The Party

Five strangers from the Sword Coast, each out alone on some small errand one warm summer evening, each dragged through the mist by a family heirloom that moved on its own: a rolling stone, a floating feather, a banner streaming like a windsock, a tooth pulling like a magnet, and an amber pendant holding its bearing while a compass lost north. We met at the foot of a staircase none of our towns had ever had. Drew made us all swear we weren't the one who'd brought the others there. Then we climbed.

As of Session 14 we are Level 5, unrested, and standing in a doorway of the Reformation Center with Izek at our shoulder and two elves in armchairs in front of us. The Baron is dead by our priest's hand. Lady Wachter is dead by the crowd's, and we let it happen. Ireena governs Vallaki because we said her name in a square. The devil has told us, kindly, to leave town and be interesting.

What they call us

• Mistwalkers. The first to say it was the woman in the Durst house wall ("Mistwalkers. You may get me, but my creature will get you"). Then Granny, with her pies. The Vistani told us what it means: people like us, "who have come in with powers and ambition and wanting to change the status quo". It's an ill omen here: the last lot made the devil busy. We say it about ourselves now. "We're Mistwalkers, and we have no clue what the hell's happening."
• Ruffians, according to Strahd's letter to Ireena. Outsiders, to Bildrath and the Vallaki gate, and to a man on a wheelbarrow who told the mob we'd let the vampires in. Bearers of ill fortune, to Ismark. Do-gooders, to Lady Wachter. Wizards, to her sons ("You're all wizards, aren't you?"). These five fine examples of heroism, to the Baron, the day before he died.
• Deputies of the Baron, by writ, until the Baron was killed. The writs are souvenirs now.
• Doers of good, and Defenders of the Faith from Waterdeep, according to Sirius.
• To the man in the tent at Tser Pool, and to Madam Eva, we are simply expected: "What took you, Drusila, Fëanor, Lilli-grai, Osric, Sirius? You are expected."

And one by one: Sirius is the winged one (to a hag), an angel of the Morninglord (to Ireena, and a rumour in Vallaki he refuses to believe), the Avatar of the Morning Lord (to a crowd), and Lathander's chosen (to himself). Fëanor is Father and priest to everyone, and Lord Fëanor, a man of the cloth to Father Lucian. Osric is Sir Knight. Drew is Lady adventurer to a ghost child and missy to a smith. Lily is little lady to Sirius, our best customer to the hags, Lily from earlier to the Wachter footman, and the master of unlocking to the DM.

Old ties, and new ones

• Sirius and Fëanor are both Waterdeep nobility and both follow Lathander. Sirius knew Fëanor's family and warmed to anyone bearing the sun. Fëanor had admired Sirius, and his reputation for turning up to training three sheets to the wind, from afar. They walked into the mist hand in hand, and have been a double act ever since: the croissant war, the bathroom summit, "close followers of the Morning Lord". Sirius calls him Father, and tells him he is the sun in these lands. Fëanor is managing his envy of the horse.
• Lily and Osric swore together to protect Lancelot. "I think you and I may have had the same upbringing." Her potion kept him standing at the flesh mound; his kept her alive at the Coffin Works. He held her rope on the road.
• Sirius and Lily. He had himself tied up beside her through her withdrawal so she wouldn't be alone in being punished for something that wasn't her fault. She hides behind his legs in company. He shields her.
• Drew and Lily. Drew lent Lily her thieves' tools in a public handshake, and still owes her "a little chat" about how she knows so much about fencing noble goods.
• Drew and Sirius. "You're smarter than me, Drew. I will follow your lead."
• Osric and Fëanor. An open invitation to a summer on the farm in Goldenfields.
• Sirius and Izek. "My friend." A hug in the middle of a riot, and a word kept.
• Drew and Ireena. Drew told her everything, at last. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

Shared kit

Maps and papers

• The great map of Barovia, framed, from the Baron's mansion, taken down on Ireena's order and lent to us. It's the same map as the one at Wachterhaus, with the colours inverted: wolves, the moon, and the hill where the goats are.
• Ismark's hand-drawn map: the scale is hopeless, the castle is marked as where not to go, and Sirius asked Danika to fill in the blanks. The menu from the Blood on the Vine and Bildrath's price list are in Handouts.
• Fëanor's rubbing of the symbol round the roadside standing stone.
• Victor's book, in which he tells how he broke Stella. We read it in his attic. Whether it left the room in one of our packs is a question for the character sheets.
• Five spell scrolls from the secret room at Wachterhaus, one of them Gentle Repose. The others were posted in the chat.
• The Druid Priestess' Tome, from Lady Wachter's chest: ritual pictures, the turning of the seasons, and a little writing in Druidic, which none of us reads.
• The Baron's writs, one each, sealed in wax. The man who signed them is dead.
• Strahd's letter to Lady Wachter was in the Baron's hand when he died. None of us picked it up.

Things that bite back

• The rusted locket, with an X scratched on the lid and a Celestial inscription none of us can read, holding the shadow demon from the orphanage. It can't get out unless someone opens the lid. Nobody opens the lid. It lives in the bag of holding and is bound for the Abbot above Krezk.
• A bag of holding, made by Drew overnight at the Blue Water.

Coin

• 180 electrum and 110 gold from Lady Wachter's chest, not yet divided. All Barovian coin carries the devil's face.
• Thirty gold from selling a heavy crossbow to Celegal's Bowyer (opening offer fifteen, closed with "we are doing the Baron's work. That's not a threat"). A pouch of 23 gold and 16 copper sat in the desk at the Center office. Eleven gold, sixty silver and three moss agates from the Durst cult's chests; five silver and sixteen copper from the farmstead dead.

The bard's chest ("Hunt well those who hunt")

• Three flasks of holy water (unused), three wooden stakes and a mallet, a steel mirror, manacles, oil, a crowbar, torches. The scroll, the potion against necrotic harm and one healing potion are spent.

Healing

• A few potions of healing between us, one of them from the desk in the Center office.

Weapons and odds

• Silver crossbow bolts (no use on zombies, but Vasha says a werewolf can't heal what silver does), the silvered shortsword from the Durst cult's chest, and Drew's own silvered shortsword. Lily's two relic daggers from the Death House reliquary, one of bone and one with a bat's skull.
• The Death House crystal orb (a spell focus, maybe valuable), an unread yellow spellbook, a bullseye lantern, a mess kit, a carnelian eyepatch, an ivory hairbrush with silver bristles, Henrik's curved coffin nails, one wolf pelt (pristine, with a char modifier), and a jar of zombie guts. (Drew insists.)
• Commoner cloaks from the Ravens of Barovia, battle-tested by one baby.
• Tents, packs, bedrolls and water skins. Lily's rope is currently tying up two guards in the Reformation Center courtroom. Somebody is carrying twelve torches.

Standing arrangements

• A six-bed room at The Blue Water Inn, two gold a night. Meals are down to one a week.
• A commission: one Blinsky original toy for Aragal's daughter Araba, twenty gold over cost.

Companions

• Clover, Drew's cannon. See Drew.
• Clancy, Sirius's celestial horse. See Sirius.
• Izek, captain of the guard, who serves the office of the burgomaster, which now means Ireena. He is with us tonight.

Honoured alumni

• Lancelot, found starving under a harpsichord in the Durst house, fed, befriended, and taken home by Mary in the village of Barovia. The dog was never on the table.
• Muriel Vinshaw, the Ravens' "active part", who stabbed things for us and pecked two vampires to dust, and then decided it was too rich for her blood. We hope she comes back.
• Vasha, whom we dragged away from the hags' mill in her silver net, and who stayed behind to watch it. We promised her we'd come back for Radu.
• Ireena Kolyanovich, whom we escorted from the village of Barovia to Vallaki, and who is now its acting burgomistress.

Running jokes

• "All will be well." Chanted back at every Vallakian. Until: "All is not well in Vallaki!"
• "Don't be boring." Roger's message from the last lot, and the devil's own parting words.
• "Don't kill the ravens." Upgraded, after the Ravens wrote to us, to never harm a raven, and divine sense before violence on anything with feathers.
• "The dog is not on the table." With Drew's corollary: "I'd rather sacrifice a baby than the dog."
• "Punishable by punishment."
• "You can just leave." (We are not going to leave, are we?)
• "Lake's haunted." Is Bluto inside the sea monster yet?
• "Hunt well those who hunt."
• The minutes. It is in the minutes. The minutes record, among other things, "Oh, fuckballs."
• Sirius Black, the Bellweathers, and calling on the bystanders to assist.
• The cheese dream. Sirius's theory, early on, that all of this is the result of too much cheese.
• Croissants are bourgeois, and the bourgeois are a kind of devil.
• Great Uncle Strahd, and Osric's Uncle Steven, the fun guy who picked mushrooms.
• "Periwinkle!" "Yes, Uncle?"
• The Burgomaster, Sirius's favourite late-night burger place in Waterdeep. The secret is in the sauce.
• Imbecile. Madam Eva called Sirius one twice. Fëanor asked for the wrong deck on purpose to get one of his own.
• Bacon, and the black pudding test (pending).
• Cremate, don't burn. The pies were cremated.
• Bone skin. Banned.
• "Our record with buildings is one for one terrible." Then we made it fifty-fifty.
• For the lols, or, if you prefer, for science: the reason the locket was opened.
• Mostly Felix, and Mostly Sirius.
• Close followers of the Morning Lord, and something in each other's teeth.
• On a scale of one to not a bird.
• This place stinks of new money.
• Riptarvo's Finest Wax, the only reason we know what to call the bard.
• Mirabel, which is what Urwin called Muriel. It's Muriel, like the wedding.
• "Action: beak."
• Their final form: the raven on Lady Wachter's shoulder.
• A Weekend at Father Bernard's. Osric has seen it seven times.
• "Me baby. Just a baby." And "master of unlocking".
• Plan C, the emotional support horse.
• "You get a beet. You get a beet."
• "I get a gun."
• Dead Commoner. We never learned his name.
• "It's a long name", and Izek is right-handed. We have agreed never to discuss why.
• "Do you know what a metaphor is?" The Baron explained, at length.