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

The forest is very quiet when a man is dying in it. Torgan stands over the body of the first Vistani, the fallen leaves around him already gone dark with blood. The second one — his captain, a lean man with a crossbow slung across his back and a pair of scimitars still in his hands — circles to the left. Viktor watches from somewhere behind Torgan, breathing in shallow pulls. Arabella, round-eyed, does not make a sound. The captain is not going to fall easily. Torgan can

The Abbey of Saint Markovia clings to the hillside above Kresk, its bells casting a long, resonant toll across the valley. As the sound resonates, the creatures within the abbey yard answer with yipping, howls, growls and screams. Nikolai Wachter sits in the relative warmth of the abbey’s receiving room and tries, very hard, to understand what he is being told. A year. He lost a year. He had closed his eyes — he is almost certain he had merely closed his eyes — and the worl

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 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 smoldering ruins of the tree-blight are still sending thin threads of smoke into the grey Barovian sky as the party descends Yester Hill. The ground is soft underfoot, churned by the night's violence, and the air smells of char and wet earth. Somewhere on the slope, Biblo whistles to himself. Nike spots them first — hoof prints pressed into the mud at the path's edge, the ground around each one singed dark. Four-legged, large, and burning. Crystal's eyes narrow. She know

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

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

Wizards of the Coast. The Dark Gifts. Digital illustration. Curse of Strahd, WotC, 2016. Hall of the Amber Sarcophagi The East Hall of the Amber Sarcophagi smells of damp stone and something older, sharper underneath — caused, possibly by the divine things that have been imprisoned within for a very long time. Behind one of the chamber doors, the sounds are extraordinary: crashing, roaring, the shriek of something that might be female or might be the sound stone makes when it

Wintersplinter is already gone, its colossal form crashing through the treeline in the direction of Vallaki. Violet Robin has been sent back to the Martikov vineyard for horses. On the muddy slope of Yester Hill, the old druid and his staff silhouetted in the mist, fighting on. Blinsky and his monkey, Piccolo, lie where they fell — victims of the old man’s lightning. They are alive, barely. Torgen, Feesh, and Krelldutt have closed around the druid, who has proven far stron

Wintersplinter is already gone, its colossal form crashing through the treeline in the direction of Vallaki. Violet Robin has been sent back to the Martikov vineyard for horses. On the muddy slope of Yester Hill, the old druid still fights. Blinsky and his monkey, Piccolo, lie where they fell — victims of the old man’s lightning. They are still, likely dying. Torgen, Feesh, and Krelldutt have closed around the druid, who has proven far stronger than his age suggests. He does

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

Torgen crouches in the brush beside the wolf he has killed. Two more circle nearby, noses working the air. They haven’t spotted him yet, but

In the blink of an eye, Fekre is gone. One moment she stands before them — tattered gown, closed eyes, the wire crown pressed into pale

The great hag’s house moves with a rolling gait in wide circles as Duster waits. Its great chicken legs carry the structure back and forth

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

The shelves of the Great Library climb upward into darkness, tier after tier of arcane curiosities vanishing into the vaulted ceiling high a

When Exethanter finally retires, retreating into the silence of his quarters with the slow, shuffling certainty of a man who has lived too l