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A golden moon loomed inward to spectate the doom that marched to Vinheim, where the citizenry forebode the peculiar lunar glow but did not know it portended conquest. Thousands of  tyrant-ruled soldiers slipped through the countryside like streams of mercurial vipers, slithering unseen and unheard, waiting for their opportunity to strike.

As a collegiate city their military reach did not stretch far. Vinheim relied on their surrounding countrymen to repel invaders, employing only a quaint force of experienced warriors to tend the grounds, police the streets, and manage wayward monsters. Those allies had been seized already and would provide no aid or warning against the impending upheaval. So unaware of the mounting peril were the keepers of Vinheim’s grounds that they did not question the unseemliness of the occurrence which lured them out of the city and into an ambush.

The same spells that hid the tyrant’s widespread encroachment from detection (by divination magic or any other means) also obfuscated the trap. A human wizard named Voy Nich lead the other groundskeepers charging after the decoy. Out from the brush sprung droves of infantry, pikes raised to greet the city’s limited resistance, yet Voy was first to spill blood.

His whip tightly embraced the neck of one invader who dragged behind the wizard’s phantasmal equine octoped as he breached the swarming offensive. The whip respooled into his hand after his victim’s body tore apart at high speed upon uneasy terrain. Attempts to impale the conjured steed failed as weapons travelled harmlessly through its corpus whereas attacks leveled at the rider rang against an unseen barrier that enveloped him. Voy raced through the opposition to calculate its strength against the possibility of keeping them out of Vinheim and surmised the invaders could have trampled the city without slowing on their way to the next battle. He knew then that the enemy meant to take his home, that they had been ordered to minimize damage to their tyrant’s claim.

He meant to die before he watched that happen.

Rounding back to where the groundskeepers remained surrounded, Voy Nich dismounted, his eight-legged horse evaporated back into the weave. He boomed commands to his ill-fated comrades. Several of them had fallen early in the encounter, the rest had the wits to erect magical barriers against the nameless foes, slowing advancement to a manageable few.

Magic was the pillar that elevated Vinheim into a reputable microcosm. All of the groundskeepers could perform cantrips, many of them were talented spellcasters armed with magical spellbooks that more than compensated for a lack of effectiveness in combat. Vinheim could repel smaller armies with ample planning or reinforcements. Voy Nich’s guidance gave them a chance to reduce the enormity of this unidentified menace before they would be overrun.

The golden moon retired below the horizon before it could witness the remaining leg of the last stand get severed. Such was their lasting effort that the invading warlord, in a show of veneration, produced himself to the gatekeepers; in one hand, an introduction, and a proposition in the other. He said his name was Strahd von Zarovich and he challenged Voy Nich to a duel.

He explained that he would pass Vinheim by – generously declare it a protected state without taxation, or concession, in the eventuality that he would win rulership of the land – on the condition that Voy Nich disarm him of his sword before the moon set again. He lifted his free hand to the dawn in a gesture resembling the ascension of the tributary goblet and the gilded moon answered, breaching the opposite horizon, rising against the primordial cycle, resetting the night by hours.

When Voy failed to rob him of his weapon, Strahd continued his explanation, he would reap his reward; the gatekeepers would be justly punished and Vinheim would be his property, its people his subjects. The scholars of Vinheim would unravel the weave at his whim. Refusal of his terms would be catastrophic.

Night relapsed. During the re-dawn, Strahd tortured the diminished Voy Nich, depleting his magic then rendering him inert, inept. Sparing only the failed duelist to deepen his disgrace, the surviving gatekeepers were crucified and paraded down the streets of Vinheim.

Voy lived to watch Strahd take his home.