Who: Daughter of the late burgomaster of Barovia; Ismark’s sister.
Where: Inside Wachterhaus — as a guest, invited by Ernst while we fought the fire. So are we, uninvited. We don’t know which door she’s behind.
Status: Alive, unbitten — and lodged, knowing nothing, in the house of the person we publicly accused of everything. This is our fault and the record should say so.
First met: Session 4, in the burgomaster’s house.
What we know
- Strahd wants her. He came courting; her father refused; Strahd came back every night until the stress killed the old man. That is the whole reason she must reach Vallaki — high walls, and a church where, it’s said, the devil cannot set foot.
- She is striking, sharp, and full of life — which in Barovia is a curse: brightness draws Strahd’s eye, and her red hair is reckoned bad luck on top of it.
- She has seen Strahd’s charm before, on her own father — she was the only one who kept her head the night he visited us, and the one who sent us all to bed.
- She had barely left her house before this journey, never mind the village. She listened, rapt, while Drew explained every tattoo on her arms.
- Her tea is dreadful. We were polite.
- Her brother Ismark tested us before trusting us with her — see his page. She is the one who dragged that confession out of him.
New since the reading (Session 6)
- She slept easy among the Vistani — the “they’re all Strahd’s spies” story died a quiet death at Tser Pool.
- On the road she is the sensible one: it was Ireena who insisted we find shelter before dark. (The shelter turned out to be a hags’ windmill. Not her fault.)
- When the fighting started she did exactly the right thing: got clear, and started screaming at us to do the same.
New since Vallaki (Session 7)
- The letter. A dire wolf delivered roses and Strahd’s handwriting, addressed to her — “my love,” “your destined future lover,” and the promise that his name spoken thrice brings him to her side (Handouts). She heard it read, filed it under the ick, and when the party immediately began designing summon-traps, made the one reasonable request in the room: get me to safety first, then discuss using me as bait.
- The angel. At the farmstead she saw Sirius’s black wings unfurl — and dropped to her knees on the spot: “an angel of the Morninglord walks with us. We cannot fail.” He knelt and prayed with her rather than correct her. She now believes the party is heaven-sent. We are variously charmed and deeply uneasy about this.
- Named at the gate. She entered Vallaki openly as the Burgomaster’s sister — condolences from the guards, welcome by rank. Half the gate-watch now knows a red-haired noblewoman is in town. File under: things that felt fine at the time.
- The church. She sat in St. Andral’s pews and glowed: “I’m so glad I’m finally safe.” One night at the inn was all we could negotiate; she means to sleep at the church from tomorrow. She does not know what we know (St. Andral’s Church). That conversation is coming, and nobody wants to open it.
The song (Session 9)
We came back from a dinner party to a taproom gone completely silent: Ireena on stage, singing with the band — the first time in her life with actual accompaniment, her brother never having allowed it. She was flushed, delighted, and pitch-perfect.
The song is the thing. She dreamed it — “I’ve had it in my head forever.” Two walked together, one wore the morning golden and one wore the night blue; the dark one went begging to a whisper in the stone and came back with a hunger of its own; he drank his brother’s wine; he hung his cloak across the sun and nailed it to the sky, and the valley has had no summer since. And then a second voice: a widow, a girl beneath the lake, hunted through harvest and snow by “a raven on the shoulder of the shadow of a man” — and the refrain none of us have stopped hearing:
“They’ll snip it, and they’ll spin it, and I’ll wake another girl.”
She sang that, jumped off the stage, and asked if we’d had a nice day. She doesn’t know where the song came from. We are afraid we do.
Also pending: Lady Wachter’s standing invitation for her to lodge under Wachter protection — which we have not yet passed on, for reasons involving a raven (see The House of Wachter).
The barmaid (Session 11)
With the Martikov family away west, Ireena has taken up waiting tables at the Blue Water. She has got a job. She is quite enjoying pitching in. We have elected not to examine our feelings about the doom-magnet of Barovia cheerfully carrying soup — and we note that she poured Izek’s ale on the morning of his visit, and the sky did not fall.
Two things changed under her feet that same morning, and she does not know either yet: the church she calls sanctuary is a burning shell, and the whole town watched her “angel” hover over a crowd with a burning sword — her private article of faith is now Vallaki’s public event. The conversation nobody wanted to open no longer has a door to hide behind.
The worst news of the day (Session 12)
While we fought the church fire, Ernst came to the Blue Water and invited her to Wachterhaus. She went. Urwin couldn’t stop her — why would she say no? A kind house, opened as a hospital, wanting her capable hands. She knows nothing about the bones, the coffins, the raven, the accusation — because in ten days of knowing everything, we told her none of it. We left the doom-magnet of Barovia waiting tables with no idea who anyone is, and the enemy’s charming survivor walked in and offered her hospitality. The official minutes record the party’s full assessment: “Oh, fuckballs.”
She is somewhere above the hospital beds right now. So are we, uninvited, listing doors. The conversation nobody wanted to open is now scheduled for whichever room she’s in — and Sirius, note, cannot lie to her; she told us so herself.
Why didn’t you tell me before? (Session 13)
We found her behind the moaning door — tending catatonic Stella Wachter, and telling the burglars what a saint the lady of the house is. So Drew, finally — finally — told her everything. The crates. The pentagram. The dead man from the Reformation Center. The letter. We apologized for keeping her out of every loop, and her only question was “Why didn’t you tell me before?”, and we did not have a good answer.
And then Ireena Kolyana, doom-magnet of Barovia, paid us back in full: “The supplies come from a secret room off the library.” She handed us the bones of St. Andral. The truth we were too afraid to give her turned out to be the price of everything we were looking for.
Where is she? (the record’s worst sentence)
In the escape, Drew pulled her into the barricaded room with the haul — and then the record loses her. Nobody can state with confidence where Ireena ended up. We are aware of how that sentence reads in context. It is at the top of the list. Attendance at today’s festival is mandatory for every soul in Vallaki — which means she is probably somewhere in this soaked, furious crowd, and so is everyone else in this file.
Our promise
Escort Ireena safely to Vallaki. ✅ Kept — four days, hags and all, delivered at dusk on the fourth. The promise as written is complete; the promise as meant — that she be safe — now includes finding her, in a town mid-upheaval, after she risked her host’s wrath to help us. See Quests & Threads.