Beginning Credits: Transylvania 1887
Opening Sequence: The camera floats through the mists toward a brooding manor rising from the fog—its windows hollow eyes, its shutters flapping like breathless whispers. Chiaroscuro lighting paints the halls as voices echo with nursery rhymes and distant weeping.
Main Cast:
Richard Armitage as Hawk Fleetwood
Gwendoline Christie as Clarion
Tatiana Maslany as Silverleaf
Ben Whishaw as Felonious
Matt Ryan as Greegan
Opening Titles Roll Over:
A rotted bassinet swinging by itself
A faded mural of Strahd standing behind faceless nobles
A blood-stained child's drawing: the house, the cult, and “Mommy” weeping underground
The camera pans to a mold-choked attic, where two skeletons cradle old toys
Cut to Cold Open:
INT. DEATH HOUSE – CRUMBLING STAIRWAY – MIDNIGHT
Background music shifts: Death House Fight | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h D&D Combat Music (Loop)
🎬 INT. DURST MANOR – FINAL CORRIDOR – NIGHT
The camera pans through a nightmarish ballet of ruin—splintered beams groan like dying beasts, portraits scream from blistered walls, and thick dust churns into a blinding storm. The house moans. It doesn't want them to leave.
FLEETWOOD bursts forward, framed in stuttering torchlight, his sword gleaming like defiance carved in steel. His cloak whips behind him as he barrels through falling plaster and grasping shadows—every step a declaration: not today.
Beside him, FELONIOUS’ lips move in furious silence, fingers dancing with arcane light. The magic crackles between his knuckles like a spark refusing death. A spectral hand unfurls from his palm—ready to strike, shield, tear. His eyes flick left—he’s counting threats they can’t see.
SILVERLEAF, breath ragged, draws another arrow, trembling arms locked in grim resolve. Her eyes—hard, elven, unyielding—scan the collapsing hallway for the next phantom. Her muscles scream, but she holds—one shot left, maybe their only.
Trailing behind, CLARION clutches the amber shard to her chest. The shard pulses—once, twice—then glows hot in her palm. She gasps. “It knows we’re leaving,” she whispers, barely heard above the chaos. The floor cracks behind her in a spiderweb of doom.
A roar—timber, not beast—rips through the manor as the roof begins to cave. A chandelier smashes beside them. Wood shrieks like bone breaking.
The air bends.
The fog coalesces, clawing at their skin like desperate fingers. Shadows quiver on the walls—not cast by torch or spell, but by something older. Deeper. Wrong.
ELIZABETH DURST (Portrayed by someone like Tilda Swinton) emerges like a secret finally spoken. Not stepping forward—unfolding into view. Her feet don’t touch the ground. Her gown hangs in spectral tatters, dragging whispers behind it. What was once elegance is now mockery—a rotted veil over madness.
The light from Clarion’s amber shard sputters, panicked. The matching crystal dangling from Elizabeth’s throat pulses in answer—its glow a malignant heartbeat.
Her eyes, if one could still call them that, scan the party—Fleetwood, sword held tight though his breath catches; Silverleaf, frozen mid-draw, unwilling to blink; Felonious, his spell lost in his throat. Clarion shakes. Greegan draws back.
ELIZABETH DURST (voice fractured and overlapping) "You may have evaded my pet..." A chuckle beneath the words, like fingernails scraping bone. "...but I will tear this house apart before I let you escape."
Suddenly—the ceiling caves. Dust billows. Bricks fall like thunder.
She screams—a banshee’s wail riddled with despair, triumph, and something ancient. Walls split. Blood oozes from portraits. The grandfather clock in the parlor tolls like a death sentence, each chime slamming through the bones of the house.
Elizabeth grins—twisted, radiant, awful—and vanishes like ash in wind.
Silence falls.
Except for her laugh. It stays. Dripping from the rafters. Crawling through their ears. Refusing to leave.
INT. DEATH HOUSE – COLLAPSING STAIRWAY – MIDNIGHT
The manor is gasping. Stone pulses with strain. Wood buckles with memory. Every groan in the walls is a cry caught in the throat of the house. The air doesn't breathe—it presses.
Then he appears.
GUSTAV DURST (Portrayed by Mark Rylance) —or what's left of him—emerges not with drama, but with quiet defeat. He’s not summoned. He leaks into the world like a bloodstain through bandage. His coat, once velvet, now hangs like flayed skin. His eyes are dim hollows, twin funerals lit only by the flicker of someone who remembers once being a man.
He looks to them. Pleading.
GUSTAV DURST (hoarse, threadbare) "Please… you have to stay here and die. She won’t accept anything else."
The words don’t echo—they settle, sinking deep into the spine. The house groans behind him like a lover shamed, walls bowing inward, eager to smother the escape.
And then—GREEGAN.
His laugh slices the tension like shattered glass. Cold. Cruel. A sound born of gallows humor and worse nights than this.
GREEGAN "Yeah? Tell her to suck my—"
He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to. The gesture says it all—vulgar, unrepentant, alive.
He pushes past the ghost without slowing, without blinking. The spirit flinches. Nothing more. He is not a wall. Not a barrier. Just rot pretending to be iron.
The others follow.
Gustav’s mouth opens—but no sound comes. Not rage. Not warning. Only silence.
Because even the house knows— It’s too late.
INT. DEATH HOUSE – FIRST FLOOR – MIDNIGHT
The house is dying, its bones splintering, groaning, crumbling inward—time is running out.
Fleetwood doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t calculate—he just moves, driving forward, carving his own path where none exists. CRASH. Wood splinters. Plaster explodes outward. Blood stains his sleeve. But—there’s no time to dwell on it.
Felonious skids to a halt beside him, eyes darting to the open wound, but he does not stop—there will be time for healing if they survive. Silverleaf pushes past the debris, heart hammering in her chest. Clarion grasps Fleetwood’s arm for a fleeting second, as if to ground him, to steady him—then she lets go, pushing forward. Greegan laughs—sharp, reckless, victorious—as he leaps over the wreckage, moving fast.
Then—ahead. The front door—open. Waiting. Calling. The house shrieks, beams snapping, dust filling the air, choking the last remnants of breath within its rotting walls. And then—they run, piling out the front door as the upper stories begin to collapse in on themselves above them.
EXT. DEATH HOUSE – NIGHT
The ground trembles, vibrating under their feet as the house folds inward, sinking, crumbling, collapsing into itself. Clarion presses a hand to her chest, feeling the last warmth of the amber shard fade, its purpose fulfilled.
Then—the hole seals itself. No ruins. No remnants. Just cold, undisturbed earth— As though the house had never been there at all.
EXT. UNKNOWN FOREST – NIGHT
Background music shifts again: Into the Mists | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h TTRPG Dark Background Music | Loop
The amber shard crumbles, slipping between Clarion’s fingers, its dust carried away on the chill night breeze.
The horses are still there, untouched, waiting—as is Felonious’ cart, undisturbed by the horrors that have unfolded.
A hush falls—not peace, but pressure. The trees lean in, tall and ancient, their limbs gnarled like claws reaching for sky. Mist curls low along the forest floor, serpentine and silent, swallowing the hooves of unmoving horses and the wheels of Felonious' cart. The moon overhead hangs like a voyeur, silver and cold.
CLARION watches the last of the shard’s dust float skyward, eyes narrowed against the growing sense of wrongness. What was once a tether is now ash. She closes her hand around nothing.
SILVERLEAF shifts her stance—warrior’s stillness twisted by unease. Her gaze roves the unfamiliar branches, listening… feeling.
SILVERLEAF "This isn’t the Radlebb Woods. This place doesn’t speak to me. I… I don’t know this forest."
FLEETWOOD, his shirt bloodied and breath steadying, scans the underbrush like a man already expecting trouble.
FLEETWOOD "It’s quieter. Wetter. Everything’s wrong, like… like we stepped into someone else’s nightmare."
A low breeze stirs. It doesn’t cool—it warns.
FELONIOUS lifts his hand, spell-light flickering faintly in his palm. His brow furrows as if the weave itself has shifted, unfamiliar and resistant. He mutters an incantation—nothing happens. The silence after is heavy. He looks up, attempting to orient by the stars - but there are none.
FELONIOUS "We're not in Karameikos anymore."
GREEGAN laughs—one bark, half defiant, half disbelief. He plants a boot into the wet earth, looking around like the punchline’s still forming.
GREEGAN "Well, fangs and fog be damned. We made it out... didn’t say where we’d land."
A wolf howls in the distance—close. Too close.
The wind shifts again. This time it carries something colder. Faint music, maybe. Or weeping.
And behind them—the forest seems to breathe.
Then—Thorn reappears.
A small form, fragile but present, flickering into existence like a memory returning. And—Rose. Slipping free from Greegan’s body, stepping forward, reading the land, absorbing the truth that settles deep into her ethereal bones.
Her expression shifts, lips parting slightly, disbelief curdling into certainty.
ROSE: "We’re home, Thorn. Barovia. Can't you feel it? These look like the Svalich Woods." (Her voice is steady—but not knowing, not certain.) "But I don’t know exactly where we are."
EXT. ABANDONED TOWER – NIGHT
The moon hangs low, casting pale light through twisted branches, illuminating the aged silhouette of an old tower rising against the dark woods. Then—inside. They step across the threshold, their boots pressing against dusty, undisturbed stone, scanning the emptiness, the long-abandoned ruin, searching for a sign of its last occupants.
Nothing. No tracks. No scattered belongings. Only silence.
Then—Rose floats forward. Thorn follows, watching, absorbing the change in their surroundings.
Rose tilts her head slightly, exhaling, pulse settling, lips pressing together in quiet understanding.
ROSE: "If you want to rest here a while, we’ll stand guard for you."
Bowing their heads, the party agrees to this offer.
Cut to:
INT. ABANDONED TOWER – NIGHT
🎬 INT. RUINED TOWER – PRE-DAWN SILENCE
The stillness is suffocating. No birds. No wind. Just the presence of ancient stone, cold as buried guilt. The nearly-full moon casts its ghostlight through a fractured window, painting silver shadows over forgotten dust. Somewhere in the darkness, a beam creaks—but the sound doesn’t break the silence, it deepens it.
FLEETWOOD kneels in the shadows—collapsed into himself, hands clenched, shoulders racked with tremors. His sword lies untouched beside him. His armor feels heavier than ever. Each breath comes ragged, as though the weight in his chest has punctured the air around him.
For the first time, the man who has always stood tall—breaks.
Footsteps, soft as memory, echo down the corridor. CLARION moves like someone chasing a feeling before it vanishes—her pulse quick, her breath caught halfway to fear. She finds him in the dark—her champion, crumpled and silent.
She doesn’t speak at first.
She kneels. Wraps her arms around him. Feels him flinch—then collapse against her.
CLARION (whispering) "Hawk? What’s wrong?"
Silence. Then—breath. Then—words, gutted of everything but truth.
FLEETWOOD (voice fraying at the edges) "Elizabeth... She made Walter into a monster. And now I’m one too."
The words land between them like a blade unsheathed.
Clarion's eyes burn. She pulls him closer, one hand on his chest, feeling his heart fight itself.
CLARION "No, Hawk. You set him free. Set all of them free."
He shakes his head. Once. Then again. His jaw tightens. He breathes in—but it breaks before it finishes.
FLEETWOOD "Was that a good thing?"
She doesn’t answer with words. Not yet. Just holds him tighter. The tears soak into her shoulder, and she lets them. The tower doesn’t move. The night doesn’t judge.
Just beyond the walls—the past lingers.
🎬 FLASHBACK – EXT. WEEPING HOLLOW – TWILIGHT
A grave. Small. Fresh. The earth still unsettled. A teddy bear—patchy, one glass eye missing—rests gently atop the mound.
FLEETWOOD stands at a distance. Silent. Rigid. Staring.
CLARION, then younger, softer in the face but already bearing the weight of too many losses, watches him.
She asks the question. Not to accuse. But because she has to know.
CLARION "Hawk… when you were a soldier, did you ever—"
He doesn’t let her finish. Doesn’t let the question sit in the air too long.
FLEETWOOD (immediate, unwavering) "Halav save me, no. I’d never do anything like that. You should know me better than that."
She did. She does. But now, in the tower, with Walter’s memory twisting in their minds—there’s doubt where there should be none.
🎬 INT. RUINED TOWER – PRE-DAWN
Clarion holds him, heart pounding. Whispering what she knows he may never believe—but what she’ll say again and again if she must.
CLARION "You are not what she made him. You are what saved him."
His breath hitches.
And slowly, not fully, not yet—he begins to believe she might be right.
Cut to:
MONTAGE – IMPROMPTU FUNERAL AT THE TOWER
EXT. ABANDONED TOWER – OVERCAST MORNING
Background music shifts: Rose and Thorn | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h TTRPG Dark Dramatic Music | Loop
The sky is bruised with gray, the wind crawling through the trees, whispering against the stone. As the party loads up their horses and Felonious' cart, Rose and Thorn reappear. Their spectral forms hover near the edge of the tower ruins, their expressions unreadable, but their voices steady, knowing, soaked in quiet certainty.
ROSE: "Follow the Old Svalich Road. It will take you to our home—Barovia."
Thorn nods, glancing toward the mist curling at the edges of the trees, watching it with wary eyes.
THORN: "But beware the woods. And especially the mist."
MONTAGE – BURIAL OF ROSE AND THORN’S BONES
EXT. ABANDONED TOWER – OVERCAST MORNING
The earth is cool beneath their hands, soft enough to yield, ready to receive the last remnants of what once was.
Clarion kneels at the shallow grave, her fingers pressing against the worn bones of Rose and Thorn, treating them with reverence, with care. Fleetwood stands beside her, silent, his sword sheathed, his presence steady, absorbing the weight of farewell. Felonious mutters quiet words, a blessing, a farewell, his magic flickering between his fingers, weaving protection into the ground itself.
Silverleaf steps forward, placing a single white flower atop the disturbed soil—simple, delicate, an offering.
Greegan bows his head, removing his hood and holding it over his heart—a quiet form of respect.
Rose and Thorn watch, their spectral forms still, their expressions unreadable—but not afraid.
A hush falls—unnatural, reverent. The kind of silence that feels alive. The mists coil around the roots and stones like mourners themselves, their whispers stilled as CLARION begins the rites of Chardastes. Her voice is soft but resolute—ancient syllables meant to soothe spirits, to guide them home. Each word presses outward, wrapping the grave in invisible warmth.
The wind shifts.
It curls around her ankles, lifts the hem of her cloak, and carries the ritual forward like breath across sacred pages. The soil beneath her knees is cold. Real. Final.
FLEETWOOD bows his head. His hands are clenched, blood now dried on his sleeve. He doesn’t cry—but his eyes burn. His stare is locked to the grave, as if holding it shut with sheer will.
FELONIOUS closes his eyes—not in prayer, but in submission. As if surrendering this moment to something greater. The magic within him dims, respectful.
SILVERLEAF steps back one pace. Her hands are still. Her shoulders tense. She doesn’t look away, but her chest rises with the slow weight of knowing this pain can’t be fought.
GREEGAN gives one sharp nod. Not flippant. Not mocking. Just... true. He doesn’t trust many things, but he trusts this goodbye.
And then—Clarion places the last handful of earth over the twin bones beneath.
A breeze picks up. Gentle. Final. It lifts a curl of her hair, brushes the soil, rustles the leaves. The words of her rite echo faintly—then vanish.
And there—glowing faintly at the edge of the shallow grave—
ROSE and THORN DURST.
Transparent. Still. Watching. They hold hands.
ROSE (soft, clear, crystalline) "Goodbye, Miss Clarion. You'll be a good mama one day, I know it."
She turns to Fleetwood.
ROSE "Goodbye, Sir Fleetwood. When I was… in my room, I dreamed a brave knight would rescue me. And he did."
Then, to Greegan. Her smile falters—sad, tender, loving in the way only a child can love.
ROSE "Goodbye, Mr. Greegan. I will miss you most of all."
THORN tugs at her sleeve, whispering something only she hears. She nods.
The wind swirls, and their forms begin to fade—mist reclaiming them, drawing them home. A whisper—a giggle—one last echo of children once forgotten, now remembered.
And then they are gone.
All that remains is the grave. The silence. And a sky without stars.
FADE TO BLACK.
End credits play over : Rose and Thorn | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h TTRPG Dark Dramatic Music | Loop