The Storm King's Thunder: session 8

The Festival of the Blazing Sun

A parting piece of advice from Tana to Corvyn: get better weapons.

Corvyn, Bryn and Maalora are deposited in Westbridge, where they're attacked by a pack of giant wolves! Sashura, Ghore and Alun rush from inside the Harvest Inn to assist them. Two of the wolves appear to be bipedal, however, and one manages to bite Corvyn. He's probably fine.

Harshnag says that he'll sleep outside the inn and protect it. In the morning, the party tell Stoldar and Yevgeny that they need repairs and replacements for their equipment and after asking around, are directed to a nearby village known as Vellaki. Apparently the smith there can work with silver and runes.

However, Vellaki is not on any of the party's maps. Westbridge is not on Stoldar's map, either. Stoldar says that they're in a place known as the Village of Barovia and the Old Svalich Road will take them to Vellaki, which is of course not on the party's maps either.

The Old Svalich Road is crowded on both sides by thick forests and more than one gallows, displaying the decaying remains of what Stoldar says The Devil calls justice.

In Vellaki, the party sees signs plastered on buildins for The Festival of the Blazing Sun - tomorrow!

They find the smith, who they pay to silver some of their weapons and inscribe runes on others. It will take several days to complete.

The party decide to visit a Vistani encampent outside of town, where they meet Khozak - a dwarven bard - Madame Striza - a half-elven fortune teller - and others. The Vistani let the party make camp there for the night and Corvyn wakes up to see a trail of blood drops from his sleeping roll to a deer carcass and hides the trail. He's probably fine.

The Vistani and the party all attend the festival in the morning, as it's mandatory. The festival takes place in Vellaki's town square, where a stage has been built. On the stage are a complicated series of mirrors and lenses along with two life-size wicker men. The burgomeister explained the festival and locked the final lense into place, which starts the wicker men smoking.

A man in the crowd starts crying out for his son, when the party realizes that one of the wicker men has someone inside! They storm the stage, attack the burgomeister and stop the burning. The man from the crowd - Father Mason Petrovich - throws his frock over his son, freed from the wicker prison and escapes while the crowd flees.

The party follows him to his church to shelter from the night.