Today I’m covering the specifics of converting the epic 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign Curse of Strahd to Tales of Xadia: The Dragon Prince Roleplaying Game, a game powered by the Cortex Prime system. If you don’t know why, check out Part 1, as well as my rant on why this conversion is such a match made between the campaign’s tone and the game’s mechanics. It’ll help if you have thorough knowledge of Curse of Strahd, but you only need passing familiarity with Tales of Xadia (AKA TOX), so here’s the Rules Primer to help you catch up.

I’ll focus on the major elements of conversion today. One big wrinkle is that I’ll be using Cortex Prime’s Doom Pool, which is a mod not normally used in Tales of Xadia, but one I find perfect for capturing the atmosphere of dread that hangs palpably over Barovia. So, I’ll spotlight that first. Then I’ll dive into kin AKA species, and finally equipment. While I’ll capture a few elements of magic items in the equipment section, I’ll save the big set-piece magical artifacts of the campaign for a future article.

All aboard the black carriage! We’re headed into Barovia.

The Doom Pool

Starting at the end of my list, just to throw you off, let’s talk about the Doom Pool mod from Cortex Prime Game Handbook. Here’s a fantastic video by Cortex stalwart BWS2K explaining the Doom Pool, if you’re not familiar. I really can’t do it any better justice than this, so…watch it.

There are three types of conflict resolution in Tales of Xadia:

  1. Tests: PC rolls versus difficulty
  2. Contests: PC rolls versus a GMC or another PC
  3. Challenges: Some or all of the PCs take turns rolling versus a conflict-specific dice pool, which they aim to deplete via the effect dice from successful rolls against it

Using the Doom Pool in Tales of Xadia replaces difficulty dice for tests, but it also does something else neat. Normally in Tales, the GM has a limited number of Plot Points they can spend on GMC SFX or to manipulate their dice rolls, but interestingly, this means Challenges don’t really come with an inherent way to manipulate their rolls — while you could spend those limited Plot Points to add a third die to get a total or use a second effect die, that’s not really spelled out in the rules anywhere. The Doom Pool thus gives the GM a built-in way to manipulate dice rolls a bit more. In addition, it adds an extra layer of “narrative intrusions” (a term I’m borrowing loosely from Cypher System, explained at designer Sean K. Reynolds site) where the GM can spend a d10 to split or reunite the party (which can change which Value or Relationship traits the PCs can/want to use), or they can spend 2d12 to smash-cut a scene, ending it in a narratively satisfying way that likely puts the PCs in a worse situation than before.

There’s also the fact that a GM activates hitches (1s) on PC rolls by handing over a Plot Point and stepping up their stress in Tales of Xadia, and the Doom Pool changes that. Instead, the GM hands over a Plot Point and adds a die to the Doom Pool, causing it to grow.  But we want the ability to inflict stress fairly often, so now we must add a new option to spend a Doom die to do the same thing. To some degree, this is probably just adding an extra step between “roll 1s, inflict stress,” but it allows for the GM to delay inflicting stress, as well as to simply choose to let the Doom Pool grow without inflicting stress, which is it’s own form of bad news because of the options described previously. In the next article, I’ll be talking about Corrupted stress, and you’ll see why banking Doom dice to inflict stress at a later time actually proves extremely handy.

So at the end of the day, the Doom Pool mod looks like this:

Starting Doom

Scale – How many?

  • Personal – 3dX
  • Local – 4dX
  • Regional – 5dX

Stakes – What size?

  • Unsafe – Xd6
  • Risky – Xd8
  • Deadly – Xd10

By way of example, I started the characters near the eastern Gates of Barovia with a starting Doom Pool of 3d6: Personal (3dX) + Unsafe (Xd6). When they arrived in the Village of Barovia, I kept it as-is; early on they made a roll and I recall a d8 being added pretty early on because a player rolled two hitches. The following session is likely to include the funeral for the burgomaster, Kolyan Indirovich, and that scene will reset the Doom Pool from whatever it is at that time (for better or worse) to 4d8: Local (4dX) + Risky (Xd8). This is because a funeral will cause most of the villagers to come out to pay their respects to the burgomaster, which in turn catches the attention of Strahd’s minions in the village. I plan to run a modified encounter from Beadle & Grimm’s Curse of Strahd Legendary Edition in which one of Strahd’s vampire spawn shows up to the funeral and sets the tone for just how dire things are.

Gaining Doom

Gain a Doom Die when…

  • …you activate a PC’s hitch, giving them a Plot Point. Doom die size is the same as the hitched die, or you can step up an existing Doom Die.
  • …a GMC uses their action to grandstand. Doom die size equals the highest relevant trait from the GMC.
  • …any PC’s or GMC’s SFX tells you that the GM gets a Plot Point or Doom Die.

“Grandstanding” is a phrase I first saw Torchlite RPG co-designer Jeremy Forbing use on the Cortex RPG Discord in regard to the game mechanic in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game (AKA “MHR“) where a villainous GMC could spend their turn causing collateral damage, spouting monologues, or otherwise doing stuff that increases the tension of a scene, and thus the Doom Pool. MHR is pretty much my favorite RPG of all time, and the level of supervillainy I’m calling out here feels very apropos for Strahd von Zarovich.

Spending Doom

You can spend Doom Dice to…

  • Inflict stress equal to the size of the Doom Die spent, or spend any size die to step up existing stress.
  • Spend a die to add it to the dice pool of a GMC or Challenge, similar to creating an Asset.
  • Spend a die to keep a same-sized die as an additional die for the total (a third die to add to the total, for example).
  • Spend a die to keep a same-sized die as an additional effect die to create a different effect (usually causing either a different type of stress, or causing the same stress but to an additional PC).
  • Spend a die to activate SFX that require it — the GM doesn’t have Plot Points with this mod in effect, so they use Doom Dice in place of them.
  • Spend a die to introduce a GMC (equal to their highest rated trait) or Catalyst (equal to their Catalyst die) to a scene in which they weren’t originally featured.
  • Spend a d10+ to split the party or reunite them.
  • Spend 2d12 to smash-cut a scene, making the PCs’ situation more precarious.

Whenever you spend a d12 for any use, you give the PC(s) on the receiving end of the roll or effect a Plot Point. So in the case of that last one, each PC in the scene gets 2 Plot Points, for example.

I’d love to know if people have questions on these specific effects. Hit the comments if you do!

With that detour out of the way, now it’s time to go back to the original order these subjects were presented in.

Growth still uses Difficulty Dice: One caveat is that I won’t be replacing the difficulty dice rolled in tests for the growth mechanics when players want to advance their characters. I’ll use those rules as-is from the Tales of Xadia Game Handbook, because there’s no reason to overcomplicate those rules.

Kin

Tales of Xadia only features two species: humans and elves. But it gives both of them a lot of variety, with humans gaining additional definition through their home country/kingdom, and elves getting the same via their attunement to elemental magic in the form of the sun, moon, sky, and so on. Since the human kingdoms and the elven elements don’t have a direct parallel in Barovia, and since I wanted to balance the classic Tolkien folk with the more Ravenloft-style gothic horror milieu exemplified by some additional D&D species, I had a little conversion work to do. But along the way I found some tricks to keep it simple. Work smarter, not harder!

For species, I settled on human, aasimar, high elf, wood elf, dwarf, halfling, and tiefling. The Tolkien-esque stuff dominate for that classic D&D feel, but the aasimar (human/elf-ish people with angelic features) and tieflings (human/elf-ish people with infernal features) add a touch of gothic horror to the mix. Perusing the lists of SFX associated with Tales of Xadia‘s humans and elves revealed several that would be at home with these species, so I knew I was on the right track with this mix. It probably would be a bit harder to find relevant SFX for D&D staples like half-orcs, goblinoids, goliaths, and more esoteric species like tabaxi, shifters, and warforged. Plus, it would really muddy the waters of the human-dominated land of Barovia, which really only features elves as a minor group of folk, as well. PCs standing out is fine, but only up to a certain degree, in my opinion.

Since you build your character’s kindred distinction by pairing species (human or elf) with community (humans) or element (elves), I figured I’d retain something like that by simply making community be the main defining element of any human, and adding “family” as a sort of conversion of D&D’s backgrounds. So, to create a character’s kindred distinction, you get the following pairings:

  • Humans get Community + Family
  • Non-humans choose Species + Family

The human communities characters will originate from are Attuned, Independent, Industrious, Militant, Sophisticated, and Spirited. The idea here is that it’s a general “feel”, as well as degree and type of skills characters would pick up in such a place. Most of these are pretty close to the kingdoms of Tales of Xadia, on purpose, as it wasn’t hard to them more generic. The families are a straight 1:1 of those in TOX, so that was easy. Here’s the final list:

  • Community Trait — ALL NEW: Attuned, Independent, Industrious, Militant, Sophisticated, Spirited
  • Kin — ALL NEW: Aasimar, High Elf, Wood Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Tiefling
  • Families: Cityfolk, Exile, Freefolk, Hinterlander, Isolationist, Noble, Traditionalist — All SFX as presented in Tales of Xadia.

Community SFX: These use already existing SFX from Tales of Xadia.

  • Attuned: Inspired Instinct, Mimicry, Resourceful
  • Independent: Hunting Party, Resourceful, Relentless
  • Industrious: Reliable, Worker Bee, Resolute
  • Militant: Inventive Fury, Lead By Example, Suspicious
  • Sophisticated: Cosmopolitan, Reliable, Well Educated
  • Spirited: Free-Spirited, Surefooted, Tall Tales

Kin SFX: For species, which I call “Kin”, I moved around a lot of the different elven SFX, and created some new ones.  The new ones are marked with an asterisk (*) and described in the next section.

  • Aasimar: Angelic Wings*, Elf Grace, Light-Being
  • High Elf: Elf Grace, Elf Senses, Ways of the Feywild*
  • Wood Elf: Elf Grace, Moon-Bonded, Wood-Wise
  • Dwarf: Elf Might, Resolute, Work Ethic*
  • Halfling: Bold Heart*, Fellowship, Innocent Face*
  • Tiefling: Heat-Being, Moonshadow Form, Prehensile Tail*

Notably, many of these new SFX are inspired by Torchlite by Jeremy Forbing, Lynn Jones, and Miriam Robern, with Wil Hutton. It’s a more direct lift of “D&D but what if it was Cortex,” focusing a more on the action and heroic combat aspects. So, if you like what I’m doing but want more action-packed scenes as opposed to relationship drama and dramatic arguments about people’s morals (or their moral failings), check that out.

New SFX

Angelic Wings: Spend a Plot Point or take Exhausted stress to manifest fiery, spectral, or feathery wings (choose once and record this choice—it’s permanent); you can fly as fast you can run until the end of the scene.

Bold Heart: When you would normally take Afraid, Corrupted, or Exhausted stress, spend a Plot Point to step it down.

Innocent Face: Double Influence, Intellect, or Spirit on a roll to avoid suspicion or blame. If you fail, step up the opposition’s effect die.

Prehensile Tail: When your tail might come in handy to manipulate an additional object or make a surprise strike or save, spend a Plot Point and reroll your dice pool. You must take the new roll.

Ways of the Feywild: When you take Corrupted stress, or other stress from a magical source that affects your mind, spend a Plot Point to step it down. Magic can never force you to sleep.

Work Ethic: When you take time to do things right on a roll to create an asset, you can take Exhausted stress to reroll any hitches.

Equipment

Cortex doesn’t generally worry about gear, and Tales of Xadia is no different. You only see specific items in terms of Signature Assets which cover things like a specific character’s Really Big Sword, Katolian Crossbow, or custom Slotted Shield, or temporary Assets you often create on the fly like Battleaxe, Chair Leg, or Broken Beer Bottle. But Curse of Strahd follows the D&D formula of including treasure you collect and shopping lists you spend that money on, at least to some degree. I want to preserve an element of that, so I’ve created a loose system for equipment, but it isn’t a big focus or mechanical lift for the players.

Treasure

For treasure, I’m just going to convert everything to gold coins (gold pieces or “gp”), and the occasional gem or evocative art item, and ignore anything else purely monetary. I’m not going to create a system of Wealth Assets or dice ratings and all that; that’s a lot more work than just reading from the adventure. If you have 30 gold, you can buy stuff with that; easy peasy. No need to track it any other way. I may cut many rewards down a bit in total value, but nothing like a hard rule where I “divide all gold piece rewards by 10” or something like that. I’ll stick to the adventure for the most part, and over time, develop enough sense to just go with my gut as needed.

Quality & Usage

Item costs are based on D&D 5th edition lists, plus any modifications noted in the module, such as Bildrath’s Mercantile in the Village of Barovia charging 10x the listed prices. While most items are just set dressing (musical instruments, gaming sets, many tools, standard/non-harsh weather clothing), items such as weapons, armor, and adventuring gear get a dice rating based on quality, which will also affects the price, and serves as a sort of usage die mechanic — blame my love of Mausritter for usage, plus the old-school D&D concept of keeping the players lean and hungry for more gold by always having reasons to sink their money into stuff. Here’s how it all works.

Pricing is further modified based on quality, which feature the “usage rule”: after each use, roll the item’s die (noted below based on quality), and on a 1, the item is broken or spent and becomes useless. The die is also the rating of the item when it’s used as an asset, but unlike a temporary asset in TOX, they don’t go away…until the usage comes up a 1 and that item is broken or spent. Of course if they are single-use items, then there’s no need to roll usage: if you drink an antidote or potion, or throw a vial of holy water at a vampire, it’s gone after a single roll.

  • x1 Price — as listed, converted to gold (anything less than 1 gp becomes 1 gp): These items are poor quality. They are treated as d6 Assets.
  • x10 the listed (gp) price: These items are good quality and are rated as d8 Assets.
  • x100 the listed (gp) price: These items are masterwork quality and rated as d10 Assets.

For clarity, I’d resolve the dice roll as you normally do in TOX, and then afterward have the player roll the item’s die to check for usage, rather than trying to remember which die in their completed dice pool is the one from the item and seeing if it rolled a 1. Another option is that I could spend an equal or greater size Doom Die to “break” an item, if there’s ever a narrative justification for doing so.

New & Updated Items

I’m also going to update some existing minor magic items, and add a few new items that will work better with Tales of Xadia‘s use of different stress mechanics.

Note that these items would also be 10x the cost at Bildrath’s, unless the PCs actively take on a quest to re-establish trade between the Village of Barovia, Vallaki, and Krezk. (That right there is a great source of Goals, which you find in Tales of Xadia under the Growth mechanics.)  There also won’t be endless supplies of these available at any given time; generally I’ll roll something like 2d4 or 2d6 and that’s a week’s supply…maybe? I haven’t really decided, but I’ll keep it pretty tight so the PCs can’t rely on this stuff all the time, even if they have the money (Curse of Strahd is notoriously pretty stingy). Notably, most of the recovery items still require a recovery test, too, which means a recovery scene and treatment of some kind from another PC or an allied GMC. Not to mention the fact that the roll could fail! These are hardly the cure-alls that you see in D&D, and that heightens the atmosphere of the campaign setting.

Healing Potion: Aids in the recovery of injured stress. Provides a d6 for 50 gp, d8 for 100 gp, or d10 for 250 gp.

Holy Water: Can be used to cleanse curses (providing the opportunity for a recovery test) or to injure undead and unholy creatures. It generally acts as a d10 asset, and costs 50 gp from a source tied to The Morninglord or Mother Night. (For example, Father Donavich could start creating some at his church, assuming Doru is dealt with and Donavich is friendly with the party. And while not terribly expensive, this is definitely an item I would strictly limit the amount available.)

Instruction Manual: Pick a Specialty. Reading the manual gives you an extra die (based on quality) on a single test, contest, or challenge when using that Specialty. Price varies. (These are single use, despite the fact that the manual itself still exists in the fiction; it’s simply no longer useful. Additionally, a lot of books appear in Castle Ravenloft and other areas, and those will be a good source of manuals like these; it’s an easy game mechanic to use again and again.)

Pipeweed: Aids in the recovery of angry or insecure stress. Provides a d6 asset to any recovery tests for 25 gp.

Scrolls: Give you the ability to cast a spell along with the noted die, but only once before it crumbles to dust. A hitch on the spell’s roll usually cause corrupted stress — unlike normally however, gaining corrupted trauma in this way doesn’t lead to any specific long-term effect. Their value varies greatly, but generally starts at 50+ gp. (Scrolls will be single use, and as you’ll see when I cover magic, there’s not really a way to add these spells permanently to your spell list.)

Vitality Potion: Aids in recovering exhausted stress. Provides a d6 for 25 gp, d8 for 75 gp, or d10 for 200 gp.

Wine: Provides help with recovering from afraid or insecure stress.

  • Purple Grapemash No. 3 (20 gp) — d6
  • Red Dragon Crush (50 gp) — d8
  • Champagne du le Stomp (150 gp) — d10

I’ll cover the big Curse of Strahd artifacts like the Sunsword, Tome of Strahd, and all that in a future article.

Next Time

Magic — including spellcasters and spells — and how I plan to use Corrupted stress!