It is mid-October in the year 758 of the Barovian Calendar.
You each remember your lives—your storied pasts, your loves, your regrets—very well. Except for the previous year, 757. That one appears to be entirely crossed out in the ledger of your lives, as though it never happened. But it did happen, and you don’t recall anything about it. It’s as though the Mists themselves drifted into your mind and leeched away every shred of detail from that year.
And oddly, it was exactly one calendar year’s worth of time that you lost. Your last proper memories were on December 31st of the year 756. Then...nothing. You woke up on January 1st of this year, shivering and hungry, inside a rowboat that seemed to have run aground on a beach by the Sea of Sorrows somewhere on the border of Mordent and Dementlieu. In that same literal boat were three others in a similar state, and each was clearly as stupefied as the next. Each had the same memory loss...
Cordelia Savorgnan - Human (noble) warlock
A well-to-do arcanist from the realm of Darkon, which is as vast and wondrous as it is grim. Her station was obvious the moment she first began to speak, but she seems more capable of treating with commoners and brigands than any noblewoman you’ve seen before. She doesn’t faint at danger—she casts sinister spells at it! It didn’t take long to see that she was a practitioner of the arcane arts, which further stirred remembered tales of the dead rising from their graves in her homeland.
Cosmin Lazaravich - Half-Vistani (charlatan) fighter
A gypsy-blooded swordsman barely out of adolescence. You’ve never personally known any of the Vistani before, but it didn’t take long to see that he embodied the dextrous skills and passions of those mystic, nomadic people. But he also embodies—if one is honest—a bit of the knavery also associated with them. He seems like the sort of friend who would steal for you and thereby place you in a difficult moral—and possibly legal—position. The kind of friend who gets you into trouble more often than saving you from it.
Hanzel Geiger - Human (soldier) barbarian
A tall enforcer from the cold northern land of Lamordia who is disturbingly at ease around the pistol and lucerne hammer he favors. Although he is amicable and quick to friendship, he never seems entirely comfortable with where he is—or with himself. His unusual gait and more unusual left arm presented its own unsettling mystery you’re still unraveling.
Nathanos Reade - Human (acolyte) cleric
A young anchorite from Mordent who makes friends easily—maybe too easily. His faith in Ezra, the Lady of the Mists, seems honest and pure, and he is quick to demonstrate the benevolent light of his goddess. But he sure does seems superstitious for one whose church allegedly defies the powers of darkness. Still, simply having an anchorite around makes the Mists themselves a tiny bit less fearsome.
So what is the cause of this missing time? Sorcery? Witchcraft? The work of a master hypnotist? Had some sort of curse robbed you of your memory? You don’t know yet and you only a few sparse clues. You appear to have suffered no physical harm from your missing year, and you bear no new scars that you didn’t already have.
What of your clothing? You were wearing simple, unadorned white robes like those of a monk, a priest, or an alienist’s patient. Beneath, you had only a thin layer of one of your more familiar sets of clothes, but those were soiled and torn as though they’d been thrown away but were recovered again after long disuse. The robes were in much better shape, only slightly weathered by the elements.
- Your possessions: Most of your personal effects were gone, but you each retained a couple of items important to you—heirlooms, weapons, or treasured items you would never have willingly parted with. It’s some small comfort knowing that whatever did happen, you managed to hold onto these.
- The boat: Resembling the sort of dinghy that larger ships use to go ashore in shallow waters, the boat itself offered no helpful information. It bore no woodworker’s signature and could have come from anywhere boats are made.
- Location: When you wandered into the nearest settlement, a tiny seaside village on the Dementlieu coast, no one there seemed to recognize you and the boat didn’t resemble any in its shipyards. When you consulted local maps, there were no noteworthy islands in the region—certainly nothing so small a boat could have reached. So how did you come to land where you did?
- The List: Tucked in one of Cordelia’s boots was a folded piece of parchment, which contained a list of names written neatly by an unknown hand. Several of the names were crossed out. Based on some of the names, they each seem to have come from a different realm in the Core...
H. Geiger (Lamordian)
A. Kilianus (Falkovnian)
C. Lavalle (Richemuloise)
C. Lazaravich (Vistani)
N. Reade (Mordentish)
C. Savorgnan (Darkonian)
Staying together, you managed to earn some money and get back on your feet. From Dementlieu, you traveled across the border to Richemulot, knowing you’d at least be able to find a place to stay in one of its large—and largely empty—cities. After a few days of squatting, doing odd jobs, and doing some investigation among the locals in the city of Pont-a-Museau, you came across your first solid clue. Such as it is. You deduced the identity of one of the other people on the list. Sort of.
The Richemuloise name—C. Lavalle—is that of a young woman who lived with her family in the carriage house of an abandoned château in this very city. According to legend, the Château Durant was the home of the Durande family, one of Richemulot's most promising "old blood" aristocratic families. About ten years ago, tragedy fell upon them, and the rumors of what actually happened are dramatic and numerous, and rarely consistent with one another. In a single night, the entire family and all its servants were murdered—by ghosts, by a deranged killer, by one of its own relatives, by the wererats who the citizens believe live beneath the city! Who knows?
The only survivors of that night: the family of Raimond Lavalle, the chauffeur who’d been employed at the estate for years. Whatever happened to the Château Durant left the carriage house, where Raimond lived with his wife, son, and daughter, completely untouched. Some suspected the Lavalle family for being involved in the massacre somehow, while others attribute their survival to their faith in Ezra, the Lady of the Mists. The family had ties to the Mordentish sect of the church and were said to be a kind and generous people—they never had a negative word to say about anyone, kept to themselves, and lit candles every night in honor of the dead. Yet the fate of the Durande family had become a shadow over them, casting suspicion. Few spoke with them thereafter, furthering the mystery.
Château Durant itself was boarded up and was declared off limits to anyone—by the order of Jacqueline Renier, the de facto head of the city (if not all of Richemulot). Yet the Lavalle family was allowed to remain living in the carriage house and Raimond himself continued to work as a freelance coachman.
That is, until about a year ago or so. When you came to the carriage house to ask about C. Lavalle—locals said Raimond’s daughter was named Cozette—you found it had been abandoned by her and her family. The food in the pantry and kitchen had all been spoiled and some rats had to be chased away—like everywhere in this land—but it was otherwise furnished and comfortable. It seemed like the family had left suddenly one night. This was months ago.
So you took up residence here, hoping that the Lavalle family might return and bring with them a piece of the puzzle. Meanwhile, it’s given you a comfortable place to stay in the city from which you can regain some of your own lost fortunes. They left few clues behind. In one room you did find a small portrait the family seemed to have left behind in their obvious haste: a portrait of Cozette herself when she was a child.
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