Vallaki Lore
- The Blue Water Inn offers food, wine, and shelter to visitors. A stranger with pointed ears is staying there. He came to Barovia from a distant land, riding into town on a carnival wagon.
- The burgomaster, Baron Vargas Vallakovich, has decreed that the Festival of the Blazing Sun will be held in the town square in three days. The previous festival, which he called the Wolf's Head Jamboree, was less than a week ago.
- Vallaki has endured at least one festival every week for the past several years. Some Vallakians believe that the festivals keep the devil Strahd at bay. Others think they provide no protection or benefit whatsoever. Most consider them dismal affairs.
- Those who speak ill of the festivals are declared by the burgomaster to be in league with the devil Strahd and arrested. Some are thrown in the stocks, while others are taken to the burgomaster's mansion so that the baron can purge them of their evil.
- The burgomaster's henchman, Izek Strazni, has a history of violence as well as a fiendish deformity: a monstrous arm with which he can conjure fire. Fear of Izek keeps the baron's enemies at bay.
- No one hates the burgomaster more than Lady Fiona Wachter, who is often quoted as saying, "I'd rather serve the devil than a madman." She owns an old house in town but rarely leaves her estate. Her two adult sons, Nikolai and Karl, are local troublemakers. Lady Wachter also has a mad daughter whom she keeps locked away. The burgomaster doesn't confront Fiona or her offspring because he is afraid of Lady Wachter, whose family has old ties to Strahd.
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- Wolves and dire wolves prowl the woods and aren't afraid to attack travelers on the Old Svalich Road. Well-armed groups of hunters and trappers have managed to kill several of the wolves, but more keep coming.
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- There's a Vistani camp in the woods southwest of town. The Vistani there aren't very friendly. Vistani aren't welcome in Vallaki.
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