Hello everyone! I hope you all had wonderful holidays this winter. On the brink of the New Year, I've got a new chapter for you guys. :)

Yester Hill is yet another famously difficult area in CoS, known for TPKs all around. I also don't know why, but I've been avoiding my write-up on this location for ages. I'm not really sure what happened, but I procrastinated the hell out of this guide. It's here now though, so let's get this party started!

**** Master Table of Contents **** - Click here for links to every post in the series

Prepping the Adventure

Death House

The Village of Barovia

Tser Pool, Vistani, and Tarroka

Old Bonegrinder

Vallaki

The Fanes of Barovia

The Winery

Yester Hill

- Yester Hill II - The Gulthias Dungeon I

Van Richten's Tower (and Ezmerelda)

Kresk

The Abbey of St. Markovia

Argynvostholt

Berez

Running Werewolves and Lycanthropes

The Amber Temple

The Background of Yester Hill

• Connection to the Fanes
  • Yester Hill is, first and foremost, a graveyard. It's a giant hill surrounded by ancient graves after all. Secondly, Yester Hill is a shrine to the Mountain Fane, the Huntress of the Ladies Three.
    • The Ladies Three were a trio of ancient archfey goddesses that ruled the valley long before Strahd's arrival. However, Strahd desecrated their shrines and stole their power for himself, making himself "the Land." So long as Strahd has the power of the Fanes, he's almost unbeatable in combat. Players will have to reconsecrate the Fanes to weaken Strahd enough to face him.
    • For more information on the Fanes, take a look at my posts here.
  • Reskinning the Gulthias Tree
    • To that effect, I've reworked the Gulthias Tree to be a link to the Huntress. As I detailed in those Fanes posts, the Huntress is a nature based death goddesss. While drab (as most things associated with death are) she is far from evil. And neither is the tree.
    • The Gulthias Tree is a grotesque tree of death, but isn't actually evil. Its branches are black. When cut, it literally bleeds. And beneath its roots is a gateway to the land of the dead. But it is still not evil.
    • The Gulthias Tree is one of the oldest living things in the valley, far outdating everything but perhaps the mountains themselves. The forest folk built the shrine on top Yester Hill because it was close to the tree.
    • I've placed an additional dungeon under the Gulthias Tree for reconsecrating the Mountain Fane, but it is only accessible to those who are actually looking for it. That means that players won't find this dungeon on their first visit to Yester Hill and it is reserved for late game completion (after the Amber Temple if you're familiar with my guides).
• The Forest Folk Now
  • The forest folk - how Barovians refer to the wild peoples that live in the forests (druids and berserkers mainly) - once worshiped the Ladies Three avidly. However, when Strahd stole their power, a rift formed between their tribes.
    • One half mourned the deaths of the Ladies, retreating into the woods and mountains in sorrowful loss.
    • The other half thought Strahd their new god, a literal child of the Ladies Three born from their will and their power.
  • Centuries of war between the two beliefs have caused their numbers to dwindle. There are no more than a couple hundred folk living in the valley now, most in small tribes of a couple dozen each.
• The Ritual
  • Most recently, a handful of priestesses on the Strahd side of the tribes have gathered to venerate Yester Hill in honor of their master. Thus, the effigy.

What Barovians Think of Yester Hill

Since the loss of the Ladies Three, the coming of the religion of the Morning Lord, and the overall passage of time, the significance of Yester Hill has long since faded in Barovian Memory. They know it only as an ancient grave site to which nobody visits.

To Barovians, Yester Hill is a relic to a bygone era; an interesting piece of architecture that has no meaning. However, they can't exactly disturb the site because of the graves. No one is willing to disturb the resting dead, no matter how insignificant the area.

The Battle of Yester Hill

• Approaching the Stone Circle
  • u/DragnaCarta has actually developed an excellent guide for groups of rotating guards of forest folk around the outer rings of Yester Hill, if you're interested. This makes approaching the hill much more like an infiltration mission, though, so if you have a notoriously loud party or players who tend to stumble into situations without plans (coughMyPlayerscough), then this may not be for you. However, if you do have a clever party who likes sneaking into things, the rounds of druidic patrols can be excellent for setting the scene.
• Scale
  • YESTER HILL IS MASSIVE. This is honestly the main issue my players and I had with the battle here. None of us really fathomed the size of the place until battle had already begun. One player started the battle on the complete opposite end of the stone circle, about a football field away. The other players would have taken several turns of dashing just to reach him. It was not a very good battle. XP
  • So, in an effort to to prevent that from happening to anyone else, I would highly recommend using a different battle map than the one provided in the module. The beautiful community here on the subreddit actually commissioned this little gem. It's a close-up, to-scale version of Yester Hill with some added obstacles and structures within the larger stone circle.
  • For reference, this is the actual, absurd scale of Yester Hill:

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https://preview.redd.it/9rsl2ti24n741.png?width=747&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e74abec16df8458a8c850a42dbc2aa6f75bfebe

https://preview.redd.it/i7k5ysi24n741.png?width=755&format=png&auto=webp&s=5c43cf5ded8ced8227296bf755df313245d7f360

• Wintersplinter
  • Here's the little conundrum I have with the event at Yester Hill.
    • On one hand, summoning Wintersplinter is cool. It's something right out of a high fantasy action movie and can really make the whole event feel like a dramatic climax. And if you don't have Wintersplinter awaken, the fight can end up feeling disappointing, even if the players win against the humanoid enemies.
    • On the other hand, summoning Wintersplinter almost completely ensures either a TPK or the destruction of a major ally: the Martikovs and the Winery. Or both.
  • I personally really wanted my players to see the giant Tree Blight go ape on them. I thought it would be a cool, heroic battle. Boy was I wrong. Wintersplinter absolutely crushed my party. This was definitely partly due to our misunderstanding of the map scale, but also due to the sheer number of enemies before hand and the OP-ness of Wintersplinter itself.
    • As a reference, my players (party of 3) were about level 6 during this fight.
• Modifying the Battle
  • In order to ease this encounter for you guys, here are some changes I would recommend, especially if you're determined to see Wintersplinter in action. In my opinion, the Tree Blight battle should be the highlight of this encounter, so toning down the previous fights to accommodate it is a must.
    • Firstly, make the six druid enemies all simultaneously involved in the ritual, even though only one is needed. They should only join the main fight if absolutely necessary.
    • The berserkers are the main fighters. However, make them prioritize grappling the players and dragging them towards the exits of Yester Hill, away from the statue and the chanting druids. Let these guys serve as the ultimate bouncers, who are completely unafraid of pain or death.
    • Depending on the size and level of your party during this encounter, you may want to remove a berserker from battle, taking their numbers down to five or four. Or maybe have all six but take off one damage die from each of their attacks. I would personally roll some test attacks before this encounter and then rework things to make sure it's at least fair to your players.
  • Stopping the Ritual
    • Let's face it, stopping the ritual is actually quite difficult as written. So long as at least one druid or berserker is chanting by turn 10, the ritual is completed. While it's possible they'll be interrupted, it's highly unlikely due to the number of enemies.
    • It's also unlikely that players will be able to destroy the statue before the ritual is completed, whether with fire or otherwise. Firstly, getting close enough to the statue to do harm would be tough. Even setting it on fire will take 5 turns to burn it down, rolling the best damage.
    • Basically, you should expect Wintersplinter to come to life. Which is why you should ease the berserker battle if at all possible.
  • On turn 10, Wintersplinter awakens.
    • Once the Tree Blight comes to life, the druids and berserkers flee the battlefield for the tree line, taking opportunity attacks if they have to. Their primary objective is getting out of the way at this point and watching from afar.
    • I would modify the Tree Blight stat block a little to even things out for your players. Firstly, make it vulnerable to fire damage. Then reduce the damage done by Grasping Root to 1d6 bludgeoning at the start of a grappled target's turn. Lastly, make the Bite attack count as an action that can be used as part of its multiattack, not a bonus action.
    • While that should help, I would still run those test rolls prior to your session. While we certainly don't want battles to be easy, we should always want them to be fair. Adjust stats as needed for your game. If these changes feel like too much of a nerf, then only take one or two. Or, if you feel the whole encounter is actually weak, then by all means buff the enemies instead. The point is, adjust the encounter for your gameplay and players so that everyone has a fighting chance.

After the Battle

• The Forest Folk
  • Once Wintersplinter is defeated, the remaining folk watching from the forest flee. Watching their effigy die is a very bad omen to the Strahd tribes, and they'll start to seriously doubt their vampire lord after this event. Even if the players don't realize it, they'll have earned some extra support from the native tribes of the valley.
• Your Players
  • It's highly likely that your players will be pretty beat up after this event. A PC or two might even be dead. I would like to reference my mechanics post, in which I recommend a ghost mode for dead PCs, giving them a chance to be resurrected before having to roll a new character.
  • You might also find Yester Hill a perfect place to implement the Beast Mode version of the PCs I talk about in my Dark Powers post.

The Mist Wall and Strahd

• Strahd
  • I'll be perfectly honest. I totally removed Strahd from this location. Though the forest folk in this event worship him, I just felt like adding in the big man himself was one too many plot points to worry about. Even if he just stands there and watches the battle, the players will end up dividing their attention too often in an already stressful fight. In the end, he would just feel like one more thing to keep track of in my opinion.
  • Of course, that's just my personal preference and you are more than welcome to keep him around if you wish.
• The Misty Wall
  • I also slightly changed the mist wall to better fit my alterations to the campaign. As I state in my very early posts on the Dark Powers and the separation of the Demiplanes of Dread, the mists are sort of like the space between dimensions. Since mortals can't actually perceive such a non-physical space, we instead interpret the borders as mist.
  • Anyone who stares into the misty wall at Yester Hill can vaguely see large, dark shadows (Dark Powers) moving in the distance and get a horrible sense of dread. This change from the beautiful, distant kingdom also further prevents players from willingly traveling into the mists.
  • Though it's doubtful a player will actually go into the mists, I've created some quick stats on what might happen if they do. Remember, the mist wall that surrounds Barovia is supposed to be dangerous. Barovians know that anyone who goes into them either find themselves back in Barovia or are never seen again. These stats/rules hopefully reflect that idea.
    • A mortal who goes into the mists immediately looses their sense of time and direction. There is no day and night cycle and the whole world is nothing but stone-like ground and a dense fog that limits vision to about 15 feet at a time.
    • A player who gets lost in the mists spends a minimum of 3 days there before they either come back to Barovia or die. Whichever happens will depend on their rolls in checks.
  • Have the player roll two checks for each day they spend in the mist.
    • First, have them roll a d20. Rolling a 1 means a Dark Power will find them and swallow them whole. Describe this event as a giant, shadow like horror descending on them. They should repeat this check each day they spend in the mists.
    • The second check on each day should be a DC 10 Constitution saving throw counting levels of exhaustion. Each failure will give the PC a level. The only change I would make is to Level 5, which should reduce their movement to 0. Instead, just say the players are crawling at a snail's pace.
    • If the players accumulate six failed Con saves, thus incurring six levels of exhaustion, they die. This happens even if they evade the notice of the Dark Powers swimming nearby. If the player accumulates three successes on their saves, they find their way out of the mists and stumble back onto the edge of Yester Hill, hungry, tired, and confused.
  • Should you have this happen, I would play it as a montage. Have the lost player roll all their days one after another and don't tell them their rolls count as days. Let them stay confused. Then jump to the other group and try to play with them a little. Tell them how they camp at Yester Hill after the battle or how they go back to the Winery, seeking help. Montage the days a bit before, poof, the mists spit out the lost player. Or, you know, the mists don't. DX

The Spear

Alright, I made the terrible mistake of using this event to give a weapon to a player who hadn't gotten anything special yet. Curse of Strahd has a handful of neat magical weapons, but they're almost all made for fighting/heavy classes. There aren't any neat daggers or bows and the few existing magical staffs are evil. So I felt a bit pressured to give something nice to the rogue in my group. Long story short, this spear was forgotten and lost within a couple sessions and no one really cared, myself included.

So, in short, don't use this event or this item unless you really have an appropriate player for it. If you really like the idea of hiding a weapon in the menhirs, create one more appropriate for your intended player. Maybe a bone dagger made by the ancients or a druidic staff of goodness. Either tailor the weapon to fit the intended player or don't use the event at all.

Failing Yester Hill

Should your players fail at Yester Hill or outright ignore the quest, there may be dire consequences.

I personally try to save major events for the arrival of my players. I want the flow of the campaign to feel natural and work quite hard to get it that way. So, even if players go to Kresk first or something, Wintersplinter's rise would only occur on their arrival. However, player choices should definitely matter. So if players choose to ignore the plea of the Martikovs or approach Yester Hill and then decide to come back in a couple weeks without engaging, the rise of Wintersplinter shouldn't wait on them.

If players leave the event of Yester Hill for too long and definitely had the choice of tackling the quest, or if they attempt the quest but fail in one manner or another, you should consider putting in a follow up, butterfly effect event. In particular, a side quest where the Winery is destroyed and the Martikovs are either killed or captured is pretty cannon.

u/DragnaCarta has a wonderful secondary event for this starting on page 20 of his Winery guide. If this becomes relevant to your game, I would highly recommend checking it out.

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And that's that! This is a rather short one, but that's because Yester Hill is mostly a battle anyway. I hope you enjoyed and have a wonderful New Year!

- Mandy