Games Logs

The companions gather their courage and leave the ruined Ulrich Manor behind, its broken windows watching them go like eyes. The swamp swallows them almost at once. Fog curls around their knees, insects whine in the reeds, and every step squelches into black mud that clings and sucks at their boots as if the ground itself warns them about going on. No one says much. Nike hears it first: a dry, brittle rattling, like twigs knocking together in a wind that isn't blowing.

There is a moment, partway down a portal to the eighth layer of Hell, when the question of who drives the truck becomes urgent. Kiki is at the wheel. She then attempts something arcane to guide the truck safely, and the arcane declines. Kiki is relocated without consultation into the back seat, which is at least still inside the truck. The wheel spins wildly, piloted by no one. Reklaw is in the driver's seat before anyone can call a vote about who should be the replacem

Biblo, in a remarkable burst of strength, tears free of the webbing the giant spider has wrapped him in. She approaches; he dives through the door. She retreats upward to wait for the next unwary creature to ambush. He rejoins the group and finds them discussing something that has upset them all. Horatio is gone. This should not be possible. Horatio is magically bound to guard the barn, and a creature bound to a location cannot simply wander off. Nike, especially, feels hi

Thunk finally gets his turn to draw. The Knight. A figure clad head to toe in plate appears, kneeling at Thunk's feet — broad, rune-marked, and fully convinced that fate has bound him to Thunk's service. He does not ask questions. He simply kneels and pledges himself. Thunk draws again and gets something rarer than loyalty: The Fates, one chance to tell the universe that something never happened. Thunk puts it away for later. It is the most sensible thing anyone does all day.

The duergar shrine is dim and smells of cold candle wax and old stone. Youngaxor's handiwork still stands at its center: a dwarven statue with its face crudely recarved into his father's, and at its feet, a prayer for a sign. The Hexmates intend to give him one. They have several ideas about how, and most of them are bad. The worst involves someone dressing up as Oldgaxor and visiting him in person, like Hamlet's father. This is voted down, loudly. "He knew his dad for like

Vincent arrives in the swamps of Berez the way most guests of hags do: dragged face-first through brambles and mud, lighter by one spellcasting focus and a good deal of skin. He is fairly sure the focus was a crystal orb. He is less sure of almost everything else, including how he came to be in Barovia at all. His last clear memory, before a night of too much wine with some travelers' camp, is a tavern in Waterdeep. Again, too much drink, and a strange man offering him passag

The statue in the fountain has a face, and on closer inspection the face belongs to Vampyr, an ancient and evil minor god. Soulfire, still unconscious, had earlier called the room just the place for a vampire cult. It turns out she was not incorrect. Crystal responds to the discovery the way she responds to most things. The stone statue won't burn, so she casts Acid Splash on it. The statue's eyes light up, and it answers her with a lightning bolt. The acid sizzles against t

The lost city of the duergar sits inside an active volcano, a real estate decision that explains most of the neighborhood's problems. The Crown complains loudly about the heat as the party descends. "It is SO HOT! And when was the last time you washed your hair?! It's disgusting!"

In the swamps of Berez, Komzin picks his way through fog that clings like a second skin. He has followed the sound of a cawing raven, and now stands regarding a large, writhing bird pinned through the wing to a plank by a single nail. The nail, Komzin thinks, may have a glamor to it. In any case, the raven is alive, frantic, and making sure the whole marsh knows its woes. Komzin opts to check the perimeter. Circling the area, he finds a rotted rag doll half-sunk in the muc

The truck rattles through another stretch of Hell's endless carnival midway, and somewhere out the shattered passenger window, a stuffed effigy of the Lord of Blades sits slumped in a game booth, a prize nobody wanted to claim. It's the kind of detail the party can't leave alone. Naturally, they don't. The trouble starts with a rope in Borark's hands. Nearby, the barbarian has spotted a fortune-teller's cart — a table of cards spread out under an awning, unattended, or so

The party descends beneath Mt. Strix, chasing another piece in the ritual Alister and Titania need to separate. What they find first in the duergar ruin isn't a monster. It's a coffin. Twin bridges span lake of lava, depositing the party at the foot of several short, steep flights of stairs that rise into the dark. A balcony juts from above, and atop it is a stone sarcophagus. There, sits a tomb presiding above the grand staircase, elegantly carved and coated in a thick, ash

The two hags close on Vincent, easily a head and a half taller than him, close enough that he can feel the ground tremble faintly with each step. "Where is the child? Why is she not with you?" Vincent has little to offer them — a girl glimpsed once, at a distance, through a haze of bad wine and unfamiliar company. "I really don't know," he tells them. "I didn't even know the people I was traveling with." The hags withdraw, hissing to each other. The larger of the two — Morg

In the cellar, Soulfire hisses, “What ARE they doing up there?” The hammering on the organ far above them has resumed. Crystal merely shakes her head. Suddenly, there is an enormous crash from somewhere ahead of them. It is so large, so powerful, that the ground beneath their feet shakes and dust trickles down from overhead.

The cliffside radiates heat through Diro’s shoes and he realizes his proximity to the salamander is causing his skin to become pink and scalded. The air between himself and the creature is shimmering with heat haze, just like the air over river of lava, far below. Realizing he is burning, Diro retreats downward, followed by his stand. The salamander watches him with patient contempt and only half-heartedly slashes at Diro and his stand, missing them widely. It slithers int

In the thin, cold light of morning, Vistani and guests mill around the remains of last night’s wine-soaked celebration of Viktor’s life and mourning of his passing. Even the fire seems wan and sickly. A pale Berlioz approaches Dag as the group packs up to head back. “One of your number left in the night. The small one — a gnome? We warned him to wait, but he left going west. I suppose he is able to see at night. May the gods watch over him!” Dag nods, and turns to go, but t

In an attempt at leaving, the truck rolls through the carnival lot toward Vali, pursued by what amounts to the business end of the Nine Hells: three spiny devils and two horned devils are now approach at speed, and a barlgura freed from its recent captivity, loping across the cinders on its knuckles with real aggression. Somewhere behind all of it, the pit fiend former captor of the barlgura, watches. He is patient, waiting for the distance between himself and the truck to cl

The Ulrich Mansion settles with creaks and sighs, the buzzing of insects stifled by its thick walls. The party rests on musty straw mattresses in the abandoned guards' quarters, trying to recover strength and arcane energy. Four in the afternoon becomes six becomes dusk. Pinecone, who took the worst of the ghast's attention at the churchyard burial of Maartin, is finally resting comfortably but still very weak. He noses at Soulfire's hand and settles onto the bed besi

The party climbs the forested shoulder of Mt. Strixhaven, the volcano Alistir insists, with mounting and increasingly suspicious enthusiasm, is perfectly safe. No one has yet explained why a perfectly safe volcano requires this many signs reading DANGER, NO ADMITTANCE, RESTRICTED, and KEEP OUT. Alister assures them that these signs are only to keep out those who have no actual business in the caves. “This place,” Alister says confidently, “is perfectly safe.” Sweating and

The fire at the Vistani camp burns low for Viktor. Danika holds her cup without drinking much of it. Dag and Violet Robin drink in the measured way of people pacing themselves through a long night. Zzizix touches nothing stronger than water. Vincent Yeager touches everything within reach, and by the time Madam Eva shuffles out to sit by the flames, he is well past the point of walking straight. The old woman studies Zzizix first. He meets her stare and finds nothing in the a

Moving past the pole where the watcher-eye hung, the group finds a rotted plank leaning against a moss-covered rock. Something tattered and black hangs from it. As they draw closer, the shape resolves — the dead body of a large raven, nailed to the wood, wings pinned wide. Soulfire casts Detect Magic and feels strong transmutation magic radiating from the bird, and something darker still — a heavy pulse of subjugation magic from the nail itself, which she realizes now is g