« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2020, 01:25:34 PM »
A cursive fills this page, neater than the previous entries. A draft of sorts.A Foreward:
Walk in the Woods
I will begin this work with a short story from a time early in my time in Barovia. One evening I was sat in the Lady's Rest, a rustic inn frequented by mist-displaced just outside the town of Vallaki. The inn serves simple, plain fare, the proprietor stubbornly sticking to Barovian staples despite her sweepingly exotic clientele. Such stubbornness is of course a Barovian trait, part of a wider practice of hiding from an uncomfortable truth behind a comfortable tradition.
Having finished my repast I engaged in conversation with an eclectic group of mist-displaced. A number of them had recently claimed to be subject to a werewolf attack. I questioned them, of course, as any rational man would. Could it not have been just a trick of the light? Could it not just have been a large wolf? I was met with denials, and indeed some incredulity. I dropped the subject.
The next day I took a little errand to deliver some goods to a large village called Berez on the road to Zeidenburg. I took a number of tasks such as this in my early days, due to losing my coin purse in transit. It was a pleasant walk, through rolling hills and lush forest, although I saw not a single patrol, nor peasant hamlet, on the way. Barovia has a savage natural beauty, unspoiled and untamed, and this was my first experience of it. My business done, I stayed the night in Berez to enjoy the local hospitality before making the return journey in the morning.
The return journey was less pleasant. A pack of wolves, the size of which I have never seen, caught my sent in that same lush forest. The savage natural beauty reflected well the forest's denizens. The pack attacked quickly and savagely, snarling fangs offering grievous wound to my left forearm, leaving a scar I bear to this day, before letting me stumble away, bleeding and weakening. They tracked me for leagues until I weakened, and as I stumbled they neared again, ready to claim their prize. Alas it was luck that saved me, as they disturbed a boar that dispersed the pack long enough for me to treat my wounds and make my way back to civilisation.
I learned to fear Barovia that day. I, for all my reason and education, could not fend off the danger of Barovia's wilderness. I had a fine blade at my side, and some little arcane science to deploy, yet it was for nothing against the Barovian forest. No wonder, it seemed to me, with the spectre of such hostile wilderness beyond the stout wooden doors and shuttered windows of the Barovian peasants, that they feared the night. No wonder that the mist-displaced so quickly slipped into believing the same tales of werewolves and evil spirits and all manner of other folklore.
I theorised then that there was a link between the geography, governance and development of Barovia on the one hand, and the culture, prejudice and belief of Barovians on the other. I theorised that the Barovians are as they are because they are taught to be so by their daily experience. If that was true, could it be true of our own Serene Republic? We have achieved great things in Dementileu, and we are the envy of the Core. What has helped our great country to rise to be so great, and how might we ensure it stays that way?
And so it was in patriotism that I came to write this treatise to test my theory.
Monsieur Anatole de la Rochenoire
27 February, 775An abstract and scribbled cursive follows the text.Werewolves are real? Who knew. Will need to revise this.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2020, 01:15:28 PM by Kleomenes »
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