Beset with a blizzard, our heroes have been forced to take shelter from the storm overnight in a magical hut created by Gaddock while they rest.
Our dramatis personae:
Ser Adon de Rouge of House Starbright (a half-orc Paladin, from a knightly background, with two human retainers and a priest), played by Paul (dr_mitch). Lawful Good. Married to Ser Alys.
Kelwarin (Kel) (a half-elf Sorceror flush with the powers of wild magic, an outlander), played by Graham (First Age). Chaotic Good.
Gaddock Teeg (a halfling wizard and former prizefighter), played by Alex (Doggetay), Neutral Good
Ser Alys de Adon-Rouge of House Starbright (a half-orc Fighter with a soldier background, currently the leader of the town militia of Daggerford), played by Tom (Guvnor). Lawful Neutral. Imagine a slightly greener take on Grace Jones... Married to Ser Adon.
also featuring:
Ireena Kolyana (a human warrior, daughter of the Burgomaster of Barovia, Twice-Bitten reincarnation of Strahd's unrequited love, Tatyana) - upgraded as a sidekick.
and introducing:
Muriel Vinshaw (a member of the Keepers of the Feather, travelling with the party to repay them for rescuing her), a wereraven upgraded to a sidekick (yes, I know that breaks rules as she started at CR2 but frankly I don't care)!
All characters and sidekicks are level 8.
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17th December, 5 days to the Solstice.
They woke to silence. The winds were still and an eery cold white light shone through half the magical shelter. As their eyes adjusted, they realised that the magic hut had dissipated and they were buried in snow. The light must be daylight, towards the mountain slope. Cautiously, once everyone was dressed, Ser Alys and Ser Adon broke a hole through the snow, confirming that perhaps two to three feet had fallen overnight. The party struggled, emerging out onto the path, their feet crunching in the snow.
Heading south, they made steady progress, but then Kel noticed that there was a large goat following them, perhaps a hundred feet up above them. By large, it was perhaps the size of a bull. It looked annoyed, and as it tracked them, small stones and snow shifted above. They stopped, and a quiet conversation ensued. Kel and Gaddock discounted using magic like a fireball on the creature; they didn't know if it was evil or not. Annoyed, yes, but dangerous? Also, anything that made a loud noise or had. shock could potentially bring the slope down in an avalanche. Kel decided that perhaps the best solution was the use the charm magic he had learned to calm it and make it their friend.
Drawing upon the wild magic found in all around, Kel sent thoughts of love and friendship to the creature and could feel them being reciprocated. Indeed, all it wanted to do was to get close to them. It rushed down the slope with excitement and abandon, and then they heard a loud crack. Snow started to shift as the goat arrived with them. It gathered momentum, and suddenly the whole mountainside was in motion. "Avalanche" yelled Ser Alys. "Run".
A frantic panic seized them. Kasimir flew down the path past them at speed, his feet hardly touching the floor. Kel grabbed Ireena, and cast a Dimension Door, heading 1000ft further down the slope. Adon, Muriel and Kaldur, the Mountain Folk boy, started to run. Kel had the presence of mind to tell the goat to let some of the runners on it, so a motley group were running down the hill, some galloping, some running. Adon carrying Kaldur.. The avalanche was gaining. Gaddock grabbed Ser Alys, said "Do you want to beat your husband in a race" and plunged the two of them through a Dimension Door to where Kel, Ireena and Kasimir waited before waiting for a reply. The runners started to slow, and for a moment it looked like the goat would be entangled in a collapsed tree, but a combination of Misty Step and leaping got them past it. The three of them just escaped the snow flowing behind, perhaps by a hundred feet.
They all got their breath, then started on. Adon asked Kaldur about the 'Old Place' his family were at. He told them that there were statues of a sun coloured rock, and also there was a scary bridge where he'd had to crawl to get across safely.
Travelling on, just before they reached a fork where the road turned back the slope, they finally moved out of sight of the silvery beacon light of Argynvostholt and the blessings it brought. As they started to turn, they spotted a body, just off the path. Walking over, Ser Adon checked that it was not undead (it wasn't) and examined the body. It had an old Morning Lord symbol in its hand, and was also clutching a piece of amber on a necklace. This matched the way-markers that they'd come across, and also reminded them of the amber artefact that their friend Roscoe often meditated on. Unusually, the body seemed to be frozen into a solid block of ice. Ser Adon built a cairn and said words for the dead.
They carried on up the switch back, but managed to take the wrong trail, losing their way. Eventually, turning around as it was late afternoon, they found an entrance to a mountain canyon with shear sides. A little into it, they found why they'd lost their way. There was a larger obelisk waymarker, graven with runes and amber, but this had collapsed and been part buried by scree as part of the rock face had fallen. Examining it, they found two more bodies, both frozen solid, so they decided to bury them as well.
As they set about burying them, Gaddock heard a strange call in his head. He went around the back of the obelisk to find a beautiful woman, clad in very flimsy robes with attractive white blonde hair and piercing eyes. He didn't notice that you could partly see through her and soon he was enveloped in her embrace and succumbing to a passion that was unexpected. All thoughts of Jeny passed from his mind, there was only the now and this beautiful maiden. It was only when she ran her had over his legs, groin and stomach and he felt them going cold that he realised that something weird was going on. Oh, and her sister or friend arrived too to join in.
Kel realised something was up and went to find Gaddock. Turning the corner, he saw the two beautiful women embracing Gaddock, who seemed to have shed most of his clothing despite it being freezing on the mountainside. Kel saw frostbite appearing as they touched Gaddock, and he started to turn blue. He immediately shot the maiden closest to Gaddock with a firebolt and was then attacked by her sister. She looked at him, he heard a call in his mind but he was resolute. Gaddock blasted the maiden touching him with magic missiles. Adon heard the firebolt and rushed around, sensing undeath. He yelled 'Ghosts' and charged. Two more of the maidens rose from behind the obelisk and a short and brutal fight happened. Eventually, all four of the undead snow maidens were slain, dissipating in a swirl of snow back behind the obelisk.
They followed, and found a cairn with runes carved in it. Opening it, they found four women's bodies, bound at feet and hands, sat back-to-back, with runes carved into their foreheads, sightless eyes and an amber dagger through their hearts. They had been slain in a dark ritual. The other bodies they'd found had probably been their victims. Adon removed their heads with a radiant blade, and then bless and buried everyone that they'd found.
They realised that they needed to rest; Gaddock, Kel and Adon had all taken frostbite from the creatures and they needed warmth to recover. Despite the impact of losing time, they set up the hut and rested.
18th December, 4 days to the Solstice.
In the early hours of the morning, they woke. They broke their fast and the effects of the cold had worn off. They headed up the canyon, lighting the way with light spells and Adon's javelin. Soon, they found the bridge. Five feet wide, it was perilous, crossing a 60 foot chasm. The light showed that it was a dangerous drop and the gusting wind made the idea of walking normally unwise. They consider pitons, but the volcanic granite like rock would only really be able to be secured where there was mortar, so they decided not to risk it. They crawled, except for Kasimir who casually walked across. Adon nearly lost his sword when it slipped.
Further up the canyon, they came to a snow and ice field around a helical spire of ice. They fitted snowshoes and headed across safely. As the first light was rising, the Amber temple was ahead of them.
Perhaps 60ft of stonework was carved into the head of the canyon. There were four alcoves with 20 foot tall statues of hooded figures carved from amber. The snow didn't touch them. In the middle, with two statures either side was a large entrance. Approaching, they saw stairs leading down into darkness.
Kaldur ran off to the left; there was light showing through a fissure. A few minutes later he came back out with a muscled female mountain folk warrior, who he explained was his aunty Sigrid. She thanked them for rescuing Kaldur and invited them into their shelter. Squeezing through a fissure two feet wide, they came into a room that was obviously part of the temple. The Mountain Folk were resting from the weather here. There were six of them. They shared their stories and explained the temple was a dangerous place. One of their friends had gone in and been consumed by flames. They avoided it and wouldn't open the doors. Gaddock found a secret panel on the south wall, concealed in a mural. It opened into an old scroll room and reading area, but there was nothing left to find as the scrolls were long since deteriorated beyond reading.
GM Notes:
This mainly drew on Dragnacarta's Tsolenka Pass ideas, but I changed the Snow Maidens around. They were pretty scary, and the damage from cold behaved as necrotic so max hit points were reduced. This meant they ended up taking a long rest and then a short rest and spending hit dice afterwards as they decided that they may need the healing magic later.
The avalanche seemed to work well. I know the party feels that this place is remote and dangerous and there is definite angst that they may not be back before the solstice. They fear the worst if Strahd arrives expecting his tithe and it isn't there.
I'll be leaning more on MandyMod's work for the next bit.
It was nice to get the party back together after about a month off. Roll20 was rock solid again.
25 August 2022
Some more thoughts: A build on the Snow Maidens; they were reskinned spectres, with cold damage replacing necrotic (but having a necrotic effect) and a charm ability added. They only had 22 hit points, but were well laden with resistances and incredibly spooky. Gaddock separating himself from the group was a gift which I took happily, and he was one of the characters whose save was weaker for this as well. Kel - for example - would probably not have been charmed.
I found some spooky art for them in a token set that I'd bought some time ago.
The necrotic damage effects left the characters in a hard place; narratively, three of them had varying degrees of frostbite. Mechanically, they could only recover back to the reduced max hit points in the long rest, so they needed an immediate short rest (which we did narratively as a slow breaking of their fast. They really didn't want to rest, but rightly felt that it was foolhardy to head into the Temple without full resources.
As an encounter, it was pretty successful. I can see why Sly Flourish and others recommend reskinning existing monsters.
The other element of luck for the players is that - by travelling in the early hours - they managed to avoid another skill challenge around the return of the Roc.
27 August 2022
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