Among the Buried Dead

**"Among the Buried Dead"** is the fifth episode of *From Barovia With Love*, airing on September 6th, 2022.

The session was DMed by TanisJr93 and hosted on his channel on Twitch, and was the first session of the campaign to feature no combat.

## Summary

*...continued from session four*
Donavich admits to the party that the voice belongs to his son, who was among a group of Barovians that followed an adventurer in an attempt to storm Castle Ravenloft; almost all of the men died, but Donavich's son was transformed into a vampire spawn. Shayne requests a chalice of wine which he proceeds to drink while Draven leaves the church, at which point Shayne summons his pact weapon as a dagger and slices open his palm, filling the chalice halfway with his own blood. Donavich delivers the chalice to his son in the basement as Avi bandages Shayne's hand, after which the priest returns and promises aid to the party if they ever need it.

Donavich also gives the party enough gold to buy a cart and a horse, and Draven accompanies Ireena to her house to pack, where she reveals that she knows he has vampiric heritage; Ismark leads the rest of the party to Bildrath's Mercantile, where Vive trades the jewelry he recovered from the Durst House for two potions of healing and a small wooden box. Draven and Ireena then rejoin the group, which heads out of Barovia through the forests to the west of town. They briefly encounter will-o'-wisps in the trees before stopping by a river, where they spot a pack of wolves led by a white direwolf that Vive intimidates into leaving.

They continue on to discover a large clearing with a wooden gallows and several graves, one of which appears freshly dug, and Draven detects a powerful presence with his *Divine Sense*; he and Ira dig up the newest grave and open an ancient coffin to recover a leather-bound book written by Strahd von Zarovich. Having acquired the Tome of Strahd, the party decides to head northward toward the Tser Pool after Ismark indicates that a group of potential allies are congregated there; as the party departs the clearing, Draven sees his own body hanging from the gallows, and Shayne experiences a subtle emotional shift as Strahd's *Charm* wears off.

Reaching the encampment, the party is cordially greeted by a man named Dragos and discovers that their arrival has been anticipated by Madam Eva. They proceed into her tent where she conducts a Tarokka card reading: she deals five cards, including The Thief (which hints at the Tome of Strahd), The Abjurer (which hints at a "a holy symbol of great hope"), The Beggar (which hints at "a sword of sunlight"), the Artifact (which points them toward "an entertaining man with a monkey"), and the Mists (which "can't see where evil lurks"). She also warns the party both that they are more connected to one another than they know, and that the secrets they keep from each other have the potential to destroy them or to save them. After the reading, the team joins the villagers for dinner, during which a bard tells the tale of a wizard who battled against The Devil Strahd; afterward, an injured man is brought to the encampment and quickly healed by Ira and Vive.

During the night, Lilly is again visited by a seemingly malevolent consciousness as she dreams of a destroyed forest; Shayne is visited by his own unknown patron, and confesses that he has so far failed to live up to the potential of its gifts because he doesn't trust anyone, least of all himself; Draven relives the night he became a dhampir, and encounters the shadowy being that gave him the power to do so, which offers him a deal that Draven accepts; and Vive is visited by Titania as he dreams of his grove in the feywild, confessing that he too has failed in his purpose on the Material Plane.

Neither Avi nor Ira dream of their matrons. The party wakes the next morning to find their guide ready to lead them to the town of Vallaki.

*continued in session six...*
## Notes

Having located and recovered the Tome of Strahd, the players advanced from Level 3 to Level 4 following this session.