Sunny Barovia

 Thanks to Dave P for authoring while I was out! “There it is then. My boot has soaked through finally. Again. More stinking, filthy mess. The leather is little more than a sieve now.”   We had worked our way through the marshes and swamps, now only to come to these bleeding streams and rivers. The advice to “follow the river” sounded simple enough if one did not consider the crossing of said river in the first place. The crossing of the first stream had left several of us a bit battered, bruised, and exhausted. I don’t really know how the Paladin managed it weighed down with all that armour and kit. Still, not my problem so long as he survives. Coming to the second river I suggested we might be better served by putting up a guide rope to improve our balance while fording. Dacso and the Paladin offered to cover me while I worked across and things went uneventfully as the rest of the Party crossed. Then we realized we hadn’t set up the rope for retrieval. Fully resigned to ...

 7/2/24 (Note Abe provided significant narrative to this entry - I could have never remembered this much detail.  Thanks Abe!) Day 40 “We should leave,” Kasimir said.   His tone was one of absolute certainty. “Yeah, well, you know we can’t do that,” responded Wolfram. As a group, we moved forward.   The bodies were hanging from hempen ropes from the battlements.   Wolfram and Oloch moved through the gate first, the rest of us following.   Inside the vestibule, in a bit of grim irony, blood was dripping down from the murder hole above us. We passed through the barbican and gatehouse.   Once inside, we saw dozens of Krezkans: men, women, children, are impaled on thick sharpened branches taken from the many trees of the village. The impalements took many forms. Through the chest, through the back and, most prominently, up through the nethers. Among the displayed corpses, Oloch spotted Lucas, the hard-working old pipe-weeder who shared his garden...

 6/11/24 Day 39 As I said, vampires. Laz moved in first and struck one before they knew what was happening, then stepped back.   I scooted around him and cast Slow on the group.   It slid off most of them, but two were definitely affected.   I then moved forward to make room for the others. The Bloodspear flew back and forth from the fissure to a vampire and back, before Dasco stepped into the room to claim it. Suddenly, the room was filled with light as bright as noon on a clear summer day.   Wolfram had activated the Amulet of the Ravenkind.   All the vampires reacted with hisses and shrieks, trying to shield their eyes.   Smoke started to rise from them as their skin crackled under the light.   They tried escaping up the stairs.   The ones not affected by my slow spell shoved their way past the two who had been.   Oloch and Ireena slashed into one of the slow ones while Kasimir and I peppered it with firebolts. One blood...

(Thanks to Abe for authoring!)  5/21/24 Day 39 Despite it being fairly close to the rest of Barovia, the Amber Temple is a near-mythological place. Throughout all of my lives, none of us have ever approached it, let alone explored it. This was new ground, for all of us. Since my friends and I arrived and began exploring its frigid chambers and halls, I have spent considerable time, unnoted by the others, examining the intricately carved walls and doors of ‘amber’ throughout this place. The craftsmanship is remarkable, but despite its similar appearance and consistency, I have come to believe that it is not truly amber. Rather, the doors and walls are made of an arcane substance of similar appearance and with much the same purpose - to contain and preserve that which lies within. I have considered damaging a random wall to see if it would ‘heal’ itself, but up until now, have decided to forgo any exploration along those lines. Since we arrived here, I have cast my mind back through ...

 4/16/24 Day 38 Kasimir and I explained our theory to the group.   I then cast Dispel Magic on the remains of one of the flameskulls.   The intricate runes and symbols that had been engraved into the bone dissolved, then the skull pieces themselves collapsed into dust.   As it did, I felt a sense of…relief or perhaps gratitude, from what had to have been an unholy prison for that wizard.   Or it may have just been my imagination. Kasimir said, “Well, that seems to have worked.”   He then cast Dispel Magic on the other skull and had the same result. Dasco suggested that we go searching for the first skull he had brought down so we could do the same to it. This suggestion was met with a fair amount of pushback.   After all, it had probably already been about an hour since it was brought down.   Dasco argued that maybe it was an hour, maybe not.   If we look for it now, there’s a chance we can destroy it permanently.   If we wait ...

 4/9/24 Day 38 My trust in my companions was not misplaced.   Dasco destroyed two more with his Bloodspear.   Another shield spell protected me from one of the bastards, then Ireena finished off the one Kazimir and Laz had been working on.   I used shocking grasp on the last one, which allowed me to move away.   As soon as I did, Oloch destroyed it. We took a few minutes to calm down and make sure there were no more threats. When we were all breathing a little more normally, I explained what the pitcher did and suggested that Oloch would be a worthy bearer of it.   He smiled like a kid discovering his presents during Midwinter celebrations and put it in his pack. Out the door to the east, the floor fell away so that direction wasn’t really an option.   We could potentially sit tight here, but it was too early to camp for the night, and we really had no way to heat this room.   Our best bet for an overnight stay would seem to be where the...

 3/5/24 (Co-written with Abe) Day 38 That morning, we loaded up, made sure we had what cold weather gear we could get and headed out.   Kasimir met us just outside of Vallaki.   I noticed that while we were all swaddled in poorly-cured, and roughly sewn wolf-fur, supplemented by far more effective gloves, hats and boots provided by the Vistani, that despite his explicit warning that we find appropriate cold-weather clothing, the dusk elf was wearing little more than a loose-fitting traveling tunic, long breeches and water-proofed medium boots. I asked if we needed to stop somewhere and obtain some more weather appropriate clothing for him.  He chuckled and said it wouldn’t be a problem.  I could only assume he had arcane means of assuring he didn’t freeze to death. We started westward on the Old Svalich Way. As we got underway, Kasimir looked nervously back towards the woods to the south that concealed the Vistani camp. “I am loath to depart,” he admitte...

 2/27/24 On the morning of our 35 th day in this land (Has it only been just over a month?!?) I woke to find the staff had prepared an unusually large and hearty breakfast.   I asked what the occasion was, and was told that since we were travelling today, Lady Ireena thought we should have a good meal to start.   I was also told that Lady Ireena and Walter had left early in the morning to conclude an errand, but would be returning soon. I enjoyed the repast, but perhaps not as much as Oloch, who attacked the meal with great gusto, calling for more breakfast wine.   As we finished up, I heard a noise in front of the Manse.   I continued sipping on my tea while I went to check on it. A caravan of about 10 Vistani wagons had pulled up.   Walter was sitting with Luvash and Arrabel on the lead wagon, while Lady Ireena was just approaching the front door.   She told us to gather our things as the Vistani were going to escort us to the gates east of ...