Shadows of the Black Feather Part VII: The Dark Woods of Grimm Tales

Previously on Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, the heroes discovered the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind hidden in the graveyard of the village of Barovia, and got one (small) step closer to putting the Devil Strahd to rest for good.

However, upon their return to the village proper, they discovered that a mythical dwarf-man and a pack of giant wolves came into the village and stole some children while the heroes were indisposed fighting subterranean ghoul ninjas during the last adventure! Questioning the barkeep of the Blood o' the Vine Tavern, they discovered that the dwarf man returned every decade or so to steal children and had been doing so for well on 150 years! Furthermore, the heroes found old drawings of the demihuman kidnapper in old scrolls within the Burgomaster's mansion, referred to as the "Gnome of the Fairy Forest." Clearly heroes such as they couldn't let this kind of horror continue!
Namara the bard made a few inquiries about town, and found that there is a forest rumored to be where the creature drags its prey, up near Tser Falls. The forest is known as the "Forest of the Shadow Fairies" and it is said that anyone who enters never leaves, as they are tricked by the fairies and sent to their deaths. Marking the location on their map, the group loaded up their belongings and set out immediately the next morning.

Following Old Svalich Road, the heroes made it to the old gypsy encampment near Tser Lake, though the gypsies had left. They continued on into the forest, where they found a hand-painted sign. As soon as they passed the sign and entered the woods, they felt the forest grow dark and the mists seemed to creep in around them.

Soon they came upon a strange sight. A small girl sat on a huge mushroom with a bowl of porriage or somesuch in her hands. She sat perfectly still and didn't seem to notice them. As the party came closer to investigate, they realized, to their horror, that the girl was actually long dead, and had been stuffed with hay and sown back together as if she were a hunting trophy! Furthermore the giant mushroom she "sat" upon was nothing but a wood carving. As they inspected this horrific theme park attraction before them, the priest and dwarf were enveloped in webs, and huge spiders sprang down from the trees!


After a hard-fought battle, and a few fort saves vs. poison, the party prevailed against the giant spiders. They then burnt the stuffed body of the poor child and said some prayers of sacrament over the flames.


Continuing on the path into the forest toward the waterfall, they were suprised to see a number of crows spring up from the trail in front of them. Upon further inspection, Cedric the priest noticed that a few breadcrumbs lay about them, though where they came from was beyond his tracking skills. Up ahead they came upon a tiny cabin with two small figures in front of it. The cabin seemed to be made of gingerbread and the children looked to be eating pieces of it, though they were not moving. Soon the party realized that these kids, too, were mounted as some sort of grotesque depiction of a child's fairy tale.

But suddenly the smell of the gingerbread house overcame them, and Garsome, Namara, and Milo all raced toward the house intent on eating it! Cedric only had seconds to act, but fortunately had memorized the spell break enchantment (much to my surprise), and was able to snap Garsome and Namara out of their frenzied hunger. Milo, probably due to his halfling heritage, was unable to resist taking a bite of chocolate roof shingle. Upon eating the most delicious house, a soft voice emanated from inside:

"Nibble, nibble, at my house, who would nibble, perhaps a mouse?"

And Milo was promply balefully polymorphed into a tiny rodent. As the remainder of the party laughed at his predicament, a cat darted out of the bushes nearby intent on eating the malformed halfling. Fortunately, Milo was able to tumble safely into the hands of Garsome, who was already kicking the cat far into the woods. Contemplating leaving the roguish halfling to his fate, and upon consultation with Namara's bardic lore, the group decided that he does come in handy once and a while and Cedric powered up a dispel magic to change Milo back to his small, but at least not-so-tiny, self.

Deciding to deal with the house itself, and the voice within, the adventurers cautiously stomped into the cabin, where their senses were once again accosted by a huge banquet feast, surrounded by gold and gems. The smell of the feast once again threatened to take hold of the party. Holding his nose, Cedric raced into the room and kicked over the table, spilling the food all over the floor. The adventurers then picked up as much treasure as they could while holding their breath before running out of the cabin. They quickly, as adventurers are wont to do, chopped down the cabin and burnt it.


Being extra cautious as they continued through the forest, the party came upon another strange presentation: a wolf on its hind legs in a flower-print dress wielding a giant dinner knife, chasing a little red-caped girl! Of course, both were perfectly still and it was yet another taxidermist's mad art project. Immediately applying silversheen to their weapons, they were not surprised when werecreatures burst out of the forest around them. However, they were surprised that instead of the werewolves they'd been encountering in the surrounding forests, these creatures were all sorts of werebeast species, from tigers to boarmen!


Quickly determining that their silvered weapons wouldn't necessarily hurt these unusual werebeasts, they fell back on plan "B." Plan "B" consists of casting haste, magic circle of protection, inspire confidence, heroism, and cure moderate wounds on Garsome and shoving him into battle to just hit the beasts as hard as he can. This high-precision tactic paid off, and the werecreatures were vanquished. As they reverted to their humanoid forms, the creatures turned into malnourished children wearing metal collars. Clearly they had been forced into servitude to a higher evil malevolence.


After this tromp through the "Grimm"-est of fairy tales, they decided to rest the night in the forest before seeing what kind of nonsense deathtraps they'd encounter nearer to the waterfall. Also, Cedric was running low on spells and wanted a chance to memorize some more enchantment-resistance spells.

Unfortunately for our resident priest-warrior, he didn't get the opportunity. During the night, Cedric had a terrible nightmare in which he was chased by a witch, who grabbed him, put a saddle on him, and rode him like a beast all over the forest. He woke up extremely exhausted and was unable to memorize any spells the next morning. While pondering the strange dream, he used one of his few remaining lesser restoration spells to revive himself and realized that he wouldn't get any sleep until he left the forest or killed this dream-haunting witch!


Will the heroes survive the Forest of Shadow Fairies to reach the waterfall? And what will they find therein, the immortal gnome-prince of the fey? Will Cedric run out of party-saving spells just when they need them the most? (yes) Find out, in the next installment of:

Expedition to Castle Ravenloft!

Shadows of the Black Feather VI: The Grave Ghouls of Gallows Hill

We finally got together after a month-long hiatus to play some more D&D on Fantasy Grounds, and got a fourth player from the old school to join up!

To recap last season's finale, the adventurers had discovered that the Devil Strahd's mystic connection to the land is empowered by three sacred runestones scattered around Barovia, which must be rejoined with their sacred relics to break Strahd's hold over the land. Upon the party's return to the village of Barovia, they stumbled across and banished a strange vampire who was trying to kidnap the Burgomeister's daughter, in broad daylight!

Just another day in the quiet vampire-infested hamlet of Barovia.

To start off this new season, we find the adventurers resting at the Blood O' the Vine Tavern discussing what to make of last season's events, when they see a female elven Bard singing tales of high adventure up on the stage. After her song is over, she introduces herself to the companions as the traveling minstrel Namara, and asks to join the party as she has heard tales in town of their valorous exploits. The adventurers nod their heads and agree to her penning their tales of glorious heroics for the future of mankind, and ask if she wants to join them in heroically digging up graves north of town. She agrees to accompany them in this courageous and noble deed.

In a previous side exploration, Garsim discovered a partially dug up grave in one far corner of the graveyard, and decided that the grave needed further investigation later when he had more hands to dig (and clerics). Sure enough, the adventurers found that the grave led to a hand-dug tunnel, just large enough for them to crawl through. After requisite oils and insense is burned to bless their passage, and with Garsim's darkvision leading the way, the tunnels opened into a large cavern, with bones, half-open coffins, and a dead bodies strewn about. Suddenly, the adventurers realize that atop one of the coffins sits a hooded priest, unmoving but clearly not dead! Before anyone can think to question the robed man, or ask him why he's there, or try to discover any clues about the surrounding area based on this obvious opportunity for role-playing...Garsim springs into action, axe in hand!

But the robed man was preternaturally quick, and dodged Garsim's axe with a swiftness born only to the devil himself! As the monk attempts to claw at Garsim, an undead harpy (of all things), springs out from a hidden alcove, and begins singing a song of longing and desire. Fortunately for the party, Cedric Finalrest, Cleric of Kelemvor, had cast magic circle of protection on Garsim's beard, protecting the party from being controlled by the captivating song! For her trouble, Milo stabbed the harpy a couple quick times with his silver dagger. Namara began singing a song of courage and valor, such that the party was invigorated and struck doubly hard at the undead beasts!

Two ghasts jumped down from hidden holes in the ceiling and attempted to claw at the halfling and cleric, but they were too quick and armored, respectively. Then Cedric cast a protective spell on Garsim to protect him from death magic, and called on the power of Kelemvor to smite these undead beasts from afar, and a blinding light of holy destruction flared from the priest's holy symbol as all four creatures were seriously burned! But the day was not yet theirs, as the undead monk lept onto Garsim, getting him in an arm-bar stranglehold and refusing him the use of his heavy axe, just as the harpy clawed at Milo and injected her paralytic poison into the halfling's veins!

As you can see from this screenshot, this campaign is a little note-heavy.

With the halfling paralyzed and the dwarf in hand-to-hand combat with the monk, things looked bleak for the party. Namara put down her lute and fired two quick longbow shots into a ghast, hoping to free up the priest for more spellcasting. Just then, Garsim reached into his pack and pulled out the Sunsword*, and stabbed the monk through the chest with the glowing glassteel weapon. The monk's undead form was destroyed, and pulled into the blade of the weapon, setting the creature to rest for eternity. Then Cedric called on the awesome that is Kelemvor once again and blasted the remaining two ghasts and harpy into cinders.

The Destroy Undead alternative turning rules tend to slightly change the dynamic of a cleric's turning ability.

For their trouble, the PCs found some magic bracers, a wand of magic missiles, and some gold jewelry. They also found coffin-sized holes in the walls, apparently where the ghasts and ghouls were digging to nearby graves and pulling the bodies to their lair. Cedric sprinkled some holy water and said a few words of consecration.

The adventurers were puzzled, however, as they assumed Madam Eva's previous fortune telling them they'd find the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind in a place of death where the dead are put to rest would be in the graveyard of the village. So rather than leave the graveyard, they did an extensive search of the village. Eventually they narrowed the possible graves that hid the Holy Symbol, if it were in this graveyard, to three recently-dug graves: Anna Winslow, Zander Barcalow, and Henry Von Sprecken.

Unfortunately for the DM, Garsim went to high school with me, and so immediately realized that Anna Winslow refers to our friend's high school rock band Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, and Zander Barcalow is a name from the Starship Troopers Chronicles. So the only possible choice was the last grave, Henry! I shook my head at my sad attempt at thinking up names and called it a successful gather information check. Inside Henry's grave they found a trapped black coffin. Milo disarmed the trap so professionally he was able to retrieve the trap itself, which he found was a chemical trap that would spray some sort of garlic-smelling mixture. Inside the coffin laid a golden starburst symbol, which Namara was able to identify as the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, from descriptions she had heard of it (bardic knowledge check). The adventurers had indeed found the legendary Holy Symbol!

But the Holy Symbol's power had waned, and it was clear it needed to be activated, much like the sunsword, before its full strength could be brought to bare against the Devil Strahd.

What will the adventurers do next? Find out in the next exciting installment of...

Shadows of the Black Feather: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

* The Sunsword is a bastard sword that, for good characters, counts as a light weapon, allowing it to be used in a grapple.

Shadows of the Black Feather Part V: Deamons and Daywalkers

Hey hey hey! Another update on our DnD campaign! 90% of my readership can now stop paying attention.

When last we left them, our adventurers, who I like to call the "Fairydust Rainbow Glitterfun Bunch," had just defeated an entire witches coven along with thier various summoned beasties in mid-ritual on the top of the haunted Lysaga Hill, and were about to head down through a hidden trap door to the ruins below. Worried about more witchery to contend with, they quickly healed up and descended the dark ladder before their protective spells wore off.

Down below they found an ancient cave tunnel network. Following the main tunnel, Garsome was able to determine that the floor sloped constantly downward thanks to his Dwarven stonecunning ability. Using his darkvision to spot any dangerous lurking beasties, Garsome led the way while Cedric called upon Kelemvor to provide some light for the non-dwarves, and the rest of the troupe followed the subterranean demihuman.

Sure enough, along the path they were set upon by a duo of ancient acid deamons, who were hiding amongst the stalagtites and quickly dispelled Garsome's magical circle of protection. Their skin constantly secreted an otherworldly bloody acid substance that would eat through metal weapons and armor as quickly as a hot jar of HCl through your favorite T-shirt you shouldn't have worn to the lab. Garsome quickly closed with the monsters swinging his axe and sword at the beasts, hoping to kill them before his weapons turned into so much corroded sludge. Milo, for his part, stabbed the beasties with his alchemical flare stakes, normally only effective on undead, but still allowed him to get that juicy sneak attack damage without risking his silver dagger. Cedric stood back and thought about how much damage he could do to them in one round if only they actually were undead.


The adventurers eventually downed the deamons before they had a chance to gate in more of their kind. Cedric finally justified his memorization of the mending spell and repaired the damage to Garsome's axe. The team made their way further into the tunnels where they came across a stone obelisk covered in runes, surrounded by a magic circle, with a treasure chest at its base. Knowing better than to mess with runic circles Cedric did the full assortment of priestly info-gathering including casting comprehend languages, detect magic, making some knowledge (religion) and spellcraft checks, and generally being a human search engine. Meanwhile the rest of the party waited around the corner for him and the inevitable trap he'd set off. Cedric then tentatively walked over to the treasure chest from the side, clearly explaining his wish to avoid any poison needles shooting out from the locking mechanism, and abruptly set off a huge magical fireball explosion, nearly killing him. Everybody then agreed that rogues should search all treasure chests for traps from now on.

Milo then picked the lock on the chest and discovered a large hoard of gold, some magical bracers, a fancy jeweled mirror, and the personal journal of Strahd Von Zarovich! They decided to make camp in the runic circle, as Cedric had determined that it was a circle of protection and would keep them safe from harm (fireball trap notwithstanding), while he read the journal aloud to the rest of the party. They discovered that there were three shrines to the old gods in Barovia that Strahd had succeeded in defiling and absorbing their power. And the only way to break his ties to these shrines was to reconsecrate them with the sacred relics that the shrines originally were charged to protect. It quickly dawned upon the group with a ubiquitous groan that the sacred relics were no doubt deep in the dungeons of Castle Ravenloft, based on some of previously nonsense esoteric murmurings they overheard from the gypsy Seer Madam Eva during their visit to the gypsy camp.

Deciding their best course of action was to return to the town and sell their stuff, the party ascended the ladder the next morning and followed Old Svalich Road back toward Barovia. Along the way they came upon a dead body they discovered was trapped with some Dust of Choking and Sneezing that Milo set off during the thief-required loot-search, which was immediately followed by a penta-pronged werewolf attack from the woods. Even though the trap was quite good in my opinion, Cedric used Gust of Wind to remove the dust and Garsome and Ulrik made very short work of all five werewolves without taking a scratch, much to their narrator's (my) dismay.


Returning to the village, the troupe were accosted by some villagers screaming about danger to the south end of town before they could properly unload their treasure. With an annoyed sigh the adventurers sauntered down the road to see what all the hubbub was about. They saw a huge feral-looking man dragging an unconscious woman out of the Burgomeister's mansion, in broad daylight! They realized that she was probably the person they were supposed to protect this whole time, and approached the man. Getting close, the man threw open the door of a nearby home and raced inside, girl in tow. Based on his speed and ferocity, the team figured he must be a vampire, but knew he shouldn't be out in the daylight! Shrugging their shoulders in the calm realization that comes with knowing the Dungeon Master will eventually reveal the answer to this conundrum (because he clearly thinks its so cool), the adventurers raced in after the daywalker.They cornered the vampire in the house and quickly called on the power of goodness and metalsmithing to smite their foe. While the vampire cut the Dwarf pretty deep with his evil sword, he was unable to level drain anybody, and was forced to go into gaseous form and seep out the windows, swearing future vengeance on the party. Cedric finally got some use out of his Extra Turning feat, and Garsome got to get some swings in with the magical silver greatsword he found a while back.


That's where we ended for the night. But many questions remain unanswered! How could that vampire run around in the daylight? Why was he trying to kidnap that lady? And do they really have to go into that deathtrap, Castle Ravenloft, to procure those relics?

We'll find out next time on...

Shadows of the Black Feather: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft!

Shadows of the Black Feather IV: Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

Waking up after a long night of partying with the townsfolk of Barovia at the Blood o' the Vine Inn, the adventurers decided that they oughtta go see this Madam Eva they hear so much about, and get their fortunes read or something. The players then all agreed to use Skype as voice chat, and it sped up our game considerably.



So Garsome the Dwarf, Cedric the Priest, and Milo the Halfling made some last minute purchases at Bildrath's Mercantile to get some Anti-Ghost Oil and Vampire Repellant and started meandering their way westward along Old Svalich Road. While they didn't take a map, and didn't really ask directions, in their triumphantly over-confident heroic wisdom they figured that the gypsies must be somewhere to the west, due to the fact that they came from the east, and following the road and wandering around Barovia was a good a plan as any.

But the heroes were ambushed along the road by elves! Not just elves either, but werewolf elves! Welves! After a small bit of parlay where the elves tried to look innocent, Milo noticed the werewolves sneaking around to flank the party, and raised the alarm. Between Milo's masterwork silver dagger, and Garsome's non-silver but hard-hitting axe, the Welves were quickly put down without a single party member contracting Lycanthropy! :(



Continuing on their way the trio came to the crossroads, where folks are hanged from the gallows and found a sign pointing towards three different places 1) "East to the Village of Barovia", 2) "West to Castle Ravenloft," 3) "North to Tser Pool." Since they were pretty sure they just came from the village, and they were really sure they didn't want to go to Castle Ravenloft, the correct direction to find the gypsies looked fairly obvious.

But suddenly, nebulous ghostly beings made of utter darkness (or something sinister like that) rose up out of the nearby potter's field and attacked a passerby knight! The man clearly wouldn't last long against the incorporeal foes, so the party dove into the attack! Cedric challenged the ghosts to a preach-off and the spirits simply couldn't take the holy awesome of Crom (or whatever god supplement he's using), and Garsome coated his axe in anti-ghost oil and chopped through the rest of the suckers. The trio healed the unconscious man and Milo begrudgingly gave his possessions back to him, eventually. The young knight introduced himself as "Sir Ulrik Von Lichtenstein" and explained he was on his way to Castle Ravenloft to save his Lord, the great undead slayer known as "Lord Quinn Aplanc, Savior of the Seven Dales and Grand Master of Crawford Manor." Garsome matter-of-factly explained to Ulrik that if he couldn't handle the ghost-beasts he wouldn't stand a chance in Castle Ravenloft, so Ulrik agreed to join the party to learn from Garsome's undead-hunting tactics (hit 'em hard and keep a cleric about).


The now party of four tromped their way up to the Tser Pool encampment of gypsies, where they were invited in. The gypsies of course knew they were coming and that evening they sat down with Madam Eva to get some fortunes told. After the players waited a while to see if she would just start spouting off fortunes, they finally started asking questions, consisting of just ways to throw out key words like "So what's this I hear about a Sunsword?"


Madam Eva's fortune telling finished, the heroes learn that one of the items (magic sword) is hidden nearby, and so pay a Vistani gypsy boy to go find it for them. None of them really use swords so they stuck it in Garsome's pack and forgot about it.

Madam Eva told the players that the witches they seek meet at the ruins atop Lysaga Hill every night summoning their dark lord who will finally appear during the new moon, only two nights away! So team "kill 'em all" decide to head them off at the pass and sprint on up to Lysaga hill one night early so as not to have risk Garsome having to make a Will save to face Cthulhu. What they found on Lysaga Hill are your standard cultists mid-ritual, accompanied by an evil Hag leading the chant, and an avatar of the Daemon Chernovog standing nearby, no doubt the district manager.


So the party quietly surrounded the cultists while they mulled over what to do about the deamon-guy, but then Cedric tripped on his shoelaces and made a big ruckus, attracting the attention of the cultists and the battle was on! Milo and Ulrik backstabbed and frontstabbed (respectively) cultists as the cultists shot scorching rays at them, and Garsome turned on the afterburners and went after the Hag. Cedric ran around atop the wall casting protective spells and then jumped into the fray and healed folks as best he could. Garsome ran into some major trouble and lost not only his axe but also his backup dagger of venom to some crappy rolls, so ended up having no choice but to punch the Hag to death, which admittedly is pretty awesome in the end.

Then the big deamon guy who was shooting warlocky eldritch blasts and spells at the party decided to stomp into the melee action, and got knee-deep in some adventurer's faces. The party was taking a pretty big beating, and Cedric could barely keep up with the healing. Suddenly, on Ulric's smite-evil attack he actually rolled two crits, doing some major damage to the deamon and opening up the opportunity for Milo to snatch Garsome's axe and deliver it to the dwarf via the tumble-express. Once the axe was back in his dwarfy hands, Garsome made short work of the wounded Mr. Bigpants.


The party searched around and found a trap door leading down into the ruins. This is where we ended the game. Will the party find anything of value within the ruins, or only their doom? We'll find out in Part V of...

Shadows of the Black Feather: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft!

Shadows of the Black Feather Part III: Zombie Smackdown

Three day weekends are great weekends for gaming.

So in our third session of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, Garsome the ex-retired Dwarf Mercenary, Milo the Halfling Rogue, Cedric the Human Cleric, and Ashlyn the Human Paladin decided to travel up to the village church to see what had become of the village priest, and to investigate the rumored source of the necromantic infection. They were in for some surprises.

First they chopped thier way through some ghasts and zombies hanging around in the streets on their way with little difficulty. Garsim had one noteworthy moment where he Great Cleaved two ghasts and a zombie in one swing. Milo also got to try out his alchemical flare stake on a zombie and burnt it to a cinder.

Then they approached the church, which was clearly decrepit and had recently been defiled. They waltzed in guns a-blazin, sure in the power of whatever it is they believe in (deus ex machina?).

The Evil Priest surprised them as they entered with a hearty blend of mass inflict moderate wounds scrolls empowered by an earlier casting of unhallow. The PCs were not pleased. To their credit I got no whining about the lack of rolling for initiative before springing that on them (the adventure actually calls for a surprise Circle of Death casting, but that's just sloppy playtesting).

The priest won initiative, and the first order of business was to cast dispel magic on the pesky dwarf. Cedric likes to cast magic circle of protection on Garsome's beard, and that just isn't compatible with my preferences to make Garsome roll Will saves vs. domination, so that had to go. The protection spell was dispelled as well as all his magic items became dormant (except his ring of protection) for 1d4 rounds, which was nice for me.

A lack of magical arms and armor didn't phase Garsome though, and he still charged the priest as zombies and deathlocks (undead wizards) burst through the neighboring doors to surround the non-dwarf members of the party. Cedric re-cast magic circle of protection vs. evil while turning undead and the evil priest cast protection from good and later summon giant crocodile! Garsome eventually finished the priest off with his Dagger of Venom, which was the first weapon to regain its magical charge, and the priest fell through the hole in the center of the church, into the darkness below.

The players knew that the priest was wearing some good stuff (he was a high level NPC after all), so they healed up with Cedric's wand of cure light wounds and trudged down the steps to the basement to ransack the place, where they found the priest's son made into a huge franken-monster waiting for them along with some reanimated ex-companions of NPC paladin Ashlyn Lightbringer.

The PCs took it in stride and attacked the monster like the stalwart heroes they are, until they found out that one bite from the Blaspheme resulted in a psychic shock to the PC making him lose his next turn (no save!) if he was anything but evil, as well as a souped-up version of Necromantic Zombie Fever which even Garsome failed his save against!

Cedric made ample use of his Bolstered Quickened Maximized Turn ability and Milo rolled around and jammed exploding wooden stakes into every undead he could get to. The brave little guy even took a bite from the superbeast for the team, ringing a little bell he found to get its attention.

Between Ashlyn's 'Smite Evil' and Garsome's 'Smite Everything' the creature was eventually felled, and the magical plague that was animating the corpses around Barovia was eradicated. The PCs buried the ex-companions of Ashlyn and bid her farewell, and if they needed her help in the future they could find her at the Blood o' the Vine Tavern (backup PC).

For their trouble, the 3 PCs eventually hauled off 1416 gold each, a suit of magical full plate, a magical shield, a magical silver greatsword, an evil-looking tome about creating undead, a good-looking journal about fighting undead, a few scrolls, a few potions, and a hefty "thanks" from the villagers.

Now that the zombie plague is taken care of, maybe they can actually get to investigating the witches that are described in the letter they got from the dark and mysterious gypsy three sessions ago.


Cheesy video for the players:

Shadows of the Black Feather part II: Village of the Damned!

My players logged onto the server on Thursday and they continued their trek through the zombie-infested village of Barovia, on their quest to right wrongs and left rights.


The human following them around finally broke out of his teleportation mishap-inflicted amnesia and introduced himself as Father Cedric Finalrest, cleric of Kelemvor and general enemy to undead-types. He asked if he could join the party. With that introduction the role-playing gods nodded their satisfaction and two became three, as Cedric joined Garsome and Milo.

The trio marched their way down the streets of Barovia and came across a dead body being devoured by giant maggots. The cleric with his fancy detect evil ability could sense the zombie ambush waiting to happen from the doorways on either side of the house, and prepared accordingly. Two flying evil heads flew out of one of the windows but were immediately put down by a couple of throwing axes launched from Garsome. Then the zombies did their B-movie pop-out attack and between Garsome's Great Cleave and Cedric's Holification rituals they were put down pretty quickly. Milo managed to help the group by taking most of the hits and getting hurt pretty bad. But like a good rogue he was the first to loot the dead body.


They searched the body and found some papers detailing that the man was named Viktor Litmunova, and strangely he hadn't succumbed to infection. Well, they didn't really comment on this fact between healing themselves and looking for gold, but at least the cleric said some "Hail Mary's" for the guy after he did his battery-of-healing party restore. I swear Devin's on autopilot with the healing and protection spells, he throws them out so fast. I think I could hear him hitting "Alt-Q" every thirty seconds.

Continuing on, they barely got a sentence of descriptive boxed text after that battle before they "Heard the sounds of battle coming from the center of town!" They rushed to the town square and stumbled into a mass zombie rave. Barricades had been set up in the center of town but one of them was busted and the zombies poured in to get at the besieged villagers. A lone paladin was fighting off the zombies but was hard-pressed. One of the zombie-creatures was actually an Entomber, and could magically bury people alive, which it subsequently did to the paladin. So the party rushed in and Garsome's axe went a-swingin. Cedric flew over the crowd of zombies and started doing his turning-undead pulse attack, while at the same time casting protective spells on the land-based dwarf. Milo drank a potion of barkskin and sincerely wished we could stop fighting sneak attack-resistant zombies all the goddamn time.

When Garsome reached the Entomber he was not nimble enough to avoid being swallowed up by the earth, and Garsome was buried alive! Cedric flew down to melee range to give the Entomber a taste of some seriously channeled positive energy, but failed his cast defensively roll and the Entomber grabbed him by the ankle and overhead slammed the cleric into the ground, which sucked him under. Upon seeing his two kick-ass companions put into early graves, Milo, who was engaged with some very determined zombies, decided to "lead the zombies away" and took off running from the battle and off the map.

Holding his breath, Cedric tried to turn undead from underground but failed his concentration checks, while Garsome slowly clawed his way upward and back toward air. The zombies gathered around the sound of digging and as soon as his head popped up they all whack-a-moled the stout dwarf. Cedric, for his part, decided that being buried alive was for the birds and called upon his granted power from the Traveller domain, and the loose earth above him gave way as easily as if it were air and Cedric flew out of the grave to bathe the zombies in the 8 levels of glorious awesome that is the holy god Kelemvor. Six zombies immediately burst into flame at the sight of the quasi-resurrected cleric and Garsome took out the remaining zombie as well as the troublesome Entomber with some well-placed axe strikes.

After digging out the paladin, they learned her name was Ashlyn Lightbringer and she and her companions had arrived in the village just three days ago during the zombie infestation. Her companions went to the defiled church to find the source of the necromantic infection but never returned, and Ashlyn implored the adventurers to help her find them. This is where the DM misinterpreted the probable immediate goals of the party. I figured that they'd want to rest and memorize spells, as well as buy and sell some items at the shop as they had finally reached the center of town which was a respite from constant zombie attack, and up till now it just had been nonstop combat. So I prepared for a lot of role-playing and price haggling for such an event, as well as alchemical item preparation, rumor-dropping opportunities, and innkeeper surliness, thinking the players would want to actually prepare for another foray through the zombified village.

Instead, Garsome the dwarf, even though he had gotten pretty beat up in the last battle, was fully ready to go to the church and rescue her companions, immediately. And Cedric had no problem wrapping up any loose ends with his cleric buffing and healing spells. So I had to play her both ways, where she wanted to them to help her, but to wait until morning. Here's how the conversation basically went:

Ashlyn: I implore you good adventurers, my companions have not returned for three days from whence they ventured to the church, and I would have them saved! Will you join me in my quest to the church upon the morn?

Garsome: Sure, let's go lady!

Ashyln: Uh, don't you want to look around the town square first? I mean, we should rest and pray to good Lathander for our spells, and there surely are merchants here who would trade their magic wares with you. I can introduce you to...

Garsome: But you said they were in trouble! We should head out right now.

Ashlyn: 'Tis true, good dwarf, they are in trouble, but we cannot help them if we are wounded and die en route! The church is on the other side of town and we may encounter many perils! Plus the villagers will need us here until the sun rises in case of another zombie onslaught during the night!

Cedric: No prob, we're not wounded. I cast three cure moderates on the dwarf, cured Milo's disease and channeled some hp to him, cast consecrate on the town square, plus our 10' magic circles of protection vs. evil still have 768 rounds left on them. I can cast hold portal on the building's doors to protect the villagers while we're gone. Oh yeah, and you get, *rolls,* 18 hit points healed. Let's go!

Ashlyn: Uh...do you not wish to see Bildrath's wares over at the Mercantile? He may have items that can help us in our quest...

Garsome: I just need this axe and a head to chop it into.

Ashlyn: ...

Garsome: I'm a fighter.

Fortunately they eventually got the hint (railroad) and resigned themselves to interacting with the NPCs. They bought some undead-hunting equipment, learned about a magic sword and magic holy pendant that are lost somewhere around here, questioned the burgomaster's son, found out about a gypsy encampment where some lady will read your fortune, and generally humored me until morning. Delp (Milo) had to go to work early the next day and he lives 3 hours into the future on the east coast so we wrapped up the game for the night.



UPDATE: While I was writing this post, Brando sent me a hilarious email on the same subject with his interpretation of the conversation:

Holy Avenger Lady: I fear my friends are in dire need of help.

Garsome: Well, then let's go get them right now.

Holy Avenger Lady: But there is a shop we must go to first, the situation is very dire.

Garsome: OK, after we go to the shop we can just head to the church and check it out. Like pronto.

Holy Avenger: Mayhap we aught to rest a spell at the Inn.

Garsome: C'MON! It's not complicated. The undead are over there. We're undead slayers. It's a match made in heaven. Just freaking point the way!"

Holy Avenger: But there is some lady that lives out of town that must be consulted.

Garsome: Christ! Look. I don't really care where we go at this point. Just as long as it isn't standing in the middle of the road where the ground is going to swallow me up again. You wanna go talk to the country lady? Fine with me. You wanna go to the church and kill heckavuas. Also just fine. If you want to go to the shop and buy ghost water, it's all gravy to me. But stop listing things that we have to do, and then immediately say that you don't want to do it.

Holy Avenger: The Burgermeister's daughter has had a very rough time recently.

Garsome: ..........

Holy Avenger: But we can't go there first. That just wouldn't be proper.

Video:

Shadows of the Black Feather

Since I have no one to play Starship Troopers with out here in Eugene, I'm going to post about my recent DnD games that I play with folks all around the continent with the software Fantasy Grounds.

The Characters

Two of three players were fully available for the game, the third was desperately trying to get the Fantasy Grounds installer to work properly and spent the night correcting corrupt video files and such and finally got it working at the end so he could watch, but by then his character had been relegated to the "quiet guy with amnesia in the back" status. To be fair, had it not been the player it was, with the computer haxx0rz skills he had, the installer probably never would have worked and we'd be out a player for the future games.

Anyway, the first character was Garsim Cinderheart, recently un-retired dwarven mercenary and master of the waraxe. He took back up the axe to avenge his namesake for his clan from a less-than-reputable ancestor (who's actions were recently rediscovered in the Records of the Realm when the Dwarven Library was remodeled), and get his family's name crossed out of Citadel Adbar's Book of Grudges. He plans to do this by correcting the wrongs of his nefarious ancestor, so his dwarflings can live without shame.



The second character involved in tonight's game and accidentally caught up in events around him is Milo Nimblefeets, Halfling entrepreneur of dubious goods and services. On a quest to make as much capital as possible in a world ripe with creative investment opportunities, he finds himself on the run from large cities more often than he thinks is reasonable. Clearly the bigger folk of the realm often overreact at the slightest accidental market adjustment to their financial situation. He can also stab folks in the back really hard with his silver dagger.

The Game

The characters individually met at Durkon's Deliveries. A new and untested teleportation business in the realm of Faerun. They had each decided to sign up for the first attempted mass teleport of goods (chickens in cages, etc) and customers across the Anauroch desert from Sundabar to the realm of Damara. Some because they had specific business in the region, and others because they didn't care where they went as long as it wasn't where they were.



Dm fiat, fantasy cliches, and Cory's love of slapstick comedy being what it is, the teleportation cast by the absent-minded wizard went awry and the characters ended up in the middle of a forest with chicken feathers fluttering down everywhere. The halfling was particularly distressed by the teleportation and lost both of his previously-eaten breakfasts to the ground as he hung upside down from a tree. The dwarf quickly retrieved him from his perch. The caged chickens had not survived the trip.



After getting their bearings and looking around, they found themselves near a road in a dark and mysterious forest. Traveling in the direction they figured was "North-by-North-railroad," a mysterious gypsy rode down the path toward them. After making sure he wouldn't put a mysterious gypsy curse on them, they allowed him to hand them a mysterious letter, given to him by a mysterious man looking for adventurers. With all the mystery in the air it was clear that their narrator had taken a creative writing course.



Even though I had pre-typed out eight box responses to questions I felt they would ask the gypsy, who they seemingly randomly met on the dark road who just randomly had a note for them, upon receiving the note they simply turned their backs on the gypsy without a word and started discussing future plans between eachother, instinctually knowing the gypsy's plot role had been fulfilled without ever even asking his name.

With that, the gypsy rode away, his plot role fulfilled.



The adventurers then knew that the teleportation had at least gone somewhat correctly, as Barovia was in the realm of Damara. Also, since Garsim had found evidence that his ancestor had once traveled to Barovia, and that was his destination in the first place, he had no trouble deciding to visit the town and meet the Burgomaster. The promise of wealth enticed the halfling to join him. The mute and unassuming human followed them without a word while he attempted to fix the corrupted dlld20.xml file in his FG Data Application folder. The demihuman duo continued down the road in the dark and mysterious forest.



Eventually they came to an old rusty gate that opened on its own to let them through and then slammed shut after they passed it. They went through the haunted self-opening gate without even blinking. Soon, they came upon evidence of a horrible mauling by some enormous beast of a fellow adventurer on the road. As experienced investigators and righters of wrongs they were, they took his stuff, left the body, and continued on their way.

After that they came to the Village of Barovia.



But instead of being greeted by buxom beer-carrying barmaids, the village was strangely quiet and covered in a dark and creepifying mist. Also many of the buildings looked abandoned and the windows were boarded up from the inside. Soon they found out why, as they stumbled upon a group of flesh eating zombies! (I also remembered at this point to take a few screenshots.)



Not only that, but they were also beset on by large rat-dogs and a necromantic wizard who retained his magical skills even after undeath, and who quickly held the halfling in a magical vise with eldritch words of dark power. As the dwarf battled frantically with the beasts, the halfling was nearly brought down by the dark creatures as they clawed at his motionless body. Suddenly, more zombies erupted from the doorways to the north! The dwarf, thinking quickly, grabbed the paralyzed halfling and threw him in an empty building, blocking the doorway himself so he could '300' the horde of zombies as they staggered toward the party. While this protected the magically paralyzed halfling for a time, it also trapped them in the small abandoned house surrounded by zombies!

Soon the magical holding spell wore off as the dwarf valiantly protected the doorway, and the halfling got his bearings just as the rat-dogs slithered between the dwarf's legs to attack the party. Being living creatures rather than undead flesh, the rat-dogs were susceptible to the halfling's sneak attack, and the little ruffian made short work of the beasts with a few stabs to the spine.



Eventually the dwarf finished off the remaining zombies as they could only squeeze together three at a time to attack him, and the battle was concluded. But what of the village and the people of Barovia? Has everyone succumbed to the zombie plague? Was there anyone left alive? And what of the note from the gypsy who, if they had bothered to ask, would have told them he got the note from the Burgomaster just the day before?

We'll find out, in the next installment of...

Shadows of the Black Feather: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft!