Games Logs

The tree blight lies broken across the road, branches still twitching faintly as if some sap-thick memory of life refuses to let go. The air reeks of crushed pine and the metallic tang of ichor, and steel rasps against wood as the party and a handful of borrowed guards hack their way down toward the two buried beneath it. Sawdust and splinters settle in their hair like snow. It’s in the middle of all this that Etuttelong makes its appearance — a small, curious creature tha

Orbart is difficult to miss: a minotaur, seven feet and eight inches of dense muscle, sharpened horn and quiet reserve, wearing a chainmail shirt with a slight hood and boots that have given way at the toe. He carries an amulet bearing a strange symbol, which he uses to channel his magic, and he has his own moral code, arrived at independent of his god. He has been in Vallaki for two months, renting a room from a widow who would not have him if extreme old age had not dimmed

The wagon smells of old wine and worry. And it is making Shifty feel terribly unwell. The next chapter of their adventure has started unpleasantly for him. It is early morning when the party pulls away from the vineyard and the Barovian mist sits low and cold across the road. Shifty is in a deeply pitiable state. He sits hunched against the wagon's side rail, scales the grey-green of pitted copper, looking every inch like something a cat dragged in. The fresh air does not

The cavernous silence of the maze is punctuated by the echoing scuff of boots. The sounds bounce back to their ears, making it impossible to tell from which direction the noises come, despite the evidence of the listener's eyes. Then suddenly, from somewhere — perhaps around the next corner, perhaps from behind them, or perhaps in no place at all — there is maniacal laughter that belongs to no one present. There is also quiet weeping, a child's, high and inconsolable, cutt

The gate rolls open and Krelldutt’s company spills into Vallaki. Unlike the Order of the Feather members who arrived an hour earlier, Krelldutt’s group is road-worn rather than windblown. Their horses are lathered and they carry the particular silence of people who have a difficult task before them. Blinsky dismounts, swinging down to blink at the crowd of guards and knights inside the Sunset Gate. From a side street, Father Lucian and Dunlar emerge to greet them before they

The Maze simply continues — corridor by corridor, door by door, each turning in on what the traveler least wants to examine. This is, by design, the point. The party is scattered, exhausted, and negotiating with closed and frequently locked doors. Kiki’s movement through the maze is slow, her small clawed feet working harder than they should have to. She crouches before the next locked door and applies her thieves’ tools, but her hands tremble with fatigue. The door remains

The party wastes no time. With Exethanter’s library still humming at their backs, they turn their attention to the matter of reward — and reward, in Barovia, rarely arrives without complication. Neferon regards them with his unsettling golden eyes. “I do not know the stores contained within the Great Library as Exethanter does. And I may only gift you with items we have many of.” Soulfire selects a Feywild Shard from the pile — a resonant crystal that, when metamagic is app

The city wakes before dawn. Word moves through Vallaki the way bad news always does — in whispers first, then in the clatter of boots on cobblestone, then in torchlight multiplying along the walls. Komzin finds Dunlar in the building that used to be Krieger's, a table spread with rough maps and a candle burning low. Dunlar doesn't look up when he enters. "I heard you were back," he says. "I also heard other things. We'll discuss them when this is over." Komzin pulls ou

In a vault-ceilinged room, the shambling mound shuffles toward the Hexmates beneath Witherbloom Tower, smelling of wet soil and rot. Massive, its vines and branches are held together with some sort of mucus, and they appear just at the edge of decay, suspended by magic rather than nature. Fungi grow in clusters along the upper ridge of what might be called its head and shoulders, some of them faintly luminescent, throwing pale light across the room in uneven patches. Gaping m

The cave beneath the Gulthias Tree smells of wet stone and worse things. Two warrior druids are working through the party with methodical patience, spears leveled now rather than thrown. A druid at the back holds concentration on an Entangle spell, and the vines have made the tunnel floor nearly impassable. The second druid — the one Krelldutt has been trying to reason with — shows no sign of being moved by anything short of catastrophe. Catastrophe, as it happens, is clos

The Hag’s Arms is a faded memory far behind them. The truck pulls up to the wall which contains a closed gate. The maze lies beyond. They rest before entering. This is the sensible decision, the adult decision, the decision that every resource management framework and dungeoneering manual would endorse. It is also, in Malbolge, something of a gamble. Night in the sixth layer of Hell is not restful. The hags are gone from their tavern— evicted from their own establishment

The contract room is on fire. The contracts themselves — thousands of them, the accumulated debt of the damned — are burning beautifully. This is not ideal, mostly because Murlack is in the contract room. He is also burning, but likely would not describe the flames that are engulfing his legs as “beautiful,” by any stretch. If anything, there is an urgency to put the flames out. A familiar face appears on the hallway side of the wall of flames. Hope rises in Murlack. It is N

Soulfire, Nike, and Crystal face the newly hostile nothic together. It glares at them with its single enormous eye, the air between them gone suddenly sharp. Soulfire casts Dragon’s Breath on Nike, wreathing them in crackling potential — a lightning cone ready to be exhaled should the situation demand it. Crystal doesn’t wait. She unleashes Scorching Ray, bolt after bolt connecting with searing precision. The nothic crumbles, smoldering, and moves no more. The group regard

“Fall out” would definitely describe what is happening. The truck is falling out of the sky of Malbolge. That detail is important. There is no dramatic pause, no moment of collective realization — the truck simply is in freefall, forty feet above the tavern roof, because this is where Kiki’s spell has placed it. The mapach has the wheel. Vali rides shotgun. Whatever conversation they were having before this moment is now entirely irrelevant. Below, where Kiki cannot see, th

wasana jaigunta, kariyat, DepositPhoto 571766420, 2022 Where everyone is At the moment in question, where everyone is in the Cave of Lost Things takes some explaining. The party is distributed across its tunnels in a way that suggests it might be either a tactical decision or a catastrophic loss of group cohesion. It is the second of these choices. ⚔ In the main tunnel, the cloaker is dead. Freda, a ranger, views this as an opportunity, and draws a dagger from her belt. She

The fireball has already done its work. Where the common room of the Hag’s Arms once hosted the ambient misery of Hell’s traveling public

Jayce, Wilrick, and Jeff stand amid the wreckage of bones. Other skeleton warriors in the garrison prepare to attack. Then, something em

Nesquo's fog still hangs in the tunnel, thick and impenetrable. The cloaker, on fire and annoyed, launches a thrashing attack — and misses everyone. It connects with nothing but air and its own smoldering indignity. Inside the fog, Glumbo strikes Nesquo.

The cellar of the Ship’s Prow smells of brimstone and mildew. The boarded door is still holding — barely — and from behind it, the voice of

Krelldutt and his group hold their position at the top of the stairs, hidden from the druids’ sight. Blinsky crouches low, tugging at Krelld