Tales from the Basement

Curse of Strahd: Session 4: Take me to Church

If you have not read Session 1 then you'll be lost. As I stated, it took three sessions to leave murder house. So instead of breaking the house down into three small sessions, I melted it down into one long session.

     With the fog not blocking the way out of the murder house. Note in Curse of Strahd it is called Death house but the group just started calling it murder house, also I will try to keep story elements out of the retelling. To ensure you no spoilers. 

      We walk into Borovia. A dead and barren town. We met a merchant who didn't offer much, even when Brina was getting hit on; there wasn't much to buy or sell. I wonder why? However, we meet Ismarc and Ireena; probably didn't spell it right but its hard to find this shit in the book. Brina and Praug talk to them.

     Ismarc, Izek but that's how it sounded, and Ireena are adopted by Kolyan Indirovich, who is the Burgomaster of Barovia. In our story, Kolyan has been killed and Ireena was bitten. The party deduces that she might have been bitten by a vampire. At this point in the story we haven't met nor actually, know anything about Strahd. Ismarc wants our help to get Ireena away from Borovia and travel to Vallaki, the safest place in the land. We offer to help. However, Ireena wants to bury Kolyan. 

     Before we met Ismarc and Ireena. We met a fortune teller and a Wizard who joined the party. This was his first time playing Adventurer's League so we welcomed him. I couldn't remember much about the fortune teller. Besides Praug paying for the fortune. Nevertheless, the party had grown in size. We head back into town and grab whatever supplies we could with whatever gold we had. Luck me Bina spotted me gold. Since Monks start with five gold pieces and you don't roll for gold. Yes, five and you can't even by rations. Side note; as I was typing and editing this draft, you can buy rations for five gold pieces. However, I'm still broke. I grabbed my usual gear of a grappling hook and 50 feet of rope. Its kind of my thing in Dungeons and Dragons. As night began to set in. Ireena stayed up on watch duty. Ismar has been doing a watch for the last few nights. We also were on watch. We rotated in shifts. Chris and Bina were first, Pruag and I were second. Wizard, who I can't remember his name since he was there for one session, and Tancrid was on the third watch.

      Later in the night, Tancrid leaves. Tancrid goes out to investigate. This is where we learn of a ghost walking to Castle Ravenloft, and the Hags stealing children. The Wizard casts an invisibility spell on Tancrid before he leaves. Ireena warns him that he is not welcomed back into the house. Tancrid shrugs it off. As he investigates the hag spots him and nearly kills him. Ireena, who is on guard this night I remind. Refuses to let Tancrid in. He blinks into the house. Since Ireena locked the door. Ireena attacks the nearly dead Tancrid. This awakes us. Tancrid explains that he has seen...I guess...we were out of game meta for it but we still pretending. This will make sense later trust me.

     We traveled to a church the next day. We carried the coffin across town. We felt the beating eyes of the townsfolk on us. We got the sense that Ismar and Ireena were not liked in town. Father Donavich, Priest of the Morninglord, welcomes Ireena. The party begins to hear screams of something horrible going on. Remember the durability clause. Yeah, Chris was attacking the Church. We talk to Father Donavich. I had him bless my waterskin for Holy water. I also tried blessing a silver sword the party found, but no luck. PAUSE! before I hear it, Yes my DM found it to be dumb that a monk who shoots sunlight out of his hands like fucking Zuko from Avatar Last Airbender would carry weapons. But I wanted the sword. Tried to light it on fire but Wasn't that type of monk.

     We discover Father Donavich's son, Doru, is a vampire locked up downstairs in the basement. Chained to a wall. The group talks it over. Brina wants to kill him As this could be a problem later. However, we don't. I tried asking for prayer beads but no luck. Father Donavich was keeping his only beads. We leave to travel far away. However, when we come upon Strhad's horse. Chris tries to kill the horse. The Praug and I try to stop Chris. The Dm did explain the horses were not evil, just charmed. This caused us to want to stop Chris.

     Out of game, for a moment Chris is very impulsive and doesn't care. So much so that at this point the party begins to start hating him. He was a Rogue who runs into battle. A small halfing ROGUE who must  "Leroy Jiggins" into a fight. But wait there is more. At this point, I stunning strike Chris and tie him up. Praug tried diplomacy with Chris. Did you really think it would work? Yes, he was pissed off but we did warn him. At this point, the DM allowed it since the plot wasn't moving. Remember we are spending 15 to 20 mins of a 3-hour game on this moment. So, Chris was dragged for 4 hours due to his DC Con fail. As we make camp for the night we are attacked by a bunch of scarecrows. Chris does at this point awakens to this attack and pulls a David Copperfield. Luckily he did not break my rope.

     Sidenote,  I should have said this before but if you're not paying attention this is basically a homebrew~ish take. These could have been fighting blights here, but fuck it we were enjoying the story. It's not like we were fact checking nor did we care.