AD Dungeons and Dragons Part 3: A New Adventure Begins

In this session the party makes some new friends and attempts to perform a burial.





When we left our heroes, they had successfully escaped the Death House as it attempted to kill them with smoke and fire and cutting blades, travelled to a village and attempted to comfort a crying woman whose daughter had been kidnapped.

Seesil's name card, all drawings courtesy of Rek's player Hatstand4510

This session, Alf's player was absent.

Sagira and Arf check out the nearby merchant but conclude there is nothing worth purchasing, so the group as a whole heads to the tavern, the Blood on the Vine. As we approach, Colin, Seesil and Rek notice the N in "on" has been painted on more recently, over a badly scratched out "F". So it had once been called Blood of the Vine... not sure if that's important.

Upon entering, we observe three women in bright colors chatting at a table near the door, a young man sitting alone in the back of the tavern, and the bartender behind the bar. The tavern is otherwise empty. As we watch, the bartender cleans the seven glasses in front of him with repetitive, almost robotic motions, and when he finishes the seventh glass he starts over with the first again. He does not seem to notice us come in.

Eld and Colin, rather than ordering food or drink, decide to attempt to eavesdrop on the women. They sneakily slide into a nearby table, pretending to look anywhere else. They don't hear much, except "...Durst... burned down..." so news travels fast. At this rate Eld will never be able to sell the deed to the house we just escaped.

Sagira, Rek, Arf and Seesil walk up to the bar, Seesil peering over it with interest. The bartender looks up briefly, but quickly returns to cleaning his seven glasses.  Sagira clears her throat. "Whiskey please." "No whiskey. Only wine." The bartender barely looking up for this exchange. Upon hearing this, Arf throws up his arms. "I'll have nothing to do with such a house of ill repute!" he exclaims, and stalks out of the bar. (We played this bit of Arf to explain his absence in the ensuing action.) Sagira shrugs, and asks about rooms, receiving a blunt "one gold per night" response. As soon as there is a break in the conversation, the bartender goes back to ignoring us, polishing his glasses.

Alf's Name Card

As Sagira attempts to get something out of the bartender, Rek notices the man in the back corner waving us over. He offers to share his pitcher of wine with us, and we head over. Rek immediately begins to down the entire pitcher. "I guess I'll order another picture..." the man says. He introduces himself as Ismarck, and he can tell we're not locals. "Nobody who looks like you is from around here" he elaborates. Apparently they're all human here.

"There are only three reasons for anyone to be here. You were born here, you're idiot adventurers, or Ravenloft has claimed you" he says. Our type don't tend to survive long, but Ismarck suggests that perhaps we could help each other out. He can help us learn about the place we have found ourselves, and we can help him get out of town and to the next village over in a hurry. As he talks, Seesil senses that while he speaks in earnest, he is also concerned about something else, which he is trying to hide from us.

Sagira's name card.

Meanwhile, Eld and Colin hear one of the women say "Well, shall we greet the people who have been easedropping on us?" The get up and walk over to the table at which Eld and Colin sit and introduce themselves as the proprietors of the tavern, Elenka, Mirabel and Sorbin. "What brings you to Barovia... in one piece?" they ask. "Oh, we're professionals" Eld responds, attempting to persuade the women that we know what we are doing. They simply start laughing. "Oh I like this one" Mirabel says.  Elenka explains that they are surprised we survived to make it to the tavern, as Strahd doesn't like strangers, although he does not bother their tavern.

In the back of the tavern, Sagira and Seesil quietly debate if we needed a guide in Ismarck as Rek sloppily downs the rest of the first pitcher of wine. We decide it was a good idea, but Ismarck does not want to speak where the proprietors of the tavern could overhear, he just needs to leave Barovia. "What is Barovia?" Rek asks. "Barovia is the town you are in" Ismarck responds. "Well why not just walk 100 feet that way?" Rek suggests, pointing randomly. Ismarck glares at her, and turns to talk more exclusively to Seesil and Sagira at this. He has more details, but he won't share them here. Sagira agrees, and stands to go gather up Eld and Colin.

Eld's name card and d20.

At Eld and Colin's table, the proprietors suggest that the party go to Sir Poole's camp, and visit Madame Eva for a fortune telling. Their conversation stops as Sagira approaches though, and Mirabel glares. "Why would you want to go anywhere with the likes of them?" She asks Eld, "they seem to have fallen in with a bad crowd." Mirabel seems to be glaring not specifically at Sagira, but at Ismarck behind her. "Oh, we're an item." Eld replies, standing up to greet Sagira. Sagira is confused, but plays along. Ismarck, noticing the glare, gets up and leaves the tavern while Seesil and Rek finish off their wine, whispering to Seesil as he passes that our friends have fallen in with the wrong crowd. But when Eld and Colin attempt to leave, the three women hinder their departure, attempting to convince them to stay and not follow after Sagira and Ismarck, until Rek comes up behind them, singing badly. "Fine, if you want to waste your time with Ismarck the Lesser, fo ahead" spits Mirabel, and the women return to their table, pointedly ignoring our group from then on.

Rek's name card.

As we follow Ismarck down the road, he thanks us for believing him, and asks for introductions to Eld and Colin, whom he has not officially met yet. Ismarck explains that the proprietors are Vistrani, a group of nomads who live in the area. There is a camp of them to the north, but none of them are welcoming to someone of Ismarck's reputation. He avoids our questions about his reputation by explaining his father was the Burgomaster (which Rek misinterprets as Burglar Meister), and that Strahd has bitten his sister twice and the help Ismarck is seeking is to get his sister to the next town of Velaki, away from Strahd. "What happens if Strahd bites you too often?" Sagira asks, and Ismarck responds "I'll show you." We follow him down the street to the largest house in town, its iron gates torn open. The house is covered in large claw marks, black shadows showing where past fires had burned, its windows boarded and warning omens scrawled on the walls. There are a mixture of human foot prints and paw prints in the trampled and weed infested yard outside. Eld and Seesil pause to inspect the prints, determining them to be wolf prints, though larger than a normal wolf.

Ismarck walks up and bangs on the front door, causing Eld to start and yell at him, demanding more explanation before we walk into another murder manor. "The wolves attacked us every night, because Strahd wanted my sister Irena and my father opposed it. But we haven't seen them in 4 nights." Ismarck opens the front door, and we see within a house in disarray, with holy symbols to various deities placed in strategic points around each room, with symbols of Lathandar, the god of morning, most prominent in every display. Rek chooses to stand guard outside the door with Eld while Colin and Sagira follow Ismarck inside. Seesil continues to examine the yard, determining that the yard has not been kept up in a long time, indicating a house in survival mode. 

Colin's name card

Colin and Sagira find a crying woman kneeling next to a closed coffin in the first side room in the manor. Ismarck introduces her as his sister Irena, and explains that their father held out a long time against Strahd but his heart gave out during the last attack. Ismarck wants to leave immediately now that he has secured our help. "I won't leave our father unburied!" Irena objects. "We can help bury him, here's our cleric, how about out back?" Sagira suggests. "No, he has to be buried with the rest of our family at the church" Irena explains. She flat refuses Sagira's offer to cremate the remains.

Though he was the burgomaster, the other villagers have refused to help Ismarck and Irena due to Strahd targeting the family. Ismarck also has a bad reputation in the village. After the burgomaster adopted him, rumors spread that Ismarck was only interested in taking over the position. "But I don't care about that, I only want to get Irena to safety" Ismarck says. 

The church is up the street at the north end of town. We plan to leave immediately after burying their father, so Irena grabs her breastplate and sword, while Ismarck packs a bag with their belongings. Colin calls Rek in to help, and Rek lifts the coffin singlehandedly, and the group heads out, gathering Seesil and Eld on the way. As soon as everyone is out of the house, Eld darts inside and loots some leftover silverware and a pair of candlesticks, the rejoins the group as they walk northeast up the road to the church.

The church is also in ill repair, so Eld and Seesil scout out around the side of the building while the others head inside to find the local priest. But an inhuman scream soon sends Eld and Seesil hurrying inside as well ("Seesil, that's our danger signal! Someone screaming!" we had discussed what signal to give in case of danger and landed not hat earlier...). Inside the rest of the group heard the scream as well, but do not know where it originated. Ismarck and Irena however walk forwards towards the scratched altar where a priest kneels praying fervently, as though they heard nothing. Rek follows them up the isle of broken pews until Eld tells her to stop. 

A second scream rings out, this time we can make out words: "Father, feed me I'm starving!" This causes the priest to start praying more fervently, Sagira demands to know what is going on, and Ismarck returns to us to explain. The scream comes from the priest's son, who had been bitten by Strahd several years ago and returned as a vampire thrall. The priest has locked him in the basement ever since. "This is what happens when Strahd bites you one too many times" Ismarck says, looking at Irena with concern. We interrupt the priest to ask about burying the father, and he points to the graveyard out back. "But we will have to wait until morning" he says, and we see why as a green mist seeps out from the gravestones, and ghostly figures emerge from the ground, forming a procession that heads towards the distant castle.

We agree that we should stay the night, but the now constant screaming from the basement is unnerving. "Do you ever feed him?" "No." We offer to kill the vampire, but the priest gets upset. "I can save him! I just have to pray hard enough." It has been three years, and none of us has ever herd of a cure for vampirism, but we decide not to upset the old priest too much. He explains it has been 8 months since his son last tried to escape. Three years ago, a mage had come to the village and roused the people against Strahd. A group of the strongest villagers, the son amongst them, had gone to storm the castle. Only the son returned, and he was changed. The priest realized something was wrong, and lured his son into the basement, then snuck out, locking him in. Knowing that the vampire has not gotten out in 3 years, we decide to rest in the church, though we keep watches. The ghost procession ends and the green mist clears as dawn approaches, and the party heads out with 3 shovels, priest in tow, and the priest, Ismarck and Irena start digging a grave. However, it's not long before we start hearing a howling. "They're coming for us!" the priest cries out, and Colin shoves him into the half dug grave for some cover as the party takes up fighting positions. Well, except for Seesil, who turns into a badger and attempts to keep digging the grave. Eld leaps onto a nearby mausoleum, and sees a ring of glowing red eyes closing in on us from all sides. He begins firing arrows as wolves appear, but they do not slow. Ismarck remarks that these are different from the wolves that attacked the house before.

A group of wolves breaks into the graveyard, surrounding us in a tightening circle. Rek and Colin help Ismarck, Irena and the priest onto the mausoleum, where Sagira had also joined Eld, and then hop up themselves. As they reach us, the wolves leap to attack us. "They're testing our defenses!" Irena shouts. One wolf leaps on Seesil, knocking him out of his badger form and drawing blood. Seesil swipes back, magically extending his claws and infusing them with necrotic energy which leeches the wolf's life to staunch the bleeding. Eld, Colin and Sagira fire into the wolves with arrows and magical fire, while Rek swings at them with her great axe as they leap at the mausoleum. We kill several but more keep coming. Seesil notices that a second ring of wolves, standing just inside the perimeter of the graveyard is larger than the first ring that closed in to attack, and when one wolf dies they howl as one.

The fight goes on, the black furred red eyed wolves refusing to give us a measure to recover, when we notice three robed figures have joined the second ring of wolves, each robed figure resting a hand on the largest white wolves we have ever seen. Sagira attempts to attack one of the robed figures with magical fire, but the figure grabs the fire out of the air and hurls it back at her, while a second robed figure reaches up and pulls an arrow out of what should be its face.

Irena and Ismarck, despairing, decide to meet their fates with steel, and leap off the mausoleum to fight with their swords, when Arf points to the sky. A raven descends and alights on a gravestone near Seesil, cawing once. At the caw, the robed figures disappear, and the wolves instantly retreat. The tombstone the raven landed on reads "Escher". Ismarck remarks that ravens are a good omen in Ravenloft... Seesil, vexed at the wolf attack, picks up one of the corpses and begins skinning it for useful material, glaring at the raven.

Sagira senses something magical about the raven, but when we approach, it squawks at us and flies off. The graveyard is peaceful, and we are finally able to properly bury the father while Seesil makes wolf jerky and dries the furs.

To be continued!