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 Armen do not charge. They advance — measured, deliberate, wearing Arman’s face across every iteration, each one belted with the Giant’s Strength that makes even a clone of a changeling into something genuinely dangerous. The staffs they carry hum with the same force as the one Arman took from Lawrence. Arman himself stands apart from the fray, watching his own face multiply through the chamber, and does nothing. He cannot make himself raise a hand against them. They are h

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

The party finds themselves, displaced and uncomfortable, in this alternate timeline — a version of Strixhaven where things are subtly, somet

Viktor and Jayce cautiously explore the subterranean chapel. It is empty save for three things: one cage fitted with manacles sized for something with very large arms — or perhaps a neck — one altar, and one ominous door. At the door behind the altar, Viktor leans in, ear to the wood. Behind it, the unmistakable sound of goats. He hisses at Jayce to get his attention. The paladin strides over, slides Viktor aside, and smoothly opens the door. No darkvision. No light. Just t

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

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.

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

What is left of the taproom of the Hag’s Arm has seen better decades. Kiki flings a Web spell into the churning mass of devils still stan

The librarian — cheerful, oblivious, and armed with an enormous key — locks the doors to the restricted section of the Biblioplex without a

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