Session 45
General Summary
The Art of the Deal
Syntyavr 28th
(9:00 PM)
The Aftermath- The party begins to rouse and find that they have been gagged and bound using ragged strips torn from bed sheets and dirty clothing, wrapped up tightly almost in a cocoon style.
- Ilyson feels strangely feverish and a bit disoriented, Verce also feels something "not right" with himself, a type of nausea.
- Everyone finds that they are also surrounded and guarded by six dretches, the same creatures that Morgantha has summoned from the barrel of ichor in the first encounter about a week prior.
- Your weapons, magic items, arcane focii, holy symbols, and armor have been confiscated and are nowhere in sight.
- Morgantha mounts the ladder to the attic and leers over you all, still wearing her humanoid disguise. She chooses a Ilyson, and removes his gag, though not his binds.
- She then pleasantly asks him to tell her who they are and why they have come to the windmill. What was the goal of this little suicide mission?
- Ilyson confesses to plotting to kill Morgantha and steal her heartstone.
- She strokes his cheek softly and says, “Such brave children you are.” She clicks her tongue, shakes her head sadly, and says, “And look where that gets you. If you wanted to borrow my heartstone, all you needed to do was ask.”
- She asks Ilyson which among them is qualified to speak for the rest of the group. He quickly nominates himself.
- Morgantha sweetly invites him to join her on the ground floor below for a more in-depth and civilized discussion. She offers to unbind his legs (though not his hands) as a sign of good faith, but warns him that any attempts to escape shall cause his friends to suffer gruesome punishments.
- Agreeing to her terms, she unties the bindings around his legs and instructs him to descend the ladder and stairs to the ground floor. Bella and Offalia are waiting in the third floor bedroom, and roughly guide him down the stairs before sitting him down on a toad-filled trunk next to the oven.
- Ilyson notices that a wardrobe is chained shut next to him, yet has no lock, although his runic knowledge allows him to spy some engravings that may be of an arcane nature carved into the surface of the metal.
- Morgantha follows them into the ground floor kitchen. Upon entering the room, Ilyson can immediately see that the fire in the oven has reduced to embers, casting a dim, crimson glow on a lumpy, man-shaped form wrapped in a burlap sack within. Quiet, pleading grunts occasionally escape the figure in the oven.
- She thanks the warrior for his willingness to bargain, and praises him for their friends’ clear faith in them.
- Morgantha is glad to lend the party her heartstone for a period of three days. However, because they have broken her trust by attempting to murder her and her daughters, they must first bargain for their freedom.
The First Task. Morgantha stands beside the figure in the oven and gently strokes its cheek. “This is Franz,” she says sweetly. “Franz has been a very bad man.” She turns to you and rolls a bundle of kindling in her left hand as she picks up a flickering candle with her right. “Franz needs someone to punish him for his bad decisions. Will you do that for him?” She extends the kindling toward the player and smiles cheerfully as, behind her, the figure in the oven begins grunting more loudly. Ilyson, without a seconds hesitation offers to end the man's life with his axe immediately. Morgantha applauds his initiative and notes his willingness but deigns to reignite the oven herself. As the oven grows hotter and the damp sack slowly catches fire, Franz’s grunts grow faster and more desperate, the figure wriggling until it finally falls still. The entire process takes a little less than five minutes once begun. “Everything becomes as it should. The hero, bringing justice to the villain.” Throughout the process, Bella and Offalia giggle and clap their hands. The Second Task. When Franz finally dies, Morgantha claps the player on the shoulder and says, "Well done. How did it feel, dearie, desiring to bring justice to a man like that?" Morgantha then provides Ilyson with a pair of scissors and asks him to complete the second part of their deal: to willingly provide a small body part, and to convince their friends to do the same. Ilyson dutifully makes his way to the top floor of the windmill and collects hair from two of his companions easily enough (Vincenzo looking more disconnected and disheveled as the injustices continue to pile up). Verce stoically offers to bite his own finger off, but ends up surrendering a scale, (or was it a tooth), regardless it was painful, yet Verce showed no sign of discomort. Morgantha distributes the body parts among three glass vials, with each vial carrying a piece of each player’s contribution. Morgantha distributes the vials to herself and her daughters, and then directs Bella and Offalia to release everyone and lead them down to the kitchen.The Task at Hand
- Morgantha is willing to lend them her hearthstone for a period of three days in exchange for a promise to undertake a particular task. They must deliver a soul leech—a Tiny fiend resembling a leech with ghost-white, translucent flesh and purple-blue veins, and which Morgantha has imprisoned in a corked glass vial—to the office of Strahd’s chamberlain, Rahadin. Upon arriving in Rahadin’s office, you must uncork the vial and allow the leech to attach itself to the underside of his desk, where it will render itself invisible and virtually undetectable.
- As a form of insurance to ensure your compliance, Morgantha takes your dreams as collateral once you accept her offer.
- Morgantha warns you that, if you fail to complete her task within fourteen days—or if you betray her—she will immediately devour your dreams, preventing you from gaining the benefits of a long rest forever. If you complete Morgantha's task within the allotted time, however, she will release your dreams and allow them to return to you. (In either case, you can take long rests normally until the fourteen days have elapsed.)
- She instructs you to make haste and returns your belongings to you which were locked within the wardrobe with the runic chains.
- Majesto reveals himself once the party reaches the edge of the tree line by the road and leads the party to Lady Wachter, her remaining bookclub members (Ruxandra, Miruna, and Andrej), and Victor who are hidden in a grove a short ways away from the windmill.
- Plans are drafted to save time on a return trip to Vallaki by cutting across the slope behind the megaliths near the windmill and work through the Svalich Woods instead of taking the long way around...this should cut the time in half, granted everything goes smoothly.
A circle of tall, slender megaliths stands shrouded amidst thick clouds of fog at the forest's edge below, with only the stones’ jagged tops visible as they poke through the mist.
- Moving stealthily, and working their way around several suspicious sounds and shadows, the party finds themselves emerging from the forest and rejoining the Svalich Road a couple of miles east of Vallaki.
- Everyone is on the verge of pushing exhaustion, if it were not for Lady Wachter's horses, things may have been quite different.
- The guards atop the walls are wary at you approach, but a wave from Lady Wachter, grants you unimpeded progress.
- Need a location at which to perform the etherealness and restoration rituals, which must take place on the night of the full moon.
- Victor informs the players that he will need access to a leyline—a font of natural magic—in order to fuel the etherealness ritual. Lady Wachter informs you that the cellar of Wachterhaus was built atop one such leyline, and offers its use for the ritual.
- Lady Wachter first disables the protective circle around Wachterhaus in order to allow creatures to pass through the boundary of the Ethereal Plane. She then leads you and Victor around to the cellar entrance of her home, setting her bookclub to guard the cellar entrances.
- She leads you to a seemingly solid stone wall near some cots and speaks a word of magic whilst tracing sigils in the air and a large section of stonework pries itself free and slides out of the way, revealing a well-lit chamber beyond.
- Flickering candles in iron holders fill this room with light and shadows. This room has a ten-foot-high ceiling and a large black pentagram inscribed on the stone floor. At each point of the pentagram rests a wooden chair.
- Thousands of gouges and scratches line the stone walls around the circle, many stained with faded blood centuries old. The far wall of the chamber bears a three-foot tall carving of a dagger with a curved hilt, with the phrase "In Silence, Death" carved in twelve-inch letters immediately below it. As you take in the scratches along the walls and ceiling, you notice that most form a particular word, endlessly repeated in the ancient stonework: Traitor.
- Lady Wachter informs you that, when she was a child, her parents warned her of a monster that dwelled in the cellar: a terrible creature of ancient hungers and hatreds that longed to be set free. When she inherited the estate following her family’s deaths and descended to the basement, however, Lady Wachter found the room to be empty, with no evidence of any creature but the scratches on the walls.
- Lady Wachter has been unable to remove the scratches and carvings, despite her best efforts. Though she has no great love for the chamber, she has confirmed that the carvings and stones conceal no magic or hostile creatures, and has found it to be a useful and indispensably secure location.
- Victor then places the heartstone at the center of the pentagram and directs you to stand just inside the edge of the pentagram circle.
- Lady Wachter rolls up her sleeves and enters the circle with them. She gives you a cool, steely look and says, “Of course I’m coming with you to get my little girl."
Victor retrieves his copy of Ethereal Entities from a pocket in his cloak, using his mage hand spell to hold it open before him. He stands just inside the edge of the runic circle, his head bowed as he reads aloud from the old tome that floats before him. Though his right hand shakes and trembles, his left is steady and precise as he draws delicate patterns through the musty air, leaving spiraling trails of pale white light in his finger's wake. He begins to chant under his breath—slowly, at first, then slowly rising in volume and speed. At the center of the circle, the hag's heartstone seems to hum with a subsonic energy that you feel rather than hear. Suddenly, you feel it—a deep shudder of the world beneath your feet, as if the stone floor had momentarily rippled like quicksilver. A thin, white light, mottled with black, inky shadow begins to shine forth from the cracks between the cobblestones, pulsing as if beating in time to a deep, distant heart. The heartstone trembles, then snaps to a perfect, unnatural angle, perfectly perpendicular to the ground below. Its obsidian sheen is replaced by a spectral luminescence that flickers in rhythm with the words of the ritual. Victor's voice grows louder, stronger, ringing clearly through the air as the world seems to quiet around him, the air bending closer as if to listen. The heartstone begins to lift into the air, its surface flashing with a brilliant pearlescence. Even as it does, however, mist roils at the corners of the room, inaudible whispers echoing from its wispy depths. The room begins to quake, the brightness beneath the stone floor flickering between shadow and light. Suddenly, a dark shadow flashes across the walls—a wispy, humanoid shape. It is tall, gaunt, and hooded, its limbs unnaturally long as it reaches its dark claws out toward the circle. Sweat beads across Victor's forehead and his voice quavers, nearly slipping. But he continues to read, his left hand a blur of motion and light as the ritual reaches a crescendoing peak. Victor's voice cuts through the air, uttering a final, triumphant syllable. The clawed shadow vanishes—just as the arcane power in the air surges. The next moment is not so much a step as a lurch, a sensation like being jerked forward by your navel. Your vision warps as if you've plunged underwater, and you can feel your form shifting and rising into the air, like drifting in a dream. And then—the disorientation ends, and the world settles back into place. The chamber around you remains, but now it seems ethereal, faded, and near-translucent. The air around you feels thinner, almost intangible, and clouds of silver-gray mist hang like veils in every direction.What We Do In The Shadows
- A few moments pass, you hear a teenaged girl's voice behind you, joyous and triumphant as it exclaims, "Victor!"
- The voice belongs to the specter of the sixteen-year-old Stella Wachter, who floats down to you from ten feet above the ground. Stella appears largely as she does in life, though her body is translucent and her legs below the knees have begun to fade into mist.
Stella attempts to throw her arms around Victor for a hug—but fails, her arms passing through his body. “Oh,” Stella says, sadly. Victor’s eyes widen, and he begins rummaging through his cloak. “You're losing your tangibility faster than I thought,” he says. “We need to get you back to your body as quickly as possible.” He retrieves a piece of chalk and begins drawing a modified teleportation circle on the ground. Lady Wachter approaches Stella as well. “Mother?” Stella says, uncertainly. “Is that really you?” Lady Wachter nods, her face pale, but as hard as stone. “We’re going to get you out of here, Stella. I promise it.” While Victor continues his preparations, Stella’s spirit floats over to you. She thanks you for all of your help, and for supporting Victor in a difficult time. “He gets so determined sometimes,” she says quietly, watching him work. “I was so scared that he would hurt himself in his efforts to help me. Thank you for being there for him.”The Ghost of Erasmus van Richten
- Just as Victor is completing his modified teleportation circle, the ghost of Erasmus van Richten appears...
A soft, boyish laugher echoes through the ethereal fog. A faint, spectral light flickers into being beyond the gray mists, coalescing into a slender, humanoid shadow. The spectral silhouette grows in brightness and definition until it assumes a more solidified shape: the ethereal form of a ghostly young man. He appears to be no more than fourteen, his form shimmering with a warm, inviting light that seems to soften the gray monotone of his surroundings. He wears short pants, a loose shirt, and a vest, though his body becomes wisps of curling fog not far below his knees. His eyes glitter with mirth, and an elfin smile plays across his face as his unkempt hair drifts lazily amidst the gloom. When he speaks, his voice is cheery and light, and his fingers twitch with excitement. “Stella! You brought your friends!”
- Erasmus greets you and Victor warmly, and Stella introduces him using his full name as he stands beside her. Victor greets Erasmus somewhat stiffly, and noted by an insightful moment that he is slightly jealous of the younger ghost.
- Victor directs Stella to stand in the center of the circle. As he takes up a position beside her, Victor informs you that, once it begins, the ritual will take 10 minutes to complete.
- During that time, Erasmus adds, the circle’s magic will blaze like a beacon, attracting wayward spirits that might seek to take Stella’s place and return to life by inhabiting her soulless body.
- As such, Erasmus asks you and Lady Wachter to aid him in guarding Stella’s soul until the ritual is complete.
- One minute after Victor begins reading the ritual’s incantation from his spellbook, five specters appear from the clouds of mist that surround you in the Ethereal Plane.
- The specters drift through the air toward Stella, reaching out to seize her as they whisper in haunted, rasping tones:
“The scent of life. It smells so sweet . . .” “The veil flickers. It’s so close . . .” “Please. Please. Please . . .”
- Victor’s panicked eyes flash toward you, and Stella draws in toward herself, fear evident upon her face. Erasmus and Lady Wachter attack the specters as soon as they draw near Stella’s spirit, urging you to join them.
- The players make short order of the specters, even in their weakened state as Lady Wachter draws forth some fog-like spirit guardians to assist.
- The victory is short lived however...
A chill wind rushes in, carrying with it an unmistakable pallor of death and despair. A low, rattling breath rumbles through the air, and, mere feet before you, a figure begins to coalesce in the air above, its form writhing and shifting from the ethereal mist. It is a being of bone and tattered robes, its face a skull that betrays neither emotion nor mercy. Dark, vacant eye sockets stare out into nothingness, its skeletal, claw-tipped hands flexing as it glides silently through the air—the same clawed hands, you realize, as the dark shadow that appeared as you entered the Ethereal Plane. As it moves, its long, flowing cloak billows around it, revealing humanoid visages woven into the fabric itself. Each face in this tapestry bears an ever-shifting expression of pain, sorrow, fear, regret, anger, or despair, their dark mouths whispering a mournful, maddening cacophony. From the clouds of mist bob five wispy balls of light, flickering with soft golden glows as they flank the cloaked figure two to a side, with the final wisp hovering above the figure’s head. Faint and distant whispers ride on a cold and hungry wind beside them, belying the evident warmth promised by their small, lamp-light forms. Between them, the ghostly figure's skeletal jaw opens, its hollow eye sockets a dark, unending void. When it speaks, its hateful voice reverberates through the Ethereal Plane, the sound cutting through the mists like the grinding of bone against bone. "I am Leo Dilisnya," the figure rasps. "And we have come for the blood that is owed." One of its skeletal hands tightens its grasp around a lump upon its chest—an old, leather-bound tome, its cover a deep, crimson red inset with platinum filigree. The figure then reaches out another skeletal hand—a single clawed finger pointing directly at Stella Wachter.
Octyavr 1st
(12:00 AM)
Old Bonegrinder
Megaliths
Svalich Woods
Vallaki Gates
Wachterhaus Cellar
Wachterhaus Secret Room
Report Date
13 Apr 2024
Primary Location
Secondary Location
Welcome to the Ethereal Plane
While the players are in the Ethereal Plane, the following rules govern their vision and movement:
- All solid objects in the Material Plane, such as furniture and walls, have a translucent, semi-intangible reflection in the Ethereal Plane. Moving the object in the Ethereal Plane moves the object in the Material Plane as well.
- Walls and other solid objects reflected in the Ethereal Plane provide light obscurement and half-cover to creatures behind them. A creature in the Ethereal Plane can move through those reflections as if they were difficult terrain, but take 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
- A creature in the Ethereal Plane gains a fly (hover) speed equal to its normal speed.
- In addition, incorporeal creatures such as ghosts or specters become corporeal while in the Ethereal Plane, and lose any damage resistances to acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder, bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. (These creatures can still pass through the ghostly reflections of objects in the Ethereal Plane, like any other creature.)
Morgantha
Soul Leech
Stella Wachter
Erasmus van Richten
Victor Vallakovich
Majesto
Specter
Gallows Speaker
Leo Dilisnya
