Village of Barovia

Where

In the valley below the castle, astride the one road. "The village of Barovia, in the valley of Barovia, in the land of Barovia," as Granny put it. They really do say it like that.

Visited

Sessions 4 and 5, two days and two nights. We left west along The Road West with Ireena.

Status

Behind us. Ismark is burgomaster now. We owe Father Donavich a visit if the road ever brings us back.

The place

A sorrowful, jumpy little village. When we walked in, people saw us and scurried indoors and curtains twitched; to them we must have looked like ghosts. Granny told us it grew out of a camp that once supplied the castle, and it still lives in its shadow. Everything closes at twilight and nobody goes out after dark. Strangers are bad news here, because strangers draw the devil's eye.

We later heard, from Lady Wachter and from Roger, that it never really recovered from a slaughter forty-odd years ago, when the devil killed everyone in a street because the last Mistwalkers were being boring.

Places we know

• Granny's cart. The first voice to greet us in Barovia belonged to Granny, selling pies door to door for a gold piece each: "butter, flour, love, protein." She said we were carrying the colours of the Durst family, called us mist walkers, and mentioned that she lived in a mill outside the village with her sisters. We have since met the sisters. See The Windmill.
• Blood on the Vine, the tavern. About eight silent drinkers, and Ismark at a corner table waving us over to tell us the truth about this land. Ireena says the name is a joke: "you sometimes have to make light of it… Otherwise, we'd all go mad." The board reads "Dogs welcome. Children must be kept on a leash." It empties at twilight; the barkeep let us take our flagons home ("don't take a plate"), and we have never taken them back. See The Blood on the Vine Menu.
• Bildrath's Mercantile. Bildrath hands outsiders "the outsider special", a price list marked up for people like us. Sirius talked him down to a quarter of it. One of us was thrown out by his large nephew for a purely hypothetical question about killing the shopkeeper. He bought a spare crossbow off us for twelve gold, and the coins had the face of the statue from Death House. See Bildrath's Price List.
• The burgomaster's house, the largest house in the village, home to Ismark and Ireena. We slept on its floors for two nights. Ireena's tea is dreadful. Twice there was a knock at nightfall and Ismark said "Everybody hide." The first time it was Mary, come for her dog. The second time it was the devil. He charmed the lot of us (Fëanor saw it happening, warned us, took a shot at him, and was charmed anyway), told us "I am this land, and this land is me," and drank from Sirius as a "token of fealty."
• The church, about a kilometre outside the village, where villagers made an old, half-forgotten sign of the dawn as we carried the old burgomaster's coffin past. Father Donavich buried him in the graveyard behind the church, with beautiful rites, and nobody else from the village came. Under the church, behind a chained trapdoor, is the crypt where his son Doru was kept. Donavich made us promise not to kill him. He came down, heard his son explain that the devil's commands were fetters on his mind, said "Do what you must," and fled up the stairs. Doru crumbled to dust. The crypt is empty now.
• Mary's house. We never went there. Mary took Lancelot home from Ismark's door, and her daughter Gertruda is still missing. See Keep an Eye Out for Gertruda.

Village wisdom

• Ravens are good luck. Ismark said so when he saw Sirius's feather. Two watched us from a rooftop by the tavern on the day we arrived, and that night another stared back at one of us from Ismark's garden. We now know rather more about ravens.
• You can't leave. "The mists are the bars of our cell, and our jailer is Strahd." That's Ismark, who also told us, "You can't leave Barovia. This is your home now."
• You will learn not to trust people in Barovia. Also Ismark, the afternoon he admitted that he had known exactly what was waiting in the church crypt, and sent us down there anyway to see if we could protect his sister.

Open questions

• Is Donavich all right, on his own with an empty crypt?
• Where is Gertruda?
• Ismark has no idea his sister now runs Vallaki. She means to write to him, and we said we'd get the letter there. How, exactly?