Starting a Ravenloft Campaign

[Sandwich8080]

My group and I (as DM) played through Expedition to Caste Ravenloft about 3 or 4 years ago and it is unanimously the best adventure we have ever played. So much so, that they want to do it again (a few players haven't played it yet, and nobody remembers any details that would cause metagaming). I was recently at the local gaming store and found 3 3rd party Ravenloft books they were practically giving away. I haven't had a chance to read them thoroughly yet, but I've liked what I've seen so far.

So my plan is to start the group at level 1 and work our way up to Castle Ravenloft, ending the campaign with the defeat of Strahd. Sadly, that's all I have planned out, except that I would like to run it as a high risk game and that I'm going to use more monsters of legend (ideas have gone from classic werewolves to Slenderman) instead of things like beholders or kobolds.

My questions on this are:

1. Any advice for running a Ravenloft campaign? I could really use any bit of info I can get.

2. Any ideas about more monsters/villains I could use? I'd like them to be things more from real-world legends, new or old.

3. I want death to be a big fear and have a big penalty attached to it. Any advice on how I could accomplish that as well?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[supervillan]

I played expedition to castle ravenloft. It's a plenty scary campaign, especially in the lower levels. I think my party was about level 5 or 6 when we started. It wasn't until I crafted an undead-bane bow that I felt at all able to cope with all the undead, especially the vampires.

For making Death more of a scare, IIRC Ravenloft can cause characters dying there to return as undead of various sorts. The first time a PC dies, have him return as an undead NPC and make sure the rest of the party recognises him. The party are a long way from being able to raise the dead, and Ravenloft doesn't have NPC clerics on hand to provide such service.

[Sandwich8080]

For making Death more of a scare, IIRC Ravenloft can cause characters dying there to return as undead of various sorts. The first time a PC dies, have him return as an undead NPC and make sure the rest of the party recognises him. The party are a long way from being able to raise the dead, and Ravenloft doesn't have NPC clerics on hand to provide such service.

But how can I get the players to lose the "Well, I can just roll up a new one" way of thinking?

[Doc_Maynot]

But how can I get the players to lose the "Well, I can just roll up a new one" way of thinking?

Regularly send the once PC undead against the PCs with a level boost? That should deter them from not caring seeing as the mistake could come back to cost them even more so.