Barovia Village

The **village of Barovia** is the saddest place in the land of Barovia, its residents so terrified of Strahd that they rarely venture from their homes. The village lies in the shadow of Castle Ravenloft, buried under fog but still unable to hide from the vampire's sight.

It was the first inhabited place that the party reached after being transported to Strahd's domain. Here the party ventured into the Durst House, broke into the Valasco House, met Ismark and Ireena, encountered an old hag selling dream pastries, visited the village priest Donavich (and his son), explored the Jarov house and tried to give away the dream pastries for free, before killing a random guy who tried to take too many.

## Areas of Barovia Village

* **Barovia Village Church**. See main article.
* **Bildrath's Mercantile**. See main article.
* The **Blood of the Vine** tavern. See main article.
* **Burgomaster's Mansion**. See main article.
* The **Durst House**. See main article.
* The **Jarov House**. See main article.
* The **Valasco House**. See main article.

## Episode Appearances

To be compiled into the article at some point:

* 2: You Fool of a Pumpkin!: "It is a very dark and not pleasant looking village. Like there are no lights in the windows. There are no happy fires."
* 6: Sacred Flaming is Exhausting: "it's a foggy night outside." ... "it's a very thick fog. It's very difficult to see even 30-40 feet in front of you." / Outside the Durst house: "It's T street so the street goes to your left or right as you walk out the door and it also goes straight ahead of you." / “a small village" / "there are no lights in town"
* 7: Mist-ical Visions: Part 1: "As you are approaching what seems to be the tavern, because there's actually a light on in the window which is odd for this town because almost everything else is completely dark" / "You are completely encompassed in the fog. You can't see a thing. It's like completely black, like inside of a cave, black."
* 11: New Friends, or BIFF! SPLAT! GUANO!: "There's houses around. Not really fences. There's maybe short fences. Small townhouse kind of houses. They're small, there's no front gardens or anything like that." / Will tries to big up the village to Strahd: "[Will's] obviously just looking around, 'this is the saddest town I've ever seen.' He didn't say that out loud. That's what his eyes are saying, 'This is saddest, most cobwebby, dilapidated town I've ever seen.'"
* 12: GILFs, Get Your Tongues Ready!: When the party discuss finding somewhere to sit and get cleaned up, Nick says "If there's any thing going, I mean, this place seems deserted to me." / On the group's way to the tavern: "You don't see any lights on in any houses or anything like that, but you do see down the street aways, maybe 10 houses away, you do see a light from that direction [...] You keep going that way, again, you just see left and right, you know, there's a road that again, leads off to the right, but just looks dark that way. The houses just seem dark, everything looks really shitty here. It's old, worn, broken down. Some of the houses even look completely abandoned / boarded up. But you find the source of the light. The street kind of empties out into a small town square-ish kind of thing, just a bit more of an open area with streets kind of leading off in a few directions. The main source of light was coming from an open doorway to the right, in the north-northeast corner of the square. There's a doorway that's open and light is spilling out from within. Above the doorway, you can see a sign, it's kind of hanging not really true. And it says that this is the 'Blood on the Vine' tavern. If you look around, you do notice on the other side of the square, there's another large-ish building. You can tell there's light inside, but it's kind of curtained, the door is closed, but there is definitely light coming from there. And there's a sign over that door, it says 'Bildrath's Mercantile'." / Ismark: "It's a very small village here and newcomers kind of stick out like a sore thumb. Or a non-sore thumb, if you will." / Ismark: "We are right here directly beneath the gaze of [Strahd's] castle, you may have seen it off in the distance, that is the Castle Ravenloft and is where he dwells. And here in the village of Barovia, I fear she is just at too much risk." / On the subject of accommodations in the village, Ismark: "There really isn't much around here, Barovia, these days in the way of accommodations for those out of town. [...] [Food is] hard to come by here." / "You head down the road towards where Ismark said to go, to the south out of the square past the mercantile. You start to lose the light from the tavern and it goes back into the moonlit streets. Again, everything here seems boarded up." / "You see, the front hallway for [Mary's house] seems rather dilapidated, which is kind of what you'd expect based on everything else you're seeing in this town."
* 13: My Necro-Sense is Tingling: Ireena describes the death of her father, the burgomaster: "Basically, it seems like his heart gave out that night. We tried as best we could, but Ismark and I are not doctors. And to be honest, there really isn't one here in the village." / On the subject of the villager's fear of Strahd: "And we've been wanting to give him a proper burial, but the villagers aren't really taking too kindly to us after I've been basically marked as a target of that devil." / The party are told about the location of the church by Ismark while at the Burgomaster's mansion: "the church is basically up the street, about double the distance from the tavern to here." / The Swirly Man describes a little about how Barovia village fits into the bigger picture: "This village of Barovia is in the land of Barovia. You've heard of Vallaki? Vallaki is part of Barovia. You see that magnificent castle? The throne in there, you will sit upon."
* 14: The Attempted Pike Poke: The unfriendliness / nervousness of the villagers: "You see a few people out, but once they catch sight of you, a group of strangers carrying a coffin, and Ismark and Ireena, they all basically beat it back into their homes. You hear a couple of windows close." / The selling of dream pastries and the villagers' obsession with them: "As you're walking down, if you look to your left down a small alleyway, there's still house fronts on both sides, you see what looks like an old lady pushing a cart away from you. And you hear her shouting, 'Dream pastries! Get your dream pastries!' And she's rolling from house to house and pounding on the doors. 'Dream pastries! Come on, Come get em! Ismark and Ireena pay her no mind. They seem to continue to move on." [...] Ismark: "That's something that some of the members of the village indulge in, to take them away from their pain, if you will. [...] They are pastries, but they seem to, from what I hear, bring a certain amount of comfort to those who taste of them," Eric: "And he lowers his eyes, doesn't want to really want to look at you." Ismark: "Her prices are steep." Eric: "If you turn back and look at her again, you'll see that while you were talking to Ismark, she has got someone out of their house. She's speaking to them." Old hag: "My payment is due." Parents: "No, no!" Old hag: "My payment is DUE!" Eric: "The woman and the man usher out a six or seven-year-old boy. The woman grabs him roughly by the arm and she pulls out a sack and starts stuffing him into it." Ismark: "Apparently this is the price that some people are willing to pay for these." Ireena: "I told my brother this needs to stop." Ismark: "I honestly I fear revolt from my townspeople if I step in and attempt to stop her." Ismark doesn't know what the old hag does with the children. / The party try to see inside the house belonging to the parents who gave up theif child for dream pastries: "[The windows are] kind of shuttered up. A lot of this town is basically on lockdown, maybe not as severely as Ireena and Ismark's house was, but especially the lower level stuff, it's not like there's panes of glass where you can peer in or anything. [...] These houses are right up next to each other."
* 15: The Truth of His Salvation: Ismark, telling the priest Donavich of their father's death, says: "We don't live the most easy of lives here in in Barovia." / Donavich angrily recounts how the village turned its back on him: "This town abandoned me, when I was in need. I tried to go to some people with with my issues, with my problem. And no one helped me. They turned away. They shunned me. I haven't seen a person in this church in months and months and months." / Donavich describes the village's customs for burial: "In the way of the Morninglord, the burial needs to happen at dawn. [...] I don't know if I have the strength anymore, especially after this, to prepare a grave. If you would be able to do that, then we could give your father the proper send-off when day breaks tomorrow." / Donavich: "Kolyan was a good man and he did what he could to protect this village."
* 16: How's the Sentence Happening?: The party are en route from the church to the Jarov house: "You go past where the main square is, with the Blood of the Vine tavern and that mercantile, and then you turn down a side street, but as you pass through that square, there are a few people going about their business [...] kind of head down, heading from place to place, kind of like the way people get if there's a storm coming and they're trying to get their errands done." / The party find the Jarov house: "You eventually get to the street that the house is on and it's quiet. This is a side street. There's really nothing to bring people here and there's nobody outside again, that you can see. Things are still pretty well shuttered up." / KT (outside the Jarov house): "Is there any sign that nearby houses have inhabitants in them?" Eric: "There's really no way to tell, unless you went up to them. Like I said, in the main centre of town, you saw some people going about their business, pretty much either going in or out of the tavern or in or out of the mercantile. You haven't really noticed any other places of business open." / The nervousness of the villagers when Will is giving our pastries for free: "You walk towards them, he skitters back a few steps, looks like a scared animal in a way." / The effect of the pastries on the villagers: "He is shoving that thing down pretty much whole. And then he gets the last of it in his mouth, he swallows and he goes, 'Aaaaahhhhh...', and then he stands up straight, rigidly straight, arms at the sides, and then just falls backwards on his back. And he's just laying in the in the street looking straight up at the sky. [...] Staring off with a slight smile on his face, up into the sky."
* 17: Village of Bologna: Will points out that they've seen no people of authority: "Are there any law men in this city? Doesn't even seem like there are any." / The nervousness of the population: "And as you go [...] you see ahead of you, shutters, the houses on the upper levels, opening, cracking open as you approach, but then quickly clicking shut as you actually get up to where they are. As you go, almost uniformly up the road." / On the lack of law enforcement, Donavich: "Well, there haven't really been official law men, as you say, here in some time. But generally, they kind of employ the people's justice more often than not, usually the town tends to take these matters into their own hands if they feel as though injustices have been done." / Will asks what the population of Barovia village is. Donavich: "I'm not a man of numbers, but perhaps a few 100? I don't know."
* 19: Does Anybody Have A Tent?: "My brother and I, we decided that it would probably be best if I got away from where I was, which was not exactly the most defended of towns. We were in the village of Barovia. I don't know if you've been there or not, and it sits pretty much directly underneath his castle, Castle Ravenloft."
* 24: What Is the Airspeed Velocity of a Barrel-Laden Raven?: "[Vallaki]'s very different from the village of Barovia that you came from, which basically seemed like a ghost town.

## Quotes

Any memorable quotes about this location.