The Essential Curse of Strahd Companion is here!
Across 18 chapters and 105 pages, Raising the Stakes will help you elevate take your Curse of Strahd game from “meh” to “muahaha!” Packed full of additional quests, tips, and helpful changes, Raising the Stakes puts together the disjointed parts of Curse of Strahd into one cohesive adventure.
- “Souls and shells” now makes sense, and ties in with The Amber Temple
- Draw adventurers in with a new hook based on prophetic dreams
- Death House gets a chilling and fleshed-out backstory
- Tips on running Vallaki, along with new quests and locations
- Argynvostholt becomes a much more interactive location
- A floor-by-floor guide to Castle Ravenloft
- Other useful and terrifying changes to Krezk, Berez, Old Bonegrider, Yester Hill, and more
Download Raising the Stakes today and make your Curse of Strahd game the best you possibly can!
Jack (verified owner) –
Absolutely fantastic product and I’m glad I can take pieces of what you’ve built and tailor-fit it to our home game. 5/5
Ralph Judkins (verified owner) –
I have run CoS about seven times and was getting quite bored despite writing some of my own scenes and tweaking between runs.
This work brought a breath of fresh air to my Barovia. The author makes respectful and compelling arguments for every specific change proposes to the 2016 1st Edition. This is the one you are looking for if you want to bring your enthusiasm for running CoS back from the dead.
Scott Cody (verified owner) –
Brilliant. Essential. Takes the campaign to the next level. Loved it.
Matthew Daily (verified owner) –
Excellent product. Really helps flesh out story and gives greater insight for campaign.
Omni Rogers-Mueller (verified owner) –
Absolutely worth it and phenomenal!!! I’m a first time DM and running this campaign. This has helped flesh out pesky details, things that didn’t make sense and making my sessions run more smoothly. By far this is the number one thing you need after you buy the book.
Abby (verified owner) –
Wonderful product! Absolutely worth picking up! I’m a newer DM running CoS and this has been invaluable for helping wrap my head around the module.
Jens Winslow (verified owner) –
Awesome, the perfect companion for Curse Of Stradh
David (verified owner) –
It’s a fantastic guide for CoS, it gives great plot filling ideas and ties up every story in the campaign making more sense. I’m currently using it in my game and my players and I are enjoying it’s stories very much!! You’ve done a great job Lunch Break Heroes!! Keep the engines running!!
Matt Spring (verified owner) –
This modification/addition to Curse of Strahd makes the adventure so much richer. I’m integrating it into the game of CoS I’m running now and it’s so great to have the sections that the original module left blank or vague filled in by Raising The Stakes. I highly recommend it!
Cory Scattergood (verified owner) –
Excellent content. Alongside the high quality videos, this has been an amazing journey taking it all in and creating so much more for the Curse of Strahd group I am running.
Lochlann (verified owner) –
The ammount of depth this adds to Curse of Strahd is makes the as-written campaign look dull in camparison. Masterfully written and beautifully formatted!
Batman (verified owner) –
I can’t praise this product enough. In my opinion it is a must have if you want to run Curse of Strahd (as a stand alone campaign, or in my case as part of a bigger story). It fills out the blanks in original product perfectly and gives you much needed options and explanations regarding some of the areas, NPCs and events that take place in CoS. It also offers a lot of beautiful hooks, quests and special events. It is a missing link that will make your CoS campaign truly unique experience for you and your players.
John (verified owner) –
I tasted with the YouTube videos but really wanted the hard copies for good notes. I am hoping it goes very well.
Logakbrown (verified owner) –
Comprehensive and easy to implement. The guide is laid out in parallel with the book, so references and adjustments/suggestions are lined up perfectly.
Verbal description of content with disambiguations along side additional third party content as links was a life saver for quick on the move DMing.
A must have for any DM looking to run a more personalized and refined Barovia.
Aaron Czop (verified owner) –
Extremely helpful and goes further in-depth on parts of Barovia which the Book lacks depth.
Reuster (verified owner) –
Such wonderful content to make CoS your own, absolutely perfect. Thank You
Michael L Butler (verified owner) –
Great product a must have for anyone DMing curse or Strahd
Oliver (verified owner) –
Fantastic.
Pushes you to think past the pages and truly immerse yourself and your players into the story. Inspired me to make modifications of my own.
Stephen (verified owner) –
Fantastic all the way around. As a huge fan of the Count, after reading every novel published going back to highschool, I found the original campaign….lacking. This product really adds unlife to the dark story. Very well written and adds more flavor. Thank you!
Marco (verified owner) –
If you are reading this, don’t waste anymore time and buy it, I had paid more if I know how good it is.
It blend flawlessy with the original content and the best part is how it takes on some aspect of the campaign that is rather lazy in is original form( like the soulless Barovians or the Stradh cult in the Durst Manor)
My player ( quite veterans ) did have a great time discovering all this new features.
And the title, the title is awesome xD
Henry Bindbeutel (verified owner) –
The stuff you guys put out is my favorite supplementary content anywhere. My CoS game would be lost without your content and in general it’s made me a better, more critical thinking DM
Aris (verified owner) –
Utterly brilliant! This companion is what makes Curse of Strahd really take off in my opinion. All flimsy connections in the vanilla version are made solid and all loose ends are tied in a charming, story-rich way. Plus, otherwise dead locations that your players might only stumble upon to milk XP, have become robust and interesting in a way that really adds to the suspense and the emotional depth of the story. The way I’ve been describing this to my friends is like Skyrim Vanilla vs Skyrim with all the best mods installed. This fine, fine work is exactly why it’s important to support creative minds in our community, and to defend them against the encroachment of money-zombies like the big wigs of WotC and Hasbro. Fantastic work, thank you so much!
Fabio Montelatici (verified owner) –
This book is astonishing. These guys put some real love into it, and they know exactly what they are talking about. You can find tons of ideas, you may not like all of them, but it really helps anyway in understanding what’s going on in Barovia and why you should run things this way or the other. Some characters and ideas are something you cannot play without anymore (let’s just say Vasili von Holtz…). Just read it, and love it.
Michelle de Beaudrap –
A thoroughly satisfying resource. COS has so much potential in its original form – Lunch Break Heroes has taken that potential and added heart and soul to the story. They’ve connected the dots, filled in the gaps while staying true to the integrity of the story. They have deepened and broadened the world of Barovia and somehow managed to do it in a way that is easy and satisfying to implement. Well done!
Jason Mattone (verified owner) –
This is *just* the thing which I have been seeking! CoS is good, but leaves so much unanswered and under (or entirely un-) developed, and this guide really helps fill in a lot of those gaps, as well as providing me with ample inspiration for putting my own ideas and spin into the basic framework of the module! I have loved Ravenloft since the original I6 module released, and the idea here slot so nicely into my desires to expand the amount of content in the adventure by drawing ideas and elements from across the span of its existence into a grand tapestry and a truly epic adventure for my players to experience! I cannot applaud it, not thank LBH enough for creating this fantastic resource!
RokoHC (verified owner) –
Incredibly helpful with many ideas to make Strahd’s campaign unforgettable for your gaming group.
Riccardo (verified owner) –
Una guida essenziale per l’avventura Curse of Strahd che fornisce degli essenziali aggiustamenti all’avventura, ormai essenziali per le mie sessioni di COS!
Kaarlo (verified owner) –
Love this. Is making my game a good one