Session 0.5b - Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer

Players: Dismas Channel: #0-5b-overconfidence-is-a-slow-and-insidious-killer

Summary:

The session opens immediately post-heist. Dismas and his bandit crew have successfully robbed a wagon, but not without cost — he takes a few hits from guards and enters the scene winded, with a grimy wound on his arm and Exhaustion 1
Investigating the wagon, Dismas discovers a woman in a marigold and sky-blue summer dress, shot through the chest, still barely alive — and a lifeless boy, approximately 4–6 years old, Asian features, held in her arms
The woman’s wound is grievous but Dismas determines (narrowly) that the heart itself was likely missed. He bandages her with strips of her dress and rubbing alcohol found in the wagon, then administers a stabilizing adrenaline shot from his alchemist’s kit
While treating her, he discovers the Tin Pendant — it falls from her hand when he cuts the dress. This is the moment of acquisition.
He lashes the woman to a horse and sends it off toward the nearest town. The horse gallops into the mist and vanishes within three heartbeats — she is gone, fate unknown
Dismas takes the dead boy and his small yellow shovel and pink bucket, intending to give him a proper burial. He runs into the mist
On a failed Wisdom save (rolled a 2), Barovia’s voices close in — laughter, a raven’s caw, a wolf’s growl. Voices name him: “Murderer.” “Weak.” “Thief.” — and then, disturbingly: “Thank you… dad?”
Dismas holds his ground, grips the boy tighter, keeps his pistol up — waiting for something real to shoot. The voices press in from all directions
The scene ends on a gut-punch image: two round, pearly eyes looking back at him from his shoulder. The boy is not entirely gone. Scene closes — to be continued in Session 1

Key revelations & consequences:

Dismas did not intend to kill the woman — she was caught in the crossfire of a job he took out of desperation. His alignment shift begins here
The wounded woman’s fate is unresolved — she was sent off on a horse into the mist. Whether she survived entry into Barovia is unknown
The boy’s identity is unestablished — he may be connected to the woman, or the connection may be more complicated
The Tin Pendant was hers before it became his. This is narratively significant — the item that records his kills was first held by one of his victims
Barovia spoke to Dismas on the way in, and called him dad in the dead boy’s voice — the land is already working on him
The grimy wound on his arm is flagged as potentially significant (“Maybe you should get it looked at later?”) — possible infection or supernatural contamination

Open threads:

What happened to the wounded woman?
Who were the woman and child? Were they connected to Erasmus or Rahadin’s hit?
What are the boy’s eyes doing on Dismas’s shoulder at scene’s end — is the child’s spirit attached to him, or to the pendant?
The wound on his arm — follow up if relevant

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