Session 22

At the end of last session, Anakir realized the house seemed pretty quiet and empty
- The group settled in for a short break upstairs
- We'll start in the dining room this time

You all are in a room with a large rectangular table with eight chairs, and it seems that the cabinets are full of food and wine, a luxury you haven't had in some time. As you settle in for your short rest, what do you?

Work in the winery logs. Someone is messing around in the attached bedroom

Play out the upstairs

Find and interact with Blinsky in the secret room The Wizard of Wines (W) > W14. Wine Cellar

• Upon drinking blood, you get the benefits of a short rest
  • including, if you choose to spend just a few minutes in the room, getting more familiar with the staff you found last game

Gulthias Staff

• after inspecting this staff further, you come to realize what it can do
  • it seems that this staff is what is controlling the blights around the winery
  • it also seems, based on your magical knowledge, that this staff uses charges to create these blights
• as you hold the staff in your hand, inspecting it, you notice that tiny black roots have grown from it and have crawled beneath your skin. It seems that it is currently drinking your blood
• at this point, you have become attuned to it
• and through those roots, it's as if the staff communicates to you
• and you also learn that if the staff is destroyed, all the blights created by it will be instantly destroyed

When leaving the secret room:

• One Druid Assailant Statblock, and all five Vine Blight Statblock
• They druid casts thrunderwave and breaks the bottles, alerting the others

After the blights have been taken care of, Adrian invites the group to stay the night in their house

Davian warms up a bit to the party

• maybe asks for their help making amends with Urwin

the kids should be running around having a good time

talk to Bardolf about the rock eaters

offer them some of the wine that the party already saw get poisoned

Adrian (or maybe Davian) tells the group that not all the Forest Folk used to be bad:

• most of them have always been loyal to Strahd
• actually, the Krezkovs (The Martikovs ancestors) used to be loyal to Strahd before his transformation and before the land was pulled from the rest of the world
  • Strahd gifted them this winery for their loyalty
• A rebellious sect of Forest Folk begged for shelter against Strahd's servants and The Krezkovs accepted entering into a year-long guerrilla war that allowed these Forest Folk to evade Strahd's eye
• The good Forest Folk were eventually found and destroyed, but in their last breath of defiance, offered The Krezkovs the gift of Lycanthropy
  • also hatching, the ritual by which to become a wereraven without losing their minds to animal instincts
• When Strahd accepted the curse of vampirism, The Krezkovs were alarmed at the shroud of darkness that fell over their new home
  • They joined together, recruiting extended family, creating The Keepers of the Feather to protect Barovians
  • After many years, The Martikovs married into the family

Adrian asks them to check out what's going on in Yester Hill and to retrieve the gem

• so that their vineyard doesn't die
• with the staff (not if it was destroyed), the Mud Eaters should be easy to take

They can explore, see the fog, climb the mountain

at the right time (maybe after they've seen the Strahd statue), the bois start coming out of the rock towers and doing the ritual

Clear the house

attune to the staff

kill all the blights

hang out the night with the Martikovs

go to Yester Hill

go to Berez