u/Whatdoyousneed

I don't think it's controversial to say that the 'Tome of Strahd' supplement in the campaign book is kind of awful.

Its perspective is bizarre, it's basically Strahd himself breaking the 4th wall and speaking information directly at the players, including listing off all the common vampire weaknesses.
Its tone is all over the place - Strahd seems to think he was a good person, but hated his brother for obviously petty and childish reasons and then admits he became evil even before his transformation???
The information it conveys is nonsensical - why would Strahd specifically list all his weaknesses and state that he's afraid of the Sun Sword, despite the background on that item making it clear he should think it was completely destroyed?

It sticks out amongst the other two items from the Tarokka reading, which are S-tier magic drops. In my first campaign they got the Tome last, and were completely underwhelmed after the build-up of the first two. With Barovia being such a sprawling, rich setting with many areas which are difficult to convey backstory about - presuming the players get around to exploring them at all - it felt like a huge missed opportunity.

So... I started to rewrite and expand the Tome, to bring some coherence of character, some deeper backstory for Strahd, and tie together some locations in Barovia.

And then I wrote a fifteen thousand word novelette.

I drew inspiration from the book 'I, Strahd: Memoirs of a vampire' along with an incredibly broad sweep of the many remarkable rewrites, supplements and insights posted on this sub and across the web about the CoS experience.

Why so long? I feel it adds to the immersion and investment of the players if this oh-so-important Tome they recover is an actual journal, something they have to actually dig through and try to discern clues from, rather than just a print-out of key facts. In the one instance where I actually printed a physical copy of this and gave it to my group, they all fought over who would take custody of it first, with the Wizard winning out since logically they should be the one who does the book readin'.

Character wise, the new tome attempts to grant the following depth to Strahd:

• Pre-vampire Strahd was an extremely harsh ruler and conqueror, but also had a certain nobility of spirit and code of honour.
• He did have genuine goodwill toward Sergei.
• His attraction to Tatiana/Ireena is an obsessive need to own her rather than any real love. This is hinted to in part be born from bitterness and jealousy toward Sergei, though he himself is unaware of it.
• Cool backstory behind the 'I am the Land' line, which I never fail to use in every one of my big Strahd showdowns.

It also establishes the following about Barovia, hopefully giving players a compelling reason to seek these areas out and plumb their secrets;

• Backstory on the Order of the Silver Dragon, Argynvost, and Tsolenka pass.
• Deepening the Amber Temple's significance.
• Explaining why there is a random lich inside the Amber Temple, and giving the players a compelling reason to speak with him and try to recover his memories (as he assisted in the reconstruction of Ravenloft, the new Exethanter can tell them all about its layout and secret passages).

Please note that for clarity I have changed the name of Barovia village to Svalich village, as in my experience having Barovia be both the name of the region and the village is an endless source of confusion.

I present this now for the community's review and, I hope, approval for use in your own games.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f-A9X9ptIOZVPuHD96bQWwZfjq46HDVj/view?usp=sharing