Games Logs

The scarecrows arrive from every direction. They are stitched from sacking, stuffed with straw, and armed with long, amber-bladed claws, and there are far more of them than there were only moments ago. Komzin and Vincent Jager crest a rise and find the rest of the party knee-deep in scarecrows. Komzin tosses Vincent a blade from their newly recovered packs. It is not the focus the tiefling needs to cast spells, his actual stock in trade, and he handles it clumsily.

Morning in Berez arrives dim and damp, and it brings headaches. In Baba Lysaga's goat shed, Komzin and Vincent Yeager wake from a sleep that was not entirely their idea. Their heads are thick and throbbing. Their packs are gone. So are their weapons, and worst of all, so is Vincent's orb. Without it, whatever power he commands stays locked inside him.

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

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 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

Something in the air feels wrong not long before they cross the bridge over the Luna River. Friedrich trots behind the horses, watching the towering back of his master Krelldutt, who rides with the smaller dwarf, Torgan, seated in front of him. Then he slows. A scent catches him from the north, and the dog circles behind Krelldutt’s mount, spooking the horse as a growl begins deep in his chest. He barks explosively at the tree line. The riders rein in their mounts, squintin

Orbart pounds down the hall and finds Bayleaf braced in a bedroom doorway, weapon up. The minotaur rounds the corner into the room and stops. The one who called himself Viktor lies where he fell. His daughter is gone. The Vistana swordsman stands at the ready, a dangerous glint in his eye. Bayleaf comes in beside Orbart, and his blade lands, knocking the elbow of the Vistana, who swears. Together they drive the swordsman back, and for the first time something moves behind t

The safe house reeks of blood and lamp oil. Bayleaf hauls himself over the table wedged across the hallway, his own blood slicking the wood beneath his hands. Krelldutt is down. Torgan is down. Somewhere behind a splintered door, Viktor lies dying, and Dag has not yet returned from Vallaki with help. The paladin does not know if help is coming at all. The Vistani lieutenant snarls threats at Violet Robin, who has fought his way back into the hallway, bleeding badly and ref

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

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