Tome of Strahd

I am The Ancient, I am The Land. My beginnings are lost in the darkness of the past. I was the warrior, I was good and just. I thundered across the land like the wrath of a just god, but the war years and the killing years wore down my soul as the wind wears stone into sand. All goodness slipped from my life; I found my youth and strength gone and all I had left was death.   Long have I been cradled in the ancestral seat of my mother, surrounded only by ghosts and bones. I am well aware that certain events of my reign have been desperately misunderstood by those who are better at garbling history than recording it. I hereby set down an exact record of those events, that the truth at last be known of how this tale begins, and how it failed to end.

  The Tome of Strahd is more or less a history written exclusively by the victor (depending on how you define victory.) It is written in the curious shorthand that only Strahd employs and is not easily deciphered. On studying the Tome, the players can unlock secrets and clues to Strahd's past, and the history of Barovia.   While attuned to the Tome, you gain the following benefits:

• You have Advantage on any skill checks made to recall information about Barovia history or lore.
• You gain a +1 to your AC and to any saving throws when defending against Strahd Von Zarovich's magic.
• Specific chapters may also grant additional benefits.

While attuned to the Tome, you may spend 4 hours attempting to decipher new chapters. Deciphering a chapter requires either an Intelligence (Investigation/Arcana) check in addition to the hours of research. The DC is 15 for the first chapter, which is already partially deciphered by Van Richten, and it increases by 1 for each successive chapter. Attempting to decipher the book, or assisting in such efforts, reduces your passive Perception by 5 for the duration of the attempt.   On a success, you unlock one of the seven entries in the Tome. Each chapter you unlock after the first is random, decided by a D6 roll made before you begin your attempt. You may attempt to decipher a specific chapter, which increases the DC additionally by the number of the chapter you would like to unlock.