Session 10 prep — Lake Zarovich, the Winter Worm, the withering sickness & the Vallaki approach

[IDEA — NONCANONICAL] Everything in this section is GM ideation, not actual play. Sources (in chronological order — where they disagree, the later session is treated as the current preferred version and the disagreement is flagged): Vallaki Major Players: Valochians, Watchers, Mardikovs, and More (2026-09-15); Primordial Beasts and Fanes: Setting Up Lake Zarovich Lore (2026-09-15); Preparing Encounters for Vallaki Session with Morgantha (2026-09-19).

Design guardrail raised during these sessions: Chris flagged that the more the Fane/worm lore grows, the more the campaign risks becoming “a Fane storyline with Strahd as a side character.” The resolution reached on 2026-09-19 is a layered structure — schemes within schemes: the Vallaki politics (Volokoviches, Watchers) are the simple, visible “small fries” the players engage with first; behind them sits Strahd’s actual machination (Strahd’s Machination: Poisoning the Winter Worm), which the players only gradually discover was driving events all along. Michelle’s framing: the GMs have all the pieces and no picture; the players have the picture (“Strahd is the enemy”) and none of the pieces. Arc framing: “Phase one is get the Heart of Darkness.” What was originally planned as a Tome-of-Strahd / Festival-of-the-Blazing-Sun season finale is now leaning toward a Lake Zarovich “scuba dive” boss fight against the Winter Worm.

The Primordial Beasts

Each Fane has a primordial beast — a great, ancient creature bound to her (the GMs also used “companion” as the working relationship term; “familiar” was rejected):


Fane	Primordial beast	Notes
Winter	A giant worm — the Winter Worm	Sleeps at the bottom of Lake Zarovich (The Winter Worm & the Heart of Darkness).
Spring	A spider of some kind	Floated: Baba Lysaga’s creeping hut moves the way it does because it is an automaton imitation of the Spring Fane’s great spider. Michelle liked this a lot; not locked in. Lolth’s avatar was pulled up as a stat/visual reference point.
Summer	Unknown / undecided	Candidates floated: the Gulthias Tree itself, something wolf-related (the Summer Fane’s animal), or even Jacob (offhand).
Autumn	The Roc of Mount Gakis	Ties directly to the existing The Tser Falls bridge: Strahd near-miss and the Roc idea of Madam Eva’s Roc, corrupted/subjugated by Strahd.

Sentient. All four are sentient; how able and how willing each is to communicate depends on the state of its relationship with its Fane.
Floated: a beast that loses its Fane “anchor” may devolve into depravity or madness — which fits the Winter Worm’s loneliness (The Winter Worm & the Heart of Darkness).
Challenge range: roughly CR 11–15. The party is expected to top out around level 10–12, so the difficulty will depend heavily on the encounter’s environment. Stat-block references looked at: a Roc (CR 11 — treated as the floor), purple worm, a sarlacc-style homebrew (CR 24, ~676 HP — far too strong, reference only), and a “death worm”-type homebrew (~CR 16) that Michelle wanted saved for flavoring. Chris now has a list of stat blocks to build.

The Winter Worm & the Heart of Darkness

The Winter Worm sleeps at the bottom of Lake Zarovich beside (or holding — see below) the Heart of Darkness. The Winter Fane’s tower/presence there predates Saint Andral.
Whirlpools: the worm “yawning” in its sleep creates great whirlpools. Earlier framing (2026-09-15): whirlpools appear periodically during certain lunar/solar events, when the seal on the Heart of Darkness weakens. The two framings are compatible — a weakening seal is when the worm stirs enough to yawn.
Why it’s stirring now: something Strahd has done since his reawakening (~one month ago in-world) — his efforts to find/reach the Winter Fane, and specifically the long-running poisoning campaign (Strahd’s Machination: Poisoning the Winter Worm) — is weakening the seal and waking the worm. The Void Child’s proximity alone would not wake anything; only a real triggering event (e.g. a Winter-Fane-linked object actually going into the water) would.
The worm is lonely, in keeping with the Winter Fane’s restoration condition (“friendship / no longer alone,” Restoration conditions). In the late stages of infection its parasites may transmit that loneliness to their hosts (The Withering Sickness (parasites + poison)).
Heart of Darkness — unresolved details:
- 2026-09-15: Michelle suggested the Heart is some manifestation of power held within the worm. 2026-09-19: the working version is that it’s a relic at the lake bottom guarded by the worm, and Strahd must kill the worm to take it. Not reconciled — both are live.
- Is it one stone or several? Floated: one great stone that, if broken, “comets out into the sky” and scatters like seeds for the party to hunt down; or it’s the strongest of the Fanes’ powers; or it’s the piece needed to bring the others together; or it splits into three. Undecided.
- Floated as a possible vehicle for introducing the Dark Powers’ corruption. Not developed.
Folk knowledge: because the parasite outbreak is new (The Withering Sickness (parasites + poison)), Vallaki has little folk knowledge of anything wrong in the lake. The whirlpools, though, are older and sporadic. People would know they happen but not why.

The Withering Sickness (parasites + poison)

Parasites: small worm-like parasites are pieces sloughing off the waking Winter Worm. They were dormant until Strahd’s return and have only appeared in roughly the last month. Naming: the GMs settled on “the Winter Worm” for the single giant beast and just “parasites” for the small ones. (“Winter worms” for the parasites and “great worm” for the beast were both considered and dropped. The spelling “wyrm” was also floated.)
Transmission is by drinking the water, not eating the fish. Fish get cooked; untreated lake water doesn’t. Vallaki draws from wells, which is why the town itself is largely safe; the Barovian refugees camped outside drink straight from Lake Zarovich.
Water flow (geography, important): water runs Luna Lake → Luna River → Lake Zarovich → onward toward Mount Baratok. Parasites spread downstream of the lake, away from the upstream Vistani camp. Strahd’s poison (Strahd’s Machination: Poisoning the Winter Worm) enters upstream, so it reaches everyone downstream of its source.
Who is sick with what:
- Barovian refugees: poison and parasites — the worst off.
- Vistani camp near Vallaki: poison only (upstream of the parasites). They noticed they were getting sick, switched to purify food and drink, and improved, but that spell only scales to a small group. They don’t blame the water. They blame the Barovians: “ever since they started storming Vallaki they have brought disease and famine.” They have also noticed animals dying.
- Vallakians: mostly protected by the wells. (Earlier idea: poorer fish-eating commoners get sick more than the wealthy. Superseded by the wells/drinking framing but compatible with it.)
Symptoms (“withering sickness”): appetite and satiety changes, constant hunger and thirst, anemia, bruxism, digestive trouble, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, skin issues, sleep problems, swelling, and progressive malnourishment/wasting. It also brings depression/hopelessness, fitting the Winter Fane’s theme. People are dying in droves. Full life-cycle stages are still TBD — the plan is to base them on real parasitism.
Late-stage hive-mind (floated): advanced parasites may relay the worm’s feelings (its loneliness) to their hosts and compel them to bring things (people) to the lake (see Arabelle, Arabelle (undecided)).
Rejected/narrowed: an earlier (2026-09-15) idea that infection targets only people with a specific trait (hopelessness) was floated. It was noted that this would infect a lot of Barovians. It could still explain why Vargas insists everyone be happy — “unhappy people fall into despair and become prone to infection.” The later drinking-water model replaced it as the mechanism, though despair remains thematically tied in.
Lyasra’s purify food and drink is now story-relevant (Michelle’s observation).
Lycanthropy cut from the refugee camp for scope: some refugees have been bitten on the road, but none of the bitten remain in the camp now (Vargas has them lynched on sight: “Werewolves are the servants of Strahd, and we do not stand Strahd in this house”). The refugees still report werewolf attacks on the road and may ask the party for protection.

Strahd’s Machination: Poisoning the Winter Worm

This is the “action Strahd is taking” the GMs had been missing.

Goal: obtain the Heart of Darkness. Strahd can’t enter running water, and the worm is too dangerous to fight awake, so he is poisoning it to death slowly and making the lake uninhabitable for it.
Who runs it: Ludmilla (Strahd’s first/eldest bride, Ludmilla Vilisevic — see her entry; canonically the vampire the party drove off in Session 9) has made this her sole long-term task since Lugdana’s era (Strahd saw that the Heart might be an alternative power source after that defeat). While everyone watches Strahd, no one watches what Ludmilla is doing. The idea of starting this as far back as Saint Markovia’s era was considered and dropped in favor of Lugdana’s era. Escher was ruled out as too recent.
The poison (working name “Luminos poison,” as transcribed) is crafted with Baba Lysaga’s help, and possibly with Morgantha involved. It is magical in nature: acidic and cell-destroying, eating at the worm’s exoskeleton (Michelle’s image: a cell membrane breaking down, or poisoned condors). It also has a sedative quality that keeps the worm from waking while it dies slowly, so Strahd risks less.
- Ingredient: cat-o’-nine-tails (cattails), the sedative component, native to the area around Mount Gakis. Morgantha was already shown collecting it in play.
- Morgantha’s dream pastries are a heavily weakened, non-lethal version of this same poison — the sedative in a dose that doesn’t kill. This gives the players a way to connect the pastries to the larger scheme.
Source and delivery: the “plant” is upstream, on the Luna River / at Luna Lake — factories with toxic runoff feeding into Lake Zarovich. The GMs’ shorthand for Strahd here was “an oil company.”
Dosage escalation: up to now Strahd has been running low-dose tests, which is why purify food and drink still works and people survive. Over the ~4–5 days the party is likely to spend in Vallaki, he raises the dose and things get much worse.
Ties to actual play (Session 9), as ideation:
- The erratic owlbear and vultures at the Tser Falls bridge are proposed as poison runoff victims — animals dying downstream (a California-condor-style poisoning).
- The Woodcutter’s Bride’s lumber operation (canonically Ludmilla’s — the same bride who runs this poisoning): proposed as two undead supply lines — one to Castle Ravenloft (for the Roc) and one to the poison works. This recasts part of what she was building.
Retrieval plan: the Heart lies at the bottom of running water Strahd can’t enter. Draining the lake or diverting the river (Netherlands-style) was considered and rejected — it would take too long, and Vallaki would notice. Rahadin — not a vampire — leads the dive, supported by undead that don’t need to breathe and under a water-breathing / air-bubble effect. Strahd trusting Rahadin with this, and Rahadin simply doing it, is meant as a powerful on-screen demonstration of his loyalty. Chris’s reference image: deep-sea saturation divers repairing pipelines. Strahd and Ludmilla may concentrate on the sustaining spell above.
Strahd’s inner circle: Strahd, Rahadin, and Ludmilla form a tight trio who know the real plan (see Strahd’s Offer to the Party, the Bones of Saint Andral & the Brides for Anastrasia and Volenta).

Strahd’s Offer to the Party, the Bones of Saint Andral & the Brides

Strahd’s pitch (if the party ever accepts his invitation): “I have discovered what has been poisoning the people of Vallaki — a giant worm at the bottom of Lake Zarovich. Its taint is spreading. As Lord of Barovia I have a responsibility to remove its foul presence. I am putting together a task force with Rahadin at its head. You have proven yourselves effective… I would like your assistance, for a favor of your choosing.” Sweeteners: he will allow them to leave his domain, and he will open his vaults and fashion or grant a magic item of their choosing. All of it is sealed by a magical contract. This refines the existing Faction geography & the Heart of Darkness fetch-quest/player-exit bargain rather than replacing it.
Debrief: Strahd would brief them on the terrain — a relic at the bottom of the lake, guarded by a giant worm that is dormant and slumbering. They are not to wake it and are to kill it while it sleeps.
If the party refuses, the werewolves go down with Rahadin instead.
The encounter is deliberately stacked in Strahd’s favor. It must be possible for the players to win, but it’s designed to be excessively hard — the genuinely difficult boss fight Chris wants for them.
- Rahadin carries a contingency teleport: if the party turns on him, he’s whisked to safety. Once the worm dies, he teleports out with the worm’s body, and the party’s air bubble vanishes — leaving them under a great depth of water to solve that on their own.
- Reward cleverness (Andrea’s advice): if the players act smartly, they can keep a portion of the worm’s body for their own investigation or crafted equipment, at the cost of the air-bubble problem above.
- Fire underwater: Chris wants fire spells and fire damage to simply not work in this encounter, and wants the players told in advance. Michelle asked to hold off on mechanical decisions for now. Unresolved.
Earlier dinner idea (2026-09-15), now superseded: at dinner, Strahd would warn the party that someone is going to steal Saint Andral’s bones from Vallaki, while knowing his bride Anastrasia had been tasked with exactly that — a test or a bit of fun, possibly with the Festival of the Blazing Sun as his pretext to storm Vallaki if she succeeds. Chris found the logical thread weak (“doesn’t sound like our Strahd would care for that”) and noted the players likely won’t attend dinner anyway. The Heart-of-Darkness task force above is now the preferred Strahd offer. (A “wine fetch quest” was half-remembered from early ideation. It’s the same wine/Martikov hook already in Strahd’s NPC entry, predating the lake plan.)
Saint Andral’s bones (current version): the bones keep the ground inside Vallaki consecrated. Floated: that consecration is what keeps the poison out of Vallaki’s wells — so stealing the bones would expose the town. Anastrasia’s bones heist is her own initiative to ingratiate herself with Strahd. He simply allows it (“I’d love to be able to go into Vallaki, so go ahead”). She doesn’t know the grand plan.
Ludmilla vs. Anastrasia: Ludmilla dislikes Anastrasia’s indiscreet methods, which risk getting in the way of the real mission. She still recognizes their value as a distraction providing cover for it. This is the brides’ built-in friction.
Volenta Popofsky (transcribed “Violetta”; confirmed 2026-09-24 to be the same character) is “the berserker.” Where she fits is still undecided.
Escher attaches himself to Volenta wherever he can, believing he can manipulate her and trying to make himself useful.

Vallaki’s Factions (current working model)

The major players named: the Volokoviches, the Watcher House, the Martikovs (not discussed further), Saint Andral’s priest (Father Lucien Petrovich), the Vistani outside the walls, and a small group of male Dusk Elves with one important leader (Kasimir).

The Volokoviches:
- Goal: keep Strahd out, first and foremost, and maintain the peace — which in their minds means making sure everyone seems happy.
- Inciting incident for the festivals: Strahd has just woken up (~a month ago). The ancestral enemy is back; Vallaki believes itself safe, but “to truly be safe” the festivals of happiness must keep him out.
- Baron Vargas Volokovich wants the power inside Lake Zarovich to fight Strahd’s coming onslaught. Michelle noted that this runs directly against what Saint Andral would want. How Vargas knows anything about the lake:
  - Izek’s childhood story — he kept insisting there was a monster in the lake, and only Vargas believed him.
  - Possibly Vargas’s own sight of the worm.
  - Floated: noticing the infection among refugees and linking it back to what happened to Izek.
- Paranoia: Vargas sees assassins in every shadow and blames Strahd for “poisoning the water we drink” — ironically, he’s right.
- Why Barovians are refused entry:
  - They bring disease and unhappiness, and unhappiness attracts maladies and Strahd.
  - Vargas also suspects werewolves among them.
  - Floated: Vallaki did accept Barovians at first, until they brought disease with them.
The Watcher House (use “House,” per the book’s theming):
- Goal: re-establish the family’s power and standing, by either
  - restoring Stella from madness, or
  - positioning the House to survive Strahd’s new era — currying his favor, or taking ownership of the town.
- The players could potentially help cure Stella, which would complete Fiona’s goal.
- Means under consideration (not settled):
  - Fiona reaching out to one of Strahd’s brides — most likely Ludmilla, known to be a mage — to cure Stella.
  - Or reaching Baba Lysaga. Folk tales cast her as a great healer whose cures come at a great price, and she’d use a pseudonym. Fiona couldn’t contact her directly, only through a coven member.
  - It’s unresolved whether Baba Lysaga has covens/agents at all. Chris imagined her acquiring agents; Michelle had pictured a lone operator. Nothing in the book suggests Berez is inhabited.
  - Fiona may have learned her cult practices from such a coven.
- Her imp familiar is self-taught occultism; you don’t need to be a high-level caster for it.
- Family:
  - The husband, Nikolai, died of sickness three years ago; his corpse rots in Fiona’s bedroom. (Chris had been picturing him gone about a year.) Their son Nikolai II is named after him (confirmed 2026-09-24).
  - The two sons have none of their mother’s ambition or temper. They spend her money, drinking and partying to escape the loss of their sister, and think their mother has gone a little mad.
  - The family was once tight-knit; loss has broken it.
  - Stella went mad after her marriage into the Volokovich family.
Father Lucien Petrovich (St. Andral’s) and his altar boy Yeska (the grave-digger is Milivoj, not present) work among the refugees, trying to heal the sick with holy power. Lucien doesn’t know what the malady is, but sees people dying in droves.
Dusk Elves: a small group of male Dusk Elves, with Kasimir as the important one. “Help from the Dusk Elves” was pencilled in as a possible way into Vallaki, pending the Vistani camp work.

Planned Encounters for the Next Session

Players’ stated plan:

go to the Vistani encampment near Vallaki, by Lake Zarovich;
get the lay of the land and gauge hostility toward outsiders and Barovians;
likely visit the refugee camp;
try to get into Vallaki.

That fills the whole day, so they will probably miss dinner with Strahd. (Michelle gives it a true 50/50.)

A. Morgantha & Elaine on the road (Morgantha walking home from Vallaki) — played in Session 10. see Road to Vallaki — Morgantha & Elaine for the newer prep-doc version, which supersedes this where they differ.

The Pie Mill is shrouded by obscuring magic and sits off the road, so the party won’t simply stumble on it.
Morgantha is traveling with her “granddaughter” Elaine — see the new NPC stubs for both (Morgantha, Elaine). She sells pies at daybreak outside Vallaki for 1 gp each to Barovian refugees and to the Vallakians who now walk out of town to buy them because they’re hooked. She’s sold out and heading home.
She is preparing to be a vendor at the Festival of the Blazing Sun, which all Vallakians are required to attend by the Burgomaster’s order. She is welcome in Vallaki: Izek has not run her out, and Vargas is too busy preparing the festival to bother.
Pickpocket result:
- about 2 gp;
- a bag of sentimental items: a leather-corded wooden sun pendant, a fishing tackle (hook and lure), and Stella Watcher’s diary.
- Considered and dropped: a piece of amber (only a wealthier client would have one), pressed flowers (don’t travel well), and dolls (overused).
The diary beat: as the two walk, Elaine reads the diary’s last entry aloud in an over-the-top voice and they both laugh at it. This shows how callous and cruel Elaine is, and hands the players a thread. A draft of the lines is below.
Moved away from Morgantha: a “beware Izek, Vargas’s attack dog” warning was tried and rejected — she had no believable reason to volunteer it. It belongs with the refugees at the gate or the Vistani instead.
Why this encounter matters now: it lets the players start connecting the dream pastries to what’s happening at the lake, and it gives the GMs an opening into Strahd’s machinations through Morgantha.

Draft — Stella’s diary, as read aloud by Elaine (final entry; superseded by the Road to Vallaki — Morgantha & Elaine wording): “I see the worms. They’re in my skin — and oh, how ghostly I have grown. The worms, they’ve burrowed into my eyes. I must remove them.” Diary contents, overall:

Early pages: a young noblewoman’s excitement about marrying a man named Victor.
The handwriting grows more and more erratic as the pages go on.
She comes to feel she’s been changing since marrying into the family, and that Victor is not as nice as he seems.
She dissolves into mad ramblings about seeing, in the mirror, her face ghostly pale and worms crawling under her skin and into her eyes.
She blinds herself and is returned to the Watcher House mad.

B. The Vallaki gates — see Vallaki Gates — the Refugee Camp for the prep-doc write-up (Emeric, Magda, Franz, read-alouds).

Setting: Barovian refugees everywhere — destitute, injured (some from werewolf attacks on the road), starving, and infected with the withering sickness. They’re living off the lakeshore and trying to get into Vallaki to escape starvation.
NPCs: Father Lucien Petrovich and Yeska tending the sick; the gate guards; and Izek Strazani (optional), who appears only if the guards can’t handle things. None of the brides, and not Annabelle.
Entry ritual (Vargas’s protocol, for everyone, Vallakian and Barovian alike):
1. walk across running (holy) water;
2. cut yourself with a silver blade;
3. eat a slice of garlic.
  - Offered to the party as, “Very well — since you claim to have a letter of introduction, we can initiate you.” Chris expects the players to find this funny.
  - The guards follow protocol without really knowing what they’re looking for (“That looks normal to me. You may pass”).
House rule on silver: vampires and werewolves can touch silver, but it’s uncomfortable (an allergic-type reaction). It’s only truly painful when silver cuts them, which makes the wound sizzle; the wound also won’t regenerate.
Ways in (players will find their own; these are GM backups):
- the letter of introduction — the Volokoviches are unlikely to accept it at face value, so the guards need persuading to even take it seriously;
- sneaking in;
- bluffing as merchants;
- posing as helpers for Morgantha and Elaine’s festival setup;
- help from the Dusk Elves (tentative);
- the Session 9 lumber stockpile offered as tribute.
Ireena at the gate: if she declares, “I am Ireena Kolyana, sister of the Burgomaster of Barovia… I would speak with your Burgomaster,” the guards laugh her off. Everyone knows Kolyan’s daughter has bright red hair (hers is currently dyed black), and they send her to “join the rest of those sufferers in the camps.”
Who says what: the refugees are the ones who warn about Izek and talk about the werewolf attacks. Lucien is the one who talks about the sickness.

C. The Vistani camp near Vallaki — played in Session 10 (see the Session Log). The notes below were the prep going in.

NPCs: Kasimir (Dusk Elf leader), plus Luvash and Arrigal, Vistani brothers (Luvash is the elder, and Arabelle’s father). Both are evil-aligned in RAW. In RAW the party arrives as Luvash is punishing a Vistana for failing to watch Arabelle; the name is garbled in the transcript, so confirm it from the module.
This camp is more Strahd-aligned than Madam Eva’s, and doesn’t have her protection.
They might impose their own cleansing or “declare yourselves” ritual, or simply be far more guarded than the Tser Falls camp.
They are sick from the poison (The Withering Sickness (parasites + poison)), blame the Barovians, and have been getting by on purify food and drink.

Arabelle (undecided)

Session 10 update (canonical): Arabelle went missing in the Vallaki marketplace around 9 a.m. on her 7th birthday. The options below now describe who took her and where she is, not where she starts.

The GMs deliberately didn’t commit to where Arabelle is. Michelle’s point: decide what she’s for before deciding where she is. Options on the table:

Lake Zarovich (RAW-adjacent), thrown in as “fish bait,” but reframed:
- the man in the boat is a late-stage parasite host, compelled by the worm’s loneliness to bring it a “playmate”;
- or it’s one of the forest druids, infected and convinced the Fanes/”sisters” are lonely and that this is as natural as breathing — which would be the players’ first introduction to the “weird druids.”
- Donavich was rejected as the abductor: the parasite couldn’t have taken hold that fast.
With the Vistani camp, to avoid adding more threads.
DragnaCarta options: Escher searching for her as a sacrifice to the mists; or she’s rescued by Von Richten and kept in his carnival wagon with the tiger.

Strahd’s Own Tarokka Reading (ideation draft, not canon)

Chris read out an ideation-stage version of Madam Eva’s reading for Strahd:

The Dark Lord — “the master of shadows, the beast in the labyrinth that tears at his chains” (Strahd trying to escape).
Six of Stars, the Evoker — “the power you covet, a force untamed by mortal hands, raw and wild with burning fury.”
The Artifact — “the token you seek, the key to power, divinity’s heart waits — but where?”
The Innocent — “I see a maid of raven hair and twilight eyes. She awaits your tribute. The thread of fate yet spins.”
Seven of Swords, the Hooded One — “Strangers walk the land, their presence a riddle, their intentions a maze. They dwell in the dusk, their role yet unclear.”
One of Stars, the Transmuter — “Change comes on newcomers’ wings, the dusk of an era upon us; as one age ends, another is born.”

Decided: do not use DragnaCarta’s “sacrifice a raven-haired maiden to regain control of a Fane’s power” interpretation (considered via Arabelle). Strahd in this campaign isn’t using the Forest Fane’s power and has no need for a sacrifice. The GMs may take pieces of the reading, but the reading itself still needs to be worked out.

Session 10 Prep Doc (GM write-up, 2026-09-24)

[IDEA — NONCANONICAL] Source: the GMs’ own Session 10 Prep document. It’s the most recent prep, so where it differs from the sections above, treat this write-up as the current plan. The differences are flagged inline and listed in Open questions. Read-aloud text is kept verbatim.

A. Road to Vallaki — Morgantha & Elaine

Characters:

Morgantha. Her daughters are spelled Bella Sunbane and Offelia Wormwiggle in the prep doc.
Elaine Groze, Morgantha’s “granddaughter.” The prep doc spells her name “Elllaine,” which could be a typo for Elaine or Ellaine; this bible keeps “Elaine” until you settle it. This gives her the surname the 09-19 session left TBD. Her cue: the sound of laughter.

Divine Sense read-aloud (for a PC with Divine Sense):

Morgantha: “The stout, rosy-cheeked saturates to an unnatural black and white. The shadows crawl underneath the old woman’s being, creating contrasts so strong it’s difficult for you to identify it’s ‘human’ features. A hunger not of your body gnaws at you. Where it stands, the radiance within you dims and leans away. It is fiendish. This much is certain. Its nature is somewhere below, far from any mortal sin.”
The child: “The child beside her is a bright beacon, as any unsullied soul is, and the darkness licks at her skin as well. Where the darkness seeps, the light seems to dim.”
Note: this reads Elaine as an unsullied mortal child tainted by proximity to Morgantha — not a hag or hag-spawn. That settles the 09-19 question about whether she’s blood kin, leaning toward “not related.”

Stella’s diary beat (supersedes the Planned Encounters for the Next Session (A) draft):

Elaine reads aloud: “… Oh, how would Victor ever love me. The mirror reflects my sallow skin, and the veins protruding from my eyes un-undu-undulate with worms! He can’t see me like this. I must claw them out!”
(She stops for laughter.)
Morgantha: “Did Stella claw those pretty little peepers out?”
Elaine: “Hmm… The entries stop here, Grand mama.”

Situation:

The two are coming back from selling pies and goods to the Barovian refugees.
A few pies are left in the cart: a meat pie and a vegetable cheese pie, 1 gp each.
Morgantha’s sales pitch: “Cheapest food you’ll find outside of these gates. Those damned profiteering Vallakian vultures are robbing the poor Barovians for every copper to their name!”
She also sells an “all natural herbal remedy — purified valerian extract.” Valerian is one of the best-known natural sedatives. Wild valerian thrives in damp meadows and along the edges of rivers and streams, and its root has been used for centuries to calm the nerves and induce sleep.
- REVISION flag: Strahd’s Machination: Poisoning the Winter Worm names cat-o’-nine-tails as the poison’s sedative ingredient. It’s undecided whether valerian replaces cattails, adds to them, or is only Morgantha’s public cover product. Either way, a riverside sedative fits the Luna River poison works nicely. See Open questions.
She sells at dawn every other day (Planned Encounters for the Next Session (A) said “at daybreak”).

Information she offers:

The gates of Vallaki are closed to all outsiders, but they might open to visitors with coin for the Festival of the Blazing Sun: “We’re preparing for a large feast then you know, in three day’s time.” That puts the festival three days out.
If the party buys a pie, she’s friendlier and shares more: “If you want into Vallaki, you’ll need to get past the fool Vargas’ attack dog, Izek. He’s been the one keeping the Barovians out.”
- REVISION flag: the 09-19 session moved this Izek warning away from Morgantha, because she had no reason to volunteer it. The prep doc puts it back, but only after a purchase, which gives her a transactional motive. The prep doc is the current version.

B. Vallaki Gates — the Refugee Camp

Read-aloud (camp):

“Past Vallaki’s gates lies a cluster of ramshackle tents huddled against the wall, as though seeking shelter beneath the looming silhouette of the town’s palisade walls. The tents themselves are laid out in a simple two-sided thoroughfare, with crude wooden barricades and muddy ditches beyond the far side facing out against the dark forest beyond.

Through gaps in the threadbare canvas, you can see crude wooden pallets, makeshift bedrolls, and the occasional battered cooking pot. Small, low-burning cookfires dot the grimy narrow avenue, and piles of sticks and half-rotted logs rest haphazardly beside them.

Dozens of people, their bodies gaunt and their faces drawn, move slowly about the camp. Their eyes are sunken and hollow, their clothes hanging loose on their thin frames. A few of them huddle about the campfires, bodies hunched against the chill air and hands outstretched for the meager warmth.”

New NPCs:

Emeric, a melancholy older man with graying hair.
Magda, a grief-stricken young woman with deep circles under her eyes.
Both came with the first wave of refugees from Barovia. They have led the effort to welcome and organize newcomers since Strahd’s siege.
They’re wary of outsiders but curious about why the party has come.
Magda briefly hopes the party are Baron Vallakovich’s servants, come to invite the refugees in. Emeric points to the party’s strange appearance and sets her straight.

What Emeric and Magda can share (adjust to current events):

When the refugees arrived: the first ones came three months ago and were barred from entering. When they tried to force the gates, the guards summoned Izek, “who bore a twisted devil’s arm and conjured fire to drive the refugees back.”
Life in the camp:
- They’ve bribed the guards for small necessities like the tents.
- They can’t get in, and can’t get the Baron to hear them.
Nightly attacks:
- Swarms of bats and packs of wolves have hit the camp every night.
- “Thankfully, no one has died yet, but several refugees have been wounded.”
Why they stay: after their losses on the road, and with the Devil in Castle Ravenloft, they won’t risk going home. They’re waiting for the Baron to relent.
Dream pastries:
- About one quarter of the refugees are addicted to Morgantha’s pastries, as an escape from their misery.
- Eating one causes a trance, per the module’s Dream Pastries (p. 125).
Franz:
- If the party asks about the night hag, Emeric and Magda exchange glances. Her description matches a recurring nightmare that Franz has had for the past two nights.
- Franz is a widower who recently lost his children as well. He is likely still grieving or disturbed.
- Magda adds that he has had a strange wasting disease ever since the nightmares began, and hopes the party can treat him.
Father Lucien of Saint Andral’s church has been tending the wounded. “Pious man he may be, there is no healing, just a suspension from death.”

Franz’s tent (read-aloud):

“Within this sagging, cramped tent lie three stained pallets, two of which are child-sized. An old and patched stuffed rabbit lies across the closest pallet, its black button eyes staring sightlessly into the air.

A young woman kneels in the mud beside the full-size pallet, clutching a bundle of wilted herbs in one fist and holding a damp rag over the forehead of a frail, gaunt-looking man lying across the pallet. The man’s skin is pale and drenched in sweat, his clothes torn and ragged. Wispy, scraggled hair rises from his wrinkled scalp, while his face, illuminated beneath the dying light of a single, sputtering candle, is etched with exhaustion. A full moment passes before you realize that this ghost of a man is likely scarcely older than thirty.”

The young woman at Franz’s side is unnamed.
Open design question: is Franz’s wasting from the hag’s nightmares, from the withering sickness (The Withering Sickness (parasites + poison)), or both? A night hag feeding on a dream pastry addict would give the sickness a second, overlapping cause worth deciding on. See Open questions.

Lucien’s entrance (read-aloud fragment):

“Emeric and Magda speaking to a man with worn robes that engulf a lithe frame. You see the crest of the Morninglord emblazoned on his lapels. There are deep hollow under his eyes, and at his side you see a similarly dressing young boy. They both look much cleaner than the Barovians.”

The boy is presumably Yeska.

C. Vistani Camps

Only NPC names so far: Kasimir (spelled “Kasimer” in the prep doc), Luvash, and Arrigal. Still unwritten; see Planned Encounters for the Next Session (C).

D. Where the prep doc conflicts with the earlier sections

Each of these is also listed in Open questions.

Refugee timeline: the first refugees arrived three months ago, but Vallaki’s Factions (current working model) says Strahd woke only about a month ago. Either the refugees came before the reawakening, or one number has to move.
Izek’s magic: here he conjures fire, while his NPC entry suggests cold/necrotic/void-themed blasts for his cloaked night attacks. It could be both: fire in public, cold as a disguised assassin.
Deaths: here “no one has died yet” from the nightly bats and wolves. The Withering Sickness (parasites + poison) has refugees dying in droves from sickness, and bitten refugees lynched. These are compatible if the deaths are from disease rather than attacks, but the tone needs to match at the table.
Sedative ingredient: valerian (prep doc) vs. cat-o’-nine-tails (Strahd’s Machination: Poisoning the Winter Worm).
The Izek warning: it’s back with Morgantha, gated behind buying a pie.

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