Two players are missing, so today’s game will be a little odd. 

The cleric is going to set up the tower to properly burn after we killed the hags in it. The bard will study the book, in an attempt to translate it.

The paladin and the fighter went down the hill to talk to some ravens, and then into some ruins. There appear to be some giants guarding the ruins.

The ruins contain an altar, likely the altar of seasons.

The batten down the tower as best we can. The strange barrel of ichor is moved in front of the door.

The first two watches passed rather uneventfully, or so we thought. Turns out that the vampire lord snuck into the tower in the middle of the night, took one of the NPCs out of the tower, by turning her into a vampire.

In the morning, we loaded up the wagon and headed towards the nearest town. The elfadin decided to load the ichor barrel on the cart.

We ran into a skeletal knight along the road, riding on a skeletal horse. The knight wore an emblem of a silver dragon, and didn’t seem hostile, so we let it pass.

We reached a village, and when the guard’s questioned our intent, the bard broke into song, stories and even played the drums for the priestess to dance.

This almost worked, but the village has rules against the Vistani. So he explains that he’s an En Meda, rather than a Vistani; explaining the whole origin myths of the two peoples. This gets the party into the town.

We visited a stockyard, and after disturbing something large and feline sleeping inside a wagon, Twinblade got hired to perform guard duty.

A strange man followed us through the town, but we mostly ignored him.

In the cathedral, we were told to go find some bones. We visited the gravedigger, he told us that he’d been hired by the coffin maker. Visiting the coffin maker, we find out that there is a vampire nest upstairs.

The elfadin decided to head into the the house, to search for the bones. He manages to get upstairs, get the bones, and get out the window before the vampire spawn catch up with him. This is partially because of the Cat’s Grace he’s had cast on him.

They return the bones to the priest and quickly devise a plan. They’ll get a ladder from the stockyard and the bard will balance on top of it outside the window, while the elfadin holds the ladder. The bard will blow the windows open with thunder wave, then backflip away, while the sorcerer begin throwing flames into through the openings.

Getting the ladder is simple. While the merchant wants to charge more for the ladder, the bard points out that if he fails to kill the vampires, he’ll shortly become one and he’ll come back for the merchant.

This mostly worked. The sorcerer disappeared into puff of blue smoke after throwing the fireballs in through the open windows. And the vampires don’t scream when we burn down the building. The sherif, who the mercenary brought to the coffin maker’s house. This was not the best outcome, since he decided we were troublemakers, who had burnt down a house after murdering a citizen. But at least he didn’t arrest the party.

While returning the bones, we found that there was a bribe stashed in the bag.

At which point, we left the village through the northern exit. Noisily and obviously. And then we went through the woods, around to the western exit.

Arriving at the Vishtani camp, we found the missing priestess whipping some random guy for not doing his job. He’d lost the headman’s daughter. So a bargain was struck, we help them recover the girl, we get a treasure from the wagons.

The elfadin’s character explores the elven encampment that is around the outside the vishtani camp. He finds an elderly elf, who confirms that he probably came from the village, and was kidnapped from it, roughly 500 years ago, their time, and roughly a hundred years ago his time. The wear on the coins fit that story. The old elf wants us to visit the top of Mount Ghakkis with him. We have a mission into the bowels of Mount Ghakkis. And he shows the Bard the Map, so the Bard can now access the world map button. We also got confirmation that the road we were taking to the west to the druid’s hill was a good plan, though we may want to stop at a tower near a lake along the way.

During the break, the bard decides he needs a pair of banjos, so he can play dueling Banjos on his own, well, with mage hand anyways. 

The following morning, we meet with the fellow who had been whipped. He was appreciative of the healing word that had been cast on him. He led the party to where the girl had disappeared. With Owl’s Wisdom, the bard was able to determine the trail of the probable abductor. They led to a fisherman’s shack, and the fisherman had recently gone out into the lake, with a large sack.

Following him out into the lake, the bard pulls out his fishing gear, in an attempt to be nonchalant about the encounter, but the fisherman panics, and throws the bag of the side. So the bard casts Bull’s strength, and then dives into the water after the bag.

Under the water, ghostly apparitions appear, which terrify the bard. The rest of the party leaps into the water and dive towards the bag. The fighter is scared, and the paladin casts a quick spell to prevent fear, before diving in. Together they bring the girl up. The brute is pulled into the boat with a command and a charm.

Then heading back to the village, guards attempted to bring the party in for questioning, but a quick charm person convinces them that we aren’t the adventurers that they are looking for.

And then we return the girl to the village, earning a treasure in the process. We also brought back the villain, who will be punished by the priestess of pain for his attempted sacrifice.

While attempting to figure out what treasure to take, we accidentally summoned Kevin the sorcerer back. We were offered a delightful rug, for saving the girl.

We took the gold instead, and used it to buy horses.

We returned to the town, entering into the Inn for knowledge.

In the Inn, A man’s name, Kazan, up at a tower on a lake. Dangerous wards guard it.

We also learn of the weaknesses of the vampires, running water, sunlight and wooden stakes. They can’t enter a residence without permission from one of the occupants. They aren’t fond of sunlight. Resistances to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from non magical.

We visited a few other places in town, but didn’t learn anything useful.

We rode back across to the river to pick up the boats, so we’d be able to search the shore tomorrow. We took the row boats down to the bridge. The next few days, we’d be able to search the north side of the lake. It took half a day to cross the lake, but we’ll be able to return to the encampment at night. The process is long and may be unwise.

We got timestopped by a strange wizard, and this resulted in us getting trapped on the wrong side of the lake. So we decided to anchor the boat in the river, hoping that the running water will protect us from the vampires.

During the night, we were attacked by a pack of dire wolves. Cutting the line, we managed to flow out towards the lake, slowly. It was a nasty fight, and people nearly died. The usage of colour spray to blind two of the wolves let us escape into the lake, and we managed to kill one of the wolves.

 

We awoke after sleeping in the gypsy camp, to find that Kevin now has breasts and considerably more curves than the night before. Most of the party don’t comment on this. The paladin, goes out of his way to comment, and seems okay with it.

The party backtracks past the gallows, before heading to a bridge that crosses the river that fed the lake that the gypsies had camped near.

We reached a second set of gates. Passing through them, we secured them closed and camped for the night.

During the third watch, when Silion and Vellos were on watch, something brightly lit came out of the woods and attacked them. The zapping attack was loud enough to wake up the rest of the party.

The paladin smote it, which resolved the threat. Untying the gates, we continued west.

We encountered a body that had been savaged by wolves.

We carried on, until we reached a mill on a hill.

Approaching the mill, we were warned off by a raven.

The mill seems fairly fortified.

The mage and the paladin went into the mill, while the fighter tried to find a place to climb up.

They go up the stairs inside the mill, silently. The top floor appears to have witches, who are eating children.

The mage and the merc surprise the witches, while the paladin surprises himself and loses his footing. After that, he gets tossed out the window and crashes into a heap at the base of the windmill.

The mage hit one of the hags with a lightening based spell, which connected them with a chain of energy, but the hag escaped it by turning invisible. The other hag turned into a seagull and flew out the window. Vellos attempted to shoot down the seagull, but missed completely.

The cleric attempted to force the seagull to grovel.

There was combat, eventually one of the hags was killed, and two were driven away.

Twin Blades found a book in the attic, the Tome of Strahd.

Bottles of Youth, Laughter and Mother’s Milk were taken, along with six Dream Pies.

The bucket of Black Ichor in the corner glowed brightest of all, and it appeared to be conjuration. The barrel turns out to be demon ichor.

So we’re going to be burning down the mill.

There are now four altars that we need to visit to reconsecrate as part of a ritual to destroy the Heart of Sorrow, which protects Strahd.

The altars are at  Luna Lake, the Velacian Valley, the Swamps of Iviliss, and the bowels of Mount Gahkis.

Iannyor, Twin Blades, and Vellos are sitting around a camp fire, while Sileon is sitting nearby, manacled. Iannyor is cooking, Vellos is strumming his lute, enjoying the captive audience, while Twin Blades is looking for trouble. 

As the sun goes down, the mist rolls in. The mist is rather creepy, and chilling. 

The strange priestess attempts to bash her head in against the tree, and while Iannoyr wanted to stop her. Vellos felt this was a religious, so told them not to.

In the morning, while Vellos was checking around, he noticed that they’ve gone to a new land. A land that he previously thought was only in legends.

Kevin, the Magnificient asks where we are, and Vellos explains that we’re in Barovia. A land ruled by a dark lord known as Strahd; a legendary vampire.

Kevin attempted to open a magic door to exit, but it didn’t work. This attempt made everything really bright. All the magic glowed.

Iannyor climbed a tree, we only saw mists. Kevin attempted to summon his familiar, but this didn’t work all that well. The familiar burst into flames while attempting to come into existence.

The road that we’re on, is a very nasty road. As soon as we leave the clearing, the mists swallow it up. Maybe the Vishtani will be able to get us back, if we can find them.

Walking down the road for several hours, we eventually found something rather large and stone, with huge rusty iron gates.

The huge iron gates slam shut after we pass through them.

As it gets dark, the strange cleric begins to glow.

Iannyor found a body, and decided to bury it. The rest of the group left him, though Vellos stayed with him. The peasant had been murdered by wolves. Wolves, not werewolves.

Down in the valley, we see a village.

We figure it’ll take us about an hour to get down there.

And we walk towards it, and it’s taking much longer than an hour.

And now we’re fighting Zombies. In grasslands. While the mage is throwing magic fire around. He summons a pair of fireballs which splatter on the zombie.

Vellos takes a shot at the zombie, puts an arrow deep into it.

The zombies rush in and attack.

Twin Blades slashes at one, killing it.

Sileon uses her faith to push the zombies away.

Iannyor takes an arm off a zombie, and then Twin Blades rushes up and slashes that zombie.

Kevin accidentally multiplied himself, then splashed rays into the other zombies.

Vellos stepped into the bushes and thundered into the zombies, tossing one of them through Kevin’s illusion.

Iannyor moved to slash at the other zombie, but the severed arm reached for him first, so he had to take a break to throw it away first.

Then we finished off the zombies, with Twin Blade walking up and slashing at them.

And then Kevin started speaking pink bubbles, his hair fell out, he became covered in grease and then started teleporting around, before finally settling down.

So we took a bit of a rest.

And then we wandered into the village.

Iannyor heard some wailing, so he followed the sound, ripped down the boards over the doors, went upstairs. Kevin and Iannyor talked to an old lady, while Twin Blade tried to climb up the balcony.

Sileon went into the tavern, Vellos stayed outside, looking confused.

The crying woman inside gave them a doll, named Gurtruda, which belonged to her daughter Gertruda, who was named after the doll she had had as a child. Iannyor made an agreement to try to save the child, which is why she gave him the doll. Kevin had plied her with shiny rose to get her trust.

Meanwhile, Sileon in the tavern had made friends with the Vishtani, and secured herself a line of credit. When Vellos walked in, the Vishtani recognized him of being part of the enmeda ( inspired by the edema ruh), another troupe of gypsies.

We are told of Madame Eva, who talks to Travellers, and knows the way out of the land that we’re trapped in.

We’ve also learned that the burgermaster wants us to kill Strahd, because this land is cursed.

As we leave the tavern, the churchyard starts glowing with green light.

So we went to the mansion, and were greeted by a woman in armour, who was carrying a sword.

The party bedded down for the night. The priestess molested the son of the burgermaster.

In the morning, the elf decided to carry the coffin, while the bard used his minor illusion to create a funeral dirge.

The mage wandered off to get a brass brazier, while the rest of us solemnly carried on.

We entered in the chapel, to bury the body.  There was some screaming, followed by some hollering.

We found out that the priest’s son had become a vampire and is locked up in the undercroft. At which point, Iannyor decided to go down to cure him. With steel. In the chest.

The plan of going down into the undercroft to stab the vampire is not a great idea.

Once again Iannyor had his throat bitten. This time, by a vampire. We managed to put it down, eventually.

Vellos stopped at the tavern to get some details, and managed to learn a bit of history, about the burgermaster’s daughter, but nothing overly useful to the campaign.

After that, we headed towards the gypsy camp. We crossed a bridge over the river, and the mists were less oppressive. Our journey was fairly uneventful, at least initially. We managed to reach the crossroads, without incident.

At the crossroads, the gallows haunted Vellos. His face on the hanging body, which hadn’t been there moments before. They were infected by the madness, each suffering a minor curse.

Then to the camp, where they were fed, and given a tale. And then to the fortune teller, to learn of their futures.

 Charlatan – The book – The Past – History, Knowledge of the ancients and an understanding of the enemy.  “I see a only mill on a precipice, the treasure lies within.” –

Druid – The holy symbol – Powerful symbol of good. “A evil tree grows atop a hill of graves where the ancient dead sleep. The ravens can help you find it.” – There are druids in the far west, a place called yesterhill.

The wizard – the weapon – Power and strength, a weapon of vengeance. – “look for a wizard’s tower on a lake, let the wizard’s name and servant guide you to that which you seek.”

The broken one – one who will help you. – ” your greatest ally will be a wizard, his mind is broken, but his spells are strong.” – Black robed mage who rallied the peasants a year ago, and after a titanic battle, he plunged off the walls. His body was never recovered.

The Raven – creature of darkness, the place – “In the castle. Look to the mother’s tomb.” – The Tomb of Ravonia, of Ravenloft. Lord Strahd’s mother.

 And with that, we rested.