Chapter 15: Werewolf Den - Curse of Strahd

Chapter 15: Werewolf Den. West of Lake Baratok is a cave complex that the werewolves of Barovia use as a den. Characters who interrogate captured werewolves can learn the den's location. Most of the werewolf pack is out hunting when the characters first arrive, including the pack's leader, Kiril Stoyanovich. The werewolves call themselves the Children of Mother Night, because they all worship that deity. Recently, a schism formed within the pack as the result of a challenge to Kiril's leadership. The rift began when another werewolf, Emil Toranescu, questioned the treatment of children kidnapped by the pack. Kiril would arm the children with weapons and force them to fight each other to the death until only one child was left standing. The winner would then be turned into a werewolf, ensuring what Kiril called "the strength and purity of the pack." Emil advocated keeping all the children alive and turning them into werewolves, thus increasing the pack's size. Emil believed that a larger pack would ensure the werewolves' survival, whereas Kiril saw a larger pack as too difficult to control and feed. This ideological divide couldn't be reconciled and led to many disagreements. The other werewolves were split between the two camps, and it seemed likely that either Kiril or Emil would die before the conflict could be resolved. The wolves began to howl. They knew me. All the wolves of Barovia did. Then Kiril disappeared for several days, causing the other werewolves to wonder whether he had fled or had been quietly disposed of by Emil and his allies. When Kiril returned, he was accompanied by a pack of several dozen dire wolves loyal to Strahd, and he brought word from Castle Ravenloft that Strahd was not pleased with Emil's attempt to fracture the pack. The dire wolves took Emil back to Castle Ravenloft to face punishment, and he was never seen again. Kiril reestablished his dominance, but his ideas and tactics didn't sit well with the pack's older members, and they...