Page 198 - Curse of Strahd_Neat
P. 198

CHAPTER 14: YESTER HILL


              HE DRUIDS WHO WORSHIP STRAHD AS        These burial mounds predate the arrival of Strahd
              lord of the land and master of the weather   and the druids. They have remained undisturbed for
              convene here, atop Yester Hill, on the very   centuries. Buried under the rocks are the moldy bones
             edge of Strahd's domain. This hill is also   of an ancient tribe of berserkers that once lived in the
              where the evil blights that walk the Svalich   mountains. (See "Blood Spear of Kavan" in the "Special
             Woods are born, and where Strahd comes   Events" section below.)
              on occasion to glimpse his ancestral home.
                                                    Y3.  DRUIDS'  CIRCLE
   AREAS  OF THE HILL
   The following locations correspond to labels on the map   Atop the hill is a wide ring of black boulders and smaller
   ofYester Hill on page 199.
                                                      rocks that collectively form a makeshift wall enclosing a
   Yl. TRAIL                                          field of dead grass.  Lightning strikes the edge of the ring
                                                      from time to time, illuminating a ghastly, fifty-foot-tall
                                                      statue made of tightly woven twigs and packed with black
    The trail through the thick woods leads to a hill covered   earth. The statue resembles a towering, cloaked man
    with dead grass and cairns of black rock. Dark, ominous   with fangs.
    clouds gather high above, and a single bolt of lightning
    strikes the hilltop. West of the hill, the land, the woods,
    and the sky vanish behind a towering wall of fog.   The ring of boulders that surrounds the field is 250
                                                     feet in diameter and ranges from 5 to  10 feet high. Any
                                                     creature that climbs over the black boulders has a 10
   The trail splits as it climbs the hillside, forming two con­  percent chance of being struck by lightning, taking
   centric rings (area Y2). The trail also leads to the hilltop   44 (8d10) lightning damage. Characters can avoid
   (areas Y3 and Y4). The wall of fog (area YS) marks the   the damage by sticking to the two trails that pass
   edge of Strahd's domain.                          through the ring.
   Y2. BERSERKER CAIRNS



     Dirt trails run along two concentric rings of cairns that
    encircle the hillside.  Each cairn is a ten-foot-high mound
    of slimy black rocks.












    BY DAY OR NIGHT, STRETCHING UP
    to the limits of vision, the edges of my
    realm are marked by a great wall of
    mist. I was there at its birth.
                -Strahd van Zarovich
     in I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire
                                                                                          •











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