Opening credits play over: Transylvania 1887
🎬 OPENING CREDITS (Revised: “The Crossroads and the Cards”)
Melodic War Productions presents:
🕯️ 0:00–0:08 | Title Reveal: The Reading Begins A lantern flickers at the center of a forked road—its flame steady despite the wind. Around it, a circle of salt and ash. Ribbons tied to nearby branches twitch as if stirred by breath, not breeze. A deck of cards rests on a velvet cloth, untouched. The screen exhales: BAROVIA appears, etched into a stone marker split down the middle—one path leads to mist, the other to firelight. A violin hums a single note, held like a held breath.
🌫️ 0:09–0:20 | The Crossroads Beckon The fog parts reluctantly. A Vistani wagon creaks into view, its wheels leaving no mark. Ravens circle overhead, then land in a perfect ring around the lantern. A hand—weathered, ringed, trembling—reaches into the frame and turns over the first card. The Seer. The gallows nearby groans softly, though no wind moves it. A charm of bone and braid dangles from its beam, spinning slowly.
🙍♂️ 0:21–0:33 | The Marked Ones Arrive The wanderers approach the crossroads, drawn by something older than choice:
Fleetwood (Richard Armitage) pauses at the edge of the circle, eyes narrowing at the card already drawn.
Clarion (Gwendoline Christie) steps inside without hesitation, her shadow stretching unnaturally long.
Silverleaf (Tatiana Maslany) kneels beside the lantern, whispering to the raven perched atop it.
Felonious (Ben Whishaw) watches the cards shuffle themselves, lips moving in silent counterspell.
Greegan (Matt Ryan) tosses his bone dice into the circle—they land on The Executioner and The Broken One.
Starring Richard Armitage as Fleetwood
Gwendoline Christie as Clarion
Tatiana Maslany as Silverleaf
Ben Whishaw as Felonious
Matt Ryan as Greegan
🃏 0:46–0:58 | The Fortunes Unfold The deck fans out in midair, each card glowing faintly. The camera lingers on five: The Seer, The Ghost, The Beast, The Innocent, The Darklord. As each is drawn, a flicker of memory plays behind the character’s eyes—loss, betrayal, hunger, hope. Strahd’s silhouette appears behind the cards, watching. Not present—just inevitable.
🎵 0:59–1:10 | Final Note: The Road Ahead The party sits in silence as the final card lands: The Artifact. The forest hushes. Even the ravens stop cawing. A Vistani fiddle plays a phrase that ends on a dissonant note. The camera pans upward—fog curls into the shape of a crown, then dissipates. The crossroads remain… but the path is chosen.
🎼 Main Title by Alan Silvestri
Cold Open Begins:
Background Music: Encounter in Barovia | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h TTRPG Combat Music | Loop
EXT. SVALICH WOODS – NIGHT
The trees lean in like eavesdroppers. Fog coils low, thick as breath on glass. Moonlight fractures through the canopy, painting the forest floor in shards of silver and shadow.
ELIZA stands at the edge of a clearing, boots damp with moss and memory. Her spyglass is gone—abandoned like a promise—but her eyes gleam sharper now. She’s shed something. Or maybe she’s stolen something heavier.
She watches GREEGAN, who’s half in moonlight, half in myth. His coat hangs like a secret. His smile is the kind that makes saints reconsider.
ELIZA (quiet, edged): “You walk like a man who’s already heard the warning. And chose not to listen.”
GREEGAN (dry, deliberate): “I listen just fine. I just don’t flinch.”
ELIZA (steps closer, voice low): “Then you’re either brave... or cursed. And I haven’t decided which makes you more dangerous.”
A pause. The woods seem to hold their breath. Somewhere, a raven clicks its beak.
ELIZA (cont’d): “So tell me, Greegan—am I chasing a ghost? Or dancing with one?”
GREEGAN (grinning): “Depends. You any good at keeping time?”
He moves—fluid, sudden. Daggers bloom from his sleeves like silver petals, catching the moonlight in cruel flashes.
GREEGAN (cont’d): “I’ve got three minutes and a bad attitude. Fancy a bit of midnight footwork?”
Eliza doesn’t answer. Her smile curves like a blade unsheathed.
She lunges.
Steel sings. Fog scatters. The forest watches.
THE FIGHT
No grace. No rules.
Just violence.
They collide like storms—brambles tearing skin, limbs tangling in the underbrush. Blades flash. Fists land. Breath is a weapon.
ELIZA fights like smoke with a spine—fluid, deceptive, lethal. Her curved dagger sings through the air, slicing close. She spins low, sweeping for GREEGAN’s legs.
He catches her momentum, slams her into a tree trunk. Bark cracks. Her elbow nearly shatters his jaw.
They tumble downhill, locked in a blur of limbs and steel. Dirt sprays. One of his daggers skids off a root, lost.
She laughs—sharp, wild. He grunts, blood in his teeth.
They break. Circle. Eyes locked. Breath ragged.
Then—
CLASH.
Greegan feints low, then drives her back with a brutal slash. Her cloak splits. She twists—but he’s faster. Her left-hand blade clatters to the ground.
He pins her against the tree. Dagger at her throat. His breath hot. His voice a rasp.
GREEGAN (gasping): “You yield?”
ELIZA (calm, dangerous): “Not quite.”
A flash of silver—her hidden blade punches into his side. Shallow. But close.
He stiffens. Not from pain. From recognition.
GREEGAN (hoarse): “Knew you’d cheat.”
ELIZA (grinning): “You taught me.”
They stand—bleeding, breathless. Close enough to feel each other’s heartbeat. The fight ends.
But the forest doesn’t exhale.
Mist coils tighter. Trees loom like judges. The silence is thick with judgment.
Eliza sways, clutching her ribs. Her eyes glint—half challenge, half invitation.
Greegan steps forward. No weapon. Just intent.
GREEGAN (quiet, deliberate): “I can’t have you this close. Not anymore.”
ELIZA (soft, amused): “Bit late for that.”
He doesn’t reply.
Instead, he kisses her. Quick. Firm. Final. Not tender—just truth.
She exhales, startled. Off-balance.
His leg sweeps behind hers. His hand grips her shoulder—
CRACK.
She folds. Hard. Her leg twisted beneath her. Breath gone. Pain blooming.
Greegan stands over her. Bleeding. Blank.
GREEGAN (flat): “Too bad the Iron Ring taught me.”
No gloating. No regret.
He turns. Walks into the mist.
Gone.
Eliza lies in the leaves. Panting. Broken. Laughing.
Just once.
ELIZA (hoarse, smiling): “Good. Would’ve been boring if you were soft.”
EXT. SVALICH FOREST, NIGHT
Background music shifts: The Hanged One | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h TTRPG Creepy Background Music | Loop
Somewhere far ahead, the others keep moving. And behind them, a shadow grits her teeth and begins to crawl.
The path curves, and the mist parts just enough to reveal the shape of the crossroads—that four-pronged fracture in the land that never looks the same twice. A gallows leans like a watching figure, and the signpost’s arms creak gently in the wind, names long worn smooth.
Clarion walks stiffly, her arms crossed tight, glancing over her shoulder toward Fleetwood every few steps. Something unspoken lingers between them—an old tension newly raw. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t need to.
Silverleaf ranges just ahead, silent as frost, bow slung but ready. Her eyes scan the trees. Watching. Listening. Waiting—for movement that doesn’t sound like wind. For growls that echo inside the bones.
The others say nothing when Greegan returns to formation, slipping from the woods like a secret that never left. His step is steady. His wound, hidden beneath layers and habit.
But Felonious doesn’t miss a thing.
FELONIOUS (low, not unkind): “Bleeding confidence again, dear boy?” (He eyes the spot beneath Greegan’s ribs, half-hidden in shadow.) “Or just trying to win sympathy points before breakfast?”
GREEGAN (flat): “Eliza got in one good joke. I returned the punchline.”
Felonious arches a brow but says no more. Just nods once—like a gambler acknowledging a bluff he won’t call just yet.
The crossroads looms closer. The stones crunch underfoot like old bones. The wind turns colder, and with it, the taste of choice lingers in the mouth.
Mud grips the boots of the weary travelers, every step punctuated by a soft, sucking squelch. The road winds back into familiar dread—the crossroads, where paths split like fate... or fractures.
The air stills. Even the trees, once restless in wind-whispers, fall into reverent silence. The moon hangs low, cloaked in gauze-thin clouds, its light pallid and bruised. The mist gathers heavier now, curling low to the ground, where the shape of old stones hunch near the gallows, like mourners turned to stone.
The gallows creaks. Not from wind, but memory.
A squat, cloaked figure stands beside it. Motionless. Watching. As if it never left. As if it expected them.
Its hands rest on the curve of something just beside the post:
An Ornate and Ancient hourglass, taller than a man’s forearm. The metalwork along its frame is baroque, etched with runes that crawl like vines. The sand inside is deep red—still falling, even though no one turned it. And when the moonlight touches its glass, the reflections bend wrong.
Beneath the gallows hangs something newer, oddly out of place:
A child’s backpack, nylon, blue and faded with wear. A single patch stitched to the front: a smiling sun holding a sword. The zipper broken. Mud splashed up the sides.
Fleetwood halts first. Clarion turns pale. Silverleaf draws breath but no arrow. Greegan’s hand goes to his side—not to the wound—but to the knife he meant to keep hidden.
And from beneath the figure’s hood…
a voice that speaks like wet earth turned over in a grave:
MADAME EVA: “You brought your stories. Good. The crossroads prefer truth.”
The mist curls in tight around the gallows. The ornate hourglass continues to weep red sand, now nearly run out. The blue backpack swings faintly in the dead air, creaking once.
Madame Eva does not move, her cloak heavy with age and meaning. The hood shadows her face, but her eyes shine beneath like coals in a hearth that never cools.
Her voice scrapes forward—not cruel. Just absolute.
MADAME EVA: “Where is Eliza?”
Greegan stands still, hood half drawn, one hand resting near his blade but not drawing it. His breath curls white in the air.
GREEGAN (flat): “She’ll have... a bit of trouble walking the path to the crossroads right now.” (A pause.) “She’ll live.”
A breeze stirs the hem of Eva’s cloak. But her reply is colder than the wind.
MADAME EVA (softly): “You should have killed her.” (Beat.) “She will crawl back to *him*. And your kindness will become his sight.”
Clarion shifts uneasily. Fleetwood narrows his eyes. Felonious makes no quip—just watches Greegan in profile.
Greegan’s face doesn’t change. But something tightens behind his stare.
GREEGAN: “Mercy’s a blade too.”
MADAME EVA: “So is consequence.”
The sand in the hourglass finishes its fall.
Silence.
Madame Eva turns slowly. Her cloak drags across the stones like a whisper from the grave. Her gaze lifts toward the crooked headstones beyond the crossroads, where even moss seems to shrink from what sleeps beneath.
Background Music shifts: March of the Dead | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h TTRPG Dark Background Music | Loop
At first, nothing moves.
Just fog—curling low like breath held too long. Moonlight thickens, pale and bruised.
Then—
The earth groans.
A hand breaks the soil. Then a boot. A shattered blade. A helm split down the center.
Ghosts rise.
Dozens. Hundreds.
They step onto the path in silence, their procession marked only by the crunch of dead leaves and the soft scrape of spectral steel. Hollow eyes. Phantom weapons. Symbols of gods long buried in ash.
And as they pass, it becomes clear:
Every one of them died trying to kill Strahd.
Knights with torn banners. Clerics clutching scorched prayerbooks. Wizards with blackened staves. Rogues with slit throats and empty hands.
Each soul a monument to failed defiance.
Eva whispers—not to the party, but to the fog.
MADAME EVA (soft): “They come every night. Each one believed they would be the last.”
She turns back to the party. Her eyes glint—frost over flame.
MADAME EVA: “When your bones walk this road… what banner will you wear?”
The gallows rope creaks. The hourglass is empty. The red sand has vanished—soaked into the loam like blood.
The dead fade into mist.
Only footprints remain. And silence that hums like a wound.
Eva’s gaze follows the vanished procession—toward paths unnamed, toward endings unwritten.
Her voice cuts through the quiet.
MADAME EVA: “Where do you think they go… the dead who march when the world turns her face away?”
No one answers.
Because the question is a blade. And the answers already live in their bones.
Her tone darkens—not cruel. Just carved from truth.
MADAME EVA: “This is the precipice you walk.” (She taps her staff once. The sound echoes like a toll.) “Many paths twist through Fate’s web. I can see what may be—not what will. I can tell you what must be done… but not whether you’ll return from doing it.” (She leans forward, voice low.) “If you fail, this place will claim you. No legacy. No glory. No love. Only dust. And forgetting.”
The party watches the mist swallow the dead.
Fleetwood nods. Blank. Clarion clenches her jaw. Silverleaf doesn’t blink. Felonious says nothing. Greegan watches the gallows.
Eva straightens.
MADAME EVA: “If you would lay down this burden, no soul would call you coward. There is no shame in fleeing what others have failed to face.”
But—
She lifts a gnarled hand. Two fingers extended.
Her cloak rustles. The crystal ball glows faintly—moonlight bleeding through fog.
MADAME EVA: “I can read your palms. Show you futures soft and sweet. The name of your true love. The hour you find fortune. The peaceful end by hearthside flame.”
(She pauses. Her voice drops—whispering like thunder.)
MADAME EVA: “Or I can draw the cards.”
The earth shivers.
MADAME EVA: “And set you on a road with only two ends: the fall of your foe…” (Her eyes blaze.) “…or the fall of you.”
The fire flares green—just once.
Then stills.
The last whispers of the dead fade into fog. Only chill earth remains. The gallows creaks once. The red sand is gone.
Madame Eva lowers herself to the grave-laced soil, cloak spreading like wings of dusk. Her fingers draw three stubby, blackened candles—twisted by time, slick with age.
She plants them in a triangle. The earth swallows them hungrily.
fwsssh.
Blue flame. Cold. Steady. Unnatural.
Within the glow, she draws the Tarokka deck—edges black as crow feathers, worn smooth by centuries. She lays it between the flames.
Four shuffles. The deck shivers like something breathing.
A velvet pouch appears beside her knee—plum-dark, threaded with gold. It wasn’t there before.
Her eyes lift. They glitter.
MADAME EVA (softly): “The task you seek is no small boon.” (She taps the pouch.) “And so I ask one in return.”
If asked, she unties the cord. Coins clink faintly.
MADAME EVA (fondly): “Ten gold pieces. For my great-grand-niece, Arabelle. Her tenth nameday is near. She adores Blinsky’s toys.” (She smiles—gently, like someone remembering laughter.)
MADAME EVA: “I cannot travel far. But perhaps you could visit his shop in Vallaki? Deliver a gift to the Vistani camp. By noon.”
(She winks.) “You may keep the change. Consider it hazard pay.”
The flames cast long shadows.
The cards are ready.
And somewhere in Barovia, a child dreams of toys.
Fleetwood kneels beside the candlelit triangle, hand to heart, smirk soft.
FLEETWOOD (quiet): “Consider the errand accepted. Toys, cards, and crossroads—I do love a proper quest.”
Madame Eva nods once. Her hand rests on the deck.
Background Music shifts: Tarokka Card Reading | Unofficial Curse of Strahd Soundtrack | 1h Mysterious Music | Loop
The flames dim. The wind hushes. Time holds its breath.
MADAME EVA (chanting): “From smoke to thread, from thread to truth… let the weave be known.”
Three cards from the large deck. Two from the smaller. One at the center.
The headstones seem to lean in. Shadows watch.
She reaches for the first card.
MADAME EVA (softly): “This card tells of history… Knowledge of the ancient will help you better understand your enemy.”
She flips it.
The Nine of Glyphs — The Traitor.
A guardsman smirking, dagger hidden behind his back. A priest scolds him, unaware.
MADAME EVA (low): “The Traitor. An ancient foe of a noble house. A soul forsaken—but not silent. Follow them, and you will be led to him. The Devil you hunt.”
The flame flares. Then stills.
The first truth spoken.
Her hand hovers over the second card. The mist thickens. The air grows heavy.
MADAME EVA (whispering): “This card tells of a force for good… A holy symbol. A beacon in the dark.”
She flips it.
The Five of Swords — The Myrmidon.
A warrior. Armored. Stoic. Sword cracked. Shield worn.
MADAME EVA: “The Myrmidon. Loyal servant of light. The treasure you seek sleeps beneath his watch.”
(She leans forward.) “Seek the den of wolves. Hills above a mountain lake. Stone breathes. Moonlight cries. There lies the token—clutched by claws that serve not sun, but Mother Night.”
The candle gutters. Then steadies.
CLARION (soft): “Wolves again. Always the wolves.”
Greegan tightens his jaw. Silverleaf touches an arrow.
Eva waits.
The third card calls.
Her hand glides to the third card.
The candles vanish—one breath of darkness.
Then—
White light.
Blinding. Pure. Holy.
Even Silverleaf flinches. Clarion shields her eyes. Greegan steps forward, instinctive.
Eva’s eyes blaze.
MADAME EVA (voice like thunder in silk): “This is a card of strength. A weapon of vengeance… A sword of sunlight.”
She flips it.
The Eight of Glyphs — The Bishop.
A solemn man in vestments. Shadows curl from a censer. His eyes closed in grief.
MADAME EVA: “It lies in an amber prison. A place even the Devil fears. The house of the fallen dragon holds its key.”
The wind stirs—carrying incense and buried fire.
The candle flickers red. Then cools.
Without waiting, Eva draws her hand down to the fourth card, resting below the others—a root beneath the tree of fate.
Her fingertips trace small circles. A hum emerges from her lips—low, haunting, half lullaby, half eulogy.
The darkness thickens—oil-slick and hungry. It presses against the candlelight like wolves testing the edge of fire.
Madame Eva’s hand hovers over the center card.
But she doesn’t move.
Her brow furrows, deep lines etched like fault lines across ancient stone. The shadows lean closer. The flames gutter. The circle trembles.
Her voice—barely a whisper, cracked with age and weight:
MADAME EVA: “Your enemy is a creature of darkness… whose powers mock death. When the hour of judgment arrives…”
(A pause. The card resists her.)
“…this will lead you to him.”
The silence stretches—long enough to feel like fate reconsidering.
Then—
She turns the card.
Smoke coils upward, thick and rancid. It clings. It chokes.
Through the haze, an image gleams:
A figure seated like a king. Robes fine as stitched sin. A goblet half-raised. His smile—wide. Greedy.
But his arms—wooden. Jointed. A marionette.
Above him, strings vanish into endless dark.
MADAME EVA (exhaling): “The Marionette.”
Her gaze sharpens. Her tone tolls like a bell from a drowned cathedral.
MADAME EVA: “Look to great heights. Find the beating heart of the castle. That is where he waits. Not hidden. Not afraid. Near. Always near.”
The candle flames shudder violently.
Outside the circle, the fog screams—or maybe it’s just the wind.
And then—
The shadows withdraw.
The reading is complete.
Only the cards remain. And the path they drew.
EXT. CROSSROADS CEMETERY – AFTER THE LAST CARD FALLS
Background Music shifts: Whispers at the Tser Pools | Dark Fantasy RPG Ambience | Vistani Tarot Music
Madame Eva’s final word hangs in the air—thin as thread, heavy as fate.
Then—
Her body stiffens.
She rocks backward, spine arching slightly, as if caught in an invisible current. Her eyes roll upward, whites gleaming like pearls dredged from a drowned god’s tomb.
The candlelight gutters—then drops to a dull crimson glow. Steady. Mundane.
As though no miracle had ever passed.
And in that moment—
The world returns.
The trees resume their whispering—exhalations of old secrets. An owl hoots, sharp and distant. The Ivlis River murmurs again, brushing its banks like a lullaby born of stone.
A breath escapes from every chest. One they hadn’t known they were holding.
The circle is broken.
Madame Eva says nothing.
She watches.
Her eyes—deep, shadowed, heavy with futures unspoken—linger on each of them in turn.
Then she speaks. Not with grandeur. But command.
MADAME EVA (to all): “Return to the Tser Pool.”
Her voice is flat. Final. Not unkind.
Then her gaze locks onto Greegan—sharp enough to cut steel.
MADAME EVA (cool): “Tell no servant of Strahd what you’ve heard. Not priest. Not specter. Not raven-eyed friend.” (A beat.) “I must stay here.”
The others glance toward her, uncertain. But she lifts her hand—palm outward.
Her voice softens.
MADAME EVA (with a hollow smile): “This place holds… special memories. I will return to the pool when I am ready.” (Her eyes twinkle once—wicked, ageless.) “Fear not. I have little to fear from the things that skitter and howl out here. I know their names.”
The candles burn lower.
The cards lie still.
The party turns back toward the path.
But one by one, they glance over their shoulders—
At the woman on the cemetery earth.
And the ghosts that never left.
FADE TO BLACK
End Credits play over: Gypsy