Curse of Strahd: The Story So Far

Six sessions in, so here's everything that's happened at the Tuesday table. Recaps from here on out will be one session at a time.

The party: Cristobal, a former pit fighter who fights with his fists. Sebastian, a champion of Iomedae. Delilah, a wizard, and Pockets, her monkey familiar. Toboc, a gnome with a flute and a lot of grandchildren. Prince Chonkus, a sorcerer with a shadow bloodline.

Session 1 — The House on Carrion Hill

August 11

The party answered an ad. A professor named Aldous needed someone to find his colleague, Dr. Victor Mordenheim, who went missing while researching a house in Carrion Hill that only appears under a full moon. All anyone had to go on was a letter on the stoop of an empty lot.

They waited on that lot until the clouds cleared. The house came with them — four stories of soot-stained stone — and every one of their trinkets started buzzing. Delilah could feel how thin the veil between worlds was here.

Inside, blood wrote a warning on the wall: a beast sleeps beneath the house, and it wakes at midnight. The grandfather clock struck six. Six hours.

The house told its story in pieces. A family called the Durst. A golden windmill on their crest. A feast still steaming in the dining room. Two plush wolves stitched "Rose" and "Thorn." A child's needlework made for "Miss Klara," with the young woman's face cut out. A contraceptive herb hidden in the pantry next to flowers signed "G." And upstairs, a letter from Klara, the nanny, announcing she was pregnant.

The house didn't like being read. A kitchen knife flew across the room. Pockets, scouting through the dumbwaiter, found that same knife driven into a bloody pillow in the master bedroom.

Behind a bookshelf the party found a dead adventurer in a chest, clutching a letter sealed with raven's wings. It was written to Elizabeth Durst, "my most pathetic servant," and it knew all about her altar and her dungeon. It was signed by Strahd von Zarovich.

Session 2 — A Waltz for Klara

August 25

Toboc found sheet music in the music room called "A Waltz for Klara" and played it on the flute. Ghostly dancers filled the room — Gustav Durst dancing with Klara while his wife Elizabeth watched, clutching an amber pendant. Then they were gone.

In the master bedroom, Delilah found a second amber shard and a note from Elizabeth to someone named Drasha. To control "the beast," show it the shard and speak its name with conviction. And get out before midnight.

A suit of black plate armor came to life on the third floor. It shrugged off almost everything until a critical Phase Bolt from Toboc cracked it open, and Cristobal finished it by slamming it through a wall — right into a hidden staircase.

The nursery had blood-red runes circled around the crib, and a name carved into it: Walter. Now they knew what to call the beast.

In Klara's room, her ghost appeared in the mirror. Answering Toboc's questions with nods, she said Elizabeth killed her. Then she pointed down.

Up in the attic, Cristobal pulled two papers out of a music box: a floor plan marked Quarters, Shrine, and Altar, and a list of names headed "Recruitment." In the children's room were two small skeletons, a dollhouse copy of the whole house, and the ghosts of Rose and Thorn, who were very taken with Pockets.

Session 3 — Beneath the House

September 1

Rose and Thorn told the party their mother locked them in that room and let them starve. They asked to be buried in the garden. Sebastian promised. For a while Rose rode along inside Sebastian and Thorn inside Toboc, and Rose showed them a secret door in the dollhouse that led all the way down.

On the way, they found Klara's body in a trunk. Sebastian wrapped her up and carried her on his back. Nobody was leaving her here.

The basement held crypts — one of them labeled Walter Durst — and Drasha's journal, listing everyone who'd been "fed to Walter." At the bottom was a flooded ritual chamber, a ghostly chant of "He is the ancient, he is the land," and a hulking mass of flesh asleep in the corner.

Chonkus read the creature for what it was: undead, tough against weapons, weak to vitality. Then Sebastian hit it. The portcullis slammed shut behind them, a tendril grabbed Sebastian, and his first try at commanding it with the amber shard fell flat. A Fear spell landed hard enough to send Walter fleeing, and Pockets got the portcullis back open.

We stopped there, one round into the fight.

Session 4 — The Heart of the House

September 8

Delilah dropped the portcullis on Walter as it came back through. It didn't care. Sebastian raised the amber shard, said its name, and ordered it to lie down. Cristobal ran up a pillar and backflipped into a stunning punch, then whiffed his next one into a stone column hard enough to stun himself.

Then Walter's ribs split open, and inside them was a beating, wailing baby's heart. That one shook most of the party.

The open ribs were a weak spot, and a Sure Strike claw crit made the most of them. Cristobal finished it. He pulled off his glove, pointed at the thing, whispered "Fuck them kids," and put his fist straight through the heart.

Elizabeth Durst's ghost rose up and the house started coming apart. The cult's chanting turned to screaming, and then to silence. On the way out, the party passed a statue of a pale man holding a smoky crystal orb, and Cristobal took it while the voices warned that "the Dark Lord's eyes are always watching." Gustav's ghost blocked the stairs and begged them to stay and die for Elizabeth. Rose begged her father to let them go, and he did.

Delilah identified the orb as the Darklord's Eye, and it was powerful. The party buried it anyway, in its own hole, next to Rose, Thorn, and Klara. Then they camped in a ruined watchtower and woke up at 3rd level.

Welcome to Barovia.

Session 5 — The Village of Barovia

September 15

There was no sunrise. Just fog, mountains, a village below, and a castle above it all. The fog closes off every way out of the valley. Delilah worked out that this place is a dark reflection of the world, partly in the Shadow Plane.

The village is a fortress — trenches, stakes, crossbows on the rooftops, scorch marks everywhere. Ismark Kolyanovich, the burgomaster's son, met the party at a barricade and took them to the Blood on the Vine tavern. A raven with blue-tipped wings watched them go.

Ismark explained. Three months ago Doru, the priest's son, led a rebellion against the castle. It failed, and it woke Strahd up. Strahd's emissary gave the village ninety days. Now the undead come out of the Svalich Woods every night. Bildrath, who runs the overpriced general store, blames Ismark "the Lesser" for his sister's family dying in that first siege. Delilah and Chonkus eventually talked him around.

Victor had stayed with the burgomaster's family and gotten close to Ireena, Ismark's sister. Then a woman named Mary ran in. A girl named Gertruda had gone missing, probably on the road to Vallaki. The party offered to go after her, but Ismark asked them to hold the line that night and leave the search to local trackers.

At the burgomaster's house, a mob led by a woman named Elinka wanted Ireena handed over to Strahd. Sebastian leaned on them, Chonkus talked them down and pulled a rabbit out of a hat, and the crowd wandered off very confused. Cristobal gave the injured burgomaster, Kolyan, one of his healing potions. Ireena handed over a letter Victor had left behind. He'd gotten very interested in Strahd.

Session 6 — The Eastern Barricade

October 6

Over dinner, Kolyan laid out what's been bugging him. Hundreds of undead wait in those woods, but only a few dozen come each night, in waves. The party wants to know why, and to find whatever is behind it.

Kolyan wrote them a letter of introduction to Baron Vargas Vallakovich and Lady Fiona Wachter in Vallaki and Burgomaster Dmitri Krezkov in Krezk. Ireena brought out a crate of a dozen alchemist's fire bottles, made the way Victor taught the village, in old wine bottles from the Wizard of Wines. Sound familiar?

Ireena asked about their families, and we learned a few things. Cristobal is an orphan who fought in the pits for a crime family until they killed his friends. Sebastian's wife and daughter have crossed into another realm, and he lives by his code for them. Toboc has twelve kids and forty-five grandkids.

Someone had left a torn page of Van Richten's Guide to Vampires in the guest room. It covers sunlight, running water, stakes, holy symbols, and needing an invitation. Doru had a copy.

Then it was time for the siege. The party took the eastern barricade alongside Bildrath and his nephew Parriwimple, a huge young man still grieving his parents who throws barrels like they're nothing. Six zombies came out of the fog and none of them made it past round three. The second wave was two more zombies and two ghouls, and the ghouls are smarter.

Last we left off, it's the top of round four. Two zombies and two ghouls are still standing.