In February 2020, I embarked on a quest with some of my friends to explore the haunted mists of a hidden land, in a modified playthrough of Curse of Strahd by Wizards of the Coast. The pandemic drove our game remote, but after several years, multiple cross-country moves, and five brand new careers, we’ve continued to further the story, together. Below is a collection of journals I’ve written following our sessions, to document our adventures and inspire hope and horror in any who read them.

A tabletop roleplaying (RP) game is a form of improvisational group-storytelling, where one player — that’s me — provides the setting, and the other players — that’s my friends — play cooperating characters in a fantasy world. Whenever we can, we gather to entertain one another with a few more hours of an unraveling story, never before told. I have no idea what my friends will come up with each week, I’m merely their guide. And in this place I’m their record keeper.

These journals were originally written to varying degrees of completeness — vastly varying degrees — in a voice I’d strived to make as omniscient and expositional as possible. I’ve since begun incorporating a novelistic license, with dialogue and metaphoric language, but my work to improve the writing is a time-consuming process and is far from consistent throughout. On top of that, the campaign is on-going, and much of the story has yet to be revealed, even to me.

Think of this as a work in progress; a tale told in brief journal entries and written over years. Expect additional rewrites and improvements, and for all the blanks to one day be filled in. I hope you enjoy what little hope you find in the dower doom.