Roster
Absent
Session Overview
Welcome, gentle reader. Pray sit a while and listen to this evening’s tale as our brave adventurers find themselves stranded in a strange land.
Play started at the old ruined tower the party rested at. After awakening to bury the Durst children the party tended to their morning rituals. Kora, drawing her strength from the land, noticed that the very land here was tainted, evil running through it like oil over water. Oskar made his prayers to Lathander and instead of the brilliant warmth of sunrise felt only a wan, pale light as if from a great distance.
With the only way forward being the rough road to the West the party sets off and spends most of the day walking. After nearly seven hours of walking they encounter a decaying corpse by the roadside along with a path leading into the woods. The path, marked by arrows carved into trees alongside 13 tally marks, leads them deeper into the woods and then into the mists before emerging back where they started. The mists themselves have a draining effect on those who are susceptible to them, and Lord Hel Forge emerges from them feeling exhausted.
Perplexed and footsore at this point, the party deduces that the corpse itself must have succumbed to the exhaustion caused by the mists, and may have travelled the same path thirteen times before thus collapsing. Wishing to avoid a similar fate, they resume travel along the road, shortly coming to the gates of Barovia and getting a clear view of the valley before the mists descend again. Late at night they trudge into the village of Barovia which has clearly been the scene of some great battle. Meeting a friendly raven which Kora is able to engage in conversation, they are led to The Blood of the Vine tavern where they meet some of the notable locals for the first time, including Ismark Kolyanovich and Bildrath Cantemir. After becoming acquainted with both, and being bemused by the angry ranting of Bildrath, they accept Ismark’s offer of hospitality for the night and accompany him to the Burgomasters manor, where they meet his sister Ireena Kolyanovich.
In the tavern, Ismark had asked the party to accompany Ireena to the town of Vallaki where he believes she will be safe from the attention of a vampire who has haunted their house these past few nights. The party overhear a conversation between the siblings where Ireena, although initially reticent, agrees to go. They thus gain the Escort Ireena quest.
Ismark leaves to organise a search party for the lost girl Gertruda while Ireena settles the party into their rooms. Oskar and Hel take one room, Kora and Darius in the other (Gumshal takes a couch downstairs). In their room, Oskar finds a page torn from a book talking about Vampires written by a person called Van Richten (see handout).
Ismark returns after a few hours and the siblings prepare a meagre meal of turnip and rabbit stew which they share with the party. Everyone then retires to bed where they have a shared dream involving a mysterious old Crone Madam Eva. She bids them come to her at her tent in Tser Pool where she will read their fortunes - Get your fortune told. They awake with hearts pounding just in time to witness the March of the Dead - the shades of 100 souls of adventurers who had previously come to Barovia only to meet their doom who now rise each night and march to the Castle. They also notice some bats watching them, which Hel tries to destroy with create water thinking they may be shape-changed vampires. Then Darius puts the moistened bats to sleep (although Kora has some concern about hypothermia for the poor beasts), a place to which the party slowly return without any further interruption.
Before dawn the next day they are awoken by Ismark who asks them to help lay his recently deceased father to rest, this being Ireena’s request before she leaves. They take the coffin to the village church where they find Father Donavich having a crisis of faith. His son, Doru, led the rebellion against the devil and left with the majority of the town’s young folk to storm the castle. As far as anyone knew none of them were seen again, but in fact Doru had been turned into a vampire spawn and sent back to the village to torment his father. The damage that has been done to the church by this single creature in a brief span of time is impressive.
Donavitch had managed to briefly overpower Doru and has him confined to the churches undercroft, but the stress of seeing what his beloved son has become has left him a broken man and he cannot perform the rites to put the late Burgomaster to rest. He pleads with the party to venture into the undercroft and do what he could not and destroy the abomination wearing his sons face, which the party agree to undertake.
Upon entering the undercroft the party cannot see Doru, but he makes himself known. The boy knows what has been done to him and is fighting the curse that has been imposed on him to remain himself. He asks the party if they will allow him to prove his control by exposing him to fresh blood and then seeing if he can maintain control. While the rest of the party are deeply sceptical Darius believes that he should be given a chance at redemption and agrees to the request. Kora makes a small cut in her hand, releasing the scent of blood to the air and triggering the vampire spawn’s hunger.
Although Doru passes the test and is able to control his hunger, most in the party remain unconvinced by his show of control and pleading words. The warnings about mind control and shape shifting that the page from the book made so clear are at the forefront of their minds, as is their promise to Doru’s father - made mere minutes ago - to destroy the creature that his son has become. Neither have they forgotten the destruction that this monster has just wreaked on his own father’s holy building, something that in particular Oskar is incensed by. They try to ignore the creature’s words and focus on finding the best way to destroy this evil instead, although it is hard to avoid the illusion that the creature may still be human in some way.
Unfortunately Darius, being taken in by the vampire spawn’s arguments, begins to plead on its behalf to give it a chance. Fearing that her companion may have been glamoured by the beast, Kora casts Moonbeam to destroy it. The spell immediately starts to have the desired effect, but in a moment of clear insanity and to the horror of the Hel Forge and Oskar, Darius casts Sleep on Kora to break the spell, and she sinks into a deep sleep.
After Kora is awoken again by a not-so-subtle kick from Hel Forge, there follow a tense few minutes while the party argue the morality of the situation out. Oskar is able to show just how much power the vampire spawn has by showing him a holy symbol, to which it hardly reacts. In fact, the beast wears a holy symbol itself without obvious impact. Fearing just how powerful the will of this creature is, they take a vote on the boy’s fate. By a 3 - 1 majority they decide he must be destroyed. They put him to death (again), a fate the boy accepts with a calm dignity - asking only that they tell his father that he died as himself and not the beast. He then steps willingly into the light of Kora’s Moonbeam and is burnt into ashes, taking his secrets with him.
The session concludes with Father Donavitch, having recovered his faith, laying the former Burgomaster to rest and the party burying him in the ground. As they do so a flock of bats erupts from the belfry of the church, flying toward the castle. In his parting words, Father Donavitch recommends the party goes to the Abbey of St Markovia in Krecks, which he says is something of a bastion.
Our party are left facing the journey further west to Vallaki, and the mysterious Madam Eva at Tser Pool.