My party found an extremely unique and dramatic way to deal with Old Bonegrinder in COS Revamped
Okay! So, for some background context, my players had exactly one run in with Morgantha before they went to the windmill. When they were on their way out of Barovia to see Madam Eva, I had them run into her. I knew we didn't have a lot of time that day for them to follow her, so I described her cart as having a large-ish burlap sack on top that was wiggling and whimpering slightly. They immediately stop her cart and demand that she open the bag. I didn't have her stat block on hand, and didn't plan to escalate it to a full on combat. But I didn't have to. There are six players in this party, one of whom is a paladin named Varth Dader. He is a very impulsive character, prone to talking without thinking and violence as a first choice. He rolls to intimidate her, and gets a nat 20. Of course, I play her as terrified, because he's literally holding her in the air by her collar. The party gets child out of the bag and sends him home, while Varth continues to threaten her. I have him roll again. He rolls extremely high a second time. Now, we're playing this as a horror comedy with lots of levity, but still very serious moments when the occasion arises. So when he looks me in the eye and asks if he scared her bad enough to make her poop her pants, I of course say yes. He did roll incredibly well, and my table is loving it. So she poops herself and scurries off, muttering under her breathe about Old Bonegrinder.
Many sessions later, the party is walking to Vallaki with Ismark in tow. They walk past a fork in the road and I describe a windmill at the top of a hill at the end of the lane. I figured they would recognize it from the Death House opening, as that motif is everywhere. Maybe they'll wonder if it could be Old Bonegrinder, since Morgantha walked this direction out of town. They do not remember any of this, and immediately go barging into the windmill, where they encounter Morgantha. She tries to sell them pastries. They aren't interested. Varth, being a loud mouth, pipes up and says something rude. I roll high for history and she recognizes him as the person who humiliated her on the street in Barovia. She gets angry with him, and things get tense. He insults her even more. She calls her daughters downstairs. He calls her daughter's ugly to her face, among other things. The rest of the party does nothing to diffuse the situation. So the session ends with Morgantha going to attack, and them about to all roll initiative.
By this point, my players have picked up on the fact that they just stumbled into a coven of hags. They are concerned. I was frank with them that this would be a difficult fight and advised them to make back up characters in case they die. When we sat down today for the session where we would have the fight, I set expectations for them. I asked them all if they were okay with character death being an option, and let them know that I do have a plan for how they could continue as these current characters if they did all die, which they were concerned about. But they were okay to see how it played out, so I told them I wouldn't hold back, and we started.
Morgantha got a nat 20 initiative and immediately cast Phantasmal Killer on Varth, who took 16 damage on a low 4d10 roll. The next two players held their actions because another player, Methos, had a plan and told the others to wait. When his turn came, he told Morgantha that Varth wasn't worth her effort to kill. That the best punishment for him would be to humiliate Varth, like he'd done to her. He told her to let Varth live, and the party go free, but curse Varth so that he pooped his pants every day for the rest of his life at least once per day at a random time. There was a bit more to the conversation, and I decided to resolve it by setting two DCs. On the lower one, she would spare the rest of the party's lives, but not Varth. On the higher DC, she would let everyone go and curse Varth. Methos rolled very well, but not well enough. Morgantha told him that she wouldn't waste her time or magic on cursing Varth, or killing everyone. So the rest could run now, but Varth had to stay and die. Methos, who doesn't really have a conscience, looks to the rest of the party, shrugs, bows to the hags, and walks out.
The next player up in initiative has her character turn to Varth and tell him that she doesn't want to die. She apologizes to him, and the hags (very eloquently I may add) and also leaves. There are now four party members left. The bard feels terrible about leaving, but she doesn't think the four of them stand a chance. So she swears to Varth that she'll immortalize him in the best rock ballad ever written, gives him bardic inspiration, and also walks out. The party druid, currently wildshaped as a horse (long story) turns to leave, has to ask Varth to excuse her, and falls down the stairs on her way out after biffing a dex check. (They were on the second floor.) The hag daughters hold their turns, putting Ismark next. He turns to Varth with tears in his eyes and tells him that with his only choice being between dying with Varth, and rescuing his sister from Strahd (who kidnapped her last session) and he has to choose his sister. He calls Varth his brother and tells him that he won't forget him. Varth then takes off his shield, and passes it to Ismark. With his hand now free, he pulls out his dead wife's ring, and gives that to Ismark as well. He asks Ismark to hold onto them for him, since he'll be needing them again someday. Ismark gives him a drink from his flask, for Varth's nerves, does the predator handshake and tells him that he'll see him again "someday my brother" and leaves with tears in his eyes.
One other player remains. Mezcal, the kobold barbarian. He turns to Varth, then the hags, and with a confidence that can't be matched, pulls out a platinum necklace he stole that is worth 750 gp, his coin purse with 44 gp, and takes Varth's 20 or so gp. He holds all of it out to the hags and asks if he gives them all his money in exchange for all of their pastries, will they let Varth and himself walk out alive? Morgantha's daughters start whispering to their mom about all they could do with the gold, and get her to think about it long enough for Varth to bust out the sincerest apology I've ever heard. He didn't beg for his life. He owned up to his mistakes and his shortcomings, didn't offer any excuses or insults, and just honestly apologized. It was so good, that I lowered the DC for persuasion that Mezcal had to roll. He rolled very well. Morgantha listened to the apology, and then held out her hand for the coin. When Mezcal tried to drop it in her hand, she grabbed his and hissed one last threat. She told him that Varth could go, but it wouldn't be free from consequence, and if she ever saw any of the party members again, she wouldn't spare them a second time. She let go of him, taking the gold with her, and Mezcal and Varth slowly backed away, and walked down the stairs and out of the windmill, to the astonishment of the rest of the party. As Ismark gave the shield and ring back to Varth, one of the daughters threw a giant bag of pastries to the party out of the window. They walk away down the road towards Vallaki as Varth jokingly tells Ismark, "See, I told you I'd need those back someday!"
Keep in mind, this party has only been together for 11 months playing once a month. Most of the players have barely done more sessions than that ever. One has only ever played at this table. So for them to pull off a session with such emotional depths and high stakes mostly on their own, had me so proud! They also now are considering faking a pastry delivery to break into Castle Ravenloft. If they don't do that, they may sell the pastries to recover their losses. So they may become dream pastry dealers. Which I think may genuinely be a unique thing to happen in this game. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone doing that before! So I thought I'd share my dramatic tale with the fellow COS dms.