17 Dec 2016

Session 1 - Everyone Dies In Barovia

4th Day of the 3rd Quarter of the Moon of Songs, Season of Wines, Year 766.

Days in Barovia: 0. The moon waxes crescent.


Bullies on the Playground

The Bullingdon party, known to themselves and all within hearing distance as ‘The Bully Boys’, find themselves in the land of Barovia answering a request for aid from the burgomaster of the village of Barovia.

Cornelius Pffefil Bullingdon III, scion of the Bullingdon family, and his streetwise manservant Bren ‘Dickie’ Tanner are accompanied by younger Bullingdon brother Clarence Quincy Bullingdon and foppish house wizard Paris Digby. Adequately armoured with a fine array of facial hair but perhaps lacking in knowledge of Barovia (and common sense), the Bully Boys passed through a pair of huge gates marking the border on Old Svalich Road.

When a skeletal rider charged past them in a mad dash to leave Barovia, Clarence speculated at the meaning of the strange ‘local custom’. The great gates swung shut behind them, defeating the rider’s attempt to escape. The skeleton left them a gift before riding off into the mists; a small black book wrapped in a piece of black silk. Dickie recovered this item, and finding all the pages to be blank, passed it to his master for inspection, who passed it to his brother, who passed it to the wizard, who was able to discern it was faintly magical but nothing more, and passed it back to Dickie.

The way behind was closed – Cornelius did not hesitate to lead his party in the remaining direction. The woods closed in above of them as evening fell into dusk. After a short walk Dickie sniffed out a corpse along the side of the road. Apparently killed by wolves, the body was maybe a day or two old. It lay with its hand outstretched in the direction from which they had come, and held an envelope; the letter within was similar to the one which had first led them to Barovia and was signed by the same name, but rather than requesting aid warned all who came to the great gates to stay away.

As the Bullingdon party fell into discussion about what this all meant, and whether there was wealth to be gained by continuing forward, a wolf's howl reached their ears. As they continued to discuss, the howling picked up again from a closer distance, joined by more voices.
              

Welcome to Barovia… Barovia

Cornelius took the opportunity to have a spot of exercise and jovially led a brisk jog in the opposite direction to the approaching wolves. Shortly, the woods cleared ahead of them and they saw a group of drab buildings clustered in a village, and the muddy road gave way to slick cobbles.

A cawing raven startled Paris Digby, who shot sparks out of his fingers to shoo it away; it landed on the sign of the Blood of the Vine tavern, where a group of inebriated locals where just leaving. In the traditional Bullingdon style of foreign diplomacy, e.g. with a strong handshake and asking loud questions, Cornelius discovered the burgomaster had died but two nights prior, and his son was within the tavern. Dickie Tanner took the opportunity to lighten the pockets of one drunk, finding only a single copper piece and a pocket watch that was probably that man’s family heirloom with great emotional importance and attachment. Dickie kept the watch.

Entering the tavern, the party learnt that Barovians drink lots of wine and definitely not beer, although the wine appeared to be running low. Dickie drank with a surly Vistani at the bar called Radu, who was slacking off from looking for a little girl who had gone missing; Paris flirted with the three owners of the tavern, all Vistani women, who were besotted with him and told him he must seek the hospitality of Madam Eva at Tser Pool; and the brothers Bullingdon were convinced by the late burgomaster’s son, Ismark, to help him save his sister Ireena from the vampiric lord of Barovia, Strahd Von Zarovich, who had visited her twice to drink her blood.

Approaching Ismark’s mansion they heard a wailing from a nearby boarded-up house. This, Ismark explained, was the house of ‘Mad Mary’, whose daughter Gertruda had gone missing months ago and who had been inconsolable since. Dickie noted that Gertruda was the second missing child they had heard about since reaching the village.

The burgomaster’s mansion had been under assault by wolves and worse every night for weeks, and was in a poor state of repair; the man’s heart couldn’t take the strain and had burst. His body waited in the drawing room for burial. Clarence thought he saw his own face on the body in the coffin but it was just a trick of the light or… something. The younger Bullingdon and the house wizard managed to creep out Ireena with their offers to ‘cure’ the wounds Strahd had left on her neck, and the vanity of Paris took a severe knock when, upon examining himself in a mirror, he saw an aging face marred by crows feet and laugh lines.


It’s a Graveyard Smash

The arrival of the Bully Boys provided Ireena and Ismark an opportunity to bury their dead father, as they had hitherto been unable to move his body to the church without risking molestation by the wolves. Clarence completed a ritual to raise a magical floating disk, which carried the coffin with ease. As they moved to the church at the other end of the village, their torchlight caught the eyes of wolves who silently prowled in the murk surrounding them.

The church was locked, but Ismark’s hammering at the door summoned the priest Donavich, who had been at the wine. While discussing the correct way to perform a Barovian burial, the party heard a muffled voice screaming to be fed, coming from the undercroft. The voice came from Donavich’s son, Doru, who has been convinced by a stranger to join an assault on the vampire’s castle some months ago; presumed missing, he had returned recently to his father who had managed to bind him with chains in the undercroft. Clarence wished to take the opportunity to investigate the physiology of a vampire but was convinced to leave his studies until later. Dickie and a spectral assistant summoned by Clarence dug the grave for the burial, which as a service to the Morning Lord was to take place at dawn. Another spectral servant was sent to look for garlic; Clarence’s knowledge of dark and forbidden powers led him to believe it may be harmful to the undead. Ismark attempted to sober up the priest and everyone caught a few hours of sleep.

An hour before dawn everyone roused from their sleep to begin the funeral. However, as the body was lowered and Donavich began the service, wolves surrounded the graveyard, hackles raised and growling. A swarm of bats came screeching out of the darkness in a flurry of tiny wings and furry bodies, then dispersed to reveal a tall, pale man of noble stature and powerful bearing. It was the Devil himself: Strahd had come.

Barovia’s lord reached out to Ireena, saying “Come to me, Tatanya!”, but as she moved to him Cornelius pulled her back and Strahd’s charm fell from her. Thwarted, the vampire left, claiming that she would come to him in time – and the wolves attacked.

Initially looking like they might be overwhelmed as more than half a dozen beasts charged at them, Ismark was knocked from his feet and Dickie was savaged, but Cornelius squared up with the huge alpha and showed it why the Bullingdon’s have been renowned for generations as the finest of gentleman boxers, breaking teeth and cracking ribs in a flurry of blows. His brother conjured spinning daggers which filled the air, sawing one wolf into chunks and maiming another; Dickie nimbly thrust the Bullingdon sword though one beast's eye and ducked away from another; Ismark regained his feet, beheading one wolf, while his sister drove another back with vicious stabs of a long dagger. Paris wove an enchantment that sent one wolf and the battered alpha into a magical slumber, allowing Cornelius and Dickie to dispatch them with ease. Clarence battered the maimed wolf to death with his staff. As the remaining wolf closed on Paris, to protect his perfect features the wizard used a spectral hand to throw a rock and distract it; seeing its pack slaughtered the creature attempted to flee, and would have gotten away if not for Cornelius’ excellent physical conditioning which allowed him to run it down and dispatch it with a somewhat non-traditional flying elbow drop.

The battle in the graveyard done, Donavich rose from the foetal position he had taken up during the fight and managed to complete the funeral service as dawn broke; the Barovian belief being that a burial with the rising sun allows the Morning Lord to usher the soul of the deceased out of Barovia. And as the last of the dirt was shoveled onto the grave a ray of sunlight briefly broke through the overcast skies to illuminate the final resting place of Kolyan Indirovich... and that is where our first session ended.