The Stolen Bones

Transclude of Arc-D---St.-Andral's-Feast#^lore-the-stolen-bones

What the party knows

St. Andral’s Church in Vallaki is ordinarily hallowed ground, protected by a magical ward that prevents fiends and undead from entering and keeps them from magically charming, frightening, or possessing those within. This protection stems from the blessed bones of Saint Andral himself, the church’s founder and a great cleric of the Morninglord, which rest in a crypt beneath the church.

Father Lucian Petrovich performs a special rite of protection over the bones each year on the Feast Day of Saint Andral, renewing the church’s sanctification. Originally, only Father Lucian knew of the bones’ existence—until he shared this knowledge with the altar boy Yeska to reassure the frightened orphan after news of the siege of Barovia reached Vallaki.

On the night before the party arrived in Vallaki, the bones were stolen. Father Lucian heard a noise in the chapel and found a cloaked humanoid figure who fled by jumping through a stained glass window. Without the bones, Father Lucian cannot perform the protective rite, and the church’s wards will fall at dawn on the day of St. Andral’s Feast (Neyavr 7).

The party investigated the crime scene and found evidence pointing to Milivoj, the church’s groundskeeper: gray wool fabric torn on a nail, bootprints containing earth and white flower petals from the graveyard, and strands of dark black hair. Confronted at his home, Milivoj confessed: he stole the bones at the behest of Henrik van der Voort, the town’s coffin-maker, who paid him handsomely and claimed to be a descendant of Saint Andral seeking the return of a family heirloom. Milivoj’s desperation to provide for his siblings (while both parents remain addicted to dream pastries) led him to accept the job.

The party has now departed for Henrik’s coffin shop to confront him and recover the bones.

Henrik is being coerced by vampire spawn who have taken up residence in his shop. The stolen bones are part of a plot to remove the church’s protections before St. Andral’s Feast, allowing Strahd’s minions to attack.