Sessions 95 and 96 - You Shall Go To The Ball!
10th and 24th January 2025
In-game timeline: Start of session: 1490DR Mirtul 7. End of session: 1490DR Mirtul 9
Jaxii happily receives the offer of training in a Feat from her Ancestors and they teach her the Dragon Fear skill. The group decide to attempt to gain entrance to Countess Allani's ball to try to rescue the three captured Sintaran Dragonborn. They go about the task of trying to get enough invites to the ball to allow them all to attend.
Iwee uses her over-used Sending spell to contact the Graysings, who they rescued from the Plane of Dreams not long ago, knowing they had an invite. The Graysings agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to provide their ticket (which covers them as a couple), though they were concerned that the group would potentially get the Graysings in any trouble whilst mimicking them at the ball - the party's reputation has obviously followed them.
To try to get another two invites, Iwee contacts Devon, of the Little Fingers. This proves fruitful. After a long conversation, primarily taken up by Iwee talking, as usual, Devon agrees to supply another ticket to the ball, by calling in a favour from Lord and Lady Corstwall, who also have invites.
That was the difficult part. Now the expensive part.
In order to get the invites in time for the ball in only two days' time, Devon needs to send Iwee an image in her head of the tickets, and she needs to use this image to create a minor illusion of each ticket for a gnome named Grix at the nearby town of Arabel to forge accurately - this takes a few hours of work, and costs the party 120gp per ticket due to a botched attempt to haggle the cost down by Iwee. Devon also supplies the passwords needed to gain access to the ball.
In addition, the group need to pay for costumes for the ball. The animals they are going as are already decided, as the Graysings and Corstwalls have already informed Countess Allani of their intended costumes - a bear, a swan, a zebra and a cat. Given the fast turnaround needed, these costumes are quite expensive.
The costumes will help disguise the true forms of the party, who are trying to pass off as humans. Iwee's disguise ability can help her pass off as Lady Corstwall, and Derrick - being human - can adequately disguise as Lord Graysing with the help of the costume and Iwee's abilities with a disguise kit However, Karoshi and Jaxii will need disguise spells to pass off as their human counterparts. Since these only last an hour each, they need to buy 6 disguise self scrolls to cover a few hours' worth of being humans. Expensive! Especially as Derrick follows Iwee's example and messes up an attempt to haggle the cost of the scrolls down.
The party spend the next day or so ensuring they have the gear they think they will need to successfully negotiate the ball, as well as to be able to rescue the dragonborn.
Preparations done, the party hire a coach in order to make a better entrance to the ball, and then follow the instructions on the invites to gain entrance to Allani's mansion in Barovia, which is located in the Shadowfell Plane, but portals to and from Barovia are strange and mysterious and can appear, both bidden and unbidden, in different places in all planes. Entry involves travelling to the nearby stone circle when the moon has risen, and summoning a portal to appear in order to travel between planes. They need to use their passwords to travel through this portal but it all seems to go ok.
They arrive in a desolate place. A blood-red moon illuminates the area in an eerie, crimson light. They arrive at the coach house for Allani's mansion, which seems to be a few hundred yards away, at the end of a long driveway - a driveway that seems to pass across two bridges, over grounds covered in countless bones. Bones of unknown origin, but varied in nature and bleached white by age. It is not an uplifting place. Unless you're a Vampire, perhaps.
At the coach house, a nameless servant of the household boards the carriage and explains in slow, but passable, common speech that he will drive them to the entrance and will drive the coach back to the coach house until summoned back at the end of the evening.
As they travel down the driveway, their attention is distracted by the elaborate and ornate stone statue of what they assume to be Countess Allani, a vampire of some repute, seemingly being worshipped by downtrodden humans, who are portrayed in a mixture of pain and ecstasy beneath her. The statue is disquieting, especially for Iwee, who is sensitive to such things, and Karoshi, who is uncomfortable being in a place of such evil. Jaxii and Derrick seem fairly unmoved by such a sight. Derrick wonders at his chances of getting a date with the Vampire.
They arrive at the impressive mansion entrance and are dropped off, with the unnamed servant driving off with their carriage. Iwee tries to hide a dagger amongst her costume, the others leave their weapons and armour either in the carriage or back in the town of Arabel, as they know they will not be allowed in the ball.
The invites gain them entrance to the mansion, though Iwee's attempt to hide the dagger is discovered and she needs to check-in the weapon in before she is granted entry, but manages to fast-talk her way out of any further repercussions. They are announced as they enter the ball - The Graysings and The Corstwalls - but those already present at the ball seem particularly unimpressed at their arrival. They do find out later, after some interactions with those present, that Allani likes to invite some "lower mortals" to her balls to impress, or perhaps to scare, them, and to extend her infamy and influence around the Material Plane. The Graysings and Corstwalls were two of the few "lucky" ones at this particular ball.
The group had previously managed to obtain a list of key party guests from Devon, and their costumes, so they could choose who to talk to at the party to find out some information.
At the entrance they see a list of some "competitions" that people can enter for fun, and the winner of each competition is invited to join a "Menagerie Tour" at midnight, where Allani will show off her zoo. This seems interesting and potentially fruitful, so Derrick sends Pacino to check out where this menagerie may be and the somewhat petulant owl does manage to find a large zoo in the grounds of the mansion, but didn't want to get too close to the cages for fear of what they may contain.
The party spend the next couple of hours mingling at the ball, trying to discretely interact with some of the attendees there, to find out information that may prove useful for Devon, in order to repay the favour he has done them, or that could hint at where the dragonborn may be held, or about the competitions.
The full gamut of information they discover is not reproduced here, but to summarise some points (NOTE - not necessarily ALL the points, or even all the KEY points (that is for the players to decide), but an idea of the sort of information they find out…)
- There are two very high up Vampire houses present here - the Straafs (of which Allani is a member) and the von Zarovichs (the famous Count Straad is the head of this house, though he is not at this particular party)
- There are some minor Vampire houses also represented here
- There seems to be a lot of politics between the Vampires, and the Vampire houses - in-house rivalries as well as inter-house relationships, affairs, vengeances
- Lycanthropes are also present, in the form of members of the Lupus Guild. There is talk that a member of the Lupus Guild has, surprisingly, recently (recent in Vampire terms, anyway!) gained a seat on the Blood Council, which seems to be a form of government in this realm (and beyond, at least as far as Vampires and associated creatures are concerned)
- There is quite a lot of machinations going on with members of this Blood Council too
- Allani seems to collect exotic creatures for her menagerie. There are rumours that she may have acquired a dragon. The party suspect that she may have captured the dragonborn in order to help look after this dragon
- They find out a fair bit about the different competitions arranged:
- Cro's Swords is not, apparently, a fighting competition, but is more some sort of test of intelligence. Although one person enters the competition, they may be aided by others during the competition
- Archery seems to be as it sounds, using bows or crossbows to fire at a target to get the best score
- Vice Dice is a gambling game, involving dice. One of the guests seems to be keen to play this in order to win money as they owe quite a lot, apparently. You need 100gp of your own money as an initial stake. Another guest is good at gambling games, as he is quite good at reading other people, so it is likely that being able to gain insight into others will also play a part in this game. Conversely, being able to deceive others may also benefit here
- Beast Racing involves racing beasts around a course. It is not known what beasts will be used, but Allani provides the beasts, and it is apparently usual that she provides exotic creatures for this competition. It is likely that Animal Handling will play at least some part in this, though probably not exclusively. It was also mentioned that having crowd support could also help competitors, so Karoshi tries (once) and fails to garner support for him in this competition with one guest. Tenacity is perhaps not his, or others in the party, strong suit
- Duel in the Crown is apparently a duel with another entrant. Given that there are up to four entrants, this probably means the winner must win two duels to win the competition. Weapons are provided (as none can be brought into the party) and are known to be ranged weapons (crossbows or bows, apparently) - implying that the duel is a formal affair, twenty paces and all that, rather than a rough brawl. Not only is there a risk that entrants take damage, but in fact it is expected. But the duel is not (likely to be) to the death - in all probability to a particular level of harm before the winner is declared
They sign up for different competitions in the hope that they can all win their respective competition and all therefore gain entry to the menagerie tour.
Karoshi signs up for the Beast Racing
Iwee signs up for Cro's Swords
Jaxii signs up for the Archery
Derrick signs up for the Duel in the Crown, really hoping that he can use magic to improve his chances (because otherwise he is not all that good at firing ranged weapons!)
The time for the competitions approaches, though there is still time for more mingling or investigating around the ball, should this be desired….