Session 17 - Strahd

General Summary

• The stand-off with Strahd continues
  • Damia shows him the box of bones and Strahd charms her
  • Strahd introduces himself, followed by a flash of lightning
  • Ariah starts silently praying for Ilmater to consecrate the church
  • Richard plays dumb to stall for time by offering to set up trade of tomatoes
  • In the babbling, Richard invites us to a party at Strahd's place and promises to give the bones now
  • Jonathan steps forward to help with the stalling
  • Strahd misunderstands and offers to jazz up the death by killing Yeska with lightning
  • Jonathan proposes a dance-off to solve this situation
  • Ariah crits when attempting to consecrate the church
    • Her eyes grow dark, and she sees the hole by the altar glowing, as her holy symbol tugs her closer
• Strahd says we are playing a game where the goal is to get out of Barovia
• Ariah gets eyecontact with Richard and Jonathan, showing them the hole, then takes the box from Damia
• Richard tries to distract Strahd, being backed up by Jonathan
• As Richard throws himself shield-first into Strahd, we enter combat
  • Strahd easily stops the blow
  • Jonathan casts Crown of Madness on Strahd, relinquishing concentration on Suggestion
  • Strahd succeeds the sav, then accepts this as us wanting to play his game
  • He crit fails Richard into the wall, then follows it up with a hefty blow (27 dmg), throwing him through the door to Yeska's room
  • Yeska tries to struggle, to stop Strahd from hurting us
  • Ariah starts sprinting towards the altar
  • Damia follows, confused from being friendly to both sides
  • She informs Lady Fiona Wachter about Strahd being here
  • Richard heals himself and comes charging after Strahd (who is going after Ariah)
  • Jonathan ties his rope and hook around an altar, before making it a lasso and throwing it around Strahd
  • Strahd is unable to break free, but circumvents it by turning into mist and appearing by Ariah
  • Ariah casts Sanctuary on herself, and manages to dodge an opportunity attack as she runs away
  • She jumps down the hole (ignoring the ladder) and runs up to the altar
  • Strahd runs down there after her, but her magic prevents him from striking her down
  • Richard and Jonathan are running towards the hole but doesn't reach it in time
  • Strahd cockily celebrates his victory, as he strikes Ariah down
  • As she falls, the bones fall onto the altar, creating a golden light. The others see a ghostly silhoulette fly out of the hole
  • Strahd climbs out of the hole, commending the party for succeeding. He says he will call of the vampires to honour our victory. He makes the statement that "Tatiana will be mine"
  • A red flaming horse appears and takes Strahd away
• Richard runs down to Ariah and feeds her a healing potion
• They both feel a tug on their holy symbols towards the glowing chest
• Damia and Jonathan convinces Yeska to come out of the room he locked himself in
• Damia tells him that Father Lucian is dead, and Yeska locks himself in the room again to grieve
• Ariah and Richard investigates the chest, ensuring that the consecration actually worked
• Through the broken roof we see the orange glow of the burning city
• There is no longer screaming and fighting
• Damia heads to the orphanage to get Milivoj to take care of Yeska and prepare a proper funeral for Father Lucian
  • Headmistress Claudia Belasco tells Damia that they are ok
  • Damia tells her that the vampires are gone, but that Father Lucian is dead and that Yeska is alone
  • She will keep it in mind, but is too busy to help at the moment
  • Damia also informs Milivoj the Gravekeeper about the same things, including that Strahd was the one to kill him and that the church has been consecrated with the bones
  • Milivoj agrees to go talk to Yeska
  • Since she promised Jonathan she half-heartedly advertises Jackie Daytona
  • On her way out, the voice in her head gives her until tomorrow to get another bottle of child tears
• The rest of us goes towards the Blue Water Inn, helping people on the way
  • There are several broken windows, the door is closed and the lights are off
  • There is no one in our room and the windows are whole there
  • As Jonathan tries to open the front door, he notices that it is barricaded
  • Ireena calls out, denying entry to vampires
  • We identify ourselves
  • Richard mentions that we met Strahd (while yelling through the door)
  • Ireena opens the door and reveals about 20 people hiding in the tavern
  • Jonathan embellishes the story and tells people that Strahd fled away from us (the people calm down a bit)
  • Richard helps hype him up and make the story exciting
  • Jonathan tells them that Strahd's greatest weakness is that his rope-allergy makes him turn into smoke
  • We head to our room with Ireena to debrief
    • Richard collapses on the bed exhausted
    • Ireena tells us what happened in our absence
    • She was at the church earlier to get to know the people she will be living with better
    • Then she went to the inn for food
    • After that the chaos in the city started
    • We tell her what happened to us
    • She remarks that it is dangerous to no longer have a holy person in Vallaki
    • Ireena suggests that she becomes the new holy woman of Vallaki, that way she will have some protection from Strahd and can give us information she learns
• As we're about to fall asleep, a guard knocks on the door and informs us that we have to go to Burgomeister Vargas . Damia is already waiting for us there
  • On the way we see the rebuilding process already on the way
  • The Burgomeister rushes us into a room to discuss what happened
  • Ariah tells him that we consecrated the church, which drove Strahd and his vampires away
  • Jonathan hi-jacks the story to embellish our power, with the help of Richard
  • Ariah chimes in and informs him that Father Lucian is dead
  • The duo keeps hyping us up, and asks for a reward
  • We will be honored at the festival (which will be postphoned by a WHOLE day)
  • Richard is complaining that it is not proper enough for a noble like him
  • Jonathan tries to convince the Burgomeister that the festival should instead be rebuilding the city
  • Ariah tries to back him up with religion
  • He is not convinced, but will agree to let people eat seperately, to make the festival slightly shorter
  • Richard warns the Burgomeister that we might be gone for parts of the festival to make sure the town is safe
  • He agrees
  • He also seems agreeable to Ireena becoming the new priest
• We head back to the inn and take a long rest.

Plan

Richard is planning on asking Ariah what is up with her wings. Damia has gotten a request to gather children's tears.
We need to inform Lady Fiona Wachter about the postphoning of the festival and that the Suggestion spell on Izek Strazni has worn off, after he was walking for a few hours.

Report Date

01 Feb 2023