SPOILERS FOR CURSE OF STRAHD FOLLOW
It's been about two weeks since my last post for this group, but I'm not that far behind because we did have a cancelled session last week. So I'm going to try and write up what I remember from about 3 weeks worth of sessions so that I can be up to date before this week's session.
When we left off, Balazar had shoved Gilligan the goblin in the dumbwaiter and forced him up to the second floor (with the help of some of our other party members), and Sadun had tired of the games of her group and started up the stairs as well.
Our second session saw us lose our bard and our rogue, but we did have a new player join (we knew she'd be there, being the real life friend of Talna, our drowse cleric, but she couldn't make the first session) but we'll get to her later. We begin with Gilligan exploring the room he was in, very tentatively. It's dark, but he finds a bed near where the dumbwaiter let him off with a nursemaids outfit on it. After checking to make sure there was nothing under the bed he heads to the door, and shouts down the stairs that it's safe. Sadun and the others head upstairs. We reach the second floor landing, and find several suits of armor around the walls, as well as a few unopened doors to explore. Sadun waves her hands in front of one of the suits of armor, trying to verify that it's not haunted like the top hat was. The others spread out and start investigating the rooms. Gilligan finds the library, but being a goblin he isn't much interested in the books. He does notice one that seems out of place though, and upon pulling it the entire bookcase slides back, revealing a secret room. And standing facing our goblin paladin with drawn bow ready to fight is a gnome ranger (who hates goblins). Fortunately the rest of the group was able to rush in and diffuse the tension (a bit) after the initial exchange of "What the f@%* are you doing here?" "What are YOU doing here?" No they don't know each other, but neither trusted the other. The gnome is Elle, our new player's ranger (with preferred enemy: goblins), and she had been lured into the house like us, but trapped in the secret room while exploring. Also in the room we find a skeleton with its hand in a treasure chest, and a wall full of books. The chest contains some spell scrolls, and also a note from Strahd von Zarovich, detailing how he is not a dark savior, no matter how many people the house's occupants sacrifice on their hidden altar, but that he knows about the stillborn child and he likes them in their wretchedness. Nice guy.
Sadun meanwhile moves to explore the room across the hall. In it she sees a number of musical instruments, and some small statuary. There is a harpsichord in the corner, and it is playing music by itself. Deciding she's sick of the shenanigans in this house, and remembering how fire worked on the cloak in the first room, she pushes the harpsichord into the nearby fireplace. It burns slowly, singing a sad song just for her. The others come into the room and are confused (none of them heard music) but Sadun just tells them about the statuary which might be valuable to our more greedy party members, and leaves the room, satisfied.
I don't remember anything else interesting on the second floor, so let's move on to the third floor. (I also can't remember exactly where the sessions ended here, but at some point we lost out warlock as well to work scheduling, but for the third floor session we had two other new players trying out the game a bit. We'll come to them shortly as well).
So the third floor. We continue up the staircase to another landing, and see several more doors. A suit of armor stands at the top of these stairs. To the right go Balazar and Gilligan, and find the master bedroom. As they search it, Sadun and Talna head left. We find the nursemaid's bedroom, with a nursery attached. We can see through the nursery door a crib with a spectral woman standing over it. Sadun, becoming tired of not finding the monster the children outside mentioned, shouts at the woman, asking "do you know where the monster in this house is?" The woman does not respond, so Sadun enters the nursery. As she begins to ask again, the woman attacks Sadun, a spectral hand hitting and hurting Sadun with necrotic energy. Talna shouts to the rest of the party, and casts a spell, bringing sacred fire down on the shadowy nursemaid. Gilligan hears the shout, and runs across the hallway, only for the suit of armor we had ignored to swing its mace at him. Balazar and Elle, seeing the armor attack, swing back at it, denting it with their swords and arrows. Gilligan climbs onto the armor and clubs it with his mace. Meanwhile, growling with pain, Sadun swings her axe and cleaves the specter in two (I rolled the maximum damage on my d12 for the greataxe!). In the hallway, the other subdue the armor. Elle, curious about what Talna and Sadun were shouting about, joins them in the nursery. They find the crib contains a baby-sized object, wrapped in blankets, and an unconscious elf wizard on the floor. (The elf is one of the new players). Elle wants to see into the crib, so Sadun bemusedly lifts her up. Curious, Elle picks up what turns out to be an empty blanket, but something comes over her, and Elle crawls into the crib, thinking she is a baby. Until Sadun slaps her out of it. The elf tells us she also came into the house with her companion, a warlock, but they were separated and she doesn't remember anything beyond coming in.
Cut to her companion, a human warlock's perspective. He wakes up in a dark place, and hears commotion. He blindly reaches forward and finds a doorknob, opening it to peer out into a lit hallway where a goblin and a dragonborn are beating a suit of armor. He is confused, but he calls out to them.
Turning, Gilligan and Balazar see a human with a large bump on his head coming out of a closet. And behind him, rises the handle of a broom. Which promptly swings down, clubbing the warlock to the ground (it hit him twice before anyone could react, and brought him to 2 Hit Points!). However, Gilligan and Balazar make short work of it after that.
Coming out of the nursery, Elle, Sadun and Talna, accompanied by the elf, begin searching the room while Gilligan and Balazar go back to the master bedroom. Balazar takes the tiger skin rug, and Gilligan explores the balcony. He is unnerved that the fog we were all terrified of remains at the boundaries of the house, leaving just enough space for him to walk around the balcony, but no more. And he feels as though someone is watching him through that fog...
Talna, exploring the mirror over the mantlepiece, finds a hidden switch, and the wall behind the mirror opens up to reveal a hidden staircase leading up once again (to the attic we presume).
This was definitely the end of session 3. The warlock and wizard who joined us there did not return, reducing us to a core group of 5 players: Talna, Elle, Sadun, Balazar and Gilligan. This is why those are the only names I remember...
Gilligan's player is unable to make the next session in the attic.
The group goes up into a dusty attic, once again being presented with a number of doors. Sadun takes the lead, and kicks down the door on the left of the hall. Elle (3 foot 2 inches tall), deciding she likes the feisty dragonborn (a good 6 foot 4), scampers up to ride on Sadun's shoulders. Inside the room, they find a very tastelessly decorated suite, with a creepy doll in a yellow dress smiling unnervingly on a table under the window. Seeing nothing else of note, Sadun, with Elle in tow, moves cautiously toward the doll.
Nothing happens, so Sadun picks up the doll. As nothing continues to happen, Elle urges Sadun to throw the doll against the wall, just to be sure. As she goes to throw it, Sadun suddenly feels an odd attachment to the doll, and a strange reluctance to throw it. She hesitates, and Elle snatches it up and throws it against the wall. Nothing happens. Shrugging, Sadun picks it up, and leaves the room, Elle still riding on her shoulders.
Meanwhile, deciding it looks like fun, Balazar and Talna move to kick down the door opposite the one Sadun and Elle entered. After an amusing number of failed strength checks from the two of them, Talna finally kicks the door open. Inside, are two small cots, a dollhouse that is an exact replica of the house we are in, and... two child sized skeletons. We knew those kids outside were ghosts! Sadun comes into the room, and picks up the dollhouse rather roughly looking it over (I rolled a 2 on investigation). As she does so, the ghosts of the two children appear. "Please don't break our toys" says Rose, the elder sister. Chastised, Sadun puts down the dollhouse. After some conversation, we determine that the ghostly children do not know about us at all. They have not left their room in the attic since they starved to death, locked in their room they know not how long ago. Apparently, any time their parents had guests over they would lock the children in their room, and this last time nobody came to let them out. It's really quite sad. However they dollhouse is a replica of the actual house, and we are able to use it to determine where the secret staircase to the basement is (it's just down the hall from us here). At this point, Balazar realizes he had taken an iron key from the chest in the hidden room on the second floor, and it fits in the broken door's lock. Oh well, kicking it down was more fun.
We decide to rest up in the children's room, with their permission. We precariously put the door back up, and take turns keeping watch. On the second watch, the door fixes itself. Everything in the house seems to have reset, including most of what we'd looted (the silverware, etc. had gone back, but the spell scrolls had not). But no worries, we have a key to this room! ...There is no lock on this side of the door. We have to kick it down again to get out. Before we leave, we discuss what to do with the children. Elle and Sadun feel bad for them, and want to give them closure, put their spirits to rest. The others agree, although they consider that the best way may be to burn the skeletons. The children's spirits grow fearful at this, and beg us not to do that. Balazar and Talna are pretty sure however. So the children jump into Sadun and Elle, possessing them. Sadun becomes much bossier, while Elle becomes fearful of everything, but the two put the skeletons in their packs. Sadun then stomps out, demanding that the group go to the basement immediately to fight the monster in the basement. Elle clings to her legs, pleading that that is too scary, and they should stay where they are. Talna and Balazar are confused, but take the opportunity to check the final unexplored room for loot (there is none). They come into the storage room Sadun had barged into, where we know the secret staircase to be, trying to shove open the door over a pleading Elle, who is holding the door shut. The session ends on Sadun finally succeeding (Elle somehow managed to hold the door closed against both dragonborn for two turns!)
Alright, that brings us to this past week's session, which went longer than usual, and this post is getting pretty long, so I'll end this here.
Next time: The basement!
I like the spooky flavor here. The burning harp especially.
ReplyDelete