Archivist's Note

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Prologue →

It was in the fourth year of my tenure as the Archivist Subaltern at a certain scholarly monastery that I encountered, by pure chance, a band of travelers from a distant land. Simply passing through our sleepy hamlet, they had stopped to rest at the local inn, where I myself had alit to raise a pious tankard to the divine. As was my custom, I allowed my inquisitive ear to heed the words they shared among their party, and it was then that I first heard the name of a principality most exotic: Barovia. So intrigued was I at the mention of this unknown country, to my knowledge unmentioned in all the many tomes of the Archives, that I confessed to these travelers my trespass into their conversation and bade them tell me more of this strange land.

Happily, they indulged me in good humour, and, weary from the road, eagerly accepted my offer of food and lodging at the monastery in exchange for their tales of adventure. And though I intended only to compose a small travelogue of interest purely to the geographer, the tales they told me — shocking in their depravity, moving in their romance, stirring in their accounts of unparalleled valor! — would change the course of my life. I have spent much of my subsequent scholarly career verifying what I could of these tales, of the land of Barovia and Strahd, great and terrible, who ruled it.

This codex is the result of my life's labor. In it are included, as well as the tales told to me those many nights ago, dutifully recorded and (may the gods forgive me) unexpurgated, a variety of footnotes and additional research which should give some context to these incredible tales. To the best of my knowledge, the Codex Baroviana is our world's only scholarly work on the subject of Barovia, as — for reasons which will soon become clear — little news of any sort leaves that land. It is my fervent wish that this tome not only instruct the reader in the geography, planography, and ethnology of the gods' vast and varied creations, but also shed a faint light on the nature of the gods and man, of good and evil, and of the resilience of the spirit. Perhaps it may even secure your humble servant his own kind of immortality, though — as we shall see — that is a gift most dubious.

— Fr. Bonaventure L'Heureux, Grand Archivist Prelate