Games Logs

The timeline is coming apart at the seams, and nobody on campus seems to own a needle. Hester visits Professor Thenn hoping for a plan. She receives, instead, a frank admission that the problem is above his pay grade, and, as a consolation prize, an upgrade to the time-travel spell she carries. It will now take nine willing travelers instead of seven, with a discount for the vertically modest. Squid counts as a partial passenger. Hester possibly does too. Nobody asks her to

The room has two stained-glass windows. The enormous center frame of the northern one depicts the namesake of the Abbey, Saint Markovia, and the resemblance to Ireena is not subtle. The borders of the window tell Markovia's story: brought to the Abbey as an orphan child, raised in the healing arts by the holy Abbot, raising an army to march on a castle in the shadow of a great bat. The final frames show Markovia, betrayed and killed, taken dead by a caped figure into the cast

The swamp outside Berez goes quiet as if waiting for something terrible to happen. The hags are gone. Somewhere in the fog, Baba Lysaga's walking hut is still blazing with Soulfire's flames that no water can touch. The stink of burning evil drifts back to the comrades. They hear the hut thrashing in the river mud, roots violently clubbing the ground. Crystal revives face-down in the muck, soaked and filthy, thanks to Soulfire's basic healing skills: they rudimentary but suff

The fuel canister goes skittering across the ice the moment the stone raven is knocked down, which is the ice devils' way of saying nothing happens down here without their permission. These two particular devils wait in the gloom, compound eyes trained on the shadows where the companions crouch. Reklaw gathers himself into a knot of fury and hurls his elemental power at the roof of the cavern, bringing part of it down on the devils' heads. One of the shades lurking behind the

The fire elemental has been guarding the volcano for decades. Nobody told it to stop. Debbie relieves it of some ash, thanks it for its service, and the party begins the long walk back to campus, feeling briefly accomplished. The feeling lasts until the forest path. There are scorch marks. There is a neat pile of ash. Beside it lies a fountain pen engraved with a single elegant V. Dean Valentin has always had excellent taste in stationery.

Krelldutt opens the negotiations by planting a field of invisible thorns around Baba Lysaga. Twisted spikes erupt from the ground and pierce the leather soles of her shoes, and she screeches. Morgantha sprints to her side without seeing what surrounds her mother, and soon she is shrieking too. In her fury she hurls lightning at Komzin. The knight arches his back as it tears through him. The hut crashes closer like something out of a fever dream. One heavy root lashes out and

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

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

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 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 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

The big top empties in a hurry to escape the rapidly spreading inferno— even the pit fiend doesn't linger for an encore. At the top of the bleachers, Kiki slits the canvas with her dagger and slips out through the hole rather than fight the panicked bottleneck at the entrance. Inside the burning tent, the barlgura is still eating whatever weaker infernal it can reach. What's left of the crowd spills into the oven-heat of the Maladomini fairgrounds: a gang of horned devils,

The big top empties in a hurry — even the pit fiend doesn't linger for an encore. Kiki slits the canvas with her dagger and slips out through the hole rather than fight the panicked bottleneck at the entrance. Inside the burning tent, the barlgura is still eating whatever weaker infernals it can reach. What's left of the crowd spills into the oven-heat of the Maladomini fairgrounds: a gang of horned devils, a pair of spiny devils, a smoke mephit drifting in their wake, and

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