a ghost dryad, one to a beholder), several characters under the thumb of a night hag coven, and a party member is a chaotic evil lizard man warlock. This is going fine... Awesome story, cannot wait for the next.

“She was last seen at the windmill”: anyone who played curse of strahd before: n o

"I'm on the third floor" And that right there is why featherfall is one of my favorite spells.

"I'm cold, where's me Mammy?" "Ya know what, Timmy? I don't need that negative attitude." 😆

*CUUUURE WOUNDS HEERE! GEET EM' WHILE THEY'RE HOOOT!!*

Me: *sees windmill in the thumbnail* Also me: oh no!

" Gotta kill Strahd, I think?" " To like, free the lands of the curse? " Every DnD Campaign ever.

As I recall, you *did* mention the Warlock lost an arm. You didn't go into the details of how, but you mentioned it.

Oh wow that hag encounter went way different for my group. We managed to make one hopelessly addicted to the pies as we killed her while the other half of the group shoved the second hag into the oven Hansel and Gretel style. Gotta love the various outcomes to the same encounter.

Honestly these curse of Strahd videos are just showing me that Ben is an even better storyteller than I originally gave him credit for. I thought he was pretty good from the animated storys, but my god, these have shown me he's really fucking great.

13:32 If you think that's dark, my group decided to abandon their quest and become drug dealers selling fairy dust. Which doesn't sound so bad until you account for the fact that in the system we're using, fairy dust is made by grinding up the exoskeleton of a dead fairy. As soon as they found out about this, and found out that they can sell the dust for a good price due to its euphoric effects, they abducted as many as they could and started raising them like farm animals. Currently they have a barn full of cages with fairies jacked up on aphrodisiacs to get them to reproduce faster. They've selectively killed all the ones that knew anything about the outside world so they can't pass on any knowledge to their descendants, and they therefore no longer partake in crafts like painting or making clothes, they're compliant with their terrible living conditions as it's all they've ever known, and they don't even have a spoken language anymore. They've regressed almost completely into animals and do nothing but eat, sleep, reproduce and get butchered to be sold as drugs. The party has basically become factory farmers, only they're farming sapient magical beings. Even the players themselves occasionally have a moment of re-realization where they take a moment to think about what they're doing, and just burst out laughing while wheezing "We are such terrible people..."

'Let me introduce you to my familiar, I named him after my favorite food, say hi to Femur"

can I just say that you can clearly see the improvement of puffin's art when looking at this and the older videos, good job, Puffin!

I love how different my Curse of Strahd experience is from this one. This one is very dark and somber as Strahd is typically meant to be while mine is about as chaotic as you can expect while still progressing at a reasonable pace.

"They almost tried to eat snacks." duh. What else would they eat?

"Is your friend an idiot?" "Yes, yes he is."

I personally can't wait for Stan Helsing to make his debut. Instead of his wee cameos.

Oh dear god, the windmill encounter My fellow player ate some and got addicted to the bread and stole a hell tone so she would just periodically eat some when ever she needed to think.

I do think it's cool how each dead character embodies a creature who resurrected them

I remember playing through Curse of Strahd and driving my GM crazy, my rogue, despite being on the front line, took a grand total of 3 hits during the entire campaign. He had such a charmed life going on.

I love this series so much, that hag part "Yep, he's an idiot" got me so good

Honestly, Gouda’s death really shocked me. There’s nothing like a happy, innocent character’s death to burst your bubble.

First pic is like: "Oh boy! I'll go first." "I hope I don't die again." "I don't have enough hands to baby sit everyone." "So the anime girl, guy that died first, and a one armed person leads? Greeeat. We're totally prepared for an ambush."

when we played this, my party lost also and they locked us up in tiny child-sized wooden cages. My paladin, being smart (*cough* not *cough*), thought the best idea to break out was to cast fire bolt. on the cages. that they were in. ....long story short, we nearly died from burning alive, and jumped out the window. I survived with 1 hp, my friend was unconscious and i had to stabilize them and drag them away. Worth it.

Granola girl always gets the short end of the stick fot the party... What a champ!

I kinda went full evil baby-eating hags on my group. The first time they met Morgantha, the Gnome got hooked on Dream Pasteries. The second time, they found a newborn soul-less baby in a sack on her cart. They fought, but she escaped. However... being Night Hags, she started draining their hitpoints every night, randomly cursing a character. They didn't know what was happening, so they went to talk to the Abbot for advice. He told them what the Hag was doing and asked them to bring back one of their soul gems. In return, he'll heal their curse. Long story short, they saw the party coming, it was a hard fight, learned what meat was in Dream Pastries, but they rescued the kids being kept there (they met a dream-pastery addicted mother who regretted selling her autistic son to them), and destroyed all but one Hag. That sister fled to Castle Ravenloft to take over the Witches coven there. Fearing that the last Hag would visit them at night for revenge, the Abbot agreed to change one of the soul gems (they had two) into an item that could drive a Hag out of the Ethereal Plane if they used the other one to store the soul of Lady Wachter of Vallaki. But that is a tale for another time...

15:40 that's the tone of voice a good man usually reserves for when he's fixin to pull some Count of Monte Cristo shit.

Ben is trying to kill off his character? Hmmm wonder if the "Goddess" is saving him from death hmmm....

Now I have the feeling that all of them are going to die and come back with different powers.

The fortune teller told you to find a guy with a monkey, and you meet a circus dude and don't immediately ask if he has a monkey?

something about Ricktavio seem familiar; abserdly familiar. He sound like the character Abserd is what I'm saying here if I was too subtle for anyone just to be clear.

"Me as well?" Honestly, Boshack is already my favorite character you've ever shown. An evil character in a neutral or good party in such an evil place is just so funny.

So when we encountered the hags at the windmill one of them was upstairs tending to something and the other was outside. We were also there to rescue the kids. One of our members attempted to haggle with the hag outside but eventually failed and had to kill her. The other sister heard commotion but didn't check out the window because she was baking. Fortunately I had some illusion magic as a sorcerer and used it to disguise my voice and convince the sister upstairs to let me come up there and talk recipes. A few sessions earlier we...acquired...a large amount of the dream pastries so I had a few for this next part. When I went upstairs I was able to convinced the second hag to try my "not dream pastry" to help he improve her recipe. I was only partially successful as she wanted to share the pastry with me. I used illusion magic to make it seem like I ate my half. She went into a walking dreamlike state where she was very susceptible to suggestions. I convinced he to walk over to the window to talk to her sister. Once she was over to the window, I then proceeded to slit her throat and kicked her out the window. My party was in stitches and it's still one of my favorite personal moments in DnD.

Prediction: Boshack will died in the next video and will be revived with his missing arm regrown by a dragon spirit

"Well i'm dead" "No you're not" "But-" "NO. YOU. ARE .NOT." "Okay" Not sure if all these second chances are good DMing or not, but it's entertaining xp

*Unwanted children* Cough cough, wallace.

I relate to the gnome sorcerer on a personal level Side note: keep up the good work love the new format

"Garo, our Cleric/Monk combo..." *The Makai Order would like to know your location*

Ben: So we’ll split the group up here. Me: what... What? WHAT?!?!?!

Oh wow this encounter was way different than when I did it. We just fought the hags without being able to even have an RP session with them. Although ours were green hags, not night hags. Yours sounds more fun in both situations. Gloomstalker and 2 paladins made quick work of 3 green hags...

Wow you're quite quick to make another one of these I'm quite glad because I can usually forget things quite easily

I got turned into a werewolf in a homemade campaign. I was a wizard so it gave me a strength boost in the day and we never had to deal with night so it was nice. I also was the only one mountless so it wound up being good because I got to go fast. It was my first game and also everything was wack so the DM must’ve been doing something weird

Thank you for these. Life is stressful and we just had an earthquake lol. These kinds of vids help me relax. :)

“Shatter spell really good at low levels” Me: ah yes reminds me of the time the bard made a blood volcano out of around 6 bandits around lv3 in my campaign with that spell

Ugh. Puffin, you monster. This is actually pretty suspenseful. You’ve got me eagerly awaiting the next episode😁

Bojack be like: Back in the 20s I was in an RPG gaaaame 🎶

11:40 I love how ready Ben was to die and have a new character. This is the second time!

Thank you Ben! Keep making these! Love your stories and hearing all the shenanigans lol!

Man I remember the Windmill from our playthrough. We dismantled all three hags in like 3 rounds, and it only took my extremely pissed off Paladin and his best buddy the Barbarian. We forced them to cast etheralness to escape, and then proceeded to destroy their bakery in a Paladin blood rage.

Burgomaster of Vallaki: Public displays of happiness will keep The Devil [Strahd] at bay! "Vasili von Holtz": Walks by looking like he'd just heard a truly hilarious joke that only he knows the punchline for.

Boshack so far has been the nicest guy. I love him. He's been courteous and polite while never forgetting his lizard roots.

My party (3rd level) took them one at a time. First, the sister who was on her way back from selling pastries, we ambushed her in the forest with a silence spell and me (paladin) grappling her and smiting (no verbal components required) her to oblivion. We got to the windmill where I used my paladin evil detector (forget what it is called. Night Hags are fiends, so it works.) One upstairs, one downstairs. perfect. I knocked on the door and the one below answered, triggering the cleric cast silence. I grappled her and dragged her outside while the casters stood outside the silence bubble and pummeled her with spells. The silence extended to the 2nd floor where the 3rd sister was, so she was not immediately alerted to our presence. Finally, we entered the building, I went upstairs, grappled her and threw her downstairs, where the rest of the party was waiting (silence still active) to beat the shit out of her. Good times. Zero party casualties and, in fact, I don't think anyone lost HP except me because I was their only target in melee range.

We had a lot of fun with the witches, killed one or two I forget exactly, though at least one got away. We ended up burning the mill down due to a grease spell and some fire. I was a life domain cleric and getting the kids out was a little interesting with all the fire, I did a lot of spare the dying, which I visualized as basically using my hands and some divine energy to restart their hearts. Clear!

Im on my 3rd watch through. This is so amazing. Well played by your dm and well told by you ben.

I love Boshack. I dunno who his player is but I was laughing constantly. I don't want to be fighting with the others for feeding rights. lol XD Also great story telling. I can't wait to hear how the rest goes. You tell the stories so well and your hard work really shows.

So Gouda has JessJackdaw as a friend and a "beholder" familiar. What's next a shapeshifter bard appears that gains the enamor of the entire party?

Uhhh weeee, what a treat this format is! @Puffin Forest : May we ask, what the other possible options to pay the hags would have been (victory / memory / silver tongue)?

My group and I are currently playing through curse of strahd. We have a full mounting party, have dealt with each town, the werewolves, killed Rahadin, both camps AND have the sun blade. We are headed to the Amber temple and then it’s off to Ravenloft to fight Stradh. Hearing the choices in your campaign brings me so much joy. Our group, our card reading changed so much of the story in such beautifully subtle ways. Keep it up with these stories. I’m loving it.

I’m starting to feel like your characters are immortal

"I dont appreciate your negative attitude" I LOLd so much!

This is so fast!!

I'm new to d&d and I have to say, it's your videos that brought me to the game. Thanks for the awesome videos, keep up the great work. I'm loving this replay!

Loved it. Absolutely loved it. I hope this type of series will continue in the future.

You know... I thought that these deaths would build character development.

U said about the hand before, I remember cuz I'm a handicapped :3

Oooh, I think I see what's happening... "Nobody escapes Barovia...not even through DEATH!!"

"Either" is used for two items. So, I guess that's either "last breath, your memory, your victory" or "silver tongue."

Have you considered adding little easter eggs to panels that reference something you like or a previous episode with a single hint in the discription. It would be a neat little bit for the community

The dark Dragon warlock dude is down stairs having a fricking cooking hour with a couple of cannibal witches and meanwhile poor only good alignment character is upstairs throwing up and FREAKING OUT! You couldn't plan this if you tried! Or did you? Ps: Poor Poor Garo Pps: PLEASE HURRY AND MAKE ANOTHER VIDEO SOON! LOVE IT!

I just started watching these and they a brilliant... Whispers "do you think we can take her?" "No she's probably a level 15 vampire, plus she's got people with her." I don't know why I thought that was so funny but it was. Hey it's the little things in life right?

The scenario with the hags in your campaign went in a completely different direction compared to my brothers. First off, my brother played it off as a modern time campaign. I was a fighter with barehanded combat expertise and took feats so that I could use a handgun. My back story was a Hunter kind of like supernatural, who roamed the countryside, killing monsters to avenge the mysterious murder of his parents. When my party got to the windmill, we had taken the key and deed of the building from the murder house. So we, technically, I owned the windmill. We opened the door without knocking and searched the first floor before the hag came down. She offered us food, but after inspecting the pots, our characters had an inkling that the pies weren't normal. Bad perception and knowledge rolls. She asked what we were doing here, I responded by saying, We own the place, what are you doing here? She laughed and said semantics as I showed her the deed. Then she offered us food. I responded by saying, Yeah, no thanks. Something tells me people are part of that pie. The hag responded with a nooo, nooo, no humans in here. To which I said bullshit and shot the bitch in the face with a silver-tipped bullet. Now our party consisted of a Human Ranger who was hired by a magical organization to inspect the disappearances and end Lastrat, a Spell-casting fire spirit Merchant who was lured in by the note and hope of rare treasures to sell, a half-tiefling magical cook with a hamster pet with slightly above average intelligence, and me, a human fighter variant that does a lot of damage. I also got a good rolls on my health so even at level 5, I was a tank with 55 HP. We surrounded the hag and bombarded her with damage, killing her before the sister hag came down. We hid, got great rolls on stealth and ambushed the second hag, killing her just after the third hag arrive. The hag tried to fight back, but got really shitty rolls. She almost died but ended up running away. We decimated them.

Is puffin diying and taking out a character sheet going to be an ongoing joke.

I'm sad my group stopped playing curse of strahd. We ended in one of the bad endings and my character was sacrificed to a cult.

As I am also preparing CoS these days, I can see lots of modification (from Reddit or LunchBreakHeros) in your campain. Most of them are pretty nice. Thx for representing!

Out of all the subscriptions, yours is the one I get the most excited about.

I Like this format it’s Gouda

I'm curious as to how Gouda's new powers work. Hopefully, it's a single use of every cantrip per long rest

Evil and good in the same party?? “I too, like to dangerously.” Can’t wait to see the rest!

I'm loving this format. Your animations are always a delight, but if less animating means more videos, then I'm all for it. Thanks for entertaining us!

Two videos in less than one week, your to kind.

Oh god. Why must you make the road so long Puffin. I haven’t exercised in days.

man i wish you would do more of these formats! I absolutely love your narration and illustrations!

THE HAGS! As soon as I heard you talk about the Woman with the Pastries in Ep. 1 I KNEW it was the Hags... In our Campaign, I saved our team by casting levitate on our Wagon, our teammates jump on and two could cast Fly, so they pushed it and we flew to safety. But we never did save the Kids...Or even find them...We had no idea there were missing children, I just didn't trust the old women's pastries so I cast firebolt at her face...Which...Was a mistake

We waited a lot longer to do the Windmill so we ended up being able to kill the hags pretty easily. I was playing a Kender Rogue (Our DM had all our characters be from different official D&D settings/planes, I was from Dragonlance) and we started off trying to trick them outside by faking my character being a defenseless lost child. When one of the hags came out I started spinning a tale that started as a Grimm's Fairy Tale, but kind of drifted into Telanovella territory after a bit. The hag clearly wasn't buying it, so we just killed them. Actually, we also killed the one with the cart much earlier after we saw some parents sell their kid to her for pastries. We killed her and adopted the kid as our own.

Uh hey ben. Mind asking your DM what the rest of those prices were? Last breath and all that? Because that shit's really good and it's not part of the book and I wanna use it.

This reminded me of your D&D story: Why won't my character just die already

I encourage you to continue these, the frequent uploads are appreciated.

Huh sounds like Puffin and Gouda are stealing the show from the other two.

I don’t remember what domain he said he was, All I know is I really love his Kleric

Thank you man for those stories, I'm desperate for D&D related content during these crazy times :)

This format ia really nice! I like the length, your storytelling and because there's no animations I safely can do other stuff while listening! Love it!!

I tried playing this game, but no one want to fight ANYTHING! I was a fighter in a party that didn’t FIGHT! We died shortly after facing a group of vampires! Except for my character who took down three of them before jumping out the window and the wizard casting gaseous form on me

Amazing video's but could you add a character icon when you are speaking, it would be easier to follow i think

My players made a deal with the hags too. Druid ripped out their eye. Kenku Rogue gave his voice, trying to be slick only to realize that it meant losing his mimic ability and had to go back to the hags and gave up two things, his Luck and Final Breath. Our other druid gave his Victories. There was tension with the party and that druid because of character clashing. Especially because Strahd gave him back his Victories in exchange for working with him. Him and the warlock decided to go to the castle in an attempt to gather information on Strahd for the party by making Strahd believe that they were on his side. (Both players wanted to change out characters and this was how I was able to do that). Shit was crazy.

Gotta say thanks for this series! I'm really enjoying it! It might be neat to hear the other players doing the voices of their own characters someday!