Barovia had a church before it had Strahd. The Church of Saint Andral is older than the Concord and older than the vampire who signed it, and every stone in the nave was cut before the current arrangement of power was even a rumor. Father Donavich is its last remaining priest — not the last ordained, but the last who has not left or died. He inherited the church, then his faith, then his son’s damnation, in that order. What he holds in the undercroft is his son and also the reason he cannot leave. The church was built to serve the village. Now it serves as the village’s proof that some choices cannot be unmade, only carried.

The church’s single door stands ajar. Inside, one man kneels at the altar, his back to you. From beneath the floor, a young voice — not screaming, not weeping, but the sound a child makes when they have been crying so long the sound is only air.

Sensory

• Altar candles have been re-lit so many times the wax has run down the pedestal in frozen rivers
• Old incense over damp stone. Something underneath that isn’t incense
• Water stains on the north wall in the shape of a hand