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====== Curse of Strahd - Session 18 - 04/03/2021 ======

Session 18 – 2021-04-03

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Session Summary


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Session Details

We spent the night at the Burgormaster’s house. Dain has a weird dream that evening after attuning to the Tome of Strahd. In a dream, I find myself leafing through a large leather bound manuscript. Some pages are torn, some bloodied, some burned, some branded with unknowable symbols, and others still artfully inscribed with a merky black ink in a foreign script he does not recognize. The first page transforms before his eyes. 

I, Strahd, Lord of Barovia, am aware, some events of my reign were desperately misunderstood, by those that are better at garbling history than recording it, hereby set down a record of those events, that the truth may at last be known. 

The pages flutter open to a blank pair along the spine and a mist begins to pour from the binding. He feels light headed. His vision fades, and from the blackness now surrounding him, a hungry fog now rolls along the ground. He cries out, but there is nothing. The mist chokes closer from the ground. From the growing cloud, a man clad in a black cloak and regal red tunic looks at him in the face, and piercing eyes, and he steps toward him with the grace of a king. Your eyes meet his cold glare as it bares down on him, and he speaks.

I am the ancient! I am the land! My beginnings are lost in the darkness of the past. 

The visage of the man disperses into a black and red cloud before reforming into a young boy, no older than 12, with a small sword at his side and tears streaming from his cheeks. The mist recedes further revealing a glorious, well adorned, and sunlit castle courtyard. The low buzz of insects and the humidity add weight to the summer air. And hanging high above him are red banners draped over towering ramparts that depict the same raven iconography, cast in metal, on the front of the book he just opened. The man that stood before him moments ago, now appears to be a boy, sit atop a small set of stairs, leading to a wooden door, from behind it he hears distant and boisterous laughter. 

Dain has a crying boy in from of him. He opens with, “Good day to you! Are you master Strahd?”. The boy, sniffing, looks up and says, “I’m going to call you Petrov! You are my friend, Petrov.”. He adds, “I’m lord of this castle, my father says so. Kneel before me Petrov!”, as he is still crying. “Kneel, I’ve got to learn how to do this, help me!”, as he stands up trying to look all tough and stuff. Dain spreads his cloak out behind him gives him a nice kneeling. He says, “I don’t want to do this!”, Dain respoinds, “but it is your birthright, it’s in your blood!”. Stradh replies, “That’s what Rahdin says, and father says, and mother says.”. Dain replies, “They are correct! It is in your blood!”. 

He hears this raucous laughter from the door behind Strahd. Strahd, sniffs and looks back, and says, “All they can think about is that stupid baby!”. Dain replies, “The baby is new, they will be enamored with it for a while, but ultimately, you are the eldest!”. Strahd says, “But I am the heir, I’m the important one.”. Daoin said, “Let them have their time!”, then asked, “I believe that’s Sergei, right, your young brother?”. He replied, “Yes! And it will be my job, to teach him everything I know. How to fight, how to be regal, he’s probably going to run off with that Megan Markle!”. Dain said, “None of that matters in the end, you are the heir! It is up to you to take care of your peo0ple, it is up to you to take care of your family.”. Strahd replies, “But I don’t want to do it! I don’t know if I can!”. Dain said, “You will, you will want to be the leader at some point in your life. It is better to lead than to let someone else lead you estray.”. 

Behind Strahd, the door burst open, and out steps kind of a tall, official looking sort of individual, but he is clearly an elf. He pulls out a blade, and basically ignores Dain, and says, “It is time to resume training, boy!”. Strahd replies, “Yes Rydan!”, and then stands up and draws his blade. They start walking out to a little practice field. As they are walking away, Dain hears that voice again, “Yet in that past, it is now filled only with regret.“. 

The mists overtakes him again and fogs up his vision, in a pattern that seems to take some sort of shape to him, in a way, like these mistic symbols that kind of swirl before his eyes, he has gained the ability to cast Illusory Script, as a ritual spell, once per dusk. In thinking back to the events, Dain wondered if he felt taller or shorter than normal, did he feel like it wasn’t his body that he was in, but he felt like himself.   

The rest of the night passes without event. We woke early and had breakfast before heading out. Dain explains the dream, or whatever it was, to the rest of the group. We stopped in at the Strum House, to fetch our weapons from Gregori. He silvered all of the weapons. It’s not the best job in the world but it’s  done. He suggested that we mute the colors to keep it from being obvious. Kyana mentioned putting black oil on them to mute it down. We ask Gregori if he had something that would be good for that. He came up with some oils and dyes that could be used. We doctored them there. Zanfyr asked about, and bought some studded leather armor. He sold him his hunters coat. Snoggly decides to be a smart arse to Gregori and ask if he has any Stone’s of Gravity Detection. Expecting to confuse him, we are surprised when he says, “Yes, would you like to buy one!”. Snoggly turned it down but then Gregori tried to sell one to the rest of the party. 

We finished up and headed out of town. As they travelled, Dain told everyone about his experience with the dream. He said that he didn’t know if it was real or just a vision, but he treated it as though it was real in hopes that he could make a difference in young Strahd’s life and effect his future! When Snoggly ask, what he was crying about, Dain said that his brother Sergei had just been born and that his parents and the servants were doating on it. Dain told them that being the spoiled brat that most young Princes probably are, he didn’t like sharing the attention, so Dain tried to teach him that sharing the attention with his brother wasn’t bad, having a younger brother isn’t bad. Basically, Strahd is a little boy training to be king. Dain explained that it is not unlike his own life. He wasn’t going to be a king, but he was still of royal blood and as such, things were expected of him. His training prepared him for this eventuality. He didn’t live the normal young Dwarf’s life. Dain said he will, if given more chances, try to engage Strahd about his brother. He’ll try to teach him that Sergei, as brother, has the potential to be his closest and most trusted ally and friend. Blood is thicker than friendship, embrace him, train him, love and respect him, and you will grow an empire!

About 10 miles out of town, we come to the Raven river crossing. It’s about 2:30 I the afternoon. Haldar moves forward to look around the bridge to make sure it’s clear. He finds nothing so we all cross the bridge and head off down the road. We pass the road that leads back to the winery and continue on for a few miles as we pass the road to the south to the Tsolenka Pass towards the Balinok Mountains. Another mile or so, we come to a less traveled road going north. We turn that way and head towards Lake Baratok. The road conditions get much less favorable and we continue on for another 2 miles before we come to a branch, one to the north west and one continues on to the north east. We took the north west branch. 

We continue on for another mile or so when we come to a cold mountain lake, enclosed by misty woods and rocky bluffs, thick fog creeps over the dark waters. It is becoming early evening. The trail ends at a grass covered causeway that stretches 100 yards across the lake to a flat marshy island with a stone tower on it. The tower is old and decrepit with collapsing scaffolds clinging to one side. There is a large gash that splits the wall near the back corner. Time worn winged statues with their wings and flanks covered in moss, perched atop the buttresses that support the walls. The lake itself is not large but it about 1 mile north and south by 2 miles east and west.      

Dain and Rinn study the building as they approach it. Snoggly spies Ezmerelda closer, near the tower. Haldar makes his way, quietly, toward her, we follow at a little distance behind. As we approach, we see a sign on the door that reads Exethanter. Around the sign, positioned sort of like a clock face, are stick figures in different poses. One with both arms pointing out, one with one arm pointing up and the other arm pointing down, the next with both arms pointing down, so on and so forth, all the way around. There were also two large triangles pointing in one direction with two smaller triangles near the bottom pointing out a little. There were also two lines leading from the base of the smaller triangles through the large triangles and stopping just past that.

While the others peer at the sign and discuss it, Rinn calls out Boo and send him out on a fly around of the tower. Rinn is going to crouch down to get solid balance so he can leave his senses behind and join with Boo to access his senses. Through Boo, he looks at all sides of the tower for openings, movement, light, or any signs of life. He scopes out from the bottom to the top. There appears to be no sign of life. There are no windows but there are arrow slits. There is a big opening, a hole, in the back left corner, around the third-floor level, where part of the wall has collapsed inward. There is a hole in the center of the floor where there are some floorboards broken. He returns to himself, thanks Boo, and sends him back to the safety of the pocket dimension from where he was called. He lets everyone know what he saw.     

Ezmerelda came over to greet us. As she approached, it was obvious that she had taken some damage. When asked about it, she told us the doors are trapped. She tells us that she attempted to open it and another gargoyle from the roof, came down and attacked. There had been five, now four. Rinn moved up to check the door for traps, not touching it. Rinn sends his mage hand over to check the handle to see if it’s locked, meanwhile, everyone put a little distance from the door. It is locked tight. Rinn brought the hand back and put the tools he needed in it and sent it back. He moved a little closer so he could see better. As the hand got closer to the door, it dissipated. Also, from above, a gargoyle sweeps down and attacks Ezmerelda, the claw gripping her before it bites, deep, into her shoulder.

Zanfyr beast shapes into a Dire Wolf, charges up and attacks. It’s stone hide repels his attack. Dain moves up, jumping over a small area of water to the land near the gargoyle and manages to hold his place and not fall. He attacks and hits it. Haldar pulls his short sword and shield and attacks. Surprisingly enough, he missed. Rinn moves around behind him and attacks. Misty jumps to a space near the gargoyle and whacks Rinn, oops, and misses with her second attack. Ezmerelda whips around and using her axe and rapier, takes a couple of very fine hits. We are, as the gods say, suitably impressed. Kyana, casts branding smite on herself and attacks, it strikes with normal damage plus additional radiant damage. Snoggly takes his sling and fires at it and misses.

The gargoyle attacks Ezmerelda again striking her twice as before. Zanfyr attacks again and hits. Dain whacks at him again., He ends it and manages maintain his balance. Kyana moves up behind Ezmerelda to do some healing. Ezmerelda whirls around quickly but realizes it’s Kyana and calms down. Kyana does heal her. We discussed going around the back and climbing the scaffolding to get in but ended up trying to solve the puzzle that is the door. Snoggly was curious if the emblem on the door rotated. Ezmerelda didn’t think it moved. There was more discussion. 

Dain asks Ezmerelda if she is expecting anyone else to me here. She said that she knew that Rudolph had once been here but she’s not sure now. Snoggly asked, “Who is Exethanter?”. She tells us that Exethanter was the personally wizard of Strahd von Zarovich. He helped build Castle Ravenloft, he and Artemis Fidatov, and they built this tower. Exethanter sought immortality. He was the wizard that went to the Amber Vault in pursuit of becoming a Lich. Snoggly asked if there was a keyhole on the door, somewhere, as Misty moves up to the door and begins mimicking the arm movements on the sign. After going through the movements, the door creaks open.

Rinn’s mage hand still dissipates as it approaches the door. Apparently, magic is not allowed through the door. We entered the building and saw five foot square indentation in the center of the floor with four taught iron chains going up through a similar sized hole in the ceiling. Standing next to the chains are four clay statues that snap to attention as Rinn enters the room. After studying the situation for a moment, it’s determined that the statues must somehow raise and lower the elevator. Not seeing any levers or buttons, Rinn moves to the platform and says, “Up!”. The statues begin raising the elevator as some very creeping, but somehow satisfying music begins to play. Rinn finds himself, slowly moving to the rhythm of the music, as if being compelled to do so. 

When he gets to the second floor, the floors look very weakened and in bad shape. To test this apparatus, Rinn says stop and both the elevator and the music stop. Rinn shouts down to Dain to let him know that the “U” word takes the elevator higher, the “D”: word makes it go lower, and the “S” word makes it sit still. He then said, to make it to go the second floor, at which time the elevator began moving down and the music started again. It lined up with the second floor and stopped. Rinn shouted down, it’s even easier than that, just name the floor you want to go to, and it will take you there.

Rinn looks around the floor without leaving the elevator and doesn’t see anything. He goes back down as the rest enter the tower. As Zanfyr enters the tower in Dire Wolf form, he us suddenly returned to his human form. It’s determined that we can get two people on the elevator at a time. Many sexual jokes began at this time, mostly about which way people faced while sitting on the other’s shoulders. In actuality, Rinn and Misty fit fine on the platform and began going up raising it. Rinn kept the others apprised of what they say through the messaging spell. 

We looked at the floor and considered waiting for the others here, but the floor is so weak that it probably won’t hold us. We continued on to the third floor. We noticed that there is a large whole in the north west wall. There is slimy black mildew on the walls. This floor is also very rotten. As we looked up, we noticed a lot of dangling boards, broken sub-floor, but we can also make out, what appears to be, a sort of mural of a star scape, night sky, painted on the ceiling. Rinn decided to test the floor here and reached out with one foot and applied a little pressure to the flooring carefully maintaining his balance. He closed his eyes and attempted to believe the floor beneath his foot was solid. It was quickly obvious that it is in very bad shape.

We let the rest of the group know that we aren’t able to get off of the elevator yet and that we’ll have to proceed to the fourth floor. The music and movement started again. As we reached the fourth floor, it looks to have been lived in. It had a cozy bed, desk with matching chair, bright tapestries, a large iron stove with wood to feed it. Some light enters through arrow slits and cracks in heavily boarded up windows. There is a standing suite of armor, a wooden chest, old wooden rafters that bend under the weight of the tower roof which has somehow remained in tact. Mounted to the rafters are pullies around which sits the iron chains which support the elevator. 

The floor looks sturdier here, Rinn and Misty discuss the obvious thing to worry about, that’s stepping off the elevator and having that trigger the suit of armor to attack. We decide to step of, to either side of the elevator at the same time. Misty immediately says, “first floor” to send the elevator back down. The music starts and the elevator begins it’s slow trek back down. The armor doesn’t attack! Misty manages to resist the compulsion to move to the rhythm of the music but Rinn just lets go and enjoys the rhythm and moves to it. Ezmerelda, Haldar, and Soggly proceed up. 

Rinn moved to the desk and began searching it. Misty moved to searching the armoire. We also see another table with alchemy items set up on it. Ezmerelda, Haldar and Snoggly arrive and Ezlerelda moves to the Alchemy table and says, “Yes, this is Rudolph’s. I recognize this!”. We send the elevator back down to the others. Rinn searches the desk while Misty searches the armoire. Rinn finds a bunch of papers. He begins looking through them and finds a journal of sorts. 

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For more than three decades now, I have undertaken to investigate and expose creatures of darkness to the purifying light of truth and knowledge. “Hero” I am named in some circles; “sage” and “master hunter” I am called in others. That I have survived countless supernatural assaults is seen as a marvel among my peers; my name is spoken with fear and loathing among my foes.

In truth, this “virtuous” calling began as an obsessive effort to destroy a vampire that murdered my child, and it has become for me a tedious and bleak career. Even as my life of hunting monsters began, I felt the weight of time on my weary shoulders. Today I am a man who has simply lived too long. Like a regretful lich, I find myself inexorably bound to an existence I sought out of madness and, seemingly, must now endure for all eternity. Of course I shall die, but whether I shall ever rest in my grave haunts my idle thoughts, and torments me in my dreams.

I expect that those who think me a hero will change their minds when they know the whole truth about my life as a hunter of the unnatural. Nevertheless, I must reveal, here and now, that I have been the indirect yet certain cause of many deaths, and the loss of many good friends. Mistake me not! I do not merely feel sorry for myself. Rather, I come to grips with a devastating realization: I now see that I am the object of a baleful Vistani curse. More tragically, the nature of this hex is such that I have not borne the brunt of it; instead, far worse, those who surround me have fallen victim to it!

I have related the tragic story of how my only child Erasmus was taken by Vistani and sold to a vampire. I explained how Erasmus was made a minion of the night stalker, and how it was my miserable part to free him from that fate at the point of a stake. What I have neglected to illuminate before is how I tracked Erasmus’s kidnappers across the land, or how I “extracted” Erasmus’s whereabouts from them.

In fact, the Vistani took Erasmus with my own, unwitting permission. They had brought an extremely ill member of their tribe to me one evening and insisted that I treat him, but I had taken to drink in those days, and under the spell of the bottle, I was unable to save the young man’s life. In fear of their retribution, I begged the Vistani to take anything of mine if only they would withhold their terrifying powers, of which I knew nothing. To my lasting astonishment, they chose to surreptitiously take my son in exchange for their loss! By the time I sobered and realized what had occurred, they were already an hour gone.

Incensed beyond reason, I strapped the body of the dead young man to my horse and doggedly followed the Vistani caravan through the woods, naively allowing the sun to set before me without seeking shelter from the night. Shortly after darkness fell, I was beset by undead that would have slain me, had not their master—a lich—intervened and spared my life, for reasons that I do not completely understand. He somehow detected me and, with his powerful magic, took control of a pack of zombies that wandered in the forest. He spoke to me through the mouths of the dead things and placed a magic ward against undead on me, then animated the dead Vistana and bade it tell me where I could find its people. Unfortunately (I say in hindsight), the plan worked. I found the child-stealers, and my unwelcome entourage included a growing horde of voracious undead that could not touch me, thanks to the lich’s ward.

When I found the caravan, I threatened to set the zombies on the Vistani unless they returned my dear boy. They replied that he had been sold to the vampire, Baron Metus. Something inside me snapped. I released the zombies, and the entire tribe was eaten alive.

Yet the story has not ended. Before she died, the leader cursed me, saying, “Live you always among monsters, and see everyone you love die beneath their claws!” Even now, so many years later, I can hear her words with painful clarity. A short time later, I found my dear Erasmus made into a vampire. He begged me to end his curse, which I did with a heavy heart. The darkness had torn him from my loving arms forever, and I foolishly believed that the curse had exacted its deadly toll. I wept, and as my heart emptied, so did rise an insatiate desire for vengeance that I fear I will never quell.

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That led us to an understanding of why Rudolph was such a great monster hunter, his curse protects him. He may very well be the perfect person to try and end Strahd’s existence. The Vistani cursed him to be hunted and haunted by the undead and the lich cursed him to not be harmed by the undead, sealing the fates of those around him, sealing his fate to be alone. Snoggly wondered if that’s why he came to this tower, to find out why the lich cursed him. Then he turned to Ezmerelda and asked if he had told her that he came here to kill Strahd.

Ezmerelda seems zoned out, not hearing him, but finally came back to us. He asked that van Richten came to kill someone but maybe it was this other vampire, Baron Metus? She told us that Rudolph had already killed Baron Metus some time ago. Snoggly then asked what was bother her. She replies, nothing. Rinn goes back to the desk that she seems to be staring at. She looks to him and says, “Van Richten is a healer by trade. Largely, this is a way of transfusing blood to those that have been bitten.”. Snoggly asks, “why would you think the lich would be warding him against the undead?”. She didn’t have an answer. Snoggly said, “Maybe he was searching for an answer himself.”. She is still a little out of it but asks, “An answer to what!”. Snoggly replied, to why the lich put the ward on him!”. She replied that she didn’t know why, that perhaps the lich had something against the Vistani or against Baron Metus, and used him as a pawn. She still sounds a little out of it. 

Rinn asked why the transfusion gear. Why would he have that? She said it was to replenish blood fomr being bitten by a vampire or a werewolf. She asked if he’d been bitten, she replied, “I’m sure, many times over the years.”. Rinn asks, “So he’s getting bitten by them but he’s not turning into one of them, because of the ward?”. She says, “Yes!”. Snoggly asked if the tribe that got wiped out would be her people. She replied, “The Vistani are my people!”. To which Rinn asked, but not that specific tribe? She sheaths he sword and tends to become a little more alert and responds that, “Zombies killed my family!”. She was a baby at the time, but she’s been told the story. Rinn asked, if she’d be able to put this behind her, in the hopes of taking down Strahd or will she be so angry at this point, that when Von Richten shows up, that she’ll attack and kill him. Her answer, “I don’t know!”. He points out that she’s not undead and might be able to actually hurt him.

Snoggly asked if this was his stuff and if it is, where did he get off to. Everyone is up here now. Rinn checks the chest for traps and then opens it. He catches a sent of Lavender. In a jar, you see the head of a human. We wondered if it was his son, Ezmerelda looks at it and says it’s a Vistani and would not be his son. Maybe someone from the tribe that killed his son, perhaps the leader. Rinn also finds three jars containing a red liquid. Rinn opens a jar, it made a suction sound as it was opened. He smelled of the liquid and it looked like blood. Rinn says, “This must be what he is using for the transfusions. In the armoire, Misty finds two healers kits, a silver dagger, three vials of holy water, a lite crossbow, 7 wooden stakes. In the desk we also find an herbalism kit, the vials and material to craft 3 potions of healing, 2 doses of anti-toxin. We also find 15 silver tipped crossbow bolts, 18 regular crossbow bolts, a little wooden container that has 8 thin sheets of pure silver, 50 feet of hemp and rope, 12 packs of rations, and jugs with about a week’s worth of drinking water, ink and quill.

We start wondering where he has gone when Rinn asks, out loud, “If you are here and hiding from us, please come out. We are here to help.”. Rinn looks in the armor, there is nothing in there. The armor is good plate male. Rinn tried the dancing lights again to see if the magic dampening still functions up here. It fizzles.      

Misty open a pouch she found and pulled out a couple of items. When Rinn saw her examining something, he asked what it was. She was very evasive about it, but after a little coaxing, she finally showed it to Rinn. It was a sextant. She also showed him the spy glass. Booth of the items has Exethanter’s name emblazoned on them. Snoggly has her use one of the arrow slits to look out with the spy glass. She looks out all all directions, two of which showed water, one showed a mountain scene, and the last was the way we came in. While looking out here, she saw some movement but couldn’t discern anything specific. Rinn borrows the spy glass but can’t discern anything about what was out there.

Misty goes down to the third floor and looks up at the star scape. She didn’t recognize any of the constellations showing there. She pulled out some parchment and quill and ink and began drawing them. After she finishes drawing it, she went back up to the fourth floor. She’d spreads out the drawing she made and nothing about it looks familiar to anyone. Zanfyr mentioned that it could be the star scape for this area as we don’t know where this area is. It could be on the other side of our flat world. Rinn poses the question, do we wait here or do we go somewhere. Snoggly decides that the amount of dust on things means that no one has been here for several weeks. We asked Ezmerelda what she thought we should do. She says that Van Richten has many enemies, maybe he has gone after the werewolves. Snoggly said he thinks that might be what we saw moving around out there. Ezmerelda asked what we were talking about Misty told her she saw some movement only moments ago through the window. Ezmerelda said that could be anything, including werewolves.

She goes and looks out the window facing the mountains. She’s said, that’s were they werewolves live. Misty pointed at the causeway window and said that’s where we saw the movement. Ezmerelda says, that’s where the werewolves hunt. Snoggly says, they’re probably hunting us.