Ashenwood

Area: Logi's home village, outside Barovia's usual map — offscreen

Status (as of session 25): The elemental is dead and Logi has left.

Previous status (as of session 24): Active, offscreen. Logi was banished to Ashenwood by Taara and Strahd at the end of session 24. He is level 20 by a wish, without his wildfire, powers water-based (Circle of the Drowned Ember), and intends to face the fire elemental threatening the village alone.

What Ashenwood Is

Logi's home village — the place that banished him once already, as a child, after his grandmother's death. The fire elemental that threatens it is the reason he broke the wish-twig in session 22: he wished to defeat it, and the misphrased wish stripped his wildfire instead, converting everything he has to water and ice. He never agreed to that trade and hates the loss. The elemental was not destroyed by the wish. The fight is still his to have — with powers he resents.

The Situation

Logi arrives as two contradictory things at once: the banished child come home, and a level-20 druid the village has no way to comprehend. Whether Ashenwood receives him, fears him, or tries to banish him a second time is open.

The fire elemental is the immediate problem. Beyond it:

• The contract travels with him. — Closed, session 25. The contract was one service, spent in session 24, and Strahd's delivery was made at Ashenwood. Both sides discharged.
• The knowledge from the study. Strahd sold him the way to restore his wildfire (session 23). Whether Logi uses it — and what it requires — is unresolved.
• Cinder. The wildfire spirit's fate after the trade has never been established. If Cinder still exists in some form, Ashenwood — where Logi's fire story began — is the place to find out.

Connection to the Main Party

Everything here happens offscreen from the party's perspective. What reaches them, and when:

• The lie stands at the castle: Taara believes Logi and Mark killed Vess. Vess, when she wakes, can contradict it — which retroactively reframes the banishment.
• The vampire butterfly's target is gone. Taara feels the butterfly's emotions; if its bloodthirst re-aims or fades, she will notice, and it points at the distance between her and the person she banished.
• Myra, Khione, and Taara are the contract's protected exceptions. — moot; the exceptions were never tested and the contract is discharged.
• He is back in the castle already (end of the session 25 epilogue), at level 5, carrying fire that cannot be put out. See session prep old/session 26 - prepared.dm.md.

What Happened (session 25 epilogue, offscreen)

Written by Logi's player between sessions and summarized in sessions/session 25.md under Elsewhere — Ashenwood. In short:

• The elemental had grown into a titan of molten stone before he reached it. It knew him and called him the little ember. He killed it; its heart cracked and went dark.
• Cinder fought as a Dilophosaurus of sapphire flame and river water, took the blow meant for Logi, and woke afterward as a small frilled lizard again. Logi fed the titan's power into him across the fight to keep him standing.
• Fire came back and the water went. Not a restoration — Strahd's contract delivered the means to take the titan's flame instead of destroying it, arriving through the Bloodspear at the moment Cinder went down. The fire he carries — and the fire keeping Cinder alive — is the titan's own; that is why the heart went dark. Logi read it as his grandmother's teaching landing.
• The Circle that exiled him took him back. An elder returned his cloak; another knelt. The green in his clothing is red now. His own circle only.
• The borrowed levels drained away, twenty down to five, once the titan fell.
• He opened a portal with the last of the wish's power and returned to Castle Ravenloft's library the same night.

Still Open

• Something in Ashenwood is still burning. His fire cannot be put out (logi.md), and he left within the hour without checking. The forest bloomed and flowers came up through the ash, which is what he saw. Whether the Circle is currently fighting a fire they cannot extinguish — in the forest they just forgave him for — is the thread. Do not have them report it early.
• The village's judgment landed in his favour and he did not stay. He was reconciled and then gone the same night, back to the people who banished him second.
• The Circle of Verdant Dawn watched. Druids from circles across the land were at the treeline. See quests/the-druid-hunt.dm.md.
• Whether Ashenwood can reach him. Nobody there knows where he went.