Sunny Barovia

 2/3/25 Day 42 –Morning As the wagons got closer, one of them bore the unmistakable flair of the Vistani.    The other two were more traditional looking wagons. Ireena, Wolfram and I went out to greet them.    Laz elected to stay hiding behind the door if this didn’t turn out to be a friendly visit. The wagons trundled closer and soon we saw Arrigal driving the lead.    He waved and I waved back.    He pulled the wagon up to the side of the house and began securing it.    He seemed mildly surprised to see us. Each of the other two wagons were being by a couple, none of whom seemed familiar to us.    They pulled their wagons up near the front of the winery. Wolfram, Lady Ireena and I walked over to Arrigal who said, “Greetings my friends! I did not expect to find you here.” “Nor did I expect to see you.    I was under the impression your people had left these lands,” I responded. “Oh, well, nearly so, nearly so. B...

1/27/25 Day 41 –Evening We trudged back to the winery as the day was beginning to fade.  Once inside, Dacso and Wolfram set about determining the best way to secure the building.  Laz went out scouting while Lady Ireena and I began putting together a meal. By the time dinner was ready, Oloch, Dacso and Wolfram had managed to secure or barricade most of the doors in case something came by in the night. As we ate, I asked Lady Ireena about the tattoo she had acquired as a result of the ceremony.  I call it a tattoo, but it was more detailed and realistic than any tattoo I had ever seen before.  She said she didn’t know much about it, or what it meant.  However, she had received a similar marking of a wolf on her forearm after the first Fane had been re-consecrated.  I didn’t realize that had occurred, but now it made sense why Baroness Wachter suddenly wanted to see everyone’s forearms. (See session 94). We started to discuss tomorrow’s plans, but 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...

  6/27/23 Horrorspawn Laz and I took a few moments to examine the large downed creature.  The raven had said it was a “small” one, implying that there were additional larger ones in the area.  We felt it was prudent to examine it while we could. The creature was like nothing I’d ever seen before, although it vaguely aligned with some near-incoherent texts (that I had read in my more adventurous research when I was first toying with the study of magic) of a creature corrupted by something ‘beyond the edge of reality.’ This jibed with what Laz knew of such things that were, ‘neither demon, daemon nor devil, but corrupted by pure evil just the same.’ We settled upon the term ‘aberration.’. We got the impression that it may not have started out in this form, in fact it may have once been humanoid.  But now most of its skin had been covered by chitinous features, with elongated limbs and a hunched posture. The skin still visible was darkly mottled and the whole body was c...

  11/29/2022 Session 59 I must have taken a blow to the head. I have vague memories of shooting magic missiles and fire bolts.   More arrows and screaming.   A pause, then a wall of flame descending on the winery.   Horizontal lightning.   The barbarians were using some sort of mage. Laz going down… Session 60 I snap out of it and find myself on the ground.   A literal wall of fire is moving on the winery and it’s starting to go up. Another lightning bolt from the south catches Oloch, Dasco and myself.   Oloch falls, and Dasco chases after that damn mage. By this time, Wolfram has made his way over to Laz’s body and revives him.   I dispel the Wall of Fire threatening the winery.   It’s still burning, but it looks like the Martikovs can get it out. I hear Dasco running through the fields, apparently still looking for the mage.   I reached Oloch and bound his wounds the best I could, then called out for Wolfram. At tha...

11/15/2022 We actually had a decent wait before the third wave hit us.   It gave us time to bandage our wounded and catch a short rest. The Martikovs came back out with fresh bandages and clothes, ready to keep fighting.   Well, it is their winery, so I guess I’d be surprised if they expected someone else to fight for it if they weren’t willing to themselves. Around 12:30, we heard the sound of crashing and thumping from the south.   Something big was moving. I mean, big .    We didn’t have many torches that way, so I threw a firebolt in that general direction, hoping to get a flash of whatever was coming.   I didn’t see anything, but the crashing stopped for a few seconds before resuming at an increased pace.   Laz scouted back out towards it, and I lost track of where he was.   Soon enough we heard howls all around the farm.   The Martikovs and the Guardsman were going to have to take care of the North and East.   We were plent...

 Session 56 - 57 10/18 & 25/2022 The Martikovs were much more effective than any of us expected, and soon we had killed or run off the attackers.   Well, the first wave at least. Three of Martikovs had wounds serious enough that they had to move inside. We used this lull to regroup a bit, gather a few arrows and catch our collective breaths.   I cast Unseen Servant and had him hold a stick with a Light spell on it, then moved him further out from us to extend our field of vision.   Olog gathered a Second Wind and was keen to fight. By this time Laz had found his way back and was scouting/sculking closer to the winery.   He spotted a group of 6 moving to the Northwest and were doing “something” out that way before heading to the southwest of our position.   A short time later, “something” dropped Woodhouse.   The light spell was still active, so I surmise he was simply attacked rather than some magical effect dispelling him. One of the...

  10/11/2022 As the darkness fell, we set up a perimeter of torches to try and give us a little advantage.   Emphasis on “little.”   Dacso was finding that while the roof offered an excellent vantage point for shooting, it didn’t really allow any place to hide.   That, however, didn’t stop him from trying.   Laz scouted off in the direction of where the “seed” had been planted.   The idea being he would yell or scream if the attack was coming from there.   I told him we’d figure out some sort of sign to call him back if he hadn’t returned before the anticipated enemy. I was with Sgt. Van and most of the Matikov family at the southwest corner of the building, while Oloch, Wolfram and the other two guards were at the southeast corner.   (In retrospect, we probably shouldn’t have put all the armored people at one spot and the relatively unarmored ones in another.)   Around 10:00, we heard chanting towards the south, in the direction of Y...

 10/4/2022 We woke up fairly well rested.   Before making the trip to the Wizard of Wines, we stopped by the Baroness’ home to see if she could provide any men in defense of the winery.   She explained that the battle of the other night really depleted who might be available, but she did offer the services of Lydia's son, Victor Vallakovich    I declined on behalf of the party.   She said she understood, but she was trying to give Victor the opportunity to redeem himself.   To that end, she said that his spell book would eventually have to be returned, as he was no use to her as a Wizard without a book.  I was free to copy what I liked from the book, but she asked that I leave it in a safe place while we were gone.  As I had already left it at our Manse, this was not an issue. She thought she might have another possible resource for us. She led us back to the Burgomaster’s home.   While most of the guards who had fought on the si...

9/27/2022  As we went up the stairs, we actually met Strahd and Baroness Wachter coming down. He was telling the Baroness that his residence would be in better order the next time she visited. I opined that despite the toll that time has taken on the castle, there was some spectacular workmanship at the heart of it. This lead Strahd into a bit of a history of the castle’s construction. I found it to be a fairly fascinating tale, but I suspect Laz and Wolfram were a bit bored by the rabbit hole the conversation had drifted into.  We thanked Strahd for allowing us to wander his castle, and we asked about Lady Karelova and the gift we supposedly gave her. He said that Karelova is his senior most bride but wasn’t sure what the gift was either. He suggested we review our own recent activities. Perhaps it was the recent death of Lady Ludmilla that had propelled Lady Karelova to her current position. Or perhaps it was the “new meat” in the form of the former Burgomaster now ca...

 8/16/2022 Tser Pool Encampment at night While it was nice to rest with a goblet of wine for a bit, there was work to be done around the Vistanti camp. Dasco, Wolfram and I went out with a couple of Vistani brothers named Stefan & Grigori Vasille to gather firewood.   While the woods have proven to be fairly dangerous, it was clear that these Vistani felt quite safe.   They didn’t even bother to bring weapons. We gathered a bit, then the brothers felt my skills would be better put to use by keeping watch.   Which I was happy to do.   There was one slightly tense moment when I saw 4 or 5 of those big dire wolves coming through the trees.   But they appeared to have no interest in us and moved on. We came back to the camp with enough wood to last several days.   Dasco found a fellow wine hater in the personage of Lee Funar.   Good. They can discuss the relative merits of lake water versus river water.   Well, Lee can.   Dasco...