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Journal entry 365: Land of Barovia
It has been just over a year since I found my way to this place, and I find myself pensive. I yearn for the streets of waterdeep where I matriculated. The comfort of the Anthropological societies lounge and it’s blazing fire, polite conversation with peers about theories and other worlds
I would often find myself regaling others with tales of the Batari, a goblinoid people of whom I wrote my doctoral dissertation. I spent five years with those small green humanoids, in the jungles of chult, that was of course after I persuaded them to not eat me. I lived among them learning of their powerful connection to nature, and the magics it possesses. How a simple Goblin could transform ones-self into a ferocious thunder-lizard; start fires with merely a thought. Such things were often met with skepticism of course, academics we all were at heart demanding the proof on the table as it were. Usually these tales were accompanied by me transforming into the fat orange cat that belonged to our housekeeper Mrs Theebs, which naturally was to thunderous applause.
Shaman Jorvik of the Batari had taught me many of his people's secrets to communing with nature. The most fascinating was to become any beast that I had knowledge of. Once I had mastered such things, we spent many a night running the jungles as giant lizards hunting for food and experiencing nature in it natural undisturbed form. As an anthropologist this was one of the only ways to exist, observation without interference. I had thoughts of staying forever, but fate had other plans…
You see I have been trained to not influence other cultures, and that is what I did. I had always been secretive about home in fear that the goblins would abandon their way of life or change it because of me. After a night of celebration and much drinking or a local spirit, I slipped up. I told them of my beloved Waterdeep and the splendors it held. They were enamoured to say the least and many of them demanded we board canoes and travel there immediately. I assured them that the journey was too far and that we would never make it there in canoes, pleas that were promptly ignored. I had shattered my paradise breaking my prime directive, and fled into the jungle. For if they attempted the journey they would surely perish.
I made my way home after that, and took a teaching job at the university. It was a respectable job that afforded me with a comfortable living. I was happy there, but something never felt right. I needed my next opus; another people to study, another grand adventure. That is when I learned of the Vistani, a fascinating people who came from a land not found on any map. A people that appear anywhere in Farun before being gone just as quick. I had found my next calling.
In a tavern in Daggerford I had met her, a vistani woman who claimed she could see the future; told me of the future and events I will not record here in case my journal should fall into the wrong hands. Her people told me that they would be leaving soon, into the evening mist. At first they had refused to allow me to accompany them, telling me it was a trip I would not come back from. How preposterous, I thought to myself, if these people knew of the thunder lizards I am sure they would see me quite differently. I would not be dissuaded and attempted to stow away in their wagon… it didn't end well, see the mists had other plans.
First the Goblinwood, that strange place, like nothing in Farun I have ever heard of. Then there was the other place. The one that haunts my dreams and the shadows in my waking hours. The slender faces in the darkness that watch me, mocking my struggle. They toy with me, playing wicked tricks for their own amusement...
I’ve attempted to leave, yet when I enter the mists I always find myself waking up in the forest, no closer to home. I’ve given up hope of ever seeing my home again, this is my home now. I hunt as a wolf in the forest, existing only because I don’t have anything else to do. Can I even die? For what am I if not already dead and a prisoner of the nine hells? Why have I been chosen for such punishment? How do I get out?
It has been just over a year since I found my way to this place, and I find myself pensive. I yearn for the streets of waterdeep where I matriculated. The comfort of the Anthropological societies lounge and it’s blazing fire, polite conversation with peers about theories and other worlds
I would often find myself regaling others with tales of the Batari, a goblinoid people of whom I wrote my doctoral dissertation. I spent five years with those small green humanoids, in the jungles of chult, that was of course after I persuaded them to not eat me. I lived among them learning of their powerful connection to nature, and the magics it possesses. How a simple Goblin could transform ones-self into a ferocious thunder-lizard; start fires with merely a thought. Such things were often met with skepticism of course, academics we all were at heart demanding the proof on the table as it were. Usually these tales were accompanied by me transforming into the fat orange cat that belonged to our housekeeper Mrs Theebs, which naturally was to thunderous applause.
Shaman Jorvik of the Batari had taught me many of his people's secrets to communing with nature. The most fascinating was to become any beast that I had knowledge of. Once I had mastered such things, we spent many a night running the jungles as giant lizards hunting for food and experiencing nature in it natural undisturbed form. As an anthropologist this was one of the only ways to exist, observation without interference. I had thoughts of staying forever, but fate had other plans…
You see I have been trained to not influence other cultures, and that is what I did. I had always been secretive about home in fear that the goblins would abandon their way of life or change it because of me. After a night of celebration and much drinking or a local spirit, I slipped up. I told them of my beloved Waterdeep and the splendors it held. They were enamoured to say the least and many of them demanded we board canoes and travel there immediately. I assured them that the journey was too far and that we would never make it there in canoes, pleas that were promptly ignored. I had shattered my paradise breaking my prime directive, and fled into the jungle. For if they attempted the journey they would surely perish.
I made my way home after that, and took a teaching job at the university. It was a respectable job that afforded me with a comfortable living. I was happy there, but something never felt right. I needed my next opus; another people to study, another grand adventure. That is when I learned of the Vistani, a fascinating people who came from a land not found on any map. A people that appear anywhere in Farun before being gone just as quick. I had found my next calling.
In a tavern in Daggerford I had met her, a vistani woman who claimed she could see the future; told me of the future and events I will not record here in case my journal should fall into the wrong hands. Her people told me that they would be leaving soon, into the evening mist. At first they had refused to allow me to accompany them, telling me it was a trip I would not come back from. How preposterous, I thought to myself, if these people knew of the thunder lizards I am sure they would see me quite differently. I would not be dissuaded and attempted to stow away in their wagon… it didn't end well, see the mists had other plans.
First the Goblinwood, that strange place, like nothing in Farun I have ever heard of. Then there was the other place. The one that haunts my dreams and the shadows in my waking hours. The slender faces in the darkness that watch me, mocking my struggle. They toy with me, playing wicked tricks for their own amusement...
I’ve attempted to leave, yet when I enter the mists I always find myself waking up in the forest, no closer to home. I’ve given up hope of ever seeing my home again, this is my home now. I hunt as a wolf in the forest, existing only because I don’t have anything else to do. Can I even die? For what am I if not already dead and a prisoner of the nine hells? Why have I been chosen for such punishment? How do I get out?
