Sunny Barovia

 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...

 5/16/23 Well, the zombies ended up being a little tougher (and more numerous) that we originally thought.   Two of them were easily twice the size of a man, and a couple were downright fast.   When we realized we couldn’t outrun them, we fought.   It was a pitched battle, but not to the level that we had just faced.   Nevertheless, we were all tired and at one point Connall was pulled down.   Wolfram revived him, however, and eventually we prevailed. We made it to Vallaki, and fortunately the guards on duty recognized us.   We were let in without issue. (Hell, we had only been gone for the day…) Nothing new seemed to have happened in our absence, except some sort of minor disturbance at the Blue Water.   The guard didn’t have any more details though. We decided to head straight to the Manse.   Laz thought he saw someone lurking around the building but wasn’t sure.   He took a quick peek around but didn’t find anyone. Ireen...

 2/21/23 Abe was kind enough to send me notes from the first encounter.   Rather than me paraphrasing, I’m going to take the lazy route and just post them (with some minor formatting changes) here.   Thanks Abe! Three men and a woman meet the party on the causeway. Additional men and women remain back at the forest and scattered along the lake shore. Lead Male Druid - “We are the People of Baratok” “You stand in the presence of Seer-Sha, Daughter of Baratok” “I am Quade, first of the Lodge of the Crag Cat. I will speak with you.” Seer-Shaw - Perhaps in her late forties, if the years were particularly hard. Pale, blond hair, beginning to transition to white.   She carries what looks like a thin stone rod, approximately the length a walking stick.   She is also wearing furs over some sort of extraordinarily thick hide armor. She is medium height with a lean, athletic build and attentive to her surroundings. When anyone looks at her, she seems to ...

  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...