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Curse of Strahd '26--
Hoo boy, a lot has happened since the last update.
We finished our initial goal in Castle Ravenloft-- namely, getting the last magic seed we needed to cleanse the fanes-- and we realized we could use a room with a magical brazier to teleport ourselves back to our base in Vallaki. Potentia and Mort both argued there was something else we needed to do, no one else agreed, so we all left-- except Potentia and Mort didn't, instead using the brazier to teleport themselves to the castle's catacombs, where Strahd's tomb was located.
Potentia's goal was to place one of the shards of amber we'd taken from the Amber Temple and put it in his coffin, in the hopes of trapping him inside it. The problem was, as soon as they entered the tomb, Strahd's three brides appeared. They successfully talked their way into leaving, bribing them with some bottles of blood that Potentia had, and just used the brazier to get back to our base.
--where Trig was waiting for them, pissed off at Potentia (and Mort, but mostly Potentia) for staying behind. Trust had been shaken up after her dhampir revelation, and her arbitrarily making decisions without telling the rest of the party about it had broken it further. Potentia said a lot of the right things to try to talk her way out of it, but Trig still made her hand over the Sunsword (aka the "holy lightsaber") to re-establish some of that trust.
Then we went to talk to Madam Eva about how to cleanse the fanes, which involved sacrificing the three hag sisters (Eva, Morgantha, and Jenny Greenteeth) and anything that was "of them." We understood this included Morgantha's two coven sisters we'd also defeated at the mill, but then the revelation came that it also included the Vistani girl Arabelle, who was Eva's daughter. And Trig Cove-- Mister "You Don't Hurt Kids" himself-- did not take this well. He literally walked out of the conversation and immediately went to the bar to start drinking.
Potentia came to try to talk him around-- arguing that by not going through with it, he was putting many more children at risk of being hurt, "needs of the many" sort of thing-- but he was not having it. This was one of his main principles, and her arguments about how he needed to be flexible about it didn't land well either, as he sniped back how he'd seen how easily she'd broken her oath. This hit Potentia hard, because her oath had been a very important thing to her as well. And Trig ended up walking away from the conversation again, having made Potentia too angry to pursue him to keep it going.
I did make a point of saying above the table that this was all roleplay, there were no hard feelings toward anyone else at the table. Kim (Potentia's player) confirmed the same, though did note that the dig at her breaking her oath did hit deep. I just replied, "He's a rogue, he looks for vulnerabilities to exploit."
Then we traveled to the Forest Fane on Yester Hill for the first cleansing ritual, which involved Madam Eva and Arabelle-- who hadn't been told what was going to happen. (Deliberate on Phil the DM's part, to really twist the knife on us.) Trig specifically chose to do the deed, starting with Eva, then Arabelle, uttering a heartbroken "I'm sorry" as he did the deed. Trig took it poorly, and it felt very thematically appropriate for him to fail the WIS save against the effects of the "bog of despair" around Berez, where the next ritual was to happen. (And it was an organic failure, too, the dice told that story.) I also stated that Trig left his old rapier (he already had a +1 rapier to replace it) planted in the soil at Yester Hill as a grave marker.
Morgantha's soul (bound in an iron flask) went next at the Swamp Fane in Berez, and then Jenny Greenteeth accompanied us up Mt Ghakis for the last ritual. We took a shortcut by using Oliver's teleportation circle spell to reach the Amber Temple, to avoid a lengthy climb and possible encounter with the roc that roosted up there. But when we reached the summit, Strahd was waiting for us, declaring his intent to make us all suffer by taking away everything we loved-- and started by holding up the severed head of the mayoress of Krezk (who had been the host of Mort's liege-lord Queen Julieton) before beginning the fight.
Rictavio went down during the fight, his corpse ending up getting burnt by multiple fireballs before Strahd eventually shoved it off the mountain. Strahd also grappled Vasilka, our fated companion, rode his nightmare steed out into the open air, and dropped her off the side-- but Mort was able to cast Feather Fall to save her. Strahd also had the werewolf pack backing him up, but we were still able to get Jenny onto the altar at the summit, where Trig was able to kill her to complete the ritual, shattering Strahd's hold over the land.
The werewolves were taken out-- though Zuleika survived when her mate Emil turned up to call her to him, and they left the fight. And as we whittled down Strahd's health, he just declared, "I cannot die!" as Trig struck him down with the Sunsword-- and Strahd dissipated into mist and flew away.
Last night was the finale. We rescued Vasilka (and Rictavio's corpse) and teleported back to our base in Vallaki, where we buried Ric beneath the tree in our yard, got in our last proper long rest, then set out for Ravenloft. At the gates, we faced down the chamberlain Rahadin and the treacherous spellcaster Victor Vallakovich, killing the former and sending the latter teleporting away when we started winning.
Then we reached the catacombs, intent on booby-trapping Strahd's coffin with amber shards. The Brides tried to stop us, but another wrinkle reared its head, as Mort had been possessed by Queen Julieton. The DM had had him making CHA saves at several points, and then communicating with him in Discord DMs after he failed. Mort's first few actions in the combat had slightly plausible explanations, but when he specifically targeted Oliver with a curse, we knew something was up, but it wasn't until several turns later when Mort successfully passed the CHA save (off a Nat-20 no less) that he ejected Julieton's spirit from his body and turned on her. He later got the final blow on her too, which felt thematically appropriate.
Vasilka proved why she was our fated companion when she used her Divine Intervention cleric ability to instantly cast Hallow on the catacombs, making every undead in the room vulnerable to all damage. She went down later in the fight, but she'd done what she'd needed to do.
Strahd put in some work, downing us several times, but we kept getting back up. He tried disarming Trig when he attacked with the Sunsword-- which had previously belonged to Strahd's brother Sergei-- but I passed the STR save, because the rogue knows about disarming attacks and was able to parry it. But it ultimately ended up being Potentia who got the final blow.
Strahd had one last ace up his sleeve as he dissipated again, shattering his own shard of amber to release The Dark One-- the evil, dark demonic entity that he'd originally bargained with. The Dark One was represented by a huge mini that Phil placed on the battlemap, and it was completely immune to anything we threw at it. Phil later confirmed it was a walking TPK if we'd tried to fight it.
But Phil had DM'd each of us on Discord in the lead-up to this session, providing IC insight that the curse couldn't be broken, only assumed by someone else, through "betrayal and blood." That recontextualized what we needed to do-- and Willow acted first by turning on the party with a Cone of Cold spell.
Potentia, however, questioned her, and Willow's insistence that this was why she'd left the grove in the first place-- to break the curse and stop the endless cycle of Strahd's doomed pursuit of Tatyana (who, again, is reincarnated in Willow)-- and this was for the greater good. That was enough for Potentia, who accepted being the sacrifice to accomplish it. She only asked that her scarf be taken back home to their grove, to be returned to her mother. Willow agreed and stabbed Potentia with a dagger to complete the sacrifice. The Dark One dissipated away as the curse passed to her.
Strahd von Zarovich, the Lord of Barovia, is dead. Long live Willow Thornbloom, the Lord of Barovia.
We did a brief epilogue, of sorts.
Willow has command over the Mists of Ravenloft, to allow the party to leave, but command over the land itself had been broken by cleansing the fanes. (Though Willow could make some dark bargains to get that power back...) She attempted resurrection of Potentia, but it failed-- it was pointed out that it would undo the whole thing if she could just bring Potentia back like that.
Mort stayed and pledged himself to Willow as her new seneschal.
Oliver left to go to the grove and deliver Potentia's scarf to her mother, and also deliver a letter from Trig to his found-family back in Waterdeep...
...because Trig stayed behind in Barovia as well. He set to work restoring Argynvostholt, retaining the Sunsword, so that he could act to keep Willow in check if she became corrupted.
Next week is our wrap-up session/session zero for our next campaign, tentatively called "Dragonlance Pirates."
Hoo boy, a lot has happened since the last update.
We finished our initial goal in Castle Ravenloft-- namely, getting the last magic seed we needed to cleanse the fanes-- and we realized we could use a room with a magical brazier to teleport ourselves back to our base in Vallaki. Potentia and Mort both argued there was something else we needed to do, no one else agreed, so we all left-- except Potentia and Mort didn't, instead using the brazier to teleport themselves to the castle's catacombs, where Strahd's tomb was located.
Potentia's goal was to place one of the shards of amber we'd taken from the Amber Temple and put it in his coffin, in the hopes of trapping him inside it. The problem was, as soon as they entered the tomb, Strahd's three brides appeared. They successfully talked their way into leaving, bribing them with some bottles of blood that Potentia had, and just used the brazier to get back to our base.
--where Trig was waiting for them, pissed off at Potentia (and Mort, but mostly Potentia) for staying behind. Trust had been shaken up after her dhampir revelation, and her arbitrarily making decisions without telling the rest of the party about it had broken it further. Potentia said a lot of the right things to try to talk her way out of it, but Trig still made her hand over the Sunsword (aka the "holy lightsaber") to re-establish some of that trust.
Then we went to talk to Madam Eva about how to cleanse the fanes, which involved sacrificing the three hag sisters (Eva, Morgantha, and Jenny Greenteeth) and anything that was "of them." We understood this included Morgantha's two coven sisters we'd also defeated at the mill, but then the revelation came that it also included the Vistani girl Arabelle, who was Eva's daughter. And Trig Cove-- Mister "You Don't Hurt Kids" himself-- did not take this well. He literally walked out of the conversation and immediately went to the bar to start drinking.
Potentia came to try to talk him around-- arguing that by not going through with it, he was putting many more children at risk of being hurt, "needs of the many" sort of thing-- but he was not having it. This was one of his main principles, and her arguments about how he needed to be flexible about it didn't land well either, as he sniped back how he'd seen how easily she'd broken her oath. This hit Potentia hard, because her oath had been a very important thing to her as well. And Trig ended up walking away from the conversation again, having made Potentia too angry to pursue him to keep it going.
I did make a point of saying above the table that this was all roleplay, there were no hard feelings toward anyone else at the table. Kim (Potentia's player) confirmed the same, though did note that the dig at her breaking her oath did hit deep. I just replied, "He's a rogue, he looks for vulnerabilities to exploit."
Then we traveled to the Forest Fane on Yester Hill for the first cleansing ritual, which involved Madam Eva and Arabelle-- who hadn't been told what was going to happen. (Deliberate on Phil the DM's part, to really twist the knife on us.) Trig specifically chose to do the deed, starting with Eva, then Arabelle, uttering a heartbroken "I'm sorry" as he did the deed. Trig took it poorly, and it felt very thematically appropriate for him to fail the WIS save against the effects of the "bog of despair" around Berez, where the next ritual was to happen. (And it was an organic failure, too, the dice told that story.) I also stated that Trig left his old rapier (he already had a +1 rapier to replace it) planted in the soil at Yester Hill as a grave marker.
Morgantha's soul (bound in an iron flask) went next at the Swamp Fane in Berez, and then Jenny Greenteeth accompanied us up Mt Ghakis for the last ritual. We took a shortcut by using Oliver's teleportation circle spell to reach the Amber Temple, to avoid a lengthy climb and possible encounter with the roc that roosted up there. But when we reached the summit, Strahd was waiting for us, declaring his intent to make us all suffer by taking away everything we loved-- and started by holding up the severed head of the mayoress of Krezk (who had been the host of Mort's liege-lord Queen Julieton) before beginning the fight.
Rictavio went down during the fight, his corpse ending up getting burnt by multiple fireballs before Strahd eventually shoved it off the mountain. Strahd also grappled Vasilka, our fated companion, rode his nightmare steed out into the open air, and dropped her off the side-- but Mort was able to cast Feather Fall to save her. Strahd also had the werewolf pack backing him up, but we were still able to get Jenny onto the altar at the summit, where Trig was able to kill her to complete the ritual, shattering Strahd's hold over the land.
The werewolves were taken out-- though Zuleika survived when her mate Emil turned up to call her to him, and they left the fight. And as we whittled down Strahd's health, he just declared, "I cannot die!" as Trig struck him down with the Sunsword-- and Strahd dissipated into mist and flew away.
Last night was the finale. We rescued Vasilka (and Rictavio's corpse) and teleported back to our base in Vallaki, where we buried Ric beneath the tree in our yard, got in our last proper long rest, then set out for Ravenloft. At the gates, we faced down the chamberlain Rahadin and the treacherous spellcaster Victor Vallakovich, killing the former and sending the latter teleporting away when we started winning.
Then we reached the catacombs, intent on booby-trapping Strahd's coffin with amber shards. The Brides tried to stop us, but another wrinkle reared its head, as Mort had been possessed by Queen Julieton. The DM had had him making CHA saves at several points, and then communicating with him in Discord DMs after he failed. Mort's first few actions in the combat had slightly plausible explanations, but when he specifically targeted Oliver with a curse, we knew something was up, but it wasn't until several turns later when Mort successfully passed the CHA save (off a Nat-20 no less) that he ejected Julieton's spirit from his body and turned on her. He later got the final blow on her too, which felt thematically appropriate.
Vasilka proved why she was our fated companion when she used her Divine Intervention cleric ability to instantly cast Hallow on the catacombs, making every undead in the room vulnerable to all damage. She went down later in the fight, but she'd done what she'd needed to do.
Strahd put in some work, downing us several times, but we kept getting back up. He tried disarming Trig when he attacked with the Sunsword-- which had previously belonged to Strahd's brother Sergei-- but I passed the STR save, because the rogue knows about disarming attacks and was able to parry it. But it ultimately ended up being Potentia who got the final blow.
Strahd had one last ace up his sleeve as he dissipated again, shattering his own shard of amber to release The Dark One-- the evil, dark demonic entity that he'd originally bargained with. The Dark One was represented by a huge mini that Phil placed on the battlemap, and it was completely immune to anything we threw at it. Phil later confirmed it was a walking TPK if we'd tried to fight it.
But Phil had DM'd each of us on Discord in the lead-up to this session, providing IC insight that the curse couldn't be broken, only assumed by someone else, through "betrayal and blood." That recontextualized what we needed to do-- and Willow acted first by turning on the party with a Cone of Cold spell.
Potentia, however, questioned her, and Willow's insistence that this was why she'd left the grove in the first place-- to break the curse and stop the endless cycle of Strahd's doomed pursuit of Tatyana (who, again, is reincarnated in Willow)-- and this was for the greater good. That was enough for Potentia, who accepted being the sacrifice to accomplish it. She only asked that her scarf be taken back home to their grove, to be returned to her mother. Willow agreed and stabbed Potentia with a dagger to complete the sacrifice. The Dark One dissipated away as the curse passed to her.
Strahd von Zarovich, the Lord of Barovia, is dead. Long live Willow Thornbloom, the Lord of Barovia.
We did a brief epilogue, of sorts.
Willow has command over the Mists of Ravenloft, to allow the party to leave, but command over the land itself had been broken by cleansing the fanes. (Though Willow could make some dark bargains to get that power back...) She attempted resurrection of Potentia, but it failed-- it was pointed out that it would undo the whole thing if she could just bring Potentia back like that.
Mort stayed and pledged himself to Willow as her new seneschal.
Oliver left to go to the grove and deliver Potentia's scarf to her mother, and also deliver a letter from Trig to his found-family back in Waterdeep...
...because Trig stayed behind in Barovia as well. He set to work restoring Argynvostholt, retaining the Sunsword, so that he could act to keep Willow in check if she became corrupted.
Next week is our wrap-up session/session zero for our next campaign, tentatively called "Dragonlance Pirates."
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