The Thorn Gate Witches had enough and went after Chance only to get the surprise of their life. Khamyra disappears. Chance investigates the "quiet gem" and in the meantime almost gets gutted by a new nemesis Shanna. She sets the Champion up to face off against the witches, but a quick cameo from a mage helps them. Chance gets honored at a dinner and when he returns home Khamyra finally shows up.
After Chance gets the devastating news about the Summer Isle. Cassie, Xavier and Chance head down to Summer Isle. Khamyra stowed away on the boat. The quarter elf and Khamyra reconnect. The four heroes reach the isle, do some reconnaissance and hatch a plan to get the island back. Not all goes as planned as Chance frenzies and ends up in a puddle of blood and Finsters realm.
I’m making a character that’s a cool AP English teacher, and I don’t know if my experiences with my AP English teacher is universal/understandable.
She’s a lesbian human cleric (all PCs are high school teachers) and my best “this is her vibe” is having the kids call her Allison and saying “usually there’s a state mandated curriculum but this is AP so screw that”
Are there any phrases or characteristics anyone can think of that would kind of fit this vibe?
Curse of Strahd: An Angel, a Devil, and a Grandmother Walk into a Bar [P4]
CAST:
The Dilution of the Seeds of a Thousand Roses from the Hills of Mount Celestia: aasimar cleric of Kelemvor, played by @pigeonfancier. All 15 of his CHA is in his face. Needs to stop talking.
Faithfulness: tiefling paladin of Tyr, played by @rebatrolls. He’s a good boy. The best boy?
Ursa: dwarven sorceror played by @cloudbatcave. The only straight man. Probably straight, but this is no man, baby.
SESSION SUMMARY:
[PREVIOUS SESSION LOGS HERE]
Last time: After being stolen away in the middle of the night, our faithful protagonists, Ursa (dwarf sorceror, 35 year old ale mum) + the Dilution of the Seeds of a Thousand Roses from the Hills of Mount Celestia (aasimar cleric of Kelemvor, 25 year old resentful Chad) + Faithfulness (tiefling paladin, 25 year old willing incel) found themselves in the Death House - a mysterious manor with children outside, begging for help.
Searching through it led to the discovery it was the home of the Dausts, cultists with a love of necromancy, who had sacrificed their children, reanimated their bodies, and created a massive, eldritch flesh golem in the basement that was puppeting the entire house.
They destroy the flesh golem, releasing the spirit of the youngest child, Walter, in the process. However, it brings the house down upon them, and they're forced to escape, fleeing apparations and the ghosts trapped inside as they go. They all escape.. save for Faith, the slowest member, who is trapped underneath the house. He falls within its depths, only to be saved at the last minute by a ghostly man.
“Do you wish to live?" it asked, and he agreed. On the surface, Ursa has been digging him out.. and finally she frees him, only to find his skin ice cold, and him bleeding profusely from several wounds. Rose bundles him in his cloak, and then the three of them turn to the sign outside the home. It warns of the dangers contained within.. and below that, stabbed to the wood, is a letter, welcoming them to Barovia.
And somewhere in the distance, someone laughs.
Reba [Today at 11:27 AM]
ufhgfduhgfughfgISN'T ROSE THE WILLING INCEL?
mar [Today at 11:27 AM]
Not if Strahd had it his way.O:(
In the debris of the fallen house, Faith shivers, his skin now permanently cold to the touch. Rose wraps him in his newfound cloak, and Ursa gives him one of their valuable healing pots to try and recover.
While he drinks, an old woman approaches: early 80's, gnarled face, clawed hands. Food smells are wafting from her cart, that she's pushing with her: it has a tattered, old looking canopy, protecting her wares from light pattering of rain coming from the sky. She's selling a great deal of pies, and judging by the menu, they’re of various types, and each of them gives you the sweetest dreams.
Reluctantly, she approaches them, and Rose takes the lead, buying meat pies and talking her up. She says wolves are everywhere, but she's a metropolitan girl, so she’s fine. And she begins giving them more information on the locale, such as the fact that - "Count Strahd has been the lord of the land since before my time! But he doesn't look a day over 35..."
R: "We didn't intend to come here --"
OL: "Oh, people never do!"
- Rose asks about the neighboring nations - there's none, ever since Strouhd took over. Ursa asks about dwarves - she says that Ursa's very plump for a child, and Rose tries to redirect the conversation to temples, just as Faith finally steps in.
The old woman stares at his horns, judging, as he asks about where they can find a tavern, and take a bath (or five). She directs them to the Blood and the Vines, owned by three women. The temples belong to Lathander, the Morninglord, and the Night Mother. Faith knows of them - Lathander is a companion of Tyr, known for healing, rebirth, and his good alignment. A sign of safety in this locale!
Granny asks them to carry her cart, and she leads them into Barovian Township, the first of many. The town is silent, save for a mournful osbbing. The house looks unoccupied, and empty, and devastated. The granny hisses through her teeth, telling a worried Rose that - "oh, Mad Mary. A mother's mourning can do it to a person. Just ignore her. Her daughter went and ran away. The old lady thinks she's dead, but I've got the impression she was making eyes at old Johnny, and we'll find her in a week or two. Kids have to have fun!"
The castle up on the cliff belongs to Strouhd. He rarely leaves it - she rarely sees the man - but no one in Barovia comes to the township very often. She lowers her voice, leaning in, and admits: “- there's not much to see around here, to be perfectly honest. That's why I get such good business from my dream pies!” After she stops to talk to a man at one of the houses, Rose manages to haggle a free pie from her, in exchange for having carried the cart. Reluctantly, she gives it to him, and they head towards the tavern.
On the doorstep, Rose, Faith and Ursa argue quickly over if they should help Mary, who’s still sobbing. Faith and Ursa object, stating they’re more likely to frighten her in this state than help, and they head inside the tavern instead, promptly proving the other two right when one of the women gasps, horrified, as they enter. There’s a table with three women, one with a drunken one, and one with a girl cleaning her blade. And the bar, which Rose flees to.
The innkeep, when Rose tries to speak to him, proves mist-touched: an affliction that he immediately concludes is a result of being a vampiric slave, that leaves him unable to do more than repeat a script and basic actions. When Rose attempts to make a connection with him, drawing out any conversation, he’s startled to find the mans eyes are empty, and his words hollow. He turns and flees to the table of three women, where Ursa is already speaking to them.
"If they don't pay their tabs, they -- oh, hello!” The three women are sisters who own the tavern, and they’re currently furious at the drunken woman, who’s been unable to pay her tab for the past few weeks. Rose and Ursa’s conversation goes poorly: Rose is scandalised by the sisters use of language, as they call their squelching customer a trollop and a bitch, and Ursa manages to offend them when she refers to youths these days.
In the meanwhile, Faith is befriending the bladed woman. Her name is Ireena the Lesser, and she’s.. loosely charmed by his awkward charisma.
F: It looks like you have quite the sword there.
I: Ah.. I have two.
F: They look lovely! Do you use them for, ah, wolf hunting?
I: .. no, but, ah, I use them for.. a lot of things.
In the course of small-talk, Faith reveals the fact they’re new to the region, and in turn, Ireena states that her father is dead, and she will let them sleep at her manor if they'll carry her father to the temple to be buried. Faith points out that Rose is a cleric of Kelemvor, and he can help.. if she'll let them clean up first.
She agrees, and takes them back to her home. On the walk there, they discover that the Death House regularly rebuilds itself, and this is not the first - nor the last - time it will likely fall. Rose is demoralised, but not as much as when he sees the ramshackle remains of her estate.
As you approach this house, you realise it's squatting behind the rusted iron fence. It's twisted and torn, completely off the hinges, the right one is cast aside, and the right one swings lazily in the wind. Weeds are choking out the ground. All around the house, things have been strewn around. There's claw marks on the walls. There's not a single pane or shard of glass in any window, and all the windows have been boarded over.
The interior is better than the exterior, but the gloomy atmosphere continues: there’s holy symbols in every window, and shutters drawn. As soon as they’re inside, Ireena pulls Rose to the side. "The wound on your neck.. in these parts.. it means trouble,” she whispers, close to his ear. “After you help me, you should leave this town. It's not safe here.. for your kind."
It turns out that he’s been bitten by a vampire, a mark that means, eventually, they will come for him to kill him. There is no stopping this. The only hope is to avoid lights - which draw their attention - and to avoid trouble, and to try and hide away. She recommends the walled city of Varloski to the west, where they keep the lights always dimmed to try and escape the gaze of the monsters.
He thanks her, and then he returns to his companions. Ursa’s having a minor breakdown over Death House, and the children within it. Rose sprawls out across her floor, while Faith gingerly takes the edge of the bed, and Rose admits that he has a secret to tell them.
But then he balks. Faith takes initiative, telling them about how a spirit saved him within the Death House when he died.. but he fears the cost at which this aid may have come. Rose bolsters himself in turn, and admits, finally: every night, when he sleeps, a demon haunts his dreams. It whispers to him of temptations, and of desires, and of how easy it would be to stray from his mission.
F: Oh! You’re an aasimar?
R: Are you calling me an ass..?
F: What? No! Not at all -
R: [eyes brimming with tears] There is no need for this wanton cruelty, when Ursa said we are not to fight. I’m leaving. I - I will go prepare myself in my room.
Rose flees, while Faith awkwardly claims the first bath. Things then get even more awkward when he realises the bath isn’t just a tub - it’s a room, with a massive sunken floor flooded with hot water, and it’s not meant for one person to bathe at a time. He heads back upstairs, knocking slowly on Rose’s door, and explains the situation. Rose, although sulking, agrees.. and goes to fetch Ursa.
When Faith attempts to explain that no, he doesn’t want Ursa in the bath with them, Rose accuses him of sexism. It’s only the quick explanation that she might try to wash their backs - touching them, and acknowledging they’re all naked! together! - that Rose finally gives in, and they go bathe. Upon leaving, Rose casts Purify Food and Water, cleaning the worst of the debris from the water, and Ursa heads down.
The mirrors are still cursed, here. Her reflection is ancient and haggard in it, when she dries off, but by the time she blinks, it’s restored to normal. She heads upstairs, collecting the pies and settling down to eat. Faith and Rose balk at the idea of eating them, explaining they’re drugged, but she’s unbothered: in turn, they ask Ireena where her food stores are, and gorge themselves on bread and wine instead.
When Ursa lays her head down, she dreams:
She was promised she'd have nothing but the sweetest dreams, but this dream is so, so, so vivid. There are bright lights flourishing colours and the familiar warmth of your family home. You're not dreaming of after you were cast out, but before anything terrible had even come into the conception of happening.
It's a familiar dream. You can smell the smells of your dinner, taste the tastes, hear the familiar laughter.. and it makes you realise that even compared to your experiences in Borovia, this is more vivid than even that.
Everything had seemed awful. But it's like the cotton had been removed from your ears, and it's like you're having the most vivid, comfortable experience possible. As you dream, there's not even any nostalgia, or the guilt that comes with your typical rememberings..
You just drift into happiness.
And on the other hand, Rose is afraid to sleep alone. He tries to convince Faith that he should sleep in his room, to prevent him from being bitten again in the night, but Faith balks. “Will you be sleeping.. in my bed? Will you be sleeping with me?” Rose balks in turn, fleeing back to his own room, and buries himself instead into a blanket cocoon, ensuring that even his face is so thoroughly covered, no fangs could ever bite him.
So, of course, when it hits midnight, the walls begin to shake as something attacks the house.
Ireena knocks on their doors, telling them they must escape, and then heads to Ursa's room. The pie has left Ursa unconscious, leaving Rose to haul her up on a shoulder and flee downstairs after the other two. The walls shake as they run to the basement door, howls reverbating through the building as the boards across the windows wheeze. But just as Ireena sets a hand upon the door handle, a voice booms out, loud enough to rattle the walls.
It asks to be let in.
Ireena quakes. "It would be a severe discourtesy," she says, her voice wavering, "to refuse him." Faith tells Iveena NOT TO LET THE VAMPIRE IN, at all costs, but she slinks over to the door, pulling it open... and with him looming above her, backlit against the darkness, she refuses him. “I am sorry, but I cannot welcome you in, my lord,” she says, terrified, but steady, “while I am holding my guests.”
Strauhd is not offended. He is not even bothered, although his eyebrows raise: all he says is that he is sorry for her father's death, he welcomes her to her new position as his servant, and that he will come back later. He doesn’t appear to notice Rose or Faith behind him, up until Faith casts Sanctuary. Ireena lights up with holy magic as the spell settles in. Strauhd looks up, taking in Faith, the hall behind him, Ursa..
.. and then his eyes fall upon Rose.
He calls out to Rose. He calls him Tatyana, his love, and says that he has missed him, and will be separated no longer. He says he will come for him, and that it will be soon, and that Rose should not worry.
Then he leaves, and Ireena shuts the door, collapsing against the doorframe. Faith hurries to help her, while Rose stutters behind her. “He was mistaken,” he says, firm. “Tatyana is a woman’s name, and I am not a woman, and so this is all just a mistake. Perhaps he was speaking to Ursa. Ursa is a woman.”
“Oh, I.. thought,” Ireena says, hesitant, “that Rose was a woman’s name..”
Faith takes the lead once more. He hurries to the kitchen to make Ireena tea to soothe her nerves, and Rose sits down on the staircase to try and think.
