Sunny Barovia

  Session 153 – Battle for the Swamp Fane part 1 3/11/25 Day 42 – Mid afternoon (Thanks to Abe for sending Arabelle’s visions and Jeff for the transcript!) Swamp Fane As Laz reported, Arabelle had recovered the shuttle from the center of the fane, and the rest of us were collecting those odd flowers as depicted on the stone carving. Arabelle and Lady Ireena were sitting in the middle of the circle in quiet conversation.   Dacso took it upon himself to approach the two.   As he got closer, Arabelle invited him to sit.   (The following is what Dacso later related to me) Arabelle told him she knows he didn’t learn much from speaking with “Mama Eva,” but she can tell him some Madam Eva would have related. “You have suffered loss, as have we all, and you moved quickly to leave that loss behind. You may find that, in this, your willingness to abandon that which no longer serves you has a cost, but there are some choices that cannot be undone. Still, have hope...

 1/20/25 Day 41 – Afternoon/evening Poking back out from behind the monolith, Laz put another arrow in the druid, before ducking back to cover.   Meanwhile, Ireena herself advanced to the druid, bringing her spiritual buzzsaw of guardians with her.   She attacked one of the axewraiths. I rose back into the air and cast another fireball, catching two axwraiths and the druid, then flew to the other side of the circle. In response, the druid summoned a wall of fire, separating us from them.   The heat coming from the wall was intense and we would have to back off.   But Connell was still deep in his trance, right next to the wall.   He was in danger of being immolated. We had to get that wall of fire down.   I started preparing to dispel magic.   As I did, Oloch ran around the end of the wall and tried to attack the druid but missed.   Meanwhile, Wolfram offered a quick prayer to his god and charged directly through the fire to get to...

  1/13/25 Day 41 – Afternoon/evening Kavan charged towards us.   Laz ran behind the eastern monolith screaming, “I warned you this would happen! You’re on your own!” I cast Fly on myself and lifted from the ground just as Kavan reached us; his spear narrowly missing me as I rose.   Once I was up, I flew over and partly behind the monolith where Laz was hiding. Lady Ireena cast Spiritual Guardians and once again, she was ringed with the ghostly manifestations of her past lives.   They began an unrelenting assault on all enemies who came close – specifically Kavan himself. Laz poked his head around the Monolith and cast his Chill Touch on one of the wraiths, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. As it seemed Kavan’s intent was to get to Connell, the rest of the party stepped in, blocking his approach. One of Kavan’s undead companions was apparently a Druid, as he cast Faerie fire on the bulk of our group, increasing our enemies’ chances of hitting the...

1/6/25 Day 41 – Afternoon/evening Avoiding the boulders became exponentially more difficult as suddenly the ground beneath our feet lost its solidity and we began to sink into the earth itself.   Simultaneously, vines erupted from the now soft earth, each covered with large, sharp thorns.   The vines began wrapping around us, piercing our skin.   I reached out and cast Enlarge on Oloch.   This enabled him to better block and divert the incoming rockslide from us.   Dacso yelled, “Keep moving!   If you stand still, you’ll sink faster!”   There was some truth to that.   Much like standing on sand when the tide comes in, we found trying to walk helped keep us somewhat from singing.   But this was no sand.   Rocks and gravel still ground away at our feet, causing no small injury. The vines themselves kept us from moving as well.   Laz slashed about with his flame blade, eventually freeing us, but not before we were all bloody an...

  12/30/24 Day 41 – Afternoon/evening Connell excitedly explained that he had seen “The Mountain” arrive earlier this morning and fight several of the Yester Hill Druids.   He was victorious and as such, was apparently the new leader of this group, as they all followed him North. This was good news for us, as it implied we might not have to worry about the druids trying to stop us. Connell went on to tell us that he had been studying the Fanes and the ceremony since returning to his tribe.   He felt confident that he could take over the spiritual aspect of cleansing this Fane – much as Muriel had at the first one. However, while waging this spiritual battle, his physical form would be vulnerable.   Our job would be to keep his body safe while he was doing whatever metaphysical voodoo he needed. He continued chatting excitedly with Wolfram as we walked.   I noticed that Kasimir was lagging considerably behind.   I waited for him to catch up and a...

 1 2/9/24 Day 41 Once the Druids left, Oloch asked, “Well, what now?” After a beat, Dacso said, “Let’s eat breakfast.   Breakfast makes everything better.” The normality of the request sat in stark contrast to the loss just suffered but was enough to shake us from our stupor of self-pity.   The spear was gone and there was nothing we could change about that right now.   Life moves on and so must we. A quote from one of the Great Philosophers of my home. As we set about readying ourselves for the day, Laz and Lady Ireena went off to gather some more firewood.   (He later told me they spoke of Kasimir and his intentions.   Laz had increasing suspicions of the old elf’s motivations and Lady Ireena seemed to sum up the situation well.   Kasimir’s primary intention was to restore/resurrect his sister.   He believed she would then be a great aid in any conflict with Strahd.   He was so single-minded of purpose in this, that he seemed to d...

 8/22/23 We woke up fairly refreshed.   I took some time to ritually cast Identify on the goat, and sure enough, it was under the influence of some sort of Polymorph spell. Now the Polymorph I’m familiar with fades after about an hour, so this must be some sort of higher, more complex variation.   I realized it may be beyond my capabilities, but as we had nothing to lose, I tried Dispel Magic at my highest level. Low and behold, the goat transformed into a young man named Edrin, just as Connell had said.   For those of you keeping score, this is the young man the rest of the party was hired to retrieve when I elected to tag along, before we found ourselves in this accursed land. He was overwhelmed with gratitude and was eager to join us as repayment.   It was easy to see this young man was a bit of a pampered dandy and likely would only be an impediment in the field.   So, for now, we put him to work with the rest of the household staff, and he may ev...