I have talked about the Curse of Strahd campaign on my blog before. I have been playing in this campaign since January 2022, so almost a year and a half. Our group changed from meeting every other Thursday to every Thursday to help speed up progress through Curse of Strahd. While this campaign has been ongoing for a while, I still enjoy playing as my character especially since she’s been unlocking blood curses. The pinnacle of Curse of Strahd is when the players finally accept Strahd’s dinner invitation. Our group has been avoiding Strahd for a while, but after finding out some lore for another side quest we were working on, we realized we had no choice but to accept Strahd’s invitation to dinner at Castle Ravenloft.

**Slight Spoilers for Curse of Strahd**

Our group accepted Strahd’s invitation to dinner and was greeted by Strahd’s guard or assistant, Rahadin. As a side note, Rahadin is a pretty evil character and I’m hoping our group has a chance to encounter him and bring him to his demise. Anyway, Rahadin led us to dinner where Strahd gave his imposing villain speech. Suddenly, our group was locked in and I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course, Strahd locks us in his castle, so we can fight for our lives and entertain him. The only good thing about this was the artifact we were looking for is in Castle Ravenloft. Before entering the castle, our group kept throwing out ideas on how to steal this artifact, and now Strahd locking us away gives us the opportunity to do that.

Castle Ravenloft is essentially an adult version of a Scooby-Doo mystery. I faintly remember several Scooby Doo old cartoon episodes where the gang would discover hidden pathways in the mansions they were exploring. One of the first traps was when we went to the prison cells and this pressure plate was activated. Our group was then thrown up toward the upper floors of the castle. I tried to climb out of the box we were in and saw concrete. Thankfully, I was able to head back down, otherwise, I would have taken 8 d10 of bludgeoning damage. Major yikes.

Will our group make it out of Castle Ravenloft? I genuinely don’t know. The fight against Strahd could get ugly and while I already mentioned fighting Rahadin, he will probably be an intense fight. The one thing I will say is that I’m grateful that my character has made it this far because honestly, there were several close calls. No matter what happens, I will be happy with the outcome.