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Khaiel
2018-12-17, 07:05 AM
So I am GMing CoS for a group of newbies (well, three of them are newbies, and the fourth has a bit of experience with 5e) and I thought about recording their adventure in a journal here.

They started at level 1, and I'm GMing a little preliminary adventure using Strahd's werewolves. They are attacking the town of Beregost, and the PCs are the second round of adventurers sent by the Dukes of Baldur's Gate (Yeah, starting in Forgotten Realms) to try to discover why wolves are attacking the town. The werewolves are using dire wolves and local wolves to attack the town, bringing back young children (so they can make them fight back at their lair in Barovia and infect the survivors) and trying to get the attention of a group of capable adventurers to bring back to Barovia.

Our heroes are:

NG Variant Human Bard 1, with the Ritual Caster Feat, STR 10, DEX 14, CON 10, INT 13, WIS 12, CHA 16, Haunted One Background (I allowed the player to switch one of the proficiencies for thieves' tools proficiency, for the benefit of the party).

Raised a devout follower of Oghma, Nadia was a bard with interests in the occult, singing songs and creating stories about the secrets of the world. Tragedy struck her when she happened to read a copy of the Book of Vile Darkness. This changed her from a cheerful easygoing girl into a perpetually depressed pessimistic no-nonsense woman obsessed with cleansing the land of dark creatures. She burned the book, then the book appeared again, and she burned again. And so on, and so on, and so on. In the end she had to keep the book (which now also wrote her dreams and nightmares in its pages every night) so it wouldn't be read by anyone else. And she became a monster hunter. A novice monster hunter, but a monster hunter nonetheless.

She recognized the wolves' attacks as something unnatural, and so volunteered to help.
LG Scourge Aasimar Paladin 1, STR 14, DEX 10, CON 14, INT 10, WIS 12, CHA 16, Knight of the Order Background.

Abandoned by his parents when he was young, he was picked up by an errant knight of a minor order dedicated to Hoar. He was taught that all evil acts must be avenged, and that the end justifies the means (he is constant peril of becoming a fallen aasimar). He was a squire for a few years, and was sent by his order to help in Beregost so that he may test his abilities and become worthy of being a knight. Ceoffrey is brave, callous and eager to fight, but he is also quite a pleasant young man, and is the face of the party alongside Nadia.
LN Red Dragonborn Sorcerer of Draconian (Red) Origin 1, STR 10, DEX 12, CON 14, INT 13, WIS 10, CHA 16, Sage Background.

Drannash is an egocentric sage dedicated to understanding his own draconian origins, spending his time with experiments to "unlock his racial potential". Otherwise he is a nice guy, although a bit of a pyromaniac, who LOVES evocation. Drannash goes on adventures to test his might and acquire riches, partly because he is a hoarder, partly because more money equals more magic items and books about magic and dragons. He joined the party just to "Get some easy money killing wolves, what could possibly go wrong?".
LG Stout Halfling Ranger 1, STR 12, DEX 16, CON 14, INT 10, WIS 14, CHA 12, Folk Hero Background.

Elian was a hunter in his village, and also a member of the local militia. After some encounters with goblins, wild beasts and other dangers, he realized that he really liked the excitement of a battle and the thrill of adventure. His village was too safe for his liking, and he thought he might be able to do more good. So he left with his weapons and clothes, to go on adventures. He met the others when applying to the request for adventurers to go to Beregost, and is quite concerned about the fate of the first group of adventurers that went to Beregost

And so began our first session.

The group arrived at Beregost a bit late in the afternoon. They saw the streets almost empty, with just a bunch of locals acting as a militia and patrolling the streets, since the mercenaries of the Flaming Fist that used to act as the local guards were all killed during the first attacks about two weeks ago. Some doors have been knocked down, others have scratch marks, and many homes seem abandoned. The party decides to head to the mayor's home, to announce their presence, ask what happened to the previous party of adventurers and that sort of things.

After asking for directions, they arrive to what has essentially become a field hospital, as the local temple of Lathander cannot provide help for all of the injured and dying people, and the mayor has opened his home to everyone in need. Women come and go bringing medical supplies, and a tall bald man, quickly identified as the mayor of Beregost, is giving orders left and right. The mayor can provide very little information, but he tries to help the group as much as he can. The wolves have never been this organized and aggressive, and he is doing his best to protect his people, but it is obviously not enough. The previous group of adventurers went to forests to the west, where the wolves come from, but that was a week ago and none of them came back. He is able, however, to direct them to the local smith, who used to trade with a wizard that lived in that forest years ago. He is familiar with the forest, and might be able to help. He also tells them that should they want to spend the night in town, he can arrange for rooms to be prepared for them at one of the local inns, an offer that the group accepts.

Before the sun finally goes down, the group goes to talk to the smith, and he shares his suspicion that the wolves might be acting that way because something that the wizard left behind at his home in the forest broke and the magic affected the wolves (He is wrong, but the werewolves are using the wizard's former home as their lair). The party agrees, but decides to go back to the inn for the night.

At the inn, they have dinner and discuss their plans for the night. Ceoffrey and Drannash wanted to patrol the streets at first, but the innkeeper tells them that even the militia no longer patrols the streets at night, and instead remain at some of the buildings where people are gathering, which quickly changes their mind. Nadia and Elian spend their time barricading doors and windows, and Nadie climbs to the roof with a blanket to watch the wolves and how they act. After some thought, Ceoffrey decides to watch the main doors, while Drannash and Elian go to the second floor to keep and eye on the doors that lead from the rooms to the outside (since the second floor rooms are connected to the street by exterior stairs). The innkeeper and some neighbours thank them for watching over them, and retire to the safest rooms.

It isn't long before Nadia realizes that perhaps being outside in such a cold night, without darkvision, wasn't such a bright idea. But she is able to spot three wolves going up the stairs and getting close to the back doors. She also notices a dire wolf that seems to be overseeing the wolves (actually a very big werewolf). She hits the werewolf with an arrow, but in the dark she is unable to see it regenerating. Seconds later, the wolves start pounding on the back doors, trying to bring them down. Elian and Drannash notice, and Ceoffrey goes upstairs to join them. Nadie uses Faerie Fire to mark the wolves and the others let them in so they can fight them on their own terms, before they break the doors. The bring down the wolves quite easily, with Nadie jumping down from the roof so she can join the fight. However the werewolf charges Nadia and drops her unconscious, with Elian having to pull her back in and Ceoffrey closing the almost broken door behind them and then healing Nadia.

As they are doing that, they hear Drannash shouting "WE'VE GOT COMPANY!" just as two more wolves break the main doors down at the first floor. What follows is an strategic retreat to the corridor, with Drannash and Nadia killing the two wolves with magic and arrows while Elian waits for Ceoffrey to get to the corridor so he can close the door.

After that, they hear some bumping in the room, and then the werewolf leaves. They spend some time being extremely paranoid before opening the door, which reveals a severed arm (they don't know it yet, but it is from one of the previous adventurers) covered with a cloak with a pin, that Drannash identifies as a symbol of the Harpers.

Having survived the night, they get to level 2.

It was a short first session (due to time constrains, we can only play for 2-3 hours at a time), but I think they liked the dark tone.

Gray Mage
2018-12-17, 05:57 PM
Keeping track of this, always love me some Strahd/Ravenloft. :smallsmile:

NRSASD
2018-12-18, 12:53 PM
As I'm running CoS as well, I'll also be watching this one closely. Good luck, and don't let the vampires bite!

Khaiel
2018-12-27, 07:11 AM
The party is tired, and thinking about how the dire wolf was carrying the arm. After some fifteen minutes, they decide it'll be better to think about it after a long rest. Drannash, Ceoffrey and Elian rest at the inn, while Nadia leaves for one of the local temples. The rest of the party doesn't know yet, but Nadia has terrible nightmares due to her experience with the book, and she only feels safe if she rests within a temple dedicated to a non evil deity. This might be a problem later on.

Nadia finds the local temple of Oghma, and is allowed to rest there after showing that she is a believer. The next morning, the temple's priest, who has figured out she is with the new group of adventurers, gives her a bag full os silver scraps, treated so that they can be used to silver a weapon temporarily. Apparently one of the members of the previous group suspected that werewolves might be involved, and asked the priest for one, but he only got it a few days ago.

Armed with this new piece of information, Nadia goes back to the inn, and tells the party (Although Drannash almost snorted the bag of silver scraps trying to see if it was really what the priest said it was). They are still suspicious about the wizard's cottage that the blacksmith told them about, and after a while they seem convinced that maybe if there are werewolves, they might be using it as a lair, or at least there might be something there that they can use against the wolves. Thinking that perhaps the previous party might be onto something, they go to see the blacksmith and ask if they can get at least some silver ammo for Nadia and Elian.

To be fully honest, while their line of thinking IC was something along the lines of "It seems one of them was a Harper, and those guys know what they are doing.", but OOC it was more like "The Harper thought it was werewolves, so it must be ANYTHING but werewolves." Let's say that what they know about FR makes them think Harpers are not the exactly competent.

After getting their silver ammo at a huge discount, but still using almost all of their money for it, they travel to the forest, following the blacksmith's directions. It is late in the afternoon when they get to the cottage, old and in a state of disrepair, but certainly not abandoned, judging by Elian's tracking skills. The ranger finds at least eight different sets of wolf tracks, one set of dire wolf tracks... And an adult human's tracks.

"The Harper was right? First time for everything."

Drannash is a bit shocked, but hey, good for them, they brought silver weapons. Not wanting to be seen through the windows, they sneak through the front door, finding some healing potions that must have been left by the former owner. However, when they enter the dining room, they find four wolves, all of them awake.

What follows is better described as a massacre. The party is lucky that the other wolves and the werewolf fail their perception rolls hard, since these four wolves start tearing them apart. They use all of their spells and the potions. Elian and Nadia each fall unconscious once, while Ceoffrey falls unconscious due to his wound twice. It is only when they fall back to the main door and Drannash manages to get a good shot with his breath weapon that they manage to kill the wolves. There were some terrible rolls and some terrible battle plans. And there were still at least four wolves, one dire wolf and one man who might be a werewolf inside. They start planning on what to do when Drannash points out something.

So they realize that all of Drannash spells and his flame breath inside a wooden cottage seem to have started a fire.

And here goes their plan. There might be children inside (there aren't, but they don't know). But for all they know, if there were, the wolves might have already eaten them. So they decide on a plan. And they start barricading all the windows of the cottage. The manage to cover most of the windows by the time the wolves realize what is happening and the building becomes an inferno.

After a few minutes, one of the barricades is destroyed by a half-burned very pissed-off werewolf.

"Does the werewolf have any marks we can use to identify him if he transforms back to human?" Nadia asks.
"I'm going to go with 'third degree burns on his face'." is Drannash's answer.

They start shooting the werewolf, wounding him, but he runs away, since he is already quite wounded and this is not a fight he really wants to take. The party followes him through the dusk mists, but they lose track of him after a long chase.

They decide to head back to Beregost to report before they get lost... But when they turn back, they realize that line might have already been crossed. Behind them is a thick, supernatural mist. And a huge iron door that just finishes closing when they try to exit. They don't know yet, but they have arrived to Barovia.

And with this, we get to CoS proper, and they get to level 3. To be honest, I thought the wolves were going to cause a TPK. I am happy they got their act together in the end.

Next session will be in January.

Spore
2018-12-30, 09:00 AM
A D&D horror story needs a few "almost TPKs" anyway.

We played the Death House in Barovia itself from 1-3, the party nearly died to the shadows but they were smart enough not to plunder graves so they did not disturb the ghouls.

Mr_Fixler
2019-01-06, 12:09 AM
I also have a huge passion for Ravenloft and the battle against Strahd in all its forms. I'm wrapping up my own Ravenloft game, but am looking forward to lingering in the land of mists by watching your game evolve. Keep it up!

Spiritus
2019-01-06, 09:37 PM
Never played Ravenloft, but it always sounded cool. Thanks for the write-up!