The Penway Hat Man

A boogeyman of Rivalon in Laewendas's command — recognised by his signature tall, buckled top hat, high collar and straitjacket-like, strapped escape-artist garb. Rumour holds he can put himself inside his own hat, throw it, and reappear elsewhere; if he catches you and bundles you into the hat, you are "hat-napped" and gone — delivered, like the Snatcher's victims, to the cave's shrine to be sacrificed. One of the cave's three genuine heavy hitters (alongside the crocodile man and the now-allied Snatcher).

(Name surname-collides with Pinwy / "Penway," Kain's Rivalon hometown (Session 6) and the party's Session-22 fake destination — whether the Hat Man is named for that place is open.)

Session 40 (debut)

• Spotted by an invisible Lash at the cave camp's grotesque tea party — bleeding from a fight, gently sewing a torn sleeve back together among the other stitched-and-masked horrors.
• Flagged by the GM as one of the "big eggs" of the cave (with the crocodile), a target the party will have to reckon with in the raid on The Snatcher's Cave.

Session 41

• Named one of the cave's two true dangers (with the unkillable Thunt) by the Ghoul of Gythfield, who details his powers: he folds himself into his own hat and throws it (the hat is sharp and carries "the weight of a man" — "I've seen a feather hit from the neck"), and can suck people into the hat, from which "nothing has ever come back out except the Hat Man."
• Rusty suspects there may be more than one of him ("sometimes I feel like there's more than one") — if you kill him and keep his hat as storage, beware another Hat Man crawling out one night. No clear counter yet.

Session 43 (killed)

• The powers confirmed. He folds into his hat to become untargetable, throws it like a frisbee to reappear where it lands, and sucks victims into a spiralling void (the "hat dimension") where, with no leverage to move, they are lost forever after ~10 minutes. He trapped Jex, then Salamandine, then Thalia in turn, fought with bladed Edward-Scissorhands fingers and a whirling shrapnel-nova, and spent legendary actions redirecting blades into the hat.
• Killed by Thalia. Worn down by Jex's arrows and lured out by Thalia's Sylvan insults, he was whipped out of his own hat and Hail-of-Thorns'd dead — giving a small bow as he toppled, "glad it was at least another fey."
• His hat is now Thalia's — see The Hat Man's Hat. (No second Hat Man emerged this session; the "more than one" warning stays open.)