This mansion has walls of plastered stone that display many scars where the plaster has fallen away from age and neglect. Drapes cover every window, including a large, arched opening above the mansion’s double entrance doors.
People come and go from the mansion at all hours during the day. Guards bring criminals cited for “malicious unhappiness.” Men and women arrive carrying bundles of twigs, which are piled about the mansion’s grand foyer until the construction of the wicker sun for the Festival of the Blazing Sun gets under way.
Background
The burgomaster, Baron Vargas Vallakovich, is a ruthless heel who prides himself on his good breeding and finely honed leadership skills. He stages repeated celebrations to foster happiness, and his “All will be well!” catchphrase has become a sad and tiresome punchline. Baron Vallakovich has convinced himself that if he can make everyone in Vallaki happy, the town will slip free of Ravna's dark grasp.
The baron has a brittle ego, and he lashes out at anyone who pokes fun at his festivals or treats him disrespectfully. He has two pet mastiffs that follow him everywhere, as well as a murderous and deformed henchman named
Izek Strazni.
The baron’s wife, Lydia Petrovna, has embraced her husband’s philosophy of happiness. She laughs at the baron’s every comment and tries to spread good cheer by throwing daily tea-and-sandwich parties in the parlor for her “dearest friends,” many of them poor folk who tolerate the baroness only because they crave something warm to eat and drink. Lydia is a gods-fearing woman and the younger sister of the town priest,
Father Lucian Petrovich.
The baron and baroness have only a single child, a son named Victor. A disaffected youth, Victor mostly keeps to himself, and is fond of letting those around him know that “ALL IS NOT WELL!”
Developments
After being arrested for thievery at the
Blinsky Toyshop, Sam is put in the stocks at the
Town Square. Later, he is moved by
Izek Strazni to the Baron's Mansion, where he is interrogated by the baron and then chained up in a small room.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party work with
Lady Fiona Wachter to overthrow the baron and free Sam. In the attic of the mansion, the party finds a room where magic was clearly practiced. It contains an incomplete teleportation circle and several animated cat skeletons. Simak finds evidence of a spell book, which has been removed. Meanwhile, the baron and his wife are dragged to the
Town Square by the mob and burned alive inside the wicker sun intended for the upcoming festival.
After the fall of the Baron, the mansion is thoroughly looted and abandoned.
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