Session Date: 05/25/2024
It has been stated that the Domains of Dread are Hell, but not for us: specially designed Hells for specific people. Some scholars say that they are not Hells but rather events: those that have happened, what is happening, what will happen. Strahd’s plane is one such domain: he must live with the Hell that his love will never accept him. She is always reincarnated as no soul can leave Borovia, but Strahd also has his own loop as adventurers always visit and kill him. He’s alive, dying, dead, undead. Right now he is dead.
Serina and Atheya have been traveling together for some time from place to place.
Serina is a tall, beautiful woman with white hair. She’s wearing armor that’s seen better days and wielding a sword that’s seen better days. She’s been on the road for a while. Despite being somewhat battered, she has a noble bearing to her.
Atheya is much the same: a tall, beautiful woman with white, long hair that she keeps tied up.
As the battle dust settles, Atheya goes to check on the people the brigands captured to make sure they’re okay. Serina checks to make sure the brigands are down and will stay down. The nobles on the carriage are fine because we arrived so soon, and Atheya is reassuring them that everything is okay and that nobody is going to steal from them. One of the brigands is trying to crawl away, which Serina lets him go. The people on the carriage are very thankful. After a little discussion we agree to accompany them to where they are headed to keep them safe.
We bury the dead brigands in shallow graves, then go with them. Atheya sits in the back with the nobles, and Serina sits with the driver at the front of the carriage. Atheya keeps polite conversation going with the nobles until they arrive at the at a little no name tavern.
By chance they are in a domain that is large enough to be an entire country.
Arkuda and Trouble are in a tavern and are in the middle of an informal “court” case. They are trying to get a thief that stole bread off due to previous ancient laws.
Trouble is a goblin that has some bat-like qualities such as big ears, bat-like nose, a small tail. They have green skin and white hair, and wear large golden framed glasses. They have paint all over their apron and a utility built filled with all sorts of equipment. They are legally Arkuda’s squire and continue to hand papers and things to Arkuda as needed, but has no clue what’s going on.
Arkuda is a hobgoblin with large horns, strange eyes, and other interesting features that are definitely not hobgoblin, such as having a tail. For lack of a better description, he’s a tiefling.
Arkuda is wrapping up his final arguments, saying that there was no way the gentleman could have stolen the bread because he was busy getting his portrait painted by Trouble the day the crime happened, and portraits take forever to do. The man is acquitted of his crime and Trouble sends a message saying that she knows what this man did, and he should pay up: it doesn’t have to be money, but it could be a favor.
He finally introduces himself as Cloyd and invites both Arkuda and Trouble out to celebrate with his friends. They follow him to the tavern and enter behind him.
Arseid has had a rough week since the incident. She hasn’t been dealing with this at all, simply running as far away as possible from it, and fighting for her survival. More than anything she’s been trying to put as much distance between herself and this event.
She wakes up from a dream on this day. She dreamed of her best friend who recruited her getting stabbed through the throat. Arseid is next to them and can’t heal them or save them or stop this. She startles awake and there is a mist around her, and she is in a place that definitely doesn’t generates mist.
She is feeling a lot of guilt about how she should have been stronger and this was her fault, a lot of survivor’s guilt.
Arseid gets up and starts to wander and the trees are strange - not that she notices - and it smells weird, and it’s cold, and everything about this place is uncomfortable. She wanders and comes across a road that seems to have been carved out purely by people passing rather than intentionally. A raven has been flying around and comes back and lands on a branch of a tree and stares at Arseid. Arseid returns the stare and walks up to it while maintaining the stare, which does not scare the raven. She draws her spear and continues walking, holding it as she moves forward.
The raven continues to watch her, eventually saying that, “it will not protect you!” Arseid asks how it can talk, and the raven can talk.
Arseid doesn’t hear many voices ahead, but she does see light. There’s an inn in the middle of this forest. It’s called The Last Chance Inn. She enters and sees a man clad in armor, a goblin with bat-like features, a woman in armor, and another woman seeming to be dressed in noble clothes. Arseid notices Atheya first and stares at her for like 20 seconds, then goes to get food.
The rest of the party has been here for a while now, and we are all confused, but in a way we don’t quite understand. Atheya and Serina recognize that they’re somewhere else now, and are both on guard a bit. Trouble recognizes that she’s elsewhere but not quite sure where, and Arkuda is perhaps aware that they’ve hopped domains.
The inn itself is comfortable enough: they have accommodations for large, medium, and small creatures, and it’s comfortable enough. There is not a feeling of safety here.
Trouble is scared and uses Arkuda as their shield, hiding under his cloak. They start to tug on his cloak more insistently. There was a voice from the back and nobody else there, so it’s just us.
Atheya Recalls:
There was talk on Kas’s court that there was an inn that was not a domain but was moving through domains. Nobody knows the owner or what type of people work here. There is no military advantage because it can’t move a lot of troops.
She tells this to Serina, and Arseid sits down with them before very long.
A large fluffy minotaur with a broken horn enters and greets us finally, after Trouble complains about being hungry and the barkeep offers tea, stew, and bread. We all order some and then group up at one table, with Trouble asking for the whole pot of stew (no). Trouble offers to draw his portrait.
The minotaur explains that people end up here when they really need to be.
It’s an extremely fragrant and fresh tea. The leaves have been kept fresh by magic. It’s a white tea. The rest of the flowers are also fresh but they were picked yesterday rather than now. This is a cup of tea made by so much love and so much care, talked about a lot. Drinking the tea makes you remember a good memory from your life, making you feel of warmth and home.
Memories:
- Atheya - her mother
- Arkuda - meeting Trouble
- Trouble - meeting Arkuda
- Serina - her mother
The minotaur’s partner back home makes the tea between helping save the planes. He’s not from around here, he admits, but from someone else. He’s Wyroon, and he’s just filling for someone else that normally works. He warns that when we exit we will be somewhere other than where we started, and Arseid asks if she will be very far away from where she started, and Wyroon is puzzled that she is unfamiliar with this.
Wyroon gives a quick and dirty about what the Domains of Dread are, warning that it’s dangerous and spans many places. There are werewolves, ghosts, and vampires, among other dangerous critters.
Arseid asks if we are from Duloc and we admit that we haven’t heard of it, and she is very relieved at this information.
Wyroon explains that this place safe as we cannot draw blood and that killing people is incredibly hard. The level of violence allowed is a bar brawl. Arkuda asks for clarification and Wyroon explains that flat out we can’t draw our weapons here. There are rooms for us available if we wish to stay, and while we are here we are guests of the inn, but we cannot bring any trouble here.
We discover that Arkuda and Trouble were from the domains, and Wyroon comments that there has been a lot more travel through the Domains as of late. It’s either that methods to travel between Domains is growing more common, some deities are playing a trick, or there is a new player - the last of which is rather concerning.
Strahd is confirmed by Wyroon to be dead and it will take a while for him to come back, but his servants could be doing a ritual to bring him back sooner and not letting him sleep.
We all eventually retire to our rooms for the evening. Each of the rooms are somewhat custom for each of us. We all sleep. Arseid has her nightmare: the details keep changing enough that she can’t actually grow accustomed to it, waking up in a sweat.
Wyroon goes and wakes Trouble up early in the morning so that they can sing, but Trouble says they were going to sing at breakfast rather than to wake us all up.
Trouble thinks we are all buzz kills for getting up so early and we all explain that we enjoy our jobs and are living our lives, even if it’s not how they necessarily think we should. There is a lot of chit chat and conversation, with Arseid joining Atheya and Serina for sure.
We all finish up breakfast and leave the inn. At first, what we see is a forest. There’s something wrong with the forest. It’s hard to say what, exactly, but the trees look sick, and there’s this horrible smell. It smells of rotting compost and decomposition. Serina seems to be particularly taken by it, feeling sickened as we move through. We find men that are trying to chop this forest down, and behind them is complete desolation: no more trees, just stumps.
There is a city beyond them that is covered in a grey-yellow grime that is pumping smoke into the air. Outside of the town are some estates that are cleaner, but it’s not actually clean. This place is a giant industrial machine.
Serina has heard of:
Nosos. She knows that they actively destroy the environment here. There is no recognizable government here; whoever has money has influence on this place.
It’s clear that Serina is holding back throwing up, and Atheya digs out some tincture to help with the smell so that she is not so affected by it.
As Serina is feeling a little better, someone is angrily barreling toward us asking who we are.