Session 001: Durst Manor Report

General Summary

Finding themselves in the middle of the road in the middle of the night they soon found a dead body with a note on it.

Hail thee of might & valour, I, the Burgomaster of Barovia, send you honor-with despair. My adopted daughter, the fair Irena Kolyana, has been these past nights bitten by a vampyr. For over four hundred years, this creature has drained the life blood of my people. How, my dear Irena languishes & dies from an unholy wound caused by this vile beast. He has become too powerful to conquer. So I say to you, give us up for dead & encircle this land with the symbols of good. Let holy men call upon power that the devil may be contained within the walls of weeping Barovia. Leave our sorrows to our graves, and save the world from this fate of ours. There is much wealth untapped in this communiry. Return for your reward after we are all departed for a better life.   Kolyan Indirovich Burgomaster

They then went along the road uintil they came upon an old wall with two statues with their heads missing, as they approached the gates they screeched open.  When they passed the gates they slammed shut.   Further along the road they came upon a home with two children standing in front of it.  The children asked them if they were able to get their parents, who were in the basement.  The children weren't allowed there because of the monster in the cellar.   They went into the home & found several items there.  Knives in the dining table, & a spoon worked as a makeshift lockpick set for Blink.  They then explored the home after learning that they could not open the doors to leave.
They found no one else in the home, & a set of armor attacked them.  They took it out & found a secret passage in the library & books detailing stories about them in the library.  
In the secret passage was a skeleton holding a chest & a note.  The note was as follows:    

My most pathetic servant, I am not a messiah sent to you by the Dark Powers of this land. I have not come to lead you on a path to immortality. However many souls you have bled on your hidden altar, however many visitors you have tortured in your dungeon, know that you are not the ones who brought me to this beautiful land. You are but worms writhing in my earth. You say that you are cursed, your fortunes spent. You abandoned love for madness, took solace in the bosom of another woman, and sired a bastard son. Cursed by darkness? Of that I have no doubt. Save you from your wretchedness? I think not. I much prefer you as you are.   Your dread lord and master, Strahd von Zarovich

  They found a dog in a room with a piano & harp.
  They found the attic & spoke with the maid.  Finding the children in their room in the attic they learnt that they had starved to death & wanted their bones interred in their crypts in the basement.

They took their bones to the crypt & were able to inter them.
They then found some ghouls & were able to take them out without too much difficulty.