Adventure Summary

## Play-Session 1

   *Date*: 5/14/16

The group looks warily
around at each other. This is the first meeting of the Magical Association of
Problem Solvers, and while they know each other from the dossiers mailed to
them upon their assignment to the MAPS squad, they haven’t met in person yet.
Auguste Tawney, the duelist from Mississippi, sits quietly at the table in a
burgundy sweater. Jo Mullen, a Scotch-English graduate of Hogwarts, looks
worried over the giant backpack packed by her mother with an assortment of
survival gear. Thisbe, a centaur from the Great Plains paces in the corner,
clearly uncomfortable at the confining building. Tethys Munroe, a Scottish mer-wizard,
rests his feet up on the table looking bored. Pickle the house elf stands in
one corner, hiccupping every so often.

An official looking
brown barn owl swoops down into the middle of the group as they finish
introducing themselves. Teth takes the letter and reads it aloud. Helena
Smythe-Widgeon is sending them on their first mission to an eastern European
country called Barovia. This magic-only community has been the site of many
interesting events recently. There are rumors of ritual sacrifices, as well as
werewolves and vampires wreaking havoc on the country. The ICW wants an
investigation of the area including the recovery of certain items:

·
Jo - a tome of vampire lore

·
Teth – the Ravenloft icon

·
Auguste – the broken hilt of a bladed wand with a
sun crystal of great power

·
Thisbe – a blood tree staff & a count of the
dark magical creatures in the area

“Above all, MAPS is
tasked with stopping the rule of Barovia, a vampire named Strahd von Zarovich.”
Teth reads, getting more interested, “His castle of Ravenloft is said to hold
many horrors, but a magic mist has stopped other agents from getting in and out
of the country so you will be unable to contact the ICW after you make
landfall. The enclosed portkey will activate once all members of MAPS are
touching it.”

Jo looks at the portkey
sitting on the table in front of the group, “Is that a bone?”

“Probably a femur.”
Auguste replies, “Because it’s so long.”

The group looks a
little worried at that, but Thisbe just shrugs, “Are you prepared?”

“Let’s get a move on.” orders
Teth.

The others move closer
with their equipment and reached out to touch the portkey. After an
anticlimactic moment, it didn’t activate, and they looked around. “What’s going
on? We’re all touching the portkey.” Teth asks.

“It’s the house-elf.”
Jo says pointing to Pickle standing in the corner still, his hiccups having
subsided, “He’s considered part of the team.”

“Pickle!” Thisbe says, “Come
and touch the portkey.”

After a whirl of color
and sound, the group lands with a thud in a foggy forest, the afternoon light
filtering through the dense trees. Auguste immediately took his wand out,
scanning the trees, but seeing nothing alarming. Thisbe was the first to notice
something strange, “The trees seem as if they are moving.”

“How are we going to
find our way out of here? Do any of you have a compass or a directional spell?”
Jo asks, rummaging through her spellbook.

Teth points, “Let’s
just go that way and see what we find.”

“I will mark the path
with an arrow.” Thisbe says, taking out her bow and firing an arrow into the
closest tree to mark their progress.

Luckily, they only walk
30 feet before finding the end of a path leading straight into town. Wary, the
group sends Pickle on ahead to scout. He finds a villager who seems friendly,
so the others approach. The villager is immediately taken with Auguste and he
takes the lead in talking to her. Vladia is a good-looking woman in her
thirties who seems a little mal-nourished and is wearing clothes that are old,
but were once very good quality.

She ignores Teth’s
attempts to intimidate her and tells Auguste that there has been a lot of dark
magic going on in the village. “There are many rumors of werewolves and
sacrifices, but one hears so many things that it isn’t certain what is truth.”
She tells him, “You can ask anyone in the pub, and they will say the same.” As
the group turns to leave, she hangs on Auguste, who shrugs awkwardly away from
her.

The team continues
further into the village, wands still out. They notice that all of the shops
are closed and get suspicious. Even the pub is locked up tight. Thisbe is the
first to hear the sound of children whimpering, but when she and Jo try to
investigate, they are swarmed by bugs.

While they deal with
the insects, Teth moves around them meeting two small children. They are ten
year old Rosvalda and her seven year old brother Thornvold. Thornvold is
enamored of Teth who looks impressive and chatters away. A frustrated Teth asks
questions, but gets shushed by Rosvalda who simply says, “There’s a monster in
our house.”

“Take us there.” Teth
orders, and the team is led to a large house with mist gathering behind it.

They ask for details
about the monster and the children tell them, “It’s been there our whole lives.
We’ve never seen it, but you can hear it howl. It’s in the basement and our
baby brother is upstairs on the third floor.”

The group sends Pickle
in as a scout again. When nothing is heard from Pickle, Thisbe and Teth go
inside to begin the investigation. Auguste and Jo attempt to keep watch, but a
growing fog presses closer and closer to them. “Maybe we should join the
others?” Jo suggests.

Auguste nods and
follows her inside where the door slams shut. He tries the handle, but it won’t
open, “I guess we’re stuck now.” They look around the hall to see a red marble
staircase at one end and several doors on either side. Meanwhile, Teth and
Thisbe explore what appears to be a formal dining room. The furniture is all
mahogany, and there’s a grand chandelier throwing light onto a large detailed
tapestry.

Next door, Jo finds the
kitchen; it is neat and tidy with bland looking food in the pantry. Auguste
explores the coat closet, looking for anything of interest, but coming up
empty. Across the hall from the dining room and kitchen they find the Den of
Wolves. Several stuffed wolves are around the room which is full of more
mahogany and chandeliers.

Pickle attempts to open
a cabinet on one wall and is sucked in by a magical booby-trap. Thisbe is the
only one who looks concerned. She manages to open the cabinet and let Pickle
the house-elf fall out gratefully onto the floor. In the cabinet behind him are
four crossbows of various sizes and a stock of bolts for each. The others let
Thisbe take these weapons as they continue exploring. Thisbe stays in the den
as the others ascend the stairs, “Stairs are not easy for me. I will look
closer here.”

The others agree and
head upstairs; this hall is lined with suits of armor. Jo attempts to examine
the suits which promptly crumple into the floor, “Sorry!” Jo blushes. Teth
rolls his eyes, pilfering an expensive cloak from a nearby closet. Auguste
ignores the incident, heading into the conservatory which is full of musical
instruments. Jo turns into the library to explore the books.

Downstairs, Thisbe
finds a trapdoor; together with Pickle, she descends to find a large corridor
that splits in two directions. She sends Pickle to alert the others. “Master
Tethys, Mistress Thisbe be finding a big basement. She be sending Pickle to
tell you.” The house-elf says, picking the person most likely to ignore him to
tell. Teth is bored with the rooms on the second floor though and goes down to
see what the basement is like. “You can stay up here. The basement is probably
scary.” He says to the children. But Rose and Thorn shake their heads and
continue to follow him around like ducklings.

In the conservatory, Auguste
notices that some of the ivory figurines are genuine skeletons, “What kind of
place is this?” he asks himself.

In the library, Jo
finds a secret door behind one of the bookshelves. A secret room behind the
shelf holds some rare looking books and a chest which has a skeleton
half-hanging out of it. Upon closer inspection, the skeleton is seen to be
holding a letter. The letter turns out to be about a feud between the owner of
this house and his master, the infamous vampire Strahd.

In the basement, Thisbe
and Teth split up. Thisbe walks down the north hall which seems to go a long
way, and Teth goes east. Suddenly, four ghouls appear, surrounding him. Teth
quickly calls for Pickle and Thisbe who join him to face the ghouls. Auguste
and Jo, two floors above them, have no idea what’s going on as they continue
exploring cabinets and closets on the second floor.

Wasting no time, Thisbe
uses one of her newly acquired crossbows to injure one of the ghouls. Teth
takes this chance to cast a frost armor spell on himself and send Pickle to
take on of the ghouls up to Auguste to fight. Since he was accomplished dueler,
Teth figured Auguste would have no problem taking on one of the ghouls for
them. As she reloads her crossbow, a ghoul attacks and mortally injures Thisbe,
who is saved by a quick intervention from Teth. Thisbe and the children head
back into the main area of the basement while Teth fights the ghouls.

Upstairs, Pickle has
turned invisible because of a flaw in his magic, so Auguste sees a ghoul
suddenly appear but doesn’t know that Pickle has brought it. He quickly kills
the ghoul with some fast spell work and looks around for the source of the
monster. Pickle apparates back to the basement, visible again, but floating
breezily through the air. Another ghoul is taken upstairs, and soon they are
all dispatched. Teth and an injured Thisbe head back upstairs, followed by Rose
and Thorn, where they regroup on the second floor.

Together, they head upstairs
to the third floor where the children had said their baby brother was. On the
landing of the third floor, the team is attacked by an animated suit of armor.

Out in the hall, the
other four battle the suit of armor. Jo’s first spell misses, but Teth’s spell
glances off the suit who then tries to attack Jo and misses. After being
ordered to do something, Pickle tries to create a fireball but scares himself
instead. At this point, Teth orders Thisbe to run since she’s injured, and she
obeys, dashing into a nearby room that happens to be a bedroom. Inside she
finds nice furnishings, including a vanity. On top of the vanity is a jewelry
box, containing some valuable necklaces and rings. She puts this treasure into
her saddlebags.

Auguste is the next to
cast at the armor which dodges his spell. Jo misses as well, but this time Teth
blows off one of its arms. Auguste is then attacked by the irate suite of
armor, and he is majorly injured. Ordered again to try something while they
check on Auguste, Pickle fails to help, instead beginning to apparate all over
the place, popping in and out in fear. Teth casts a spell to power up Jo’s
armor, and using it, she’s able to injure the suit again. The weakened suit of
armor injures itself trying to attack Teth who is still protected by the frost
armor, and then the suit is vanquished. The children are in the corner,
watching impassively. As soon as everyone is patched up, the group keeps
moving.

Thisbe and Jo then go
into the room across the hall. They have just enough time to tell that this is
the nursemaid’s room before the Nursemaid’s angry spirit appears and attacks
them. Neither are in any shape to fight the spirit, so they call on Pickle to
apparate the spirit down to the basement where they hope she will stay until
they have recovered. Down in the basement, Pickle’s wild magic helps him
recover HP in time for the spirit to attack him before he apparates away.

Cautiously, the group
explores the third floor, which is the family living quarters. They make sure
to stay together now that they are all at least mildly injured. In the next
room, the team finds the nursery. In it is a crib with a crying black bundle
the size of a baby in it. Teth attempts to pick up the bundle with turns to
mist at his touch. They turn to Rose and Thorn for an explanation. “The monster
took him to the attic.” Rose says.

“Or the basement.”
Thorn says.

The team nods, “Let’s
find the attic first.” Teth suggests.

Thisbe agrees, “We’ll
deal with the basement later.” They spread out on the third floor to see if
another hidden door will lead them upstairs. Jo stays in the hall and finds a
secret passage. She is attacked by an animated broom.

“Pickle! Take it away!”
She yells quickly. Once the house-elf has apparated the broom, she looks into
the secret passage, it’s a set of stairs that go up. “Hey! I found it!” she
yells back into the hall. The others join her at the bottom of the stairs and
look up.