Castle Ravenloft

Where

On a pillar of cliff above the Village of Barovia, with a bridge across to the mountain.

Status

Seen from the road. Never visited, and nobody in their right mind has suggested it.

What we saw

We have looked at it exactly once, from the rise above the village, cold and hungry after a night by the road and a morning walking out of the woods from Death House. It towered over everything: precarious and ominous on its pillar of cliff, with a bridge across to the mountain behind. Fairly defensible. Very spiky.

We had already seen its name before we saw the castle. The letter in Death House came on the devil's own stationery, headed "Strahd von Zarovich, Lord of Castle Ravenloft, Count of Barovia."

What we have heard

• It is his house. Granny told us the village began as a camp that supplied the castle. When Ismark drew us his map, he marked the castle and wrote AVOID! beside it: "I've put it where it is on the map, but that's not as an indication of where to go. That's an indication of where not to go." He added that he doesn't make a habit of visiting.
• People go in and come out wrong. Father Donavich said the devil took his son Doru "to his castle", that Doru escaped and came home, and that he "brought something back from that castle." We know how that ended.
• Gertruda may be there. Ismark listed it as one of the places Mary's missing daughter might be, alongside death and the witches of Berez.
• He means to take Ireena there. His letter to Ireena, left on the road by a dire wolf, calls it "our castle, Ravenloft." See Strahd's Letter to Ireena.
• The last Mistwalkers died at its gates. Roger says the village lads talked his band into marching on the castle. At the gates they met not the devil but his emissary, what Roger now knows was a dusk elf, who said they had come "too early", killed everyone but Roger, and sent him away to tell the next lot not to be boring.
• He comes and goes by air. Roger saw a dark figure on a fiery flying horse overhead that day. Lady Wachter confirmed the horse, and in the end we saw it ourselves, burning, over the square in Vallaki.

Where we stand

It is the one place in Barovia we have agreed not to go. On our last morning in the village one of us said it plainly: "I have no intention of going up to that castle at this point." Nothing since has changed our minds.

Open questions

• What did Doru bring back from the castle, and could anyone else?
• Is Gertruda there?
• When the devil says "our castle" to Ireena, how long does he think he can wait?