Freaks & Facades: Session Eight - A Hard Break

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    Greetings, our great and ghoulish readers!  Hungry for more Ravenloft fun?

    Then welcome back to the storied return of Freaks & Facades!  To Session Eight: A Hard Break!

    Riddled with spider bites and exhausted from a day of riots and revelations, our band of Freaks begin to camp out.  The physical proof needed of the Baron Montagne's plots has not been acquired.  But, they have uncovered different truths (some quite terrible in scope) that they never anticipated.  Some too dangerous to confront...

    And now, while tending to their wounds, a figure emerged from the dark.  Someone who has seen all the Freaks are capable of, good and bad.  Our band of aspiring adventurers suddenly face the serious face of the seemingly ridiculous and lovesick socialite, Claudine LaFitte! 

    What does she want with the party?  Is Claudine a possibly ally in the Freaks' pursuit of justice?  Or is she an agent of the Baron's, luring them to their doom with her falsity?

    Let us dive right in and see what occurs on this accursed night in the Dementlieuse countryside!


Warning: this is a horror campaign setting, so please bear that in mind before reading on.  Possible triggers include: mentions of violence, bloodshed and death; dead bodies, strange dreams, serial killers, etc. 

*starts projector*


    • Our party of Freaks were just bedding down after surviving a terribly rough day:
      • First, a riot broke out all because Fenri tried to tell the truth about the Baron and the framing of Night's Vengeance.
      • Second, they investigated the Massacre of House Bonmot.  The crime was committed in Night's Vengeance's name, but the violence they witnessed overwhelmed the party.
      • Thirdly, while attending tea at the Montagne manor, the group saw two sides to the nobility of Dementlieu, a microcosm of their way of life: ridiculously haughty, and malevolently influential.  The Baron is not someone to be challenged without putting one's affairs in order first.  
      • Fourth, the Freaks investigate the supposed massacre of the Flying Wolves--finding the corpse of an old kook as a bonus, and way too many spiders.
    • But, after fleeing the arachnid-infested Vallee de Neige, they returned to their favorite camp site and were discovered!  By the handsome socialite Claudine LaFitte, who only hours ago was a ridiculous flirt and ostentatious lush even among the nobility.
      • That persona is nowhere in sight as Claudine stands before them.  Her eyes flash with calculated intelligence.  Claudine declares that she wants the party to help her accomplish some unknown task.  
      • Is she asking, or telling them they must help her?  
      • Is there an "or else" attached to this woman's desires?
    • Claudine speaks on, in a serious manner never before seen by our party.  She reveals, with a great sigh, that she is also not as she appears--just like them.  
      • Her actions while among Lord Isaac Montagne's party, according to her, are an elaborate act.  A persona she has worn like a mask: ridiculous and ostentatious to such extremes, like so many desperate socialites.  
      • All to make sure no one would ever suspect what Claudine is truly after.
    • There is evil in Dementlieu, she says.  Far more intelligent and insidious than even a giant, corpse-puppeting spider.  A mortal evil, with strings of money and social collateral to get away with murder...  
      • She is on the hunt for a terrible creature, a beast with the hunger of a serial killer.  The Black Dog.  
      • All of Port-a-Lucine knows the urban legend of the Black Dog; Solange is no exception even as an outsider.  
        • Hearsay suggests it is a terrifying creature made of hunger, darkness and death--bound in fur blacker than night!  With enormous teeth stained red as blood!
        • It strikes with terrible bloody violence on the darkest of nights in the great Port-a-Lucine metropolis!  Slaughtering innocent people with its terrible teeth and claws!  A beast that delights in death, an inhuman serial killer!
        • An uncatchable abomination born of man and beast!  Leaping across entire streets and rooftops to prowl the city like its personal hunting grounds!    
        • But no one knows when it will strike--it is far too smart to massacre, it has a taste for purity and goodness...  It hunts for pleasure and not hunger...
          • Could such a creature really be under the power of a far-away country noble, like Baron Montagne?  Or, perhaps, it is something far more intelligent in its malevolence--and shaped as a man instead?
      • Claudine furthers reveals that she has been investigating a lead on the Black Dog's true identity.  And to who it serves in its hunting down of innocent lives.  (It seems she has a personal connection to the case...)
        • Mademoiselle LaFitte claims that she is part of a secret group within the Dementlieuse nobility.  A small but determined sect who all reject the tyranny and corruption born from the privileges of wealth and status.  Fighting criminals of fair face and decadent appetites from the inside their elitist circles, to unmask evil behind glamorous masks.  All to protect the good, unprepared people of the land!  
          • Their name and methods are a secret.  Claudine is bound not to reveal more except that much...
        • Channa is flabbergasted by this notion--a good rich person?!  That nobles would even care about, let alone disagree with, corruption among their ranks is unthinkable!  
          • In her experience, back in the slums of Sharn, no noble would ever entertain such a thought for the peasantry.  
        • Claudine herself was everything Channa despises about the aristocracy until just a moment ago! 
          • However, her shock tempers as she remembers the very first day that notion was challenged.  A day long ago that changed the course of her life...  When Channa met Destir.
      • Claudine fears there is definitely a connection between House Montagne's patriarch and the Black Dog!  Her investigation has all but confirmed it!
        • The house's crest includes a black hunting hound.  And she has seen the helmet shaped like a Black Dog's head in the Baron's lounge.  Things are lining up far too easily for it to be simple coincidence!
        • And even she has recognized the man has some power over his legion of hunting dogs.  They seem to be the literal eyes and ears of their master.  No hounds are that well trained without something other at play.
    • If the Baron is controlling the bloodthirsty beast, or is the Black Dog himself; then he is a far greater danger than our band of Freaks anticipated.  The scope of his evil extends far beyond a backwoods village like Campanula!  
      • However, showing a knowing smile, Claudine reiterates that she alone could not unmask the Black Dog.  But working together with a band of people wanting to do good?  Perhaps that would cause the monster's human facade to slip!  And all of Dementlieu would see the Baron for the cruel beast he truly is!
        • That is how you fight in Dementlieu, she says.  You cannot simply cut off the head of a monster.  You must strip them of their human facade!  Peel off every layer of alibi and artifice subtly, in order to lay bare the naked proof of their evil misdeeds.  Then you let the aristocracy tear the monster among them to shreds (all to possibly save their own skins)!  
          • That is how you eliminate evil in Dementlieu! 
        • The Black Dog's victims must be connected, or ordered for death by another's reasons.  The Baron does not seem the type to massacre unless it served him--he has sent others to do his dirty work so far...  Or, perhaps, the deaths serve not him but the will of his own master?
          • Perhaps, if they are successful, they will destroy the myth of the Black Dog forever?  Freeing Port-a-Lucine of its reign of terror forever! 
    • Claudine wants to find a way into Baron Montagne's study.  Where he keeps all his files, his paper trail.  He must be receiving orders that the Black Dog carries out!  
      • Perhaps he has kept these secret missives rather than destroyed them; as insurance should his master betray him instead?  She knows how the nobility scheme all too well...
      • To accomplish her task, Claudine needs help.  She's too well-known to the Baron's sensitive senses to investigate without risk of getting caught.  
        • Perhaps the skills of a bunch of strangers, especially ones the Black Dog never expected, would come in handy?
      • Fenri's gut tells her that Claudine is truly sincere.  This is who the young woman is: an aspiring avenger, looking to end a great evil that has plagued her home.  
        • Fenri looks at the true and serious face of Claudine LaFitte, and she trusts her wholeheartedly.  
        • They were dropped here for seemingly no reason, she ponders.  But perhaps this is the will of a higher power, even if Fenri cannot hear the voice of Pelor in this strange land?
    • Guided by their healer's intuition, the group reveals why they have the body of the old valley's Watchman in their possession.  
      • Evidence clearly suggests someone with influence and a lot of animals under their sway poisoned the old man.  If they get the body to speak, that would be evidence with great weight!
      • Perhaps the killer planned it thus: when the Flying Wolves succeeded in catching and framing Night's Vengeance, the mercenaries would simply walk into the Vallee de Neige without anyone to warn them...
        • But the ex-Falkovnian mercenaries did not fully succeed their commission.  Our band of beloved Freaks intervened unexpectedly and saved Night's Vengeance from their blades and ropes.  Scapegoat for the massacre no longer guaranteed.
        • Now that the Baron has someone sniffing around his trail, and our Freaks are causing a ruckus that jeopardizes his dominion over Campanula; he wants them out before his control is completely undone...
    • Interested in this new evidence, and the party's plan to use speak with dead to obtain the late watchman's testimony, Claudine offers her hand in friendship to the party, asking them for aid.  With the plans she has set already, she believes (and hopes) that they are good people who will stand with her.  
      • Our friendly Freaks have all seen what terror the Baron has wrought upon the people of Campanula.  This suggested link with a serial killing abomination only further impassions them to act!
        • What power he has over the people's lives, and even their deaths...  
        • Even if he is not the Black Dog himself, he must be stopped!
      • Claudine says, while maintaining her frivolous and decadent persona, she has arranged a way to get into House Montagne while the Baron and his guards are away.  She cannot go into the Baron's estate herself--he or his dogs would recognize her scent (which was a hurdle she was willing to risk until now).  The party on the other hand can take the window of time while she is seen publicly elsewhere!
        • She also wishes to find Night's Vengeance.  As a fellow vigilante against noble tyranny, Claudine believes her secret organization will want to help him escape Campanula!  To ride again for justice without the Baron's noose grasping for his slender neck!
      • To accomplish all this, Claudine is willing to accept the help of those with certain abilities...  Her gaze levels on Schrödinger specifically when she adds in her emphasis.  
        • All his confidence is now in the pit of his stomach at her look of pure disgust...  
        • Those at the Syndicate of the Enlightened Mind looked at him just like that. 
          • Before they called for muskets and torches...   
    • Claudine's plans are thus: in two days time she has arranged the guards watching Montagne Manor to be away from the house.  The manor's kitchen door will be unguarded as they take a stroll through the woods. (Aka picking up a bribe they are to drop in a nearby tree).  
    • The servants and most of the guards will all but gone as well, as that day the noble house of Chaveau is hosting a tourney of derby races!  So the house will be all but empty for at least two hours.
    • House Chaveau is a house wealthy in gold and excellent horsemanship, rather than fashion or influence...  Some of the best racehorses in Dementlieu are supposedly raised by Lord Chaveau's stables!  
      •  And what coincidence!  The true identity of the sought-after Night's Vengeance is actually a servant of House Chaveau: the timid stableman Vincente Quint!  He will certainly be preparing his master's horses for the races; so it'll be the perfect opportunity for Claudine to make contact with the group's introduction!
      • The Chaveau derbies are the most popular event throughout the region of Campanula.  All walks of life are able to bet and cheer for their favorite jockeys and horses.  (Though the peasants and posh aristocracy cheer from two very separate sections around the track).  And this is the last derby of the summer season, with the national wine holiday of Primeur being only a week away!  
        • Anyone who is anyone will be there, Claudine describes.  Even with vigilantes running, like this supposed new terror--the Hateful Halfling!
        • Fenri turns a bit green at the fresh moniker pasted over her new reputation.  
          • Claudine tries to make her feel better about that; it's just a cultural sore spot for the Dementlieuse she stepped on, triggering that reaction.  
          • There have even been periods of unrest known as the Anarchies in the land's history because of the class divide, so it's not Fenri's fault per se.
    • The plan is set, but it will require the party to Split Up!  With major distance between the two groups.  Someone will need to connect Claudine to Vincente in person.  With the distance between the nobles' estates, if things go wrong they'll have to survive without half their forces.
      • They have Two Days to rest up and decide who goes where on the derby day.  How else will they spend this time?   
    • Claudine bids the party goodnight.  Our band of friendly Freaks finally get to rest up.  The exhaustion of their encounters that day, the giant spider on par with the Baron's intimidation, finally catches up with them...
    • That night, the band of resting Freaks sleep deep...  [Aboleth Eye declares they level up!] 
      • When they awake, the Freaks discover something strange has accompanied this rush of new power!
      • For Pryrrish has suffered a major alteration in their form!  Across their body lie black markings, links of a great looping chain upon her skin!  Not tattoos or scars, but her skin pigment now is crisscrossed by dreadful black links...
        • The party is slightly disturbed by this change.  Seeing their trepidation, Pryrrish explains (with some guilt) that the power she wields comes from a patron of unfathomable power.  The Elemental Dark itself--a force of bottomless, swirling shadow that opposes the forces of light and life...  It gave her the Tome and all of her invocations, including her very useful blinding eldritch blasts...  
          • This revelation disconcerts Fenri, as a cleric of Pelor--antithesis to the Elemental Dark in all ways...
          • Protective of the elf, Schrödinger stands by his friend.  He knows what is is like to work alongside the misunderstood forces of the world...  (Plus he doesn't believe in things like gods or higher powers; it must be some other science that is not well-researched due to taboo).
        • But, unfortunately, Pryrrish further reveals there was a terrible price she paid for these gifts...
          • Everyone else in the party is rather chill about it:  they know Pryrrish well enough to know she's not a evil person. The regret and inner turmoil are obvious to them.  
    • But this is an important day, no time to dwell on cosmic forces and the status of one's soul!
      • With most of the spider venom out of their system thanks to Fenri, our band of Freaks spend this penultimate day in preparation.  
    • Everyone but Fenri heads to Campanula to procure anything they might need.  The halfling stays back to watch over the body of the Old Watchman.  (And to make sure no one, aka Schrödinger, does anything to the remains).
    • The roads into Campanula are oddly backed up today, merchant wagons stuck in standstill.  The town militia are checking every wagon going in for the wanted vigilantes.  But the merchants are making the best of it, setting up their wares right there on the road to spite the ill-prepared checkpoint.
      • Schrödinger, Channa and Pryrrish dive into the wares of a local bookseller.  Channa discovers an intriguing novel called "Professor Fortesque and the Handmaiden's Fingernail", a pulp mystery inspired by an internationally famous detective--Alanik Ray.  
        • According to the bookseller, so many mystery rags are flooding the market using the Great Detective as inspiration, as his own cases are so successfully recorded and published by his assistant.  Supposedly Mr. Ray lives in Port-a-Lucine and is the smartest man in the world!  
        • Channa loves reading mysteries, and is intrigued by this prolific yet intelligent figure.  
      • Solange searches the stopped caravan for potions, and comes across a wagon with an old Vistani man doing some whittling.  The gravedigger tries to barter but doesn't have enough coin.  However, the old man proclaims he'll give her a discount.  In exchange all he wants is to see her eyes beneath her disguising veils...
        •  Nervous to expose her caliban nature, Solange reluctantly agrees.  It is over in just a moment; as the old man takes naught but a second to meet her golden gaze.  He says her eyes are lovely, but where, oh where did she get them?  They don't fit her exactly...
        • Solange is confused but nothing she asks of the old man registers.  He shoos her off with her potion, as well as some questions on identity for free...  
      • While Pryrrish struggles to find an interesting book, Schrödinger notices someone has their on him.  From the shadows between merchant wagons, Jacquard the nobleman (and friend to Lord Isaac) spies on the group. 
        • When Schrödinger tries to greet Jacquard the nobleman walks away quickly.  Unable to make use of his full potential in speed (not without going full skeleton-armor among all these people), Jacquard evades his attempts to catch up.  What is the enabler of Lord Isaac Montagne, son of their enemy, up to? 
    • Meanwhile, back at the campsite, Fenri is facing an enemy after the old Watchman's body!
      • Objectively, it is just a raven that wants to take a nibble.  But still, Fenri stands her ground and waves her sling-staff around.  She did not sleep well that night, and this situation (between a carrion eater and a corpse) does nothing to help her mental state. 
    • Eventually, the rest of the party returns, and the raven is scared off to Fenri's relief.  They bed down for the night, much on their mind about the scheme they must pull off tomorrow!
    • Resting beneath the starry night, the Freaks in their nervousness and anticipation dream:
      • Channa's dream is one of comfort--a comfort she lost.  A hazy memory of her best friend Destir helping her be sociable (and not anxious) at one of the many mage's gatherings at the University they attended together...  She misses him a lot.  She thinks about what she sacrificed to follow him...
      • Fenri's dreams are uneasy and dark.  The raven is back, but in this abyss it warns her to step away.  To run.  She feels rotten, cold breathing behind her.  A clammy hand slump upon her shoulder.  The watchman's corpse is behind her, towering above her little blonde head.  She does not turn around, nor heed the raven's warnings...
      • Uneventful by comparison, Schrödinger's dreams are nothing but his fall through the Mists.  Nothing but wailing wind in his ears and gravity cruelly pulling him towards an unseen demise...  Does he still lack control over where he is going?  Is he still at the whim of an unstoppable force beyond reasoning and defiance?
      • Solange also dreams of recent horrors.  The Catacombs.  The first time she was shown the entrance to the dark, dismal passages beneath St. Leonburg's Cemetery.  And how she felt the uneasy urge to break away from her guide, to be swallowed by its necropolis forevermore...
      • Pryrrish, as an elf, does not dream like the rest of the party.  Normally the elves' nightly meditations are a gentle blanket of nothingness, of oneness with the spirit.  But not tonight.
        • A dark wood.  A silver stag shining like moonlight fleeing through the underbrush.  In the shadows there must be hundreds of hounds, slathering and howling for blood.  A black figure leaps out and bites down upon the beautiful creature's slender neck.  It arches its back, throwing its head and crown of antlers high, and shrieks out in a woman's voice!  A dead woman's last words of fear and panic as her life was torn apart! 
    • Pryrrish wakes early, sweating and heart palpitating from the vision.  Warlocks are often shown strange sights by their patrons.  And by the purring of the Tome of the Elemental Dark at her belt, that only she can hear, her patron wanted her to see that haunting sight...
      • What does it mean?  Do the chains of the Elemental Dark now project such traumatic insights directly to her mind now; now that they are drawn upon her flesh?
    • Ignoring their dreams to push ahead with the plan (and pretending to ignore their omens), the Freaks get their wagon prepared and set off for the Chaveau estate.  Despite the suspicion in the air around the village, many people are on the roads to the Chaveau Racetrack.  It's a great draw for everyone regardless of standing or class.
      • The group passes by a wagon piled high with multiple families.  Exchanging pleasantries, the group learns there is an important guest of honor supposedly attending the races today.  A member of the Council of Brilliance, the very leaders of all of Dementlieu!
        • The Baron will absolutely be occupied there attending to such a prolific guest.  But that means the racetrack will be much more guarded, and his estate won't...  The group ponders and rearranges who is splitting into which team.
        • But which Councilor is attending?  As a local Solange knows--from the "Gunpowder Saint" Josephine Chantreaux to the "Avant-Garde Patron" Jean-Pierre Theroux--none of the Councilors would not leave Port-a-Lucine without reason! 
        • Has the drama of Night's Vengeance's crusade and the riot drawn them?  Vincente and Claudine will need support to meet up successfully, with such a heavily defended politician present at the races.  
        • Should the Freaks continue their plan to split up, or would going to the Baron's manor all together be safer?  Can they abandon Claudine to such scrutiny, while trying meet Vincente without getting caught on suspicion?
    • After careful thought, the group decides to continue with the split.  
      • Fenri and Schrödinger will go to the Chaveau racetrack.  Fenri was planning to help with the infiltration but doesn't want to be away from Claudine or Vincente if anyone needs healing.  
        • Schrödinger and the halfling haven't been alone together much.  Not since their altercation about how Fenri's healing burns the Lamordian gentle-monster's pale flesh... 
      • Using their sneakier skills--such as Solange's gravedigger stealth and magic, Channa's investigative skills and her earth familiar Iggy as a scout, and Pryrrish's incredible eyesight and invocations--the rest of the party will follow Claudine's plan.  This is their one chance to get proof of the Baron's evils without his interference, possibly even the Black Dog's origins will be uncovered!
        • Channa outright refused to go to the racetrack.  There are going to be nobles there they'll have to rub elbows with.  And Channa hates most nobles...  *looks at Schrödinger the boney lordling warily* 
      • Solange is a bit more comfortable.  It was originally she who was going to be alone with Schrödinger at the racetrack, but there is still an awkwardness on her side.  He is a noble after all, and Solange can't rectify her knowledge of the class divide.  She actually touched the lordling before she knew all!
        • Solange graciously lends Fenri her hatpin-veils of disguise.  The halfling is a wanted criminal, after all; and her thrifted disguise might slip among such a busy crowd at the tracks.   Also, she feels the Baron knows her scent more than the rest of the party members'.  
        • Pryrrish doesn't even give off a scent with her constant entropic warding invocation.
    • The Freaks split up.  Schrödinger and Fenri (magically disguised as a human child) are dropped down the road from House Chaveau's ostentatious manor and lands.  The rest head up the road against the tide of noble carriages and peasant wagons.
    • Seizing an opportunity to bring some levity, Fenri uses her new magical disguise to have her human child form's hair be the same color as Schrödinger's.  Now the two look like they're related...  
      • With the Freaks' number split, and powerful people making moves behind the scenes that everyone's safety at risk...
      • What could possibly go wrong?

        Next session things get very chaotic, my friends!  Our two mini-parties undergo some lifechanging misadventures.  Therefore, we must keep our readers in suspense...  BWAHAHA!!


    Thank you for reading!

    Love,