70 Days until Halloween 2026!

 

 

 

Haunted Houses of Ravenloft

This is a little exploration into some of the Ravenloft adventure sites that you might adapt 

to a Halloween One Shot or Short Campaign.  It isn’t comprehensive; across all of the 

editions there are probably a number of great locations for a Halloween One Shot or 

Short Campaign.  I myself have run Castle Ravenloft, House of Lament, and Old 

Bonegrinder.  I will refer you to a couple of other articles for Castle Ravenloft, but I think I 

have enough to say about House of Lament and Old Bonegrinder to give them their own 

write-ups later.  Lord Donskoy’s Keep is from one of the Ravenloft novels and I’m thinking 

of adapting that location into an adventuring location.

1. Castle Ravenloft.  The obvious because it was the first.  Pick your version/edition.  

   I6 Ravenloft, the 5e version in Curse of Strahd, or one of the versions from the 

   2e-4e editions.  Two veteran DMs, Mike Shea and James Introcaso, each have a 

   blog article giving advice on how to make this work as a “Halloween One-Shot”.  

   Here are links to their articles:  

https://worldbuilderblog.me/tag/ravenloft/

https://slyflourish.com/running_ravenloft.html

2. House of Lament.  The version I have is in the 5e Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, 

   but a quick google search told me this existed in a supplement in 2e.  I have recently 

   folded this adventure into my wider Domains of Dread arc and my players said they 

   really liked it.  I didn’t change much about the House and its ghostly inhabitants, but 

   I did re-frame the beginning to insert it into my campaign.  Part of the re-frame was 

   swapping out the friendly NPCs from the suggested assortment to some I had 

   already chosen and tying their motivations to the House of Lament situation.

3. Death House.  WoTC 5e might have sold this to you twice if you have both 

   Curse of Strahd and Vecna Eve of Ruin.  It’s intended as an entry level adventure in 

   Curse of Strahd; as a chapter in Vecna Eve of Ruin, the character level suggested is 

   14.  I haven’t run this at either tier of play, but I’m curious to try it.

4. Old Bonegrinder.  Technically not a house, but does anyone else think this is a 

   great adventure site?  I’ve run this in my Curse of Strahd arc and this was another hit 

   with my players.  The PCs saved the children, but the Hags escaped and popped up 

   later in the campaign.

5. Lord Donskoy’s Keep.  This is the setting of the Ravenloft novel, To Sleep with Evil.  

   I’m in the middle of reading the novel and I think this location would be fun to adapt 

   to an adventuring site.  Toad familiars for the win!

So dear readers, what are your favorite candidates for a Halloween One-Shot or Short 

Campaign?