Tser Falls and the Revenant’s Counsel
Morning broke gray and grudging over the High Road, where our haunted heroes—still picking wolf fur out of their armor from the morning’s ambush—set out for another wholesome day of Barovian tourism. The mists parted just long enough to reveal what passed, here, for a postcard view: the thunderous plunge of Tser Falls, and the narrow stone bridge spanning the gorge like a rib pulled from the skeleton of some long-dead giant.
Standing on said bridge was an equally skeletal figure—though this one still had opinions. A Revenant, clad in faded mail and colder manners, blocked their passage with the solemn dignity of someone who knows he can win any staring contest on technicality. Bound by his oath, the Revenant gave only scraps of lore—yet even his scraps were the stuff of legend.
He spoke of the Order of the Silver Dragon, of noble Argynvostholt, and of venerable Sir Godfrey Gwilym, who would know more of the “amber doors” spoken of during Eva’s Tarokka reading. But the Revenant himself dared not elaborate. Oaths are oaths, even past death, and he had the deeply offended tone of a man wishing someone—anyone—would give him the legal loophole to gossip.
He also spoke of “the Wandering One,” the skeleton rider the party had glimpsed on their first day in the valley. In life, he had been bearer of Kolyan Indirovich’s desperate letter. In death, he was a restless courier doomed to eternally miss his deadline. The party, moved by the Revenant’s mournful gravitas, endowed him with the name Standimir—a moniker he accepted with the stoic resignation of a man who has been named worse in his centuries of post-mortem unlife.
The Svalich Road and the Raven Shrine
Leaving Standimir to his brooding, the heroes continued down the Svalich Road, passing the deep grooves left by the Black Carriage and the solemn, storm-pitted Gates of Barovia. Beyond them lay something stranger still: a monolithic stone shrine, half overgrown, half defaced, bearing a hastily carved raven sigil and a three-pointed star. Hundreds of ravens perched in the surrounding trees, the Blue-Winged Raven among them, watching the party with unnerving focus—as if waiting to see whether these travelers would show respect or stupidity. (Given the party’s track record, it was going to be a coin toss. Literally.)
Someone—likely Fig, possibly Choppy—remembered mention of the Ladies Three, whispered powers of old Barovia. Choosing respect over curiosity, the party placed a gold coin upon the raven’s mark. The forest relaxed, fractionally. The ravens did not. But in Barovia, that counts as a win.
The Old Bonegrinder and Morgantha
Not long after, a squat stone tower resolved into view across a clearing: the Old Bonegrinder, a windmill of ill omen and worse hygiene. The party, flush with memories of the Durst House and their very real deed to a windmill, began drafting plans for their mid-valley real estate empire. But they made it only halfway up the path before they were intercepted by its current occupant: the kindly, grandmotherly, absolutely-only-what-she-seems Morgantha.
With the serene menace of someone who keeps a ledger of debts paid in dreams, Morgantha explained that she and her daughters lived in the windmill, that they were not in the market to vacate, and that the party’s deed could be used as kindling if they insisted on citing it again. Then, with warm indulgence, she bestowed each of them a free Dream Pastry, to be enjoyed after a meal and with a nice cup of red wine—because nothing says “trust me” like free drugs from a crone in a windmill.
Varnish, whose first experience with Morgantha’s wares had included visions of amber tombs and cosmic suffering, accepted politely but with the profound, wide-eyed caution of a man holding a grenade with a frosting swirl.
Lake Zarovich and the Werewolf Attack
Leaving the windmill behind, the party descended toward the glassy, uncanny surface of Lake Zarovich. There, walking ahead of them to the pebbled shore, they beheld Ireena staring out across the mirrored water with a quiet dread. She had dreamt this place—spoken of it at the campfire before they’d even set foot on the road. Though she swore she had never visited this lake in life, something in her soul recognized it. The party felt the wind shift, as though the land itself leaned in to listen.
Moments later, the listening land tried to kill them.
From the treeline burst a hunting pack—starved werewolves, gaunt and ravenous, their eyes lit with the feverish blood-lust that has haunted Barovia since long before its first snowfall. Above the fray, the party’s blue-winged raven ally taunted the beasts with uncanny mimicry, shouting rude encouragement while the sky filled with the beating wings of a hundred more ravens.
The battle was a blur of claws, silver, magic, and questionable decision-making:
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Hairy Bill and Bairy Hill (so named mid-combat by the party, because nothing is sacred) descended upon the group, shrugging off wounds with obscene regeneration—until Ireena, in a moment of pure martial competency, requested Arden’s silvered crossbow bolts and proceeded to demonstrate that she had, in fact, read the crossbow manual cover to cover.
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Arden invoked Hoar’s wrath, paralyzing Bairy Hill with Abjure Enemy so thoroughly that his companion, Hairy Bill, had to slap him out of it just so he could die properly like a werewolf with dignity.
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Choppy, in what scholars will later describe as “a choice,” hurled a Chromatic Orb (acid) at a wolf grappling Fig by the ear, dissolving the monster into a puddle of sizzling regret.
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Varnish dropped a Cloud of Daggers so devastating that a pair of wolves were reduced to “red vapor,” which the Barovian fog eagerly slurped up like it was brunch.
In the end, both werewolves fell. In death, their monstrous forms peeled away, revealing two young Barovian men—victims of the curse, not villains by nature. One bore a fresh, angry wound identical to the one now streaked across Parriwimple’s shoulder.
The party could only share uneasy glances. The next full moon would have its say.
Arrival at Vallaki
With daylight waning, the heroes trudged northwest until the imposing palisades of Vallaki rose from the fog. Outside the southeastern gates sprawled a makeshift encampment of refugees from the Village of Barovia—haggard, hungry, displaced, and bristling with the kind of resentment that only a cursed valley and a useless burgomaster can produce.
Some recognized Parriwimple and called out his name; others beheld Ireena and narrowed their eyes at the unlucky redhead they considered an omen of misfortune. Parriwimple, horrified by their condition and emboldened by his own sense of justice, stormed toward the camp demanding to know who had failed his neighbors so profoundly.
And there, surrounded by hungry stares, wounded pride, and the looming walls of Vallaki—our party drew breath.