Halloween Special Event: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

For Halloween, I hosted a special event of "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" at my home for 6 select gamers from my groups and family.  Unfortunately, one of the players bailed at the last minute, but a party of 5 was sufficient to get going.  There was a plethora of food and drink (no Pinatas).  I tried out the prototype build of my new 'gaming extension table'.  

The party spent over 3 hours building characters.  We used HeroLab for some and had to fight it a bit on the spell-less ranger build.  The group consisted of:

• Zephyr, a Kitsune Rogue / Druid
• Sam the axebeak
• J, a blind Oread Fighter / Cleric
• Kratos, a spell-less ranger
• Lloyd, a wolf
• Orflex, a half-orc barbarian who flex into a rage anytime anyone messed with his juice
• Berth, an Aasimar inquisitor

During one of our breaks.  From left:  My sweetie, my GM assistant, the ranger, and the inqusitor.
(What's up with black T-shirts and blue jeans -- nearly everyone was wearing that?!?)

The gaming extension table was a small map-sized table about a foot off the regular table.  We could put stuff underneath like laptops while using the tops for minis and rolling dice.  It was just a bit too high, so the next version will be an inch or two shorter.

GM's end of the table with the extension table above.

Extension gaming table with player and GM stuff under.  Orflex is at the end of the table.

The group of undead hunters was called to the village of Barovia which was facing a zombie infestation.

The first encounter with zombies really showed the group's strengths.  They quickly took down 8 zombies without issue.

They searched the town, finding the mansion of the man they were seeking boarded up, barred, and with a woman inside who would not talk to them.  The party split -- J going into the temple, the barbarian going into the local inn/tavern, and the rest checking out the weapons shop.

The weapons shop had a few zombie rats and zombies inside.  Searching the debris after produced a couple of longswords, including a holy avenger sword good versus undead.

The temple contained four zombies locked in rooms and a priest praying at the front altar of the temple.  J approached the priest, but he went crazy, yelling "You can't take my son."  and attacked J.  He unleashed 3 of the zombies to assist him.  J tried to take him down with nonlethal damage, but an ill timed critical killed the old priest, leaving him only with an unreadable scrap of paper as a clue.  The party got back together.  The rogue pushed the priests body into his bag of devouring, nearly getting himself pulled in.  The party decided to kill the priest's undead son, the last remaining zombie in the temple.  J channeled positive energy and killed him, ending the zombie plague.

The party went on to talk to the local girl who now came out of her house.  She was happy the zombie plague was over, but talked of a great evil Count in the local castle who had bit her and was going to take her away.  The party agreed to take care of him in return for payment.

The whole adventuring moved very slowly in our ten hour session.  It was pretty clear that they weren't going to see much of the castle.  In the end, this first battle turned into the final battle of the night with Count Strahd, a very old vampire.

Quick-mapping the entryway to Castle Ravenloft.

The party entered the castle to find two stone dragons, alive but unmoving.  The party repositioned themselves, the dragons moved, and four gargoyles started attacking via fly-by attacks.  The party backed off.  The barbarian charged, the dragons moved, and kicked in their breath weapons against the party.  The group moved in, attacking the foes.  Two animated suits of armor and a large bat appeared.  A full battle ensued.  The bat attacked feebly, draining two levels from the barbarian who seemed to be attacked by everything.

Eventually the bat flew to the hall and turned into the vampire Count Strahd.  He began spells against the party, generating a hungry pit that swallowed up the inquisitor, and tying up two of the party that were trying to help her out (The Axe-beak and Kratos).  A well-placed fireball by Strahd ended the adventure, burning the ropes in half and dropping the inquisitor back into the pit again.

J had a bad roll -- you take 5d6 damage.

Next time, I will plan a shorter adventure to accommodate the slow moving party, and we'll pregenerate all the characters.  We'll also probably have less food to avoid gamers rolling around on the floor saying "I ate too much."

Zephyr:  "I ate too much."