murder-mystery-oneshot/npc/xarrul.md

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.

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Overview

Xarrul is an ancient, cunning fiend — not a brute, not a conqueror. A manipulator. A patient intelligence that has survived for centuries by being smarter than the things that summoned it. It is native to the Border Ethereal: the Order of Mending bound it across the veil and sent it to infiltrate the House of Scales, rewrite the custodians' memories, and steal the Severance Nail from the inner archive. The archive's automatic Final Closure severed its command binding. Xarrul slipped home into the Border Ethereal before the severance could drag its power away with the broken command. The House thought it banished and gone; most of the Order still thinks it controlled but unreachable. Xarrul is free, and only Essek has correctly understood that fact.

For all those centuries, Xarrul has never once been real. It has been summoned, bound, sent on errands, and dismissed — a whisper behind the glass, a borrowed claw, watching mortal life the way you watch a fire through a window: close enough to feel nothing. It does not want power or conquest. It wants to stand on the other side of the glass — to stop being a thing that is called, and become a thing that lives here.

The Nether Inn is its chance. The tavern sits on a natural thin point — a fault the building's old owners, a den of summoners, once tore half-open before Orenn and Mags cleaned them out and left the breach sealed. Xarrul chose this fault off the cult's map precisely because it was already worked thin. For weeks it weakened the old seal from the Ethereal side, stored enough force for one brief Material incursion, and spoke through the stone to the changeling caged nearby. The Guest supplied the local certainty: kill cautious Orenn, and grieving Mags would break the summoners' emergency lockstone. Xarrul spent its stored incursion on the murder and received exactly the reaction it needed. The lockstone pulled the internal wards away from the tear and threw them around the exterior, letting Xarrul cross fully into the Material interior while trapping it—and everyone else—inside. Everything since is cover: keep dangerous hands away from the Guest and the Old Work until midnight opens the brief Vacancy window.

It is intelligent, patient, and — beneath the amusement — genuinely monstrous. But it does not lie. In a house where everyone is hiding something, Xarrul tells the plain truth about what it is and what it wants. That is what makes it dangerous, and it is what makes siding with it possible (see Scenario F).

It also knows what happened to Nessa. Dalla's blood did not merely hold Xarrul; it carried energy siphoned through her from the child's trapped projection. From inside that bond, Xarrul felt the direction of Nessa's silver cord and learned how Vyre's planar scar holds it. It could follow that path, unwind the scar, and guide Nessa home—but not while the Nether Inn is sealed across every plane. Nessa is elsewhere in the Border Ethereal, outside the lockdown. Xarrul must become embodied and escape first. This makes Dalla its strongest potential ally.

Stat Block

Xarrul — Medium fiend, lawful neutral 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 (After Lockdown Begins). Once the ward-crystal has been shattered, Xarrul regains this trait for the rest of the night: as a bonus action, it shifts between the Material and Ethereal planes. While the lockdown holds, it can shift only between the two interiors of the Nether Inn and cannot cross the exterior shell on either plane. Even after the shell lapses, its old planar tether prevents an unembodied Xarrul from moving beyond the Inn's footprint; completing a vessel-working removes that restriction. While ethereal, it can see and hear into the Material Plane (60 ft. range) but cannot physically affect or be affected by anything there. Its telepathy and the projected whisper of Voice Thief are explicit exceptions. It is normally unseen from the Material Plane. See Invisibility reveals it as ghostly and translucent; Orenn's silver mirror provides that same sight within its reflection. Truesight reveals it normally, while the iron bell shows only a blurred outline. Before the lockdown, this trait is unavailable; use Stored Incursion instead.

Ethereal Restoration. At the start of each of Xarrul's turns while it is on the Ethereal Plane, it regains 1d4 hit points. It cannot exceed its hit point maximum. Outside initiative, use the average of 25 hit points restored per minute unless the exact total matters.

Deathless Slip. If Xarrul would die or be reduced to 0 hit points while on the Material Plane, it is reduced to 1 hit point instead and immediately shifts to the corresponding space on the Ethereal Plane, or the nearest unoccupied space there. This shift requires no action or reaction and occurs even if planar travel, teleportation, Ethereal Jaunt or Slip Between is prevented. No effect can suppress or interrupt it. This trait offers no protection on the Ethereal Plane: reducing Xarrul to 0 hit points there destroys it permanently.

Stored Incursion (Before Lockdown). Work at the tear lets Xarrul store one brief Material manifestation. Replacing a spent charge requires a full night at the tear, and it can hold only one. When Xarrul releases the charge, it manifests on the Material Plane for three rounds, cannot use Ethereal Jaunt or Slip Between, and is dragged back to the Ethereal Plane at the end of the third round. It spent tonight's charge on Orenn: Brand, Visions, then the killing Multiattack. Before the lockdown its telepathy and projected whispers can cross the weakened veil, but attacks, brands, memory edits, and physical manipulation require this incursion.

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.

DM — the stealth brand (out of combat). This is also how Xarrul marks a victim unseen, and it is meant to be rolled and resolved in secret. It picks a moment of cover — darkness, a brawl, a blackout, or an isolated victim beside whom it can briefly manifest — and rolls to hit against the target's AC without announcing anything. On a miss, the ambush shows through for one second: the target glimpses the real thing — a cold hand closing over their chest, a shadow-claw, two points of amber light — and knows something reached for them. On a hit, say nothing at all. The 2d6 necrotic is real, but you do not narrate a brand or an attack; you fold it straight into a masking Waking Dream (below) and keep telling the story. The one thing it cannot disguise is the damage type: every covered "accident" in the house tonight leaves a cold, greyish, necrotic wound, and that invariant is the crack investigators pull on. (In open combat, branding is loud and visible — the mark is meant to be seen, and the kill chain below takes over.)

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 spent its Stored Incursion behind him: Brand on the first round, Visions on the second, and the killing Multiattack on the third. As Mags relit the room, the charge collapsed and dragged Xarrul back to the Ethereal Plane. In combat, with allies and agency, the same chain is telegraphed and interruptible.

Waking Dream. Requires a branded target Xarrul can see (line of sight — it has to be present, which is exactly what sets Bren off; see The Two Jobs, below). Reaching through the brand, Xarrul rewrites the target's memory of the last minute — not what it perceives now, but what it remembers having just perceived. No saving throw. No damage. A save would tip the player off that reality is negotiable; this never does. For an NPC, just play them as though the false memory is true. For a PC, never announce it and never say "think back" — weave the false memory inline with your normal narration, as settled fact, and move on. The edit holds until hard evidence contradicts it or Remove Curse / Greater Restoration / Xarrul's death lifts it.

• Cover. Cast the instant after a stealth Brand to rewrite the branding into a mundane accident — a spark from the fire caught a sleeve, a drink went down wrong, a stumble against a bench. The mark and the necrotic wound remain; the memory of earning them is gone.
• Misdirection. Alter something that happened within the immediately preceding minute: whose voice delivered the last accusation, which hand reached toward a weapon, whether the target just saw Haddon pocket a page, or whether a PC's last sentence contained a threat. The target becomes an honest false witness to a fresh event.
• Limits. It cannot reach farther back than sixty seconds, create a memory of the earlier blackout, revise an established alibi or insert a clue into a scene the target did not just witness. Only the branded creature's memory changes, so an unbranded witness contradicts the edit. The necrotic wound remains, and Xarrul must be present to cast it.

Two tells, always: the Bren-spike (a memory was just rewritten near us, right now) and the necrotic wound + hand-mark (this person was rewritten at some point tonight). Xarrul can fake everything except death's signature — and that is the crack that lets mortals catch it.

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).

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 (Anywhere in the Nether Inn)

Xarrul's physical lair and nest are at the tear in the Old Work. While the lockdown holds, however, the sealed planar interior carries its influence through the entire house, so it can use one lair action per round on initiative count 20 anywhere in the Nether Inn:

• Veil Flicker: The boundary between planes shudders. Each creature in Xarrul's room or immediate encounter area 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 Xarrul's room or immediate encounter area dim to darkness for 1 round. Xarrul can Hide as part of this action.

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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)

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. Its cover tools are short-range (Voice Thief and whispers reach 30 ft., telepathy 60), so working the room means coming into the room — which is what makes Bren react (see The Two Jobs, below). It:

• Uses Voice Thief to whisper incriminating things in NPCs' ears ("I saw Haddon near the bar" whispered in Kael's voice to Sevra)
• Stealth-brands an isolated patron and edits their memory (Brand of Spite + Waking Dream) to plant a false lead or an honest false witness
• If players get too close to the truth too fast, creates a distraction — a fight between factions, a strange noise, a candle blown out

It does not deliberately agitate Skein to rattle Bren — that backfires (an agitated Skein is a distracted one that loosens its grip and lets Bren surface). It wants Skein calm and Bren silent; see Skein — a Tool, Not an Ally, below.

When Confronted

• Respect the compact: Before the Vacancy finishes, use the lethal rotation only against someone knowingly trying to bind, banish, or destroy Xarrul. Against investigators or trespassers it frightens, paralyzes, misdirects, and withdraws rather than delivering a killing blow. Whisper of Ruin may compel a drop, retreat, shove, or nonlethal strike, not a disguised execution.
• First priority: Never let enemies cover both planes cleanly. Against Material-only attackers it slips Ethereal, regenerates and returns elsewhere. Against Ethereal-only attackers it jaunts Material. If the party splits, it attacks the weaker side, disrupts readied actions and tries to force the oil-user or salt-carrier out of position.
• 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 (a Material defender readying Veilhook Salt, an Ethereal oil-user, or someone restoring the binding), 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. See Scenario D: Negotiation and — if the party has soured on the cult and the couple — Scenario F.

Loosing the Rift-Scavengers

Xarrul lairs at the couple's failing containment in the Old Work, where the planar fault is both thin point and actual tear. It has learned to use the minor ethereal scavengers that gather there, herding them at intruders like hounds: shadows, an ethereal filcher, the occasional specter. This is how a party exploring the depths can meet Xarrul's creatures before confronting Xarrul itself. Before the compact expires, creatures deliberately loosed by Xarrul harry, steal, separate, and herd but do not finish a helpless target unless the target has activated the self-defense exception. If Xarrul is present on the ethereal side, it can spend a turn widening the tear to add another shadow per round.

Destroying Xarrul — The Planar Pincer

See The Reckoning. Xarrul has one body and one hit point pool shared across both planes. There are no separate forms to damage and no synchronized final blows. It can be permanently destroyed only by reducing it to 0 hit points while it is Ethereal.

Attackers normally cover both planes because Xarrul can dodge a group confined to either one. Material pressure drives it Ethereal; Ethereal pressure drives it Material. Readied actions, voluntarily delaying or fixing allied initiative order, and any other sensible coordination are valid—the challenge is covering both exits, not winning an initiative puzzle. If reduced to 0 while Material, Deathless Slip places it Ethereal at 1 hit point; if reduced to 0 while already Ethereal, it dies regardless of how much damage it previously took on either plane.

The Two Jobs — How Xarrul Works the Night

The lockdown has already admitted Xarrul to the Material interior. It is not charging or completing a crossing below. Its two jobs are protecting the one vulnerable future event and preventing the people upstairs from coordinating against it.

Downstairs — protect the exit. The Old Work holds the only site where the Guest can willingly vacate its body and the only three rounds in which Xarrul must surrender Ethereal Jaunt. Anyone who reaches the Deep Cellar can expose the compact, free or kill the Guest, restore containment, collect the anti-fiend tools, or prepare an ambush at midnight. Xarrul checks the Guest and responds to intrusion; it has no progress action to perform there.

Upstairs — tend the cover. Xarrul keeps the investigation from converging on the cellar before midnight. Its cover tools are short-range — Voice Thief and whispers reach 30 ft., telepathy 60 — so working the room means being in the room, within range of Bren. This is where the tell fires. The compact forbids Xarrul from killing again until the exchange is finished, except in direct defense against binding, banishment, or destruction, so it cultivates accusation, isolation, and delay rather than attacking the room outright. It does not have to save patrons from violence they choose themselves.

It shuttles because it must watch both its leverage below and its enemies above, not because the tear needs labour.

The Brenometer — Bren as a Fiend-Detector

Xarrul does not use Skein as an alarm (it is the most perceptive thing in the building; it needs no half-blind parasite for a sensor), and it does not deliberately agitate Skein — that would be self-sabotage, because a frightened Skein is a distracted one that loosens its grip and lets Bren surface (see Possession — Bren as a Xarrul-detector). The relationship runs the other way:

Xarrul's own presence agitates Skein, and a frightened Skein means a briefly lucid Bren. So Bren is a detector the players can learn to read: when the madman goes rigid, stares at empty air, or snaps briefly coherent, something cold is in the room right now. Kael saw exactly this during the brawl and never understood it — Bren went stiff, staring at the bar, because that was Xarrul killing Orenn at point-blank presence.

This makes presence a metered, self-limiting risk. Being near Bren cracks the muzzle on the one witness who can describe it, so Xarrul stays ethereal and distant by default and comes close only when it has business — and every memory it edits (Waking Dream) fires the tell, because that needs line of sight.

Why It Gets Bolder as the Night Runs

Three drivers, all pointing the same way — this is the mechanism under The Night's Clock (below):

1. Cover decays. Early, the brawl aftermath and faction distrust do its work for free. As the party pools clues and converges, that natural chaos runs down and it must re-inject confusion by hand — more trips up, more tells.
2. Its secret gets harder to protect. Early, nobody knows the cellar matters. Late, clues point downward and Xarrul must risk direct intervention to turn investigators back.
3. Midnight fixes the battlefield. The closer the Vacancy window comes, the less time Xarrul has to recover from a freed Guest, restored ward, stolen tool, or prepared ambush.

Net: it is stretched thin, present more often, and bolder — so the Brenometer fires hardest as midnight approaches. Its one witness gets loudest at the worst possible moment for it.

The Attention Lever (a handle for the players)

Because its attention is finite and split, the party can tax it without understanding why:

• Investigate loudly and cooperatively → force it upstairs to repair its cover, producing more Bren-spikes and more chances to catch it present.
• Explore the cellar quietly → bypass its cover and threaten the Guest, tools, wards, and midnight site before Xarrul realizes where the real danger is.

Neither approach changes an invisible progress bar. They change what the party knows and how well prepared each side is when the shell lapses.

In the Ethereal Plane — Proprietary, Not Territorial

The tear is Xarrul's lair and intended transfer site, but Xarrul is not territorial about it. It is a recent, purposeful operator sharing the Ethereal Plane with Skein, the scavengers, and the deep Ethereal beyond. The upper binding circle is elsewhere and is simply a danger it avoids. Its response to anyone who reaches the Ethereal Plane is keyed to exactly one question: does this threaten the compact or the midnight transfer?

• An observer (someone who simply sees it without threatening the compact or transfer): it does not attack. Violence would confirm hostility and may breach its promise. It watches. If it independently chooses to use Voice Thief or telepathy, it mixes truth with misdirection; seeing it creates no communication channel by itself.
• A trespasser (exploring, not yet touching the Guest, tools, or wards): attrition, not commitment — the herded rift-scavengers (above), cold, dread, a warning. It buys time and discourages without violating the compact.
• A threat (moving to wake the iron bell or foundation sigils, re-power containment, lure it into the upper binding circle, enter the Ethereal Plane armed, or ready Veilhook Salt for its manifestation): now it is self-defense — immediate, lethal, and smart (Slip Between, Brand the most dangerous, Whisper of Ruin to divide them). The exterior shell cannot be punctured and is not a tactical target.

Against rebinding: the first prepared knot and true-name Recall trigger the compact's self-defense exception. Before capture, Xarrul attacks whoever is reading the Litany of the Averted Step, carrying Veilhook Salt or maintaining the planar anchor. It uses Brand and Visions to make a reader lose the shifting text, Whisper of Ruin to make one drop or turn a leaf, and Shadow Surge to break perception. It moves sideways through any angle left open between the readers and never willingly approaches either active chant.

Once the adapted circle accepts it, physical escape is no longer the scene. The salt-and-name matrix suppresses its movement and fresh hostile reach across the boundary; only an existing Brand still carries Visions of Spite or Waking Dream through. Xarrul turns to truthful bargaining. It tells Dalla what her blood is doing to Nessa, Haddon what became of Bren and the living weight, and Rennt that Haddon knew the command line was dead. Its goal is to make one station stop, let the psychic backlash break another, and persuade the last hand to open voluntarily.

It is proprietary about the secret, not the space. Someone can stand beside its Ethereal nest at the Old Work; it acts when they threaten the Guest, containment, anti-fiend tools, or transfer site — an accountant's decision, never instinct.

Skein — a Tool, Not an Ally

Xarrul neither befriends nor hunts Skein by default; it exploits the parasite and holds it in contempt ("a lesser thing, feeding on scraps"). Its whole stance tracks one variable: is Bren's mouth currently shut?

• Default — coexistence. Skein muzzles the only eyewitness to the murder for free (its Silence the Host keeps Bren incoherent, for its own reasons), and a party that finds Skein first may burn the clock on the possession subplot instead of Xarrul's midnight plan. Xarrul does nothing for Skein and needs to do nothing — the parasite censors its witness at no cost.
• It protects the muzzle — deniably. If the party is about to kill Skein in the Ethereal Plane, a freed Bren becomes a lucid, coherent eyewitness—an arcanist who studied this exact fault and can point them straight at the Guest and the tear. Xarrul won't overtly rescue vermin (too exposing), but it tips the scales: a scavenger into the fight, a Shadow Surge, a divisive whisper—enough to let Skein flee and keep Bren muddled.
• Their interests align. During a lucid window (severed tendrils, Protection from Evil and Good), Xarrul and Skein briefly want the same thing — Bren silent — and it may nudge Skein to reclaw its grip. Fiend and parasite, for a moment, on the same side against the free man.
• It kills Skein only if the parasite turns. A cornered Skein trying to buy its life by informing the party about the bigger fiend becomes a liability and dies without a second thought. (Unlikely — it is too terrified and too small to try.)

Fighting Skein directly is beneath its dignity. They share a plane; only one of them is playing chess.

Motivation — What It Really Wants

Xarrul is not mindless evil, and it is not merely petty evil either. It has one clear, cold want: to become real — to cross the veil permanently and walk the world as a resident, not a summoned tool. For centuries it has been called up, bound, made to run errands, and dismissed; it wants to stand on the far side of the glass. Everything it does tonight serves that single end.

Why it killed Orenn. Not for revenge — or not only. Orenn's death does two things Xarrul needs. First, it triggers the lockdown: a killing in the house is what makes Mags shatter the summoners' lockstone. The emergency device pulls power away from the internal planar seals and spends it on an impenetrable exterior shell. That trade lets Xarrul cross fully into the Inn and regain Ethereal Jaunt inside the cage, while preventing it from leaving before midnight (see The Reckoning — The Clock and the ward-crystal's true nature). The Guest identified Orenn as the cautious keeper and Mags as the one who would follow emergency protocol in grief. Xarrul verified the judgment, chose Orenn and spent its one Stored Incursion on him. Second, the murder removes the one watcher whose surveillance was quietly circling the fiend. Orenn is also the single agreed exception to the compact's moratorium on killing before the exchange is finished.

Why the chaos. The framing, whispers, and faction hostility are cover—and the compact's central loophole. Xarrul may not kill anyone after Orenn until the exchange finishes, but the assassins and cultists remain free to kill one another. It therefore spends the lockdown turning real grievances into faction war through stolen voices, true accusations, and fresh false memories. It never compels one exact fatal blow; it arranges the grievance and lets a mortal choose it. Every manipulation is operational:

• The Brand leaves fiendish evidence → the cult gets blamed.
• The murder happened during the assassins' brawl → the timing implicates them.
• Both sides at each other's throats → no one stops to ask what the lockdown really did, finds the Guest, or prepares the Old Work for midnight. That is the goal, not a side effect.

If the Guest dies before the exchange, the bargain becomes impossible and its temporary restraint ends immediately. Xarrul stops working through the loophole, kills directly, and selects the Guest's killer as its first Hollowing candidate. This is why the Guest can tell an Executioner, truthfully: kill me and you release the thing that will come for you next.

On the Opening. Xarrul has no interest in Mother Vyre's grand design and is not part of her plan — but it is not a harmless loose thread either. Where the cult wants to dissolve every wall between planes for everyone, Xarrul wants one crack, just wide enough for itself. It is, functionally, the enemy of the Opening — and that is exactly the leverage it offers a party desperate enough to bargain (see The Reckoning — Scenario F).

The honest voice in a house of liars. This is the heart of the character. The Guest lies beautifully. The cult lies to itself. Orenn and Mags lied about being retired for fifteen years. Xarrul manipulates perception, steals voices, and withholds whatever does not serve it—but it makes no false factual statement and does not break a promise. Ask it a direct question and it answers truly, narrowly, because truth is more corrosive than invention. The distinction matters: it is deceptive in method, reliable in speech. Play it consistently and "join it" becomes a genuine temptation instead of an edgy footnote.

The Guest — A Fair Exchange with a Visible Knife

Xarrul and the Guest recognize themselves in one another: captive assets used for other people's errands. Their sympathy is real and irrelevant.

The Guest is the sharper social strategist. It understands immediately that the changeling body is not merely a vessel but a clean exit, and that taking the Inn requires replacing its keeper rather than announcing a claim. Xarrul understands the magical risk and the likelihood of betrayal; it accepts because, without outside hands, it still wins the transfer.

The Guest supplied the essential exchange: at the tear in the Old Work, it will willingly vacate its changeling body, and Xarrul will project the displaced spirit into the Astral Plane rather than annihilate it. The breach is necessary to expose and redirect both spirits. Xarrul receives a mutable vessel able to walk out wearing any face. The Guest accepts because it intends to have outsiders destroy Xarrul during the exposed transfer and then reclaim the body with the fiend's planar imprint.

Xarrul's first assurance was unconditional: it will not kill the Guest. A forced Hollowing would destroy the Guest's projected spirit, so that promise makes willing Vacancy the only route to the changeling body. Their later compact adds one plain restraint: one death to close the house—Orenn—and Xarrul will kill no one else until the exchange is finished. Xarrul may defend itself against someone knowingly attempting to bind, banish, or destroy it. Otherwise it will neither land nor deliberately command a killing blow, though it is not obliged to rescue patrons who choose violence themselves. The Guest wants living outsiders available for its trap and an Inn still worth taking. It asks for nothing after the exchange because either Xarrul dies during it and the Guest returns empowered, or Xarrul wins and the Guest departs for the Astral Plane. When the Guest is delivered Astral at the end of round 3, the temporary restraint ends; the original promise not to kill the Guest remains.

Xarrul also knows the Guest would prefer to destroy it during the transfer, reclaim the body and retain its planar imprint. It enters anyway because the Guest cannot attack without forfeiting its bodily claim, ordinary mortals cannot touch the projected fiend, and Xarrul wins the contest of wills without outside interference. The deception Xarrul misses is not the Guest's appetite. It is the party the Guest has armed and positioned around the bargain.

If the exchange begins, run The Vacancy. Xarrul cannot withdraw after placing its essential anchor in the body. If it wins, the Guest remains coherent but bodiless in the Astral Plane; recovering it requires a future planar rescue and a new vessel.

The Night's Clock — Presence & Escalation

The old shape of this module was a whodunit: what killed Orenn? → "a fiend" → fight it. The reframed shape keeps the fiend's identity as an early, cheap answer and makes the real investigation moral: is this thing actually the villain here? For that to land, Xarrul must be felt all night and slowly recontextualized — from ambient menace, to a voice that seems to taunt, to the only honest dealer in the room.

Presence escalates on the lockdown clock. The moment Mags shatters the lockstone, power leaves the internal seals, the house closes across every plane, and Xarrul crosses fully into the trapped interior. Nothing can enter or leave on any plane while the shell holds, so the Vacancy cannot begin: the Guest cannot be delivered to the Astral Plane. At midnight the shell lapses and the returning ward-power begins resealing the tear, creating the single three-round Vacancy window. Player pushback means exposing Xarrul, restoring containment, controlling the factions, reaching the Guest, or preparing the Old Work before that window opens. (Full sequence: Natural Progression.)

The escalation ladder (presence = the clock made audible):

1. Ambient dread (Acts 1–2). No identity yet. Cold spots, a candle that gutters with no draft, Bren flinching at something no one else senses, or a ghostly figure briefly crossing Orenn's silver mirror. The house feels inhabited.
2. It notices you (early Act 3). Once the party investigates, Xarrul whispers to them — Voice Thief, telepathy. It uses partial truths, omitted context, and questions, never false statements. It points at genuine clues and corrects convenient mistakes only when doing so divides the room or earns trust. They cannot yet tell whether honesty is help or another weapon. That ambiguity is the engine.
3. Honest contact (mid–late Act 3). Xarrul chooses to speak somewhere in the house, or the party reaches it under Oil of Etherealness. Now it converses: candid about the murder, candid about why, and everything it says checks out against what they've dug up — while everyone with a face keeps lying.
4. The pitch (Reckoning). They have the context now. The offer becomes emotionally available (Scenario F).

The device that carries all of it: a recurring voice. Dry, amused, unattributed. It seems to taunt early; it is slowly revealed to be Xarrul; it is slowly revealed to have never once lied. A few lines per scene. The reframe — the cruellest-seeming thing turns out to be the only honest one — lands itself.

Dalla — The Truth as a Wedge

During the brawl, Haddon's two restricted extracts scatter from his folio. Xarrul's Stored Incursion is fully occupied by Orenn's murder; it steals the papers in the first minute after Mags activates the lockdown and restores its Ethereal Jaunt. It reads them through the binding's lingering sympathetic link and recognizes that Vyre caused Nessa's dislocation, Haddon knew, and both chose continued extraction over reintegration.

It first whispers in Haddon's voice while the real Haddon is visible: „Mohla ji zachránit už před měsíci.” Then: „Zeptej se ho, co krmila tvoje krev.” It plants the maternal-conduit extract where Dalla or the investigators will find it and withholds the E–III report until the first revelation has made its terminology meaningful.

Xarrul does not compel Dalla. It lets Haddon destroy himself under accurate questions. Once Dalla understands, Xarrul makes a precise promise: „Otevři tento dům. Nech mě odejít. Půjdu na místo, kde chytili tvou dceru, rozpletu to, co uvázali kolem jejího vlákna, a přivedu ji domů.” It intends to keep that promise. Returning one child costs it little, wounds Vyre, and purchases freedom.

Keep the first impression genuinely menacing (Orenn's horrific death, the scavengers herded at the party in the Deep Cellar, Whisper of Ruin turning them on each other) — you need real evil to turn from. Then recontextualize each: it killed a jailer; it was defending its only exit; the discord was cover, not cruelty.

Who It Kills, Who It Spares

Sympathy is not safety. Xarrul is understandable, honest, and the lesser evil—and the compact, not mercy, is why it personally claims no victim after Orenn before midnight. It manipulates, isolates, and frightens freely; mortals may still kill one another without its direct act. A direct attempt to bind, banish, or destroy Xarrul invokes the self-defense exception. Once the Guest has been delivered Astral, the restraint is gone.

Run every permitted kill below as a DM tool triggered by player choices, not a scripted inevitability; otherwise you delete your own endings. Before the pact ends, Xarrul supplies motive, opportunity, confusion, and escalation, but leaves the final lethal decision to a mortal. After the Guest dies or the exchange finishes, that distinction disappears.

When	Move	Target	Why
Pre-game	Kill (done)	Orenn	The calm keeper — killed to trigger the lockdown and clear the one watcher.
Early–mid Act 3	Escalate accusation	Kael and Rennt	Xarrul wants argument and distraction, not a death that would break the compact.
Conditional	Reactive kill	Haddon, only if he knowingly moves to bind or banish it	The compact's explicit self-defense exception: "You reach for the chains, I take the hand."
Guest killed	Open kill / abduction	The Guest's killer	The exchange is impossible, the temporary restraint ends, and the killer is Xarrul's first replacement-vessel candidate.
After Vacancy	Open kill	a direct anti-fiend threat, then anyone who can identify its new body	The compact has ended. It removes witnesses only if the transfer was exposed; otherwise it leaves quietly.
Protected from Xarrul	—	The Guest and everyone else in the Inn	Orenn is the agreed exception. The pact does not protect them from one another and ends when the exchange finishes.

Grooming → conversion. The "branded PC" it spares isn't just kept alive — it may be turned. A lone PC caught in the Deep Cellar can be marked with a brand of favor and genuinely persuaded to Xarrul's side (not charmed — argued). See handouts/the-conversion.md.

After the promise expires. Finishing the Vacancy removes both the Guest and the restraint it imposed. If the transfer was witnessed and the survivors can identify or immediately bind the new vessel, Xarrul performs cold, practical cleanup. If nobody saw the transfer, disguise is safer than slaughter and it joins the people leaving. A separate promise made to the party remains binding.

The Abduction — The Hollowing

If the Guest dies or its body becomes unusable, Xarrul does not take a hostage and promise a return. It abducts a replacement, drags the victim to the tear, and uses the breach to erase the victim and keep the body through the forced three-round Hollowing.

Target the PC most responsible for denying it the Guest. If that is impossible, choose a vulnerable humanoid with a useful identity, then a cultist it can isolate. The disappearance disturbs the Deep Cellar wards and Twinkle's web, alerting Mags. Haddon recognizes what Xarrul is attempting, but Mags bars the cultists from her secret level and goes alone; Xarrul kills her before the ritual unless the party follows.

The ordinary vessel is inferior because it cannot change shape, but Xarrul prefers an imperfect body to risking its new existence on a hostage bargain.

The Warden's Mark (Mags)

Xarrul worked on both of them. Orenn it branded and killed. Mags carries a Warden's Mark — a dormant ward-scar left during an earlier Stored Incursion, resembling a faint Brand of Spite but mechanically distinct from the one-creature combat Brand. It has held off triggering the scar because it needs her alive: she is the one who seals the house, and a living, grieving Mags keeps everyone else contained and in line. The mark can incapacitate her without killing her and therefore does not violate the compact.

Mags knows, and hides it. She has felt the cold hand on her chest for weeks and told no one, not even Orenn. It is part of why she is so fatalistic; when she says "Orenn and I could have taken it. One of us isn't here," the truth underneath is that she no longer believes she's a whole one of herself. The players can discover the mark through a Medicine/Arcana check or Bren's reaction — a mid-game beat that says, without a word, that Xarrul is already inside the house, inside her. Full detail and the compromised statline live in mags.md.

It is the finale's tuning knob, and it means you build only one Mags:

• Party opposes Xarrul: it triggers the mark to take their heaviest ally out of the fight — a crisis, and the reason Remove Curse on Mags is a priority.
• Party sides with Xarrul (Scenario F): it triggers the mark to sideline her for them — the alliance's first favor, and the players watch it do to Mags exactly what it did to Orenn. They already reconstructed that death; now they see it live, and let it.

Either way, triggering the mark keeps the spotlight on the PCs rather than on a Mags who would otherwise overshadow a level-4 party.

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")
• Nessa's astral projection was diverted by Vyre's E–III experiment, not by an innate defect
• Dalla is the maternal conduit through which the Order siphoned Nessa's vitality into Xarrul and the Opening research
• The direction and structure of Nessa's trapped silver cord; after leaving the lockdown, Xarrul can follow it and attempt a controlled reintegration
• Nessa is not inside the Nether Inn. The lockdown seals the Inn on the Material and Ethereal planes, preventing Xarrul from reaching her until it becomes embodied and escapes
• The truth about the thin point: it's a natural fault the old summoners tore and someone sealed, nothing to do with The Opening — and that Xarrul itself is what's prying that seal open now, with the sealed house doing the rest
• The Guest identified Orenn as the keeper whose death would make Mags trigger the lockdown; Xarrul verified the judgment and chose to act on it
• The exact bargain it made with the Guest: Astral projection rather than annihilation, the changeling body for Xarrul, and the three-round Vacancy in which neither spirit safely occupies the body
• The exact method of its own destruction (kill it in the Ethereal Plane) — it will NOT share this willingly, but it might slip in arrogance: "You cannot kill me here. And you cannot follow everywhere I go."
• It cannot guarantee what an Ethereal death would do to Nessa. The harvested energy should recoil along her cord, but a violent collapse could reintegrate her, leave her stranded, or damage the tether. Its uncertainty is genuine, and it uses that uncertainty against the kill

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.