COS II Session 3

now imagine the dragon was undead

## Starring...

* The Barovian Freedom Fighters
	+ Red, all-seeing
	+ Xadriel Maverran, lucky even while paralyzed
	+ Tokili, a real renaissance man
	+ Galia Trey, lawful good paladin stereotype
	+ Stone, illusionist hater
	+ Twiggy, prioritizing violent solutions
	+ +2 shortsword, unable to travel 400 feet through open air
* Ezmerelda d'Avenir, quest-giver
* Argynvost, back with a cool new hat
* Cipher, the runner

Notable absentees: Max von Austrahlung

## Winery

After their visit to Krezk, the party remembers that at one point the Wizard of the Wines was infested with "arcane vines", which is a crucial ingredient of grandma's homemade anti-werewolf serum. Unfortunately they found it only infested with the children of the Martikov family who, instead of assisting the party, complained about birds stealing their shiny gems they apparently just left lying around. After Tokili became bored of the conversation, the party left to go birdwatcherwatching.

## Vallaki Shopping

The party's hypothesis on Birdwatcher's location involved a very cold location, leading the party to purchase CLA-brand winter clothing. The party forced Red to buy all the party's clothes as he got a cool 20% discount despite the fact that everyone in the party is a multi-millionaire. On the way out of the shop, Tokili cast an unknown spell on the door of the CLA shop. Before they were to be executed for breaking curfew in CLA-controlled Vallaki; the party made for Argynvost/Esmereldaholst

## Argynvostholst for Two Whole Hours of Relaxation

As the party began preparing for a restful night of slumber, Red's immense ear surface area detected a local disturbance; specifically the scraping of stone near or in Argynvost's mausoleum. Before he was able to warn the party, Argynvost's skeleton broke out of the Argyonvostguestholst, flexing a new metal hat. The party quickly convened outside and were forced upon the airship via Galia's use of *teleport*.

## "Argynvost is a good-aligned..."

The party did not enjoy Argynvost breaking house arrest and decided to enforce their role as the Barovian not-very-secret police by firing the boosters on the airship in order to catch up to the fleeing dragon. Once the dragon was within 500ft (conveniently the range of *dimension door*), *reduce* was used to turn the comically large Twiggy in to the comically moderately-sized Twiggy. Those with *dimension door* made for Argynvost's back, splitting the party between those who had mounted Argynvost and those who remained on the airship: Tokili, Twiggy, Stone, and Xadriel are on the dragon (with Red flying behind using his wings that he refuses to use), with everyone else staying on the airship.

It was only when team Dan Cooper reached Argynvost they realized they forgot to bring anyone with any melee capabilities, thus they were left to just start throwing things at their mount. However, before they could try anything with real impact, Argynvost used his breath attack to paralyze literally everyone except Tokili.

Alright, this section is way too long so take the cliffnotes

* The wielder of the +2 shortsword contemplates attempting to jump 400ft from the airship to the dragon
* Tokili builds a castle on the dragon
* Most of the paralyzed members of the BFF spend the whole fight begging for people to spend their turn making medicine checks
* Argynvolst is hit by the airship
* Esmerelda takes temporary control of the airship, making her the highest ranked on the ship besides all the robots that actually know how to run it
* Argynvolst destroys the engine, meaning that Birdwatcher owes Tokili 1000gp for materials + labor
* Twiggy casts *heat metal* on Argynvost's helmet at a high level, allowing for an unavoidable 7d8 fire damage per turn
* Tokili summons 3 arcane hands, allowing him to lift the airship in absence of an engine
* Stone dispels the magic holding Argynvost together with the aid of all of Xadriel's luck points
* When the dragon bones and airship reach the solid earth below, the arcane hands are repurposed to rip the helmet off Argynvolst with a combined strength of 78

The party spent a night in the woods where the airship crashed, learning that the beds aboard the URD-3 actually weren't so bad after all, as Tokili stayed up late to fix its engine. The next day, the party left for Argynvostgostholst.

## Argynvosthovolholst

With Argynvost pacified, it's time to search his house (pro tip: you don't need a warrant if the suspect is incorporeal). While his mausoleum was completely destroyed there was still 2 items of note: a nondescript piece of gray cloth and a raven's feather. With revenge on the mind, Tokili uses these personal items to attempt *scrying* on their owner. He returns to his airship to be in peace for a moment.

While Tokili is preoccupied, the party discusses the possible effects of the potion Tokili gifted the wielder of the +2 shortsword alongside his +2 shortsword. Nobody can remember any of the details relating to the potions, but its deep red hints at a positive effect.

As this conversation is finishing up Tokili returns from his scrying with a report:

* Nothing on Birdwatcher, probably very wise
* Cipher is in a room relaxing in an armchair, with a strange platform held up by ropes in the center
* Thorn is built like mewtwo on steroids

Tokili refuses to elaborate on that last point, but Esmerelda recognizes the location described in Cipher's scrying as Van Richten's tower.

Tokili won't stop muttering incoherently about Thorn and the party realizes it's probably because when they were dead tired and ready for bed they were interrupted by that combat. They decide a rested body is a ready body and everybody returns to their respective rooms.

## "Roc Nest Time!"

With that Dragon inconvenience out of the way, the party hauls ass to the assumed location of the Roc's nest; working under the assumption that the roc had to live in the roc's nest. They hoped to use heavy bombings to annihilate the roc's nest only to be very disappointed to find it pre-razed. They then chose to head to Van Richten's tower: which was revealed to be not as destroyed as they first hoped. With the intel of an illusionist being inside, Galia casts *true seeing* and Tokili activates a *detect magic* which should help even the odds against the presumably formidable foe.

## Van Richten Namedrop?!

The party arrives to the sight of a destroyed Van Richten's tower, but thanks to the help of the divination spells cast earlier they can quickly discern the illusory deception. Twiggy however is not wise to the magic and tries to move the rubble aside to look for worms, he discerns the best spell for this task is *erupting earth* which conveniently rattles the tower as well as the ground. Within a few minutes they spot the invisible perp attempting to flee the scene; he finds out those blue jackets and sirens on the airship aren't just for show.

Tokili and Galia are the only one that could see Cipher, so most of the party was just poking at the door however Ezmerelda and Red figured out the illusionist might be invisible. By the time they realize this Tokili and Galia have already caught up to him and knocked him to the ground. Now with the mission complete the party can go back to the airship and...

Twiggy realizes the door is made of wood, his own flesh and blood, which disgusts him to the point of acting out; punching the door. The tower punches back by zapping Twiggy with its automated defences. Not one to back off from a worthy opponent, Twiggy punches the tower again and the tower, as inanimate as ever, hits back with another lightning attack. Finally, Twiggy lands a great hit on the (apparently load-bearing) door which collapses the tower, causing everyone to take obscene damage. With everything worth exploring being destroyed by Twiggy, the party decides to vacate the area, prisoner in tow.

### Tokili's Patented "Advanced Interrogation Techniques™"

Tokili's Advanced Interrogation Techniques™ combines the target's different fears, emotional attachments, and nervous system to ensure a response every time!

In this technique demonstration we have a volunteer\* named "Cipher" who is a high-ranking member of a rival corporation and has some information we want to extract. The first thing you need to keep in mind is the acronym: **B.A.F.S.T**. as long as you keep the next steps in mind during your interrogation you'll have the victim in the palm of your hand in no time!

\*Cipher chose to answer questions when given an ultimatum between that and death

#### Bind

The first thing to keep in mind is to limit their motions. Most people think to tie down the chest and call it a day, but that's just limiting your length of rope! In this demonstration we not only tie Cipher to the chair, but we tie his hands because he's a caster and we tie the chair to the roof for a reason that will become apparent in a later step. You can also tie the victim's legs to the chair legs if they're a more nimble type.

#### Arcana

Magic is one of the most convenient ways to discern if someone's lying to you OR to make that confession come out a bit easier. Some great, simple, low level spells to utilize would be *Charm person* or *Zone of truth.* In this example we utilize zone of truth, cast at a specific point to make sure the interrogator is not affected and is free to ensure the volunteer of his family's safety

#### Fear

Instilling fear is a technique as old as time, and we're not going to let a proven technique slip through our fingers. Even if you could just make them feel uncomfortable in the space you've created you'll get a huge example. For our example have him in darkness during the interrogation, because he had no darkvision.

#### Surprise

The most important part of the interrogation is the surprise. You can knock them out of the correct state of mind by simply asking them questions they don't expect; ask them about something they wouldn't expect you to know anything about. You can also provide a reversal of what they'd expect; if they think they're underground reveal they're actually high up on a building. For this specific example we hide and reveal two things: there's a robot standing outside his field of view to prevent him from trying anything funny and delivering punishment if he does, and that the floor is not actually a floor but a trapdoor that opens beneath him (the reason we tied his chair to the roof!).

#### Time

If you've tried these last 4 steps and you still don't have the information you need it's time to just wait it out. After a week of isolation most people get a lot more talkative; and if they're not maybe they should try some involuntary fasting!

And what do you know; using this technique we got all this information from Cipher:

* Every shady rumour about the CLA is true
* Lucas Reynauld Enigma is not his real name
* He wasn't listening when he was given instructions as to what his company was doing in Barovia
* He was told not to worry about Platinum Engineering (the company that currently has him kidnapped) and to ignore Platinum Engineering's logo
* He has no clue what Birdwatcher's mission is, while Thorn's mission is to kill anyone who approaches Ravenloft
* He doesn't know who the CEO of the CLA is
* He's "Just following orders"
* They do not send people marked for death to pandemonium as stated in the rumours—they do something implied to be far worse
* He joined the CLA in order to "be on the winning side"
* This guy is fucking useless, he knows jackshit

## Developments

* The party forgot to get an ingredient the set out to get at the winery
* The party has eliminated the possibility of Argynvost acting against them again
	+ They are also aware that it was likely Birdwatcher behind the attack
	+ They've recovered a winery gem important for powering large monsters
* They've put a stop to Cipher's reign over Vallaki, and gotten some valuable information from him.