Death House
This is my very first post! (I’m not very good at English sorry !)
I’m a Dungeon Master and I ran the Death House module with two different groups, with the goal of running two parallel campaigns to better master Curse of Strahd. I partly use Mandymod’s adjustments.
My first run lacked depth — the players treated it like a dungeon crawl, opening doors, wandering off during dialogues, and the atmosphere I was going for never really landed. The oppressive feeling didn’t kick in until the ghoul fight in the basement, where the combat finally created a genuine sense of danger.
For my second run, I decided to really double down on the horror atmosphere — and it worked beautifully. The players felt a growing sense of dread and unease throughout. That’s why I’m sharing the homebrew tables I made to reinforce the ambiance.
Whenever a character fails a Perception check, instead of saying “you don’t hear anything,” I say something like “your attention is caught by the sound of fingernails scratching, just inside the wardrobe behind you.” The effects are progressive and only occur inside the House — each floor is more unsettling than the last. I felt the Dungeon beneath the house didn’t need these adjustments.
🕯️ Death House Manifestation Tables
Ground Floor — 1D4:
1. “You hear faint sobbing, just for a brief moment.”
2. “The flames seem to dim, the shadows seem to grow” (works great in the wolf den).
3. “A face seems to stare back at you from the folds of a sheet / piece of clothing.”
4. “You feel a presence — heavy. Your shoulders slump.”
First Floor — 1D6:
1. “You feel watched. Something is looking at you.”
2. “You hear a creak — when you turn around, a door slowly swings open.”
3. “The eyes of the portrait on the wall fix on you. You blink — and the painting has looked away.”
4. “Footsteps can be heard above.”
5. “The light dims. The flames flicker and weaken.”
6. “You feel a cold draft along the back of your neck.”
Second Floor — 1D6:
1. “You feel deeply uneasy, as if something horrible is about to happen. You turn around — but everything feels foreign, wrong.”
2. “You hear the sound of fingernails scratching” — against wood, inside a piece of furniture, or along a wall.
3. “Muffled sobbing rings out… then a long shhhhhhhh—”
4. An object shatters on the floor right next to a character.
5. A character feels hands running up their arms, guiding their grip to their weapon — and pointing it at another player character.
6. Cracking sounds echo through the walls and ceiling — but only one PC can hear it.
Attic — 1D6:
1. In the darkest corner of the room, a character sees an eye staring at them — bloodshot, with a black pupil. The moment they look away, it vanishes. If anyone else tries to look, it slowly closes and disappears.
2. A character feels liquid running down their face. Looking up, they see a wound in the ceiling, slowly dripping blood.
3. While a character is searching for something, a furtive movement catches their eye — something just hid under a piece of furniture, a bed, or behind a door.
4. A character hears a voice begging them: “Please… let me go.”
5. A character watches as letters slowly trace themselves in the attic dust: DEATH.
6. If a PC is alone, they must make a Dexterity saving throw or be grabbed by a hand and pulled into a pocket of shadow. They find themselves inside a sarcophagus in the empty crypt below.
If anyone has recommendations for the Village of Barovia — ways to maintain atmosphere across the different upcoming locations — I’d love to hear them!