Vallaki, Part 1

You'll recall our heroes reached Vallaki last time. I know I used a Final Fantasy VII analogy before, but now I'll use a Fallout 3 analogy. Leaving Death House is like getting out of the Vault. Reaching Vallaki is like reaching Megaton. There's a ton of new NPCs, side quests, and options available. Most importantly, its a place where investigation and role-playing will serve better than combat.

I did a little more prep work than usual for this session. And the players, being players, did thing I didn't expect.

The guards offered them two choices for initial places to visit: the Blue Water Inn and St. Andral's church. They opted to visit the church first. There they found some townsfolk gathering for the nightly service, along with Father Lucian Petrovich, his altar boy Yeska, and frowning, brawny young man with a shovel. After some introductions, Ismark and Ireena went to the altar to say some prayers. Lucain recognized Lathandar's iconography on Tathora's vestments as a deity close to the Morninglord, the primary deity of Barovia. He confided in her a terrible secret: a relic had been stolen from the church, the bones of St. Andral, for whom the church was named. He suspected the culprit was the angry young man, Milivoj. Tathora agreed to help, and the party convened.

They found Milivoj out in the church's graveyard, doing some last minute weeding. Cugel cast charm person. Milivoj failed his save, and Cugel started asking questions. Milivoj's motivations are somewhat muddled in the adventure as written. He despairs over being powerless to help his family against the evils of the valley, but agreed to steal the relics for the coffer maker for a profit. Still, I tried to sort it out and role-play an angry, mistaken young man.

Among other things, he showed the PCs one of the Baron's proclamations:

Come one, come all,

to the greatest celebration of the year:

THE WOLF'S HEAD JAMBOREE!

Attendance and children required.

Pikes will be provided.

ALL WILL BE WELL!

--The Baron--

After crumpling up the poster, Milivoj sullenly told them that all is not well. He did confide in Lop that the coffin maker Henrik Van Der Voort paid him to steal the bones. He provided directions to the coffin shop, and even offered to accompany his new ghoul-cloaked friend in retrieving the relics to atone for what he'd done. He's only a little better at thing killing than a typical commoner (all 10s for ability scores and +2 proficiency bonus; Milivoj has Str 15 and wields his shovel like a club), but they took him along anyway.

Along the way to the coffin maker's they (sigh!) split the party. Ap and Tathora accompanied Ismark and Ireena to the Blue Water Inn, while Lop, Sarra, Amrus, and Cugel went on to the coffin maker's shop.

Splitting the party is, indeed, often unwise. Especially since most parties are heavy on strikers and short on healers and tanks, essential to combat survival. Granted, 5th edition brings back some of the rocket tag aspects of combat lost in 4th edition, but once strikers start falling, without a tank or a healer it starts a rapid domino effect. However, having watched DMs deal with split parties and having had to deal with split parties myself, I also know that DMs kill split parties out of spite. Contrary to popular opinion, a DM is not a WoW server, and can only see to so many things at once. So I told the people going to the inn that they would have to wait while I dealt with the coffin maker party. Fortunately Joseph and Kyla were able to sit relatively quietly and watch their fellow players' half of the story. I did make a pithy reference to the multi-party dungeons from Final Fantasy 6, and we moved on.

They arrived at the coffin maker's shop to find it closed for the evening (this is still part of the same day they spent travelling to Vallaki, remember). The owner angrily shooed them off, even after they had Milivoj try talking to him. So Amrus broke out the thieves' tools and picked the lock. Henrik proved to be a cowardly creature, surrendering right away and spilling the beans about where the bones were hidden: upstairs in the wardrobe. He also warned them about the vampire spawn hiding in the storage room. Our ever intrepid heroes sent Amrus upstairs by himself to retrieve the relics. Amrus went up to Henrik's meager apartment over the shop, found the wardrobe, and relieved it of the hidden bones and some of Henrik's savings. He did explore the vampire infested storage room, exploring two crates marked junk closest to the door. He found some junk, and re-joined the party. He taunted the coffin maker about bluffing about the vampires, and the PCs departed.

We switched back to the Inn. Blake, being a less experienced player, had some trouble understanding that his character wasn't there and kept trying to participate. Fortunately, Alec helped out with this.

They found a crowded tap room with commoners crowded around listening to a half-elf tell tales of life as a circus master. Ireena and Ismark went to secure room and board while Tathora and Ap listened to the circus master's tale of an ill-tempered "oliphant" that liked to stick people into its mouth (yes, I watched The Simpsons when I was younger), and how they had to butcher it for meat. And because I am at heart a terrible person, Rictavio regaled the party with the wonders of ivory and showed them some dice made from the elephant's ivory. I wanted to make sure Rictavio left an impression; he's an important character in the story line (I won't say more for fear of spoiling it for my players following this blog). He asked the PCs to share a tale. Ap told a story and Tathora told a joke. Rictavio recognized them as "not being from around here," and asked Ap and Tathora about their homes in Faerun. They told him a little about the Sword Coast and Waterdeep. I think I might need to loan Joseph and Kyla a sourcebook or two to round out their Realmslore.

The other party members returned the bones to the church off-stage and rejoined their companions at this point. It was dusk, and Rictavio took a wolf steak and a couple of apples from the kitchen for his friend the toy maker. The party retired to their rooms for the evening. Their rest was interrupted by one of those vampire spawn that Amrus was so sure didn't exist. As a DM, I'm a firm believer in making sure that PC actions have later consequences. Fortunately, the Inn was homey enough to count as a ban for vampires getting in without an invitation, so I didn't have to run a battle. But it did scare the bejesus out of them; job done!

The next day, the PCs found Rictavio retrieving more food from the kitchen. Feeling a little suspicious at this point, the PCs had Amrus try to shadow him. Unfortunately, he failed his stealth roll. Rictavio confronted him in a side alley, revealing that his cane was a sword cane (because honestly, he should be that awesome). Rictavio warned Amrus not to make an enemy. Again, I'm hoping Rictavio is leaving a strong impression.

Lop and Cugel both have the incredibly useful identify spell, but lack the material component: a 100gp pearl. Barovia being a bottle, with the only people with the power to leave being the Vistani, the NPCs suggested the party visit them at a camp southwest of town. They journeyed there and found one of the Vistana leaders, a brute named Luvash, lashing another Vistana, Alexei, with Luvash's brother, Arrigal, tries to get him to ease up. The PCs learned that the inebriated Luvash blamed Alexei for losing track of his daughter, Arabelle. The PCs, being mostly good, offered to help find the girl. Luvash agreed to get them a pearl in exchange. Since the other Vistani were drunk when Arabelle went missing, they suggested talking to the dusk elves living nearby.

They met a dusk elf living in a hovel built into the base of the hill the Vistani had camped on. The middle aged male elf suggested they visit Kasimir Velikov, their leader. They met more middle-aged male elves guarding his hovel. They allowed the party in to speak with Kasimir, and they all gave quite a bit of deference to Sarra. At this point Joseph realized that all the elves were male. Kasimir asked them their opinion of Strahd. When they responded that they weren't fans, he hinted that he knew a secret that might help them defeat the vampire lord, and he would tell them once they were more powerful. He let them know that his scouts last saw Luvash's daughter headed north, toward Lake Zarovich.

They tracked the girl to the lake. They found a lone fisherman and a couple of boats on the shore. The boats were five person, but their were six people in the party. After the fisherman proved unresponsive, they waffled between taking two boats or casting enlarge on one boat. The decision was made after they checked duration on enlarge: 1 minute. They rowed out towards the fisherman, who dropped a squirming burlap sack into the lake. Sarra dived in and pulled the bag into their boat, finding it contained a 7-year old Vistani girl, Arabelle. She thanked them. Then Sarra jumped into the fisherman, Bluto Krogarov's boat. She quickly knocked him out, something easy in this edition since when you reduce a foe to 0 hp or less, you can opt to knock them unconscious and stable rather than killing them. I explained this fact to the players, and they captured and interrogated Bluto. The man wanted to try and catch fish to trade for wine, but the lake's fish aren't biting. He intended to sacrifice Arabelle to the lake because the Vistani are "lucky."

The Vistani had also hinted at the recent wine shortage. The PCs seemed to pick up on a theme of alcohol abuse. Not sure how it emerged; unlike Stephen King I've never been an alcoholic. Still, after the now hung over Luvash gave them their pearl, he suggested he talk to the Martikovs about the wine shortage.

They returned to town and spoke to Urwin, who mentioned that the recent wine shipment has been late, and wants the PCs to investigate. However, since it was late in the day, he suggested they wait until after the Festival of Blazing Sun tomorrow.

Lop had one more itch to scratch: finding a history book on Barovia. He was told that only the Burgomaster and the Wachter family are wealthy enough to afford libraries. Rictavio told him about Nikolai and Karl, Lady Fiona Wachter's sons. They're fascinated with the half-elf's tales and would like to know more about the PCs adventures. Ap, having the highest Charisma in the party, told them the story of their adventure in the house with a little bit of spell casting help from Lop. It impressed the Wachter brothers, that they agreed to introduce Lop to their mother at the festival.

The players are a bit frightened. Considering that the adventure is Gothic horror, this is good. I mentioned before the players took their own path. I had dropped a hint for them to meet the toy maker while Rictavio was watching Ireena, but they ignored that to hunt for their pearl. I've also told PCs that the Festival of the Wolf's Head was last week, and the Festival of the Blazing Sun is coming up, and that the town has been enduring weekly festivals for years. I think I'll need to drive this home when they attend the festival next time. The thing that should scare them isn't what will happen to the PCs, but rather the decisions they'll have to make.

I've also begun looking ahead. The festival and the events around will give them a milestone. They're set up to handle the Wizard of Wines next, most likely followed by Krezk. Those two should be another milestone. I much prefer it to counting Xps to make sure they have enough to be an appropriate level for the encounters ahead.