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.
