#strahd is repeated for reference

[dadforplaid]

By no means the complete lineup of the cast of characters from my game of Curse of Strahd, but an idea!

[ion-mailbox]

Spoilers for the future

Week 4: Future, Endings, Sword fighting

The pale woman gives him a closed mouth smile as she shuffles the deck of Tarroka cards before the famous Blade of frontiers (who insisted she call him Wyll). "What do you want to know, Wyll Frontiers?"

Wyll shrugs, nursing the honey mead, "Just a general fortune telling."

She gives him a look, "What, nothing specific?"

Wyll smiles sheepishly, "I don't want to end up in some kind of weird prophecy because I wanted to know if I court anyone. I've read enough old tragedies to know how that turns out."

She laughs, "How wise of you. I can tell you that you have to deal with baby eagles in the future, just by looking at you." Wyll nearly chokes on his mead, "Just by looking at me? What does that even mean???"

She giggles as she flips his first card over, The Executioner which ends her merriment short. He looks down at the card with his mismatched eyes and then looks back up at her.

"That's not good, is it?"

---

The repeating quote is: The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. - by Oscar Wilde

So I wanted to reference the in universe tarot card- Tarroka from Barovia (strahd's playground). The first card is the Executioner which means "The imminent death of one rightly or wrongly convicted of a crime; false accusations and unjust prosecution" (foreshadowing his first choice of killing Karlach or not). The second card is The Ghost which means "The looming past; the return of an old enemy or the discovery of a secret buried long ago" (referencing his past and how he became a warlock, his choice regarding his father).

The Pale woman in the story is an oc of friend of a friend's who is a vampire and quite silly.

This was really last minute one, had grand ideas but then life happened and I got sick. Ground this out today.

[doesthesongfitthecharacter]

PROPAGANDA

Where do I begin!? I've got plenty of reasons to associate this song with the campaign, but I'll just go over a couple examples.

1: "Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes-Benz, uh She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys that she calls friends How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat Some dance to remember, some dance to forget" The 'her' refered to here represents Strahd, the story's main antagonist, and his brides. All of them having different motivations for loving him. But the truth is that he doesn't love them back and only sees them as means to an end. That end being to get the hand of his "beloved" Tatiana in marriage. Something he's been chasing for the past four centuries. And something that no matter how much wealth he might have, he will never acquire.

2: "So I called up the Captain, "Please bring me my wine" He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"" This represents the Wizard of the Wines Winery. The Valley's main source of alcohol. However, due to the Winery's magical stones being stolen, they are unable to produce any grapes, and as a consequence, wine. In fact, a major side quest is to find the stones and deliver them back to the Winery.

3: "Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice And she said, "We are all just prisoners here of our own device" And in the master's chambers, they gathered for the feast They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast Last thing I remember, I was running for the door I had to find the passage back to the place I was before "Relax, " said the night man, "We are programmed to receive You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave"" This represents the Valley of Barovia and how, nobody may leave. Not the players, not the NPCs, not even Strahd. Not even death will allow you to escape. As if that happens, you'll get reincarnated. Set to continue the miserable cycle that's been repeating for the past four hundred years.

[tea-with-eleni]

I remember the sun. 

It was sunny, the morning of my wedding. Though we had no way of knowing, no way of suspecting, it was the last bright summer day in Barovia.

Lady Ilona, a holy woman, helped me dress. Though I could tell she did not fully approve of the wedding, or of Sergei’s dereliction of his duties, I could also tell that she understood. She’d been part of Strahd’s entourage for a long time. She knew what I sought to avoid better than even I did. She was kind to me as she arranged my hair. It looked beautiful. My gown and jewels, gifts from Strahd, were beautiful. I was beautiful.

To keep from encountering my groom before the ceremony, we took back stairways to the Ravenloft gardens. That was where we first heard the commotion: Strahd ran into the garden, pale as death, splattered with blood. Sergei was dead. Assassinated by Ba’al Verzi, so Strahd claimed. He was lucky to have survived. 

Beside me, Lady Ilona stiffened. “Strahd,” she whispered. “What have you done?” 

Fear shot through me then. I knew, as surely as I knew my own name, that Strahd lied. Sergei was dead, that sounded true, but not by assassins. By Strahd. When his dark eyes turned towards me in my finery, the change in his expression only confirmed my fears. He wanted me. Sergei’s plan had failed. 

I ran.

I wasn’t thinking clearly. If I had, I would have run the other way - back indoors, to the Tser bridge, to the village. I would not have run to the overlook, where I would find only a thousand-foot drop.

Strahd, damn him, followed.

“Tatyana!” he called. I whirled to face him. He looked - wrong. Monstrous. “Tatyana, please! I did this for you!” I backed against the stone wall surrounding the overlook. Dimly, I registered the gathering storm clouds. 

“I did all of this for you!” Strahd repeated, a kind of madness in his voice. “My brother is dead, and you are mine. With the pact I have made, power and eternal life are within my grasp! You will deny me no longer!” I felt his will, his power, drawing me towards him. Before I could think, before I could fight it, his cold lips were against my own.

NO!

I reached for the divine spark, as I had practiced with Sergei, with Ilona. Holy light flared around me as I shoved Strahd back. I caught something. A sword hilt. Sergei’s sword hilt, the crystal blade. It came free in my hands as I almost fell against the wall once more. I didn’t know what to do. I could not hope to stand against even Sergei in a fight. 

Strahd advanced against me, the madness in his crimson eyes joined by fury. I had never fought back against him before. I had never truly feared him before. 

Unconsciously, I stepped back again. I raised Sergei’s crystal sword.

I stepped back.

I fell.

“Tatyana!” Strahd screamed. 

It was a long way down into the mists.

**********************

Dialogue taken from Dragnacarta’s version of events, more or less, composited with some details from I, Strahd. It’s important to remember that Strahd himself is anything but a reliable narrator. I think it’s valid to imagine that Sergei married Tatyana in part to give her something very concrete she could throw in Strahd’s face to put him off. He was initially supposed to become a high priest, after all. Marrying anyone, even Tatyana, wasn’t his original plan. 

The illustration is my own painting in watercolor and gouache, my mediums of choice. I used a couple of different references for Tatyana and the crystal sword/future Sunsword. I’m not sure I did the blade justice, but it’s really bloody hard to find a good reference for “crystal blade” that looks sort of realistic! 

[wingedscribe]

Curse of Strahd: Meeting Madam Eva

The continuing adventures of the Curse of Strahd party the ASSS (Anti-Strahd Squat Squad) consisting of El the paladin (@sweetonmeclarence), Synden the witch (@murderandcoffee), Aiya the sorcerer (@xylocept), Blut the Blood Hunter (@sikizu), Enna the bard (@thekittykat7) and Silmara the rogue (@royaljellyprince). Yes, they chose the name. 

Previously our party had left the village of Barovia in an attempt to help siblings Ismark and Ireena figure out a way for Ireena to escape Strahd’s deeply unwelcome and high-key creepy affections. The party had joined the Tser Pool Vistani Camp, where they’d been advised to speak to one Madam Eva...

However, before they could do that, a mild crisis emerged when Aiya--the sorcerer of the campaign with prophetic talents, who had been having strange dreams of a man named Sergei and a child who wanted to fight--vanished. The party ventured into the woods looking for her, only to find a belligerent will-o-wisp that tried to attack them. 

They killed the will-o-wisp, but it attracted a few of the strange Strahd zombies unique to Barovia, and the party--after dispatching those--followed their tracks back into a clearing in the woods, where a ghostly warrior and zombie were--as well as an unconscious Aiya, tied to the tree as the warrior ordered the zombie to search her pockets, removing any magical focus--and, interestingly, any mirrors. 

The party (somehow) managed to sneak up on the warrior and zombie and launched a surprise attack; the tanks (Blut and El) managed to two-shot the warrior while the others went for the zombie and found Aiya--who had been knocked out by the will-o-wisp while trying to simply go to the bathroom. 

Returning to the camp, they found an old human woman talking with Ismark and Ireena; when she saw them, she stood and invited all of them to her tent, addressing all of them by name and introducing herself as Madam Eva. 

Once in the tent, Madam Eva greeted the party again and offered to give them a reading to help them fight against Strahd; she confirmed that she’d seen many adventuring parties, and that all of them either fell or ended up trying to go against Strahd, although none of them had succeeded yet. She also mentioned that Barovia is “a story” that, without the influence of outsiders, will simply repeat itself over and over again. 

She opened the reading by drawing a card to signify each of the characters, to help her understand who she was dealing with. For Aiya, she drew the Seer; for Silmara, the Raven; for Blut, the Ghost; for Synden, the Innocent; for El, the Broken One; and for Enna, the Marionette. Later, she would elaborate on some of those draws for the characters; in the moment, she moved on to the five-card reading that would set the stage for the rest of their time in Barovia. 

The first card, for history and “knowledge of the ancient” which would help them better understand their enemy, they got the four of stars--the Abjurer. It pointed to “a fallen house guarded by a great stone dragon.” 

The second card, for “a powerful force for good and protection, a holy symbol of great home,” they got the nine of stars--the Conjurer. It points to “A dead village, drowned by a river, ruled by one who has brought great evil into the world.” 

The third, for “a weapon of vengeance: a sword of sunlight,” they got the two of swords--the Paladin, which speaks of “a sleeping prince, a servant of light and the brother of darkness.” 

(Note: Blut hopes that said sleeping prince is hot) 

The final cards were for an ally--they got the Mists, a Vistana wandering the land alone searching for her mentor, who Enna in particular would know--and for where their battle with Strahd would take place--the Artifact, “the darkness where morning light once shone--a sacred place.” 

So that was interesting. The party decided to individually ask Madam Eva for clarification about readings, as they had secrets they didn’t want to share with the rest of the group. 

El learned that there is a decent chance that the being he got his sickle from might not be dead; “Things do not stay dead in the darkrealms,” Eva pointed out, as well as the fact that El came back from the dead being highly unusual.  

Synden asked for clarification on the Innocent card, and learned that it could also refer to someone who had the opportunity to do wrong but chose to do right instead; someone who was innocent by choice rather than circumstance. 

Enna likewise asked for card clarification and learned that the Marionette is someone who both can manipulate others but who doesn’t grasp the larger pattern they’re in; she also asked about the ally that she would know, and learned that they will be someone from their past. 

Blut asked about the chances that he’d meet the werewolves from his past, and got a fairly clear “yes.” 

Aiya asked both about clarification regarding both her and Eva’s Seer abilities, as well as her concern that she had brought the entire group to Barovia. Eva informed them that everyone in the group was drawn there equally, and also the pair talked about the visions Aiya had been having--of a man named Sergei, as well as other events that seemed to be from Barovia’s past. Eva recognized the name Sergei and spoke fondly of him, before asking Aiya to come back when she understood the significance of Sergei to Barovia. 

Before Aiya left, Eva pulled out a mirror and asked Aiya what she saw; Aiya (after a few dice rolls) saw Sergei through the mirror. 

With that done, the party embarked onwards the next morning in their journey. The beginning of the walk was calm, as the party only found a cairn of stones serving as a grave; however, at one point El saw that Ireena was staring at a small mirror (after some more DM die rolls). Ireena commented that sometimes she saw another version of herself, but when El tried to look he saw a village of elves being systematically slaughtered. He was understandably disturbed. 

As the party crossed the bridge near Castle Ravenloft and continued onwards into the forest, they heard an ominous scritching noise from the forest; Aiya cleverly used Shatter to distract whatever the creatures were, and they faded away. 

Just before the end of the session, the party heard a horse galloping towards them; Aiya recognized it as a skeletal horse and immediately was on guard, but the horse rode straight by them unseeing. The blights that were following the horse...not so much. 

After engaging in some extreme weedkilling, the party had earned a level-up to four, just as the sun begins to set...

[bruno-in-barovia]

Session Five, Part Two

The abbot said we were welcome to watch him raise Zazear, but that it wouldn’t be pretty. No kidding. 

Elliott asked if he would be back as he was before. The abbot said yes, assuming he was recently dead as he appeared to be. He took a moment to look the body over and seemed surprised that “he only appears to have been dead for half an hour.” Elliott explained what I had done to keep the body from decomposing.

“To keep it from becoming undead,” I corrected him, but my heart wasn’t in it. Either way, I had contributed to this.

The abbot assured the party that what he was going to do would not make Zazear undead, but make him fully alive again. Typical resurrection heresy.

He told us to follow him through one of the doors into a wing of the abbey. As we walked, Elliott maneuvered himself over to me.

“Now, Bruno, I understand that this is quite different for you. But he assures us that he’s not going to be undead. So if he’s not—”

“It’s not just undead that takes from the tally,” I told him. “Zazear’s dead. He’s been counted.”

“I just don’t want you to do anything rash if he does come back.”

“I know.” He doesn’t trust me. I guess that’s fair. It still hurt a little.

The chamber that the abbot led us into contained a long table. Music filtered down from somewhere on the floor above. There was a young woman standing behind the table. She looked a lot like Ireena, especially her hair. I haven’t seen a lot of redheads in Barovia so far. But her face had some strange lines on it. I don’t know how to describe it other than that. It was as though it had been… pieced together.

The abbot introduced her as Vasilka, his “finest creation.” He told her to retrieve someone named “Clovin” from upstairs. He cleared the table with a wave of his hands and told the party to set Zazear’s body on it.

The “Clovin” he’d sent for clomped down the stairs. He was a similar amalgamation to the two we met earlier, this one with a crablike claw for one hand and an extra head sprouting from his shoulder. The abbot sent him to retrieve the things used for revivals. While waiting for Clovin’s return, he began drawing with his hands on the table, leaving glowing lines where he touched it.

He paused then and looked at me, Opal, and Haku. “I do believe you seem to be suffering from an ailment of some kind. I see there is a craving in you.”

Opal confirmed his statement.

“Would you like me to remove it?”

She asked what it would cost, and he said, “Nothing.”

I asked how he would go about doing that. 

“It is simple,” he replied and without warning he reached out his hand and touched my forehead. I felt this rush of magic, like cool water washing over me. I could tell it was healing magic, but it was like no magic I know. And the craving just… stopped.

The abbot repeated his action with Opal and Haku while I stood stunned, then returned to drawing his shapes on the table around Zazear. We looked around at each other, but before we could ask questions, Clovin returned with arms full of strange metal instruments, as well as a bucket. The abbot sent him back upstairs to ring the bell, and once that was done, he returned with two buckets and took them out to the courtyard, leaving our party alone with the abbot once more.

The abbot set up his instruments as we looked on, attaching parts to Zazear’s body with some kind of putty. The room went still. Then he began to sing in a language I didn’t recognize. But this sense of peace came over me as I listened, and the rest of the party seemed to feel the same. 

He sang for about an hour, and then seized two of the wires attached to Zazear. Blue lightning crackled along the wires from his hands, and the body convulsed. He did it a few times, the body responding each time, until Zazear’s eyelids snapped opened and he started screaming. Lesions appeared on his body as he screamed, almost like claw marks, as if he was torn from somewhere. As if something had tried to stop him from returning. As the screaming ended, he gasped, chest heaving, and sat up, looking around at us.

“Gods above,” Elliott breathed.

“I have returned his soul to his body from the mists,” the abbot said.

“Mists,” I echoed. What about the chasm? That’s not right. 

“His soul was in the mists,” he repeated. “I have returned it.” He folded his hands in front of him. “Now, I believe you have what you came for?”

Lith asked if he might take Freek and Myrtle in at the abbey, or whether he knew someone in Krezk who would.

He said that he knew some people in town who would take them, but that he had “no need for children.” That his work was much too important.

With that he told us to please do as he had asked earlier and bid us good day.

“Zazear!” Elliott approached his friend.

“I’m back,” the cat murmured, looking at his hands, “I’m back, I’m back…”

“You all right?” Elliott asked.

“Do you know what happened?” Haku added.

“I-I died.” He rambled a little, about light, and dark, and light pulling him back, and then just slamming him back. “That hurt. It hurt… all over.”

“We’re glad to have you back,” Elliott told him, setting a hand on his shoulder. “And if you ever do any shit like that again, not only will I leave you dead, I will find Strahd, not kill him, ask for a big wolf, and give you to it. You get me?”

“I honestly don’t know how to respond to that,” Zazear said, looking a little shaken.

“Also, I sold your hairbrush.”

Lith started to ask the abbot about his creations, what his project here was, but he brushed each one off and demanded we leave. Gulp.

Elliott had already helped Zazear out to the courtyard, and he called for us to follow.

“Ooh!” Haku turned around as we headed out the door. “Have you ever heard about someone called Izek?”

The abbot glared at him. “No. Please leave.”

As Elliott would say, we vamoosed. Lith wanted to explore the abbey, but the rest of us were ready to get the hell out. She opened the door to one of the sheds and started talking at one of the creatures inside. It screeched at her, and she closed the door.

Just as we got Lith back on track to leave, Haku decided to peek into the courtyard’s well, and another creature jumped out at him. It slashed at him with a dagger and screeched. Haku hit it with his axe, and it dove back where it came from.

He wanted to go after it, but Lith said he’d better not fall down another well.

Finally, finally, we made it back to the gates. The creatures we’d met before were back at their posts. Lith decided to question the talking one, the woman with the lizard arm, about the “procedure” the abbot did on them.

She said that her arm was crushed in a wagon accident, and the abbot healed her. But then he had said that he liked her other parts, and so he took them from her. 

What… I couldn’t take any more of this, and I left.

The others followed me out not a minute later, so I can’t have missed much. Elliott and Lith were arguing about something she said to the lizard woman, I don’t know what.

This whole time, Freek and Myrtle had said nothing. They looked pretty scared by all of what we’d seen. Elliott did his best to comfort them. 

“Um.” Zazear sort of raised his hand. “Can I ask what’s going on? And where we are, and why we have small children?”

We did our best to catch him up to speed. Halfway through, Lith asked if his reading with Madame Eva had foretold his death, by any chance. He said no, she just told him to “trust the raven” that was watching him.

“There’s a raven watching you?”

“Yeah…”

I blinked. “Let us know if it’s still around after this…” Because I have thoughts on that. 

“And Haku can talk to animals,” Lith added.

“We’re here for you,” I told him, “if that’s you in there.”

Lith split from the group with Freek and Myrtle to find someone willing to take them in.

While Elliott finished telling Zazear what he had missed, I took the time to sit down with Father Donavich’s papers. After everything that had just happened, a little straightforward research was pretty appealing.

Barovia has two main deities: the Morninglord, whose name is Lathander, and another called Mother Night. I didn’t find much about the latter in my bag. The recurring devil figure is referred to interchangeably as Vampyr or Strahd.

The Barovians weren’t the first to settle in the valley. There was a primal religion called the Fanes that came first.

Barovia’s main places of worship are all dedicated to Lathander. Father Donavich’s chapel is one, the abbey we’d just left is another, and the third is a chapel in the town of Vallaki. There’s a litany of historical saints in here as well.

The abbot is mentioned a few times, and every description is similar to the abbot we just met. They all say that he’s a young man who’s extremely knowledgeable, some in more detail than most.

I finally got to Donavich’s notes on vampires, but they were less than helpful. The whole section just consists of the “Don’t Mess With Strahd: He’ll Whack You” sort of warnings. If someone turned into a vampire, they say, the person is better off dead.

Wow. This man got absolutely nowhere. Not the progression of the condition, no sign of a cure or anything.

But am I even looking for a cure now? Vampires are undead. I’m supposed to be destroying them, not trying to revive them. 

Still, it seems so… unfair, somehow.