Ravenloft: Strahd's Destruction!

 

If this is Dhelt's response to returning an amulet, I want to be the hero who rescues his kidnapped daughter.

           

Somers and Quill, Forgotten Realms denizens, arrived in this weird little dimension after killing a burglar who stole the holy symbol belonging to Lord Dhelt. Since then, our only mission has been to recover the holy symbol and get home; in this, we are principally opposed by the enigmatic, vampiric lord of the place: Count Strahd von Zarovich. We have been joined by NPCs native to this place, all of whom either want to destroy Strahd or escape this nightmare campaign setting.

   

A note on the burglar's body indicated that he stole Dhelt's symbol because he thought it was the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, perhaps the only artifact that can defeat Strahd. Our explorations, and our meeting last session with the great raven Pyoor Twohundredsummers, have led us to believe that the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is in fact a different artifact, hidden by someone named Sasha. Its location was written on texts contained in the Old Church; the texts are readable only by someone holding Sasha's Reading Glass, which we obtained from Pyoor.

     

An inscription I failed to notice the last time I was in the church. Removing the "but" would have preserved the trochaic hexameter. 

            

Dhelt's holy symbol ironically has a secondary, and equally vital, use. After investigating other possibilities to no avail, we have learned that the way to warp out of here is to use a magical book called Trimia's Catalogue along with a fiery red gem, an elven crown, the feather of a wereraven, a Tarokka (read: tarot) card, and a "symbol of truth, honor, and religious devotion stolen from its rightful owner." Wheels within wheels, my friends.

    

At the end of the last session, Pyoor gave us a key that would open a locked door in the basement of the Old Church. We head there, hoping that the door will open into a room, and Sasha's scroll will be there, and that will be it. But of course, the door opens to reveal a stairway downward and we have to explore another entire level.

        

This is the third new Latin term I've learned this week.

        

The Old Church: Lower Level 2 is presented as a vast library. We find a scroll immediately upon entering. It is an unencrypted account of how the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind once shot a beam of light that sent Strahd into a "long hibernation." It reiterates that the symbol is now hidden, and two other scrolls are the only keys to its location.

    

I end up having to loop around the level multiple times, as there are a lot of illusory walls, plus buttons and chains that open remote locations. The only enemies are shadows and shadow fiends, both of which sound scary but are actually relatively pathetic. Their vaunted partial invisibility doesn't work in the bright light of Mischa's "Light" spell. They supposedly drain strength, but I don't see it happen. They're immune to elemental attacks, but I don't need to use such magic. They mostly die in one hit. The shadow fiends (I think there are three of them) do hit hard, and a couple of times I have to back off to heal one of my first-rank characters, but in general the level isn't much of a challenge when it comes to monsters.

       

This was briefly scary.

          

It is, on the other hand, a challenge when it comes to navigation. There are locked doors everywhere, and only one key to open them. That key is past a door that opens only to a particular button, which is nowhere near the door. Although I'm trained to look for variations in wall patterns by now, I cannot find this button despite multiple loops through the level. My characters often pipe up to alert me to oddities in the walls, but they don't here, and again I wonder whether having a thief in the party increases the chances of making that kind of identification.

      

A shadow wraith is trapped behind a chair.

        

I finally have to resort to the cluebook to find the button. I'm glad I have it. The danger of doing what I did last session, hex-editing the party to escape a "walking dead" situation, is that once you know how to do that sort of thing, and you've broken the dam, it's tempting to keep doing it. Later, I resist almost overwhelming temptation to do it in the Old Church: Lower Level 1. There's a door in the southeast that I simply cannot figure out how to open, and the cluebook is weirdly no help. 

      

The button I missed is to the lower-right of the chain.

         

The key, by the way, opens four separate doors. I may be wrong, but I think every other key in the game has only been used once. It's a good thing I didn't get into the habit of discarding them after their first use. At the end of this session, I'm carrying 23 separate keys, including a dozen on two separate keyrings. I'll take alternative opinions, but I think "best practice" when it comes to keys is to either offer an unlimited keyring or to make single-use keys vanish once used. This is just absurd, particularly when the keys weigh half a pound each.

     

One of several keyed doors.

      

Within the locked areas of the level, I find some potions, some scrolls, another set of Gauntlets of Dexterity, and Sasha's two encrypted scrolls. The way the scrolls work is that you hold Sasha's Reading Glass in one hand and the scroll in the other, then view the scroll. A little window appears that you can move across the writing to translate it. The scrolls use a simple substitution cipher, and it would be possible, if time-consuming, to figure them out without the Reading Glass. As it is, the fact that you can only see about five words at a time makes it annoying to transcribe the text.

       

The prism translates the text, bit by bit.

         

Together, the scrolls say:

        

Where azure dome yields to constant gray, where sky and cloud are one and light is but a flash among the clouds, where death lashes brightly to the ground, go you there! Search below the thundering heavens for the prize. Amid the twisted wildwood, its guardian stands. One good, straight heart of oak waits proud and true, a beauty beneath the dread sky.

Go then to the gypsies, for from the Vistani alone may you acquire a certain potion, an elixir known to be the only passport through what mists shield the place. For only those guarded thus and true of heart may challenge the fog, that wall of poison which awaits between you, the forest of the undead, and the prize.

Once twined around in stone, then twice, then thrice, then twice more in circumflexion, each circle of four waits within the greater ring, waits for the planting of the seeds. Aye, for only the seeds of divine light, of Lathander Morninglord, when placed to rest within the inner circles may free the prize. Planted within that shady circumference, one to each circle of stones, these four symbols will bring down the light, rending beauty to release the prize. Then behold! There the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind awaits.

           

I don't know what the last paragraph means, and probably won't know until I get there, but the first two paragraphs make the next steps clear: Use the Vistani potion to cross the mists and find the stout oak. 

    

Those readers who abandoned my blog when they saw the state of my inventory will, should they ever return, be happy to know that I spent about 30 minutes cleaning it up. I decided to use the apse of the Old Church as a storage place. I divested myself of all scrolls and quest items that I'm reasonably sure I no longer need, as well as extra weapons and armor.

      

Does this look any better?

          

When I'm done, I have Somers in charge of the quest items plus a few excess potions and one excess scroll. Quill has all the keys, which alone make him lightly encumbered, but light encumbrance supposedly doesn't have any consequences. Mischa has the healing items and cleric scrolls, which together make him moderately encumbered. This gives him a -1 attack penalty. To counter it, I throw away his helmet, which according to D&D rules isn't doing anything anyway. 

   

Quill's inventory has 10 doses of Keoghtom's Ointment, 16 Potions of Extra Healing, and two scroll cases full of "Raise Dead," "Neutralize Poison," and "Cure Disease," none of which I ever expect to use. I have some loose cleric scrolls like "Cure Light Wounds" and "Flame Blade," which I plan to use as soon as I can. They also weigh half a pound each.

     

We really made a mess of the church.

          

Finally, Glorianna has the magic items, including Wands of Magic Missiles, Frost, and Paralyzation, plus several mage scrolls, a whole chest of Oils of Fiery Burning, and a number of buffing potions like Speed and Giant Strength. I leave a lot of extra stuff in the church. Not for the first time, I wonder if the game is so generous with loot so as to trick the player into encumbrance.

   

I don't know if it matters where I enter the mist, but for whatever reason, I go all the way back to the Svalich Woods, where I first arrived in this realm. I use the experience to develop my theory about respawning, which I cover below. I swallow the potion and enter the fog to the Undead Forest.

       

Some dialogue from Somers saves me from having to administer the potion to every character.

         

As with the last time I tried this, I arrive on the other side and am immediately surrounded and torn apart by treants. These are the only creatures in the area, by the way, so I have no idea why it's called the Undead Forest.

   

This area takes me about an hour and is a complete nightmare. There are a couple of dozen treants in clusters all over the map. [No, Microsoft, I don't mean "in a state of disorder." I literally mean all over the map.] There's no place to flee where you don't run headlong into a pack of them. They don't seem to get hung up on obstacles as easily as other enemies; when I find a circle of stones, I at first think I'm saved, that they won't be able to fit through the gaps, but it turns out that they pose no barrier. Meanwhile, the party gets hung up on plenty of obstacles, often unable to move through what appears to be large gaps between pairs of trees. 

        

The treants corner me.

      

While I'm trying to deal with them, lightning bolts are shooting randomly out of the mists that border the  map. And I keep accidentally fleeing through the mists and back to one of the other Ravenloft maps. This isn't a big deal—the Vistani potion seems to last forever—except that I have to watch the same 30-second animation every time I go back into the mists.

   

The map is dotted with swirly white teleporters, which become my salvation. After I have lured enough of the treants away from their starting points, one of the teleporters deposits me into an area devoid of treants. I can see them in the distance, but I'm not close enough to "activate" them. I start creeping close to them, activating them one or two at a time, killing them with missile weapons or spells before they reach the party when possible. They're worth 500 experience points, which sounds like a lot, but it barely nudges me closer to the next level. I need hundreds of thousands.

      

A weird teleporter.

          

The only good news here is that I end up using a lot of my excess stuff, including every Oil of Fiery Burning, several wands, several scrolls, and a lot of potions.

        

An outraged treant escapes the fire I inflicted. Note that Glorianna has "Claws of the Umber Hulk" active. I don't remember that spell in another CRPG.

      

The area has some mundane weapons, a Wand of Frost, some additional Oils of Fiery Burning, and a couple of items called Seeds of the Morninglord. I don't find anything that looks like a sturdy oak, however. I start testing the teleporters and eventually find one that takes me to a second Undead Forest that looks mostly like the first, except it has a big oak in the analogous circle of stones. Of course, this means I have to deal with an entirely new army of treants.

   

The map has two more Seeds of the Morninglord, two cleric scrolls of "Heal," two mage scrolls of "Fireball," and some more mundane weapons. It also has two Magic Stones, which appear to be throwing weapons, but they don't return or anything.

     

It's a miracle that such a small thing just sat her undisturbed all these years.

           

The oak in the center of the stone circle is surrounded by four smaller stone circles. Sasha's scrolls said that I needed to plant a seed in each one, so I do. 

   

A cutscene shows four hands thrusting out of the ground to grab the seeds. Then a lightning bolt hits the top of the tree, splitting it down the middle. The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind is revealed within. It's a shame that the tree had to be destroyed. I like oaks, even though I got bonked in the head by three acorns last week while walking around my house. 

      

The hand thing is creepy.

       

With the Holy Symbol in hand, we wander into the nearest mists and find ourselves on the Old Svalich Road North, which is convenient. We can't think of anything to do but confront Strahd.      

        

Poor tree.

      

Commenter VladimIr V Y alerted me that I forgot about a stairway in the main chapel. I have no idea how I missed it; it's not hidden or anything. I take it now. We wind our way up half a dozen small tower levels, fighting nothing more serious than doom guards (they're worth 1,000 experience points and pose no threat whatsoever). The Ravenloft Silver Tower Key is used three times during the ascent, belying my earlier comment about keys not being re-used.

   

At the top of the tower, we find imprisoned a large man who offers to join the party. He's a Level 6 chaotic good human fighter named Anshelm. The idea that we'd need a Level 6 fighter at this stage of the game is pretty absurd. (It would have been absurd even if I'd found him during the last session.) We thank him for his offer but send him on his way. It's not clear to me why Strahd would have bothered to imprison him.

       

I think perhaps "a turn of ill-luck" deserves some elaboration.

        

We head back down to the dungeons to the final encounter with Strahd. As we approach, I get the holy symbol ready and cast all the buffing spells I can think of. Somers and Quill take Potions of Speed, Giant Strength, and Fire Resistance. I move forward.

    

Perhaps a bit over-prepared.

      

We have the same dialogue with Strahd as before, except now we can taunt him with the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. He doesn't seem to be afraid of it. In fact, he pretends that it was All Part of His Plan.

      

I wonder if I could pull off a cape.

           

The final battle is disappointing. Strahd can't be hurt by anything except blasts from the Holy Symbol, so all our buffing was mostly wasted. The Holy Symbol is a ranged weapon with a cool-down period. If I stand far away from Strahd, he blasts me with "Fireballs," which mostly do no damage because of my rings and potions. But I hate just standing around, so I get up in his face and attack with melee weapons during cool-downs, which gives Strahd a chance to attack with his claws.

      

Firing the artifact at the blue demon.

          

I try to keep up with healing potions, but Somers is busted down to Level 4 and (somehow) only 7 hit points, so it's impossible to keep her alive. When Strahd succumbs to the last blast, Somers is dead.

    

I don't think I'm going to be able to bring these characters into the sequel, so that's fine, but something won't let me leave it at that. I reload the game and this time engage Strahd only from a distance. He barely does any damage to us before he disappears, dropping Lord Dhelt's holy symbol on the ground. I check out the sarcophagus in the center of the room to see if Strahd's body retreated to it, but the game gives me nothing. 

    

I don't know if I can live with this.

       

I could use Trimia's Catalogue right away, but I feel compelled to do a bit of "surplaying." There's no way that Strahd is dead—he's the key figure in a whole campaign setting, after all, and when he disappeared, we didn't get any experience—so someone might need this Holy Symbol of Ravenkind in the future.  

    

I'm hoping that the game acknowledges our victory in some way, but alas, it doesn't. Nobody I talk to has any new dialogue, including Tatiana, the priest in the Old Church, the Vistani in the bar, and the bartender himself. The game has us call him "innkeeper" and ask for a drink even though we know his secret. Thus, we drop the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind in front of him and then prepare the items necessary to use Trimia's Catalogue.

     

The game doesn't let you drop objects on furniture, so I leave it on the floor.

        

With no opportunity to remove Mischa or Glorianna from the party, or even ask if they want to come along, Somers clicks on the book. The endgame cutscene kicks in. 

   

First, the book opens, and a number of flashes come from it as the various items are consumed.

       

I'm curious what all the text says.

       

Then the animation shows us flying through a wormhole in space, passing a number of celestial objects but also a number of paintings showing various scenes. I suspect these are meant to be windows into various planes or campaign settings. I don't think any of them are identifiable, although there's a desert scene towards the end that could be the world of Dark Sun.

     

Or, I suppose, Al-Qadim.

       

We end up in a flat plane with a throne in the middle. As we get close, we see the symbol of Helm, god of duty, on its back. Then Helm himself is sitting on the throne, depicted as a suit of empty, animated armor. He thanks us for recovering the holy symbol for "one of his most devout followers."

     

Those eyes are a bit unnerving.

        

I guess Helm sends us home, because the next scene shows us climbing the stairs in Dhelt's castle and finding him in his chambers. He's delighted to see us and promises wealth and honors for the rest of our lives.

    

Who is well? It's been a long trip.

      

And then, predictably, the final scene shows a thick mist snaking into a coffin in a cave somewhere, followed by Strahd's glowing eyes and sinister laughter. Why are villains always laughing after they lost?

     

Strahd returns to his refuge.

     

Some miscellaneous notes:

   

• I end the game still not quite knowing how the game handles respawns. My best guess is that there are a fixed number of enemies in each area, some in the area initially, and some held in reserve to slowly repopulate the area after the party initially clears it. But once enough of these reserve monsters are depleted, the area is completely quiet—except maybe at night. And when the party unsuccessfully rests. I don't know.

• The Axe of Hurling and Dagger of Throwing were arguably the most useful items in the game. I don't think there were any other auto-returning throwing weapons. Incidentally, there are weird circumstances, against some enemies, in which these items don't return and end up on the floor instead. I never got a handle on why this happened. I was lucky enough that I always noticed their absence and managed to find them, but it was dicey a couple of times.

• I never found a key to the large door at the southern end of the Old Svalich Road South.

• The character sheets show a distinction between maximum attributes and current attributes. Quill, who was raised once, has a maximum constitution of 15 but a current constitution of 14. That implies the loss can be reversed somehow.

• I might be wrong, but I don't think the game offered any quest experience, just enemy experience. Although the experience tables in the manual go up to Level 20, I ended the game with Glorianna at Level 10 and everyone else at Level 9, all far from their next level. (I would have had to kill 2,957 zombies, if I could have found that many, for Somers to reach Level 10.) But Level 6 mage spells are programmed into the game. I can't imagine how you'd get there.

• Credits roll after the final scene, starting with the voice actors who played each character. I don't remember seeing this before.

    

Frank Schurter, whose name I accidentally clipped off, had a lot of responsibilities. He was also on the graphics team.

          

I didn't make use of enough of Glorianna's higher-level spells to justify having a pure mage in that slot. Velika might have been a better choice assuming that thief skills actually make a difference anywhere.

       

I'm going to take a little time for the "Summary and Rating," as I want to go through the Ravenloft tabletop materials and compare them to the setting presented in the CRPG and to see if they answer any questions or provide any elaboration on plot points like the Vistani (what was the purpose of the whole visit to their camp?!), the wereravens, or the Amulet of Ravenkind.

   

Here's a final thought before I go: The title is yet another example of "banallure!" I assumed Strahd would somehow possess someone, or be possessed himself. Instead, the subtitle refers to the literal thing he's clutching in his hand—Dhelt's holy symbol. Dhelt himself is awfully gleeful over such a small thing; it's not like we saved his kingdom from invasion. At the end of the game, Strahd is still alive and presumably still in charge, we're back where we started, and Dhelt has a bit of jewelry back. I've said before that I like low-stakes plots, but this one might go too far.

      

Final time: 36 hours 

 

**** 

    

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

10/31/2026 

 

Pagan: The Beginning of Wisdom

The Avatar is a bit slow.

        

Plot check: The Avatar has been stranded on the world of Pagan by the Guardian, who continues to taunt him with hints about the devastation he is inflicting on Britannia while the Avatar tries to find a way back. (How are we supposed to regard these jeers? Are they audible to others? Just in the Avatar's head?) The Avatar has learned from a thaumaturgist named Mythran that to escape Pagan, he will need to master the native forms of magic, each aspected to an element, each dominated by an elemental titan.

   

The Avatar has learned necromancy (earth magic) and has risen to the rank of second-in-command of the necromancers, of whom there seem to be two. He has not learned tempestry (water magic), but he has freed the elemental titan of water, Hydros, from her ancient prison, and she has vowed exact revenge on the city of Tenebrae and the descendants of the tempest who imprisoned her. He has made tentative contact with the sorcerers (fire magic) and has learned that he'll need to learn a flying spell to cross the river of lava and to reach the sorcerers. Finally, he has passed the initial tests to become a theurgist. Theurgy is aspected to air, the domain of Stratos, whose followers study the healing arts. Stratos seems unique among the titans in not being a complete knob, but then again, I haven't met her yet.

     

A test of "all I have learned" turns out to be one spell.

           

We resume with the Avatar, having constructed his theurgistic focuses, returning to the leader of the theurgists, Stellos. Stellos tells me that now that I have all the theurgistic spells, I will need to return to the caverns under the monastery, where I had found the silver ore used to make the focuses. "You will know what to do when you arrive there," he assures.

   

Shortly after I arrive in the caverns, I find a wounded torax, heavily breathing on the ground. Feeling mischievous, I try to kill it. The game doesn't even acknowledge the swings of my sword. I sigh, open up my focus/potion bag, and select "Healing Touch." The torax stops his heavy breathing and, after a moment, disappears.

     

Did some sick bastard wound a torax just so I could come down here and heal it?

    

The torax was on a little island that I had to jump down to. Now, I die three times trying to jump back to the main part of the dungeon. I end up using the Recall Item to go to the Argentrock Isle teleporter pad, then walk back to Stellos. I imagine that there are probably more tests in the dungeon, but since I have to pass him anyway, it doesn't hurt to check. To my surprise, I have a dialogue option that "I have passed the third test."

   

Stellos congratulates me but says my further education will have to wait, as "a terrible thing has happened": someone has stolen Brother Xavier's focus of healing. Stellos is careful to clarify that if this thief is found, Stellos will not hold a grudge but will "help him find the path of Enlightenment again." 

     

What a bunch of hippies.

     

Stellos makes it clear that he doesn't have any leads, so I don't know what's going to be occupying the time that he would have spent guiding me to my next test. Certainly, he's not going to be looking for it. Nonetheless, this is clearly my problem to solve. I start poking around. Cyrrus just repeats what Stellos told me, adding that the item was stolen while Xavier slept. Torwin, who doesn't remember my name from our previous encounter, has nothing new to offer.

    

I find Xavier in his house. He says the focus was stolen from a chest next to his bed. Given that he's a light sleeper, whoever stole it would have had to be very stealthy. He tells me that Torwin is a very "strange" student, given to lurking around people's houses at night. He has been asking about the "Resurrection" spell, apparently only given by Stratos to one adept at a time. Casting this spell is how Stellos lost his eyesight. Anyway, Torwin has also repeatedly failed the third test despite his advancing rapidly through the first two.

   

During our conversation, Xavier mentions that Stratos has provided the means of learning the truth, which reminds me of the "Hear Truth" spell. Its focus looks like a chain. I cast it and run around speaking to everyone again. I don't think the spell is perfect, as Torwin still insists that he made his focus correctly (the third test) on his first try. However, Cyrrus has some new information: he thinks Torwin stole the focus; he's covering for Torwin; Torwin went to Windy Point on some kind of errand.

      

This is a cute way to represent the effects of the spell—what he says in regular text, the truth in parentheticals—except it doesn't seem to work on any other NPC.

      

I find Torwin on the plateau near the two stone pillars that look out over the sea. After some prodding (in which "Hear Truth" seems to do nothing), he admits to "borrowing" the focus. He tells me he's the son of Toran, the man executed by Mordea at the beginning of the game. Torwin thought that by combining two focuses, he can make the standard "Healing Touch" spell more powerful, perhaps even affecting the equivalent of a "Resurrection" spell without needing to know that spell. Torwin did not realize that Toran was cast into the sea for Hydros, and he loses it when I tell him. He insists that he will bring his father back, that he doesn't even need the extra focus, which he tosses at my feet. "I am strong enough to do it on my own! And I will! I'm coming for you, father!!" He then runs and jumps off the promontory into the sea and drowns.

     

I have never been so confused about someone's plan.

         

(This was all hinted when I spoke to Rhian, Toran's wife, several entries ago: "Their son, Torwin, has gone off to be a Theurgist, something that confuses Rhian because he never expressed any interest in becoming a healer when he was growing up." I had forgotten about that. It's not a bad motivation. When I met Torwin last session, I was convinced he was going to get jealous that I was advancing faster than him. I'm glad his story was more complicated than that.)

    

In addition to the focus, he threw his ring on the ground. I pick up both objects and return to Xavier. He gratefully receives the focus but doesn't ask me where I found it. When I speak to Stellos, my dialogue option to introduce the subject is, amusingly, "Poor Torwin." Stellos already seems to know what happened to the kid, which is a bit mystifying. Anyway, he says that I'm ready for the final test, which is to go jump off the very promontory at which Torwin committed suicide. 

   

Well, I have the power of Reload and Torwin didn't. I go, stand between the pillars, and jump. Of course, this time, there's a floating rock waiting for me on the other side. I jump from rock to rock, eventually nearing a platform with a swirling gale upon it: Stratos. As I get close, Stratos sends a whirlwind to knock me down, then lift me up and float me over to her. "And yet another child is found. Please, small one, come closer." 

      

It's not like you gave me any choice.

       

The Avatar's only response is a supremely stupid "Who are you?" She, of course, introduces herself as Stratos, the titan of air. She says that she invests her "chosen children" with the power of healing through the "Breath of Wind," the location of which is known only to Stellos. I have the option to say, "May I have the Breath of Wind?" and then to insist "I must have the Breath of Wind" when she says no. She still declines: "Without the Breath of Wind, many would die. Many would pay the price for your quest for power. No, child, I cannot allow this." I mean, good for her. I don't know why the Avatar is demanding this power in the first place. At first, I think it's the power that will allow him to fly across the lava to the sorcerers, but no, she gives me a focus that will let me cast "Air Walk" and presumably accomplish that task. So I'm not sure what the Avatar was going on about.

 

Stratos, incidentally, came across as a touch arrogant but still not evil like Lithos or Hydros. 

   

"Air Walk" doesn't seem to work to levitate me back to the promontory. Just like "Hear Truth," I gather that it's far more limited than its description would suggest, useful only at specific locations to solve scripted plot points. I verify this by returning to Tenebrae and re-talking to everyone with "Hear Truth" active. No one has any parenthetical dialogue. There are, however, some new bits of dialogue related to events since the last time I spoke with them:

   

• A couple of the guards invite me to join them for a drink at the tavern.

• Jenna, the server in the tavern, remarks that "some fool" released Hydros but won't believe me when I tell her it was me. That's cute, but I was hoping she'd have some dialogue about Cyrrus. 

      

What "type," exactly, releases a titan?

         

• Shaana, the executioner, doesn't seem to know that Mordea is dead even though she was there.

• Darion, the captain who trains people in east Tenebrae, has something to say about most of the NPCs I met. His wife died shortly after she gave birth to Jenna. Jenna has refused marriage offers from just about every eligible man in Tenebrae, but Darion thinks I might have what it takes. When I speak to him again, I have the option to say, "Yes, I want to marry your daughter!" When I do, he sheepishly tells me that Jenna has sworn to kill any man that is chosen for her to marry. The game forces me to back out of the conversation with no resolution. It would have been pretty mean to Cyrrus anyway. I spend 50 gold to train with Darion, though to no purpose since my statistics are already at their maximums. 

     

What do I have to lose? It's not like I'm going to be staying.

       

• Cyrrus mentioned a bunch of people: Jenna, Darion, his parents. There are no dialogue options with any of them to report on how Cyrrus is doing.

• Several people remark on the "terrible weather." There are puddles on the streets everywhere from all the rain.

• The conversation I dread most is with Rhian, and of course the Avatar starts it clumsily with: "I found this ring." Upon further prodding, I have the option to tell Rhian that Torwin had an accident, committed suicide, or just "passed away." I choose the neutral option, and all she says is, "Perhaps we shall speak later." When I speak to her again, she gratefully takes the ring and sobs.

      

The Avatar just piles it on.

       

• Kilandra didn't know Devon had been made tempest. She also doesn't believe that I released Hydros. 

        

The fish always know.

      

I had assumed this "Bane" person would be the one to teach me the flying spell. Again, we see the hand of fate. When I walked away from the river of lava, resolutely continuing to follow the right wall, then encountering the theurgists, I thought I was doing My Own Thing. It turns out that's exactly what I had to do.

   

When I'm ready to resume my explorations, instead of going back to the lava lake, I continue my rightmost wall pattern from where the caverns exited at Argentrock Isle. (Oh, I just got it: "Argentrock" = "silver ore.") "Divination" calls this set of caverns the Upper Catacombs, which I thought applied to a different map. This turns out to be correct. After I wrap around the cave for a while, finding nothing but mushrooms and bones, I find myself back in the other Upper Catacombs, this one looking less like a cave and more like a . . . well, catacombs. 

   

I'm kind of back to the beginning at this point, but I spend some time peeking in on places I've already visited to find their proper names and ensure that I have an accurate map. Sometimes, the spell says I'm "totally lost" instead of giving me the area's name, so I have to go with my own names.

       

This is the Cemetery. I've been here many times.

        

Some findings:

      

• I never find an obvious place to use the Skull of Quakes. 

• I can't seem to get back to the Lower Catacombs (or whatever they were called) to find the ancient necromancers; the room where I fell down the hole in the floor seems to be gone entirely.

• Commenter Joshua suggested that I visit the cave in the Valley after I was done with the theurgists. I'm not sure why, as the reason I couldn't make any progress here last time was because of locked doors. None of my theurgist spells do anything about locked doors. I can't find any other way to move forward here, so I'll take another hint if anyone has one to offer.

• There's a cave on the north wall of the Plateau that I completely missed the first time. It has more fireballs shooting out of the walls than the other caves, where it's already overdone. A trapped chest in here contains a mace called "Bonecrusher." This weapon is mentioned in The Saga of Bone Crusher. It kills skeletons permanently without having to cast "Grant Peace." Otherwise, I don't know whether it's better than Protector, but I'll hold onto it.

• There's a large double-door in this cave, with a ton of dead bodies strewn in front of it. I search every single goddamned one of them and don't find a key. Mythran's spell doesn't work. And the whole time, I'm attacked by invisible enemies that don't show themselves when I cast "Reveal." Again, light hints welcome. 

     

Apparently, a lot of people died trying to get through this door.

       

• The area west of West Tenebrae turns out to be called Fishermans Reef, no apostrophe, according to the spell.

• Someone said I could open the locked door in the Pit of Death by casting "Create Golem" on a patch of earth. I mix the spell, but I cannot find any patch of earth in the area on which to cast it. 

      

Lots of mushrooms, but no earth.

          

• Shamhat alerted me to a lever in my screenshot of a chest completely surrounded by a fence in the caverns north of Carthax Lake (where I freed Hydros). I return there, lower the fence with the lever, and find that the chest is full of useless death disks and poison potions.

          

My map of the game so far. I can't really make the underground geography work.

        

Eventually, I'm back at the Lava River, where I walk to the edge of the lava, cast "Air Walk," move west, and immediately fall into the lava and die. I fiddle around a bit. It turns out "Air Walk" works with jumping; it really just makes you jump extra far. Not quite the "Fly" spell I was promised. I cross the lava, then a river, and finally emerge in the outdoors at a place that "Divination" tells me is called Daemon's Crag. I assume I'll meet the sorcerers here.

 

I guess this is where water from Hydros's prison is now flowing into the Lava River.

         

I don't feel like I accomplished much this session, but I cleared up some loose ends and was able to properly label my map.

   

Timestamp: 42 hours

    

****

   

Previous entry in this series

    

Next entry in this series

10/28/2026  

Ravenloft: Strahd's Gesticulations

 

What is he doing with his right hand?

         

Last session, the party began its assault on Strahd's domain, hoping to find the last of the items necessary to wormhole out of this hellscape with Trimia's Catalogue. We explored the Larders of Ill Omen (basement) and the parts of the main floor accessible from the front door.

   

We begin this session moving up from the basement into a section of the main floor that's cut off from the others. We open the door and immediately run into a zombie golem, easily the toughest enemy we've faced so far. It slaughters us (full-party death) within a few seconds of meeting it. It does the same in a couple of reloads.

   

Finally, with every buffing spell we can think of in effect ("Aid," "Shield," "Invisibility to Undead," "Prayer," "Blur") and a couple of blasts of a Wand of Fireballs the moment it appears, we manage to kill it before it kills us. The rest of this small area has nothing but stairs going up to the third floor.

 

A zombie golem ruins our day. I can't really interpret this enemy's image. It looks like he's wearing a dog on his back.

       

The fight illustrates the problem with combat in this game: it's too fast to be tactical. If you want to cast a spell against an enemy, you basically have to prepare it ahead of time. Once the enemy is in melee range, there's no time to be clicking around the inventory screens and spellbooks—no time, even, to swallow a potion or cast a healing spell on an ally. Again, I lament that the developers didn't pioneer the real-time/turn-based toggle that we saw in Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven (1998).

     

What is a zombie golem, anyway? A stone golem is made of stone; an iron golem is made of iron. A zombie golem is made of . . . zombies? Is it undead? ("Invisibility to Undead" didn't seem to work, if that's any clue.) In any event, the only thing it was guarding was a stairway up to the third floor.

   

We head back to the basement and try a second stairway to an unexplored part of the main floor. There are lightning bolts bouncing up and down a long corridor here, and I find that we can avoid them if we walk in the precise middle of the corridor. There are four buttons on the wall. I don't know what three of them do, but the fourth opens a nearby wall and disgorges two more zombie golems. To fight these guys, I have to exploit pathfinding a bit and hide behind a table.

       

Not the first time, won't be the last.

        

The room in which the zombie golems were waiting has no items and no exits, but I soon find an illusory wall, which takes me to an empty cell with a Blood Key. This is the second key I've found this session.

   

I take a stairway to the third level, called the Court of the Count. The area is swarming with doom guards, who are easy. After killing them, I head down a corridor and find, on the other side of some spinners, a bunch of potions, arrows, and a suit of magic chain mail. An adjacent chamber has three Oils of Fiery Burning. 

   

By this point, I'm testing every wall for illusory doors, which is a good thing because this level is full of them. A couple are behind skeletons embedded in the walls. Other encounters:

    

• A gargoyle guards a door. The door opens to a bedroom occupied by two vampires. 

      

Vampires in this game can be appropriately terrifying.

        

• A large throne room with several gargoyles. The throne faces a blank wall which has a secret door in it.

• A room with four doses of Keoghtom's Ointment.

• A library. One of the documents on the floor is labeled "Strahd's Notes." In them, Strahd complains about Azalin, the Lord of Darkon, a lich which has somehow appeared in his land. An assassin sneaked into Azalin's fortress and stole two items of power that she used to escape this dimension. The objects later returned about the time that we arrived. The note also indicates that the Vistani have been feeding information to Strahd, including information about our arrival. The "items of power" probably refer to the items that we need to use Trimia's Catalogue. Strahd seems to want them for himself so he can escape. There are also several mage scrolls in here.

       

Strahd really needs someone to help him clean up.

          

• Wandering down a corridor triggers a cutscene in which we look over the town of Barovia from a high balcony. 

       

I didn't know Strahd's fortress was so elevated.

         

Then we're on Level 4, "Rooms of Weeping," where we encounter more doom guards, another lightning bolt hallway, and yet another zombie golem, which takes me three or four reloads to kill. There's a long hallway of statues and a bedroom with another vampire. There's a dining room with what might be a wedding cake on the table, plus some interesting portraits on the walls, one showing what might be a family, one showing a man and bride, only the man's face is monstrous or something. Again, the graphic quality is maddeningly not quite there, but we're entering an era in which visuals alone can contribute to the narrative.

     

What do you think is on the right figure's head?

             

A large study in the center of the level is full of gargoyles. On the floor is a letter from Strahd to the leader of the Vistani, the gypsy woman who told us she couldn't read our fortunes without a missing tarot card. She apparently sent information about us to Strahd. I wonder if I can confront her after we get out of here. There's yet another scroll of "Raise Dead" in here. If I had played the way the game intended, my two lead characters would both have constitutions of 4.

      

Someone's not getting a tarot card back.

        

A button opens a secret area with a keyhole that none of our keys fit. That doesn't change even when I find a Silver Tower Key in a hidden area east of the study. It's guarded by yet another zombie golem, and this one kills me so many times in a row that when I finally kill him with only one character dead (Quill), for the first time in the game, I accept the constitution loss and "Raise" him. 

    

We take the only stairway up to the next floor, labeled "Main and Secondary Towers." The "level" consists of a single room with a keyhole in the middle of an axe. The Ravenloft Tower Key opens it. A stairway leads up from here, but the automap continues to show us on the same "level." It does this for each small tower level, even though we ascend four times.

  

There are doom guards, lightning bolts shooting from the walls, illusory walls, a button that opens a wall, and some dude called an "inquisitor" who sounds like he ought to be hard, but dies before I can get a screenshot. The inquisitor turns out to have been torturing a prisoner hanging from chains in this tower. One of the dialogue options suggests that he's meant to join our party as an NPC; I groan at the idea of giving up either Mischa or Glorianna. Fortunately, he says that he'll find his way out on his own. He tells us to seek Bray Martikova, a member of his "brotherhood," show him a feather, speak of the "Nest," and answer his challenge with: "TIGANESS, ILKE ELUCE-A-KEEN." As I leave, he turns into a raven and flies off.

     

What does he have under his arm?!

          

Before I leave the castle, I decide to go back to the study on the Rooms of Weeping level and re-verify that none of my keys open the lock. It's a good thing I do, because I had overlooked one of them. The Blood Bat Key that I found on some previous level opens a wall, on the other side of which I find Madame Ruth's missing Tarokka card.

      

In case the player is too thick.

          

A stairway from here goes down into the Dungeons, which I guess are different from the Larders of Ill Omen. The whole interface changes to an ebony color as we enter.

       

A plaque in the dungeons.

            

The Dungeons have two major sections. On the west side, we have a bunch of small, locked cells, some with zombies inside. Zombies are easy.

      

A zombie is freed from a dungeon cell.

        

The right side has a bunch of large crypts. This area is swarming with zombie golems who, as we've seen, are not easy. There are maybe eight of them, and I don't want to turn every battle into a lengthy session of resting, buffing, and reloading, so I mostly kill them with tricks. They have trouble fitting through crypt doors for some reason, so jumping into an empty crypt and shooting them from within seems to work. A couple of the crypts have vampires, but they're only hard if they manage to level-drain the characters, and I keep "Negative Plane Protection" active for such situations.

       

Shooting a zombie golem that I've trapped behind a chair.

         

In this area, Somers and Quill hit Level 9 and Glorianna hits Level 10. Glorianna's leveling is being wasted because she doesn't have any Level 5 spells. There are only two of them in the game, "Cone of Cold" and "Hold Monster," and I haven't found a scroll with either. Somers got her first Level 1 cleric spell. Somehow, I thought that when she got cleric spells, she'd be able to use cleric scrolls, but this is not the case. I also thought that when Quill hit Level 9 as a ranger, he'd get a mage spell, and that also is not the case.

        

A single Level 1 spell! Strahd is doomed.

      

The large crypt area has lightning bolts bouncing around for no reason, plus a puzzle by which we have to find a couple of obscure buttons to open a central crypt, which teleports us to the entrance to a long hallway stretching off to the south. The hallway passes several alcoves as it leads to a large chamber with a sarcophagus in the middle and a throne on the far side.

      

One of those buttons.

      

At once, Strahd is before us, baring his vampire fangs. No guises this time. "You have caused me trouble, more trouble than you are worth, and I shall crush you now—simply crush you." He gloats that he possesses Lord Dhelt's amulet. The party, about six steps behind, basically says, "Hey, aren't you the same person as Vladislav, who accompanied us in those caverns?" Strahd insults us some more and attacks.

       

"The comfort of laughter fades as my impatience grows" is my new catch phrase.

           

He immediately starts launching fireballs at the party—a constant stream of them that show no signs of adhering to the normal rules about spells-per-level. To avoid them, we dodge behind pillars, of which there are many in the room, then leap out and start swinging. Within seconds, he folds his cloak around himself, teleports to another part of the room, and resumes his barrage of fireballs. In the few seconds that we had in melee range, Quill was busted down a couple of levels.

   

He ultimately kills us all. We reload and try again, but he seems impervious to spells, and our melee attacks never do more than 1 damage. After about half a dozen reloads, I come to the conclusion that we're here too early. Clearly, we're meant to follow up with Bray Martikova and maybe even the Vistani.

        

I  just don't understand why he's blue.

       

I reload my latest save, from before we triggered the encounter with Strahd, only to find that it's in the hallway on the way to Strahd's crypt, and the door has closed and locked behind us. I can find no switches or illusory doors. "Knock" does not work.

   

My normal modus operandi is to save Game A only when the party is completely safe, usually in town. Game B is my "working save" during exploration. Only somehow in all the reloading in Strahd's chamber, I managed to accidentally save both the A and B slots, not to mention the autosave slot, on the wrong side of the door. My earliest save from before that is . . . in the Elven Warrior's Crypt. The first level of the Elven Warrior's Crypt. 

     

Look, whatever you're going to say, I already know. I need a better save system. I need to back up my saves. It's ridiculous that I haven't found a solution to problems like this after 16 years. This is amateur nonsense. I know, okay?

       

Lots of text, so here's a room from earlier that I thought looked cool.

        

Anyway, I experiment with hex-editing and manage to get the party position changed so that we're on the right side of the door. I think it's a little unfair that the game lets you wander into the final battle like this before you're ready.

   

Having found nothing else, we leave the castle and head back towards Barovia. We now have all the items we need to use Trimia's Catalogue except for Dhelt's holy symbol.  

     

Even though we're not feeling charitable towards the Vistani fortuneteller, I'm curious what happens if we return to her and hand over her lost card. The answer is: the option to visit the Vistani camp is no longer among the dialogue options when talking to the Vistani in the tavern.

     

I have no idea where to find Bray Martikova, so it's with a bit of luck that I happen to talk to the tavernkeeper (who is right next to the Vistani) and see the option to use the NEST keyword. We exchange our passwords, and he tells me to go to a warehouse in the southeast part of town. There, we'll find a contact. "They will know who you are and they will escort you to yet another party, someone more able to offer our thanks."

       

I would have just walked up and said, "NEST." Glorianna had to create a whole backstory.

      

I find the warehouse in the southeast and discover three suspicious-looking characters awaiting me. I'm not the only one who thinks they're suspicious: my characters say, "[Bray] told us nothing about a band of brigands." The leader takes exception to the characterization and demands that we swallow a sleeping potion so he can take us to a secret place. ("'Tis more certain than a blindfold.")

    

I think the two flanking guys literally use the same sprite as "brigands."

          
With no choice available, we agree. We awaken in a room with a giant raven in front of us and the "brigand" leader in the background. The great raven introduces himself as Pyoor Twohundredsummers (does he have to update this name every year?) and says he'll hear us out because of the wereraven we rescued from Strahd's tower. He has a lot to say:

   

• Count Strahd von Zarovich used to be a noble warrior. He freed the land from a tyrant named Dorian. Later, he became a vampire lord and turned evil. 

• To defeat Strahd, we'll need the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. The artifact was crafted when Strahd was still a mortal.

• Pyoor doesn't know where the Holy Symbol is, but he gives us a key and a "special reading device." He says the key will open a door in the "cursed church." In it, we'll find three manuscripts that tell the location of the holy symbol. We'll need the reading device to read the scrolls.   

       

The raven lord fills us in on Strahd.

       

The human senses danger and tells Pyoor that they need to leave. Pyoor agrees and tells us that if we're able to defeat the enemies closing in on this place, we'll have proven our worthiness.

     

A scan of the map reveals that we're in some place called the Greater Catacombs Beneath Barovia. Two doors lead from the room. We choose one and begin exploring what turns out to be a very large, twisty map.

    

I think this is the largest dungeon in the game so far.

       

Encounters:

   

• Revenants. I think this is the first time they've appeared. They can paralyze characters, which happens quite a bit. I find a couple of "Cure Paralysis" scrolls to counteract it, and of course Mischa can memorize the spell.

      

A new type of undead.

        

• On the floor, we find a Barovian coin. Somers pipes up that maybe we'll find enough to buy that potion from the Vistani. I continue to find them throughout the level, fifteen in total, and of course the damned things don't stack, so I'm constantly fighting for inventory space.

     

First of all: there. Second, I'm not sure I agree with your premise.

       

• Wraiths. These guys can level-drain.

     

A couple of them guard a keyhole.

      

• A spinner.

• Fireballs shooting down corridors for no reason. This is getting old. Coincidentally, forcing the player to dodge random, inexplicable fireballs is something that this game has in common with Pagan.

     

Is there a never-ending fuel source in there? Why don't these fireballs cause permanent damage to the opposite walls?

       

• Hellhounds, not quite as hard as the last time I encountered them. 

• Two magic rings: A Ring of Protection and another Ring of Fire Resistance. With two rings and two Potions of Fire Resistance, I'll have a better chance against Strahd.

• Mischa hits Level 9 against some hellhounds. Now I don't need to carry scrolls of "Raise Dead," since Mischa can cast it. 

• In a corner, a regular sword and a Shield of Lightning Protection. It has a +1 enchantment, too, making it as good as my existing magic shields. 

    

A series of keyed doors, buttons, and illusory walls open the ways from section to section, where I continue to collect keys. I have to backtrack a number of times to search for buttons or illusory doors. It takes a while. When I'm done, I have 14 coins. The Vistani wanted 15. It strikes me that it's more likely that I missed a coin than the fifteenth coin is found somewhere else. So I have to loop through the entire level again, studying the automap for little dots, finally finding the last coin in a central room.

   

The exit from the caverns is a ladder in the northeast corner, with a final spinner just in front of it. We emerge from a trap door into a house in the center of Barovia. I haven't been here before, so the external doors must have been locked. A man and woman sitting in the room where we emerge have nothing to say. 

   

We return to the tavern and buy the potion from the Vistani. I'm confused about why we need it given that our current plan seems to be to defeat Strahd, get Dhelt's holy symbol, and use it along with Trimia's Catalogue to teleport out of this place. But I'm curious what will happen if I swallow the potion and enter the fog, so I head back to the Svalich Woods and give it a try. A cutscene shows us passing through the fog and arriving in a new place, labeled the Undead Forest on the automap. The party is instantly killed by treants.

     

Pushing through the mists.

        

So I'll save the potion for later. In the meantime, some miscellaneous notes:

    

• A "Detect Magic" spell that I cast very early in the game has never worn off, or else I have some object that casts it constantly.

• I made the mistake of casting "Cause Light Wounds" early in this session. For some reason, I thought it was a missile spell. Instead, it causes the cleric's hands to glow. I kept waiting for it to wear off, which it never did, making Mischa's left hand useless for most of the session and stopping him from using his throwing axe. Later, I realized that all I had to do was to have him attack once, either by moving him to the front rank or waiting until we were outdoors, and the spell would have disappeared.

• I noted the two Old Svalich Roads, where I did some extensive grinding, are now empty of enemies. I also checked out the Cemetery Grounds and found only a couple of stray wights where they'd been plentiful before. I assumed that enemies respawned indefinitely, but now I wonder if there isn't a cap, and they stop appearing once it's reached.  

       

Somers's commentary is apt. I had forgotten about that door.

         

I really expected to win this session; I thought my second visit to Strahd's castle would be my last. It looks like I have to go back to the Old Church now, and perhaps at some point to the Undead Forest before I'm able to confront Strahd again. I'm still enjoying the game, but my "upcoming" list hasn't budged for two months.

   

Time stamp: 32 hours 

    

****

   

Previous entry in this series

   

Next entry in this series

11/01/2026