Session 6 field notes

The night our fates were laid out on black velvet, a morning of bacon and bad behaviour, and the windmill we should not have poked our noses into. The full reading, card by card, is on The Reading. We stopped mid-fight.

Madam Eva

The big man from the great tent showed us in: candles, black velvet on every surface, a crystal ball on a gold stand, and two decks of cards, a tall "common" deck and a smaller "high" one. The old woman behind the table already knew our names. "It took you all long enough. Are you ready to learn your fate?" ("No," said somebody. "No, I haven't had the drink yet," said Sirius.)

"You are here for a reason. It is no mere happenstance that you're brought into Barovia." Our heirlooms led us here, and she knows about them: "I know many things. I cannot say all. The cards will tell. I will not."
Sirius asked the big man whether this could be done over wine. It could. "You're my new best friend."
"You may want to take notes. And I'm talking to you, those who watch from orthogonal angles." Then: "Ignore the prattlings of an old woman. I do not know what I say."
Fëanor asked whether a reading would go against his faith. "That is for you to answer. How strong is your faith, really?" Did he have to cross her palm with silver? No, the reading is given freely. "Then it can't be devilry."
Sirius, who hadn't been paying attention, reached for the wrong deck. She slapped his hand ("You will disrupt the fates") and called him an imbecile, twice. When he objected, she told him an old woman is given many affordances, and that if he refused the reading, we would fail. Guaranteed. "I will stomach my pride for the sake of my friends," said Sirius. Fëanor later asked to draw from the wrong deck on purpose, and got his own "imbecile".

The five fates

We drew these ourselves: the first three from the common deck, the last two from the high deck.

Knowledge of our enemy. Lily drew the Healer. "Look to the west, far to the west. Marvel at high water aglow with the light of the sun, hidden behind the walls of man."
Protection. Osric drew the Paladin. "I see the house of a dragon, and a heart once pure, corrupted by hatred. Bring light to the house and peace to the heart, and you'll have your protection from the devil on high."
Power. Sirius drew the Avenger. "I see the shrine of murdered gods. Help the land find its peace, and it shall reward you with the power you seek. Start in an amber palace of darkness."
An ally. Fëanor drew the Executioner, a guillotine on its face. "Look for a mighty predator, a hunter of hunters. He stalks this land in hope of slaying the mightiest prey of all. Perhaps you and he share an adversary."
The devil. Drew drew the Broken One. "When it is time to face your fate in the eyes of your deadliest foe, pursue him into the depths of darkness. You will find the devil in the tomb of the only man he ever envied."

Our own threads

Then each of us could ask for a personal reading, and each of us drew our own: the present from the common deck, the future from the high deck. There is no past card. As Eva told Lily, "Your past should be known to you."

Osric, who once had his fortune told at a fair: the Dictator, then the Tempter. "Ah, you carry an old conquest at your back. Your blood marched beneath that banner." And: "Temptation is contemptuous of weakness. You carry your banner to the house of the fallen dragon where the shadows do the cruellest work. Cast off temptation. Kneel and answer for your blood, and win an honour that is yours alone." His answer: "All right. I will." Note that a house of a dragon turned up in our Protection card too.
Fëanor: the Wizard, then the Mists. "You channel the power of a god you scarce believe in." ("I just told you that.") "The stone in your pocket remembers a fire you have never felt." ("Who told you?") And: "The sun only hides in this land behind the mists. In water it glows still. Stand there at dawn and choose."
Lily: the Charlatan, then the Beast. "Something sweet has taken root in you, little one. Starve it. It is not yours." And: "The tooth you carry mends what otherwise cannot be healed. Far to the west there is a den of beasts. One who howls there will need it."
Drew: the Necromancer, then the Raven. "Oh. A secret sealed in amber stone. Your blood has carried the question for generations." And: "The Raven, the messenger. It purveys the message sealed in amber deep in the mountains. But mark me, child, knowledge there is bought, and bought dearly." The table's verdict on the Raven: so on point, it follows you in all dimensions. Drew: "Thank you for your insight."
Sirius: "Even if you wanted a reading, I could not give you one. Your fate has already been read." She handed him a card anyway. He sat holding it up and staring, and didn't answer us. Drew looked over his shoulder: the card was blank.

Her farewell: "Your threads have now been woven and drawn taut. They pull you to the future. I have read what may be, not what must be. You could still fail. But with this knowledge, you have a chance." Then: "Now, this has exhausted me. Please leave this tent." Will we see her again? "Signs point to yes."

The lady of ravens

Outside the tent, once we'd pieced the rest together, Sirius told us what he sees on his blank card.

"I saw a lady of ravens on my card, who is tied into my present and past, and I think is part of a secret towards addressing the land. And she told me that what was stolen is not fully owned, and the land can be reclaimed, which has only added steel to my resolve. And I think her ravens are our friends."

Did he know her? "No, but she seems familiar." Then he made the connection himself: his grandfather's raven feather, always a good-luck token in his family. "I think there is some possibility that those two things are related." Someone called it an astute observation. "It happens every so often, usually after a glass or two of wine." He'd only had one. "I know. That was strange."

Later, by the fire, he put it another way: Strahd has stolen things, the soil, the mist, the power, and they are not fully his.

A night among the Vistani

It was the safest night we've had since the mist took us: fires, fiddles and a proper watch. What we learned over the wine:

The agreement. There is an old agreement between Strahd and the Vistani, "an accident of ancient history". He grants them passage and leaves them alone, and his fiends leave them alone. They come and go, trade and party. They don't condone his proclivities, but he does them no wrong, so they leave him be. One of us read the man closely: he was open, happy and honest, and quite uncaring about the Barovians.
Barovians are, in the Vistani's words, "property of Strahd". Somebody objected that people can't be anyone's property, with a very determined little frown. "That's his philosophy."
Mist walkers is their word for "people like you, who have come in with powers and ambition and wanting to change the status quo".
Don't try to leave in a Vistani wagon. They tried taking a passenger out once. They came out the other side without the person in the back and never learned what happened. Then a wolf brought them a note in its mouth: "Naughty, naughty. Don't try that again."
Elsewhere. There are other lands like this, which they call the Domains of Dread. They can also travel to the Coast of Faerûn. Waterdeep is very nice at certain times of year.
Whom did Strahd envy? They have no idea. He's been "pretty much exactly the same for, as far as we can tell, about 700 years", and the Vistani are an oral people. Our conclusion: look for a book.
Nobody has seen the mists glow.
Barovia has seasons, but no sun. It gets warmer; it never gets sunny. It's autumn now and getting colder.

In the morning there was bacon: real bacon and real spices from outside Barovia. Sirius told them they were by far his favourite people in this land. They told us, kindly, to keep moving: "You are not Vistani."

The pie problem, third morning

Before the bacon, Osric caught Lily rustling in his pack like a raccoon. The grapple that followed started with a natural 1 on each side and got less dignified from there. Lily won, ran off with the pie and ate half of it. Osric won the rematch and took the rest back. For Lily, the DM said, getting that pie had become more important than breathing. Her dreams that night were "full of light and happier than life".

The intervention. Osric: "Then ask for the pie. You don't just go rummaging around in someone's pack." One of us told her she didn't seem the sort to steal people's pies. Lily, a rogue: "I, with the greatest of respect, I am not sure that's true." Someone asked if nobody was going to link this to what the fortune teller said. Osric: "It is 8:00 in the morning. I'm not thinking too hard about prophecy at this point. You've nicked something."
Offered a pie to keep if she'd promise not to eat it, Lily gave the most honest answer any of us has heard: "I don't want you to be kind to me, and me to tell you a lie in response."
Fëanor ran detect magic as a ritual over breakfast. The pies have strong enchantment magic woven through them, magenta. There is a fainter web of the same magenta magic around Lily's head. (Madam Eva's tent, for the record, blazes with magic, like a cuttlefish trying to disguise itself.) He can see it, but he can't lift it.
Fëanor says he's immune: he's eaten half a pie and feels fine. Someone suggested his failing faith was protecting him. "It's quite judgey, but okay."
On the road we argued about getting rid of the pies. Lily thought we should keep some, just in case, which is, as someone pointed out, exactly what someone addicted to pie would say. We kept them.

The DM's word to Lily, for the record: the craving holds until she manages to resist it.

Level 4

On the road that morning the DM told us we were all Level 4. "The fates weave around you, and you see the land notices you more. You are stronger." Lily took Skill Expert. Sirius grew stronger and more persuasive. Osric, we think, took Observant.

Sirius spent the day on raven watch. "Is that a raven? No, I think it might be a swallow or a starling. No, no, that's a pine cone. My mistake."

Aragal

Several hours on, hoofbeats: a Vistana rider, heading home in a hurry. We introduced ourselves: "We are Mistwalkers." "Ah, Mistwalkers." He is Aragal, "somewhat influential" in the Vistani camp outside Vallaki. The camps are semi-permanent, Eva's at Tser Pool and his near Vallaki, and they mix.

The road: wolves, and "will-o'-wispies" that glow and scream for help. Travel fast, kill any wolves you see.
Vallaki doesn't admit Vistani. It has very stringent rules. It trades with their camp, but won't take their people. It calls them allies of Strahd, which they aren't, and it is paranoid of Strahd, "understandably so". His verdict on the town: "They are a paranoid and distasteful people." On Strahd: "simply a being who does what he does".
The commission. There's a toy shop in Vallaki, Blinsky's. His daughter Araba would love a Blinsky original. He'll pay us 20 gold on top of the cost if we bring one to his camp. "He's a mere toymaker. A very good toymaker, but a mere toymaker." One of us read him: he dotes on his daughter like crazy. Another of us audited his legs: sturdy, well-travelled boots, beefy calves, terrible knees.
He trades in pelts and skins, which is worth remembering with a wolf pelt in our packs.
A hunter of hunters? "I don't think so. That seems a very grand title to give oneself."

"We shall meet anon, but I must away now." We spent some time on what "anon" means.

The windmill

Toward dusk, with Ireena sensibly wanting somewhere safer than the open road, we came on a windmill on a rise in a woodland clearing. It leans forward and to one side, as if trying to turn away from the grey sky. It has an onion dome, tattered sails, grey brick and grimy upper windows, with a rickety wooden platform round it. Behind the mill stands a henge of large standing stones. Over everything hung the smell of fresh herbs and freshly baked pies.

The plan was to sweep it for evil, destroy any, and sleep there. First we fell back to the road so Fëanor could ritual-cast his magic sight. Five minutes into it, Granny came down the road with her cart.

"Hello, dearies. What are you doing in this neck of the woods?" Lily stood in the open while the rest of us hid, and asked if she could buy some more pies. There were some in the windmill, said Granny, but her sisters "are not as friendly as I".

Three of us heard noises from the cart. Sirius edged round towards it while we talked.
Asked about the enchantment on her pies: "They are enchanting pies, I will admit. So you got me. They're enchanting."
She caught Sirius at the cart. "Don't touch my cart. You don't get to touch my cart." Then we all heard it: muffled screaming. Not pies.
Granny ran for the mill faster than any old woman has ever run, shouting "Bella! Ophelia!"

The fight at the mill door

Lily went straight for the cart, still hoping for pies. Inside was a grown woman, gagged and bound in a net of some strange material. Lily's disappointment was overcome by her natural niceness, and she rolled the woman out onto the ground. "Don't worry, we'll help you."
Fëanor went to cut the net and pulled her gag down. "Don't take me out of this net right now. I am cursed. This net is silver. It's stopping me turning." She told Drew the rest: she was bitten, there's a full moon above the clouds tonight, and the silver is all that stops her. Her partner is "a different type of beast", a natural werewolf, born to it, and the hags already have him inside. "If you can save him." We said we would.
Sirius went over the fences "Hot Fuzz style", dropping down three ledges, and wrapped himself in Protection from Evil and Good. Osric came over after him and put his back to the wall beside the door. "Howdy, then."
The door burst open. Three hags stood in it, and one of them had Granny's face, warped and purple. "You shouldn't have poked your nose in, dearies." The DM named her Morgantha. The others are Bella and Offalia, whom Granny called Ophelia.
Bella squeezed past Osric and filled his head with his worst fear. He saved on a natural 20 and it still hurt.
Morgantha clawed Osric. He answered her with a riposte for eighteen that slowed her down.
Lily climbed the fences, dashed to the door and stabbed Morgantha for twelve.
Offalia's eyes went an inky black and she turned them on Lily: "It would be unwise to attack our best customer." A wave of tiredness washed over Lily, and she fought it off. Somebody said "Sisters, don't play with your food."
Ireena, from the road: "We should run! We should run! No, don't fight, they're dangerous. Let's get out of here."
Fëanor walked bravely as far as the first fence and sent four magic missiles at Morgantha. One hit.
Drew wrapped one of us in eleven points of protective vim and told everyone to back up a bit.
Sirius's glowing sword missed Morgantha. Then something new: black raven wings burst from his back, and his eyes became pools of darkness dripping feathers. Bella was terrified; the other two weren't. ("Nobody should be dripping feathers.")
Osric spent his surge and goaded Morgantha with a cut for sixteen, so now she wants him and nobody else.

Morgantha has taken fifty-one points of damage and, in the DM's words, is "still looking pretty good". There are three of them.

Where we stand

Mid-fight at the windmill door as night falls, two days or so short of Vallaki. Osric is at the door, touching all three hags. Sirius and Lily are right there with him. Fëanor is at the first fence. Ireena is up on the road. The hags go first when we pick up.
The werewolf woman lies by the cart, still in her silver net, gag down. Her partner is inside.
Level 4, and some of our best tricks are already spent: Osric's surge, Sirius's glowing sword and raven wings (both still going), a luck point of Lily's.
Kit: Ismark's map, rations and about three of Granny's pies (enchanted), the wolf pelt, the menhir rubbing, three potions of healing.
New commission: a Blinsky original for Aragal's daughter, 20 gold over cost.

Questions on our minds

~~What are the hags putting in those pies?~~ Answered, Session 7: see those notes.
Who is the only man Strahd ever envied? The Vistani say it'll be written down somewhere.
Who is the hunter of hunters?
What is the high water aglow with the light of the sun, behind the walls of man? Is it the same water where Fëanor must stand at dawn and choose? Choose what?
Who is the lady of ravens, and why does she seem familiar to Sirius? Who read his fate already?
"What was stolen is not fully owned, and the land can be reclaimed." Stolen by whom? Reclaimed how?
What was the Vistani agreement, all those years ago?
What's the henge behind the mill?