Campaign:Strahd Squad

Strahd Squad is a 5e Curse of Strahd game that has been tweaked with homebrew elements. Taking place in the never-ending nightmare world of Barovia the PCs are tasked with breaking the curse that has befallen this once beautiful valley. The game is currently on hiatus.

Prologue
Each PC had a short focus of how and why they entered Barovia. Honey has been hunting for a cure for lycanthropy and is focused on a long held family belief that bees or honey could be the key. After finding a new genus of bee in a chunk of amber at a curio shop he sought Barovia to find out more.

Phaedra’s first time on a job for her assassins guild was to simply drive off a loitering group of Vistani, but then got roped in to their travels to Barovia after being told that their master was struck with a curse and asked Phaedra to help. The man, Stanimir, also suggests she speak to Madam Eva, once they enter Barovia, as she would have more information.

Magnolia had only recently left his ailing mother to seek out his sibling that hadn't been home in some time after leaving for a job. Along the way he meets a fellow bloodhunter, Lif, who convinces him to do reconnaissance on a job involving a town plagued by kidnapping werewolves. He ends up involving himself further when he follows them back to the woods they appeared from and ends up lost in fog before finding a road.

Lowry has left Hell for the first time, seeking to make an impressive name for himself, mainly by way of taking out the toughest, scariest person that could be harming the local town. Instead he finds a beggar in the slums named Ravi who explains his master being in desperate need of aid and asks Lowry to go to Barovia to do what he can to help.

They all enter an inn called The Last Hurrah in their own time and learn from the sole worker, Pellam, that they are not trapped by the Mists and that the only way through it to continue on to Barovia. He strongly suggests that the group first find and speak to Madam Eva, that she will be able to provide more information. After spending the night at the Inn the group decide to leave on foot. The Mists seem to play tricks on them, hinting at dark shapes near and far and never close enough to touch.

Death House
The first truly solid thing they encounter is a stately home, outside of which are two children who introduce themselves as Rosevalda and Thornbolt. They kids plead the groups help in saving their parents and infant brother Walter from the monster inside the house.

The home seems perfectly normal at first but the further they investigate the more sinister the home feels. Food that looks perfectly cooked turns rotten in Lowrys mouth, the smell of blood and sound of a woman panting from a servants room that holds neither, a ballroom full of dancing ghosts. After breaking a window they learn from Thornbolt, who has remained outside with his sister, that he last saw his mother heading downstairs with the baby Walter. Magnolia asks the group to consider if the children they met outside are dead.

They find a Scottie dog named Lancelot, animated suits of armor, and the body of the father still holding a note of warning meant for his children about their mother. And then, in the attic, they find two small skeletons that revealed the true ghosts of Rose and Thorn who showed them how to open the secret basement access and asked Lowry to put their souls at rest. The group was able to do so upon finding the crypts for the family in the basement. They then had a harrowing fight with the ghost of the mother, most of which consisted of grappling Phaedra while she was possessed.

They found a shrine to Strahd in the basement, and in a reliquary room Magnolia took a dagger with a rat skull pommel, and Lowry grabbed a silver dragons scale. They then found the epicenter of the home, a raised dais surrounded by tepid murky water. Lowry triggered the shades of cultists to appear and begin to chant, demanding a sacrifice. Stepping off of the dais then triggered a flesh mound to appear. After defeating it and finding that the dead body of Walter was inside the house begins to collapse in on itself. The group have to rush through the entire home in hopes of escape, along the way they give Walter to the ghost of his actual mother, one of the servants, in order to set them both free. In a desperate attempt to survive the party leaps off the top balcony and manages to walk away, however the ordeal seems to have affected Honey more than the others, as he now must deal with anterograde amnesia.

The Cursed Siblings
The road continued on and led to an ornate gate that opened upon their approach and locked behind them after they entered; beyond the gate they found a corpse carrying a notice of warning from someone known as the Burgomaster of Barovia, Kolyan, that had been intended to prevent people from entering Barovia. The party then entered the Village of Barovia, a small hamlet situated under a cliff that held a grand castle. The streets of the village were almost entirely empty and many of the homes were obviously abandoned. They heard a woman in the distance wailing in sorrow. The only person that seemed to be lingering on the streets was an old woman going door to door selling pies. After introducing themselves to her she offered them some pie as a welcoming gift, telling them it will give them good dreams. She points them in the direction of the local tavern for lodging and continues on her way.

They nearly instigate a fight with the three Vistani women who own the place and are only saved from it by a man who is able to calm the women and introduces himself as Ismark Kolyanovich, son of the late Burgomaster. The party informs him of the note and corpse they found on the way in and he explains that his father asked that of Danik, the dead man, shortly before tragedy befell the family. Ismark invites the group to his home to discuss this further, offering free room and board for hearing out a request he has of them.

The home is stately aside from the boarded windows covered in marks obviously left from a heavy and recent attack. Inside they meet Ireena, Ismarks sister, a very welcoming young woman. As they move through the home they notice a roughly made coffin resting on a coffee table in a side room. Seated in the dining room the siblings explain that Ireena had been preyed upon by a vampire, Ismark and Kolyan had barricaded their home and Ireena had not been allowed out in an effort to prevent it from occurring again, however this seemed to anger the creature as every night since the home had been under siege from more of them. The stress of it ultimately was the end of Kolyan, who died two days ago. The siblings ask the party for help carrying the coffin to the church for burial and to then accompany them to the more protected city of Vallaki.

Ireena notes that the dog, Lancelot, is her friend Gertruda’s pet. She suggests leaving him with Mary, Gertruda’s mother who has been inconsolable since Gertruda’s disappearance. Upon investigating Mary they learn that she had been keeping her daughter locked in their home for her entire life - so scared that something horrible might happen to her otherwise.

They help transport the coffin to the church and find out that the priest, Donovich, has boarded it up from the inside in an attempt to protect the town from his son, Doru, who returned five years after joining a mob that stormed the castle, lead by a mage that came to Barovia. Doru, along with the rest of the mob, had been thought dead, but he alone returned - changed now into a vampire.

The party is able to convince Donovich to preside over the burial of Kolyan despite his distraction over his son. After the burial he suggests taking Ireena further than Vallaki and instead to Krezk, the most protected stronghold in the valley - noting that it holds the Abbey of Saint Markovia.

The party rode with Ismark and Ireena to Vallaki, convincing them to stop at the Vistani encampment outside of the village first.

The Reading
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