Session 15: The Miry Bog
General Summary
In the Dark of the Night
The party had their long rest, for the most part uneventful though they could see a large figure off in the distance (Maisie saw this was the Creeping Hut, with a faint green glow emanating from it). During the night the party, is set upon by swarms of blood-thirsty flies who are delt with swiftly...leaving Maisie and Ireena taking watch as daybreak approaches. Ireena starts spiraling over just what her connection to Tatyana Federovna could be, especially when she describes dreams including locations not in Barovia...which Maisie realises is Waterdeep. Maisie recalls something she had found while searching for her sister...- Nearly half a millennium ago in Waterdeep there was a female inmate in an asylum called Anna.
- Strangely, she was seemingly cursed with an inability age and tormented by madness.
- One day, she met and began a relationship with a vampire adventurer known as Jander Sunstar, who helped her leave the asylum.
- They seemingly had gotten married, potentially having a dhampir child together, though Anna died very shortly after the birth and Jander disappeared off the face of Toril.
- Following one last appearance in the Sword Coast, he has never been heard from again and the fates of him and his child are unknown.
Secrets of the Bog
The Master of the Marsh
Following their long rest, the party begins to approach the decrepit manor...presumably belonging to the former Burgomaster.- Almost immediately after stepping into the ruins, there is a noticeable drop in temperature.
- Soon a ghost takes shape in the fog, assuming the form of a giant of a man, his features mutilated and his entrails hanging out like frayed ropes.
- What remains of Burgomaster Lazlo Ulrich beseeches the party to leave his home, seemingly poised to attack before he sees Ireena and calms while remembering the weight of just what he had done.
- Marina had been someone everyone in the village knew, was an orphan but a pillar of her community.
- She had blossomed into a young woman, and shortly afterward Strahd von Zarovich had taken notice of her and began courting her.
- Ulrich had grown fearful she was becoming "Strahd's whore" so the village took desperate measures; Marina was bound and stoned to death by a mob as a Witch.
- Shortly after this, Strahd made the river flood the village and those who survived where never able to come back as the marsh claimed the ruins.
- Ulrich's spirit has never been able to rest, as he fear that Marina was never able to rest...though seeing Ireena did something.
- As Marina had no children or living relatives, it would have been impossible for someone to be related to her now...this could be a sign that she did find peace.
- With this, the party is given the following directions:
“Travel west. Two hundred paces from the mansion lies a monument to my folly and the treasure you seek.”
A Rose of Great Beauty and Knowledge of the Ancient
- The party follows the directions, and through the fog y'all saw the empty shell an old stone church, north of which was a cemetery of leaning gravestones enclosed by a disintegrating iron fence. Half of the cemetery had sunk into the mire.
- Hidden by the fog and elevated a few feet above the surrounding marsh was a raised plot of land, barely ten feet on a side, enclosed by a disintegrating iron fence.
- In the center of the plot there was a life-sized stone monument carved in the likeness of a kneeling peasant girl clutching a rose.
- Although her features were gray and weatherworn, she bore a striking resemblance to Ireena. Carved into the monument’s base is an epitaph: "Marina, Taken by the Mists."
- The party notices that this statue can be moved, and put Kerberos to work!
- Hidden underneath the monument, was a tome untouched by the rot. The Tome of Strahd...
- As the party tries to decipher what this autobiographical account of their enemy's origins is telling them...they are set upon by the waterlogged corpses of undead villagers who also exploded into swarms of snakes when struck down, y'all were fine though!
Session ended at Session ended at 2pm 21/9/735; 21stof Sintavr, 735
Rewards Granted
The Party found a Fortune of Ravenloft, The Tome of Strahd...check the handouts chat in discord for a video/text copy! Also y'all are level 10 now.
