Blor's Obsidian Tomb

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What Happened Last Session

Session 09 - Walls Keep Out More Than Wolves

The Refugee Camp

The day began where Vallaki prefers not to look: a refugee camp squatting just beyond the city walls, full of people deemed unfit for happiness. Emeric and Magda explained the Baron’s logic with bureaucratic cheer—sickness, unruliness, and malicious unhappiness—as if misery were a contagious crime. Arden moved through the infirmary tent laying on hands and mending wounds left by wolves, bats, and other night-born messengers of Strahd, offering small mercies where the town offered none.

It didn’t take long to notice that many refugees had found their own escape. Dream Pastries circulated like contraband prayers—temporary bliss wrapped in powdered sugar. Arden, aghast, tossed his pastry aside… only to retrieve it moments later when a desperate man named Franz dove for it. Franz’s hunger was absolute. He begged, bartered, and debased himself for a single bite. Arden tried to heal him instead, with mixed results: Franz got half his teeth back, but lost the gummy mouth that had apparently been paying the bills.

Elsewhere in the camp, Parriwimple made himself indispensable. He hauled firewood at impossible speed, did the work of several men without complaint, and quickly became a hero to the refugee children, who looked at him like a living wall between themselves and the dark. For the first time, Parriwimple admitted he wanted to stay—not because he was told to, but because he was needed. With heavy hearts and heavier concerns about his lingering werewolf injury, the party agreed to leave him behind, swearing they’d return before the next full moon.

Entering the Town

At Vallaki’s gates, the city watch performed their civic rituals. Teeth were inspected for vampirism. Garlic was handled for lycanthropy. Silver was quietly hidden. A few coins changed hands, and suddenly the guards were quite helpful, pointing out the Blue Water Inn and Blinsky’s Toys with the enthusiasm of men supplementing their wages.

The party entered Vallaki at dusk, slipping through streets that felt abandoned by choice rather than chance—shutters closed, doors barred, the town holding its breath. A lone hooded figure headed toward St. Andral’s Church. Fig attempted a stealthy approach and instead detonated an awning, landing flat in the street. Feigning injury, they were helped up by the very stranger they’d been tailing: Willemina Rikalova, a gentle old woman on her way to pray for her imprisoned son, Udo, jailed for the crime of political dissent.

St. Andral’s Church

At the church, Father Lucian Petrovich and his assistant Yeska were just concluding evening services. Tea was offered, sympathy extended, and when Ireena’s plight was explained, Lucian readily offered her sanctuary. He spoke reassuringly of holy protections—of sanctified ground and unseen wards—and implied that no servant of the Devil could cross St. Andral’s threshold.

Blue Water Inn

Leaving Ireena in the church’s care, the party headed for warmth, food, and something like normalcy at the Blue Water Inn. Inside, Vallaki felt almost alive. Commoners laughed, mugs clinked, and a flamboyantly dressed old man held court at a long table, basking in applause at the end of a story. Behind the bar, Danika Dorakova ran the inn with calm efficiency. Nearby, two grizzled wolf-hunters—Szoldar Szoldarovich and Yevgeni Krushkin—drank Purple Grapemash No. 3 and discussed Barovian politics like men who knew how fragile life was and drank accordingly.

Urwin Martikov emerged from the kitchen with wolf-steaks and beet stew, welcoming the party like old friends and nearly offering free room and board before Danika lovingly shut that down. The rate was modest. The beds were immediately shoved together. The wine flowed—slightly scarce, Urwin noted, thanks to a delayed shipment from his kin to the west. Complaints about the Baron followed naturally: mandatory festivals, forced cheer, last week’s Wolf’s Head Jamboree, and the impending Festival of the Blazing Sun.

The evening’s entertainment belonged to Rictavio, the carnival ringmaster, who spun a tale of Count Belasco—a ridiculous vampire undone by vanity, incompetence, and blind prey. Laughter followed, until two drunken young men pushed their luck and asked for a story about a stupid Baron. The room froze. Warnings were murmured. Tension spiked. One of the men began loudly announcing his importance—“Don’t you know who I am? I am Nicolai fucking Wach—”—before Arden silenced him with a precise karate chop to the throat.

Disaster loomed, but Rictavio defused it with theatrical exhaustion and an abrupt retirement. The party followed suit, retreating upstairs to collapse together in one oversized bed, finally surrendering to sleep after a day spent skirting walls—some of stone, some of fear, and some far harder to climb.

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