xarrul rework

storylines/ethereal-trip.md

@@ -70,13 +70,13 @@ The main hall overlaid with its ethereal echo. Everything is grey, translucent,
 
 ### In the Cellar
 
-The cellar is transformed. The stone walls glow with the ghost-light of old wards — thin, silvery lines that once formed a complete barrier. Most of them are cracked, dark, bleeding shadow instead of light. The ward-sigils appear as *wounds* in the ethereal fabric.
+The cellar is transformed. The stone walls glow with the ghost-light of old wards — thin, silvery lines, the summoners' long-dead work. Most of them are dark now, drained, bleeding shadow instead of light. The old sigils appear as *wounds* in the ethereal fabric, their light bleeding away toward the thin point.
 
 **The thin point** is visible as a **tear** — not metaphorical, a literal rip in the grey fabric of the Ethereal Plane. The Material Plane shows through it in muted color. Standing near it feels like standing at the edge of a cliff.
 
 **Xarrul's nest:** Shadows coiled in a corner of the ethereal cellar. Claw marks on the ethereal stone. The faint, acrid smell of the Brand of Spite. If Xarrul is present, it's visible: a gaunt, angular figure with charred-paper skin and burning amber eyes. It sees the users immediately. It *smiles*.
 
-**Orenn's binding circle:** Blazes with silver light in the Ethereal Plane. It's intact and potent — a beacon of old, careful craftsmanship. Anything bound within it on the Material Plane is also constrained on the Ethereal Plane. Xarrul avoids it.
+**The binding circle:** Blazes with silver light in the Ethereal Plane. It's intact and potent — a beacon of old, careful craftsmanship (the summoners', not Orenn's). Anything bound within it on the Material Plane is also constrained on the Ethereal Plane. Xarrul avoids it.
 
 ---
 

storylines/house-of-scales.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 This subplot has two floors. Sevra thinks she's hunting a traitor; she's right, but she's standing on top of something worse. Let the players climb down at their own pace — most tables will crack the traitor and feel finished, and only the ones who keep pulling will find the rot underneath. Both floors are optional; the traitor floor is a clean, satisfying subplot on its own, and the rot floor is the "evil within the guild" the night is built to reveal.
 
-- **Ground floor — [The Traitor](#the-traitor-floor):** Dace has been selling guild kills to the Lambent Order for money. Mundane, provable, resolvable. This is what Sevra can see.
+- **Ground floor — [The Traitor](#the-traitor-floor):** Dace has been selling guild kills to the Order of Mending for money. Mundane, provable, resolvable. This is what Sevra can see.
 - **Basement — [The Rot](#the-rot-floor):** Thera "Even-Hand," the guild's most honoured blade, harvests the souls of her marks for something beneath the city. Invisible, because she breaks no rule of the codex. This is what Sevra is missing — and what braids the two floors together: **Dace's crude soul-trafficking is drawing exactly the attention Thera needs to keep buried, so she has come to end him.**
 
 ---
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ A guild contract. A noble named **Lord Harath** was marked for death by a busine
 
 Before the guild could act, Harath turned up dead. But not cleanly — his body was found in his study with ritual burns on his chest, his heart removed, and symbols carved into the floorboards. The city watch called it "cult activity." The guild's client wants a refund. The guild says the contract was accepted, the fee stands.
 
-**What actually happened:** Dace sold the contract details to the Lambent Order. The cultists needed a specific type of kill — a death performed at a ley line intersection (Harath's study was on one) with the heart preserved as a binding component. Dace arranged access. The cultists performed the kill. Dace got paid twice.
+**What actually happened:** Dace sold the contract details to the Order of Mending. The cultists needed a specific type of kill — a death performed at a ley line intersection (Harath's study was on one) with the heart preserved as a binding component. Dace arranged access. The cultists performed the kill. Dace got paid twice.
 
 This is the surface of the guild's problem. The deeper rot is Dace himself — and, deeper still, the thing that has taken an interest in Dace.
 
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ This is the surface of the guild's problem. The deeper rot is Dace himself — a
 
 ## The Real Problem: The Traitor
 
-For six months, Dace has been selling kills to the Lambent Order. The arrangement:
+For six months, Dace has been selling kills to the Order of Mending. The arrangement:
 
 1. Dace identifies guild contracts where the target's death could serve a dual purpose — the client gets their kill, the cult gets ritual components.
 2. Dace passes target details, location, and schedule to Haddon through dead drops and meetings in the tavern's private room.
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ Tallow knows Dace has been meeting "a scholar type" in the private room:
 
 ### Through the Private Room (Physical Evidence)
 The private room contains:
-- Ward-sigil diagram scratched into the table (DC 14 Investigation, DC 16 Arcana to understand)
+- Old summoner-sigil diagram scratched into the table (DC 14 Investigation, DC 16 Arcana to understand)
 - A dropped cultist pin under the bench (DC 13 Perception)
 - Faint traces of ritual chalk on the floor (DC 15 Investigation) — from when Haddon demonstrated binding patterns to Dace
 
@@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ Full character detail, tells, the soulcoin, and her stat block are in **[the ass
 
 ## Why She's Here Tonight
 
-Dace's dealings with the Lambent Order have dragged soul-death into public view — ritual kills, missing hearts, city-watch whispers about "cult activity." That's the one thing that gets people *looking* at what happens to souls in this city, and looking is the only thing Thera fears. She has come to resolve the Dace problem, and she has **already marked him** (see [The Mark on Dace](../npc/assassins.md#the-mark-on-dace-dm--the-braid-to-thera)). She is also privately disgusted by the cultists — amateurs desecrating something she considers sacred.
+Dace's dealings with the Order of Mending have dragged soul-death into public view — ritual kills, missing hearts, city-watch whispers about "cult activity." That's the one thing that gets people *looking* at what happens to souls in this city, and looking is the only thing Thera fears. She has come to resolve the Dace problem, and she has **already marked him** (see [The Mark on Dace](../npc/assassins.md#the-mark-on-dace-dm--the-braid-to-thera)). She is also privately disgusted by the cultists — amateurs desecrating something she considers sacred.
 
 ## The Trail Down (how players find the basement)
 
@@ -224,7 +224,7 @@ There is no clean win here — that's the point. Options, in rough order of how
 
 The assassin subplot feeds the murder mystery and the fiend arc:
 
-1. **The brawl was engineered.** Xarrul whispered to Kael using Voice Thief to push him over the edge. The brawl gave Xarrul cover for the murder. Understanding this requires talking to Kael about *exactly* what triggered him ("I heard one of them laughing about it. Clear as day." — but no cultist was laughing. It was Xarrul).
+1. **The brawl was engineered.** Kael's grievance was real, but the laugh that tipped him (Rennt's) was twisted in his ears by Xarrul (Voice Thief), which layered a fabricated confession under it. The brawl gave Xarrul cover for the murder. Understanding this requires asking Kael *exactly* what triggered him ("One of them laughed and said the noble squealed. Clear as day." — Rennt did laugh; he never said that. The rest was Xarrul).
 
 2. **Dace's meetings map the wards.** The diagram in the private room was made during a Dace/Haddon meeting. The cult was mapping the wards — which Xarrul was also breaking. The tavern's defences were weakened from both sides at once: Haddon from inside (mapping), Xarrul from the Ethereal Plane (scratching).
 

storylines/murder-mystery.md

@@ -3,28 +3,61 @@
 ## Timeline of Events
 
 ### Before the Session
-- **Weeks ago:** Xarrul, summoned and bound by the Lambent Order, is sent to kill Sevra. The House of Scales intercepts the fiend during transit, breaks the binding (not knowing how to rebind it), and the fiend goes free.
-- **Weeks ago:** Xarrul, now unbound, anchors itself to the thin point beneath the Burnt Tongue. It begins weakening the ward-sigils from the Ethereal Plane, scratching at them night after night.
-- **Days ago:** Orenn notices the wards failing. He increases his checks, purchases holy water and ward supplies, and writes the contingency letter he puts in Mags's apron.
+- **Weeks ago:** Xarrul, summoned and bound by the Order of Mending, is sent to kill Sevra. The House of Scales intercepts the fiend during transit, breaks the binding (not knowing how to rebind it), and the fiend goes free.
+- **Weeks ago:** Xarrul, now unbound, finds this thin point on the cult's map — a fault already worked thin by the summoners who once denned here — and anchors to it. In the hidden deepest chamber it begins prying open the old, sealed tear from the Ethereal side, night after night, siphoning the summoners' leftover sigils to do it.
+- **Days ago:** Orenn's surveillance turns up a district-wide wrongness he reads as an *underworld* problem — deaths that don't add up, the Order stirring. Uneasy, he buys holy water and ward supplies as insurance and writes the contingency letter he tucks in Mags's apron. He never once suspects the sealed rift under his own floor; that case is closed.
 - **Tonight, before the party arrives:** Tension between the factions is at a breaking point. Kael has evidence that the Merchant Quarter kill — a guild contract — was done by someone else with ritual marks. He's ready to confront the cultists.
 
 ### During the Session
 
-**Act 1 — The Tavern (before brawl)**
-- Players arrive, meet Orenn, explore the room
-- Faction tension is palpable but contained
-- Bren mutters in his corner, Vetch fidgets near the stairs, Tallow watches from his booth
+#### Act 1 — The Table (calm)
+- The PCs, strangers to each other and to Orenn, share the only free table. Orenn works them personally — business or pleasure, the house rules, the carrot of "references in high places."
+- Faction tension is palpable but contained: Kael glaring at the cultists, Thera still as a chapel, the cultists half-arguing over texts.
+- Bren mutters in his corner, Vetch fidgets near the stairs, Tallow watches from his booth.
+- Orenn steps down to storage for supplies. His absence is what lets the next beat run unchecked.
 
-**Act 2 — The Brawl**
-- **Trigger:** Kael confronts Haddon about the Merchant Quarter kill. Haddon deflects. Kael calls him a liar. Rennt stands up. A cultist pushes Kael. Sevra tries to intervene. Someone throws a punch. Chaos.
-- **The brawl lasts 3-5 rounds.** No one uses lethal force — the rules hold. It's fists, bottles, furniture.
-- **During the brawl:** Xarrul uses the noise and distraction to jaunt partially into the Material Plane behind the bar. It brands Orenn with the Brand of Spite. Orenn dies instantly. Xarrul retreats to the Ethereal Plane. Total exposure: less than 6 seconds.
-- **Only witness:** Bren. He saw a shape reach through the air behind the bar. Skein forces him to stay silent.
+#### Act 2 — The Spark
 
-**Act 3 — Discovery**
-- The brawl ends. Someone looks behind the bar. Orenn is dead.
-- Mags emerges, sees the body, and locks the tavern down.
-- Both factions immediately blame each other.
+*The trigger.* When the table talk dwindles, Kael can't hold it any longer and confronts Haddon about the Merchant Quarter (Kupecká čtvrť) kill. Play it cold, then let a cultist's laugh be the match:
+
+> **Kael** *(vstane, ještě klidně, ale hlas jako brus):* „Kupecká čtvrť. Před třemi dny. Šlechtic s vyříznutým srdcem — a vaše čmáranice na podlaze. Ten kontrakt byl náš. Zaplacený. Zpečetěný. Tak kdo ho dodělal místo nás — a nechal po sobě takovej svinčík?"
+>
+> **Haddon** *(nezvedne oči od knihy):* „Pletete si mě s někým, příteli. My jsme učenci, ne řezníci." *(pak tišeji, znuděně)* „A jestli někdo napodobuje vaši... pečlivost, stěžujte si doma. Ne každá krysa ve vašich řadách nosí náš odznak."
+>
+> **Kael** *(o krok blíž):* „Ještě jednou řekni 'řady', učenče."
+>
+> **Rennt** *(opře se, krátký ostrý smích — tohle je ta jiskra):* „Nech ho, Haddone. Koukni na něj — celej se klepe vzteky, protože neuhlídají ani vlastního zrádce. Tihle si myslí, že jim patří celé město. A neuchrání ani jednu jedinou zpečetěnou smrt."
+>
+> **Sevra** *(tiše, varovně — o půl vteřiny pozdě):* „Kaeli. Dost."
+>
+> *(Read-aloud)* „Kael neodpoví. Popadne okraj stolu a převrhne ho i s Renntem pozadu na zem. Sklenice tříští o trám. A v tu chvíli se celá místnost — plná lidí, kteří na tenhle výbuch čekali — dá do pohybu."
+
+*(The laugh is real, but if you want to preserve the "was the brawl engineered?" clue, Xarrul layers a whisper only Kael hears under it — Voice Thief, a fabricated confession. See [red herrings](#red-herrings-deliberate).)*
+
+- **The brawl lasts 3–5 rounds. Non-lethal — the rules hold.** Fists, bottles, furniture, and shove/gust/thunderclap *throws* that fling PCs around (use them to pull the party in and to position them for the reveal). NPCs keep their lethal kits holstered; save the assassins' real danger for the finale. If a PC would drop, they're knocked out at 1 HP, not killed. (See the [Brawl Toolkit](#the-brawl-toolkit).)
+- **The blackout.** A few rounds in, pressed in the scrum, **Rennt casts Thunderwave** — a legitimate knockback move that also snuffs every candle at once. The room goes black. It looks damning for the cult (they blacked out the room the instant Orenn died) — and they're innocent of the murder. Perfect misdirection.
+- **The murder, under cover of the dark.** Orenn, back from storage, wades in to quell the brawl and takes a knock (a bottle, a chair) — so he's already bruised and bleeding, alive. In the blackout, Xarrul jaunts partially into the Material Plane behind the bar, brands him (Brand of Spite), freezes him (Visions of Spite), and strikes. Xarrul retreats to the Ethereal. Total exposure: seconds. The mundane knock is a **decoy wound** (see the crime scene).
+- **Only witness:** Bren. He saw a shape reach through the air behind the bar. Skein forces him to stay silent. (Kael also saw Bren go rigid, staring at the bar rather than the fight.)
+- **Mags brings order.** She storms from the kitchen, cleaver up, and quiets the room with her voice. She relights the candles with a ward-focus — and behind her is Orenn's body. What follows — the forced heal, the forced **Revivify** with the diamond from her own necklace (both failing), the shattered ward-crystal that seals the tavern until midnight, and the ultimatum — is scripted in **[Mags — Act 2: The Reveal](../npc/mags.md#act-2--the-reveal-dm)**.
+- Both factions immediately blame each other. Mags, for show, blames the strangers (see her two-layer accusation in the same section).
+
+> **DM — the murder is the plan, not the start of the mystery.** Xarrul didn't kill Orenn for spite or to frame anyone (those are bonuses). It killed him to make **Mags seal the house.** A killing in the Nether Inn is what triggers the lockdown, and the lockstone she shatters is the closed cross-planar vessel Xarrul needs to finish crossing (see [the ward-crystal's true nature](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door)). It chose *Orenn* — the calm one — so that the *grieving* one would be left holding the stone and would use it on protocol. The whole "who killed the barkeep" question is the fiend's smokescreen: the answer (a fiend) comes cheap and early, and the real question is what it's *doing* with the sealed house.
+
+#### The Brawl Toolkit
+
+Don't restat the room. Hand any NPC these non-lethal moves and narrate fast. All damage is bludgeoning and non-lethal — a PC reduced to 0 is unconscious (treat as 1 HP), never dying.
+
+- **Haymaker.** +4 to hit, 1d4+2 bludgeoning; target briefly off-balance.
+- **Bottle / crockery.** Thrown 10 ft or swung: 1d6 bludgeoning, DC 12 DEX save for half. Shatters into difficult terrain.
+- **Chair / stool.** 1d6+2 bludgeoning plus a Shove (STR save DC 13 or knocked 5 ft / prone). The classic "flying chair" that drags a PC into the fray.
+- **Shove / grapple.** STR (Athletics) contest — move them, prone them, pin them to the bar.
+- **Table-flip.** Kael's opener: instant cover, a ramp of difficult terrain, and a body or two knocked back.
+- **Signature casts (non-lethal-flavored):**
+  - **Rennt — Thunderwave** (the blackout, on cue a few rounds in): 2d8 thunder, DC 13 CON for half, pushed 10 ft; snuffs the candles.
+  - **A cultist / Essek — *gust of wind* effect:** no damage, just throws people, papers, and flame.
+  - **A blade — disarming shove or a flung tankard:** reposition, don't wound.
+
+Roll initiative only if your table wants dice; otherwise run it as a narrated montage with a decision point or two, and cut it off with the Thunderwave.
 
 ---
 
@@ -34,14 +67,15 @@
 - **Position:** On his back behind the bar. He fell backward.
 - **Expression:** Surprise. Not fear, not pain.
 - **The Brand:** A black mark on his chest, hand-shaped, visible through his shirt. The shirt is not burned — the damage is beneath the skin.
-- **No other injuries.** He was not struck, stabbed, or poisoned.
-- **Time of death:** During the brawl. Within the last 10 minutes.
+- **A mundane knock (decoy).** He's bruised and bleeding from a blow he took wading into the brawl — a split scalp, a cracked rib from a bottle or chair. It *looks* like the brawl killed him. It didn't (DC 14 Medicine): the injury is survivable; the fatal damage is internal, and it has no external wound to explain it.
+- **No killing blow.** Beyond the decoy knock, nothing — he was not stabbed, run through, or poisoned. The brand did all the real work.
+- **Time of death:** During the brawl, in the blackout. Within the last 10 minutes.
 
 ### Examination DCs
 
 | Check | DC | Result |
 |-------|-----|--------|
-| Medicine 10 | Easy | He's dead. Cause: massive internal damage to the heart and surrounding tissue. No external wound. |
+| Medicine 10 | Easy | He's dead. There's a brawl knock (bruising, a scalp cut) — but the killing damage is massive internal trauma to the heart, with no external wound to explain it. |
 | Medicine 14 | Medium | The damage radiates *outward* from the heart, as if something ignited inside him. Not natural, not any poison known to the examiner. |
 | Arcana 12 | Easy | The brand radiates faint necrotic energy. This is magical damage. |
 | Arcana 15 | Medium | Fiendish signature. The necrotic energy pattern is consistent with fiend-origin abilities, not mortal spellcasting. No one at the cultist table could have done this. |
@@ -80,11 +114,11 @@ The clues are designed to point at both factions while the truth (the fiend) hid
 |------|----------|----|----------------|
 | Claw marks behind bar | Bar floor | Investigation 16 | Something partially manifested here |
 | Bren's testimony | Bren (agitated state) | Persuasion/patience | "A hand that wasn't a hand, reaching through the thin place" |
-| Cracked ward-sigils | Cellar foundation | Arcana 13–15 | Something has been breaking the wards from the Ethereal Plane |
+| Siphoned foundation sigils | Cellar foundation | Arcana 13–15 | Something ethereal has been feeding on the summoners' old work here — points *down* |
 | Vetch's observations | Vetch (if given dust or befriended) | — | Something dark and hungry in the Ethereal Plane |
 | Ethereal trail (timed) | Behind bar → cellar | Detect Magic within 30 min | The killer went *down* — toward the thin point |
 | Partial manifestation scratches | Private room table | Investigation 14 + Arcana 16 | Someone mapped the wards to *break* them |
-| Orenn's preparations | Storage compartment, bedroom | Investigation 15+ | Orenn was preparing for something fiendish |
+| Orenn's preparations | Storage compartment, bedroom | Investigation 15+ | Orenn feared something not-human was moving — and hedged |
 | Orenn's letter | Mags's apron | — | "If something happens to me in the bar, it came from between." |
 
 ---
@@ -95,7 +129,7 @@ The clues are designed to point at both factions while the truth (the fiend) hid
 Players will likely:
 - Examine the body → learn it's magical/fiendish damage
 - Question both factions → get conflicting accusations
-- Talk to eyewitnesses → nobody saw anything (they were brawling)
+- Talk to eyewitnesses → nobody saw anything (they were brawling, and the room was black)
 
 **Expected result:** Confusion. Both sides have motive. The evidence is contradictory.
 
@@ -110,9 +144,9 @@ As players dig deeper:
 
 ### Late Phase (60+ minutes)
 If players pursue the fiend angle:
-- Ward-sigils in the cellar confirm long-term ethereal interference
+- The siphoned sigils and the failing seal below confirm long-term ethereal interference
 - Veil Dust trip reveals Xarrul (and Skein, and the thin point)
-- Orenn's letter and bestiary confirm he knew something was coming
+- Orenn's letter and bestiary confirm he feared something not-human was moving — though he never knew it was under his own floor
 - Essek (if gotten alone) reveals the summoning
 
 **Expected result:** Players understand what happened. Now they have to decide what to do about it.
@@ -123,11 +157,11 @@ If players pursue the fiend angle:
 
 These are Xarrul's work — the fiend actively planted or encouraged these:
 
-1. **Xarrul whispered to Kael** (using Voice Thief, mimicking a cultist's voice) that the cultists were laughing about taking guild contracts. This is what pushed Kael over the edge into starting the brawl. The brawl was engineered.
+1. **Xarrul engineered the brawl.** Kael's confrontation with Haddon was real and his anger genuine — but the *laugh* that tipped him over (Rennt's) was amplified in his ears by Xarrul (Voice Thief), which layered a fabricated cultist "confession" under it that only Kael heard. Understanding this requires asking Kael *exactly* what set him off ("One of them laughed and said the noble squealed. Clear as day." — Rennt laughed, but never said that). The brawl gave Xarrul its cover.
 
 2. **A cultist component pouch** was left near the bar (Xarrul moved it from the table during the chaos). It contains ritual chalk and dried blood. DC 17 Investigation to realize the pouch was placed deliberately — the blood is old and doesn't match the murder.
 
-3. **An assassin's dagger** under a barstool near Orenn's body. It fell during the brawl — genuinely accidental, not planted by Xarrul — but its proximity to the body is suspicious.
+3. **Dace's dagger** under a barstool near Orenn's body. It fell during the brawl — genuinely accidental, not planted by Xarrul — but it's a nasty red herring in its own right: a quality piece with a Scales-guild hilt *and* ritual sigils etched down the blade, so it reads as both an assassin's sidearm and a cultist ritual knife. It's still coated in **Essence of Ether** (a PC who handles it roughly makes a DC 13 CON save or drops unconscious for 1 minute). Its proximity to the body implicates *both* factions and, for anyone who digs, points at Dace himself — the blade's sigils match the second cultist pin hidden in his boot (DC 14 Investigation of his person). A productive dead-end: it cracks open the traitor, not the murder.
 
 ---
 

storylines/order-of-mending.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# The Lambent Order — Cultist Subplot
+# The Order of Mending — Cultist Subplot
 
 ## The Grand Design: The Opening
 
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ Phase Two is beyond the scope of this session, but its existence adds weight:
 
 - Mother Vyre plans to summon something **far more powerful** than Xarrul at a major thin point — a nexus where multiple planar boundaries converge.
 - The summoning requires components that Phase One was meant to test: binding techniques, blood sacrifice potency, and control duration.
-- The Burnt Tongue was chosen as a test site because of its natural thin point — the tavern sits on one of the locations Mother Vyre has mapped.
+- The Nether Inn was chosen as a test site because of its natural thin point — the tavern sits on one of the locations Mother Vyre has mapped.
 - Haddon's journal contains references to Phase Two. Essek has seen Mother Vyre's private correspondence about it.
 - Even if players resolve everything tonight, Phase Two is still in motion somewhere. The Opening hasn't stopped — it's just lost one test site.
 
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ If players never uncover the truth about The Opening — or if they side with th
 
 - Requires new binding components from Tallow (he'll sell them, ~50 gp total)
 - Requires Dalla's blood (she rolls up her sleeves without hesitation)
-- Requires the binding circle in the cellar (DC 16 Arcana to adapt Orenn's circle)
+- Requires the binding circle in the cellar (DC 16 Arcana to adapt the summoners' circle)
 - Haddon leads the ritual, Rennt assists, takes 10 minutes
 
 **If it succeeds:** Xarrul is bound again. The cult has their weapon back. Dalla's connection stabilizes — Lístek stops getting worse but doesn't improve. The child stays frozen. The cult continues toward Phase Two. Dalla tells herself this is progress. Players leave having "solved" the murder by rebinding the weapon, but they've handed the cult exactly what it wanted.
@@ -206,7 +206,7 @@ Only happens if players uncover the real nature of The Opening and share it:
 - Essek follows if he feels protected — he's been waiting for someone to give him permission to speak
 - Haddon tries to hold the group, but losing Dalla and Essek guts his authority
 - Rennt is the last holdout — he doesn't care what The Opening actually means, he believes regardless. May need to be restrained.
-- **Result:** The Lambent Order's local cell collapses. Mother Vyre's network survives, but she's lost her people in this area.
+- **Result:** The Order of Mending's local cell collapses. Mother Vyre's network survives, but she's lost her people in this area.
 
 ### The Cult Is Exposed to the Assassins
 If the assassins learn the cult summoned a fiend to kill Sevra:

storylines/possession.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 ## Overview
 
-Bren Aldara was an arcanist. Seven years ago, he studied a thin point between planes — this one, beneath the Burnt Tongue — and something latched on. **Skein**, a parasitic entity from the Ethereal Plane, attached itself to Bren's mind and has been feeding on him ever since. What the tavern patrons see as a madman talking to himself is a prisoner begging his captor for mercy.
+Bren Aldara was an arcanist. Seven years ago, he studied a thin point between planes — this one, beneath the Nether Inn — and something latched on. **Skein**, a parasitic entity from the Ethereal Plane, attached itself to Bren's mind and has been feeding on him ever since. What the tavern patrons see as a madman talking to himself is a prisoner begging his captor for mercy.
 
 This subplot is about recognizing that what looks like madness is actually captivity, and choosing whether to do anything about it.
 
@@ -55,6 +55,14 @@ Skein is not a fiend, not undead, not aberrant in the traditional sense. It's a
 
 ---
 
+## DM — Bren as a Xarrul-Detector
+
+Skein is deeply afraid of Xarrul, and fear *distracts* it. When the fiend comes near, Skein's attention snaps to the bigger predator, its grip on Bren slips, and Bren surfaces. This is why his lucid windows cluster around Xarrul's presence: beyond the occasional sentence that slips past Skein's active silencing (see **Silence the Host**, above), the *deeper* lucidity comes from the parasite being too frightened to concentrate. Xarrul knows this and does **not** provoke Skein on purpose — agitating the parasite would only free the witness's tongue. But it can't help it: **its mere presence sets Skein off.**
+
+The upshot for the table: **Bren is a fiend-detector the players can learn to read.** When the madman suddenly goes rigid, stares at empty air, or snaps briefly coherent, Xarrul is near *right now* — often because it has just come close to work the room or to edit a memory (its **Waking Dream** needs line of sight; see [Xarrul — The Two Jobs](../npc/xarrul.md)). Kael witnessed this during the brawl without understanding it: Bren went stiff, staring at the bar, at the exact moment Xarrul was killing Orenn behind it. A party that clocks the pattern gains a dowsing rod for the invisible thing hunting them — and a warning that a memory near them may have just been rewritten.
+
+---
+
 ## How Players Discover the Possession
 
 ### Stage 1: Something's Off

storylines/the-reckoning.md

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ Players arrive at the Reckoning through any combination of:
 - Essek revealing the summoning
 - Veil Dust trip exposing Xarrul
 - Orenn's letter and preparations in the storage room
-- Exploring the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md) — the chalk-wall notes and the [Guest's](../npc/the-guest.md) cult-infiltration intel both point at the Lambent Order and the summoning; the vault arms the party for the fight
+- Exploring the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md) — the chalk-wall notes and the [Guest's](../npc/the-guest.md) cult-infiltration intel both point at the Order of Mending and the summoning; the vault arms the party for the fight
 - Logical deduction from the ambiguous clues
 
 There is no "right" order. The Reckoning begins when the players know enough to act and choose to do so.
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ There is no "right" order. The Reckoning begins when the players know enough to
 
 ## The Clock
 
-The Reckoning is player-driven, but it is not *timeless*. With Orenn dead, no one is mending the ward-sigils, and the thin point widens as the night runs — the **ward-clock** ([xarrul.md — The Night's Clock](../npc/xarrul.md#the-nights-clock--presence--escalation)). The longer the players wait, the colder the room, the bolder Xarrul, the higher the body count. If they never act at all, the clock runs out and Xarrul **crosses over completely**: permanent, material, no Slip Between escape, far worse to fight. This is the pressure that keeps Act 4 from drifting. Slowing it — the iron bell, re-powering the cellar containment, the fifth rule's burn-and-seal — is the pushback; letting it run is its own quiet choice.
+The Reckoning is player-driven, but it is not *timeless*. When Mags shattered the summoners' lockstone in Act 2, she sealed the house across every plane into a **closed vessel** — and that is exactly what Xarrul needed to finish crossing. It now has until **midnight**, when the seal lapses, to complete the crossing through the old tear in the cellar — the **lockdown clock** ([xarrul.md — The Night's Clock](../npc/xarrul.md#the-nights-clock--presence--escalation) and [the ward-crystal's true nature](../location/tavern-overview.md#the-enchanted-door)). The longer the players wait, the colder the room, the bolder Xarrul, the higher the body count. If they never act at all, the clock runs out and Xarrul **crosses over completely**: permanent, material, no Slip Between escape, far worse to fight. This is the pressure that keeps Act 3 from drifting. Slowing or breaking it — **breaching a sealed exit** to re-open the vessel, the iron bell, re-powering the cellar containment, the fifth rule's burn-and-seal — is the pushback; letting it run is its own quiet choice.
 
 ---
 
@@ -39,9 +39,9 @@ Players know about Xarrul, have combat resources, and go to the cellar to fight
 
 **Methods to force Xarrul into the Material Plane:**
 - **Fiendbane Manacles** (from Tallow, 200 gp): Restrain it on the Material Plane for 1 hour
-- **Fiendbane Salt** (from the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-cleaners-arsenal) vault, 4 doses): a thrown pinch anchors it to its plane until the end of its next turn (DC 14 CHA save) — the exploration reward that lets a party pin Xarrul without spending gold at Tallow's
-- **The iron bell** (main hall fireplace): Partially restores wards, giving Xarrul disadvantage on Ethereal Jaunt
-- **Orenn's binding circle** (cellar floor): If lured inside, DC 17 CHA save or trapped
+- **Fiendbane Salt** (from the [Deep Cellar](../location/deep-cellar.md#the-fixers-arsenal) vault, 4 doses): a thrown pinch anchors it to its plane until the end of its next turn (DC 14 CHA save) — the exploration reward that lets a party pin Xarrul without spending gold at Tallow's
+- **The iron bell** (main hall fireplace): an old house-relic that wakes the foundation sigils for a time, giving Xarrul disadvantage on Ethereal Jaunt
+- **The binding circle** (cellar floor; the summoners', not Orenn's): if lured inside, DC 17 CHA save or trapped
 - **Warding chalk circles** (from storage): Minor constraint, 10 minutes per use
 - **Force damage:** Affects ethereal creatures from the Material Plane
 
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ The "easy" resolution. Haddon proposes recapturing Xarrul using the binding circ
 **Requirements:**
 1. Binding components from Tallow (~50 gp)
 2. Dalla's blood (she gives it willingly — rolls up her sleeves without hesitation)
-3. Orenn's binding circle in the cellar (DC 16 Arcana to adapt it for rebinding rather than containment)
+3. The summoners' binding circle in the cellar (DC 16 Arcana to adapt it for rebinding rather than containment)
 4. Xarrul must be lured to the cellar or forced onto the Material Plane
 5. Haddon leads the ritual (10 minutes, concentration), Rennt assists
 
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ The "easy" resolution. Haddon proposes recapturing Xarrul using the binding circ
 
 The "true" way to destroy Xarrul — synchronized destruction in both the Material and Ethereal planes. This is the method that cures Dalla's child. It's also the method that tears the veil.
 
-**This scenario is only available if Dalla has broken from the Order** (see [Lambent Order — Dalla's Breakdown](lambent-order.md)). A loyal Dalla would never consider destroying the fiend over rebinding it — destruction serves no purpose to the cult. The dual-plane kill requires a Dalla who understands the real cost of the cult's path and is willing to abandon it for her daughter. Players who never uncover the truth about The Opening never reach this option.
+**This scenario is only available if Dalla has broken from the Order** (see [Order of Mending — Dalla's Breakdown](order-of-mending.md)). A loyal Dalla would never consider destroying the fiend over rebinding it — destruction serves no purpose to the cult. The dual-plane kill requires a Dalla who understands the real cost of the cult's path and is willing to abandon it for her daughter. Players who never uncover the truth about The Opening never reach this option.
 
 **Requirements:**
 1. At least one character on the Ethereal Plane (Veil Dust at the thin point = 10 minutes, or Oil of Etherealness from Orenn's bedroom = 1 hour)
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ Then the veil snaps back. The tear heals. Xarrul is gone.
 Xarrul is ancient and pragmatic. If cornered and unable to escape, it will negotiate.
 
 **What Xarrul offers:**
-- Everything it knows about the Lambent Order, Mother Vyre, and Phase Two
+- Everything it knows about the Order of Mending, Mother Vyre, and Phase Two
 - The truth about Dace's treachery
 - Information about Skein and how to kill it
 - The names and locations of other fiends bound by mortal cults in the region
@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ The darkest ending — and the one that most fully commits to the module's thesi
 **What it requires**
 
 1. **A vessel.** Default: the caged **Guest** — a body that can be anyone, poured full of an honest fiend. The knife: the Guest is **annihilated** in the process. A party that frees the Guest out of *mercy* may be handing Xarrul its skin — and the Guest, who reads thoughts, may know it, becoming either a desperate ally against Xarrul or a rival racing to the same door. *(Alternatives: a PC volunteers as host — the most personal; that character leaves the party. Or simply leave the door open — Xarrul crosses as itself, weaker, and finds a host later.)*
-2. **The crossing.** Run out the [ward-clock](#the-clock) (keep the players from mending the wards) or complete the crossing at the rift, while holding off anyone who tries to stop it.
+2. **The crossing.** Let the [lockdown clock](#the-clock) run — keep anyone from breaching the seal or waking the sigils — or complete the crossing at the rift, while holding off anyone who tries to stop it.
 3. **Getting past Mags.** She will not accept this.
 
 **Mags, and the shape of the finale.** Mags says *"No"* — simple, final. Siding with Xarrul means going through the widow of the man it murdered, in front of her. So Xarrul triggers the [Warden's Mark](../npc/mags.md#the-wardens-mark-dm) — its first favor to its new allies — and Mags fights *compromised*, grief-broken and half-frozen in a vision of Orenn's death. This is not a slugfest but a **desperate holding action**: complete the crossing while a diminished Mags throws everything she has left at the objective. Winnable, tragic, and *the players'* to win. It ends not with a clean kill but with her going down and the fiend quietly thanking them. (For a bigger fight, add **Sevra** at her side.)
@@ -179,7 +179,7 @@ If players pursue the dual-plane kill, they face the moral question at the heart
 | **Rennt** | Ecstatic. Helps eagerly. "The planes want to touch!" | Validates everything he believes. |
 | **Essek** | Terrified. "You're proving her right." | Knows what Phase Two means. |
 | **Haddon** | Quiet. Watching. Taking notes. | This is exactly the data he needs. |
-| **Mags** | Conflicted. She wants Xarrul dead. But not like this. "Orenn spent fifteen years keeping this thin point stable. You're going to tear it open to kill one fiend?" | She respects the sacrifice but fears the consequence. |
+| **Mags** | Conflicted. She wants Xarrul dead. But not like this. "That tear's been sealed under my feet for fifteen years and I slept fine. You want to rip it *wider* to kill one fiend?" | She respects the sacrifice but fears the consequence. |
 | **Sevra** | Pragmatic. "Does it work? Then do it. Worry about theory later." | Results-oriented. |
 | **Bren** (if lucid) | "The thin point has been growing for years. One more tear won't matter." (This might be true. Or it might be exactly what Skein wants him to say.) | Unknown — is this Bren's genuine assessment or Skein's manipulation? |
 
@@ -252,9 +252,9 @@ Dawn comes. Mags opens the doors. People leave. The night is over.
 
 ## Alternative Ending: The Bell
 
-If players repaired the wards AND rang the iron bell AND have Xarrul trapped in the cellar's binding circle:
+If players **rekindled the foundation sigils** AND rang the iron bell AND have Xarrul trapped in the cellar's binding circle:
 
-The wards flare to life. The thin point *contracts*. Xarrul, caught between the binding circle and the restored wards, is crushed between planes — not killed, but *sealed*. Trapped in the space between Material and Ethereal, conscious, unable to move, unable to escape. A fate some would call worse than death.
+The old sigils flare to life. The thin point *contracts*. Xarrul, caught between the binding circle and the woken sigils, is crushed between planes — not killed, but *sealed*. Trapped in the space between Material and Ethereal, conscious, unable to move, unable to escape. A fate some would call worse than death.
 
 The child is not cured (the binding energy isn't released). But Xarrul is contained. The thin point stabilizes. The tavern is safe again.