Strahd: Haunted House of Durst

The private thoughts of Zaadia as she finds herself trapped in a haunted house...

Durst Family Mansion

Where the fuck are we?

Yes, haunted house in the middle of nowhere. Got that part. But those mountains over there? They don’t belong there. And where is “Barovia”? And dead kids? And dead pregnant nannies?



This place is seriously messed up. We made it upstairs, and things just got worse and worse. The haunted armor? Sure. The master bedroom with the haunted tiger skin rug? Wasn’t really creepy until we discovered the display case of murder and torture memorabilia in direct line of sight of the bed. That was fucking haunted too.

Most of the time I don’t care what people do in bed together. Or on a tiger skin rug… I know they never washed it. I just know it…

Then we got to meet one of the nannies. Dead of course. And her baby? A bundle of ratty old rags. And her desiccated body was locked out on the balcony.

Bathroom? Haunted, and the dwarf got the shits. Even better was the belladonna, rue, and juniper in the medicine cabinet. Of fucking course there was.

Then one of the ghosts possessed Ember when we tried to go upstairs. I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS. She said it was bad and we shouldn’t go up there.

Kid, I am with you 100%, but we’re all stuck here, maybe FOREVER if we don’t. And I don’t even know where here IS.

The kid was right, it was bad. They were locked in their room until they starved to death. And across the hall? The old storage room where a chunk of the wall and ceiling were missing? Amazingly free of fog. I guess the haunted house at least is keeping that out… and a good thing, as there was a broken window in Gustav's studio, where the creepy paintings of the dead nursemaids sat.

And the broken window? Haunted. Honestly, I was more shocked it wasn’t one (or all) of the paintings. But hey! We found the servant's stairs down to the basement and the family crypt. Ember put the kids bones to rest, and they just kinda… faded out. Checking the crypt of Elizabeth just revealed bugs. I hate bugs. Way too many legs.

Further along and down some more stairs was a weird room… lots of bones, both on the table and all over the floor. And a makeshift altar. We headed back upstairs to decide what to do… I really hope nothing crawls out of the walls… or if it does it brings back my rapier.