Session 0.5a - Love Divined | Curse of Strahd

Players: Cassandra, Jacob Channel: #0-5a-love-divined

Summary:

Jacob arrives at the Napus Oracle’s pavilion overlooking the Priam winery, searching desperately for his lost love Gertruda, whose trail has gone cold — no scent, no tracks, nothing
Cassandra receives him with characteristic irreverence, sends a white raven off with a note (unprompted, suggesting a vision or foreknowledge), and offers wine before pressing him with three pointed questions about whether Gertruda is a willing disappearance or something else
Jacob passes Cassandra’s insight check (she rolled 18) — she reads him as earnest, not obsessive. He genuinely believes something is wrong with how Gertruda vanished, not that she chose to leave
Cassandra produces her Dark One’s Tarokka Deck and lays out 54 cards, asking Jacob to focus on his desire and choose three. The rolls are: 7, 44, 11
First card — Cassandra reads Jacob’s bestial nature and warns that his emotions driving his actions will be a liability on this quest
Second card — Cassandra enters a genuine trance (eyes cloud blue, hair billows). Her voice drops to a deep alto. The Card of Mists rises into the air on its own. She delivers an involuntary prophecy: Jacob is fated to this quest; what he seeks lies in shadow; only by walking into darkness may he recover what is lost
Before the third card can be turned, Madam Eva intervenes — a cold, leathery hand grabs Cassandra’s wrist and breaks the trance

The Madam Eva encounter (Cassandra only):

The scene shifts — Cassandra finds herself in what feels like a vision rather than a teleportation; outside she can hear laughter, a crackling fire, and a waterfall
Madam Eva sits across from her — elderly, wearing a rose-pink shawl with gold-gilded edges, heavy fabric, calloused hands beneath expensive rings
On a nat 20 perception check, Cassandra becomes acutely aware that something — some unseen force — has turned its attention to their conversation, and Madam Eva notices it too. The intimacy of the meeting is broken; the Tarokka cards on the table look like bottomless pits
Madam Eva tells Cassandra she has a gift, a request, and a warning to offer — but the connection begins fading before all three can be delivered
She tells Cassandra: “When you arrive in my homeland, do come pay me a visit. You and your friends are welcome.” The vision fades before Cassandra can get her name or location
The third card — the Conjurer — was never turned. Its meaning (supernatural threats, powerful beings) remains unspoken

The void vision (Jacob only, simultaneous):

While Cassandra is in her vision, Jacob is pulled into complete darkness — no scent, no sensory information at all
He hears a child crying. The child resembles Gertruda but is not quite her — similar features, subtly different
The child is mid-transformation into a werewolf, a bastardization of any lycanthropic change Jacob recognizes. She appears to be in excruciating pain
On a DC 10 Intelligence check, Jacob understands what she is saying between snarls: she is asking for her dad
The child bites Jacob’s wrist — the pain is shockingly real and jolts him out of the vision
He returns to find fresh human bite marks (flat teeth, no blood) on his wrist — and a bracelet of baby wolf teeth he did not have before. This is the moment of acquisition for the Werewolf Fang Bracelet
Jacob comes back to find himself engulfed in mist

Key revelations & consequences:

Jacob and Cassandra are now narratively linked before the campaign proper begins — she has read his fate and he has witnessed her genuine prophetic ability
The Card of Mists rising on its own during the reading is significant — Cassandra’s deck may be responding to Barovia itself
Madam Eva has already made contact with Cassandra before she enters Barovia, establishing a connection and an invitation
The third card (the Conjurer) was deliberately blocked — Madam Eva interrupted to prevent something from being revealed, or from drawing further attention from the unseen watching force
The child in Jacob’s vision is connected to Gertruda but is not Gertruda — her werewolf transformation and plea for her father raises questions about what Jacob will find in Barovia
The Werewolf Fang Bracelet was given by a vision-child, not found — its origin is supernatural and personal

Key NPCs established:

Madam Eva — First contact established. Rose-pink shawl, gold-gilded fabric, calloused hands, expensive rings. Speaks with the gravity of someone who has navigated prophecy for a very long time. Aware of the unseen watching force and cautious around it. Has extended an invitation to Cassandra when the party reaches her homeland

Open threads:

What were the gift, request, and warning Madam Eva intended to deliver? Only the invitation was fully communicated
What is the unseen watching force that turned its attention to the reading — and does it now know about Cassandra?
Who is the child in Jacob’s vision — is she connected to Gertruda, to Jacob’s lycanthropy, or to something in Barovia?
The third card (the Conjurer) was never read aloud. Does its unspoken meaning still apply?
The white raven Cassandra sent a note to at the opening of the scene — who was the recipient, and what did the note say?