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npc/assassins.md

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+# The Guild of Knives — Assassins
+
+*"We are not murderers. Murderers are sloppy, emotional, and cheap. We are professionals who provide a service that civilized society pretends it doesn't need. There is a difference."*
+— Sevra
+
+---
+
+## The Guild
+
+The Guild of Knives is the city's oldest professional assassination ring. They operate on a strict code: clean kills, no collateral, no civilians, no suffering. They view their work as a craft — ugly but necessary, and deserving of the same discipline as surgery or law. Payment is always upfront, contracts are honored, and the guild's reputation is its currency.
+
+The guild has been in quiet conflict with the Lambent Order for months. The cultists have been taking side jobs — messy, ritualistic kills that undercut the guild's market and damage its reputation. Worse, someone within the guild has been *cooperating* with them.
+
+Tonight, three named members are present, plus three unnamed guild soldiers.
+
+---
+
+## Sevra — The Commander
+
+*"I don't need you to like me. I need you to be honest with me. Those are very different requests, and one of them will keep you alive."*
+
+### Stat Block
+
+**Sevra** — Medium humanoid (human), lawful evil
+**AC** 16 (studded leather + DEX) | **HP** 52 (8d8+16) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 11 (+0) | 18 (+4) | 14 (+2) | 16 (+3) | 15 (+2) | 14 (+2) |
+
+**Saving Throws** DEX +7, INT +6
+**Skills** Stealth +7, Deception +5, Insight +5, Perception +5, Investigation +6
+**Senses** passive Perception 15
+**Languages** Common, Elvish, Thieves' Cant
+
+**Assassinate.** During the first round of combat, Sevra has advantage on attacks against any creature that hasn't taken a turn yet. Any hit against a surprised creature is a critical hit.
+
+**Sneak Attack (1/turn).** 3d6 extra damage when she has advantage or an ally is within 5 ft. of the target.
+
+**Evasion.** Half damage on failed DEX saves, no damage on success.
+
+### Actions
+
+**Multiattack.** Two shortsword attacks.
+
+**Shortsword.** Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6+4) piercing damage.
+
+**Hand Crossbow.** Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6+4) piercing damage.
+
+### Appearance & Personality
+
+Mid-forties, lean, angular face, dark skin, close-cropped black hair. Every movement is deliberate. She sits with her back to the wall, eyes on every entrance. Wears practical dark clothing — no ornamentation, no vanity. A thin scar crosses her throat — someone tried to cut it years ago. The someone is dead.
+
+Sevra is the senior guild member present. She's holding the guild together through sheer authority while dealing with the mole, the territorial dispute with the cultists, and now a murder investigation. She's stretched thin but would die before showing it.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Utterly composed. Speaks in measured, precise sentences.
+- Values honesty in a transactional sense — she keeps her word because her word has value.
+- Pragmatic to the bone. She'll work with players if the math works out.
+- Suspects Dace is the traitor but needs proof. Moving on a guild member without evidence breaks the code and fractures the guild.
+
+### What She Knows
+
+**Will share if players approach professionally (show competence, don't moralize):**
+- The brawl started because Kael confronted the cultists about a contract kill in the Merchant Quarter — a noble found dead with ritual marks. It was the guild's contract, paid for and accepted. Someone else did the kill.
+- The guild has a mole. Kills are being sold to outside buyers. Bodies are showing up wrong — missing parts, ritualistic damage.
+- She didn't kill Orenn. The guild respected the rules. "Orenn was worth more alive to us than anyone in this room."
+
+**Will trade for proof of the traitor's identity:**
+- The guild will withdraw from the tavern peacefully — no faction war.
+- She'll share everything she knows about the cultists' activities, including safe house locations.
+- She owes the party a favor — one job, any target, with the usual code in place.
+
+---
+
+## Dace — The Traitor
+
+*"Relax, friend. Drink? It's going to be a long night — might as well be comfortable."*
+
+### Stat Block
+
+**Dace** — Medium humanoid (human), neutral evil
+**AC** 15 (studded leather + DEX) | **HP** 44 (8d8+8) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 12 (+1) | 16 (+3) | 12 (+1) | 14 (+2) | 10 (+0) | 18 (+4) |
+
+**Skills** Deception +8, Persuasion +8, Stealth +5, Performance +6, Sleight of Hand +5
+**Senses** passive Perception 10
+**Languages** Common, Thieves' Cant, Halfling
+
+**Sneak Attack (1/turn).** 2d6 extra damage.
+
+### Actions
+
+**Shortsword.** +6 to hit, 1d6+3 piercing.
+**Dagger (concealed).** +6 to hit, 1d4+3 piercing. Coated with **Essence of Ether** (DC 13 CON save or fall unconscious for 1 minute).
+
+### Appearance & Personality
+
+Late twenties, handsome, easy smile. Sandy hair, bright eyes, the kind of face you'd trust to watch your drink. He's the assassin who doesn't look like an assassin — the one who gets close to targets through charm, not stealth. He's everyone's friend at the table and nobody's friend in truth.
+
+Dace has been selling guild contracts to the Lambent Order for six months. The cultists need fresh kills for ritual components — hearts still warm, blood drained into sanctified vessels. Dace provides the bodies and takes a cut on top of his guild pay. He doesn't believe in the cult's ideology — he just likes money, and he finds the moral panic about his sideline amusing.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- The most likeable person in the room. Friendly, warm, buys drinks, makes jokes.
+- A clinical sociopath who learned charm as a professional skill.
+- Will actively "help" the investigation — volunteering theories, offering to search rooms, being useful — while subtly steering suspicion toward the cultists.
+- If cornered with evidence, his warmth evaporates instantly. The real Dace is cold, calculating, and willing to fight his way out.
+
+### His Secret
+
+Dace has been meeting a Lambent Order contact in the tavern's private room to arrange deliveries. The ward-sigil diagram scratched into the table was made during one of these meetings — the contact was Haddon, mapping the wards as part of the cult's broader plan. Dace didn't care what the diagram meant; he was there to negotiate prices.
+
+**Evidence linking Dace:**
+- DC 16 Insight during conversation: Something about his helpfulness is *too* practiced. He's performing.
+- Tallow (for a price) will confirm that Dace has been meeting "a scholar type" in the private room regularly.
+- Kael, if asked privately, will say Dace was the last person to take a guild contract that ended up with ritual marks on the body. "He said he subcontracted the cleanup. Since when do we subcontract?"
+- The cultist pin found in the private room — Dace pockets things. A DC 14 Investigation of his person finds a **second cultist pin** hidden in his boot, kept as insurance.
+
+### If Exposed
+
+Dace tries to talk his way out first (Deception +8). If that fails, he turns violent — he'll grab the nearest person as a hostage (likely Vetch or Bren) and demand safe passage. If that fails, he fights. He's dangerous but not suicidal — at half HP, he surrenders.
+
+Sevra's reaction to proof: cold fury. She won't kill him in the bar (the rules still matter to her, even now), but she will restrain him and promise that guild justice will follow. This is worse than a quick death and everyone knows it.
+
+---
+
+## Kael — The Hothead
+
+*"I'm done talking. I've been done talking since they started poaching our work. Every day we sit here is a day they get bolder."*
+
+### Stat Block
+
+**Kael** — Medium humanoid (half-orc), chaotic evil
+**AC** 15 (chain shirt + DEX) | **HP** 45 (6d8+18) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 16 (+3) | 14 (+2) | 16 (+3) | 10 (+0) | 11 (+0) | 12 (+1) |
+
+**Skills** Intimidation +4, Athletics +6, Perception +3
+**Senses** darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
+**Languages** Common, Orc, Thieves' Cant
+
+**Relentless Endurance.** Drops to 1 HP instead of 0, once per long rest.
+**Savage Attacks.** Extra damage die on critical hits.
+
+### Actions
+
+**Multiattack.** Two handaxe attacks.
+**Handaxe.** +6 to hit, 1d6+3 slashing. Can be thrown (20/60 ft.).
+
+### Appearance & Personality
+
+Big, scarred, half-orc with a shaved head and a permanent scowl. He's the guild's enforcer — the one they send when subtlety isn't required. His arms are a map of old fights and he wears them like medals.
+
+Kael is loyal to the guild with the fervor of someone who found a family after a lifetime without one. The cult's disrespect enrages him on a personal level — they're not just poaching contracts, they're mocking the guild's code, the only code Kael has ever believed in.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Aggressive but not stupid. He reads rooms badly but reads people well.
+- Fiercely loyal to Sevra. He'll follow her lead even when he disagrees.
+- Honest to a fault. He cannot and will not lie convincingly. If asked direct questions, he answers directly. This makes him the easiest assassin to talk to, despite his hostility.
+- He didn't kill Orenn. He's the most vocally angry about the death, not because of Orenn personally, but because killing in neutral ground is a violation of everything he believes in.
+
+### What He Knows
+
+- The brawl started because he found out about the Merchant Quarter kill. He lost his temper. He'll admit this.
+- He suspects Dace — "Too smooth. Nobody's that nice in this business." But Kael is biased (he's suspicious of everyone personable) and Sevra has told him to drop it without evidence.
+- He saw Bren acting strangely during the brawl — "The crazy one went rigid. Stiff as a board. Staring at the bar. Not at the fight. At the *bar*." This is because Bren/Skein was watching Xarrul kill Orenn.
+
+---
+
+## Unnamed Guild Members (3)
+
+Use **Spy** stat block (MM p.349) for all three. They stay quiet, defer to Sevra, and watch the room. If combat starts, they fight as a unit with Sevra. None of them have useful information — they're muscle.

npc/bren.md

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+# Bren — The Madman
+
+*"Saw it! We saw — can't say, his eyes, his burning eyes, watching! Watching from the shadows that aren't shadows, from the place that's here but isn't — shhh. Shhh. He says I can't. He says I mustn't. But you see it too, don't you? Don't you?"*
+
+---
+
+## Stat Block (Abbreviated)
+
+**Bren** — Medium humanoid (human), chaotic neutral
+**AC** 10 | **HP** 18 (4d8) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 8 (-1) | 10 (+0) | 10 (+0) | 15 (+2) | 6 (-2) | 14 (+2) |
+
+**Skills** Arcana +4 (remnant of former knowledge), Performance +4 (involuntary — Skein uses him)
+**Condition:** Bren is permanently under the effects of a modified Dominate Person. His Wisdom has been reduced from 16 to 6 over years of possession. He cannot be freed by a single spell — see the Possession storyline.
+**Senses** passive Perception 8 (but Skein's passive Perception through him is 16)
+**Languages** Common, Elvish (his original languages); Bren occasionally speaks Abyssal words Skein forces through him
+
+---
+
+## Appearance
+
+A man in his thirties who looks fifty. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, with unkempt dark hair that might once have been carefully maintained. His clothes are layered rags — but beneath the grime, the cut of his original shirt suggests someone who once had means. His hands shake constantly. His eyes dart — not randomly, but in a pattern, tracking something beside him that no one else can see.
+
+He sits on the floor in his corner, knees drawn up, rocking slightly. He mutters constantly. Sometimes it's conversation — animated, responsive, with pauses for a reply only he can hear. Sometimes it's fragments of coherent observation, spoken too fast and too quiet.
+
+## Read-Aloud: First Impression
+
+> *V rohu u baru, přímo na zemi, sedí muž. Kolena přitažená k bradě, ruce ovinuté kolem nohou, oči těkající po místnosti — ne, ne po místnosti. Po něčem vedle něj. Mluví potichu, rychle, s přestávkami, jako by naslouchal odpovědím, které slyší jen on. Občas se zachichotá. Občas zbledne. Před ním na zemi stojí dřevěná miska s pár měďáky.*
+>
+> *Když projdete kolem, zvedne na vás oči. Jen na okamžik. A v tom okamžiku — jen zlomek vteřiny — v nich není šílenství. Je v nich zoufalství. Pak se ta záblesk ztratí a on se vrátí ke svému neviditelnému společníkovi.*
+
+## The Truth: Skein
+
+**Skein** is a parasitic entity from the Ethereal Plane — not a fiend, not an undead, something else. It resembles a translucent spider made of knotted, twisting threads, roughly the size of a large dog. It sits beside Bren in the Ethereal Plane, with thread-like tendrils extending into his skull.
+
+Skein feeds on Bren's mind — his memories, his personality, his will. Over the years, it has hollowed him out. What's left of Bren is genuine: the fear, the desperation, the fragments of the person he was. But Skein controls what he says and does, steering him like a puppet with most of its strings cut.
+
+**Skein's stat block:** See [The Possession](../storylines/possession.md).
+
+**Skein's goals:**
+- Keep feeding. Bren is its host and it doesn't want to lose him.
+- Stay hidden. If anyone discovers Skein, they might try to remove it.
+- Prevent Bren from communicating useful information — but Skein's control isn't perfect. Under emotional stress or when caught off guard, Bren can force words out before Skein clamps down.
+
+## Personality (What's Left of Bren)
+
+Before possession, Bren was a scholar — an arcanist studying planar theory at a small academy. He was curious, gentle, and too trusting. He ventured too close to a thin point during research, and Skein latched on. That was seven years ago.
+
+**What remains:**
+- Intelligence flickers through the madness — he uses words precisely even when they seem nonsensical
+- A deep, desperate desire to communicate what he knows
+- Genuine fear of Skein, expressed as submission and appeasement ("He says I can't, he says, sorry, sorry...")
+- Empathy — he recognizes pain in others and reacts to it, sometimes more clearly than to his own situation
+- Fragments of his old personality surface when Skein is distracted or when Bren is emotionally provoked
+
+## Behavior Patterns
+
+### Default State (Skein in control)
+- Muttering, rocking, seemingly incoherent
+- Tracks Skein's position with his eyes
+- Occasionally laughs at nothing or flinches from nothing
+- Speaks in fragments that sound like madness but contain kernels of truth
+
+### Agitated State (Emotional trigger)
+- Mood swings wildly — weeping to laughing to terrified in seconds
+- Skein is fighting for control; Bren is fighting to speak
+- Can force out partial truths before Skein silences him
+- Physical symptoms: nosebleed, sudden headache, he grabs his head
+
+### Lucid Moment (Skein distracted or weakened)
+- Sudden stillness. Eyes clear. Voice changes — quieter, steadier, *educated*
+- Can speak coherently for 1-3 sentences before Skein reasserts control
+- These moments are rare and precious. They happen when:
+  - Skein is distracted by something in the Ethereal Plane (Xarrul moving nearby)
+  - Someone uses silvervein root near Bren (the ward-herb weakens Skein's grip for 1 round)
+  - A player rolls a natural 20 on a Persuasion or Insight check while talking to Bren
+  - Bren witnesses something that triggers a deep emotional response (kindness, danger to someone he cares about)
+
+## What Bren Knows
+
+He witnessed Orenn's murder from his corner. He saw something no one else could — a shape in the space beside the bar, reaching *through* the air and touching Orenn. He can describe it, but only in fragments.
+
+### Sample Dialogue by State
+
+**Default (useless but atmospheric):**
+- "No no no, not the — he's clean, he keeps them clean, the glasses, always clean..."
+- "Two sides of a coin that isn't a coin, it's a mouth, ha! A mouth with too many teeth..."
+- "He's angry. He's always angry. Aren't you? Yes you are. Don't lie to me."
+
+**Agitated (partial truths, when asked about the murder or fiends):**
+- "Saw it! We saw it — a hand that wasn't a hand, reaching through the thin place, through the *between*, and it touched him and he — *he says I can't say this* — BURNED, burned from inside, from the place you can't see!"
+- "Not them, not the knife-people, not the book-people, something ELSE, something that laughs at both, something that was *invited* and then *uninvited* and now it's just... here. Hungry."
+- "Eyes! Burning eyes in the grey, in the space between spaces — it's been here for weeks, scratching, *scratching at the walls you can't see!*"
+- [Suddenly grabs a player's hand] "The marks on the stones. Underground. It broke them. Night after night. *Tell her.* Tell the woman with the scar. The walls are DOWN."
+
+**Lucid (rare, precious, 1-3 sentences):**
+- [Still, clear voice] "My name is Bren Aldara. I was an arcanist. Something lives beside me and I cannot make it stop. Please — don't leave me like this."
+- [After seeing evidence of the fiend] "It's a fiend. Old and cunning. It killed the barkeep from the other side — reached through the veil and branded him. I watched it happen. [winces, grabs head] I'm not — I can't —" [Skein reasserts control]
+- [If shown genuine kindness] "I can feel it eating me. Every day there's less of me left. If you can... if there's a way... [long pause, tears] ...even if there isn't. Thank you for seeing me."
+
+## How Players Can Help Bren
+
+See [The Possession](../storylines/possession.md) for full details. Summary:
+
+1. **Identify the problem:** DC 14 Arcana while examining Bren detects something attached to him on another plane.
+2. **See Skein:** Requires Veil Dust, See Invisibility, or similar. In the Ethereal Plane, Skein is visible — a knotted spider-thing with tendrils in Bren's skull.
+3. **Weaken Skein:** Silvervein root, Protection from Evil and Good, or damaging Skein on the Ethereal Plane.
+4. **Remove Skein:** Requires direct action on the Ethereal Plane — either killing Skein or severing its tendrils from Bren. Killing Skein is permanent. Severing is temporary (it reattaches in 1d4 hours).
+5. **After removal:** Bren is free but damaged. His Wisdom doesn't fully recover (it rises to 10, not 16). He's lucid but fragile, confused, and will need months of care. He remembers everything — seven years of captivity in his own mind. He's grateful but broken.
+
+## Relationships
+
+- **Orenn:** Fed him, kept him safe, never asked questions. Bren loved him in the quiet way a prisoner loves the guard who shows them kindness. Orenn's death devastates what's left of Bren.
+- **Mags:** She brings him food. She's gruff about it. He can tell she cares. Skein doesn't like her — she's too perceptive.
+- **Skein:** Captor, torturer, constant companion. Bren hates and fears Skein but has developed a horrifying dependency — after seven years, Skein's voice is the most constant thing in his world.
+- **Xarrul:** Bren (through Skein's senses) can feel Xarrul in the Ethereal Plane. Skein is terrified of the fiend — it's bigger, older, more powerful. This fear sometimes overrides Skein's control of Bren, creating lucid openings.

npc/cultists.md

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+# The Lambent Order — Cultists
+
+*"We are not what they call us. We are scholars of the boundary, seekers of the wholeness that was stolen from this world. If they understood what we understand, they would not fear us. They would beg to help."*
+— Haddon, reciting Mother Vyre's words
+
+---
+
+## The Cult
+
+The Lambent Order presents itself as a small, independent mage guild focused on planar theory and boundary research. This is a lie stretched thin over a truth: they *are* studying planar boundaries, but with the intent of destroying them.
+
+Their leader, **Mother Vyre**, is not present. She never comes to the tavern. She communicates through dead drops, coded messages, and — for the inner circle — through dreams. She is the architect of **The Opening**: the dissolution of all planar boundaries, merging the Material Plane with the Ethereal, the Shadowfell, the Feywild, and whatever else lies beyond. She frames this as healing — the planes were once one, and their separation was a wound.
+
+The four members present tonight each know a different amount and joined for different reasons. None of them fully understand what The Opening means at scale.
+
+---
+
+## Mother Vyre — The Absent Leader
+
+Not present but referenced constantly. Players never meet her, but her shadow is over everything the cultists do.
+
+**What the DM should know:**
+- She is genuine. She truly believes the planes should be merged. This makes her more dangerous than a charlatan — her conviction is infectious.
+- She was once an arcanist of real talent. She studied planar theory for decades before concluding that the separation of planes was artificial and harmful.
+- She recruits the vulnerable: the bereaved, the disillusioned, the curious, the angry. She finds the crack in someone and pours conviction into it.
+- She is aware the fiend summoning went wrong but considers it an acceptable setback. "The test demonstrated the principle. The Opening proceeds."
+- Her handwriting appears on: the letter in Tallow's lockbox, dead drop messages Haddon carries, and annotations in one of the books on the cultist table (DC 16 Investigation to match across sources).
+
+---
+
+## Haddon — "Scribe" Haddon, the Scholar
+
+*"Fascinating. Truly fascinating. The planar resonance here is... no, forgive me, I'm boring you with theory. What were you asking about the murder?"*
+
+### Stat Block
+
+**Haddon** — Medium humanoid (human), lawful evil
+**AC** 12 (no armor, DEX) | **HP** 38 (7d8+7) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 9 (-1) | 14 (+2) | 12 (+1) | 18 (+4) | 13 (+1) | 15 (+2) |
+
+**Saving Throws** INT +7, WIS +4
+**Skills** Arcana +7, Deception +5, History +7, Investigation +7, Persuasion +5
+**Senses** passive Perception 11
+**Languages** Common, Draconic, Abyssal, Celestial, Infernal
+
+**Spellcasting.** Haddon is a 5th-level spellcaster (INT, DC 15, +7 to hit):
+- Cantrips: *mage hand, prestidigitation, minor illusion, fire bolt*
+- 1st (4 slots): *detect magic, shield, charm person, disguise self*
+- 2nd (3 slots): *detect thoughts, misty step, suggestion*
+- 3rd (2 slots): *counterspell, dispel magic*
+
+### Appearance & Personality
+
+Mid-fifties, neat grey beard, spectacles, ink-stained fingers. Looks exactly like what he claims to be — a fussy academic. Wears a scholar's robe with the Lambent Order's symbol (an open eye wreathed in flame) pinned to his lapel. Carries books, quills, and a leather journal filled with notes in a cipher.
+
+Haddon is the most dangerous person at the cultist table because he's the best liar. He's reframed everything he's done as research — the summoning was an "experiment," the fiend was a "test subject," and The Opening is a "theoretical framework." He's lying to himself as much as to anyone else.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Compulsively academic. He can't help explaining things, even when silence would be safer. His ego overrides his caution.
+- Constructed his alibi before Orenn's body was cold: "We were all at the table. I can account for every member."
+- Genuinely brilliant. His understanding of planar mechanics is real. This makes him useful to players who need arcane knowledge — and makes his knowledge a trap, because he'll steer it toward conclusions that support The Opening.
+- Does not know Dace is the assassin mole. He's been meeting "an intermediary" in the private room and assumes it's a freelancer, not a guild member. This means exposing Dace to Sevra creates an explosive moment when both factions realize how entangled they are.
+
+### What He Knows
+
+**Will share as "scholarly cooperation":**
+- Planar theory — the basics of how boundaries work, what a thin point is, why the tavern feels strange. All accurate, all framed to normalize The Opening's goals.
+- That the death mark on Orenn is fiendish in nature. "Clearly extraplanar damage. Necrotic, with a fiendish signature. Someone — certainly not us — has been dealing in dark pacts." He'll diagnose the Brand of Spite accurately while deflecting blame.
+- The Lambent Order's "research" into boundary integrity. He'll show the planar diagram on the table if asked, presenting it as theoretical cartography.
+
+**Will not willingly share:**
+- That they summoned a fiend. Specifically, that they summoned **Xarrul** using binding components from Tallow, blood from Dalla, and a name from Mother Vyre's research.
+- That the binding was broken by the assassins (the guild captured the fiend during transit to the assassin target, broke the binds thinking it would just send it home — it didn't).
+- That The Opening is more than theory. That there's a timeline, a plan, and tonight was supposed to be a field test.
+- That the thin point in the cellar is on Mother Vyre's list of potential Opening sites.
+
+### His Journal (DC 16 Thieves' Tools or Sleight of Hand to steal, DC 18 INT to decipher)
+
+Contains detailed notes on the summoning, the binding failure, and references to "Phase Two." Phase Two is a larger summoning — something far more powerful than Xarrul, to be conducted at a major thin point. Tonight's summoning was the proof of concept.
+
+---
+
+## Dalla — The Desperate Parent
+
+*"I don't care about the murder. I don't care about your investigation. I need — I need to know if there's still a way to fix this. That's all I need."*
+
+### Stat Block
+
+**Dalla** — Medium humanoid (human), neutral
+**AC** 11 | **HP** 22 (4d8+4) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 10 (+0) | 12 (+1) | 12 (+1) | 13 (+1) | 14 (+2) | 11 (+0) |
+
+**Skills** Medicine +4, Insight +4, Arcana +3
+**Senses** passive Perception 12
+**Languages** Common
+
+**Spellcasting.** Dalla is a 2nd-level spellcaster (WIS, DC 12, +4 to hit):
+- Cantrips: *spare the dying, guidance*
+- 1st (3 slots): *cure wounds, detect evil and good, sanctuary*
+
+She was never a real mage. Mother Vyre taught her just enough to participate in rituals.
+
+### Appearance & Personality
+
+Thin, early thirties, pale and drawn beyond her years. Dark hair pulled back carelessly. Her forearms are hidden under long sleeves — beneath them, a lattice of old ritual scars where her blood was drawn monthly for the binding. She looks exhausted in a way that sleep can't fix.
+
+Dalla is the emotional core of the cultist group — but she is **loyal to the Order** by default. She didn't join for ideology in the abstract; she joined because Mother Vyre promised to fix her daughter, and she genuinely believes the cause is righteous. The Opening, as Dalla understands it, is healing — making the broken world whole. She's never been told what it actually means at scale.
+
+**Her daughter, Lístek:** Born with one foot in the Ethereal Plane. The child doesn't grow, doesn't speak, stares at things that aren't there. She's three years old and has been three years old for four years. The midwife said the child was "caught between." Mother Vyre said The Opening would make her whole — in a merged world, the child wouldn't be split.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Single-minded about her child. Every conversation orbits back to Lístek.
+- Loyal to the Order and to Mother Vyre. She believes the summoning failure is a setback, not a sign that something is fundamentally wrong. Haddon tells her the binding can be fixed, and she believes him — she *needs* to believe him.
+- Will defend the Order against accusations. "You don't understand what we're trying to do. We're trying to *heal* the world."
+- The monthly blood sacrifice has left her physically weakened. She bruises easily, gets dizzy, and sometimes her hands shake (not unlike Vetch, for different reasons).
+- She will talk about Lístek with anyone who shows genuine interest, but she frames it within the Order's worldview: the separated planes are what's hurting her daughter, and The Opening is the cure.
+
+### Dalla's Two States
+
+**Default: Loyal Believer**
+Dalla supports the Order, backs Haddon's explanations, and pushes back against players who question the cult. She'll talk about her daughter freely but frames everything through the lens of "The Opening will fix this." She sees the failed summoning as a problem to solve, not a reason to doubt. If players suggest rebinding Xarrul, she's enthusiastically on board — "Yes, we can fix this. Haddon says the binding can be restored."
+
+**After the Truth: Broken Believer**
+Dalla breaks **only** when confronted with the real nature of The Opening — that it's not healing but the total dissolution of planar boundaries. Fiends walking streets. The dead rising. Everything bleeding together. This can come from:
+- Essek's testimony about Mother Vyre's private writings
+- Players piecing together what The Opening actually means and explaining it to her with evidence (DC 14 Persuasion with supporting proof — Essek's testimony, Haddon's journal, or direct experience from the Ethereal trip)
+- Seeing the dual-plane kill's momentary veil-tear and understanding viscerally what a full Opening would look like
+
+When Dalla breaks, it's not gentle. The realization that she bled for eight months — that she damaged her own body — for a cause that would drown the world in horror, that the woman who promised to save her daughter was going to unleash hell... that's not doubt. That's betrayal.
+
+### What She Knows
+
+**Will share freely (she's loyal, not secretive about her personal story):**
+- Her daughter's condition and why she joined the Order
+- That the ritual required her blood. Monthly. For eight months. "I would have given more. I still would."
+- That something went wrong with the summoning, but she believes it can be fixed
+- That The Opening will heal the world and make Lístek whole (this is what she's been told)
+
+**Will share as a loyal cultist (if players seem sympathetic to the cause):**
+- The Order's mission as she understands it: "The planes were once one. The separation is what's broken. Mother Vyre is going to fix it."
+- That Haddon is planning to rebind the fiend: "It's not lost. The binding can be restored. We just need to try again."
+- General details of the summoning (she knows a fiend was bound, she provided the blood, it was meant to help the Order's cause against the assassins)
+
+**Will share only AFTER learning the truth about The Opening:**
+- Full details of the summoning: what was summoned (Xarrul), how (binding ritual with her blood, Tallow's components, and Mother Vyre's incantation), and what happened (the assassins intercepted and broke the binding).
+- The cult's target: they sent Xarrul to kill Sevra. The fiend was supposed to eliminate the guild's leadership.
+- That Mother Vyre has a "Phase Two" and Haddon is already planning the next summoning.
+- Where the cult's safehouse is (outside the tavern, but useful for after the session).
+- Everything she knows about the binding mechanics — this is when the dual-plane kill becomes a real option, because only a Dalla who understands the stakes would consider destroying the fiend over rebinding it.
+
+### The Rebinding (Cultist Solution)
+
+Haddon's plan — and Dalla's hope while she's loyal — is to **recapture and rebind Xarrul**. This is presented as the "safe" option within the cult:
+- Requires new binding components (Tallow sold them before, he can supply again — for a price)
+- Requires Dalla's blood again (she'll give it without hesitation)
+- Requires the binding circle in the cellar (Orenn's circle could be repurposed — DC 16 Arcana to adapt it)
+- Haddon leads the ritual. Rennt assists.
+
+**If the rebinding succeeds:** Xarrul is bound again. The cult has its weapon back. Dalla's connection to the binding is restored — which means Lístek's condition might stabilize (stop getting worse) but won't improve. The child stays frozen. Dalla tells herself this is progress. The cult continues toward Phase Two.
+
+**The problem players should see:** Rebinding doesn't fix anything. It restores the status quo that led to tonight. The fiend is a tool again, the cult moves forward, and Dalla's daughter is still trapped. But Dalla won't see this unless she knows what The Opening really means. To her, rebinding is the first step back toward the cure Mother Vyre promised.
+
+### The Cure (Requires Truth)
+
+See [The Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md). The dual-plane kill — synchronized destruction in both the Material and Ethereal planes — releases the stolen vitality used to bind Xarrul. Since Dalla's blood was the binding agent, the energy snaps back along the same path: to Dalla, and through her, to Lístek. The child would begin to grow again. She would become whole.
+
+But the method requires thinning the veil between planes — a micro-Opening. And everyone in the room will have a different opinion about whether that's salvation or catastrophe.
+
+**This option only exists for players who did the work.** If they never uncovered what The Opening really means, Dalla stays loyal and pushes for rebinding. The dual-plane kill requires a Dalla who understands the cost of the cult's path and chooses a different one. Earning her breakdown earns the choice.
+
+---
+
+## Rennt — The True Believer
+
+*"You think this is wrong? Look around. This world is a cage. The walls are invisible but they're there. Mother Vyre is the only one with the key."*
+
+### Stat Block
+
+**Rennt** — Medium humanoid (human), chaotic neutral
+**AC** 13 (leather armor) | **HP** 33 (6d8+6) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 14 (+2) | 14 (+2) | 12 (+1) | 10 (+0) | 8 (-1) | 16 (+3) |
+
+**Skills** Persuasion +5, Intimidation +5, Athletics +4
+**Senses** passive Perception 9
+**Languages** Common
+
+**Spellcasting.** Rennt is a 2nd-level spellcaster (CHA, DC 13, +5 to hit):
+- Cantrips: *eldritch blast, thaumaturgy*
+- 1st (2 slots): *hellish rebuke, armor of agathys*
+
+His magic comes from the pact — he made a minor warlock bargain as part of his initiation. He doesn't fully understand what he gave up.
+
+### Appearance & Personality
+
+Early twenties, wiry, intense. Dark eyes that burn with conviction. Grew up in the Outer Ring — the city's poorest quarter. Scarred knuckles from street fights. A rough-cut handsome face that would look at home on a rebel or a martyr.
+
+Rennt is the most dangerous kind of extremist: one who's right about the problem and catastrophically wrong about the solution. The world *is* unfair. The poor *are* forgotten. The systems *do* grind people down. Mother Vyre took that legitimate anger and gave it a metaphysical framework: the planes are separated, the world is incomplete, and The Opening will reset everything.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Passionate, articulate in a raw way, and genuinely charismatic. Players might find themselves half-agreeing with him.
+- Handles the "practical" work — he physically handled the binding components, helped set up the summoning circle, and would do it again.
+- Absolutely loyal to Mother Vyre. She's the first person who saw him and told him he mattered.
+- No loyalty to Haddon — he thinks the scholar is a coward who hides behind theory.
+- Has a temper. If provoked or if the Order is insulted, he'll escalate quickly.
+
+### What He Knows
+
+**Will share freely (he's proud of the cause):**
+- The Order's mission in broad, idealistic terms: "The planes were one, once. They should be again. Everything wrong with the world comes from the separation."
+- That Mother Vyre is a visionary who's been planning The Opening for years.
+- That the assassins are "relics" who stand in the way of progress.
+
+**Will share if he thinks you're sympathetic to the cause:**
+- He personally set up the summoning circle for Xarrul. "We bound something powerful. Something that was supposed to fix the balance. The knife-guild interfered."
+- He knows the binding failed. He blames the assassins entirely.
+- He doesn't know Xarrul killed Orenn. If told, his first reaction is denial, then rationalization: "It was bound. The assassins broke it free. The blood is on their hands."
+
+**Will NOT share (because he doesn't know):**
+- The details of Dalla's sacrifice
+- What The Opening actually means at scale
+- Mother Vyre's Phase Two plans
+
+### If the Dual-Plane Kill Is Proposed
+
+Rennt is **ecstatic**. "Do you see? Do you *see*? The planes *want* to touch. You're doing what Mother Vyre always said was possible — proving that the boundary is artificial!" His enthusiasm is genuine and deeply unsettling. He'll actively help with the ritual, which should make players very uncomfortable about what they're doing.
+
+---
+
+## Essek — The Doubter
+
+*[Says nothing. Watches. When finally cornered and alone:]*
+*"I joined because I thought we were studying something beautiful. I stayed because I can't leave. And I'm afraid because I've read what she actually wrote — and it's not what they told us."*
+
+### Stat Block
+
+**Essek** — Medium humanoid (human), neutral good
+**AC** 12 | **HP** 18 (4d8) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 8 (-1) | 14 (+2) | 10 (+0) | 16 (+3) | 14 (+2) | 10 (+0) |
+
+**Skills** Arcana +5, Investigation +5, Stealth +4
+**Senses** passive Perception 12
+**Languages** Common, Draconic, Elvish
+
+**Spellcasting.** Essek is a 3rd-level spellcaster (INT, DC 13, +5 to hit):
+- Cantrips: *mage hand, light, message*
+- 1st (4 slots): *comprehend languages, identify, alarm*
+- 2nd (2 slots): *see invisibility, arcane lock*
+
+He's the most technically skilled caster in the group — his magic is utility-focused, quiet, and cautious. Like him.
+
+### Appearance & Personality
+
+Mid-twenties, thin, unremarkable. The kind of face you forget as soon as you look away. Brown hair, downcast eyes, hunched posture. He sits at the edge of the cultist group, physically and socially. His hands grip his knees under the table. A small mark on his inner left wrist — the initiation brand — occasionally glows faintly amber when he thinks about betraying the Order.
+
+Essek is the closest thing the cultist table has to a conscience, and he's terrified.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Joined the Lambent Order two years ago because the planar research was genuinely fascinating. He was a student, not a zealot.
+- Six months ago, he found Mother Vyre's private correspondence in Haddon's study (he was looking for a reference text). He read enough to understand that The Opening isn't theoretical. It's a plan with a timeline.
+- The initiation brand burns when he considers betrayal — not enough to stop him, but enough to remind him he's watched.
+- He wants out. He's looking for anyone he can trust. Players who approach him gently, privately, and without judgment are his best chance.
+
+### What He Knows (If Gotten Alone and Shown He Can Trust You)
+
+Essek is the **single best source of information** about the cult's true plans. He knows:
+- The Opening is real and planned. Mother Vyre has a timeline. The tavern summoning was Phase One.
+- Phase Two involves summoning something far more powerful than Xarrul at a major thin point. The tavern was a test site.
+- Dalla's sacrifice — he knows about the monthly blood rituals and that her daughter was the leverage. "She didn't choose this. None of us chose what it actually became."
+- The fiend summoning was targeted — Xarrul was sent to kill Sevra and cripple the guild. The assassination failed because the guild captured the fiend in transit.
+- Haddon is in deeper than he admits. He's in regular contact with Mother Vyre and is already planning Phase Two logistics.
+- **The brand on his wrist** can be broken by Remove Curse or by the death of the caster who placed it (one of Mother Vyre's lieutenants, not present tonight — this is a thread for beyond the oneshot).
+
+### Getting Essek Alone
+
+This is the challenge. Haddon watches him. Rennt watches everyone. Essek won't speak freely within earshot of the group.
+
+**Methods:**
+- Lure him with a pretext (DC 14 Deception to create a reason for him to step away)
+- Use the private room (if players have secured it)
+- Whisper Chalk (buy from Tallow, write a message only Essek sees)
+- Pass a note during a distraction (the brawl's aftermath, another confrontation)
+- *Message* cantrip if a player has it
+
+If Essek is seen talking to players by Haddon, the scholar will intervene smoothly — "Essek, perhaps you'd be more comfortable back at the table?" — and Essek will comply. His brand flares. He looks at the players with desperate eyes and says nothing.

npc/mags.md

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+# Mags — The Other Half
+
+*"I've skinned things that would make your nightmares cry. So when I say sit down and answer my questions, understand that I'm being polite."*
+
+---
+
+## Stat Block
+
+**Mags** — Medium humanoid (human), neutral
+**AC** 16 (studded leather under her apron + DEX) | **HP** 65 (10d8+20) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 14 (+2) | 18 (+4) | 14 (+2) | 13 (+1) | 16 (+3) | 12 (+1) |
+
+**Saving Throws** DEX +7, WIS +6
+**Skills** Perception +6, Stealth +7, Intimidation +4, Investigation +4, Survival +6
+**Senses** passive Perception 16
+**Languages** Common, Thieves' Cant, Infernal (learned from years of dealing with fiends)
+
+**Cleaner's Instinct.** Mags has advantage on ability checks to track, identify, or analyze fiends and their effects. She can smell brimstone, necrotic residue, and ethereal bleed at close range.
+
+**Retired, Not Soft.** When Mags is below half her maximum HP or when an ally she cares about is threatened, she gains +2 to attack and damage rolls.
+
+### Actions
+
+**Multiattack.** Mags makes two attacks with her short sword or thrown knives.
+
+**+1 Short Sword.** Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d6+5) piercing damage.
+
+**Thrown Knife.** Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d4+4) piercing damage. She carries 4.
+
+### Reactions
+
+**Parry.** Mags adds 3 to her AC against one melee attack that would hit her.
+
+---
+
+## Appearance
+
+Late forties, wiry and hard. Short-cropped grey hair, practical. A scar runs from her left temple to her jaw — a pale, ragged line she makes no effort to hide. Her hands are rough and scarred, a cook's hands layered over a killer's hands. She wears a stained apron over functional clothing and moves through the kitchen with the same economy of motion she once used to clear rooms.
+
+Her eyes are dark and sharp. When she looks at you, she's not making conversation — she's making assessments.
+
+## Read-Aloud: After the Murder
+
+> *Žena, která vyšla z kuchyně, není vysoká, ale nějak zabírá víc prostoru, než by měla. Šedé krátké vlasy, jizva přes levou tvář, ruce, které vypadají, že celý život dělaly něco těžšího než vaření. Stojí nad Orennovým tělem a nehýbe se. Nedýchá. Aspoň se to tak zdá.*
+>
+> *Pak zvedne hlavu a podívá se do místnosti. Její oči přejedou přes každý obličej — ne rychle, ne pomalu. Přesně tak, jak je potřeba, aby si každý zapamatovala. Když promluví, její hlas je tichý a plochý jako čepel nože položená na stole.*
+>
+> *"Tohle je můj dům. Tenhle muž byl můj —" Zarazí se. Polkne. "— byl můj. A nikdo z téhle místnosti neodejde, dokud nebudu vědět, proč je mrtvý."*
+
+## Personality
+
+Mags grieves the way a blade rusts — slowly, internally, and it makes her more dangerous, not less. She won't cry in front of anyone. She might not cry at all. What she will do is find the thing that killed Orenn and end it with the same professional precision she's used her entire life.
+
+She is direct, blunt, and has no patience for lies. She can tell when someone is hiding something — years of interrogating captured fiends gave her an instinct for deception that borders on supernatural (WIS 16, Insight +6 effectively).
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Doesn't ask questions she doesn't already suspect the answer to
+- Respects competence, regardless of morality
+- Will work with anyone — assassin, cultist, player — if it gets her closer to the truth
+- Has not processed Orenn's death and will not during this session. She's running on professional autopilot. The crash comes later, when the doors open and the night is over.
+- She knows fiends. When players bring evidence of fiendish involvement, something changes in her — the grief hardens into something older: the *work*.
+
+## What She Knows
+
+**Will share freely:**
+- The tavern's rules, history, and clientele
+- That the assassins and cultists have been at each other's throats for weeks
+- That Orenn was more than a barkeep — "we used to solve problems together. The kind you don't talk about."
+- That Bren has been getting worse lately — more agitated, more controlled
+
+**Will share if players earn trust (show evidence, demonstrate competence, or show genuine care for Orenn):**
+- The ward-sigils in the cellar and what they do
+- Orenn's letter (if she's read it by then)
+- That the tavern sits on a thin point between planes
+- That Orenn was investigating the Lambent Order
+- The location of the hidden compartment in the storage room
+- How to activate the iron bell (partially restores wards)
+
+**Will share only under extreme circumstances (direct evidence of the fiend, the brand explained, or if she's convinced the players are the only chance):**
+- Full details of their cleaner past
+- How to use the binding circle in the cellar
+- Her assessment of whether the fiend can be beaten ("Orenn and I could have taken it. Orenn and I. One of us isn't here anymore.")
+- The Oil of Etherealness in the bedroom
+
+## Her Role in the Session
+
+Mags is the emotional anchor and the gatekeeper. She controls access to the tavern's secrets and to the most powerful tools available. She's also the person enforcing the lockdown — which means she's keeping assassins and cultists in the same room, a pressure cooker that she's managing through sheer force of will.
+
+She will not fight alongside the players unless the fiend manifests in the Material Plane inside the tavern. Then all bets are off. The retirement ends and the cleaner comes back.
+
+**If the players fail or choose not to confront the fiend:** Mags will hunt it herself after the session ends. She'll probably die. She doesn't care.
+
+## Relationships
+
+- **Orenn:** The one person she let close. They understood each other without needing to explain. Their relationship wasn't romantic in any conventional sense — it was deeper than that, forged in shared trauma and mutual competence. They were partners in every way that mattered.
+- **Tallow:** She tolerates him. He's useful and she knows it. She despises his neutrality but respects his survival instinct.
+- **Bren:** She's been feeding him and keeping him safe for months. She suspects something is wrong beyond madness but hasn't had time to investigate.
+- **Sevra:** Professional respect, mutual wariness. Mags knows what the guild does and doesn't approve, but Sevra has always respected the rules of the house.
+- **Haddon:** She doesn't trust him. Never has. Can't articulate why — just a feeling. (Her instinct is correct.)

npc/orenn.md

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+# Orenn — The Barkeep
+
+*"Welcome to the Burnt Tongue. Sit anywhere. Don't start anything."*
+
+**Status:** Dead. Murdered during the brawl.
+
+---
+
+## Appearance
+
+Tall, lean, mid-fifties. Silver-streaked dark hair pulled back neatly. A close-trimmed beard maintained with more care than the tavern warrants. His clothing was simple but clean — a dark vest over a white shirt with rolled sleeves, revealing old scars on his forearms that he never bothered to hide. His eyes were the kind that measured you completely before you finished sitting down.
+
+In death, his expression is one of genuine surprise. Not fear, not pain. He didn't see it coming — or rather, he didn't believe it possible. Not here. Not in his house.
+
+## Read-Aloud: First Meeting (Before the Brawl)
+
+> *Muž za barem je jiný než všechno kolem. V místnosti plné lidí, kteří vypadají, že by vám za pár měďáků podřízli krk, on vypadá, jako by vám mohl nabídnout čaj. Je vysoký, s klidnýma šedýma očima a pečlivě střiženým plnovousem s proužky stříbra. Pohyby má pomalé a přesné — utírá sklenku utěrkou, která je, a to vás tu překvapí nejvíc, skutečně čistá.*
+>
+> *"Vítejte," řekne hlasem, který nepotřebuje být hlasitý, aby ho bylo slyšet. "Sedněte si, kam chcete. Jídlo máme teplé, pití studené. A jedno prosté pravidlo — v téhle hospodě se nezabíjí." Odmlčí se. Úsměv, který se mu objeví v koutku úst, je zdvořilý, ale nemá v sobě ani kapku humoru. "Dosud to všichni respektovali."*
+
+## Personality
+
+Orenn was the calm at the center of a storm. He spoke quietly because he didn't need to shout. He was polite because politeness costs nothing and buys time. He ran the Burnt Tongue with the same precision he once used to clean fiends out of sewer tunnels — measured, deliberate, with an exit strategy for every scenario.
+
+He believed in rules not because he was lawful but because rules were the only thing that kept this particular powder keg from detonating. He treated every patron — assassin, cultist, beggar, addict — with the same level of professional respect. Not warmth. Respect. There's a difference.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Never raised his voice
+- Remembered every face and every debt
+- Treated Mags as an equal in every sense
+- Was investigating the Lambent Order quietly — he suspected they were more than scholars but hadn't uncovered the truth
+- Kept the old cleaner tools and wards maintained, "just in case"
+- Had a dry sense of humor that surfaced rarely and always caught people off guard
+
+## Background
+
+Orenn was a cleaner for over twenty years. When the city's underworld spawned something it couldn't handle — a rogue summoning, an unbound elemental, a fiend that slipped through a botched portal — the fixers called Orenn and Mags. They worked as a pair: Orenn did the tracking, planning, and binding; Mags did the killing. They were expensive, reliable, and discreet.
+
+They retired fifteen years ago after a job that went wrong — details are scarce, but Mags has a scar that runs from her left temple to her jaw, and Orenn stopped sleeping well after that. They bought the Burnt Tongue because it was the last place anyone would look for them, and because the thin point in the cellar needed watching.
+
+## How He Died
+
+Xarrul killed Orenn with the full chain: **Brand of Spite** to mark him, **Visions of Spite** to freeze him in a hallucination of his own worst fear, then claws through a body that couldn't flinch. Against an unsuspecting, unresisting target with no allies to intervene, all three stages collapsed into seconds. Orenn was behind the bar during the brawl. Everyone was distracted. Xarrul materialized just enough to touch him from the other side, branded him, locked his mind, and struck — then retreated to the Ethereal Plane before the dust settled. The expression on Orenn's face isn't surprise at death. It's the last frame of whatever Xarrul forced him to see.
+
+**Physical evidence on the body:**
+- A **black brand** on his chest, roughly the size of a spread hand. It's not a burn in the traditional sense — the skin is unmarked on the surface, but beneath it the flesh is charred. DC 14 Medicine reveals the damage radiates *outward* from the heart, as if something ignited inside him.
+- **No defensive wounds.** He didn't fight back because there was nothing to fight.
+- **DC 15 Arcana on the brand:** Identifies it as necrotic damage with a fiendish signature. Not any spell in common use — something older, more personal. Like a fingerprint.
+- **DC 18 Arcana:** The brand's pattern contains a fragment of Xarrul's true name. A character who records the pattern and later compares it to fiendish lore (Orenn's bestiary in the bedroom, or Haddon's texts) can identify the specific type of fiend they're dealing with.
+
+## What He Knew (For DM Reference)
+
+Orenn suspected something was wrong for weeks. He noticed:
+- The ward-sigils weakening (he checked them monthly)
+- Increased ethereal bleed-through near the thin point
+- The cultists meeting more frequently and with more urgency
+- Bren's condition worsening (more agitated, more controlled)
+
+He didn't know about Xarrul specifically, but he was preparing. The holy water, silversheen, and warding chalk in the storage room were recent purchases. The letter in Mags's apron was his contingency plan. He ran out of time.
+
+## Items on His Person
+
+- A set of **tavern keys** (all rooms, cellar trapdoor, front door)
+- A **silver ring** (plain, matches one in the lockbox upstairs)
+- 12 gp, 8 sp in a belt pouch
+- A **small silver mirror** (not magical, but Orenn carried it out of habit — in the cleaner days, mirrors were used to spot ethereal entities by the distortion they cause in reflections. DC 15 Perception while using the mirror in the cellar reveals faint distortions near the thin point.)

npc/tallow.md

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+# Tallow — The Fence
+
+*"I don't sell information. I trade in context. There's a difference — and if you can't see it, you can't afford it."*
+
+---
+
+## Stat Block (Abbreviated)
+
+**Tallow** — Medium humanoid (half-elf), neutral
+**AC** 13 (leather armor under his coat) | **HP** 32 (5d8+10) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 8 (-1) | 14 (+2) | 14 (+2) | 17 (+3) | 15 (+2) | 16 (+3) |
+
+**Skills** Deception +7, Insight +6, Persuasion +7, Sleight of Hand +4, Investigation +5
+**Senses** darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
+**Languages** Common, Elvish, Thieves' Cant, Dwarvish
+
+Tallow is not a combatant. If violence breaks out, he ducks under his booth, clutches his bag of holding, and waits it out. He has a dagger he's never used and a **Potion of Invisibility** he's saving for when things go truly sideways.
+
+---
+
+## Appearance
+
+Thin, mid-thirties, half-elf with prematurely grey temples. Sharp features, sharper eyes. Wears a long coat with too many pockets — each pocket contains something potentially useful, definitely illegal, and priced to move. His fingers are stained with ink from a ledger he keeps in his head.
+
+He smiles easily but the smile never reaches his eyes. When he laughs, count your fingers afterward.
+
+## Read-Aloud: Approaching Tallow's Booth
+
+> *V rohovém výklenku sedí muž, který vypadá, jako by tu byl pohodlněji než kdokoliv jiný — a zároveň připravený kdykoliv zmizet. Půlelf s ostrými rysy a šedými proužky ve vlasech, oblečený v dlouhém kabátě s neuvěřitelným množstvím kapes. Na stole před ním stojí nedopitá sklenka a nic jiného — žádné papíry, žádné zboží, žádný důkaz o čemkoliv. Pod stolem, mezi jeho nohama, leží nenápadný kožený vak.*
+>
+> *Zvedne oči. Změří vás s tou rychlou, profesionální kalkulací kupce, který oceňuje zboží dřív, než se mu ho nabídnete. "Přátelé," řekne s úsměvem, který slibuje přesně tolik, kolik si zaplatíte. "Hledáte něco konkrétního, nebo se jen díváte?"*
+
+## Personality
+
+Tallow is a survivor. He has no ideology, no loyalty, and no principles beyond one: protect the business. He's been the middle man between the Guild of Knives and the Lambent Order for years, supplying both sides with what they need and profiting from the tension between them. The barkeep's death terrifies him — not because he cared about Orenn, but because Orenn's neutral ground was the ecosystem that kept his business alive.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Never gives information for free. Always wants something in return — not always gold; sometimes a favor, sometimes a secret, sometimes just the satisfaction of creating a debt.
+- Genuinely frightened tonight. His survival depends on the power balance, and a murder in neutral ground means the balance is shattered.
+- Knows a little about everything and a lot about nothing — except supply chains and leverage.
+- Will redirect players toward other NPCs when it suits him, framing it as help.
+
+## What He Knows
+
+**Will trade for cheap (a few coins, a minor favor, or interesting gossip):**
+- The brawl was about territory — the assassins think the cultists are taking contracts
+- Vetch is desperate for a fix and will do almost anything for one
+- Bren has been here for months and is getting worse
+- The Lambent Order claims to be scholars. Nobody believes them.
+
+**Will trade for moderate value (20+ gp, a promise of protection, or damaging information about a rival):**
+- He sold the cultists **binding components** last month — "three pints of lethe-marrow, a coil of silver wire inscribed with something I couldn't read, and a jar of rendered tallow. Fat. Not... not me." The order came through dead drop, unsigned, but he knows it was Haddon.
+- The assassins have a mole problem — someone inside is selling kills to outside buyers. Sevra is quietly investigating.
+- Orenn was more than a barkeep. "You don't run a place like this for fifteen years on charm alone. That man had a history that would make your hair go white."
+
+**Will trade only for something he truly needs (guaranteed safe passage out, elimination of a threat, or the Fiendbane Manacles sold back to him at cost so he can leverage them later):**
+- He suspects the murder is fiendish in nature. "The way he died — no blood, no wound, just that brand? I've moved product for people who deal with things from the other side. That's not a spell anyone in this room can cast."
+- He knows the cultists' binding components were for **summoning a fiend**. He didn't ask questions at the time. He's asking them now.
+- He's seen Mother Vyre's handwriting. If players find the letter under his table and show it to him, he'll confirm it matches — and then he'll want it back, because proof that he was in contact with the cult's leader is a death sentence from both factions.
+
+## Inventory & Prices
+
+Tallow's lockdown pricing. He knows demand is high and supply is him.
+
+### Cheap (5–15 gp)
+
+| Item | Price | Description |
+|------|-------|-------------|
+| **Whisper Chalk** | 5 gp | Write a message on a surface, visible only to the next person who touches it. Single use. |
+| **Gutflask** | 5 gp | Heals 1d6+1 HP. Tastes like hot sewage. Technically a healing potion. |
+| **Lockworm** | 10 gp | Enchanted wire that eats through one lock over 1 minute. Dissolves after. |
+| **Bottled Silence** | 10 gp | Crack it — 10-foot radius of Silence for 1 round. Good for a private word or interrupting a spell. |
+| **Lie Ash** | 15 gp | Blow at someone mid-conversation. Their next lie makes them sneeze. Once per target. |
+
+### Mid-Range (25–50 gp)
+
+| Item | Price | Description |
+|------|-------|-------------|
+| **Healer's Clutch** | 25 gp | Proper healing potion, 2d4+2 HP. He has two. |
+| **Veil Dust** (1 dose) | 30 gp | The ethereal drug. 1-minute glimpse into the Ethereal Plane. Trippy and addictive. He has 3 doses. See [Ethereal Trip](../storylines/ethereal-trip.md). |
+| **Dead Letter** | 35 gp | Write a name and message. The letter vanishes and reappears in front of the named person within 1 mile. |
+| **Shadowlace Cloak** | 40 gp | Advantage on Stealth for 1 hour, then unravels. Single use. |
+| **Tongue of Silver** | 50 gp | Dissolves on tongue. Advantage on CHA checks for 10 minutes. Disadvantage for 1 hour after. |
+
+### Premium (100–200 gp)
+
+| Item | Price | Description |
+|------|-------|-------------|
+| **Spite Dagger** | 120 gp | +1 dagger. Extra 1d6 necrotic when hitting a creature that has damaged you this combat. |
+| **Bag of Holding** | 150 gp | Standard. Slightly worn. "Previous owner didn't need it anymore." |
+| **Fiendbane Manacles** | 200 gp | Iron shackles with binding sigils. Restrain a fiend as Planar Binding for 1 hour. Forces fiend fully onto the Material Plane while restrained. |
+
+### Not For Sale (But Could Be Stolen or Coerced)
+
+- **Potion of Invisibility** — his personal escape plan
+- **His ledger** (kept in his head, but he has a backup cipher key in the lockbox under his booth) — contains enough information to destroy both factions
+- **3 extra doses of Veil Dust** — in the lockbox, reserved for his own use or high-value clients
+
+## Role in the Session
+
+Tallow is the **connective tissue**. He bridges every subplot:
+- He sold the cultists the summoning components → links to the fiend
+- He supplies Veil Dust → links to the ethereal trip and the addict
+- He knows about the assassin mole → links to the guild subplot
+- He knows Orenn's history → links to Mags and the cellar
+- He has the Fiendbane Manacles → links to the endgame
+
+He will never solve anything himself. He points, nudges, and profits. He's the NPC players will return to multiple times, each time with a little more to trade.
+
+## Relationships
+
+- **Orenn:** Business respect. Orenn tolerated Tallow because Tallow kept the peace by keeping everyone equally supplied. Tallow tolerated Orenn because Orenn kept the peace that Tallow's business depended on.
+- **Mags:** She scares him. He's careful around her. He will not lie to her face — he'll just omit things.
+- **Sevra:** She's a client. Professional relationship. He respects her intelligence.
+- **Haddon:** He's a client. He trusts Haddon's money and nothing else.
+- **Vetch:** He's a customer. Tallow feels nothing about Vetch's addiction except that it's reliable revenue.

npc/vetch.md

@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
+# Vetch — The Addict
+
+*"You don't understand. It's not about the high. It's about seeing. Really seeing. There's a whole world right here, right on top of this one, and nobody knows. Nobody looks. I look. I look every time."*
+
+---
+
+## Stat Block (Abbreviated)
+
+**Vetch** — Medium humanoid (human), chaotic neutral
+**AC** 10 | **HP** 14 (3d8) | **Speed** 30 ft.
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 8 (-1) | 11 (+0) | 10 (+0) | 14 (+2) | 12 (+1) | 9 (-1) |
+
+**Skills** Arcana +4, Perception +3 (heightened when on Veil Dust — becomes +7)
+**Senses** passive Perception 11
+**Languages** Common, Halfling
+
+Vetch is not a combatant. He will hide, run, or freeze. In absolute desperation, he has a rusty knife (1d4 piercing, no proficiency bonus) he uses to cut food.
+
+---
+
+## Appearance
+
+Skinny, early thirties, looks older. Hollowed cheeks, dark circles under bloodshot eyes, restless hands that never stop moving — picking at his forearms, drumming on surfaces, fidgeting with his clothes. His clothes were good once: a scholar's coat, now stained and fraying. His fingernails are bitten to the quick.
+
+His pupils are slightly too large even in normal light — a permanent side effect of chronic Veil Dust use. He occasionally stares at empty air for a beat too long, as if catching an afterimage of something that isn't there.
+
+## Read-Aloud: Meeting Vetch
+
+> *U schodů do sklepa sedí na stoličce hubený muž, který vypadá, jako by potřeboval tři věci: jídlo, spánek a něco, co se tu pravděpodobně nepodává. Bledý, s tmavými kruhy pod očima a rukama, které se nedokážou zastavit — škrábe se na předloktí, bubnuje prsty, tahá za cíp svého obnošeného kabátu, který kdysi mohl patřit někomu, kdo chodil na přednášky.*
+>
+> *Když se na něj podíváte, trhne sebou. Pak se usměje — nervózně, prosebně, jako zatoulaný pes, který doufá, že nepřichází kopanec.*
+
+## Personality
+
+Vetch was a clerk at a minor arcane academy — not a mage, just a record-keeper who happened to catalogue documents about planar theory. He wasn't anyone. Then he tried Veil Dust at a party, saw the Ethereal Plane for the first time, and the mundane world was never enough again.
+
+He's been using for two years. He's burned through his savings, his job, his lodgings, and most of his self-respect. He's not malicious — he's just desperate and single-minded. The dust is the only thing that makes the world bearable, and he'll do almost anything to get it.
+
+**Key traits:**
+- Pathetic but not contemptible — there's still a person in there
+- Surprisingly knowledgeable about the Ethereal Plane from direct observation (more than most scholars)
+- Eager to please, especially if he thinks you might help him get a fix
+- Genuinely believes the Ethereal Plane is beautiful, not just a place to get high
+- When on the dust, he becomes calm, articulate, and focused — a glimpse of who he used to be
+
+## What He Knows
+
+**Will share for free (desperate for conversation):**
+- The assassins and cultists don't like each other. Water is wet.
+- Orenn was kind to everyone, even him. This fact upsets him more than the murder itself.
+- Tallow has Veil Dust. Tallow always has Veil Dust. Vetch can't afford it.
+
+**Will share if you help him get Veil Dust (buy him a dose, steal one, or convince Tallow to front him):**
+- The Ethereal Plane is more active than usual tonight — he can feel it, like static before a storm. Even without the dust, his chronic use has given him a faint residual sensitivity (DC 15 Perception to notice — Vetch auto-succeeds).
+- Bren's "imaginary friend" is real. "I've seen it. On the dust. It's... it sits beside him like a — like a thing made of string. With legs. It's *in* his head." He's never told anyone because who would believe the addict?
+- The cellar feels *wrong*. He's been down there trying to find Tallow's stash. "The air gets thin. Like standing on a mountain, except it's a basement."
+
+**Will share during/after a shared trip:**
+- He's seen something else in the Ethereal Plane recently — something bigger and darker than Skein. "It moves like smoke but it has *intent*. And teeth. Definitely teeth." He didn't realize it was a fiend. He thought it was a particularly bad hallucination.
+- The thin point in the cellar is *wider* than it was a month ago. "The hole is getting bigger. Or something is pushing it open."
+- On his last trip (a week ago), he saw the fiend scratching at the foundation stones from the other side. He didn't know what it was doing. He was too terrified to stay.
+
+## The Trip
+
+If players take Veil Dust with Vetch, he's an experienced guide. See [Ethereal Trip](../storylines/ethereal-trip.md) for full mechanics.
+
+**Vetch as a trip companion:**
+- He's calm, almost serene. The jittery wreck becomes a quiet, focused observer.
+- He'll point out features of the Ethereal Plane — the way reality looks grey and washed out, how living creatures glow faintly, how sounds are muffled.
+- He'll notice things players might miss (he has advantage on Perception checks while on Veil Dust, and the DM can use him to direct attention).
+- If they encounter Xarrul or Skein in the Ethereal Plane, Vetch panics. He's seen scary things before but nothing like this.
+
+## Read-Aloud: Vetch on Veil Dust
+
+> *Změna je okamžitá a děsivá. Rozechvělý, nervózní muž se zastaví. Jeho ruce se přestanou třást. Oči, předtím rozběhané a neklidné, se zaostří s klidem, který jste u něj neviděli. Narovná se. Nadechne se pomalu, hluboce, jako by dýchal poprvé za celé roky.*
+>
+> *"Tak," řekne tichým, klidným hlasem, který zní jako někdo úplně jiný. "Teď vidíte, co vidím já."*
+
+## What He Wants
+
+1. **Veil Dust.** Primarily, urgently, above all else.
+2. **To not be alone.** He wants someone to see what he sees and confirm he's not crazy.
+3. **Deep down:** To stop. He knows the dust is killing him. He doesn't say it, but if a player asks directly and sincerely, he'll admit it. "I know what it's doing to me. I just... the real world is so *flat*."
+
+## After the Session (If Players Help Him)
+
+- If players only give him dust: He trips, helps them, and goes back to being an addict. Nothing changes.
+- If players help him trip AND show him what's really happening (the fiend, the possession, the murder): The experience shocks him. For the first time, the Ethereal Plane isn't beautiful — it's terrifying. It might be the push he needs to quit.
+- If players refuse him dust entirely: He's useless as an ally but might try to steal from Tallow during the session's chaos, potentially causing a scene.
+
+## Relationships
+
+- **Tallow:** Dealer. Vetch hates and needs him in equal measure. Tallow charges full price, always.
+- **Bren:** Vetch avoids Bren. He knows what's attached to Bren and it scares him. There's also a horrible recognition — they're both prisoners of something.
+- **Orenn:** Was kind. Always gave Vetch water and bread. Vetch is quietly gutted about the murder but can't process it through the need.
+- **Mags:** Mags is indifferent to Vetch. She doesn't have the bandwidth to care about his addiction tonight.

npc/xarrul.md

@@ -0,0 +1,152 @@
+# Xarrul — The Unbound Fiend
+
+*It does not speak. It does not need to. When it wants something known, you know it — a pressure in the skull, a taste of copper, a certainty that something behind you is smiling.*
+
+---
+
+## Overview
+
+Xarrul is an ancient, cunning fiend — not a brute, not a conqueror. A manipulator. A patient, vindictive intelligence that has survived for centuries by being smarter than the things that summoned it. It was bound by the Lambent Order, sent to assassinate Sevra, intercepted by the Guild of Knives, and accidentally freed when the assassins broke its bindings without replacing them.
+
+Now Xarrul is loose in the Ethereal Plane, anchored to the thin point beneath the Burnt Tongue, and enjoying itself for the first time in a very long while. The cultists tried to use it. The assassins tried to weaponize it. Xarrul decided: *why not both?* Kill the barkeep in a way that frames both factions, then watch them destroy each other from the comfort of the space between worlds.
+
+It is intelligent, patient, and cruel. It doesn't want to escape — not yet. It wants to watch the fire it lit.
+
+## Stat Block
+
+**Xarrul** — Medium fiend, chaotic evil
+**AC** 15 (natural armor) | **HP** 78 (12d8+24) | **Speed** 30 ft., fly 30 ft. (hover)
+
+| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
+|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
+| 12 (+1) | 17 (+3) | 14 (+2) | 17 (+3) | 14 (+2) | 18 (+4) |
+
+**Saving Throws** DEX +6, CHA +7, WIS +5
+**Skills** Stealth +9, Deception +7, Perception +5, Insight +5
+**Damage Resistances** cold, fire, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
+**Damage Immunities** poison
+**Condition Immunities** poisoned, exhaustion
+**Senses** darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 15
+**Languages** Abyssal, Common, Infernal; telepathy 60 ft.
+**Challenge** 5 (1,800 XP)
+
+### Traits
+
+**Ethereal Jaunt.** As a bonus action, Xarrul shifts between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane. While ethereal, it can see and hear into the Material Plane (60 ft. range) but cannot affect or be affected by anything on the Material Plane. It appears as a faint, smoky distortion visible only to creatures with truesight, See Invisibility, or Veil Dust.
+
+**Shadow Cloak.** In dim light or darkness, Xarrul has advantage on Stealth checks and can Hide as a bonus action.
+
+**Voice Thief.** Xarrul can perfectly mimic any voice it has heard within the last 24 hours. It can also project whispers telepathically to a single creature within 30 feet — the target hears the voice inside their head and must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or believe it came from a direction and source of Xarrul's choosing.
+
+**Cunning Predator.** Xarrul has advantage on attack rolls against creatures that are frightened, charmed, or surprised.
+
+### Actions
+
+**Multiattack.** Xarrul makes two Claw attacks.
+
+**Claw.** Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6+3) slashing damage plus 3 (1d6) necrotic damage.
+
+**Brand of Spite (Recharge 5–6).** Melee Spell Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 7 (2d6) necrotic damage, and the target is *branded*. While branded:
+- Xarrul always knows the target's exact location regardless of plane.
+- Xarrul has advantage on attack rolls against the branded creature.
+- Xarrul's Claw attacks deal an extra 1d6 necrotic damage against the branded creature.
+- The brand is visible as a dark, hand-shaped mark over the target's heart.
+- Only one creature can be branded at a time. Branding a new target removes the previous brand.
+- The brand lasts until removed by *Remove Curse*, *Greater Restoration*, or the death of Xarrul.
+
+**Visions of Spite.** *Requires a branded target.* Xarrul forces a branded creature it can see within 30 feet to witness a spiteful vision — a hallucination tailored to the target's deepest fears and shames, channeled through the brand's connection. The target must succeed on a **DC 15 Wisdom saving throw** or take 7 (2d6) psychic damage and be **paralyzed** until the end of its next turn, frozen in the grip of the vision. On a success, the target takes half damage and shakes the vision off. The brand remains on the target regardless.
+
+**Example visions (pick or improvise based on the target):**
+- A fighter sees their sword arm turn to ash, crumbling from the brand outward, while Xarrul's laughter fills the silence where their heartbeat should be.
+- A cleric sees their god turn away — not in anger, just indifference. The holy symbol in their hand is cold and heavy and meaningless.
+- A rogue sees the room through Xarrul's eyes — every lie they've told tonight replayed at once, every secret exposed, every person they've deceived staring back at them.
+- A wizard sees the thin point tear wide open. The Ethereal Plane pours through. Everything they know about planar theory is wrong. The veil was never meant to hold.
+- A character who cares about another PC or NPC sees them die — slowly, painfully, and with the certainty that it was the branded character's fault.
+
+*The paralysis is not physical — the body locks because the mind is elsewhere, trapped in a moment of fabricated despair. To onlookers, the branded PC goes rigid, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream. The brand over their heart flares dark.*
+
+*DM note — the kill chain:* Brand (round 1: 2d6 necrotic + mark) → Visions of Spite (round 2: 2d6 psychic + paralyze on failed WIS save) → Multiattack (round 3: auto-crits within 5 ft. against paralyzed target, with advantage from the brand). The nightmare: two crit Claws with the brand's extra d6 — roughly 4d6+3 slashing + 4d6 necrotic per claw, ~62 damage total. Kills most level 4 PCs.
+
+*But it takes three full rounds to build.* Players have two rounds to: Remove Curse the brand (kills the whole chain), focus fire Xarrul, break the paralysis (Lesser Restoration, lay on hands), reposition the branded PC out of melee, or force Xarrul off-plane. A party that lets all three stages land earned that pain. A party that disrupts any link breaks the combo.
+
+*The loop:* After the Multiattack crit round, the paralysis ends (end of target's next turn). The brand is still active. Xarrul can Visions of Spite again next round to restart the cycle — Brand → Visions → Multiattack → Visions → Multiattack — until the brand is removed or Xarrul is killed. This makes Remove Curse the strategic priority, not just a nice-to-have.
+
+*Xarrul's round-to-round choice:* Visions costs an action (no Multiattack that round). So each round Xarrul decides — Visions to set up the paralyze, or Multiattack with advantage + extra d6 for consistent pressure. Against a high-WIS party, Xarrul grinds with Multiattack. Against a low-WIS branded target, the kill chain is terrifying.
+
+*This is how Orenn died. Xarrul branded him from the Ethereal Plane, forced a vision of spite into his mind — freezing him in place — then raked him with claws that struck a body incapable of flinching. Against an unsuspecting, unresisting barkeep with no allies to intervene, the full chain collapsed into seconds. In combat, with allies and agency, it's telegraphed and interruptible.*
+
+**Whisper of Ruin (Recharge 6).** Xarrul targets one creature within 30 feet that can hear it. The target must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute and compelled to take a specific action on its next turn (attack a specific ally, drop a weapon, flee toward a designated area). The target can repeat the save at the end of each turn. On a success, the creature is immune for 24 hours.
+
+### Reactions
+
+**Slip Between.** When Xarrul takes damage on the Material Plane, it can use its reaction to shift to the Ethereal Plane. It can't use Ethereal Jaunt again until the start of its next turn.
+
+### Lair Actions (In the Cellar, Near the Thin Point)
+
+If confronted near the thin point, Xarrul can use one lair action per round on initiative count 20:
+- **Veil Flicker:** The boundary between planes shudders. Each creature in the cellar must make a DC 13 Wisdom save or be disoriented — disadvantage on attack rolls until initiative 20 of the next round.
+- **Ethereal Pull:** One creature must make a DC 14 Charisma save or be partially shifted into the Ethereal Plane until the start of its next turn (it can see both planes but has disadvantage on all attacks and saves).
+- **Shadow Surge:** All light sources in the cellar dim to darkness for 1 round. Xarrul can Hide as part of this action.
+
+---
+
+## Appearance
+
+### Material Plane
+Xarrul rarely manifests fully. When it does: a tall, lean humanoid shape made of dark smoke and deeper shadow. No features except two points of amber light where eyes should be — dim, patient, amused. Its hands end in long, curved claws that look less like weapons and more like surgical instruments. When it moves, it doesn't walk — it *shifts*, as if the space between where it was and where it is simply ceased to exist.
+
+### Ethereal Plane
+More defined. A gaunt, angular figure with skin like charred paper, cracked with veins of dull orange light. Its face has features here — sharp, aristocratic, with a mouth that curves in a permanent half-smile. Its eyes are fully visible: burning amber, ancient, deeply intelligent. It wears the rags of something that might have been formal clothing centuries ago.
+
+## Read-Aloud: First Sighting (Ethereal Plane, via Veil Dust)
+
+> *Vidíte to. V šedém, rozmazaném světě éterické roviny — kde všechno vypadá jako vybledlá fotografie skutečnosti — stojí něco, co tam nepatří. Vysoká postava, vychrtlá, s kůží jako spálený papír popraskanou žilkami tlumeného oranžového světla. Má tvář — ostrou, aristokratickou, s ústy staženými do polovičního úsměvu, který nevyjadřuje radost. Vyjadřuje trpělivost.*
+>
+> *Dívá se na vás. Vědělo, že se díváte, dřív než vy.*
+>
+> *Nakloní hlavu. Jantarové oči hoří jasněji. A ve vaší hlavě — ne ve vašich uších, ve vaší hlavě — uslyšíte něco, co není hlas. Je to pocit. Pobavení. Jako by to bylo to nejvtipnější, co dnes vidělo.*
+
+## Tactics
+
+### Before Discovery
+Xarrul stays in the Ethereal Plane, watches, and stirs trouble:
+- Uses Voice Thief to whisper incriminating things in NPCs' ears ("I saw Haddon near the bar" whispered in Kael's voice to Sevra)
+- Occasionally manifests a claw or shadow near the thin point to keep Skein (and therefore Bren) agitated
+- If players get too close to the truth too fast, Xarrul creates a distraction — a fight between factions, a strange noise, a candle blown out
+
+### When Confronted
+- **First priority:** Not getting trapped. It will use Slip Between and Ethereal Jaunt aggressively to avoid being pinned on one plane.
+- **Second priority:** Turn the room against the players. Whisper of Ruin on the strongest melee character, Voice Thief to make allies distrust each other, telepathic taunts.
+- **Third priority:** Mark and pressure the biggest threat. Brand the most dangerous PC (casters who can affect it across planes, anyone with Fiendbane Manacles), then loop: Visions of Spite to paralyze, Multiattack for crits, Visions again. Against a high-WIS party, skip Visions and grind with advantage Multiattacks. Against a low-WIS branded target, run the kill chain mercilessly. If they have Remove Curse, brand a different target each time it's cleansed to burn their spell slots.
+- **It will NOT fight to the death.** If reduced to half HP or lower and restrained on the Material Plane, it negotiates — it's ancient and has information, names, and secrets it can trade.
+
+### The Dual-Plane Kill
+See [The Reckoning](../storylines/the-reckoning.md). If players attempt the synchronized kill, Xarrul fights desperately on both planes. On the Ethereal Plane, it's more aggressive (this is its home ground). On the Material Plane, it tries to flee. Both halves must die within 1 round of each other for the cure to work.
+
+## Motivation
+
+Xarrul is not mindless evil. It's *petty* evil with cosmic patience. It was bound and enslaved for an errand (kill an assassin — beneath its dignity) by mortals who didn't understand what they were holding. The assassins, equally ignorant, broke its chains but gave it no respect. The barkeep? The barkeep's death was a *statement*: I am free, I am here, and the thing you all trusted most is gone because of what you all did.
+
+It killed Orenn because:
+1. Orenn was the symbol of neutrality and order — destroying that destroys the social fabric
+2. The Brand of Spite leaves evidence pointing at fiendish involvement, which the cultists would be blamed for
+3. But the murder happened during a brawl the *assassins* started, so the timing implicates them
+4. Maximum chaos. Both sides blame each other. Xarrul watches.
+
+It has no interest in The Opening. It doesn't care about Mother Vyre's grand design. It's not part of a larger plan. It's a loose thread that might unravel everything, or might simply drift away after tonight if no one confronts it.
+
+## What Xarrul Knows (If It Negotiates)
+
+- Everything about the summoning — who ordered it, how it was done, what components were used
+- Mother Vyre's real name and location (leverage against the cult)
+- Dace's treachery (it watched from the Ethereal Plane)
+- The nature of Skein (it recognizes the parasite — "a lesser thing, feeding on scraps")
+- That the thin point is growing and the wards are failing — not because of The Opening, but because thin points naturally fluctuate and this one is at a peak
+- The exact method of its own destruction (the dual-plane kill) — it will NOT share this willingly, but it might slip in arrogance: "You cannot kill me. Not truly. Not unless you could be in two worlds at once."
+
+## Items
+
+Xarrul carries nothing. It needs nothing. If destroyed, it leaves behind:
+- A pile of dark ash that smells of copper and old fire
+- A **shard of amber crystal** — warm to the touch, faintly glowing. This is a fragment of the binding that held it. It can be used as a material component for *Magic Circle* or *Planar Binding*, adding +2 to the DC of the contained creature's saves to escape. Worth 250 gp to the right buyer.
+- The **Brand of Spite dissipates** from Orenn's body. Mags will notice this. She won't say thank you. But she'll nod. And that's enough.