Session 14 — Smiling Sam and the Cabbage Conspiracy

Session Recap

The session opens still in the basement of the Clapton's Hammer, the party tidying up the aftermath of the grief demon: Silithane pays (somehow) to bring Lash's dead crab back to life, the survivors debate how to seal off the ancient dead's burial chamber while leaving a small hole for the still-crawling Lash, and they reassure the freed, listless guests that the curse is gone. Lash herself surfaces from the grief-hole — not the underworld after all, just a long crawl — carrying a 30-pound sack of strange ore she dug out of the depths. The cleansed inn, now run by a happier Rufio serving real soup, becomes the party's base for the day.

The bulk of the session is a murder-mystery investigation into Smiling Sam, the serial killer Dominus flagged back in Session 12. While Lash and Thalia stay at the inn smashing the hell-rocks into usable craft materials, Fenric, Magra and Silithane work the case across three interviews: a fastidious medical examiner at the Knights' Temple, the world-weary lead detective Malcolm Locke at the Investigatorium, and — kept in the basement because he gives everyone the creeps — the gloriously deranged conspiracy theorist Wendell Weathers, who insists the killer is (or is disguised as) a cabbage. Across 47 victims in roughly 7 months, the case has no discernible pattern: no shared race, class, faith, location, or happiness, the bodies dumped naked and bloodless with a smile carved ear-to-ear, every resurrection refused. The killer evades even Mage's Society divination, strongly implying an item of non-detection. The session ends with the investigators stumped but with new theories (a vampire or blood-cult, the missing blood, the magic-blocked killer) and the next stops lined up: the Investigatorium's map of dots, the Deacon, and the lawless records beyond the wall.

Key Events

• Sealing the grief-demon basement: Fenric proposes walling off the burial chamber so the ancient dead can sleep again — leaving one small gap (to be boulder-plugged later) so Lash can crawl back out. The party scrounges boards and mortar; nobody has the Mending cantrip handy.
• The crab lives again: before Lash returns, Silithane arranges to revive her dead pet crab — by paying for the magic, not casting it himself ("I don't think he's that powerful yet"). The crab reattaches to Lash's bicep; she vows never to send it ahead of her again ("I'll go first next time").
• Lash surfaces with hell-ore: Lash crawls back out, tired but barely hurt, having brought a ~30-pound bag of strange rock from deep below — not the underworld, but deep enough to reach pyroxene baked into a "ceiling" by an ancient magma ocean.
• Identifying the hell-rocks: Thalia (Nature) and Lash (Arcana) examine the haul. It is pyroxene — extremely fire-resistant, mildly "magical" the way a crushed plant makes a potion. Breakdown of useful materials: jadeite (aids natural magics like Druidcraft), quartz/rhyolite (toughens/hardens armor and blunt weapons), brimstone (finer sharpening edges), orgite (infused with Eldrich's fire-magic-enhancing properties), and slag iron. The catch: it won't melt by normal forge heat (it survived hell's magma), so Lash must grind or knap it into shape. Lash adds two gems for a jeweler.
• Backstory over soup and rocks: while smashing the haul, Thalia and Lash trade fae origins. Thalia barely eats — she's sustained by standing in moonlight (the way others stand in rain, complicated by her feathers), aspiring to be like her tree mother who needs no food at all; she's spent summers in the Veilwood and winters in Atollia. Lash, in turn, recounts that she glows in moonlight: as a child, on first leaving home, she fought back a great black creature, and a powerful fae — amused by her guts — tapped her on the nose, after which her skin began to glow at night before the fae vanished. Thalia calls it "a really nice backstory."
• A new day, a new case: over breakfast, Silithane pitches helping the city further — he cannot take an active investigation on his own volition (his organization forbids it), but if the others "force" him along, he can tag in. They target Smiling Sam, the city's serial killer; the Knights' Temple (Knights' Templar) is the lead.
• Interview 1 — the medical examiner (Knights' Temple): a fastidious young human in a lab coat, his study walls lined with books and under-watered plants. He lays out the numbers: 47 victims in ~6 months (about 2/week); 16 women, 11 men, 10 "other," 10 children; no bias by sex, species, race, or class; orcs/half-orcs slightly overrepresented (4 of 47) but statistically meaningless. Every victim slit ear to ear into a smile and exsanguinated, dumped naked and bloodless near dawn. The cut instrument varies in size each time ("100 different blades, one for each face"). The previous investigating group was the Wright Ward Company (7 of them; gave up and went beyond the wall). The first victim was Cedric Brooks, a 29-year-old human hunter-trapper, found by the Svest Gate outside the city. Two universals: the smile, and that the dead refuse resurrection even when families pay.
• Interview 2 — Malcolm Locke (the Investigatorium): a large gray-furred catman detective in a pinstripe suit who sacrifices his lunch break to talk. He confirms there is no pattern — they've tried chronology, age, time of day, even millimeter cut-depth — and that it "sounds like he's purposely not leaving a pattern." A Mage's Society divinator scried early scenes (around Victim 8): the killer appeared as a blur with no aura or residual, so he carries magic concealing him from divination. The two record gaps: nothing from outside southern Rivalon (the war destroyed records in Veilwood, Atollia, Baelheim) and only partial files from Varia — the office's running theory is a Varian who came over posing as Reclamation. The killings occurred only in Gwyndinas, starting just after the walls went up. He gives the party a dog-eared city map dotted with every kill site and tasks them with the one job no other group has done: go beyond the Palisade and gather every record from the lawless country to find where the killer came from.
• The victims, up close: to drive home that there's no victim angle, Malcolm Locke sketches three he knew personally — Cedric Brooks, the first, a former forest road/trail builder of the old Road Tax Association turned part-time trapper, who lost everything in the war and hated Laewendas for destroying every road he ever built (an embittered Orathi-loyal extremist, dead alone); the second, a 6-year-old girl killed in a barn outside the walls, daughter of a pair of Laewendas spies caught plotting to sabotage the sewers — she never set foot in the city; and Trina, a beloved, perfectly happy married elderly woman. Extremist, innocent child, contented grandmother — nothing links them but the smile. (The examiner had also noted wealth is no marker: even the farming mogul Lord Byron Westmantle, highest social class, has a working man's calluses.)
• The Queen red herring: Locke notes (as a joke) the killings paused for ~2 weeks — exactly when Queen Ysolde sailed to Varia — but dismisses it: she leaves all the time and killings continue when she's away. The party briefly floats whether the killer is someone in her guard or someone killing to impress her. Locke begs them not to repeat the "Queen is the killer" notion.
• Map analysis: Silithane spots that the kill-dots are evenly ~5 per district except a cluster of 3 around the bazaar in the red district, and none at either port ("maybe the guy's afraid of water"). Locke counters that the dots simply track population density.
• Interview 3 — Wendell Weathers ("the Basement Guy"): Locke sends them down an old elevator to a 7×7 office papered floor-to-ceiling with red-string corkboards, where a pipe-smoking, bubble-blowing madman holds court. His thesis: every victim was found within 17 feet of a cabbage, the prime-numbered victims were "allergic to cabbages," and the killer is a cabbage (or disguised as one). He demands the party fetch him "cabbage import per capita" data, a cabbage tamer, and a Speak with Cabbages scroll. He claims to spy on the Deacon at night with a Looking Glass (divination), insists tomorrow's 48th kill will form "a new triangle," and reveals his true name is "Mendel Weathers" (turn the W's and M's upside down) before declaring the cabbages — and the stars themselves — are coming for him and he must flee the city. He will "not be there" when they return.
• The good idea hidden in the madness: Weathers's raving accidentally hands the party their best lead — if the killer hides from divination, you find them by divining the whole city until you hit a spot you can't scry, i.e. someone carrying anti-divination magic. Fenric is unsure whether his Detect Magic can sense an anti-magic field, but it's flagged for testing.
• Post-session theorizing: the party (now back together in spirit) lands on the killer likely wearing a necklace/amulet of non-detection, the missing blood pointing to a vampire or blood-ritual cult (they wish Ashlyn were present to sniff for it or detect blood), and a plan to read the Investigatorium's records and ask the Deacon about the failed Speak with Dead attempts on the smiling corpses.

Combat & Encounters

• None. This was a pure investigation/downtime session — no rolled combat. The only "encounters" were three NPC interviews and a knowledge check on the hell-rocks.

NPCs & Factions

• Malcolm Locke — new note: the gray-furred catman lead investigator of the Investigatorium, a chain-smoking, pinstripe-suited detective who's run the Smiling Sam case for ~6 months and has nothing but a patternless map of dots. World-weary, honest, and convinced the only break will come from a "wildcard." He gives the party the dotted city map and the beyond-the-wall records job.
• The Knights' Temple medical examiner — an unnamed, fastidious young human body-examiner (lab coat, circular spectacles, over-bookshelved study) who handles all victims for the city. Source of the hard forensic numbers. Likely a recurring resource; left as a session-note NPC for now.
• Wendell Weathers ("Mendel Weathers") — the deranged conspiracy theorist kept in the Investigatorium basement, who believes the killer is a cabbage and spies on the Deacon at night with divination. Mostly comic relief, but his cabbage-allergy "logic" accidentally yields the anti-divination lead. Says he won't be there when the party returns (he means to flee to "Whistler Medical Manor").
• Smiling Sam — new note: the unidentified serial killer haunting Gwyndinas — 47 victims in ~7 months, each slit into a smile, drained of blood, dumped naked, and made to refuse resurrection. Hidden from divination; no discernible pattern.
• The Wright Ward Company — a prior 7-person adventuring group that investigated Smiling Sam, gave up after a few days, and went beyond the wall. One-mention.
• The Deacon of All Saints Cathedral — the resurrection-caster who tried (and failed) to bring back several of the smiling dead; flagged as the party's next interview. Not yet met.

Locations

• Gwyndinas — new civic detail: the Knights' Temple (medical examiner's office; the "ultimate authority" in the city short of the Queen), the Investigatorium (the city's detective agency, with an old-timey elevator, a records "information brain" in the basement, and a lead investigator); the Treasury House / taxman for social-status records; City Hall for sewer blueprints; the Svest Gate; a large complex sewer system; the bazaar in the red district (a 3-kill cluster); and confirmation the killings happen only inside the Palisade, in Gwyndinas, ever since the walls went up.
• The Clapton's Hammer — the cleansed inn from Session 13, now lighter and pleasant; the burial chamber still needs sealing, pending Lash's full extraction.
• The grief-hole / hell depths — not the underworld after all; deep enough to reach an ancient pyroxene layer baked by a long-gone magma ocean. Source of Lash's ore haul.

Loot, Items & Rewards

• ~30 lbs of hell-ore (pyroxene): Lash's haul from the depths — extremely fire-resistant, must be ground/knapped rather than melted. Identified components and uses:
  • Jadeite — aids natural magics (e.g. Druidcraft).
  • Quartz / rhyolite — toughens and hardens armor; makes blunt weapons hit harder.
  • Brimstone — finer sharpening edges.
  • Orgite — infused with fire/magic-enhancing properties (Eldrich's domain).
  • Slag iron — heat-resistant, a crafting iron source.
  • Plus two gems for a jeweler. Rough breakdown given by the GM: ~40/30/10/15/15 of the various materials by proportion.
• The revived pet crab — Lash's crab, brought back to life via paid magic arranged by Silithane; reattached to her arm.
• The Investigatorium's dotted city map — a heavily annotated map of every Smiling Sam kill site, given to the party by Malcolm Locke to keep.
• No pips/milestone awarded this session (a pure roleplay/investigation session).

Decisions & Open Threads

• The Smiling Sam investigation is now the party's active case. Leads to chase: (1) divine the city to find the one spot magic can't scry — the killer's anti-detection item; (2) interview the Deacon about the failed resurrections and Speak with Dead on the corpses; (3) go beyond the Palisade and collect the lawless country's crime records for the Investigatorium; (4) test whether Fenric's Detect Magic can sense an anti-magic field.
• Working theories on the killer: carries a necklace/amulet of non-detection; the missing blood points to a vampire or blood-cult (the party wishes Ashlyn were here to detect/smell blood); possibly a Varian who arrived posing as Reclamation; possibly more than one killer / a possessing spirit.
• Seal the burial chamber: the ancient dead still need to be re-laid to rest by walling off the basement (and plugging the grief-hole) once Lash is fully out — carried over from Session 13.
• Lash's new craft materials: the hell-ore (and its gems) await a forge solution she doesn't yet have — grinding/knapping rather than melting — to turn into armor and weapon upgrades. Adds to her growing pile (the Prehistoric Longsword, Grievek and killipede parts, fossilized louse).
• Carryover threads: the Ponterford abductions job for Dominus (now overlapping with the beyond-the-wall records run); the auricalcum Prehistoric Longsword and the Blue Top Docks smith; Magra's mother bound somewhere snowy; the Prince Lon letter; Scary Joe; Garruk the Red; the two outstanding leaving-paper signatures; ~165 gp of pirate goods to pawn; Ankley Island confirmed as a sealed prison.

Memorable Moments

• The entire cabbage conspiracy: "I think the killer's a cabbage." / "Maybe the killer himself isn't a cabbage, but he's disguising himself as one." / "Are you trying to throw me off the trail?" — Wendell Weathers, dead serious, pipe blowing bubbles.
• "You are the box. Your tiny mind cannot leave the box in which it was born unless we take it out of the box." — Weathers, eyeing Silithane's skull. "Have you got a jar big enough for this man's brain?"
• The grand reveal of his name: "Turn the W's and the M's upside down. Mendel Weathers. Now you see." — "Not really."
• Malcolm Locke's grim devotion to the first victim: "I was the only guy that went to his funeral... I knew him better than he knew himself."
• "We even did it by millimeter depth of the cuts. None of these link to any of the others in any kind of pattern that resembles nothing."
• Magra floating the conspiracy brain, Thalia vetoing it: "Don't get your conspiracy brain on, get your Criminal Minds brain on and then leave the conspiracy out of it."
• Thalia and Lash bonding over rocks: "Do you know a lot about rocks?" — "Oh, I know so much about rocks. You know, there are the gray ones and, um, stripy ones." — "Wow, that's 3 different types."
• Lash to her resurrected crab, in tears: "I'm sorry, crab. I'll never make you go first. I'll go first next time." Then ordering it its own shot-glass of crab soup.
• The session-long real-life food-allergy roll call ("any allergies at the table?") that opened the second half, the GM playing waiter.
• "We're lucky plants do not have rights." — Weathers, planning to torture a cabbage for information.
• The killer dodging a time-rewinding wizard: "We had a goddamn fucking wizard go back in time and they couldn't even watch him. This guy's hiding."