Episode 1 · Session I
The Death House
Five strangers follow five heirlooms up a staircase that shouldn't exist, and the house at the top shuts its door behind them.
Five strangers on five small errands walk into the same cold mist, and five family keepsakes drag them to the foot of a staircase that has no business being there. At the top, a tall, narrow house opens its door by itself.
Inside, the fire dies, a verse runs red down the wall, and the clock starts counting down to midnight. The silver crumbles and the wine has turned, and yet the house keeps handing us weapons. Somewhere upstairs a starving dog is hiding, and in a secret room a letter says the word Barovia for the first time.
The recap
Session 1 in about 2 minutes. The full record is in the field notes.
It began on a warm summer evening, with five strangers on five small errands. Fëanor had been sent across Waterdeep to find a blacksmith for the family horses. Sirius was on his way to his favourite wine bar. Lily was off to mend boots in Daggerford, Sir Osric was taking a message to the smith in Goldenfields, and in the village of Julkem, Drew was going to fix an old lady's clock.
Then a cold mist rolled in, and our keepsakes came alive. Fëanor's star-stone rolled away from him, Sirius's raven feather floated off down an empty street, Osric's banner streamed out of his pack, Lily's wolf's tooth pulled like a magnet, and Drew's amber pendant held its course while her compass forgot north. Each of us followed our heirloom to the foot of a staircase that had no business being there.
We met at the bottom. When Sirius and Fëanor walked back into the mist hand in hand, they wandered for hours and came out to find the rest of us had waited a few seconds. Drew made everyone swear they hadn't brought the others here to kill or kidnap them.
So we went up, to a tall, narrow house. The moment the last of us was inside, the door slammed, the fire died, candles lit themselves, and a verse ran red down the wall:
Beneath this dwelling lurks a beast / Who hungers for a bloody feast. / He sleeps until the midnight chime / Then wakes to feed his dark design. / If morsels seek to flee their doom, / Then bring toward his secret room / A gift to soothe his savage mood / But mind the servants of his brood.
The clock struck six. Sirius strapped on the shield from the hall, a golden windmill on red: "I have finely honed evil sensors. This feels evil to me."
The house lied to us and armed us at the same time. Silver tarnished to dust in our hands and the wine was vinegar, as Sirius found out by drinking it, but we also found a longsword, crossbows, sixty bolts (ten of them silvered), warm cloaks, and armour we could hammer into something useful. The plaque on the family portrait named Gustav and Elisabeth Durst and their two children, Thornboldt and Rosavalda. The painting showed three. The third was a swaddled baby, and the mother was looking at it with open scorn.
Under a harpsichord we found a starving hound with Lancelot on his collar. Lily spoke with him. He had been trapped for days in a world gone grey and scentless, and had seen a big figure he could see straight through. "I'll come with you. I stick with you." Osric swore to protect him with his life.
In the study, a book called The Opening of this Door swung a bookcase aside. Behind it lay fake tomes of a cult called the Priests of Osybus, a dead thief slumped over a trapped chest, a smaller chest inside it, and a letter. It was addressed to "my most pathetic servant", mocked her for a husband who had "sired a bastard son", and was signed by Strahd von Zarovich, Lord of Castle Ravenloft, Count of Barovia. "Nobody who describes themselves as your dread lord," said Lily, "is going to be a stand-up guy."
We stopped there, in the secret room with the letter, about five hours before midnight.