It is with caution dear listener that I must remind you of the shadows that fill every waking moment and breath in the Outland Valleys. My contrition for sharing this knowledge is deep, for every moment of these brave and foolish adventurers lives must be riddled with at least one salient thought: Who, or what, is watching them? There is no moment of respite for those who fate takes a shine to. And in Pallas behind ruffled papers and chilly tones, a short scruffy man in an ill fitting suit over his ill fitting skin is the first observer. It’s quiet words he shares with those higher, but those words become like gold as it travels up the chain, and reaching up to the top as unto blood.

But the pale haired woman at the end of the valuable words smiles a decadent smile that conveys a surplus of self confidence drowned in opulence, but bearing the features of someone all too familiar. “They certainly never stop being entertaining. I can’t wait to see her.” she says to no one despite the sycophant at her heel. She stands, a cascade of shimmering red fabric and too artful motions. “We’ll see what they can do.”

And then she was gone.

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The hunters, the farmers, the smiths and the sellers…  Were they proud? The city of Pallas, greyed over from sky and age, lives under the low hanging light of the harvest moon, a forest of a town where the hawthorn trees poke from the roofs.

But here they were between everything: The wilds and civilization, riches and desolation, the church and those outside.  And to many those disparate images had little left. Though that band of road hardened travelers, mystics, warriors, fools had roamed into town, they paid it little mind. What was one more party of strangers in a city under thumb of fiend and zealot.

Yet still beneath the branches and painted signs, the sounds of the ravens still caw…

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This is a “get to know the characters” sort of episode recorded on a night when there wasn’t really enough time to play a proper game.  If you want to listen to the players of Curse of Innistrahd explain how they came up with their characters, listen in.

The sound of howling was something the folks of the outland valleys had grown accustomed to as the misty nights scraped the mountain sides. High Inquisitor Seeta Venlis, frowning in a solemn silence, knew this was where she would start. Pallas was an active town, still alive and busy, if aching and scared as it’s workers and shops endured working day to day in the lands forgotten by the church. And this is why it came to her.

Someone who would take action. The ridges and cliffs, fingers of stone wrapping around the heartlands like the grip of the fiends who held it… They would be free. One step at a time. And so they must feel safe. She thought about this, heavy black garb bound with silver glistening in the candlelight of her patron’s chambers. She was not a woman to leave well enough alone. Her hands tensed for the handle of a blade or the tightness of a quill, something for a solution. But the nervous tension wouldn’t break. A snort of inconclusive concern broke her silence and she surged to her feet, stomping through her aimless fervor. And then she saw it. A flash in the darkness, a marble of green light over the city walls. And as the howling followed the fleeing beast, she smiled. The first thing they needed was an enemy.

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In the investigation of the attempt to bury the previous burgomaster of the town away, our valiant party ended up sinking into the depths of a church, finding a young emaciated vampire kept under watch by his father, the priest.  After a harrowing experience realizing the danger that such a creature presented, moreso than they could have predicted, they emerged battered but alive.

Returning with the news, they met back up with Ismark Kolyanovich and explained their circumstance.  The party was then able to persuade Irena Kolyana to come with them to the nearby city of Palas.  As they were preparing to leave, however, they came across a decrepit old crone selling apparently magical pastries.  This knowledge did not deter either Niccoli nor Faustus from consuming them and subsequently falling immediately into unconsciousness but feeling oddly at peace.

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