Curse of Strahd Session 16: A Festival of Smiles and Secrets

The session begins with the party discovering a formal invitation from Strahd von Zarovich on their doorstep, offering them 'free room and board' at Castle Ravenloft as a gesture of recompense. While the party is deeply suspicious of the trap, they consider using the invitation to scout the castle later. As the morning breaks, the town of Vallaki is unusually festive for the Festival of the Blazing Sun, featuring food carts, music, and street performers like the bard Rictavio. Chaya spends the early morning observing the preparations and eventually confronts Milovash, a boy she saw sneaking out of St. Andral's Church. After Chaya offers Milovash gold and kindness, the boy confesses that Henrik van der Voort, the local coffin maker, paid him to steal holy bones from beneath the church. Realizing the church's hallowed protection has been compromised, the party decides to investigate Henrik's shop immediately. Before leaving the festival, Gretch approaches Rictavio and hints at his true identity based on a Vistani fortune teller's reading. Rictavio drops his jovial persona, revealing a serious side, and agrees to meet the party privately at the Blue Water Inn after the festivities conclude. The party arrives at Henrik's uninviting shop, which is barred and silent. Horvor picks the lock on the ground floor while Gretch uses invisibility and his climbing speed to enter through a second-story window. Inside Henrik's bedroom, Gretch discovers a false bottom in a wardrobe containing stolen gold and a sack of holy bones. He successfully retrieves the items but hears suspicious noises coming from the adjacent room. The rest of the party enters the ground floor, finding it filled with empty coffins, and moves upstairs to regroup with Gretch. While investigating the upper floor, Gretch attempts to pry open a crate labeled 'junk,' which triggers a deadly ambush by several vampire spawn hidden in the boxes. One spawn immediately grapples Vesper, dealing significant necrotic and piercing damage. A high-stakes combat ensues in the cramped, drafty attic. Horvor unleashes a Divine Smite against one attacker, while Chaya uses Turn Undead to incapacitate two of the spawn. Gretch uses Suggestion to command one spawn to return to its 'creator,' effectively removing it from the immediate fight. The session ends in the heat of battle as Riordan detonates an explosion rune in his own hand to blast a vampire, leaving the party struggling to finish the remaining enemies.