Rest for Rose and Thorn

Walkthrough

Getting the quest

The ghosts of Rose and Thorn sit beside their dollhouse in the children's room of Death House, Attic, the padlocked door off the attic hall. You reach them partway through Death House, on your way up through the house. The Iron Attic Key in the library desk on the upper floor opens the padlock; you can also pick it (DC 12), force it (Athletics DC 14) or cast Knock. Talk to either child and the quest starts at Met. They're the same two who begged you for help in the road outside, but these have been here much longer, and they think their mother is coming back to unlock the door when the noise downstairs stops.

You don't have to talk to them at all: taking the bones from the toy chest starts the quest straight at Remains.

Step by step

1. Talk to them. Ask who locked them in (Mother and Father, so the robed people wouldn't see them) and where Walter is ("Downstairs. Everybody goes downstairs."). If you heard their plea in the road, "You asked us to save Walter. Outside, in the road." frightens them and counts as one piece of Death House lore if you hadn't already seen through them. Insight DC 12 tells you they don't know they're dead.
2. Tell them the truth. Choose how:
   • Persuasion DC 12: gently, kneeling, letting them ask. Liriel and Godrick approve (+2 each), Kip too (+1).
   • A Cleric's Religion DC 10: with the prayer for the dead. Same result.
   • Plainly, or by failing either roll: Thorn doesn't believe you and flings himself at the nearest of you. The party's best makes a Charisma DC 12 check. On a success he bounces off and the talk carries on. On a failure he climbs inside one of you, and Rose follows him into another: the children are now riding along with the party.

   Either way they now know, and knowing how they died is another piece of lore. If you told them gently, or Thorn was stopped, Rose tells you they hid in the toy chest when it got cold, that their bones are still there and their crypts are downstairs, and asks you to take them. Two new options appear:

   • "Come with us, then. Stay close." They step inside two of you and ride along (Godrick +2, Wren +1, Thistle +1).
   • "We'll carry your bones to your crypt." Rose warns you Thorn's knot is a bad one (Godrick +2, Liriel +2).

   If you say "We have to go. Stay here." before they know the truth, Thorn throws himself at you anyway (the same Charisma DC 12). A success leaves them behind, crying.

3. Take the bones. Examine the toy chest at the foot of the beds. Medicine DC 10 shows the children weren't killed but starved, curled up asleep (lore, if you hadn't learned how they died). Choose "Gather the bones and carry them with you": the journal moves to Remains (Godrick +2, Liriel +2, Kip +1). While you're at the chest, a secret drawer in its base (Investigation DC 12) holds a Bag of Tricks (Gray).
4. Take them down. Find the hidden stair (see Death House; while the ghosts are still in the room you can just ask Rose what the dollhouse shows) and go down to Death House, Dungeon (Upper Level). The iron gate on the east side of the room at the bottom opens on the family crypts. Rosavalda's and Thornboldt's are the two small open crypts in the middle of the row.
5. Lay them to rest. Examine the crypts and choose "Lay the children's bones in their crypts". If the children were riding along, they climb out of you. They stand by their crypts, clear and calm, say thank you, warn you not to go downstairs, and Rose tells you Mother hid her purse under the loose board of the bottom stair in the hall, for emergencies. Then Thorn waves. The journal ends at At Rest.
6. Collect Mother's purse. Back on Death House, Ground Floor, a loose stair riser at the foot of the main hall's stair is there now: two Potion of Healing and 25 gp.

While you're in the crypt row: if you learned the lullaby at the harpsichord, hum it at Walter's crypt, the smallest one (Wren +2, Liriel +1). Leave Elisabeth's ticking crypt shut unless you want to fight a Swarm of Insects. The shadows listed above belong to the Darklord's shrine elsewhere on this level and have nothing to do with the children.

Choices and endings

• At Rest (success). Liriel +4, Godrick +3, and Thistle, Wren, Kip and Ratatouille +2 each, and Liriel earns Heroic Inspiration. You get Mother's purse. If you then meet Gustav Durst and Elisabeth Durst at supper, "Your children are at rest" stuns them and the fight starts with them surprised. Afterwards the children no longer stand in the road at the village edge, the village narrator calls Death House "only a house", Ismark Kolyanovich and Father Donavich both thank you for them, and the epilogue gives them a slide of their own whether Strahd is destroyed or wins.
• Riding along is not an ending. If the children are still inside you when the house finishes with you, they're torn back into the house at the window (if you refused the altar) or slip back up to the attic (if you made the sacrifice). They're in their room again afterwards.
• Left Behind (failure). Finish Death House without laying them to rest, having met them, and the house's illusion of them is back in the road at the village edge, begging strangers to come inside. Talking to it there fails the quest. It isn't truly final: the bones and the crypts are still in the house, and laying them to rest later still moves the quest to At Rest.

The orb and the level listed in the rewards above come from things in the same rooms, not from the children: the Arcane Focus (Orb) is on the shrine statue, and the level is for finding the hidden stair.

If you're stuck

• The children's room is locked. The key is in the library desk on the upper floor.
• The ghosts aren't in their room. They're riding with you. Someone in the party is humming a tune nobody started.
• No "Come with us" or "carry your bones" option. They only appear once the children know the truth.
• The crypt says "we're upstairs, in the toy chest". Bringing the ghosts isn't enough. You need the bones from the toy chest.

Rewards

• Arcane Focus (Orb)
• A level (milestone)

What your companions think

• Godrick Pendlebrook: +2 you carried the Durst children's bones out of the attic; +3 you laid Rose and Thorn to rest; +2 you told the Durst children the truth, gently; +2 you let two dead children ride along with you; +2 you promised to carry the children's bones to their crypt
• Liriel Dawnsong: +2 you carried the Durst children's bones out of the attic; +4 you laid Rose and Thorn to rest; +1 you sang a forgotten baby his lullaby; +2 you told the Durst children the truth, gently; +2 you promised to carry the children's bones to their crypt
• Kip Smudgewick: +1 you carried the Durst children's bones out of the attic; +2 you laid Rose and Thorn to rest; +1 you told the Durst children the truth, gently
• Thistle: +2 you laid Rose and Thorn to rest; +1 you let two dead children ride along with you
• Wren Featherfoot: +2 you laid Rose and Thorn to rest; +2 you sang a forgotten baby his lullaby; +1 you let two dead children ride along with you
• Ratatouille: +2 you laid Rose and Thorn to rest

Fights

• The crypt was full of something, and now the passage is., in Death House, Dungeon (Upper Level): Swarm of Insects.
• Five shadows peel off the walls, and none of them is yours., in Death House, Dungeon (Upper Level): Shadow.

Journal

Related

• People: Rose, Thorn
• Places: Death House, Attic, Death House, Dungeon (Upper Level), The Old Svalich Road