#where nightmare moon wins and shes twilights mentor instead

[colorful-horses]

moons student

[palidoozy-art]

Sessions 70-73: Summary

Realized I haven’t typed up one of these a while, and a lot has happened (especially since an in-game year has passed). Have a WIP of Rahadin and a summary below the cut.

Warning: is long. sorry. :(

Session 70: After freeing Serafim, the Lord of Twilight Woods, they took him out of the woods and set about important business: most notably, reviving a ton of people with wish spells that they wanted to revive. Ellerian revived not only one of the other dusk elves that was killed during the war... but also went back and revived Kjosev, everyone’s favorite tree hobo. Serafim asked to be present during, and the two embraced, with Serafim telling Kjosev “that he’s always been loved,” only for Kjosev to respond with “I know.”

(NOTE: most of the players picked it up, but I don’t think I’ve ever covered this here -- Kjosev is Serafim’s son. It’s a long messy story, but it was one of the things planned pretty early on and it was one of those things I went “well I don’t really expect the players to ever find this out but it’ll impact how each character is played so it’ll be written in.” Only one of my players didn’t understand and thought those comments were a reference the two were lovers, lol).

Yolihuali, along with Kjosev, become Serafim’s legal guardian in helping him adjust to living a normal life. Serafim becomes Ellerian’s mentor. Kjosev and Kelogul go back to being DRUID BUDDIES and Kelogul begins formulating a plan to begin an actual order he can train. Ellerian retires from adventuring to spend the rest of his time with his wife, Rahadin settles into running his restaurant with Ireena. Life is good.

A year passes.

Session 71: The Carnival arrives at the end of the 10th Moon, and the kids, too young to go previous years, finally are allowed to go this year. Vamira, Striga, Vasrai, Kjosev, Kasimir, and Ireena all head out there. Kasimir and Ireena soon separate from the group, telling the kids that they have business with the carnival’s leader (Isolde) and they’ll meet up with them soon. Kjosev acts as babysitter to the kids and the group enters the Carnival to have a fun day at the fair.

The fair’s a lot of fun! At first. The four engage in all kinds of carnival hijinks. They: 

- Beat the Blade Brothers in a competition to stab as many swords into Wood’n Head (Striga pretends to be a clumsy blind kid and runs full force into one of the guys while he’s trying to throw, causing him to miss). 

- Go exchange their prize with a nothic named Unknown. 

- Go to the Litwick Market. Vamira gets offered a fey bargain of either a permanent vulnerability to iron or her hand in marriage in exchange for a fancy vorpal scimitar. She refuses, and from this point on the kids continuously scream about being molested. Kjosev repeatedly and fearfully asks them where they learned this kind of language from.

- Watch Alti the wererabbit’s performance at the big top. They don’t win first place prize.

- See Silessa the Snake Woman. The kids, from this point on, try to get Kjosev to make every woman he sees his girlfriend, to his never-ending nightmare.

- Meet Professor Pacali in the House of Horrors. The group realizes the truth about his ‘pickled punks,’ and he tries to make a bargain with them: to get them to steal a red necklace that Isolde has hidden in her desk. He offers them about 100 gold to do so. IMMEDIATELY the kids decide that instead they’re going to tattle on him to Isolde “to try to get double the bargain.”

- Try to meet with Isolde. She refuses to meet with a bunch of children, asking for some “shadow dust” that the party has to get from winning one of the carnival prizes.

- Meet Amelia the “vampire,” who becomes a fan favorite. While Amelia is trying to spook them by showing them all the creatures in the lockboxes, Vamira keeps screaming at her to suck her blood “because it’d be cool” while Amelia keeps making a number of excuses. The kids see an otuygh, a normal chest (that Amelia claims is a mimic), a weretiger, and a death hound. Amelia claims the death hound is “eating the bones of the last tour group” (it isn’t). Vamira keeps trying to offer her arm to the dog and yelling at it to bite her. The tour ends when Amelia quietly shuffles into another wagon (secretly: this wagon has an injured Kasimir. He attempted to protect Ireena against Isolde and failed. The players were none the wiser).

- Go to a “test your might” game to try to win some shadow dust against an orc and his flameskull buddy. They get Kjosev to turn into a tiger and try to use their “Striga runs into the guy” trick to win... but it turns out the orc himself is cheating! They call him out on it and the orc attempts to grapple them to escort them out. Kjosev reverses gravity and yells at him for trying to bully a bunch of children, and they instead bully him into giving them shadow dust.

- Go give the shadow dust to Isolde, and tell her that Pacali asked them to steal the necklace. She seems pissed. She leaves to go to Pacali’s House of Horrors.

- The party, being nosy children, follow and try to listen in. The two argue, and Pacali triggers his defenses.

It is at this point the carnival goes very wrong for the kids.

They’re sucked into a mirror maze, fending off several of their own shadows while Kjosev deals with a malevolent figure lurking in the mirrors. Vasrai nearly dies. After banishing Kjosev, the figure emerges from the mirrors to kill the kids... only for Isolde to behead him in front of the children.

When the group of them leave, the carnival is in a chaos. Pacali wanted to use the necklace to attempt to trap Isolde in it, to free the others. What none of them know is that the necklace already has a soul: Ireena’s (well, Tatyana’s). With the kids refusing to do it for him, he releases the monsters the kids toured earlier as a distraction so that he can get the necklace himself. Including the weretiger.

Kjosev tells the kids it’s too late to run, and that they should hide in the big top tent while he’s strong-armed into helping Isolde get control of the carnival. Mist begins to enclose the carnival. The kids hide under Isolde’s desk...

... when the death hound enters. Vamira, not wanting to risk the dog finding her friends, attacks it. She’s bitten, badly scarred, and infected. (Note: props to my players for playing this in a heartbreaking manner. Vamira talked about how “I was just kidding about wanting it to bite me :(” and it hurt). But the kids win.

They poke around in Isolde’s desk and find... the necklace, as well as a letter from Strahd. None of them know who Strahd is -- but the man seems to be threatening Isolde, and wants something from her. Professor Pacali enters soon afterwards. He asks the kids about the necklace. Vamira lies at first. Striga finally throws it at him, fearfully yelling that she just wants to go home. Pacali assures her that it will be over soon.

He steps outside, and the kids hear screams, as Isolde destroys him utterly. His plan fails. The necklace can’t capture a soul if there’s already one in it, and it’s currently occupied. The session ends with a bloody Isolde entering the tent, turning to look at the children, and telling them that their parents really should have taught them not to snoop where they don’t belong.

Session 72: It’s getting late. The fog is really rolling in, and the party has no idea where their kids are. Ellerian kisses his wife and tells her he’s going to get them. Kelogul brushes it off at first -- until he notices that Ivalice is so concerned she’s dragging down her old scrying mirror to try to find them. Serafim is losing his mind, repeatedly talking about how “she’s closer than she’s ever been.” In spite of his enormous fear of mist (the man’s convinced it’s the method his vengeful goddess will use to take him away) he steps out into it, and Yolihuali follows him.

Ellerian runs into Rahadin along the road, who seems both pissed and anxious. Ireena isn’t home yet either, and she’s always home on time. The group meets up on the road, and they head down to the path to the carnival only to find van Richten standing before the wall of fog. The party immediately figures it out:

Carnival’s a dread realm.

Losing their minds, van Richten tells them that there is a way they can travel through the mists that he’s kept hidden through them. Rahadin calls him a hypocrite briefly. Ellerian, Kelogul, Yolihuali and Rahadin all head through the mist with the ticket stubs, utilizing them as mist talismans to navigate their way through.

It takes them about 16 hours to fully navigate through the mists. Ellerian and Kelogul pick up a level or two of exhaustion, as the mist drains them, and they literally walk through the night. But they arrive at the Carnival, and the parents are on a WAR PATH.

They intimidate the ticket man into getting let in for free. Yolihuali casts sending to contact Kjosev, who tells them that he’s with the kids, in the lockboxes to the west. The group meets Amelia and bullies her until she caves and lets the party see their kids. It’s there that they find out what happened to Kasimir, too -- the man’s missing an arm and the other is horribly mangled, thanks to Isolde purposely maiming him so he can’t cast most spells. Amelia’s been taking care of him this whole time.

They free their children + Kjosev, cast regenerate on Kasimir, and direct him and Amelia to watch the kids while they confront Isolde. Isolde is waiting in the big top for them. Rahadin demands to know where Ireena is, and Isolde all but confirms that she’s been given to Strahd. She tells the party that Strahd asked for the kids too, but she refused to give them to him under the premise that “they belong to the carnival now.” The parents just HATE this, so -- fight ensues!

It was a tough fight, starting with an easier Isolde. Once she went down, the party fought the actual dread lord -- Nepenthe, her sword. The fight operated mostly off of the sword declaring enemies evil, resulting in players being affected by her holy/radiant abilities... and then increasing this to a vulnerability halfway through the fight. It actually went pretty well -- it was dangerous without feeling like an actual cluster fuck.

The sword ALSO scarred the shit out of Rahadin. It not only sliced off his finger, but it scarred up his right arm and gave him a glowing radiant scar on his leg (note: this ties to new lingering injury rules we’re using. So far it’s been pretty popular with my players).

With the sword down, the mist surrounding the dread realm disperses. Temporarily, at least. The party unites with the kids again, and they agree to take a long rest and fortify in the camp before they head out...

... into Barovia.

During their long rest, Kjosev brings up to Ellerian that technically with wish he could undo all of this. Vamira reveals to Rahadin that she can’t grab things as well with her injured arm anymore, and Rahadin tells her that they will adjust her training to compensate.

Session 73: The group finishes their long rest, and they sit down to talk about their plan of action. Ellerian brings up that wish could fix the situation, though he warns of its risk. Kasimir immediately denounces the plan, saying that it’s too risky. Kelogul agrees, saying that they can’t risk “even Ireena” for such a thing. Rahadin is furious, attempting to beg with the party to do it, knowing full well what is the likely fate of his wife otherwise. Declined, Rahadin storms off.

(Sad note: Kjosev actually wanted to use wish, as did Ellerian, and Rahadin obviously. Kasimir and Kelogul, however, were the only ones voicing their opinions -- Ellerian and Kjosev were keeping quiet. It gave the impression that the entire group didn’t want to use wish. Had they put it to a vote, it’s very possible they would have just used wish to save Ireena here -- something that will mortify and enrage Rahadin if he ever learns later).

They decide they’re going to go for a decapitation strike against Strahd in the hopes that they’ll get there in time to save Ireena. Nobody’s views on her fate are optimistic, though. The party bullies Amelia into joining them (temporary, she insists!) and they hide Kasimir, Amelia, and the kids in a demiplane to keep them safe while the group heads back into RAVENLOFT PART II BABY.

Well, sorta.

They step outside of the Carnival and ATTEMPT to teleport directly into Ravenloft. But the party did this all the goddamn time the LAST time they were here. Strahd’s had 10 years. The man has forbiddance out the asshole now. The party attempts a teleport directly into Strahd’s throne room... but the teleport spell, unable to accomplish the feat, instead takes them to... the empty throne room of Argynvostholt. Ellerian quickly realizes that the whole place has Forbiddance on it, and they’re going to have to walk in the hard way.

So they teleport to the gate leading down the road to Ravenloft, and they start their journey towards the castle yet again. They try flying there -- Kelogul in his magical spell chariot and Kjosev transforming into a bird -- only for the group to be attacked by a mass of birds that peck the absolute shit out of Kjosev, causing him to drop out of wild shape. Kelogul runs over a few birds, Ellerian saves everyone with feather fall, Yoli blows up like half of them with a wall of fire, and Kjosev gets crit like 3 different times by these damn birds (he later jokes “wow! Those birds hated me! .... I’m a horrible druid!”).

And that’s where the session more or less ended. The party realizes with dawning horror that Strahd is not going to simply let them waltz into the castle, because he hates them. Rahadin is internally screaming because he knows his wife is probably dead, and there’s no way back. And Kjosev and Yoli... have no idea what to expect because neither of them have actually been to Barovia before. But they hate it here.

-- 

anyway in the future i should probably only do these to cover two sessions instead of four because boy it’s a lot. But so far, the next session will likely be:

- Potentially a battle (vampire spawn? MORE WOLVES?) and then breaking into Ravenloft. Strahd is going to be an absolute shithead to them. I made sure to use the exact monster sheet I used the first time they fought him, except they don’t have any of their magic items this time, nor their fated ally, and there’s definitely an Extra Phase after.

- Resolution with Tatyana. It is highly unlikely they will be able to convince her to stay. She so desperately wants to pass on, and Rahadin will likely feel too guilty to force her to. taking my ship out to a farm upstate. :( But anything is possible.

- Depending on this resolution, the party may opt not to try to seal Vampyr once and for all, instead escorting their kids and Rahadin out and knowing that at least Strahd can’t hurt Ireena or Tatyana anymore. This means “Barovia round 3″ will absolutely be something the kids can explore.

- ... Legacy party??