Recap 5

We started at the church in Barovia. We finished in the Gypsy camp before Tser Falls.

In the church you found:

* A few sheets of blank parchment, along with a couple of quill pens and dried-up jars of ink. A tinderbox, a few wooden boxes full of candles, and two well-used books: Hymns to the Dawn, a volume of chants to the Morninglord, and The Blade of Truth: The Uses of Logic in the War Against Diabolist Heresies, as Fought by the Ulmist Inquisition, a strange book that mixes logic exercises with lurid descriptions of fiend-worshiping cults.

After that you made purchases on Ismarks line of credit at Bilgrath's Mercantile. Later a moaning sob floated through the still, gray streets, coloring your thoughts with sadness. The sound came from a dark, two-story townhouse to the south of Bilgrath's. You went to investigate and found Mad Mary nearly inconsolable on the floor of a 2nd floor bedroom.

She was sitting in the middle of her daughter's room. Self portraits of the budding artist hung on the walls. The 14 year old had been overcome with emotion or hormones or both when she ran away from home after being imprisoned there her whole life.

Mary clutched a malformed doll. When certain party members showed little interest in helping, she turned to those more sympathetic and begged for you to return her daughter Gertruda to her. She feared the worst since the girl has already been gone a week.

The malformed doll had a strange leer and wore a sackcloth dress. It belonged to Mary in her youth and was passed down to Gertruda. Stitched into the hem of its dress is a frayed tag bearing the words “Is No Fun, Is No Blinsky!”

A few miles after leaving the village you came upon a fork in the road. An old wooden gallows creaked in the chill wind that blew down from the high ground to the west. A frayed length of rope danced from its beam. The well-worn road split here, and a signpost opposite the gallows pointed off in three directions: BAROVIA VILLAGE to the east, TSER POOL to the northwest, and RAVENLOFT/VALLAKI to the southwest. The northwest fork slanted down and disappeared into the trees, while the southwest fork clung to an upward slope. Across from the gallows, a low wall, crumbling in places, partially enclosed a small plot of graves shrouded in fog.

Eleven graves were there with blank gravestones. The forgotten people buried there were hanged from the gallows. Adrian heard a creaking noise behind him, coming from the gallows. Where there was nothing before now hung a lifeless, gray body. The breeze turned the hanged figure slowly, so that it could fix its dead eyes upon him. With a shock he realized that the dead lifeless face staring at him was his own. He turned and laid the flower he had picked on a grave and left hoping this wasn't the DM foreshadowing something to come.

As the party made their way down the gradually sloping road to the North-West, it gradually disappeared and was replaced by a twisted, muddy path through the trees. Deep ruts in the earth were evidence of the comings and goings of wagons. The canopy of mist and branches suddenly gave way to black clouds boiling far above. There was a clearing there, next to a river that widened to form a small lake several hundred feet across. Five colorful round tents, each ten feet in diameter, were pitched outside a ring of four barrel-topped wagons. A much larger tent stood near the shore of the lake, its sagging form lit from within. Near this tent, eight unbridled horses drank from the river.

The mournful strains of an accordion clashed with the singing of several brightly clad figures around bonfire. A footpath continued beyond this encampment, meandering north between the river and the forest’s edge.

The Vistani were making merry and welcomed any who wished to do the same into their festival, though others were more cautious and went to investigate Madam Eva's tent.

Magic flames cast a reddish glow over the interior of the tent, revealing a low table covered in a black velvet cloth. Glints of light seemed to flash from a crystal ball on the table as a hunched figure peered into its depths. As the crone spoke, her voice crackled like dry weeds. “At last you have arrived!” Cackling laughter bursts like mad lightning from her withered lips.

Madam Eva spoke the name of each party member and made some reference to that individual’s past deeds. She then asks the party if they wanted their fortunes read. Madam Eva then produced a worn deck of cards and proceeded to deal them in the form of a Celtic cross.

She pointed to the first card and said, "This card tells of history. Knowledge of the ancient will help you better understand your enemy. There is a town where all is not well. There you will find a house of corruption, and within, a dark room full of still ghosts."

She pointed to the second card and said, "This card tells of a powerful force for good and protection, a holy symbol of great hope. What you seek lies in a pile of treasure, beyond a set of amber doors."

She pointed to the third card and said, "This is a card of power and strength. It tells of a weapon of vengeance: a sword of sunlight. The treasure lies in a dragon's house, in hands once clean and now corrupted."

She pointed to the fourth card and said, "This card sheds light on one who will help you greatly in the battle against darkness. Look for an entertaining man with a monkey. This man is more than he seems."

Finally, she pointed to the last card and said sadly, "Your enemy is a creature of darkness, whose powers are beyond mortality. This card will lead you to him! I see a secret place - a vault of temptation hidden behind a woman of great beauty. The devil waits atop his tower of treasure."

After she lovingly put away the cards, she drew a smaller deck from a box and asked, "Who would like to draw from this deck of many things." Fortunately for some, unfortunately for others, four of you drew from that deck. One had his soul ripped out of his body, another gained agility, another still gained persuasive talents, while another lost everything. The old crone cackled with dry laughter when she said, "Death has been cheated this day, no one escapes from Barovia, not even death, Ah ha ha ha!"

After this Ronin scryed on the Paladin Dukus. What he saw was strange and unnerving. He saw a monster made of human flesh sown together claiming to be dukus as the monster spoke to a celestial in the white smock of a doctor.

*Credit to Andy for the recap.*

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