The Varian Trio

A group of three out-of-town adventurers who passed through Ponterford ~2–3 weeks before Session 35, doing a great deal of good and a great deal of trouble before moving on. Renforth (and a druid eyewitness) brand them Varian spies — judged by their off-by-one-letter names. Almost certainly a rival adventuring party running ahead of the Shattered Coin (the GM's "other group"), likely under the same Coalition/Reclamation banner.

Known members, by description:

• A caster woman — animated a tree and the nearby drake skeleton during the fight (the lingering miscast that left the wyrm screaming at night).
• A horseman — fought on horseback with a lance, as if jousting.
• A "slick one" — never seen in the fight; the one who lifted Renforth's telekinesis wand from a box under his sink, leaving an IOU.

(First named in Session 35, where Renforth gives their off-by-one aliases — Gutricia, Pimothy, Paved — now matched to Patricia, Pimothy, and Pavid. See Canon Questions.)

Session 35

• Credited (by the druid neighbour and Renforth) with killing the child-snatcher — a horseman-shaped monster, "a man, really" — in the field by the southern hill, then stripping its clothes and burying the corpse in the woods.
• Their caster's mid-fight animation of the drake bones is what set the skeleton screaming at night ever since (now dispelled by Valmora).
• Stole Renforth's telekinesis wand (a 5,000–7,000-gold item) while buying him near-empty of potions; he reported it to guards who couldn't act against "gallivanting adventurers." Silithane now holds the wand's item card — a possible lead on the group.
• Named (but not yet placed). Renforth calls them Gutricia, Pimothy, and Paved — the off-by-one Varian aliases of Patricia, Pimothy, and Pavid — though the party hears only the names, not yet linking them to the rival adventurers they'll meet in Session 41.

Session 39

• Complicated by Timothy. The Snatcher's killer is now named as a single Varian spy, Timothy Leisten, who killed "the statue" and impersonates it — not obviously "a trio." Whether Timothy is one of these three (the lance-horseman? the "slick one"?) or a separate Varian operative working the same town is unresolved.

Session 41 (the trio, in full)

• All three named and present. The trio is Pimothy (the False Snatcher, the "horseman"), the catman tank Pavid, and the goth animatrix Patricia (the "caster who animates trees and skeletons" of Session 35) — confirming Renforth's "Varian names are one sound off" read of Pimothy / Pavid / Gutricia.
• Reunited with the Shattered Coin at last to jointly raid The Snatcher's Cave; Pavid tanks, Gutricia animates the dead, Pimothy leads. The stolen telekinesis wand thread (the "slick one") is still unaddressed — none of the three is obviously a wand-thief.

Session 42

• All three carried the boss fight. Pavid tanked and taunted Halren, Patricia controlled the field (darkness, haste, dispels, a radiant beam) and afterward raised the dead wights into puppet-soldiers, and Pimothy fought in plate until Halren's Fireball downed him.
• Fully embedded with the party now, resting through to the dawn raid on the riverside camp. Still no fourth "slick one" in evidence; the trio remains three.

Session 43

• Split across the pincer. Pimothy and the catman Pavid struck the north with the party (Pimothy taking a prisoner, Pavid tanking three foes and going down before a revive), while Patricia and her six wight-puppets took the south with Magra and Rusty — both halves won, and the cave fully cleared.
• Pimothy stays behind to garrison the cave as a Reclamation kill floor; the trio's longer thread (the stolen telekinesis wand, the absent "slick one") is still unaddressed.