Corsair

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

"I'd offer you some Aldarian white if I could." She poured each of them a small glass of amber colored liquid.

Lily sniffed it, then took a sip, almost immediately rocking back on her heels, her eyes watering. It had a taste like lamp oil - she'd tasted it once, long story - that someone had mixed some cinnamon into, and then somehow fermented. It was an experience she wasn't likely to forget any time soon. "What the hell -is- that?" She said, her voice hoarse.

"I have no idea what they call it. I like to call it a Vagrant Resurrection." Hopestone said with a grin. "A mouthful of it can just about raise a man from the dead."

"I can believe that." Lily rasped out, setting the glass back down on the bar. "Nine Hells."

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

She groaned as Eranah's magic flowed into her, swollen knuckles popping loudly before subsiding. She straightened up a bit with more loud, uncomfortable-sounding pops that made Lily wince, a brightness coming into the woman's features.

"Keldanor, I'd forgotten what a good bit of healing feels like. You're an angel, lass." She looked Eranah up and down. "I meant that in a figurative sense, but looking at you I think it might be true literally." She shook her head, a smile crossing her face. "And aye, I'd be Crissie Hopestone. So. You're Mist-Taken."

Miss Hopestone leaned on the bar. "Time was I was a young traveler like yourselves, blazing paths through the dark places of my own world. I imagine my story's not so different from your own - you're not the first Mist-Taken I've met. I was in a huge cave, scouting ahead of my companions when thick white clouds poured through gaps in the floor and walls and surrounded me, and when they faded I was in this old ruined chapel, a long ways from here in Barovia. That was an ugly night."

"Which brings me to my first piece of advice: When night falls in this land do -not- be traveling. Find a safe place and lay defenses before the last rays of day fade." Hopestone stared each of them in the eye. "Now...as for how or why you came to be here...I'm afraid I don't know. The Mists are part of it, I'm sure. They can be seen often enough in this realm, and I attempted to escape twice by deliberately charging into them. Both times they took me, but they only placed me somewhere else in this world." She glanced around and leaned forward closer. "They say that the vagrant people called the Vistani know the paths in the Mists. I don't know where you can find them, it's said they're cursed to wander forevermore for their sins." Her eyes narrowed. "The Vistani are not to be trusted, though. Even the best of them will steal your cloak as soon as look at you, and for many that is the least of their crimes. One of their caravans came through Fairhaven four winters past, and when they departed three village girls had vanished. Most people around here forgot when the war came."

She cleared her throat, then picked up a bottle of amber liquid and poured herself a glass. "What can I get you? I owe you a drink for listening to my babble, and especially for the healing."

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

"'fraid the boy's right, lass. I ain't even rightly sure where you are, much less how to get you back there."

The inside of the Scarlet Jester was a depressing sight - it was in theory a tavern, immaculately kept, not a cobweb or speck of dust to be seen. Small, round tables dotted the floor, with chairs settled atop them. Seated at one of them was a woman, with heavily lined pale skin and brown hair that was thick with gray. She looked up at the door as they entered, her eyes despondent and tired. Getting a look at them, she seemed to brighten a bit.

"Welcome to the Scarlet Jester." She got to her feet with a muttered curse as her knees and back audibly popped. "It isn't often we get travelers around here, how can I help you?"

Looking around the Jester, it looked to have been a happening place once - the bar was large and still fairly well stocked, and the walls were dotted with the heads of great beasts and monsters. Behind the bar, over where the tender would stand, was an ornate sword, lightly curved with flowing letters inscribed on the blade. The hilt was bound in blue fabric, and a tassel of the same color hung from the pommel.

"And you'd be travelers who'd make a stir even if we got a hundred a day." She said as she looked them over.

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

"War." The Sergeant said. "Finally ended round three years back, reckon all the men on both sides were dead enough that they couldn't fight anymore. Just one day they stopped throwing stones and walked away, back to where they come from." The Sergeant led them through the crumbling city - it seemed a ghost town, most of the buildings boarded shut and hardly a soul to be seen. "As for why we had the war, you'd best be askin' the Lord, and he's not one to take guests."

"As fer Mist-taken - har, it's like a pun - you'd best be asking Crissie Hopestone, she's...in charge around here, more or less." He pointed ahead at a sign on one of the few buildings still in good shape. "That's her place, the Scarlet Jester's. Was a lot more lively, once."

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

"Fog?" The sergeant said. He was already a pale, half-dead looking kind of guy, but hearing that made him go a little paler and a little more dead looking. "Reckon you'd best step inside. We ain't had Mist-taken since, my Gran were a lass." He pointed at the boys. "Let 'em through, lads. If'n the Lord Above wants them here ain't much the likes of us can do to stop them."

Lily didn't feel much like contesting that point - they had equal numbers and quite frankly she had a feeling she could take on all of them single-handedly without a fight. These were stableboys, not soldiers.

The Sergeant led them inside as the Boy-Soldiers stepped aside, watching them past before going back to generally lying about, chattering amongst themselves. The Sergeant shook his head. "It weren't so long ago that we had men of iron guarding those gates, and boys like that would've been doing what boys that age should be, properly apprenticed or chasing gals, or whatever you young folk do." He glanced at the younger members of the group. "Beggin' your pardon, of course."

"Falstaff's the city. County of Fairhaven. Course, ain't so fair these days...ain't much of a haven, neither."

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

I'm playing it by ear, but I intend on our guys to have been around the block a few times. We're no match in a fight for Strahd or Soth, but we're definitely not nobodies.

Star Wars: Shattered Reflections

So, uh, what happened to Bastila and the rest of the Ebon Hawk crew?

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

The rag-tag group of travelers soon arrived at the city gates. Up close the walls didn't look a lot better than they did at a distance, spiderwebbed with huge cracks, portions of the wall appearing to be piles of rubble poured in to fill gaps. The towers, bristling with ballistae and onagers at a distance could be seen to be in disrepair up close, many of them visibly damaged or warped. The gates were open, a handful of guards loitering around it in mail armor that ill-fitted them, leaning against posts or idly poking at the moat with old, water-warped spears. One of them looked up at the group, revealing a face that looked to be no more than fourteen summers.

"Oi!" The others looked up from their various means of dawdling and came to something resembling a military manner - a bunch of boys who looked about like they hadn't quite finished nursing. "Dolsie, go fetch sergeant!"

"Gads balls, Siemann!" One of them ran into the city, presumably Dolsie, returning a minute or so later with a tired-looking old man with a hammer hanging from his belt. He wore no armor, only a surcoat bearing arms - a black tower with a golden ring around it on a field of gray.

"Visitors? To Falstaff? You must've lost your way, no one comes to Falstaff." The Sergeant's hair was thin and gray, and his face was heavily lined and gaunt, he looked as though one good push and he'd drop dead.

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

Gonna have to say no, the rest of the party is hovering around level 10. We're at the low end of the phase where we can take on a Dragon as a party, having a character who can turn into a monster more powerful than the rest of the party put together is a bit much.

Ravenloft: Torches in the Night

@knighthawk, I have a couple problems with your character - like he was sold as a slave to the church of a Chaotic Good deity, which is a contradiction of terms, Chaotic Good being the alignment most inimically opposed to the act of slavery. Also, a -Drow- Priestess of a Maztican Deity? The way he's treated by them it seems like you were thinking a Priestess of Lolth.

More importantly, though, your character, being a Tiefling with rather pronounced features - he frankly looks like Mephistopheles - is going to derail every encounter with the native denizens of Ravenloft into a mob with torches and pitchforks.

I also...that name. I'm sorry, I know that's petty, but -Snoh Bhaal-? I mean, just for starters - Bhaal is the God of Murder in the Forgotten Realms. For another, it's kind of a tortured pun, in a setting that is trying to go for horror, kind of a mood killer.

@IcePezzNot locked up yet, but we're starting to stretch a little on characters.