Lessons from the Mists: Session 16 - The Sepulchral Mansion

Welcome back to Lessons from the Mists! This week, the heroes travel from the walls of Vallaki to a long ruined mansion on a hill overlooking the valley - the headquarters of the once mighty Order of the Silver Dragon. Let's get started!

We pick up as the heroes arrive at the Luna River Crossroads and night begins to fall over Barovia. Mary Sue Ann displays her new ability to summon a safe haven for the heroes, and casts Leomund’s Tiny Hut. They all bed down for the night, and Ylenia comments on how strange it is to feel like she will be safe through the night for the first time in her life. She also asks Angvar if he thinks Izek is his brother. Angvar tells them more about his encounter with Ernst Larnak, and says that there is definitely some connection there, but he refuses to believe it is truly his brother. Slowly, they make their way to sleep.

During Kane’s watch, he spots a shambling figure walking through the woods. It looks like a zombie, but carries a longsword over its shoulder. He wakes Ylenia, who wakes the rest of the party, and Kane attempts to sneak up to the zombie, but it hears his approach and investigates. When it gets close to the magical dome, Kane unleashes a Guiding Bolt on the creature, and it says “Have at thee, servants of the devil!” and it’s initiative!

All but Mary Sue Ann get into melee with the creature, and after about 2 rounds, it goes down when Ylenia smites it, Angvar trips it using his battle maneuvers, and Kane calls upon his god. After it dies, he examines the corpse - it wears an old and broken set of plate armor with regalia resembling dragon’s wings and claws across it. The skin of the corpse is gray, but its eyes burned with a red hatred. He also sees the rotting flesh attempting to knit itself back together but unable to overcome the searing divine wrath of Kelemvor. With those things in mind, he informs the rest of the party that this undead is a revenant, a creature bent on revenge, and will not find rest until its quarry is dead. The armor marks it as a knight of the Order of the Silver Dragon.

Kane then says that they may be able to learn much from this corpse, and he casts Speak with Dead. Through several questions, they learn that the Order fell to Strahd’s armies centuries ago, and they are currently led by Sir Vladimir Horngaard, once the second in command of the Order under Lord Argynvost. The corpse says that Lord Argynvost died along with the Order, but it was Vladimir’s hatred for Strahd that returned them to life. But now Strahd is dead too, and they both are locked in a twilight state. The corpse finds rest once more, but Kane says it will not stay that way for long. The revenant will rise again. They discuss their findings, and Angvar theorizes that the name of the Order is more literal than they might have realized - that Argynvost may have been a dragon.

The heroes find rest once more and nothing else disturbs them in the night. They get a late start to their day because they need to restart their long rest. They discuss for a long while where they will go next - Krezk, Argynvostholt, the Wizard of Wines, Berez, and the tower that Rictavio told them to meet at. After much discussion, they decide on pushing on to Argynvostholt, their original destination, and seeing if what they find there will point them somewhere new. They consult their map, then head off.

As they find their way to the crossroads that will lead them south to Argynvostholt, they encounter a wounded Szoldar Szoldarovich and Yevgeni Krushkin, the wolf hunters of Vallaki. The wolf hunters ask where they are headed, and the heroes inform them of Argynvostholt, but the two wolf hunters say that it is a haunted ruin and should be avoided. Ylenia asks them if they found the children, and the wolf hunters tell of a set of wolf tracks that surrounded a group of small footprints that were traveling northwest (towards the tower of Lake Baratok), but they were ambushed by plant creatures and turned back. They are headed back to Vallaki. Ylenia tells them of the terrible mobs in Vallaki, and they say they have families there, and rush off. The heroes continue on to Argynvostholt.

When they arrive they see the massive, sepulchral mansion atop the hill, and discuss when they should retreat. Angvar believes the revenants may be much too difficult for them to overcome. They walk the perimeter of the mansion, and find a graveyard with a mausoleum on the eastern side. Angvar scans the building, looking for another way in that is not the front door, and spots a figure within a third story window that sees them, then shuts the curtains. Spooked, but intrigued, Angvar uses his grappling hook to hoist himself and the other party members to the roof. They find a hole in the roof that exposes the lower levels of the mansion to the elements.

They attempt to access a large tower built atop the chapel on the east side of the mansion, but it is blocked shut. Instead, they climb down a staircase to the third story, and find a ruin within. Mary Sue Ann sends Guinevere to investigate, and finds the corpse of a knight on a throne in a western room, cradling a gleaming greatsword and wearing a sunburst holy symbol around its neck. The rest of the heroes open a door to a small study, obviously ransacked, but displaying a portrait of the man they saw in the window - Lord Argynvost. A single book remains in the study, a book about the tenets of the Order of the Silver Dragon and their origins. Tucked within is a note from Argynvost’s journal that he wrote just before his death, and they confirm he was a mighty dragon.

A small ember sparks in the fireplace. Angvar walks up to it and examines it, and produces the wooden doll of himself that he stole from Blinsky to act as kindling. The ember leaps into a flame, and the smoke produces a tiny dragon that informs the heroes, “We must speak, but not here.” It flies into the northeastern tower, and the heroes follow. Within, they find a giant apparition of a mighty adult dragon - the spirit of Argynvost.

And that’s where we left it!

This session went okay. Remember my rule about how I don’t like to run when I don’t have things prepared? I broke that rule, lol.

So, my original intention was that this session would consist of only travel from the outskirts of Vallaki to Argynvostholt. They spent a lot of time having some great roleplay and discussion about where to go next - not a problem with me, because my players have officially entered the sandbox part of Curse of Strahd. Vallaki was a sandbox confined to the town, but we have the rest of the valley to explore now. I wanted another week to prepare Argynvostholt due to real life stuff, and so I had a few encounters prepared: the revenant (as a hook to Argynvostholt), the wolf hunters (as a hook to the forest folk & winery conflict), which happened this session. The wolf hunters, if pressed on what else they found in the forest, could speak of finding a strange carnival wagon hidden by the side of the road that sounded like it had a large growling beast inside. I also had a big set piece combat encounter planned where the players could fight the blights and druid that attacked the wolf hunters where they could learn a little bit more about that conflict if they captured and interrogated the druid. Finally, I had a social encounter that could turn into a fight planned where a werewolf in human guise was looking for her husband. She would say that she is a trapper from Krezk and ask for help. If they did, they would eventually find her mate and several wolves nearby, ripped apart by a large animal, and riddled with crossbow bolts with silver tips. The players could put two and two together that the woman and her husband are werewolves, and could fight her and some wolf companions, or she comes back to attack them if she finds that they did not have silver weapons. Putting the information together from the wolf hunters and the werewolf might have led them to believe Rictavio is more than he seems.

However, I only used about half of my prep! Just fine with me, all that gets recycled for a future session. My players spent a LOT of the session talking about where they should go next, putting together information as they learnt it. I skipped some of the encounters and I decided they would arrive at Argynvostholt when we had roughly 40 minutes left in the session. I thought, “What the hell, how much could they do in 40 minutes? It’s certainly not enough time to run one of the encounters I prepped.”

Well, it turns out, quite a lot! We also went over our scheduled time by about a half hour. Is it my fault for keeping it going when I didn’t have the adventure location prepped? Yes. Were my players still having fun? Also yes. Was I overwhelmed by the massive map and conveying information on rooms I had not studied ahead of time? Yes.

It was probably a mistake, but I wanted them to speak to one of the major NPC’s at Argynvostholt as a cliffhanger, and we eventually got there, but I was floundering before we arrived at the dragon reveal.

No real new lessons this week, more reiterations of the stuff I already know about my GMing style (especially when running a prewritten adventure). I think my style of “giving them just enough information to put it together themselves, but not doing it for them” was working great this session. Sam, Angvar’s player, was putting up the caution signs and telling the rest of the players that he wanted to explore Argynvostholt, but he had a suspicion that it is a high level area and they should leave fast when they seem out of their depth. Great tactics, that. I am really excited for the roleplay encounters that will come up this next session as they learn more about the history of the Order of the Silver Dragon.

Until next time!