Land at last! Nothing I could throw, not even a gulag, could dampen the relief and optimism of the players. I was quite happy at Hunter’s quick catch when I was slowly revealing the true nature of Vatyr. Indeed, no one goes to work in a salt mine at the end of the world of their own volition. One goes to the salt mine because they were forced to. Let’s have a look at this episode’s references to the setting and mechanics.

Mechanics

Long rest

I covered part of the various mechanics involved in the long rest the party had on the ice in my last GM log. I will cover them again briefly since the players and I talk about a bunch of various rules at the start of the episode. First, I want to remind everyone that my players know they must remove their medium or heavy armor to have the benefits of a long rest. Here is the official rule for those who are unaware (it’s in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything p. 77): “When you finish a long rest during which you slept in medium or heavy armor, you regain only one-quarter of your spent Hit Dice (minimum of one die). If you have any levels of exhaustion, the rest doesn’t reduce your level of exhaustion.”

On top of this, I add my Hit Dice Regeneration rule set. During a long rest, players can roll up to half their hit dice (minimum of one). This means that if they hit 0 hit dice left, they will only have half for the upcoming day. They can also spend one hit die to try and remove a stress point. If they do, they can attempt a Sanity saving throw with the DC of (10 + number of current stress points). If the save is successful, their stress points are reduced by 1.

At the end of the long rest, I make sure the threshold of nights spent in poor sleeping conditions has not passed (it’s 3 nights). It wasn’t, but I added one night to the bad sleep tracker. If the players sleep another 2 nights in poor conditions, they will need to start making Constitution saving throw each morning to see if their night was restful. (Sleeping Conditions rule set)

Setting

Ciofra’s Captor

Baba Lysaga as portrayed in Curse of Strahd (c) Wizard of the Coast

As discussed before, we played Curse of Strahd before we moved to Lamordia. It was a nod to the previous campaign and fun for them to establish their character in a world we had played before could reference and that our listeners would potentially know too. Ciofra’s captor is a rather notorious NPC in Curse of Strahd: Baba Lysaga. A woman obsessed with Strahd, a foul witch of Mother Night and a dangerous ritual caster who has cheated death countless times. We shall know more as Ciofra tells his story.

Khazan

Similarly, to Baba Lysaga, Khazan is a reference to Curse of Strahd. However, this time, Cam decided to go with a character that belonged to Barovia’s history, namely the mage Khazan. Aesafina herself does not know much about the man besides that there is a tower that bears his name on Lake Baratok and that he was very learned in magic. During her travels in the valley, she found a very old tome preserved magically written by Khazan in a schizoid code probably only known to him. She has spent many hours decoding parts of the tome and what she has learned so far has helped her by leaps and bounds.

The Meat Pies

This is yet another reference to Curse of Strahd. There are multiple hags in Barovia, each fouler than the next. One is named Morgantha and she bakes meat pies at an old windmill with her two daughters. The meat pies cause one to have beautiful and joyous dreams of a place far from the dark and evil that is Barovia. Once the dreams end, they leave them afflicted with a deep longing to return to that place.

Two of Zana’s brothers: Sergiu and Alexandru waste away and eventually die from eating the meat pies offered to them by Morgantha.

When players don’t take a character seriously

Have you prepared a badass monster with a sick description? You introduce them and your players are focused on your every word, the moment is tense, and you finally reveal them… to have your players instantly laugh at their name or find a corny nickname?

Yep, this often happens. It’s totally normal. Don’t get disparaged. It’s a way for your players to defuse stress and make light of something serious that’s happening at the table. Players cannot be in their character’s shoes all the time. That would be way too intense. It does not mean they are not taking the threat seriously, if anything, it means they are! Ridicule is a way to minimize something that would be otherwise too big to face head-on. When we played Curse of Strahd, just saying “Strahd” could lead to disastrous consequences, so the players started calling him “Straiid.” It was stupid. It was funny. They were doing it in character too, to the confusion of the NPCs, but eventually, the bravest ones also started calling him that as well.

Lord Georgiy also fell under the same habit the players have. Partly because I horribly pronounced his name the first time, but also because he is a faceless, dark authority figure. If it happens in your games, do not be annoyed, just roll with it, because it’ll happen with a lot of big bad you build up.

Lord Georgiy

Speaking of, Lord Georgiy merits his own portrait as he is an NPC who will stick around for a little while and has a part to play in this new story arc named Trade. I’m curious as to what your impressions of him and of the city/work camp of Vatyr you have so far. Let me know!

Whistle in the Dark - GM Log