Strahd's Domain

Most of Strahd's attire is very much like the typical vampire in a child's horror story. In fact you can get a lot of good cosplay material from fancy dress shops or anywhere selling Hallowe'en stuff. 'Course it's rather tacky if you do get a lot of kids' Hallowe'en stuff, but sometimes that's all you can afford! Well here's my little checklist for what you will need to get to dress as Strahd yourself. Try to get stuff which is of high quality though for the best kind of Strahd as he has all the money he wants and can afford to go for the best Barovia (or rather Cristina) has to offer!

Strahd is described as wearing a white shirt. I imagine this to have the pointed collar and floucy sleeves which you could expect from any stereotypical aristocratic vampire. Here was the best I could find at the time when I went cosplay hunting. I saw one a lot better, but it was waaaay too expensive!

Strahd is also said to wear a red bowtie, but I couldn't find one and would have only made a hash of it anyway, so maybe someone else could try that one!

It's also well known that Strahd wears a heavy black cloak. I saw the perfect cloak for sale in a goth shop but it was £80 which is a little too high for my budget so I reluctantly ended up using a cheap tacky Hallowe'en one which sucked, but I couldn't find anything even halfway decent!

Black is the new black in Ravenloft and Strahd just can't get enough of it. The best purchase I made for my costume was probably a stunning black velvet waistcoat which even had skulls on the buttons and had the word 'Raven' in the label. It seemed too perfect to miss so I forked out the £40 for this little beauty!

For the bottom half Strahd wears black trousers and tough black boots, which I imagine are buckled as opposed to tied. There's nothing out of the ordinary about his ensemble here so no pictures should be necessary. You could also add a belt since I'm sure it would fit the Von Zarovich appearance (and, in his pre-vampiric days, a sword). Keep everything black, or at least very dark, however since His Excellency does not belong in the Swinging Sixties era!

Count Strahd is determined to show his excessive wealth in both the quality of his clothes and his jewellery. I believe he wears powerful magic rings, so anything gothic and flamboyant will do here. I got two cheap but effective rings in a castle giftshop. The ruby one broke which is why it's not shown here but the emerald is still going strong! The large red ring here came from a vampire costume kit. The pendant also came from a costume shop, but I feel it's a little too tacky for what it's supposed to be; Strahd always supports his heirloom of the Von Zarovich ruby, a magnificent jewel set on an elaborate gold pendant. Well, I'm not sure it's described anywhere quite like that, but I'm pretty sure that's what it must be since Strahd would never be seen dead, or rather undead, wearing some cheap jewellery which puts his whole wealthy family line to shame!

Your Strahd costume is not complete without a few extra essentials! One of course being the teeth. Vampire teeth are available around Hallowe'en but most of them are the stupidly tacky whole rows of teeth with ridiculously long canines that make you look more like you're trying to dress as a saber toothed tiger with plastic teeth! With a bit of hunting around I found some much better teeth - just the canines and only slightly (but noticably) sharper than a real pair of upper canines. They apparently stay stuck in with denture fixants, but all attempts I've had at this have failed miserably with me consuming far too much of the stuff.

You might also want to get hold of some fake blood to use liberally wherever you feel it might look good. Please don't go over the top with this though because it'll just make you look like an extra in Casualty instead. Use more on your victims than yourself!

The dagger is another cheap Hallowe'en toy (with a retractable blade so it looks like you've stabbed someone). It's by no means assential, but could add to the costume. You could even imagine it as the Ba'al Verzi dagger and stab a Sergei! The make-up is great though. This is pure white foundation (and therefore only available where you can buy horror stuff; your average Boots doesn't sell deathly white makeup!)

Finally I added a spellbook to the lot. Strahd loves his tomes and a good, large hardback book covered in felt paper and decorated with runes (or, as with my Ravenloft folder, blood and 'cobwebs' [available from craft shops]). This book here is actually the Spellbook of Fistandantilus I used for my Dragonlance Raistlin cosplay! Why not recycle old cosplays?! Anyone who reads such an dark arcane book however will be spellbound by the likes of Roald Dahl in my case!

Here was one of my early attempts at the costume. A lot has been improved since then but in all honesty I don't wear it very much anymore. Perhaps it would attract too many strange looks rather than looks of awe and respect. Haha. Have fun cosplaying!