The church of Barovia village, kept by Father Donavich. It stands atop a slight rise, gray and weary against the roots of the great pillar stone that holds up Castle Ravenloft far above. Centuries of siege against whatever evil haunts this land have worn it down to its bones: stone crumbling in places, timber sagging where it hasn’t already given way. A bell tower rises at the back, and flickering light spills weakly through gaps in the shingled roof, the rafters groaning under a weight they no longer seem built to carry.
The party came here with Ireena Kolyana, hoping Donavich would bless the burial of her father, Kolyan Indirovich, in the name of the Morninglord. The two creaky wooden doors were unlocked.
The Side Room
A small, dirty room off the main hall, with a straw-stuffed mattress on a simple wooden bed frame, a small table with an oil lamp burning steadily, and a carved wooden sun above the headboard. Ignacious Teegan found dozens of small whittled figures scattered across the table and a nearby shelf, along with the knives and tools used to make them. The earliest were crude and blocky, and each was more refined than the last. Among them was a figure of a woman, flawless, worked so finely that it no longer looked carved at all.
The Chapel
At the far end of the church, the chapel lies in disarray. Pews lie broken and overturned across a dusty floor, and dozens of candles crowd every corner, burning steadily against the dark. At the end of the room stands a claw-scarred altar, where the party found Donavich kneeling in prayer, tugging a long rope that runs up into the bell tower.
The Undercroft
A trapdoor leads down to a low, cramped space beneath the chapel, with rough hewn stone walls, a floor of packed clay and damp soil, and rotting wooden pillars bowing under the weight of the floor above. Thin cracks let candlelight bleed down from the chapel overhead. Donavich’s son, Doru, was kept here on a long chain.
The party fought Doru in the undercroft, using the pillars and the length of his chain to hold him back. Every time he hit the end of that chain, the beams overhead groaned. As Retnuh’s axe struck home in Doru’s side, the groaning reached a crescendo and the floor collapsed on top of them, the rest of the building seeming to follow.