#really excited for strahd to go “hi i brought you back to life. you owe me now :)” next week

[astral-dragons]

Soo... today's session actually went better than I'd expected.

After hearing the knocking on the door, Fenro immediately sprung into action, gathering as many people as he could and herding them into the cellar to hide out until Strahd was gone. He manages to get Marcus, Dimitry, Ireena, and Ismark into the cellar, but Izek and Victor are outside.

Even after Ismark and Dimitry fuck up their stealth checks, Strahd feigns ignorance to their presence, instead going upstairs to speak to the Abbot. He ends up killing the Abbot in front of Vasilka, the party being able to hear her screams all the way downstairs.

It's at that point that the party decides to make a run for it, but quickly realizes that Rahadin was left outside the cellar door and Ismark grabs Ireena, pulling her back into the safety of the cellar. Before anyone can ask why he's there, Strahd returns. He asks the party where 'Tatyana' is, and they are unsuccessful in trying to distract or deceive him. Fenro tells him where Ireena is, but warns, "she likes to punch." Strahd takes his chances.

A few minutes later, he returns from the cellar without Ireena, and informs the party that they've disappointment him, but perhaps they could still serve as "entertainment." He instructs Rahadin to take Sylviel's corpse, and when the party asks what he plans to do with them, he just smiles, telling them they have two hours to prepare and wishing them good luck before he leaves.

Ireena and Ismark emerge from the cellar, and her immediate concern is to find Izek and Victor. Apparently they managed to hide outside in the graveyard, avoiding Strahd and Rahadin. When Marcus and Fenro explain what happened, Izek gets up onto the walls of the Abbey to examine the horizon. There is an army of undead approaching, and they now understand what Strahd meant.

The group bands together to fend off the undead, fortifying the Abbey and setting up traps. They manage to fight them all off with few complications, and when it's over, they realize they still haven't seen the Abbot or Vasilka since earlier in the day. Going upstairs towards the operating room, the party can hear Vasilka's cries, drawing their weapons as they approach.

They find her hunched over the Abbot's corpse, wailing. Seeing their weapons drawn, Vasilka begs for mercy, offering to get "the sword the Abbot hid from Strahd" for them if they'll let her live. The party's curiosity gets the better of them, and they agree, though they had no intention to kill Vasilka anyway.

She brings them the hilt of the Sunsword, though the party doesn't know what that is yet. Marcus takes it, and quickly realizes the sword is more than meets the eye, perhaps even sentient. He names it Susan. (We have an ongoing joke since the first campagin I ran where Marcus' player names all of his weapons. We've had Linda, Felisha, Karen, and now Susan.)

Meanwhile, Fenro hears a very familiar voice from behind him say, "Well, that went better than I'd expected." He looks to the others, but none of them seem to be able to hear it. He slowly turns around and sees his late adoptive father, Riardon. Guess there were consequences for taking those new eyes after all?

AND NOW WE GET TO START NEXT SESSION WITH WHAT SYLVIEL'S BEEN UP TO WITH STRAHD HAHAHA. I've been talking to their player, and we've decided that it would be fun to bring them back as a vampire. I asked them to not come to this session cause I wanted their knowledge of what happened while Sylviel was dead to be the same as Sylviel's. So I'm very excited to get to just straight up lie to them as Strahd :)

Also worth adding, Marcus' player got his first nat 20 of the whole campaign. Yes, you read that correctly: of the WHOLE campaign. His dice are really shit.

Bonus out of context quotes:

"Just gaslight Strahd Von Zarovich"

"Seduction is always an option..."

"Well my mom's dead too, sooo... trauma bonding?"

"Daddy issues intensified"