Curse of Strahd Campaign (Spoilers!)


5th Edition (And Beyond)


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I'm inspired by bookrat to post my experiences from my real life Curse of Strahd campaign. We've been playing since the Summer and things are starting to get messy in a pretty wonderful way.

I'll start with the characters that entered the campaign, and their first session. I'll also give some immediate spoilers for the behind the scenes sausage making stuff in spoilers tags. So to be clear: there will be plot spoilers in plain text, the spoilers tags are for GM secrets the players do not know. This thread has a ton of spoilers all over the place, not just in tags.

My Barovia:
The first challenge I had was establishing why Ravenloft is like this and not as defined as it was when I used to play. Reading through the module I got an idea inspired by Cabin in the Woods.

Some long-forgotten cult or something slowly gained power in a scenic valley with little resources. The power takes all the bad stuff across planes and seals them into amber where the cult both learns what magic they can from them and uses them as a place of worship. The symbiotic relationship required continued sacrifice to feed the dark souls trapped inside with what essentially amounts to the Madoka Magica entropy of magic and wishes, but in the open.

Two metallic dragons who were great friends came to the valley; a gold dragon named Malakamasheet, and a silver dragon named Argynvost. They defeated the red dragon and wizard Slaghaaren and reclaimed the valley, and disintegrated his body to ensure he did not return. Argynvost roosted there and Malakamasheet visited regularly.

Slaghaaren was preserved in amber, and began to collect power eventually convincing a loyal follower to bring in otherworldly beings to strike Argynvost. Malakamasheet was paranoid, and durign one trip investigated the temple as this upstart Strahd has begun to prove his martial power to the world in the name of his father, the Bandit King Barov.

Malakamasheet first struck down Strahd who was healed by local gypsies, and then took on the temple where he was caught in a trap and slain - but not before making a promise to a dark power he did not realize was Slaghaaren who arranged the trap to steal the draconic body he needed to bring himself back to life. The two souls in conflict, Malakamasheet and Slaghaaren rage uncontrollably. The hybrid red and gold dragon was eventually stopped by Argynvost who suffered a terrible injury in the fight. Even so, Argynvost used the holy power that guarded the Amber Temple to give the hybrid new life.

Strahd's army moved very quickly after that, and the conflict led to the intro in Curse of Strahd where he killed Argynvost and his paladins and took the Valley for himself eventually gaining the power of a vampire.

In the same timeline, Mother Night, a minor deity along with the Morning Lord in the area, fell in love with Strahd and gave as much of her life as she could to be the catalyst that made him a vampire as revolt threatened to kill him and his kingdom. This exchange gave the dark powers a deific power as a nearly mindless colelction of dark beings and greater gods attempted to seal them permanently somewhere in the planes. The dark powers of Revneloft were strong enough to continue their rituals gaining more and more power removed from time and space.

As such, the ritual was born. The fate of five are foretold, and whatever desire they had was crushed by the pawn Strahd and the difference in power between the fledgling hero and the great hero slain by Strahd got absorbed into the dark powers as their souls got pushed into the plane to be reborn.

Now for the characters and their secrets! We started at level 3 and they are levels 5-7 now.

Hailing from the Forgotten Realms:

Leon Galanodel is a half-elven paladin who has sworn an oath of vengeance after a man-made monster raged through his homeland and killed his wife and child in a botched attempt to guide the creature out of town without causing more harm. The creature was a particularly large and nasty flesh golem. The monster and its creator seemed to have completely vanished without any trace, and he has spend year adventuring to uncover the trail again. Sword and board, new player, likes to tank things and has gotten very good at it.

Leon and Ravenloft:
The subjects of Leon's revenge are in Ravenloft. The golem is in St Markovia's Abby, and Dr. Havengul lives in Barovia serving as a doctor in town.

If Leon dies in Ravenloft he becomes a revenant (from the UA), unless he has gotten his revenge on Havengul or falls in love with another. So far his greatest love seems to be ice cream.

Azrael is a red dragonborn sorcerer who is obsessed with becoming a true dragon. Surprising no one, he has the Dragonic Blooded origin and is a swole dude despite only caring about his studies. Evoker and debuffer.

Azrael in Ravenloft:
So if you read the first spoiler, you might have guessed that Azrael is the hybrid creature between an ancient gold dragon and an ancient red dragon. He has to choose a path of good or evil which mostly revolves around how he handles Argynvostholt.

Conrad is a halfling arcane trickster that has the lucky feat. He is obsessed with finding an ancient artifact known as the Hand of Thieves which was directly inspired by the infinity gauntlet. He is a pretty standard sneaky, stabby, cheating, lying rogue with a heart of gold and he keeps hitting on human women.

Conrad in Ravenloft:
So Strahd's father had the hand of thieves, the cursed object was very powerful but came at a cost. While he used it to become a king he broke it into parts and handed them down to his children Strahd, Rahadin, Sergei, Elisabeth (Durst), and to his wife. His wife gave hers to Strahd and he used her love to create the Heart of Darkness, and Strahd has his in the pommel of his sword. Sergei hid his in the gazebo by the pond with restorative properties in Krezk, and Rahadin wears his. Elisabeth marries Gustav Durst who used it to bring himself to Ravenloft in order to access the Amber Temple, bringing the Death House and Old Bonegrinder with him.

From the feywild:

Alka'laure is a eladrin pact of the undying light. He is a child adopted into the Summer Court and doesn't really understand how old he actually is.

Alka'laure in Ravenloft:
Alka'laure is the beacon of Argynvostholt. It's not his patron, he is the light made into humanoid form. The hope of the people left the land and has to be brought back.

From my homebrew setting:

Nadryfa is a half-drow member of a elite "suicide squad" in the now legendary military of Cuona named the Broken Arrows. They dive the deepest into the dangerous jungles, take on missions where anyone else would fail, and take heavy casualties in the name of protecting the land. Nadryfa is the son of two living legends, and is proud of the military tradition he continues bearing disfiguring scars proudly.

Nadryfa in Ravenloft:
Nadryfa has no ties to Ravenloft, but after fighting werewolves capturing humans from other planes to bring to Ravenloft broke the system following a vistani werewolf through the mist.

However, several of the broken arrows are now werewolves themselves and while previously more symbiotic with the land Kiril is screwing it all up and Emil (a broken arrow) has been imprisoned. If he can displace Kiril then Emil won't attack Cuona anymore.

That was more than I thought I'll post more soon.


Two first sessions, and my notes are at their worst here.

Session 0 #1:

The game starts on the Sword Coast, in late autumn. Leon, Conrad, and Azrael while attending a dinner hosted by the Duchess Morwen of Daggerford overheard a hubbub about a group of trouble-making travelers outside of town. The Duchess had sent some guards to encourage the group to leave, but they came back refusing to force them out. The group interviewed the guards and discovered them under some kind of charm. Talking to the group of travelers themselves, they are told the Vistani will leave by morning light to head home
Stanimir, the elder of the troupe, ask them to stay for a story. Using a bit of magic to present the story of their homeland, the group agrees to see Madam Eva and aid Barovia taking down the tyrant prince. They made their final preparations (including getting a modest payment from Lady Morwen), and left in the wagons. Riding with Stanimir’s daughter, Damia, the group enters a dense fog when entering the Misty Forest (it’s a real thing in Faerun outside Daggerford). I should mention that Conrad is pretending to be a child, and Leon is pretending to be his father... for reasons they couldn't explain after acting on this plan.

The thick fog exhausts half the group as they reach the gates of Barovia. They immediately encounter Alka'laure as he stumbles from the woods, and bring him into their wagon. Alka'laure's entire bedroom was brought to the middle of a forest as he slept. Shortly thereafter they uncovered a dead body torn apart by wolves, but clutching an ominous letter written by the Burgomaster of the Village of Barovia warning of a vampire who will destroy the land. Moving on after wolf howls force them forward, they travel for some time and hit the Village of Barovia. This seemingly empty town is worn to the ground and ill kept; the only noise they hear is the sobbing of someone in a nearby house. Entering the boarded up house they find a sobbing woman wailing about her daughter Gertruda who left home while clutching an old doll made by a man named Blinsky. Continuing on they see much more activity near around the center of town, seeing some functioning businesses and running across an old woman selling expensive pastries. Conrad buys one, but doesn’t eat it. They travel a bit further and reach a crossroads between Tser Pool, Barovia, and Ravenloft/Vallaki. There in the gallows Leon saw the hanging body of a dark skinned elf briefly. Soon he saw that same body alive, but passed out drunk at the Vistani camp where Madam Eva lives. The group agrees to take a long rest before the festivities that night. By this time Conrad has dropped pretending to be a child and has been hitting on Stanomir's daughter Damia with some success. He doesn't get anywhere, but she shows him the thieves' cant for the vistani and agreed to help him out when possible.

-----

Session 0 #2:

Nadryfa has been dispatched along with the broken arrows to the wilds north of the mountain’s path. In an area famous for disappearances and the last of the untamed wilds within Cuona’s border pale wolf hybrids thought to be a return of the Parvuli horrors have been pinned down by the military. Laid siege, the military sends in the broken arrows to hunt the creatures after nearly a month without sign of the creatures being affected by a lack of food or water source. After being equipped with an item to remove a curse, silvered arrows, and silvered daggers; Nadryfa plunged into the forest having a ward cast on him to push back the spirits of the wilds. He and a few others encounter one of the creatures, but it runs after being wounded plunging into a thick mist clinging to the trees. Nadryfa follows, getting separated and caught in a torrent of wind in this thick fog.

Attempting to get his bearings, Nadryfa discovers an iron gate that led to a stone gate with the nameplate DURST. Passing through, he hears the sound of children crying obscured in the fog ahead. Walking forward he sees a large house looming in front of him as two children blink in an out of existence babbling about some message - clearly affected by the wards on Nadryfa. The door to the house stands open, but Nadryfa waits outside and calls to anyone inside. After some time passes he burns the building down. The house ages and withers, and billows thick black smoke as rats and black, shadowy appendages can be seen writhing in the walls. The world begins to warp and shatter, causing crippling pain in Nadryfa’s head, he falls through the ground and lands hard on a cobblestone street. Panicked townsfolk are trying to put out a house on fire - the same house in the woods Nadryfa burned. Nadryfa attempts to aid with extinguishing the flames, but is pulled aside by a suprisingly strong woman.

She forces him to come secretly into her lodgings attached to a business of some sort. She shows she is also half elvish and explains that she too is from a different world, and that she was once brought through that house into this place. She explains that the wizard Mordenkainen she traveled with wished to strike down the Devil, but she accepted her fate. The wizard was defeated, but she lives a relatively normal life as long as she keeps her head down. She says the creature he chased was a werewolf, and about her home of Golarion growing very sad as she talked. When pressed about the devil, she clams up. She says he has always ruled this land, and gives Nadryfa a note written by him found in that house. They part ways after Nadryfa rests off his fatigue, warning him that the land is as twisted as its leader and she only wished he was more prepared than she was.

In the morning he leaves, going to the Blood on the Vine tavern. He speaks with some rough Vistani who point him to Madam Eva, and he moves stealthily along the road to the Tzer Pool camp. Along the way he sees some travelers and ghosts - and heard the sounds of wolves and other foul things; he also finds some strange items (like a pale glove with fingernails). At the camp he refuses to drink but tries to be polite. He tries to break away and sit at the edge of the camp on his own, but some large vistani take offense. He gets into a fight and after embarrassing three men to the delight of the crowd, but one particulairly mad one eventually takes his arm off and he is knocked out. He has only woken when being healed only to be drugged and knocked unconscious once more.

GM Notes:
The vistani are guiding them to get their fortunes read. Mordenkainen had declined and messed up the last ritual and Madam Eva got a nasty visit from Baba Lysaga to not screw things up for Strahd again.

For injuring Nadryfa the vistana has been banished from the protection of the camps which created a bit of a rift internally. Eva used regeneration on Nadryfa and all his wounds and scars have been healed completely.

The woman Nadryfa meets is a cleric who married Dr. Havengul and they run a surgery center together.


Session #1:

Experiences in the Vistani camp varied. While Alka, Azrael, and Leon got to enjoy the reverie and stories, Nadryfa found himself bound in Madam Eva’s tent. Finally meeting face to face, they had their fortunes read. The fortune spoke of several objects of great power, and of how to defeat the dark prince, tyrant - vampire with aide. Seek history from the ravens, who can lead you to an evil tree. Seek the symbol of hope in a place filled with the bones enemies long forgotten. Seek the sword of light behind the sun, in the house of a saint. Seek the man with a monkey, he is more than he seems. Seek your enemy in the depths of ruin, in the place he must return.

Guidance given the party slept, though Nadryfa discovered his newly found glove trying to leave and burned it in the bonfire. Agreeing the best place to head first is the village of Barovia, traveling through the forests and encountering some of their many wolves along the way. With new pelts in tow, they entered the village near the church which has been heavily scarred by something and remains closed. The mist clears up and they see the imposing castle overlooking the town; a massive cliff with elaborate fortress a mile in the sky.

Heading into town they split into smaller groups. Conner and Nadryfa tried to sell the pelts with no luck - finding a shopkeep with inflated prices unwilling to deal with "children" and elves. Leon, Alka, and Azrael had more luck not finding lodging, but discovering a man named Ismark who was willing to listen accepting the group into his home… well his father’s home the late Burgomaster of Barovia.

DM Notes:
So the fortune was pretty good for them. The Sunsword is in Krezk in the Abby of St Markovia, the Tome of Strahd is on Yester Hill in the roots of the evil tree there, and Van Richten is one of the best allies available. The only hard one is the Icon of Ravenloft which is hanging on the skull of Argynvost in Castle Ravenloft.

Dark Archive

hiiamtom wrote:
The first challenge I had was establishing why Ravenloft is like this and not as defined as it was when I used to play.

Keep in mind that Curse of Strahd is an update of Ravenloft the module, not of Ravenloft the setting. It's essentially the same as I6 / House of Strahd / Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.


Session #2:

The pair of Conrad and Nadryfa spot the old woman who previously sold Conrad a pastry, but this time she is in an argument with a pair of Barovians. Conrad approached, and hearing the plight of the townsfolk he pays their debt with a bloodstone. Meanwhile, Nadryfa hung back in the shadows and determined the whole conversation stank. Following the old woman, the pair wasn’t as sneaky as intended. Nadryfa wound up encountering a pair of crying children in front of the house he burnt down two days before, and prompt ducked behind the home to burn down the house again. This gave Conrad the opportunity to follow the old woman in a big circle back to the same home.

Seeing the old woman enter and emerge with a squirming sack, Conrad tried to stop the woman but her magic triumphed putting him to sleep and giving her the opportunity to escape. While Nadryfa tracked her, the group reconvened in the town square. They briefly discussed the situation until Nadryfa comes back reporting the tracks just vanishing near the edge of the village. Visiting the home of the townsfolk, they find a surprisingly stout door and the townsfolk laying in a trance seemingly from eating the pastries.

The party wanted to make haste to try and find the woman, but Ismark convinced them to bring his sister with them. She has been laid seige by Strahd, and he needs the help of the strong to escort her through the world to safety as far from the castle and village as possible. You all eventually agreed, and followed him to the Burgomaster’s home. It’s been partially burned and shows the signs of several attacks, and holy relics have been hung to purify the area. Ireena nearly turned you away, but the wolf pelts that Nadryfa brought from the earlier fight proved the valor of the party and they were invited inside.

Once inside the simple use of magic made it clear of your talent compared to the typical riff-raff Ismark tried to hire for protection, and while wary Ireena agrees to travel with you - so long as you bring her father to the church and prove there is no connection to the Devil Strahd. Traveling with the body of the burgomaster, Conrad tried to impress the lady only to creep her out in the short walk across town. Entering the church, they find a distraught Donavich and the horrible screams of his undead son, Doru. Agreeing to help the dire situation, an intense melee ensued under the floorboards of the church. It took a toll on the group, but the vampire was slain and laid burning slowly on the clay floor.

Donavich has carried the body of his son upstairs to his room and laid him to rest on Doru’s childhood bed. In the past hour, Donavich has used oils and holy water to make sure his son won’t rise again and sits weeping softly in relief and in mourning by his side. You all stand with Ireena and Ismark awkwardly in the chapel in the early afternoon.

DM Notes:
This was a bit of a cluster. I was switching between multiple groups a lot and wanted to give everyone something to do, so I brought the old woman and pastries back too soon before they could handle the encounter.

Burning down the Death House has been popular, and I had it draw the attention of Rahadin who was sent to try and see who the vandal was. This was actually the first time Strahd began to track their movements in Barovia.

Callum Finlayson wrote:
Keep in mind that Curse of Strahd is an update of Ravenloft the module, not of Ravenloft the setting. It's essentially the same as I6 / House of Strahd / Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

I know, so I've used Curse of Strahd to[spoiler=DM story stuff]to be the origin of the expanded demiplane of dread. It's torn from time so there are strange paradoxes like Van Richten originating from the Ravenloft campaign setting along with the mirror in the Vallaki burgomaster's home being an artifact from the campaign setting.

I am going to have Gustav Durst use Strahd's death to stabilize the plane and create the true demiplane of dread for the dark powers, something he could not accomplish without the ritual or on his own. He also lets them escape at the end as a one time favor and takes a seat in the dark powers which is his ultimate goal.


Session #3:

My notes were missing, but Nadryfa met some ex-broken arrows who were now in Barovia claiming to have been there for 6 years including Zuleika Toranescu who was with Nadryfa the night they went into the mist. She mentions that her husband Emil is being held at the castle, but otherwise doesn't reveal much.

The whole thing was the final step in a lengthy chase across the countryside by wolves. They managed to get away from them by scaling the massive waterfall west of the Vistani camp, exhausting much of the party and forcing a lengthy rest in the woods to the north. They also encountered a wild man with plant creatures under his control, but he escaped before they could finish him off.

The session ended with the players approaching Old Bonegrinder, a windmill that everyone said to avoid at all costs, despite seeing ghostly children with twisted smiles and the mist rising to their knees up until a hundred feet of the windmill. They got into an argument with the old woman selling the pastries, and they fought her for a bit. A series of rolls favoring their side and she retreats into the windmill and Nadryfa got released from a polymorph spell that turned him into a frog that she held in her hand for most of the fight. The door slams shut behind her.

DM Notes:
Zuleika is a werewolf, and was planning to bring Nadryfa into the fold but the conversation naturally made her change her mind. I forget exactly what was said, but she was convinced (with dice rolls and eveyrthing) that he was a useful tool to her purposes to overthrow Kiril, the savage new leader of pack that displaced Emil.

I feel the Old Bonegrinder in the module is fine being so brutal, but I made the coven of night hags here a legendary encounter. They can cast their coven spells as a legendary action, the windmill is their lair and they have a few lair actions to move around and interact with their stuff on various floors, and I made regional effects including


Session #4:

Wasting little time with discussion, the party throws caution to the wind performing a dynamic entry to the windmill and discovering three women threatening them. Leon lands a critical strike on the old woman, and with Ismark’s silvered shortsword, Nadryfa’s silvered arrows, and Azrael’s arcane energy Conrad and Nadryfa finish the old woman off before she could do more but summon a foul-smelling fiend. The fight collapses into a melee as Azrael follows up with a thunderous shockwave, shattering the oven and small or damaged objects in the first floor of the windmill; spilling strange liquids, killing many small animals, and sending the bones of children and loose change flying as the people (or whatever else) inside recover from the blast only to continue their brawl in what was left. The small fiend released a cloud of funk that fills the room as Nadryfa comes to realize a magical ability has bloomed in his longbow. While being impossibly light and loosing more powerful missiles, the off-putting feeling he gets holding it leads Nadryfa to consider burning yet another of his possessions.

The daughters of the mother hag release their facades, the fates smile on the underdogs forcing one daughter to retreat upstairs and allowing the other to be completely overwhelmed by the number of fighters against her. Even as Alka’laure is forced to retreat outside the windmill, Conrad sinks the sword deep into the hag’s side slaying her with a terrible gaping wound. Zipping upstairs to finish the business, Conrad encounters the final hag offering the children in exchange for the party leaving. Agreeing to take the children, Conrad immediately lashes out again, once the children are mostly out of harm's way. As the team gathers on the second floor, the hag puts Conrad and the little boy Freek to sleep with her magic.

Coming from seeing an unkindness of ravens, Nadryfa arrives upstairs suggesting Azrael try to force the hag out the window. Azrael claiming to be thinking the same thing grabs the hag and pounds her against the window shattering it and sending her tumbling to the ground 30 feet below. Leon and Ismark take advantage of the situation attacking the hag while down as Nadryfa struggles to get a clean shot from above. Ireena ushers the children into the windmill, Conrad is woken up, and Nadryfa takes a flying leap from the window to land a blow on the hag - striking so cleanly and perfectly that the silver dagger tore her arm free from her body. The group beating on the woman who bleeds white blood profusely until Conrad lays her to rest with another shanking after a spectacular tumble and missed opportunity to show off to Ireena.

Looting the windmill, the hags are revealed as nefarious soul stealing night hags who have gathered a collection of riches in their home. While most are working on identifying and attuning with the magical items they found, Nadryfa sees the ravens fly north and west over the forest away from the four megaliths and a figure about a quarter mile away walking from the windmill up the road. He and Conrad explore the area discovering a series of carved cities with different season in each picture. The summer stone was painted in dried blood and a cairn of small teeth had been piled in the center of the ancient stones. Cleaning the scene and vowing to bury the teeth in the morning they return unharmed. Freek and Myrtle say they don’t wish to return home, though Myrtle won’t say why; so the plan to push westward continues. Spending the night, Ireena, Ismark, & Conrad wake up to find they have teeth missing from their mouth - though Azrael, Leon, & Nadryfa may have it worse waking to find yellowed teeth loose in their mouth. Coughing them out the disturbance passess while Alka’laure and the children don’t know what’s going on. The teeth from the cairn are buried with the new teeth, and the group sets out cart in tow.

Up the Old Slavich road will be Vallaki, and past it Kresk. By the advice of Donavich, some safety from Strahd can be found there.

DM Notes:
Needless to say, the dice were strongly against me. They took down the coven with no deaths and no one unconscious.

The loot they got was all neat uncommon magic items and a lot of cash. It's not in the book, but the encounter was just so difficult that I felt like it deserved a horde - which I randomized from the DMG.

The only unique thing was that I only give +X enchantments to give weapons that land killing blows against powerful magical creatures. Nadryfa's bow got bumped to +1, and I rolled some traits and quirks. While the bow became impossibly light and boyant, it also makes him feel uncomfortable when he holds it. He immediately considered burning it, but talked himself out of it when he realized it probably wouldn't destroy it.


Session #5

After some brief preparations, Nadryfa takes the lead as the group sets out with a cart full of goods taken from the hags’ windmill; Leon pulling the cart along the muddy road to Vallaki. The travel is efficient and unhindered until some mist blows across the road revealing a fully armored knight riding a horse with a mane of fire and fiendish maw. The knight stands still, dark greatsword with sapphiric pommel at rest watching and waiting. Opting for backing away slowly, the rider’s mount leapt into the sky, riding across air as if it were land and flying away overhead into the clouds. Leon using his divine sense to detect a fiendish horse and undead rider as it passed.

Looping back around, Nadryfa reaches out with his senses as wolves approach from the edge of the woods. Suspecting possible werewolves, Nadryfa called to them with a broken arrow call. After no response, the trip to Vallaki continued without any interference. The town gates were flanked by a display of wolf heads, and paranoid guards. Talking their way in, they hear about festivals and new development and find a newly built marketplace. After a little shopping the party has picked up a few items such as Azrael’s abacus, and broke into a colorful caravan with a chained and armored tiger inside. Conrad crept past the creature and found a stock of vampire hunting goods, and a couple harmless goods that could be tucked away for later.

Moving past the market you reached the Blue Water Inn and booked a room while enjoying some fine wine and thoroughly alright steaks. You move your goods upstairs and your cart to the stables, and Conrad spoke with the bard Rictavio who told a few stories of faraway lands. Hearing about his monkey and Blinsky’s toy shop you investigate leaving Azrael and Ismark behind to enjoy an afternoon of wine. Along the way Conrad shows Rictavio he had been in the cart, and Rictavio denied knowledge of the vampire hunting gear. Arriving to the shop Rictavio kept going while everyone piled inside the shop. Inside, Myrlte was given a present but Ireena was creeped out by a series of dolls made in her likeness. Blinsky explains the monstrous leader of the Burgomaster’s guard forces him to make these dolls and each one has been deemed imperfect. Leaving the shop, the man in question was headed up the road from the Burgomaster’s mansion down the road. Thinking fast, Nadryfa gives Ireena a decoy kiss only for the brute becoming enraged that a elf made it into the town and charging forwards with a flaming arm with red scales. At least Ireena seems to have gotten away with the children.

Session #6

Izek scatters the party across Vallaki just as Azrael’s mind breaks as it has visions of a life that isn’t his own. He breaths fire in the inn, and the inn catches on fire. He falls unconscious from the strain.

Nadryfa and Leon break free of Izek despite rogue ice cream trucks, only to find something strange at the coffin shop as a teen hands a sack to the owner. Investigating, Leon stumbles on a half dozen vampires that chase him from the building.

Conrad & Alka hid successfully from Izmark,and circled back to the Inn discovering it burning with the guard all over the place. They sneak in and get the group's things as a thick fog sweeps over the town.

Nadryfa finds Azrael recovering at the church with Ireena and Ismark. Attempting to sneak back into town, Izek catches Nadryfa and kills him as Azrael is left gutted. Izek picks up Nadryfa’s body and let Azrael escape only to pass out once more from his injuries inside the church.

Session #7

Azrael wakes up having been healed by the priest of Vallaki and retreats from the town with Ireena and Ismark only to be delayed by the unmanned gates of the town. Conrad and Leon find themselves with Alkalaure in thick fog as they flee west, splitting from Rictavio who was hitching his wagon, and running across an elven man who briefly engages them in conversation before the mist separates them before finding the church. They are sent from the church having been told Azrael left and Nadryfa was lost to Izek as Leon apologizes for Conrad’s cursing. The groups meet up at the gate, and escape over the wall to the town using the rope he forgot he had.

Nadryfa wakes up trapped in a closet with a scared man. Hearing the coast clear as the guards and Izek address some vampires in town, he breaks out arousing the attention of two mean looking dogs. He calms them down and escapes out of a window, making his way to the church. The priest trips over himself seeing Nadryfa back from the dead and searches from something in the church before breaking down in tears about something that has gone missing in the church.

The split party moves along the road, the larger group killing some dire wolves and Nadryfa speaking with a jovial skeleton on a skeletal horse named Gustav Durst. The main group reaches Kresk and convinces them to bring the Burgomaster to the gate, and during the wait for the man Nadryfa catches up to them. Reunited, you are able to talk your way into staying a single night on the condition that you will go to the Wizard of Wines to retrieve a missed shipment from them. You rest in an abandoned house in the north side of the walled village on a cold mountainside under the shadow of the Abbey of St Markovia.

During the night, Ireena is called to the side of the pond in the village. An apparition she calls Sergei reaches for her calling her Tatyana, saying they could be together at last. Despite Leon sensing this to be hallowed grounds, Conrad pulls Ireena way declaring dibs as Strahd howls in rage at the apparition and sends a massive lightning bolt down from the sky that shatters the man in pieces and blows Leon on his feet - destroying the gazebo next to the pond from the massive shockwave. As the thunderclouds loom rain begins to pour and you guide Ireena back to the cottage to sleep. She is unharmed by the event, but goes to sleep crying though she doesn’t understand why she was crying at all.

DM Notes:
I've gotten pretty good at splitting the party and keeping the action moving for everyone. These sessions went smooth and violently, and the party hates Vallaki now but are too scared to go back.

I beefed up Izek a lot, and I'm glad I did because in the book he is a bit of a chump. Even now he only survived because he caught two of the party on his own.

Azrael's vision was of himself meeting a man in front of a mansion, then in the sky over the countryside, a door of yellow stone, and finally seeing his guts silled on the ground with a voice telling him he could live if he simply breathed one more time. The story is about his meeting Argynvost and traveling to the Amber Temple where he got killed until a Dark Power called to him.

The party assumed a lot about the vampires they met, and guessed way wrong. Despite meeting all the cast, they did not investigate the bones in the church despite seeing the priest in tears saying something was missing from the altar. They just got out of town as quickly as possible.

Now for their meeting with the Abbot.

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