*Spoilers* for DDAL 04-04 The Marionette. Special Thanks to Sir JB for the Awesome DM and the not so awesome natural 20's from you!
PC's
Ozymandias – The six foot two, 220 lbs. Half Orc pirate who loves to drink, whore and smash anyone and anything, not necessarily in that order.
Tarou - The six foot flat commander of the recently formed town militia of Orasnou. Whose membership numbers can be determined separately during the day and night. Master of his Polearm and his Whip of Warning. (You can watch him whip it every thursday nights)
Obedias Sin - The 4 foot tall, all 40++ lbs. of badass halfling assassin who takes on enemies triple his weight and double his height. His kills are stuffs which legends are made.
Benby - the five foot eleven high elf sorcerer, who’s wild magic has, believe it or not, kept us alive this whole time. (Thank the percentile gods for that one) Also provides more suspense than a werewolf encounter.
Gwyzsar - Nobody knows the Drow. He is the personification where mystery is made off... like butternut donuts or play dough. Probably think of Drizzt Do'Urden and that is it. Recently acquired the wolfskin cap so he could probably be anyone by now.
Taytay - The five foot eight human bombshell dubbed as 'the most beautiful devil warlock' in Barovia. With Tentacles to boot! Those Eldritch arms!!
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"I can't believe we took turns hitting on that lady! God damn it! Why are all the beautiful women here in Barovia either bat-shit crazies or whores?" Ozymandias asked Tarou and Obedias as they are standing outside Falinescu Mansion.
Sums up the feelings of all male adventurers inside Barovia.
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| Falinescu Mansion |
I never would have it either way. That mansion was just too perfect for the scenery inside the world of Barovia. The dark skies, the dilapidated plants, the not too old and not too rotten tombstones, the broken windows in all places, the uneven yard and even that freakin’ sound of wolf (or werewolves) howls fits the scene of Count Dracula of yesteryear's past perfectly.
Here we are, the 6 of us adventurers who just an hour before, rescued poor Orasnou square from the dreaded firebomb attacks of that undead Lazlo. Obedias and Benby even managed to kill off 4 zombies in 5 rounds flat before it could even eat one civilian (OLEG says thanks). To say the least, the adventurers are pumped, blood-lusted and so eager to rescue poor little Sorina from being Glovia's new little baby.
The party started entering the Falinescu Masion with Tarou and Ozy in front, Benby and Taytay in the middle, and Obedias with Gwyzar at the rear. One step from Tarou inside the mansion and we are reminded why we should always be pessimistic. This is Barovia after all, we should never forget. Together with Ozy and Benby, Tarou falls down the basement. (What mansion in Barovia doesn’t have a basement?) Still moving in formation the party noticed 3 caskets and of course decides to poke them. (Disclaimer: this particular party loves to poke things around, even for their own detriment, as long as the promise of treasure is there) Lo and behold a Mimic enters the initiative roll and sucks in Ozymandias with love and acid until he's down to almost unbearable HP (all while balancing in a submerged piano to boot). After a lot of pepper from the party the Mimic goes down. (thank lathander)
As this was going on, good little Taytay decides to open the next room behind her and Isabella suddenly decided it was the perfect time to show up her Harvey Dentsque impersonation and thus, Inciting horror checks from the party (nothing serious, just running around knocking down stuff). From this moment on, every door, every pantry and every bathroom sink and tub is a chance encounter with that horror excuse of a little child ghost.
The party then advances to the now empty servant's dormitory and what do you think welcomes them? Of course more ghouls!!! (4 of them). Well, a party of bad ass adventurers against only 4 ghouls? Of course it was easy peachy. Tarou slashes the first one cleanly in two, Gwyzsar hitting the second right in the eye socket, Taytay used a god knows what? (A tentacle from the looks of it) to kill off another and finally, Ozymandias slew the last one with his rapier after trying for the nth time to shield bash the damn thing. (I swear to god these ghouls stands up like Ali in a boxing match or Micheal Jackson when he's alone with kids) After that 'uneventful' encounter, the party checked each room in the servant's quarters and was surprised that the cleanest among all of them was the lavatory (who knew?)
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| Little Ozy after the last ghoul fight |
We agreed to take a breather here to lick our wounds and set our bearings straight. (by this time the DM already got a couple of 20's on us) Taytay used the lavatory to polish herself back (probably to get that last tentacle slime cleaned off), Benby sat on one corner looking at his scrolls to memorize, Gwyzsar trying to spit clean his wolf-skin cap and begins a magic show of putting his cap on and off in the process.
Not to be the one loitering around inside a house full of horrors, the Barovian league of extraordinary gentlemen (and women) continue their journey up the stairs though the main floor level. Entering a very awful and eerily familiar room. Isabella again decides to suddenly appear with a slightly more horrible washed up mantle with falling eye sockets (WTF Isabella!!!), (Which Tarou recognized as the seance room in session #1) Benby remembered his fecal eating tendencies, Tarou and Obedias remembered their impulse to cry like a bitch about everything all the while Ozy, Gwyzsar and Taytay looked curiously on. This apparently was enough to send these brave souls running out of the room and going straight to the adjacent room.
What received them there was a bench bed of dilapidated horrors no one should see in their entire life. Rows upon rows of broken toys and other broken machinations which will provide nightmares for months on end (if you are afraid of eerie toys and dolls), along also are four nasty smelling, god forsaken, foul facing friends of Isabella who apparently wants to party. Of course the adventurers were more than willing to give it to them, and give it to them they did. Taytay used her last spell slot to bring out a freakin’ tentacle show that will make even Cthulhu proud.
Suffice to say at this juncture. The adventurers are tired, hungry and exhausted (Again). But there is a ritual that is not willing to wait. So the party pushed forth. Though sure that the boss battle is in the second floor (where else?) the adventurer in us can’t seem to let go of rooms we haven’t investigated. (That’s RPG built into our DNA.) Every room must be searched, every closet must be opened, every drawer must be swiped clean, and every pot must be broken.
As the only character holding the butlers ring, Tarou opened the last room thinking there’s treasure inside (boiing!). There indeed was something inside, not treasures, but a large (Obedias claimed it was a beholder) monster in dire need of the big ass bath towel. It also has tentacles much uglier than Taytay’s but still hurts the same. And everyone was in horror as the DM deals natural 20’s upon natural 20’s for that monster (I think there were actually 3 in total but we already lost count in the reversed euphoria).
Finally, maybe in exhaustion, maybe in sheer dumb luck, maybe in the nth arrow from Obedias, maybe from the last acid bottle of Benby. The adventurers finally killed off the beholder/water monster/tentacle monster and finally proceeded going upstairs. The adventurers agreed to investigate 2 rooms in the right side of the second floor first before making the last short rest.
What a loaded idea crap that was.
The second room seemed innocent enough, 5 human sized tables with pieces of bodies in it. (At this point, the horror bar is considerably much higher). Windows or pieces of windows still hung from their metal seems while the general air atmosphere in the room smelled burned, In the darkness a couple of spider webs surrounds the far corner of the room but no signs of life can be noticed. Obedias ever the rogue, sees a shining gleam on top of the closest table but before he was able to get a closer look and without warning, a Golem, A real sized Golem with a mustache (Lucien Falinescu, father of Isabella) attacked the adventurers head on.
The Golem lunges forth on Tarou which he successfully parried with his giant pole-arm while Ozymandias managed to shield bash his ass in the ground and starts whacking a mole on the Golem's smug face. Obedias however, noticed that it doesn't seem to get hurt no matter how many times Ozy bitch-slap its chin with it. He then grabbed Tarou's Whip of Warning and this seem to unsettle the Golem a bit. Turning its bright red eyes on the little-halfling-that-could it grabbed Obedias by the feet and tried to carry it. At this point, Taytay threw a lightning spell on it which in some sinister way, made the Golem much more stronger (que music wekwekwek....). The Golem ignored all the wrestling prowess of Ozymandias, the acid of Benby and even the pointed arrows of Gwyzsar and started to throw down Obedias on the alter. At this point, Obedias rolled a (you guessed it!) a Natural 20 to stay in the Golem's Grip. Like a little King Kong on the Golem's empire state building. A few more whacks on the Whip by Tarou and acid by Benby and the Golem finally dissolved into a pile of heated mess.
As the adventurers prepared to take a short breather before the final boss fight (how many freakin boss fight should there be in one mansion??) murmurs that awfully sounds like chants emanating from the room beside this one. Seeing no way to rest while awkwardly listening beside a horror ritual taking place beside it. Tarou says fuck it and entered gangster style in the boss room of the house.
What the commander immediately sees inside is Glovia, clearly performing a ritual similar to a pray-over breakfast at some secret retreat, together with a bodyguard ghoul nearby. The room is somewhat full of candlelights and the smell carries of old mildew and of even more rotten flesh. On one table lies a heavily decomposed body of a little girl and in another, the body of Sorina. Glovia stops the chanting immediately and nonchalantly welcomed the adventurers in her sleek noble way (too beautiful still). But not before throwing in a large smoke fog which engulfed the entrance of the room. Ozymandias, clearly not a very patient man entered the fray and shield bashed the ghoul nearby. What happens next is an event which players will continue to speak in hush tones for a very long time. The mythical double 20's natural roll.
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| Advantage roll double 20's |
No matter, after a few turns where the adventurers gave Glovia and her minion everything they have left, Glovia starts channeling her inner bitch deamons. Obedias, ever the sly rogue, suddenly had one of his better ideas of the evening and raced up to Sorina's unconscious body, placed a dagger on her neck and declared "I will kill her if you don't stop this madness" taken aback by the treat and seeing her plans going down the drain. She tried to race inside the dense fog to plot her escape. In that instant, Tarou kept on swinging his pole-arm and with disadvantage (DISADVANTAGE!) manages to hit Glovia squarely in the temples causing her to roll around like a rag doll and die.
At this juncture, we managed to save the unconscious Sorina and just then, Isabella reappeared to us as who she really was, a beautiful and innocent little child who thank us for doing what we did. If there's any consolation for the adventurers, for Obedias in particular, it was that they were able to save a soul in this dark forsaken sorry excuse of a world that is Barovia.
I hope this adventure report was satisfactory. It has been a long time since I last wrote something creatively. Don't worry, I will hopefully get better in time with practice and patience.
In my defense, what does a half orc know? right?
Till next time.
Richie King DCI# 6115957596
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