Ravenloft: Strahd's Invitation

"We would be honored if you would join us."

       

Chasing a burglar who stole a holy symbol, Somers the Paladin (who I've been calling "Summer" this entire time; I forgot what I named her) and Quill the Ranger have been transported to a strange alternate dimension, full of gloom and fog, ruled by a shadowy figure named Strahd. They have explored a dangerous forest and a desolate town, picking up fighter and fighter/mage/thief companions along the way. They have solved one quest but have not made much progress learning where they are or why they're here. A Vistani gypsy has offered to sell a potion that will let them pass back through the fog, but he wants 15 gold pieces for it, and currency doesn't seem to be a thing in this game.

   

We begin this session by returning to the Old Svalich Road South. We abandoned exploration last time. I turn on "step movement" for a while, which has the party move in discrete tiles and turn at 90-degree angles, just like the original Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder. I don't care for it here. Enemies dance all around the party and seem to be able to hide in the diagonals. Also, the numberpad is extremely sensitive and often ends up registering multiple moves when I only intend one. I could maybe deal with that by lowering the cycles, but that causes other issues. I return to continuous movement.

   

It turns out that we almost explored the entire map last time, so the only thing we discover in this new excursion is a couple of bandits and a massive, locked gate at the southern end of the road.

       

I appreciate the elucidation, but this is an RPG. We're all expecting locked doors with no explanation.

          

Soon, we're back in Barovia, which I mistakenly thought we had finished exploring last time. I soon find a few new encounters:

    

• In addition to the exit to the Cemetery, there's a second northern exit to the Old Svalich Road North.
• In Barovia's northwest corner is a large circle of stones. I don't know what it's for.
• A northwestern exit leads to the aptly-named Wooded Area West of Barovia.

   

But the main thing I didn't do last time was visit the Burgomaster, who lives in a huge, richly-furnished manor surrounded by walls in the northwest quarter of the city. Somers expresses disgust as we enter. "What gives such a man the right to flaunt finery in a poor town?" Quill later disagrees: "When I am ready to change careers, 'tis a burgomaster I shall become."

       

My question is: where did he even get the finery? I didn't meet a single tailor, artist, architect, or furniture maker.

          

It's hard to remember any first-person game with more graphic detail than this one. There was some discussion in a previous thread about the graphical quality of Ravenloft in comparison to Eye of the Beholder and other first-person games. To me, it's no contest. Ravenloft might look worse on a pixel basis, but it manages to achieve a much deeper sense of immersion. Its environments are hand-crafted, not just textures. The manor is furnished with tables, wall hangings, lamps, vases, bookshelves, pedestals, candelabras, decorative suits of armor, and other features that create a much deeper sense of immersion than we've seen before. They help to bring life to the sorts of rooms you would expect a manor to have: entry hall, dining room, pantry, study, bedroom.

     

An obvious dining room.

            

The unfortunate thing is that none of its features are interactive. They can't even hold objects; anything that the party can pick up is strewn across the floor. Thus, something like Ultima Underworld still wins the immersion award. It had less stuff, but what it had felt more real. Still, I appreciate that we're almost there. A few improvements to graphics and sound are all we need to feel like we're really inhabiting the world. It's exciting.

     

A study. There's a scroll on the floor.

       

Though well-detailed, the manor is mostly empty of anything interesting. We find a couple of scrolls and potions. In a library, we find a writ ordering death for anyone who claims that Lord Strahd von Zarovich is involved in necromancy, that he killed his brother, and that a woman named Tatyana once plunged to her death trying to escape him.

       

These things seem awfully specific.

         

The Burgomaster is in a den with a roaring fire and a few comfortable chairs. One of them is occupied by a lounging woman, to whom we speak first. She's an attractive elf mage, consulting a book and sipping a drink called tuika. She says she's grown bored of the Burgomaster's attention and offers to join the party. We accept, though over the Burgomaster's protestations ("there are other books, magical volumes I haven't yet displayed before you!"). We say goodbye to "Jill of all trades" Velika.

   

Our new companion is Glorianna of Sithicus, a neutral good Level 5 mage. She inherits all of Velika's carried stuff, but since she has a quarterstaff (which allows attacking from the rear rank), I decide that I'm done with retrieving missile items. Her starting spell selection isn't great: no "Improved Identify," no "Fireball" (despite two Level 3 slots). Still, I'm sure we'll get there.

        

Just what the party was lacking: a 1980s aerobics instructor.

     

On to the Burgomaster. He welcomes us in the name of Lord Strahd, his master. When we ask about Stahd, he says, "Your interest in the great one is matched by his interest in you." He hands us an invitation and refuses to answer any more questions, saying only (ominously): "If I cannot persuade you, he will compel you to go."

      

I'm curious if Strahd ever really "compels" the party to go.

       

I figure we're going to have to walk there along the Old Svalich Road North, but he says that a carriage is waiting to take us to Castle Ravenloft. We demure long enough to rest and memorize spells, then accept the invitation.

   

A cut scene tells us how a horse-drawn carriage conveys us through the night to the castle. A cinematic shows us crossing a drawbridge.

        

I wonder who does the carriage manufacturing around here.

         

"Everything will be fine; we're guests, after all," Somers says as we arrive. "Yet  there is in this air something which brings sweat to the palms." I'd love to believe this is her "Detect Evil" ability activating, but I suspect every party gets this dialogue. We find ourselves in the castle's entry hall, full of armor, tapestries, paintings, and a (probably) red carpet.  

   

No sooner than we have opened a door than another cut scene takes over. Lord Strahd von Zarovich (which turns out to have the accent on the second syllable, not the first) greets us in front of a dining room table. He presents himself as an articulate and debonair lord, with no signs that he's a chaotic evil vampire. I suppose it's not possible to go into this game ignorant of his true nature, but it would have been more fun if he hadn't been shown on the game box in vampiric form.

                

He  looks like George Hamilton crossed with Laurence Olivier.

        

Strahd's speech is long, adequately but not brilliantly voice-acted. "No road leads out of this mist-bound universe," he warns. "The land entraps many; its ruler is no exception." He claims to have therefore devoted his life to the entrapped people. His latest pursuit involves the study of dimensional gateways (I thought there was no way out?). He says there is a portal in the caverns west of Barovia, near the Ivlis River, and he'd like us to investigate. The party dines with him and takes his carriage back to Barovia. I was rather hoping that we'd get to explore more of the castle.

   

I assume the way to the caverns is through the western exit, so naturally I take the northern one. It is indeed the same road that we took by carriage, and it takes us back to Strahd's castle, although its gates are shut and locked. Other than a bunch of worgs and the experience points they convey, we don't find anything in this area.

    

One does not simply walk into Ravenloft.

       

Back in Barovia, I'm just about to head to the Wooded Area when I remember that the Vistani offered to lead us to his camp if we were willing to be blindfolded. We talk to him again and agree. He warns us it will take a day or so to reach the location. Blindfolded, I think it would take a day or so to even get out of the city.

      

An inviting scene.

       

He leads us to a circle of wagons surrounding a fire. "Madam Eva awaits," the game tells us, as if we've heard of her before. A cut scene draws us into her wagon. All we learn, however, is that her tarroka deck is short one card, stolen by another gypsy, perhaps at Strahd's behest. A few seconds later, we're back at the tavern in Barovia.

        

What's he going to do with one card?

       

The Wooded Area West of Barovia is the last place left to us, so that's where we go. Well, first I go back to the Old Svalich Road South, as I have come to regret expelling Velika instead of Fhalken. Unfortunately, I can't find Velika where I originally picked her up. Thus, west it is.

   

The Wooded Area is full of skeletal bats and werewolves, neither of which is terribly difficult. I feel like combats in this game have been relatively easy in general, facilitated by the relative ease of finding a place to rest and fully heal. I'm not even sure why this works given that my paladin cannot cast cleric spells yet. I thought D&D rules were that absent spellcasting, characters could only heal one hit point per 24-hour period. Nevertheless, about nine hours seems to be enough to get everyone back to full health.

      

Spooky, scary.

              

We find the entrance to the caves on the far western wall. The masked woman from the tavern, Irmgarde, waits next to it. She mentioned that she was trying to find a way out of here, and apparently she's heard of the dimensional portal within. We suggest once again that she join us, and this time she accepts. We send Fhalken back home. I guess it's a good thing we didn't waste time having Velika rejoin us.

         

I'm not sure what she means by her first line.

        

Irmgarde is a Level 6 neutral good half-elf cleric. With her and Glorianna, I feel like I have a complete party. Thus, when I discover a chaotic neutral human mage named Ryszard brewing potions in a nearby building, I decline to let him join us even though he's one level higher than Glorianna.

        

I'm not sure I want a party member who's mad with anything.

       

We enter the caverns. There's a spinning portal-looking thing right in the main entrance, and at first I think that's the portal we've been sent to find. It turns out it's just a barrier that we have to dissolve by pressing the Seal of Entrance that Strahd gave us to a plaque on the wall.

      

This seemed too easy at first.

       

On the other side, blocking the corridor, we meet a fighter named Vladislav who says he "shares our goals" and offers to join the party. "You will come to know me as a man of constant resolution." He elaborates that he is also seeking a portal to "a kingdom known as Elturel," which the Burgomaster worries thieves might try to use. That's where we're from! I don't like his attitude, and I like my current party composition, but the bastard is literally blocking the way forward and won't budge. As I soon discover, I can't take him, then drop him, because he returns to the place I found him. I thus reluctantly have to get rid of Glorianna temporarily. She says she'll go to the tavern.

      

He looks a bit like Strahd. Is it Strahd? Did everyone know that except me?

Vladislav is a Level 7 chaotic neutral half-elf male fighter. He comes with platemail, which I give to Quill. I have to arm him with a quarterstaff so that he'll be able to do some good from the rear rank. I soon find a halberd to replace it with.

   

It takes me about three hours to get through the caves. I have a block shortly after I start exploring because in order to make progress, I have to open some barriers by pulling ropes on the walls. The problem is—and here my colorblindness might be screwing me again—I can't really see the ropes against the backgrounds. I only find the first one because, having hit nothing but dead ends, I end up both clicking and trying to walk through every wall.

      

Does that look like a pull rope to you?

       

There are ultimately four keys scattered about, all needed to open a series of those spinning barriers. There are also teleporters, illusory walls, and spinners aplenty, plus a couple of corridors where lightning bolts and fireballs come shooting at the party. One of them kills Irmgarde at one point, and Quill remarks that without her, we have no hope of entering the portal in the caverns. I didn't realize she was that key.

         

A lightning bolt is about to kill us. One of those barriers spins to our left.

        

The floors are so scattered with scrolls, potions, wands, and weapons that my inventory is soon bursting. I start using things just to clear some space.

     

An Oil of Fiery Burning damages a bone golem.

      

The level is swarming with skeletons, punctuated by the occasional bone golem. The skeletons are trivial; the bone golems are deadly. I keep dying at their hands, reloading, and then killing them at a distance with Oils of Fiery Burning. "Turn Undead" turns out to be a single-enemy spell, though it refreshes quickly. It completely kills the enemy when it works. All the characters hit Level 7 in the caverns.

     

Somers takes a mace to the face.

      

We find a mage's scroll at one point. It's written from the perspective of someone trying to escape from Ravenloft, convinced that there are portals that can be opened with various rituals (including killing a wereraven beneath a full moon). It ends by wondering: "Lifting the cures of Alabain, acquiring Trimia's Catalogue of Outer Plane Artifacts, finding the date of the Great Alignment of Southern Stars, which of these holds the most promise?" 

      

There was this weird pile of clerics' gear in one cavern. None of it was magical.

       

We find the portal in the southwestern part of the level, behind a couple of secret doors. We walk into it. I don't understand what happens, but we find ourselves back in the Wooded Area with Irmgarde and Vladislav both gone, their stuff piled on the ground in front of us. Neither are back at the entrance. Did they jack our portal? If not, why did we not all appear in the same place?

      

Confronting the portal.

     

In any event, I'm glad to be out of the caverns. I have not enjoyed this game's approach to dungeons nearly as much as its approach to other areas. The dungeons have been too cramped and confusing. I did forget until the end of this session that the player can write annotations on the automap, though, which might have made the place easier to navigate.

     

This was a big map.

       

We head back to town and go to the Burgomaster's to enlist Glorianna again. He tells us that she's gone to the tavern, where we find her and convince her to re-join us. With no more cleric, at least for now, we go to the house of Tatian the fighter and ask her to join. She's only Level 4, so I hope not to have to keep her for long. We then return to the forest to pick up the various items. I just realized typing this that we could have enlisted Ryszard instead. Maybe I'll do that when the next session begins.

     

Is she any relation to the Tatyana who plunged to her death?

       

While in the Wooded Area, I happen to notice a cave I missed during my initial explorations. So I may pop in there next before . . . I don't know . . . returning to Strahd? Oh! I forgot to tell you that I found a Church Vestibule Key in the caverns, so that's a potential path forward. What do you think: Should I spend some time in the next entry comparing what this game has shown us to the original model, or should I save that for the end?

           

Time so far: 11 hours 

09/13/2026