Opening credits play over: Transylvania 1887
MELODIC WAR PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS:
🕯️ 0:00–0:08 | Title Reveal: The Lantern Settles
A lantern sways above Vallaki’s gate—its flame steady, but dimmer now, as if bracing for what’s already inside.
Boot prints converge in muddied cobblestone.
A child’s ribbon, once tied to a skeletal tree, now hangs limp from the hinge—frayed, faded, forgotten.
A deck of Tarokka cards lies scattered on the guardhouse floor, half-buried in ash.
The screen exhales: VALLAKI, etched into a rusted plaque.
🎥 The camera pans upward—walls tall, torches guttering, rooftops hunched like shoulders in the cold.
🌲 0:09–0:20 | The Town Breathes
The gates creak wider.
Inside: narrow streets, shuttered windows, festival banners limp in the wind.
A child watches from behind a curtain.
A raven lands on a rooftop, caws once, then vanishes.
A hand—weathered, ringed, trembling—reaches into frame and turns over a card nailed to the gatepost: The Innocent.
A charm of bone and braid dangles from the latch, spinning slowly—this time, with no wind at all.
🎭 0:21–0:33 | The Travelers Within
The wanderers move through the gate, marked not by arrival—but by intrusion.
Fleetwood (Richard Armitage) walks with his blade half-drawn, eyes scanning windows now, not treetops.
Clarion (Gwendoline Christie) moves like a storm held in check, her shield catching torchlight like a warning.
Silverleaf (Tatiana Maslany) watches the raven above, fingers brushing stone walls like reading a forgotten language.
Felonious (Ben Whishaw) mutters incantations—quieter, sharper—the air around him twitching with restrained magic.
Greegan (Matt Ryan) rolls bone dice on a windowsill. They clatter once. The Beast. The Broken One.
Rictavio (Matt Berry) stands atop a crimson-and-gold wagon parked just outside the gate. His cloak billows. He raises a hand, voice booming:
“The girl is missing. The cards are restless. And I, dear friends, am very much awake.”
He vanishes behind the curtain as the wagon lantern flickers.
Starring: Richard Armitage as Fleetwood Gwendoline Christie as Clarion Tatiana Maslany as Silverleaf Ben Whishaw as Felonious Matt Ryan as Greegan Matt Berry as Rictavio
🃏 0:46–0:58 | The Fortunes Shift Again
The scattered cards rise again—this time inside the town.
Five remain suspended: The Artifact. The Beast. The Innocent. The Broken One. The Darklord.
As each is drawn, the town reacts—windows slam shut, bells toll once, a scream echoes from somewhere unseen.
Behind the cards, Strahd’s silhouette flickers—reflected in a puddle, distorted by ripples.
🎵 0:59–1:10 | Final Note: The Gate Closes
The party walks deeper into Vallaki.
The gate creaks shut behind them.
The final card lands in Clarion’s hand: The Innocent.
The ravens above scatter.
The fog curls into the shape of a noose—then dissipates.
The road no longer leads forward.
It coils inward.
🎼 Main Title by Alan Silvestri
🎬 COLD OPEN: “The Wolves at the Door” — Khazan’s Tower, Fog-Wrapped Dusk
Background Music: Nocturnal Onslaught | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h Battle Music | Loop
The mist shivers.
Then it moves.
From the fog, the false hunters split and twist—bones cracking, jaws elongating, cloaks shredding into fur. Werewolves, lean and muscular, half-man, half-beast. Their eyes glow with hunger.
No howls. No roars. Only the thud of paws on gravel. The hiss of claws unsheathing.
🎯 TACTICS AND BLOODSHED
The party scatters.
SILVERLEAF vanishes behind a toppled gargoyle, blades reversed in her hands. She dives from shadow, slashing low—silvered steel biting into a wolf’s thigh. Blood sprays, real and red.
CLARION plants herself at the doorway, shield raised. A wolf lunges—she meets it midair, slamming it into the tower wall with a grunt. The beast snarls, recovers, but her armor holds.
FELONIOUS climbs broken stone, voice rising in arcane cadence. He hurls a lance of radiant fire—geometry burning through fog—searing the white-haired leader’s flank.
GREEGAN disappears into mist. A heartbeat later, he’s behind a crouched wolf, silvered dagger sliding into its kidney. The beast whips around—too late. He’s already gone, swallowed by shadow and root.
FLEETWOOD strides into the fray, blade already drawn. The steel hums faintly, runes along its edge glowing with cold fire. He doesn’t hesitate—his enchanted sword cleaves through a lunging wolf’s chest, the strike clean, final. Another charges; he pivots, parries claws with steel, then drives the blade through its throat. No hesitation. No wasted motion. His face is stone, his movements precise, as if he’s been waiting for this fight all along.
🧠 THE ENEMY ADAPTS
The wolves don’t charge blindly.
One circles wide, flanking SZOLDAR. He backpedals, looses an arrow into its shoulder, then dives for cover.
Two converge on CLARION, striking high and low. She staggers under their weight—but holds.
The white-haired leader waits, growling low, then launches forward with terrifying speed.
Fleetwood meets another wolf head-on, enchanted blade flashing. Sparks fly as steel meets claw, but the wolf falters—the magic cuts deeper than flesh. Fleetwood drives it back, step by step, until it collapses in the dirt.
💥 TURNING POINT
FELONIOUS: (shouting) “Greegan—NOW!”
GREEGAN skids through gravel behind the leader, slamming a pouch of powdered silver into its back.
Felonious unleashes another spell—divine energy detonates, channeled through the silver.
A shockwave of blinding radiance engulfs the wolves. Two collapse, howling, limbs spasming as silver burns beneath their skin.
Fleetwood shields his eyes from the blast, then steps forward, blade raised, ready to finish any that rise again.
CLARION stands over a fallen wolf, bloodied but unbroken.
CLARION: (panting) “That all of them?”
Not yet.
The leader—smoking, maddened—lunges one last time.
SILVERLEAF intercepts, blades crossing mid-leap. GREEGAN shouts—curse or prayer, lost in the clash.
CLARION ends it.
Her shield knocks the beast off-balance. Her mace arcs upward—divine silver fire through heart and spine.
The wolf twitches once. Then stillness.
🌫️ AFTERMATH
The clearing is red and smoking. The mist creeps back in, curling around the dead.
Fleetwood lowers his blade, its glow dimming, his face unreadable. He doesn’t wipe the blood away. He just stares into the fog, jaw set, waiting for the next shadow to move.
🌫️ AFTERMATH
The field is red and smoking. The mist creeps back in, curling around the bodies, reclaiming the dead.
Silence.
No one is bitten. But everyone is marked.
GREEGAN wipes his blade on a fallen cloak. His eyes linger on the child’s bracelet in his pocket, thumb brushing the worn beads.
GREEGAN: (low, dry) “They weren’t expecting prey that bites back.”
FELONIOUS exhales, knuckles scorched, brow bleeding. His voice is steady, but thin.
The camera lingers on the smoke curling upward, then cuts—
🎬 SCENE: “No More Games” — Khazan’s Clearing, Minutes After the Battle
The haze of smoke and blood hangs low. Ash drifts in the mist like snow that’s forgotten how to fall.
The ground is torn, claw-marked, slick with red. The werewolves lie scattered—some half-human, some still twisted in beast form. Their glassy eyes stare into nothing.
The party stands among them. Breathless. Battered. Alive.
FLEETWOOD wipes a streak of blood from his brow—someone else’s—and fixes his gaze on the forest trail where wagon ruts vanish into shadow.
FLEETWOOD: (flat, iron) “Enough running around. We find Rictavio. And he tells us where Arabelle is.”
He turns, eyes sharp as drawn steel.
FLEETWOOD: “No more riddles. No more theatrics. We’re done playing showman.”
A silence follows—sharp, taut, dangerous.
GREEGAN leans against a stone outcropping, silvered dagger still wet in his hand. He raises an eyebrow, half a smirk tugging at his mouth.
GREEGAN: “Before or after the next pack shows up?”
No answer.
Fleetwood doesn’t even look at him. His eyes stay locked on the vanishing road, jaw clenched like a sealed vault.
GREEGAN: (beat, muttering) “…Right. Just checking.”
The mist curls tighter, coiling around boots and blades.
Behind them, the tower looms—silent, watching.
And somewhere, in the twilight gloom that Barovia calls nightfall, the rest of the wolves are listening.
CUT TO BLACK.
🎬 SCENE: “The Devil’s Reminder” — Luna River Crossroads, Return to the Wound
Background Music shifts: Strahd Battle Theme | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h D&D BBEG Battle Music | Loop
The sky bruises darker as the party descends the wooded ridge. Fog clings at their boots—not drifting, but curling, as if remembering their blood.
GREEGAN: (glances back) “It was quiet last time, too quiet.”
Fleetwood doesn’t answer. He pulls his cloak tighter and leads.
🎥 The camera pans down to the crossroads clearing—charred husks where twig blights once fell, the leaning signpost still drunk on its angle. The path still splits. But something has changed.
A sound. A pulse.
(SFX: Falling bomb sound effect)
High above—a shape falls. Sudden. Fast. Unnatural.
🔥 A smoldering black object slams into the dirt less than ten feet away, carving a crater. Dust and gravel explode outward, forcing the group into a defensive ring.
When the smoke clears—
—a burning horse skull, iron-nailed to a post of blackened heartwood, buried point-down like a stake through memory.
Strahd’s coat of arms, scorched into bone, bleeds smoke.
A note flutters from the splinters, pinned by a gold coin so old it bears no kingdom.
FELONIOUS: (bends, careful. Reads aloud) “You climb his tower. You sift his ashes. But nothing of Khazan will save you now. I am patient. But not endlessly.”
The smoke shifts—then a hundred bats erupt from the trees, spiraling upward in a helix of chittering panic.
The mist deepens.
The woods are watching.
And Strahd’s drop has landed.
SCENE: “Eyes to the Storm” — Luna River Crossroads, After the Threat
The mist hangs heavier now, twilight stretched taut like old gauze. Smoke curls from the scorched earth where Strahd’s message fell.
The party stands tense, shadows long across the crossroads.
SILVERLEAF lifts her head, scanning the air. Her hand rests on her blade—but she doesn’t draw. Not yet.
🎥 The camera follows her gaze upward—
A dark shape cuts through the mist: Beaucephalus, Strahd’s nightmare steed. Hooves never touch the wind. Fire flickers from its nostrils. Its eyes glow like buried furnaces.
Its wings—if wings they are—move in silence, shadow incarnate.
And on its back: a figure in scarlet. Still. Regal. Watching them shrink.
No thunder. No laugh. Just presence.
The steed banks westward—🕯️ back toward Castle Ravenloft, its spires haloed in stormlight.
Silverleaf steps forward, boots crunching ash. Her eyes fix on the fading dot, breath caught. For a flicker of heartbeats, she’s no longer at the crossroads. She’s beneath that rider, blade drawn, climbing ruin or cloud or madness just to reach him.
Her fingers twitch. She could run. She could try.
CLARION: (Grounding)“Silverleaf. Shael. He’s gone.”
The vision breaks like ice. Silverleaf blinks, shoulders settling—not relaxed, but resolved.
SILVERLEAF: (soft) “No. Not gone. Just… waiting for the next curtain to rise.”
The last shimmer of Beaucephalus vanishes behind the cliffs. The air stinks of scorched earth and prophecy.
The crossroads fall silent once more.
🎬 SCENE: “Echoes on the Bridge” — Luna River Crossing, En Route to Vallaki
The old stone bridge arches over the Luna River, slick with mist and age. Below, the water churns in dark silence, catching nothing of the stars.
The party crosses in wary quiet. Armor clinks. Leather creaks. The hush of water swallows all.
Fleetwood walks just behind Clarion, fingers drumming against his scabbard. He leans in.
FLEETWOOD: “She’s been looking at him like a flame. Like something worth chasing.”
Clarion doesn’t answer. Her eyes flick toward Silverleaf, who walks ahead, cloak trailing like a shadow pinned by moonlight.
FLEETWOOD: (adds, softer): “She’s a little too taken. With him. With Strahd.”
🎧 The wind shifts. Elven ears catch it.
Silverleaf stops. Greegan nearly bumps into her. She turns, eyes sharp—not furious, not wounded. Just cutting.
SILVERLEAF: “Taken? You think I want him?”
The bridge holds its breath.
SILVERLEAF: “I hate what he is. But pretending he doesn’t exist—pretending his presence doesn’t shape the land, the air, every dream we dare have—that’s how he wins.”
FELONIOUS: “You’re not wrong, Leaf. But you’re also not the one who just watched him fly across the sky like a cursed demigod while looking halfway in love with gravity.”
GREEGAN: (raises a hand in mock solemnity) “I’d chase a vampire too. Right off a cliff. Just wouldn’t smile about it.”
Silverleaf’s jaw tightens.
SILVERLEAF: (Almost crying now)“So now we joke?”
CLARION: (gently) “They’re trying to understand.”
Silverleaf meets each gaze in turn. Then exhales—long, cold.
SILVERLEAF: “Good. Because the moment I do stop fearing him… that’s when you should worry.”
She turns, continuing across the bridge, vanishing into the mist.
Behind her, the others exchange glances. Silent. Thoughtful. Not reassured.
Even Strahd’s absence burns like a brand when carried too close to the heart.
CUT TO BLACK.
🎬 SCENE: “Old Roads, Older Shadows” — Approaching Vallaki, Near Dusk
Background Music shifts: Encounter in Vallaki | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h Combat Music | Loop
The road bends through frost-crusted underbrush, past blackened trees. Behind them, the Luna River murmurs like a story missing its middle.
As the last curve straightens, the walls of Vallaki rise ahead—stark, familiar. Timber-and-stone bulwarks crowned in mist.
Smoke curls from hearths within. Lanterns hang along the battlements like patient fireflies. For once, no guards block the road. No Oran Thar leering from the gate. Just the quiet creak of a city exhaling.
SILVERLEAF lingers at the rear as the party crests the rise. Her boots drag through damp leaves, her pace slower, distracted.
🎥 The camera tightens on her face, angled upward toward the fading sun behind Castle Ravenloft’s silhouette—distant, immense, inescapable.
Her lips move, barely sound.
SILVERLEAF: (whisper, almost thought) “What does he want with us…?” (beat)
“No. What do I want from him?”
The question coils inside her—tight, personal. Not longing. Not temptation. Something older. A shape without a name.
He saw her. On the battlefield.
He flew away.
But he saw her.
The gate looms.
GREEGAN: (whistles low) “No toll-takers this time. Maybe old Raskov learned to spend less and live longer.”
CLARION: (chuckles once) “Or maybe Ezmerelda left him something sharp in his coin purse.”
🎥 The camera widens as they cross beneath the gate.
Their footsteps echo in the chill. Vendors shutter carts. Children are herded home before dusk claws over the rooftops.
Strangers’ eyes watch from behind shutters. Silent. Measuring.
But no one stops them.
The city exhales again—this time, like it’s holding its breath.
CUT TO BLACK.
🎬 SCENE: “Curtains, Again” — The Blue Water Inn, Vallaki, Nightfall
Background music shifts: Blue Water Inn | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h Tavern Music & Ambience
The inn is alive. Firelight spills from every hearthstone, laughter rising like steam from crowded tables. Tankards clink. A fiddle saws a tavern tune in the corner.
At the center of it all—Rictavio.
🎩 The showman stands atop a bench, arms wide, mid‑flourish:
RICTAVIO: “—and as the chimera reared back on three heads, all snarling at once, I did what any gentleman with a rapier and a keen sense of theater would do—
I leapt between them wearing nothing but a tablecloth and a very convincing snarl!”
The crowd erupts. Even Urwin chuckles behind the bar. Rictavio bows, mustache quirked, eyes glittering. No hint of the man with more names than truths.
Through the crowd, Urwin presses toward the party. He catches Fleetwood by the shoulder, voice low:
URWIN: “This came for you. Hours ago. No courier name. Just a seal.”
He presses an envelope into Fleetwood’s hand—thick parchment, cold as the moon. The wax bears the bat‑winged lion of Lady Fiona Wachter.
Fleetwood turns it over, unread. His jaw tightens.
GREEGAN narrows his eyes.
FELONIOUS raises a brow, amused.
FELONIOUS: “What’s the etiquette for opening a threat during supper? Before the soup, or with dessert?”
They drift toward Rictavio’s table, watching him spin tales like silk.
🎭 SIDE ALCOVE
Silverleaf draws Clarion aside, away from the fire and the din. Shadows gather near the shelves of bottles.
She stares into a glass of spiced wine she doesn’t sip.
SILVERLEAF: “I don’t know what I feel. But it isn’t infatuation.”
Her gaze flicks to the window, where Ravenloft’s spires loom like memory.
SILVERLEAF: “It’s like he’s gravity. Pulling at something I buried. Something old. I don’t know if it’s hate. Or recognition. When he looks at me, it’s like he sees… not just who I am. But what I could become. And I’m not sure that frightens me the way it should.”
Clarion studies her, steady as stone.
CLARION: “It matters that it does frighten you. It means you’re still steering the blade. Not the other way around.”
Silverleaf nods, slow, pained.
SILVERLEAF: “But what if I want to follow it? Just a little?”
The silence between them is thick, not judging—only holding.
At the center of the room, Rictavio lifts his mug to cheers. But his eyes—just for an instant—cut toward the party. Something tightens.
The masks are flawless.
But everyone’s watching someone.
🎬 SCENE: “Jests and Jabs” — The Blue Water Inn, By Firelight
Background Music shifts: Rictavio (Theme) | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h TTRPG Thematic Orchestral Music | Loop
The hearthlight flickers across flagstones and mugs. Shadows nod along with the laughter at Rictavio’s table.
He rises as the party approaches, flamboyant and booming:
RICTAVIO: “My heroes of the tower! Bold of blade, swift of step, scourge of wolfish folk with grooming habits most unfortunate!”
He grins broadly. But his gaze lingers a moment too long. Weighing.
RICTAVIO : “Come now, sit, drink! Unless you’ve come to throw me from the balcony for telling tales louder than truth. In which case—do wait until I’ve finished my wine.”
He gestures to tankards.
Felonious and Greegan sit, casual but watchful. Greegan’s fingers tap a rhythm on his mug—thief’s code in plain sight.
GREEGAN: “Any birthday gigs lately at the camp outside the lake?”
Rictavio chuckles as if it’s a bawdy joke.
RICTAVIO: “Alas, no children’s parties of late. Guest lists are terribly exclusive. Hard to crash.”
His smile doesn’t waver. Neither does his heartbeat—at least not by sight.
GREEGAN: (muttering) “Smooth. Or very practiced.”
FELONIOUS: “Or both.”
Fleetwood stands stiff, Wachter’s letter crumpled in his fist.
FLEETWOOD: “Too many masks, Rictavio. Too little time.”
Clarion’s eyes track every gesture, every tilt of the head.
CLARION: “You weave a fine web. But I wonder who taught you to spin it.”
🎻 Silverleaf, half‑shadowed near the hearth, leans against a column.
SILVERLEAF: “Your heart’s beating too fast for the part you’re playing.”
Rictavio turns with a theatrical gasp.
RICTAVIO: “What can I say? In the presence of such formidable company, one’s pulse has a habit of… misbehaving.”
But in his eyes—just for a flicker—there’s no fear, no deception.
Only warning.
CUT TO BLACK.
End credits
Background music; Rictavio (Theme) | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h TTRPG Thematic Orchestral Music | Loop