Cap

The stable master of the Keep Grow Inn — and, on the evidence of one evening, a former soldier. Asked by Lash whether he was the blacksmith, he rubbed the side of his head and corrected her: "I'm just the stable master, ma'am." He then let her use the forge anyway, killed a man with a hammer, and taught her how to do it properly.

He never volunteers his history, but it leaks out while he works. Calming a horse, he mentions he "used to have to do this, back in the day"; watching her melt down a dead man's splint mail, he sizes up the armour and then flexes to demonstrate what did the damage. He used to be part of a standing army of some kind. Why he no longer is, nobody has asked.

(The name Cap, and the longer form Capra, are never spoken on the recording — the man is only ever "the stable master" or "the stable hand." Both come from Silithane's player's wiki, which is the only source for them. Recorded here so the name stays searchable; see Canon Questions.)

Session 22

• Commissioned. Lash agrees to forge him three copper horseshoes overnight at the trough behind the inn.
• Killed the spy. When Lash confirms that the loitering caravan healer Tichael is a spy, he smacks him over the head with a sledgehammer — and, Lash declining to stop him, keeps swinging until the skull gives: "only good spy is a dead spy." No hesitation, and no remorse afterwards. The caravan has just lost its only healer, and neither of them mentions it. Lash loots the body and drags it into the bushes, leaving a trail of blood.

Session 23

• Paid in horseshoes. Lash melts down Tichael's ruined splint mail and forges him a fresh pair of shoes for every caravan horse plus eight spares, measuring each hoof by hand. He is chuffed enough to kneel down beside her and work out a secret handshake.
• The hammer lesson. Asked to teach her to swing the way he did, he passes on what he was taught when he was taught to fight: plant your feet as deep into the ground as they will go, take the hammer in both hands, and drive it with your knees and hips — every swing as though it were the only one you will ever get. Then he ruffles her hair and undoes it: "you shouldn't be worrying about using hammers, you're just a normal person."
• Three swings, witnessed. Lash's account of the killing to Thalia is that the stable master did it, not her — "the stable hand came up and just bopped him on the head and his head went into his body" — and the GM's correction is that it took three swings to finish, all of which she watched. Thalia, the party's own spy, agrees to have seen nothing; Eldrich the Elder is not to find out.

Not the trapper

Silithane's player's wiki merges Cap with the local trapper who confronts Silithane after Guilford is Suggested out of the tavern — the man who warns that removing Guilford only invites a worse replacement and says he will "find brighter pastures" himself if it happens. On the recording these are two different people: the trapper is a separate bar patron, in the tavern earlier that evening and out in the yard among the painters afterwards, while the stable master is at the forge with Lash. Treated here as distinct.