If you’re interested, check out my other posts about this campaign, A Haunting New Beginning, and Adapting Death House for My Party where I share my thoughts and prep notes for running the Death House introduction to Curse of Strahd.

Session Zero

Roll stats, discuss expectations. We’re short a player.

For the first hour of our first session, we had a brief session zero where I laid out the expectations for the campaign (courtesy, respect, etc.), explained the theme, (gothic horror), and probed for any soft or hard taboos that should be avoided (there were none mentioned). Next, we rolled stats for characters and filled in the missing parts of the character sheets.

The party consists of:

One of the players, another daughter, was sick and couldn’t make it this week, so we started without her. I’ll figure out how to introduce her character next week.

I have a decent sized office area in my home and was able to set up a table where we could play in there without interloping on my wife too much. In there, there is an inside joke where we call it The Dungeon and I’ve now adopted the name for game nights. To set the mood, I dimmed the lights and lit quite a few candles and used this Spotify playlist for ambient music. I have to admit, it looked pretty good for what I had on hand.

Dinner with the Duchess

As each of the players entered the house, I handed them a written invitation from Lady Morwen Daggerford that read:

Greetings, honored guest,

It is with great honor that the Duchess, Lady Morwen Daggerford, invites you to dine with her on the eighteenth day of Marpenoth to celebrate the start of theLeaffall Festival.

Please gather at Daggeford Keep at Eventide with the feast to begin at Twilight. The Duchess awaits your arrival.

Your Honorable Duchess,

Lady Morwen Daggerford

As they made their way into the Keep they encountered a pair of guards dragging a commoner out. He looked like he’d taken a beating. As they unceremoniously dropped him outside the gates, one of the guards said “That’ll teach you to cross the Dutchess again.” The other guard, recognizing one of the party members, nods and says “She’s in a mood today. I’d be careful if I were you.”

Before dinner I gave them all a chance to introduce themselves to the rest of the group. The role-play felt a little forced and stiff, but I think it went well nonetheless.

At dinner, they feast on hot spiced soup and roasted pheasant. Lady Daggerford makes mundane small talk with the party and makes mention of the arrest of a spellcaster named Glasstaff in Phandalin to the north, surprising my son who plays a character in my Voxels & Valor campaign that just affected the arrest of Glasstaff in their last session.

After dinner, Lady Morwen escorts the party to the drawing room where she relates the quest and offers the party 500 gold to complete the task. The party gladly agrees, thrilled by the prospect of such a large amount od gold at the outset of their campaign.

On the way out of the Keep, Kiril, tried to steal some of the silver from the dining room table and was caught by a member of the staff who gave him a stern look and escorted the rogue out of the Keep.

The Dancing Fire

The message is delivered, and the party celebrates with the Vistani

The party made their way out of town to where the mysterious strangers had set up camp. Their arrival was as described in the adventure; I improvised a little flair to the descriptions to enhance the immersion.

The party delivers the message, which is received as intended with Stanimir laughing and telling the party not to worry, they will be gone by morning. He invites them to sit and listen to his tale first. The party agrees and sits by the fire.

I decided that in order to sell the teleportation spell better Stanimir would be gesturing and tossing components into the fire while he spoke, giving the party a visual to refer back to if they questioned how it happened. This is what I wrote for Stanimir’s part:

Stanimir fills his mouth with wine. He stands and spits into the fire. The flames instantly shift from orange to a ghostly green, dancing and swaying as if possessed. A dark shape begins to form in the bonfire’s core. He sits again and passes the wineskin to his left, his eyes glinting in the firelight.

“We come from an ancient land whose name is long forgotten – a land of kings. Our enemies forced us from our homes, and now we wander the lost roads.”

As he speaks, Stanimir gestures subtly with his hands, weaving an intricate pattern in the air. A small handful of shimmering dust slips from his fingers, causing the fire to flare and reveal the dark shape of a man being knocked from his horse, a spear piercing his side. He resumes his tale, his voice low and resonant.

“One night, a wounded soldier staggered into our camp and collapsed. We nursed his terrible injury and quenched his thirst with wine. He survived. When we asked him who he was, he would not say. His only request was that he be allowed to return to his home, but we were deep in the land of his enemies. We took him as one of our own and followed him back toward his homeland. His enemies hunted him. They said he was a prince, yet we did not betray him, even when their assassins fell upon us like wolves.”

Another subtle flick of his wrist, and pinch of silvery powder tossed into the fire. The flames shift, and within them, the dark figure stands with sword drawn, fending off a host of shadowy shapes.

“This man of royal blood fought to protect us, as we protected him. We bore him safely to his home, and he thanked us. He said, ‘I owe you, my life. Stay as long as you wish, leave when you choose, and know that you will always be safe here.’”

[Have the party make a group constitution save DC 20]

Stanimir’s fingers move gracefully for a man of his age. The movement almost imperceptible. A tiny vial of red liquid tossed into the fire. The flames surge, and the figure in the fire vanquishes its final foe before dispersing in a cloud of smoke and embers. His expression turns somber, his voice heavy with sorrow.

 “A curse has befallen our noble prince, turning him into a tyrant. We alone have the power to leave his domain. We have traveled far and wide to find heroes such as yourselves to end our dread lord’s curse and put his troubled soul to rest. Our leader, Madam Eva, knows all. Will you return to Barovia with us and speak with her?”

I added the constitution check in the middle of the speech thinking that it would add to the illusion of trying to resist the enchantment that will transport them to Barovia even though, as a group check, it would be very difficult to meet the DC.

After Stanimir’s story, the party accepted his invitation to stay the night, with one twist though. Maple decided that he wanted to return to the Keep and let Lady Morwen know they had succeeded in their task and that they would be spending the night camped with the visitors, but they would leave in the morning.

When I told him it was late and asked how he intended to get there in a reasonable amount of time, Maple immediately decided to use his wild shape to turn into a horse. Keylith, without missing a beat, decided that he was going to ride Maple to the Keep. I had Keylith roll animal handling to see how that would play out – natural 1, hilarity ensued. Eventually they made it to the Keep only to be stopped by a guard at the gates refusing to let them in at such an ungodly late hour and disturb the Dutchess. A mediocre persuasion check got the guard to promise to deliver the message.

Satisfied, they set off again and headed back to the camp. Another animal handling roll – another natural 1. The pair arrived back at the camp with Keylith tangled in the horse’s tack, dangling to one side. More hilarity.

Meanwhile, Kiril and Maple had decided to check the wagons, looking for loot (or souvenirs?) before heading back home in the morning. The dice gods did not like these newbies (or did they?) this night. More low rolls and this pair is clanking about the camp drawing all sorts of attention to themselves. Eventually they were escorted back to the campfire by one of Stanimir’s children.

Time for a Rest

After the return of Maple and Keylith, the party decided to bed down for the night near the campfire. We’d played for a good three hours and didn’t realize it. Time to call it a night.

Next week

Sounds like we will regain our sick player and add a sixth. One of my son’s friends got jealous when he heard that we were playing and totally invited himself to play, going as far as confirming it with his parents before we were even done with the session!

Time for a new hook for these players. Originally, I thought I’d use a variation of the Plea for Help hook for them but decided to use two quick railroads for each of them. For the one who invited himself, I’m going to have them walk out of whatever tavern they’re in, have someone jump them and black bag them and then leave them hanging while I intro the other player who is going to get caught in Stanimir’s teleportation spell accidentally while on a herbs and reagents gathering mission for her master.