Danika Martikov

Danika asked on our first night at the Blue Water, taking care to say she was not commissioning us: the Martikovs own the winery down south, and the latest shipment was several days late, which is not common. "Our family wine keeps this entire bubble afloat." It has not come since. Urwin has watered the inn's wine to half, then to a tenth, and now serves one meal a week. He sent Danika and the boys down to the winery to see what was wrong. Muriel's partner Falkon went to report to the clan there and never came back: "I reckon there's something afoul in the winery." Roger's band, forty-odd years ago, were warned off it at a dozen miles.

It has a promise on it now too. After their mother died in the square, Karl and Nikolai told us the inn was running dry, and we gave them our word: shut down the Reformation Center, then go to the Wizards of Wine. Danika's route is to stop at Krezk, if they let us in, and turn south from there; about a week's travel. Once the Center is dealt with, that is where we are going.

Who: Landlady of The Blue Water Inn, wife of Urwin Martikov and mother of Brom and Bray. The bar is hers, and so is most of the sense in the building.
Where: Gone west to the family's winery, with the boys.
Status: Alive when she left. We have heard nothing since.
First met: Session 7, behind the bar, the night we reached Vallaki. We talked properly in Session 8.

Behind the bar

"Good evening to you, deary. Can we get you another drink?" She let us the six-bed room at two gold a night, warned us that the guards are touchy, and offered to point us at honest shops. Asked how people live in Vallaki, she was blunt: "We survive. The baron has his festivals you have to attend. We attend. You just smile and wave." And, "Don't get sent to the Reformation Center."

When Sirius asked her, quietly, whether a man of faith ought to be doing something about the government, she said Vallaki's problem was "a surfeit of justice", and that chaos brings its own dangers: "it is bad, but the alternatives may very well be worse." She told us about the lake too, and the lads who walked into it and drowned in front of their friends.

A family matter

Sirius asked whether any good needed doing, and she lowered her voice. "Don't spread this around too much, but if you are going to be traveling… our latest wine shipment hasn't shown up. It's several days late now, and that's not very common. It's our family actually who own the winery down south, the Martikovs." If the wine did not come, they would have to start rationing it. She was careful to add, "We're not commissioning you." Just look in on them, if our road ever went west and south.

The winery is days away, she said, about a week; stop at Krezk on the way if they let us in. Krezk folk are insular, she warned, and might want us to prove ourselves or do them a service first. The Martikov wine gets in regardless: "Our family wine gets everywhere… Our family wine keeps this entire bubble afloat, the bubble of Barovia."

She warmed to Sirius: "you seem like you're trying to bring the lights. So, you're winning points in my book already."

The wince

Sirius mentioned that the old man in the corner had been barred from places for murdering a raven. Danika said, "I think he has been forgiven, but that was bad. Don't do that," and one of us, watching her closely, saw her wince. She was not happy the subject had come up.

~~What exactly are the Martikovs to the ravens of this valley?~~ Answered, Session 10. Her husband showed us. He is a wereraven, his clan holds the winery, and the raven-man Roger's band killed was his Great Uncle Frederick.

Looking back, the signs were there. When a note from the Ravens of Barovia appeared in our locked room, the lady behind the bar had seen no one and reminded us that the staff "do not clean it." When Drew's alarm told us someone had been in our room again and we came back asking who cleans it, Danika looked very squirrelly indeed. Then she was busy, very busy, it was the lunchtime rush, and her husband would be back any minute now. He came, and gave the game away himself.

Gone west

The night of Lady Wachter's canapé party, Urwin told us he had sent his wife and the boys to the winery "given the things we discussed." The wine at the Blue Water went to half water, then to dregs, and by the morning of the festival Urwin could promise us one meal a week. Muriel told us her partner Falkon had flown to the winery with news and never come back, and that she reckons "there's something afoul in the winery."

What we promised

To look in on the winery if our road went that way. It does now: the winery is where we mean to go once Vallaki is settled, and we have promised the Wachter brothers wine from it.