Lore from Wizrd of the Wines
The Druids are sent by Baba Lysaga to capture ALL the remaining wereravens and find the source of their lycanthropy to steal it and harness the power… while eradicating them… and stopping them from getting in Strahds way.
Chapter 10 describes the ruins of Berez, a riverside village that is now home to the hag Baba Lysaga.
Long before Ireena Kolyana, there was a peasant from Berez named Marina.
The vampire Strahd first met Marina in this small village on the shore of the Luna River. Marina bore a striking resemblance to Strahd’s beloved Tatyana, both in appearance and manner, and she became Strahd’s obsession. He seduced her in the dead of night and feasted on her blood, but before she could be turned into a vampire, the burgomaster of Berez, Lazlo Ulrich, with the aid of a local priest named Brother Grigor, killed Marina to save her soul from damnation. Enraged, Strahd slew the priest and the burgomaster, then used his power over the land to swell the river, flooding the village and forcing the residents to flee. Later the marsh crept in, preventing the villagers from returning. Berez has remained mostly abandoned since.
The ruins of Berez are now home to Baba Lysaga (see appendix D), an almost mythic figure tied to Strahd’s ancient past. A hermit, she spends most of her time crafting and animating scarecrows to hunt down and kill the ravens and the wereravens that infest Strahd’s domain. When she isn’t working evil magic, Baba Lysaga sacrifices beasts to Mother Night and collects their blood, then bathes in the blood on nights of the new moon in a ritual to stave off the effects of extreme old age.
Baba Lysaga recently stole a magic gemstone from the Wizards of Wines vineyard (chapter 12), in the hope that the wereravens who protect the vineyard will try to reclaim it. She keeps it in her hut as bait to lure her enemies to their deaths. The gem has given her hut a semblance of life.
I had nothing left to give but my own life’s blood, but it was hers to take. She would at last be my bride. — Strahd von Zarovichin I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire
The following boxed text assumes that the characters approach Berez from the north, along the trail leading from the Old Svalich Road. If they approach from a different direction, don’t read the first sentence.
The trail hugs the river for several miles. The dirt and grass soon turn to marsh as the trail dissolves into spongy earth pockmarked with stands of tall reeds and pools of stagnant water. A thick shroud of fog covers all. Scattered throughout the marsh are old peasant cottages, their walls covered with black mildew, their roofs mostly caved in. These decrepit dwellings seem to hunker down in the mire, as though they have long since given up on escaping the thick mud. Everywhere you look, black clouds of flies dart about, hungry for blood. The fog is much thinner on the far side of the river, where a light flashes amid a dark ring of standing stones.
The river ranges in depth but is never more than 10 feet deep. Muriel Vinshaw, a wereraven in human form, lurks amid the circle of standing stones (area U6) and is using a lantern to signal the heroes. In the village proper, fog prevents a creature from seeing any other creature or object more than 120 feet away.
A few sections of dirt road have survived, and these places are not difficult terrain. The marsh, however, is difficult terrain. Whenever the characters take a short or long rest in the marsh, even if they barricade themselves in a ruined building, they are accosted by 1d4 swarms of hungry flies (use the swarm of insects (wasps) stat block in the Monster Manual). The swarms don’t trouble characters in areas U3 or U5.
Seven scarecrows stand guard in the marsh. They appear to be ordinary, nonmagical scarecrows stuffed with raven feathers until one or more of them are attacked, until Baba Lysaga commands them to attack, or until someone activates the howling skulls that surround Baba Lysaga’s goat pen (see area U2).