Running This Location:
- "From beneath the chapel floor, you hear a young man’s voice cry out, “Father! I’m starving!
- Donavich has been praying throughout the night. His voice is hoarse and weak. He is, in a word, insane.
- A little more than a year ago, his twenty-year-old son Doru and several other villagers stormed Castle Ravenloft in revolt, having been lured there by a wizard in black robes who came to Barovia from a faraway land (see chapter 2, area M, for more information on the wizard). By all accounts, the wizard died by Strahd’s hand, and so too did Doru, who returned to his father as a vampire spawn. Donavich was able to trap his son in the church’s undercroft, where he remains to this day.
- If the players give Doru some blood, he will recount his tragic demise before fleeing the undercroft.
- If Doru is killed, father Donavich hangs himself as the party walks away. "as the party is walking out, the Father tells you "I must now complete my rounds and ring the bell, thank you....for everything"
E5a. Hall: "The doors open to reveal a ten-foot-wide, twenty-foot-long hall leading to a brightly lit chapel. The hall is unlit and reeks of mildew. Four doors, two on each side of the hall, lead to adjacent chambers.You can see that the chapel is strewn with debris, and you hear a soft voice from within reciting a prayer. Suddenly, the prayer is blotted out by an inhuman scream that rises up from beneath the wooden floor." This dirty, lightless room contains a wooden bed with a straw-filled mattress. Mounted above the bed’s headboard is a wooden holy symbol.
E5b. Doru’s Bedroom: "The heavy wooden doors of the church are covered with claw marks and scarred by fire."
E5c. Donavich’s Bedroom: This dirty room contains a wooden bed with a straw-filled mattress, next to which rests a small table with an oil lamp burning brightly on it. Mounted above the bed’s headboard is a wooden sun-shaped holy symbol.
E5d. Trapdoor:"Time and neglect have punched holes in the ceiling of this moldy room, which contains a few broken roof shingles amid puddles of water. In one corner, set into the floor, is a heavy wooden trapdoor held shut with a chain and a padlock. A young man’s screams of anguish can be heard through the door."
E5e. Office: An old desk and chair stand against the south wall, a wooden holy symbol mounted above them
- LOOT: An empty wooden poor box rests on the seat of the chair. The desk drawers contain a few sheets of blank parchment, along with a couple of quill pens and dried-up jars of ink. For its size, the wooden cabinet contains very little. Inside are a tinderbox, a few wooden boxes full of candles, and two well-used books: Hymns to the Dawn, a volume of chants to the Morninglord, and The Blade of Truth: The Uses of Logic in the War Against Diabolist Heresies, as Fought by the Ulmist Inquisition, a strange book that mixes logic exercises with lurid descriptions of fiend-worshiping cults.
E5f. Chapel: The chapel is a shambles, with overturned and broken pews littering the dusty floor. Dozens of candles mounted in candlesticks and candelabras light every dusty corner in a fervent attempt to rid the chapel of shadows. At the far end of the church sits a claw-scarred altar, behind which kneels a priest in soiled vestments. Next to him hangs a long, thick rope that stretches up into the bell tower."
Quest Begins:
A Starving Child
E5g. Undercroft
The church’s undercroft has rough-hewn walls and a floor made of damp clay and earth. Rotting wooden pillars strain under the weight of the wooden ceiling. Candlelight from the chapel above slips though the cracks, allowing you to glimpse a gaunt shape in the far corner.
The church was built to praise the Morninglord and to be a sanctuary to all creatures who accept him.
