Death House

A perfectly normal house, full of perfectly normal things.

***You follow the sound, finding yourselves in front of a large stone house. A pair of children are huddled together just outside of the gate, one younger and smaller than the other. At same moment you notice them, one of the children, the taller one, looks up and spots you as well. A young human girl, age 10 at the most, stares at you with wide, frightened eyes.***

## The House

To the unwary, this is nothing but an old stone manor, one that has weathered the elements for untold numbers of years. Looking into the windows reveals a neat and tidy interior, with furniture and decorations that speak of the wealth of those who call this place home. And stepping inside, a visitor would see the same. At first glance, the house is simply a house, one kept in perfect condition.

It is only on closer examination that the unsettling elements become more clear, leading up to the house dropping all pretense once the victim has been lured sufficiently. By then, it will be too late.

## The Lure

Those who approach the house might encounter two children standing out in front of it. Coming closer will lead the children to attempt to convince whoever will listen to enter the house, ranging from saying their baby brother needs help to saying they need someone to slay a monster inside the house to anything that might get people to go into the house.

Being little more than projected illusions, the children do not fight, and can even be ignored and avoided. Unless, of course, other forces assist them in shepherding an unfortunate soul into the house.

## The History

The house is centuries upon centuries old, and those centuries led up to the last days of the Durst family. The Durst family's involvement in dark magic and cruel rituals was even older than the house, and the basement saw many sacrificial deaths ever since it was constructed.

The most recent history of the house, and the Durst's cult, is one no one is alive to tell, and those who remain to talk about it do not know, or understand, all of the details. Through speaking to the children and clues found throughout the house, the story of the fall of the Durst family becomes clearer.

Elisabeth and Greta Durst were the heads of a cult that conducted ritual sacrifices to various entities in the belief that by honoring these beings, they would be rewarded. One of these was Strahd von Zarovich, who told the family they had no hope of receiving anything from him, and that Greta and Elisabeth in particular had brought their fates upon themselves and he had no desire to save them from it.

Some time prior to this letter being sent, Greta Durst began an affair with the children's nursemaid, Cyntia Melikov, which led to Cyntia becoming pregnant. Elisabeth was furious when she discovered this affair, venting to the members of her cult and lashing out at her wife and children, and she grew cold and distant towards almost everyone in her life. When the baby, Walter, was eventually born, he was still born. Rose overheard her mother telling her cultists that Cyntia and Greta "deserved it."

After this birth, Elisabeth's temperament and behavior worsened. The infant was not immediately interred, instead Elisabeth keeping the remains in the house. She once commissioned a family portrait with Greta holding the dead child. At another point, she and her cultists ambushed and murdered the maid, disposing of the body inside a chest in the attic where Cyntia, not yet dead from the initial assault, eventually died from her wounds. She told the children that the maid had left, and flew into a rage when they questioned her or Greta, forbidding them from mentioning her or Walter.

The murder of the maid played a part in the final downfall of the family, as Cyntia was usually the one to unlock the children's door the morning after one of the cult meetings if the mothers did not. As the mothers never returned from the basement - a fate that Rose blames on "the monster" kept in the basement - no one was left to let them out or take care of them, which led to their deaths.